Will "Global Zero" Make Progress at the UN?

On September 24, the UN is going to hold a special session, chaired by President Obama, to discuss global disarmament and non-proliferation. More people have been talking about ways to reduce the role of nuclear weapons since Obama's Prague speech, and the administration is looking to build even more momentum. According to a recent Washington Post article, the US is hoping to pursue a general nonproliferation and disarmament agenda without focusing on individual countries:

While the U.S. is concerned about the nuclear ambitions of North Korea and Iran, the special U.N. session to be chaired by President Barack Obama later this month will seek broad consensus on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons rather than zeroing in on individual nations.
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice said Wednesday that "the session will focus on nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament broadly, and not on any particular countries."

Others say that Obama will probably include some more specific commitments:

Berrigan of the New America Foundation said she expects President Obama to champion the modest cuts that the U.S. and Russia have agreed upon so far; call for greater cooperation from other Security Council members; reach out in qualified ways to Iran and North Korea; and elaborate on how the work towards nuclear disarmament is not just sensible and overdue, but also contributes to U.S. national security.
"All of this work is worthy of the spotlight, but will need a lot of follow-up in order to be meaningful in its own right," Berrigan said.
Everything cannot be achieved in a single meeting, but even in the realm of symbolism, this is an important shift towards engagement and away from the former Bush Administration’s disdainful treatment of the U.N., said Berrigan, who is also a columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus.
Peter Weiss, president of the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy (LCNP), told IPS: "Here’s what I think Obama will do: announce the U.S. support of the renewal of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START); ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT); and negotiation of the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT)."

However, most of these commitments are nothing new. Obama has already outlined those priorities in his Prague speech. So, what is Obama looking to accomplish? Presumably, he's looking to increase goodwill and demonstrate his commitment to the nonproliferation agenda. The best outcome for the meeting would be a resolution expressing commitment to move closer to disarmament. It's clear that any benefits would be largely symbolic. However, after the UN was largely ignored for the 8 years of the Bush administration, it could be an important symbolic step. UN meetings are generally attended by diplomats, not world leaders, and the September 24th meeting will be the first ever chaired by a US president.

But, is increased goodwill really going to make a difference? After all, the Obama administration has said that the US already has a lot of credibility on nonproliferation because of the Prague speech:

The White House says it already has achieved goodwill because other countries have seen that the U.S. is committed to reducing the world's nuclear weapons.
"We have heard from many countries that President Obama's ambitious nuclear agenda and multilateral approach have created a very positive international climate and goodwill for strengthening global nonproliferation efforts and advancing arms control," Hammer said.

And, if there's anything holding back our credibility, it's that while Obama has been talking a big game, the US hasn't made any concrete commitments:

There is little indication Obama will have the votes he needs for a cornerstone of his nonproliferation efforts: Senate ratification of a nuclear test ban treaty. If Obama can't get the treaty approved, he probably will have a hard time persuading the rest of the world to rein in nuclear weapon programs.
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, an advocacy group based in Washington, said the Obama administration needs to "work faster and harder" to build support in the Senate.
The absence of progress comes as a backdrop to the special U.N. session to be chaired by Obama later this month. The summit Sept. 24 on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly's annual ministerial session will seek broad consensus on preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

the article continues,

Many countries see ratification of the treaty as a test of U.S. commitment to phase out nuclear weapons.
If the Senate doesn't ratify it, Obama could have difficulty persuading countries to support other goals, such as strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, at a review conference in May. The administration also wants a treaty to prohibit further production of weapons-grade nuclear material.

Still, if the administration can marginally increase our nonproliferation credibility and increase momentum for global zero, it might be worth it. But it's not clear that will happen. There are a number of potential stumbling blocks at the meeting.

First, according to Anne Bayefsky, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, the specific language of the agenda will likely be exploited:

Unfortunately, however, the move represents one of the most dangerous diplomatic ploys this country has ever seen… “The session will be focused on nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament broadly, and not on any specific countries.”
This seemingly innocuous language has two profoundly disturbing features. First, UN documents indicate that the Security Council is currently dealing with over 100 issues. While “non-proliferation” is mentioned, “disarmament” is not. Similarly, a UN Secretariat compilation “forecasting the Council’s program of work” for the month of September — based on prior activities and requests — lists non-proliferation specifically in relation to Iran and North Korea and does not list disarmament. But in light of Obama’s wishes, a tailor-made subheading will likely be adopted under the existing entry “maintenance of international peace and security.” The new item will insist on simultaneous consideration of nuclear non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament and make no mention of particular states.
This is no trivial technicality. The linguistic formula, which Obama’s confrere Qaddafi will undoubtedly exploit, shamelessly panders to Arab and Muslim states. It is a familiar recipe for stonewalling efforts to prevent Iran or other Muslim and Arab states from acquiring nuclear weapons until Israel is disarmed or Israel’s (unofficial) nuclear capacity is exposed and neutralized. It is also a frequent tool of those whose real goal is to stymie America’s defenses.

Second, Bayefsky points out that it will be difficult to avoid discussions of Iran and North Korea:

At Ambassador Rice’s news briefing, she gave “an overview of the principal important meetings” to be held in September on her watch. After finishing the list of subjects without mentioning Iran or North Korea, she added: “So those are the highlights. We also have . . . three sanctions regimes that are up for regular review, chaired by the heads of the sanctions committees. We have Sudan, Iran and North Korea, and these are, I expect, likely to be uneventful and routine considerations of these various regimes.”
Even hard-boiled UN correspondents were surprised. Rice was asked to explain how the recent capture by the United Arab Emirates of containers of ammunition en route to Iran from North Korea could be construed as “uneventful and routine.” Her answer highlights the administration’s delinquency: “We are simply receiving . . . a regularly scheduled update. . . . This is not an opportunity to review or revisit the nature of either of those regimes.”

As a result, bickering could emerge between states that support Iran's right to develop a nuclear program. But, even if Obama was able to avoid debates over Iran that could serve to embolden them in their pursuit of nuclear weapons, again according to Bayefsky:

Naming names, or identifying the actual threats to world peace, would evidently interfere with the spectacle of proclaiming affection for world peace in the abstract. The problem is that this feel-good experience will feel best of all to Iran, which has interpreted Obama’s penchant for form over substance to be a critical weakness. As a Tehran newspaper close to the regime snickered in July: “Their strategy consists of begging us to talk with them.”…Such a result would be breathtaking — for the audacity of claiming exactly the opposite of what it really represents. Even allied council members France and the United Kingdom are reported to be very unhappy with Obama’s no-names strategy for his September rollout.

Finally, even if there is a successful meeting that comes up with a resolution advocating disarmament, it won't be credible in the eyes of developing countries and non-nuclear states:

A similar session of the Security Council - on the maintenance of international peace and security - was held in Jan. 1992 presided over by then British Prime Minister John Major.
But that meeting "came out with a self-serving statement making proliferation of nuclear weapons a breach of international peace and security and therefore justifying Security Council action, thus absolving the five permanent members - all nuclear weapon states - of any blame for nuclear weapon possession," Jayantha Dhanapala, a former U.N. Under-Secretary- General for Disarmament Affairs, told IPS.
The Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Commission chaired by Hans Blix - on a suggestion by Dhanapala - had proposed a Global Summit on proliferation, disarmament and possible terrorist uses of WMD.
Dhanapala, one of the world’s foremost authorities on nuclear disarmament and currently president of Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, said the Security Council - as presently constituted - has a serious legitimacy deficit.
He said a credible Summit could only take place with the involvement of the 192-member General Assembly, and also the participation of those nuclear weapon states outside the Security Council.
"As importantly, the voices of civil society must be heard and so the Security Council must break with past practice and invite Nobel Peace Prize Laureates like Pugwash and others like Dr. Hans Blix to make presentations," he added.

With all the possible hurdles, it seems unlikely the US will be able to meaninigfully advance its nonproliferation agenda at the September 24th meeting. The discussion could easily be sidetracked, and the US can only gain so much credibility without taking concrete steps like ratifying the CTBT. While Obama's move is certainly bold, the potential reward doesn't match the risk.