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International Response: “Secondary Proliferators” Helping to Circumvent Nonproliferation Regimes Arms control experts are concerned that a newly established distribution network, consisting of lesser-developed nations, could help countries to circumvent existing nonproliferation regimes to obtain the materials and equipment needed to develop nuclear weapons, the San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday (see GSN, June 20). The success of Iran and North Korea — two lesser-developed nations — in obtaining the equipment and materials needed to develop nuclear weapons has raised concerns that other lesser-developed countries, as well as terrorist organizations, could follow suit, according to the Chronicle. There are also concerns that Iran and North Korea, as well as other countries, could be serving as “secondary proliferators” by providing materials and equipment to other countries. “There’s been increased concern about those new suppliers,” said Jon Wolfsthal, deputy director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Nonproliferation Project. “The last year has really brought it home in spades, in large part because of Pakistan and their reported role in spreading the centrifuge technology. If they haven’t been the primary suppliers, they have been the professors,” he said. The growth of this proliferation network has raised concern among arms control experts that the current nonproliferation mechanisms — international treaties and national export control systems — may be inadequate, the Chronicle reported. “Even guys like me, who support the treaties and want to see them flourish, understand that realistically they are not enough anymore,” said Leonard Spector, a nonproliferation expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. “You have to say that there’s more going on than we can manage with the traditional tools,” Spector said. “What has changed is that by the end of the Cold War, the countries working on getting the bomb were threatening to us, in this country. That was a major, major change,” he said. Another concern is that these secondary proliferators have also begun exchanging information on how to circumvent existing controls, such as by establishing front companies to obtain WMD-related materials, according to the Chronicle. “The face of proliferation has changed a lot in recent years,” said Robert Einhorn, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “It isn’t terribly new; we saw this in the ‘90s. But what we’re seeing more of is, these countries are turning to each other for components and subcomponents and technology that they didn’t have before,” he said (James Sterngold, San Francisco Chronicle, Aug. 3).
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