U.S.-Russia:  Russia Likely to Reluctantly Accept U.S. Nuclear Plans, Expert Says

Russia would find it difficult to accept a nuclear weapons reduction agreement with the United States that is nonbinding and reversible, but it might do so nonetheless, a Russian arms control expert said yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 10).

The United States has asked Russian President Vladimir Putin for important concessions without offering much in return, said Alexander Pikayev, of the Carnegie Endowment’s Moscow Center. 

“[Putin] has done a lot of things for the U.S., and the benefits are not yet clear.  The more steps he takes without getting something in exchange, the more criticism he risks from the ruling elite,” Pikayev said.  Several European diplomats said the same thing, the Financial Times reported (Cottrell/Dempsey, Financial Times, Jan. 11).

“Russia will push strongly for the nuclear cuts to be irreversible, but the United States is unlikely to make any major concessions … Unfortunately for Russia, its position in talks is rather weak because its aging nuclear weapons are to go off-duty anyway,” Pikayev said. 

Some U.S. weapons slated for storage, such as ballistic missiles removed from submarines, could be redeployed within days and perhaps hours, Pikayev said.

“The resulting agreement will not be about real nuclear disarmament.  It will only deceive the public,” he said.

Pikayev’s comments came after the Russian Foreign Ministry said nuclear weapons cuts must be “irreversible.”  The U.S. Defense Department had announced earlier this week that many of the reduced nuclear weapons would be stored and not destroyed (Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press/Yahoo.com, Jan. 10).

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India-Pakistan:  India Prepared for Nuclear Retaliation, General Says

Indian Army chief Gen. S. Padmanabhan said today that India would severely retaliate if Pakistan attacks with nuclear weapons.

“The perpetrator of that particular outrage shall be punished, shall be punished so severely that the continuation of any form of fray will doubtful,” the general said.  “We are ready for a second strike … Take it from me that we have enough,” said Padmanabhan (Agence France-Presse, Jan. 11).

Meanwhile, India is planning to conduct large military exercises along its Pakistani border, probably to help prepare troops to operate under a nuclear attack, Reuters reported yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 3).  The Indian army also conducted exercises last year to train soldiers to fight under biological, chemical or nuclear attack conditions (Miglani/Birsel, Reuters/Yahoo.com, Jan. 10).

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North Korea:  ElBaradei Appreciates IAEA Visit

International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Mohammed ElBaradei yesterday said he welcomes the upcoming visit of an IAEA technical team to North Korea (see GSN, Jan. 7).

“This is a small but welcome step towards a return to full-fledged inspections required under North Korea’s safeguard agreement,” ElBaradei said (Agence France-Presse, Jan. 11).

The IAEA team plans to visit North Korean nuclear facilities, including the Isotope Production Laboratory, from Jan. 15-19 (IAEA press release, Jan. 10).

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United States I:  Bush Plan Would Keep Many Warheads Available

By David Ruppe

Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — With Russian nuclear weapons forces projected to wither over the next decade and a half, the United States under a new Bush administration plan is planning to retain a potentially much larger capability.

The Bush plan, resulting from a recently completed Pentagon Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) (see GSN, Jan. 9), would reduce over the next 10 years operational nuclear warhead numbers to somewhere around the level envisioned in the START III negotiations between Russia and the Clinton administration, between 1,700 to 2,200 warheads.

An unclassified U.S. intelligence report released yesterday concluded “unless Moscow significantly increases funding for its strategic forces, the Russian arsenal will decline to less than 2,000 warheads by 2015 — with or without arms control.” 

The Russian reductions will result from resource problems, program failures and weapon system aging, the report says.

But an unspecified number of the 3,800-4,100 warheads projected for U.S. reduction will not be destroyed, but rather, reserved as a “responsive capability,” for possible reintroduction in the event of a change in plans, according to J. D. Crouch, the assistant secretary of defense for international security policy, at a press briefing Wednesday.

“There have been no final decisions made at this point on what the size of our responsive capability would be,” he said.

The warheads would be available to “augment the operationally deployed force,” available for redeployment in a matter of “weeks, months and even years,  [so] that we could respond to changes.”

Crouch cited potential “changes in the security environment that were more adverse than we thought. Technological surprise. Changes in our assumptions about how well we can introduce or field new elements of the triad.”

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters yesterday, the reserved warheads “will be maintained in a non-deployed status as a hedge against unforeseen technical or international events.”

Potentially hundreds of other warheads counted in the U.S. reductions also will not be dismantled, they will be on the sidelines while their submarines undergoing routine overhaul.

Simply De-alerting?

The plan effectively formalizes a November understanding announced but never signed between President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Crawford, Texas (see GSN, Nov. 14, 2001).

It has been criticized by some arms control experts. Ivo Daalder, a senior Brookings Institution fellow and Clinton administration national security official, sees two qualified positives.

“One is, they’re moving unilaterally, though their moving toward the level Clinton had at the Helsinki summit in 1997 — if you ignore their stupid counting rules,” he said.

Second, “all things being equal, it is better to have 2,500 warheads on day-to-day alert status than 7,200, which is what we have currently,” he said.

But Daalder noted many of the permanent reductions were planned seven years ago, while other reductions can be reversed in a matter of days:

“The way they achieved the reductions is by taking down the 50 MX missiles, with 500 warheads, but remember that was announced in the NPR in September 1994. They are converting four Tridents [submarines] to cruise missile carriers, but that was decided in September 1994 in the NPR, and for the rest, they are maintaining the force structure, they’re just downloading weapons…”

It could take “a matter of days,” said Daalder, to reconfigure the B-52H’s and B-2B bombers with nuclear capabilities.

“It’s not that they’re reducing nuclear forces, it’s de-alerting. And they gave the game away yesterday when they said they’re keeping the force structure.”

Crouch drew a distinction between the announced plan and de-alerting. De-alerted weapons “could be brought back up to alert in a few minutes to, you know, maybe a few hours. What we’re talking about is a responsive capability that would take, at the very least weeks, but likely months, and even years to be able to regenerate,” he said.

It “would not be something that you would respond, let’s say, under a tactical threat. It would be a major change in the security environment, for example.”

Like START III

Current U.S. nuclear warhead holdings are said to be around 6,000 as required by the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I).

The never-implemented START II agreement would have brought the number down to 3,500 warheads and the never-concluded START III negotiations were headed toward reducing U.S. warheads down to 2,500.

The Bush administration’s new Nuclear Posture Review, explained Wednesday at the briefing, says the Pentagon will reduce the number instead down to between 1,700 and 2,200 “operationally deployed warheads.”

But depending upon how the warheads are counted, the maximum number could be considered around the 2,500 warheads envisioned for START III.

The term “operationally deployed warheads” has special meaning — it excludes warheads assigned to delivery platforms that are on the sidelines in overhaul.

Crouch indicated the warheads on two Trident submarines, always in overhaul, would not be counted as operationally deployed. Experts say that amounts to as many as 384 warheads, or 192 per Trident.

“We are planning on maintaining a Trident SSBN fleet of 14 submarines. Two of those submarines will be in overhaul at all times, and those submarines will not have missiles available to fire, and they will not be part of the operationally deployed nuclear weapons.”

Not a Formal Agreement

The Bush plan, however, differs from the START agreements in a number of important ways.

Importantly, it is not based on any formal written agreement with Russia, leaving the United States with much greater liberty to revise the plan.

Further, unlike START, the United States is not obligated to reduce its number of nuclear delivery platforms.

While resuming nuclear testing is not currently planned (see related GSN story, today), Crouch also indicated the administration is considering the controversial option of developing new nuclear weapons that could be used for special battlefield operations like bunker busting.

“Now, we are trying to look at a number of initiatives,” he said.

These factors reflect a radically new approach to U.S. nuclear posture and arms control, laid out in the NPR, where the United States will no longer allow a bilateral arms control relationship with Russia to guide its nuclear weapons holdings. Rather it will preserve a range of nuclear capabilities, and reserve capabilities, ostensibly to respond to a range of unpredicted threats.

Crouch confirmed the new plan effectively nullifies arms reduction efforts pursued in correspondence with the START II and START III efforts.

The constraints outlined in START I, however, a fully signed and ratified treaty, will remain in force, Crouch said.

“START I will continue to be in force, and all of its applicable rules, including the verification provisions as well as the counting rules, are still in force,” he said.

The government may feel constrained, at least through January 2005, by any personal assurances Bush made to Putin in Crawford.

Russia, however, may be seeking firmer guarantees. U.S.-Russian officials are to begin meeting Jan. 15-16 to further discuss offensive nuclear arms reductions, Interfax reports (see GSN, Dec. 18, 2001).

Daalder said there can be a hazard in not having a signed agreement with verification measures.

“Without full transparency, without predictability about future commitments you generate suspicion inevitably and therefore you are likely to hedge, to take steps that allow you to protect against the uncertain,” he said.

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U.S.-Russia I:  Bush to Propose More Nonproliferation Funds

The Bush administration’s increase in U.S. Energy Department funds for nonproliferation programs in fiscal 2003 will include $384 million for fissile material disposition, $235 million for material protection, control and accounting and $133 million for arms control programs, according to a report by the Russian-American Nuclear Security Advisory Council.

Bush administration officials have said they will propose funding for Energy Department nonproliferation programs, including programs in Russia, at a higher level for fiscal 2003 than for the previous year (see GSN, Jan. 9). The administration was expected to propose about $1.04 billion for Energy nonproliferation programs in fiscal 2003, compared to a proposal for $750 million in fiscal 2002.

Although for fiscal 2002 the administration had proposed to cut nonproliferation funds from the previous year’s budgets for both the Energy and Defense departments — cuts of $100 million and $40 million, respectively — Congress restored most of that funding (see GSN, Dec. 10, 2001).  Lawmakers also allocated $226 million for Energy nonproliferation programs (see GSN, Dec. 20, 2001) as part of an overall $40 billion emergency supplemental package approved after Sept. 11 (RANSAC report, Jan. 9).

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U.S. Testing:  White House Says Nuclear Testing Is Future Option

The White House has decided to continue the U.S. moratorium on nuclear testing but retained the right to begin testing again in the future if necessary, spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 9).

“We would never rule out the possible need to test to make certain that the stockpile, particularly as it’s reduced, is reliable and safe.  So [President George W. Bush] has not ruled out testing in the future, but there are no plans to do so,” Fleischer said (White House briefing, Jan. 9).

Money and Time to Resume Testing

Reducing the time required to resume underground nuclear tests would require adding $15 million annually for three years to the Nevada Test Site budget, said John Harvey, director of the Office of Policy Planning Assessment Analysis at the National Nuclear Security Administration.  The Nuclear Posture Review recommended decreasing the amount of time it would take officials to prepare for testing from two or three years to 18 months.

“If we were going to a lower number, from 24 to 36 [months] to say 18 months, for example, it would probably take us two to three years to get to that point,” said Harvey.

John Gordon, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, has testified that 18 months would be a reasonable amount of time to prepare for a test, Harvey said.  Experts have used subcritical experiments to check nuclear weapons since the United States implemented a testing moratorium in 1992 (see GSN, Dec. 18, 2001) .

“We have a very aggressive stockpile stewardship program … We feel confident we can do this without nuclear testing.  But there are no guarantees,” Harvey said.  Problems in the U.S. nuclear stockpile could arise that would require nuclear tests, he said.

Harvey would not say if the White House would add $15 million to its upcoming budget proposal (Tony Batt, Las Vegas Review-Journal, Jan. 10).

Russian Reaction

Meanwhile, Russia has said it supports the U.S. decision to continue the moratorium.  The moratorium is “particularly important as Washington continues to obstinately refuse to ratify the agreement on the complete ban of nuclear tests [the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty],” said Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Iakovenko yesterday.

The importance of nonproliferation efforts and agreements is more important than ever since the United States made the “erroneous decision” to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2001), Iakovenko said (ITAR-Tass, Jan. 9).

If the United States renews nuclear testing, Russia would probably conduct tests too, said Mark Urnov, head of the Center for Political Technologies.  Reducing the countries’ nuclear arsenals would probably require testing to determine the reliability and safety of the weapons that remain, he said.  Russia would probably not oppose a U.S. decision to resume tests as long as the United States continues negotiations with Russia to reduce the arsenals, Urnov said (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Jan. 10).

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U.S.-Russia II:  Reductions Must be Permanent, Russia Says

Russia today said any nuclear warhead reductions must be “irreversible,” in response to the recently released U.S. Nuclear Posture Review that said some warheads might only be stored (see related GSN story, today).

“We believe Russian-American agreements on further cuts in nuclear arsenals must first be radical — down to 1,500 to 2,200 warheads — secondly verifiable and thirdly irreversible,” said Russian foreign ministry spokesman Aleksandr Yakovenko.  “This means strategic nuclear weapons must be cut not only ‘on paper,’” he said.

A senior source in the Russian general staff criticized U.S. plans to remove warheads from Peacekeeper ICBMs.  “Such a contribution by Washington cannot be acceptable — offering 50 Peacekeeper ICBMs and 200 to 300 warheads whose working life has already expired,” the source said.  “It is ridiculous.”

The United States was not attempting to “mislead anybody,” said U.S. Assistant Defense Secretary J.D. Crouch.  He added that it was “a prudent thing to have, in a very uncertain period, some responsive capability” (Reuters/ABC News.com, Jan. 10).

“The relevance of [international agreements on nonproliferation and dismantlement], unfortunately, is growing in the light of the erroneous decision by the United States to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (see GSN, Dec. 13, 2001),” Yakovenko said (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty , Jan. 10).

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Iran:  Canadian Admits Exports to Iran

A Canadian businessman pleaded guilty Monday to illegally exporting equipment to Iran that could be used to build missiles or develop nuclear weapons, the Vancouver Sun reported today.  Nematollah Helmi pleaded guilty to exporting or attempting to export 16 items on Canada’s export control list, one count of not properly reporting goods and two counts of making false statements on customs declaration forms.  The illegal activities occurred in 1998 and 1999.

Canadian authorities charged Helmi and the Kanira Trade company last April for illegally failing to report the export of certain U.S.-made equipment, including including Pyro-electric sensor detector heads, attenuators and laser splitters.

The equipment has legitimate research and scientific uses but authorities believe they could also be used to develop weapons, the Sun reported.  Authorities did not know if all the goods were actually exported.  Canadian Customs seized 66 pieces of equipment from Kanira Trade in April 1999.

Helmi “was just mistaken about some forms that needed to be filled out,” said Joe Spears, Helmi’s lawyer.  “This was not Middle East trade of weapons, but medical equipment,” said Spears.

Numerous U.S. military parts have passed through Canada to Iran, according to the Sun.  Unlike the United States, Canada does not have an embargo against Iran.

Helmi is scheduled to be sentenced today in the British Columbia Supreme Court (Hall/Fong, Vancouver Sun, Jan. 10).

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United States II:  Reliability of Batteries In Question

A Missouri manufacturer may have hidden defects in batteries that power guidance systems for U.S. nuclear warheads, CBS News reported yesterday.

“The attitude was ‘regardless of what the test results were, let’s meet the deadline,’” said one employee of the company, Eagle-Picher Technologies.

Defective batteries have been found at the Sandia National Laboratories, where the U.S. Energy Department conducts tests on nuclear weapons, according to CBS.  Last year, leakage was found in batteries made for a test version of the W-78 nuclear warhead.  Batteries were labeled unfit for use when an important chemical powder in the batteries did not meet Sandia’s requirements, suggesting that Eagle-Picher had not made the battery properly, CBS reported.

Sandia premixed chemical powder for the batteries before shipping it to Eagle-Picher, according to CBS.  That powder, however, did not always get placed inside the batteries made for Sandia.  “They mixed and matched them in any batteries they wanted to,” said another employee.

Sandia officials said that while there was a case of the battery powder being switched, there has not been a battery failure in a deployed warhead in three years.  Failures have been discovered before warheads were deployed, according to CBS (CBS News, Jan. 9).

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United States:  Pentagon May Preserve “Reduced” Nuclear Weapons

The U.S. Defense Department told Congress yesterday that the Bush administration would not destroy all the nuclear weapons that it has promised to remove from deployed status (see GSN, Jan. 7).

Presenting the classified Nuclear Posture Review to Congress, Assistant Defense Secretary J.D. Crouch said officials had not yet decided how many nuclear weapons the United States would destroy and how many it would store to possibly redeploy, sources told the Washington Post.  U.S. President George W. Bush told Russian President Vladimir Putin in November that the United States would reduce its deployed nuclear warheads from 6,000 to between 2,200 and 1,700 (see GSN, Nov. 14).

The administration so far only has firm plans to destroy 50 Peacekeeper ICBM silos, said a Democratic congressional expert.  “They did not tell us how the remaining promised reductions would be made; they did not know what the remaining nuclear forces structure would look like, and they were not sure how many would be stored or destroyed,” the expert said.

A Republican source said decisions remained to be made on the details, “but the administration was taking a good first step” (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, Jan. 9).

Why Store the Weapons?

Storing some nuclear weapons would leave them open to future use.  “They would always have the flexibility to redeploy those weapons if circumstances change,” said a U.S. official (Warren Strobel, Knight Ridder, Jan. 9).

Some policymakers and military officials have expressed concern that Russia could re-emerge as a major rival or that other nations, such as China, could pose a nuclear threat in the future, which may be why the United States plans to store some weapons, the New York Times reported.

“Recognizing that the world can change in dangerous and unpredictable ways, we are putting more emphasis than we have in the last 10 or 15 years on that underlying infrastructure that allows you, including in the nuclear area, to rebuild capabilities or build new ones if the world changes,” said U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz (James Dao, New York Times, Jan. 9).

Criticism

Several Democrats and arms control experts criticized the decision to store rather than destroy the weapons, often citing concern that Russia would follow suit.  “If we put ours into storage, the Russians will probably do the same,” said Tom Zamora Collina of the Union of Concerned Scientists (Dao, New York Times, Jan. 9).

“If the reduced nuclear weapons are kept intact and available for redeployment, it makes a mockery of the reductions,” said Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association (Pincus, Washington Post, Jan. 9).

“This is a step back from the U.S. goals during the 1990s, which was to make the reductions process irreversible,” said Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (Strobel, Knight Ridder, Jan. 9).

Reducing U.S. Dependence on Nuclear Weapons

The Defense Department report also urged the United States to expand its conventional military ability, particularly using precision arms, and to build a missile defense system in order to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons.

“We’re looking at a transformation of our deterrence posture from an almost exclusive emphasis on offensive nuclear forces to a force that includes defenses as well as offenses, that includes conventional strike capabilities as well as nuclear strike capabilities, and includes a much reduced level of nuclear strike capability,” Wolfowitz said.

The report proposed reducing the U.S. arsenal over 10 years, which Democrats and arms control advocates criticized as too slow (Dao, New York Times, Jan. 9).

Bunker Busters

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to say if the report suggested developing small nuclear weapons that could penetrate into underground bunkers, such as the ones in which al-Qaeda members hid in Afghanistan (see GSN, Dec. 19).  “We have been working on earth-penetrators, non-nuclear, for a long time,” he said (Charles Aldinger, Reuters/YahooNews, Jan. 8).

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U.S. Testing:  Moratorium Continues But Future Is Left Open

The United States remains committed to a nuclear testing moratorium but could resume underground testing in the future to check the safety and reliability of its nuclear arsenal (see GSN, Jan. 8), U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday (Charles Aldinger, Reuters/Yahoo.com, Jan. 8).

“Any country that has nuclear weapons has to be respectful of the enormous lethality and power of those weapons and has a responsibility to see that they are safe and reliable … To the extent that can be done without testing, clearly that is the preference.  And that is why the president has concluded that, thus far, that is the case,” Rumsfeld said (Walter Pincus, Washington Post, Jan. 9).

A new Defense Department report on U.S. nuclear policy (see related GSN story, today) did not recommend nuclear testing, Rumsfeld said. The report did recommend a more rapid process to resume testing if necessary, said a congressional aide.  Preparing to resume testing would currently take two to three years (Aldinger, Reuters/Yahoo.com, Jan. 8).

More Funding

The Bush administration planned to seek increased funding to improve the speed at which nuclear testing could resume, Assistant Defense Secretary J.D. Crouch said, according to congressional sources.  “The administration will work with Congress to determine the appropriate funding level,” said a National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman.

Deciding what type of testing was necessary would take at least a year, especially to correct a problem in an existing weapon, and preparation costs for underground testing would be “substantial,” said a former Energy Department official (Pincus, Washington Post, Jan. 9).

Moratorium Background

Former President George Bush imposed a moratorium on underground nuclear testing in 1992, and former President Bill Clinton continued the policy.  The U.S. Senate voted against approving the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1999, adding the United States to the list of countries opposed to the treaty, including China, Pakistan, India, North Korea and Israel (Aldinger, Reuters/Yahoo.com, Jan. 8).

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U.S.-Russia:  Bush to Request More Nonproliferation Funding

The Bush administration plans to ask the U.S. Congress for more funding in fiscal 2003 for nuclear nonproliferation programs, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, Dec. 20).

The Bush administration is expected to ask for $1.04 billion for Energy Department nonproliferation programs, a 37 percent increase from the request for fiscal 2002, according to the Times.  Congress, which approved funds for 2002 that exceeded the administration’s request, is expected to approve the request for fiscal 2003.  In all, the administration’s request for the coming year is 3.2 percent less than Congress’s fiscal 2002 allocation.

The White House is also expected to request funding increases for two smaller nonproliferation programs run by the State Department and Defense Department, the Times reported.  The requested increases are expected to be above the current $403 million allocated for the Defense Department programs and above the $54 million appropriation for the State Department, the Times reported.

The State Department program helps find employment for former Soviet nuclear and biological scientists so they will not find work in hostile countries.  The Defense Department program works to dismantle former Soviet nuclear weapons.

“The president is doing the right thing to continue the upward trend,” said Senator Pete Domenici (R-N.M.).  “Whether it’s enough, I don’t know” (Adam Clymer, New York Times, Jan. 9).

The Bush administration has also recommended making several changes to the programs themselves, according to Jane’s Defence Weekly.  Those changes include:

*         Reviewing U.S. efforts to aid Russia in plutonium disposal.  This review is needed because of cost concerns, a senior administration official said.  He added that the United States is still committed to the destruction of 34 metric tons of plutonium and that the study is “nearing completion.”

*         Changing the oversight of a program to shut down Russian military reactors that produce plutonium from the Defense Department to the Energy Department. 

*         Speeding up efforts to help Russia destroy 40,000 tons of chemical weapons agents.

*         Expanding the Redirection of Biotechnical Scientists and the International Science and Technology Center programs, which help employ former Soviet weapons scientists.  The ISTC is “a particularly useful mechanism” because of its record of cooperation and its work with other countries, said the administration official.

*         Consolidation of the Energy Department’s Nuclear Cities Initiative program with its Initiatives for Proliferation Prevention program.  The NCI was “designed to consolidate the [Russian] nuclear weapons complex,” said the senior official.  “NCI had perhaps wandered from its core focus.”

*         Expanding the Energy Department’s Warhead and Fissile Material Transparency program and its Material Protection, Control and Accounting program, both which work to secure Russian weapon-grade nuclear material (Andrew Koch, Jane’s Defence Weekly, Jan. 9).

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U.S. Testing:  Changes to Nuclear Testing Policy?

By David Ruppe

Global Security Newswire

A reported Bush administration plan to allow the United States to implement more quickly a presidential decision to resume nuclear testing is drawing fire from arms control proponents.

The Washington Post today reported that the administration would announce the proposed change in its long-awaited, classified Nuclear Posture Review, which is being sent to Congress today (see GSN, Jan. 7).

The reported proposal is widely viewed by analysts as a significant step toward resuming U.S. nuclear weapons testing currently banned by a 1992 moratorium.

“To actually resume testing, I think personally, would be a serious reversal for U.S. security,” said Thomas Graham, president of the Lawyers Alliance for World Security.  Such a move would undermine international efforts to curb the proliferation of nuclear weapons technology, Graham said.

“The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) extension in 1995 was based on a commitment to have a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in place, signed by 1996, which it was, and at some point brought into force,” said Graham, a former senior arms control diplomat and official.

NPT extension was also premised on the idea that the states currently holding nuclear weapons, including the United States, would work toward ultimately eliminating all nuclear weapons, he said.

Resumed testing “would destroy that bargain and would gravely damage the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and significantly increase the possibility that nuclear weapons would spread to additional countries and terrorist groups and significantly increase the possibility that someday a terrorist group or rogue state would explode a nuclear device in a U.S. city.”

Other countries would believe they were less constrained to abide by the NPT, he said, which prohibits the development of nuclear weapons by non-nuclear states.

Opposition Likely

The administration will probably face a major debate within and without the administration over the proposal, said Rose Gottemoeller, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former Energy Department nonproliferation official during the Clinton administration.

It will occur, “not only in the context of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, but in the context of the moratorium on nuclear testing that was put in place by President [George W.] Bush’s father,” she said.

“Obviously there are those in this administration that want to resume testing, there are others who are cautious or concerned about that prospect, says Graham.

In 1999, when the U.S. Senate was considering whether to approve the CTBT, the Pentagon’s top brass weighed in on the treaty.

“The Joint Chiefs were pretty enthusiastic about the treaty,” because they perceived it would slow down the development of nuclear weapons in other countries, said John Isaacs, president of the Council for a Livable World arms control organization. Nevertheless, the Senate rejected the treaty.

“The administration may of course take a look at what it has done withdrawing from the [Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty], finding there is not a lot of negative reaction in Congress or around the world, and decide if we can do that we can kill the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and resume nuclear testing,” said Isaacs.

“They’re putting themselves in a position to do that and taking it one step at a time, he says.

International condemnation of the move, though, will probably be much fiercer regarding the CTBT, analysts say, citing international uproar in 1995, when France conducted tests during the final stages of CTBT negotiations.

“The test ban treaty is nearly universal, and most countries except a few outlaw states including the United States, North Korea, India and Pakistan have ratified the agreement,” said Isaacs.

Justification?

The Post has reported that the Bush administration may be concerned about the Energy Department’s ability to ensure the safety and reliability of aging U.S. nuclear weapons without conducting explosive tests (see GSN, Jan. 3).

An Energy Department inspector general report last year warned the department might not in the future be able to unconditionally certify the arsenal, the Post article said.

There also have been controversial proposals voiced within the administration to resume development of low-yield nuclear weapons for specialized war-fighting use, such as striking deeply buried targets and biological weapons.

Washington Times columnist Frank Gaffney, today wrote the absence of underground testing “will likely make such certification little more than educated guesswork.”

Gaffney contends the administration's choice on whether to resume testing is really decision about whether the U.S. nuclear weapons capabilities will be allowed to erode away, which would be in accordance with the goals of the NPT.

“The CTBT proponents understood that without actual nuclear testing, it would be ineluctably become impossible to maintain, let along modernize, our arsenal.”

So too says Baker Spring, a senior analyst at the Heritage Foundation.  “Eventually, the arsenal over an extended period of time, nobody knows precisely when that is, will essentially become unusable, ” he said. 

In the shorter term, suggests John Pike, executive director of GlobalSecurity.org, a country's nuclear strategy can be a factor in determining the precision of testing needed.

“To blow up the other guy's entire stockpile, [you would need] very high requirements for very high stockpile confidence,” he said. “If you need nuclear weapons for credible deterrence, the stockpile confidence required for that is much lower.”

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, is skeptical nuclear testing is really needed.

“What are the problems, be specific? All of the weapons in the arsenal are safe. The Department of Energy certified in December the safety of the arsenal,” he said.

A shortened notification period from currently two years, to prepare nuclear a test site in Nevada, isn’t needed, he said, since it generally takes longer to prepare a test for a problematic weapon.

“The problem isn’t preparing a test site to conduct a test,” Kimball said.  “The problem is preparing a problem…”

Further, he cited 1999 congressional testimony by Council on Foreign Relations fellow and scientist Richard Garwin that tests are not needed to maintain full confidence in the stockpile.

“Many, many distinguished scientists have said any problems that develop with the nuclear stockpile in the future can be dealt with without resorting to nuclear testing,” Graham said.

Besides, he said, “Which would we rather have, a slightly diminished confidence in our nuclear stockpile or a world full of nuclear weapon states?”

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Kazakhstan:  Nazarbayev Seeks Way Out From CIS Treaty

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in December asked U.S. President George W. Bush for help in allowing Kazakhstan to pull out of the Commonwealth of Independent States’ Collective Security Treaty ahead of schedule, Kazakh Commercial Television reported yesterday.

The CIS treaty would allow Russia to station nuclear weapons inside Kazakhstan if there was a perceived threat to the region.  Kazakhstan did not withdraw from the treaty in 1999, when it had the option to do so.  Without Russian’s permission to opt out ahead of schedule, Kazakhstan must now wait until 2004, according to Kazakh Commercial Television (BBC Worldwide Monitoring, Jan. 7).

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Myanmar:  Russia Helps Build Nuclear Research Reactor

Myanmar officials plan to break ground this month for construction of a 10-megawatt nuclear research reactor at a secret location near the town of Magway, the Wall Street Journal reported last week.

According to Western diplomats, Myanmar’s Foreign Minister Win Aung signed a deal with Russia in July in Moscow for the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry to construct the reactor.  The equipment is scheduled for delivery in 2003, and more than 300 Myanmar nationals have undergone nuclear training in Russia over the last year, Russian diplomats said.  Myanmar officials refused to comment on the nuclear projects, the Journal reported.

Myanmar’s need for a research reactor, which is typically used for medical purposes, was not clear, although there were no suspicions the country had nuclear weapon motives, the Journal reported.  A military junta, however, rules Myanmar, so the program would be under military control.

The arrival of two Pakistani nuclear scientists in Myanmar after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States drew attention to the program (see GSN, Dec. 10).  Suleiman Asad and Mohammed Ali Mukhtar arrived in the country following rumors that U.S. officials wanted to question them about possible links to Osama bin Laden.  There was no evidence to connect the Pakistanis with the nuclear reactor, the Journal reported.

Meanwhile, China was unhappy with the new Russia-Myanmar cooperation, sources told the Journal.  China is Myanmar’s main military supplier and has worked to cultivate ties with the country.

“China is not happy with having to compete with Russia in a country like Myanmar, which the Chinese so clearly consider theirs,” an Asian diplomat said (Bertil Lintner, Wall Street Journal, Jan. 3).

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United States I:  Arms Controllers Anxious About Nuclear Posture Review

By David Ruppe

Global Security Newswire

Arms control advocates are speculating that a new review of U.S. nuclear weapon policy will call for keeping large numbers of strategic forces on a Cold War state of high alert and will not make major arsenal cuts.

They also believe the Bush administration may have developed new rationales for using nuclear weapons in a combat.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last week suggested new policies, the product of a congressionally mandated Nuclear Posture Review, would amount to a “significant change” in how the military uses its nuclear weapons and would include “deep reductions” in the U.S. arsenal.

The details of the review are contained in a classified document and are not yet publicly known, but Rumsfeld suggested an unclassified version would be soon released and Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Michael Humm told Global Security Newswire Friday it would happen this week.

Artificial Reductions? …

Arms control proponents say their concerns stem largely from U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) pressures.

In July congressional testimony, then-STRATCOM Commander in Chief, Navy Admiral Richard Mies argued forcefully against further cuts in the U.S. arsenal and against taking U.S. forces down from their current state of alert.

His positions appeared somewhat at odds with those of President George W. Bush, who has supported major cuts.

In November, Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Crawford, Texas, where they announced “substantial” joint reductions in nuclear arms, but did not specify how they would occur [See GSN, Nov. 14].

Bush announced reductions down to 1,700-2,200 “operationally deployed strategic warheads” over a decade, which would appear to be around the 2,000-2,500 goal set by Russian and U.S. Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton in 1997.

Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, however, believes the administration may fudge the reductions by simply not counting submarines or bombers that are in overhaul to meet the proposed limit.

By defining the numbers as such, the count could exclude warheads that are on submarines or bombers normally rotated through overhaul, “because they’re not ‘operationally deployed,’” said Cirincione.

“At any given time we have one or two Trident submarines in overhaul, 192 warheads on each boat, that’s 384 warheads that you can take off the top,” he said. “It doesn’t indicate any actual reduction in the force, it’s just a change in the accounting method.”

… Or Real Accomplishment?

Rose Gottemoeller, a former Clinton administration arms control official also with Carnegie, however, thinks “from a public presentation point of view” the announced reductions were a significant accomplishment for Bush.

The number “2,000 was always the kind of major barrier below which the U.S. could not go,” she said. “I think they probably had to press the bureaucracy to get it.”

The number is significant because conventional wisdom has held that if the U.S. reduced below 2,000 warheads, it would not be able to sustain its strategic triad of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and strategic bombers.

Certain cuts may be camouflaged, she said, but “that’s often been the case with arms control agreements, the public presentation is very enthusiastic but both sides hedge their bets.”

De-linking Force Size With Threats

Perhaps of greater concern to arms controllers is that the STRATCOM chief, in his testimony, endorsed an emerging view of U.S. nuclear doctrine and strategy that de-emphasizes Russia as a potential threat and justifies force levels based upon unspecified threats that might or might not emerge in the future.

The new view is outlined in an influential January 2001 report produced by the National Institute for Public Policy. Click here to read NIPP report.

Nuclear force posture, that report said, should be determined by considering factors, such as “current and potential threats, U.S. deterrence and wartime goals, nuclear targeting strategy and warhead options, enemy active and passive defenses, conventional strike capabilities, and third country use.”

While the report acknowledged the absence of Russia as a nuclear challenger, it essentially argued for maintaining a substantial capability to deal with unidentified threats of the future: “It is not now possible to predict with confidence future deterrence requirements. The future may prove to be far more dangerous than benign.”

Mies, who left the command Nov. 30, said in his July testimony: “We must preserve sufficient deterrent capability to respond to future challenges, to provide a cushion against imperfect intelligence and surprises, and to preserve a reconstitution capability as a hedge against unwelcome political or strategic developments.”

One major recommendation of the January report Mies did not directly address is that nuclear weapons could be used in increasing roles, including for deterring all weapons of mass destruction, not just nuclear, for use in other regions and for attacking deep underground or biological weapons targets.

Mies in his written testimony, however, lauded the study, calling it a “good blueprint to adopt.”

Study director and NIPP President Keith Payne was made a co-chair of an advisory panel on nuclear deterrence concepts last year, which helped produce the Nuclear Posture Review, Inside the Pentagon reported in October.

Questions Over Usage

Stan Norris, a senior National Resources Defense Council analyst, disagrees with the logic that without Russia as a threat, the United States can justify maintaining a large nuclear arsenal.

“The Soviet Union is no more, we are told Russia is not our enemy and Putin is big buddies with the president, which is all to the good. But we continue to do things, though, that belie that,” he said.

The 1995 Nuclear Posture Review established that the START II 3,500-warhead level would be required for deterring a hostile Russia, by holding at risk a range of assets valued by its political and military leaders.  Click here to read a Pentagon summary of that review.

De-alerting

The STRATCOM chief also opposed taking U.S. strategic forces down from their current state of alert.

Under the current state, according to Cirincione, there are approximately 2,000 weapons ready to launch on 15 minutes’ notice of an incoming attack, “the Cold War standard.”

“To do that requires a very high state of alert,” he said. “If you were to change that to being able to launch a smaller number of your missiles for example under those extreme conditions, say 10, or 50, and extend the other ones to say days or weeks, this would make your nuclear forces less prone to accident or miscalculation and a safer force to operate.”

Mies, in his testimony, argued against de-alerting forces, saying it could increase the vulnerability of the U.S. arsenal vulnerable, “create a premium for attacking first,” and could provide an incentive for a potential foe to rearm.

He said “multiple, stringent” safeguards are in place to guard against an accidental or inadvertent launch.

Norris, on the other hand, said having U.S. forces on high alert, and building a national missile defense program that could protect the U.S. arsenal, could only encourage Russia and China also to maintain their forces on high alert.

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India-Pakistan:  India Reaffirms No-First-Use Policy

Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes said recently that India would not consider using nuclear weapons unless it was under nuclear attack.

“India will never be the first one to use nuclear weapons,” Fernandes said in an interview published yesterday in the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.  The statement came as tensions have increased between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan since terrorists attacked the Indian Parliament on Dec. 13.  Fernandes called the attack “a crime of a greater scope” than the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Fernandes said Pakistan is responsible for the terrorist attack and that it had conducted a “war by proxy against India” for 12 years by training and equipping terrorists.  India killed 1,990 terrorists in 2001, Fernandes said.  He added that India and Pakistan could “take joint action” against terrorism if Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf ended his support for attacks on India (Welt am Sonntag, Jan. 6 in BBC Monitoring, Jan. 7).

Latest Developments

Meanwhile, Pakistan has arrested hundreds of people suspected of having links to militant Islamic groups in response to the attack on India’s Parliament, which killed 14 people (see GSN, Jan. 4).  Indian officials questioned whether those arrested were militant leaders and how long Pakistan would detain them.

Pakistan would consider extraditing non-Kashmiri suspects to India if evidence against them were provided, Pakistani foreign ministry official Aziz Khan said yesterday (Eric Bellman, Wall Street Journal, Jan. 7).

Pakistan has refused to extradite more than 20 people, mostly Indians, that India has said were part of terrorist or criminal activities in India, the New York Times reported today.  Musharraf said India should provide Pakistan with evidence against the suspects, and Pakistan would prosecute them.

India yesterday shot down an unmanned Pakistani spy plane that had crossed into the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir and fallen on Pakistani territory, according to Indian officials.  Pakistan denied that the plane went down.

Are the Countries Talking?

Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee continued to refuse to participate in official talks with Pakistan until India was convinced Pakistan had shut down militant groups operating against Kashmir and India.  Vajpayee and Musharraf met for a few minutes during a conference of South Asian countries in Katmandu last weekend but did not discuss anything “significant,” Vajpayee said (see GSN, Jan. 3).

Pakistani officials, however, indicated that discussions occurred behind the scenes, the Times reported.  The countries’ foreign ministers met for almost an hour Saturday, although neither country would say what they discussed.  Pakistani Foreign Affairs Minister Abdus Sattar and Indian National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra were filmed looking at a document at the convention, and Musharraf indicated they were discussing something important, the Times reported.

India, however, has tried to keep pressure on Pakistan to act against militant groups by refusing official talks, according to the Times.

“I don’t think Pakistan is prepared to renounce the use of cross-border terrorism as an instrument of policy toward India,” said Nirupama Rao, a spokeswoman for India’s ministry of external affairs (Celia Dugger, New York Times, Jan. 7).

South Asian Anti-Terrorism Agreement

Meanwhile, members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation agreed yesterday at the Katmandu conference to change their laws to conform to the recent U.N. Security Council resolution requiring countries to fight terrorism (see GSN, Dec. 5).  The resolution that the SAARC countries adopted condemns terrorism and calls upon members to increase cooperation, Star News TV reported, according to United Press International.  Both Vajpayee and Musharraf attended the conference (United Press International, Jan. 6).

India and the United States Agree to Share Intelligence

India and the United States have agreed to exchange military intelligence related to terrorism, said a defense ministry official, according to the Associated Press.  The two countries developed an outline of the agreement last month when U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith visited India, the official said.  The countries are expected to sign the agreement when Fernandes visits the United States later this month, according to a Hindustan Times report the official said he could not confirm (Associated Press, Jan. 7).

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North Korea:  IAEA to Visit Isotope Laboratory

International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors are scheduled Jan. 12 to begin a weeklong visit to a North Korean isotope production laboratory, a government source told Agence France-Presse.  Officials announced in early December North Korea would allow the limited inspection in the Yongbyong nuclear complex north of Pyongyang (see GSN, Dec. 3). 

The IAEA welcomed the offer to tour the isotope facility, but said it falls far short of the agency's goal.  The agency wants to inspect facilities from North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, which the country agreed to freeze in 1994 in exchange for construction of two light-water nuclear reactors.

The agency has said it wants full access to the Yongbyong site, where many experts suspect North Korea produced weapon-grade plutonium.  North Korea has said it would refuse to allow the IAEA access to those sites until the international consortium building the reactors—the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization—completes a significant portion of the project (Agence France-Presse, Jan. 7).

North Korea Opposes KEDO Communication Satellite

Meanwhile, a senior North Korean official said last week that North Korea opposes a KEDO proposal to construct an independent satellite communication system, according to Seoul Yonhap. The satellite would allow South Korea to link to the KEDO construction site in North Korea (see GSN, Nov. 9).

North Korean officials opposed the proposal during KEDO-North Korea negotiations in November because of security concerns, Yonhap reported.  KEDO planned to continue attempts to persuade North Korea to allow the communication system, the official said, adding that the system was "essential for constructing the nuclear reactors" (Seoul Yonhap, Jan. 3 in FBIS-EAS, Jan. 4).

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Iran:  No Illegal Weapons, Official Says

Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said Iran would not attempt to obtain or use weapons of mass destruction, EFE News Service reported today.

“Despite the fact that the Islamic Republic of Iran is one of the most important countries in the weapons industry, it has never tried to acquire nonconventional arms, and will not do so,” Rafsanjani said (EFE News Service, Jan. 7).

Rafsanjani last month attacked the United States and the United Kingdom for seeking to arm Israel with weapons of mass destruction while blocking Islamic countries from trying to obtain the same.  He also said that the Islamic world could survive a nuclear war with Israel.  “The use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything,” Rafsanjani said.  “However, it will only harm the Islamic world.  It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality” (BBC Worldwide Monitoring, Dec. 15).

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United States II:  Budget Increase Would Help Refit Trident Submarines

The U.S. Defense Department wants to increase its fiscal 2003 budget by almost $20 billion, part of which would help fund programs to refit Trident submarines, the New York Times reported today.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said he would use the fiscal 2003 defense budget to “transform” the military, according to the Times.  One such program would convert Trident submarines to carry cruise missiles equipped with conventional weapons, instead of the current nuclear-armed ballistic missiles (see GSN, Dec. 7).

The proposed increase would also help fund stockpiling efforts of weapons guided by lasers and satellites, “bunker-busting” munitions and the development of new weapons systems, such as the U.S. army’s Crusader mobile artillery unit, the Times reported.

“There is a real necessity to do something we didn’t really address in the last budget, which is ramp up procurement,” said Undersecretary of Defense Dov Zakheim.  “It’s got to go up.”

The new proposed increase is less than the $33 billion increase that Congress approved last year.  The new proposal, however, comes at a time when federal agencies are being told to trim their budgets, the Times reported. 

White House Budget Director Mitchell Daniels told the Defense Department to reduce an earlier, larger proposed increase, Congressional officials said.  Daniels has said, however, that the White House will agree to a major increase in the Pentagon budget.

“The reconstruction of our defenses, which started in the [fiscal 2002] budget, will continue with perhaps more urgency,” Daniels recently said.

Democrats are expected to support the Pentagon budget increase, congressional officials said.  “All of us understand that our first obligation is to defend the nation, and we’re going to make certain that the resources are available to do that,” said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad (D-N.D.).  “At the same time, every part of the federal government understands we can’t be giving blank checks,” Conrad added (James Dao, New York Times, Jan. 7).

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India-Russia:  Work Begins on Two Reactors

A Russian company has begun work on two nuclear reactors for the Kudankulam power plant in India, ITAR-Tass reported Thursday (see GSN, Nov. 13).

The Izhora Plants joint-stock company has started construction on two VVER-1000 reactors, which can produce 1,000 megawatts each.  Construction of the reactor casing will take three years, ITAR-Tass reported.  The reactor construction is part of deal signed between India and Russia in November (ITAR-Tass, Jan. 3 in FBIS-SOV, Jan. 3).

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