The recent essay on declaratory policy by ACW’s own Jeff Lewis is one of those rare writings that brings the reader to think about a well-trodden subject anew. Jeff is onto something when he says that the representatives of a nuclear weapons state — America, China, or any other — shouldn’t even try to answer what-if questions meant to exhume sinister contradictions in their declaratory policy. That’s so whether the policy is no-first-use, “sole purpose,” or some other formula that sends the same basic message with the necessary clarity.
As Jeff says, we really ought to get this one right. U.S. declaratory policy was crafted with the Soviet Union in mind. Although change is 20 years overdue, it still could not come at a much better time than in the months before the May 2010 NPT Review Conference. I’ve already raised this point in two columns for the Bulletin, first in October 2009, and again last week, but let’s have one more stab at it.
Declaratory Policy and Nonproliferation
Perhaps the most important reason to change U.S. declaratory policy has little to do with deterrence requirements. When it comes to nuclear deterrence, our cup runneth over. But when it comes to nonproliferation, we’re experiencingsomechallenges.
The stated role of nuclear weapons illuminates the role of nonproliferation. If the U.S. nuclear arsenal is meant to coerce future opponents, then nonproliferation becomes an adjunct to global American power, which is already considerable. If, on the other hand, nuclear weapons play a strictly defensive role for the United States and its allies, then nonproliferation can be a matter of broadly common interest.
Come this May at the RevCon, when Washington puts forward its proposals to strengthen the NPT, both Washington and Tehran will be courting the votes of some of the same countries. These include states that are neither enemies nor fully-fledged allies of the United States, and perhaps hold some reservations about the idea of a unipolar world. In this situation, the Nuclear Posture Review can deal cards into the hand of the U.S. delegation, or take them away.
So let’s recognize declaratory policy for what it is, first and foremost: an instrument of diplomacy. And let’s also recognize that “deter enemies” and “assure allies” is not the whole of diplomatic endeavor. The United States aspires to lead the international community, which is not the same thing as leading NATO. The RevCon will put that aspiration to the test.
Many things remain unknown about Sweden’s nuclear programme, especially why it was suddenly discontinued. It is interesting to note, of course, that the US intelligence community estimated that Sweden was on its way to the weapon up until 1964. Later intelligence assessments are considerably more cautious. That’s probably because our American cousins knew that Sweden wasn’t seeking it any more. I say cousins as about 1 in 20 of the US population is said to have Scandinavian heritage. My favourites of those are probably Uma Thurman, Charles Lindbergh, Kim Basinger and Buzz Aldrin: beautiful women and daredevil pilots.
Cultural similarities aside, little is known about the deal that was made between the Swedish and U.S. governments at that time. Details seem to be heavily classified on both sides of the Atlantic. Swedish historian Wilhelm Agrell, however, points to the mysterious enlargement of Swedish Air Force bases in the latter half of the 1960s, where several runways were extended to be able to receive strategic bombers. Of course, the Swedish Air Force had none of those. This week, I spoke with Ove Bring, a mentor of mine and author of a 2008 book on Swedish Neutrality. He also told me of the Air Force’s decision to equip Swedish tankers with NATO specification nozzles. It would seem like the Air Force started to work closely with its NATO counterparts in the mid 1960s, but few primary sources exist to confirm this.
While it will take some time to get confirmation on why Sweden abandoned its weapons plans, it is possible to piece together the programme itself. Sweden’s fuel cycle activities in the 1950s and 1960s are fairly well documented. When reading about many of these assets, their relationship with the military programme is implied, but never stated and sometimes denied. Most fuel cycle assets except a reprocessing facility were in place in 1969. However, by that time Sweden had joined the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and its weapons experts had become disarmament experts. In the 25 years that followed, most assets were shut down or decommissioned.
This post is based on a number of sources, including some primary documentation, papers written by FOA researchers, as well as, surprisingly, local community history websites. There are a number of good reports written on the programme, but some of them seem speculative or vague in parts. Of course, the writings of Wilhelm Agrell and Thomas Jonter is highly recommended.
Uranium extraction
The designers of Sweden’s nuclear programme realized, as so many other states seeking nuclear weapons, that the key to the bomb is easy access to uranium ore. If you do not have access to domestic ore, its little point engaging on a full-scale weapons programme. In this respect, Sweden found itself in a favourable position. The country was, and still is, very rich in natural uranium. However, the ore grade is quite low (mostly shale), and therefore requires extensive mining and milling. According to a relatively recent survey, Sweden has something between 4 and 32 million tonnes of extractable ore – which was enough for the surveyor to call the country “the Saudi Arabia of uranium” (Continental Precious Minerals Inc., 2005: Results of NI 43-101 Geological Report 7/29/05).
Be that as it may, the ore grade in Sweden varies between 200 and 300 parts per million, which makes it mostly uneconomic to extract. The uranium is hidden in Cambrian period seabed, formed some 400 to 600 million years ago. The Swedish weapons programme focussed on two areas.
Kvarntorp (59° 7’32.11“N 15°16’23.32“E). Uranium extraction started in 1953 by a Swedish government public venture (Svenska Skifferoljebolaget), which had been conducting oil exploration in the region since 1941. The ore in the area is extremely low grade (only 200 parts per million). By 1956, the company had only managed to extract about five metric tonnes of uranium. When mining stopped in 1963, the company had managed to extract about 50 metric tonnes of uranium.
Ranstad (58°16’19.09“N13°42’44.36“E). The government instead decided to go for the mine in Ranstad. AB Atomenergi got permission to excavate the area in 1959. Ranstadsverket was inaugurated in 1965, but was only running for about four years. In 1969 the mine was shut. It had extracted about 200 metric tonnes of uranium. This production is still accounted for in the OECD Red Book.
Norwegian heavy water
(59°52’43.59“N 8°33’27.03“E)
Another asset that the Swedes needed was heavy water to moderate their reactors. US supplied heavy water came with a troublesome string attached – namely the right to inspect the facilities where the water was used. However, neighbouring Norway had no qualms exporting the precious commodity without strings. Under secrecy, Sweden purchased five tonnes of heavy water from its neighbour.
The Wallenberg family might have facilitated the deal. Marcus Wallenberg, a Swedish lawyer and banker, sat on the Norsk Hydro board for 37 years. Norsk Hydro owned and operated the Norwegian heavy water plant in Rjukan. Wallenberg was also a founder of ASEA (which were later in charge of developing Sweden’s nuclear power plants) and the family controlled SAAB, the makers of most fighter-bombers of the Swedish Air Force.
The Swedes also had a good ally in Jens Christian Hauge, the Norwegian defence minister, an eccentric former resistance fighter. The Social Democratic leadership in Sweden despised him. Prime Minister Erlander, for instance, once described him as reckless. But Hauge had a good relationship with the Swedish military, and that relationship is sometimes described as one contributing factor to Sweden’s closeness to NATO. The Swedes had noted that Mr. Hauge had already helped orchestrate an export of safeguards-free heavy water to Israel. If Norway could export to Israel, why would it not export to its good neighbour?
FOA Grindsjoen
(59° 5’8.08“N 17°52’16.51“E)
The Swedish weaponization effort was located in a research area south of Stockholm, called Grindsjoen. The research facility was established in 1941 through a personal donation of Olof Arrhenius, son of the Nobel-prize winner Svante Arrhenius (a Swedish chemist and physicist). It was established to promote ‘natural sciences for defence needs’. It was initially never a formal authority of the state, but rather a collaboration of the physics faculties of all Swedish universities. The military found the location perfect. Since it was so remote, it was easy to keep it secret. The remote location was also appealing to the young scientists employed there. The nature was beautiful, and the local waterways were perfect for fishing and other activities.
At the end of the 1950s, it employed about a hundred scientists and engineers, all tasked to figure out how to build a nuclear weapon. According to some who worked there, they never actually received any instruction to build the weapon. They were conducting basic theoretical studies: such as implosion technology, material studies (especially on UK supplied plutonium), and other basic calculations. The design team early opted for a plutonium-fuelled implosion device. Calculations on the optimum configuration were made on a state-of-the-art IBM 7090 computer installed by FOA in 1961 (the IBM 7090 was also used by NASA in the Mercury Programme). They validated the calculations by conducting cold tests with suitable surrogate materials. The conclusion was that it was not a simple feat to achieve ideal geometry. However, within a couple of years, the team felt that they had good knowledge of what needed to be done.
The Grindsjoen team also needed to know how plutonium behaved under intense pressure. They knew that if they could increase the metal’s density (under pressure), the critical mass would decrease. For that reason alone, high explosive research got priority. The FOA team therefore conducted compression tests where small samples of plutonium were compressed by high explosives within a steel container (which in turn was placed in a facility glove box). The team studied, albeit not very extensively, casting, shearing, and stabilization of plutonium metal. And they also developed a prototype neutron initiator.
The R1 reactor
(59°21’0.33” N18° 4’0.91“E)
The R1 was Sweden’s first reactor. It was fuelled by three metric tonnes of uranium metal provided by France, and moderated by five tonnes of heavy water supplied by Norway. The reactor is located 27 meters under the buildings of the prestigious Royal Institute of Technology. It was not a reactor designed to produce significant quantities of weapons grade plutonium (its effect was only 1 MWth). Rather it was built to give the Swedes reactor operation experience and to supply knowledge for how to build bigger, more powerful, reactors down the line. The CEO of AB Atomenergi, none other that Sigvard Eklund, inaugurated the reactor in 1954. One of the scientists who worked there was Professor Rolf Maximilian Sievert. AB Atomenergi made no secret of the reactor. Indeed, the Swedish King was present at the inauguration, and there were even postcards produced with the reactor as a motif.
The R2 and R2-0 reactor at Studsvik
The second reactor to be built was the R2, a pool type reactor with a 50 MW thermal effect. The R2-0 reactor was much smaller, with a 1 MW thermal effect. Both reactors were commissioned in 1960. The idea was to transform the sleepy little town of Studsvik into a nuclear research area. The institute was initially called “Atomic City”. Both reactors were nominally civilian, and was brought on-line for material testing and irradiation. The reactors were shut down in 2005. Remarkably, the US Atomic Energy Commission contributed 350,000 dollars to its construction. The United States also supplied the reactor with its fuel, 93.5 per cent enriched uranium. A typical core started with a load of 12-13 kilograms of highly enriched uranium, but prolonged burn-up often reduced the quantity to about 160 grams.
The R3 reactor at Agesta
One of the most fascinating reactors associated with Sweden’s efforts to seek nuclear weapons is R3/Adam. This was a small nuclear power plant, which was not really part of the weapons programme. It was seen as a test reactor on a very large scale. It had an 80MWth effect (about 12 MWe). The heavy water was supplied by the United States. The reactors burn-up was declared to be 3000 MWd/t. The total fuel load was 18 metric tonnes of natural uranium. If you simulate the reactor with the IAEA’s INFCIS system, you’ll find that the spent fuel if off-loaded within the year, would have contained nearly 27 kilograms of Plutonium-239 and only about a kilogram of Plutonium-240. In other words, near perfect weapons grade plutonium. Some of this plutonium is still stored in Sweden (not enough for a weapon). The vast majority has been shipped off to the United Kingdom.
The idea was not to use Agesta as the plutonium producer. For that purpose, AB Atomenergi was building a huge heavy water moderated reactor near Marviken. However, as the Marviken project was running into difficulties in 1966 and 1967, the military started to turn its attention to Agesta again. However, the heavy water was supplied from the United States, which meant that there was no easy way to bypass safeguards. Some preliminary plans for a crash program were drawn up. This would involve emptying Agesta of all US supplied heavy water and fill it up with Norwegian supplied stocks. However, these plans never materialized.
Agesta is remarkably well preserved today. According to visitors, one gets the feeling that the operators are out on a coffee break and may return any moment. However, the Swedish Nuclear Inspectorate has given assurances that the reactor itself may not be run without significant investment. At present, there is a battle going on between those who want to keep the reactor as a cultural artifact, and those who want to tear it down.
The R4 reactor at Marviken
(58°33’10.65“N 16°49’55.65“E)
R4/Eva was to be the biggest reactor produced. It was finished in 1968, but never got permission to load. Moderated by 185 metric tonnes of heavy water, the reactor effect was about 100MWe. The reactor was designed to be able to be loaded and unloaded while in operation. This is obviously useful when producing plutonium for weapons, since it allows the reactor operator to control the burn-up without having to shut the unit down. However, the link to the military programme was never made explicit. The reactor was planned to produce about 80 kilograms of weapons grade plutonium per year.
In his recollections, Peter Margen, the AB Atomenergi manager responsible for reactor projects wrote “… our design team at Atomenergi had introduced the requirement that it should be possible to refuel at full reactor pressure, and thereafter even at full load for purely economic reasons, initially as part of the studies of future large scale plants, and then in our suggested design for R4/Eve. In our discussion with Atomenergi management, the fact that this could also be of value if a situation would arise in future where the production of military plutonium became desirable was mentioned, but never as a directive for our design work.”
However, the design had a flaw, which necessitated the use of slightly enriched (1.2 per cent) uranium and a higher burn-up. Initially, the designers envisioned a burn-up of 5,000 MWd/t, but this was later increased to about 13,000 MWd/t. This fuel could only be supplied by UKAEA. Large quantities of heavy water had been promised from Savannah River. The changes needed delayed the project by a year and a half, and would have considerably increased cost. The plans to bring the reactor into operation were abandoned.
Lessons learned from Marviken were later applied in the construction of the O1 light water reactor in Oskarshamn. By then, all nuclear weapons plans had been abandoned completely.
In the late 1950s, money was allocated to buy land near Sannäsfjorden. It was here, as far away from the Baltic Sea as possible, where the government planned to build a reprocessing facility. AB Atomenergi bought the land in 1963, and later expanded the area to 2.3 square kilometres. Advanced studies were made to build the facility underground, straight into the cliffs by the coast.
The project was discontinued in 1970. Formally, it was due to opposition from the local council. However, it seems more likely that Sannäs was abandoned at the same time as the Marviken project collapsed.
Nuclear testing
The Supreme Commander’s Nuclear Weapons Group (Kärnladdningsgruppen) very briefly touched on nuclear testing in a classified 1962 memorandum. They concluded that Sweden had the capacity to carry out underground nuclear tests in their northern and western mountain ranges. Interestingly, however, they also held that nuclear testing, albeit desired, wasn’t necessary for the production of a nuclear device. This to me, at least, indicates high confidence in the design concepts worked out at FOA Grindsjoen as early as the beginning of the 1960s (Fst/Forskn 21/9 1962 nr KH 0800).
The Ahasverus system
Reportedly, the Swedish Air Force considered deployment and basing of their new weapons. According to some sources, about 100 weapons were ordered. Some of these weapons should have been stored in underground storage facilities, and the operational bombs should have been rotated around on active bases. The Air Force called this the “Ahasverus System”, after the lore of the Jew who taunted Jesus on the way to the Crucifixion and was then cursed to walk the earth until the Second Coming.
So what remained to be done?
According to former FOA researchers, Sweden still had some way to go. Amongst other things, it needed:
√ To accumulate a sufficient stockpile of safeguards-free weapons grade plutonium. This would have involved running the reactors for a while before committing to the weapon.
√ To finish the reprocessing facility.
√ To finish work on the weapons design.
√ To build a metallurgical laboratory capable of treating the plutonium, shaping the pit, and assembling the physics package.
If Sweden had not signed up and ratified the NPT, a blue and yellow bomb could have been reality in the first few years of the 1970s. Without doubt, all preparations for the bomb would have been carried out under the guise of its “peaceful nuclear programme” and under the concept of “expanded defensive research”.
Jeffrey and I have something in common. I’m Swedish. In his youth, Jeffrey went to some Swedish school (Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois). And we’ve both developed an interest in nuclear weapons issues.
But what do Madonna and nuclear weapons have in common? Nothing except that Nothing Really Matters was shot on the site of the R1 reactor in Stockholm, Sweden.
This reactor, buried about 30 meters under the city, played a small but important role in Sweden’s nuclear weapons programme. The programme is an interesting piece of non-proliferation and disarmament history, of which relatively little is known, at least outside Sweden.
This post is very long, so I’ve divided it into two parts. The first will go through some of the political context. Later, I will post on some of the fuel cycle facilities that have been identified.
I’ve drawn on the writings of Wilhelm Agrell and journalist Christer Larsson. The former has written a book on the subject in 2002, and the latter is the author of the 1985 article in Ny Teknik that first attempted to chronicle what really happened during the 1950s and 1960s.
A majority of the post is directly sourced from Peter Hansson’s excellent documentary on Swedish National Radio, which was broadcast in 2008. I’ve also had some brief conversations with people both in Sweden and Norway on the topic. Norway’s role, in particular, is spellbinding. Sweden’s western neighbour was the first non-nuclear weapon state to acquire a nuclear reactor. And it also had large quantities of another important asset: safeguards free heavy water.
Some of the secret documentation on Sweden’s nuclear programme was declassified in the mid-1990s. But the qualified secret material, which is under a 70 year classification rule, is not likely to be released until the beginning of the 2020s. Moreover, some believe that the really important documentation was never archived – it may not even be written down. This, of course, fits nicely with a well-known exception to the Swedish constitutional principle of government transparency. Certain memoranda, written simply as a support for your memory, are considered private and may not be given out to the public. We used this loophole frequently at the Swedish Court I once worked in, in order to protect internal assessments and investigations into sensitive cases.
The Swedish nuclear weapons programme was also heavily sectored. No person had access to the complete picture. This has resulted in an increasingly fragmented recollection of what actually happened. Some argue that a nuclear weapons programme never can develop secretly in a free and open society. Yet, the true extent of democratic Sweden’s programme is still unknown. And I suspect its true nature will remain opaque for many more years to come.
Origins
The Swedish military reacted slowly to the news of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Few military strategists within the military high command saw the atom bomb as a truly revolutionary weapon. Instead, they saw it as a powerful asset to be used only sparingly and at very important targets. Gradually, however, the military started to realize that the atomic bomb was a true game-changer. As tension between the Soviet Union and the United States rose, the military started to believe that the next war would be fought with nuclear weapons, and felt that Sweden needed to prepare itself for that. British and U.S. ideas heavily influenced the Swedish Defence Forces’ doctrinal thinking at that time. And some may recall that influential strategists, such as Air Marshall Sir Arthur Harris, advocated the use of nuclear weapons to deliver a decisive and pre-emptive blow to the perceived Soviet threat. This must have resonated strongly within the Swedish High Command.
The Air Force, under the direction of General Nils Per Robert Swedlund, was one of the driving forces behind the nuclear weapons programme. It realized that Sweden was in a favourable position. The country’s industry was untouched by the Second World War, it had excellent scientific expertise, and the country was well connected. Amongst the people that the country reportedly depended on for support was Nils Bohr, a world-leading physicist based in Demark, and of course Glenn Seaborg, an American 1951 Nobel-prize winner, generally considered to be the father of the U.S. plutonium production programme. Dr. Seaborg’s parents were Swedish, and he himself spoke the language fluently. After the end of the programme, Seaborg was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1972. It is sometimes said that Seaborg played a role in dissuading the Swedish government from seeking weapons, but the exact details of what happened in the first half of the 1960s are still classified.
One interesting aspect of the Swedish programme is its close relationship to private enterprise. In many other aspiring states, the weapons programme has been an exclusively state run effort. In Sweden, however, private industry was deeply involved. In fact, the programme started with the founding of a joint government-business venture. In 1947, the government established AB Atomenergi (the Atomic Energy Company). The company was owned by 4/7 by the Government. The other 3/7 was owned by a number of private companies active in the mining, steel and manufacturing industries. The company’s task was to establish the fuel cycle assets necessary for the weapons programme. The military would work out the bomb design. Therefore, AB Atomenergi had a close relationship with the Defence Research Institute (FOA) from the start, through a co-operation agreement signed in 1948. The Defence Research institute had already established a research area south of Stockholm (FOA Grindsjoen) that became the epicentre for military R&D (more on this area in the next post).
As in other proliferative states, the public was never informed about what the reactors were built for. The nuclear programme was portrayed as civilian. Atomic power was seen as the key to a new and better type of society, where all energy needs will be easily satisfied. The establishment of fuel cycle assets were seen as indicators of Swedish industrial progress, and was, I believe, a source of national pride.
In the meanwhile, the military made no secret that they were working on nuclear weapons related questions, but argued that all research was defensive. In 1954, Prime Minister Tage Erlander delivered a speech that argued that the atomic bomb had put all nations in a ‘state of fear’, and held that in order to protect itself from its effects, one would need to know how the weapon worked. This was spinned as a common-sense justification for the research throughout the 1950s, and would take absurd proportions with the concept of ‘expanded defensive research’, introduced in 1959.
He’s working for the Atomic Energy Company
Private enterprise
Sweden, despite having a reputation of being a socialist country, has always had a very strong business culture. The nuclear programme was no exception. Fuel cycle research was conducted under the umbrella of AB Atomenergi, but other interests were pushing for the bomb. The power company ASEA wanted the weapon, since that meant that it would get more orders for nuclear power plants (ASEA later became ASEA-Atom and is now part of Westinghouse). Moreover, the powerful arms manufacturer Bofors reportedly made several internal studies on its capability to assemble the weapon, and later lobbied government to get that role (Bofors is now part of BAE).
Of course, aircraft manufacturer SAAB would also have been involved in the effort. Although the design team at FOA Grindsjoen had some early design ideas about missile delivery, the Air Force strongly advocated the concept of using the SAAB 32 Lansen aircraft for weapons delivery. Studies, although ‘not terribly detailed’, were made on how the weapon would need to be designed to be hung under the fuselage of the platform.
Controversy
The Air Force remained the key driver behind the programme. After all, it was the Air Force’s fighter-bombers that were supposed to deliver the new weapon to target. But the programme had no public face. The various agencies and companies that worked on the programme realized that they could do a lot of progress without involving the Parliament or the general public. It was only after a fall-out between the Defence Minister (Sven Andersson) and the Supreme Commander of the Swedish Armed Forces (Swedlund) that the research became public. Surprisingly, the Defence Research Institute (FOA) made a public request for funds to develop nuclear weapons. A divisive and bitter debate ensued, which almost threatened to break the ruling Social Democratic Party apart.
Enter Olof Palme. This young man, which later was to become one of Sweden’s best-known Prime Ministers, was called in by Prime Minister Erlander to unify the party and give some top cover for the weapons effort. Palme was the secretary in a Social Democratic Party working-group on the nuclear weapons question. The group released its report in 1959, and the official position became ‘we’re not seeking it’ but unofficially the government wanted ‘freedom of action’. The FOA request was denied, but the budget on defensive research was significantly increased. Prime Minister Erlander, in consultations with the Supreme Commander, reportedly made it clear that ‘defensive research’ also included work on the weapon itself. The term used was ‘utvidgad skyddsforskning’ (i.e. expanded defensive research). In fact, the defensive programme remained a systematic offensive programme.
Downfall
From 1962 and onwards, the programme slows down. There were likely many factors in play. Public opinion turned sharply against nuclear weapons, and the Swedish government played an important role in the negotiation of the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In 1966, Karl Frithiofsson, a Ministry of Defence official, holds a speech at the Royal Defence Collage where the concept of a nuclear armed Sweden was formally dismissed. According to some, few in the audience had any idea what Frithioffson was talking about . However, historians hold that Sweden reached an understanding with the United States at some point during this period. The deal was that the US nuclear umbrella would protect Sweden, and so there was no need for any nuclear arms. Documents from this time are not likely to be released until the 2030s.
Sweden made good use of their expertise after this. Her nuclear weapons experts become ‘disarmament experts’, and made significant contributions to the debate in Geneva and Vienna. And one of the programme’s first directors and driving forces, Dr. Sigvard Eklund, went to Vienna to head up the International Atomic Energy Agency, a post he held for 20 years.
And so, in the years that followed, the programme, and its significant fuel cycle assets, would simply fade from the collective Swedish memory. As the veterans from the programme now quite old, some fear that the true depth of the programme will never be uncovered. In the meanwhile, Sweden’s programme emphasises how easy it is to hide a weapons effort under the guise of a civilian project. It also shows how simple it is to obfuscate a country’s intentions in the name of ‘defensive military research’.
I’m off to India this week. But when I return, I’ll post a list of some of the facilities associated with the programme. I’ll include a description of the well preserved R3/Adam reactor. And, of course, details of R4/Eva, the finished HWR that was never fuelled.
The text of the Obama-Medvedev statement is now available. Actually, there are two of them: a long statement on life, the universe and everything and a short statement on strategic arms control.
The arms control statement is pretty vague; presumably it is intended to give the negotiators maximum flexibility (and fair enough). More interesting is the language on this point from the long statement:
As leaders of the two largest nuclear weapons states, we agreed to work together to fulfill our obligations under Article VI of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and demonstrate leadership in reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world. We committed our two countries to achieving a nuclear free world, while recognizing that this long-term goal will require a new emphasis on arms control and conflict resolution measures, and their full implementation by all concerned nations.
Russians I had spoken to a couple of months ago thought that Medvedev would not be willing to mention a nuclear-weapon-free world (or even the ubiquitous but odd “nuclear free world”) and would instead insist on talking solely and more vaguely about fulfilling article VI. So, the wording used in the statement is perhaps noteworthy. A product maybe of the geronto-diplomacy we have seen recently?
Of course, the START follow-on treaty is most probably only going to contain modest cuts. Nonetheless, look at it this way: If, say, three years ago, you had been told that a young, liberal, black US President and his Russian counterpart had publicly committed their nations to the abolition of nuclear weapons on 1 April, what would you have concluded?
The most recent edition of Survival has a section on “Reinforcing the NPT”. One of the articles, “The Problem with Nuclear Mind Reading”, is by me (non-printable proof available here), and the other, entitled “Exposing Nuclear Non-Compliance”, is by former IAEA Deputy Director General for Safeguards, Pierre Goldschmidt (available for free here).
My article asks the question: Should we care why a non-compliant state has violated its non-proliferation undertakings, or instead focus on what it has done? My answer is that we should focus on actions not intentions—not least because the IAEA is not tasked with assessing intentions and it would be effectively impossible for it to do so.
If the topic sounds familiar to Wonk readers it probably is. The article grew out of my first ever posting on this blog and has been the subject of a few since then. [And was the subject of a talk James gave at the New America Foundation, which you can view on YouTube. — Jeffrey]
Anyway, like every other idea in non-proliferation, it turns out not to be so new. Its origin? The Acheson-Lilienthal Report. Where else? (The creators of South Park captured the feeling nicely in this episode, to which the title of this post is a tribute).
I was rereading A-L the other day, which as many of you will know, proposes international control of the fuel cycle (or rather, “dangerous” activities) by an Atomic Development Authority. The following passage described the inspection function of this body:
…the Authority will be aided in the detection of illegal operations by the fact that it is not the motive but the operation which is illegal. Any national or private effort to mine uranium will be illegal; any such stockpiling of thorium will be illegal; the building of any primary reactor or separation plant will be illegal. This circumstance is of very great importance for the following reason: It is true that a thoroughgoing inspection of all phases of the industry of a nation will in general be an unbearable burden; it is true that a calculated attempt at evasion may, by camouflage or by geographical location, make the specific detection of an illegal operation very much more difficult. But the total effort needed to carry through from the mine to the bomb, a surreptitious program of atomic armament on a scale sufficient to make it a threat or to make it a temptation to evasion, is so vast, and the number of separate difficult undertakings so great, and the special character of many of these undertakings so hard to conceal, that the fact of this effort
should be impossible to hide. The fact that it is the existence of the effort rather then a specific purpose or motive or plan which constitutes an evasion and an unmistakable danger signal is to our minds one of the great advantages of the proposals we have outlined.
A lesson that, in my opinion at least, is still very relevant today.
A diligent reader spotted an article in Haaretz reporting that, in private, Sarkozy has been very critical of Obama’s Iran policy, calling it (or perhaps him) “utterly immature”.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is very critical of U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama’s positions on Iran, according to reports that have reached Israel’s government.
Sarkozy has made his criticisms only in closed forums in France. But according to a senior Israeli government source, the reports reaching Israel indicate that Sarkozy views the Democratic candidate’s stance on Iran as “utterly immature” and comprised of “formulations empty of all content.”
Obama visited Paris in July, and the Iranian issue was at the heart of his meeting with Sarkozy. At a joint press conference afterward, Obama urged Iran to accept the West’s proposal on its nuclear program, saying that Iran was creating a serious situation that endangered both Israel and the West. According to the reports reaching Israel, Sarkozy told Obama at that meeting that if the new American president elected in November changed his country’s policy toward Iran, that would be “very problematic.”
It’s a bit of a change from two years ago when Jacques and Dubya were at loggerheads over the same issue but from the opposite sides. I also suspect there are some in Whitehall who share Sarko’s concerns. If Obama does win, bringing the E2 around might not be so easy as many assume.
PS On checking up when Sarko assumed office, I learn from Wikipedia that he is also French Co-Prince of Andorra. Who knew?
UPDATE: As some of you noted in the comments, France has now issued a strong denial.
Congress has mandated that the next administration complete a Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) by early 2010. Senators McCain and Obama have both indicated support for nuclear reductions consistent with sustaining deterrence, and there is growing bipartisan support for a serious reexamination of U.S. nuclear weapons policy along these lines.
But many conservatives are not on board. The George C. Marshall Policy Institute just released the transcript of a recent talk on nuclear weapons policy by Senator Jon Kyl, a staunch conservative and the second-highest ranking Republican in the Senate. The Arizona senator’s remarks provide a good window into the five main rhetorical strategies and arguments that hardliner conservatives are likely deploy in the 2009-2010 debate over the NPR and NPT Review Conference.
Discredit calls for nuclear reductions by associating them with unilateral nuclear disarmament. In his remarks, Senator Kyl immediately pivots from noting the bipartisan call for nuclear reductions by secretaries Perry, Shultz, Kissinger and Senator Nunn in the now-famous WSJ op-eds to castigating a so-called “nuclear freeze” movement that supposedly recommends a course where “the U.S. alone is disarmed.” Actually, the main message of the nuclear freeze movement (which was active in the 1980s) was (take a wild guess) to freeze nuclear arsenals, i.e. stop building new nukes, and not unilateral disarmament. More fundamentally, Senator Kyl is arguing against a straw man: there is not a single serious U.S. leader or respected expert from either side of the political spectrum advocating for unilateral disarmament.
Mischaracterize the primary diplomatic objective of nuclear reductions as seeking to influence Iran and North Korea. Senator Kyl ridicules the notion that nuclear reductions by the United States would have any impact on the nuclear ambitions of rogue states, saying “of course” they would not. But convincing Iran and North Korea to forgo nuclear weapons is not the animating diplomatic goal of nuclear reductions. Rather, it is to address concerns among non-aligned countries that the United States is not living up to to its NPT Article VI nuclear disarmament obligations. “By fulfilling our commitment to make progress toward nuclear disarmament,” concludes a policy task force co-chaired by former secretaries Perry and Albright, “we give ourselves much greater leverage to persuade other countries to take the firm steps we consider necessary to prevent terrorists and additional countries from acquiring nuclear weapons.”
Suggest that America is getting left behind in a new arms race. Senator Kyl laments that “other states are modernizing their nuclear weapons and the United States is not.” Actually, these states are mostly playing catch-up—and they have a long way to go. Russia, for instance, keeps most of its SSBN fleet in port, where they are sitting ducks. Moreover, the United States is modernizing its strategic arsenal, for example, by deploying the more accurate Trident II D-5 missile to the SSBN fleet, improving the avionics on B-2 bombers so they can fly under radar, and putting the high-yield warheads and advanced reentry vehicles from dismantled MX missiles on Minuteman ICBMs while improving Minuteman’s guidance system. In any event, America’s existing nuclear arsenal—to say nothing of its overwhelming conventional superiority—is more than sufficient to deter Russia (let alone China or Iran) and reassure U.S. allies that America remains committed to their security.
Selectively interpret technical data on warhead reliability. Senator Kyl chides Congress for not funding the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW), suggesting that “each time we discover a problem in our legacy weapons…we have changed the weapon beyond its original design, in many cases because the components aren’t even available any more, they are so old-fashioned.” One gets the impression that our nukes are junkers patched together with duct tape and chewing gum. Yet each year since 1997, the secretaries of defense and energy have certified the arsenal as safe and reliable. As to a possible future need for an RRW or a new facility for manufacturing large numbers of plutonium pits, there is no need to commit now: an NNSA study found that the majority of plutonium pits for most nuclear weapons have minimum lifetimes of at least 85 years, roughly twice as long as originally expected.
Offer optimistic cost projections for new nuclear weapons facilities. Senator Kyl suggests that “with as little as $300 million we could begin the construction of facilities like the Chemistry and Metallurgy Facility Replacement Project (CMRR).” What is important to recognize, however, is that this is merely a down payment on a $2 billion project. Moreover, completing this facility will cost at least 2-3 times as much as DOE originally promised, according to DOE’s FY 2009 budget request:
The CMRR CD-1 was approved on June 17, 2005 with a preliminary cost range of $745,000,000 – $975,000,000.
[snip]
Based on continued examination of the project and recent, industry-wide experience related to the increases in the cost of construction of comparable facilities, the estimate for construction of the Nuclear Facility at CMRR is now viewed to be significantly higher. Initial estimates place the revised TPC above $2,000,000,000.
Who’s to say costs won’t escalate further?
Let’s be clear: for long as the United States possesses nuclear weapons, it must continue to maintain an appropriate nuclear weapons complex to ensure that the arsenal is safe and reliable. But meeting this need does not require American taxpayers to write DOE a blank check for constructing large new nuclear weapons manufacturing facilities decades before they might possibly be needed.
I’ve known for a while that Britain’s current incumbent, David Miliband, personally hosted a small round table on disarmament last month. Most of what I have heard has been on an off-the-record basis so I haven’t said anything here. Now, however, one of the participants has written publicly about it so it’s safe to blog.
Apparently (when he’s not stirring up trouble in the Labour Party), Britain’s relatively new Foreign Secretary likes to re-examine the fundamentals of British foreign policy. He recently focused his attention on nukes by hosting a workshop at his country residence on the disarmament initiative launched by his predecessor last year with a few think tank-types, academics and journalists as well as officials (no, not me).
I have been told not to expect any policy changes to result from the meeting (i.e. UK policy will continue to support taking disarmament seriously) but I am impressed that the Foreign Secretary appears to have a strong enough personal interest in the issue to spend an entire day on it. Coupled with his opposite number’s similar beliefs, this bodes well for the future. Expect more major speeches on this in the autumn…
I just got back from the IISS where William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, gave a speech on Preventing a New Age of Nuclear Insecurity. It is, apparently, exactly two years to the day since he last spoke on this subject to the IISS. Since then, however, the electoral prospects of the Conservative Party have brightened considerably so it had more of a buzz than last time.
I confess that I didn’t take notes and the speech isn’t online yet. When it is, I’ll assume it’ll be on the IISS website and the Tory party website.
I didn’t have the opportunity to ask a question at the event so after summarising the speech, I’ll pose two questions here instead.
First off, I thought it was an excellent speech: detailed and well-researched. I really mean that.
Many of us have been wondering for a while whether a future Conservative government would continue the high-profile initiatives on disarmament launched by the current Labour government and outlined in various recent speeches (including those I blogged about here and here).
And, it does appear it would. Mr Hague spoke, on a number of occasions, of the need to move towards disarmament if the P5 are to have the “moral authority” to curtail proliferation. Indeed, Mark Fitzpatrick observed in questions how strong the bipartisan consensus on these issues in Britain is.
In regard to non-proliferation, Hague essentially argued that what the current government was doing was right—but that it needed to go further. He launched his own eight point plan (very much in vogue these days). Many of those points are what you’d expect: universalize the Additional Protocol, fund the IAEA properly, freeze the assets of entities involved in proliferation and ‘internationalize’ the fuel cycle (by which he appeared to mean create a system of fuel banks).
All good sensible stuff. But, it will require the cooperation of non-nuclear weapon states to effect and I’m not sure he quite appreciate the challenges here. For instance, he painted the idea of fuel banks as being a way to ensure states article IV rights, which (whether they are or not) is certainly not how they are perceived at present.
So, the first of my two questions for Mr Hague, is this: How can an international consensus among nuclear-weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states to strengthen non-proliferation be created? Is good diplomacy sufficient? Will serious progress toward disarmament be enough? Or, is something additional required?
The most controversial suggestion raised by Mr Hague was that India, Pakistan and Israel should be ‘brought into the non-proliferation regime’. When asked about the US-India deal, he said was an example of the kind of thing he meant. But, he didn’t provide any other examples.
So, my second question is this: What does he mean, in practical terms, by bringing India, Pakistan and Israel ‘into the non-proliferation regime’? Can he provide some examples of a policy of this sort, beyond the US-India deal?
Of course, on the off-chance that Mr Hague doesn’t read this blog then any of you who want to speculate about possible answers are welcome!
A Tuesday morning distraction for you. I meant to post this yesterday—a Monday morning distraction would be more usual after all—but then got distracted myself…
The Australian government recently announced that it would convene the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament to help build consensus ahead of the 2010 NPT Review onference.
Under its last Labor government, Australia, of course, launched another high-profile disarmament initiative in the form of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (its webpage appears to be in the process of being updated).
Of course, it’s fun to speculate who might be tapped. The chairman of the Commission has already been announced as Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister. It’s probably safe to assume that the Commission will consist of 10—20 commissioners drawn from a range of nationalities.
So, who do you think the other commissioners should be?
Or, alternatively, who do you think they will be?
Answers in the comment box. For reference, the Canberra Commission consisted of the following:
• Celso Amorim (Brazil)
• Lee Butler (USA)
• Richard Butler (Australia)
• Michael Carver (UK)
• Jacques-Yves Cousteau (France)
• Jayantha Dhanapala (Sri Lanka)
• Rolf Ekeus (Sweden)
• Nabil Elaraby (Egypt)
• Ryukichi Imai (Japan)
• Ronald McCoy (Malaysia)
• Robert McNamara (US)
• Robert O’Neill (UK)
• Qian Jiadong (China)
• Michel Rocard (France)
• Joseph Rotblat (UK)
• Roald Sagdeev (Russia)
• Maj Britt Theorin (Sweden)
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
Comment [1]
Blog Posts
Get E-mail Updates