Nuclear Issues

Putin and his government seek respect, stability from next U.S. administration, panel says.

Much of the immediate commentary on the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed between the P5+1 and Iran on July 14 focused on the deal’s details as well as its many shortcomings. Most of these reactions, both favoring and opposing the agreement, focused on elements of the nuclear package itself.

As the policy community prepares to assess an agreement between the U.S. and its P5+1 partners and Iran, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker asked me to review the history of analogous agreements for lessons that illuminate the current challenge. In response to his assignment, I reviewed the seven decades of the nuclear era, during which the U.S. negotiated arms-control treaties, including the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1968; strategic arms limitation talks and agreements from SALT to New Start; the North Korean accord of 1994; the agreements that helped eliminate nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus in the early 1990s; and the pact that eliminated the Libyan nuclear weapons program in 2003.

Among many lessons and clues from this instructive history, five stand out

The decision of the University of Massachusetts Amherst to categorically ban Iranians was not only gross discrimination, but also a violation of academic freedom. A similar policy was adopted in the Netherlands a few years ago and later rebuked by the Dutch Supreme Court. Universities must remain open to people from all races, religions, and nationalities.

Policymakers have long focused on preventing nuclear weapons proliferation by controlling technology. Even developing countries, however, may now possess the technical ability to create nuclear weapons. The history of gas centrifuge development in twenty countries supports this perspective. To reduce the demand for nuclear weapons, policymakers will have look toward the cultural, normative, and political organization of the world.