Breakfast Discussion at the Cosmos Club, Washington,
DC
6 November 2007
Steven Monblatt, Co-Executive Director for BASIC's Washington
office, welcomed the audience to a discussion on the prospects
for nuclear disarmament eleven months after the Wall Street
Journal published an op-ed by US statesmen George Schultz,
William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn. 
The
article,
which called for complete nuclear disarmament, has led to ice-breaking
discussions about non-proliferation.
Mr. Monblatt noted that this is BASIC's 20th Anniversary year
and introduced the new Chair of BASIC, Dr. Trevor McCrisken. He
thanked BASIC's
funders and introduced the panelists: Malcolm Savidge, Ambassador
James Leonard, Ambassador Robert Barry, and Paul Ingram.
Please click here or
see below for the brief biographies of the participants.
Malcolm Savidge
Mr. Savidge started by flagging the United Kingdom's decision
to push ahead with plans for the Trident*
(Britain's nuclear weapon system) replacement program, which he
thought should have been deferred. He explained that the decision
was influenced by narrow parliamentary considerations, including
the Left's fear of being perceived as weak on defense and the
apparent influence of arms companies on the Blair Administration.
He observed that when UK politicians say British nuclear weapons
have helped to keep the peace, they are exaggerating the significance
of the United Kingdom's role in the world. Referring to the United
Kingdom's history of empire, Mr. Savidge said that there has been
an obsession with Britain "punching above its weight." And this
in part led the United Kingdom to follow President George Bush
and the United States into Iraq.
He said that there is a better way for the United Kingdom to
work with the United States - by following the lead of the Reykjavik
group (now called the Hoover group), whose members were behind
the op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. The movement surrounding
the op-ed has become a bi-partisan endeavor, as US Secretaries
of State James Baker and Colin Powell have endorsed the letter.
The speech
that UK Secretary of State Margaret Beckett delivered earlier
this year at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace echoed
the letter and there are indications that some members of the
new Gordon Brown Administration also share these views.
Mr.
Savidge hopes that the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council
(P5) will take forward Chapter 6 of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT) because of the promises that they made for realizing
nuclear disarmament and also for the unity of the international
community. He concluded by quoting an excerpt from the "Russell-Einstein
Manifesto," which called on world leaders to avoid war because
of the dangers of nuclear weapons: "There lies before us, if we
choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom.
Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our
quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember
your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way
lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before
you the risk of universal death."
Ambassador James Leonard
Ambassador Leonard recalled the two previous efforts to realize
nuclear disarmament: the Acheson-Lilienthal Report, which was
rejected by Stalin, and the call for General and Complete Disarmament
in the Kennedy era. BASIC will join with the "Hoover Group" and
others to support a third try with the project on "Getting to
Zero." He said that it was important to underscore the difficulties,
or people will think that BASIC is naïve and not really serious.
Clearly it will take decades to effectively eliminate nuclear
weapons.
There are two important developments that must come about before
elimination becomes a real possibility. First, a major political
evolution is necessary among the great powers and even among middle
powers. Ambassador Leonard argued that only a democracy will be
credible when a state asserts that it has eliminated all its nuclear
weapons. To be believed, it must have not only an independent
legislature and judiciary but a free, lively, whistle-blowing
press.
The second major change, Ambassador Leonard said, is the settlement
of major conflicts, especially India-Pakistan and Israel-Palestine.
Even democracies like India and Israel will not be able to credibly
assert that they have eliminated their nuclear weapons as long
as they are engaged in bitter disputes with their neighbors. Like
the democratization of Russia and China, it seems reasonable to
hope for the stable, permanent settlement of these two regional
conflicts by the middle of this century.
The elimination of the last few weapons held by any government
is known as the "bomb-in-the-basement" problem. It is often said
to be insoluble, but it is not, Leonard asserted. It was solved
in the case of South Africa and it will be solved over the next
few years in the case of North Korea. The IAEA will lead in this
effort as it does in the less difficult task of ensuring that
non-nuclear weapon states do not go nuclear. National intelligence
services will, of course, back up and verify the work of the IAEA.
Ambassador Leonard concluded with the hope that the five Permanent
Members of the UN Security Council might find their security environments
sufficiently benign enough to give up their nuclear weapons even
before India and Israel do so. Eventually the leaders of all the
nuclear weapon states will come to see that the costs and dangers
of maintaining even one or two nuclear bombs are simply not worth
it.
Ambassador Robert Barry
Ambassador Barry began by stressing the urgency of the situation.
He said that the non-proliferation regime is frayed. He recalled
the statement of the IAEA's Director, Mohammad El Baradei, that
someday the world may have up to 30 countries with nuclear weapons
and added that the possible use of nuclear weapons is a far more
existential threat than terrorism will ever be. Given those considerations,
he reviewed some of the steps that should be taken to reduce the
threats posed by nuclear weapons.
The first priority is the progressive reduction of operationally
deployed strategic nuclear weapons. The US government has said
that the weapons are not on hair-trigger alert, but this is a
matter of semantics. Ambassador Barry called for the gradual de-alerting
of stockpiles. He noted that verification also becomes very important,
referring to the motto "trust, but verify" and the Stockholm Conference
of the 1980s (Conference on Confidence and Security Building Measures
and Disarmament in Europe).
If US leaders want to say that they are interested in having
a world without nuclear weapons, then they should avoid rebuilding
the US nuclear weapons complex and creating a "Reliable Replacement
Warhead." Such efforts would spur cynicism among other countries
toward US calls for non-proliferation.
Another step should include the ratification of the Comprehensive
Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Although virtually all Democratic candidates
have declared their support for the CTBT, US Senator Jon Kyl (Republican-Arizona)
managed to persuade 40 other Republicans to sign a document that
says the CTBT surrenders US sovereignty. Ambassador Barry said
that he hopes to encourage former officials to say that giving
up some sovereignty in exchange for arms control progress is good
when that sovereignty is no longer needed.
Some of the other steps that need to be taken include the safe
removal of tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, agreeing on how
to approach ballistic missile defense, and pushing forward a fissile
materials cut-off treaty. He noted that the Kissinger-Primakov
Commission will meet one more time and he hopes that useful statements
will come out of the meeting and will lead to political breakthroughs.
Paul Ingram
Paul Ingram outlined the work that BASIC will be doing in the
coming months and referred to BASIC's sponsorship of a visit
by Ambassador Max Kampelman to London earlier this year. Mr.
Ingram pointed out that there was a positive reception for these
efforts in London and that there is some potential for BASIC to
work with the UK government. While the British government decided
to move forward with Trident, it made commitments to multilateral
non-proliferation efforts and BASIC can play a positive role in
this regard.
BASIC recently launched a report
about the costs of Trident. In the future, he expects to work
collaboratively with groups such as the Verification Research
Training and Information Centre (VERTIC), the International Institute
for Strategic Studies, and European governments. He also discussed
BASIC's work on Iran and how multilateral engagement could alleviate
the crisis over Iran's
nuclear program.
A vision of a nuclear-free world has been held by BASIC for two
decades and pursuing this goal will now take up a majority of
the organization's resources. He concluded by saying that BASIC
and other proponents of nuclear disarmament need to speak clearly
and use their resources to the best of their abilities; focusing
on nuclear weapons but also seeing the problem within the larger
political context, which includes the "war on terror" and UK and
US positions in the world.
[The session then opened up for questions from the audience.]
*For more information about Britain's Trident
system and its political implications, please visit the following
page for a list of BASIC publications on nuclear security: http://www.basicint.org/nuclear/nucindex.htm
BIOGRAPHIES OF PARTICIPANTS
Ambassador Robert L. Barry
BASIC Board Member
Ambassador Barry is currently a senior associate with the Center
for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, and has
had a long career with the US government on European affairs and
arms control. Ambassador Barry headed the OSCE Mission in Bosnia
and Herzegovina from January 1998 to June 2001. He also served
as ambassador to Bulgaria and Indonesia. Ambassador Barry helped
establish and coordinate US assistance programs for Eastern and
Central Europe and the former Soviet Union promoting market economies
and democracy. He also served as Deputy Director of the Voice
of America and ambassador to the Stockholm Conference on Disarmament
in Europe.
Paul Ingram
Co-Executive Director, BASIC, London
Paul Ingram was previously a Senior Analyst at BASIC. His subject
areas include nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament (with a
focus on Iran and the United Kingdom); the UK debate over Trident
replacement; defense economics, particularly subsidies of exports
in the United Kingdom; and transatlantic security. His work has
directly led to policy changes over UK export credits and defense
export support. He hosts a weekly peak-time talk show on IRINN
(Iranian domestic TV News in Farsi) focusing on global security
issues. He is author of a number of BASIC notes and papers, and
a documentary series for Press TV on nuclear issues. He also co-teaches
systems thinking and practice on the Top Management Program at
the National School of Government alongside Prof. Jake Chapman.
Ambassador James Leonard
BASIC Board Member
James Leonard is a member of the Scientists Working Group on
CBW of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. In his
Foreign Service career, he was US Representative to the Committee
on Disarmament in Geneva, Deputy Permanent Representative to the
United Nations in New York, and Deputy Special Representative
for Middle East peace negotiations. In private life, he has been
president of the United Nations Association of the USA and adviser
to the Palme Commission, the Canberra Commission, and other groups
in the field of arms control.
Steven Monblatt
Co-Executive Director, BASIC, Washington
Steven Monblatt, was previously Executive Secretary of the Inter-American
Committee Against Terrorism at the Organization of American States
(OAS) and before that, Deputy Coordinator of Counter-Terrorism
at the US Department of State and Professor of Strategic Studies
at the National War College. He is a counter-terrorism professional
with a broad geographic and substantive security background. He
is an innovative communicator with over 30 years of experience
in the US Information Agency in the United States and abroad,
and a political analyst with a strong record of problem solving.
While at the OAS, he built from scratch a Secretariat whose organization
and programs have been recognized by the UN Counter-Terrorism
Committee as a model for other regional organizations.
Malcolm Savidge
BASIC Board Member
As MP for Aberdeen North (1997-2005), Malcolm Savidge was active
in Parliament and beyond, particularly on international relations,
strategic issues and conflict resolution. He was Convener (2000-2005)
of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Security and Non-Proliferation;
Vice-Chair (2000-2005), All-Party Parliamentary Group on World
Government; Member (1997-2005), Select Committee on Environmental
Audit; Member (1997-2005), Parliamentary Labour Party Back-Bench
Committees on Foreign Affairs, Defence and International Development.
He has published articles in a number of journals; featured in
national and international media; and delivered papers/spoken
at a range of international conferences - interparliamentary,
university and UN organized. He is Parliamentary Consultant (2005-
), Oxford Research Group [ORG] and Vice-President of the United
Nations Association (UK) [2003-] and the One World Trust [2005-
]. Malcolm was made an Honorary Fellow of The Robert Gordon University
in 1997 and is a member of the International Institute for Strategic
Studies (IISS), Royal Institute for International Affairs and
Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).
