The much-hyped two-day Nuclear Security Summit ended amidst unusually heavy security, marking the culmination of an unprecedented and hectic ten days of President Obama’s nuclear disarmament diplomacy.

Starting from the release last week of his much-postponed US Nuclear Posture Review 2010 promising the ‘non-use’ of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states. Additionally, a US-Russia nuclear disarmament treaty was signed in Prague envisaging further reductions in their nuclear stockpiles. Thereafter, the two-day Nuclear Security Summit with delegations from 47 countries was aimed at reducing the role of nuclear weapons and preventing fissile materials from falling into the hands of terrorists.

To underline its significance, this was the largest Summit organized by the US after President Truman convened the San Francisco Conference of April-June 1945 aimed at finalizing the [Second World] war aims, including setting up of the United Nations and its subordinate agencies.  The Obama summit involved hectic parleys between 47 countries, including 37 heads of states and government. A dozen (including India) also had bilateral ‘mini’ summits with the Obama team.  In addition, there were other bilateral summits among the participating countries.  This upsurge in the disarmament agenda would justify the Nobel committee’s conferral of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 on President Obama.

A tangible outcome of this Summit is that Ukraine announced that it would give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium by 2012, indeed most of it within this year.  Kiev had voluntarily surrendered the Soviet nuclear weapons in its territory after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but it still possesses fissile materials that could be used to manufacture nuclear weapons. It has agreed to convert its highly enriched uranium to low enriched uranium for nuclear power generation.  In return, Washington has agreed to provide Ukraine with financial and technical assistance to achieve this conversion within the stipulated time.  Similarly, the Canadian Prime Minister – who was reluctant to attend this summit till last Friday – announced the return of a ‘significant quantity’ of Canada’s spent fuel to the US by 2018.

These pledges were made in the two plenary sessions that included presentations by select leaders on their national initiatives for either removing nuclear materials or securing their nuclear materials and to deal with the possible risks of nuclear smuggling on their territories.  The afternoon session was devoted to evolving international cooperation to prevent nuclear materials from falling into the hands of terrorists.  Much of the work had been accomplished before the Summit started.  President Obama effectively used his NPR release and Prague Nuclear Agreement as the backdrop to engaging major world leaders during the two days preceding the Summit and had posited nuclear terrorism as being the most serious threat of the 21st century.  Hence, the joint communiqué issued at the end of summit managed to include a broad endorsement of this common threat but also a specific work plan for implementing these agreed objectives within a stipulated time of four years.

Learning from his experience in multilateral diplomacy during the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference last December, his advance diplomacy secured the solid support of all major players this time before his Summit was inaugurated.  This also meant that several problem countries were excluded from being invited.  The guest list was reportedly based on ensuring regional representation, but seemed  like a list of US ‘friends and allies’; however, the absence of the Prime Ministers of Australia, Britain, and Israel did not go unnoticed.  Also glaring was the absence of countries like Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, and Uzbekistan – that have major nuclear power generation programs, and are listed by the International Panel on Highly Enriched Uranium as possessing HEU.  But most significantly, neither Iran nor North Korea was invited, though they were the center of discussions on the sidelines of the Summit.  Instead, ‘friendly’ states like Armenia and Georgia – with minor nuclear programs – were participating.

As regards India, the global groundswell for disarmament and the growing focus on nuclear terrorism suits New Delhi’s national security priorities.  Given that India will be absent from the NPT Review Conference in New York next month, this Summit provided Prime Minister Singh an opportunity to set out India’s views, vision and priorities.  Despite several problems in Indo-US relations, the two sides found themselves on the same page in regard to their broad security and development priorities.  New Delhi has time to consolidate and bring more substance to its policies.