International Seminar on Disarmament

Lima, Perú
Dec-1999

An American Perspective
Amb. Norman Wulf

I had a prepared text, but discussions here have repeatedly raised a very important question: Has the United States lost its commitment to nuclear arms control? I have decided this question deserves a response.

The question arises because of the following three issues: the failure of the U.S. Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; the lack of progress with Russia in the strategic arms reduction process; and the U.S. exploration of building a national missile defense.

Before addressing these three points, I would like to cite a comment attributed to former Secretary of State George C. Marshall: "The United States makes no claim to always being right, but we do insist that we be judged on the facts." Let me try addressing some facts related to these three issues.

CTBT

First, let me give a brief recitation of U.S. initiatives over the past five decades in the area of nuclear arms control. It started in 1946 when President Truman proposed the famous Baruch Plan. President Eisenhower made an extensive effort to achieve a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing. In 1963, the Limited Test Ban Treaty was signed; in 1968, the Non-Proliferation Treaty; in 1972 the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Interim Agreement on Strategic Offensive Arms (also known as SALT I for Strategic Arms Limitation Talks); the Threshold Test Ban Treaty in 1974; SALT II in 1979; the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987; Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties in 1991 and 1993, i.e. START I and II; and the CTBT in 1996. Of course, I am not claiming that these were sole achievements of the United States, but I am claiming that no country has ever devoted more resources, personnel and persistence to nuclear arms control and disarmament than the United States. Does the Senate vote on CTBT mean that the United States is turning its back on a quest over the past half century to achieve a safer world through arms control and disarmament agreements?

Secretary Albright responded to these fears in a recent speech to the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations. She said,

My reply to those who harbor such fears is not to overreact. The United States has not gone crazy. A clear majority in the Senate wanted to delay voting to allow more time to deliberate on the Treaty. President Clinton and Vice President Gore have reaffirmed America's commitment to nonproliferation. And, as Winston Churchill once reportedly declared, "Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing in the end, after all other possibilities have been exhausted."

The important point is that the CTBT is not dead in the United States. Both the Senate and the Administration have established task forces to chart a way forward. President Clinton said that the U.S. ratification of the CTBT is not a question of "if" but a question of "when". Perhaps more importantly, the President made clear that the United States will continue the moratorium on nuclear testing begun by President Bush in 1992. It is interesting to note that during the Senate debate on the CTBT, there was no one in the Senate who argued that the U.S. should resume nuclear testing now. Finally, let me note that even after the Senate vote on the CTBT, the Congress appropriated all funds required for the United States to pay its share of the expenses of the CTBT Preparatory Commission. This means that the work required to complete the verification network can continue forward uninterrupted.

My conclusion from the foregoing facts is that the Senate vote was an unfortunate delay in CTBT ratification, but the evidence is simply not there to support the proposition that the United States has turned away from nuclear arms control and disarmament efforts.

FISSILE MATERIAL

Let me turn now to the question of U.S./Russian efforts regarding START, specifically the failure to bring START IT into force and to progress towards START ITT. Many have concluded that since START IT was signed in January 1993 and has not yet entered into force that no progress is being made toward nuclear disarmament. Nothing could be further from the truth.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, nuclear weapons were not only in the hands of the Russian Federation but also deployed in the newly independent states of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine. Addressing this situation was a major priority for both the United States and much of the international community. We are now in the position where all three of these new states are parties in good standing to the NPT as non-nuclear weapon states.

The economic and social turmoil that resulted from the collapse of the Soviet Union raised serious concerns about:

the safety and security of Russian weapon-usable material;
the continued production of weapon-usable material;
the safe disposal of excess weapon-usable material; and the future of unemployed nuclear weapon scientists.

To date, the United States has spent over $3 billion addressing these concerns and the President has committed to spend an additional $4.5 billion.

Along with other countries in Europe and Asia, the United States has worked with Russia to ensure that existing nuclear weapon material remains beyond the reach of those who might seek to proliferate. Efforts included nuclear material cooperation on accountancy and control, improved physical protection measures, and a variety of other measures to ensure that neither a misguided insider nor a dedicated outsider could lay hands on nuclear materials that many proliferants would pay a large price to receive.

Neither Russia nor the United States is producing high enriched uranium (HEU) or plutonium for nuclear weapons. Indeed, the United States has not produced HEU-for weapons purposes since 1964. The U.S. is not producing any separated plutonium for nuclear weapons and shut down its last production reactor in 1989. Russia continues producing separated plutonium, but not for nuclear weapons. Under the Russia-U.S. Plutonium Production Reactor agreement both sides are legally bound to halt such production, and the reactors that produced plutonium are permanently shut down or are being converted to other purposes.

The U.S. has already declared more than 200 tonnes of weapon material is no longer needed for defense purposes and has begun steps to dispose of it. We have already placed over ten tons of excess uranium and plutonium under IAEA supervision in order to provide international assurance that it is never again used for nuclear weapons. The IAEA has confirmed the down blending of tens of tonnes of high enriched uranium to low enriched material to be used for power production. We are committed to place tens of tonnes of additional material under IAEA supervision. We are negotiating a trilateral agreement with Russia and the IAEA to provide for IAEA oversight of U.S. and Russian excess plutonium. This oversight would continue until these excess stocks have been safely disposed of.

Safely disposing of excess weapon-usable material is a costly and time consuming process. Disposal of HEU is a relatively straight forward process that involves blending it down to low enrichment levels satisfactory for use in civil power reactors. The United States has agreed to purchase 500 tons of Russian HEU for downblending. In addition, the IAEA is overseeing the downblending in the U.S. of some 50 tons of U.S. origin HEU.

Dealing with plutonium is a much more complex task. Two options remain under examination. One option, favored by Russia, involves mixing the plutonium with uranium oxide and burning the resultant fuel in power reactors. Since it is estimated that this disposal option could take some 20 years to complete, the importance of the IAEA oversight of these materials is obvious. The other option would be to vitrify separated plutonium with other wastes so that it would be as difficult to separate the plutonium from the resultant mix as it would to separate plutonium from irradiated fuel. The U.S. is examining both options. Here too it is important to underscore the importance of IAEA oversight no matter which option is pursued.

Finally, concern that unemployed nuclear scientists may feel they have no alternative but to sell their services to proliferant countries has resulted in the establishment of the International Science and Technology Center in Russia and a similar organization in Ukraine. These institutions provide funds to employ these very able scientists so they can pursue research in areas with only peaceful applications.

This brief overview of U.S.-Russian cooperation provides only a suggestion of U.S./Russia interactions in nuclear disarmament. Most of these initiatives garner no headlines and all require detailed, hard work. But, I would submit that the sum total of these efforts provides more dramatic progress toward nuclear disarmament than prior efforts that did garner headlines.

Of course, both the United States and Russia would have preferred, in addition to these efforts, that there had been more progress in the START process. Some might argue that had both devoted more effort to that process greater, progress could be made. There is no convincing answer to such an assertion. I would submit, however, that the United States and Russia were correct to attach the priority they did to the foregoing efforts related to the security and disposition of HEU and plutonium.

ARMS REDUCTION

There is much that can be said regarding the arms reduction process. You have before you the U.S. Statement of Fact and I will not belabor what you can read. I will simply note that since 1988 the U.S. has eliminated 60% of its nuclear warheads -60%. Dismantlement is neither cheap nor fast. The costs can be as much as $7,000 per warhead and the time as little as three days or as long as three weeks. For those who assert that nothing has happened since the end of the Cold War, my response has to be, "you are wrong."

ABM/NMD

Finally, let me address the question of a possible decision by the United States to pursue national missile defense. President Clinton has announced that he will make a decision next summer on whether to proceed with deployment of a NMD system. In making that decision, the President said he would consider the threat, the feasibility of the system, the costs and the impact on arms control efforts. So, regardless of the rhetoric of some, the short answer is that no decision has been made.

But what if the President were to decide in favor of deploying this system, does that not indicate that the basis for arms control is being undermined? Not in our view. First, we agree that the ABM Treaty remains a cornerstone of strategic stability and we are dedicated to working with Russia to ensure that the changes required to this important Treaty do not undermine strategic stability. The ABM Treaty has been amended before and it can be amended again.

The critics cry that NMD will mean that the U.S. can operate with impunity in the world undeterred by the arsenals of others as it blithely exists under a missile proof umbrella. What nonsense! Let us review the facts for a moment. First, the ABM Treaty as it currently stands does not forbid ABM systems. Indeed, when the ABM Treaty was initially negotiated it permitted both sides to deploy 100 interceptors at two different sites. Subsequently, the Treaty was amended to limit that to one site. The Soviet Union, now Russia, deployed and continues to maintain an ABM system around Moscow. The fundamental concept of the ABM Treaty was that even with these systems deployed, strategic stability would be preserved because vast portions of the territory of both parties would remain vulnerable to missile attack by the other.

I am not for a moment suggesting that the system that is presently under development meets all the requirements of the ABM Treaty. What I am saying is that the fundamental concept of the ABM Treaty would continue to operate even if the Treaty were amended to allow the U.S. (and Russia) to pursue both of the planned deployment sites presently being examined. These two sites with 100 missiles at each site would be able to deal only with a threat posed by some tens of missiles -- 30-40 has often been mentioned. No one, no matter how pessimistic, believes that the Russian missile forces will erode down to such a low number any time soon. The fact is that virtually all U.S. territory will remain vulnerable to an attack by the Russian Federation. Deterrence can continue to operate. Despite the critics, the fact is that the United States has at least as much motivation as before to conclude arms elimination treaties with Russia and we shall continue working toward that objective.

CONCLUSION

It is for you to judge whether the facts I have set forth in this presentation are sufficient to persuade you that the United States remains committed to nuclear arms control and disarmament. My point is that we are presently going through a "rough patch" and this is likely to endure through next year. Russian Duma elections occur on the 19th of this month followed by the Russian Presidential elections in June. These Russian elections will be followed by U.S. elections in November of next year. Predictions that progress can be made in the context of these elections just cannot be made with confidence.

What I believe is fair to assert is that the United States has not decided, after 50 years of precedent, to turn its back on arms control and disarmament efforts. While we can all concede that more and faster progress is to be desired, all fair-minded individuals should agree that progress is being made.