Future nuclear plans with Russia fall low on the agenda of most US prez candidates
Part of:
Nuclear USA
,
Bilateral Programmes
Most US Presidential candidates, pictured here before the field was narrowed, show a surprising lack of knowledge and interest in US-Russian nuclear non-proliferation programmes.
www.senate.gov
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- US prez candidate Obama calls on Russia and the world to abandon nukes
- Nunn-Lugar at 15 still a misunderstood teenager at home, thanks to The Washington Post
- Putin moves Duma a step closer to ratifying CTR Umbrella Agreement
- Russian PM Kasyanov OKs Plutonium Reactors Shut Down By 2006
- Bush Administration to Increase Non-proliferation Funding
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While America’s involvement in this process through the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programme – devised in 1992 by Senator Richard Lugar and former Senator Sam Nunn – has done much to dampen the threat of Russia becoming a nuclear Walmart for would-be terrorists, several outstanding and ongoing programmes continue to be under-funded.
Part of this lack of interest or knowledge, according to Micheal Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations – which costs the US a mere $450,000 a year on average – is largely doing its job.
"Plutonium is not falling off the shelves there," said Levi. To date, there has been no evidence of any attempts by terrorists to steal enough nuclear material to make a bomb - though that is not to discount the existence of a black market for loose nukes.
Yet each candidate seems to know that there is a sense of urgency in jumpstarting some of the programmes that have been allowed to flag under the Bush administration for fear that Russian nuclear material will fall into terrorist hands.
The concept of US funded nuclear weapons destruction, in other words, is not a sexy campaign topic unless couched in the rhetoric of the global war on terrorism.
Item one: mend fences
Candidates all seem to know that the events of the war torn Bush administration have had an impact on relations with Russia.
At the same time, top officials and candidates from both parties have stressed the importance of engaging Russia on matters of strategic importance, in particular securing Russia's vast stocks of nuclear materials, to avoid proliferation to rogue states or other groups.
But how?
With the impression of Soviet greatness high on Russian President Vladimir Putin’s stated agenda, his administration is less and less likely to allow access to those nuclear sites for verification that the United States is itself paying to mothball.
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| Barack Obama. |
| barackobama.com |
Barack Obama
The most informed candidate running for the presidential ballot is Barack Obama, Illinois’ junior senator. Having sat on the Senate foreign relations committee, he is familiar with the work of Bellona, particularly its 2004 report “The Russian Nuclear Industry ¬– The need for reform, which he obtained at Senate hearings held by Bellona.
He has also travelled to Russia with CTR officials – and was even detained their briefly after a tour of an especially sensitive nuclear site in Siberia – and has a hands on grasp of how the 15-year-old non-proliferation apparatus works.
Obama, however, is wont to assign Russia more importance in his foreign policy agenda than it is due, yet understands that the nuclear posture of the two countries toward one another is outdated and basically unchanged since the fall of the Soviet Union.
“Russia is neither our friend not our ally,” he said recently, adding the United States "shouldn't shy away from pushing for more democracy, transparency, and accountability" there.
In a July 2007 article in Foreign Affairs, the publication put out by the Council on Foreign Relations, Obama said the United States and Russia should collaborate to "update and scale back our dangerously outdated Cold War nuclear postures and de-emphasize the role of nuclear weapons."
In an October 2007 speech in Chicago, Obama said if elected he would work to "take U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles off hair-trigger alert, and to dramatically reduce the stockpiles of our nuclear weapons and material."
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| Hillary Clinton. |
| senate.clinton.gov |
Hillary Clinton
New York Democratic Senator Hillary Clinton had the advantage of being in the White House as one of America’s most politically involved first ladies when many of earliest non-proliferation and nuclear weapons destruction deals were being made.
She should, therefore, have a clear memory than most which of those projects have come to fruition, such as the destruction of more than 10,000 nuclear war heads, and those that are still outstanding, like the long delayed US Department of Energy project to shut down Russia’s remaining two plutonium production reactors, the delay-plagued – and apparently reinvigorated – plan for Russia and America to destroy excess weapons plutonium, and the now useless facility built by the United States for the storage of Russian plutonium and highly enriched uranium.
Yet her first hand experience yielded little informed thought on how to work for resolution in specific important areas where CTR has fallen behind, and stuck to boilerplate advocating what is essentially the status quo.
In a November 2007 Foreign Affairs article, Clinton pledged, like Obama, to "negotiate an accord that substantially and verifiably reduces the US and Russian nuclear arsenals."
She also called for engagement with Russia on "issues of high national importance," including a nuclear Iran and loose nuclear weapons. She said Washington's "ability to view Russia as a genuine partner depends on whether Russia chooses to strengthen democracy or return to authoritarianism and regional interference.”
But she emphasised in an earlier interview that US politics with Russia should not involve intervention in Russia’s internal affairs – for better or worse is at the heart of efforts like CTR.
"I'm interested in what Russia does outside its borders first, she told the Boston Globe in October 2007.
Republicans show far less experience – and more scpetisicm
Republican were far short in their statements and any real exposure to non-proliferation efforts with Russia, choosing instead to focus in answers to questions they were sent on working to “restore” democracy in Russia – though Russia has never been a democracy - not under Yeltsin, not under Putin.
Presidential elections were rigged in 1996 and in 2000, just as Russian’s parliamentary elections were rigged last year, and the outcome of the next presidential election. Having already anointed his long time aide Dmity Medvedev to become president in March, Medvedev returned the favour by promising to shift things such that Putin will be his prime minister.
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| Mitt Romney. |
| mittromney.com |
Mitt Romney
With the outcome thus decided and the spoils already doled out, remarks by Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts’ the remarks urging "a lot of cooperation" with Russia, as well as "frank and open discussions about the state of democracy there,” are somewhat embarrassing, given there is no democracy to about. Yet, he is the one presidential contender that even speaks of future relations with Russia with any sense of hope.
He also showed a passing familiarity with the crucial issue of loose weapons grade material in Russia, saying the United States should work to secure "the vast amount of highly enriched nuclear material in their country."
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| Mike Huckabee. |
| wikipedia commons |
Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee
Mike Huckabee’s take on future diplomatic relations with Russia are schizophrenic at best, though he does see common ground on the issue of nuclear insecurity as an invitation to terrorism, couching his remarks in post 9/11 rhetoric.
"Things will be better than during the Cold War because, much as we do not want another 9/11, Putin does not want another terrorist attack like the 2004 school siege in Beslan," he said.
Still, he is critical of Putin, whom he calls "a staunch nationalist in a country that has no democratic tradition." Thus, his point of engagement with Russia on outstanding nuclear proliferation issues is unclear.
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| John McCain |
| www.johnmccain.com |
Arizona Senator John McCain
John McCain is even more definitively sceptical of Putin than Huckabee, and has several times in public called the Russian president “a dangerous person.”
In an October 2007 Republican debate, McCain expressed support for President Bush's controversial plan to build a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe. "I don't care what [Putin's] objections are to it," he said.
In a November 2007 Foreign Affairs article McCain called for a new approach to what he called a "revanchist" Russia. In that piece, he advocated Russian exclusion from the G-8, and said the West should send a message to Russia that NATO "is indivisible and that the organization's doors remain open to all democracies committed to the defence of freedom."
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| Fred Thompson. |
| www.fredthompson.com |
Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson
Former Senator and popular US television personality Fred Thompson outright abandoned diplomatic turns of phrase when speaking of future relations with Russia, saying the Kremlin was “apparently run by ex-KGB agents.”
Nor do Thompson’s proposed policies, or lack of policies, for dealing with Russia on a nuclear – or any level – seem to leave room for any actual diplomacy.
"Oppose the Russian leadership, and you could trip and fall off a tall building or stumble into the path of a bullet," Thompson wrote in a study of Russia for the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank in Washington.
Thompson had yet to respond to any questions on furthering non-proliferation efforts via CTR or any other means in Russia.
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| Ron Paul. |
| paulpledge.com |
Congressman Ron Paul
Rep. Ron Paul said he advocates a "strong national defence and a policy of non-intervention abroad" to ensure a Russia policy that "seeks our national interest."
The obscurity of that comment is clarified somewhat into a position of absolute isolationism from Russia when Paul’s congressional voting record is taken into account: In 2007, he was the single congressional representative to vote against a proposed resolution "noting the disturbing pattern of killings of numerous independent journalists in Russia since 2000, and urging Russian President Putin to authorize cooperation with outside investigators in solving those murders."
He answered no questions on how he would proceed with US funded non-proliferation efforts with Russia.
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| Wikimedia commons. |
| wikimedia commons |
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani would be perhaps the next republican president to be able to claim to “have looked into Putin’s eyes and seen his soul.”
The two leaders found a common bond over the 9/11 tragedy when Giuliani gave Putin a guided tour of ground zero.
Giuliani told news media at the time that the attacks of September 11, 2001 would bring the United States and Russia closer together. Thus was born the convenient myth that the United States and Russia were fighting a common enemy in Al Qaeda – Giuliani on the smouldering streets of New York’s financial district, and Putin on the smouldering streets of Grozny – where it has never been proven that any Al Qaeda member has ever set foot.
Giuliani recommended in an October 2007 debate an increase in defense spending to “send a heck of a signal” to Russia, and also advocates the controversial missile shield in the former Eastern Bloc.
Giuliani’s primary interest in Russia is creating a solid business partner – no small feat given that trade between the two countries, except in uranium – is virtually nill. In 2004, Giuliani travelled to Moscow to promote U.S.-Russian business relations.
But the hero of the post 9/11 anti-terrorism movement and the man who helped raise the “what if” question of dirty bombs that has occupied American strategy claques and think tanks ever since, had absolutely nothing to say to questions regarding ensuring non-proliferation safety within Russia.
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