The North Korean nuclear test on May 25, 2009, was “heard” loud and clear around the world despite its apparent limited size. Detection of small, clandestine nuclear tests seems to work.

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By Hans M. Kristensen

The Korean Central News Agency reportedly has announced that North Korea “successfully conducted one more underground nuclear test on May 25 as part of measures to bolster its nuclear deterrent for self-defense.”  Several news media reported that the Russian Ministry of Defense estimating the test had a yield of approximately 10 to 20 kilotons.

Yet the preliminary seismic data published by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) shows that the test had a seismic magnitude of 4.7, only slightly more powerful than the 4.3 of the 2006 test.

Was it another fizzle? We’ll have to wait for more analysis of the seismic data, but so far the early news media reports about a “Hiroshima-size” nuclear explosion seem to be overblown.

Update: CTBTO’s initial findings.
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The Congressional Commission on the strategic posture report released yesterday is what the Air Force calls a “target rich environment.” There is a lot to shoot at. This essay follows up on the post that Hans Kristensen and I published yesterday. I want to continue the theme I discussed yesterday that the recommendations of the report are based on assumptions about nuclear weapons characteristics, assumptions that are implicit, unexamined, and unsupportable.

For example, “Although nuclear weapons have existed for over sixty years, weapons science was largely an empirical science for much of that period. Nuclear weapons are exceptionally complex, involving temperatures as high as the sun and times measured in nanoseconds. Understanding these weapons from first principles requires a broad, diverse and deep set of scientific skills, along with complex experimental tools and some of the fastest and most powerful computers in the world.”

But didn’t we build nuclear weapons in 1945 while armed only with slide rules? The above statement about the science of nuclear weapons is partially true about our current nuclear weapons but that is because our current weapons are high performance, two-stage thermonuclear bombs with yields of up to fifty times greater than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima.  As I have written elsewhere, these powerful bombs are needed to conduct first strike attacks against Soviet, and now Russian, hardened silos containing nuclear-armed missiles. The reason they must be of such sophisticated design is to make them small and light so many of them can fit atop one missile, to increase American strike power efficiently. The requirement for knowledge of plutonium behavior comes about because plutonium is a far better trigger than uranium for multi-hundred kiloton weapons. These were all important nuclear weapons requirements during the Cold War.

Do these “requirements” persist today?  In fact there is no new physics needed to understand nuclear weapons adequately;  they are, in principle, well understood, the challenges are technical, not scientific, and there is little to no technical challenge left for American and other advanced nuclear weapon states in just getting a bomb to explode and we could design bombs that do not require a complex supporting infrastructure.  There is, however, a challenge in getting a dozen warheads, each with several hundred kilotons of yield, on one missile and that was important at a time when the United States was planning a nation-crushing attack on the Soviet Union.  The stated need to maintain expertise in the labs rests, then, on an implicit endorsement of a nuclear mission that many of us think ought to be explicitly rejected.  This occurs at several points in the report; the commission is so comfortable with the nuclear status quo that they seem unaware of fundamental questions that are being widely discussed today about the future of nuclear weapons.

The report repeatedly makes implicit assumptions about nuclear weapon performance characteristics that depend on nuclear missions while never saying anything specific about the missions themselves.  For example, “So long as the nation continues to require a nuclear deterrent, these weapons should meet the highest standards of safety, security, and reliability.”  This is an open-ended requirement.  We are not given the faintest clue about how we will know when we will be done.  When will our nuclear weapons be safe, secure, and reliable enough?  The political answer is that they will never be safe enough, the weapon labs will make nuclear weapons as safe as they can with the biggest budget they can convince the Congress to send to them and if you send them more money the weapons will be more safe.  More safety is always better, right?  Apparently not, because we could dramatically increase the safely of nuclear weapons by storing them disassembled.  But since this would not allow them to be used quickly (in another place the report advocates ICBMs because they are “immediately responsive”) it is too far outside the box to be considered by the Commission. The Commission’s constraints on considering what is available to enhance safety implies, without examination, certain mission requirements and it is precisely these mission requirements that the Commission ought to have been focusing on. Instead, they talk about lab budgets.

An amusing comparison is the discussion of how the labs ought to be relieved of some of their safety and security burden. While nuclear weapons should meet the “highest standards” of safety and security, the Commission later writes,

“A significant new cost driver is security. Costs to protect nuclear weapons and material have dramatically increased over the past few years. Today, security costs at NNSA sites consume one out of every five dollars appropriated for the weapons program or approximately $1 billion per year. Some increase was inevitable in the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, 2001. But in the view of the Commission, some of the increase is not warranted. Both the Congress and the Department of Energy have been reluctant to take actions that might be interpreted as a lessening of security. As a result, the security program has become unbalanced, with few incentives for reducing costs and a tendency to apply standard procedures even when illogical.”

And later, the report states,

“Costs for security are inordinately high in part because of the incentive structure. There are no incentives to do more than simply comply withexisting standards and, instead, to use good judgment in the service of innovation. Conditional probability metrics are not being used as the basis for defining the necessary security protection at the sites.”

Nor are “conditional probability metrics” being used to determine the required safety and security requirements for the warheads themselves.

Some others have written on the report. A brief piece is in Wired and Kingston Reif at the Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation did a good analysis.

The final report from the Congressional Strategic Posture Commission seems focused on hedging rather than leading.

By Ivan Oelrich and Hans M. Kristensen

The Congressional Strategic Posture Commission report published today is definitely not the place that the President or the nation should look for new ideas on how to reduce the role of nuclear weapons and lead the world toward a world free of nuclear weapons.

Even for a compromise document written by a diverse group, it is a work of deeply disappointing failure of imagination.  The recommendations can be summarized as:  the nuclear world should stay pretty much the way it is but at slightly lower force levels, incrementalism is the most we can hope for, and even that should be approached very cautiously.

The report comes close to dismissing the President’s vision of a world free of nuclear weapons – and the enthusiastic support it has generated worldwide – as a utopian dream:  “The conditions that might make the elimination of nuclear weapons possible are not present today and establishing such conditions would require a fundamental transformation of the world political order.”  The United States should retain a viable nuclear deterrence “indefinitely.”  The Commission surrenders to the nuclear problems of the world rather than recommending a proactive way forward out of the mess.

Of course, the Commission is not opposed to nuclear reductions per se and supports them under certain conditions, but it recommends that the approach “balances deterrence, arms control, and non-proliferation.  Singular emphasis on one or another element,” the report says, apparently hinting at disarmament, “would reduce the nuclear security of the United States and its allies.”

If the Commission’s report is any preview of the Pentagon’s Nuclear Posture Review, we should expect minimal changes in nuclear forces, structure, or mission.  The report recommends a nuclear policy of “leading and hedging” but seems to be focused on hedging.

The Nuclear Mission and Deterrence

While President Obama believes the United States should “put an end to Cold War thinking” and “reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, and urge others to do the same,” the Commission offers little support for this approach or analysis of what it would mean.

Indeed, while the report concludes that, “…as long as other nations have nuclear weapons, the U.S. must continue to safeguard its security by maintaining an appropriately effective nuclear deterrent force,” the Commission fails to ask fundamental questions about what nuclear weapons are for and what their character should be.  This is probably because there was no consensus on these matters, but better to ask the question and admit they have no answer than to simply state over and over again that nuclear weapons are for “deterrence.” Since some will believe that “appropriately effective” is two thousand nuclear weapons and others think it will be twenty, what does the statement mean?

But it is also an assertion that should be, but is not, challenged.  Does this really mean that if North Korea has one nuclear bomb, intended to counter our overwhelming conventional capability, we need to have nuclear weapons to counter it?  That may be true but it is certainly not clear to us and should not be asserted as though it needs no explanation.  Elsewhere the report says the United States faces decisions about how to reduce “nuclear weapons to the absolute minimum.”  Again, two honest people could agree on this goal and differ by a factor of a hundred or a thousand on what an “absolute minimum” is.  When the United States had 32,000 nuclear weapons, that was also considered the “absolute minimum” needed for national security.

Without examination of the mission of nuclear weapons, how can we say what their characteristics should be?  Even if nuclear weapons are for deterrence, how do they deter?  What are their targets?  How should those targets be attacked?  If we do not answer, or even ask, those questions, how can we say that we need high levels of reliability?  How can we say we need land-based missiles that can be launched on a moment’s notice?  How can we say we need a vast nuclear weapons complex to design complex two-stage thermonuclear weapons with hundreds of kilotons of yield?  There are other examples as well, about reliability, safety, and so on, that presume missions for nuclear weapons that simply should not be presumed.

The Commission acknowledges that it is difficult to replicate the “relatively simple” deterrence calculus of the Cold War, determined by the damage inflicted, in today’s much more complex and fluid security environment.  Even so, the report states, the United States still “needs a spectrum of nuclear and non-nuclear force employment options and flexibility in planning along with the traditional requirements for forces that are sufficiently lethal and certain of their result to threaten an appropriate array of targets credibly.” The justification for this sweeping conclusion about capabilities is that “the security environment has grown more complex and fluid.”

As with so many discussions of nuclear weapons, the use of the term “deterrence” in particular is confused and the logic self-referencial.   Throughout the report, in too many places to cite, are repeated explicit declarations that nuclear weapons are for deterrence.  The report frequently makes the mistake of talking about nuclear weapons and deterrence and then slipping into the error of assuming that deterrence must be nuclear deterrence, or the report makes true statements about deterrence but then implies that the deterrence must be effected with nuclear weapons.  It repeatedly refers to our nuclear forces as our “deterrent” or our “deterrent forces” as though they were the same thing.  Nuclear weapon designers are maintaining their “deterrent skills.”

In describing the role of deterrence, the Commission glosses over many important developments that have shaped U.S. nuclear policy, strategy, and doctrine over the years.  “In a basic sense, the principal function of nuclear weapons has not changed in decades: deterrence. The United States has these weapons in order to create the conditions in which they are never used,” the report declares.  Yet we recall hugely important developments ranging from Mutual Assured Destruction, flexible response, adaptive planning, Global Strike, and preemptive strike options, all of which changed the policies and conditions under which the weapons might be used. The report’s more accurate statement would be: “Presidents have not changed their reluctance in decades to authorize use of nuclear weapons.”

Likewise, the report does not describe the important development after the end of the Cold War, where U.S. nuclear targeting policy expanded from Russia and China and their satellite states to deterring all forms of weapons of mass destruction use by six individual countries today (some of which do not have nuclear weapons).

Non-Use and First Strike

One of the most important conclusions in the Commission report is that the “tradition of non-use serves U.S. interests and should be reinforced by U.S. policy and capabilities.”  But what that implies for policies and capabilities is not explained.

Even so, the Commission concludes that not only must U.S. nuclear forces be able to retaliate against an attack, “the United States must also design its strategic forces with the objective of being able to limit damage from an attacker if a war begins.” Such damage-limitation capabilities “are important because of the possibility of accidental or unauthorized launches by a state or attacks by terrorists,” and can be achieved “not only by active defenses, such as missile defenses, “but also by the ability to attack forces that might yet be launched against the United States or its allies.”

Such first strike planning might be relevant with conventional forces against rogue states and terrorists, but first strike planning of course can also be used against other nuclear weapon states as it was during the Cold War against the Soviet Union and China. For the Commission to advocate such a mission for nuclear forces today, however, is deeply troubling because it is a primary reason why Russia insists it must have large numbers of nuclear weapons on alert – a dangerous posture that is a direct threat to the interest of the United States or its allies.

Extended deterrence

The Commission report echoes many of the points raised in the Schlesinger report from December last year about extended deterrence and views expressed by officials from some allies about the importance and mission of nuclear weapons.  The good news is that the Commission report makes clear that those allies are not all of the same mind concerning the requirements for extended deterrence and assurance, and that substantive and high-level consultations are needed.

But the Commission does not explain the different capabilities that contribute to extended deterrence, but instead equates “extended deterrence” with nuclear weapons and implicitly non-strategic nuclear weapons.  This after NATO for almost two decades has insisted that the U.S. non-strategic nuclear weapons deployed in Europe have no military – only a political – role.

The Commission reports that “some allies located near Russia” are saying that “U.S. non-strategic forces in Europe are essential to prevent nuclear coercion by Moscow and indeed that modernized U.S./NATO forces are essential for restoring a sense of balance in the face of Russia’s nuclear renewal.”  Yet the Commission does not say that the German foreign minister has called publicly for the withdrawal of the U.S. weapons from Europe, the Belgian Senate has unanimously called for the same, and that the overwhelming majority of Europeans want the weapons to go.

Worst-case analysis is to reference only what is a concern, but that is not the full picture.

The Influence of Russia

After nearly two decades of the Clinton and Bush administrations insisting that Russia is not an adversary and not an immediate contingency for setting U.S. nuclear force levels, the Commission at least admits that Russia largely is what drives U.S. nuclear posturing, saying, “The sizing of U.S. forces remains overwhelmingly driven by the requirements of essential equivalence and strategic stability with Russia.”

In doing so, combined with numerous other references to Russia throughout the report, the Commission essentially reinstates Russia as a central pillar in U.S. nuclear posture planning.  The report seems to accept that we are locked in an arms race with Russia and it is surprisingly cautious about how to free ourselves from it.  It even concludes that, “the United States should not abandon strategic equivalency with Russia,” because overall equivalence is important to many allies in Europe, and that the “The United States should not cede to Russia a posture of superiority in the name of deemphasizing nuclear weapons in U.S. military strategy.”

While the commission says there is no risk of such an imbalance emerging in strategic weapons in the near-term, the situation is different with non-strategic weapons.  The Commission doesn’t know how many Russia has and it can’t say how many the United States has, but while acknowledging that strict U.S.-Russian equivalence in non-strategic force numbers is unnecessary the Commission concludes that the current imbalance is stark and will become apparent as strategic weapons are reduced. This, the report correctly concludes, “points to the urgency of an arms control approach” involving non-strategic weapons.

Overall, the Commission concludes, the United States should “retain enough capacity, whether in its existing delivery systems and supply of reserve warheads or in its infrastructure, to impress upon Russian leaders the impossibility of gaining a position of nuclear supremacy over the United States by breaking out of an arms control agreement.”

Rising China

China looms in the background in many places of the report, reflecting uneasiness among the Commission members about the direction China is taking.  But how that direction relates to the U.S. nuclear posture is not analyzed well.  Even so, the Commission concludes, in addition to being able to deal with Russian and regional scenarios, the United States “should also retain a large enough force of nuclear weapons that China is not tempted to try to reach a posture of strategic equivalency with the United States or of strategic supremacy in the Asian theater.”

Curiously, the Commission is so concerned about China’s potential nuclear capacity that it urges that Russia – which it is otherwise concerned about – not reduce its nuclear forces too much.  This is a mild reversed version of the Reagan administration’s policy that sought China as a nuclear deterrence partner against the Soviet Union.

Therefore…

Based on all of these assumptions (and many more we don’t have room to mention here), the Commission lands on a conclusion that the United States should retain the Cold War nuclear force structure of the Triad.  All three legs have unique characteristics that are all needed, the Commission concludes, and because two will be left if one fails, and because “resilience and flexibility of the triad have proven valuable as the number of operationally deployed strategic nuclear weapons has declined.”

Yet the Commission could not come up with a specific force structure or a specific number for the correct size of the U.S. nuclear force, even though it was asked to do so by Congress.  The issue is too complex, the authors concluded, and really should be left to deal with by the President in consultation with the military.

The United States should reduce nuclear forces only in bi-lateral negotiations with Russia (and others later), but not pursue unilateral reductions except in reserve warheads — and only if the nuclear warhead production capacity is increased.

Conclusion

In conclusion we were greatly disappointed with the Commission’s report because we see it preoccupied with hedging and failing to offer the leading that is necessary to change status quo.

Indeed, the report seems strangely detached from the President’s vision and the widespread support it and the “gang of four” op-eds have received worldwide.

It would be ironic if the Pentagon’s Nuclear Posture Review ends up recommending bigger changes than the Commission. That shouldn’t be hard.

The task at hand is how to challenge the role of nuclear weapons, we agree with the President, not perpetuate it.

Vast inventories of nuclear weapons remain after the Cold War arms race ended.

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By Hans M. Kristensen

Russia’s nuclear forces are expected to drop well below 500 offensive strategic delivery vehicles within the next five years, less than one-third of what’s permitted by the 1991 START treaty. Unless the next U.S. Nuclear Posture Review significantly reduces the number of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, that single leg of the U.S. Triad of nuclear forces alone could soon include more delivery vehicles than the entire Russian strategic arsenal of land- and sea-based ballistic missiles and long-range bombers. With this in mind, Russia is MIRVing its ballistic missile to keep some level of parity with the United States.

This and more from a briefing I gave this morning at the Arms Control Association meeting Next Steps in U.S.-Russian Nuclear Arms Reductions.  I was in good company with Ambassador Linton Brooks, the former U.S. chief negotiator on the START treaty, who spoke about the key issues and challenges the START follow-on negotiators will face, and Greg Thielmann, formerly senior professional staffer of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, who discussed how the a new agreement might be verified through START-style verification tools.

Download: Briefing on US-Russian Nuclear Forces
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Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are “widely dispersed” says Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Does that include the large weapons storage complex at Sargodha? Click for image.

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By Hans M. Kristensen

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed concern over the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons in the light of increasing violence in the country. The weapons “are widely dispersed in the country – they are not at a central location,” she said in what is perhaps the first U.S. public indication of its knowledge about how Pakistan stores its nuclear weapons.

We’re pleased that both Washington Times and the Carnegie Endowment use our estimates for how many nuclear weapons Pakistan and other countries have. For additional information about Pakistan’s nuclear forces, see:

* Preparation of Shaheen-2 ballistic missile launchers.
* Nuclear Notebook: Pakistan’s Nuclear Forces, 2007 (most recent update).
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By Hans M. Kristensen

Russia’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergey Ryabkov, gave a lengthy reaction to the FAS/NRDC report From Counterforce to Minimal Deterrence during a press conference Wednesday.

The transcript from the press conference shows that in response to a question that the “report [is] suggesting a possible retargeting of US missile from Russian cities to key economic facilities,” Ryabkov correctly stated: “I have read the report and think that in the Russian media the thesis mentioned by you was taken our of context. That is not the essence of the report.”

Instead, Ryabkov said correctly described that the report “contains an analysis of the hypothetical consequences of the use of nuclear weapons against large industrial and infrastructure facilities, as well as of what the losses might be in the case of the use of warheads of varying yield.” The rest of Ryabkov’s response is reproduced below:

Question: The Federation of American Scientists has published a report suggesting a possible retargeting of US missiles from Russian cities to key economic facilities. How can you comment on this? Sergey Ryabkov: I have read this report and think that in the Russian media the thesis mentioned by you was taken out of context. That is not the essence of the report. It contains an analysis of the hypothetical consequences of the use of nuclear weapons against large industrial and infrastructure facilities, as well as of what the losses might be in the case of the use of warheads of varying yield. It is deplorable and regrettable that the really existing facilities on Russian territory were chosen for such an analytical and speculative work. In my opinion, this evidences the authors’ somewhat detached attitude to the fact that much has changed in Russian-US relations in recent years. Considering Russia as a target for potential use of nuclear weapons is not a good idea. This only adds arguments to those who stick to Cold War thinking. In addition, undoubtedly, the very fact of the appearance of that report bears out our thesis that we cannot approach the question of existing potentials abstractly. Intentions, however positive and constructive today, may change tomorrow. The Federation of American Scientists is perfectly aware of this. And the very fact of the appearance of this material suggests that there needs to be serious negotiation, and that the logic of strategic equilibrium and a super-responsible approach to this sphere cannot be sacrificed to any, even the most constructive political intentions or a general favorable disposition. Intentions and dispositions are very ephemeral magnitudes, and the potentials and capacity to deal a blow, as the Association writes quite cynically and coldly about this in its report, enumerating the exponentially increasing millions of victims and speculating about how many more and what kind of warheads are needed for this knockout, are a wake-up call and a reminder to us that we live in a harsh world, whose realities can’t be disregarded.”

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If you have followed Russian news media recently, you might have gotten the impression that FAS and NRDC are in charge of U.S. nuclear strike planning and are recommending increasing nuclear targeting of Russia.

Of course, neither is true.

Yet major Russian news media – and apparently also the chairman of the Russia’s parliament’s international affairs committee – have so misread and misrepresented the FAS/NRDC study From Counterforce to Minimal Deterrence that we are compelled to publish this rebuttal.

Pravda Article Gets It Wrong

A Pravda article under the headline “U.S. retargets nuclear missiles to 12 Russian economic facilities” misrepresents the study as saying that the United States has already developed a new doctrine that is “going to retarget their nuclear missiles from large Russian cities to 12 most important economic facilities.”

The headline and first paragraph of this Pravda article misrepresent what the FAS/NRDC study From Counterforce to Minimal Deterrence actually says.

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Rather, our study does not say U.S. nuclear weapons are targeted at Russian cities. In fact, we believe cities are explicitly off-limit to U.S. nuclear strike plans unless vital military targets are present.

Nor does the study conclude it has to be 12 industrial targets.  Rather, it includes a nominal list of 12 industrial targets for illustrative purposes.

Nor does the study say the U.S. has developed or is implementing a doctrine to retarget nuclear weapons at Russia’s 12 most important economic facilities. Rather, based on U.S. government documents, which we reference in the study, we estimate that U.S. nuclear strike plans already hold at risk nuclear (and other WMD) forces, command and control facilities, military and political leadership, and war-supporting infrastructure.  What we’re proposing is to end nuclear planning against the first three of those target categories and limit the remaining effort – in a transition period toward elimination of nuclear weapons – against a sharply curtailed subset of the fourth target category.

Our correction sent to Pravda has so far been ignored.

Konstantin Kosachev Interview

Konstantin Kosachev, the chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Russia Duma, misrepresents the FAS/NRDC report.

Duma Committee Chairman Also Gets It Wrong

In an interview with Russia Today, Konstantin Kosachev, who is chairman of the Russian parliament’s international affairs committee, said he had discussed the study with Carl Levin, chairman of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, “in the presence of the U.S. ambassador to Moscow.”  Their reaction, Kosachev said, “was something like, ‘strange, we should detarget not retarget our missiles’….”

The interviewer then suggested, and Kosachev agreed, that “reports such as this” can have the effect of “scaremongering” people and “derail relations between the United States and Russia.” Kosachev added that, “This type of reports make [Russian hawks who oppose disarmament] even stronger.”

Yet the U.S. nuclear war plan already contains strike options against facilities in Russia (and other countries with WMD) – and it’s surprising if the chairman of the International Affairs Committee is not aware of this.  Russia is not an “immediate contingency,” but it’s very much a contingency because of its large numbers of nuclear weapons and history.  The recommendations in the FAS/NRDC report would not “retarget” but significantly curtail existing planning.

“Detargeting” is a controversial word that refers to the 1994 bilateral agreement between Russia and the United States (a similar arrangement was made between China and the United States) according to which the two countries pledged not to store targeting coordinates for the other country in their respective missiles.  As a result, U.S. Trident SLBMs and Peacekeeper ICBMs were said no longer to store target coordinates in their onboard computers, and the Minuteman III ICBMs, which for technical reasons had to store some coordinates, were targeted on the oceans.

The objective was to avoid an accidental launch of a missile striking the other country.  It was a symbolic “detargeting” agreement, not a constraining “nontargeting” agreement, and both countries continue to design and maintain detailed strike plans against each other.  Close to 2,000 warheads are on alert, ready to fly within minutes, despite the “detargeting” agreement.

Our report is proposing that we replace that form of planning with a much more constrained policy during the transition period where the United States and Russia figure out how to retain national security without nuclear weapons.

Vice-Chairman of Russian Council Foreign Affairs Committee Also Gets it Wrong

Vasily Likhachyov [Lykhachev], the Vice-Chairman of the Russian Council’s Foreign Affairs Committee told RIA Novosti that our proposal to go to a minimal deterrence posture represents “an infringement on the fundamental principles of international law.”  The basis for this assessment apparently was the 1994 detargeting agreement that he said Russia “strictly adheres to,” and that targeting of facilities in Russia demonstrate “disrespect for the soverignty of the Russian Federation.”

Again, the 1994 detargeting agreement is not a nontargeting agreement (see above), but it is particularly interesting if a member of the Russian Council indicates that it would be against international law if the Russian military targeted the United States with nuclear weapons.

Mr. Likhachyov also questioned our calculations of expected casualties from strikes on Russian infrastructure targets arguing that “anyone who knows what a nuclear weapon is also understands that the effect of an atomic explosion spreads over tens and even hundreds of kilometers.”

But as we explain in the report, the selection of “soft” surface targets such as industry allows the Optimum Height of Burst to be set high above the surface, thus avoiding the generation of large amounts of fallout that Mr. Likhachyov appears to assume comes from any nuclear detonation.

Resources: FAS/NRDC Press Release and Full Report

Last Wednesday, 8 April, the Federation of American Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) jointly released FAS Occasional Paper Number 7, From Counterforce to Minimal Deterrence — A New Nuclear Policy on the Path Toward Eliminating Nuclear Weapons.  As part of the release, my coauthors, Stan Norris of NRDC and Hans Kristensen of FAS, and I held a panel discussion at the Carnegie Endowment, where each of us presented results of our research that is covered in the paper.  This essay summarizes my comments on that panel.

There are three things we describe in this paper.  First, we are proposing a new set of military missions for nuclear weapons—actually the “set” is just one mission, second, we are describing what that mission would look like, and, third, we are describing one way to actually get that single mission properly implemented.
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By Ivanka Barzashka and Ivan Oelrich

Yesterday, on Iran’s national Nuclear Technology Day, President Ahmadinejad announced the country’s latest nuclear advances, which seem to have become an important source of national pride and international rancor. April 9 marks the day when Iran claimed to have enriched its first batch of uranium in 2006. Yesterday, Ahmadinejad inaugurated Iran’s Fuel Manufacturing Plant (FMP) at Isfahan and announced the installation of a new “more accurate” type of centrifuge at the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) at Natanz.

A fuel fabrication facility, the last element of the front-end fuel cycle, is where nuclear reactor fuel is made. For light water reactors (LWR), such as the one in Bushehr, uranium is mined, turned into yellow cake, and converted to uranium hexafluoride (UF6), the UF6 is enriched using centrifuges, converted into uranium oxide pellets, and made into fuel rods, which go into the reactor core. For pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWR), such as the one in Arak, uranium doesn’t need to be enriched, so the yellow cake is directly converted to uranium oxide pellets.

Fuel fabrication is not nearly the technical challenge of building and operating a cascade of centrifuges, but it is not trivial either. No one wants a multi-billion dollar reactor contaminated because a fuel element has failed, so quality control is vital. Fuel rods must not rupture or corrode while in the reactor, which requires careful control of the purity of materials and integrity of seals.

Iran has claimed that its uranium enrichment program is meant for energy production and is wholly peaceful, while much of the rest of the world has worried that the centrifuges in Natanz are really intended to produce highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a nuclear weapon. The Iranians claim that they need to enrich their own uranium because, based on past experience, they cannot depend on foreign suppliers. The argument of energy independence rang hollow because Iran did not have a fuel fabrication facility. This meant that their indigenously enriched uranium would still have to be exported for fabrication into fuel elements and re-imported, leaving them still vulnerable to foreign pressure. If they now have an operational fabrication facility, they will complete the front-end nuclear fuel production, making their energy independence arguments for enrichment more plausible, or at least less implausible.

Although, it is not news that the FMP, whose construction began in 2004, is operational (this was announced in the February 2009 IAEA report), the advent of a fuel fabrication facility itself is significant. Only three countries, one tenth of those possessing nuclear power plants, have all the elements of the nuclear fuel cycle: from uranium mines to reactor fuel manufacture. It so happens, that all three countries also posses nuclear weapons. When Iran’s nuclear reactor is operational, Iran will have independent control of all the elements of the nuclear fuel cycle, thereby advancing their claim for energy independence.

But Iran has not closed the front-end fuel cycle yet. The FMP was originally planned to produce nuclear fuel for the heavy water reactor in Arak, which is still under construction, not for the soon to be in operation light water reactor in Bushehr. Yet yesterday, an Iranian news source reported that, “Iran has completely gained access to management of nuclear fuel production which makes the country self-sufficient in production of nuclear fuel for heavy and light water reactors.” [emphasis added] In another article, IRNA even mentions the capacity: “FMP is to produce 10 tons of natural fuel each year used for 40 megawatts heavy-water reactors in Arak and 30 tons of five percent enriched uranium for light water reactors.”

According to the February IAEA report, after an inspection at FMP, the IAEA inspectors concluded that “the process line for the production of natural uranium pellets for the heavy water reactor fuel had been completed and fuel rods were being produced” [emphasis added]. Because neither the IAEA nor Iran has previously mentioned FMP’s LWR-fuel-producing capability, we are skeptical about what the plant can actually do. We suspect it is more likely that Iran, known for exaggerating its nuclear capabilities, means that the plant could potentially produce fuel for a LWR.

Light water reactor (LWR) fuel is not the same as heavy water reactor (HWR) fuel. The uranium oxide fuel pellets are similar, except the LWR fuel is made from expensive, hard-to-get enriched uranium and the HWR fuel is made from cheap natural uranium. In both cases, the pellets are stacked and covered with clad zircalloy (zirconium, coated with iron and other trace elements). However, the geometry and construction of the fuel element assemblies is very different (personal communication from Ehud Greenspan, a nuclear engineering professor at UC Berkley). A HWR has much simpler fuel assemblies than those of a LWR. The PWR rods have a larger diameter, are shorter, and have a thinner coating of metal. [pp 241-291] Because of their size, LWR fuel rods have to be free standing and have a greater power density. LWR fuel production also requires greater attention to criticality dangers.[pp 33-39] All bundles in a HWR are identical, they do not have different uranium concentration like those in the LWR, which can range anywhere from 3 to 5 percent LEU and are arranged in special patterns optimize the neutron flux throughout the core.

In short, the principles and technology of fuel manufacture for both LWR and PHWR are close, but the fuel rod design is very different. So, if Iran had the technological capacity to do one, they could very well do both. But can this happen at the same facility?

India is the only country that produces nuclear fuel for both its LWR (BWR) reactor and its PHWR at the same location – the Nuclear Fuel Complex in Hyderabad. India imports its enriched uranium. Although zirconium production plants are the same for both fuel types, the conversion of raw material (in one case natural uranium and in the other enriched uranium) to UO2 pellets is done in two separate facilities. The fuel rods are also assembled at two distinct locations within the complex: the Ceramic Fuel Fabrication Plant and the Enriched Uranium Fuel Plant.

Moreover, the Russian-built light water reactor in Bushehr, whose construction was completed this year and will soon be in operation, uses Russian-made fuel rods. Iran and Russia have signed a long-term agreement for fuel supply and it is unlikely that Iran would risk damaging the VVER-426 reactor with domestically manufactured fuel rods, especially when it does not have the design plans, which Russia is not going to offer up. So, Iranian theoretical LWR fuel manufacturing capacity will at best have to wait for the construction of another nuclear reactor, at least ten years from now.

According to the Nuclear Energy Agency, if a county wants to be independent from foreign nuclear fuel vendors in a fairly short time, a heavy water reactor is the way to go. It is cheap and simple: uranium does not have to be enriched, natural uranium is easily converted to uranium oxide, the design is simple and the fuel rods are all the same. It requires only a small factory and has lower labor costs. In addition, a PWR can be designed to have a continuous fueling system so it does not have to be shut down to be refueled. Countries with moderate technological capabilities like South Korea, Argentina, and Romania have national heavy water fuel fabrication facilities. So, it is understandable why Iran would think this approach is attractive.

Yet Iranian motives are still not clear cut.

On one hand, the inauguration of a fuel fabrication facility is good news. This means that Iran really is trying to produce reactor fuel and this brings legitimacy to their enrichment claim. Moreover, a fuel fabrication plant in itself has no dual use if viewed a separate part of the fuel cycle. Scott Kemp from Princeton mentioned not too long ago that if Iran converted its UF6 to UO2, this would act as a safeguard. If Iran started the fuel fabrication process for a LWR, turned most of the LEU stockpiled at Natanz into uranium oxide pellets and locked it away in zircalloy tubes, this would greatly reduce the possibility of batch recycling the LEU to bomb-grade uranium.

However, if the FMP produces nuclear fuel for the heavy water reactor in Arak this is bad news. Heavy water reactors might be of interest for a nuclear power program because they do not need enriched uranium. Canada, for example, operates only heavy water reactors (known as CANDU) domestically and has sold these commercially. But heavy water reactors are also ideally suited for producing plutonium that can be used in a nuclear weapon. Once again, Iranian moves can be interpreted as moving toward energy independence or toward a nuclear weapons capability, or both.

This post was last updated on 30 September 2009 due to a factual error in the number of countries possessing all the components of the fuel cycle. Only the US, Russia and China currently have all the elements – France shut down its last uranium mine in 2001 and India has only a test enrichment plant and actually imports its enriched uranium.

Click on image for PDF-version of full report.

By Hans M. Kristensen

The Federation of American Scientists and Natural Resources Defense Council today published a study that calls for fundamental changes in the way the United States military plans for using nuclear weapons.

The study From Counterforce to Minimal Deterrence: A New Nuclear Policy on the Path Toward Eliminating Nuclear Weapons recommends abandoning the decades-old “counterforce” doctrine and replacing it with a new and much less ambitious targeting policy the authors call Minimal Deterrence. [Update: see Washington Post – Report Urges Updating of Nuclear Weapons Policy]

Global Security Newswire reported last week that Department of Defense officials have concluded that significant reductions to the nuclear arsenal cannot be made unless President Barack Obama scales back the nation’s strategic war plan. The FAS/NRDC report presents a plan for how to do that.

The last time outdated nuclear guidance stood in the way of nuclear cuts was in 1997, when then President Clinton had to change President Reagan’s 17-year old guidance to enable U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) to go to the START-III force level that the Bush administration subsequently adopted as the Moscow Treaty force level.  The series of STRATCOM force structure studies examining lower force levels is described in The Matrix of Deterrence.

Resources: Full Report | US Nuclear Forces 2009 | United States Reaches Moscow Treaty Warhead Limit Early | Press Conference Video

Though the nuclear arsenal of the United States is smaller than it was during the Cold War, the day-to-day deployment of forces has changed very little. The United States still has weapons ready to launch at a moment’s notice at all times.

The reason is simple: the mission for nuclear weapons has not changed from the time of the Cold War.

Most Americans would be surprised to discover that the instructions to our nuclear targeteers still include a requirement for a surprise first strike against Russian nuclear forces to destroy them on the ground. It is time to shift the focus from reducing numbers of nuclear weapons to reducing the missions of nuclear weapons.

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The 2009 Pentagon report shows hardly any changes of Chinese nuclear forces.

By Hans M. Kristensen

The new annual report on Chinese military forces published by the Pentagon shows essentially no changes in China’s nuclear forces compared with the previous report from 2008.

Perhaps most interestingly, the report shows that China has not increased the number of new DF-31 and DF-31A ballistic missiles, a deployment that has to pick up if the recent Defense Intelligence Agency projection that China’s “number of ICBM warheads capable of reaching the United States could more than double in the next 15 years” is to come true.