{"id":525898,"date":"2010-04-13T11:00:55","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T15:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/?p=82071"},"modified":"2010-04-13T11:00:55","modified_gmt":"2010-04-13T15:00:55","slug":"next-steps-on-nuclear-safety-enforcement-enforcement-enforcement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/525898","title":{"rendered":"Next Steps on Nuclear Safety: Enforcement, Enforcement, Enforcement"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_82072\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"width: 490px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-82072\" title=\"Gilani and Obama\" src=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/obama-pakistan-480x332.jpg\" alt=\"Gilani and Obama\" width=\"480\" height=\"332\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani of Pakistan and President Barack Obama at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington on Monday (Xinhua\/ZUMApress.com)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Later today, the Washington Nuclear Security Summit will conclude by  issuing a communique pledging to concentrate the international mind  around President Obama&#8217;s goal of securing all separated plutonium and  highly enriched uranium within four years, in order to prevent nuclear  terrorism. It won&#8217;t be released until it&#8217;s released, of course. But it&#8217;s  going to promise dedicated national action by 47 countries  participating in the summit, rather than empowering international  agencies to take control of each nation&#8217;s plutonium or uranium supplies.  So what comes after this week&#8217;s summit for nuclear security?<\/p>\n<p><div id=\"attachment_2848\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"width: 140px\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2848\" title=\"nationalsecurity\" src=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/08\/nationalsecurity.jpg\" alt=\"Image by: Matt Mahurin\" width=\"130\" height=\"130\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Image by: Matt Mahurin<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"floatButtons\">\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/digg.com\/tools\/diggthis.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-bottom: 10px;\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\"\n\tsrc=\"http:\/\/d.yimg.com\/ds\/badge2.js\"\n\tbadgetype=\"square\">\n\t<?php the_permalink(); ?><\/script><\/div>\n<div style=\"float: left; margin-right: 10px;\">\n\t<script type=\"text\/javascript\">\ntweetmeme_source = \"TWI_news\";\ntweetmeme_service = \"bit.ly\";\n<\/script> <script src=\"http:\/\/tweetmeme.com\/i\/scripts\/button.js\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"float: left;\"><a name=\"fb_share\" type=\"box_count\" href=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php\">Share<\/a><script src=\"http:\/\/static.ak.fbcdn.net\/connect.php\/js\/FB.Share\" type=\"text\/javascript\"><\/script><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Enforcement,  principally. &#8220;The summit is a forcing mechanism,&#8221; said Jeffrey Lewis, a  nuke expert at the New America Foundation who blogs at <a id=\"xkuf\" title=\"Arms Control  Wonk\" href=\"http:\/\/www.armscontrolwonk.com\/\">Arms Control Wonk<\/a>. &#8220;It causes states to do things for a  while.&#8221; The communique will make those &#8220;things&#8221; clearer, but the  contours are already taking shape: States will take increasing steps to  shore up their legal and regulatory frameworks to keep track of civilian  or military nuclear stockpiles. And, especially, they&#8217;ll shore up their  export controls to ensure government officials keep track of what  nuclear materials or components travel across their borders &#8212; or, in  the case of <a id=\"mas.\" title=\"Malaysia, which didn't have any before yesterday  (though perhaps not because of the summit), they'll put those controls  in place\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/82009\/nuke-summit-success-malaysia-edition\">Malaysia, which didn&#8217;t have any before yesterday (though  perhaps not because of the summit), they&#8217;ll put those controls in place<\/a>.  \u00a0That&#8217;s crucial for tracking international proliferation: A.Q. Khan,  the world&#8217;s most notorious proliferator, used Malaysia as a hub for  shipping centrifuges to nations like Libya, since they&#8217;d drop off the  grid once shipped.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, what Lewis calls the  &#8220;house gifts&#8221; that states showed up to the summit presenting are less  important to nuclear security than the consistent enforcement of the  rules in place for monitoring and controlling the establishment and  movement of nuclear material. It&#8217;s a bit ironic. The administration is  understandably touting the commitments of Chile and <a id=\"pptg\" title=\"Ukraine\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/81979\/one-deliverable-nuke-summit-achievement-ukraine-will-get-rid-of-its-uranium\">Ukraine<\/a> and <a id=\"lrpp\" title=\"Canada\" href=\"http:\/\/ca.news.yahoo.com\/s\/capress\/100412\/national\/us_cda_nuke_harper_summit\">Canada<\/a> at the summit to get rid of  thousands of kilograms of highly enriched uranium. (The Canadian  government, right now, is <a id=\"usrd\" title=\"trying a group suspects known as the &quot;Toronto  18&quot; for plotting terror attacks on Canadian nuclear facilities\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com\/news\/gta\/crime\/article\/794335--terror-cell-boasted-victory-near?bn=1\">trying  a group suspects known as the &#8220;Toronto 18&#8243; for plotting terror attacks  on Canadian nuclear facilities<\/a>, among other targets.) But after the  summit ends and countries won&#8217;t show up to Washington bearing pledges,  the measure of the summit&#8217;s success will be in the actions that  governments take to safeguard and reduce the weapons-grade material  under their control.<\/p>\n<p>And it will be governments that take  those steps, with international entities in supporting roles at best.  Gary Samore, the National Security Council director with the portfolio  for nuclear weapons and proliferation policy, <a id=\"gn7o\" title=\"clarified during a Friday conference call\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/81798\/conference-wont-create-new-international-infrastructure-to-secure-all-nuke-materials\">clarified  during a Friday conference call<\/a> that the urgency of the timeline for  securing nuclear materials meant working within the &#8220;sovereign  responsibility&#8221; that governments continue to insist holds for all  matters nuclear. &#8220;If we were to spend a lot of time trying to construct a  new international architecture, I think it might actually have the  unintended effect of really diverting us from taking the practical  measures that we want to take in the near term,&#8221; Samore said.<\/p>\n<p>That  raised the question of whether steps governments take would really stop  the next A.Q. Khan, a Pakistani national hero whom the Pakistanis  placed under house arrest after his proliferation network was disclosed,  allowing no international access to him. Lewis said strengthening  nations&#8217; export controls would probably represent the most important  step against international proliferation. &#8220;Until we really clamp down,  and get, first of all, universal national establishment of export  controls and then, second, get countries to actually enforce the export  controls they,&#8221; he said, &#8220;we&#8217;re not really going to know how much of a  problem we have here.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Then there&#8217;s the task of getting nations  to broach subjects the summit neglected for fear of bursting the  consensus. &#8220;Missing from this discussion is the importance of further  production of separated plutonium or highly enriched uranium,&#8221; said  Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. &#8220;The  French were particularly unhelpful in getting that idea or that  principle into the discussion, because they believe that reprocessing of  nuclear fuel is important for their energy strategy. But it is also a  major proliferation problem.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Not that Kimball believes  that the first-ever nuclear security summit needed to address every  crucial proliferation or security issue all at once. &#8220;What we&#8217;re talking  about here is a summit that is attempting to focus international  attention on this aspect of the nuclear problem in a way that hasn&#8217;t  ever been done before,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The United States has reminded other  countries that there are other fora to discuss these issues [like]  Iran&#8217;s safeguards violations, Israel&#8217;s non-[Nuclear Nonproliferation  Treaty] status, nuclear disarmament progress.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>There will  be another nuclear security summit in 2012, both to measure nations&#8217;  progress in enforcement and, administration officials hope, to expand  the aperture of what&#8217;s possible in the nuclear-security field. But  immediately after the summit concludes, the nuclear issue will remain  the subject of high-level international attention. The Obama  administration, <a id=\"wf8v\" title=\"now equipped with the acquiescence of the Chinese\" href=\"http:\/\/washingtonindependent.com\/82060\/obama-may-have-locked-down-chinese-support-for-sanctioning-iran\">now  equipped with the acquiescence of the Chinese<\/a>, will present a  sanctions package to the United Nations Security Council to raise the  cost of illicit Iranian nuclear enrichment within weeks. In May, nations  will reconvene to strengthen the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the  cornerstone of international security. Ben Rhodes, the National Security  Council&#8217;s director of strategic communications, told reporters Friday  that among the summit&#8217;s goals was to &#8220;provide momentum going forward&#8221;  for a nuclear-security agenda.<\/p>\n<p>For Lewis, the fact that  the terms of the debate are about nuclear security and no longer about  military applications of nuclear weapons is vaguely surreal. &#8220;It used to  be about deterrence, deterrence and then, as a distant third,  deterrence,&#8221; he said. &#8220;All this other stuff was the province of people  who wanted to mess around with our beautiful deterrent.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani of Pakistan and President Barack Obama at the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington on Monday (Xinhua\/ZUMApress.com) Later today, the Washington Nuclear Security Summit will conclude by issuing a communique pledging to concentrate the international mind around President Obama&#8217;s goal of securing all separated plutonium and highly enriched uranium within four [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4314,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-525898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4314"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=525898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/525898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=525898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=525898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=525898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}