The Crowded Nuclear Plate

The nuclear press today contains a couple of very ambitious pieces. Outgoing IAEA Head Mohamed ElBaradei wrote an op-ed in the IHT that lays out both a list of seven specific actions to be taken with respect to nuclear weapons (CTBT, START, FMCT, De-alerting, Multinational Fuel Bank, massively increased IAEA authority and capability) and an additional list of three fundamental changes to be made (reduce poverty, deal with "festering conflicts," a new multinational "system of security") in order to increase peace.  The first seven alone will be a very difficult agenda to achieve before even getting to the very broad and extremely complex latter set of issues to tackle.  GSN's article from today contains a similar list of nuclear priorities that includes, "the prevention of nuclear terrorism; negotiation of significant cuts in the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia; taking all U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger status, which enables them to be fired within 15 minutes; ratification of the treaty banning all nuclear test blasts; and a halt to development and production of new nuclear weapons" and "he agreed to campaign toward the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons." While many of these are likely valuable policies, it is important to maintain a sense of pragmatism about the timetables and feasibility for this entire agenda to get accomplished.  There will be strong political battles to get CTBT ratified in the US (not to mention getting the rest of Annex II holdouts to sign) and a START follow-on will also be politically very tough in the Congress and the Duma.  Other ideas, like a multinational fuel center and massive new IAEA capabilities for helping reduce worldwide arsenals are complex ideas that require hammering out a number of specific details before they can come to fruition.