13 September 2002
Text: Destabilizing Consequences of Weapons Proliferation Around Globe Cited
(U.S. non-proliferation official outlines U.S. initiatives) (2520)
A State Department non-proliferation expert says new weapons programs
and delivery systems in the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia pose
"real, destabilizing consequences."
The assistant secretary of state for non-proliferation says resulting
regional instabilities generate political, economic and social
consequences that ripple across the globe.
As an example, he pointed to the recurrent crises in South Asia as
posing risks that extend "well beyond the region."
He told a gathering of security experts at the Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute in Sweden on September 6 that stopping
proliferation "is the ultimate multilateral activity." The United
States, he said, is "the most active partner in multilateral regimes
designed to prevent dangerous goods and know-how from getting to
people with bad intentions."
Wolf pointed to four specific U.S. policy initiatives:
-- diminishing the sources of supply for rogue nation development
programs for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and missiles;
-- reducing the flow of sensitive technologies;
-- disrupting the efforts of proliferators in a more effective manner;
and
-- obtaining Russian assistance to curb the flow of WMD technology
from Russian entities to Iran.
Following is the text of Wolf's speech:
(begin text)
U.S. Approaches to Nonproliferation
John S. Wolf, Assistant Secretary for Nonproliferation
Monterey Institute
Stockholm, Sweden
September 6, 2002
It is a great pleasure to be your guest at this meeting of the
Monterey Nonproliferation Strategy Group. I want to extend particular
thanks to the Monterey Institute sponsors -- Bill Potter, Sandy
Spector, Amy Sands and Larry Scheinman -- for inviting me to
participate in this Strategy Group discussion. My thanks as well to
our SIPRI [Stockholm International Peace Research Institute] hosts, in
particular Ambassador Alyson Bailes, Ambassador Rolf Ekeus, and Dr.
Christer Ahlstrom, for their hospitality and generosity.
Sweden, through its institutions and its people, has a long history of
determined support for non-proliferation. Ambassador Ekeus, in his
chairmanship of the U.N. Special Commission is part of this tradition,
as are Hans Blix, and of course, Sweden s Ambassador to the United
States, Jan Eliasson.
The United States has for over a generation worked to halt the spread
of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missiles. For the
Bush administration, this is a fight that is a cardinal objective of
U.S. foreign and national security policy. Last September s terrorist
attacks in New York and Washington, followed by the anthrax attacks
the following month, dramatized the human dimension of these concerns.
The heart-rending impact of these terrible acts on the lives of so
many ordinary people has brought home what is at stake, for America
and the world, if WMD are allowed to spread further or if they were to
fall into terrorists hands.
In March of this year, President Bush stated:
"In preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, there is no
margin for error, and no chance to learn from mistakes. Our coalition
must act deliberately, but inaction is not an option."
I suppose it is natural at gatherings like this to pierce down into
the workings of the various treaties and regimes that so many of you
have worked to develop over a period of decades. And my country has
long been at the forefront of advocacy for many of these treaties, and
in most cases still is. But at the same time, we need to be aware that
there are a host of issues call it defiance of the norms and treaties
that pose real risks to the international community, and these
problems are growing.
The facts are indisputable. New weapons programs and their delivery
systems in the Middle East, South Asia and East Asia, have real,
destabilizing consequences. Regional instabilities generate global
ripples -- political, economic and social.
The ongoing air of confrontation and recurrent crisis in South Asia
for example, pose risks well beyond the region. Far from stabilizing
the situation or even strengthening individual nation's security,
nuclear weapons in South Asia have upped the ante in a way that places
millions of ordinary people in far greater danger than ever before.
South Asia is but one example of the dangers we must address. Other
WMD wannabees have drawn the conclusion that acquisition of WMD
weapons will enhance nations security. They re mistaken, and the world
is all the more dangerous for their mistake.
Our mission is clear: to prevent the spread of weapons of mass
destruction, missiles, and advanced conventional weapons. The
proliferation problem is becoming worse. The number of demanders is
up, there are more suppliers, due to increasing globalization, and the
distinction between buyers and sellers has blurred. Proliferators
links to terrorism open up a whole new dimension of concern.
President Bush spoke in his State of the Union address of an "axis of
evil". While these words may be harsh, the linkages are real. Iraq,
Iran and North Korea, by their continued hostility and their ties to
terrorists, pose a direct threat to the United States, its allies and
friends, and our deployed forces. North Korea continues to acquire
more sophisticated WMD and missile expertise, and is prepared to sell
missiles to any country that can buy them. And they have done so. Iran
continues its WMD and missile development with help from North Korea,
and entities in China and Russia. Iraq covertly diverts or smuggles in
technologies that are helping it to reconstitute its WMD and missile
capabilities, all in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions, and
with cynical indifference to the sufferings and deprivations of its
own people. And it is now evident that these countries, plus others
that have been covertly developing WMD and missiles, and importing
technology and components, may now be exporting those same elements to
others.
So the stakes are high and the challenges are great. But the news is
not all bad. Over the past year, we have some important achievements
to be proud of:
-- We achieved UN consensus for a new, more focused and credible
export control regime for Iraq, which balances the legitimate
humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people first, against firm guidelines
to help stop the sale of technologies to be used for military
purposes. But, looking ahead, the real issues of Iraq is just ahead
the international community can not continue to tolerate Iraq s
continuing defiance of successive UN resolutions, its continuing
efforts to acquire mass weapons, nor the threat all this poses to Iraq
s neighbors, its own people, and each one of us.
-- The G-8 has have laid the groundwork to pursue multilateral
arrangements to support Russia s program to dispose of 34 tons of
surplus weapons-grade plutonium, and we are building a new global
partnership that can greatly accelerate work in Russia, the former
Soviet Union and beyond to safeguard dangerous materials, destroy
chemical weapons stocks, and redirect the work of thousands of former
weapons scientist.
-- We secured a number of nations support, including that of Russian
and Indian agreement to expand export control cooperation with us.
-- The first NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] Revcon [Review
Conference] Prepcom [Preparatory Commission] went relatively smoothly,
but as Amb. Salander said there are a number of hurdles on the road to
2005 within the Revcon, but the really serious challenges come from
events outside the conference room.
-- We are pursuing an international effort to increase the IAEA
[International Atomic Energy Agency] budget for nuclear safeguards,
and we started the process of ratifying the U.S.-IAEA Additional
Protocol.
Within recent weeks, we have seen cooperative efforts between the
United States and other countries yield important results:
-- In partnership with Russia, the Yugoslav federal government, Serbia
and the IAEA, we have removed into Russian safekeeping a significant
quantity of weapons-grade uranium from the Vinca research reactor near
Belgrade. This success offers a model for similar projects in the
future, several of which are now under examination.
-- And China s announcement of broad new export control regulations
holds out promise of Beijing playing a more active and vitally
important role as a full partner in nonproliferation. There are
formidable challenges, and new rules are meaningless without a serious
law enforcement effort, but this significant step lays crucial
groundwork and sets the stage to work together on remaining issues.
Given President Bush s insistence that halting proliferation must be a
central element of U.S. foreign policy, we are focusing on a number of
specific policy initiatives:
-- We aim broadly to diminish the worldwide sources of supply for
rogue-country WMD and missile programs, even as we work also to put in
place the disincentives that could limit demand.
-- We can reduce the flow of sensitive technologies by raising the bar
further in the four export control regimes. This means getting
partners agreement to stay ahead of the curve in defining and
protecting the technologies and products proliferators need.
-- But it also means getting better at disruption of proliferators
efforts.
-- Getting Russian cooperation to curb WMD technology flows from
Russian entities to Iran is one of our highest priorities. And allow
me, if you will, to make several additional points on this issue:
-- Our dialogue with Russia on this point stretches from my level, all
the way up to the two Presidents. The Presidents seem of one mind
concerning the threat that a nuclear and missile equipped Iran would
pose, in the region, to Russia, the U.S. and our friends. And the
Russians don't argue that Iran is sparing no effort to acquire such
weapons. Where we differ is the role Russian entities play. The facts
are troubling.
-- There can no logical explanation for a country like Iran, so rich
in oil and natural gas, to spend billions of dollars to establish an
entire nuclear fuel cycle. The gas they flare annually is worth
considerably more than the price they are paying for Bushehr, and
that's but one of the nuclear efforts under way. We re confident of
our intelligence, which shows conclusively that Iran's objective is
early acquisition of a nuclear weapons capability. Resolving the
profound contradiction between President Putin s statements and the
facts on the ground will be an important factor in determining whether
Iran's efforts are successful, and it will be an important factor the
degree to which U.S.-Russian relations can grow into new areas related
to nuclear development and space.
Make no mistake about our resolve. We will make every effort, and use
all means possible, to cut off Iran s access to those who would supply
their nuclear weapons program. This includes the use of sanctions
against entities and government's that assist Iran's efforts.
-- We also aim to see China do what it has said it will do -- enforce
controls that will stop the flow of WMD and advanced weapons
technologies to countries like Iran, Iraq and Libya;
-- South Asia is a special case. They have weapons. We won't be
successful in pressing them to beat them into plowshares, but we need
to be more inventive in getting them to understand much better how to
manage the dangers that the weapons pose. There are a variety of
confidence-building measures they could take bilaterally and
unilaterally.
-- We will press hard to keep newly advanced states like the East
Europeans or India from becoming the next WMD shopping centers for
would-be proliferators.
-- North Korea is a complicated situation, a supplier and a buyer.
Both must stop or be stopped.
-- We are making clear in the marketplace that companies have a
choice: sell technologies to proliferators, or in the United States;
but not both. Where official controls fail, and where companies make
the wrong choice, there must be consequences. One consequence is
sanctions.
-- Another tool is interdiction. It is not a panacea, but properly
planned and executed, interdiction can enable us to intercept critical
technologies en route to dangerous end users, and lengthen the time
that proliferators will need to acquire new weapons capabilities.
Stopping proliferation is the ultimate multilateral activity. And the
United States is an active partner -- in fact the most active partner
-- in multilateral regimes designed to prevent dangerous goods and
know-how from getting to people with bad intentions. In these efforts,
no organization plays a more critically important role than the IAEA.
We are working to ensure that the IAEA has enough money and resources
for effective safeguards, and the tools it needs for vigorous action
in countries like Iran, Libya and North Korea.
We also want to reinforce the NPT boundaries dented by the 1998 South
Asia nuclear tests; (as we discussed yesterday) there are many hurdles
along the path to a successful 2005 NPT Review Conference. The treaty
and the norms it provides are our best protection against a world
unspeakably more dangerous if we allow others to move across the
nuclear threshold. That issue, in my mind, dwarfs all others.
Another key element of our nonproliferation policy is the nuclear
threat reduction assistance programs. They provide a cost effective
force multiplier by enabling our partners to take more effective
measures against proliferation, to stem dangerous exports, secure
dangerous materials and redirect WMD expertise into peaceful, valuable
work. This serves the international community, strengthening in very
tangible ways the consensus against proliferation, even as it builds
better foundations for future cooperation.
-- We are looking at ways to broaden our programs beyond the Former
Soviet Union, as in the G-8 Global Partnership.
-- We are considering ways we, and partners could help tighten
national legal regimes; design and implement inventory controls, and
provide for better tracking of dangerous nuclear, biological, and
chemical materials in domestic and international commerce.
-- We see this effort as one to pursue bilaterally and multilaterally.
We have already begun outreach to industry groups, and will shortly
begin to survey national laws and regulations worldwide, as a first
step in designing international outreach efforts to upgrade export
controls.
-- But beyond such technical efforts, President Bush has made clear,
most recently at Kananaskis, that he wants to use the G-8 Global
Partnership to accelerate and expand programs with Russia and the
other former Soviet states. This includes speeding up the negotiations
on plutonium disposition and plutonium reactor closure, and expanding
programs like bio-engagement and the science centers. The guidelines
agreed at Kananaskis are crucial -- both for assuring that funds
already committed are disbursed more quickly, and a context for major
new commitments.
Conclusion
-- The attack on the United States nearly one year ago has served to
focus attention on a danger that we have all been aware of for some
time. These are not dangers just for the United States; they are a
direct challenge to the world as we all know it. These are real world
threats; we need to fashion real world responses that work. We won t
solve problems overnight. It will take great perseverance, skill and
resources to forge an effective global partnership against the nexus
of proliferation and terror. This is the President's goal. We will
pursue it on many fronts, with many tools. We will build international
partnerships where we can, involve the private sector where we can but
we will act wherever and whenever we must.
(end text)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
