Global Security Newswire

Analysts warn that U.S. President Barack Obama's nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament efforts could lose momentum to competing interests held by U.S. lawmakers and other governments, the Washington Post reported today (see GSN, April 16).

Lawmakers are likely to ratify the recently signed U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control deal, but are less inclined to support U.S. entry into the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, observers say. Washington and eight other states must endorse the pact for it to enter into force.

Obama's nuclear goals also face a direct challenge at next month's Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference, where his administration is expected to push for tougher action against non-nuclear weapon states that withdraw from the agreement or fail to comply with its provisions (see GSN, March 8). The treaty now has 189 member states -- including recognized nuclear powers China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States -- but its relevance has been placed into question by nuclear-weapon work conducted outside the pact by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea.

The United States could face an uphill battle to reinforce the treaty because its signatories must endorse changes by consensus. The previous conference in 2005 ended in confusion and produced no final document on promoting the nonproliferation regime (see GSN, May 26, 2005).

"In one sense, the United States will be perceived as genuinely having regained a position of leadership," former U.S. Ambassador Linton Brooks said. "Whether you'll be able to point to concrete results of that leadership, I simply don't know."

The U.S. president's push to move toward a world without nuclear weapons has not received significant support from governments including Beijing, Moscow and Paris, added George Perkovich, a nuclear analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The result is a talented president ready to lead a long-term campaign to remove the existential threats posed by nuclear weapons, but as yet lacking sufficient colleagues and followers to make it happen," Perkovich wrote in a recent report.

Another complicating factor is Washington's long-standing policy of not addressing nuclear work carried out in Israel; the U.S. ally is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons, but Jerusalem has never officially confirmed or denied possessing such an arsenal. Israel's nuclear work could prompt Arab nations to make a major effort at the conference to establish a nuclear weapon-free zone in the Middle East, experts and U.S. officials have warned.

Critics of U.S. efforts to revise the treaty could also target the Obama administration's latest steps to implement a civilian nuclear cooperation deal with India, which possesses nuclear weapons outside the pact (see GSN, April 5).

"The chief problem with this agreement is that the U.S. is allowing a non-NPT member rights that we're not offering to NPT members," Arms Control Association head Daryl Kimball said.

The U.S.-Indian agreement helped Pakistan justify its opposition to a global ban on production of nuclear-weapon material sought by the U.S. president (see GSN, April 14). Islamabad's initial enthusiasm for Obama's leadership "had been short-lived," said Pakistani Ambassador to the United Nations Zamir Akram.

Although updating the world's nonproliferation framework poses a significant challenge, the Obama administration has already managed to shore up flagging international support for the document, administration sources said. Recent U.S.-Russian arms control talks and a nuclear security summit conducted in Washington last week could each lend Obama "leverage" in advancing his nuclear goals, Perkovich suggested (Mary Beth Sheridan, Washington Post, April 19).

U.S. Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said the newly signed nuclear arms pact would face a tough ratification battle in the Senate "and I'll lead the opposition to it," the Lawton, Okla., Constitution reported (see GSN, April 14).

Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the replacement to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty earlier this month. The pact would obligate the two former Cold War adversaries to both lower their respective strategic arsenals to 1,550 fielded warheads and to limit their deployed nuclear delivery vehicles -- missiles, submarines and bombers -- to 700, with another 100 permitted in reserve. Under a 2002 pact, Moscow and Washington had until 2012 to reduce their deployed strategic stockpiles to a maximum of 2,200 weapons each.

The treaty would face both Democratic and Republican challengers, but some "mushy Republicans" might back its ratification, Inhofe said. The pact needs support from 67 senators (Steve Robertson, Lawton Constitution, April 17).