Josh Pollack happened upon this amazing video of Safeguards Analytical Laboratory at Seibersdorf. Some briefs shots of what looks like Tuwaitha, Yongbyon (inside) and Pelindaba. Which got me thinking that the IAEA must have a spectacular video library.
It turns out the IAEA has a channel on YouTube, including a video on an inspection of imported fuel assemblies at the Kundankulam reactor in India.
Comment
Oh, shut up already!
Some enterprising Belgian military spokesperson has decided to announce to the entire world that of the two sets of 11 hardened shelters at Kleine Brogel Airbase, the activists were in the one without nuclear weapons:
A similar stunt occurred last November, according to Ingrid Baeck, a chief spokeswoman for the Belgian Ministry of Defense, who sought to minimize the danger.
“I can assure you these people never, ever got anywhere near a sensitive area,” Baeck said in a telephone interview Friday. “They are talking nonsense.”
[snip]
But Baeck challenged the activists’ claims they went undetected for well over an hour, that guards were unarmed and that they were able to approach a hardened bunker containing sensitive materiel undeterred.
“It was an empty bunker, a shelter,” Baeck said of the building.
Way to paint a target on the loaded ones, genius.
Just take your lumps, because you can’t pretend Belgian security didn’t fail. The activist incursion is an alarming anecdotal demonstration of a systemic security problem that was well documented before the February incident.
In some important ways, Baeck is exaggerating herself — for example, we can see that the guard’s weapon is not loaded — but the real problem is that she also revealed where the activists ought to have gone. Nice way to get some kid shot on April 3, when they come back.
Yes, there are two sets of 11 shelters at Kleine Brogel, only one of which has WS3 vaults (Here is a set of Google Earth placemarks). The activists assumed that the one they accessed was the nuclear one based on their previous analysis (and the serendipity of an open gate).
The other area seems to have a more impressive fence line. That is probably, as Ms. Beack suggests, the location of the hardened shelters with WS3 vaults. (By the way, I wish I had been as careful in my post text as I tried to be in my image captions.)
If you look at the pictures of the General Tom Hobbins visiting the 701 MUNSS at Kleine Brogel in March 2006, there are two wide-angle pictures that confirm the location of the WS3 as the area I have place-marked as A. The activists were in B.
Lt. Erline Wyseur (left) and Capt. Jason Long, 701 MUNSS, meet Gen. Tom Hobbins, U.S. Air Forces in Europe commander, during his unit visit March 10.
If you open up the Google Placemarks, I am pretty sure they are standing in front of the shelter marked A3, with A4 in the background.
You can see the hardened aircraft shelter, aligned at a 45 angle to the taxiway, over Hobbins’s right shoulder.
A tree line runs along the left side of the taxiway and wraps behind the shelter, before breaking to a clear view of the horizon.
Over Long’s left shoulder, there is a small clump of trees. In the high resolution image, you can also see what looks like a ditch. The obstruction visible over Hobbin’s right shoulder appears to be related to the ditch.
On the far side of the ditch, there is a small road that crosses the taxiway and it is visible over Hobbin’s right shoulder.
There is no other bunker arrangement that even looks close. Moreover, here is another shot of Hobbins at a facility about 100 meters to the north.
Chief Master Sgt. James Fleshman, 701 MUNSS, meets Gen. Tom Hobbins, U.S. Air Forces in Europe commander, during his unit visit March 10.
Again — this doesn’t change the fact that Belgian security turned in a woeful performance. (I am still scratching my head over the lack of guard dogs.) This was an anecdotal demonstration of something that is, as I noted before, well-documented by US officials. Moreover, it’s quite a stretch for Baeck to say that the activists “never, ever got anywhere near a sensitive area” — they were inside the wire, which is a plausible definition of “near,” and the two areas are less than two clicks from one another.
I continue to think that if the Belgian government (and other NATO governments) refuse to provide adequate security at Kleine Brogel, the weapons should be placed at US base where we will.
And a note to our Belgian friends. I was going to keep these to myself, but since Ms. Baeck decided to help out, there isn’t much point. But please don’t try to get into area A. If the Belgian security is inadequate, the SACEUR has almost certainly assigned additional US security personnel. They will most likely respond very differently than the Belgian sort you are used to.
Comment [5]
As you undoubtedly noticed, Iran launched a rocket on February 2. And released pictures of a space launch vehicle. Which may not be the same thing.
As some of you may know, Geoff Forden is going through some personal stuff right now, which is why we are missing his usual detailed commentary on Iran’s space launch. (He has something coming, but I am inclined to be patient.)
So, in honor of Geoff, I am just going to create an open thread for the Iranian space launch. Here are images from IRNA, ISNA and Mehr to get you started.
Have at it.
Comment [9]
Holy crap.
If you watch this video on YouTube it is very clear that a group of Belgian peace activists not only got inside the wire at Kleine-Brogel Airbase — where some US nuclear weapons may be stored — but they also got into the area where the hardened shelters are located (within the shelters are aircraft and WS3 storage vaults with US B61 nuclear gravity bombs.)
Between the Youtube video, a pair of stories on the Der Standard and Neusblad websites, their Facebook page and website, and Google Earth, it is pretty easy to recreate their path. (Hans K came to the same conclusion.)
Here are some images, with annotations linked to the time stamps in the video.
It looks like the activists approached Kleine-Brogel from the farms to the south of the airbase. Indeed, another group hopped the fence in November 2009. Apparently, they planned to go out on the runway and get arrested just like the previous group in November 2009. But, according to the group’s website “to their surprise, they were able to walk for over an hour on the runway.” (One of the press reports suggests it was forty minutes.)
The base is surrounded by signs indicating that the area is patrolled by guard dogs, but Milou was nowhere to be found.
Eventually, they noticed an open gate to the area where US nuclear weapons are believed to be stored. Belgian peace groups had previously identified the area based on a map handed out an airshow. (As you can see from their website, they had very good maps.)
It looks like this was a side gate — apparently it had been left open to keep from freezing shut — so the activists were able to enter the secure area and approach one of the hardened aircraft shelters from the rear. If you could get inside, it would look something like this.
Well, I suspect the vault (with the bomb) would be in the floor.
The activists defaced the shelter with stickers and then emerged onto the concrete plaza in the center of the area.
They then walked the length of the plaza — having traversed both the width of the base, and now the width of the secure area for nuclear weapons — when security force finally showed up.
The “security force” appears to comprise one moderately annoyed-looking Belgian guy with a rifle. (Which RAJ47 observes is unloaded.) The effect would only be more comedic if he had some powdered sugar on his face and maybe a little bit of waffle stuck to his uniform.
How The [REDACTED] Did This Happen?
The reality is that significant shortcomings exists in the security of European airbases where US nuclear weapons are stored. That was made absolutely clear to me on my visit to SHAPE — and it was reported in the 2008 Air Force Blue Ribbon Review. Host-nations are supposed to provide security but they often cut corners. This is basically confirmed by the Belgian commander of the base, who explained that he just doesn’t have enough security forces:
Onze luchtmachtbasis is in totaliteit 450 hectare groot. Een derde is bosgebied waarin ik me drie weken kan bevinden zonder te worden gezien. Vandaar dat we onze bewaking, gelet op onze getalsterkte, concentreren op enkele gevoelige zones.
That works out to, more or less, “Our airbase is 450 hectares in size. A third is wooded areas in which I could stay perfectly well for three weeks without being seen. That is why we concentrate our surveillance on a few sensitive zones where there are aircraft and equipment.” (The translation is by the Open Source Center.)
Mort Halperin tells a funny story about when, in the late 1990s, then-German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer called on NATO to adopt a policy of no-first use, widely seen at the time as the beginning of a discussion about withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Germany. Mort, then serving in the Clinton Administration, told a colleague that the German government had opened the door to the removal of US forward-deployed nuclear weapons. His colleague retorted: “You are not talking to the real German government.”
What Mort’s colleague meant was that there is — and has been for many years — a gap between Europe’s public, represented by elected leaders, and the so-called “real” governments — the national security bureaucracies in NATO and the European allies. So while NATO and European defense ministries make the case privately that forward-based nuclear weapons are politically and militarily essential to NATO, European political leaders have declined to make that case to their constituents for the money to modernize either aircraft or to keep up security.
What Should We Do?
As excuses go “It’s a big, wooded base and I don’t have that many troops” doesn’t cut it. In fact, when we are talking about nuclear weapons, it frankly sucks. When it comes to securing nuclear weapons, the United States Air Force has standards for both denial and recapture. If the Belgians and other NATO members won’t provide the forces and equipment necessary to meet both standards, then it is time to put the weapons on a US airbase.
The most direct route to securing US nuclear weapons in Europe is to immediately — like yesterday — consolidate all remaining forward deployed nuclear weapons to just one or two US airbases in Europe. Take your pick from Aviano, Incirlik, Lakenheath and Ramstein. This would immediately improve the overall security of the weapons, while starting a dialogue about whether forward-deployed weapons are really essential to maintaining NATO’s nuclear character twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. This is a point that several of us made in a letter to the President
The actual removal of such weapons should await formal consultations within NATO and may, in part, depend on arms control negotiations with Russia. But a useful first step would be the immediate consolidation of remaining forward-deployed nuclear weapons to one or two U.S. airbases in Europe.
The classic argument for leaving US nuclear weapons on European bases has always been burden-sharing — there is a value to forcing European governments to make the public case for spending money on NATO’s nuclear mission. Of course, that assumes that the governments actually make the necessary investments, rather than skimping on security.
Given the appalling state of security at Kleine Brogel, that argument seems unpersuasive today.
Update | 6:40 pm K-Reif reminds me that I outlined precisely this scenario at the Carnegie Endowment:
[T]he dominant character … of those weapons in Europe is that we don’t talk about them. I think NATO countries have been incredibly reluctant to make the public case about why they need U.S. nuclear weapons on their soil. And as a result … you see a corresponding lack of funding for security at the sites at which the European allies provide security …
[snip]
… I worry very much about a singularity, an event. It could be a security event. Our friends from Peace Action Belgium, could get in the wire with a cell phone and take a picture of a [hardened shelter].
[snip]
I do worry that something could happen that will deny NATO its preferred option of not talking about this, and then force the participants into a very ugly public debate in which the result would be the rapid, disorganized, uncoordinated withdrawal of the weapons amidst recriminations. And to me that would be much worse than beginning the dialogue about what the optimal posture is and whether that includes weapons.
[Emphasis mine]
It’s a little weird that I called Peace Action Belgium — that is sheer coincidence.
Update | 8:34, 5 February 2010 I somehow missed that Stephen Schwartz and Noah Shachtman were first — so many social media and blog pages, so little time!
Comment [18]
The Administration has proposed a massive increase in funding for the nuclear weapons complex, increasing the budget for NNSA by 13.4 percent (over what the FY2010 appropriation.)
John Fleck has an excellent write-up of the announcement in the Albuquerque Journal.
The purpose of announcing the massive increases in funding for the nuclear weapons enterprise — stockpile support (25 percent increase), infrastructure (5 percent) and other categories is political — is presented as the right thing to do, which it may be, but it is also intended to find votes in the Senate for ratification of the START Follow-on Treaty and, at a later date, the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The budget release follows a major op-ed by Vice President Biden in the Wall Street Journal that makes explicit the link between funding the complex and achieving the agenda laid out in Prague:
Our budget request is just one of several closely related and equally important initiatives giving life to the president’s Prague agenda. Others include completing the New START agreement with Russia, releasing the Nuclear Posture Review on March 1, holding the Nuclear Security Summit in April, and pursuing ratification and entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Some of my friends are complaining that by funding the complex first and asking for START (and CTBT) ratification second, the Administration is spending is squandering its only leverage.
I worry about that, too. But I think this is the right approach, given the structure of the Senate and the President’s temperament.
Let’s hold aside, for the moment, the argument that the complex is deteriorating and people are leaving. I suspect that lack of funding isn’t the primary challenge facing the labs nor is more money a sufficient remedy for their woes. But more money is probably a necessary element of a comprehensive strategy to fix the labs. This is, all things considered, probably the correct policy decision.
The Politics of Treaty Ratification
But is it good politics? Barack Obama said he preferred to be a great one term president, rather than a mediocre two-term President. No one believe him of course, because the two are often correlated — the ability to achieve policy successes depends in large part on the same political acumen that aids reelection.
There are basically two approaches to getting to 67 votes in the United States Senate to ratify an arms control treaty. One option is to peel off just enough Republican Senators, convincing them to break ranks with their party in exchange for specific benefits or out of fear of losing reelection. The other is to secure the support of both the Senate Majority and Minority Leaders, so that the issue does not become partisan at all.
I hate to point this out, but only one of these two strategies has ever worked for an arms control treaty (at least as far as I can tell.) Securing the support of the opposition leadership is essential to avoiding a straight party-line vote that is more about partisanship than the national interest. This is why Michael Krepon, who edited the wonderful Politics of Treaty Ratification, blogged that “ratification usually happens by comfortable majorities or not at all.” John Isaacs made this point, as well.
This is the context in which to understand Senator Jon Kyl’s opposition to the various arms control treaties: He is Minority Whip and aspires to be the leading Republican voice on security issues. Perhaps, like another aspiring whip, he imagines even greater offices are within his grasp. His strategy to achieve these things is to make votes on arms control treaties a test of Senator’s Republican bona fides.
To worry that Senator Kyl might “pocket” this concession and ask for ever more rather misses the point. Of course, he’s going to do that (and more)! He’s not an idiot, after all. But nor is Senator Kyl the proper object of a ratification strategy — or at least he shouldn’t be.
The practical reality is that the Administration has to bring a majority of the Republican caucus along to support START and CTBT — even if fewer votes are technically required. If you look at the dozen of so candidates the Administration might hope to “peel off” — such as John McCain or Richard Lugar — few of them will be eager about the prospect of crossing over on a party line vote. The key to ratification has always been Mitch McConnell — and will be as long as he is Senate Minority Leader.
Depoliticizing START and CTBT
Which brings us to the budget roll-out. I don’t have any special insight into how Vice President Biden — who is spear-heading ratification process for START and CTBT — is going about cutting a deal. But I seem to recall he is familiar with the Senate.
If the strategy is to avoid, to the greatest extent possible, politicizing either treaty, starving the nuclear weapons complex probably won’t create leverage with the Senate Minority Leader and might, in fact, backfire. If you give Republicans a choice between a well-funded nuclear weapons complex and a talking point to conflate the Prague agenda with unilateral disarmament — which is a favorite claim by Senator Kyl — most will understandably choose the latter. “Unilateral disarmament” is the “death panel” of the nuclear weapons debate. The goal, then, is to take away Kyl’s talking points, rather than to horse-trade with Senators. (That comes later.)
Frankly, this is probably the only strategy an Obama Administration would undertake. It is difficult to imagine this President taking the bare-knuckled approach that we might have gotten from, say, Lyndon Johnson. However much juice his presidency has left — and that is the popular parlor question of the moment, for people in Georgetown who can afford parlors — for better or for worse, Barack Obama has his own style.
I cannot, for example, imagine Obama, as LBJ did, holding a meeting in the buff at the White House swimming pool or dictating to poor Doris Kearns from the commode. For better, or for worse.
So, we are left with the strategy of attempting to depoliticize the treaties, recognizing that there will be some additional horse-trading at a later date. It might not always succeed, but it is probably the only strategy that will.
Comment [14]
I’ve been quiet about the START negotiations, save for the occasional tweet, in large part because it doesn’t make sense to second-guess negotiators, especially before they’ve completed their work. (Buy me a beer, on the other hand …)
But Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) made some remarks at the recent Strategic Weapons in the 21st Century (SW21) conference that have my attention — and I think they should have yours, too.
At this point, it is no secret that the new treaty is more like a SORT Plus, or if you want to be difficult, START Minus. The Russians went in with a goal of gutting the verification regime and, since that is also accomplished with the expiration of START, the Administration didn’t have too much leverage to stop them.
We know the START mobile missile monitoring regime has been, er, streamlined with the elimination of Portal-Perimeter Continuous Monitoring (PPCM) at Votkinsk. (If you are interested in how the START regime monitored mobile missiles — which comprised an integrated system of obligations — I recommend either Kerry Kartchner’s Negotiating START or Jill Jermano’s and Susan Springer’s Monitoring Road-Mobile Missiles Under START: Lessons from the Gulf War.)
And it is no secret that the last remaining issue is the encryption of telemetry data from missile tests— START prohibited parties from encrypting telemetry as part of the verification regime for throw-weight limits. The Russians want to resume encrypting telemetry, citing the development of US missile defenses and the lack of a limit on throw-weight to verify. (Or, at least, to get comparable data from the US on missile defenses.) If you want to know more, I recommend recent stories by Josh Rogin, Rocket data dispute still unresolved in U.S.-Russia nuke talks and Elaine Grossman, Talks Hit ‘Sweet Spot’ for Landing New START Agreement, U.S. Official Says, or commentary from John Warden and Kingston Rief.
After the Jones/Mullen visit to Moscow and the Obama-Medvedev phone call, it looks like the parties will split the baby, as it were — probably with a limited exchange of telemetry data, if I had to guess. And I hate to guess.
In light of these two issues — monitoring mobile missiles and telemetry — I draw your attention to Senator Lugar’s remarks at the SW21 conference, in which he described himself as “look[ing] forward to a successor to the START treaty” and outlined his thinking on what the Senate might, and might not, consent to ratify.
This is a shot across the bow. Like most Lugar statements, it is precise, civil and free from partisan hyperbole — but that doesn’t diminish the whiff of grapeshot:
Nowhere has the value of strong verification procedures been more clearly demonstrated than the START I Treaty. Whatever is devised to replace it, must be effectively verifiable. START I, together with the Nunn-Lugar program, have served as the means for a dramatically changed relationship with Russia. In fact, recalling the testimony of Ambassador Lehman before the Foreign Relations Committee in 1992 on the START I Treaty, it was clear that a primary goal of the nearly decade-long negotiations on the START I Treaty was to open Soviet society via the treaty. As time has progressed, some have asked whether START I’s “burdensome” verification provisions are necessary given the changed world in which we live. I believe that weakening verification procedures comes with great risks, not merely because the other side may cut corners, but because our relationship with Russia benefits from the mutual confidence and interaction inherent in such procedures.
I have been a strong advocate for extending START I verification procedures. Unfortunately, a choice was made to informally act in the spirit of the treaty after its expiration on December 5, 2009, rather than to extend it by formal agreement. I am hopeful that a successor for START I will be successfully concluded in the coming months and that it will contain strong verification procedures.
The successor to START likely will be considered in the Senate at the same time that we consider the new Nuclear Posture Review and plans for modernization of our nuclear deterrent. START I was submitted at a time when the United States had an active modernization program with specific elements. Today’s stockpile stewardship program lacks this specificity and encompasses many different aspects of the weapons complex.
In 1992, we did not have the record we have today regarding access to Russian sites that produce missiles. We also did not have the telemetric data on Russian missiles provided under START I. Thus, some observers assess the impact of losing START’s verification measures to be minimal. They claim Russia will not field many new missiles in the next ten years and that we have data on all the missiles they are likely to field. However, the rate at which our knowledge erodes is directly related to the rate at which Russia fields new missiles for which we lack data or it modifies existing missiles. Verification of missile capabilities, particularly mobile missiles, depends on both how good our inspection regime is and the extent to which other data provided under the treaty informs the inspection process. Even if inspections are perfect, they will only tell us where a missile is at any given time and the number of warheads it is carrying, not what its capabilities might be.
It may be the case that for the next ten years our existing knowledge, based on what we have learned through the START regime and the Nunn-Lugar program, will provide us with sufficient confidence in making assessments of Russian missile capability. But that confidence will diminish with time. As a matter of national priority, we must maintain an ability to judge with high confidence the capabilities Russia pursues. If we cannot do so, then any attempt to negotiate additional treaties with Russia could founder, to say nothing of efforts for a world free of nuclear weapons.
Verification issues will play an important role in Senate consideration of a new treaty to replace START I. Then CIA Director Bob Gates stated before the Foreign Relations Committee in hearings on START in 1992, “the verifiability of this treaty has always been seen, by supporters and opponents alike, as the key to the Senate consent process.” Such comments equally apply to the treaty that will replace START I.
I suspect Lugar’s statement is a signal of possible trouble for the START Follow-on in the Senate — the President is asking Republicans to hand him a foreign policy victory.
The Administration is going to have to do better than arguing that the verification regime is better than nothing, that the gaps in verification don’t matter or that they’ll fix it in the next treaty. That’s going to mean committing to spend more money on US verification capabilities — note that in another portion of his speech, Lugar proposed “a new verification initiative that devotes substantially more resources to the problem” — and explaining that the Administration set, and stuck to, red-lines that result in an effectively verifiable treaty.
Comment [8]
ISIS has released a long-awaited trio of papers on Burma’s very odd nuclear programs.
Burma: A Nuclear Wanabee; Suspicious Links to North Korea; High-Tech Procurements (January 28, 2010)
A look at Burmese high tech illicit procurement efforts, the cooperation with North Korea in the areas procurement and development, and imagery analysis of several suspicious facilities.
Exploring Claims about Secret Nuclear Sites in Myanmar (January 28, 2010)
An analysis of several facilities described by Burmese dissidents as involved in a Burmese nuclear program. More ›
Deep Connections between Myanmar’s Department of Atomic Energy and the DTVE (January 28, 2010)
ISIS traces the links between Burma’s Department of Technical and Vocational Education and the Department of Atomic Energy
Some loyal readers have been writing me about Burma in the past few weeks; I implored them to hold off while ISIS completed what is a lot of grist for the crowdsourcing mill. Have at it.
I just want to make the same point from my Wilson Center talk — proliferation networks still exist, gas centrifuges are a very fundamental challenge to the nonproliferation regime, and there are countries we don’t know about yet that have clandestine centrifuge programs.
Burma may or may not be one of these countries. It may go the reactor route, or no route at all. But we are at the beginning, not the end, of a new wave of nuclear aspirants, enabled my much reduced barriers to entry to the nuclear club. The interesting policy question is whether we can devise solutions that preserve the nonproliferation regime in the face of rapid technological change.
Comment [16]
Reader Michael Cucek, on his blog Shisaku, offers some commentary on the translation of Japanese Foreign Minister Okada’s letter to SECSTATE Clinton regarding the nuclear umbrella. One key passage involved whether Japanese diplomats did, or did not, tell the Strategic Posture Commission that the Japanese government opposed retirement of the archaic nuclear-armed Tomahawk missile aka TLAM-N.
Okada made clear this was not the position of the government, but seemed to deny the government had ever lobbied for TLAM-N. I wondered in my post if this was a non-denial denial and wished that I could parse the Japanese.
Cucek did just that, noting two very interesting word choices in Japanese that bear on the question of what, precisely, Okada was denying.
Cucek suggests an alternative translation of the passage in question that makes clear Okada is not denying that Mr. Akiba expressed his support for the TLAM or other systems, but that those views were not necessarily those of the government. Here is Cucek’s revised translation of the key paragraph:
Hence, although the discussions were held under the previous Cabinet, it is my understanding that, in the course of exchanges between our countries, including the deliberations of the above mentioned Commission, it was never the case that views were expressed as being those of our government concerning whether or not your government should possess particular [weapons] systems such as TLAM/N and RNEP. If, in some tentative way such a view was expressed, it would clearly be at variance with my views, which are in favor of nuclear disarmament.
I happen to understand, from multiple conversations, that Mr. Akiba most certainly did express the view that this was the official position of the Japanese government. (Indeed, this was the entire reason for the second meeting with Japanese officials.) That, in turn, raises the question of whether Mr. Akiba exceeded his mandate, and should be sacked, or whether he simply moved carelessly between his own personal views and those of his government, which might require a lesser disciplinary action. (I continue to believe, however, that he was just doing his job.) Chances are, the current DPJ government simply wants to put all this to bed and move forward with the current policy.
The real shame here, I should add, is all the time we are wasting on irrelevant and useless nuclear weapons like the TLAM-Ns, which are warehoused for good reason — not least the clobbering problem.
One view that Mr. Akiba did express during the meeting, in his personal capacity, was for high-level consultations between the U.S. and Japan analogous to those conducted within the NATO Nuclear Planning Group, and subordinate High Level Group. I happen to think that is a very good idea and, on balance, considerably more important than haggling over troop levels or particular systems, which inevitably must change over time. The preference for consultation over specific systems as a method of reassurance was an argument that I tried to make at the Carnegie Endowment a while back — only to learn that Sir Michael Howard made the same argument both more eloquently and when I was in grade-school.
Oh well.
I have to be in Tokyo twice in the next three months. I clearly owe someone an Asahi Super Dry for excellence in translation.
Comment [2]
For regular readers who also happen to be pre-doctoral or post-doctoral acadmics, the Stanton Foundation has funded a series of fellowships in nuclear security. Here is a list of participating institutions:
✽ Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA
✽ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC
✽ Center for Security and International Cooperation Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
✽ Council of Foreign Relations, New York, NY
✽ Institute for International and Strategic Studies, London, UK
✽ RAND, Santa Monica, CA/Pittsburgh, PA/Washington, DC
(For reasons that totally baffle me, the Carnegie Endowment has not posted its announcement yet.)
Be mindful: the due dates, application materials and salary vary from one place to the next, sometimes greatly. (The salary range, for example, runs from the Harvard discount of $20,000 over ten months for a pre-doctoral fellow up to $100,000 over a full year for post-docs at some other institutions. In fairness, academic institutions like Harvard and Stanford do have equity issues that need to be respected.)
As a colleague at one of the institutions noted, “It’s a great opportunity for young academics, and pretty much everyone who’d be of interest probably reads the blog.”
Well, there you go, stick that on your curriculum vitae!
Comment [1]
Well, well, well.
Japanese Foreign Minister Okada sent a letter, dated December 24, the explicitly denies Japan wants the United States to retain the archaic Nuclear Tomahawk. (Regular readers know that I find the Nuclear Tomahawk to be largely irrelevant to extended deterrence and useless and therefore not credible.)
Okada’s letter is in Japanese, but Philip White at the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center — which, along with UCS, has done more to bring this issue to light in Japan than any other group — made an unofficial translation (full text in the comments).
Here is the relevant passage regarding TLAM-N:
It was reported in some sections of the Japanese media that, during the production of the report of the “Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States” released in May this year, Japanese officials of the responsible diplomatic section lobbied your government not to reduce the number of its nuclear weapons, or, more specifically, opposed the retirement of the United States’ Tomahawk Land Attack Missile – Nuclear (TLAM/N) and requested that the United States maintain a Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP).
However, the Japanese Government is not in a position to judge whether it is necessary or desirable for your government to possess particular [weapons] systems. Hence, although the discussions were held under the previous Cabinet, it is my understanding that, in the course of exchanges between our countries, including the deliberations of the above mentioned Commission, the Japanese Government has expressed no view concerning whether or not your government should possess particular [weapons] systems such as TLAM/N and RNEP. If, hypothetically, such a view was expressed, it would clearly be at variance with my views, which are in favor of nuclear disarmament.
Nevertheless, if TLAM/N is retired, we hope to receive ongoing explanations of your government’s extended deterrence policy, including any impact this might have on extended deterrence for Japan and how this could be supplemented.
“Some sections of the Japanese media” almost certainly refers to Masa Ota’s excellent story, Japan lobbied for robust nuclear umbrella before power shift, in Kyodo News (November 24, 2009). Ota reported that senior Japanese diplomats told the Commission that the United States should retain the TLAM-N and develop low-yield nuclear options.
Although Okada seems to deny that Japan lobbied the Commission, it looks to be the classic non-denial denial. (It would be helpful to parse the original Japanese, but Okada admits to the exchanges, which in any event are listed at the back of the Posture Commission Report, denying only the expression of a “view concerning whether or not [the US] should possess particular [weapons] systems.”)
In any event, everyone in Washington knows that Mr. Akiba and Mr. Kanai expressed precisely such a view, even if it would be inconvenient, not to mention career-ending, for them to admit it now. (The documents will come out, sooner or later, however.)
It is hard to imagine, at this point, that the Pentagon will insist on over-ruling the Navy and keeping the TLAM-N now that FM Okada has pulled the rug out from under those arguing that “extended deterrence relies heavily on the deployment of nuclear cruise missiles on some Los Angeles class attack submarines.”
Comment [6]
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