The moderator for the panel discussion was Philip Taubman, who worked at the New York Times as a reporter and editor, specializing in national security issues, including defense policies. Mr. Taubman brought an interesting perspective to the panel discussion, when he noted that such “Cold War worriers” as George Shultz and William Perry set aside their past concerns and party interests to promote nuclear disarmament from a nonpartisan perspective.

George Shultz highlighted several goals for the United States as a leading nation in reducing the global nuclear weapons stockpile. Among those goals: ratification of CTBT and START, haulting production of HEU and PU at the global level, and nuclear materials security. Dr. Sidney Drell, Head of SLAC, agreed with Shultz especially on the CTBT ratification, explaining that from the technical standpoint the ban on testing nuclear weapons will be beneficial to the United Sates national security and not the opposite. Dr. Drell, expert in nuclear phisics and nuclear weapons, further noted that the international monitoring system and the US technological capabilities make it impossible for other contries to conduct a secret nuclear test without being noticed. Therefore, there is a way to control nuclear testing and prevent other countries develop such technologies unnoticed. CTBT calls for ban on any nuclear weapon testing, which naturally leads to haulting nuclear weapons production.

Tyler Wigg Stevenson, the founding director of the Two Futures Project, and Edmund Rennolds, the CTNT President, elaborated on concrete steps toward creating the nessesary nonpartisan consesnus and strategy for engaging business community to address nuclear security and nuclear disarmament.

The breifing of this sort is one of the first of its kind in the Bay Area. The attending business leaders were shocked, intrigued and interested in purusing the steps needed to help promote nuclear weapons reduction and strengthening nuclear nonproliferation. About 30-40% of the Silicon Valley companies are young professionals in their 30s, for whom fear of «nuclear exchange» and devastating Cold War reality is a text in a history book. One of the main outcomes of the meeting was a decision and agreement to focuse efforts on educating younger generations via viral message.

The NPT is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to further the goal of achieving nuclear disarmament and general and complete disarmament. The NPT represents the only binding commitment in a multilateral treaty to the goal of disarmament by the nuclear-weapon States.

The Center for Nonproliferation Studies of the Monterey Institute have produced a very useful resource on everything one needs to know about the NPT (Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty). To read the full text or download a pdf file, please click here.

President Barack Obama’s large fiscal 2011 budget proposal for nuclear arsenal monitoring would eliminate the need for additional nuclear tests, Biden is expected to say. He is also expected to urge left-leaning arms control supporters to not object to a proposed $624 million budget increase for nuclear weapons as the majority of that money would be spent on oversight of the U.S. stockpile.

The United States has not carried out a nuclear test in nearly 20 years. Biden is set to argue that the improving U.S. ability to scientifically assure a safe and operational stockpile illustrates that tests blasts previously used for that purpose are no longer needed, White House officials said.

The United Nations adopted the treaty in 1996. The pact, however, must be ratified by the United States and eight other nations before entering into force. It needs 67 votes to be ratified in the Senate, which previously rejected the treaty in 1998.

Further details of the speech, to be given at the National Defense University in Washington, were not available at press time.

The Obama administration hopes that movement forward on CTBT ratification could show other nations at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference in May that the United States is meeting its disarmament pledges and to drive home the point that nations such as Iran should adhere to their promises not to develop nuclear arms (see GSN , Feb. 3).

The White House must have support from some Republicans to succeed in its ratification drive. However, Senator Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), a leading voice on nuclear issues in the Senate, has tied CTBT ratification to approval of a U.S.-Russian replacement agreement for the now-expired 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (see GSN, Feb. 12).

“The focus should be on getting the START treaty signed and ratified, building some arms-control confidence, then perhaps reviewing (the test ban treaty) at a later date,” said one of Lugar’s advisers, Andy Fisher. “The safety of our weapons is still in question without testing.”

Biden is also anticipated to advocate for increased funding to improve the nation’s nuclear-weapon facilities.

“We don’t have the luxury of doing just one thing at a time,” said nonproliferation expert Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund. “These problems are so serious, you’ve got to move them at several levels all at once” (Jonathan Weisman, Wall Street Journal, Feb. 18).

Source of this article: Global Security Newswire

The letter (attached), which was also delivered by a delegation of Japanese legislators to the US ambassador to Japan John V. Roos, supports the US objective to achieve a world without nuclear weapons as outlined in Obama’s April 2009 Prague speech, encourages the US and Russia to conclude negotiations on stockpile reductions, and calls on the US to adopt as a first step a ’sole purpose’ policy, i.e. that U.S. nuclear weapons would only be for deterrence against the threat or use of nuclear weapons from other nuclear-armed States. This would include assurances that nuclear weapons would not be threatened or used against non-nuclear States. The letter also asserts that Japan will not seek the road toward possession of nuclear weapons if the U.S. adopts such a policy.

Endorsers of the letter include leading members of all political parties such as Yoriko Kawaguchi (LDP – Co-chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament and a former Foreign Minister), Taro Kono (LDP – Former Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee), Senator Tadashi Inuzuka (DPJ from Nagasaki), Mizuho Fukushima (SDP) and Masao Akamatsu (Komei-to).

On February 9, Japanese Prime Minister Hatoyama commented favourably in the Diet (Japanese Parliament) on Hiraoka’s initiative, indicating that it was in accordance with his government’s commitment to maintaining the Japanese three non-nuclear principles and his support for nuclear disarmament.

In addition, Hiraoka’s initiative reinforces some of the key ideas in a letter sent by Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada (also a PNND member) to Hillary Clinton in December 2009. In the letter (attached below) Okada reaffirmed the importance of the Japan-US Security Treaty which includes extended nuclear deterrence, but distanced himself from aspects of the previous Japanese administration’s nuclear policy.

In particular, Okada expressed concerns that Japanese officials may have lobbied the US not to reduce its nuclear arsenal – a position which “would clearly be at variance with my views, which are in favor of nuclear disarmament” (unofficial English translation) . Okada’s letter also supported the idea that the role of nuclear weapons be restricted to deterrence of the use of nuclear weapons, and that the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon state members of the NPT be banned.

The Atlanta Consultation III

The purpose of the Atlanta Consultation III was to find consensus on the agenda priorities for the upcoming review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which will take place at the United Nations headquarters in New York City in May 2010.

President Jimmy Carter was a keynote speaker. Other notable addresses were presented by the Honorable Greta Evans (Australia), Ambassador Libran Cabactulan (Philippines) the 2010 NPT Review Conference President, and the Honorable Sergio Duarte, Chairman of the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs. All urged an NPT action plan that is “doable and aggressive” and one that will lead to the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

The Global Security Institute organized and ran the consultations, as it did in 2000 and 2005, but this year consultation was markedly different in its optimism for new advances and consensus amongst the global community lead by the United States on the need to cut nuclear weapon stockpiles worldwide and strengthen nuclear nonproliferation.

The Fund for Peace Initiatives was invited to participate in the consultation as a guest non-governmental organization, and was represented by Mr. Les DeWitt.

For more information please contact mpi-ny@gsinstitute.org or visit http://www.gsinstitute.org/