How Much Tighter Must the NPT Be?

How Much Tighter Must the NPT Be?

Monday, July 23

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Overview:

When it comes to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), it is fashionable to argue that it needs "strengthening." The question, after the nuclear crises in Iran and North Korea and the opening of civilian nuclear trade with India, which never signed the NPT, is how much? Is the treaty in its current form sufficient to stem the proliferation threats of the next 10 to 30 years? If not, what reforms, if any, must it and its implementation undergo?
 
Panelists included Victor Gilinsky, who authored "Serious Rules for Nuclear Power without Proliferation" with Henry Sokolski; Jamie Fly of the Foreign Policy Initiative, who worked on nuclear proliferation issues as a member of the Bush 43 National Security Council; and George Perkovich, who directs the Nuclear Policy Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Speaker Biographies

Henry Sokolski is the executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization founded in 1994 to promote a better understanding of strategic weapons proliferation issues among policy-makers, scholars, and the media. He currently serves as an adjunct professor at the Institute of World Politics. Mr. Sokolski previously served as deputy for Nonproliferation Policy in the Department of Defense, for which he received a medal for outstanding public service from Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. He also worked in the Office of the Secretary of Defense's Office of Net Assessment, as a consultant to the National Intelligence Council, and as a member of the Central Intelligence Agency's Senior Advisory Group. In the U.S. Senate, Mr. Sokolski served as a special assistant on nuclear energy matters to Senator Gordon Humphrey (R-NH), and as a legislative military aide to Dan Quayle (R-IN). He was appointed by Congress in 2008 to serve a two-year term as a member of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism and in 1999 to serve on the Deutch WMD Proliferation Commission.  Mr. Sokolski has authored and edited a number of works on proliferation, including Best of Intentions: America's Campaign Against Strategic Weapons Proliferation; Nuclear Heuristics: Selected Writings of Albert and Roberta Wohlstetter; Falling Behind: International Scrutiny of the Peaceful Atom; and Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice. Mr. Sokolski attended the University of Southern California and Pomona College and received his graduate education at the University of Chicago.

Victor Gilinsky is an independent consultant, primarily on matters related to nuclear energy, and a former two-term commissioner of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 1975 to 1984. Before that, he was head of the Rand Corporation Physical Sciences Department from 1972 to 1975, prior to being the assistant director for policy and program review at the Atomic Energy Commission. Dr. Gilinsky holds an Engineering Physics degree from Cornell University and a Ph.D. in Physics from the California Institute of Technology. In 1972, he was awarded the California Institute of Technology Distinguished Alumni Award.

Jamie Fly is the executive director of the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI). Prior to joining FPI, Mr. Fly served in the Bush administration at the National Security Council (2008 to 2009) and in the Office of the Secretary of Defense (2005 to 2008). He was director for Counterproliferation Strategy at the National Security Council, where his portfolio included the Iranian nuclear program, Syria, missile defense, chemical weapons, proliferation finance, and other counterproliferation issues.  In the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he was an assistant for Transnational Threats Policy. For his work in the Department of Defense, he was awarded the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service. He blogs regularly at The Weekly Standard blog and Foreign Policy’s Shadow Government blog, and his articles and reviews have been published in Commentary, National Review, POLITICO, The Weekly Standard, Forbes.com, USNews.com, and National Review Online. He is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations. He received a B.A. from American University and an M.A. from Georgetown University.

George Perkovich is vice president for studies and director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His research focuses on nuclear strategy and nonproliferation, with a focus on South Asia and Iran, and on the problem of justice in the international political economy. Dr. Perkovich is the author of the award-winning book India's Nuclear Bomb and co-author of the Adelphi Paper, "Abolishing Nuclear Weapons," published in September 2008 by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. This paper is the basis of the book, Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate. Dr. Perkovich is also co-author of a major Carnegie report, “Universal Compliance: A Strategy for Nuclear Security.” Previously, he served as a speechwriter and foreign policy adviser to Senator Joe Biden from 1989 to 1990. Dr. Perkovich is an adviser to the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations' Task Force on U.S. Nuclear Policy.  He earned his B.A. from the University of California at Santa Cruz, his M.A. from Harvard University, and his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia.