I’m sure a 20-something pundit is blogging Something Very Important, but you can take a minute to learn that Ye Olde IAEA Board of Governors recently “approved”:http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Safeguards/sir_table.pdf the Additional Protocol to India’s IAEA Safeguards Agreement.
Siddharth Varadarajan has some “action.”:http://svaradarajan.blogspot.com/2009/03/india-and-additional-protocol.html
The final communiqué of a London conference on preventing arms smuggling into the Gaza Strip is “here”:http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/newsroom/latest-news/?view=News&id=14977034.
The partner countries have agreed to do a number of good and worthy things, but stopping ships at sea “isn’t necessarily one of them”:http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j9iZOqzEELy9eTKhYiL4ajCls9rwD96TT9D00:
A senior British diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with government policy said the nine countries agreed that “non-coercive” methods would be used to clamp down on the arms flow.
That means, he said, that any vessel whose captain refuses to allow the ship to be boarded for an inspection will not be forced to submit to the procedure.
Alas, as anticipated, it’s “PSI Part Deux”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1837/psi-part-deux-red-sea-regatta. If it doesn’t involve the “Russians”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1839/exercising-vigilance or the Chinese — all of the permanent members of the Security Council, in fact — then it’s just a sort of embroidery on existing authorities and arrangements.
Oh, and if North Korea launches a rocket, “South Korea may consider finally joining PSI”:http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20090316_1900.php. Good to know.
You know that saying, “It’s the thought that counts”? It isn’t.
So says the “White House”:http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Announces-Key-State-Department-Appointment/:
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secrectary
__________________________________________________________
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 17, 2009President Obama Announces Key State Department Appointment
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, President Obama announced his intent to nominate Rose Gottemoeller for Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance.
President Obama said, “Turning the tide on the threat of nuclear weapons and strengthening the international non-proliferation regime is one of the great and urgent challenges of our time. Rose Gottemoeller’s extraordinary commitment and expertise make her a valuable addition to the State Department and my national security team as we renew American diplomacy to create a more secure world.”
Rose Gottemoeller Biography:
Rose Gottemoeller served as Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center from January 2006 to December 2008. Currently, she has resumed her position as Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment, where she holds a joint appointment with the Russian and Eurasian Program and the Global Policy Program. A specialist on defense and nuclear issues in Russia and the other former Soviet states, Gottemoeller’s research at the Endowment focused on issues of nuclear security and stability, non-proliferation, and arms control.
Before joining the Endowment in October 2000, Gottemoeller was Deputy Undersecretary for Defense Nuclear Non-proliferation in the U.S. Department of Energy. Previously, she served as the Department’s Assistant Secretary for Non-proliferation and National Security, with responsibility for all non-proliferation cooperation with Russia and the Newly Independent States. She first joined the Department in November 1997 as Director of the Office of Non-proliferation and National Security. Prior to the Energy Department, Gottemoeller served for three years as Deputy Director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. From 1993 to 1994, she served on the staff of the National Security Council in the White House as Director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia Affairs, with responsibility for denuclearization in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. She has taught courses at Georgetown University on Soviet military policy and Russian security in Eurasia.
Update: We’re all still waiting to hear if “this idea”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1904/rise-and-shine prevails.
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Aw, yeah. Wheels and centrifuges — two things that spin. I’ll bet you never made this connection before, but it’s just one anecdote short of a certified “trend story”:http://www.slate.com/default.aspx?id=3944&qt=trend+story&qp=26551&sort=d;1,r;1&rowstart=1&rows=25.
Earlier this month, the (Tokyo) Metropolitan Police Department teamed up with their Hiroshima counterparts — yes, Hiroshima — to “take down”:http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=24770 four current and former employees of the “Horkos Corp.”:http://www.horkos.co.jp/english/ It seems they had been selling advanced “machining centers”:http://www.horkos.co.jp/english/products/mc/ to Chinese and South Korean auto makers, while misrepresenting the capabilities of the devices to Japan’s “export control authorities”:http://www.meti.go.jp/policy/anpo/kanri/top-page/top/anpo-top-page-english.htm.
Word has it that some of the same devices used to make precision auto parts can be used to make precision uranium centrifuge parts. And they sold what sounds like “a lot of them”:http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=24770:
The men are specifically accused of falsifying export customs declarations in November 2004 and September 2006 for 16 machining centres shipped to China and South Korea, according to a _Mainichi Daily_ report. The newspaper added that Horkos is thought to have exported some 600 machining centres to China and South Korea since 2002.
Note that this is a new development in an “old”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1973/japnese-bust-export-violator “story”:http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/japans-struggle-to-limit-illegal-dual-use-exports.
(Purely for your edification, here’s a “faintly obscene animation of a flow-forming machine at work”:http://www.flowform.com/flowforming/methods_forward_flowforming.php. For the record, I’m not sure whether this is actually the type of device at issue in the Horkos case, but I’ll do what it takes to hold your attention.)
The “Iran Khodro Industrial Group”:http://www.ikco.com/default.aspx is Iran’s biggest car maker, until recently the manufacturer of the “iconic”:http://www.iranian.com/Arts/2003/August/Amir/2.html “Paykan”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4551841.stm. They make Peugeots on license. Reportedly “in response to a recent government mandate”:http://www.ameinfo.com/125595.html, Iran Khodro has leapt to the very frontiers of global automotive technology, producing new “gasoline-compressed natural gas (CNG) hybrid vehicles”:http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=188809.
One variety was “exhibited in Geneva”:http://wheels.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/iranian-automaker-bets-on-natural-gas/ earlier this month.
But as it turns out, those CNG tanks are made from carbon fiber, which is “illegal to export to Iran”:http://gsn.nti.org/gsn/nw_20090312_8404.php. It’s the same stuff that “Iran’s new-model centrifuge rotors”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1851/iran-centrifuge-components are made from. Oops. Or Hmm.
[Update: Paul is “on top of the story”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1913/new-iranian-centrifuges-to-be-installed.]
(Incidentally, “this AP item”:http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iijfYgMUu7W_-ZKg8BjH5QNTww5QD96S1JA80 seems to contain the first mention anywhere of the IR-4 centrifuge.)
“M. Collin”:http://www.cpoagenda.com/latest-news/peugeot-ceo/, appelez votre bureau.
(Hey, it turns out that the Iraqi EMIS test facility was disguised as a “military automotive repair shop”:http://books.google.com/books?id=K_bDzw0Qb0UC&pg=PA56&lpg=PA56&dq=centrifuge+enrichment+automotive&source=bl&ots=1RrWIWlLDi&sig=voJcd4YoHQMlnDfUK_5qyvAeCnY&hl=en&ei=NQ_ASfuvFcGltgfQ36FN&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result. Well, close, but not quite the trifecta I was hoping for.)
Enough already. It’s “musical bonus”:http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1algt_no-particular-place-to-go_fun time!
(You were expecting the Gary Numan song, weren’t you? Don’t worry, I’ve got “that, too”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ldyx3KHOFXw.)
Update: It turns out that this is “old news”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/2003/old-news.
Reacting to “this post”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1919/on-israeli-nuclear-disclosure, an astute reader observes that
bq. Without that taboo [of disclosure], some Israeli officials would make nuclear threats fortnightly. If you think it’s hard to deal with the Iranians now, just imagine if some Israeli loose cannon were threatening to annihilate Tehran on a routine basis.
The reader also cited a “piece”:http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/31/opinion/edcohen.php written by Avner Cohen a couple of years back. Note the part about “away from politics”:
Israel is now uniquely distinguished among all nuclear states in its
legacy of extreme nuclear caution, keeping nuclear affairs low
profile, nearly invisible and away from politics.One more reason why the rise of nuclear Iran is so perilous is that it threatens to change the subtle nuclear ground rules in the Middle East that were built upon the nuclear legacy of the 1967 war. This legacy is a reminder of why a nuclear Iran must be prevented. If Iran’s goes nuclear, then Israel’s reluctant style of being nuclear will no doubt be replaced by a major nuclear arms race throughout the Middle East.
I hadn’t thought much about the potential domestic Israeli implications or their ramifications. I’m still not sure that Israeli nuclear threats would result in more nuclear weapons states in the region; such threats would indeed represent a qualitative change in regional countries’ security situation, but those governments would still face some serious constraints, regardless of Tel Aviv’s actions. Also, it’s not clear that the security situation would change _so much_ that states would develop nuclear weapons; my impression is that many governments may already view Israel’s nuclear weapons as a threat.
Still, the point is very well taken. And, as I said, I don’t want this science project to be undertaken.
“Speaking of”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1914/more-on-us-uae-123 the US-UAE 123, the IAEA Board o’ Governors approved the protocol on March 3, “according to the IAEA.”:http://www.iaea.org/OurWork/SV/Safeguards/sir_table.pdf
Miles asked a good question about an observation in “this post”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1894/us-uae-123 about the “US-UAE 123 agreement.”:http://www.npec-web.org/us-uae/20090115-UsUae-Revised123Agreement.pdf
I wrote:
The last paragraph of the Agreed Minute apparently makes the agreement a minimum standard for other 123 agreements with countries in the region, should the US negotiate them. Here’s the key part:
the fields of cooperation, terms and conditions accorded by the United States of America to the United Arab Emirates for cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy shall be no less favorable in scope and effect than those which may be accorded, from time to time, to any other non-nuclear weapon State in the Middle East in a peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement.
Miles asked,
bq. Paul, are you sure you are interpreting the UAE agreed minute correctly? I seem to read it that the UAE can renegotiate should the US conclude a less restrictive agreement with someone else.
Miles is talking about the part of the Agreed Minute which states that, in the event that the US does conclude a more favorable agreement with another regional state, Washington will, at the UAE’s request, consult with the UAE “regarding the possibility of amending” the US-UAE agreement so that its terms will be as favorable as the new agreement.
Anyhow, it is, in my view, reasonable to believe that the Agreed Minute does establish a new standard for future such agreements, unless one thinks that the United States intends to do something to violate the US-UAE agreement.
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Why the big struggles with Iran and North Korea over nuclear weapons, nuclear technology, and delivery systems? Libya’s ambassador to the UN has the Simple AnswerTM you’ve been looking for:
“We gave some devices, some centrifuges, for example for America, but what do you give us? Nothing,” said Abdelrahman Shalgham, who served as foreign minister for eight years before being named ambassador to the United Nations this month. “That’s why we think North Korea and Iran are hesitating now to have a breakthrough regarding their projects.”
(That’s Ambassador Shalgam in happier times, above, poised to corral the Secretary of State.)
These and other remarks appear in a “fine article”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/world/africa/11libya.html by Michael Slackman of the _New York Times._ Therein, we learn that welcoming Libya back into the family of nations wasn’t enough. Partly, Libyan officials would like to see more rapid progress in civil nuclear cooperation. But most of all, they are surprised to see the continuation of the State Department’s routine hectoring on human rights:
One diplomat in Libya, who spoke on the condition that he not be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the news media, said the government was shocked that the United States still criticized Libya’s human rights record. Libya is a police state where security services operate with impunity and political opposition is not allowed.
“When you were enemies, we didn’t care,” the diplomat said after the State Department issued its latest “human rights report”:http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/index.htm this month. “But now, you are supposed to be friends. We were surprised. There were “16 pages”:http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/nea/119121.htm targeting Libya.”
(The links are in “the item as it appears at nytimes.com”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/11/world/africa/11libya.html.)
Tripoli is 1,200 miles east and a universe away from “Casablanca”:http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0034583/. One hears genuine shock and betrayal in these words. So in the interests of international understanding, allow me to assure our new Libyan friends that it’s not about them. Pretty much the “entire world”:http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/index.htm is represented in the State Department’s annual human rights report, with the glaring but scarcely surprising exception of the United States itself. For that, we have “Mark Danner”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/opinion/15danner.html. [Update: And “China”:http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/26/content_10904741.htm, too!]
Friends, enemies, and everything in between show up in the annual report. Even “Canada”:http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/wha/119151.htm. Even “Switzerland”:http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2008/eur/119108.htm. As far as I can tell, the one and only country that gets a pass is “the Holy See”:https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/vt.html.
Life’s not fair, you know?
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Now, having said all that, Ambassador Shalgham may have a little bit of a point. Exhibit A: North Korea. Since 2005, the United States has had not one but two special envoys for North Korea. One of them, Jay Lefkowitz — that’s his mug shot, right there — has “human rights as his special charge”:http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/biog/66929.htm. This has not stopped him from addressing the nuclear track, which he sees as properly “interwoven with human rights and aid”:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122999769691029167.html:
Today, a Helsinki-style model should be replicated with North Korea, and the U.S. should promote linkage among security, economic and human-rights issues. Significant economic assistance to North Korea should be offered, including development assistance, World Bank loans, trade access and food aid, but it must be given only in return for tangible, verifiable progress on all issues on the agenda. And human-rights progress should not be measured by bureaucrats meeting and reading prepared statements, but by tangible steps that move North Korea closer to the norms of the international community.
“This”:http://www.aei.org/events/eventID.1635,filter.all/event_detail.asp “sort of thing”:http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/01/17/korea.nuclear/index.html does not go unnoticed “in Pyongyang”:http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2008/200801/news01/29.htm#1, where it is seen as evidence of a “hostile policy”:http://www.kcna.co.jp/item/2005/200508/news08/29.htm#8:
Such U.S. behavior is a very disturbing act as it is little short of challenging the DPRK which has shown generous magnanimity and flexibility for a solution to the nuclear issue and an act of throwing a hurdle in the way of the six-party talks. The U.S. seems not to be interested in the dialogue and the settlement of the nuclear issue at all but more keen on standing in confrontation with the DPRK and bringing about a “regime change” and “bringing down the system” in the DPRK. If the U.S. persists in such behavior, it will compel the DPRK to change its mind. The U.S. should abolish at once such unreasonable post of “envoy” and abandon its ambition to “bring down system in the DPRK.”
Mr. Lefkowitz doesn’t get many invitations to Pyongyang.
So what to do when nonproliferation objectives seem to conflict with human rights objectives, or other important goals, for that matter? Your humble correspondent here won’t pretend to have Simple AnswersTM to these knotty questions. What answers he might have are neither simple nor really within the scope of an arms control blog. So let’s just conclude.
Certain other countries absolutely see America’s interest in human rights and democracy as a threat, and the mistrust this creates can seriously complicate the pursuit of other objectives. It’s not just North Korea. Take the Russians, for example, or “the Iranians”:http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=news.item&news_id=238778. [Link fixed.] (Mark Haas has placed “this phenomenon in broader historical perspective”:http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4350.)
So before we make a serious effort to negotiate, we might want to figure out which issues we really want on the table.
And let’s recognize that some issues are likely to force themselves onto the agenda regardless. “Like this one”:http://iran.bahai.us/2009/03/13/bahai-leaders-on-trial-coverage/. [Update: “Or this”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/15/AR2009031501737.html.] This being America, complicating factors like public opinion and civil society can’t be wished away. It’s a Free Country,TM with all that entails.
Nothing’s simple, really.
Related topic: Dan Byman of Georgetown U. has asked, “Do Counterproliferation and Counterterrorism Go Together?”:http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/taps/psq/2007/00000122/00000001/art00002. He’s giving “a talk on the subject”:http://cissm.umd.edu/papers/display.php?id=425 at the University of Maryland College Park this coming April 30. Thanks, “FCNL Nuclear Calendar!”:http://www.fcnl.org/NuclearCalendar/
Cross-posted to “ArmsControlWonk.com”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2221/libyas-theory-of-the-hard-cases. See the “comments at ACW”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2221/libyas-theory-of-the-hard-cases#comment.
Late update: Here’s the “official Iranian view on human rights”:http://isna.ir/Isna/NewsView.aspx?ID=News-1313839&Lang=E.
I had a couple of thoughts the other week during a conference about Iran’s nuclear program. I will note that someone else has almost certainly done more thinking about this issue than I and that these thoughts are likely unoriginal. Any interested readers please weigh in.
I know that many people worry that Israeli disclosure of its nuclear weapons could destabilize the region, lead to nuclear or CBW proliferation, etc. Now, I have no more desire than anyone else for this social science experiment to be carried out, but I’m not sure that disclosure really would be so bad.
The reasoning is fairly simple – since both governments and the public in Israel’s neighborhood already assume that Israel has nuclear weapons, it’s not clear that Israeli disclosure would be a game-changer sufficient to compel regional governments to take the _very_ significant step of developing their own nuclear weapons.
To elaborate…
First, it seems unlikely that governments would make radical chanegs to their military forces, since their material security situations would remain unchanged.
Second, there would, one imagines, be a spike in public anger over Israeli disclosure, but, since the information wouldn’t be new, it’s not at all clear that such anger would be sufficient to produce what, again, would be pretty drastic changes in regional governments’ policies.
The most likely impact I can think of is that some countries may take additional steps to augment their conventional or CW arsenals, since those options are considerably easier than developing nuclear weapons.
Those steps would not be trivial, but my point is that public discussions of this topic often lack sufficient nuance.
I know that there has been a good deal of speculation regarding the current U.S. assessment of Iran’s nuclear program, “including from yours truly.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1864/dni-blair-on-iran However, it is useful to understand that the analysis in the relevant section of the most recent “Threat Assessment”:http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20090212_testimony.pdf is essentially the same as that contained in the “2007 NIE.”:http://odni.gov/press_releases/20071203_release.pdf This,as far as I know, will remain the case until a new one is issued – an event which reportedly “may happen soon.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1888/new-iran-nie And yes, that means that I no longer have the doubts that I expressed in “this post.”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1864/dni-blair-on-iran
That’s it.
As an aside, I have never understood some people’s alleged inability to understand the 2007 NIE. Nor have I ever understood why the fact that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program upsets some people so much.