Int'l cooperation key to tackling nuclear security challenges
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As dozens of world leaders gather in Washington next week for a global summit on nuclear security, they will be dealing with a relatively new challenge: nuclear terrorism.
Experts say that although the threat is not the only challenge to world nuclear security, cooperation mechanism could emerge from the summit that would provide guidance on how to tackle other challenges.
"I think the threats we all face, the threats that China faces, the United States faces, Europe faces are more diverse, and harder to deal with than they have been historically," said James Acton, a disarmament and deterrence expert at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"The solution to those threats is going to be cooperative action. It's going to be working together in things like the nuclear security summit... to ensure that nuclear materials don't fall into the hands of terrorists," Acton told Xinhua in a recent interview.
Cooperation and consensus are indeed what the White House is seeking at the summit, said U.S. officials.
Robert Einhorn, State Department's special advisor on nonproliferation and arms control, said Wednesday the United States expects leaders to emerge from the summit with a shared commitment to "do whatever they can to strengthen nuclear security," so that loose nuclear materials or weapons won't fall into the hands of terrorists.
He said the commitment is to be reflected in a joint statement, which representatives from the participating parties are working on. Another document that is expected to come out is a work plan, which will go into greater detail on specific steps that can be taken.
"We are working hard to get consensus on both documents," Einhorn said, "there will be extensive discussions on how to secure facilities and materials on one's territory."
Securing nuclear facilities and materials is only one side of the story.
"The people of the world confronts four types of nuclear threats," argued Joseph Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund, a public grant-making foundation that supports initiatives to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, in a recent article titled the Transformation of U.S. Nuclear Policy.
He observed that the four types of threats include the possibility of a terrorist group getting a nuclear weapon and detonating it in a major city; the danger of an accidental, unauthorized, or intentional use of one of the existing 23,000 nuclear weapons; the emergence of new nuclear-armed nations; and the possible collapse of the interlocking network of treaties and controls that has slowed or prevented the spread of nuclear weapons.
To tackle those threats, international cooperation is needed, he noted.
Acton said that in addition to the nuclear security summit, "it's going to involve strategic dialogues so that countries understand each other's intentions so there's no miscommunication; it's going to be working cooperatively through the Security Council to ensure that states that break international law, break their non-proliferation obligation have consequences for doing so."
The United States has been setting the stage for wider cooperation. Prior to the summit, U.S. President Barack Obama on Thursday inked a nuclear disarmament treaty with Russian counterpart Dmitry Medevedev in Prague, slashing their respective deployed nuclear weapons by a third.
The Obama administration also unveiled its nuclear posture Tuesday, promising not to attack non-nuclear countries that are party to and in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Einhorn said the pledge will "address concerns of a large number of non-nuclear weapons states party to the NPT."
With such advancement, Einhorn said the United States has high hopes for the nuclear security summit.
"President Obama set the goal of securing all potentially vulnerable nuclear materials in four years. And we're hoping that this summit meeting will endorse that approach."
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