Reading the wise words of Dr. Hans Blix (“A World Without WMDs? Modern Challenges to Nuclear Non-Proliferation,” Fall 2007), I was reminded of the famous advertising slogan, “When E. F. Hutton talks, people listen,” which encouraged people to pay attention to the advice from the E. F. Hutton brokerage firm. While this firm is now defunct, Dr. Blix thankfully is still serving the role of gadfly. I generally agree with Dr. Blix’s points in the interview. However, I would like to address two important issues that were not discussed, but will affect Dr. Blix’s goal of eventually achieving a world free of nuclear weapons. These issues are the connection of US conventional military dominance to certain countries’ interest in nuclear weapons and the connection of an increased and more widespread use of nuclear energy to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

Concerning the first issue, even if the United States were to eliminate its nuclear arsenal tomorrow, it would still retain its conventional military superiority over the rest of the world. The United States surpasses the combined conventional forces of the leading military powers, including China, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s 2006 Yearbook on Armaments, the United States spends 48 percent of the world’s total expenditures on conventional militaries. But military spending tells a limited and one-sided part of the story. More importantly, in terms of power projection, only the US military can relatively rapidly cover every point on the globe.

With respect to nuclear non-proliferation, US conventional military superiority cuts two ways. First, it reassures allies such as Japan, South Korea, and NATO countries that the United States can back their security even if it were to slash its nuclear arsenal to low levels. Thus, allies have felt less pressure to acquire their own nuclear weapons or large conventional militaries. The double edge, however, undercuts security by offering a rationale for countries such as Iran and North Korea to acquire nuclear arms because they have felt threatened by the United States. Therefore, nuclear weapons are great equalizers to compensate for a country’s conventional military weakness. This leads us to conclude that we should listen to Dr. Blix when he said, “If we want to prevent a country from developing nuclear weapons, we must ask why they are wanted. We must then seek to remove these reasons.”

The second issue involves the continuing risk of nuclear proliferation in a world where nuclear energy is allowed to flourish. To be sure, nuclear energy provides significant benefits, such as promoting energy security by reducing dependence on oil and natural gas from unstable regions and countering climate change by emitting almost zero greenhouse gases. But the same technologies that produce nuclear fuel for peaceful reactors can also make nuclear explosive material for bombs. In particular, the growth of Iran’s claimed peaceful nuclear program has recently stimulated numerous Arab countries to express interest in acquiring nuclear power programs. Ensuring that these programs will remain peaceful poses a serious challenge to the nuclear safeguards system, which Dr. Blix had headed when he was the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). As of now, the safeguards system is substantially under-funded, perhaps by a factor of 10. Moreover, member states of the IAEA should allow the agency to exert greater authority in investigating proliferation problems. Dr. Blix, who is a strong supporter of the greater use of nuclear energy, should continue to speak out more about the need for stronger controls on national nuclear energy programs. And when he does, governments should listen.