ArmsControlWonk.com

A lot of negative descriptions come to mind when I think of Arizona Senator Jon Kyl. Stupid, however, is not one of them.

He is a formidable opponent to be feared, as suggested by his recent op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on the need to resume yield testing of nuclear weapons.

I believe the best argument for convincing skeptics to support ratification of the CTBT is that the United States is now permanently out of the testing business. The United States will never again test a nuclear weapon, in which case other countries should be similarly constrained. “A bad idea,” one skeptic-turned-supporter wrly admitted, “whose time has come.”

Kyl — a stone-cold opponent of arms control — seems to recognize the danger of losing the debate about testing, and takes the claim head-on in a Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled, “Why We Need to Test Nuclear Weapons”:

There were concerns a decade ago that the U.S. might be unable to safely and reliably maintain its own nuclear deterrent—and the nuclear umbrella that protects our allies such as Japan, Australia and South Korea —if it forever surrendered the right to test its weapons. Those concerns over aging and reliability have only grown. Last year, Paul Robinson, chairman emeritus of Sandia National Laboratory, testified before Congress that the reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons still cannot be guaranteed without testing them, despite more than a decade of investments in technological advancements.

Now, let’s be clear: It is just not true that “Concerns over aging and reliability have only grown.”

Maybe Paul Robinson’s concerns have grown, though he was against the treaty in 1999 as well. I’d say his concerns have been pretty constant, unless he’s gone off some meds lately.

Everybody else, however, has fewer concerns today than in 1999. Robinson was one of three laboratory directors, along with Bruce Tarter and John Browne, who helped damn the CTBT with faint praise in 1999. Today, Tarter and Browne sound like supporters of the treaty. (Oddly, Robinson was director in 1999 of the one laboratory — Sandia — that makes non-nuclear components the United States is not prohibited from testing under the CTBT).

In other words, our confidence in the stockpile is increasing. What were plausible arguments in 1999 seem much less so today. Richard Garwin, who knows one or two things about nuclear weapons, has argued that we are now experiencing increasing confidence in a stockpile of tested designs:

These are very modest goals in contrast to the frequently heard need to replace warheads about whose reliability and safety there is “increasing concern.” This concern is usually expanded to argue that, with the accumulation of small modifications to existing warheads in the Life Extension Programs (LEPs), we move farther from the nuclear explosion test base, and at some point, the warheads will no longer be certifiable …

[snip]

I disagree. The NNSA’s $5-billion-per-year science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP) may be essential in providing the foundation for the labs to design an RRW that might indeed be certifiable without nuclear testing, but that same program has provided the basis over time for increasing, not decreasing, confidence in the performance of these legacy weapons.

A key milestone in this regard occurred in late 2006. Until then, the Bush administration had based its case for the RRW program in large measure on the argument that the United States was incapable of remanufacturing plutonium pits, the core of the primary nuclear explosive in U.S. thermonuclear weapons. The NNSA argued that it would be better to start anew with something that could reasonably be traced to a nuclear test explosion but that would give expanded freedom of design in view of a post-Cold War assumption of relaxed requirements on warhead weight and yield.

Yet, in late 2006, the SSP led to the judgment by Livermore and Los Alamos that the plutonium pit in each of our stockpile nuclear weapons has a life exceeding 85 years, perhaps 100 years. This conclusion was endorsed by a technical study by JASON and was published by the NNSA.

[Emphasis mine]

This is not to say there aren’t concerns over aging and reliability. But, thanks to Stockpile Stewardship Program, the laboratories are in a much better position to spot and fix problems today than they were during the era of nuclear testing.

Paul Robinson has every right to his opinion, but he’s outside the mainstream consensus.

Politics of Testing

It is good that the United States does not need to yield test nuclear weapons because, as a practical matter, no President or Congress will find the political will to do so.

It is no accident that the Bush Administration, which expressed a visceral hostility to the test ban, nevertheless proposed two new nuclear weapons on the promise that each could be deployed without resort to testing. Even those proposals — the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator and the Reliable Replacement Warhead — got a pretty rough reception in a then-Republican Congress.

You may recall the ferocious opposition to Divine Strake — a DTRA-funded conventional explosion at the Nevada Test Site to model an earth penetrating nuclear warhead. DTRA canceled the experiment.

As Las Vegas has sprawled toward the Nevada Test Site, there is no chance that any politician in Nevada or neighboring Utah will permit the United States to resume yield testing at NTS. Zero, none, nada, zip. Like Yucca Mountain, but times 10. This is what then-Utah Governor John Huntsman looked like during a hearing on Divine Strake:

Image by Stephanie Merzel

Hunstman later said he was jubilant at the decision to cancel the experiment. And Republicans considered him Presidential timber, before he agreed to serve as Ambassador to China.

Hell, even the Nevada Test Site — encouraged by Senators Reid and Ensign — has decided it is time for a new name that doesn’t include the word “test”.

That sort of says it all, doesn’t it?

A Modest Proposal

Having said all this, I think the United States should have the option of testing in extremis. Although I didn’t support raising test site readiness at NTS, I do think we need a credible option to resume yield testing in the event of a catastrophic problem in the Stockpile Stewardship program and a dramatic, adverse change in the geopolitical environment.

Unfortunately, that means we need to move the Nevada Test Site — efforts to find suitable locations for Divine Strake in New Mexico and Indiana were not encouraging. Where to go? I haven’t a clue.

So, let me, in the spirit of compromise, suggest that DOE fund a study on relocating the Nevada Test Site to one of three sites, including at least one site in Arizona.

After all, there is only one American politician with the patriotism and courage to defend to his constituents the need to resume yield testing in their backyard: Senator Jon Kyl.

The Nevada Test Site was selected in 1950 before the era of underground testing and thermonuclear weapons. Although the site turned out to have some very fortuitous geologic features, perhaps it is time to green-field a new test site based on the past sixty years of testing experience. Plus, as Joe Cirincione and I discovered, Sedona is lovely this time of year.

If the Department of Energy were to select a site in Arizona, we would certainly want to name the Arizona Test Site after Senator Kyl — although that might have to wait until he retires from the Senate or loses his reelection bid. Until then, we could call new site something patriotic like the “Freedom Test Site” so that when residents in Phoenix complain about tremors, Senator Kyl can explain to his constituents “That’s what freedom feels like.”

Calling for a resumption of testing in a Wall Street Journal op-ed is nothing for a man of Senator Kyl’s conviction. I can’t wait for the op-ed in the Arizona Republic.

Comment [14]

A pop quiz for wonks:

Question: What do the following numbers represent?

95, 93, 93, 88, 87, 80, and 74

Answer: The number of Senators voting for the SORT, START I, INF, ABM, START II, Limited Test Ban Treaty and the Chemical Weapons Convention.

One of the conclusions that Dan Caldwell and I reached in our edited volume, The Politics of Arms Control Treaty Ratification (1991), is that it’s easier to secure eighty votes than the bare two-thirds majority required for the Senate’s consent to treaty ratification. Presidents don’t round up 80-plus votes without the endorsement of the Senate’s Minority Leader.

No arms control treaty has yet to receive the Senate’s consent if the Minority Leader sides with his Party’s irreconcilables. The SALT II Treaty’s fate was sealed not just by the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but also by Senator Howard Baker’s opposition (above, in seersucker). Baker, the Republican Leader who previously antagonized the conservative wing of the Republican Party by supporting the Panama Canal Treaties, was then contemplating a run for the presidency against Jimmy Carter. Bill Clinton managed to secure the Senate’s consent to ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention when Republican Leader Trent Lott accepted conditions brokered with the White House that undercut the CWC’s monitoring provisions. When Lott later sided with irreconcilable opponents of the CTBT, the test ban treaty was doomed.

Presidents seeking overwhelming majority votes in the Senate have employed several methods to avoid what historian Arthur Link (in Woodrow Wilson, Revolution, War, and Peace) called the “supreme error” of making treaty ratification “a hostage of party loyalty and politics.” Link was referring to Wilson’s stunningly maladroit approach to the Senate which included, immediately upon returning to the United States from Paris, a rousing speech on behalf of the League of Nations in Boston, the home town of Henry Cabot Lodge, who served both as the Republican Leader of the Senate and the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

In stark contrast, Senator Lodge was enlisted by Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes to serve on the U.S. delegation to the conference that produced the Washington Naval Treaties. Hughes also enlisted the participation of the Senate’s Minority Leader, Oscar Underwood. Secretary of State Henry L. Stimson used this playbook when negotiating the London Naval Treaty. His negotiating team included the Senate’s Minority Leader, Joseph Robinson, as well as the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, David Reed. Both were needed, as the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at that time, William E. Borah, was an irreconcilable. President Kennedy agreed to a “safeguards” package to ease Senate concerns over constraints on nuclear testing, and President Nixon signed off on significant strategic modernization programs to secure overwhelming congressional support for the SALT I accords.

What does this mean for another attempt to ratify the CTBT? If the Minority Leader, Mitch McConnell, sides with his second in command, the irreconcilable Jon Kyl, the Obama administration will have to achieve something no other administration has accomplished: secure an arms control treaty by finding just 67 votes in the Senate.

Comment [2]

As many of you know, the Obama Administration has tasked the National Academies Committee on International Security and Arms Control (NAS-CISAC) to prepare a study on technical issues related to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

The National Academies has released the terms of reference and committee membership.

The main charge to the committee is “to review and update certain of the analysis in the 2002 report, Technical Issues Related to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.” That report was a model, in my opinion, of the perfect in every way except one — timing. The Clinton Administration didn’t request the report until after the fiasco of the treaty’s defeat in 1999.

This time, the Obama Administration seems intent on doing its homework. The anticipated completion date for the report is Winter 2009/2010 — which would within 6-9 months of the start date. (The project duration is listed as 18 months, however, so perhaps there will be some slippage.)

The Committee, too, is a fine one. Although Garwin and Jeanloz are the only holdovers from the 2002 study, the new committee has some fine additions including former Livermore Director Bruce Tarter, who chaired the AAAS report on the RRW and sat on the Strategic Posture Commission, and Ambassador Linton Brooks, who chaired the Posture Commission’s infrastructure working group and is, generally-speaking, the bee’s knees.

Comment [3]

I’ve been meaning to write something about the scope of the CTBT — this ongoing debate about whether the Russians believe so-called hydronuclear tests are permitted under the treaty

I don’t find compelling the evidence that Russia has a different definition, let alone that they are conducting tests that over time will alter the military balance but I accept that my judgment is not a very good proxy for the sixty-seventh vote in the United States Senate.

RIA Novosti quotes Russian President Medvedev as saying something that would suggests the Russians think zero means zero:

“Under the global ban on nuclear tests, we can only use computer-assisted simulations to ensure the reliability of Russia’s nuclear deterrent,” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said. “Therefore, the most powerful supercomputers will be placed in federal nuclear centers.”

The interesting question, I suppose, is precisely what he said in Russian.

Little help? Spasiba.

Update | 11:36 Is that a yellow car on the right side of image? Does this mean that Russian nuclear complex officials, like their American counterparts, insist on using lame automobile analogies? That is something that Obama and Medvedev could sign — a Treaty Banning Automotive Metaphors (T-BAM) in nuclear weapons policy making.

Comment [12]

More data is becoming available on Monday’s nuclear test. NORSAR has published the waveform data from two of their stations. The primary wave is very noticeable and sharp, which indicates a man-made explosive event (earthquakes tend to brew a while before really making noise).

The shear-wave seems to come in shortly thereafter, giving a distinct peak. I like to think of the difference between p and s-waves as flash and thunder. The p-wave comes in fast (in air it travels at the speed of sound) whereas the s-wave rumbles in afterwards. Now, I only have these two datasets, and no other forms, but the signal from ARCES looks peculiar to me. About 10 seconds in there is a sharp fluctuation in the peak-to-peak amplitude, which isn’t visible in the NOA readout. I’ve heard that the seismologists at the IMS division is confused about some of the data as well, but I’m not sure if it’s that peculiarity that they’ve focussed on.

When the s-waves hit, you’ll notice some refraction.

If you want to check that these forms match the time of the test, please consult the p-wave travel time image below.

Updated: those interested in antipodal seismometry (see Geoff’s post below) might find the image interesting for other reasons.

Most interestingly, the CTBTO has published the error ellipses and visualised them in Google Earth. As you can see, both error ellipses define a search area well within the 1,000 sq. km. maximum search grid stipulated by the treaty. In other words, if the CTBTO hypothetically were to conduct an OSI, they would have a pretty good idea where to start.

But these are only some of the goodies to come. I got an e-mail from Sean O’Connor this morning, who wrote that he’s found the likely location of at least two additional sites in the area. He’s going to publish his findings on IMINT & Analysis quite soon.

The yield estimate is still highly uncertain, but is likely to be below 4-8 kT range that has been reported in mainstream media so far. But given the discussion in my last thread, I’m attaching this nice Mb – Yield graph for the community to have a look at.

Note that using the NTS hard rock formula puts the yield at 1.6 kT, which fits the assessment of the United States.

Finally, the word is that meteorological conditions at the moment are favourable for a first noble gas hit in South Korea, maybe also in Ussurijsk and later in Japan. But that’s for another post.

Comment [14]

Mail call this morning brought a magazine in a nondescript brown paper envelope — the sort one imagines is used for pornographic magazines. If the return address affixed to the envelope didn’t say “CTBTO Preparatory Commission,” I would have been very worried.

Turns out it is just the latest edition of CTBTO Spectrum featuring an article about Academy Award Winner Michael Douglas, who serves a “UN Messenger of Peace.” I can only image, were he still alive, what fun Jesse Helms would have had with this publication when our CTBTO contribution came up for debate.

On the cover, a man crouches with a camera. He has a camera, a notebook and thick glasses. Scando-glasses.

It’s Persbo! He’s on the fricking cover of CTBTO Spectrum!

He denies it, but I’ve seen that camera, notebook and glasses before.

Oh. My. God. We are going to tease him forever about this. The first step is to find a nickname for him.

Katherine Tiedemann suggests: “Dreamboat.” I like “Pretty Boy.” What do you think, dear readers?

Comment [12]

If you are like me, you were no doubt very excited about the first-ever CTBTO on-site inspection exercise at Semipalatinsk. (Rebecca Johnson turned in a some wonderful dispatches for the Bulletin, while Oliver Meier had a nice write-uP for Arms Control Today.)

Well, Andreas Persbo actually got to participate. Andreas will be in town this week, so I am hosting him for a meeting on Wednesday, along with David Hafmeister and James Acton to discuss how the CTBT can be verified.

Please RSVP

Is the Nuclear Test Ban Verifiable?

The 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty bans all nuclear explosions for military or civilian purposes, but the question remains: can we verify compliance with the Treaty?

Last year, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization held a very successful mock “on site inspection” at the former Soviet nuclear test site near Semipalatinsk, in Kazakhstan.

The panelists, including VERTIC’s Andreas Persbo — who participated in the inspection exercise — will discuss on site inspection to explore the scope and reach of verification measures in light of a changing international political and security environment.

Start: 01/28/2009 – 10:00am
End: 01/28/2009 – 11:30am
New America Foundation
1630 Connecticut Ave NW, 7th Floor
Washington, 20009
United States

Participants

Featured Speakers
Andreas Persbo
Senior Researcher
Verfication Research, Training and Information Centre (VERTIC)

Dave Hafemeister
Senior Technical Advisor
Arms Control Association
Former lead technical-staff on nuclear testing, Department of State

James Acton
Associate, Nonproliferation Program
Carnegie Endowment for National Peace

Moderator
Jeffrey Lewis
Director, Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative
New America Foundation

Comment [9]

After the US-India deal and the possible China-Pakistan deal (which, the US is now officially opposing, by the way), a US-Israel deal was always going to be a possibility. The price? Unknown, but CTBT ratification appears to be part of it, the latest CTBTO newsletter gleefully reports:

Mark Hibbs of Nucleonics Week reports that if the U.S. Senate ratifies the CTBT, Israel will follow suit in an effort to get the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to lift its trade embargo against Israel. According to diplomatic sources, senior officials have urged Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to ratify the CTBT to help make the point that Israel’s nonproliferation credentials are stronger than India’s. The latter has received an NSG exemption thanks to strong U.S. backing, but has yet to sign and ratify the CTBT. Nucleonics Week, Volume 49 / Number 48 / November 27, 2008, p. 7 (subscription only)

Incidentally, I’m not entirely sure what this newsletter is (it’s not Spectrum) but it just started showing up in my inbox and usefully contained a story I had heard about on a not-for-blogging-basis.

Anyway, the prospect of a US-Israel deal in return for CTBT ratification might leave the CTBTO very happy, but I’m not sure their neighbours in the IAEA feel exactly the same way.

Comment [10]

I just completed an interview with Bruce Tartar—former Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and chair of the AAAS panel of the Reliable Replacement Warhead—for a forthcoming issue of the Bulletin. You’ll have to wait for it to come out, but he mentioned something extremely interesting in passing.

Senator Pete Domenici (R-NM) recently sent a letter to Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, Secretary of State Condi Rice and National Advisor Steve Hadley complaining about lukewarm administration support for the RRW. (John Fleck had noted the letter and posted the full text on one of his many blogs.)

The interesting part is that St. Pete closed with this paragraph:

Finally, based on the success of the Stockpile Stewardship Program, we now have the confidence to design and manufacture RRW weapons that will be deployed without underground testing. In light of this reality, I would like to discuss with you how this could impact the Administration’s decision to revisit its position on the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and if you believe that such action would guarantee that countries like India, Pakistan and North Korea would sign on the Treaty and would encourage China, Iran, Indonesia and Egypt to follow the U.S. action to ratify the treaty.

Really?

When Domenici voted against the CTBT, he held out the possibility that “if my concerns about the overall strategic arms strategies and their relationship to CTBT can be alleviated, and if the potential for stockpile stewardship during the next decade can be realized, I will be able to vote for a CTBT in the future.” [Emphasis mine.]

Domenici —who may face a tougher than expected 2008 re-election campaign—was always the linchpin of the bipartisan compromise that would be necessary to secure ratification of the CTBT. “When Pete Domenici whistled, everybody jumped,” NRDC’s Chris Paine told Mother Jones in 1999. “The administration was trying to craft a bipartisan compromise on testing. They did that by giving Domenici everything he wanted on the SSP.”

Put another way, the Stockpile Stewardship Program was the central element of what the AAAS report describes as a “bargain”:

”[T]he nuclear weapons Laboratories … informed President Bill Clinton that it was likely they could maintain the stockpile in the SSP without nuclear testing, and he asked the Senate to approve the CTBT. In return, he agreed that a necessary condition for success was the vitality of the three weapons Laboratories, and he also put important safeguards into the language requesting Senate approval of the treaty.”

The question now is what sort of bipartisan bargain on nuclear testing and the future of the stockpile do we need today?

I put that question to Tartar, but you’ll have to wait to find out his answer.

Comment [7]

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Department of Energy plans to announce the reliable replacement warhead contract today:

The Energy Department will announce today a contract to develop the nation’s first new hydrogen bomb in two decades, involving a collaboration between three national weapons laboratories, The Times has learned.

The new bomb will include design features from all three labs, though Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in the Bay Area appears to have taken the lead position in the project. The Los Alamos and Sandia labs in New Mexico will also be part of the project.

Teams of scientists in California and New Mexico have been working since last year to develop the new bomb, using the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

The weapon is known as the reliable replacement warhead and is intended to replace aging warheads now deployed on missiles aboard Trident submarines.

The contract decision was made by the Nuclear Weapons Council, which consists of officials from the Defense Department and the National Nuclear Security Administration, part of the Energy Department. Plans were underway Thursday to announce the award this afternoon.

The article also has some info on the design that was selected, and why it looks like Livermore will be taking the lead:

The design details are secret, but Livermore’s version utilizes major components that had been tested — though not produced — for a Navy bomb about two decades ago.

By contrast, Los Alamos selected a design that involved an atomic trigger and a thermonuclear component that had been tested individually.

However, the two elements were never tested together, said Philip Coyle, who serves on scientific advisory committees and formerly was deputy director at Livermore.

The Los Alamos design is said to contain highly attractive features, including innovative mechanisms that would prevent terrorists from detonating the bomb should they gain access to it, experts said. Those use controls were cited by military officials as a key factor in developing the weapon.

Comment [2]