New Article by Mark Hibbs on 123 Agreements

I wanted to call readers’ attention to an excellent new article by Mark Hibbs on the Carnegie website, on the topic of U.S. diplomacy in negotiating nuclear sharing (123) agreements, and particularly on the subject of the so called “gold standard” provision prohibiting ENR activities by partner states.  I previously blogged about this issue here and here.

I completely agree with Fred McGoldrick’s comment at the end of the article.  Mark’s insight, equity, and pragmatism on this issue is truly a breath of fresh air amidst so much ideologically driven, USG-brown-nosing commentary on the issue by most in the U.S. nonproliferation community. 

I’m going to write a post soon giving my thoughts on the failings of the U.S. nonproliferation expert community generally (Mark and a few others excluded). Basically what I’ll be saying is that this behavior is par for the course.