A Rediscovered Dimension of Nonproliferation

Courtesy of Kernkraftwerk Gösgen-Däniken AG, www.commons.wikimedia.org

Reported in the Financial Times this morning, President Obama has announced his intention to “host a summit in Washington next year aimed at combating the illegal trade in fissile material.” This comes immediately after the recently agreed-upon accord between the U.S. and Russia to initiate drastic cuts in their nuclear arsenals in what will become the follow-on treaty to START, which expires in December.

Gary Samore, Obama’s nonproliferation advisor, pointing to the threat posed by the potential for nuclear terrorism, said that

The more that nuclear power spreads around the world, the more important it is that we have adequate protections over nuclear materials.

Clearly, President Obama, using this week’s meetings with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, is wasting no time embarking on his ambitious agenda to stem nuclear proliferation and work towards Global Zero.

This summit, when it occurs, will certainly resurrect a number of proposals from decades past - notably, calls for a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) and an international fuel bank. The idea of a FMCT, proposed by Clinton in the early 1990s, has struggled to get its feet off the ground - and it is highly likely that Japan, a leading supporter of a FMCT (see Japanese draft of proposed treaty here) would seek to create a linkage between trade in weapons-grade material and the broader need to ban its production. Furthermore, this could also be tied to the need for an international fuel bank - perhaps similar to Eisenhower’s proposed “Atoms for Peace” - an idea embraced by the Obama administration.

Ultimately, should this summit occur, although the stated purpose may be to combat the illegal trade in fissile material, it very well could end up addressing a broader range of options to promote the nonproliferation regime - options that typically have taken a backseat to outright arms control and weapons production.