Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
President Bush and the other G-7 countries have agreed to spend up to $20 billion over the next 10 years to fund a new "global partnership for the destruction of weapons of mass destruction." The funds will help Russia better control and eliminate its vast stocks of nuclear materials, as well as chemical weapons and biological weapon agents. The pledge is a major step forward, especially for Europe, Japan and Canada, whose support for threat reduction efforts in Russia have not come any where near to matching the $5 billion contribution made by the U.S. since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
If Putin and Bush are able to drive forward on the agenda that they have set for themselves, then we will truly enter a new period of U.S.-Russian partnership. If they do not, then the relationship will drift, and we'll be left with the worst of all worlds -- informality without progress, casual friendship without results.
Many national security experts, including this one, warned that if the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty there would be an international storm of protest. On June 13, President Bush withdrew from the treaty, and the world went on without a hiccup. There is concern but no outrage. The United States and Russia have just negotiated a new treaty continuing reductions in long-range nuclear weapons but without any limits on future missile defense systems. Relations with Russia have never been better. Is this a complete vindication of the president's policies, as White House officials claim?
The arrest and detention of alleged dirty bomber Abdullah Al Mujahir sent waves of shock throughout the country. The threat posed by the possible use of a radiological dispersal device remains serious, and a threat for which the United States government and its people are not adequately prepared. In the days since Attorney General Ashcroft's dramatic announcement, however, it is less clear how direct the link is between Al Mujahir and the possible use of a radioactive device. If the Justice Department has exaggerated the nature of the link between the suspect and a dirty bomb, then it needs to re-calibrate its tone and approach.
There is great uncertainty over the number, location and operational status of the nuclear weapons held by India and Pakistan. The project has prepared a short overview of the two nations' nuclear capabilities drawn from extensive analysis from the latest Carnegie study, Deadly Arsenals: Tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction.
The two presidents have missed a historic opportunity to set up an international exchange of data on nuclear stockpiles, as well as mutual, verifiable elimination of warheads.
The following is not our normal project analysis. Rather it is a link to an analysis by Jon Stewart of the Daily Show. This short video clip provides humorous and, some may think, valuable insight into the recent U.S.-Russian nuclear reduction treaty. It features commentary by Project Director Joseph Cirincione. As far as we know, this is the first—and perhaps the last—time that a proliferation expert has appeared on Comedy Central.