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The Center for Strategic and International Studies and the Institute for Communitarian Policy Studies Workshop:
Preventing Nuclear Terrorism: Setting Priorities
Introductions by:
Robert Einhorn and Edward Luttwak of CSIS, and Amitai Etzioni of the George Washington
University.
Opening dialogue by:
Graham Allison and Ashton Carter of Harvard University, George Perkovich of the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace, and Laura Holgate of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.
The workshop will be moderated by Patrick Cronin of CSIS.
April 1, 2005
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Room B1B, CSIS
1800 K Street, NW
Washington, DC
Amitai Etzioni's presentation will be based on his new position paper Pre-empting Nuclear Terrorism in a New Global Order
Please RSVP to Emily Pryor via e-mail (epryor@gwu.edu) or by phone to 202-994-1416. Seating
is limited (50 persons) and will be on a first-come, first-serve basis.
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The workshop will be based upon the following:
One need not again show that the combination of terrorists and WMD is the gravest danger we
face. Similarly, we need not again point out that resources (not just funds but also political
capital, attention, etc.) are always insufficient for what needs doing. Hence, the crucial
questions are--What needs more resources than it currently gets and what is relatively
over-indulged?
The following points are meant to help focus discussion of this issue:
1. Currently, hardening targets gets much more resources than does preventing access to WMD
(e.g., compare the TSA budget to that of Nunn-Lugar; it's about five to one.) Should this be
reversed?
2. Nuclear arms are more dangerous than are chemical and most biological weapons (which are
currently treated as if they are all WMD). Hence, does nuclear deproliferation require more
resources than does curbing access to the other two?
3. Securing ready-made nuclear bombs should get priority over highly enriched uranium (HEU),
which should get priority over plutonium, which should get priority over spent fuel.
(Currently all are treated as if they are of equal danger. See for instance the 9/11
Commission Report.) Do you agree?
4. Failing states and rogue states are probably currently prioritized in the wrong order
in terms of the threat that they pose. (Compare treatment of Iran and North Korea to that of
Russia and Pakistan.)
5. Should the focus be on blending down and removing fissile material, as was done in Libya,
over upgrading the security and inspections of nuclear sites, as we are trying to do in Iran?
6. Importance of blending down and removing fissile material as compared to dismantling
intercontinental ballistic missiles.
7. Extending the Proliferation Security Initiative versus the Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty.
8. Ban on all new construction of HEU reactors, supported by new UN resolutions.
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