21 June 2001

Sen. Biden Says U.S. Must Remain Engaged in Non-Proliferation

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joseph Biden says that promoting the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction works -- "it isn't fun; it isn't easy; it isn't quick, but it works."

And no other country except the United States has the ability to offer the economic and security incentives to convince others to abandon development of weapons of mass destruction, Biden said June 19 at the 2001 Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference.

One way for the United States to succeed in leading non-proliferation efforts is by "remaining engaged in the peaceful resolution of conflict. One reason -- among many -- that we cannot walk away from the Middle East conflict is that another war there could involve weapons of mass destruction," Biden, a Delaware Democrat, said.

Likewise in South Asia the United States must encourage India, Pakistan, and supporting countries to search for new approaches to security in the region, he said.

Biden said that over the years he has learned four lessons about non-proliferation:

• Proliferation is almost inevitably an uncomfortable issue;

• Success in non-proliferation depends upon persistence -- often for several years or more;

• Success nearly always requires positive incentives, not just sanctions; and

• The United States must take the lead in non-proliferation efforts, but the rest of the world must also help.

Following is the text of Biden's remarks as prepared for delivery:

Remarks by Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
United States Senator (Delaware)
Chairman, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee
"Non-Proliferation: A Battle We All Must Win"
Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference
Washington, D.C.
June 19, 2001

Good afternoon. It's a real delight to address a conference chaired by Joe Cirincione, because usually he is the witness giving us the good word. I have always tried to treat him well when he testified before us, and I guess from his generous introduction that I haven't done badly in that regard.

I will not say that it's a delight to speak on non-proliferation. Frankly, the potential for destruction posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction does more to keep me up at night than any other threat to world security.

But I take heart from the presence here of such knowledgeable experts and officials. We must all work together to combat proliferation, and this annual Carnegie Endowment conference has become a major forum for sharing ideas and forging international cooperation.

My perspective comes from the experience of a quarter century on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Over those years, I think I have learned four lessons about non-proliferation:

1. Proliferation is almost inevitably an uncomfortable issue;

2. Success in non-proliferation depends upon persistence -- often for several years or more;

3. Success nearly always requires positive incentives, not just sanctions; and

4. The United States must take the lead in non-proliferation efforts, but the rest of the world must also help.

Why is proliferation always an uncomfortable issue? Because it is an irritant in our relations with countries. It almost always pulls us away from closer relations, be they with Russia, China, India and Pakistan, or elsewhere.

Regional specialists bemoan our fixation on protecting the world from weapons of mass destruction. But, as the old bumper sticker used to say, "one nuclear bomb can really spoil your day." And so can a chemical or biological weapon.

Precisely because proliferation is an uncomfortable issue, we must institutionalize it. That is the only way to ensure this issue a seat at the table when foreign policy decisions are made.

That's why we have a Bureau for Non-Proliferation in the State Department. That's also why Senator Helms and I created a separate Bureau for Verification and Compliance, with authority to analyze compliance with nonproliferation regimes.

Why is proliferation such a hard issue? Why is my second lesson the need for persistence? Because demand breeds supply -- just as with narcotics.

Countries that want weapons of mass destruction are pretty desperate. They pay good money for what they need. They buy from many suppliers, use front companies, and pursue multiple paths of development. We can slowdown their efforts, raise the price of proliferation, and interdict some sales. Those are worthy pursuits, even essential ones.

But stemming the supply only buys us time. For lasting success in non-proliferation, we must also affect the demand side of the equation.

That brings me to my third lesson, the need for positive inducements. In East Asia, the inducement has been a close security relationship with the United States. In three former Soviet states, it was world acceptance and assistance. In South America, it was intensive and extended efforts to reduce regional rivalries. In South Africa, it was the world's blessing on a new regime.

Are there positive inducements that would make a difference for North Korea? For Iran? For India and Pakistan? There may be.

We who care about proliferation must care about -- and treat -- the causes of proliferation, not just the symptoms. We must take seriously the security dilemmas of "demand side" countries.

We must also take seriously the concerns of "supply side" countries. Just as we use crop substitution in the fight against international narcotics, so must we offer a decent life to those who forego proliferation.

There can be no doubt as to who must take the lead in these matters. No other country comes close to the United States in its ability to offer economic or security incentives in return for foreswearing or giving up weapons of mass destruction.

How must we lead? One way is by remaining engaged in the peaceful resolution of conflict. One reason -- among many -- that we cannot walk away from the Middle East conflict is that another war there could involve weapons of mass destruction.

The same is true in South Asia. We must encourage India, Pakistan, and the countries that support them to search for new approaches to security in the region. We must also find a way to promote non-proliferation in South Asia without relying upon ineffective sanctions.

It might help, of course, if we would show leadership in the field of arms control, which is so closely tied to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

There is no excuse for our failure to ratify the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty. There are legitimate concerns regarding Stockpile Stewardship and verification capabilities. But we must address those concerns as proposed by General John Shalikashvili -- and then ratify the treaty.

Were we to do that, I have no doubt that we could then convince India and Pakistan to do the same.

To improve our verification capabilities, we must both maintain our National Technical Means and complete the International Monitoring System. That international network of nuclear test sensors offers us data that we simply cannot obtain by ourselves, data that have the special advantage of being usable in open diplomacy.

It would be utterly foolish to cast aside the International Monitoring System, out of some misguided notion that our participation in it constituted implementation of an unratified treaty.

There is also no excuse for choosing a missile defense that leads China to vastly increase its nuclear forces, with a ripple effect on India and Pakistan. Our desire for a national missile defense is understandable, but that does not make it prudent to deploy a mediocre defense or to needlessly abrogate the ABM Treaty.

I don't want to turn this into a speech on national missile defense. My concerns are well known. So is my belief that it may be possible to craft a defense -- and an amended ABM Treaty -- so as not to threaten Russia or China's nuclear deterrent capabilities.

My point today is that our actions on missile defense may well affect our non-proliferation efforts. To succeed in non-proliferation, we need the cooperation of both Russia and China. Any rational missile defense policy will take that need into account.

Another area in which positive incentives and U.S. leadership are crucial is in helping Russia to meet its arms control obligations, safeguard its sensitive materials, find new careers for tens of thousands of weapons experts, and protect against improper exports of weapons of mass destruction materials or technology. These programs are of tremendous benefit to our national security.

How strange it is, then, that the Administration cut these valuable non-proliferation programs in next year's budget. Yes, these programs cost money. But the benefits that they deliver -- in weapons dismantled, in fissile material protected from diversion to terrorists or rogue states, and in scientists working on socially useful projects, rather than wandering off to Libya or Iraq -- are incalculable.

Just think how much we will have to spend if Osama bin Laden gets nuclear weapons.

The Administration is reviewing our assistance to Russia. That's fine. We should be more efficient, getting more of the funds to the Russians (and others) who need it. We should improve our ability to ensure that our assistance is used properly.

We should also coordinate our many programs, which is why Senator Hagel and I introduced a bill mandating an interagency committee for that purpose.

When all that is done, however, we need a much greater effort, rather than budget cuts. As Howard Baker and Lloyd Cutler made clear in testimony to the Foreign Relations Committee, the last thing we want is for Russia to become the world's shopping center for sensitive materials.

Is there good work that we could do, with more funding? You bet there is!

The Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention program, in the Department of Energy, has a growing "waiting list" of good projects to fund, with U.S. firms willing to more than match our assistance. Unless we increase the budget for this program, it will stagnate.

Congress may restore the 8-percent budget cut that the Administration imposed on this program. But we should double the funding for these projects -- and also for the International Science and Technology Centers program, in the State Department.

Another program that should be doubled is the Materials Protection, Control and Accounting program in the Energy Department. This program safeguards Russia's fissile material.

Russia has over a thousand metric tons of highly enriched uranium, plus 150 metric tons of plutonium. I'm told that's enough to make 42 thousand nuclear weapons. That's a lot of material to protect.

Securing all this material won't be easy. Some old-school Russians see this as a plot to spy on them. But the truth is, we offer improved security at minimal risk to Russia's nuclear weapons secrets.

President Putin should tell his new Minister of Atomic Energy -- who has worked with U.S. programs and knows they are workable -- to let us help safeguard all of MINATOM's stocks of fissile material.

We must succeed in this. Howard Baker told the Foreign Relations Committee:

"I am a little short of terrified at some of the storage facilities for nuclear material and nuclear weapons [in Russia]; and relatively small investments can yield enormous improvements in storage and security."

And Sam Nunn warns: "No one knows how long the present window of opportunity will remain open."

It will be equally daunting to help Russia downside its bloated nuclear weapons complexes without leaving its scientists desperate for jobs. But again, we have no choice. As Sam Nunn put it, "We dare not risk a world where a Russian scientist can take care of his children only by endangering ours."

How will we get the funds needed for non-proliferation from an Administration dedicated to missile defense and the tax cut? That's a big problem.

One idea is "debt for non-proliferation" swaps. Senator Lugar and I authored "debt for nature" legislation a while back, and maybe we could forgive some of Russia's debts if the debt payments were used for non-proliferation programs. This is not a panacea, but it might help.

By the way, other countries could do the same thing. Russia owes much more money to Europe than it does to the United States. Remember my fourth lesson: the United States must lead; but others must help, as well.

Other countries do contribute to existing programs in Russia. Too often, however, funds are tied to projects that will benefit the contributors economically. I understand the urge to profit from foreign assistance. But if we support only projects with an economic payback, we could fail to secure our security objective. We must keep non-proliferation as our major funding criterion.

Another area in which we must all work together is to stem the proliferation threat posed by North Korea. Not just the United States, but also Russia, China, Europe and Japan must persuade North Korea to reach a verifiable agreement to end its long-range missile production -- and its sales of such missiles, materials or technology -- in return for a reasonable international assistance package.

Russia has a particular responsibility in this regard, as its leaders say there is no need for a national missile defense to handle the threat of North Korean missiles. Russia has experience with verification, so President Putin should convince North Korean President Kim Jong-il to accept it.

Other countries also have a role to play in the imposition and enforcement of international sanctions. The history of unilateral sanctions is hardly encouraging. But when the world stands firm, sanctions can succeed.

The trouble, of course, is that it hurts a country to impose sanctions. We get back to that first lesson: proliferation is an uncomfortable issue. It is uncomfortable for other countries, just as it is for the United States.

But isn't that why we are here today? If this were an easy issue to treat, we wouldn't be gathering here, year after year.

Nonproliferation is like the labors of Sisyphus, and it gets harder as we get older. But remember how frightened we were a generation ago. Recall the predictions of a nuclear holocaust, and of 20 or 30 nuclear weapon states by the year 2000.

Non-proliferation works. It isn't fun; it isn't easy; it isn't quick -- but it works. So we must increase our efforts, rather than giving up hope or fixating on the difficulties.

At the signing of the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin said: "We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly, we shall all hang separately." This is especially true in the fight against proliferation.

Remember that we won the American Revolution. Halting the spread of weapons of mass destruction is a task no less difficult, but also no less noble. And if we all hang together again, we can win this war as well.