John McCain on Nuclear Nonproliferation

by CKR

John McCain seems to have broken with President Bush today on several aspects of his nonproliferation policy.

He is more favorable to international treaties, for starters. He recognizes that the United States and Russia, with the vast majority of the world’s nuclear weapons, must take the lead in eliminating those weapons.

The United States cannot and will not stop the spread of nuclear weapons by unilateral action. We must lead concerted and persistent multilateral efforts. As powerful as we are, America's ability to defend ourselves and our allies against the threat of nuclear attack depends on our ability to encourage effective international cooperation. We must strengthen the accords and institutions that make such cooperation possible.

However, he is vague about the treaties. He seems to say that we must work with Russia to extend the START treaty, but his words are weaker than that, and he doesn’t mention that START is used to verify the Moscow Treaty, which he doesn’t mention at all, although he does say he would like “a new arms control agreement with Russia reflecting the nuclear reductions I will seek.” Not clear whether those reductions would be below the Moscow Treaty’s 2200. We should “move quickly with other nations to negotiate a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty” and “seriously consider Russia's recent proposal” to expand the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to include other countries in banning these missiles. He is also willing to talk to China on strategic and nuclear issues, hopefully bringing them into a warhead-reduction regime.

He would increase funding for the IAEA and the Cooperative Threat Reduction programs, and “ensure the highest possible standards of security for existing nuclear materials.”

He would ask the Joint Chiefs of Staff to review nuclear strategy and policy. Congress has already asked for a review, in connection with funding the Reliable Replacement Warhead.

He would “like to explore ways we and Russia can reduce -- and hopefully eliminate -- deployments of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.”

He would continue the existing moratorium on nuclear testing, but he sounds doubtful about the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

On a number of issues, he seems to be shoulder-to-shoulder with President Bush. There are the platitudes that the North Korean nuclear program must be “completely, verifiably and irreversibly ended” and that we must keep nuclear, chemical or biological weapons out of the wrong hands. He supports the U.S.-India Civil Nuclear Accord. He likes missile defense.

He addresses the problem of the civilian nuclear fuel cycle being used to develop weapons with both sticks and carrots.

… countries that receive the benefits of peaceful nuclear cooperation must return or dismantle what they receive if they violate or withdraw from the NPT… We also need to reverse the burden of proof when it comes to discovering whether a nation is cheating on its NPT commitments…It is for suspected violators to prove they are in compliance…Finally, to enforce treaty obligations, IAEA member states must be willing to impose sanctions on nations that seek to withdraw from it.

Of course, the problem of proving a negative remains, whether it is the responsibility of the IAEA or of an accused country. Like that uranium enrichment program that North Korea doesn’t seem to have that broke up the Agreed Framework and opened the way for that underground test.

The carrots are difficult too. McCain recommends “international guarantees of nuclear fuel supply to countries that renounce enrichment and reprocessing,” but by international, he seems to mean from one nation to another. This simply won’t fly, as it hasn’t in the past, because no nation wants to entrust its energy security to another.

He’d like an international repository for nuclear waste, too. Sort of NIMBY writ large.

There’s some saber-rattling against Iran.

Overall, it’s a better set of policies than I might have expected, but still a long way to go. I am skeptical of promises for increased funding and initiatives that don’t sound very different from what has gone before. Some of this will be difficult to work out, and his commitment is not stated strongly.

New York Times (second paragraph is incorrect)

Washington Post

Comments

[James]

It's not just impossible to prove a negative, it's impossible to satisfy the requirements of someone who has made up his mind to remain dissatisfied. And, of course, McCain's proposed nuclear policy assumes that threatening sanctions is a good way to convince a nation to have faith in future deliveries of fuel.

The essential problem with McCain's prescriptions is that they are intended to play well with Americans and even close allies without regard to how they sound to the majority of NPT states. He doesn't seem to comprehend that the comfortable acceptance the US has towards the two-tier world the NPT has created is not mirrored in rising powers like Brazil and India, not to mention the Middle East.

And, in the end, that's really the problem not just with McCain, but with the Republicans generally. The doctrine of "American Exceptionalism" is not especially radical in the US. The assertion that the US is uniquely selfless and fair-minded is a mainstream idea in American politics. But McCain and his ideological brethren make the bizarre leap that this view is widely held abroad and that Asians and South Americans, not to mention the Iranians, will admit, when pressed, that the Americans really are the good guys and they're just jealous.

Good luck with that theory. In fact, US foreign policy is in a shambles because it's primarily focused on serving the needs of domestic politics. This isn't that unusual for America or any other country, but one might have expected better from the "Straight Talk Express."

[Andy]

Nations may not want to trust their energy security to another country, but few nations have choice in the matter. I don't think there's a nation on this planet that doesn't depend upon other nations for something, be it food, energy, manufactured goods, military hardware, etc. - all of which are necessities. This is particularly true of Iran which is all too eager to justify it's enrichment program on the grounds of fuel supply security (for reactors it does not yet possess) while in the midst of an economic crisis caused by gasoline imports and heavy subsidies which eat up about 1/5 of Iranian income.

As for the NPT and nukes, I think McCain would get more mileage out of promoting adopting of the additional protocol than what he proposes.

[J.]

This means nothing. He's edging toward the center with some talking points his staff developed. His record doesn't support the plans he is proposing, while Obama (despite his youth) has already lined up with Lugar on nonproliferation issues. There's no substance here.

[pls]

There's something a little retro about being willing to talk with Russia and not with Iran.

[CKR]

I thought James's comment was so good, I've expanded on it at Washington Monthly.

[Ward]

I was talking to a Washington insider this week on a trip to DC, someone who negotiated extensively with the Russians in previous administrations and he said about McCain's speech that it sounded very much like Bush's speech in 2000. "Of course," he said, "Kissinger wrote McCain's speech and he also wrote Bush's speech, so perhaps that isn't surprising."

Is it true that Kissinger wrote both speeches? I don't know. The guy I was talking to is a sober, distinguished fellow.

[CKR]

I saw one report that Kissinger and Schultz (of the nuclear-abolitionist four) helped write McCain's speech. I don't know whether he helped write Bush's speech.

The more I think about McCain's speech, the more I am bothered by the lack of specificity. And we all know that campaign speeches are often abandoned...

[Nuclear Age Peace Foundation]

The bigger picture here seems to be that non-proliferation issues are taking center stage in this election cycle! This will hopefully bode well for moving the world toward a world free of nuclear weapons in the future.

We at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation are circulating an Appeal to the Next President of the United States of America for a nuclear weapons-free world. The Appeal calls on the next President to take seven specific steps in making a nuclear weapons-free world a reality in the coming years.

So please visit http://www.makeworldsafer.com, and help us make the world nuclear-free!