Early Wins at the Nuclear Security Summit

We are happy to serve you a daily summary of the day's top nuclear policy stories each morning, with excerpts from the stories in bullet form.

Stories we're following today:

Obama's Nuclear Summit Yields Early Dividends - AP [link]

• President Barack Obama's nuclear summit has paid early dividends: China's agreement to work with the U.S. on possible sanctions against Iran and Ukraine's decision to rid itself of nuclear bomb-making materials.
• Obama opened the global security summit Monday night after two days of meetings with selected presidents and prime ministers of the 47 countries assembled to recharge efforts to keep nuclear material out of terrorist hands. It ends Tuesday with a joint declaration to guide future work toward locking away and cleansing the globe of materials still too easily accessible to terrorists.

Obama Endorses Work of Nuclear Experts Group - Fissile Materials Working Group [link]

• President Barack Obama today endorsed the work of the Fissile Materials Working Group (FMWG), a coalition of more than 40 leading experts and NGOs in nuclear security and nonproliferation, for its insights and efforts to educate the public about the importance of securing all nuclear materials worldwide.
• “As we work to secure all nuclear materials from theft and diversion, we will need your expertise,” Obama wrote. “Your insights will make a crucial difference in global efforts to educate others about the threat nuclear weapons pose and our response to that threat; in securing all nuclear materials through additional domestic and international measures; and in stopping cross-border trafficking in illicit materials and technology.”
• To read President Obama's Letter to participants in the "Next Generation Nuclear Security: Meeting the Global Challenge," please click here.
• Note: Ploughshares Fund is a supporter of the Fissile Materials Working Group (FMWG), and many members of the FMWG are Ploughshares Fund grantees.

Will Obama End the Nuclear Era? - Joe Cirincione in the Daily Beast [link]

• This week, heads of state fly from Beijing, Moscow, London, Brasilia, Islamabad, Ankara, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo, and dozens of other capitals for the largest summit of world leaders called for by a president since the founding of the United Nations. Why?
• The short answer is to stop nuclear terrorism.
• The process, and the momentum it creates, may move us from the Dr. Strangelove world of massive, mutual annihilation to the Dr. Einstein world where nuclear weapons have finally changed everything—including our way of thinking.
• This is a fight that many administration political advisers are beginning to see as a winning issue for the president. Republicans will have to decide whether to join in the effort and share in the win or play the nuclear Neanderthals, frozen in a previous age.

Debating Obama's New Nuclear Doctrine - Wall Street Journal [link]

• WSJ Editor's Note: Last week, the Obama administration began to unveil its new nuclear strategy. We asked six former U.S. foreign policy officials to reflect on the administration's Nuclear Posture Review, the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Russia, and whether Mr. Obama's emerging nuclear doctrine is a move in the right direction.
• From Reagan to Obama - George Shultz: 
  • President Barack Obama shares President Ronald Reagan's desire to rid the world of nuclear weapons. He also shares Reagan's conviction that as long as nuclear weapons exist, the United States must maintain its deterrent capability through a stockpile of nuclear weapons that are secure, safe and reliable.
  • Last week saw two major and related developments: the release of a Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia.
  • The treaty helps move our relationship with Russia in a more constructive direction, and it sets the stage for work with other nations in getting the nuclear threat under control. The NPR is especially interesting in its broad invitation to other countries to work with the United States on strategic issues, and in its recognition of the importance of addressing regional disputes.
• The Goal Remains Nuclear 'Zero' - Richard Burt
  • The Obama administration's nuclear posture review, together with the new START treaty with Russia, will strengthen American security and reinforce the nation's global leadership. 
  • Each of these initiatives (along with this week's nuclear security summit) are modest and incremental steps toward reducing the nuclear threat. But taken together, their impact could be transformational, spurring a shift in American nuclear strategy from an outmoded Cold War focus on deterring a Russian-American nuclear conflict to a 21st century emphasis on curbing nuclear proliferation and terrorism.

40 Influential European Figures Issue Unprecedented Statement on Nuclear Dangers to Coincide with the Washington Summit - Top Level Group and Royal United Services Institute [link]

• Today 40 senior politicians, military figures and diplomats have jointly signed an unprecedented European statement highlighting the world’s growing nuclear dangers and calling for greater international efforts to address them. The group, composed of former Prime Ministers, Defence Ministers, Foreign Ministers and other senior political and military figures, represents the first coordinated pan-European intervention in the debate on how to promote the vision of a world without nuclear weapons.
• The statement:
  • Applauds US and Russian efforts in negotiating and signing a follow on treaty to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty but;
  • calls for a re-think of the security relationship between the US, Europe and Russia;
  • Stresses the need for practical measures on nuclear security to put in place to ensure that all such weapons and materials can be made secure within 4 years;
  • Asserts the need for more radical disarmament initiatives that encompass both strategic and tactical nuclear weapons, as well as the need to address conventional force imbalances;
  • Asserts that the NPT must be reinvigorated, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty ratified by those countries that have still not done so, including the US - and urges the signing of a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty.
  • Calls for a credible process to be in place, by the end of the NPT Review Conference, to negotiate a weapons of mass destruction free zone in the Middle East, and;
  • Touches on areas where Europeans themselves can make a more valuable contribution to progress.