Issue No. 1303 23 February 2018 // USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1303 //

Feature Item

“Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons”. Written by Amy F. Woolf, published by the Congressional Research Service; February 13, 2018 https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL32572.pdf Recent debates about U.S. nuclear weapons have questioned what role weapons with shorter ranges and lower yields can play in addressing emerging threats in Europe and Asia. These weapons, often referred to as nonstrategic nuclear weapons, have not been limited by past U.S.- Russian arms control agreements, although some analysts argue such limits would be of value, particularly in addressing Russia’s greater numbers of these types of weapons. Others have argued that the should expand its deployments of these weapons, in both Europe and Asia, to address new risks of war conducted under a nuclear shadow. The Trump Administration addressed these questions in the Nuclear Posture Review released in February 2018, and determined that the United States should acquire two new types of nonstrategic nuclear weapons: a new low-yield warhead for submarine-launched ballistic missiles and a new sea-launched cruise missile. During the Cold War, the United States and both deployed nonstrategic nuclear weapons for use in the field during a conflict. While there are several ways to distinguish between strategic and nonstrategic nuclear weapons, most analysts consider nonstrategic weapons to be shorter-range delivery systems with lower-yield warheads that might be used to attack troops or facilities on the battlefield. They have included nuclear mines; artillery; short-, medium-, and long- range ballistic missiles; cruise missiles; and gravity bombs. In contrast with the longer-range “strategic” nuclear weapons, these weapons had a lower profile in policy debates and arms control negotiations, possibly because they did not pose a direct threat to the continental United States. At the end of the 1980s, each nation still had thousands of these weapons deployed with their troops in the field, aboard naval vessels, and on aircraft. In 1991, the United States and Soviet Union both withdrew from deployment most and eliminated from their arsenals many of their nonstrategic nuclear weapons. The United States now has approximately 500 nonstrategic nuclear weapons, with around 200 deployed with aircraft in Europe and the remaining stored in the United States. Estimates vary, but experts believe Russia still has between 1,000 and 6,000 warheads for nonstrategic nuclear weapons in its arsenal. The Bush Administration quietly redeployed some U.S. weapons deployed in Europe, while the Obama Administration retired older sea-launched cruise missiles. Russia, however seems to have increased its reliance on nuclear weapons in its national security concept. Analysts have identified a number of issues with the continued deployment of U.S. and Russian nonstrategic nuclear weapons. These include questions about the safety and security of Russia’s weapons and the possibility that some might be lost, stolen, or sold to another nation or group; questions about the role of these weapons in U.S. and Russian security policy; questions about the role that these weapons play in NATO policy and whether there is a continuing need for the United States to deploy them at bases overseas; questions about the implications of the disparity in numbers between U.S. and Russian nonstrategic nuclear weapons; and questions about the relationship between nonstrategic nuclear weapons and U.S. nonproliferation policy. Some argue that these weapons do not create any problems and the United States should not alter its policy. Others argue that the United States should expand its deployments of these weapons in response to challenges from Russia, China, and . Some believe the United States should

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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1303 // reduce its reliance on these weapons and encourage Russia to do the same. Many have suggested that the United States and Russia expand efforts to cooperate on ensuring the safe and secure storage and elimination of these weapons; others have suggested that they negotiate an arms control treaty that would limit these weapons and allow for increased transparency in monitoring their deployment and elimination. The 115th Congress may review some of these proposals.

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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1303 //

TABLE OF CONTENTS US NUCLEAR WEAPONS  S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson: Ending MOX a 'Bad Idea'  Future US Enrichment Needs Require Clarification: GAO  Why the B-52 Bomber Will Fly for 100 Years  SecAF Says B-21 ‘On Schedule’ As China Rises to Air Force’s Top Threat US COUNTER-WMD  Get Ready for the Era of Hypersonic Flight — at Five Times the Speed of Sound  Week Ahead: Pentagon Turns Focus to Missile Defense  NORTHCOM Has ‘100 Percent Confidence’ U.S. Can Repel a North Korean Missile Attack US ARMS CONTROL  Iranian President Pledges to Stick to Nuclear Deal Commitments  U.S.-Russia Tension Flares over Nuclear Arms Control Now at Risk ASIA/PACIFIC  German President: Unity Key to Handling North Korea Crisis  China Reiterates Non-first-use Principle of Nuclear Weapons at Munich Conference  US Open to Discussing Talks With North Korea EUROPE/RUSSIA  U.S. Seeks European Commitment to ‘Improve’ Iran Nuclear Deal  Russia Releases Video of its Modernized Ballistic Missile Defense System  Says Committed to Iran Deal, Will Keep Talking to European, U.S. Allies  Escalate to De-escalate? US and Russia Trade Jabs on Nuclear Arms Use MIDDLE EAST  Spain Reiterates Support for Iran Nuclear Deal, Urges Enhanced Ties  McMaster: Time to Hold Syria Accountable for Use of Chemical Weapons  Israel Successfully Tests State-of-the-Art Arrow 3 Missile Defense System  U.S. Pursues Saudi Nuclear Deal, Despite Proliferation Risk INDIA/PAKISTAN  How Israel and Pakistan Can Avoid a Nuclear Showdown  India Test-fires Nuclear-capable Ballistic Agni-II Missile COMMENTARY  The Nuclear Posture Review and Russian ‘De-Escalation:’ A Dangerous Solution to a Nonexistent Problem  Diplomacy, Sanctions, Missile Defense: Use This Triad against North Korea  Department of Energy Risking Nuclear Deterrence and National Security  An Arms Race toward Global Instability  Continuity from Ambiguity: The Real Role of Nuclear Posture Reviews in U.S. Nuclear Strategy  The Grand Picture of Verifying Nuclear Disarmament: What Needs to Be Done?  Nuclear Hawks Take the Reins in Tokyo

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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1303 //

US NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Aiken Standard (Aiken, S.C.) S.C. Attorney General Alan Wilson: Ending MOX a 'Bad Idea' By Colin Demarest February 20, 2018 During a stop in Aiken, the state attorney general said he disagrees with President Donald Trump's budget request to defund the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility, adding that he is pro-national security and pro-Savannah River Site. Attorney General Alan Wilson spoke to the Aiken Republican Club on Tuesday afternoon at the group's monthly meeting. Wilson was the the scheduled guest speaker. While the attorney general, who was first elected in 2010, primarily addressed crime in his keynote speech, he opened up about SRS and its facilities in a question-and-answer session with reporters. When asked about Trump's budget request, Wilson said Trump and Congress have the right to fund and defund MOX to their respective pleasure. But he doesn't have to like it. Wilson said ending the decade-long MOX project is a "bad idea." Trump's budget request includes $220 million to safely close MOX, an under-construction venture at SRS that would, upon completion, turn plutonium into commercial reactor fuel. The budget also includes $59 million for the pursuit of dilute and dispose, a MOX alternative. Dilute and dispose, also known as downblending, involves mixing plutonium with inert material and burying it elsewhere. MOX supporters – U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., for example — have said that method is unproven and violates a 2010 nuclear nonproliferation agreement with Russia. Wilson, when asked, said he does not know if Trump wants MOX killed because of its controversial nature, which is both time- and money-related. "I can't presume to know what's in his head," Wilson said. During the back-and-forth, Wilson also said he recently visited Washington, D.C. The attorney general said he met with "senior Department of Energy officials" during that trip. He said they discussed "a way to resolve this matter" and "a way to benefit both national security and the state of South Carolina." "We're having those conversations right now," Wilson added. Wilson said the best interests of Aiken and South Carolina are, of course, being considered. At the start of the month, U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry toured SRS and MOX. Wilson has sued the U.S. Department of Energy – and won – for not removing plutonium from South Carolina as was mandated. In December 2017, a federal court ordered 1 ton of defense plutonium be removed from the state in two years. https://www.aikenstandard.com/news/s-c-attorney-general-alan-wilson-ending-mox-a- bad/article_4ea8e0da-169d-11e8-b0ab-5f347d176bec.html Return to top

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World Nuclear News (London, ) Future US Enrichment Needs Require Clarification: GAO Author Not Attributed February 19, 2018 The US Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has extended its supply of low-enriched uranium (LEU) for national security needs for at least the next two decades but should clarify its longer term enrichment needs, the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found. The NNSA is responsible for securing so-called unobligated LEU needed for purposes including the production of the tritium used in nuclear weapons. Tritium has a relatively short half-life of 12.3 years and decays at a rate of about 5.5% per year, so must be periodically replenished to maintain the designed capability of the weapons, the GAO notes. Some tritium may be recycled from dismantled weapons, but the inventory must also be replenished through the production of new tritium. At present, NNSA produces tritium through the use of one of the Tennessee Valley Authority's electricity-producing nuclear reactors fuelled with unobligated LEU. The uranium, technology and equipment used to produce such LEU must therefore be of US origin. America has had no uranium enrichment capability to meet such military needs since the 2013 closure of the Paducah enrichment plant, at which time the NNSA had projected that its supply would run out in 2027. The NNSA has now taken or plans to take four actions to extend its inventories of unobligated LEU to 2038 or 2041, the GAO found. It has reviewed those actions, two of which involve preserving supplies of LEU and two which involve diluting HEU with lower enriched forms of uranium. Actual costs and schedules for those actions taken to date generally align with estimates, the GAO found. However, the GAO's assessment found the NNSA had not "clearly defined" longer term enriched uranium needs. It also found that NNSA's preliminary cost estimates for building a new enrichment capability were "not reliable". The NNSA has identified two uranium enrichment technologies as the most feasible options to supply unobligated LEU for tritium production: the AC100 centrifuge, which has been demonstrated by Centrus at the American Centrifuge Plant in Ohio, and a "small centrifuge", the first prototype of which has now been built at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. However, both of these options face challenges to deployment, the GAO found. It questioned the NNSA's preference to build a new uranium enrichment capability without including other technology options for analysis. The GAO said the scope of the mission need statement underpinning the analysis of alternatives was "unclear" and also inconsistent with the requirement that the mission need should be "independent of a particular solution and not be defined by a technological solution or physical end-item". It also found the scope of the NNSA's cost estimates to be limited in that they do not reflect the full cost of building a uranium enrichment facility that could meet a range of enriched uranium needs. Cost-estimating best practices indicate that the scope of preliminary cost estimates should reflect full life-cycle costs, the GAO said. The GAO recommended that the NNSA revise the scope of its mission need to clarify its long-term requirements. It should then ensure that its cost estimates for "whichever options it considers going forward" are aligned with the revised statement while developing estimates consistent with best practices.

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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1303 // http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/UF-Future-US-enrichment-needs-require-clarification-GAO- 1902188.html Return to top

Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, Calif.) Why the B-52 Bomber Will Fly for 100 Years By Justin Bachman February 15, 2018 The Air Force just can't let go of the B-52. In the world of heavy bombers, none has prevailed as long as the B-52 Stratofortress. The Cold Warrior joined the U.S. arsenal in 1954, eventually becoming part of a nuclear triad that, along with strategic missiles and submarines, was aimed at giving the Soviet Union pause. After the Berlin Wall fell, it slowly became an aerial jack-of-all-trades. With its long range, minimal operating cost and ability to handle a wider array of weapons than any other aircraft, it just didn't make sense to get rid of it. Under the Air Force's current bomber plans, the B-52 will fly until 2050 — just shy of its 100th birthday. While this prospective centenary has been cause for some breathless coverage, little has been said about how a complex piece of machinery built during the is still useful in 2018, let alone 2050. What is the B-52's secret? That secret is flexibility. Boeing Co. produced more than 740 B-52s since the first one rolled out. It's had many nicknames — the most apt at this moment being "Stratosaurus." Like any other well- regarded employee who manages to survive, and even thrive, in a constantly changing organization, the B-52 has always found an important role. Originally deployed as a long-range, high-altitude nuclear bomber, it became a carpet-bombing specialist in Vietnam, a fixture in the skies over Iraq during the first Gulf War and, shortly after Sept. 11, 2001, a fearsome sight above the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. These days, it's routinely used as air support for U.S. ground troops in the Middle East, often deploying precision-guided missiles. Though retrofitted repeatedly over the decades to meet its ever-changing mandate, the B-52 retains its original mission: delivering nuclear weapons to target. Last month, the Pentagon deployed six B-52s to Guam, along with three B-2 stealth bombers, amid heightened tensions with North Korea. The B-52 is the only heavy bomber in the U.S. fleet that can carry both conventional and thermonuclear bombs. The average age of the 75 B-52s currently in service is 55 years old — as in, they first took flight when President John F. Kennedy occupied the Oval Office. Compared with modern aircraft, the B-52 is neither particularly fast nor stealthy. But that doesn't really matter, given its current uses. "We have few adversaries that can challenge our air superiority," said George Ferguson, a senior aerospace and defense analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. "So a lot of B-52s work as the large ordnance carriers, with no stealth or speed characteristics." Flying the B-52 for almost a century makes sense because of its "total cost perspectives," plus its mission capability, supply and maintenance needs relative to flying hours, the Air Force said in a Feb. 12 statement. At the pricier end of the spectrum, the Pentagon is budgeting almost $17 billion over the next five years to develop the new B-21 Raider from Northrop Grumman Corp., which will replace the

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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1303 // current fleet of B-1B Lancer and B-2 Spirit bombers. The B-21, which may fly as a "crew-optional" aircraft, is expected to join the Air Force fleet in the mid-2020s. The Pentagon plans to buy at least 100 B-21s, spending about $97 billion. Backing it up will be the Stratosaurus. At the Cold War's peak in the 1960s, the Strategic Air Command kept as many as a dozen nuclear-armed B-52s aloft continuously to provide an airborne deterrent against the Soviet Union. Operation Chrome Dome, as the aerial mission was dubbed, aimed to assure the U.S. a strike capability even if a Soviet nuclear attack were to disable ground- based American missiles. The advent of nuclear missile-armed submarines diminished the importance of the other legs of the triad, but the B-52 endured. The heavy bomber also played a role in President 's "madman theory" to persuade the Russians that he was irrational and unstable, willing to launch a nuclear war to force peace talks to end the Vietnam conflict. In October 1969, Nixon dispatched 18 B-52s toward Russia, where they flew for three days, poking at Soviet air defenses in an exercise dubbed Giant Lance. Now, in addition to the plans for its extended lifespan, the military has announced yet another bit of elective surgery for the ancient planes, currently based at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. The Air Force will seek funds to replace the engines on its 75 B-52s, each of which has eight Pratt & Whitney power plants. Replacing all eight engines on all 75 planes is likely to cost several billion dollars, Ferguson said. The decisions were detailed this week as part of the Trump administration's budget request to Congress. The 1980s-era supersonic B-1 and the radar-evading B-2 fielded a decade later will be phased out gradually as new B-21s enter service, Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said. The B-21 will offer the U.S. the ability to strike with speed and stealth, "but once we own the skies, the B-52 can drop ordnance better than most others," Ferguson said. "And hey," she added, "it's paid for." http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-b-52-air-force-20180215-story.html Return to top

Breaking Defense (Washington, D.C.) SecAF Says B-21 ‘On Schedule’ As China Rises to Air Force’s Top Threat By Colin Clark February 14, 2018 PENTAGON: It’s explicit: China is the Air Force’s “pacing threat.” That was the clearest message from Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson, who met with the press the day after the Pentagon budget’s release. China’s rapid modernization is driving the Air Force to respond, Wilson said, though she declined to detail any of the service’s efforts beyond noting the PRC’s anti-satellite test. While Wilson didn’t say it, the B-21 bomber’s long range, stealth, electronic and cyber warfare capabilities make it a key part of our response to China. So, I asked the secretary, does the fact the service has announced it will retire B-1s and B-2s as the B-21 comes online reflect that the service is confident in the new bomber program? She didn’t really reply other than to offer that the program is on schedule, an important fact in and of itself but…. After she recited the basics of the program — we’ll buy “at least” 100 B-21s of the 175-bomber fleet — she stopped. I asked if that meant she wouldn’t tell us anything about the B-21, and she graciously laughed and said, yes.

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This won’t be so funny to Senate Armed Services chairman John McCain, who’s leveled his trademark ire on the Air Force for being so unforthcoming about the highly classified B-21 program. Another colleague asked Sec. Wilson about the size of the bomber fleet and she did seem to hint that the service may buy more B-21s because they are “looking at” their force structure as a result of the findings of the National Defense Strategy. Wilson added that the service will finally make decisions on the UH-1 helicopter replacement and the T-X trainer this year. The UH-1s will be replaced by a faster, longer-range helicopter able to carry more weight. The mission is two-fold: provide response to threats to nuclear weapons in the missile fields and escorts to weapons being moved and move senior government leaders to safety in the event of a serious threat. One can only wait….and probably wait some more, since Lockheed Martin’s Sikorsky just filed a “pre-award protest” with the Government Accountability Office about how the Air Force is assessing its offering. We bet Gen. John Hyten of Strategic Command will have something to say if that helicopter decision doesn’t happen soon. The T-X has languished for years but seemed poised to finally be awarded this year. Then Congress did its usual fine job of not passing any regular spending bills, making it impossible for the Air Force to award the deal. Now we have a two-year budget deal, which should give the service relatively free rein to act, especially with tens of billions Congress added to the fiscal 2018 and 2019 budgets. https://breakingdefense.com/2018/02/secaf-says-b-21-on-schedule-as-china-rises-to-air-forces- top-threat/ Return to top

US COUNTER-WMD

Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles) Get Ready for the Era of Hypersonic Flight — at Five Times the Speed of Sound By Samantha Masunaga February 21, 2018 The sleek aircraft, really more rocket than plane, dropped from the wing of a B-52 before shooting through the sky above Point Mugu Sea Range off the California coast, leaving a long, white contrail in its wake. The unmanned X-51A hit Mach 4.8, almost five times the speed of sound, with help from a solid rocket booster. Then the Boeing Co. aircraft jettisoned the booster and its experimental scramjet engine took over, sucking in highly-compressed air to propel the vehicle even faster — to a hypersonic speed of about 3,400 mph, or Mach 5.1. The aircraft relied on that scramjet for only 3½ minutes during the 2013 test flight, but researchers say reliable technology that propels aircraft to hypersonic speeds of Mach 5 or higher could be functional within 10 years, initially for use in missiles. The stakes are high. The Pentagon sees hypersonic weaponry as a potential game changer that could give it — or an opponent — the kind of edge that stealth aircraft or smart bombs did in decades past. Hypersonic

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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1303 // missiles would be extremely difficult to shoot down, arriving with little to no warning and maneuvering to avoid defenses. Russia and China are also developing hypersonic missiles, and in November, there were reports China had started building the world's fastest wind tunnel to test hypersonic aircraft and weapons. "I am also deeply concerned about China's heavy investments into the next wave of military technologies, including hypersonic missiles," Adm. Harry Harris Jr., head of the Navy's U.S. Pacific Command, said last week before a House Armed Services Committee. "If the U.S. does not keep pace, [U.S. Pacific Command] will struggle to compete with the People's Liberation Army on future battlefields." As with past programs, including stealth technology and ballistic-missile research, Southern California could be poised to take a leading role in its development. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, the same agency that helped develop the Internet, and the Air Force are spearheading a program called the Hypersonic Air-breathing Weapon Concept. It has awarded defense firms, including Raytheon Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., contracts to work on technologies that would enable an "effective and affordable" air-launched hypersonic cruise missile. Aerospace firm Orbital ATK Inc. also was recently selected to take part in a hypersonic aircraft engine project with DARPA, while military aircraft manufacturers have discussed their own concepts for hypersonic planes. Nearer term, the Defense Department is prepared to start testing a hypervelocity projectile for gun systems that could reach speeds close to Mach 6, according to reports. The projectile could have implications for future missile defense. Reliable hypersonics not only could propel a missile to incredible speeds that make them harder to shoot down but also could allow for greater maneuverability at unusual altitudes — both nearer to the ground and far higher than the range of current missile defense systems, according to a Rand Corp. report released last year. "There was this old saying that hypersonics was the future and always would be," said Kevin Bowcutt, senior technical fellow and chief scientist for hypersonics at Boeing, who came up with the original concept design for the X-51A in 1995. "Now people believe it. It's real." The U.S.' current technological emphasis on hypersonics is multifold. Historically, the U.S. has been a leader in this field, and the technology is promising. But development is not being driven by a specific mission need, said James Acton, co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank. Other analysts have said the current push for hypersonics could be an attempt to discourage other countries from considering hypersonic missile attacks. But to develop functional hypersonics technology, the U.S. will need to develop engine systems and materials that can operate at high speeds and temperatures for extended periods of time. That research and development cost alone would be significant, and wouldn't even include the billions of dollars needed to develop operational vehicles, experts say. Tens of billions of dollars could be spent on hypersonics contracts between 2020 and 2035 if the research "comes to fruition in real weapons programs," said Loren Thompson, an aerospace analyst with the Lexington Institute think tank, which receives funding from Lockheed Martin and Boeing. That could be a boon for Southern California.

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Thompson said the region is home to key research centers for industry and the U.S. government — such as Lockheed Martin's secretive Palmdale Skunk Works facility and Edwards Air Force Base — which could make it the center for hypersonics research. Boeing has said hypersonics work already is being done at its Huntington Beach facility, as well as in St. Louis and Seattle. Major research and development programs of the past brought thousands of jobs to the region. When the B-2 stealth bomber neared its production peak in 1992, plane builder Northrop had 9,000 workers in Pico Rivera and 3,000 more in Palmdale. U.S. development of hypersonics dates to the 1940s, when JPL attached a WAC Corporal rocket in the nose of a German V-2 rocket to create a two-stage rocket as part of the Army's program. Launched from New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range in 1949, the rocket reached 5,150 mph, or about Mach 6.7. Another major breakthrough came in the 1950s and 1960s with the X-15 program, experimental rocket-propelled aircraft that reached a top speed of Mach 6.7 and were designed to advance understanding of hypersonic flight. Data from the test flights helped influence the spacecraft design of the Apollo capsule and the Saturn V rocket that took astronauts to the moon. The Space Shuttle, which flew from 1981 to 2011, also reached hypersonic speeds as it reentered the Earth's atmosphere, leading to developments in heat-absorbing ceramic tiles and large, rounded edges to lower reentry temperatures. But despite these incremental developments, hypersonics researchers say there are still big technical hurdles to solve, especially in materials science. When reentering the Earth's atmosphere, the outer surface of the space shuttle orbiter encountered temperatures of nearly 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Aircraft-grade aluminum melts at a temperature about three times less than that, and the structure of a plane would fail at even lower temperatures. One possible solution are materials such as titanium or nickel-based alloys, which can be used at speeds slightly beyond Mach 5. Past that, ceramic-matrix composites, a more exotic blend of strong, lightweight fibers, may be an answer. "The better you can predict a heat load, the better you can come up with materials or structure to handle that heat load," said Stuart A. Craig, an assistant professor in the aerospace and mechanical engineering department at the University of Arizona who researches hypersonic aerodynamics. Development of a larger scramjet engine — formally known as a supersonic combustion ramjet — also has been challenging. While rockets can get a vehicle to hypersonic speeds, they are too large, heavy and inefficient to use in lighter missiles or aircraft. Enter the scramjet — an air-breathing engine that can provide the boost needed to reach speeds greater than Mach 5 but is lighter and more efficient. Unlike a rocket, a scramjet does not need to carry its own tank of oxygen to burn with fuel, which is typically a hydrocarbon or hydrogen. Instead, it uses the air in the atmosphere to serve as an oxidizer for the propellant. "You can't afford to build all these big rockets every time you want to fly a hypersonic glide vehicle or a cruise missile," said George Nacouzi, senior engineer at Rand Corp. and an expert on missile development. "It's just not practical." Scramjets typically start working at speeds of about Mach 5, when the air flow is still supersonic and is highly compressed. NASA's X-43A aircraft program last decade proved that scramjets could work, though on a smaller scale than a typical plane.

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Scaling up can be challenging, said Boeing's Bowcutt, who developed his X-51A design while at Rockwell International, which was later acquired by Boeing. Since wind tunnels can be limited in size, engineers must also rely more on computer simulations, which can't necessarily give full verification of a concept in real-world conditions. But new technological developments have helped make some of these issues easier to solve. In a recent presentation at an aerospace technology conference, Lockheed Martin Skunk Works Vice President Jack O'Banion said increased computer-processing power and digital tools helped the defense giant design a scramjet engine in 3-D for a plane concept known as the SR-72. Lockheed Martin has said this hypersonic aircraft concept could travel at speeds as high as Mach 6 and be operational by 2030. A Lockheed executive recently disputed speculation that the SR-72 already exists, saying the company's focus was on hypersonic weapons systems. (The name is a nod to Lockheed's stealthy SR-71 Blackbird, which first flew in 1964 and reached average speeds of 2,200 mph.) With digital-printing manufacturing, O'Banion said the company could integrate the scramjet engine with an "incredibly sophisticated cooling system," allowing the engine to withstand multiple firings for routine operations. No moving parts would be involved. "It would have melted down into slag if we tried to produce it five years ago," he said. With all of these challenges, many researchers say hypersonics probably will be developed first for missiles and later for manned aircraft. But don't expect to book a seat on a hypersonic passenger jet anytime soon, as commercial applications of the technology could be at least 30 years away, said Nacouzi of Rand Corp. That timeline would depend on the business case for hypersonic travel, which would presumably command premium ticket prices. The example of the Concorde passenger jet isn't exactly promising. An air disaster claimed 113 lives in 2000, temporarily grounding the fleet, but the high costs of operating the jet amid the slower market for air travel after the Sept. 11 attacks were what led to the plane's ultimate retirement in 2003. "It's much easier to start with missiles," Nacouzi said. "They're simpler than aircraft. An aircraft has much more systems involved." http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hypersonic-development-20180221-story.html Return to top

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The Hill (Washington, D.C.) Week Ahead: Pentagon Turns Focus to Missile Defense By Rebecca Kheel February 20, 2018 Congress is out of town in the coming week for the Presidents Day recess, but defense work grinds on at the Pentagon. So far this year, the Pentagon has wrapped up and released two major reviews — the National Defense Strategy and the Nuclear Posture Review. The third one in the series — the Ballistic Missile Defense Review — is expected to drop in the coming weeks. The Pentagon's fiscal 2019 budget proposal released on Monday gave insight into what the report might say. It included a request for funds "in accordance with direction from the 2018 Missile Defense Review." The budget requests $12.9 billion for missile defense, including $9.9 billion for the Missile Defense Agency, with an eye toward protecting against North Korea. "The budget increases the capability and capacity of the United States to detect, defeat, and defend against any North Korean use of ballistic missiles against the United States, its deployed forces, allies, and partners," the White House budget proposal says. The request would buy 43 Aegis interceptors for $1.7 billion, four Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) interceptors and 10 silos for $2.1 billion, 82 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense interceptors for $1.1 billion and 240 Patriot Advanced Capability Missile Segment Enhancement interceptors for $1.1 billion. The Pentagon also says the budget would allow it to develop an additional missile field in Alaska for the GMD and puts it on track to have a total of 64 deployed and operational GMD interceptors by 2023, 20 more than it has now. This week, two top officers — Adm. Harry Harris, head of Pacific Command, and Gen. Lori Robinson, head of Northern Command — said separately they are confident in the current ability of U.S. missile defenses to guard against North Korea. But they also cautioned that the United States needs to bolster the defenses in the future. After Harris's testimony, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-Texas) said missile defense will be part of this year's defense policy bill. "It is very important that we be able to defend all of the United States and its territories," Thornberry said. "I hope that what we're seeing is an increased urgency to deploy more of existing systems and to develop new systems." While Congress's hearing schedule goes dark for the recess, think tanks have some events on tap in the coming week. The Atlantic Council's Future of Iran Initiative will host a panel discussion on Iran's ballistic missile program at 9 a.m. Tuesday. The Center for Strategic and International Studies will host a panel of former Defense officials to discuss "Coping with Surprise in Great Power Conflicts" at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday.

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American and Japanese scholars will discuss "The U.S.- alliance and the problem of deterrence" at 9 a.m. Thursday at the Brookings Institution. The Heritage Foundation will host a discussion on "strengthening the U.S.-NATO-Georgia relationship" featuring Georgia's ambassador to the United States at noon Thursday. The Atlantic Council will host "A Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy" featuring Kentaro Sonoura, special adviser to the Japanese prime minister on national security, at 3 p.m. Thursday. http://thehill.com/policy/defense/374225-week-ahead-pentagon-turns-focus-to-missile-defense Return to top

USNI News (Annapolis, Md.) NORTHCOM Has ‘100 Percent Confidence’ U.S. Can Repel a North Korean Missile Attack By John Grady February 20, 2018 The top military officer charged with defending the American homeland said she had “100 percent confidence” that Northern Command could defeat a ballistic missile attack from North Korea. Air Force Gen. Lori Robison, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, said in her opening statement, “We continue to watch their developments [in ballistic missiles] closely and are prepared to defend” this country. “We’re looking at discriminating radars” for Alaska and Hawaii to replace existing sensors in ballistic missile defense in identifying their potential targets as one step in meeting the changing threat. In answer to a question, Robinson said that Kim Jong Un, North Korean leader, seems to be focusing more on capability to deliver these missiles to long-range targets than raw numbers. She said that with the recent congressional budget agreement the United States will be able to make steady investment in discriminating radars, improved interceptors and sensors to “outpace any adversary.” She included Iran in that category as well as Russia and China. Just as the United States does, “you learn as much by failing as successes” in explaining the role of testing and what North Korea is gaining in these missile firings. She said modeling and simulation have a role in ballistic missile defense testing, but so does live-testing. Another reason for the close questioning on the adequacy of ballistic missile defense against North Korean attack was the last test of a U.S. interceptor failed to hit its target. When asked how the command to false alarms in Hawaii and Japan about a missile had been launched against them from North Korea, Robinson said, “We were quickly confident [through a conference call with other military agencies and the Federal Emergency Management Agency] that nothing happened.” Hawaiian state officials, however, took more than 30 minutes to broadcast there was no imminent attack. In her role as North American Air Defense commander, Robinson said the United States and Canada are engaged in a review of the “northern approaches” to better “detect, identify, track and engage if necessary” any threat.

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“Time to put our feet in the snow,” she said, explaining the need for upcoming military exercises like Ardent Sentry and Arctic Edge to prepare American and Canadian forces for operations in the north. Right now, Robinson sees Russian military moves in the Arctic as “protecting their shore.” She told the committee the Russians are “moving their infrastructure around” as does the United States. The idea is to “put things in the place they want at the time of their choosing.” For the Arctic, she is drawing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance data from Global Hawk, a high-altitude unmanned system operated by the Air Force. She also is advocating for funds to pay for a heavy icebreaker for the Coast Guard. Robinson added as a light aside, “I think about this [the need for icebreakers] during the summer … every time Crystal Serenity [a cruise ship] goes through” the Northwest Passage above Canada from the West Coast of the United States to the Atlantic. She said the command also is reviewing its response to calls from civil authorities for assistance in recovering from 2017 hurricanes, including the dispatch of the hospital ship USNS Comfort (T-AH- 20) to Puerto Rico and is preparing a lessons learned document for the future. https://news.usni.org/2018/02/20/northcom-100-percent-confidence-u-s-can-repel-north- korean-missile-attack Return to top

US ARMS CONTROL

Reuters (New York, N.Y.) Iranian President Pledges to Stick to Nuclear Deal Commitments Author Not Attributed February 17, 2018 NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday it would adhere to commitments under its 2015 international nuclear agreement, signed with six world powers to limit its disputed nuclear program. “We will adhere to our commitments made,” Rouhani said at an event in New Delhi. “After signing a contract, haggling with it is ridiculous.” Under the agreement signed with the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities in return for the lifting of many sanctions. U.S. President Donald Trump has been pushing for changes to the agreement. “If the U.S. violates this agreement... you will see that America will regret this decision,” he said adding his country had always adhered to contracts deals so long as other party did not violate the contract. Rouhani arrived in India on a three-day visit part of efforts to expand bilateral ties and cooperation in economic development. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-nuclear/iranian-president-pledges-to-stick-to-nuclear- deal-commitments-idUSKCN1G10HF Return to top

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Bloomberg Politics (New York, N.Y.) U.S.-Russia Tension Flares over Nuclear Arms Control Now at Risk By Henry Meyer and Patrick Donahue February 17, 2018 As tensions escalate between Russia and the U.S., the nuclear-armed former Cold War rivals are risking the future of decades-old arms control agreements that have helped to keep a strategic balance and prevent the risk of accidental war. The conflict played out at a global security conference in Germany where Russia aired grievances about the U.S. and the Trump administration said a new nuclear doctrine unveiled this month doesn’t increase risks. Germany, caught in between, was among European countries voicing concern as both big powers modernize their nuclear arsenals. U.S. National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster defended the U.S. nuclear posture, which envisages building more low-yield bombs, and renewed accusations that Russia is violating a 1987 treaty that bans the deployment of intermediate-range missiles on land. “We will not allow Russia any of the power to hold the populations of Europe hostage,” he said Saturday in Munich, appearing on stage moments after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov listed a litany of complaints about U.S.-led military expansion since the collapse of Communism. Syria Clash Efforts to bridge the divide are stymied by a poisoned atmosphere as the U.S. responds to alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential vote, with 13 Russians indicted Friday including a businessman close to President Vladimir Putin. The two powers are also clashing in Syria, where U.S. strikes killed more than 200 Russian mercenaries who attacked American-backed forces Feb. 7, according to people familiar with the matter. “In the U.S., the animus is so tremendous that punishing Russia is the thing to do,” Dmitri Trenin, head of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said in an interview. “I see the demise of the entire arms control regime.” While the two countries have fulfilled the terms of another landmark nuclear weapons reduction treaty, New START, that accord expires in 2021 and there’s political pressure on President Donald Trump to let it expire because of the alleged Russian non-compliance with the INF treaty. Moscow in turn accuses Washington of itself breaking the intermediate-range pact. So far, no formal negotiations are taking place on either issue. European Fears Javier Solana, a Spaniard who served as NATO secretary-general, and Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s acting foreign minister, expressed alarm. “The most likely theater for nuclear conflicts would once again be here, in the center of Europe,” Gabriel told the conference. Graham Allison, a Pentagon adviser under former U.S. President Ronald Reagan when the two superpowers were negotiating arms control, said he’s skeptical momentum will be found to revive START and the INF. Arms control was developed primarily to prevent the “insane” possibility that Russia and the U.S. would annihilate each other due to miscalculation or accident, despite not even wanting to go to war, said Allison, now a professor of government at Harvard University. “Those risks remain today.”

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That’s something the Russians can agree on. According to Sergei Karaganov, a former Kremlin foreign policy adviser, the situation could get “much more dangerous” than during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, when the world was on the brink of nuclear war. ‘No Limits’ Under New START, which followed from the 1991 START treaty and was signed in 2010, the Russian and U.S. arsenals are restricted to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads on no more than 700 deployed strategic missiles and bombers. If that long-range missile pact isn’t prolonged and the INF collapses, “you have a situation where there are no limits on Russian and American nuclear forces,” said Steven Pifer, a former top State Department official and arms control expert. In addition, Russia and the U.S. would stop exchanging data on each other’s nuclear arsenals and permitting regular inspections. “It would be less predictable, less secure, less stable,” Pifer said. Russia would respond to any U.S. move to station land-based intermediate-range missiles in Europe by deploying similar missiles to target “all the bases where these weapons will be,” said Igor Korotchenko, director of the Center for Analysis of World Arms Trade in Moscow. “And the U.S. can’t stay safe over the ocean -- we’ll create the same risk for the U.S. as they do for us in Europe,” he said. Losing Sight Sam Nunn, a former U.S. senator and a prominent non-proliferation campaigner, says he’s increasingly concerned that “both countries can lose count of their strategic interests.’’ Some experts such as Thomas Graham, ex-White House adviser under George W. Bush, believe Russia and the U.S. will blink when faced with the prospect of stepping into a void without the security of arms control. Russia has proposed a 5-year extension to New START, to 2026, though it’s tying that to fixing complaints about the way the U.S. has complied with the treaty, the Interfax news service reported Feb. 16. “The chances are diminishing every day,’’ said Konstantin Kosachyov, head of the foreign affairs committee of the Russian upper house of parliament. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-18/u-s-russia-tension-flares-over-nuclear- arms-control-now-at-risk Return to top

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ASIA/PACIFIC

The Diplomat (Tokyo, Japan) German President: Unity Key to Handling North Korea Crisis By Daniel Hurst February 21, 2018 Advice from a key figure in the Iran deal is in keeping with the Japanese government’s approach. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier had some clear advice for East Asian countries when he stopped over in Tokyo on his way to the Winter Olympics this month: everyone needs to be on the same page in dealing with North Korea. Steinmeier, a Social Democratic Party figure who previously served as Germany’s foreign minister, cited his experience as part of the drawn out negotiations on the Iran nuclear deal. “The road to an agreement with Iran was long and arduous and it is certainly not a recipe that can be directly applied to an altogether different scenario,” he said in an address to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan. “However, we did learn one important lesson: controlling nuclear proliferation and cooperating with a regime that violated international rules can only work if the international community stands united “Without the buy-in from powers such as Russia, China, the United States and the European Union, we would have been unlikely to achieve the Iran agreement,” Steinmeier continued, “and I doubt that we can make meaningful progress towards a denuclearized Korean peninsula without such a consensus, which has to include both Korean states.” He added: “When we look around the region we see actors that are far away from united.” Steinmeier’s words came as North Korea used its high-profile appearance at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang to try to drive a wedge between allies the United States and South Korea. Kim Jong- un’s sister’s appearance at the Games, seated just meters from U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, created significant media buzz. South Korean President Moon Jae-in met with the North Korean delegation and responded politely to a hand-delivered invitation to talks north of the border – but so far there are no indications that any of the fundamentals of North Korea’s standoff with the international community have changed. The Japanese government, for its part, has spent the past two weeks making very clear public signals that South Korea and the United States should not back off from the “maximum pressure” campaign. Shinsuke Sugiyama, the incoming Japanese ambassador to the U.S., said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Donald Trump “completely share the stance of rejecting any dialogue unless its [North Korea’s] denuclearization is a precondition.” On the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference last weekend, Foreign Minister Taro Kono said Japan was “sharing the view with the United States and South Korea that we would gain nothing if we have dialogue [with North Korea] now,” Kyodo News reported. But Japan’s lower house chairman on foreign affairs was perhaps the most explicit in his warnings. Yasuhide Nakayama used an interview with Bloomberg News last week to urge Seoul to “keep in step” with Tokyo and Washington, and to keep North Korea “under siege.” The comments reflect growing concerns in Tokyo about Seoul’s recent signals on inter-Korean relations. Abe has been in lock-step with Trump since before the president’s inauguration – the Japanese prime minister famously was the first world leader to dash to the United States for a post-

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// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1303 // election meeting – and has repeatedly backed the position that all options should be on the table. While Moon has supported the tougher sanctions endorsed at the UN Security Council, the South Korean president has also publicly warned against allowing an outbreak of war on the Korean peninsula. It should also be noted that Abe caused a bit of a stir in the hours before the Winter Olympics opening ceremony when he personally urged Moon to quickly resume the South’s joint military drills with the United States after the games are finished. In their bilateral meeting, Moon retorted by urging Abe to respect South Korea’s sovereignty and avoid interfering in its domestic affairs, the Yonhap News Agency reported, citing a presidential official. But this complaint may be more about a matter of protocol than the substantive issues at stake on the Korean peninsula. Observers will be watching closely to see whether the now-regular tension resumes after the Games. Steinmeier said while both Korean teams walking into the stadium under a united flag might be a small positive sign, countries “shouldn’t fall prey to unrealistic illusions.” The German president detected the skeptical line coming from Tokyo: “I can only report that many here in Japan are of the opinion that one should not overestimate the signal sent out by North Korea when it comes to sending a joint team to the Olympics and many assume that North Korea will fall back on old, more aggressive positions afterwards.” https://thediplomat.com/2018/02/german-president-unity-key-to-handling-north-korea-crisis/ Return to top

The Straits Times (Singapore) China Reiterates Non-first-use Principle of Nuclear Weapons at Munich C