The optimism about nuclear disarmament expressed by experts including a former Nobel Peace Prize winner surprised students Wednesday during a program for the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Center for International Trade and Security.
Nuclear weapons offer a way to gain “power and prestige” in world diplomacy, said Mohamed ElBaradei, the winner of the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. According to ElBaradei, that is why Russia is reluctant to give up nuclear weapons, and why Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons.
Igor Khripunov, former advisor to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and now associate dean of the Center, expressed the most doubt that Russia would ever give up their nuclear weapons.
“The legacy is so overloaded that it is difficult to be optimistic that the negotiations will move fast,” Khripunov said. “It may take a miracle for us [Russia] to reach our goal of drastic nuclear reductions.”
But he reminded the audience that miracles have happened, citing the 1985 meeting between Gorbachev and President Ronald Reagan.
In response, Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, said, “I think that you are way too pessimistic about this.” He, along with ElBaradei, was hopeful that nuclear weapons can one day be abolished.
“This might be the moment where we actually get to resolve this issue,” said Cirincione. He went so far to say that he was more optimistic now than he had been at any time in his career.
In response to this talk, Maggie Mills, a senior from Champagne, Ill., said, “I thought it was fairly insightful and extremely positive given all the issues and problems that are in the world, having four experts say that it [nuclear disarmament] may not happen soon, but we’ll find a way.”
The fourth member of the panel, Eugene Habiger, the former commander of Strategic Command said he was not so sure that nuclear weapons could be gotten rid of so easily.
“I personally feel we will never get there as you can’t put the genie back in the bottle,” he said. However, later on he added, “It is better to have incremental steps than no progress at all.”
Mills agreed with him.
“I think that there is a hope or chance of getting nuclear weapons to 100 or 200 per country, something much more manageable than the 27,000 in the world now,” she said.
ElBaradei mentioned the concept of a “multi-national fuel cycle” as a possible solution to the problem of nuclear weapons.
A multi-national fuel cycle would require countries to give up their own production of fuel for nuclear reactors and rely on international sources. These international fuel cycles would not produce the enriched uranium or plutonium that is required to make nuclear weapons; instead, nuclear power could be produced by a slower reaction that does not result in an explosion.
Nuclear disarmament does not preclude the use of nuclear power.Panelists said they hoped for a “nuclear renaissance” when nuclear weapons arevilified, but nuclear power could be utilized.
Even after this solution was presented, some students were not as hopeful.
“I feel like in their line of work they have to exude that optimism, but I feel that the timeline they presented is ignoring too many security threats and economic problems,” said Tawny Waltz, a third-year student from Macon.
Bilal Yousufzai, brought up the diplomatic relationships between the United States and other countries.
“I don’t think we going to interact well with other states that we might have upset previously,” the senior from Augusta said.
Yet, Cirincione said that the Obama administration is approaching countries Iran, in the correct manner. The Bush administration had refused to talk to Iran without preconditions. President Obama’s staff has changed their view.
“The past policy, the effort to coerce Iran into compliance, completely failed,” he said. “They [the Obama administration] are extending the hand of friendship, and they are not in a rush.”
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