Renewed call from Kissinger, Nunn, Perry and Shultz for Nuclear-Free World

Wall Street Journal

January 15, 2008

Toward a Nuclear-Free World
By GEORGE P. SHULTZ, WILLIAM J. PERRY, HENRY A. KISSINGER and SAM NUNN
Full list of signatories at end of article.

The accelerating spread of nuclear weapons, nuclear know-how and  nuclear material has brought us to a nuclear tipping point. We face a  very real possibility that the deadliest weapons ever invented could  fall into dangerous hands.

The steps we are taking now to address these threats are not adequate  to the danger. With nuclear weapons more widely available, deterrence  is decreasingly effective and increasingly hazardous.

One year ago, in an essay in this paper, we called for a global effort  to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons, to prevent their spread into  potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately to end them as a threat to  the world. The interest, momentum and growing political space that has  been created to address these issues over the past year has been  extraordinary, with strong positive responses from people all over the  world.

Mikhail Gorbachev wrote in January 2007 that, as someone who signed  the first treaties on real reductions in nuclear weapons, he thought  it his duty to support our call for urgent action: "It is becoming  clearer that nuclear weapons are no longer a means of achieving  security; in fact, with every passing year they make our security more  precarious."

In June, the United Kingdom's foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett,  signaled her government's support, stating: "What we need is both a  vision -- a scenario for a world free of nuclear weapons -- and action  -- progressive steps to reduce warhead numbers and to limit the role  of nuclear weapons in security policy. These two strands are separate  but they are mutually reinforcing. Both are necessary, but at the  moment too weak."

We have also been encouraged by additional indications of general  support for this project from other former U.S. officials with  extensive experience as secretaries of state and defense and national  security advisors. These include: Madeleine Albright, Richard V.  Allen, James A. Baker III, Samuel R. Berger, Zbigniew Brzezinski,  Frank Carlucci, Warren Christopher, William Cohen, Lawrence  Eagleburger, Melvin Laird, Anthony Lake, Robert McFarlane, Robert  McNamara and Colin Powell.

Inspired by this reaction, in October 2007, we convened veterans of  the past six administrations, along with a number of other experts on  nuclear issues, for a conference at Stanford University's Hoover  Institution. There was general agreement about the importance of the  vision of a world free of nuclear weapons as a guide to our thinking  about nuclear policies, and about the importance of a series of steps  that will pull us back from the nuclear precipice.

The U.S. and Russia, which possess close to 95% of the world's nuclear  warheads, have a special responsibility, obligation and experience to  demonstrate leadership, but other nations must join.

Some steps are already in progress, such as the ongoing reductions in  the number of nuclear warheads deployed on long-range, or strategic,  bombers and missiles. Other near-term steps that the U.S. and Russia  could take, beginning in 2008, can in and of themselves dramatically  reduce nuclear dangers. They include:

• Extend key provisions of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of  1991. Much has been learned about the vital task of verification from  the application of these provisions. The treaty is scheduled to expire  on Dec. 5, 2009. The key provisions of this treaty, including their  essential monitoring and verification requirements, should be  extended, and the further reductions agreed upon in the 2002 Moscow  Treaty on Strategic Offensive Reductions should be completed as soon  as possible.

• Take steps to increase the warning and decision times for the launch  of all nuclear-armed ballistic missiles, thereby reducing risks of  accidental or unauthorized attacks. Reliance on launch procedures that  deny command authorities sufficient time to make careful and prudent  decisions is unnecessary and dangerous in today's environment.  Furthermore, developments in cyber-warfare pose new threats that could  have disastrous consequences if the command-and-control systems of any  nuclear-weapons state were compromised by mischievous or hostile  hackers. Further steps could be implemented in time, as trust grows in  the U.S.-Russian relationship, by introducing mutually agreed and  verified physical barriers in the command-and-control sequence.

• Discard any existing operational plans for massive attacks that  still remain from the Cold War days. Interpreting deterrence as  requiring mutual assured destruction (MAD) is an obsolete policy in  today's world, with the U.S. and Russia formally having declared that  they are allied against terrorism and no longer perceive each other as  enemies.

• Undertake negotiations toward developing cooperative multilateral  ballistic-missile defense and early warning systems, as proposed by  Presidents Bush and Putin at their 2002 Moscow summit meeting. This  should include agreement on plans for countering missile threats to  Europe, Russia and the U.S. from the Middle East, along with  completion of work to establish the Joint Data Exchange Center in  Moscow. Reducing tensions over missile defense will enhance the  possibility of progress on the broader range of nuclear issues so  essential to our security. Failure to do so will make broader nuclear  cooperation much more difficult.

• Dramatically accelerate work to provide the highest possible  standards of security for nuclear weapons, as well as for nuclear  materials everywhere in the world, to prevent terrorists from  acquiring a nuclear bomb. There are nuclear weapons materials in more  than 40 countries around the world, and there are recent reports of  alleged attempts to smuggle nuclear material in Eastern Europe and the  Caucasus. The U.S., Russia and other nations that have worked with the  Nunn-Lugar programs, in cooperation with the International Atomic  Energy Agency (IAEA), should play a key role in helping to implement  United Nations Security Council Resolution 1540 relating to improving  nuclear security -- by offering teams to assist jointly any nation in  meeting its obligations under this resolution to provide for  appropriate, effective security of these materials.

As Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger put it in his address at our October  conference, "Mistakes are made in every other human endeavor. Why  should nuclear weapons be exempt?" To underline the governor's point,  on Aug. 29-30, 2007, six cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads  were loaded on a U.S. Air Force plane, flown across the country and  unloaded. For 36 hours, no one knew where the warheads were, or even  that they were missing.

• Start a dialogue, including within NATO and with Russia, on  consolidating the nuclear weapons designed for forward deployment to  enhance their security, and as a first step toward careful accounting  for them and their eventual elimination. These smaller and more  portable nuclear weapons are, given their characteristics, inviting  acquisition targets for terrorist groups.

• Strengthen the means of monitoring compliance with the nuclear  Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a counter to the global spread of  advanced technologies. More progress in this direction is urgent, and  could be achieved through requiring the application of monitoring  provisions (Additional Protocols) designed by the IAEA to all  signatories of the NPT.

• Adopt a process for bringing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty  (CTBT) into effect, which would strengthen the NPT and aid  international monitoring of nuclear activities. This calls for a  bipartisan review, first, to examine improvements over the past decade  of the international monitoring system to identify and locate  explosive underground nuclear tests in violation of the CTBT; and,  second, to assess the technical progress made over the past decade in  maintaining high confidence in the reliability, safety and  effectiveness of the nation's nuclear arsenal under a test ban. The  Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization is putting in place new  monitoring stations to detect nuclear tests -- an effort the U.S  should urgently support even prior to ratification.

In parallel with these steps by the U.S. and Russia, the dialogue must  broaden on an international scale, including non-nuclear as well as  nuclear nations.

Key subjects include turning the goal of a world without nuclear  weapons into a practical enterprise among nations, by applying the  necessary political will to build an international consensus on  priorities. The government of Norway will sponsor a conference in  February that will contribute to this process.

Another subject: Developing an international system to manage the  risks of the nuclear fuel cycle. With the growing global interest in  developing nuclear energy and the potential proliferation of nuclear  enrichment capabilities, an international program should be created by  advanced nuclear countries and a strengthened IAEA. The purpose should  be to provide for reliable supplies of nuclear fuel, reserves of  enriched uranium, infrastructure assistance, financing, and spent fuel  management -- to ensure that the means to make nuclear weapons  materials isn't spread around the globe.

There should also be an agreement to undertake further substantial  reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear forces beyond those recorded in  the U.S.-Russia Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty. As the  reductions proceed, other nuclear nations would become involved.

President Reagan's maxim of "trust but verify" should be reaffirmed.  Completing a verifiable treaty to prevent nations from producing  nuclear materials for weapons would contribute to a more rigorous  system of accounting and security for nuclear materials.

We should also build an international consensus on ways to deter or,  when required, to respond to, secret attempts by countries to break  out of agreements.

Progress must be facilitated by a clear statement of our ultimate  goal. Indeed, this is the only way to build the kind of international  trust and broad cooperation that will be required to effectively  address today's threats. Without the vision of moving toward zero, we  will not find the essential cooperation required to stop our downward  spiral.

In some respects, the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons is like  the top of a very tall mountain. From the vantage point of our  troubled world today, we can't even see the top of the mountain, and  it is tempting and easy to say we can't get there from here. But the  risks from continuing to go down the mountain or standing pat are too  real to ignore. We must chart a course to higher ground where the  mountaintop becomes more visible.

Mr. Shultz was secretary of state from 1982 to 1989. Mr. Perry was  secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997. Mr. Kissinger was secretary of  state from 1973 to 1977. Mr. Nunn is former chairman of the Senate  Armed Services Committee.

The following participants in the Hoover-NTI conference also endorse  the view in this statement: General John Abizaid, Graham Allison,  Brooke Anderson, Martin Anderson, Steve Andreasen, Mike Armacost,  Bruce Blair, Matt Bunn, Ashton Carter, Sidney Drell, General Vladimir  Dvorkin, Bob Einhorn, Mark Fitzpatrick, James Goodby, Rose  Gottemoeller, Tom Graham, David Hamburg, Siegfried Hecker, Tom  Henriksen, David Holloway, Raymond Jeanloz, Ray Juzaitis, Max  Kampelman, Jack Matlock, Michael McFaul, John McLaughlin, Don  Oberdorfer, Pavel Podvig, William Potter, Richard Rhodes, Joan  Rohlfing, Harry Rowen, Scott Sagan, Roald Sagdeev, Abe Sofaer, Richard  Solomon, and Philip Zelikow.