Towards a World Without Nuclear Weapons - seminario no Itamaraty, 7-8/12/2017

Seminário – "Towards a World Without Nuclear Weapons: Challenges and Perspectives".

A Fundação Alexandre de Gusmão (FUNAG) e o Departamento de Organismos Internacionais (DOI) organizarão nos dias 7 e 8 de dezembro, na Sala San Tiago Dantas, o seminário “Towards a World without Nuclear Weapons: Challenges and Perspectives”. A ser conduzido em língua inglesa, o seminário seguirá as regras de “Chatham House”.

Após a cerimônia de abertura, na quinta-feira, 7/12, às 9h, estão previstos os seguintes painéis: a) a Agência Brasileiro-Argentina de Contabilidade e Controle de Materiais Nucleares (ABACC) e o regime de verificação da Agência Internacional de Energia Atômica (das 10h às 13h do dia 7/12); b) o Tratado de Não Proliferação de Armas Nucleares (TNP) – a Conferência de Exame de 2020 (das 14h30 às 18h30 do dia 7/12); e c) os impactos do Tratado sobre a Proibição de Armas Nucleares para o regime de não-proliferação e desarmamento nucleares baseado no TNP (das 9h às 12h30 do dia 8/12).

Devido ao número limitado de vagas, roga-se aos interessados em participar do seminário enviar solicitação de inscrição para o correio eletrônico dds@itamaraty.gov.br até o dia 1º de dezembro.

Gorbachev: o apaziguador (sobre os mísseis nucleares de Russia e EUA) - The Washington Post

 

 

 

 

 

Opinions

Mikhail Gorbachev: My plea to the presidents of Russia and the United States

President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev at a signing ceremony for the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in the White House on Dec. 8, 1987. (Barry Thumma/AP)

By Mikhail Gorbachev  

The Washington Post, October 11 at 11:00 AM

 

Mikhail Gorbachev was leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to 1991.
 

This December will mark the 30th anniversary of the signing of the treaty between the Soviet Union and United States on the elimination of intermediate- and shorter-range missiles. This was the start of the process of radically cutting back nuclear arsenals, which was continued with the 1991 and 2010 strategic arms reduction treaties and the agreements reducing tactical nuclear weapons.

The scale of the process launched in 1987 is evidenced by the fact that, as Russia and the United States reported to the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in 2015, 80 percent of the nuclear weapons accumulated during the Cold War have been decommissioned and destroyed. Another important fact is that, despite the recent serious deterioration in bilateral relations, both sides have been complying with the strategic weapons agreements.
The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, however, is now in jeopardy. It has proved to be the most vulnerable link in the system of limiting and reducing weapons of mass destruction. There have been calls on both sides for scrapping the agreement.

So what is happening, what is the problem, and what needs to be done?
Both sides have raised issues of compliance, accusing the other of violating or circumventing the treaty’s key provisions. From the sidelines, lacking fuller information, it is difficult to evaluate those accusations. But one thing is clear: The problem has a political as well as a technical aspect. It is up to the political leaders to take action.
Therefore I am making an appeal to the presidents of Russia and the United States.
Relations between the two nations are in a severe crisis. A way out must be sought, and there is one well-tested means available for accomplishing this: a dialogue based on mutual respect.
It will not be easy to cut through the logjam of issues on both sides. But neither was our dialogue easy three decades ago. It had its critics and detractors, who tried to derail it.
In the final analysis, it was the political will of the two nations’ leaders that proved decisive. And that is what’s needed now. This is what our two countries’ citizens and people everywhere expect from the presidents of Russia and the United States.
I call upon Russia and the United States to prepare and hold a full-scale summit on the entire range of issues. It is far from normal that the presidents of major nuclear powers meet merely “on the margins” of international gatherings. I hope that the process of preparing a proper summit is in the works even now.
I believe that the summit meeting should focus on the problems of reducing nuclear weapons and strengthening strategic stability. For should the system of nuclear arms control collapse, as may well happen if the INF Treaty is scrapped, the consequences, both direct and indirect, will be disastrous.
The closer that nuclear weapons are deployed to borders, the more dangerous they are: There is less time for a decision and greater risk of catastrophic error. And what will happen to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty if the nuclear arms race begins anew? I am afraid it will be ruined.
If, however, the INF Treaty is saved, it will send a powerful signal to the world that the two biggest nuclear powers are aware of their responsibility and take their obligations seriously. Everyone will breathe a sigh of relief, and relations between Russia and the United States will finally get off the ground again.
I am confident that preparing a joint presidential statement on the two nations’ commitment to the INF Treaty is a realistic goal. Simultaneously, the technical issues could be resolved; for this purpose, the joint control commission under the INF Treaty could resume its work. I am convinced that, with an impetus from the two presidents, the generals and diplomats would be able to reach agreement.
We are living in a troubled world. It is particularly disturbing that relations between the major nuclear powers, Russia and the United States, have become a serious source of tensions and a hostage to domestic politics. It is time to return to sanity. I am sure that even inveterate opponents of normalizing U.S.-Russian relations will not dare object to the two presidents. These critics have no arguments on their side, for the very fact that the INF Treaty has been in effect for 30 years proves that it serves the security interests of our two countries and of the world.
In any undertaking, it is important to take the first step. In 1987, the first step in the difficult but vitally important process of ridding the world of nuclear weapons was the INF Treaty. Today, we face a dual challenge of preventing the collapse of the system of nuclear agreements and reversing the downward spiral in U.S.-Russian relations. It is time to take the first step.

Seguranca nuclear: um mundo sem armas nucleares? - Kissinger, Schultz, Perry, Nunn (WSJ, 2007)

A despeito de ser um artigo de opinião de janeiro de 2007, a matéria ainda guarda seu valor, tanto para os EUA, cuja política o artigo visa influenciar, quanto para o mundo, contexto no qual não haverá entendimento a respeito. Em todo caso, cabe a reflexão responsável sobre um assunto que também interessa à diplomacia brasileira. Esta reclama, desde sempre, que os detentores de armas nucleares cumpram com suas obrigações sob o TNP, o que é compreensível, mas ao mesmo tempo recusa as inspeções abrangentes de suas instalações nucleares, que estão a cargo da AIEA, o que é menos compreensível (pois as justificativas são suposições, não fatos).
Mas o Brasil não é exatamente um problema ou um obstáculo nessa questão.
Meu argumento é outro, e está contemplado no artigo: terrorismo.
Observando as coisas claramente, constato que o Paquistão, por exemplo, um Estado nuclear, é, tecnicamente, socialmente, politicamente, um Estado falido, por mais que digam que seus militares controlam adequadamente os equipamentos e materiais nucleares. Militares não são imunes a loucuras individuais.
Constato que a Coreia do Norte é um Estado falido e delinquente, capaz de matar sua própria população de fome, por políticas de suas elites dirigentes. Se o problema do Paquistão são os conflitos étnicos, religiosos, raciais e tribais dos povos que integram o país, o problema da Coreia do Norte é a delinquência moral de seus dirigentes.
Poderia falar de outros países -- alguns felizmente revertidos na loucura nuclear, como Líbia, do coronel Kadafy -- mas estes dois já bastam para indicar o perigo real do terrorismo nuclear.
O Brasil deveria refletir sobre a questão.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

A World Free of Nuclear Weapons

Opinion

By  GEORGE P. SHULTZ,  WILLIAM J. PERRY, HENRY A. KISSINGER and SAM NUNN

The Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007

Nuclear weapons today present tremendous dangers, but also an historic opportunity. U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the next stage -- to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.

Nuclear weapons were essential to maintaining international security during the Cold War because they were a means of deterrence. The end of the Cold War made the doctrine of mutual Soviet-American deterrence obsolete. Deterrence continues to be a relevant consideration for many states with regard to threats from other states. But reliance on nuclear weapons for this purpose is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective.

North Korea's recent nuclear test and Iran's refusal to stop its program to enrich uranium -- potentially to weapons grade -- highlight the fact that the world is now on the precipice of a new and dangerous nuclear era. Most alarmingly, the likelihood that non-state terrorists will get their hands on nuclear weaponry is increasing. In today's war waged on world order by terrorists, nuclear weapons are the ultimate means of mass devastation. And non-state terrorist groups with nuclear weapons are conceptually outside the bounds of a deterrent strategy and present difficult new security challenges.

Apart from the terrorist threat, unless urgent new actions are taken, the U.S. soon will be compelled to enter a new nuclear era that will be more precarious, psychologically disorienting, and economically even more costly than was Cold War deterrence. It is far from certain that we can successfully replicate the old Soviet-American "mutually assured destruction" with an increasing number of potential nuclear enemies world-wide without dramatically increasing the risk that nuclear weapons will be used. New nuclear states do not have the benefit of years of step-by-step safeguards put in effect during the Cold War to prevent nuclear accidents, misjudgments or unauthorized launches. The United States and the Soviet Union learned from mistakes that were less than fatal. Both countries were diligent to ensure that no nuclear weapon was used during the Cold War by design or by accident. Will new nuclear nations and the world be as fortunate in the next 50 years as we were during the Cold War?

* * *

Leaders addressed this issue in earlier times. In his "Atoms for Peace" address to the United Nations in 1953, Dwight D. Eisenhower pledged America's "determination to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma -- to devote its entire heart and mind to find the way by which the miraculous inventiveness of man shall not be dedicated to his death, but consecrated to his life." John F. Kennedy, seeking to break the logjam on nuclear disarmament, said, "The world was not meant to be a prison in which man awaits his execution."

Rajiv Gandhi, addressing the U.N. General Assembly on June 9, 1988, appealed, "Nuclear war will not mean the death of a hundred million people. Or even a thousand million. It will mean the extinction of four thousand million: the end of life as we know it on our planet earth. We come to the United Nations to seek your support. We seek your support to put a stop to this madness."

Ronald Reagan called for the abolishment of "all nuclear weapons," which he considered to be "totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization." Mikhail Gorbachev shared this vision, which had also been expressed by previous American presidents.

Although Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev failed at Reykjavik to achieve the goal of an agreement to get rid of all nuclear weapons, they did succeed in turning the arms race on its head. They initiated steps leading to significant reductions in deployed long- and intermediate-range nuclear forces, including the elimination of an entire class of threatening missiles.

What will it take to rekindle the vision shared by Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev? Can a world-wide consensus be forged that defines a series of practical steps leading to major reductions in the nuclear danger? There is an urgent need to address the challenge posed by these two questions.

The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) envisioned the end of all nuclear weapons. It provides (a) that states that did not possess nuclear weapons as of 1967 agree not to obtain them, and (b) that states that do possess them agree to divest themselves of these weapons over time. Every president of both parties since Richard Nixon has reaffirmed these treaty obligations, but non-nuclear weapon states have grown increasingly skeptical of the sincerity of the nuclear powers.

Strong non-proliferation efforts are under way. The Cooperative Threat Reduction program, the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, the Proliferation Security Initiative and the Additional Protocols are innovative approaches that provide powerful new tools for detecting activities that violate the NPT and endanger world security. They deserve full implementation. The negotiations on proliferation of nuclear weapons by North Korea and Iran, involving all the permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany and Japan, are crucially important. They must be energetically pursued.

But by themselves, none of these steps are adequate to the danger. Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev aspired to accomplish more at their meeting in Reykjavik 20 years ago -- the elimination of nuclear weapons altogether. Their vision shocked experts in the doctrine of nuclear deterrence, but galvanized the hopes of people around the world. The leaders of the two countries with the largest arsenals of nuclear weapons discussed the abolition of their most powerful weapons.

* * *

What should be done? Can the promise of the NPT and the possibilities envisioned at Reykjavik be brought to fruition? We believe that a major effort should be launched by the United States to produce a positive answer through concrete stages.

First and foremost is intensive work with leaders of the countries in possession of nuclear weapons to turn the goal of a world without nuclear weapons into a joint enterprise. Such a joint enterprise, by involving changes in the disposition of the states possessing nuclear weapons, would lend additional weight to efforts already under way to avoid the emergence of a nuclear-armed North Korea and Iran.

The program on which agreements should be sought would constitute a series of agreed and urgent steps that would lay the groundwork for a world free of the nuclear threat. Steps would include:

·       Changing the Cold War posture of deployed nuclear weapons to increase warning time and thereby reduce the danger of an accidental or unauthorized use of a nuclear weapon.

·       Continuing to reduce substantially the size of nuclear forces in all states that possess them.

·       Eliminating short-range nuclear weapons designed to be forward-deployed.

·       Initiating a bipartisan process with the Senate, including understandings to increase confidence and provide for periodic review, to achieve ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, taking advantage of recent technical advances, and working to secure ratification by other key states.

·       Providing the highest possible standards of security for all stocks of weapons, weapons-usable plutonium, and highly enriched uranium everywhere in the world.

·       Getting control of the uranium enrichment process, combined with the guarantee that uranium for nuclear power reactors could be obtained at a reasonable price, first from the Nuclear Suppliers Group and then from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or other controlled international reserves. It will also be necessary to deal with proliferation issues presented by spent fuel from reactors producing electricity.

·       Halting the production of fissile material for weapons globally; phasing out the use of highly enriched uranium in civil commerce and removing weapons-usable uranium from research facilities around the world and rendering the materials safe.

·       Redoubling our efforts to resolve regional confrontations and conflicts that give rise to new nuclear powers.

Achieving the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons will also require effective measures to impede or counter any nuclear-related conduct that is potentially threatening to the security of any state or peoples.

Reassertion of the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and practical measures toward achieving that goal would be, and would be perceived as, a bold initiative consistent with America's moral heritage. The effort could have a profoundly positive impact on the security of future generations. Without the bold vision, the actions will not be perceived as fair or urgent. Without the actions, the vision will not be perceived as realistic or possible.

We endorse setting the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and working energetically on the actions required to achieve that goal, beginning with the measures outlined above.

Mr. Shultz, a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, was secretary of state from 1982 to 1989. Mr. Perry was secretary of defense from 1994 to 1997. Mr. Kissinger, chairman of Kissinger Associates, was secretary of state from 1973 to 1977. Mr. Nunn is former chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

A conference organized by Mr. Shultz and Sidney D. Drell was held at Hoover to reconsider the vision that Reagan and Mr. Gorbachev brought to Reykjavik. In addition to Messrs. Shultz and Drell, the following participants also endorse the view in this statement: Martin Anderson, Steve Andreasen, Michael Armacost, William Crowe, James Goodby, Thomas Graham Jr., Thomas Henriksen, David Holloway, Max Kampelman, Jack Matlock, John McLaughlin, Don Oberdorfer, Rozanne Ridgway, Henry Rowen, Roald Sagdeev and Abraham Sofaer. 

Ucrania: ainda bem que se tornou nao-nuclear - Jeremy Bernstein (NY Review of Books)

A Nuclear Ukraine

Jeremy Bernstein

The New York Review of Books, March, 11, 2014

AP images

Soldiers preparing to destroy a ballistic SS-19 nuclear missile in Vakulenchuk, Ukraine, December 24, 1997

Watching the crisis in Ukraine unfold, it is easy to forget how much worse it could have been. In the sense of civil power, Ukraine is a nuclear state. Recall that the Chernobyl disaster took place at Pripyat, in northern Ukraine, some sixty miles from Kiev. Ukraine still has fifteen operating nuclear reactors, which contribute about half the country’s electricity. The enriched uranium used to fuel these power reactors is largely provided by the Russians (some is provided by General Electric). The Russians presumably have also been removing the plutonium the reactors produce. But it is Ukraine’s history as a military nuclear power that is so striking. In 1991 Ukraine had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world—only the United States and Russia had more.

At the end of the Cold War, Ukraine had some 1,900 strategic nuclear warheads and hundreds of tactical nuclear weapons—the kind that are designed to be used on the battlefield. Many of these were stored in the Crimea: one of the Soviets’ most important weapons sites was at Krasnokamenka, in the Kiziltashsky valley region of Crimea, where a secret underground facility was used to assemble and store nuclear warheads, some of which were then sent to other Warsaw Pact countries. As part of the Soviets’ military defenses against Europe the tactical nuclear weapons were distributed to Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine, as well as Russia. After Russia, Ukraine, which was seen as a primary front in any battle with the West, got the most.

It has never been clear how to use such weapons, which were intended to be used on advancing troops and tanks. As Oppenheimer said of the hydrogen bomb, the military targets are too small, and in practice, such weapons would produce collateral damage to your own troops. But it is clear how to use the strategic weapons, which are designed to attack whole cities: you put them on missiles or bombers. The Ukranians had a dozens of both.

Of course, at the time this arsenal was built, during the Cold War, Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union so these weapons were part of the Russian stockpile. The newly independent country of Ukraine inherited them. In 1990 the Ukranian parliament adopted a non-nuclear policy, which included ridding the country of these devices. In 1992 then-prime minister and later president Leonid Kuchma decided that nuclear disarmament was not such a good idea and that Ukraine should keep a stockpile of nuclear missiles. He did not get his way, however, because in 1994 the parliament voted to make Ukraine a nuclear weapons-free state, and that year the Ukranians signed the so-called Budapest Memorandum, in which they agreed to dismantle their nuclear stockpile.

In view of Russia’s current occupation of the Crimea, it is worth noting that the Budapest accord, which was signed by Russia itself along with Ukraine, the US, and the UK, required the signers to make security assurances that any incursion on Ukranian territory by a nuclear power would be promptly taken before the United Nations Security Council. Indeed, Ukraine’s newly appointed prime minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has cited this agreement in relation to Russia’s intervention,calling on the Kremlin not to “violate the Budapest Memorandum.”

The memorandum, however, did not make security guarantees to this effect, which would have forced the UN to take action and put Russia in a very tight spot.

In the event, following the 1994 agreement, trains began moving Ukraine’s nuclear stockpile to disarmament facilities in Russia. About five thousand nuclear related devices were moved out on some one hundred trains. The operation was completed in 1996 and Ukraine joined the small club of nuclear states, which now includes Libya and South Africa, that have voluntarily given up their nuclear arsenals. In the 1990s, Belarus and Kazakstan also gave up their weapons. But the vast store of tactical and strategic bombs turned over by Ukraine was by far the largest in this group. In 2012 the last of Ukraine’s supply of highly enriched uranium was turned over to Russia.

As for the civilian nuclear power program, there are plans to build eleven new units and some of the older ones are being decommissioned. There is always a risk with nuclear reactors but hopefully the lessons of Chernobyl have been absorbed. The reliance on Russian uranium for these reactors is another way the Kremlin could continue to exert leverage over Ukraine, although some of the fuel is being supplied by the United States and one imagines this could be increased. Without these reactors Ukraine would run the risk of going dark. (Since the Russian incursion in the Crimea, Ukraine’s interim president has said the country would deploy armed forces around its nuclear facilities, while the Ukrainian parliament has called for international monitors to help guard its reactors.)

We can debate what might have happened if Ukraine had kept at least part of its nuclear arsenal, as Kuchma wanted. Would this have deterred the Russians or would we be facing a nuclear war? Or might the weapons themselves be in danger of falling into the wrong hands during an upheaval like the current one? Fortunately for all of us this debate is academic.

March 4, 2014, 11:46 a.m.

Israel: armas nucleares e balança geopolitica no Oriente Medio - Max Fisher (WP world blog)

WorldViews

Why is the U.S. okay with Israel having nuclear weapons but not Iran?
BY MAX FISHER
The Washington Post blog World View, December 2, 2013, at 9:30 am

Israel's Dimona nuclear power plant, in the Negev desert, started the country's nuclear program when it was built in the 1950s with French help.

Iranian officials sometimes respond to accusations that Tehran is seeking a nuclear weapons capability by replying that, not only do they not want a bomb, they'd actually like to see a nuclear-weapons-free Middle East. Yes, this is surely in part a deflection, meant to shift attention away from concerns about Iran's nuclear activities by not-so-subtly nodding to the one country in the region that does have nuclear weapons: Israel.

But could Iran have a point? Is there something hypocritical about the world tolerating Israel's nuclear arsenal, which the country does not officially acknowledge but has been publicly known for decades, and yet punishing Iran with severe economic sanctions just for its suspected steps toward a weapons program? Even Saudi Arabia, which sees Iran as its implacable enemy and made its accommodations with Israel long ago, often joins Tehran's calls for a "nuclear-free region." And anyone not closely versed in Middle East issues might naturally wonder why the United States would accept Israeli warheads but not an Iranian program.

"This issue comes up in every lecture I give," Joe Cirincione, president of the nuclear nonproliferation-focused Ploughshares Fund, told me. The suspicions that Israel gets special treatment because it's Israel, and that Western countries are unfairly hard on Israel's neighbors, tend to inform how many in the Middle East see the ongoing nuclear disputes. "It is impossible to give a nuclear policy talk in the Middle East without having the questions focus almost entirely on Israel," Cirincione said.

Of course, many Westerners would likely argue that Israel's weapons are morally and historically defensible in a way that an Iranian program would not be, both because of Israel's roots in the Holocaust and because it fought a series of defensive wars against its neighbors. "Israel has never given any reason to doubt its solely defensive nature," said Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, summarizing the American position. "Israel has never brandished its capabilities to exert regional influence, cow its adversaries or threaten its neighbors."

There's truth to both of these perspectives. But the story of the Israeli nuclear program, and how the United States came to accept it, is more complicated and surprising than you might think.

The single greatest factor explaining how Israel got the world to accept its nuclear program may be timing. The first nuclear weapon was detonated in 1945, by the United States. In 1970, most of the world agreed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which forbids any new countries from developing nuclear weapons. In that 25-year window, every major world power developed a nuclear weapon: the Soviet Union, United Kingdom, France and China. They were joined by exactly one other country: Israel.

The Israeli nuclear program was driven in many ways by the obsessive fear that gripped the nation's founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. After the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, in which the new country fought off Egyptian and Jordanian armies, Ben-Gurion concluded that Israel could survive only if it had a massive military deterrent -- nuclear weapons.

"What Einstein, Oppenheimer and Teller, the three of them are Jews, made for the United States could also be done by scientists in Israel for their own people," Ben-Gurion wrote in 1956. Avner Cohen, the preeminent historian of Israel's nuclear program, has written that Ben-Gurion "believed Israel needed nuclear weapons as insurance if it could no longer compete with the Arabs in an arms race, and as a weapon of last resort in case of an extreme military emergency. Nuclear weapons might also persuade the Arabs to accept Israel's existence, leading to peace in the region."

But Israel of the 1950s was a poor country. And it was not, as it is today, a close political and military ally of the United States. Israel had to find a way to keep up with the much wealthier and more advanced world powers dominating the nuclear race. How it went about doing this goes a long way to explaining both why the United States initially opposed Israel's nuclear program and how the world came around to accepting Israeli warheads.

So the Israelis turned to France, which was much further along on its own nuclear program, and in 1957 secretly agreed to help install a plutonium-based facility in the small Israeli city of Dimona. Why France did this is not settled history. French foreign policy at the time was assiduously independent from, and standoffish toward, the United States and United Kingdom; perhaps this was one of France's many steps meant to reclaim great power status. A year earlier, Israel had assisted France and the United Kingdom in launching a disastrous invasion of Egypt that became known as the "Suez Crisis"; French leaders may have felt that they owed Israel. Whatever France's reason, both countries kept it a secret from the United States.

When U.S. intelligence did finally discover Israel's nuclear facility, in 1960, Israeli leaders insisted that it was for peaceful purposes and that they were not interested in acquiring a nuclear weapon. Quite simply, they were lying, and for years resisted and stalled U.S.-backed nuclear inspectors sent to the facility. (This may help shed some light on why the United States and Israel are both so skeptical of Iran's own reactor, potentially capable of yielding plutonium, under construction at Arak.) The work continued at Dimona.

Gradually, as the United States came to understand the scope of the program, the administrations of Eisenhower, Kennedy and even the relatively Israel-friendly Johnson all pushed ever harder to halt Israel's nuclear development. Their response to an Israeli bomb was "no."

"The U.S. tried to stop Israel from getting nuclear weapons and to stop France from giving Israel the technology and material it needed to make them," Cirincione said. "We failed."

The turning point for both Israel and the United States may have been the 1967 war. The second large-scale Arab-Israeli war lasted only six days, but that was enough to convince Israeli leaders that, though they had won, they could lose next time. Two crucial things happened in the next five years. First, in 1968, Israel secretly developed a nuclear weapon. Second, and perhaps more important, was a White House meeting in September 1969 between President Nixon and Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. What happened during that meeting is secret. But the Nixon's administration's meticulous records show that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said to Nixon, in a later conversation about the Meir meeting, "during your private discussions with Golda Meir you emphasized that our primary concern was that Israel make no visible introduction of nuclear weapons or undertake a nuclear test program."

That meeting between Nixon and Meir set what has been Israel's unofficial policy ever since: one in which the country does nothing to publicly acknowledge or demonstrate its nuclear weapons program, and in exchange the United States would accept it. The Nixon administration had concluded that, while it didn't like the Israeli weapons program, it also wasn't prepared to stop it. The Cold War had polarized the Middle East, a region where Soviet influence was growing and where Israel -- along with Iran -- were scarce American allies. If they had already resigned themselves to living with a nuclear weapon, Kissinger concluded, they might as well make it on their terms.

"Essentially the bargain has been that Israel keeps its nuclear deterrent deep in the basement and Washington keeps its critique locked in the closet," Satloff explained.

If the 1967 war had sparked Israel's rush to a warhead and led the United States to tacitly accept the program, then the 1973 Arab-Israeli war made that arrangement more or less permanent. Egypt and Syria launched a joint surprise attack on Yom Kippur and made rapid gains -- so rapid that Israeli leaders feared that the entire country would be overrun. They ordered the military to prepare several nuclear warheads for launch -- exactly the sort of drastic, final measure then Ben-Gurion had envisioned 20 years earlier. (Update: This incident is disputed. See note at bottom.) But the Israeli forces held, assisted by an emergency U.S. resupply that Nixon ordered, and eventually won the war.

The desperation of the 1973 war may have ensured that, once Nixon left office, his deal with the Israelis would hold. And it has. But the world has changed in the past 40 years. Israel's conventional military forces are now far more powerful than all of its neighbors' militaries combined. Anyway, those neighbors have made peace with Israel save Syria, which has held out mostly for political reasons. From Israel's view, there is only one potentially existential military threat left: the Iranian nuclear program. But that program has not produced a warhead and, with Tehran now seeking to reach an agreement on the program, it may never.

Some scholars are beginning to ask whether the old deal is outdated, if Israel should consider announcing its nuclear weapons arsenal publicly. Cohen, the historian who studies the Israel program, argues that the policy of secrecy "undermines genuine Israeli interests, including the need to gain recognition and legitimacy and to be counted among the responsible states in this strategic field."

The dilemma for Israel is that, should Iran ever develop a nuclear warhead, Israel will surely feel less unsafe if it has its own nuclear deterrent. But, ironically, Israel's nuclear arsenal may itself be one of the factors driving Iran's program in the first place.

"History tells us that Israel's position as the sole nuclear-armed state in the region is an anomaly -- regions either have several nuclear states or none," said Cirincione, of the nonproliferation Ploughshares Fund. "At some point, for its own security, Israel will have to take the bombs out of the basement and put them on the negotiating table."

Some scholars suggest that world powers, including the United States, may have quietly tolerated Egyptian and Syrian chemical weapons stockpiles as counterbalances to Israel's own weapons of mass destruction; a concession just large enough to prevent them from seeking nuclear weapons of their own.

Ultimately, while every president from Nixon to Obama has accepted Israel's nuclear weapons, at some point the United States would surely prefer to see a Middle East that's entirely free of weapons of mass destruction.

"We are not okay with Israel having nuclear weapons, but U.S. policymakers recognize that there is not much we can do about it in the short-term," Cirincione said. "But these are general back-burner efforts. All recognize that Israel will only give up its nuclear weapons in the context of a regional peace settlement where all states recognized the rights of other states to exist and agree on territorial boundaries. This would mean a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian issues."

In other words, the Middle East would have to cease being the Middle East. Maybe that will happen, but not anytime soon.

Update: The much-discussed 1973 incident, in which Israel allegedly readied its nuclear weapons in case the country was overrun by the invading Arab armies, may have never actually happened. Avner Cohen, the ultimate authority on the subject, wrote as much in an October post for Arms Control Wonk. "The nuclear lore about 1973 has turned into an urban legend: nobody knows how exactly it originated and who the real sources were, but it is commonly believed as true or near-true," he wrote, calling the event "mythology."

What actually happened, according to Cohen, is that Defense Minister Moshe Dayan proposed in the middle of the war that Israel prepare to detonate a nuclear warhead over the desert as a "test" and show of force. But his proposal, Cohen says, was rejected immediately. Thanks to freelance journalist and former colleague Armin Rosen for flagging this. Read more in this recent paper on Israel's 1973 "nuclear alert," co-authored by Cohen along with Elbridge Colby, William McCants, Bradley Morris and William Rosenau.

ISIS: sobre o teste nuclear da Coreia do Norte

Sempre me pareceu muito claro que, a despeito de suas tendências autonomistas muito pronunciadas, o país que sempre deteve, e detém cada vez mais, controle sobre o que pode, ou não pode, fazer a Coreia do Norte, é a China. Se a China desejasse, por exemplo, poderia "estrangular" economicamente a hiperditadura stalinista da península, e ela só não o faz, o que seria de seu interesse nacional (pelo menos desde Deng Xiao-ping), para causar "incômodos" nos EUA, que poderiam passar a dispor de certa vantagem estratégica na região, se a Coreia do Norte simplesmente desaparecesse nos braços da República capitalista do sul. Apenas a cegueira geopolítica dos generais chineses impede a China de "estrangular" o regime surrealista imperante na Coreia do Norte. A China talvez venha a se arrepender dessa postura um dia, pois uma Coreia do Norte miserável, nuclearmente armada e tendo megalomaníacos na sua direção pode ser um desastre para ela e para toda a região.
Paulo Roberto de Almeida

ISIS Reports

ISIS Statement on North Korean Nuclear Test

by David Albright and Andrea Stricker
February 12, 2013
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On Tuesday, February 12 at 2:57 GMT/UTC, North Korea claims that it tested its third nuclear device.  The official KCNA news agency stated: “It was confirmed that the nuclear test, that was carried out at a high level in a safe and perfect manner using a miniaturized and lighter nuclear device with greater explosive force than previously, did not pose any negative impact on the surrounding ecological environment.”  The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization recorded a seismic event 5.0 in magnitude and the U.S. Geological Survey recorded a shallow earthquake of 5.1 in magnitude.  The test occurred at Punggye-ri, site of its 2006 and 2009 tests, which recorded magnitudes of 4.1 and 4.52, respectively.  ISIS assessed on February 3 that North Korea was likely preparing for a third nuclear test based on preparations at the site visible in overhead satellite imagery. 
While much information is still unknown about the nature of North Korea’s nuclear test, several key points should be made:
North Korea’s stated miniaturization capability, if true, should not be a surprise.  It should not come as a surprise to the international community that North Korea may now have the capability to explode a miniaturized nuclear device.  ISIS (and key members of the U.S. intelligence community) have assessed for some time that North Korea likely has the capability to miniaturize a nuclear weapon for its 800 mile range Nodong missile.  Although more information is needed to make a sound assessment, this test could, as North Korea has stated, demonstrate this capability. ISIS has also assessed that North Korea still lacks the ability to deploy a warhead on an ICBM, although it shows progress at this effort. North Korea would need to conduct missile flight tests with a re-entry vehicle and mock warhead, increase the explosive yield of the warhead, possibly requiring its further miniaturization, and improve the operational reliability of the warhead and missile.
North Korea does not appear to have detonated a more sophisticated nuclear device, such as a thermonuclear device. Before the test, concern was expressed by some analysts that North Korea could test a more advanced nuclear weapon. The data from this test so far indicate that this is not the case. One important question is whether the nuclear test used only plutonium or involved highly enriched uranium either alone or in combination with plutonium.
It is time to accelerate efforts to stop North Korea’s foreign procurements for its nuclear programs and increase efforts to halt its proliferation financing efforts.  North Korea’s efforts to procure nuclear and dual-use goods and raw materials for its nuclear programs must be addressed by targeted countries through improved United Nations sanctions resolutions and domestic trade control laws and the enforcement of those measures.  North Korea continues to improve its nuclear programs through its access to such goods and materials, particularly through trading companies and citizens located in neighboring China.
The United Nations Security Council should incrementally increase proliferation financing sanctions on North Korea as a result of this test. 
The international response to the test should be measured and should circle back to engagement.  Despite the likely demonstration of an improved North Korean nuclear capability, the international response to the test should be carefully constructed.  Ironically, North Korea’s previous nuclear tests, despite being followed by sanctions and international condemnation, eventually paved the way for engagement.  North Korea’s historical use of brinkmanship to gain concessions is well documented.  A new formulation is necessary to break this cycle of provocation/engagement that has too often ended with a more advanced North Korean nuclear weapons program.  A strategy of engagement that does not reward the test but seeks to moderate the regime’s behavior through sustained dialogue may be most productive going forward.  A key element is for the United States to deepen cooperation with China and resist seeking renewed bilateral U.S./North Korean dialogue.  There are signs that China is listening more to U.S. concerns about North Korea’s nuclear provocations.  A goal must be the United States developing common positions with China, along with South Korea and Japan, making it harder for North Korea to play China against the United States.
A response must not provoke even worse behavior.  Faced with a draconian response to this third nuclear test, it is possible that North Korea could retaliate by causing minor military skirmishes with its neighbors, conducting another test, or even deploying nuclear-tipped Nodong missiles.  Remaining cognizant of the need to prevent and mitigate worse behavior by North Korea should be the goal of any international or regional response. This again argues for seeking solidarity among China, Japan, South Korea, and the United States.
http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/isis-statement-on-north-korean-nuclear-test/10
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Tratado de Banimento Completo dos Testes Nucleares - 1996

Não nos iludamos: ainda não está em vigor, e dificilmente entrará em vigor, pela oposição dos grandes e de alguns pequenos que se estão nuclearizando...
Paulo Roberto de Almeida 

Clinton, at U.N., Signs Treaty Banning All Nuclear Testing

By ALISON MITCHELL

The New York Times, September 24, 1996

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 24 -- President Clinton signed a treaty today that would ban all nuclear weapons testing and called on world leaders to take further steps to limit weapons of mass destruction. He also urged them to show 'zero tolerance' for international drug smuggling and for terrorism.

In an address to the 51st session of the United Nations General Assembly, Mr. Clinton noted that it was the second year in a row that he had asked diplomats and world leaders to take a strong stand against what he calls the 'new threats' of the post-cold-war era: Drug traffickers, terrorists and unsafeguarded weapons materials. 'Frankly, we have not done that yet,' Mr. Clinton said.

'Real zero tolerance requires us to isolate states that refuse to play by the rules we have all accepted for civilized behavior,' he said. 'As long as Iraq threatens its neighbors and people, as long as Iran supports and protects terrorists, as long as Libya refuses to give up the people who blew up Pan Am 103, they should not become full members of the family of nations.'

Mr. Clinton's annual visit to the United Nations was unusually brief -- less than two hours long -- and was coupled with a campaign rally later in New Jersey. It came at a time when the Administration has said it would use its Security Council veto to keep Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who the United States says has not initiated enough reform at the United Nations, from serving a second term as Secretary General.

Nonetheless, the President and the Secretary General met and posed for a photo together, with Mr. Boutros-Ghali smiling and Mr. Clinton looking stiff and solemn. Later Mr. Clinton said the question of Mr. Boutros-Ghali's tenure did not arise 'because he and everyone else knows our position,' adding, 'They know it's firm.'

Before delivering his address, Mr. Clinton used the same pen with which John F. Kennedy signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963 to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The comprehensive accord is intended to thwart the development of new generations of weapons by banning all nuclear explosions, underground and above ground, military or civilian, high yield or low yield.

The President called the treaty 'the longest-sought, hardest-fought prize in arms control history.'

An overwhelming majority of countries, including the five declared nuclear weapons powers -- the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia -- have now agreed to the treaty and the comprehensive ban. But India, which set off a nuclear explosion in 1974 and is believed to have a clandestine nuclear weapons program that it does not want to give up, has said it will not sign because the treaty does not set a date for the total elimination of nuclear weapons. Pakistan, which is also thought to have a covert nuclear program, has indicated that it will boycott the pact if India does.

The treaty will not go into effect for at least two years, and Clinton Administration officials say they hope India can be brought around by then. Without assent by India and other potential nuclear states, the treaty and its enforcement measures will not enter into force although countries that do ratify it will be required to observe its provisions.

The President, however, said today that the signatures of the five declared nuclear powers, along with those of the vast majority of countries, 'will immediately create an international norm against nuclear testing even before the treaty formally enters into force.'

'Some,' Mr. Clinton said in a reference to India, 'have complained that it does not mandate total nuclear disarmament by a date certain. I would say to them, do not forsake the benefits of this achievement by ignoring the tremendous progress we have already made toward that goal.' Representatives of about 60 countries signed the treaty by the end of the day.

The treaty, however, must also be approved by national legislatures. The makeup of the next Congress may determine whether the accord wins Senate ratification in the United States. The Republican platform repudiates the treaty as 'inconsistent with American security interests' and argues that the United States, in order to deter the threat of weapons of mass destruction from rogue states, will 'require the continuing maintenance and development of nuclear weapons and other periodic testing.'

This month the Senate indefinitely shelved a vote on another arms control measure, the Chemical Weapons Convention. 'I deeply regret that the United States Senate has not yet voted on the convention,' Mr. Clinton said. 'But I want to assure you and people throughout the world that I will not let this treaty die.'

Besides advocating the implementation of the chemical weapons treaty, the President called for five additional steps in arms control: freezing the production of nuclear bomb-making material; making further reductions in nuclear arsenals; stregthening measures against nuclear smuggling; improving compliance with a biological weapons treaty and banning anti-personnel land mines.

Mr. Clinton also urged United Nations members to adopt a declaration on crime and pledge to give no sanctuary to drug traffickers and terrorists. In a move that could help blunt Republican charges that he has been lax about fighting drugs, the President announced that the United States would provide more than $100 million in military equipment, services and training to Mexico, Colombia and other South American and Caribbean nations to 'stop the flow of drugs at the source.'

The United States owes $1.7 billion in back dues, peacekeeping fees and special assessments to the United Nations and its agencies, making it the country with the biggest debt to the United Nations. Mr. Clinton noted that America was also the organization's largest contributor and said he was committed to paying off the debt. He stressed that he also wanted to see further budget-cutting and streamlining of the world organization.

'In this time of challenge and change, the United Nations is more important than ever before,' he said, 'because our world is more interdependent than ever before. Most Americans know this.'