By Hans M. Kristensen

The issue of the improved military capabilities of the new B61-12 nuclear bomb entered the Dutch debate today with a news story on KRO Brandpunt (video here) describing NATO’s approval in 2010 of the military characteristics of the weapon.

Dutch approval to introduce the enhanced bomb later this decade is controversial because the Dutch parliament wants the government to work for a withdrawal of nuclear weapons from the Netherlands and Europe. The Dutch government apparently supports a withdrawal.

Bram Stemerdink, who was Dutch defense minister in 1977 and deputy defense minister in 1973-1976 and 1981-1982, said that the Dutch government would have been consulted about the B61-12 capabilities. “Because we have those bombs at the moment. Was the Netherlands therefore consulted, yes,” Stemerdink reportedly said.

NATO approved the military characteristics of the B61-12 in April 2010, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, “including the yield, that it be capable of freefall (rather than parachute-retarded) delivery, its accuracy requirements when used on modern aircraft and that it employ a guided tailkit section, and that it have both midair and ground detonation options.”

Dutch approval is also controversial because the improved military capabilities of the B61-12 compared with the weapons currently deployed in Europe (addition of a guidance tail kit to increase accuracy and provide a standoff capability) contradict the U.S. pledge from 2010 that nuclear weapon life-extension programs “will not…provide for new military capabilities.” The U.S. currently does not have a guided standoff nuclear bomb in its stockpile. The improved military capabilities also contradict NATO’s promise from 2012 to seek to “create the conditions and considering options for further reductions of non-strategic nuclear weapons assigned to NATO…”

Last month Dutch TV disclosed a dispute between the U.S. and Dutch governments over how to discuss potential financial compensation in case of an accident involving U.S. nuclear weapons in the Netherlands.

The B61-12 is currently being designed for production with a price tag of more than $10 billion for approximately 400 bombs – possibly the most expensive U.S. nuclear bomb ever.

Nuclear weapons are unlikely to remain in Europe for long, so instead of wasting more than $10 billion on the controversial enhanced B61-12 for a mission that has expired, the United States should instead do a more basic and cheaper life extension of an existing version. Instead of wasting money on modernizing a nuclear weapon for Europe, the United States should focus its efforts on changing the views of eastern European NATO countries by providing extended deterrence in a form that actually contributes to their security.

This publication was made possible by grants from the New-Land Foundation and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

By Hans M. Kristensen

Only a few years before U.S. nuclear bombs deployed at Volkel Air Base in the Netherlands are scheduled to be airlifted back to the United States and replaced with an improved bomb with greater accuracy, the U.S. and Dutch governments are in a dispute over how to deal with the environmental consequences of a potential accident.

The Dutch government wants environmental remediation to be discussed in the Netherlands United States Operational Group (NUSOG), a special bilateral group established in 2003 to discuss matters relating to the U.S. deployment of nuclear weapons in the Netherlands.

But the United States has refused, arguing that NUSOG is the wrong forum to discuss the issue and that environmental remediation is covered by the standard Status of Forces Agreement from 1951.

The disagreement at one point got so heated that a Dutch officials threatened that his government might have to consider reviewing US Air Force nuclear overflight rights of the Netherlands if the United States continue to block the issue from being discussed within the NUSOG.

The dispute was uncovered by the Brandpunt Reporter of the TV station KRO (see video and also this report), who discovered  three secret documents previously released by WikiLeaks (document 1, document 2, and document 3).

The documents not only describe the Dutch government’s attempts to discuss – and U.S. efforts to block – the issue within NUSOG, but also confirm what is officially secret but everyone knows: that the United States stores nuclear weapons at Volkel Air Base.

Michael Gallagher, the U.S. Charge d’Affaires at the U.S. Embassy in Hague, informed the U.S. State Department that environmental remediation is “primarily an issue of financial liability” and discussing it “potentially a slippery slope.” During on e NUSOG meeting, Dutch civilian and military participants were visibly agitated about the U.S. refusal to discuss the issue, and Gallagher warned that “a policy of absolute non-engagement is untenable, and will negatively impact our bilateral relationship with a strong ally.”

Gallagher predicted that the Dutch would continue to raise the issue, and said the Netherlands was ahead of the other European countries that host U.S. nuclear weapons on their territories in having signed and implemented the NUSOG. Unlike Germany, Belgium, Italy and Turkey, the Netherlands was the only country that had raised the issue of remediation in a forum such as NUSOG, but Gallagher warned that the other countries would raise the issue of remediation in the future as similar nuclear weapons operational groups are established.

The United States has deployed nuclear weapons in the Netherlands since April 1960 and currently deploys an estimated 10-20 nuclear B61 bombs in underground vaults inside 11 aircraft shelters at Volkel Air Base. The weapons are under the custody of the US Air Force’s 703rd Munitions Support Squadron (MUNSS), a 140-personnel unit that secures and maintains the weapons at Volkel.

In a war, the U.S. nuclear bombs at Volkel would be handed over to the Dutch Air Force for delivery by Dutch F-16 fighter-bombers of the 1^st Fighter Wing. The Netherlands is one of five non-nuclear NATO countries (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey) that have this nuclear strike mission, which clearly violates the spirit of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

From 2019 (although delays are expected), the U.S. Air Force would begin to deploy the new B61-12 nuclear bomb to Volkel and the five other bases in Europe that currently store the old B61 types. The B61-12, which is scheduled for production under a $10 billion-plus program, will have improved military capabilities compared with the weapons currently stored at the bases.

The U.S.-Dutch dispute over remediation is but the latest political irritant in the deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe, a deployment nearly 200 B61 bombs at five bases in six countries that costs about $100 million a year but with few benefits. President Obama has promised “bold reductions” in U.S. and Russian tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. Volkel Air Base would be a good place to start.

This publication was made possible by grants from the New-Land Foundation and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

As the United States remains on a path towards continued reductions of nuclear weapons in concert with Russia, there is a likelihood that future arms control initiatives may include individual warheads – strategic and tactical, deployed and non-deployed. Verification of such an agreement could prove to be challenging and costly under an inspection-oriented regime such as that employed by the New START Treaty. As such, the concept of actively monitoring warheads throughout their lifecycle is proposed as a potential solution. An active monitoring system could reduce the burden of inspection activities to achieve equivalent confidence that treaty obligations are being upheld by increasing transparency of operations. Concerns about the sensitivity of data generated are warranted, and generating sufficient trust in the validity of data produced by this system is challenging, yet they are not insurmountable with a thoughtful design. This article explores the active monitoring concept, in addition to highlighting both the challenges and solutions such a system would provide.

Motivation

The Obama administration has clearly stated an interest in continuing reductions of the United States nuclear weapon stockpile in accordance with Russia and the other nuclear weapons states. The New START treaty¹, signed in 2010 and ratified in 2011, limits strategic deployed warheads to 1,550 on 700 deployed delivery vehicles, with a total limit of 800 deployed and non-deployed delivery vehicles. In a 2009 speech in Prague, prior to the New START negotiations, President Obama brought a new focus to nuclear arms control by affirming “… America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”² While also admitting that this is very much a long-term goal, this statement and others made in the same speech set the policy of the United States as seeking to advance arms control goals beyond New START. After stating his plan to negotiate New START, he said that “… this will set the stage for further cuts, and we will seek to include all nuclear weapons states in this endeavor.” Further cuts may happen in a similar fashion to the START and New START treaties – reductions in the numbers of strategic, deployed delivery vehicles and warheads – though as those numbers continue to drop, the numbers of non-deployed and non-strategic (tactical) weapon systems and warheads become more prominent in the debate.

According to the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, “… the Administration will pursue discussions with Russia for further reductions and transparency, which could be pursued through formal agreements and/or parallel voluntary measures. These follow-on reductions should be broader in scope than previous bilateral agreements, addressing all the nuclear weapons of the two countries …”³ Under New START, all strategic delivery vehicles (missiles, land-based launch tubes, submarine launch tubes, and bombers) are accountable and limited, whether they are deployed or not. A follow-on agreement to New START that limited nuclear warheads and bombs (whether they are deployed or not), would shift the focus from accounting for the delivery system to accounting for the warhead, whether it is mated to a delivery vehicle or not. In addition, an agreement that limited non-strategic warheads and delivery systems would increase the scope of limitations: mildly for the United States, and significantly for Russia.

The shift in focus from delivery systems to warheads and the inclusion of non-strategic systems will make verification of the treaty terms much more difficult. In general, strategic systems are much easier to see from a distance than non-strategic systems and especially individual warheads. In addition, the set of locations that warrants inspections when including non-strategic systems and warheads (in storage, maintenance, etc.) is much larger than the set of locations under New START. Increasing the scope and number of on-site inspections to account for all nuclear weapons may not be desirable due to the large expense to the inspecting nation and impact to operations of the host nation. Therefore, new technical approaches for verification could become useful to ensure that arms control agreements will be maintained and trusted when the scope extends to all nuclear weapons – deployed and non-deployed, strategic and non-strategic.

The Verification Challenge

The verification methods used for New START are essentially the same as those used under START: (1) national technical means, (2) data exchanges and notifications, and (3) on-site inspections.⁴ National technical means includes all manner of viewing and sensing the actions of the treaty partner from a distance, relying on national intelligence capabilities. Data exchanges and notifications are declaratory tools used to communicate the numbers and locations of all treaty-accountable items (TAIs) at the beginning of the treaty enforcement, at periodic intervals, and when things change. On-site inspections are used to verify those declarations by sending an in person delegation to a limited number of sites in the treaty partner country to view the TAIs at that site. There are two types of New START on-site inspections: Type One inspections focus on sites with deployed and non-deployed strategic systems, while Type Two inspections focus on sites with only non-deployed strategic systems (sites without warheads). During Type One inspections, inspectors have the opportunity to count the number of deployed strategic delivery systems and verify for a single delivery system (including a bomber at an air base), the number of warheads emplaced on it.  The relevant inspections for this discussion are Type One.

The goal of verification is to generate a sufficient amount of confidence that the treaty partner is fulfilling their obligations expressed in the treaty. With effective national technical means, fewer and less intrusive on-site inspections are necessary to gain sufficient confidence. When the focus of reductions, and therefore of verification, shifts from strategic delivery systems to warheads and non-strategic systems, national technical means will be less effective. This result could mean that with more intrusive on-site inspections (and probably more inspections with the expanded set of locations of interest), the same amount of confidence can be generated in a new treaty as is generated by New START verification. However, with more inspections that are increasingly intrusive, costs for both sides  rise and the impact to host operations suffers, since operations will likely be suspended at the site being inspected for the duration of the inspection.

Passive tags and seals have been suggested as assisting in verification of warheads: a warhead in a container could be sealed, and if the inspector verifies a seal on inspection the inspecting party has some confidence in the integrity of that particular warhead going back to the time it was sealed. But passive seals can only indicate that a seal was broken or not broken. No additional information about a broken seal is available, such as when or why the seal was broken.

An alternative and more comprehensive approach is to use active tags and seals, along with fixed monitoring devices in facilities of interest to create trustable information about the location and integrity of all TAIs. An active monitoring system in support of a future arms control agreement that includes all warheads – strategic and non-strategic, deployed and non-deployed – could reduce the cost of generating sufficient confidence enough to make the agreement feasible, while providing an unprecedented level of transparency.

Active Monitoring Approach

In lieu of increasing inspection frequency and complexity, an active monitoring system could be used to generate sufficient confidence that treaty declarations are being upheld while lessening the burden associated with inspection costs and the impact on operations at military installations. The approach of active monitoring discussed here uses an active tag with a monitored seal, known as an item monitor, which communicates to a centralized data collection point. After being attached and sealed to a TAI, the item monitor and associated data management system provides an indication of where the TAI is at any given point within the nuclear security enterprise –in storage, staging, maintenance, transportation, or deployment. The seal is designed to monitor when the item is physically removed from its handling gear which can occur during shipment, maintenance, or when deployed on a delivery vehicle. The seal design precludes removal of the warhead from its handling gear without breaking the seal. Additional layers of monitoring such as motion detectors, cameras, and other sensors can be added into the system to gather supplemental data and improve transparency of operations, while providing greater confidence in the information generated by the item monitors.

While all nuclear weapons in each country would be accountable and thus part of the monitoring regime, each TAI might not be actively monitored in every stage of its lifecycle. Figure 1 illustrates the seven generic stages of nuclear weapons in the United States, along with the dispositioning stage, which may be of interest for monitoring to account for latent nuclear weapons beyond dismantlement.

The deployment stage shown in the figure specifically represents warheads deployed on a delivery vehicle, and not those in storage at a deployed base (which are still considered in the storage stage).

Refurbishment of a weapon occurs as part of a Life Extension Program in which many components are replaced, whereas weapon maintenance implies a less significant replacement or access to the weapon without replacement, which can be done at the deployment or storage location.

Staging indicates that a weapon is awaiting refurbishment or dismantlement.

Dispositioning is the stage in which the dismantled weapon components are rendered unusable without an effort equal to production of those components.

Figure 1: Generic Nuclear Weapon Lifecycle Stages

As indicated in Figure 1, TAIs in the staging and storage stages would be continuously and actively monitored. Any integrity breach or movement during these stages would be recorded by the system. The transitions from the production⁵ and to the dismantlement stages, as well as the transitions to and from the refurbishment, maintenance, and deployment stages would be recorded, though once the TAI is in any of those stages it would not be actively monitored.

Using the United States as a model, there are numerous sites where an active monitoring system would be installed to meet the requirements of a future arms control monitoring regime. Furthermore, within each individual site there could be multiple holding locations for weapons. At each site the information from each holding location would be aggregated and transmitted to a site-wide database. The information from the nation’s weapon sites would then be aggregated at the national level, reviewed, and periodically transferred to the treaty partner who would analyze it to verify declarations as well as discover undeclared activity. Thus, the concept of data exchanges and notifications currently used for New START verification would be retained,  albeit with much larger sets of data and potentially more frequent notifications. The treaty partner could then select a sampling of locations and TAIs to inspect to increase confidence and ensure proper system functionality. The concept of on-site inspections would also be retained from New START, though the active monitoring system would limit the number needed to achieve sufficient confidence. A simplified view of this system is shown below in Figure 2 for three separate sites, each with three discrete TAI locations (either storage or maintenance).

Figure 2: National Model of an Active Monitoring System

In Figure 2, looking at a particular site there is a single TAI that is sealed and tagged by an item monitor moving from a storage area to a maintenance area and back to a different storage area. While it is in the maintenance area, the seal is broken and the item monitor is removed so that the warhead can be accessed for maintenance. Following the work, the warhead is placed back in its handling gear, which is sealed once again. In each of these locations the item monitor communicates with a data collection unit in the room, sending information during entrance and exit, as well as periodically throughout its existence in the room. In addition, fixed monitoring nodes in each of these locations (such as door switches, motion detectors, and cameras) generate additional information to create layers of evidence. The information generated by the monitoring system in each location – by item monitors as well as fixed monitoring nodes – is passed to a central data aggregation point at the site that combines the information from all locations at the particular site. Each site then passes information to a national data aggregation point, which is then transferred to the treaty partner during periodic data exchanges and more frequently during notifications.

All nuclear weapons that are properly maintained will still require routine maintenance and refurbishment, and these activities will likely occur without inspectors present to avoid releasing weapon design information. In order for the monitoring system to increase the treaty partner’s confidence in the host nation’s declarations of TAI activity, they must first trust that the TAI being monitored is an authentic nuclear weapon – i.e., that the host nation is not playing a shell game. As shown in Figure 3, at the start of a future agreement all TAIs would need to be verified as authentic in what is considered a baseline inspection, and then sealed using the item monitor while the inspecting partner is present. This baseline inspection likely would include measurements of attributes that are agreed upon in negotiations.

Following the baseline inspection at all sites, every nuclear weapon would be entered into the monitoring regime. A TAI with  an item monitor attached (and sealed) goes from black to white. In the white (sealed) state, the treaty partner has confidence that that particular TAI is authentic, and thus trusts the information the TAI generated by the monitoring system. The TAI would then continue to move throughout the nuclear security enterprise as required by the host country, with its movements and the status of its seal being continuously monitored. Since nuclear weapons are not static items for the life of a treaty, seals will have to be broken and most likely TAIs will have to be removed from active monitoring for maintenance, refurbishment, and deployment. When performing a maintenance activity on a sealed warhead or preparing a warhead for deployment, the activity would be declared in the same dataset that is transmitted to the treaty partner. Normal operations would not require the presence of an inspector.

Once declared, the seal can be removed and the warhead operation can proceed. After the seal has been opened on a TAI, the authenticity of that item cannot be confirmed until it is inspected by the partner nation, which would likely include the same type of  measurements made during a baseline inspection. At that point, the combination of re-establishing the authenticity of the TAI with the record of the TAI being sealed back to a point in the past gives the treaty partner confidence in the TAI from the time of sealing (indicated by the cross-hatched TAI in the figure), even if the treaty partner did not witness that sealing.

Figure 3: Timeline of Trust for a TAI

A monitoring system that accounts for individual weapons under a new arms control regime must have two basic characteristics: reliability and trustworthiness. Reliability implies that the system will work as intended with little or no downtime and without generating false information. While reliability is an important attribute of any engineered system, it is especially important in an arms control monitoring system. Any unexpected system behavior or relatively long downtime is likely to raise suspicion in the treaty partner, and would likely require a host country explanation. Trustworthiness is more complex. A system can be trusted by the host if the individual components and software can be shown to not interfere with the safety, security, and reliability of the nuclear weapons or the facilities that house the nuclear weapons (the process of certification). The system can be trusted by the treaty partner if the data it generates can be authenticated, it is hard (i.e. expensive) to forge false data, and the hardware and software used can be verified to not have hidden functionality (the process of authentication). Hardware and software authentication is challenging due to the complexity of integrated circuits and modern programming languages. Authentication concerns could be eased through either a jointly designed system or random sampling of the active monitoring system’s components by the treaty partner to inspect, possibly destructively. Data authentication requires the ability to digitally sign and verify the signature of the data generated by individual item monitors and fixed monitoring nodes, which necessitates the use of cryptographic algorithms to greatly increase the difficulty in forging messages. The system must also take into consideration the usability of the data from the perspectives of both the host and treaty partner to ensure that it is easy to sort and analyze the large quantity of data that will inevitably be collected.

The extent to which each side will assess the system equipment during certification and authentication also depends on who designs and produces the equipment. With host-designed and produced equipment, certification will likely be easier but authentication may be harder. With inspector-designed and produced equipment, authentication will be easier, but certification will be much harder, maybe impossible. A third option (which needs more study), is joint design and third-party (monitored) production. For our analysis, we have assumed host-designed and produced equipment.

The level of transparency associated with the active monitoring approach described here goes beyond any previous sharing of information under former treaties and agreements. Achieving concurrence and buy-in from stakeholders will be challenging – particularly the military services whose base operations may be affected – though the impact of a monitoring system may be less than the impact of the number of on-site inspections necessary in its absence. Additionally, many sensitive and potentially classified characteristics of the nuclear security enterprise could be revealed through the data aggregation and analysis process. To maintain the high level of transparency required for such an arms control regime, it may be necessary to redact portions of the data prior to transmitting it to the partner country. This could be done without degrading the integrity of the remaining data, but still providing enough information to account for warheads in the regime.

Conclusions

Potential arms control initiatives that include limits on total nuclear warhead stockpiles (including non-strategic and non-deployed weapons) and monitoring of warheads awaiting dismantlement may require technical accountability measures that are distinct from the technical measures used in previous treaties. Accountability measures could include active monitoring systems that provide trustable information and assurances of the location and the integrity of nuclear weapons and its components throughout the nuclear weapons lifecycle. Better understanding of active monitoring capability options for declared warheads and potential operational impacts of such a monitoring regime will help prepare for possible future initiatives.

Many challenges to the development and use of a nation-wide monitoring system in the U.S. and its treaty partners in support of a future arms control initiative remain. The scope of technology necessary for this system is much larger than what is used today for New START verification. The sheer complexity will make negotiations long and challenging. Generating trust with this technology may not be easy. Trustable components and information will be a key system attribute to be factored into design. The inspectors must trust the system to generate authentic and correct information, and to be highly resistant to undetected tampering by the host party. In addition, the host must accept the use of this equipment on or near nuclear weapons in their custody, which requires mitigation of concerns about safety, security, and divulging sensitive information. Lastly, no matter how well designed the system, on-site inspections would still be required to verify that the data generated by these systems reflects reality. However, the number of inspections could be minimized while still creating a level of confidence that is statistically significant.

Active monitoring of all nuclear weapons by a system coordinated across all staging, storage, maintenance, and deployment sites may be a key step in building confidence in such an agreement and reducing the need for on-site inspections to the point where the agreement is realizable. While 100% confidence in verification will be difficult, a system can be engineered to increase confidence that an agreement is being upheld by identifying the location and status of each TAI in an assured and trusted way to the monitoring partner, as well as providing layers of evidence of monitoring activities using various sensors and imagers. A flexible system will allow weapons to be accounted for and actively monitored through various phases of their lifecycle, thus enabling verification and increased confidence in weapons reductions. Research into the concept of an active monitoring system, including the operational impacts of such a system – and technology to support the concept – should be an element of a research agenda to support future negotiations for a new bilateral or multilateral arms control agreement.

Jay Kristoffer Brotz is a Senior Systems Engineer in the Nuclear Monitoring and Transparency Department at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM. His work is primarily on the Chain of Custody project, in which he is the Hardware and Operations Design Lead. He is primarily concerned with the development and evaluation of candidate technologies to be used as monitoring nodes at the Chain of Custody Test Bed. Last year, Jay participated in the Next Generation Working Group on U.S.-China Nuclear Relations, a function of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI). Jay graduated with a B.S. in Computer Engineering from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and an M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, where he wrote a Master’s thesis on damping of mechanical resonators fabricated in a CMOS-MEMS process.

Justin Fernandez is a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories. Justin’s experience and expertise lies at the intersection of technology and policy, with a focus on international nuclear relations and arms control. For the past two years he has led test and evaluation activities between three national laboratories for nuclear monitoring and transparency technologies geared towards supporting future arms control initiatives. Prior to his current position, Justin worked for three years on testing and evaluating the compatibility of Sandia developed technologies with US Air Force and NATO aircraft platforms. Justin obtained his B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Rutgers University and Georgia Institute of Technology respectively.

Dr. Sharon DeLand is a System Analyst in the Nuclear Monitoring and Transparency Department at Sandia National Laboratories. She received her doctorate in experimental condensed matter physics from the University of Illinois in 1991. Sharon’s current research interests include developing and evaluating technical approaches for monitoring arms control agreements, especially approaches focused on item accountability. Her work focuses on systems approaches that integrate technical monitoring objectives with policy perspectives and operational constraints. She also applies systems analysis to the modeling and simulation of international relations, with an emphasis on nonproliferation and arms control.

The opinions expressed in this paper are the authors’ own and do not reflect the opinions or official policy of Sandia National Laboratories, the National Nuclear Security Administration, or the United States Government.

We at FAS are always looking for innovative thinking on reducing nuclear dangers. This issue features both emerging leaders in the field and seasoned practitioners who are advancing new ways of looking at nuclear education, arms control monitoring, deterrence, and lessons from historical perspectives. Three of the articles have lead authors from the younger generation.

Erika Suzuki, who leads UC Berkeley’s Nuclear Policy Working Group, has joined with Dr. Bethany Goldblum, a younger faculty member, and Dr. Jasmina Vujic, a senior faculty member who has mentored dozens of Ph.D. and M.S. degree students. They describe a new model for educating students about nuclear technology and security policy. Their goals are to develop and sustain “an enduring nuclear security workforce,” to build bridges among “professionals from technical and social science fields,” and “to generate original policy recommendations and technical working papers.”  They want to extend their work to many universities and educational institutions. For PIR readers who are educators in the nuclear security and policy field, we encourage you to contact Erika and her co-authors to find out how you can help advance this important new project.

Ravi Patel, a talented, younger biologist from Stanford, worked last summer at FAS as a security scholar and began researching how to create stability between India and Pakistan. After travel to South Asia and extensive interviews and other research, Mr. Patel wrote the article in this issue on “Using Trade to Build Stability in South Asia.” He discusses four major steps: (1) forming a uniform, jointly developed trade policy, (2) having Pakistan grant Most-Favored-Nation status to India, (3) improving infrastructure linking India and Pakistan, and (4) improving ties between the Indian and Pakistani business communities. He points out that it is often easier to ship goods between the two countries through third party countries such as the United Arab Emirates because of the impediments to direct trade. Although his article does not directly address the nuclear arms race in South Asia, it provides advice on ways to indirectly reduce nuclear tensions.

Recently, I had the pleasure of meeting Jay Brotz at a conference at the University of California’s Washington, DC, Center and was impressed with the work that he and his co-authors Justin Fernandez and Dr. Sharon DeLand are performing at Sandia National Laboratories. As discussed in their article, they are developing and analyzing models for monitoring nuclear warheads in potential future arms control treaties or agreements.  Up to now, nuclear arms control agreements between Russia and the United States have primarily focused on inspecting and monitoring strategic weapon systems because of the relative ease of monitoring these objects that are much bigger than individual warheads. When individual warheads are monitored, the inspection system has to provide reliable information to the treaty partner but not reveal sensitive design information about the warhead. Brotz et al. discuss how to achieve that balance.

On FAS’s staff, we are privileged to have senior scholars such as Dr. Robert S. Norris and Hans Kristensen. For many years, they have co-written the Nuclear Notebook in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which is the most authoritative, unofficial source of information on the status of worldwide nuclear forces. In this issue, they have separate articles. Dr. Norris, a leading historian of nuclear weapons, shines a spotlight on the three factors that stoked the nuclear arms race: (1) inter-service rivalry among the branches of the U.S. armed forces, (2) the tenet that the United States could achieve security through technical superiority in nuclear weaponry, and (3) the “hyperactive definition of deterrence,” which resulted in “very high degrees of readiness” to launch an attack. This historical legacy weighs heavily on contemporary nuclear policy as examined in the final article by Hans Kristensen.

The PIR presents Mr. Kristensen’s invited presentation to the Deterrence and Assurance Working Group at the U.S. Air Force’s Global Strike Command at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. He raises profound questions about how many nuclear weapons are enough, what are the roles and tasks for nuclear weapons, and whether and how the United States can continue to reduce nuclear targeting and alert levels of nuclear forces. He advises the Air Force Global Strike Command to not resist further reductions but instead “sustain sufficient deterrence and assurance at lower levels.”

We hope you find these articles enlightening. We are grateful for your support of FAS.

Charles D. Ferguson, Ph.D.

President, Federation of American Scientists

“The need for understanding of today’s evolving nuclear threats is critical to informing policy decisions and diplomacy that can move the world toward greater nuclear security. The scientific underpinnings for such an understanding are remarkably broad, ranging from nuclear physics and engineering to chemistry, metallurgy and materials science, risk assessment, large-scale computational techniques, modeling and simulation, and detector development, among others. These physical science disciplines must be combined with social science fields such as public policy, political science, international relations, international law, energy policies, economics, history, and regional studies in order to yield a deep understanding of today’s nuclear security challenges.”

-James Doyle, “Nuclear Security as a Multidisciplinary Field of Study,” Los Alamos National Laboratory, 2008

The future of domestic and global nuclear security depends on today’s university students and young professionals feeding the pipeline to supply the requisite scientific workforce. To develop the next generation of nuclear security experts, universities must not only train students in technical nuclear science but also provide a comprehensive educational platform including nuclear energy and weapons policy in the context of the current political science architecture. Nuclear-related education programs are gaining traction, bolstered by the 2010 Nuclear Forensics and Attribution Act and other government initiatives such as the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA)’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI).¹

However, many of these programs are geared towards training students already engaged in nuclear science graduate programs. To maintain a steady stream of experts in nuclear security, universities must also actively recruit students in the early stages of their academic career by incorporating undergraduate educational initiatives and pre-professional development through both traditional classroom-based and extracurricular programming.

A working group model established at the University of California, Berkeley provides a pathway through which educational institutions with an established nuclear science program can initiate and further enhance nuclear security educational programming targeting students from all academic career stages.

The PRI(M)³E Model

The PRI(M)³E model was developed by the UC Berkeley Nuclear Policy Working Group (NPWG) in October 2012.²The model is derived from the three-fold mission statement of the NPWG. The first focus is to educate undergraduate students on important issues in nuclear security by providing supplementary education on nuclear technology and policy. The second aim is to foster collaboration between students and professionals from technical and social science fields. The third core goal of the NPWG is to generate original policy recommendations and technical working papers to contribute to the nuclear security field. From these primary objectives, the NPWG developed a foundational model to educate the next generation of nuclear scientists and policymakers.

The PRI(M)³E model features seven key components that are essential for developing and sustaining an enduring nuclear security workforce:

• Pioneering
  • Group discussions, collaborative research, and open communities facilitate the innovation of novel techniques for strengthening nuclear security through technological advancements and action-oriented policy. This environment allows for the unconstrained development of best practices for the education of undergraduate and graduate students in nuclear security.
• Research
  • A research-based working group allows members to collaborate on technical and policy-focused research projects addressing an array of critical nuclear security topics.
• Interdisciplinary
  • Interactive workshops draw from both the physical and social sciences, encouraging students to develop a strong foundational knowledge base in nuclear security to best inform research projects and policy recommendations.
• M³
  • Mentorship
    • Opportunities are made available for undergraduate and graduate students to work closely with senior mentors to share insight, career advice, and guidance on next steps towards a career in the nuclear security field.
  • Multi-level
    • Students at all stages of their academic career- from freshmen through senior-level undergraduate and graduate students, post-doctoral researchers, staff scientists from the university and the national laboratories, and non-academic professionals engage in collaborative needs- driven research in nuclear security and associated applications.
  • Multimedia
    • Participants use a variety of media including various audio-visual presentation platforms, workshops, expert panel discussions, student seminars, and digital electronic technology to convey important concepts and foster debate.
• Education
  • Education of working group members, the campus community, and the general public via accurate, timely information on current developments in nuclear security technology and policy is central to the multistage mission.

Implementation of the PRI(M)³E model serves as a framework that enables the NPWG to fuel the nation’s nuclear security workforce pipeline. Each component of the PRI(M)³E model uniquely targets the recognized need for interdisciplinary training of nuclear experts, integrates a research unit into the overall educational platform, and translates multi-level interaction into mentorship to provide undergraduate and graduate students with career guidance in both the scientific and policy fields. The working group is designed to generate a cadre of experts with both well-rounded and in-depth knowledge of the technical and policy-oriented aspects of nuclear security through comprehensive, research-based, educational programming.

The NPWG is a low-cost, high-impact model. The budget for running a successful working group is minimal compared to the potentially substantial financial and institutional investment required to establish a certificate or degree program, while the organizational structure of the PRI(M)³E model allows for the achievement of comparable educational objectives. Should institutional priorities shift to the adoption of more traditional educational models, the PRI(M)³E model lays the foundation for the future development of degree programs. Further, the inclusive nature of the working group makes it accessible to students at all levels as well as to the general public. Student retention represents the primary challenge to the success of the PRI(M)³E model. The informal nature of the working group can result in difficulties maintaining a core group of students, many of whom may juggle numerous responsibilities and commitments, including academics, work, and other extracurricular activities. To reduce attrition, the NPWG strives to actively engage members using a variety of media and activities, and works with members to develop flexible working practices.

Beyond the Foundational Model: Practices and Results

The PRI(M)³E model is particularly instrumental at UC Berkeley, which has a highly divided campus layout like many research-oriented universities. Almost all of the social science departments are located on the southwest side of campus, while the physical sciences are based on the northeast side of campus. As a result, students from different disciplines often do not physically interact with one another, and opportunities for interdepartmental collaboration between the technical and social sciences at the undergraduate level are sparse. The NPWG serves as a bridge between these two spheres on campus, and establishes a space in which students from various disciplines can interact and collaborate on interdisciplinary research projects.

The principal goals of the PRI(M)³E model are institutionalized through the activities of the NPWG. At weekly research meetings, members discuss research progress and future direction, and contribute to colloquia where participants present on a nuclear security topic of their choice. The multidisciplinary nature of the NPWG is one of its greatest strengths, as students from the nuclear engineering, physics, astrophysics, electrical engineering and computer science, political science, and public policy departments share knowledge and draw on their individual strengths to contribute to joint research projects and weekly seminar presentations. This working group series provides students with opportunities to continually develop dynamic working relationships with other students, as well as senior mentors. The development of close, effective mentor relationships is highly beneficial to undergraduate professional development, as advisors encourage students to apply for internships at the national laboratories or other nuclear security institutions, impart career and internship advice, and support the academic growth of students throughout the learning process.

To expand its educational outreach initiative to the general public, the NPWG hosted its first annual Nuclear Security Panel in April 2013, which featured prominent nuclear security experts well versed in both the technical and social science aspects of the field (see Fig. 1). The panel event generated lively debate and educated the broader campus community on current issues in nuclear forensics. This interdisciplinary team of experts provided the UC Berkeley campus and the public with a multifaceted examination of the role of nuclear forensics in combating nuclear terrorism, and also served as a public forum for discussion.

Figure 1

Nuclear Security Panel featuring (from left to right) Ian Hutcheon, Michael Nacht, Jasmina Vujic (moderator), Raymond Jeanloz, Stan Prussin and Jay Davis.

The NPWG also showcased its practices and results at several technical and policy conferences to disseminate the PRI(M)³E methodology for student engagement and communicate contributions to the nuclear security field in the form of original policy recommendations (see Fig. 2). These events provided undergraduate and graduate students with professional development opportunities, occasions to cultivate and hone presentation skills, and networking opportunities with nuclear security professionals from around the globe. Feedback from these colleagues has been vital to the enhancement of working group practices and research project design.

Through these PRI(M)³E-based endeavors, the NPWG has trained a first-year cohort of fifteen members and conducted educational outreach on numerous occasions in both technical and public policy capacities.

Figure 2

Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation 2013 Winter Public Policy and Nuclear Threats Conference. NPWG Undergraduate Research Assistant Erika Suzuki with Ambassador Linton Brooks.

Institutional support has been critical to the success of the NPWG and is essential for the long-term efficacy of the working group model. The NPWG is currently supported through an educational programming grant provided by the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium (NSSC) through the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. The NSSC is a $25 million grant with UC Berkeley as the lead institution that was awarded by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to support its NA-22 Nonproliferation Research and Development mission. The purpose of the NSSC is to train and educate experts in the nuclear security field using “an end-to-end approach, from recruitment of undergraduates to early career phases,” – the SUCCESS PIPELINE (Seven Universities Coordinating Coursework and Experience from Student to Scientist in a Partnership for Identifying and Preparing Educated Laboratory-Integrated Nuclear Experts). The NPWG operates at the foundational level, recruiting and educating undergraduate students, providing them with opportunities to collaborate with and learn from advanced students and professionals actively engaged in the nuclear security field.

SUCCESS PIPELINE NSSC³

At the input end of the pipeline, highly promising undergraduate and graduate students who have shown relevant interests are exposed to nuclear security. The program couples basic science research to technological developments relevant to the nuclear security mission. Student education includes hands-on training in a broad set of experimental disciplines—at university facilities and, as a formally constructed and supported aspect of their education, at the Lawrence Berkeley, Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos, or Sandia National Laboratories. Between the academic and the national laboratory partners exist an array of facilities including nuclear reactors, cyclotrons and other particle accelerators, as well as detector development and characterization facilities. Summer schools and seminars broaden student exposure to a wide range of topics in the nuclear security mission. This approach is designed to not only recruit but also retain top students by exposing them to a diverse and exciting research portfolio of critical importance to the U.S. nuclear security mission. The graduate will be a well-rounded professional ready to contribute to nuclear security and step into leadership roles in the field.

Future Vision

In an effort to further develop and sustain an enduring expertise pipeline, the NPWG will be launching its Nuclear Security Initiative (NSI) in the coming year. The purpose of the NSI is to extend the NPWG across NSSC partner institutions to engage a larger cross section of students in interdisciplinary nuclear security science, provide foundational knowledge on nuclear science and policy, and train students to work collaboratively on technical research projects and policy recommendations. The NSI is a refined version of the NPWG’s efforts based on the PRI(M)³E model, and expands on the NPWG’s research focus on nuclear forensics to include nuclear terrorism, nuclear material security and nonproliferation. The NPWG thus serves as a feeder for the NSSC’s SUCCESS PIPELINE at a micro-level, and duplication of its practices via the NSI will support the development of a robust national nuclear security network among universities, national laboratories, government agencies, and industrial institutions.

Conclusion

Universities are increasingly impacted by state and federal budget cuts, so the role of institutional support has intensified. Most prominently, the recent sequester cuts will reduce the available pool of research funds by an estimated $1 billion.⁴This will not only affect the ability of researchers at universities and national laboratories to obtain grants from federal science-based organizations, but will also potentially decrease the number of graduate students admitted to science and engineering programs at universities that rely heavily on federal funding.⁵ The loss in funding coupled with a reduced number of doctoral students in these fields may hinder scientific progress and shrink the pipeline as fewer students pursue advanced degrees in science and engineering. Cultivating the future scientific workforce is crucial to operations at the national laboratories, which will face a shortage of staff scientists in the coming years due to a combination of scheduled retirements and voluntary early retirement policies stemming from the sequestration budget cuts.

As we enter the new academic and fiscal year this fall, universities and other educational institutions will need to supplement losses in research and graduate programs with lower-cost, extracurricular modes of learning. The PRI(M)3E model is one such pathway to establish a rich environment for the generation of debate and novel direction on critical nuclear security issues while engaging students outside of a traditional classroom setting. This interdisciplinary approach to academic programming is crucial for securing the future of domestic and global nuclear security, as it provides a means for involving students from various disciplines to cooperatively address the multifaceted and vital nuclear issues that permeate the current landscape of national defense. Training future nuclear scientists and policymakers to collaborate on nuclear issues will forge better-informed and better-implemented nuclear policy and practices, and will ultimately result in the maintenance of a strong, sustainable nuclear security infrastructure.

Erika Suzuki leads the University of California, Berkeley’s Nuclear Policy Working Group in support of the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium. Erika has taught three student elective courses on human rights, the politics of genocide, and California/UC labor policy that she developed through the Democratic Education at Cal program. She has also interned for Democratic Leader and Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 3299, and Berkeley Rent Board Commissioner Igor Tregub. She is an alumna of the 2012 Berkeley Haas School of Business Summer Program: Business for Arts, Science, and Engineering, and is a member of Delta Phi Epsilon, a co-ed, professional Foreign Service and international affairs fraternity. After graduating from UC Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Public Policy, Erika aspires to work as a nuclear policy analyst focusing on nuclear counterterrorism and nonproliferation efforts, and obtain an advanced degree in international security studies.

Bethany L. Goldblum received a Ph.D. in Nuclear Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley in 2007. She served as a Clare Boothe Luce Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Fellow at Berkeley before joining the nuclear engineering faculty at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in August 2010. In January 2012, she returned to Berkeley as a member of the research faculty. Her research interests are in the areas of fundamental nuclear physics for nuclear security applications, nuclear-plasma interactions, technical nuclear forensics, and nuclear energy and weapons policy. From 2004-2006 she held the National Science Foundation Public Policy and Nuclear Threats Fellowship. She was a Project on Nuclear Issues Scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a member of the United States delegation to the China-India-United States Workshop on Science, Technology and Innovation Policy in Bangalore, India. She is the founder of the Nuclear Policy Working Group at UC Berkeley, an interdisciplinary team of undergraduate and graduate students focused on developing policy solutions to strengthen global nuclear security.

Jasmina L. Vujic is Professor of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. She received her Ph.D. in Nuclear Science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1989. After working at Argonne National Laboratory she joined UC Berkeley faculty in 1992. From 2005 to 2009 she was the Chair of the Department of Nuclear Engineering at UC Berkeley and in 2009/2010 she chaired the Nuclear Engineering Department Heads Organization (NEDHO). Her research interests are in the areas of nuclear reactor analysis and design, neutronics and neutron physics, non-proliferation and nuclear security, and engineering aspects of medical imaging and cancer therapy. She is currently a Principal Investigator for two large research projects (over $30 million): the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium and the Berkeley Nuclear Research Center, involving close to 150 students, faculty and researchers from 7 partner universities and 4 national laboratories. Professor Vujic is the author of three books, the editor of 6 monographs and international conference proceedings, and the holder of one U.S. patent. She authored close to 300 research publications. Under her mentorship 24 students received the Ph.D. degrees and 22 received the M.S. degrees.

This article was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency there of. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.

This material is based upon work supported by the Department of Energy National Nuclear Security Administration under Award Number DENA0000979. We also gratefully acknowledge support from the Nuclear Science and Security Consortium, the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, and the Berkeley Nuclear Research Center.

By Hans M. Kristensen

MSNBC used FAS data on the world nuke arsenals in an interview with Ploughshares Fund president Joe Cirincione about how deteriorating US-Russian relations might affect efforts to reduce nuclear arsenals.

The updated weapons estimates on the FAS web site are here.

Detailed profiles of each nuclear weapon state are published as Nuclear Notebooks in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Support our work to produce high-quality estimates of world nuclear forces: Donate here.

 

The recent test-launch of a modified Russian ballistic missile has nuclear arms reduction opponents up in arms with claims that Russia is fielding a new missile in violation of arms control agreements and that the United States therefore should not pursue further reductions of nuclear forces.

The fact that the Russian name of the modified missile – Rubezh – sounds a little like rubbish is a coincidence, but it fits some of the complaints pretty well.

Although many of the facts are missing – what the missile is and what the U.S. Intelligence Community has concluded – public information and statements indicate that the missile is a modified RS-24 Yars (SS-27 Mod 2) with intercontinental range.

Whatever the missile is, it is certainly no reason for why the United States should not seek to reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear forces further. On the contrary, the continued modernization of nuclear weapons underscores why it is important that the United States continues its push for reducing the numbers and role of nuclear weapons.

The Accusations

Under the headline “Russian Aggression: Putin violating nuclear missile treaty,” the article on Washington Times Free Beacon web site accuses Russia of being engaged in “a major violation” of the terms of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed with the United States in 1987.

The treaty bans all nuclear ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with range between 500 and 5,500 km (about 300-3,400 miles).

Claims of Russian cheating are frequent in the Washington arms control debate – just as claims about U.S. cheating is frequent in the Moscow arms control debate – and the ones in the article are largely consistent with the claims made by Mark Schneider, a former DOD official and now with the National Institute for Public Policy.

The “new” in the article is that it quotes “one official” saying: “The intelligence community believes it’s an intermediate-range missile that [the Russians] have classified as an ICBM because it would violate the INF treaty.” In total, “Two U.S. intelligence officials said the Yars M is not an ICBM,” according to the article.

Two members of Congress, House Armed Services Committee chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-CA) and House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rodgers (R-MI), have written President Obama about alleged Russian violations. They complain that they haven’t received a response but the administration says it deals with treaty compliance issue directly with Russia and informs Congress accordingly.

Accusations Disputed

The accusations that the Yars-M is not an ICBM and in violation of the INF Treaty are disputed by Russian officials and, interestingly, previous flight tests of the missile itself.

To its credit, the Washington Times took the trouble of asking Colonel General Victor Yesin about the missile. Yesin is former Chief of Staff of the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces and apparently a consultant to the Chief of the General Staff. But Yesin clearly disputed the claim by the U.S. intelligence officials, saying that the Yars-M is a “Topol-M class ICBM” and that “its range is over 5,500 km.”

That assessment fits the description made by a source in the General Staff in November 2012, following the first Yars-M launch from Kapustin Yar in October 2012 and news media rumors that Russia was developing a “fundamentally new missile.” “There are no fundamentally new missiles ‘on the approach’ for [the Russian Strategic Rocket Forces]. We are talking about modernizing the existing Yars class by improving the warhead,” he told Interfax and explained:

“Take the Layner [modification of the SS-N-23] sea-based intercontinental ballistic missile, reported by some media to be a completely new missile. It is in fact a Sineva. Only the warhead is new. Novelty lies in greater missile defense penetration capabilities, achieved owing to, among other things, a greater number of re-entry vehicles (boyevoy blok) in the warhead. The same applies to the prototype missile that was successfully launched from Kapustin Yar (Astrakhan Region) recently. There is nothing new in the missile itself. Only the ‘head’ is new. Its creators went down the same route as the designers of the Layner.”

Moreover, the claim that the short flight range of the missile test launched from Kaputsin Yar in June 2013 would indicate that the Yars-M is not an ICBM ignores that an earlier flight test of the missile last year flew 5,800 kilometers from Plesetsk north of Moscow to the Kura test range on the Kamchatka Peninsula (see table).

After the May 2012 flight test, Colonel-General Vladimir Zarudnitsky of the General Staff said: “As part of the approved plan of your building the armed forces of the Russian Federation last night made a promising test launch rocket system” Frontier “with an intercontinental ballistic missile high-precision shooting.” (Emphasis added).

Col. Vadim Koval, a Russian defense ministry spokesperson, said “the main goals and tasks of the launch consisted of receiving experimental data on confirming the correctness of the scientific-technical and technological decisions in developing the intercontinental ballistic missile as well as checking the performance and determining the technical characteristics of its systems and components.” (Emphasis added).

Rather than an entirely new missile, Koval explained further, “This missile is being created by using and developing, to the maximum extent, already existing new capacities and technological solutions, which were obtained in the development of fifth generation missile complexes, which substantially reduces the terms and expenditures on its creation.”

After the successful initial launch from Plesetsk, the second test was moved to Kapustin Yar apparently to test the capability of the Yars-M payload to evade ballistic missile defense systems. An industry sources told Interfax that, “The use of new fuel is one of the features of the missile. It reduces boost phase engine operation time. Consequently, the missile’s capabilities to penetrate missile defense will go up.”

It is rare, but not unheard of, that ICBMs are launched from Kapustin Yar into the Sary-Sagan test range. It appears to happen when ICBM payloads are being tested against missile defense systems. In addition to the recent tests of the modified SS-27, an SS-25 was test launched from the site on June 7, 2012. The test flight verified the “extended service life” of the SS-25 and “the latest test of an ICBM combat payload.” During the test “information was received which in future will be used in the interests of developing effective means for overcoming missile defense,” according to the Russian Ministry of Defense.

After the June 2013 test, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, called the modified SS-27 a “missile defense killer.”

It is not unusual that ballistic missiles with intercontinental range are test-flown in a compressed trajectory with much shorter range. That doesn’t make them less than strategic weapons, however. In March 2006, for example, the U.S. Navy launched a Trident II D5 sea-launched ballistic missile with a range of well over 7,400 kilometer (4,000 miles) in a compressed trajectory of 2,200 kilometers (1,380 miles) – about the same range as the Yars-M test on June 6, 2013. No one has suggested that the Trident II D5 therefore is an INF weapon.

Conclusions and Recommendations

If there are Russian violations of the INF Treaty, then the United States certainly should raise it directly with Moscow.

But the claim that the Yars-M missile flight-tested on June 6 to a range of 2,050 kilometers is an intermediate-range ballistic missile in violation of the INF treaty seems strange since the same missile apparently was flight tested to an ICBM range of 5,800 kilometers just a year ago.

Of course, we don’t know who the U.S. intelligence officials cited in the Washington Times article are, if what they say is accurate, and to what extent it reflects a coordinated assessment by the U.S. Intelligence Community. We may learn more about the Yars-M in the future.

But several Russian government, military, and industry officials have consistently stated that the Yars-M is not a new missile but a modification of the RS-24 Yars (SS-27 Mod 2) and that it has intercontinental range.

The intension of the allegations in the article seems clear: to create doubts about further reductions of U.S. nuclear forces. One of the “officials” quoted in the article directly questions: “How can President Obama believe [the Russians] are going to live up to any nuclear treaty reductions when he knows they are violating the INF treaty by calling one of their missiles something else?”

The thought that Americans would use INF treaty allegations to argue against reducing the number of strategic nuclear weapons that can hit the United States seems kind of bizarre. After all, under current Russian war plans, many of the 400-500 warheads President Obama has proposed can be offloaded under a new agreement, are most likely currently tasked to hold at risk several hundred targets in the United States – including some in California and Michigan.

Since Russia – unlike the United States – is already below the New START Treaty limit on deployed nuclear weapons and likely to drop further before the treaty enters into force in 2018, it seems like a no-brainer that it is in the U.S. interest to nurture that trend by reducing its own forces further.

This is even more important because the very reason some Russian officials could potentially be tempted to argue that an INF-missile was needed is that China is modernizing of its medium-range missile forces. Ironically, many of those in the United States who make the accusations about Russian INF violations are the same people who also warn about China’s nuclear modernization.

What the article completely seems to miss is that the only way that China and smaller nuclear weapons states may be persuaded to place limits on their nuclear arsenals is if the United States and Russia take bold steps to reduce their still enormous nuclear arsenals. Why then nitpick about dubious INF accusations to block that from happening?

This publication was made possible by grants from the New-Land Foundation and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

President Barack Obama’s Berlin speech failed to capture the nuclear disarmament spirit of the Prague speech four years ago. And no wonder. Back then Obama had to contrast with the Bush administration’s nuclear policies. This time Obama had to upstage his own record.

The only real nuclear weapons news that was included in the Berlin speech was a decision previously reported by the Center for Public Integrity that the administration is pursuing an “up to a one-third reduction” in deployed nuclear weapons established under New START.

Instead, the real nuclear news of the day were the results of the Obama administration’s long-awaited new guidance on nuclear weapons employment policy that was explained in a White House fact sheet and a more in-depth report to Congress.

From a nuclear arms control perspective, the new guidance is a mixed bag.

One the one hand, the guidance directs pursuit of additional reductions in deployed strategic warheads and less reliance on preparing for a surprise nuclear attack. On the other hand, the guidance reaffirms a commitment to core Cold War posture characteristics such as counterforce targeting, retaining a triad of strategic nuclear forces, and retaining non-strategic nuclear weapons forward deployed in Europe.

Pursue Additional Reductions

The top news is that the administration has decided that it can meet its security obligations with “up to one-third” fewer deployed strategic warheads that it is allowed under the New START treaty. That would imply that the guidance review has concluded that the United States needs 1,000-1,100 warheads deployed on land- and sea-based strategic warheads, down from the 1,550 permitted under the New START treaty.

It is not entirely clear from the public language, but it appears to be so, that these additional reductions will be pursued in negotiations with Russia rather than as reciprocal unilateral reductions.

Even though the nuclear weapons employment policy would allow for reductions below the New START Treaty levels, it does not direct any changes to the currently deployed forces of the United States. That is up to the follow-on process of the Secretary of Defense producing an updated Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy (NUWEP) appendix to the Guidance for the Employment of the Force (GEF), and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff then producing an update to the nuclear supplement to the Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan (JSCP-N).

These updates will inform the Commander of STRATCOM on how to direct the Joint Functional Component Command Global Strike (JFCC-GS) to update the strategic war plan (OPLAN 8010-12), and Geographic Combatant Commanders such as the Commander of European Command to update their regional plans.

So if an when Russia agrees to cutting its deployed strategic warheads by up to one third, it could take several years before President Obama’s guidance actually affects the nuclear employment plans.

Already now, many news articles covering the Berlin speech misrepresent the “cut” by saying it would reduce the U.S. “arsenal” or “stockpile” by one third. But that is not accurate. The envisioned one-third reduction of deployed strategic warheads will not in and of itself destroy a single nuclear warhead or reduce the size of the bloated U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals.

Reduce Launch Under Attack

The new guidance recognizes, which is important although late, that the possibility of a disarming surprise nuclear attack has diminished significantly since the Cold War. Therefore, the guidance “directs DoD to examine further options to reduce the role of Launch Under Attack plays in U.S. planning, while retaining the ability to Launch Under Attack if directed.”

Launch under attack is the capability to be able to launch nuclear forces after detection that an adversary has initiated a major nuclear attack. Because it only takes about 30 minutes for an ICBM to fly from Russia over the North Pole, Launch Under Attack (LOA) has meant keeping hundreds of weapons on alert and ready to launch within minutes after receiving the launch order.

Barack Obama promised during his election campaign in 2007 that he would work with Russia to take nuclear weapons off “hair-trigger alert,” but the Nuclear Posture Review instead decided to continue the existing readiness of nuclear forces. Now the DOD is directed to study how to reduce LOA in nuclear strike planning but retain some LOA capability.

The guidance does not explicitly say – to the extent it is covered by the DOD report – that nuclear force will be retained on alert. The NPR makes such a statement clearly. The DOD guidance report only states that the practice of open-ocean targeting should be retained so that a weapon launched by mistake would land in the open ocean.

Despite the decision to reduce deployed strategic warheads and reduce Launch Under Attack, the guidance hedges against the change by stating that “the maintenance of a Triad and the ability to upload warheads ensures that, should any potential crisis emerge in the future, no adversary could conclude that any perceived benefits of attacking the United States or its Allies and partners are outweighed by the costs our response would impose on them.”

Counterforce Reaffirmed

The new guidance reaffirms the Cold War practice of using nuclear forces to hold nuclear forces at risk. According to the DOD summary, the new guidance “requires the United States to maintain significant counterforce capabilities against potential adversaries” and explicitly “does not rely on a ‘counter-value’ or ‘minimum deterrence’ strategy.”

This reaffirmation is perhaps the single most important indicator that the new guidance fails to “put and end to Cold War thinking” as envisioned by the Prague speech.

Because “counterforce is preemptive or offensively reactive,” in the words of a STRATCOM-led study from 2002, reaffirmation of nuclear counterforce reaffirms highly offensive planning that is unnecessarily threatening for deterrence to work in the 21^st Century. This condition is exacerbated because the reaffirmation of counterforce is associated with a decision to retain – albeit at a reduced level – the ability to Launch Under Attack if directed (see below).

The “warfighting” nature of nuclear counterforce drives requirements for Cold War-like postures and technical and operational requirements that sustain nuclear competition between major nuclear powers at a level that undercuts efforts to reduce the role and numbers of nuclear weapons.

No Sole Purpose…But

Four years after the Nuclear Posture Review decided that the United States could not adopt a sole purpose of nuclear weapons to deter only nuclear attacks, the new guidance reaffirms this rejection by saying “we cannot adopt such a policy today.”

Even so, the guidance apparently reiterates the intention to work towards that goal over time. And it directs the DOD to undertake concrete steps to further reducing the role of nuclear weapons.

Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons

The decisions regarding non-strategic nuclear weapons are disappointing because they fail to progress the issue. In fact, the White House fact sheet explicitly states that the guidance review did not address forward deployed non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe.

Even so, the guidance decides to retain a forward-based posture in Europe until NATO agrees it is time to change the posture. The last four years have shown that NATO is incapable of doing so because a few eastern NATO countries cling to Cold War perceptions about nuclear weapons in Europe that blocks progress.

In effect, the lack of initiative now means countries like Lithuania now effectively dictate U.S. policy on non-strategic nuclear weapons.

Hedging Against Hedging

The guidance also directs that the United States will continue to retain a large reserve of non-deployed warheads to hedge against technical failures in deployed warheads.

This both means enough extra warhead types within each leg to hedge against another warhead on that leg failing, as well as keeping enough extra warheads for each leg to hedge against failure of one of the warheads on another leg.

Now that warhead life-extension programs are underway, the guidance directs that DOD should only retain hedge warheads for those modified warheads until confidence is attained. This is a little cryptic because why would the DOD not do that, but the intension seems to be to avoid keeping the old hedge warheads longer than necessary.

Moreover, the guidance also states that all of the hedging against technical issues will provide enough reserve warheads to allow upload of additional warheads – including those removed under the New START Treaty – in response to a geopolitical development somewhere in the world.

This all suggests that we should not expect to see significant reductions in the hedge in the near future but that much of the current hedging strategy will be in place for the next decade and a half.

Conclusions

The Obama administration deserves credit for seeking further reductions in nuclear forces and the role of Launch of Warning in nuclear weapons employment planning. A White House fact sheet and a DOD report provide important information about the new nuclear weapons employment guidance, a controversial issue on which previous administrations have largely failed to brief the public.

The DOD’s report on the new guidance reiterates that it is U.S. policy to “seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” but helpfully reminds that “it is imperative that we continue to take concrete steps toward it now.” This is helpful because Obama’s recognition in Prague that the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons might not be achieved in his lifetime has been twisted by opponents of reductions and disarmament to mean an affirmative “not in my lifetime!”

The guidance directs that nuclear “planning should focus on only those objectives and missions that are necessary for deterrence in the 21st century.” The force should be flexible enough, the guidance says, to be able to respond to “a wide range of options” by being able to “threaten credibly a wide range of nuclear responses if deterrence should fail.”

Unfortunately, the public documents do not shed any light on what those objectives and missions are or which ones have been deemed no longer necessary.

Instead, the official descriptions of the new guidance show that its retains much of the Cold War thinking that President Obama said in Prague four years ago that he wanted to put an end to. The reaffirmation of nuclear counterforce and retention of nuclear weapons in Europe are particularly disappointing, as is the decision to retain a large reserve of non-deployed warheads partly to be able to reverse reductions of deployed strategic warheads achieved under the New START Treaty.

In the coming months and years, these decisions will likely be used to justify expensive modernizations of nuclear forces and upgrades to nuclear warheads that will prompt many to ask what has actually changed.

Background: US Nuclear Forces, 2013 – Russian Nuclear Forces, 2013 – Reviewing Nuclear Guidance – From Counterforce to Minimal Deterrence

This publication was made possible by grants from the New-Land Foundation and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

By Hans M. Kristensen

The Swedish International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) today published the 2013 issue of the SIPRI Yearbook. I’m coauthor of the chapter on worldwide nuclear weapons arsenals.

The yearbook is translated into Arabic, Chinese, Russian and Ukrainian, providing a unique source of nuclear weapons information to regions where such information is either not available or only to English-speaking readers.

In addition to the annual SIPRI Yearbook, bimonthly updates of individual nuclear weapon states are published as Nuclear Notebooks in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Moreover, an online table of world nuclear forces is provided on the FAS web site. The table is updated as new information becomes available.

Finally, occasional issue reports are published on the FAS Strategic Security Blog.

This publication was made possible by grants from the New-Land Foundation and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

To paraphrase Leon Trotsky’s saying about war but applied to extreme events, “You may not be interested in extreme events, but extreme events are interested in you.” The “you” here refers to the general public. I trust that readers of the Public Interest Report have self-selected themselves to be concerned about extreme events such as nuclear war, pandemics, and massive tsunamis triggering nuclear disasters. But the public has largely averted its gaze and would prefer not to contemplate “unthinkable” extreme events.  Our task here at FAS is to convey to the public a better understanding of these events and provide better means to reduce and respond to them.

As I wrote in the previous president’s message, FAS is refocusing its mission on understanding, reducing, and responding to catastrophic risks. To further this mission, I have been looking for guidance as to how FAS can discover the intellectual talent and form the networks of specialists to help the world in dealing with catastrophic threats or extreme events.  I recently found important insights in Dr. John Casti’s book X-Events: Complexity Overload and the Collapse of Everything, published in 2012. Dr. Casti, a mathematician and a former researcher at RAND and the Santa Fe Institute among other places, has been one of the foremost experts on complexity science. In his latest book, he argues that an extreme event or “X-event” is “human nature’s way of bridging a chasm between two (or more) systems.”

He gives the example of the gap between an authoritarian government (think Egypt under Hosni Mubarak) and the populace. The government has clamped down on people’s freedoms for decades using draconian methods and has been exceedingly corrupt and dysfunctional. Wanting outlets for political expression, citizens have been using social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter for political organizing. Dr. Casti points out that this development represents a growing, positive increase in the political capabilities of the citizenry—what he would term formation of a “high complexity” environment—versus an ossified, low-complexity government that is initially inclined to crush the protests instead of expanding freedoms. Dr. Casti argues that instead what the government should have done was to increase its complexity such that it could respond constructively to the protests. But it takes significant effort to bridge the complexity gap.

Seeking an easy way out of the perceived impasse, the Egyptian government’s initial response to the protests was to shut down the Internet in Egypt by ordering the country’s five main service providers to cut service on January 28, 2011, and the government also arrested several bloggers. U.S. President Barack Obama soon called on the Egyptian government to restore the Internet and give its citizens freedom of expression, and international service providers worked to find ways around the government’s cut in service. The Internet was restored on February 2, 2011, and the bloggers were released from prison. Mubarak was not so long afterwards deposed. As we have seen in the past two years, Egypt is still experiencing growing pains in its political transition, and it is not clear whether it will soon form a government responsive to its people’s needs. However, the movement illustrated the power of social networking tools in expanding people’s opportunities to organize and increase political complexity.

As Dr. Casti discusses in his book, there is a law of requisite complexity such that “the complexity of the controller has to be at least as great as the complexity of the system that’s being controlled.” For example, in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, the complexity of the control system (in particular, the height of the seawall and the location of the emergency diesel generators) was literally and figuratively too low to counter the higher complexity of the massive earthquake and tsunami.

I would also point out that the Japanese regulatory authorities and industry officials told the public for many years before the Fukushima accident that major nuclear accidents would not occur; this is the so-called nuclear safety myth. In effect, these authorities tried to sell the public on nuclear power being relatively low complexity. Today, Japan is faced with public mistrust and lack of confidence in nuclear power. The government has created a new regulatory agency called the Nuclear Regulation Authority. There are concerns that it is adopting too much of a deterministic approach to nuclear safety. That is, it is trying to achieve the strictest safety standards in the world by requiring many redundant safety systems at each nuclear plant to prevent further accidents. Instead, many experts outside of Japan are recommending a risk-informed approach that that uses multiple layers of safety systems but acknowledges that there will be some small level of risk. The question remains: can the Japanese public accept having some risk of a nuclear accident? Perhaps they can if the government and industry can demonstrate that it can handle high complexity events such as the possibility of accidents so as to protect the public from harm. For example, if the accident’s effects such as radioactivity release can be contained on the nuclear plant site, the public can be protected from radioactive contamination.

Can complexity mismatches be identified ahead of a catastrophe and steps taken to bridge the gap before catastrophe strikes? This is the message of the latter part of Dr. Casti’s book. He advises, for example, to look for major fluctuations and repeated occurrences in critical parameters of a system in order to forecast an impending catastrophe. For instance, in nuclear safety systems, one can look for repeated failures to inspect safety equipment, numerous unplanned shutdowns of plants due to exceeding thresholds in safety systems, and calls from whistleblowers about safety concerns. These are some major signs that urgent attention is needed.

How can governments and the public respond to avert such catastrophes?  For example, a government needs to demonstrate its responsiveness to a crisis before it explodes into a catastrophe. Syria shows how lack of a government response to an environmental crisis triggered widespread public discontent and the recent civil war. As Tom Friedman wrote in the May 19 edition of the New York Times, the Syrian government did essentially nothing to help farmers deal with the massive drought that occurred a few years ago. Instead, President Bashar al-Assad’s policy of allowing big conglomerate farms to drain the very limited aquifers made Syria’s smaller farms acutely vulnerable to the drought. Out of work farmers flocked to Syria’s cities and began political organizing. The high unemployment further exacerbated people’s discontent with Assad’s government and helped spur the civil war. In hindsight, if Assad’s advisers could have foreseen this turn of events, they could have advised him to tend to the legitimate concerns of the farmers and other people out of work.

In another Arab country further south of Syria, water and political crises have been unfolding. But unlike Syria, Yemen might find a way out of its political crisis stopping short of civil war. Yemen confronts a major water disaster in that its capital Sana’a, according to some estimates, may run out of sufficient potable water in a decade, and numerous aquifers across the country are being drained faster than they can be refilled. But the good news is that after President Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in 2012, the political factions in the country have begun a national dialogue. This process has encouragingly included many women leaders. Several women had led the protests demanding that then-President Saleh relinquish power. While there will undoubtedly be hurdles along this dialogue process, it is a sign of increasing positive political complexity. This is greatly needed for Yemen to have any hope of solving its water crisis in addition to the crises of shortages of energy and burgeoning population with high rates of unemployment and underemployment.

I invite you to contact FAS headquarters with your suggestions about how we can work together to use the insights of complexity science to better understand our complex world and work to reduce and respond to catastrophic risks.

Charles D. Ferguson, Ph.D.

President, Federation of American Scientists

Digital manufacturing is likely to be one of the key disruptive technologies of the 21^st century. Described by The Economist as the foundation of a third industrial revolution, ¹ digital manufacturing enables individuals and communities of designers to manufacture products themselves rather than relying on large factories with global supply chains.

While digital manufacturing holds significant potential as an engine of economic change, its potential effects on the proliferation of missiles and other weapons has not been adequately explored. The production and proliferation of missiles is foundationally an industrial process. Developing missile capability currently requires specialized industrial capabilities and expertise. Proliferation involves worldwide supply and transport chains similar to that of any modern globalized industry, albeit operating in secret. Just as digital manufacturing is likely to change the way household goods are produced, it will affect how missiles and other weapons are developed and proliferated.

What is Digital Manufacturing?

Digital manufacturing combines desktop design software – the sort that can be run from your home computer- and both traditional and new manufacturing equipment including 3D printers, Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machines that use digital instructions to operate a variety of cutting and millings tools, and laser cutters.

Digital manufacturing begins with software. Using software that has been used by industrial designers for decades, one can design and render a 3D model of the object for production. Designers need not start from scratch. The open source movement- a worldwide movement of inventors, programmers and designers who make their work available to others free of charge- provides a wide range of designs that can be directly manufactured or built on to create custom designs for particular needs.   Designers can also take advantage of 3D scanners which can make a digital model of a physical object, saving the designer the trouble of redesigning the object from scratch and allowing the production of exceedingly exact copies.²

The designer can then upload their work to digital manufacturing machines that can craft a range of products. 3D printers have received the lion’s share of attention in popular press due to the novel way they function. Rather than subtracting mass from a piece of raw material by cutting or molding, it adds material together to create a product. Printers equipped with print heads similar to the one of desktop inkjet printers spray layers of plastic to create products. More advanced machines use lasers to harden powder or liquid in layers to create objects, and can fashion products out of a wide range of metals including steel and titanium. CNC machines can be equipped with various tools that allow them to cut or mill a block of material into a desired shape or product. Laser cutters slice sheets of metal or wood into 2-dimensional objects and components.³

Digital manufacturing inverts traditional industrial mass production. Mass production creates very large numbers of identical objects. Digital manufacturing tools are more flexible- each machine can be used to produce a wide range of objects without requiring the often expensive and lengthy retooling traditional mass production would require. As digitally manufactured objects are produced individually there are no additional costs for additional complexity or customization in an object, allowing products to be designed to fit extremely specific requirements. This individualized production, however, means that digital manufacturing doesn’t capture the economies of scale seen in traditional mass production- the 100^th or 1000^th digitally manufactured object will cost as much as the first, whereas mass production requires a significant upfront investment that pays for itself over the manufacture of many hundreds or thousands of copies of a product.⁴

Another advantage of digital manufacturing is that it enables local production. A file can be sent to a digital manufacturing machine anywhere in the world and produce an object on demand. Rather than outsourcing the manufacture of a product to a factory in China or elsewhere in the world (a process that can take weeks or months and introduces significant supply chain risks), a designer or customer can immediately make a product to meet a local need. The localization of manufacturing is potentially one of the most important effects of digital manufacturing as it could shift manufacturing (and manufacturing jobs) away from China and other low-cost global powerhouses back to the West and to local markets. The local advantage of digital manufacturing, beyond potentially changing the nature of the global economy, also encourages the spread of digital manufacturing capabilities. As 3D printers and other machines become available in local economies throughout the world, they will also become increasingly available to state and non-state actors who could harness them to produce missiles and other weapons.

The automotive and aerospace industries have been early adopters of digital manufacturing technologies.  Ford uses 3D printers for rapid prototyping of automobile parts. ⁵ In 2012, GE Aviation purchased Morris Technologies, a company heavily invested in 3D printing and other digital manufacturing technologies, which produces components for commercial jet engines. 3D printing reduces the amount and weight of the material in these engine parts, resulting in a more efficient jet engine.⁶ On a grander scale, Airbus is reported to be developing a 3D printer large enough to manufacture entire aircraft wings.⁷

Digital manufacturing has also been embraced by the U.S military. The U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command uses computer design software, 3D scanners, and 3D printers for the development and rapid prototyping of equipment before it is mass produced using conventional manufacturing techniques.⁸ Starting in 2012, mobile laboratories equipped with digital manufacturing capabilities have been forward deployed to support the logistics needs of troops in Afghanistan.⁹ The mobile labs allow the U.S. Army’s Rapid Equipping Force to manufacture spare parts and new components in Afghanistan based on collaborations from designers and engineers both in the United States and deployed in Afghanistan.

Printing Missiles

The proliferation of missiles and other complex systems is, at heart, an industrial process. Digital manufacturing will disrupt that process and allow for the production of more effective missile components, using a wider variety of facilities and equipment, by a larger number of actors. Digital manufacturing tools themselves would not be capable of producing a complete missile but they could be used to fabricate many key missile components, thereby reducing the challenge faced by a new weapons state from the manufacture of a weapon from scratch to the simpler assembly of a missile from its digitally produced parts.

Digital manufacturing can be used to produce components for missiles that are more effective than those produced by traditional industrial processes. NASA is currently using selective laser melting, a process similar to 3D printing which uses a laser to harden layers of metallic powder into an object, to produce components for the Space Launch System(SLS). The SLS is a heavy lift rocket intended to carry robotic and manned missions to “nearby asteroids and eventually to Mars.”¹⁰ As digital manufacturing allows rocket components to be produced in a single piece, rather than welding together smaller parts produced using traditional processes, the components are stronger and more resilient increasing the reliability of the launch vehicle. Digital manufacturing would likely produce similar benefits for the production of components for ballistic missiles, which share many common features with space launch vehicles.

Missile warheads and fuel may also be made more effective by digital manufacturing. 3D printing could be used to produce warheads with specific geometries that would produce enhanced effects when detonated.¹¹ Similar methods could also be used to produce propellants shaped to provide better and more efficient burn rates for rockets and ammunition. ¹²

A greater proportion of digital manufacturing equipment than its traditional industrial counterparts will be dual-use technology. Digital manufacturing tools are inherently flexible and can produce a wide range of products without requiring retooling or other substantial modification. Governments and non-state actors could take advantage of civilian digital manufacturing capabilities to produce components for missiles and other weapons systems without needing to modify the equipment or the facilities that house it. The number of facilities that could be used for proliferation activities would be significantly greater making detecting and tracking a missile program more difficult. This would also complicate efforts to disable or delay a missile program through sabotage or an overt military attack. Lastly, the greater number of proliferation-sensitive facilities would make transparency and confidence building more difficult even in the absence of intent to acquire missiles or other weapons.

Digital manufacturing would also allow proliferators to better leverage limited human capital. Design software requires less expertise to use than traditional design methods.  Digital manufacturing systems themselves are automated, reducing the number of skilled machinists and technicians needed to produce missile components. ¹³ While the assembly and integration of components into a functioning missile system would still require a pool of experienced engineers and technicians, proliferators would still require less design and production expertise than traditional industrial production processes would demand.

Digital manufacturing would also benefit non-state proliferators. Non-state actors generally lack access to facilities to produce anything beyond crude artillery rockets and depend on support from state sponsors. As digital manufacturing capabilities become increasingly available throughout the world, non-state actors will be able to access local manufacturing capabilities to produce weapons based on designs provided by their state benefactors or to improve home built capabilities. Hamas, for instance, has made extensive use of crude artillery rockets, the accuracy and effectiveness of which would be significantly improved if engine parts and other components currently made with drills and lathes were produced with greater precision by digital manufacturing machines.

Online Proliferation

A key advantage of digital manufacturing is the ability to easily convert a design from a file directly into a physical object. As cyber-crime, efforts to crack down on software and music piracy and Wikileaks have demonstrated, information is very difficult to protect, contain, and control. Rather than attempting to prevent the shipment of missiles or components from states like North Korea or Iran to new weapons states or non-state actors, the non-proliferation regime will be faced with the problem of controlling the movement of information. It would most likely be easier for North Korea, for instance, to transfer data to allow a customer to manufacture missile components using local digital manufacturing facilities than to ship missiles or components that could be tracked and intercepted as they traveled from Northeast Asia to the Middle East or other hotspots. A proliferating state could leverage digital manufacturing to shift its business model to the sale of weapon design information rather than complete weapons or to reduce the scale of shipments to make them more difficult to track.

Digital manufacturing is also deeply linked with the open source hardware movement which has developed tools to allow for the easy sharing of hardware designs as well as collaboration on new projects. This approach has been adopted for military projects in the United States; the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) currently sponsors a project to design a new amphibious tank for the U.S. Marine Corp that uses online collaboration tools to allow far flung networks of researchers to collaborate on designs.¹⁴ Similar tools would facilitate collaboration among global proliferation networks such as the Iranian-North Korean partnership for the development of ballistic missiles.¹⁵ Non-state actors could also use such tools to leverage the efforts of sympathetic engineers and designers throughout the world. Proliferators could also take advantage of the blueprints made available by members of the open-source movement elsewhere in the world.  Designers with an interest in space systems or aerodynamics could unwittingly provide assistance to a foreign missile design program.¹⁶

Proliferators could also benefit from design information from Western governments and industry. The computer networks of the U.S. government and defense contractors are frequent targets of cyber-attacks from a variety of sources. While technical specifications and other design information obtained via cyber-espionage would already be useful to proliferators, digital manufacturing would exacerbate this vulnerability. Designs intended for digital manufacture – either for rapid prototyping or for the production of final components – would be easier for proliferators to use. Rather than needing to interpret and replicate the production of a component or system from stolen design files, proliferators could simply enter the data into compatible digital manufacturing machines to produce an exact physical copy of the stolen design.

Beyond Missiles

Digital manufacturing has security implications beyond missile proliferation. The information sharing and streamlined production processes that make the proliferation of missiles easier could also enable nuclear proliferation. Digital manufacturing would have little effect on the production of nuclear weapons themselves or their requirement for significant quantities of highly enriched uranium or weapons grade plutonium. The design and production of uranium enrichment centrifuges and other equipment necessary for a nuclear program, however, would be simplified by digital manufacturing much as missile production would be.

Digital manufacturing could also be used to produce small arms. Open source networks are collaborating on the design of small arms including Defense Distributed, a U.S. based group that is working to design and produce 3D printable firearms including the controversial AR-15 rifle.¹⁷ As digital manufacturing becomes more widespread such projects will serve to significantly undermine domestic gun control laws as well as undercut international efforts to control the trade in small arms.

The manufacture of spare parts, as currently undertaken by the U.S. military, could also serve to undermine sanctions regimes intended to curtail proliferation. Iran, for instance, has a significant number of aircraft and weapons systems obtained from the West before the Islamic Revolution.  While Iran’s F-14 fighter aircraft are less capable than the most advanced aircraft flown by the United States and its regional allies, they could still pose a potent threat. The difficulty in obtaining spare parts and other maintenance supplies from the U.S. has grounded most of the Iranian Air Force’s F-14s and forced Iran to develop clandestine networks to secretly obtain spare parts under the cover of legitimate business deals.¹⁸ In the future, a state placed under an arms embargo could use digital files- obtained legally before the sanctions or clandestinely afterwards- or 3D scans of existing components to produce new parts and maintain their military capabilities despite sanctions.

Proliferation in the Digital Future

Digital manufacturing will change the production and proliferation of missiles and other weapons in much the same way it will transform civilian industries. Rather than depending on a small number of states with the capability and will to proliferate missile systems or technologies, state and non-state actors will be able to leverage the civilian manufacturing sector and global networks of missile expertise to obtain weapons.

This new industrial model for proliferation will require new concepts for counter-proliferation. Missile and other weapons technologies will be available to a wider number of actors. Future counter-proliferation efforts will be faced with less visible footprints for missile production and ethereal web-based networks of missile expertise and data proliferation. Non-proliferation and cyber security experts will need to collaborate to understand how to track and defeat the information sharing capabilities that digital manufacturing enables. Stopping the flow of missile technology around the world has been a difficult task faced with many setbacks. As digital manufacturing comes of age, preventing further missile proliferation will only become more difficult.

Matthew Hallex is a defense analyst who lives and works in northern Virginia.  He holds a Masters in Security Policy Studies from George Washington University.

By Hans M. Kristensen

Greetings from Geneva! I’m at the Palais des Nations for the second Preparatory Committee (PREPCOM) meeting for the 2015 Review Conference of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). I was invited by the Swiss and New Zealand UN Missions to brief our report Reducing Alert Rates of Nuclear Weapons.

With me on the panel was Richard Garwin, an FAS board member who for more than five decades has advised U.S. governments on nuclear weapons and other issues, and Gareth Evans, former Australian Foreign Minister and now Chancellor of the Australian National University.

The panel was co-chaired by Ambassador H.E. Dell Higgie, the head of the New Zealand UN Mission and Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Conference on Disarmament, and Ambassador Benno Laggner, the head of the Swiss Foreign Ministry’s Division for Security Policy and Ambassador for Nuclear Disarmament and Non-Proliferation. Switzerland and New Zealand have for several years spearheaded efforts in the United Nations to reduce the alert level of nuclear weapons.

I wrote the de-alerting report together with Matthew McKinzie who directs the nuclear program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Click to download my briefing slides (7.6 MB) and prepared remarks.