On May 28-29, representatives from over 80 countries attended a conference in Washington to mark the fifth anniversary of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), launched by President George W. Bush in a May 31, 2003 speech in Krakow, Poland. Conference attendees reviewed the initiative’s record, engaged in various government and public outreach activities, and assessed how the PSI should evolve to meet changing international security challenges. [1]

The PSI seeks to mobilize and strengthen the international community’s ability to curb trafficking in nuclear, biological, or chemical (NBC) weapons and their means of delivery among state and non-state actors of proliferation concern. The initiative seeks to complement other nonproliferation efforts (e.g., export control groups and formal nonproliferation treaties). The PSI has a deliberately loosely structured format that promotes voluntary activities aimed primarily at enhancing participants’ capacity to respond to suspected incidents of WMD-related trafficking.

Despite a generally positive review, PSI adherents must address several issues if the initiative is to continue as an important feature of the broad nonproliferation regime. Several states have raised questions about the PSI’s legitimacy. Many governments that could help realize PSI goals do not participate in the initiative on a sustained basis. Formal requirements for state participation are minimal; governments merely need to express their support for the initiative’s principles and a willingness to consider engaging in specific activities. The secret nature of many PSI efforts has also engendered uncertainty regarding the initiative’s effectiveness. In addition, the PSI would profit from expanded collaboration with important regional security institutions.

Despite these drawbacks, the PSI has increased international attention to the interdiction dimensions of nonproliferation efforts and has provided some structure to what previously had been a series of more narrowly focused WMD interdiction programs. Critics of the PSI mostly endeavor to strengthen the initiative rather than eliminate it. The large number of countries that at least partially endorse the program suggests it has become an important if imperfect component of the global nonproliferation architecture.

Background
The December 2002 incident involving the So San, a merchant ship sailing under the North Korean flag but not registered there, served as an immediate catalyst for the PSI’s launch. After intelligence warned that the vessel might be conveying highly dangerous cargo to the Middle East, U.S. officials cooperated with the Spanish government to interdict the ship in international waters in the Mediterranean. Although the Spanish Special Forces who boarded the craft discovered Scud missiles and warheads, Spanish authorities had to release the cargo after the government of Yemen affirmed it had purchased the consignment; international law did not then prohibit such transfers of short-range ballistic missiles. [2] The outcome led President Bush to authorize the U.S. government to expand the legal authority of the United States and its allies to interdict shipments of missiles, WMD, and related materials. [3]

That same month, the Bush administration published its first National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction, which highlighted the importance of interdicting WMD-related items. “Effective interdiction is a critical part of the U.S. Strategy to combat WMD and their delivery means,” the document maintained. For this reason, the United States “must enhance the capabilities of our military, intelligence, technical, and law enforcement communities to prevent the movement of WMD materials, technology, and expertise to hostile states and terrorist organizations.” [4]

More broadly, the revelations regarding Saddam Hussein’s covert nuclear weapons program, North Korea’s flaunting of its nonproliferation commitments, concerns about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the shock of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and fears of WMD terrorism prompted the international community to seek to bolster existing nonproliferation regimes with new mechanisms. In some respects, the effectiveness of traditional nonproliferation institutions, albeit limited, has driven proliferation activity underground into black markets. The surprising scope of those markets – involving WMD-related transactions that use the most advanced information technologies and transportation networks to link private sector and state actors throughout the globe – has only become apparent in recent years. This realization has fostered a sense that additional nonproliferation tools are needed to address the new dimensions of the challenge.

Membership
The PSI is a voluntary coalition of countries that agree to cooperate in countering the illicit transfer of weapons of mass destruction and related items. In the past, efforts to interdict suspected WMD transfers were often ad hoc. In the case of the U.S. Second Line of Defense program or the Container Security Initiative, they focused on one WMD type or one region of the world as a potential source. [5] PSI aims to make interdiction a routine feature of the contemporary nonproliferation landscape, engaging the sustained attention of high-level policy makers at a time when “proliferators are shipping to proliferators.” [6]

Any government can participate in the PSI by formally endorsing its Statement of Principles, which only requires submitting a diplomatic note to an existing PSI participant and issuing a public declaration. [7]
The Principles specify a series of goals and recommendations by which PSI participants can enhance their ability to assist interdiction efforts – defined by the U.S. government as “any action…that results in the denial, delay, or disruption of a shipment of proliferation concern.” [8] The most common forms of PSI activity appear to be sharing intelligence data regarding possible WMD-related shipments or acts of a single government to deny export licenses or transit rights for transactions suspected of involving illicit
NBC materials. The actual halting, boarding, and inspecting the cargo of ships, planes, or other vehicles suspected of carrying WMD, their means of delivery (which in practice has meant ballistic missiles), or related items between countries apparently happens much less frequently. “While these may occur,” the State Department notes, “they are rare.” [9]

The PSI initially depended heavily on a group of “core” states – Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States – to drive the initiative forward. In fact, the core group’s most important task was to expand the number of participating states. [10] The core group was disbanded in August 2005 after other countries, notably India, complained of a lack of transparency in its deliberations and discrimination against PSI participants not belonging to “the core.” Opponents noted in particular that group members included solely U.S. military allies, making the body unrepresentative. [11]

An Operational Experts Group (OEG) has effectively assumed management of PSI’s ongoing evolution.
The OEG comprises diplomatic, intelligence, law enforcement, legal, and military representatives from the original eleven governments of the core group as well as nine other countries: Argentina, Canada, Denmark, Greece, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Singapore, and Turkey. OEG experts meet several times a year to discuss the most urgent issues, assess how to expand support for the initiative, and organize future PSI exercises and other activities on a two-year schedule. The OEG also develops concepts of operation to govern actual PSI interdiction missions. [12]

PSI participants also include governments that have declared support for the initiative, but have refrained from formally committing to implement its Interdiction Principles, except perhaps on a case-by-case basis. As of May 22, 2008, the State Department website lists 91 PSI “Participants,” including all of the European countries (including the former Soviet republics), those belonging to the Gulf Cooperation Council, and other states in the Middle East, Asia, and the Western Hemisphere. [13] Skeptics maintain that many nations on the list are “passive participants” whose governments rarely engage in PSI activities if at all. [14]

The refusal of South Korea or China to become even declaratory PSI participants is especially problematic since neighboring North Korea has always been a primary, if unadvertised, target of the initiative. Indeed, some of the early PSI maritime exercises in Asia seemed designed to pressure Pyongyang to make more concessions in the Six-Party Talks regarding its denuclearization. [15] At the November 2006 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, President Bush sought to persuade then South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun to enter the PSI. Roh responded that his country would not take part “in the full scope” of the initiative but would “support the principles and goals of the PSI” by cooperating in preventing the transfer of WMD-related materials in northeast Asia. [16] South Korea has thus far restricted its PSI status to that of an observer out of concern that its direct participation in stopping and searching North Korean ships could lead to armed clashes with Pyongyang. The new government of President Lee Myung-bak, however, seems interested in embracing the initiative more directly. [17]

China’s absence is also a source of concern. Beijing exercises more influence in Pyongyang than perhaps any other foreign government. In addition, the air route between Iran and North Korea, the two states of most proliferation concern at present for PSI members, also traverses China’s air space. Further, U.S. authorities have accused Chinese government entities of providing WMD-related items to Iran, Pakistan, and North Korea. Xu Guangyu, a researcher at the China Arms Control and Disarmament Association, a government-sponsored think tank in Beijing, probably reflected official Chinese government opinion when he observed that, “We don’t want to see actions that could escalate tensions or spark confrontation. It wouldn’t serve China’s interests to become closely involved.” [18]

Structure, Procedures, and Activities
Unlike many pre-9/11 nonproliferation institutions, the PSI does not have an administrative secretariat or the other standard features of a formal international organization. It lacks, for example, a permanent staff or offices, regular joint funding mechanisms, or an infrastructure independent of its member states to undertake or monitor activities conducted under its auspices. A U.S. government official who spoke at the fifth anniversary conference said that there “are not any capabilities that are exclusively PSI.” [19]

Participation in any PSI activity, like that in the initiative as a whole, is entirely voluntary. States can undertake joint exercises and other programs among themselves without committing other PSI members. The guidelines make clear that each state is responsible for providing the funds and forces required to support any given PSI activity. In addition, PSI members refuse to specify in advance what criteria justify an interdiction or to employ a formal collective decision making process to authorize enforcement actions. In the event of an actual interdiction, each government can decide whether to participate, leading one analyst to liken the process to a “deputized posse” of countries that organize an ad hoc group of volunteers to track down and detain lawbreakers. [20]

Proponents claim that this flexibility has made the PSI more effective by allowing it to respond more rapidly to instances of possible WMD-related proliferation. “The success of the initiative is in part attributable to the much different approach that we took from traditional nonproliferation initiatives,” argued Robert Joseph, then Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, who was one of the driving forces behind the initiative. “This is not a treaty-based approach.” [21] In 2004, John Bolton, also a former U.S. Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, told Congress that “the long-term objective of the United States is to create a web of counterproliferation partnerships through which proliferators will have difficulty carrying out their trade in WMD and missile-related technology.” [22]

In building this counterproliferation web, the PSI has also sought to engage private sector actors, a logical step given their importance in the global transportation infrastructure. For example, the PSI has sponsored workshops and other mechanisms with the maritime and air cargo industries. In September 2006, the British Ministry of Defence hosted a two-day gathering in London that involved twenty countries and representatives of diverse maritime industry partners. The meeting also underscored the broad level of U.S. agency participation in the initiative, reflecting the multidimensional nature of the challenge posed by illicit WMD trafficking; the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, State, and Justice (the Federal Bureau of Investigation) all sent representatives. [23] An important objective of these PSI industry initiatives has been to minimize disruptions to legitimate commerce while seeking to prevent illicit WMD-related transfers. [24]

Although the PSI is often thought of primarily as a means to stop, search, and seize WMD-related maritime shipments on the high seas, the officials speaking on background at this year’s anniversary conference cited occasions in which participating governments denied export licenses or overflight rights to suspected WMD transfers. [25] Since these actions often entail only a decision by a single government, they have much less visibility than those involving the boarding of a ship on the high seas. Another common activity, typically more multinational in scope, is to curb financial transactions that sustain proliferation-for-profit enterprises. [26]

Most PSI activities have attempted to curb possible proliferation involving national governments rather than terrorist, criminal, or other non-state networks. [27] Moreover, while participants deny that the PSI is directed at any specific country, from the start, interdiction training, exercises, and apparently actual operations have been primarily focused on Iran, Syria, and North Korea. Although India, Israel, and Pakistan have also been accused of engaging in potential WMD-related transfers, PSI architect Bolton argued that, “We’re not trying to have a policy that attempts to cover each and every one of those circumstances. What we’re worried about are the rogue states and the terrorist groups that pose the most immediate threat.” [28] Such an approach has led to charges that the PSI, like other Western-dominated nonproliferation institutions (e.g., the Nuclear Suppliers Group), employs double standards. This perception of discrimination has contributed to the reluctance of countries like China and India to support the initiative. [29]

In contrast to actual interdiction operations, PSI participants highlight their workshops, interdiction training exercises, and other capacity-building efforts designed to foster effective collaboration. Such publicity has a deterrent value by making clearer potential proliferators’ risks of exposure. It also serves a denial function by building interdiction capacity. In addition, it is less controversial – and therefore easier – to attract foreign governments for activities that bolster their WMD defenses than it is to secure their involvement in actual enforcement actions.

According to the U.S. State Department, as of May 2008, 35 interdiction exercises have been organized under PSI auspices. Although some involved air, ground, or maritime forces from a variety of countries, many of them focused on diplomatic initiatives, law enforcement and customs operations, and scenario-based table-top simulations. [30] The Department observes that, “PSI partners have sustained one of the only global, interagency, and multinational exercise programs” whose purpose is to enable “participants to increase their interoperability, improve interdiction decision-making processes, and enhance the interdiction capabilities and readiness of all participating states.” [31] For example, in October 2006, 25 countries participated in the first PSI exercise (“Leading Edge”) in the Persian Gulf. [32] In April 2007, Lithuania hosted “Smart Raven,” an air interception exercise that involved Estonia, Latvia, Poland, and the United States. In May 2007, Slovenia hosted “Adriatic Gate 2007,” a multinational maritime interception exercise. [33] Australia, France, Poland, the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, Singapore, Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Germany, Canada and Italy, Turkey, and the United States have also hosted or led PSI-related exercises, simulations, or meetings. [34]

Assessment
The PSI has achieved its three main goals of increasing international commitments to interdict WMD-related transfers, improving national and international capacities to conduct such interdictions, and enhancing the ability of countries to cooperate effectively on specific NBC interdiction operations should they decide to do so. [35] Using more precise effectiveness measures for the PSI, however, is difficult. According to Joseph, the program’s many achievements cannot be elucidated because “it is inevitable that much of our work is done quietly and with cooperation in sensitive channels outside the public spotlight. We should welcome this. Discrete actions often help us stay one step ahead of the proliferators and give them less insight into steps they can take to evade detection.” [36]

Several incidents, however, have been publicly portrayed as examples of successful WMD-related interdictions within the PSI framework. Various U.S. government officials, including Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine General Peter Pace, have argued that the PSI contributed to Libya’s December 2003 decision to abandon its WMD programs. [37] Secretary Rice also maintained in May 2005 that PSI contributed to 11 additional successful interdiction efforts over the previous nine months, including several important interceptions of items that could have assisted Iran to develop WMD or ballistic missiles. [38] U.S. officials also stated that, in concert with PSI partners, Washington achieved approximately 25 interdictions in 2006. [39] In May 2007, Assistant Secretary of State John Rood said the PSI helped prevent the export to Iran of some controlled dual-use items, missile technologies, and heavy water, which can be used to manufacture nuclear bombs. [40]

The PSI’s critics have challenged these effectiveness claims, both in specific cases and in general. With respect to the celebrated Libyan case, for instance, they argue that other interdiction activities directed exclusively at Libya might have played a more important part than those that occurred under the initiative. [41] Generally, PSI skeptics consider its claimed successes suspect since much of the information regarding the events is not easily available due to classification and other reasons. For instance, it is unclear how many governments provided assistance with suspected trafficking incidents or declined to do so – and under what conditions they made these decisions.

Partly due to the information problem, the independent impact of PSI-related activities is hard to gauge. Whereas proponents tout the PSI’s flexibility, detractors have doubted its sustainability due to the lack of formal mechanisms such as a secretariat and a dedicated and reliable source of funding. They also express concern about insufficient accountability, limited supervision of activities formally occurring under its auspices, and the absence of a clear mechanism for developing and implementing a common strategy. [42]

The initiative’s flexible membership criteria can also be seen as both a weakness and a strength. Skeptics note that a government only need express declaratory support for curbing WMD proliferation to be labeled a PSI “participant,” regardless of whether the country provides any operational support for actual interdiction operations. [43] PSI enthusiasts see the diversity of contributions as a positive attribute. “In many ways, these differences reveal the essence of PSI. Individual states contribute as their capabilities and their laws allow, using their diplomatic, military, economic, law enforcement, and intelligence tools to combat the trade in proliferation creatively within the context provided by a shared commitment to the principles on which we are all agreed,” Joseph argued in June 2006. [44]

In any case, although support for the initiative remains less than for treaty-based nonproliferation institutions, it has not aroused the opposition that more controversial unilateral counterproliferation activities, such as Israel’s air strikes against a suspected Syrian nuclear site, last October have elicited. The participants have also retreated from some of their earlier language that implied a comprehensive effort to reshape international law regarding WMD proliferation. Rather, they have stressed that the PSI is in conformity with – indeed supports – traditional nonproliferation instruments.

Legal Concerns
One recurring issue is whether the PSI contravenes the UN Law of the Sea and other legal principles regulating maritime activities. International law, for example, generally provides foreign vessels with the right of “innocent passage” through territorial waters. In addition, it normally prohibits a government’s representatives from boarding foreign ships outside its territorial waters unless those vessels lack a national flag or are suspected of piracy, slavery, or illegal broadcasting. Government-owned ships that engage in non-commercial activities are also exempt from other national jurisdictions and cannot be legally interdicted at all short of a blockade or other act of war. [45]

PSI participants stress that their actions will remain “consistent with national legal authorities and relevant international law and frameworks.” [46] They also argue that international legal norms provide considerable support for interdicting WMD-related traffic. The 2005 amendment to Article 4 of the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation (SUA Convention), which criminalizes the transportation of WMD material or weapons, has enhanced the legitimacy of the PSI, even though securing the amendment’s widespread ratification and implementation could take years. [47] In addition, PSI members cite UN Security Council Resolution 1718 (2006), authorizing the interception of all shipments involving suspected WMD moving to and from North Korea, as legitimizing PSI activities against Pyongyang, though some legal experts and foreign governments question that assertion. [48]

In practice, even the PSI’s most committed supporters have resorted to exploiting whatever minor legal irregularities or infractions they can find to search a vessel and seize an illicit cargo. [49] This “broken tail-light” approach, however, risks alarming non-participants who fear that the PSI’s architects simply seek pretexts to exploit legal loopholes to circumvent international law.

In fact, many governments have adjusted their legal frameworks to enable joint legal action, sign ship boarding agreements, and conduct joint exercises. The United States, for example, in line with its desired “web of counterproliferation partnerships,” has launched a sustained effort through the PSI to sign reciprocal ship-boarding agreements with countries that offer “Flags of Convenience” (FOC) for international maritime vessels such as Belize, Croatia, Cyprus, Liberia, Malta, Mongolia, Panama and the Marshall Islands. [50] These FOC states present proliferation risks because they typically apply weaker regulations and supervision than non-FOC countries. In addition, they nominally control much of the world’s maritime traffic. [51] These boarding agreements establish expedited procedures whereby either party – which in practice most often means the United States – can board, inspect, and, if legally appropriate, detain the cargo of ships that use the flag of either country if the vessels are located in U.S. or international waters and are suspected of carrying PSI-restricted items. [52]

Future Challenges and Opportunities
The PSI has succeeded in achieving its key goal of making interdiction a core element of the contemporary nonproliferation architecture. What had been ad hoc and regionally-focused WMD interdiction initiatives now have become interlinked, at least in terms of sharing best practices and giving such activities a higher global profile. [53] Even many critics acknowledge that the initiative has proven useful, though to a lesser degree than its most ardent supporters claim. “Such criticism is merely an objective examination of the current structure of PSI. It does not mean that PSI is a bad initiative,” write Joseph Cirincione and Joshua Williams. “In fact, it is an excellent, though incomplete, step towards a more comprehensive and strengthened nonproliferation regime.” [54]

The PSI, however, is not immune from the recurring dilemma faced by many multilateral nonproliferation institutions – the potential tradeoff between the desire to broaden the number of members versus the objective of deepening existing participants’ degree of commitment. From this perspective, the PSI’s stress on flexibility and voluntary engagement facilitates recruiting new members, but it also complicates efforts to convert nominal members into active participants. Indeed, some of the PSI’s founders worry that the endeavor’s rapid expansion has weakened its effectiveness. Having participants who simply commit to PSI principles rhetorically but subsequently fail to enforce them, does little to promote nonproliferation goals. “This initiative was precisely an answer to the ossified, broad based proliferation structures that were failing us,” argues former Bolton aid David Wurmser. “It was meant to be an association of like-minded nations genuinely worried and serious about counter-proliferation.” [55]

Some analysts believe that the PSI would become more attractive if the UN Security Council explicitly endorsed it. [56] Bush administration representatives have argued that support for the PSI would increase in some important maritime countries if the U.S. Senate ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. [57] Since international law makes it easier for PSI participants to seize WMD in their own territorial waters and contiguous zones rather than on the high seas, expanding the number of participants is useful. [58]

Negotiating additional bilateral or multilateral boarding agreements with the major commercial flag states, including the so-called flags of convenience, also remains important for realizing the PSI’s objectives. Unlike vague declarations of support, these agreements provide operational capacity since they empower U.S. authorities, unless vetoed by the partner government, to act against specific suspected cases of WMD trafficking. Since the number of parties involved in negotiating such agreements is limited, they can be concluded expeditiously with a minimum number of participants.

The potential tradeoff between inclusiveness and effectiveness also manifests itself in the question of whether all members should have a voice in PSI decision and policy making. One proposal for enhancing both the initiative’s representation and participation is to establish a PSI Governing Committee that, like the UN Security Council, would have a limited number of permanent and rotating members. [59] Another suggestion is that PSI should follow the practices of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention and focus on outreach activities at the regional level (e.g., education seminars, training workshops, interception exercises, etc), especially where support for PSI lags. [60] Such governance and regional initiatives could help overcome the perception that it is primarily a U.S.-led operation designed mainly to pressure Iran and especially North Korea. Joseph insists that the PSI “is not a Western initiative; it is an initiative that is truly international,” but the reluctance of China, India and other Asian countries to back the endeavor reflects a contrary interpretation. [61]

Promoting progress in ancillary areas is also important. For example, strengthening measures to detect and interdict payments between proliferators and their suppliers would decrease one incentive for illicit trafficking in WMD-related items. Increasing intelligence sharing among PSI governments is also crucial, as is enhancing technologies for detecting small shipments of threatening NBC agents whose transportation does not require entire ships and planes. [62] In some respects, issues of legal authority present less of a problem for curbing WMD-related trade than identifying such trafficking in the first place. It is especially difficult to track activities of the numerous non-state actors – ranging from organized groups to individual entrepreneurs – that attempt to exchange proliferation-sensitive items. The sharing of information regarding non-state actors proved essential in exposing the A.Q. Khan network. [63] Improved proliferation intelligence is also necessary for realizing the Bush administration’s February 2004 proposal to enable PSI to detect and prosecute laboratories, front companies, and other private entities marketing WMD and related materials.

Some analysts have advocated supplementing the existing ad hoc, bilateral approach towards intelligence sharing among PSI participants with a more formal channel involving all PSI members, perhaps under UN auspices. [64] Maritime security expert Mark Valencia maintains that “the Bush Administration’s philosophical disdain for the UN” resulted in the PSI’s being “conceived, originated and implemented outside the UN system.” He argues that, “Most of PSI’s shortcomings stem from its ad hoc, extra-UN, U.S.-driven nature. Bringing it into the UN system and providing a budget for it…would rectify many of these shortcomings and in the long run improve its effectiveness.” [65] Similarly, some authors suggest securing a UNSC Resolution that creates an “interdiction committee” that could “assess intelligence, coordinate and fund activities…and make decisions regarding specific or generic interdictions.” [66]

Others observers worry, however, that giving the UN a major role in the PSI would make the initiative unwieldy. The new Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs for South Korea, Yong-jong Lee, cautions that, “it is much more realistic to rely on the prudence of individual states to implement the PSI rather than running the risk of political complications in a world of compromised multilateralism.” [67] In addition, employing an extensive multilateral approach towards intelligence sharing could prove problematic in cases in which officials either feed misleading information into the data sharing networks or use their knowledge to assist proliferators in improving their operational security.

Perhaps an effective intermediate solution would be to strengthen cooperation between the PSI and regional security institutions likewise committed to opposing WMD trafficking. NATO, the European Union (EU), the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and other bodies have developed effective mechanisms for collective action. These processes include permanent administrative secretariats and dedicated funding mechanisms as well as procedures to enhance intelligence-sharing and operational interoperability among their law enforcement and security agencies. These attributes could help them detect and curtail trafficking in WMD-related materials on a more sustained basis than the current case-by-case approach employed by PSI. Through such institutions, countries lacking significant international security resources (e.g. a global naval presence) could participate in a wider range of PSI activities. Involving regional security institutions in PSI-sponsored WMD interdiction operations could also enhance the initiative’s legitimacy and encourage the institutions’ members to provide more support.

Even with enhanced cooperation between the PSI and other institutions, improved interception capabilities are insufficient for curbing WMD proliferation. Continued support for nonproliferation treaties, their underlying formal organizations, informal export control arrangements, cooperative threat reduction programs, and other nonproliferation instruments remains essential for providing the international community with a robust, multi-layered toolkit for countering horizontal WMD proliferation. [68] From an even broader perspective, the PSI and other supply-focused counterproliferation efforts must be complemented by efforts to decrease the political, financial, security and other factors creating the demand for WMD-related materials. Some sources of demand – such as a desire to obtain asymmetric means to neutralize the superior conventional forces of the United States – appear difficult to diminish directly. But others -- those arising from regional insecurities, for example – might be overcome by confidence-building measures among concerned parties.

Richard Weitz – Hudson Institute