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This weeks Nuclear Weapons stories for Tuesday, June 25, 2002.
North Korea: IAEA Delays VisitThe International Atomic Energy Agency has decided to delay a planned visit to North Korea because Pyongyang wants to connect the IAEA visit to the restart of U.S.-North Korea dialogue, South Korean media sources reported today, according to Agence France-Presse (see GSN, June 18). “The IAEA put off the visit after receiving North Korea’s position that discussing nuclear inspection schedules is difficult in a situation where the construction of nuclear reactors is being delayed,” a diplomatic source said, according to the South Korean Yonhap news agency. North Korea will probably begin talks with the IAEA after a date is set for U.S. Ambassador to North Korea Jack Pritchard to visit Pyongyang, the diplomatic source said (Agence France-Presse, June 25). Envoy Is Ready Meanwhile, the United States plans to send a representative to North Korea “very soon,” a senior South Korean foreign affairs official said (see GSN, June 19). “I was told by U.S. officials during my recent visit to Washington that the Bush administration is ready to offer the restart of dialogue to Pyongyang very soon,” said Yim Sung-joon, senior secretary for national security and foreign affairs to South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. It is up to the United States to decide whom to send to North Korea, whether it is Pritchard or another official, Yim said. South Korea, however, would probably prefer to see a higher-level U.S. official become the envoy to North Korea, as it would show how serious the United States is in its attempts to restart a dialogue with Pyongyang, he said (Korea Times, June 26). War Anniversary Throughout North Korea today, demonstrators protested against the United States to commemorate the 52nd anniversary of the Korean War, according to Agence France-Presse. “The rallies evinced the resolutions of the agricultural workers and women to take a thousandfold revenge upon the U.S. imperialists and wipe them out to the last man if they unleash a war in Korea again,” the state Korean Central News Agency was quoted as saying (Agence France-Presse, June 25).
India-Pakistan: No Deterrence Eased Conflict, Analysts SayBy Kerry Boyd Whether nuclear weapons prevent or accentuate conflict remains unclear, the analysts said. Great Risks Nuclear weapons might have prevented conflict recently but only at great cost and with significant risk, Lee Feinstein, of the German Marshall Fund, told Global Security Newswire Thursday. The two countries have come close to war three or four times since acquiring nuclear capability and “edged close” to nuclear war at least twice, he said. The danger in the latest crisis was not deliberate use of nuclear weapons but inadvertent use, said Brig. Gen. Feroz Khan, director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Affairs Division of the Pakistani Joint Services Headquarters. Husain Haqqani, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, expressed similar concerns. Both countries have delivery systems capable of carrying conventional and nuclear payloads, he said, so if one side fired a conventional missile, the other side might mistake it for a nuclear attack. The two countries lack the communication systems that helped avert nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States, Haqqani said. Without a process of arms control and dialogue, India and Pakistan rely on the United States and other parties to prevent nuclear war, he said. Nuclear weapons might have deterred war in the short term, but they have in no way improved the relationship between India and Pakistan, Haqqani said. Possession of nuclear weapons has increased nationalist, jingoistic attitudes that are incompatible with deterrence, he said, adding that the countries feel they can use their nuclear arsenals for diplomatic and strategic coercion. Nuclear weapons have increased the level of violence and tension in India and Pakistan, Michael Krepon from the Stimson Center said. Alternative: Diplomacy The reason that India refrained from attacking Pakistan in the last few weeks, Krepon said, was that Musharraf promised to permanently end militant infiltration into India’s side of the disputed Kashmir territory — not that India feared Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, Krepon said (see GSN, June 14). “If Pakistan had not agreed to end infiltration, and America had not conveyed that guarantee to India, then war would not have been averted,” Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said last week, according to the Washington Post. Nuclear weapons might have provided some deterrence, said Verghese Koithara a retired vice admiral from the Indian navy and a visiting scholar at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. He agreed, however, that Musharraf’s promise regarding militants and the U.S. assurances that he was sincere were the key elements in decreasing tensions. Citing another example of a key diplomatic move, Khan said that when the United States urged its citizens to leave the region out of fear of war, the move was economically costly and led India to take de-escalatory steps (see GSN, June 6). Lessons Some analysts have expressed concern that the perception of nuclear weapons acting as a deterrent could create incentives among non-nuclear states to consider developing nuclear capability. The rest of the world will take lessons from the South Asian situation, Feinstein said. If countries decide that Pakistan withstood pressure from militarily stronger India, they might view nuclear weapons as a positive asset. If they see that nuclear weapons internationalized the conflict, making it more difficult for either country to pursue its national interests, nuclear weapons might appear less attractive, he said. If India and Pakistan demonstrate that nuclear weapons provide prestige and power to a country, other countries might want to copy them, Haqqani said. Countries that might consider nuclear weapons — particularly certain countries in the Middle East — will watch to see how the world, especially the United States, responds, Feinstein said. States want to know the international cost of developing such weapons, he said. Most countries, however, will decide whether to pursue nuclear capability based on their perceptions of their own interests, which depends on their region, he said. India, Pakistan and Israel — countries outside the traditional nonproliferation regime that are generally known to possess nuclear weapons — are in their own category, and their actions would have little if any affect on other countries, Koithara said. Non-nuclear states should not see events in South Asia as evidence that nuclear weapons deter or provide power; each situation is different, and comparing a different region to South Asia would be a “facile comparison,” Khan said. Krepon agreed. Neither Iraq, Iran nor North Korea is going to view South Asia as a model, he said, adding that they are all very different situations. “Incentives for other countries to acquire WMD are unaffected by what happens in South Asia,” he said. “They’re local; they’re national; they’re regional. They relate to concerns over foreign invasion and desire to intimidate neighbors.” For further information, see: Carnegie Endowment Nuclear Status Map Carnegie Endowment World Missile Chart
United States I: Pentagon Plans to Merge Space and Strategic CommandsThe U.S. Defense Department plans to combine the U.S. Space Command and the U.S. Strategic Command into a single entity, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, May 9). The proposed command, which does not yet have a name, would combine the U.S. early-warning network and the U.S. missile defense system with the ability to plan and execute attacks using either conventional or nuclear weapons, according to the Times. The command would fit well into U.S. President George W. Bush’s doctrine of pre-emptive action against those who are trying to develop weapons of mass destruction, officials said (see GSN, June 3). Bush aides have said it is likely that the merger will be approved. “There’s a logic in taking these two commands with important global reach, and pulling together people who can think globally,” a senior administration official said. Adm. James Ellis, current head of Strategic Command, is expected to be chosen to head the new command, according to the Times. The command would be able to either plan its own operations, such as deploying B-2 bombers equipped with satellite-guided munitions, or aid U.S. regional military commanders in their missions, supporters of the merger said. The command would also be responsible for developing the military’s information warfare capabilities — both offensive and defensive, the Times reported. Some critics of the merger have said the different cultures of the two commands would make it too difficult to combine them. Most Pentagon, congressional and other experts, however, have said the merger is a good idea. “Both are commands that don’t have a whole CINC’s [commander in chief’s]-worth of work to do,” said Ashton Carter, professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a former assistant defense secretary in the Clinton administration. “Combining them creates a CINC-dom that has a respectable amount of mass” (Eric Schmitt, New York Times, June 25).
United States II: Supercomputers Weigh Power Versus EfficiencyTwo supercomputers, called Q and Green Destiny, at the U.S. Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory illustrate two of the main approaches to supercomputing — raw power versus efficiency, the New York Times reported today (see GSN, April 4). Los Alamos researchers plan to use the computing powers of Q — rated at 30 teraops, which means it can perform 30 trillion calculations per second — to conduct a full-scale replication of the physics involved in a nuclear explosion (see GSN, April 9). “Obviously with the various treaties and rules and regulations, we can't set one of these off anymore,” said Chris Kemper, deputy leader of the Los Alamos computing, communications and networking division. “In the past we could test in Nevada and see if theory matched reality. Now we have do to it with simulations.” One drawback to Q, however, is the power that it needs to run, the Times reported. The supercomputer uses three megawatts of electricity on its own and another two megawatts to power its cooling system. Combined, that amount of electricity is enough to power about 5,000 homes, according to the Times. The Green Destiny supercomputer is rated at 160 gigaops, which means that it can perform only billions of operations per second. Its advantages, however, include a lower price and greater efficiency than Q, according to the Times. At a cost of $335,000, Green Destiny is cheaper than Q, which costs $215 million plus $93 million for housing expenses. Green Destiny also requires much less power, the Times reported. It only uses about five kilowatts of electricity, a thousandth of that used by Q. Even if Green Destiny were expanded to its maximum of 30 teraops, it would still only use about one megawatt, according to the Times. “Bigger and faster machines simply aren't good enough anymore,” said Wu-Chung Feng, leader of the Green Destiny project at Los Alamos. The time has come to question the doctrine of “performance at any cost,” he said. The more power a supercomputer uses leads to an increase in heat, according to the Times. If the operating temperature is increased by 18 degrees Fahrenheit, then reliability will be reduced by half, Feng said. Because of this, Q is expected to only be able to operate for a few hours at a time before it will need rebooting, the Times reported. While researchers could keep on increasing the raw power of supercomputers, it could lead to greater losses of reliability and efficient power use, Feng said. “There are two paths now for supercomputing,” he said. “We’re not saying this is a replacement for a machine like Q but that we need to look in this direction” (George Johnson, New York Times, June 25).
Iran: Russia Will Recover Spent Bushehr Fuel, Official SaysRussia will retrieve spent nuclear fuel from the Bushehr nuclear power plant, which it is helping to build in Iran, a Russian Atomic Energy Ministry official said yesterday (see GSN, June 24). “Russia will definitely observe the principles of the International Atomic Energy Agency under which spent fuel will return to the country supplying the fuel,” Russian Deputy Atomic Energy Minister Valery Lebedev said, according to Interfax. Officials have incorporated a provision on the return of spent fuel into the agreement between Russia and Iran on the building of the Bushehr facility, Lebedev said. Officials will store the spent fuel in Iran for three years, however, to allow it to cool before shipping it to a Russian storage site, he said (Agence France-Presse, June 24).
Egypt: Israeli Experts Doubt Cairo is Developing WeaponsIsraeli nuclear experts have expressed doubts over recent media reports that Egypt might be attempting to develop a nuclear weapons program, the Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv reported Sunday (see GSN, June 24). “It is such a complicated and weighty issue, not to mention the regional strategic implications, that it’s very doubtful that Egypt will go into it at this point in time,” an expert said. The German newspaper Die Welt reported Saturday that Egypt is attempting to mine uranium in the Sinai Peninsula. Ever since Israel occupied the area it has known that there are small deposits of uranium located in the Sinai, said Yuval Ne’eman, former chairman of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission. The uranium located there, however, is too difficult to mine and refine to be of use, he said. “It’s a long way between searching for and mining uranium deposits in Sinai and building a very big reactor,” said Shay Feldman of Tel Aviv University’s Strategic Studies Center. “All in all, I don’t think there is anything much to this story” (Alex Doron, Ma’ariv, June 23 in FBIS-NES, June 23).
India-Pakistan: U.S. Action and Pakistan’s Promise Averted WarMore details emerged over the last few days to explain how India and Pakistan recently backed down from the brink of war and what steps countries could take in the near future to decrease tensions in South Asia (see GSN, June 19). Two primary factors — U.S. intervention and Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s promise to permanently end militant infiltration into India’s side of the disputed Kashmir territory — enabled the nuclear-armed rivals to avert war, several analysts and officials said. Musharraf had promised to crack down on militants, but India did not accept his commitment until U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage visited Musharraf and secured the commitment to bring about a “permanent end” to militant infiltration, according to the Washington Post (see GSN, June 10). “If Pakistan had not agreed to end infiltration, and America had not conveyed that guarantee to India, then war would not have been averted,” Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee said last week. The deal to avoid a direct military conflict, however, came at some cost to India. Musharraf told Armitage that India must take substantial steps to make his commitment to end infiltration “sustainable.” The United States and other countries put pressure on India by calling for their citizens to leave the country — causing economic damage in India (see GSN, June 6). Within a few days, India allowed Pakistani commercial flights over its territory, moved naval fleets back to homeports and prepared to name a high commissioner for Pakistan (see GSN, June 11). What’s Next In addition, U.S. officials including President George W. Bush told Musharraf that they would help find ways to resolve the dispute over Kashmir (see GSN, June 10). India has continually said Kashmir is a regional issue, not a subject requiring outside intervention (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, June 22). Vajpayee said in an interview with Newsweek that he would be willing to discuss all issues, including Kashmir, with Pakistan as long as Musharraf ends what India sees as cross-border terrorism based in Pakistan. He said, however, that the U.S. role should be as a “facilitator” — not a “mediator” — continuing India’s insistence that the Kashmir dispute does not require a third party. In the same Newsweek article, however, Musharraf repeated his insistence that to have long-term stability the two countries must address the Kashmir issue, and he said the United States “is the only country which can persuade India to initiate a dialogue and move towards a solution of Kashmir. Bilateralism hasn’t worked.” There also seemed to be some disagreement between the two leaders concerning Pakistan’s commitment to end infiltration. Vajpayee said Musharraf has promised to dismantle militant training camps in Pakistan’s part of Kashmir, but Musharraf said he had not discussed that issue with Armitage. Both leaders said the decrease of tensions might offer a good opportunity for a positive turning point in relations (Lally Weymouth, Newsweek, July 1). Strong tensions still exist, however, while the United States tries to determine its future role in the region. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has asked his staff to think of new ways to encourage Indian-Pakistani dialogue on Kashmir with the hopes that a change in the status quo would reward Musharraf for complying with U.S. requests and help India feel that it has also gained politically, according to the Post (Kessler, Washington Post). For further information, see: Stimson Center Background on Kashmir
Iran: No Agreement Yet on Returning Spent Fuel to RussiaDespite official Russian statements, officials have not reached an agreement with Iran to guarantee that spent fuel from the Bushehr nuclear power plant would be returned to Russia for reprocessing, the London Guardian reported today (see GSN, March 29). “The question of managing the spent nuclear fuel is absent in the agreement between the governments of Russia and Iran on the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant on Iranian territory. Negotiations are taking place on the return of the spent nuclear fuel to the Russian Federation,” a confidential paper from the Russian Atomic Energy Ministry to the Kremlin said, according to the Guardian. The ministry has claimed repeatedly that Iran would send the spent fuel back to Russia to reduce any risk of nuclear proliferation, the Guardian reported. “We have agreed with Iran that the used fuel will be returned to Russia,” Atomic Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev said earlier this month. The internal Russian government documents, however, contradict the public statements, according to the Guardian, which did not report when the documents were written. The United States has expressed concern that the nuclear power plant Russia is building in Iran would pose a proliferation risk (see GSN, June 7). “It is true that a nuclear power plant can become a source of proliferation once it has accumulated a certain amount of spent nuclear fuel,” Rumyantsev said last month. “Iran would be in possession of weapons-usable material, plutonium,” said Tobias Muenchmeyer, a nuclear expert for Greenpeace (see GSN, May 21). “For a country like Iran, it would not be difficult to reprocess the spent fuel and isolate the plutonium. It would be a matter of weeks, not months” (Ian Traynor, London Guardian, June 24).
United States I: Energy Plans Many Precautions for Plutonium TransportsMore details have emerged about planned plutonium shipments from the U.S. Energy Department’s Rocky Flats former nuclear weapons plant in Colorado to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported yesterday (see GSN, June 19). According to information from court testimony, government documents and nuclear experts, it is expected that up to 225 containers of plutonium will be transported to Savannah River per month, according to the Journal-Constitution. Vans of armed guards will protect the shipments. The plutonium will be transported in both metal and powder forms, said Savannah River program manager for plutonium Allen Gunter. It is expected to be shipped in containers loaded onto 18-wheel trucks, which will be identical to other tractor-trailers on the road, according to the Journal-Constitution. The plutonium trailers will be equipped with a sticky foam that would be released in the event of a terrorist attack, immobilizing the cargo and anyone inside, said experts who monitor weapons shipments. For the most part, the U.S. Energy Department has remained secretive about the shipments. “We are being told nothing,” said Morton Brilliant, spokesman for South Carolina Governor Jim Hodges. Energy is expected to use interstate highways as the main shipping route, the Journal-Constitution reported. The transports will stop if necessary but only at government complexes, the department said. They will not travel in dangerous weather and will only travel at speeds of 55 miles per hour, according to the Journal-Constitution. A national communications center in New Mexico will track the plutonium shipments via satellite, Energy spokesman Joe Davis said. The shipments might have begun as early as Saturday, the Journal-Constitution reported. A federal court order prevented Hodges’ attempts to block the shipments. While an appeals court has denied an emergency injunction against the shipments, the court plans to hear arguments on the case July 10, according to the Journal-Constitution (Charles Seabrook, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, June 23).
United States II: Air Force Debates Whether to Reduce B-1B RoleThe U.S. Air Force is in the midst of a debate over whether to continue to use the B-1B bomber for offensive missions or to reduce it to a standoff role, Aviation Week & Space Technology reported today (see GSN, April 5). Some B-1B supporters are concerned that relegating the bomber to a standoff role could be a step toward total withdrawal from service, according to Aviation Week. The B-1B is considered vulnerable to budget cuts because the B-52 bomber is already dedicated to a standoff role and can operate at lower cost than the B-1B. B-1B supporters have said the debate over the bomber comes at a bad time since it performed well in the war in Afghanistan, Aviation Week reported. It dropped 4,000 guided bombs and had a mission capable rate of nearly 90 percent. No decision has yet been made on whether to change the B-1B’s mission, although missions are reviewed for all bombers in the U.S. Air Force annually, said Brig. Gen. Jay Jabour, Air Force program executive officer for fighters and bombers. One factor in the decision on whether to change the role of the B-1B is the success of planned electronic warfare upgrades, according to Aviation Week. The upgrades focus on the development of the ALE-55 fiber-optic towed decoy system, which is used to confuse radio-guided missiles, Aviation Week reported. It has been more difficult than previously thought to deploy the decoy and tow it behind the aircraft, which has caused engineers to attempt to improve the decoy’s durability on the B-1B and other military fighters and bombers. B-1B crews want to use a towed-decoy system to defend against future air defense threats, especially since the usefulness of towed-decoy systems was demonstrated during the air campaign in Kosovo, according to Aviation Week. Delays in developing the ALE-55 have led to increased costs, which is one of the main reasons the Air Force is unsure about continuing the plan, Aviation Week reported. The Air Force has created a proposal to continue to use the ALE-50 system and to upgrade the B-1B’s onboard electronic jamming system. The B-1B’s jamming system, however, will be out of date by 2010, which will force the Air Force to either upgrade the B-1B or limit its use, a system expert said (Robert Wall, Aviation Week & Space Technology, June 24).
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