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"I want to tell you that your fact sheet on the [Missile Technology Control Regime] is very well done and useful for me when I have to speak on MTCR issues."

– Amb. Thomas Hajnoczi
Chair, MTCR
May 19, 2021
Interviews

Managing an Arsenal Without Nuclear Testing: An Interview With Jill Hruby of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration


December 2023

For decades, the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and its predecessor agencies at the Department of Energy have been at the center of the technical and political issues relating to nuclear weapons: warhead design and development, explosive testing, and non-explosive techniques to maintain the nuclear warheads in the U.S. arsenal.

Administrator Jill Hruby (L) of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration greets Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) before testifying last year to the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Subcommittee on Strategic Forces in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)The last U.S. nuclear test explosion was conducted in September 1992, and since then, the United States has observed a test moratorium and supported the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Although the treaty has established a norm against nuclear explosive tests, it has not entered into force because eight specific states, including the United States, have not ratified it.

Meanwhile, Russia, China, and the United States are engaging in activities at their former test sites at Novaya Zemlya, Lop Nur, and the Nevada National Security Site, respectively, prompting accusations of CTBT noncompliance and concerns about the possible resumption of full-scale nuclear testing. Recently, Russia took the unusual step of withdrawing its CTBT ratification in order to “mirror” the U.S. status vis-à-vis the CTBT. Nevertheless, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia will maintain its nuclear test moratorium as long as the United States does.

Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, and Carol Giacomo, editor of Arms Control Today, explored these issues in an interview with NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby. The transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

ARMS CONTROL TODAY: Can you say why, in your technical judgment, the United States does not need to resume explosive testing to maintain the U.S. arsenal or to build new design warheads?

NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby: When the United States signed the CTBT and made the decision to stop doing full-scale nuclear explosive testing, we simultaneously put in place, during the Clinton administration, this process that we refer to as the annual assessment process, by which we evaluate how the stockpile is aging. The three NNSA lab directors do an evaluation every year on the technical health of our weapons, and a major part of the determination is to say whether there is a technical reason to resume nuclear explosive testing. That evaluation has been done for about 27 years and has resulted in a finding every year that there is no technical reason to conduct nuclear explosive testing.

The process is larger than just the three lab directors. The [U.S. Strategic Command] commander also determines whether he or she believes that the stockpile is effective. So, that’s a separate process. I can’t say as much about that because that’s not the process in the NNSA, but from a technical perspective, there has not been a reason to resume testing.

It’s a very considered judgment. It’s a process by which we spend a lot of time making sure we do enough examination of old weapons. There are flight tests, laboratory tests, smaller subcomponent tests, and component testing of elements of our stockpile. We’re confident that the stockpile has the performance, reliability, safety, and security that it needs.

ACT: What is your response to the Russian suggestion that the United States is making preparations for nuclear testing at the Nevada National Security Site?

Hruby: This is the primary reason why we really stepped up talking about what we were doing at the Nevada National Security Site. Everybody makes allegations about everybody else’s activity at test sites, and it makes sense. We have a treaty that says we’re not going to test, so of course, everybody watches everybody else.

The truth is, we have activity going on at our former test site, the Nevada site. We’ve been using it all along for three reasons. One is to do subcritical experiments for our science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program [SSP]. This is part of what we need to do to make sure that our stockpile is behaving and aging the way that we think it is so that we don’t have to do a full-scale test. Another thing that we’ve done consistently at [the Nevada site] is conduct experiments for the nonproliferation program that helps us improve our ability to detect testing. We do this, as many other countries do, to improve our capability to monitor. Those tests are chemically explosive tests. They use conventional explosives; they don’t use nuclear explosives. But they use enough chemical explosives that we can get the seismic activity that’s sort of equivalent to a low-yield test so we know whether or not we could monitor that.

On-site inspection experts visit P Tunnel at the Nevada National Security Site in 2016. Today, researchers working in the tunnel conduct seismic, acoustic, electromagnetic, and radionuclide experiments that improve U.S. arms control and nuclear nonproliferation verification and monitoring capabilities. (Photo courtesy of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization)The third thing is that the Nevada site people have done other national security missions not associated with the NNSA but associated with larger national security missions, in particular for the Department of Homeland Security. When the Department of Homeland Security’s Domestic Nuclear Detection Office was active, they wanted to test the monitors that they were putting at ports in the United States and around the world.

Honestly, we have in the last three or four years gotten sophisticated enough with this other set of experiments that we do now, concentrated on the NNSA subcritical experiments, that we are actually investing in significant new diagnostics. We call those projects “enhanced capability for subcritical experiments,” where we’re preparing to be able to do radiography, for example, which we haven’t been able to do before. To set those experiments up in the U1a tunnel [at the Nevada site], which is where we’ve done all our subcritical experiments, meant that we actually had to mine some new tunnels. These are fairly large pieces of diagnostic equipment, so we’ve had to do some new mining. The same thing is true with our nonproliferation-associated experiments. We’ve done some new mining to do some work that has better diagnostics associated with it.

Not to pick on the Russians, but if you’re the Russians or anybody else that is looking at the activity going on at the Nevada site, you’re going to see activity associated with mining. So, as soon as the Russians started saying these things, our sense was, oh well, we understand why they might interpret it that way. We need to be clearer about what we’re doing because we have nothing to hide and we’re not preparing for an underground [nuclear explosive] test. But it’s not a completely unreasonable thing, when you see mining at a former test site, to believe that something could be going on. That’s really why we wanted to just put everything out there and be very straightforward about what we are doing.

There’s one additional reason why we have actually been upgrading the infrastructure. Because of this increased amount of work associated with preparing for these new diagnostic capabilities, we have actually replaced some of the office buildings [at the site].

We’re very happy to be honest and straightforward and transparent about what we’re doing. Then we thought, well hey, if we’re going to be honest and straightforward, let’s just go the whole step and say maybe there’s more we can do in terms of transparency.

ACT: Let me ask one clarifying question about what a subcritical experiment is and what a supercritical experiment is. According to the Department of State, the United States and other governments participating in CTBT negotiations agreed that the treaty “prohibits all nuclear explosions that produce a self-sustaining supercritical fission chain reaction of any kind.” Can you provide any more clarification for the nontechnical expert about how your scientists distinguish between a subcritical and a supercritical experiment?

Hruby: We use a definition of subcritical that adheres to the strictest standard of zero yield and the international standard that we’ve proposed and hope is adopted by everybody that signed up to the CTBT. For the subcritical testing, we do not produce a sustained fission reaction. It’s hard to describe that in non-physics terms, but the difference is that there is not only not a large explosion, but there is also no sustained reaction.

ACT: You said that the United States wants to be as transparent as possible because it is not planning to or is not engaged in supercritical nuclear explosions. How are you seeking to do that? You proposed back in June at the CTBT: Science and Technology Conference that the NNSA 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.” Could you describe what methods, technical or otherwise, you are pursuing to demonstrate that the U.S. activities are consistent with the CTBT and to address concerns about these subcritical experiments?

Hruby: We’ve been trying to be transparent. We announce, and we let the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) know, for example, when we do these chemical explosive tests; we let everybody with monitoring stations know. We publish all the results of the experiment. So, we’ve already been doing a lot of the nonreciprocal transparency. We didn’t agree to do reciprocal, but we’ve done lots of things to try to make the work that we do transparent. We also take people on tours of [the Nevada site]. We’ve invited members of the U.S. nongovernmental community to [the site] at the end of November.

What we’ve put on the table is, if other countries that formerly tested were interested in more transparency about the experiments they are conducting—because we know everybody’s doing some activities at their former test sites—we would be willing to do more intrusive things as opposed to just putting out the information. This includes ideas that would enable you to make sure that they didn’t produce a signature associated with a sustained nuclear chain reaction.

I know Arms Control Today just published an article about a verification approach that [Princeton University physicist] Frank von Hippel was involved in, and he had talked to me beforehand about his ideas. We had a team of people also looking at technical ideas and other ideas that would enhance confidence building. So, we could, for example, do video feeds that might build more confidence. Then we could do more intrusive things like radiation detection monitors within the chamber where other people, other countries, could probe. That would be a reciprocity thing that we could both do to allow people to in fact make sure that there wasn’t a supercritical reaction.

We have not provided all the details. Before I announced the potential for greater transparency, we did enough work on it to say, hey, we think this is technically feasible in a way that everybody should be willing to share, that isn’t going to reveal information about the design of their weapons or anything sensitive like that because these are not weapons that we’re working with, they’re just material samples. We think that this could be a great scientific interchange and good confidence-building measure. We’re trying to determine whether there’s enough interest to go further, to put more detailed approaches on the table.

As you know, all monitoring and verification of other people’s work requires both sides to be comfortable with the approach. So, before we go do a lot of work to put a detailed proposal on the technical approach on the table, we are trying to judge the interest. That’s the stage we’re at now. We believe there are multiple ways you could do this that we would be comfortable with. We’re trying to judge if there’s enough interest to put these ideas on the table and begin a dialogue with our counterparts in other countries and have reciprocity.

ACT: In terms of the dialogue, would the Biden administration be open to consulting with the CTBTO about some of these techniques because, ultimately, it is going to be responsible for verifying compliance with this treaty?

Hruby: Absolutely. [CTBTO Executive Secretary] Rob Floyd has been out to the Nevada site. I think he was our last international visitor. We’re willing to have other CTBTO ambassadors come visit. Again, we really have nothing to hide, but we also feel like the benefit of this is if we all do it, not just if one of us does it. That’s where we’d like to go. Rob’s been out, I’m sure we’ll have him out again. We bring the public to [the Nevada site]. We’ll do a special tour for people that are more interested in the subject, hopefully the ambassadors in Vienna. We’ll see if we can work up some momentum and some interest in transparency and reciprocity.

ACT: You say you’re trying to “judge the interest,” but what has been the interest so far?

Hruby: The interest so far is hard to judge. There are obviously people listening because there’s more chatter about it, including comments by the Russians. That being said, it doesn’t seem to be moving in exactly the direction that we had hoped, where people are saying this seems like a good idea and something that is relatively easy to do from a confidence-building measure or technical measures [perspective].

We know the arms control regime is not in a good place. We know that strategic stability isn’t where we need it to be. We would like to get back to real arms control discussions. We would like to get back to strategic stability discussions. That’s not in a good place, but let’s choose something easy, and we consider this quite easy. But so far, I would say we don’t have a positive vibe. What we have is a vibe of, well, okay, put more on the table. So, that’s going to have to be a whole-government decision whether we put more on the table. I can’t decide just to do that by myself, that would be presumptuous. Congress has a role to play in that, the White House has a role to play in that. It’s not just my decision alone. So, what we’ve gotten is,
it feels a bit more like a challenge than like a discussion.

ACT: Not only has Russia withdrawn its ratification of the CTBT, but there are reports that Russia is making improvements around Novaya Zemlya. Do you interpret these moves as political signaling, an indication that Russia is going to resume testing, or both?

Hruby: I’m not in the intelligence community. I’m not making assessments. My job is to be aware and prepared for actions that the Russians or anybody else may make. That’s why we’re doing the nonproliferation experiments, to get better at detecting seismic activities at former test sites or anywhere in the world. So, I don’t know. I don’t know whether it’s political signaling or they’re getting prepared to test. But I sure would like to have an agreement that we’re going to abide by the CTBT and that we’ll do this together in a cooperative way. I’m trying to nudge it in that direction because I think the CTBT has been a stabilizing treaty and I’d like to see us all continue to uphold that treaty. If there is anything that we can do to help with that, we would like to do that.

The crater-scarred landscape of the Nevada Test Site at the north end of Yucca Flat as it looked in 1995. From 1951 until 1958, the United States conducted 119 atmospheric tests in this valley and from 1962 until 1992, it conducted more than 1,000 underground tests. The United States has observed a moratorium on nuclear testing since 1992. (Photo by Galerie Bilderwelt/Getty Images)ACT: It’s been about a quarter century since the SSP was established and nuclear explosive testing in the United States was halted. Would you say, in your experience previously as a lab director and now as NNSA administrator, that the United States has a better or diminishing level of confidence in the reliability and performance of the warheads and the arsenal? Are we learning more from
the SSP as it has evolved than we did during the days of frequent full-scale explosive testing?

Hruby: I feel like we know more fundamentally about weapon performance today as a result of our SSP than we knew during the era of large-scale nuclear explosive tests.

ACT: One of your agency’s responsibilities is maintaining the safety and reliability of the warheads, and the NNSA has a very ambitious schedule and plan for modernizing and upgrading existing types of warheads. But questions come up from time to time about whether this refurbishment program is introducing new variables and new components that veer from previously tested designs and concepts. How are you trying to ensure that the warhead refurbishments now planned do not introduce those kinds of variables that raise questions about reliability that could in turn lead to calls for resuming nuclear explosive testing?

Hruby: We have a robust surveillance program, and that starts as we deploy weapons. We don’t wait for the systems to be in for 10 to 20 years and then surveil them. We begin surveillance immediately, and if we uncover any issues with any components, we address those immediately. There is this thing that we fondly refer to as the bathtub curve, where most problems happen very early from manufacturing defects, then things are pretty stable for a while, and then there’s an increase in issues over time as weapons age. So, we try to find all the problems. Again, we do flight tests. We do lab tests. We have a very active surveillance program. Can I guarantee there won’t be an issue that doesn’t require testing? No, that’s why we have the active surveillance program. But so far, when we find things, we can address them in a way that we don’t need testing. Our models and these experimental programs that we do, including the subcritical programs, help us make sure we don’t need to do nuclear explosive testing again.

ACT: The final report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States recommends that your agency plan to increase its production capacity beyond the current program of record to meet the two-peer threat from Russia and China. Is that even practical, given that the NNSA is having trouble fulfilling its plan to produce at least 30 plutonium pits for nuclear warheads per year at Los Alamos and at least 50 per year at Savannah River?

Hruby: We’re going through the recommendations of the strategic posture commission report carefully. The administration will be reviewing, as we already do, our nuclear deterrence posture. At the NNSA, we are trying to design for flexibility as we build these new facilities, including the pit facilities that you referred to. The requirement for us was a minimum of 80 pits per year. We have tried to build these facilities so that there’s some room so that if we have to expand capability in the future that we would have the capacity to do that. We don’t want to overbuild, and we don’t want to underbuild, but we need to build flexibility into the way we think about the facilities that we’re constructing now.

We always talk about how we’re trying to build a resilient and flexible enterprise. Flexible means the ability to scale up as suggested in the strategic posture commission report or the ability to scale down without closing things the way we did at the end of the Cold War, which has now caused us to be in a position where we have to start from scratch on some things. Resilience means that we don’t want single-point failures. So, for example, that’s why we’re building a facility at Los Alamos and another one at Savannah River. If anything were to go wrong at either one of those, we would have resilience.

Hruby discusses what the United States is doing to ensure that its nuclear weapons are safe and reliable and how transparency can help prevent nuclear-weapon states from returning to testing.

Strengthening the Chemical Weapons Convention: An Interview with Joseph Manso, U.S. Ambassador to the OPCW


April 2023

Joseph Manso, U. S. ambassador to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, says that “a violator of the norm against chemical weapons [such as Syria] will not be treated as a normal country.” (Photo: OPCW)Delegates to the fifth review conference of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) will convene in The Hague on May 15 with two markers on their scoresheet. One is positive: the United States is on track to complete the destruction of its chemical weapons stockpile in September, in line with its CWC obligations. The other is ominous: two CWC states are known violators of the 26-year-old convention, which outlaws the development, production, and use of deadly chemical weapons and requires the verifiable destruction of remaining stockpiles. As the convention’s implementing body, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), recently confirmed that Syria has used chemical weapons five times against its own civilians. U.S. and European officials have accused Russia of using a chemical agent in its attempted assassinations of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny and of Sergei Skirpal, a former Russian military intelligence office, and his daughter, Yulia, in the United Kingdom. Political leaders, academics, and civil society groups have many ideas how the CWC can be strengthened, including enhancing OPCW forensic capabilities, adding more chemicals to the CWC ban list, and reframing the CWC mission to expand the use of challenge inspections. Yet, the review conference takes place under the same tough conditions plaguing many international meetings in the past year. Russia’s unprovoked war on Ukraine has upended the international system, intensifying hostilities and mistrust among leading nations and making it more difficult to deal with security challenges. Carol Giacomo, editor of Arms Control Today, spoke with Joseph Manso, the U.S. ambassador to the OPCW, about expectations for the review conference. This interview has been edited for space and clarity.

ARMS CONTROL TODAY: What do you think have been the major successes of the CWC over the
past three decades?

U.S. Ambassador Joseph Manso: I think it is a tremendous success. The United States really values both the CWC and the OPCW. Among the successes would be, first of all, the now-almost-completed destruction of declared chemical weapons stockpiles. I am emphasizing declared stockpiles, and this is, I think for the first time, the elimination of a whole category of weapons of mass destruction. It’s an impressive achievement and has strongly reinforced the norm against chemical weapons use, and I think that’s tremendously important. Even today, only a very small number of countries challenge that norm, and they don’t do so openly. The Assad regime [in Syria] does not admit to using chemical weapons. The Russian Federation, even when Navalny was poisoned or the Skripals were poisoned, does not admit to using chemical weapons because they know that the norm against chemical weapons use is so strong that if they admitted to it, they would really have no sympathy in the international community. So, I would say destruction of a whole class of weapons of mass destruction and reinforcement of the norm against chemical weapons use are two very significant achievements.

Then there is the work of the [OPCW] Technical Secretariat in international cooperation and assistance, which is important [and] ongoing, and we hope to see it further strengthened. Part of what will strengthen it is the new Center for Chemistry and Technology that’s coming online. The center has a lab, much expanded from what the OPCW has now. It also has classrooms for training and cooperation, conference spaces for meetings, and an equipment storage area that allows for hands-on training with very sophisticated equipment to detect and analyze various chemical weapons and compounds. The bottom line is, I think the OPCW has done a lot of good work.

ACT: When does that center become operational?

Manso: The 12th of May is the official opening, but the Technical Secretariat is in the process of moving into the facility now.

ACT: The OPCW determined that the Assad regime used chemical weapons against the opposition in Syria. There has been public shaming, but no real price paid for that. How does that serve deterrence? It certainly isn’t deterring Assad.

Manso: That’s a fair question. I would say there are a couple of points to it. First, before the OPCW did this investigating allegations of chemical weapons use alone, it had a joint team with the United Nations, the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), which attributed four chemical weapons attacks in Syria to the Assad regime. The Russians decided they were not happy with this and vetoed the extension of the JIM. They used their veto three times in one day to prevent any extension of the JIM. So then, the OPCW created the Investigation and Identification Team, which has now attributed five chemical weapons attacks, through rigorous scientific methods and analyzing the evidence, to the Assad regime. This is a tremendous advance over what the OPCW could do previously, when its teams were authorized to say whether or not chemical weapons were used, but they were not authorized or mandated to attribute the attacks to any particular party. So, it is a step in the right direction and some added teeth for the OPCW because the organization can investigate and say chemical weapons were used or not and can attribute it to a particular party.

Last August, people in Idlib, Syria, staged a demonstration against the Assad regime for its chemical weapons attack on Eastern Ghouta in 2013. Thousands of women and children were affected by the poisonous agents used in the attack.  (Photo by Muhammed Said/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)The other thing is that the OPCW is a treaty-based international organization. It is a political organization, not a court of law or a military alliance. It is not fair to expect them to do things that legitimately fall in the domain of other types of institutions. What the OPCW can do, and I would agree with you that deterrence is important, is the OPCW can extract a political price for using chemical weapons. A violator of the norm against the use of chemical weapons will not be treated as a normal country. People will know that you are not a normal country, that you used chemical weapons. In fact, at an OPCW Conference of the States Parties meeting in 2021, it was determined that Syria would be stripped of certain rights and privileges at the OPCW, such as the right to vote and the right to hold office until it fulfills its obligations. Now you might say, well, President [Bashar] Assad probably isn’t up at night worrying about whether or not he has an OPCW vote or Syria holds an office at the OPCW. But there is a broader strategy here, and the broader strategy is to isolate the Syrian regime, delegitimize them, and not have them treated as a normal country.

This OPCW action is not an isolated incident. It is part of this broader policy of not treating the Assad regime as a normal country and reinforcing other tools so there is a political price to pay. Having said that, there’s also a conversation, and I’m not the right guy to go into detail on this, on judicial pathways for attributing judicial responsibility for chemical weapons use. That’s what courts could do. One person to talk to about this would be, for example, Beth Van Schaack, who is the U.S. ambassador-at-large for global criminal justice. There are criminal cases that have been brought against the Assad regime by officials in Germany and France, and now there is an ongoing discussion of whether there should be an international attempt to hold them judicially responsible.

ACT: Is that something that the United States is planning to participate in, to lead?

Manso: Well, not me personally because I’m the U.S. representative to the OPCW and the OPCW is not a judicial body. But if you ask, is the United States interested in this, the answer is yes, and we’re very interested in participating in these conversations on judicial responsibility for chemical weapons use and seeing how this could be designed and carried out. But we’re in the early days on this.

ACT: You said the norm against chemical weapons has been strengthened. But Russia is a major impediment. It has been accused of using chemical weapons itself and is creating havoc in Ukraine. The Russians are aligned with Assad and don’t hold him to account. What do you do about that?

Russia is blamed for the near fatal poisoning of the now-imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, seen inside a glass cell during a district court hearing in Moscow in 2021. Russia and Syria are the only two states-parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention that are accused of using chemical weapons. (Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images)Manso: I would say that Russia is not in compliance with its obligations under the CWC, and I would very much agree that the evidence points to Russia having used a chemical agent in its attempted assassination of Navalny and also for the acts [against the Skripals] on UK soil. But I have two other points. One, it is only a very small number of countries that are willing to use chemical weapons. You have Syria and Russia. North Korea probably was also involved in an incident, but they’re not a member to the CWC. So, of the countries in the CWC that have used chemical weapons, it’s essentially Russia and Syria. As I said, they deny it. So, they feel the need to try to cover their tracks; Bellingcat has done a great job of uncovering those tracks.

I’m very glad the Navalny film won the Oscar, and I hope Navalny is released from his unjust imprisonment. But at the end of the day, on the enforcement of regimes, you strive for perfection, you don’t always get it. Most countries abide by the CWC. There are a very small number of bad actors, and we need to focus on that. You don’t cover it up, but also don’t ignore the fact that most countries are in fact playing by the rules.

ACT: As we look toward this review conference in May, apart from Russia and Ukraine, what other challenges do you see, and what are you expecting to come out of it?

Manso: The review conference is also an opportunity. The future holds different challenges than the past. Destruction of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile should be completed by September. The new Center for Chemistry and Technology is coming online, as I said, in May. So, we have an opportunity to strengthen the OPCW and make it fit for purpose for the future.

We’d like the verification regime and international cooperation and assistance programs enhanced. We would like to see further work on dealing with the threat of nonstate actors or terrorists using chemical weapons. We would very much like to see continued scientific work and improved capacity for addressing the threats from new and novel types of toxic chemicals. All of these are opportunities to make this organization fit for the future. So, the U.S. policy is, we value the CWC, we value the OPCW. Based on that policy, we’re very much looking to have a positive forward-looking agenda as part of the review conference.

What always happens in diplomacy is that getting consensus on a final conference document among all the CWC states-parties is going to be difficult. As in other arms control forums over the past year, sometimes you succeed and sometimes you don’t, and my crystal ball is no better than anybody else’s. If you ask me, will the review conference succeed, the answer is, we’re committed to doing our part to make it a success. We’d certainly like to see a consensus document, which I think most participating countries would like to see. Let’s stay flexible and work for success.

ACT: On verification measures, what would you consider success coming out of this review conference?

Manso: There are a lot of different angles on verification, so part of it would be the OPCW retaining the knowledge that they have gathered from these various investigations that they’ve done and combining that with the new lab where they’d be able to do things like chemical forensics.

It is also about making the industry verification regime more efficient and updating the approach there. We could explore the challenges in the industry cluster and see what is needed in terms of improvements. The idea would be that better verification helps build confidence in the treaty. From the U.S. point of view and the point of view of many other countries, while you want to do verification more efficiently and you want to do it well, you don’t want to do it in a way that creates an undue burden on industry.

ACT: Is improved verification a priority among the things you’d like to see come out of the review conference?

Manso: It’s one of the priorities. The overarching priority is full implementation of the treaty. That means we do better on verification, and it also means we do better on areas like international cooperation and assistance.

ACT: Of the eight CWC states-parties that have declared that they possess chemical weapons, the United States was the first to begin destruction of its stockpile under the treaty but is now scheduled to be the last one to complete the process. What has been the holdup?

Manso: If you’re going to deal with these issues, you’re going to deal with local governments, with local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), with the U.S. Congress, with environmental concerns. It’s a complicated process. Not that we can’t do it, not that we haven’t been doing it, not that we aren’t going to finish in September; but if you ask me why it took us such a long time, one, we did have a large stockpile; and two, we had to work it through our system. Our system is not the fastest system in the world, but it does provide for stakeholders to express their views and be satisfied.

If you go to Bluegrass, Kentucky, or Pueblo, Colorado [where the last U.S. chemical weapons stockpiles are based], the local communities are very well informed of what’s going on in those destruction sites. They are very well aware of the environmental safeguards that have been taken. I was very pleasantly surprised at the level of local support for those efforts. That didn’t happen overnight or easily, and with the congressional history of this, even just moving those chemicals around to get them to certain destruction sites was a controversial thing because who wants a trainload of chemical weapons passing through their community? These were the kinds of environmental and political issues you would expect in a project of this type. Not only is the United States committed to the destruction of our own stockpile, but we have given substantial funding and expertise to help other countries destroy their stockpiles, including the Russian Federation.

ACT: Are you confident the September deadline is firm?

Manso: Yes, we are. There are two sides to the deadline. We agreed to a compromise at the OPCW, in which September was the deadline. But my understanding, and again the experts on this are over at [the U.S. Department of Defense], and what they tell me is we’re on track. In fact, we have destroyed more than 99 percent of the U.S. stockpile.

ACT: There are still four countries outside the CWC: Egypt, Israel, North Korea, and South Sudan. Can you bring them into the fold?

Manso: The United States is committed to universality, so we’d like to see everybody in. I do think it’s different for each country. South Sudan is working with a number of other participating states on developing its national legislation. My impression is that this is a capacity issue. It’s a new country, it’s a new government. I don’t think they have a political problem with acceding to the CWC, but they want to develop the capability so they’re able to say they can fulfill their obligations. South Sudan’s accession is a work in progress; I would not call it a problem.

North Korea, that is a problem. They’re not inclined to join. They probably have a very big stockpile, and it’s part of a much bigger problem that goes beyond just the OPCW. I think what we can do in partnership with the OPCW Technical Secretariat is stay ready so that when the U.S. stockpile destruction is over, the OPCW maintains the expertise to verify destruction so that they could help the North Koreans, should that ever come to pass.

That leaves us with Egypt and Israel. I think there the likely scenario would be that they both decide to join the CWC at the same time. Given the larger dynamics of the politics in the Middle East, that’s a tough one. But that’s the broad expectation, that when the politics are ripe, we could get both of them in. We would be happy to work with our Egyptian and Israeli friends on this.

ACT: You’ve been very supportive of the involvement of NGOs in the CWC and the OPCW, although some states-parties have put up roadblocks. What would it take for the CWC and the OPCW to become more inclusive of civil society?

Manso: Not just the United States. There are many countries that are very supportive of including NGOs. One thing we did at the last conference of the states-parties was, together with Canada, Norway, Germany, and the European Union, organize a series of events outside of the conference hall. We were able to invite those NGOs that had been blocked and also the NGOs that were in the hall, so the NGOs could talk with each other through organized programs. I certainly think that more could be done along those lines, and maybe we could have—these are just ideas—a one-day meeting with NGOs and civil society before important OPCW meetings. As long as you don’t have it on the premises of the conference, NGOs could participate, and nobody could block them. Under the current OPCW guidelines, and it’s going to be hard to change them because of the nature of international organizations, there is the possibility to block NGOs from participating in the [conference] hallway, but you can’t block them from showing up in The Hague and interacting with delegations.

Then maybe we can incrementally modify and improve the guidelines so it gets a little bit harder to block NGOs. A lot of organizations have this problem. It’s not unique to the OPCW, but there is a group of delegations that are committed to immediate relief, by doing events for NGOs connected to the meetings but not in the meeting hall so they can’t be blocked. They are also committed to incremental improvements in the guidelines so that we can better interact with NGOs. It should be one of the topics at the review conference: how do we improve our connection to civil society. NGOs are part of civil society, but that could also include academics and industry representatives. I mean we should be able to have fluid interaction with civil society.

ACT: Have you set up those kinds of side meetings for the May review conference?

Manso: We’re talking about them right now, and I would think that we’ll get serious about planning them right after the Executive Council session, which is on March 14–17. The only thing I’d add is that this administration is very committed to arms control. The United States wants to maintain a leadership position in arms control. We want to see it advance, even understanding that the overall geopolitical framework is not always the easiest. But we remain committed to arms control in general and the OPCW specifically. The whole idea of using the review conference to strengthen the OPCW, enhance its capabilities, enhance the norm against chemical weapons use, all of that is part of the broader policy.

ACT: As we discussed, Russia is a problem, but does China work with you?

Manso: I will say China does sometimes support the Russians. Depends on the issue, but not every time. We can certainly talk to our Chinese colleagues, absolutely.

 

Despite chemical weapons violations by Russia and Syria, Manso is bullish about the treaty and its impact.

Making the Case That Nuclear Weapons Are Immoral: An Interview With Archbishop John C. Wester


December 2022

(Photo by Leslie M. Radigan)If nuclear weapons are ever eliminated, it will be the result of actions big and small at every communal level, from international leaders to civil society. The Reverend John C. Wester occupies a unique role in this continuum as the Roman Catholic archbishop of Santa Fe, whose archdiocese is home to the Los Alamos and Sandia national nuclear laboratories and site of the first Manhattan Project nuclear tests. In January, Wester issued a pastoral letter, “Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation Toward Nuclear Disarmament,” which called for the abolition of nuclear weapons and declared that the archdiocese “must be part of a strong peace initiative.” He had a compelling basis for action: In 2021, Pope Francis shifted the church’s position from accepting deterrence as a legitimate rationale for nuclear weapons to decrying the possession of nuclear weapons as “immoral.” Even with the pope’s admonition, however, Wester is finding his peace initiative slow going. He discussed his efforts with Carol Giacomo, editor of Arms Control Today. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

ARMS CONTROL TODAY: You often tell the story of visiting Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 2017. It almost seems like an epiphany. How did that trip and other forces, including serving as the top Roman Catholic Church official in Santa Fe, home to Los Alamos and Sandia, propel you to take on the mission of eliminating nuclear weapons?

Archbishop John C. Wester: Until I came here to Santa Fe, I was pretty much like I believe most people are, lulled into a false sense of complacency. I did not think much of nuclear weapons, to be honest. I do remember vividly 60 years ago during the Cuban missile crisis, but going to Japan and going to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and seeing the children, that was what really hit me most. I saw the display in the museum there, the audio and video displays and all the pictures. They had this one of the children rushing to the window to see the bright light that was detonated above their heads. That really hit me hard, it was a visceral moment, and I think it was an epiphany. It was a real sea change in my own attitude and my own consciousness of nuclear weapons.

ACT: How did you school yourself on nuclear issues, which can be an arcane subject?

Wester: It was very gradual. It involved taking my family members and friends to the museum in Santa Fe and looking at the Manhattan Project [displays]. Initially, there was a feeling in me of a kind of national pride, in what our country came up with, what the scientists and all did. Then immediately I felt, wait a minute, I'm looking at what we created and developed and manufactured and sent out to Japan. These are the very bombs I'm looking at that killed those children. So, the disconnect and the sharp contrast was so real.

As a man of faith—I believe in God, obviously—I really believe it was providential. I was asked to give a talk at our state capitol in Santa Fe on peace and nuclear disarmament, and I gave the talk. To be honest, at that time, these were words to me, and I didn't really understand a lot of them yet. Then I met this gentleman, who went to the talk, and he's become a very dear friend of mine now, Jay Coghlan, the head of Nuclear Watch New Mexico. He saw me afterwards, and he asked me questions. My first thought was, “Oh gosh, here's one of these radicals.” He challenged me to be more upfront about this subject and not just to give one talk but to get into it.

A tourist at the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos, New Mexico, examines a full-size replica of the 'Fat Man' atomic bomb that was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on August 9, 1945. The museum is operated by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Los Alamos National Lab, which was established in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, the nation's top secret program to develop and build the atomic bomb. The lab remains central to the U.S. nuclear program. (Photo by Robert Alexander/Getty Images)One thing led to another, and we ended up writing a pastoral letter. I thought this is exactly what I should do as the archbishop of Santa Fe, where all these nuclear weapons programs started. Santa Fe has to have a place at the table discussing those issues. Then I started reading up, including some things that are in favor of dropping the bomb in World War II, just so I can hear more from the other side. I don't want to be myopic on it. I'm on a steep learning curve, and I'm doing my best to get it because my whole intent is to keep the conversation going further. We have to keep talking about this until one day we can really rid the world of nuclear weapons.

ACT: Pope Francis has made disarmament a major focus, declaring that possessing nuclear weapons is “immoral.” What do you see as the faith basis for arguing for an end to nuclear weapons?

Wester: This is an extremely important point. I believe it's an ethical principle for all human beings, regardless of their faith or if they have no faith, that Pope Francis boldly and courageously, I would say, declared that even possessing nuclear weapons is immoral. To me that moved the moral needle like crazy. In 1983 the bishops of the United States said it was okay to have nuclear weapons for deterrence, and that seemed plausible to me. But then Pope Francis says no, you can't even possess them, what you're doing just having them sit there is immoral.

I think that really was a wake-up call. I have to admit that it's a good thing when the pope says it because it sure makes it easier for me because you do get interesting letters when you make a bold statement [like that]. Indeed, the pope is right on target because nuclear weapons are immoral; and considering their potential lethalness, they could destroy all of us and the planet and civilization. If anyone still survived the nuclear winter, it would send us all back to the ice age. We'd all be in caves and writing on the walls, and everything would have to be reinvented, you know, the alphabet and penicillin and you name it. I'm learning quickly that people don't want to talk about it.

ACT: You recently gave a speech in which you noted that the U.S. Catholic Church and the media have ignored the pope's call. If the pope made such an issue of nuclear weapons, why aren't all clergy speaking out? If you can't get the Catholic clergy to do it, how can you expect to rally others?

Wester: It's a very good question, but it's a complicated one. Part of it has to do with the polarization in our world and our politics and in our church, and part of it has to do with a more conservative approach, even to things like defenses and the whole nuclear armament question. I think it's also tied to a new point that the pope has made that nuclear weapons are immoral. A lot of people that I'm conversing with, and I welcome all angles, really do believe that we need these nuclear arms for deterrence. They think that this is the right way to go. I would say, unfortunately, they don't understand.

As [U.S. Secretary of Defense] Robert McNamara said many decades ago, the only reason we didn't have a problem in the Cuban missile crisis was because of luck. We've been lucky. We've had miscues, such as Soviet submarine officers who decided not to fire their nuclear weapons. There have been bombs dropped, even here in Albuquerque, that did not detonate because one last little low-voltage switch didn't turn on and luckily nothing detonated. How long is our luck going to last? Anybody who gambles for a living will tell you it never lasts forever. But this is something that people, either because they don't want to or because they're afraid to think of it, just don't want to deal with. Yet, we have to do it because if we don't do it now, it's going to be too late; and once it's too late, it truly is too late.

ACT: What feedback have you gotten as you advocate eliminating nuclear weapons?

Wester: The response I've gotten, including from the archdiocese and the church in general, has been—how would I characterize it? If you're a teacher, grading on the A-thru-F scale, I'd put it at a C-minus. The response has been polite. Some people, very few, have said, “Wow, we're so glad you did this, it's so important.” The people you'd expect [with disarmament organizations] have been very favorable, but in the general population, I’d say it has been polite but very unengaged, not wanting to talk about it. My sense is that they're hoping the issue will just go away. That's one thing we're doing our very best not to let happen. We've translated the pastoral letter into Japanese and Korean and Spanish. We've just ordered 1,000 more copies in Spanish, so we're doing our very best to get the word out to keep this conversation going.

But the response has been lackluster. I haven't gotten a lot of hate mail. Maybe that's because, deep down, most people do understand that nuclear weapons are not a good thing. I'm trying to read that. Maybe deep down, they know we do have to do something about it but would just as soon someone else do it. I think, too, with the Ukraine war and with [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin rattling his nuclear saber, that scares people. India-Pakistan, China-Taiwan, Iran, all of these geopolitical issues scare people. They're probably feeling the best offense is a good defense so let's keep building these plutonium pit cores [for nuclear weapons] and let's keep doing what we're doing. What we're doing is really pursuing a second arms race that's probably more dangerous than the first.

ACT: Have you met with executives at the labs at Los Alamos and Sandia or with defense industry CEOs?

Workers conduct an analysis of plutonium at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico where plutonium pits for nuclear weapons are manufactured.  (Photo courtesy of Los Alamos National Laboratory)Wester: Yes. We are going to. We had quite a few date possibilities this last summer. I was going to meet with scientists in the Los Alamos labs, and we're still going to do it, we just could not come up with a date, I suppose because of the vacations and all. So, I want to have that conversation. I have gotten some responses from some engineers and scientists at Sandia and Los Alamos that have been positive. They've said they agree with the pastoral letter. They read the summary of it at least, and they do agree with its ultimate desire to rid the world of nuclear arms. But my sense is that they think that we have quite a few steps to take before we get there. It's hedging their bets maybe. We've already waited too long. There are 13,000 weapons in the world today, with more being produced. Several countries are modernizing their weapons, including with hypersonic delivery systems, and all this portends badly for the future.

ACT: Presumably, some people are worried about losing jobs if the nuclear industry goes away. You have suggested that if nuclear weapons are eliminated, the scientists and their skills can be used for other things such as verification work and environmental cleanup. Do people consider that argument credible?

Wester: The feedback has been mixed. I think it's more one of disbelief, like, prove it, show me. We're working on that, trying to get more statistics. I think there are two points there, though, that really are compelling. One is that there's going to be about $9.4 billion spent by the U.S. Department of Energy in New Mexico this fiscal year for nuclear weapons development, most of it for Los Alamos and plutonium pit core production, and also for the Sandia labs for nuclear weapons life extension programs. I think it's $8.5 billion. So, that’s 10 percent more than the state of New Mexico’s entire operating budget. People see those numbers and they go, “New Mexico is benefiting from all this money,” but in fact New Mexico is not benefiting from all this money. There are some who are, and obviously Los Alamos is one of the wealthiest areas of the United States. But the money does not really trickle down to the average citizen in New Mexico. It's kind of a red herring to think that all this money is going to help. It doesn't.

Number two, the labs are already doing other things besides developing and building nuclear arms. They were at work helping with the COVID-19 crisis. They also do work in the medical field and on climate control questions, and if we really do have verifiable, multilateral nuclear disarmament, we're going to need very clean and well-developed technology to do what [President Ronald] Reagan said, trust and verify. That's going to be a huge industry. I don't deny that whenever there's a switch—when the Industrial Revolution came along, or when technology and computers came along—obviously there are going to be instances of people losing a particular job. But in the main, I believe there'll be far more jobs available because of this. Plus, this is going to be a gradual thing. We're not going to unilaterally disarm tomorrow morning. So, I think the job question can definitely be answered clearly and, I think, satisfactorily.

ACT: Is there anybody in the New Mexico congressional delegation who's been particularly supportive?

Wester: Yes. I think Representative Melanie Stansbury has been supportive, and I'm very grateful to her. But our delegation pretty much is backing up the nuclear weapons industry here in New Mexico, and this is going to be a tough nut to crack. But we're going to do our very best to do so because we've got to really make our case with them, and we have to make the case at the grassroots level. We're trying to develop a grassroots here to get our archdiocesan and parish peace and justice commissions to be more conversant on the pastoral letter and on this issue so they can start writing letters. Politicians want to know where the votes are, and if we can show them that we've got the votes, that's going to make a big difference.

ACT: In a June public statement, you asked what the United States was afraid of when it refused to even attend a meeting of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Later, you accused nuclear-weapon states of having no intention to honor their pledge to eliminate nuclear weapons. Have you gotten any pushback from federal officials on such comments?

Wester: Not to my knowledge. I know when I came out with my [state capitol speech] a couple years ago, I got pushback from the local paper, the Albuquerque Journal, which is a conservative-biased paper. They refuted my speech, and to their credit, they published a letter to the editor that we wrote back as a counterrefutation. I'm a pretty small voice in this whole question. I don't think people really hear my voice. But maybe if I keep speaking, I'll become annoying enough. It's going to take real leadership to do what we're asking, for the United States to take the lead and work with the other nuclear parties to say, “Look, we've got to do something about this.” In my opinion, we also have to come to an agreement that we will not have any first-strike plans in our nuclear posture review. That alone would be a very important first step.

Right now, everybody's too afraid to make the first move, and I think the United States has to do that. I think President Joe Biden and his administration are handling the Ukraine war tragedy very well and they're trying to tamp down any panic or possibility of miscommunication [prompted by Putin’s nuclear threats]. I think they're doing as best they can, given the circumstances. They've taken real leadership on this, and the way I see the geopolitical landscape right now, I think the United States is the one to make that first step [on nuclear policy as well].

ACT: What did you think of the administration’s new nuclear policy review, which did not include a no-first-use nuclear strike component?

Wester: I'm a neophyte in many ways on this, but from my vantage point, I found the Nuclear Posture Review that came out recently very disappointing. It's going in exactly the wrong directions and not showing the necessary leadership. It’s frustrating that a lot of times, politicians will say things as they go up the ladder, but then when they get to a position where they really can do something, they pull back. They're privy to information I don't have, obviously, but it seems to be quite logical that having these nuclear arms is just untenable and we've got to do something about it and we've got to start taking the first step.

We're not asking President Biden or President Putin or [Chinese] President Xi Jinping to unilaterally disarm. We're asking them to begin. Why can't we go back to those days when we went from, like, 60,000 nuclear weapons down to what we have now, 13,000? That was quite a significant reduction in nuclear armaments. It seems to me that we could take the leadership and start that diplomacy going again. But for some reason, there just does not seem to be the will at those higher levels that you speak of.

ACT: As you mentioned earlier, we are in a different political environment, and there's a real turn, certainly in this country, toward grievance and vitriol. That's a pretty tough environment in which to make policy that breaks the mold.

Wester: You're right, and it's absolutely irresponsible, for example, for the U.S. president to say [as President Donald Trump said to North Korean leader Kim Jung Un], “If you do this, you're going to see more hellfire from heaven than you've ever seen before.” We're just trying to get a political leader to move the needle back to the middle where he will be diplomatic and careful and prudent of what he says.

ACT: Are there any concluding points you want to make?

Wester: There's one thing that really speaks to me, and that is, as I am doing this, I do get the impression that a lot of people look at me and say, “Oh well, archbishop, aren't you a nice man, why don't you just go back to your sacristy and say your prayers and don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong.” I have a feeling that what they're saying to me is, “You're just being naive, you really don't understand what we're dealing with, we're the scientists, we're the politicians, we're the ones who know what we're talking about.” I would say back to them, who really is it that's being naive? If they look at all the years now that we've had nuclear weapons, as I've said earlier, and as McNamara, [President Dwight] Eisenhower, Reagan have said, really, it's only by luck that we haven't destroyed the planet yet.

It's far more naive to think that we can continue the way that we're going, building up our nuclear arms, and to think that luck is going to save the day. To me, that’s the epitome of naiveté. What we need to do is roll up our sleeves and start talking seriously about the danger our planet Earth is in. You talk about climate change; this to me is the number one issue of climate change. You talk about the sanctity of human life; this to me is the number one issue of human life, because these bombs would destroy all of human life and all of any living, sentient beings. So, I'm waiting for the day for somebody to come up and just say it, you know, archbishop, you're a bit naive. Oh? Because I think you're naive.

He knows some think he is naïve but says, “It’s far more naïve to think that we can continue the way that we’re going.”

The Humanitarian Case for Banning Nuclear Weapons: An Interview With Alexander Kmentt


May 2022

The Russian war on Ukraine and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats to use nuclear weapons to compensate for his country’s conventional military setbacks there have concentrated public attention on nuclear weapons to a degree not seen in decades. It is also likely to raise the profile of a meeting scheduled for June 21–23 in Vienna of the states-parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). The treaty, which makes a humanitarian argument for banning all nuclear weapons, went into force in January 2021, and this meeting is the first time that member states are gathering to reinforce its provisions and press forward its mission. Carol Giacomo, chief editor of Arms Control Today, asked Alexander Kmentt, director of disarmament, arms control, and nonproliferation at the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and president-designate of the first meeting of TPNW states-parties, to discuss what they hope to achieve, especially in light of the Russian war. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Arms Control Today: What is the subject and the purpose of this first meeting of TPNW states-parties in June?

Alexander Kmentt: The treaty entered into force a little over a year ago, after the 50th state notified the United Nations of its ratification. Because of COVID-19 delays, this is the first time the states-parties are getting together after the treaty entered into force to basically put the treaty and its implementation on track. It's very important because, after the entry into force, we are moving into a different phase. There are several important decisions that need to be taken, from basic organizational ones to substantive ones.

Anti-nuclear activists of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons and other peace initiatives protest with the 51 flags of countries that ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in front of the German Chancellery in Berlin on January 22. Their banner reads: “Nuclear weapons are forbidden!” (Photo by Tobias Schwarz/AFP via Getty Images)ACT: Can you talk about those substantive decisions?

Kmentt: One basic thing is, we have to agree on rules of procedure, so how are we going to work in the future as states-parties. In terms of substantive decisions, there are several. I can tell you where we are now in the preparations, a little over two months before the meeting starts, but of course all of this is subject to the approval of states-parties. First of all in terms of the main message, states-parties are clear that they want to show that this new treaty is a serious undertaking. The meeting is not an activist gathering. Of course, there will be a very strong civil society presence, which is very important and very welcome. But this is a formal meeting of states-parties who have gone through the due national processes to ratify this treaty and considered this very carefully. The states-parties are embarking on the implementation of this new international legal instrument. This is the most important message because there is such a contestation and false narrative around the TPNW. Secondly, the rationale of the TPNW is the evidence around humanitarian consequences and risks of nuclear weapons. We want to very strongly reemphasize these profound arguments and reconnect the nuclear debate to this aspect.

ACT: On the issue of humanitarian response, is there actually going to be a proposal on the table for how you approach this?

Kmentt: Yes. The TPNW has some important, novel aspects with the positive obligations of assistance for victims of nuclear weapons use and nuclear weapons testing, environmental remediation, cooperation, and assistance. We have several states-parties and signatories that have communities and areas that are, to this day, very heavily impacted by past nuclear weapons testing campaigns: Kazakhstan, for example, some of the Pacific Island states, or Algeria—that's a signatory state. So, we are embarking to develop a culture of work to find a way as a community of states-parties to address the humanitarian harm that has been caused, which of course underscores the need for prevention. The rights of victims, essentially, and communities will very much be put into focus. This underscores the humanitarian rationale of the TPNW in a very tangible way.

This approach is inspired by some of the victims-related work that has been done in other conventions, for example, on cluster munitions and anti-personnel landmines, where some of those concepts around a very human security-focused approach to victims have been developed. We are learning and profiting from this past experience.

When member states of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) meet in June, one issue will be ameliorating the effects of nuclear testing on places such as Kazakhstan. The Soviet Union detonated 467 nuclear bombs at the Semipalatinsk test site in the northeastern region of the country before it closed in 1991, resulting in thousands of victims who suffer from radioactive diseases. In this 2007 photo, a 4th generation radiation victim, accompanied by his grandmother (R), was treated for a liver disorder at the Medical Academy Center.  (Photo by John van Hasselt/Corbis via Getty Images)ACT: What other substantive issues will the meeting address?

Kmentt: There is one important decision related to the elimination of nuclear weapons, which the negotiation conference in 2017 explicitly tasked the first meeting of states-parties to take up. The TPNW foresees two ways for nuclear-armed states to join. One is essentially the South African model, by which a state first eliminates its weapons, has this verified, and then joins the TPNW, as was the case when South Africa joined the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear-weapon state in the 1990s. The second avenue is for a nuclear-armed state to join the TPNW and then eliminate its nuclear weapons in an agreed process of verified elimination. So, this is the framework foreseen by the TPNW. The treaty deliberately does not specify this further because the nuclear-armed states did not participate in the negotiations. This will have to be done at the later stage if and when a nuclear-armed state is ready to join the TPNW. Nevertheless, we have to agree at the meeting on a maximum deadline of verified elimination for nuclear-armed states that want to join the treaty. Of course, the individual time frames will have to be negotiated with individual nuclear-armed states once they join and to take into account the specificities.

Secondly, the treaty also foresees a maximum deadline for the removal of nuclear weapons if a nuclear hosting state joins the TPNW. So, this is again another substantive decision for the meeting. Then, the treaty foresees the designation of a competent international authority or authorities that will foresee the future elimination of nuclear weapons within the TPNW framework. Of course, we know that this is not that urgent because nuclear-armed states are currently reluctant to join the TPNW. Nevertheless, we will most likely take a decision to explore this issue in detail during the intersessional period [between states-parties conferences]. We will assess what is available in terms of existing expertise, what the competencies and mandate of such an authority would have to be so that states-parties are in a position to take a very well-informed decision on this issue in the future.

Moreover, universalization is an obligation under this treaty to its states-parties, and we are preparing that. Working on universalization is not merely encouraging new ratifications but promoting the arguments on which the treaty is based, namely the humanitarian consequences of and the risks associated with nuclear weapons.

Two more issues are being discussed. I'm optimistic that we'll find an agreement on how to best harness scientific advice for the treaty. I think that could be a very important deliverable for the first meeting of states-parties. We are discussing proposals for a scientific advisory group that will help states-parties implement technical aspects of the treaty, such as verification, and also to identify what is out there in terms of research on the humanitarian consequences and risks of nuclear weapons. This is a novel area and could be a very significant contribution for the TPNW and possibly beyond.

Second, states-parties are very clear that they want a strong message on the complementarity of the treaty with the nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation regime, in particular the NPT. States-parties are preparing all these decisions in a very serious way. There is a very high degree of common purpose. I have asked facilitators for all these different topics to prepare working papers that contain recommendations, possible actions, and decisions. I hope that these papers are very broadly supported by states-parties before and at the meeting.

ACT: How is what you are doing affected by the war in Ukraine and Putin’s nuclear threats?

Kmentt: I'm very happy to give you my own perspective on this, but I cannot do that as president of the TPNW meeting because states-parties have not yet formally discussed this. I think all of us struggle to understand what the implications of the war in Ukraine are going to be on the nuclear regime. I think the honest answer is that none of us really knows, except that the repercussions will be really profound. It can go in many different ways. I hope that what we have seen is a jolt that maybe rallies the international community, or at least the vast majority of the international community, into more focused and urgent action on nuclear disarmament.

I'm concerned about some of the nuclear weapons “muscle memory” that we observe. We have seen nuclear threats being made in the context of the situation in Ukraine, essentially to enable a nuclear-weapon state to invade a non-nuclear-weapon state in good standing with the NPT. I think it is profoundly damaging to the NPT. This highlights not only nuclear risks and the fragility of nuclear deterrence, it also further underscores the many legitimacy issues around nuclear weapons. What we have seen by these disconcerting developments turns the notion of nuclear-weapon states in the NPT broadly working together as five upside down. I think the P5 process is in very big difficulty and has lost credibility. I hope that there will still be some areas of cooperation left.

What we also noticed is that maybe the attention on the nuclear issue is back. We in the nuclear community were always convinced that this is an important issue, but the wider public didn't really care. It fell off the radar after the Cold War. I think we see that this is changing, that people realize that this is not something of the past or it's not something that's limited to the North Korean issue. In Europe, we see this very much, and people are scared and for good reason. I think that is also a consequence.

For the TPNW, I think the context is difficult, but it's difficult for the whole disarmament, arms control, and nonproliferation field. What we have seen underlines the fragility of nuclear deterrence stability and how precarious this entire construct is. The question is, What conclusions are drawn from this? I think it is also an opportunity for the TPNW to highlight the arguments of humanitarian consequences and risks of nuclear weapons. I always was convinced that this is very topical, but I think it has become even more important now. Ultimately, the question is whether reliance on nuclear deterrence as a construct that is supposed to bring stability to international relations is too precarious and unsustainable given the existential risks it entails for all humanity.

ACT: Are you concerned that the current international environment will propel non-nuclear-weapon states, such as Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Turkey, to acquire nuclear weapons?

Kmentt: It's an absolutely pertinent question. It is one of those pivotal moments where we could go two ways. It is possible that we move in the direction of more focus on nuclear weapons and the consequence of that will be a proliferation cascade. Whether the world at the end of that process is more secure, I think, is highly questionable. I suggest that it's not. Or, we use this as an opportunity to reinforce the treaties that we have. Maybe those in the international community that are responsible, that care about this normative framework, try to reinforce this normative framework. It is a real threshold moment. Are we “jumping back to the 1950s,” so to speak, into a situation where we did not yet have a nuclear treaty regime and basically have to restart again with rules and treaties, or can we use this as an opportunity to try to strengthen the framework that we have and prevent it from falling apart? The TPNW is the new kid on the block in this framework and we need to strengthen it.

ACT: Are states outside of the TPNW, such as Finland and Switzerland, still interested in attending the meeting and participating in the process in some way?

Kmentt: The short answer is yes. I think people are watching very carefully, very closely what we do in the TPNW process. There's a lot of false narratives going around, if I can say it in that way, from opponents of the TPNW, and that's why I think TPNW states-parties will be extremely focused on the seriousness of the enterprise. I am very much focused on the first meeting of states-parties, and I want this to be a successful meeting, but at the end of the day, the more important thing, really, is what happens afterwards. My goal is that at the end of the first meeting, the treaty is firmly established as a serious forum to engage meaningfully on the profound issues on which the TPNW is based.

This engagement by skeptics of the TPNW has been lacking. The TPNW has been vilified and accused of all sorts of things. We all understand the political dynamics behind it, but states-parties are undisturbed by that. We remain serious about this treaty, serious about our commitment to the TPNW and for a multilateral approach to nuclear weapons, nuclear disarmament, and nonproliferation. If this message comes out very strongly at the first meeting of states-parties, then I'm optimistic that some of these unfounded criticisms will fall away. At the end of the day, given what we are seeing now, TPNW opponents should ask themselves whether it is a good thing or a bad thing if more states are willing to take on legally binding obligations against nuclear weapons. I would make the point that we should welcome any additional legally binding commitment from any actor at the moment that tries to reinforce the normative framework and the nuclear disarmament regime.

ACT: Are there going to be any surprises? Is anybody going to show up at this conference that maybe we aren't expecting?

Kmentt: The UN secretary-general is the convener of this meeting. He has sent invitations to every UN member state. So, every UN member state is invited to participate, and our door is certainly open. As I said, from the TPNW side, we are not doing anything and will not do anything that will be an easy excuse for anyone not to show up and be part of this discussion. Of course, we cannot force anyone, but it will be the decision of non-states-parties whether or not to attend. It's not something that we do on the TPNW side to exclude the participation of anyone.

ACT: Have you had much conversation with the United States about this?

Kmentt: I had plenty of conversations with U.S. colleagues. Of course, the overall U.S. position on the TPNW hasn't changed. It's very clear, but there is a dialogue, and I think that's important. Certainly [the Biden] administration is very concerned about the future of the NPT, like all of us should be. With all the disagreement that there may be on some issues, I think there is a willingness to find ways of working together where possible. I think there's very clearly the interest there. Logically, the TPNW states-parties understand that the objective of the treaty will only be achieved with engagement with the states that have these weapons. We're not naive in that sense. We know that we cannot wish nuclear weapons away. This is a discursive process.

From my perspective, it is a very powerful proposition to discuss nuclear weapons from the perspective of humanitarian consequences and risks. It's only fair and a legitimate approach because the risks are borne by the entire international community. I’m convinced the TPNW represents the perspective of the vast majority of non-nuclear-weapon states who have felt disenfranchised about the nuclear discourse over the decades. The request for this discussion
is not going to disappear, and the stronger the TPNW becomes, the legitimacy and the weight to ask for this engagement will grow. I think that is why we want to set this treaty up in a serious way because that discussion has to happen at some stage.

ACT: How do you see the TPNW reinforcing what the NPT review conference, which meets in August, will do?

Kmentt: I think the prospects for the NPT review conference are very uncertain at the moment. It's extremely fragile, and we're all concerned about that. I can say this with absolute certainty, TPNW states-parties have absolutely no interest whatsoever that the NPT is damaged, quite the opposite. The entire TPNW community has always felt it was grossly offensive to be accused by some that the TPNW undermines the NPT. If you look at the states that have most actively promoted the TPNW—Ireland, for example, which has practically invented the NPT with the Irish resolution; South Africa, which had nuclear weapons, gave them up, and joined the NPT as a non-nuclear-weapon state; Mexico, which has led the entire continent with the Treaty of Tlatelolco, Kazakhstan; my own country, Austria; I could go on—these are states that have a clear and clean record in support of the NPT. We always felt that this was really an offensive accusation coming from states whose own NPT Article 6 implementation leaves some scope for improvement, to say the least.

The TPNW clearly reinforces Article 6 of the NPT [requiring states-parties to pursue nuclear disarmament]. This is one of the pillars of the NPT, and even opponents of the TPNW will agree that a prohibition of nuclear weapons is necessary to implement Article 6. The NPT is a framework treaty. Also, the nonproliferation provision of the NPT required additional instruments, for example, the safeguard systems of the [International Atomic Energy Agency]. So, conceptually, a prohibition is necessary to implement Article 6. The disagreement, if you wish, is, should this come at the end of the process of disarmament, or is it better to do it now? You can have a discussion about it, but that a prohibition is necessary, I think, is unequivocally clear.

Take the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), another weapons of mass destruction prohibition treaty. Nobody disputes the validity of the BWC, which does not have any verification provision. The TPNW follows the same logic and very clearly supports the NPT obligation of Article 6. Moreover, I would argue—and this an aspect that is underrepresented—that the TPNW is also a strong measure to support nonproliferation. By looking at the humanitarian consequences and risks of nuclear weapons, we make the argument that reliance on nuclear weapons is ultimately an irresponsible and unsustainable approach to security, so nobody should have them. This is absolutely a nonproliferation measure. So the TPNW supports the nonproliferation pillar of the NPT as well.

How can anybody with a clear mind therefore say that the TPNW undermines the NPT, because obviously the two essential pillars of the NPT, disarmament and nonproliferation, are supported by the TPNW? There was great care and consciousness in the negotiations to make sure that the TPNW is fully compatible with the NPT, and we are absolutely adamant about this. There will be a very clear message at the meeting of states-parties on complementarity between the TPNW and the NPT. I hope that these politically motivated accusations against the TPNW will stop being made.

The president-designate of the first meeting of states-parties of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons prepares to move the pact forward at a difficult time in Russian-U.S. relations.

When Ukraine Traded Nuclear Weapons for Security Assurances: An Interview with Mariana Budjeryn


April 2022

Since Russia launched its war on Ukraine many have wondered why Ukraine relinquished control of the nuclear weapons it inherited after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and whether, in retrospect, that decision was a mistake. After all, in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States promised “to respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders” of Ukraine and “refrain from the threat or use of force.” Carol Giacomo, the chief editor of Arms Control Today, put those questions to Mariana Budjeryn, a research associate at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, whose book Inheriting the Bomb: Soviet Collapse and Nuclear Disarmament of Ukraine will be published this year. This interview has been edited for space and clarity.

Arms Control Today: Help us understand why Ukraine gave up its nuclear stockpile and the implications.

Mariana Budjeryn: When the Soviet Union broke up, there were four former republics that inherited chunks of the Soviet strategic arms arsenal and production complex: the Russian Federation, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. Only Russia had a full nuclear fuel cycle, including warhead design and production facilities, and the ability to produce all the launch vehicles, such as bombers and missiles.

None of the three non-Russian successor states possessed a full fuel cycle, so they would have had to invest in these facilities to complete the missing links. Kazakhstan was the most endowed in terms of fuel; it was a supplier of uranium to the Soviet nuclear program and had fuel fabrication facilities. Ukraine did not have that, but it did have launch vehicle production. In addition, there were actual nuclear weapons on the ground, the so-called tactical nuclear weapons and the strategic missile force and strategic bombers, all armed with nuclear warheads.

When Ukraine began deliberating these choices after its independence, it had to contend with several things. One was that it was a part of the nuclear force that was designed by a different country—the Soviet Union—for the strategic purposes of that country. It would have had to do quite a bit of work to reshape the nuclear force into something that would have suited Ukraine. Even if Ukraine decided to establish control over these armaments, which, technically, it could with some effort, Ukraine would still not be able to use whatever it had to deter Russia because of the ranges. The intercontinental ballistic missiles that Ukraine inherited had ranges of 10,000 and more kilometers, so what kind of targets could you really hold at risk in Russia? Vladivostok? That wasn't very credible. Trying to maintain and then replace nuclear warheads would have required investment and would have, most importantly, put Ukraine at odds with the international community and its nonproliferation consensus.

An old Soviet SS-18 intercontinental ballistic missile on display at the Ukraine Strategic Missile Forces Museum outside of Kyiv. (Photo: Stefan Krasowski via Wikimedia)With all that said, we often forget that Ukraine started its path toward independent statehood with a preference to become a state free of nuclear weapons. That was codified in Ukraine's declaration of sovereignty that was passed by its parliament in July 1990, a full year and a half before the Soviet Union collapsed. That founding document set out a vision for how Ukraine might go about achieving independence from Moscow. In it, the parliament said Ukraine has the desire to become in the future a neutral, non-nuclear state.

It was a completely voluntary move, and the reason was twofold. One was Chernobyl. This general anti-nuclear sentiment in Ukrainian political discourse also translated into an anti-Moscow, anti-institutional sentiment because the perception was that these people from the Soviet Union are building these faulty reactors that blow up, contaminate our land, and cause a humanitarian disaster. Then they lie to us, there's negligence, cover-up, and the mishandling of the aftermath. So, Chernobyl and this anti-nuclear sentiment became a very important part of this pro-independence movement, and it helped unite Ukrainians based on civic and humanitarian grounds rather than on ethnonationalistic grounds in their attempt to gain political independence from Moscow.

It turns out from talking to people who were part of drafting the declaration that the other part of the thinking behind this unilateral renunciation was that Ukraine was deeply integrated with the Soviet military machine. The command-and-control lines ran directly from the military units deployed in Ukraine to central command in Moscow, bypassing the republican authorities. At that time, the leaders of the republics didn't even know fully what was deployed in their territory. The understanding was that unless we sever these military ties, there will be no way we can attain our independence.

When the Soviet Union collapsed faster than anyone had anticipated, the question became, “To whom do the armaments in the non-Russian republics belong?” It was a much easier question to answer when it came to conventional armaments because it was decided that whatever was on the territory at the time rightfully belonged to these republics, but when it came to the nuclear inheritance, some really difficult questions arose. It has been my argument that part of that predicament was the fact that nuclear possession was not a matter of just national policy. There was the international nuclear nonproliferation regime centered on the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and the NPT recognized only five nuclear-weapon states. So, it was basically a framework for guarding and managing a legitimized nuclear possession. In that kind of international nuclear order, Ukraine's nuclear situation was a square peg that had to be fitted to the round hole.

Ukrainian leaders formulated a claim that, as a successor state of the Soviet Union, Ukraine was just as entitled to Soviet nuclear inheritance as the Russian Federation and wanted to be compensated for giving it up. These claims were often misunderstood in the West and aided by Russian voices to mean that Ukraine was intending to go nuclear, wanted operational control over these armaments, and wanted to do all these nefarious things. But a major driver for these claims was Ukraine’s attempt to reconstitute a relationship with this new Russia on more equal terms.

What I found in my research was that, within Ukrainian political discourse, those who advocated for actual retention of these armaments as a deterrent were very few and very marginal. To begin with, Ukraine had set out this grand vision of disarmament. Another factor was the economic resources and time it would take to build up the missing links of a fully fledged nuclear weapons program, which Ukraine did not have at the time. Ukraine was an aspiring democracy, emerging out of this totalitarian empire. It wanted to join the international community on good terms. So, much of it was about the kind of country Ukraine wanted to become rather than just the things it wanted to get out of it. Ukraine was accused of bargaining and haggling. No, Ukraine wanted a fair deal. It negotiated with Russia and the United States, and at the end of that process, it got a deal. I would consider it a fair deal.

ACT: The United States also pushed Ukraine to give up its nuclear capability and be a real democracy. What was the effect of such pressure? How did it lead to the 1994 Budapest Memorandum?

Budjeryn: Beginning in the fall of 1991 with U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, the United States took a pretty straightforward stance: there shall be no more than one nuclear successor to the Soviet Union. I think later with the Clinton administration, that singular focus on nuclear issues in engagement with Ukraine was relaxed. That's not to say this demand became qualified, but there was a greater willingness to engage beyond just the nuclear issue and offer positive inducements instead of just saying disarm or else. That kind of mix of carrots and sticks proved more effective than just sticks under the George H.W. Bush administration. It’s just that [as] the administration went into the presidential election campaign, the focus shifted, and it wanted to have this issue sorted quickly. Ukraine was seen as recalcitrant in making these demands.

Part of the story was that Washington has been focused historically on Moscow alone. There were lines of communication, negotiations and relationships that had developed over years. Moscow was the seat of power. I think maybe this overwhelming focus on Moscow led to a blindness about what was going on in the provinces. The Soviet collapse came as a surprise to which the West kept reacting, and it reacted in very creative ways. The Nunn-Lugar [Cooperative Threat Reduction] program and the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives were among the entrepreneurial foreign policy responses to an unprecedented situation. It took time for Washington to hone the specialists and the mindset to say that people in the former republics have agency, they are new countries with certain national interests. We have to take them seriously and engage with them. By the time the Clinton administration comes in, there's a greater understanding that things might not be going so smoothly, you can't just bend people to your will, you have to give them a fair deal.

Ukrainians initially were unprepared to engage with two nuclear superpowers on nuclear issues. President Leonid Kravchuk and Foreign Minister Anatoliy Zlenko in their first meeting with Baker could only take notes, then go back to their scientists and their military and ask how to respond to some of these questions about nuclear weapons. There was, among the political leadership, a low level of knowledge about the nuclear arms on Ukraine's territory. But they learned quickly and held their own, even with very little leverage. The negotiation of the security guarantees started in June 1992 with the Bush administration and concluded with the signing of the Budapest Memorandum on December 5, 1994.

In Moscow in January 1994, U.S. President Bill Clinton (L), Russian President Boris Yeltsin (C), and Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk (R), set the stage for Ukraine’s disarmament. They signed a statement providing for the transfer of all nuclear weapons in Ukraine to Russia for dismantlement and for Ukraine’s compensation by Russia for the highly-enriched uranium in those weapons. In December that same year, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States signed the Budapest Memorandum which gave Ukraine security assurances for giving up its nuclear arsenal. (Photo by Wojtek Laski/Getty Images)That was one part of the deal. The other was the compensation for the fissile material contained in the warheads that would come to Ukraine from Russia in the form of nuclear fuel assemblies for Ukrainian power plants. The idea was that the highly enriched uranium in the warheads would be down-blended to low-enriched uranium and then come back as fuel assemblies. The United States underwrote that deal, as part of the Megatons to Megawatts program, where the United States would buy the down-blended uranium from Russia for its own nuclear power plants. These ideas showed quick thinking. It was inventive and entrepreneurial foreign policy.

The deal granted to Ukraine not only the nuclear fuel and compensation, but the recognition thereby that these were Ukraine’s warheads to give up. That was just as important to Ukraine as the actual goods it got in return. Russia had just unceremoniously taken over all of the international statuses and all of the political space that was previously occupied by the entire Soviet Union, of which Ukraine was part. I think the fear was, not unjustified in retrospect, that if you grant Russia these statuses, maybe the geopolitical ambition would follow.

I think still, amazingly, in Western imagery, we conflate the Soviet Union and Russia all the time. It seems like a minor thing, but we are seeing these chickens come to roost right now. We think somehow the Earth just opened up and out came the Ukrainians and the Kazakhs and the Belarusians and Russia is just kind of this slightly truncated Soviet Union. No, the process of succession had to be negotiated, and it involved policy and the implementation of policy. It's not a given that the outcome should have been what it is now, even in the nuclear realm. Ukraine tried to challenge this nuclear monopoly, without challenging the entire nonproliferation regime.

The Ukrainian argument was, “You cannot claim that these are Russian weapons on our territory. We were part of a nuclear superpower. We contributed our resources, human, natural, and so forth, to the creation of this. We are entitled to something, at least a recognition that this is our stuff to give up.”

ACT: Was the Budapest Memorandum a good deal for Ukraine?

Budjeryn: Ukrainian negotiators knew very well at the time of the memorandum that what they got in the end was not exactly what they sought. They sought a more robust set of security guarantees, whether that came in a form of a legally binding treaty or in some pledges of consequences for their breach. Whether that was at all possible to achieve is difficult to say. On the one hand, Ukraine was pushing hard, but it was up against two nuclear powers that had a lot of leverage. Ukraine had very little. It's commendable that U.S. policymakers and negotiators did go for a signature of a separate document that was attached to the act of Ukraine's succession to the NPT.

But in terms of substance, those were just clauses, basically copy-pasted from the UN Charter and the Helsinki Final Act, and the kind of general nuclear positive and negative security assurances that are pledged by the United States and the UK and Russia, the three depositary states of the NPT, to all non-nuclear-weapon states-parties to the NPT. So that was essentially the content of the memorandum. The only new thing was the consultation mechanism that was written into it that should any issues arise in connection to the memorandum, parties should consult. I think what Ukrainians envisioned was ironically some form of guaranteed neutrality, something we're talking about for Ukraine right now. It wasn't a NATO Article 5 type of protection, but rather, we just want our borders secured, what can you promise or threaten for the breach of that?

It was a tricky question then, just like it remains a tricky question now, not only because Ukrainians are keen on joining NATO, given the peril they are in, but also because there seems to be an asymmetrical interest and engagement in Ukraine from Western and Russian sides. It clearly looks like the Kremlin's current ruler, [President Vladimir] Putin, wants to reshape Ukraine. He wouldn't be happy with just leaving it neutral and deciding its own affairs. So what would the West have to threaten in terms of negative consequences to keep Putin away? At that point, it becomes some kind of security commitment that involves something more robust than just reassurances taken from other multilateral instruments.

Even though the Budapest Memorandum did not contain robust guarantees, and they were not legally binding, the mere fact that Ukraine's succession to the NPT took place in conjunction with this document made the Budapest Memorandum part of the broader nonproliferation regime. Therefore, its breach has an impact on the nonproliferation regime writ large because it erodes one of the main bargains enshrined in that regime, that if you make this decision to forgo a nuclear weapon, that should not happen at the expense of your security. The survival of a non-nuclear state should not be imperiled by a country that has nuclear weapons that has been granted this privilege under the NPT to be a recognized nuclear power. The nonproliferation regime is essentially discriminatory in nature, and this memorandum is among the bargains that ameliorates that inequality.

What I see happening now, meaning after 2014 and the seizure of Crimea and the way the issue of the Budapest Memorandum has been treated in Ukraine's public discourse, is that much of the nuance about the history of disarmament, about what Ukraine had and didn't have, about what it would have taken for Ukraine to refashion its nuclear inheritance into a fully fledged deterrent, gets lost. So the story is boiled down to “Ukraine had the world's third-largest nuclear arsenal, it gave it away for nothing, and now look what happened.”

Even though it is incorrect, it is understandable, and it's extremely damaging to the credibility of the nonproliferation regime. I imagine the value of security assurances like the ones in the Budapest Memorandum has declined considerably as a tool in nonproliferation going forward. Think about what we can promise North Korea to convince it to disarm. Think about other states that are looking at Ukraine and again might not know all the nuances of the story. What conclusions will they likely make? It reinforces in a very damaging way some of the existing tensions within the nuclear nonproliferation regime.

Even apart from Ukraine, the tension between nuclear-weapon states and non-nuclear-weapon states has been high, and the outcome of that is the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, this insurgency that has been mounted by the non-nuclear-weapon states who are saying, “You guys are not holding up your side of the deal, in particular when it comes to fulfilling NPT Article VI on pursuing arms control and disarmament.” The damage of Russia’s breach of its commitments to Ukraine in connection with the latter’s disarmament is difficult to assess. At this point, we can't foresee all of the possible consequences, but I really don't see how this could amount to anything good.

ACT: Was it a mistake for Ukraine to give up those weapons?

Budjeryn: I think it was not. I think it was the right thing to do. But I think the West could do a better job in dispelling Ukraine’s regrets. We've heard President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reference the Budapest Memorandum and how those guarantees are not holding up. I think it has been a failure of Western policy to sideline that document altogether. I, for one, cannot understand why the United States and the UK, the other two signatories, have made so little of the Budapest Memorandum. The consultation mechanism provided for in the memorandum was invoked, there was a meeting of the signatories on March 5, 2014, just as the Russian troops were taking over Crimea. Even though Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was in Paris where the meeting was happening, he did not bother to show up. But U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was at the table, as was UK Foreign Secretary William Hague. They issued a joint statement in support of Ukraine sovereignty, and that was it.

After that, all the military assistance that came to Ukraine, all the statements of support were not framed in reference to the memorandum and in reference to the commitments made by the other signatories under the memorandum. If the United States is providing Javelins and over $2 billion in military assistance, why not say, “We have committed to uphold your security back in the day, now our bill has come due, this is what we're doing.” I also really don't understand why the Obama administration decided to stay out of the negotiations between Ukraine and Russia on stopping the war in eastern Ukraine. France and Germany were at the table. Maybe it was part of U.S. President Barack Obama’s strategy of “leading from behind” where the Europeans were expected to take charge. I think the signatories of the Budapest Memorandum should have been the ones at that table, especially the United States. It would have been a different set of negotiations had the United States joined that format.

So, the West kind of bears the responsibility not for signing the wrong thing back in 1994, but not making enough of the document that already existed and certainly had the scope for serving as a framework for that kind of political and security support for Ukraine.

ACT: Could the memorandum serve that same purpose today in Ukraine?

Budjeryn: It should. I mean, as Zelenskyy's statement at the Munich Security Conference indicates, the Budapest Memorandum has a very bad reputation right now in Ukraine. But I don't think all is lost. I think there's still an opportunity to take it out, dust it off, and make good of it precisely because it does link Ukraine's current security situation back to its decision and validates it.

But I think the credibility of the Western world and the entire global nuclear order is at stake here because you have a country that did the right thing, that disarmed in accordance with the global nonproliferation consensus, and thus contributed to international security. Then you have one of the major nuclear powers going rogue, basically. We haven't even talked about the Russian shelling of nuclear power plants. This is something we expect terrorists to do, not a stakeholder in the global nuclear governance and a founding member of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The nuclear dimensions of this war in Ukraine have to be emphasized to reassure Ukraine that it did do the right thing and to communicate to other potential proliferators that are looking at all of this and taking notes that, no, you will not be left to stand alone, which is, to the extent possible, something that the United States and Europe are already doing. But they need to make that linkage.

Russia's war on Ukraine erodes a main bargain of the nonproliferation regime, that if a country forgoes nuclear weapons, its security will not be threatened.

The Future of the Global Norm Against Chemical Weapons: An Interview With Susanne Baumann, German Commissioner for Disarmament and Arms Control


July/August 2021

World War I taught the horrors of using chemicals against adversaries, but it was not until 1997 that the international community agreed to a treaty that aimed to outlaw this entire category of weapons. The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) took effect in 1997, and today, 193 countries count themselves as adherents. The treaty encompasses 98 percent of the global population and has resulted in the destruction of more than 98 percent of the world’s declared chemical weapons stockpiles.

Susanne Baumann, the German Commissioner for Disarmament and Arms Control, says in an interview with Arms Control Today that it is essential for the UN Security Council to continue to deal monthly with the issue of Syria's use of chemical weapons.  (Photo by German government)Yet, concerns are rising that some desperate leaders have become newly emboldened to use chemical weapons, which generally cause slow, agonizing deaths. Russia, for instance, has been accused of poisoning Sergei Skripal and Alexei Navalny, opponents of President Vladimir Putin. In 17 cases, Syria was found to likely or definitely have used chemical weapons, according to the head of the international chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Arms Control Today interviewed Susanne Baumann, German commissioner for disarmament and arms control, by email on the status of the global norm against chemical weapons and how it can be strengthened.

Arms Control Today: The global norm against chemical weapons use is eroding. In the past five years, chemical weapons have been used in violation of the CWC in the poisoning of political dissidents or high-level officials and in numerous and indiscriminate attacks against civilians. Violators of the treaty have done so with relative impunity. What is the reason for this trend? Has the world become numb to such weapons? Are nuclear weapons viewed as so much more lethal that chemical weapons are dwarfed?

Commissioner Susanne Baumann: Nuclear and chemical weapons are both weapons of mass destruction that could cause horrible human losses and suffering. At the same time, chemical weapons are in many respects different from nuclear systems. Access to chemical weapons is easier, and their manufacturing, handling, and use are technically less demanding compared to nuclear weapons. In addition, correct and rapid attribution can be a challenge if chemical weapons are used in asymmetric conflicts or for the targeted assassination of individuals. In my view, it is exactly these characteristics of chemical weapons that have led to their use in a number of cases in recent years, ranging from the notorious and appalling chemical attacks in the Syrian civil war to the infamous cases of Skripal and Navalny. These incidents come with new challenges for the international community and the rules-based order. It is now extremely important that we strengthen the notion that the CWC is not only about banning the use of chemical weapons in international conflicts. On the contrary, the CWC is based on the principle that the use of chemical weapons anywhere, by anyone, and under any circumstances constitutes a violation of international law. That is why the German government cooperated very closely with the OPCW after the attack on Navalny. That is also why we actively support the efforts of the OPCW to shed light on chemical weapons use cases in Syria.

ACT: What specific steps could be taken within the next five years to reinforce the global norm and strengthen compliance with the CWC?

Baumann: It is obvious that norms have to be enforced in order to really be effective. In today’s international environment, this is often easier said than done. Yet, the recent cases of chemical weapons use clearly show that the international community is not willing to accept the erosion of the CWC. Within the OPCW framework, a number of new mechanisms have been established in order to clarify the circumstances of the chemical attacks in Syria and to attribute responsibility. This evolution has not been self-evident. The OPCW became the central player on the Syrian file because Russia vetoed several decisions at the UN Security Council that would have allowed further clarification and investigation into the issue of responsibility for the attacks. As a consequence, a growing majority of OPCW state-parties supported the creation the OPCW’s own investigative instruments.

ACT: Moving forward, how can the treaty be strengthened to provide for stronger accountability mechanisms against CWC violators?

Baumann: With the new mechanisms, the OPCW has successfully started not only to determine whether, when, and where chemical weapons were used in Syria, but also, based on reports of the Investigation and Identification Team (IIT), to identify the guilty parties. Given the circumstances, that is an almost revolutionary step forward for the CWC and, in more general terms, for the international rules-based order. In times of hybrid warfare and disguised attacks, the notion of accountability and impunity becomes increasingly central. That is also why initiatives like the International Partnership Against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons are of great importance for raising international awareness and generating support for international bodies like the OPCW. It is also essential that the UN Security Council continues to deal with chemical weapons use in Syria on a monthly basis despite opposition from some Security Council member states.

ACT: What additional steps could be taken to deter would-be CWC violators?

Baumann: Deterrence is closely linked to the concept of individual accountability. The OPCW has investigative mechanisms at its disposal but no judicial means to penalize individuals. To this end, states-parties are required by the CWC to put effective national legislation in place, explicitly penalizing any activity banned by the CWC. Roughly two-thirds of OPCW states-parties, including Germany, have translated the CWC into their respective national legislation. Although having laws on paper is an important first step, what counts is implementation. Training and education of experts is key. In this field, international cooperation, including with the OPCW, remains essential. Here too, Germany is supporting the organization very strongly.

ACT: CWC states-parties have voted to suspend Syria’s rights and privileges under CWC Article XII, which states that a noncompliant state’s rights and privileges may be suspended until it returns to full compliance under the treaty. Syria has been called on to declare the entirety of its chemical weapons stockpile and affiliated facilities to regain its rights and privileges. In your view, what next steps should the CWC states-parties and the international community writ large take if Syria fails to cooperate with the OPCW and return to compliance with the CWC?

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny walks to his airplane seat on a January 2021 trip to Moscow from Berlin, where he was treated for a poisoning attack that he said was carried out under orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Navalny was arrested upon arrival in the Russian capital and remains imprisoned. His case has exacerbated concerns about the eroding global norm against chemical weapons use. (Photo by Kirill Kudryavtsev/AFP via Getty Images)Baumann: With the decision to suspend Syria's rights and privileges under the CWC, the conference of states-parties in April 2021 for the first time made use of the sanctions mechanism provided for by the CWC, thus making clear that chemical weapons use is not tolerated by the international community and will not avoid consequences. In a next step, this decision will be submitted to the UN Security Council and General Assembly through the secretary-general. If Syria does not return to compliance with the CWC, the international community might decide on further steps in the UN framework. It should not be overlooked that the European Union, as a consequence of the chemical attacks in Syria, established a sanctions mechanism specifically to react to violations of the CWC. The EU used this mechanism to impose sanctions on Syrian individuals and institutions and, more recently, on Russian individuals and institutions in connection with the Navalny case.

ACT: In the latest progress report, the OPCW identified a new issue with Syria’s stockpile declaration, which was described as an undeclared chemical warfare agent. As the OPCW works to clarify inconsistencies with Syria’s dossier, how can the organization ensure the completeness of Syria’s stockpile declaration?

Baumann: Ensuring the complete declaration of Syria's chemical weapons stockpile is the mandate of the OPCW Declaration Assessment Team. The team has worked in a very thorough way since its inception in 2014. There have been numerous rounds of consultations with Syria. The next visit to Syria is planned for early this summer. The detection of a newly undeclared chemical warfare agent by the team in samples taken in September 2020 shows that there are still open questions and, what is even worse, there are new inconsistencies. What is also obvious is that the team experts are extremely able and cannot be easily fooled by Syria. Even if progress is very slow and not without setbacks, the work has to continue. The Syrian case cannot be closed. The more imminent worry remains, of course, to ensure that the Syrian regime does not embark on the use of chemical weapons again.

ACT: Nearly nine months have passed since Navalny, the Russian opposition leader, was poisoned in Russia with a Soviet-era Novichok nerve agent. Despite strong evidence of Moscow’s involvement, the Kremlin has yet to be held accountable for violating the CWC’s prohibition on developing, possessing, or using chemical weapons. What can be done to ensure that Russia is held accountable for violating the CWC?

Baumann: The use of a chemical nerve agent against Navalny, a Russian citizen, represents an outrageous breach of the taboo against using chemical weapons. The attack happened on Russian territory. It is up to Russia to clarify the circumstances of this attack, which raises a number of questions on Russia’s compliance with the CWC. Russia has all necessary evidence to start criminal investigations into this attack. In this regard, it is also regrettable that Russia has so far not cooperated with the OPCW, which stands ready to provide technical assistance to Russia. The pressure has to be maintained by CWC states-parties in order to assure that Russia actually fulfills its obligations under Article VII of the CWC.

ACT: Can the CWC ever really be a credible restraint on chemical weapons use if Russia, a nuclear power and permanent member of the UN Security Council, violates it?

Baumann: International efforts on disarmament and arms control are uphill battles by nature. Enforcing arms control norms is the biggest challenge. Arms control and nonproliferation arrangements like the CWC provide only limited tools for sanctioning or penalizing the guilty party. That is why concerted action taken by different international organizations and bodies is needed. In the case of the poisoning of Navalny, the EU has reacted very rapidly by imposing sanctions. We have to uphold this pressure together, with and through other international forums like the International Partnership Against Impunity for the Use of Chemical Weapons, the UN International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism, and human rights bodies. Progress is possible when we put the necessary commitment to the task and cooperate with one another. The latest decisions at the OPCW on creating investigative mechanisms and taking measures against Syria show a growing support for the concept of attribution or the notion of accountability. This is encouraging.

ACT: The OPCW IIT is an important mechanism to ensure that instances of chemical weapons use in Syria are properly attributed and that the perpetrators of those attacks are identified. In your view, are there benefits to expanding the IIT’s mandate beyond Syria to investigate instances of chemical weapons use on the territory of any CWC state-party?

Baumann: The decision of the conference of states-parties in 2018 already foresees support by the OPCW for investigations of chemical weapons use beyond Syria. The director-general, if requested by a state-party to investigate possible chemical weapons use on its territory, can provide technical expertise to identify those who were perpetrators, organizers, sponsors, or otherwise involved in the use of chemicals as weapons. Hence, there is a path to broadening the mandate of the IIT for other cases. It would require further detailing and, first of all, the consent and the cooperation of the state-party concerned.

ACT: What role do you see the IIT playing in future efforts to strengthen compliance and accountability under the CWC?

Baumann: The IIT plays an essential role because it identifies those responsible for the use of chemical weapons and thus prepares the ground for holding them accountable. Professional, independent investigations and the identification of perpetrators of chemical weapons attacks send out a clear message: chemical weapons use will not be without consequences. More IIT reports are to come, as only four of nine incidents that the IIT planned to investigate have been addressed up to now.

ACT: During a recent UN Security Council Arria Formula meeting, several nations, including Russia, expressed concern over what they view as “politicization” of the OPCW, despite offering little concrete evidence. Those states reiterated their concerns during the CWC Conference of States Parties and voted against the call to suspend Syria’s rights and privileges under the treaty. How would you respond to this and similar remarks that the OPCW’s work is politicized?

Baumann: Claims of a politicization of the OPCW have been pronounced by states-parties who apparently fear naming and shaming and, quintessentially, fear attribution and the establishment of accountability. In a very blunt and absurd manner, they try to question the professionalism and the impartiality of the OPCW experts. The current problem in this respect is the state-sponsored chemical weapons use by Syria. Very few allies of Syria seem determined to shield Syria against consequences in international forums. The camp of those who want to slow down the evolution toward stronger attribution and stronger norms remains small. The Syria attacks and the cases involving Skripal and Navalny have shown the growing strong support for the OPCW and the CWC.

ACT: What is your view on the role of the OPCW in identifying perpetrators of chemical weapons use?

Baumann: The OPCW has the necessary instruments and expertise at its disposal to identify guilty parties, including individuals. Yet, it does need the cooperation of the respective state-party to fulfill its mandate. Moving from attribution to judicial accountability remains one of the biggest challenges in fighting the use of chemical weapons. But again, here the OPCW and the states-parties have made significant progress over the last decade, which gives reason for optimism that the OPCW can become a driving force in the overall fight for more accountability.

 

 

 

International reaction to the recent cases of chemical weapons use clearly shows that the world is not willing to accept the erosion of the Chemical Weapons Treaty, Baumann tells Arms Control Today.          

Negotiating With North Korea: An interview with former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun

June 2021

For more than two years, Stephen Biegun was U.S. deputy secretary of state and the top envoy executing President Donald Trump’s highly personal and ultimately unsuccessful diplomacy with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Biegun had eight meetings with North Korean officials and accompanied Trump in 2019 to meetings with Kim in Hanoi and also at the Demilitarized Zone. In his first interview since leaving government, Biegun discussed his views on what the last administration tried to accomplish and what went wrong and offered some advice to the Biden administration. The interview has been edited for space and clarity.

Arms Control Today: When Trump took office in 2017, the outgoing Obama administration warned that North Korea's nuclear program posed one of the most significant security threats. It remains so today. As the Biden administration prepares to adjust U.S. policy to deal with the North’s nuclear and missile arsenal, what advice would you offer? 

Stephen Biegun (L), the U.S. special representative for North Korea during the Trump administration, answers questions from the press after talks on North Korea's nuclear activities with Lee Do-hoon (R), South Korea's special representative for Korean Peninsula Peace and Security Affairs, at the foreign ministry in Seoul in December 2018. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)Stephen Biegun: The administration has begun to roll out its recent policy review, and so we're starting to understand how they intend to proceed. During the transition between the two administrations, we did a very thorough, deep dive on a number of issues, but none more so than North Korea. As the former special representative for North Korea, I and my team sat down with President-elect Joe Biden's team to walk them through where we were and really to share almost every detail of our interactions with the North Koreans, certainly everything that was available to us. It looks to me like the Biden policy is largely a continuation of what the negotiating team in the [Trump] State Department was trying to attain from the North Koreans, which is an agreement on a path toward denuclearization with a certain endpoint that is complete denuclearization but that we can structure along the way with some flexibility. We wanted to move in parallel on other things that might help open the aperture for progress like people-to-people exchanges, greater transparency, and confidence building on the Korean peninsula. I think the Biden administration's conclusions are logical and, frankly, are the best among the choices that are available to any administration. 

That said, it's not significantly different than much of what's been tried in the past, and so it begs the question whether or not one can expect any different outcome. I think the key factor in whether or not the United States will make progress with North Korea rests with whether or not the North Korean government is prepared to go down this course. That's the challenge that we confronted in the Trump administration. We eventually came to the conclusion that the North Koreans simply weren't prepared to do what the two leaders had laid out. So I'd advise them to start with the establishment of communication, which I think they have been making some progress doing. Get a reliable channel for that communication going forward, so that we can have a more sustained set of diplomatic engagements.

ACT: In April, the U.S. intelligence community’s “Worldwide Threat Assessment” report concluded that "Kim Jong Un views nuclear weapons as the ultimate deterrent against foreign intervention and believes that over time he will gain international acceptance and respect as a nuclear power." Do you share this assessment? 

Biegun: I think it's less important what the North Koreans think in this regard than what we in the rest of the world think. I would certainly never advocate accepting North Korea as a nuclear weapons state, and the Biden administration has been quite clear that they don't either. The implications of that are larger than the Korean peninsula. If North Korea were to essentially convince the world that it would never give up its nuclear weapons, fairly soon other countries will begin making decisions on their own security in relation to North Korea that could also involve the development of nuclear weapons. There are several countries in East Asia that could over a short period of time develop nuclear weapons. 

So, I think it's incumbent upon us to retain our determination and clarity about the need to do away with these nuclear weapons. 

That's not to say there aren’t other things we can do. If the Kim regime truly wanted to make the transition to a different relationship with the rest of the world, there are ways to address concerns about security that don't require nuclear weapons. The premise of a country needing nuclear weapons as a deterrent is that they are at risk of being invaded. I just find that to be an absurd proposition. There's no intention in South Korea and certainly no intention in the United States to act militarily against North Korea, so the whole premise frankly is absurd. 

I actually don't think security is the driver of the North Korean nuclear weapons program. It’s national mobilization around the ideology of the regime. Also, I think the North Koreans know well, it's an attention getter. They used their weapons of mass destruction program to attract concessions from the outside world in the past. What we tried to do is show them is there is a better way through diplomacy. 

ACT: Should the goals set out by Kim and Trump in their 2018 Singapore summit joint statement of working toward a "lasting and stable" peace regime and "complete denuclearization on the Korean peninsula" remain U.S. policy objectives? 

Biegun: Absolutely, it should remain the policy objective. I would be surprised if you would find anybody who would suggest otherwise, even among the more hard-line voices on North Korea policy. The challenge has never been what our goal is. The challenge has been how to get there. 

The Singapore joint statement offers a high-level agreement on where we're going. What we tried to do over the two and a half years that I was leading the efforts on behalf of the secretary of state and the president is translate those commitments into more detailed road maps that over time would get us to an agreed end state—normalization of relations, a permanent peace treaty on the Korean peninsula, the complete elimination of weapons of mass destruction on the Korean peninsula, even in later stages economic cooperation–and all this affected and tempered by broader societal contact, people-to-people exchanges, inter-Korean cooperation, and so on. 

Trump had a sweeping vision for how to get there, and he was prepared to move as quickly as the North Koreans were prepared to move. But at the end of the day, the North Koreans get a vote. They were really stuck in an old form of thinking. They wanted to bicker and minimize their commitments and give up as little as possible and gain unilateral concessions. That wasn't going to happen. 

The failure to reach an agreement in Hanoi underlined for them that this wasn't going to be a one-sided diplomacy. Had they moved, had they engaged, had they been willing to see where this can go, I think they could have changed history on the Korean peninsula, but I don't think they'd made a decision they wanted to do that. I don't know when we'll be able to queue up that alignment of opportunities again. I hope the Biden administration and their team are able to do so, but the short of it is, the North Koreans missed an opportunity. 

ACT: Why do you think that was such a special moment? 

Biegun: The North Koreans have long said in engagements with my predecessors on these issues that if the two leaders could agree, then anything was possible. It was almost something of a mantra from North Korean representatives over the years, and President Trump, in his own unconventional and often controversial way, put that to the test. The president had a lot of confidence in his own abilities. He was not constrained by critics over the conventions of the past. So, he proposed a summit in Singapore to sit down with Kim and basically say, hey, you know, this war ended 65 years ago, let's find a way to put it behind us.

For all the controversy and debate that his foreign policies generated, I can say as a negotiator that it was incredibly empowering to be able to test a proposition like that. For many of the president's critics, their concern was that somehow he was going to give away the store, that he was going to accept the one-sided deal. I think what the summit in Hanoi showed was that it was going to take two to tango. 

We had high hopes going into the summit. I and our negotiating team were there a week before the summit. We'd been to Pyongyang a few weeks before that, and we met in Washington a few weeks before that. We had laid out to each other in detail what our views were, what our objectives were. They didn't align entirely, but each side knew what the other side was looking for out of this. When we got to Hanoi, our North Korean counterparts had absolutely no authority to discuss denuclearization issues, which is just absurd. It was one of the core points of agreement between the two leaders in Singapore.

Ahead of the United States-North Korean summit in Hanoi that would ultimately collapse, Kim Yong Chol, a North Korean senior ruling party official and former intelligence chief (L); Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; and U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Stephen Biegun, held planning talks in Washington in January 2019. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)ACT: Do you still think a negotiated settlement with North Korea is possible? 

Biegun: My belief in that is unshaken. 

ACT: One apparent area of tension within the Trump administration was the pace and sequencing of denuclearization by North Korea, with some U.S. officials advocating a complete denuclearization within a very short time frame. 

Biegun: Without a doubt, there were differing views among the staff in the administration. But elections are for presidents, not for the staff. The president's view was that he was prepared to reach an agreement provided that it successfully denuclearized North Korea. I think the speed with which that happened, were we to have gotten that agreement with the North Koreans, was negotiable. 

Our hope was to move as quickly as possible, and we wanted to tie the benefits for North Korea to the speed with which North Korea wanted the lifting of sanctions. They controlled the tempo of that. The faster they met our expectations on denuclearization, the faster the sanctions went away. It was a fairly simple formula. 

But we were also looking at denuclearization as just one line of effort across multiple lines of effort, including transforming relations on the Korean peninsula, economic collaboration, and potential diplomatic representation in each other's capitals. We saw that in parallel with creating a more secure Korean peninsula, with confidence-building measures and transparency through military exchanges, ultimately through the negotiation of a permanent treaty to end the Korean War.

Of course, denuclearization was going to be the toughest. The other thing that was non-negotiable from our point of view was that, regardless of the timing, two things had to happen. To begin, the North Koreans had to freeze everything. We weren't going to take everything out on day one, but they could stop. They could turn off the centrifuges. They could turn off the nuclear reactors. They could stop the production of weapons of mass destruction. The other non-negotiable was that the endpoint had to be complete denuclearization. The rest of it in between, plenty of room to negotiate how that happens. 

ACT: Could that Trump-Kim summit-level approach have been adjusted in some way that would have made it more successful?

Biegun: What would have made it more successful is if the North Koreans engaged in meaningful, working-level negotiations in advance of the summits in order to produce more substantive agreements for our leaders. I have very good reason to believe that the North Koreans felt like they got exactly what they wanted, which was profile and prestige, without having made any commitments that were actionable. I think that may have lulled them into a mistaken view that that's all this was about, and in coming to Hanoi, that they could similarly do so. What they didn't realize was we were getting into a deeper level of discussion at that point. 

Had the North Koreans been willing to discuss denuclearization with our negotiating team, had they brought appropriate experts to those discussions—we never saw a uniform or a scientist at these meetings. Our delegation was comprised of scientists from the Department of Energy, missile experts from the intelligence community. We had international law and sanctions experts. We had an interagency delegation that we brought to Pyongyang and Hanoi. The North Koreans simply failed to match the ambition.

The other thing I'd say about the president's diplomacy is that I saw absolutely no downside in it and, in some ways, it may even have created challenges for the North Koreans because their regime is being judged by itself and by its own people as to what they're able to achieve. If North Korea were to continue to seek that kind of engagement without delivering on the commitments that it makes or the commitments that it's expected to make, I think that it only worsens global opinion toward the North Korean regime. 

One of the things that was always very effective for us is that we worked with partners and allies and even countries with whom we had more challenging relationships, like China and Russia. We were always willing to meet. We weren't putting any price on the North Koreans sitting down across the table. 

ACT: You said the North Korean negotiating team wasn't empowered to discuss steps toward denuclearization in meetings with your team ahead of the Hanoi summit. Did that inhibit progress? 

Biegun: Of course it did, because in the lead-up to the summit in Hanoi, the two teams spent nearly a week together trying to hammer out the basis for the two leaders to reach an agreement, a much more detailed set of documents than my predecessors had been able to obtain at the Singapore summit. To their credit, the North Koreans brought some creative ideas of their own on how we could improve people-to-people cooperation and transform relations on the Korean peninsula, but the key driver of the Singapore summit was denuclearization. Literally, the offer from North Korea was a “big present.” The negotiators said when Kim would arrive in Hanoi, he would have a big present for Trump, but we had to agree at the front to lift all the sanctions. I'm a practical person; tell me what your opening gambit is, tell me what your bottom line is, but don't tell me you're bringing me a big present. 

ACT: They told you that without defining what the big present would be? 

Biegun: Without any definition of what it would be. 

The North Korean delegation came with ideas on everything but denuclearization. I think the play was that they thought that the president was desperate for a deal and they were going to save that for the leader-level meeting. Lo and behold, that proved to be a very mistaken strategy. Anyone who encouraged them to pursue that policy, whether it was internally or external voices, perhaps even in South Korea, it was a huge mistake. 

But the president's meetings with Chairman Kim, even though the gap was too large for us to reach an agreement in Hanoi, were cordial and friendly. The president's last words to Kim in Hanoi were, “Let's keep at it, let's get something.” Another summit was not going to happen without substantial engagement by the North Koreans at the working level. Unfortunately, after Hanoi and then COVID in 2020 made it all but impossible, the level of engagement diminished significantly. 

ACT: Why were there conflicting reports about what was put on the table in Hanoi? North Korean officials denied they offered partial denuclearization for a full lifting of sanctions. Instead, they said, Pyongyang requested a partial removal of UN sanctions in exchange for a permanent halt of nuclear and ballistic missile testing and the full verifiable dismantlement of facilities at Yongbyon. 

Biegun: Yongbyon is only a portion of North Korea's nuclear weapons program. The North Korean rebuttal, which was delivered after the summit by Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho and Vice Minister Choe Son Hui, was that they'd only asked for a partial lifting of sanctions. But we understood the value and the impact of every sanction that was in place, and what the North Koreans were asking for was a complete lifting of UN Security Council sanctions. In effect, the only remaining strictures on trade would be actively doing business with the weapons of mass destruction facilities and enterprises themselves. So in terms of what the North Koreans offered, any knowledgeable expert would recognize it was a partial denuclearization for a full lifting of sanctions, and there were no subsequent commitments. It would in effect accept North Korea as a nuclear weapons state. That was implicitly what was in that offer. 

ACT: Some observers argue the lack of progress on denuclearization was due to the failure of the two sides to maintain a regular dialogue between high-level meetings. Do you agree? 

Biegun: This takes us back to where we started and why I am so emphatic that establishing a reliable channel of communication is an essential antecedent to making progress. You can't have these episodic engagements. The North Koreans, as my predecessors can attest, use even the willingness to answer the phone or not answer the phone as a negotiating tactic and then oftentimes seek to extract a concession to answer the phone. There is a deeply ingrained tactic on the part of North Koreans that to show up for a meeting requires a concession. 

During the two and a half years that I carried the North Korea portfolio, I met eight times with the North Koreans, and that wasn't enough. It was a lot. It was more than I think most people recognized, and not all the meetings were highly publicized, but it wasn't enough. We need that sustained engagement. I think the United States, whether under Trump or Biden or quite frankly any other president, would be committed to a process like that. But the North Koreans get a vote. 

ACT: North Korea has become highly adept at sidestepping U.S. and UN sanctions and has been unwilling to make concessions in response to those sanctions. No doubt, some partners, namely China, could do more to enforce international sanctions now in place. Have we effectively reached the limits of using sanctions to coerce better behavior on nuclear matters from North Korea? 

Biegun: Sanctions rarely if ever produce, in and of themselves, a policy shift. The sanctions are a necessary component of diplomacy that affects the choices or the timetable that the other party may have in terms of whatever it is you're seeking to address. So, sanctions are a tool, not the policy itself. 

No amount of sanctions evasion is able to overcome the severe downward turn of the North Korean economy because the sanctions are draconian, but if you wanted to make them more severe, that decision really lies in Beijing. I'm not sure at this point that more could be accomplished by more sanctions. I think it's kind of a reflexive statement that policymakers make when put on the spot. The key here is to find a way to appropriately use the pressure of sanctions to produce a better outcome in diplomacy and to get on with what needs to be done on the Korean peninsula to end this ridiculous 65 years of hostility, long after a war between two systems that no longer even exist today, at one of their first showdowns after World War II.

ACT: The latest U.S. intelligence report foresees China doubling its nuclear stockpile over the next decade. Do you think that is accurate? 

Biegun: I don't think we've spent sufficient time trying to understand what's happening in the strategic weapons program with China, and I think policymakers, arms control advocates, experts, scientists, and specialists need to devote substantially more time than we have. I think we've been neglectful in understanding this, and it is serious, and it is growing, and this is a substantial factor for U.S. national security. Quite honestly, it's a substantial factor for Russia's national security and for the world as well. China is the only country that's moving against the tide of the basic commitments made in the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) that nuclear-weapon states would be making efforts to reduce their nuclear weapons. 

I expect that the purpose is the same as it's always been, to have a convincing deterrent in the case of conflict. But even if one accepts—and China is an accepted nuclear-weapon state—that they are going to have nuclear weapons, we need to devote a lot more effort to understanding their doctrine, to building new mechanisms for strategic stability between the United States and China. Basically, we have to kind of crack open some old playbooks and go back and think about how we can create a world that can remain free of the use of nuclear weapons at the same time that we're sustaining peace and security. 

ACT: Even if the Chinese doubled their arsenal, they still wouldn't approach what the United States and Russia have. Yes, China is building up its stockpile but so are other countries, such as India and Pakistan. Don't we need to keep that in perspective?

Biegun: There are ample reasons to be worried about strategic stability, not only in the U.S.-Russian context, but the U.S.-Chinese context and in the context of other states. We've spent a long time talking about North Korea. Our commitment and China's commitment in the NPT is to commit to making efforts to reduce those nuclear weapons, not to increase them. It's not about what they owe us. It's about what their treaty commitments are internationally. This year, we have an NPT review conference where we hope China answers how its nuclear ambitions square with its commitments made in the NPT. From the U.S. and Russian points of view, I think certainly we should continue efforts to create a sound, stable, strategic formula that reduces nuclear weapons while maintaining the effectiveness of deterrents. 

Ultimately, the ideal that so many advocate—the complete elimination of nuclear weapons—is well beyond our reach, but that doesn't mean we need more. I've personally never been an advocate of more. I've been an advocate for sound, treaty-based mechanisms that reduce weapons while sustaining stability. If we could do that with the Chinese, all the better, but I can tell you that there's nothing stabilizing for China or for the rest of the world that will come from a rapid expansion of their nuclear arsenal. 

As the Biden administration prepares to engage with North Korea, Biegun says establishing a reliable channel of communication with Pyongyang is key to making progress.

Reviewing the NPT: An Interview With Ambassador Gustavo Zlauvinen


January/February 2021

Since the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) entered into force on March 5, 1970, states-parties to the treaty have gathered every five years to assess implementation of and compliance with the treaty and to seek agreement on steps to advance common goals and objectives related to the three pillars of the treaty: nonproliferation, peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and disarmament.

(Photo: Argentine Foreign Ministry)This year, representatives from most of the 191 NPT members will meet no later than August for the 10th review conference, which has been delayed twice as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

With progress on key NPT goals stalled, relations between key nuclear-armed states poor, and some key nonproliferation successes in jeopardy, this review conference has the potential to be among the most contentious.

Argentinian Foreign Ministry official Gustavo Zlauvinen has been chosen to preside over the review conference as the president-designate. Among other diplomatic postings, Zlauvinen has served as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) representative to the United Nations in New York, where he represented the agency during NPT meetings from 2001 to 2009.

Zlauvinen spoke with Arms Control Today by video conference on December 9 from Buenos Aires. The interview has been edited for clarity.

Arms Control Today: This year [2020] marks the 50th anniversary of the entry into force of the NPT. From your perspective, as someone who has worked in the field for so many years at the international level, how has the treaty succeeded? How has it fallen short? Why is it important today?

Amb. Gustavo Zlauvinen: Yes, 2020 marks three anniversaries. First, it is the 50th anniversary of the NPT’s entry into force. The second is the 25th anniversary of the treaty’s indefinite extension in 1995. That was part of a grand bargain at that point, which is still valid and for many states is an important part of the bigger picture. Unfortunately, the third marking [of] 2020 is the 75th anniversary of the use of the atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It is a very solemn and an important year, and it gives an opportunity and a challenge for states-parties, civil society, and the international community in general to ponder what the NPT has achieved in these 50 years and where it has fallen short of the aspirations that were the drivers during the treaty negotiations.

There are many accomplishments that the NPT and its states-parties have achieved. One in particular was to keep the number of nuclear-weapon states to a reduced number. It prevented many potential countries that could have had the capabilities, and maybe even the political will, to develop nuclear weapons from doing so. I’m not talking about cases like my own country, Argentina, or Brazil. Let’s start with Sweden. Remember that, in the 1960s, Sweden had a nuclear weapons program, and there is no secret about that. Other countries, very influential ones at that time, were concerned at the time that there was no norm against acquiring nuclear weapons.

To us now, it seems that’s the benefit of having the NPT. You know, it seems bizarre, even abnormal, to think that a country like Sweden could have had a nuclear weapons program. Not that it is impossible in today’s world, but that’s a sign of the NPT’s success. The NPT changed our mind-set in the sense that what was considered okay in the 1960s and part of the 1970s became unacceptable for most countries in the international community.

Amb. Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka presided over the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference. If the conference had decided to extend the treaty by 25 years, this year's review conference would be debating extension during difficult circumstances. (Photo: Evan Schneider/UN)A second achievement is that while preventing the spread of countries with nuclear weapons, it helped the spread of the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. You can see that in the large number of countries around the world that have adopted nuclear power generation and applications in nuclear medicines, agriculture, and many other sectors. This probably could not have happened without the NPT. In the 1960s, only a few countries had the technology, so it was not easy to get access to that technology by yourself. Therefore, you needed the cooperation from countries having nuclear technology, and those countries were not going to pass it on that easily. By accepting IAEA safeguards, as required by the NPT, countries received more chances of receiving nuclear technology transfers from more advanced nations, and that helped the transfer of technology.

In both achievements, the key element is the robust IAEA safeguard system. What it has achieved is tremendous in that all non-nuclear-weapon countries under the NPT receive regular inspections from the IAEA to prove that their nuclear programs are not being diverted for the development and production of nuclear weapons.

Now, where does the NPT fall short? What I have heard during my consultations with states-parties is that a large majority of states-parties feel that progress toward the nuclear disarmament obligations of Article VI of the NPT, which is about achieving an eventual total elimination of weapons and total disarmament, has not evolved in the way that the NPT has provided for.

Another one is that some states-parties say that despite the treaty’s enablement of technology transfers, they are not receiving access to nuclear technologies from those countries having those technologies. They claim that they are blacklisted even though they are party to the NPT and have IAEA safeguards agreements, and they claim that this is for political reasons. This is a concern that has been expressed by not many, but at least some, states-parties.

There is also a discussion about making the IAEA safeguards system more robust and better able to show the nuclear intentions of NPT states-parties. After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, when Iraq was discovered with a clandestine nuclear weapons program just under the radar of the IAEA safeguards system, a review led to negotiations and the adoption of the Model Additional Protocol to nations’ safeguards agreements in 1995. At that time, IAEA member states decided that nations would adopt an additional protocol on a voluntary basis.

That is the dilemma that NPT communities still have. Several states-parties would like to have an additional protocol as the new verification standard for the NPT. But others, including Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, and a few others say that because it is not a mandatory measure, it therefore cannot be established as a new standard. So, that is an issue I expect to be debated at the review conference.

As to why the NPT remains important today, we should consider what would have happened if the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference had not extended the treaty indefinitely. Remember that Mexico and others at the 1995 conference were pushing for an extension of another 25 years in order to see whether the NPT nuclear-weapon states were going to fulfill their obligations under Article VI. They didn’t want to keep committing themselves as non-nuclear-weapon states forever while the nuclear-weapon states may not implement Article VI. So, what would the situation be today if the negotiations in 1995 had agreed to extend it only for 25 years? The treaty would have ended this year, and the review conference would not be a regular review conference; it would be a conference to extend the treaty. Under the present circumstances, it would have been extremely difficult to come to an agreement on the extension of the NPT.

So, it’s better to have the NPT with all its limitations rather than to not have the NPT. It is as relevant as 50 years ago because the nuclear genie is out of the bottle, obviously; and it will continue to be so for a while, unfortunately. As long as we have our situation, as long as we have nuclear weapons, as long as we have an incentive for some countries to develop a potential program for nuclear weapons, as long as you have the spread of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes but they are of a dual-use nature, then you will need to have a system under a treaty with legal obligations by which the large majority of the international community commits itself not to develop and not to use these awful, horrible weapons.

Maybe the states that are also party to the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) will see that their approach is one to complement or fulfill that NPT aspiration to achieve full nuclear disarmament. That’s fine, but I think the TPNW would not have been possible without the NPT having been established in the first place.

ACT: The TPNW will enter into force on January 22, just about the time this interview will be published. If some nuclear-weapon states continue to oppose the treaty, could that provoke TPNW supporters and create schisms or rifts at the review conference? How will you seek to reconcile the views of states that believe the TPNW reinforces the NPT with those who say it creates a norm contrary to the NPT?

Zlauvinen: The TPNW is obviously a new fact that we have to take into account. Obviously for those states that are party to the TPNW and the NPT, they believe that the TPNW reinforces, complements, and completes the NPT. Meanwhile, other NPT states-parties that are not party to the TPNW have said that they will never join. They see that the new treaty has come to be a challenge and even to help erode the legal norms and systems that the NPT has established during these 50 years.

This is a debate that we must have and is already happening. Those who have not signed or ratified the TPNW cannot close their eyes and act as if the TPNW doesn’t exist. But I hope that this debate is not going to create another challenge, another problem at the review conference between NPT states-parties. We have to see how we maneuver that discussion. It will be up to the states that are party to both treaties to explain to those who are not party to the TPNW that the TPNW should not be seen as a challenge to the NPT. It is on them to explain and to prove that it is not contrary to the NPT, it has not come to erode the NPT. If they do their job correctly, hopefully they will convince at least the majority of those who have not signed and ratified the TPNW at least to accept that they have to live with that. At the end of the day, with this type of complex, difficult diplomatic negotiations, everything boils down to political will from both parties and the language. I always say that the language that we can develop to accommodate both positions will be key. I hope that, on both sides, they will be willing to make a political compromise so that we can move forward and this issue will not be a stumbling block for a successful outcome of the conference.

A B-2 bomber prepares to take flight from the U.S. base at Diego Garcia in 2020. The issue of nuclear-weapon states' commitments to their NPT obligation to move toward nuclear disarmament is expected to be a major topic once again at the NPT Review Conference. (Photo: Heather Salazar/U.S. Air Force)

 

ACT: When you became president-designate of the review conference, you could not have foreseen the consequences of this COVID-19 pandemic. What have you been doing in these conditions to maintain the pace of preparation for the review conference? How are you seeking to engage states in the coming months and in the lead-up to the review conference and before the end of August?

Zlauvinen: The hiatus that we are facing due to the pandemic is something that we were not expecting when I officially took over as a president-designate in January 2020, just two months before the pandemic hit us in a major way. The main challenge was and still is how to keep momentum, how to help states-parties and civil society to keep momentum as we are unable to conduct negotiations until the review conference. That is obviously not going to happen because you cannot have negotiations before the review conference. Negotiations take place at the review conference.

Nevertheless, in every review cycle of the NPT, as has happened with many other treaties before their own review conferences, you have consultations and discussions among states-parties and members of the different regional groups. This is what I’ve been trying to do as president-designate: to keep motivating states-parties and delegations, to keep looking at the challenges that the NPT is facing, the problems that we are going to have at the review conference, not to shy away and to confront those issues without replacing negotiations. Let’s have open and frank discussions among the states-parties to the NPT and including civil society. The views from a gender perspective, the views from the industry, the views from youth—they are all part of our society. At the end of the day, we diplomats and government officials, we don’t work in a vacuum. We work in real life and on issues that affect real people. Therefore, the NPT should not be a closed club. It should be open to youth, industry, and gender perspectives if we want to keep the NPT fit for future generations.

Secretary-General António Guterres (left at table) meets virtually with leaders of the UN Climate Change Conference in January. The Covid-19 pandemic has created uncertainty over what level of in-person participation will be allowed at the 10th NPT Review Conference. (Photo: Eskinder Debebe/UN)In a normal situation, during the months before the review conference, the president-designate would travel to New York, Geneva, and Vienna for consultations with the regional groups in person. Then they will travel to several capitals to have bilateral conversations and discussions and to hear firsthand from the states-parties about their concerns, about their positions, and to see what margin of maneuver they will give the president-designate during the review conference.

I started traveling in January and February and the beginning of March, and then I had to stop. So obviously, that is a huge challenge because I have to start doing business in a different way that has not been done by my predecessors. I have to start engaging delegations and even capitals in a virtual manner, but it’s not the same as being in person. I have also held informal consultations with the regional groups, the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), the Western European and Others Group (WEOG), the Eastern European Group, and the Group of One (China). I have had do it virtually, which is not the same.

What I miss the most is that you can have the same conversations virtually as you can in person, but you cannot have the personal interactions in virtual discussions. Say that you go to Vienna, you meet with the WEOG or the NAM for two hours in a meeting room; and after that some delegation will approach, and you will have coffee with them; or another delegation will approach you in the corridor and tell you something that they could probably not tell you in front of others. In a more relaxed environment, maybe they can tell me things that they probably would not be able to in front of others, and I’m missing that part.

Even when I’m having virtual bilateral discussions, as several capitals asked me to do with senior officials of their own capitals, it’s kind of a scripted conversation because it’s being recorded. We have done a good deal of using these new technologies to reach out to the delegations and states-parties to continue the consultations. I’m trying to hold those every two months, so the next one will be in the beginning of February, then one in April, and then June or July before the conference.

I’m trying to challenge the delegations that when we do have those consultations, even virtually, to address the real important issues. So, let’s address substantive issues. Let us have a frank discussion, even if they disagree. Fine. I’m not afraid of delegations disagreeing. On the contrary, it is part of the nature of this political animal, the NPT. There are more than 190 parties. There will always be some disagreements, and you have to deal with that. The more those disagreements are being aired, there’s a better chance that we have that we can accommodate those positions at the review conference.

ACT: Based on what you know at this stage and based on the experience from the UN General Assembly and its First Committee meetings, how do you expect the review conference will physically operate? How many persons might be there? Might some sessions be held virtually?

Zlauvinen: Based on what we have seen of the General Assembly and the First Committee, the review conference will have a limited in-person presence. There could be one delegate per country at a given time at the conference room, plus two additional delegates linked virtually. It proved to work for the General Assembly, which managed to adopt resolutions, and for the First Committee also. But I understand that business was done in a reduced manner. They didn’t have time, for example, for formal presentations of draft resolutions. Some delegations were not pleased with the way that it worked under that hybrid concept.

Now, what may work for the General Assembly or the First Committee or the IAEA General Conference may not work for the NPT review conference. No two forums are going to have the same dynamics. We have to look into the NPT review process itself and see how the states-parties can engage with each other and try to get a successful outcome.

What I’ve heard so far from the consultation with all regional NPT groups is that a large majority of states-parties prefer to have a full-fledged review conference, meaning a conference that lasts four weeks, that will be in person, and that will allow for delegations from capitals to attend, as well as delegations from Geneva and Vienna.

The conference should allow for parallel meetings, in the sense that you may have two main committees working in parallel because the work is very extensive. We have many issues to handle, and even four weeks is not enough if you’re going to have, for example, one single conference room. That was the situation we would have faced had we decided to go ahead with the conference taking place in January 2021 in New York. The UN Secretariat advised us that, under those circumstances, under the pandemic circumstances, we would have had only one conference room for four weeks, and delegations found this unacceptable.

On the other hand, there is a group of states-parties that says the most important thing is to have the review conference as soon as possible, regardless of the format. That is another rift that I’m trying to avoid, so I have decided that we are going to have another round of consultations in April to discuss the time and the format of the review conference. I hope that, by April, the UN Secretariat can tell us, based on the overall pandemic situation in the world, how many conference rooms we may have in August, how many parallel meetings we can have, and if we will allow for in-person or limited in-person meetings. Based on this information, states-parties have to decide whether it will be acceptable to go ahead in August. If the UN Secretariat cannot provide us all the conference rooms and services necessary to have a full-fledged conference, then we are going to have another major, major headache in April on how we will proceed.

ACT: The NPT’s entry into force in 1970 helped open the way for U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control, but now that arms control architecture is under severe stress. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty is gone. The future of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) is uncertain. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has widespread support, but key nuclear-weapon states have still not ratified it. Many states have argued that the nuclear-weapon states are not meeting their NPT Article VI obligations and have failed to fulfill key obligations agreed at the 2010 review conference. How important is it to the health of the NPT and the success of the coming of this review that we see progress in these areas in the coming months?

Zlauvinen: The arms control treaties that the Soviet Union and the United States, and later Russia and the United States, have managed to agree to and implement during the last 40 years or so have eroded and deteriorated. The demise of the INF Treaty, the U.S. withdrawal from the Open Skies Treaty, and the questions about whether New START is going to be extended before it expires in February have contributed to a very pessimistic view by many that the chances for the 10th review conference to have a successful positive outcome are very slim. Obviously, the overall international security context has an impact on the NPT and its review conference. What is more important is the lack of agreement, but also of trust, between Russia and the United States and between China and the United States. This is not helping our conversations on how we move forward in the implementation of the review of the NPT in the next five years.

I’m not that pessimistic. I believe that the NPT has faced similar challenges in the past, that the arms control system put in place by the Soviet Union and the United States started in very difficult times and has evolved. Remember what President Ronald Reagan said: “Trust but verify.” You need some kind of verification, even if you’re going to try to trust your adversary.

The NPT has managed to overcome all those challenges in the past. I hope and I really believe that the NPT and its members are going to overcome the current challenges. We will also have to wait until January, when there is going to be a new administration in the United States. We have to see what the new administration is going to do regarding the extension of the New START. The current U.S. administration has placed a condition for extension, demanding that China also be included in the negotiations. China has openly rejected that proposal.

So, we have to see whether the new administration is going to continue with those new conditions or whether it’s going to extend New START for another year. We have to wait also to see if the new administration conducts a new nuclear posture review.

Nuclear disarmament, nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear technologies, and nuclear weapons are a matter of U.S. national security, and therefore they are one of the most important issues for any U.S. administration. Traditionally, change of administrations didn’t bring a major shift or changes in the overall U.S. approach to these issues. But in the past, we have seen some changes in the tone, in the attitude, the approaches from one administration to another. I hope that, by August, it will be an environment more conducive for our conference to achieve success.

What I mean by success is a meaningful and fruitful outcome, an outcome that is not going to be only a piece of paper, but an outcome that means practical things for the states-parties to implement in the next five years, an outcome that is going to be fruitful in the sense that everybody will leave the review conference saying that we have achieved something, maybe it’s not so much, but we have achieved something. We have a fruit. We have a result that we can take home and care for and implement.

The outcome will be up to the states-parties. If they want to have an overall document or if they want to have no document at all, fine. If they want to have a high-level political statement or declaration, fine. It’s up to them. I’m not going to be drafting such a declaration. It’s not in my prerogative to do so. It’s up to them.

ACT: This is the 50th anniversary of the entry into force of the treaty. This conference is seen by many as being unique and different because of that. How are you planning to elevate the profile or the stature of the meeting despite the pandemic conditions? Are you seeking some higher-level national participation in the conference by prime ministers and presidents, for instance, or in some other way trying to encourage a heads of state-level communique?

Zlauvinen: I hope that governments will see it is in their own interest to have an outcome that is going to be positive for them and therefore they’re going to do their utmost to help in the process. One way that they can do so is by attending at least the first few days of the conference at the highest levels. I cannot impose on parties who that high level should be, but heads of state or government would be more than welcome. Even if they are not able to attend at that level, I think foreign ministers will be very welcome. Before the 2020 review conference was delayed, we were expecting almost 40 foreign ministers and six or seven heads of state or government.

In my bilateral consultations, I’m encouraging states-parties to do so. But again, I cannot impose participation on heads of state or heads of government. That’s my wish. I hope so. I think it is going to be for their own benefit.

ACT: When you mentioned potential changes to U.S. nuclear policy by the next president, will you also look to see how policy might change toward the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)? Is it important that the United States return to the JCPOA and that Iran return to the limits of the deal?

Zlauvinen: The review conference will be addressing challenges to the safeguards system and obviously the Iran nuclear program. From what I have heard from delegations, that is going to be a very complex and difficult discussion. The JCPOA is going to be an issue of contention.

I’m not here to take sides. I’m not here to say whether the U.S. administration should go back to the JCPOA or whether Iran should limit itself. It’s up to the states-parties in the context of the NPT review conference. What I hope is that, by August next year, this issue will have evolved from where we stand today. I hope that the new administration will review its policy regarding the JCPOA, and whether the decision is to keep the current positions or change them back or move to a new position, I hope that, by August, it will have a positive result in the negotiations and discussions with Iran, and in particular at the IAEA regarding the Iran nuclear program. I hope that, by August, the whole situation regarding Iran’s nuclear program will be much clearer and less tense than it is now.

ACT: Even if tensions over the future of the JCPOA are resolved, there would still be discussion at this review conference about strengthening safeguards. Given the fact that some states have still not fully adopted an additional protocol to their IAEA safeguards agreements and some countries such as Saudi Arabia have outdated small-quantities protocol arrangements, how might the review conference encourage more states to adopt a stronger set of safeguards standards in the future?

Zlauvinen: This issue is also going to be an issue of contention because many countries believe that an additional protocol should be the new verification standard, while others don’t believe so. At least they believe that it is, and it is, on a voluntary basis. It’s not mandatory. This is linked to what many call the grand bargain, the 1995 decision of the review conference to extend the treaty indefinitely and the recommitment by all states to the nonproliferation obligations and to Article VI by the nuclear-weapon states.

Those countries that have not signed or ratified an additional protocol to their safeguards agreements have several reasons not to do so. I’m not here to support or take part in that. I’m just describing the situation the way that I see it. First, the IAEA Board of Governors, when it adopted the Model Additional Protocol in 1995, said that the decision for member states to adopt an additional protocol was voluntary. Therefore, those countries that have not adopted it have decided for national reasons not to.

Secondly, some countries believe that they have adequate systems in place. Argentina and Brazil, for example, believe that their current safeguard system, consisting of a bilateral agreement, an agreement with the Brazilian-Argentinian Agency for the Accounting and Control of Nuclear Materials (ABACC), and a safeguards agreement with the IAEA, is strong enough and it doesn’t leave any doubts about the peaceful nature of both nuclear programs. Therefore, they don’t need to have an additional protocol because they have almost that kind of additional protocol in the ABACC itself.

Beyond those technicalities, there is the issue that countries that have placed their peaceful nuclear programs under safeguards agreements believe that they have fulfilled their obligations under Articles I and III. Now, they don’t want to take on more nonproliferation obligations while nuclear-weapon states have not fulfilled their own obligations under Article VI. This is becoming more of a political question as opposed to a technical issue, so that makes the overall issue a bit more complicated. This going to be a contentious issue at the review conference.

I don’t believe there is going to be an agreement. It is not up to the NPT review conference to suggest that an additional protocol is mandatory. It is up to the IAEA Board of Governors. Nevertheless, there are going to be many voices at the review conference calling for an additional protocol to be the new standard, so we will see how we manage that disagreement.

ACT: How can you move forward the debate on the zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East? This has been a goal that states-parties committed to try to advance, beginning with the outcome of the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference. What are the main issues that still need to be settled, and who needs to be involved in sorting them out?

Zlauvinen: It’s going to be another challenge, another issue of contention as it has been for many review conferences. I thought that the 1995 decision, a resolution to push for the establishment of a nuclear weapon-free zone and other weapons of mass destruction-free zone in the Middle East, was going to do the trick, but it didn’t. At the end of the day, it depends on overall political settlement among all the states in the region. For that, obviously you need Israel. You cannot establish a nuclear weapon-free zone in the Middle East without the direct involvement of Israel, and so far, Israel has not participated.

There is a new development with regard to this issue that is going to be important at the negotiations and discussions during the NPT review conference, and that is the UN-convened conference in November 2019 on the establishment of such a zone in the Middle East. Most countries in the Middle Eastern region, as well as many European nations and others, attended that conference, with the exception of Israel. The United States also did not participate. The result of that conference is being seen by many parties to the NPT as a step forward in the direction that was designed by the 1995 decision on the Middle East. Therefore, they see that finally there is positive movement, a positive development in the implementation of the 1995 resolution. Therefore, they would like this to be reflected in the outcome of the NPT review conference.

Other countries, Iran and Syria in particular, believe that while the UN-convened conference is important, it is a separate track from NPT Middle East resolutions. They say that there are two different tracks, you cannot link them, so we should not even mention the UN-convened conference at the review conference.

Then you have a separate view, held particularly by the United States, that it refuses to accept that the UN-convened conference even took place or existed or mattered at all. Therefore, it doesn’t want to have any mention at the NPT review conference of that UN conference. Therefore, something that could be seen as a positive step could also be another complication for our conversations and discussions at the NPT review conference. I hope that we can manage language that will accommodate the different positions to acknowledge the UN-convened conference and maybe just set the tone for how to keep moving from the NPT point of view during the next five years in pursuit of the goal of the establishment of such a zone in the Middle East.

It is very important for the countries in the Middle East. I’ve been told by all states-parties that come from that region during my consultations that, for them, this is one of the most important issues for the review conference and, without an adequate reflection of this issue at the review conference, the review conference is going to have a big challenge. Aside from nuclear disarmament, this is the second most important challenge we face at the review conference.

ACT: A few times, you’ve mentioned the position of the current administration coming in late January. With the new administration on the way, given what you know about the tendencies of U.S. President-elect Joe Biden, are you more hopeful that his administration will be able to bridge that divide about simply recognizing past review conference commitments; and can that help move this conference toward a meaningful, fruitful outcome?

Zlauvinen: Indeed, the issue of how we deal with the commitments made in past NPT review conferences is going to be another crucial element. It’s part of the challenge that we are going to face related to nuclear disarmament, because when people talk about past commitments, they mainly focus on the commitments of past conferences related to progress toward the implementation of Article VI. Yes, the current U.S. administration has expressed that it saw no need to reconfirm those commitments because circumstances have changed. It claimed that those commitments were made in the past during a different global security environment and different situations and those situations don’t exist anymore. There is a lack of confidence and trust, among nuclear-weapon states in particular, and therefore they are not in a position to reconfirm those commitments. Obviously, for a great majority of states-parties, that’s very important. That is key because they believe that the commitments made at previous conferences are an integral part of the obligations under the NPT. This is the view that they have, and therefore they would like to have those commitments reasserted during the next review conference.

I cannot speak just now on what the new administration is going to do or what approach it is going to have regarding those commitments. Whichever that position may be, I hope that, at the review conference, we can find a way among all the states-parties to a common position on this. But more important than those commitments is what we are going to do as a community regarding nuclear weapons, what we’re going to do regarding the full implementation of Article VI. I believe that the reason why many states signed and ratified the TPNW is because of their frustrations on the lack of progress on the implementation of nuclear disarmament. This is being seen by many, not only in government but in civil society, that as a global community we have to do something better regarding moving forward to that overall goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.

I would like to have that question answered by the new administration. I think that the commitments are a secondary or tertiary issue related to that. If the new administration answers that question, then it will be easy to know what they’re going to do with the commitments at previous conferences. It is more important to answer how they’re going to deal with the demand from the overall community that nuclear-weapon states have an obligation, they have a responsibility to do something much more regarding how we move forward to that goal of achieving one day a world free of nuclear weapons.

The president-designate of the 10th NPT Review Conference discusses the political and logistical hurdles facing the delayed meeting.

Explaining Iran’s Nuclear Position: An Interview With Iranian Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi


September 2020

In May 2018, the Trump administration announced the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and reimposed U.S. sanctions waived by the deal. One year later, Iran announced it would begin reducing its compliance with the JCPOA in response. This August, the Trump administration sought more stringent sanctions against Iran, and Iran agreed to enable International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors access to two controversial sites.

As the sanctions debate was unfolding at the United Nations and the IAEA Director General prepared to travel to Tehran, Arms Control Today discussed these and other nuclear issues on August 6 with Majid Takht Ravanchi, Iran’s permanent representative to the UN since April 2019. Prior to that, he served as deputy chief of staff for political affairs in the Iranian Office of the President beginning in 2017, and as deputy foreign minister for European and American affairs from 2013 to 2017. While serving as deputy foreign minister, Ravanchi participated in the multilateral negotiations on the JCPOA.

Iran's Ambassador to the United Nations Majid Takht Ravanchi speaks to the media at UN headquarters in New York in June 2019. (Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)Arms Control Today: Iran announced in May 2019 that it would begin reducing compliance with limits imposed by the JCPOA in response to the deal’s failure to deliver on sanctions relief envisioned by the nuclear agreement after the United States. withdrew and re-imposed sanctions. In January 2020, Tehran announced that its nuclear program would no longer be subject to any limits. Does Iran intend to take any additional steps to breach its JCPOA obligations in the next several months? If so, what would be the intended purpose of those moves?

Amb. Majid Takht Ravanchi: The United States withdrew from the JCPOA in May 2018 in contravention of its obligations under international law because the JCPOA is part of Resolution 2231. It is an annex to the resolution. The resolution has endorsed the JCPOA, and Resolution 2231 was adopted unanimously by the whole Security Council. So that shows that the whole international community was behind Resolution 2231.

The U.S. move was against international law and against the international obligations of the United States. After the U.S. withdrew from the JCPOA Iran waited for almost a year to see what the other members of the JCPOA could do in order to give Iran the benefits of the JCPOA. We were told by some members of the JCPOA that Iran would be compensated for the losses that it has received as a result of the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA. But unfortunately, after a year we did not receive any tangible benefits from implementing our obligations under the JCPOA. Then at that time in 2019, after a year, we were left with no other option but to reduce our commitments. This is in line with Articles 26 and 36 of the JCPOA, so our action is totally in line with our commitments in the JCPOA.

Regarding whether Iran is going to move further from what we have done, as you know after taking the fifth steps, Iran said it would no longer take any action, and that has been our position since. As far as our future action is concerned, it depends very much on the way that the JCPOA and Resolution 2231 are going to be treated. Our actions will be corresponding to whatever happens with Resolution 2231 and the JCPOA.

ACT: Until recently, Iran still benefited from cooperative nuclear projects in the JCPOA. However, in July, U.S. sanctions waivers for several activities required by the JCPOA, including modifications of the Arak reactor, were terminated. What is the status of the Arak conversion project? What are Iran’s plans for the future of the reactor?

Ravanchi: The U.S. move a few months ago was another act in contravention of U.S. obligations, as they put sanctions on the nuclear cooperation between Iran and other countries. So that is the basis of the U.S. decision to withdraw from the JCPOA. And then they started violating their obligations in May 2018. They just put aside the nuclear cooperation with other countries, and now they put the final nail in the way the JCPOA is being treated. So that shows the real intention of the United States when it really does not want Iran to have advancement in high technology, and that shows that the U.S. is not interested in seeing the Iranian people enjoy the benefits of scientific achievements. As far as the Arak nuclear facility is concerned, we are in talks with our partners, and the talks are ongoing. At the same time, we have said that if we are faced with a situation when Iran cannot advance this part of its nuclear facilities, we will go back to the old design, which was something of our creation. So that is an option for Iran, and we will decide at the right time when to go back to the old design. This is a very good option for Iran.

ACT: In July, Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif announced that Tehran triggered the JCPOA’s dispute resolution mechanism (DRM) to address what Iran views as a violation of the deal by the France, Germany and the United Kingdom. What specifically does Iran hope to achieve with this move?

Ravanchi: That was not the first time that we initiated the DRM. In fact, since 2016 we have invoked the DRM mechanism on different occasions that the JCPOA was violated. The last time that we invoked the DRM was in response to lack of commitments by the EU partners. So this is a mechanism that every member of the JCPOA can apply, and we have used our rights in accordance with the JCPOA to benefit from the dividends that are supposed to be given to Iran. Our main purpose is to show that we have a complaint and the Joint Commission of the JCPOA has to study this complaint. We have sent our letter to the head of the EU Commission, and we hope that our concerns and our complaints will be taken into account by the Joint Commission.

ACT: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued two reports in 2020 detailing its investigation into past, possible undeclared nuclear activities and materials and its unmet requests to inspect two facilities in Iran. After these reports were issued, the agency’s Board of Governors passed a resolution calling on Iran to cooperate with the agency’s inquiries. Iran told the agency in June it is “willing to satisfy the agency’s requests” but certain “legal ambiguities” must be addressed first. What are the specific legal ambiguities that Iran wants addressed and how?

Ravanchi: First of all, Iran has continuously cooperated with the IAEA. Just look at the figures the IAEA produces. In 2019 almost 20 percent of all inspections, all over the world, have been done in Iran. That figure shows by itself that Iran is cooperating with the IAEA, so inspectors can go and visit different places in Iran. To say Iran is called to cooperate is not really an interesting argument, because Iran is cooperating with the IAEA. As for those specific places that they wanted to see, we were discussing with IAEA people in Iran, in fact the deputy director-general was in Iran, and we were discussing the issue with him. And our talks were advancing, and all of a sudden we witnessed a move in the IAEA Board of Governors to issue a resolution against Iran. That was very counterproductive because we were about to resolve the issue of the visits.

We have said time and again that the IAEA is a technical body. It should not be politicized, but unfortunately some countries, headed by the United States, are politicizing this organization. We think that the best way to address the problem is to adhere to the technical nature of this body. We are in contact with the IAEA, we are in contact with members of the Board of Governors in Vienna, and we hope that we can resolve this issue.

There are certain principles that we need to adhere to. We cannot rely on fake information or fake intelligence to conduct the business of the IAEA. Information given to the agency by the Israeli regime cannot be relied on because they have been very adamant in providing fake information, particularly with regards to Iran. So that is something that needs to be considered by the agency. If the agency has its own evidence, it has to show its evidence to Iran, not just duplicating what it was given by others.

Another point is that we have already closed the “possible military dimensions” (PMD) file back in 2015. We cannot allow this file to open again because we have already closed that, and the agency has issued a resolution on this. The Board of Governors has already issued a resolution for the closure of PMD. And alleged activities going back to 17 years ago is not something that the Board of Governors should be spending time to issue a resolution on. So these are the politicized activities I was referring to. Therefore, we think that we should continue our talks with the agency and with the members of the Board of Governors so that we can find a solution to the problem.

ACT: As you know, the Trump administration is seeking to extend the UN restrictions on Iran’s conventional arms sale that are set to expire in October per Security Council Resolution 2231 and U.S. officials say they will use the snapback mechanism in that resolution if necessary. A number of countries, including those still party to the JCPOA, oppose U.S. efforts and disagree with the U.S. legal interpretation that it is still entitled to use snapback. How do you expect this debate will play out in the Security Council? How would Iran respond if the Council agrees to extend the arms embargo or if the United States tries and somehow succeeds in snapping back UN sanctions under UNSC 2231?

Ravanchi: First of all, any move by the security Council to impose sanctions, military sanctions against Iran, is illegal, is against Resolution 2231. So, there's no legal room for the adoption of any resolution by the security Council to impose sanctions on Iran. The second issue is that the U.S. attempt is going to fail because the members of the Security Council are not prepared to accept the violation of Resolution 2231. As I said before, 2231 was adopted by consensus, by unanimity, in the Security Council, and that is part of international law. So, members of the Security Council today should be the last ones to adopt something against international law.

U.S. President Donald Trump displays his order reinstating sanctions on Iran after he announced his decision to withdraw the United States from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal in the Diplomatic Room at the White House on May 8, 2018.  (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)As far as the snap-back is concerned, it is really a very ridiculous proposition to consider the United States as a JCPOA participant because the U.S. is not a member. It has already said that it ceased its participation in the JCPOA, and it said this at the highest level. Just look at the announcement by the White House on May 8, 2018. It says the U.S. has ceased participation in the JCPOA. And high officials in the United States government have said that they are not going to refer to the JCPOA because they are not members of the JCPOA. At times the U.S. officials claimed that JCPOA and Resolution 2231 are two separate documents. While the U.S. has withdrawn from the JCPOA, it still claims to be a member of 2231. Apparently, they have not read resolution 2231. Resolution 2231 endorses the JCPOA, and the JCPOA is an annex to Resolution 2231. We are not talking about two separate documents. We are talking about one document and that is resolution 2231.

Resolution 2231 talks about JCPOA participants. It is not talking about 2231 participants, it talks about JCPOA participants. There are certain rights and certain obligations for JCPOA participants. Because the U.S. has withdrawn from the JCPOA, it cannot be considered a JCPOA participant. So, there is no legal basis for the U.S. claim to be a JCPOA participant. We believe that the United States cannot invoke the relevant provision in 2231 for bringing back the old resolutions. We have said very clearly that if arms embargoes are going to be back against Iran, Iran’s reaction will be harsh. We have different options available to us, and we do not rule out any political options that are available to Iran

ACT: Iran maintains that it will return to compliance with the JCPOA, if other parties meet their obligations. Presidential candidate Joe Biden has said he would reenter the JCPOA. If Biden is elected, or if the Trump administration were to express interest in rejoining the JCPOA, how quickly could such a return to compliance be accomplished once and if both sides agree to such an approach? Would Iran be open to follow-on talks with Washington and other JCPOA parties regarding the future of Iran’s nuclear program and other issues of mutual concern? What is the range of issues would Iran be willing to discuss in such a scenario?

Ravanchi: First of all, we are not interested to involve ourselves in U.S. domestic politics, so it is for the American people to decide who the next president should be. What is important for Iran, and for other countries, is the respect for international agreements, international law, that should be provided for by the U.S. government. It doesn't matter if it’s a Republican government or a Democratic government in the White House, the U.S. obligations should be respected by all U.S. governments. So, Resolution 2231 is part of international law, and the U.S. government has a legal obligation to observe the provisions of Resolution 2231. If the next administration, whoever that might be, is going to accept Resolution 2231 and implement the provisions of the JCPOA in all honesty, I believe there is room for the United States to join the other members of the JCPOA within the context of the Joint Commission to talk about different issues related to the Iran deal. That is something that we have to wait and see whether the U.S. will take that decision or not.

Another point I also have to emphasize is that Iran has suffered a lot after the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA. In the last couple of years, we have suffered a lot in terms of losing precious Iranian lives as a result of the U.S. sanctions, even on food and medicine. We have lost a lot in terms of economic issues. So, there is a good argument by Iran to seek compensation from the United States. There are the things that have to be borne in mind when we were talking about future moves by the United States to join the JCPOA again.

ACT: The rescheduled 10th review conference of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) is planned for early 2021 and many states believe that this is a key opportunity to reaffirm international support for the treaty and the full and timely implementation of its goals and objectives. Will Iran use this opportunity to reaffirm its commitment as an NPT state party to forswear nuclear weapons and to meet its NPT safeguards obligations?

Ravanchi: Iran was the first country back in 1974 to initiate a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly calling for the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East. Iran has also been observing its International obligations based on the NPT, so Iran is in good standing in terms of its respect for international law. We are going to have the opportunity in January 2021 to discuss different aspects of the NPT within the review mechanism. Definitely, Iran and other non-nuclear-weapon states will stress the fact that nuclear-weapon states have not been up to their obligations based on the relevant provision of the NPT.

Another point is in regard to the establishment of a nuclear-weapon-free zone and free from other weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. As you know for the last couple of years, the UN General Assembly has been seized of this matter. Last year we had the first conference on this important issue. But unfortunately, Israel, with a known stockpile of nuclear warheads, has not shown any interest to join the effort to establish a nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East. I believe the next NPT review conference is also a good opportunity for all member states to call on the Israeli regime to join others in putting all of their unsafeguarded nuclear facilities under the supervision of the IAEA.

Iranian workers stand at the heavy water production plant in Arak when it opened in August 2006. The plant was to provide heavy water for the site's research reactor, which was later modified by the terms of 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. (Photo: Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)ACT: Back to the question of Iran’s approach to the 10th NPT Review Conference, do you plan to use this particular conference—an important one, the 10th review, 50 years after the treaty’s entry into force—to reaffirm Iran’s commitment to the NPT and all of its goals and to Iran’s future safeguards obligations. And on the zone issue, there will also be another meeting on the UN conference in November convened by the secretary-general. What specifically do you believe could and should be achieved at that November meeting and at the NPT review conference in the context of the objective of advancing the discussions toward the zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East?

Ravanchi: On the first question, Iran’s position remains the same that there are certain obligations that nuclear-weapon-states have to honor. And the non-nuclear-weapon states are of the conviction that the nuclear-weapon-states have not observed their obligations. This is an important issue for non-nuclear-weapon states, and that issue will be brought up in the review conference. Regarding the nuclear-weapon-free zone, I believe that while we have a conference dealing specifically with this issue, we are of the opinion that the NPT review conference is also another avenue that should be considered to discuss this important issue because some countries were not eager to participate in or support the conference for the establishment of such a zone in the Middle East. Therefore, in the NPT review conference there is another opportunity for all members to discuss this important issue and try to support the establishment of such a zone and first and foremost to force the Israeli regime to accept joining others to discuss the establishment of such a zone in the Middle East.

ACT: Is it your expectation that the 10th review conference will still be taking place in January?

Ravanchi: It's too early to predict what exactly will happen in January. It depends on the situation at the time, because nobody can predict what the situation related to the pandemic is in January. If the situation is the same as what we had in March, I believe we can expect another postponement. But I suppose the way things are developing in New York City, I think and hope that the conference will convene as scheduled.

 

Iran’s UN ambassador sets out the case against U.S. actions in the Security Council.

Russia’s View on Nuclear Arms Control: An Interview With Ambassador Anatoly Antonov


April 2020

Arms Control Today conducted a written interview in early March with Anatoly Antonov, Russian ambassador to the United States on issues including the current status of U.S.-Russian strategic security talks, the future of New START, talks on intermediate-range missile systems, engaging China in arms control, and President Vladimir Putin’s proposal for a summit of the leaders of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Ambassador Anatoly Antonov, then director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department of Security and Disarmament Affairs, speaks at the closing plenary of the New START negotiations on Apr. 9, 2010, one day after the treaty was signed in Prague by the U.S. and Russian presidents. (Photo: Eric Bridiers/U.S. Mission, Geneva)Antonov was appointed ambassador to the United States in August 2017. For more than three decades, he has served in the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its successor, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where he has specialized in the control of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Serving as the ministry’s director for security and disarmament, he headed Russia’s delegation to the 2009 negotiations on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). He was appointed deputy minister of defense in 2011 and deputy minister of foreign affairs in 2016.

Arms Control Today: What issues were discussed in the recent U.S.-Russian strategic security talks in Vienna? When do the two sides plan to meet next? Does Russia find this dialogue on issues affecting strategic stability useful and, if so, why?

Amb. Anatoly Antonov: Russia and the United States are the largest nuclear weapons powers and permanent members of the UN Security Council. They bear a special responsibility for preserving world peace and security. That is why it is crucial to maintain the bilateral strategic stability dialogue at any given circumstance, regardless of political situation. It goes without saying that such engagement should be conducted on a regular basis.

While discussing security issues, one must keep in mind that any conversation, no matter how substantial it might be, should focus on achieving tangible results. Reaching agreements on reducing tensions and mutually acceptable arms control solutions could help meet this goal. The primary task is to rebuild confidence in this area, attempt to preserve treaties that are still in effect, [and] mitigate crisis dynamic.

As for the consultations in January, our reaction can be described as “cautious optimism.” On the bright side is the fact that the meeting did take place, even though it exposed serious disagreements between our countries on a number of topics. Without going into detail, I must note that on many occasions we heard our partners talking about a concept of conducting dialogue within the framework of the so-called great power competition. In our view, such a formula could hardly serve as a foundation for building constructive cooperation on security issues between nuclear powers.

Nonetheless, Russian and American negotiators managed to discuss factors that significantly impact strategic stability (even though our partners somehow prefer the term “strategic security”). In our perspective, they include, above all, deployment of global missile defense, implementation of the “prompt strike” concept, threat of placement of weapons in outer space and designation of space as a “war-fighting domain,” quantitative and qualitative imbalances in conventional arms in Europe, development and deployment of low-yield nuclear warheads, and adoption of new doctrines that lead to lowering the threshold of using nuclear weapons.

In our view, another positive outcome of the renewed Russian-U.S. dialogue on strategic stability was the agreement reached in Vienna on conducting expert group discussions on specific topics, which we have to go over and agree on.

ACT: Do you agree or disagree with the idea that there is ample time to decide whether to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START)? From Moscow’s view, when must the presidents of the United States and Russia formally agree on extension of New START to ensure completion of the necessary processes before its expiration date? Is it Russia’s view that the treaty can only be extended once, or can it be extended multiple times totaling up to five years if the two parties decide to pursue that approach?

Is it possible for the Duma to provisionally recognize a joint decision by the two presidents to extend the treaty in order to allow a decision on extension closer to the expiration date?

Antonov: As you have correctly noted, Russian President Vladimir Putin clearly spelled out our stance on New START. On December 5, 2019, he declared our country’s readiness to immediately and unconditionally extend the treaty. Later last year, we officially suggested that Russia and the United States should review the entire set of corresponding issues including the term of the treaty’s possible extension (up to five years).

A Russian defense official shows Russia's 9M729 cruise missile at a facility outside Moscow on Jan. 23, 2019. Russian Ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov disputes the U.S. accusation that the missile violated the INF Treaty. (Photo: Vasily Maximov/AFP/Getty Images)However, we have yet to get a response. Trump administration representatives keep claiming that “there is still time” since the extension of the treaty in their view can be formalized in a matter of days. These statements are made despite our repeated clarifications that New START’s extension is not a “mere technicality,” but a rather extensive process that requires the Russian side to undertake a series of domestic legislative procedures. I would like to reiterate that as past similar review processes show, it may take several months to complete the New START extension.

Therefore, it is surprising that the U.S. Department of State refused to conduct consultations proposed by the Russian side on legal aspects of potential extension of the treaty. In response, we hear mixed comments (for instance, during the briefing of a “senior State Department official” on March 9, 2020) on the nature of interaction between the executive and legislative branches in Russia.

As for your last question, I would rather not contemplate in a conditional tense. I wish to emphasize: Russia stands ready to reach an agreement on New START’s extension even this very day. However, our goodwill is not enough. It requires U.S. consent, which we have not received yet. Should Washington agree, we will immediately begin implementation of the corresponding domestic procedures.

We hope that the United States will finalize its stance on New START in the nearest future since there is not much time left before the treaty expires in February 2021.

ACT: For nearly a year, the United States has insisted that China be involved in trilateral nuclear arms control negotiations with Russia and the United States. Chinese officials have said, however, that given the disparities between their arsenal and those of the United States and Russia, they are not interested in trilateral arms control talks at this time. Russia has said that if the U.S. side can persuade China to participate, then other nuclear-armed states such as France and the United Kingdom should be involved.

In Russia’s view, which nuclear arms issues and which types of weapons should be part of any bilateral or multilateral follow-on negotiation to New START? Would Russia be willing to engage in negotiations designed to limit or reduce stockpiles of nonstrategic nuclear weapons as well as strategic nuclear weapons? When, in Russia’s view, should any such New START follow-on talks begin?

Antonov: I would like to remind you that our stance on this issue dates back to 2010. We have said more than once that, with the signing of New START, any possibilities for further reduction and limitation of strategic offensive arms on a bilateral basis are virtually exhausted and that further progress in this area will require involvement of other states with military nuclear capabilities. However, we do not understand why some of our U.S. colleagues talk exclusively about China. Let’s also involve NATO members possessing nuclear weapons, Great Britain and France. In fact, that is what the special representative of the president for nuclear nonproliferation, Ambassador Jeffrey Eberhardt, suggested in his March interview with your journal, when he said, “we have to move beyond bilateral discussions between ourselves and Russia and bring in other countries.”

We are convinced that cooperation with third countries in developing possible new agreements in this area should be strictly consensus based and pose no threats to legitimate security interests of the parties. Beijing has clearly rejected the idea of being involved in the so-called trilateral agreements on nuclear arms control that you have mentioned. We believe that this “obsession” with the trilateral format can become a serious obstacle to the development of the Russian-U.S. strategic dialogue, in particular, in terms of preserving existing treaties and developing possible new bilateral agreements.

There is no doubt that the Russian-U.S. bilateral arms control agenda remains relevant. We are open to discussing within the strategic dialogue the issue of the newest and prospective weapons that do not fall under New START. However, the conversation on this topic should be conducted in a comprehensive manner, which takes into account interests of both sides.

At the same time, the possible extension of New START would give Russia and the United States an opportunity to discuss the prospects of bilateral and multilateral arms control regimes in the environment of strategic predictability.

ACT: Regarding your proposal to convene a heads-of-state meeting among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, what specifically would be discussed at such a meeting, and what specific outcomes does President Putin think could be achieved and how?

Antonov: Currently we have been conducting preliminary discussion on a possible date and venue for the summit.

The goal of the summit, as stated by Russian President Putin, is to begin a substantial conversation on the fundamental principles of cooperation on the international arena in order to resolve the most pressing issues faced by the global community. A meeting of the leaders of the five permanent members of the Security Council is the most appropriate format for such a dialogue to commence.

We proceed from an understanding that the leaders will discuss the crisis situation in global stability and security, including the erosion of the UN-set foundations of the world order, regional conflicts, fight against international terrorism and transnational organized crime, challenges of migration, and destabilizing technologies. We will not be able to leave out disarmament and arms control issues. We hope that the summit will allow us to identify approaches to solving pressing strategic stability issues.

But it can only be achieved within an interested and mutually respectful dialogue that implies consideration of interests of all sides. Later, other countries can and must join these efforts since only collectively we may solve the global problems of humanity. The summit is our proposal to the international community to step away from confrontational thinking and get behind a productive agenda.

ACT: Would Russia’s proposal for talks on a moratorium on deploying intermediate-range missiles also prohibit Russian deployment of the 9M729 ground-launched cruise missile, which U.S. and NATO officials have charged as an Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty)-noncompliant system? Which geographic “environments” does the Russian proposal envision becoming nondeployment zones for these prohibited missiles? How would the parties to the agreement monitor and verify compliance or otherwise share information about the locations and numbers of the prohibited systems? Lastly, is Russia open to considering counterproposals to its initial concept, and with which countries does Russia seek to negotiate such a missile moratorium?

Antonov: Russian President Putin’s message to the heads of the leading countries, including the United States and other NATO members, dated September 18, 2019, states that our country made a voluntary commitment not to deploy ground-based intermediate- and shorter-range missiles in Europe and other regions so long as the United States refrains from doing so. On many occasions, we have called on other countries to support this initiative in order to prevent a new missile arms race, primarily on the European continent.

We believe that a multilateral moratorium in accordance with the Russian proposal will require additional verification measures, especially considering that launchers capable of firing intermediate-range land-based missiles are already deployed in Romania (Poland soon will follow suit). It was clearly proven during the test of a sea-based Tomahawk cruise missile fired from a ground-based Mk41 launcher conducted on August 18, 2019. Should our U.S. and European partners be interested, Russia is ready to work out corresponding technical aspects of the verification regime.

As for 9M729 missiles, the alleged “proof” amassed by the United States and NATO of our systems violating the INF Treaty (while it was in effect) has never been presented either to us or the international community.

Russia stands ready to discuss the issues of intermediate- and shorter-range ground-based missiles with all concerned countries. Our call to adhere to a moratorium, similar to the one already observed by our country, is addressed above all to Washington and its allies in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.

ACT: Regarding the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), what are the main action steps on nuclear disarmament, previously agreed in the 2010 review conference outcome document, or perhaps new steps that Russia will encourage the 10th NPT review conference to support? What specific nuclear risk reduction measures is Russia ready to support in the context of the NPT review conference? [Editor: The 2020 NPT Review Conference will not meet as scheduled, see ACT news article, this issue.]

Antonov: Our stance and priorities in nuclear disarmament have been comprehensively described in the Russian working paper submitted to the second preparatory committee for the 10th NPT review conference. It stipulates a consensus-based incremental approach that implies consistent work on creating the right conditions that help the global community to continue down the path toward nuclear disarmament.

In this regard, we consider the forced development of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (now open for signing) as wrongful. It fails to promote nuclear disarmament, undermines the NPT, and creates additional tensions between its participants. We believe that complete elimination of nuclear weapons is only possible within comprehensive and complete disarmament and under conditions of equal and indivisible security for all, including nuclear states, in accordance with the NPT.

A significant contribution to progress in nuclear disarmament would be made by extending New START and adopting a moratorium on the deployment of ground-based intermediate- and shorter-range missiles by the United States and its allies. An important role in efforts to limit and reduce nuclear weapons is played by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Unfortunately, since the CTBT was opened for signature 20 years ago, the world has still been awaiting its entry into force.

As for nuclear risks, we are working on a joint statement with the other permanent members of the UN Security Council on the inadmissibility of a nuclear war (the United States has failed to respond to Russia’s proposal to do it in a bilateral format). This could in a way become a reconfirmation of the well-known Gorbachev-Reagan formula, this time in a multilateral format.

Russia’s ambassador to the United States discusses strategic security, New START, and other key topics.

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