Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
In the past few weeks we have witnessed remarkable changes in some of the most difficult and dangerous global nuclear proliferation threats. Rather than heading toward military conflicts, the United States seems to be moving toward negotiated solutions that could end the nascent nuclear weapons programs in Iran, Libya and possibly also North Korea.
Like an investor watching his returns plummet, President Bush is rebalancing his proliferation portfolio. The huge cost of the Iraq war and his sinking poll ratings seem to have convinced the president that he has invested too heavily in military operations and unilateral initiatives and that it is time to move some political capital to international organizations and cooperative ventures.
Despite more than 10 years of direct and indirect negotiations, threats, confrontations, and analysis, the United States still does not know with any certainty the answer to the question: Will North Korea verifiably eliminate all of its nuclear capabilities if the terms are right?
If Iran and North Korea acquire nuclear arsenals, their weapons will present obvious and direct dangers to the United States, its troops, its allies, and regional and global stability.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has demanded that Iran give a full and final accounting of its nuclear activities by Oct. 31, or risk action by the U.N. Security Council. Iran's eastern neighbor, Pakistan, and Pakistan's traditional rival, India, have already tested nuclear weapons. India's neighbor and rival, China, has been a nuclear power for many years.
How much confidence can anyone have about intelligence estimates regarding North Korea's nuclear program, in light of the row over Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction? Unfortunately, the answer is not good. North Korea is widely considered by intelligence officers as the hardest target to crack in terms of reliable information, and there are political pressures at work within the Bush administration that raise the spectre that intelligence may also be used selectively to advance certain policy positions.
A seminar on implementation of nuclear reductions now that the Moscow Treaty has entered into force, and the potential for cooperation on some of the proliferation “tough cases,” especially Iran and North Korea with an eminent group of Russian military and security experts.