We face three immediate crises in proliferation, of which Iraq is only the most immediate.

• The problem of not only disarming Iraq of its CBRN [chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear] weapons and delivery systems but containing or changing the intentions of its regime.
• The challenge posed by North Korea and its withdrawal from the NNPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] and potential processing of its reactor material into additional nuclear weapons.
• The now constant level of tension between a nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.

Each of these crises threatens both stability in its own region and creates major problems for the United Nations and the set of alliances that has grown out of the Cold War and Korean conflict. Each can literally explode in our faces at any time.

Yet, in some ways, they are only the tip of the iceberg. They are only the most tangible symbols of changes in the international system and in technology that are likely to shape the world for decades to come.

I can only begin to introduce these issues here tonight, and I apologize in advance for oversimplifying some very complex issues. At the same time, I want to congratulate you for focusing upon them. They are all major challenges to the media, just as they are to diplomats and military planners.

Let me begin with the changes proliferation is making in the international system, or put differently, the impact of the changes in the international system on proliferation.

In broad terms, there is nothing new about the risk of proliferation. It has been a key focus of U.S. policy since the Eisenhower administration, and-if anything-the U.S. has worried for decades about a much faster rate of proliferation than has actually taken place, as well as a much more violent use of CBRN weapons in war fighting. The fact that things change more slowly than worst-case projection might indicate, however, is not an indication that they do not change.

President Bush highlighted this fact when he talked about an “axis of evil” involving Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Let me say that I believe this phrase was ill-chosen, and linked together three very different cases and sets of risks in ways that did more to blur the issues than address them. At the same time, no one can seriously deny the fact that President Bush identified three very serious proliferators.

The problem is that there are others that openly proliferate and many that carry out research and contingency planning, and we are not just talking about states.

Let’s consider for a moment how much the international system has changed since the relatively clearly defined patterns of the arms race and deterrence that occurred between the U.S. and Russia.

The good news is that we have rolled back proliferation in Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa. Nations that covertly started major nuclear programs, like Canada and Sweden, never completed them. The breakup of the FSU [former Soviet Union] eventually saw non-Russian states give up their nuclear weapons. Over 10,000 NATO and Warsaw Pact theater nuclear weapons are not deployed. British and French nuclear weapons exist at the margins of international power.

The bad news is that proliferation and weapons of mass destruction are now concentrated in far less stable regional conflicts. These include:

• The Arab-Israel conflict and North Africa, where Egypt, Israel, Libya, and Syria have weapons of mass destruction, and Algeria has at least shown an interest in them.
• The Gulf, where Iran and Iraq are active proliferators, Saudi Arabia has long-range ballistic missiles, and Yemen once had token stocks of mustard gas.
• India and Pakistan, where tensions over a strategic sideshow like Kashmir could trigger a nuclear conflict, and where India cites China as a key reason for its buildup while Iran cites Pakistan as one reason for its efforts.
• The Taiwan Straits, where the game of “chicken” between China and Taiwan involves a steady increase in the Chinese deployment of ballistic missiles and the tacit threat of using weapons of mass destruction-a threat raising the specter of a rising Chinese threat to the U.S. and Japan.
• The Korean Peninsula and the threat of a new Korean War.

In each area, a seemingly small crisis can escalate out of rational bounds, just as the Cuban Missile Crisis threatened to do in the early 1960s. We also are not talking about nations like the U.S. and Russia, which can afford to take local losses and wait for the next crisis. We are talking about contiguous states. And, sometimes states with fundamentally asymmetric values and perceptions. This was probably true of the U.S. and FSU as well, but there was probably a better-shared perception of risk, and certainly far more understanding of the war-fighting consequences of using WMD.

In many cases today, countries would have to go to war with weapons they have never really tested in depth in terms of reliability, accuracy, and lethality, with limited targeting capability and no satellites or other systems to measure battle damage and weapons effects, while the target country would have no way to tell its leaders with any accuracy how much damage had been done and the potential cost of follow-on strikes. We are talking about an escalatory nightmare and leaderships that cannot possibly know what they are doing.

We also are talking about asymmetric patterns of proliferation. In many cases, one regional power has a strong advantage in conventional forces, nuclear weapons, and/or delivery systems. The other power-or powers-is forced to rely on proliferation to compensate for conventional weakness, must use chemical and biological weapons to compensate for nuclear weakness, and must use covert or asymmetric means to compensate for a lack of sophisticated delivery systems. Asymmetry breeds unpredictability and unpredictability breeds risk.

Proliferating states, however, are only part of the problem. We have to consider terrorist movements or proxies. We saw with Aum Shin Rikyo that a terrorist movement could attempt attacks with biological and chemical weapons. We have since learned that al-Qaeda has carried out intensive efforts to obtain or build CBRN weapons, and it is all too clear that other terrorist movements can now find many of the materials and technical skills they need on world markets.

It is too soon to talk about a wave of such attacks, but it is already clear that homeland defense must plan for them, and counterterrorism must guard against them. We also are talking, in some cases, about very different types of terrorists. Groups like al- Qaeda are not seeking publicity to influence world opinion; they are not using force to negotiate. They do not have limits as to whom they seek to kill or how many they seek to kill, and they do not even expect to survive and triumph in any personal sense.

Weapons of mass destruction are the natural force multiplier for such extreme groups, and there are no natural limits to their willingness to use them. Moreover, we need to be extremely careful about focusing on one group of terrorists and Islamic extremism. They are today’s most likely threat, but they may well not be tomorrow’s. There are roughly one billion people in the world today living in dire poverty, and in spite of projected economic progress, the increase in world population will mean that there will still be at least one billion well beyond 2050.

There are many fault lines in the world in terms of ethnic, religious, and historical divisions, and ever since the breakup of the FSU we have seen how quickly they can explode into conflict. Migration steadily spreads these fault lines and tensions, creating potential “clashes of civilization,” and uncertain peaces like the situation in Northern Ireland remind us that few problems are permanently solved. We need to remember that, so far, it is the Tamil Tigers-not some Islamic terrorist group-that has made use of poison gas.

We also need to remember that U.S. law enforcement officials have to deal with over 200 reported threats a year to use chemical and biological agents from domestic extremists and the mentally ill.

We also cannot separate terrorism from state-run asymmetric warfare. One of the grim lessons for the developing world is that it cannot compete in terms of conventional military power and technology. The alternative is asymmetric warfare, and the covert use of CBRN weapons is an ideal mechanism. This, in turn, creates the risk of unstable combinations of state actors using terrorists and extremists as proxies and terrorist movements levering states.

It also creates delicate new balances of deterrence among more conventional state actors. China, for example, is developing a highly sophisticated approach to asymmetric warfare with the U.S. as at least a contingency issue. The U.S. is developing new doctrines for possible preemption and the use of nuclear weapons against lower levels of threat.

We need to understand that these threats will not vanish with the present “war on terrorism” or a war on Iraq. They are going to be enduring realities of our professional lives and quite possibly those of our grandchildren. The forces shaping these security issues are simply too strong and run too deep.

We also need to recognize that the political and security issues involved are compounded by the problem of technology. We are watching a truly developing world, and with development come vastly increased national resources in terms of dual-use facilities and technology. Petrochemicals, insecticides, food processing, pharmaceuticals, advanced sprayers, and commercial UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] are only part of the technologies that give both governments and terrorists steady great access to the ability to make CBRN weapons and delivery systems, and at steadily lower cost.

Chemical technology does not change radically, but the problems of making nerve gas are now far better understood than a decade ago. The subculture of terrorist literature is far better in identifying ways to produce such weapons. The problem of “fourth generation” chemical weapons looms in the not too far distant future.

Biotechnology is a nightmare at every level. It is getting far cheaper, it is advancing in virtually every truly developing state, and genetic engineering is now far better understood. Resistant strains of disease compound the problem. So does the rising risk of agricultural attack. Even a decade ago, the idea of mass-producing dry storage biological micro powders with nuclear lethalities was limited to a handful of states. Now the technology seems to be partly accessible to private individuals and all too accessible to most developing states. The willingness to use truly infectious agents like smallpox can never be dismissed.

Radiation weapons remain far harder to make than most people seem to realize, particularly weapons that go beyond the contaminating effects of Alpha and Beta radiation. Few, however, will go into any facility where such radiation is present. The anthrax attacks on the U.S. showed that even a relative handful of casualties could paralyze part of the U.S. government, hurt the U.S. economy, and force tens of billions of dollars of expenditure on homeland defense.

Fortunately, we have seen no major breakthroughs in the production of fissile material. Nevertheless, the threat posed by nuclear weapons is changing: Centrifuge technology is proliferating and the ability to build concealed small dispersed or “folded” centrifuge facilities is spreading. This may well make it impossible to ever know if North Korea and Iran have terminated their nuclear weapons programs. Sooner or later, laser isotope separation will go from a theory to reality. The problems of neutron initiators, high explosive lenses, and triggering can now be solved largely at the dual-use level.

The ability to simulate nuclear explosions without actual tests of fissile material is far better understood, as are all of the design mathematics and hydrodynamics. The problem of controlling the material in the FSU remains. And, there is increasing knowledge of how to make sub critical or sub fissile nuclear weapons.

The problem of delivery systems may be the easiest of all to solve. Commercial GPS guidance packages, sprayer technology, and jet engine sales are making cruise missiles steadily more available to those countries willing to use relatively crude systems in area attacks. Many CBRN weapons are easy to smuggle and assemble in covert attacks, particularly biological weapons. Non-explosive dissemination devices, like the air bag used in cars, are commercially available. Some attacks actually benefit from covert delivery, such as biological agents.

Homeland defense activities have had the ironic impact, in at least some cases, of highlighting key points of vulnerability in infrastructure and in disperse areas that are difficult to defend.

Now let me conclude by talking about how we can react to these threats and problems. There is no single approach that can work. We have seen the limits to arms control in Iraq, and yet the best outcome of such a war will only get rid of a loathsome dictator and one serious threat in terms of WMD. The broader regional process of proliferation will continue. We will probably have a window of time to fully disarm Iraq of its present weapons of mass destruction and production facilities, but we will not get rid of its scientists. Iraq will also retain and build new dual-use facilities that will ensure it has a rapid break capability to make biological and chemical weapons and UAVs. It is impossible to disarm a modern state.

We will need to provide Iraq with some answer to a proliferating region: Iran, Syria, Pakistan, and Israel, plus Algeria, Egypt, and Libya. Answers we do not yet have. If we do not extend deterrence, some future government is likely to return to WMD.

We must also never forget that our span of control will be brief, and those who make initial promises may not be around to keep them.

We will need a new mix of containment, arms control, and security partnerships of which Iraq is a member, but where the goal is regional stability on regional terms. In practice, this means we need a mix of measures like arms control, international pressure, supplier regimes, negotiation, homeland defense, counter terrorism, military containment, extended deterrence, and even preemption and war.

We cannot solve the problem of dual-use capability and breakout through any meaningful means of arms control, nor can we halt the constant evolution of technology. We can use arms control agreements to reassure those states willing to comply, to create incentives to comply, and to build transparency and trust in most of the world. The same is true of supplier regimes. We can neither trust nor verify in the case of the most determined attacker, however, and this means deterrence and defense.

In the absence of an international system that does not exist, this puts a heavy weight of responsibility on the U.S. but also on regional security arrangements. It also means having the courage to understand that there will be many times when force really is a valid answer.

We need to strengthen cooperation in terms of counter terrorism wherever possible. We need to review the role of civil organizations like the WHO and FAO in dealing with new kinds of threats. We need to carry out force transformation” by creating effective defenses against asymmetric warfare and effective efforts at counter terrorism. We need to see homeland defense both in terms of prevention and response as continuing challenges.

For every offense, there is a defense, and for every advance in technology there is a countermeasure. The U.S. is already exploring new intelligence, detection, defense, and attack concepts in each of the areas where the technology of proliferation is advancing. This is a race we truly need to win.

We need to educate our publics to live with risk, rather than panic. The problem of panic and misperception is at least as serious as the direct casualties in most forms of attack, and this is an area where the media needs to play a critical role.

Finally, we can try to reduce the root causes of proliferation and asymmetric threats. Such efforts will be difficult, time-consuming, and often fail. We still, however, must try. And even if we fail repeatedly, eventually we may succeed.

Finally, let me say that one does not solve or ban history; one survives it. I am always struck by the fact that when I end a speech like this someone feels compelled to say it paints a bleak or pessimistic view of the world. It doesn’t. It simply reflects the norms of recorded history over the last 2,500 years. The world is not a safe place and it constantly evolves and mutates. Sometimes to our benefit, and sometimes not. We have been seeking to stop the advance of new threats and weapons ever since Western civilization tried to ban the crossbow in the Middle Ages and we have neither succeeded nor perished.

If we face the real nature of the threats around us, we can contain and limit them even if we cannot totally prevent them. The only way the future will be bleak is if we pretend they do not exist.