On June 27, the 9/11 Public Discourse Project, an extension of the 9/11 Commission, heard urgent testimony from three of America’s top proliferation experts. Convening in Washington, D.C., former Senator Sam Nunn, Harvard University’s Ashton Carter, and Monterrey Institute Deputy Director Leonard Spector made independent but complementary recommendations on how to better protect the United States from the threats of a nuclear terrorist attack and the global spread of nuclear weapons.
Responding to the testimony, Carnegie Endowment Director for Non-Proliferation Joseph Cirincione said, "If we would implement these recommendations over the next four years, America would be far safer than we have been in the four years since 9/11." The proposals made by these experts parallel many of the policies detailed in the recent Carnegie study, Universal Compliance. A summary of their recommendations follows. (Read More)
The Global Threat Reduction Initiative is a program of great promise, but just over a year after its launch, it needs attention and firm hands if it is to fulfill that promise.
There are signs that the Six Party talks between the United States, North Korea, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia on North Korea’s nuclear program could soon resume. But holding talks while North Korea continues to expand its nuclear capabilities is like negotiating with a gun to your head.
Press inquiries into the
The Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference, "Sixty Years Later," will be held on November 7- 8, 2005. Below is the second in a series of analyses on proliferation milestones.
"We are here to make a choice between the quick and the dead. That is our business…If we fail, then we have damned every man to be the slave of fear."
With these dramatic words on June 14, 1946, Bernard Baruch, the United States representative to the UN Atomic Energy Commission, introduced America’s plan to avert a state of permanent nuclear terror. The Baruch Plan was revolutionary. It also failed, and his fearful prophecy proved all too accurate. As nonproliferation experts and political leaders struggle today to control the spread of nuclear technology and weaponry, revisiting the Baruch Plan can teach us much about where we have come and where we may be going. (Read More)
The 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference was a disaster. It was a major missed opportunity for the United States to advance either the agenda of the Bush administration or the broader agenda against the spread of nuclear weapons. It was demoralizing for almost all of the top nonproliferation officials from around the world who had gathered for this unique conclave. (Read More)
The Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference, "Sixty Years Later," will be held on November 7- 8, 2005. Below is the first in a series of analyses on proliferation milestones.
In June of 1945, the Franck Report was ignored, the moral concerns of its scientific authors over the use of nuclear weapons dismissed. Sixty years later, the report seems a prescient warning of proliferation dangers. Still largely overlooked today, it typically shows up as a few paragraphs amidst the hundreds of pages written about the Manhattan Project. Yet interestingly, the report’s warnings of a nuclear arms race and recommendations for the international control of nuclear energy resonate with contemporary concerns. The proliferation challenges of today were clearly foreseen by some of the bomb’s creators. (Read More)
Jessica Mathews plays director of national intelligence in Atlantic-sponsored war game.
We know the victors write history, but can they re-write it as well? In a U.S. pamphlet handed out at the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference in New York this month, officials have erased key international agreements from the historic account. Gone are any references to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and to commitments made at the 2000 NPT conference. Official disdain for these agreements seems to have turned into denial that they existed. The U.S. refusal to comply with it own obligations is a key reason why the conference may break up in disarray, setting back global efforts to stem the spread of nuclear weapons. (Read More)