USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies (CUWS) Outreach Jouranl #1116

USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies (CUWS) Outreach Journal

Issue No. 1116, 22 May 2014 Welcome to the CUWS Outreach Journal! As part of the CUWS’ mission to develop Air Force, DoD, and other USG leaders to advance the state of knowledge, policy, and practices within strategic defense issues involving nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, we offer the government and civilian community a source of contemporary discussions on unconventional weapons. These discussions include news articles, papers, and other information sources that address issues pertinent to the U.S. national security community. It is our hope that this information resources will help enhance the overall awareness of these important national security issues and lead to the further discussion of options for dealing with the potential use of unconventional weapons. The following news articles, papers, and other information sources do not necessarily reflect official endorsement of the Air University, U.S. Air Force, or Department of Defense. Reproduction for private use or commercial gain is subject to original copyright restrictions. All rights are reserved.

FEATURE ITEMS: “Update on North Korea’s Sohae Satellite Launching Station: Rapid Construction of Possible New Launch Complex”. By 38 North; 20 May 2014. A 38 North exclusive with analysis by Nick Hansen and Jack Liu. http://38north.org/2014/05/sohae052014/ New commercial satellite imagery from May 10, 2014, indicates that North Korea is conducting a number of important construction projects at the Sohae Satellite Launching Station (“Tongchang-ri”). While it is too soon to make a definitive judgment on their purpose, one working hypothesis is that the North is building a new complex to conduct future training and launches for mobile missiles such as the KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).[1] Moreover, that hypothesis is consistent with ongoing KN-08 engine tests being conducted Sohae’s rocket engine test stand, where a probable KN-08 first stage is currently seen on the stand, possibly left there after early April 2014 tests or for use in the future.

“Chinese Nuclear Missile Upgrade near Dalian”. By Hans M. Kristensen; Federation of American Scientist (FAS)/ FAS Strategic Security Blog, May 21, 2014. http://blogs.fas.org/security/2014/05/dengshaheupgrade/ One of the last Chinese Second Artillery brigades with the old liquid-fuel DF-3A intermediate-range nuclear ballistic missile appears to have been upgraded to the newer DF-21 road-mobile, dual-capable, medium-range ballistic missile. A new satellite image posted on Google Earth from May 4, 2014, reveals major changes to what appears to be a launch unit site for the Dengshahe brigade northeast of Dalian by the Yellow Sea. The upgrade apparently marks the latest phase in a long and slow conversion of the Dengshahe brigade from the DF-3A to the DF-21.

Outreach Journal Feedback or sign-up request: [email protected] Return to Top

U.S. NUCLEAR WEAPONS 1. Overhauling the Nation’s Nuclear Arsenal: Sandia National Labs Achieves B61 Milestone 2. AP Exclusive: Air Force Security Failed Test Response to Simulated Capture of Nuclear Weapon

U.S. COUNTER-WMD 1. US Tests Cornerstone of European Antimissile Shield

HOMELAND SECURITY/THE AMERICAS 1. How Contagious Pathogens Could Lead to Nuke-Level Casualties

ASIA/PACIFIC 1. U.S. Wants Tokyo, Seoul to Aid Missile Defense against N. Korea 2. Defense Chiefs of S.Korea, U.S., Japan to Meet for Talks on DPRK 3. China "Uses Channels" to Warn North Korea against Fourth Nuclear Test: Sources 4. North Korea may be Close to Developing Nuclear Missile, Some Say 5. N. Korean Envoy, U.S. Experts to Hold Informal Meeting in Mongolia

EUROPE/RUSSIA 1. Gunmen Attempt to Enter Ukraine’s Largest Nuclear Power Plant 2. Russian Airborne Forces, Strategic Missile Troops to Become All Contract-Based By 2020 3. NATO Does Not Plan to Put Nuclear Arms, New Troops in Eastern Europe 4. Inside the Ring: Russia Tests New Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Warhead 5. Russian’s Air Force to Receive New Generation Long-Range Bomber in 2023 6. Scottish Independence: Scrapping Trident 'Could Shift Power from West to East'

MIDDLE EAST 1. Iran Nuclear Talks Make ‘No Tangible Progress’ 2. Iran’s Zarif Says Nuclear Deal is ‘Possible’ 3. Iran Voices Tougher Line on Arak Reactor 4. Israeli Defense Official: Iran Can Break Out to Nuclear Weapons 'Very Quickly' 5. Iran Not to Allow US to Cross Redlines 6. Deputy FM: Iran's Defense Systems Never Included in Nuclear Talks 7. Syria Begins to Move 'Remaining' Chemical Arms 8. IAEA Says Iran Agrees to Address Issues in Nuclear Bomb Probe 9. Rouhani: Nuclear Deal ‘Very Likely’ by July Deadline

INDIA/PAKISTAN 1. Pakistan Urged to Develop Second Strike N-Capability Strategy

COMMENTARY 1. Nothing Tactical about Nuclear Weapons 2. US Conventional Power and Nuclear Asia 3. Prompt Global Strike Plan 4. Rethinking Nuclear Security Efforts 5. KAHLILI: Iran’s Nuclear Deception

Albuquerque Journal - Albuquerque, NM Overhauling the Nation’s Nuclear Arsenal: Sandia National Labs Achieves B61 Milestone By Kevin Robinson-Avila, Journal Staff Writer Sunday, May 18, 2014 After three years of intense work, Sandia National Laboratories has reached a key milestone in its efforts to modernize the B61 nuclear bomb – one of the oldest and most versatile weapons in the nation’s nuclear arsenal. The bomb modernization program, which aims to extend the B61′s life another 20 years, is one of the biggest endeavors undertaken at Sandia since before the Cold War ended. The government is spending upwards of $8 billion on the project, part of a broad national effort to modernize most of the nation’s nuclear military complex during the next decade.

Minneapolis Star Tribune – Minneapolis, MN

RT (Russia Today) – Moscow, Russia US Tests Cornerstone of European Antimissile Shield May 22, 2014 The US has successfully test-fired Aegis Ashore, the land-based version of the naval antiballistic missile system, which is to be deployed in Eastern Europe starting next year despite Moscow’s objections. The US Missile Defense Agency and the Navy have for the first time test-fired the land-based version of Aegis BMD on Tuesday, with engineers from Lockheed Martin, producer of the system, participating in the test. A Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) Block IB was fired from an installation on Kauai, Hawaii, and successfully hit a simulated target. The test was aimed at verifying safe launch and fly-out of the missile from the launch facility. The US plans to conduct a test with a real target next year before a scheduled deployment of Aegis Ashore in Romania. A second similar system is to be deployed in Poland in 2018. The systems are meant to intercept ballistic and cruise missiles mid-course. The US insists they are needed to protect America’s Eastern European allies from possible missile attack by North Korea and Iran, but Russia is certain that they are aimed at weakening its nuclear deterrence capability. “We had a very successful flight test,” Brendan Scanlon, Lockheed Martin’s director of Aegis Ashore programs, told reporters Wednesday morning during a phone conference. “That is a major milestone for us.” Aegis Ashore is nearly identical to the version used on US cruisers. Vertical-launched SM-3 interceptors are stacked 24 per launch facility (with possibility of additional launchers and missiles to be added), controlled from a building similar to a regular Aegis deckhouse and targeted by SPY-1D radar. The arrangement tested on Tuesday differed from the shipboard sibling mostly by a large distance of 5.5 km separating the command-and-control center and the launcher facility. In addition to the Hawaii test facility, Lockheed has built another Aegis Ashore deckhouse at its site in Moorestown, New Jersey. The installation, designed to be transportable, has been dismantled and is ready to be moved to Romania’s Deveselu site to become part of the $134 million antimissile facility, according to Scanlon. Earlier in April the US Navy deployed SM-3 Block IB missiles, the latest generation of the interceptors. Raytheon Co, producer of the SM-3, compares its effect on a target to an impact of a 10-ton truck traveling 600 mph (965kph). "The SM-3 Block IB deployed for the first time earlier this year at sea, and the success of this Aegis Ashore test keeps us on track to deploy the missile on land in 2015," said Mitch Stevison, Raytheon's Standard Missile-3 senior director. http://rt.com/news/160696-aegis-ashore-test-launch/ Return to Top

Medicalxpress.com May 19, 2014 How Contagious Pathogens Could Lead to Nuke-Level Casualties By Bruce Goldman (Medical Xpress)—What if nuclear bombs could reproduce? Get your hands on one today, and in a week's time you've got a few dozen. Of course, nukes don't double on their own. But contagious, one-celled pathogens do. Properly packaged as a bioweapon, they could kill as many people as a hydrogen bomb would, or more. Milana Trounce, MD, a clinical associate professor of emergency medicine, wants to get people to worry about this possibility. For the fourth year in a row, she is presiding over a course called Biosecurity and Bioterrorism

Issue No.1116, 22 May 2014 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies | Maxwell AFB, Alabama http://cpc.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7226 8 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies CUWS Outreach Journal Maxwell AFB, Alabama Trounce has first-hand experience with the aftermath of that effort. She grew up in the Ukrainian city of Odessa when it was still part of the Soviet Union. She began training in ballet at age 7, eventually dancing as a professional ballerina. Her career ended in 1991, when her family hurriedly exited the crumbling Soviet Union. "We left in December. By January, there was no Soviet Union," she said. Her family relocated to San Francisco. She earned a bachelor's degree in biology at the University of California- Berkeley in 1997 followed by a medical degree at UC-San Francisco in 2001. In 2004, having completed a residency in emergency medicine at Harvard and begun a fellowship in disaster medicine there, she made a State Department-funded trip to biological weapons facilities in Russia as part of a consortium of scientists, engineers and other physicians. The visit's purpose was to help the State Department find ways of redirecting former bioweapons scientists, whose sponsoring institutions were now losing funding because the country was poor, toward peaceful pursuits. The worry was that these scientists' talents could be bought by bad actors. At its peak, the Soviets' bioweapons program, called Biopreparat, employed close to 60,000 people at nearly 40 facilities throughout the country. As she examined one of those facilities, which housed dangerous microorganisms, Trounce said, "It immediately struck me that it was not in good shape. The only barrier to entry was a barbed-wire fence, with nobody at the gate. I saw cats wandering in and out. "It blew my mind," Trounce continued. "As a Soviet citizen, I had had no idea these facilities even existed. To come as a U.S. citizen and see these facilities where thousands of scientists had been working on the deadliest pathogens was unbelievable. Who knows what I didn't see?" Did that massive Soviet bioweapons inventory ever get entirely dismantled? "I don't know," says Trounce. "I don't think anybody really does, and if they do it's classified information. What we do know is that there are three Russian Ministry of Defense bioweapons laboratories that remain closed to international examination." In any case, nobody harboring these weapons today would admit it, because it is in defiance of international law. But the fact is that thousands of Soviet scientists at numerous facilities kept producing offensive bioweapons for 20 years after signing a treaty banning them. Retired Rear Adm. Ken Bernard, MD, a guest speaker for the course, said that any claims that such programs have been eliminated should be treated with skepticism. "The Soviets completely lied to us before," he said. "Throughout the 1980s, they were producing tons and tons of smallpox and anthrax, even as the U.S. stopped vaccinating for smallpox." Bernard, whose immersion in government service as a biosecurity official dates back to 1980, was a special assistant on biosecurity matters to presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. In any case, focusing on existing inventories isn't enough, Trounce said. "Somebody can just come out with these things in a short amount of time. You don't have to build a nuclear reactor, which takes years, and procure exotic materials." If bioweaponry itself is nothing new, there's been a twist on it in the past few decades: A shift from biowarfare to bioterrorism. "What took hundreds of scientists and huge resources just a few decades ago now can be done within just a few weeks," Trounce said. Moreover, it can be done without the massive footprint characterizing both Cold War bioweapons projects and current nuclear-weapons programs. A bioweapon is a poor man's nuke. The secrets involved in building one aren't hard to come by, said David Relman, MD, the new co-director of Stanford's Center for International Security Cooperation. "It takes only the skills a good laboratory technician has mastered," said Relman, professor of microbiology and immunology and the Thomas C. and Joan M. Merigan Professor. Former technicians retain the skills they've learned, he noted. "That adds up to a lot of people who know a lot and know their way around labs." You can say "don't build a nuclear facility" and monitor for compliance. How do you tell someone not to build a biology lab? Easy to get, easy to make Issue No.1116, 22 May 2014 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies | Maxwell AFB, Alabama http://cpc.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7226 9 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies CUWS Outreach Journal Maxwell AFB, Alabama That gives rise to another, extremely disturbing consideration: Plausible deniability. It's easy to mask bioweapons research. You can buy equipment such as gene and protein synthesizers over the Internet. "They're the same as what you see in the legitimate biotech industry, so it wouldn't look suspicious," Trounce said. The materials and equipment you'd use are largely ubiquitous laboratory reagents and glassware, as opposed to the hard-to-get raw materials and instrumentation needed for making nuclear weapons. Information on how to configure pathogens' underlying genetic structures is public. "Smallpox has a 35-40 percent fatality rate and is not as contagious as measles," said Block. "Now imagine an organism as fatal as HIV and as contagious as measles. With modern air travel, a pandemic caused by a pathogen of this sort could take out maybe 90 percent of the people it reached. That would destroy a society." A high-tech bioweapon could cost only $1 million to build, Block said. "That's thousands of times cheaper than going nuclear. Iran's centrifuges alone cost them billions." But there's no need to create a brand-new organism from scratch. Lots of potentially suitable pathogens are ready- made, courtesy of Mother Nature. The bacterial pathogens that cause anthrax and botulinum, to name a couple, are found in the wild. Once you have such a biological agent, you can have 10 times as much of it tomorrow, because it grows exponentially. It costs only a few thousand dollars to culture it. You can store it in a freezer. "Botulinum toxin is about the most poisonous compound known," said Bernard. "Physicians buy it legally, to inject into people's eyebrows. Who can be sure there's no off-site, illegal production? Suppose a stranger were to say, 'I want 5 grams—here's $500,000'"? Five grams—1 teaspoon—of botulinum toxin is easily enough to kill hundreds of thousands of people The paralytic toxin, secreted by the bacterial organism Clostridium botulinum, can be countered with an antitoxin, but patient survival may require months of mechanical ventilation on an artificial respirator. In a 2005 study, Lawrence Wein, PhD, the Business School Trust Faculty Fellow and the Jeffrey S. Skoll Professor of Management in the Graduate School of Business, explored the hypothetical effects of dropping botulinum toxin into the milk supply. Milk from myriad farms gets bottlenecked in a relatively small number of large temporary storage vats, and then dispersed to a wide network of retail outlets. Tampering with the country's food supply is surprisingly effective when a foodstuff goes through a production or distribution bottleneck, Wein discovered. "It's generally possible to know who was behind a nuclear attack, because you can trace material by its composition 'signature,'" said Trounce. "Biological agents are ubiquitous. You could even obtain them within the target country. It may be impossible to figure out who the bad guy is. That's ideal for terrorism." Progress since 9/11? There was a big expansion of public-health funding at the federal level in the first five years or so after 9/11, with several concrete payoffs. "We've come a long way to solving the mass-smallpox-scenario problem," Bernard said. Smallpox—a viral pestilence characterized by high fever, pustules that spread from the forehead to the feet within two or three days, and the breakdown of multiple bodily organs—killed an estimated 300 million to 500 million people in the 20th century. Smallpox would be very hard for a terrorist to get his hands on, but it does exist in two labs, one in the United States and one in Russia, Bernard said. "In the old days everybody in the United States used to get vaccinated for smallpox. We stopped in the 1970s, except for the military. Everybody under 34 years old— more than half of our population—has never been immunized." Working in the White House under President George W. Bush, Bernard spearheaded Project Bioshield, a $5.6 billion initiative to hand out grants for pharmaceutical countermeasures. Among the products being developed under the Bioshield aegis are two new antivirals for smallpox and a new vaccine that's safer for immunocompromised people, pregnant women, and people with eczema whose permeable skin makes the traditional live-virus-based vaccine risky. "We have 20 million doses in the U.S. Strategic National Stockpile, mostly for people who can't take the regular vaccine," said Trounce. Issue No.1116, 22 May 2014 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies | Maxwell AFB, Alabama http://cpc.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7226 10 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies CUWS Outreach Journal Maxwell AFB, Alabama "Like aircraft carriers, anti-bioterror medicinals are by their very nature only going to be sold to one customer—the federal government—and used, perhaps only under duress, during a crisis," Bernard said. "For both ethical and financial reasons, they can't be put through normal clinical trials as medicinals for human use must be. But the Secretary of Health and Human Services could grant initial pre-licensure approval for these products' use in an emergency." Another federal government project is Biowatch, a $50- to $75-million per year early-warning system for dangerous microorganisms. Germ-monitoring sensors are attached to existing environmental air-quality-sampling platforms in major cities. The system has its drawbacks, though. A few false alarms have been triggered, and it takes a full 24 hours to get results, which could be too late. Early, accurate diagnosis is crucial, said Relman: "In a lot of cases, people benefit from antimicrobial drugs only if they start taking them within 48 hours—and they've got to be taking the right drug. That's also the hardest time to get an accurate diagnosis, because the earliest phases of many of these diseases are often nonspecific." But if anything, Relman said, "the situation has gotten worse in the past decade as budgets for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and for state and local health facilities have been actually cut. We know we need much greater surge capacity, for example hospitals to take care of respiratory illness. But we haven't invested in it. Public health is dying by attrition." It's politically tough to justify expenditures for things that haven't happened, Relman added. "The fact that somebody hasn't used a biological weapon since 2001 doesn't mean it couldn't happen," Bernard said. "No one thought they could fly two airplanes into a tower prior to September 2011. We haven't had a nuke go off since 1945, and nobody's saying that couldn't happen." Indeed, the United States government has spent trillions of dollars and enormous brainpower investing against nukes. Trounce wants to divert some fraction of those resources to inoculating the country against the arguably more imminent threat of bioterrorism, by coming to terms with the monumentally interdisciplinary, interconnected problems it raises. "Stanford's unique blend of expertise in medicine, business, and engineering, our public-policy program, and its location in the center of Silicon Valley make this the perfect place to get started," she said. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-05-contagious-pathogens-nuke-level-casualties.html Return to Top

The Japan News – Tokyo, Japan U.S. Wants Tokyo, Seoul to Aid Missile Defense against N. Korea The Yomiuri Shimbun May 19, 2014 The U.S. government has offered Japan a proposal to establish an information-sharing system that would complement a missile defense system, which could be jointly operated by Tokyo, Washington and Seoul to combat a North Korean missile threat, according to government sources. The specifics of the proposal include a plan to immediately share information among the three nations regarding a missile launch that would be detected by South Korean radar. The U.S. initiative is aimed at creating an even more effective missile defense shield among the three countries. According to Japanese government sources, U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice proposed the plan to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe when she accompanied U.S. President Barack Obama during Obama’s visit to Japan in late April. Abe reacted positively to the plan.

Xinhua News – Beijing, China Defense Chiefs of S.Korea, U.S., Japan to Meet for Talks on DPRK May 19, 2014 SEOUL, May 19 (Xinhua) -- Defense chiefs of South Korea, the United States and Japan will meet later this month to talk about the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK)'s nuclear and missile programs. Kim Min-seok, spokesman of Seoul's Defense Ministry, told a routine press briefing on Monday that South Korean Defense Minister Kim Kwan-jin will visit Singapore for three days to June 1 to participate in the 13th Asia security dialogue, called the Shangri-La Dialogue. On the sidelines of the dialogue, Seoul's defense minister will hold bilateral talks with the U.S. counterpart Chuck Hagel and the trilateral defense minister talks, including Japanese defense chief Itsunori Onodera on May 31. The spokesman said issues to be discussed during the bilateral and the trilateral dialogues had yet to be decided, but he said three allies have held such dialogues every year since 2009 to talk about cooperation to deter the DPRK's provocations. Tensions are running high on the Korean Peninsula after the DPRK warned of a new form of nuclear test and fired scores of short-range missiles. The South Korean military repeatedly said that increased activity in the DPRK's main nuclear test site was detected, and the South Korean defense chief said earlier this month that the DPRK has prepared for the fourth nuclear test and the preparations have been in the final stages. The DPRK has recently conducted engine tests for an intercontinental ballistic missile known as KN-08, which was flaunted by the North during the past military parades, according to local media reports. Some local media reported that on the agenda for the trilateral talks will be military intelligence sharing between the three countries and joint management of missile defense systems, but the spokesman flatly denied the latter, not the former. The spokesman said that managing missile defense systems will be inevitably different between South Korea and the United States from both geographical and structural perspectives, noting Seoul' s missile defense management will not belong to the U.S. system. He said interoperability of missile defense systems between Seoul and Washington will be advanced, adding it will help South Korea detect ballistic missiles launched from the DPRK. The spokesman, however, did not deny the report on the trilateral intelligence sharing, opening the possibility for the three defense chiefs to talk about the issue. Issue No.1116, 22 May 2014 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies | Maxwell AFB, Alabama http://cpc.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7226 12 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies CUWS Outreach Journal Maxwell AFB, Alabama Seoul and Tokyo pushed for the bilateral pact to share military intelligence on the DPRK in June 2012, but South Korea put the pact on hold at the last minute amid public uproar at home. At that time, the Lee Myung-bak administration pushed the pact through without enough public debate for fear of possible opposition from the public. Amid frayed ties between Seoul and Tokyo, South Korea set its basic policy at turning to the trilateral intelligence sharing. The military intelligence pact was reached between Seoul and Washington and between Tokyo and Washington, but not between Seoul and Tokyo. The military has mentioned the need for sharing military intelligence between the three nations to brace for threats from the DPRK's weapons of mass destruction. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2014-05/19/c_133344521.htm Return to Top

The Economic Times – Mumbai, India China "Uses Channels" to Warn North Korea against Fourth Nuclear Test: Sources By Reuters, 19 May, 2014 BEIJING: China has used various diplomatic channels to warn North Korea not to conduct a fourth nuclear test, multiple China-based diplomatic sources told Reuters, after the reclusive state renewed its threat of "countermeasures" against perceived US hostility. North Korea, which regularly threatens the South and the United States with destruction, is already under heavy sanctions imposed by several UN resolutions beginning in 2006 but has defied pressure to abandon its missile and nuclear programmes. It last conducted a nuclear test in February 2013. "China has told North Korea that there is no justification for a new nuclear test and that they should not do it," said a Western diplomat who was briefed by Chinese officials. The sources said China had used diplomatic channels in Beijing and Pyongyang to convey its anxiety about the possibility of a fourth test to the North. China is North Korea's most important diplomatic and economic ally, though three nuclear tests and several rounds of sabre rattling have tested Beijing's support. The United States has said it hopes China will use its influence to coax the North to abandon its banned nuclear weapons program. In recent public statements, Chinese foreign ministry officials have repeatedly called on all parties to "exercise restraint" on the Korean peninsula, without pointing the finger at North Korea alone. China signed on to tougher UN sanctions last year after the third nuclear test, but has come under criticism from western countries and independent experts for failing to properly implement them. North Korea's official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said this month the country was justified in using all available means at its disposal to counter aggressive challenges by the United States and South Korea aimed at stifling its sovereignty. http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/china-uses-channels-to-warn-north-korea- against-fourth-nuclear-test-sources/articleshow/35335738.cms Return to Top

Yonhap News Agency – Seoul, South Korea N. Korean Envoy, U.S. Experts to Hold Informal Meeting in Mongolia May 21, 2014 BEIJING, May 21 (Yonhap) -- North Korea's chief nuclear envoy is scheduled to hold an informal meeting with former U.S. government officials on the sidelines of an academic conference in Mongolia this week, a diplomatic source with knowledge of the matter said Wednesday. The planned meeting between Ri Yong-ho, Pyongyang's chief negotiator to the stalled six-party talks, and former U.S. officials, including Joel Wit, a former U.S. State Department official specializing in North Korean issues, comes as Pyongyang has threatened to conduct its fourth nuclear test. Ri arrived in Beijing on Tuesday on his way to Mongolia. Although no incumbent U.S. officials will attend the conference in Mongolia, such informal meetings between North Korea's nuclear diplomats and former U.S. officials have served as venues for them to share ideas about resuming the six-party talks aimed at ending the North's nuclear weapons program. "Like previous informal meetings, this week's meeting in Mongolia is expected to allow the two sides to exchange views on ways to resume the six-party talks," the source said on the condition of anonymity.

RT (Russia Today) – Moscow, Russia Gunmen Attempt to Enter Ukraine’s Largest Nuclear Power Plant May 17, 2014 Ukrainian police stopped a group of armed men from entering Europe's largest nuclear power plant, located in southeastern Ukraine. In video footage allegedly showing the attempted break-in, the men say they are members of the Right Sector group. The gunmen were stopped Thursday at the entrance of the city of Energodar, near Zaporizhia Nuclear Power Plant, the facility's press service said in a Friday statement on its website. The power plant’s authorities said the incident did not affect the station’s operations. However, security at the plant and throughout Energodar has been heightened. Several cars full of men who introduced themselves as members of the notorious neo-Nazi group Right Sector were stopped at a checkpoint near Energodar, Ukraine’s Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reported. The men were wearing masks, had guns, and said that they were headed to “protect the nuclear power plant and the city from possible seizures,” according to the paper. “We moved out to protect the city, but we were stopped and circled by police,” a Right Sector member told RBK Ukraine. Local police said they confiscated the men’s weapons and launched a criminal investigation. Footage posted on Svoboda TV's YouTube account on Thursday – allegedly shot during the attempted break-in – shows a group of masked men preparing to enter Energodar. In the footage, the men say they are members of the Right Sector in Zaporizhia (Zaporozhye) region, adding that they came to protect Energodar from activists who wanted to “hoist Russian flags” in the city. “The Right Sector got hold of information that pro-Russian activists are preparing to change [Ukrainian] flags to Russian at the check points of Energodar city. The Right Sector moved forward to prevent this,” one man says. The men in the video are holding Ukrainian flags and shouting nationalist slogans including, “Heroes don’t die! Glory to Ukraine! Glory to heroes!” However, on its official website, the Right Sector denied that its men wanted to seize the station. “There was misinformation [in the media] that this group belongs to the Right Sector,” the statement on the far- right group’s website reads. “The Right Sector officially notifies that it had and has no plans to storm the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.”

The Voice of Russia – Moscow, Russia 17 May 2014 Russian Airborne Forces, Strategic Missile Troops to Become All Contract-Based By 2020 Airborne Forces, Strategic Missile Troops and submarine fleet should become fully based on contract principles by 2020, Airborne Forces commander, Colonel General Vladimir Shamanov said Saturday. As it is reported, the Defense Ministry will for the first time hold a large-scale action aimed at selecting contractors, during which candidates will be able to pass all the stages quickly and in one place. The new regulation is to take effect on May 17, in the places of dislocation of military units of Airborne infantry, in the central squares of Ivanovo, Novorossiysk, Pskov and Tula. "I am sure that since 2020, at least 90 percent of the Russian Armed Forces will be based on contract principles, and as for Airborne forces, Strategic Missile Troops and submarine fleet, the figure will be 100 percent," Shamanov said during the selection of contractors in the city of Ivanovo. He stressed that such selection practice will be continued. The commander noted that today, there were 60 percent of contract servicemen at Airborne Forces, and it was "really noticeable," as these soldiers were more motivated for the service. "This year, there will be more than 25 thousand of contract servicemen in Airborne Forces. The issue of conscription soldiers will be resolved soon," he concluded. Earlier, the Defense Ministry reported that more than 237 thousand people had already been selected for contract military service in the armed forces. Plans for 2014 involve attracting other 43 thousand people, and by 2017, there will be half a million contract servicemen in the army. Issue No.1116, 22 May 2014 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies | Maxwell AFB, Alabama http://cpc.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7226 17 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies CUWS Outreach Journal Maxwell AFB, Alabama http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_05_17/Russian-airborne-forces-strategic-missile-troops-to-become-fully- contract-based-by-2020-5370/ Return to Top

Chicago Tribune – Chicago, IL NATO Does Not Plan to Put Nuclear Arms, New Troops in Eastern Europe REUTERS Monday, May 19, 2014 BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO does not expect to base nuclear weapons or large numbers of new combat troops in eastern Europe, despite tension with Russia over Ukraine, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said on Monday. NATO officials also said Russian and NATO ambassadors may meet as early as next week to discuss the Ukraine crisis. In 1997, during a period of better relations, NATO reached an agreement with Russia under which alliance members said they had no intention of deploying nuclear weapons on the territory of new member states, which began joining in 1999 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Under that agreement, NATO also committed to defending its members through reinforcement rather than by permanently stationing additional "substantial combat forces" on their territory. Asked if the Ukraine crisis would lead NATO to reconsider its pledge not to place nuclear weapons on the territory of new member states, Rasmussen told a news conference: "At this stage, I do not foresee any NATO request to change the content of the NATO-Russia founding act (the 1997 agreement)." He said, however, that Russia's actions in Ukraine had created "a completely new security situation in Europe" and NATO must adapt accordingly. Long-term decisions would be taken when NATO leaders meet in Wales in September, he said. Since Russia annexed Ukraine's Crimea, NATO has moved to reassure its nervous eastern European. Ships and planes have been temporarily deployed to their countries and military exercises in the region stepped up. Poland has urged NATO to base troops on its territory permanently, something Russia says would break the 1997 agreement. Some NATO diplomats argue privately that, by annexing Crimea, Russia has broken the 1997 agreement, under which Russia and NATO pledged not to threaten force against any state. Rasmussen also said that NATO had proposed a meeting of Russian and NATO ambassadors, possibly next week, but had not yet heard back from Moscow. A NATO official said Russia had indicated it wanted to discuss the Ukraine crisis with NATO and just the date remained to be set. NATO last month suspended all practical cooperation with Russia to protest the annexation of Crimea. It left open the possibility of high-level dialogue. Reporting by Adrian Croft; Editing by Larry King http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-rt-us-ukraine-crisis-rasmussen-20140519,0,2062817.story Return to Top

The Washington Times – Washington, D.C. Issue No.1116, 22 May 2014 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies | Maxwell AFB, Alabama http://cpc.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7226 18 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies CUWS Outreach Journal Maxwell AFB, Alabama Inside the Ring: Russia Tests New Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Warhead By Bill Gertz, The Washington Times Wednesday, May 21, 2014 Russia conducted a flight test of an intercontinental ballistic missile Tuesday that state media in Moscow said included the test of an advanced warhead. The road-mobile SS-25 missile was fired from a test range at Kapustin Yar in southern Russia to an impact zone in Sary Shagan in neighboring Kazakhstan. “‘The purpose of the launch was to test a prospective warhead of intercontinental ballistic missiles,” the official Interfax news agency quoted Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Yegorov as saying. The RIA Novosti news agency said the test was used to develop a “new combat payload for future ICBMs.” No additional details were provided by the Russians. Defense analysts say the latest test highlights Moscow’s strategic nuclear modernization program and raises concerns about Russia’s earlier threats to develop missile defense-defeating warheads in response to U.S. and NATO defenses in Europe. Former Pentagon official Mark Schneider, who monitors Russian strategic military developments, said the Russians have said the new follow-on SS-27 ICBM and the new SS-NX-32 submarine-launched ballistic missile, known as the Bulava, will be equipped with advanced warheads — up to 10 warheads per missile. “Two things are being reported in the Moscow press about the SS-27 and the Bulava — 10 warheads and hypersonic vehicles,” Mr. Schneider said. A Russian intercontinental ballistic missile designer, Yuri Solomonov, also has said the new strategic missiles will be equipped with multiple, independently targetable reentry vehicles without a “bus” — a component that normally coordinates the firing of multiple warheads. Russia, along with China, is developing ultra-high-speed, hypersonic vehicles for launch atop missiles. Hypersonic vehicles, both powered and glide weapons, are designed to travel at the edge of space and are being built to defeat U.S. missile defenses. The National Air and Space Intelligence Center stated in a report last year that Russia is working on a new class of hypersonic vehicle designed to “allow Russian strategic missiles to penetrate missile defense systems.” The missile test followed a nuclear forces exercise this month that Russian officials described as “massive.” The Obama administration is under pressure from Congress to hold Moscow accountable for violations of arms control agreements, including the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty and possibly the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/21/inside-the-ring-russia-tests-new-intercontinental- /?utm_source=RSS_Feed&utm_medium=RSS Return to Top

RIA Novosti – Russian Information Agency Russian’s Air Force to Receive New Generation Long-Range Bomber in 2023 22 May 2014

The London Daily Telegraph – London, U.K. Scottish Independence: Scrapping Trident 'Could Shift Power from West to East' Ending the UK's nuclear capability is a 'far greater' issue than the SNP realises and will affect geopolitics for years, leading think tank claims in scathing report By Ben Riley-Smith, Scottish Political Reporter 22 May 2014 Scrapping Trident after independence could accelerate the shift of power from West to East and see the UK kicked out of the United Nations Security Council, one of Britain's leading think tanks has warned. Ending the UK's nuclear capability is a "far greater" issue than the SNP suggests and would have geopolitical impacts that would last for years, a Chatham House report concluded. A Yes vote in the Scottish independence referendum would also put the Conservatives in Number 10 "in perpetuity" and see Europe Union members launch fresh attempts to claw back Britain's rebate, it was said. The findings came in an in-depth study of the Scottish Government's White Paper proposals on defence and security after independence by Prof Andrew Dorman, an associate fellow at the think tank. Prof Dorman outlined why separation would be "fraught with difficulty" for both Scotland and the remaining UK while picking apart some of the SNP's central defence claims. It is "inevitable" that some defence issues would remain unresolved after the SNP's 18-month proposed negotiation period following a Yes vote because that timescale is "incredibly short", Prof Dorman said. Scotland's airspace would be unprotected after independence because the dozen fighter jets pledged in the White Paper are barely half what is currently needed to provide that service, he added. Prof Dorman also warned that Scots caught in turmoil abroad would face "far less certainty" of being evacuated by the government after independence because it could no longer rely on Britain's international reach. Prof Dorman added that key allies could block an independent Scotland's application to Nato – proposed by Alex Salmond – as a "deterrent" to other secessionist movements in Spain and France.

Gulf Times – Dubai, U.A.E. Iran Nuclear Talks Make ‘No Tangible Progress’ Iran and six world powers make little progress in talks on ending their dispute over Tehran’s nuclear programme Agence France-Presse (AFP) 17 May 2014 Iran and world powers warned yesterday they are a long way from reaching a comprehensive and potentially historic nuclear deal by a July 20 deadline following tough talks in Vienna. Such an accord would see Iran roll back its nuclear programme in order to render it virtually impossible for Tehran to make an atomic bomb, in exchange for a lifting of all sanctions. Failure could have calamitous consequences, sparking possible conflict—neither Israel nor Washington rules out military action—and creating a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. In this fourth round of talks, Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany aimed to start drafting a deal before a November interim accord expires on July 20. But it was clear after three days of intense negotiations in a Vienna hotel that nothing had been put to paper yet. “The gaps were too large to begin drafting the text of an accord,” Iran’s chief negotiator Abbas Araqchi told state television. Issue No.1116, 22 May 2014 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies | Maxwell AFB, Alabama http://cpc.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7226 21 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies CUWS Outreach Journal Maxwell AFB, Alabama In this round “we made no tangible progress”, he said, adding that the differences were “too huge”. A source close to the Iranian delegation was quoted by the Irna news agency as saying that “the West has to abandon its excessive demands”. Western diplomats were similarly downbeat, saying that Iran needed to be more prepared to budge on its positions. “Huge gaps remain, there is really more realism needed on the other side,” one Western diplomat said. “We had expected a little more flexibility.” “Iran still has to make some hard choices. We are concerned that progress is not being made, and that time is short,” a senior US official said. “We believe there needs to be some additional realism at this point.” The official added however that both sides had been well aware that this would not be an easy process, and that they remained committed to getting an agreement. Unusually, no date was announced for the next round, although officials said it would be some time in June. There was also no closing press statement by EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif. Michael Mann, a spokesman for Ashton, explained that the parties “don’t want to break things down and give a snapshot of where we are after every session”. “We have had three days of hard work. As we have said, the negotiations are complex and detailed,” he said. Neither side gave any indication of which particular issues were proving difficult. Comments previously indicated that there had been some narrowing of positions on the Arak reactor, but both sides insist that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. The biggest issue—and main problem area—is the enrichment of uranium, which makes it suitable for power generation but also, when highly enriched, for a bomb. Multiple UN Security Council resolutions have called on Iran to suspend this process. The world powers want to extend the time Iran would need to enrich its stockpile of low-enriched uranium to weapons-grade by slashing the number of centrifuges from the current 20,000. Iran denies wanting nuclear weapons and says that it needs to enrich for a fleet of nuclear power plants, which however it has yet to build. Another issue is Iran’s development of ballistic missiles, a point that Tehran has said should not be part of the nuclear talks. Washington disagrees. Also to be resolved is the IAEA’s long-stalled probe into alleged past “military dimensions” to its programme before 2003 and possibly since. A Thursday deadline for Iran to clear up one small part of this—its stated need for certain detonators—passed without comment from either Iran or the International Atomic Energy Agency. “The gaps between the parties are large, but not insurmountable. Negotiators on both sides expected obstacles, but if they are willing to be flexible and creative, a deal can be reached,” Kelsey Davenport from the Arms Control Association said. “Both sides know that diplomacy remains the only viable option for reaching a win-win agreement that meets the needs of all the parties involved.” http://www.gulf-times.com/region/216/details/392373/iran-nuclear-talks-make-%e2%80%98no-tangible- progress%e2%80%99 Return to Top

Gulf Times – Dubai, U.A.E. Iran Voices Tougher Line on Arak Reactor Reuters, Dubai 18 May 2014 Iran appeared to take a harder line in its nuclear dispute with world powers yesterday by dismissing as “ridiculous” one idea that could allay Western concerns about a planned atomic research reactor.

Jerusalem Post – Jerusalem, Israel Israeli Defense Official: Iran Can Break Out to Nuclear Weapons 'Very Quickly' Head of political-military affairs at Defense Ministry, Amos Gilad, warns of storm clouds "on the horizon," says Israel has not been able to stop build-up of Hezbollah's rocket arsenal. By YAAKOV LAPPIN 19 May 2014 Iran can break out to nuclear weapons "very quickly," and Israel must maintain operational readiness for any threat that may arise, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, director of political-military affairs at the Defense Ministry, warned on Monday. Speaking in Tel Aviv at a security conference organized by the Israel Defense publication and the Israel Artillery Association, Gilad said the security forecast was not sunny. "Today is a pleasant day. But there are clouds, and a storm, on the horizon," he said. "People don't believe it until it comes," he added. Iran's nuclear weapons program remains the top threat to Israeli security, he said, describing the Islamic Republic as a "horrible regime" that threatens to exterminate Israel. He referred to a past statement by former Iranian president Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani, who said that one atomic bomb would be enough to destroy Israel.

Trend News – Baku, Azerbaijan Issue No.1116, 22 May 2014 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies | Maxwell AFB, Alabama http://cpc.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7226 25 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies CUWS Outreach Journal Maxwell AFB, Alabama Iran Not to Allow US to Cross Redlines 19 May 2014 A senior Iranian commander has slammed the United States for "attempting to get concessions from Iran in the ongoing nuclear talks", stressing that Tehran will not allow Washington to overstep its red lines. "Although the US is well aware that Iran considers its defense and military achievements as the red lines that could not be crossed, it seeks to pile up pressure on the Iranian negotiating team and get concessions in the nuclear talks by bringing up such issues," deputy chief of staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri said, Iran's Press TV reported on May 19. The general further warned that the Islamic Republic would not allow the Americans and other parties to cross its red lines. "In the issue of nuclear energy and sanctions against Iran, the US has made a strategic mistake based on a strategic illusion, imagining it can make the Islamic Republic change its behavior," Jazayeri said. In recent months, some American officials have said Iran's missile program would be addressed under a final deal over Tehran's nuclear energy program. Iran and the P5+1 - the US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany - are currently in talks in an effort to reach a permanent agreement aimed at resolving the dispute between the West and Tehran over the latter's nuclear program. The U.S. and its Western allies suspect Iran of developing a nuclear weapon - something that Iran denies. The Islamic Republic has on numerous occasions stated that it does not seek to develop nuclear weapons, using nuclear energy for medical research instead. The two sides wrapped up their latest round of talks in the Austrian capital Vienna on May 16. Earlier this month, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said the Western expectation that the Islamic Republic limit its missile power is a "stupid" idea, stressing, "They (the West) expect limits to Iran's missile program while persistently threatening Iran with military [action]." http://en.trend.az/regions/iran/2275703.html Return to Top

FARS News Agency – Tehran, Iran Wednesday, May 21, 2014 Deputy FM: Iran's Defense Systems Never Included in Nuclear Talks TEHRAN (FNA) - Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister and senior negotiator in the nuclear talks with the world powers Seyed Abbas Araqchi underscored that the country has never allowed the western parties to raise the issue of Iran's missile program during the negotiations. "The Group 5+1 (the US, Russia, China, Britain and France plus Germany) countries insist on negotiations over the missile program (of Iran) due to its inclusion in the (previous UN Security Council) resolutions (against Iran but) we have stated to them that our country's defense systems are not negotiable," Araqchi said, addressing a forum of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) political officials in Tehran on Wednesday. "We have announced it very clearly and explicitly and we have never allowed them to start talks about our defense systems and won't allow them to do so to the end (of the talks with the world powers)," he stressed. In relevant remarks earlier this month, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei said the western states' demand for restricting Iran's missile capability is foolish.

Al Arabiya – Dubai, U.A.E. Syria Begins to Move 'Remaining' Chemical Arms By Staff writer, Al Arabiya News Wednesday, 21 May 2014 The remaining stockpile of Syria’s chemical weapons is being relinquished, the Pentagon said on Tuesday. The move comes after months of delay that Syrian authorities blamed on security concerns, following Syria’s promise last year to hand over or destroy its entire chemical weapons arsenal. But the regime still possesses a significant amount of its declared chemical stocks and has not yet destroyed a dozen production and storage facilities. "It is starting to be moved as we speak," Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby told reporters, in comments cited by Reuters news agency, The Pentagon statement was followed by an announcement that Syria had destroyed its entire declared stockpile of isopropanol, a precursor for producing sarin nerve gas. "Now 7.2 percent of Syria's chemical weapons material remains in country and awaits swift removal for onward destruction. The Joint Mission urges the Syrian authorities to undertake this task as soon as possible," the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said in a statement. A U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity to Reuters, said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces had taken steps to prepare some of its remaining chemicals for transport. Syria has been removing chemical weapons under a deal reached last year that averted Western military strikes threatened after a sarin gas attack on rebel-held suburbs around the Syrian capital in August. But Syria did not declare chlorine as part of its stockpile, which has recently been suspected as a weapon used by the Assad regime in attacks on civilians. Issue No.1116, 22 May 2014 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies | Maxwell AFB, Alabama http://cpc.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7226 27 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies CUWS Outreach Journal Maxwell AFB, Alabama Chlorine is thousands of times less lethal than sarin but is illegal under a chemical weapons convention that Syria signed and its use would breach the terms of the deal with Washington and Moscow. http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/05/21/Syria-starts-moving-remaining-chemical-arms.html Return to Top

The Voice of Russia – Moscow, Russia 21 May 2014 IAEA Says Iran Agrees to Address Issues in Nuclear Bomb Probe The UN atomic watchdog said Wednesday it has agreed with Iran five new transparency measures, including two concerning a long-stalled probe into Tehran's alleged past efforts to develop atomic weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran, which denies seeking or ever having sought nuclear weapons, has undertaken to provide information on the new steps "by August 25". The announcement comes after a fourth round of talks between Iran and six world powers in Vienna last week that both sides indicated made no progress towards a comprehensive deal over Tehran's nuclear program, AFP reports. One of the key elements in this sought-after deal would be Iran answering some of its many questions on the alleged "possible military dimensions" (PMD) of Tehran's nuclear program in other words efforts to design a nuclear bomb. Iran says that the trove of evidence presented by the IAEA on these activities, which the Vienna agency believes took place before 2003 and possibly since, is based on faulty intelligence provided by the CIA and Israel's Mossad. The two new PMD steps are "exchanging information" with the IAEA on allegations related to the initiation of high explosives, and providing "mutually agreed relevant information and explanations" on neutron studies. A senior inspector from the UN atomic energy is due on Monday in Iran for talks with officials aimed at tackling "remaining concerns" about Tehran's nuclear program, media reported, according to AFP. The visit by the International Atomic Energy Agency officials comes after Iran and six world powers ended a fourth round of nuclear talks in Vienna on Friday with "no tangible progress." "Chief inspector Tero Varjoranta along with a delegation will travel to Iran to hold talks with the Iranian nuclear officials for tackling the remaining concerns and clarifying some ambiguities," Behrouz Kamalvandi, Iran's atomic agency spokesman, said Sunday. He told ISNA news agency "the negotiations between Iran and IAEA officials will start on Tuesday and the aim is to reach a conclusion over the 13 measures that Iran has taken." In November, Iran and the UN nuclear watchdog agreed on a "roadmap for cooperation" comprised of six points, over Tehran's controversial atomic drive. The parties also agreed in February on another seven-step plan to increase transparency over Tehran's nuclear activities, which was expected to be completed by May 15. Among these steps, Iran promised to clarify its use of Exploding Bridge Wire (EBW) detonators, devices which could theoretically be used in an atomic bomb but which also have a range of other uses. Iran also allowed the UN nuclear watchdog inspectors to visit two nuclear sites in earlier May. "Now, it is the phase that IAEA should give its assessments about the measures that Iran has done, so the ground could be prepared for the future cooperation," Kamalvandi said. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Sunday that clinching a final nuclear deal with world powers is still "possible" despite a tough round of talks this week.

The Times of Israel – Jerusalem, Israel Rouhani: Nuclear Deal ‘Very Likely’ by July Deadline After latest round of talks fail to produce agreement, Iranian president expresses hope By Agence France-Presse (AFP) May 22, 2014 SHANGHAI, China — Talks between Iran and six world powers on a comprehensive deal over its nuclear program are “very likely” to reach a successful conclusion by a July 20 deadline, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday. “The signs that we have been receiving in the last few days are telling us we are very likely to come to an agreement by the end of July,” Rouhani told reporters in Shanghai, speaking through a translator. “We can achieve this.” Iran insists its nuclear technology activities are aimed at civilian use, while Western powers suspect its drive masks military objectives. Rouhani’s comments came after an apparently largely fruitless fourth round of negotiations in Vienna last week. But the UN atomic watchdog said Wednesday that Iran has agreed to address some of the many long-held allegations that it conducted research into making nuclear weapons before 2003 and possibly since. The International Atomic Energy Agency said that Iran, which denies ever having sought nuclear weapons, has undertaken to implement “practical measures” by a separate deadline of August 25. “It takes time” to resolve outstanding issues, Rouhani said a day after attending an Asian security forum in China’s commercial hub of Shanghai. “We cannot expect it to be resolved in a few meetings.” He did not specify problems in the talks with the five United Nations (UN) Security Council permanent members plus Germany — known as the P5+1 group. But he said outstanding issues had been a “matter of contention for years,” suggesting they involved Iran’s nuclear program. According to media reports, among those gaps are the scope of Iran’s enrichment of uranium, which if further purified could be used to trigger a nuclear explosion, and its unfinished Arak research reactor, whose by-product waste could provide an alternative route to an atomic bomb.

The Pakistan Observer – Islamabad, Pakistan Pakistan Urged to Develop Second Strike N-Capability Strategy By Akhtar Jamal Saturday, May 17, 2014 Islamabad—A renowned defence strategist has urged Pakistan to consider developing a second strike nuclear capability strategy to counter rising challenges. Dr. Maria Sultan, Director General of South Asian Strategic Stability Institute (SASSI) University, Islamabad presented her new theory termed as “Integrated Strategic Equivalence” at the three-day International Conference on Nuclear Deterrence and Emerging Dynamics in South Asia and attended by senior experts and strategists. Ms. Maria Sultan said that the theory primarily reinforces the minimum credible deterrence by adding credibility to the second strike capability and through a changed military posture. “The basic assumption of that theory is to ensure that the element of surprise and technological advantage or battlefield integration of systems does not shift the balance towards the offensive or war.”, she explained. Dr. Maria was of the view that Indian military modernization, acquisition of Ballistic Missile Defence System and huge conventional disparity compelled Pakistan to develop a weapon system that could ensure Pakistan’s territorial integrity. The Conference was also attended by senior experts from Pakistan, China and Russia. Dr. Vladimir Kozin, Russian Defense Analyst, while highlighting the US-Russian and NATO experience with the tactical weapons, said that Russia does not have such ‘forward-based weapons’ near the US shores and has several times made public statements at the highest military and political level that it would not deploy such weapons near the US. “The US nuclear doctrine amended last June confirmed that the USA will retain tactical nuclear weapons on European continent indefinitely as the basis for the extended nuclear deterrence.”, he said. Dr. Zulfiqar Khan, Head of Department of Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Dr. Adil Sultan, Director Arms Control and Disarmament Affairs, Lt. Gen Raza, former President of National Defense University and other experts also exchanged their views on Nuclear Deterrence. State Minister for Religious Affairs, Pir Muhammad Amin Ul Hasnat Shah, also attended the closing ceremony of the SASSI’s Three Day International Conference to distribute shields amongst speakers. Senator Rehman Malik, former Federal Minister for Interior speaking at the conference reiterated that Pakistan was a responsible nuclear state and had been pursuing a policy of nuclear restraint with a credible minimum deterrence. However, he made it clear that Pakistan wanted to have friendly relations with India but not those based on Indian domination. He urged Western powers to stop discriminatory policies against Pakistan and added that Pakistan

The Express Tribune – Karachi, Pakistan OPINION/Article Nothing Tactical about Nuclear Weapons Deterrence value of nuclear weapons can help both states get out tactical weed and concentrate on strategic issues. By Zahir Kazmi May 17, 2014 The term ‘tactical nuclear weapon’ is a Cold War relic not applicable to the subcontinent. There is nothing tactical about these weapons, as their use would have strategic fallouts. Their ideal purpose should be to deter adversaries from contemplating actions that can lead to crises, conflicts and wars. For nuclear-armed states, the key would then be to exercise self-deterrence and avoid triggering conflicts. A potential nuclear war between India and Pakistan would be a chain of unfortunate events, possibly triggered by another spectacular terrorist attack in India by Pakistan-based quasi-state extremists. India would trade the ‘Gandhian restraint’ for a dance of destruction to punish Pakistan without activating a nuclear response. In times of defence, Pakistan’s hand would be forced to defeat advancing Indian forces either by conventional forces or by using low-yield nuclear weapons. India threatens a massive retaliation against limited nuclear use, discounting assured Pakistani quid pro quo. There will be no winners in a nuclear war. Escalating a crisis on the grave assumption that Pakistan would be involved in a future terrorist attack is a commitment trap. The rational choice of investigating such an event with Pakistani help would be an easy option. Fighting terrorism in all its forms is essential. Having a military-to-military joint intelligence sharing mechanism in times of peace would be another ideal worth considering. Pakistan had made such an offer after the Mumbai incident. Likewise, relying on a massive nuclear retaliation threat in hopes to deter Pakistani response to limited war strategy is a naive assumption at best. The two risky extremes seem impervious to the certainty that there is no way both sides would be able to guarantee either to dominate or control a crisis from escalating. Pakistan has endured several ‘Mumbais’ and the disadvantages of sponsoring sub-conventional war outweigh any potential dividends. As a responsible nuclear weapons state, Pakistan exercises restraint in dealing with terrorist attacks on its soil even if evidence of Indian linkages exist. Statements by American and Indian officials show Indian involvement. Indian strategies of Cold Start — fighting under Pakistani nuclear threshold — and massive retaliation strain deterrence stability. Pakistan took appropriate measures to deter India from presenting it a fait accompli at tactical and conventional level of operations. Islamabad has developed short-range missiles like Hatf-IX (Nasr) for delivering low-yield warheads against advancing forces seeking limited war. The Indian political leadership has to move beyond disowning the doctrine, taking credible and verifiable measures of reversing the Cold Start doctrine. Massive retaliation is a Samson option of destroying itself and taking with it a billion-plus people in the region. It negates the rationale for producing credible deterrence capability such as nuclear submarine-based delivery systems.

The Diplomat – Tokyo, Japan OPINION/Article US Conventional Power and Nuclear Asia To stop allies in Asia from going nuclear, the U.S. needs to shore up its conventional military power. By James R. Holmes for The Diplomat May 20, 2014 Creak. Short-notice, long-distance travel is a great and a terrible thing. My back is reminding me of that, and of some geographic facts. Basic facts, such as: North America is wide; the Pacific Ocean is broad, and largely empty; Asia is tall north to south, its offshore terrain complex and fascinating. While they appear petite on the world map, moreover, peripheral seas like the South China Sea, an anteroom to both the Pacific and Indian oceans, occupy enormous geographic space in their own right. I changed planes in Hong Kong, along the sea’s northern rim. But another three-and-a-half-hour flight lay ahead before I alighted in Changi Airport, Singapore. Thirty-six hours, all told, to Singapore from the Naval Diplomat bunker somewhere along the shores of the Narragansett Bay. Big world. It beats me how Robert Kaplan keeps up such a travel schedule year in, year out. But enough of the geography lesson. As my last column reported, I was summoned to the city-state last week on a hyper-clandestine mission to spread disinformation about ballistic-missile submarines among our Chinese friends. Mission accomplished!! Tell no one. In all seriousness, our workshop explored how to preserve and defend strategic stability as Asia and the world enter a second nuclear age. This new age is populated by nuclear oldtimers such as the United States, Russia, and France, relative newcomers such as India and Pakistan, and nuclear oldtimers inventing their arsenals anew, such as China. That portends an end to bipolar, relatively stable, predictable deterrence. A kaleidoscope is a better metaphor. More nuclear-weapon states means more rivals to deter. Some nuclear-weapon states are bulking up and configuring their arsenals. Others are pursuing arms reductions. Virtually invisible, omnipotent SSBN fleets, consequently, represent a big part of second-nuclear-age strategy. Oldtimers have them; newcomers want them. So far, so good. In the last session, though, an unwary panel chairman asked me to tender my number-one bit of advice for the U.S. government as it strives to manage this brave new world. Here it is: stop separating nuclear strategy from strategy writ large. There is strategy, and there are implements used to execute strategy. Some of these are unconventional, others conventional. It takes a mix of both, coupled with obvious resolve to use them in times of strife, to sustain the alliances that constitute the bedrock of America’s strategic position in Asia. Letting conventional deployments wilt while keeping nuclear deterrence strong will let Washington deter doomsday scenarios that justify nuclear-weapons use. But rivals can make lots of mischief beneath the nuclear threshold unless faced with powerful conventional counterforce. That’s the lesson of the 1950s, when massive retaliation fended off all-out war but did little to discourage subversion, insurgencies, minor-league military aggression, and other methods deployed by godless communists to expand their sway.

Daily Times – Lahore, Pakistan OPINION/Commentary Prompt Global Strike Plan The inability of radars and early warning systems to distinguish between a CPGS weapon and nuclear warhead can lead to serious misunderstandings with potentially disastrous consequences By Rizwan Asghar Tuesday, May 20, 2014 Long before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, strategic thinkers and leading think tanks in the US had started anticipating new transnational security threats to international peace and security. The conventional mechanism of nuclear deterrence was no longer valid because of the multiplicity of dangers ranging from civil wars and ‘rogue’ governments to the secret proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In fighting non-state actors, nuclear retaliations can hardly be relied upon due to their ability to move from one country to another within a few hours and their willingness to accept even their own destruction as a consequence of their actions. US strategic planners sought to respond to the evolving threat environment by developing credible non-nuclear capability with the potential to strike distant targets around the globe in a short period of time. Soon this idea gained currency among policymaking circles and, after 9/11, the US Department of Defence formally started work on developing Conventional Prompt Global Strike (CPGS) capability. The goal of this concept was to give the US military the ability to acquire “high-precision conventional weapons” capable of striking “fleeting targets” anywhere in the world in an hour or less. Another major incentive toward developing CPGS capability was to be in a position to pre-empt an attack on US soil by destroying the means of attack without resorting to nuclear weapons. CPGS capability is believed to allow for reduction in nuclear force levels and also defeat the efforts of potential proliferators. In 2006, the Bush administration announced its intention to equip trident missiles deployed on nuclear submarines with conventional rather than nuclear warheads. CPGS weapons, if successful, can destroy any target from missile bases to production facilities for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) within a few minutes. Another scenario invoked for the use of CPGS weapons is targeting terrorist groups’ gatherings and hideouts. However, because of warhead ambiguity and other technical hindrances, US Congress opposed this plan. Since then, the Pentagon is thinking about developing other technically sophisticated non-ballistic systems. Owing to the Issue No.1116, 22 May 2014 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies | Maxwell AFB, Alabama http://cpc.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7226 33 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies CUWS Outreach Journal Maxwell AFB, Alabama huge investment the CPGS project entails, the plan is unlikely to become operational before 2025. Some advocates of the project have argued that CPGS weapons could be used to interdict the illegal transfer of nuclear materials from rogue states to terrorists. CPGS weapons can be used to counter sophisticated defensive capabilities, deny irresponsible governments the ability to employ their nuclear warheads and kill high value terrorists. Nevertheless, concerns remain over the feasibility of prompt global strike. Most troubling is the possibility that its use could increase the probability of an accident involving strategic nuclear forces. The inability of radars and early warning systems to distinguish between a CPGS weapon and nuclear warhead can lead to serious misunderstandings with potentially disastrous consequences. The short flight time of ballistic missiles also leaves little time for an assessment of the situation. Some Russian analysts are of the view that the principle argument advanced by the US authorities in favour of their allegations that Iran is acquiring nuclear capability is the development of long-range ballistic missiles by Iranian nuclear scientists. It is well known that long-range missiles are extremely expensive and technologically demanding because they have to leave and re-enter the earth’s atmosphere during their flight path. It is therefore not a rational strategy to use a ballistic missile to strike a target with a relatively limited effect. Thus, US experts conclude that Iran is developing long-range capabilities in order to be fitted with a nuclear weapon. However, the Pentagon’s efforts to downgrade intercontinental nuclear weapons with conventional warheads stands in direct logical contradiction to its own arguments against Iran. If the US can use long-range missiles for conventional weapons, Iranian long-range missiles cannot be taken as an indicator of Iran’s nuclear ambitions. If a trident missile is launched to attack an underground WMD laboratory in Iran, it could immediately be recognised by the early-warning systems of Russia or China, much like the launch of an atomic weapon. In such a scenario, the governments of Russia and China would have less than 10 minutes to decide on the appropriate reaction to the real or supposed nuclear attack. An unfortunate chain of events could lead to an order being issued for a nuclear counter-strike before the actual target of the CPGS weapon is determined. Pentagon officials consider that secure emergency communication lines can be used to clear up any such kind of misunderstanding. However, it is also true that, in times of crises, the country planning to launch missile attacks will not be very truthful about its intentions. In 1995, a nuclear war was barely avoided when Russia’s early warning satellites detected a US research rocket shot from a Norwegian island, triggering an alarm at the highest level in Moscow. Other optimal weapons for the realisation of the CPGS plan are cruise missile, stealth aircraft, and B1 and B2 bombers, but the US air force is not in a position to maintain a worldwide network of airbases in order to reach possible targets expeditiously. Other questions about the ability of intelligence-gathering networks to provide adequate support as well as the capacity of existing intercontinental delivery systems also increase apprehensions. The pressing requirement for locating underground weapons laboratories or missile launching pads is a foolproof method of gathering and judging intelligence, which is perhaps impossible in most cases. Many critics of CPGS have also raised the possibility that the US initiative of developing conventionally armed long-range ballistic missiles will be followed by similar initiatives in other countries. Thus CPGS could lead to a new type of arms race. Despite continuing joint efforts by the US and Russia to limit strategic nuclear warheads, technological advances such as CPGS have strengthened the arguments of different lobbies in Moscow that oppose any reductions in nuclear arsenals. The writer is a research scholar and a former visiting fellow at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, California. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/opinion/20-May-2014/prompt-global-strike-plan Return to Top

Phys.org – Douglas, Isle Of Man, U.K. OPINION/Interview Rethinking Nuclear Security Efforts By Peter Dizikes Issue No.1116, 22 May 2014 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies | Maxwell AFB, Alabama http://cpc.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7226 34 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies CUWS Outreach Journal Maxwell AFB, Alabama May 21, 2014 What is the best way to prevent countries from acquiring nuclear weapons? The vast majority of nonproliferation efforts attempt to control access to sensitive technologies. However, a new study by Scott Kemp, an assistant professor in MIT's Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering, suggests that this approach might not be working. In an article published tomorrow in the journal International Security, Kemp examines the history of the most common proliferation technology—the gas centrifuge, used to extract a weapon-suitable isotope of uranium from a larger supply of that element—and finds that existing nonproliferation policies would not have stopped historical instances of its development. Kemp, a former science advisor for nonproliferation in the U.S. State Department, argues that governments need to reinvent how they look at nuclear proliferation in the modern age, turning their attention to the security threats and status symbols that motivate states to seek nuclear weapons in the first place. He talked with MIT News recently. Q. Why should nuclear nonproliferation efforts no longer focus on the technological hurdles to weapons production? A. The study looks primarily at the gas centrifuge, which has become the proliferation technology of choice. We studied the history of 21 centrifuge programs; interviewed program technical directors from nearly a dozen nations, including Pakistan and Iran; and studied the technology requirements behind the centrifuge itself. We concluded that while technology was once a barrier, that barrier slowly disappeared in the 1970s and 1980s, and today there is really no way to stop countries from producing centrifuges suitable for making nuclear weapons. This is a very different conclusion than the premise upon which the United States built its nonproliferation policies back in the 1950s. The engineering and manufacturing tools needed for proliferation were state of the art back then, but modern technology has moved well beyond those requirements, and what was once difficult is now surprisingly easy. There is still a hard part, however: States must know how to run a research and development program. History shows one or two instances—namely Libya, and possibly Iraq—where the state seems to have been limited by its internal political, bureaucratic, and cultural institutions. These will remain important barriers for a small subset of future proliferators, and in this respect technology barriers can help exacerbate those internal limitations. Q. What kind of approach to nonproliferation do you recommend? A. My conclusion is that we need to get past the idea that we can control the destiny of nations by regulating access to technology. International security must ultimately resort to the difficult business of politics. To the extent that states seek nuclear weapons because of security threats, we will have to work to mitigate those threats. Then there are also examples in history where states were motivated to acquire nuclear weapons because of their symbolism and status. This situation is more difficult. We will have to consider the possibility of strengthening normative barriers to the acquisition of nuclear weapons: in other words, establishing social factors that increase the chances a leader will be vilified, instead of worshipped, for seeking nuclear weapons. Fortunately, there is useful precedence for normative barriers in the areas of biological and chemical weapons. While a very small number of dictators have built chemical weapons in the past, these states were universally shunned by the international community and ultimately suffered regime collapse, leaving few states interested in attempting a repeat. It should be possible to build a similar normative barrier for nuclear weapons as well, although it will take time and a serious look at the utility of our own nuclear arsenal. Q. Your article lists more than a dozen countries that developed centrifuge technology independently. Many of them, such as Italy and Sweden, never took the further step of building nuclear weapons. Why have some countries stopped short of building actual weapons?

The Washington Times – Washington, D.C. OPINION/Commentary KAHLILI: Iran’s Nuclear Deception The West mustn’t waver in ordering new sanctions By Reza Kahlili Wednesday, May 21, 2014 The clerics who hold a tyrannical grip over Iran have done it again — hoodwinked the West while buying more time to develop nuclear weapons. The United States must put the Islamic republic back on the front burner before it’s too late. Last November, the regime accepted an interim agreement in Geneva with the so-called “P5+1” world powers — the United States, China, Russia, Britain and France plus Germany — in which some international sanctions would be eased if Iran moderated its illicit nuclear program. The goal was to achieve a formal agreement by July 20 that would prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons (while accepting peaceful nuclear development) in exchange for a formula to remove sanctions as each agreed-upon step is fulfilled by Iran. Last week, the two sides met again in Geneva to work on reaching that goal. The world powers expected progress, given the “moderate” stands of President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and what seemed to be an eagerness on their part to attain accommodation. Those two don’t run the country, though. The ruthless clerics headed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei do. Here are the marching orders Ayatollah Khamenei gave to the Iranian negotiators before they left for Geneva last week:

ABOUT THE USAF CUWS The USAF Counterproliferation Center was established in 1998 at the direction of the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. Located at Maxwell AFB, this Center capitalizes on the resident expertise of Air University, while extending its reach far beyond - and influences a wide audience of leaders and policy makers. A memorandum of agreement between the Air Staff Director for Nuclear and Counterproliferation (then AF/XON), now AF/A5XP) and Air War College Commandant established the initial manpower and responsibilities of the Center. This included integrating Issue No.1116, 22 May 2014 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies | Maxwell AFB, Alabama http://cpc.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 | Fax: 334.953.7226 37 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies CUWS Outreach Journal Maxwell AFB, Alabama counterproliferation awareness into the curriculum and ongoing research at the Air University; establishing an information repository to promote research on counterproliferation and nonproliferation issues; and directing research on the various topics associated with counterproliferation and nonproliferation . The Secretary of Defense's Task Force on Nuclear Weapons Management released a report in 2008 that recommended "Air Force personnel connected to the nuclear mission be required to take a professional military education (PME) course on national, defense, and Air Force concepts for deterrence and defense." As a result, the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center, in coordination with the AF/A10 and Air Force Global Strike Command, established a series of courses at Kirtland AFB to provide continuing education through the careers of those Air Force personnel working in or supporting the nuclear enterprise. This mission was transferred to the Counterproliferation Center in 2012, broadening its mandate to providing education and research to not just countering WMD but also nuclear deterrence. In February 2014, the Center’s name was changed to the Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies to reflect its broad coverage of unconventional weapons issues, both offensive and defensive, across the six joint operating concepts (deterrence operations, cooperative security, major combat operations, irregular warfare, stability operations, and homeland security). The term “unconventional weapons,” currently defined as nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons, also includes the improvised use of chemical, biological, and radiological hazards. The CUWS's military insignia displays the symbols of nuclear, biological, and chemical hazards. The arrows above the hazards represent the four aspects of counterproliferation - counterforce, active defense, passive defense, and consequence management. Return to Top