posted Thursday March 11, 2010 under japan by jeffrey
As I noted yesterday, the Japanese government released two reports
(an official report and an experts report) on the so-called “secret agreements” regarding the storage and transit of US nuclear weapons in Japan, as well as a massive amount of declassified supporting documentation.
Unfortunately (for me at least), this treasure trove is entirely in Japanese.
Below is the text of an article in the Yomiuri Shimbun, identified by reader Julia, which is the best description of the contents that I have found so far:
A Foreign Ministry panel of experts concluded in its report released Tuesday that there were three secret deals between Japan and the United States out of four alleged deals it has been investigating, including one on the introduction of nuclear weapons into Japan concluded when the bilateral security treaty was revised in 1960.
[snip]
The six-member panel of experts classified secret agreements into two types: narrowly and broadly defined pacts. Narrow deals carried official agreements, but the government accepted obligations or cost burdens without informing the general public of the agreements. Broad secret deals were those without clearly documented arrangements that represented “tacit agreements.”
Although the panel could not confirm there was a clear secret agreement made at the time of the revision of the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty in 1960 between Japan and the Untied States over bringing nuclear weapons to Japan by U.S. forces, it recognized a “tacit agreement” to effectively tolerate port calls by U.S. vessels carrying nuclear weapons, categorizing it as a broadly defined secret agreement.
Concerning combat operations of U.S. forces in the event of a contingency on the Korean Peninsula, there was a “narrowly defined secret pact” compiled at the time of the 1960 treaty revision as the panel confirmed the existence of documents to prove that Japan promised the United States use of U.S. bases in Japan without prior consultations if the occasion arose.
On an agreement to cover cost burdens for the 1972 reversion of Okinawa to Japan from U.S. control, documents found in the United States, signed by the Foreign Ministry’s then American Bureau chief, did not bind the two nations and therefore cannot be called a narrowly defined secret deal, the panel concluded.
However, the panel recognized that the Japanese government shouldered costs for restoring land plots that the U.S. forces had used to their original condition—costs which should have been paid by the U.S. government—thus constituting a broadly defined secret pact.
However, the panel did not recognize the minute of an accord in 1969, believed to have been exchanged between then Prime Minister Eisaku Sato and then U.S. President Richard Nixon during negotiations on the reversion of Okinawa to Japan, made public by a relative of Sato in December, as a secret agreement to allow nuclear weapons into Okinawa Prefecture in times of emergency, although the panel authorized the minutes as “genuine.”
The minutes did not have binding power after the Sato administration, according to the panel, which also cited other reasons.
As I read this, Japan allegedly agreed to four secret deals: two following the 1960 Security Treaty relating to (1) port calls and (2) the introduction of nuclear weapons in the event of renewed fighting in Korea and two following the 1972 reversion to Okinawa relating to (3) compensation to local landowners — it seems Tokyo agreed to pay the compensation to avoid revealing that nuclear weapons had been present in Okinawa — and (4) the Sato-Nixon accord on reintroduction of nuclear weapons that caused all the uproar in December.
Interestingly, the panel concluded that the Sato-Nixon understanding was the only allegation that did not constitute a secret understanding. The document is genuine, but apparently not binding. This Asahi editorial captures my thinking perfectly: “We do not understand how the panel reached this conclusion.” No kidding.
Of course, the answer may lie in the reams of Japanese documents that might as well be written in Klingon as far as I am concerned. Fortunately, we have some great Japanese speaking readers who’ve helped out on past issues like the Okada letter and an article in Sankei, including blogger Michael Cucek.
I really hope this interests you all as much as it does me.
posted Wednesday January 27, 2010 under japan by jeffrey
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.
posted Monday January 25, 2010 under japan by jeffrey
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.”
posted Sunday December 13, 2009 under japan by jeffrey
The Tomahawk Land Attack Missile, or TLAM, is named after the Tomahawk — a Native American axe. If you have ever seen a Western movie, the tomahawk is thrown overhand, and can be quite dangerous as Ed Ames — who played a Native Amerian on the television program Daniel Boone — demonstrated on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson:
As this little moment with Johnny suggests, when it comes to Tomahawks, aim is important!
I recently drafted a little memo on the Nuclear Tomahawk, the TLAM-N, and the problem of clobbering — when a Tomahawk missile goes astray. The short version is that Japanese officials should let the US retire the TLAM-N in 2013 because the possibility that it might crash in Japan or South Korea en route to targets in North Korea makes it all but unusable.
As this story in Kyodo News by Masakatsu Ota would suggest, the Japanese public would flip if they understood how TLAM-N works.
Below is an html version with hyperlinks. You can also download a pdf version with citations that looks more like an “academic” paper. It is still very much a draft; comments are welcome.
A Problem with the Nuclear Tomahawk
Jeffrey Lewis
December 14, 2009
As part of his September 1991 “Presidential Nuclear Initiatives,” President George H. W. Bush ordered the Navy to “withdraw all tactical nuclear weapons from its surface ships and attack submarines.” This included all nuclear-armed Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAM-N) deployed on US ships, including some Los Angeles-class attack submarines. Nuclear Tomahawk has been in storage since the Navy completed the withdrawal in early 1992. The Navy now wants to complete retirement of the system by 2013.
Some current and former US and Japanese government officials oppose retirement of the Nuclear Tomahawk. A Secretary of Defense Task Force criticized the Navy for assessing the weapon on grounds of whether it is “militarily cost-effective.” The Task Force argued that this criterion “ignores the weapon’s political value.” In other contexts, US and Japanese officials have argued that the credibility of the US nuclear umbrella “relies heavily on the deployment” of the TLAM-N.
This memo, using only unclassified information, explains in plain language why the Department of Defense should retire the Nuclear Tomahawk. One shortcoming of the Nuclear Tomahawk stands out: the possibility that a Nuclear Tomahawk would accidentally crash in an allied country like Japan or South Korea.
The problem is that the mid-1980s Tomahawk guidance system directs the missile to its target by comparing digital maps stored in an onboard computer against radar measurements of the terrain below the missile. The Nuclear Tomahawk, for example, needs to complete seven of nine “position-fixes” – matching a map to actual terrain — to arm the nuclear weapon. Each “fix” requires a map of rough and unique terrain approximately 7-8 kilometers in length. Since distinctive terrain is unusual by definition, the need for at least nine distinctive 8 km-long maps routinely results in routes of 100 km or more. Since terrain data must be extremely accurate, the Navy tends to prefer routes over friendly countries which allow the United States the access needed to make accurate maps in advance.
During the course of its flight along this “ingress route” a Tomahawk missile can drift off course and fly into the terrain that is supposed to guide it – an event known as “clobbering.” During the initial phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003, approximately ten conventionally-armed Tomahawk missiles went astray, crashing in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Iran. In response to the political fallout from these stray missiles, the Navy suspended launches of Tomahawk missiles from ships in the Mediterranean and Red Seas. These Tomahawks were newer and had more modern guidance systems than the nuclear versions kept in storage since 1992.
(Vice Admiral Timothy Keating stated that “less than ten” out of 800 Tomahawk missiles (about 1.25 percent) “have been found in Turkey and in Saudi Arabia.” Other reports suggest the number of Tomahawks fired was 675, which would bring the total closer to 1.5 percent.)
Navy officials are rightly concerned about the political consequences if a US nuclear weapon were to fall in a friendly country like Turkey, Saudi Arabia, South Korea or Japan. The 1966 crash of a US B-52 bomber carrying four nuclear weapons near Palomares, Spain – which strained relations with US allies and eventually resulted in changes to US Air Force operational practices – remains a potent memory.
This problem is especially vexing in scenarios involving North Korea. Although North Korea is rugged and mountainous, it is also relatively small and surrounded by featureless water. For obvious reasons, the United States is unlikely to fly nuclear-armed Tomahawk cruise missiles over Russia or China. As a result, the most plausible ingress routes lie over South Korea and, to some extent, Japan.
It is very surprising that officials within the Japanese government have lobbied the United States to retain the Nuclear Tomahawk. If the Japanese and South Korean public understood how Nuclear Tomahawk works and that a failure might result in a nuclear weapon crash landing on their territory, the result would be a public relations nightmare. It is important to note that the Nuclear Tomahawk’s 150 kiloton W80 nuclear weapon would not detonate if it fell in South Korea or Japan while flying over either country. However, within Japan, even the possibility of Tomahawk overflights and crashes would raise sensitive issues related to the transit of nuclear weapons through Japanese territory and waters. Within South Korea, similar concerns would be complicated by the colonial overtones of Japanese officials pressing for Nuclear Tomahawk overflights of South Korea. The mere possibility of public disclosure alone ought to impel retirement of the Nuclear Tomahawk.
The Tomahawk Missile
The Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) is a cruise missile that can be launched from US Navy ships and submarines. The missile was initially deployed in the 1980s. The original nuclear variant has a range of 2500 km.
The United States today has four types of Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles in its arsenal – three conventional and one nuclear. For convenience, this paper refers to the nuclear-variant as Nuclear Tomahawk. It is properly called TLAM-N – for Tomahawk Land Attack Missile – Nuclear. The other variants – the TLAM-C, D and E are referred to collectively as Conventional Tomahawk. (TLAM-E is sometimes called Tactical Tomahawk or TacTom.)
Figure 1: Tomahawk Cruise Missiles in US Inventory
As part of his September 1991 “Presidential Nuclear Initiatives,” President George H. W. Bush ordered the Navy to “withdraw all tactical nuclear weapons from its surface ships and attack submarines.” This included all Nuclear Tomahawks deployed on USN ships, including some Los Angeles-class attack submarines. All Nuclear Tomahawks have been in storage since the Navy completed the withdrawal in early 1992.
Over the same period, the United States has developed two successive generations of Tomahawk missiles (the Block III and Block IV) with improved guidance. One feature has been the integration of satellite guidance using the Global Positioning System. (The United States does not use GPS for nuclear weapons guidance due to concerns regarding jamming and spoofing.) Although some Block II Conventional Tomahawks remained in the inventory though the 1990s, U.S. regional combatant commanders strongly prefer the newer Block III version. In March 1999, Navy officials testified that about 90 percent of TLAMs used in recent military operations had been the Block III weapon.
Today, all remaining Block II Conventional Tomahawks have been converted to the Block III version. The Navy wants to complete retirement of the remaining Block II Nuclear Tomahawk systems by 2013
Figure 2: Block II Tomahawk Flight Profile
Source: GAO/NSIAD-95-116, Cruise Missiles: Proven Capability Should Affect Aircraft and Force Structure Requirements, General Accounting Office, April 1995, p.15.
Tomahawk Guidance
Nuclear Tomahawk uses a 1980s-era system called Terrain Contour Matching (TERCOM) to guide the missile over the majority of its flight. Launched from the sea, the TLAM flies a preprogrammed route to landfall and then starts matching the observed terrain, using radar, to maps stored in its onboard computers. The Nuclear Tomahawk, for example, needs to complete seven of nine “position-fixes” – matching a map to actual terrain – to arm the nuclear weapon.
Each “fix” requires a map of rough and distinctive terrain approximately 7-8 km in length. (Each map comprises approximately 64 samples of 122 meters-long strips of terrain.) Since distinctive terrain is by definition unusual, a collection of nine or more maps 8 km in length routinely results in routes that are hundreds of kilometers in length. Since terrain data must be extremely accurate, the Navy tends to prefer routes over friendly countries that allow the United States enough access to make very accurate maps in advance.
Despite claims of outstanding Tomahawk performance during the Operation Desert Storm, a subsequent analysis by the Center for Naval Analyses and the Defense Intelligence Agency raised questions about the effectiveness of the system. Although the analysis remains classified, a General Accountability Office report concluded, based on the CNA/DIA analysis, that Tomahawk “accuracy was less than has been implied.” Among the problems that GAO pointed to included “the relatively flat, featureless desert terrain in theater made it difficult for the Defense Mapping Agency to produce usable TERCOM ingress routes…”
The flat, featureless terrain between the Persian Gulf and Baghdad forced the United States to create “ingress” routes for Tomahawk missiles for Operation Desert Storm in 1991 that took the missiles over Iran Saudi Arabia, Syria and Turkey:
Yet other complications persisted. The gray steel boxes housing the missiles topside contained secrets to which few men were privy. One secret – which would remain classified even after the war – was the route the Tomahawks would fly to Baghdad. The missile’s navigation over land was determined by terrain-contour matching, a technique by which readings from a radar altimeter were continuously compared with land elevations on a digitized map drawn from satellite images and stored in the missile’s computer. Broken country — mountains, valleys, bluffs — was required for the missile to read its position and avoid “clobbering,” plowing into the ground.
For shooters from the Red Sea, the high desert of western Iraq was sufficiently rugged. But for Wisconsin and other ships firing from the Persian Gulf, most of southeastern Iraq and Kuwait was hopelessly flat. After weeks of study, only one suitable route was found for Tomahawks from the gulf: up the rugged mountains of western Iran, followed by a left turn across the border and into the Iraqi capital. Navy missile planners in Hawaii and Virginia mapped the routes and programmed the weapons. They also seeded the missiles’ software with a “friendly virus” that scrambled much of the sensitive computer coding during flight in case a clobbered Tomahawk fell into unfriendly hands. A third set of Tomahawks, carried aboard ships in the Mediterranean, were assigned routes across the mountains of Turkey and eastern Syria.
Not until a few days before the war was to begin, however, had the White House and National Security Council suddenly realized that war plans called for dozens and perhaps hundreds of missiles to fly over Turkey, Syria, and Iran, the last a nation chronically hostile to the United States. President Bush’s advisers had been flabbergasted. (“Look,” Powell declared during one White House meeting, “I’ve been showing you the flight lines for weeks. We didn’t have them going over white paper!”) After contemplating the alternative-scrubbing the Tomahawks and attacking their well-guarded targets with piloted aircraft — Bush assented to the Iranian overflight. Tehran would not be told of the intrusion. But on Sunday night, January 13, Bush prohibited Tomahawk launches from the eastern Mediterranean; neither the Turks nor the Syrians had agreed to American overflights, and the president considered Turkey in particular too vital an ally to risk offending.
The United States used the same “ingress routes” for conventional Tomahawk strikes in 2003, during the initial phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Between 1-2 percent of all Conventional Tomahawks were “clobbered” en route to their target in one of three countries: Iran, Saudi Arabia or Turkey. Additional missiles may have been lost over Iraq. The map below shows the ingress route and the location, based on press accounts, of six “clobbered” Tomahawks. It is worth noting that these crashes occurred involved newer Block III models of the Tomahawk missile that supplemented onboard TERCOM systems with satellite-aided Global Positioning System (GPS) guidance. The existing Block II Nuclear Tomahawks, which do not have GPS, would likely experience worse rates of clobbering. (Moreover, because GPS signals are subject to jamming and spoofing, the United States military has been reluctant to use satellite-guidance for nuclear weapons.)
Figure 3: Clobbered Tomahawk Missiles in Operation Iraqi Freedom
The crashes in Turkey and Saudi Arabia created difficult a political problem for the United States. According to one press account, locals pelted US vehicles with stones as US soldiers attempted to recover the clobbered Tomahawks in Turkey. The two images below show a clobbered Tomahawk, guarded by Turkish security forces and some onlookers who have gathered at the crash site. As a result of complaints from Ankara and Riyadh, the United States suspended Tomahawk launches from the Mediterranean and Red Seas in late March 2003.
Figure 4: A Clobbered Tomahawk Missile In Turkey
Credit: Mehdi Fedouach/AFP/Getty Images. March 29, 2003, Buyukmerdes, Turkey.
Figure 5: A Crowd Gathers Near the Clobbered Tomahawk
Credit: Mehdi Fedouach/AFP/Getty Images. March 29, 2003, Buyukmerdes, Turkey.
Issues for Japan and South Korea
Some officials have suggested that TLAM-N is the only unique, tactical nuclear weapon system that demonstrates the commitment of the United States to the security of Japan and South Korea. As a result, some Japanese Government Officials in Tokyo and Washington have pressed the Office of the Secretary of Defense to overturn the Navy’s decision to retire Nuclear Tomahawk.
North Korea has rugged terrain that is suitable for TERCOM mapping. According to the Central Intelligence Agency, North Korea’s terrain comprises “mostly hills and mountains separated by deep, narrow valleys.” However, North Korea is also small and surrounded largely by featureless ocean. At its narrowest point, North Korea is less than 200 km wide.
Although there may be some potential ingress routes involving the long finger of North Korea that extends to the northeast along the Sea of Japan, the need for highly accurate maps, proximity to the Chinese and Russian borders, and the preference for multiple axes of attack probably means that mission planners must consider some ingress routes that fly over non-North Korean territory.
For obvious reasons, the United States is unlikely to fly Nuclear Tomahawk over China or Russia. This leaves South Korea and, possibly Japan, as possible sources of terrain for TERCOM matches. It is important to note that the Nuclear Tomahawk’s 150 kiloton W80 nuclear weapon would not detonate if it fell in South Korea or Japan while flying over either country. As mentioned above, the Nuclear Tomahawk will not arm the warhead unless the onboard guidance computer successfully complete seven of nine contour matches – a condition precluded if the missile “clobbers” early in flight before the seventh match.
Even without a nuclear explosion, the political ramifications of crashing a nuclear-armed missile into a friendly country would be profound. A similar event happened in 1968 when a B-52 carrying nuclear weapons collided with an in flight refueling tanker over Palomares, Spain, dropping nuclear weapons into fields and the Mediterranean Sea. The incident created tensions between the United States and its allies, notably Spain, and – in combination with a subsequent accident at Thule, Greenland – led to the elimination of “Chrome Dome” flights with nuclear weapons.
Simple disclosure of this problem in the Japanese or South Korean press could create a political firestorm. The lobbying of one or more Japanese government agencies to maintain a nuclear missile whose mission would depend upon being able to fly over Japan and South Korea, which involves the risk of crashing in those countries, could lead to a severe political crisis, if the Japanese and South Korean publics became aware of these facts. In Japan, the issue of nuclear weapons transiting Japanese territory and waters is extraordinarily sensitive. Nuclear Tomahawk directly raises the issue of nuclear weapons transit, albeit in wartime, at a time when Japanese newspapers are publishing details of previous “secret” agreements between Tokyo and Washington regarding US nuclear weapons in Japan. In South Korea, where memories of Japan’s occupation have left a lingering sense of distrust, the revelation that Japanese bureaucrats are lobbying to retain a nuclear weapons system that would fly over South Korean homes and farms would deepen tensions between two important U.S. allies.
The mere possibility of public disclosure, therefore, ought to impel retirement of the Nuclear Tomahawk.
There has probably never been a discussion on ACW that has aroused as much animated technical discussion as the thrust vector control (TVC) for Sejil. This is almost entirely due to the troubling ambiguity of two cables/tubes that run down the lower half of the first stage. I had thought we had put this discussion aside when images showing the inner face of the “boxes” hanging below the nozzle appeared. They were very persuasive that the Sejil uses jet vanes, perhaps using advanced composites wrapped around a metal core. (It certainly rules out that the Sejil uses vernier engines, which was my original hypothesis.) Those images apparently did not convince everyone! Instead, Japan is suggesting in a confidential briefing to the MTCR that the Sejil uses those boxes for the pressurization controls of a Liquid Injection TVC (or LITVC). (Note that the slide shows the liquid injection occurs inside the nozzle and presumably before the box starts on the outside.) Again, I have to admit a feeling of sympathy for Japan’s argument.
I think I found a high resolution version of the image Japan includes in the lower right hand corner of its briefing slide. A portion of the image is reproduced below together with a close up of the faces where Safir’s jet vanes attach. (Here is the full Sejil image and here is the full Safir image.)
click on the image for a larger version
What you notice first is that the box hanging below the nozzle is empty. Perhaps the face for the jet vane “slots,” as visible in the Safir image on the right, have not been installed yet. Or perhaps the boxes are, as Japan suggests, the housings for the pressurization system for the LITVC system. The problem with this hypothesis, however, is that it assumes that the Sejil uses exactly the boxes for second stage that are shown in the first stage and yet there is no indication on the Sejil, whose staging event was clearly visible in videos of its launch on 20 May 2009, of such side pipes. That means that you have to accept that the Sejil uses two different TVC systems whose external components look exactly the same. (Another is the choice of either pressurizing that external pipe to combustion pressures—roughly 3000 psi—or paying the weight penalty for both a depressurization and then another repressurization systems.)
Sorry, Japan! I feel your pain, but I think we have to conclude that both stages of the Sejil are pure solids. I still have my problems with the retrojet hypothesis for those side pipes (such as their placement along the rocket body) but I think that those are now side issues (please excuse the pun!). When we understand why they are placed there we might understand more about the staging difficulties Iran might be having but it won’t really influence our judgment about the rocket.
posted Monday October 19, 2009 under japan by jeffrey
Travis Sharp avails himself of the opportunity to use a statement by the new Japanese Foreign Minister to take a swipe at the PONI blog:
Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada on Sunday called on the United States to make a pledge not to use nuclear weapons first. Okada is not from Hiroshima or Nagasaki, so is it okay to listen to what he says, PONI?
It is so nice not to be in the middle of one of these exchanges for a change.
A close-up view of the decommissioned Tokai Power Station — Japan’s first power reactor
The usual answer to that question is the one that the North Koreans have supplied: gas-cooled, graphite-moderated reactors can be operated without enriched uranium or heavy water, and are therefore ideal for a country with limited or no ability to get these things. They’re ideal “starter reactors.”
(The North Koreans originally said they were intent on producing electricity, of course, not plutonium.)
Thus, the DPRK set out to build a trio of gas-graphite reactors at Yongbyon and Taechon in the 1980s. Of these, only the 5 MWe reactor at Yongbyon — usually described as an indigenous copy of the UK’s Calder Hall design — was completed.
But maybe there’s another answer as well.
One of the more striking things about the Yongbyon reactor is how little it actually resembles a Calder Hall, at least on the outside. The basic technologies are the same, but the buildings themselves are not. Let’s start with the overhead views from Google Earth.
Here’s one of the surviving Calder Hall structures at the Sellafield site in the UK. It’s roughly cross-shaped, about 88 m at its longest. There are four scaffold-like structures at the corners. Update: These are the heat exchangers. The tall central structure flanked by two stacks holds the reactor vessel. Its footprint is about 20 × 40 m.
And here, of course, is the Yongbyon reactor. It’s a squarish, multi-tiered structure, about 53 × 60 m. It features a tall central structure measuring about 24 × 33 m and a single stack, offset to one side.
And now for something you probably haven’t seen before.
This is the Tokai Power Station in Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. It was the country’s first power reactor, operational from 1965 to 1998. It’s a modified Calder Hall, designed and built by General Electric Corp. (UK) to suit Japan’s seismic conditions. Until Yongbyon was built, in fact, Tokai was the only gas-graphite power reactor outside of Europe.
It’s a multi-tiered structure, about 51 × 67 m. It features a tall central structure measuring about 26 × 47 m and a single stack, offset to one side.
Update: All of the above images are oriented with the north at the top. I don’t know what to read, if anything, into the apparently identical orientation of the Tokai and Yongbyon reactors.
Obviously, this reactor, which had 166 MW electrical output, is no dead ringer for Yongbyon. But it’s much closer than the original Calder Hall type. Have a look at this ground truth comparison, with views of Tokai on the top, Yongbyon on the bottom left, and Calder Hall on the bottom right:
Even the park-like settings are similar.
Construction at Tokai began in 1960. Japan’s acquisition of a reactor suitable for making both electricity and plutonium, just as North Korea’s own nuclear research program was getting underway, would not have gone unnoticed in Pyongyang. So it would not be surprising if Yongbyon was modeled on Tokai, even though it was built 20 years later.
For comparison, recall the striking resemblance between North Korea’s first artificial satellite, Kwangmyongsong-1, allegedly launched in 1998, and China’s Dongfanghong-1, actually launched in 1970.
Think of it as a statement of sorts, a declaration of national equality.
Update. I plan to add some further discussion of North Korea’s motives for building reactors in the 1980s. Watch this space.
The Strategic Posture Commission Report contains at least one outright howler — the claim that the deployment of nuclear-armed cruise missiles is essential to extended deterrence in Asia:
In Asia, extended deterrence relies heavily on the deployment of nuclear cruise missiles on some Los Angeles class attack submarines—the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile/Nuclear (TLAM/N). This capability will be retired in 2013 unless steps are taken to maintain it. U.S. allies in Asia are not integrated in the same way into nuclear planning and have not been asked to make commitments to delivery systems. In our work as a Commission it has become clear to us that some U.S. allies in Asia would be very concerned by TLAM/N retirement.
Let’s be very, very clear that “as a result of the President’s 1991 Nuclear Initiatives, all TLAM/N nuclear weapons have been removed from U.S. Navy vessels.”
So, if extended deterrence to Japan relied heavily on the deployment of nuclear cruise missiles on some Los Angeles-class attack submarines, we would be hosed.
Look, I really don’t care if we store some TLAM/Ns at SWFPAC to make the Japanese feel better. Hell, I’d even let DOD commission some bizarre TLAM/N anime, like Rocket Girls (below), if I thought it would ease anxiety in Tokyo. Whatever floats your boat; just leave me out of it.
But let’s not pretend these useless relics of the Cold War sitting in a climate-controlled warehouse are all that stand between us and nuclear-armed Japan. Because they aren’t.
***
As part of my project at the New America Foundation, we undertook a pretty serious round of consultations with Japanese experts and officials on extended deterrence. (The crucial thing I learned is that Nobu Tokyo is a lot like Nobu New York.)
No one brought up the TLAM/N. Seriously, I have my notes. That doesn’t mean that the idea isn’t kicking around Japanese defense circles. I know others have looked at the same question, including whether TLAM/N re-deployment would be a good idea. But, when we mentioned the re-deployment of nuclear weapons on submarines or surface ships, we got the same amount of teeth-sucking for adding capabilities as we did for decreasing them.
The debate in Washington, I think, starts from a mistaken assumption. It is not the case that, if the US reduces the credibility of its extended deterrent, the Japanese will just build nuclear weapons to make up the difference.
On the contrary, there is no mainstream constituency in Japan for an independent nuclear deterrent. If you want to know where Japan is heading, read this article by Hajime Izumi and Katsuhisa Furukawa. Across the political spectrum, Japanese policy-makers realize that an independent nuclear deterrent would destroy the US-Japan bilateral relationship — a bilateral relationship to which Japan has no alternative.
It is this lack of viable geopolitical alternatives to the U.S. alliance that creates an extreme risk-aversion among Japanese policymakers to any change in U.S. nuclear policy, good or bad. An analogy might be the irrational fear of flying in some people – an anxiety that results from a sense of having little or no control over one’s fate.
The solution to this sort of anxiety isn’t to retain obsolete capabilities like the TLAM/N, any more than Aunt Ginny should skip her daughter’s wedding because she hates airplanes.
Take this thought experiment: What if a Japanese official suggested, in addition to the TLAM/N, that we design a new low-yield, earth penetrating nuclear weapon (PLYWD)? — “a weapon that does not make strategic or political sense” to borrow a phrase?
Would you do something dumb just because the Japanese asked you to? Of course not. That some Japanese officials irrationally focus on irrelevant capabilities to measure our commitment to Japan is a symptom of a much bigger problem that needs to be addressed with more than hardware.
Instead of TLAM/N or PLYWD, we need to do a better job of consulting Japan on a range of issues, from North Korea to nuclear posture. The truth is that if we get the big questions right — a good Ambassador to Japan, close cooperation to denuclearize the North Korean peninsula, making sure the President stops in Tokyo before he stops in Beijing — then the deployment or retirement of the TLAM/N won’t make any difference. And if we get those so horribly wrong that Tokyo is seriously contemplating building nuclear weapons, then the TLAM/N definitely won’t make any difference.
So, rather than keeping the TLAM/N in storage (or god forbid re-arming and re-certifying the SSNs, reviving RNEP or exploring some low-yield concepts), the Obama Administration needs to focus on the the political side of extending deterrence.
One option — which the Strategic Posture Commission did recommend — is to conduct consultations similar to those in the NATO Nuclear Planning Group (and its subsidiary High Level Group) with Japan, as well as Australia and South Korea. This is routinely done with non-nuclear members of NATO and would be considerably more effective than a handful of cruise missiles in storage.
We might still think about funding that the TLAM/N anime, though. Two words: Action Figures. (Seriously, it’s a real doll. Grown-ups buy this stuff.)
***
So why did this evident bit of silliness make it into the report?
The other Perry report — the CFR Task Force on U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy — by contrast, does not single out the TLAM/N as central to extended deterrence in Asia. Perry and Scowcroft do mention, in passing, the existence of several hundred “warheads devoted to shorter range weapon delivery systems, including Tomahawk submarine launched cruise missiles (none of which are deployed) and B61-3/4 tactical bombs.”
The issue is a hobby horse for James Schlesinger, Vice-Chairman of the Strategic Posture Commission. The Secretary of Defense Task Force on DOD Nuclear Weapons Management, which Schlesinger chaired, also mentioned the TLAM/N — in fact, the Phase II Final Report mentioned the TLAM/N 42 times in 108 pages, including expressing frustration that no one in the Navy seems to share Jimbo’s deep love of the TLAM/N:
The Task Force found no COCOM, Joint Staff, or Navy advocacy for the nuclear sea-launched cruise missile capability provided by the TLAM-N. This lack reflects a failure to recognize the important deterrent capability of the TLAM-N that would give the President a degree of flexibility for escalation control and extended deterrence on behalf of our allies.
The sordid story of the TLAM/N is an indication of how much influence a single-minded member of a consensus oriented Commission can wield, even if he is wrong. That’s a lesson worth keeping in mind when reading the report.
Regular Wonk readers will know that the question of how long it would take Japan to build the Bomb has been a subject of interest in the past. See here and here for starters.
Well, we now have a new low-ball estimate. Global Security Newswire (not exactly a scoop for ACW, I know) reports a speech from Gary Sick last week:
Experts have told him that Japan is so close to a weapons capacity that Tokyo “could do it, sort of, over a long weekend.”
posted Saturday January 6, 2007 under japan by jeffrey
We were discussing the origin of the widespread claim that Japan is “six months” from a bomb—and the earliest scholarly reference I could find was Richard Halloran’s Chrysanthemum and Sword Revisited: Is Japanese Militarism Resurgent. Halloran argues:
Japan also has the financial and technical resources to make nuclear weapons. A Japanese strategic thinker said years ago, and recently reaffirmed it, that “Japan is N minus six months.” He meant that Japan could build a nuclear weapon within six months of a political decision to do so.112
112. Conversations with the author in 1976, 1990 and 1991.
It is worth noting that the claim is made in passing; Halloran is making the point that Japan has the capability but not the desire to go nuclear. Whether it is six months or three years, doesn’t really matter to him.
It seems, though, that the “six month” idea dates to the mid-seventies—at a time when John Endicott’s careful study, Japan’s Nuclear Options, suggested a much longer timeframe.
I’ve been reluctant to speculate about why Sankei received this particular leak. Sankei is an extremely conservative paper, which I remember carrying some headline grabbing stories about extensive cooperation between DPRK and Iranian nuclear programs (I’ve posted two such stories in the comments).
Anyway, a reader familiar with Japanese media and its relationship with the Japanese government offers these thoughts:
With regards to the recent Sankei Shimbun article (and comments on the potential for Japan going nuclear) there’s one aspect to this story that should be mentioned.
The report, supposedly “leaked” to Sankei and citing the 3 – 5 year timeline for going nuclear, was most likely passed on to that newspaper by government officials deliberately.
Sankei is Japan’s most conservative publication, with strong ties to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party and the defense establishment. Although Sankei is the smallest national daily, the other papers are quite used to Sankei “scooping” them on these types of stories, since it’s an open secret that they have a direct line to the top levels of the government.
When the original Sankei article first came out, many of my colleagues and I interpreted this as a clever way for the Japanese government to send a subtle message to China. While publicly rejecting nukes, this is one way to say to China “the clock’s ticking” meaning that Beijing has to get serious about disarming North Korea, and fast.
China monitors virtually all Japanese news media, and even obscure articles are routinely translated into Chinese and often find their way into Chinese papers and websites. The Sankei article didn’t make a huge splash in the U.S., but it definitely raised eyebrows in China.
And PM Abe’s policy on this point is in contradiction. While publicly assuring China that Japan won’t go nuclear, he’s commissioning studies into the idea and encouraging public debate.
I am by no means an expert on proliferation, but I know how strongly Japanese citizens loathe North Korea. And the government has been taking a much stronger line than in the past (something the public has been urging for decades).
Should the six party talks fail and North Korea increases its arsenal, with China twiddling its thumbs, then I think it is highly likely that Japan will develop its own detterent, even if in secret a la Israel (although it’s unclear yet how they would work around the NPT).
But if they do it out in the open, then it won’t be too difficult to convince their public while NK is holding 10 or more weapons with delivery capability. China’s arguments against will be extremely weak, given NK’s history of terrorism and threats.
All the stuff about WMD, intel and the national security bureaucracy by Dr Jeffrey Lewis and friends too wonky or obscene for publication.
E-mail: ArmsControlWonk [at] gmail.com
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