This week Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev will sign a new strategic arms reduction treaty. Since the U.S. and Russia own 95 per cent of the world's nuclear weapons, the signing of this treaty is the most significant step towards nuclear arms reduction since the original document was signed in 1991. Despite this advance, the nuclear non-proliferation treaty is under increasing pressure. Nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are firmly back at the top of the political agenda and their importance at this time cannot be overestimated.
Every country has a responsibility to contribute towards disarmament efforts, strengthening the non-proliferation regime and ensuring our nuclear security. At the same time, we also face the spread of nuclear technology as growing numbers of states harness the use of civil nuclear power for their increasing energy demands. States that can enrich uranium and reprocess spent fuel can more readily acquire the capability to create a nuclear weapon, so a truly international and non-discriminatory regulatory system is urgently needed to govern these technologies.
We would argue that since scientists helped to create nuclear weapons, the scientific community today has a profound responsibility to help reduce and ultimately disarm them. Governmental cooperation with scientists is essential if we are to ensure that the spread in nuclear expertise does not introduce new dangers and instabilities that could undermine nuclear disarmament. At this relatively early stage on the road to nuclear disarmament, the most effective way for scientists to fulfil this responsibility is to ensure that their advice is heard by policymakers.
Investing in the necessary research would pay huge diplomatic dividends and provide concrete evidence of nuclear-weapon states taking seriously their obligations to pursue disarmament. The scientific community often works beyond national boundaries on problems of common interest, making it ideally placed to facilitate the widening of discussions beyond Russia and the U.S. to prepare the groundwork for future negotiations that will include China, France and the U.K. Science diplomacy like this will play a decisive role in an area where international relations are greatly complicated by political and historical considerations.
The U.K. needs to take advantage of the wealth of British scientific expertise in this area, following the example of the U.S. At the end of last year the Jason group in the U.S., a body of independent scientists, produced a report, Life Extension Options for the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Stockpile. It looked at the ways in which the U.S. could ensure the security and reliability of its nuclear arsenal without testing or developing new warheads, at the same time as confirming their technical viability. This assessment allowed Mr. Obama to speak with clarity when setting out his vision for a world free of nuclear weapons.
The timescale for complete nuclear disarmament will be long, and focusing on the detailed challenges of the final stages may be premature. But the scientific community can make an immediate practical contribution by developing technologies to monitor whether countries are complying with their disarmament obligations. International cooperation can help build much needed trust between states.
One year ago, Mr. Obama proclaimed “America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” While this week's treaty signing may give cause for hope, there is still a long way to go on the road to multilateral nuclear disarmament. The scientific community has a critical role to play in this journey. Despite recent successes, as the Harvard professor Graham Allison recently reminded us, “the global nuclear order may be as fragile today as the global financial system was a few years ago [but if the non-proliferation regime collapses] there will be no bailout.” — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2010
(Martin Rees is president of the Royal Society; Des Browne is a British Labour MP and former secretary of state for defence.)
