By Daryl G. Kimball
The Cold War ended nearly two decades ago, but U.S. and Russian leaders have missed opportunities to implement agreements that would have achieved deeper, irreversible cuts in their nuclear and missile stockpiles. As a result, their nuclear weapons doctrines and capabilities remain largely unchanged, and mutual suspicions linger.
Click here to return to full article.
Pressing the Nuclear Reset Button
Getting to Zero: An Interview With International Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Commission Co-Chair Gareth Evans
.
Gareth Evans serves as co-chair of the International Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Commission, an initiative sponsored by Australia and Japan aimed at providing recommendations for strengthening the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), reinvigorating efforts to halt nuclear nonproliferation, and promoting nuclear disarmament. Evans has held a long career in international security and arms control issues, as Australia's foreign minister during 1988-1996 and as the current president and chief executive officer of the International Crisis Group, a position he has held since 2000. Arms Control Today met with Evans Feb. 12 to discuss the work of the commission and his perspective on the issues it will be addressing.
Click here to read the interview.
A Joint Enterprise: Diplomacy to Achieve a World Without Nuclear Weapons
By Steve Andreasen
While a candidate for president last summer, Barack Obama said in Berlin that "[t]his is the moment to begin the work of seeking the peace of a world without nuclear weapons." After the November election, the president-elect made clear in this magazine his support for the initiative led by former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former Senator Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) to embrace the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and pursue a balanced program of practical steps toward achieving that goal, as the four American statesmen have proposed in two Wall Street Journal essays.
Click here to return to full article.
The Future of Nuclear Arms: A World United and Divided by Zero
By Randy Rydell
Ever since nuclear weapons were first used in World War II, there have been proposals to eliminate them. The today is largely united on the merits of this goal but remains deeply divided over how to achieve it. Some commentators call for mass popular movements. Some urge the states with the largest nuclear arsenals to lead the way. Some have sought to redefine what "zero" means, saying that "virtual" arsenals or nondeployed weapons are okay. Some insist on absolute preconditions. Some address disarmament as merely a "vision" or "ultimate goal." A few seem to believe that achieving this goal will require nothing less than world government.
Click here to return to full article.
Pursuing a Nuclear Weapons-Free World
By John Holum
A review of Reykjavik Revisted: Steps Toward a World Free of Nuclear Weapons.
Click here to read the full review.
Russia, U.S. Seek START Successor by Year End
By Cole Harvey
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met in Geneva March 6 to discuss a follow-on agreement to START and U.S.-Russian relations generally. In a press conference following their meeting, Clinton expressed the two governments' intention to have an agreement in place by the end of 2009. Separately, Lavrov issued a broad outline of the Russian position on the START successor in a March 7 address to the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament (CD).
Click here to return to full article.
News Analysis: NATO, Arms Control and Nonproliferation: An Alliance Divided?
By Oliver Meier
NATO's April 3-4 summit in France and Germany is expected to initiate a review of the alliance's 1999 Strategic Concept, which is likely to lead to a lively debate over the role the alliance should play in arms control and nonproliferation efforts. Some alliance members, such as Germany and Norway, are expected to favor a broader role for the alliance on arms control and nonproliferation issues. Others, particularly those from eastern Europe, are likely to oppose such a departure from NATO's traditional mission.
Click here to return to full article.
United Kingdom Promotes Disarmament
By Cole Harvey
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown delivered an address March 17 to the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Conference in London in which he reaffirmed the importance of disarmament in a "global nuclear bargain for our times." Brown spoke two days before a parliamentary report was released warning that the United Kingdom's nuclear deterrence could be at risk if plans to design and build a new fleet of strategic submarines are delayed.
Click here to return to full article.
CW Destruction Site Begins Operation
By Daniel Arnaudo
On March 5, the chemical weapons destruction plant at Shchuch'ye in Russia began operating. The plant is a key component of Russia's push to destroy its entire stockpile of agents by 2012, as mandated by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Other facilities at Gorny, Kambarka, Leonidovka, and Maradykovsky have already destroyed around 30 percent of Russia's total stockpile of chemical agents, which, at more than 40,000 tons, is the world's largest.
Click here to return to full article.
Obama Seeks Russian Cooperation on Iran
By Peter Crail
In February, President Barack Obama sent a letter to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev seeking greater cooperation from Moscow for addressing concerns regarding Iran's nuclear program. The letter indicated that the U.S. deployment of a missile defense system in eastern Europe opposed by Russia would hinge on progress in preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
Click here to return to full article.
IAEA Fuel Bank Advances
By Miles A. Pomper
A proposed international nuclear fuel bank took a major step forward March 5 with a $10 million pledge by Kuwait. The pledge meant that international donors exceeded a required $100 million total.
Click here to return to full article.
U.S. Limits Clusters; Global Efforts Ongoing
By Jeff Abramson
The United States in March made permanent a ban on the transfer of nearly all of its cluster munitions, and Congress is considering limitations on the use of the weapons. Internationally, Laos, the world's most cluster-impacted country, ratified the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM) as other countries continued discussing a potential alternative agreement within the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW).
Click here to return to full article.
U.S., Allies Warn Against NK Space Launch
By Peter Crail
The United States, Japan, and South Korea warned North Korea in March that its intended satellite launch would violate a UN Security Council resolution prohibiting Pyongyang's missile activities, indicating that the council would consider the issue in the event of such a launch. North Korea maintains that the launch is only for civil space purposes and has provided information to UN agencies on the timing and route of its space launch vehicle.
Click here to return to full article.
IAEA Approves India Additional Protocol
By Peter Crail
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) March 3 approved an additional protocol to India's safeguards agreement, ostensibly providing the agency with greater authority to monitor India's civilian nuclear activities. New Delhi, which is not a member of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), reached an "India-specific" agreement with the agency last year to place some of its nuclear facilities under safeguards while other facilities remain available for use for India's nuclear weapons efforts. (See ACT, September 2008.) That agreement paved the way for the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to adopt an exemption for sharing nuclear technology with India. (See ACT, October 2008.)
Click here to return to full article.
Obama Cuts RRW Program
By Scott Miller
President Barack Obama Feb. 26 provided the outlines of his proposed budget for fiscal year 2010, which begins Oct. 1. The outline, the details of which are expected to be filled in this month, includes a proposal to end the development of the controversial so-called reliable replacement warhead (RRW). Meanwhile, Congress March 10 finally approved a spending bill for Department of Energy nuclear energy and weapons programs for the current fiscal year.
Click here to return to full article.
Nuclear Refurbishment Problems Reported
By Scott Miller
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) March 2 released a report detailing several cases of mismanagement within two of the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) Life Extension Programs (LEPs). This report follows NNSA press releases in January and February announcing the completion of the B61 warhead refurbishments and partial completion of the W76 warhead refurbishments.
Click here to return to full article.
GAO Criticizes Missile Defense Programs
By Cole Harvey
A March Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to Congress found that the U.S. ballistic missile defense system (BMDS) has been subject to cost overruns and vague accounting and failed to achieve any of its six testing objectives for fiscal year 2008, which ended Sept. 30. Nevertheless, several system elements, including 24 upgraded ground-based midcourse defense (GMD) interceptors, are being deployed before being fully tested.
Click here to return to full article.
Learning From the A.Q. Khan Affair
By Daryl G. Kimball
The world's most notorious nuclear proliferator is once again a free man. Worried about what he might reveal in court about Pakistan's complicity and eager to demonstrate its independence from Washington, the fragile government of Prime Minister Asif Ali Zadari allowed the release last month of the country's former nuclear weapons program chief, Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Click here to return to the full article.
The Smallpox Destruction Debate: Could a Grand Bargain Settle the Issue?
By Jonathan B. Tucker
One of the longest and most contentious international policy debates has swirled around the question of whether to destroy the last known stocks of the smallpox (variola) virus, which are preserved at two World Health Organization (WHO)-authorized repositories in Russia and the United States. Although smallpox was eradicated from nature more than three decades ago, concerns surfaced in the early 1990s that a few countries may have retained undeclared samples of the virus for biological warfare purposes. Because a smallpox outbreak would be a global public health emergency of major proportions, in 1999 the WHO approved a research program at the two authorized repositories to develop improved medical defenses against the disease.[1]
Click here to return to the full article.
Complete Cutoff: Designing a Comprehensive Fissile Material Treaty
By Arend Meerburg and Frank N. von Hippel
President Barack Obama has pledged to "lead a global effort to negotiate a verifiable treaty ending the production of fissile materials for weapons purposes."[1] Fissile materials are the chain-reacting fissionable materials that are the essential ingredients in nuclear weapons, in practice, highly enriched uranium (HEU) and separated plutonium. Obama is not the first president to back the negotiation of such a treaty: President Bill Clinton did so after the UN General Assembly in 1993 adopted by consensus a resolution calling for negotiation of a "non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons or other explosive devices."[2] Even the administration of President George W. Bush tabled a draft treaty at the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament (CD), albeit without international verification.
Click here to return to the full article.
Five Plus Three: How to Have a Meaningful and Helpful Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty
By Christopher A. Ford
The Obama administration has stated its intention to conclude a treaty cutting off production of fissile material, highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium, for nuclear weapons. So did the administrations of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Although a fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT) has been a key objective of the UN Conference on Disarmament (CD) for many years, that organization seems unable to break out of its now customary paralysis.[1] This experience should encourage the Obama administration, if indeed it wants such a treaty, to look to another forum for realization. More importantly, it may be vital for the new U.S. administration to take a different approach because pursuit of an FMCT as currently contemplated at the CD might well have the ironic and presumably unintended consequence of gravely undermining the nuclear nonproliferation regime. Fortunately, such a new approach may well be available.
Click here to return to the full article.
The Threshold Test Ban Treaty
By Edward Ifft
As the likelihood increases that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) will get a new look in the Senate and perhaps advance closer to entry into force in the Obama administration,[1] it is useful to look back at its antecedents. There are three principal ones: the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT), known in most of the world as the Partial Test Ban Treaty; the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT); and the 1974 Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT). The NPT put in place the promise to end nuclear testing forever, and the LTBT repeated this promise and prohibited nuclear explosions in all environments except underground. Meanwhile, the NPT's Article VI disarmament provision was widely understood to include a commitment to enact eventually a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing. Quite properly, constant attention is given to the NPT, and Arms Control Today discussed the LTBT and NPT negotiations recently.[2] The TTBT, however, is sometimes forgotten, which is unfortunate because it was an important step in the 60-year struggle to control nuclear explosions and it has interesting lessons to tell about the art and science of negotiations, as well as verification and compliance issues.
Click here to return to the full article.
Obama Sets New Course on Arms Control
By Cole Harvey
In recent public statements and congressional hearings, Obama administration officials have indicated that they will reverse Bush-era policies on a number of major arms control issues. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other Obama appointees have said that they will actively pursue ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) as well as a new strategic arms agreement with Russia and have revised the U.S. approach to negotiations on a treaty banning the production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons.
Click here to return to the full article.
Bush Imposes Final Proliferation Sanctions
By Daniel Arnaudo
The United States imposed new sanctions Jan. 15 on seven companies from China, Iran, and North Korea, barring them from trading with U.S. companies or government agencies for two years. The sanctions, along with those related to the Abdul Qadeer Khan network, represented the last of nearly 300 such punishments related to unconventional weapons and missile proliferation that were doled out during the Bush administration's eight-year tenure. (See ACT, October 2008.)
Click here to return to the full article.
Nuclear Management Change Recommended
By Scott Miller
A Department of Defense task force formed after several recent incidents of nuclear weapons mismanagement found a lack of enthusiasm and understanding of the importance of nuclear deterrence throughout the department and recommended a series of changes to improve the department's performance. The report came as department officials said that changes recommended in an earlier report, focused on similar problems in the Air Force, were beginning to bear fruit.
Click here to return to the full article.
U.S. Arms Notifications Spike in 2008
By Jeff Abramson
Notifications made to Congress in 2008 of requested U.S. arms sales reached their highest monetary level in more than a decade. Countries in the Middle East accounted for more than half of the $75 billion in government-to-government requests, which also included controversial arrangements with Taiwan. Notifications do not always result in deliveries, and experts warn against expecting the high level of possible deals to continue.
Click here to return to the full article.
NNSA Completes B61 Refurbishment
By Scott Miller
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced that it had completed on Jan. 9 its eight-year effort to refurbish the B61-7 and B61-11 strategic nuclear bombs.
Click here to return to the full article.
Bosworth Named Special Representative for NK
By Peter Crail
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton traveled to Asia during her first overseas trip facing concerns about continued progress in negotiations on North Korea's denuclearization and questions regarding the status of North Korea's leadership. In order to help address these challenges, Clinton Feb. 20 named Ambassador Stephen Bosworth to serve as the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy. During a press conference with South Korean Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan, Clinton said that Bosworth "will be our senior official handling North Korea issues, reporting to me as well as to President [Barack] Obama."
Click here to return to the full article.
North Korea Seen Preparing for Missile Launch
By Peter Crail
Amid heightened tensions on the Korean peninsula, Pyongyang appears to be making preparations to test its long-range ballistic missile, the Taepo Dong-2. North Korea reportedly began moving components of the missile, which may be capable of reaching parts of the United States, to its eastern missile launch site at Musudan-ri in early February. The Wall Street Journal quoted an unnamed U.S. counterproliferation official Feb. 3 stating, "The North Koreans appear to be moving missile-related equipment around, but it's too early to say whether or not they will proceed with an actual test."
Click here to return to the full article.
Chinese Report Discusses Nuclear Planning
By Peter Crail
On Jan. 20, China issued its biennial defense white paper, which explained for the first time how its nuclear force would respond to different situations in line with its policy of "no first use of nuclear weapons." The paper, entitled "China's National Defense in 2008," is the sixth Beijing has issued since 1998.
Click here to return to the full article.
Ukraine Set to Join Enrichment Facility
By Miles A. Pomper
Efforts to impose multilateral control over the nuclear fuel cycle gained strength in February as Ukraine was set to become the fourth country to join a multinational uranium-enrichment facility located in Angarsk in Russia. Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), however, have yet to resolve differences on a safeguards agreement intended to govern a low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel bank to be located at the site in Siberia.
Click here to return to the full article.
Disarmament Efforts Get New Impetus
By Cole Harvey
In a major disarmament step, Russia and the United States appear poised to negotiate a significant new agreement on strategic arms reduction as the clock ticks toward the December 2009 expiration of the 1991 START. At the same time, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office issued a report detailing proposed steps for an eventual ban on all nuclear weapons.
Click here to return to the full article.
Iran Still Rebuffs IAEA Requests
By Peter Crail
Iran continues to refuse to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) regarding key aspects of its current and previous nuclear activities, according to a Feb. 19 report by the agency. Tehran has also produced a significant stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) hexafluoride and has continued to expand its uranium-enrichment operations, contrary to UN Security Council demands requiring that Iran suspend its enrichment activities, the construction of its heavy-water reactor, and the production of fuel for that reactor.
Click here to return to the full article.
Iran Makes First Successful Space Launch
By Peter Crail
Iran announced Feb. 3 that it carried out its first successful launch of a satellite into orbit. The launch raised international concerns regarding the progress Iran has made in its ballistic missile program, in particular the possibly that Iran may develop an ICBM in the future.
Click here to return to the full article.
U.S., UAE Sign Nuclear Cooperation Pact
By Miles A. Pomper
In one of her final acts in office, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Jan. 15 signed a nuclear cooperation agreement between the United States and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that includes a landmark nonproliferation provision. The Obama administration now must decide whether to press forward with the agreement amid concerns in Congress that the pact will provide Iran with easier access to nuclear technology.
Click here to return to the full article.
IAEA: Syrian Reactor Explanation Suspect
By Peter Crail
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued a report Feb. 19 indicating that Syria has failed to provide adequate information regarding a destroyed facility the West suspects was once a clandestine nuclear reactor. The agency stated that a Feb. 17 letter it received from Syria in response to questions regarding the site and potentially related locations and activities "did not address most of the questions raised in the agency's communications." In addition, Damascus has only allowed the agency to carry out a single visit to the site of the destroyed facility and has not provided the IAEA with access to additional sites as requested.
Click here to return to the full article.
Afghan Small Arms Records Incomplete
By Jeff Abramson
Several recent U.S. government reports identified significant difficulties in tracking U.S. small arms and light weapons meant for Afghan national forces and an improvement in monitoring such weapons meant for Iraq.
Click here to return to the full article.
Abdul Qadeer Khan Freed From House Arrest
By Peter Crail
In February, Pakistan lifted most restrictions on former Pakistani nuclear official Abdul Qadeer Khan, who had organized an extensive black market network contributing nuclear weapons-related technology to Iran, Libya, North Korea, and perhaps other countries. The Islamabad High Court Feb. 6 declared Khan a "free citizen," although still subject to some undisclosed security measures, after finding that charges against Khan for nuclear smuggling could not be proved.
Click here to return to the full article.
Letter to Editor: Arms Sales - A Challenge for Obama
By Joseph P. Smaldone
Jeff Abramson article "U.S. Atop Expanding Global Arms Market" in the December 2008 issue of Arms Control Today highlighted recent trends but did not point out a major challenge for the Obama administration: the urgent need to change U.S. conventional arms transfer policy.
Click here to return to full letter.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)