The Proliferation Security Initiative: A Glass Half-Full
Arms Control Today › Vol. 37 Nbr. 5, June 2007
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Summary
The administration made the PSI a key foreign policy and defense goal in 2005, and Congress approved $50 million to help states support the initiative.3 On the PSI's second anniversary, in May 2005, secretary of State Condoleezza Rice claimed that the United States and its PSI partners had undertaken 11 successful intercepts since its inception, including the prevention of two WMD-related deliveries to North Korea as well as the transfer of ballistic missile-related and nuclear program-related materials to Iran.4 A 12th successful PSI interdiction was subsequently announced, although the details of these interdictions were left vague. The chairman of the conference, Polish Ambassador Tadeusz Chomicki, reiterated the claims of the PSI's success, including providing a "platform" for impeding traffic in weapons of mass destruction and related materials, enhancing numerical and geographic support, and improving national capacities to interdict shipments of proliferation concern.6 Detailed information to support these claims or even a list of countries attending the meeting were not made available.
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Extract
The Proliferation Security Initiative: A Glass Half-Full
The focus was to be on interdiction because of the fear of rapid growth in states and groups pursuing WMD programs, worries of an expanding nexus between weapons of mass destruction and terrorism, and gaps in the existing nonproliferation architecture.1 It was thought that interdiction could fill the gaps by ensuring commitments are kept and by stopping proliferation-related exports from states whose activities fall outside existing source-based nonproliferation regimes. At the least, it was assumed that it would deter suppliers and customers and make proliferation more costly and difficult. Although interdiction was not novel to the PSI, the focus on this tool elevated consideration of its use at borders, in ports, in the air, and at sea.
The Bush administration dearly had high hopes and expectations for the PSI. On the first anniversary of its initiation, John Bolton, then undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, proclaimed that the PSI would evolve to the point where it "will have shut down the ability of persons, companies, or other entities to engage in this deadly trade."2 He claimed that the PSI was "succeed...See the full content of this document
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