February, 2009

Micah Zenko had a piece in the Guardian today about the importance of the including the view of the uniformed military, namely the Joint Chiefs, if massive nuclear reductions are seriously to be pursued.  He notes,

Before the civilian leadership in the Obama administration can move toward a world without the bomb, it must initiate a clear and open dialogue with the Joint Chiefs of Staff - the collective heads of the US armed services, charged with protecting the nation and providing military advice to the president. Without the overt support of the Joint Chiefs, no president - much less a Democrat with little national-security experience - will have the political capital to negotiate with the international community, or implement at home, an end to nuclear weapons.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will soon hold elections to determine its next Director-General. The nuclear watchdog agency has been led for the past 11 years by Mohamed ElBaradei, a 2005 Nobel Peace Prize laureate who helped raise the organization to political prominence. He has also frequently criticized the Bush administration's policies towards Iraq and Iran, as well as championed the goal of eventual disarmament by the world's nuclear powers. Under ElBaradei's leadership, the IAEA has had a strained relationship with the United States, its most important member and funder. The US and IAEA have failed to work together effectively to prevent North Korea's acquisition of nuclear weapons and Iran's acceleration of its nuclear program. The two main candidates to replace ElBaradei, Yukiya Amano of Japan and Abdul Samad Minty of South Africa, offer different styles of future leadership. There has been much speculation that Amano will attempt to depoliticize the IAEA, a desire of western nations, while Minty will continue in ElBaradei's path of outspokenness and champion developing nation's views. While personal leadership is critical, the debate over the candidates' individual views distracts from the more important need for a long overdue discussion on how the United States should engage the IAEA. For all of its shortcomings, the IAEA is and will remain an essential player in international non-proliferation efforts. It is critical that the Obama administration quickly determines how partnering with the IAEA will fit into America's overall nuclear strategy. Once a framework for cooperation is established, a new partnership between the United States the IAEA should be able to accommodate and effectively harness the leadership style of either candidate to the betterment of the international non-proliferation regime.

Once the wave of stimulus spending to jumpstart the economy has ended, the administration will need to start finding programs across the board that they can cut or reduce to save money in an effort to reduce the massive budget deficit.  The DoD baseline budget will probably be lower and Gates is already emphasizing that some major acquisition programs will have to suffer.  Missile defense is usually mentioned near the top of this list of programs that could be scaled back.  On the political side, GSN reported yesterday that House Armed Services Committee Chair Ellen Tauscher echoed Obama's statements on missile defense by saying, "I fully agree with President [Barack] Obama's position that we should only deploy missile defenses that have been sufficiently tested and proven to work."  From a more technical standpoint, Bloomberg reported that Pentagon weapons tester Charles McQueary said he does not have "high confidence" that our missile defense system could adequately defend against a North Korean missile.  His annual report can be found here.  While there still remains skepticism about the ability of a North Korean missile to successfully reach Alaska or the West Coat of the United States, it seems that Congress and the President will focus much more on Theater Missile Defense given Tauchsher's assessment that they "meet the President's criteria" as opposed to difficult systems that are supposed to defend against long-range missile threats.

The CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) Spring Conference will be held on March 26-27 at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. This conference will mark the beginning of the 2009 conference series, which will consist of three regional conferences (on the east coast, west coast and in the United Kingdom) leading up to our year-end Capstone Conference at U.S. Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska. Event details, including registration information and the call for presentations can be found here.

Michael Krepon published a new piece in the Daily Times that questions the standard number-centric approach of bracketing off specific ranges for warhead reduction (and possibly attaching timeframes to them) because "abolition schemes that focus on numbers and timelines provide little traction against states that find security in nuclear options."  The article correctly cites the difficulty in getting someone to successfully lead the charge down and getting countries like China, India, and Pakistan on board.  The solution?  Revert to a report card system that experts will annually issue in concert with a "menu" of near-term steps that can be taken.  If the political, strategic, and ideological attachment to nuclear weapons here (GSN yesterday had a good article on the recent domestic pushback to the new nuclear agenda) and abroad is so strong, the report card approach may suffer from the same problem as the numbers system: the benefits of nuclear weapons for many countries may outweigh the criticism for dragging their feet.  If everyone is failing class, why put in the effort to get an A?

The debate has been heating up on the idea to transfer control of the nuclear weapons complex from DOE to DOD (original PONI blog post on the issue here).  A New York Times op-ed over the weekend proposed a third solution: "letting the nuclear administration stand as an independent agency whose importance could be underscored by having it report to the president."  This solution has some degree of intuitive appeal because neither DOE nor DOD have a pristine record when it comes to all things nuclear.   That being said, creating an autonomous nuclear administration from scratch is no cake walk.  If the article's statement that the "Energy Department has a poor record in managing costly and complex programs" is true, it means you cannot just copy NNSA/DOE's homework. The hypothetical planning for such an agency would need to take an in-depth look at the initial formulation and current structure and performance of NNSA.  Areas of striking efficiency and inefficiency have to be flagged to help create the blueprint for nuclear management heading into the future.  If possible, the advice of the military should also be included.  The article's statement that the complex, "will have to be modernized, reduced in size and managed a lot more carefully"  is no easy task.  The nuclear weapons complex in particular suffers from the bureaucratic dilemma of requiring a great deal of oversight while desperately needing to avoid the quagmire of inefficiency.

The big news in the nuclear world is the release of the IAEA report about Iranian enrichment capabilities.  A major implication of the report is that new estimates of Iranian LEU stocks (1,010 kg) could provide the country with enough uranium, if further enriched, to make a nuclear bomb.  As reported by the New York Times, the calculations for the new estimate brought to light a 33 percent underreporting in the previous IAEA estimate (thought to be 630 kg when in fact is was 839 kg). There were a number of statements made by various unnamed UN officials yesterday that at the very least deserve a second glance.  First, an official was surprisingly unconcerned about the 33 percent, repeat 33 percent, underreporting of LEU quantities.  According to the GSN he said,

Global Security Newswire ran an interesting piece yesterday about the lack of science expertise that plagues the Washington policy world. In the piece Senate Foreign Relations Committee staffer Edward Levine is quoted as saying that there is an "abysmal" lack of scientific expertise among Congressional staff. This is evidenced by the three to perhaps five scientists on a Senate staff of nearly 2,000 (scientifically speaking, only 0.25 percent of the staff). There's no doubt that science plays an integral role across the nonproliferation sector. For example, one of the arguments for possible passage of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) during this administration is the ever-increasing verifiability of the seismic, hydroacoustic, radionuclide, and infrasound monitoring stations throughout the world that can detect changes used to identify anything from major weather events to nuclear tests. Who on the Senate staff is equipped to understand the technical aspects of these important issues, let along cut through the jargon? Scientific expertise is similarly needed for a range of policy questions, including how to confidently verify any level of deep cuts in the stockpile, especially should the world ever get to a place where it was ready to go to zero or near zero. To help play a role in combating this scientific deficiency, PONI seeks to expand nuclear knowledge and debate, particularly to young people via programs like our Nuclear Scholars Initiative. With a new nuclear era ahead of us young talent and knowledge will be increasingly more critical.

George Jahn has a worthwhile piece today that looks at the two primary candidates running the upcoming election to become the new head of the IAEA. Japan's Yukiya Amano is described as a "low-key Japanese career diplomat" who "would be expected to depoliticize the agency.  His primary opposition is South Africa's Samad Minty who is a "former anti-apartheid activist" that "promises a more hands-on approach to mediating nuclear crises."  Regardless the winner, the role, or lack thereof, the IAEA takes in a variety of nuclear issues will be important.  In the interim, it will be interesting to watch the global response to the IAEA's call for an 11% increase in their budget despite the global recession.  The IAEA fight for funding has always been a tough one and will certainly could become more important as they may be needed, for example, to monitor the host of countries looking enviously at nuclear power.  Should Minty win, his reference to being a consensus creator could easily be used in efforts to resolve a consensus on Iran.  That being said, any capabilities the IAEA can provide are ultimately tempered by what Iran might allow them do within their sovereignty.

The nuclear press today contains a couple of very ambitious pieces. Outgoing IAEA Head Mohamed ElBaradei wrote an op-ed in the IHT that lays out both a list of seven specific actions to be taken with respect to nuclear weapons (CTBT, START, FMCT, De-alerting, Multinational Fuel Bank, massively increased IAEA authority and capability) and an additional list of three fundamental changes to be made (reduce poverty, deal with "festering conflicts," a new multinational "system of security") in order to increase peace.  The first seven alone will be a very difficult agenda to achieve before even getting to the very broad and extremely complex latter set of issues to tackle.  GSN's article from today contains a similar list of nuclear priorities that includes, "the prevention of nuclear terrorism; negotiation of significant cuts in the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia; taking all U.S. nuclear weapons off hair-trigger status, which enables them to be fired within 15 minutes; ratification of the treaty banning all nuclear test blasts; and a halt to development and production of new nuclear weapons" and "he agreed to campaign toward the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons." While many of these are likely valuable policies, it is important to maintain a sense of pragmatism about the timetables and feasibility for this entire agenda to get accomplished.  There will be strong political battles to get CTBT ratified in the US (not to mention getting the rest of Annex II holdouts to sign) and a START follow-on will also be politically very tough in the Congress and the Duma.  Other ideas, like a multinational fuel center and massive new IAEA capabilities for helping reduce worldwide arsenals are complex ideas that require hammering out a number of specific details before they can come to fruition.

Russia Profile did an interesting piece that spoke with a few different Russia experts to see how low the U.S. and Russia might actually be able to go in the likley inevitable round of arms reductions set to occur.  1,000 has been a number thrown out a number of places (including this article).  The three expets said the following about the host of questions surrounding the issue: 

• Vladimir Belaeff: Belaeff is highly skeptical of the magical 1,000 number.  He raises a host of specific definition issues that will have to be resolved in any sort of agreement and also raises the importance of figuring out whether 1,000 is a sufficient deterrent signal for the two major super powers.
• Ethan Burger: Burger takes a bit of a step back and evaluates many of the recent things that have happened in the US-Russian relationships and talks about the opportunity for the U.S. both in terms of valuable deep cuts but also in turning around the U.S. image in the world as a whole.
• Stephen Blank: Blank seems a bit more skeptical of the Russian interests given their recent attempts to play hardball on so many issues but does see arms reductions as potentially valuable in getting China, France, the UK, and perhaps India and Pakistan (though probably not Iran or North Korea) actively involved in global disarmament talks.  

Yesterday evening, CSIS hosted its first in a series of live debates as part of the PONI Debates the Issues project.  Clark Murdock, PONI Director and CSIS Senior Adviser, took the affirmative and argued the the United States should modernize its nuclear arsenal via the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program.  Joseph Cirincione, President of the Ploughshares Fund, took the negative side.  CSIS RA/Former college debater extraordinaire Jessica Yeats moderated and asked a series of targeted questions after the initial set of statements.  Based on event reactions, people seemed to be huge fans of the debate format instead, according to Joe, "of panels where we are all bored after a few minutes." If you couldn't make the event, watch it via the following links below: Entire event (windows media) Cirincione Opening Arguments (windows media) Murdock Opening Arguments (windows media) Stay tuned for other live debate events we will be hosting throughout the year and feel free to send us any comments you have about the event if you were there or ideas for future debate topics.

The AP reported yesterday, based on some leaked information from POGO, that LANL has confirmed it missing 69 computers.  The press release said none of them had classified information which is handled entirely separately but there was a BlackBerry lost in a "sensitive foreign country."  This is probably a much smaller deal than unknowingly flying nuclear weaopns across the country but still may show up in reports due to the government about possibilty transferring control of the weapons complex to DoD.  With cyber warfare constnatly appearing on the top of lists for threats that are likely and that we are vastly unprepared for, basics tasks such as keeping effective inventory of computers and preventing theft of information from nuclear laboratories should be treated as a very big deal.

Over the past couple of days, there have been statements back and forth between the U.S. and Iran about ending their three decade diplomatic freeze. Obama's call for Iran to "unclench their fist" was answered by Ahmadinejad's call for "talks based on mutual respect and if a fair atmosphere."  Many applaud the diplomatic coming together as a potential breakthrough that could resolve the nuclear crisis.  Not the Israelis.  As David Sanger's piece in the New York Times astutely points out:

It's almost inconceivable, some of Mr. Obama's aides acknowledge, that the Iranians will be willing to give up everything needed to produce a weapon. And it is hard to imagine that the Israelis will settle for anything less.

If Netanyahu pulls out the contested election in Israel, his hawkish tendencies may point towards a military strike.  Over the weekend, however, Olmert went so far as to say the winner is irrelevant to action being taken on Iran.  The same Reuters article also points out the lack of difficulty for Israeli leaders to secure domestic support for military strikes in the past against Iraq and recently Syria.  If the Bush Administration was unwilling to authorize an Israeli strike or given them wanted technology it seems unlikely that would occur now which means Israel may decide they have to take matters into their own hands and crash the U.S./Iranian date. UPDATE: The Europeans are also worried about the shifting power dynamics in Israel and their attempt at a strike on Iran.

Eric Sterner wrote an op-ed for the Washington Times outlining the case for the importance of deterrence in today's strategic environment.  The quest for a strong deterrent currently faces two strong obstacles.  The first lies in infrastructure of our weapons complex.  It is often described as "atrophying" and in need of renewed focus and rejuvenation.  The second barrier is the growing momentum towards large stockpile cuts (possibly in lead up to a "global zero").  Sterner is wary of the Obama Administration's temptation to embrace the "long-held hope that it is possible to ban nuclear weapons altogether" given the current modernization efforts from other established nuclear powers and the other countries around the world seeking to join the nuclear ranks. As such, Sterner concludes:

Whether we like it or not, mankind has unleashed the power of the atom. Until defenses give us the power to render the consequences moot, deterrence offers a path to manage responsibly the threat of that knowledge combining with evil intentions and committing great harm. With that in mind, we owe it to ourselves, and to future generations, to ensure that our deterrent is reliable, credible and robust.

It does seem that many people, even many who argue for a move to global zero, agree with the need for a strong U.S. deterrent for some time into the foreseeable future.  The real question will be figuring out what are feasible and sufficient "defenses" that "give us the power to render the consequences moot."  For Sterner, this may mean workable missile defense or similar technology.  For others, effective CBM's of verification regimes could be sufficient to hedge against the use of nuclear weapons.

As a reminder to everyone, PONI Debates the Issues is hosting its first live debate event this week.  It will take place on Thursday, February 12 from 5:30-7:00 pm at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (1800 K St. NW, Washington, DC 20006).  The topic for the debate will be:

Should the United States modernize its nuclear weapons stockpile with the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW)?

Taking the pro side of the argument will be CSIS Senior Adviser and PONI Director Clark Murdock.  The con side will be represented by Joseph Cirincione, President of the Ploughshares Fund.  The turnout for the event has been qute strong but there is still limited seating available.  To RSVP for the event, contact the PONI blog team here.  RSVP's will be granted on a first come, first serve basis.  We hope to see you all there!

A pair of articles released today discussing U.S. Missile Defense plans raise some interesting arguments about U.S. plan for missile defense in Europe. Gordon Cucullu's article in the New York Post primarily discusses the threat from Iran and North Korea and potential options for solving the dilemmas.  Finding strikes with European support one of the few available options for the former and Chinese involvement perhaps the only way to deal with the latter, the article concludes, "In the likely event that President Obama flinches at the prospect of such actions, he'd better rethink his opposition to missile defense. We're going to need it."  An op-ed in the Wall Street Journal expands the case for missile defense as an important signal of American geopolitical strength.  Particularly in the wake of the recent satellite launch (and Russian closing of supply routes through Kyrgyzstan), the op-ed argues that shelving missile defense now would signal weakness to Iran, Russia, and our security commitments to friends and allies in Europe. The coming cuts in defense spending thanks to the resource-constrained environment place missile defense as one of the prominent issues to be dealt with.  The scientific analysis of the technological capability of the system will play an important role in informing Obama and Biden's decision.  According to Cucullu, "Stunned critics watched recent tests at Vandenberg Air Fore base where "hitting a bullet with a bullet" proved to be well within the capability of USAF scientists." Whether these technological advances are considered sufficient to keep the system will remain to be seen.

We highly recommend Henry Kissinger's new opinion piece.  It outlines both why taking action on nuclear weapons is so critical and a number of recommendations for what the U.S. should do in regarding to multiple pressing proliferation priorities.    

The Pakistani decision to release A.Q. Khan from house arrest has sent a shiver through the international community and is yet another sign that Pakistan continues down the path of being America's greatest "frenemy" of the 21st century as both an indispensable security partner and perhaps the most dangerous nation on Earth. A.Q. Khan is one of the most popular figures in Pakistan and his unrestricted re-entry to society brings a big popularity bump to the government at a time it needs all the support it can get to compensate for the near-civil war it is fighting in Swat and elsewhere. But does that make the world a safer place? Khan's global black market nuclear network specialized in helping countries like Iran, North Korea, Libya, and perhaps others with the longest pole in the nuclear tent: enrichment technology. It's hard to understand how a few years of house arrest could have rehabilitated a master criminal. One imagines that if he chooses to reconstitute his network (if it isn't reconstituted already), it could do a pretty brisk business with Iran's neighbors.

*UPDATE: The New York Times published a good article on this question as well* Based on an internal memo they gained access to, the Albuquerque Journal (AP story located here) reported that President Obama is toying with the notion of putting the nuclear weapons complex under the control of DoD, as opposed to the Department of Energy where it currently resides.  While the idea would not materialize until at least 2011, this idea will likely spark a very contentious debate.  Chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Jeff Bingaman has already said he will, "fight it tooth and nail if they intend to proceed with it." Hailing from New Mexico, that statement likely has to do with the 20,000 civilian jobs current at Los Alamos and Sandia.  Former Sandia president C. Paul Robinson was frank in his remarks that the NNSA has not worked and that military control could provide "a continuity that has been lacking." The study due out at the end of the year on the costs and benefits of the strategy will likely play a large role in determining the viability of this proposal.  Given the harsh criticism from the Schlesinger Task Force I and II reports on the military's handling and focus on the actual nuclear weapons, that may raise doubts in the debates on this issue about the ability of the military to effectively run the nuclear complex.  At the same time, if the NNSA hasn't worked it may be worth giving the military a chance.  The move also represents a fundamental shift in a sort of "check and balance" of civilian control of the the gravest military weapon.

According to correspondent Tim Reid, the Times (UK) has learned of Obama's plan to "slash each country's stockpile of nuclear weapons by 80 per cent" by cutting the number of warheads to 1,000 per side.  According the article, this will be one of the first examples of the Samore/Clinton team, with Samore's office overseeing the process and State "driving the talks."  Not surprisingly, missile defense is mentioned as a key sticking point.  It would not be shocking to see the issue of NATO expansion also thrown into the talks.  As one of the first concrete nuclear proposals coming from the interesting, it will be interested to monitor the pushback and potential complications.  The article quoted a Republican saying "there will be trouble in Congress."  A START follow-on to 1,000 will be contentions not just on the Hill but also the labs, the military, etc.  There certainly has been some homework done in the issue but seeing how the debates play out on issues like the need to increase infrastructure capabilities to offset reductions, the technical procedure for going to 1,000, and credible bilateral verification measures will all be important.

Carl Ungerer published an piece in the Canberra Times discussing the inherent dilemma Obama faces between trying to resuscitate global arms control and nonproliferation while ensuring an effective deterrent.  Ungerer argues:

Obama is likely to move quickly on strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, implementing a global ban on the production on new nuclear materials, stopping the development of new nuclear weapons, seeking dramatic reductions in stockpiles of nuclear weapons and material, and making the US-Russian ban on intermediate-range missiles a global agreement . . . In direct contrast to Obama's stated policy goals, Gates has argued for America to develop a new reliable replacement warhead and the possible return of nuclear weapons testing in order to ensure the safety and reliability of the nuclear deterrent.  In the absence of a program of force modernisation, Gates argues that the provision of extended nuclear deterrence to allies such as Japan, South Korea and Australia can't be guaranteed.

Creatively maneuvering this dilemma will be a concern of primary importance for the administration's upcoming nuclear agenda, in particular the arms control side of the agenda.  If "modernization" (perhaps a problematic word) efforts are not pursued in a politically and diplomatically savvy manner, they could largely undercut leadership gains made elsewhere on the host of agreements Obama seeks to get through.  For example, in this article Ungerer explains Gates' agenda, "a return to nuclear weapons development and testing by the US" that would quickly cause Russia, China, India, and Pakistan to start testing again.  Precise legal and technical work needs to be done to effectively define what sort of "modernization" efforts, if any, the administration will pursue so that allies can be convinced they don't need their own weapons and the world can be convinced that "Mr. Multilateral" does care about arms control.

UPDATE: Also check out this piece by John Vinocur for IHT and this one by Daniel Freeman for the Wall Street Journal on the negotiating dilemmas facing the Obama administration. Stephen Rademaker published an op-ed in the NYT today about the looming negotiations between the U.S. and Iran.  While there is little doubt that some degree of negotiations will occur between the countries, Rademaker brings up an important point in looking beyond that initial wave of talks.  His argument is that Iran will say no and therefore the U.S. will end up taking some sort of comprise that allows enrichment, albeit with some conditions or regulations.  Looking to the broader implication of that compromise he argues,

 The same principle applies to enrichment. Once we accept enrichment in Iran, it will become impossible to deny the same arrangement to friendly governments in the region, let alone unfriendly ones like Syria. The result will be the proliferation of dangerous nuclear technologies that we have been seeking to avoid.  The risks will be even greater if we agree to convert Natanz into an international enrichment center. International partners will not invest in a primitive enrichment operation that relies on old and unproven technologies. They will insist on state of the art enrichment equipment, Western management and access to export markets - the absence of which has hindered Iran's enrichment progress up to now. By contrast, so long as Iran's nuclear enrichment program remains illegitimate and subject to international censure, it cannot serve as an attractive model for other countries.

Rademaker does make a persuasive case about the danger of allowing Iranian enrichment and its implications for the "proliferation cascade" throughout the Middle East.  The article does not, however, outline what the Obama administration should do with regards to Iran other than, "Obama must persuade Iran that he can afford to see negotiations fail."  The Iran policy over the past few years can hardly be called a success so it is pertinent for the U.S. to figure out heading into then negotiations what degree of enrichment, if any, could be allowed. As Pamela Falk at CBS news does a good describing, the next few months before the Iranian elections in June could provide an important wedge of time for the Obama administration.   If Obama can build on actions such as his interview on al-Arabiya, he could help catalyze the pragmatist elements of Iran that are sympathetic to Western values and culture to bring about a moderate leader that could make negotiation breakthroughs easier to achieve.