The world is at a tipping point concerning nuclear weapons and energy, poised either to inch toward world disarmament or stumble into a world rife with nuclear nations, according to expert panelists at an event to mark the 20th anniversary of the Center for International Trade and Security.
“The world has changed, but the values we live by have not caught up,” said Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and winner of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. “We have not come to realize that we can only work together through global action. We succeed together and we fail together.”
ElBaradei was joined by other prominent policy shapers and advisers at “Opportunities and Challenges: Nuclear Resistance, Disarmament, Terrorism and Proliferation,” moderated by Gary Bertsch, director of CITS, which is housed in the School of Public and International Affairs. ElBaradei’s opening remarks set the tone for the discussion, which centered on how the U.S. can and should re-think its nuclear policies.
“In the last 30 years, we’ve lived in an environment that says we (the U.S. and other nuclear states) are to be trusted with nuclear weapons, but that is changing now,” ElBaradei said. “Now we must understand that if we are going to keep our weapons, (other states) must also get to have them.”
Panelists did not always agree on the proper course of action in confronting problems such as Russia’s stockpile of nuclear arms, Iran’s uranium enrichment program and North Korea’s threatening postures.
Asked about how he views the current situation, U.S. Army Gen. Eugene Habiger, former commander in chief of all U.S. nuclear forces, said he was cautiously optimistic about the state of nuclear weapons because of the stance the Obama administration has taken.
“I look at it as the glass being half full. Since the Cold World a number of countries—Ukraine, Belarus, South Africaand Libya—have disarmed,” he said. “I believe that we will never get (to total disarmament). You can’t put the genie back in the bottle. But I think it’s very, very important to keep working toward that goal.”
Joseph Cirincione, president of the pro-disarmament Ploughshares Fund, warned that the U.S. cannot afford a strictly outside-looking policy, saying that it’s essential to keep an eye trained on the 37,000 nuclear weapons already in existence.
“Last month, two British nuclear armed subs crashed into each other in the Atlantic Ocean… .Last year we (the U.S.) lost track of six nuclear weapons. Nobody knew where they were,” he said. “They went through seven safety checks, every one designed to stop that from happening, but it happened.
“We’re not just talking about bombs out there,” he added. “We’re also talking about bombs here.”
Igor Khripunov, associate director of CITS and a former Gorbachev adviser and Russian arms control expert, rounded out the panel.
He expressed a less-than-optimistic view about U.S. and Russian disarmament, but noted that there is a precedent for hope.
“The situation is so overloaded with issues of the past that it’s very difficult to move forward…But is it possible? We have a precedent,” he said. “When Gorbachev met with Margaret Thatcher (in 1984), the next day Thatcher announced that Gorbachev is a reasonable person who we can deal with. And one year later we had the first ever meeting of Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan.”
