The gravest danger in the world today is the threat of a nuclear attack. Whether launched by a state or a terrorist group, a nuclear explosion in a major city could kill hundreds of thousands, close borders, erode civil liberties, slash trade and travel, and change the world as we know it. No country would escape the consequences. Preventing the spread and use of nuclear weapons should be the top security priority of the 21st century. But this is not something that can be done by any one nation; it has to be done by many nations, working together.
Senator Biden's post now in the Delegates' Lounge will be the last installment of our Post on Peace series, dedicated to a discussion on conflict and its causes broadly defined. Over the last few months, we have hosted commentary by two other legislators, Congressman Donald Payne and Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey; academics Stephen Schlesinger, John Prendergast, and Susan Rice; UN officials like the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, the former Head of the UNFPA, and two representatives from the UN peacekeeping mission in Liberia (link and link); a former U.S. Perm Rep to the UN; and, of course, Mark Goldberg's comprehensive Keeping the Peace series.
It's time to take the banner down, but you can always find the posts in our archives. We hope you've enjoyed the series and will continue to visit UN Dispatch for commentary on conflict and all other matters related to multilateralism and diplomacy.
by Senator Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
Ten years ago, I stood on the floor of the U.S. Senate to introduce a bill, which eventually became known as the "Helms-Biden law", to authorize the payment of nearly $1 billion in back dues to the United Nations. Securing its passage was a hard-fought, but worthwhile, initiative.
Unfortunately, we are again in arrears to the UN. For over a year, we have not been paying our full contribution for its peacekeeping operations -- missions in places like Lebanon, Sudan, Haiti, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kosovo -- that advance our national interests while sharing the human, political and financial costs of peacekeeping with other nations.
I sat in on a panel discussion today at the Carnegie Non-Proliferation Conference centered on Europe's efforts toward building non-proliferation regimes. During his presentation, Martin Briens from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs mentioned one of those rarely reported efforts--the EU, as a standard practice, has included non-proliferation clauses in their trade agreements since 2003, basically requiring a non-proliferation commitment from trading partners. Annalisa Giannella, the EU chief diplomat's non-proliferation representative, outlined this initiative in an interview with Arms Control Today. Apparently the Europeans have 90 such agreements--which can basically be viewed as hair-trigger sanctions and make clear the EUs commitment to non-proliferation.
As part of the Carnegie Conference on Non-Proliferation, Russian Alexia Arbatov from the Carnegie Moscow Center, Neil Crompton from the British Embassy in Washington, and Bruno Tertrais from the Fondation pour la Recherche Strategique sat down with Barbara Slavin from USA Today and Glenn Gessler from the Washington Post to discuss the efforts to persuade Iran to give up its pursuit of nuclear enrichment. Their main differences centered on whether UN sanctions had been effective and whether anything short of the threat of force or a serious hit to the Iranian oil economy will force Iran to stop its program. More in-depth coverage of their presentations after the jump.
This WSJ Op-Ed, "A World Free of Nuclear Weapons," has been labeled as visionary at least a half dozen times by a half dozen different speakers at the Carnegie Conference on Non-Proliferation. It's worth checking out if for no other reason than to see what those in the know in non-proliferation find authoritative.
The Carnegie Non-Proliferation Conference, a big deal for proliferation wonks, started this morning in Washington, D.C., with a panel entitled, A World Free of Nuclear Weapons. On the panel, former Senator Sam Nunn, now head of the Nuclear Threat Institute, gave a pessimistic view of our future. He posits that we have to be diligent, effective, and lucky in regard to curbing nuclear proliferation. He says that we were lucky during the Cold War, but, in the future, it will be a much more difficult--with the prospect of many new nuclear powers and even more nuclear enrichers and the increased need for nuclear energy that battling climate change will create.
As previously posted, the House debated the State, Foreign Ops appropriations bill yesterday. Included after the jump are some pertinent moments from the debate.
Today the House continues to consider the State, Foreign Ops Appropriations bill (streaming video), which includes funding for UN peacekeeping. House Appropriators added $195 million for peacekeeping in committee to help address U.S. arrears (which could reach $1 billion this year). That funding could possibly be under attack, and there will likely be many amendments offered that address issues of diplomacy and multilateralism.
As you may recall, the President's budget request shorted U.S. funding for UN peacekeeping in FY 2008 by $500 million and failed to address $569 million in already existing arrears, threatening to put the U.S. more than $1 billion into arrears before the end of the year. In comparison to the Department of Defense budget (over $450 billion not including the supplemental spending for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan) this may not seem like much, but it represents 20% of the UN's total peacekeeping budget for 2008 and forces the UN and troop-contributing nations to face resource shortfalls for critical operations in Darfur, Lebanon, and Haiti. Moreover it leaves key allies--notably India, Kenya, Pakistan, and Bangladesh--who send troops and ship equipment in support of new U.S.-supported UN peacekeeping operations holding unpaid invoices and threatens to further damage the U.S. image abroad.