Readers, we have failed you.
From 4 February to 7 March one of the Wonk’s favourite events in the entire nuclear calendar took place and we didn’t even comment on it… yes, that’s right, Miss Atom 2008. We can but report the winner: Yulia Nagaeva. Alas, unlike last year there can be no repeat of Jane’s attempts to use ACW to rig the vote.
Note for new readers: Miss Atom is a beauty contest for “girls” (their word, not mine) in Russia’s nuclear industry. Seriously.
Comment [9]
Iran’s ballistic missile tests last week have sparked unusually harsh criticism from Russia. According to the BBC, Russian officials have said the tests
raised suspicion over the true aim of [Iran’s] nuclear programme.
This is remarkable coming from Moscow, and the latest sign of a potentially significant shift in Russia’s stance on Iran. Through 2007, Russia was the main obstacle in UNSC efforts to tighten the thumb screws on Iran, preferring bilateral diplomacy with Tehran over the international sanctions route.
This January, however, Russia finally agreed to a third sanctions resolution. Moscow also opposes the efforts of South Africa to delay the resolution. South Africa, which holds a non-permanent UNSC seat and is an influential member of the Non-Aligned Movement of developing countries, wants to wait until IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei finishes his meddlesome freelance diplomacy with Iran before proceeding—presumably in the hopes that ElBaradei gives Iran a clean bill of health, which could undermine the prospects for a unanimous or near-unanimous UNSC vote. The Russians, however, want the resolution to move forward sooner rather than later.
The Russians are now criticizing Iran’s enrichment and ballistic missile programs in the same breath. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov recently said that
In the span of just a few months, Russia has gone from denying an Iranian nuclear weapons program and foot-dragging on sanctions to drawing explicit linkages between Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs and pushing a third sanctions resolution.
So what changed Russia’s tack?
There are a number of possibilities, none mutually exclusive. Perhaps something in the intelligence the United States recently shared with the IAEA (and presumably some UNSC countries) on key aspects of Iran’s nuclear program spooked the Russians. Or maybe Moscow, like many Western governments, is ticked off at ElBaradei for playing shadow UN Secretary-General and wants the UNSC to reassert its authority. News of Iran’s apparent progress on P-2/IR-2 centrifuges may worry them as well.
I suspect that the main driver, however, is the remarkable shift in U.S. politics in the aftermath of the November 2007 Iran NIE. The NIE’s headline finding that Iran abandoned nuclear warhead and weaponization R&D in the fall of 2003 has eliminated the possibility of U.S. military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities for the foreseeable future. This frees up Russia and other countries to toe a harder line against Iran without worrying about legitimating U.S. military action.
If this interpretation is true, it means that the litany of pundits and commentators complaining that the NIE plays right into Iran’s hands have it exactly backwards: by effectively taking U.S. military action off the table for now, the NIE makes it easier, not harder, for countries like Russia to send Iran a stronger signal about its enrichment program. After all, Russia (and China, for that matter) do not want Iran to develop the capability to deploy nuclear weapons; until the Iran NIE, however, this concern was counterbalanced by a worry that the United States might launch another war in the Middle East.
(Joe Cirincione and I made an argument along these lines in our Contain and Engage strategy released last March. See page 45.)
Russia’s shift is good news, but sticks alone won’t compel Iran to capitulate. The Bush administration needs to get serious about offering Iran credible inducements, which it has proven chronically unable—or unwilling—to do.
Comment [23]
A few weeks ago I blogged about Russia’s “Father of All Bombs,” a fuel-air bomb they claimed to be the world’s largest non-nuclear weapon.
Did the Russians really drop the bomb off a Tu-160 bomber or was the drop a hoax?
David Axe at Wired has some interesting speculations.
Comment [4]
Earlier this week, AP reported that Russia tested a conventional bomb, which Russian television described as the “world’s most powerful non-nuclear air-delivered bomb.”
The TV station highlighted the importance of this weapon. In other words, our bomb is bigger than your bomb.
Channel One television said the new weapon, nicknamed the “dad of all bombs” is four times more powerful than the U.S. “mother of all bombs.”
[snip]
The U.S. Massive Ordnance Air Blast, nicknamed the Mother Of All Bombs, is a large-yield satellite-guided, air-delivered bomb described as the most powerful non-nuclear weapon in history.
Channel One said that while the Russian bomb contains 7.8 tons of high explosives compared to more than 8 tons of explosives in the U.S. bomb, it’s four times more powerful because it uses a new, highly efficient type of explosives that the report didn’t identify.
So, why does one need a bomb so big? A bomb that Col.-Gen. Alexander Rukshin, a deputy chief of the Russian military’s General Staff said “is comparable to a nuclear weapon in its efficiency and capability.”
To get the terrorists of course.
Rukshin said the new bomb would allow the military to “protect the nation’s security and confront international terrorism in any situation and any region.”
What is this all about? I am not sure yet. But “showing off” seems to be a topic in Russia news lately. Flexing some muscles, first literally, and now with really big fireballs.
Comment [10]
We don’t get many feel good stories on a nonproliferation blog.
This Washington Post piece is pretty close though. Next up, Nunn and Lugar superhero suits. Capes of course, but minus latex.
PODOLSK, Russia, Aug. 29 — Heavily guarded trucks rolled up to the Luch nuclear institute here on Tuesday night and unloaded five green reinforced containers holding a total of 21 pounds of uranium, about a third of it highly enriched, which had been quietly removed from a research reactor in Otwock, Poland.[snip]
On Wednesday, as workers prepared to open the casks from Poland, Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and former senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) got a firsthand look on a visit to Luch at the struggle to locate the fissile material and keep it from falling into the wrong hands, a program that they created more than 15 years ago and now faces new challenges.
[snip]
Later Wednesday, Nunn and Lugar witnessed the burn-off of a solid-fuel second-stage engine from an SS-25 intercontinental ballistic missile at a site northeast of Moscow. The burn is part of Russia’s effort to destroy the missiles in keeping with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
Along with U.S. Ambassador William J. Burns, Nunn and Lugar were invited to press a large red button on a boxy panel in a control room to start the burn. They then watched on closed-circuit television as the engine roared for two minutes 15 seconds.
Comment
The Kremlin has issued a decree suspending Russia’s participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty (CFE). The link is to the Russian, and the English should be up shortly at www.kremlin.ru. From Reuters:
The decree suspended Russia’s role in the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) pact, adopted in 1990 to limit the number of tanks, heavy artillery and combat aircraft deployed and stored between the Atlantic and Russia’s Ural mountains.Russia has accused the West of failing to ratify an amended version signed in 1999 to take into account the new post-Cold War situation. Talks last month with NATO states ended without progress.
A NATO spokesman said on Saturday of the Russian suspension: “If this is confirmed the Secretary General very much regrets this decision. The allies consider this treaty to be an important cornerstone of European security.”
A major source of friction is NATO’s insistence on preserving “flanking arrangements” which ban large concentrations of forces and materiel near some borders.
Russia objects to that provision because it limits Russian troop movements within Russian territory although Moscow says its border areas have become more unstable since the Soviet Union broke up in 1991.
More updates soon.
Comment [4]
In the last few days, Presidents Bush and Putin were meeting, talking about their wives, fishing and playing with dogs. Oh, but there is more:
As a gift, Bush gave Putin a Segway transporter, and he reportedly gave it a try. The former president and first lady own three Segways and regularly zip around their sprawling property on them.
A sign at the entrance to Walker’s Point reads: “Caution. President on Segway. Slow Down.”
There just has to be a photo of this Putin on Segway moment. If you find it, serious brownie points.
On missile defense, the theme at Kennebunkport seems to be anything but Europe. Putin offered to upgrade the Azerbaijan radar or even built a new one in Russia. Just as long as the US gives up this interceptors in Europe business. Bush said, hey Vladmir, good idea, but I still want Poland and Czech Republic.
(Maybe it’s just me, but does anyone else notice how both Presidents really make a point of calling each other by their first names? Damn, just look at what great buddies we are!)
So in general, news out of the weekend getaway sounds like more of the same. I don’t think anyone expected anything groundbreaking anyway. Apart from the Segway news, there was this Joint Statement by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov. At 102 words this statement really clears things up for those of us who have been wondering as to what will happen after START. Russia and the U.S. agree on the “development of a post-START arrangement to provide continuity and predictability regarding strategic offensive forces.” The word “verified” feels missing from that sentence.
Comment [2]
I want to follow up on a few issues on President Putin’s Gabala radar proposal. First, U.S. and Russia are currently talking about rather different conceptions of the plan, and second, both high level Russian officials and the press are gearing up for the plan to be rejected.
My Plan, Your Plan
Russia intends the proposal to be instead of missile defense deployments in Poland and the Czech Republic. Putin’s proposal, officials say, make the U.S. plans in Europe unnecessary. The U.S. however is talking about the Gabala radar as in addition to the currently planned interceptor and radar sites.
(I’ve also heard some questions about whether Azerbaijan itself is approving of this use of a radar on its territory. As far as I’ve read, they are game. Also, Putin did tell the G8 that he agreed on the proposal with Azerbaijan’s president. Somehow I doubt Azerbaijan would contradict that.)
Chief of the Russian Army’s General Staff General Baluevsky said yesterday (more here in Russian) that if the U.S. does not give a direct answer to Putin’s proposal by the start of the meeting in Kennebunkport (July 1-2), Russia will know that Washington has made its choice to reject the proposal. Russian press called it an ultimatum, but it kind of seems like they just wanted to use the “U” word. “Yeah, we’ll like totally know what’s up if you don’t say anything!” Umm, ok.
Current reports on Russia’s possible response are along the lines of pre-G8 summit missile pointing. Baluevsky noted the “Iskander missile and other systems.” (Iskander has a declared range which is within INF limits, but its actual maximum range may exceed that.)
What about INF?
However, what I am keeping an eye out for is whether threat to withdraw from the INF treaty starts to come up again. Russian officials talked up a storm about INF withdrawal a few months ago, calling it an asymmetric response to the U.S. Now the response appears to focus on existing missiles and where they are targeted.
What happened to the INF threats? At least two possibilities: 1) Russia noticed that the U.S. did not seem to care about their INF withdrawal while targeting missile talk gets everyone all riled up, or 2) there is a sense that Russia itself may have something to lose from INF withdrawal (eg. they have enough trouble with developing the currently planned missiles, so maybe opening competition with the U.S. on more is not the best plan), while existing missiles can threaten Europe too.
Russia did successful test the Bulava missile on Thursday. The last failed test was in December.
Comment [4]
Wow, so I met Howard Morland today. That was pretty awesome.
James Nagelberg wanted me to blog the panel on What the Future Holds for U.S. and Russian Nuclear Weapons. As I have no rational basis on which to make such decisions, I am pleased to do James’ bidding.
Sadly, no one mentioned extending START in any detail. However, I did learn a few interesting things, including:
Actually, Brooks’ talk was really interesting—he made a nonproliferation case for the RRW, arguing that it would be the “nail in the coffin” for nuclear testing and that the chance the next Administration would secure ratification of the CTBT is “relatively large.” He also argued, of course, that the RRW could enable further reductions and preserve extended deterrence.
Brooks—who made a similar argument at a private dinner the New America Foundation hosted at Nora—is very persuasive, but to take the deal he proposes would require a leap of faith that I find very difficult. One must believe that the Bush Administration, or an ideologically inclined successor, would not simply use the RRW program to resume something like the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator and/or testing.
That’s a hard sell, at least to me, at least right now.
Still, his talk is one of the most interesting I’ve heard today.
Comment [15]
This is it. My last day in Moscow.
Some last notes from the motherland? Well, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke at the Carnegie Moscow Center yesterday. I spent the morning worrying about how not to get him stuck in the elevator and making small talk with the security people.
More details on Lavrov’s talk – a few points about the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty and missile defense- when I get a transcript in a few days. For now I will just point out that he is 1) very tall – I guess I somehow expected all top officials to be around Putin’s stature – and 2) very tan…vacation on the beach? solarium at home? It’s unclear.
***
I am off to pack and triple check all the little slips of paper I need in order to be let out of the country. I’m sure I will see some of you at the Carnegie Nonproliferation Conference next week.
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