Global Affairs Expert Webinar: Nuclear Arms Control and Disarmament
Nicole Grajewski, fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and associate researcher with the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, leads the conversation on nuclear arms control and disarmament.
Speaker
Nicole Grajewski
Fellow, Nuclear Policy Program
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Presider
Irina A. Faskianos
Vice President, National Program and Outreach
Council on Foreign Relations
Transcript
FASKIANOS: Thank you. Welcome to today’s session of the Fall 2024 Global Affairs Expert Webinar series. I’m Irina Faskianos, vice president of the National Program and Outreach here at CFR. Thank you for joining us.
Today’s discussion is on the record and the video and transcript will be available on education.CFR.org if you would like to share these resources with your colleagues or classmates. As always, CFR takes no institutional positions on matters of policy.
We are delighted to have Nicole Grajewski with us to discuss nuclear arms control and disarmament. Dr. Grajewski is a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and an associate researcher with the Project on Managing the Atom at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Her research examines Russian and Iranian policies in the global order, with a particular focus on Russian nuclear strategy, Iran’s nuclear decision making, contestation and nonproliferation regime, and nuclear deterrence. And her forthcoming book, entitled Russia and Iran: Partners in Defiance from Syria to Ukraine, will be released in February 2025. So, Nicole, thanks for being with us today. I thought you could level set us and talk about nonproliferation and give us a sense of the current landscape of nuclear arms control and disarmament and where we are today.
GRAJEWSKI: Great. Well, thank you so much for having me. And it’s really a great opportunity to speak to all of you today.
I actually think it’s best to go back and kind of contextualize current developments within the past experience in the global nuclear order and the nonproliferation regime. So, the advent of nuclear weapons dates back to 1945. And this was during the final stages of World War II, when the U.S. developed and used nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This was the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, but following this the Soviet Union conducted its first successful nuclear test in 1949. And this followed with the United Kingdom joining the nuclear club in 1952, followed by France in 1960, and China in 1964. And so the rapid spread of nuclear weapons technology and the mounting tensions between nuclear-armed states created an urgent need for international agreements to grapple with this reality.
So by the 1960s, this led to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the negotiations on what is really the kind of forefront of the global nuclear order. The treaty culminated or was signed in 1968 and went into force in 1970. And the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is kind of built around several pillars. And there’s three pillars. There’s non-proliferation, which is preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, disarmament, this hope or final desire, to eventually eliminate nuclear weapons, and also the peaceful use of nuclear weapons. And nuclear—peaceful use of nuclear technology. I’m sorry. (Laughs.)
And in Article One, this kind of outlines which states are nuclear weapon states. And those are states that detonated a nuclear weapon before 1967. So the U.S., Russia—Soviet Union, now Russia—China, France, and the United Kingdom. However, there are countries that have nuclear weapons that are outside of the NPT. India and Pakistan both possess nuclear weapons, with India conducting its first nuclear—peaceful nuclear explosion in 1974 and nuclear weapons test in 1998, and Pakistan followed shortly thereafter. Israel is also outside the NPT, or the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Though it’s never confirmed its status as a nuclear weapons—as possessing nuclear weapons, but there’s ample evidence that Israel does have nuclear weapons. And this partly was facilitated by the spread of technology from the French in the 1960s.
And North Korea is also the most new—the newest-comer to kinds of states with nuclear weapons. North Korea withdrew from the NPT in 2003 and it conducted its first test in 2006. So in addition to countries that have nuclear weapons there are also countries that are kind of latent or threshold states. And this means countries that have advanced nuclear technology that could eventually enable them to develop a nuclear weapon if they choose to do so. And Iran is one of the central parts of this. And I’ll go into more of a discussion of this further on, but I wanted to go talk a bit about the history of arms control and the treaties which kind of created this environment of, at least, reducing or limiting nuclear weapons.
So arms control refers to international efforts to regulate or limit the development, production, or stockpiling of weapons. So this could involve reductions or also limitations. And unlike disarmament, which eventually aims to eliminate nuclear weapons entirely, arms control really focuses on establishing agreements that sets limits on, for example, weapon types, numbers, or delivery systems. And this also comes with verification measures. There’s obviously positive sides and also negative sides when it comes to arms control. The benefits may include limiting costs or reducing the potential for war, but there’s also risks about countries deterrent, and possibilities of cheating. And this creates kind of a permissive environment that is somewhat difficult when it comes to achieving these agreements.
And arms control treaties come in different forms and types. Some could be bilateral, which we saw during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States. Others can be multilateral. And they can also be different in type with kind of binding legal force. There could be treaties that require two-thirds Senate approval, but there’s also unilateral measures like presidential nuclear initiatives that we saw in the 1990s between the U.S. and Russia. So for any potential agreements, key questions emerge about crisis stability and greater vulnerability. But larger arsenals does cost quite a bit of money. And this was partly one of the reasons we saw at least some movement of arms control during the Cold War.
And the kind of main foundational agreements really actually started with the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963, which prohibited nuclear tests in the atmosphere, outer space, and underwater. This followed, between the Soviet Union and the United States, with the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, which both sides pledged not to construct new ICBM silos and not to increase existing ICBM silos and submarine carrying—nuclear carrying submarines. This also included the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. This restricted missile defense interceptors between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. And then, finally, in the waning days of the Cold War there was Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which was another step in eliminating a different class of nuclear weapons, including those with ranges around 500 to 5,000 kilometers.
And building on Cold War agreements, arms control treaties in the post-Cold War era included provisions for actual reductions. So in the Cold War, most of these were about limitations, but in 1991—in the very final days of the Soviet Union—the U.S. and the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty, which significantly reduced the number of deployed strategic warheads and delivery systems. Years later, the New START treaty, which is still into force, further capped deployed strategic warheads for each nation, and also limited delivery vehicles. But beyond traditional arms control treaties between the U.S. and Soviet Union, there’s also been some innovative ones.
And I think the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015, which was the Iran nuclear deal between the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Iran and Germany, represented a new model of arms control, where Iran sought sanctions relief in exchange for limits on the development of its civilian nuclear program. So this included caps on Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium and low-enriched uranium, and also required Iran to assemble a lot of its—disassemble a lot of its progress that it made in its nuclear program during the years from 2002 up until 2015.
But in recent years, and even actually before the war in Ukraine, there’s been a real erosion of arms control. In 2002, the U.S. withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty from 1972. And in 2019, the U.S. withdrew from the INF Treaty, citing Russian violations with certain cruise missiles. And the U.S. argued that Russia had actually been in bad faith. And then even one year before that, the Trump administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, which is the JCPOA or the Iran nuclear deal. And since then, Iran has expanded exponentially its activities when it comes to enrichment. And the war in Ukraine has been even more of a strain on the current environment.
I mean, there’s been very little progress when it comes to disarmament, but there’s also been erosion or abrogation of existing treaties. And I think the New START treaty is a really good example of this. Russia has suspended inspections under the New START treaty, and this has disrupted one of the last remaining pillars of arms control. This is even more worrisome because the New START treaty’s bound to expire in 2026 in February. So the prospects of another arms control agreement with the Russians seems very unlikely. Meanwhile, China has significantly expanded its nuclear arsenal, and the DOD assesses that within ten years China could potentially be closer to the level of nuclear warheads as the U.S. and the Russians.
And this poses a challenge for arms control as well. As rather than this kind of bilateral U.S.-Russia format is potentially a trilateral format with the Chinese, if possible. Thus far, the Chinese and the Russians have negated any prospect of this but, as we saw with the past Trump administration, this was something of particular interest for the U.S. And of course, going back to kind of the Iran nuclear issue, now we see Iran at this level of capabilities in terms of enrichment and work with really advanced centrifuges that are increasingly worrisome. And I think going forward we’re going to see a lot more discussions around this, especially as the Trump administration assumes office.
I think Iran’s nuclear program is going to remain high on the agenda, given nuclear—given Iran’s nuclear advances. And also, the possibility for an agreement, it may be unlikely considering the kind of animosity you see between the U.S. and the Iranians. And it’s also difficult when you think about Iran’s nuclear advances. Iran’s nuclear advances also includes knowledge gained from working with these systems. Iran doesn’t have nuclear weapons, but they know how to enrich at levels that they previously did not. So integrating issues like knowledge gained into arms control agreements will be quite difficult.
And finally, just with the expiration of New START, and this new strategic environment between the U.S., Russia, and China, without the extension of the agreement, which was previously extended, there will be, like, no binding limits on the two—the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals. Russia has argued that the UK and France should be included in future dialogue on the New START treaty, or in any kind of follow on to the New START treaty, because of their role in NATO, and including their weapons and their warheads counts. But also, the rise of China makes it difficult. And it’s a core issue right now, is the vast differences between the U.S., Russian, and Chinese nuclear arsenals has kind of made China less willing to engage in this. But I think going forward you’ll see much more pressure, at least in the United States, about potentially engaging the Chinese with this.
And of course, this is even more complex because of the lack of ability to really get arms control through the Senate, and the ratification of these treaties are increasingly challenging. On top of this, there’s new advances in technologies such as hypersonic missiles and advanced missile defense systems. So the kind of system that we saw, or the arrangements that we saw in the Cold War, are less relevant, I think, to the current context today. And this is even exasperated by the kind of political tensions and the real challenges in even engaging with either the Russians or the Chinese on arms control, or even on countries that don’t have nuclear weapons like Iran. So I’m happy to talk about any of these questions. I hope this kind of set out a kind of broad framing of the issues involving arms control and kind of the history of it. But I’m open to questions on anything. So thank you.
FASKIANOS: Fantastic. Thank you so much. So now we’re going to go to all of you.
(Gives queuing instructions.)
So we will go—the first question is a raised hand from Kevin Wong who is at Colorado School of Mines.
Q: Hello. I was wondering what was—sorry. I’m Kevin Wong from Colorado, School of Mines. (Laughs.)
I was wondering, do you think that, like, China can—like, would be willing to join some of the talks about the nuclear warheads? Or do you think that really they’re just closed off and they don’t want to?
GRAJEWSKI: I mean, the argument from the Chinese side is that because they don’t have the level of—you know, or the number of warheads and even the advancements that the U.S. and the Russians have that including them in arms control would be at an unfair disadvantage for them. And so the Chinese have been averse to being included in trilateral arms control talks. And partly because China still isn’t at that level of where the U.S. and Russia are, that they’ve been really averse or kind of more hesitant to engage in kind of trilateral discussions.
And the Russians have actually kind of supported that view. And you see this coming out of Russian statements of really negating any kind of discussion when it comes to the trilateral dynamics. I mean, this also poses problems and difficulties when it comes to just agreements. If you think about it, when it comes—when it’s between two actors, you know, you’re dealing with one side. But now in any kind of trilateral negotiation, even if the Chinese are willing to do that, the U.S. has to manage both the Russians and the Chinese at the same time. And we see them becoming increasingly closer. And so that’s also another issue that I think is at stake when it comes to this.
FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to go next to Joan Kaufman. And you need to accept the unmute. Joan, if you can accept the unmute prompt. It looks like your mic is still—let’s see. OK, well, while we’re waiting for that to—I don’t know if Joan’s there. We’ll go to a written question from Jamie Kuenzel, who is a sophomore at Framingham State University.
My question pertains to targeted attacks on nuclear reactors/power plants. Do the various agreements that you spoke about include provisions dealing with this? How can policymakers ensure that this is prevented?
GRAJEWSKI: So the NPT itself doesn’t include provisions on protections of nuclear reactors. However, there’s been subsequent agreements, conventions about the physical protection of nuclear materials that have actually addressed issues that are somewhat tangentially related to attacks on nuclear facilities. And this actually arose during the era of kind of discussions about nuclear terrorism. However, what’s interesting is actually during negotiations both the U.S. and the Russians actually were aligned on keeping out kind of provisions related to issues of attacks during the times of war. And so this was around 2002 when the U.S. and the Russians actually agreed on this, that prohibiting attacks on nuclear facilities shouldn’t occur during wartime.
And I actually—I think, I believe, I wrote about that in the report that was shared. But this is interesting. And I think it’s going to become an emergent issue. Not only just because of the war in Ukraine but because of some of the rhetoric coming out of Israel today. I think if the Trump administration is willing to follow through with attacks on Iran and nuclear facilities—and, that being said, the U.S. is the only one that’s really able to do so because of the massive ordnance penetrators, which are, you know, bigger bombs that are able to go to underground facilities and potentially rooms with Iran’s more hidden or covert nuclear programs or activities involving enrichment, that that also poses a challenge.
And so—and it also, in some ways, goes against the peaceful use of nuclear energy, right? Destroying—the kind of counter proliferation concerns that arose around the 2000s kind of gave credence to a lot of countries in the Global South that were arguing for, you know, the peaceful right of nuclear energy countries, ability to have civilian nuclear programs. And so that that brings in a whole other kind of challenges there. But I’m very—it’s not within the NPT. There’s several other treaties and provisions that kind of create this customary and, at least, case law when it comes to attacks on nuclear facilities.
FASKIANOS: Fantastic. I’m going to try Joan Kaufman again, from Harvard, to see if you’re able to unmute. OK. No. I’m going to go next to Stockton University. And if you can say who you are. I think there’s a class probably participating.
Q: Hello. My name is Dedi Zantis from Stockton University.
And my question is, with such unclarity of the stockpiles of different countries, such as North Korea or even Russia, what difficulties does that bring to the treaty discussions?
GRAJEWSKI: We know Russia’s strategic warhead count. And that’s capped at 1,550 under the New START agreement. When it comes to nonstrategic nuclear warheads, that’s a bit unknown, though there’s estimates that range around 4,000 nonstrategic nuclear warheads that Russia possesses. And that’s a problem. And I think your question really touches upon this, is it’s hard to verify the number of certain warheads without kind of these transparency or arms control agreements. However, there’s a thing called “national technical means” (NTM). So this involves issues that aren’t related to onsite verification, so going to the facilities, but through, you know, open source and also through satellite imagery, through telemetry, through issues that come with, you know, monitoring stations, when it comes to seismic nuclear testing that you can use without actually having an agreement.
So the CTBTO, which is a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, has monitoring stations that can observe seismic activity. So in order to prevent countries—or, at least, be alerted when countries potentially test a nuclear weapon. That’s one of the ways that they’re able to at least know what’s going on to some extent. Though when it comes to exact warheads, that’s much more difficult. And without any kind of agreements, you’re usually relying on either intelligence, or satellite imagery, or the movement, or certain exercises involving these countries. And so that’s kind of how we have an estimate when it comes to North Korea.
FASKIANOS: I’m muted. (Laughs.)
I’m going to take the next written question from Nichole Rudoph—actually, her student Troy Cofie—at Adelphi University: With President Trump returning to office, will Iran build their nuclear weapons as a deterrent against Israel and the U.S.?
GRAJEWSKI: That’s a really good question. And I think it’s the million-dollar question at the moment. Iran’s rhetoric when it comes to nuclear weapons has changed over the past year, prior to the Trump administration. There’s been much more openness about the possibility of developing nuclear weapons. And if you could go back into history, actually, Iran does have—or did have a weaponization program. And that ended at in 2003. So this included work was actually transforming this fissile material, which is kind of what you see in reactors or in centrifuges, into warheads. So kind of putting together, in some ways almost like baking a cake, because you have the material but also fashioning it into a warhead. And Iran did previous research on this, up until 2003.
So Iran has the ability to reconstitute its former weaponization program. And the question is, how long would that take and how vulnerable Iran would be. I think Iran could, in theory, if they make that political decision, do that within the span of a year, though they would be under a lot more scrutiny and also, you know, they—any kind of detection of this activity would really elicit a much more forceful response. So in some ways, if Iran does make that decision, they’re probably the most vulnerable in that instance because they have to do this covertly without international attention, and they also have to do it quite quickly. So I think that there’s a lot of risks in Iran.
And if you look at the debates right now in Iran, it reflects that. Iran doesn’t have the kind of immediate—like, there’s a thing called the breakout time, which is which refers to fissile material. And Iran does have enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon. But there’s a whole other process that Iran has not, as far as we know, really achieved yet. And so going back to this previous—to that previous 2003 work could potentially be a way. Or they could create a crude nuclear weapon, or kind of, like, a dirty bomb. But that wouldn’t really be a deterrent against Israel.
And as we’ve seen, Iran’s launched attacks on two nuclear weapons states within the past year—in Pakistan and also in Israel. And so how much nuclear weapons are really viewed as a deterrent all the time is also called into question when it comes to Iranian activities. And they’ve shown the willingness to go against countries even with nuclear weapons. So it’s an interesting question. And I think it’s really hard to determine at the moment.
FASKIANOS: Thank you. I’m going to take the next question from Naba Syed, who’s at Fordham University.
Q: Hi. I’m Naba from Fordham University.
I want to ask you, there’s been a lot of discussions about Ukraine and their—had their old nuclear arsenal, and whether or not they should have kept their nuclear arsenal based on, like, current conflicts in Russia. From things I’ve read, a lot of people say that they shouldn’t have because they didn’t have the technological support to do that, economic concerns, and Russia could have attacked Ukraine earlier. I want to get, like, your opinion on this, if you have one, and what you think about Ukraine, whether or not they should have kept their nuclear arsenal or not.
GRAJEWSKI: Yeah. Actually, there’s an excellent book from one of my colleagues at the Belfer Center, Mariana Budjeryn, on Ukraine’s decision to relinquish its nuclear weapons that were stationed on Ukrainian territory during the Soviet Union. And I think there’s a lot of questions at play. There’s a technological question, which is Ukraine never really had operational control over the nuclear weapons stationed on its territory. This was—you know, this was a centralized control system in Moscow, and Ukraine didn’t have operational control over these weapons. On top of that is, if Ukraine kept its nuclear arsenal they would have been a pariah state. I mean, they would have been unable to sign the NPT. They would have not been able to receive any kind of economic help and support in the post transition years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And I think it would have been a completely different situation.
The view that, and I think the argument made by people of John Mearsheimer, that Ukraine should have kept its nuclear weapons, it’s really reductionist and doesn’t really face the real realities that Ukraine was facing. Ukraine was a newly independent state. Ukraine needed international support. And they also didn’t have the operational capabilities to control those weapons. Those are just stationed on their territory. So the decision of whether Ukraine shouldn’t have kept nuclear weapons or whether they should have, I think that one—it’s kind of, like, a false—kind of false option. I don’t think that Ukraine keeping nuclear weapons would have prevented Russia from invading. Russia was very different in the 1990s. And so I think that has to come into account. And even now, I think there’s a lot more of a kind of revision of kind of the claims around that because of just the challenges that Ukraine would have faced.
But I highly recommend reading Mariana Budjeryn’s book. It’s one of, like, the definitive accounts of Ukraine and its early experience with nuclear weapons.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
The next question is from Barry Sanders, who’s at UCLA and the USC Center on Public Diplomacy: In a world where at least ten nations have nuclear arms, what is the point of bilateral and trilateral agreements? Is the Non-Proliferation Treaty era over?
GRAJEWSKI: The purpose of—I mean, the purpose of bilateral agreements, in theory, is because the U.S. and Russia make up around, I think, 83 to 80 percent of the world’s nuclear arsenal. I mean, they still have an overwhelming, hegemonic role when it comes to the possession of nuclear weapons. You know, the stockpiles of North Korea and Pakistan and India are much smaller, and even China. And so the bilateral sense of that is it goes forward towards the kind of goal, or at least the promise that was enshrined within the NPT, of disarmament. And it also contributes to at least a bit of crisis stability and some kind of transparency.
I mean, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty has proven to be quite resistant and resilient, actually, to real challenges. I mean, there’s been instances of states with covert nuclear weapons programs. There’s been instances of states who have actually relinquished their nuclear weapons programs, like South Africa. And it showed an ability to withstand a lot of shifts in time. I think it’s valuable partly because of the ability and kind of the power that it has, through the International Atomic Energy Agency as well, for nuclear accounting, for the ability to account for what kind of materials are used, to make sure that these materials aren’t in the hands of nonstate actors. That’s something that’s really valuable when it comes to the IAEA and NPT. But also it is a confidence-building measure as well.
I mean, the NPT review process is a way for countries to at least express their views on certain issues. And there is a value, even within Russia. I mean, even Russia, as kind of obstructionist as they’ve been in the recent past five years, four years, even before the war in Ukraine, towards the NPT review process, is there is a value within the treaty because it does enshrine and prevent countries from obtaining nuclear weapons. And I think that it shows—I mean nuclear weapons in theory, and there’s a lot of work on this in terms of centrifuge technology. It’s not the most advanced technology. It’s not necessarily that difficult, once you have it, to actually get a nuclear weapon.
But states haven’t made that decision, and I think that’s really valuable, because of the kind of repercussions that come from that. And so, in essence, I think the NPT and also the kind of broader global nuclear order is a regime that also restrains certain countries from acting a certain way. Partly because of the kind of expected punishment of what they may accrue after. There’s a great article in International Security by Scott Sagan on the reasons why countries would pursue a nuclear weapon. And he kind of goes through different models. And I think that’s a good starting point to look at if you’re interested in kind of the questions of why do these things matter, why don’t other countries get nuclear weapons?
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I’m going to go next to a raised hand from Steve Shinkel, who’s at the U.S. Naval War College.
Q: Hi, Nicole. This is Steve Shinkel from the U.S. Naval War College.
Can you talk a little bit about declaratory policies and how they fit into arms control? You know, with no first use, or sole purpose of nuclear weapons, especially as that ties into maybe some of the extended deterrence concepts? Especially with, like, South Korea potentially pursuing nuclear weapons. And do you see that as a—maybe a confidence-building measure to get some arms control things back on track? Thank you.
GRAJEWSKI: Yeah. I mean, the declaratory policy side of it is interesting. I mean, you know, Russia had a declaratory no first use policy in its first military doctrine, and China does as well. I mean, the U.S. and Russia right now don’t, obviously. I think that it could be a confidence-building measure, but when you’re talking about mostly, like, warhead caps and also, like, arms reductions, it’s not as—I think, because of the kind of political climate, it’s not taken as seriously. And you just see that, I mean, even in terms of doctrines, right? Like, when countries talk about their nuclear doctrine or their kind of posture, there’s not always a match with actions. And so I think that that’s—obviously, no first use is a valuable—or at least, a valuable commitment to not using nuclear weapons. Though, I think that adversaries often view it with a bit of skepticism. So, yeah.
FASKIANOS: Fantastic.
I’m going to go next to a written question from Jose Diaz Cornejo, who is at the Buenos Aires University in Argentina: Given that the United States and Russia’s Cold War dominance was largely rooted in nuclear capabilities, do you think a new multipolar world can emerge without relying on nuclear deterrence? As China rises as a potential challenger to U.S. hegemony, could this shift the focus of hard power away from nuclear weapons and toward other forms of influence?
GRAJEWSKI: I think that’s an interesting question. I mean, nuclear—what we saw actually in the first Persian Gulf War was that precision capabilities—so precision conventional capabilities were highly effective. And this actually has impacted countries’ views of certain arms control agreements, especially Russia. I mean, this is a really longstanding fear with Russia, U.S. conventional capabilities to obstruct its nuclear deterrence. So, I mean, nuclear weapons are very important because—partly because it’s also enshrined in the UN Security Council, the five permanent members have that kind of leeway. But in terms of thinking about the world as, like, multipolar, I think there’s certain dimensions to that, that aren’t really, I guess, contingent on the possession of nuclear weapons.
However, what we do see is kind of the broader nodes or the kind of leading power centers of what might be ostensibly a multipolar world do possess nuclear weapons. I mean, India, for example, is often cited, at least in the Russian vision of multipolarity, is a strong country that could potentially lead to the decline in Western power. They have nuclear weapons. China has nuclear weapons. And so the kind of discussions of multipolarity, which I have actually studied mostly from the Russian perspective, they all are kind of around countries that do possess nuclear weapons.
And so there’s kind of that enduring side of it, which is there’s a kind of power that is imbued in it. But it’s not just that. I mean, there’s economic factors involved. There’s also soft power. And so I wouldn’t really connect the two directly together, because if you think about it, I mean, during the Cold War all these countries did have nuclear weapons. The U.S. and Soviet Union weren’t the only countries with nuclear weapons. The French had it, for example. You know, the UK had it. And they weren’t really viewed as kind of these nodes of multipolarity at the time, or bipolarity even, right? So that’s—I think it’s kind of a—there are two phenomena, but I’m not too sure how inextricably tied they are together.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I’m going to go to the next question. And if you want to—there are several raised—written questions. If you want to raise your hand instead of having me read, you can do that. Retaj Al Helal has raised—a raised hand. So if you can unmute yourself. I think from the Colorado School of Mines.
Q: Hi. Hello. Yes. My name is Retaj Al Helal from the Colorado School of Mines.
My question is, given the U.S. strong alliances with Israel and Saudi Arabia. How will Iran’s nuclear program affect the tensions in the Middle East? And what does it mean for the U.S.?
GRAJEWSKI: One of the best decisions I think Iran made recently was its normalization in Saudi Arabia. This happened, you know, through this kind of China- and Iraqi-brokered effort to normalize ties between the two states since they broke off diplomatic relations in 2016. So that’s a new dynamic evolving. And I don’t think that the Gulf states, especially Saudi Arabia, want to see any kind of military action against Iran, because of the instability that that might maybe cause. When it comes to the U.S. and Israel and how it confronts the Iranian nuclear program, I mean, any kind of attempt to completely—or, at least, the best efforts to remove Iran’s nuclear program will inevitably involve the U.S., because the U.S. possesses certain weapon systems that the Israelis can’t—they don’t possess, and they can’t really destroy with their existing weapon systems.
But when it comes to thinking about the way that Iran views the region through this relationship, is I do think Iran’s threat perceptions are really tied to the view that the United States has been quite involved in the region. And also the history of past efforts at curbing proliferation. Iran frequently brings up, you know, covert activities that have—in Iraq, for example—that faced Israeli strikes on their facilities. So I think Iran’s threat perceptions, or at least understanding of its nuclear deterrent, or if they ever obtain one, is more shaped by the current situation with the U.S. and Israel than it is with the Gulf at the moment. And what—the kind of effects of this? I mean, I think Iran’s cognizant that if they do, you know, make that decision, it might lead to a kind of domino effect in the region. And Iran—the last thing Iran really wants to see is, you know, the kind of popping up of countries with nuclear weapons on its borders. And so there’s a lot of costs and benefits when thinking about this.
FASKIANOS: I have a written question from Rachel Teng, who is a grad student at NYU: While there can be treaties, assuming nuclear-producing countries are willing to be part of, and given the rise of geopolitical instability, other than financial resource restrictions what might alternative approaches to keeping nuclear weapons control in check look like?
GRAJEWSKI: There’s been several efforts of disarmament and also keeping nuclear weapons in check. And one of them is the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, known as the TPNW. And this treaty, you know, does not have support by the nuclear weapons states, but it involves a pretty broad coalition of states that have declared nuclear weapons as illegal. And they frequently meet on the sideline of international forums. So that’s one solution. But I would say that, you know, the IAEA and—the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is kind of the UN’s nuclear watchdog—has been quite effective in at least trying to account for some of the developments when it comes to countries’ involvement with nuclear technology—peaceful nuclear technology.
So I wouldn’t say that the NPT or the IAEA are essentially, you know, defunct organizations. There’s still a pretty large value to that. Though, there are parallel initiatives that are, you know, kind of coming to the fore that may involve challenging the lack of progress on disarmament. Though there is an intrinsic value in having a kind of an international agency to account for these kind of materials. And I think any alternative to that would be incredibly difficult to achieve and agree upon, just given the kind of fraying consensus within the nonproliferation regime.
FASKIANOS: There’s a written question from Annelise Riles, who’s a professor of international law at Northwestern University: I’m wondering if you think that in the current U.S. political climate there might be progress to be made in the short run in the U.S. and internationally on compensation for victims of nuclear testing. It seems that there has been some bipartisan support for this. Also I’m interested in your thoughts on the role of cities in the short or long term in promoting disarmament around the world. My understanding is that a number of cities in Iran have joined the Mayors for Peace movement led by Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
GRAJEWSKI: So, I mean, there’s been efforts to provide compensation to the victims of nuclear testing in the United States, but also in countries like Kazakhstan. I mean, and that was one of the countries that was most really damaged and also affected by the history of Soviet nuclear testing. And there’s a wide consensus there, at least amongst the population. To my knowledge and from my discussions with members of ICAN, which is the International Campaign on the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons, there hasn’t been as much engagement with the Iranians. And that’s partly because of the Iranian regime’s concern about any kind of nonstate organization involved there.
Though, and I haven’t seen evidence that there’s been these kind of signs of mayors from certain cities, at least not from the Iranian state media. So that’s an interesting conjecture, though. When it comes to the kind of victims in the United States, I mean just obtaining that kind of Senate approval and also the congressional approval I think might be incredibly difficult, because it does seem to skew towards kind of partisan issues, especially right now, because disarmament tends to be more associated sometimes with the Democratic Party. Might be more difficult in the years coming forward.
FASKIANOS: I’m going to take the next written question from Matthias Hofferberth, who’s an associate professor of political science and geography at the University of Texas at San Antonio: Thank you. Can you talk a little bit about how nuclear nonproliferation efforts relate to the civilian use of nuclear energy? How easily and what technology can such programs be weaponized? Or can we keep these two uses of nuclear separated?
GRAJEWSKI: I mean, by and large, countries with nuclear energy facilities have not proliferated. I mean, there’s—multiple countries have nuclear reactors, you know, research reactors, and they haven’t developed a nuclear weapon from it. I mean, there’s two routes to go. And this—either you can go the uranium route, which is through centrifuges, or you could go the plutonium route, which is usually with light water—well, heavy water reactors, mostly, where you can reprocess the spent fuel and transform that into a nuclear, or at least fissile material for a nuclear weapon. But that being said, is most countries don’t do that. And there’s certain, you know, types of reactors, I think light water reactors are a really good example of this, that are very proliferation prone. And that’s partly because just the kind of unspent fuel, and also because of certain, you know, transparency measures that are associated with any kind of civilian nuclear energy project.
And that is why the International Atomic Energy Organization is so important, because they do provide onsite inspections, they do provide verification of these certain technologies. And it’s difficult to kind of obtain a nuclear program with a reactor. Reactors are pretty large. And so, I mean, that’s part of the reason why North Korea was—it was pretty easy to identify that North Korea was kind of developing that, was when there was imagery of these reactors. And it’s hard to have covert reactors without any kind of international oversight, or at least international detection of it. Where centrifuges are much more easier to kind of conceal. And centrifuge technology—and there’s an article in International Security by Scott Kemp that really discusses how centrifuge technology isn’t necessarily revolutionary. It’s quite easy to obtain.
And so I think the fundamental question goes to the political decision about obtaining a nuclear weapon. Civilian nuclear energy doesn’t necessarily mean that a country is going to proliferate. And it’s more kind of driven by certain security concerns or either domestic politics that you see countries doing that. And so the link between civilian nuclear energy and nonproliferation, think is sometimes overblown, because nuclear energy has proven to be quite safe in a lot of instances, though the kind of bad—the bad actors sometimes get more attention, in that sense.
FASKIANOS: I am going to take the next raised-hand question from Michele Brandonisio, a graduate student at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Q: Ah, yes. Hello. My name is Michele Brandonisio. I am a graduate student at the University of Texas, San Antonio. (Coughs.) Excuse me.
So my question is, earlier you were speaking about some of the possible repercussions of a state not following a treaty’s rules, for instance, for proliferating nuclear weapons. So my question is this: When we look at the Missile Technology Control Regime, we see that sanctions are applied, for instance, if they are not actually followed. So my question is, what are some of the actual repercussions if a state does not follow the treaties, for example?
GRAJEWSKI: I mean, it varies treaty to treaty. Some of these treaties don’t even have kind of punitive measures within them. I mean, and when you refer to, like, the MTCR, I mean, some countries aren’t even part of the MTCR. I think—I mean, sanctions has been—there’s been various tools. I think sanctions have been the most prominent tool kind of used with the Iraqi case, and subsequently with the North Korean and the Iranian case when it comes to proliferation. And that followed referral from the IAEA to the UN Security Council. And that included multilateral sanctions.
Now it seems like it’s going to become a little bit more difficult because of the lack of consensus within the UN Security Council. There’s also export control. There’s, you know, secondary sanctions that the U.S. has used was quite a bit of vigor. And so treaties themselves, you know, offer a set of commitments and kind of some binding obligations, but it’s also the discretion of certain countries to punish that as well. And I think the United States has been quite forceful on those measures when it comes to violations of it. So just because a treaty doesn’t have a certain punitive clause within it doesn’t mean that it’s not able to—or, that countries aren’t able to enforce other measures to pressure countries.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I’m going to go next to Ambassador Paul Wolfowitz, who is a distinguished visiting fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.
Q: Can you hear me?
FASKIANOS: We can. It’s great to have you on.
Q: Nice to be here.
Sorry to be the skunk at the garden party, but it seems to me this argument from—it’s absolutely correct that there was no operational control over the Russian missiles by the Ukrainians. But there was a great eagerness on the part of the Western powers, and Russia included, to get rid of the fissile material on those weapons. And it seems to me it’s indisputable that Ukraine gave it up for very little. They got a basically worthless guarantee of territorial integrity and sovereignty in the 1994 Budapest Memorandum. But they could have probably gotten a lot more. That’s the question. (Laughter.)
GRAJEWSKI: Well, I mean, one thing that was interesting—so I spent a lot of time in Russia. This is kind of my background, as a Russia and Iran specialist. And one of the things that—just from talking to Russian diplomats—was they’re kind of, I guess, mocking of Ukrainian diplomats during the time of the 1990s, saying that they weren’t as professionalized as Russian diplomats and that potentially they weren’t even equipped to argue for things in favor of the Budapest Memorandum. And I think that might have been one of the factors. I mean, Ukraine was, you know, a new state. It was just kind of reeling from the collapse of the Soviet Union. And I think it was put in a difficult position. And also, it seems like the Budapest Memorandum, you know, it was violated multiple times. It didn’t provide the kind of binding assurances that it envisioned.
And, I mean, I think even looking forward five years past the Budapest Memorandum, when Ukraine was still kind of firmly within the Russian camp, there was even concerns about Russia’s incursion back then. And so, yeah, I mean, I agree with you, I think that the Ukrainians didn’t really get their fair share when it came to the Budapest Memorandum and also to the removal of fissile material. And it’s actually a contrast, I think, to Kazakhstan, because Kazakhstan managed to get quite a bit of payouts from the Clinton administration when it came to the relinquishing of its nuclear weapons arsenal, so—or, the nuclear weapons on its territory. So it’s interesting to think about the contrast. It might be because of political personalities. It might also be because of just kind of the kind of state that both countries were in at that time.
FASKIANOS: Great. Thank you.
I’m going to go next to Tina Bertrand, who’s department chair of political science at McMurry University: Given that Asia has no nuclear weapons-free zone in Asia that includes China. Is it plausible for the UN to bring some parties together to talk about modified zones, to include confidence building measures and possibly other modalities? This approach might address the difficulties with China, Russia, and U.S. trilateral talks. And do you think China would be open to these types of negotiations?
GRAJEWSKI: I think—I mean, so I’m not a specialist on China. And I’m not going to speak onto their, like, rationale behind anything on the nuclear weapons-free zone. But nuclear weapons-free zones have been historically difficult. And also—I mean, North Korea also has nuclear weapons in the Asia-Pacific region. So talks on a nuclear weapons-free zone in the region might be quite difficult. I know that was—at least in the Middle East, I mean, there’s been very little progress on that, partly because of Israel and partly because of the demands from certain countries that say that any kind of progress on the nuclear weapons-free zone has to address Israel’s ambiguous nuclear program.
So I think that any kind of discussions within the context of a nuclear weapons-free zone isn’t really going to bear a lot of fruit. But it’s an interesting concept. And I would probably refer to other experts on that. Just I’m really not an Asia-Pacific specialist.
FASKIANOS: Great.
I’m going to go to Emirhan Zeren, who has a raised hand.
Q: Sorry. Does my voice echo right now?
FASKIANOS: It is. If you can tell us where you’re—your affiliation.
Q: So, hello, yes. My name is Emirhan. I am from Turkey, and province of Kayseri. I am student at Abdullah Gül University.
So I was going to ask about, since Russia and North Korea have withdrawn or obstructed nuclear agreements, which impacts the nuclear norms and even human rights; also, given the historical and ongoing tension; how do you view the potential paradox of nuclear deterrence triggering a weakening of long-term disarmament goals? Like, is there a feasible approach to balance these situations?
Also, there’s even a quote by Aron Nimzowitsch, who is, I believe, Latvian-Danish chess player, that says threat is stronger than execution. And rationally, the holders of nukes would like to hold onto their most severe cards and make others play the game accordingly with their rules. In light of this—(inaudible)—is nonproliferation? That’s my question. And how—(inaudible)—it is with what—(inaudible)—and poliheuristic theory talks about, particularly in decision-makers acting with non-compensatory principle, and gives importance to public opinions that are shaped by emotions and norms?
Sorry for my long question. Thank you.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
GRAJEWSKI: Well, it’s interesting that you led with the Russian-North Korea agreement. In the treaty that they signed, or the, you know, agreement that they signed, there is a clause on nuclear cooperation. It doesn’t really explain what kind of cooperation, but that calls into question a longstanding Russian policy of not recognizing North Korea as a nuclear weapon state, because it would undermine the NPT. And so there’s still the kind of, I guess, adherence to the importance of that treaty from nuclear weapons states. The process of disarmament, though, is incredibly difficult. And I think there was at least hope or some progress in the, you know, 2000s and ’90s with, like, the fissile material cut off, and efforts to kind of at least go closer towards disarmament or have some momentum due to the kind of beneficial political environment.
However, I think right now, especially if you look at the discussions in the United States, if you look at the discussions in Russia, and even in China, there is a—there isn’t much discussion on nuclear disarmament. And it might reflect, I think and it does reflect, a lot of the tensions that we currently see. That doesn’t mean progress is never going to happen. And there’s a lot of societal and also nonstate movements that have been really crucial to pushing the disarmament agenda. However, at the state level it doesn’t seem to be taken up. And I think that’s going to be an enduring challenge for any kind of disarmament effort going forward, is just the lack of will in the capitals that have the largest amount of nuclear weapons.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
I don’t know if, Paul Wolfowitz, did you not lower your hand or did you have another question?
Q: Wanted to continue on the earlier discussion.
FASKIANOS: OK.
Q: Can you hear—can you hear me?
FASKIANOS: Yes. Mmm hmm.
Q: Yeah.
Well, Mearsheimer and other people like him want to disparage the agreement that was made jointly with Russia and the UK and Ukraine for dismantling the weapons. And it’s a way of avoiding the fact there is a U.S. obligation—the U.S. was party to that agreement. The fact that the Ukrainians were amateurs at diplomacy does not forgive the United States for going home was something that was inadequate. And certainly doesn’t excuse us for ignoring the obligation that was created back then. I think President Biden deserves a lot of credit for having done as much as he has done to try to bring the allies along in support of Ukraine, but we’re up against a new environment now. And people who go out saying that there was no obligation created because the Ukrainians were amateur diplomats are really doing a discredit. That’s the comment. What do you think? (Laughs.)
GRAJEWSKI: Oh, no. I mean, I wasn’t implying that that’s—just because the Russians said that, that that’s the reason why Ukraine didn’t receive, you know, what they deserved under the Budapest Memorandum. My point was that it was—I mean, Ukraine faced a difficult position. And I think that the Russians were pretty aware that they were kind of exploiting this issue for the Ukrainians. And, I mean, I think the U.S. was also concerned about the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program as well. So that being said, is I was—I think the John Mearsheimer argument is not really valid. And I do think that the Budapest Memorandum is an important agreement. And that there is—you know, there were obligations, there are obligations under it. And the fact that we didn’t even actually pursue that after 2014 is, I think, more egregious than what many people have suggested since 2022.
I think, you know, the first violation of Ukrainian sovereignty with the Russians really came in 2014. That did violate the Budapest Memorandum. So it’s a—it’s a difficult situation. Ukraine’s kind of been in the situation where they’ve had consistent challenges, and going back to the Orange Revolution, with the Russians. But does that necessarily mean that a nuclear weapon would have prevented this? I don’t know. And I don’t know if this would have been the same relationship. I think there’s a lot of variables at play. Is what if Ukraine retained at least its fissile material, what would Ukraine look like today? And I don’t think it would look like the country that we see right now. I think it would be much more kind of akin to, like, a Turkmenistan, for example, than it would be to this more, you know, democratic country that is today.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
We are running out of time and can’t get to all the questions. I wanted to just ask you to talk a little bit about what you see as a role—or what role do emerging technologies, such as cyberwarfare and AI, play in the context of nuclear arms control?
GRAJEWSKI: Yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of discussions right now about how to, you know, restrain AI, the difficulties of AI, and what is—what is AI when it comes to nuclear weapons—I mean, when it comes to nuclear technologies? So, for example, if some diplomat, or some, you know, policy planner uses AI to draft a memo and provides it to the Joint Chiefs of Staff or the kind of the J-5 when it comes to nuclear weapons, is that AI in nuclear? So the level of involvement of AI in nuclear still is kind of unknown. And there’s a lot of work being developed right now kind of trying to understand how it’s going to impact arms control, and also the precision of certain capabilities, and also verification measures.
Cyber capabilities are also interesting. I mean, even when it comes to ASAT, or anti-satellite, capabilities, and how cyber can potentially take out nuclear command and control satellites. I mean, there’s a lot of those kind of advanced technologies that include also hypersonic missiles and the challenges with missile defense when it comes to that. So the kind of framework that we had, I think, of the past, really just focused on numerical parity kind of limitations or reductions, isn’t as robust or valuable when we think about technologies like cyber or, like, AI or hypersonic missiles, that do present more challenges in that sense. But I mean, there’s talk about having an International Atomic Energy Agency to monitor AI, which I think would be—which I think is taking the wrong lessons.
But there’s a lot of movement on this from scholars. And so at the moment, I don’t think that this is going to be integrated into the discussions. But it is one of the kind of main issues that seem to be foreshadowing future discussions with either the Russians or the Chinese.
FASKIANOS: I’m going to take—we have a little more time—a written question from Steve Shinkel: What pressures do you see on the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, OST, with the WMD and more countries creating space forces. Do you think the OST will go to the way of previous arms control treaties, and proliferation in space is just a question of when?
GRAJEWSKI: Yeah. I mean, so the—kind of the proliferation of satellites in low Earth orbit, and also the military’s use of that, I might prompt—and one of my—I have an article coming out on this, is one of the areas that Russia’s kind of development of ASAT capabilities that may violate the Outer Space Treaty are driven by its concerns with proliferated constellations in low Earth orbit, and the military’s integration into that. And so space is becoming increasingly important, I think. And it’s always been important when it comes to nuclear command and control, and also just the nuclear deterrent in general. But the deployment of potential nuclear weapons, or the use of a certain nuclear ASAT weapon, would obviously violate the Outer Space Treaty but also pose, you know, much larger challenges, just to operational capabilities on Earth.
So I think space is actually one of the areas that there may be potential for discussion, just because of Russia’s concerns with the kind of dual use nature some of these proliferated constellations in low Earth orbit, and their ability to actually exponentially improve some of the U.S. capabilities, and their own weakness in regards to that. But, yeah, I don’t think that it’s—some of these developments are really boding well for the strength of the Outer Space Treaty. And there’s—I think maybe in the future we’ll see some more violations, in terms of the Russians at least.
FASKIANOS: Wonderful.
Well, with that, we’ve come to the end of our time. Thank you, Nicole, for being with us. We appreciate it. And to all of you for your questions and comments. We couldn’t get to everyone, but we did our best. You can follow Nicole Grajewski on X at @NicoleGrajewski. Very easy to remember. (Laughs.) We will send out the link to this video and transcript after the fact, as well as links to some of the things that Dr. Grajewski mentioned. And then the final fall 2024 Global Affairs Expert Webinar will take place on Wednesday, November 20, at 1:00 p.m. (EST). Inu Manak, a CFR fellow for trade policy, will lead a conversation on global trade policy.
In the meantime, I encourage you to learn about CFR paid internships for students and fellowships for professors at CFR.org/careers. Follow @CFR_Education on X, and CFR.org, ForeignAffairs.com, and ThinkGlobalHealth.org for research and analysis on global issues. So, again, thank you all for being with us. Thank you, Nicole. And we hope you enjoy the rest of your day.
GRAJEWSKI: Thank you so much, Irina.
FASKIANOS: Thank you.
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