Just Say ‘No’ to Uranium-Enrichment Cooperation With Saudi Arabia

October 2023
By Daryl G. Kimball

Curbing the spread of nuclear weapons and the uranium-enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing technologies needed to make them has long been in U.S. security interests. Today, this is especially true in the troubled Middle East, where one state, Israel, already is nuclear-armed, and another state, Iran, has amassed a substantial uranium-enrichment capacity. The challenge of containing Iran's capabilities has grown significantly since U.S. President Donald Trump pulled out of the successful Iran nuclear deal in 2018.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman (L), India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (C), and U.S. President Joe Biden attend a session as part of the G20 Leaders' Summit at the Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi on September 9, 2023. (Photo by Evelyn Hockstein/POOL/AFP via Getty Images) Further troubles loom ahead. In a Sept. 20 interview on Fox News, Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, reiterated his threat that “[i]f Iran obtains a nuclear weapon, we must obtain one as well.”

In January 2023, Saudi Arabia's energy minister, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, told a mining and industry conference in Riyadh that the oil-laden kingdom plans to enrich uranium stocks to ensure its ability to complete “the entire nuclear fuel cycle.” The Saudis have also purchased nuclear-capable Dongfeng-3 ballistic missiles from China and are manufacturing ballistic missiles that could provide the means to deliver nuclear weapons against an adversary, according to a 2022 U.S. intelligence assessment.

Disturbingly, no Biden administration official has publicly condemned the latest Saudi threat to acquire nuclear weapons if Iran does. Worse yet, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal report that a small circle of senior Biden administration officials is engaged in active, high-level talks to supply the kingdom with a U.S.-run uranium-enrichment operation, among other nuclear supply alternatives, as part of a complex three-way deal to establish official diplomatic relations between the Saudis and the Israelis.

Whatever value a Saudi-Israeli rapprochement may serve, it must be measured against the potential damage to other long-standing U.S. and international security interests. Saudi Arabia’s brazen nuclear weapons hedging is a profound threat to the global nonproliferation regime that the United States has led for decades.

The United States has never before contemplated, let alone negotiated and concluded a nuclear cooperation agreement with a state that is threatening to leave the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and for good reason.

Unnamed Biden officials have issued vague pledges that “whatever is done regarding civil nuclear cooperation with Saudi Arabia or anybody else will meet stringent U.S. nonproliferation standards.” Such statements are hardly reassuring given Saudi Arabia’s stated intentions and given that the modest standards for nuclear cooperation, contained in section 123 of the 1954 U.S. Atomic Energy Act, are insufficient and out of date.

The Biden administration must commit to, and Congress must insist on, more stringent nonproliferation standards. To start, the United States must maintain its position that Saudi Arabia sign and ratify an additional protocol to its safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which allows expanded agency access to information, sites, and materials to guard against military diversion. Saudi Arabia is one of the few countries that has refused to adopt such a protocol.

But tougher IAEA safeguards are not enough. The United States must seek a legally binding Saudi commitment not to pursue or acquire enrichment and reprocessing technology. Such technology is unnecessary for the kingdom’s future nuclear energy or commercial pursuits.

The absence of such a provision would depart from the policy pursued by the three prior U.S. presidents and open the door for the kingdom to pursue fuel cycle capabilities without U.S. approval, possibly igniting a regional nuclear arms race. A typical 123 agreement merely requires that the United States consent to any request to enrich or reprocess uranium if the material is of U.S. origin.

Washington also should press the Saudis to sign the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and stipulate that U.S. nuclear cooperation will be terminated if Saudi Arabia conducts a nuclear test explosion, violates IAEA safeguards, or seeks to acquire enrichment or reprocessing technology.

If the Biden administration or a future administration concludes a 123 agreement with Saudi Arabia that does not contain adequate nonproliferation guardrails, Congress, which has the right to block the agreement, should condition its approval on the adoption of these or other higher nonproliferation standards.

U.S. and global efforts to prevent proliferation have been more successful when U.S. presidents and Congress insist on high barriers to the transfer of sensitive enrichment and reprocessing technology. We have seen setbacks and failures when they make exceptions for “friends“ and “partners.”

In his speech to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 19, President Joe Biden vowed that the United States would “lead by example on curbing weapons of mass destruction.” To succeed, he will need to walk the talk and avoid making compromises and exceptions for Saudi Arabia.

Curbing the spread of nuclear weapons and the uranium-enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing technologies needed to make them has long been in U.S. security interests.

Read more about Just Say ‘No’ to Uranium-Enrichment Cooperation With Saudi Arabia

New Momentum for Nuclear Talks?

Authored by Kelsey Davenport on September 20, 2023

The United States and Iran took limited steps to de-escalate tensions over the past few weeks, but it is unclear if the progress will lead to a resumption of talks over Iran’s advancing nuclear program and steps to reduce nuclear risk. On Sept. 18, five Americans imprisoned in Iran returned to the United States. In exchange, five Iranians in U.S. custody were released, and South Korea completed the transfer of $6 billion of Iran’s frozen assets to Qatar. Iran can access those funds to pay for goods exempt from U.S. sanctions, such as food and medicine. The Biden administration faced criticism...

Civil Society Leaders Call on States to Reinforce the CTBT

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For Immediate Release: Sept. 21, 2023

Media Contacts: Daryl G. Kimball, executive director, 202-463-8270 ext 107

(New York)—In a statement to be delivered at a major United Nations conference this Friday, Sept. 22, a diverse array of nongovernmental leaders in nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, as well as high-level former government officials, diplomats, military leaders, scientists, and downwinders are calling on governments take urgent action to counter growing threats to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the de facto global nuclear test moratorium it has established.

Emma Bjertén, Disarmament Programme Manager for Reaching Critical Will with the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom delivered a statement on the CTBT on behalf of civil society at the 13th Conference on Facilitating the Entry into Force of the CTBT at UN headquarters in New York.

"Since the conclusion of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, which has been signed by 187 countries, nuclear testing has become taboo," the joint statement, endorsed by 87 organizations and high-level individuals, says.

The treaty prohibits “any nuclear weapons test explosion, or any other nuclear explosion,” no matter what the yield. The CTBT Organization operates a fully functional International Monitoring System (IMS) to detect and deter cheating.

"Though it has not yet formally entered into force, the CTBT is one of the most successful and valuable agreements in the long history of nuclear nonproliferation, arms control, and disarmament," the civil society leaders say.

"Like other critical nuclear risk reduction, nonproliferation, and arms control agreements," the statement warns, "the CTBT is under threat due to inattention and worsening relations between nuclear-armed adversaries. We cannot take the treaty, the IMS, or the de facto global nuclear test moratorium for granted."

"In recent years," the civil society statement notes, "the possessors of the largest nuclear arsenals have launched nuclear weapons modernization programs, some are pursuing new nuclear weapons designs, and some are increasing the size and diversity of their arsenals. Military activities and subcritical experiments at former test sites continue."

The statement notes that there has been no serious consideration of ratification of the CTBT by any of the remaining states that must still ratify for the treaty to formally enter into force: China, DPRK, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and the United States.

The statement says that "[China's] explanation for delaying formal consideration of its ratification of the treaty is no longer serious or credible. We call on China to finally initiate the process for ratification of the treaty without further delay or excuses."

As for the United States, the civil society leaders note that "the Biden administration made it clear in 2021 that the United States supports the CTBT 'and is committed to work to achieve its entry into force' ... but unfortunately, the Biden administration has, so far, done nothing to pursue the kind of outreach and education campaign that will be necessary to secure the advice and consent for ratification by the U.S. Senate," which last debated the treaty 24 years ago.

The civil society leaders urge Russia, which has signed and ratified the CTBT "to formally reaffirm its full support for the CTBT ... and work in collaboration with other states parties to engage in talks to develop voluntary confidence-building measures to ensure that ongoing experiments at former nuclear test sites are consistent with the CTBT."

"With these challenges in mind, states parties cannot afford to simply express rhetorical support. They must do more through more energetic, higher-level bilateral and multilateral diplomacy through this Article XIV process, at the UN General Assembly, the Security Council, and beyond," according to the civil society leaders.

"Now is the time," the civil society leaders implore, "for this conference and each CTBT state party to focus on new and creative approaches to overcome the stubborn intransigence of the eight remaining Annex 2 'hold-out' states, which have deprived the international community, and themselves, of the full security benefits of the treaty and its extensive verification system."

The civil society statement also reminds the 186 CTBT states parties that they "have a moral, and in some cases, a legal obligation to provide health monitoring, health care, and other forms of assistance to those impacted by nuclear weapons test explosions."

"Hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions more have suffered—and continue to suffer—from illnesses directly related to the radioactive fallout from nuclear detonations in the southwestern and western United States, islands in the Pacific, in Australia, western China, Algeria, across Russia, in eastern Kazakhstan, India, Pakistan, the DPRK, and elsewhere," the civil society statement notes.

The civil society leaders "urge all CTBT states parties (particularly nuclear-armed states) to:

Support further scientific research on the health and environmental effects of nuclear testing, and provide financial support for health monitoring and health care programs for populations affected by nuclear testing; and
Cooperate with states parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) as they begin to fulfill their legal responsibilities under that treaty to provide assistance and environmental remediation to those people and regions affected by nuclear weapon use and testing. We also encourage those CTBT states parties that have not already done so to sign and ratify the TPNW, which reinforces the CTBT's prohibition on nuclear testing."

The once-every-two-years CTBT Conference on Facilitating Entry Into Force is designed to promote ratification by the remaining 44 states listed in the treaty's Article XIV, in order to trigger formal entry into force and allow the option of short-notice on-site inspections.

The full text of the statement and list of signatories is below and available as a PDF at https://www.armscontrol.org/NGO-statement-CTBT-Sept2023-conference

Advancing the CTBT and Defending the De Facto Nuclear Test Moratorium
Civil Society Statement to the 13th Article XIV Conference on Facilitating Entry into Force of the CTBT
Sept. 22, 2023

Since the conclusion of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which has been signed by 187 countries, nuclear testing has become taboo.

All CTBT states parties agree that the treaty prohibits “any nuclear weapons test explosion, or any other nuclear explosion,” no matter what the yield. The CTBT Organization operates a fully functional International Monitoring System (IMS) to detect and deter cheating.

Most nuclear-armed states that have not signed or not ratified the CTBT, including India, Israel, and Pakistan, are currently observing nuclear testing moratoria. Even though the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) announced in January 2020 it "will no longer observe its self-imposed moratorium on nuclear testing," it has not yet resumed nuclear testing.

Though it has not yet formally entered into force, the CTBT is one of the most successful and valuable agreements in the long history of nuclear nonproliferation, arms control, and disarmament. Without the option to conduct nuclear tests, it is more difficult, although not impossible, to develop, prove, and field new warhead designs.

Civil society friends of the CTBT welcome the governmental support for the CTBT that is evident at this assembly.

But now, after 13 such meetings, it is clear to us that new and more energetic strategies must be considered not only to advance the treaty, but to strengthen the de facto norm against testing.

Like other critical nuclear risk reduction, nonproliferation, and arms control agreements, the CTBT is under threat due to inattention and worsening relations between nuclear-armed adversaries.

In recent years, the possessors of the largest nuclear arsenals have launched nuclear weapons modernization programs, some are pursuing new nuclear weapons designs, and some are increasing the size and diversity of their arsenals. Military activities and subcritical experiments at former test sites continue. There has been no serious consideration of ratification of the CTBT by any of the remaining Annex 2 states in several years.

With these challenges in mind, states parties cannot afford to simply express rhetorical support. They must do more through more energetic, higher-level bilateral and multilateral diplomacy through this Article XIV process, at the UN General Assembly, the Security Council, and beyond.

As representatives of civil society, we offer the following observations and recommendations for all states parties to consider and pursue.

Energetic Diplomacy Focused on the Eight Hold-Out States

We welcome recent efforts to secure ratifications from several additional states. But it is now time for this conference and each CTBT state party to focus on new and creative approaches to overcome the stubborn intransigence of the eight remaining Annex 2 “hold-out” states—China, DPRK, Egypt, India, Iran, Israel, Pakistan, and the United States—which have deprived the international community, and themselves, of the full security benefits of the treaty and its extensive verification system.

While ratifications by individual hold-out states might stimulate other hold-out states to follow suit, there is no reason for any state to make its ratification dependent upon another state’s ratification, as the treaty becomes binding for all only when all hold-out states have ratified.

If the states parties at this conference are serious about securing entry into force, they will need to devote more significant and higher-level diplomatic pressure in the capitals of all eight CTBT hold-out states to move them to sign and/or ratify the treaty.

The People’s Republic of China: Since halting nuclear testing and signing the CTBT in 1996, China’s leaders and officials have consistently expressed their support for the CTBT, but they have failed to follow through with ratification. Chinese leadership is important and overdue. The government’s explanation for delaying formal consideration of its ratification of the treaty is no longer serious or credible. We call on China to finally initiate the process for ratification of the treaty without further delay or excuses.
The United States: After some senior Trump administration officials callously discussed in 2020 that the United States should resume nuclear testing for the first time since 1992 to try to intimidate Russia and China, the Biden administration made it clear in 2021 that the United States supports the CTBT “and is committed to work to achieve its entry into force.”

We welcome these statements of support, but unfortunately, the Biden administration has, so far, done nothing to pursue the kind of outreach and education campaign that will be necessary to secure the advice and consent for ratification by the U.S. Senate. Given that the United States has not conducted a nuclear test explosion in more than 30 years and has no technical, military, or political reason to resume testing, the national security case for ratification and strengthening the barriers against testing by others is even stronger than when it was last considered by the Senate in 1999.

One salient issue that will need to be addressed to secure U.S. ratification is the recent U.S. State Department charge that “during the 1995–2018 timeframe, Russia probably conducted nuclear weapons-related tests” at its former test site at Novaya Zemlya. The assessment provides no evidence of the charge and does not claim the Russian activities were militarily significant. Russia, which has signed and ratified the CTBT, has vigorously denied the charge and repeatedly pointed to the failure of the United States to ratify the treaty.

The United States, China, and Russia, all CTBT signatories, all continue to engage in weapons-related activities at their former nuclear testing sites. Although the IMS is operational and far more effective than originally envisioned, very low-yield nuclear test explosions can still be difficult to detect without on-site monitoring equipment or inspections, which will not be in place until after entry into force.

To address concerns about clandestine activities at former test sites, states parties should explore the development of voluntary confidence-building measures designed to detect and deter possible low-level, clandestine nuclear testing.

In a positive move, in June National Nuclear Security Administrator, Jill Hruby, announced that her agency is "open to working with others to develop a regime that would allow reciprocal observation with radiation detection equipment at each other’s subcritical experiments to allow confirmation that the experiment was consistent with the CTBT."

We urge all CTBT states parties, especially those with active nuclear test sites, to engage in this important technical dialogue to improve capabilities to ensure compliance before and after the treaty's entry into force.

The Russian Federation: More than thirty years ago, citizen activists and independence leaders in Kazakhstan forced the Russian leadership to halt nuclear testing. In the years that followed, Russia actively supported the negotiation of the CTBT and it ratified the treaty.

Now, unfortunately, there are credible reports that senior Russian officials have been discussing the option of "unratifying" the CTBT in order to achieve symmetry with the United States in all areas of nuclear policy, but no official decisions have been made.

Such a move would be self-defeating and would sabotage the CTBT regime.

Contrary to perceptions of extremists in Moscow, "un-ratification" would not in any way create leverage for Russia vis-a-vis "the collective West." Instead, it would undermine Russia's already shaky nuclear nonproliferation standing, alienate nonnuclear weapon states, and damage the broader nuclear nonproliferation system.

Recall that in 2016, Russia joined the United States, China, and other members of the UN Security Council in support of Resolution 2310, which reaffirms support for the CTBT, and Russia joined a statement from its permanent five members pledging they would not take any action that would “defeat the object or purpose of the treaty."

According to an August 29 report by the news outlet RBC, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said that as for the possibility of Russia withdrawing its ratification, the official said that the option "is not under consideration at the moment."

We strongly urge Russia to formally reaffirm its full support for the CTBT and to work constructively with other friends of the CTBT to urge the remaining hold-out states to sign and/or ratify the treaty without delay and work in collaboration with other states parties to engage in talks to develop voluntary confidence-building measures to ensure that ongoing experiments at former nuclear test sites are consistent with the CTBT.
India and Pakistan: Since their destabilizing tit-for-tat nuclear detonations in 1998, India and Pakistan have refused to reconsider the CTBT even though neither country has expressed an interest in, nor technical justification for, renewing nuclear testing. UN Security Council Resolution 1172 paragraph 13 “urges India and Pakistan ... to become Parties to the ... Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty without delay and without conditions.”

India and/or Pakistan could advance the cause of nuclear disarmament, enhance their national security and nonproliferation reputations, and ease concerns about a resumption of nuclear testing, by converting their unilateral test moratoria into legally binding commitments through the CTBT.

The Middle East: Ratification of the CTBT by Egypt, Iran, and nuclear-armed Israel— all of which must ratify to trigger CTBT entry into force—and Saudi Arabia would reduce nuclear weapons-related security concerns in the region. It would also help create the conditions necessary to achieve their common, stated goal of a weapons of mass destruction free zone in the Middle East. A goal of the co-chairs of the Article XIV process should be to approach each of these governments to gain a clearer understanding regarding the circumstances that would allow each to join the CTBT.
The DPRK: Pyongyang's push to build-up its nuclear weapons capabilities represents another threat to the norm against nuclear testing. Although Chairman Kim Jong Un has green-lighted further ballistic missile testing and fissile material production, he has not ordered the resumption of nuclear testing since he announced a unilateral nuclear test moratorium in the spring of 2018. However, the closure of the DPRK’s test site has still not been verified, and the DPRK has not made a legally binding commitment to halt nuclear test explosions by signing and ratifying the CTBT.

All CTBT signatory states should underscore, in multilateral and bilateral fora and in meetings with the government in Pyongyang, that signature and ratification of the treaty would represent a significant step toward denuclearization and help create the conditions for peace and normalization of relations.

In particular, we call upon the leadership of China and Russia, which maintain ties to the DPRK, to press Chairman Kim to reaffirm the DPRK's nuclear test moratorium and, as former CTBTO Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo proposed in 2018, urge him to sign the CTBT like all the other major nuclear powers have done, and close the Punggye- ri Nuclear Test Site under international supervision.

Addressing the Human Cost of Nuclear Testing

Since 1945, there have been 2,056 nuclear weapons test explosions. Of that total, the United States detonated some 1,030 test explosions and the Russian Federation detonated 715.

The CTBT and the de facto global nuclear testing moratoria help reduce further health and environmental injury from further nuclear weapons testing. CTBT states parties have a moral, and in some cases, a legal obligation to provide health monitoring, health care, and other forms of assistance to those impacted by nuclear weapons test explosions.

Hundreds of thousands of people have died and millions more have suffered—and continue to suffer—from illnesses directly related to the radioactive fallout from nuclear detonations in the southwestern and western United States, islands in the Pacific, in Australia, western China, Algeria, across Russia, in eastern Kazakhstan, India, Pakistan, the DPRK, and elsewhere.

For example, in Kazakhstan, where the Soviet Union conducted more than 450 nuclear test detonations, including 116 in the atmosphere, the Kazakh government estimates more than 1.5 million people were harmed and it is clear that many continue to suffer the effects of these detonations.

Fallout from U.S. atmospheric nuclear blasts at the Nevada Test Site may have caused 10,000 to 75,000 thyroid cancers in the United States, according to a 1990 National Cancer Institute study. A new study, released in July by Princeton University researchers, shows that the fallout from the 1945 Trinity test reached 46 states, Canada, and Mexico within 10 days of detonation. The study also reanalyzed fallout from all 93 aboveground U.S. atomic tests in Nevada and suggests that earlier official assessments underestimated the scope of the contamination, which reached all regions of the continental United States and points beyond.

In the Marshall Islands, where the United States detonated massive above ground nuclear tests in the 1940s and 1950s, the scale of damage from nuclear testing was immense. The 67 U.S. atmospheric nuclear weapons tests—23 at Bikini Atoll and 44 at Enewetak Atoll—spewed radioactivity over the entirety of the Marshall Islands and produced a total explosive power of 108.5 megatons (TNT equivalent). That was about 100 times the total yield of all atmospheric tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site.

Today, the United States and the Republic of the Marshall Islands are negotiating the terms of a new Compact of Free Association that obligates the United States to help address the damage caused by past nuclear testing.

We join others in urging the Biden administration to agree to provide the necessary financial and technical support for long-term environmental remediation programs, expansion access to health care especially as it relates to treatment related to illnesses associated with radiation exposure, and for building independent capacity to monitor, assess, and address environmental and health needs of the Marshallese in the years to come.

An independent 2021 scientific investigation using information from declassified French military archives re-evaluated the estimations of the doses of radioactivity received by the civilian population of so-called French Polynesia after the six most contaminating French atmospheric tests. The study found that France’s atomic energy commission calculations of the maximum dose received by the local inhabitants were between twice to ten times lower than the updated estimates. We urge all CTBT states parties (particularly nuclear-armed states) to:

Support further scientific research on the health and environmental effects of nuclear testing, and provide financial support for health monitoring and health care programs for populations affected by nuclear testing; and
Cooperate with states parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) as they begin to fulfill their legal responsibilities under that treaty to provide assistance and environmental remediation to those people and regions affected by nuclear weapon use and testing. We also encourage those CTBT states parties that have not already done so to sign and ratify the TPNW, which reinforces the CTBT's prohibition on nuclear testing.

Bottom Line

More than a quarter century since they were established, the CTBT and the CTBTO enjoy broad support and have been highly successful. But we cannot take the treaty, the IMS, or the de facto global nuclear test moratorium for granted.

Now is the time to act to reinforce the treaty and the global norm against nuclear testing, which is important for the achievement of nuclear disarmament.

Endorsed by:

Dr. Rebecca E. Johnson, Executive Director, Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy

Giancarlo Aragona, former Italian Ambassador Moscow and London, former Director of Political Affairs in the Foreign Ministry, and member of the European Leadership Network

Thomas Countryman, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, Chair of the Board of the Arms Control Association

Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director, Arms Control Association

Shatabhisha Shetty, Director, Asia Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament

Tanya Ogilvie-White, Senior Research Advisor, Asia Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament

Joel Petersson Ivre, Policy Fellow, Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non- Proliferation and Disarmament

Peter Wilk, M.D., Administrative Chair, Back from the Brink Coalition

Sebastian Brixey-Williams, British American Security Information Council (BASIC)

Lord Des Browne of Ladyton, Vice-Chair, Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI)* and former Minister of Defence of the United Kingdom

Susan F. Burk former Special Representative of the President on Nuclear Nonproliferation, and member of the ACA Board of Directors

Rachel Bronson, Ph.D., President & CEO, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Francesco Calogero, Emeritus Professor of Theoretical Physics, University of Rome*

Lord Walter Menzies Campbell of Pittenweem, member of the European Leadership Network*

Dr. Tobias Fella, Coordinator, Commission on Challenges to Deep Cuts*

Dr. Pierce Corden, Former Director of Administration, CTBTO Preparatory Commission John Tierney, Executive Director, Council for a Livable World

Admiral (ret.) Giampaolo Di Paola, former Minister of Defence and former Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, and currently Chairman of the Board of Aerea*

Sergio Duarte, Amb. (ret.), Ministry of External Relations of Brazil* and former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs

Lucia Centallas, Founder and Executive Director, Bolivian Women's Efforts

Marc Finaud, Senior Advisor, Associate Fellow, Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP)*

Hubert K. Foy, Director and Senior Research Scientist, African Center for Science and International Security*

Rebecca Davis Gibbons, Professor, University of Southern Maine*

Robert Goldston, Professor, Princeton University, Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Affiliated Faculty Program on Science and Global Security*

Ambassador Thomas Greminger, Executive Director, Geneva Centre for Security Policy

Lisbeth Gronlund, Visiting Scholar, Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy, Nuclear Science and Engineering Dept, Massachusetts Institute of Technology*

Amb. Thomas Hajnoczi, (ret.), formerly Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs*

Lord David Hannay of Chiswick, and member of the European Leadership Network*

Blaise Imbert, Finance Officer, Initiatives pour le Désarmement Nucléaire (IDN)*

Zahnd Patrick, Professeur à Sciences Po Paris, Initiatives pour le Désarmement Nucléaire (IDN)*

Annick Suzor-Weiner, Professor Emeritus, Initiatives pour le Désarmement Nucléaire (IDN)

Daniel Högsta, Interim Executive Director, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)

Michael Christ, Executive Director, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW)

Garry Jacobd, President and CEO, World Academy of Art and Science*

Tedo Japaridze, Ambassador, former Foreign Minister of Georgia, and Chairman of the Center for Foreign Policy and Diplomatic Studies, House of Justice, Tbilisi

Angela Kane, Former UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs

Dr. Togzhan Kassenova, Senior Fellow, Center for Policy Research, University at Albany*

Jan Kavan, former Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, and former President of the UN General Assembly

David A. Koplow, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center*

Dr. Ulrich Kühn, Director Arms Control and Emerging Technologies Program, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg*

Frederick K. Lamb, Research Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Core Faculty Member, Program in Arms Control & Domestic and International Security, University of Illinois*

Jutta Bertram-Nothnagel, Vice President, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy

John Burroughs, Senior Analyst, Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy

Benetick Kabua Maddison, Executive Director, Marshallese Educational Initiative

János Martonyi, former Minister for Foreign Affairs of Hungary, and Professor Emeritus at the University of Szeged

Kazumi Matsui, Mayor of Hiroshima and President of Mayors for Peace*

Oliver Meier, Policy and Research Director, European Leadership Network* Ivana Nikolić Hughes, President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Lord David Owen, former Foreign Secretary of the United Kingdom Kevin Martin, President, Peace Action

John Hallam, Nuclear Disarmament Campaigner, People for Nuclear Disarmament

Matthias Grosse Perdekamp, Professor of Physics and Head of the Department of Physics, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign*

Sebastien Philippe, Research Scholar, Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University*

Martin Fleck, Director, Nuclear Weapons Abolition Program, Physicians for Social Responsibility (National)

Denise Duffield, Associate Director, Physicians for Social Responsibility-Los Angeles

Dr. Emma Belcher, President, Ploughshares Fund

Stewart Prager, Professor of Astrophysical Sciences Emeritus, affiliated with the Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University*

Alexander Glaser, Co-Director, Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University

Frank N. von Hippel, Senior Research Scientist and Professor of Public and International Affairs emeritus, Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University*

Francesca Giovannini, Executive Director, Project on Managing the Atom, Belfer Center, Harvard Kennedy School

William Potter, Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar Professor of Nonproliferation Studies, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey*

Robert K. Musil, Ph.D., M.P.H., President & CEO, Rachel Carson Council

Amb. (ret.), Jaap Ramaker, Chair of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty negotiations at the Conference on Disarmament

Tariq Rauf, former Head of Verification and Security Policy, IAEA, and former Consulting Advisor to the Executive Secretary for Policy and Outreach, CTBTO

Ray Acheson, Director, Reaching Critical Will

Lord Martin Rees, Astronomer Royal, and Emeritus Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics, Department of Astronomy, University of Cambridge*

Christian N. Ciobanu, Project Coordinator, Reverse The Trend: Save Our People, Save Our Planet

Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor, Rutgers University

Carlo Schaerf, Professor of Physics, and co-founder of the International School on Disarmament and Research on Conflicts (ISODARCO)

Sahil V. Shah Senior Fellow and Program Manager, Janne E. Nolan Center on Strategic Weapons, Council on Strategic Risks*

Mark Muhich, Chairman, Sierra Club Stop Nuclear Weapons Team

Stefano Silvestri, Professor, Scientific Advisor, Istituto Affari Internazionali*

Dr. Jennifer Allen Simons, Founder and President, The Simons Foundation Canada

Ivo Slaus, Professor of Physics Emeritus, Honorary President of the Board of Trustees of the World Academy of Art and Science, and the European Leadership Network*

Goran Svilanovic, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia and Montenegro

Greg Thielmann, former Director of the Strategic, Proliferation and Military Affairs, at the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, and member of the ACA Board of Directors

Aaron Tovish, Founder and Member of the Coordinating Committee of NoFirstUse Global*

Carlo Trezza, former Ambassador of Italy to the Conference on Disarmament, former Chair of the Missile Technology Control Regime, and member of the European Leadership Network*

Lord David Triesman of Tottenham, member of the European Leadership Network*

Marylia Kelley, Senior Advisor, Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)

Dr. Tara Drozdenko, Director, Global Security Program, Union of Concerned Scientists

Dylan Spaulding, Senior Scientist, Union of Concerned Scientists

Deb Sawyer, Facilitator, Utah Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Jacqueline Cabasso, Executive Director, Western States Legal Foundation

Elayne Whyte-Gomez, Professor of Practice, School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, former Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the United Nations Office in Geneva, and President of the Negotiating Conference for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

Dr. Klaus Wittmann, Brigadier General (ret.) with the German Armed Forces, Potsdam University

Uta Zapf, former Chair of the Subcommittee on Arms Control, Disarmament and Nonproliferation of the Deutsche Bundestag

*Statement coordinated by the Arms Control Association

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Nongovernmental leaders in nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, as well as high-level former government officials, scientists, and downwinders are calling on governments take urgent action to counter growing threats to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and the de facto global nuclear test moratorium.

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US-Russia Nuclear Arms Control Talks `Without Preconditions’: Somebody Has to Make the First Move

Authored by Thomas Countryman on September 15, 2023

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan spoke to the annual meeting of the Arms Control Association on June 2, and as organization chairman, it was my honor to introduce him. Sullivan said just what needed to be said about the continuing risk of nuclear conflict: that the Biden administration would continue the long U.S. tradition of leadership in finding ways to reduce that danger. In particular, he said the United States is ready – “without preconditions” — to discuss with the Russian Federation how the two countries together could 1) manage nuclear risks, and 2) develop a new nuclear arms...

Defending the De Facto Nuclear Test Ban

September 2023
By Daryl G. Kimball

More than 30 years ago, citizen activists and independence leaders in Kazakhstan forced Russia to halt nuclear testing, prompting the United States, under pressure from U.S. activists and members of Congress, to adopt a nine-month testing halt in 1992. On July 3, 1993, U.S. President Bill Clinton extended that moratorium and announced plans to pursue negotiations on a global, comprehensive test ban treaty. After more than 2,000 deadly nuclear test explosions worldwide since 1945, including 715 Soviet tests and more than 1,030 U.S. tests, these developments marked the beginning of the end of the nuclear testing era.

The former Semipalatinsk Nuclear Test Site in eastern Kazakhstan, looking toward the ground zero for the first Soviet nuclear weapon test explosion, which was conducted on Aug. 29, 1949. (Photo by Daryl G. Kimball) Since the conclusion of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which has been signed by 186 countries, nuclear testing has become taboo. All CTBT states agree that the treaty prohibits “any nuclear weapons test explosion, or any other nuclear explosion” no matter what the yield. The Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization operates the fully functional International Monitoring System (IMS) to detect and deter cheating. Most nuclear-armed states that have not signed or not ratified the CTBT, including China, India, Israel, and Pakistan, are observing nuclear testing moratoria.

Although it has not yet formally entered into force, the CTBT is one of the most successful agreements in the long history of nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. Without the option to conduct nuclear tests, it is more difficult, although not impossible, for states to develop, prove, and field new warhead designs.

But as with other critical nuclear risk reduction, nonproliferation, and arms control agreements, the CTBT is under threat due to inattention, diplomatic sclerosis, and worsening relations between nuclear-armed adversaries.

After senior U.S. officials in the Trump administration in 2020 callously discussed having the United States resume nuclear testing to try to intimidate China and Russia, the Biden administration made it clear in 2021 that “the United States supports [the CTBT] and is committed to work to achieve its entry into force.”

But the Biden administration has done none of the outreach and education that will be necessary to secure treaty ratification by the Senate. Given that the United States has not conducted a nuclear test in more than 30 years and has no technical, military, or political reason to resume testing, the national security case for ratification and for strengthening the barriers against testing by others is even stronger than when the treaty was last considered by the Senate in 1999.

One salient issue that needs addressing is the recent U.S. charge that “during the 1995-2018 timeframe, Russia probably conducted nuclear weapons-related tests” at its former test site at Novaya Zemlya. The assessment provides no evidence and does not claim that the Russian activities were militarily significant. Russia, which ratified the CTBT, has denied the charge and repeatedly pointed to the U.S. failure to ratify the treaty.

China, Russia, and the United States continue to engage in weapons-related activities at their former nuclear testing sites. Although the IMS is operational and far more effective than originally envisioned, very low-yield nuclear test explosions still can be difficult to detect without on-site inspections, which will not be in place until after the treaty’s entry into force.

To address concerns about clandestine activities at former test sites, CTBT states-parties should adopt voluntary confidence-building measures designed to detect and deter possible low-level, clandestine nuclear testing by the major nuclear powers. In a positive move, Jill Hruby, administrator at the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, announced in June that her agency is “open to working with others to develop a regime that would allow reciprocal observation with radiation detection equipment at each other’s subcritical experiments to allow confirmation that the experiment was consistent with the CTBT.”

Meanwhile, Russia may be on the verge of further nuclear nonproliferation sabotage. Russian officials acknowledge reports that they are considering the self-defeating option of “unratifying” the CTBT to achieve symmetry with Washington in all areas of nuclear policy, but say no official decisions have been made.

Contrary to the perceptions of extremists in Moscow, “unratification” would not create leverage for Russia vis-à-vis the collective West. Rather, it would undermine Russia’s already shaky nuclear nonproliferation standing, alienate non-nuclear-weapon states, and set back the very popular and heretofore very successful CTBT regime. In 2016, Russia joined the United States and other members of the UN Security Council in supporting Resolution 2310, which strongly reaffirms support for the CTBT, and a statement from its five permanent members pledging that they would not take any action that would “defeat the object or purpose of the treaty.”

As diplomats from CTBT signatory states gather this month for the next conference on facilitating the CTBT’s entry into force, more energetic strategies must be considered not only to advance the treaty, but to strengthen the de facto norm against testing.

Although it has not yet formally entered into force, the CTBT is one of the most successful agreements in the long history of nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. But as with other critical nuclear risk reduction, nonproliferation, and arms control agreements, the CTBT is under threat due to inattention, diplomatic sclerosis, and worsening relations between nuclear-armed adversaries.

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The Oppenheimer Legacy

September 2023

The film Oppenheimer, about the physicist who spearheaded the Manhattan Project, landed in theaters at an apt moment. After two decades during which many people thought the nuclear weapons genie had been tamed, the risks seem graver than ever and the public, at least for the time being, is engaged. Russian President Vladimir Putin, having launched a full-scale war against Ukraine, also has threatened to actually use nuclear weapons against states that might intervene in the conflict. Putin and the film have provoked a new debate with endless permutations. In the collection of essays below, Stephen J. Cimbala explores the ambiguities of nuclear weapons, Chantell L. Murphy remembers the human beings erased by the film and Lisbeth Gronlund recalls the physicists who worked to limit the catastrophic weapons that their colleagues unleashed. This is a teachable moment if people can be made to understand the enduring danger of the nuclear weapons that J. Robert Oppenheimer and his team created and the need to restrain, and ultimately, eliminate them.—CAROL GIACOMO

The film Oppenheimer, about the physicist who spearheaded the Manhattan Project, landed in theaters at an apt moment.

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Atoms and Ambiguity

September 2023
By Stephen J. Cimbala

The release of Christopher Nolan’s film Oppenheimer, about the physicist who created the first atomic bomb, takes viewers back to the origins of the first nuclear age and to the moral and political conundrums faced by politicians, scientists, and military planners ever since.

Image labeled ‘0.053 Sec’ of the first nuclear test, codenamed ‘Trinity’, conducted by Los Alamos National Laboratory at Alamogordo, New Mexico, July 16, 1945. (Photo by Fotosearch/Getty Images) The two-sided character of atomic and nuclear weapons, in terms of their impacts on strategy and history, were not immediately clear to government officials in the latter 1940s and early 1950s. Some felt that the atomic bomb and, later, thermonuclear weapons should be used just as any other explosive device for military purposes. As arsenals grew and the implications of massive nuclear use became clearer, the concept of employing nuclear weapons primarily or exclusively for deterrence as a means of war prevention took hold. Nuclear deterrence could be made reliable and stable if states possessed a secure second-strike capability, guaranteed to inflict unacceptable retaliatory damage against the forces and society of the attacker.

If fired in anger, nuclear weapons would cause unprecedented and morally repugnant levels of destruction to military and civilian targets. On the other hand, nuclear or large-scale conventional war could be avoided if deterrence was effective. To make deterrence effective, however, a state had to make clear its willingness to inflict unprecedented and unacceptable damage in retaliation once having been attacked. This moral and strategic ambivalence with respect to nuclear weapons continued throughout the Cold War. The United States and the Soviet Union deployed many thousands of nuclear weapons of various ranges and yields, but these weapons were used for deterrence of nuclear or large-scale conventional warfare and for coercive diplomacy and bargaining over various political matters.

The two Cold War nuclear superpowers came closest to an actual nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, yet this dispute also was resolved without crossing the line from nuclear threat to actual use. Dangerous as they were, nuclear weapons helped to stabilize the Cold War by avoiding egregious military missteps that would have created not only a nuclear war, but also a large-scale conventional war in Europe or Asia with casualties in the hundreds of thousands and the potential to go nuclear.

During the Korean War, some U.S. political leaders and military professionals called for the use of atomic weapons against North Korea and, if necessary, China in order to reverse adverse conditions on the battlefield. The United States did not take this step for a number of reasons, including the fact that its intervention in this conflict was a limited war for limited political objectives. The use of atomic bombs in Korea could have led to vertical and horizontal escalation on the part of China and the Soviet Union, prolonging the war and making it more costly in terms of military and civilian lives lost. By 1949, the Soviet Union also had tested successfully its own atomic bomb.

The demise of the Soviet Union left post-Cold War Russia with an abundance of nuclear weapons, and these weapons have served to keep Russia in the military superpower class along with the United States. Yet, Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine beginning in February 2022 illustrates the two-sided nature of nuclear armaments. On one hand, Russian President Vladimir Putin has threatened repeatedly to use nuclear weapons if the vital interests of Russia, as he defines them, are threatened. On the other hand, Russia recognizes that the first use of nuclear weapons in wartime since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be a world-changing event, not just a tactical maneuver.

Even if Russian first use of nuclear weapons took place on the territory of Ukraine and avoided any targets on the territory of a NATO member state, the alliance immediately would be engaged in a competition in risk-taking that would have no obvious endpoint. In other words, the actual use of nuclear weapons would devalue their prior utility as deterrents and open the door to a potential World War III in Europe with globally catastrophic consequences.

Going forward, the question is how long states can play the game of nuclear political coercion but remain short of actual nuclear war. In part, this depends on the rate at which nuclear weapons spread and to whom. States dissatisfied with the existing international order or new members of the nuclear club with grievances against neighbors are obvious candidates for nuclear mischief. In addition, states ruled by impetuous, unrestrained dictators, such as North Korea, or governments caught up in a conflict spiral with inadequate skills in crisis management, as in the case of the great powers immediately prior to World War I, could unbottle the genie. Even experienced nuclear powers, thus far restrained, could fall prey to seductive sirens of controlled or limited nuclear war, entertaining nuclear first use as a means to “escalate to deescalate” an ongoing conventional war.

If J. Robert Oppenheimer were still alive, what would he say about his legacy? Perhaps, “I left you with a Faustian bargain, and it’s worked so far. Deal with it.”

The good news is that, since Oppenheimer passed from the scene, the world has witnessed less nuclear proliferation than pessimists feared.

The bad news is that this is no guarantee for the future. The two-sided nature of nuclear danger is not unlike that posed by the maturing of artificial intelligence: will we work smarter or outsmart ourselves?

Stephen J. Cimbala is distinguished professor of political science at Penn State Brandywine.

If J. Robert Oppenheimer were still alive, what would he say about his legacy?

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The People the Oppenheimer Film Erased

September 2023
By Chantell L. Murphy

Not a single ponderosa pine can be found in the new film Oppenheimer, about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer. The locations chosen for the Manhattan Project that he led played a pivotal role in the story of the atomic bomb. Not casting the landscape accurately erases an important detail from the film’s portrayal of the development of the world’s most lethal weapon.

Scientists designed and built the world’s first atomic weapon in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Los Alamos sits on the Pajarito Plateau on the eastern edge of a volcanic complex¹ called the Jemez Mountains at an elevation of about 7,500 feet. This is where ponderosa pines tower over Gambel oak and juniper and where the land dramatically drops off into steep basalt cliffs that roll into the Rio Grande River valley below.

The movie exceeds expectations with its captivating retelling of the events that led to the atomic bomb, including Oppenheimer’s desire for the project to be situated in Los Alamos, but the film failed to capture the reality of the environment and culture that so appealed to him. Director Christopher Nolan and production designer Ruth De Jong made an artistic choice to film exterior scenes at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico instead of Los Alamos to make it look like the “middle of nowhere with nothing around.”² Instead of pine forest, the Los Alamos scenes are filled with panoramas of open desert, multicolored mesas, and sweeping grasslands.

This decision matters because while beautiful and vast, Ghost Ranch evokes an entirely different feel than the lusher forests around Los Alamos. The environments of Ghost Ranch, drenched in blazing sun and littered with chollas, evoke feelings of exposure and desolation. The film’s landscapes allow the audience to believe that these areas were uninhabited, but in fact, generations of Indigenous and land-based communities have lived on and cultivated Los Alamos for centuries. Selecting Los Alamos as the Manhattan Project site in 1942 forced about 30 native New Mexican families from their land without fair compensation, and many had to abandon their farming equipment, livestock, and animals.³ In Nolan’s portrayal of a singular narrative, the film concealed the environmental and cultural richness of New Mexico that was irrevocably altered by the Manhattan Project through inequitable displacement and the erasure of native voices and culture. Most perniciously, numerous incidences of cancer caused by exposure to radiation from the Trinity Test have persisted over generations and forever have linked New Mexico to the nuclear weapons complex.

When I started working in nuclear nonproliferation at Los Alamos in 2010 as a graduate research assistant, we did not learn about the history of the local and Indigenous communities. We learned about the brilliant male scientists, the excitement of the race to push applied physics to the limit, and the building of massive secret cities across the United States during World War II to create the most powerful weapon humanity
has ever seen.⁴ The story we were told about the bomb was about impossibility, glory, and terror, which the movie spectacularly recounted.

J. Robert Oppenheimer, protagonist of the new movie of the same name, is often called "father of the atomic bomb" for his role in the Manhattan Project, which developed the first nuclear weapon, and detonated it in the Trinity test on July 16, 1945, in New Mexico. (Photo by History/Universal Images Group via Getty Images) Yet, for all its focus on the characters in that story, the film fails to truly humanize them. If it displayed a beautiful sun-dappled forest in which the audience could imagine itself walking, then maybe viewers could feel a slight connection to Oppenheimer, and he would not seem like such an enigma. If the film depicted the native New Mexicans and Indigenous people who did housework in the homes of the scientists and performed janitorial services at the lab, then maybe filmgoers could relate more to the sacrifice that these Americans endured to make this weapon a reality.

The bomb and humanity became lost in the plot about politics, ego, and deception. Viewers were left feeling angry at Lewis Strauss rather than at the decision to proceed with the Trinity Test despite the proximity to communities in the Tularosa Basin that were not warned about the risk and today still struggle with cancer and other health problems caused by proximity to the bomb blast.⁵ Viewers were left feeling sorry for Oppenheimer for being cast aside by the government he served and not for the victims of the bombings in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. By failing to capture the New Mexico that Oppenheimer loved or present realistic narratives about the women and native people who were integral to the project,⁶ the film contributes to the abstract and idealized notion of nuclear weapons.

The film concludes with a foreboding message as Oppenheimer laments to Albert Einstein about setting off a chain reaction that would destroy the entire universe. Yet, there was a sign of hope in the movie with the mention of the need for international control of fissile material and for monitoring the peaceful use of nuclear energy. The International Atomic Energy Agency probably did not expect the subtle shoutouts from this huge summer blockbuster. By bringing fresh attention to the dangers of nuclear weapons, the film has created a moment for action, including the need to strengthen the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to assist New Mexico’s Downwinders population, which for too long has been excluded from the acknowledgment and benefits that other communities exposed to nuclear testing and uranium mining have received since 1990.⁷

ENDNOTES

1. Tewa Women United, “Oppenheimer - and the Other Side of the Story,” July 18, 2023, https://tewawomenunited.org/2023/07/oppenheimer-and-the-other-side-of-the-story.

2. Grace Jidoun, “Where Was Oppenheimer Filmed? Discover Christopher Nolan’s Authentic Shoot Locations,” NBC, July 28, 2023,
https://www.nbc.com/nbc-insider/oppenheimer-filming-locations.

3. Myrriah Gómez, Nuclear Nuevo México: Colonialism and the Effects of the Nuclear Industrial Complex on Nuevomexicanos (Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2022).

4. Los Alamos National Laboratory, “The Town That Never Was,” 1980 (20-minute film), https://youtu.be/DGWmFTqXHoY?si=WqA7U4QuCeBeZbpR.

5. Karin Brulliard and Samuel Gilbert, “No ‘Oppenheimer’ Fanfare for Those Caught in First Atomic Bomb’s Fallout,” The Washington Post, July 29, 2023

6. Radhika Seth, “Justice for the Women of Oppenheimer,” Vogue, July 22, 2023.

7. Griffin Rushton, “Senate Approves New Mexico Downwinders’ Inclusion in RECA Amendment,” KOB 4, July 30, 2023, https://www.kob.com/new-mexico/senate-approves-new-mexico-downwinders-inclusion-in-reca-amendment/.

Chantell L. Murphy is a nuclear nonproliferation expert developing ethical artificial intelligence frameworks for international nuclear safeguards and founder of Atomsphere LC, an organization promoting nuclear awareness in the outdoors.

By omitting realistic narratives about the women and native people who were integral to the Manhattan Project, the film contributes to abstract, idealized notions of nuclear weapons.

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Physicists Built the Bomb, Urged Restraint Too

September 2023
By Lisbeth Gronlund

As the film Oppenheimer documented, many Manhattan Project scientists were concerned that use of the weapons they built would lead to a U.S.-Soviet arms race. J. Robert Oppenheimer, who headed the Los Alamos Laboratory during the Manhattan Project, and his scientist colleagues repeatedly argued that the U.S. nuclear weapons monopoly gave the United States a unique opportunity to prevent a world-threatening outcome by briefing Soviet scientists and policymakers on their work and proposing a treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons. On July 17, 1945, Leo Szilard and 68 other members of the Manhattan Project Chicago laboratory petitioned President Harry Truman directly, making the case against using these weapons on Japan because doing so would make the United States responsible for “opening the door to an era of devastation on an unimaginable scale.”¹

University of Chicago professor Leo Szilard, shown testifying before the U.S. Congress in 1945, joined 68 other Manhattan Project scientists in writing to President Harry Truman to argue against dropping the first atomic bomb on Japan during World War II. (Photo from Bettmann Archives via Getty Images). Although none of these early efforts to influence the government was successful, during the Cold War and afterward, Soviet and U.S. physicists and other scientists, sometimes working together, repeatedly made a positive impact on international and national policies. Two cases in particular highlight the essential role of scientists: achieving limits on nuclear explosive testing and working to keep defenses against long-range nuclear-armed ballistic missiles from triggering an arms race. Academic physicists were particularly active and remain concerned about and engaged with nuclear weapons-related issues today.

Nuclear Explosive Testing

All five of the established nuclear powers (China, France, the Soviet Union, the United Kingdom, and the United States) started out testing nuclear weapons in the atmosphere, releasing large amounts of radiation that spread around the globe and fell to the ground. Beginning in 1954, when the United States tested a very powerful hydrogen bomb—the 15-megaton Castle Bravo test that was equivalent to 15 million tons of TNT—in the South Pacific, there was an international outcry about the environmental and human effects. The Soviet Union and the United States, however, continued testing with abandon.

The UK physicist Joseph Rotblat, the only scientist to leave the Manhattan Project on moral grounds after Germany was defeated, began researching the radioactive effects of nuclear testing in 1954. His calculations showed that the United States greatly understated the radioactivity released by these nuclear tests. Widespread media coverage of his findings increased public outrage.

Nevertheless, the Soviet Union, the UK, and the United States continued atmospheric testing until 1963, when they negotiated and signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, banning all but underground tests. Neither China nor France signed the treaty, and their last atmospheric tests were in 1980 and 1974, respectively. In 1957, chemist Linus Pauling started a scientists’ appeal for a complete ban on nuclear testing.² Within two weeks, 2,000 U.S. scientists, including Albert Einstein, had signed. Within a few months, the list had grown to 11,000 scientists around the globe. Many U.S. scientists actively promoted the test ban. They engaged the public, met with their government representatives, spoke to the media, and several years later, could share in the treaty’s success.

Another significant development was the founding, also in 1957, of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (named after Pugwash, Nova Scotia, where the first conference was held) by Joseph Rotblat and the mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russell. These international conferences continued until 2020 and brought together scientists, including some who advised their governments, and other experts.

They were the first contemporary Track 2 meetings, where participants interacted as individuals, not as representatives of their governments. In this Cold War environment, they could have open, frank discussions. These meetings influenced many international treaties and agreements, including laying the groundwork for the Limited Test Ban Treaty. They also facilitated strong personal relationships between Soviet and U.S. scientists and, eventually, Chinese and U.S. scientists, which proved essential to progress on arms control.

The Limited Test Ban Treaty was followed in 1974 by the Soviet-U.S. Threshold Test Ban Treaty, limiting the yield of underground nuclear tests to no more than 150 kilotons. Concerns about verification stalled ratification until 1990 because the two nations did not agree on the means for verifying the treaty. The Soviet Union insisted that remote seismic measurements could determine the yield of a test explosion. The United States insisted on using an on-site method that required placing a cable in a shaft near the shaft to be used for the nuclear weapons test, which would measure the shock wave at close range.

In the late 1980s, a group of Soviet and U.S. physicists—Frank von Hippel at Princeton University; Evgeny Velikhov, director of the Kurchatov Institute; Roald Sagdeev, director of the Space Research Institute; and especially Tom Cochran of the Natural Resources Defense Council—were responsible for breaking the deadlock. They proposed that each country conduct a nuclear test whose yield would be measured by teams of scientists from both nations, with both teams using both methods of estimating the yield.

The governments agreed, and in 1988 they conducted the “Joint Verification Experiment,” which demonstrated that seismic verification was effective. The two countries subsequently ratified the treaty with verification provided by seismic monitoring and hydrodynamic monitoring under certain circumstances. It is not an overstatement that the efforts of a few scientists were responsible for ratification.

In 1994, negotiations began on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), which prohibits all nuclear explosive testing. Verification again stood in the way. It is more difficult to verify a yield of zero than one of 150 kilotons. Some U.S. opponents of the CTBT argued that countries could cheat by testing a small-yield explosive inside a large underground cavity, which would reduce the seismic signal by decoupling the explosion from the surrounding rock.

U.S. chemist Linus Pauling, who won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the Nobel Peace Prize, poses with his alpha-helix model in front of a chalkboard at the Linus Pauling Institute, Menlo Park, Calif., in 1983. In 1957, he started a scientists’ appeal for a complete ban on nuclear testing. (Photo by Janet Fries/Getty Images) Many U.S. scientists, especially seismologists, became involved in this debate. They debunked the large cavity argument and, as in previous cases, influenced opinion by engaging the public, policymakers, administration officials, and the media.

Finally in 1995, a study by the JASON group of high-level scientists that advises the U.S. government played an important role in resolving the CTBT debate. At that time, JASON members were mainly physicists. They considered the technical details relevant to the CTBT and concluded that there were no reasons that the United States should not sign a treaty of enduring duration, provided it included the standard statement that a nation could withdraw in the event that a nuclear explosive test was necessary to protect its “supreme national interest.”

This study had a large effect on President Bill Clinton’s decision to sign the CTBT in 1996. Although the Senate refused to ratify the treaty, the United States and 186 other signatories have continued to abide by it.

Long-Range Ballistic Missile Defenses

Throughout history, people have built defenses against armaments, so it is not surprising that the Soviet Union and the United States sought to protect their populations from nuclear weapons. Beginning in the late 1950s, the two nations deployed nuclear-armed intercontinental-range ballistic missiles, which hurl their warheads into space, which then fall to the ground under the influence of gravity. Shortly thereafter, both countries began deploying anti-ballistic missile interceptors. In 1962, the Soviet Union began placing such interceptors around Moscow. Because the interceptors were not accurate enough to destroy warheads with conventional explosives, they were armed with nuclear weapons.

In the late 1960s, the United States began preparations to deploy the Sentinel anti-ballistic missile system, which was billed as a limited defense against an accidental Soviet or Chinese attack, despite the fact that China had no nuclear-armed intercontinental-range missiles and would not for decades. The Sentinel interceptors carried megaton-level nuclear warheads. The Army’s decision to place 13 of the 17 planned interceptor sites near major cities enraged local populations, leading to large demonstrations in some areas.

After scientists at Argonne National Laboratory learned that one of the Sentinel sites was to be built near Chicago, they engaged very effectively with activists, providing fact sheets and other materials, giving numerous presentations, and talking to the media. When Department of Defense officials subsequently came to brief the local public about the project, they found an angry audience armed with facts and arguments provided by the Argonne scientists. These officials regarded the meetings as a disaster. Similar efforts took place in other cities, and in many cases, physicists played major roles in the opposition. Because of this widespread opposition, the Sentinel program was canceled in March 1969, after only 18 months.

Beginning in the 1960s, some U.S. physicists and other scientists understood that missile defenses against nuclear weapons were a terrible idea because building defenses would prompt an adversary to build more missiles and lead to a destabilizing arms race. Limits on offensive weapons would be possible only if defenses also were limited.

Initially, Soviet scientists did not embrace this logic. Their eventual acceptance was partly a consequence of meetings of the Soviet-American Defense Study group, which spun off from the Pugwash meetings in 1964 and consisted of a smaller select group of Soviet and U.S. scientists, some of whom advised their governments.

Soviet scientists also were influenced by a prominent 1968 Scientific American article by Hans Bethe, director of the theoretical division of the Manhattan Project, and Richard Garwin, who helped develop the H-bomb.³ It laid out the technical and political arguments against these defenses for the public and experts alike. It also discussed the myriad ways in which defenses could be defeated, making them useless and provocative.

Such activities by scientists led to the first Strategic Arms Limitations Talks treaty, which reduced offensive weapons to 6,000 for each country and was coupled to the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. The ABM Treaty prohibited essentially all missile defenses, but allowed research on defensive technologies, which ultimately led to its demise.

The beginning of the end came in March 1983 with President Ronald Reagan’s infamous “Star Wars” speech in which he announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to deploy a defense using satellite-based interceptors and lasers that would render “nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.” This goal was absurd given the 6,000 intercontinental warheads that treaties allowed the Soviet Union and United States each to maintain.

The program infuriated the physics community, which characterized it as nonsensical. Around the country, physicists again became active and reached out to the public, policymakers, and the media. Their activities were key to creating a small but influential movement against the program.

The Case Against SDI

The case against SDI was first articulated by the influential April 1984 report “Directed Energy Weapons in Space” by Ashton Carter, a physicist working for the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment who eventually became secretary of defense under President Barack Obama.⁴ The case was bolstered by the October 1984 Scientific American article “Space-based Ballistic-missile Defense,” authored by Bethe, Garwin, Kurt Gottfried of Cornell University, and Henry Kendall of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the latter two of which had helped found the Union of Concerned Scientists.⁵

Ashton Carter, who eventually became President Barack Obama’s defense secretary, wrote an influential report against the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1984. (Photo by Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images) In 1985, SDI began giving grants to academics, declaring that “this office is trying to sell something to Congress. If we can say that this fellow at MIT will get money to do such and such research, it’s something real to sell.” The idea that the program wanted to use scientists to sell the program further enraged the physicists.

In response, physicists at Cornell and the University of Illinois-Urbana wrote a pledge of nonparticipation for scientists and engineers, stating that they would not apply for or accept funding from SDI program and why. By the time the pledge results were released in May 1986, it had been signed by 6,500 academic scientists and engineers around the country.⁶ The protest received significant media attention and hammered home that scientists believed the program was technically unworkable and unwise. Finally, the professional organization of physicists, the American Physical Society, released an authoritative study in 1987 on the science and technology of directed energy weapons, such as lasers, concluding that SDI was unworkable.

Politically wounded by this surge of expert opposition, SDI was canceled in 1993 by Clinton. The program never progressed beyond research and development, so the ABM Treaty remained intact.

Even so, interest in missile defense continued. Clinton’s Pentagon replaced SDI with the National Missile Defense (NMD) program, which relied on ground-based “hit to kill” interceptor missiles that would destroy an incoming warhead by slamming into it.

In response, the Union of Concerned Scientists issued a report in April 2000 titled “Countermeasures,” showing that even if this system worked perfectly, it could be defeated in numerous ways. Five months later, Clinton announced that he would not deploy the system, citing, among other issues, its vulnerability to countermeasures.

President George W. Bush changed the name of the program to the Ground-Based Missile Defense program and, to allow its nominal deployment, withdrew from the ABM Treaty in 2002. Nevertheless, scientists have continued to point out the system’s shortcomings and critique the intercept tests, with the result being that the system’s effectiveness is widely doubted.

Although Russian-U.S. relations are again strained and the only remaining arms control agreement, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), is teetering, the research and activities of these physicists and other scientists who have questioned and criticized U.S. nuclear and missile defense policies have mattered, sometimes quite a lot. For decades, scientists willing to challenge Pentagon programs and Washington orthodoxy helped produce stabilizing outcomes in U.S. nuclear and missile defense policy. There is still a CTBT, for instance, and the United States abides by it. Missile defense deployments are limited and widely viewed as ineffective.

Unfortunately, further progress has been hampered by the continuing U.S. commitment to deploying missile defenses. Some physicists and other scientists have remained actively engaged, but the expert technical analysis and engagement of the wider scientific community are needed more than ever in this time of growing geopolitical tensions.

ENDNOTES

1. “A Petition to the President of the United States,” https://www.atomicarchive.com/resources/documents/manhattan-project/petition.html (petition dated July 17, 1945).

2. Linus Pauling, “An Appeal by American Scientists to the Governments and People of the World,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 13, No. 7 (May 15, 1957).

3. Richard L. Garwin and Hans A. Bethe, “Anti-Ballistic-Missile Systems,” Scientific American, Vol. 218, No. 3 (March 1968): 21.

4. Ashton B. Carter, “Directed Energy Missile Defense in Space,” U.S. Office of Technology Assessment, OTA-BP-ISC-26, April 1984, https://www.princeton.edu/~ota/disk3/1984/8410/841001.PDF.

5. Hans A. Bethe et al., “Space-based Ballistic-Missile Defense,” Scientific American, Vol. 251, No. 4 (October 1984): 39-49.

6. Lisbeth Gronlund, et al, “A Status Report on the Boycott of Star Wars Research by Academic Scientists and Engineers,” May 13, 1986, https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/yzojaywaqq84tb0jj0g0a/SDI-Pledge-Report-1986.pdf?rlkey=vfuvznu8rg4buw9g8cx8hlwhr&dl=0

Lisbeth Gronlund is a visiting scholar with the Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering.

During the Cold War and afterward, Soviet and U.S. physicists and other scientists repeatedly made a positive impact on international and national nuclear policies.

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U.S. Says Ukraine Gives Cluster Munitions Assurances

September 2023
By Gabriela Iveliz Rosa Hernández

Following months of internal debate, the United States approved the transfer to Ukraine of thousands of cluster munitions worth up to $250 million after Kyiv offered assurances regarding their use.

Firemen try to put out fire at Donetsk University of Economics and Trade in Russian-occupied Donetsk, Ukraine, on Aug. 5. The city’s mayor told reporters that Ukrainian forces used cluster munitions to attack the building. The United States recently provided Ukraine with cluster munitions, which are banned by more than 100 countries. (Photo by Victor/Xinhua via Getty Images) Cluster munitions are banned by more than 100 countries, including many U.S. allies, because they scatter bomblets across battlefields that sometimes fail to explode on impact and can kill or maim combatants and civilians who encounter duds long after the fighting ends.

The agreement between Washington and Kyiv on July 7 is classified. “The Ukrainian government has offered us assurances in writing on the responsible use of [cluster munitions], including that they will not use the rounds in civilian-populated urban environments and that they will record where they use these rounds, which will simplify later demining efforts,” Colin Kahl, U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, told a press conference.

When asked by Arms Control Today about the assurances, a U.S. State Department official referred to a tweet by Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov on July 7. The tweet read, “We will not be using cluster munitions in urban areas (cities) to avoid the risks for the civilian populations—these are our people; they are Ukrainians we have a duty to protect. Cluster munitions will be used only in the fields where there is a concentration of Russian military.”

According to another U.S. State Department official on Aug. 3, the assurances cover the batch of Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munitions (DPICM) approved on July 7, but likely would apply to the next batch as a baseline if the United States decided to approve another transfer. These weapons have a rate of unexploded ordnance higher than 1 percent.

Reznikov’s tweet said that cluster munitions would not be used on the internationally recognized territory of Russia and that Ukraine will keep a strict record of the use of these weapons and their locations.

Ukraine is to report such details to its partners to ensure the appropriate standard of transparent reporting and control. Following the expulsion of Russian forces from Ukraine's internationally recognized territories, these territories will be prioritized for demining efforts, according to Reznikov. According to CNN, Ukraine submitted its first report on cluster munitions use, including the rounds fired and the number of Russian targets destroyed, after a U.S. request on Aug. 9. Two weeks later, the Washington Post reported that the United States was satisfied with Kyiv's follow-through.

Asked by Arms Control Today to comment about the possibility of future cluster munitions transfers to Ukraine by allies who are not states-parties to the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), the first State Department official said that the United States would not discourage or encourage such transfers and that such a decision would be a bilateral matter between the ally and Ukraine. But Washington would like allies to establish assurances similar to those already established with Ukraine on how the weapons will be used, the official said.

In January, U.S. allies such as Estonia also were weighing giving Ukraine cluster munitions, according to EER, an Estonian newspaper. Foreign Policy reported that Turkey allegedly sent similar munitions to Ukraine in November 2022, but Turkey and Ukraine denied that transfer. Meanwhile, Lithuania’s defense minister on Aug. 25 suggested that Vilnius should leave the CCM so it can “acquire and use” cluster munitions, the Lithuanian public broadcaster reported.

Ukrainian officials repeatedly have asked the United States for cluster munitions to defend against the Russian invasion. After finally agreeing, the Biden administration said the decision was not taken lightly. It assessed that the current monthly production of U.S. artillery rounds would not meet Ukraine’s needs. (See ACT, January/February 2023; October 2022).

“Ukraine is short on artillery, and being short on artillery, it is vulnerable to Russian counterattacks that could subjugate more Ukrainian civilians. That is the thinking behind our decision,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on July 7.

Kahl said that the cluster munitions delivered to Ukraine will consist only of those with a dud rate of less than 2.35 percent. “Compare that to Russia, which has been using cluster munitions across Ukraine with dud rates of between 30 and 40 percent,” he said.

But The New York Times reported that the cluster munitions sent to Ukraine are generally known to have a failure rate of 14 percent or more under real-world conditions. The newspaper identified the U.S. munitions as 155mm M864 weapons that can deliver 72 dual-purpose grenades to the target area.

During the first year of the war, Russia is estimated to have fired cluster munitions from a range of weapons, expending tens of millions of submunitions, or bomblets, across Ukraine. Ukraine also has used them to defend against Russia’s brutal assault, although far less often than Russia, according to Human Rights Watch.

Russia, Ukraine, and the United States have not joined the CCM, which prohibits states-parties from developing, producing, acquiring, using, transferring, or stockpiling cluster munitions, but 23 NATO members have.

Civil society groups condemned Washington’s decision to provide cluster munitions. “Beyond making the United States a global outlier, acting in contradiction to partner nations’ and NATO allies’ express ban on and statements against the transfer and use of these weapons could hurt the U.S. ability to forge and maintain coalitions that have been so crucial to supporting Ukraine, and undermines the United States’ ability to criticize other governments who use them. It would also harm efforts to promote other arms control agreements,” the U.S. Cluster Munitions Coalition said in a statement on July 7.

Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and the United Kingdom reaffirmed support for the CCM. The U.S. cluster munitions transfer and other issues will be discussed Sept. 11-14 in Geneva during the 11th meeting of state-parties to the convention.

The United States transferred the weapons, which are banned in more than 100 countries, after Ukraine said they will be used against Russian forces, not in civilian-populated urban areas.

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