Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, and Alexandra Toma, founder and co-chair of the Fissile Materials Working Group, examine the issues surrounding the upcoming Nuclear Security Summit to take place in Seoul in March. What does the summit mean for international efforts to prevent nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists? What are the current and new efforts aimed at North Korean denuclearization? How does the summit affect Seoul’s increasing role as a regional host and leader in the areas of politics and security? Cirincione, author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons and Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats, is a member of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's International Security Advisory Board. Ms. Toma is also executive director of Connect U.S. Fund.
Friday, January 20, 2012
2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit: A Policy Discussion
with
Joseph Cirincione
President of Ploughshares Fund
Alexandra Toma
Founder and Co-Chair, Fissile Materials Working Group
Executive Director, Connect U.S. Fund
Moderated by: Stephen Noerper, Senior Vice President, The Korea Society
{transcript}
2012 Seoul Nuclear Security Summit: A Policy Discussion
January 20, 2012
Speakers:
Dr. Joseph Cirincione
President
Ploughshares Fund
Ms. Alexandra Toma
Founder and Co-Chair
Fissile Materials Working Group
With special guest
Ambassador Young-mok Kim
Consul General of the Republic of Korea in New York
Moderated by
Dr. Stephen Noerper
Senior Vice President
The Korea Society
STEPHEN NOERPER:
Today we examine the importance of the upcoming Seoul Nuclear Security Summit, which will take place in late March. Only the second such meeting aimed at preventing nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists, the Seoul meeting builds on the 2010 effort in Washington, DC. Seoul will host more than fifty world leaders for this extraordinary event. Aside from its significance of the event for peace and security, the meeting highlights Korea’s growing regional and global leadership role, especially when weighed with its hosting of the G20 leaders summit. The Korea Society held five policy sessions around the G20, with the final highlighting the bridge to the upcoming NSS by way of Seoul’s leadership. Today we welcome Joe Cirincione and Alex Toma, as well as His Excellency Kim Young-mok, who would like to offer his words of welcome. Ambassador...
KIM YOUNG-MOK:
Good morning. I would like to thank everyone at The Korea Society for inviting me to participate in this interesting discussion. I would also like to thank Alexandra and Joe for making it here from Washington.
As you know, the global Nuclear Security Summit of 2012 will be hosted by Seoul in late March of this year. We hope to stimulate some meaningful dialogue, and produce a feasible and practical action plan of steps that will help minimize the danger and security threats every country faces from the use of fissile materials and the development of nuclear weapons. The Republic of Korea has two challenges. One is the permanent threat we face from North Korea's continued development of their nuclear weapons capability by production of enriched uranium and plutonium. As South Korea is the fifth largest nuclear power producer in the world, our second challenge is to ensure we maintain the highest standard of safety when it comes to both security and environmental issues.
As we continue our commitment to public awareness about nuclear power, we must also continue our efforts to encourage the denuclearization of North Korea's program. We look forward to continued cooperation with all governments to secure the safety of nuclear capabilities around the world, and hope this summit will be a landmark for taking steps on a global level. Alexandra and Joe are two leading experts who will educate and enlighten us on these issues. I hope this will be very informative for you. Thank you. [Applause]
STEPHEN NOERPER:
Thank you, Ambassador Kim. Ambassador Kim has had a rich portfolio working with nuclear issues through his service as Ambassador to Tehran, as well as his involvement with KEDO, the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization. We're very privileged to have him here this morning. We'd also like to welcome the president of the Stanley Foundation, Vladimir Sambaiew. You'll find the foundation’s policy analysis brief outside; the Stanley Foundation has done very nice work in raising awareness about these issues.
Please help me welcome Alex and Joe. Joe, the president of the Ploughshares Fund, is prolific. He published Bomb Scare, which my NYU students rated among the very top books. When I brought these students to meet Joe at his book signing, it was a very memorable evening. It's wonderful to have him here at The Korea Society.
Let me also welcome Alex. She has been in Seoul for the preparatory secretariat, and it's fantastic to have her here in order to give us some very direct feedback of what she saw and heard there. We'll be discussing the agenda forward and some of the sidebar issues, including North Korean denuclearization.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
Thank you so much for coming. We're going to try to entertain you this morning and keep you awake. We appreciate you coming here on a cold Friday morning when you have so many other things to do.
Let me tell you a little bit about the Ploughshares Fund. Ploughshares has been around for thirty years, and I've been the president of Ploughshares for the last four years. We are a foundation. We raise money from generous individuals and then find those people who do the best work and have the smartest ideas about nuclear issues and provide them with the resources they need to get their work done. Lee Sigal is in the audience. We've had the privilege of providing grants to Lee over the years for his work on North Korea. Should you have any specific questions about North Korea, Lee is unquestionably the guy to answer them.
The Ploughshares Fund only focuses on the nuclear issue, as we consider it one of the two most serious threats facing us as a people and as a humanity today. Of course, we all have problems. We have personal problems, family problems, problems in our towns and in our cities. But there are only two problems that threaten us on a planetary level, and those are climate change and nuclear weapons.
Both climate change and nuclear weapons can devastate life on the planet. Both of these are created through manmade machinery. Both of these are manageable, and even reversible, if we make the changes that we need in our way of thinking and in our political structures. It will require international cooperation to make these changes.
Nuclear proliferation and the spread of nuclear weapons is beyond the ability of any one nation to resolve, even a country as powerful as the United States, and that's why you see conferences like the Seoul Nuclear Security Summit. It requires the cooperation of both large and small nations in order to get a handle on this and resolve this issue.
Nuclear weapons can be seen as threats in roughly three areas. The number one and most pressing danger comes from the existence of 20,000 nuclear weapons in the world today. Most of these are hydrogen bombs and are many times more powerful than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Most of these bombs are held by the United States and Russia. We have steps underway to reduce these weapons, and we have cut these arsenals by over two-thirds since the height of the Cold War in the 1980s. Although they're not going down as fast as we'd like, they are going down.
The second threat we face is more countries getting these weapons. North Korea and Iran quickly come to mind. The fear is that as more countries get nuclear weapons, their neighbors will get nuclear weapons, and there will be a proliferation of these bombs. At this time, fewer and fewer countries are getting these weapons, and more countries have given up nuclear weapons and nuclear programs in the last twenty years than have tried to get them.
Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Brazil, and Argentina all used to have programs. South Korea explored a nuclear program, as did Taiwan. All of these countries have decided not to take that path. They have joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty pledging never to acquire nuclear weapons. We're now down to the two hard cases of Iran and North Korea, and it's not at all clear which way they're going to go.
But the issue that worries senior U.S. policy makers the most is not the one that gets the most attention (negotiations with Russia and Iran, with Iran getting more attention than all the other problems put together). The security problem they worry about the most is nuclear terrorism. It is enshrined in our national security strategy. It is enshrined in our Nuclear Posture Review. The number one threat to the national security of the United States is nuclear terrorism—a group getting a bomb or the material with which to build a bomb and detonating it in the United States—a nuclear 9/11.
It is not easy to do this, which is part of the reason it hasn't happened. However, the consequences of a nuclear terrorist attack would be catastrophic. It's not just the hundreds of thousands of people who would die instantaneously. It's not just the hundreds of thousands more that would be severely injured. It's the devastation of a city. The shutdown of a city. The regional economic consequences. There will be global economic consequences.
Imagine the scenario of a terrorist detonating a bomb in Minneapolis, and saying if his demands are not met and U.S. forces are not immediately removed from the Middle East, he will detonate a second bomb in New York. Imagine the panic that would ensue. Commerce would end. Every cargo ship would be stopped. Every plane would be stopped. Every truck would be stopped searching for nuclear material. Everything would be seized.
You could take the Bill of Rights and put it on a shelf never to be seen again. You could fundamentally change the political character of our country, and, of course, trigger a global recession. It's these global consequences from the act of just one or two bombs going off that have policy makers and security analysts worrying about this possibility, and trying everything they can to prevent this kind of event.
Here's the good news. We know how to prevent nuclear terrorism, because a nuclear terrorist group cannot build a bomb from scratch. They can't make the material for the core of the bomb, the highly enriched uranium and plutonium. That requires a giant factory, gigawatts of energy and billions of dollars. It requires very advanced, sophisticated machinery. It should be the title of Hillary Clinton's new book. It takes a nation to make a nuclear bomb.
You can't do this. Neither al-Qaeda nor the Taliban can do this, although they've tried. Al-Qaeda tried to buy highly enriched uranium, one of the materials for a bomb. They tried this knowing that if they could get the material from somebody who's already made it, it's easier to produce the bomb. As Sam Nunn says, every step after that is easier for the terrorists to take and harder for us to stop. You could, with the core, if you had 50 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, devise a crude Hiroshima-type device.
Do you know how these bombs work? Can anybody here make a bomb? Well, you'd need some metallurgists, you'd need some engineers, and you'd need a lathe. You'd need some tubes. You'd need some explosives experts. But with about twelve engineers and scientists, and about $6 million, you could construct the bomb we dropped at Hiroshima. It's basically a tube about six-feet long. It works like this. You take half of your highly enriched uranium and you put it over here, a subcritical amount. It's metal. You can hold it together. It won't blow up, because it's not enough to set off the chain reaction. You take the other half and you put it over here. You put a charge on it, you make it into a bullet and you basically fire it down that tube at 1,000 feet per second.
When it hits here, you have supercriticality. The chain reaction starts, with eighty cycles of atoms splitting and spraying more neutrons out to split more atoms. Some of that mass is converted into energy, and you have that fifty-five pounds of highly enriched uranium turning into 15,000 tons of explosive force. Fifty-five pounds. Fifteen thousand tons. That's the secret of a nuclear weapon. Low mass. Huge destruction. You could fit that in the back of your car. That's what we're worried about, those devices.
In order to stop a terrorist group from building that device, we've got to stop them from getting that highly enriched material, and that's what the Nuclear Security Summit is all about. There are dozens of countries around the world that have quantities of this highly enriched uranium and plutonium. The U.S. and Russia have the most, but they're not the only ones. Some of this highly enriched uranium is being used for completely legitimate civilian purposes, including isotopes for medical use, but the fuel that is in that research reactor could be stolen and could be used to make a bomb. The very same fuel.
Because of this, we have to have an international program where everybody agrees to end the civilian use of highly enriched uranium, to take this highly enriched uranium wherever they have it, secure it, and work towards its elimination. If we can do that, if we can secure all the highly enriched uranium and plutonium in the world, we can effectively prevent nuclear terrorism. That's why Graham Allison calls nuclear terrorism the "ultimate preventable catastrophe."
But it's hard to do this. It's hard to do. Alex is going to explain what's expected to happen in Seoul, the steps these countries are planning to take, and what the obstacles are to taking those steps.
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
Thanks, Joe. As Joe mentioned, there is a lot of nuclear material in the world. There's over 100,000 bombs' worth existing today. There's about 20,000 nuclear bombs still out there, and these are much more powerful than the ones at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. There is enough material to build 100,000 more bombs, and this material is accumulating in unstable regions in the world.
As Joe said, al-Qaeda has been trying to get their hands on it for over two decades. In fact, when Osama bin Laden died, there was a lot of concern about this. Al-Qaeda has pledged that if Osama bin Laden dies, they will unleash a nuclear hell storm on the world. But, as Joe also said, it is the most preventable catastrophe, and with enough funding and enough political will, it is something that we can prevent.
I think everyone's on the same page that nuclear terrorism is a real global security threat. Fortunately, the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit was a first step in addressing this threat. What is the Nuclear Security Summit? As you saw in the speech earlier in the wonderful video from the Nuclear Security Summit and the folks organizing it this year; in 2010, President Obama called on all world leaders to come to agreement on this threat.
In Washington, D.C. on April 13th, 2010 forty-seven leaders and four heads of international organizations (the U.N., the IAEA, etc.) got together and agreed that nuclear terrorism is a global threat and we need to do something about it. It was a unique moment in history. At no time before have forty-seven world leaders gotten together and declared nuclear terrorism to be one of the greatest global threats. The only other time that many leaders got together was fifty years ago when they created the United Nations, and I'm sure Ambassador Kim can tell you the history of that.
Out of the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit came three things. One, a communiqué, a political document saying that the participating countries agreed that this was a global threat and that they would work together to try to solve it. The second thing was a work plan. That work plan still exists, and you can read it online. It lays out steps and benchmarks that countries can do to work together to solve one of the biggest challenges we face.
Lastly, many of the countries that came to the summit brought to the table what are known as "house gifts." In addition to agreeing that this is a problem, and in addition to working together on this plan, the countries made commitments to do even more. So, in 2010, a lot of countries came to the table with "house gifts" for the United States. Chile, for example, agreed to return all of its highly enriched uranium to the United States, and they did so. That's just one example, but there were many other house gifts, as well.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
This is highly enriched uranium Chile is using for civilian, peaceful purposes, and they're taking it out of their reactors…
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
That's right. And saying, "Take it back."
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
…and converting their reactors…
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
To low enriched uranium, which cannot be used in nuclear bombs.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
So we're not getting rid of the reactors. The reactors still function. Just a different, safer kind of fuel.
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
That's right. And that's one of the things that the Fissile Materials Working Group is recommending. You can do a lot of research, for example, with the materials that are non-bomb-making. Highly enriched uranium is a bomb-making material. Low enriched uranium is not, but you can use it to do the experiments and research needed in advanced science. So, there is a work plan. There is a communiqué. There is the commitment. What is the Fissile Materials Working Group and what is its role? We've talked a lot about what governments are doing. We haven't yet talked about what the public can do, and a lot of the challenge is raising public awareness. One thing that climate change has over us nuclear folk is that as individuals, you can recycle. You can change your light bulbs. You can decrease your footprint.
The Fissile Materials Working Group is a coalition of over sixty international nuclear security experts and organizations. We come together to provide three things: innovative policy recommendations for policy makers working on this issue, both in the United States and internationally. Over half of the members of the coalition are international experts.
The second thing we do is shine a light on this issue, both in terms of raising public awareness and in terms of holding our governments accountable to what they say they're going to do. We are committed to monitoring the work plan. Are the governments carrying out the work plan? Who is watching to make sure that the governments are actually doing what they say they're going to do to keep us safe?
The third thing the Fissile Materials Working Group does is to engage the public. So, what can the public do? The public can do a lot of things. And in fact, I will plug the website, FMWG.org. There's a Take Action button. You can go there and find about a dozen actions that citizens both here, in the United States, and abroad can do to help with this issue.
One is to meet with your Congressional representatives. If you live in the United States (as I assume all of you do) meet with them and ask them what they are doing about this issue. Tell them that is important to you, and that you want to see them provide funding for the necessary programs that keep these weapons secure. That's just one example of what you can do.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
Are you asking members of Congress to go to the summit?
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
That's a very good question, Joe. We have asked members of Congress to go as VIPs and observers. There is one problem with that. At this time, the summit has grown from forty-seven world leaders to about fifty, as was mentioned in the video. The Koreans have invited three more countries to be part of the summit.
Having more people is certainly beneficial, but having more people also decreases the chance of the conversation being a useful dialogue. If we had 200 people in this room today, it would be more difficult to engage in discussion. At the summit you will have fifty world leaders plus their delegations. I would love it if members of Congress would attend, but then do parliamentarians from Malaysia attend? I don't know how you square that circle. I would love it if that would be a possibility, but it would be tough.
In 2010, the Fissile Materials Working Group, this coalition of international organizations, launched an expert symposium: a way for nongovernmental experts to shine a light on this issue, to raise awareness with the public, provide innovative solutions, and talk about some of the issues that weren't being talked about in the summit, but which we think are really crucial to nuclear security around the world. We pulled together the top experts around the world, including from the think tank community, the foundation community, the scientific and technical community, diplomats, the media, international organizations, and our own government. It was a fantastic summit. Again, it's online if you want to go watch it.
On March 23rd in Seoul, there will be a symposium which is a pre-summit summit of experts around the world. Perhaps members of Congress and parliamentarians can be invited to that. That is something I have recommended. My Korean colleagues are the hosts. They've laid out a plan and I believe are still working on it. I will have the pleasure of being in Seoul again, after having been there twice within six months (in both the summer and the fall). Now I'm going for the winter. It's a beautiful city for those who haven't been there.
Another thing the Fissile Materials Working Group has done, and that we can do as citizens, is pull together different voices in a room. As the video mentioned, it's not just an American problem. It's not just a Western problem. Terrorism happens in Mumbai. It happens in Bali. It happens in South America. It happens all around the world.
Between the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit and the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit, we held a series of regional meetings for citizens around the world. We went to Cairo, Vienna and Seoul. We asked, "Why should you, as citizens, care about nuclear security? How can we relate to your concerns as citizens of the world?"
So, the Fissile Materials Working Group has come up with some new and innovative policy recommendations for policy makers both in the U.S. and abroad. Those recommendations are available on our website. One recommendation is to strengthen international organizations like the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to help with nuclear security. We have developed a baseline standard for nuclear security. Right now, there is no baseline standard. At this time, Steve's definition of nuclear security can be different from my definition of nuclear security, and both can be different from Nikita's. No standard currently exists, and that should be created.
Our group continues to engage with the public at events like this one. We continue to engage with the media and with members of Congress. Last week we hosted a luncheon with embassy officials. Ambassador Kim's counterpart, Ambassador Kim (the Sherpa of the Nuclear Security Summit for the Korean government) was in attendance and spoke about what is happening in Seoul, and what else we can do to help one another out. It's not a problem of just one country. It's not a problem of just one sector. It's a global problem.
What can you expect at the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit? There will be more countries represented, which is wonderful. I think there's a balance one has to strike, as I mentioned, between becoming a "United Nations" on nuclear security to engaging in genuine dialogue. We want to be able to look our counterparts in the eyes and ask, "What are you doing to keep your world citizens safe?"
We will also discuss the topic of radiological security. There was no discussion of this at the 2010 summit. Unlike nuclear security, it is not considered as serious an issue, but dirty bombs are a real problem. The security around radiological materials is even worse than the nuclear materials.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
These are materials that cannot produce a nuclear explosion. They're not highly enriched uranium or plutonium. You can't make a bomb out of them. But you could take a conventional bomb and lace it with strontium or americium, highly poisonous radioactive materials, that would scatter over tens of square blocks. It could shut down the financial district of New York. It could be a radiological occupation of Wall Street. Sorry if I gave anybody an idea.
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
Exactly. I don't think the occupied people are watching. The problem is that in 2010, many countries made commitments, but those commitments had a lot of escape clauses. There were a lot of occurrences of "as appropriate" or "as necessary." I think one challenge for Seoul is to check where everybody is on their commitments.
My organization, the Connect U.S. Fund, supports the Fissile Materials Working Group as well as a couple of different climate activities. I'm glad Joe brought up the climate and nukes as two major problems. My foundation works on both climate and nuclear weapons issues, as well as human rights. We support a community of experts and advocates that come together and work collaboratively on these issues.
One of the things that we've been pushing is new policy recommendations that press the various governments to meet the commitments they've made. And still, that's not enough. We would like to see more innovative and bold commitments.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
Like what?
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
Like setting a specific date for eliminating the use of highly enriched uranium. As we talked about, you don't need to use highly enriched uranium.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
So, right now it's a goal, but nobody has pledged to do this by a specific date.
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
Yes.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
And if you could do it, when would you say it should be done?
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
That's really difficult to say.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
In 2016? 2020?
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
I think it would be at least 2020.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
2020. We'll set a date. At the end of the decade, get rid of this stuff.
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
Right. I mean, Obama was bold. He did set a date. He said that in four years we should seek to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials around the world. So depending on when you start the clock, that's either next year or in 2014. Well, I think that's impossible.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
He's not going to hit it.
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
The world won't hit it. I don't think it's Obama's problem. I think it's just very difficult to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials around the world in four years. But, I think this is a good process and I think it's a good start. Seoul will be another benchmark. I think there needs to be more identification of innovative policy recommendations. There needs to be more encouragement for other groups and countries to join. And we'll see what happens in Seoul.
STEPHEN NOERPER:
Thank you, Alex and Joe. We'll begin the Q&A here at the center mic. I would like to start with questions about the proliferation of issues. What of the subject of nuclear safety—not just nuclear security—of concern especially after the Japan tragedy (and with questions being asked about safety and potential instability in North Korea). How much will some of these other issues figure into the Seoul discussions? What important sidebars might occur? And then lastly, why Seoul? I believe a lot of people would have thought Russia or China to be a more likely location for the summit. Korea seems a very interesting choice for what is so high on the administration's agenda.
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
It is an interesting choice, but Korea plays a very key role in the region. As Joe mentioned earlier, North Korea is always at top of mind. When you hear nuclear weapons, you think North Korea or Iran. Certainly I think that's something that's important. As Ambassador Kim mentioned, South Korea is the fifth largest nuclear power producing nation, and nuclear power fits in nicely with nuclear safety. We talk about nuclear security and securing the materials, but then nuclear safety is also really important. I think Fukushima was a perfect, illustrative example of the importance of nuclear safety and what safety measures are built in.
This is a global issue. It's not just a Western issue. It could have been Russia. It could have been China. It could be Malaysia, frankly. I think Seoul was actually a really good decision.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
Asia, overall, is of increasing concern as the number of nuclear programs proliferate, both civilian and military. Japan has accumulated tons and tons of plutonium over the years, enough for 10,000 weapons or more. How secure is that? Can you eliminate all of that? Are you really going to make fuel out of that? We're concerned about China. They have a fairly low stockpile of weapons, but they've been talking about making plutonium breeder reactors. You want to get that secured. India, as well, is increasing its nuclear material production capability.
Of course, the greatest concern of all is Pakistan. For my money, Pakistan is the most dangerous country on earth. It has its nuclear material very highly secured, but it also has a very insecure government. That's the problem you're worried about there. So, you want this discussion to be also an Asian discussion, and not just something that involves the two great nuclear powers.
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
I'd like to respond to your first question, Steve, about the other issues being added to the agenda. Just like the other countries being added to the agenda, you need to balance the way these questions are addressed. This is still a nuclear security summit, and it should remain focused on nuclear security. There are other fora, like the United Nations, where countries can get together and talk about some of the other issues that are in the nuclear world, but not strictly about nuclear security. I believe because nuclear security tied with nuclear terrorism is the largest global threat, it should have its own place, and we should focus on that rather than mixing a lot of different issues. That's my opinion.
HENRY SEGGERMAN:
Good morning. Henry Seggerman. Korea International Investment Fund. A few months ago, we saw Muammar Gaddafi pulled out of a drainage pipe and shot in the head. A few years ago, we saw Saddam Hussein hanging by his neck, insulted by his Shia jailers. Both Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi had been cajoled and bribed and tricked into giving up their programs.
In light of these two assassinations or executions, what's the likelihood of denuclearization of Iran or North Korea? I ask that not because I'm trying to dodge the issue of terrorism, but there's obviously a danger that North Korea could, in a non-terror way, shoot a missile at Honolulu, and just declare war on the United States. Iran could shoot a missile at London and declare war on England within the next few years. That's technically not terrorism, but these are real dangers. Is it realistic to think that these countries will do anything other than speed up their programs in the upcoming years?
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
It's a question of effecting the security calculation of those two countries. No nation has ever been coerced into giving up their nuclear program, but lots of countries have been convinced to. And they've been convinced because the regime decided it was in their national security interest not to have nuclear weapons.
South Africa is a good example. South Africa secretly built six nuclear weapons, because it thought it was essential for its security in southern Africa. On the eve of transition to majority rule, the apartheid regime revealed the existence of these weapons and dismantled them for obvious reasons. They did not want the black majority to get control of these six nuclear weapons. Nelson Mandela could have reversed that decision. He had the weapons. They were there. He decided not to do it, because his calculation was his security was better off in an Africa where no one had nuclear weapons, than where there was an arms race; where other countries might feel (Nigeria, Angola) that they had to match that capability. That calculation has proved correct. South Africa has been rewarded for that, and some of the international prestige they enjoy today comes from the role they play in nuclear disarmament. Every country's situation is different, but it's a concrete example of the calculation that has to be made.
The National Intelligence Assessment says that some combination of pressure and incentives may convince Iran that it can meet its security, regional and domestic needs on a nonnuclear path. That's what we're trying to do, is to get that kind of combination. The pressure has certainly been applied. What we're missing is a security arrangement that convinces Iran and the existing regime that it can survive better without nuclear weapons. I would say that there's a decent prospect that you can get Iran to stop short of making a nuclear weapon: continue the enrichment program, bring in international inspections, but not cross the line and not actually make a nuclear weapon.
Why? Because they would calculate that once they do that, a whole series of terrible things happen that actually weaken their security situation. It's not to be nice guys. It's not to respect some kind of nominal international norm. It's their calculation that they would be worse off. Other countries might mimic their capability in the region. They would continue to be a pariah nation. They would still suffer the sanctions. But if they stop short and make a deal, they could loosen the sanctions. They could work towards diplomatic recognition with the United States. You'd walk them back from that.
I think something similar could happen in Korea. It's going to take a long time. The Koreans are now more committed to this than they were before, but we clearly had possibilities in the seventies, in the eighties, in the nineties, and even in the last decade to make a deal with North Korea where they were ready to give up that nuclear capability in exchange for economic and security assistance. We were unable to conclude that deal. I still don't think it's too late.
These are the last two hard cases. There used to be more. I believe there are solutions for both of them, in part because the alternatives (war and regional proliferation) are much worse for all the nations involved. However difficult it is, you end up getting forced back to seeking a negotiated solution.
LEE SIGAL:
Two questions with regard to the security summit. As you know, some people in Seoul wanted to make the North Korean nuclear program the centerpiece of the security summit, and I wanted to get your take on that. And related to it, as you've both said, cooperation with other countries is key. In the case of the DPRK, or North Korea, how do you cooperate on nuclear security and safety? What steps would you take without legitimating the North Korean nuclear weapons program?
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
Well, I can take the first one and Joe, maybe you can take the second one. In my conversations with experts in government, North Korea (as obvious and important an issue as it may be to South Korea) was never really meant to be a focus. Certainly there's no way you can avoid talking about North Korea, but Korean experts and the Korean government recognize that the Nuclear Security Summit is much more than that. It is a global summit.
I think it's important to expand the agenda. I think there should be some mention of that with, perhaps, a press conference the weekend before the summit; but there is recognition that it can't just be focused on North Korea. President Lee Myung-bak did invite Kim Jong-il when he was still alive, and I'm sure the invitation extends to his son, on the condition that North Korea denuclearize and start coming back to the negotiations. Kim Jong-il said they were not going to do that. We'll see what his son says. Perhaps that will change.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
I'm less sanguine about any dramatic changes in North Korea over the next few months. I think it's going to take a while longer than that to see how this regime shakes out. But there are two things that you can do, and that the U.S. and other partners are trying to do. One is to get a partial agreement to get North Korea to end its uranium enrichment program. This is still a relatively small program, although with some very sophisticated machinery, and there's signs that North Korea's willing to suspend its enrichment activity in exchange for food aid. That's the kind of deal: a partial deal, and not a comprehensive deal. Just stop this.
And from our point of view and a nuclear security point of view, that's the material you're most worried about. It's the highly enriched uranium that is the easiest to use to make a terrorist bomb, as I described. You can make a bomb out of plutonium, but it's much more difficult and a more demanding challenge for a terrorist group. You want to stop North Korea from producing highly enriched uranium.
The other thing you want to do is make a very clear redline. North Korea has to understand that this line—the export of any of that highly enriched uranium outside the country—will not be tolerated. As far as we know, they haven't done that. They've exported missiles and their missile technology. We believe they've given some countries assistance in nuclear design work, but not the material itself. You want to hold that as a firm redline that would have dire consequences for North Korea should they cross it. Those are two steps you can take.
LEE SIGAL:
Let me pursue that one step more. With respect to security and safety issues as opposed to the nuclear weapons program, are there steps we could take to cooperate with North Korea? They say they're building a reactor for the purpose of power. We all worry a little bit about that, not just because of the experience of the supposedly sophisticated Japanese, but because reactors have problems, in the United States and elsewhere. We presume the same can happen in North Korea. Are there steps on safety and security that might be taken without legitimating the weapons?
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
Well, you can open up the facilities to IAEA inspection so you establish a baseline, you get more transparency, and you understand more of what's going on there. You can have declarations of inventories and how much is actually stored there. If they're still producing, you can have them declare how much they are producing. But what else on safety, itself?
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
I would say scientific cooperation. One of the things that China promised at the last summit was to build a center of excellence. This is a place where scientists and technical experts can get together and share best practices and lessons learned. Why not invite North Korean scientists?
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
Yes. As part of a group, so as to integrate them into a regional safety culture. Each of these steps is small, but hopefully they build on each other.
VLADIMIR SAMBAIEW:
Along these lines, with the ongoing work from the original security summit and just the various talks that have been going on, have the North Koreans been part of the security talks in any way whatsoever?
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
No.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
No.
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
As I mentioned, Vlad, they've been invited, but have spurned the invitation to be involved.
JOHN VALEC:
I had a question on the nuclear terrorism issue. Clearly countries like the United States (and perhaps Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Russia) have a clear incentive to secure fissile material that could be turned into bombs. How is the summit process or other international processes incentivizing countries that do not face the same sort of clear and present danger to take what are clearly costly steps towards securing their materials? Does the United States have to take that group of countries that are at [less] risk from these attacks and take a leadership role in providing global incentives? Or is it being done more on a suasion basis?
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
Do you have an answer to that?
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
I do.
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
Good, because I have some context. You put your finger on it. You're asking countries to spend money for security that they don't necessarily believe they need. They think they're doing this because Barack Obama is asking them to do this. So why should they do this? Why should they spend the money?
Part of the answer is that this is a global problem where we're all taking steps to reduce the danger that a nuclear weapon could explode in any form in any place. That's why Obama made such a big deal early on in the administration at his Prague speech to talk about the elimination of nuclear weapons. Many of the countries at the summit don't have nuclear weapons.
But is this a scam? Are you trying to get rid of their capability so that you can preserve this nuclear apartheid system where the big countries get to keep it and the little countries don't? You've got to convince them we're all walking down the nuclear road together, so you've got to make progress in the U.S.-Russia disarmament. Take those arsenals down from ten thousand or five thousand to the low hundreds, so you convince people that this is where we're all going together, and that's part of the reason that they should make these steps. That's part of the reason you're having this summit. We're all in this joint enterprise together, and that is extremely important to people.
The second part of this is that it's not strictly a North American problem or a European problem. In fact, I think the area we're most like to see a nuclear weapon used is South Asia. We've got an arms race going on. India and Pakistan are producing nuclear materials and nuclear bombs. Pakistan is producing more nuclear weapons at a higher rate than any other country on earth right now. And the danger is not that al-Qaeda would get nuclear material or a nuclear bomb from Pakistan and use it against us. They would use it against India. They might use it against Pakistan. And that's the risk that you worry about, and that's why you're talking to these people. It's not just our problem. We all have a problem here. So that's the two contextual answers to that. What's the specific answer?
ALEXANDRA TOMA:
The chief specific answer is that countries don't have to pay for it themselves. There are initiatives like the G8 Global Partnership. Essentially you can think of it as a pooled bank where countries who can provide resources provide them, and the countries who need those resources take them. We're not necessarily telling Malaysia that they have to pay for improving their export controls or that they have to use all these fancy, expensive devices. That's not the truth.
The second question I can answer by relating it back to my experiences during 9/11. I had an Algerian friend while I was in grad school. Redwan went home for the Christmas holidays and never came back into the country even though he had a full scholarship at Georgetown. He was not allowed back in the country. That was just simple, straight up terrorism. Now imagine what could happen with nuclear terrorism. Civil liberties would be locked down and of course, this would extend to student visas. That's very simple, but very important. Take global trade. You see what's happening in Europe, now, and how that's trickled down the global economy. We're interlocked with everyone from Malaysia (where there's a lot of trading) to South Africa, to Chile, to Canada.
I have a third answer. It's a little bit less politically correct, but I'll say it anyway because I'm a New Yorker and we're honest. I'm going to keep picking on poor Malaysia, although my colleague in Malaysia, Noramly bin Muslim, will be a little bit upset with me. What happens if a nuclear terrorist device is passed through Malaysia, because the export controls could use some beefing up? What do you think the international community would do when they found out that all that was needed was for you to improve your export laws? How heavy would the international consternation and condemnation come down on Malaysia? Would they be ostracized for a year? Two years? For a long time? Would there be sanctions against this country? So, it's to your own benefit to make sure it doesn't happen because of you. You should not be the weak link in the system.
HENRY SEGGERMAN:
Joe, you used the word "apartheid" a moment ago relating to the big countries that can have nuclear weapons and little countries that aren't supposed to. A number of Arab leaders have called for a nuclear-free Mideast as a solution to Iran developing nuclear weapons, and I know that the U.S. has, on a couple of occasions, suggested to Israel that they at least disclose their 120 nuclear weapons and their program. What do you think of the prospects of a nuclear-free Mideast?
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
Nuclear apartheid is a phrase that the Indians developed when they talked about how the five then nuclear states could have nuclear weapons and the "colored" subcontinent wasn't allowed to have them. There was a definite racial element when they used that phrase, but it was a very popular one, and it is still seen that way by many countries of the world. I'm actually going to Cairo at the end of the month, at the request of the Cairo government and in cooperation with the British government, to talk about just this issue, the possibility of a Middle East free of nuclear weapons.
It was mandated at the last Nuclear Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. Almost every country of the world is a member of the Non-Proliferation Treaty except for North Korea, Israel, India and Pakistan. The rest of them all gather at the UN for a month and discuss what steps have to be taken to implement the treaty. At the 2010 session, they said you've got to make progress towards a Middle East free of nuclear weapons and this was demanded by the Egyptians. It had been put in the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference back in 1995, but nothing had been done about it and they were ticked off. They threatened to hold up the whole conference unless they got something on it, and they got something on it. There is more of a commitment, now, to do something about it, but it is hard. It is clearly hard.
Obviously, Israel would like to see this happen, because it wants to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, along with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt and anyone else who might flirt with this idea. The other countries of the region want to see this happen because they'd like to get rid of Israel's nuclear weapons. I estimate there's approximately 100. We don't really know, but it's in the range of 100 to 150.
Would Israel give up its nuclear weapons? I think it would at some point if it felt, like we said before, that its security needs were being met. Is there a regional peace treaty? Have all the countries in the region recognized each other's right to exist and recognized their borders? Is there a new security situation being established for the region that all the countries are participating in? Once these issues are resolved, you might imagine Israel giving up its nuclear weapons.
But you can't wait for that to happen to make progress on these issues. You can make a little progress. You can start moving towards it. That's why we pay diplomats, to come up with these steps in the right direction. Can we get Israel to shut down its Dimona reactor? We might be able to do that. It's reaching the end of its operational life and it's a security hazard for them. If there's a conflict with Iran, that reactor could get hit. That could be a disaster. Even if Iran did not have nuclear weapons, that could be a disaster. There's talk about steps like that.
Can you get Israel in the room to talk about these issues? We think we can. We think we can have a conference where we could talk about this. It's also a face-saving way to have Iran make a deal, so that the deal with Iran is not just about Iran, but about steps that all the countries in the region need to take to increase inspections and transparency. So, there's some hope there.
The path is not at all clear. The mandate to make progress is real. The 2015 Nuclear Summit is coming up soon. It's only three years away. Things have got to get done. If you do not have some progress on this issue by 2015, you're not going to be able to have a successful Review Conference. A lot of the things the United States and other countries want are going to be blocked on this issue. There's more pressure on it now than I've seen in a long time.
JOHN BOYLE:
My name is John Boyle. I'm a member of The Korea Society. Parallel to Secretary Clinton's phrase "it takes a village," does it take a conspiratorial reality to make something like this happen? Just as radioactive material gives off a Geiger read or it gives off a certain level of static, for an event that was actually going to take place, would there be so many things that would be required to pull it off that the static would reach a level where it would become screamingly apparent to 10 percent of the cognoscente, the people in the Pentagon? I'm asking this question begging for a sense of consolation for the seven billion people of the world at large. What is the likelihood of something like this happening if this is the case?
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:
Well, it hasn't happened yet, so that's somewhat reassuring. But the problem is there is nothing that prohibits this event from happening, and what nature doesn't prohibit, it mandates. Improbable events (and this is an improbable event) happen all the time. Fukushima. Challenger. The World Trade Center. Sinkholes. All kinds of things that happen very rarely happen. And the consequence of this rare event is so enormous, that when you do your standard risk analysis of risk times consequences, you get a very big number. That's why people are focused on trying to prevent this, on trying to reduce the risk down to zero, where it becomes impossible.
One of the reasons it's in trouble is that it really is hard to do. There is a supply out there of fissile materials. There is a demand for it among certain groups. As far as we know, the supply and demand hasn't met. Every year, we have about 300 incidents of radioactive material being smuggled. Of that, there's ten to fifteen that is actually weapons grade. A kilogram worth. Two kilograms worth. Rumors of bigger stashes that have been taken out of Russian facilities, in particular. Good stuff. You could make a bomb out of this. Weapons-grade, highly rich uranium. It's out there. It just hasn't linked up, but it's only a matter of time.
And that's just on the Russian market. The real terror scenario, for me, is in Pakistan. You've got a country with enough material for somewhere between six and a hundred nuclear weapons. An unstable government. Strong Islamic fundamentalist influences in the military and intelligence apparatus bordering a country that also has nuclear weapons. A country with which Pakistan waged war for three years and had almost waged two more wars in the last decade. And by the way, al-Qaeda in the country some kilometers away from nuclear supply depots.
The worst case scenario is that there might be a crisis between India and Pakistan where Pakistan takes its now very highly secure, very highly guarded nuclear weapons (no one doubts these things are highly guarded) and mobilizes them. They get them ready for use. They move them in order to get ready to protect against an Indian strike. And while they are being moved, terrorists steal one, get one.
In fact, the fear is the terrorists could provoke a crisis in order to get that movement, in order to get a weapon, in order for them to then achieve their aims, whatever those aims may be. Blackmail the Pakistani government. Attack the Indian government. Take one across the seas to the United States. That's the nightmare threat, and to get at that threat, it's not a Pakistan-only solution.
You can't fix this just by going to Pakistan. It's not even an India-Pakistan conflict resolution. Resolve Kashmir. Open up trade routes. You've got to do those, too. It's a global solution, which is why we end up where we began here, with this seemingly flaccid diplomatic confab to talk about nuclear security. You’ve got to do things like this in order to prevent things like that.
STEPHEN NOERPER:
Thank you. We've come to the conclusion of the hour. I wish to again thank Ambassador Kim Young-mok, Joseph Cirincione and Alexandra Toma for their participation today, and a special thanks to Nikita Desai, who coordinates policy programs here at The Korea Society and arranged this session today.
{/transcript}
