WASHINGTON: Nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists is a bigger and more immediate threat and not nuclear weapon states, says the Obama administration.

US lawmakers disagree. They insist that states like Russia, North Korea, Pakistan and Iran, which have nuclear weapons, pose a greater threat to world peace.

The administration and the lawmakers engaged in this argument at a recent congressional debate, which precedes a nuclear security summit being held in Washington next week.

The conference has a tall agenda: “Minimise the use of highly-enriched uranium, secure vulnerable materials, counter nuclear smuggling and deter, detect, and disrupt attempts at nuclear terrorism.”

But recent statements from senior US officials indicate that they intend to focus on a perceived threat, terrorists acquiring nukes.

“We cannot afford to wait for an act of nuclear terrorism before working together to collectively improve our nuclear security culture,” says Laura S. H. Holgate, a special assistant to the US president on weapons of mass destruction.

Senior State Department officials also stressed the point at a Senate hearing this week and in the process also defended the arrangements Pakistan has made to protect its nuclear weapons.

Assistant Secretary for International Security and Non-proliferation Thomas M. Countryman told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that since the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit where Pakistan detailed its nuclear security arrangements; the country has further enhanced the security of its nukes.

At the core of these efforts is the Pakistan Centre of Excellence for Nuclear Security, which conducts courses across the spectrum of nuclear security disciplines, including physical protection and personnel reliability.

Mr Countryman noted that last week Pakistan hosted a meeting of the IAEA-coordinated International Network for Nuclear Security Training and Support Centres at its Centre of Excellence, where countries shared “best practices”, related to nuclear security.

Ambassador Bonnie Jenkins, the US Department of State Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programmes and the State Department, led the US delegation that attended this event.

US Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller noted that “Pakistan’s Centre of Excellence has really done an excellent job to establish a programme that is not only serving Pakistan’s interests, but is also serving on a regional basis to provide training with the help of the IAEA.”

Ms Gottemoeller, however, noted that India was still “at an early stage” of establishing its own Centre of Excellence for nuclear security.” She also underlined “quite a bit of advancement” in India’s efforts to reduce a nuclear race in South Asia.

But she acknowledged that battlefield nuclear weapons remained a security concern and the US administration had conveyed its position to Pakistan that it did not see these weapons as secure. “We have made our concerns known, and will continue to press them about what we consider to be the destabilising aspects of their battlefield nuclear weapons programme,” she said.

But Committee Chairman Bob Corker said that the administration’s failure to acknowledge the threats posed by nuclear weapon states had disappointed him.

Mr Corker and other Republican senators were more interested in the specific nuclear behaviours of Russia, which they said had violated the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, and Iran and North Korea, which had tested ballistic missiles.

“Our efforts to combat nuclear proliferation are in bad shape and our partners no longer respect treaties,” Mr Corker said.

The senator insisted that there’s “more potential for nuclear conflict now than there was in 2009”.

Mr Corker said that the “potential for a military miscalculation with regard to nuclear proliferation is higher by far — by far — by orders of magnitude than it was in 2009.”

Published in Dawn, March 22nd, 2016