Q&A with Rodney C. Ewing, co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Professor in the School of Earth, Energy and Environmental Sciences. Written with Nicole Feldman.

With the Trump-Kim Summit fresh in our minds, Americans are ready to confront nuclear challenges that have been on hold for decades. What many may not realize is that one of the biggest challenges is on the home front. Since the Manhattan Project officially began in 1942, the United States has faced ever-increasing stores of nuclear waste. In Part Three of our series on the consequences of nuclear war, expert Rodney C. Ewing tells us how the U.S.’s failure to implement a permanent solution for nuclear waste storage and disposal is costing Americans billions of dollars a year.

Where does our nuclear waste come from, and what is being done with it?

Broadly speaking, there are two types of nuclear waste.

The first is spent fuel from nuclear reactors used to generate electricity. Those reactors have left us with about 80,000 metric tonnes of used spent fuel, and we don’t have a way forward for the disposal of this waste. It’s stored at more than 75 sites in 35 states around the country, so many of us have some in our state, including California.

The second category is the waste generated by our nuclear weapons complex. That defense waste has accumulated since the earliest days of the Manhattan Project. The highly-radioactive waste from chemical processing is mainly stored in very large metal tanks. They are located at the Savannah River site in South Carolina, the Hanford site in Washington State, at Idaho National Laboratory in Idaho, and Nuclear Fuel Services site at West Valley in New York State.

I think it’s discouraging that we continue to release radioactivity to the environment because after more than 40 years we still have not developed a successful plan for going forward.

What’s wrong with what’s happening now?

This waste is problematic because the volume is large, many hundreds of thousands of cubic meters. The tanks in Hanford and Savannah River are way beyond their design lifetimes, so they’re corroding and some have leaked. The radioactive fluid is being released to the environment. The rates are not high, but I think it’s discouraging that we continue to release radioactivity to the environment because after more than 40 years of effort we still have not developed a successful plan for going forward.

The spent fuel from commercial power plants is much smaller, some 80,000 metric tonnes, but the total amount of radioactivity is roughly 20 to 30 times greater than defense waste. Today, it’s the spent fuel that demands the most attention as an immediate problem, particularly financially.

How much is nuclear waste costing American taxpayers?

The two categories of waste are separated in the budget. At the moment, the budget for the Department of Energy is about $30 billion. Of that budget, about $12 billion is for the nuclear weapons programs. That leaves us $18 billion to use for all things related to energy — nuclear power, fossil fuel, wind, and solar. About $6 billion, one third, is used to deal with the legacy high-level waste from the Manhattan Project. We as taxpayers pay $6 billion every year to address that problem, a huge cost that we will incur for many decades into the future. The projected total cost of clean-up after the Manhattan Project is well over $300 billion. That’s more than the original cost of the weapons programs and the actual total will be even higher. That’s just the defense waste.

What about the waste from nuclear energy? Is that clean-up cost also high?

In short, very. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 created a tax on electricity generated by nuclear power plants. This tax would accumulate into the Nuclear Waste Fund for us to build a geologic repository — a mined facility deep within the earth — to safely dispose of the waste. What’s happened to that?

The fund has a balance of more than $40 billion. It’s controlled by Congress on an annual basis, and congressional budget rules make it very difficult to use those funds. It’s not a lockbox where the money goes and waits to be spent. Instead, it’s been applied against our national debt, so even though the fees have been collected, they haven’t been used for their intended purpose.

We pay about half-a-billion dollars a year to the utilities for their simply keeping the fuel because there’s no place for it to go.

The Department of Energy was to take ownership of this fuel on January 1, 1998, but they didn’t because there was no geologic repository. Now the utilities who have the fuel have to continue to deal with it onsite. They have sued the federal government for its failure to take ownership of the fuel, so now we pay about half-a-billion dollars a year to the utilities for their simply keeping the fuel because there’s no place for it to go. The projected cost of this penalty, let’s say, is something on the order of many tens of billions of dollars, depending on how long the spent fuel has to remain at the reactor sites. The cost of doing nothing over time will be equivalent to what we charge the rate payers, $40 billion over time. That doesn’t even include compensation to workers in defense facilities, soldiers exposed during atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons, and so on.

Clearly, the financial cost to taxpayers is high. What about the cost to the environment?

For the spent fuel, the volume — 80,000 metric tons — sounds like a lot, but compared to Gigatonnes of carbon emitted by burning fossil fuels, its volume is not so great. It’s well-contained, but there are some difficulties with how it’s stored. In some cases, the used fuel is kept in pools. Those pools have filled, and they weren’t meant for extended storage. We should be trying to get that fuel into what are called dry casks: obelisks concrete and metal.

Are there other challenges people may not be aware of?

What people don’t realize is that it is actually a serious technical challenge.

It’s very common for people to say there are no technical problems, that it’s just political. They say, “We know how to do it. It’s just a difficult public. Strict regulations. No one will let us solve this problem.”

I think what people don’t realize is that it is actually a serious technical challenge. The half-lives of some of these elements stretch into tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years. We’re asked to design solutions that will last as long as the risk. That’s not something we usually do. The technical and scientific challenge for nuclear waste is, whatever our solution, that we will never see whether we were correct or not. Designing a system where you don’t have feedback is very difficult.

What will happen if we don’t find a solution?

There will not be an immediate catastrophe; I don’t expect anything to explode. There will be environmental contamination, but the biggest problem is financial. We’re spending $6 billion a year trying to deal with the problem, and we’ll continue to spend $4.5 to $5 billion a year without solving the problem. That $5 billion could go to education or research. Imagine if instead of working on waste, we were working on solving our future energy needs.

What’s the best way for us to move forward?

At Stanford, over a two-year period we had a series of meetings to ask just this question: how does the U.S. break out of its gridlock situation and move ahead? We brought in international experts, members of the public, really quite an extraordinary effort, over 75 speakers in five meetings. We have a number of recommendations. We need a new, single purpose nuclear waste management organization. We need a new process for engaging not only the scientific and technical communities, but also the public. We need a new regulatory framework that recognizes the challenges of predicting repository performance over hundreds of thousands of years. Most importantly, we need to realize that dealing with nuclear waste is not only a technical issue, but also requires careful attention to social issues. It is very important to design an approach that engages local communities, states, and tribes. This report, Reset of U.S. Nuclear Waste Management Strategy and Policies, will be released this summer.

While the Trump administration may still believe in CVID, Gi-Wook Shin and Joyce Lee argue that–at present–it is no longer a realistic goal.

In an article for for 38 North, Shin and Lee explain why it may be too late for CVID, explore Kim Jong-un’s possible agenda, and provide their thoughts on what the goal of negotiations should now be going forward.

Article is available online without subscription or login
 

Note: This interview by  Changsop Pyon originally appeared in Korean at SisaIN.

SisaIN: You suggested that the best way for denuclearization is to convert N. Korea's nuclear and missile programs for civilian use rather than total denuclearization. Is it because 'total denuclearization' or 'complete denuclearization' as agreed between Trump and Kim Jung Un is impossible to achieve under any circumstances?

Hecker: Total or complete denuclearization will be difficult to achieve because North Korea will likely insist on retaining a peaceful nuclear program (such as nuclear medicine and nuclear electricity) and peaceful space program to launch satellites. Elimination of the military programs may be possible, but it will require a phased approach that will take years. In addition, verification of the elimination of the military programs will be almost impossible unless North Korea is prepared to cooperate.

SisaIN: You suggested a 10-year road map on denuclerization marked by “halt, roll back and eliminate’ North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs.  Assuming this process would be going on, what would be the incentives or compensations for the US to give to North Korea? Completion of peace treaty and normalization, in addition to economic assistance and sanctions relief during the 10-year time frame?

Hecker: An agreement with Pyongyang should be structured to achieve denuclearization and normalization. It should be agreed in the beginning that denuclearization would occur in phases to halt, roll back and eventually eliminate the nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons program. As we indicated in our ten-year roadmap, that will take time. Our proposed approach of conversion from military to civilian nuclear programs constitutes an important step toward normalization. Additional steps toward normalization, such as some sanctions relief, potential assistance with energy supply, and an end-of-war declaration will have to be phased with Pyongyang taking significant steps to roll back its weapons program.

SisaIN: The Trump administration is putting a high priority on verification of N. Korea’s nuclear weapons and programs under the banner of ‘FFVD (final, fully verified denuclearization). You introduced the new concept of 'cooperative conversion' for the best chance of the verifiable denuclearization of N. Korea's nuclear programs. 'Cooperative' in the sense that S. Koreans and Americans are working together with their N. Korean scientists and engineers to eliminate the nuclear weapons. Is this 'cooperative conversion' possible without them building mutual trust first?

Hecker: We believe that ‘cooperative conversion’ will allow the two sides to build trust. In other words, it would be the nuclear program that would now catalyze building trust, whereas in the past it has been the greatest source of conflict. With American and South Korean technical personnel on the ground working closely with North Korean nuclear experts to advance civilian programs, they will be able to learn much more about the nature and extent of the North’s entire program and see facilities that might otherwise escape them.

SisaIN: Can any agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons without cooperation be verified?

Hecker: Without cooperation, we also see no way that the elimination of all nuclear weapons and weapons programs can be verified. The magnitude of the North’s nuclear and missile programs and the closed nature of the country will make verification of complete denuclearization virtually impossible. It will not be possible for inspectors, especially in an adversarial environment, to get unfettered access to all of North Korea’s facilities to verify that it has not secretly kept a few nuclear weapons, a few kilograms of plutonium, or one or more covert uranium centrifuge facilities. But cooperation on converting Pyongyang’s nuclear infrastructure will help.

SisaIN: As you admitted, this civilian nuclear and space programs would be highly controversial in the US because of North Korea's possible retention of nuclear capability. The United States had the bitter experience with this back in 2002, when James Kelley confronted the North with the evidence of its secret nuclear program in violation of 1994 Agreed Framework. So, how can the US make sure the North would not make the same mistake again?

Hecker: We believe the situation in October 2002 was more complex than just stating that North Korea cheated. It is true that the North was covertly pursuing uranium enrichment while freezing the plutonium complex in Yongbyon. However, Pyongyang can also accuse Washington of not keeping its Agreed Framework and October 2000 Joint U.S.-North Korea Communiqué commitments to normalize relations. Although there were some difficult times during the Clinton administration years of the Agreed Framework, these difficulties were resolved by the end of 2000. However, the Bush administration was determined to end the Agreed Framework in 2001 and 2002. Adding North Korea to the Axis of Evil, for example, was certainly not in keeping with the U.S. government’s commitment to normalize relations. Consequently, it is no surprise that Pyongyang views Washington’s promises to normalize as insincere as Washington views Pyongyang’s promises to denuclearize.

Military to civilian conversion actions will certainly have to be monitored by international inspections. Converting programs and facilities cooperatively will also give U.S. and South Koreans much better access to allow more complete verification. Moreover, we believe that it is important that the conversion activities be allowed to proceed sufficiently far that Pyongyang would have too much to lose should it back out of its agreement. In other words, the more North Korea would benefit from nuclear conversion and from other normalization actions, the greater a price it would have to pay to break out. Consequently, the more reason it will have to keep agreements.

SisaIN: Regarding N. Korea's retention of its nuclear capability, there is the issue of what to do with their thousands of nuclear scientists and engineers among other things. As long as they are physically inside North Korea, can the Kim Jung Un regime use them anytime to restart their nuclear programs?

Hecker: Civilian conversion would help to take care of this problem. The energies of the nuclear scientists and engineers would be focused on doing good things for their country – such as nuclear medicine and nuclear electricity, along with helping to dismantle the military complex and clean up the complex. During my various visits to Yongbyon, I had such discussions with their nuclear officials. They expressed a strong desire to have their technical personnel contribute to peaceful uses of atomic energy.

SisaIN: You described the 10-year road map as an 'interim' step short of completed nuclearization, designed to "reduce the nuclear threat significantly." Does it mean that the current denuclearzation talks should focus on reducing North Korea's nuclear threat significantly, not complete denuclearization?

Hecker: The road map integrates the short and long term actions to reduce the greatest military threats first and then eliminate all of the military threats in the longer term. Cooperative conversion would allow complete military denuclearization while providing assistance with civilian nuclear and space programs.

SisaIN: The Trump administration wants some sort of specific and fast denuclearization such as getting their nuclear warheads or nuclear weapons out of North Korea, etc. Is this possible? If not, what would be your idea for 'fast' denuclearization that could satisfy the US demands?

Hecker: First, taking nuclear weapons out of North Korea is too dangerous. They should be verifiably disassembled in North Korea by the same North Korean technical experts that assembled them in order to avoid an accidental nuclear detonation. Once safely disassembled, all components besides the plutonium or highly enriched uranium bomb fuel can be disposed of quite readily. Plutonium and highly enriched uranium should be either shipped out of the country or otherwise verifiably disposed.

As for fast denuclearization, what is important is to begin to roll back the nuclear weapons program. First, make sure that it does not get worse – so no more nuclear tests, no more long-range missile tests and no more production of plutonium or highly enriched uranium. With our concept of civilian conversion, the North should be encouraged to speed up the timetable we laid out in our roadmap. In other words, some of the North’s actions in the roadmap should be front-loaded. North Korea has already done some of that by closing the nuclear test site. Several other actions such as making the 5 MWe reactor permanently inoperable could follow quickly. These actions would reduce the military threat and could speed up the timetable.

SisaIN: When you observe President Trump's current denuclearization negotiation with North Korea, what do you think is the best possible realistic goal he can achieve during his term?

Hecker: Following the opening created by the initiatives of President Moon Jae-in and Chairman Kim Jong-il, President Trump has already taken the most important step to meet with Chairman Kim at the Singapore summit and move the Korean peninsula away from the brink of war. If his administration supports civilian conversion over the next two years, he could dramatically reduce the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear program and create the conditions that will help to bring an end to seven decades of enmity on the Korean Peninsula – it would be a historic achievement.

STANFORD, Calif. — When President Trump abruptly canceled the summit with North Korea last week, it overshadowed the closing of North Korea’s nuclear test site just a few hours before. Although it is not irreversible, blowing up the site’s tunnels, sealing the entrances and removing test site facilities and equipment was nevertheless a serious step toward denuclearization. What possessed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to take this step now?

Read the rest in the Washington Post's World Post 

Immediate denuclearization of North Korea is dangerous to both North Korean and American interests, say Stanford scholars in a new research report. Instead, they advocate for phased denuclearization to take place over 10 years or more, allowing the United States to reduce the greatest risks first and address the manageable risks over time.

Following the announcement that the United States had canceled a planned summit with North Korea, Stanford scholars discuss the future of diplomacy and denuclearization on the Korean peninsula.

What led to the U.S. canceling the planned summit with North Korea? Could a meeting realistically be rescheduled? Stanford scholars discuss the issues. (Image credit: Getty Images)

This post was originally published by the Stanford News Service. The following is an extended version, including comments by APARC Visiting Scholar, Daniel Sneider.

President Donald Trump was scheduled to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on June 12 to discuss efforts for denuclearization and a peace plan for the region. What led to the U.S. canceling the planned talks? Could a meeting realistically be rescheduled? Can the U.S. diplomatically negotiate denuclearization when there are clearly different approaches to what disarmament looks like?

To address these questions, Stanford News Service talked to five Stanford scholars about the issues:

• Michael Auslin is the inaugural Williams-Griffis Fellow in Contemporary Asia at the Hoover Institution. He specializes in global risk analysis, U.S. security and foreign policy strategy, and security and political relations in Asia. He recently authored The End of the Asian Century: War, Stagnation and the Risks to the World’s Most Dynamic Region.
• Siegfried Hecker is a top nuclear security scholar, former Los Alamos National Laboratory director and senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. Hecker’s research interests include plutonium science, nuclear weapons policy and international security, nuclear security (including nonproliferation and counterterrorism) and cooperative nuclear threat reduction.
• Gi-Wook Shin is a sociology professor, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), director of the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and the founding director of the Korea Program. His research has concentrated on social movements, nationalism, development and international relations. He recently authored Superficial Korea, a book about social maladies currently affecting Korean society.
• Kathleen Stephens is the William J. Perry Fellow in the Korea Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. From 2008 to 2011, she served as the U.S. ambassador to South Korea. She has four decades of experience in Korean affairs, first as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Korea in the 1970s, and in ensuing decades as a diplomat and as U.S. ambassador in Seoul.
• Daniel Sneider is a visiting scholar with Stanford’s Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. His research is focused on current U.S. foreign and national security policy in Asia and on the foreign policy of Japan and Korea. His publications include History Textbooks and the Wars in Asia: Divided Memories, and First Drafts of Korea: The U.S. Media and Perceptions of the Last Cold War Frontier.

What led to the summit’s cancellation?

Auslin: The real problem was the rushed nature of the summit. The lure of an unprecedented first-time meeting between the U.S. president and the North Korean dictator meant that there was a short window in which the two sides could resolve key issues before the leaders sat down together. And after nearly 70 years of hostility and failed negotiations, negotiations between Washington and Pyongyang would have been extraordinarily difficult in any case. At the core, however, the two sides needed to agree on the fundamental question of the definition of denuclearization, let alone its timetable and the sequence of U.S. aid, before the two principals met. As the time drew near, North Korea tried to force the U.S. into recognizing its own definition of denuclearization and timetable.

Hecker: Two weeks ago, matters looked very good, especially after Secretary [of State Mike] Pompeo’s second visit to Pyongyang. After he returned, he said the U.S. and North Korea had similar visions of the future. Then, during the past week, high-level Trump administration officials painted a very different vision for North Korea’s future by pushing for a Libya model of denuclearization. Not surprisingly, visions of Muammar Gaddafi’s mutilated body did not go over well in Pyongyang. North Korean officials wrote scathing rebuttals that appeared to lead to a race as to who would cancel the summit first. President Trump won that race.

Shin: The summit fell through because two sides failed to narrow the gap on how to get to denuclearization of North Korea. Trump was obsessed with a complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement, known also as CVID, and the principle of “denuclearization first, then economic rewards,” but Kim wanted a gradual, step-by-step approach. Trump was probably under pressure from Republican conservatives that he could not settle for a “bad” deal – which would mean anything less than CVID. At the working level, the U.S. was probably not ready for talks to happen in two weeks. Trump might have used North Korea’s recent verbal attacks as an excuse to cancel the June summit.

Sneider: The summit fell apart because the gap between the positions of the United States and North Korea became so evident that it could no longer be credibly claimed that this meeting was going to lead to the North Koreans giving up their nuclear weapons capability. 

Stephens: President Trump surprised everyone, including his own staff, some weeks ago by suddenly and seemingly impulsively agreeing to a summit with the North Korean leader. His letter to Kim Jung Un this morning withdrawing from the June 12 summit had the same feeling of hasty improvisation. He took umbrage, understandably, at the tone and substance of recent North Korean statements, though they were not exceptional by Pyongyang’s historical standards. He also seemed to realize, belatedly, the huge gap between U.S. expectations of “complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization” of North Korea and Pyongyang’s vague pledge to negotiate, as a nuclear weapons state itself, the eventual denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. 

Is a delayed summit likely?

Auslin:  Trump left open the possibility of a future meeting, but only if Kim ratchets down the rhetoric and insults. It is just as likely that Pyongyang will increase its threatening words, and possibly even undertake aggressive acts, to try and blackmail the U.S. back to the negotiating table. If the two sides can quietly continue high-level talks aimed at agreeing on a definition of denuclearization and a timetable, along with U.S. aid – admittedly, difficult objectives – then a delayed summit is possible. 

Sneider:  I don’t see much chance for a summit to be rescheduled, although I don’t entirely rule it out provided the United States is willing to accept something less than what it has previously demanded.

Shin: Trump has now handed the ball over to Kim, and whether the two can get back on the path to diplomacy will depend on how Kim reacts to Trump’s statement. If he reacts with merely provocative words and no actions, chances are that the talks can still happen in the near future. But if Kim cancels all the behind-the-scenes, working-level talks and negotiations altogether, we are expecting another long period of no communication between the two countries or even a rise of tension and conflict.

How can the U.S. diplomatically negotiate denuclearization when there are different objectives at stake?

Auslin: That has always been the great problem in negotiating with Pyongyang. It has little incentive to give up its nuclear weapons, even with security guarantees from the United States. Three U.S. presidents have failed in negotiations, and the Kim regime has steadily progressed in developing both a nuclear weapons capability and a ballistic missile capability. The Trump administration gambled that threat of a U.S. attack, combined with “maximum pressure,” would create a breakthrough that eluded previous administrations, but Pyongyang reverted to form by making increasing demands in the past week. Right now, the U.S. has failed to figure out the right mix of pressure and accommodation that gets the North to the table, absent pre-emptive U.S. concessions. However, it does not need to continually remind Kim of the fate of Muammar Gaddafi, overthrown in Libya in 2011, to try to strong-arm it into talks.

Hecker: There actually appeared to be a partial reconciliation of views during the past week with some in the Trump administration, including the president, acknowledging that denuclearization will take time and most likely will have to occur in a phased manner. I have promoted for some time what I call a “halt, roll back and eventually eliminate” approach. It will take years, but there was some hope that North Korea would front-load some of its steps in rolling back its nuclear program, as it did in destroying a nuclear test site yesterday.

Shin: Trump was mistaken if he thought he could handle and directly deal with North Korea by himself. He needs help from all involved stakeholders such as China, South Korea, etc. Diplomacy is different from doing business.

Stephens: By working closely with allies, through both pressure and engagement, and by doing the heavy diplomatic preparation and lifting that was missing this time around.

What does this mean for relations between North Korea and South Korea?

Shin: It will certainly create a big dilemma for South Korea. It has declared that a new era has begun with North Korea and promised to improve inter-Korean relations by all means. So, it will be difficult for South Korea to rejoin the U.S.’s maximum pressure campaign. At the same time, inter-Korean relations, especially in the economic sector, cannot be improved without the support from the U.S. and ease of sanctions.

Hecker: South Korean President Moon just released a statement saying it was regretful and disconcerting that the summit was canceled. He made it clear that North-South reconciliation must proceed, commenting that “[We] hope that the leaders resolve problems through direct and close dialogue.”

Stephens: South Korea is in a very difficult position. They were blindsided by Trump’s letter to Kim. They will be eager to get Pyongyang and Washington back into dialogue. Again, much will depend on Pyongyang.

Who do you think lost the most with the summit’s cancellation: Trump? Kim? Moon?

Auslin: Moon is the big loser, having declared a new era of peace and bet everything on a durable peace process. North Korea looks like its usual, disruptive, untrustworthy self, which in turn makes Moon appear naive. Now, the North may well try to pressure the South into unilateral concessions to get the “peace” process back on track; these could include aggressive acts against South Korean interests. For his part, Trump has made clear he won’t play Charlie Brown to Kim’s Lucy with the football.

Hecker: The world lost a chance for moving away from the brink of war on the Korean Peninsula. I believe it was the greatest shock to President Moon, who worked so hard to create the conditions for the summit.

Shin: It will be Moon>Trump>Kim in the order of who loses the most. Moon’s aggressive efforts in the recent months to mediate between Kim and Trump didn’t pay off after all.

Stephens: Kim has lost the least and has the most leverage at the moment.

Sneider: The South Korean government of Moon Jae-in is obviously stunned by this development, particularly after Moon’s meeting in the White House earlier this week where the President gave no such indication apparently. They will try desperately to restore diplomatic engagement between Washington and Pyongyang, and may meet again with the North soon. But this is a crisis for South Korea’s strategy.

What realistically will happen next?

Sneider:  I would predict a rise of tensions as both leaders will feel the need to look and act tough — as the President has already shown in his White House statement today.

Auslin: North Korean aggression against South Korea is not out of the question, as a way to try to force everyone back to the table. Increased rhetoric from the North against Trump and America is also very likely. Behind the scenes, however, if the administration can quietly continue talks with high-ranking North Koreans to try and reach agreement on what denuclearization means and a possible timetable, then the two sides could return to the idea of a summit, possibly by the end of the year.

Hecker: Hopefully the leaders will take the time afforded by this pause to work at the lower levels to move closer to creating the conditions for a successful summit.

Shin: We can expect some periods of crisis and conflicts again, however long it will last. There is still room for hope that the talks will be resumed, but it will now depend on how North Korea reacts.

Stephens: President Trump appears to want to leave the door open for a summit. The most optimistic scenario would be an interest in both Washington and Pyongyang to keep a channel open for talks. South Korea will want to get the parties to reengage.

Stanford scholars debate whether the Iran nuclear deal can withstand U.S. withdrawal, if a revitalized nuclear program is possible and what a new deal would look like.

Following the announcement of the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran deal, three Stanford scholars consider what it means for American foreign policy and diplomacy.

Stanford scholars debate how the Trump administration’s decision on Iran will affect foreign relations. (Image credit: ruskpp / Getty Images)

In 2015, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – known as the Iran nuclear deal, or JCPOA – was agreed between Iran and the U.S., United Kingdom, France, Germany, China and Russia. The international agreement limited Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for a reprieve from international sanctions.

What happens next remains unclear. What does withdrawal signal about American foreign policy? What would a new agreement look like – and is it even possible? To answer some of these questions, Stanford News Service talked to three scholars about the issues:

• Siegfried Hecker is a top nuclear security scholar, former Los Alamos National Laboratory director and senior fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. Hecker’s research interests include plutonium science, nuclear weapons policy and international security, nuclear security (including nonproliferation and counter terrorism) and cooperative nuclear threat reduction.
• Abbas Milani is the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studiesand affiliate at FSI’s Center on Democracy Development and the Rule of Law. He has been one of the founding co-directors of the Iran Democracy Project and a research fellow at the Hoover Institution. In 2016, he launched the Iran2040 Project that produces research on the future of the Iranian economy, population, energy, water, agriculture and the financial system.
• Allen Weiner is a senior lecturer of law, director of the Stanford Program in International and Comparative Law and co-director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. His scholarship focuses on international law and the response to the contemporary security threats of international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and situations of widespread humanitarian atrocities.

What does withdrawal from the Iran deal signal about American foreign policy?

Milani: It signifies that U.S. foreign policy is dependent on the views, even whims, of one person – the president – and the rhetoric he used during the campaign. Views of U.S. government experts or allies has I think never counted for less.

Weiner: The withdrawal from the JCPOA signals a departure from the notion that the U.S. places high value on the benefits of stability, predictability and consistency in its foreign relations. It also reflects the Trump administration’s belief that the U.S. has the ability to persuade other countries to accommodate American interests through coercive mechanisms.

How will withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal be viewed from inside Iran?

Milani: Iran is a country divided. The people, suffering from a profound – even existential – economic crisis, are worried about their future. Bickering political factions in the regime are playing the blame game: first blame the U.S., and then opposing factions.

Can the Iran nuclear deal withstand U.S. withdrawal? What options are available – both politically and legally?

Hecker: I don’t see Iran making a mad dash for nuclear weapons to respond to the U.S. withdrawal. The country has too much to lose. Tehran could decide to keep the essence of the deal with the other countries and isolate the U.S. It may find that it will get adequate sanctions relief from the other countries in spite of U.S. pressure. That may be sufficient for Iran to continue to honor its nuclear deal commitments for now.

Milani: I would be surprised if the deal does not survive. It was never a U.S. deal.  The U.S. was simply a key player. Europe, U.K., China, Russia, the UN, and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) want it to continue – Iran, too.

Weiner: In a sense, yes. Iran is free to continue to comply with the restraints on its nuclear activities negotiated in the JCPOA and to accept IAEA inspections. The other signatories to the JCPOA are free not to re-impose on Iran the sanctions that were lifted under the JCPOA. Because of the reach of U.S. sanctions, however, European companies in particular will face significant risks in doing business in Iran, which means Iran will be deprived of many of the commercial benefits it sought in negotiating the JCPOA. It is far from clear that the remaining, much more limited benefits available under the JCPOA will be appealing enough for Iran to continue to suspend those aspects of its nuclear program that are covered by the JCPOA.

What are reasons to oppose the Iran nuclear deal?

Hecker: The deal was able to get more Iranian nuclear concessions than I had ever thought possible. Apparently, the Trump administration objected primarily that the deal did not include Iran’s other activities, such as missile tests and Iran’s role in the region that it views as unacceptable. However, some of President Trump’s claims about the nuclear deal were simply incorrect.

Milani: The deal surely had flaws. It did not address such critical issues as Iran’s missile program, the regime’s role in places like Syria and Iraq, and human right abuses at home. It surely was not the worst deal in history. It was the least bad option at the time.

Weiner: The key objection voiced by many critics of the JCPOA concerns the “sunset provisions” in the deal, under which many key restrictions in the JCPOA on Iranian nuclear activities last only for 10 or 15 years (depending on the particular restriction). This potentially allows Iran to benefit from sanctions relief now and to merely postpone its pursuit of a nuclear weapon. Other objections concern the failure of the JCPOA adequately to address Iran’s missile development programs or its destabilizing regional activities more generally.

What nuclear facilities remain in place in Iran, and how easily might they be repurposed to create weapons?

Hecker: Iran has dramatically reduced its inventories of enriched uranium in compliance with the deal. It has enrichment facilities that could be restarted rather easily to enrich uranium to weapons grade, but not without withdrawing from the deal. It could also begin construction of a new plutonium-producing reactor, but that would be rather costly since it made the one under construction inoperative in compliance with the deal. The bottom line is that it would take quite some time to get back to the material inventories and facilities Iran had before the deal went into effect.

Milani: Iran’s enrichment facilities remain but much of their capacity has been mothballed. Ninety-eight percent of the country’s low enrichment uranium has been shipped out of the country. The Arak heavy water reactor has been virtually dismantled. All known facilities are under constant surveillance by the IAEA. The regime’s missile program has, however, continued.

What effect could withdrawal have on anticipated talks with North Korea?

Hecker: That’s quite uncertain. North Korea may still want a deal, but it would likely ask for greater assurances from the U.S. about potential withdrawal, just as the U.S. is pressing North Korea about its past history of compliance.

Weiner: Commentators have observed that withdrawal from the JCPOA raises questions about U.S. credibility and its willingness to keep its word. Some suggest that this will make North Korea less likely to move actively in the direction of complete, verifiable, irreversible nuclear disarmament for fear that once it has given up its nuclear program, the U.S. might simply re-impose sanctions or pursue other hostile policies towards it. On the other hand, President Trump has emphasized that he would keep any commitments he makes in negotiations with North Korea; it was only the commitments of the prior U.S. administration that he did not feel obliged to honor. Whether this would provide enough confidence to the North Koreans to trust the United States is, of course, far from clear.

What would a new deal look like?

Hecker: I don’t see a new deal involving this administration as a possibility.

Milani: I think the U.S. could have had more impact on a possible revamped deal had it stayed in the agreement. It remains to be seen whether Europeans will continue to try to coordinate with the U.S. and will try to forge a different agreement with the regime.

Weiner: A new agreement, to be acceptable to the U.S., would have to eliminate (or at least significantly extend) the sunset clauses and address Iran’s missile program. From Iran’s side, a revised deal would have to involve more than just lifting sanctions against Iran. It would also have to more emphatically embrace the prospect of American companies doing business in Iran. With respect to commercial relations, Iran argues that even though the United States formally lifted sanctions against Iran after the JCPOA took effect, the ongoing threat that U.S. sanctions would be re-imposed has effectively dissuaded many businesses in both the U.S. and Europe from pursuing long-term business arrangements in Iran.

"Moon's proposal of a trilateral summit between the two Koreas and the United States, undermining China's influence, turned out to be nothing more than a pipe dream," said researchers at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center in a recently published article. "The series of summits that began with Kim's visit to Beijing should lead to Four Party Talks — involving the two Koreas, the United States, and China."

The full article in The Diplomat is available here.