Transcript - Regime Change

 

 

MARK SOMMER: Nearly 40 years ago, the world’s nuclear powers came together with the world’s majority of non-nuclear nations to sign a treaty intended to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons beyond the five declared nuclear states. The nuclear non-proliferation treaty was premised on a crucial bargain. In return for the non-nuclear nations foregoing pursuit of their own nuclear weapons, the superpowers agreed to move decisively towards disarming their own arsenals.

 

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE: Should that deterrent or that stabilizing effect fail, you will get, not a conventional war, but a nuclear war.

 

MARK SOMMER: In some respects, this arrangement has worked well. Four decades later, just eight nations, including three not party to the NPT possess nukes, with two others, Iran and North Korea, urgently seeking entry into the club. But the superpowers never did disarm. And now some observers say a nuclear breakout is in the offing as developing nations crave the attention and influence nukes provide.

 

DR. PERVES HOODBHOY: Now technology has advanced to a point where it’s virtually impossible to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

 

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE:  Just imagine a Middle East with not one nuclear power, but four or five nuclear weapons states with the unresolved territorial, political, and ethnic disputes.

 

MARK SOMMER: Most analysts say a breakout would be disastrous. A few contrarians say it wouldn’t be the end of the world, that we could learn to live with 20 or more nuclear nations without triggering their use in war.

 

MICHAEL DESCH: The proliferation of nuclear weapons is not likely to increase the probability of nuclear use. Most states at least, if not individual statesmen, are basically rational and want to survive.

 

MARK SOMMER: Today on A World of Possibilities, Regime Change: The Uncertain Future of Nuclear Weapons. We’ll examine the odds of a breakdown and breakout from the regime that has worked better than most till now, but that may not survive the strains of an increasingly chaotic world.

 

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE: We’ve got to prevent the proliferation of dozens of nuclear fuel factories that would put many more countries just a screwdriver’s turn away from nuclear weapon.

 

REBECCA JOHNSON: The security of countries that currently have nuclear weapons is going to depend on them devaluing and getting rid of them.

 

MARK SOMMER: I’m Mark Sommer, and this is A World of Possibilities. Join us as we weigh the odds for restraint, breakdown, or breakthrough at the dawn of the second nuclear age.

 

For those of us old enough to remember (and this dates me to be sure) the first decade of the nuclear age featured elementary school duck and cover drills. Some well intentioned, but hopelessly unrealistic U.S. government public information agency sought to placate us with a whimsical cartoon character by the name of the Burt the Turtle, who instructed us that in case of nuclear attack, we should crouch under our desks and cover our heads.

 

[clip]

 

This is the clip from an actual film produced by the U.S. Civil Defense Administration, and shown to American school children during those first fright‑filled years of nuclear nerves.

 

__: It is such a big explosion. It can smash in buildings and knock sign boards over, and break windows all over town. But if you duck and cover like Burt, you will be much safer.

 

MARK SOMMER: Meanwhile, the superpower arsenals continued to grow to the hundreds, the thousands, and ultimately to the tens of thousands of weapons. Imagining a post-apocalyptic world, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev famously remarked, “The living will envy the dead.” Public concerns about radiation eventually led in 1963 to a ban on nuclear tests in the atmosphere. But they continued unabated underground.

 

JOHN F. KENNEDY: If this treaty can also be a symbol, if it can symbolize the end of one era and the beginning of another, if both sides can by this treaty gain confidence and experience in peaceful collaboration, then the short and simple treaty may well become an historic mark in man’s age-old pursuit of peace.

 

MARK SOMMER: History would record just that, that the treaty was but a marker, not an endpoint. The arms race not only continued, but escalated well into the 1980s when President Ronald Reagan launched his Strategic Defense Initiative, the now famous Star Wars, a technologically daunting, some say quixotic, and immensely costly attempt to fend off incoming nuclear missiles.

 

RONALD REAGAN: I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.

 

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MARK SOMMER: Unfortunately, succeeding decades did not see nuclear weapons rendered impotent and obsolete. As we enter the seventh decade of the nuclear age, a host of nuclear wannabes in the developing world sees the currency of power still wielded by the nuclear giants, and seeks its own advantage in relation to regional rivals.

 

Will the non-proliferation agreements that have successfully restrained the uncontrolled spread of nuclear weapons for these first 60 years withstand the strains of a world no longer dominated by one bi-polar struggle, but divided by dozens of regional conflicts?

 

A central concern to both its neighbors and the larger international community is Pakistan, one of the newer and more unstable nuclear nations. In 1998, amid popular jubilation, first India and then Pakistan in rapid succession, tested their first nuclear weapons. Many analysts feared that the so-called Islamic bomb could eventually fall into the hands of extremists with consequences that could ripple like a seismic event through an already unstable region.

 

As a Pakistani nuclear scientist educated in both United States and Pakistan, Dr. Perves Hoodbhoy knows both the politics and technology of nuclear weapons. A professor of nuclear physics at the Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, Dr. Hoodbhoy holds out little hope that the nuclear club will long remain confined to the eight nations that currently possess them. Nor is he fully confident that Pakistan itself will retain control of its arsenal in an uncertain future.

 

To evaluate the risks of further proliferation, Dr. Perves Hoodbhoy joins us now by phone from his home in Islamabad.

 

DR. PERVES HOODBHOY: The whole thing is that now technology has advanced to a point where its virtually impossible to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Only if countries can be reasonably sure that they will not gain from having nuclear weapons, that they will not pursue this path. Because this is not 1945 anymore. Now you can buy or make practically everything that you need for nuclear weapons. The only single ingredient that’s missing is the silo(?) material — highly enriched uranium or weapons-grade plutonium. And centrifuge technology has now spread throughout the world, partly of course because of our great national hero, Dr. A.Q. Khan.

 

But even if A.Q. Khan had not been there, it was only a question of time. The atomic weapon is something that just had to get out. The atomic genie is now out of the bottle.

 

MARK SOMMER: Some years ago, I remember having a conversation with a German nuclear scientist who said, “Not only is there no way of keeping the genie in the bottle, but at some point, it will proliferate to the point where there may be 20 or 30 nations that have it.” And he said, “While it’s not desirable, it may be self-canceling at some point in terms of its impact.” Do you think that’s possible?

 

DR. PERVES HOODBHOY: In the absence of a moral position taken by the people of this world, and in particular the powerful nations of this world, this will keep spreading. And one weapon does not cancel the other. It raises the danger of nuclear confrontation. And in particular, when you have stateless actors which do not fear retaliation in the same sense as a state fear, well then, that whole concept of deterrence simply vanishes into the cold air. But it’s never too late to begin. And I think that time is now.

 

MARK SOMMER: There have been disarmament campaigns since the 1950s. And the whole non-proliferation regime is based on the idea, sort of two actions, that no new nations will break out and become nuclear nations as long as the great nuclear nations, that they will themselves move decisively towards disarmament.

 

DR. PERVES HOODBHOY: Now in fact the country which has the most nuclear weapons...(inaudible) The United States, has done exactly the opposite. So in the nuclear posture review, it is explicitly stated that The United States, if it so feels necessary, it can attack states which do not possess nuclear weapons. And this is extremely dangerous. This sort of thing scares people around the world. And so what is the obvious reaction? That countries surreptitiously then want to build bombs.

 

MARK SOMMER: Give us a scenario that would trigger a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan? Could Kashmir somehow light that fuse?

 

DR. PERVES HOODBHOY:  At present time, Kashmir is not as volatile as it was a few years ago. Now, there are very violent jihadist groups which are out to do every kind of mischief. We’ve had suicide bombings here in Islamabad where I’m speaking from. And there are these other violent Islamic groups which are attacking each other, attacking the government. And these same groups are also active in India.

 

And one of their objectives is to spark a confrontation between India and Pakistan. These are people who believe in Armageddon. Their objective is to do damage and to cause war. I think it’s a very good thing that the governments of India and Pakistan are beginning to wake up to that possibility. But whether they can be sufficiently stable and sufficiently responsible not to react, nobody can say.

 

MARK SOMMER: There seems to be a notion that there are two kinds of bombs — a good bomb and a bad bomb. And the good bomb is the one we had, and the bad bomb is the one you have. And they may be of the same materials, but it’s a matter that your intentions are not good and mine are.

 

DR. PERVES HOODBHOY: Oh, absolutely. The bomb over here in Pakistan is viewed as the guarantor of our security, of our nationhood. And it even became the symbol of Pakistan’s scientific potency, and even of Islam. It’s very interesting that the first time that the Islamic bomb phrase had been used was not by somebody from Israel or from the West or anywhere else. It was used by the Prime Minister of Pakistan. And his statement was that, “Every civilization has the bomb. The Christians have their bombs. The Jews have theirs. The Hindus have theirs. It’s time now for the Muslims to have their bomb, and it is I who have brought the Islamic bomb into existence.”

 

When Pakistan made the bomb, it did so, not because of any Islamic reason. It did so because India had tested, and Indian nuclear weapons had to be countered with a nuclear weapon from Pakistan. Now once that bomb had been made, then it had a dynamic of its own. People then started thinking in different ways. And one of the ways that it went was that this bomb was not just for the defense of Pakistan, but for defense of the Muslim world.

 

Now having said that, I don't think that it is a serious notion. The Pakistani bomb is not very likely to get into the hands of anybody outside of Pakistan.

 

MARK SOMMER: Is there anything that can replace something like a bomb as a different kind of achievement, that can be more constructive?

 

DR. PERVES HOODBHOY: Oh, I think there can be lots of more constructive things. I think that we have evolved as a species. And so that if we do use our sense of reason and we think about the consequences, then we’re not happy about that. Also remember that there were people in both countries who were deeply unhappy that there had been nuclear tests, even by their own country. And they protested. Now, why did that happen? That happened because they were educated into understanding what war is and what killing means. Which is why we need this kind of education around the world. And it’s only that kind of education which will stop people from celebrating nonsense of this kind.

 

MARK SOMMER: Pakistani nuclear physicist, Perves Hoodbhoy. Next, the view from an American analyst who says nuclear proliferation is not necessarily catastrophic. Professor Michael Desch after a short break.

 

ANNOUNCER: You’re listening to A World of Possibilities. To hear the podcast of this program and to access our show archives, please visit our website at AWorldOfPossibilities.com, or visit iTunes.

 

MARK SOMMER: Most nuclear analysts believe that the further spread of nuclear weapons would be an unmitigated disaster. But a few, like Michael Desch, assert that while it would not be desirable, it would also not produce the catastrophe that others predict. A self-described realist, professor Desch holds the Robert M. Gates chair of intelligence and national security decision making at the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University. He’s served on the staff of a U.S. senator, in the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the Department of State, and in the Foreign Affairs and National Defense Division of the Congressional Research Service. To provide the contrarian point of view on nuclear proliferation, Michael Desch joins us now from his office at Texas A&M in College Station.

 

MICHAEL DESCH: My view is that the proliferation of nuclear weapons is not likely to increase the probability of nuclear use. And I make two key assumptions and the point to one historical fact. The two key assumptions are that most states, at least if not individual statesmen, are basically rational and want to survive, and secondly, nuclear weapons are a very limited utility beyond deterrents. And if you combine that with the fact that during, you know, the 40 years of the Cold War, in some pretty intense crises, nuclear weapons were never used, that would lead to, you know, the optimistic view that the proliferation of nuclear weapons is not likely to make the world more unstable, and in fact in some contexts, might even be stabilizing.

 

A war now between India and Pakistan is a pretty significant nuclear war. And both sides know it. And I suspect the future crises between the two will be constrained by that fact. And so, you know, that’s the heart of the optimist case. And, you know, that’s the case that I incline towards.

 

MARK SOMMER: Some people have said that, had Iraq had-- had Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons, United States would never have attacked him.

 

MICHAEL DESCH: Right.

 

MARK SOMMER: What do you think?

 

MICHAEL DESCH: I think that’s true. I mean, look at the-- you know, the different treatment of North Korea and Iraq. I mean, both were equally odious regimes, and both were engaged in similar sorts of malfeasance. And we took the opportunity to, you know, prevent Saddam from developing a significant nuclear capability. We didn’t in North Korea because, you know, the horse was already out of the barn.

 

MARK SOMMER: Is there some kind of systematic approach to reducing the role of nuclear weapons in world affairs that you would advocate as a realist?

 

MICHAEL DESCH: Well, I’m not sure that a world free of nuclear weapons would be a peaceful world. You know, I think the effect of nuclear weapons historically has been to dampen down and reduce conflict. You know, I’ve no interest in seeing nuclear weapons used in combat in the future. But I also believe that in the 20th Century, purely conventional wars have been immensely destructive and costly in human life. And, you know, the bottom line, it seems to me, is to prevent major war. And if you think, as I do, that nuclear weapons have, on balance, tended to contain major war, then the thought of a world without nuclear weapons is not a happy thought.

 

MARK SOMMER: I guess one would have to say that’s an irony of history, eh? In a certain sense, the ultimate weapons ends up reducing conflict in your view?

 

MICHAEL DESCH: Yeah. But, you know, that was the argument that people made you know, among the first generation nuclear strategists in the 1950s. Bernard Brodie’s famous book, The Absolute Weapon, he and many others saw nuclear weapons precisely because they were so terrible, you know, as, in a sense, making major war unthinkable among nuclear powers. And, you know, that was the argument then. And I think that argument remains valid today.

 

MARK SOMMER: I was an anti-nuclear activist all throughout from the ‘60s until just near the present. And I still find them utterly abhorrent, and the notion of threatening on that level, abhorrent. But I also increasingly appreciate that irony and paradox really are at the heart of dealing with the world as it really is, not as we wish it would be.

 

MICHAEL DESCH: Right. Right. I think the fact that stability can come out of rivalry, you know, is sort of the core of the balance of power view of international politics. And, you know, in a sense, the nuclear revolution basically follows that same logic, that stability comes out of rivalry.

 

MARK SOMMER: It seems counterintuitive. But I gather that you’re more of a pragmatist than a moralist.

 

MICHAEL DESCH: You know, that’s an interesting question. Because, you know, people assume if you say your view of the world is réale politique or you’re a realist that you don’t have a moral agenda, you know, ultimately animating your arguments. And that, you know, I don’t agree with. I think, and I’ve written that, you know, realism is in fact, both by intention and result, a moral and humane approach to international politics. And it’s not utopian. I mean, a world based with the sword of Damocles hanging over everybody’s neck isn’t, you know, the best world one could hope for. But it’s the best world possible. And, you know, it’s the desire to find a way to have the best world possible that’s ultimately animated by a moral agenda, I think.

 

MARK SOMMER: Michael Desch, an international relations specialist at Texas A&M.

 

Now to Europe, and more specifically, to Great Britain, where a long, strong tradition of anti-nuclear sentiment has produced generations of protests and moral witness, inspired in part by the very public stance of world renowned philosopher Bertrand Russell.

 

Rebecca Johnson has dedicated her life, not to street protests, but to fact-based advocacy, going toe-to-toe with nuclear strategists on behalf of the ever distant dream of nuclear disarmament. She’s the founding executive director of the Acronym Institute, and publisher of disarmament diplomacy. The former disarmament and arms control director of the Liu Institute of Global Issues at the University of British Columbia, she spearheaded Greenpeace’s international campaigns on nuclear weapons, plutonium, and testing. Rebecca Johnson joins us now late in the evening from her home in London.

 

REBECCA JOHNSON: If you count in England and Wales with Scotland, you get majorities of around 60% who do not consider the Britain at this time ought to be considering getting the next generation nuclear weapons. They want Britain to devalue nuclear weapons globally, and indeed to strengthen the non-proliferation regime and prevent countries like Iran and North Korea and any of their neighbors from breaking out of the regime.

 

MARK SOMMER: Why did Britain decide to develop nuclear weapons in the first place?

 

REBECCA JOHNSON:  Britain decided on the possibility of a nuclear weapon back in 1941. Britain was one of the driving forces behind the Manhattan Project. Then after the Second World War, The United States pushed Britain out. Britain then pursued its own nuclear weapon program, conducting its first nuclear test, in fact on my birthday in 1952. Thereafter, Britain pushed The United States until the U.S. would actually accept that Britain was going to part of the nuclear club. And then in 1958, The United States and Britain signed a mutual defense agreement, which in fact was a nuclear cooperation agreement. It was to share technology and information between the two countries on nuclear weapons issues.

 

MARK SOMMER: And over the years, Britain has made sure to have probably the third or fourth largest nuclear arsenal in the world. Is that right?

 

REBECCA JOHNSON: At the end of the Cold War, Britain got rid of its entire tactical nuclear weapons force and chose to rely on a single submarine based nuclear arsenal. And that actually put Britain then as the fifth or sixth of the nuclear weapon possessors.

 

MARK SOMMER: We interviewed a nuclear scientist from Pakistan, Perves Hoodbhoy, who said that he felt the greatest danger actually was from nuclear terrorism. How serious do you think the nuclear terrorist scenario is?

 

REBECCA JOHNSON: Well, first of all, we have to be really clear that the only ways that a non-state actor can get hold of a nuclear weapon or device is through theft or purchase on the black market. Now the major nuclear black market has largely been closed down. That was the one associated with Dr. A.Q. Khan of Pakistan. Similarly, the cooperative threat reduction program of the 1990s has very substantially reduced the danger of rash of nuclear weapons turning up on the black market or falling off the back of trains or lorries or whatever, and into the hands of terrorists.

 

But there can still be that possibility as long as nuclear weapons are being transported around the world. I mean, take Britain, for example. We’re a small island. On virtually a monthly basis, a convoy carrying nuclear warheads goes from the nuclear warhead research facility down at Ordenathem(?) which is near London, it goes up the major roads through England, across the border to Scotland, goes past Glasgow, and ends up at the nuclear warhead depot at Coulport. At any stage of that journey, those warheads are vulnerable either to hijack and seizure, or indeed to an accident.

 

Tactical nuclear weapons, Russia has tens of thousands still. And indeed The United States has up to about 480. Now these also, they’re small. They’re relatively portable. They’re therefore relatively useable and extremely vulnerable.

 

MARK SOMMER: Stepping back from this particular moment, the nuclear age has been with us since 1945. Thus far, only two bombs have been dropped, and they were dropped at the end of World War II. Do you think any more will be detonated in conflict before we pass beyond the nuclear age, if we ever do?

 

REBECCA JOHNSON: I don't know the answer to that. Although I think we do have to recognize that in addition to the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there have been over 2,000 nuclear weapons tests, and a significant number of those were atmospheric tests. They were being tested in such a way as to contaminate and greatly increase the leukemias and cancers for the downwind communities. And I think we shouldn’t forget that.

 

But your question was whether one would be used in conflict. We really don’t know. We’ve acknowledged that if a country were to try to use a nuclear weapon, that this would result in just an absolutely massive international reaction and response against the leadership of that country, at least. And I actually think that we need to strengthen the security assurances which are currently given by the nuclear weapon states, but actually need to be given by the entire international community and made legally binding.

 

Now we’re already partway there, because I think that one of the reasons why nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945 is that, as the full horror of what actually happened to the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki began to get into the public domain, people round the world, I mean, civil society most particularly, but scientists and doctors and so on said, “These can’t be used again. These musn’t be used again.”

 

And that contributed to a taboo. While there was a taboo, nuclear weapons because virtually impossible to use. It was precisely because of the taboo and the fear that actually, in the end, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, both blinked, and therefore successful managed to avert a Cuban missile crisis turning into World War III. But if now some leaders are eroding that taboo and creating scenarios of preemption or retaliation for using nuclear weapons, this will get picked up round the world.

 

And I think it very, very dangerous. All the nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal, the Russian, the British, the Chinese, the French, the Indian, the Pakistani, and the Israeli arsenals combined will not actually deter a determined terrorist that has managed to get their hands on the devices. The key thing then is, how would the world respond? The possession of nuclear weapons does not deter. They should not and cannot be used. They run the risk in fact of acting as a provocation.

 

And so for all those kinds of reasons, the security of countries that currently have nuclear weapons actually is going to depend on them devaluing and getting rid of them.

 

MARK SOMMER: British nuclear analyst, Rebecca Johnson. I’m Mark Sommer, and this is A World of Possibilities, distributed by the WFMT Radio Network.

 

ANNOUNCER: This is A World of Possibilities. This program is distributed by the WFMT Radio Network.

 

MARK SOMMER: I’m Mark Sommer, and this is A World of Possibilities, distributed by the WFMT Radio Network. This program, Regime Change: The Uncertain Future of Nuclear Weapons, is underwritten by the Ploughshares Fund. Coming up in this half hour, a profoundly hopeful perspective on the nuclear future with self-described nuclear pessimist, Joseph Cirincione.

 

But first, we turn to Russia, the still potent nuclear superpower, which, despite the collapse of Communism, retains some 10,000 nuclear weapons. Ambassador Roland Timerbaev takes a philosophical view of the persistent place of nuclear weapons in global power politics. In 40 years as a lead negotiator in talks with his American diplomatic counterparts, and as ambassador to the U.N., Roland Timerbaev represented the Soviet Union during the Cold War’s deep freeze, through the era of mutually assured destruction, and the negotiations that led to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and its uncertain future today.

 

Now still far from retirement, he works tirelessly on what he considers the very real possibility that nuclear weapons may still be used in anger, likely as not by a non-state extremist group. Ambassador Timerbaev joins us now by phone from Moscow.

 

ROLAND TIMERBAEV: This treaty is not just. It is a discriminatory treaty, because the treaty perpetuates the inequality between haves and have-nots.

 

MARK SOMMER: Many nations have said that the agreement inherent in the non-proliferation treaty was that other nations would forego the nuclear option on the condition that the great nuclear powers would decisively disarm. That hasn’t seemed to occur. Why has that not occurred?

 

ROLAND TIMERBAEV: You have to ask someone in Washington about it, because Russia is prepared to go down quite low. And I think I would say I am confident that the two powers will eventually cut down their arsenals quite low. Of course there are many other problems before them. There is China. There is China around the corner. I mean, what can you do with China? So far it acts very softly, uses the so-called soft power. Suppose China starts to apply hard power? But still I think that in Russia, their administration and the-- most of the experts are prepared to go down quite low.

 

MARK SOMMER: What is the lowest level we can safely go to, if you don’t believe abolition is possible?

 

ROLAND TIMERBAEV: There are no official figures published. But according to experts, Russia has about 10,000. And United States has about 10,000. So if we can go down to 1,000, and United States also goes down to 1,000, perhaps it would be a very good sign for many other countries. So far, there is no progress here.

 

MARK SOMMER: Do you believe that President Putin is ready to go to those numbers if The United States is willing to?

 

ROLAND TIMERBAEV: He said so. He mentioned this 1,500 or even 1,000.

 

MARK SOMMER: Let’s go back for a moment to when you were a negotiator and it was the middle of the Cold War. At a personal level, what was it like for you to sit across the table from the American negotiators as a representative of the Soviet Union in the midst of this historic confrontation?

 

ROLAND TIMERBAEV: To get a clear understanding of those who sit on the opposite end of the table, you have to be as honest and as direct as possible yourself. As far as what I said, I never cheated anyone. And this was the case with-- fortunately with my American colleagues in opposite numbers. But those who sat across the table from me understood me-- not me but the entire delegation. And we were happy to be very likely to reach so many very good agreements. But this was all finished because after the breakup of the Soviet Union, United States decided that they are the only superpower, and they can dictate international politics. And that was the problem, especially the ...(inaudible).

 

But I think there are some prospects of changes. I hope there are some prospects for changes.

 

MARK SOMMER:  Russia went through of course a very difficult period in the immediate post-Cold War years, but partly with oil revenues and other developments, it’s regaining great deal of strength. In your view, is it going to flex its muscles anew in one way or another? And will that have an impact on its strategic relationship with The United States?

 

ROLAND TIMERBAEV: You see, though we are making some money selling oil or gas a(?) lot(?), but our-- the rest of our economy is still very backward. I think it is ready to start playing with its own muscles. And-- 

 

MARK SOMMER: This is interesting, because from what one reads in the papers, China and Russia are moving closer together, partly in terms of trade, oil and gas trade, and other forms of trade. But you’re saying that you’re really quite concerned about the future intentions of China.

 

ROLAND TIMERBAEV: Yes, I am. China is not yet decided what should be its future. But it’s moving economically so fast, so fast that I think maybe next year it(?) will(?)-- producing more automobile cars than Japan. And they are penetrating into Africa and America. So I don't know. Maybe wish to get Russian oil or gas. To try to find the right balances in the world between U.S., Russia, Europe, China, and India then-- India will go after China and will(?) never(?) know(?). Maybe India will become a greater power than China. I think they should get together, but there is no discussions.

 

MARK SOMMER: Now as various global problems emerge like climate change and terrorism and a variety of-- and economic inequality and the rise of new powers, do you think that that partnership has to be forged again as it was in a certain sense in World War II, but with a very different kind of non-human enemies?

 

ROLAND TIMERBAEV: The answer is yes. I feel very strongly about it. We should do it together, not only on paper, but in practice.

 

MARK SOMMER: So in all the years that you negotiated, you never saw The United States as an enemy? And the aim of your negotiations was actually to find a way to be partners again?

 

ROLAND TIMERBAEV: Yeah, that’s right. You said it well.

 

MARK SOMMER: In your view, as you look at the post-Cold War era, you may recall the euphoric sense of opportunity in the immediate post-Cold War years. Do you feel that that opportunity was well utilized or squandered?

 

ROLAND TIMERBAEV: No, it was not well utilized. United States administration, especially the present one, is of the view that they are the big-- the only superpower. But Russia has been a superpower one thousand years before United States was created. For many Russians, for them, Russia has always been a great world power. And they cannot forget it. I mean, I’m speaking for myself, of course. But I want The United States to stay as a great power.

 

MARK SOMMER: Why would you want The United States, a former enemy, to remain a great power?

 

ROLAND TIMERBAEV: I never thought-- Many people never thought The United States is our enemy, and our partner, our very difficult, complicated partner, but sometimes the people in Washington don’t understand. Some people in Moscow don’t understand. But they should. But that is because there is no other way. There is no other option. We have to be together.

 

MARK SOMMER: Ambassador Roland Timerbaev, Russian nuclear analyst and former lead Soviet negotiator. Next, will there ever be an end to this nuclear madness? Meet Joseph Cirincione, a self-described nuclear pessimist with an irrepressible streak of optimism.

 

ANNOUNCER: This is A World of Possibilities. We love hearing from our listeners. Please contact us at comments@aworldofpossibilities.com.

 

MARK SOMMER: Studying nuclear weapons, even with the purpose of banishing them, can be a deeply disheartening experience. One must steel oneself against a prospective nightmare of apocalyptic destruction that is at once visceral and abstract.

 

But for Joseph Cirincione, this often deadening sense of perpetual threat seems only to trigger a countervailing passion to persist with a vision of diminished optimism and an unvarnished realism about the risks that remain. He’s one of the most thoughtful and articulate voices for nuclear restraint and productions. Joseph Cirincione is vice president for National Security and International Policy at the Center for American Progress in Washington. The author of a recently published book, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons, he teaches at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service.

 

We caught up with Joseph in Boulder, Colorado, where he was attending the annual conference on world affairs.

 

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE: Before nuclear weapons, the first half of the 20th Century, about 100 million people were killed in global wars. In the second half, after nuclear weapons, only 20 million people were killed in wars. So you could argue that nuclear weapons played a stabilizing role here. The trick comes-- and this is why so many of us are nuclear pessimists-- is that should that deterrence or that stabilizing effect fail, you will get, not a conventional war, but a nuclear war. The horror and the consequences of their use far outweighs their potential benefit.

 

MARK SOMMER: Once the missiles start flying, it’s inevitable. A nation could not face its own people if it didn’t respond in kind. Is that right?

 

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE: You’d think it’d be automatic if The United States were hit by a nuclear explosive and we could trace it back to, say, Iran, that we would then launch a nuclear retaliatory strike. It’s not actually clear that we would do that. I mean, would you really incinerate millions of innocent Iranians because of the action of their government? And if you did that, might there still be a nuclear response back from Iran that would kill many more of your citizens? Does this deterrence thing really work? It’s not just a moral question, although it’s debated at that level very often. It’s a practical, strategic question. I’m not sure what the answer is.

 

MARK SOMMER: And yet it all seems to-- I mean, it’s not enough for a small nation to decide. For example, South Africa decided, as did Brazil some time ago‑‑ South Africa had actually gone quite a-ways toward developing nuclear weapons. Is that right?

 

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE: South Africa secretly build six nuclear weapons during the 1980s. And then on the eve of transition to majority rule, announced that they had these six weapons and had dismantled them. The key here is that Nelson Mandela could have reversed that decision. But he decided that South Africa’s security was better served by a continent where no one had these nuclear weapons.

 

In fact, one way to look at the non-proliferation treaty is that it’s really a collection of regional non-proliferation pacts. That what basically is going on here is that countries are saying that as long as their neighbor doesn’t get these weapons, they won’t either. And that’s the security pact that’s formed. So no one has nuclear weapons in South America. No one has nuclear weapons in Africa. Those two continents are actually formally nuclear weapons-free zones.

 

MARK SOMMER: You make a remarkable statement in your book, Bomb Scare. You say, “We cannot change the world until we change ourselves.” Now, this sounds like more than changing a nuclear strategy.

 

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE: I mean we have to change our relationship to these weapons. We have to confront this fascination element of the weapons and realize that it’s, without sounding trite, it’s an evil fascination. We’re making a pact with the dark side here, this fascination that we have with nuclear weapons. And it’s hard not to feel that. You have to understand that, we’ve done something in the last 60 years that brings human beings very close to, not just the building blocks of nature, the atom itself, but the essential force, the energy source of the universe. When we detonate a hydrogen bomb, we’re talking about nuclear fusion, the energy force that’s within the sun, within all the stars that powers life in the universe.

 

There’s something, not just fascinating, but awe-inspiring about that. It’s not just sort of the horrific beauty of the blast itself; it’s a realization that human beings can harness this power. And the people who are closest to this — the scientists and the soldiers — I believe feel this very strong pull of this force. It’s one of the reasons nuclear weapons remain in such large numbers today. The people who make them, use them, or are making the decisions about them are very reluctant to relinquish a connection to that power.

 

MARK SOMMER: I would imagine for India or Pakistan, two countries that are really quite poor in many respects still, it’s a cruel choice that’s been made, given that hundreds of millions of people still live in deep poverty.

 

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE: There’s budgetary consequences to this. There’s environmental consequences to this. And the way leaders have tended to deal with those costs is to ignore them. The bill will come long after my administration has left the stage. Unfortunately, for countries such as ours, we’re still paying that bill. We spend, The United States spends about $25 billion dollars a year to maintain our nuclear weapons stockpile. It’s an enormous amount of money. There are many other uses we could be putting those funds to, including necessary conventional military means.

 

MARK SOMMER: You’ve said that if the nuclear non-proliferation regime collapses, if there’s a kind of system-wide collapse, countries as diverse as Turkey and South Korea, Egypt and Ukraine, Japan and Syria, Saudi Arabia and Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia could decide to acquire nuclear weapons. Some of those I would have expected, South Korea perhaps, Ukraine which once had some on its soil when it was part of the Soviet Union. Japan could easily do it. But I had-- was amazed to see Indonesia in the list, for example, or Saudi Arabia.

 

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE: Saudi Arabia is an excellent case. If Iran gets nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Turkey are almost certain to feel that they have to match that capability. And in fact, we’ve seen this process start in just the last six months. Those three countries, plus seven other Arab states, have announced interest in starting nuclear power programs. I don't think this is about nuclear energy. I think this is a nuclear hedge.

 

All these countries, if they go down that road, will be going down the road of acquiring the nuclear technology that they could use for nuclear weapons. Just imagine a Middle East with not one nuclear power, Israel, but four or five nuclear weapons states with the unresolved territorial, political, and ethnic disputes. That’s a recipe for nuclear war.

 

MARK SOMMER: Nuclear power appears to be becoming fashionable again, at least in conversation, as we face the threat of global warming. And nuclear power is being sort of resold now as the climate friendly form of power.

 

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE: Nuclear power may be part of the solution for global warming. But it’s going to have to overcome the four big problems — cost (tremendously expensive), safety (just think of Chernobyl), waste disposal (we still don’t know what to do with the highly radioactive waste that comes out of these plants) and finally proliferation.

 

And the issue is not the reactor itself. There are over 40 countries that have nuclear reactors. Most of them buy their fuel from the five or six countries that produce it. But for some countries, including Iran, they’ve decided to build their own fuel fabrication plants. And that’s the problem. Because the same machines that can enrich uranium to low levels for fuel rods, can enrich it to high levels for nuclear bombs. It’s these dangerous elements of the fuel cycle, as the first scientists labeled them, that have to be brought under control. If nuclear energy is going to be part of the global warming solution, then we’ve got to make the world safe for nuclear energy. We’ve got to prevent the proliferation of dozens of nuclear fuel factories around the world that would put many more countries just a screwdriver’s turn away from nuclear weapons.

 

MARK SOMMER: When you look at the situation, and you see the possibility of a collapse of this non-proliferation regime, or sort of a breakout and then it going far and wide, but you also see all these other things happening — a war in Iraq that’s exhausting the world’s great superpower, the onset of climate change and other sort of global threats that-- where it’s not a national enemy, it’s the, we’ve seen the enemy and the enemy is us — how do you think all of those are going to factor into the role of nuclear weapons in the next half century?

 

JOSEPH CIRINCIONE: The major challenges we face to our own national security are global challenges. And these require global solutions. There isn’t an answer that we can do by ourselves. But I see those networks developing. I see that cooperation growing. And it’s not just because we’re deciding to do it. We’re also being convinced by leaders in other countries that this is the way to go. The challenges we face are formidable. There’s no question about it. But we have faced greater dangers and solved them in the past. I believe personally, passionately, and confidently that we can solve this problem of nuclear proliferation, that we can prevent nuclear terrorism. I think the coming generation is up to this task. Heck, I think my generation is still up to this task. We’re not ready to move over yet. There’s a lot of work that has to be done, and I see a lot of people stepping up, willing to do it.

 

MARK SOMMER: Joseph Cirincione, author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons.

 

As we enter what some call the second nuclear age, the perils that sent us diving under our desks half a century ago seem faintly ridiculous. In this sense, the global community’s been remarkably successful. And you can’t say that about many things these days.

 

The Cold War ended without ever turning into the Armageddon we’d all feared. And it seems unlikely that any such ultimate nuclear exchange will occur in the foreseeable future. Sometimes what didn’t happen is more significant than what did. This is an achievement worth pausing to celebrate.

 

But there’s no room for complacency, for a different kind of peril has emerged in the place of a superpower standoff. Poverty, humiliation, and desperation have become breeding grounds for extremists who either gain state power in unstable nations or operate in the shadowy world of non-state terrorism. While they can’t threaten the Holocaust, they can destabilize entire regions with the prospect of random attacks. As the Iraq war has painfully demonstrated, this is an era of asymmetric conflict, where a superpower can be driven into the ground by nothing more sophisticated than an improvised explosive device. How much more potent would be the threat and use of an actual primitive nuclear weapon in space?

 

But as is made amply clear in the conversations we heard today, those who plan such chaos and destruction, and who pine after the status that nukes confer, take their signals from the big boys at the top of the nuclear pecking order. Only when the nuclear superpowers themselves de-legitimize nukes as a weapon of mass destruction and an instrument of political coercion will other nations and non‑state actors cease seeking. Monkey see, monkey do. It’s time we started fulfilling our end of the bargain.

 

I’m Mark Sommer. And this has been A World of Possibilities. Thanks for listening.

 

ANNOUNCER: You’ve been listening to A World of Possibilities. For more information on today’s topic, please click on the listener action link at AWorldOfPossibilities.com This program was produced and edited by Chuck Rogers, Tammy Rae Scott, and Katrina Rill, with administrative support from Ali Cook and Susan Semenov. Production engineer is Chuck Johnson. Support for this program is provided by the Ploughshares Fund. Music is courtesy of Velvel Records, Putumayo World Music, Telarc Records, Capitol Records, Warner Brothers, and Hollywood Records. Kennedy sound clips courtesy of the JFK Library. Reagan sound clips courtesy of PBS. Sound from “Duck And Cover” courtesy of Archer Productions. This program is distributed by the WFMT Radio Network. Thank you for listening.

 

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