Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: diplomacy

  • The Reality of the Nuclear Age: U.S. Must Negotiate with North Korea

    David KriegerAnyone with a modicum of sense does not want to see the US teeter at the brink of war with North Korea and certainly not inadvertently stumble over that brink, or intentionally jump.  The first Korean War in the 1950s was costly in terms of lives and treasure.  A second Korean War, with the possibility of nuclear weapons use, would be far more costly to both sides, and could lead to global nuclear conflagration.

    Neither North Korea nor South Korea want a new war, but US leadership in Washington is threatening war, with remarks such as “talking is not the answer”; North Korean threats “will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen”; “military solutions are now in place, locked and loaded”; and “all options are on the table.”  Such posturing has only elicited more nuclear and missile tests from North Korea.

    It is clear, though, that threats of attack are not a responsible way of going forward.  This may be difficult for Trump to grasp, since he has built his business and political reputation on threats and bullying behavior.  Like all bullies, he backs down when confronted.  But confrontation with a bully is still risky, particularly this bully, who is also thin-skinned, erratic, impulsive and has the full power of the US military at his disposal.

    The US does not need another war, not with North Korea or any country.  We need, instead, to extract ourselves from the ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Nor should we turn our backs on the well-negotiated agreement with Iran to halt their nuclear weapons program.  In fact, this agreement should serve as a model for the type of agreement needed with North Korea.

    What needs to be done?

    The US should agree to negotiate with North Korea and do so without preconditions.  It has been suggested by North Korea, as well as by China and Russia, that North Korea would freeze its nuclear and missile programs in exchange for the US and South Korea ceasing to conduct war games at North Korea’s border.  The US has foolishly, arrogantly and repeatedly ignored or rejected this proposal to get to the negotiating table. It seems that the US would prefer to continue its war gaming on the Korean peninsula than to negotiate with the North Koreans to find a solution to control their nuclear arsenal.

    It would appear that North Korea wants to assure that its regime is not vulnerable to a US attack and occupation, such as occurred in Iraq and Libya.  In each of these countries the leaders were captured and killed.

    Rather than seeking to tighten the economic sanctions on North Korea, which primarily hurt their people, the US should try a different approach, one offering positive rewards for freezing the North Korean nuclear and missile programs and allowing inspections.  Such positive rewards could include food, health care, energy, and infrastructure development.  North Korea has responded positively to such offers of help in the past, and would be likely to do so again.  Kim Jong-un is not, as the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has said, “begging for war.”

    In addition, there has never been a formal end to the Korean War, and it is past time to reach a peace agreement and formally bring the war to an end.  This would be a major step forward and one greatly desired by North Korea.

    The Trump administration needs to engage with its allies, South Korea and Japan, in these negotiations.  It should also bring other interested parties in Northeast Asia into the negotiations.  This would include China and Russia.  All of these countries appear to be ready to talk.  The US just needs to put aside its arrogance and begin the task of negotiating rather than continuing the unworkable approach of trying to force its will on North Korea or any other country by means of threats or bullying.  That is the reality of the Nuclear Age.

  • Tadatoshi Akiba to Take Up Duties as MPI Chairman in October

    Tadatoshi Akiba

    The former Mayor of Hiroshima, Tadatoshi Akiba, who recently was named Chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative, will take up his duties in October 2012.  His first major task is to plan the next meeting of the MPI Framework Forum, which will be held in Berlin in early 2013.

    As President of Mayors for Peace, Professor Akiba developed a network of 5,300 mayors in 153 countries and regions who united in calling for negotiations to start on a nuclear weapons convention. He was Mayor of Hiroshima from 1999 until 2011.  He started his professional career as a mathematics professor in New York before being elected to the Japanese House of Representatives in 1990. David Krieger, Chairman of MPI’s Executive Committee, hailed Akiba, one of the world’s foremost campaigners for the abolition of nuclear weapons, as “an internationally respected leader for his stewardship of Mayors for Peace.”

    Founded in 1998 by eight prominent nuclear disarmament organizations, MPI works with influential middle power countries to bridge the political divide between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states, and to advance practical proposals for nuclear disarmament. Akiba will direct MPI’s work, which consists of delegations to capitals, publishing briefs on nuclear disarmament, and organizing and facilitating informal government consultations.

    Since 2005, MPI has brought governments together in informal Article VI Forum consultations to forge an agreed pathway to a nuclear weapons-free world, based on the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Article VI obligation to achieve nuclear disarmament. MPI has started a new series of consultations, called the “Framework Forum,” for interested governments to start preparatory work leading to negotiations for a global ban on nuclear weapons.

    In addition to being a leading international voice for peace and nuclear disarmament, Akiba championed environmental protection and government transparency.  For his dedication to a more peaceful, just, and sustainable world, he has received many honors, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award (often considered Asia’s Nobel Prize), the Sean MacBride Peace Prize from the International Peace Bureau, and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Distinguished Peace Leadership Award.

    Senator Douglas Roche, founding Chairman of MPI, welcomed the appointment of Akiba: “With his deep knowledge of nuclear disarmament issues, unending commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons, immense personal prestige, and outstanding international reputation, Tad Akiba will lift up MPI and make it an even more effective instrument helping to produce a nuclear weapons-free world.”

    MPI’s co-sponsors include: Albert Schweitzer Institute, Global Security Institute, International Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation, International Peace Bureau, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.

  • North Korean Nuclear Conflict Has Deep Roots

    Democrats and Republicans have been quick to use North Korea’s apparent nuclear test to benefit their own party in these final weeks of the congressional campaign, but a review of history shows that both sides have contributed to the current situation.

    There is more than 50 years of history to Pyongyang’s attempt to gain a nuclear weapon, triggered in part by threats from Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower to end the Korean War.

    In 1950, when a reporter asked Truman whether he would use atomic bombs at a time when the war was going badly, the president said, “That includes every weapon we have.”

    Three years later, Eisenhower made a veiled threat, saying he would “remove all restraints in our use of weapons” if the North Korean government did not negotiate in good faith an ending to that bloody war.

    In 1957, the United States placed nuclear-tipped Matador missiles in South Korea, to be followed in later years, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, by nuclear artillery, most of which was placed within miles of the demilitarized zone.

    It was not until President Jimmy Carter’s administration, in the late 1970s, that the first steps were taken to remove some of the hundreds of nuclear weapons that the United States maintained in South Korea, a process that was not completed until 1991, under the first Bush administration.

    It is against that background that the North Korean nuclear program developed.

    North Korea has its own uranium mines and in 1965 obtained a small research reactor from the Soviet Union, which it located at Yongbyon. By the mid-1970s, North Korean technicians had increased the capability of that reactor and constructed a second one. Pyongyang agreed in 1977 to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect the first reactor.

    It was in the 1980s that the North Korean weapons program began its clandestine growth with the building of a facility for reprocessing fuel into weapons-grade material and the testing of chemical high explosives. In 1985, around the time U.S. intelligence discovered a third, once-secret reactor, North Korea agreed to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

    Five years later, U.S. intelligence discovered through satellite photos that a structure had been built that appeared to be capable of separating plutonium from nuclear fuel rods. Under pressure, North Korea signed a safeguards agreement with the IAEA in 1992, and inspections of facilities began. But in January 1993, IAEA inspectors were prevented from going to two previously unreported facilities. In the resulting crisis, North Korea attempted to withdraw from the NPT.

    The Clinton administration responded in 1994 that if North Korea reprocessed plutonium from fuel rods, it would be crossing a “red line” that could trigger military action. The North Koreans “suspended” their withdrawal from the NPT, and bilateral talks with the Clinton administration got underway. When negotiations deadlocked, North Korea removed fuel rods from one of its reactors, a step that brought Carter back into the picture as a negotiator.

    The resulting talks led to the 1994 Agreed Framework, under which North Korea would freeze and eventually dismantle its nuclear weapons program. In return, it would be supplied with conventional fuel and ultimately with two light-water reactors that could not produce potential weapons-grade fuel.

    However, a subsequent IAEA inspection determined that North Korea had clandestinely extracted about 24 kilograms of plutonium from its fuel rods, and U.S. intelligence reported that was enough material for two or three 20-kiloton plutonium bombs.

    During the next six years of the Clinton administration and into the first years of the current Bush administration, the spent fuel from North Korea’s reactors was kept in a storage pond under IAEA supervision. As late as July 5, 2002, in a letter to Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said the administration was continuing with the 1994 agreement but holding back some elements until the IAEA certified that the North Koreans had come into full compliance with the NPT’s safeguards agreement.

    In November 2001, when the Bush administration was absorbed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, intelligence analysts at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory completed a highly classified report that concluded North Korea had begun construction of a plant to enrich uranium. A National Intelligence Estimate of the North Korean program confirmed the Livermore report, providing evidence that Pyongyang was violating the agreement.

    Nonetheless, the Bush administration waited until October 2002 before confronting the North Koreans, who at one meeting confirmed they were following another path to a nuclear weapon using enriched uranium.

    Soon thereafter, the United States ended its participation in the 1994 agreement. North Korea ordered IAEA inspectors out, announced it would reprocess the stored fuel rods and withdrew from the NPT. Earlier this year, Pyongyang declared it had nuclear weapons.

    The Bush administration then embarked on a new approach, developing a six-nation strategy based on the idea that bilateral U.S.-North Korea negotiations did not work and that only bringing in China and South Korea, which had direct leverage over the Pyongyang government, would gain results.

    First Published in the Washington Post

  • EU3-Iranian Negotiations: A New Approach

    Unless a new approach is pursued, chances that current negotiations between France, Germany, Great Britain (EU3) and Iran will soon see a breakthrough are slim. In May, after Iran again threatened to resume enrichment activities, the EU3 pledged to present Iran a detailed offer by the end of July or early August 2005. While recent developments of the past month are likely to complicate the bilateral negotiations, the seemingly entrenched positions of both parties are the main factor obstructing a successful resolution regarding the Iranian nuclear program.

    The EU3 have engaged Iran in talks since December 2004, after Iran broke its earlier agreement of October 2003 to suspend enrichment activities. Negotiations have since proceeded at a slow pace, nonetheless withstanding pressure from the United States who has urged for Iran’s referral to the UN Security Council for its alleged nuclear weapons program. Iran claims its program serves peaceful purposes only. While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not found Iran in non-compliance with its safeguards agreement, neither has it verified the country’s compliance. The EU3 strategy to offer Iran economic incentives in turn for “objective assurances” of the peaceful nature of the Iranian nuclear program has thus far remained unfruitful, even after the United States agreed to support Iran’s entry into the World Trade Organization in March 2005.

    Iran has a history of deceiving the international community about its nuclear activities, which greatly undermines the confidence building process of the ongoing negotiations. Most recently, on June 16, 2005, the IAEA announced Iran’s failure to disclose comprehensive information regarding its plutonium activities. Iran had earlier stated that its plutonium experiments ended in 1993. But the IAEA verified that reprocessing experiments took place in 1995 and 1998. Reprocessing separates plutonium which can be used to make nuclear weapons. The IAEA started its investigations into the Iranian nuclear program in 2002 and has since revealed a number of breaches that make Iranian nuclear intentions questionable.

    The election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran’s new President will most likely complicate the EU3-Iranian negotiations. At his first press conference after the elections, Ahmadinejad stated that “We will continue negotiations with the Europeans with the aim of safeguarding our national interests and emphasizing the right of the Iranian nation to use peaceful nuclear energy.” While this seems to indicate a continuation of Iran’s current policy, Ahmadinejad also said he will take on a tougher negotiation position. A top Irani nuclear official recently asserted: “Taking into account the personality of the new president, I think the negotiations will be more difficult.” On July 13, 2005, Ahmadinejad, who will take office in early August, announced a new direction for Iranian foreign policy. Reorganizing the current nuclear negotiation team might be part of this new policy measure. The instant resumption of enrichment activities would certainly lead to an impasse with the EU3.

    Conflicting information about the resignation of the Secretary of Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Hassan Rowhani, might be connected to Iran’s change in government. Currently, Rowhani, a moderate supporting President Mohammad Khatami’s policy of reform, is the chief negotiator in the talks with the EU3. The Iranian news agency Irna announced on July 6, 2005 that Rowhani sent his letter of resignation to Khatami, but AP reported he denied this move. Rowhani’s resignation would trigger a change in leadership in the Iranian negotiation team that could adversely affect the outcome of the talks. Named as a possible successor to Rowhani, Ali Larijani, the representative of the Supreme Leader on the Supreme National Security Council, stated in March 2005: “ The continuation of talks up until now was meant for confidence building. However, I believe that the issue of confidence building in Iran’s nuclear dossier is a two-edged sword. If the Europeans consider it to be one-sided and as Iran’s debt to the West, then the negotiations will not be negotiations at all but a dictated text meant to humiliate the nation, and naturally the Iranians would be obliged to show that their national pride is not less than Europe’s or the United States.”

    First and foremost, Iran wants to maintain its capability to enrich uranium and separate plutonium for peaceful purposes, a right it claims according to Article IV of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). An Iranian proposal in April 2005 – which the EU3 rejected – stated the government’s intention to test 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz. In addition to pursuing its inalienable right under the NPT, Iran recognizes the national prestige that comes with mastering the fuel cycle and proclaims its desire to belong to the “exclusive club of technologically advanced states.” The Iranian government has also repeatedly made the link between the nuclear fuel cycle and national sovereignty to independently meet its energy needs in the long-term.

    The current position-based nature of the talks will continue to impede negotiations between the two parties. Iran’s current position is that it will not give up its capabilities to enrich uranium and reprocess plutonium, reiterated as recently as July 12, 2005. The EU3 on the other hand have repeatedly stated that this position is an unacceptable one in the long-run. On July 5, 2005, the French Foreign Minister Douste-Blazy stated: “Our ultimate objective is to ensure that there is a suspension of the enrichment and reprocessing of hazardous nuclear material. I think it’s absolutely necessary to state that the Europeans will never accept the resumption of the Iranian military nuclear activities.” Iran has demonstrated some flexibility towards limiting its enrichment capabilities, but the EU3 is unlikely to amend its position, given the lack of transparency of Iranian nuclear activities and ongoing IAEA efforts to verify Iran’s status of safeguards compliance.

    To create favorable conditions for a successful outcome both parties must move beyond their entrenched positions, which are in complete opposition to each other. To solve the crisis in the long-term, the EU3 must open up the negotiations forum to discussions about both parties’ long-term interests. Talks about broader security issues, including Iran’s national security concerns, will help both parties move away from their current fixed positions and bring more options for a solution to the table. The Unites States should also become involved in the negotiation process in order to grant significant recognition to the regional security debate, especially given the US role in Iraq and the need for greater regional stability supported actively by the US through negative security assurances. At a security conference in February 2005, Gholami Khoshroo, the Deputy Minister for International and legal Affairs, stated: “We believe that it is imperative to use the opportunity created by the removal of a great menace to our region’s security to replace mistrust and arms race with confidence building and transparency, and to establish an indigenously-based and internationally guaranteed regional security arrangement under the UN auspices to spare our region from further bloodshed.”

    An explicit EU3 and US recognition of legitimate demands for regional stability and security would serve the long term interests of both the EU and the United States. Even if the negotiations cannot satisfy all interests brought to the table, the likelihood of progress with an interest-based approach is higher than if the parties continue to confront each other with fixed positions.

    *Anna Langenbach is the 2005 Wally T. Drew Intern in the Washington DC office of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Langenbach is a graduate student at the Monterey Institute of International Studies where she specializes in nonproliferation studies.

  • The Challenge of Hiroshima: Alternatives to Nuclear Weapons, Missile Defenses, and Space Weaponization in a North East Asian Context

    Conference Statement

    Six non-governmental organizations* brought together experts and activists from nine countries** in Hiroshima, Japan to discuss issues of global and regional peace and security. Almost 60 years after this city suffered the first atomic bombing, we confront new and continuing nuclear dangers in North East Asia and around the world.

    An inspiring opening to the conference was provided by Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba, who discussed the Mayors for Peace Emergency Campaign to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons by 2020. A prominent sentiment that underlay the discussions during the meeting was the suffering experienced by the survivors of the atomic bombing, the hibakusha , and their courage and determination in their efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons.

    Despite the efforts of the hibakusha and the efforts of millions of other people for more than half a century to eliminate nuclear weapons, over twenty thousand remain deployed worldwide. Under the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States agreed to negotiate for the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. Unfortunately, there are no such negotiations in progress or even on the horizon for further nuclear reductions. Entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty also remains an unrealized goal, in no small part due to the refusal of the United States to ratify the Treaty.

    North Korea has announced its withdrawal from the NPT, and that it has the capacity to develop nuclear weapons. It justifies this decision in part because the United States government has listed North Korea as a potential nuclear target. North Korea also cites other implied United States threats to use force against it, manifested by the continued deployment of powerful United States military forces in the region.

    The United States and Japan are also proceeding with joint ballistic missile defense research, claiming a need to counter a North Korean missile threat. Missile defense deployment, and the possibility that it could be extended further to Taiwan , is viewed with great concern by China , and by other governments and peace movements throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

    The United States is pursuing ambitious programs for the modernization of its nuclear forces, from its missiles and the warheads they deliver to the systems used to plan and execute nuclear strikes. China and Russia , the major nuclear powers in the region, also continue to modernize some elements of their nuclear arsenals, although at a far slower pace than the United States . In addition, the United States continues to develop new kinds of high technology conventional weapons, including increasingly accurate and long-range conventionally armed missiles. A growing proportion of United States military forces are being deployed in the Pacific region.

    All countries in North East Asia and the surrounding region have a strong interest in a stable and peaceful environment. The development and deployment of dangerous weapons systems in the region undermines this goal.

    After extensive discussions, the conference participants concluded:

    • Every available diplomatic means should be employed to resolve the current standoff between the United States and North Korea , ranging from the existing six-party talks between North Korea , South Korea , Japan , China , Russia and the United States , to bilateral negotiations between North Korea and the United States.
    • Joint ballistic missile defense research by Japan and the United States complicates the relationship between the three major nuclear powers, and furthers proliferation of sophisticated military technologies. Missile defense development will make a regional arms race more likely. Therefore, joint ballistic missile defense development should not proceed, and the United States should not deploy anti-ballistic missile systems in the region.
    • Normalization of diplomatic relations between North Korea and Japan and between North Korea and the United States should be encouraged.
    • China , Russia , and the United States , the three nuclear weapons states with forces in the region, should actively pursue global negotiations for the elimination of all nuclear arsenals, consistent with their disarmament obligations under the NPT. These negotiations should involve all nuclear weapons states, including those not party to the NPT.

    As a way forward, the conference participants agreed that the six-party talks should be considered a starting point for long-term discussions to address further regional security-enhancing measures, including:

    • the withdrawal of missiles to such locations as would reduce perceived threats to countries in the region;
    • limitations and reductions of missiles in the region;
    • the creation of a North East Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone; and
    • the withdrawal of foreign military forces based in the region.

    The conference participants recognized that regional security also depends on the global security environment. They were particularly concerned about the weaponization of space, and wide-ranging United States plans for space dominance and the use of space for war fighting. The conference participants recommended the beginning and early conclusion of negotiations for a treaty banning these developments.

    The participants agreed that the outcome of the 2005 NPT Review Conference will be critical for the future of non-proliferation and disarmament. The cry of the hibakusha – no more Hiroshimas, no more Nagasakis – must be taken up by the people of the world, strongly enough this time that the governments finally must listen and act to fulfill their legal obligations for the total elimination of their nuclear weapons.

    *Convened by the Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation, the Hiroshima Peace Institute, the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation (INESAP), Mayors for Peace, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF), and the Peace Depot. This was the fourth in a series of conferences in the project Moving Beyond Missile Defense, sponsored by INESAP and NAPF.

    ** Canada, China, Germany, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, and the United States.

  • Better Spies Won’t Add Up to Better Foreign Policy

    America’s intelligence system failed to see terrorist threats coming from Al Qaeda that should have been evident before 9/11, and then, after 9/11, saw terrorist threats coming from Iraq that didn’t exist. A system that doesn’t warn of real threats and does warn of unreal ones is a broken system.

    A unanimous and bipartisan report of the commission established by Congress to investigate intelligence mistakes leading up to 9/11 is expected to conclude that when its report is released today. Meanwhile, a unanimous and bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee has discredited the CIA’s prewar assessments that Iraq possessed banned chemical and biological weapons and was seeking nuclear arms. Those assessments “either overstated or were not supported by the underlying intelligence,” according to the committee. The senators blamed “a series of failures” of intelligence, such as taking circumstantial evidence as definitive proof, ignoring contrary information and relying on discredited or dubious sources. The failures occurred because of “shoddy work,” faulty management, outmoded procedures, “groupthink” and a “flawed culture.”

    What to do? The White House, Congress and the Kerry campaign are all sorting through several proposals. One would create a Cabinet-level intelligence “czar” with more control over the nation’s sprawling $40-billion system for collecting and analyzing information about security threats. A second would do just the opposite – remove the CIA director from any control over other intelligence agencies and hence install a better system of checks and balances. A third proposal would fix the length of the director’s term at five to seven years, removing that position from the whim of politics. A fourth, and contrary, proposal would make the director more politically accountable to the president and Congress. Almost all the proposals would beef up American intelligence with more resources.

    Some of these ideas have merit, but they don’t respond to the core lesson we should have learned: When American foreign policy is based primarily on what our spy agencies say, we run huge risks of getting it disastrously wrong.

    The lesson isn’t new. American intelligence failed to foresee the split between China and the Soviet Union in 1960 and 1961 and thereafter never fully comprehended it – right up through Vietnam. Had U.S. policy been based on more direct diplomacy and less on covert operations we might have avoided that shameful and costly war.

    The CIA was also notoriously wrong when it told John F. Kennedy that its plan to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs “could not fail,” and it misread Soviet intentions before the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy managed to avoid a nuclear war only by instigating direct communication with Nikita Khrushchev.

    American intelligence wildly exaggerated Soviet defense capabilities in the 1980s, leading the U.S. to spend billions of dollars for no reason. President Reagan’s military buildup didn’t bring the Soviets to their knees; the Soviet Union collapsed of its own weight.

    By all means, let’s have better intelligence. But let’s not fool ourselves into thinking that better intelligence is a substitute for better policy. This is especially true when the threat comes in the form of terrorism.

    Terrorism is a tactic. It is not itself our enemy. There is no finite number of terrorists in the world. At any given time, their number depends on how many people are driven by anger and hate to join their ranks. Hence, “smoking out,” imprisoning or killing terrorists, based on information supplied by our intelligence agencies, cannot be the prime means of preventing future terrorist attacks against us. It is more important to deal with the anger and hate. This means, among other things, restarting the Middle East peace process rather than, as President Bush has done, run away from it. It requires shoring up the economies of the Middle East, now suffering from dwindling direct investment from abroad because of the violence and uncertainty in the region. And it means strengthening the legitimacy of moderate Muslim leaders, instead of encouraging extremism – as the current administration’s policies have undoubtedly done.

    Equally fatuous is the notion that “preemptive war,” based on what our intelligence agencies say a potential foreign adversary is likely to do to us, will offer us protection. Terrorists aren’t dependent on a few rogue nations. They recruit and train in unstable parts of the world and can move their bases and camps easily, wherever governments are weak.

    The United States cannot control or police the world. Instead, we will have to depend on strong treaties and determined alliances to prevent illegal distribution of thousands of nuclear weapons already in existence in Russia, Pakistan, India and other nuclear powers, and of biological or chemical weapons capable of mass destruction. The administration’s “go-it-alone” diplomacy takes us in precisely the wrong direction. That the United States suffers from a failure of intelligence is indisputable. The calamitous state of our spy agencies is only one part of that failure.

    Robert B. Reich, a professor at Brandeis University , is the author most recently of “Reason” (2004, Alfred A. Knopf). He was secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration. This is adapted from his article in the August issue of the American Prospect, of which he is a cofounder and national editor.

    Originally published in the Los Angeles Times.