Nuclear security experts worry that the US-India cooperation agreement, negotiated by the preceding Bush administration but supported by the Obama administration, establishes a bad precedent for nuclear non-proliferation because it permits India to produce weapons-usable separated plutonium despite India’s persistent refusal to join the NPT and its expanding nuclear weapons stockpile. Indeed, the Indian deal has prompted Pakistan to expand its own fissile material production and oppose a treaty that would cap fissile material stocks at present levels. Iranians cited the US-India deal at their own nuclear security summit in Tehran this weekend as an example of the hypocrisy they claim permeates US non-proliferation policy.
It’s clear that last week’s summit made important contributions to promoting nuclear materials security. In addition to its communiqué and work plan, which outlined many ways national governments could cooperate to counter nuclear terrorism, several countries announced specific commitments during or after the meeting. In fact, actually convening the summit was a notable achievement given the difficulty of securing the attendance of so many high-level leaders at any one place and time to discuss a topic few leaders know anything about and which, 20 years ago, was an issue of concern primarily to mid-level managers at US national nuclear laboratories.
As the host government of the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit, South Korea will have an important role in addressing those issues insufficiently covered at last week’s meeting. These include securing concrete financial commitments from more governments, enhancing the security of radioactive sources as well as fissile materials and establishing new projects and commitments rather than simply accelerating existing projects. South Korean officials have suggested they might discuss broader non-proliferation, disarmament, nuclear energy and other issues that this year’s summit excluded due to its occurring immediately after the signing of the New START Treaty and immediately before the May 2010 NPT Review Conference.
Perhaps South Korea’s most important contribution will be to further the transformation of the nuclear materials security issue from what has until now been primarily an ad hoc effort of the most committed and interested countries into a more rationalized and institutionalized mechanism. This new framework would integrate what exists, establish strict standards for measuring success, actively engage the global expert community while cultivating new issue leaders outside the United States, involve more countries in addition to the summit participants and develop and adequately support new nuclear security initiatives.
Despite the inevitable difficulties in making further progress on nuclear security, it is imperative that more is done to build on the work of this year’s summit with 2012’s Asian backdrop.
Richard Weitz writes a weekly column for The Diplomat on Asian defence and security. He is a senior fellow and director of the Hudson Institute’s Center for Political-Military Analysis.
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