THIS week more than 100 countries are signing a treaty banning cluster bombs, which accidentally harm thousands of civilians. The UK and most of its allies will be there. The US will not.
But the US government鈥檚 decade-long hostility to international arms control is poised to change. President-Elect Barack Obama favours international arms control. He sees nuclear proliferation as the 鈥済ravest threat鈥� and wants a summit on nuclear terrorism and new arms control measures, including treaties limiting anti-satellite weapons and fissile material.
鈥淓veryone who is serious about arms control is still celebrating Obama鈥檚 win,鈥� says Joe Cirincione, head of the Ploughshares Fund, an anti-nuclear foundation in Washington DC. But, as he told 快猫短视频, Obama will have to move fast to repair the damage done to arms control during the Bush era.
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The most pressing issues are nuclear. The 1993 START treaty cutting US and Russian nuclear missiles expires in December 2009, and with it will go inspections of the 2000-odd warheads each country still has trained on the other. Both sides want to cut their stockpiles, but talks have so far been paralysed by mutual mistrust, not least Russia鈥檚 unease about plans for US missile defences in Europe. Obama wants the inspections to continue and says he won鈥檛 put a missile defence system in place until the technology is proven.
Meanwhile, the 1962 Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT), the centrepiece of nuclear arms control, is in peril. Its last review in 2005 collapsed in disarray because states with nuclear weapons refused to pledge moves towards disarmament as the treaty requires. This could make non-nuclear states more likely to break their promises under the treaty. Twelve Middle Eastern countries have started nuclear power programmes in the past two years, Cirincione fears, as a hedge against Iran鈥檚 apparent nuclear aspirations.
Obama has pledged to change this: 鈥淚 will show the world that America believes in its existing commitment under the NPT to work to ultimately eliminate all nuclear weapons,鈥� he said in September. A good start would be ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty before the next NPT conference in 2010. The number of senators who support it falls just short of 67 鈥� the magic number required for ratification 鈥� but technological advances in detecting illegal nuclear tests may sway holdouts. Obama also promised in September that he would 鈥渘ot authorise the development of new nuclear weapons.鈥� Yet observers are puzzled by his retention of current defence secretary, Robert Gates, who wants to develop a new US warhead.
Worryingly, as Obama gets to grips with the backlog of pressing nuclear issues, other kinds of arms control may have to take a back seat. This week a congressional committee is calling on him to rank 鈥渢he more probable threat of bioterrorism鈥� alongside that of nuclear terrorism. Since the arms control agencies that Bush scrapped will need to be rebuilt before Obama can do anything, less apocalyptic threats like cluster bombs may have to wait.
