SUMMARY: The New START treaty is the only remaining limit on U.S. and Russian offensive nuclear weapons. It is set to expire next February.
So far, the Trump administration has been unwilling to begin negotiations. Instead, the U.S. says it wants to explore a broader agreement, to include China, but critics fear that strategy, that it might risk the treaty altogether.
SUMMARY: An explosion at a Russian missile testing site last week killed at least seven people and caused widespread fears of a radiation leak. While officials offered little clarity, analysts believe the Russians were testing a nuclear-powered cruise missile – one President Vladimir Putin boasts can’t be stopped by U.S. missile defenses. William Brangham talks to Angela Stent of Georgetown University.
SUMMARY: A little over a week after the second summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un ended early and without a deal, North Korea watchers have published satellite imagery indicating that a dismantled rocket launch facility is now being reassembled. What does this development mean for U.S. strategy on denuclearization? Nick Schifrin joins Judy Woodruff to discuss.
SUMMARY: Recent reports are casting doubt on North Korea's intentions. Analysis of satellite photos of the country's facilities have led some to infer that the North is continuing to improve its capabilities. In addition, the U.S. intelligence community has reportedly concluded that they have no intention of giving up their nuclear weapons. John Yang talks with former State Department official Joel Wit
[38 North].
SUMMARY: From nuclear deal to no deal, President Trump on Tuesday made good on his vow to get out of the 2015 agreement with Iran -- his predecessor’s signature foreign policy achievement. Nick Schifrin looks back at Trump’s determination to derail the deal, and then joins William Brangham to discuss what happens in Iran now.
SUMMARY: President Trump's announcement that the U.S. is leaving the Iran nuclear deal is going to raise the risk of unnecessary war in the Middle East, says Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va). A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kaine also tells William Brangham that the decision has driven a wedge between the U.S. and European allies, and makes the U.S. weaker.
SUMMARY: President Donald Trump made good on his campaign promise Tuesday with the announcement that the U.S. would leave the Iran nuclear agreement. But America’s exit does not cancel the deal altogether, Ehud Barak, the former Israeli Defense Minister and Prime Minister, told PBS NewsHour correspondent William Brangham.
Barak said he thought the 2015 agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, was “ a bad deal when it was made” — something Trump also said as he signed a memorandum terminating U.S. participation in the Iran agreement.
“But once it was signed it became a matter of fact,” Barak said, adding that he wasn’t sure Trump’s decision was the best way to make changes to the agreement, and that he believed the deal's six other signatories would stay in the pact.
Here are some other highlights from the interview, tied to the release of Barak's 2018 memoir, “My Country, My Life: Fighting for Israel, Searching for Peace.”
William Brangham (NewsHour): The other thing that really comes through in your book is that Israel continues and must find some resolution to how it deals with the Palestinians.
As you well know, the government in Israel has very much right now a fortress Israel position. Do you have any sense of hope that the resolution with the Palestinians will come?
Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister: Yes, of course. I have not just hope. I’m quite confident it will happen.
The government of Israel, it’s a freely elected government. It’s my government as well. But I did dispute with them about what is good for the country, especially in the last three years, with Bibi more and more deeply diving into this mind-set of extreme pessimism, passivity, anxiety and self-victimizing mood, which is a quite good recipe for practical domestic politics, but very poor one for statesmanship.
I think that we are heading — beyond these daily events, we are heading into a direction which is clearly wrong. The intention of this government, led and directed by extreme right, is to torpedo any possibility of separation or disengagement between us and the Palestinians.
This leads us basically into one state named Israel covering or reigning over the whole area from the Mediterranean to the River Jordan. But that means, because we are 13 million people there, 6.5 million Jews and 6.5 million Arabs.
William Brangham : Yes, the demographics are not in your favor.
Ehud Barak: It means — yes, it means that it will end inevitably either non-Jewish or non-democratic. Neither is
(INAUDIBLE).
And based on our successes, we — you know, founding of the state of Israel is the most successful national project of the 20th century. We have a huge amount of achievements.
But, based on these achievements, we are the strongest country, and we can take our fate in our hands. I am not caring about the Palestinians. I am caring about our own identity, future, and security.
And our interests demand that we will disengage from the Palestinians, delineate a line within which we will have all our security interests, most of the settlers, and a solid Jewish majority for generations to come.
I always follow — I used to quote Robert Frost saying good fences make good neighbors. And we need it in the Middle East. Never lose the focus on the objective and on understanding. Whether it takes time, more or less time, we will ultimately reach a normal situation in the Middle East.
SUMMARY: The military analyst turned whistleblower who leaked the Pentagon Papers looks at the existential threat of America’s nuclear capacities in his new memoir, “The Doomsday Machine." Very little has changed, says author Daniel Ellsberg, when it comes to what he calls the immoral and insane policies regarding nuclear weapons. William Brangham sits down with Ellsberg to discuss the looming danger.
SUMMARY: Senators raised concerns about President Trump's power to launch a nuclear war in a hearing on Tuesday. U.S. law has long dictated that only a President should carry the responsibility, but that singular authority is now being questioned. Nick Schifrin takes a look at Congress’ worries and the history of the nuclear command structure.
Nick Schifrin (NewsHour): The President has the sole authority to launch nuclear weapons. But that doesn’t mean he can launch a weapon for no reason, whenever he wants, said Duke Professor Peter Feaver, who studied nuclear command for 30 years.
Peter Feaver, Duke Professor: Where the military wakes up the President and warns him that there is about to be an attack, or that we’re experiencing an attack, he alone would have the authority to make the decision.
But in the other context, where the President is waking up the military, maybe in an extreme funk, saying, I’m angry and I want something done, in that setting, he requires the cooperation of a lot of people.
Nick Schifrin: That cooperation wouldn’t be forthcoming if his order were illegal, said retired General Robert Kehler, the former head of U.S. Strategic Command.
Gen. Robert Kehler: The United States military doesn’t blindly follow orders. A presidential order to employ U.S. nuclear weapons must be legal. The basic legal principles of military necessity, distinction, and proportionality apply to nuclear weapons, just as they do to every other weapon.
Nick Schifrin: Maryland Democrat Ben Cardin-
Sen. Ben Cardin: Do you believe that under — because of legalities, you retain that decision to disobey the commander in chief?
Gen. Robert Kehler: Yes. If there is an illegal order presented to the military, the military is obligated to refuse to follow it.
(1) violates or fails to obey any lawful general order or regulation;
(2) having knowledge of any other lawful order issued by a member of the armed forces, which it is his duty to obey, fails to obey the order; or
(3) is derelict in the performance of his duties;
shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.
(Aug. 10, 1956, ch. 1041, 70A Stat. 68.)
SUMMARY: As President Trump departs for a lengthy trip to Asia, how does North Korea view its weapons programs and the Trump administration's approach? Judy Woodruff gets insight from Thae Yong-ho, a former North Korean diplomat and defector, about Kim Jong Un's mindset, President Trump's rhetoric, the dangers of military escalation and what American diplomacy should look like.
SUMMARY: On an unannounced visit to the heavily fortified demilitarized zone between North and South Korea, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis reaffirmed the U.S. alliance with the South in the face of increasing provocations from the North, while declaring a commitment to diplomacy and denuclearization of the peninsula. John Yang reports on the administration's efforts to increase pressure on North Korea.
SUMMARY: When Min Jin Lee sees the latest headlines about nuclear weapons in North Korea, she thinks of her father, who fled the republic when he was 16, and lost touch with his family. And Lee thinks of not just the remains of her family still there, but the millions of people in that nation who are like hostages in their own land. Lee offers her humble opinion on having compassion for the people of North Korea.
SUMMARY: There are many checks and balances built into the elaborate system to control America's nuclear weapons -- except when it comes to the sole decision-making of the President of the United States. Judy Woodruff speaks with Peter Feaver of Duke University about the procedures for controlling the U.S. arsenal and who else is in the chain of command.
SUMMARY: New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus join Judy Woodruff to discuss the week's news, including President Trump's tough words for North Korea over its nuclear threat, as well as his thanking Russian President Vladimir Putin for expelling hundreds of U.S. diplomats, plus his attacking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): And to the analysis of Brooks and Marcus. That's New York Times columnist David Brooks and Washington Post deputy editorial page editor Ruth Marcus. Mark Shields is away.
And we welcome both of you.
So, you just heard two very different views from our earlier expert guests on North Korea.
You heard the President again commenting, David, and now Senator Risch. How do you assess the President's management of this North Korea situation?
DAVID BROOKS, The New York Times: Unusual, I guess.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID BROOKS: It will come after the war in Venezuela, apparently, we just learned. I don't know what that was all about.
Listen, there's been a consensus of how to deal with this extremely knotty problem. And that is, at least on the rhetorical level, the North Korean regime is extremely fiery, extremely insecure, sometimes hysterical.
And when you're around somebody who's screaming and unstable, the last thing you want to do is add to the instability with your own unstable, hysterical rhetoric.
And so most administrations, Republican and Democrats, when the North Koreans say they're going to Seoul into a lake of fire, whatever their rhetoric is, have just ignored it and relied on some underlying sense that the North Koreans don't want to commit national suicide.
Donald Trump has gone the other way. Now, I think that is still — that sense that neither party wants to go into a war is still there. But the psychological probabilities that you're going to enter into some August 1914 miscalculation certainly go up when both people are screaming at the top of their lungs.
JUDY WOODRUFF: But, Ruth, you Justice Department heard Senator Risch, who says he talks to the White House. And he said: I have talked to the President, and we think being very clear with North Korea is the best way to go.
RUTH MARCUS, The Washington Post: Yes.
Well, David used the term unusual. I think it's just absolutely scary. And I didn't feel calmed down listening to Senator Risch, I have to say.
But there's a couple of positive things to say about President Trump here, just to surprise people for a second. One is that this situation with North Korea is not his fault. In other words, we were going to get to this. Some President was going to end up in the terrible situation we have with the progress that North Korea has made with nuclear weapons. He [Trump] just happens to be the President.
Number two, they were doing a very good job, until this latest eruptions of kind of bullying testosterone this week, in terms of pursuing what needs to be done, which is the diplomatic sanctions. Senator Risch is right about the achievement in the Security Council.
But, all of a sudden, we saw this week these statements, and you would have thought Tuesday that maybe it was an eruption and they'd tamp it down. And, instead, day after day after day, he's coming out saying more scary and dangerous things.
And I do not understand how that is anything but destabilizing, and with a very already unstable ally [enemy?].
DAVID BROOKS: Yes.
Well, it could be that he thinks the North Koreans are undeterrable, and that this is not a usual regime, maybe because they have this new leader, and that you actually do have to take action. He could be — he believes that.
It could be he just likes to blunder. It’s always dangerous to overinterpret what Donald Trump says at any one moment. And it could be he thinks the 'madman theory' is right theory here. And the madman…
JUDY WOODRUFF: Remind everybody what the madman — because it sounds scary.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID BROOKS: The 'madman theory' is that you can be a successful deterrer if you — if they think you could be crazy.
And so I think it can be very effective, so long as you’re not actually crazy. And so we have a North Korean, we’re not really sure. We have a President who has his moments.
And so the 'madman theory,' when both people could actually be crazy, is actually a very dangerous situation.
[ 😲 ]
 |
| Fat-Man vs Little-Boy |
SUMMARY: As a war of words escalated between the North Korea and the U.S., Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged calm, saying Americans should have no concerns about the rhetoric of the last few days. The volley of tough talk follows reports that Pyongyang can now make nuclear weapons small enough to fit inside a long-range missile. John Yang reports.
SUMMARY: Judy Woodruff talks to former Pentagon official Abraham Denmark and Mike Chinoy of the University of Southern California about the latest threats and counter-threats between Pyongyang and Washington and what options the U.S. has to defuse the situation.
SUMMARY: President Trump doubled down on his threats against North Korea on Thursday, and disparaged a quarter century of U.S. policy for the country. Meanwhile, North Korea announced its plans to launch four intermediate-range missiles at the U.S. territory of Guam and state TV declared the U.S. President reckless. Special correspondent Nick Schifrin reports.
SUMMARY: The August recess hasn't stopped members of Congress from weighing in on President Trump's latest warnings to North Korea. Judy Woodruff speaks with Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md) about the president's fiery comments and whether the administration has a well-thought-out strategy, plus how the U.S. should approach diplomacy while turning up the pressure on the nation.
SUMMARY: President Trump said the U.S. and its military is ready to deal with any provocation by the Pyongyang regime. How do the president's words impact the Trump administration's options? Judy Woodruff speaks with retired Adm. Dennis Blair, a former U.S. Pacific Forces commander, and former CIA analyst Sue Mi Terry to get some insight into the reclusive regime and how the U.S. should proceed.
SUMMARY: President Trump denounced North Korea yet again Friday, affirming the U.S. and its military are ready to deal with any further provocation from Pyongyang. Despite the tensions, it was revealed that U.S. and North Korean diplomats have had back channel discussions recently. Nick Schifrin looks at the internal response and gets the North Korean perspective from Rafael Wober of Associated Press.
SUMMARY: North Korea's Tuesday missile launch crossed the intercontinental threshold the U.S. had been hoping to prevent. At the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday, the U.S. tried to rally the world to punish and isolate the regime. Meanwhile, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un insisted he will never negotiate away his missile and nuclear programs. Nick Schifrin reports on the American response so far.
SUMMARY: When it comes to facing the threat of North Korea, there are no easy answers and few good options. Could new economic sanctions change the trajectory of the country’s? Judy Woodruff gets views from John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago, and David S. Cohen a former CIA and Treasury Department official.
SUMMARY: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with President Trump Friday amid growing concerns in Asia over trade, North Korea's missile and nuclear programs and China flexing its military muscle. Judy Woodruff speaks with Evan Medeiros, former Senior Director for Asian Affairs during the Obama administration, about what U.S. relations with Asia look like going forward.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): As we mentioned earlier, the prime minister of Japan was at the White House today, the beginning of several days of talks with the president.
The visit comes amid growing concerns in Asia over trade, over North Korea's missile and nuclear programs, and over China flexing its military muscle.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The bond between our two nations and the friendship between our two peoples runs very, very deep.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The two leaders presented a united front, despite differences that have emerged in the early days of the Trump presidency.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had pushed hard for the 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership, but President Trump has officially abandoned it.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: On the economy, we will seek a trading relationship that is free, fair, and reciprocal, benefiting both of our countries.
SHINZO ABE, Japanese Prime Minister (through interpreter): I am quite optimistic that good results will be seen from the dialogue. Now the free and fair common set of rules will be created for free trade in the region. That was the purpose of TPP. That importance has not changed. I, myself, believe that.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Abe also talked up Japanese industry's contributions to the U.S. economy, after Mr. Trump blasted Toyota last month for planning a new plant in Mexico.
Defense is another potential flash point. During the campaign, candidate Trump suggested Japan and South Korea could pay more for their own defense, up to and including nuclear weapons.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: North Korea has nukes. Japan has a problem with that. I mean, they have a big problem with that. Maybe they would in fact be better off if they defend themselves from North Korea.
QUESTION: With nukes?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Including with nukes, yes, including with nukes.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Today, however, the president appeared to step back.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: It is important that both Japan and the United States continue to invest very heavily in the alliance to build up our defense.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Some 50,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Japan, the largest American outpost in Asia. Last week, Secretary of Defense James Mattis made Asia his first overseas visit. In Japan, he reassured Abe that the U.S. will maintain its presence there.
The U.S. military also serves as the main counterweight to China's increasing aggressiveness in the South China Sea. Today, Abe said that must continue.
SHINZO ABE (through interpreter): We need to maintain the freedom of navigation and rule of law. Such international order there must be maintained.
SUMMARY: President-elect Trump tweeted this week that the U.S. needs to build up its nuclear arsenal. He also declared that should an arms race occur, the U.S. would triumph over any adversary. John Yang talks to Joseph Cirincione of the Ploughshares Fund and Matthew Kroenig of Georgetown University about the reaction to Mr. Trump's words and the status of American weaponry.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): We return now to President-elect Trump's comments about the need to build up the United States' nuclear arsenal — and to John Yang for that.
JOHN YANG (NewsHour): Are the president-elect's tweets and comments signaling a change in U.S. nuclear weapons policy? And should the nation beef up its nuclear arsenal?
For that, we turn to Matthew Kroenig, an associate professor at Georgetown University who's written extensively about nuclear weapons; and Joseph Cirincione, the president of the Ploughshares Fund, a non-profit organization that advocates for disarmament. He, too, has written widely on the subject.
Gentlemen, thank you both for joining us tonight.
Mr. Cirincione, let me start with you, when you hear or read the president-elect saying that the United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability and then tell Mika Brzezinski this morning, “Let it be an arms race,” what's your reaction?
JOSEPH CIRINCIONE, Ploughshares Fund: Stunned. An ill-considered, disrespectful and dangerous series of statements. This would upend decades of Republican and Democratic policy that ever since Ronald Reagan has been reducing nuclear arsenals, both in the United States and Russia and around the world, stopping other countries from getting nuclear weapons.
By using that word “expand”, he says he wants to grow the arsenal or grow the capabilities. Look, nobody is against keeping a strong nuclear deterrent. If that's all he said, we wouldn't be having this debate.
President Obama has put in train a trillion-dollar program to replace every single nuclear weapon we have over the next 25 years. Donald Trump seems to be saying he wants to go ahead with this. His advisors tried to walk it back, but he himself said this morning, let it be an arms race. That is an extremely dangerous posture, that's why people all over the globe are worried and talking about this today.
JOHN YANG: Matthew Kroenig, what's your take?
MATTHEW KROENIG, Georgetown University: Well, the statement is certainly controversial but I think Trump is basically right. U.S. nuclear policy in the U.S. can't be static, it has to respond to international politics and all America's nuclear armed rivals, Russia, China, North Korea, are expanding and modernizing their arsenals. So, it doesn't make sense for the United States to continue reducing its arsenal as our adversaries are going in the other directions. And moreover, many of these countries, especially Russia, are relying more not less on nuclear weapons in their strategy.
So, again, the United States needs to take that into account as it formulates its own nuclear posture. And so, I think some strengthening of U.S. nuclear strategy and U.S. nuclear posture has been long overdue.
JOHN YANG: Matthew Kroenig, when you say the United States shouldn't be reducing its arsenal, but isn't that what's called for under an existing treaty with Russia?
MATTHEW KROENIG: Well, the existing treaty with Russia, the new START treaty was signed in 2011. According to the treaty, both countries can have 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear weapons. Right now, the United States is actually well under 200 or so warheads under. The Russians are 250 warheads above.
So, there is a gap of about 400 warheads that's worrying in and of itself, and it raises questions about Russia — whether Russia actually intends to follow through on this agreement or not. So, this is one of the measures that a new President can take to strengthen America's nuclear arsenal to increase the size of the arsenal, at least to the limits allowed for under new START.
SUMMARY: North Korea launched its most powerful nuclear test yet, the country’s fifth since 2006 and its second this year. Chief foreign affairs correspondent Margaret Warner reports on the diplomatic fallout and Judy Woodruff talks to former State Department official Greg Thielmann and former National Security Council official Gary Samore about the country’s nuclear capabilities and the global implications.
MINOT, N.D. — During the Cold War, the United States developed a vast nuclear arsenal with weapons on aircraft, submarines and land-based missiles. These three ways of delivering nuclear weapons became known as the triad, with the Soviet Union as the primary target. The strategy was to deter an attack on the United States by having enough nuclear weapons that could survive a strike and retaliate.
Over the next three decades, the Pentagon plans to spend $1 trillion billion to rebuild the triad. Military commanders and civilian experts say nuclear weapons are used every day to deter a nuclear attack against the U.S. and that the current stockpile needs to be replaced because they are old. An example: The B-52H bombers began flying in the late 1950s early 1960s and are older than the crews that fly them.
But critics say the Defense Department is duplicating what it had during the cold war. Two leading critics, former defense secretary William Perry and former top nuclear commander Gen. James Cartwright (Ret.), say one leg of the triad — land-based nuclear tipped missiles — should be phased out.
SUMMARY: More than 33,000 men and women who worked at nuclear facilities have died from related illnesses, and more than 100,000 Americans were diagnosed with cancer and other diseases after helping build the country's nuclear stockpile. That toll had never fully been revealed until a year-long investigation by McClatchy News. Jeffrey Brown speaks to McClatchy's Lindsay Wise.
JEFFREY BROWN (NewsHour): McClatchy's team found the federal government had never fully revealed the true toll of what happened to men and women working at nuclear facilities.
Back in 2001, the government set up a compensation fund for some of those workers. The investigation found that more than 33,000 of them have died from related illnesses. That’s more than four times the number of Americans killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
And there were more than 100,000 Americans diagnosed with cancer and other diseases after helping to build the country’s nuclear stockpile over the decades.
Lindsay Wise is one of the leading reporters on the McClatchy team. She joins me now.
And welcome to you.
I want to fill in the picture first. What kind of work and workers were most impacted, most exposed?
LINDSAY WISE, McClatchy Washington Bureau: Well, these were workers at plants, more than 300 plants all over the country.
They did everything from pipe fitting and production work, blue-collar work, to nuclear physicists and scientists. And we even found in our database some CEOs who ran the contracting companies that managed the plant.
JEFFREY BROWN: You refer to this as a hidden legacy. It’s a little known casualty of the Cold War, but how much was known?
LINDSAY WISE: Well, this is what I found so interesting working on this project, which was that I feel like when we talk about the Cold War and the history of the Cold War, we often talk about it as though it was a war without any casualties, without any American casualties.
And what we were able to do at McClatchy is we obtained a database from the Department of Labor for the compensation program, and we were able to crunch the numbers and analyze the data, and find the number of people who had applied and then been compensated for illnesses and died.
And so that told us that there were people who gave their lives as part of the Cold War.
SUMMARY: The Navy's formidable fleet of nuclear-armed submarines is approaching the end of its lifespan, and there’s growing debate over how many are needed and how to pay for them. Jamie McIntyre, national security correspondent for Al Jazeera America on special assignment for the NewsHour, got a rare behind-the-scenes look at one of the most powerful weapons ever built.
JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour): During the 1980s and ’90s, the U.S. Navy built a fleet of nuclear-armed submarines. Their mission? Deter an attack against the United States, and, if that failed, fight a nuclear war.
Those submarines are now approaching the end of their life spans. The Navy plans to build replacements, but there’s growing debate over how many are needed and how to pay for them.
Veteran Pentagon reporter Jamie McIntyre, who is now national security correspondent for Al-Jazeera America, has been on special assignment for the “NewsHour.” His report was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
MAN: Man battle stations, missile. Spin up all missiles.
MAN: Sound the general alarm.
JAMIE MCINTYRE (NewsHour): If America’s strategy of nuclear deterrence ever fails, the beginning of the end might look something like this.
The U.S. Navy’s ballistic missile submarines are all part of the Ohio class, named for the first submarine of the design, the USS Ohio. They have only one mission: to lurk silently, deep beneath the ocean, ready to rain nuclear devastation on virtually any target anywhere any time on orders of the president.
Submerged just off the coast of Hawaii, the 180-man crew of the USS Pennsylvania demonstrated for the PBS NewsHour an abridged version of what it practices every week the sub is at sea. The submarine’s video screens display only unclassified data.
MAN: We have a verified and correct launch order directing the launch of missiles 7, 3, and 5.
JAMIE MCINTYRE: And the Navy reviewed our footage to ensure nothing was compromised. What we saw was a mock doomsday scenario.
GWEN IFILL (NewsHour): ..... dismantling the world’s nuclear arsenal.
Japan agreed today it would relinquish enough weapons-grade plutonium and highly enriched uranium to make dozens of nuclear weapons. The announcement came as leaders from around the globe gathered in The Hague for a nuclear security summit.
Matthew Bunn, an expert on nuclear proliferation issues at the John F. Kennedy school of government at Harvard University, joins us to explain the day’s developments.
So what led up to this handover, and if, in fact, they were so insecure, this fissile material, then what took so long?
MATTHEW BUNN, Harvard University: Well, this is something the United States has been talking about with Japan for some years.
And I wouldn’t say that it was very insecure in Japan. There have been some important security improvements there in recent years. After the 9/11 attacks, they added armed guards at this site. There have been some more significant security improvements quite recently.
But this is really a tremendous step forward. This is some of the best material for terrorists if they could get their hands on it, that exists in states without nuclear weapons. And now we’re going to be getting rid of it entirely. It’s material that’s really the same stuff you would get if you broke into a U.S. nuclear weapons facility, but not with the same kind of security that exists at those facilities here in the United States.
