Transcripts For CSPAN State Department Official On Nuclear S

Christopher ford is the assistant secretary of state for International Security and nonproliferation. He talked about Nuclear Security policy at the Stimson Center. Some other of the topics included Nuclear Terrorism prevention, efforts to denuclearize north korea, and chinas role in fostering Nuclear Security in the region. Well, ladies and gentlemen, a very good afternoon to all of you and welcome to the Stimson Center. My name is brian finlay. Im president and ceo here at the Stimson Center. For those attending this very event for the very second time, many apologies. It was not, as you may have assumed, our speakers agenda that caused the cancellation, but an exploding manhole. We started paying our bills yet the Stimson Center again and were back in business and very pleased to be welcoming dr. Christopher ford back to the stage. Chris, for those of you in the know, is of course the assistant secretary of state for International Student and nonproliferation. Chris previously has done a tour on President Trumps nfc. He worked previously on capitol hill at the hudson institute, naval reserve, but most important like hes just an all around great guy and after this conversation will be a lot of fun. He hails from cincinnati, right . What we thought we would do, chris is going to give a few frame remarks and then leave a little time for us to ask some clarifying questions, but with that chris, ill come back to the Stimson Center. [applause] thanks, brian. Its great to be back here. I applaud your persistence after last time, and rescheduling this after the explosion. It sounds so dark. Its not that bad. Those of you who been around washington that long i have remember there was a series of exploding manholes in georgetown back in the 90s. And for keeping at it and thanks for all of you who were willing to come back notwithstanding all the rescheduling. Its been nearly ten years since the last Nuclear Security summit since the first Nuclear Security summit was held in washington, d. C. There were three more after that, and they brought many World Leaders together to declare their support for improving security practices. We all know that. While my own view, some of the objectives declared at the outset of the process were more ambitious than the facts would justify but the summit deeply about the role and drawing attention to the challenges of Nuclear Security. Participating countries were encouraged to come up with or to cite up to gift baskets as they were called up promised Nuclear Security improvements. The meetings did elicit some important pledges to address Nuclear Security challenges. But a decade after president obama made his promise in 2009, to secure all vulnerable material around the world, a decade later all too much remain still to be done. Despite that, within 4 years rhetoric, the world has had a lot to do. Where the summits played a valuable role in jump starting the tensions to these, in other words, we must do together the work of making sound nuclear into a habit rather than a pledgement in a world in which terrorists do seek to acquire materials, Nuclear Security is too important not to be scrutinized. And a summit akin to a new years resolution, if you will, that so many people make in order to lose weight and get in shape, that kind of thing. Promises that may catalyze one to go to the gym and eat right and work out every once in a while and then fade back to the status quo. In the Nuclear Security arena, we need something much more akin to a longterm health program. We need a new normal that establishes healthy patterns that can and that will be sustained indefinitely. To be sure, the daytoday, routinized promise keeping involved in ensuring nuclear best practices and institutionalizing these practices worldwide is not easy. It also lacks the intuitive political draw of clashy summit promise making, and theres far to go before such practices are routine everywhere, but bringing that outcome about is or should be, i would argue is the core of our nuclear agenda. And one of the ways, the nfcg. Improving Nuclear Security worldwide and gather notes and encourage each other and coordinate their own Sovereign National efforts to promote effective steps forward. I will admit even among the members, progress is lower than one might have hoped in Generating Energy that the challenges require, but theres a good deal going on and were proud of it. As can sometimes happen in such well intentioned international groups, there is sometimes too much assumption that simply being there demonstrates a commitment to the cause and too little meaningful action. Members of the group are also making limited progress against the toxic political narratives of disinterest or antagonism that still exists in in some quarters, narratives that hinder security practices and can threaten the cooperative nuclear sharing, depends upon the reassurances that are provided by good security. But we have, as ive indicated, seen signs of progress. Thanks in part, i believe, to Contact Group interventions and consciousness raising from likeminded states, theyve gradually increased the regular budget for Nuclear Security. The agency also continues to increase the profile and activity levels of its Nuclear Security work as suggested in the 2013 evolution of its office of Nuclear Security to a division of Nuclear Security. The general conference has made a modest, but significant step forward in 2018 with adoption of a Nuclear Security resolution. Language emphasizing that Nuclear Security contributes to the positive perception of Peaceful Nuclear activities. Thankfully, the gc retained this language in 2019, in it, signaling that Nuclear Technology sharing is getting more sustained attention than before. The iea is now focusing more on Nuclear Security and looking at ways that compliment and reinforce the agencys ongoing work on Nuclear Safety and Technical Cooperation program as well. This new focus is making sure that tc efforts are not derailed by the risk that they might lead to unauthorized access to Sensitive Technology or materials. The Contact Group released a statement of collective commitments related to Nuclear Security. This document, which is now available on the nscg website, is not a concensus negotiated lowest common denominator text that one usually sees nor is it a summary of group deliberations. Instead, its an informal food for thought statement designed to pull useful strands of thinking together in a constructive way to help move help channel efforts to move forward on the Nuclear Security agenda more effectively. Im proud of the role the United States has played in bringing this document together together and helping to lead the group in this respect and hope this will indeed prove useful with constructive thoughts how states can play more effective roles in promoting Nuclear Security, both within the the nscg and broadly. Focus in about the paper. Many of you may have seen it, it available on the website and our commitment to a great deal of a great many things, i should say, that are important and hopefully can contribute to a National Agenda in this respect. To begin with, it reiterates our commitment to the october, 2016 statement of principles that the circular of 899 sent around that founded nfcg. Making clear that the principles are still very much at the core of where the group is coming from and makes clear that good Nuclear Security is required in order to prevent Nuclear Weapons proliferation and terrorism and in order to ensure the maintenance of a Strong Foundation for sharing the benefits of the peaceful uses of Nuclear Technology. Now, that latter statement, i would argue is particularly important because it highlights the way in which, rather than competing with each other, Nuclear Security and Nuclear Technology sharing actually go hand in hand. Specifically, Nuclear Security improvements are currently identified in the paper as a crucial enabler for benefitting the pieces of Nuclear Technology worldwide because they help form the Foundation Upon which rests the global system of Technology Sharing that has provided untold benefits to all human kind in which we intend to help preserve and which we intend to help preserve for many years to come. Thats the quote from the paper. Now, to most of you, this probably seems, as it does to me, like basic common sense. And it would be difficult to imagine the continuation or expansion of todays worldwide sharing of the benefits of nuclear know how. Without confidence that Nuclear Technology and materials would be reliable kept out of the hands of unauthorized persons such as terrorists. Nevertheless, there are still some people who dont see good Nuclear Security practices as an enabler or facilitator for Technology Sharing, instead worrying that where they exist in some kind of tension with the Global Cooperative enterprise. Thankfully, this view, of course, is wrong and im proud that the commitment paper makes it clear that there is not a tension here, but rather, a strong complementary. But the paper doesnt just voice this important insight of how security reinforces sharing, its a number of practical themes and emphasis and points it out, points of focus for us where they can be more. Instance, theor importance of each state ensuring an adequate nuclear and regulatory frame work. Pointing out also the countries can play an Important Role in assisting each other as appropriate, in developing and maintaining Capacity Building. Such of best practices through cooperative Capacity Building. It makes clear that states that strengthen, excuse me, should strengthen their own legal and Regulatory Framework by promoting addherence to and such as the convention on the physical protection of Nuclear Material and International Convention for the suppression of acts of Nuclear Terrorism. As well as universal implementation of Security Council resolution 1540, which seeks to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction for by mandating the protection of sensitive goods and know how and ensuring that relevant transfers between states are appropriately regulated. The importance the paper it emphasizes the importance of all states improving their own National Security practices, such as through protecting against insider and cyber threats. Strengthening the security of forces, ensuring the preparedness and coordinating with the Nuclear Security support centers and reconciling Nuclear Safety and security and sharing best practices with other countries. Aper places a strong ands on increasing this expands the Nuclear Security efforts as well encouraging this work in its regard and stressing that the agency must undertake this work with the vigor and promoting activities with the resources and political and Institutional Support and encouragement in order to succeed. Not least through regular lysing the regular lies regular regularizing iea of nuclear uses technology. In our view, this paper is a valuable way forward to help guide our collective approaches here and we think it will be very useful. I encourage people to read it and try to focus and spread awareness of the points that it raises. Were trying to use this as a stepping stone for our own engagement with other partners in this and hopefully like minded states in the Nuclear Security Contact Group can and will do likewise. In practical terms, the work that were doing at the state department, for example, in addition to working bilaterally with our partners, we have a great deal of engagement with the Capacity Building that was referenced in the paper itself. Our office of Nuclear Energy safety and security, for example, leads efforts to develop and implement policies and diplomatic strategies that are related to Nuclear Security such as cochairing several u. S. Interagency coordinating bodies focused on Nuclear Security. This Group Supports our engagement with the Contact Group and serves as the departments lead on interagency physical protection, assessment teams tasked with u. S. Obligated materials abroad and efforts of that sort. Our office of multilateral and Security Affairs implement in the offices, excuse me the efforts of the iaeas division of Nuclear Security that i mentioned before to help prevent Nuclear Terrorism. To minimize risks associated with vulnerable material. Our weapons of mass destruction Terrorism Office against it, rather than for it, provides a focal point for our work against terrorists, acquiring nuclear or Radioactive Material outside of regulatory control, including those lost during the breakup of the soviet union. The wmpt office manages our role as the cochair of the 89 member Global Initiative to combat Nuclear Terrorism. Which is one of the bright spots of the u. S. , russian cooperation. The cochair with the russians and we recently are going to have a new iteration of that cochairmanship that started up last year and thats quite effective cooperation, i must say. So we work with the Nuclear Forensics International Technical working group to identify and socialize best practices and Nuclear Forensics, with foreign partners such as and interpol, and u. N. Office on drugs and crimes. These are how we engage on these issues and through our office of export control and cooperation we do a great deal of Capacity Building assistance to help countries bring up best practices in ways that complement these goals very effectively, as well as in our office of cooperative reduction. Thats just a sampler of the ways that the departments engage in these kinds of questions. But let me finish up in terms of drawing out where we see the conceptual challenges as we look ahead at the future. If you were to ask me what i think the main challenges are as we try to move from the era of promise making to this era of what i think of as institutionalized promise keeping, normalizing best practices, if you will, i might point to what some might pithely say two camps. Some may fall short for adequate security. Some countries may fall short in providing for adequate Nuclear Security. For one reason or another, they cannot meet the standards. They might not be aware of the need for good Nuclear Security in some particular context or might not be aware of what best practices actually entail. Thats the first possible cant the second cant relates to possible failures of education. Ssible failures of education cant. The second cant relates to possible failures of education or capacity, such as where despite good intentions, a government may not know how to strengthen Nuclear Security in its country in order to come up to appropriately high standards