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Nuclear Disorder - Surveying Atomic Threats
Graham Allison
The global nuclear order today could be as fragile as the global financial order was two years ago, when conventional wisdom declared it to be sound, stable, and resilient. In the aftermath of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, a confrontation that he thought had one chance in three of ending in nuclear war, U.S. President
His conviction spurred a surge of diplomatic initiatives: a hot line between
In 2004, the secretary-general of the UN created a panel to review future threats to international peace and security. It identified nuclear Armageddon as the prime threat, warning, "We are approaching a point at which the erosion of the nonproliferation regime could become irreversible and result in a cascade of proliferation." Developments since 2004 have only magnified the risks of an irreversible cascade.
The current global nuclear order is extremely fragile, and the three most urgent challenges to it are
THE NUCLEAR CASCADE
Seven story lines are advancing along crooked paths, each undermining the existing nuclear order. These comprise
Most of the foreign policy community has still not absorbed the facts about North Korean developments over the past eight years. One of the poorest and most isolated states on earth,
From the perspective of the nuclear nonproliferation regime, two questions jump off the page. First, does Kim Jong Il imagine that he could get away with selling a nuclear weapon to
Already,
Meanwhile,
If
THE NUCLEAR TERRORIST
As Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the
Over the past eight years, as its stability and authority have become increasingly uncertain, the Pakistani government has tripled its arsenal of nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons material. During this same period, the leadership of al Qaeda has moved from
In
That al Qaeda has been significantly weakened by the U.S. military's focused Predator and Special Forces attacks on its leadership in the ungoverned regions of
Bin Laden has called the acquisition of nuclear weapons al Qaeda's "religious duty" and has announced the movement's aspiration to "kill four million Americans." As former CIA Director
REGIME FATIGUE
Growing cynicism about the nonproliferation regime also threatens to undercut the global nuclear order. It is easy to see why non-nuclear-weapons states view the regime as an instrument for the haves to deny the have-nots. At the
At the same time, rising concerns about greenhouse gas emissions have stimulated a growing demand for nuclear energy as a clean-energy alternative. There are currently 50 nuclear energy plants under construction, most of them in
The hardest part of making nuclear weapons is producing fissile material: enriched uranium or plutonium. The same setup of centrifuges that enriches uranium ore to four percent to make fuel for nuclear power plants can enrich uranium to 90 percent for nuclear bombs. A nuclear regime that allows any state with a nuclear energy plant to build and operate its own enrichment facility invites proliferation. The thorny question is how to honor the right of non-nuclear-weapons states, granted by the NPT, to the "benefits of peaceful nuclear technology" without such a consequence. The answer is to provide an IAEA-governed international fuel bank that would guarantee a supply of nuclear fuel for states that would agree not to pursue enrichment and reprocessing activities. But persuading countries to forgo something others have for the greater good remains a stumbling block.
THE NUCLEAR WEAPONS STATES
Finally, recent lessons about the utility of nuclear weapons in international affairs have also eroded the global nuclear order. U.S. President Barack Obama has endorsed President
In the meantime,
Even more important than proposals for future programs are lessons learned from recent actions. The George W. Bush administration designated
THE GEORGE MARSHALL QUESTION
After listening to a compelling briefing for a proposal or even in summarizing an argument presented by himself, Secretary of State
Start with the bottom line. There are no more nuclear weapons states now than there were at the end of the Cold War. Since then, one undeclared and largely unrecognized nuclear weapons state,
One hundred and eighty-four nations have forsworn the acquisition of nuclear weapons and signed the NPT. At least 13 countries began down the path to developing nuclear weapons with serious intent, and were technologically capable of completing the journey, but stopped short of the finish line:
Although they do not minimize the consequences of
In the
Looking elsewhere,
Such arguments for skepticism have a certain plausibility. The burden of evidence and analysis, however, supports the view that current trends pose unacceptable risks. As the bipartisan
THE FIERCE URGENCY OF NOW
Obama has put the danger of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism at the top of his national security agenda. He has called it "a threat that rises above all others in urgency" and warned that if the international community fails to act, "we will invite nuclear arms races in every region and the prospect of wars and acts of terror on a scale that we can hardly imagine." Consider the consequences, he continued, of an attack with even a single nuclear bomb: "Just one nuclear weapon exploded in a city -- be it
Obama's mission is to bend the trend lines currently pointing toward catastrophe. Most of the actions required to achieve this mission must be taken not by
These steps mark the most substantial effort to revitalize the nuclear order since Kennedy. From his first major address abroad, when he spoke to the EU's 27 heads of state in
This is an extraordinarily ambitious agenda -- easy to say, hard to do. And this important work will encounter serious obstacles and stubborn adversaries. As Obama noted at the UN, "The next 12 months could be pivotal in determining whether [the nonproliferation regime] will be strengthened or will slowly dissolve." Indeed, the year ahead is crowded with dates and events that will move this agenda forward or leave it floundering. Optimists can take heart from the much more positive attitudes toward
The international community has crucial choices to make, and the stakes could not be higher. Having failed to heed repeated warning signs of rot in the U.S.-led global financial system, the world dare not wait for a catastrophic collapse of the nonproliferation regime. From the consequences of such an event, there is no feasible bailout.
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World - Nuclear Disorder - Surveying Atomic Threats | Graham Allison
(c) 2009 Graham Allison - Foreign Affairs