The international community has been “sleepwalking” on proliferation issues for the last 10 years and nuclear weapons could be on the verge of spreading to a slew of new states, the co-chairman of a new commission on the threat warned today (see GSN, Oct. 20).
(Oct. 21) -
Former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans today warned of the growing danger of nuclear proliferation (Torsten Blackwood/Getty Images).
"The devastation that could be wreaked by one major nuclear weapons incident alone puts 9/11 and almost everything else (in) to the category of the insignificant," former Australian Foreign Minister Gareth Evans told reporters at the first meeting of the International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament, according to Agence France-Presse (Agence France-Presse/Google News, Oct. 21).
The panel plans to hold about six meetings and then in early 2010 produce a set of proposals for consideration at the next Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference and afterward, Kyodo News reported (Kyodo News/BreitBart, Oct. 21).
Evans called it “really a bit of a miracle” that there has not been a nuclear attack since World War II even though between 13,000 and 16,000 nuclear warheads are fielded across the globe, AFP reported.
"Unless we energize ourselves, unless we reinvigorate a high-level political debate which is then accompanied by effective action, we potentially have very alarming consequences staring us in the face," said Evans, who leads the group with former Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi. "We are on the brink of … an avalanche or a cascade of proliferation unless we are very, very careful indeed and find ways collectively to hold the line."
Evans criticized the international community for not adequately addressing nuclear weapons in Pakistan or India, or the nuclear arsenal Israel is widely believed to possess.
Iran’s nuclear program also poses a particularly high proliferation risk, he said (see related GSN story, today). "If there is a breakout by Iran, or a perceived breakout by Iran, the Middle East alone is the cockpit in which we can anticipate such a cascade of proliferation by a number of other countries," he said.
An incoming U.S. presidential administration could make progress with Iran, which insists its nuclear program has no military element, Evans said. He compared approaches on Iran that might be taken by Senator Barack Obama (Ill.), the Democratic presidential candidate, and Senator John McCain (Ariz.), Obama’s Republican rival.
"An Obama administration would, on the face of it … be one that's likely to be more substantially focused on this but even with a McCain administration, it would be an improvement. … There's not much to beat frankly," Evans said.
If the United States ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the results would be “quite profound” and China might be placed under “irresistible pressure” to follow suit, Evans said (see GSN, Sept. 25). "That in turn would, I think, have ripple effects right throughout the international community," he said (AFP).
Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry, now one of Obama’s advisers, said the Democratic candidate would likely push to ratify the treaty, begin new talks with Moscow and revise the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty with other signatories to address the nuclear programs of nations such as Iran and North Korea, the Sydney Morning Herald reported today.
“If we fail to deal effectively with those two nations I think we are facing a veritable cascade of nuclear proliferation,” said Perry, who attended the two-day commission meeting in Sydney. “Each new country that goes nuclear increases the danger of a terror group gaining a nuclear bomb.
“I don’t think the world really fully understands how serious the consequences of a terrorist setting off a nuclear bomb in one of our cities … the 100,000 dead are just the beginning,” he said. “The economic, political and social consequences would be profound. It could change the structure of our political system as people realize their governments cannot protect them against this kind of danger” (Hamish McDonald, Sydney Morning Herald, Oct. 21).