The P-5 Recommit to a Nuclear Weapon-Free Middle East

U.S. and Other Big Powers Back Mideast Nuclear Arms Ban - Reuters [link]

• "We are committed to a full implementation of the 1995 NPT resolution on the Middle East and we support all ongoing efforts to this end," the five permanent U.N. Security Council members said in a statement issued at a conference taking stock of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
• The 1995 resolution adopted by signatories of the landmark arms control treaty called for making the Middle East a zone without nuclear arms.
• U.S. support for the idea of creating such a zone in the future could be unwelcome to Israel, which has said it can only consider it once there is Middle East peace.
• The United States and Russia, with the support of the other three countries allowed to keep nuclear weapons under the NPT, are negotiating with Egypt to come up with an acceptable compromise proposal, Western diplomats say.

IAEA Chief Yukiya Amano Launches New Push for Answers from Iran - Washington Post [link]

• The chief U.N. nuclear official said Wednesday he is launching a new effort to resolve questions about alleged atomic weapons research by Iranian scientists, hinting at a firmer stance by the U.N. watchdog agency in seeking answers from Iran about its nuclear intentions.
• Yukiya Amano, who became director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in December, said he is also pressing Iran for more robust monitoring of a nuclear facility that began producing a higher grade of enriched uranium this year.
• "What we want to do is to sit down with our Iranian partners and jointly clarify these activities," said Amano, who is in New York to attend a nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference. "If the concerns are removed, that will be very nice. If not, we need to ask for measures to remedy the situation."
• Longtime observers of the IAEA have credited Amano with taking a harder line toward Iran and other countries accused of failing to comply with commitments under the 189-nation Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Advancing Europe's Security - Vice President Joe Biden in The International Herald Tribune [link]

• This week I will sit down with NATO ambassadors to advance the ongoing dialogue among the United States and its closest allies on the future of European security.
• we need to work together to broaden our commitments to reciprocal transparency about all our military forces, including both conventional and nuclear forces, and other defensive assets in Europe, including missile defenses. Our hope is to do this with Russia. We no longer see Europe in zero-sum, Cold War terms.
• The New START treaty demonstrates that trust and certainty are best built by increasing the exchange of information about our doctrine, forces and intentions.
• There is still much to do as we seek a fully democratic, secure, peaceful and prosperous Europe. With these principles, we can reinvigorate and guarantee European security for a new era.

Disclosure of Nuclear Numbers Reveals High Accuracy of Unauthorized Tracking - Associated Press [link]

• Shortly after nuclear weapons sleuths Tom Cochran and Bill Arkin published their unauthorized estimate of the size of the U.S. arsenal in 1984, they got a call from alarmed U.S. officials.
• "They called us over and wanted to know where we got the numbers," Cochran recalls of a time when almost everything about history's deadliest weapon -- including how many the United States possessed -- was classified secret. It was a culture of secrecy born during the Cold War out of a belief that nuclear candor could be dangerous.
• America's official nuclear silence ended Monday when the Obama administration not only disclosed the number of U.S. nuclear weapons available for use in wartime -- 5,113 as of Sept. 30 -- but surprised many by also publishing weapons totals for each year dating to 1962.
• "We were pretty close all along -- sometimes right on the button," said Robert S. Norris, another of the nuclear number detectives.

Is a World Without Nuclear Weapons Really Possible? - Michael O'Hanlon for the Brookings Institution [link]

• Ideas about eliminating the bomb are as old as the bomb itself.
• The current [Global Zero] movement is notable in that it has a serious strategy for moving forward—not at some distant time when miraculous new inventions might make nukes obsolete, but by later this decade, even if it would take at least another decade to put a treaty into effect.
• There's no time like the present, right? After all, eliminating nuclear weapons from the face of the earth has technically been a goal of United States policy since the 1960s.
• I argue for a middle ground. Moving to nuclear zero at a set date in the near future is too fast. But dropping the subject for now and waiting for the 22nd century is too slow.
• With all the caveats and conditions, is a nuclear-disarmament treaty worth the trouble? Yes, because of the danger posed by nuclear weapons, on the one hand, and the positive power of ideas and ideals in international politics on the other.

An Inconvenient Nuke: Interview with Jeff Skoll and Lawrence Bender on Countdown to Zero - Boing Boing [link]

• Readers who survived the eighties will remember how deeply the fear of nuclear destruction was embedded in popular culture of the time. We danced to hit songs about atomic ennui, we poked fun at "duck and cover" and bomb shelter blueprints, we believed ourselves less naïve than our parents' generation. But we knew we were no less safe from The Bomb. When the Cold War ended, a new era of nuclear threat emerged.
• "Countdown to Zero", a documentary from the team behind "The Cove" and "An Inconvenient Truth," speaks to that threat, and to a younger generation largely unaware of its existence. After viewing the film in Los Angeles, I caught up with producer Lawrence Bender and executive producer Jeff Skoll.
• JEFF SKOLL: When I started Participant Productionssix years ago, the idea was to tell powerful and important stories that would engage audiences and make a difference. One of those issues was nuclear weapons.
• LAWRENCE BENDER: We didn't make the movie because we believe this is the end of the world. We made it because we believe we can prevent the end of the world from happening. The information is scary. Every time we screen the movie and there are young people in the audience and they say, "Whoah, I had no idea"—when you see the 18-22 year olds talk, the effect is staggering. They say "I feel so bad, I had no idea," but the other part of what they say is, "What can I do."
• Note: Watch the trailer for Countdown to Zero here.