Issue No. 1300 2 February 2018 // USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 //
Feature Item
“Iran Sanctions”. Written by Kenneth Katzman, published by the Congressional Research Service; January 17, 2018 https://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS20871.pdf U.S. sanctions—and U.S. attempts to achieve imposition of multilateral and international sanctions on Iran—have been a significant component of U.S. Iran policy for several decades. In the 1980s and 1990s, U.S. sanctions were intended to try to compel Iran to cease supporting acts of terrorism and to limit Iran’s strategic power in the Middle East more generally. Since the mid2000s, U.S. sanctions have focused on ensuring that Iran’s nuclear program is for purely civilian uses and, since 2010, the international community has cooperated with a U.S.-led and U.N.- authorized sanctions regime in pursuit of that goal. Still, sanctions against Iran have multiple objectives and address multiple perceived threats from Iran simultaneously. This report analyzes U.S. and international sanctions against Iran and provides some examples, based on open sources, of companies and countries that conduct business with Iran. CRS has no way to independently corroborate any of the reporting on which these examples are based and no mandate to assess whether any firm or other entity is complying with U.S. or international sanctions against Iran.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS US NUCLEAR WEAPONS A Microscopic Fungus Could Mop Up Our Cold War-era Nuclear Waste Trump: We Must 'Modernize and Rebuild' Nuclear Arsenal USS Wyoming Arrives in Norfolk for Overhaul AEDC Stands Up ICBM Combined Test Force at Hill Air Force Base US COUNTER-WMD Another US Navy Ballistic Missile Intercept Reportedly Fails in Hawaii Army Taps Lockheed for 10 More THAAD Interceptors Is the Army Ready to Transform its Missile Defense Force? New Army Missile Defense Strategy Due Out This Summer Missile Defense Vs. China, Russia: Decentralize, Disperse, & Hide Left-of-Launch Missile Defense: ‘You Don’t Want to Have Just One Solution to the Threat’ US ARMS CONTROL Arms Control Experts: US Not Planning Nuke Strike against North Korea ASIA/PACIFIC U.S. General Says North Korea Not Demonstrated All Components of ICBM Chinese Military Paper Urges Increase in Nuclear Deterrence Capabilities ‘The Military Has Seen the Writing on the Wall’ Kissinger: If North Korea Keeps Nukes, Other Nations Will Seek Them EUROPE/RUSSIA Tillerson Says Washington, Europe Start Work on Iran Nuclear Deal Russia Buys 10 Supersonic Nuclear Bombers MIDDLE EAST Nixing JCPOA against U.S., Iran Interests: Former Senator UK Envoy Talks JCPOA, Bilateral Ties, Tehran Protests, Nazanin Zaghari Exclusive: Tests Link Syrian Government Stockpile to Largest Sarin Attack - Sources COMMENTARY With Nuclear Weapons, We’re Getting Too Comfortable Thinking the Unthinkable START from the Basics to Maintain Nuclear Stability Trump Nuclear Plan Requires Big Fixes in Decaying Warhead Industrial Complex Deadly Delay: Every Second Counts in Missile Defense Britain's Nuclear Deterrent Isn't a Military Asset, and Shouldn't Be Funded As One Asia’s Escalating Missile Race
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US NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Popular Science (New York, N.Y.) A Microscopic Fungus Could Mop Up Our Cold War-era Nuclear Waste By Kate Baggaley January 29, 2018 This hardcore yeast thrives amidst acid and radiation. During the Cold War, the United States produced a truly mind-boggling amount of radioactive waste. We failed to properly dispose of much of that sludge, and it's been leaking from underground storage tanks since the 1950s. Over the years it has contaminated more than 2 billion cubic feet worth of soil and nearly 800 billion gallons of groundwater at low levels. Cleaning this mess up will be a daunting task, but scientists have just enlisted a new ally. It turns out our best bet for containing radioactive waste might be to stick yeast on it. Many of these tiny fungi can survive extremely radioactive and acidic conditions, scientists reported January 8 in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology. What’s more, they form gunk called biofilms that could potentially trap the waste. “The potential for yeast is enormous,” says coauthor Michael Daly, a pathology professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU) in Bethesda, Maryland. “You have a huge group of organisms that are already there, naturally in the environment, that could be harvested for this sort of work.” The scale of the problem these yeasts would tackle is almost indescribably vast, Daly says. Radioactive waste from the 46,000 nuclear weapons built between 1945 and 1986 is stored in 120 sites around the country. The largest is the sprawling Hanford Site in southeastern Washington, where the first atomic bombs were assembled during the Manhattan Project. It houses more than 50 million gallons of waste. Leakage at Hanford has contaminated enough soil and sediments to bury 10,000 football fields a yard deep, and polluted enough groundwater to keep Niagara Falls flowing for a month. It’s mostly contained within the soils and aquifers at Hanford, Daly says, although small amounts are slowly seeping into the nearby Columbia River. The Cold War waste is an assortment of radioactive versions of elements such as strontium, uranium, and plutonium: acids once used to extract metal out of uranium ores, heavy metals like mercury and lead, and toxic chemicals. Scientists have long hoped to find microbes tough enough defang or capture it, a technique known as bioremediation. Bacteria and other microorganisms are relatively cheap to grow and could use a few tricks to neutralize these lethal materials. Certain microbes can catch radioactive waste so rain doesn’t wash it away, feed on toxic chemicals, or transform heavy metals or these chemicals into less dangerous states. For decades, Daly and his colleagues have tried to harness a microbe so tough its nickname is Conan the Bacterium. This microbe, more properly called Deinococcus radiodurans, is one of the most radiation-resistant life forms we know of (it can also withstand drought, lack of food, extreme temperatures, and the vacuum of space). Over time, scientists managed to genetically engineer this bacterium to have the ability to transform toxic chemicals and heavy metals into less deadly forms. But they just couldn’t get it to thrive in acidic conditions. “At the end of the day the damn thing wouldn’t grow at lemon juice pH ranges,” Daly says.
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He and his colleagues decided to search for better candidates in nature, and sampled microbes from deserts, mines, rivers, and hot springs around the world. The most promising was a red-hued fungus from an abandoned acid mine drainage facility in Maryland. The yeast, a species called Rhodotorula taiwanensis, surprised the researchers with its endurance in the face of acid and chronic radiation. On top of this, it tolerates heavy metals and even forms biofilms under these trying circumstances, a trick Conan never mastered. The researchers tested a total of 27 yeasts to see if they could handle exposure to noxious substances like mercury chloride. “These are really, really toxic heavy metals,” Daly says. “If we got a little bit in us they would kill us, and these microbes are flourishing in these mixtures of heavy metals, radiation, and [acid].” Most bacteria can’t tolerate acidity or radiation, but both skills turn out to be very common among yeasts. “They are masters of the low-pH world,” Daly says. On the other hand, fungi tend to be more sensitive to heat than bacteria. R. taiwanensis prefers to grow around room temperature, but the decaying nuclear wastes can heat the soil around the steel storage tanks to around 120 degrees Fahrenheit. This wouldn’t necessarily thwart the microbes, though. Placed a small distance away from the storage tanks, the yeasts could capture leaking waste without succumbing to the warmth. Ideally, different strains of yeasts and bacteria could team up, says Rok Tkavc, an adjunct pathology professor and staff scientist at the Henry Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine at USU. He recently reported that when Deinococcus radiodurans mixes with other bacteria it seems to endow its neighbors with radiation resistance. These cocktails could potentially be used to combat radioactive waste released by nuclear meltdowns as well as that left over from the Cold War. For the Hanford Site, a successful cleanup would mean keeping radioactive elements out of the Columbia River for the thousands of years it takes them to decay to less dangerous forms. “We cannot get rid of the radiation; no one can do that,” Daly says. “The only thing we can conceivably do to protect ourselves is to contain it, to keep it from coming out.” https://www.popsci.com/g00/microscopic-fungus-cold-war-nuclear- waste?i10c.encReferrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8%3D&i10c.ua=1#page-2 Return to top
The Hill (Washington, D.C.) Trump: We Must 'Modernize and Rebuild' Nuclear Arsenal By Rebecca Kheel January 30, 2018 President Trump on Tuesday pledged to “modernize and rebuild” the U.S. nuclear arsenal as part of his first State of the Union address. “As part of our defense, we must modernize and rebuild our nuclear arsenal, hopefully never having to use it, but making it so strong and so powerful that it will deter any acts of aggression by any other nation or anyone else,” he said to some applause. “Perhaps someday in the future there will be a magical moment when the countries of the world will get together to eliminate their nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, we are not there yet, sadly.”
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The address comes days before the Pentagon is expected to release the results of its months-long nuclear posture review ordered by Trump. A leaked draft of the report revealed that it will call for the U.S. to develop so-called low-yield nuclear weapons to deter Russia and China. The idea is that if the current U.S. nuclear weapons are so powerful they will never be used, then they do not act as a deterrent. But arms control advocates have expressed alarm at the plan, saying low-yield nuclear weapons are still nuclear weapons and that having them could make the U.S. more willing to use them. They have also argued the price tag is cost-prohibitive. Trump’s call for modernizing and rebuilding the U.S. nuclear arsenal came as he reiterated his desire to end the caps on defense spending, commonly referred to as a sequester. “Around the world, we face rogue regimes, terrorist groups and rivals like China and Russia that challenge our interests, our economy and our values,” he said. “In confronting these horrible dangers, we know that weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means to our true and great defense. For this reason, I am asking Congress to end the dangerous defense sequester and fully fund our great military.” The budget caps continue to be a sticking point, as Congress has yet to agree to a budget deal and continues to operate under a stopgap spending measure four months into the fiscal year. Republicans want to raise the caps on defense to hike Pentagon spending, but Democrats, as they long have, have insisted on equal increases for nondefense spending. http://thehill.com/policy/defense/371537-trump-we-must-modernize-and-rebuild-nuclear- arsenal Return to top
MarineLink (New York, N.Y.) USS Wyoming Arrives in Norfolk for Overhaul Author Not Attributed January 31, 2018 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine USS Wyoming (SSBN-742) arrived at Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY) on January 9 for refueling and upgrades as part of a 27-month Engineered Refueling Overhaul (ERO). In a first for the shipyard, Enlisted Women at Sea ship alterations will be performed on board, modifying the layout of berthing areas. Other work will be similar to the shipyard's ERO currently being conducted on USS Rhode Island (SSBN-740), allowing the Wyoming project to leverage off experience gained during that overhaul project. "Apples to apples, it's pretty much the same," said Project Superintendent John Walker of the two EROs. "We're looking to get at least 70 percent of the employees who worked on the Rhode Island to roll over to the Wyoming." The project team has already completed the Resource Constrained Schedule (RCS) 14 days early. This schedule provides an overarching integrated plan on the number of personnel needed to conduct work throughout the overhaul. "With the RCS, you're leveling the shipyard's resources
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // across the whole 27-month availability. Now we don't have to focus on that as we move into the actual execution phase. It's a huge deal to get it done," Walker said. Walker said the team has its sights on a new record for this ERO. In February 2017, Rhode Island finished refueling in 217 days, a mark that bested NNSY's former refueling record on USS Alaska's ERO, which completed its availability on schedule in March 2009. "We're scheduled to complete refueling in 213 days," Walker said. "It is both aggressive and achievable. We're taking the lessons learned from the Rhode Island and we're utilizing much of the same team." Rhode Island also raised the bar with undocking two days early in July 2017. Walker pointed out that sharing lessons learned is essential when it comes to setting new standards for Ohio-class EROs at NNSY. "I was there for most of that availability [as Deputy Project Superintendent] before I transitioned over to Wyoming, and I'm still in contact with that project team every single day." Reflecting on the extensive overhaul that lays ahead, Walker said, "Everything we do is a challenge, but the ship is on our side and ready to help us out in achieving our goal. The captain is excited and motivated to make 27 months or less. For the shipyard, we have a lot of experience and knowledge moving into this project. I think we've got a winning team!" Wyoming is one of the United States' most vital strategic assets, and combined with the other Ohio- class submarines, makes up one leg of the nuclear triad. During a visit last year commending the Rhode Island team, Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program Director Admiral James F. Caldwell challenged the shipyard to continue pushing itself for even greater successes on EROs. "I want more of that," he said. "You have my incredible admiration and my greatest respect for the work you do. You are America's Shipyard because you fuel America's Navy." https://www.marinelink.com/news/overhaul-wyoming-arrives433487 Return to top
Arnold Engineering Development Complex Public Affairs (Arnold Air Force Base, Tenn.) AEDC Stands Up ICBM Combined Test Force at Hill Air Force Base By Deidre Ortiz January 23, 2018 ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, TENN. -- The growth of AEDC’s critical role in providing the United States Armed Forces with developmental test and evaluation support for the newest and premier weapon systems continues with the stand up of an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) Combined Test Force (CTF) to support modernization and life extension for the LGM-30 Minuteman III (MMIII) and development of the next generation Ground Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) ICBM. According to Col. Timothy West, Senior Materiel Leader, Test Operations Division, “the CTF at Hill [Air Force Base] will ensure that resources will be efficiently and effectively used to conduct testing and to oversee a confederation of Developmental Test and Evaluation (DT&E) organizations, each with different but necessary skills in support of ICBM DT&E programs.” On July 24, 2015, the Air Force Test Center was designated as the GBSD Lead Developmental Test and Evaluation Organization (LDTO). AFTC subsequently appointed the AEDC Test Operations
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Division, led by West, to serve as its primary interface to the GBSD Program Office and to serve as its LDTO Executing Test Organization (ETO). That same summer Dr. Donald J. Malloy was appointed as the GBSD ETO lead with responsibility for standing up a team of technical experts from across the AFTC Enterprise to support GBSD DT&E efforts and the ICBM CTF at Hill AFB. “I was honored and humbled the Air Force allowed me to lead efforts to stand up a team of subject matter experts [SME] from across the enterprise to support DT&E for a total system replacement of MMIII with enhanced accuracy and terminal survivability to ensure ICBM warfighting edge in all environments and to address new threats out to 2075,” Malloy said. The enterprise team includes cybersecurity, physical security, command and control, and communications SMEs from the 96th Test Wing at Eglin AFB to support future DT&E of flexible targeting and survivable two-way communications for pre-, trans-, and post-attack launch. To support DT&E of the enhanced accuracy requirements for GBSD, Dr. Malloy also brought in navigation and guidance system SMEs from the 704th Test Group at Holloman Air Force Base. “AFTC SMEs in AEDC’s Space & Missile CTF at Arnold Air Force Base and at Eglin and Holloman AFBs will continue to provide reach back support to the CTF at Hill after it reaches full operational capability. That reach back includes support for testing at AFTC locations and continued development of technical innovation and cost and risk reduction initiatives necessary for the CTF and the U.S. Air Force to make informed, timely, and independent assessments,” Malloy added. AEDC support for ICBMs and associated subsystems has grown in response to reevaluations by Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Air Force Materiel Command, Air Force Nuclear Weapon Center (AFNWC), AFTC and AEDC of the risk associated with modernizing and extending the life of the legacy MMIII ICBM weapon system while GBSD is being developed. Soon after the reviews were completed, AFTC was assigned as the LDTO for MMIII Modernization and Life Extension Programs (MLEP), and AEDC was assigned as the ETO for this effort in addition to the work already being done for GBSD. Lt. Col. Jason Armstrong and Capt. Hedison Doe were assigned responsibility for leading the MMIII MLEP DT&E campaign. “We are looking at AFTC’s first ICBM-focused CTF,” Doe said. “The work AEDC is doing touches every aspect of the missile system, requiring a broad spectrum of technical expertise. The expectation for the technical breadth needed to timely execute these crucial programs along overlapping development cycles is critical and requires a special blend of both test expertise and ICBM system expertise to make this CTF successful.” Robert Lamb, the ICBM CTF Chief, explained what a CTF is and the importance of this organization at Hill AFB. “A CTF is an integrated test and evaluation product team that is empowered to evaluate a weapon system and/or related hardware and software. At Hill AFB, we co-located our team next to the program office teams at one primary site; integrating our efforts in a manner to execute combined test planning, provisioning, execution and data acquisition while maintaining independent analysis and reporting,” he said. The LGM-30 MMIII is the currently-fielded, land-based leg of the strategic nuclear triad, complementing air-based strategic bombers and sea-based submarine launched ballistic missiles. The launch systems and weapon system physical infrastructure being used for MMIII today first became operational in the mid-1960s. While certain components and subsystems have been upgraded over the years, including a transition to the MMIII configuration in the 1970s, most of the fundamental infrastructure in use today is original and has supported more than 50 years of
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // continuous operation. The MMIII flight systems in use today were fielded in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Glen Lazalier, a senior subject matter expert for the GBSD LDTO/ETO, stated, “The MMIII has served admirably in assuring that no adversary dared to launch a nuclear attack against the USA. However, it is time to develop and deploy a new state-of-the-art ICBM that will ensure that future generations will enjoy the same protection that I, my children, and grandchildren have enjoyed.” While all facets of DT&E for GBSD and MMIII will be steered by the ICBM CTF, coordination between the CTF and key stakeholders including the ICBM Program Office, users, and the Operational Test Organization personnel will be ever present. The Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Command (AFOTEC), will lead the operational test efforts when DT&E has been completed. The ICBM CTF includes AEDC MMIII and GBSD military, DOD civilian staff, and contractor personnel from AEDC Technical and Management Advisory Services (TMAS) contractors. The ICBM CTF team members at Hill AFB work alongside the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center (AFNWC) ICBM Systems Directorate (ICBMSD), the GBSD System Program Office and AFOTEC test team members. Staffing for AEDC expanded responsibilities in the ICBM leg of the nuclear triad will continue to grow over the next four years and will include a remote operating location at Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, as GBSD matures, in future years. http://www.afmc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/1427998/aedc-stands-up-icbm-combined- test-force-at-hill-air-force-base/ Return to top
US COUNTER-WMD
Defense News (Washington, D.C.) Another US Navy Ballistic Missile Intercept Reportedly Fails in Hawaii By David B. Larter January 31, 2018 WASHINGTON — A test shoot of the SM-3 Block IIA fired from an Aegis Ashore test site in Hawaii failed Wednesday, CNN has reported. The missile is designed to intercept ballistic missiles. If confirmed, it would mark the second unsuccessful test of the Raytheon missile in the past year. It also deals a setback to U.S. missile defense efforts as North Korea makes seemingly daily progress on it goal of striking the U.S. mainland with nuclear-armed missiles. When reached for comment, U.S. Missile Defense Agency spokesman Mark Wright declined to comment on the outcome of the test. “The Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Navy sailors manning the Aegis Ashore Missile Defense Test Complex (AAMDTC) conducted a live-fire missile flight test using a Standard-Missile (SM)-3 Block IIA missile launched from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii, Wednesday morning,” Wright said. CNN was first to report the failed test.
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Its important to note that a number of factors apart from the missile could be to blame for the failed test. The targeting and fire control radars, or the Navy’s AEGIS system could also have caused the failed test. An SM-3 Block IIA test in June failed after a sailor on the destroyer John Paul Jones mistakenly triggered the missile’s self-destruct mechanism. The missile successfully intercepted a ballistic missile target last February in a test launch. The missile is being developed by Raytheon and is a joint project between the U.S. and Japan, designed to counter rising missile threats from North Korea and elsewhere. https://www.defensenews.com/breaking-news/2018/01/31/second-navy-sm-3-block-iia- ballistic-missile-intercept-hawaii-report/ Return to top
UPI (Washington, D.C.) Army Taps Lockheed for 10 More THAAD Interceptors By James LaPorta January 29, 2018 The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has awarded Lockheed Martin a contract for additional Lot 10 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, interceptors for the U.S. Army. The deal, announced Friday by the Department of Defense, is valued at more than $459.2 million under a modified fixed-price incentive-firm target contract for line item numbers. Friday's award is the second modification to the contract with Lockheed, which in December received a $553 million modification for Lot 9 and Lot 10 THAAD systems. The new modification -- the exercising of a $459.2 million option for more systems -- brings the total value of the contract up to $1.2 billion. THAAD interceptors are Lockheed-designed anti-ballistic missile defense systems used to target a range of incoming ballistic missiles while in their terminal phase, the portion of a ballistic missile's descent to reenter Earth's atmosphere or as it approaches a target. "The THAAD system's capability and reliability have been demonstrated with 15 out of 15 hit-to-kill intercepts dating back to 1999, and by exceeding readiness rates currently being experienced in the field with operationally deployed batteries," Richard McDaniel, Lockheed Martin's vice president for the THAAD system, said in a press release. "THAAD interceptors defeat dangerous missile threats our troops and allies are facing today, and have capability against advancing future threats. Our focus on affordability, coupled with efficiencies of increased volume, is providing significant cost-savings opportunities to meet growing demand from the U.S. and allies around the globe," McDaniel said. The additional interceptors are for use by Army THAAD units and other operational requirements, Lockheed said. More than $459.2 million from fiscal 2018 procurement funds has been obligated to Lockheed at the time of award. Work on the new contract will occur in Texas, California, Alabama and Arkansas, and is expected to be completed by June 2021.
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // https://www.upi.com/Lockheed-tapped-by-Army-for-10-more-THAAD- interceptors/3371517233168/ Return to top
Defense News (Washington, D.C.) Is the Army Ready to Transform its Missile Defense Force? By Jen Judson January 27, 2018 WASHINGTON — The Army is coming out with a new missile defense strategy this summer and the Pentagon is expected to release an overarching missile defense review in short order. Combined, the initiatives will guide the way the future air-and-missile defense force will operate. New thinking about missile defense is long overdue, many analysts and military leaders are saying, and questions abound over whether the air and missile defense force can handle new and emerging threats and if the right structures are in place to transform the force. Not much has changed in air and missile defense for over two decades, according to retired Rear Adm. Arch Macy, who is a former director of the Joint Integrated Air and Missile Defense Organization (JIAMDO). “I go back to Desert Storm and look at our IAMD capability in Desert Storm and what it is today some 25 years later, and I’m not horribly impressed,” he said during a Jan. 25 panel discussion at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Hoping to inspire, CSIS rolled out a report Jan. 25 on distributed defense and new operational concepts for IAMD. The report suggests how the Army and the rest of the Defense Department might adapt its missile defense framework to be better prepared to defend against near peer adversaries, where air superiority and access is not a given and adversaries present new challenges that the current AMD force is not prepared to handle. What the Army could be doing The Army needs to think about more distributed AMD operations as it faces new threats, according to Tom Karako, one of the authors of the CSIS report and director of the Missile Defense Project at the think tank. Karako proposes several operational concepts to direct the services toward more distributed air and missile defense from enabling launch- and engage-on-remote capabilities and better networking systems to dispersing elements of missile defense batteries over a wider area. He also suggests designing launchers to accommodate mixed loads of interceptors that he calls “layered defense in a box.” The Army should also consider offense-defense launchers that can be used for both missions and containerized launchers that can be better concealed, as well as a “passive defense shell game” where numerous “dummy launchers” with optical, thermal and electronic signatures would be in some containers while real launchers would be in others, increasing the guesswork for the enemy.
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“Such deployments could impose costs on an adversary, as well as present them with new dilemmas, such as the expenditure of resources on intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance or the wastage of precision-guided munitions,” the report states. Vince Sabio, the program manager for the hypervelocity gun weapon system at the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities Office, said the current AMD force is inflexible, only designed for ballistic missile threats, and is expensive. He said new capability needs to be able to defend a 360-degree area of coverage and handle threats coming from many trajectories. The AMD force needs to be able to engage multiple threats and different types of threats using more flexible weapon systems where one launcher or one type of interceptor can handle threats across the spectrum. And the arsenal needs to be fashioned in such a way the adversary cannot gain an accurate inventory of the AMD force’s capability, Sabio said. He suggested even storying interceptors in conex boxes so adversaries attempting to garner intel can’t figure out if the boxes littered around a base are storing weapons or something benign like pet food. What the Army is doing The Army is attempting a more layered missile defense, particularly in the European theater where it is seeking to rebuild a Short-Range Air Defense (SHORAD) capability. The service is also looking to add to its Integrated Air-and-Missile Defense (IAMD) system with a new radar capable of detecting threats from 360 degrees. The current Patriot system has blind spots. And at the heart of a future IAMD is the Integrated Battle Command System (IBCS) which is the brains of the architecture and will network other missile defense and fires systems together on the battlefield. Currently under development, the Army is internally building a multi-mission launcher that can fire a multitude of interceptors to go up against a variety of threats. Among the interceptors, the service has qualified are the AIM-9X Sidewinder and the FIM-92 Stinger. More interceptors will be qualified in the coming years. Pushing the envelope to adapt to emerging threat environments, the Army has taken serious steps toward ultimately fielding a high-energy weapon on a combat vehicle and will be demonstrating a 50-kilowatt laser on a truck this year. The technology is considered disruptive, particularly when it comes to considering what it costs the service per shot to take out inexpensive threats. And it would ultimately allow the service to handle salvos of incoming threats without running out of interceptors. While the Army is formulating a new AMD strategy it is also building a cross-functional team to look at IAMD as part of the service’s new Futures Command. The new command is being created in order to better address modernization priorities. IAMD is one of these priorities. The struggle is real The report addresses a grim reality, that near-peer adversaries have gone to school on U.S. missile defense capabilities over the past 15 years. “Today near-peer adversaries have developed and fielded capabilities that now hold at risk U.S. fixed forward bases and operational concepts,” according to the report. “We cannot wait for the specter of smoking Patriot launchers in the Polish countryside or on the Korean peninsula to be the inspiration for transforming and adapting the air and missile defense force,” the report states.
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But despite the acknowledgement that a new course for missile defense needs to be charted, being imaginative and proactive in an approach to a new missile defense architecture within the Pentagon has been stifled for a variety of reasons from cost to organizational bureaucracy. Sabio said while the CSIS report lays out “a practical as well as imaginative type of missile defense architecture” it’s been difficult and not always practical to take imaginative ideas conjured up in the Defense Research Projects Agency or his own organization and move them into reality. Adversaries seem to be ahead on the imagination front, he said. For example, the Russian Club K is a containerized missile launching system which provides inherent obfuscation. Imagination “is great,” Sabio said, “but really there is kind of a rubber meets the road aspect so we have to pass some of these interesting concepts through the filter of operations working hand-in- hand.” More wargaming — which takes time, money and senior leadership support — needs to be done to see what’s really going to work for a future AMD force, Macy added. Changing the AMD force is something that the Pentagon knows it has to do, Macy said, but to get to the point of actively transforming it requires taking the time to “do the conceptual doctrine, command-and-control, organizational war-gaming and then start to understand what you would need to do to these systems to employ them effectively.” https://www.defensenews.com/land/2018/01/26/is-the-army-ready-to-transform-its-missile- defense-force/ Return to top
Defense News (Washington, D.C.) New Army Missile Defense Strategy Due Out This Summer By Jen Judson January 27, 2018 WASHINGTON - Given the many emerging changes to strategies, concepts and doctrine over the past several years, the Army is crafting a new air-and-missile defense strategy that is due out this summer. Lt. Gen. James Dickinson, the service’s Space and Missile Defense Command commander, said Jan. 25 at a missile defense event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington that the strategy has been in the works since March 2017. The final product incorporates priorities noted in the recent National Defense Strategy and the Army Operating Concept, as well as the changing operational environment, evolving threats and emerging technologies. The new strategy will focus on the 2018 to 2028 time frame and will “nest” with the National Defense Strategy, the Army’s operating concept and the service’s new doctrinal concept of multidomain battle. The strategy will include a comprehensive review — from doctrine to organization to training to equipment to policy and everything in between, according to Dickinson. And as the strategy is developed, he added, the Army continues to refine its vision for the future AMD force, which is consistent with the Vision of 2020 Joint Integrated Air-and-Missile Defense strategy: where all AMD capabilities from “defensive, passive, offensive, kinetic and non-kinetic are
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // integrated into a comprehensive joint and combined force capable of preventing an adversary from effectively employing any of its offensive air-and-missile weapons.” The new Army AMD strategy will come on the heels of a overarching missile defense review that is expected to be released soon. https://www.defensenews.com/land/2018/01/26/new-army-missile-defense-strategy-due-out- this-summer/ Return to top
Breaking Defense (Washington, D.C.) Missile Defense Vs. China, Russia: Decentralize, Disperse, & Hide By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr. January 25, 2018 WASHINGTON: China or Russia could all too easily detect and destroy US Army missile defenses, exposing American forces to devastating attack, a forthcoming study finds. Patriot and THAAD units are big groups of big objects — launchers, radars, command posts — that emit lots of heat and radio/radar waves, are hard to camouflage, and can’t relocate quickly. To ensure our missile defenses can survive against near-peer threats, argues study lead author Tom Karako, the Army needs to decentralize its missile defense batteries, disperse the radars and launchers, and hide them in the terrain — a concept he calls “distributed defense.” Making this concept a reality will require the Army to make new investments, Karako said. In particular, the service needs to finish its IBCS network to connect these scattered components: A Patriot missile might fire at a target spotted by a faraway THAAD radar, for example. The Army needs to invest in better defenses against cruise missiles, drones (UAVs), and other threats that don’t fly the predictable ballistic arcs that Scuds and ICBMs do. And it needs to replace its current single-purpose launchers with ones that can load different types of missiles side by side, not only defensive but also offensive: The idea is similar to the Multi-Mission Launcher (MML) now in development for short-range missiles, but on a larger scale. Scale is the big difference between the near-peer challenge and the threat against which most US missile defenses have been built, a rogue state firing crude Scuds or a small number of ICBMs. It’s great that the Pentagon’s independent tester has officially declared the nation’s Ground-Based Interceptors (GBI) can now “defend the U.S. homeland from a small number (of ICBMs) with simple countermeasures.” But Russia and China each have thousands of ballistic and cruise missiles, many highly sophisticated, and they’re working on hypersonic ones. “This isn’t about how to do the North Korean ICBM thing differently. (It’s) Russia and China,” Karako told me in an interview on the study, which comes out today. “If we’re going to take seriously the National Defense Strategy (released last week), which is that great power conflict is our no. 1 priority… this is how one might think about transforming what we’ve been doing on air and missile defense to this new reality.” The danger is not just the number of Chinese and Russian missiles but their variety, Karako said. “It’s the mixed threat problem, (aka) complex integrated attack — not just ballistic missiles or cruise missiles or UAVs but all at once,” he said, “using cruise missiles to target your ballistic missile defenses and vice versa.” Ballistic missiles fly a fast but predictable ballistic arc above the atmosphere. Cruise missiles and drones fly slower, in the atmosphere, but that means they can fly under radar and approach from unpredictable directions, like an aircraft. For the near future, both
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China and Russia are working on hypersonic boost-glide weapons, which are both fast and unpredictable. US Army missile defenses optimized against Scuds and crude North Korean ICBMs can’t necessarily handle these other threats — especially not all at once. Learning From The Navy The paradox of distributed defense is the Army can learn a lot about it from the Navy — but once the Army gets serious, it could decentralize, disperse, and hide its forces on land much better than the Navy can on the open sea. “The Army has a ways to go,” Karako said. “They’ve been really busy on the counterterrorism fight.” But even now the Army is refocusing on high-tech warfare, he said, “you ain’t seeing a whole lot of imaginative and innovative thinking when it comes to transforming the air and missile defense force. For the most part it’s been more of the same: more Patriots, a little bit of IBCS to connect things.” By contrast, the Navy already implements many crucial components of distributed defense. Between the Aegis combat system on individual vessels, the Cooperative Engagement Capability (CEC) network, and the newer Naval Integrated Fire Control – Counter-Air (NIFC-CA) network, naval forces have a lot of capability to share precise targeting data on incoming threats. Navy experiments in recent years have proven that a Navy cruiser, destroyer, or even Littoral Combat Ship can hit enemy ships or missiles still hidden beyond the horizon, where its on-board radar cannot see, by downloading targeting data from other ships and aircraft that can see it. Networking this way also guards against malfunctions and battle damage: If your sensors go down, you can still connect to someone else’s. The Army, though, can’t do this — yet. Today a Patriot launcher needs to get data from a Patriot radar and orders from a Patriot command center, a THAAD launcher must get data from an AN/TPY-2 radar, and so on. If the enemy can hack, jam, or blow up one radar, every launcher that depends on it goes blind. The Army’s solution is the Integrated Air & Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS). In tests, IBCS hit both cruise and ballistic missile targets with Patriot interceptors, using targeting data not only from Patriot radars but from the Sentinel early-warning radar, which wasn’t even designed as a targeting system. It’s also exchanged data with the Navy CEC. But the IBCS software is staggeringly complex and has suffered significant delays. IBCS is absolutely necessary for Army missile defense, Karako says, but it’s hardly sufficient. “IBCS, that’s really just the network and the command system,” he told me. “The goodness of that needs to be applied much more extensively.” Versatile Launchers One promising system — Karako calls it the Army’s “poster boy” and put it on the cover of his report — is the new Multi-Mission Launcher (MML). It’s the first component of the Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC) to shoot down drones, rockets, and artillery shells, which will eventually include other weapons such as lasers as well. Unlike Patriot, THAAD, and other legacy systems, the MML isn’t being built with its own fire control system and command posts: Instead, it’s being designed from the first to plug into IBCS. Also unlike Patriot, THAAD, et al, the MML isn’t custom-built to accommodate a specific kind of missile. Instead, it’s a general purpose “box ‘o rockets” that has successfully test-fired Stingers, AIM-9X Sidewinders, Longbow Hellfires, Miniature Hit-To-Kill (MHTK) missiles, and Tamirs from the Israel Iron Dome system. In fact, the MML can load different missiles side-by-side at the same time and fire
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // whichever one has the best shot at the current target. (Some Patriot launchers can accommodate different variants of Patriot at the same time, but that’s nothing like MML’s versatility.) That’s great, Karako said, but MML is only for relatively short-range threats. Why not adopt multi- purpose launchers across the air and missile defense arsenal, with a single launcher carrying (for example) Patriots and THAAD missiles side by side? Why not go even farther and have both offensive and defensive weapons in the same launcher, so it can either shoot down incoming missiles or — better yet — blow up enemy launchers before they fire? Again, the Navy already has this capability: It’s called VLS. The Mark 41 Vertical Launch System standard on Navy cruisers, destroyers, and the future frigate can accommodate a wide variety of offensive and defensive weapons — from long-range Tomahawks to high-speed Standard Missiles — side-by-side at the same time. Before a ship deploys, Navy planners tailor its mix of missiles to the mission, and in combat, the commander and the Aegis software fire the appropriate missile at each target. There are even proposals to reload VLS cells at sea, enabling ships to rearm in mid- mission. Beyond Aegis Ashore A land-based version of VLS already exists: It’s called Aegis Ashore. One site is already operational in Romania and Japan is building two sites. But “site” is a problem: Aegis Ashore is a static system, with radar, command center, and VLS tubes all built into a large complex. An enemy could target these fixed sites with Google Maps and an undergraduate’s understanding of ballistic rocketry. The Iranians and North Koreans probably couldn’t launch enough long-range missiles to make that matter, but China and Russia definitely could. Instead of a fixed location, Karako says, it’s possible to fit at least two VLS tubes and a fire control system into a standard shipping container. The same space could also fit a pair of Patriots, some THAADs, or a wide variety of other missiles. Such a “containerized” launcher could go on the back of a truck, which could move it from place to place as needed — or drop it off amidst some trees where it could be hidden with camouflage netting. Or the container full of missiles could be left in a supply dump alongside hundreds of regular containers full of supplies, all externally identical — a needle in a stack of needles. The ability to hide, in fact, is the great advantage ground systems have over naval ones. A land- based missile launcher can be stripped down to a container, hidden somewhere and fired by remote control. A sea-based launcher has to float, and unless it’s permanently anchored it has to move, which means it has to have an engine, fuel, and (until AI improves) crew quarters — all of which makes it a bigger target. Worse, it’s a bigger target with less cover: Though islands block radar and shoals sonar, ultimately the sea is a flat surface. By contrast, the land domain is cluttered with both stationary objects — rocks, trees, buildings, mountains — and moving ones — birds, animals, civilians, vehicles — that make finding a specific target harder. In short, while Army missile defenses today are less likely than the Navy’s to survive an all-out Chinese or Russian strike, in the future, with some modest investments and major rethinking, they could be more survivable. Right now, though, said Karako, the Army isn’t heading in that direction, despite some promising new concepts like Multi-Domain Battle, which acknowledges the long- range missile threat. “If you believe in Multi-Domain Battle, if you believe what they say about the near-peer threat, and you believe that there’s lots and lots of air and missile threats out there that those folks are going to bring to bear,” Karako told me, “we’re going to have to do a lot more than just more of the same in terms of our air and missile defense.”
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // https://breakingdefense.com/2018/01/missile-defense-vs-china-russia-decentralize-disperse- hide/ Return to top
Defense One (Washington, D.C.) Left-of-Launch Missile Defense: ‘You Don’t Want to Have Just One Solution to the Threat’ By Caroline Houck January 24, 2018 The 3-star commander of the US Army’s space and missile-defense efforts talks about the changing mix of ways to counter threats. Anti-missile interceptors remain the cornerstone of U.S. missile defense, but the Trump administration has a growing interest in other techniques — ones that might be more reliable and less expensive. “It’s like anything you look at when you look at combat operations – you don’t want to have just one solution to the threat,” said Lt. Gen. Jim Dickinson, the double-hatted chief of Army Space & Missile Defense Command and Army Forces Strategic Command. “You’ve probably heard the conversation about how we’re on the wrong side of the cost curve for missile defense many times. We’re utilizing multi-million-dollar interceptors against very inexpensive missiles and those types of threats,” Dickinson said during a recent visit to Washington, D.C.. “So it’s a balance. It has to be a balance between the end game, if you will, where we’re relying on an interceptor to defeat the threat,” and other approaches. Lawmakers are pushing boost-phase defenses, which intercept a missile during its ascent, while the executive branch has focused on getting “left of launch” — that is, finding ways to sabotage missile development programs and individual missiles before they lift off. In 2014, then-President Barack Obama ordered cyber and electronic attacks against North Korea’s nuclear missile program that some experts said set the program back several years. “Left of launch is something we need to continue to pursue and develop, because we need to have a balance,” Dickinson said. “With the reliance on just the mid-course to terminal-phase of a missile engagement, if we only focus on that, then we’re not giving our leadership and our commanders on the ground all the options that we should to defeat that threat.” One of the few financial moves Congress has been able to agree upon this year is upping funding for missile defense. Four months into fiscal 2018, legislators have yet to pass a full-year budget, but they added $4 billion to December’s short-term spending bill to meet the Pentagon’s requested plus-up for “emergency requirements.” At least half went directly to procurement of interceptor systems and missiles, including $884 million for the Army to buy “147 PAC-3 Patriot interceptors, upgrades to Patriot launchers and ATACMS missiles.” The military’s not changing its reliance on the suite of classical interceptor technologies — “The Army PATRIOT force remains the cornerstone of [air and missile defense] protection for our deployed forces, friends, and allies,” Dickinson told lawmakers in testimony submitted to support the 2018 budget request. But the Army and the other services are thinking about — and investing in — new technologies to counter a bellicose North Korea, resurgent peer competitors, and others.
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“As I look down the road, we all know that the adversary is rapidly developing technologies in both missile defense and space, and we have to stay ahead of that,” Dickinson said. “That’s really my vision: Making sure we’re meeting the needs of the Army today, and we’re postured for meeting that tomorrow and into the future.” That also means meeting the Army’s needs in space, another highly technical portfolio of growing importance. The command, headquartered in Redstone Arsenal, Ala., home of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, oversees everything space- and missile defense-related, “from research and development to fielding of new equipment to the training of the soldiers that operate that equipment.” “I would tell you that I think it’s very feasible for us to do that, to grow,” he said. “I think it’s a good problem to have — if it’s a problem.” The key is ‘agility,’ says Dickinson, who has seen technology evolve from maps scrawled on a Hawk missile scope to the next-gen integrated air and missile defense network now under development. “I look to see how agile we are in our science and technology, how agile we are in our training and doctrine and schooling and teaching of the soldiers in how to do it, how agile we are in terms of training the broader Army in being prepared to fight in a degraded, congested and denied space environment, and at the bottom line, we’ve got to increase our lethality,” Dickinson said. “How do we do that in an agile, rapid process to stay ahead of the adversary?” ‘Army Space will continue to grow’ In a year of big space news, the most contentious headlines went to a fight over creating a military Space Corps — a separate service housed within the Air Force. The proposal didn’t make it into the final defense authorization bill, but most lawmakers on the Armed Services Committees say it’s only some years before it becomes necessary. How that situation shakes out will affect the rest of the services. Within the Army alone, Dickinson says, 70 percent of their weapons depend in some way on space. “We’ve got to make sure the services’ interests are represented in a fair and equitable manner, that we are able to influence and have an agile acquisition process to get to where we need to, to get to the desired capabilities and effects that we want,” he said. There’s no interest in competing with the Air Force or stepping in to lead the Pentagon’s space operations. The Army is primarily a consumer of space-based capabilities, and Dickinson has no interest in changing that. But he said they are thinking about how they can supplement what the Air Force manages and what the commercial sector provides. At the end of last year, the department launched Kestrel Eye, a small imaging satellite designed and built by SMDC over the last decade. It’s now flying in low-earth orbit, undergoing testing. “What we’re looking at is how do you rely upon [the Air Force enterprise] and then build yourself in to where you’re able to mitigate that environment where [adversaries] might be trying to deny you or disrupt you or provide a contested environment,” Dickinson said. “So we look at how you’re rounding out that capability from space.” Part of that is looking to commercial companies, like SpaceX, which carried Kestrel Eye to the International Space Station for deployment this summer. “I would tell you just watching what the civilian industrial base is doing in space is helpful to what we’re thinking about, the concepts we’re thinking about in the military,” Dickinson said. http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2018/01/left-launch-missile-defense-you-dont-want-have- just-one-solution-threat/145438/?oref=d-river
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US ARMS CONTROL
Military.com (San Francisco, Calif.) Arms Control Experts: US Not Planning Nuke Strike against North Korea By Richard Sisk and Oriana Pawlyk January 26, 2018 Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday that the U.S. and South Korea are fully prepared to respond to an attack from North Korea while playing down the possibility of a first strike -- conventional or nuclear. "We could fight tonight, shoulder-to-shoulder" with the South Koreans, Mattis said, but only "if they're attacked." On Wednesday, a report in the Business Insider said that the recent deployment of B-2 Spirit Stealth bombers to Guam and upgrades to the weapons stockpile "suggest preparation for a potential tactical nuclear strike" against North Korea to destroy its nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile sites. "That's completely untrue," said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project for the Federation of American Scientists. "There's no indication that's happening." The published report cited improvements to lower the yield of the B61 nuclear gravity bomb, but the weapon has yet to be deployed. The U.S. has a range of military options from the conventional to the nuclear, Mattis said, but "they exist so that the diplomats speak from a position of authority, that they have to be listened to, because an attack on the Republic of Korea will be severely rebuffed if it's attempted." The bottom line is, "This is still in the diplomats' hands, as you know," Mattis told reporters on his plane to Hawaii, where he was meeting with South Korean Minister of Defense Song Young-moo. The U.S. and other nuclear powers constantly review their strategies, and the U.S has never ruled out a first strike. However, the suggestion that the U.S. is actively readying a tactical nuclear strike against North Korea was irresponsible, Kristensen said. "There are always strike plans, contingency plans," he said. CLARIFYING MISSION Officials at Pacific Command also clarified the B-2's role in its recent deployment. "The B-2 Spirits are deployed in support of U.S. Strategic Command's bomber assurance and deterrence mission -- a regular rotation to support [Pacific Command]-led air operations, ensuring bomber crews maintain a high state of readiness and crew proficiency," Lt. Col. Lori Hodge of Pacific Air Forces told Military.com in a statement on Friday. Hodge said that while the command could not comment on operations for operational security reasons, "it is fair to characterize bomber assurance and deterrence deployments as relatively short in duration -- weeks."
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"The 36th Wing's ability to host and employ all three of the U.S. Air Force's bomber aircraft demonstrates Andersen Air Force Base, Guam's role as one of our nation's premier power projection platforms in the Pacific theater, last hosting all three bombers in August 2016," she said, referring to the latest, simultaneous B-52H Stratofortress and B-1B Lancer deployment in the region. The long-range B-52 bombers replaced the B-1Bs in an 18-month-long mission in the Pacific earlier this month. Hodge said that changeover is now formally complete. 'A NUCLEAR WEAPON IS A NUCLEAR WEAPON' As the Business Insider report stirred controversy, George Shultz, the former secretary of state under President Ronald Reagan, warned against the development of low-yield nuclear weapons in testimony Thursday to the Senate Armed Services Committee. "A nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon," he said. "You use a small one, then you go to a bigger one. I think nuclear weapons are nuclear weapons, and we need to draw the line there." Shultz said he feared that the standoff with North Korea, and concerns about Russia's modernization of its arsenal, would make the first-strike option seem more feasible to the Trump administration. "These weapons are immoral, as President Reagan said many times," he said in stressing that low- yield nuclear weapons will not make the U.S. any safer. "Your mind goes to the idea that, yes, nuclear weapons become usable. And then we're really in trouble, because a big nuclear exchange can wipe out the world," Shultz said. On Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute, CIA Director Mike Pompeo said on the subject of North Korea, "The president is intent on delivering a solution through diplomatic means." He added, "We are equally, at the same time, ensuring that if we conclude that is not possible, that we present the president with a range of options that can achieve his stated intention" of realizing the long-term U.S. goal of denuclearizing the Korean peninsula. https://www.military.com/daily-news/2018/01/26/arms-control-experts-us-not-planning-nuke- strike-against-north-korea.html Return to top
ASIA/PACIFIC
Reuters (New York, N.Y.) U.S. General Says North Korea Not Demonstrated All Components of ICBM By Idrees Ali January 30, 2018 WASHINGTON (Reuters) - North Korea’s nuclear program has made strides in recent months but the country has not yet demonstrated all the components of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), including a survivable re-entry vehicle, the vice chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Tuesday. Air Force General Paul Selva’s remarks confirmed an assessment by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis in December that North Korea’s ICBM did not pose an imminent threat to the United States.
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“What he has not demonstrated yet are the fusing and targeting technologies and survivable re- entry vehicle,” Selva said, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “It is possible he has them, so we have to place the bet that he might have them, but he hasn’t demonstrated them,” Selva, the second highest-ranking U.S. military official, added. In November, North Korea said it had successfully tested a new type of ICBM that could reach all of the U.S. mainland and South Korea. U.S.-based experts said data from the test appeared to support that. Selva said that if conflict were to break out, it was unlikely the United States would be able to get an early indication of North Korean launches. “It is very unlikely that in a tactical situation, we would get any of the indications and warning that would precede a launch other than if we got lucky and saw the movement of the launch mechanism to the launch platform,” Selva said. He said that by using mobile erected launchers, the warning time for the United States had decreased from up to an hour to about a dozen minutes. Selva added he was confident that if required the United States would be able to destroy “most” of North Korea’s nuclear missile infrastructure. He declined to say what percentage of North Korean missiles the United States would be able to hit. The Trump administration has said all options are on the table in dealing with North Korea, but debate on military options has lost some momentum after North and South Korea resumed talks ahead of next month’s Winter Olympics in the South. Selva said the Pentagon’s upcoming nuclear posture review, expected to be released on Friday, would lay out the future of nuclear modernization and may include new missiles on submarines. A leaked draft policy document posted online this month said the United States would pursue development of a new nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-usa/u-s-general-says-north-korea-not- demonstrated-all-components-of-icbm-idUSKBN1FJ23Z Return to top
Reuters (New York, N.Y.) Chinese Military Paper Urges Increase in Nuclear Deterrence Capabilities Author Not Attributed January 30, 2018 BEIJING (Reuters) - China must strengthen its nuclear deterrence and counter-strike capabilities to keep pace with the developing nuclear strategies of the United States and Russia, the official paper of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) said on Tuesday. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration may be pursuing the development of new nuclear weaponry and could explicitly leave open the possibility of nuclear retaliation for major non- nuclear attacks, according to a draft of a pending Nuclear Posture Review leaked by the Huffington Post.
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This “unprecedented” move by the United States, combined with continuous quality improvements of nuclear arsenals in both the U.S. and Russia, means that both countries place greater importance on deterrence and real combat usability, the commentary in the PLA Daily said. “In the roiling unpredictability of today’s world, to upgrade the capability of our country’s deterrence strategy, to support our great power position... we must strengthen the reliability and trustworthiness of our nuclear deterrence and nuclear counterstrike capabilities,” it said. The article was written by two researchers from the PLA Academy of Military Science, a top research institute directly responsible to China’s Central Military Commission. A change was necessary despite China having developed nuclear weapons to avoid bullying from nuclear powers, the paper said, adding that China would always stick to the principle of “no first use” and a final goal of eliminating nuclear weapons. Neither Russia nor the United States is abandoning nuclear weapons as each adopts new high-tech weapons capabilities, the paper said, pointing to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of maintenance and modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years costing more than $1.2 trillion. This spend, the paper said, has led to a corresponding Russian military modernization program, aiming to boost the share of advanced armaments in its nuclear triad to at least 90 percent by 2021. Chinese President Xi Jinping is overseeing an ambitious military modernization program, including developing advanced nuclear-capable missiles. China carried out its first nuclear weapons test only in 1964. Trump’s strong embrace of his predecessor President Barack Obama’s nuclear modernization program has led some former senior U.S. government officials, legislators and arms control specialists to warn of risks from the U.S. stoking a new arms race. A U.S. national defense strategy released on Jan. 19 shifted priorities to put what Defense Secretary Jim Mattis called a “great power competition” with China and Russia at the heart of the country’s military strategy. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-security/chinese-military-paper-urges-increase-in- nuclear-deterrence-capabilities-idUSKBN1FJ1A0?il=0 Return to top
Defense One (Washington, D.C.) ‘The Military Has Seen the Writing on the Wall’ By Uri Friedman January 29, 2018 The United States is preparing for a war with North Korea that it hopes never to have to fight, says Senator Tammy Duckworth. When Senator Tammy Duckworth returned from a recent trip to South Korea and Japan, she brought back a sobering message: “Americans simply are not in touch with just how close we are to war on the Korean peninsula.” In a speech at Georgetown University, she laid out the U.S. military maneuvers over the past several months—including a nuclear-powered submarine heading to South Korea, the movement of three aircraft carriers to the Western Pacific, and the Army testing out “mobilization centers” for deploying troops and training soldiers to fight in tunnels like those
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // beneath North Korea—that inform this worry. In an interview with me, she said the U.S. military seems to be operating with the attitude that a conflict “‘will probably happen, and we better be ready to go.’” The Illinois Democrat believes this is primarily a response to the rhetoric coming out of Washington, where members of the Trump administration have repeatedlythreatened to use force if diplomacy fails to prevent North Korea from acquiring the capability to strike the United States with nuclear missiles. And even though the administration continues to emphasize its preference for a diplomatic solution, “I feel like the military hears the war-mongering tendencies coming out of the executive branch and many in the legislative branch and have seen the writing on the wall and they said, ‘Holy cow. We’re more likely to be called on now than we were two years ago,’” Duckworth said. “I know that the military’s job is to be fully ready for any contingency, and I commend them and support them for continuing to prepare for war. I’m not saying that they’re going to war,” Duckworth said at Georgetown. “But it’s painfully clear from my visit to the [Korean Demilitarized Zone] and these movements that I am seeing that we shouldn’t ignore the signals that our military is sending with these actions. We know that the North Koreans and our allies in the region are certainly paying attention.” Duckworth, a retired lieutenant colonel who lost her legs during the Iraq War when insurgents downed her helicopter, took the trip along with Ruben Gallego, a Democratic congressman from Arizona and a fellow Iraq War veteran, earlier this month. The two met with top South Korean and Japanese diplomats and defense officials as well as commanders of U.S. forces in South Korea. Duckworth said that she found “all three of the major military actors—American, Korean, and Japanese—…more ready [for war] than they’ve ever been.” The U.S. military, she said, is “beyond the training stage. They’re at the getting ready for operational readiness state, with—and I heard this time and time again—hope that they never have to” fight. The drums of war are not booming; there have been no major U.S. military movements or public- messaging campaigns by the Trump administration or new advisories to American civilians or companies, for instance. And Duckworth thinks there are ways the country should be more prepared—in particular that Congress should create a dedicated stream of funding for U.S. forces to rehearse and carry out evacuations of non-combatants in the event of a conflict. (So far there have been no evacuations of American non-combatants from South Korea, which would be a glaring sign of imminent conflict.) But, as Duckworth sees it, the drumbeats are growing louder—even as the administration has stayed comparatively silent about what war would look like and whether the benefits would warrant the costs. Duckworth and Gallego have requested a more detailed accounting from the White House and the Pentagon, respectively, and warned of the costs of even limited preventive military action. In response to Gallego, the Pentagon admitted that fully securing North Korea’s nuclear weapons would require a U.S. ground invasion. And Duckworth said that disabling North Korean artillery batteries, which are capable of devastating the South Korean capital of Seoul, would probably require a massive influx of U.S. ground troops as well. Kim Jong Un, she added, will be tempted to use his chemical or biological weapons if he fears he’s about to lose power. “We can’t control escalation,” Duckworth said. She noted that the South Korean and Japanese officials she met with wanted the Trump administration to give its international sanctions campaign against North Korea more time to work before resorting to other measures. “We have some great plans should, as we say, ‘the balloon go up’ in Korea,” Gallego, a former Marine, told me. “I know what happens with plans when the first bullet goes flying. … What I fear is
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // that someone like Donald Trump will look at these great plans, look at our great military, which it is, look at their great capability, which we have, and not understand that these are not superhumans—that if we do something wrong, we will potentially kill hundreds of thousands of people, including some of our own troops, and potentially disrupt a good portion of the world’s economy for years to come.” And that’s considering only the early stages of battle and assuming the conflict doesn’t go nuclear. “You’re basing policy and military action on hopes instead of on reality and sound reasoning,” Gallego said. “Does this sound familiar? For me it does, as somebody who ended up serving on the front lines of the Iraq War, where I was supposed to be greeted as a liberator. Instead I basically got shot at every day.” Robert Neller, the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, acknowledged the limitations of military plans during an appearance at the Center for Strategic and International Studies on Thursday. “If [a U.S. conflict with North Korea] were to go down, I’m not now so sure it’s going to go down the way we planned. It never does,” he said. Neller stressed that he hopes such a fight never breaks out. Nevertheless, “we want to be ready, and we want to have a capability that allows our diplomats to come up with a diplomatic solution.” Neller said he and other heads of the armed services have gotten “familiar with the geography … [and] the plans” and done “some logistical preparation that’s just prudent.” He added that U.S. Forces Korea and U.S. Pacific Command are busy training, conducting exercises, and exploring “force deployment options” to convey to the “other side” that “you really don’t want to do this.” Meanwhile, the other side is making its own preparations. Alexander Vorontsov, a Russian Korea scholar, recently wrote that North Korean Foreign Ministry officials he visited in Pyongyang in November told him they did “not want war” but would “not hide from it either.” They “feared that the U.S. was already trying to shape the battlefield for a military operation against the North.” And, Vorontsov continued, the North Korean government “is not bluffing when it says that ‘only one question remains: When will war break out?’ … [O]ur counterparts emphasized that ‘our soldiers have long been sleeping without removing their boots.’” In such circumstances, Gallego worries that “we [could] trip ourselves into a war” no one wants—if, “for example, the North assumes one of our moves is a strike and they decide to do a preemptive strike.” Neller might respond that one of the points of U.S. military preparations is to prevent war by deterring the adversary. And perhaps war will indeed be averted. Then again, perhaps not. As the World War I historian Margaret MacMillan told me not long ago, “Once you get into a countdown situation, once people begin to think of war as likely, then it becomes that much more likely”—whether as a result of deliberate decisions, tragic miscalculation, or mere mistake. http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2018/01/military-has-seen-writing-wall/145552/?oref=d- river Return to top
Defense News (Washington, DC) Kissinger: If North Korea Keeps Nukes, Other Nations Will Seek Them By Joe Gould January 25, 2018 WASHINGTON — Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger warned that if America and China let North Korea keep its nuclear weapons, it will spur other countries to seek them.
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“If North Korea still possesses a military nuclear capability in some finite time, the impact on the proliferation of nuclear weapons might be fundamental,” Kissinger said in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday. “Because if North Korea could keep its capability in the face of opposition by China and the United States, and the disapproval of the rest of the … world, other countries will also feel this is the way for achieving international prominence and the upper hand.” South Korea and Japan will want nuclear weapons too, “and then we are living in a new world ... that will require new thinking,” Kissinger said. That sort of proliferation would represent a new pattern, effecting America’s ability to deter other countries’ use of nuclear weapons. Pyongyang poses the “most immediate challenge to international peace and security,” Kissinger warned in written testimony. The denuclearization of North Korea, “must be a fundamental objective.” He cautioned against a unilateral, preemptive U.S. war with North Korea on the doorstep of Russia and China, but said America will, “soon hit that fork in the road” which will require, “some prayerful thinking.” “The temptation to deal with it with a preemptive attack is strong, and the argument is rational,“ Kissinger said. “I would be very concerned by a unilateral American war at the borders of China and Russia in which we are unsupported by a significant part of the world.” The goal, he said, should be to enlist China in using sanctions to pressure North Korea into giving up its nuclear weapons. The idea of halting North Korean missile tests in exchange for abandoning allied military exercises would encourage further demands to dismantle alliances in the region, Kissinger said. “That would equate legitimate security operations with activities which have been condemned by the U.N. Security Council for decades,” Kissinger said. Kissinger testified with fellow luminaries, Reagan administration Secretary of State George Schultz and Richard Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state under President George W. Bush. https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2018/01/25/kissinger-if-north-korea-keeps-nukes- other-nations-will-seek-them/ Return to top
EUROPE/RUSSIA
Reuters (New York, N.Y.) Tillerson Says Washington, Europe Start Work on Iran Nuclear Deal By Lidia Kelly and Marcin Goettig January 27, 2018 WARSAW (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said on Saturday that working groups on fixing what the U.S. sees as flaws in the Iranian nuclear deal have already begun to meet, trying to determine the scope of what is needed and how much Iran needs to be engaged in it.
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Tillerson, ending a week-long European trip in Warsaw, said that he had secured support from Britain, France and Germany - all parties to the 2015 agreement - to work on the deal that President Donald Trump has warned he will walk away from unless changes are made. “It’s always darkest before the dawn,” Tillerson told journalists. “The working groups have already begun to meet on efforts to agree principles, what is the scope of what we attempt to address and also how much we engage Iran on discussions to address these issues,” he said. The nuclear deal gave Iran billions of dollars in sanctions relief in return for curbs on its atomic program. Trump vowed to stop waiving U.S. sanctions unless the Europeans agreed to strengthen the deal’s terms by consenting to a side agreement that would effectively eliminate provisions that allow Iran to gradually resume some advanced atomic work. Trump also wants tighter restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missile program. Iran has rejected any renegotiation. Tillerson said the nuclear deal was only a “small” part of U.S. policy in the Middle East and Washington was more immediately concerned about other issues including Iran’s support for the Houthi rebels in Yemen and its supplying weapons to militias in the region. “Our work group also is intending to identify areas of greater cooperation (with) Europe to push back on Iran’s malign behaviour,” he said. RUSSIA BLAMED Despite statements from Russia earlier this week that Washington’s accusations against Moscow that it and the Syrian army were behind a chemical attack in eastern Ghouta were “unfounded”, Tillerson reiterated that ultimately Russia bore responsibility. “I stand by my comments,” he said. “The chemical weapons ... are being used to hit the civilian population, the most vulnerable - children inside of Syria ... We are holding Russia responsible for addressing this. They are (Bashar al-) Assad’s ally.” Russia is providing direct military support in Syria against various rebel groups trying to oust Assad, and giving diplomatic cover in the U.N. Security Council. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-tillerson/tillerson-says-washington- europe-start-work-on-iran-nuclear-deal-idUSKBN1FG0CF Return to top
Independent (London, United Kingdom) Russia Buys 10 Supersonic Nuclear Bombers By Tom Embury-Dennis January 26, 2018 Vladimir Putin says warplanes a 'serious step towards developing our hi-tech sphere' Vladimir Putin says Russia’s purchase of 10 “hi-tech” supersonic bombers will “strengthen” the country’s nuclear capabilities.
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The modernised TU-160M strategic bombers, codenamed Blackjacks by Nato, will be delivered to the Russian Air Force between now and 2027 at a cost of 15 billion rubles (£189m). The giant plane, which is able to sweep its wings backwards for extra speed, is a modernised version of a Cold War-era bomber the USSR would have deployed in the event of nuclear war. “This is a serious step towards developing our hi-tech sphere and strengthening the country’s ability to defend itself,” said Mr Putin, who watched the strategic bomber in flight on Thursday. The TU-160M is capable of carrying 12 cruise missiles or 12 short-range nuclear missiles and can fly 7,500 miles non-stop without refuelling. Mr Putin, who is standing for re-election on 18 March, a contest polls show he is likely to easily win, inspected the factory in Kazan, a city in Tatarstan, where the new plane is being built, as well as an airstrip, hangars and modernised workshops. Under Mr Putin, who has dominated the political landscape for the last 18 years, Russia has significantly increased defence spending and used military force in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria. Existing versions of the TU-160 have flown from bases in Russia to Syria where they have bombed forces opposed to president Bashar al-Assad, one of Moscow’s closest Middle East allies. Tupolev, the plane’s manufacturer, says the modernised version will be 60 per cent more effective than the older version with significant improvements to its weaponry, navigation and avionics. Rinat Khamatov, the plant’s chief welder, said Russia needed a modernised version of the bomber. “The TU-160... is a weapon of deterrence and it is great that Russia is able to start making it again,” he said. Russia also aims to produce a modernised version of its Il-78 refuelling tanker, codenamed Midas by NATO, which can refuel the TU-160 mid-air, enabling it to reach any point on the planet. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russia-supersonic-bombers-nuclear-putin- weapons-capabilities-tu-160m-tupolev-a8178936.html Return to top
MIDDLE EAST
Tehran Times (Tehran, Iran) Nixing JCPOA against U.S., Iran Interests: Former Senator By Javad Heirannia January 26, 2018 TEHRAN – Bennett Johnston, an American politician in the Democratic Party and lobbyist who represented Louisiana in the United States Senate is the current chairman of the American-Iranian Council. Mr. Johnston is of the opinion that under the present circumstances, neither the EU nor Iran would accept Trump’s new conditions that undermine the Iran nuclear contract. “We know that President Trump’s team – that is the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Adviser and Secretary of State publicly and strongly are in favor of the continuation of the agreement,” Johnston tells the Tehran Times.
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The Chairman of the American-Iranian Council also adds that “it is clearly not in the interest of the U.S. or Iran to withdraw from the JCPOA.” Following is the text of the interview: Q: U.S. President Donald Trump approved the Iran nuclear deal one more time, and says he will abandon it if it is not changed. What are the changes that Trump emphasizes? A: Trump is not really a policy man and is not explicit in what he wants. He has definite preferences for what policy directions he wants to go in, but he lacks the details. Apparently he wants to limit Iran’s ballistic missile program, he wants to make the deal restrictions permanent and not have any of it expire, and he wants more intrusive inspections. Q: The White House wants a deal with EU signatories to put restrictions on Iran's uranium enrichment. Under the current deal the restrictions are set to expire in 2025. Do you think the EU will accept the additional conditions? If so, will Iran accept it? A: Under the present circumstances, I do not think that the EU or Iran would accept it. They have an agreement, which is been agreed to by all the signatories, and so under the threat of the White House withdrawing from the agreement I don’t think either the EU or Iran would accept that. I believe, however, that under the right circumstances such a deal could be negotiated because I think it is in the interest of everybody to have a permanent deal. Q: President Trump also wants Iran's ballistic missile program to be addressed. Iran has continually emphasized the country’s ballistic missile program is not relevant to the JCPOA and hence, the program is nonnegotiable. Based on this, do you think that this additional demand will mean the end for JCPOA? A: We know that President Trump’s team – that is the Secretary of Defense, the National Security Adviser and Secretary of State publicly and strongly are in favor of the continuation of the agreement. And we know that President Trump changes his opinion from day to day, so it is impossible really to predict whether his threats are only bluster or whether he would actually withdraw from the JCPOA. I know that it is clearly not in the interest of the US or Iran to withdraw from the JCPOA, so I’ve got to hope at the end of the day that sense will prevail. http://www.tehrantimes.com/news/420698/Nixing-JCPOA-against-U-S-Iran-interests-former- senator Return to top
Mehr News Agency (Tehran, Iran) UK Envoy Talks JCPOA, Bilateral Ties, Tehran Protests, Nazanin Zaghari Author Not Attributed January 30, 2018 TEHRAN, Jan. 30 (MNA) – Commenting on various issues such as the JCPOA, bilateral ties, Tehran protests and Nazanin Zaghari, Nicholas Hopton, British ambassador to Tehran says despite all challenges Tehran-London relationship is heading in the right direction. Iran–UK relations have had lots of ups and downs over the history particularly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran.
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Terrorist attack on Iranian embassy in London in 1980, suspension of all diplomatic relation between two countries in 1980, the UK support to former Iraqi dictator Saddam during the imposed war against Iran, rejecting David Reddaway as British envoy to Tehran by Iran on charges of being a spy, downgrading of relations with Britain by Iran due to new sanctions put in place by the UK against Iran in November 2011, illegal entry to the UK embassy compound in Tehran by angry Iranian student and closure of the UK embassy in Tehran by British government in the same year all are among the incidents that have caused lots of ups and downs for two sides’ relationship. Despite all challenges the diplomatic relations between the two countries have been improved in recent years, following the election of president, Hassan Rouhani since 2013 so that the British embassy reopened in 2015 in Tehran. Following is the full text of the interview with Nicholas Hopton, British ambassador to Tehran. *How do evaluate the level of economic cooperation between Iran and the UK in post-JCPOA? I think the relationship between Iran and the United Kingdom has progressed positively over the last two and half year since we reopened the embassy here. I think part of that has been gradual opening and increase of trade between the two countries. Clearly business contact is an important part of making the JCPOA work for Iranian people. I am pleased to say that not only the whole European trade with Iran has increased very significantly but British trade with Iran in both directions has increased. I think that is good for both countries. The last statistics that I have seen say that trade between summers of 2016 and 2017 went up by almost 60 percent. It is a big increase and its means my embassy’s trade team have worked very hard and I know your embassy in London is working very hard on that. It is a part of a wider picture of growing cooperation despite all challenges. I am keen to see even more business between the two countries. *Comparing with your rival European countries like France and Germany, I think the volume of cooperation between Iran and the UK is not satisfactory yet. What are the main obstacles? You are right that British trade with Iran is lower in volume than our French, German or Italian partners. This is for several reasons. One of the reasons is that they were starting different levels in 2016 after the sanctions were lifted. We started from lower level than our European partners because of the break in diplomatic relation between Iran and the UK. I think the growth rate of the British trade has been greater. And also when it comes to business with Iran, there is a lot of uncertainty. That is something that UK would like to see greater certainty because our government fully supports British companies dealing with Iran. We would like to see British and European banks opening up much more to doing business with Iran. But I am pleased to say that despite that uncertainty there is steady growth in business and contact between Iranian and British banks and companies and we still are making progress. *Due to President Trump’s approach toward the JCPOA, possibly we will witness some new problems between Iran and the US in future. Considering this fact how do you see the prospect of the economic cooperation between Iran and the EU especially with the UK? Will these possible problems affect the economic cooperation? The UK is fully committed to making the JCPOA a success. That has not changed. We believe the JCPOA is a critical deal for the security of the region. It is a very positive security guarantee for the region because it constrains the possibilities of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon which was a concern before. At the same time we recognize that it is important to find a way to bring back the Islamic republic of Iran to the global family and international economy. The JCPOA offers that through the sanctions lift which happened in January 2016 which allowed trade much more freely. As I described there are still some constrains and uncertainty and issues we have to deal with. But this increased economic integration with the world and trade with EU and other partners will be
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // positive thing for Iranian people. Some people say that there have been no benefits to Iran from the JCPOA so far, I disagree. I have been here for over two years, I have seen the arrival of companies from outside of Iran and signs that economic opportunities are improving simple things like shops opening or British companies like Lotus operating here and sell cars. It was not possible before, I hope that other British companies will engage with Iran. I know that such JLR, Debenhams, Morphy Richards, GSK, Hackett, Super Dry are engaging or looking at the market. *How do you assess the US president’s approach to the JCPOA? Isn’t his behavior a kind of breaching the deal or at least not being committed enough to it? I should mention that President Trump signed the sanctions wavers recently. That was a positive thing and the US still a part to the JCPOA. I cannot speak for the US but I can speak for the UK. The British government is fully committed to working with all our partners including Iran to make the JCPOA work and ensure that all sides respect their commitments under the JCPOA. *Despite all EU assurance issued by the EU officials that they are fully committed to the JCPOA including the UK, couple of days ago the US foreign minister Rex Tillerson after meeting with his British counterpart Boris Johnson said there is a good consensus between the UK, Germany and France on the necessity of changes to the JCPOA and some other issues like Iran missile program which will make US not to withdraw from the JCPOA. What guarantees have the EU offered the US? It seems the EU has taken a dual approach toward Iran. What do you think of this? The British government recognizes that the JCPOA is an agreement that was finished in July 2015 under international law and UK respects international law. At the same time we have very clear position asserted by me and my foreign minister and prime minister that there are areas that we don’t agree. I am glad to say that we are using diplomacy in the areas we don’t agree. We have some particular concerns about some of the activities of Iran in the region and we also consider Iran’s ballistic missile program is inconsistent with the UNSC resolution 2231. These are areas that we feel it is important to engage with Iran to see how progress can be made so that the differences diminish and the greater security and stability come to the region. *As far as I understand, you mean another agreement needed to be reached on other area beside the JCPOA. Right? What I said was that these are the areas of concerns to the government of the UK. We think that the missile tests conducted by Iran are inconsistent with the UNSC R 2231. At the same we recognize that every country has right to self-defense and Iran has right to self-defense, too. *Considering the fact that the US doesn’t comply with its commitments under the JCPOA and every day threatens to leave it. Let’s imagine that Iran possibly will agree to a new agreement on its missile program despite all its security concerns. Who is going to guarantee that the western countries particularly the US will remain committed to its obligations under the possible new agreement? As I said we are not talking about a new agreement. We are fully committed to the JCPOA. We think the issue of the JCPOA is self-standing and separate from other questions like Houthi’s missiles in Yemen which is being examined by the UN now. We think there is only a political solution for Yemen. These things are separate from the JCPOA but they cannot be ignored. We are talking to our Iranian partners and we will continue to express our concerns on missiles, Yemen or Syria. *It is proved for our security and intelligence forces and Judiciary system that Mrs. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been working as a spy for the British government in Iran and the issue was raised by British FM during his visit to Tehran. Your government’s insistence on release of Mrs Zaghari which overshadows the relation of the countries reminds us the dark history of the British government’s interferences in Iran’s internal affairs over the history despite you promised
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // beginning of a new area in the relation of the two countries in the beginning of your mission to Tehran as the UK ambassador two years ago. I would like to know how the British government would behave if such a case happened in the UK? I think the foreign ministers of the UK and Iran have done a great job in driving forward the relation between our two countries. We reopened the embassy in 2015 and we restored full diplomatic relations in September 2016. We reopened our visa service. We have made lots of progress in different areas and we have tackled some of the long standing issues which have prevented the relationship developing. I am very positive about the relationship between Iran and UK. It is heading in the right direction and we have been working together but it has sometimes been complicated. We have been knowing each other for hundreds of years. There has been ups and downs. About the next point, we clearly refute the suggesting that the Britain is interfering in internal affairs of Iran. We are not interfering in the domestic affairs of your country. Britain respects Islamic Republic of Iran in the same way we respect all sovereign countries. On the case of Mrs. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, the British government has consistently appealed to the Islamic Republic of Iran authorities to treat her with clemency on humanitarian grounds. She was visiting Iran with her daughter on holidays to visit parents at Nowruz 2016 when she was detained. My foreign secretary and I have said very clearly that we have full respect for the Iranian judicial system but we would like to see her released on humanitarian grounds to reunite with her family. She has health problem and she has been separated from her 3 years old daughter. *As an Iranian journalist I feel that when it comes to the issue of the human rights you have double standards for example about the ongoing violation of the human rights in Bahrain and Yemen British government keeps silent but in case of Mrs. Zaghari your government is very active. Every day we see reports on selling arms to the Saudi Arabia by British government despite knowing these weapons are used by Saudi to massacre Yemeni children and women. All these makes me to come to this conclusion that you have double standards on the issue of human rights. Well, of course you fully entitled your opinion. I am afraid that I don’t agree. British government is fully supportive of international law and norms and the agreements to which we are party. We are very attached to the Declaration of Human Rights. We expect our partners to support it including the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yemen is an issue that my government is focused on trying to resolve. What is happening in Yemen is a tragedy and people of Yemen are victims. People are suffering from cholera and it is a disaster. UK is working very hard. We are talking to all parties including the coalition. We do have a very close relationship the GCC countries and we work closely with them on a range of issues including security which they have full right. We believe the Yemeni people have the right to security. We would like to see progress now toward the political situation in particular we feel that it is important for Houthis not to take provocative actions such as firing missiles at civilian targets in Saudi Arabia. As you suggested the UK sells military equipment to Saudi Arabia. We have security agreement with GCC countries. It is true we sell them with military equipment because we have defense relationship but at the same time we are very careful in scrutinizing how whatever materials we sell around the world are used. We take every step to make sure they are used in legitimate way. It is very important for British people and our government acts in accordance with the law. *Before my next question I should say the GCC is recognized as PGCC (Persian Gulf Cooperation Council) by Iran. Has your country as a permanent member of the UNSC which is responsible for the world peace and security taken any serious steps to stop the ongoing tragedy in Yemen and condemn the Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates’ crimes against civilians in Yemen?
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Within the UNSC, UK has responsibility for Yemen and other countries. I myself as then UK ambassador to Yemen was very involved in Yemen after 2011 when Ali Abdullah Saleh left power. My country and I were very engaged in stabilizing the situation and then pursuing political process under the UN umbrella. And also supporting humanitarian relief through the group called the Friends of Yemen. Since then the UK has been a voice for calling peace not conflict. We talk to the all countries involved including Iran. There is no military solution for Yemen. No foreign power has ever been able to rule Yemen through military means. The solution lies in diplomacy, political dialogue, engagement and humanitarian support under UN umbrella. *Peaceful settlement is exactly Iran wants for Yemen. We know that the general regional policy of the Britain is to keep balance of power between different political factions and powers and religious groups in the region so that to gain its own favored regional balance. Considering this general policy we think the UK is committed to human rights and humanitarian values as far as these values meet the UK regional policy. So we believe the UK has not taken the crisis in Yemen serious to settle it in peaceful way so far. Mr. ambassador, you said your government respects Iran and never interferes in Iran’s domestic affairs, but some British medias affiliate to your government like BBC Persian’s have hostile approach toward Iran not friendly than can be considered as interfere in Iran’s domestic affairs like its approach toward the unrests in some of Iran’s cities couple of weeks ago. I am afraid to say that your question reflects deep misunderstanding of the relationship between BBC and the British government. They are not affiliated. The editorial policy of the BBC is totally independent and the funding’s for BBC largely comes from taxes paid by normal people who buy television licenses. It is an independent body with its own editorial policy and journalists. As long as the respect the laws and don’t cross the norms that is acceptable. Your question is based on misunderstanding which I heard before in Iran. I am very grateful for giving me this opportunity to clarify that the BBC is independent and the media in the UK are independent. We are very attached to the freedom of speech and the press. *The relation between Iran and UK have had lots of ups and downs over the history. There are two different attitude towards this relation both in the UK and Iran one is very negative and the other is positive. We know very well that since the establishment of Britain hundred years ago, the UK has always been keen on keeping and preserving its global hegemony and influence and still is after influencing the global affairs and its foreign policy is based on this fact. Why the British politicians all over the history have not accepted and still don’t want to accept that the Iranian nation particularly after the Islamic revolution of 1979 based on their historical, religious, civilization and cultural assets want to have their own role in international community without any obstacles? Would you please frankly answer why the British politicians have always created obstacle in the way of the Iranian’s will and progress? We in Islamic school of thought believe that politics and lie are contrary to each other but in Western school of thought politics and lie are two complementary wings to gain power. Based on our values we have always told that we are not after nuclear power and you (the west) based on your school of thought always accuse us of trying to achieve nuclear weapons. Why you judge us based on your own values and teachings? First of all, I would like to say that the UK judges its partners and other countries on their actions. We are very pragmatic. As I know Iranian people are also pragmatic. What countries do is important not what they say. As you rightly mentioned the relationship of Iran and the UK has had lots of ups and downs in the past but what I focus on is the future. I am glad to say now we are discussing the future with our Iranian partners. We have an opportunity for Iran to return to the international community in a way it hasn’t been for a long time to play a constructive peaceful role. We want to see some of the Iran’s behaviors change. UK believe Iran has a rightful place as an
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // important country in the region. We respect that. You have a population over 80 million and you have the second biggest economy in the region and have a lot of potential. The UK will continue to encourage Iran to create a better and peaceful region. https://en.mehrnews.com/news/131688/UK-envoy-talks-JCPOA-bilateral-ties-Tehran-protests- Nazanin Return to top
Reuters (New York, N.Y.) Exclusive: Tests Link Syrian Government Stockpile to Largest Sarin Attack - Sources By Anthony Deutsch January 30, 2018 THE HAGUE (Reuters) - The Syrian government’s chemical weapons stockpile has been linked for the first time by laboratory tests to the largest sarin nerve agent attack of the civil war, diplomats and scientists told Reuters, supporting Western claims that government forces under President Bashar al-Assad were behind the atrocity. Laboratories working for the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons compared samples taken by a U.N. mission in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta after the Aug. 21, 2013 attack, when hundreds of civilians died of sarin gas poisoning, to chemicals handed over by Damascus for destruction in 2014. The tests found “markers” in samples taken at Ghouta and at the sites of two other nerve agent attacks, in the towns of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib governorate on April 4, 2017 and Khan al-Assal, Aleppo, in March 2013, two people involved in the process said. “We compared Khan Sheikhoun, Khan al-Assal, Ghouta,” said one source who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the findings. “There were signatures in all three of them that matched.” The same test results were the basis for a report by the OPCW-United Nations Joint Investigative Mechanism in October which said the Syrian government was responsible for the Khan Sheikhoun attack, which killed dozens. The findings on Ghouta, whose details were confirmed to Reuters by two separate diplomatic sources, were not released in the October report to the U.N. Security Council because they were not part of the team’s mandate. They will nonetheless bolster claims by the United States, Britain and other Western powers that Assad’s government still possesses and uses banned munitions in violation of several Security Council resolutions and the Chemical Weapons Convention. The OPCW declined to comment. Syria has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons in the conflict now in its seventh year and has blamed the chemical attacks in the rebel-held territory of Ghouta on the insurgents themselves. Russia has also denied that Syrian government forces have carried out chemical attacks and has questioned the reliability of the OCPW inquiries. Officials in Moscow have said the rebels staged the attacks to discredit the Assad government and whip up international condemnation.
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Under a U.S.-Russian deal after the Ghouta attack in 2013, Damascus joined the OPCW and agreed to permanently eliminate its chemical weapons program, including destroying a 1,300-tonne stockpile of industrial precursors that has now been linked to the Ghouta attack. But inspectors have found proof of an ongoing chemical weapons program in Syria, including the systematic use of chlorine barrel bombs and sarin, which they say was ordered at the highest levels of government. The sarin attack on Khan Sheikhoun in April last year prompted U.S. President Donald Trump to order a missile strike against the Shayrat air base, from which the Syrian operation is said to have been launched. Diplomatic and scientific sources said efforts by Syria and Russia to discredit the U.N.-OPCW tests establishing a connection to Ghouta have so far come up with nothing. Russia’s blocking of resolutions at the Security Council seeking accountability for war crimes in Syria gained new relevance when Russia stationed its aircraft at Shayrat in 2015. Washington fired missiles at Shayrat in April 2017, saying the Syrian air force used it to stage the Khan Sheikhoun sarin attack on April 4 a few days earlier, killing more than 80 people. No Russian military assets are believed to have been hit, but Moscow warned at the time it could have serious consequences. In June, the Pentagon said it had seen what appeared to be preparations for another chemical attack at the same airfield, prompting Russia to say it would respond proportionately if Washington took pre-emptive measures against Syrian forces there. “SERIOUS LAB WORK” The chemical tests were carried out at the request of the U.N.-OPCW inquiry, which was searching for potential links between the stockpile and samples from Khan Sheikhoun. The analysis results raised the possibility that they would provide a link to other sarin attacks, the source said. Two compounds in the Ghouta sample matched those also found in Khan Sheikhoun, one formed from sarin and the stabilizer hexamine and another specific fluorophosphate that appears during sarin production, the tests showed. “Like in all science, it should be repeated a couple of times, but it was serious matching and serious laboratory work,” the source said. Independent experts, however, said the findings are the strongest scientific evidence to date that the Syrian government was behind Ghouta, the deadliest chemical weapons attack since the Halabja massacres of 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war. “A match of samples from the 2013 Ghouta attacks to tests of chemicals in the Syrian stockpile is the equivalent of DNA evidence: definitive proof,” said Amy Smithson, a U.S. nonproliferation expert. The hexamine finding “is a particularly significant match,” Smithson said, because it is a chemical identified as a unique hallmark of the Syrian military’s process to make sarin. “This match adds to the mountain of physical evidence that points conclusively, without a shadow of doubt, to the Syrian government,” she said.
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NO CHANCE REBELS BEHIND GHOUTA Smithson and other sources familiar with the matter said it would have been virtually impossible for the rebels to carry out a coordinated, large-scale strike with poisonous munitions, even if they had been able to steal the chemicals from the government’s stockpile. “I don’t think there is a cat in hell’s chance that rebels or Islamic State were responsible for the Aug. 21 Ghouta attack,” said Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, an independent specialist in biological and chemical weapons. The U.N.-OPCW inquiry, which was disbanded in November after being blocked by Syria’s ally Russia at the U.N. Security Council, also found that Islamic State had used the less toxic blistering agent sulfur mustard gas on a small scale in Syria. The Ghouta attack, by comparison, was textbook chemical warfare, Smithson and de Bretton- Gordon said, perfectly executed by forces trained to handle sarin, a toxin which is more difficult to use because it must be mixed just before delivery. Surface-to-surface rockets delivered hundreds of liters of sarin in perfect weather conditions that made them as lethal as possible: low temperatures and wind in the early hours of the morning, when the gas would remain concentrated and kill sleeping victims, many of them children. Pre-attack air raids with conventional bombs shattered windows and doors and drove people into shelters where the heavy poison seeped down into underground hiding places. Aerial bombing afterwards sought to destroy the evidence. The large quantity of chemicals used, along with radar images of rocket traces showing they originated from Syrian Brigade positions, are further proof that the rebels could not have carried out the Ghouta attack, the experts said. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-chemicalweapons-exclusiv/exclusive-tests-link- syrian-government-stockpile-to-largest-sarin-attack-sources-idUSKBN1FJ0MG Return to top
COMMENTARY
The Washington Post (Washington, D.C.) With Nuclear Weapons, We’re Getting Too Comfortable Thinking the Unthinkable By Richard A. Clarke and Steven Andreasen January 30, 2018 A dangerous disconnect is emerging between the horrific impacts of even the limited use of nuclear weapons, and leaders and policymakers who seem intent on threatening nuclear use in an ever- expanding range of scenarios. If this continues, the risk that a nuclear weapon will be used for the first time in more than 70 years — deliberately or otherwise — will grow. We must return to a more sober dialogue and approach to policy. The Trump administration appears poised to expand the circumstances under which the United States might use nuclear weapons, including in response to a cyberattack. The time when leaders and policymakers in the United States, Russia and other countries had anything close to a personal connection with the effects of even a single nuclear weapon is becoming more distant. Memories of a smoldering Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the stark fear generated by the Cuban missile crisis or the
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // massive protests sparked in the early 1980s by the deployment of U.S. and Soviet intermediate- range nuclear missiles in Europe no longer drive or even inform policy. As former secretary of state George P. Shultz told Congress last week, “I fear people have lost that sense of dread.” When nuclear theory or war-gaming moved from the Pentagon to the White House during the Cold War, it was more often than not met by a skeptical president and civilian leadership, who rightly recoiled from risking nuclear catastrophe. That is not the case now. Five years ago, the Pentagon’s Defense Science Board published a report equating the impact of Chinese and Russian capabilities to launch an “existential cyber attack” against the United States with the impact of a nuclear attack — and recommended that the United States be prepared to threaten the use of nuclear weapons to deter cyberattacks. When the board’s recommendation was exposed to the light of day by the two of us and others in 2013, it was publicly rebuked and, as a matter of policy, quietly discarded. But just last month, the board’s proposal became U.S. policy. In December, the Trump administration’s National Security Strategy quietly expanded the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense plans, stating they are “essential” to prevent “non-nuclear strategic attacks” — i.e., cyberattacks. This week, the Trump administration is expected to release its “Nuclear Posture Review.” A leaked pre-decisional draft reaffirms the policy of threatening nuclear use to prevent cyberattacks, but goes even further — expanding the role of U.S. forward-deployed nuclear weapons in NATO’s European defenses. For decades, the United States has been moving to reduce the relevance of forward-deployed nuclear weapons in Europe, and for good reason: U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe have virtually no military utility, and their storage at bases in multiple countries presents a serious security risk. Removing them would reduce the risk of terrorism and instability, and would free up resources across NATO for other urgent defense tasks. Moreover, as NATO has repeatedly stated, “The supreme guarantee of the security of the Allies is provided by the strategic forces of the Alliance.” With three nuclearized member states — the United States, Britain and France — NATO has a robust nuclear deterrent capable of being employed anywhere in defense of NATO interests. The Trump Nuclear Posture Review not only rejects this logic, it ties our forward-deployed forces to NATO’s strategic forces as part of the bloc’s “supreme guarantee.” So rather than move in the direction of reducing nuclear risks by removing nuclear weapons from vulnerable sites, we will instead further cement them in place — when there is ample evidence of terrorist interest in nuclear facilities and, as is presently true in Turkey, evidence that the security of U.S. nuclear weapons reportedly stored there can change literally overnight. Raising the profile of nuclear weapons in our defense plans comes at a time when the disastrous consequences of even limited nuclear use is becoming even more apparent. Alan Robock and his colleagues at Rutgers University — using newly updated climate models and the much greater computing power now available — have concluded that even a limited nuclear exchange (50 to 100 weapons) could create a “mini-nuclear winter” whose effects could last two to three years and create tens of millions of deaths from starvation because of the collapse of grain crops brought on by climate change. Nuclear weapons present a unique threat of national devastation and global extinction. They are good for only one purpose: deterring nuclear attacks. Policies equating cyberthreats to nuclear threats, or raising the profile of nuclear weapons in our conventional defenses, undermine the
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // credibility of nuclear deterrence by threatening use for lesser contingencies and makes nuclear use more likely. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/with-nuclear-weapons-were-getting-too- comfortable-thinking-the-unthinkable/2018/01/30/3e1edb3c-051a-11e8-8777- 2a059f168dd2_story.html?utm_term=.7e7f295ec7ff Return to top
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Chicago, Illinois) START from the Basics to Maintain Nuclear Stability By Aaron J. Bonovitch January 30, 2018 Crimea. Syria. Hacking. Sanctions. Each day that goes by, the rift between the United States and the Russian Federation widens. The two countries have reached a critical point in bilateral relations, yet few people are talking about one looming threat: the expiration of New START (formally known as the Treaty between the United States and the Russian Federation on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms) at the end of 2021. Due in part to deteriorating relations between the United States and Russia, it can no longer be assumed that this nuclear weapons treaty will be renewed. Signed in 2010, New START represents years of diplomatic hard work toward creating a stable and reliable nuclear relationship, but the United States and Russia seem to be adversaries again. While some might suggest that allowing New START to expire—or canceling it without some form of replacement—would be an appropriate response to the increasing hostility, that would be a catastrophic mistake. Now, more than 25 years removed from the Cold War, many may not see the potential risks to allowing the treaty to expire. More than just numbers. New START is a follow-up to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) signed in 1991. The original treaty’s name implies that it simply reduces the numbers of nuclear weapons, but in fact it also permits both countries to collect data on the movements and locations of weapons. Treaty provisions allow inspectors from both Russia and the United States to conduct 18 short-notice, on-site inspections each year. These inspections allow the two countries to verify each other’s declarations by visiting deployed and non-deployed nuclear weapon sites. Having boots on the ground in Russia allows US inspectors to verify that the Russian government is being truthful about the types and locations of its weapons. In addition, safe and secure handling of these mostly aging weapons remains a top priority, and one best observed in person. Relying on rival countries to take each other at their word is a tricky business—and one that these two countries have never been keen on doing. Despite other disagreements, both sides have taken full advantage of the opportunity for inspections. According to the State Department, each country has maxed out its yearly inspections for the first six years of the treaty—without one instance of noncompliance. This has helped to build a foundation of trust that can serve as a basis for further discussion, even on other issues. Stability and transparency. As a missile operator, I know firsthand just how quickly decisions happen in nuclear scenarios. The president has little time to decide how, or if at all, to act in the event of a nuclear attack on US soil. This urgent decision-making is only hindered by a lack of transparency between the two powers.
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Without bilateral verification and monitoring procedures, the United States could certainly still do its part to track Russian warhead movements or launches via national technical means, such as satellite imagery. The US president could also attempt to contact the Russian government to verify actions over the phone. However, the verification and monitoring mechanisms in New START give both sides access to certain telemetry, or missile flight test, data. If Russia launched an ICBM, the US president would already possess valuable information about a weapon’s flight path because of this telemetry data. In addition, the rapid deployment of inspectors to each country helps prevent either side from lying about the use and placement of its weapons. For example, Russia would hesitate to lie about moving a warhead if it knew that US inspectors could show up to verify within just a few days. This adds a layer of stability by deterring rapid or concealed movement that would potentially drive the other side to a higher alert level, and makes it easier to distinguish between a false alarm and a nuclear first strike. If New START lapses at the end of 2021, it will be essential to maintain nuclear transparency between Russia and the United States for the sake of global security. If the relationship between the two countries continues to fray, potentially resulting in a conventional conflict, the world cannot afford a breakdown in stability and predictability—particularly in the nuclear arena. Absent a New START extension, the two countries will need an agreement that allows for continued transparency, including on-site inspections and data exchanges. This will be a challenge. The divide between the two countries may widen further before treaty concerns come to the forefront of US policymakers’ agendas. For example, if Russia increases its stockpile after New START expires, that may be a driving factor for the United States to be more amenable to negotiations. Both sides must be able to get point-blank confirmation that the other is acting in a stable manner and is being truthful about its actions. Further agreements can be negotiated based on this platform, but inspections should be the bare minimum agreement. Learning from the past. The United States cannot afford to lose bilateral nuclear monitoring and verifications. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty restrained Russian and US nuclear forces in Europe for years but now faces strain, with the United States claiming that Russia has violated the treaty by developing a new ground-launched missile with an extended range. Russia has denied the charge and raised allegations of its own. From the standpoint of defending core national interests, intermediate forces are not the primary strategic threat to the US homeland. However, the INF Treaty may still be vital to both countries in further talks, as a lesson from past successes. During the 1980s, Russia withdrew from negotiations over nuclear arms, partly in response to US nuclear forces in Europe and the Strategic Defense Initiative implemented in the early 1980s. As the arms race kicked off yet again, both countries returned to the negotiating table and broke down the negotiations into three categories: intermediate-range weaponry, strategic forces, and missile defense. Starting with intermediate forces, the bilateral INF agreement was signed in 1987, paving the way for talks on strategic weapons. Considering the current strain over the INF Treaty, New START may be politically impossible for the two countries to renew. Nevertheless, no US administration should give up on-site nuclear monitoring and verification programs with Russia. Even if the United States and Russia are on the precipice of a second Cold War, no leader should undermine nuclear predictability and stability. This means that both sides will need to learn from the past. During the 1980s, a short arms race helped push further talks, but a doctrine of using a nuclear weapon to stop a conventional attacking—what the Russians call “escalating to de-escalate”—
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // remains a dangerous policy. If New START expires, the United States should not suddenly begin building up its arsenal or implementing any policies that may be seen as aggressive toward Russia. Instead, diplomats must reach out to the other side with an open mind. The world of today is very different than the days of the INF Treaty and START. The categories up for negotiation may need to be altered. As seen in previous years, treaty negotiation will require baby steps. Smaller, easier treaties may be needed as the two countries rebuild relations. Perhaps a third START agreement is not the answer, but the end goal should not change: to have verification and monitoring procedures in place. Without them, global stability and security are once again at risk. https://thebulletin.org/start-basics-maintain-nuclear-stability11471 Return to top
Forbes (New York, N.Y.) Trump Nuclear Plan Requires Big Fixes in Decaying Warhead Industrial Complex By Loren Thompson January 29, 2018 The Trump administration's proposed nuclear posture calls for replacing virtually all of the Cold War strategic systems in the nation's arsenal. There will be a new strategic bomber (to be built mainly by Northrop Grumman), a new ballistic missile submarine (to be built mainly by General Dynamics), and a new land-based ballistic missile (to be built either by Boeing or Northrop Grumman). There will also be major upgrades to the nuclear command-and-control network that provides warning of attack and secure communications with nuclear systems. All of that work will be managed by the Department of Defense. But another cabinet agency, the Department of Energy, is responsible for developing, producing and refurbishing the nuclear warheads carried on the various delivery systems. A semi-autonomous agency within the energy department called the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) does all of the warhead work, and it may prove to be the most problematic part of the president's plan, because much of its industrial infrastructure is falling apart. NNSA gets about half of the energy department's annual budget — $14 billion out of a $28 billion total if the Trump request for 2018 is funded — to operate three national laboratories, four production facilities, and a test site in Nevada. Much of that complex has been decaying since the Cold War ended because of uncertainty about future military requirements. It will not be able to meet the administration's goals for revitalizing the nuclear force without heavy investment in new facilities and equipment. According to the leaked nuclear posture review, most of the warhead industrial base is over 40 years old, and portions of it have been in use since the Manhattan Project to develop atomic bombs during World War II. That includes in particular the sprawling Y-12 uranium reprocessing facilities at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, which exhibit numerous signs of decay and deferred maintenance. The Obama administration canceled a plan to revitalize Y-12 when the price tag began to approach $20 billion. Other facilities in need of investment include the nation's only source of tritium for boosting fission devices to thermonuclear intensity on the Savannah River in South Carolina; the Pantex weapons assembly plant near Amarillo, Texas; and all three national labs focused on nuclear weapons work — Los Alamos and Sandia in New Mexico and Lawrence Livermore in California. Fixing what ails
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // these facilities is no small task: Pantex covers 16,000 acres; Savannah River covers over 300 square miles. But each facility is crucial to the production and sustainment of nuclear warheads. For instance, Los Alamos does most of the work on plutonium, which provides the essential core of nuclear warheads. Pantex does assembly and repair of warheads, including the high-explosive "lenses" needed to compress nuclear material to a density where it will sustain a chain reaction. And a facility called the Kansas City National Security Campus builds most of the 85% of components in warheads that are non-nuclear. NNSA has not been ignoring signs of decay in its infrastructure. It's hard to ignore a roof falling in, as occasionally happens in aged buildings. But the agency was not funded sufficiently during the Obama years to maintain a modern nuclear complex because the president was hoping one would not be needed in the future. So, for example, NNSA no longer has the ability to routinely manufacture plutonium pits for warheads. In fact, all the pits in the nuclear stockpile today were produced during the Carter and Reagan administrations. That hasn't led to a crisis in nuclear preparedness because plutonium-239 has a radioactive half-life of 24,000 years, so pits from retiring warheads can be repurposed to extend the lives of weapons still in the arsenal. NNSA does a lot of life-extension work on aging warheads, since the last major warhead development effort was completed a quarter-century ago. In the case of tritium, though, which puts the "thermo" in thermonuclear, a steady supply is needed because its half-life is only 12 years. NNSA has made some progress in renewing its infrastructure despite inadequate funding. The entire Kansas City site was moved and rebuilt thanks to an initiative begun during the Bush administration. And vital construction is underway at other sites. But the simple fact is that the existing warhead industrial base can't meet the needs of the president's proposed strategic posture without major new investments in plant and equipment. The proposed posture requires an ability to produce at least 80 plutonium pits per year, and that is not where NNSA stands. The "pre-decisional" nuclear posture review findings leaked to the Huffington Post state that "there is now no margin for further delay in recapitalizing the physical infrastructure needed to produce strategic materials and components for U.S. nuclear weapons." The report goes on to warn that without a "marked increase" in the production of tritium at Savannah River, "our nuclear capabilities will inevitably atrophy and degrade below requirements." But revitalizing the nuclear warhead complex is more than just a matter of capital investment. The 39,000 laboratory and plant personnel employed in the nuclear enterprise have highly specialized skills that must be exercised and tested to assure continued proficiency. Some of the expertise applied to warhead design and production in areas like plasma physics, high-explosives engineering, radiation-hardened microcircuit production and tritium processing is not readily transferred to other fields. So it was a significant setback to the nuclear community when President Obama rebuffed proposals to develop a next-generation nuclear warhead early in his tenure. As a longtime proponent of nuclear disarmament, Obama was not eager to authorize development of a new warhead. But as a consequence, the nuclear-weapons complex he has passed on to his successor is at a low ebb, and it will take more than pouring concrete to restore what has been lost. As I noted in a previous Forbes commentary, the Trump nuclear strategy and posture do not look much different from what Obama proposed. But weapons age out after decades of service, and that includes the complex components in nuclear warheads. Because NNSA's industrial infrastructure has been neglected for so long, it will need an infusion of funding to support the nation's deterrence
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // objectives. This may not be what the president has in mind when he talks about revitalizing U.S. infrastructure, but it is crucial to protecting everything else he hopes to achieve. https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2018/01/29/trump-nuclear-plan-requires-big- fixes-in-decaying-warhead-industrial-complex/#138351112a3c Return to top
The Hill (Washington, D.C.) Deadly Delay: Every Second Counts in Missile Defense By Daniel Gonzales and Sarah Harting January 24, 2018 Earlier this month, many in Hawaii experienced 38 minutes of fear and uncertainty, the amount of time that elapsed before the public learned a ballistic missile attack warning message had been issued in error. Officials attributed it to human error — the wrong message option had been selected from a computer application menu. There's no question the user interface of the application for sending emergency alert messages could be improved so that test and actual message options are not so easy to confuse. But the false alarm from the system in Hawaii brought crucial questions to the fore: When every minute counts, would the window of warning have been enough? How much warning time would the public get before a missile hit? Do we know how much time the public would have to respond? And how should the system be improved to maximize the amount of time the public has to respond? Should North Korea launch a ballistic missile at Hawaii, some experts estimate it would take about 30 minutes to reach its shores, although some speculate it could take as little as 20. Five minutes might elapse before the North American Aerospace Defense Command detects the missile launch and alerts the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency. Emergency managers would then use their computer system to (hopefully correctly) issue a Wireless Emergency Alert to the public. The message is preprogrammed into the agency’s system, simply requiring a click on a drop-down menu and selecting the message to transmit it — a task that should not take more than a minute. One unknown is how long it would take the message to travel from the Honolulu-based agency to everyone’s cellphones in Hawaii. A Wireless Emergency Alert must travel through several links, including through the Federal Emergency Management Agency Integrated Public Alert and Warning System aggregator in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States, where the message is authenticated and forwarded to the relevant wireless carrier networks. Once inside the carrier networks, the message is then forwarded to cell towers in Hawaii for dissemination. As the alert moves along the message path, it may incur time delays between when it was sent and when the public receives it. The alert system has never been tested to determine total time delays. Only one Wireless Emergency Alert test was conducted before the system became operational — in 2011 in New York City — but the time delays were not carefully measured. There are indications that an alert message may sometimes take 12 minutes to 15 minutes to reach its final destination. In a worst-case scenario, a missile with a time-of-flight of 20 minutes may land before the public can receive an alert message, leaving no time to respond. However, it may be possible to reduce the end-to-end transit time of the alert message to only a few minutes or less. Similar emergency alert systems are operational in Japan and Mexico, as well as
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // other countries, for providing early warning to the public via cellphones about imminent earthquakes. The systems send warning messages that reach the public in about a minute or less, including any delays in network transit, according to news accounts of recent earthquakes in Mexico and Japan. The Wireless Emergency Alert system could benefit from studying how the speedier alert time is accomplished. The U.S. wireless alert system would need to be tested to determine how much time delay currently occurs. The Federal Communications Commission has already determined the system can be upgraded to support earthquake early-warning, which means such messages might be delivered with a time delay of one minute or less. A warning time delay reduced to only 60 seconds? It could be the difference between life and death. http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/homeland-security/370401-deadly-delay-every-second- counts-in-missile-defense Return to top
War on the Rocks (Washington, D.C.) Britain's Nuclear Deterrent Isn't a Military Asset, and Shouldn't Be Funded As One By Mark Galeotti January 25, 2018 As if Brexit, a crashing cricket defeat against Australia, and a winter flu epidemic were not enough to be wrestling with, Britain is also in the throes of another painful defence review as it continues to try to maintain the essence of global military standing in a respectable but sluggish economy. At present, the United Kingdom’s defense chiefs are grappling with what looks like a £20 billion ($27.9 billion) budget shortfall over the next two decades. The single most important response would be to look again at from where the money comes for Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent. The United Kingdom’s nuclear weapons are currently funded out of the overstretched defense budget even though, especially in the post-Cold War era, they are more a political asset than a military one. So why are genuine military assets like regiments, ships, and aircraft being sacrificed in its name? As the politicians look at what might be cut, from whole units, with their own roles and traditions to new equipment, an escalating crescendo of retired and serving military officers — culminating in the recent pronouncements of Chief of the General Staff Sir Nick Carter — talk about the need for more spending, not less. One could dismiss the debate as a combination of the inevitable ambitions of generals, defense companies and their associated allies and boosters, to get more shiny toys and the political authority that comes with big budgets. Or maybe it could be considered a continuation of Britain’s slow, painful therapy as it grapples with no longer being an imperial power or a world-shaping colossus. Although it is always easy to make the case for more spending, it is usually rather harder to say where the money should come from. In Britain’s case, after all, there are other pressing calls on the public purse, from the National Health Service (still, for all the Brits’ habitual grumbling, a world- class healthcare system) to education. Furthermore, the United Kingdom already spends more on defense than any other European country in absolute terms: £36 billion ($50.2 billion). So why is there such a shortfall? There have been the usual cost overruns on new projects, and some bad decisions. But a crucial factor is the proportion of available funds spent on two particular
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // projects: Britain’s two new aircraft carriers (and the F-35s they will carry), and its nuclear deterrent. The latter is based on the United Kingdom’s submarine fleet, currently consisting of four Vanguard- class SSBNs. They have, since 1992, maintained Britain’s “continuous at sea deterrent” capability, with at least one always deployed. These boats are getting older, though, so London is committed to the Successor program. This will see four new-generation Dreadnought-class submarines armed with 8-12 Trident II D5 submarine-launched cruise missiles, with the first deployed in 2028, and a planned 35-year service life. It is expected to cost £15 billion ($20.9 billion) to build the submarines and their associated infrastructure, but based on a series of statements made in Parliament, the overall program will have an annual operating cost of around £2 billion ($2.8 billion), or perhaps 5 to 6 percent of the total defense budget. This is by no means insignificant. That’s enough to buy a new Type 26 frigate each year, and have enough left over to pick up the likely extra real costs incurred if the pound remains weak against the dollar. No wonder there is an increasing chorus of voices calling for the cost of the nuclear deterrent to be taken out of the defense budget and paid for separately, from other government resources. This would free up considerable resources for conventional forces now and in the future. While this might simply look like a way of trying to sugar-coat a substantial increase in military spending, it actually has considerable merit, because Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent is not a military asset. That’s not to say it is not an asset, just one of a different kind. Of course, a brace of Tridents, each with at least three thermonuclear warheads, could comprehensively ruin someone’s day, but the issue is when, if ever, they would be used. I have been struck in my conversations with Russian military analysts and officers by how little attention they give Britain’s nuclear forces. In effect, they consider them nothing more than an adjunct to the far larger U.S. strategic arsenal. In part, this is because the Russians have an exaggerated sense of the extent to which, in the words of one veteran of Soviet command college, “NATO is America’s Warsaw Pact.” But it also reflects a realistic notion of the limitations of these missiles’ use. When Argentina was weighing the risks of invading the Falkland Islands, they got much wrong, but what they got right was that the United Kingdom would not retaliate by nuking Buenos Aires. That would have been responding to an act of war with a war crime. Likewise, from fighting the Taliban and Islamic State to ousting Saddam Hussein, Britain and its allies have had to rely on conventional forces. The only real scenario in which the use of Britain’s nuclear weapons is conceivable is a full-scale conflict with a peer aggressor, which at present could only be Russia. Setting aside that the Russians are no more eager for apocalypse than anyone else — not least because they seem more bullish about NATO’s unity and determination than the West is — the other reason is that Britain would only use its missiles in concert with its allies. And that means America, and in that context, what real difference would Britain’s nukes make? You only need to blow up the world once. So it is hard to come up with a plausible scenario in which Britain’s nuclear deterrent forces are either truly independent or militarily meaningful. But does that mean they are pointless? Far from it. Having nuclear missiles is more than just a Freudian compensation for the loss of empire. It elevates Britain to the global top table, or, perhaps more accurately, keeps it there. By GDP the United Kingdom may be fifth in the world, behind Japan and Germany, but do the latter have nuclear weapons? Ukraine and South Korea may have larger armies, but do they have nuclear
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 // weapons? The capacity to be a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, something de facto reserved for recognized nuclear powers, and to be a meaningful voice on more than just proliferation issues is an intangible asset, one the U.K. government acknowledges and relishes. Former U.S. defense secretary Ash Carter also noted this when he said Britain’s status as a nuclear power allowed it to “continue to play [an] outsized role on the global stage.“ Besides, whether or not the nuclear deterrent helps the faltering “special relationship” with Washington, any moves to cancel the purchase of U.S. missiles undoubtedly would harm those ties. All this helps explain why British Prime Minister Theresa May has said it would be “sheer madness” to give up Trident. There is an entirely legitimate argument to be had over whether this geopolitical clout is worth what could turn out to be £70 billion ($97.6 billion) over the lifespan of the Dreadnought/Trident program. But the key point is that these are ostensibly military forces that in practice have an overwhelmingly political role. Of course, all armed forces have a political dimension, from cheering the population in a parade to being a shop window for your nation’s defense products. But when the military rationale is almost absent, it is time to recognize that. If Britain wants its nukes, then it is making a political choice to buy a political asset. Although this will inevitably entail tough choices about where to find the money, political assets ought not to be a drain on the defense budget, but their own line in the national budget. While British servicemen and servicewomen will continue proudly to run, protect, and maintain this capability, it should not be bought at the expense of real defensive strength. https://warontherocks.com/2018/01/britains-nuclear-deterrent-isnt-military-asset-shouldnt- funded-one/ Return to top
The Interpreter (Sydney, Australia) Asia’s Escalating Missile Race By Brendan Thomas-Noone January 25, 2018 If the Cold War was one long arms race, the modern era could be accurately described as an arms jog. Countries are defined less by how many nuclear warheads they have, and more by what they can do with them. This is particularly the case in Australia’s immediate region, where a significant missile competition is underway. Last year saw a step up in the pace of missile testing and the operationalisation and deployment of capabilities that have been in development for some time. North Korea’s missile program and the responses of South Korea and Japan, as well as the successful testing of several long-in- development systems from Pakistan, India, and China are examples of this. The leaked draft of the US government’s Nuclear Posture Review only adds to the pile. Last week, India chalked up another successful test of its Agni-V intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), with a range of more than 5000 kilometres. In a concerning sign of escalation, during the Doklam standoff with China last year, India’s political leadership reportedly inquired about the deployment of the INS Arihant, one of New Delhi’s nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines. Pakistan is also quietly developing its own ballistic missile capability. The ‘Ababeel’, with a reported range of 2200 kilometres, was successfully tested early last year. Pakistan claims it has been equipped with multiple independent re-entry vehicle technology (MIRV), and another medium- range missile, the Shaheen-III, is also in development.
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 //
China’s long-range missile programs are fairly well-documented, but there are some notable new developments. The first is the recent adoption of MIRV technology by the People's Liberation Army on its DF-5 ICBMs, which in effect equips each missile with multiple warheads. Another is the likely deployment in 2018 of China’s new road-mobile ICBM system, the DF-41, which has a reported range of 12,000 kilometres. In December China tested the first ballistic missile system to incorporate a hypersonic element. The D-17, expected to enter full operational service by 2020, can reach Mach 5 and has a range of several thousand kilometres. The second new development is the revelation that China is working on an air-launched version of the DF-21D, an anti-ship ballistic missile. Last May the head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency testified that China is upgrading its aircraft (likely a new version of the H-6 bomber) to carry ballistic missiles, some of which may be nuclear-capable. North Korea’s race to develop nuclear delivery capabilities, such as intermediate and intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as a submarine-based system, are well known. The successful testing of the Hwasong-14 in July and the Hwasong-15 in November marked North Korea's entry into the global ICBM club. By most estimates, Pyongyang has up to 11 types of ballistic missile either deployed or under development. Since the early 1970s, South Korea has been developing its own short-range ballistic missiles based on an early US design. The missile program – the Hyunmoo-2 being the latest version – is controlled through a treaty with the US that allows Washington to set the missiles' range and payload. Seoul last year began lobbying the Trump administration to loosen the payload restrictions beyond 500 kilograms. These are the region’s ballistic missile developments over the past 18 months only. Keeping pace is the advancement and proliferation of both conventional and nuclear-capable cruise missiles (unlike ballistic missiles, cruise missiles are self-navigated and maintain a flatter flight trajectory). The nuclear-capable BrahMos supersonic cruise missile jointly developed by Russia and India was successfully tested from an Indian Su-30 MKI fighter in November, presaging a significant "deep strike" capability for the Indian Air Force. New Delhi’s induction into the Missile Technology Control Regime in 2016 has allowed Indian engineers to reportedly double the missile’s range to 800 kilometres. A hypersonic version, the BrahMos-II, is also in development. Pakistan has invested heavily in nuclear-capable cruise missile systems in recent years. The most well known is the Babur family of systems, medium-range cruise missiles in service since 2010. Last year the Babur 3 was successfully tested from an ‘underwater mobile platform’, more or less completing Pakistan’s nuclear triad. With the completion of its satellite network, Beijing now has the capability to integrate high- precision cruise missiles into its regional defence strategy. China fields an array of cruise missiles, some of which are reportedly nuclear-capable. China is also racing to incorporate advances in artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies into a new generation of missiles able to compete with similar efforts in the US. Driven by the rapid advance of North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile program, US allies are exploring land-attack cruise missile capabilities. Japan has announced its intention to add the air- launched, Norwegian-made Joint Strike Missile (JSM) to its inventory, giving it a stand-off strike capability. Considering the Japan Self-Defence Force has traditionally been limited to munitions with 300-kilometre ranges, the 500 kilometre-range JSM is a significant departure.
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 //
There were also rumours that Japan was considering purchasing US-made Tomahawk cruise missiles. It now appears that the Japanese Ministry of Defense has added a land-attack capability to an existing missile development program, dubbing it the ‘Japanese Tomahawk’. In 2013 Seoul agreed to purchase 180 German-made Taurus air-to-surface cruise missiles. With a range of 500 kilometres, the Taurus is a critical piece of South Korea’s ‘kill-chain’ strategy in the event of a conflict with North Korea. The Taurus would be carried by South Korean F-15K Slam Eagles and targeted at North Korea’s leadership and command and control nodes in an effort to "decapitate" Pyongyang’s military command. South Korea last year released a YouTube video demonstrating the missiles as well as the full operationalisation of the system, and in October South Korea decided to purchase an additional 90 missiles. Seoul also has an indigenous cruise missile program, the Hyunmoo-3. The US is a significant player, and is working on several new nuclear-capable and conventional ballistic and cruise missile systems. The leaked Nuclear Posture Review forecasts an intention to install low-yield warheads on its sea-based ballistic missiles and start a new program for a sea- launched nuclear-capable cruise missile. Missile proliferation is a clear sign of an ongoing arms race. Last year saw a surge in testing and deployment of both ballistic and cruise missile technology throughout the Indo-Pacific. In all likelihood, maintaining strategic stability in 2018 will only become more difficult. https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/asia-escalating-missile-race Return to top
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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1300 //
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 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.
DISCLAIMER: Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Air University, the United States Air Force, the Department of Defense, or any other US government agency.
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