Nuke ban must apply to all

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

By AKIRA KAWASAKI

Special to The Japan Times

The Obama administration's Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), released this month, has received much attention for declaring that the United States will not use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear weapon states. As an NGO representative involved in an ongoing debate between Japan and Australia over this issue, I must say the NPR declaration falls well short of what is needed.

The nuclear weapon states, including the U.S., already declared in 1995 that in principle they would not use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear weapon states that are party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The George W. Bush administration, going against this "negative security assurance," adopted a strategy that greatly expanded the role of nuclear weapons. In essence, the Obama administration's new strategy does no more than return to the 1995 policy.

A recent international report recommended going a step further by limiting the role of nuclear weapons to the "sole purpose" of deterring nuclear attacks — thus rejecting any role for nuclear weapons against nonnuclear threats, including biological and chemical weapons. In December last year, the International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament (ICNND), led by Japan and Australia, recommended that all nuclear weapon states make such a "sole purpose" declaration. However, the new Obama doctrine failed to adopt this recommendation.

Japan's current foreign minister, Katsuya Okada of the Democratic Party of Japan, has frequently expressed his personal support for a doctrine of nuclear "no first use." He has also repeatedly stated that he is favorably disposed to the ICNND's "sole purpose" recommendation. In February this year, over 200 members of the Diet sent a letter to U.S. President Barack Obama supporting the recommendation. However, Japan's bureaucracy is very cautious. Security experts, whose thinking is still fixed in Cold War mode, have great influence. Within the Japanese government, and reportedly within the U.S. government too, there is a struggle between those in favor of nuclear disarmament and those who want to retain the status quo. Contrary to the wishes of civil society, the influence of those who wish to retain the status quo is very great.

This resistance to disarmament was behind the decision of the governments of Japan and Australia to omit "sole purpose" from the joint nuclear-disarmament package, which they announced in March. As if Japan and Australia had coordinated their policies with the U.S., "sole purpose" was not adopted in the U.S. government's NPR either.

Nevertheless, these countries' policies give no quarter to countries suspected of developing nuclear weapons. Under the Obama administration's new strategy, the U.S. may still use nuclear weapons against countries that are not in compliance with the NPT. Suspicions surrounding Iran's nuclear program are certainly serious, but who will determine whether Iran is in compliance? Is the U.N. Security Council, in which the five nuclear-weapon states hold a right of veto, a body capable of making a fair decision on the matter? And what of determining compliance with another duty under the NPT, namely the nuclear weapon states' duty to disarm?

The Japanese government, which currently holds the presidency of the U.N. Security Council, is very polite to the nuclear weapon states, but is eager to impose additional sanctions on Iran.

We must go back to basics. No matter whose hands they are in, the consequences of a nuclear weapon's use would be so inhumane that we must never allow it to occur. The people of the country that experienced the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki know this very well.

The NPT has its limitations. It is soft on countries that have nuclear weapons and strict on those that do not. Nuclear weapons must be outlawed outright. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has proposed discussions on a nuclear weapons convention, a treaty to ban nuclear weapons across the globe. Japanese civil society will not hesitate to cooperate with any country or organization that takes the initiative on this.

Akira Kawasaki is a member of the Executive Committee of Peace Boat and NGO Adviser to the ICNND co-chairs.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/eo20100420a1.html

The Early Word: More Nuke Talks

April 13, 2010, 8:48 AM

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/13/the-early-word-more-nuke-talks/

By BERNIE BECKER

It’s time for Day Two. President Obama heads back over to the Washington Convention Center today for more action at the nuclear security summit.

Mr. Obama — joined by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. — will speak at a plenary session, with the president then expected to attend a working lunch with other delegation heads. Mr. Obama is also scheduled to meet with leaders from a handful of countries, like Turkey, Argentina and Germany.

According to The Times’s David E. Sanger and Mark Landler, Mr. Obama extracted a promise from Hu Jintao, China’s president, on Monday to at least help negotiate a new set of sanctions against Iran.

Meanwhile, The Times’s Peter Baker and Helene Cooper detail some of the other meetings Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden have had with various foreign dignitaries.

Geithner on Reform: Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner has taken to The Washington Post’s op-ed pages to push for the financial legislation winding its way through Congress.

“As the Senate bill moves to the floor, we must all fight loopholes that would weaken it and push to make sure the government has real authority to help end the problem of ‘too big to fail,’” Mr. Geithner writes.

Sorting Out the Supreme Court: The Wall Street Journal’s Laura Meckler pulls back the curtain a bit on Sidney Thomas, an appeals court judge from Montana and one of the lesser-known names that the White House is batting around for the Supreme Court.

According to lawyers in Montana, the judge hews to the left — though with sympathy to business interests — and has a “remarkably wry sense of humor.”

Meanwhile, The Times’s Charlie Savage lays out how the confirmation battle over a nominee to be an appeals court judge — Goodwin Liu — “could be a harbinger for how a strongly liberal pick to succeed Justice John Paul Stevens would play out.”

And finally, Politico’s Glenn Thrush reports that, once a court pick has been made, Senate Democrats will work to make the nominee’s confirmation hearings “a referendum of sorts on controversial recent decisions by the Roberts court.”

Supreme Court Fallout: The Times’s Eric Lichtblau takes a look at the aftermath of one of the court’s recent big decisions, which said that corporations, and by extension, labor unions, cannot be barred from spending on elections.

Mr. Lichtblau writes that Democrats in both chambers of Congress arefinalizing a plan that would, among other things, force the chief executives of groups primarily sponsoring an ad to appear themselves in the spot.

The Democrats promoting the plan have focused on public disclosure and transparency, Mr. Lichtblau adds, after figuring out they had little chance to fully forbid corporate funds from entering elections.

On a somewhat related note, The Times’s Steven Greenhouse has more onAndy Stern’s decision to step down as president of the Service Employees International Union.

Midterm(ish) Madness: The Times’s Jeremy W. Peters takes a look atAndrew Cuomo’s history of massaging the news media, as New York’s attorney general steps ever closer to announcing a bid for governor.

Mr. Cuomo doesn’t seem to care much for sit-down interviews, but, as Mr. Peters writes, “perhaps no elected official in New York spends more time on the telephone with reporters.” (Off the record, of course.)

Meanwhile, in Florida, voters head to the polls today for a special election to replace former Representative Robert Wexler, a Democrat who left Congress to head up the Center for Middle East Peace and Economic Cooperation. The front-runner in the race appears to be Ted Deutch, also a Democrat.

Health Care Roundup: The Times’s Robert Pear asks about Congress: “If they did not know exactly what they were doing to themselves, did lawmakers who wrote and passed the bill fully grasp the details of how it would influence the lives of other Americans?”

Why? Because it seems the new health care law might remove lawmakers and their staff from the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, which provides insurance coverage that many on Capitol Hill have grown fond of.

Unemployment Benefits: The Senate, with the help of four Republicans, agreed on Monday to consider a temporary extension of unemployment benefits.

As The Times’s Carl Hulse reports, the legislation, which might be approved as early as this week, would extend the benefits through early next month. Democrats in Congress hope to have a more long-term solution in place soon.

(The four Republicans who joined Democrats to pass the extension were Senators Scott Brown of Massachusetts, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine.)

First Family Daybook: Michelle Obama heads to America’s neighbor to the south on Tuesday for her first solo trip abroad as first lady. The Washington Post’s Robin Givhan takes a deeper look at Mrs. Obama’s three-day trip to Mexico, finding “she will use it to amplify and articulate a singular message to young people: self-determination.”

Administration Addresses: Several members of Mr. Obama’s cabinet are scheduled to hit the town for speeches today. Eric H. Holder Jr., the attorney general, heads over the Potomac River to Virginia to speak at a United States marshals awards ceremony. Meanwhile, Education Secretary Arne Duncan is scheduled to hit the awards circuit as well — to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s National Essay Contest awards ceremony, to be exact. And finally, Mr. Geithner sits for a Q-and-A at a conference of newspaper editors.

A Little Hollywood: A pair of actors — Jeff Daniels and Kyle MacLachlan — headline the Arts Advocacy Day celebration on Capitol Hill today. Mr. Daniels and Mr. MacLachlan are also scheduled to testify before a House panel.

How to Build on the Start Treaty

THIS has been a remarkable time for the Obama administration. After a year of intense internal debate, it issued a new nuclear strategy. And after a year of intense negotiations with the Russians, President Obama signed the New Start treaty with President Dmitri Medvedev in Prague. On Monday, the president will host the leaders of more than 40 nations in a nuclear security summit meeting whose goal is to find ways of gaining control of the loose fissile material around the globe.

By WILLIAM J. PERRY and GEORGE P. SHULTZ

Published: April 10, 2010

New Start is the first tangible product of the administration’s promise to “press the reset button” on United States-Russian relations. The new treaty is welcome. But as a disarmament measure, it is a modest step, entailing a reduction of only 30 percent from the former limit — and some of that reduction is accomplished by the way the warheads are counted, not by their destruction. Perhaps the treaty’s greatest accomplishment is that the negotiations leading up to its signing re-engaged Americans and Russians in a serious discussion of how to reduce nuclear dangers.

So what should come next? We look forward to a follow-on treaty that builds on the success of the previous Start treaties and leads to significantly greater arms reductions — including reductions in tactical nuclear weapons and reductions that require weapons be dismantled and not simply put in reserve.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/opinion/11shultz.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

Obama Meets With a Parade of Leaders

By DAVID E. SANGER
Published: April 11, 2010

WASHINGTON — President Obama met on Sunday with the leaders of two countries that gave up nuclear weapons and two that are building more, and he prepared for his nuclear security summit meeting by warning that Al Qaeda was still seeking materials to build an atomic bomb.

“The single biggest threat to U.S. security, both short-term, medium-term and long-term, would be the possibility of a terrorist organization obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Mr. Obama said.

Al Qaeda, he said, is “trying to secure a nuclear weapon — a weapon of mass destruction that they have no compunction at using.”

Mr. Obama greeted the presidents of South Africa and Kazakhstan, Jacob Zuma and Nursultan Nazarbayev, in sessions meant to showcase countries that once possessed nuclear weapons and relinquished them. Mr. Obama has argued that the security of both countries improved thereafter.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/world/12prexy.html?fta=y

Leaders Gather for Nuclear Talks as New Threat Is Seen

By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD

Published: April 11, 2010

WASHINGTON — Three months ago, American intelligence officials examining satellite photographs of Pakistani nuclear facilities saw the first wisps of steam from the cooling towers of a new nuclear reactor. It was one of three plants being constructed to make fuel for a second generation of nuclear arms.

The message of those photos was clear: While Pakistan struggles to make sure its weapons and nuclear labs are not vulnerable to attack by Al Qaeda, the country is getting ready to greatly expand its production of weapons-grade fuel.

The Pakistanis insist that they have no choice. A nuclear deal that Indiasigned with the United States during the Bush administration ended a long moratorium on providing India with the fuel and technology for desperately needed nuclear power plants.

Now, as critics of the arrangement point out, the agreement frees up older facilities that India can devote to making its own new generation of weapons, escalating one arms race even as President Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia sign accords to shrink arsenals built during the cold war.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/world/12nuke.html?th&emc=th

OP-ED CONTRIBUTORS How to Build on the Start Treaty

By WILLIAM J. PERRY and GEORGE P. SHULTZ

Published: April 10, 2010

THIS has been a remarkable time for the Obama administration. After a year of intense internal debate, it issued a new nuclear strategy. And after a year of intense negotiations with the Russians, President Obama signed the New Start treaty with President Dmitri Medvedev in Prague. On Monday, the president will host the leaders of more than 40 nations in a nuclear security summit meeting whose goal is to find ways of gaining control of the loose fissile material around the globe.

New Start is the first tangible product of the administration’s promise to “press the reset button” on United States-Russian relations. The new treaty is welcome. But as a disarmament measure, it is a modest step, entailing a reduction of only 30 percent from the former limit — and some of that reduction is accomplished by the way the warheads are counted, not by their destruction. Perhaps the treaty’s greatest accomplishment is that the negotiations leading up to its signing re-engaged Americans and Russians in a serious discussion of how to reduce nuclear dangers.

So what should come next?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/11/opinion/11shultz.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

U.S. and Russia Sign Nuclear Arms Pact

Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia signing the treaty in Prague on Thursday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/world/europe/09prexy.html?ref=global-home

PRAGUE — With flourish and fanfare, President Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia signed a nuclear arms control treaty on Thursday and opened what they hoped would be a new era in the tumultuous relationship between two former cold war adversaries.

Meeting here in the heart of a once-divided Europe, the two leaders put aside the acrimony that has characterized Russian-American ties in recent years as they agreed to bring down their arsenals and restore an inspection regime that expired in December. Along the way, they sidestepped unresolved disputes over missile defense and other issues.

“When the United States and Russia are not able to work together on big issues, it is not good for either of our nations, nor is it good for the world,” Mr. Obama said as his words echoed through a majestic, gilded hall in the famed Prague Castle. “Together, we have stopped the drift, and proven the benefits of cooperation. Today is an important milestone for nuclear security and nonproliferation, and for U.S.-Russia relations.”

With Arms Pact, Disarmament Challenge Remains

PRAGUE — President Obama came to this medieval city last spring to lay out an audacious vision of “a world without nuclear weapons.” A year later, he will arrive back here on Thursday to sign a treaty with Russia that envisions a world with thousands of nuclear weapons.

Under the so-called New Start treaty, the two powers will pare their arsenals but still deploy 1,550 warheads each, on top of thousands of others not covered by the pact. All of which raises this question: Nearly two decades after the end of the cold war, with terrorists, rather than Soviet despots, the main threat, why does the world still need so many weapons?

By PETER BAKER

Published: April 7, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/world/europe/08arms.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

With Arms Pact, Disarmament Challenge Remains

by PETER BAKER

Published: April 7, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/08/world/europe/08arms.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

PRAGUE — President Obama came to this medieval city last spring to lay out an audacious vision of “a world without nuclear weapons.” A year later, he arrives back here on Thursday to sign a treaty with Russia that envisions a world with thousands of nuclear weapons.

Under the so-called New Start treaty, the two powers will pare their arsenals but still deploy 1,550 warheads each, on top of thousands of others not covered by the pact. All of which raises this question: Nearly two decades after the end of the cold war, with terrorists, rather than Soviet despots, the main threat, why does the world still need so many weapons?