Proliferation NewsPosted by K.E. White on January 30, 2010
Some fun facts:
Such a decentralized system–on its face–doesn’t seem best at cutting costs or ensuring effective security. But we should all read the GAO report first.
Posted in nuclear security | Tagged: Department of Energy, Nuclear, security | Leave a Comment »
Posted by K.E. White on January 16, 2010
Last month “Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers”—a joint Australian-Japanese project—was released. While much reaction has been critical, Haaretz correspondent Amir Oren writes this positive editorial:
It is no longer possible to dismiss as negligible the possibility that a fanatical organization will get nuclear arms, materials or know-how from one of its patrons, take advantage of a gap in security and carry out a mass suicide attack. This could happen on a plane, a ship anchored in an American port with a missile launched from the sea, or a truck racing in from Mexico to the American side of the border in California or Arizona. It could also happen if an American who has converted to Islam or is the son of immigrants (like Maj. Hasan) does what Timothy McVeigh did with different motives when he blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, but this with a nuclear weapon.
To deal with nuclear terror it will be necessary to deal with states that sponsor it. To do so, it will be necessary to update the proliferation regime worldwide. Israel will also have to be included in this. Though this is an apocalyptic vision, there is scope for immediate action.
In April Obama will host an international nuclear security summit. It is not clear who will represent Israel there. If the representative is at the very highest level, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who also chairs the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, and not the commission’s director general, he will have to defend Israel’s position and not merely recycle the demands concerning Iran.
In May, shortly after Obama’s summit, a committee will meet – as it does every five years – to review the state of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty regime. Israel is not a signatory to this treaty and is therefore not subject to the regime, but there is significance for Israel in the conjunction of the nuclear meetings and what happens in advance of them.
Last month the report “Eliminating Nuclear Threats: A Practical Agenda for Global Policymakers” was published by the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament. Heading the commission were former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans and former Japanese foreign minister Yoriko Kawaguchi. Also on the committee were 13 statesman and experts, among them former American defense secretary William Perry, retired German chief of staff General Klaus Naumann (a good friend of Israel who served as head of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization Military Committee) and Turki Al Faisal, who headed Saudi intelligence for a quarter of a century. This group of people is privy to many secrets and have access to all the latest information…
The report treats it as fact that Israel is a country in possession of nuclear weapons outside the Non-Proliferation Treaty with an estimated 60 to 200 weapons, some of which are positioned. It mentions a very common assumption that Israel has ceased to produce fissile material but will not explicitly relinquish this route before there is a significant improvement in its security environment. The report recommends applying pressure on Israel – as well as India and Pakistan – to do so.Evans, Kawaguchi and their partners are aiming at a practical solution. They write: “Recognizing the reality that the three nuclear-armed states now outside the NPT – India, Pakistan and Israel – are not likely to become members any time soon, every effort should be made to achieve their participation in parallel instruments and arrangements which apply equivalent non-proliferation and disarmament obligations.”
The most creative idea in the report is this establishment of a parallel structure, the meaning of which is recognition of the atom’s settlement blocs – a next-generation NPT…
Posted in Nuclear Weapons | Tagged: Eliminating Nuclear Threats, Evans-Kawaguchi report, Haaretz | Leave a Comment »
Posted by K.E. White on January 15, 2010
With the Iraq War fallout, Britain has been forced to reassess its military posture. The Financial Times offers an aged—but still—fantastic panel discussion on Britain’s military future.
For this blog, David Davis’ contribution on Britain’s nuclear arsenal merits particular note:
In January, Field Marshal Lord Bramall, former chief of the defence staff, General Lord Ramsbotham and General Sir Hugh Beach described it as “virtually irrelevant” and argued for the funds behind it to be used to provide the army “with what they need to meet the commitments actually laid upon them”.
I do not agree with this argument. It seems to me perverse that we have a nuclear deterrent when we face one or two hostile nuclear powers, both with stable (albeit unpleasant) governments, but abandon it when we have a proliferation of relatively unstable nuclear antagonists.
But that does not mean we should squander money on an upgrade. The reason we decommissioned the cheaper air-dropped WE177 nuclear bombs in the 1990s and kept Trident was because the Trident system was designed to survive an all-out Soviet attack with sufficient power to retaliate. That threat is much reduced, and the bigger threat is of one or two probably inaccurate nuclear weapons from a rogue state…
Is Davis right? Are nuclear weapons useful tools to deter or punish terrorist actions? Or does preventing nuclear terrorism require nuclear-armed nations to reduce or disarm their stockpiles?
Note that the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council also represent the only five legally recognized nuclear-armed states under the NPT. Would one of the P-5 disarming, however small their arsenal may be, help reinforce international norms against proliferation?
Whatever the answers, by avoiding it Davis fails to prove the worth of a U.K. nuclear deterrent.
P.S. Britain and Australia have completed decontaminating and returning aboriginal lands used for 1950s nuclear tests.
Posted in Britain, Nuclear Weapons | Tagged: aborginal, Britain, military, Nuclear | Leave a Comment »
Posted by K.E. White on January 7, 2010
Tsutomu Yamaguchi—the Beckettian survivor of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombings—passed away Monday at the age of 93. The Guardian offers this report.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Guardian, Tsutomu Yamaguchi | Leave a Comment »
Posted by K.E. White on December 26, 2009
Alan J. Kuperman, Director of UT of Austin’s Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Program, makes the case for U.S. airstrikes against Iran. Three main points form his position: 1) the proposed nuclear transfer deal failed to halt Iran’s nuclear program and both sides knew it; 2) America should pounce now; and 3) that the Iranian reaction both inside and outside Iran may prove less dire than many predict.
Kuperman, boasting a unique and impressive academic and professional resume, deserves out attention—even if his editorial imposes a fair too neat narrative behind American and Iranian motivations. (Be sure to check out Kuperman’s other published works through his biography)
From Kuperman’s NYTimes editorial:
…Iran is far more likely to engage in “salami slicing” — a series of violations each too small to provoke retaliation, but that together will give it a nuclear arsenal. For example, while Iran permits international inspections at its declared enrichment plant at Natanz, it ignores United Nations demands that it close the plant, where it gains the expertise needed to produce weapons-grade uranium at other secret facilities like the nascent one recently uncovered near Qom.
In sum, the proposal would not have averted proliferation in the short run, because that risk always was low, but instead would have fostered it in the long run — a classic example of domestic politics undermining national security.
…
But there are three compelling reasons that the United States itself should carry out the bombings. First, the Pentagon’s weapons are better than Israel’s at destroying buried facilities. Second, unlike Israel’s relatively small air force, the United States military can discourage Iranian retaliation by threatening to expand the bombing campaign. (Yes, Israel could implicitly threaten nuclear counter-retaliation, but Iran might not perceive that as credible.) Finally, because the American military has global reach, air strikes against Iran would be a strong warning to other would-be proliferators.
Negotiation to prevent nuclear proliferation is always preferable to military action. But in the face of failed diplomacy, eschewing force is tantamount to appeasement. We have reached the point where air strikes are the only plausible option with any prospect of preventing Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. Postponing military action merely provides Iran a window to expand, disperse and harden its nuclear facilities against attack. The sooner the United States takes action, the better.
Posted in Iran | Tagged: Alan J. Kuperman, Iran, Nuclear, strike | Leave a Comment »
Posted by K.E. White on December 23, 2009
Has a Pakistani James Bond, with a US cover job, derailed India-Pakistan relations?
David Coleman Hedley recently arrested for aiding in in last year’s Mumbai attacks (time-line available here), has not helped peace talks between India and Pakistan:
An American with a Pakistani father serves as an agent for the Drug Enforcement Agency. He is covertly trained by the Pakistani army, and is also an operative of the Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba. He has a Moroccan wife and many stiletto-heeled girlfriends from Bollywood. After his arrest by U.S. authorities, Indian officials discover that he was given a long-term business visa for India. After his capture in early October, his papers mysteriously go missing from the Indian consulate in Chicago.
The tale of the alleged double agent David Coleman Headley, also known as Daood Sayed Gilani, is now in the middle of a very real investigation by the FBI and at the center of a diplomatic maelstrom that is blowing from Washington to New Delhi.
He is charged with six counts of criminal conspiracy in a case filed in federal court in Chicago. The case names him as a key architect of the November 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. Indian authorities also say Headley traveled seamlessly between borders, investigating further sites to attack.
The official investigation and daily exposes appearing in the Indian media have aided in further destabilizing relations between India and Pakistan. But the FBI’s handling of the Headley case, and reports that it has attempted to keep Headley away from Indian investigators, have also fueled suspicion toward the United States, seen here for decades as a Pakistan ally.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: Daood Sayed Gilani, David Coleman Headley, India, mumbai attacks, Pakistan | Leave a Comment »
Posted by K.E. White on December 23, 2009
Well, I’ll just underline the reason to be alarmist. If the rest of the world sees that North Korea can keep its nuclear weapons, they see that Iran is capable of defying United States and getting nuclear weapons, they see Hugo Chavez still completely unplugged and growing closer and closer to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran — let’s not forget Venezuela has its own uranium deposits — then the lesson, I think, for would-be proliferators around the world is clear. You can get nuclear weapons, and the United States and others will not act to stop you.
And if those constraints don’t have any force, then I think we’re going to see a lot more countries with nuclear weapons, and I think that raises the risk of global instability by an enormous factor.
Posted in News | Tagged: A Fiery Peace in the Cold War, Alison Graham, Arab League, Iran, John Bolton, North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, proliferation, Richard Perle, Russia | Leave a Comment »
Posted by K.E. White on December 21, 2009
Should America emulate Canada when it comes to storing nuclear waste?
This Christian Science Monitor article explores Canada’s attempt to store its growing quantities of nuclear waste. Seeking to avoid Yucca Mountain fiascoes, Canada’s privately controlled effort hopes communities will volunteer to store nuclear waste.
From the article:
In the US, site selection has been a top-down affair, with politics playing a central role. In 1987, Congress passed a law ordering the Department of Energy to explore only one location, Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which billions in studies subsequently showed to be problematic. Nevada vehemently opposed the plan, as did Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada. President Obama canned the project earlier this year, leaving US nuclear waste policy in limbo.
Canada’s plan aims to avoid local resistance by requiring communities to ask to be considered as hosts for an underground repository. Volunteers will be given extensive information on the ecological risks and economic benefits of the repository, which is expected to cost between $16 billion and $24 billion. After public endorsement via referendum or other means, the community would become a candidate for extensive technical review.
“The only way that a community will be involved in the process is by it choosing to be involved,” says Mike Krizanc, spokesman for the NWMO, the entity charged with finding the site. “It will be an informed and willing community.”
Posted in nuclear waste | Tagged: Canada, nuclear waste | Leave a Comment »
Posted by K.E. White on December 21, 2009
A new report provides detailed and wide-ranging recommendations to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. Sponsored by the Japanese and Australian governments, the report seeks to influence ongoing preparations for the 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty next summer.
The report also comes before a nuclear security summit hosted by U.S. President Barack Obama next April.
Without a chance to read it, for now I’ll offer this critique from Greg Sheridan at The Australian:
In its political analysis, the report often seems to exist in a kind of parallel universe, where all states pay attention to the UN and do just as they’re told and all disagreements are solved by negotiation. That may be a laudable end, but pretending the world is like that does not help policy-makers take sensible decisions.
…
More generally, he argues that nuclear disarmament will be possible when even the prospect of major war is unthinkable. Well, yes, I suppose if you’ve achieved total world peace you may be able to negotiate nuclear weapons away. But for the next 1000 years or so we’ll still have to grapple with them.
Evans is very taken with the idea that all states possessing nuclear weapons should declare that their only purpose for having them is to deter other nations from attacking them or their allies with nukes. Yet he recognises that the “no first use” declaration of the old Soviet Union was “almost universally dismissed as purely a propaganda exercise”, and that similar statements by other powers are greeted with cynicism. Therefore, he says, “it may be better to settle in the first instance for a different formulation of essentially the same idea”. That, sadly, just about sums up this report: a different formulation of some very tired and unrealistic ideas.
The report is often very confusing. It states baldly that the problems of North Korea and Iran’s nuclear programs can be solved by negotiation, without the slightest evidence of this being true. Evans states that the Iran situation looks unlikely “to be resolved by the further application of coercive sanctions”.
…
The report takes the mistaken standard international left line against national missile defence, even while asserting that theatre missile defence is a good thing, and acknowledging that you can’t really distinguish one from the other. And on and on. This report serves certain bureaucratic and even political ends. It does nothing for nuclear disarmament.
And Sheridan isn’t alone. This Times of India article expresses India’s frustration with the report.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: disarmament, Eliminating Nuclear Threats, International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament, Nuclear Weapons | 1 Comment »
Posted by K.E. White on December 19, 2009
A new report quashes concerns over the effectiveness of America’s nuclear deterrent. The report, released by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, reviews America’s nuclear forces and those of other nuclear-armed nations. Its thesis: America’s nuclear dominance continues even with other nations pursuing modernization programs. Conclusion: There’s no need for the US to pursue a robust nuclear modernization program.
Why is this important? Recently 41 senators made their support for a new START treaty with Russia dependent on US plans for nuclear modernization. Treaty ratification requires 67 votes in the US Senate.
Two sections from the report merit specific mention. First is its review of America’s current nuclear forces and modernization efforts:
The report then reviews the nuclear forces of other nations, and finds their modernization programs no threat to the United States. It then concludes:
Nonetheless, some still argue that if Washington doesn’t pursue a more robust modernization program, the United States will send the signal that it doesn’t take nuclear deterrence seriously. These concerns are mistaken. First, the United States clearly isn’t allowing its nuclear deterrent to deteriorate: Due to remarkable advances in stockpile stewardship capabilities and life-extension efforts, the U.S. nuclear stockpile and its supporting infrastructure remain the most sophisticated and modern in the world. U.S. delivery systems are mo:re deadly and more accurate than they were during the Cold War. Both the defense secretary and the energy secretary annually certify the reliability of U.S. warheads, even though Washington conducted its last nuclear test 17 years ago. Numerous studies have concluded that the explosive cores in U.S. warheads will remain reliable for many, many years. Plus according to a September report PDF from the JASON scientific advisory group, “Lifetimes of today’s nuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss in confidence by using approaches similar to those employed in [life-extension programs] to date.”
Second, Washington continues to spend huge sums of money on its nuclear forces. A recent study calculated that the United States devoted at least $29.1 billion to its nuclear forces and operational support in fiscal year 2008, including more than $6 billion for the Stockpile Stewardship Program.
So those who continue to argue that Washington doesn’t show enough interest in modernizing its nuclear weapons should be forced to answer a simple question: If given the choice, would they trade the U.S. nuclear arsenal for the Russian or Chinese nuclear arsenals? Clearly, the answer is no. The appropriate mission for U.S. nuclear weapons is deterrence. And the U.S. arsenal of more than 5,000 nuclear weapons has the capacity to deter any threat regardless of how many resources Russia, China, and/or any other country devote to modernizing their arsenals.
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: modernization, Nuclear Weapons, START | 1 Comment »
