Nuclear progress or a punt?

The recent negotiation of a U.S.-Russian nuclear treaty and a nuclear summit that attracted 46 world leaders to Washington had all the appearances of being immensely important, but appearance was about it.

Both events were aimed at addressing the long-running, broad and ominous “nuclear threat,” but they did not address the real modern nuclear threats on the world stage.

Take the nuclear summit, the largest gathering of world leaders in the United States since 1945, when the United Nations was formed. It would seem that something truly substantive could come from it, but what did the world get instead?

Ukraine, Chile, Mexico and Canada will be getting rid of varying amounts of enriched uranium, and plans are being made for another summit in two years.

That has to be a relief to somebody, but not to most people on the planet.

The summit ignored the obvious, truly troubling, threats of nuclear proliferation: Iran, North Korea and Pakistan.

All three present the potential for nuclear weapons someday falling into the hands of terrorists. Although Pakistan is not an enemy of the United States, it is an unstable country inhabited by elements of the Taliban and al-Qaida.

North Korea presents the constant threat of being a nuclear black merchant, an economic basketcase willing to profiteer by selling nuclear weapons to who knows what country or organization just to keep its current regime afloat.

One shudders to think what the Islamic Republic of Iran would do with nuclear weapons. If not outright using them in an attack on a neighbor, say Israel, what about the simple threat of possessing them and the terrifying influence that would have on the region and its oil supplies.

These relatively new and modern problems are not just a threat to the United States, so it’s difficult to understand why 46 of the world’s top dogs did not or could not square up to them in some meaningful way.

Similarly, the START treaty signed by President Barack Obama did nothing about real modern threats; rather, it was focused on the remnants of the Cold War. It will basically require the U.S. and Russia to reduce their nuclear arsenals.

There may be some worthy elements in the treaty, but some senators are already pointing to flaws, and two-thirds of the U.S. Senate must ratify the treaty for it to be enacted.

So again we are left with something that is far from being a “landmark” development in the real world of nuclear proliferation. There are real threats, but they are being ignored.