President Barack Obama launched the first Nuclear Security Summit in 2010 to pursue a world without nuclear weapons. But as delegations from almost 60 countries reconvene in Washington on Thursday and Friday, the world only seems farther from that goal.
Wildcard North Korea is edging closer to its goal of building a viable nuclear device, Pakistan continues to amass nuclear material at unmatched rates, and Russian officials openly discuss pre-emptive nuclear strikes on Europe. And the sharpening skills of computer hackers mean cyber threats to nuclear facilities are increasing, too.
Looming over the entire summit is ISIS, to which a special session will be devoted. It is only the latest extremist group to raise alarms about the state of global nuclear security.
The mounting geopolitical pressures have the U.S. military moving to modernize America’s nuclear arsenal rather than dismantle it. But it was the latter goal that Obama embraced when he first broadcast his nuclear doctrine and made it a cornerstone of his global agenda in a landmark speech during his first trip to Europe as President.
“In a strange turn of history, the threat of global nuclear war has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up,” Obama said in that address, delivered in Prague in April 2009.
More nations have acquired the weapons, black market trade in nuclear secrets and nuclear materials abounds, and nuclear technology has spread, the President noted.
“Just as we stood for freedom in the 20th century, we must stand together for the right of people everywhere to live free from fear in the 21st century,” Obama said. “So today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”
The Nuclear Security Summit in Washington the next year was the start of a biennial gathering to secure nuclear materials while working toward that vision.
There have been significant steps on nuclear issues taken during that time, most notably a deal in July to curb Iran’s nuclear program. The United States and Russia also signed a nuclear arms reduction treaty in 2010. But even as these deals’ goals have yet to be fully realized, the threat of nuclear terrorism — which Obama noted in 2009 — has only gained new urgency.
“In all dimensions of nuclear risk, our security is worse and getting worse all the time, whether it’s terrorists capturing nuclear materials and detonating them or risk of accidental detonation of weapons in places like Pakistan,” said Bruce Blair, a nuclear security expert and co-founder of Global Zero, a group devoted to eliminating nuclear arms.
Presidential candidates weigh in
The threats have served as fodder on the presidential campaign trail as well, with nuclear issues rippling through the race. On Tuesday, Donald Trump told CNN moderator Anderson Cooper at a Republican presidential town hall that he thinks nuclear proliferation is perhaps “the biggest issue of our time.” He also rattled the nuclear establishment by suggesting that South Korea and Japan should consider developing their own nuclear weapons rather than being protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella.
The array of global challenges is one reason why the U.S. military has been pressing for an upgrade of America’s nuclear infrastructure.
The Pentagon has been closely monitoring what Defense Secretary Ash Carter has called Russian “nuclear saber-rattling” and Moscow’s work to modernize its arsenal.
In light of that and other global challenges, the United States needs to overhaul its nuclear inventory to maintain a credible deterrent, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Wednesday.
While the military is pushing to sharpen the tools in its nuclear quiver, the White House still hopes to makes progress on the diplomatic front, particularly when it comes to ISIS.
“Having this many leaders together at once provides us an important opportunity, in the wake of the recent attacks in Brussels and other countries, to address how we can enhance our capabilities to work together to confront the threat” of ISIS, Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser, said in a call with reporters.
“We know that terrorist organizations have the desire to get access to these raw materials and their desire to have a nuclear device. That was certainly the case with al Qaeda, and that is certainly the case with ISIL as well,” Rhodes said, referring to ISIS by another name.
The discovery that plotters of November terrorist attacks in Paris had been filming the director of Belgium’s nuclear research program have sharply focused attention on the issue.
“We have seen those reports about targeting nuclear facilities as part of a broader plot, and certainly the video footage is of concern and suggests there is at least some interest by ISIL,” Laura Holgate, the White House senior director for weapons of mass destruction, terrorism and threat reduction, told reporters.
She added that U.S. officials “don’t have any indications it was part of a broader plan to acquire nuclear materials, and we don’t have any information that a broader plot exists.”
Even so, groups such as Global Zero, which counts among its members former Defense Secretary William Perry and California Gov. Jerry Brown, say the summit this year is too narrowly focused on terrorism to adequately address broader nuclear dangers.
Challenges beyond terrorism
There are evergreen issues, such as how to prevent the mistaken launch of one of some 800 weapons the United States and Russia each keep and which can be fired within seconds. There are newer vulnerabilities to consider, as the digitization of controls increases the possibility of cyberattacks.
The gathering needs to do more to address civilian plutonium and military stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, these critics say.
Robert Gallucci, a former diplomat and lead U.S. negotiator during a 1994 nuclear crisis with North Korea, said Pakistan’s rapid accumulation of highly enriched uranium, along with the challenges it faces with extremist groups, makes for one of “the most dangerous” situations.
Gallucci also points to Asia.
“We have a nuclear-armed North Korea accumulating weapons and fissile material,” Gallucci said, adding that the situation “is getting worse.”
A report by IHS Jane’s found that Pyongyang is “further ahead in its nuclear ambitions than previously reported” and that its leadership appears to have ordered an acceleration of all its nuclear-related programs. This year, North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test, along with a long-range rocket launch and missile tests.
More immediately, Iran and Russia won’t even be at the table this year.
Moscow is declining to attend, not wanting to appear like a junior partner to the United States, said Olga Oliker, director of the Russia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
While the White House’s Rhodes said Russian officials were just “isolating themselves in not participating as they have in the past,” Oliker is among those who say more meaningful progress would be made with Moscow at the table.
Russia has tested ground-launched cruise missiles that violate treaties, it has conducted military exercises that simulate using nuclear weapons against European neighbors, and its generals have spoken openly about using them in pre-emptive strikes.
The threats and simulations suggest that Russia doesn’t see nuclear weapons use as unthinkable, said Frank Miller, a former director of arms control for the National Security Council.
“One has to worry about the way Russians think about nuclear weapons,” Miller said. “I think that’s a question we have to deal with again” as we did in the Cold War.
One major challenge for summit organizers in trying to move beyond terrorism to address military stockpiles in places like Russia or Pakistan is that the United States is the only country that has declared the gross size of its weapons and military fissile materials.
Many countries don’t want to discuss their civilian plutonium stockpiles, with countries like Japan and South Korea seeing them as a potential source of energy. That means success at these summits has been defined by countries announcing plans to send back their civilian stockpiles of highly enriched uranium.
“It’s no measure of success because it excludes 98% of fissile material,” said Blair of Global Zero. “Security is not going to be achieved until leaders broaden their agenda.”
A sustainable future?
The summit also raises the question of the degree to which Obama’s efforts on the nuclear front ultimately pay off. Even seeds diligently planted now would only flourish far down the road, long after Obama has left office.
And even the President’s clear nuclear achievements will likely take time to distill. He shepherded through a major — though still nascent — agreement with Iran, but it is time-limited.
Critics like Ed Royce, the California Republican who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, say that deal only legitimized Iran’s program even as it continues to support terrorism.
“This in turn encourages other countries to construct their own programs,” Royce said in a statement Wednesday. “Instead of making the world less dangerous, the administration has set the stage for a nuclear free-for-all with dire consequences for U.S. national security.”
There’s a question whether the summit, which has in the short term defied expectations by enduring beyond its inaugural meeting in 2010, will last beyond his tenure.
“There’s a bit of summit fatigue,” according to Sharon Squassoni, director of the proliferation program at CSIS, who said they take enormous work to pull off.
She noted that much would depend on his successor.
Obama’s Republican challengers have threatened to rip up the Iran nuclear agreement once they reach the Oval Office. And even a President Hillary Clinton might not continue the summits.
Squassoni noted that the former secretary of state “supported this but didn’t have the interest” that Obama has displayed.
