Interviews | Arms Control Association

‘Nothing Endangers the Planet More Than Nuclear Weapons’

December 2018

With the shift in control of the U.S. House of Representatives next month following the November midterm elections, Representative Adam Smith (D-Wash.) is in line to become chairman of the Armed Services Committee. In that powerful post, he will give Democrats renewed influence over key defense-related developments and bring renewed scrutiny of key programs, including nuclear weapons procurement and policies.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, questions witnesses during a defense budget hearing April 12. Smith is in line to become committee chairman in January, when control of the House of Representatives flips to the Democrats. (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) In an interview with Arms Control Today, Smith said he plans to question the need and affordability of elements of the Trump administration’s approach toward nuclear weapons and press for greater diplomatic engagement to avert an accelerating arms race with Russia and China. He opposes U.S. plans for two new, low-yield nuclear capabilities, envisioned as a counter to Russia, that he said will do little to enhance nuclear deterrence and make the country safer. A better course, he says, includes undertaking renewed efforts with Russia to maintain the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and to extend the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) beyond its February 2021 expiration date. This transcript has been edited for length
and clarity.

What are the top two or three steps you think should be taken to enhance oversight of the administration's approach toward nuclear weapons?

It is really a matter of taking another look at the Nuclear Posture Review [NPR]. What we want to do is to drill down, firstly, on the costs. Exactly what is this going to cost us, and how does that balance out against our other national security needs, and then, what's the strategy behind this? Why do we need so many nuclear weapons? Ultimately, what I want to do is see a shift to a deterrence strategy. I think the oversight will come to having an explanation for why do you think we need this many delivery platforms? Why do we need the triad? Why do we need over 4,000 nuclear weapons? I think that is the discussion that most members of Congress have not been privy to, and having seen it myself, I don't buy the explanations, and I don't think it is the correct course.

A key element of the Trump administration's NPR report was the call to develop two new, low-yield nuclear capabilities for the sea-based leg of the triad—in the near term, a low-yield submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead option and, in the longer term, a new sea-launched cruise missile. Would these enhance deterrence, or could they lower the nuclear threshold and increase the risk of miscalculation?

I think it lowers the nuclear threshold and increases the risk of miscalculation. I think it increases the risk that people will see nuclear weapons as simply another weapon in their arsenal of conflict, and when you start talking about low-yield nuclear weapons, you contemplate uses other than for deterrence.

Now, the argument that the administration will make is, well, if Russia has low-yield nuclear weapons, we have to counterbalance it. My view is that we have to say that there is no such thing as an acceptable use of a nuclear weapon and that we will counter it with whatever nuclear weapons we have. When you go the low-yield route, you increase the number of weapons, you increase the risk for people thinking that they can use them in a tactical way. They do not enhance our ability to deter our adversaries, so I'm opposed to low-yield nuclear weapons. I think that speeds up an arms race that is very, very dangerous.

Do you know whether the U.S. intelligence community has concluded, as the NPR report claims, that Russia or China might believe the United States would be self-deterred from using current weapons in response to, say, limited Russian or Chinese nuclear use?

It's just speculation. I have not seen any in-depth study on that question. This is why the other big part, of course, is to maintain an open dialogue with our fellow nuclear powers China and Russia. It is our responsibility as global powers to make sure that nuclear weapons are never used, and we need to have consistent dialogue on how to avoid that.

Whatever other differences we might have, I want to see a consistent dialogue on nuclear weapons. It is something that President Ronald Reagan understood. He was obviously for peace through strength. He wanted to build up a strong military, but he was also instrumental in negotiating arms reduction treaties where nuclear weapons were concerned, precisely because he understood the risk that nuclear weapons pose.

The Congressional Budget Office projected last year that the Obama administration's plans to sustain and upgrade the nuclear arsenal would cost $1.2 trillion without adjusting for inflation. The Trump administration's proposals would add to the cost. Do you believe that is realistic and affordable?

I do not. I think that is the biggest challenge that we face within our national security budget. Every single branch says it doesn’t have enough, that we need more, and yet we don't have the money to do that. We need to reconfigure a national security strategy that would better reflect both our resources and our true national security needs.

Nuclear weapons are a great example of where we could save money and still maintain our national security interests. A deterrent strategy is what's going to help us the most, and we could do that for a heck of a lot less money than is currently being spent. We could meet our needs from a national security standpoint with a lot fewer nuclear weapons. The path we're going down now is certainly unsustainable from a fiscal standpoint, and it doesn't make us safer.

You noted we can get the deterrence we need with fewer nuclear weapons. What might be the options to maintain the nuclear arsenal that would be more cost effective while still providing for a strong deterrent?

Build fewer of them. We can calculate what we need the weapons for in order to deter our adversaries, and there's a compelling argument to be made that a submarine-based nuclear weapons approach alone gives us an adequate deterrent. But we can certainly simply build fewer weapons to meet our national security needs. It's not really that complicated.

I know you're familiar with the plan to develop a new fleet of nuclear-armed, air-launched cruise missiles, known as the long-range standoff [LRSO] system, that the Air Force says is needed to ensure that the air leg of the nuclear triad can continue to penetrate the most advanced air defenses well into the future. Critics argue that retaining such cruise missiles is redundant, given current plans to build the stealth B-21 long-range bomber and upgraded nuclear B61 gravity bomb. Do air-launched cruise missiles bring a unique contribution to the U.S. nuclear deterrent?

I don't think they're worth the money in terms of what they get us, and I would agree with the arguments that our new air-launch plans more than cover the need and, heck, our submarines cover the need as well, in terms of being able to reach these targets. So, no, I don't see the need for the LRSO.

Earlier this year, you said that the United States does not need as many intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) as the Air Force plans to build. The service is planning to replace the existing Minuteman III ICBM system of about 400 deployed missiles with missiles that are part of the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent system. The program is very early in its development, and there is significant uncertainty about the cost, which is estimated at between $85 billion and $150 billion, counting inflation. What options should be considered to reduce the cost?

Build fewer of them. Again, this isn't terribly complicated. You look at the total number of nuclear warheads that we have and how many we truly need for our national security. In the studies I've seen, we are planning on winding up with 4,000 warheads by the end of this nuclear modernization when, in fact, 1,000 would be more than sufficient. You could also make an argument that we do not even need the ICBM component of the triad in order to meet our needs for deterrence with nuclear weapons. But certainly, it's a very compelling argument that we could get by building fewer of them.

So, do you think the Pentagon should more seriously consider further extending the life of a smaller number of existing Minuteman III ICBMs as a cheaper, near-term alternative to the plan for an entirely new ICBM system?

That I would have to examine to figure out the viability of extending the life of our existing nuclear weapons. If that's possible as a cheaper alternative, I think it's certainly something we should consider, but I would have to hear more arguments about that. But no matter how you get there, if you build fewer of them, you save more money.

The Trump administration's NPR expands the circumstances under which the United States would consider the first use of nuclear weapons, including in response to non-nuclear attacks on critical infrastructure or on nuclear command, control, and communications and early-warning capabilities. You introduced legislation last year that would make it U.S. policy not to use nuclear weapons first. Why adopt a no-first-use policy?

In order to reduce the risk of us stumbling into a nuclear war. There are a lot of threats, there are a lot of weapons systems out there. Nothing endangers the planet more than nuclear weapons. If you introduce them, you cannot predict what your adversaries are going to counter with, and an all-out nuclear war is the likely result, with the complete destruction of the planet.

President Donald Trump signs the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019 at Fort Drum, New York, on August 13. Rep. Adam Smith says the House Armed Services Committee, under Democratic control, will undertake renewed scrutiny of key defense programs, including nuclear-weapons procurement and policies. (Photo: Sgt. Thomas Scaggs/U.S. Army) Look, war in general causes an enormous amount of suffering, but nuclear war is the greatest danger to the future of the planet. Introducing nuclear weapons first is an unacceptable escalation of any conflict that we could possibly envision. We have conventional means of responding, and we have a variety of different means of preventing getting into that war in the first place. I don't think it makes sense to have first use of nuclear weapons on the table as an option.

What would you say to critics who believe that a no-first-use policy could undermine deterrence
and unsettle our allies?

I think our allies are more unsettled by the possibility that we might introduce nuclear weapons into a conflict, as they are a lot closer to the nuclear powers in the world than we are. I think our allies would like to see us have a no-first-use policy, and, look, there are a whole lot of other things we need to do to deter our adversaries. I just don't think that nuclear weapons should be a part of that equation.

President Donald Trump announced his plan to have the United States withdraw from the INF Treaty. You have strongly criticized that and expressed concern about not being briefed or consulted. Do you think that the United States and Russia have exhausted all diplomatic options to resolve the compliance dispute?

I do not, and my biggest concern is we have not included our NATO allies in this discussion. I think we should pursue diplomatic efforts to try to preserve the INF Treaty. I think it is an important treaty, and I think we are abandoning it prematurely.

Does the United States need to field intermediate-range missiles in Europe or East Asia, and what would be the benefits and risks of doing so?

I don't think that we need to. I think we have other deterrent capabilities. The risk is an arms race. The risk is that Russia would greatly expand its arsenal of these types of weapons. I think the treaty made sense when we signed it. It still makes sense now.

If the INF Treaty collapses, the only remaining bilateral U.S.-Russian arms control agreement would be New START, which expires in 2021 but can be extended by up to five years through agreement by both parties. The administration has said that it does not yet have a position on whether to take up Russia’s offer to begin extension talks. What would be the impact of a U.S. withdrawal from or failure to extend New START?

An escalating arms race which gets us in dangerous territory. I think it would be problematic if we let that treaty expire.

The Obama administration had determined that the United States could reduce the size of its deployed strategic nuclear arsenal by up to a third below the New START limits of 1,550 warheads and 700 delivery systems. Should the United States seek to engage Russia on further reductions, including on Russian concerns about U.S. missile defenses?

Yes. I think we would benefit from greater dialogue with Russia. It's actually something that I do agree with the president on. I don't agree necessarily agree with the way he's handled it, but as two of the greatest military powers, I think the whole world would benefit from us having more robust discussions and negotiations with the Russians on all of these issues.

As part of its effort to win Republican support in the Senate for New START in 2010, the Obama administration pledged to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Senator Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who is the ranking member on the Foreign Relations Committee, said in September that congressional support for nuclear modernization ought to be tied to maintaining an arms control process that limits and seeks to reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear forces. Do you agree?

As I said, negotiating with Russia to reduce military might in an equal way helps reduce the risk of conflict and the risk of escalation. We've got a long history of this, starting with President Richard Nixon in the 1970s. But as we looked at the build-up of our military strictly on the nuclear side, it made sense to negotiate a sensible limit on what weapons we would develop and that continues to be the case. Now that Russia is rebuilding and rearming and is much more in conflict with the United States, I think it makes sense that we have these discussions.

The administration is conducting a major review of U.S. missile defense policy. Some Trump administration officials have suggested that the review should augment the role of missile defense in countering Russia and China, not just the limited threats posed by Iran and North Korea, and they have urged the development of interceptors in space. Do you believe that such steps would be wise?

We need to have a dialogue with the Russians and Chinese about this. We don't want either side to get to the point where it thinks that it can win a war with an acceptable level of loss and therefore stumble into that war. Certainly, missile defense is part of what concerns the Russians, and their reaction has been toward wanting to build more weapons. We need to be able to defend ourselves, but I think we need to have an open dialogue with the Russians about an arms control approach that gives us a more secure world.

There have been efforts off and on to engage with Russia in a strategic stability dialogue. There was a strategic stability dialogue meeting last fall, but since then, a follow-up has not been scheduled despite the fact, as we understand it, that the Defense and State departments want to have it and the Russians want to have it. Is this something that the secretary of state and secretary of defense should be directly involved in, rather than relying on Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin meeting occasionally on the margins of other meetings?

Yes, I think there needs to be robust engagement across all those fronts. I think the secretary of state and secretary of defense need to be involved. I think President Putin and President Trump need to be involved. I think a regular negotiation on the subject would be very, very helpful. So, yes, I think that is the right approach. We just need to follow through on it and do it.

Representative Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the prospective chairman of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, discusses his policy priorities, the limits of military spending, and the peril of a new nuclear arms race.

Read more about ‘Nothing Endangers the Planet More Than Nuclear Weapons’

‘Everyone Has a Lot at Stake’: A Q&A with Fernando Arias, the new director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

October 2018

Fernando Arias, the new director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, discusses the challenges to the international chemical weapons ban and how the OPCW is responding.

Spanish diplomat Fernando Arias took office July 25 as the fourth director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), stepping into the leadership post at a time when the prohibition regime and international norms are being undermined by Syria’s open use of chemical weapons and by assassination plots using banned toxins blamed on Russia and North Korea.

Fernando Arias, the new director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, calls the re-emergence of chemical weapons, most notably in Syria, a “tragic reality” and says that the OPCW will act on its expanded mandate to identify violators of the Chemical Weapons Convention. (Photo: OPCW) In response to questions last month from Arms Control Today’s Alicia Sanders-Zakre, Arias discussed the challenges facing the OPCW, the actions underway to document violators of the chemical weapons ban more fully, and the measures he is employing to improve the transparency and responsiveness of the 193-member-state organization that is the implementing body for the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

The war in Syria has put the issue of attribution in the spotlight, particularly in instances where member-state Russia, Syria’s ally, has used its UN Security Council veto to thwart investigations. The independent OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) has determined that chemical weapons were used by Syria and the Islamic State group.

With new authority granted by CWC member-states, Arias said he is putting in place arrangements for the purpose of identifying entities responsible for chemical weapons use. A special office for attribution will consist of a head of investigations and a few investigators and analysts who will be supported by existing Technical Secretariat expertise and structures. “Those responsible [for chemical weapons attacks] should now have nowhere to hide and should be held accountable by the international community for breaking the global norm against chemical weapons,” Arias said.

Arias is a career diplomat who served as Spain’s UN ambassador from 2012 to 2013. Before becoming director-general, he served as Spain’s ambassador to the Netherlands and permanent representative to the OPCW from 2014 to 2018.

Congratulations on your election. What is your top goal as director-general?

I am committed to working with our member-states to protect, defend, and uphold the CWC. This means implementing the mandate given to the organization by the convention, as well as the decisions adopted by the executive council and the plenary body, the Conference of the States-Parties. I will also respect and develop the important work undertaken by my predecessors and their teams.

The OPCW is charged with verifiably eliminating chemical weapons, preventing their re-emergence, and promoting chemistry for economic and technological development. I am especially interested in shaping a balanced organization that ensures a stringent verification regime and offers cooperation and assistance in the very wide field of peaceful uses of chemistry, while addressing the growing threat of re-emergence of chemical weapons use.

Our organization has a track record of measurable results, and we will build on it. For instance, more than 96 percent of declared stockpiles have been eliminated. But there is ongoing work to verify the destruction of old chemical weapons that are a legacy of World War I and World War II and abandoned chemical weapons in China. Moving forward, we will have to evolve to meet the increasing needs of our member-states and the expectations of the international community. Doing so means good management of the organization and introducing the reforms necessary for keeping the OPCW fit for purpose and ready to face any new challenges.

What are currently the greatest threats to the CWC regime?

The main threat to the convention is the re-emergence of chemical weapons, which is no longer theoretical but rather a tragic reality. Despite the global ban, we have witnessed their ongoing use. What worries me is the proven willingness of governments, terrorists, and criminals to use chemicals as weapons indiscriminately. Chemical weapons belong in a history book, not on the front page of newspapers.

The OPCW has almost fulfilled its foundational goal, the destruction of the world’s declared chemical weapons stockpiles. As mentioned, more than 96 percent of these stockpiles have been destroyed under the OPCW’s watchful eye. Although the remaining work is on track for completion by 2023, four more countries [Egypt, Israel (a signatory), North Korea, and South Sudan] need to join the convention before the world can have confidence that all chemical weapons stockpiles have been accounted for.

As the world’s chemical weapons watchdog, our mission to verifiably destroy declared stockpiles has a conceivable end point. But our mission to prevent the re-emergence of chemical weapons requires constant vigilance in perpetuity. As we move into the postdestruction phase, our mission will be far from complete. In fact, it will only grow in significance and complexity.

Destroying chemical weapons is a relatively straightforward exercise; preventing their re-emergence is much more complex. Science and technology are constantly evolving, introducing new potential for misuse. The OPCW’s experience and expertise makes it the undisputed global authority on chemical weapons. In response to an evolving security landscape, OPCW member-states and the Technical Secretariat have become increasingly agile and resilient as we respond to threats. Even so, we must continually adapt and grow to contribute to global security.

This is especially crucial in an era of increasing competition for resources. Securing the resources the OPCW needs to uphold the global ban on chemical weapons requires the continued engagement of our member-states.

Are you concerned about the erosion of the norm against chemical weapons use due to repeated chemical attacks by Syria, a CWC state-party? If so, how will you address this problem?

Of course, I am concerned about any erosion of the norm. Any use of chemical weapons anywhere, by anyone, and for any reason is unacceptable.

Chemical weapons use in Syria has been confirmed by both the OPCW’s Fact-Finding Mission and the JIM. These findings and recommendations represent an opportunity to uphold the prohibition against chemical weapons and to ensure accountability for those who violate it. This prohibition is unequivocal. All are bound to never, under any circumstances, develop, produce, stockpile, transfer, or use chemical weapons.

Since April 2014, the OPCW has been investigating allegations of the use of toxic chemicals as weapons in Syria. Our technical teams of impartial, experienced, and expert chemists and inspectors seek to establish the facts. The facts confirm the use of chemical weapons, including sarin, chlorine, and sulfur mustard.

Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons technicians on April 20, 2017 show the type of equipment worn by investigators in the UK poisoning case of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal. (Photo: John Thys/AFP/Getty Images) The OPCW is making use of all of the legal tools at its disposal to clarify and resolve the remaining gaps, inconsistencies, and discrepancies with the Syrian declaration [of its stockpiles]. This will continue to take an investment of time and effort, and we are working with the Syrian authorities to ensure the convention’s rules are implemented. The nations that have committed themselves to the convention also have to take steps to protect the global prohibition enshrined within it.

What challenges remain for completing the destruction of all declared chemical weapons?

Verifiably destroying most of the world’s declared chemical weapons stockpiles has been an unparalleled achievement of the CWC. This treaty has so far proven to be the most successful at eliminating an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. However, the convention has yet to achieve universal membership. Until we reach it, we cannot know with confidence what other stockpiles of weapons may exist. I encourage the four remaining countries to join with the rest of the world and take up the responsibilities of the convention.

The United States, which has the last remaining declared chemical weapons stockpile, is scheduled to complete its destruction by 2023. How will the OPCW’s role change once all declared chemical weapons stockpiles have been destroyed?

The OPCW has always had a multifaceted mission. When people think of the OPCW, destruction of chemical weapons most likely comes to mind. This is true, but it is not our sole mission. We also aim to prevent the re-emergence of chemical weapons by working with governments, industry, and other international organizations. We have been working with our member-states to provide assistance and protection against chemical threats. In parallel, we strive to foster international cooperation to strengthen implementation of the convention and to promote the peaceful uses of chemistry.

When all declared stockpiles have been verifiably eliminated, the OPCW will still be actively pursuing these goals. The organization needs to retain the knowledge, expertise, and equipment to support any future destruction activities. This may come about with the OPCW gaining new members. The same goes with addressing the threat of chemical weapons use. We need to maintain and broaden the expertise we have gained across the years if we want to be successful in fulfilling this mission.

Eliminating chemical weapons in a way that is safe and secure and protects the environment, as mandated by the convention, is very expensive and very complex. Even once all declared stockpiles are destroyed, concerns will remain about the management and trade of chemicals. As long as there are those with malicious intent, the OPCW will continue its work with national authorities and the United Nations and other international organizations to reduce the risk of the diversion of chemicals in the fight against the harmful misuse of chemicals by anyone, anywhere, and under any circumstances.

Will you increase transparency and civil society engagement, as the past two directors-general have done?

Of course. Civil society has been a champion of the convention from even before its inception. The community of researchers, scientists, and nongovernmental organizations is essential for raising awareness of chemical weapons issues and keeping us all accountable. Over the last few years, there has been an emphasis on the role of education and outreach. I want to see this continue. The next generation of chemistry practitioners and decision-makers will play a critical role in ensuring that the global ban on chemical weapons remains strong.

I will continue to encourage civil society to engage with the OPCW and its member-states. Since the last review conference, in 2013, we are projected to more than double civil society participation for this upcoming review conference, in November. As our organization focuses more and more on preventing the re-emergence of chemical weapons, we understand that achieving that goal will require the engagement of a much broader cross-section of society than before.

Transparency is important for organizations to thrive. For instance, one step I have already taken is to ensure senior leadership positions are recruited through a more open and transparent process. For the first time, recently we have publicly advertised director-level vacancies in an effort to find the best and brightest for these critical roles. As the organization faces new challenges, we need strong leadership and a good, independent, and professional team.

Another key to improved transparency is access to information. The OPCW has a new website that communicates with authority and trust while making information easy to find and use. This is part of an effort, initiated by my predecessor, to make the OPCW more engaging and accountable. This new website is a core part of our effort to use digital platforms such as social media to reach people all over the world.

Before leaving office, your predecessor, Ahmet Üzümcü, called the OPCW’s former lack of attribution power a “major gap.” What should be the role of the OPCW in assigning blame for chemical weapons attacks?

The international community has long placed its trust in the OPCW to rid the world of chemical weapons. Determining that a chemical weapon has been used is an essential step, but it is not enough. As of this past June and through the decision adopted by the Conference of States-Parties, the OPCW has been tasked with the mission to identify the perpetrators. So far, we have been detectives who could only say if a crime has happened; now we can identify who did it. But it is up to a court or others to determine the consequences. Attribution is not accountability.

Those responsible should now have nowhere to hide and should be held accountable by the international community for breaking the global norm against chemical weapons. Achieving justice involves a wider range of international institutions and mechanisms, but the OPCW will do its part in the process. Attribution will be our contribution.

How will you advance the recent decision in late June to give the OPCW the mandate to assign blame for chemical weapons attacks in Syria?

To clarify, the decision adopted by the Conference of States-Parties addresses the threat of chemical weapons use. It is not only about Syria. Instead, the decision lays out several avenues for OPCW action to address the use of chemical weapons.

For instance, the OPCW has been tasked for the first time to investigate uses of chemical weapons for the purposes of attribution. We will take on this task in instances where the Fact-Finding Mission has determined chemical weapons were used or likely used in Syria. We would also do this if a member-state investigating possible chemical weapons use on its territory asks us for assistance.

Diplomats speak at the Fourth Special Session of the Conference of States-Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention, held at The Hague on June 26. (Photo: OPCW) The OPCW will help with efforts to pursue justice by preserving and providing information to relevant UN investigatory entities. We have been asked to further assist our member-states in preventing chemical terrorism while helping them develop protection against a potential attack. Finally, per the request of the Conference of States-Parties, we will propose measures to strengthen the verification regime. I am confident that all of these measures, once identified and implemented, will help to make our world a safer place.

I have set up a task force that has been working swiftly and intensively to implement the decision. The task force has consulted with relevant international organizations and structures that deal with attribution issues. The Technical Secretariat currently has the capability to support this new mission, but we need additional and complementary expertise and skills in investigations, forensics, and related analysis. The task force has assessed the human, financial, and technological resources and organizational structures needed.

Taking on this new mission successfully requires adequate resourcing. I have faith that our member-states will grant the OPCW the means it needs to fulfill the mission they have given us.

In terms of chemical weapons use in Syria, we are creating a new office responsible for attribution that will report directly to me. This special office for attribution will consist of a head of investigations and a few investigators and analysts who will be supported by existing Technical Secretariat expertise and structures. As attribution can serve to deter the use of chemical weapons, this is one way that we are implementing our mandate to prevent the re-emergence of chemical weapons. We need to take an integrated approach to this issue, using our current skills and recruiting new staff and resources to meet demands for specific skill sets.

The OPCW’s findings must hold up to technical and legal scrutiny. The design and implementation of the decision must be beyond reproach to ensure that those who are identified as responsible for the use of chemical weapons are ultimately held accountable, not by the OPCW but by the appropriate authorities.

What should states-parties do at the Fourth CWC Review Conference in November to strengthen the treaty?

The conference is a crucial yet narrow window of opportunity for our member- states to set the OPCW’s strategy and priorities for the next five years. Its outcomes may have a lasting impact on the tone and structure of the organization as we further transition into the postdestruction era.

The increasing focus on preventing the re-emergence of chemical weapons and confronting the threat of chemical weapons use will mean changes for what we do and how we do it. Accordingly, the conference must consider how to match sustainable resources to the responsibilities and composition of the OPCW.

The time allocated for the review conference is short, but the stakes for the organization are high. Member-states have gathered to deliberate on the future priorities of the OPCW and the work of the conference. These deliberations are the foundations for what I hope will be a forward-looking and constructive outcome document.

For more than 20 years, these governments have invested in a global effort to verifiably eliminate declared stockpiles of chemical weapons, while preventing the re-emergence of such weapons and simultaneously promoting the peaceful uses of chemistry. In the face of today’s threats, everyone has a lot at stake to make sure the regime underpinned by the CWC continues to function and adapt as needed.

Banishing the scourge of chemical weapons depends on those who have built the international system to make full use of it. The senseless loss of life is a reminder that the protection promised by the convention is only as strong as those willing to uphold it.

Fernando Arias, the new director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, discusses the challenges to the international chemical weapons ban and how the OPCW is responding.

Read more about ‘Everyone Has a Lot at Stake’: A Q&A with Fernando Arias, the new director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons

Q&A: Prospects and Perils at a Trump-Kim Summit

May 2018

U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are due to meet by early June in a historic, high-stakes summit.

They make an odd couple: a self-confident U.S. president, largely inexperienced in international affairs and distracted by federal investigations, who is looking to eliminate North Korea’s nuclear threat; and an authoritarian North Korean leader, undercut by severe international sanctions, who is seeking to ensure the survival of the dynastic regime established 70 years ago by his grandfather, Kim Il Sung. In the past year, they have traded insults, such as “little rocket man” and “dotard,” and threatened each other with nuclear devastation, demonstrating just how much is on the line at this summit, which would be the first meeting between a sitting U.S. president and a leader of communist North Korea.

How will they interact face to face? What will they decide about the future of North Korea’s nuclear weapons systems, now capable of striking much or all of the United States? Can they set aside decades of enmity between the two countries to avoid repeating the past failures?

Arms Control Today in mid-April asked two experts on U.S.-North Korean diplomacy to share some of their views looking ahead to a meeting. Jenny Town is assistant director of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and managing editor of the website 38 North, which analyzes North Korean developments. Frank Jannuzi is president and CEO of the Mansfield Foundation and a former policy director for East Asian and Pacific affairs for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

What should the goals and objectives of the proposed Trump-Kim summit be? What can the two heads of state reasonably expect to accomplish in one meeting?

Town: This is not going to be a one-time, problem-solved event, but can create the top-down mandate for negotiations on a common goal and a mutual understanding of how that process will proceed. Especially important will be gaining mutual agreement on the pacing for this process to avoid frustration early on.

Jannuzi: The main goal for the United States should be to reaffirm or, more accurately, “establish” that North Korea is prepared to abandon its nuclear weapons completely and verifiably in exchange for peace, sanctions relief, and security assurances. I don't think “irreversible” denuclearization has ever been a realistic goal, as the scientific capacity to produce nuclear weapons, once learned, cannot be forgotten.

Kim will almost certainly hand over the three detained Americans, either at the summit or shortly thereafter, as a gift to Trump, who will bring them to the White House for a photo op, crediting his pressure tactics for their release. Trump will not offer and Kim does not expect any sanctions relief. Kim does not expect to receive any “gifts” beyond the great gift Trump is already giving him by agreeing to a face-to-face meeting as equals.

What does the administration need to do to prepare Trump for an encounter with Kim, and how might Mike Pompeo as secretary of state and John Bolton as national security adviser affect the administration’s approach?

Town: In the next few weeks, efforts should be focused on setting clear objectives and realistic expectations for the summit. I’m sure the administration is developing what a desired road map for this process might be and briefing Trump on areas where there is flexibility and where there is not. There is no shortage of ideas out there on what should be included in a comprehensive agreement, and there are past agreements to draw from. Certainly, both sides are likely studying these past agreements; assessing what new conditions exist that didn’t before, such as North Korea’s advancements in weapons of mass destruction technologies; and mapping out new priorities for what will need to be addressed in a new agreement and including roles for various actors.

Jannuzi: To paraphrase former U.S. Secretary of Defense Bill Perry's admonition on how to engage North Korea, we must all deal with the United States as it is, rather than as we might wish it to be. Trump will represent the United States at this summit, and he probably will not be prepared for it. He does not read, and it is not clear that he will listen to any advice. At the summit, Trump will have many opportunities to freelance answers to complex questions and improvise slap-dash solutions to decades-old challenges. The Trump administration will likely spend weeks doing "damage control" after the summit, walking back the president's words and "contextualizing" them for their North Korean counterparts.

If Pompeo and Bolton have a chance to influence Trump at all, they will probably play constructive roles. In his testimony before the Senate, Pompeo indicated both a willingness to talk to North Korea and a healthy skepticism about whether the North Koreans can be relied on to fulfill the terms of any deal. Pompeo will need to keep his skepticism in check for now. There will be plenty of time later to address the dogged questions of phasing, verification, and reciprocity that will make any deal difficult to implement. As for Bolton, Trump will likely use him as a foil, trotting him out whenever he wants to remind the North Koreans that some in his inner circle would prefer to bomb their territory. Trump will play good cop to Bolton's bad cop, painting himself as the reasonable negotiating partner looking for a “deal” in comparison to the Bolton “pit bull” itching for a rumble.

How can the two sides create a framework for sustained negotiations on steps toward denuclearization and a peace regime on the Korean peninsula?

Town: While there are several bilateral summits going on, this issue certainly will need multilateral cooperation to solve. It is crucial to have buy-in from the key stakeholders, not only for what they bring to the table but also to avoid intentional disruptions to the process for being left out.

Jannuzi: I think the Trump administration seeks a “declaratory” outcome from this summit, not a substantive outcome or sustained process. Trump will declare that, as a result of his pressure tactics and brilliant negotiating skill, North Korea has promised to denuclearize. He will muse publicly about getting a Nobel peace prize and ask the media to praise his historic accomplishment. Fox News will oblige him. Kim will declare that his nuclear weapons have accomplished their purpose and delivered peace and security. He will bask in the warmth of the respect and international legitimacy implied by his summit with Trump. Both leaders will leave all of the “details” to be worked out later by their teams.

Substantive talks, which will likely be delayed until after the U.S. midterm elections, will prove long and difficult, if they take place at all. The United States has no discernible, realistic road map to accomplish denuclearization and so will have to draft one over the summer that can be presented to the North Koreans for their evaluation and response. In the meantime, I expect the two sides [to] meet at the working level, focusing on very modest interim steps, such as sustaining a missile and nuclear test freeze in exchange for no new sanctions or punitive measures by the United States.

What role do you see South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Chinese President Xi Jinping playing in facilitating a positive outcome?

Town: China and South Korea are key players in the process. Xi’s support for negotiations and belief that Kim is ready to go down this road seems to be already set. Whether Moon walks away from his meeting with Kim at Panmunjom with that same perspective could influence whether the Trump-Kim summit even happens.

Jannuzi: Moon will ensure that the Trump administration has a clear understanding of the results of the Moon-Kim summit, and he will encourage Kim to hand Trump what he most wants: a “win.” Xi will warn Kim not to waste this opportunity to transform the U.S. posture from hostility to cooperation, and he will likely pledge some relaxation of sanctions enforcement if North Korea promises to denuclearize.

What pitfalls from past U.S.-North Korean experiences must be avoided so that we do not sink back into a cycle of escalation?

Town: The key point to learn from past agreements is that the devil is in the details. Making sure that once an agreement is on paper, the details are specific, nothing is taken for granted, and verification measures are explicit. Multilateral coordination will be essential to prevent disruptions and loopholes. Moreover, coordination among domestic policy institutions will be important to avoid various actors taking uncoordinated actions that undermine or derail the process.

Jannuzi: The United States should understand that denuclearization and peace are processes that require time and patience. Washington will surely encounter difficulties implementing any agreement. Rather than see each problem as proof of North Korean bad faith, Washington should be prepared for a sustained diplomatic effort that will likely take decades to accomplish its ultimate objectives.

Unfortunately, this is not the approach the Trump administration has in mind. It says that it wants to front-load any agreement to avoid the “mistakes of the past,” including the phased, reciprocal nature of the 1994 Agreed Framework. It wants a process of complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization, known as CVID, that is completed in months, not years. This is not realistic. The Korean peninsula has been divided for 70 years, and the North Koreans have been pursuing nuclear weapons for decades. They will not abandon them quickly or cheaply, and it will require CVIPS (complete, verifiable, and irreversible peace and security) in exchange for CVID.

Two experts look ahead to a pivotal meeting.

Read more about Q&A: Prospects and Perils at a Trump-Kim Summit

Q&A: Ambassador Adam Bugajski: ‘The NPT is still strong and alive.’

April 2018

Photo: Permanent Mission of the Republic of Poland to the United Nations Office and the International Organizations in Vienna Adam Bugajski, Poland’s permanent representative to the UN Office and international organizations in Vienna, is chairman of the second session of the preparatory committee for the 2020 review conference of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), being held in Geneva on April 23-May 4. These responses to questions from ACT’s Alicia Sanders-Zakre have been edited for clarity.

As chair of the NPT preparatory committee, how will you seek to bridge the growing divides within the international community, for example on the pace of disarmament?

My role as the chairman of the second stage of the 2020 review cycle is, first and foremost, to uphold and strengthen the NPT in all of its aspects. It can be achieved by open, inclusive, mutually respectful, and transparent dialogue. I am ready to work on every reasonable and viable proposal in accordance with well-established rules. Yet, the success or failure of the 2020 review cycle is on the states-parties. It is fair to say that, at this stage, many states-parties prefer a steady pace of work and are not struggling for outcomes on the most delicate dossiers.

I am fully aware, of course, of different positions on disarmament and of difficulties to find a common ground on the basis of NPT Article VI. Under the present circumstances, one must be realistic. The second preparatory committee is a building block in the whole construction of the review cycle, which will be concluded in 2020; and until that moment, there is still plenty of space to find the way to bring us closer to the answers and solutions. One must remember that there is no single road toward disarmament and that disarmament is not only about reductions. Different countries and groups of states have different approaches, and neither of them should therefore be regarded as the only valid one. Much depends on the P5 states, as those who are in possession of nuclear weapons, but the voice of others could serve as an important prompt for constructive dialogue, free
of any prejudices and unrealistic expectations. The meeting offers a useful and well-structured platform
for such a dialogue.

And on a zone free of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the Middle East?

The same applies to the creation of the WMD-free zone in the Middle East. This issue regularly posed a challenge to recent review cycles. It is not going to be different this time, I suppose. My visit to the region revealed that it is still difficult to find a common ground to build on. There is a clarity on the goal, and the 1995 Resolution [on the Middle East] remains the ultimate reference for a solution, but there are currently more questions than answers on modalities and on the next step to be taken. However, with the help of other interested parties, such co-conveners, and possibly also international organizations, the region itself is able to come up with a viable proposal at least as to the general direction of their further actions.

What should be accomplished during the 2018 NPT preparatory committee in order to set the stage for a successful NPT review conference in 2020?

The NPT review cycles always have been challenging. Only half of the review conferences ended up with the positive outcome. But on the eve of its 50th anniversary, the NPT is still strong and alive. It is pretty much the most comprehensive treaty if you compare it to the other arms control treaties, and we deal with the deadliest weapon ever invented by mankind. It is true that the NPT is also fragile and easy to be undermined. Therefore, we all have the responsibility to take care of it. This is why a well-thought-through structure of the review cycles has been established for permanent improvement. I am not in a position to judge whether this cycle will be successful. Whether we will have a comprehensive progressive outcome document; a series of decisions, as was the case in 1995; or a short but bold political declaration, it is premature to predict at this stage.

What is the biggest challenge?

The biggest challenge, I believe, is the current global security situation, full of tensions and largely unpredictable. It is fair to say that those circumstances are not conducive to a successful NPT review cycle as it does not exist in the vacuum. At the same time, I believe that a passive, sort of “wait and see” approach could easily lead to the next failure. Therefore, my choice was for a positive engagement and common diplomatic effort to change the situation in the sphere of disarmament and nonproliferation. I hope it will pay back.

However, what actually can be accomplished during this preparatory committee session and beyond to build toward the 2020 review is to limit the discrepancies in areas where it is feasible, for example in the disarmament area. We can also identify and mark the issues where progress can be made on the way to 2020. Full support for institutions like the International Atomic Energy Agency and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization should be shown by all states as they are indispensable instruments of the NPT portfolio. It all can be done through fair, open discussion given an understanding that the NPT is our common value and there will not be any better instrument dealing with nuclear nonproliferation.

Poland’s permanent representative to the UN Office and international organizations in Vienna discusses his role as chairman of the April 23–May 4 session of the preparatory committee for the 2020 review conference of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Read more about Q&A: Ambassador Adam Bugajski: ‘The NPT is still strong and alive.’

‘We’ve Done Something Quite Significant’ A Conversation With ICAN’s Beatrice Fihn

December 2017
Interviewed by Alicia Sanders-Zakre

Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), has had an extraordinary year.

At the United Nations, ICAN’s 10-year campaign culminated in the adoption on July 7 of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the first legally binding accord to prohibit such weapons with a goal of their eventual elimination. Then, on October 6, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize to ICAN “for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons.”

Beatrice Fihn, executive director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), answers a question during a press conference at the United Nations headquarters in New York on October 9, three days after the announcement that the group won the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. (Photo credit: JEWEL SAMAD/AFP/Getty Images) Fihn has led ICAN since 2014. Previously, she headed the disarmament program at the Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom, where she started as an intern. She studied international relations at Stockholm University and law at the University of London.

ICAN, founded in 2007 to ban nuclear weapons, is a coalition of 468 nongovernmental organizations in 101 countries. In making the award, the Nobel committee said its members are fully aware that an international legal prohibition “will not in itself eliminate a single nuclear weapon, and that so far neither the states that already have nuclear weapons nor their closest allies support the nuclear weapon ban treaty.”

Still, the committee said this year’s peace prize is “a call upon these states to initiate serious negotiations with a view to the gradual, balanced and carefully monitored elimination of the almost 15,000 nuclear weapons in the world.” Fihn said she expects ICAN will continue to take a leadership role in working to achieve the treaty’s early entry into force and its eventual success. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

Congratulations to ICAN for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. What was your first reaction to the news?

Just really overwhelmed. There’s a video of me that my colleague took in which I was walking around shaking my hands, hyperventilating. I just felt very strongly that this changes everything for us.

How has the award affected ICAN’s work? It’s been a few months.

It gave us what we have been missing so far in this campaign. That’s media coverage and a recognition outside the diplomatic community that there is a treaty that prohibits nuclear weapons, that there are people working on this issue, and that we’ve done something quite significant.

I think it’s catapulted us into the public awareness in a much bigger way than before, which is useful for many things—for us to be able to mobilize people, for putting pressure on governments, and for getting the opportunity to talk about nuclear weapons today in a way that isn’t centered around the North Korea threat only but that also questions nuclear weapons in general no matter who has them.

As you say, this was a pretty significant achievement. The prohibition treaty is one of the few breakthroughs in multilateral nuclear disarmament in many years. How do you see it affecting the global conversation around nuclear weapons in the years to come?

It’s too early to say. Obviously, the humanitarian angle, talking about what would happen if nuclear weapons were used, has stuck. Also, it has put a spotlight on all the states and organizations and people that are complicit in upholding the nuclear weapons structure in the world. We like to think that it’s just nine states, but we plan to expose how many more are participating in activities around nuclear weapons and legitimizing nuclear weapons. Long term, we really want to challenge the kind of behavior that goes against the treaty—use, testing of nuclear weapons, development, possession.

You mentioned the humanitarian dimension. Clearly, that is a key part of this treaty. How do you see the humanitarian perspective on nuclear weapons being different from the status quo perspective, and why is it important?

Humanitarian concerns are what have driven any kind of real progress on nuclear weapons, starting with the Partial Test Ban Treaty, when atmospheric testing had a huge impact on people. That perspective, what would happen to people if nuclear weapons were used, has always been the motivating factor.

However, a lot of governments have felt comfortable to do whatever they want in the name of state security. We see governments saying that they need to torture people or arrest them without rights for national security reasons. At some point, you have to draw a line on what atrocities governments can commit and claim [as] national security. It’s important to remember that indiscriminately slaughtering hundreds of thousands of civilians is not a national security interest. That’s what nuclear weapons will do if they’re used, and that’s what governments are threatening to do with the weapons that exist today.

The treaty elicited very strong criticism from nuclear-weapon states. Why is the treaty so controversial? Has any of the criticism given you any pause in your support for the treaty?

The treaty gets a lot of criticism because it challenges the belief that nuclear weapons are for some countries to have until they feel like not having them anymore and it removes control from the nuclear-armed states on how international law governs nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons are mainly a political power tool, which means they’re also the most sensitive weapons to norms and opinions. They’re only powerful if people say that they are, so that’s why they’re also very fragile.

Three survivors of the U.S. atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 pose with their supporters October 6 in Tokyo to congratulate ICAN on being awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize. Fihn has said the award also honors the elderly hibakusha, who embody the humanitarian aspects of the campaign. (Photo credit: STR/AFP/Getty Images) I think there can be criticism about certain parts of the treaty. For example, I also think that the treaty would be better if nuclear-armed states would sign on to it. I’d love to see that. Most criticism, though, is hiding the fact that the people who make the criticism don’t want nuclear weapons to be prohibited. This criticism comes from the most powerful countries in the world. They’re not easy opponents. There’s been pressure from states to back off. Nuclear-armed states held press conferences about how awful we are and how we’re doing the wrong thing. That has been, of course, tough. Not tough enough to stop us.

Another criticism, one that even the Nobel committee brought up in its statement, is that the treaty will not, in and of itself, eliminate a single weapon.

Well, that’s because the nuclear-armed states are not signing it! It’s in their power. If they wanted to, they could sign this treaty and eliminate their nuclear weapons, and then the treaty would lead to elimination. But I think that’s sort of an unjust benchmark to put this treaty against because the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty doesn’t eliminate any nuclear weapons either. A fissile material cutoff treaty wouldn’t eliminate any nuclear weapons either. But somehow, we’re judged against the benchmark of securing international peace forever.

Turning to the negotiations themselves, there were a lot of women at the forefront of the prohibition treaty effort, including the negotiating conference president and several key heads of delegations. Did you think that the higher percentage of female leadership impacted the negotiations?

It’s difficult to tell. I don’t think that the sex of the negotiators really determines the outcome, but at the same time, I think the gender perspective is a huge influencer. [U.S. President] Donald Trump’s tweets about how diplomacy is useless indicate an extremely macho culture where negotiating and compromising is considered feminine and therefore weaker than bombing and starting wars. Negotiating to find joint solutions to global problems is something that, I think, is feminine coded. Women have been trained to focus more on that.

In many disarmament forums, women are underrepresented and don’t have as many leadership roles. Could the prohibition treaty negotiations, which had more women in leadership, be a model for future negotiations?

Yes, absolutely. If you do include people with different perspectives who are shaped by different norms, I think it definitely can help. The whole humanitarian consequences perspective isn’t about whether to bomb a city but on what happens afterward and who would build up the community again. It’s very often women who have to put everything together later.

I think having that perspective will make space for women much more than the military perspective. It gives a more complete picture of the problem. We’ve also seen in peace negotiations that if you include women, the negotiations go better because it involves the communities who maintain and build up the peace afterward. It’s definitely beneficial for all processes to involve different groups and to make sure to have as many perspectives as possible to get a solution that works for everyone.

Looking ahead, the treaty needs to be ratified by 50 states to enter into force. It currently has three. How does ICAN plan to get at least 47 others? Do you have a target date?

We looked at other weapons treaties, and to hit 50, it took those treaties approximately two years. I would love to see it get 50 ratifications before the end of 2018. I know that’s an ambitious goal. If it takes longer, it takes longer, but I think we should be able to move relatively fast into entry into force.

ICAN was founded to achieve a ban, which has now happened. What’s next for ICAN?

Now we need to work on the implementation. The treaty has always been the tool, not just the goal in itself. First, we need to build a strong norm, and that comes through getting as many countries to sign and ratify this treaty as possible. Also, parallel to that is to challenge behavior that lies outside this new norm.

We’ve been very, very focused on the negotiations. Now, we need to change direction and move toward focusing on the nuclear weapons and the nuclear-armed states. In a way, they’ve gotten away very easily because we’ve just focused on negotiations. But now, we have to look at their arsenals, their decisions, and their actions and campaign against that from the position of the treaty. So, we will find what kind of activities are going on today that are not in line with this treaty and then build campaign opportunities and mobilize people against those activities to stop them, whether or not the country has signed the treaty.

What’s next for the International Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons?

Read more about ‘We’ve Done Something Quite Significant’ A Conversation With ICAN’s Beatrice Fihn

Lawrence Weiler: Looking Back at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty

Interviewed by Daryl Kimball and Terry Atlas
October 2017

This interview is also being published in Russian by the Moscow-based Center for Energy and Security Studies (CENESS) in its journal Nuclear Club (Yaderny Klub). As part of a cooperative arrangement, the September issue of Arms Control Today features an interview with Ambassador Roland Timerbaev conducted by CENESS Director Anton Khlopkov. Timerbaev was a key figure in the Soviet delegation to the Nonproliferation Treaty negotiations and subsequently played a part in six NPT review conferences.

Lawrence Weiler was special assistant to the director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) and a U.S. negotiator on the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and other arms control measures during his government service under six U.S. presidents. As that landmark accord approaches its 50th anniversary next year, Weiler, now 96, recalled its creation and assessed its impact in a June interview with Arms Control Association Executive Director Daryl Kimball and ACT Editor Terry Atlas.

The NPT established the rules for safeguarded development of civilian nuclear technology and became the bedrock for the intricate structures of nuclear arms control that made it possible for the United States and Russia to sharply reduce their nuclear arsenals. Still, there is debate about whether the NPT has lived up to its promise, particularly in terms of the nuclear-weapon states fulfilling their Article VI commitment to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.”

Many non-nuclear-weapon countries, which pledged under the NPT to forgo nuclear weapons, say the Article VI obligation has not been met by the nuclear powers, one of the factors that fueled their push for the newly completed treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons.

“Most can agree that progress [under the NPT] has been slower than we had hoped and that nuclear weapons still threaten our civilization,” said Weiler. “Progress has been made, though the goal is still in front of us. Keep your fingers crossed and never give up.”

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

ACT: Looking back over the past 50 years, has the NPT accomplished what you, as one of the negotiators, envisioned at the time? At the most basic level, what did you hope it might achieve?

Weiler: Well, it’s not just what the treaty accomplished, it’s what the people who signed the treaty and those who followed have accomplished. In my judgment, the treaty is a product of three things: First, the obvious one was a desire to keep the spread of nuclear weapons from happening, which people worried about. Related to that but somewhat separate for the arms controllers was the concern about keeping the number of people that you had to get together to agree on anything from increasing. In other words, to prevent the whole business of arms control from becoming too complicated because there were too many people involved with nuclear capabilities. That’s sort of the architects looking at the building. Those first two they’re related, but they’re separate.

Lawrence Weiler in 2017. (Photo credit: Terry Atlas/Arms Control Association) The third one was the awareness of the fact that if you were ever going to get the Russians to talk about controlling strategic weapons, you had to get the Russians to not worry about the future of Germany. Even before, the German issue was central to the Russians. In other words, they weren’t about to talk about [limiting] strategic systems with the United States until the nuclear future of Germany was settled. It was not a coincidence that the date that the NPT was signed was the date that the United States announced that we and the Soviet Union had agreed to discuss strategic weapons. That was the same day. It was not a coincidence.

The third issue you’re talking about is the possibility of a multilateral nuclear force in Europe and whether Germany was going to possess or be allowed to possess such weapons.

Yes, the multilateral nuclear force (MLNF) discussion,¹ which was a kooky idea and was so regarded by many in the government. But the government was pursuing it because of the desire of European allies to be somehow part of the nuclear equation. It was clear that the Russians had some hesitations about talking about strategic defensive systems. They were coming around, and [U.S. Secretary of Defense] Robert McNamara had tried to talk with them earlier and didn’t succeed. One critical decision was President Lyndon Johnson’s decision that he was going to kill the MLNF.²

How do you feel the NPT has performed, that is, has it delivered on the promise that you envisioned?

Basically yes, but not completely because we didn’t get every country signed up. I think we knew by the time the negotiations were over that we weren’t going to get India. At least that was my judgment. We didn’t and didn’t get the others that you know about. But you can’t get everything in life, and it seems to me that’s a philosophy that negotiators, that deciders ought to keep in mind. You mustn’t always be satisfied only if you get the perfect outcome. We should be happy that we don’t have 25 or so countries with nuclear weapons, as President John Kennedy talked about. And we began then with Russia the first successful negotiations on strategic arms, the so-called killer weapons.

Right.

That has gone slowly with some mishaps. We didn’t get [multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles] in the first strategic arms limitation agreement, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty part has been nullified. The U.S. decision in the George W. Bush administration to withdraw from the ABM Treaty has had a very serious effect on U.S.-Russian relations. The Obama administration placed a limited interpretation on our ABM-related policy, and what the Trump administration will do remains to be seen.

Can I just add one other thing? The NPT was a great training exercise. It was really the first time that you got a large number of nations involved in actually negotiating a document. That was important because it was an educational thing for a lot of people, including the Americans and the Russians. Oh, one of the things to add to what’s happened since the NPT is that you have the precedent of nuclear-free zones. That’s one consequence of the NPT that should be noted.

Looking back, what, as a negotiator, do you see as some of the shortcomings?

Were there things that the treaty could have done differently? Nothing comes readily to mind. It was an outline of goals, as well as arrangements. I wish we could have done something more on positive and negative assurances, and we tried very hard. There were some informal discussions that came up later in the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty negotiations, but they were mostly at the lower level. That’s one thing that, perhaps, I wish could have been developed more.

Why do you think those were not developed more?

Well, the tensions were still high. Neither government was ready then to move on formulations of what they would or would not do and negative and positive assurances. This proposed assurance would adversely affect the Russians, and that proposed alternative would adversely affect the Americans, as it was conceived of at that time. I don’t think that was a major issue particularly. It took some time, but it wasn’t a major issue.

How would you describe the geopolitical situation at the time, and how did that affect the relationships among the negotiators?

Well, it was a time when we were sort of optimistic. The ACDA was created.³ It was a substantial organization. In my judgment, the NPT would not have been negotiated successfully, at least not at that time, if you hadn’t had the ACDA established. The European section of the Department of State at that time—and this was reflected in other parts of the executive branch—was really opposed to taking on the problem and antagonizing our European allies. They knew it would run into the business of the MLNF, and it did antagonize our allies. There was no question about it. It antagonized the Germans. The Germans wanted to use it to bargain in German reunification talks. They also thought it was a threat to NATO.

The ACDA staffed the negotiations, backstopped the negotiations, fought internal battles, and so it was a terrible thing for arms control when they reintegrated the ACDA back into the State Department during the Clinton administration. I wish some form of it were re-established again. That would make prospects for the future much brighter.

How about the relationship with the negotiators when working on the NPT? You had Western countries, the United States, the Soviet Union, Soviet bloc, and representatives of other parts of the world. What were the relationships among negotiators?

It got difficult with some of them. The Indians weren’t particularly happy. The Germans really weren’t happy, and we had extensive negotiations with the Germans in Washington, as well as in Geneva. There was a general concern among the Japanese about whether the inspection arrangements would interfere with their nuclear power development. We were sent on a mission, about six of us, to talk to the Japanese about how any inspection that came out of the treaty would not interfere with their anticipated use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

The Russians and the Americans had a problem, and they worked on it. I would say that the Russians and the American delegates got closer together in a personal sense. In one case, an American and a Russian on a Sunday fixed up a box of edibles and some drinks and took a sailboat out on Lake Geneva. They stopped on the shore and had a picnic, the two of them, and worked out one of the problems. Each one of them sent the outcome to his government as the other guy’s proposal, and it was approved. Now that’s not necessarily something I advocate, but it developed a much better working relationship by going through that experience. We had a lot of people involved. We had two different delegations. There were no recesses, other than going to the UN General Assembly. One group went, and then they came back, and the other group went.

You’re describing one key turning point that involved U.S.-Soviet negotiators working closely together. What would you say were one or two of the other key turning points during the NPT negotiations?

Well, the first is the question of prohibiting transfer, that was dealing with the Russian concern about our transferring to the Germans or, as the Russians insisted, no transfer to anyone whatsoever. The word “whatsoever” or “howsoever,” which I had never seen in a legal document before. That related to the MLNF type of thing, and related to that was also the Russian concern about our forward base systems. I know that Butch Fisher [of ACDA] and I took a trip around parts of Europe to look at our installations to see that the treaty that resulted didn’t interfere with them and that we still retained control.

I’m not sure of this, but I think the Russians were a bit pleased to learn of the PAL system that McNamara put in—permissive action links so that the deployed American nuclear weapons on allied aircraft could not be armed without a signal from a distant place. That whole business, which is related to the nontransfer, bothered the Russians. I remember arguing privately with them that we’re not going to destroy NATO in order to get this agreement, so let’s don’t argue. Let’s get on with the negotiation.

One of the key pillars of the treaty is the peaceful uses provision, Article IV, which was not part of the initial U.S. and Soviet drafts back in 1965 or so. The draft introduced at the Conference on Disarmament, or the ENDC [Eighteen-Nation Committee on Disarmament] as it was called in 1967, included an article on peaceful uses of nuclear energy, which was based on proposals from non-nuclear states. How did that factor into the negotiation?

Well, we didn’t have it in the first draft. I’m not absolutely sure why it wasn’t there, except that you don’t like to do things that complicate a negotiation and the negotiation was aimed at preventing the spread of nuclear capability. It became very clear that you had to deal with the consequences of preventing that spread and, that is, you had to deal with the restrictions, if any, on the non-nuclear parties. We were fortunate to have the International Atomic Energy Agency already in existence. As a negotiator, sometimes you get lucky. Certainly, it was clear to me and it was clear to most of us when we got started that you’re going to have to deal with that issue. It turned out to be a very difficult provision because the Europeans wanted to have the Euratom inspection arrangement take care of it. They felt that Euratom was the first step on the way toward reunification of Europe and this would interfere. We didn’t anticipate that when we hit that argument.

We knew there were going to be problems, and there were problems. In the final draft, that was one left to be worked out later, which they did, subsequently. That turned out to the longest one, I think, in many ways to be settled but was essential for the treaty. It became very clear that without settling that, you wouldn’t have a treaty. There was a feeling that was palpable in the room in Geneva. The countries that did not have nuclear weapons did not want this negotiation to be a negotiation deciding who are the haves and the have-not nations. This was bigger than nuclear weapons. They didn’t want this to be some arbitrary fundamental decision separating the different parties of the world—part psychological, part economic. I don’t think you would have ever had the treaty without it.

Tell me about one of those have/have-not issues, which is addressed by Article VI. That provision calls on the nuclear-weapon states to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to ending the arms race, to nuclear disarmament, and to general complete disarmament. How did the negotiation of that provision factor into the dynamics that you’re describing?

Everyone had thought that, at some point, there would be a treaty setting the goals, and [Soviet leader Nikita] Khrushchev had made popular the “general disarmament” phrasing. When Khrushchev came in [during 1953], Soviet policy changed. The May 10, 1955, Soviet proposal was the first serious Soviet arms control proposal, and it was looked upon at the time as something like the sunrise coming up. I remember the time when he came out for “general and complete disarmament,” the phrase we’re talking about. He was talking about the dangers of the arms race.

Do you think at the time that this language was significant and a commitment? Was it so vague, with no deadline, as to be essentially meaningless or at least not a real obligation?

No, I thought about it. That was the easiest way to express a future goal. I always have reservations about the general disarmament in defense including general conventional disarmament, but it was accepted. It’s not a simple statement. There are aspects to that phrase, and that phrase was carefully constructed.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Michael Stewart signs the treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons at Lancaster House, London, on July 1, 1968, watched by the Soviet Ambassador (left) and the US Ambassador (right).(Photo credit: Jim Gray/Keystone/Getty Images) “To pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to…”—that’s a little squidgy room there, you see? In other words, as negotiated it said, “You’re going to work towards that.” Now, that’s because there were some general reservations about how committed you should be at this stage. It’s got not just the nuclear bit, but it’s also got this general disarmament in it. There were various factors that worked into that. I hate to say we gave ourselves some squidgy room there, but it was more complicated than a blanket statement that “we will get general and complete disarmament.” My own view at the time was that you shouldn’t worry too much about the ultimate end. It’s not going to happen tomorrow. By the way, for those seeking the end of the road in negotiations, have they ever heard of the “Gromyko proposal”?⁴

The U.S. negotiating team and the U.S. government at the time, what were you all thinking were the steps that would lead in that direction? I mean, what did you all have in mind about what would fulfill that obligation?

Well, we had in mind the next big step. It was to discuss the killer weapons with the Russians. You must remember, we’d been at this for a long, long time, and nothing had ever happened until the Kennedy administration. Then you had three agreements. You had the Hotline Agreement. That was a big thing. It wasn’t an arms control thing, but it was very important, assuring communications, sort of recognition of the sensitivity of the world in terms of nuclear weapons. Then Partial Test Ban Treaty. Also the UN Outer Space resolution.

Fissile material production cutoff.

No, we never did get to the cutoff.

I’m saying at the time was that one of the things that was being discussed.

Oh yes, yes. The next big step would be negotiating with the Russians about missiles and long-range bombers. The possibility was coming up because two things happened. Satellites gave us target data, but they also gave us national technical means of verification, the opportunity to have verification without intrusion in some ways.

Let’s fast forward 25 years from 1968 to the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference. You all as negotiators, in your infinite wisdom, determined that the treaty shall last 25 years and that there shall be a review conference concerning a possible extension.

It was not in our infinite wisdom. It was the final concession we made in order to get a treaty.

Okay, looking back on the conference and the decisions that led to the indefinite extension decision, what is your view about whether the commitments that were made then have been faithfully carried out?

That’s a hard question because progress is hard, particularly in this area. You don’t have two people sitting down trying to draft a paper. You have many countries, you have changes in leadership in the countries. You have changes in the structure of the world. Now this can be looked on as excuses, but I wish we had made much more progress. I think most American leaders wish we had made more progress.

Just to follow up, do the non-nuclear-weapon states have reason to be disappointed or disillusioned with the NPT and the deal that they have committed to under the treaty?

Yeah. They have reason to be disappointed in the fact that more progress hasn’t been made, but that’s not a function of any deficiencies in the treaty. It’s not as much progress as the treaty commitment called for, as they see it. The effort has been made and hasn’t been as successful as one would have hoped, as American governments would have hoped. I think that the members of the NPT ought to take into account that while we haven’t done things in the exact order that they might have constructed, it’s constructing a path to nuclear disarmament.

Things are happening and have happened that are progress toward that goal. Number one, we’ve learned how to negotiate. We’ve gone through the process. We developed a cadre of people who were capable of doing that. The NPT now has a multitude of supporting institutions. Then you’ve got, for all practical purposes, a global nuclear test ban with one exception, and you’ve got a fissile material production cutoff with one or two exceptions. We’ve had a massive reduction in the total number of nuclear weapons on both sides. It’s incredible that we managed to come down to the current levels, which are still high but it’s a little hill compared to a mountain top where we were. If you think about it, we have covered much of what was usually in the first state of old three-stage disarmament plans. In practical terms, U.S.-Russia strategic-weapon treaty levels will hold under New START until 2021. The immediate issue is the conflict with North Korea, that will determine the direction for the future.

What do we need to do over the next many years to make sure that the NPT regime remains viable?

The treaty, in part, is a disarmament measure, a restriction. It’s important that the restriction be maintained. It’s also presumably a definition of the obligations. There, I can’t think of anything that can be done with the treaty. The main concern should not be about the “viability” of the treaty. I think that changes the whole nature of the discussion. It’s how much progress has been made toward a promise that was made—not as much progress as many advocated but probably more progress than some skeptics anticipated. We now really need to look at cyberwarfare.

Why?

Well, the more nuclear weapons you get around, the more options you have for mistakes being made, more options you have for them being stolen. The more weapons, the more accidents will happen. One bit of the great progress that’s been made is that we haven’t had a nuclear war, for God’s sake.

The world is changing. People talk to each other as human beings. At the time of the NPT negotiations, it was an occasion when senior Soviet, American, and Chinese officials got together. Today, they meet all the time. The subject may not be exclusively nuclear weapons, but they’re meeting as human beings. They’re getting to know each other. Remember, one of the objectives of the NPT was to keep things from getting worse and to provide for people to be able to get together. But I’m disappointed that we haven’t done more.

One of the things that’s about to happen is the conclusion of negotiations on a convention to prohibit nuclear weapons. I want to ask for your reflections on the potential impact of that treaty on the broader nuclear nonproliferation risk reduction and disarmament effort.

I’m not sure what consequences it will have. I think it’s going to irritate the leaders of all the nuclear countries. I’m not sure that it might not end up being of benefit, however. I think one of the things that needs to be looked at is the whole issue of nuclear use, that is, the issue of no first use. The idea would be that if you had a worldwide treaty that all the leaders would sign, then anyone who ever ordered the initiation of nuclear weapons use would automatically be considered an international outlaw. Just have it as part of a treaty so this becomes an accepted part of international thinking.

Endnotes

1. The Kennedy administration explored with NATO allies the idea of a multilateral nuclear force, under which U.S. nuclear missiles would be placed on submarines or surface ships manned by NATO crews. The concept was to provide a more credible deterrent against Soviet attack in Europe and, by giving NATO allies some control over nuclear weapons, reduce the likelihood that other countries, particularly West Germany, would seek a nuclear weapons capability of their own. See Steven Pifer et al., “U.S. Nuclear and Extended Deterrence: Considerations and Challenges,” Brookings Arms Control Series, No. 3 (May 2010), https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_nuclear_deterrence.pdf.

2. The multilateral nuclear force died for several reasons, including its inability to add to extended deterrence measures and the threat that it would violate the requirement for a centrally controllable, unified strategic nuclear arsenal. Further, U.S. officials anticipated that the European allies would not support such a plan once they realized the United States would retain its veto over launch and that NATO nations would be expected to share the costs of maintaining the multilateral nuclear force. See David N. Schwartz, NATO’s Nuclear Dilemmas (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1983), pp. 94–95.

3. The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) was created in 1961 under President John Kennedy and charged with “formulating, advocating, negotiating, implementing and verifying effective arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament policies, strategies, and agreements.” In 1999 it was merged into the State Department. For a history of the ACDA, see John Holum, “Looking Back: Arms Control Reorganization, Then and Now,” Arms Control Today, June 2005.

4. In the 1960s, Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko proposed a plan under which the United States and Soviet Union would eliminate most nuclear-weapon delivery systems, retaining only a “limited” number to provide a “nuclear umbrella” deterrent until the completion of disarmament. For more, “U.S. Bars Talks on Moscow Plan,” The New York Times, June 17, 1964.

NPT at 50

Read more about Lawrence Weiler: Looking Back at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty

Roland Timerbaev: The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Has Largely Achieved Its Goals

Interviewed by Anton V. Khlopkov
September 2017

The nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which will be 50 years old next year, has proven to be the “cornerstone of the global nuclear order,” says retired diplomat Roland Timerbaev, who played a key role in the treaty negotiations as a member of the Soviet delegation.

The durable multilateral accord, the result of U.S.-Soviet cooperation during the Cold War years, has prevented what many at the time feared would be the rapid spread of nuclear weapons to many more countries, he said in an interview. It was the 1962 Cuban missile crisis that, he says, shifted the thinking of leaders in Moscow and Washington about the urgency of nuclear arms control, including steps to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. “Humankind was faced with a crisis that could end in a global catastrophe,” he recalls. “It is after that crisis the negotiations on the nuclear weapons problem began in earnest.”

To strengthen the global nonproliferation regime in the years ahead, Timerbaev calls for extension of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), with further numerical reductions from the current ceilings in the treaty, and for active engagement of China into the dialogue on key nuclear issues.

Roland Timerbaev in 2012 (Photo credit: Center for Energy and Security Studies)

In addition to his role in the original NPT negotiations, Timerbaev, who turns 90 this month, participated in six NPT review conferences. He was a member of the Soviet/Russian diplomatic service for 43 years, with his final posting as permanent representative of the Soviet Union/Russia to international organizations in Vienna from 1988 to 1992. He also participated in negotiations on the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the 1973 Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War, the 1974 Treaty on the Limitation of Underground Nuclear Weapon Tests, and the 1976 Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty.

This interview, translated from Russian and edited for clarity, was conducted by Anton V. Khlopkov, director of the Center for Energy and Security Studies (CENESS), a nongovernmental research group based in Moscow. Anastasia (Asya) Shavrova assisted in this project.

An interview with former U.S. NPT negotiator Lawrence Weiler is available online and will run in a subsequent issue of Arms Control Today, as well as in Russian in the CENESS journal Yaderny Klub (Nuclear Club). The two interviews, the result of a cooperative effort by CENESS and ACT, were conducted to collect an oral history of the NPT as it approaches its 50th anniversary.

Ambassador Timerbaev, what did you believe were the main goals of the NPT? Fifty years on, do you think those goals have been achieved?

Timerbaev: The main goal of the treaty is stated in its name: it is to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. On the whole, that goal has been achieved. When the NPT was opened for signature [on July 1, 1968], Soviet and U.S. specialists thought that 20 to 25 new states could acquire nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future. Such a scenario has been averted largely thanks to the NPT. As you know, only eight countries currently possess such weapons [the five official nuclear-weapon states plus India, Israel, and Pakistan]. North Korea has also declared itself a nuclear power.

In this context, it would be useful to recall several historical events. First, South Africa has voluntarily relinquished its nuclear arsenal, as confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Second, after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Ukraine attempted to claim nuclear power status because a large part of the Soviet nuclear arsenal was located on Ukrainian territory. It took a lot of effort to persuade Kiev to relinquish its nuclear ambitions, return all nuclear warheads to Russia, and join the NPT as a non-nuclear-weapon state. The third case I would like to cite is Iran. On the basis of a deal adopted in 2015, Iran has undertaken to limit the scale and scope of its nuclear program. At the same time, Iranian scientists continue their nuclear research in accordance with the right of every NPT member to peaceful use of nuclear energy, as stipulated in Article IV of the NPT.

The NPT’s Article VI sets the objective of launching the process of nuclear disarmament. The nuclear-weapon states have undertaken a commitment to that effect by joining the NPT. According to the latest assessments, over the past 25 years the combined nuclear arsenals of the nuclear-weapon states, mainly Russia and the United States, have been reduced by a factor of five or six compared to the peak Cold War levels. However, the situation with Article VI is not free of contention. I believe that the topic of nuclear disarmament is extremely important in the context of discussing the future of the NPT and the entire global nuclear order, so I would like to return to it later on.

Certain vulnerabilities of the NPT have come to light over the almost five decades since its opening for signature, I mean, first and foremost, the withdrawal of [North Korea] from the treaty. I visited Pyongyang in the early 1980s to persuade the North Korean diplomats of the need for their country to join the NPT. In 1985, North Korea joined the treaty, but 18 years later it announced its final withdrawal. It then stepped up its nuclear program and has since conducted five nuclear tests.

Have you identified any other vulnerabilities of the NPT? What is the nature of those vulnerabilities? Are they inherent to the nature of the treaty itself, which was drawn up in the geopolitical circumstances that existed at the time, or do they manifest only in the absence of political will to force certain states to abide strictly by their NPT commitments?

I would say there are two other vulnerabilities, both lying within the text of the treaty itself. Early efforts to draft the NPT began in New York in 1966 in a bilateral format between the Soviet Union and the United States. At the time, the Committee of Disarmament, or the Eighteen-Nation Committee [on Disarmament] as it was known at the time, was not involved in [the] negotiations process in any form. In New York, we managed to agree on the wording of Articles I and II. But we never planned to incorporate Articles IV and VI in their current shape into the treaty, and I believe these two articles to be the weakest of all.

Under Article VI, states are obliged to pursue disarmament negotiations “in good faith.” The initial draft of that article was proposed by Egypt, or rather by the entity then known as the United Arab Republic. Later on, other non-nuclear-weapon states joined in. There was another draft introduced by Mexico, listing practical measures that were not limited to disarmament. It was proposed, for example, to include [a] nuclear test ban and prohibition of the production of nuclear materials in the scope of the treaty. Using the Mexican draft as a starting point, the Soviet Union and the United States then presented an alternative version of Article VI. There were people in Moscow, such as Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and his first deputy, Vasily Kuznetsov, who argued that at least some of the practical measures proposed by the non-nuclear-weapon states should be added in the final text of the NPT. But the United States, namely U.S. Ambassador to the UN Arthur Goldberg, insisted that these details should be left out of Article VI, and eventually they prevailed.

Starting from the 1960s, a series of bilateral and multilateral documents that had to do with nuclear disarmament and nuclear threat reduction were signed. They were aimed, one way or another, at facilitating the implementation of Article VI. Of course, there were also several pauses in that process, but up until 2010, negotiations were fairly regular, and a lot of work had been done on reducing nuclear arsenals. But seven years ago, that process ground to a halt. It is quite telling that, during the latest meeting between the Russian and U.S. presidents at the [Group of Twenty] summit on July 7, 2017, these issues were not even discussed, to the best of my knowledge. Regular dialogue between our two countries on nuclear disarmament issues should be resumed, and other nuclear-weapon states should also become involved. The current state of affairs and the discussions on the nuclear disarmament issue have, in many ways, become hostage to the wording used in Article VI.

Article IV, the one on peaceful use of nuclear energy, was one of the key incentives for signing the NPT for many non-nuclear-weapon states. Its main shortcoming is that it does not say exactly how parties to the treaty should facilitate peaceful use of nuclear energy in other counties. So the question is, What is meant by “facilitate”? Take, for example, exports of uranium-enrichment equipment, including gas centrifuges. Should such equipment be supplied to non-nuclear-weapon states? Since Article IV is not specific in that regard, there are different interpretations of its text, especially since drawing a clear distinction between peaceful and military use of nuclear technologies is an impossible task.

Incidentally, recently declassified British archives contain documents showing that, during the NPT negotiations, the British tried to get the U.S. delegation to raise the enrichment issue. In particular, they argued that it would be very dangerous to leave a window of opportunity for supplying such equipment, and they wanted this to be somehow reflected in the treaty. But the U.S. delegation was confident at the time that the non-nuclear-weapon states would never manage to develop such an advanced technology, so they decided not to complicate the negotiations by this additional matter. Frankly, I am not at all sure how the Soviet delegation would react if the British or the Americans were to approach us with the proposal to include a clause in the NPT to the effect that assistance to third countries can be provided only in “nonsensitive” areas.

Speaking of the current situation in the nuclear industry, we cannot ignore the fact that global attitudes [toward] nuclear power are changing. The latest example is France, where nuclear power accounts for over 70 percent of all electricity generation. The French are gradually beginning to reduce the share of nuclear in their energy mix. They are aiming for 50 percent. Germany is going to abandon nuclear energy completely in the coming years; it will keep only several nuclear research facilities to continue the production of medical isotopes. Other countries may well follow suit. That is another factor that will affect the global nuclear order in the longer term.

Was the signing of the NPT inevitable? What prompted the beginning of the NPT talks in earnest?

I think that the change of attitude [toward] nuclear weapons and the idea of signing the NPT had much to do with the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Up until that moment, the only senior politician who had raised the nuclear nonproliferation issue on the international stage was the then-foreign minister of Ireland, Frank Aiken. In 1958, four years before the Cuban missile crisis, he introduced a draft resolution to that effect at the First Committee of the UN General Assembly.¹ On the whole, the initiative earned some support, but no practical steps were taken to implement it. Incidentally, Minister Aiken later visited Moscow in 1968 for the NPT signing ceremony.

But the 1962 crisis was the trigger that prompted a widespread change with regard to this issue. Humankind was faced with a crisis that could end in a global catastrophe. It is after that crisis the negotiations on the nuclear weapons problem began in earnest. In the summer of 1963, a few months after the Cuban missile crisis was resolved, U.S. President John Kennedy gave a speech in which he outlined [the] importance of Moscow and Washington working together to prevent “the further spread of nuclear arms.”² Fairly quickly, in about a month’s time, [Soviet leader] Nikita Khrushchev and the Soviet government gave their own backing to the idea; and in another four or six weeks, on August 5, 1963, the parties signed the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Then came the turn for the NPT.

A change of attitude [toward] nuclear weapons also manifested itself in NATO’s cancellation of its earlier plans to create a nuclear-armed multilateral force (MLNF) and the Atlantic Nuclear Force (ANF).³ The alliance came to realize that such a plan did not sit well with the state of international relations at the time.⁴

What do you think was the point of no return during the talks, the event after which the signing of the treaty became just a matter of time?

I think that point came when the United States and the Soviet Union reached an agreement in New York in 1966 on Articles I and II. These articles were the constants around which the entire architecture of the treaty revolved. They became part of the NPT in their original form agreed in New York.

You have already mentioned that the NPT talks began in a bilateral Soviet-U.S. format. Who do you think played the key role in Moscow and Washington in making the treaty happen?

I believe they were, first and foremost, U.S. President Lyndon Johnson and Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko. I once found in Johnson’s archives his correspondence with his aides who were in charge of the NPT talks at the White House. I was amazed at how closely and personally involved the U.S. president was in the details of the talks and by the degree of consensus on this issue among the key White House staff. At the same time, U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk opposed the NPT, but Johnson had his way in the end.

Meanwhile, Gromyko did his best to persuade the Politburo. The negotiating process was happening simultaneously with the NATO initiatives on establishing the MLNF and ANF. NATO had also established the so-called Nuclear Planning Committee (the McNamara Committee). The Soviet Foreign Ministry and the minister himself therefore had to work very hard to secure Soviet interagency support for the NPT.

Incidentally, the body responsible for making NATO nuclear policy decisions, which is now called the Nuclear Planning Group, de facto continues to exist. This gives a pretext to some politicians and officials to interpret the NPT in a way that allows bloc participation in nuclear issues. That is a mistaken interpretation. Joint nuclear missions by NATO members, or “nuclear sharing,” are prohibited by the treaty.

Looking back at the 50-year history of the treaty, how resilient has it been in various nuclear nonproliferation
crises?

The NPT is the cornerstone of the global nuclear order. The examples of South Africa and Iran demonstrate that the treaty can successfully overcome various crises. At the beginning of our conversation, I mentioned that the settlement of those particular crises was achieved on the basis of the principles and provisions of the NPT. I hope this will continue to be the case in the future.

Considering the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference and the agreements that enabled an indefinite extension of the treaty, do you believe those agreements have been fulfilled? What issues do you think could be the source of new NPT crises in the foreseeable future?

To answer this question, one cannot avoid the Middle East issue. I think it was a great error for the United States to allow Israel to become an unofficial nuclear-weapon state. U.S. President Richard Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir had a one-on-one conversation in September 1969. There was virtually no one else in the room, so the meeting notes were taken by Nixon himself. These notes will probably never be made available to the general public. But as I understand it, the gist of the conversation was that the Americans agreed to Israel developing its own nuclear weapons on [the] condition that Tel Aviv would always officially deny its possession of such weapons in the international arena. In the end, that is exactly how it happened. Apparently, the Americans would not have been able to secure a ratification of the NPT if they had not agreed to this. The situation with the Israeli nuclear arsenal hinders nonproliferation progress in the Middle East. It also remains the most problematic issue in terms of the decisions taken by the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference; no progress has been made at all on that front.

Another ongoing crisis in terms of the NPT is the North Korean situation. It cannot be ruled out that the Iranian problem will come back a few years down the line. How events unfold in each case will depend on the political situation in the respective countries, in the wider region, and in the international arena in general.

What do you think the NPT states-parties must do to make sure that the NPT remains a viable and effective part of the international security architecture for another 50 years?

I believe the time has come to think in earnest about a new format [for] the dialogue on key nuclear issues. The previous bilateral Russian-U.S. format no longer reflects the international reality. China must become actively engaged in this process, and I am not just talking about disarmament. China needs to play a more active role in order to reinforce positive NPT-related trends. As a first step, I believe, it would make sense to hold a high-level trilateral meeting on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament between Russia, the United States, and China.

I am well aware that, in current political circumstances, such a meeting is unlikely. But when the so-called window of opportunity opens—and I’m sure that sooner or later it will—such a meeting should be held and used as an opportunity to propose several initiatives. First, New START should be extended for another five years; the parties should also discuss further numerical reductions from the ceilings already agreed in that treaty. The scale of these new reductions to be agreed as part of the New START extension can be symbolic. Demonstrating progress in the right direction is more important than the new ceilings themselves. Second, China should make a statement to the effect that it will not further increase its existing nuclear capability. Third, the parties could formulate their stance on the nuclear weapons ban treaty [and] jointly come up with a statement so that it could be mentioned in a positive light. That would help to strengthen the international nonproliferation regime as a whole and the NPT in particular.

What role do you see the new Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons playing in the global system of nuclear governance?

If all states were to join this treaty, including all those who possess nuclear weapons, then it would supersede the entire existing system of nuclear relations. So, eventually, the new treaty would also supersede the NPT. In essence, it would signal the arrival of a new global nuclear order. However, we will be able to reach that point only when all states without exception have fulfilled their commitments under the NPT because disarmament issues cannot be discussed in isolation from all the other clauses of the NPT. The time of the ban treaty has not yet arrived, but we should think about how to make progress in that direction.

Endnotes

1. On October 31, 1958, at the meeting of the First Committee of the UN General Assembly, Ireland introduced a draft resolution on creating a special committee to study the dangers posed by further proliferation of nuclear weapons. The resolution was not passed at that meeting, but in 1959 a resolution was passed on establishing the Ten-Nation Committee on Disarmament.

2. U.S. President John Kennedy gave the so-called Peace Speech at American University in Washington, D.C., on June 10, 1963.

3. The Kennedy administration explored with NATO allies the idea of a multilateral nuclear force, under which U.S. nuclear missiles would be placed on submarines or surface ships manned by NATO crews. The concept was to provide a more credible deterrent against Soviet attack in Europe and, by giving NATO allies some control over nuclear weapons, reduce the likelihood that other countries, particularly West Germany, would seek a nuclear weapons capability of their own. See Steven Pifer et al., “U.S. Nuclear and Extended Deterrence: Considerations and Challenges,” Brookings Arms Control Series, No. 3 (May 2010), https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_nuclear_deterrence.pdf.

4. The multilateral nuclear force proposal died for several reasons, including its inability to add to extended deterrence measures and the possibility that it would violate the requirement for a centrally controllable, unified strategic nuclear arsenal. Further, U.S. officials anticipated that European allies would not support such a plan once they realized the United States would retain its veto over launch and that NATO nations would be expected to share the costs of maintaining the force. See David N. Schwartz, NATO’s Nuclear Dilemmas (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1983), pp. 94–95.

The NPT at 50

Read more about Roland Timerbaev: The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Has Largely Achieved Its Goals

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policies: A Conversation with Michèle Flournoy

July/August 2017
Interviewed by Kingston Reif and Maggie Tennis

Michèle Flournoy is co-founder and chief executive officer of the Center for a New American Security. She served as undersecretary of defense for policy from February 2009 to February 2012. The interview was conducted May 25 by Kingston Reif and Maggie Tennis. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

ACT: The Defense Department announced in April that the Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) had commenced. Each president since the end of the Cold War has undertaken such a review. President Donald Trump has declared his ambition to “greatly strengthen and expand” U.S. nuclear weapons capabilities, and he has also criticized the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with Russia. Do you think the NPR is likely to set in motion significant changes in U.S. policy or is likely to reflect more continuity than change?

Flournoy: I don’t think we know yet. What we can say is that some of the president’s early statements on these issues are not based in any deep policy review or any in-depth briefings he’s received. He hasn’t really focused on this set of issues yet as far as I know. I think we’ve also learned in other areas that as he dives into an issue, he can evolve his position, he can learn and refine his views. So, I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on some of his initial statements or first gut reactions to topics as they have come up.

That said, I do think this NPR will be very consequential because it’s coming at a time when we face major decisions about how much and how to reinvest in the nuclear triad. So many systems are up for modernization. Do we modernize everything that we have, which is essentially the current plan, or do we use the opportunity of the NPR to ask some more fundamental questions about what we need for deterrence in the future? I think this NPR has the potential to be very consequential.

On arms control, the administration will need to decide, along with Russia, whether to extend New START and its monitoring regime for five years beyond its February 2021 expiration date as allowed by the treaty, to negotiate some kind of follow-on agreement, or to go forward without legally binding, verifiable limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. What would be the consequences if the United States withdraws from New START or did not seek to extend it? How do you think the administrations should seek to engage Russia on arms control?

If we withdrew or failed to extend New START, it would be an unforced error on our part. An easy win is to pursue an extension of the treaty as is. It buys us predictability. It buys us transparency and verification measures. It buys us a lot that contributes to stability at a time when the other dimensions of the relationship with Russia are both in flux and under tremendous scrutiny. It’s probably unrealistic to expect, based on what [Russian President Vladimir] Putin has said and what Russia is actually doing, that we can negotiate a new arms control framework anytime soon. I think politically that would be a tough thing on our side until we get to the bottom of questions like Russia’s role in our elections and in campaigns to undermine other Western democracies. My view is that we should pursue an extension to buy some time and to buy some stability and then see what’s possible in the future.

Shifting to another arms control agreement, the United States has accused Russia of deploying a ground-launched cruise missile with a range prohibited by the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. Do you think it’s possible to convince Russia to return to compliance, and how should the United States respond to Russia’s alleged violation?

It’s pretty clear that they are violating the treaty. I think we should respond in a multidimensional way. First, press them through diplomatic channels to come back into compliance. I think this could be a multilateral diplomatic effort to put some pressure on Russia to come clean. There’s been some precedent for this. Back in the day when we believed that the Krasnoyarsk radar was violating the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, they denied it, they denied it, they denied it for years; and then finally, as the political context changed, they eventually admitted it and stopped the construction. We have some track record of Russia coming back into compliance. Do I think that’s likely anytime soon on the INF Treaty? No. But the last thing we should do is say we’re going to walk away from the treaty because then the failure of the treaty regime would be on us and not them.

The second key dimension of this is that we need to do a clear-eyed analysis of the military relevance of this new system and what are the ways that we can counter it. I think people are too quick to jump to a symmetric response: “Oh, well this means we need to redeploy U.S. nuclear intermediate-range missiles in Europe.” Well, not necessarily. Let’s take a look at how significant these systems are. What is the full range of countermeasures that we might adopt? I suspect there are a range of conventional countermeasures and other asymmetric approaches that might be used to make this militarily not a huge problem for us.

According to some estimates, the United States is on track to spend more than $1 trillion over the next 30 years to sustain, replace, and refurbish nuclear delivery systems, warheads, and supporting infrastructure. Numerous Pentagon officials in recent years, as well as outside experts, have warned about the affordability problem posed by the current approach. Are tough trade-offs going to have to be made in the military budget to accommodate the current modernization plans? Do you think there are options to potentially alter the pace and scope that would be more cost effective while still providing a strong deterrent?

While we need to invest in ensuring we maintain a strong, stable, effective nuclear deterrent, we also have to make sure that it’s one that we can afford and sustain. If you look at the full range of challenges we’re going to face in the future and the need to modernize other aspects of our military, there’s a lot of competition for a limited amount of dollars—limited even under the increases that are being projected by this administration. So, trade-offs do have to be made. I think that rather than automatically modernizing every single nuclear program on the books, we should use the NPR as an opportunity to say, “Can we get to a stronger, more enduring, more sustainable nuclear deterrent with a different mix of systems and capabilities?” I do think we need to debate that in looking at the broad architecture of the triad, but also looking at specific systems and what is the most cost-effective approach to creating a more modern set of capabilities.

The NPR will almost certainly review the existing U.S. nuclear force structure, which currently includes a triad of sea-, land-, and air-based delivery systems. In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee in January 2015, James Mattis, now the defense secretary, raised the question, “Is it time to reduce the triad to a dyad, removing the land-based missiles? This would reduce the false-alarm danger.” What contribution do you believe that intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) make to deterrence today? Has the rationale for the ICBM leg changed since the end of the Cold War?

In the middle of the Cold War when the risk of a bolt-from-the-blue strike was real or we believed it to be real, I think the ICBM leg was pretty critical to deterrence. In the world we live in now and given the advance of other technologies, I think that it’s a question as to (a) whether we need an ICBM leg and (b) if we do need some ICBM leg, how big does it really have to be to serve the purpose. I think that is one of the fundamental questions that the NPR should take on, whether we should move to a dyad and, even if you believe we should stay at a triad, can the balance change. I think everybody agrees that the most survivable leg, where we have the most competitive advantage, is the submarine leg. The bomber force, we’re going to get for both conventional and nuclear purposes.

From a triad perspective, the focus is going to really be on the future of the ICBMs, what’s strategically necessary and what’s most cost effective. In particular, I think the Defense Department should more seriously consider further extending the life of the existing Minuteman III ICBMs as a cheaper near-term alternative to the current plan to build an entirely new ICBM system.

Moving to the bomber leg, Mattis at his confirmation hearing declined to affirm the need for a new fleet of nuclear air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs), stating that he’d have to study the rationale in more detail. Critics argue that retaining nuclear-armed ALCMs is redundant given current plans to build the stealthy, nuclear-capable B21 “Raider” long-range bomber, armed with the upgraded B61 nuclear gravity bomb, as well as to modernize the other two legs of the triad. There is also the growing lethality of conventionally armed air- and sea-launched cruise missiles. In your view, do ALCMs make a unique contribution to the credibility of the U.S. nuclear deterrent?

This is one where, honestly, I am studying the issue because I haven’t made up my mind. I think if the B21 is everything we hope it will be, you may not need this. But if adversary anti-access, area-denial capabilities, particularly sophisticated air defenses, continue to progress—and perhaps there are issues with the ability of our current and future bombers to penetrate those defenses—you might want a cruise missile in your arsenal. That’s not so much from a war-fighting perspective but more from the perspective of an assured ability to hold targets at risk and therefore deter your adversary.

Do you have any indication from your time in government or since that there are questions about whether our submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) or our ICBMs would be able to reach even the most well-defended targets?

No, no, so you do have the options from ICBMs and SLBMs as well. As I said, I’m working my way through this, but I don’t have a definitive answer.

The Trump administration’s NPR may also reconsider the declaration in the 2010 NPR Report that life extension programs for nuclear warheads “will not support new military missions or provide for new military capabilities.” Is there a military requirement for new or, in particular, low-yield warheads that don’t currently exist in the U.S. nuclear stockpile?

I think you have to add to that question, is that unique requirement worth all that that would mean in terms of starting to design, test, build, and deploy new nuclear weapons? Let’s put it this way, I have yet to hear a case for a new nuclear warhead that is compelling enough to take on both the investment costs and the political costs of going down that road.

As you also know, nuclear weapons figured very prominently in the 2016 presidential election campaign. Many Americans relearned or learned for the first time that the president alone has the ability to launch, particularly ICBMs and SLBMs, within minutes of a decision to do so and that the military retains and exercises the ability to launch ICBMs under attack. In your view, does vesting the power to use nuclear weapons in the hands of one person still make sense? Are there steps that you believe could be taken to reform current U.S. nuclear launch protocols?

With the current construct, the potential for your ICBMs to be under attack or taken out within minutes creates enormous time pressure in the decision-making process if you’re going to launch under attack. As a practical matter, it means that the president has to make a decision with very little information and very little time. He has advisers on the call with him to help. But it is, having gone through the rehearsals for these things, a very compressed timeline for a very momentous decision. I would like to see measures taken to increase the decision-making time. This has been part of what has motivated people like Bill Perry, Sam Nunn, George Shultz, and others to question whether we need to keep launch under attack as a practice. This is part of what their concern has been, along with the risk of accident or miscalculation.

I’m not ready to completely rewrite the decision-making structure of our government on this question, but I do think there’s real value to increasing the decision-making time because, by definition, you’re going to have more knowledgeable experts able to advise the president meaningfully if you give him more time in that circumstance.

Can you envision a scenario where a president of the United States would make the most consequential decision a president will have ever made in a matter of minutes?

It’s hard to imagine. When I think of the presidents I’ve worked for, like Barack Obama, it would be hard for such a deliberative, careful, decision-maker to make that kind of decision absent being 1,000 percent sure that we were actually under attack and a nuclear explosion was going to happen on U.S. soil. The whole launch-under-attack scenario assumes a president is willing to make that decision in the absence of certainty. I think that’s an open question in some cases. Would Trump make that decision? Maybe. We don’t know. Let’s hope we never find out. But I think we are failing the president, any president, at some level to put them in that position. There have to be better ways to provide more time to verify information and make a fully informed decision. Because of our history with false alerts and mistakes made where training tapes were thought to be real, we have to be very careful not to miscalculate given the consequences.

Last year, it was reported that the Obama administration considered but ultimately rejected changing U.S. nuclear declaratory policy to state that the United States would not be the first to use nuclear weapons. Are there circumstances under which the benefits of first use of nuclear weapons would outweigh the costs, and if nuclear weapons are used by one nuclear-armed adversary against another, what guarantee do we have that such use would not escalate to a full-scale nuclear exchange with the United States or against a U.S. ally?

I think if you have nuclear use by one nuclear power against another, the risk of full-scale escalation is there. The case that has, in recent years, stopped presidents from fully embracing [a] no-first-use [policy] has been the potential for catastrophic weapons of mass destruction [WMD] attacks of a different nature—for example, a successful, massive bio-attack that would have consequences on the order of a nuclear attack in terms of people killed and so forth. It’s that exceptional case that has kept people from making the full statement.

I personally believe that we should emphatically state that the purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter the use of other nuclear weapons. Period. In a real world instance, if a president felt that there was an exceptional case where he had no other option to respond to a catastrophic WMD attack that was non-nuclear, okay, then that’s a presidential decision at that point. But I think there’s benefit to declare that we don’t believe these weapons are for war-fighting and that we stand in opposition and in contrast to countries like Russia who talk in a very cavalier manner about escalating to nuclear use in order to try to stop conventional war, which is incredibly irresponsible and incredibly dangerous. I think there’s room to strengthen U.S. declaratory policy in this area.

'Tremendous Experience'

ACT: One of your first jobs in Washington early in your career was as a senior analyst at the Arms Control Association, working on nuclear weapons policy and defense issues. Could you tell us how that experience impacted your career path?

Flournoy: It was a tremendous experience and opportunity. It was really the first time where I was able to develop a real depth of expertise in a given area and to build a body of work as a young analyst. That became important for a number of reasons. One is, it attracted a very important mentor to me. Based on an Arms Control Today article I had written, Ted Warner reached out to me and introduced himself and said, “I agreed with every word of your article. I’m working on the same thing over at RAND [Corp.] We should meet.” As my career unfolded later, Ted was the person who hired me and gave me my first job in the Pentagon.

The other thing I would say is that there were wonderful mentors within the organization. People like Spurgeon Keeny and Jack Mendelsohn invested enormously in the young people they had working for them and helping ensure that we were developing as professionals. I owe them and the organization a debt of gratitude for helping me get started.

Read more about U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policies: A Conversation with Michèle Flournoy

Dealing With Russia and North Korea: An Interview With Siegfried Hecker

November 2016

Interviewed by Terry Atlas

Siegfried Hecker, one of the nation’s top nuclear weapons experts, served as director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory from 1986 to 1997. He organized U.S.-Russian lab-to-lab cooperation on nuclear weapons safety and security issues at the end of the Cold War era, which is the subject of the recent book he edited, Doomed to Cooperate (2016), about that remarkable period of scientific collaboration. He is an authority on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, having visited that country seven times between 2004 and 2010. Hecker currently is a research professor in the Department of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.

He was interviewed by Arms Control Today Editor-in-Chief Terry Atlas at the Arms Control Association office. This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.

ACT: What led you to produce Doomed to Cooperate, a history of the cooperation between U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons labs?

Hecker: The idea came from the Russian side. In 2002, on the 10th anniversary of our cooperation, which dates back to 1992 when we had a weapons-lab-directors exchange between the new Russian Federation and the United States, Vladimir Belugin, the former Russian laboratory director at the Institute of Experimental Physics [the Russian Los Alamos] suggested that we capture the history of this cooperation because, in the ‘90s, it was just remarkable. We began to work on it, and then unfortunately, he passed away. So as we were coming closer to the 20th anniversary, I had a discussion with the then-director of the institute. I reminded him that I had intended to write an article with his predecessor. He said, “Oh, there’s much too much for an article. We should write a book.” This was 2010. So that was the origin.

ACT: The lab-to-lab cooperation is quite an unheralded success story, right?

Hecker: I think so. As the Soviet Union was falling apart, the United States was concerned about four loose-nuclear dangers: loose nukes, the weapons; loose fissile materials, plutonium and highly enriched uranium; loose people, the scientific experts; and loose exports, concerns about illicit nuclear sales. My greatest concern was the security of nuclear weapons and nuclear materials. We quickly began working on these problems with the Russian laboratories. President George H.W. Bush’s primary concern was what he called the “brain drain” problem, namely the fate of the nuclear experts. We worked on all these issues. As we now look back 25 years later, there were no loose nukes, very little nuclear material leakage, essentially no brain drain, and on exports, after a few initial problems in the ‘90s, Russia is a pretty responsible exporter of nuclear technologies today. So it’s remarkable. I think the laboratories, the nuclear scientists, contributed enormously to avoiding a nuclear catastrophe.

ACT: How is it that Cold War adversaries, particularly the folks in the nuclear complex who were steeped in secrecy and national security, managed to cooperate on these very sensitive issues. Was there a top-down mandate, or was it a bottom-up effort?

Hecker: Absolutely not top down. We were not being told to go do these things in Russia. It was essentially the initiative of the scientists. The primary reason we began to work together is that the nuclear weapons laboratories and institutes were grounded in superb fundamental science. Los Alamos scientists had connections with Soviet scientists during Soviet times, not on nuclear weapons but on fundamental science. What really triggered our ability to work together, however, was the Reagan-Gorbachev Reykjavík summit in October 1986, which led to what was called the “Joint Verification Experiment” [JVE], that is, participating in nuclear tests at each other’s test sites for the purpose of verifying a test ban treaty. At that point, it was actually the Russian nuclear weapons scientists that reached across and said, “Hey look, we want to work together. We have these scientific ideas. We’d like to pursue cooperation.” So, we pushed for cooperation from the bottom up after the governments allowed us to meet for the JVE. The Soviet scientists pushed us. I pushed Washington. Then eventually, because of President George H.W. Bush’s brain drain concern, we were finally allowed to visit each other’s laboratories. When I went to Russia in 1992 with John Nuckolls, then-director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, we toured through their laboratories. What they showed us was remarkable. We looked at these guys, and it was like looking in a mirror.

ACT: Now we fast forward to today, and that kind of cooperation is an increasingly distant memory. What’s the consequence of the current strained relationships in terms of nuclear security issues?

Hecker: I think today the primary problem is isolation. First of all, you can’t do science in isolation, and the Russian scientists know that. So they’re not happy being isolated. However, the [Russian] government and the security services at this point want to restrict access to the Russian nuclear facilities. We had good access for over 20 years, and they also had good access to our facilities. They were in Los Alamos. They were at Lawrence Livermore and at Sandia labs. We knew all along it had to be reciprocal—if we wanted them to accept some of the ways that we do security, we had to show them how we do it in our places. We did that, and now, for the most part, that cooperation is cut off. But quite frankly, part of the cooperation was cut off by the American government. After Crimea and eastern Ukraine, the American government’s approach was, “[I]t can’t be business as usual.” That filtered down to the scientific interactions. Now, interactions between the nuclear scientists on both sides are being held hostage to political differences.

ACT: You’ve had 20-plus years in which you were able to work on those nuclear safety and security issues. So at this point, is a danger still there?

Hecker: In terms of loose nukes, first of all, they’ve always had it under quite good control, but they were in a demanding environment. Now they are, let’s say, in as good as shape as we are. As for loose nuclear material, they made enormous improvements by joint cooperation with the United States. They’re in quite good shape as far as that goes. As for the brain drain, there is no real concern. It’s not any worse than for the United States. However, with nuclear safety, nuclear security, you’re never done. So now, the danger is if they go back and they isolate the Russian scientists again, we won’t be there to compare the best practices, compare the lessons learned from each other. That’s the danger.

ACT: There’s now talk about a new arms race as the United States and Russia modernize their systems.

Hecker: There’s no question, on the Russian side, that they have emphasized the role of nuclear weapons in their security. If you look back at President Vladimir Putin’s statements over the past number of years and as you look at their actions, they are building new nuclear weapons. They are designing new nuclear weapons. Exactly what good that’s going to do them from a deterrence standpoint, quite frankly, is beyond me. I don’t see it as doing much good. On the American side, I know there’s much criticism on the modernization of the American complex. I personally happen to believe our nuclear complex needs to be modernized. We don’t need new weapons, in my opinion, we just need to make sure that we’re actually able to do our job within the nuclear complex. Then we’ll have a deterrent. We don’t need to enter a new arms race.

ACT: What do you make of the latest North Korean nuclear test?

Hecker: By 2010 it became clear that they’re going all out to build a nuclear weapons program and a threatening nuclear arsenal, and that’s what they’re doing. After the latest test, one has to conclude that now they must have the capability to mount those weapons on missiles that can reach Japan and South Korea and then eventually the United States. That’s not what I worry about the most. I worry that when a country builds that sort of capability, it changes the strategic dynamics with its neighbors.

ACT: What’s your best estimate of how many weapons they could have now, and what’s the growth trajectory?

Hecker: It looks like they can produce about one bomb’s worth of plutonium a year and perhaps six per year of highly enriched uranium. They may have the capacity to make approximately six to eight bombs per year. By the end of this year, they have enough material, we believe, for 20 to 25 nuclear weapons.

ACT: What is the implication for proliferation concerns, particularly providing either state or nonstate actors with technology or materials?

Hecker: From 2004 to 2007, my greatest concern about North Korea was the possibility of export. At that time, we had reason for concern because the North Koreans were known to have exported uranium hexafluoride to Libya and they had built a plutonium-production reactor in Syria. So it was not beyond them to actually do that. Today, I’m less concerned because, quite frankly, their customer base has sort of dried up, that is, it has fewer potential customers. Now one is concerned about export to [the Islamic State] or [other] terrorists. I don’t believe that North Koreans would sell a nuclear weapon. I don’t think they would sell the plutonium. I am not as concerned today about the proliferation or the export of their technologies, unless they become totally desperate. I’m much more concerned about how it affects their relationships with South Korea and the United States and having an overconfidence in their overall capabilities because they have this nuclear overhang. Also, what if there is real turmoil in the country? When they had a handful of bombs and 30 kilograms of plutonium only, you could see as to how one might be able to take care of that. You’re now talking about 20 bombs and hundreds of kilograms of highly enriched uranium, and you don’t know where it is. That’s what I worry about. I don’t worry anywhere near as much about missiles reaching the U.S. mainland at this time. That’s what all the talk is about right now, and of course, our military has to pay attention to that. But what’s much more dangerous is what’s going to happen in the immediate vicinity.

ACT: What about the administration’s strategy of strategic patience?

Hecker: It’s been a total failure. This isn’t just an Obama failure. There was an enormous failure during the George W. Bush administration. That was, in essence, when we sort of let the cat out of the bag with the altercation in October 2002, accusing [North Korea] of having enriched uranium and then essentially walking away from the Agreed Framework negotiated during the Clinton administration. North Korea then went ahead and proceeded with the first nuclear test [in October 2006]. It didn’t work so well, but that changed everything. When President Barack Obama came in, I think the initial intent was to work with the North Koreans, but they conducted a missile test and then another nuclear test. After that, there was great reluctance by the administration to work with the North Koreans. The policy was dubbed strategic patience, but it was essentially not doing much in diplomacy. During that time then, North Korea went from a handful of bombs to having a nuclear arsenal.

ACT: So your advice for the next president?

Hecker: You have to go back to diplomacy. As difficult as that might be to stomach for the United States, you just have to go back to diplomacy. The United States has been trying to get North Korea to do one big “no”—that is, no nuclear weapons—but that’s just not going to happen right now. So the three “no’s” I have proposed are no more bombs, no better bombs, no exporting. Negotiate that with North Korea, and agree to work with them on their security concerns, energy, and the economy. At least for the time being, don’t let it get worse. Now they’ve got the nuclear arsenal, so it’s going to be much more difficult. You have to roll it back through diplomacy.

ACT: For the first step, a freeze is the best that can be done.

Hecker: Yes. I don’t use the term “freeze,” but “halt.” What’s most important to halt has changed over the years. It was really important to halt nuclear tests five years ago when they only had two under their belt. That was important because there’s no way they could miniaturize a nuclear warhead to put on a missile without additional tests. Now they have conducted these additional nuclear tests. So, halting additional missile launches becomes very important—the solid-fueled missiles, the submarine-launched missiles, and of course, the long-range ones—and no more nuclear tests is still important. You also need to at least halt the production of the fissile materials. Then you work your way diplomatically toward rolling back the nuclear weapons program and eventually eliminating it.

Hecker discusses his experiences cooperating with his Russian counterparts in the aftermath of the Cold War, his concerns about the breakdown in relations with Russia, and North Korea’s growing nuclear arsenal.

Read more about Dealing With Russia and North Korea: An Interview With Siegfried Hecker

A French View on the Iran Deal: An Interview With Ambassador Gérard Araud

July/August 2016

Interviewed by Kelsey Davenport and Elizabeth Philipp

Gérard Araud was appointed ambassador of France to the United States in September 2014. A career diplomat, his past positions include director for strategic affairs, security and disarmament (2000-2003) and permanent representative of France to the United Nations in New York (2009-2014). Araud served as the French negotiator on the Iranian nuclear file from 2006 to 2009.

Araud spoke with Arms Control Today in his office at the Embassy of France in Washington, D.C., on May 20.

The interview was transcribed by Elizabeth Philipp. It has been edited for clarity.

ACT: France has been involved in the nuclear negotiations with Iran far longer than the United States—over a decade. Why was achieving an agreement with Iran an important priority for France?

Araud: First, the history is that, in 2002, I was assistant secretary for security affairs and disarmament in Paris and we had the idea of a letter from the three ministers.¹ So it was a French idea. When I actually drafted the first letter, there was a choice about the terms in the letter about enrichment. We could say we are asking to suspend enrichment or to stop enrichment. If we had “to suspend enrichment,” the Russians were immediately on board, but the British were not. If we had “to stop enrichment,” the British were on board, but not the Russians. It was the choice to have the British on board rather than the Russians on board.

In 2002 we discovered the program, and the letter was sent during the summer of 2003. Why? If we had the letter signed by France, Germany and Russia, it would have had absolutely no bearing in Washington, D.C. So the idea was to have the British as a sort of bridge toward the Americans, and I presented the letter to the Americans-—the American was John Bolton, the undersecretary at the time. The Americans told us that it was not a green light, but it was not a red light. So we sent the letter with sort of a yellow light coming from Washington, D.C., and on our side with the promise, the commitment, to [be] totally transparent. Because from the beginning, I knew that there would be an agreement only if the Americans were engaging in the negotiation. So that was the beginning of the story.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius (left) meets his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif (right) on July 2, 2015, at the Palais Coburg Hotel in Vienna where the Iran nuclear negotiations were held. [Photo credit: Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images] Why negotiate? For us, the issue of Iran nuclear power was twofold. First, it was regional. We were convinced that Israel wouldn’t accept the prospect of a nuclear Iran, and that would lead to a military option, with all the political consequences of the region. Secondly, even without an Israeli military operation, it would mean the end of the nonproliferation system. The countries around North Korea—South Korea, Japan—were restrained enough not to follow the suit of North Korea and become nuclear, while, in the Middle East, such restraint was very unlikely.

There was a strong risk that the neighbors of Iran would follow and become nuclear powers. That would have been the end of the nonproliferation system.

ACT: What do you think it is about this current period, beginning in 2013, that led to a successful nuclear deal with Iran given this long history of negotiations?

Araud: Actually, the negotiation started with the three European countries; and in 2003, there was suspension by the Iranians of their enrichment capability. But everything stopped in 2005 more or less with the election of [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. When I was the French-designated negotiator between 2006 and 2009, I can tell you that there was no negotiation. It was not that our proposals were dismissed as insufficient; it was simply that the Iranians didn’t negotiate. They never entered into a substantial discussion of the terms of our proposals, and really, we tried several formulations, very different formulations. We went to Tehran, and nothing came out of it. It was really the feeling that the Iranians had not taken the decision to negotiate. Eventually they took it in 2013, and it means that the supreme leader made the decision first. I’m convinced—but it’s only a personal conviction, and I have nothing to base it on—that what we were looking at the moment when the regime has decided that the cost of the program was too expensive in terms of the survival of the regime. The sanctions were hurting very much, and the regime has decided at this moment to negotiate.

ACT: Within the negotiations for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, what do you think that France brought to the table to really help that process along?

Araud: The fact is that we have, since we have been in the origin of the process, we have been very careful about keeping excellent teams of negotiators. We have been very careful about the choice of the people, about not losing the know-how between the negotiators during all these years, and I do believe that we were a very reliable team of negotiators. I heard several times people saying that, at some moment of the negotiation, really everybody was looking at the French team because we had invested a lot into this negotiation in terms of expertise.

The second point was that we’ve always had a very consistent line. We have had, between 2003 and 2016, three presidents in France—three presidents of very different orientation. There was a Gaullist. After that, there was a more rightist and pro-American, and now you have a Social Democrat. We have always—these three presidents and the governments and the ministers, and there were more than three ministers—have always kept the same line. We have been extremely consistent in this negotiation.

ACT: Speaking of presidential transitions, the presumptive Republican nominee for the U.S. presidency, Donald Trump, has said he would tear up the agreement, he would seek to renegotiate it. Are you concerned at all about the impact of U.S. elections on the continued success of the agreement?

Araud: You know all the Republican candidates were saying that they would tear apart the agreement when they arrive in office. But you know it’s an electoral campaign, and if the candidates were doing everything they promised during the campaign, and that is in all the countries in the world and all the parties, it would be terrifying. So we keep cool, and we will see when it happens and if it happens.

ACT: Iran, though, has expressed some frustrations about sanctions relief under the deal, saying that businesses and banks have been reluctant to do business with Iran. Do you see prospects for European companies returning? Do you think there’s more that the EU 3+3² could be doing?

Araud: We are not in charge of the Iranian economy. But, nevertheless, when there is an agreement, there is a quid pro quo. The Iranian quid is the limitation of their program, and so far, they have implemented their part of the commitment. The quo is the lifting of the sanctions. But the lifting of the sanctions, it is not only an expression saying, “I lift the sanctions.” The sanctions have to be lifted, which means that the Iranians should first have access to frozen assets and secondly should be able to have a trade relationship with the rest of the world.

The fact is—and it’s a fact—that because of the American secondary sanctions, the Iranians are saying that relief doesn’t happen. Actually, if you look—I don’t have the figures, but I think the proportion of the assets effectively de-frozen or released is really not that big. There is a lot of money, which is still frozen because since you can’t use the dollar, apparently it prevents a lot of financial operations. The fact is the banks don’t dare to go to Tehran. You can call it overcompliance on their side because, after having some trouble in New York City, they are still afraid to go there. The U.S. administration is aware of it and has said publicly that they will do their best. It’s not a question of helping the Iranians, it’s simply to give to our commitments, their whole significance. So the U.S. administration is trying to clarify the roles. The problem is your system of secondary sanctions is so complicated that even the U.S. administration has some problems really to understand it.

So the Americans have told us and they have told also [the] business community that they are ready to answer to all the questions that the companies may have. For instance we have the example of Airbus and Boeing who want to sell planes to the Iranians. Planes come with a lot of spare parts. The question is whether it’s legal to sell the planes to the Iranians. Airbus is in contact with the U.S. administration to clarify the situation. But what we feel, and it’s public now, [it] is the will of the U.S. administration to deprive the radicals in Tehran from any pretext to say, “Oh you see, the West is not implementing its part of the deal, we have been trapped, it was a trap, so let’s do the same on our side.”

ACT: So aside from this question of sanctions, do you see any other challenges that the agreement could face in the coming years?

Araud: It’s such a complicated agreement—159 pages. When you enter an arms control agreement, you can’t foresee everything or every problem. So it’s obvious that we will have every six months a different interpretation between the Iranians and us, maybe between us and the Russians and the Chinese, of the different points. The Iranians, of course, will try to drag the agreement toward their interests, and we will do the opposite. So there will be disagreements down the road, and that’s the reason why we have created this committee, which will be in charge of trying to solve these disagreements.³ But disagreements are not unusual. When the Americans have an arms control agreement with the Russians, or with the Soviets at the time, there were also these bumps on the road.

ACT: On the U.S. side, one of the areas that members of Congress in particular have voiced concern about is Iran’s continued ballistic missile testing. The UN Security Council resolution endorsing the deal softens the language on missile tests. Under the new resolution, Iran is “called upon” not to undertake any activity on ballistic missiles that are designed to be nuclear capable. Since the resolution came into effect in January, Iran has continued to test missiles. Are you concerned about the continued missile testing in Iran?

Araud: Our choice was to limit the negotiations to the nuclear issue and not to go beyond that. We consider that the nuclear issue in itself should be really the only topic of the negotiation, considering the seriousness of the issue and also considering that it was certainly in a sense the only issue where the P5+1 would agree.⁴ So it’s on the nuclear issue.

The second point is, and I said it publicly, I was expecting the Iranians to harden their position on the other issues after this nuclear deal, in a sense to show or to send a message that they have not caved in front of the West, which is a message toward the outside world but also toward the Iranian public opinion, which is dreaming of seeing the end of the revolution. So I guess what we see now as provocations, unfortunately, were more or less expected.

On the French side, we have always been in favor of reacting strongly against missile testing in the Security Council, but I think you know the Russians and the Chinese have opposed it. We have said that we have expressed our concern about the missile testing, and we would be willing to go to the Security Council if necessary.

ACT: Do you think there are any particular steps that countries, like the United States and France, could take to stem Iran’s continued ballistic missile development?

Araud: You have the regimes, [Missile Technology Control Regime] and so on, that we have to implement. We have to work with the usual suspects and implement the regimes and controls.

ACT: What do you think that reaching this agreement with Iran means for strengthening nonproliferation norms writ large? Are there areas of the deal that you think the international nonproliferation regime could build off of?

Araud: Yes, but during all the negotiations, especially the Russians but the Chinese also have been very keen on avoiding the impression of creating a precedent. When we negotiated the agreement, there was always this concern coming back, with the Russians and the Chinese basically saying, “No, you are not going to create a new regime.” Having said that, it’s obvious that, during the negotiation, we have faced the problem of enrichment, of uranium enrichment. As a military nuclear power, we know that enrichment is the first step toward a weapon. The militarization side is easier to hide, so the enrichment is really the critical step. The Russians have joined in floating ideas of proposing an international regime for enrichment. There were ideas of having an international bank because countries were saying, “Well, if we give up the right to enrichment, we don’t have any assurance that we will get the enriched uranium that we need for our civilian program.” There was the idea of the Russians saying that they were dedicating a plant for an international bank, and there is the [International Atomic Energy Agency] fuel bank in Kazakhstan.⁵

ACT: Are you concerned, though, that other countries, particularly in the region, might choose to pursue enrichment, given that Iran has maintained its capacity?

Araud: Of course. There is the risk because some people can argue that we have created a special status, a sort of new status for Iran. After the agreement, there were some neighbors saying, “Oh, you know we would want the same capabilities.” For the moment, we have not seen any step into this direction. But of course, we have to be vigilant, considering the tensions in this part of the world.

I do remember when I was in Paris, I was interviewed by our parliament hearing committee on foreign affairs and the chairman of the committee told me, “The nonproliferation system is broken, it’s over.” Actually, when I was assistant secretary now 15 years ago, there were two problems, which were North Korea and Iran. Fifteen years later, there are two problems: North Korea and Iran.

When I was a student, people were saying, “In 2000 the list of the nuclear powers will be Argentina, Brazil,” and so on, and it’s not the case. So in a sense, the nonproliferation system has quite resisted this, and it has been a success. So we have to be vigilant, especially in terms of enrichment. But now that we have this deal with the Iranians, maybe we could come back to working on it.

ACT: Speaking to the weaponization concerns, the concern over nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles in Iran was a primary driver for deploying U.S. missile defense in Europe. Since that threat has been mitigated by the Iran deal, do you think the plans for keeping Aegis Ashore should be adjusted?

Araud: That’s a difficult issue because the American administrations have been very insistent on launching this program, keeping this program, and the debate has been raging in NATO for the last 20 years. The Russians have been through the ceiling on this issue. I think eventually we are going to declare the NATO system as operational.⁶ But my personal opinion would be that what we have done is enough. It’s not really necessary to dedicate so many resources in a situation where we don’t have a lot of resources for such a system for a very hypothetical threat.

For the French, the starting point is evaluation of the threat, and this is something we should re-evaluate regularly. Given the latest assessment of this threat, heads of state and government decided to move forward with this missile defense, but that doesn’t prevent re-evaluating now or in a few years what is the state of this threat. That’s actually something we, France, would be keen to doing because missile defense is not something we should do out of the blue and not just for itself. It’s to protect us against a threat, and it’s just common sense to link it to the re-evaluation of the threat. That is one of the elements we are looking at.

There are also few elements which we look at and we said publicly when we agreed to missile defense, for example, the fact that the cost of missile defense should not go overboard. Another element is that, in NATO, missile defense, on a basis of common control, is owned and operated by NATO. These are elements which are important for us in assessing the progress of the missile defense. There are a few other ones, but those are the important ones.

ACT: On that note, France recently withheld its approval from NATO taking control, command and control, of the European missile defense system.

Araud: The problem that we have, and I’m sure it will be solved before the next summit, is we want to have a real, robust NATO command-and-control chain. For obvious political reasons, the Americans want to declare the system operational at the next summit. From the French side, we want to be sure the [command-and-control] system is robust enough. So again, it’s really not a substantial problem. I’m quite sure that it will be solved.

There is an evaluation going on right now actually in NATO on whether the system is sufficient or not. We are in that phase where we see whether or not it is sufficient to declare the system operational at the Warsaw summit. So we are in this phase where we are looking at it, [being] more careful about being sure it’s sufficient, but we are looking at the info right now that NATO is giving us in the next few weeks.

ACT: Recently in certain disarmament fora, including last year’s [nuclear] Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, the five nuclear-weapon states received some criticism for not fulfilling their Article VI disarmament commitments from the NPT review conference in 2010. What does France think could be done to accelerate the progress on disarmament?

Araud: I think that if the U.S. and Russia were decreasing dramatically their systems, it will really be very important and very critical. This has been an ongoing criticism for a long time. We do consider on our side, and if you look at the figures, that we have made significant progress in terms of disarmament. We have given up the tactical weapons. We have also made [a] declaration of transparency.⁷ We have been more transparent in these terms, and we do consider that our systems are very much smaller than the Russians’ and the Americans’. Before talking to us, you have to talk to the Russians and the Americans.

ACT: Is there anything that you think that France could do to encourage the United States and Russia to take further steps?

Araud: The [fissile material cutoff treaty] FMCT and the [Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty] CTBT are the two main elements we are trying to promote in the international arena, given that it’s very difficult, but we still try to push for it.

ACT: Are there any particular steps related to either of those treaties that you are hoping to promote or move forward on?

Araud: There is going to be, in a few weeks, the 20th anniversary of the CTBT. We would like to use this opportunity to promote the CTBT a bit more. For the FMCT, we proposed a draft some time ago, and we are trying to make concrete proposals to promote these treaties. But it’s a slow process. It is a gradual step by step process to go forward.

ACT: In the United Kingdom, there’s a debate about the salience of its nuclear weapons program and its deterrent. What is France’s view on the UK eliminating its nuclear weapons arsenal, and would that have an impact on France as a sole possessor of nuclear weapons in Europe?

Araud: No, it wouldn’t have an impact on France. Very often, people don’t understand why France is so much committed to nuclear deterrence. They do believe it’s sort of out of glory. The fact is that, in 1940, when the Germans invaded our country, we were alone. The Americans were not here, and the British were not really here either—they had sent 10 divisions to France. France nearly disappeared. So we have drawn [a] very clear lesson that, to survive, you are alone. So we need nuclear deterrence.

After this horrendous period for us, when our country nearly disappeared, it has become a sort of ingrained conviction that you are alone to defend your existence. That’s part of our very particular experience that people don’t understand. It’s not because we love nuclear weapons. It’s simply that now the genie is out of the bottle. Nuclear disarmament is difficult because if we get rid of the nuclear weapons you know Kim Jong Un or somebody else may still have the nuclear weapons. What will happen? He will be the master of the world.

It’s impossible to reach universal nuclear disarmament. What we are trying to do is to limit the numbers of the nuclear-weapon states. Of course it’s unfair for the states which are not. As for the United Kingdom, I would bet everything you want that they won’t get rid of their nuclear weapons. There is a debate, but a debate we don’t have so much in France. Of course there is a fringe left which is in favor of it. But there is not a debate like the British have every decade. The British, maybe there could be debate about modernization, whether you need to modernize or not to modernize, considering the threat. That could be a debate. But on having the weapons, I really don’t see. Compared to the Americans, we Europeans know that history is a tragedy.

ENDNOTES

1. Iran’s heavy-water production plant at Arak and its centrifuge plant at Natanz were revealed to the international community in 2002. The first three countries to engage with Iran on the question of uranium enrichment were France, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

2. The EU 3+3 refers to the three EU countries—France, Germany, and the United Kingdom—plus China, Russia, and the United States, that were engaged in talks with Iran on its nuclear program.

3. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action established the Joint Commission as a mechanism for resolving disputes.

4. P5+1 refers to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, the UK, and the United States) plus Germany.

5. See Tariq Rauf, “From ‘Atoms for Peace’ to an IAEA Nuclear Fuel Bank,” Arms Control Today, October 2015.

6. In April 2016, the United States declared the ballistic missile interceptor it built to be operational in Romania and a second site in Poland to be under construction. NATO claims this system is intended to protect against the ballistic missile threat from Iran while Russia claims it is an attempt to undermine Russia’s nuclear deterrent. For more information, see Kingston Reif, “Romania Missile Defense Site Activated,” Arms Control Today, June 2016.

7. In 2006, France passed the Nuclear Transparency and Security Law. In 2008, under French President Nicolas Sarkozy, France became the first nuclear-weapon state to publicly reveal the size of its nuclear arsenal. For more information, see Bill Richardson et al., “Universal Transparency: A Goal for the U.S. at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit,” Arms Control Today, January 2011.

The ambassador to the United States and former Iran deal negotiator reflects on how that agreement was reached, possible bumps ahead, and dangers posed by Iranian ballistic missile development...

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