SIDNEY D. DRELL, physicist, professor emeritus at the Stanford Linear Accelerator, and a fellow at the Hoover Institution
Idea: Let's start with START
Mr. Drell writes: The New START treaty, with its comprehensive transparency measures for monitoring compliance, once it has entered into force, will set the stage for further efforts "to make the world a better place in 2011." These efforts should focus on "preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism," an objective cited by the Obama administration as its No. 1 goal in the nuclear arena.
A first step, in view of the growing worldwide demands for energy and limiting greenhouse gases, will be to establish international control and management of the entire nuclear fuel cycle for civilian power.
One scheme that has been proposed would create fuel banks to guarantee the availability of low-enriched uranium to power the reactors producing civilian nuclear power to cooperating nations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Another would be to internationalize facilities producing nuclear materials.
A second step would be to negotiate more effective "verification teeth" for the International Atomic Energy Agency. Currently the IAEA has only limited authority to make challenge inspections of suspected, undeclared nuclear sites. Increased focus on the need to extend on-site challenge inspections globally, beyond the current number of about one-half of the NPT signatory nations, is evident from current confrontations with Iran and North Korea.
Finally, the US should ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The urgency of the US taking this action is shown by views expressed by a number of countries whose cooperation we must rely on to prevent nuclear terrorism and nuclear proliferation. Currently all but nine of the 44 nations that must ratify the CTBT before it can enter into force have done so. The US is one of those nine and the others, including India and China, have indicated they are waiting for us to ratify it before they jump on board, too.
Accomplishing these three steps will be challenging. But together with ongoing programs to provide the highest standards of security for all nuclear weapons material everywhere in the world, they are urgent and essential for making progress in a global effort of "preventing nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism."
