Shaw opined in late 2020 that the previous president has never been known for his visionary foreign [He never had a viable vision, but his people had visions on] policy and yet his presidency will leave the world transformed. In an age of disinformation, the precise nature of the changes he [not him but his people] has brought about in global affairs can be elusive, particularly when those changes have resulted from his administration’s clandestine negotiations with Russian officials and businessmen. While America has been focused on the ways in which the Kremlin interfered to support that previous president in the 2016 election, too little attention has been paid to what Moscow intended to get out of that previous presidency or indeed what they got.
From the earliest days of the campaign right up until the present day, that previous president and his associates have tried to conduct foreign policy through the genre they know best: the business deal. Since they didn’t use the usual government channels for foreign affairs, unless we have official investigations we won’t know exactly what transpired in these dealings. But there is one area — nuclear energy — in which it seems clear that Russia stands to benefit from these transactions at the expense not only of US interests, but also those of Ukraine and of global nonproliferation more generally. This could present serious challenges to any attempts the Biden administration might make to reconstruct a stable nonproliferation regime. [See ACU's recommendations to Biden-Harris Administration (here)]
The impetus for that previous president's 2016 campaign associates and his administration officials to make nuclear energy deals has come in large part from the interest of the Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia, in nuclear power. And the lure of Saudi billions has created financial incentives that have eclipsed non-proliferation concerns. For example, Americans in that previous president's inner circle sought Saudi funding for ambitious programs building nuclear reactors across the Middle East. But Russia has ended up being awarded many of these Middle Eastern contracts. And it seems that the previous administration may have given away, through its inept dealings, significant U.S. leverage in the nuclear energy sector.
An examination of two separate sets of negotiations reveals distinct forms of corruption and geopolitical risk involved in that previous president's associates’ nuclear energy deals. The first, led by that previous president's first National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, but also implicating other members of that previous president's inner circle, involved openly courting Russia to participate in a nuclear energy deal that would likely further Russian interests at the expense of Ukraine’s. The second, which involved an attempt to purchase nuclear company Westinghouse, was led by that previous president's close associate and former Middle East adviser, Tom Barrack. It didn’t explicitly include Russia, but it was thwarted by Jared Kushner for unknown reasons, and it now appears that Russia may have secretly been a chief beneficiary of the alternative deal that was ultimately made.
This series of negotiations has both nuclear security and broader geopolitical implications, which could be particularly dire for Ukraine, with whom Russia remains locked in conflict. These activities could also be consequential for the rebalancing of power in the Middle East, perhaps even more broadly. And they may have created serious national security vulnerabilities for the United States.
Even aside from these nuclear energy deals, international nuclear security has already been profoundly shaken by a few stamps of that previous president's foot. That includes his withdrawal from three international arrangements — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for Iran’s nuclear program, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) with Russia, and the Open Skies Treaty that permitted verification of nuclear agreements — as well as his potential withdrawal from the U.S. Bilateral Agreement for Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation. These extraordinary steps have collectively transformed the nuclear landscape. In June of this year he even threatened to restart nuclear testing.
These were mostly reactive moves with serious risks, not the product of some hidden cunning strategy. When Shaw consulted nuclear security expert Professor Graham Allison (who was involved in developing programs for decommissioning weapons at the end of the Cold War), he was unambiguous: “While the specifics among them differ, the net effect of these actions has been to increase the risk of nuclear proliferation and even war.”
But it may turn out to be just as consequential that since 2016, that the previous president and his team have treated the international nuclear order as if it were cheap real estate in a former Soviet republic: rich in opportunities for deals, liberatingly deficient in enforceable laws and norms. Their secret bargaining over nuclear security has compounded the damage done by the previous president's [(he had no idea what was going on), it was his people's ineptness of the] highly visible unraveling of non-proliferation agreements.
....further down the article ....
..... It’s only relatively recently that the public and private U.S. institutions have begun to examine seriously the intricate financial network that lies behind and links Russian nuclear business dealings in the United States. Public perception of these dealings has been dominated by the false Uranium One conspiracy theory. This distraction has diverted attention from the extent to which Russia has established a strong foothold in the US nuclear industry in a way that suggests an aspiration to vertical control.
The grain of truth in the Uranium One story is that in 2010 Canadian company Uranium One, which was responsible for mining 20% of the currently licensed uranium in the United States, made an agreement with JSC Atomredmetzoloto, or ARMZ, the mining arm of Rosatom, giving them a controlling stake (51%). In 2013 Rosatom acquired full ownership. Uranium One continues to mine approximately 10% of that licensed in-situ uranium. [For clarification on these issues, see (here) and (here)].
Read on ... a comprehensive perspective, but serious issues have been raised concerning the author's treatment of the subjects involved. For Example:
Dr. Tom Cochran objected to his coverage in the author's article:
..... "As you [the author of the above article] well know I have devoted most of my career to reducing the risks of nuclear weapons and proliferation, and this includes my association with, and work on behalf of, ACU. I do not take it lightly when someone maligns these efforts and my reputation based on falsehoods, regardless of whether he or she does this intentionally, or otherwise. In this regard, please pass along my assessment of Prof. Tamsin Shaw’s article and the actions of the editors of Just Security.
When I first read Prof. Shaw’s article, “Trump’s Impact on Nuclear Proliferation,” I immediately realized that she had made numerous errors and failed to carefully research the topic she was addressing. I reached out to Prof. Shaw and explained many of the problems and errors in her article. This effort was in vain. She chose not to dig deeper to ensure that her article was fair and accurate. In some respects, her revised article is worse than the original.
I want to focus here on the lack of scholarship exhibited in the article and not legal issues, as I am not an attorney.
Although she read the two reports by the Staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform Second Staff (February 2019 and July 2019) at oversight.house.org, it is apparent she did not read any of the relevant correspondence sent by ACU to Reps. Cummings and Engel, e.g., from me (June 22, 2017, Sept. 13, 2017, Dec. 8, 2017), Alex Copson (June 27, 2017), or ACU attorney Tom Egan (June 20, 2017), or the IP3 attorney Michael Summersgill (Oct. 3, 2017), all of which is on the public record. She also did not review General Flynn’s two amended filings of his Public Financial Disclosure Report with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, also on the public record.
Prof. Shaw obviously failed to conduct rudimentary due diligence and thus expressed a highly distorted view of ACU. If she had read these materials, which I do not believe to be the case, then I would have to conclude that she violated the ethical principles requiring fairness and accuracy. These are two of the requirements of journalists under their Society of Professional Journalists’ code of ethics (See: https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp ). Surely the principles of fairness and accuracy equally apply to university professors when they write articles for public websites.
It is clear that Prof. Shaw does not have an accurate grasp of what transpired before or after Trump became President, or General Flynn’s role as it relates to ACU or IP3. The text of the article bears no relation to the title since the Trump Administration did not endorse either of the two proposals she discusses, and it did not abandon the 123 Agreement “Gold Standard”.
Had Prof. Shaw thoroughly and properly researched her article, she would have understood all of this. In fact, Rep. Cunnings’ staff recognized the distinctions between ACU and IP3. In their Second Interim Report (July 2019), the Staff focused its ire on IP3, not ACU. Prof. Shaw failed to recognize what occurred and instead cited erroneous statements in the staff’s first report (February 2109) and several inaccurate news accounts that were based in part on the earlier report and letters the staff crafted for Rep. Cummings and Engel.
Prof. Shaw continues to conflate ACU and IP3. She falsely implied ACU had a role in the IP3 proposal made at the White House. She falsely states that General Flynn “hoped to engineer a partnership between IP3 and ACU.” She infers that ACU’s proposal would further nuclear proliferation when just the opposite is true — the ACU architecture requires all parties sign a 123 Agreement, and the ACU architecture is far preferable to “the Gold Standard” in the 123 Agreement with the UAE. She libelously implies that Alex is an Islamophobe, when it is obvious to anyone who understands the architecture of the ACU proposal that the opposite is the case. She falsely claims ACU would employ Rosoboron, demonstrating she doesn’t understand what Rosoboron is or does.
She falsely implies that ACU supports unilaterally lifting U.S. sanctions against Russia. She shows a total lack of understanding of ACU’s objectives regarding Ukraine by misrepresenting your draft proposal while libelously accusing you of advocating bribery rather than an agreed settlement endorsed by the US, France and Germany consistent with the Munich Agreement. She falsely indicates that the ACU project “involved openly courting Russia to participate in a nuclear deal that would likely further Russia’s interest at the expense of Ukraine’s.”
Prof. Shaw cites an anonymous “whistleblower’s” hearsay account in the Staff’s First Report (February 2017) and a basis for maligning Alex Copson. The “whistleblower’s” account was proven to be false, and please note that Prof. Shaw’s does not provide evidence otherwise using primary sources.
This is not an exhaustive list of Prof. Shaw’s errors, but it should demonstrate to any knowledgeable observer that Prof. Shaw’s article cannot be salvaged if the ethical principles of accuracy and fairness are to be observed.
Turning now to the editors of Just Security (https://www.justsecurity.org/),it has an advisory board made up of highly respected individuals. However, it appears that neither the advisory board nor any other scholar(s) carefully peer reviewed Prof. Shaw’s article. I observed that many of the links to documents in Prof. Shaw’s posted article did not work. Even after revising the article, the link to the Second Interim Report of the Staff of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform was in fact linked to the wrong report.
The way the editors of Just Security have handled our concerns — its failure to seek accuracy and fairness, and how it has made minor edits in a “gotcha” manner instead of making a sincere effort to correct the errors — leaves me cold. What purpose, I ask, does it serve trying to help them, when they place a higher value on protecting themselves and their authors, than on following the code of ethics of their profession.
Thomas B. Cochran, PhD
Chief Scientist
ACU Energy International
815 Connecticut Avenue, NW
12th Floor
Washington, DC 20006
Phone: 571-251-6646
Email: tcochran@ACUenergyintl.com"
Also see other ACU comments on the Shaw editorial/article: (here).
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