Here’s an op-ed in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists assessing the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit by yours truly. Below are some highlights of the piece: – The 2012 Nuclear Security Summit in Seoul could have been a watershed moment for nuclear sec…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 30, 2012

CONTACT: Bridget Nolan, Director of Communications, 707-287-5739; John Isaacs, Executive Director, 202-546-0795 ext 2222

Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Hails National Academy of Sciences Report on Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

Washington D.C.- The Center for Arms Control and Non Proliferation today called the National Academy of Sciences report on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) “another important piece of evidence  confirming that the case for Senate approval of the treaty is stronger than ever.”

The announcement of the report, which evaluated the United States’ ability to maintain a safe and reliable nuclear weapons stockpile without nuclear testing and verify compliance with the treaty, stated “The United States is now in a better position than at any time in the past to maintain a safe and effective nuclear weapons stockpile without testing and to monitor clandestine nuclear testing abroad.”

The reported added: “Provided that sufficient resources and a national commitment to stockpile stewardship are in place, the committee judges that the United States has the technical capabilities to maintain a safe, secure, and reliable stockpile of nuclear weapons into the foreseeable future without nuclear-explosion testing.”

The report also stated: “The United States has technical capabilities to monitor nuclear explosions in four environments—underground, underwater, in the atmosphere and in space.”

The United States has not tested a nuclear weapon since 1992 after President George H.W. Bush signed a nuclear testing moratorium.

The United Nations General Assembly adopted the treaty in 1996. The treaty prohibits all nuclear test explosions and creates a robust international verification regime to buttress the existing national capabilities of state parties in ensuring compliance with the treaty. It was rejected by the U.S. Senate in 1999.

The treaty is critical to limit the ability of other countries to develop nuclear weapons or to improve the ones they already have. It also helps monitor illegal tests throughout the world.

As of February, 157 countries have ratified the agreement – not including the United States, China, North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and India.

John Isaacs, Center executive director, called on the Senate to take up the treaty in 2013. “The United States is keeping bad company with some of the worst nuclear proliferators in the world by not approving the treaty.”

Added Isaacs: “A growing number of military leaders and former nuclear laboratory directors agree that nuclear testing is a dangerous relic of the Cold War and isn’t in the best interests of the United States.”

Kingston Reif, the Center’s Director of Non-Proliferation, pointed out that the United States has been able to retain a safe, secure and reliable nuclear stockpile despite the absences of nuclear tests since 1992.

“The report confirms that the United States can maintain the safety, security, and reliability of its nuclear warheads without explosive testing,” said Reif. “Because the U.S. does not conduct nuclear tests and has no plans or the need to do so, it should take advantage of the security and political benefits that would come with ratification of the CTBT,” he added.

Click here for a copy of the report.

The usual Republican suspects keep criticizing the Fiscal Year 2013 request for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons activities account because it doesn’t keep pace with the plan, outlined in the November 2010 update to what’s known a…

North Korea is kind of like that rebellious child whose behavior never seems to get any better, no matter how many times they apologize and promise that they won’t ever do it again. A few days later, and you’re wondering how you ever fell for that same trick again.

Just a few weeks ago, North Korea announced announced that it would implement a moratorium on long-range missile launches, nuclear tests and nuclear activities at Yongbyon, including uranium enrichment activities, in exchange for food aid from the United States.

Whether the apparent deal was the result of a new policy adopted  by Kim Jong-un after the death of Kim Jong Il, the leader who championed the North Korean nuclear program, or the negotiating prowess of Glyn Davies, the new U.S. envoy to North Korea, and others is unclear. And while this seemed like a promising development in the long history of negotiations with North Korea, experts warned us to be cautious.

The experts were correct. This time it’s because North Korea is threatening to launch  a satellite in honor of the 100th anniversary of the birth of its founder. Despite President Obama’s warning to refrain from “bad behavior,” North Korea has stated that it will proceed as planned.

Missile technology to launch a satellite could also be used to launch a nuclear weapon. Despite the Pyongyang’s effort to separate satellite launches from missile tests, neither Washington nor the UN Security Council sees a distinction. The North Koreans have reacted negatively to the West’s insistence that they cancel the test, with a spokesman from the Foreign Ministry saying this morning that, “We will never give up the launch of a satellite for peaceful purposes.”

President Obama made it clear that if North Korea proceeds with the test, they will be jeopardizing the food assistance they were promised by the United States earlier this month.

UPDATE 3/29: A few hours after publishing this post, the administration announced that it’s “been forced to suspend our activities to provide nutritional assistance to North Korea.”

For an examination how the deal fell apart, see Jeffrey Lewis’ take here. For an assessment of why the North Koreans thought they could get away with a satellite launch, see this article. And for an explanation of why the U.S. is no worse for trying to negotiate with the North Koreans, see Center Chairman Lt. Gen. Robert Gard’s piece here

Whatever the reasons for the likely collapse of the arrangement, it does not portend well for security and stability in the near-term, as additional North Korean missile and nuclear tests could be in the offing.

This post was originally published at http://www.democracyarsenal.org/ and also appeared on CNN’s Global Public Square Blog.

President Obama was recently overheard saying to Russian President Medvedev that, assuming he prevails in the election this November, he would have more flexibility to negotiate on arms control issues. In response, some Congressional Republicans have implied that President Obama may have secret plans to aggressively pursue arms control in his second term.

Perhaps Republicans are concerned that the United States will cut its arsenal in half. Maybe they are concerned that President Obama will eliminate an entire class of nuclear weapons.  Or, maybe they are concerned he would do something dramatic like try to negotiate the total elimination of U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons. Well, if he were to accomplish any of these tasks, he would be in good company. These are all feats attempted by Republican Presidents in their second terms.  Every second term Republican President since the beginning of the nuclear age (i.e. Eisenhower, Nixon, Reagan, and Bush II) proposed drastic changes to the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

George W. Bush

Most recently, President George W. Bush made sweeping reductions to the U.S. nuclear arsenal during his second term. In 2007, President Bush approved a nearly 50 percent cut in the deployed nuclear stockpile and pledged to cut it by an additional 15% by 2012. Notably, the announcement of these reductions occurred while the Bush administration was simultaneously planning to cut 7,200 nuclear weapons-related jobs, arguing that the way in which the United States maintained its nuclear weapons was outdated and cost too much.

At the time, not a single prominent Republican attacked President Bush for pursuing such a policy. In fact, in 2004, Republican Chairman of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, which is responsible for funding nuclear weapons programs at the Department of Energy, applauded President Bush’s effort to reduce nuclear weapons, stating “it may not be to the degree of where he wants to get right now, but it’s a lot better than where we are today” and “After years of maintaining a nuclear stockpile sized for the Cold War, we are finally bringing the numbers down to a more realistic and responsible level.” In contrast, Republicans have relentlessly attacked President Obama, who has provided more money for nuclear weapons than any previous president and pursued extremely modest reductions by his predecessor’s standards, because of perceived “underfunding” or lack of commitment to the nuclear stockpile.

Ronald Reagan

Arguably, President Reagan made more progress in reducing the threat of nuclear weapons in his second term than any other President, Democrat or Republican. While his eventual support for the abolition of nuclear weapons is widely known, his ambitious efforts to reduce the dangers posed by nuclear weapons deserve more attention.

Following the 1983 incident in which Soviet leaders, interpreting a U.S. nuclear exercise as a first strike, prepared to launch nuclear weapons against the United States, President Reagan became more hands on in dealing with nuclear weapons policy. In a 1986 meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland, President Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev discussed a proposal for completely eliminating Soviet and U.S. nuclear weapons. Although they were not able to agree on terms, this marks the closest any President has ever come to abolishing nuclear weapons altogether. In 1987, President Reagan signed the Intermediate Nuclear Forces in Europe Treaty (INF). The INF required the United States and USSR to verifiably eliminate nuclear missiles with ranges between 300 and 3,400 miles. Throughout this period, the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated to increase transparency and verification of nuclear testing and, despite being criticized by his own party, Reagan made significant progress in negotiating reductions in deployed strategic nuclear weapons. This negotiation process was completed by his successor, George H.W. Bush, in the form of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Richard Nixon

President Nixon’s second term lasted slightly over a year and a half; yet, even he was able to make progress in reducing the threat of nuclear weapons. In 1973, Nixon signed the Agreement on the Prevention of Nuclear War, helping to reinforce détente between the United States and the Soviet Union. In 1974, he signed the Threshold Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited the United States and the Soviet Union from conducting nuclear tests greater than 150 kilotons, a precursor to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. During this time, Nixon also pursued further restrictions on US and Soviet nuclear arms, building on the Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement (SALT I) between the Soviet Union and the United States negotiated during his first term.

Dwight Eisenhower

President Eisenhower was certainly no dove when it came to nuclear weapons, approving significant quantitative and qualitative increases in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. However, towards the end of his presidency, Eisenhower also began moving away from his hawkish nuclear ways. In his second term, Eisenhower began legitimate negotiations on a verifiable test ban, which included working with Khrushchev to draft a treaty.  In 1959, he was also the first President to establish a testing moratorium. While the moratorium expired in December 1959, neither the U.S. nor the Soviet Union tested nuclear weapons again until 1961.

This brings us to Barack Obama, who of course has yet to win a second term, but has made no secret of his goals regarding reducing the threat from nuclear weapons. In a speech President Obama delivered on March 26 at Hankuk University in Seoul, Korea, President Obama renewed his pledge to further reduce the threat of nuclear weapons by “taking concrete steps toward a world without nuclear weapons.” The speech outlined a number of goals the President first proposed in Prague in April 2009 and would seek during his second term, including ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and further reductions in all types of Russian and U.S. nuclear weapons. Contrary to arguments put forth by critics, these goals are the continuation of decades of work by Republican Presidents in their second terms.