Just days before the 75th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Bulletin hosted a global webinar featuring Scott Sagan, Bulletin SASB member and Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science at Stanford University; Allen Weiner, director of the Stanford Program in International and Comparative Law; led by Sara Kutchesfahani, director of N Square DC Hub.

Watch at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Seventy-five years ago this month, the United States used the most powerful weapons developed until that time to attack the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Because the atomic bombings caused such extraordinary damage amid an already-disrupted wartime Japan, the number of people who died as a direct result of the attack can’t be pinpointed. Initial US military estimates placed the immediate death toll at 70,000 in Hiroshima and 40,000 in Nagasaki. Later independent estimates suggest that 140,000 people died in Hiroshima and 70,000 were killed in Nagasaki.

Read the rest at The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

Watch the conversation at Bridging the Gap

Watch the video on KPIX

On May 15, the U.S. Ambassador in Warsaw, Georgette Mosbacher, suggested relocating U.S. nuclear weapons based in Germany to Poland. One hopes this was just a mistake by a political appointee unfamiliar with NATO nuclear weapons issues, not a reflection of official U.S. government thinking. Moving nuclear weapons to Poland would prove very problematic.

The U.S. Air Force maintains 20 B61 nuclear gravity bombs at Buchel Air Base in Germany (as well as B61 bombs on the territory of four other NATO members). Kept under U.S. custody, the bombs could, with proper authorization in a conflict, be made available for delivery by German Tornado fighter-bombers. This is part of NATO’s “nuclear sharing” arrangements.

The Tornados are aging, and the German Ministry of Defense is considering purchasing F-18 aircraft to continue the German Air Force’s nuclear delivery capability. That has reopened debate within Germany about the presence of U.S. nuclear arms there, with Social Democratic Party (SPD) parliamentary leader Rolf Mützenich calling for their removal.

On May 14, U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell wrote an op-ed expressing concern about not “eroding the solidarity that undergirds NATO’s nuclear deterrent” and calling for the SPD to affirm Germany’s commitment to nuclear sharing. The next day, Ambassador Mosbacher entered the fray, with a tweet suggesting that U.S. nuclear weapons could be relocated to and housed in Poland.

If Germany wants to diminish nuclear capability and weaken NATO, perhaps Poland - which pays its fair share, understands the risks, and is on NATO's eastern flank - could house the capabilities here: https://t.co/VIzpHIgoUN

— Georgette Mosbacher (@USAmbPoland) May 15, 2020

This is a truly bad idea.

First, moving U.S. nuclear weapons to Poland would be expensive. Relocation would require constructing special infrastructure, such as WS3 underground storage vaults, and other equipment to ensure their security. The vaults normally are located within specially hardened aircraft shelters. While not a budget-buster, U.S. and NATO militaries have far more pressing needs to shore up the alliance’s deterrence and defense posture.

Second, deploying the B61 bombs in Poland would make them more vulnerable to Russian preemptive attack in a crisis or conflict. Russia has deployed Iskandr-M ballistic missiles in Kaliningrad. With a range of up to 500 kilometers, these missiles could strike targets in almost all of Poland within a matter of minutes and with very little warning.

Buchel, by contrast, would have longer warning time of an attack, and aircraft flying from there at least begin their flights out of range of Russian air defenses. The two major Polish air bases — which host Polish F-16s that are not, in any case, nuclear capable — are located within range of Russian S400 anti-aircraft missiles deployed in Kaliningrad and their radars.

Third, placing nuclear weapons in Poland would be hugely provocative to Russia. This is not an argument against provoking Russia in general — given its provocative behavior, including a military build-up, bellicose rhetoric, and use of military force against Ukraine. (Indeed, I called in 2014 for Washington to provide lethal military assistance to Ukraine and for U.S. and NATO forces to deploy to the Baltic states, steps that Moscow deemed “provocative.”)

But there is provocative and there is provocative. Putting U.S. nuclear arms so close to Russia would be the latter. Recall the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet Union placed nuclear weapons 90 miles from American shores. President John F. Kennedy imposed a naval blockade, which allowed time to work out a settlement with Moscow. In doing so, however, he set aside the recommendation of many of his advisers for air strikes and a full-scale invasion of Cuba.

Fourth, a U.S. proposal to relocate its nuclear weapons to Poland would prove very divisive within NATO. The members of the alliance stated in 1997 that “they have no intention, no plan, and no reason to deploy nuclear weapons on the territory of new [NATO] members.” They incorporated that into the “Founding Act” that established relations between NATO and Russia.

The security circumstances in Europe have changed dramatically and, unfortunately, for the worse over the past 23 years. Despite that, many NATO members still support the “three no’s” regarding nuclear weapons that the alliance adopted in 1997. A U.S. proposal to move the bombs to Poland would divide allies, cause some to question U.S. judgment, and prompt a broader nuclear debate within the alliance at a time when NATO should strive to show a firm and united stance toward Russia.

Relocating U.S. nuclear weapons to Poland would be expensive, militarily unwise because it would make the weapons more vulnerable to preemptive attack, unduly provocative, and divisive within NATO. This was a tweet best not sent. The one thing it does do, however, is give Mr. Mützenich a new talking point for removing the bombs from Germany; citing Ambassador Mosbacher, he can claim: “We can send them to Poland.”

Originally for Brookings

The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is a global public health disaster of almost biblical proportions. It is a once-in-a-century occurrence that threatens to destroy countless lives, ruin economies, and stress national and international institutions to their breaking point. And, even after the virus recedes, the geopolitical wreckage it leaves in its wake could be profound.

Many have understandably drawn comparisons to the influenza pandemic of 1918 and 1919. That pandemic, which began in the final months of World War I, may have infected 500 million people and killed 50 million people around the globe. As the grim toll of COVID-19 mounts, it remains to be seen if that comparison will prove apt in terms of the human cost.

But, if we want to understand the even darker direction in which the world may be headed, leaders and policymakers ought to pay more attention to the two decades after the influenza pandemic swept the globe. This period, often referred to as the interwar years, was characterized by rising nationalism and xenophobia, the grinding halt of globalization in favor of beggar-thy-neighbor policies, and the collapse of the world economy in the Great Depression. Revolution, civil war, and political instability rocked important nations. The world’s reigning liberal hegemon — Great Britain — struggled and other democracies buckled while rising authoritarian states sought to aggressively reshape the international order in accordance with their interests and values. Arms races, imperial competition, and territorial aggression ensued, culminating in World War II — the greatest calamity in modern times.

In the United States, the interwar years also saw the emergence of the “America First” movement. Hundreds of thousands rallied to the cause of the America First Committee, pressing U.S. leaders to seek the false security of isolationism as the world burned around them. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt pushed back, arguing that rising global interdependence meant no nation — not even one as powerful and geographically distant as the United States — could wall itself off from growing dangers overseas. His warning proved prescient. The war eventually came to America’s shores in the form of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Even before COVID-19, shadows of the interwar years were beginning to re-emerge. The virus, however, has brought these dynamics into sharper relief. And the pandemic seems likely to greatly amplify them as economic and political upheaval follows, great-power rivalry deepens, institutions meant to encourage international cooperation fail, and American leadership falters. In this respect, as Richard Haas notes, the COVID-19 pandemic and the aftershocks it will produce seem poised to “accelerate history,” returning the world to a much more dangerous time.

However, history is not destiny. While COVID-19 worsens or sets in motion events that may increasingly resemble this harrowing past, we are not fated to repeat it. Humans have agency. Our leaders have real choices. The United States remains the world’s most powerful democracy. It has a proud legacy of transformational leaps in human progress, including advances that have eradicated infectious diseases. It is still capable of taking urgent steps to ensure the health, prosperity, and security of millions of Americans while also leading the world to navigate this crisis and build something better in its aftermath. America can fight for a better future. Doing so effectively, however, requires understanding the full scope of the challenges it is likely to face.

Read the rest at War on the Rocks

NATO Foreign Ministers are meeting this week at a time when global institutions are struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic. Some institutions are even fighting for their lives, uncertain whether their missions and functions can emerge intact from this crisis. NATO does not have that problem—its focus as a military alliance is squarely on deterrence and defense against external threats, whether they flow from terrorists or state actors.  Its job is to defend its member states, and it will stay ready to do so. 

But NATO must pay attention. Some of its members may be tempted to upset democratic principles and take the law into their own hands. This process has already begun with Viktor Orbán in Hungary, who has extended the country’s state of emergency and declared that he will rule by decree for an indefinite period.  The excuse is that such measures are needed to fight the pandemic, but they extend a trend that was already underway in Hungary and Poland. 

NATO Foreign Ministers do not have the same toolbox to deal with such problems as the European Union: EU Justice Minister Didier Reynders has already launched a formal process to investigate and perhaps censure Hungary. NATO Foreign Ministers, however, can remind all of its members that the principles enshrined in its founding document, the Washington Treaty—democracy, individual liberty, and the rule of law—are a condition of their participation in the institution.  They must post the warning this week.

Beyond stating its values, NATO Foreign Ministers need to make clear this week that the organization’s strength and coherence can be a global beacon in the fight with COVID-19. They need to show what international institutions can do if they stay together, focused on the fight and using the tools they have available. Being ready to fight on the military front means that NATO must be resilient, and not only in members’ armed forces, but also in their governments and civil societies. Alliance resilience is paying dividends now, as member countries tackle the pandemic.

For instance, NATO has long worked on providing military transport under even the most difficult of circumstances: this kind of capability is needed in crisis or conflict, but it is also needed in this pandemic, right now. NATO heavy transport planes have airlifted over 200 tons of crucial medical equipment acquired from China and South Korea. These shipments have gone to the Czech Republic, Romania and Slovakia. The transports are also delivering field hospital tents to Luxembourg.

This heavy lift capability is a NATO function, but individual NATO countries are also doing what they can: the United States has provided medical equipment to Italy, and the Czech Republic has donated 20,000 protective suits to Italy and Spain. Even today, Turkey is flying military supplies to Italy and Spain. On March 30, the German Luftwaffe flew 400 patients out of France to hospitals in Germany. More such transports are underway. Polish and Albanian medical teams are serving side by side with medical teams in Italy. Militaries across the alliance are setting up temporary hospitals, disinfecting public areas, and helping with logistics and planning.

NATO’s newest member, the Republic of North Macedonia, is finding out in real time how the alliance can help.  NATO’s long-standing disaster relief function has trained both Allies and partners to deal with natural disasters such as earthquakes and forest fires. Allies are able to call on the NATO crisis response system to help them cope with such disasters. With its flag just raised this week at NATO Headquarters, North Macedonia is already using the system to coordinate its government and provide the public with information and advice on COVID-19.

These efforts are a quiet testament to NATO’s most basic principle: all for one and one for all. It is the principle inscribed in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, that if the time comes to fight, all NATO members will stand together to defend each other. The message today is that the principle stands also in peacetime, when tragedy strikes. It is a powerful statement that NATO as an institution strives to be fit for purpose and ready for what is thrown at it, whether in crisis, conflict or peacetime. 

We need strong institutions right now, committed to the rule of law, coherence and cooperation.  NATO has shown what an international institution can do if its members stay together, focus on the fight and use the tools they have available. This Thursday, NATO Foreign Ministers should send that message out to the world: NATO is a global beacon in the fight against COVID-19.

In the midst of the COVID-19 crisis, good news often goes missing.  It’s worth highlighting that today, March 27, NATO has a new member, the Republic of North Macedonia.   Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg tweeted the news from NATO HQ in Brussels, and Skopje, the capital, was ecstatic: "The Republic of North Macedonia is officially the new, 30th NATO member," the government said in a statement. "We have fulfilled the dream of generations."

The Republic of North Macedonia’s journey was a long one, dragged out by a dispute with Greece over the name of the country, and who had the greater claim to certain historical figures, particularly Alexander the Great.  For a long time, Athens feared that Skopje would go after its territory, the region of Greece that also goes by the name Macedonia.  Because Greece is a member of both NATO and the European Union, it could hold up Skopje’s membership in both institutions.  Luckily, the logjam was broken by an important compromise in 2018, when the country agreed after difficult negotiations with Athens to go by the name “Republic of North Macedonia.”

One can easily see the importance of NATO membership to the Republic of North Macedonia, but what is its importance to NATO?  The first point to emphasize is that no country gets invited to join NATO unless it has gone through a long and difficult process to bring its armed forces up to NATO standards: countries cannot enter NATO unless they are capable of being security providers, serving in NATO operations when they are called on to do so. 

The second point is that the Republic of North Macedonia is in a difficult neighborhood, the Western Balkans, long a source of bloody disputes among neighbors and never-ending instability.  To become a member, Skopje had to resolve those disputes, and not only with Greece, but also with NATO members Bulgaria and Albania.  As a result, new stability has come to a region stretching from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, across the southeast of Europe.  New stability means a better shot at economic development, as the last member to enter NATO, Montenegro, found out.  Its economy grew strongly in the years after its accession in 2017.  Economic health, in turn, further bolsters stability—a beneficial cycle.

So what the Republic of North Macedonia can do for NATO is help provide for stability in a region of the globe that has long suffered a dearth of it.  This result would be good at any time, but while we must grapple with the implications of COVID-19, having this small country with NATO in the fight will be a benefit to all. 

NATO is a military alliance, but it also provides its members with assistance, training and expertise on matters such as disaster relief and border security.  The high standards that NATO maintains ensures that its members can contribute responsibly both in their regions, but also, if asked, on the international front.  Whether NATO as an institution will be asked to contribute to address COVID-19 is not clear at this time.  Perhaps the NATO Foreign Ministers meeting virtually next week will have something to say on that score.  But we can say that NATO is capable of contributing—including its newest member, the Republic of North Macedonia. 

Rose Gottemoeller is the Payne Distinguished Lecturer at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Center for Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, and was formerly the Deputy Secretary General of NATO

On March 24, the United Nations let it be known that the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference is “likely to be postponed” because of the coronavirus pandemic. The NPT RevCon, as it’s known, was due to take place April 27 to May 22 at the UN Headquarters in New York. The gathering is an opportunity once every five years to reconfirm the basic bargain at its heart: The five nuclear weapon states under the Treaty, the U.S., UK, France, China and Russia, agree to reduce nuclear weapons and move toward their ultimate elimination, and the non-nuclear weapon states agree not to acquire nuclear weapons.  That is practically everyone else, because only India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea stand outside the NPT.  2020 is an especially important year for the Treaty, its fiftieth anniversary of sustaining this important bargain.

A postponement is inevitable.  It would not be feasible to meet in person in New York at this time, with thousands of national delegates joined by large contingents from the non-governmental community, supporting arms control and nonproliferation efforts.  Delay may even have a silver lining in that it could allow some groups, such as the nuclear weapon states, to continue working together to launch some new initiatives to bolster nuclear disarmament. 

It may also be dangerous, however.  North Korea has already been testing short-range missiles off its coastline, at the same time claiming that it is impervious to coronavirus.  As the world’s attention is riveted by the pandemic, Pyongyang may feel the temptation to make rapid progress on some aspect of its nuclear weapon program, restarting fissile material production or even conducting a nuclear test. 

The NPT community normally keeps all eyes on North Korea, and never is that behavior more in evident than during the RevCon, because of the peculiar conundrum that the country poses to the NPT system.  North Korea sought to withdraw from the NPT in 1994, notifying under the procedures of the Treaty its intention to do so.  However, the NPT community never accepted that withdrawal notification, and diplomatic efforts ever since have been focused on getting the DPRK to give up its nuclear weapons program and rejoin the NPT family.  Because of this limbo status, there is a placeholder for North Korea at every RevCon table, and an enormous amount of discussion of withdrawal policy under the Treaty. 

Iran comes to mind as another possible mischief-maker, although Iran is so immersed in fighting the coronavirus that its resources for new work on its nuclear program are likely to be limited.  In this case, perhaps the postponement could have a positive effect, for unlike North Korea, Iran has never attempted to withdraw from the Treaty.  It is clearly still a part of the NPT family.  Countries who are helping Iran to cope with disease could also use this time as an opportunity to encourage its renewed cooperation with the NPT and its nuclear nonproliferation objectives.  

Thus, although postponement of the NPT Review Conference is inevitable, the nuclear policy community needs to keep a sharp eye out during the pause, to ensure that nuclear mischief does not ensue, whether from North Korea or from other countries.  At the same time, we should look for opportunities for extra progress, whether among the nuclear weapons states, or with states who have posed proliferation concerns inside the NPT family.