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MEETING
TODA
ODAY’S PROLIFERA
ROLIFERATION
CHALLENGES
MR. PONEMAN: Okay, well, the last two parts I can’t handle because I’m not working on developing the
position for the six-party talks, and maybe some who are want to comment. Nor can I comment on behalf of the
administration.
On the first part of your comment, my view would be to the extent that there is success in tying the North
Korean human rights problem to the North Korean nuclear proliferation problem, it’s bad, and it’s going to make
the nuclear problem that much harder to solve. It will encumber it with baggage, a) that it cannot sustain and b) that
is, in terms of threatening our very existence on this planet, far less consequential. Part of the problem that we have
is in segregating the important from the important that is critically urgent. And in my view, while I deplore the
terrible human rights conditions in North Korea and would like to see it change, I think we need to address the
nuclear on a separate, faster track.
Q: Larry Weiler. I’m an ancient mariner in this field. (Laughter.) Two questions. First is, one of the
problems with proliferation has always been that proliferation begets proliferation, and that’s been what
we’ve seen by and large. But the question would be that if you could solve the North Korean question and the
Iranian question and hopefully begin to work something on Israel in connection with overall settlement, are
we likely to be in a situation where we have some sort of natural dams now against further proliferation other
than the leakage problem? Would that be a unique situation or are there other areas that we might see real
pressures on?
The second has to do with our nuclear weapons use policy. This has been touched on briefly in talking
about new weapons development, but I’m struck by the fact that there is very little discussion outside of
government of the weapons policy of the United States and its effect on proliferation, on the legitimacy of our
efforts. I mean, we’re basically in a situation where we’re saying, we have a right to have nuclear weapons;
no one else other than the people who have already got them have a right, and we don’t give up the right to
hit you with them.
That’s a crude way of putting it, but my question is, what do you feel would be the likely benefits of
[adopting] a no-first-use policy?
MR. EINHORN: I’d like to address the first part of Larry’s question. In this study that I referred to a few
moments ago, we looked at what are possible drivers, why might countries reconsider, and so forth, and the
single factor that was most important was whether Iran and North Korea could be stopped. That was the
single most important thing. If Iran could be stopped and North Korea could be rolled back—which unfortunately
is required today I think—then that would take away much of the incentive that exists in Northeast
Asia and in the Middle East to go forward. Now, there are other factors, domestic and other drivers, but that
was the single most important thing.
I think if North Korea and Iran could be stopped, we can imagine building the dam; calling a halt to
proliferation altogether and conceivably rolling it back a little bit. So I think those are the most important
things and we should really be concentrating on that.
And I agree with Dan that if the policy is simply to pressure and contain and hope for the collapse of
North Korea, what’s going to happen is I think we’re going to see the gradual accumulation of a fairly sizable
stockpile of nuclear weapons by North Korea, and that’s going to make it impossible to put those brakes in
place.
MR. PERKOVICH: I agree entirely with Bob about the seminal importance of Iran and North Korea,
and if you can get those right I think you can manage kind of containing the proliferation problem there.
We don’t have time to get into the question of nuclear weapons use policy, but I do think it actually is
much more important than we have attended to. There are a variety of reasons for it, but the shorthand that
I would apply to it is that there is a question of legitimacy. Theory and history would say if you’ve got a
dominant power in the world that’s a hegemon trying to make rules and impose them on everybody. If it
doesn’t do it in certain ways you’re going to cause defection and counterbalancing power.
I think the way that we kind of wield nuclear weapons and talk about it in our doctrine—if people just
generally don’t look at that and say, that seems right and basically fair and legitimate, we will pay a price
ultimately in people’s willingness to cooperate with us when we go out to whack the bad guys; when we go
out to enforce things that really matter to us.
So it is a little ethereal, but it is real. And it requires more than that but that would be my first answer.
Q: Chris Turner, Georgetown University. This is a question for the entire panel. You have enlightened us all
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