President Barack Obama chairs a meeting of the United Nations Security Council at the United Nations headquarters, Thursday, Sept. 24, 2009. At rear is U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.
AP Photo

President Obama's Nuclear Resolution: Statements from Matthew Bunn & William H. Tobey of Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center

News, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

September 24, 2009

Related: Matthew Bunn, Associate Professor of Public Policy; Co-Principal Investigator, Project on Managing the Atom; Co-Principal Investigator, Energy Research, Development, Demonstration, and Deployment (ERD3) Policy Project, William H. Tobey, Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs

Belfer Center Programs or Projects: International Security; Managing the Atom; Science, Technology, and Public Policy

The following are statements from experts at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs on President Obama’s nuclear resolution.

Matthew Bunn
Co-Principal Investigator, Managing the Atom Project, Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center
Associate Professor of Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School

"President Obama took a terrific step by brining the heads of state of the Security Council together to focus exclusively on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and keeping them out of terrorist hands.  By getting unanimous support for a resolution that pushes a broad range of measures to improve controls over these deadly weapons, President Obama has boosted the chances for success at next year's global conference to review and strengthen the Nonproliferation Treaty, and at the summit on security for nuclear stockpiles that President Obama will lead next March.  The resolution puts the Security Council squarely behind an agenda that includes tougher responses to violations of nonproliferation treaties, stronger inspections, a ban on nuclear testing, an end to all production of nuclear materials for nuclear weapons worldwide, and steps toward the ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons.  The resolution also calls on states to take concrete steps to prevent nuclear terrorism, including, significantly, endorsing President Obama's goal of securing all nuclear stockpiles worldwide within four years. The resolution does not require any countries to take particular actions, so the proof of the pudding will be in the eating -- whether the resolution and the political boost from these Security Council leaders will in fact lead to changes on the ground, from improved nuclear security to strengthened export controls, and whether it will contribute to new agreements in the months to come."

Matthew Bunn is an associate professor at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.  Before joining the Kennedy School in January 1997, he served for three years as an adviser to the Office of Science and Technology Policy, where he played a major role in U.S. policies related to the control and disposition of weapons-usable nuclear materials in the United States and the former Soviet Union, and directed a secret study for President Clinton on security for nuclear materials in Russia.

William H. Tobey
Senior Fellow, Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

"The Resolution builds upon and extends important work that has been done over the past ten years to stem proliferation by detecting, securing, and disposing of dangerous nuclear material and creating opportunities for international cooperation, such as the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism.  It remains to be seen, however, whether Russia in the case of Iran, and China in the case of North Korea, are truly willing to undertake the hard steps necessary to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons."

William H. Tobey is a senior fellow at the Belfer Center. He was most recently Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration. There, he managed the U.S. government’s largest program to prevent nuclear proliferation and terrorism by detecting, securing, and disposing of dangerous nuclear material.

For more information about this publication please contact the Belfer Center Communications Office at 617-495-9858.

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