Abstract
Building Better U.S.-Russian Relations” (March/April 2008 Bulletin) gives a realistic picture of recent U.S.-Russian relations. Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin appeared to have warm relations, but the same cannot be said about U.S.-Russian and Western-Russian relations in total.
During the Cold War and since its end, scientists in both countries tried to improve relations in sensitive areas such as strategic operations, arms control, and nonproliferation by providing sound scientific and technological information for policy makers. In the 1990s, the Russian Committee of Scientists for Global Security and Arms Control, of which we are members, and Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation maintained the informal dialogue on strategic stability and security between our two countries that had been initiated by Americans William Perry and John Lewis and supported by the chief of the Soviet general staff Marshal Sergei Akhromeev and by Soviet leadership. These scientists and policy makers played a key role in the activity of the Committee for International Security and Arms Control organized by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the U.S. National Academies. But this process has stopped, due in part to the lack of interest from U.S. officials and from major foundations who supported these issues. Meanwhile, “old threats” to international peace, security, and stability like WMD proliferation, arms races, and regional conflicts and instability are emerging again.
The old international security architecture is stagnating, and a new one does not exist. Something must be done. The United States and Russia still bear major responsibility for international peace and stability. They need to restore their dialogue and cooperation on the wide range of issues critical for bilateral and international relations.
Chairman
Executive secretary Russian Committee of Scientists for Global Security and Arms Control
Cooperation Makes it Happen
John Steinbruner's “Consensual Security” (March/April 2008 Bulletin) is a reminder of our warped national political priorities. He writes, “The countervailing deterrent operations of U.S. and Russian nuclear forces still dominate international security arrangements in operational reality, if not in public consciousness.” A significant part of the blame for this should be given to the 1991 Gulf War. Just as the Cold War was ending, the United States mobilized for a shooting war in the Middle East, which George H. W. Bush's administration built up as a far more difficult contest than it actually was. While Bush pushed forward on arms reductions with the Russians, the chest-beating and bluster around the Gulf War distracted attention from the challenge and the opportunity to reduce the threat of nuclear war through disarmament.
Oakland, California
John Steinbruner offers a crisp analysis and a compelling solution to our eroding international security in “Consensual Security.” Our security policies are outmoded and remain oddly anchored in Cold War logic.
Steinbruner argues that the United States should apply this model of consensual security to the nuclear standoff with Iran. Rather than asking Iran to shut down all fissile material production, he makes the case for insisting that Tehran limit production to that which is needed for commercial power. Were Iranians to document what they are producing and allow for inspections, anxieties would be reduced, and the world would be safer. The author has a vision for the future. We should not delay.
President and CEO, The World Affairs Counci
Teaching Atomic History
I would like to thank Peter Sellars for a fine interview (March/April 2008 Bulletin) and the fabulous production of Doctor Atomic that was staged in Chicago this winter. Sellars says that education in the United States “has been reduced to test taking; productive thought and creative response are eliminated from the curriculum.” This accurately measures up the problems of the No Child Left Behind program. I recently left education, as my creativity and personal drive to teach have been deflated with this test philosophy.
There was a time when I could plug in my own unit on nuclear awareness and history to enrich my lessons. This often involved sharing excellent articles from the Bulletin by Edward Teller, Werner Heisenberg, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and others. We would also discuss i96os-era civil defense or public service after watching the documentary The Atomic Cafe. Students had to think for themselves, and it always led to original ideas.
The current generation of students needs to think and make decisions on nuclear matters. And they need to see and hear the thoughts and opinions of these great scientists of the twentieth century. I'm looking forward to the return of Doctor Atomic to Chicago; what a fantastic field trip opportunity it could be.
Richton Park, Illinois
Defending Freedom is Expensive
I take issue with Gordon Adams's online column about defense spending (“The True Cost of U.S. Defense Spending,” posted March 27,2008 at www.thebulletin.org). I think Adams is incorrect to blame the Defense Department for asking for higher and higher levels of funding.
Defense has been asked to do more and more with a significantly smaller force than it had as recently as Desert Storm. Extended, large-scale deployments such as the one in Iraq take a great toll on the troops and equipment involved. Equipment in a standard garrison training environment takes money to operate and maintain. Equipment operating in a physically harsh wartime environment where temperatures are over 100 degrees Faren-heit takes far more money to operate and maintain. When the last vehicle returns home from the global war on terror, there will still be a need for extensive funding to bring this equipment back up to pre-war readiness levels–a process that will take four to seven years. The wear and tear on equipment has also accelerated the need to replace many of the older systems.
Defense isn't driving the requirement for funding, the administration and Congress are by asking the military to execute these various missions. As a country, we can't ask our military to police the world and reduce its spending. Force projection costs money; lots of money. By keeping the force in a posture to be able to execute the missions asked of it, Defense is simply doing its job.
Huntsville, Alabama
COOLING THE NUCLEAR THREAT
In “A Nuclear-Weapon-Free Arctic” (March/April 2008 Bulletin), Michael D. Wallace convincingly argues for the urgency of establishing an Arctic nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWZ).
To date, nuclear weapon states have played only a passive role in NWZs. An Arctic NWZ, however, would require the United States and Russia to halt ongoing military activities and dismantle nuclear weapons facilities. This would signal a new, proactive commitment on the part of the world's nuclear powers, a critical qualitative transformation in the way NWZs are established and function.
The first step toward complete nuclear abolition is to develop security frameworks that don't depend on nuclear weapons. The recent initiatives by leading U.S. Cold War political figures, including Henry Kissinger, to lay out concrete steps toward the elimination of nuclear weapons–and the endorsement of this call by Mikhail Gorbachev–is evidence that the nuclear tide is finally turning.
The challenge of establishing an Arctic NWZ, as proposed by the Canadian Pug-wash Group, is a test of the world's collective will to free ourselves from the nuclear threat. Such a zone will further reinforce the fundamental illegality of nuclear weapons as the shared norm and consensus of humankind.
Climate change has made the denuclearization of the Arctic an urgent task. It's time to mobilize global public opinion toward a nuclear-weapon-free world.
President, SokaGakkai International Tokyo, Japan
Knocking Nuclear Energy
In “Making Nuclear Energy Work” (March/April 2008 Bulletin), Robert Rosner suggests that changes are needed for nuclear power to become a dominant energy source in the twenty-first century. But prospects for nuclear power have already changed–for the worse.
The 20-year extension made in 2005 to the Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act, which limits the industry's liability in the case of a nuclear accident, demonstrates that professional assessors still underestimate the inherent risks of nuclear power. The costs of new construction are stark and unpredictable, ranging from $2,000 per kilowatt-hour of capacity, according to a 2003 MIT study, up to $8,071 per kilowatt-hour, the high end of an overnight cost range filed in 2007 by Florida Power and Light. In a post-9/11 world, proliferation of enriched uranium and pluto-nium through reactor expansion increases the opportunity for fissile materials to be diverted to terrorists. Moreover, the nuclear waste that would be generated by a construction boom of the size envisioned to combat global warming would require an equivalent (and still elusive) Yucca Mountain repository to be built somewhere in the world every three years.
Nuclear costs and safety concerns compare poorly with energy efficiency and renewable energy sources, which can be more affordably developed and, most importantly, in time to address climate change.
Beyond Nuclear Takoma Park, Maryland
Robert Rosner puts forth an impassioned argument for better science and engineering for a new generation of nuclear power plants. But he is seriously hampered by inside-the-box thinking.
First, he assumes that nuclear energy is an essential part of our nation's future power mix. No serious assessment is given to the huge potential of solar- or wind-generated electricity. Either of these sources alone, if bolstered by the type of funding the nuclear industry expects to receive, could provide for U.S. electricity needs in the future. Low-temperature solar heat, stored seasonally, could provide heating for all of our next-generation buildings.
Even more serious is Rosner's assumption that environmental and safety concerns are things to be calculated and addressed with engineered safeguards. These issues are not secondary in this discussion. To continue an industry that creates large volumes of extremely poisonous, biologically disruptive wastes would be folly. It's also a morally repugnant choice to leave these wastes behind for future generations to manage.
Rosner is no doubt a brilliant physicist. He should add a couple of biologists and ethicists to his staff at Argonne, to bring in new ideas and round out the viewpoints at the laboratory.
Jamestown, Rhode Island
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