On February 10

On this day in ...
... 1983, governmental officials signed an agreement that permitted the United States to test, in Canada, its military equipment, including cruise missiles, which may carry nuclear warheads. As a result, "protest demonstrations broke out in numerous cities" in Canada, "and a women's peace camp was established near the cruise test range in Cold Lake, Alberta." (map credit)

(Prior February 10 posts are here, here, and here.)

On January 29

On this day in ...
... 1996 (15 years ago today), in a statement televised live, French President Jacques Chirac announced that his country no longer would test nuclear weapons. He made the announcement several months after the resumption of French tests, and "a day after France exploded its sixth and biggest nuclear device in the South Pacific." (credit for October 1995 photo of wave from French nuclear test at Mururoa atoll) On September 24, 1996, France would sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; a couple years later it ratified that treaty, which cannot enter into force until all nuclear powers join it. (prior post)

(Prior January 29 posts are here, here, and here.)

On January 27

On this day in ...
... 1951 (60 years ago today), the United States conducted its 1st atomic-bomb test at Nevada Proving Ground, "a large swath of unpopulated desert land 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas" designated for the purpose by the Atomic Energy Commission. (photo credit) The "tremendous explosion" from the atmospheric test caused a "flash ... seen as far away as San Francisco." Within years testing, which had included exposing soldiers to radiation for study purposes, changed:

By 1957, though, the effects of radioactivity on the soldiers and the surrounding population led the government to begin testing bombs underground, and by 1962, all atmospheric testing had ceased.

(Prior January 27 posts are here, here, and here.)

'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

So should we, perhaps, be content with the virtual moratorium on nuclear testing?
No, because commitments that are not legally binding can easily be violated.

-- Mikhail Gorbachev, the last President of the Soviet Union and winner of the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize. These 2 sentences from Gorbachev's New York Times op-ed pithily point out the importance of treaties, on much the same reasoning as in a prior post by yours truly. Gorbachev's objective? He begins by welcoming the just-before-Christmas approval by the U.S. Senate of the New Start disarmament treaty (prior posts), which Russia's expected to ratify next month. Then he moves quickly to his main goal: secure U.S. ratification as well of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Russia and 34 others of the 44 "nuclear technology holder states" have ratified. The United States is among the holdouts, the Senate having refused to give its advice and consent in 1999. U.S. approval of CTBT would break the logjam, Gorbachev argues, and so make way for "the next step to a world free of nuclear weapons"-- a stated goal of the current American President and many who have preceded him.

DADT no. Child brides yes. DREAM not.

The headline presents one way to read recent doings in Congress. The latest developments:

► Repeal of "don't ask don't tell," the military policy regarding gays and lesbians (prior posts available here). Having cleared the final congressional hurdle yesterday, the repeal legislation's now on the President's desk.
► House blockage Thursday of the International Protecting Girls by Preventing Child Marriage Act of 2010, which, as we posted, earlier had won unanimous approval in the Senate.
► Yesterday's failure to secure Senate as well as House passage of the DREAM Act; that is, the the path to citizenship for some young, undocumented immigrants. Full name: Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors Act of 2010.

Still on the Senate's docket, today and until the upper chamber adjourns: New START.

Need for new nuclear containment tools

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute a 2-part series of guest posts. Part 2 is below; Part 1, published yesterday, is here)

Just announced are the terms for the next round of talks on Iran's nuclear technology. They are set for next Monday and Tuesday in Geneva, Switzerland, between:
► Catherine Ashton, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, formerly an officer of the London-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; and
► Dr. Saeed Jalili, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and its lead nuclear negotiator.
As demonstrated in my post yesterday, to date these negotations have been marked by lack of trust on all sides. Debate remains, however, to what extent the lack of trust can generate legal implications.
Some argue that without a ‘smoking gun’, there is no ground to act against Iran. They warn of the danger in relying on strategic assessment, which may prove to be misguided, as was the case of Iraq in 2003.
Others emphasise the severity of the risks, on the one hand, and the ability of proliferators to hide the evidence, on the other hand. They agree that comprehensive and logical assessments regarding nuclear proliferation need to include as much hard evidence as possible; nonetheless, they contend that in the interest of non-proliferation, such assessments should not be held hostage to the absence of such evidence. (credit for above logo from Iran's atomic energy site)
No less significant is the question of how to deal with a state once it is identified as a suspected proliferator.
Clearly the regime established by the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is ill-equipped to deal with cases such as Iran’s.
The provisions of the treaty are not geared to seeking out and stopping suspected defectors; moreover, these provisions lack precise criteria for dealing with such suspicions when they arise. Drafters devoted little attention to the prospect that a state might develop an interest in becoming a nuclear-weapon state without first withdrawing from the treaty.

(credit for map showing states with nuclear weapons in red, treaty-established Nuclear Free Zone in blue, and nuclear sharing states in orange, and states that are none of the above yet members of the treaty) In a world of new instabilities, where nuclear technology is increasingly accessible, the treaty is failing to achieve containment. The treaty's consensual regime was established during the Cold War, which encouraged adherence to the treaty and to the safeguards regime of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Some argue that this consensual regime is not only increasingly ill-fitted to address nuclear weapons proliferation risk, but actually enhances the incentive to proliferate.
Various initiatives and proposals attempt to escape this impasse.
Some proposals would try to strengthen the existing non-proliferation regime from the inside, both substantively and institutionally.
Other proposals move away from consensual mechanisms aimed at encouraging compliance, and towards effective enforcement. Even initiatives related directly to strengthening compliance with safeguard agreements invest in non-consensual mechanisms for strengthening the existing regime. Examples include:
► Generic Security Council resolutions to address the case of a state that has been found by the Agency to be deliberately in non-compliance with its safeguards undertakings; or
► Declaration that nuclear weapons proliferation constitutes a ‘threat to the peace’, thereby engaging the sanctions regime of U.N. Charter Chapter VII in every case of non-compliance with the Atomic Energy Agency.
None of these proposals, however, addresses what is perhaps the greatest obstacle to success of the Non-Proliferation Treaty regime: its unique formal asymmetry and the legacy of international practice. Whatever the legal extent of the obligation to disarm, undoubtedly the political legitimacy of the regime is being undermined by what is perceived as abuse of status by the 5 treaty-recognized nuclear weapons states, Britain, China, France, Russia, and the United States.
It remains to be seen whether effective legal tools will be adopted in a timely manner to prevent Iran’s nuclear programme from maturing into a nuclear threat, or whether international law will continue to play a merely responsive role to that threat.

Negotiating Iran’s nuclear activities

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute a 2-part series of guest posts. Part 1 is below)

The recent announcement that Iran is willing to resume negotiations over its nuclear activities presents an opportunity to recap the development of the conflict over this issue, which erupted over eight years ago.
This conflict and its legal implications are considered in my book The Iran Nuclear Issue (Hart Publishing, 2010), on which this series of guest posts draws. In addition to a legal analysis, the book contains a detailed chronology and the texts of documents which underlie the evolution of the conflict.
In August 2002, an Iranian opposition group revealed the existence of two previously undisclosed nuclear facilities under construction in Iran.
In December 2002, the United States published satellite pictures of the two facilities, as proof of its long-held suspicions that Iran was pursuing both weapons of mass destruction and long-range missile capabilities.
Iran reacted by stating repeatedly that it was committed to the prevailing international legal regimes on weapons of mass destruction, including the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Iran contended that its commitment derived not merely from its contractual obligations but, more importantly, from its religious convictions and historical experience. Iran maintained that its programme, which was aimed at mastering the complete fuel cycle, was intended solely to support a civilian nuclear energy programme. It explained that it had operated clandestinely because of obstructions, by the United States and other countries, to its overt activities.
Suspicion nonetheless arose and increased among various states, and the matter was taken up by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which began an intensive inspection and verification operation in Iran. The Agency found that Iran had made substantial efforts over the previous two decades to master an independent nuclear fuel cycle, and was carrying out research and development activities related to the treatment, storage and disposal of radioactive waste.
In June 2003, and several times subsequently, the Atomic Energy Agency declared that Iran had failed to comply with obligations under its bilateral Non-Proliferation Treaty Safeguards Agreement.
Calls ensued, on the one hand, to take decisive measures against Iran, including referral to the U.N. Security Council, and on the other hand, to give Iran a chance to rectify its conduct.
Amid this debate, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany -- the EU3 -- undertook to negotiate directly with Iran. In October 2003, the two sides issued the Tehran Statement, in which Iran agreed to cooperate fully with the Atomic Energy Agency in order to settle all outstanding issues and to correct any failures to comply with its Safeguards Agreement. The EU3, meanwhile, informed Iran that if it complied with its commitments, the EU3 would not seek referral of Iran’s dossier to the Security Council.
In mid-2004, Iran resumed work on uranium conversion.
To defuse the crisis that followed, the EU3 engaged again in negotiations with Iran; overall, however, those negotiations did not result in any change of policy. Both sides expressed disappointment with what each deemed the other’s broken promises, procrastination, and bad faith.
The EU3 consequently aligned with the United States, which had already been pressing the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors to refer the Iranian issue to the Security Council. This Board urged Iran to re-establish full, Agency-verified suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development.
In January 2006, Iran began to enrich uranium in centrifuges at its Natanz plant. In reaction, the Agency's Board of Governors referred the Iran dossier to the Security Council, which has since adopted six resolutions under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations. These resolutions imposed enforcement measures on Iran until it complied with the previous demands of the Security Council and the requests of the Board of Governors. The resolutions further added the suspension of work on all heavy-water-related projects, including the construction of the heavy-water research reactor in Arak (left). (photo credit) Enforcement measures include:
► A trade embargo on items and technologies which could contribute to the activities Iran was ordered to suspend; and
► A travel notification requirement and asset freeze with respect to designated individuals and entities involved in the activities Iran was ordered to suspend.
In August 2007, the Agency Secretariat and Iran negotiated a work plan to address a limited number of issues regarding Iran’s past nuclear programme. Outstanding issues have largely been addressed. But the Agency is still requesting that Iran:
► Account for and explain a series of documents found in its possession which point to nuclear weapons-related research; and
► Respond fully to queries on weapons studies that Iran had allegedly conducted. Iran denies the existence of any such studies.
These outstanding issues -- in addition to Iran’s continued refusal to suspend uranium enrichment and construction of the heavy-water reactor and adhere to the Additional Protocol -- form the basis upon which the Security Council maintains the Iran dossier and pursues sanctions against Iran.
Iran, however, argues that the work plan issues have been resolved satisfactorily. It further argues that even under the Security Council’s own terms, there is no basis for continuing the sanctions regime or for maintaining the Iran case before the Security Council. Iran claims that nothing short of its total capitulation will satisfy the Western powers, and regards this as extortion.
Others accuse Iran of being the one engaging in blackmail, in its demand for economic assistance permitted under Articles III and IV of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and for the release of sanctions as conditions for returning to the path of non-proliferation. Western states argue that, given Iran’s past record of concealment and its overall policy, Iran cannot benefit from the doubt as to its ultimate goal. It seems that any stance adopted by Iran which falls short of complete acquiescence is regarded not only as an act of defiance but also as an indication that Iran has something to hide.

(Tomorrow, Part 2: Implications of this negotiating history)

Treaties no treat?

What to make of Jamie Rubin's blithe Farewell to the Age of the Treaty?
In an op-ed yesterday Rubin, a State Department spokesperson back when Madeleine Albright was Secretary of State, posited that treaties aren't "even worth the trouble anymore."
The "trouble," it appears, is not with international agreements themselves. Troublesome, rather, is securing 2/3 consent of the Senate, a constitutional sine qua non for U.S. ratification of a treaty. The requirement's now bedeviling President Barack Obama's bid for ratification, detailed here, of the U.S.-Russia New Start disarmament treaty. (prior posts) (credit for White House photo of April 2010 signing)
"'Fortunately, there is an alternative,'" Rubin breezed. He argued that statutes, which pass upon simple majorities of both houses of Congress, usually "will work just fine."
Even putting aside the glib assertion that "the international system has most of the rules it needs," Rubin's argument falters on a number of points:
► History: The op-ed's ahistorical in its implication that this is a new problem. Presidential struggles to clear the 2/3 Senate hurdle are "nothing new," as our Opinio Juris colleague Duncan Hollis pointed out. Failure to secure approval dates at least to President Woodrow Wilson, and the Senate's rejections of the Versailles Treaty (right) and the League of Nations Covenant, in 1919 and again in 1920 -- years surely within the putative "Age of Treaties." Rubin himself no doubt recalls President Bill Clinton's CTBT debacle back in 1999.
► Politics: Also implicit is an assumption that congressional majorities easily may be obtained. Rubin points to legislative efforts on climate change as an example of his position "already being used." He pretermits, however, that these efforts have yet to bear statutory fruit. Given that the New Year will inaugurate a House of Representatives with a heavy GOP lean, getting Congress to okay internationally aimed reforms would seem far from simple.
► International Relations: Rubin's solution seems unlikely to give U.S. status abroad the hefty boost he suggests. Statutes and treaties are quite different legal animals. A statute may be altered, even repealed, at any time. Preferring the legislative path thus adds instability to the United States' foreign relations. What's more, a statute is the unilateral enactment of a single sovereign. In contrast, a treaty embodies that sovereign's consent not just to act, but to do so out of an international obligation. Treaties represent a deeper level of commitment, a promise to pursue global cooperation even if domestic political winds shift. Opting always for the U.S. statutory fix, at a time when other countries are urged to join treaty regimes, seems unlikely to ease what Rubin rightly calls "international frustration with American leadership."
Hard to see the op-ed's effort -- in essence, to put a brave face on an inferior option -- as much more than advance spin should New Start founder in the Senate.

On November 19

On this day in ...
... 1990 (20 years ago today), at a summit meeting in Paris, leaders of more than a score of countries signed an agreement billed as "the end of the cold war that divided East and West for more than four decades." The agreement between the member states of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and those of the Warsaw Pact promised to destroy "tens of thousands" of "nonnuclear weapons." Signing along with U.S. President George H.W. Bush was Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. (credit for photo of the 2 leaders at a 1989 Malta summit) At the signing in Paris, the latter proclaimed:

'What a long way the world has come!'

A thought worth pondering given the current, new uncertainties about the fate of New START, the disarmament pact we've been tracking (prior IntLawGrrls posts).

(Prior November 19 posts are here, here, and here.)

'Nuff said

(Taking context-optional note of thought-provoking quotes)

'How come you've got so many women?'

-- Unnamed Russian generals this past spring, quoted in a Washington Post article entitled In nuclear negotiations, more women at the table for U.S. Prompting the reaction, according to the Post's by Mary Beth Sheridan, was the "array of American women" at a disarmament negotiating table: chief negotiator Rose Gottemoeller (right), Assistant Secretary of State, Bureau of Verification, Compliance, and Implementation; Gottemoeller's Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Marcie Berman Ries; and 2 scientists. Several other women are cited as shapers of U.S. policy, including: Ellen O. Tauscher, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security; Michèle A. Flournoy, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and, of course, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. On concluding the list, however, Sheridan discussed this caveat:

Despite their advances, American women are still nowhere near equality in terms of their share of senior national security jobs.

On November 3

On this day in ...
... 1985 (25 years ago today), at a High Court in Auckland, New Zealand, 2 agents of the French secret service pleaded guilty to charges of arson and manslaughter arising out of the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior the previous July. The vessel, owned by the environmental nongovernmental organization Greenpeace, sank (photo credit), and one of its photographers drowned. The bombing had taken place, according to the BBC, "just before the Greenpeace team were to set sail to Muroroa Atoll -- a French territory in the Pacific Ocean -- to protest against French nuclear testing there." Dominique Prieur (above right) and her fellow French agent would be sentenced to 10 years, yet released in 1988. Later she became a human resources staffer for firefighters in Paris.

(Prior November 3 posts are here, here, and here.)

On October 25

On this day in ...
... 1962, at the U.N. Security Council in New York, the U.S. Ambassador to the United States, Adlai E.Stevenson, challenged his Soviet counterpart to explain the presence of nuclear missiles in Cuba. When the Soviet ambassador declined to give an immediate answer (possibly because he lacked instructions from Moscow), Stevenson -- formerly an Illinois Governor (and before that, an attaché at the U.N. Charter conference in San Francisco) who'd become known for his wit in 2 unsuccessful bids for the U.S. Presidency -- went on the offensive. He told the Soviet envoy he could wait "till hell freezes over"; in the interim, he set up easels and displayed enlarged photographs (above left), evidence of the installations. High points in this video clip; more here and here on Stevenson and others who played a role in the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 (prior InLawGrrls posts here, here, here, and here).



(Prior October 25 posts are here, here, and here.)

On September 24

On this day in ...
... 1996, at the New York City headquarters of the United Nations, U.S. President Bill Clinton signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, intended to prohibit all nuclear weapons testing. (credit for 1996 pro-treaty demonstration in front of White House) He used the same pen with which President John F. Kennedy had signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963. Clinton then urged further limits on weapons of mass destruction in a speech before the 51st session of the U.N. General Assembly. For the 2d year in a row, The New York Times reported, Clinton

asked diplomats and world leaders to take a strong stand against what he calls the 'new threats' of the post-cold-war era: Drug traffickers, terrorists and unsafeguarded weapons materials. 'Frankly, we have not done that yet.'

Three years later, the Senate refused to give its advice and consent to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. In 2009, President Barack Obama pledged he would "immediately and aggressively pursue" ratification. To date, however, he has not presented it to the Senate.

(Prior September 24 posts are here, here, and here.)

'Nuff said

'Earlier is clearly better.'

-- Dr. James N. "Jim" Miller (right), Principal Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, quoted in Politico yesterday by Laura Rozen (to whose foreign policy blog we link in our "connections" column at right). Miller was speaking of the Obama Administration's hopes for U.S. ratification of New START, the nuclear weapons treaty that, as we've posted here and here, U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed last April in Prague, Czech Republic. As Rozen reported, the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate is supposed to vote today on the treaty. If the Committee approves, the treaty then will be sent to the full Senate. Miller made clear that the administration would like to see this happen sooner rather than later, even as he allowed:

'But we understand that the Senate has to act according to its own timeline and have its own questions answered and we remain committed to provide those answers as they continue their deliberations.'

On May 17

On this day in ...
... 2008, Sister Catherine Mulkerrin (left) died from cancer in Framingham, Massachusetts, 72 years after her birth in the same state. (photo credit) She'd entered the sisterhood at age 18, working 1st as a teacher and eventually becoming the leader of her order, the Sisters of St. Joseph, and chair of the New England Regional Leadership Conference of Women Religious. "She reinforced her order’s commitment to the poor and spoke out forcefully on behalf of the order against nuclear arms proliferation." As assistant director from 1992-94 of the Archdiocesan Office for Victims of Abuse -- years before abuse became a global scandal (prior post) -- Sister Catherine had urged leaders of Boston's Roman Catholic Church "to warn parishioners about priests who had been accused of sexually abusing children." In a later deposition she said of decisions to return the accused to parishes:

'I expressed concern, consternation. What are we thinking of? What are you thinking of?'

(Prior May 17 posts are here, here, and here)

Guest Blogger: CarrieLyn Donigan Guymon

It's IntLawGrrls' great pleasure to welcome CarrieLyn Donigan Guymon (left) as today's guest blogger.
CarrieLyn, who's been an adjunct Professor of Law at San Francisco's Golden Gate University Law School, served in the Office of the Legal Adviser at the U.S. Department of State from 2003 to 2008. Initially she practiced in its Office of International Claims and Investment Disputes. Eventually she moved to its Office of Nonproliferation and Verification, where she served as counsel to the Joint Compliance and Inspection Commission, established under the 1st Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, START.
A graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, CarrieLyn clerked in the Western District of Virginia. From 1999 to 2003, she litigated international trade, antitrust, and class action cases in the Washington, D.C., office of O’Melveny & Myers.
CarrieLyn's scholarship focuses on nonproliferation issues as well as international arbitration and investment issues. Her guest post below treats the 1st set of issues -- extremely timely given that leaders will convene Monday at U.N. Headquarters in New York for a month-long Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's slated to lead the U.S. delegation, while President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's to lead the Iran delegation.) Specifically, CarriLyn's post evaluates the New START treaty that, as we've posted, has just been signed by the Presidents of the United States and Russia.
As her transnational foremother, CarrieLyn chooses Rachel Carson (below right), the scientist whose book on the effects of pesticides, Silent Spring (1962), was a pathbreaker in environmental awareness and regulation. (photo credit)
CarrieLyn writes:

Her writing revolutionized society. Her work not only served the greater good, but it also supported her widowed mother, and then two orphaned nieces who came to live with them, and later her niece’s orphaned son, whom she adopted. I remember selecting Rachel Carson as the subject of a school assignment at a very early age, when I was excited to find a great woman to write about.

Heartfelt welcome!

A New START, but disarmament is still at the starting line

(My thanks to IntLawGrrls for the opportunity to contribute this guest post)

The “Treaty Between the United States of America and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms,” more commonly known as the New START (prior IntLawGrrls post), could have earned any of a variety of other possible nicknames: post-START, START’s successor, START follow-on. How appropriate that the current administration is calling this treaty, signed on April 8 of this year, what it is: a modest new start to a process that began over two decades ago during the administration of President Ronald Reagan, who, like President Barack Obama (above, far right), publicly aspired to a world free of nuclear weapons. (photo credit)
The United States and Russia could have progressed to much deeper cuts in their nuclear arsenals over that time. Instead, inattention to arms control and missed opportunities in those intervening years turn what would otherwise seem like a small step of restarting a 20-year-old process into a laudable achievement.
In terms of reducing nuclear armaments, New START is rather a “modest step,” as many have observed (e.g. former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry and former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, here, and Stanford’s Pavel Podvig, here. The ceiling on deployed nuclear warheads in new START is 1,550, compared to 6,000 in START and 1,700-2,200 in the Moscow Treaty, which was signed on May 24, 2002. But much of that purported reduction had either already occurred as of signing or will be achieved through different counting methods rather than actual destruction of weapons.
New START is not so very different from the original START. Comparison of New START with the original, START I, reveals:
► 12 of New START’s 16 articles borrow heavily from its parent.
► START was nearly twice as long as New START and more complicated, creating cumbersome inspection and verification regimes and rules that had come under bilateral derision toward the end of its life.
► Some of START I's complexity has been left out of the new treaty regime entirely. For example, Article VI of START I, relating to “restricted areas” and the number of structures that each covered facility could include. A Fact Sheet of the State Department touts this simplicity, referring to New START as including

a verification regime that is adapted from START, but is simplified, less costly to implement, and tailored to the specific provisions of the new Treaty.

► New START, for all the brevity and simplicity of the 16 Articles of the Treaty’s text, relies on a lengthy Protocol, plus Technical Annexes to that Protocol. As the White House explained:

The Protocol and Annexes will be integral parts of the Treaty and thus submitted to the U.S. Senate for its advice and consent to ratification.

When considered as a whole, New START with its Protocol and Annexes may not fall so short of the original in its length and bulk.
So why did the task of slightly simplifying a 20-year-old treaty and making modest moves toward disarmament present such a challenge that old START’s expiration date came and went without the successor treaty being concluded?
Dmitry Medvedev, Russia's President, commented after the signing of New START:

'Just a couple of months ago, (this) looked like mission impossible.'

The difficulty lay not in the challenge of the task itself, but in the strained relations between the United States and Russia at the end of the Bush administration. The expiration of the START I treaty on December 5, 2009, was not unforeseen throughout its 15-year lifetime. To the contrary, it was apparent in the plain language of the treaty's expiration provision, Article XVII.
Yet the Bush administration:
► Dithered over what the desired successor agreement should look like,
► Placed missile defense as its sole priority in the area,
► Unilaterally withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001, and
► Downgraded the bureau within the State Department that was responsible for arms control, even removing the phrase “arms control” from all titles and names.
All of this left the Obama administration severely handicapped in the race to reach a successor agreement within the president’s first year in office.
That New START has been signed within only a few months after START’s expiration is thus a significant achievement.
The United States can lead by example, asking other countries to honor their obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT. Possessing 95 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons, the United States and Russia bear primary responsibility for fulfilling Article VI of the NPT:

to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to … nuclear disarmament.

U.S. neglect of that responsibility in the past has been used to excuse non-nuclear-weapons states from their responsibilities under the NPT not to acquire nuclear weapons.
Headed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the United States' delegation will arrive tomorrow at the 2010 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons at U.N. headquarters in New York with a strengthened hand. (credit for March 2010 photo of Clinton arriving in Moscow for negotiations above left; credit for U.N. photo above right) That hand includes:

► New START,

► the recent release of the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, and

► the United States' hosting last month of a 2-day Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, D.C.

Next step:
(Hopefully), Senate ratification of New START.
And beyond that:
(Hopefully), with a shorter horizon of 10 years for expiration of New START, more earnest steps toward real disarmament during the lifetime of the treaty.

On April 7

On this day in ...
... 1978, in the wake of criticism from abroad, the United States "put on the back burner" plans to place neutron bomb warheads on missiles and shells "planned for deployment in Europe." A "specialised thermonuclear weapon which produces a minimal blast but releases large amounts of lethal radiation, the bomb "designed to kill people while minimising damage to property...." Although development would be authorized in 1981, only a few such bombs were made, and none was deployed to Europe. China would announce development of the neutron bomb in 1999. (credit for (c) 1999 BBC image)


(Prior April 7 posts are here, here, and here)

It's a START

The same week as the release of a new U.S. nuclear strategy, a New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty is to be signed in Prague Thursday by the Presidents of Russia and the United States.
Well known is the treaty's acronym, START. Or, to use the term preferred by the White House, New START. (Prior posts on nuclear policy are here, here, and here.)
"New START" marks a distinction from START I, a multilateral treaty due to expire toward the end of this year. START I had been negotiated before the fall of the Soviet Union; it entered into force thereafter, with Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States exchanging instruments of ratification in Budapest on December 5, 1994.
Another reason for preferring "New START": START II proved a bit of a false start. Signed in 1993 by U.S. President George H.W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin and fully ratified by 2000, the treaty never was implemented. As explained in a Moscow Times story yesterday,

Russia withdrew from START II in 2002, the day after the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

The aim of START I was to reduce levels of "strategic offensive arms" -- including nuclear warheads and intercontinental ballistic missiles -- in 3 phases. At the end, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine were to "have no strategic nuclear forces," while U.S. and Russian "strategic arsenals" were to be "reduced by 30–40 percent."

New START, announced a week ago Monday, is the result of protracted negotiations that included the Presidents' side meeting during Copenhagen, the December climate change conference. As described by former State Department official Stephen Sestanovich, now a Columbia diplomacy professor and a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations the 2 countries have detailed in New START

cuts of hundreds of strategic nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles as the main lever of their so-called 'reset.'

(photo credit; and see here) Also key, according to the White House, is a "verification regime" that "will provide the ability to monitor all aspects of the Treaty."

Promising stuff, at least through signing. But then comes the ratification. Although Sestanovich is optimistic, some predict ratification difficulties Stateside:

[T]he Russian daily Kommersant reported that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev likely won't have difficulty getting the Russian Parliament to ratify the agreement, but U.S. President Barack Obama will have a harder time achieving the two-thirds majority needed for passage by the U.S. Senate [right].

Perhaps more than one new start is in order.

On February 11

On this day in ...
... 1971, the Treaty on the Prohibition of the Emplacement of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction on the Sea-Bed and the Ocean Floor and in the Subsoil Thereof was opened for signature in London, Moscow, and Washington, D.C., following several years of difficulties in drafting a consensus text. The Sea-Bed Treaty, as it's known, would enter into force just over a year later, on May 18, 1972, the date on which a number of countries, including the United States, deposited instruments of ratification.

(Prior February 11 posts are here and here.)