Arms Control Wonk

The Button

By Jeffrey | 5 September 2012 | 7 Comments

Is that a plastic model of Obama with his hand on the proverbial button?

Turns out, it is a little red phone.  The product is an “Obama 3 am Phone Call Squeezable Figure.”

It reminds my of my favorite Onion headline in recent years: Obama Makes It Through Another Day Of Resisting Urge To Launch All U.S. Nuclear Weapons At Once.

Let’s have a little Randy Newman after the jump.

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China Exports SWU

By Jeffrey | 4 September 2012 | 13 Comments

Did you know that China occasionally exports enrichment services?

I didn’t.  But, sure enough, they do from time to time.

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Worth the Wait

By krepon | 31 August 2012 | 20 Comments

Big Brother and the Holding Company I could do without, but I’ve been waiting four decades for someone with Janis Joplin’s raw talent and intensity. Finally, along comes Brittany Howard of the Alabama Shakes. Patience can sometimes be rewarded.

There is now considerable impatience directed at President Obama for not doing more and working faster to achieve a world without nuclear weapons. Will it take four decades – or more – to eventually reach Global Zero? Even if he wins a second term, President Obama won’t reduce the U.S. stockpile nearly as much as President George H.W. Bush or George W. Bush. Most probably, under President Obama’s watch, as with his predecessors, more U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons will be retired because of budgetary considerations and old age than because of treaty obligations. Team Obama has taken over a year and convened countless meetings to determine how much of New START’s excess can be trimmed without harm to U.S. national security. The answer, which is likely to create great angst among his political foes and continued impatience among his backers, awaits the outcome of the election.

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Nunn Lugar Prize

By Jeffrey | 30 August 2012 | 3 Comments

The Carnegie Corporation of New York and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace are celebrating their 100th birthdays by creating a $50,000 prize to recognize individuals or institutions dedicated to advancing the cause of nuclear security.  The prize is named after it’s first two recipients — Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar.

Click after the jump to read the press release, along with a letter CNS sent congratulating them.

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On That Aeroflot Advert

By Jeffrey | 30 August 2012 | 16 Comments

Update | 1 September 2012 The image is from the 2011, not 2012, Victory Day Parade.  I managed to find a high-resolution aerial shot of the 2012 Parade that allows us to exclude 2012 That would make the second set of vehicles the SA-22 (Pantsir-S1), not SS-21s.  So, both sets of vehicles are for air defense.  Credit to G. J. Hickman for convincing me to take a second look.  Heck of an eye on that guy.

The internets are exploding over this advertisement in the Brussels subway for the Russian airline Aeroflot.

Upon closer inspection, the aerial shot of Moscow reveals what appear to be two columns of missile launchers rolling down Kremlevskaya Naberezhnaya.  The Daily Telegraph is known for neither subtlety nor accuracy and, in this case, does not disappoint:

Russia’s Aeroflot entices visitors with Moscow’s cathedrals and nuclear missiles

As well as the beauty of Kremlin’s golden cathedral spires, sinister nuclear missiles will also welcome tourists to Moscow, according to bizarre billboard advertisements from Russia’s national airline.

Posters advertising Aeroflot’s twice-a-day flights from Brussels to Moscow have appeared under the heading “Discover Russia” on the walls of the Belgian capital’s Metro underground service.

At first sight, the poster is an attractive aerial photograph of the Kremlin and the Moscow embankment with the Christ the Saviour Cathedral seen further down the Moskva river.

But on closer examination, the photograph also shows a convoy of military trucks carrying intercontinental ballistic missiles or ICBMs, including nuclear warheads.

[...]

The weapons, some of which appear to be “Topol” mobile nuclear missile launchers, known by Nato as SS-27s, are showcased every year during Russia’s annual May 9 “Victory Parade” held on Red Square.

It is very easy to determine when the picture was taken and, as a result, assess the hardware on the street.  These are conventionally-armed missile defense interceptors and short-range ballistic missiles, not nuclear-capable ICBMs.

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GMD vs. North Korean ICBMs, Ctd.

By joshua | 28 August 2012 | 15 Comments

Back in April, I asked how the Ground-based Midcourse Defense might be adapted in response to North Korea’s nascent (or embryonic) ICBM force. Thanks to Steven Aftergood of FAS, we now have the official answer. It’s included in the replies to Questions for the Record (QFRs) from a November 2011 hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. The hearing volume and the QFRs now appear at the FAS Secrecy News site.

The question from Rep. Doug Lamborn and the answer from Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Miller appear below the jump.

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Reciprocal Unilateral Measures

By Jeffrey | 28 August 2012 | 31 Comments

“Reciprocal unilateral measures” is not my favorite phrase, despite my rather considerable affection for some of the people who have made use of it.  There is nothing wrong with the concept, mind you, but RUMs?  Ugh.

The term is back in our discourse, thanks to the Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board (ISAB), which has prepared an an otherwise sensible draft report on Options for Implementing Additional Nuclear Force Reductions.

My complaint with RUMs is equal parts pedantic, political and substantive.  SInce this is just a draft report, consider this an open letter to the ISAB to drop a term that mars an otherwise elegant idea.

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Small Change or Big Investment?

By krepon | 24 August 2012 | 3 Comments

Last Sunday, the Washington Post ran my op-ed suggesting that the United States pursue a space Code of Conduct with Beijing, not only to foster norms relating to debris mitigation, space traffic management and purposeful, harmful interference, but also as a door opener for U.S.-China strategic cooperation. This could be a “SALT moment” for Washington and Beijing – an opportunity to begin a difficult process of negotiations – internal no less than bilateral — on matters of strategic importance. I argue that the SALT moment for the United States and China will be about space, not nuclear arms control. To be sure, these domains are linked, but U.S.- China conversations and cooperation are more likely to succeed if we begin with space, rather than with strategic forces.

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Deterring Syria’s CW

By Jeffrey | 21 August 2012 | 30 Comments

A minor miracle the other day. U.S. President Barack Obama drew a “red line” concerning Syria’s chemical weapons.

Everyone understood what he meant. No one thought he was threatening to nuke Syria.

Hallelujah!

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IAEA Inspectors’ Risk in Iran

By mark | 20 August 2012 | 63 Comments

In a phone call at one o’clock in the morning on March 17, 2003, the U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA, Kenneth Brill, advised IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to remove his inspectors from Baghdad immediately.  The following day, the IAEA gave orders for personnel to leave Iraq. On March 19, the U.S. launched Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Fast-forward nine years. We’re now moving into the fifth month of Iran-P5+1 diplomacy without any progress, Prime Minister Netanyahu is urging the powers to declare negotiations a failure, and the drums of war are once again beating in Jerusalem.  So it’s no surprise we’re closing out the summer–and for good reason–by revisiting all the potential downsides of an Israeli attack against Iran’s nuclear installations.

Until now, one little item on that list has gotten scarce attention outside the classified world: the messy diplomatic situation Israel would encounter if any IAEA personnel were to be casualties of an airstrike on Iran. (It must also be said that the same dilemma would confront the U.S. should, as this account suggested last week, Washington in the more distant future would react to a serious Iranian escalation by taking matters into its own hands).

Might IAEA personnel potentially be at risk in Iran should Israel or the U.S. bomb Iran’s nuclear sites?

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