USAF COUNTERPROLIFERATION CENTER

CPC OUTREACH JOURNAL

Maxwell AFB, Alabama

Issue No. 797, 6 April 2010

Articles & Other Documents:

German Jihad Colonies Sprout Up in Waziristan The CIA's Curious Report on Iran's Nuclear Program

Discontent Grows over Moscow's Impotency in Dealing The Obama Nuclear Agenda One Year After Prague with Terror Obama Limits When U.S. Would Use Nuclear Arms Judging the New START Treaty Link to Copy of Nuclear Posture Review Iran scientists reportedly have plans for new nuclear facility Link to Copy of Nuclear Posture Review DoD Fact Sheet The Little Nukes That Got Away to withdraw from arms reduction deal if U.S. A Season for Disarmament increases missile defense

Welcome to the CPC Outreach Journal. As part of USAF Counterproliferation Center’s mission to counter weapons of mass destruction through education and research, we’re providing our government and civilian community a source for timely counterproliferation information. This information includes articles, papers and other documents addressing issues pertinent to US military response options for dealing with chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats and countermeasures. It’s our hope this information resource will help enhance your counterproliferation issue awareness. Established in 1998, the USAF/CPC provides education and research to present and future leaders of the Air Force, as well as to members of other branches of the armed services and Department of Defense. Our purpose is to help those agencies better prepare to counter the threat from weapons of mass destruction. Please feel free to visit our web site at http://cpc.au.af.mil/ for in-depth information and specific points of contact. The following articles, papers or documents do not necessarily reflect official endorsement of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or other US government agencies. Reproduction for private use or commercial gain is subject to original copyright restrictions. All rights are reserved.

SpiegelOnline.com 4 April 2010 The Third Generation German Jihad Colonies Sprout Up in Waziristan By Yassin Musharbash, Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark

A wave of Germans traveling to training camps for militant jihadists has alarmed security officials back in Europe. The recruits are quickly becoming radicalized and, in some cases, entire families are departing to hotbeds for terrorism. It is even believed that colonies catering to German Islamists have taken shape in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It was a Sunday in September when they lost their son Jan*. He gave his parents a particularly tight hug, his father recalls, a long and intense embrace. The father says that he could sense that this was no normal goodbye, and that it was about more than the supposed vacation trip to celebrate the couple's first wedding anniversary -- which was the story that Jan, 24, and his wife Alexandra* had cooked up for him.

It was the day of the German parliamentary elections in 2009, and the autumn sun was shining in Berlin, but Jan and Alexandra weren't interested in who would govern the country. They were going to leave Germany. They had rejected this society and this state. Jan and Alexandra packed their things into a rental car, picked up another couple, and the four friends headed off into exile. One of their traveling companions was 17 years old and six months pregnant -- her husband had just turned 20. Their child would not be born in Germany.

The two married couples headed to Budapest, where they boarded a plane for Istanbul. Jan placed one last call to his parents from a hotel.

Since then there have been only sporadic e-mails. These have been loving messages to his father and mother. But he also writes things that frighten his parents. He is living among brothers and doesn't need much money, Jan writes. No, they can't visit him -- it would be too dangerous, he says. And no, he can no longer imagine returning to Berlin, to a life among the kuffar, the infidels.

Then, in December, he wrote that he didn't know if he would live to see the next summer. Since then his parents have been looking in their mailbox every morning -- and every morning it's the same: nothing. They can hardly bear the uncertainty. Extremist Expats German intelligence agencies presume that Jan and Alexandra are now living in the Afghan-Pakistani border region. It is a world in which al-Qaida and the Taliban are strong and the state is weak, where conflicts are resolved according to the rules of the sharia and local chieftains. This is also allegedly the last refuge, at least for the time being, of Osama bin Laden.

In this remote mountain region, a colony of Germans has sprung up -- expats who have severed all roots and found a new homeland in the Hindu Kush. Germany's Federal Office of Criminal Investigation (BKA) maintains a list of suspects who have taken off to Afghanistan or Pakistan -- or at least tried to leave -- over the past few years. The list has nearly 100 names. It's a directory of the third generation of Islamist terrorists after the 9/11 suicide pilots and Germany's so-called "Sauerland Cell". Like their predecessors, they are eager to fight the holy war and die a martyr's death. Intelligence agencies are now wondering who among this generation will become the next Mohammed Atta or the next Fritz Gelowicz, the ring leader of the Sauerland Cell -- or who will emulate former Bosch employee Cüneyt Ciftci, who hailed from the quiet southern German town of Ansbach and carried out a suicide bombing in Afghanistan in March 2008, blowing himself to pieces and killing four people.

The list includes Jan and Alexandra from Berlin, Michael W. from Hamburg -- who tried to slip away last spring but was arrested in Pakistan and sent back -- and the 19-year-old Berliner Omar H., who disappeared with his girlfriend last January. They are driven by the dream of a life that they see as a pure reflection of the teachings of Islam. They want to exchange the Western world for an archaic life in barren huts, where they only occasionally have electricity and where the Koran stands above everything.

The first two generations consisted of angry young men who yearned to go into battle, and opted to leave their women behind. The third generation is different, though. They are younger and highly ethnically mixed, often men and women who leave Germany together -- or even shortly before the birth of their children -- on their way from the Berlin district of Wedding to Waziristan, the porous border region skirting the Afghan-Pakistani border. 'It's Shocking How Quickly Your Own Child Can Slip Away from You' Agencies such as the Office for the Protection of the Constitution, Germany's domestic intelligence agency, and the BKA are particularly worried about the speed at which these young men and women are prepared to leave their lives in Germany, usually burning their bridges behind them. Occasionally, as in the case of Jan and his wife, it takes only a few months before they become unreachable -- first in terms of their willingness to listen to opposing points of view, then in a very literal sense.

Jan's parents, who came to Berlin from Eastern Europe 20 years ago, noticed the first change in May 2008, when their only son suddenly refused to eat pork. He told his mother earlier that he had purchased a copy of the Koran. His parents weren't concerned because Jan had completed high school and planned to become a career soldier. He also had his girlfriend Alexandra, who was two years younger than him. The two young people wanted to get married. It looked like the makings of a picture-book life: peaceful, happy and unspectacular.

The wedding was in September 2008 -- a beautiful ceremony, held in the middle of the religious fasting month of Ramadan. They didn't eat until after sunset, but there was music and the bride was dressed entirely in white, just as she had wanted. In November, the couple married again -- this time in a Muslim ceremony -- and after that everything went very quickly. By March 2009, the parents only saw their daughter-in-law wearing a full veil. And the number of conflicts started increasing.

Jan tried to convert his father to Islam. His father accompanied him to the mosque to see who his son was meeting with. Jan even tried to convert his elderly grandmother, who is a fervently pious Catholic.

He decided to drop his original career plan of becoming a professional soldier, preferably stationed abroad. Jan told his parents that he otherwise might be forced to fight against his fellow believers. He also dropped out of vocational school.

By early 2009 the young couple mentioned for the first time that they would rather practice their faith undisturbed by distractions, in a country where this was still possible -- in Yemen, for example, Somalia or Pakistan, far away from the big cities. Last autumn, Jan and Alexandra started to secretly auction off their possessions on eBay. The process of radicalization had taken little over a year. "It's shocking how quickly your own child can slip away from you," says Jan's mother, who is now seeking contact with other families who have had similar experiences. "Hardly anyone else can understand our situation," she says. The Recruiter German officials believe that Jan can be seen in a video made by a relatively new group that calls itself the "German Taliban Mujahedeen". Up until now, they have drawn attention to themselves with noisy propaganda -- in a video released last fall that threatened to take the war to German cities, for example. This message was illustrated with images of the Brandenburg Gate and the main railway station in Hamburg. The man who appears to be responsible for the propaganda is Ahmet M., 32, who has apparently become something of a media services provider for a segment of the German colony.

Ahmet goes by the name of "Saladin" on the Internet, and every few weeks his "Elif Medya" label issues a new propaganda film aimed at luring new volunteers to Afghanistan. The muddled messages of German Islamist Eric Breininger from the milieu of the Sauerland Cell carry this same trademark, as do the communiqués of the "German Taliban."

Saladin's specialization with recruits from Germany can be explained by his personal history. He was born in the northern town of Salzgitter and his last German place of residence was in the state of Saarland. He ran afoul of the law in Germany at an early age and was caught stealing for the first time at 15. Later, he was convicted of dealing hash and cocaine, sentenced to three years in prison and deported to Turkey in April 2000. German investigators believe that Ahmet M. alias Saladin is a key recruiter on the German-speaking scene. Only a few weeks ago, he personally tried to direct a willing recruit all the way from Germany to the Hindu Kush, but the German police intercepted the Berliner en route. Ahmet M. boasts that he has served as the spokesman for the Islamic Jihad Union over the past few years, but he says "now I work for the Taliban." The German-Turk is thought to act as a link between the young new recruits and the front. During the month of Ramadan, he collected donations on German online forums to purchase "basic foodstuffs for the widows and orphans" and the wounded on the jihad battlefields of Afghanistan. From Pothead to Mujahedeen The videos from the combat zone may seem bizarre, but they are effective. They lure men like Michael W. from Hamburg, an ethnic German born in Kazakhstan, who headed off in March 2009. Traveling with a friend, he flew with Qatar Airways from Vienna to Doha. When the two men checked in that morning in Vienna, Austrian officials asked them questions such as where they intended to travel and what they planned to do in Pakistan.

Take a vacation, said one.

Do business with carpets, said the other.

Police discovered that Michael W. was carrying two notes that smacked of neither vacationing nor the carpet trade. One of them bore the headline "Rules of Conduct for the Jihad" and focused on highly practical issues. "Remain calm during battle. Do not scream," was one of the guidelines. "Do not punish with fire" and "no mutilating corpses," were two other bits of advice. The second piece of paper was a letter of recommendation from someone called "Ibrahim, the Lebanese from Hamburg," apparently to grant the holder access to a training camp. In addition, both men had laptops and mobile phones in their original packaging. The Austrians allowed them to pass, and they traveled via Doha to Karachi in Pakistan. There they were arrested because they were apparently traveling under false pretenses. Later, they were deported to Germany.

Michael W. is now 24 years old. He usually wears long, light-colored garments, has a big flowing beard and smiles a great deal. The police have identified him as a "dangerous element" and federal prosecutors are investigating his activities. He is seen as one of the new enemies of the state. It is likely that he was introduced to the scene by a fellow high school student in his graduating class of 2006.

In Hamburg there is a group of young believers who have been meeting since the summer of 2008, and it reportedly includes Michael W. The leader of the group has slipped past the border controls and is now in Waziristan -- a former pothead who has become a mujahedeen. Those who have been left behind meet every Friday in the former Quds Mosque on Hamburg's Steindamm street -- the very same house of worship once frequented by Mohammed Atta, and now called the Taiba Mosque. During religious services, Michael W. sits extremely close to the low wooden pedestal where the prayer leader stands. Isolation, Deprivation and Suffering It's possible that Michael W. should be thankful to the Pakistani border authorities. They may have saved his life. Reports currently arriving from the Hindu Kush in Hamburg, Berlin and elsewhere sound like a far cry from paradise -- and more like war and death. They paint a picture of life in isolation, full of deprivation and suffering.

Ever since the Pakistani army launched an offensive last fall and advanced on Waziristan, the Islamist groups have had to fear for their existence. "The kuffar are attacking us with all their might," one report from the combat zone states. There are also Germans among the heavily wounded. Relatives back home in Germany are now afraid that their children will be killed by the bullets of the Pakistani army -- or by a US drone attack.

Ever since he left Germany, Jan's parents have been asking themselves if their son is actually capable of fighting. On the one hand, his father says, Jan has never been violent. The father says he once asked him directly about it, and his son replied: "I'm not crazy." On the other hand, he recalls that they once went to see the combat-filled film "300," and Jan said how great it must be to have something worth fighting for.

And then there's that last will and testament. It was written by Omar H., one of Jan's acquaintances from Berlin. He slipped off the radar in late January together with his 16-year-old girlfriend Stefanie, who now calls herself "Amina". They are probably on their way to the German colony -- to the others from Berlin. "I want to be buried in a Muslim cemetery. Care should be taken to ensure that no non-believer (including Jews and Christians) is buried near my grave," Omar decreed in his testament with his rounded, flawless schoolboy handwriting. "When I die, I would like to be washed according to Islamic rites by my wife Amina along with the helpers of her choice, then wrapped and buried. This is my wish unless Allah, in his mercy, honors me with a martyr's death."

* Editor's note: Name has been changed by the editors. Translated from the German by Paul Cohen http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,687306,00.html (Return to Articles and Documents List)

5 April 2010 The Kremlin's Helplessness Discontent Grows over Moscow's Impotency in Dealing with Terror By Matthias Schepp in Moscow

Following last week's terrorist attacks on the Moscow metro, Russians are now fearing a fresh wave of violence. Many feel the Kremlin has been hopeless in dealing with Caucasus terror and that the government does more to protect its own power than the people.

In Nazran, the old capital of the troubled Caucasus republic of , a large chart is hanging on a wall at the headquarters of the FSB, Russia's domestic intelligence agency. It resembles a family tree at first glance. In fact, it documents a life-and-death struggle.

The chart depicts 50 cells of the Islamic underground operating in Ingushetia alone -- a republic not much bigger than Luxembourg. They are part of a rebel movement that wants to create a "" in the region. Its ideologues dream of a strict Islamic state stretching from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea -- a Waziristan in the Caucasus.

The size of the cells ranges from two or three to about a dozen members each. The chart lists their names, ages, addresses and telephone numbers, as well as physical features such as burns or missing limbs. Some of the entries include a passport photo, while others show nothing but a blurred snapshot. Branches of the chart point to relatives and friends. Crosses identify fighters who have already been killed. For some time, the intelligence agents in Nazran have had a growing sense "that terrorism is like a cancer, and that for each activist we eliminate, another tumor grows in its place." Whistling in a Dark Forest Even before two female suicide bombers, presumably from the Caucasus, killed 39 and wounded more than 70 people in the Moscow metro on March 29, it was clear to anyone standing in front of the FSB chart that the government's fanfares of victory in fighting terrorism sounded like someone whistling in a dark forest.

It has been almost a year since the Kremlin announced its "counterterrorism operation" in , the republic bordering Ingushetia. And as long ago as October 2007, Russian strongman and then President boasted that the terrorists didn't stand a chance, that their numbers were shrinking, and that there had been only 25 attacks in the previous eight months -- one-tenth as many attacks as there were in 2005.

But then, last year, the number of attacks skyrocketed to about 800. According to the Russian Interior Ministry and the presidential commissioner for the Caucasus region, about 200 underground insurgents were killed and 600 arrested in 2009. And now terrorism has reached the heart of the country, Moscow, once again, plunging the Kremlin into a public relations crisis. The 'Che Guevara of Islam' Were all the security measures the government implemented in the last 10 years of no value? Have the police and intelligence services failed once again? Has the new Caucasus policy announced by Moscow failed even before the president has been able to initiate it? And will the Putin/Medvedev duo be forced to admit complete failure, after having repeatedly promised -- and failed to deliver -- the same thing to the country's 142 million citizens: stability and security? After the bloody terrorist attack, Nikolai Patrushev, the secretary of Russia's security council, announced that there would be "retribution," to which Prime Minister Putin added that the culprits would be "liquidated." The novelist Vladimir Sorokin characterized Putin's response as the automatic threatening gesture of a political leader trying to delay the inevitable: the further disintegration of the Russian empire.

The recent killing of Islamist leaders by Moscow's intelligence services appears to have triggered the latest major terrorist operation. On March 2, 70 elite FSB soldiers surrounded a house in the village of Ekashevo in Ingushetia. One of Russia's most-wanted terrorists and 16 of his followers had barricaded themselves inside the house: Alexander Tikhomirov, the man Moscow counterterrorism investigators believe was behind the Nevsky Express bombing in November 2009. The explosion caused a high-speed train traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg to derail, killing 28 passengers.

Tikhomirov, who was from the Siberian region of , converted to Islam at the age of 15 and changed his name to Said Buryatsky. Moscow newspapers described the hatemonger as the "Che Guevara of Islam." The special commando killed the terrorist leader and six of his fighters, and took 10 others into custody. The 'Black Widows' Tikhomirov a.k.a. Buryatsky had taught in mosques and was the head of a "school of shahidin," or martyrs. Intelligence officials believe that he trained about 30 people for suicide bombings. Because the shahidin include many women, Moscow's security authorities keep a watchful eye on the widows of killed insurgents. Some 19 of the 41 terrorists who took more than 900 people hostage in a Moscow musical theater in 2002 were women. Malisha Mutayeva was one of them.

Her story illustrates the spiral of violence and retribution that continues to exert a tight grip on the Caucasus, despite the Kremlin's claims to the contrary.

The Mutayeva family's home is located in the village of Assinovskaya, some 30 kilometers (18 miles) west of the Chechen capital Grozny. It is a cottage with crumbling plaster, not one of the stately houses typical of the Caucasus. At the beginning of the in the mid-1990s, the family was still living in Bamut, a mountain village and rebel stronghold. But Russian fighter jets destroyed their house, and Malisha Mutayeva's fiancé was later killed by Moscow forces. In her early twenties at the time, she resolved never to marry and subsequently joined the rebels. In October 2002, Mutayeva's mother recalls, her daughter calmly said goodbye to her, pretending that she had found a job in a neighboring republic. Instead, she traveled to Moscow and joined the terrorist group that would later occupy the Dubrovka Theater, where 134 hostages and terrorists were killed when military and special police units stormed the building.

Moscow took its revenge on her family. Security forces arrested Mutayeva's younger sister Luisa and took her away in the middle of the night. She hasn't been heard from since. Since 2002, the human rights organization "Memorial" has documented 1,303 cases of people being kidnapped or killed in Chechnya, presumably by Chechen and Russian special forces. New Victims and New Perpetrators These cases illustrate how the cycle of violence in the Caucasus constantly produces new victims and new perpetrators.

Indeed, on Friday, Russian investigators said they believe they have identifed Dzhennet Abdurakhmanova as one of the female suicide bombers who carried out the Moscow metro bombings. According to the Russian Daily Kommersant, Abdurakhmanova was the 17-year-old widow of Umalat Magomedov. He is believed to have been a commander in a rebel battalion led by Doku Umarov -- a jihadist and former Chechen separatist who calls himself the "emir of the Caucasus Emirate" and is fighting for the creation of a shariah-based, independent state -- who has claimed responsibility for the March 29 attacks.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, the daily Novaya Gazeta quoted a Dagestan-based man, Rasul Magomedov, claiming he had identified his missing 28-year-old daughter Mariyam Sharipova in photos of the suspected suicide bombers. Magomedev said his daughter, a school teacher, had disappeared without a trace the day of the metro bombings.

While Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin relied completely on the use of force to "rub out the terrorists in the shithouse" when he was president, his successor, , announced a "modern" Caucasus policy. At first, it seemed as if his approach could break the pattern of violence and retribution. The new leader at the Kremlin emphasized raising the standard of living in the impoverished region to make it less of a breeding ground for terrorists. Delicate Plants of Political Change Wither Again But it took until January for Medvedev to name Alexander Khloponin to serve as his special envoy to the Caucasus region. The 45-year-old's background is neither in intelligence nor the military. Before entering politics, Khloponin was one of Russia's leading business executives, as chairman of the world's largest nickel producer. In other words, he is a man with some knowledge of economics.

Oligarchs are also being pressured to invest in the crisis region, particularly those who fled abroad because of a business dispute and are now hoping for a ticket to return to Russia. One has already accepted the offer; he intends to build a luxury hotel in the Chechen capital and turn the mountain village of Argun, a former rebel stronghold, into a health resort.

With renewed calls for a tougher approach in Moscow, the attacks on the metro see likely to cause the delicate little plants of political change to wither again.

Russia's Federation Council, which is made up of representatives of the vast country's 83 regions, is already calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty, which has not been used since a moratorium was imposed in 2006. Interior Minister Rashid Nurgaliyev has instructed security forces to heighten protections for "critical infrastructure," such as subways, power plants and military bases. And an entire division of Interior Ministry troops has been patrolling Moscow streets since the March 29 terrorist attacks.

Despite these efforts, carefully planned attacks shook the Caucasus again on Wednesday, when two suicide bombers struck in the Dagestani city of Kizlyar. Twelve people died, including the city's police chief. And a in front of a police station on Monday in Karabulak, Ingushetia, killed two police officers and injured a third. Putin and Medvedev 'To Blame for This Calamity' "Russia's intelligence services are incapable of protecting society," wrote the Moscow daily Moskovskiy Komsomolets. "The people wearing the epaulettes are so enmeshed in corruption and intrigues that they have no time left for their real work."

"It is your intelligence service and your police," columnist Alexander Minkin wrote in an open letter to President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin. "Both of you are to blame for this calamity. The number of police officers in the Moscow metro has been growing steadily. But they only stop poorly dressed people with non-Russian faces. The aren't looking for shahidin, but for 100 rubles."

In fact, the bloated security apparatus is more or less helpless. About 1.3 million police officers and bureaucrats work at the Interior Ministry alone, and the number of spies and employees of the intelligence services is estimated at more than 1 million. Nevertheless, the Moscow terrorists apparently relied on a network established long before the attacks. The suicide bombers had supporters who found apartments for them, obtained explosives and helped the women from the Caucasus get their bearings in Moscow, a city of 11 million. Authorities believe that there are still several suicide bombers in the city.

The Kremlin leadership's automatic response -- tightening laws after each attack and relying on increasingly harsh measures -- has not produced more security, but it has curbed civil liberties. Growing Dissatisfaction Putin used bomb attacks on several apartment buildings in Moscow and two other cities in the fall of 1999, in which 307 people died, as an excuse to launch the . The 2002 tragedy at the Dubrovka Theater led to the muzzling of NTW, the country's last independent television station. And after the Beslan school hostage crisis in September 2004, Putin abolished the direct popular election of governors -- to "strengthen the unity of the nation."

The Kremlin has tightened the screws of security again and again, but to no avail. Putin's promise this week that the terrorists would be "dragged out from the sewers" sounded downright hollow. Although many Russians still appreciate his gutter language, the number of dissatisfied citizens is on the rise, which explains the level of tension in the Putin camp.

The mood within the administration has not been very good for weeks. There have been protest marches in more than 150 Russian cities. And even though the number of protestors, about 200,000 throughout the country, may not be particularly significant for a country like Russia, the demands for Putin's resignation were new. The protestors' displeasure was directed against rising unemployment, higher taxes and fees, police corruption and the arbitrariness of the judicial system. An Internet petition titled "Putin Must Go!" had already garnered 22,327 signatures, including names and professions, by Wednesday evening, even though the authorities have tried to limit access to the site. The difficult security situation provides the hawks in Putin's camp with a welcome excuse to paint all protests as anti-patriotic, while at the same time devaluing the tentative liberalization efforts of Putin's opposite number Medvedev.

It is "the attempts to darken the mood in society" that have led to such tragic events as the attacks in the Moscow metro, Irina Yarovaya, a member of parliament for Putin's United Russia party. After the anti-Putin demonstrations the parliamentary leader of United Russia, which increasingly resembles the former Communist Party of the , darkly suggested that there is a central organization "with the task of unhinging the political situation." Was he referring to the group of modernizers surrounding the president?

A tightening of domestic policies seems to be in the offing. The intelligence services and police will only welcome the shift, particularly after Medvedev recently sent many senior officers into retirement and announced a drastic trimming of the Interior Ministry. Cooking Shows and Historic Films After last week's attacks, the president also vowed to destroy the terrorists and said that the fight against them would be fought "to the end." At the same time, however, he demonstratively met with Ella Pamfilova, the chairwoman of the country's human rights council, who had just returned from the Caucasus. In a televised appearance, Medvedev discussed ways to improve the social situation there. However, the staff of his new Caucasus envoy, Khloponin, doesn't even have its offices in the region.

"Whether Russia's leaders can preserve their authority depends entirely on them, and on whether they can finally protect their citizens effectively without turning the country into a concentration camp," wrote the respected Moscow daily Nezavisimaya gazeta.

It is doubtful that the Kremlin has truly learned from the bloody attacks. Government television stations were quick to equate the bombings with the attacks on Madrid commuter trains in 2004 and the London Underground in 2005, as if the Moscow attacks were an act of international terrorism.

In fact, it took several hours before television station with ties to the Kremlin even reported on the events in the belly of the Russian capital last Monday. Almost all stations continued to calmly broadcast their morning cooking shows and historic films. Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,687266,00.html (Return to Articles and Documents List)

BROOKINGS INSTITUTION.COM 5 APRIL 2010 Judging the New START Treaty

Arms Control, Nuclear Weapons, Nonproliferation, Diplomacy, Russia Steven Pifer, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe Strobe Talbott, President, The Brookings Institution

President Barack Obama announced Friday that American and Russian negotiators in Geneva have agreed on a new treaty to replace the expired Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). He and President Medvedev are due to sign it Apr. 8 in Prague. The new treaty requires ratification by the Senate, as well as by the Russian Duma. Senators should closely review the agreement, for it affects issues at the core of U.S. security.

To merit ratification, the treaty must answer ―yes‖ to three key questions: Will it enhance U.S. security? Will it allow the United States to maintain an effective nuclear deterrent? Can it be verified?

We believe the treaty does all this. Let’s look at these questions.

Will the treaty enhance U.S. security? It limits each side to no more than 1550 strategic warheads. The treaty has separate limits of 800 deployed intercontinental ballistic missile launchers, submarine-launched ballistic missile launchers and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments. No more than 700 may be deployed at any one time.

These compare to START limits of 6,000 nuclear warheads on 1,600 launchers. The new treaty will cut the current number of Russian strategic weapons that could target the United States by 30-40 percent.

That’s a good thing. Russia does not pose the kind of nuclear threat that the Soviet Union did during the Cold War, but the safety and security of Americans will be improved when the nuclear potential of our nearest peer competitor is reduced.

Moreover, by capping Russian strategic forces for the next decade, the agreement will make the U.S.-Russian nuclear relationship more predictable.

That’s also a good thing. Washington will know more about Russian nuclear forces with the treaty than without it. So it will be able to make smarter decisions when it decides how to allocate defense dollars between strategic forces and other pressing military needs.

Obama has embraced the idea of a world free of nuclear weapons. But he has also made clear that, until then, the United States must maintain an effective nuclear deterrent — one able to protect America and its allies.

This brings us to the second key question: Will the new treaty allow the United States to maintain an effective deterrent?

We believe the answer will be yes. Fifteen hundred and fifty deployed strategic warheads represent a substantial force. It will be equal to that of Russia, and many times the size of the nuclear arsenal of any third country.

In addition, the launcher limits should allow the United States to maintain much of its current force structure – its strategic missiles and bombers. That means the deterrent will remain survivable, robust and agile – fully underpinning U.S. and allied security.

The third question is: Can the treaty can be adequately verified.

Some have expressed concern that the new treaty may contain less in the way of verification than START. Indeed, the presidents agreed last July that, where possible, they would streamline and simplify START’s monitoring provisions.

But asking whether the new treaty contains more or less verification is the wrong question. The right one is: Do the verification measures give Washington high confidence that it could detect a militarily significant violation in time to respond before its security is jeopardized?

We believe the verification measures can do this. An extra measure of transparency into Russian forces would certainly be welcome, but the verification measures should be determined by the treaty’s specific limits and the need to verify those limits.

In addition to answering these questions, a signed treaty should yield other benefits. By demonstrating U.S. commitment to reduce its nuclear forces, it bolsters Washington’s credibility as it seeks to strengthen the Non- Proliferation Treaty (NPT) regime at the NPT review conference in May.

A new agreement will not convince North Korea or Iran to abandon their nuclear weapons programs. But it should increase the chances for a successful conference that puts greater impediments on the proliferation path that other nuclear aspirants might seek to follow.

Concluding the treaty should give a boost to the U.S.-Russia relationship. That may help secure greater cooperation from Moscow on challenges such as frustrating Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Once signed and submitted, the new treaty can expect close scrutiny by the Senate. Since the agreement affects vital U.S. security interests, it should receive nothing less.

A final judgment will have to wait until we see the detailed treaty provisions. But based on what we know to date, the treaty will deserve to pass the merit test in the Senate.

Strobe Talbott, the president of The Brookings Institution, served as Deputy Secretary of State during the Clinton administration. Steven Pifer, the director of Brookings' Arms Control Initiative, served as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2010/0329_start_treaty_pifer_talbott.aspx?p=1 (Return to Articles and Documents List) [email protected] 4 April 2010|By Borzou Daragahi Iran scientists reportedly have plans for new nuclear facility

Iran's atomic energy agency plans to commission 'one or two' new sites, pending the approval of President Ahmadinejad, a news agency says, a move that could heighten tensions with the West.

Reporting from Beirut — Iranian scientists have submitted plans to start work on at least one new nuclear facility by September, a top official was quoted as saying Saturday, in a move that could inflame tensions with the West.

Ali Akbar Salehi, who oversees Iran's complex of nuclear installations, told the semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency that his Atomic Energy Organization has taken steps to commission "one or two" new sites pending the approval of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

He said the new installations were in line with a 2009 policy to expand the nation's nuclear technology infrastructure. But he did not specify where the sites would be or whether they would be power reactors, uranium- enrichment plants or other types of facilities.

"These installations will be spread across the country and will be built in certain points based on Mr. Ahmadinejad's discretion," he said.

"Potential locations have been selected for the construction of new nuclear installations, which will be announced once a feasibility study has been carried out."

The U.S., its Western allies and Israel suspect Tehran of trying to master nuclear technology to obtain weapons capability, which they fear would upset the balance of power in the Middle East. The Obama administration in recent days enticed China to agree to talks on another potential round of U.N. Security Council sanctions against Iran and to attend a coming summit on nonproliferation.

The Security Council has repeatedly called on Iran to suspend its enrichment of uranium and sensitive nuclear and missile technology research that potentially could be used to create weapons.

Iran contends that it will never build a bomb and has scheduled a disarmament conference in Tehran this month to highlight the disparity between nuclear-armed powers and the developing world. http://articles.latimes.com/2010/apr/04/world/la-fg-iran-nukes4-2010apr04 (Return to Articles and Documents List) ForeignPolicy.com 1 APRIL 2010 DAVID E. HOFFMAN The Little Nukes That Got Away What Obama's new weapons treaty left out.

The Davy Crockett was one of the smallest nuclear weapons ever made by the United States. Built in the late 1950s, and designed for the battlefields of Europe to stop a possible Warsaw Pact invasion, the warhead looked like a watermelon, being only 30 inches long and weighing about 76 pounds. From a portable tripod launcher, it could be fired at the enemy as close as 1,000 feet or up to 13,000 feet away. It was a weapon for nuclear war at close range.

Today, the Davy Crockett system has long since been retired, and is now a neat museum piece. You can see a casing of the warhead at the National Museum of Nuclear Science and History in Albuquerque.

But the little nuclear watermelon is a reminder of the big work still to be done in arms control. The just-completed strategic weapons treaty that U.S. President Barack Obama will sign in Prague next week with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev does not cover smaller nuclear warheads in both arsenals that are a legacy of the Cold War -- the so-called battlefield, or tactical weapons.

The United States is believed to have about 200 tactical nukes in Europe, all of them B61 free-fall gravity bombs to be used with U.S. and allied tactical aircraft, out of 500 total tactical nukes in the active U.S. arsenal. The Russians are estimated to have about 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons, several hundred in the European part of the country and the remainder in central storage sites.

These smaller warheads have never been covered by a specific treaty, nor are they subject to the kind of verification that is used to prevent cheating in the agreements covering the long-range or strategic weapons, including the nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles. What's more, they are relics of a bygone era, with no military usefulness. There is no longer a Warsaw Pact or a Soviet Union threatening a massive invasion across the Fulda Gap that would have to be stopped with a last-ditch decision to fire off the battlefield nukes.

Obama may dream of a world without nuclear arms, but it is with weapons systems like these, which remain in place years after the Cold War, that his goals meet the unpleasant reality and the unfinished business of the past. White House officials want everyone to rest assured: They'll make an effort to deal with tactical nuclear weapons in the next treaty. In fact, they mistakenly thought, a year ago, that the new START agreement would be a snap and they'd be moving on to the bigger challenges by now. But a closer look suggests that tactical nukes are going to be very, very hard to negotiate. That's why they are still around -- it is a tough one.

For years, experts have been warning about the dangers of tactical nukes. They could be a temptation for a terrorist diversion, small enough to be driven away in a truck. While it would be difficult to actually explode one, there was serious concern at the end of the Cold War about the thousands of Soviet-era tactical nuclear weapons. The warheads were vulnerable as Moscow hastily hauled them back into Russia in old train cars which lacked sophisticated alarms or armored blankets to protect the warheads from bullets or shrapnel. Although the warheads were deactivated, the headaches were immense, including a shortage of secure storage space to hold them once they got back into Russia. Eventually, the United States carried out a secret operation in which one of the Soviet model cars was shipped to Sandia National Laboratory in New Mexico, which designed an upgrade.

Both Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President George H. W. Bush realized the urgency in late 1991 and unilaterally withdrew many of these weapons in the final months before the Soviet collapse. But they never sealed these pullbacks in a mutual arms control treaty, and there is no verification to this day.

Fortunately, there are far fewer warheads on both sides today. And Russian storage facilities are probably more secure than in 1991. But those weapons that remain seem to stubbornly elude arms control.

Why? They are essentially political weapons for political ends. The argument for keeping U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe is that they hold the alliance together -- a joint manifestation of the U.S. commitment to protect its allies. And the dual-key approach to managing them has meant that the Europeans would have to be involved in actually using them in the event. But lately, fresh demands have been made in Europe to take another look at the need for these weapons and possibly remove them. In February, the foreign ministers of Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Norway called on NATO to re-examine the need for them, and the issue is expected to be raised as the alliance writes a new "strategic concept" this year.

The United States and others have been reluctant to unilaterally withdraw the weapons, which are believed to be based in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, and Turkey. Before any arms-control negotiation could get underway, NATO would have to come up with a common position. And others have pointed out that the concept of extended deterrence -- the U.S. nuclear umbrella -- can be achieved with longer-range weapons and does not rely on the tactical nukes.

An even bigger question mark is whether Russia would be willing to reduce its pile of small nuclear weapons. Probably not any time soon. The expansion of NATO to its borders has left Russia wary, while its conventional or non-nuclear military forces are weaker than in the past. And Russian leaders are alarmed at the long-range precision- guided conventional weapons under development by the United States. Russia has demanded that the United States pull back all the tactical weapons in Europe to its national territory -- as Russia has already done -- before considering any negotiations. Pavel Podvig, a physicist and research associate at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, points out that the new Russian military doctrine doesn't include any specific mission for tactical nuclear weapons. "Of course, nobody in Russia is ready to get rid of them just yet, but it does indicate that the Russians realize that the utility of these weapons is highly questionable, even if they aren't ready to publicly admit it," he wrote recently. Podvig made a practical suggestion for moving in phases: Both the United States and Russia would first move all tactical nukes to a central storage facility deep within their national territory, then later deal with verification, transparency, and ultimately elimination.

Podvig's plan would be a good first step. Without something like this, there may well be years of further impasse over weapons that lack a military purpose, deployed during a Cold War that ended two decades ago. So before anyone cracks open the champagne for Obama's vision of a nuclear free world, don't take your eye off the little guys.

David E. Hoffman is a contributing editor to the Washington Post and the author of The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/04/01/the_little_nukes_that_got_away?print=yes&hidecomments=yes& page=full (Return to Articles and Documents List)

NYT.com 5 April 2010 I.H.T. OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR A Season for Disarmament By HANS BLIX

STOCKHOLM — The financial crisis and global warming have had the world’s attention in recent years. Thanks to President Barack Obama’s initiative, perhaps the season for nuclear disarmament has finally arrived.

On Thursday, President Obama will meet Russian President Dmitri Medvedev in Prague to sign a nuclear arms control agreement between the United States and Russia that will reduce their arsenals by 30 percent.

The new treaty will be received positively. There will be praise for the Obama administration’s attitude toward arms control and disarmament and for Russia’s readiness to join hands with the United States.

Though not achieving the drastic cuts in nuclear arsenals and delivery vehicles that the world is longing for, the U.S.-Russian treaty is important and encouraging. Coming after Bush administration policies that nearly sent the two states into a new Cold War, the new treaty constitutes the resetting of an important button. It preserves arrangements for confidence-building mutual inspections and sets the stage for negotiating more far-reaching cuts.

We should be aware, however, that a next step of deeper reductions will hardly be attainable unless there is agreement on extensive cooperation on missile defense. Russia is deeply suspicious that the missile shield could enable the United States to launch an attack on any target in Russia while itself remaining immune to any such attacks. Further bilateral disarmament will also be impeded if Russia feels that the NATO alliance seeks to encircle it by expanding its military cooperation through membership or otherwise with more states neighboring Russia.

The signing on Thursday will take place one year after President Obama’s presentation in Prague of a detailed program for the revival of global nuclear arms control and disarmament. Later this month he will be the host in Washington of a large summit meeting that will focus on nuclear security. In May, the operation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will be the subject of review at a conference in New York in which nearly all governments in the world will take part. The review that took place in 2005 ended in acrimony and some predicted the end of the treaty.

Through adherence to the nonproliferation treaty that was concluded in 1970, states have committed themselves to stay away from nuclear weapons or to move away from these weapons. If all states had joined and fulfilled their commitments, the treaty would have led by now to a world free of nuclear weapons. This has not happened, of course. The number of nuclear weapons, which peaked at more than 50,000 during the Cold War, is still over 20,000 — most of them in the United States and Russia. The number of states with nuclear weapons has gone from five to nine since 1970.

There is also frustration at the lack of progress on many important items relevant to the treaty. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty has not entered into force because the United States, China and a number of other states have not ratified it. The negotiation of a convention prohibiting the production of enriched uranium and plutonium for weapons remains blocked at the Geneva Disarmament Conference. The Additional Protocol of the International Atomic Energy Agency for strengthened safeguards inspections remains unratified by a large number of states, including Iran.

Some items are bound to attract much attention at the nonproliferation treaty review conference in May. One is that 20 years after the end of the Cold War, the obligation of five nuclear-weapon states under the treaty to negotiate toward nuclear disarmament has not led us anywhere near zero. Another grievance — especially among Arab states — is that Israel has nuclear weapons and has refrained from adhering to the treaty. A third is that the treaty has been violated by several states. Although Iraq and Libya have been brought into compliance, North Korea has not and Iran and perhaps others might be aiming to ignore the treaty.

As everyone knows, views on Iran’s program for the enrichment of uranium have long been divided and they are likely to remain divided at the nonproliferation treaty conference. There are many reasons for suspecting that the aim of Iran’s enrichment program is the development of a nuclear weapon in breach of treaty obligations or, at least, to move close to the ability to make a weapon. This has already resulted in a dangerous increase of tension in the region.

Why has it not been possible so far to persuade Iran to abandon or suspend the enrichment program? It is hard to avoid the impression that the approach to Iran has often been high-handed and clumsy. Iran has been told that negotiations about a variety of benefits would be open but only on the condition that the enrichment program first be suspended. Who gives up a trump card before the game?

President Obama has had the good sense to authorize direct talks without any precondition. These talks are now stuck, but should be resumed.

States developing nuclear weapons have mostly done so for perceived security reasons and for status. When Iran began its alleged enrichment program in the 1980s it might have rightly perceived Iraq as a future nuclear threat. With that threat gone, how wise has it been for the U.S. and Israel to float the idea of bombing Iran’s enrichment facilities?

Would it not be wiser to offer diplomatic relations and guarantees against armed attacks/subversion as a part of a nuclear deal? This was done in the case of North Korea. Why not in the case of Iran?

The treaty review conference will hardly enter into these questions. But it will probably discuss how the concept of a Middle East zone free of weapons of mass destruction can be taken up for consideration. Such a zone could well be designed so as to facilitate ventures to use nuclear power for electricity generation or desalination of water, perhaps even on a regional basis.

However, to reduce tensions in the region, the concept needs to exclude from the whole zone not only nuclear weapons but also plants for the enrichment of uranium and reprocessing of plutonium. In the last few years the appeals have intensified for governments to aim, as the nonproliferation treaty does, to free the world from nuclear weapons. In January 2007, former U.S. Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry and former Senator Sam Nunn published an article in which they reminded the United States and the world that the Cold War was over. They argued that if the United States, Russia and others continued to see nuclear weapons as necessary for their security, others would see the same thing and proliferation would result. They urged that the United States and Russia take the lead in a long process that would eventually result in a nuclear-weapon-free world.

Their plea has had a broad and strong response in the world. While focusing on many near-term measures, such as the current deal, Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev jointly espoused the long-term aim of full disarmament in a declaration in London in April 2009.

Is this long-term aim naïve and utopian? Not necessarily. Between 1910 and 1945 the world experienced two world wars and a collapsed League of Nations. Much could happen between 2010 and 2045. Interdependence is rapidly accelerating and forcing states to show regard for each other’s security interests. For the moment, however, there is only a hopeful start on a long journey.

Hans Blix was the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency from 1981 to 1997 and chief U.N. arms inspector for Iraq from 2000 to 2003. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/05/opinion/05ihtedblix.html?sq=blix&st=cse&scp=1&pagewanted=print (Return to Articles and Documents List)

The Weekly Standard 1 April 2010 The CIA's Curious Report on Iran's Nuclear Program BY Michael Anton

WINPAC—the CIA’s clearinghouse for data on various weapons and delivery systems—sent a new report to Congress this week that amounts to one of the intelligence community’s few sustained public statements on Iran’s drive to acquire nuclear weapons since the widely noticed (and discredited) November 2007 National Intelligence Estimate. This report is not to be confused with a new NIE, which is in the works and said to be ready for release sometime this month. This, rather, is a more routine document, required by law and mostly treated as pro forma.

That partly explains why the report got so little attention. But it is not without interest.

Recall that the crux of the 2007 NIE was the assertion that, in 2003, Iran halted its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons and had not since restarted them. That finding was based solely on the Intelligence Community’s judgment that Iran had stopped working on ―weaponization,‖ i.e., designing bombs and acquiring and making their components. A footnote clarified that this finding did not cover ―Iran’s declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment.‖ Since the same technology used to make reactor fuel can easily produce fissile material usable for a weapon, and since producing such material is by far the hardest part of making a nuclear weapon, the footnote essentially cut the guts out of the main text’s finding. Even the NIE’s putative author, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, eventually admitted as much. Testifying before Congress in February 2008, he said, ―The only thing that they’ve halted was nuclear weapons design, which is probably the least significant part of the program. So if I’d had until now to think about it, I probably would have changed a thing or two.‖

The prior WINPAC report, which covered calendar year 2008 and was released in early 2009, repeated the 2007 NIE’s language almost word for word, despite the DNI’s disavowal of a year prior. The latest one, which dropped on Tuesday of this week and covers 2009, makes no mention whatsoever of weaponization. Were transcripts of McConnell’s remarks finally circulated to the drafters?

Whatever the reason, the omission is curious. If WINPAC now judges that the 2007 NIE was wrong (an inescapable conclusion, incidentally), why not just say so? Wouldn’t it help restore some of the Intelligence Community’s lost credibility? Allied intelligence services never believed the NIE and were embarrassed by it. Wouldn’t a signal to them that we have regained our senses be useful?

Even more curious: there was a significant piece of news late last year regarding weaponization. Apparently, a still- secret report by the International Atomic Energy Agency found evidence that Iran was testing high-explosive lens for a two-point implosion warhead design. This is significant because A) that is purely weapons technology; it has no other possible use; B) it’s a sophisticated design, well beyond the first generation bombs that so far every nuclear power has used as their initial step; and C) the purpose of two point implosion is to reduce a warhead’s weight and bulk, making it easier to put it on a missile.

Clearly, this leak threw another swimming pool full of cold water on the 2007 NIE’s finding that Iran had halted ―weaponization‖ in 2003. Two-point implosion is weaponization pure and simple.

But the new report doesn’t mention it. Is that because we know the IAEA is wrong? Because the leak was wrong and the IAEA finding was not as advertised? We have no way of knowing and the WINPAC report sheds no light.

Reading a little further, one finds the latest expression of a now-common argument as to why no one should be too worried quite yet about Iran’s intentions. Because, after all, we don’t yet know what those intentions are:

We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons though we do not know whether Tehran eventually will decide to produce nuclear weapons. Iran continues to develop a range of capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so.

Again, making the fissile material for a warhead pit is by far the most expensive, time consuming and technologically difficult aspect of building a nuclear weapon. Iran has been working on that for years. While (as the report notes) that program is perhaps not going quite as well as Tehran would like, we should not take any comfort from this notion that perhaps the regime has not yet decided to take the fateful step. Building a bomb is not the fateful step. The most important decision is whether to develop nuclear fuel—a decision that Tehran made long ago.

The report also says that Iran may (finally) introduce fuel into is nuclear reactor at Bushehr ―in 2010,‖ i.e., this year. Bushehr by all accounts can breed plutonium 239, which is bomb material and only bomb material. Can Iran reprocess the fuel rods and perform the necessary isotope separation to get the pu239? The report doesn’t say. The 2007 NIE said, in effect, not until 2015. Does the IC still stand by that estimate?

In any event, it can’t be good news that Iran may soon have two paths to a nuclear weapon pit—especially since plutonium makes a lighter, smaller, more powerful, more efficient and more sophisticated weapon, one that is easier to miniaturize and put on a missile.

Finally, on the question of ballistic missiles: recall that the Obama administration’s stated rationale for cancelling the Polish and Czech missile defense sites was that Iran was experiencing unanticipated problems in developing long range ballistic missiles. Leave aside the flimsiness of that argument--are we supposed to wait until they fire a missile capable of hitting the continental U.S. before we begin working on defensive measures? This report covers missiles but says nothing about long range missiles. So are the Iranians still having problems or not? The report does say that Iran is aggressively developing medium range ballistic missiles. It reiterates that missiles in their current arsenal have a range of at least 2,000 km (something we have known for three years at least), which is ample for hitting Israel and U.S. forces all throughout the region.

The report does, however, mention Iran’s recent experiments with satellite launches. This is important because satellite launch technology is so similar to an ICBM that both programs are probably operating hand-in-glove. The report casts some doubt on whether Iran’s most notable recent satellite launch succeeded but does not mention the kinship between such launchers and ICBMs. This suggests that Iran may be further along toward an ICBM than the report lets on, that the drafters know that, and that perhaps they wanted to convey that hint ―between the lines.‖

If so, that’s a rare moment of fresh insight in a document that otherwise raises, or ignores, far more questions than it answers.

Michael Anton served in national security positions in the recent Bush administration. http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cias-curious-report-irans-nuclear-program (Return to Articles and Documents List) Carnegie Endowment for Peace, POLICY OUTLOOK MARCH 2010 The Obama Nuclear Agenda One Year After Prague George Perkovich A year ago in Prague President Obama declared America’s commitment to seeking a world free of nuclear weapons. Obama's vision has been misinterpreted by the right and the left and, more importantly, key countries have not done enough to help achieve progress, concludes a new paper by George Perkovich that analyzes, country by country, reactions to Obama’s nuclear agenda.

The landmark speech presented an agenda for nuclear disarmament, nonproliferation, and counterterrorism. Upcoming events—the results of the Nuclear Posture Review, the Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference in New York, and the ratification of the new START treaty between the United States and Russia—will show whether other leaders in the United States and around the world are willing to join Obama. Key Conclusions . The United States can’t do it alone. America alone cannot change the calculations of Russia, China, France, Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea—countries that balk at many, and in some cases all, of the steps required to begin abolishing nuclear arsenals. And key non–nuclear-weapon states passively resist necessary steps. . Obama can’t do it alone in the United States. The president lacks sufficient help from his own Cabinet and leading congressional Democrats. . Eliminating nuclear arsenals requires stronger political and security ties. The elimination of nuclear arsenals must progress in a co-evolutionary process with improvements in political-security relations. . More realistic defense strategies and capabilities are essential. NATO and Asian allies are uncertain over how to deploy more realistic methods to deter or redress today’s threats. We have a "a talented president ready to lead a long-term campaign to remove the existential threats posed by nuclear weapons, but as yet lacking sufficient colleagues and followers to make it happen," writes Perkovich. "To get from here to there—from today’s world to one without nuclear weapons—requires a collection of leaders willing to do the unglamorous, complicated work of strengthening cooperation and rules one year at a time." http://www.carnegieendowment.org/publications/index.cfm?fa=view&id=40458 (Return to Articles and Documents List)

New York Times 5 April 2010 Obama Limits When U.S. Would Use Nuclear Arms By DAVID E. SANGER and PETER BAKER

WASHINGTON — President Obama said Monday that he was revamping American nuclear strategy to substantially narrow the conditions under which the United States would use nuclear weapons.

But the president said in an interview that he was carving out an exception for ―outliers like Iran and North Korea‖ that have violated or renounced the main treaty to halt nuclear proliferation.

Discussing his approach to nuclear security the day before formally releasing his new strategy, Mr. Obama described his policy as part of a broader effort to edge the world toward making nuclear weapons obsolete, and to create incentives for countries to give up any nuclear ambitions. To set an example, the new strategy renounces the development of any new nuclear weapons, overruling the initial position of his own defense secretary.

Mr. Obama’s strategy is a sharp shift from those of his predecessors and seeks to revamp the nation’s nuclear posture for a new age in which rogue states and terrorist organizations are greater threats than traditional powers like Russia and China. It eliminates much of the ambiguity that has deliberately existed in American nuclear policy since the opening days of the cold war. For the first time, the United States is explicitly committing not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear states that are in compliance with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, even if they attacked the United States with biological or chemical weapons or launched a crippling cyberattack.

Those threats, Mr. Obama argued, could be deterred with ―a series of graded options,‖ a combination of old and new conventional weapons. ―I’m going to preserve all the tools that are necessary in order to make sure that the American people are safe and secure,‖ he said in the interview in the Oval Office.

White House officials said the new strategy would include the option of reconsidering the use of nuclear retaliation against a biological attack, if the development of such weapons reached a level that made the United States vulnerable to a devastating strike.

Mr. Obama’s new strategy is bound to be controversial, both among conservatives who have warned against diluting the United States’ most potent deterrent and among liberals who were hoping for a blanket statement that the country would never be the first to use nuclear weapons.

Mr. Obama argued for a slower course, saying, ―We are going to want to make sure that we can continue to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons,‖ and, he added, to ―make sure that our conventional weapons capability is an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances.‖

The release of the new strategy, known as the Nuclear Posture Review, opens an intensive nine days of nuclear diplomacy geared toward reducing weapons. Mr. Obama plans to fly to Prague to sign a new arms-control agreement with Russia on Thursday and then next week will host 47 world leaders in Washington for a summit meeting on nuclear security.

The most immediate test of the new strategy is likely to be in dealing with Iran, which has defied the international community by developing a nuclear program that it insists is peaceful but that the United States and its allies say is a precursor to weapons. Asked about the escalating confrontation with Iran, Mr. Obama said he was now convinced that ―the current course they’re on would provide them with nuclear weapons capabilities,‖ though he gave no timeline.

He dodged when asked whether he shared Israel’s view that a ―nuclear capable‖ Iran was as dangerous as one that actually possessed weapons.

―I’m not going to parse that right now,‖ he said, sitting in his office as children played on the South Lawn of the White House at a daylong Easter egg roll. But he cited the example of North Korea, whose nuclear capabilities were unclear until it conducted a test in 2006, which it followed with a second shortly after Mr. Obama took office.

―I think it’s safe to say that there was a time when North Korea was said to be simply a nuclear-capable state until it kicked out the I.A.E.A. and become a self-professed nuclear state,‖ he said, referring to the International Atomic Energy Agency. ―And so rather than splitting hairs on this, I think that the international community has a strong sense of what it means to pursue civilian nuclear energy for peaceful purposes versus a weaponizing capability.‖

Mr. Obama said he wanted a new United Nations sanctions resolution against Iran ―that has bite,‖ but he would not embrace the phrase ―crippling sanctions‖ once used by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. And he acknowledged the limitations of United Nations action. ―We’re not naïve that any single set of sanctions automatically is going to change Iranian behavior,‖ he said, adding ―there’s no light switch in this process.‖

In the year since Mr. Obama gave a speech in Prague declaring that he would shift the policy of the United States toward the elimination of nuclear weapons, his staff has been meeting — and arguing — over how to turn that commitment into a workable policy, without undermining the credibility of the country’s nuclear deterrent.

The strategy to be released on Tuesday is months late, partly because Mr. Obama had to adjudicate among advisers who feared he was not changing American policy significantly enough, and those who feared that anything too precipitous could embolden potential adversaries. One senior official said that the new strategy was the product of 150 meetings, including 30 convened by the White House National Security Council, and that even then Mr. Obama had to step in to order rewrites. He ended up with a document that differed considerably from the one President George W. Bush published in early 2002, just three months after the Sept. 11 attacks. Mr. Bush, too, argued for a post-cold-war rethinking of nuclear deterrence, reducing American reliance on those weapons.

But Mr. Bush’s document also reserved the right to use nuclear weapons ―to deter a wide range of threats,‖ including banned chemical and biological weapons and large-scale conventional attacks. Mr. Obama’s strategy abandons that option — except if the attack is by a nuclear state, or a nonsignatory or violator of the nonproliferation treaty.

The document to be released Tuesday after months of study led by the Defense Department will declare that ―the fundamental role‖ of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attacks on the United States, allies or partners, a narrower presumption than the past. But Mr. Obama rejected the formulation sought by arms control advocates to declare that the ―sole role‖ of nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack.

There are five declared nuclear states — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China. Three states with nuclear weapons have refused to sign — India, Pakistan and Israel — and North Korea renounced the treaty in 2003. Iran remains a signatory, but the United Nations Security Council has repeatedly found it in violation of its obligations, because it has hidden nuclear plants and refused to answer questions about evidence it was working on a warhead.

In shifting the nuclear deterrent toward combating proliferation and the sale or transfer of nuclear material to terrorists or nonnuclear states, Mr. Obama seized on language developed in the last years of the Bush administration. It had warned North Korea that it would be held ―fully accountable‖ for any transfer of weapons or technology. But the next year, North Korea was caught aiding Syria in building a nuclear reactor but suffered no specific consequence.

Mr. Obama was asked whether the American failure to make North Korea pay a heavy price for the aid to Syria undercut Washington’s credibility.

―I don’t think countries around the world are interested in testing our credibility when it comes to these issues,‖ he said. He said such activity would leave a country vulnerable to a nuclear strike, and added, ―We take that very seriously because we think that set of threats present the most serious security challenge to the United States.‖

He indicated that he hoped to use this week’s treaty signing with Russia as a stepping stone toward more ambitious reductions in nuclear arsenals down the road, but suggested that would have to extend beyond the old paradigm of Russian-American relations.

―We are going to pursue opportunities for further reductions in our nuclear posture, working in tandem with Russia but also working in tandem with NATO as a whole,‖ he said.

An obvious such issue would be the estimated 200 tactical nuclear weapons the United States still has stationed in Western Europe. Russia has called for their removal, and there is growing interest among European nations in such a move as well. But Mr. Obama said he wanted to consult with NATO allies before making such a commitment.

The summit meeting that opens next week in Washington will bring together nearly four dozen world leaders, the largest such gathering by an American president since the founding of the United Nations 65 years ago. Mr. Obama said he hoped to use the session to lay down tangible commitments by individual countries toward his goal of securing the world’s nuclear material so it does not fall into the hands of terrorists or dangerous states.

―Our expectation is not that there’s just some vague, gauzy statement about us not wanting to see loose nuclear materials,‖ he said. ―We anticipate a communiqué that spells out very clearly, here’s how we’re going to achieve locking down all the nuclear materials over the next four years.‖ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/world/06arms.html (Return to Articles and Documents List) Link to Copy of Nuclear Posture Review

http://www.defense.gov/npr/ (Return to Articles and Documents List)

Link to Copy of Nuclear Posture Review DoD Fact Sheet

http://www.defense.gov/npr/docs/NPR%20FACT%20SHEET%20April%202010.pdf (Return to Articles and Documents List)

RIA Novosti – Russian Information Agency MOSCOW, April 6 (RIA Novosti) 6 April 2010 Russia to withdraw from arms reduction deal if U.S. increases missile defense

Russia may withdraw from the arms reduction treaty if Washington significantly increases its missile defense, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama are to sign a new strategic arms treaty on Thursday in Prague. The pact will replace the START 1 treaty, the cornerstone of post-Cold War arms control, which expired on December 5.

"Russia has the right to withdraw from the strategic nuclear weapons treaty if a quantitative and qualitative increase in U.S. strategic missile defense significantly influences the effectiveness of Russian strategic nuclear forces," the minister said adding that Russia itself will determine the extent of such influence and that this was a specific precondition of Russia.

The strategic arms pact stipulates that the number of nuclear warheads is to be reduced to 1,550 on each side, while the number of delivery vehicles must not exceed 800 on each side.

Under the deal, which will have a validity term of ten years unless it is superseded by another strategic arms reduction agreement, strategic offensive weapons are to be based solely on the national territories of Russia and the United States. Lavrov said that Washington's plans for a missile defense shield do not presently constitute any threat to Moscow's strategic interests, but he emphasized that Russia did not rule out that the plans could eventually constitute a threat.

"If the strategic missile defense shield [...] is estimated by our military specialists to be posing a risk for Russia's strategic nuclear forces, then we will have the right to use the conditions included in the [new arms cut] deal."

Lavrov expressed hope that the new deal will be ratified by the Russian State Duma and the U.S. Congress by the end of April.

"I can only speak from the Russian side," he said. "The Russian side is confident that the treaty, which we will sign and forward for ratification, deserves to come into force," he said.

Lavrov has repeatedly suggested that a new nuclear arms cuts deal be linked to Washington's missile operations in Eastern Europe.

Many experts believe, however, that the Russian demand will probably not be satisfied as the U.S. Senate is unlikely to ratify any document containing a formal link between arms cuts and the missile shield.

Russia and the United States have been negotiating a replacement to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty since Medvedev and Obama met in April last year, but finalizing a document has dragged on, with U.S. plans for missile defense in Europe a particular sticking point.

In February, Bulgaria and Romania said they were in talks with U.S. President Barack Obama's administration on deploying elements of the U.S. missile shield on their territories from 2015.

The move came after Obama scrapped last September plans by the Bush administration to deploy missile-defense elements in the Czech Republic and Poland due to a reassessment of the threat from Iran. Russia fiercely opposed the plans as a threat to its national security. http://en.rian.ru/world/20100406/158451816.html (Return to Articles and Documents List)