Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI)
Three Years On
Transcript of a roundtable discussion organized
by BASIC
At the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Washington D.C, 25 September 2006
Speakers and themes:
Introduction: Ian DAVIS, Co-Executive
Director, BASIC
Moderator: Steven MONBLATT, Executive Secretary,
Inter-American Committee Against Terrorism
David ISENBERG, Senior Analyst, BASIC
Richard A. LOVE, Senior Research Fellow, Center
for the Study of WMD, National Defense University
Moderator: Ambassador James GOODBY
Leah KUCHINSKY, Research Associate, Monterey Institute
Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Ian DAVIS, Co-Executive Director, BASIC
Moderator: David ISENBERG, Senior Analyst, BASIC
Mary Beth NIKITIN, Fellow, Center for Strategic
and International Studies
Charles PEÑA, Senior Fellow, George Washington
University Homeland Security Policy Institute
Moderator: Ambassador James LEONARD, BASIC Council
Jofi JOSEPH, Former staffer, Senate Foreign Relations
Committee
Matt STUMPF, US State Department
Timothy KANE, Australian Embassy, Washington,
DC
Wojciech FLERA, Embassy of Poland, Washington,
DC
Concluding remarks: Ian DAVIS, Co-Executive
Director, BASIC
BASIC's project on the PSI is supported by the UK Economic and
Social Research Council (ESRC). For further details, see the special
section on the PSI on the BASIC Web site at: http://www.basicint.org/nuclear/counterproliferation/psi.htm
Ian Davis: Good morning ladies and
gentleman, my name is Ian Davis, I am the Executive Director of
the British American Security Information Council (BASIC), and I
would like to warmly welcome you to this roundtable discussion on
the PSI.
BASIC is a transatlantic arms control and security think-tank.
With offices, staff, advisors, and governing board membership on
both sides of the Atlantic, we play a unique role as a transatlantic
bridge for policy makers and opinion shapers.
The Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), also known as the
Cracow Initiative, is now just over three years old. Nearly 80 participating
states are now committed to working cooperatively to curtail trafficking
of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), their delivery systems and
related materials on the seas, in the air and on the ground. From
the very beginning we took the line at BASIC that this was an idea
that had merit and growth potential. But only if it is done right.
To this end we began thinking about how it could be made more effective
and more congruent with international law.
To date we have published several information notes covering operational
aspects of the PSI, an in-depth report of how it relates to the
international law of the sea and we have set up a special section
on our Web site devoted to the issue. Some of these materials you
will find in the information pack, as well as a selection of additional
background material from other reputable sources on the PSI. Two
of the BASIC Papers in the pack are very much 'work in progress'
and we will be revising them in the light of the discussions today
and further research and analysis.
Last year we received funding from the UK Economic and Social Research
Council to continue to track and analyze implementation of the initiative,
and to carry out research on the implications for international
law and international security. In particular, there were several
'knowledge gaps' that we identified, which we felt could benefit
from further research. These included:
a.Jurisdiction issues on the High Seas, including the nature
and scope of rights of third states to carry out interdictions
as a result of bilateral boarding agreements.
b.Whether new measures can be introduced to place the legal responsibility
on flag states, shippers and masters to ensure that their cargoes
are WMD-free.
c.The inter-relationship between the myriad of maritime security,
counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation initiatives, e.g.
do all of these initiatives (SUA Convention, the PSI, the Container
Security Initiative, the Port Security Initiative etc) add up
to a coherent whole?
This is the first of two roundtable conferences that we are organizing
to discuss some of our interim research findings and to review PSI-related
issues with key stakeholders. We will be holding a second roundtable
in London later this year or early in 2007.
We are recording today's event to help facilitate the publication
of a summary of the roundtable discussion. I should stress, however,
that this meeting is taking place under Chatham House rules since
we want to encourage an open and frank discussion. Thus, unless
stated otherwise all remarks should be treated on a non-attributable
basis.
It has been said that the PSI is "the most oversold and the most
promising non-proliferation initiative to emerge in decades". And
it certainly seems to be an issue that draws out either strong support
or skepticism. Supporters point to the growth in the number of states
that back the initiative; the six US bilateral ship-boarding agreements
to expedite searches of suspicious cargoes; the support of the United
Nations in Resolution 1540 and the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan
in his March 2005 speech; the regular Joint Interdiction Exercises
and Operational Expert Meetings; and a number of successful interdictions.
Skeptics tend to fall into two camps: those who complain that it
lacks real substance (it is all smoke and mirrors and brings little
new to the table) and those who are concerned by some of its legal
implications and under-representation in some strategically important
regions - leaving major players like India and China outside the
ring, despite overtures by the US to bring them in.
In this regard, reports that the Indonesian government may join
the PSI are particularly noteworthy, since it would provide the
PSI with greater access to one of the world's critical choke points-the
Straits of Malacca-through which a quarter of global trade passes
each year.
Certainly, judging the success or otherwise of the PSI is problematic
because participating states have released few details of interdiction
operations carried out thus far. US Administration officials cite
two-dozen interdictions undertaken with partners in the 12 months
to April 2006, including two alleged shipments of dual-use materials
and components destined for Iran's nuclear and missile programmes.
Of course, with so little information available on PSI interdiction,
gauging the significance of these operational successes is challenging.
Anyway, I hope our discussion today will help to shed some new light.
Perhaps the initiative's foremost achievement in its brief existence
has been to consolidate interdiction efforts already conducted by
states and international organisations, such as NATO, into a more
focused and concerted global response to proliferation. The PSI
did not introduce the concept or practice of interdiction, but it
has contributed to bringing a global focus to previously local,
sub-regional and regional operations in the Mediterranean, Red Sea,
Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman.
Since interdiction is the topic of our opening panel. I am going
to close my opening remarks by introducing the chair of that panel:
Steven Monblatt. Although currently directing counter-terrorism
capacity building programs for the Organization of American States,
and before that a long-serving and distinguished US diplomat with
foreign assignments include Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, India, Spain,
Nigeria, Nicaragua, and Indonesia, I am very pleased to be able
to announce that Steven will be joining BASIC as a our new Co-Executive
Director here in Washington at the beginning of October. So, Steven,
a very warm welcome and over to you -
Session 1-The Role of Interdiction in the 21st
Century
Moderator: Thank you Ian and good morning
everybody. I noticed by way of your introductions that some of you
are very new to Washington or very new to the subject. None of you--all
of you are senior to me in that regard. I--I really started on this
in the last few days, so I have a lot of ground to cover and while
I'm here to moderate and perhaps offer some ideas on PSI, I have
to say as much as any of you I'm here to learn what I can from the
different interventions.
I'm particularly happy to see somebody from the Argentine Embassy
here; we work closely with Argentina and in fact I'm going to Buenos
Aires tomorrow for a meeting and I also am especially happy to see
somebody from the Embassy of Spain here. Spain has become one of
our major program parts in the OAS under the programs that we have.
I'm not going to Spain tomorrow but I'm going to try to get over
the next time I go over to Europe.
Let me just say a couple of opening words. My background for the
last few years has been in counterterrorism. Counterterrorism is
not the same thing as nonproliferation; but I have noticed in doing
the reading and some thinking about today's discussion that there
are some points of comparison--two in particular; one is this--that
if you had asked people working on counterterrorism prior to 9/11
how they understood their jobs they would have said probably most
of them that their job was to find terrorists, bring them to trial,
and put them in jail. And if you had asked them after 9/11 almost
all of them would have said their job is to prevent terrorist acts.
And I think implicit in the PSI and other nonproliferation initiatives
is the whole question of prevention of--of proliferation of having
these dangerous weapons, dangerous materials, dangerous technologies
spread behind where they are now and ultimately to roll them back.
The other element that I think is common is that every successful
counterterrorism initiative that I know of is fundamentally based
on intelligence--good intelligence and I think that good intelligence
is essential to any sort of initiative such as PSI. There is so
much that we don't know and so much that we need to know.
Finally one other point of maybe not comparison but something
that I've been thinking about for some time is that while PSI is
new, intervention--interdiction at sea is not new; it's been going
on for a long time. I think of the international campaigns waged
as early as the 18th--19th Centuries against slavery, against piracy.
What has changed in that time are first of all the international
laws that govern what nations can do at sea and second of all the
technology that's available both to those nations that are trying
to control or interdict dangerous substances and those technologies
that are available to the people who wish to spread them. These
represent in both cases I think special challenges that those of
us concerned with this issue need to address.
That's pretty much all I have by way of introduction. I have some
really terrific speeches on counterterrorism but I haven't written
anything yet on nonproliferation so I don't have a lot of new stuff
to offer you. I hope by the next time we get together I will. With
that in mind, I want to turn the--the table over to our speakers.
Let me start with David Isenberg. As David has said he's our Senior
Analyst in the Washington Office. He has a wide background in Arms
Control and National Security issues. He has a BA from the University
of Oregon; I've just been out in Oregon. It's a wonderful place
to have a BA from--and an MA in International Affairs from American
University. I live right by American University so I feel good about
them too. He's Adjunct Scholar at the CATO Institute, a Member of
the Coalition for a Realistic Foreign Policy, an Advisor to the
Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information,
and a Correspondent for Asia Times, a blogger for the Partnership
for a Secure America and was formerly a member of the Defense Trades
Advisory Group of the US State Department.
Our second panelist is Richard Love, Professor and Senior Research
Fellow at the Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction
at NDU, which is one of my favorite places in Washington to--to
go to--to hang out at; his current projects include WMD Interdiction
Foreign Consequence Management and Combating WMD Strategy and Operations.
He's the Course Director for the Gravest Danger, Combating WMD and
Consequence Management and Incidence Response at the National War
College. His bio is way longer than mine and much more distinguished
but you can read it all and I think I'd rather than read what's
already written I'm going to turn the floor over first of all to
David. David....
David Isenberg: Okay; before I begin one
housekeeping detail--there should be a sign-up sheet for monthly
updates that we produce on various issues, BW, Nuclear Missile Defense,
NATO, and one that we're starting up on PSI. If you'd like to get
all or any of these just put your information on this sheet and
you'll get them in the future.
Okay; I should say I find it a little bit ironic or at least amusing
that we're talking about PSI at least in the maritime realm because
once upon a time in a century now passed, I spent a few years in
the Navy mostly as a swabjockey but if I had known 30-odd years
later there was going to be something like PSI, who knows I--I might
have stayed. It would have made--certainly would have made life
more interesting and probably more fun than a daily regime of scraping
paint. I think my remarks here are basically going to be derived
from the draft paper that you have in your packets. I may not say
everything I want to say in the time allotted but you'll be able
to read the entire people if you wish and see all what I was going
to say.
The goal here and I should say one other thing, which is that
there are those people, I'm sure my other panelists during the day,
who are such masters of the material and speak with such erudition
and clarity that it's absolutely--and they need not to work off
prepared notes, and it's a joy to listen to them; however I'm not
such a person. I don't have that mastery and I don't speak with
such élan and I'm going to have to work off notes, so forgive me
for that.
The goal here is to explore the origins of PSI and determine whether
those who instigated it are satisfied with its progress. In the
spirit of Dean Atchison's famous diplomatic memoir in 1969 Present
At the Creation in which he described the early post World War
II years, we basically set out to review the original aims and motivations
for establishing PSI in discussion with some of its key founding
fathers between August of last year and August of this year. We've
interviewed seven current or former US State Department officials
with intimate knowledge of PSI; all the interviews save one were
carried out on a non-attribution basis. The objectives were to discover
what was currently happening in terms of both operational procedures
and policy making within the US Government in relation to PSI, piece
together our recent history concerning its development, and test
attitudes of the US policy stakeholders toward WMD proliferation
and counter-proliferation strategies and in particular to discover
the level of awareness about the dynamics that drive WMD proliferation.
The impetus for creating PSI and I don't think it's a surprise
for anybody here was the increased concern over WMD proliferation.
Prior to 9/11 attacks, US concern was primarily the proliferation
of WMD to so-called rogue States--later after 9/11 the concern
grew to include sub-State actors such as terrorist groups, particularly
development--particularly significant in development to PSI, as
I think everybody here knows was the interdiction of the So San
stopped by Spanish Naval Forces when it was bound for Yemen back
in December 2002.
Conventional wisdom says it was allowed to continue on its way
because there was no legal authority to seize the cargo. The legal
basis for the interdiction was the failure of the vessel to fly
its flag which allowed investigation and boarding but not the seizure
of its cargo. The White House subsequently confirmed that the legal
case for confiscation was weak. However, one former State Department
official argued that politics rather than law was a determining
factor; he said--if I give something away by saying he--but
I think anonymity is still assured--although it was asserted to
be a problem of sufficient authority that we didn't have the legal
framework to do anything I don't believe that to be the case. I
think the So San was allowed through for political reasons because
the Vice President of all people decided it had to be let go. The
relationship with Yemen on counterterrorism was more important than
a bunch of North Korean scud missiles.
The same official thought the So San interdiction actually sent
the wrong message. You can't board a ship, document what's onboard;
we couldn't even do it ourselves. The Spanish did it and then let
it go. It sent all the wrong messages because the North Koreans,
they go to school on us. There is nothing worse than having your
bark be worse than your bite. A lot of things that could and should
probably be done unilaterally or bilaterally--not multilaterally
to be most effective are trying to be worked multilaterally which
is not necessarily the way to do it. I think you just heard in the
last part of that sentence the State Department diplomatic protocol
at work. We have equated the existence of the PSI with the existence
of coherent approach to stopping proliferation for key target countries.
People assume that things are happening coherently to try to stop
proliferation networks and functions and so having an exercise in
the sea to demonstrate that we can board ships doesn't stick scare
in North Koreans, okay. They laugh at it.
Although much casual press coverage refers to PSI as being the
brainchild of former US State Department Undersecretary for Arms
Control and International Security John Bolton, now our Ambassador
to the UN, much--I think it's useful to point out most of our interviewees
did not agree with that assessment. They almost uniformly to a persons
note that PSI was actually created as a result of the December 2002
US national strategy to combat weapons of mass destruction which
lists interdiction among various other counter-proliferation strategies
and as we know President Bush formally unveiled in a speech in Cracow,
Poland in 2002.
Some think that implementation of the PSI has actually improved
since Undersecretary Bolton left the State Department. One former
State Department official said I think there is a significant
difference between the way Undersecretary Joseph is running things
and the one that--and the way Undersecretary Bolton ran them. Undersecretary
Joseph was intimately involved with the AQ Kahn network; he's been
a believer in the use of all the intelligence resources to drastically
stop proliferation. I mean he's a very tough guy but he's serious.
My impression of the previous leadership was weak; it was a lot
of talk. It was focused on expressions of indignation--both bad
guys, both evil guys--well so what.
It's well know PSI of course is US-initiated and led attempt to
curb the international spread of WMD. It's worth noting the Bush
Administration has gone to great lengths to diplomatically negotiate
with other nations to enlist their cooperation. Since the Bush Administration
for the past few years has not been well known for putting great
emphasis on diplomatic negotiation with other countries I think
it's worth pointing out that in this--that they have.
This was probably made easier by the fact that PSI is a voluntary
agreement and not a treaty--as one interviewee noted; there is
nothing to negotiate because there is no agreement that is signed.
A lot of it simply consists of answering questions that they have.
How was PSI created? Was it a unilateral effort conceived within
the State Department or was it a combined effort across agencies
and possibly other countries? One official stated that PSI was flushed
out internally in the State Department, but at the same time that
was happening obviously there was a discussion going on; I think
there's been an effort to have other agencies and other groups to
fully work with us. Those other agencies that were involved or consulted
probably included the Office of the Legal Advisor in the Department
of State, CIA, Navy, Army, DOD and the Department of Energy. However,
and I think this is important--this is still largely conjecture
since none--none of those interviewed would specifically say whichever
Departments were involved in the creation of PSI.
Interestingly however, we did in the course of our research on
the Washington side--did contact a number of places--the Coast Guard,
Pentagon, CIA, Navy, Army--in an attempt to contact--in an attempt
to obtain contact points for the PSI but failed anyone in those
agencies with any knowledge of PSI. All of them denied knowing it;
all of them that denied knowing about PSI should have been key actors
in its creation since there's supposedly active in interdiction
training and execution. But how can they be active if they don't
know about it?
According to one article, a key element to PSI is gathering and
sharing of intelligence. How does the US receive intelligence about
suspect cargo? Presumably CIA and every US intelligence agency work
both on their own and in cooperation with intelligence services
in other nations. Since the PSI is a supporting element of the national
security strategy it would seem logical for DOD to be a key player
and for the Army and Coast Guard, along with the Navy to participate
in those interdictions. However, we received limited help in trying
to find other people and agencies involved; most of them were unfamiliar;
some of them said they would try to find someone and get back to
us. Most of them never did. But for whatever reason they always
seem to say that ultimately it's the State Department's baby and
if we wanted to know about it we should talk to people at the State
Department, which we ended up doing. For whatever other reason,
the other agencies simply didn't want to acknowledge participation.
Now this may reflect the fact that in its first couple of years
PSI was more talk than action. One former State Department official
said I think things are better--are definitely better organized
now than they were before. Bob Joseph has moved this from being
a sound-byte to being something I would call a serious effort. The
problem is that for the first four years the last two years of the
first term there was a lot of talk and there was almost no action;
but now in fairness, they have the capability, they have an organization,
they have people that are assigned to not just work in interdiction
related issues on categories--nuclear, biological, and chemical,
but also on countries and that's a huge change. The first time we
didn't have that though with the exception of the AQ Kahn network
and--well I'll leave that part out. [Pause]
Let me--I just realized if I had said what I was going to say
I might give away somebody's anonymity so excuse me. I'll just have
to jump over that.
Recruitment of allies is also an early priority. Which countries
was the US most interested in persuading to join PSI? One official
commented that when he worked at the State there was a couple of
regions with strong interest because they were areas of contracting.
Notably countries with open registries, so-called Flags of Convenience
in areas of high-trafficking were clear priorities. The official
commented that the particular regions that I had in mind were
Southeast Asia, especially the area around the Strait of Malacca.
So there's a lot of interest in persuading Indonesia, Malaysia,
Thailand to sign up--Vietnam and Cambodia as well, likewise the
Persian Gulf.
I think it's self-evident but why would Flags of Convenience be
beneficial to PSI? Well based on growth tonnage of millions almost
one-third of the entire shipping industry is registered with just
ten Flags of Convenience countries.
Let's see; how am I doing on time? Okay, all right; three years
as I said is a relatively short amount of time for an international
initiative to take-hold; however some officials in the US Government
act as though PSI was created last week and no other country has
heard of it. So if countries were reluctant to sign up for PSI how
have US officials thought to convince and assuage their concerns--mostly
through an educational process. One official commented there
was an education process. No sovereign Government is going to say
that we're not interested in helping but there's a great in knowing
what we were asking them to sign to, so I think the hurdle was sort
of an education process. That's been accomplished mainly through
dialog; question and answer forums appear to have been successful
in alleviating concerns of prospective member States. Were there
ever ways to ease their concerns besides dialog? One of them apparently
was an actual example of successful interdiction; countries are
keener to be associated with successful enterprise. And in that
regard, the Libyan interdiction is often cited.
However, it should--it should also be cited that countries often
sign onto PSI for reasons other than interest or concern about proliferation.
One Cracow Initiative official pointed out that a lot of Governments
decide to sign-on to PSI when they're--because what they're really
interested in is benign forms of military cooperation with the United
States and other countries that are possible. A lot of countries,
militaries become supporters of PSI because they like the idea of
being engaged in exercises with the United States, Australia, Japan,
and Italy. It's not--an opportunity they might not otherwise have.
I think we all know that the PSI is without a formal structure,
but a structure(less) coalition who leads. The leadership role of
the US in PSI is not specifically detailed. One of our main objectives
has been the negotiation and signing of the bilateral ship-boarding
agreements and there has been some fair degree of success in that.
The agreements we've had were Liberia, Panama, and a number of Flag
States revealed the power of the United States diplomatically and
economically even within the voluntary initiative. But there's always
the flipside to these things and as one legal observer noted, this
in part reflects the new desire for flexibility of action to avoid
the constraints of multilateralism; he writes PSI is reflective
of a shift of the US foreign policy toward a more flexible approach
to collective action that avoids both ad hoc unilateralism and institutional
multilateralism. What DOD State Director Policy Planning Richard
Haass has characterized as a la carte multilateralism involves coalitions
that will vary in size and composition depending on the issue at
hand with the only constant being that the coalitions are formed
and led by the United States.
As the sole superpower militarily speaking of course, the US has
a political, military, and hopefully economic muscle to bend an
arrangement like the PSI to its own ends--at least in the view of
some observers. One of the ironies of contemporary international
politics is that the Administration's evidently--evident willingness
to use force unilaterally and preemptively provides it with heightened
influence in multilateral negotiations.
Now I think I'm going to skip over the section on the UN Security
Council Resolution 1540 and--.
Moderator: You've got five minutes.
David Isenberg: Five minutes, okay. Let me just speak a
little bit about actual interdiction. Although PSI includes land,
sea, and air interdictions, literature tends to focus on the maritime
aspect. As one official commented a lot of our publicized exercises
have involved the maritime aspects of PSI, but was quick to
add that we've been concentrating on all three. He also said that
there were still ongoing discussions regarding how to properly and
safely undertake air and land interdictions. I must assume that
these discussions must still be ongoing because we did query the
Army, the Air Force numerous times and we just heard nothing--either
they didn't know about it or they can't speak to it--maybe a combination
of both. We were told by people we interviewed that somebody is
doing something and I assume that's the case but how, where, when,
etcetera we still don't know--at least not--not at my end.
Evaluating therefore the effectiveness of overall interdictions
is difficult given the secrecy or void around such activities. As
one official commented the most noted cases of interception at
sea was the BBC China carrying centrifuges to Libya. Many analysts
have suggested this interdiction contributed to Libya's decision
to abandon its programs; however I think it should be stated this
case predates PSI and stems from previous efforts to track and uncover
the Khan network. One official emphasized the most exemplary
thing this Administration did and probably the most exemplary thing
I've ever done in counter-proliferation was the AQ Khan network
and that was done with a great deal of coherence and leadership
and coordination and secrecy and lots of international support.
And the PSI wasn't anywhere near involved with that; you could argue
that PSI was stimulated by it; you could argue that the shipped
stopped on the way to Libya was attributed to PSI action, but we
didn't need the PSI to stop it.
Again, I'm not trying to negate the PSI; it can't really hurt
but it doesn't function as a counter-proliferation strategy in the
21st Century. At times when you see proliferation networks increasing
in their sophistication, a network--destruction of strategy is really
the only effective way to do that. You can do that corroboratively
using the international consensus that has been around PSI principles,
but we already have UN Resolution 1540. I'm not against international
resolutions--very helpful; we've got the new one on North Korea
and the PSI is an important supporting policy but we've created
this sort of smokescreen to mask the fact that we didn't have that
sort of coherent strategy on proliferation. I can tell you we certainly
didn't have it on North Korea.
Others such as the Polish Government have taken a strong supportive
role ever since and like--and like to paint a rosier picture of
PSI. One Polish official is quoted as saying that around twelve
illegal shipments have been seized in the past three years by countries
that back an international scheme to halt the spread of WMD. Those
figures are backed up by more recent public declarations by the
State Department. I see I'm just coming in my last minute here,
so I'm going to skip ahead a little bit.
Let me just go back to ship-boarding agreements. Have they enhanced
the US interdiction efforts? It's hard to say for sure but they
have allowed the US the potential at least to interdict in a timely
manner a very large percentage of the world's commercial shipping
fleet. You know I might note since Steve was talking about intelligence
earlier and going back to my Navy days it always struck me that
in a sense PSI was perhaps a little bit window-dressing at least
in the maritime realm. I mean if you've ever actually traipsed around
a ship and I have a few in my day, there's an awful lot of hiding
spaces. If you're not talking about some massive piece of equipment
it's--it's virtually impossible to find anything on a ship if you
don't already know where to look. And if you know where to look
of course then you could interdict something on a ship before it
gets on the ship or after it's been off-loaded off the ship and
further on--on its course to its ultimate destination. So this is
just a personal opinion--and in that sense I always thought the
maritime aspect or the maritime interdiction aspect of PSI was a
little bit oversold.
Finally I'll just say that the US has some obvious countries in
mind that it wants to get aboard with regard to PSI. Obviously one
very important one since a lot of proliferation is centered around
is China. China is a very powerful actor, growing economic and military
profile; without the full support of China behind PSI other neighboring
Asian countries appear reluctant to join. But because China is heavily
dependent on Middle Eastern oil and gas it's reluctant to cede interdiction
rights to the US or allied navies that could potentially be used
to interrupt the delivery of key energy supplies. Also China appears
wary of the US motivations behind PSI and often says it sees it
as another tool for extending US hegemony in its own regional setting.
And I think with that I'm probably at my limit and I'll stop here.
Moderator: Thank you David; Richard....
Richard Love: Good morning; can everybody
hear me okay--yeah? Steven thanks--Ian for inviting me. Steven I
had asked that no matter what I'm doing with five minutes left to
go could you punch me in the arm or something because I do want
to get to some questions.
I have three objectives in this presentation; the first is since
we have such a diverse crowd to try to put PSI into some context.
The second is to briefly outline the threat that we face today and
may face in the immediate future. The third is to talk about the
challenges that PSI is facing--these growing pains as a more than
60-nation activity; what the stressors are on the participants.
Finally, if there is time for Q&A and I hope that there's at least
five minutes, I'm prepared to talk about how the Department of Defense
is organizing to meet the interdiction mission. Does, for example,
PSI equal the US interdiction strategy or is one a subset or the
other?
These are my views and mine alone; they don't represent National
Defense University, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, DOD
or the US Government. As such I'm going to go through my prepared
remarks and then we'll turn to your questions. Ambassador--I have
some answers I think where PSI fits in and Sharon I think there
is a way to see this as a different model, but you will find that
I may be as equally as skeptical in making my own argument.
Dollars and guns are no substitutes for brains and willpower.
Dwight D. Eisenhower offered this perspective on security in a radio
audience in 1957. And in preparing this presentation I found myself
returning to Eisenhower's message; who has the brains and the willpower--the
proliferators or us? The stakes are high; combating the proliferation
of WMD is clearly a priority of this Administration as well as the
global community. However the threat environment we face today is
not solely from rogue States, be they nuclear possessors or aspirants
or even from committed terrorists operating global networks. It
also includes trans-national criminal organizations supporting these
networks and even legitimate multi-national corporations that unknowingly--or
in some cases knowingly--ease finance and transfer. Who has the
brains and willpower to best exploit the global marketplace and
its infrastructure?
Given the complexities of interdiction, the dangers of non-State
nuclear hopefuls, the dual use nature of many of the technologies,
you know is this an aluminum tube or an aluminum tube? You know
when do we get excited about it? And the tools to combat weapons
of mass destruction from PSI to the global initiative to combat
WMD terrorism to the UN Security Council Resolution 1540 or Ambassador
Joseph's new call for an Intelligence PSI--even with all that are
we going to be able to stay one step ahead?
So let's go back a few years to the late 1990s and put this all
in context. All of us can remember a time when there were two primary
communities dedicated to combating WMD right? There was the nonproliferation
community favoring traditional diplomatic approaches based on developing
norms, standards, and standards through international compact. Nonproliferation
the primary area for combating WMD for some 60-years is State-based
and consensus driven. Now starting at about 1993 with Les Aspins'
Defense Counter-Proliferation Initiative here in the United States,
a different community began to develop. Counter-proliferation is
operational in nature and seeks to develop capabilities and plans
so that if [Emphasis Added] diplomacy fails we are surprised. We
have options including military options that are on-hand to protect
and defend against weapons of mass destructions.
Counter-proliferations components from active defense, threat
reduction, passive defense and interdiction were and are not without
controversy. These two communities existed and evolved. And I would
argue far too exclusively as communities of, by and for themselves
and not as an integrated priority of a unit--unified strategy. So
why did I encounter--engage on this history lesson--because I think
today's proliferation threats lie at the seams, the intersection
between nonproliferation and counter-proliferation. To overcome
these threats we require diplomacy, arms control, and also the operational
capabilities and concepts of operations, in short solutions that
effectively combine nonproliferation and counter-proliferation tools.
Now what might tomorrow's proliferation threat look like? Well
it might look a lot like today's. We need only consider the AQ Kahn
network, unprecedented scale, Iran, Libya, North Korea, unprecedented
content--uranium enrichment, centrifuge know-how, equipment, precursors,
nuclear weapons design, unprecedented use of outsourcing--utilizing
the private sector, Malaysian machine shops, effective network--Dubai-front
companies, meetings in Casablanca and Istanbul with Iranian colleagues,
connections in Germany and Holland, Malaysian and Philippine agents,
detours through Sri Lanka with Chinese and London connections; and
let's not forget they had a help desk right? I mean the Kahn network
offered 24-hour technical assistance to customers and even had nice
color brochures right advertising centrifuges and other components
for sale available to prospective clients at arms fairs. And for
those of you who are quick, when the AQ Kahn network started to
break in the media and you go to the Khan Research Labs website
you could actually see the brochure there on the web, right? Help
desk--that's the threat we're facing. So weaving official State
activity with private commercial practice, Khan Research Labs moved
globally and indeed Khan made what something like 13 trips to North
Korea through about the June 2002 timeframe making distinctions
between public and private--rather irrelevant. We need tools that
are not constrained by boundaries. We need plans that include multi-national
partners. We need architectures that have buy-in from the private
sector. And we need concepts that are well-exercised not solely
at the tactical level but also at the diplomatic level. We need
to explore the scenes. Think about how a thoughtful or even a clumsy
adversary could frustrate our efforts. We need to prioritize and
plan for the most likely but be ever mindful of the worst case scenario.
So where does PSI fit in? Well PSI was designed with a specific
purpose in mind; it is a tool that was designed to fight State-based
proliferation. Specifically it was developed to hedge against an
explicit gap in the global combating proliferation scheme highlighted
by the So San interdiction in December 2002. You get the intelligence
right; you track a ship that is changing flags on the high-seas
for 30 days, and working with an ally you interdict and board a
ship on the high-seas and you find exactly what you're looking for--and
then you let it go. This I think sends the wrong message to Pyongyang
and others in the proliferation game. Now there are some out there
who say that even if we let it go we sent a nice message to the
North Koreans that we could track them and we could interdict them
at will. I--I don't put a lot of credence in that argument.
PSI is the first attempt to get at the seam between counter-proliferation
and interdiction--counter-proliferation in the nonproliferation
community. WMD elimination which is an effort here in the United
States that I can speak to is another. PSI as has been mentioned
is an activity and not an organization; it has no secretary, no
professional corps of civil service practitioners and no return
address. It is designed to be flexible, tailor(able), responsive,
event-driven, and members through the statement of principles are
encouraged--not required--but encouraged to strengthen and enforce
their own nonproliferation laws, participate in interdiction exercises
and assist when called upon with interdiction operations. It is
a partnership that raises the costs and risks of proliferation and
as such is not only an interdiction tool but one with deterrence
value. It is a tool that brings together diplomacy, law enforcement
and military might; it operates at the seam between nonproliferation
and counter-proliferation and while ultimately dependent on self-policing
policies after three years can claim some notable successes.
I think it was earlier this summer that Secretary of State Rice
noted there had been eleven PSI interdictions. Every time a statement
I run to my Power Point slides and update it right--incrementally.
Others put this number at between twelve and twenty-four depending
on who you talk to. Now I'll leave it to the others to flesh out
the BBC, China, and Libya and the intelligence trail; instead I
want to focus on the challenges the PSI as a successful (global
initiative) is facing and will likely face in the future. You know
just because someone says an interdiction was a PSI interdiction
doesn't make it so.
The first issue is obvious and well-cited by critics; can an activity
designed to deter and defeat rogue States--North Korea--adjust to
the non-State proliferation threat? And my answer to this is certainly
yes; it can and will play a vital role in the non-State proliferation
prevention. However, let's not forget that the strength of PSI is
in interdiction--not in terror financing or an intelligence integration.
Intelligence and financing while critical to PSI are not its core
mission; its core mission is interdiction. Now it remains to be
seen whether the fundamental and underlying mission of PSI will
shift to include greater prevention missions, so the jury is still
out on that.
My second issue is fundamental; should PSI seek new missions--intelligence
for example? Well I think that answer depends on whether there are
better suited avenues for others to take on that mission area. What
are the other candidates out there? Should PSI take up the mission
or should it participate and be informed by other organizations'
activities or initiatives better positioned to understand the nuances
of the particular threat area?
When considering new initiatives such as the global initiative
to combat nuclear terrorism, I am pulled to keeping PSI more narrowly
focused on interdiction operations. Now that is not to say as Undersecretary
Joseph said in June 2006 that tools to interdict proliferation
payments are not needed--they clearly are. But should that be
addressed as a core component of PSI? You know when thinking about
it does that require different skills and expertise and draw on
a different talent pool better suited for a separate but linked
initiative? It should be noted that the intelligence breakout group
of the OEG, that's the Operational Experts Group that meets periodically--are
trying to balance the intelligence requirements of interdiction
operations with the need to safeguard sources and methods and trying
to determine the lines between operational intelligence, strategic
intelligence and where interdiction intelligence needs to be. How
do you share it for example?
Third, considering the sheer size of participating States should
PSI opt for a more formalized structure? Is there a growing need
for a secretariat? There could be no doubt that with over 60 States
participating the call itself--the call list itself is probably
hard to manage. I think one of the benefits of having conferences
such as this one to explore these sorts of viewpoints could lead
to a more rigorous organization. At the same time you know the hallmark
of PSI would be lost with a secretariat. Flexibility, tailor(ability),
responsiveness, and the ability to efficiently self-organize based
on a specific threat; those are the strengths of PSI. I think many
of those threats would be in jeopardy if you did institute a secretariat
based format.
Finally, how can PSI be approved? Well PSI as an interdiction
that is boarding ships is well-exercised. There is--there is now
a cadre of international practitioners highly-skilled in the art--in
other words, the counter-proliferation side of things is going well.
I have concerns on the nonproliferation side of the house--at the
diplomatic and strategic level. While the OEG is looking at capacity
building and industry outreach, this remains at an early stage.
I think it's an important component of PSI and my belief is that
in effectively building partners' operational capabilities and translating
that into interdiction operations we will see enormous dividends
in the future. Likewise, the private sector--the shippers, transporters,
financiers--in other words, those engaged in multimodal trans-shipping
are central to breaking the proliferation network and their participation
critical to mitigating non-State threats. I have no doubt that the
other panels will shed light on these and other issues; so in conclusion....
As we meet the deadly and immediate proliferation threat let us
not substitute the brains and willpower we will need merely with
dollars and guns. So thank you Mr. Chair; I'll be more than happy
to take any questions or angry comments or unsolicited personal
attacks--whatever you guys have in mind; so--.
Moderator: Thank you Richard and thank you again David;
we have intentionally left ample time for discussion sensing that
there would be need for such, so let me turn the floor over to you.
I will recognize you in the order in which I see your hands and
will do my best to not limit my peripheral vision. So please I'll
be happy to start.
Richard Love: Well PSI is many things to many people fortunately
or unfortunately; what constitutes a legal versus illicit shipment
I think is what you're getting at? And--and the answer to that in
many ways is dependent on who is doing the interdicting? There is
no secretariat to put out a list of you know banned articles or
band dual use assets, but what we do have is an international regime
that does ban certain things and depending on the--the degree to
which a particular State feels that there's an interdiction need
they can interdict it. There's an Operational Expert Group on legal
matters which gets at a lot of the things that David was talking
about that's trying to figure out what would constitute a legal
versus illicit list. As such it is up to the parties to share the
proper intelligence and to make the proper determination but as
such there is no list.
Question: [You're saying] that PSI is [inaudible]--is linked
to this [inaudible]?
Richard Love: I--I--. No; there is a linkage to those because
that is the criteria for establishing for example a legal versus
illegal interdiction. I would note however that if you're talking
about you know the Australia group or whatever, you know if you're
talking about more than 60 nations, not all of them have signed
up to those principles, you know. They're not--they don't match
up perfectly with all the--what we would consider the technological
control regimes.
David Isenberg: Just one quick thing; I think Richard touched
on it. There--there is--as far as I know there is no strict PSI
equivalent to say the CWC where you have various schedules setting
forth what is and is not prescribed. It also strikes me that one
potential problem for PSI is that since WMD is not contrary to what
a lot of people think just about the nuclear issue; I mean it's
the full panoply which--which gets you back into the same sort of
dilemma you faced with regard to say Iraq and the aluminum tube
issues, you know like something could be dual purpose and you don't--unless
you have 100-percent absolutely perfect intelligence you could make
a serious mistake--not to mention set off an international incident
by interdicting something you thought was which wasn't, you know.
And I just think that's a problem.
Moderator: Thank you; as we go around the table I just asked
you all to remember that we do have microphones available; so when
you make your comments or questions please take the handhelds to
do it through.
Question:
Richard Love: The silence is deafening isn't it? Two--two
thoughts; the first one is that just be--let me just reiterate just
because someone says that there has been a successful PSI interdiction
doesn't mean that it was a successful PSI interdiction. As far as
metrics, my second point is that OSD came to me two weeks ago and
said here's what we'd like to do. We'd like to get--generate some
lessons learned on PSI interdictions; we'd like to build that into
an education and training module. We'd like to send that out to
the combatant commands; we'd like to you know really be able to
capture the success--the successes we've had and I asked one question--well
do you mean the interdictions or do you really mean the exercises?
And the answer was well the exercises of course; we can't talk about
the actual interdictions. What--are you nuts? [Laughs] As
far as--that probably was a little too flip but as far as proposing
metrics, I think that what we're doing right now is taking quite
a simplistic view on gauging the success of PSI. We're looking at
numbers and numbers of States that are--that are signing up and
we're looking at the number of exercises that are quite robust and
do cross--do more than just maritime interdiction. The [time] you
know the one in Poland tried--air interdiction and there's been--I'm
sorry that was a ground interdiction and there have been a couple
of air interdiction exercises. Have I successfully avoided your
question? [Laughs]
David Isenberg: Let me just add one thing to that; I mean
this all reminds me of the question that Secretary Rumsfeld famously
pondered in respect to Iraq which I think a lot of people here know
which is you know how do we know essentially that we're winning
you know; how do we know that what we're doing is you know in terms
of killing jihadists in Iraq isn't outweighed by the recruitment
of new ones for example? And I think the problem here is that the
so-called metrics that we have to date are not really measuring
success; they're measuring inputs. You know they are measuring how--as
he--as Richard just said--how many exercises have we conducted,
how many countries have signed up, if people are feeling particularly
eager and optimistic, how many interdictions have we actually done
to date--depending on who you're talking to will depend on which
number you're looking at but these are all inputs; they're not outputs
and outputs are what you're talking about and I don't think--I'm
certainly clueless as what is a good measure of an output. I mean
I would think the ultimate--or the optimal output would be some
certainty that the overall trafficking and actual or attempted proliferation
is diminishing but how do you measure that? I don't know.
Moderator: Thank you
Question: It can't simply be that you get out there and
say well 80 nations support this when there's no good way you know
saying what that support entails. I mean PSI has gone from something
that had you know a statement of principles, core members, and then
the State Department inexplicably got rid of the concept of core
members because some nations felt that--that was discriminatory,
so I guess I would just ask if you could elaborate more on what
you believe or--or measure as a deterrent value?
Richard Love: Well deterrence can also be measured in how
your adversary views a particular initiative and one thing that
can be said about PSI is that it is attempting to strengthen the
legal authorities under which interdictions on the high seas can
be conducted. It is also supposed to be an--an activity where intelligence
can be shared; so if you're a potential proliferator that didn't
exist before--right? There was no--okay; fair enough; I know what
you're going to say. It didn't exist as formally as it does today.
Question: But I would argue unless you have other information
that there are no formal--maybe [inaudible]--there are no formal
mechanisms for sharing intelligence and what's more we may share
intelligence with a few of our good allies but when you're looking
at 70 or 80 nations I mean this is one of the problems with--that
I see when you seek a country like China or India to join PSI, how
much intelligence are you really going to share with those countries?
Question: And to add to that what's the new legal authority?
Richard Love: It's just trying to strengthen the legal authority
to do ship-boarding in areas that are within your territorial waters
or under your flag. It basically just reemphasizes what is conventional
law of the high seas anyway and it is based--since it's based on
self-policing activity you know as I think Sharon is arguing is
there really anything there? Is there anything new? I think the
effort to strengthen legal authority in a much more robust way outside
of the traditional UN mechanisms is new. You know I do think that
is a difference and I do think Ambassador Goodby to kind of get
what you asked initially--where does it fit in? Well it's a different
model than we've had in the past. And if you pay attention to Ambassador
Joseph's comments and some of the moves by the State Department
out of their new WMD Terrorism Office for example, I think you can
see this PSI model now being moved in different--into different
arenas. As I--as I kind of said in my comments, really the question
is do you expand PSI to include other things because you've already
got a bunch of nations signed up or do you go for new initiatives
and keep them narrowly tailored? There are advocates on both sides
of that; for example OSD views all interdiction as PSI--period.
Right; PSI is not a subset of interdiction--PSI is interdiction.
There's another side of the--of OSD that kind of feels that--that's
just not true--that there is something broader, that there are covert
operations, that we've always been doing these kinds of interdictions,
that there is nothing new there. Well I've hogged the mic long enough;
David do you have any thoughts?
David Isenberg: Well I was just bemused to hear your depiction
of DOD as--as a faction of DOD thinking that all interdiction is
PSI because I would think with just a little thinking about it that
would clearly not be the case. I mean you have this whole group
of people within DOD, you know whose only thought of interdiction
is interdicting cocaine coming up from South America you know, which
you know may be devastating but it's not proliferation as we have
defined it or anywhere else that I know of. So you know I think
that would be kind of ridiculous.
Richard Love: I've got to follow-up to your comment. For
those of you who aren't aware your narcotics discussion point is
rather well taken. For about 10 to 15 years in OSD there was the
debate on what is counter-proliferation and nonproliferation; you
had two different directorates that were set up. You had the Office
for Counter-Proliferation Policy and Office for Nonproliferation
Policy. You had a Deputy Undersecretary who was supposed to kind
of arbitrate between the two. Under DOD and OSD's new reorganization
they are going to take this issue set, combating WMD and putting
it under the Office for Counter-Narcotics and Global Issues. So
rule number one right, when you get here to Washington is to say
who has the money and who is paying? And does rhetoric actually
meet action?
Question: Richard, let me ask you a question based on that
comment. Government bureaucracies reorganize themselves for lots
of different reasons and sometimes one of those reasons is to as
delicately and politely as they can shift responsibility from one
office to another. Is it your sense that this sort of reorganization
implies that DOD is downgrading the counter-proliferation initiative?
Richard Love: Well I certainly hope not since the President
of the United States came to NDU in 1994 and said the greatest threat
that the nation--that the United States faces is WMD in the hands
of terrorists. I guess I would ask whether the Department of Defense
is kind of living up to that challenge. Now I will say that another
way of looking at this is to think through--think about it as being
institutionalized within DOD; for example strategic command has
the integrating and synchronizing combating WMD mission now. I don't
think anybody is really clear on what integrating and synchronizing
out in Omaha is going to have to do with the combatant commands
in Europe or the Pacific to conducting interdictions, but perhaps
this is more of an opportunity to take advantage of you know as
David said what are--you know what is the breadbasket of counter-narcotics?
You could argue it's interdiction. What is the breadbasket of combating
WMD? Perhaps that's interdiction too so maybe there's some synergies
to be leveraged there. I remain a skeptic.
Question: Thank you very much. After hearing your speeches
I learned that I know so few about PSI. I--I thought that my understanding
was--was better really but my question is--so thank you for that--the
US signed up some ship-boarding agreements and--and did these agreements
really add some value to the successes even though that you said
that they're not in fact successes--practically measured? Or, did
these agreements only have the value of telling the world that the
US signed these agreements with the countries that have the majority
of commercial vessels in the world?
David Isenberg: Well I go back and forth on that point
myself and I don't conclusively come down on either side but I think
at least in part it refers a little bit to the issue that was raised
earlier in terms of what is the deterrent value of this. You know
and I think the signing of a ship-boarding agreement is in effect
a sort of potential victory or it's a potential deterrent success
in that it does announce to the world and potential proliferators
that one route for egress for you is at least potentially cut-off
if only because these countries represent a disproportionate share
of the potential maritime trafficking vehicles that you can use.
Now at the same time for reasons I stated earlier, I'm a little
skeptical about how much of a success that is in real life because
as I said, unless you have perfect intelligence the idea of actually
carrying out an interdiction on you know the container ship for
example out at sea, you know and effectively finding something especially
if it's not some massive piece of equipment that would be used for
some nuclear program for example would be [inaudible] small. So
depending on you know who--who is actually reading an announcement
may be less than impressed, but you know I'm willing to give it
the benefit of the doubt at least at this stage and say it could
be a useful measure. I'm not sure how much more I want to go beyond
the word could; I have no way of quantifying it.
Moderator: I can't-- thank you.
Question: I think this goes back to the question of inputs
and outputs; what do we think is the limiting factor today on interdictions?
Is it that we don't have enough countries signed up for PSI, is
there a lack of legal authority, or is there a lack of knowledge
or maybe consensus on a particular--maybe that's another issue;
is there a consensus on actually executing a--an intervention? I
mean here we have--I think we've just sanctioned you know a number
of companies including some Russian companies where you wouldn't
exactly expect the Russians to--and if the Russians you know oppose
this--you wouldn't expect the Russians to then interdict their own
companies selling stuff to Iran. So there's this extra issue of
consent but I imagine that the real limiting factor is--is the question
of intelligence, right? It's not as if there are operations going
begging for lack of--because we--you know lack of a participating
State? Is that people's understanding?
David Isenberg: Well from my view in a word yes; we--you
know I did everything but you know offer to sell various agencies
in the intelligence community my future first-born in terms of trying
to get them to provide a speaker for this event you know. Negroponte's
office, the Office of Director of National Intelligence, CIA, DIA,
Intelligence components--Army, Navy, Air Force, etcetera, you know
and it's like [Laughs]--yeah good luck with that son. So that tells
me two things--either you know they're as clueless as I am or you
know they had something going and they just don't talk about it,
but I think given the number of countries you now have signed up
to PSI and traditional concerns about--among intelligence agencies
about how far they can trust somebody in the intelligence service
of another country, the idea that you're going to have an effective
mechanism set up for sharing operationally useful intelligence seems
to me to be rather fantastic and I just don't think they have it.
So I think in clear--from my viewpoint intelligence is clearly the
stumbling block.
Question: You're suggesting that we have the intelligence
but we can't use it?
David Isenberg: Well I'm not even sure I would go that--I'm
giving them the benefit of the doubt and saying they may have it.
I'm not sure I would say that; I think--and I should add we also
tried very desperately to get someone from the shipping industry
here because you would think after all you know if you're talking
about maritime interdictions the shipping industry itself would
be an invaluable source of intelligence. And what I found out from
talking with people in the shipping industry was that--PSI what;
who--? I mean what is this PSI you speak about? And you know it's
a stranger from a strange land; we don't know anything about no
stinking PSI. It's just you know--it's irrelevant to them and I've
talked to a number of shipping experts like down at Hampton Roads
you know it just doesn't come up; you know maybe somebody once upon
a time going to a maritime conference heard somebody utter the words
Proliferation Security Initiative but that's about it. You know--you
know of all the issues that they concentrate on from--from port
security to you know to protecting your ships out at sea, you know
PSI just isn't in it.
Richard Love: I'd like to just offer a couple of thoughts;
the first one is that PSI is absolutely constrained by its ability
to exploit intelligence period. But I think it's important to draw
a distinction between strategic level intelligence and intelligence
that is focused at the operational level. So for example, at the
strategic level when you're dealing with other policies, when you're
balancing interdiction against the global war on terror, when you're
considering allies like Yemen in the global war on terror for example
that's one kind of intelligence, okay. Another kind is the operational
level intelligence which is sharing the intelligence information
to do an interdiction. What do you need to tell the allies? There
are two things here; I think our tactical level to operational level--intelligence
sharing, once the strategic level has been made to interdict is
great. Okay; that's what we test. What we do not test are the strategic
level breakpoints. So that's first; I had another point but I got
so wrapped up in this comment that I forgot what it was; so--.
Moderator: Can you pass the mic?
Question: Thank you; I mean our discussion so far has evolved
around the PSI maritime initiative and as far as I understand the
sort of preliminary conclusion is that you know the jury is still
out with regards to its effectiveness. But could the panelists also
speak to--to the PSI more broadly because I mean the intention is
also that--that it should be a tool to interdict--make interdictions
also on land and--and in the air. So could you speak to you know
your views on the prospects of also making this effective in those
spheres so to speak?
Richard Love: Good question; I think everybody tends to
like to do the things we do well. We've been doing maritime interdiction
for a while; it's vastly more difficult to get a Leer jet traveling
at 40,000 feet that's going to cross international boundaries you
know in a matter of a couple of hours if not a couple of minutes.
There have been a number of air interdiction exercises; I'm sure
you--you may very well be aware of them--if not participated directly
in them. What the air component does is basically take a maritime
interdiction structure and try to compress it. And one of the--one
of the challenges I think PSI is going through today is to look
for another model. Is there something special; is there something
unique about air interdictions that require you to breakout of the
traditional maritime model that basically PSI was organized around?
Quite frankly that model is not out there yet; okay. And when you're
dealing with trans-modal transportation that does cross land, air,
and sea I guess the question becomes sort of like one of my comments,
you have to prioritize, so where do you think you can have the most
success? They're trying--they're doing these exercises; my own assessment
of some of the exercises that I've seen is that they really struggle
with the time dimension. How do you make a decision to do an air
interdiction, which is not pulling a ship over--it could be downing
an aircraft or shooting it out of the sky and that's where the intelligence
component comes in; how sure are you that you know what's on that
plane, what the intentions are of the people who put it on that
plane, and where it's going? And if there's--if there's a gap in
your knowledge, which there inevitably will be the risk of making
the wrong decision with catastrophic and front-page news headlines
becomes greater.
David Isenberg: It's occurred to me and this is just my
own personal speculation that the reason you have not done so much
on ground and air interdiction is in fact dependent on what you
think the particular WMD threat is. Many people of course will say
the highest threat of course is a specter of a nuclear weapons program.
If it's a nuclear weapons program and materials and equipment is
being delivered for that it's probably going to go by sea because
a lot of it is massive. If you're talking about chemical or biological
weapons then are a lot easier things to do--then send it by sea,
but it also is a lot harder and more difficult to interdict. I mean
if you've got somebody transporting a pathogen you know and they
were doing it by land, coming in over a border that would be virtually
impossible to detect no matter--or interdict no matter how many
ground exercises you do. So there may be people thinking well why
bother; I mean it would be almost certainly an exercise in futility--maybe
a little better luck with air, maybe if somebody was planning on
transporting some chemical precursors by air that might be a possibility
but again I think you would still have same kind of reasoning. So
I think in large part they do maritime interdictions for the same
reasoning about the old joke about you know why is the drunk looking
for his keys on the other side of the street where the streetlight
is when he dropped them on the other side--because it's easier to
do and I think you know in large part that's the way they do maritime
interdictions.
Moderator: We're at break time but I think we can take one
more question or comment before we go that far.
Question: Yes; since I'm listening to you I would like
to understand what is a maritime interdiction and what is a--what
is in your view the law enforcement of the military framework for--for
in order to practice or to complete maritime interdictions? To--to
be more specific, when we are speaking about the ground or air interdictions
we can refer to territorial borders. So that--and to national lows,
but when we are speaking about maritime interdictions this is supposed
to be an action on open seas. Some of them--you know that the open
seas begins at 12 nautical miles from a seashore--from the coastal
shore, so everything is further than 12--12 nautical miles--depends
on international laws at sea. So PSI--is PSI a matter of law enforcements
or a matter of military actions or both in your views?
Richard Love: Both.
Question: Yes; thank you for this very--now this is very
important. As you know probably--just a comment, all the maritime
interdictions we have completed through more or less international
agreements and I make--and one example is narco-traffic actions
in the Caribbean regions. Those interdictions are based on law enforcement
actions--even if it's with military means, the decision making process
is based on the law enforcement authorizations and this is why when
the US Navy has to complete a maritime interdiction against suspected
boats, he--the Navy ship has to go to the others with a US Coast
Guard detachment because this is about law enforcement and they
respect more or less the international more than this--the international
laws. So is PSI--has to go further for--to the--to what the military
means and this is a key point for the future and to get--to get
some more agreements, international agreements through maritime--for
the maritime interdictions. What's your views--what are your views?
Richard Love: Well I think you asked two questions here;
the one question was are we relying on territorial waters, are we
looking for kind of free navigation on the high-seas issues--flag
in question, those kinds of issues? No problem. PSI was originally
designed to be more of a territorial--waters compact; that's how
it initially started because as you know the sovereign nation has
great latitude in conducting interdiction within its territorial
waters. With the bilateral ship-boarding agreements the idea is
to do sort of what we did with--what the United States did with
counter-narcotics--have pre-existing compacts in place with States
who--who have a majority of the flag ships worldwide that provide
for lack of a better word reciprocity but we know it's not reciprocity
although it kind of looks like reciprocity--for the US with the
Coast Guard, I mean that's an important consideration to conduct
interdictions under criminal auspices--not just national security
auspices.
David Isenberg: I guess I would only add I think a lot
of people probably have the wrong idea about the way the interdiction
process works and maybe they watch too much television. Yes, we
have bilateral boarding agreements, but that doesn't mean that you
know the US Navy frigate comes charging up, you know and sends over
you know an armed squad and a cutter and suddenly a search party
boards and starts searching. Even with the agreements the United
States is essentially in a position analogous to the domestic law
enforcement where police have to go before a judge you know and
lay out their case so they can get a warrant and go in and search
a premises of something suspect. And it's not all that dissimilar;
I mean the United--as far as I understand the process you know if
there's a ship that the United States wants to interdict it basically
has to make its case with the country under--under whose flag that
ship is flying. Now presumably they're more inclined to say yes,
you can go ahead by virtue of having a boarding agreement with the
United States but it's not assured. In any event it's going to take
a few hours between the time that the request is made--at a minimum
before they get back to the United States and say yes, you can go
ahead and do it. So depending on what might be in the cargo they
could just as easily jettison and get rid of it, so in that sense
I--you know I think the interdiction is more likely to be a failure
than a success. But I--that's getting a little bit away from your
question; you know I simply think that the process is such that
the United States does not have a clear in-road you know. It's--it's
bound by having to ask and it cannot do anything unilaterally on
its own.
Moderator: Thank you. I think we've reached the end of
this first panel. And I think that the day is fairly launched. There
will be opportunity for further discussion during the break and
I'll see you all in 15 minutes. Thank you.
Session 2-Maritime Counter-Proliferation Measures
and the PSI: A Coherent Whole?
Moderator: We're moving onto the second
part of our program today and as I told our speakers here, today
at this point we are now going to start talking about the SUA. Now
contrary to what you may think, the SUA is the Convention for the
suppression of unlawful acts against the safety of maritime navigation
and the Protocol for the suppression of unlawful acts against the
safety of fixed platforms, known as a SUA Protocol.
Now we have as a topic of course Maritime Counter-Proliferation
Majors and the PSI: A Coherent Whole? and this relates to questions
that were coming up this morning about how does PSI relate to pre-existing
arrangements? We have an expert on this subject, Leah Kuchinsky
who has studied this issue quite substantially and written about
it. She has also had a lot of hands-on experience in public affairs
I noticed, working for a public radio station in Charlottesville,
and she also to my mind did something really amazing in her dissertation
at the University of Virginia where she produced a thesis on a unified
theory of nuclear proliferation, something that even--even Einstein
couldn't do but I hope we hear something about that. I will introduce
Ian, who will be the other speaker, although he needs no introduction
but Leah why don't you go ahead and tell us about SUA.
Leah Kuchinsky: Okay; well first of all
thank you very much for that very kind introduction. As you said,
my name is Leah Kuchinsky and I'm working with Sandy Specter at
the Monterey Institute Center for Nonproliferation Studies.
David Isenberg has asked me to address the relationship between
PSI and other maritime Conventions and initiatives and I'm going
to briefly review a few of these other initiatives and Conventions,
including the Container Security Initiative. I'm going to talk about
the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea Briefly as well as SOLAS.
But I'd like to spend most of the time today talking about SUA and
the amendments that were made to it in the fall of 2005 to the SUA
Convention and SUA Protocol because I think that out of all the
other maritime Conventions and initiatives listed here on the agenda,
SUA's mission is perhaps the most similar to that of PSI. And yet
there are some important distinctions between them that I'd like
to discuss. And as I talk, the graphs that I've handed out, which
are these two hopefully will become clearer and more meaningful
to you, and I'm happy to answer questions about them at any point.
Okay; the session this morning focused extensively on PSI and
for those of you who might not know, PSI at this point includes
bilateral boarding agreements with several States including Belize,
Croatia, Cypress, Liberia, the Marshall Islands, and Panama. And
these States are important because they produce or oversee a majority
of the shipping that goes on; specifically Panama I think flags
about 20-percent of all commercial vessels on the ocean. And the
reason I bring that up and point that out is because in--in comparison
to the States that have signed onto the SUA Convention and SUA Protocol
the amended versions, PSI is actually covering a much greater majority
of shipping at this point. SUA--the SUA Conventions, the amended
version and the Protocol as well actually haven't come into effect
yet and we'll talk about that in a little bit as I continue. But
right now PSI is really the only game in town when it comes to doing
introduction of WMD.
PSI can apply to the high seas when bilateral boarding agreements
between States have--have agreed to include the high seas. When
you look at this document here you can see that in the beginning
PSI was arranged to apply to internal waters, territorial zones
and contiguous zones as well. And exclusive economic zones as one
of the earlier speakers mentioned--actually one I think was mentioned
earlier can start up to 12 miles off of the coastline and usually
they extend about 200 miles. So they are considered in terms of
PSI part of the high seas but as I said, depending upon the particular
details of whatever bilateral arrangements are arranged between
two States sometimes the high seas may be included as well.
And if anyone has any questions particularly about you know what
these different terms mean please let me know but they are demonstrated
pretty well here. Contiguous zones which fall outside of territorial
zones can be between two and twelve miles usually.
All right; the next Convention I want to talk a little bit about
is the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. It deals with concepts
such as innocent passage where it's allowed and the important concept
of freedom of the seas--in other words which state has jurisdiction
and where--and where ships may be interdicted. On the high seas
it holds that ships may only be interdicted when there are clear
illegal acts occurring such as piracy, slave trade, illegal broadcasting--at
this point the trafficking of psychotropic--illegal psychotropic
or narcotics is also considered something that can be interdicted
on the high seas because of the 1988 Vienna Convention. Under the
UNCLOS, States can also be--are--ships can also be interdicted when
they're not clearly displaying a nationality; in other words, when
they're not flying a flag that's clearly identifiable or when you--you
actually are invited onboard for whatever reasons. As I mentioned,
under PSI there might be an instance or an arrangement under which
States could be invited to board and in that way PSI would be applicable
to the high seas.
Let's see here; SOLAS, the International Convention on the Safety
of Life at Sea--this includes regulations on safe shipping, on what
happens when ships are in distress and how to mark dangerous goods.
It's generally regarded as the most important of all international
treaties concerning the safety of merchant ships. The first diversion
was adopted in 1914 in response to the Titanic disaster. The Convention
itself was adopted in 1960 however and is considered the first major
accomplishment of the IMO. It was amended in 1974 and many changes
have been made since then. One of the most important actually addendums
is the ISPS Code which is alluded to here on this graph, the International
Ship and Port Facility Security, which I'm going to talk about next.
Specifically SOLAS deals with ship construction, fire protection,
life-saving equipment, radio communications, safety of navigation,
carriage of cargo, this type of thing. The ISPS which was--the ISPS
Code added in 2002 and which went into effect in 2004 assigns Port
Security Officers and Port Security Plans, Ship Security Officers,
Ship Security Plans--really talks about the management of the safety
of ports and ships and it's designed to create cooperation between
Governments and the shipping and port industries. For instance,
when a Government raises a threat level this would have repercussions
for the ISPS Code and--and how ports react in dealing with that
raised threat level, and really also to provide a very standardized
methodology for security assessments.
Okay, quickly the next initiative I'm going to talk about is MTSA,
the Maritime Transportation Safety Security Act, and the reason
I have a line connecting these two here on the graph with equal
signs is because in a sense MTSA is the domestic version of ISPS.
It's--it's the US domestic equivalent and pretty much establishes
the same thing; it's designed to prevent US waterways from terror
attacks; it requires vessels in port facilities to conduct vulnerability
assessments and develop security plans that include passenger vehicle
and baggage screening and to develop security patrols and restricted
areas, access control measures, surveillance, and also requires
the establishment of coordinating committees among Federal, Local,
and State Agencies to collaborate on emergency plans.
Okay, the next thing is the Container Security Initiative. It's
important to know that about 90-percent of world trade is done through
cargo containers, and so there is an obvious mutual benefit among
States and keeping weapons or WMD from proliferating in this way.
It was launched in 2002 by the United States Customs and Border
Patrol and its purpose is to increase security for cargo containers
that are entering the United States.
There are four core elements to CSI. The first is to use intelligence
and automated targeting to flag the highest priority cargo and make
sure that this high-priority cargo is inspected before it ever reaches
the United States--that it's actually inspected at the point of
departure. This will allow for smoother, faster reception at US
ports. Another core element is to use non-invasive scanning technology
and also to use smarter, tamper resistant containers--in other words,
containers that are easier to tell when they've been broken into
or changed or perhaps filled with or--or removed certain items since
they departed whatever point they were coming from. As of March
2006 there are 44 CSI ports. You--the United States actually sends
Custom Border Patrol Teams over to these ports where they act as
observers during cargo scanning and inspection. They're not allowed
to take part in the actual scanning and checking of the cargo themselves
but they're allowed to be there as observers and liaisons.
It's estimated that once there are 50 CSI ports, 90-percent of
cargo container shipping will be covered. There are offers of reciprocity
when it comes to this program. So far I believe only Japan and Canada
have taken the US up on this; in other words, allowing the Japanese
and Canadian officials to be present at US ports and to be looking
at cargo leaving the United States headed for Japan and Australia,
so if one of your questions is does this work the opposite way there--there
is a possibility of reciprocity but at this point the Container
Security Initiative is really focused on the US in preventing deadly
cargo from entering the United States.
Now there are some problems associated with this initiative and
we can talk a little bit about it during the question and answer
session but one is the issue of different levels of security existing
at different ports. There is no standardized--while there are certain
standards that the United States expects countries to meet if they
want to become a CSI port each agreement with a country is an individual
bilateral agreement, and so the kind of degrees of intelligence
sharing and specific provisions inherent with each--within each
bilateral agreement is not always the same from port to port. So
there is the issue of different possible levels of security with
these ports. Also, the US does not pay for these countries to receive
non-invasive inspection equipment as--as far as I can tell from
the research I've done and that creates a problem as well because
obviously different countries have different capacities for providing
the fund--the funds and you know the experts to be present at the
ports and actually doing the scanning of the cargo.
Let's see; one other actually program under the Container Security
Initiative is known as CT-PAT, Customs Trade Partnership Against
Terror--or Partnership Against Terrorism and this is a program in
which companies can promise the United States Government to institute
higher security standards on their own and when I refer to companies
I mean companies in charge of you know--who are going to be shipping
cargo and in exchange they can get expedited shipping. In other
words, their shipping is not slowed down significantly when they're
trying to put things out to sea and one figure that I came across
estimates that actually only about 11-percent of these countries
who are checked up on were followed up on in the sense that it was
verified that they actually instituted the additional security standards
that they said they would. So that's problematic as well.
Okay, now we're going to talk about what I'm really excited to
talk about here which is SUA. This--this handout I think would be
particularly for you guys; it's in the black folder. I'm going to
be going through it. Okay, so what I'm going to be addressing are
the amendments to the SUA Convention and the SUA Protocol. They
are two different treaties essentially; the SUA Convention is short
for the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against
the Safety of Maritime Navigation. And the SUA Protocol is shorthand
for Protocol for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety
of Fixed Platforms; so when you see Protocol think platforms, but
I'm just going to refer to them as convention and Protocol.
As I stated earlier, the UN Convention of the Law in the Sea holds
that parties may not interdict ships on the high seas except if
they share the same State flag, if the vessel is sailing without
displaying a State nationality or refuses to confirm its nationality
or if an illegal act is clearly occurring aboard the vessel--piracy,
slave trade, illegal broadcasting, you know illicit drug trade and
that's important because the changes to the SUA Convention and SUA
Protocol which were originally drafted in 1988 get to these very
principles. The--the original SUA and Convention--SUA Convention
and Protocol were written in the spirit of understanding but it's
in the common interest in those States to suppress terrorism at
sea. And--and as most of you probably remember, the Achille Lauro
incident, the SUA Convention and SUA Protocol were written in direct
response to that. Just briefly, the Achille Lauro incident occurred
when PLO terrorists hijacked and Italian cruise liner. Egypt intervened
at some point to get to the ship to sail to Egypt and was going
to provide passage for the terrorists from Egypt to Tunisia I believe.
The aircraft carrying the terrorists was interdicted by United States
Fighter Pilots while it was in air--in the air and forced to land
in Italy on a NATO Base and I think the US Military Forces who were
there were actually--ended up being surrounded by Italian Military
Forces and there were lots of conflicting claims to jurisdiction
over what to do with the terrorists, how--how to handle them, and
what's important is that in terms of the US' claim to sovereignty,
an American--an elderly American citizen was killed. He was thrown
overboard, a wheelchair bound citizen and that's probably the image
that sticks with a lot of people. So the SUA was in direct response
to that.
The 1988 SUA Convention outlaws and permits interdiction on the
high seas to prohibit the seizure of ships by force--so another
words hijacking; acts of violence against persons onboard ships,
you know shooting them and throwing them overboard; or the places
of devices onboard a ship which are likely to damage or destroy
it you know--a bomb. These principles also applied to the 1988 SUA
Protocol, which as I said earlier deals with the safety of fixed
platforms, for instance and oil rig--so in other words blowing up
and oil rig--that kind of thing. Both the Protocol and the Convention
contain explicit prosecute or extradite provisions and that's all
to avoid the intense dispute that resulted after Achille Lauro.
What's interesting is that during the first 12 years of its life
very few States joined either the original SUA Convention or SUA
Protocol, but by 2002 67 States had signed the original version
and by the end of 2004 another 49 States had joined. As of June
2006, 136 States were party to the Convention--the 1988 SUA Convention
which represents about 92-percent of world tonnage and 126 parties
to the 1988 SUA Protocol which is about 87 and a half-percent of
world tonnage. And this is important because I'll explain as I--I'll
explain later, the amendments to the SUA Convention and SUA Protocol
were made in the aftermath of 9/11 and as you can tell membership
to the original Convention and Protocol jumped after 9/11 and you
also see those resulting amendments made.
Okay, the amendments actually passed in October 2005 at the IMO
Review Conference. The UN requested that the IMO reassess the safety
of shipping after 9/11 and to make sure that it would not be playing
a role in any kind of future incidents of catastrophic terrorism
and the United States unfortunately newly familiar with catastrophic
terrorism was asked to take the lead role in making amendments to
SUA.
The shortcomings of the original SUA Convention and SUA Protocol
included the fact that although they were aimed to stop piracy and
terrorism at sea by establishing and defining various violent offenses
as I mentioned earlier, they did not prohibit acts of terrorism
committed with the ship itself. In other words, using the ship as
a weapon to run into a harbor or to blow up in a harbor, to detonate
a nuclear bomb in a harbor; they also did not outlaw acts that did
not necessarily endanger the safe navigation by the ship directly
such as releasing biological, chemical, or nuclear substances from
the ship or from a fixed platform.
Additionally, the SUA Convention--the 1998 SUA Convention did
not prohibit transported suspected terrorists as defined under any
of the 12 UN Counter-Terrorisms Conventions some of which only came
into force in 1988 nor did it prohibit shipment of WMD and associated
delivery systems and related items including some tool-use equipment.
Now what did these new amendments of the SUA Convention and SUA
Protocol do? Well they expand the list of punishable crimes and
suspected offenses; so they attempt to address these kind of gaps
in the original version to include the use of a ship or fixed platform
to intimidate a population or compel a Government or international
organization including when a ship or platform is used in a manner
that can lead to cause death, serious injury or damage and that--that
provision there is actually known as the Terrorist Purpose Provision.
Additionally it outlaws WMD and missile related cargo smuggling.
It defines punishable offenses as those committed with a terrorist
purpose on the part of the offender or knowledge that the material
being transported is WMD or going to be used for the production
of WMD.
An official I spoke with at the State Department hailed the amendments
to the SUA Convention as making it the first International Criminal
Convention that outlaws the transport of certain dual use items
under certain conditions. You know so that's another significant
achievement.
The new Convention also--I'm sorry; the amended Convention also
contains what is known as the MPT Savings Clause which insures that
nothing in the amendments shall affect the rights, obligations,
and responsibilities of any of the parties to the new amended Convention.
And it does not give them any greater or any lesser rights or obligations
under the MPT than they previously had. We'll talk about it a little
bit later but this is one of the reasons India and Pakistan have
refused to join onto the amended Conventions.
Additionally, Article 8 of the SUA Convention--the amended SUA
Convention creates an enhanced ship-boarding regime that greatly
expands upon the very vague provisions that were included in the
original version. They are very detailed instructions now included
in the--the amended SUA Convention that talked about the process
of--of ship-boarding and how you go about it and most of it's drawn
from other preexisting Maritime Conventions such as Conventions
governing drug interdictions. And additionally there's an article
that contains provisions that protect the rights of innocent seafarers.
I believe one of the questions on the agenda is about how PSI or
SUA affects the shipping industry--commercial shipping and apparently
for a while there was intense disputes between representatives of
the shipping industry and proponents of the amendments, but they
were satisfactorily resolved in the end and actually some of these
International Unions of Seafarers have endorsed the new SUA amendments.
Okay, in terms of the crucial limitations on what SUA can achieve,
the difficulty here is that the parties who did not sign the original
1988 SUA Convention, and I have a list of those parties if anyone
is interested, such as Iran and North Korea, will likely be the
States of chief proliferation concern in the future, as they are
now and strengthening SUA by amending it does not increase the likelihood
that North Korea or Iran are going to be bound by it. The State
Department however maintains that the vessels of third-party States
used to ship these--these--on these proliferators' behalves are
the real concern and so for instance North Korea doesn't have a
formidable commercial fleet, so interdicting North Korean commercial
ships is not the point; it's interdicting third-party States ships
that North Korea maybe is using to either send or receive illicit
materials. So it is realistic that the State Department has argued
to try to bring third-party States into the enhanced SUA regime.
Another difficulty is that while unlawful transport of WMD is
prohibited by the new amendments to the original SUA Convention
it's not possible to observe illegal cargo stored away in the hull
in the same way that it's going to be possible to observe piracy
occurring on--on the deck of a ship or slave trade or something--something
of that manner, though I--I know that experts who deal with interdiction
and WMD and--and the like might know--know about the kind of technology
that the United States possesses and--and they have shared with
other countries in terms of being able to pick up radiological traces
or traces of certain other kinds of illicit materials you know--in
other words, something that you could point at a ship and you would
be getting some kind of data back and that would obviously be observable
without having to see it on the deck of the ship.
The Coast Guard also says that there are specific fact patterns
that exist that would in fact allow interdiction prior to being
given permission to board and this is pretty interesting. If there's
an eminent threat, if there is a need for self-defense against an
American Military Unit at sea or to the United States itself there
also--there's a whole catalog of kind of curious behavior that ships
can exhibit at sea that will raise the attention of the Coast Guard
and tip it off that perhaps this is a ship they want to look at
a little more closely.
Successful interdictions are most likely to result from good intelligence
which I think is something that was said before and reporting--not
necessarily a sea captain's hunch about a curious looking ship,
thought it's going to be important to have flexible arrangements
that allow a hunch of a sea captain which may be correct and in
some--some instances to be pursued. But in general the--if the intelligence
is not accurate it becomes much harder to catch proliferators. Now
criticisms of the amendments has passed; I said earlier that India
and Pakistan did not want to join onto the new Conventions because
of the MPT Savings Clause and--and in particular since the new amendments
do not permit the transfer of equipment or material used in the
production of vessel material to States that lacked comprehensive
international safeguards which India and Pakistan don't possess
as members of the MPT then the two States have objected to it as
discriminatory and refused to sign on. So failure to achieve--I'm
sorry; and the next point is that failure to achieve specific limited--specific
limited timeframe under which signatories must--must respond to
request support or otherwise forfeit their right to refuse boarding
was no | 
