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Tuesday's terror attacks on New York and Washington DC should bring about a major shift in US nonproliferation policies. Until now, the main goal of US nonproliferation policy has been to prevent the emergence of new nuclear nations. After Tuesday's terror attacks, however, the focus of US efforts is to prevent terrorists from acquiring weapons of mass destruction. In most ways these policies are complementary and not in competition. But making the shift will pose risks and require tradeoffs.
The horrific September 11 attacks will change forever the way we assess threats to the United States. This catastrophe crossed the line from conventional terrorism to terrorism with weapons of mass destruction. The terrorists caused thousands of casualties not with chemical, biological or nuclear agents, but with aviation fuel. As the victims are recovered and remembered, the attacks should force a painful reappraisal of the threats all nations face in the 21st century.
Former Director of Los Alamos National Laboratory Siegfried Hecker warns that the enormous nuclear complex in Russia still represents the gravest danger to the United States. At Carnegie on September 7, he detailed his list of the most serious nuclear threats facing the country, beginning with "avoiding a nuclear exchange" with Russia.
A Carnegie Proliferation Roundtable
The Bush administration may soon abandon programs to eliminate excess plutonium from nuclear weapons in the United States and Russia. Associate Jon Wolfsthal argues that failure to follow through on efforts to dispose of this material would be an abdication of the national and international responsibility to safeguard future generations from the nuclear legacy of the Cold War.
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld returned empty-handed from a truncated set of 'consultations' with Russian President Putin and Defense Minister Ivanov on the issues of missile defenses and nuclear reductions. The failure of the United States to put forward detailed positions regarding reductions in nuclear weapons or missile defense deployments has created the impression in Moscow that these talks are nothing more than a "box checking" exercise designed to provide cover for a future U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. This failure and impression is bad enough. But remarks by Secretary Rumsfeld on the nature of negotiations and treaties promises to make matters worse and raise serious doubts about the ability of this key official to develop the new strategic framework espoused by President Bush.
Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld completed a shortened series of talks with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov on August 11 and found himself and the United States no closer to convincing Russia of the need to abandon the ABM Treaty than when he arrived. Why the lack of progress? Associate Jon Wolfsthal provides an analysis.
President Bush has named Steve Younger to be the head of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a Defense Department office responsible for most of the cooperative threat reduction work being carried out with state of the Former Soviet Union. It is unclear how Dr. Younger's selection will affect this work. Dr. Younger gained national notoriety during the government's case against Wen Ho Lee. It was Dr. Younger's testimony, in part, that resulted in Dr. Lee being held in solitary confinement during his year long imprisonment. In 2000, Dr. Younger's authored a paper that lays out the possible role for "mini nukes" as the United States deals with the security challenges of the 21st century.
Bush administration officials have become fond of describing missile defense opponents as being unable to escape "Cold War thinking." Yet by pursuing missile defenses so aggressively, President George W. Bush may himself prevent the development of the "new strategic framework" with Russia he has tried to champion and reinforce a world where relations are defined by the size and sophistication of nuclear arsenals. Despite Bush's stated intention to reduce U.S. nuclear forces to the lowest levels consistent with national security, the nuclear arsenals in both countries are at Cold War levels and postures.
Don't believe all the tough talk.
The recent opening of simultaneous "consultations" in Moscow between the United States and Russia on nuclear cutbacks and missile defense is the latest sign the Bush administration prefers engaging Russia on nuclear issues rather than going it alone.
Visiting Scholar Lee Feinstein provides an analysis in the Baltimore Sun.
State Department Director for Policy Planning Richard Haass describes the Bush Administration rejection of key international treaties as "a la carte multilateralism." New York Times reporter Thom Shanker says administration officials reject pacts that limit U.S. actions but favor those that restrain others, such as missile technology restraints, the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Non-Proliferation Treaty. But can the whole survive with just some of its parts? Can global security be maintained piece-meal? Project Director Joseph Cirincione warned of the dangers of precisely this approach in Foreign Policy magazine last year.
The announcement on July 22 by President George Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin to begin simultaneous "consultations" on nuclear cutbacks and missile defense is the latest sign that the new administration is having to adjust its policies in the face of continuing concern about the go-it-alone approach to strategic issues that has been promoted by many key advisors to the president.
Rose Gottemoeller and Sasha Pikayev address US-Russian relations at the Press Development Institute, in Moscow on July 19, 2001.
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Acton holds the Jessica T. Mathews Chair and is co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Fiona Cunningham is a nonresident scholar in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow in 2020-21.
Toby Dalton is a senior fellow and co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment. An expert on nonproliferation and nuclear energy, his work addresses regional security challenges and the evolution of the global nuclear order.
Rose Gottemoeller is a nonresident senior fellow in Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program. She also serves as lecturer at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Nicole Grajewski is a Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her research examines Russian and Iranian policies in the global nuclear order, with a particular focus on Russian nuclear strategy, Iran’s nuclear decision-making, contestation in the non-proliferation regime, and nuclear deterrence.
Hibbs is a Germany-based nonresident senior fellow in Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy Program. His areas of expertise are nuclear verification and safeguards, multilateral nuclear trade policy, international nuclear cooperation, and nonproliferation arrangements.
Kassenova is a nonresident fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment.
Ulrich Kühn is a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the head of the arms control and emerging technologies program at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg.
Jamie Kwong is a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Levite was the principal deputy director general for policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission from 2002 to 2007.
Ankit Panda is the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Perkovich works primarily on nuclear strategy and nonproliferation issues; cyberconflict; and new approaches to international public-private management of strategic technologies.
Lindsay Rand is a nonresident scholar in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at Carnegie in 2022-2023.
Todd S. Sechser is a nonresident scholar in the Nuclear Policy Program and the Pamela Feinour Edmonds and Franklin S. Edmonds Jr. Discovery professor of politics and public policy at the University of Virginia.
Anne Stickells is a Stanton pre-doctoral fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Dr. Lauren Sukin is a nonresident scholar in the Nuclear Policy Program and an assistant professor of international relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Ülgen is a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe in Brussels, where his research focuses on Turkish foreign policy, nuclear policy, cyberpolicy, and transatlantic relations.
Tristan Volpe is a nonresident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and assistant professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School.
Fumihiko Yoshida is a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Tong Zhao is a senior fellow with the Nuclear Policy Program and Carnegie China.
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