Last evening I had the pleasure of attending a lecture by Frank von Hippel. a distinguished Princeton professor and former assistant director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology. The topic of the lecture was nuclear non-proliferation, specifically the current efforts to reduce the amount of fissile materials around the world. Professor von Hippel said that much is being done to remove dangerous fissile materials and reduce nuclear weapons stocks, but, as always, there is still much to be done.
I think there’s a lot of good in removing these fissile materials, especially in states like Russia where they are not always securely monitored, but I’m skeptical as to whether or not this should be the central focus of nonproliferation policies today. Think about the most pertinent nuclear threats today: Iran, North Korea, and India/Pakistan. The latter does not directly concern the immediate interests of U.S. national security (this is not to say that it’s not important, of course), but the first two definitely do. These are the real threats that first need to be addressed by President Obama.
