India must provide growth and a leadership role achieving stability and peace in the region. A growth that’s based on trust and a democratic process.

India has the potential to have the largest middle class in the world. It must focus on developing all of it’s own people. This has been an issue in the past. Poverty is a huge issue in India. 500 million people in India lack access to commercial energy. Infrastructure projects are many but urbanization still produces many city slums.

The panel did not want to compare India’s growth with that of China and for good reasons. The growth is fundamentally different. However, they are the 2 fastest growing regions and it’s hard not to notice some differences. The region around China has benefited from the growth in China while the region around India has not seen the same multipliers. This is an issue because one country in a region cannot sustain growth without including its neighbors.

The expectation is that India should have an external responsibility to the rest of the world, not just for trade but for leadership in the region and the world.

A permanent seat on the UN security counsel is a high expectation of India.

Gerath Evans (leader)
Dr. Yan Xuetong
Larry Brilliant
Dr. Amano – New Head of IEA/EA
Dr. Allison

Lightly attended. Evans upset that there is only one session scheduled on the topic and that the one session is at 9am late in the week.

NPT meeting this year to focus on getting agreement of something by 100 countries. Weak and modest goals which do not point to action very soon.

US has been incompetent for quite some time but high hopes with the new administration. All looking to March meeting in DC for a real change in policy.

China (which has 250) will not reduce weapons until the US and Russia reduce to less than 1000 weapons (currently they have 21,000) This is a ridiculous GAP. It seems to me that with 95% of the Nuclear Weapons, the US and Russia are the actual players in this game who could make a difference and that the continued dragging of feet is unproductive. The delay actually gives time for non-nuclear nations to go nuclear.

The issue is how secure nations feel. If a nation feels secure, they are less likely to need to arm. Dr. Amano, speaking as a Japanese National (Japan has no nuclear weapons), indicated that he feels confident that nuclear weapons are not needed in this world. Dr. Yan (China, 250 nuks) answered that it’s easy to take that view when you are guaranteed security by the US. Quite an exchange.

The North Korea crisis was completely screwed up. All powers changed position after the second nuclear test. Focus on security guarantees for countries not economic carrots and sticks. Stick with the security issue, don’t cloud it by combining NNP and economic issues. China is upset about having to side with the US on the North Korea issue. Now that it failed, Iran sees that it’s strategy is good and is emboldened.

The Global Zero movement and the movie, Countdown to Zero were both mentioned by Larry Brilliant.

It seems to me that the US and Russia must make drastic cuts in order to make progress on getting to ZERO. It seems like this head to head negotiation is only making modest impact. The Russian elite seem to need a security threat in order to stay in power. The US has the same issue. Why are we still negotiating at the same levels and topics that existed during the cold war? Why not just invite Russia to join NATO and make them part of the solution.

The US has got to stop bumbling along on this issue.