Forget Confederate History Month, April is now ‘Nuclear Nonproliferation Month.’  Wrapping up his administration’s Nuclear Security Summit on Tuesday, President Barack Obama efforts seem to have paid off with all 47 attending delegations reaching an agreement to tighten controls on nuclear materials.

Several nations agreed to dispose of weapons-grade uranium, end plutonium production, tighten port security and other voluntary steps. All participants endorsed Obama’s call to secure vulnerable nuclear materials in four years, and agreed to seek further cooperation even as they stopped short of any enforceable international agreement.

News of the international agreement comes on the heels of a flurry of nuclear nonproliferation activity from the Obama administration.  The most notable accomplishment came last week with the April 8 signing of the START treaty between the U.S. and Russia.  Despite Sarah Palin’s childish assessment of the arms reduction commitment, proper experts have declared the cuts to be ‘modest and real.’  

Internationally, these commitments will be viewed as significant, if not historic.  The domestic reaction is another matter.  It remains uncertain whether an international success will register with American voters whose focus, at present, is acutely attuned to internal issues.

The Republicans, for their part, have been predictably dismissive.  Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), quoted in The Washington Post, said, “The summit’s purported accomplishment is a nonbinding communiqué that largely restates current policy and makes no meaningful progress in dealing with nuclear terrorism threats or the ticking clock represented by Iran’s nuclear weapons program.”

Kyl is technically correct.  The agreement is voluntary.  Its success or failure will be determined by the ensuing actions of the signatories.  As Obama told the press following the summit’s conclusion, “We are relying on good will.”  Kyl, though, is missing the point, vastly underestimating the Summit’s significance.

Raising (much needed) Awareness is Progress

The significance of Obama’s Nuclear Security Summit can’t be measured by the communiqué, alone.  In the grand scheme of things, simply drawing attention to the inherent threat represented by loose nuclear material makes the president’s efforts worthwhile.

It’s hugely important for the international community to treat the threat with the proper urgency.  The main reason for this is explained in a April 13 post from Peter Grier at The Christian Science Monitor (emphasis added):

…how much loose nuke material is out there? A lot. The nations of the world together have about 1.6 million kilograms of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and about 500,000 kilograms of plutonium, according to data compiled by Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Security.

Simple division shows the magnitude of the threat this stuff portends. It takes only about 25 kilograms of HEU or eight kilograms of plutonium to make a crude nuclear bomb.

Fissile material is held at hundreds of locations, with varying levels of security…

Worldwide, many of these locations need better security. Would it be difficult for terrorists to break in and get their hands on fissile material? Not difficult enough.

Indeed, recent incidents indicate that securing this material is a problem that can’t be overstated.

“In 2007, for instance,” Grier writes, “a group of eight people broke into South Africa’s Pelindaba nuclear reactor and research center. “  The Pelindaba facility was previously considered a prime example of how the security of nuclear material should be conducted.

Abandoning Belligerence of the Bush Years

Time will tell whether or not the nonbinding agreement lives up to its intentions.  Immediately obvious, however, is the administration’s rejection of the diplomatic belligerence characteristic of the Bush/Cheney years.

The Bush administration’s exercise of nuclear diplomacy amounted to figuratively poking other nations with a stick, actually seeking to expand potential justifications for the use of nuclear weapons.  Further, Bush had no problem turning that stick on his own constituents,  beating fear into the American populace during the run up to the invasion of Iraq.

Perhaps, Obama’s critics are nostalgic for Bush’s counterproductive approach.  Personally, I find Obama’s efforts refreshing, and since he’s having to deal with a number of nuclear messes left by his predecessor — Iran’s nuke pursuits and North Korea’s half-assed, yet dangerous, nuclear program, to name a couple — a more pragmatic approach is certainly justified.

Steve Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, put it much more eloquently in his April 13 Politico post:

Obama has now showed two essential strengths. First, he can deliver what he promised in September 2009, when he chaired a special Security Council session. Second, his team understands the difference between approaches that have strategic depth and can move global players into new positions versus those that are vapidly bilateral and uncompelling to either party.

By inspiring international cooperation toward lowering the potential for non-state actors to acquire nuclear material, then, Obama is potentially setting the table for increased cooperation in persuading Iran relent its nuclear ambitions.  The president is further isolating Iran without the rattling of sabers.  Quite the opposite, in fact, and though the prospects for eliminating nuke related threats are far from certain, they’re remarkably better than they were before Obama took office.