Nuclear Nonproliferation: Six Lessons Not Yet Learned

If one had to choose the most exceptional year in the history of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards regime, it would be 2003. That year saw four events that, it is clear after 15 years, represented important challenges and in some respects missed opportunities for the governments seeking to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. On January 10, 2003, North Korea announced its withdrawal from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), a unique case so far. On February 21, IAEA inspectors discovered at Natanz in Iran a pilot centrifuge enrichment facility ready to start operation, as well as the existence of undeclared nuclear material. On March 20, U.S. forces invaded Iraq on the pretext that the country still had a weapons of mass destruction program that included nuclear weapons. On December 19, Colonel Moammar Gaddafi announced that Libya was abandoning its 20-year covert nuclear weapons program; and as a result, the IAEA discovered the existence of a vast international network of clandestine nuclear traffic headed by Abdul Qadeer Khan of Pakistan.

For over a year, security and Korean experts have appealed for the Trump administration to give diplomacy a chance to end the nuclear standoff with North Korea. Now, the president has agreed to hold a summit with Kim Jong Un, though the details are yet to be worked out. This, it appears, is what Trump’s brand of high-risk, high-reward diplomacy looks like. America has tried and failed many times to achieve a negotiated denuclearization of North Korea. There is no evidence that Kim Jong Un has suddenly decided to trade away his regime’s nuclear weapons, that he has pursued at all costs since coming to power. Perhaps Trump believes that the “maximum pressure” campaign has forced Kim to cry uncle, but few others do. But even short of immediate and total denuclearization, it is possible to distinguish between good and bad summit outcomes.

Even under the best of circumstances, President Trump’s planned summit with North Korea’s leader would be a daunting challenge—a faceoff with the dictator of a pariah state about whom there is little reliable intelligence and whose regime has a history of breaking promises and violating agreements. But for the Trump administration, that may be the least of its worries. In the rush to prepare Trump for his meeting with Kim Jong Un in May, the White House is overseeing a frantic scramble to resolve even the most fundamental questions on the U.S. side: Where will the summit be? Who will be at the table? What should be on the agenda?

The Army is planning to tie its two most critical air and missile defense systems together within two years, which is key to establishing a more effective, layered approach to AMD, according to the one-star general in charge of modernizing the service’s AMD capabilities. The approach could enhance the development of the Army’s future AMD command-and-control system, the Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System—or IBCS.

European foreign ministers, anxious to salvage the nuclear deal with Iran, on Monday plan to sketch out new measures to increase pressure on the country over its ballistic missile program and regional actions, European Union officials said. The talks come as time shrinks for the EU and the U.S. to agree on steps aimed at meeting President Donald Trump’s demands to strengthen the 2015 nuclear deal and crack down on Iran’s other activities.

For the United States, the central issue is North Korea’s nuclear weapons capability and its missile development program, which if continued will eventually enable it to hit the continental United States (though why it would choose to do so remains a mystery, given the consequences of U.S. retaliation). And for all his earlier bluster and saber-rattling, Trump seems to have realized—for now—that the existing military options are unattractive and that diplomacy is the only realistic path. For North Korea, however, a key element in the dispute is its desire for recognition and prestige. In addition to wanting a reliable deterrent against a U.S. attack, North Korea would like the mighty United States to treat it not as a pariah but as something of an equal. Having diplomatic relations with Canada or Laos is one thing for Pyongyang; getting some respect from Washington is something else entirely.