Secretary Hillary Clinton gave the following remarks in Washington, DC

Secretary Hillary Clinton gave the following remarks in Washington, DC

Secretary Clinton. [T]his gathering is yet another example of what the [Holocaust] museum does so well. It brings us face to face with a terrible chapter in human history and it invites us to reflect on what that history tells us and how that history should guide us on our path forward. As Sara said when we were walking in this morning, human nature did not dramatically and profoundly change in 1945. We still struggle with evil and the terrible impulses and actions that all too often result in atrocities and violence and genocide. But I want to thank the Committee on Conscience for bringing attention to contemporary cases of extreme violence against civilians.

Let me begin by acknowledging that here in this museum, it's important to note that every generation produces extremist voices denying that the Holocaust ever happened. And we must remain vigilant against those deniers and against anti-Semitism, because when heads of state and religious leaders deny the Holocaust from their bully pulpits, we cannot let their lies go unanswered. When we hear Holocaust glorification and public calls to, quote, “finish the job,” we need to make clear that violence, bigotry will not be tolerated. And, yes, when criticism of Israeli Government policies crosses over into demonization of Israel and Jews, we must push back.

But despite all we have learned and accomplished in the last 70 years, “never again” remains an unmet, urgent goal. At the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, we have seen campaigns of harassment and violence against groups of people because of their ethnic, racial, religious, or political backgrounds, and even some which aimed at the destruction of a particular group of people, fitting the definition of genocide. The Khmer Rouge slaughtered those suspected of having a high school education or other supposed enemies. Saddam Hussein massacred Kurdish communities in northern Iraq. Entire villages in Sudan were wiped out by government-supported militias.

So in April, President Obama came to this place right here to underscore this Administration's commitment to stopping the mass slaughter of civilians. He laid out a broad vision, declaring that fighting atrocities “must be the work of our nation and all nations.”

So today, I want to talk about our strategy for preventing and responding to these crimes and the specific steps we are taking, because we have seen the cost of inaction. In Rwanda, 800,000 people in a country of 7 million died in the 1994 genocide. I remember being in Rwanda with my husband when I was First Lady, listening to story after story from survivors about the loved ones they had lost and the horrors they had endured.

The world waited until the massacre at Srebrenica before acting in Bosnia. It took the stories of men and boys summarily executed by the hundreds in refugee camps, of women and girls dragged into fields and gang-raped by soldiers, of infants murdered because they would not stop crying. And yet we've also seen how decisive action can make all the difference.

Two years ago, I visited Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. When I arrived, throngs of men and women were lining the streets, clapping and waving flags and holding signs that said “Thank you America.” What the United States and our NATO allies did there more than a decade ago may not be fresh in the minds of every American, but I can assure you they certain—those memories are certainly fresh in the minds of the people of Kosovo. During that time, families lived in fear that they would be dragged from their homes, loaded onto trains and trucks to ethnically cleanse communities. If we had failed to intervene when we did, who knows how many faces would have been missing from those crowds?

So we do have a moral obligation to confront threats such as these, because they are violations of our common humanity. And as the poll you've just heard about shows, the American people share this commitment and believe we do have a responsibility to act. But it isn't just the morally right thing to do. These crimes undermine stability in countries and across regions. They spark humanitarian crises and send refugees streaming across borders. They reverse economic progress and stymie growth for generations. They create bitter cycles of vengeance and retribution that can scar communities for decades.

President Obama was clear when he stated that preventing mass atrocities and genocide is a core national security interest as well as a core moral responsibility. So if a government cannot or will not protect its own citizens, then the United States and likeminded partners must act. But let me hasten to say this is not code for military action. Force must remain a last resort, and in most cases, other tools will be more appropriate through diplomacy, financial sanctions, humanitarian assistance, law enforcement measures.

The Administration has acted on this commitment. When the Qadhafi regime threatened a massacre in the city of Benghazi, we forged an international coalition to stop the assault. When Laurent Gbagbo violently clung to power in Cote d'Ivoire, we worked with UN partners to prevent the killing of innocents and to pressure him to relent. Now, he is standing before the International Criminal Court. When the Lord's Resistance Army escalated its attacks against civilians and its brutal work of turning children into soldiers, we helped governments throughout Central Africa increase their efforts to go after the leaders, including Joseph Kony. And we continue to work with international partners to end the ongoing violence in Syria and usher in a democratic transition.

Now, why we have acted in these cases to try to stop violence, to contain events that could create even more terror may not be a hard question to answer. But the questions of exactly when and how to act are difficult. The fact is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Every situation requires a tailored and careful response. And today, I want to discuss a few specific practical steps that we are taking to combat genocide and mass atrocities, and I want to highlight two core ideas.

First, we are putting new emphasis on prevention, and second, we are seeking to expand the range of partners contributing to this cause because no one country can be effective alone. Let me start with prevention. You want to stop atrocities before they start. How do you know what to look for?

Well, genocides and mass atrocities don't just happen spontaneously. They are always planned. Genocides are preceded by organized, targeted propaganda campaigns carried out by those in power. Extremist leaders spread messages of hate often disguised as something else—a song on the radio, a nursery rhyme, or a picture book. The messages filter down. Those in power begin to dehumanize particular groups or scapegoat them for their country's problems. Hatred not only becomes acceptable; it is even encouraged. It's like stacking dry firewood before striking the match. Then there is a moment of ignition. The permission to hate becomes permission to kill.

I remember going to Bosnia shortly after the Dayton accords were signed and meeting with a group of Bosnians. And one Muslim woman told me that when the violence started, she asked a neighbor whom she knew well, “Why are you doing this to us? Why is this happening?” She said that their families had known each other for many years, they had celebrated together at weddings, they had mourned together at funerals. And her neighbor replied, “We were told that if we don't do this to you, you'll do it to us first.”

The United States and our partners must act before the wood is stacked or the match is struck, because when the fire is at full blaze, our options for responding are considerably costlier and more difficult.

There are responsibilities for this effort now across our government from the intelligence community to the Defense Department to the Treasury to the State Department. And at the center of our work is our core asset, our diplomats and development experts.

First, we are making sure that our officers serving in at-risk countries are trained to understand the warning signs, to provide accurate assessments of emerging crises, to take the first mitigating steps. That might mean engaging governments and their supporters. It might mean talking to local media about growing violence. It might mean supporting those who are countering propaganda.

Second, we are putting technology to work advancing our prevention efforts. Because technology has changed the way we can detect and respond to mass atrocities. Until recently, it not only might happen, it did take days or weeks before outsiders knew about violence in a remote location. But now, a bystander with a cell phone and a YouTube account can show the whole world exactly what is happening.

So we are developing our own technological innovations. Our Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor is working on a project to detect when governments use malicious software to target protestors and then warn those being targeted. We also want to educate citizens about the risks of certain types of electronic communications and the availability of more secure alternatives. And as President Obama announced here in April, USAID is partnering with Humanity United on a tech challenge to identify new, high-tech innovations that will aid this cause.

Third, we are enhancing our civilian surge capacity. We already have personnel trained to analyze conflicts and defuse potentially violent situations. Now we will be using those personnel to focus on atrocity prevention. We have deployed our Civilian Response Corps to countries such as South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, and Kyrgyzstan. We hope to train new teams to assess conditions on the ground, work with local governments to detect signs of impending atrocities, work with the local civil society and others who are representing populations at risk, and make recommendations to American officials on what we can do to prevent conflict. The new Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations will deploy these personnel to address potential atrocities and empower citizens to learn how to resolve conflicts themselves.

Fourth, we're deploying new tools through our National Action Plan on Women, Peace, and Security because women are often the first to know when their communities are in danger, and they are often the first to suffer. So we're working with women at-risk in areas where they are to make sure there are early-warning systems responsive to sexual and gender-based violence. For example, we have supported a project in the DRC to build a community alert network to protect civilians, including from conflict-related sexual violence.

Fifth, we can directly pressure those who organize atrocities and cut off the resources they need to continue their violence. We can target sanctions against groups using information technology to further human rights abuses as we've done in Syria and Iran. And those responsible for such crimes will not find safe haven in our country because our government will now deny entry visas to anyone responsible for or suspected of planning or committing a mass atrocity.

Lastly, we want to deter atrocities by making clear that those who commit these crimes will be held accountable. Our work over the last three administrations to bring Milosevic and Mladic and Karadzic to justice for their crimes in the Balkans is a testament to that commitment. Our message to perpetrators must be that we do not forget, and there will be consequences.

But that brings me to the second part of our approach. We need to expand the circle of partners who can help prevent and respond to crises, because a problem of this scale takes the skills and resources of governments, the private sector, and civil society, all working together. It starts with a robust diplomatic effort. And we have to strengthen our ties and our cooperation with likeminded governments and organizations, because if more countries are looking out for warning signs and training their diplomats on prevention techniques, we will all be more responsive. I applaud the African Union for their increased attention on the crises across Africa and of ECO WAS for responding effectively to the violence from Sierra Leone to Cote d'Ivoire.

We'll also be stepping up multilateral engagement to bring a greater focus on atrocity prevention. We're working to strengthen the U.N.'s core peace and security tools. Under our leadership, the G8 Peacebuilding and Peacekeeping Experts Group is focused on training and supporting peacekeepers to better identify and respond to violence that can and all too often does evolve into atrocities. To succeed, however, peacekeeping and special political missions will require the right resources, an understanding of the situation on the ground, strong leadership and personnel, and most importantly, the political will of member nations to back up these missions. That is often the most scarce commodity.

We're expanding our connections with the private sector because companies that respect human rights foster an environment in which atrocities are less likely to occur. And when they do, the private sector must send a strong message by refusing to do business with those responsible. Banks should refuse to finance the sale or purchase of oil from such countries. Jewelers should refuse to traffic in blood diamonds. And there are numerous examples of how economic pressure can get the attention of leaders when all of the other efforts have not.

We also need to do more to support civil society. And I started the first-ever Strategic Dialogue with Civil Society around the world because we want to be in an emergency response mode with civil society groups that are standing up against violence and harassment.

We're putting our elements of this strategy—prevention and partnership—into action through the Atrocities Prevention Board that President Obama announced here. Now, it might not be obvious that creating yet another government board will address a problem as entrenched as this. But the fact is a body such as this can drive the kinds of institutional changes that we envision. It can help galvanize efforts across our government to focus on prevention, to ensure that all our tools and resources are being put to good use. And it will give us an organizing principle, if you will, because it is difficult. There is so much information coming into this government on a second-by-second basis, and making sure it gets pulled together in one place where people can assess and analyze it and then suggest actions based on it is a challenge. So the board is the organizing entity that forces every part of the government to say, “This piece of information might be of use to the board. I better make sure it gets there.”

But one thing must be noted: All nations have some influence and leverage that they can put to use if they are so engaged and focused. Even if nearly every country in the world takes a stand, we have seen recently how one nation or a small group of nations' obstruction can derail our efforts. That has been the challenge we have faced in the UN Security Council over our efforts in Syria.

As the Assad regime continues its bloody assault on its own people, despite crippling sanctions, condemnation, increasing political pressure, they have found support, primarily from Iran, Russia, and China. More than a hundred other nations and organizations have made clear that Assad must step aside in order for a transition to begin. And we are supporting the Syrian Justice and Accountability Center, which is compiling evidence of serious abuses and violations of human rights. We're supporting the UN Commission of Inquiry, which is gathering evidence about the crisis. We're sending a message to the Syrian regime and making clear that there will be consequences for their actions.

But I have to say that we are also increasing our efforts to assist the opposition. This is a very complicated and difficult set of circumstances on the ground, and yet we know that the sooner it ends, the less violence there will be and the less chance for extremism to take hold. But it will be unfortunate if, indeed, the Assad regime and those around them decide that it's an existential struggle for them and they will maintain and even increase the level of violent response.

We think about and worry about and work on these issues all the time. And if it were easy, we wouldn't have to do things like have Holocaust memorials or atrocity prevention boards. But we are struggling with some of the deepest and most difficult impulses of human beings to protect themselves, to obtain power, to dehumanize others in order to enhance their own position and standing. And we have to do everything we can to keep pushing forward humanity's moral response and effective efforts.

I want to close, though, by saying that not every mass killing is announced by the explosion of mortars or the exchange of gunfire or concentration camps. They aren't always cases of governments slaughtering their own people. There are slow-motion crises that develop over time and don't capture daily headlines and are even more difficult to address, like the use of rape as a weapon of war. In the eastern Congo, it's estimated that 1,000 women and girls are raped every day, and it is a deliberate strategy used in the conflict there to dehumanize, to marginalize, to break the spirit of people. Or take the dehumanizing brutality in North Korean prison camps. They, I'm told, were joined by Shin Dong-hyuk, who was born in one such camp, and has made it his life's work to bring the world's attention to the conditions in his country. Or take the horrific problem of infanticide or, as it is rightly called, gendercide—families killing their own infant girls or allowing their baby and toddler daughters to die because their societies value only sons.

Now, whatever form atrocities take, however society explains, rationalizes, even tries to justify, we must be committed to preventing and ending all of these actions that truly dehumanize all of humanity. Now we have laid out our course for turning our commitment into action, but we recognize the plan we have laid out leaves many questions to answer, many ideas still to be formulated, and innovations to devise. But I am convinced we can make progress together. We have, in our lifetimes—those of us of a certain age—seen evil and hatred overcome. And in the tragic history that surrounds us here in this museum, we also see the stories of the heroes—the men and women who did the right thing, even when confronted and threatened by evil. And we're inspired. We're inspired by their courage and their resolve, what drove them to try to save a life.

That resolve continues to grow stronger. If one were to look at the great sweep of history, one has to believe that we can together overcome these challenges, that there will slowly but inexorably be progress. And at the root of that must be our resolve, and that resolve must never fail so that we can say and mean it, “never again.”

Thank you all very much.

Secretary Hillary Clinton gave the following remarks in Washington, DC at the Global Diaspora Forum

Secretary Clinton. [W]hy is this room packed and we have such interest on Twitter and through other means of connectivity? Well, it's because we all believe that diaspora communities have enormous potential to help solve problems and create opportunities in their countries of origin, because we believe that, as the title of this conference says, we can move forward by giving back. By tapping into the experiences, the energy, the expertise of diaspora communities, we can reverse the so-called “brain drain” that slows progress in so many countries around the world, and instead offer the benefits of the “brain gain.”

Now, in terms of international development and our work to reduce poverty and improve lives, this can be a game-changing effort. But that is not all. It is also a recipe for spurring greater economic growth in the United States as well. And it holds the promise of advancing strategic interests like rebuilding societies after conflicts or disasters and improving relations with key countries.

Now, I saw this myself just two weeks ago when I visited Hanoi with a delegation of American businesses. This is a priority for us, because as I emphasized throughout my trip across Asia, economic growth and political reform are linked and we are supporting both. The business leaders were all buzzing about the opportunities they are discovering in Vietnam's burgeoning market. But a few savvy entrepreneurs were clearly way ahead of the curve. One was Jonathan Hanh Nguyen. He had left Vietnam as a young man, lived in the Philippines, and then studied in the United States, and when relations between America and Vietnam opened up in the 1990s, he was one of the first to see the economic potential. And he built a thriving business bringing well-known American brands into the Vietnamese marketplace, from designer clothing to fast food pizza, creating in the process thousands of jobs and bringing our countries closer together.

Now, that's one way the diaspora has and continues to make a difference, but it's certainly not the only way. One of the founding partners of the International Diaspora Engagement Alliance is the nonprofit One Vietnam Network, which uses the power of social networking to connect thousands of people in Vietnam—thousands of people of Vietnamese origin—in 30 countries, with health and development projects on the ground in Vietnam, like a cleft lip and palette clinic in Hanoi or dental missions in rural villages, that makes it easier for members of the diaspora to contribute directly to projects they care about and to see the impact of their donations.

So whether it's a profitable business venture or an innovative nonprofit, we can see just from the example of one diaspora, namely the Vietnamese diaspora, how you can help bring progress and prosperity to a once closed country.

Now, this story can be and is being replicated in country after country. For instance, we have Katleen Felix here today. She helped launch a new microfinance organization to connect members of the Haitian diaspora with access to capital to businesses and development projects on the ground in Haiti that would not qualify for traditional bank loans. So far, they've raised more than $ 1 million, created more than 760 jobs, and helped fund everything from clean water filters to halt the spread of cholera, to a new hen house in northeast Haiti that is earning income for 100 women.

We created the International Diaspora Engagement Alliance to support exactly these kinds of efforts. And I am so pleased that in its very first year the Alliance has already expanded into new and exciting endeavors. The Caribbean Idea Marketplace, for example, is a business competition sponsored by the governments of Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States, along with the Inter-American Development Bank, Scotiabank, Digicel, and other partners. It is offering up to a million dollars in matching funds to finance innovative entrepreneurial proposals from the Caribbean diaspora to create jobs and economic growth back in the region. The African diaspora marketplace is a similar effort that is already starting, supporting startups like EcoPower Liberia, which distributes an affordable electrical generator that runs on plentiful and cheap agricultural waste, and Promo Tunisia, which is promoting tourism and investment in Tunisia.

And today I'm pleased to announce that we are officially launching a new business competition for Latin America. This is the result of a partnership between the United States Government, Univision, the Inter-American Development Bank, Accion, WellSpace, and Boom Financial. We're going to find the best ideas and help them grow into successful businesses that create value and jobs throughout the hemisphere.

Now, we have other projects getting off the ground as well—a diaspora volunteer corps that will deploy highly skilled professionals on short-to-medium-term development assignments in the countries of origin; a new mentoring and networking web platform specifically for diaspora members trying to get involved and give back; an online portal created in partnership with the nonprofit Global Giving that will serve as a fundraising clearinghouse for diaspora organizations and initiatives.

We're working on all these fronts so we can try to help you harness the amazing energy out there to help people around the world lift themselves out of poverty and create new economic opportunities and bring together more partners to take on big, global challenges.

Now, one of those challenges that is front and center right now is the crisis in Syria, where the Assad regime continues to wage war on the Syrian people. We have a number of Syrian Americans here with us today, and I want to recognize the work of Syrian diaspora organizations to shine a light on what is happening in Syria and to carry the concerns of the Syrian people not only onto the pages of American newspapers, but also into the halls of Congress. They're helping to collect funds and humanitarian assistance for Syrians who are suffering because of this terrible violence, and they're trying to help those who've had to flee their homes and communities—some of them crossing over borders into neighboring countries. They're serving as a link between the international community and opposition activists on the ground.

We are obviously hoping to work to further a transition that will be bringing the people of Syria together to help form a new government, helping to rebuild the country, helping to avoid sectarian conflict. These are all extremely difficult challenges, but I think our efforts are enhanced by having the members of the Syrian diaspora, the Syrian Americans and others, being able to advise us.

The fact is that the United States has always benefited from the influx of talent and dynamism that diasporas of all kinds bring to our shores. And if you pick up The Washington Post today, you see that Baltimore, among other countries, is actually finally recognizing the importance that immigrants can play in revitalizing cities. And so they are reaching out and inviting—opening the doors of that venerable American city to immigrants from everywhere. Because in fact, we are well aware that our diversity is one of our greatest assets in the 21st century.

I met yesterday with the Prime Minister from—yes, the Prime Minister from Haiti, and he was very clear that they need more support from the Haitian diaspora. We saw that when the earthquake devastated Haiti, communities from New York to Miami and elsewhere in the world sprang into action. And Haiti has the unfortunate standing of losing more of their college graduates per capita than any country in the world. So reversing that, finding ways for people to help and even to move back, is one of the priorities.

Now, when countries across North Africa and the Middle East threw off autocrats and dictators and cried out for skilled professionals to help them build modern economic systems, modern political systems, Americans of Arab descent have been answering that call. And each year, Americans send billions of dollars in remittances throughout the world. In fact, remittances are the largest form of inflows into many, many countries. And what we're trying to do is figure out how to harness those remittances to do even more than what they are currently doing in supporting individuals and families.

So through the International Diaspora Engagement Alliance, through this forum, we're asking you for your ideas. We're asking you to help us. Give us the benefit of your experience and insight. We see so many places around the world being torn apart by ethnic, religious, racial, sectarian divides of all kinds. When I walk down the street, as I love to do in New York, and I see people living together and working together whose relatives back in the countries from where they came hate each other, kill each other, it just—it makes me so grateful for our country, but it also makes me so heartbroken that other countries don't have that opportunity, don't see beyond moving beyond the past. And I think Americans, like all of you, have such an opportunity to talk with, to support these kinds of changes in minds and hearts. Because democracy is not just an election; democracy is changing the way people relate to one another, work with one another, listen to one another. And there's no place that has more experience, since we are now the longest-lasting democracy, than we do. And there are no people with more credibility than all of you.

Acting Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller gave the following remarks in Oslo

Undersecretary Gottemoeller. Thank you so much for having me here today at the Institute for Defense Studies (IFS) and thanks to Rolf Tamnes for organizing this event.

It was almost three years ago that President Barack Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize here in Oslo. In selecting the President, the Norwegian Nobel Committee stated that “[his] vision of a world free from nuclear arms has powerfully stimulated disarmament and arms control negotiations.” That was in reference, no doubt, to his now-famous 2009 Prague Speech in which he stated that the United States would seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons, as well as to the efforts that followed.

New START

As the President directed, the United States has been working hard on the nuclear reductions agenda, and responsible nuclear weapons reductions are a central priority. One of the first steps—and the one that I was charged with—was the negotiation and ratification of a new arms treaty with Russia—the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START. With my excellent U.S. team, I spent most of 2009 and the first part of 2010 with my Russian counterpart negotiating the Treaty in Geneva, Switzerland. On April 8, 2010, President Obama and President Medvedev signed the New START Treaty. Then, following rigorous debates in the U.S. and Russia legislatures, the Treaty entered into force on February 5, 2011.

Norwegian Minister Counselor, Mr. Knut Langeland, underscored the international significance of New START when he stated to the UN Disarmament Commission in April 2011 that, “… the entry into force of the new START is an important step in building down existing nuclear arsenals with the objective to achieve their full elimination.”

The Treaty has been in force for over 18 months now and the outstanding working relationship that developed during negotiations has carried over into its implementation. Both sides have worked cooperatively to resolve issues and questions as they have arisen.

For this Treaty year, which began in February, the United States has completed ten inspections and the Russian Federation has completed nine inspections.

Both sides have conducted delivery vehicle exhibitions. Shortly after the Treaty's entry into force in 2011, the United States conducted exhibitions of its B-1B and B-2A heavy bombers and the Russian Federation conducted an exhibition of its RS-24 ICBM and associated mobile launcher. That was the first time we had a chance to see the RS-24, the new Russian mobile missile with multiple warheads. We recently conducted an exhibition of a U.S. submarine that converted from a ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) and is now equipped with cruise missiles launchers (SSGN). The exhibition was conducted in order to provide assurances to the Russian Federation that the SSGN is incapable of launching SLBMs. This was the second of four SSGN exhibitions required by the Treaty.

The United States and the Russian Federation have also been sharing a veritable mountain of data with each other through our Nuclear Risk Reduction Centers (NRRC). Over the life of the Treaty so far, we have exchanged over 2,700 notifications. These notifications help to track movement and changes in the status of systems. For example, a notification is sent every time a heavy bomber is moved out of its home country for more than 24 hours.

In addition to the individual notifications, we exchange an aggregated database every six months. This living database of each side's strategic forces covered by the Treaty combines with the notifications to create a living, growing document that continuously tracks each side's strategic nuclear forces.

These data exchanges are providing us with a very detailed picture of Russian strategic forces and the inspections allow us to confirm the validity of that data. Of course, the verification regime is backed up by our own National Technical Means of verification, our satellites and other monitoring platforms.

Our experience so far is demonstrating that the New START Treaty's verification regime works, and it will help to pave the way for new verification measures for future treaties. Innovative and more intrusive verification measures will be needed for future nuclear arms reduction agreements. The United States has made it clear that we are committed to continuing a step-by-step process of nuclear arms reductions.

New Thinking

When President Obama laid out his vision for the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons in Prague in 2009, he made it clear that we will need to maintain our deterrence commitments, while also taking into account the threats of the 21^st century. Success will only be reached through a careful process in which we maintain and support a safe, secure and effective stockpile—sufficient to deter any adversary and guarantee the defense of our allies- at the same time that we pursue responsible reductions through arms control.

Reductions in all categories of nuclear weapons- deployed, non-deployed and non-strategic- is more ambitious than anything we have attempted thus far. We are now spending a lot of time thinking about next steps in deterrence, stability and verification in arms control. I sometimes refer to it as a homework period, which is not a bad term for what we are doing. We are looking at fundamentals and lessons learned, as we work to develop new policies to advance our security.

In addition to exploring new ideas and concepts of deterrence and arms control, the President and his Administration are committed to reducing the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy. We are not developing new nuclear weapons or pursuing new nuclear missions; we have committed not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states that are party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and in compliance with their nuclear nonproliferation obligations; and we have clearly stated that it is in everyone's interest to extend forever the more than 65-year record of non-use of nuclear weapons.

As we continue to reduce global nuclear stockpiles and include additional categories of weapons in that process, the importance of verification and transparency will only grow. Having confidence in what other states are doing is critical for creating conditions for further progress in arms control and disarmament, which is why we made our 2010 Nuclear Posture Review public and revealed the size of our stockpile—5,113 weapons as of September 2009.

As part of the implementation of the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, the U.S. Government is currently reviewing its nuclear deterrence requirements to ensure that they are aligned to today's threats. What we already know, as President Obama said in Seoul in March, is we have more nuclear weapons than we need. This study will help shape our future negotiations with the Russian Federation.

ISAB Report

The State Department's International Security Advisory Board, or ISAB, is helping us with some “big thinking” on some of the national security challenges we face in coming years. This Federal Advisory Committee was established to provide the Department of State with a continuing source of independent insight, advice and innovation on scientific, military, diplomatic, political, and public diplomacy. The focus here is aspects of arms control, disarmament, international security, and nonproliferation. One of the ISAB's tasks was to undertake a study of how the United States could pursue and manage a transition from a world of mutual assured destruction to a world of mutual assured stability, characterized by increasingly interdependent states having incentives to cooperate on political, military, and economic issues, thereby reducing the need for adversarial approaches to managing security challenges. In examining the concept of mutually assured stability the ISAB was asked to consider possible components necessary for its success including: what would the United States need to see happen to have the confidence to consider very low numbers and, eventually, agree to the elimination of nuclear weapons? Their report titled, “Mutual Assured Stability: Essential Components and Near Term Actions” is posted on our website: www.state.gov/t/avc. It makes for an interesting read. While ISAB reports are not official State documents, their ideas are helpful as we make our own assessments.

Embracing New Technologies for Verification

The United States realizes that it is not just new policies that will help us with the next steps—we will need new tools, as well. We can negotiate the best treaties in the world, but they are only as good as the verification regimes. Today, we verify that countries are fulfilling their arms control treaty obligations, as mentioned earlier, through a combination of information exchange, notifications of weapon status, on-site inspections, and National Means, including so-called National Technical Means (NTM), like observation satellites and phased-array radars. All of the elements I've listed work together to make an effective verification regime. The question that I've been asking myself is: can we incorporate open source information technologies and social networking into arms control verification and monitoring, as well?

Our new reality is a smaller, increasingly-networked world: any event, anywhere on the planet, could be broadcast globally in seconds. That means it is harder to hide things. When it is harder to hide things, it is easier to be caught. The neighborhood gaze is a powerful tool, and it can help us make sure that countries are following the rules of arms control treaties and agreements.

New concepts, I recognize, are not invented overnight, and we don't understand the full range of possibilities inherent in the information age, but we would be remiss if we did not start thinking about whether new technologies can augment over half a century of arms control negotiating expertise.

We are just now starting to think about how governments can actively enlist their publics to help prove that they are in compliance with their arms control and non-proliferation obligations. To this end, on Tuesday, August 28, the U.S. Department of State launched the “Innovation in Arms Control Challenge” asking, “How Can the Crowd Support Arms Control Transparency Efforts?” We want to get ideas on if and how the everyday citizen can get involved in these efforts. While the contest can only be won by U.S. citizens or permanent residents, we encourage anyone who is interested in the subject to check it out. You can read more about the challenge on our website: www.state.gov/t/avc.

Looking Ahead

As you have heard, we have been pretty busy, but in order to be truly successful in our disarmament efforts, we will need the help of allies like Norway to move ahead. We especially appreciate Norway's forward-leaning and creative thinking on projects like the U.K.—Norway Joint Verification Experiment. Negotiating the next reduction treaty will not be easy, but I think that we are ready to meet the challenges ahead. This is due, in no small part, to the success of the New START Treaty. Its contribution to international security grows each and every day.

With that, I am happy to take some questions.

Assistant Secretary Michael Posner gave the following remarks in Nairobi, Kenya

Assistant Secretary Posner. I am delighted to be back in Kenya, a country I know well and where I have many friends and have spent considerable time. I want to commend the Kenyan government for hosting this conference and for the leadership role you are playing on Internet and information technology issues. I had the privilege of meeting with Minister Poghisio last December at the launch of the Coalition, and I am honored to be speaking after him today.

Kenya now has well over 15 million Internet users, and leads East Africa in mobile penetration, with more than two-thirds of all Kenyans now connected. The fact that so many African countries are participating in this conference is a tribute to Kenya's leadership and convening power.

Kenya is not alone in embracing mobile and digital technologies. In neighboring Tanzania, for example, more than half of its citizens are using mobile phones. In Ghana, mobile penetration is now over 90%. These are statistics that were unimaginable a decade ago, and are cause for reflection and celebration.

Across Africa today, there is a new kind of race—a race to connect as many citizens as quickly as possible. By doing so, we are changing the development paradigm in ways none of us yet fully understand.

But while our technologies change, our fundamental principles and our development challenges do not. And so today I would like to say a few words about the role of Internet freedom, and how the free flow of information has implications for human rights and development.

I believe it's futile in the long run to try to separate one kind of freedom from another, to attempt to distinguish online freedoms from freedoms we enjoy in the physical world, or to try to keep the Internet open for business in a given country but closed for free expression. Because, as Secretary Clinton said at the first Freedom Online conference in The Hague in December, “There isn't an economic Internet and a social Internet and a political Internet: there's just the Internet.”

Yet we continue to see attempts by countries to harness the economic power of the Internet while controlling political and cultural content. Some countries are devoting great resources to attempting to purge their online space or, like Iran, attempting to isolate their people inside what amounts to a national intra-net—a digital bubble. Such attempts may succeed for a limited time in some places; but at a cost to a nation's education system, its political stability, its social mobility, and its economic potential.

These are costs that no nation can afford. Whether developed or developing, the economies of the 21^st century must compete to attract capital, to spark innovation, to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit of our people and provide the climate in which they develop enterprises that can provide jobs and sustainable growth.

Around the world, some groups tend to focus more on erasing the digital divide, extending Internet access that last difficult mile, and putting into the hands of the next two billion users a mobile device that also provides access to banking and education, medical and agricultural advice and so much more. Meanwhile, other groups tend to focus more on Internet freedom, ensuring that the evolving information and communication technologies remain the foundation of an open, global platform for exchange, where people can exercise their rights, and not a tool used to spy on or silence citizens.

Today, the world has not one but two digital divides—the divide between the two billion of us who have some form of Internet access and the five billion who have yet to get it, and also a divide between those who enjoy the free use of their connectivity, and those whose experience of the Internet is restricted by censorship of the information they can receive and fear of retaliation for the information they transmit. The access divide is narrowing, thanks to the efforts of people around the world and the hard work of people in this room. But the second divide, the freedom divide, is widening.

We must continue to work together to erase both divides, and these interests must be pursued in tandem.

This is a world in which citizens of democratic nations can have uncensored Internet access and thus membership in a global community that exchanges news, information, ideas, products, innovations and services. At the same time it's a world where citizens of some other countries remain trapped and isolated behind firewalls that stunt not just their political freedom but ultimately their economic opportunities. We must do everything possible to oppose what amounts to information curtain created by national governments that do not want their own people to have full and free access to the Internet.

There are no magic bullets that will erase this divide overnight, but the United States is committed to helping expand the benefits of information and communications technologies to other nations as an integral part of both our human rights and our development policies.

As President Obama wrote last week— in response to a question put to him during an Internet chat—“We will fight hard to make sure that the Internet remains the open forum for everybody—from those who are expressing an idea to those [who] want to start a business.”

The United States takes a holistic approach to these issues. We recognize the linkages between broad-based access to 21^st century communications and inclusive economic growth, and in turn between inclusive economic development and human rights. We know that human rights do not begin after breakfast. People need both. Without breakfast, few people have the energy to make full use of their rights. And after breakfast, they need both political and economic freedom to build profitable businesses and peaceful societies.

What does that mean in practice? It means the U.S. government is involved in a wide range of Information & Communication Technology development efforts from a variety of different agencies, from USAID to the National Science Foundation.

As a first step, companies, governments and civil society groups are starting to come together to work on this crucial issue. The goal is to find ways to achieve the UN target of providing entry-level broadband service for less than 5% of average monthly income. We recognize that governments have a role to play in creating the right incentives, ensuring healthy market competition, and supporting investment and continued infrastructure development that brings the Internet and mobile technology to more people in more places.

On the openness side, we have expanded our funding for Internet freedom advocacy and programming, for which the US Congress has allocated $100 million since 2008 to projects that provide technologies and knowledge to millions of people whose freedoms online are repressed. We are thrilled to be launching at this conference the Digital Defenders partnership, an unprecedented collaboration among governments to provide support for digital activists under threat.

But just as we support individuals who are targeted every day for exercising their rights online, we are conscious of a broader threat to the future of Internet openness. Right now, in various international forums, some countries are working to change how the Internet is governed. They want to replace the current multi-stakeholder approach, which supports the free flow of information in a global network, and includes governments, the private sector, and citizens. In its place, they aim to impose a system that expands control over Internet resources, institutions, and content, and centralizes that control in the hands of governments. These debates will play out in forums over the next few months and years.

The United States supports preserving and deepening the current multi-stakeholder approach because it brings together the best of governments, the private sector and civil society to manage the network, and it works. The multi-stakeholder system has kept the Internet up and running for years, all over the world. We want the next generation of Internet users — whether small business owners or independent journalists—to be involved in shaping the future of the platform.

That next generation of users will not just be in the United States. Many of them will be here in Africa. That is why we need to ensure that stakeholders in Africa and the rest of the developing world are able to participate in the various multi-stakeholder forums where Internet governance issues are decided. And that is why we value our partnership with the governments of the Coalition and welcome Kenya's leadership, which leads by example in demonstrating that the right way to foster both access and openness—to harness the potential of these new technologies—is through inclusion and collaboration with everyone in this room.

Acting Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller gave the following remarks at The Hague

Undersecretary Gottemoeller. Mr. Director-General, Ambassadors, Colleagues, I am honored to speak today in this important room. I appreciate the opportunity to join the permanent representatives of States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention, and disarmament and nonproliferation colleagues in support of The Hague Week on Disarmament and Non-proliferation, as well as the 15th Anniversary of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. We can all be proud of the great strides we have made toward eliminating an entire category of weapons of mass destruction since the Convention's entry into force in 1997.

We will soon be approaching another anniversary. The Cuban Missile Crisis happened fifty years ago this October. We have come a long way since then, but today arms control is at a crossroads. We are facing new challenges and entering new terrain. We have not tried to limit non-deployed or non-strategic weapons before, which President Obama called for the day he signed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in April 2010 in Prague. We are thinking about how we would verify reductions in those categories and people have different ideas about what terms like 'non-strategic' even mean. Even more complicated: the lower the numbers and the smaller the components, the harder it will be to monitor compliance. To make matters more complicated, other weapons of mass destruction—chemical and biological weapons— pose even greater verification challenges, because they are dual use and difficult to disentangle from normal industrial or commercial processes. In order to deal with these new problems, we are going to need innovative ideas about how together, we can improve and augment the tools needed for the verification of treaties and agreements controlling weapons of mass destruction, as well as create new ones.

Today, I'd like to talk to you about one such idea—the incorporation of publicly available technologies and social networking into arms control verification and monitoring. Now it is important to point out that this is not a policy speech, this is an ideas speech. I've been making similar remarks around Europe and at universities and think tanks in the United States. The first incarnation was delivered at Stanford University for the Drell Lecture, named for noted arms control expert and physicist, Sidner Drell. The purpose of that lecture series is to think of new ideas for arms control. We have ambitious goals and we will need big ideas to meet them. It is also important to note that while I will focus on arms control, these ideas could lend themselves to nonproliferation policy, and safeguards policy as well.

Nowadays, we verify that countries are fulfilling their arms control treaty obligations through a combination of information exchange, notifications of weapon status—where in the country is that ICBM?—on-site inspections, and National Means, including so-called National Technical Means (NTM). NTM are big assets—observation satellites, phased-array radars—that individual countries manage and control. It has long been a rule of arms control treaties that we don't interfere with each other's National Technical Means—we allow each other these eyes and ears to monitor treaties. All of the elements I've listed off work together to make an effective verification regime.

I should say what we mean in the United States by effective verification. Ambassador Paul Nitze defined it as follows: —if the other side moves beyond the limits of the treaty in any militarily significant way, we would be able to detect such violations in time to respond effectively and thereby deny the other side the benefit of the violation. In our view, that's effective verification, and it has been the benchmark for verifying compliance in the United States. To help meet this benchmark, I've been asking myself, can we incorporate publicly available information technologies and social networking into arms control verification and monitoring?

Our new reality is a smaller, increasingly-networked world where the average citizen connects to other citizens in cyberspace hundreds of times each day. These people are exchanging and sharing ideas on a wide variety of topics: why not put this vast problem-solving entity to good use? Today, any event, anywhere on the planet, can be broadcast globally in seconds. That means it is harder to hide things. When it is harder to hide things, it is easier to be caught. The neighborhood gaze is a powerful tool, and it can help us make sure that countries are following the rules of arms control treaties and agreements.

Open Source Information Technologies and Social Networking

But how exactly can publicly available information technologies improve arms control verification? Social verification can take place on a scale that moves from active participation, like public reporting and crowd-sourced mapping and analysis, to passive participation, like ubiquitous sensing or data mining and analytics. On this scale, the open source information technologies in use can improve arms control verification in at least two ways: either by generating new information, or by analyzing information that is already publicly available.

Let me give you some examples, to give you an idea what I'm talking about. In 2009, in recognition of the 40th anniversary of the Internet, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) held a competition where 10 red weather balloons were moored at visible fixed locations around the continental United States. The first team to identify the location of all 10 balloons won a sizable cash prize—$40,000. Over 4,300 teams composed of an estimated 2 million people from 25 countries took part in the challenge. A team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology won the challenge, identifying all of the balloon locations in an astonishingly short time of 8 hours and 52 minutes. Of course, to win in such a short time or complete the challenge at all, the MIT team did not find the balloons themselves. They tapped into social networks using a unique incentive structure that not only incentivized people to identify a balloon location, but also incentivized people to recruit others to the team. The MIT win showed the enormous potential of social networking, and also demonstrated how incentives can motivate large populations to work toward a common goal.

Social networking is already being incorporated into local safety and emergency response systems. RAVEN911—the Regional Asset Verification & Emergency Network—is a multilayer mapping tool that supports emergency first response in Cincinnati, Ohio. RAVEN911 uses live data feeds and intelligence gathered through Twitter to provide details that cannot be given on an everyday geographic map, such as the location of downed electric power lines and flooded roads. Authorities are cooperating with communities throughout the region to develop and implement this emergency management system, in order to help fire departments assess the risks and potential dangers before arriving on the scene of an accident or incident. This open source system gives emergency responders a common operating picture, to better execute time-critical activities, such as choosing evacuation routes out of flooded areas.

In addition to collecting useful data, the ability to identify patterns and trends in social networks could aid the arms control verification process. In the most basic sense, social media can draw attention to both routine and abnormal events. We may be able to mine Twitter data to understand where strange effluents are flowing, or to recognize unexpected patterns of industrial activity at a chemical production plant. In this way, we may be able to ensure better compliance with existing arms control treaties and regimes, such as the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).

Sound far-fetched? Just consider that even today, tablets such as your iPad have tiny accelerometers installed—that's what tells the tablet which way is up. But the accelerometers also have the capability to detect small shakes, like an earth tremor.

Now, imagine a whole community of tablet users, all containing an earth shake app, dispersed randomly around the country, and connected into a centralized network node. An individual shake could be something as simple as bumping your iPad on a table. But a whole network of tablets, all shaking at the same time? That tells you that something happened; knowing where all the tablets are and the exact time they started shaking can help you to geo-locate the event. It could be an earthquake, or it could be an illicit nuclear test. Of course, other sensors and analysis would have to be brought to bear to figure out the difference.

This is called ubiquitous sensing, that is, collecting data and basic analysis through sensors on smartphones and other mobile-computing devices. These sensors would allow citizens to contribute to detecting potential treaty violations, and could build a bridge to a stronger private-public partnership in the realm of treaty verification.

Application to the CWC

Since we are here at the OPCW, I want to dive a little deeper into how this can apply to the CWC. Compliance with the CWC is already monitored through a comprehensive international system of declaration and international inspections. Could this already robust system be further integrated with publicly available information, providing independent confirmation of official conclusions? It is something to think about. The Advisory Panel on Future Priorities of the OPCW has already identified this as an idea worth studying when it recommended that the organization should seek to find acceptable ways of using open source information to enhance the verification process back in 2011. Open source information covers a wide variety of data, including general media stories, self-reporting from companies and information officially released by governments. A recent informal paper from the Technical Secretariat noted that open source information can support the work of the Secretariat and of States Parties in the implementation of the CWC and the task of ensuring destruction of chemical weapons and working to prevent their re-emergence. The paper details a number of ways that publicly available information is already used within the Secretariat for purposes related to verification. The paper then goes on to suggest several additional ways that publicly available information might be applicable. I applaud this effort to explore these ideas, whether or not those particular suggestions turn out to be useful to the Organisation.

The Challenges Ahead

Of course, for any of this to work, there are technical, legal and political barriers ahead that would need to be overcome— it is no easy feat to pursue these ideas. On the technical front, it would be necessary to work together to make sure nations—or industries—cannot spoof or manipulate the public verification challenges that they devise. We also have to bear in mind there could be limitations based on the freedoms available to the citizens in particular countries. On the legal front, there are many questions that must be confronted about active vs. passive participation. How can we prevent governments from extracting information from citizens without their knowledge, or manipulating results collected in databases? Further, in some circumstances, how can active participants be sheltered from reproach by authorities? It may be possible, through careful handling and management, to mask sources of information, even if locations are public.

On the political front, we cannot assume that information will always be so readily available. As nations and private entities continue to debate the line between privacy and security, it is possible to imagine that we are now living in a golden age of open source information that will be harder to take advantage of in future. These questions deserve to be considered.

Conclusion

In the end, the goal of using open source information technology and social networks should be to augment our existing arms control verification capabilities, and I challenge this community to think about how it can be done. As you leave here today, I challenge you to help us find new ways to use the new information tools at our disposal to move the world closer to successfully tackling the control and elimination of all weapons of mass destruction. If we were clever enough to invent these weapons, then surely we are clever enough to get rid of them.

Thank you again for inviting me here to speak. I would now be happy to take some questions.

Acting Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller gave the following remarks in Moscow, Russia

Undersecretary Gottemoeller. Thank you so much for having me here at the 2012 Moscow Nonproliferation Conference. Thank you for inviting me to speak. I have a fond regard for this conference, because I helped to organize some of its predecessors while I was at the Carnegie Moscow Center. Anton, under your capable leadership, the reputation of the Center for Energy and Security Studies increases every day. I have been travelling across Europe for the last two weeks and it is a great pleasure to be back here in Moscow. I always say that after spending three years at here, this city feels like a second home.

Cuban Missile Crisis

As you heard this morning, we are fast approaching the 50^th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis. At that time, the tension and pressure of the Cold War had built up so much that our nations teetered on the edge of annihilation. Thanks to the resolute and sober judgment of our leaders, we were able to surmount that crisis and we learned to mitigate the tension in our relationship through constant—and sometimes painstaking—communication.

To say that things have changed dramatically since October 1962 is an understatement. The Cold War ended and the world as we know it has been forever changed. It is hard to imagine that my predecessor who served at the State Department in 1962 could have predicted that 50 years later, I would be standing in Moscow, talking to a group of Russian and international policymakers, as well as to academics, experts and students about how we can work together on disarmament.

Thinking About the Next Steps in Bilateral Reductions

In Prague in 2009, when President Obama laid out his vision for the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons, he made clear that the road would be long and the goal may not be reached in his lifetime. But, in order to achieve this vision, we will need to follow a step by step process in which we maintain nuclear stability at the same time that we pursue responsible reductions in our nuclear arsenals through arms control.

The New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty or New START was a first step on this path. When New START is fully implemented, we will be at the lowest levels of deployed strategic nuclear warheads since the 1950s—pre-Cuban Missile Crisis. The implementation of the Treaty is going very well, and the Treaty's robust verification system is providing the predictability and mutual confidence that will be essential to any future nuclear reduction plans.

We are now spending a lot of time thinking about next steps in arms control. I sometimes refer to it as a homework period, which is not a bad term for what we are doing. We are looking at fundamentals and lessons learned, as we work to develop new policies to advance our security.

Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons

We would like to further the partnership between the United States and the Russian Federation on these issues. The entry into force of New START was an important step on the road, but not the end of the process.

One of the items on the agenda is the reduction of nonstrategic nuclear weapons (NSNW) and it is clear that there will be new challenges facing us. Although the 1990 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives reduced the readiness and numbers of NSNW, we have not tried to formally limit non-deployed or non-strategic nuclear weapons before, which President Obama called for the day he signed New START. We are thinking about how we would verify reductions in those categories; experts have different ideas about what terms like 'non-strategic' even mean. Even more complicated: the lower the numbers of nuclear weapons and the smaller the components, the harder it will be to effectively monitor compliance.

That is why, over the course of the past few years, the Administration has taken a number of steps towards charting a path to reach this goal. We have been conducting internal reviews, while also reviewing this matter with our allies, including our NATO Allies, through the Deterrence and Defense Posture Review (DDPR). We have also been engaging with our Russian colleagues in a strategic stability dialogue.

In approving the Deterrence and Defense Posture Review at Chicago this past May, the Allies determined that NATO's current posture meets the criteria for an effective deterrence and defense posture. NATO has already dramatically reduced its holdings of and reliance on nuclear weapons, but has indicated that it is prepared to consider further reducing its requirement for nonstrategic nuclear weapons assigned to the Alliance. The context is important here: NATO would consider such steps in the context of reciprocal steps by Russia, taking into account the greater Russian stockpiles of non-strategic nuclear weapons stationed in the Euro-Atlantic area.

The Allies have supported and encouraged the United States and Russia to continue their mutual efforts to promote strategic stability, enhance transparency, and further reduce their nuclear weapons in every category.

NATO Allies look forward to developing and exchanging transparency and confidence-building ideas with Russia, with the goal of enhancing European security and stability by increasing mutual understanding of NATO's and Russia's non-strategic nuclear force postures in Europe.

I have been quite interested in how many non-governmental organizations are producing research and policy suggestions on the subject of NSNW. They have come up with ideas, starting with minimal transparency measures- such as exchanging white papers, moving on to other types of information exchanges; then hosting site visits to current or abandoned facilities; and conducting mock inspections. On this broad spectrum, these are all ideas worth thinking about.

ISAB Report

Beyond specific actions items, we are also exploring how we view stability and security between our nations through a post-Cold War lens. The State Department's International Security Advisory Board, or ISAB, is helping us with this kind of “big thinking.” This Federal Advisory Committee was established to provide the Department of State with a continuing source of independent insight, advice and innovation on scientific, military, diplomatic, political, and public diplomacy aspects of arms control, disarmament, international security, and non-proliferation. One of the ISAB's tasks was to undertake a study of how the United States could pursue and manage a transition from a security foundation of mutual assured destruction to a security foundation of mutual assured stability, characterized by increasingly interdependent states having incentives to cooperate on political, military, and economic issues, thereby reducing the need for adversarial approaches to managing security challenges.

I would like to give credit to my predecessor, Ellen Tauscher, who coined the term “mutual assured stability.”

Among the topics that the ISAB was asked to examine and assess in this area were the possible components of mutual assured stability: what would the United States need to see happen to have the confidence to consider reductions to very low numbers and, eventually, agree to the elimination of nuclear weapons? Their report, titled “Mutual Assured Stability: Essential Components and Near Term Actions” is posted on our website: www.state.gov/t/avc. It makes for an interesting read. While ISAB reports are not official State documents, their ideas are helpful as we make our own assessments.

The Indispensability of P5 Leadership

Of course, it is not just the United States and the Russian Federation that must show leadership on these issues. We must be joined by the United Kingdom, France and China. The Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty accords these P5 nations special status. They hold among them the overwhelming majority of nuclear weapons in the world, and progress on nuclear disarmament cannot be achieved without their active participation. But they must do more than participate; they must lead collectively. There are certainly more bilateral steps for the U.S. and Russia to take, but there is much the P5 can do to build the foundation for future multilateral steps. The recent P5 Conference in Washington, D.C. is a good example of this.

The Washington conference, in which Anton participated, was a part of a newly-established regular, multilateral dialogue among the P5, which includes discussion of nuclear verification and transparency. The P5 are committed to the implementation of the Action Plan that was adopted by consensus at the 2010 NPT Review Conference. The first constructive step in this direction took place at the Paris conference in June 2011, when the P5 met to discuss transparency, verification, and confidence-building measures—pursuant to the Action Plan—following on the groundbreaking meeting of this new P5 process in London in 2009.

All the P5 states recognize the fundamental importance of transparency in building mutual understanding and confidence. In Paris, we exchanged information on nuclear doctrine and capabilities and discussed possible voluntary transparency and confidence-building measures. We also conferred on the steps we have taken to implement our Article VI commitment, including reporting, a topic of great interest to the NPT community and one for which the P5 acknowledges a special responsibility.

The Washington P5 Conference began on June 27 with a U.S.-hosted public event titled “Three Pillars for Peace and Security: Implementing the NPT.” This forum addressed how each of the three pillars of the NPT—nonproliferation, peaceful uses of nuclear energy, and disarmament—plays a part in the move towards a negotiated, effectively verifiable elimination of nuclear weapons. At the conference, the P5 reaffirmed their unconditional support for the NPT and the NPT Review Conference's Action Plan, reaffirmed the commitments to promote and ensure the swift entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and its universalization, discouraged abuse of the NPT withdrawal provision (Article X), stressed the need to strengthen International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards and promote universalization of the Additional Protocol, and worked to pursue their shared goal of nuclear disarmament under Article VI of the NPT.

The P5 continued their discussion of how to report on their relevant activities, and considered proposals for a standard reporting format. The P5 also discussed ways to kick start negotiations on a verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons and other nuclear explosive devices that has stalled in the Conference on Disarmament. The P5 agreed on the work plan for a P5 working group led by China, to develop a glossary of definitions for key nuclear terms. We expect this process will increase P5 mutual understanding and facilitate further P5 discussions on nuclear matters.

We regard this year's Washington P5 Conference as a success, much like its predecessors. It has ushered in an energetic intersessional period. China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States agreed to continue to meet at all appropriate levels on nuclear issues, to further promote dialogue, predictability, and mutual confidence. We plan to hold a fourth P5 conference in the context of the next NPT Preparatory Committee in 2013.

The P5 has also been working with other relevant parties to promote the early commencement of Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament (CD). The FMCT is the next step in multilateral arms control, and it is time to move forward on it. Meeting several times over the past year, key stakeholder countries have discussed the way ahead, and this has already resulted in a more positive and cooperative atmosphere among these countries with regards to FMCT. Currently, I believe it is our very best chance at progress on the issue, and has the best potential to move the CD to action on the Treaty.

Conclusion

The United States looks forward to continued cooperation with both the Russian Federation and the rest of the P5, as we all work towards nuclear disarmament. We have much to do and many obstacles in our way, but together we can meet these challenges through communication, transparency, diplomacy and plain old persistence: step by step, we will make progress.

In closing, let me return to the Cuban Missile Crisis. We survived those terrifying days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, because our leaders chose reason and diplomacy over fear and brinksmanship. When negotiators from the United States and the Soviet Union first began having bilateral nuclear reduction talks, I am certain that in their minds they carried with them the darkest moments of that crisis. The reality of how close we came to our own destruction—the destruction of the world—must never be forgotten. We must remember why we are here talking today, why our nations meet each other at the negotiating table and why we must show leadership among our allies, partners and friends.

Thank you again for inviting me to join you today. I am now happy to take some questions.

President Barack Obama gave the following remarks at the Clinton Global Initiative

Secretary Hillary Clinton gave the following remarks at the United Nations

Secretary Clinton. Thank you very, very much, Maria, and I am delighted to be able to join you for this meeting. Sometimes when you look at the busy schedule of the UN General Assembly, you see only the headlines, the problems, the hotspots, the conflicts, the challenges, and all of those are certainly important. But you also have to look at the trend lines, and you're here because you know that water is an issue that cuts across borders and affects every human being.

You know better than any that water management and resource issues are both a moral imperative and a strategic investment, and I want to thank everyone who has participated in this, because whether you're talking about economic development or improving global health, whether you focus on promoting food security or building peace or coping with climate change or providing sustainable energy, access to clean water is critical. And the problems that are already coming to the forefront around the world will only intensify as populations grow and demands increase.

Now, this year alone in the United States, we've experienced extreme drought conditions in some parts of our country and devastating floods in others. We are well aware that Europe, Asia, and Africa have all experienced similar challenges. Now, you've already heard about our Intelligence Community Assessment on Global Water Security, and I hope that you will have if you didn't today have a chance to really study it, because water scarcity could have profound implications for security. The report found that dwindling supplies and poor management of water resources will certainly affect millions of people as food and crops grow scarcer and access to water more difficult to obtain. In fact, in some places, the water tables are already more depleted than we thought and wells are drying up.

In other parts of the world, water resources could become a real source of manipulation and increasing instability. And we want to get ahead of what those potential problems might be. We can't wait until we already have a crisis. So I think water should be a priority in every nation's foreign policy and domestic agenda, and we need to work together to advance cooperation on shared waters. Here at the UN, we have to work in our continuing efforts to ensure no child dies of a water-related disease and certainly no war is ever fought over water.

Now, to give just one example of what we need to be doing, the United States is working with the UN Development Program and other partners from not only governments but the business world, civil society, philanthropy, and academia on the shared waters partnership to help build really robust institutions. And also, as part of that, we will be looking for ways to establish online platforms to facilitate cooperation and to facilitate regional dialogues. All of us are here today because we understand the urgency. It is for me a critical issue that we have to start asking ourselves what are we going to do today and tomorrow to address.

Many of you are already working on developing practical solutions. How can we better connect and share what you've already learned? How can we build more effective institutions for managing shared water resources? And how do we bring safe drinking water and sanitation to all the world's people? I'm sure it's been said many times already today, but there are countries where there are more cell phones than toilets. How do we look for every possible creative, innovative approach to safe drinking water and sanitation? I'm excited, because I think this is now getting the attention that it so richly deserves. I thank Under Secretary Otero for leading our efforts inside the United States Government, and I look forward to hearing the results of your deliberations and working with you to try to implement your very practical solutions. Thank you all.