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MEETING
TODA
ODAY’S PROLIFERA
ROLIFERATION
CHALLENGES
Q: Dorle Hellmuth with the Catholic University of America. I have a question for the whole panel. I was
wondering if you could comment on the recent decision by the Bush administration to research new low-yield
nuclear weapons and its implications for these regional nonproliferation initiatives. Also, what are the chances
that these new systems—new mini-nukes—are actually going to be developed and deployed?
MR. EINHORN: I don’t think these programs are going to have a big impact on the world of proliferation,
frankly. CSIS [Center for Strategic and International Studies], the think tank I work in, recently did a study of eight
different cases, eight countries that long ago renounced nuclear weapons, and under what circumstances might
they reconsider in the future. And we’re going to publish it in a few months, and our finding was that none of these
countries are really focused on this issue of how many nuclear weapons the United States has, whether they’re old
designs or new designs, and so forth. And to the extent that U.S. capabilities are relevant to their situations, it’s not
a question of the specific quality or number of U.S. forces.
Much more relevant to their immediate concerns is U.S. conventional capability and whether those capabilities
will be brought to bear for them or against them. But I don’t think the impact on proliferation is very great.
But if you ask whether it’s sensible for the U.S. to pursue these options, I don’t think it’s very sensible. I mean
we’re the country with the most sophisticated conventional capabilities in the world, unambiguous superiority in
that realm. It’s not clear to me whether it makes sense to pursue improvement in our nuclear capabilities that would
provide marginal benefits at best.
MR. PERKOVICH: That was a great answer. Especially if your definition of the proliferation problem is in
terms of military security and if states made their decisions about both seeking nuclear weapons, but also giving
them up and complying with nonproliferation regimes—if they made their decisions based purely on the level of
military threat they face. I agree with Bob in the sense that the new threat potential that would give to the U.S. to
apply to very different states. I don’t think it would affect them very much. But the nonproliferation problem is
much larger than that so if the U.S. were to move forward and develop this new generation of nuclear weapons,
it would have a profoundly destructive effect on our efforts to achieve nonproliferation.
Let me just say briefly why. Leaving aside whether these new weapons are necessary or you could ever get
sufficiently accurate intelligence to be able to target them in a way where the president would or should say, “Yes,
let’s go ahead and use nuclear weapons for the first time in 50 odd years. I have absolute confidence that the target
is in that bunker you just told me it was in.” Given our experience with Sudan and the chemical weapons, given our
experience in Iraq and so on there’s a practical issue.
Developing a new generation of nuclear weapons is a clear and obvious form of noncompliance with the
nonproliferation regime. We have established a norm and it’s enshrined. It happens to be enshrined in a treaty
beyond being a norm, which is a cessation of a nuclear arms race. Most of the world will define a new generation
of nuclear weapons as a form of continuing the arms race. There’s a violation either of a treaty or of the norm.
You’re also trying to, for very good reasons, devalue the role of nuclear weapons in national security policies to
lower the currency and attractiveness of these things, partly because we don’t want to get targeted by them.
So now you would be developing a generation whose advertised value is that in fact you can use the thing. So
there again it’s noncompliance with a norm and also something that was agreed in 2000 at the NPT review
conference. You could go on, but I can’t think of anything that would be more grossly noncompliant with the
regime that we’ve tried to create than moving in this direction. That’s not a security argument, it’s about legitimacy
and it’s about building political coalitions to support enforcement of nonproliferation, which is what we’re trying
to do.
Q: Thank you. I am from the mission of Indonesia to the United Nations in New York.
I have a question to Robert Einhorn and maybe Dr. Perkovich. We have been discussing the issue of noncompliance
under the NPT regimes, but the other core issue of the NPT is regarding universality. Do you foresee that in
the near future, let’s say before the review conference in 2005, Israel, India, and Pakistan could become statesparties
of the NPT? If the answer is no, how do you think the NPT regime should deal with these three outsider
countries?
MR. EINHORN: The answer is no. I think it’s clear that the answer is no. None of those three is going to join
the NPT in the foreseeable future. Probably never, although I think the Israel case is different. It’s conceivable that
in this context of a comprehensive peace that Israel might reconsider its options, but what does the nonproliferation
regime do in the meantime? I think it encourages all three countries to be responsible members of a broader
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