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CSDS News and Analysis Issue 1363 Issue 1363 26 April 2019 // USAF CSDS News and Analysis Issue 1363 // Feature Report “Securing Nuclear Weapons and Materials Worldwide: Expanded Funding Needed for a More Ambitious Approach”. By Matthew Bunn, Nickolas Roth, and William H. Tobey. Published by Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center; April 19, 2019 https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/securing-nuclear-weapons-and-materials-worldwide- expanded-funding-needed-more-ambitious The Trump administration budget request for programs to reduce the dangers of nuclear theft and terrorism is too small to implement the ambitious approach that is needed. Congress should increase funding in this critical area; direct the administration to develop and implement a comprehensive plan for improving security for nuclear weapons and materials worldwide; and exert expanded oversight of this effort. This brief highlights the importance of ongoing nuclear security work; describes the evolving budget picture; and outlines recommendations for congressional action. Issue No. 1320 22 June 2018 twitter.com/USAF_CSDS | au.af.mil/au/csds // 2 // USAF CSDS News and Analysis Issue 1363 // TABLE OF CONTENTS NUCLEAR WEAPONS Special Report: Would Space-Based Interceptors Spark a New Arms Race? (National Defense) Frank Rose, a senior fellow for security and strategy at the Brookings Institution, said Russia and China see space-based missile defenses as an existential threat. Special Report: The Legacy of the Strategic Defense Initiative (National Defense) [President Reagan] called upon the U.S. scientific community to provide the means of rendering enemy nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” US COUNTER-WMD Lockheed Martin Working $2.5B in Hypersonic Weapon Contracts (USNI News) “… In terms in how the market is developing, it’s basically threat-driven, if you look at what was in the National Defense Strategy, Missile Defense Review,” [company chief executive Marillyn Hewson] said. US ARMS CONTROL After Meeting Kim, Putin Advocates Phased Denuclearization Approach (VOA) “If we move step-by-step with respect for each others’ interests, then this goal can be achieved in the final end," Putin said, according to Russia’s state-run Tass news agency. 2020 Dems Rebuke Trump on Iran, Say They’d Put US Back in Nuclear Deal (The Hill) Trump angered U.S. allies in Europe after he broke from the 2015 deal, arguing the pact endangered Israel and was poorly negotiated by the Obama administration. North Korea’s Strategy: Slam Everyone but Trump (VOA) “We fell in love,” Trump said last year, touting the “beautiful letters” he has exchanged with Kim. COMMENTARY America and Russia Must Agree to Avoid a New Arms Race (National Interest) Public opinion has played a critical role in pushing leaders to negotiate nuclear agreements in the past. But will that remain true in the future? The Importance of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles to Nuclear Defense (The Hill) … advocates often fail to mention one of the most important attributes of ICBMs, which is their location. Pressing the Button: How Nuclear-Armed Countries Plan to Launch Armageddon (and What to Do about the U.S.) (War on the Rocks) While the two-person rule is common throughout the chain of command, several nuclear-armed countries choose to concentrate the legal authority to order the use of nuclear weapons in the hands of a single political leader. twitter.com/USAF_CSDS | au.af.mil/au/csds // 3 // USAF CSDS News and Analysis Issue 1363 // NUCLEAR WEAPONS National Defense (Arlington, Va.) Special Report: Would Space-Based Interceptors Spark a New Arms Race? By Jon Harper April 24, 2019 This is part 3 of a 4-part special report on space-based interceptors. The United States currently faces no legal obstacles to deploying conventional space-based interceptors, also known as SBIs. The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty banned it, but President George W. Bush withdrew from the agreement in 2002. The Outer Space Treaty only prohibits stationing weapons of mass destruction. That doesn’t necessarily mean putting SBIs in orbit is a good idea, analysts say. “If the U.S. decides to field space-based interceptors, it will upset the status quo by breaking with the taboo of weaponizing space,” International Institute for Strategic Studies analysts Michael Elleman and Gentoku Toyoma said recently in a policy paper. “Such moves could provide a rationale for other actors to exploit this domain, creating an arms-race dynamic among major space powers.” The introduction of anti-satellite weapons, or ASATs, by other nations would likely follow, they predicted. Frank Rose, a senior fellow for security and strategy at the Brookings Institution, said Russia and China see space-based missile defenses as an existential threat. Kingston Reif, director of disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, said the deployment of interceptors in space would be a disaster for strategic stability. “To ensure the credibility of their nuclear deterrents, Russia and China would likely respond by building additional and new types of long-range ballistic missiles as well as missiles that fly on non- ballistic trajectories,” he said in an email. Russian President Vladimir Putin has been touting his country’s development of new long-range, highly maneuverable nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles that can fly at speeds of Mach 5 or faster while staying inside the atmosphere. China is also aggressively pursuing hypersonic weapons, Pentagon officials have noted. “From a Russian or Chinese perspective, even if our system is really only intended to counter North Korea or Iran, they may look at it and say, ‘Hey, it could be [used] against some of our missiles.’ And then we would argue back and say, ‘Oh, but it would not be able to intercept the vast majority of your missiles.’ And both sides would have a point,” said Todd Harrison, director of the aerospace security project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Additionally, the weapons could potentially be viewed by other nations as giving the United States a new means of taking out their satellites or space launch vehicles, Harrison noted. President Donald Trump recently stated that the overarching U.S. goal for missile defense is to be able to destroy any missile launched against the United States “anywhere, anytime, anyplace” — a comment that is unlikely to reassure Russia and China that a space-based interceptor layer would be limited and not directed against them. twitter.com/USAF_CSDS | au.af.mil/au/csds // 4 // USAF CSDS News and Analysis Issue 1363 // Thomas Roberts, a missile defense expert and program manager at CSIS, said because of orbital requirements and physics, it’s impossible to design an architecture that would protect against a North Korean attack but not pass over China or the southern regions of Russia. Reif said Russia and China could take steps to improve their ability to destroy such U.S. interceptors, thereby greatly increasing the threat to the nation’s space assets. There are several varieties of ASAT weapons, such as direct-ascent, co-orbital, non-kinetic, jamming and cyber, Elleman and Toyoma explained. Some of these technologies are not prohibitively expensive or too technologically advanced for multiple nations to obtain, they said. “Because the interceptors must orbit at low altitudes of 200 kilometers or less when above the anticipated launch location, and because they travel along predictable orbits and can be easily tracked using radars, an adversary capable of developing long- range missiles could almost certainly build a ground-based ASAT weapon.” Pentagon officials have already identified space as a warfighting domain on par with land, air, sea and cyber. The 2019 Missile Defense Review noted that China and Russia are already developing new types of offensive missiles as well as counter-space capabilities such as ground-launched missiles and “experimental” satellites that could potentially be used to attack other nations’ spacecraft. “Some may argue that the weaponization of space is inevitable given the number of countries interested in accessing and exploiting this domain,” Elleman and Toyoma said. “The U.S., according to this argument, should take the lead and advance its interests before its adversaries decide to take advantage of a reluctant America. … [However], the risk that space-based interceptors could lead to a new arms race in space should be considered carefully.” While countries like China or Russia may take countermeasures if the United States deploys a robust space-based interceptor layer, Harrison does not expect them to develop a similar system because of the cost burden and other challenges. “I don’t know why they would because if it’s not a good idea for us, I don’t think it’s a good idea for them either,” he said. http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2019/4/24/special-report-would-space-based- interceptors-spark-a-new-arms-race Return to top National Defense (Arlington, Va.) Special Report: The Legacy of the Strategic Defense Initiative By Jon Harper April 23, 2019 In a nationally televised address to the nation, President Ronald Reagan in 1983 kicked off efforts that would lead to serious work on space-based interceptor technologies. “Let me share with you a vision of the future which offers hope — it is that we embark on a program to counter the awesome Soviet missile threat with measures that are defensive,” he said from his desk in the Oval Office at the height of the Cold War. “What if free people could live secure in the knowledge that their security did not rest upon the threat of instant U.S. retaliation to deter a Soviet attack, that we could intercept and destroy strategic ballistic missiles before they reached our own soil or that of our allies?” he added. twitter.com/USAF_CSDS | au.af.mil/au/csds // 5 // USAF CSDS News and Analysis Issue 1363 // Reagan noted there would be technical obstacles.
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