[tsl/leadership] Fireside Workshop: Nuclear Proliferation and the Future of the Bomb
For our first Fireside Workshop of December, we focused in on the issue of nuclear proliferation and what it means vis-a-vis international politics and multilateral treaties like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
We started off first by playing a game that illustrated the flaws in an international system that is not transparent in regards to nuclear weapons, and then went on to break into teams, each of which received a different real life nuclear scenario which laid out the time lines and issues related to situations actually occurring right now in the world. Each team was then given time to come up with policy recommendations about how they believed their nuclear scenario should be dealt with.
I have to say, I'm regularly impressed by TSL residents, and this particular case was no exception. The teams came up with some really impressive proposals for approaches to challenging situations involving nuclear weapons programs in Iran, India and Israel. Check them out below. While obviously these situations are all enormously complex, I felt that the overall thread of transparency and compromise that went through a number of the recommendations are solid values to have underpinning ones outlook on international affairs. Awesome work!
Israel:
As representatives for the panel of presidential policy advisers, we believe it is ethically important to continue to support Israel and keep them as an ally to our government. While continuing to support Israel, we also recognize the importance of having Israel sign the NPT agreement so other governments will have a better understanding of Israel's nuclear program rather than being in the dark about their plans. It is important to support Israel in a comprehensive peace plan to attempt to create peace between Israel and some of this neighbors, including: Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
Iran:
Push For economical sanctions against Iran.
We chose this because an attack could have dire consequences, and diplomatic negotiation could scare Iran. If we chose to attack, and they had a secret nuke facility somewhere, they could choose to attack us back, and we do not want to start a nuclear war because.... uh... that would be bad....... If we chose the diplomatic route, Iran could get scared thinking that it could possible be a diversion, or that we had a back-up attack plan, so they attack us.
India:
We need to push the country of India to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) because they need to be held to the rule set by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency. They will have to submit to inspections by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency so that their weapons status will be available to the world and stop Pakistan from thinking that they have to develop more nuclear weapons and finally firing them at India. Having India sign the NPT will also keep them from helping non-nuclear states attain nuclear status. The only con that I can think of would be that the Indian people may resent having to submit to the inspections and having their weapons status open to the world.
