Arms Control Wonk ArmsControlWonk

 

The other day, I posted an entry at 38North outlining three scenarios for North Korea — that North Korea would eventually test a Musudan, that China has stayed Kim Jong Un’s hand for the moment and that North Korean politics have aligned against a test.

Two readers — Markus Schiller and Anon O’Moose — wrote in to observe that the piece would have been stronger had I considered a fourth scenario: what if the Musudan is not real at all?

I happent to think the Musudan is real for reasons I will explain, but I admit the piece would have been stronger had I considered the alternative possibility.  Consider this compensation for that oversight.

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In November 1996, I had the good fortune to attend an ISODARCO conference in Chengdu, with the added bonus of a side trip to visit China’s nuclear laboratory complex at Mianyang. Back then, ISODARCO – an enterprising Italian NGO founded in 1966 by Edoardo Amaldi and Carlo Schaerf — had somehow managed to corner the market on Track II conversations on strategic issues with Chinese counterparts. Not sure how the Italians managed to do this.

To my knowledge, the Mianyang visit was the first of its kind. Needless to say, foreign visitors were on a very short leash, but our entry was a significant gesture by our Chinese hosts, demonstrating serious intent to engage on strategic issues. These doors were soon closed as a result of the Cox Commission inquiry and report.

Jeffrey, our ACW information-gathering omnivore, somehow got ahold of my trip report and passed it along. My seventeen year-old assessment demonstrates, in dismaying detail, how ritualistic the anxieties over missile defenses have become. Countries of concern may have changed – back then, coercive PLA missile tests prompted debates over selling TMD to Taiwan — but not much else. Have a look:

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After escaping the clutches of a term paper draft, it returns!

Associated Press | Whoops.  Seems like the people in charge of the most powerful weapons known to man just weren’t up to the job, and needed a bit of extra training.  Not the first mistake of this manner.

Navy Live | Apparently, the Navy actually listens to talk about nuclear force cuts.  Hint: it doesn’t really like it.

Breaking Defense | The SM-3 Block IB missile seems to be working, following three successful tests since May of 2012.

Breaking Defense (again) | The X-47B performed a touch-and-go landing on the USS George H.W. Bush.  I wonder what’s next?

Foreign Policy | New START implementation is facing opposition, never mind the New START follow-on.  Yousaf Butt proposes a DIY solution. Is the President listening?

FAS Strategic Security Blog | Apparently, the Pentagon’s China Report omitted some key facts about strategic nuclear forces.

Bloomberg | Gary Milhollin sees Iran’s nuclear plans as a long-term, not a near-term, threat.

Nukes of Hazard | Senator Graham just can’t get enough MOX money, can he?  But he really promises it wasn’t pork or anything!

We hope you enjoyed this installment of FYRP.

 
 

I have a new column up at Foreign Policy (“Death Wears Bunny Slippers”) considering this recent story at the Air Force has suspended 17 ICBM launch officers are Minot Air Force Base and initiated proceedings against another.

The column is largely an act of media criticism.  After several Air Force mishaps relating to the handling of nuclear weapons systems came to light in 2007 and 2008, many of us began to argue that declining competence in the nuclear field was the inevitable result of the declining mission for nuclear-armed ICBMs and bombers.

What is interesting about the AP story about the disciplinary actions at Minot is that it represents an attempt to reframe that argument, blaming Global Zero and other arms control efforts for the loss of focus.  As I note in the piece, the timeline of mishaps and disarmament talk simply doesn’t support such an inference. The increase in disarmament talk is, like the increase in mishaps, the effect of the declining utility of these systems.

Having said that, I wanted to explore the relationship between readiness and reporting in a way that I couldn’t fit in the column.

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Saving Cities

Aspiring wonks, here is your end-of-semester exam question: It’s not OK to use cluster munitions in metropolitan areas, but it is OK to use nuclear weapons against targets that fall within or close to them. Yes? No? Under some circumstances? Explain.

States that possess nuclear weapons are reluctant to argue whether and how their use applies to the laws of armed conflict. To do so would risk undermining deterrence by nullifying battlefield applications, except as a last resort and for responses in kind. Even here, I suppose legal scholars, like The Hague Court, would have more than a few words to say.

Cluster bombs are not supposed to be used in built-up areas because they can have indiscriminate and long-lasting effects. Nuclear weapons, on the other hand, are widely presumed to be targeted against command and control, war-supporting industry, and leadership targets in and around cities.

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Shyam Saran on India’s Nuclear Deterrent

Update | May 7. Here is the full text of the speech.

On April 24th, the Chairman of India’s National Security Advisory Board, Shyam Saran, delivered an important address in New Delhi affirming the credibility of India’s nuclear deterrent. Mr. Saran has over two decades of close engagement on strategic matters, including time spent as Foreign Secretary and Special Envoy dealing with the US-India civil-nuclear agreement. What he said, speaking in his personal capacity, bears close scrutiny.

The tone of these remarks is defensive at the outset, reflecting domestic criticisms of the pace of Indian strategic modernization programs. Mr. Saran also takes aim at US, Pakistani, and Chinese analysts who maintain that India sought the Bomb for reasons of status rather than national security. He seeks to set the record straight, making significant observations and recommendations in the process. Here are a few passages:

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The Commitment Trap

Scott Sagan wrote a typically fine essay in the Spring 2000 issue of International Security on “The Commitment Trap.” His subject was the Bush administration’s use of “calculated ambiguity” to deter Saddam Hussein from using chemical or biological weapons in the run-up to the second Gulf war. After disavowing chemical weapons (1992) as well as biological weapons (1972), senior U.S. officials have sought to deter their use by others by issuing warnings of “absolutely overwhelming” and “devastating” responses. These code words imply the use of nuclear weapons.

Scott argued, persuasively in my view, that veiled threats to use nuclear weapons trapped U.S. officials. If CW or BW were actually used by an adversary — regardless of their scope and military effectiveness, whether from top-down dictates or breakdowns in command and control — Washington could feel impelled to carry out its threat, thereby inviting immeasurable but significant costs to its international stranding and to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Alternatively, by refraining from carrying out its nuclear threat, Washington could also lose international standing, inviting new adversaries to call its bluff and old friends to question the protectiveness of the U.S. nuclear umbrella. To avoid these awful choices, Scott proposed that calculated ambiguity be replaced with a clear and credible U.S. commitment to respond to CW and BW use with prompt and devastating conventional retaliation.

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A New START Model for Transparency in Nuclear Disarmament

Last week, I was lucky to be able to join NPT PrepCom-ers in Geneva to help present the recently completed UNIDIR study ‘A New START Model for Transparency in Nuclear Disarmament,’ carried out by Pavel Podvig, Phillip Schell, and myself.

The work is accessible on the recently launched nuclearforces.org website, where you can check out the overview report, the individual country reports, some nifty maps, or download the KMZ set.

As the P5 continue to seek ways to show up on their 2010 Action Plan commitments (especially those repeatedly mentioned by name that are related to disarmament, transparency, and reporting - Action 5, 20, & 21), the aim of this project was to demonstrate the feasibility and practicality of applying New START definitions and provisions more widely to the other NPT nuclear weapon states.  Yes, New START was specifically designed for the arsenals of Russia and the United States, so why would we do such a thing?  The overview report says it best:

Even though the New START transparency and accountability provisions were developed in the context of bilateral US–Russian nuclear arms control, they could be applied to the nuclear arsenals of other nuclear-weapon states. The key advantage of New START is that it provides a legal and organizational framework for nuclear reductions that has been thoroughly tested in practice. Extending this framework to all nuclear-weapon states would be a natural and direct way of building a comprehensive system that could ensure transparency and accountability in nuclear disarmament.

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FYRP: Fuzzy Red Lines

Another installment of the best (and only) regular ACW post!

The White House | “…varying degrees of confidence that the Syrian regime has used [sarin] on a small scale…” Joseph Holliday says that Assad has outfoxed Obama.

Nature | From prison in Iran, a graduate student writes that he refused to work on a laser-based enrichment program meant for military purposes.

Yonhap News | North Korea has moved two Scud missile launchers to its east coast.  Should we be afraid?

38 North | Still no missile tests, but North Korea’s bellicose rhetoric keeps escalating. Byung Chul Lee makes the case for engagement.  Related: Jeffrey Lewis makes the case for taking the nuclear threat at face value. Elbridge Colby makes the case for reasserting U.S. nuclear deterrence.

The Sun | Where Kim Jong-un learned theatrics.

CTBTO | Radioactivity detected after North Korea’s February 12th nuclear test confirms that the test occurred. Time to update this website?

The New York Times | James Acton asks, is China changing its position on nuclear weapons? No, says Yao Yunzhu. No, says M. Taylor Fravel.  No, says Gregory Kulacki, and let’s stop nagging them about it.  (Acton responds to Yao and Fravel. Rachel Oswald reviews the debate.)

New Statesman | Kate Hudson of the UK’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament thinks the U.S. will make Britain give up its nukes. Maybe as soon as the U.S. finishes cutting a leg off the Triad?

Washington Post | Champion of fiscal restraint Lindsey Graham (here is his voting record) is up in arms about another spending cut.  No history of pork there.  But that’d be great.

We hope you enjoyed this installment of FYRP.

 
 

Reconverting Iran’s U3O8 to UF6

What do we really know about Iran’s capability to reconvert triuranium octoxide (U3O8) enriched to 20% U-235 back into UF6 feedstock that can be further enriched to produce weapon-grade uranium? Can Iran do it? And if so, how fast?

The answer matters considerably, as Iran, Israel, and the P5+1 will make decisions this year, based in part on their assessment of risk, about the fate of current efforts to negotiate a comprehensive crisis settlement.

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