There is broad international consensus about reduction of nuclear risks as one of the most relevant drivers to enhance global security. However, degrees of involvement, priorities and approaches adopted to deal with the issue differ from state to state. They are dependent on interests and self-perceived roles as well as cultures and traditions of nations. As in the past, the recent statements at the Preparatory Committee for the 2015 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference are again a good sample of such different postures.

While nuclear-armed states and their allies are primarily focused on demanding more nonproliferation and nuclear security¹, the majority of states without nuclear weapons mainly demand the fulfillment of nuclear disarmament commitments. States on each side tend to think that they have done more than enough, but it is clear that there is much more to be done.

In today’s multi-polar world, nuclear threats have undeniably increased, and even more so since nuclear terrorism became a plausible threat. At the same time the fragility of international trust progressively becomes more evident, mainly due to lack of global common goals and frustration over ineffective multilateral action. This fragmented scenario puts traditional strategies for reducing nuclear risks at a crossroads.

Global threats require global solutions

In order to understand the global dimension of nuclear threats, it is worthwhile to analyze potential scenarios from the perspective of their consequences.

The negative consequences of any potential incident would be twofold: those directly affecting the target of the attack in terms of casualties and destruction, and those indirectly stemming from the high degree of global interconnection. Such global impacts would surely include political disruption, environmental damage, disturbance of the global economy, restrictions to international trade (including that of primary resources), and deep psychosocial commotion. Also, they would encompass a deferral in the delivery of humanitarian international aid to developing countries due to a change in funding priorities of the developed countries.In other words, almostevery aspect of human activity around the world would suffer chaos and disruption.

Furthermore, in the case of a large-scale nuclear exchange, there would be severe impacts on the climate and food supplies, which would lead to extreme poverty. It is clear that in terms of nuclear risks, what happens to one happens to all.

The existence of more than 16,000 nuclear weapons deployed in 14 countries and in the oceans of the world (many of them on a high state of alert), implies risks of intentional or unintentional detonation. A recent study by Chatham House revealed 13 known cases involving six nuclear-armed states, from 1962 to 2002, when the arms were on the verge of being detonated by error or accident.²

Besides the risks of potential use, the mere existence of the weapons entails more negative impacts. Nuclear-armed states jointly spend around $11 million dollars per hour to maintain their nuclear weapons complexes, and the rate of spending follows an upward trend. Despite reductions in the number of weapons, such expenditures are sustained by on-going modernization efforts.³

These funds are constantly drained away from investments to close basic social deficits in several of the states, and international aid, which developed nations normally devote to fight extreme poverty. The socio-economic impacts are extremely significant as these expenditures- if used for another purpose, would be enough to reduce world poverty by 60 percent over ten years.

Nuclear weapons are also a factor of global inequality, as they fictitiously divide the world in two different categories of actors: the “haves” and the “have-nots.” In fact, the possession of nuclear arms leads to international power in the hands of very few, and in this way, contaminates multilateral dialogue at the expense of respect and equal treatment of the interests of the non-possessors. In addition, the high relevance of nuclear weapons in national/collective security doctrines acts as a powerful attraction for further proliferation, as they are perceived as icons of international power and prestige.

In terms of potential terrorist and criminal acts, the facilities where these arms are stored are protected in different ways and therefore may be subject to intrusion or theft, among many other threats. There is weapons-usable material distributed in 25 countries which involve similar risks.⁴

The immediate conclusion is that the detonation of nuclear weapons (be it sophisticated or improvised, carried out by states or non-state actors), would impact every member of the global community in many different dimensions and there would be little distinction as to the perpetrator– or to the reason for use: intention, error or accident.

The strategies to avoid potential devastating incidents (by the elimination of current arsenals, and the prevention of proliferation and of terrorist use), are in essence mutually dependent. In other words, an integrated system to reduce nuclear risks would be the most efficient option as it would harmonize the strategies adopted to promote nuclear disarmament, nuclear security and the prevention of further proliferation.

Integrating disarmament, nonproliferation and nuclear security efforts

The goal of opening paths toward efficient integration of strategies for the reduction of nuclear risks poses big challenges, but is well worth the effort in view of the current crisis of the traditional instruments that rule the global nuclear order. It is key to recognize that separation and imbalances among disarmament, nonproliferation and nuclear security efforts are factors that play against the stability of the present system.

Experience shows that even the most valuable and innovative approaches in nuclear risks reduction tend to miss out on opportunities to promote integrated views and synergic actions. For example, the Second Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons held earlier this year in Nayarit, Mexico (which brought together 146 states and many non-governmental organizations), focused almost exclusively on the humanitarian impact of nuclear exchanges between states. Even though the Conference took place a short time in advance of the Nuclear Security Summit (NSS) in the Netherlands (which focused on preventing nuclear terrorism), only a few voices pointed out in Nayarit the similarities in terms of risks and humanitarian consequences with nuclear terrorist attacks. On the other hand, at the NSS in The Hague, there was little debate about how to link nuclear security, disarmament and nonproliferation efforts as building-blocks of a common strategy.^{5 6}

To do away with these conceptual silos opens up a broad range of opportunities. To take advantage of them requires a change of beliefs and paradigms-from both internal politics and international relations- that have been firmly in place for years. In order to advance in this direction, it is absolutely necessary that states take into consideration not only their own interests – and those of their strategic allies – but also the interests of other different actors and those of the international community as a whole.

Restoring balance and building confidence

Today, limited progress in disarmament can be attributed to the prevailing role of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence in the security doctrines of key states and alliances. For example, NATO’s 2012 Defense and Deterrence Posture Review reaffirms the role of nuclear weapons by recognizing them as “a core component of the Alliance’s overall capabilities for deterrence and defense alongside conventional and missile defense forces.” It also recognizes strategic nuclear forces as the supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies.⁷

However, the performance of nuclear weapons as an effective deterrent is increasingly questioned by the expert community. It is accepted that they are of no use to deter acts of nuclear terrorism, and in practice, history has also made it clear the unlikeliness of use against non-nuclear armed states, even in the worst conflict. The belief in nuclear deterrence as a source of power contrasts with the plausibility of any use, and only finds a place within the framework of the strategic dialogue among nuclear-armed states. It is crucial that possessors re-think deterrence in light of such evidences in order to progressively reorient towards the use of less risky means. They owe this effort to the entire global community.

Nuclear sharing and extended deterrence also poison any intent of a positive evolution toward nuclear disarmament and should be reconsidered. It seems at least questionable to see non-nuclear weaponsstates hosting nuclear weapons in their territories, or others benefitting from nuclear umbrellas and requesting security based on these weapons.It is essential that those states jointly work with their strategic allies to make conscious decisions to favor other kinds of deterrence in order to satisfy their security needs. A virtuous example could be the creation of a strategic dialogue among Japan, South Korea, the United States and China to agree upon a solution involving other means regarding North Korea’s security threats.

The tensions between possessors and non-possessors lead to disagreement about disarmament strategies. The traditional step-by-step approach conflicts with the humanitarian initiative put forward by non-nuclear weapons states, which gained momentum after the 2010 Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. The NPT’s “P5 nuclear weapons states” (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States) made their beliefs clear that the humanitarian initiative contradicts the adopted step-by-step approach and is “a distraction” from the current disarmament efforts.⁸ In this sense, the absence of most of nuclear weapons possessors from both the Conferences on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, in Olso and Nayarit showed reluctance not only to act, but also to enter into any kind of innovative disarmament dialogue.⁹

In order to be successful, any progress in this area should be carried out with – and not without – those in possession of the weapons. It implies bigger challenges in terms of integrating not only diverse interests, but also diverse rhetoric and mindsets.

Nuclear-armed states should seriously consider joining the open dialogue about innovative ways to speed up nuclear disarmament, given the damage to their credibility caused by their absence. For example, they should participate in the Third Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, to be held on December 8-9 in Vienna. The international community needs to do as much as possible to persuade those states to attend and to debate.¹⁰

At the same time, the implementation of safeguards is evolving to more enhanced schemes. There has been international pressure to make the more restrictive Additional Protocol (AP) the brand-new standard of verification (in replacement of the current Comprehensive Safeguards Agreements (CSAs) prescribed by the NPT for non-nuclear weapons states). In addition the IAEA is transitioning to a state-level approach aimed at controlling more efficiently the compliance of safeguards agreements. But the trust in the nonproliferation system is seriously damaged and many states show resistance to these proposals. The perceived paralysis in disarmament is politically counterproductive to encourage non-possessors to accept enhanced nonproliferation obligations as well as initiatives which could set limits to their rights to fully develop nuclear energy for peaceful uses. However, states should recognize the relevance of extra nonproliferation guarantees to close the NPT loophole in terms of the control of non-declared nuclear facilities. ¹¹

The high-level political process of the Nuclear Security Summits promoted by the United States since 2010 has brought to the international agenda the protection of civilian nuclear materials and related facilities from nuclear terrorism and criminal use. Nevertheless, there are still major tasks pending that should be positively resolved with the end-of-cycle Summit in the United States in 2016. A key point is to define the Summits process’ legacy. It intends to reach the necessary agreements to set up a stable and efficient global system for nuclear security. The agreements should ensure continuity to the nuclear security effort beyond the Summits. Taking into account that the totality of nuclear weapons and the 85 percent of weapons-usable materials (HEU and separated plutonium) that are stored in non-civilian facilities, it is essential to include them as an integral part of any realistic global system to prevent nuclear terrorism and illicit trafficking.

Another challenge is to promote the adoption by states of binding, minimum nuclear security standards, which would give assurances to the international community regarding the responsible protection of each state’s materials and facilities.

As recognized by the 2014 NSS Communiqué, there is still much to do to achieve universal adherence to the key binding instruments on the matter, including the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM), its 2005 Amendment (which will enter into force once ratified by 22 more states to reach the two-thirds of signatory states of the original convention) and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (ICSANT).^{12 13}

It is necessary for the future of the initiative that the United States overcomes the current domestic stalemate in Congress and move ahead by ratifying both the 2005 CPPNM Amendment and the ICSANT. In fact, such ratifications are essential not only to enhance the whole nuclear security effort, but also to recover the eroded international confidence and good will concerning U.S. proposals and initiatives on the matter. In both cases, as with the ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), the United States should lead by example.¹⁴

The Strengthening Nuclear Security Implementation initiative led by the United States, South Korea and the Netherlands is a document in which the signatories recognize that nuclear security is an international, not just a national responsibility. The 35 subscriber states commit themselves to embed the objectives of the nuclear security fundamentals and IAEA recommendations in national rules and regulations, and to host peer reviews to ensure effective implementation. In addition, the signatories pledge to act to further ensure continuous improvement of the nuclear security regime. ^{15 16}

The NSS process shows that positive initiatives would reach broader acceptance within a framework of enhanced understanding, credibility and confidence among states with different backgrounds. A way to achieve such virtuous framework is by restoring a relative balance of commitments concerning disarmament, nonproliferation and nuclear security, for which every state should have a clear role.

A pragmatic approach

The ideas shared here involve pure pragmatism. The unrealistic belief that nuclear weapons can grant global security at the cost of deep international imbalances should progressively give way to innovative thinking on how to break the “status quo” to achieve deeper understanding of threats and design cooperative ways to prevent any further catastrophic incident. The need to define integrated strategies to efficiently reduce nuclear risks is now both indispensable and urgent.

Concerning state-level actors (even in the multi-polar environment), the preeminent roles of the United States and Russia is without question, as they together possess 95 percent of nuclear weapons and the majority of weapons-usable material. Any realistic approach to nuclear security should be based on the close cooperation of both states. For example, it is important that the Ukraine crisis be carefully managed to preserve their nuclear understanding of further deterioration. Leaders on both sides should deeply reflect with responsibility on the negative global consequences of breaking such substantial common ground.

Today the majority of states are paying a very high price in terms of insecurity to satisfy the false perception of security of a small few. It is crucial to bring back the balance between rights and responsibilities of states of different positions and define common goals for the international community, in terms of nuclear risks reduction. Determined actions and gestures of disarmament by nuclear-armed states could become powerful drivers to restore the necessary global confidence.

From a global perspective of threats and consequences, the common goal would be to ensure in realistic terms that no security vulnerability in any state could directly or indirectly contribute to any catastrophic nuclear incident, regardless of where it would happen.

Pragmatism should guide leaders toward innovative approaches to reduce nuclear risks based on comprehensive views and coordinated efforts. Multiplication of conflicts and a resulting and almost uncontrollable global insecurity are enough evidences that such joint efforts should be now maximized.

Irma Arguello is the Founder and Chair of the NPSGlobal Foundation, Secretary of the Latin American and Caribbean Leadership Network for Nuclear Disarmament and Nonproliferation – LALN, member of the Steering Committee of the Fissile Materials Working Group – FMWG, and Associate Fellow of Chatham House.

It is currently U.S. policy to deploy missile defenses that are “proven, cost-effective, and adaptable.” As outlined in the 2010 Ballistic Missile Defense Review, proven means “extensive testing and assessment,” or “fly before you buy.” Adaptive means that defenses can respond to unexpected threats by being rapidly relocated or “surged to a region,” and by being easily integrated into existing defensive architectures.

While “extensive testing” in the field is an important step towards proven defenses, this article argues that it is insufficient for truly proven—that is, trustworthy—defenses. Defenses against nuclear weapons face a very high burden of proof because a single bomb is utterly devastating. But even if defenses achieve this level of trustworthiness in one context, this article argues that they cannot immediately be trusted when they are adapted to another context. Calls for proven and adaptive defenses thus promote a dangerous fallacy: that defenses which are proven in one context remain proven when they are adapted to another.

To explain why defenses should not be regarded as both proven and adaptable, this article begins by outlining a little-noted yet critical challenge for missile defense: developing, integrating, and maintaining its complex and continually-evolving software. A second section uses experience with missile defense to illustrate three key reasons that software which is proven on testing ranges does not remain proven when it is adapted to the battlefield. A third section outlines some of the challenges associated with rapidly adapting missile defense software to new threat environments. The article concludes that while missile defenses may offer some insurance against an attack, they also come with new risks.

Missile defense as an information problem

Missile defense is a race against time. Intercontinental ballistic missiles travel around the globe in just thirty minutes, while intermediate, medium, and short range ballistic missiles take even less time to reach their targets. While defenders would ideally like to intercept missiles in the 3-5 minutes that they launch out of the earth’s atmosphere (boost phase), geographic and physical constraints have rendered this option impractical for the foreseeable future. The defense has the most time to “kill” a missile during mid-course (as it travels through space), but here a warhead can be disguised by decoys and chaff, making it difficult to find and destroy. As missiles (or warheads) re-enter the earth’s atmosphere, any decoys are slowed down, and the warhead becomes easier to track. But, this terminal phase of flight leaves only a few minutes for the defender to act.

These time constraints make missile defense not only a physical problem, but also an informational problem. While most missile defense publicity focuses on the image of a bullet hitting a bullet in the sky, each interception relies critically on a much less visible information system which gathers radar or sensor data about the locations and speeds of targets, and guides defensive weapons to those targets. Faster computers can speed along information processing, but do not ensure that information is processed and interpreted correctly. The challenge of accurately detecting targets, discriminating targets from decoys or chaff, guiding defensive weapons to targets, and coordinating complementary missile defense systems, all falls to a very complex software system.

Today’s missile defense systems must manage tremendous informational complexity—a wide range of threats, emerging from different regions, in uncertain and changing ways. Informational complexity stems not only from the diverse threats that defenses aim to counter, but also from the fact that achieving highly effective defenses requires layering multiple defensive systems over large geographic regions; this in turn requires international cooperation. For example, to defend the United States from attack by Iran, the ground-based midcourse defense (GMD) relies not only on radars and missiles in Alaska and California but also on radars and missiles stationed in Europe. Effective defenses require computers and software to “fuse” data from different regions and systems controlled by other nations into a seamless picture of the battle space. Missile defense software requirements constantly evolve with changing threats, domestic politics, and international relations.

Such complex and forever-evolving requirements will limit any engineer. But software engineers such as Fred Brooks have come to recognize the complexity associated with unpredictable and changing human institutions as their “essential” challenge. Brooks juxtaposes the complexity of physics with the “arbitrary complexity” of software. Whereas the complexity of nature is presumed to be governed by universal laws, the arbitrary complexity of software is “forced without rhyme or reason by the many human institutions and systems to which [software] interfaces must conform.”

In other words, the design of software is not driven by predictive and deterministic natural laws, but by the arbitrary requirements of whatever hardware and social organizations it serves. Because arbitrary complexity is the essence of software, it will always be difficult to develop correctly. Despite tremendous technological progress, software engineers have agreed that arbitrary complexity imposes fundamental constraints on our ability to engineer reliable software systems.

In the case of missile defense, software must integrate disparate pieces of equipment (such as missile interceptors, radars, satellites, and command consoles) with the procedures of various countries (such as U.S., European, Japanese, and South Korean missile defense commands). Software can only meet the ad hoc requirements of physical hardware and social organizations by becoming arbitrarily complex.

Software engineers manage the arbitrary complexity of software through modular design, skillful project management, and a variety of automated tools that help to prevent common errors. Nonetheless, as the arbitrary complexity of software grows, so too do unexpected interactions and errors. The only way to make software reliable is to use it operationally and correct the errors that emerge in real-world use. If the operating conditions change only slightly, new and unexpected errors may emerge. Decades of experience have shown that it is impossible to develop trustworthy software of any practical scale without operational testing and debugging.

In some contexts, glitches are not catastrophic. For example, in 2007 six F-22 Raptors flew from Hawaii to Japan for the first time, and as they crossed the International Date Line their computers crashed. Repeated efforts to reboot failed and the pilots were left without navigation computers, information about fuel, and much of their communications. Fortunately, weather was clear so they could follow refueling tankers back to Hawaii and land safely. The software glitch was fixed within 48 hours.

Had the weather been bad or had the Raptors been in combat, the error would have had much more serious consequences. In such situations, time becomes much more critical. Similarly, a missile defense system must operate properly within the first few minutes that it is needed; there is no time for software updates.

What has been proven? The difference between field tests and combat experience

Because a small change in operating conditions can cause unexpected interactions in software, missile defenses can only be proven through real-world combat experience. Yet those who describe defenses as “proven” are typically referring to results obtained on a testing range. The phased adaptive approach’s emphasis on “proven” refers to its focus on the SM-3 missile, which has tested better than the ground-based midcourse defense (GMD). The SM-3 Block 1 system is based on technology in the Navy’s Aegis air and missile defense system, and it has succeeded in 19 of 23 intercept attempts (nearly 83 percent), whereas the GMD has succeeded in only half (8 of 16) intercept attempts. Similarly, when Army officers and project managers call the theater high altitude area defense (THAAD) proven, they are referring to results on a test range. THAAD, a late midcourse and early terminal phase defense, has intercepted eleven out of eleven test targets since 2005.

While tests are extremely important, they do not prove that missile defenses will be reliable in battle. Experience reveals at least three ways in which differences between real-world operating conditions and the testing range may cause missile defense software to fail.

First, missile defense software and test programs make assumptions about the behavior of its targets which may not be realistic. The qualities of test targets are carefully controlled—between 2002 and 2008, over 11 percent of missile defense tests were aborted because the target failed to behave as expected.

But real targets can also behave unexpectedly. For example, in the 1991 Gulf War, short range Scud missiles launched by Iraq broke up as they reentered the atmosphere, causing them to corkscrew rather than follow a predictable ballistic trajectory. This unpredictable behavior is a major reason that the Patriot (PAC-2) missile defense missed at least 28 out of 29 intercept attempts.Although the Patriot had successfully intercepted six targets on a test range, the unpredictability of real-world targets thwarted its success in combat.

Second, missile defense tests are conducted under very different time pressures than those of real-world battle. Missile defense tests do not require operators to remain watchful over an extended period of days or weeks, until the precise one or two minutes in which a missile is fired. Instead crews are given a “window of interest,” typically spanning several hours, in which to look for an attack. Defenders of such tests argue that information about the window of attack is necessary (to avoid conflicts with normal air and sea traffic), and realistic (presumably because defenses will only be used during a limited period of conflict).

Yet in real-world combat, the “window of interest” may last much longer than a few hours. For example, the Patriot was originally designed with the assumption that it would only be needed for a few hours at a time, but when it was sent to Israel and Saudi Arabia in the first Gulf War, it was suddenly operational for days at a time. In these conditions, the Patriot’s control software began to accrue a timing error which had never shown up when the computer was rebooted every few hours. On February 25, 1991, this software-controlled timing error caused the Patriot to miss a Scud missile, which struck an Army barracks at Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 28 Americans. The fix that might have helped the Patriot defuse the Dhahran attack arrived one day too late.

A third difference between test ranges and real-world combat is that air traffic is often present in and around combat zones, creating opportunities for friendly fire; the likelihood of friendly fire is increased by the stressful conditions of combat.For example, in the first Gulf War, the Patriot fired two interceptors at U.S. fighter jets (fortunately the fighters evaded the attack).When a more advanced version of the Patriot (PAC-3) was sent to Iraq in 2003, friendly fire caused more casualties.  On March 23, 2003, a Patriot battery stationed near the Kuwait border shot down a British Tornado fighter jet, killing both crew members. Just two days later, operators in another battery locked on to a target and prepared to fire, discovering that it was an American F-16 only after the fighter fired back (fortunately only a radar was destroyed). Several days later, another Patriot battery shot down an American Navy Hornet fighter, killing its pilot.

A Defense Science Board task force eventually attributed the failure to several software-related problems. The Patriot’s Identify Friend or Foe (IFF) algorithms (which ought to have clearly distinguished allies from enemies) performed poorly. Command and control systems did not give crews good situational awareness, leaving them completely dependent on the faulty IFF technologies. The Patriot’s protocols, displays, and software made operations “largely automatic,” while “operators were trained to trust the software.” Unfortunately this trust was not warranted.

These three features—less predictable targets, longer “windows of interest,” and the presence of air traffic—are unique to combat, and are among the reasons that software which is proven on a test range may not be reliable in battle. Other differences concern the defensive technology itself—missile seekers are often hand-assembled, and quality is not always assured from one missile to the next. Missile defense aims to overcome such challenges in quality assurance by “layering” defensive systems (i.e. if one system fails to hit a missile, another one might make the kill). But unexpected interactions between missile defense layers could also cause failures. Indeed, some tests which produced “successful” interceptions by individual missile defense systems also revealed limitations in integrating different defensive systems. Layered defenses, like most individual defensive systems, have yet to be proven reliable in real-world battle.

The Fallacy of “Proven” and “Adaptive” Defenses

As this brief review suggests, field testing takes place in a significantly different operational environment than that of combat, and the difference matters. Missile defenses that were “proven” in field testing have repeatedly failed when they were adapted to combat environments, either missing missiles completely, or shooting down friendly aircraft. Thus, talk of “proven” and “adaptable” defense furthers a dangerous fallacy—that defensive systems that are proven in one context remain proven as they are adapted to new threats.

Defensive deployments do not simply “plug-and-play” as they are deployed to new operational environments around the world because they must be carefully integrated with other weapons systems.  For example, to achieve “layered” defenses of the United States, computers must “fuse” data from geographically dispersed sensors and radars and provide commands in different regions with a seamless picture of the battle space. In the first U.S. missile defense test that attempted to integrate elements such as Aegis and THAAD, systems successfully intercepted targets, but also revealed failures in the interoperability of different computer and communications systems. In the European theater, these systems confront the additional challenge of being integrated with NATO’s separate Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile Defence (ALTBMD).

Similar challenges exist in the Asia-Pacific region, where U.S. allies have purchased systems such as Patriot and Aegis. It is not yet clear how such elements should interoperate with U.S. forces in the region. The United States and Japan have effectively formed a joint command relationship, with both nations feeding information from their sensors into a common control room. However, command relationships with other countries in the Asian Pacific region such as South Korea and Taiwan remain unclear.

The challenge of systems integration was a recurring theme at the May 2014 Atlantic Council’s missile defense conference. Attendees noted that U.S. allies such as Japan and South Korea mistrust one another, creating difficulties for integrating computerized command and control systems. They also pointed to U.S. export control laws that create difficulties by restricting the flow of computer and networking technologies to many parts of the world.Atlantic Council senior fellow Bilal Saab noted that the “problem with hardware is it doesn’t operate in a political vacuum.”

Neither does software. All of these constraints—export control laws, mistrust between nations, different computer systems—produce arbitrarily complex requirements for the software, which must integrate data from disparate missile defense elements into a unified picture of the battle space. Interoperability that is proven at one time does not remain proven as it is adapted to new technological and strategic environments.

Risky Insurance

Although defenses cannot be simultaneously proven and adaptive, it may still make sense to deploy defenses. Missile defenses that have undergone robust field testing may provide some measure of insurance against attack. Additionally, cooperative defenses may provide a means of reducing reliance on massive nuclear arsenals—although efforts to share NATO or U.S. missile defenses with Russia are currently stalled.

But whatever insurance missile defense offers, it also comes with new risks due to its reliance on tremendously complex software. Other analyses of missile defense have pointed to risks associated with strategic instability, and noted that defenses appear to be limiting rather than facilitating reductions of offensive nuclear arsenals. An appreciation for the difficulty of developing, integrating, and maintaining complex missile defense software calls attention to a slightly different set of risks.

The risks of friendly fire are evident from experience with the Patriot. More fundamentally, the inability of complex software to fully anticipate target behavior limits its reliability in battle, as seen in the first Gulf War. The PAC-3 system appears to have performed better in the second Gulf War; according to the Army, the defenses incapacitated nine out of nine missiles headed towards a defended asset. Thus, the PAC-3 system may be regarded as truly proven against a particular set of targets. But however well defenses perform against one set of targets, we cannot be assured that they will perform equally well against a new set of targets.

Additionally, defenses must be exceedingly reliable to defend against nuclear-armed missiles. In World War II, a 10 percent success rate was sufficient for air defenses to deter bombers, but the destructive power of nuclear weapons calls for a much higher success rate. If even one nuclear weapon gets by a defensive system, it can destroy a major city and its surroundings.

The greatest risk of all comes not with defenses themselves, but with overconfidence in their capabilities. In 2002, faith in military technology prompted then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to overrule seasoned military planners, insisting that high technology reduced the number of ground troops that were necessary in Iraq.  As we now know, this confidence was tragically misplaced.

The decision to rely upon a missile defense deployment should thus weigh the risks of a missile attack against the risks of friendly fire and of unreliable defenses. While the fly-before-you-buy approach is an essential step towards trustworthy defenses, field testing does not yield truly proven, or trustworthy, defenses. However proven a defensive system becomes in one battle context, it does not remain proven when it is adapted to another. Ultimately, the notion of proven and adaptive defenses is a contradiction in terms.

White House Office of the Press Secretary, “Fact Sheet on U.S. Missile Defense Policy,” September 17, 2009. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/FACT-SHEET-US-Missile-Defense-Policy-A-Phased-Adaptive-Approach-for-Missile-Defense-in-Europe/

Department of Defense, “Ballistic Missile Defense Review,” (January 2010): vi, 11. http://www.defense.gov/bmdr/docs/BMDR%20as%20of%2026JAN10%200630_for%20web.pdf

See National Research Council, Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense: An Assessment of Concepts and Systems for U.S. Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives (Washington D.C.: National Academies Press, 2012). “Report of the American Physical Society Study Group on Boost Phase Intercept Systems for National Missile Defense,” July 2003. http://www.aps.org/policy/reports/studies/upload/boostphase-intercept.PDF

Frederick Brooks, “No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering,” IEEE Computer (Addison-Wesley Professional, 1987), http://www-inst.eecs.berkeley.edu/~maratb/readings/NoSilverBullet.html.

When software engineers gathered for the twenty-year anniversary of Brooks’ article, they all agreed that his original argument had been proven correct despite impressive technological advances. See Frederick Brooks et al., “Panel: ‘No Silver Bullet’ Reloaded,” in 22nd Annual ACM SIGPLAN Conference on Object-Oriented Programming, Systems, Languages, and Applications (OOPSLA), ed. Richard Gabriel et al. (Montreal, Canada: ACM, 2007).

For a summary of such techniques, and reasons that they are not sufficient to produce reliable software, see David Parnas, “Software Aspects of Strategic Defense Systems,” Communications of the ACM 28, no. 12 (1985): 1326.

“F-22 Squadron Shot Down by the International Date Line,” Defense Industry Daily, March 1 2007. http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/f22-squadron-shot-down-by-the-international-date-line-03087/ Accessed June 15, 2014.

See for example, White House “Fact Sheet on U.S. Missile Defense Policy,” September 17, 2009 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/FACT-SHEET-US-Missile-Defense-Policy-A-Phased-Adaptive-Approach-for-Missile-Defense-in-Europe

For results on the SM3 Block 1, see Missile Defense Agency, “Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense testing record,” http://www.mda.mil/global/documents/pdf/aegis_tests.pdf October 2013. On the GMD, see Missile Defense Agency, “Ballistic Missile Defense Intercept Flight Test record,” last updated October 4, 2013 http://www.mda.mil/news/fact_sheets.html

See  for example, comments in “THAAD Soldiers take part in historic training exercise,” Fort Bliss Bugle, http://fortblissbugle.com/thaad-soldiers-take-part-in-historic-training-exercise/ ; BAE, “Bae Systems’ Seeker Performs Successfully In Historic Integrated Live Fire Missile Defense Test,” Press release, 7 February 2013, http://www.baesystems.com/article/BAES_156395/bae-systems-seeker-performs-successfully-in-historic-integrated-live-fire-missile-defense-test . Both accessed June 15, 2014.

Missile Defense Agency, “Ballistic Missile Defense Intercept Flight Test record,” last updated October 4, 2013 http://www.mda.mil/news/fact_sheets.html

This is based upon reports that 3 of 42 launches experienced target failures or anomalies between 2002-2005, and 6 of 38 launches experienced such failures from 2006-2007. See U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Sound Business Case Needed to Implement Missile Defense Agency’s Targets,” September 2008 http://www.gao.gov/assets/290/281962.pdf

George N. Lewis and Theodore A. Postol, “Video Evidence on the Effectiveness of Patriot During the 1991 Gulf War,” Science & Global Security 4 (1993).

Ibid; see also George N. Lewis and Theodore A. Postol, “Technical Debate over Patriot Performance in the Gulf War,” Science & Global Security 3 (2000). In fact, though Iraqis launched fewer Scuds after the Army deployed Patriot, evidence suggested that damage in Israel increased—suggesting that Patriot itself caused some damage.  See George N. Lewis and Theodore A. Postol, “An Evaluation of the Army Report “Analysis of Video Tapes to Assess Patriot Effectiveness” Dated 31 March 1992,”  (Cambridge MA: Defense and Arms Control Studies Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1992). Available online at /spp/starwars/docops/pl920908.htm

On the Patriot’s performance on the testing range before deployment, see “Performance of the Patriot Missile in the Gulf War,” Hearings before the Committee on Government Operations, 102^nd Congress, 2^nd sess., April 7, 1992.

Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering III (ret.) and Rebeccah Heinrichs, “In Defense of U.S. Missile Defense,” Letter to the International Herald Tribune, September 27, 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/28/opinion/28iht-edlet28.html?_r=2&

The Patriot was only designed to operate for 24 hours at a time before rebooting, and hence the timing problem did not matter in previous operating conditions. Technically this would be described as a “requirements failure.” GAO, “Patriot Missile Defense: Software Problem Led to System Failure at Dhahan, Saudi Arabia,”  (Washington, D.C.: General Accounting Office, 1992).

GAO, “Patriot Missile Defense: Software Problem Led to System Failure at Dhahan, Saudi Arabia.”

These stresses were one contributing factor to the downing of Iran Air flight 655 by the Vincennes in 1988; for a closer analysis, see Gene Rochlin, Trapped in the Net: The Unanticipated Consequences of Computerization (Princeton: Princeton U, 1998).

Clifford Johnson, “Patriots,” posted in the RISKS forum, 29 January 1991 http://www.catless.com/Risks/10.83.html#subj4

Jonathan Weisman, “Patriot Missiles Seemingly Falter for Second Time; Glitch in Software Suspected,” Washington Post, March 26 2003.

Bradley Graham, “Radar Probed in Patriot Incidents,” Washington Post, May 8, 2003.

Michael Williams and William  Delaney, “Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Patriot System Performance,”  (Washington, D.C.: Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, 2005).

Quality assurance has been a significant problem, for example, in the GMD. See David Willman, “$40 Billion Missile Defense System Proves Unreliable,” LA Times, June 15, 2014. http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-missile-defense-20140615-story.html#page=1 The “tacit knowledge” required to fabricate missile guidance technology has historically been a source of significant concern; see Donald MacKenzie, Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Ballistic Missile Guidance (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990).

U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Missile Defense: Mixed Progress in Achieving Acquisition Goals and Improving Accountability,” April 2014, p 16-17.

The GAO has warned that the U.S. approach to European defenses, by developing these eclectic systems concurrently, is increasing the risks that the system “will not meet the warfighter’s needs, with significant potential cost and schedule growth consequences.” GAO, “Missile Defense: European Phased Adaptive Approach Acquisitions Face Synchronization, Transparency, and Accountability Challenges,”  (Washington, D.C.: GAO, 2010), 3. For more on the NATO Active Layered Theater Ballistic Missile Defence (ALTBMD), and efforts to coordinate its command and control systems with those of individual member nations, see http://www.nato.int/nato_static/assets/pdf/pdf_2011_07/20110727_110727-MediaFactSheet-ALTBMD.pdf

Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “Trust, Not Tech, Big Problem Building Missile Defenses Vs. Iran, North Korea,”Ian E. Rinehart, Steven A. Hildreth, Susan V. Lawrence, Congressional Research Service Report, “Ballistic Missile Defense in the Asia-Pacific Region: Cooperation and Opposition,” June 24 2013. /sgp/crs/nuke/R43116.pdf

Sydney J. Freedberg Jr., “Trust, Not Tech, Big Problem Building Missile Defenses Vs. Iran, North Korea,” BreakingDefense.com, May 29, 2014,  http://breakingdefense.com/2014/05/trust-not-tech-big-problem-building-missile-defenses-vs-iran-north-korea/

http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/events/past-events/missile-defense-in-the-asia-pacific

James E Goodby and Sidney D Drell, “Rethinking Nuclear Deterrence” (paper presented at the conference Reykjavik Revisited: Steps Towards a World Free of Nuclear Weapons, Stanford, CA, 2007).

For a discussion of both issues, and references for further reading, see Rebecca Slayton, Arguments That Count: Physics, Computing, and Missile Defense, 1949-2012, Inside Technology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013).

Historically, the complexity of missile defense software has also made it prone to schedule delays and cost overruns.

Kadish testimony, Subcommittee on Defense, Committee on Appropriations, Department of Defense Appropriations, May 1 2003.

Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt, “Rumsfeld Orders War Plans Redone for Faster Action,” New York Times, 2002.

Rebecca Slayton is an Assistant Professor in Science & Technology Studies at the Judith Reppy Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies at Cornell University.  Her research examines how experts assess different kinds of risks in new technology, and how their arguments gain influence in distinctive organizational and political contexts. She is author of Arguments that Count: Physics, Computing, and Missile Defense, 1949-2012 (MIT Press: 2013), which compares how two different ways of framing complex technology—physics and computer science—lead to very different understandings of the risks associated with weapons systems. It also shows how computer scientists established a disciplinary repertoire—quantitative rules, codified knowledge, and other tools for assessment—that enabled them to construct authoritative arguments about complex software, and to make those analyses “stick” in the political process.

Slayton earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Harvard University in 2002, and completed postdoctoral training in the Science, Technology, and Society Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She has also held research fellowships from the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. She is currently studying efforts to manage the diverse risks—economic, environmental, and security—associated with a “smarter” electrical grid.

A critical assessment of the feasibility of reaching the Department of Defense’s goal of producing 80 plutonium pits (or triggers) for nuclear weapons was prepared by the Congressional Research Service. It provides new analysis of the space and material requirements needed to achieve the declared goal. See Manufacturing Nuclear Weapon “Pits”: A Decisionmaking Approach for Congress, August 15, 2014.

Other new or updated CRS reports obtained by Secrecy News include the following.

The U.S. Military Presence in Okinawa and the Futenma Base Controversy, August 14, 2014

India’s New Government and Implications for U.S. Interests, August 7, 2014

Guatemala: Political, Security, and Socio-Economic Conditions and U.S. Relations, updated August 7, 2014

Small Refineries and Oil Field Processors: Opportunities and Challenges, August 11, 2014

Telemarketing Regulation: National and State Do Not Call Registries, August 14, 2014

Immigration Policies and Issues on Health-Related Grounds for Exclusion, updated August 13, 2014

A Russian GLCM is launched from an Iskander-K launcher at Kapustin Yar in 2007.

The United States yesterday publicly accused Russia of violating the landmark 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

The accusation was made in the State Department’s 2014 Compliance Report, which states:

“The United States has determined that the Russian Federation is in violation of its obligations under the INF Treaty not to possess, produce, or flight-test a ground-launched cruise missile (GLCM) with a range capability of 500 km to 5,500 km, or to possess or produce launchers of such missiles.”

The Russian violation of the INF is, if true, a very serious matter and Russia must immediately restore its compliance with the Treaty in a transparent and verifiable manner.

Rumors about a violation have swirled around Washington (and elsewhere) for a long time. Apparently, the GLCM was first launched in 2007 (see image to the left), so why the long wait?

The official accusation it is likely to stir up calls for the United States to abandon the INF Treaty and other arms control efforts. Doing so would be a serious mistake that would undercut benefits from existing and possible future agreements. Instead the United States should continue to adhere to the treaty, work with the international community to restore Russian compliance, and pursue additional measures to reduce nuclear dangers worldwide.

What Violation?

The unclassified Compliance Report doesn’t specify the Russian weapon system that it concludes constitutes a violation of the INF Treaty. Nor does it specify when the violation occurred. The classified version and the briefings that the Obama administration has given Congress and European allies presumably are more detailed. All the Compliance Report says is that the violation concerns a GLCM with a range of 310 miles to 3,400 miles (500 km to 5,500 km).

While public official identification is still pending, news media reports and other information indicate that the violation possibly concerns the Iskander-K weapon system, a modification of the Iskander launcher designed to carry two cruise missiles instead of two SS-26 Iskander-M ballistic missiles.

[UPDATE December 2014: US Undersecretary of State Rose Gottemoeller helpfully removes some of the uncertainty: “It is a ground-launched cruise missile. It is neither of the systems that you raised. It’s not the Iskander. It’s not the other one, X-100 [sic; X-101].” And the missile “is in development.”

The cruise missile apparently was first test-launched at Kapustin Yar in May 2007. Russian news media reports at the time identified the missile as the R-500 cruise missile. Sergei Ivanov was present at the test and Vladimir Putin confirmed that “a new cruise missile test” had been carried out.

Public range estimates vary tremendously. One report claimed last month that the range of the R-500 is 1,243 miles (2,000 km), while most other reports give range estimates from 310 miles (500 km) and up. Images on militaryrussia.ru that purport to show the R-500 GLCM 2007-test show dimensions very similar to the SS-N-21 SLCM (see comparison below).

Images on militaryrussia.ru that purport to show the R-500 GLCM 2007-test show dimensions very similar to the SS-N-21 SLCM

The wildly different range estimates might help explain why it took the U.S. Intelligence Community six years to determine a treaty violation. A State Department spokesperson said yesterday  that the Obama administration “first raised this issue with Russia last year. ”The previous Compliance Report from 2013 (data cut-off date December 2012) did not call a treaty violation, and the 2013 NASIC report did not mention any GLCM at all.

So either there must have been serious disagreements and a prolonged debate inside the Intelligence Community about the capability of the GLCM. Or the initial flight tests did not exceed 310 miles (500 km) and it wasn’t until a later flight test with an extended range – perhaps in 2012 or 2013 – exceeded the INF limit that a violation was established. Obviously, much uncertainty remains.

Deployment Underway at Luga?

The Compliance Report, which covers through December 2013, does not state whether the GLCM has been deployed and one senior government official consulted recently did not want to say. And the New York Times in January 2014 quoted an unnamed U.S. government official saying the missile had not been deployed.

But since then, important developments have happened. Last month, Russian defense minister Sergei Shuigu visited the 26 Missile Brigade base near Luga south of Saint Petersburg, approximately 75 miles (120 km) from the Russian-Estonian border. A report of the visit was posted on the Russian Ministry of Defense’s web site on June 20^th.

The report describes introduction of the Iskander-M ballistic missile weapon system at Luga, a development that has been known for some time. But it also contains a number of photos, one of which appears to show transfer of an Iskander-K cruise missile canister between two vehicles.

The fact that the Russian MOD report shows both what appears to be the Iskander-M and the Iskander-K systems is interesting because images from another visit by defense minister Shuigo to the 114^th Missile Brigade in Astrakhanskaya Oblast in June 2013 also showed both Iskander-M and Iskander-K. During that visit, Shoigu said that Iskander was delivered in a complete set, rather than “piecemeal” as done before. That could indicate that the Iskander units are being equipped with both the Iskander–M ballistic missile and Islander-K cruise missile, and that Luga is the first western missile brigade to receive them.

A satellite image from April 9, 2014, shows significant construction underway at the Luga garrison that appears to include missile storage buildings and launcher tents for the Iskander weapon system (see image below). The base is upgrading from the Soviet-era SS-21 (Tochka) short-range ballistic missile.

Construction underway at the 26th Missile Brigade base near Luga show what appear to include missile storage buildings and launcher tents for the Iskander weapon system.

The eight garage-tents that are visible on the satellite photo also appear on the ground photos the Russian MOD published of defense minister Shuigo’s visit to Luga. The garages are in two groups bent in a slight angle that is also visible one of the ground photos (see middle photo of collage below).

Earlier this month, the acting commander of the western military district told Interfax that infrastructure to house the missiles is being built at the base where they will be stationed. And Russian news media reported that the first of the three Missile Battalions at Luga had completed training and the Iskander was accepted for service on July 8, 2014. The remaining two Battalions will complete training in September, at which time the 26^th Missile Brigade is scheduled to conduct a launch exercise in the western military district.

What the Report Doesn’t Say

Troubling as the alleged INF violation is, the Compliance Report also brings some good news by way of what it doesn’t say.

For example, the Compliance Report does not say that any Russia ballistic missiles violate the INF. Some speculated last year that Russia’s development of a new long-range ballistic missile – the RS-26, a modified version of the RS-24 (SS-27 Mod 2) intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) – was a violation because it was test-flown at less than 5,500 km. I challenged that at the time and the 2013 NASIC report clearly listed the “new ICBM” with a range of more than 5,500 km. The Compliance Report indirectly confirms that Russian longer-range ballistic missiles have not been found to be in violation of the INF.

Nor does the Compliance Report declare any shorter-range ballistic missiles – such as the SS-26 Iskander-M – to be in violation of the treaty. This is important because there have been rumors that the Iskander-M might have a range of 310 miles (500 km) or more.

As such, the Compliance Repot helpfully confirms indirectly that the Iskander-M range must be less than 310 miles (500 km). This conclusion matches the 2013 NASIC report, which lists the Iskander-M (SS-26) range as 186 miles (300 km).

The report also indirectly lay to rest rumors that the violation might have involved a sea-launched cruise missile that was test-launched on land.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The alleged Russian violation of the INF treaty is serious stuff that calls into question Russia’s status as a trustworthy country. That status has already taken quite a few hits recently with the annexation of Crimea and the proxy-war in eastern Ukraine. But it’s one thing for a country to withdraw from a treaty because it’s deemed no longer to serve national security interests; it’s quite another to cheat while pretending to abide by it.

That’s why the U.S. accusation is so serious that Russia has violated the terms of the 1987 INF Treaty by producing, flight-testing, and possessing a GLCM with a range of more than 310 miles (500 km). Unfortunately, the lack of details in the unclassified report will leave the public guessing about what the violation is and enable Russian officials to reject the accusation (at least in public) as unsubstantiated.

Shortly after the 2007 flight-test of the GLCM now seen as violating the INF, President Putin warned that it would be difficult for Russia to adhere to the INF Treaty if other countries developed INF weapons. He didn’t mention the countries but Russian defense experts said he meant China, India, and Pakistan.

By that logic, one would have expected Russia’s first deployment of Iskander-K and its GLCM to be in eastern or central Russia. Instead, the first deployment appears to be happening at Luga in the western military district, even though the United States no longer has GLCMs deployed in Europe.

There is a real risk that Russia will now formally withdraw from the INF Treaty. Doing so would be a serious mistake. First, it is because of the INF Treaty that Russia no longer faces quick-strike INF missiles in Europe. Moreover, continuing the INF treaty is Russia’s best hope of achieving some form of limitations on other countries’ INF weapons. But instead of trying to sell INF limitations to China and India, Putin has been busy selling them advanced weapons, including cruise missiles.

In the meantime, Russia must restore its compliance with the INF Treaty in a transparent a verifiable manner. Doing anything else will seriously undermine Russia’s international status and isolate it at next year’s nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.

Some will use Russia’s alleged INF violation to argue that the United States should withdraw from the INF treaty and abandon other arms control initiatives because Russia cannot be trusted. But the treaty has served its purpose well and it is in the U.S. and European interest to maintain and promote its norms to the extent possible. Besides, the United States and NATO have plenty of capability to offset any military challenge a potential widespread Russian GLCM deployment might pose.

Moreover, arms control treaties, such as the New START Treaty or future agreements, can have significant national security benefits by allowing the United Stated and its allies better confidence in monitoring the status and development of Russian strategic nuclear forces. For arms control opponents to use the INF violation to prevent further reductions of nuclear weapons that can otherwise hit American and allied cities seems downright irresponsible.

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

Unable to find the report online, I contacted Schlosser, who was kind enough to share it with me. (We owe him a debt of gratitude for obtaining it through a laborious Freedom of Information Act request.) The full report, Schlosser’s FOIA request, and my analysis of the report are now freely accessible on my Stanford web site. (The 1955 Army report, “Acceptable Military Risks from Accidental Detonation of Atomic Weapons,” on which this 1957 Sandia report builds, appears not to be available. If anyone knows of an existing copy, please post a comment.)

Using the same criterion as this report*, which, of course, is open to question, my analysis shows that nuclear terrorism would have to have a risk of at most 0.5% per year to be considered “acceptable.” In contrast, existing estimates are roughly 20 times higher.**

My analysis also shows, that using the report’s criterion*, the risk of a full-scale nuclear war would have to be on the order of 0.0005% per year, corresponding to a “time horizon” of 200,000 years. In contrast, my preliminary risk analysis of nuclear deterrence indicates that risk to be at least a factor 100 and possibly a factor of 1,000 times higher. Similarly, when I ask people how long they think we can go before nuclear deterrence fails and we destroy ourselves (assuming nothing changes, which hopefully it will), almost all people see 10 years as too short and 1,000 years as too long, leaving 100 years as the only “order of magnitude” estimate left, an estimate which is 2,000 times riskier than the report’s criterion would allow.

In short, the risks of catastrophes involving nuclear weapons currently appear to be far above any acceptable level. Isn’t it time we started paying more attention to those risks, and taking steps to reduce them?

* The report required that the expected number of deaths due to an accidental nuclear detonation should be no greater than the number of American deaths each year due to natural disasters, such as hurricanes, floods, and earthquakes.

** In the Nuclear Tipping Point video documentary Henry Kissinger says, “if nothing fundamental changes, then I would expect the use of nuclear weapons in some 10 year period is very possible” – equivalent to a risk of approximately 10% per year. Similarly, noted national security expert Dr. Richard Garwin testified to Congress that he estimate the risk to be in the range of 10-20 percent per year. A survey of national security expertsby Senator Richard Lugar was also in the 10% per year range.

 

By Hans M. Kristensen

In December 1963, a shipment of U.S. nuclear bombs arrived at Ghedi Torre Air Base in northern Italy. Today, half a century later, the U.S. Air Force still deploys nuclear bombs at the base.

The U.S.-Italian nuclear collaboration was celebrated at the base in January. A placard credited the nuclear “NATO mission” at Ghedi with having “protected the free nations of the world….”

That might have been the case during the Cold War when NATO was faced with an imminent threat from the Soviet Union. But half of the nuclear tenure at Ghedi has been after the end of the Cold War with no imminent threat that requires forward deployment of nuclear weapons in Europe.

Instead, the nuclear NATO mission now appears to be a financial and political burden to NATO that robs its armed forces of money and time better spent on non-nuclear missions, muddles NATO’s nuclear arms control message, and provides fake reassurance to eastern NATO allies.

Italian Nuclear Anniversary

Neither the U.S. nor Italian government will confirm that there are nuclear weapons at Ghedi Torre Air Base. The anniversary placard doesn’t even include the word “nuclear” but instead vaguely refers to the “NATO mission.”

But there are numerous tell signs. One of the biggest is the presence of the 704^th Munitions Support Squadron (MUNSS), a U.S. Air Force unit of approximately 134 personnel that is tasked with protecting and maintaining the 20 U.S. B61 nuclear bombs at the base. The MUNSS would not be at the base unless there were nuclear weapons present. There are only four MUNSS units in the U.S. Air Force and they’re all deployed at the four European bases where U.S. nuclear weapons are earmarked for delivery by aircraft of the host nation.

Another tell sign is the presence of NATO Weapons Maintenance Trucks (WMT) at Ghedi. NATO has 12 of these trucks that are specially designed to enable field service of nuclear bombs at the storage bases in Europe. A satellite image provided by Digital Globe via Google Earth shows a WMT parked near the 704^th MUNSS quarters at Ghedi on March 12, 2014. An older image from September 28, 2009, shows two WMTs at the same location (see image above).

These trucks will drive out to the 11 individual Protective Aircraft Shelters (PAS) that are equipped with underground Weapons Storage and Security System (WS3) vaults to service the B61 bombs. The WS3 vaults at Ghedi were completed in 1997; before that the weapons were stored in bunkers outside the main base. Once the truck is inside the shelter, the B61 is brought up from the vault, disassembled into its main sections as needed, and brought into the truck for service.

It is during this process of weapon disassembly when the electrical exclusion regions of the nuclear bomb are breached that a U.S. Air Force safety review in 1997 warned that “nuclear detonation may occur” if lightning strikes the shelter.

NATO is in the process of replacing the WMTs with a fleet of new nuclear weapons maintenance trucks known as the Secure Transportable Maintenance System (STMS). The trailers will have improved lightning protection. NATO provided $14.7 million for the program in 2011, and in July 2012 the U.S. Air Force awarded a $12 million contract to five companies in the United States to build 10 new STMS trailers for delivery by June 2014.

The new trailers will be able to handle the new B61-12 guided standoff nuclear bomb that is planned for deployment in Europe from 2020. The B61-12 apparently will be approximately 100 lbs pounds (~45 kilograms) heavier than the existing B61s in Europe (see slide below) – even without the internal parachute. This suggests that a fair amount of new or modified components will be added. To better handle the heavier B61-12, each trailer will be equipped with hoist rails.

The deployment to Ghedi 50 years ago was not the earliest or only deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons to Italy. During the Cold War, ten different U.S. nuclear weapon systems were deployed to Italy. The first weapons to arrive were Corporal and Honest John short-range ballistic missiles in August 1956. They were followed by nuclear bombs in April 1957 and nuclear land mines in 1959. All but one – nuclear bombs – of these nuclear weapon systems have since been withdrawn and scrapped.

A decade ago, most B61s in Europe were stored in Germany and the United Kingdom, but today, Italy has the honor of being the NATO country with the most U.S. nuclear weapons deployed on its territory; a total of 70 of all the 180 B61 bombs remaining in Europe (39 percent). Italy is also the only country with two nuclear bases: the Italian base at Ghedi and the American base at Aviano. Aviano Air Base is home to the U.S. 31^st Fighter Wing with two squadrons of nuclear-capable F-16 fighter-bombers. One of these, the 555^th Fighter Squadron, was temporarily forward deployed to Lask Air Base in Poland in March 2014.

The nuclear “NATO mission” that the 6^th Stormo wing at Ghedi Torre Air Base serves means that Italian Tornado aircraft are equipped and Italian Tornado pilots are trained in peacetime to deliver U.S. nuclear weapons in wartime. This arrangement dates back to before the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but it is increasingly controversial because Italy as a signatory to the NPT has pledged “not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons…or of control over such weapons…directly, or indirectly.”

The United States, also a signatory to the NPT, has committed “not to transfer to any recipient whatsoever nuclear weapons…or control over such weapons…directly, or indirectly; and not in any way to assist, encourage, or induce any non-nuclear-weapon State to…acquire nuclear weapons…, or control over such weapons….”

In peacetime, the B61 nuclear bombs at Ghedi are under the custody of the 704^th MUNSS, but the whole purpose of the NATO mission is to equip, train and prepare in peacetime for “transfer” and “control” of the U.S. nuclear bombs to the Italian air force in case of war.

The Nuclear Burden

Maintaining the NATO nuclear strike mission in Europe does not come cheap or easy but “steals” scarce resources from non-nuclear military capabilities and operations that – unlike tactical nuclear bombs – are important for NATO.

Italy pays for the basing of the U.S. Air Force 704^th MUNSS at Ghedi, for security upgrades needed to protect the weapons at the base, and for training pilots and maintaining Tornado aircraft to meet the stringent certification requirements for nuclear strike weapons. Moreover, the cost of securing the B61 bombs at the European bases is expected to more than double over the next few years (to $154 million) to meet increased U.S. security standards for storage of nuclear weapons.

But these costs are getting harder to justify given the serious financial challenges facing Italy. The air force’s annual flying hours dropped form 150,000 in 1990 to 90,000 in 2010, training reportedly declined by 80 percent from 2005 to 2011, and training for air operations other than Afghanistan apparently has been “pared to the bone.” In addition, the Italian defense posture is in the middle of a 30-percent contraction of the overall operational, logistical and headquarters network spending. The F-35 fighter-bomber program, part of which is scheduled to replace the current fleet of Tornados in the nuclear strike mission, has already been cut by a third and the new government has signaled its intension to cut the program further.

Under such conditions, maintaining a nuclear mission for the Italian air force better be really important.

Most of the costs of the European nuclear mission are carried by the United States. Over the next decade, the United States plans to spend roughly $10 billion to modernize the B61 bomb, over $1 billion more to make the new guided B61-12 compatible with four existing aircraft, another $350 million to make the new stealthy F-35 fighter-bomber nuclear-capable, and another $1 billion to sustain the deployment in Europe.

This adds up to roughly $12.5 billion for sustaining, securing, and modernizing U.S. nuclear bombs in Europe over the next decade. Whether the price tag is worth it obviously must to be weighed against the security benefits it provides to NATO, how well the deployment fits with U.S. and NATO nuclear arms control policy, and whether there are more important defense needs that could benefit from that level of funding.

Fake Versus Real Reassurance

The anniversary placard displayed at Ghedi Air Base claims that the U.S. non-strategic nuclear bombs have “protected the free nations of the world” even after the end of the Cold War. And during the nuclear safety exercise at Ghedi in January, the commander of the U.S. Air Force 52^nd Fighter Wing told the U.S. and Italian security forces that “your mission today is still as relevant as when together our country stared down the Soviet Union alongside a valued member of our enduring alliance.” (Emphasis added).

That is probably an exaggeration, to put it mildly. In fact, it is hard to find any evidence that the deployment of non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe after the end of the Cold War has protected anything or that the mission is even remotely as relevant today. The biggest challenge today seems to be to protect the weapons and to find the money to pay for it.

NATO’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, moreover, strongly suggests that NATO itself does not attribute any real role to the non-strategic nuclear weapons in reassuring eastern NATO allies of a U.S. commitment to defend them. Yet this reassurance role is the main justification used by proponents of the deployment. In hindsight, the reassurance effect appears to be largely doctrine talk, while NATO’s actual response has focused on non-nuclear forces and exercises.

To the extent that a potential nuclear card has been played, such as when three B-52 and two B-2 nuclear-capable bombers were temporarily deployed to England earlier this month, it was done with long-range strategic bombers, not tactical dual-capable aircraft. The fact that nuclear fighter-bombers were already in Europe seemed irrelevant. The same was done in March 2013, when the United States deployed long-range bombers over Korea to reassure South Korea and Japan against North Korean threats.

No eastern European ally has said: “Hold the bombers, hold the paratroopers, hold the naval exercises! The B61 nuclear bombs in Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Turkey are here to reassure us against Russia.”

In the real world, the non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe are fake reassurance because they are useless and meaningless for the kind of crises that face NATO allies today or in the foreseeable future. NATO pays a king’s ransom for the deployment with very little to show for it.

President Obama has asked for $1 billion to reassure Europe against Russia. But he could get a dozen non-nuclear European Reassurance Initiatives for the price of sustaining, modernizing, and deploying the non-strategic nuclear bombs in Europe. Doing so would help “put an end to Cold War thinking” as he promised in Prague five years ago.

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

 

The Pentagon’s latest annual report to Congress on the Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China describes continued broad modernization and growing reach of Chinese military forces and strategy.

There is little new on the nuclear weapons front in the 2014 update, however, which describes slow development of previously reported weapons programs. This includes construction of a handful of ballistic missile submarines; the first of which the DOD predicts will begin to sail on deterrent patrols later this year.

It also includes the gradual phase-out of the old DF-3A liquid-fuel ballistic missile and the apparent – and surprising – stalling of the new DF-31 ICBM program.

Like all the other nuclear-armed states, China is modernizing its nuclear forces. China earns the dubious medal (although not in the DOD report) of being the only nuclear weapons state party to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that is increasing it nuclear arsenal. Far from a build-up, however, the modernization is a modest increase focused on ensuring the survivability of a secure retaliatory strike capability (see here for China’s nuclear arsenal compared with other nuclear powers).

The report continues the Obama administration’s don’t-show-missile-numbers policy. Up until 2010, the annual DOD reports included a table overview of the composition of the Chinese missile force. But the overview gradually became less specific in until it was completed removed from the reports in 2013.

The policy undercuts the administration’s position that China should be more transparent about its military modernization by indirectly assisting Chinese government secrecy.

The main nuclear issues follow below.

Land-Based Nuclear Missile Developments

The DOD report formally identifies the new road-mobile ICBM under development as the DF-41, rumored at least since 1997 to be in development. The missile might “possibly [be] capable of carrying multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRV),” according to DOD. That obviously doesn’t mean that the DF-41 will carry them; the DF-5A has also been assessed for years to be capable of carrying MIRV without ever doing so.

The report lends some support to the assessment – although not explicitly – that deployment of the DF-31 ICBM has ceased after only 5-10 launchers deployed in a single brigade.

Instead, the focus of the road-mobile ICBM modernization appears to have shifted to the DF-31A ICBM, of which the DOD report predicts that more will be deployed by 2015.

The liquid-fuel DF-3A (CSS-2) IRBM is not mentioned in the 2014 report, an indication that the 3.3-megaton weapon system has finally been retired after 42 years in service. The last DF-3A-equipped Second Artillery brigade – the 810 Brigade north of Dalian in the Liaoning province – was seen in May 2014 to have been converted to the solid-fuel medium-range DF-21 MRBM.

The only other transportable liquid-fuel ballistic missile, the DF-4 (CSS-3) ICBM, is still operational with 10-15 launchers deployed in one or two brigades. But the missile is expected to be retired soon. When that happens, the only liquid-fuel ballistic missile left in the Chinese arsenals will be the 20 silo-based DF-5As (CSS-4 Mod 1) ICBM, which are still being ungraded.

The report also mentions conventional ballistic missiles under development, including several medium-range versions. That includes that anti-ship version of the DF-21 (CSS-5) – the DF-21D, which the report designates as the CSS-5 Mod 5. That suggests that other conventional MRBMs may also be under development.

Sea-Based Nuclear Missile Developments

The DOD report states that three Jin-class (Type 094) SSBNs have been delivered and that two more are in various stages of construction. One of these was seen at the Bohai shipyard in October 2013. After the Jin-program is completed, DOD expects that China will proceed to its next-generation SSBN (Type 096) over the next decade.

The report makes the prediction that “China is likely to conduct its first nuclear deterrence patrols with the JIN-class SSBN in 2014,” assuming that the JL-2 SLBM will finally become operational.

The prediction of the upcoming nuclear deterrent patrols is controversial given that the Chinese leadership so far has been very reluctant to hand over nuclear weapons to the military under normal circumstances. China has never conducted a SSBN deterrent patrol before and a Jin SSBN deploying with nuclear warheads loaded on its SLBMs would constitute a significant change in Chinese nuclear operational policy. It would also constitute the first-ever deployment of Chinese nuclear weapons outside the land-territory of China.

Nuclear-Capable Cruise Missile Developments

The DOD report does not explicitly attribute nuclear capability to China’s growing inventory of land-attack cruise missiles. Yet the 2013 NASIC report designates the DH-10 ground-launched cruise missile as “conventional or nuclear,” the same designation given to the Russian AS-4 and the Pakistani Ra’ad and Babur cruise missiles, weapons widely assumed to be nuclear-capable.

There are widespread rumors on Chinese Internet sites that the DH-10 has been modified for delivery by the H-6K intermediate-range bomber. It is unknown if that includes the apparently nuclear-capable version.

In addition, US Air Force Global Strike Command last year attributed the CJ-20 air-launched cruise missile with nuclear capability, but neither NASIC nor the DOD does so.

Additional background: FAS Nuclear Notebook: Chinese Nuclear Forces, 2013

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

In March 2013, the Senate voted down an amendment offered by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) to cut $700,000 from their budget that was set-aside for the National Security Working Group (NSWG). What many did not realize at the time was that this relatively small and obscure proposed cut would have eliminated one of the last traces of the bipartisan Congressional approach to debating arms control.

The NSWG first began as the Arms Control Observer Group, which helped to build support for arms control in the Senate. In recent years, there have been calls from both Democrats and Republicans to revive the Observer Group, but very little analysis of the role it played. Its history illustrates the stark contrast in the Senate’s attitude and approach to arms control issues during the mid- to late 1980s compared with the divide that exists today between the two parties.

The Arms Control Observer Group

The Arms Control Observer Group was first formed in 1985. At the time, the United States was engaged in talks with the Soviet Union on the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. To generate support for ongoing negotiations, Majority Leader Senator Bob Dole (R-KS), and Minority Leader Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV), with the endorsement of President Ronald Reagan, created the bipartisan Arms Control Observer Group. The Observer Group consisted of twelve senators, with four senators, two from each party, serving as co-chairs and created an official role for senators to join U.S. delegations as they negotiated arms control treaties. As observers, its members had two duties: to consult with and advise U.S. arms control negotiating teams, and “to monitor and report to the Senate on the progress and development of negotiations.”

During meetings with U.S. State Department negotiators, senators were able to present their views, ask questions, and even engage in candid and confidential exchanges of ideas and information. Senators were also allowed to meet with members of the Soviet delegations on an “informal” basis. The Observer Group believed that the “interplay of ideas” would assist negotiators and, if negotiations failed, the members would help their fellow senators explain the reasons why to the American public.

The Observer Group served a number of purposes. First, it was intended to supplement the activities of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Senator Byrd argued that the process that existed up until that point—where the Foreign Relations Committee became experts on treaties and the full Senate only began to understand the issues after the negotiation—was not functioning properly. Its creators argued, “the full Senate has focused its attention in the past only sporadically on the vital aspects of arms control negotiations, usually developing a knowledge and understanding of the issues being negotiated after the fact…the result of this fitful process has been generally unsatisfactory in recent years.” During the previous decade, the Executive Branch had failed to garner enough Senate support for several arms control initiatives: the Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty of 1976, the Threshold Test Ban Treaty of 1974, and the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II) of 1979, none of which were ratified by the United States. Although there had been previous attempts to involve senators in arms control negotiations, the Observer group provided “more regular and systematic involvement” from the full Senate long before a vote took place.

The formation of the Observer Group publicly demonstrated the important role of arms control in national security matters. The resolution that created the group states that senators have the “obligation to become as knowledgeable as possible concerning the salient issues, which are being addressed in the context of the negotiating process. Any accord with the Soviet Union to control or reduce our strategic weapons carries considerable weight for our nation.” According to Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA), a founding member of the Observer Group, “the goal [was] to have the Senate fulfill both halves of its constitutional responsibilities, not only the consent half—that’s what we’ve been looking to primarily in the past—but also the advice half.”

Additionally, the Observer Group helped develop institutional knowledge and expertise on arms control within the Senate. The Group’s founding members stated that they believed it was necessary to become “completely conversant” in issues related to treaty negotiations and that such knowledge was “critical” to the Senate’s understanding of the issues involved. To achieve that goal, they held regular behind closed-door briefings on negotiations for senators and their staff and some staffers were able to review related classified materials.  Observer Group members were conversant in issues related to previous arms control treaties, missile defense, the connection between strategic offense and defense, and treaty compliance.

Above all, the Observer Group was intended to help build bipartisan support for President Reagan’s arms control initiatives. The group was seen as a mediating body. When it was formed, Senators Dole and Byrd co-authored a resolution stating that the Observer Group was part of “an ongoing process to reestablish a bipartisan spirit in this body’s consideration of vital national security and foreign policy issues.” Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), who was one of the original members of the Observer Group, agreed by affirming, “The observer group is tremendously important to forming a consensus on which ratification might occur.” The Group’s 1985 report to Congress endorsed “the broad bipartisan support of the Senate for the Administration’s arms control efforts…determination to be as patient as necessary to achieve a sound agreement…the seriousness with which the Senate, including the Observer group intends to fulfill its constitutionally-mandated role in the treaty-making process.” This opinion was also shared by the Reagan administration. In a letter to Senators Dole and Byrd, Secretary of State George Shultz stated that he thought the Observer Group would help facilitate unity on arms control.

It is difficult to demonstrate the extent of its influence as the years the Observer Group was most active were also the years in which arms control was seen by both parties as a vital part of U.S. policy.  The success of these initiatives was clearly not solely due to the Observer Group, but it did play a role. Every one of the original Group’s members voted in favor of the INF Treaty in 1988, which passed 93-5.  Similarly, all of the senators within the Group voted in favor of ratifying the 1992 START Treaty, which passed 93-6.

The National Security Working Group

Towards the end of the 1990s, the Senate’s attitude towards arms control changed. Negotiations between the United States and Russia on a legally binding nuclear reduction treaty had stalled. The Senate had voted down the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Reflecting this changing point of view, in 1999, Senator Trent Lott (R-MS), wanted to further diminish the Senate’s focus and expertise on arms control issues. He proposed an amendment that expanded the Observer Group’s purview to include observing talks related to missile defense and export controls and renamed it the National Security Working Group. For nearly a decade during the George W. Bush administration, which pursued relatively little in terms of legally binding arms control agreements, the NSWG was relatively dormant.

This changed in 2009 under the Obama administration when the Executive Branch started briefing senators about the ongoing New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) negotiations. From July 6, 2009, when President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed an agreement to reduce American and Russian nuclear arsenals, to April 10, 2010, when they signed the negotiated treaty, the NSWG was revived in order to give senators a role in observing the negotiation process. During this ten-month period, the NSWG began meeting again. The meetings were open to members of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees and were well attended, with roughly 50 percent attendance from those who were invited. Senators who participated in the Working Group knew it was a serious matter and paid attention to it. As a result of their attendance, they left meetings better informed on issues related to arms control.

Throughout the course of Senate deliberation of New START, Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) served as the Republican Party’s key interlocutor with Democrats. Unlike his predecessors in the Observer Group, Senator Kyl did not see the Working Group as a vehicle for bipartisan cooperation and consensus building. Senator Kyl used his position as the chief negotiator to disrupt the Obama administration’s legislative agenda on arms control.

Senator Kyl used issues peripheral to the treaty, such as missile defense and modernization of the nuclear stockpile, to “slow roll” the legislative process and prevent the administration from pursuing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which he ardently opposed.¹ According to one account, Senator Kyl “was not using the Working Group. It was just a tool to stop the policy. There wasn’t a getting to yes option. It wasn’t there to get to yes. If the members of the group aren’t inclined to get to yes, then the mechanism won’t get them there.”  Further, he “came prepared to ask tough questions, not just to listen and probe. He was there to look for chinks in the arms and attack in front of his colleagues. He wanted his colleagues to see it.”

In an effort to prevent Senator Kyl from disrupting meetings, Senate staff made the NSWG open to all members of the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees. They also made sure that senior Democratic leadership was present for all of the NSWG meetings. Either Senator John Kerry (D-MA) or Carl Levin (D-MI) served as Chair and were both prepared to answer all questions and concerns.

Despite this impediment, senators still appear to have found the Working Group useful. Senator Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the NSWG provided an opportunity to bring senators in at the beginning of the negotiation process, and “through the group” there were “many opportunities to learn of the progress and details of negotiations and to provide our advice and views to the administration throughout the process.” He praised the NSWG’s work, arguing that it was a “key” part of the treaty ratification process because it allowed senators to begin meeting with the administration “early in the process of negotiation” before New START was finalized. He said that during the New START process, “members of the National Security Working Group asked a great number of questions, received answers at a number of meetings, stayed abreast of the negotiation details, and provided advice to the administration.” Finally, he added that, through the NSWG, the administration had the opportunity to respond to senators’ questions and concerns, which helped to avoid problems during the Senate’s consideration of the treaty.

The Senate was less supportive of arms control this time around. Even with senators actively involved in the NSWG, only 13 Republicans ended up supporting the treaty. Of those 13, only four Republicans were members of the Working Group (Senators Lugar, Corker, Voinovich, and Cochran). Among those four, only Senator Lugar was a particularly strong advocate for the treaty.

At best, the Working Group had a mixed track record and certainly did not have the same kind of success as the Observer Group. Only two senators traveled to observe New START negotiations. There was no spirit of cooperation or strong bipartisan support for the treaty. The Working Group essentially became a courtroom where New START could be prosecuted.

The Future of the NSWG

Since the vote on New START, the NSWG has not been any more successful in helping to foster bipartisanship. At the beginning of the 113^th session of Congress, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) were appointed co-chairs.  Senator Rubio, like Senator Kyl, has attempted to impede the Obama Administration’s work on arms control.

While the cooperative atmosphere that surrounded the Arms Control Observer Group seems like an anachronism in today’s political climate, this is not meant to argue that senators within the Working Group need to agree on everything. There were major disagreements over nuclear policy during the Reagan administration and at times, heated discussions within the Observer Group. The difference was that the Observer Group was effective because the senators who were in it believed that arms control could advance U.S. national interests and wanted the group to succeed.

Today, the NSWG suffers from three broader trends within the United States that inhibit this attitude. The first is that the partisanship that exists in the Working Group is a reflection of the divisions in Congress. Given this dynamic, if there is any chance for the NSWG to serve as a valuable forum, individuals looking for the spotlight cannot be given the opportunity to hijack it. Secondly, since the end of the Cold War, detailed, negotiated arms control agreements are decreasingly seen as important to advancing U.S. national interests. There is diminishing prestige or interest in being a member of the NSWG or in supporting arms control. Thirdly, the Republican Party is far more skeptical about any legally binding international commitments than it once was.

These trends are unfortunate. The fact is that arms control still has a role to play in advancing U.S. interests and promoting international peace and stability. There are numerous issues that the United States and Russia will still need to address together. They continue to cooperate on issues related to Iran and reducing the risk of nuclear terrorism. They will likely still continue to communicate about issues related to U.S. missile defense deployment. Some think that current problems between the United States and Russia are evidence that this is not the case, but it was this kind of tension that led both countries to arms control in the first place. For this reason, diplomacy will remain an important policy tool for preventing catastrophic war between the two countries.

With diminishing nuclear policy expertise in a divided Senate, there is a need for a group of engaged, knowledgeable senators invested in arms control. For this reason, the NSWG will continue to have the opportunity to play a constructive role in informing the Senate on these issues and allowing senators into the diplomatic process.

The first members of the Group were Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), Sam Nunn (D-Georgia), Richard Lugar (R-Indiana), Claiborne Pell (D-Rhode Island), Al Gore (D-Tennessee), Ted Kennedy (D-Massachusetts), Pat Moynihan (D-New York), Don Nickles (R-Oklahoma), John Warner (R-Virginia), and Malcolm Wallop (R-Wyoming).

Foreword, Report of the Senate Arms Control Observer Group Delegation to the Opening of the Arms Control, Negotiations with the Soviet Union in Geneva, Switzerland, March 9-12, (III) 1985.

Origin and Summary of Activities, Report of the Senate Arms Control Observer Group Delegation to the Opening of the ArmsControl, Negotiations with the Soviet Union in Geneva, Switzerland, March 9-12, 1985.

Transcript of Press Conference of Observer Group in Geneva, March 12, 1985, Report of the Senate Arms Control Observer Group Delegation to the Opening of the Arms Control, Negotiations with the Soviet Union in Geneva, Switzerland, March 9-12, 1985.

Origin and Summary of Activities, Report of the Senate Arms Control Observer Group Delegation to the Opening of the Arms Control, Negotiations with the Soviet Union in Geneva, Switzerland, March 9-12, 1985.

Janne E. Nolan, “Preparing for the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review,” Arms Control Today, November 2000, http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2000_11/nolan

Congressional Staffer (April 4, 2013), personal interview.

Kyl, Jon, Memo to National Security Working Group Republican Members: Report on the NSWG CODEL to Observe the Geneva Negotiations, November 23, 2009, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/images/091123_20091121_-_Kyl_Memo_to_NSWG_-_NSWG_START_mission.pdf.

Senator Carl Levin (MI), “Authorizing Expenditures by Committees,” Congressional Record (March 5, 2013), p. S1103.

Kristine Bergstrom, “Rubio vs Gottemoeller: The New Partisan Politics of Senate Nuclear Confirmations,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 7, 2014, http://carnegieendowment.org/2014/03/07/rose-gottemoeller-marco-rubio-and-new-partisan-politics-of-senate-nuclear-confirmations/h2mq.

Nickolas Roth is a research associate at the Project on Managing the Atom in the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School. Nickolas Roth previously worked as a policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, where he wrote extensively about the industrial infrastructure responsible for maintaining the nuclear weapons stockpile. Mr. Roth has a B.A. in History from American University and a Masters of Public Policy from the University of Maryland, where he is currently a research fellow. Mr. Roth’s written work has appeared or been cited in dozens of media outlets around the world, including the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Asahi Shimbun, Boston Globe, and Newsweek.  

“Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it,” warned British statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke more than 200 years ago. Having recently delved into reading about the history of the first group of American atomic scientists and their efforts to deal with the nuclear arms race, I have realized that Burke was right. More so, I would underscore that the ideas of these intellectual path-breakers are still very much alive today, and that even when we are fully cognizant of this history we are bound to repeat it. By studying these scientists’ ideas, Robert Gilpin in his 1962 book, American Scientists and Nuclear Weapons Policy, identifies three schools of thought: (1) control, (2) finite containment, and (3) infinite containment.

The control school had its origins in the Franck Report, which had James Franck, an atomic scientist at the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago serve as the lead drafter of the report which argued that “any international agreement on prevention of nuclear armaments must be backed by actual and efficient controls.” Seventy Manhattan Project scientists signed this report in June 1945, which was then sent to Secretary of War Henry Stimson. They suggested that instead of detonating atomic bombs on Japan, the United States might demonstrate the new weapon on “a barren island” and thus say to the world, “You see what sort of a weapon we had but did not use. We are ready to renounce its use in the future if other nations join us in this renunciation and agree to the establishment of an efficient control.” As we all know, the United States government did not take this advice during the Second World War.

But in 1946, the United States put forward in the Acheson-Lilienthal Report (in which J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of the Manhattan Project, served as the lead drafter) ideas for international control of atomic energy. In the form of the Baruch Plan, this proposal before the fledging United Nations faced opposition from the Soviet Union, which wanted to arm itself with nuclear weapons before accepting a U.S. plan that could leave the United States wielding a monopoly on nuclear arms. However, the control school has been kept alive in part, through the founding in 1957 of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has the dual mission to promote peaceful nuclear power and safeguard these programs. Periodically, concepts are still put forward to create multilateral means to exert some control over uranium enrichment and reprocessing of plutonium, the methods to make fissile material for nuclear reactors or bombs. Many of the founders and leading scientists of FAS such as Philip Morrison and Linus Pauling belonged to the control school.

Starting in the late 1940s, disillusionment about the feasibility of international control was setting in among several atomic scientists active in FAS and advisory roles for the government. They began to see the necessity for making nuclear weapons to contain the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, there were those who believed that international controls should continue to be pursued in parallel with production of atomic bombs. Thus, a sharp division did not exist between the control and finite containment schools of thought. Oppenheimer exemplified this view in a speech on September 17, 1947, to the National War College where he extolled the “soundness” of the control proposals but lamented that “the very bases for international control between the United States and the Soviet Union were being eradicated by a revelation of their deep conflicts of interest, the deep and apparently mutual repugnance of their ways of life, and the apparent conviction on the part of the Soviet Union of the inevitably of conflict—and not in ideas alone, but in force.”

Reading this, I think of the dilemma the United States faces with Iran over efforts to control the Iranian nuclear program while confronting decades of mistrust. One big difference between Iran and the Soviet Union is that Iran, as a non-nuclear weapon state party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, is legally obligated to not make or acquire nuclear explosives whereas the Soviet Union never had such legal restrictions. Thus, Iran has already agreed to accept controls through safeguards on its nuclear program. The question is what additional controls Iran will agree to accept in order to provide needed assurances that it does not have a nuclear weapons program and will not develop such in the future. In parallel, the United States is strengthening containment mostly via a military presence in the Persian Gulf region and providing weapons and defense systems to U.S. allies in the Middle East. Scientists play vital roles both in improving methods of control via monitoring, safeguarding, and verifying Iran’s nuclear activities and in designing new military weapon systems for containment through the threat of force.

How much military force is enough to contain or deter? The scientists who believed in finite containment were generally reluctant, and even some were opposed, to advocating for more and more powerful weapons. As Gilpin examines in his book, the first major schism among the scientists was during the internal government debate in 1949 and 1950 about whether to develop the hydrogen bomb. In particular, the finite containment scientists on the General Advisory Committee to the Atomic Energy Commission assessed that “an American decision not to construct the hydrogen bomb would again symbolize the sincerity of America’s desire to end the atomic arms race.”

In contrast, the infinite containment school that included Edward Teller (who was instrumental in designing the hydrogen bomb), and Ernest Lawrence (who was a scientific leader during the Manhattan Project and was based at the University of California, Berkeley), “argued that control over nuclear weapons would only be possible in a completely open world such as that envisioned in the Baruch Plan. Under the conditions of modern science, the arms race would therefore be unavoidable until the political differences underlying that arms race were settled” in the words of Gilpin. Many of the infinite containment scientists were the strongest advocates for declassifying nuclear secrets as long as there were firm assurances that nations had joined together to prevent the use of nuclear energy for military purposes or that “peace-loving nations had a sufficient arsenal of atomic weapons [to] destroy the will of aggressive nations to wage war.” In effect, they were arguing for world government or for a coalition of allied nations to enforce world peace.

Readers will be reminded of many instances in which history has repeated itself as mirrored by the control, finite containment, and infinite containment ways of thought arising from the atomic scientists’ movement of the 1940s and 1950s. Despite the disagreements among these “schools,” a common belief is that the scientists “knew that technical breakthroughs rarely come unless one is looking for them and that if the best minds of the country were brought in to concentrate on the problem, someone would find a solution … if there were one to be found,” according to Gilpin. Gilpin also astutely recommended that “wisdom flourishes best and error is avoided most effectively in an atmosphere of intellectual give and take where scientists of opposed political persuasions are pitted against one another.” Finally, he uncovered a most effective technique for “bring[ing] about the integration of the technical and policy aspects of policy” through “the contracted study project … wherein experts from both inside and outside of the government meet together over a period of months to fashion policy suggestions in a broad area of national concern.”

This, in effect, is the new operational model for much of FAS’s work. We are forming study groups and task forces that include diverse groups of technical and policy experts from both inside and outside the government. Stay tuned to reports from FAS as these groups tackle urgent and important science-based national security problems.

Charles D. Ferguson, Ph.D.

President, Federation of American Scientists

The Greatest Threat

The weapon was ready, a simple fission device similar to the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. It had been finally assembled in a rented storage space on the outskirts of Las Vegas. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had spent years quietly contemplating while meticulously planning this diabolical, logistically challenging mission. Among other things, the plot necessitated recruiting and directing a number of operatives, some technically skilled, located in several countries. All were individuals devoted to his cause and committed to the Jihadist goal of detonating a nuclear bomb in an American city. He chose Las Vegas because the city epitomized western decadence.

The bomb’s essential component – 140 pounds of highly enriched uranium (HEU) – had been stolen or secretly purchased, bit-by-bit, mostly from Pakistan, but also from India, North Korea, Russia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan. It took years to collect, hide and safeguard all the necessary HEU in northwest Pakistan. From there, small pieces of the fissile material and some structural bomb components, hidden and well shielded in multiple shipments, were transported to U.S. ports or border crossings, and eventually to Las Vegas and the rented storage space. With all the components covertly acquired or fabricated by dedicated Jihadists in Pakistan and the United States, the relatively simple bomb finally could be assembled. It was comprised of a long, large-bore, artillery-type barrel; a heavy-duty breech; and enough chemical explosive to propel an appropriately shaped, 70-pound HEU piece through the barrel at very high velocity into another appropriately shaped, 70-pound piece of HEU affixed to the end of the barrel. Slamming together these two sub-critical masses would create the critical mass needed for an explosive chain reaction.

It was time. The plan of attack was straightforward and foolproof. Weighing under a ton and less than a dozen feet long, the weapon in its lead-lined crate fit easily inside a small, rented truck. A lone, suicidal operative drove and parked the truck near the Strip, then activated the electronic device triggering the detonator that set off the chemical explosion. The HEU bullet accelerated through the barrel and merged almost instantaneously with the target HEU. Within microseconds, the critical mass exploded, releasing kilotons of energy, a blinding, rapidly expanding ball of light, heat and deadly radiation. A shock wave propagated through the atmosphere, flattening almost every building within a half-mile of the detonation point. Tens of thousands were dead or injured. Las Vegas was in ruins. The threat had become reality.

When President Obama declared in 2009 that “nuclear terrorism is the most immediate and extreme threat to global security,” it was scarcely noticed. Yet when questionable sources announced that the Mayan Calendar predicted the end of the world in 2012, media and public attention was astonishing. The apocalyptic prediction arising from myth took hold, while a warning of potential catastrophe based in reality, put forth by Barack Obama in Prague, passed us by. Supernatural doomsday scenarios readily gain traction in our public discourse, but threats to our civilization from proven nuclear dangers elude us.

The public and press largely ignored other sobering news in 2010 when Wikileaks revealed that a 2009 cable from the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, warned that “our major concern is not having an Islamic militant steal an entire weapon, but rather the chance someone working in government of Pakistan facilities could gradually smuggle out enough enriched uranium to eventually make a weapon.”

By raising the specter of nuclear terrorism, the Wikileaks revelation gave concrete urgency to President Obama’s abstract concerns. But few paid attention, in part because few understand nuclear weapons risks and realities.

Passage of time and reluctance to think the unthinkable have generated complacency. No nuclear weapon has been used aggressively since the August 9, 1945, attack on Nagasaki. Despite the existence of vast numbers of nuclear weapons, Americans expect nuclear restraint because they believe Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) is a reliable deterrent. MAD presumably ensures that a country first using nuclear weapons will be wiped out by a retaliatory blow. But if a non-state entity were to perpetrate a nuclear weapons attack, at whom and where would retaliation be directed? An act of nuclear terrorism would obviate 69 years of stability engendered by MAD, an appropriately chosen topic of satirical banter in the film “Dr. Strangelove,” yet a grim reality.

Obama’s words that nuclear terrorism is an “immediate and extreme threat” are not an exaggeration. Terrorists now have new opportunities to covertly fabricate nuclear weapons on their own, and the threat is compounded by the potential anonymity of the attackers.

The cable allegedly sent by Ambassador Patterson leads to several questions: what is enriched uranium and how available is it? How is it used in a bomb, and who could use it? Where and how could it be delivered? What would be its effect? And perhaps the first and biggest question – why would terrorists aspire to manufacture, deploy, and detonate a nuclear weapon?

The 9/11 attacks marked the beginning of a “Terrorist Era” with a capital T. That triple attack profoundly disturbed, shocked and injured the nation, psychologically as well as physically. It suggested that a goal of certain terrorists is the destruction of the United States and its allies, and nuclear capability would make that goal attainable.

In 1998, Osama bin Laden declared that it was his Islamic duty to acquire weapons of mass destruction. Because Islam deplores killing women and children, religious justification was sought for such weapons. In 2003, three Saudi clerics associated with Al Qaeda provided justification in a fatwa that stated:“One kills in a good manner only when one can.”

Thus the “why” can be revenge for the deaths of Muslim civilians or Osama bin Laden, Jihadist punishment of a decadent, anti-Islamic civilization, or retribution for western support of Israel. Still, the easily stated words “nuclear revenge” are not readily internalized. Unlike “tsunami” or “colon cancer,” the term “nuclear terrorism” does not usually evoke a visceral reaction. Such a response is unlikely until people intellectually and emotionally comprehend the potential threat of rogue nuclear weapons. And comprehension requires some understanding of the bomb itself.

In addition to understanding the weapon, people also must grasp the feasibility and consequences of an act of nuclear terrorism. A credible scenario can provide this. In his book, The Second Nuclear Age, Yale Professor Paul Bracken argues that war games based upon scenarios involving nuclear weapons played a significant role in clarifying and shaping strategic thinking during the height of the Cold War. “Scenarios set the stage for the game’s interactions,” he wrote. “Scenarios…are hypothetical plot outlines of plausible future developments. They are not forecasts or predictions…”

The Pentagon hypothesizes terrorist scenarios, but the public does not. Our opening Las Vegas scenario attempts to focus the reader’s mind on the real potential for nuclear catastrophe.

But first the Bomb.

The Bomb

Tremendous energy can be released when the nucleus or inner core of an atom undergoes a transformation. For uranium, the energy releasing transformation is the splitting apart or fission of the nucleus, producing various combinations of lighter atoms such as barium and krypton as “fission products.”

Uranium can exist in different forms or “isotopes,” but all isotopes of uranium contain 92 positively charged protons in the nucleus with 92 negatively charged electrons dancing around the nucleus. These charged particles determine uranium’s chemical properties. However, the uranium nucleus also can contain varying numbers of uncharged neutrons. Somewhat greater than ninety-nine percent of uranium found in nature – uranium isotope 238 – has 146 neutrons in the nucleus. Thus the isotope’s 92 protons and 146 neutrons account for its atomic weight of 238.

Uranium-235, with only 143 neutrons, is the dangerous isotope –because it tends to easily fission if it absorbs a neutron. The fissioning of U-235 powered the bomb that exploded over Hiroshima. Fortunately this isotope is very rare; less than one percent of all forms of uranium found in the earth consist of U-235. Uranium can create an explosive chain reaction—only if U-235 is in highly concentrated form, which is extremely difficult to obtain as described later. But first we explain the basics of nuclear bomb design.

While modern hydrogen-plutonium bombs use a fission-fusion reaction to create the most powerful explosions (which can also use highly enriched uranium instead of plutonium to start the fission reaction), the easiest first-generation atomic bomb to construct entails only fission of highly enriched uranium (HEU), with a concentration of typically 80 percent or greater in the fissile isotope U-235. The Hiroshima bomb was essentially an artillery gun in which chemical explosives fired one 70-pound piece of HEU into another 70-pound piece of HEU, with an average enrichment of 80 percent U-235. The design was so simple that J. Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director of Los Alamos, decided that the prototype did not need to be tested. (One of the reasons not to do a proof test was due to the very limited HEU available during the Second World War.) Indeed the first test of this gun-type bomb occurred when it exploded with such devastating effect at 1,900 feet above Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, killing nearly 100,000 people. Weapons developers at Los Alamos avoided using the word bomb, instead giving euphemistic names such as gadget to their creations. The Hiroshima weapon was inaptly named “Little Boy.”

During the Manhattan Project, the great challenge was collecting and concentrating fissionable U-235. Because U-238 and U-235 have identical chemical properties, separation can only be achieved by exploiting the slight difference in mass arising from one isotope having three more neutrons than the other. One method of separation for enrichment purposes was developed using electric and magnetic forces in a modified form of the cyclotron called the calutron. A second method involved creating a compound in gaseous form of uranium and fluorine, then passing the gas through successive microscopic filters making use of the principle of diffusion.

After the Second World War, improved centrifuges emerged as a more efficient method for enriching uranium. A Dutch company, which became part of the Urenco consortium that also includes Germany and the United Kingdom, was an early adopter of the improved centrifuge technology. Commercial production of enriched uranium for nuclear power plants became a worldwide activity. A. Q. Khan, a Pakistani metallurgist working at the Dutch facility, stole the centrifuge design drawings and brought the technology to Pakistan by the mid-1970s. Throughout the 1980s to the early 2000s, he then sold enrichment equipment to Iran, North Korea, and Libya, and had a vast network of suppliers in at least a dozen other countries.

Having used these centrifuge designs to enable large-scale production of enriched uranium, today Pakistan is rapidly achieving status as having one of the largest and fastest growing stockpile of nuclear weapons after the United States, Russia and China. While some nuclear-armed countries are reducing their weapons count, Pakistan has a vigorous program of nuclear weapons development. Its stockpile is thought to have 100 to 200 nuclear weapons.

Production of nuclear weapons is of great concern, but production of highly enriched uranium is even more worrisome. Although a nuclear bomb might be stolen from a country’s stockpile, it would have anti-activation safeguards (such as access codes and electronic locks) that a thief would find very difficult to penetrate. However, highly enriched uranium for a terrorist is like flour for a baker. Each material is simply one ingredient from which something much more impressive can be concocted. Pakistan continues to produce weapons-grade U-235 at a more intense rate than any country in the world. It is reliably estimated that they have stockpiled thousands of pounds of enriched U-235 that could lead to the fabrication of dozens of new nuclear weapons.

Eyes continue to focus on Pakistan as a potential source of nuclear bomb material. Yet unsecured highly enriched uranium elsewhere has been a worry for many years. Of particular concern have been the vast amounts of weapons-grade uranium that were left relatively unguarded in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan after the break-up of the Soviet Union. These have been potential access points for terrorists. Hundreds of secret bombs could have been fabricated.

Prior to 9/11, we could not imagine rogue, non-state entities having the ability to construct a nuclear weapon. Yet vast numbers of reports, documents, drawings and photographs from the Manhattan Project have been declassified. The Little Boy development work at Los Alamos is available for the world to examine. Following 9/11, government agents visited war museums in the United States to remove publicly displayed, artillery-gun components replicating Little Boy. But the proverbial horse was already out of the barn.

Conceivably, determined terrorists could acquire 140 pounds of weapons-grade uranium-235, the amount used in the Hiroshima bomb. While a person weighing 140 pounds would fully occupy a seat at a dinner table, 140 pounds of uranium, the densest of all naturally occurring elements, is less than the size of a football.With the material in hand, processing and fabrication steps for constructing a weapon rely on well-established and widely known metallurgical and manufacturing techniques. Who then might do this? Where would construction take place? And under whose leadership?

A Return to Our Scenario

The villain of our hypothetical scenario is the leader of a militant group located in the tribal territory of Northwestern Pakistan.Skeptics may doubt that our protagonist, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, could obtain the equipment and expertise needed for weaponization of highly enriched uranium. While not on Abercrombie and Kent tourist itineraries, the frontier region of Northwest Pakistan is the site of the colorful village of Darra Adam Khel. This unique tribal enclave near the Khyber Pass, just 20 miles South of Peshawar, has been manufacturing copies of small weapons since the late 19th century using basic lathes, drills and other readily available tools. During the Mujahideen struggle with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, the United States was not unhappy to see their production of anti-aircraft weapons. Darra Adam Khel is a major source of weapons in the South Asia region. The potential to fabricate the components for a Little Boy clone clearly exists there.

Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders have been eliminated, but other militant jihadists have the capacity and the will to engage in development and use of a nuclear weapon. We chose Gulbuddin for our scenario because he was involved with the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, he controls a formidable belligerent organization with the resources to actualize this sequence of events, and he is not part of Al Qaeda or the Taliban. An Afghan student of engineering at Kabul University in the early 1970s, he organized at that time what was probably the first militant Islamic organization in Afghanistan. His student group shot at and threw acid at women in Kabul who were wearing mini-skirts. In a confrontation in 1972 with the rival Maoist political group on campus, Gulbuddin shot and killed their leader. After being imprisoned, he escaped and was given refuge by Islamic fundamentalist elements of the Pakistani government in 1975. Some officials in Pakistan, which had border region disputes with Afghanistan since its founding in 1947, saw in Gulbuddin a potential ally in future conflicts with Afghanistan.

In the early 1980s, when the United States started channeling large amounts of funds and weapons to the Mujahideen for their struggle with the Soviet Union, the Pakistan intelligence agency, the ISI, provided Gulbuddin with a substantial portion of those resources. This enabled the charismatic fanatic to establish a formidable organization known as Hezb-e-Islami.

During the mid-1980s Gulbuddin was instrumental in organizing terrorist training camps in Afghanistan to which “Arab” fighters were invited. Gulbuddin welcomed Osama bin Laden, who first came to Afghanistan to fight the infidel Soviets.

Gulbuddin and his organization did not pursue the Soviets as fully as they might have, since he was waiting to use his fighting potential in a putsch to take over Afghanistan following the departure of the Red Army. He did indeed engage in a civil war for control of Afghanistan that began in 1992. But after achieving the position of Prime Minister of Afghanistan in 1993, Gulbuddin was eventually defeated by the Northern Alliance led by Massoud. With the fall of Gulbuddin, the ISI of Pakistan threw their support in 1994 to the newly organized Taliban.

Few are aware of Gulbuddin’s contacts with the perpetrators of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center. Those connections and his meetings with the Blind Sheik were revealed in the trials of the World Trade Center bombers held in New York City. It is too often said that the weakening of Al Qaeda ensures the safety of the U.S. from terrorist attack. However, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center involved non-Al Qaeda players and leadership figures from that event are still active. This is just one example of a non-Al Qaeda terrorist group that might become a perpetrator of nuclear terrorism.

Today, Gulbuddin maintains a militant presence in the frontier region and has the organizational ability to engage in ambitious terrorist actions. Gulbuddin is neither a tribal “war lord” nor a narrowly educated religious militant. He is a sophisticated intellectual and political leader who completed two years of engineering education. There is every indication that he is as vicious a proponent of terrorism as was Osama bin Laden.

Nothing suggests that Gulbuddin is, in fact, plotting a nuclear attack on an American city. But he is the key player in our scenario because he has the knowledge, resources and frame of mind for implementing such an attack. If there is one such person and group, there are likely others.

The fissile materials available in Pakistan can be fabricated in the Khyber region to serve as components for a gun-type Hiroshima bomb. The amount of radiation released by the highly enriched uranium can be easily shielded and thus easily elude detection at border crossings or from aerial drones. Since suicidal jihadists probably would assemble it, many of the features that were built into Little Boy 69 years ago to ensure safe delivery and controlled detonation could be ignored.

While this scenario has focused on terrorism originating in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area, other scenarios might be equally plausible. In May 2011, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University issued a report entitled, “The U.S.-Russia Joint Assessment on Nuclear Terrorism.” The study group analyzed possible threats from three terrorist organizations known to have systematically sought to obtain nuclear weapons: Al Qaeda, groups in the Northern Caucasus, and the Japanese cult group, Aum Shinrikyo. Each could be a suitable scenario protagonist. If Iran began producing tens of pounds of HEU, then the possibility of Hezbollah obtaining that material would also merit consideration.

Additional scenarios can be hypothesized with sociopaths who are American citizens. Two figures stand out as prototypes with the organizational and technical capacity needed for implementation. One is Timothy McVeigh, whose homemade bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. The other is Ted Kaczynski, the mathematics genius known as the Unabomber. He perpetrated seventeen explosive attacks killing three people between 1978 and his arrest in 1996.

The first public alert to the possibility of a small group of individuals in the United States building a nuclear bomb to attack society came in the early 1970s from Theodore B. Taylor, a physicist who invented highly efficient, small sized nuclear weapons at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He recognized and was obsessed by the possibility that fissile material could be stolen from commercial facilities that were enriching uranium. The U.S. government had encouraged corporations to process uranium for use in nuclear reactors. In his book, The Curve of Binding Energy, award-winning writer John McPhee documented the story of this eccentric but highly creative physicist. His account was first published in the New Yorker in 1973. Both Taylor and McPhee seemed convinced that a rogue nuclear weapon would detonate somewhere in the United States prior to the beginning of the 21st Century.

The vulnerabilities of enriched uranium supplies in the United States in the 1970’s were astonishing. We assume that such homeland dangers have been ameliorated. Yet we are aghast at the July 28, 2012, spectacle of an 82-year-old nun and two equally unlikely compatriots penetrating the innermost sanctum of the highly enriched uranium facility at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and spraying the storage building with graffiti. The words they posted said, “Plowshares Please Isaiah.” If such lax security is exposed in Bear Creek Valley, U.S.A., what might be the case in Pakistan, Russia, North Korea or China?

Implications and Actions

A successful act of nuclear terrorism would, in a blinding flash, change the nature of civilization, as we know it. When the consequences of an action are so enormous, perhaps one should pause to reflect upon it, even if scenarios and anecdotes may not be persuasive. But our lives are frequently influenced by low probability events. We wear seat belts. We buy lottery tickets.

Perhaps we should be more proactive in supporting our government’s actions to ameliorate potential risks.  The international community is currently discussing at least three treaties. One is to create uniform legal frameworks for prosecuting terrorists who seek to use nuclear materials, another is to develop uniformly effective security procedures for safeguarding nuclear materials, and the third is the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty. It is likely that these issues are far more important and could have much greater consequences than some of the actions that might be taken to thwart nuclear weapons development in Iran or North Korea. Nuclear policy priorities need to emphasize non-state weapons proliferation at least at the same level as state-centered weapons proliferation.

In the non-government sector, non-state weapons proliferation also should be as central in public forums, the press, blogs, general discourse and academic discussions as the continuing crises in North Korea and in Iran.

The fact that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Department of Homeland Security are engaging in detailed analyses of emergency responses to a Hiroshima-type bomb detonation in central Washington D.C. means that they are taking that possibility seriously. While the Gulbuddin scenario chose Las Vegas as a symbolic target, another team of jihadists might choose to focus on our nation’s capital.

Today, the news media continually reports about the potential for North Korea to attack the United States with nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles. But an attack using a crate holding a lead-shielded, twelve-foot long artillery gun, delivered by sea to one of America’s busiest container ports, such as ports in New Jersey, New York, or California, is a more likely mode of attack and would be equally effective and deadly.

“Nuclear Fuel Memos Expose Wary Dance With Pakistan,” New York Times, November 30, 2010.

Nasir Bin Hamad Al-Fahd, “A Treatise on the Legal Status of Using Weapons of Mass Destruction Against Infidels,” 2003, available at http://ahlussunnahpublicaties.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/42288104-nasir-al-fahd-the-ruling-on-using-weapons-of-mass-destruction-against-the-infidels.pdf

Paul Bracken, “The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics” (Times Books, 2012)

See FAS’s world nuclear forces chart: /issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/ . This estimate shows that Pakistan has 120-199 nuclear weapons, and the UK and France have about 225-300. But the Pakistani nuclear weapons program is estimated to be growing while the UK and France have stopped producing new nuclear weapons.

See the video at http://www.downvids.net/light-engineering-in-darra-adam-khel-pakistan-amazig–472252.htm, accessed on May 14, 2014. This YouTube video shows the light manufacturing equipment in Darra Adam Khel with capacity to manufacture a Hiroshima firing unit.

For example, the profile by Michael Crowley, “Our Man in Kabul?” New Republic, March 9, 2010, http://www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/our-man-kabul

Belfer Center study is available at http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/publication/21087/usrussia_joint_threat_assessment_of_nuclear_terrorism.html

John McPhee, The Curve of Binding Energy (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 1973) “He (Ted Taylor) did say he thought it was already too late to prevent the making of a few bombs (by terrorists), here and there, now and then. Society would just have to take that, and go on. None of this was said with the least trace of cynicism or despair.” (p. 196)

Matthew L. Wald and William J. Broad, “Security Questions are Raised by Break-In at a Nuclear Site,” New York Times, August 7, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/08/us/pacifists-who-broke-into-nuclear-weapon-facility-due-in-court.html and see the following website for the image the protestors made: http://cdn.knoxblogs.com/atomiccity/wp-content/uploads/sites/11/2013/07/heumf-blood.jpg

National Capital Region Key Response Planning Factors for the Aftermath of Nuclear Terrorim – November 2011 – FEMA, Homeland Security and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, available at /irp/agency/dhs/fema/ncr.pdf

Edward A. Friedman is Professor Emeritus of Technology Management at Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, N.J. He holds a B.S. in Physics from MIT and a Ph.D. in Physics from Columbia University.  He was director of a USAID program to develop an indigenous college of engineering in Afghanistan (1970-73) when Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was arrested for murder of a political rival at Kabul University. Dr. Friedman was a founder and senior vice president of the Afghanistan Relief Committee (1979-1995). In 2012 he developed and taught a graduate course on Nuclear Weapons in International Relations as an Adjunct Professor at The John C. Whitehead School of Diplomacy and International Relations at Seton Hall University.

Roger K. Lewis is an Architect and Planner. He has been a long-term columnist for the Washington Post’s “Shaping the City.” He is Planning and Preservation Trustee for the National Children’s Museum and President and Director of the Peace Corps Commemorative Foundation. His book, “Architect? A Candid Guide to the Profession” is known as the best basic introduction to the profession. He is Professor Emeritus of Architecture at the University of Maryland School of Architecture.

By Hans M. Kristensen

One of the last Chinese Second Artillery brigades with the old liquid-fuel DF-3A intermediate-range nuclear ballistic missile appears to have been upgraded to the newer DF-21 road-mobile, dual-capable, medium-range ballistic missile.

A new satellite image posted on Google Earth from May 4, 2014, reveals major changes to what appears to be a launch unit site for the Dengshahe brigade northeast of Dalian by the Yellow Sea.

The upgrade apparently marks the latest phase in a long and slow conversion of the Dengshahe brigade from the DF-3A to the DF-21.

The 810 Brigade base appears to be located approximately 60 km (36 miles) northeast of Dalian in the Liaoning province (see map below). The base is organized under 51 Base, one of six base headquarters organized under the Second Artillery Corps, the military service that operates the Chinese land-based nuclear and conventional missiles.

The launch unit appears to be using a remote site with four launch pads for training approximately 17 km (10 miles) south of the brigade base. A new commercial satellite image, dated May 4, 2014, and made available by Digital Globe via Google Earth, shows significant upgrades at the site since 2006.

This includes construction of new launch pads that in shape and size appear to match those recently seen at the 807 Brigade base launch unit near Qingyang (Anhui) and the 802 Brigade base at Jianshui (Yunnan).

The satellite image is particularly interesting because it was taken on a day when the launch unit was using the site for a launch training exercise. Three of the four pads are in use with what appears to be DF-21 launchers deployed on the 45-meter paved strip and support vehicles near by. Other vehicles are positioned near the fourth launch pad (see image below).

The relatively poor quality of the high-resolution satellite image makes it hard to positively identify the launchers. But at approximately 14 meters (46 feet) they appear to match the nuclear DF-21 (CSS-5 Mod 1/Mod 2), which has a 10-11 meter (33-36 feet) missile canister on a trailer pulled by the motorized drivers section. The launchers do not appear to be the DF-21C, the conventional version, where the missile canister and drivers section are mounted on the same frame and the tip of the missile canister extends forward over the driver cabin (see here for images of such a unit).

A road-mobile launch unit has a large fingerprint because the launchers need a significant number of different support vehicles and personnel to operate. This includes command and control vehicles, cranes and other repair vehicles, trucks and busses. The Dengshahe launch unit image shows part of the large backup encamped immediately north of the launch pad sites (see image below).

Conversion to DF-21 at Dengshahe has been a long and slow process. DF-3A training levels dropped from five to eight months per year in the late-1980s to four months per year in the mid-1990s. Since then, the 810 Brigade shrunk to only five-ten launchers. The final phase has happened since 2006.

The range of the DF-21 is less than the range of the DF-3A (2,150 km versus 3,000 km), but the DF-21 system is much more capable than the DF-3A. Unlike the liquid-fuel, transportable DF-3A, the DF-21 is a solid-fuel missile carried on a road-mobile transporter erector launcher (TEL). As such, the DF-21 TEL can move around the landscape much more freely and can set up and fire its missile quicker than the DF-3A system. The DF-21 is also more accurate, which is reflected in a smaller warhead – 200-300 kilotons versus 3,300 kilotons for the DF-3A warhead.

From the launch pads north of Dalian, the DF-21 would able to target all U.S. military bases on the Japanese mainland as well as on Okinawa.

The conversion from the DF-3A to the DF-21 is also reflected in significant reconstruction at the 810 Brigade base. Since 2006, this has included replacement of one of two high-bay garages with what are possibly garages for the DF-21 road-mobile launchers. A second high-bay garage has been significantly modified, and the support vehicle technical area has been upgraded (see image below).

Background information: Chinese nuclear forces, 2013

Previous blogs about Chinese nuclear forces

This publication was made possible by a grant from the Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

By Hans M. Kristensen

Less than a week after Russia carried out a nuclear strike exercise, the United States has begun its own annual nuclear strike exercise.

The exercises conducted by the world’s two largest nuclear-armed states come in the midst of the Ukraine crisis, as NATO and Russia appear to slide back down into a tit-for-tat posturing not seen since the Cold War.

Military posturing in Russia and NATO threaten to worsen the crisis and return Europe to an “us-and-them” adversarial relationship.

One good thing: the crisis so far has demonstrated the uselessness of the U.S. tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe.

Different Styles, Different Messages

Vladimir Putin’s televised commanding of the nuclear strike exercise – flanked by the presidents of Armenia, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in the Russian National Defense Command Center – made one thing very clear: Putin wanted to showcase his nuclear might to the world. Russian military news media showed the huge displays in the Command Center with the launch positions and impact areas of long-range nuclear missiles launched from a road-mobile launchers and ballistic missile submarines.

Other displays and images on the Russian Internet showed AS-15 Kent (Kh-55) nuclear cruise missiles launched from a Tu-95 “Bear” bomber (six missiles were launched), short-range ballistic missiles, and air-defense and ballistic missile defense interceptors reportedly repelled a “massive rocket nuclear strike” launched against Russia by “a hypothetical opponent.”

Of course everything was said to work just perfectly but there is no way to known how well the Russian forces performed, how realistic the exercise was designed to be, or what was different compared with previous exercises. Russia conducts these exercises each year and Russian military planners love to launch a lot of rockets very quickly with lots of smoke and noise (it looks impressive on television). But the exercise looked more like a one-day snap intended to showcase test launching of offensive and defensive forces rather than a significant new development.

The STRATCOM announcement of the Global Lightning exercise was, in contrast, much more timid, so far limited to a single press release. Mindful of the problematic timing, the press release said the timing was “unrelated to real-world events” and that the exercise has been planned for more than a year. But some new stories nonetheless linked the two events.

The STRATCOM press release didn’t say much about the exercise scenario or what forces would be involved. Only bombers – whose operations are highly visible and would probably be noticed anyway – were mentioned: 10 B-52 and up to six B-2 bombers. But SSBNs and ICBMs also participate in Global Lightning (although not with live test launches as in the Russian exercise) as well as refueling tankers and command and control units.

As its main annual strategic nuclear command post/field training exercise, STRATCOM uses Global Lightning to verify the readiness and effectiveness of U.S. nuclear forces and practice strike scenarios from OPLAN 8010-12 and other war plans against potential adversaries. Last updated in June 2012, OPLAN 8010-12 is being adjusted to incorporate decisions from the Obama administration’s June 2013 nuclear weapons employment strategy.

The previous Global Lightning exercise was held in 2012 (Global Lightning 2013 was canceled due to budget cuts) and is normally accompanied or followed by other nuclear-related exercises such as Global Thunder, Vigilant Shield, and Terminal Fury. In addition to strategic nuclear planning, STRATCOM supports regional nuclear targeting as well. The 2012 Global Lightning exercise supported Pacific Command’s Terminal Fury exercise in the Pacific and included several crisis and time-sensitive strike scenarios against extremely difficult target sets never seen before in Terminal Fury.

Back to Us and Them

One can read a lot into the exercises, if one really wants to. And some commentators have suggested that the exercises were deliberately intended as reminders to “the other side” of the Ukrainian crisis about the horrific military destructive power each side possesses.

I don’t think the Russian exercise or the U.S. Global Lightning exercise are directly linked to the Ukrainian crisis; they were planned long in advance. Nuclear weapons – and fortunately so – seem completely out of proportion to the circumstances of the situation in Ukraine.

Nonetheless, they do matter in the overall east-west sparing and the fact that the national leadership of Russia and the United States authorized these nuclear exercises at this particular time is a cause for concern. It is the first time nuclear forces have been rattled during the Ukrainian crisis. And because they are nuclear, the exercises add important weight to a pattern of increasingly militaristic behaviors on both sides.

Russia’s invasion of Crimea – bizarrely coinciding with Russia celebrating its defeat of a different invasion of the Soviet Union 73 years ago – to prevent loosing its Black Sea fleet area to an increasingly westerly looking Ukraine, and NATO responding by beefing up its military posture in Eastern Europe far from Ukraine to demonstrate “that NATO is prepared to meet and deter any threat to our alliance” – even though there are no signs of an increased Russian military threat against NATO territory in general – ought to have caused political leaders on both sides to delay the nuclear exercises to avoid fueling crisis sentiments and military posturing any further.

Instead, both sides now seem determined to stick to their guns and overturn the budding partnership and trust that had emerged after the Cold War. In doing so, the danger is, of course, that the military institutions on both sides are allowed to dominate the official responses to the crisis and deepen it rather than de-escalating and resolving it. No doubt, military hawks and defense contractors on both sides see an opportunity to use the Ukrainian crisis to get the defense budgets and weapons they have wanted for years but been unable to get because of budget cuts and the absence of a significant military “threat.”

Russia has already announced plans to add 30 warships to the Black Sea Fleet and widen deployment of navy and air forces to four additional bases in Crimea.

The Russian air force has resumed long-range training flights with nuclear aircraft and often violates the air space of other countries. In March 2013, two Tu-22M3 backfire bombers reportedly simulated a nuclear strike against two targets in Sweden (although the aircraft did not violate Swedish air space at that time).

It is almost inevitable that increased NATO deployments and defense budgets in eastern member countries will trigger Russian military counter-steps closer to NATO borders. One of the first tell signs will be the Zapad exercise later this fall.

For its part, NATO has already deployed ships, aircraft, and troops to Eastern European countries and is considering how to further change its defense planning to respond with “air, land and sea ’reassurances’” to “a different paradigm, a different rule set” (translation: Russia is now an official military threat), according to NATO’s military commander General Philip Breedlove and “position those ‘reassurances’ across the breadth of our exposure: north, center, and south.”

NATO General Secretary Anders Fogh Rasmussen echoed Breedlove’s defense vision during a visit to Estonia on May 1^st, saying the Ukrainian crisis had triggered a NATO response where “aircraft and ships from across the Alliance are reinforcing the security from the Baltic to the Black Sea.”

Breedlove and Rasmussen paint a military response that appears to go beyond the Ukrainian crisis itself and involve a broad reinforcement of NATO’s eastern areas. Breedlove got NATO approval for the initial deployments and exercises seen in recent weeks, but the defense ministers meeting in Brussels in June likely will prepare more fundamental changes to NATO military posture for approval at the NATO Summit in Wales in September.

Among other aspects, those changes will probably involve modifying NATO’s General Intelligence Estimate (MC 161) and NATO Ministerial Guidance to explicitly identify Russia, once again, as a potential threat. Doing so will open the door for more specific Article 5 contingency plans for the defense of eastern European NATO countries.

In reality, the military responses to the Ukraine crisis include many efforts that have been underway within NATO since 2008. The Baltic States and Poland have been urging NATO to draw up contingency plans for the defense of Eastern Europe against Russian incursions or military attack. Two obstacles worked against this: declining defense budgets (who’s going to pay for it?) and a reluctance to officially declare Russia to be a military threat to NATO. The latter obstacle is now gone and U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel’s is now publicly using the Ukraine crisis to ask NATO countries to increase their defense budgets.

After a decade of depleting its declining resources on an costly, open-ended war in Afghanistan that it cannot win, the Ukrainian crisis seems to have given NATO a sense of new purpose: a return to its core mission of defending NATO territory. “Russia’s actions in Ukraine have made NATO’s value abundantly clear,” Hagel said earlier this month, “and I know from my frequent conversations with NATO defense ministers that they do not need any convincing on this point.”

But one of the biggest obstacles to increasing defense budgets, Hagel said, “has been a sense that the end of the Cold War ushered in the ‘end of history’ – an end to insecurity, at least in Europe and the end [of] aggression by nation states. But Russia’s action in Ukraine shatter that myth and usher in bracing new realities,” he concluded, and “over the long term, we should expect Russia to test our alliance’s purpose, stamina, and commitment.”

In other words, it’s back to us and them.

It is difficult to dismiss Eastern European jitters about Russia – after all, they were occupied by the Soviet Union and joined NATO specifically to get the security guarantee so never to be occupied again. And Russia’s unlawful annexation of Crimea has completely shattered its former status as a European partner.

But the big question is whether NATO responding to Ukraine by beefing up its military inadvertently plays into the hands of Russian hardliners and will serve to deepen rather than easing military competition in Europe.

Why the Putin regime would respond favorably to NATO increasing its military posture in Eastern Europe is not clear. Yet it seems inconceivable that NATO could chose not to do so; after all, providing military protection is the core purpose of the Alliance.

At the same time, the more they two sides posture to demonstrate their resolve or unity, the harder it will be for them to de-escalate the crisis and rebuild the trust. Remember, we’ve been down that road and it took us six decades to get out.

Rather, it seems more likely that beefing up military forces and operations will reaffirm, in the eyes of Russian policy makers and military planners, what they have already decided; that NATO is a threat that is trying to encroach Russia who therefore must protect its borders and secure a sphere of influence as a buffer. Georgy Bovt’s recent analysis in Moscow Times of the Russian mindset is worthwhile reading.

The Irrelevance of Tactical Nuclear Weapons

So what does all of that mean for nuclear weapon in Europe? Remember, they’re supposed to reassure the NATO allies!

I hear many say that the Ukrainian crisis makes it very difficult to imagine a reduction, much less a withdrawal, of U.S. non-strategic nuclear weapons from Europe. Some people have even argued that the Ukrainian crisis could have been avoided if Ukraine had kept the nuclear weapons the Soviet Union left behind when it crumbled in 1991 (the argument ignores that Ukraine didn’t have the keys to use the weapons and would have been isolated as a nuclear rogue if it had not handed them over).

Only two years ago, NATO rejected calls for a withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe based on the argument that the deployment continues to serve an important role as a symbol of the U.S. security commitment to Europe and because eastern European NATO countries wanted the weapons in Europe to be assured about their protection against Russia. The May 2012 Defense and Deterrence Posture Review (DDPR), implementing the Strategic Concept from 2010, reaffirmed status quo by concluding “that the Alliance’s nuclear force posture currently meets the criteria for an effective deterrence and defense posture.”

Yet here we are, only two years later, where the nuclear weapons have proven absolutely useless in reassuring the allies in the most serious crisis since the Cold War. Indeed, it is hard to think of a stronger reaffirmation of the impotence and irrelevance of tactical nuclear weapons to Europe’s security challenges than NATO’s decision to deploy conventional forces and beef up conventional contingency planning and defense budgets in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.

Put in another way, if the U.S. nuclear deployment was adequate for an effective deterrence and defense posture, why is it now inadequate to assure the allies?

In fact, one can argue with some validity that spending hundreds of millions of dollars on maintaining U.S. non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe after the end of the Cold War has done very little for NATO security, except wasting resources on a nuclear capability that is useless rather than spending the money on conventional capabilities that can be used. It is about fake versus real assurances.

The deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe seems to be for academic and doctrinal discourses rather than for real security. In the real world they don’t seem to matter much and seem downright useless for the kinds of security challenges facing NATO countries today. But try telling that to current and former officials who have been spending the past five years lobbying and educating Eastern NATO governments on why the weapons should stay.

This publication was made possible by a grant from the Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.