Financial Times Endorses Moving to Zero

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Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today: Thursday, June 23, 2011.

The Road to Zero - Financial Times [link]

  • Two developments are inching the world towards a nuclear tipping point. The first is the Iranian nuclear programme … The second is terrorists’ efforts to acquire fissile material.
  • To head off such threats, nuclear- armed states need to start shedding weapons … As argued by Global Zero, an anti-nuclear group hosting a conference on disarmament in London this week, what is needed is a more aggressively multilateral approach.
  • But even with multilateral involvement, significant cuts in nuclear arsenals will be very hard to achieve.
  • That does not mean multilateral reductions targets are useless. Any cut in the number of nuclear weapons is worthwhile. And by shrinking their arsenals, nuclear powers can encourage their non-nuclear cousins not to seek such weapons themselves.
  • Global Zero’s plan has shown the direction to be travelled; the world’s leaders must now start moving.

Russia and US can make cuts under New START in 2 Yrs, Expert - ITAR-TASS [link]

  • “Information on strategic nuclear weapons in Russia and the U.S. recently published in the open press indicates that with the political will Moscow and Washington can reach the reduction parameters for deployed nuclear weapons prescribed by the Prague agreement of 2010 in a year or two at the latest,” Yesin said at the opening of a two-day forum under the Global Zero international initiative in London.
  • In his opinion, the progress reached by the two countries should prompt other countries, including Britain, France and China, to step up their activities in this respect.

Preventing a Nuclear North Korea - Leon Sigal in The National Interest [link]

  • If engagement with North Korea has been difficult over the past two decades, disengagement has been disastrous.
  • The Obama administration’s...posture of “strategic patience” left its North Korea policy hostage to Seoul, which was doing its utmost to impede negotiations.
  • Pyongyang is ready to negotiate with Seoul to ship out the fuel rods needed to restart its nuclear reactor in return for energy aid. It seems willing to abide by a moratorium on missile tests, and possibly nuclear tests, once talks with Washington resume. And it has said it will negotiate on suspending its uranium enrichment.
  • What are Washington and Seoul waiting for?

Inside the Ring: No early-intercept defense - Bill Gertz in The Washington Times [link]

  • A forthcoming study by the Pentagon's Defense Science Board concludes that an Obama administration plan to shoot down long-range Iranian missiles shortly after launch will not work.
  • “The report’s unclassified conclusion is that [Missile Defense Agency] plans to achieve an early intercept capability as part of the Phased-Adaptive Approach are simply not credible,” Mr. Shelby said June 15.T
  • Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at the hearing of the early-intercept program that “the whole issue of boost-phase intercept is an extraordinarily difficult technical challenge...And at least if someone’s broken through on that, I haven’t seen that,” Adm. Mullen said.

The Radicalization of Pakistan’s Military - Fareed Zakaria in The Washington Post [link]

  • [The Pakistani] military is undergoing a deep internal crisis of identity, its most serious since Pakistan’s founding in 1947. How it resolves this crisis will determine its future, the future of the Afghan war — and much else.
  • The United States is replacing India as the organizing principle around which Pakistan’s military understands its national security interests. If this happens, not only is the Afghan war lost but Pakistan itself is also lost.
  • Pakistan is drifting into a strategic black hole. Does the country really think its best path forward is as an adversary of the United States, currying favor with militants and becoming a vassal of China?
  • Or does it want to crush the jihadist movements that are destroying the country, join the global economy, reform its society and become a real democracy?

PM Calls for Dialogue for Nuclear-Free World - IANS [link]

  • "Measures to reduce nuclear dangers arising from accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons, increasing restraints on the use of nuclear weapons and de-alerting of nuclear weapons are essential steps", [said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in a message to the Global Zero Summit in London].
  • "The goal of nuclear disarmament can be achieved by a step-by-step process underwritten by a universal commitment and an agreed multilateral framework that is global and non-discriminatory. Progressive steps are needed for the de-legitimization of nuclear weapons," Singh said in his message.