Deepti Choubey: A Chance for Nuclear Leadership

Deepti Choubey of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace penned a great piece yesterday on the need for U.S. leadership in global nonproliferation efforts.

Whoever wins in 2008, the most important strategic foreign policy issue facing the next President and Congress will be how to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons. For almost four decades the world has been protected by a global agreement -- the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) -- which worked to keep the number of nuclear weapon states small. That agreement, and the world order that relies on it, badly needs U.S. leadership.

There are three reasons why American influence is needed. First, the nuclear "have-not" states, who signed away their right to develop nuclear weapons, don't believe that the "haves" are living up to their side of the deal to eventually dismantle their weapons.

Second, Iran's continuing refusal to comply with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) obligations and legally binding UN Security Council resolutions undermines the effectiveness of a rule-based system for managing nuclear technology and threatens international peace and security.

And third, as excitement over a nuclear energy renaissance grows, non-nuclear-weapon states in the developing world declare large ambitions to master the nuclear fuel cycle, a scenario the old rules didn't account for.

But the regime can be saved.

How, you eagerly ask? Well, you’ll have to read on.

House-Senate Conference Committee Funds RRW

House and Senate Conferees agreed yesterday to a FY 2008 Defense Appropriations bill, which could soon go to the President’s desk. At just over $459 billion, the bill is $3.5 billion less than the President’s FY 2008 budget request, but $39.7 billion more than the FY 2007 enacted level for the Department of Defense.

Significantly, funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program was limited to $15 million, effectively adopting the Senate’s funding levels. The Senate-approved bill had cut the President’s request for RRW funding from $30 million down to $15 million, although the House-approved version had completely zeroed out RRW funding. The Conferees also included language to restrict the funding to Phase 2A, design definition and cost study.

This development, however, was noticeably absent from the highlights sheet released by both the House and the Senate as well as the summaries of the report released by the Senate Appropriations Committee and the Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.

The summaries did, however, provide key information on other issues important to nuclear weapons and nonproliferation:

Missile Defense
The joint-House-Senate bill provides $8.7 billion for missile defense programs, a reduction of $185 million from the President’s budget request. Notably, it reduces funding for the European Third Site program by $85 million and provides no funding for the Space Test Bed.

The bill also:
· Fully funds Theater High Altitude Area Defense
· Provides an additional $80 million for test and training range upgrades and support and ground-based missile defense enhancements
· Provides an additional $75 million for the Aegis program for the Ballistic Signal Processor, Standard Missiles, Ship installations and upgrades, and an asymmetric defense initiative
· Adds $75 million for Arrow co-production, the Upper-tier program, and Short Range Ballistic Missile Defense
· Provides an additional $120 million for the Kinetic Energy Interceptor program

Chemical Agents and Munitions Destruction
At $1.51 billion, the bill provides $57 million above the amended President’s budget request.

Prompt Global Strike
The bill also establishes the Prompt Global Strike initiative for $100 million, which consolidates disparate efforts from across the Department.

“Non-Treehuggers Criticize the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership”

Catchy title, right?

Plutonium Page at Daily Kos put together a great piece recently on GNEP in which she argues that the program is “a complex domestic issue as well as a thorny international one. Political and environmental situations are not static; and regardless of how ‘friendly’ the reprocessing technology proposed by the GNEP sounds, it is not foolproof when it comes to proliferation … Whether you're in favor of storing spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain or Novaya Zemlya, we can all agree that something has to be done. The GNEP will not solve it... not in this lifetime.”

Click here for the full post.

John Isaacs: Congress and Iran: The New Iraq?

Executive Director of the Center, John Isaacs, published a new article last week on the simmering situation in Congress concerning Iran. He sees last month as a turning point in the administration's PR offensive laying the groundwork for a preventive U.S. attack against Iran.

The drumbeat of a possible march to war with Iran reached a new intensity in recent weeks. Although the campaign is led by President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, cheerleaders in Congress and the conservative community—with no small assistance from Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his inflammatory rhetoric—are aiding and abetting.

While the Iraq War continues into its fifth year as a debilitating quagmire, with Democrats lacking the votes to bring U.S. soldiers home, the war debate has shifted to Iran. Congressional hardliners offer amendments to bills to show how tough they are toward Ahmadinejad, and few Democrats are willing to vote "no."

Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidates are eagerly trying to outhawk each other with statements regarding Iran. The Democratic candidates have gotten into the act too, although they are competing to show who is most open to a diplomatic solution, rather than war.

If U.S. warplanes fly toward Iran next year, October 2007 may be remembered as the month that the Bush administration began its final push to prepare the American public for a new conflagration in the Middle East. To many, it looked like the 2002 run-up to the attack against Iraq. As Yogi Berra said, it's "déjà vu all over again."

Click here for the complete article.

National Security Legislative Wrap-up, October 29-November 2 2007

Action is expected to pick up this week on the national security front. The Defense Appropriations conference report is virtually completed, with final approval by the conference committee expected this week and floor action soon after. Last week, Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) sent President Bush a letter signed by 30 Senators that called the Administration's recent statements on Iran "counterproductive" and stated "that no offensive military action would be justified against Iran without the express consent of Congress."

ACTION IN THE LAST WEEK

The Fiscal Year 2008 Defense Authorization bill is being considered by a House-Senate conference committee to work out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bills.

The Fiscal Year 2008 Defense Appropriations bill has been virtually completed by a House-Senate conference committee working out differences between the two versions. The conferees are scheduled to meet formally this week, and then send the conference report to the full House and Senate for approval.

The Fiscal Year 2008 Energy and Water Appropriations bill has passed the House and the Senate Appropriations Committee but may never get to the Senate floor, going instead directly to a House-Senate conference as part of a larger package of bills.

The Fiscal Year 2008 State, Foreign Appropriations bill is being considered by a House-Senate conference committee to work out the differences between the two bills.

The Fiscal Year Supplemental Appropriations bill to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- which now totals about $190 billion -- is not likely to be considered until later this year or even early next year. Both Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-WV) and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI) have promised to attach language to bring American troops home from Iraq.

William Hartung: To Build or Not to Build?

The New America Foundation’s William Hartung recently put out a great report on Complex Transformation (the proposal to modernize and upgrade the NNSA’s nuclear weapons complex), with a special focus on the Kansas City Plant.

It begins...

Periodically the United States government reviews its doctrine on the strategic purpose and potential use of nuclear weapons. In keeping with its most recent Nuclear Posture Review, released in 2002, the Bush administration has proposed a revision of the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. foreign policy. In place of the Cold War “triad” of nuclear delivery vehicles based on land, at sea, and in the air, the review proposed a “new triad” consisting of offensive strike systems, an expansion of missile defense initiatives, and the construction of a “revitalized infrastructure” designed to develop and produce new nuclear weapons as needed. A central component of this revitalized infrastructure is the plan to build a new nuclear weapons plant in Kansas City.

Click here for the full report.

Recap of Nuke and Nonpro Issues from Recent Republican Debate

It’s a little past its prime, but I thought I’d recap some key points from the Fox News-sponsored Republican presidential debate in Florida on October 21.

After lengthy battles over who is more conservative, gay marriage, abortion, health care, education, defeating Hillary Clinton, Medicare and Social Security, the debate finally turned to Russia and missile defense.

To make a long story short…

• The “first thing” Sen. John McCain would do is “make sure that we have a missile defense system in place in Czechoslovakia and Poland, and I don't care what [Putin’s] objections are to it.” (Note: The proposed radar component is set to be located in the Czech Republic, not Czechoslovakia, which split into two countries in 1993).
• Rep. Duncan Hunter supported discussing Putin’s recent proposal involving sea-based missile defenses, but, after praising a recent intercept test, also noted, “We've got to keep missile defense strong.”
• Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani agreed with McCain, stating “we should move as quickly as we can to build missile defense.”
  

Giuliani was also later asked whether the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran worries him more than the prospect of going to war with Iran. His answer? A nuclear-armed Iran.


Provided below are the excerpted highlights of the debate as they regard to nuclear weapons and nonproliferation. Key points are bolded. The full transcript can be found here.

CAMERON: Senator McCain, it's been some time since the first debate question on foreign policy was about Russia and not the Middle East. But let's do that.

Vladimir Putin has announced just in the last 24 hours that he plans a new, quote, grandiose, nuclear weapons program to counter the U.S. missile defense system. President Bush just recently described President Putin as wily.

Are we headed back to a new Cold War, or has the Bush administration been naive in dealing with Mr. Putin?

MCCAIN: I don't know about naive, but I do know that when I looked into Mr. Putin's eyes, I saw three letters: a K, a G and a B.

And I'm not saying we will have a return of the Cold War, because Russia doesn't have the kind of capabilities, the territory nor other things. But have no doubt, the problems they are causing us are severe.

And the United Nations Security Council assisting Iran as they continue to develop nuclear weapons, as he continues to consolidate power as he attempts to restore the old Russian empire.

And he bullies his neighbors and he wants to get a control of the energy supply of Western Europe.

This is a dangerous person. And he has to understand that there's a cost to some of his actions.

And the first thing I would do is make sure that we have a missile defense system in place in Czechoslovakia and Poland, and I don't care what his objections are to it.

And he's going to cause us to set up a league of democracies to address issues from Darfur to Burma to Iran and others, because he and the Chinese are blocking meaningful action to keep us in a peaceful world in the United Nations.

It's going to be some tough times ahead.

CAMERON: Congressman Hunter, did you have a comment there?

HUNTER: Yes, just one comment.

You know, President Putin did give us one opening, and I think we should exploit it. And that is that he offered to work with us on sea-based missile defenses. The throat of the -- of missiles launched from Iran at western Europe would go over the Black Sea.

I think we should undertake an initiative with Putin's people and discuss the prospects of putting our Aegis missile defense cruisers in the Black Sea, ask them if they're interested in an partnership that would protect Western Europe, also protect us.

But, lastly, you know last month, we had a successful intercept above the Pacific Ocean with a missile coming out from Alaska with an interceptor coming up from Vandenberg. And we hit it 100 miles above the surface of the Earth. That was a demonstration of the new success of what Ronald Reagan started with missile defense. We've got to keep missile defense strong.

CAMERON: Mayor Giuliani, do you agree with the idea that now is the time to start working with Russia on missile security?

GIULIANI: You know, I think now is the time to make it clear to Putin that America can speak softly and carry a big stick. We want to engage...

We want to engage Russia. We want to continue to commercially engage them.

But at the same time, the senator is absolutely right; we should move as quickly as we can to build missile defense.

I think this would be a heck of a good time to expand NATO. NATO needs a little revitalization. I think we could look to countries like Australia; we could look to Japan; we could look to expand it, geographically.

It's certainly the time to make sure we shore up our relationships with the Eastern European countries that have emerged into being free market countries, democracies.

Ukraine isn't quite there yet. Ukraine is in a struggle, internally. They need us. They need us to support them to -- they'd be a good hedge against Russia.

And at the same time, I think we should make it very, very clear that we understand that we can both engage a country, commercially, like we are doing with Russia, or at the same time, we can be very, very firm in our own defense.

Ronald Reagan gave us the best answer to how to deal with these situations.

The answer is a very, very strong military that no other country on earth would ever consider challenging.

According to Gorbachev, in his book, he says that Ronald Reagan spent the Soviets out of existence. Right now, an increase in military spending, increasing the size of our military in all aspects in a sensible way, would send a heck of a signal both to Russia and to China to not think about challenging us down the road.

[snip]

GOLER: Mayor Giuliani, given our experience in Iraq, does the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iraq worry you more than the prospect of going to war with Iran?

GIULIANI: There's no question that the idea of going to war with Iran, or even taking military action against Iran would be very dangerous. It would be something you would not want to do. It would be a last resort.

But if you're asking me the question, which is more dangerous, a nuclear-armed Iran is more dangerous.

And it should be the clear position of the United States government that we will not allow them to become -- to become nuclear.

And I honestly believe -- and, again, I think this comes from the wisdom of Ronald Reagan -- if we can be clear about this, and our allies can understand this, and China and Russia can understand that we would take action to stop them from becoming nuclear, in our judgment, you know, when that has to happen, if they thought we were very serious about that, I think the chance of the sanctions working -- direct, indirect, disinvestment from Iran, I think the sanctions working would work much more effectively.

China and Russia have, obviously, economic interests in dealing with Iran. What they have to see is that America would act. And if America acted, that would be inconsistent with what would be good for them.

Answers Evade IAEA in Syria Case

Could you determine the precise nature of a potential nuclear facility from only the two pictures below? Neither could the IAEA, a senior diplomat said on Wednesday. Despite appeals from IAEA Director General Mohammed ElBaradei, no country has come forward to IAEA investigators with evidence that the facility bombed by Israel on September 6 either was or was not harboring a covert nuclear weapons program.

Before and after satellite images of the site
(photo from the Institute for Science and International Security)

There have still been few official statements regarding the incident, and those that do exist are contradictory and only raise more questions. Syrian officials including President Bashar al-Assad claim the facility was an abandoned building, and North Korea (not surprisingly) denies a connection. Israeli leaders remain silent on what intelligence led them to attack the site, although Prime Minister Olmert vaguely apologized Monday to Turkey "if" Israeli planes penetrated Turkish airspace. The U.S., having indicated early on that the facility may have been nuclear and linked to North Korea, has provided little additional information. European officials back the North Korea link to some extent, but have not yet supported the claim that the site was nuclear in nature.

If the states that are (allegedly) involved in this debacle refuse to come forward with evidence, we theoretically should turn to the scene of the crime for concrete answers. However, having been bombed (thanks to Israel) and then razed (thanks to Syria), the facility now has little to no evidence left to provide answers to the international community, pending any investigation at the site itself. The only clues available to the IAEA in order to solve the Syrian mystery, then, are the pictures you see above. According to Wednesday's statements from an unnamed diplomat, these will not be enough.

As ArmsControlWonk's Jeffrey Lewis discusses, however, even if evidence proved that the Syrian site was nuclear, it doesn't support the allegation that the facility was based off of North Korea's reactor at Yongbyon. In the picture above, you can see two parts--a large heavily-reinforced cylindrical structure, and a smaller structure to the top-left of it. Those that claim that this was a nuclear facility assert that the smaller part (on the left) is a water-cooling pump station. If this was true, however, it is not modeled off of the North Korea's reactor at Yongbyon, which is gas-cooled. The arguments that this was a nuclear site with a primary water-cooling station, and that it is modeled off of North Korea's site, are irreconcilable.

I'll second Lewis's observation that the "hard" evidence in this case seems a little soft.

Ironically, then, only rule-breaking activity we are certain of was committed by Israel, when it violated UN rules requiring member states to report suspicion of unauthorized nuclear activity to the IAEA. Its silence further reduces the likelihood of answers being found, but beyond that it has now undermined and therefore weakened the primary institutionalized response available to the international community for addressing issues of nuclear proliferation. Vigilante justice and effective institutions don't seem to coexist well.