Covington’s Senior Advisor Carl Bildt, former prime minister and foreign minister of Sweden, analyses the key trends expected to drive geopolitics and business over the near term.
Globally, strategic competition between the United States and China, and to some extent with a revisionist Russia, continues to be a source
Continue Reading Geopolitics & Business: Quarterly Update with Carl Bildt, Senior Advisor
Five years ago today, Xiyue Wang was unjustly detained in Iran while conducting research there for his Ph.D. dissertation. We and others at Covington were honored to participate in the global advocacy campaign that culminated in Mr. Wang’s release in December 2019. Here, for the first time publicly, we discuss
Continue Reading Helping Secure Freedom for Former Iran Hostage Xiyue Wang
STATEMENT OF STEPHEN G. RADEMAKER
Senior Of Counsel, Covington & Burling LLP
“50 Years of the Non-Proliferation Treaty: Strengthening the
NPT in the Face of Iranian and North Korean Nonproliferation Challenges”
Subcommittee on the Middle East, North Africa, and International Terrorism
Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, and Nonproliferation
Committee on Foreign Affairs
U.S. House of Representatives
March 3, 2020
Chairman Deutch, Chairman Bera, Ranking Member Wilson, Ranking Member Yoho, and Members of the Subcommittees, I appreciate the invitation to appear before you today to discuss the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the two greatest threats facing it today: Iran and North Korea.
I will begin by making some observations about the treaty itself, and then move on to a discussion of the challenges presented by the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs.
You will hear very contradictory views expressed about the NPT. On the one hand, there are those who celebrate its strength, pointing out that, with 191 states parties, it is the one of the most universally-adhered to treaties in history, and that it has limited the spread of nuclear weapons to just nine countries, which is a much smaller number than anyone would have predicted when the treaty entered into force 50 years ago tomorrow.
On the other hand, there are critics who will point out that nine countries is four more than the five countries that are permitted to possess nuclear weapons under the treaty, that permitting even five nuclear weapon states was five too many, and that the treaty is bound to collapse because of its inherent unfairness to the non-nuclear weapon states. For many of these critics, the kind of problem we face today with Iran and North Korea was inevitable, and could only have been avoided if the five nuclear weapon states had moved much faster over the past 50 years to abolish nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.
Personally I see the NPT as much more a story of success than of failure. It’s remarkable to consider how far the treaty has come from its somewhat inauspicious beginnings, and the many challenges it has overcome in the intervening years.
For starters, there’s the astonishing fact that despite all the complaints about how unfair the treaty is in advantaging five nuclear weapon states over everyone else, initially two of the five nuclear weapon states refused to join the treaty. Neither France nor China acceded to the NPT until 1992, 22 years after the treaty entered into force.
As for the rest of the world, the list of treaty successes is considerably longer than the list of treaty failures. We often forget how many countries were actively exploring the development of nuclear weapons before the treaty came along. Back then it wasn’t countries like Iran and North Korea we were worried about, but rather much more technologically-advanced countries like Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, and Australia–countries that could produce nuclear weapons much more readily than Iran and North Korea if they decided to do so.
South Africa possessed nuclear weapons under the Apartheid government, but gave them up and joined the NPT in 1991. Ukraine found itself in possession of the world’s third-largest nuclear weapons arsenal upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but gave that up and joined the treaty in 1994. Argentina and Brazil long appeared to be locked into a nuclear arms race, but in the 1990s they decided that they would prefer a relationship like the one between France and Germany to the one between Pakistan and India, and both countries abandoned their nuclear programs in favor of the treaty.Continue Reading 50 years of the Non-Proliferation Treaty
On January 15, 2020, President Trump and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He signed the much-anticipated “Phase One” trade agreement between the U.S. and China. Set to take effect no later than February 14, 2020, the “Economic and Trade Agreement Between the United States of America and the People’s Republic of
Continue Reading U.S.-China “Phase One” Trade Deal
One week ago, American special operations forces killed the leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in northwestern Syria. The next morning, President Trump described the operation in vivid detail and the story was later amplified with accounts from the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Advisor. While
Continue Reading The Death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: One Week Later
On October 14, 2019, President Trump issued an Executive Order Blocking Property and Suspending Entry of Certain Persons Contributing to the Situation in Syria. This Order provides authority for the imposition of sanctions (including secondary sanctions) on certain entities and individuals in response to Turkey’s military operations in Syria, which the Order states endanger innocent civilians, destabilize the region, and undermine the campaign to defeat the Islamic State.
The Executive Order provides authority to impose sanctions on parts of the Government of Turkey, current and former officials of the Government of Turkey, sectors of Turkey’s economy, and persons who are otherwise determined to be involved in actions or policies that threaten the peace, security, stability, or territorial integrity of Syria. The Executive Order provides additional authority to impose sanctions on foreign persons engaged in a range of activities that disrupt or prevent a ceasefire in northern Syria, the voluntary return to Syria of displaced persons, or efforts to promote a political solution to the conflict in Syria, or involve the commission of serious human rights abuses in relation to Syria. It further authorizes various secondary sanctions (a) for certain dealings in support of persons whose property is blocked pursuant to the Executive Order, and (b) against foreign financial institutions that knowingly conduct or facilitate any significant financial transaction on behalf of such a blocked party.
Relying on the Executive Order, the Administration blocked all property and interests in property of the Government of Turkey’s Ministry of National Defense and Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources, as well as the property and interests in property of the Minister of National Defense, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, and Minister of the Interior.Continue Reading United States and European Union Impose Additional Sanctions in Response to Actions by Turkish Government
The Syrian Civil War entered a new phase this week, with the US ending its support for the Syrian Democratic Forces (“SDF”) – a political movement of mixed ethnicities and religions organized around the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party and its paramilitaries – in advance of a large-scale Turkish military
Continue Reading It’s Worse Than You Think
In 2016 the United States Special Operations Command (“USSOCOM”) witnessed a technological development of grave significance for the future of global conflict. According to the then-Commanding General of USSOCOM, Americans had to contend with armed enemy aircraft during the Battle of Mosul.
The United Kingdom at the height of its
Continue Reading Old Conflicts, New Technologies
The Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran has, on account of its dismal human rights record and decades of aggression towards its neighbors, earned the derision it often receives from American and allied and partner countries’ officials. This public condemnation, however, entered a somewhat new phase on August 30
Continue Reading The Inevitability Challenge
It sounds like the start to a bad joke, but what do the Kremlin, the Chinese Communist Party, the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Taliban, al-Qa‘ida, the Haqqani Network, the Islamic State, the Pakistani intelligence services, exhausted members of NATO, nearly every Democratic candidate for president in
Continue Reading An Alignment for Afghan Peace