A Critical Conference

On April 28, 2005, Carnegie Director for Non-Proliferation Joseph Cirincione testified before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation. His testimony, "A Critical Conference," was part of the hearing on "Previewing the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty."

Thank you, Chairman Royce, Congressman Sherman and Members of the Committee for the privilege of testifying before you today.

History moves slowly, but when we look back we often can see critical points—events where change was developing in one direction before the event and in a different direction after. Over the next few years, we can anticipate several such tipping points for nonproliferation policy, including Iran, North Korea, the procedures governing the nuclear fuel cycle, and the Review Conference for the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). How we resolve the issues around these events will determine whether we continue to make progress in reducing and eliminating the threats from nuclear weapons, or if we begin a new, dangerous wave of nuclear proliferation.

How can a mere conference, particularly one that is not empowered to actually do anything, make such a critical difference? It is because of the context in which this conference takes place. This review conference comes at a particularly unstable moment. There are growing doubts about the sustainability of the entire nonproliferation regime, about America’s commitment to that regime, and even about the legitimacy of U.S. leadership in the world.

The majority of countries feel that the five original nuclear weapons states (the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and China) do not intend to fulfill their end of the NPT bargain—the pledge to eliminate nuclear weapons. That growing conviction erodes the willingness among members of this majority to live up to their side of the bargain—much less to agree to strengthen the regime.

Today’s greatest threat stems from the wide availability –which the existing rules allow-of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium, the fissile materials that are the fuel of nuclear weapons. These materials have become more accessible to terrorists because of the collapse of the Soviet Union and poor security at nuclear stockpiles in the former Soviet republics and in dozens of other countries.

There is also the danger that new nations could acquire nuclear weapons by exploiting the NPT’s failure to define specifically what constitutes the "peaceful" application of nuclear capabilities to which non-nuclear-weapon states commit themselves. As the treaty has been interpreted, countries can acquire technologies that bring them to the very brink of nuclear weapon capability without explicitly violating the agreement, and can then leave the treaty without penalty.

This is a moment where American leadership is essential. American leadership forged the NPT and built it into the most successful security pact in the history of the world. It has not worked perfectly, but before the treaty there were 23 nations that had nuclear weapons, were conducting weapon-related research, or were debating the pursuit of weapons. Today there are only 10, including North Korea and Iran. With the active support of previous U.S. presidents, the treaty has grown into an interlocking network of agreements and controls that provide nations with many of the necessary tools to block the spread of nuclear weapons.

The danger today is that many nations see American support for the treaty waning. They sense antipathy, even hostility, towards the treaty and an unwillingness to consider their views. If the NPT Review Conference ends in disagreement, if it fails to produce a consensus document, many nations will see this as a sign that the regime is unraveling. They may begin to hedge their bets. Nations with ample technological ability to develop nuclear weapons may be reconsidering their political decisions not to do so. India, Pakistan and Israel—the three nuclear weapon states outside the NPT—may become more resistant to coming into conformity with nonproliferation norms and security procedures.

This conference will also play a critical role in resolving the crisis with Iran. The Iranian delegation will come into the conference with one objective: to isolate the United States. They will position themselves as the defender of the right of nations to the peaceful uses of nuclear technology (as guaranteed under Article IV). They may even acknowledge some past "mistakes" in not reporting their nuclear activities, but firmly argue that they are now ready to accept any and all safeguards over their production of fuel for their nuclear reactors. They will say that Iran is willing to play by the rules—and that it is the United States that is trying to unilaterally change the rules and deny developing nations access to the energy source of the future. If the conference ends in discord, and if the United States is seen as responsible for this failure, Iran’s strategy will have succeeded. It will become even more difficult to restrain Iran’s program or to win majority approval for sanctions or other punitive actions against Iran when this crisis reaches its likely boiling point this summer and fall.

It is vital that the United States come into the conference next week with a high-level commitment to achieving a positive outcome to the conference. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should be encouraged to deliver the opening remarks for the United States. The secretary would be the perfect representative to deliver the U.S. position to the conference and to prepare the ground for the hard work of negotiations in the coming weeks.

Our objective should not be to simply to avoid disaster, or to have a good series of discussions at the conference, or to produce a bland, lowest common denominator final document. None of these will do the job. All of them could, in the coming months, be seen by other nations as a sign that the treaty is eroding. Rather, the conference should be and could be an opportunity for a powerful, positive new charge to revitalize the regime and American leadership of it. It is not too late.

There is no better guidance for the kinds of positive steps that could come out of the conference than those proposed in House Concurrent Resolution 133, sponsored by Representatives Spratt, Leach, Markey, Skelton, Shays, and Tauscher, and now before the Committee. These members recommend that the Congress call on all parties participating in the conference to make good faith efforts to:

1. establish more effective controls on critical technologies that can be used to produce materials for nuclear weapons;
2. ensure universal adoption of the Additional Protocol to the NPT and support the authority and ability of the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect and monitor compliance with nonproliferation rules and standards;
3. conduct vigorous diplomacy and use collective economic leverage to halt uranium enrichment and other nuclear fuel cycle activities in Iran, and verifiably dismantle North Korea's nuclear weapons capacity;
4. conduct diplomacy to address the underlying regional security problems in Northeast Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East, which would facilitate nuclear nonproliferation efforts in those regions;
5. accelerate programs to eliminate nuclear weapons, including their fissile material, and to safeguard nuclear weapons-grade fissile materials to the highest standards in order to prevent access by terrorists or other states, decrease and ultimately end the use of highly enriched uranium in civilian reactors, and strengthen national and international export controls and material security measures as required by United Nations Resolution 1540;
6. establish procedures to ensure that a state cannot retain access to controlled nuclear materials, equipment, technology, and components acquired for peaceful purposes or avoid sanctions imposed by the United Nations for violations of the NPT by withdrawing from the NPT, whether or not such withdrawal is consistent with Article X of the NPT
7. implement the disarmament obligations and commitments of the parties that are related to the NPT by—

1. further reducing the size of their nuclear stockpiles (including reserves);
2. taking all steps to improve command and control of nuclear weapons in order to eliminate the chances of an accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons;
3. continuing the moratorium on nuclear test explosions, and, for those parties who have not already done so, taking steps to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty;
4. pursuing an agreement to verifiably halt the production of fissile materials for weapons;
5. reaffirming existing pledges to non-nuclear-weapon state members of the NPT that they will not be subjected to nuclear attack or threats of attack; and
6. undertaking a rigorous and accurate accounting of substrategic nuclear weapons and negotiating an agreement to verifiably reduce such stockpiles.

These recommendations reflect the widespread views of many nonproliferation experts.

I have attached the text of Resolution 133 to my testimony. I have also attached the joint statement of 23 former officials and experts on their recommendations for the NPT conference. The group of former cabinet members, ambassadors and experts agrees that the NPT's future success depends on "universal compliance with tighter rules to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, more effective regional security strategies, and renewed progress toward fulfillment of... disarmament obligations." The statement was signed by former Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, former Secretary of Defense Robert D. McNamara, former Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Lee Hamilton, President of the Carnegie Endowment Jessica T. Mathews, and others.

I have also attached a short summary of recommendations from the new Carnegie Endowment for International Peace study, Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security, by George Perkovich, Jessica Mathews, Rose Gottemoeller, Jon B. Wolfsthal and myself. This study is available in full at: www.ProliferationNews.org.

Thank you again for the opportunity to present these thoughts to the Committee. I look forward to any questions you may have.