Claims that nuclear weapons need to be as safe as a coffee table might drive warhead replacement

By Hans M. Kristensen and Ivan Oelrich

The latest study from the JASON panel is an unambiguous rejection of claims made by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the nuclear weapon labs, defense secretary Robert Gates, and U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) that some or all U.S. nuclear weapons should be replaced to ensure the future reliability of the arsenal.

The executive summary of the study, Lifetime Extension Program (LEP), finds “no evidence that accumulation of changes incurred from aging and LEPs have increased risk to certification of today’s deployed nuclear warheads.”  The study concludes that the lifetime of today’s nuclear warheads “could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss in confidence, by using approaches similar to those employed in LEPs today.”  [Emphasis added.]

The JASON appears to have prevented a wasteful and counterproductive nuclear warhead replacement program. Even so, we expect parts of the report’s conclusions to be used by proponents of nuclear warhead replacements in the months and years ahead.

The Surety Argument

With JASON’s rejection in 2006 that pit aging is a reason to build replacement warheads, and its latest conclusion that stockpile reliability is achievable with the existing Live Extension Programs, only two of the core justifications used by proponents of RRW remains: surety and training.  (There is no agreed definition of the terms safety, security, and surety.  The DOD defines that nuclear safety reduces the probability of accidental explosion of the warhead;  security reduces the possibility of unintentional or unauthorized intentional use of the warhead;  surety combines these aspects.)

The report leaves the door open for replacement warheads by concluding that addition of nuclear surety or use-control features to the nuclear explosive package of reentry vehicles on ballistic missiles (W76, W78, W87, and W88) “would require reuse or replacement LEP options.”  Note that replacement warhead would not necessarily be a new design, but could be new components in an existing design.

Additional use-control, not warhead reliability, has thus become the main technical justification for building replacement warheads and we expect to see a sudden emphasis on surety by those who want to build new warheads.

This begs the questions:  how much surety is enough, who sets the bar, and what is it worth?

All U.S. warheads contain one or several surety features to prevent unauthorized use and accidents (see Table).  The last time the United States went through a stockpile-wide safety and security related upgrade was in the early 1990s.  Back then several weapons were phased out because they didn’t meet new safety and security standards, and new features were added to others. Not all nuclear weapons were created equal, however, and those that were seen as too important to retire were allowed to remain in the inventory even thought they did not meet the standard. But they will be gone soon.

U.S. Nuclear Warhead Surety Features

All U.S. nuclear warheads have surety features but details vary greatly due to history and deployment. Click for table.

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After 9/11, the administration began arguing for raising the standard again. National Security Presidential Directive 28 (NSPD-28) issued in June 20, 2003, ordered the “incorporation of enhanced surety features independent of any threat scenario,” a capability-based safety philosophy based on technology rather than threats.  Under the headline “Urgency of RRW,” NNSA Director Thomas D’Agostino told Congress in February 2008 that “after 9/11 we realized that the security threat to our nuclear warheads had fundamentally changed.”

We have repeatedly probed officials about this alleged change, and they say it has to do with fear that terrorists will do anything to steal and use a nuclear weapon. The theory was that terrorists would go to greater length to steal U.S. nuclear weapons than the Soviet Union. Existing security features and well-protected storage sites are no longer sufficient; a nuclear weapon must be as inherently safe against unauthorized use as a coffee table, as one senior official recently put it.

Who can be against safety of nuclear weapons?  But if the price is several billion dollars then it is appropriate to ask what the surety and safety requirements are for U.S. nuclear weapons, how they have been set, by whom, and for what purpose.  Another way to pose the question is:  How will we know when we are done?

Since 9/11 the government has already spent huge sums to improve the physical security of nuclear weapons at bases and storage sites, and has upgraded use control features of some weapons.  The safety of US nuclear weapons is probably better today than it has ever been.  The greatest weakness is almost certainly administrative, as when military personnel loose track of the weapons, which happened in August 2007 at Minot Air Force Base.  We also note that suggestions to increase surety by changing the deployment and readiness of nuclear weapons, for example, taking weapons off alert or removing warheads from missiles and storing them separately, are dismissed out of hand.  So there are some actions that could improve surety that are clearly out of bounds.

The claim that the weapons themselves have to be made even more secure came later.  It was not a prominent component of the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, and a concurrent review of “all activities involved in maintaining the highest standards of nuclear weapons safety, security, control, and reliability” did not result in a list of new warhead surety features in the subsequent Stockpile Stewardship Plans.  Indeed, the 2004-2008 plan instead declared: “The physical protection and security of nuclear weapons…remains [sic] strong….”

But after the Bush administration in 2004-2005 began lobbying Congress for authorization to begin industrial-scale production of new warheads to replace existing ones, the claim that additional warhead surety features are necessary has become a key justification.  For example, STRATCOM has recently proposed consolidating four versions of the B61 bomb into one based on the need for additional surety features (see Figure).

New Bombs For Surety

STRATCOM has recently used hypothetical needs for additional surety features as justification for building a new version of the B61 nuclear bomb. Click to download.

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The slide includes some interesting assertions and assumptions underlined by a quote by Osama bin Laden saying it is a religious duty to acquire nuclear weapons to defend Muslims.  The main assertion is that current U.S. nuclear weapons are “not designed to address potential for nuclear terrorism.”  That certainly depends on what the “potential” is.  If it means terrorists trying to force their way into a storage facility, steal a weapon, and detonate it somewhere at their choosing, the claim is almost certainly wrong.  If on the other hand “potential” refers to the most worst-case scenario, where all U.S. safety and defensive efforts fail, then everything is of course possible.  But worst-case scenarios are not interesting when assessing what is necessary; realistic scenarios are.

The statement that only a small percentage of the stockpile has “internal disablement features” to prevent unauthorized use probably refers to bombs and cruise missiles that happen to make up a smaller portion of the stockpile than reentry vehicles for ballistic missiles. But as the Jason report concludes, “All proposed surety features for today’s air-carried systems could be implemented through reuse LEP options.”  Reentry vehicle warheads do not have these surety features, which might be a problem, but adding some does not necessarily requirement replacements, according to JASON.

The claim that all weapons lack modern surety features “to further reduce” the possibility that an accident could trigger a nuclear yield is of course true because one can always add more security features to further reduce the possibility.  The sky is the limit. The issue is, however, how much is needed.  In fact, once the remaining W62 warheads are retired (DOD missed the October 1, 2009, deadline), the entire stockpile will contain surety features that reduce the chance of warhead detonation due to accidents or terrorist attacks to less than one in a million.

The Skills Argument

Proponents of the RRW frequently have argued that it is necessary to build replacement warheads to keep a cadre of scientists, designers, and builders well trained and at the ready so that if sometime in the future we need new weapons we will be able to produce them. The JASON recommends improving the surveillance programs, but the language that “Continued success of the stockpile stewardship is threatened by lack of program stability, placing any LEP strategy at risk,” seems to criticize the NNSA and labs for being so fixated on building new bombs that the surveillance program has suffered.

The training argument depends on a combination of assumptions:  (1) the country will eventually need new nuclear weapons and these will need to be sophisticated weapons requiring high levels of expertise, (2) the expertise needed for continuing stockpile maintenance is not adequate to maintain the expertise needed to design and build new weapons, and (3) the knowledge and skills needed to build new weapons cannot be written down and can only be preserved over the next two or three decades by keeping it alive in people.  The truth of all of these assumptions depends in large part on choices we make about the future missions and requirements for nuclear weapons.  None of the assumptions is of necessity true.

Recommendations

The quest for new weapons is not dead yet.  Now that one main justification, reliability, has been deflated, those who want to continue to build new warheads are more likely to retreat to the second line of defense rather than surrender.  We expect the NNSA, the nuclear laboratories, and the military to focus their efforts on surety technology and laboratory expertise.  We need Congress (and perhaps JASON) to study the need for new surety features, and determine what level is sufficient for real-world threat levels.

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

by: Alicia Godsberg

The First Committee of this year’s 64^th United Nations General Assembly (GA) just wrapped up a month of meetings.  The GA breaks up its work into six main committees, and the First Committee deals with disarmament and international security issues.  During the month-long meetings, member states give general statements, debate on such issues as nuclear and conventional weapons, and submit draft resolutions that are then voted on at the end of the session.  Comparing the statements and positions of the U.S. on certain votes from one year to the next can help gauge how an administration relates to the broader international community and multilateralism in general.  Similarly, comparing how other member states talk about the U.S. and its policies can give insight into how likely states may be to support a given administration’s international priorities.

The Obama administration will certainly be looking in the near future for support on some of its new international priorities – the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference is happening in May, 2010 and the U.S. delegation will likely seek to promote certain non-proliferation measures, such as universal acceptance of the Additional Protocol and the creation of a nuclear fuel bank.[i] However, many states see these and other proposed non-proliferation measures as further restrictions on their NPT rights while the U.S. and the other NPT nuclear weapon states parties (NWS) continue to avoid adequate progress in implementing their nuclear disarmament obligation.  At the same time, other states with nuclear weapons continue to develop them (and the fissile material needed for them) with no regulation at all.  The United Nations (UN) is the court of world public opinion, a place where all member states have a voice.  If President Obama expects to win support for his non-proliferation agenda next May, he needs to win the GA’s support by showing that the U.S. is ready to engage multilaterally again and take seriously its past commitments and the concerns of other states.

While the U.S. continued to vote “no” on certain nuclear disarmament resolutions[ii], there were some noteworthy changes in the position of the new U.S. administration during this year’s voting.  One major shift away from the Bush administration’s voting through last year was a change to a “yes” vote on a resolution entitled, “Renewed determination towards the total elimination of nuclear weapons.”  In fact, the U.S. also became a co-sponsor of this resolution.  The change in the U.S. position on the CTBT was likely an important factor in this reversal, as the resolution “urges” states to ratify the Treaty, something Bush opposed but the Obama administration strongly supports.  Similarly, the U.S. voted “yes” on the resolution entitled, “Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty,” and for the first time all five permanent members of the Security Council joined this resolution as co-sponsors.

The change in the U.S. position on the CTBT was welcomed by many delegations on the floor.  Indonesia stated it would move to ratify the Treaty once the U.S. ratifies, and China has hinted at a similar position.  Non-nuclear weapon states have found the past U.S. position – that no new states should have nuclear weapons programs while the U.S. continues its own without any legal restrictions on the right to test nuclear weapons – to be hypocritical.  Add to this that the U.S. and other NWS have promised to work for the entry into force of the CTBT in the final documents of the 1995 and 2000 NPT Review Conferences, even using this promise as a way to get the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995, and it may be that the CTBT is the sine qua non for the future of the NPT regime.

The U.S. delegation gave some strong signals that the Obama administration may be planning on decreasing the operational readiness of U.S. nuclear weapons (so-called “de-alerting”) in the upcoming Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).  This speculation comes from remarks on the floor, when the sponsors of a resolution that had been tabled for the past two years entitled, “Decreasing the operational readiness of nuclear weapon systems” stated they would not be tabling the resolution this year.[iii] The sponsors stated  that they would not be tabling the resolution because nuclear posture reviews were underway in a few countries and they hoped leaving the issue of operational readiness off the floor would, “facilitate inclusion of disarmament-compatible provisions in these upcoming reviews and help maintain a positive atmosphere for the NPT Review Conference.”  Apparently the U.S. delegation pushed to leave this resolution off the floor, not wanting to vote against it again while the NPR was underway.   Many took these political dealings as a sign that the Obama administration was pushing at home for a review of the operational readiness of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.  Decreasing the operational readiness of U.S. nuclear forces would be a welcome change in the U.S. nuclear posture, adding time for decision-making and deliberation during a potential nuclear crisis.  Such a change would also send an unambiguous signal to the international community that the U.S. was taking its nuclear disarmament obligation seriously, the perception of which is necessary for cooperation on non-proliferation goals in 2010 and beyond.

Another long-standing U.S. position apparently under review by the Obama administration relates to outer space activities.  The Bush administration spoke of achieving “total space dominance” and the U.S. has been against the multilateral development of a legal regime on outer space security for 30 years.  U.S. Ambassador to the CD Garold N. Larson spoke during the First Committee’s thematic debate on space issues, saying that the administration is now in the process of assessing U.S. space policy, programs, and options for international cooperation in space as part of a comprehensive review of space policy.  The U.S. delegation changed its vote on the resolution, “Prevention of an arms race in outer space” from a “no” last year to an abstention this year, and did not participate in a vote on a resolution entitled, “Transparency and confidence-building measures in outer space” due to the current review of space policy.  The U.S. message on outer space issues seemed to be that here too the new administration was looking to engage multilaterally instead of pursuing a unilateral agenda.

Under Secretary of State Ellen Tauscher mentioned another change in U.S. policy in her remarks to the First Committee – the support for the negotiation of an effectively verifiable fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT)[iv].  Previously, the Bush administration had removed U.S. support for negotiating an FMCT with verification protocols, stating that such a Treaty would be impossible to verify.  Without verification measures, which were part of the original Shannon Mandate[v] for the negotiation of an FMCT, many non-nuclear weapon states saw little value in negotiating the Treaty.  Further, because verification was part of the original package for negotiation, the Bush administration’s change was seen as dismissive of the multilateral process and a further example of U.S. unilateral action without regard for the concerns of other countries or the value of multilateral processes.  With the U.S. delegation stating that it supported negotiating an effectively verifiable FMCT as called for under the original mandate, the Obama administration again showed a marked change from its predecessor and a willingness to engage in multilateralism.

What does all this mean?  President Obama stood before the world in Prague and pledged that the U.S. would work toward achieving a world free of nuclear weapons and has brought the issue of nuclear disarmament back to the forefront of international politics.  President Obama recognizes that the U.S. cannot work toward this vision alone – we have security commitments to allies that need to be addressed as the U.S. makes changes to its strategic posture and policy, there are other nuclear armed countries that need to have the same goal and work toward it in a safe and verifiable manner, and there is the danger of nuclear terrorism and unsecured fissile material that needs to be addressed by the entire global community.  In other words, the new administration recognizes the value in collective action to solve global problems, and at the 64^th annual meeting of the UN General Assembly this year, the U.S. began putting some specific meaning behind President Obama’s general statements.  With a pledge to work toward ratifying the CTBT at home and to work for other ratifications necessary for the Treaty’s entry into force, a renewed commitment to negotiating an effectively verifiable FMCT, and changes in long standing positions on outer space security and likely also on operational readiness of nuclear weapons, the Obama administration has shown the U.S. is back as a willing partner to the institutions of multilateral diplomacy.  More than anything, this change – if it turns out to be genuine – will help advance President Obama’s non-proliferation goals at the upcoming NPT Review Conference.  Of course the U.S. has internal battles to overcome, such as Senate ratification of the CTBT, but if promise and policy reviews are met with actions that can easily be interpreted by the rest of the world as genuine nuclear disarmament measures, President Obama has a greater chance to achieve an atmosphere of cooperation on U.S. non-proliferation goals at the upcoming NPT Review Conference in May, 2010.

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[i] President Obama’s non-proliferation agenda was presented on May 5, 2009 to the United Nations by Rose Gottemoeller (Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Verification, Compliance, and Implementation) at the Third Session of the Preparatory Committee for the 2010 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. http://www.state.gov/t/vci/rls/122672.htm

[ii] A few of the nuclear disarmament-related resolutions the US voted “no” on were: Towards a nuclear weapon free world: accelerating the implementation of nuclear disarmament commitments; Nuclear disarmament; and Follow-up to nuclear disarmament obligations agreed to at the 1995 and 200 Review Conferences of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.

[iii] The US had voted “no” on this resolution the past two years, joined only by France and the UK.

[iv] Ellen Tauscher mentioned that the US “looks forward to the start of negotiations on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty” without further elaboration.  President Obama, unlike President Bush, has made clear that his administration supports an effectively verifiable FMCT.  For examples of this new policy direction, see: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/us-eu-joint-declaration-and-annexes; http://geneva.usmission.gov/2009/06/04/gottemoeller/; and http://www.state.gov/t/vci/rls/127958.htm

[v] Historical background on FMCT negotiations: http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/legal/fmct.html

By Ivanka Barzashka

FAS has posted a report on “Enrichment Supply and Technology Outside the United States” by S. A. Levin and S. Blumkin from the Enrichment Department of the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, operated at the time by Union Carbide. The document, prepared for the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration, reviews international uranium enrichment capacity and isotope separation technology as of 1977.

Apart from being of historical interest, the report explicitly states that Eurodif, a French-organized multinational enrichment consortium, was in part owned by Iran.

“The membership and apportionment of shares in Eurodif has been changeable. Presently, it is constituted by Belgium and Spain 11% each. Italy 25%, France 28% and Sofidif 25%, which is 40% owned by Iran and 60% by France.”

“In 1975, another consortium called Coredif with the same multinational membership as Eurodif but a different distribution of shares (Eurodif 51%, France 29% and Iran 20%) was organized to assess future nuclear demand and build a second Eurodif-type plant if the study results justified it.”

This is consistent with Iran’s claims that it owned shares of the enrichment company prior to the Islamic Revolution in 1979. This claim has been confirmed by the French government, but Iran has never received enriched uranium from the company.

The document has a disclaimer that “[i]t should not be presumed that the inclusion in this presentation of any reported information necessarily attests to its validity.”

Security personnel monitor nuclear weapons transport at German air base. Image: USAF

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By Hans M. Kristensen

The new German government has announced that it wants to enter talks with its NATO allies about the withdrawal of the remaining U.S. nuclear weapons from Germany.

The announcement coincides with the Obama administration’s ongoing Nuclear Posture Review, which is spending an unprecedented amount of time pondering the “international aspects” of to what extent nuclear weapons help assure allies of their security.

Germany and many other NATO countries apparently don’t want to be protected by U.S. forward-deployed tactical nuclear weapons, which they see as a relic of the Cold War that locks NATO in the past and prevents it’s transition to the future.

Current Deployment

The U.S. Air Force currently deploys approximately 200 B61 nuclear bombs at six bases in five NATO countries (see Table 1).  The weapons are the last remnant of a vast force of more than 7,000 tactical nuclear weapons that used to clutter bases in Europe during the Cold War as a defense against the Soviet threat and the Warsaw Pact’s large conventional forces.

Table 1:

Approximately 200 U.S. nuclear bombs are currently deployed at six bases in five European countries. Click image to download larger table.

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The bombs are scattered among 87 individual aircraft shelters where they are stored in underground vaults. Although well protected, this widespread deployment contrasts normal U.S. nuclear weapons security procedures that favor consolidation at as few locations as possible.

An Air Force investigation concluded in 2008 that “most” sites in Europe did not meet U.S. security requirements.  NATO officials publicly dismissed the conclusion, and a visit by a team from the U.S. government apparently found issues but nothing alarming.

Consolidation Versus Withdrawal

Rumors have circulated for several years about plans to consolidate the remaining weapons from the current six bases to one or two bases. The plans would either terminate the Cold War arrangement of non-nuclear NATO countries being assigned strike missions with U.S. nuclear weapons, or move the weapons to U.S. bases with the promise that they could be returned if necessary.

Consolidation has occurred frequently since the end of the Cold War: withdrawal from Turkish national bases Akinci and Balikesir in 1995; withdrawal from German national bases Memmingen and Norvenich in 1996; withdrawal from Greek national base Araxos in 2001; withdrawal from Ramstein in Germany in 2005 ; withdrawal from Lakenheath in England in 2006.  Another round of consolidation would just be another slow step toward the inevitable: withdrawal from Europe.

Consolidation of the remaining nuclear bombs to the two U.S. southern bases at Aviano in Italy and Incirlik in Turkey would be problematic for two reasons.  First, Turkey does not allow the U.S. Air Force to deploy the fighter-bombers to Incirlik that are needed to deliver the bombs if necessary, and has several times restricted U.S. deployments through Turkey into Iraq.  Given that history, and apparent doubts about Turkey’s future direction, is nuclear deployment in Turkey a credible posture?  Second, absent a fighter wing deployment to Incirlik, Aviano carries the overwhelming burden of conventional air operations on the southern flank of NATO, operations that are already burdened by the nuclear addendum and would further be so by a decision to consolidate the nuclear mission at the base.

An End to NATO Nuclear Strike Mission

The German policy to seek withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Büchel Air Base essentially means – if implemented – the unraveling of the NATO nuclear strike mission, whereby non-nuclear NATO countries equip and train their air forces to deliver U.S. nuclear weapons. Germany shares this mission with Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands, while Greece and Turkey opted out in 2001.

Table 1: NATO Nuclear Strike Mission: Violation of NPT?

German personnel attach a U.S. B61 nuclear bomb shape to a German Tornado fighter-bomber under supervision of U.S. personnel. As a signatory to the NPT Germany has pledged not to receive nuclear weapons, yet, as this picture illustrates, is preparing its military to do so anyway.                           Image: German Ministry of Defense/Der Spiegel

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The mission is highly controversial because these countries as signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have all pledged not to receive nuclear weapons: “undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly.” Yet that’s precisely what the NATO strike mission entails: peacetime preparations for direct transfer of nuclear weapons and control over such weapons in times of war.

The mission is clearly inconsistent with if not the letter then certainly the spirit of the NPT. The arrangement was tolerated during the Cold War but is incompatible with nonproliferation policy is the 21^st century.

Real-World Security Commitments

Germany is one of the “30-plus” allies and friends that some have argued recently need to be protected by nuclear weapons to prevent them from developing their own nuclear weapons.  It has even been suggested that extended deterrence necessitates equipping the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter with nuclear capability.

Yet high-level officials in both the White House and the Pentagon have already concluded that the United States no longer needs to deploy nuclear bombs in Europe to meet its security obligations to NATO.  Those security obligations today have very little to do with nuclear weapons and extended deterrence is predominantly served by non-nuclear means.  The limited role nuclear weapons still serve can adequately be fulfilled by long-range weapon systems just as they have been in the Pacific for 17 years.  Whether the ongoing Nuclear Posture Review will reflect those views will be seen in February 2010 when the review is completed.

Figure 2: The Mission

The U.S. nuclear bombs were deployed in Europe to defend NATO against a conventional attack from the Warsaw Pact, a threat that has long-since disappeared.

Regardless, Germany apparently does not want to be protected by U.S. nuclear weapons deployed in Europe. Neither does Belgium, where the parliament unanimously has requested nuclear bombs be withdrawn.  Dutch officials privately say that they see no need for the deployment either.  In fact, in all of the countries where nuclear weapons are deployed, an overwhelming majority of the public favors withdrawal.  Turkey – one of the countries said by some to oppose withdrawal – has the highest public support for withdrawal of any of the countries that currently store nuclear weapons.  In the long run this is a serious challenges for NATO; that its nuclear posture is so clearly out of sync with public opinion.

The biggest challenge seems to be to convince Poland and Turkey that withdrawal will not undermine the U.S. security commitment.  Poland is worried about Russia; Turkey about Iran.  But tactical nuclear weapons were the Cold War way of addressing such concerns.  What’s needed now is focused diplomacy, stewardship, and reaffirmation of non-nuclear arrangements to convince these countries that the nuclear bombs that were deployed in Europe to defend NATO against a conventional attack from the Warsaw Pact can now finally be withdrawn.

The previous two German governments also favored withdrawal but did little to push the issue. Whether the new government will be any different will be put to the test during NATO’s ongoing revision of its Strategic Concept scheduled for completion in 2010.

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

No preemptive nuclear options, according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

By Hans M. Kristensen

During an interview with Ekho Moskvy Radio last week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was asked if “the American [nuclear] doctrine incorporate[s] preemptive nuclear strikes against an aggressor?”

The Secretary’s answer was: “No, no.”

Ahem….

Secretary Clinton’s denial that U.S. nuclear doctrine incorporates preemptive strike options is at odds with numerous statements made by U.S. government officials over the past eight years, who have sought to give precisely the opposite impression; that the nuclear doctrine does indeed also contains preemptive options. An draft revision of U.S. nuclear doctrine in 2005 revealed such options.

So unless the U.S. has changed its nuclear doctrine since the Bush administration, then the Secretary’s denial is, well, at odds with the doctrine.

The confusion could of course be academic; that Secretary Clinton is under the impression that the doctrine includes preventive, no preemptive, strike options.  Or perhaps she simply doesn’t know, yet believes that preemptive nuclear strike options should not be part of U.S. nuclear doctrine.  It is of course important that the U.S. Secretary of State knows what U.S. nuclear policy is, since she is in charge of negotiations with Russia about the START Follow-On treaty and laying the groundwork for a subsequent and more substantial treaty and nuclear relationship.

The context of her denial was an Izvestia interview with Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of Russia’s Security Council, about Russia’s ongoing review of its nuclear doctrine.  Mr. Patrushev reportedly said: “In situations critical to national security, a nuclear strike, including a preventative one, against an aggressor is not ruled out.”

Russia’s current doctrine already allows preemptive strikes, something the Kremlin says it needs because of Russian inferior conventional forces. Whether the new revision will change or reaffirm preemptive options remains to be seen.

Background: Counterproliferation and US Nuclear Strategy (2009); Global Strike Chronology (2006); Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations (2005)

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

President Barack Obama, here shown speaking to the United Nations in September, is seeking to delay a UN Resolution calling for De-Alerting Nuclear Forces.

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By Hans M. Kristensen

The Obama administration has asked four countries to postpone a resolution at the United Nations calling for reducing the alert-level of nuclear weapons.

The intervention apparently is intended to avoid the Obama administration having to vote against the resolution before the important Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in May 2010 — on an issue Barack Obama promised to support when he ran for president.

The resolution, which was last adopted by the U.N. General Assembly with overwhelming support on December 2, 2008, calls for “further practical steps to be taken to decrease the operational readiness of nuclear weapons systems, with a view to ensuring that all nuclear weapons are removed from high alert status.”

Obama’s De-Alerting Pledge

During the presidential election campaign, Barack Obama pledged that as president he would “work with Russia to take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert.” This pledge was part of the foreign policy agenda of the Obama for America campaign, and for several months after the election was part of the White House web site:

“The United States and Russia have thousands of nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert. Barack Obama believes that we should take our nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert – something that George W. Bush promised to do when he was campaigning for president in 2000. Maintaining this Cold War stance today is unnecessary and increases the risk of an accidental or unauthorized nuclear launch. As president, Obama will work with Russia to find common ground and bring significantly more weapons off hair-trigger alert.”

Apparently Russia has shown little interest in de-alerting, and the pledge has since disappeared from the White House web site and was not mentioned in President Obama’s speech in Prague in April this year.

The Nuclear Posture Review

The Obama administration is more than halfway through a Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that is analyzing, among other issues, what alert level is appropriate for U.S. nuclear forces in the future.

Currently, virtually all of the 450 Minuteman III land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles are on alert with approximately 500 warheads. Another 96 Trident II sea-launched ballistic missiles with nearly 400 warheads are on alert onboard four of the nine-ten Ohio-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines that are at sea at any given time.

Why U.S. national security 20 years after the Cold War ended still depends on the ability to launch nearly 900 nuclear warheads with 12 minutes (actually only four minutes for the ICBMs) is one of the great mysteries the NPR has to answer.

The EastWest Institute de-alerting report is worth reading.

The long-range bombers were removed from nuclear alert in 1991 and – despite recent attempts to increase their readiness – will remain off alert with no detrimental impact on U.S. national security.

Reframing Nuclear De-Alert

The EastWest Institute has, with the support of the Swiss and New Zealand governments, just published a highly-recommendable study Reframing Nuclear De-Alert: Decreasing the Operational Readiness of U.S. and Russia Arsenals.

The study, which was briefed to the United Nations yesterday, does a good job of trying to elevate the de-alerting debate from whether or not nuclear alert should be called “hair-trigger alert” to actually considering practical steps for lowering the operational readiness of nuclear forces.

Whether the Obama administration’s request to postpone the U.N. resolution indicates that the NPR will recommend lowering the readiness of U.S. nuclear forces remains to be seen. But it will be truly disappointing if it does not.

 

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

Retirement of the W62 warhead, seen here at Warren Air Force Base, has been been delayed.

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By Hans M. Kristensen

The Pentagon has missed the deadline set by the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review for the retirement of the W62 nuclear warhead.

Retirement of the warhead, which arms a portion of the 450 U.S. Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, was scheduled for completion in Fiscal Year 2009, which ended on September 30th.

But the Department of Defense has been unable to confirm the warhead has been retired, saying instead earlier today: “The retirement of the W62 is progressing toward completion.”

The 2001 Nuclear Posture Review decided that, “the W62 will be retired by the end of Fiscal Year 2009.”  The schedule was later reaffirmed by government officials and budget documents. But the February 2009 NNSA budget for Fiscal Year 2010 did not report a retirement but a reduction in “W62 Stockpile Systems” – meaning the warhead was still in the Department of Defense stockpile, adding that a final annual assessment report and dismantlement activities will be accomplished in FY2010.

Offloading of the W62 from the Minuteman force has been underway for the past several years. First deployed in 1970, the W62 has a yield of 170 kilotons and is the oldest and least safe warhead in the U.S. stockpile. It is being replaced on the Minuteman III by the 310-kiloton W87 warhead previously deployed on the MX/Peacekeeper missile.

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

The mysterious DF-41 missile did not appear at the Chinese National Day parade on October 1st, but the Chinese Ministry of National Defense says the DF-31A did. But did it, or was it in fact the DF-31?

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By Hans M. Kristensen

The military parade at China’s 60th National Day celebration last week was widely rumored to be displaying a new long-range ballistic missile described in the news media as the DF-41. The rumors turned out to be, well, rumors.

Instead the Chinese Ministry of National Defense identified two other missiles: the nuclear DF-31A and the conventional DF-21C, to my knowledge a first.

But was it the DF-31A that rolled across the square or the shorter-range DF-31 already displayed ten years ago at the 1999 parade?

What Was Displayed: DF-31A or DF-31?

The Chinese Ministry of National Defense web site carries several pictures (backup copy here) that identify the DF-31A, the long-range version of the DF-31 mobile ICBM, taking part in the parade. No DF-31s were identified. The U.S. intelligence community estimates that the DF-31A with a range of 11,200+ kilometers (6,959+ miles) is capable of striking targets throughout the United States and Europe. The missile is thought to carry a single warhead, was first deployed in 2007, and less than 15 are currently deployed.

The identification is curious because the DF-31A mobile launcher displayed in the 2009 parade is almost identical to the DF-31 launcher displayed in the 1999 parade. I’ve been going through all my images of Chinese mobile launchers and I cannot see any significant difference between the two. The only apparent difference is that the eight-axle truck has been upgraded and painted. But the missile canister on the “DF-31A” launcher appears to have the same dimensions as the one on the DF-31 launcher (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Common DF-31 and DF-31A Launcher or DF-31 Displayed Again?

The DF-31A launcher identified by the Chinese Ministry of Defense at the 2009 parade (top) is almost identical to the DF-31 launcher displayed at the 1999 parade (bottom). Do the two missiles use a common mobile launcher or did the Chinese government re-display the DF-31? Images: Chinese Ministry of National Defense

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And it’s not as if there were two different long-range missile launchers in the area. A satellite image taken on June 23, 2009, and first described in China Brief, shows what appears to be the military vehicles rehearsing at Tongxian Air Base in the outskirts of Beijing in preparation for the parade. A line-up of 14 mobile launchers for long-range missiles all appear to have the same overall dimensions, including a 16-meter missile canister, and appear to be the “DF-31A” launchers identified in the parade (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Line-Up of “DF-31A” Launchers

Fourteen vehicles of what the Chinese Ministry of National Defense says are DF-31A missiles launchers lined up at Tongxian Air Base prior to the 2009 National Day parade all appear to have the same overall dimensions. Image: DigitalGlobe/Google Earth

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Do the DF-31 and DF-31A use the same or a very similar mobile launcher? Or were the launchers displayed in Beijing in fact DF-31s but misidentified on Chinese television and the Chinese Ministry of National Defense web site as DF-31As? It’s hard to imagine the Ministry misidentifying the DF-31 as the DF-31A. But although there are no official public comparisons of the two missiles and their launchers (except the DF-31 has two stages and the DF-31A has three), the DF-31A is assumed to be longer than the DF-31 – 18 meters versus 13 meters, according to Jane’s Strategic Weapons Systems. If so, the launchers displayed at the parade were too short for the DF-31A and must have been for the DF-31.

The Mysterious DF-41 (or still-to-be-seen DF-31A)?

The news media widely reported that the DF-41 would be displayed at the parade. The rumors about the missile seem to have fed off private web sites that claim the existence of a missile called DF-41. There is no official confirmation of this missile and a 2009 report from the U.S. Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Agency does not list a DF-41 missile or any other new Chinese long-range ballistic missile under development even though it lists new missiles under development by other countries.

The rumors about the DF-41 were so prevailing that an interviewer on the Chinese CCTV 4 Focus Today program the day before the parade kept asking Major General Zhang Xinan, the Assistant Director of the Second Artillery Corps’ Political Department, about the missile. But the General appeared to caution about what he called the “so-called DF-41,” saying that “this mystery will be cleared up tomorrow in the parade.” He did not dismiss the existence of a DF-41, but no such missile launcher rolled across the square.

Even so, photos have been circulating on the web for several years allegedly showing what appear to be a Chinese mobile missile launcher that is clearly different from the DF-31. Many have speculated that the launcher is for the elusive DF-41. Is it, or could this be the launcher for the DF-31A, or something completely different?

DF-31A or DF-41 Mobile Launcher?

Images of a Chinese eight-axle mobile missile launcher have circulated on the web for years, said to be for the DF-41 missile. Is it, or is it for the DF-31A, or something else? Images: Web

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The JL-2 Payload

Finally, although the Chinese Navy’s new Julang-2 sea-launched ballistic missile was not displayed at the parade, the CCTV 4 Focus Today program interviewed Du Wenlong, identified as a “researcher” from the Chinese Academy of Military Science, who said the JL-2 “penetration capability and number of carried warheads have been raised to a large degree” compared with the JL-1.

The JL-2 is expected to carry some form of penetration aids, but it would be a surprise if it carries more than one warhead. Whether the “researcher” is in a position where he would know what JL-2 will carry or is talking in general terms is unclear, but the U.S. intelligence community has consistently – most recently in June this year – assessed that the JL-2 carries a single warhead.

Final Observations

It would be interesting if the DF-31 and DF-31A use a similar mobile launcher. It would mean that estimates of an 18-meter DF-31A are wrong; the missile would have to be less than 16 meters to fit inside the launcher that was displayed at the parade as the DF-31A. A common launcher would have some serious implications for crisis stability in a hypothetical war between China and the United States because a launch of a DF-31 against regional targets initially could be misinterpreted by the U.S. military as a nuclear attack on the U.S. mainland, and lead to further escalation of the war.

But it would certainly be curious if the Chinese Ministry of National Defense claimed to display the DF-31A but instead re-displayed the DF-31.

by: Alicia Godsberg

This past Thursday and Friday marked the 6^th bi-annual Article XIV Conference, the Conference on Facilitating the Entry Into Force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).  This year’s conference was held at the United Nations in New York and was met with a measure of cautious optimism – most states voiced their appreciation of President Obama’s pledge to work toward US ratification of the CTBT, while many states recognized the challenges of obtaining all the necessary ratifications for entry into force of the Treaty and mentioned the challenges to the nonproliferation regime stemming from the lack of the Treaty’s entry into force (despite former commitments to do so) and from the DPRK’s 2006 and 2009 nuclear tests.

Entry into force of the CTBT has been on the international agenda for thirteen years. Because the US, China, UK, France, and Russian Federation have all imposed a voluntary moratorium on national nuclear testing, many question the need for entry into force of the CTBT.  Although the Treaty would bring few new tangible benefits, the political impact of entry into force would be tremendous.  As explained below, the vast majority of sates see entry into force of the CTBT as somewhat of a litmus test for the future viability of the nonproliferation regime.

The CTBT was opened up for signature in 1996 and since then the Treaty has obtained 181 signatories and 150 ratifications.  In order for the Treaty to enter into force, 44 states mentioned in annex II of the Treaty must ratify.  As of today, only 35 of these states have ratified the Treaty, leaving the full implementation of the Treaty in the hands of the remaining nine states.[i] The Treaty has an extensive verification system that is continuing to be built and includes 321 monitoring stations and 16 laboratories in 89 countries that make up an International Monitoring System (IMS).  This system is now approximately 85% operational and since 2000 has been transmitting data to an International Data Center (IDC) to be interpreted and shared with all signatories to the Treaty.  The IMS provides valuable data for civilian applications, such as advance tsunami warnings, but the main focus of the IMS is detection and attribution of nuclear test explosions.  The system was proven effective even without the CTBT entering into force after collecting and interpreting data from both of the recent DPRK nuclear tests.  However, the option of imposing intrusive on-site inspections is necessary for an extra layer of investigation into the attribution of nuclear explosions.  According to the terms of the CTBT this option cannot be exercised before the Treaty enters into force, and is one main reason for the need to obtain the remaining nine “annex II” state ratifications.

Entry into force of the CTBT is also important, as many states reiterated at this latest conference, because the early entry into force of the CTBT was one of the conditions under which the non-nuclear weapon states parties (NNWS) to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) agreed to indefinitely extend the NPT in 1995.  Similarly, at the 2000 NPT Review Conference, early entry into force of the CTBT was the first of 13 Practical Steps toward nuclear disarmament that was adopted by consensus by all states parties to the NPT that year.  Nuclear weapon states parties to the NPT (NWS) have all signed the CTBT, but China and the US have not ratified the Treaty.  President Obama has pledged to work toward US ratification, but it seems he is going to have to fight to get the 67 votes he needs in the Senate to do so.  Indonesia, also an annex II state, recently publicly stated that once the US ratifies the CTBT they will follow with ratification, and it is likely that China will follow US ratification as well.  Ratification of the CTBT by the last two NWS before the NPT Review Conference in May 2010 would be an important first step toward fulfilling NWS’s political commitments and legal obligations to NNWS.  US and China’s ratifications of the CTBT could set the tone for cooperation on President Obama’s nonproliferation agenda and perhaps even on the sensitive topic of the control of the nuclear fuel cycle at the upcoming NPT Review Conference in May.

If you go here and read a random selection of statements from the Article XIV Conference, you will find that most states are looking to the US to fulfill its past promises and to take up the leadership position on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament, about which President Obama speaks so eloquently.  Yet, with all the positive reasons for states to ratify the CTBT, there still remain some important international and domestic stumbling blocks.  Because countries like the DPRK and Iran are on the list of annex II states, many in the US and around the world believe that the Treaty will never enter into force.  These voices in the US use such countries as one excuse not to support US ratification of the Treaty.  While US ratification is not sufficient for the Treaty to enter into force it is necessary, and US ratification is likely to be followed by the ratification of at least some other annex II states as well.  In addition, the international community would certainly see US ratification of the CTBT as a positive step toward a world free of nuclear weapons and toward fulfilling the nuclear disarmament obligation under Article VI of the NPT.

Policy makers in Washington don’t seem to make the connection between keeping political commitments/upholding international treaty obligations and getting support from the global community for US nonproliferation objectives.  This point is never lost at the UN on the vast majority of states (meaning all but the five permanent members of the Security Council).  In speech after speech, in forum after forum, NNWS – along with India, Pakistan, and Israel – call upon NWS to fulfill their obligations from the indefinite extension of the NPT in 1995 and from the 13 Practical Steps of the 2000 NPT Review Conference.  President Obama recognizes the need for the international community to work together to manage our common security (see his speech to the GA here and to the Security Council here) and last week began reasserting US leadership at the UN in matters of nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.  To show the high-level of engagement that the US intends to have on the subject, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton led the US delegation to the Article XIV Conference (the first US delegation at an Article XIV Conference in ten years) and President Obama addressed the 64^th General Assembly the day before the conference started and chaired the first ever Security Council Summit on nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation in a separate meeting on the conference’s first day.  All this high-level attention from the US for the CTBT, nuclear disarmament, and nonproliferation was noted and welcomed by most of the states in attendance at the conference.

One thing that was not mentioned by any states in their official statements to the conference was the possibility of the provisional entry into force of the Treaty prior to obtaining all remaining annex II ratifications.  Provisional entry into force of the CTBT could allow states parties to the Treaty to agree to on-site inspections when necessary, an important added layer to detect potential cheating.  Provisional entry into force might also put pressure on those annex II states that have not yet ratified the Treaty to do so by being yet another indicator of the importance the vast majority of the international community places on the CTBT.  Recognizing that international law helps solidify norms of state behavior and brings predictability and stability to international relations, many states at the conference spoke about the importance of codifying the voluntary nuclear testing moratoria the NWS have made into the CTBT, a legally binding treaty.  Provisional entry into force of the Treaty before all annex II states have ratified could be an important step in the cementing of the norm against nuclear testing, thus providing another motivation for more annex II states to work toward ratification of the Treaty.

One other interesting note from the conference is that the actual measures to promote early entry into force of the CTBT – the main stated purpose of the conference – were not mentioned by many countries.  Japan was one of only a few countries to discuss such measures in their speech, measures that included sending high-level envoys to annex II states to encourage their ratification of the Treaty at an early date.  And while 103 states were represented at the conference, attendance during the bulk of state speeches was relatively low.  This could be due to the fact that the General Assembly was simultaneously in session, and it should be noted that the large number of participants is indicative of the importance the international community places on the early entry into force of the CTBT.

The conference ended with the adoption of a final document but without much celebration.  NNWS want serious progress to be made toward nuclear disarmament before NWS further restrict nuclear technology for peaceful purposes; the ratification of the CTBT by the two hold-out NWS is a promise that needs to be fulfilled for the vast majority of the world to recognize such serious progress.  Despite the positive developments many states mentioned since the last Article XIV Conference in 2007, the CTBT is still not in force.  US ratification of the CTBT might become the strongest signal of the revitalization of the nonproliferation regime, which will be tested for its durability at the upcoming NPT Review Conference in May 2010.

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[i] The following is the list of annex II states that need to ratify the CTBT before it can enter into force: China; DPRK; Egypt; Indonesia; India; Islamic Republic of Iran; Israel; Pakistan; and the United States of America.  Of these nine countries, three have not yet signed the Treaty (DPRK, India, and Pakistan).

On Friday, President Obama announced that the United States knows of a new, undeclared, and hidden underground gas-centrifuge uranium enrichment facility in Iran, near the city of Qom.  Some news reports suggest that 3000 centrifuges will be housed there.  How significant is this discovery?  Well, just in time, our crack FAS researcher, Ivanka Barzashka, has posted on the FAS website a calculator to help you answer questions just like that.

Natural uranium is made up predominantly of two isotopes, that is, atoms of the same element with the same chemical properties but very slightly different masses and, therefore, dramatically different nuclear properties.  Uranium-235 is the isotope that powers nuclear reactors and nuclear bombs.  Natural uranium is less than one percent 235 but approximately 90 percent U-235 is needed for a bomb.  Getting these higher concentrations is called “enrichment”.  Today gas centrifuges are the method of choice for enriching uranium.  Hence the great concern about the latest revelation.  [We have a nice little video that explains how centrifuges work.]

The calculator can be used to investigate possible Iranian breakout scenarios.  In summary, the user has to supply the calculator with the concentration of uranium-235 in the input, or feed.  Natural uranium is 0.7%.  If the Iranians used the output of the enrichment plant at Natanz as input to the Qom plant, then they could start with 3.5%.  The user must also specify the U-235 concentration in the waste.  If Iran wants to get as much U-235 as possible out of its uranium supply, then this number will be small, usually 0.2-0.25%.  If Iran is in a rush, it could feed uranium through faster but throw away more U-235.  For example, if it used 3.5% as input, it could have “waste” of 1%, which is a higher U-235 concentration than natural uranium.

The calculator then returns the value of amounts of uranium and the “separative work” needed.  Separative work is a general measure of the capacity of an enrichment element (such as a centrifuge or centrifuge plant) to enrich a certain amount of material over a given time.   A plant operator can utilize any given plant capacity to enrich a large amount of uranium a little bit (as you would for a nuclear reactor) or to enrich a small amount of uranium a lot (as you would for a nuclear bomb).  It is as though we had a pump of a certain power available and we could choose to pump a large volume of water a small distance uphill or a small quantity of water much further uphill.  Separative work is measured in Separative Work Units or SWUs, performed on a certain amount of material, almost always kilograms, so the unit is kg-SWU.

How many SWUs would the enrichment plant at Qom  have and what could the Iranians do with it?  First, keep in mind that all information we currently have on the new facility is pretty vague and based on a few news reports.  Iran has not officially declared the capacity of the Qom plant or what kind of machines it will contain. But it was reported to have 3000 centrifuges.  Very simple calculations based on IAEA reports suggest that the first generation Iranian centrifuges produce approximately 0.5 kg-SWU/year so the plant would produce 1500 kg-SWU/year.  Perhaps the second generation centrifuges would go in the new facility.  We really know very little at all about these except that they are presumably better than the first generation.  You can speculate on the separative work of these centrifuges and multiply by 3000.

Using some of the examples above, we can use the calculator to estimate the bomb-making potential of the new Iranian facility.  For example, if we start with natural uranium and calculate how many SWUs are needed to produce on bomb’s worth of 90% U-235 (estimated to be 27.8 kg for the simplest bomb, significantly less for a more sophisticated bomb), we find that 6400 SWUs are required or over four year’s worth of production at 1500 SWU a year.  If we start with 3.5% U-235 from the Natanz plant and have wastes of 1%, then we need 1328 SWUs, so a 1500 SWU plant could produce a bomb’s worth in a little less than a year.  Of course, if the individual centrifuges are higher performance, these times are reduced proportionately.  We don’t know enough about the new facility to say much more than that.

 

The calculator was developed by an interdisciplinary team with background including scientists and programmers.  The calculator is geared toward people without a technical background.  The programming was done predominantly by FAS intern Augustine Sebastionelli, a computer systems major at Alvernia University.  The technical aspect of the project was managed by Greg Watson, IT manager at FAS and, when Greg left FAS to return to get his master’s degree in political science, finished by our new IT Manager, Robert Lilly.  FAS intern Amit Talapatra, a chemical engineering major from the University of Virginia, worked with the programmers to develop an algorithm to perform the dynamic calculation.  Overall coordination and concept design was Ivanka Barzashka’s.

President Obama has once again pushed nuclear weapons, and his vision for a world free of nuclear weapons, to the center of the world’s stage with his speech yesterday before the United Nations’ General Assembly and his chairing of the United Nations’ Security Council meeting this morning. He reiterated his goal of ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), of negotiating a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) that would end production of bomb-grade nuclear material (something the Bush administration supported in theory but without any verification procedures), of negotiating a treaty with Russia that will “substantially reduce” strategic nuclear warheads, and of strengthening the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The President also said “We will complete a Nuclear Posture Review that opens the door to deeper cuts, and reduces the role of nuclear weapons.” This morning, as chair of the UN Security Council, the President got unanimous consent to Council resolution that endorsed all the points made before the General Assembly.

The President’s remarks are powerful and plain and were overwhelming well received by all of us who have long hoped that the world might someday be free of nuclear weapons. Still, I am worried that the message has been clearer at the UN, and in Prague, than it is here in Washington. If we look at the direction the bureaucracy and politics are taking here, there is reason to worry that the President’s vision will be dangerously diluted.

While the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) is not paramount, it will be an important document. It will set out in broad terms what the U.S. nuclear doctrine is. I do not have any secret source deep within the Pentagon giving me access to special insider information but the Obama administration has made an admirable effort to keep interested parties posted on developments. And the news is not reassuring. Based on public briefings, the NPR document that seems to be shaping up is not a dramatic change from the status quo. Far from being revolutionary, it is a cautious, even modest, move in the right direction. That is not what we need.

To achieve a fundamental change, to put the world on a new course, the nuclear powers, led by the United States, have to change the fundamental role that nuclear weapons play. We have to change their mission and justification. Everything else is just working around the edges. And change in the fundamentals is what I don’t see coming out of the administration’s current effort.

The “requirements” for nuclear weapons, not just their numbers but how they are deployed, their power, accuracy, and reliability, all follow from the military missions that nuclear weapons are assigned. Nuclear weapons, and their missions, have been with us for so long people forget that these “requirements” don’t come from the laws of physics but from choices we make. If we got rid of all the first strike, preemptive missions and restricted nuclear weapons to the sole mission of retaliating for nuclear attack, with the aim of deterring that attack in the first place, then much of the danger of nuclear weapons could be removed. This would be essentially a no-nuclear-first-use doctrine. With such a doctrine, there would no need for weapons on alert, there would be no need for new weapons, not even a need to maintain extremely high reliability.

All the information coming out of the administration indicates that it is not considering giving up the first strike, preemptive missions and moving to a no-first-use doctrine. In a speech at the Carnegie Endowment early in the administration, Gary Samore, the staffer on the National Security Council who is keeping the White House on top of the NPR, said, in response to a question from my colleague Hans Kristensen, that a US no-first use doctrine is not plausible. Recently, Defense Secretary Gates said that we will need increased investments in the nuclear weapon enterprise and that he seems to think we will have nuclear weapons as far into the future as we can see; the “requirement” for billions of dollars in nuclear infrastructure rests on the unspoken assumption that nuclear weapons have to characteristics making them usable for a first strike. In a series of briefings on the NPR for a small group of interested parties, the Pentagon has suggested that the steady-as-she goes Congressional Strategic Posture Commission would be the foundation to build on.

No one expects a great deal from the current negotiations for the treaty that will take the place of START, the “START-follow-on.” Because START expires in December, it is important to get some lose ends tied up before then and to provide an interim treaty until the treaty after that is negotiated. It is that treaty, the follow-on to the follow-on, that is important. Nevertheless, the current negotiations seem modest even by those standards. The numbers being considered, 1675 deployed strategic weapons, is not meaningfully different from the 1700 limit in the wholly uninspiring Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT). Moreover, the seven year time horizon discussed for the limits hints at a possible lack of urgency in taking a dramatic next step anytime soon.

All of this is important on the near and far term. The political stars are now aligned for a fundamental reassessment of the role of nuclear weapons. No one I know thinks we will ever have a better chance. And major decisions are coming up over the next decade in both the U.S., concerning new nuclear warheads, new missiles, and new submarines, that will affect our nuclear posture for the next fifty years.

The danger is that the President’s vision will not survive the wheels of the bureaucracy. All of the people who are working on the NPR are all extremely talented, knowledgeable, and thoughtful. But the evidence so far is that they are not inspired by a vision of a fundamental, revolutionary change. Nuclear weapons are serious business, a business we need to approach with sober caution, but the President needs to give his UN and Prague speeches at the Pentagon to inspire among the nuclear foot soldiers his passion and vision and not to settle for gradualism.

A high-security weapons storage area northwest of Karachi appears to be a potential nuclear weapons storage site. (click image to download larger version)

By Hans M. Kristensen

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons stockpile now includes an estimated 70-90 nuclear warheads, according to the latest Nuclear Notebook published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The estimate is an increase compared with the previous estimate of approximately 60 warheads due to Pakistan’s pending introduction of a new ballistic missile and cruise missiles.

The increase in the warhead estimate does not mean Pakistan is thought to be sprinting ahead of India, which is also increasing its stockpile.

Modernizations

The nuclear-capable Shaheen-II medium-range ballistic missile appears to be approaching operational deployment after long preparation. The Army test-launched two missiles within three days in April 2008, and the U.S. Air Force National Air and Space Intelligence Center (NASIC) reported in June 2009 that the weapon “probably will soon be deployed.”

Two types of nuclear-capable cruise missiles are also under development; the ground-launched Barbur and the air-launched Ra-ad. The development of cruise missiles with nuclear capability is interesting because it suggests that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons designers have been successful in building smaller and lighter plutonium warheads.

Warhead Security Concerns

An article published in the July issue of the CTC Sentinel news letter of the Combating Terrorism Center at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point gained widespread attention for describing terrorist attacks against three of Pakistan’s rumored nuclear weapons facilities: Wah Ordnance Facility, Kamra Air Base, and Sargodha Weapons Storage Facility. Although the incidents had been reported before, the article triggered the predictable rejection from a Pakistani military spokesman but with the additional claim that neither facility stored nuclear weapons. “These are nowhere close to any nuclear facility,” he said. Yet the official would most likely not disclose the location of the nuclear weapons, even if he knew where they were.

While the CTC Sentinel article says “most” of Pakistan’s nuclear sites might be close to or even within terrorist dominated areas, senior U.S. officials said the weapons were secure and mostly located south of Islamabad.

Regardless of the actual location of the weapons, there have, of course, been many more terrorists attacks against other facilities that have nothing to do with Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, and so far no pattern has emerged in public of a concerted terrorist effort against nuclear sites – much less an attempt to steel nuclear weapons. A U.S. intelligence official commented to the New York Times that it was unclear whether the attackers knew what the facilities contained. “If they were after something specific, or were truly seeking entry, you’d think they might use a different tactic, one that’s been employed elsewhere – such as a bomb followed by a small-arms assault.”

Pakistani and U.S. statements about the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, and the basis for our estimate, are included in the Nuclear Notebook.

Publication: Pakistani Nuclear Forces, 2009