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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Reagan noted there would be technical obstacles. “But isn’t it worth every investment necessary to free the world from the threat of nuclear war?” he asked. “We know it is.” He called upon the U.S. scientific community to provide the means of rendering enemy nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” Thus began the Strategic Defense Initiative, which critics derided as “Star Wars” in reference to the sci-fi movie franchise. A research-and-development effort that emerged from SDI was Brilliant Pebbles, which was focused on technology that would enable basing interceptors in space. However, the waning of the Cold War sapped momentum for the initiative. In 1991, President George H.W. Bush announced that the ambitions of the SDI program would be scaled back from defending against a massive Soviet missile attack, with a new focus called Global Protection Against Limited Strikes. In 1993, with the Soviet Union no longer in existence and political pressure to cut military budgets, Secretary of Defense Les Aspin announced “the end of the Star Wars era.” The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization became the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, with a priority of developing ground- and sea-based regional defensive systems. Todd Harrison, director of the aerospace security project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the legacy of SDI continues to shape today’s debate between proponents and opponents of space-based interceptors. “Those fault lines are still very evident,” he said. “In the ‘80s with Star Wars, that’s when this really became religion for a lot of people. And many of those people are still around. Some of these people were much younger during those previous debates, and they’ve held onto their views ever since then.” Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Mike Griffin worked on the SDI effort early in his career. Harrison noted that today’s opponents of space-based interceptors often tout the same arguments from 30 years ago. Kingston Reif, director of disarmament and threat reduction policy at the Arms Control Association, hopes that the United States doesn’t invest in new programs. “Past U.S. efforts to develop and deploy a space-based missile defense have known many names, including Strategic Defense Initiative, Brilliant Pebbles and Global Protection Against Limited Strikes. And all have suffered the same fate: cancellation due to insurmountable financial, technical and strategic obstacles,” he said in an email. “Space-based interceptors are unaffordable, unworkable and massively destabilizing.” Democratic politicians have traditionally opposed the idea, a partisan trend which could continue. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, has already thrown cold water on it. “A space-based interceptor layer … has been studied repeatedly and found to be technologically challenging and prohibitively expensive,” he said in a statement after the 2019 Missile Defense Review was released. Frank Rose, a senior fellow for security and strategy at the Brookings Institution, said he has “a hard time believing” the current Democrat-controlled House of Representatives would fund the development of such a system. “It’s unlikely that we will see any real money after the study is completed, but we’ll see.”
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US COUNTER-WMD
USNI News (Annapolis, Maryland) Lockheed Martin Working $2.5B in Hypersonic Weapon Contracts By Sam LaGrone April 23, 2019 Lockheed Martin is working through $2.5 billion in military contracts to develop a variety of hypersonic weapons in a bid to catch up with developments from China and Russia, company chief executive Marillyn Hewson said during a Tuesday earnings calls. The Pentagon has made moves to accelerate the development of hypersonic weapons in its latest guiding documents, and that has driven investment from the company, Hewson said. “We have been investing in hypersonics for many, many years, and as a result of that, that’s why we’re leading in this trend of being able to bring capabilities forward. 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,” she said. “It’s clearly a need for us to not only address hypersonics but also counter-hypersonics as well.” In the Tuesday morning call, Hewson highlighted the late-February contract with the Navy for development and testing of the service’s conventional prompt global strike concept that would notionally create a hypersonic glide vehicle that would ride a ballistic missile launched from a submarine down to its target. “[We] received an order for over $800 million from the U.S. Navy to design, develop, build and integrate technologies to support the flight test demonstration of a new hypersonic boost-glide weapons system. Lockheed Martin was awarded the Navy’s conventional prompt strike weapons contract and will provide flight articles and support equipment for the systems flight test,” Hewson said. “This order follows three previous awards the corporation has received in hypersonic weapons: the tactical boost-glide contract; the hypersonic conservational strike, or HACKSAW program; and the air-launched rapid response, or Arrow, program. These wins are being performed in three of our four business areas with the cumulative value of our hypersonic strike weapon award now exceeding $2.5 billion across the corporation.” The February award by the Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs (SSP) for the Intermediate Range Conventional Strike Weapon System is an early step in developing a hypersonic glide weapon body for all the services by 2025. “We will explore several options to deploy this capability on various platforms and are working with the Army and Navy on deployment opportunities,” an SSP spokesperson told USNI News last month.
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The Pentagon has stressed its lag against both the Chinese and Russians in hypersonics, and the Army, Air Force and Navy have pushed out to acquire the weapons. The military has had some early successes in testing the concepts. In October 2017, the Navy conducted a successful $160-million test of a hypersonic glide vehicle that flew from Hawaii to the Marshall Islands – about 2,000 nautical miles. https://news.usni.org/2019/04/23/lockheed-martin-working-2-5b-in-hypersonic-weapon- contracts Return to top
US ARMS CONTROL
VOA (Washington, D.C.) After Meeting Kim, Putin Advocates Phased Denuclearization Approach By William Gallo April 25, 2019 SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA — Russian President Vladimir Putin says he believes North Korean leader Kim Jong Un could give up his nuclear weapons if he first receives security guarantees. Putin made the comment Thursday after holding his first ever summit with Kim in the far-eastern Russian city of Vladivostok. At a news conference following the talks, Putin also advocated a phased approach to denuclearization, in which the United States and North Korea slowly take steps to build trust. “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. North Korea also prefers an incremental approach, under which it would commit to giving up parts of its nuclear weapons as Washington gradually relaxes sanctions. Trump is seeking what he calls a “big deal” in which North Korea agrees to give up its entire nuclear program in exchange for normalized ties with the United States. Kim said very little during his meeting with Putin, which included nearly two hours of one-on-one meetings, an expanded dialogue session with their delegations, and a dinner. “I had candid, meaningful talks with President Putin,” Kim said, adding he would like to “relentlessly strengthen” ties with Russia. It is not clear what security guarantees North Korea may demand in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons. According to the Russian news agency Tass, Putin said it is the “international, legal ones.” In the past, North Korean officials have called for the United States to completely remove its strategic and nuclear-capable military assets from the region, which it views as a threat. No breakthrough? The meeting was held in the Russian port city of Vladivostok, about 200 kilometers from the border with North Korea.
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Kim is expected to stay in the city through Friday, touring various sites, including the Russian Pacific Fleet and an oceanarium, according to several media reports. Although Kim and Putin met for almost twice as long as expected, no major breakthroughs were announced at the summit and no joint statement was released. North Korea, which is hurting from international sanctions, wants more economic and diplomatic support from Russia, especially since nuclear talks with the United States have broken down. "North Korea needs an ally,” says Jang Se-ho, a research fellow at the Seoul-based Institute for National Security Strategy. “And Russia has been seeking a chance to become involved more in the Korean peninsula. They now have a chance to do so." Putin said he would like to expand economic cooperation with North Korea, but gave no obvious sign that he is willing to give Kim any help that would further damage talks with the United States. Kim out of breath As he sat next to Putin during their opening remarks, Kim appeared to be tired and breathing heavier than usual, drawing speculation about his health from some North Korea watchers. The North Korean leader, believed to be around 35 years old, also appeared to be out of breath during an appearance Wednesday after arriving in Russia. All of Kim’s appearances are watched closely for such signs, in part because until recently the public had not often gotten unscripted looks at him. “[Kim’s health] is a big deal in a long-term perspective,” though it’s not clear it will have a short- term impact, said Olga Krasnyak, a professor at Seoul’s Yonsei University. Meetings a boost for Kim Until last year, Kim hadn’t left North Korea since taking power in 2011. Since then, Kim has met twice with U.S. President Donald Trump, three times with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, four times with Chinese President Xi Jinping, and once with Vietnamese President Nguyen Phu Trong. The meetings not only help Kim shed his image as an international pariah, they also provide a crucial internal propaganda boost, says Andrew O’Neil, a Korea specialist and professor at Australia’s Griffith University. “A lot of what Kim Jong Un does internationally is directed inwardly, to reinforce his legitimacy in the eyes of the ordinary North Korean population...and within the North Korean elite structures,” O’Neil said. But with North Korea’s economy suffering from international sanctions and no relief on the horizon, Kim may need more than just symbolic support. At a February summit in Hanoi, Trump rejected Kim’s offer to dismantle one of North Korea’s main nuclear complexes in exchange for significant sanctions relief. Trump and Kim agreed last June to work toward the “complete denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” but the United States and North Korea have not agreed on what that phrase means. Putin: not much of a help? By meeting Putin, Kim may be signaling that he has other options for economic help.
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Russia’s economy has its own problems, partly due to international sanctions imposed after Moscow’s annexation of Crimea. And without buy-in from the United States, it is not clear how much Russia could do anyway. Russia-North Korea trade fell dramatically last year by more than 56 percent to $34 million. Kremlin officials say that is primarily because Russia was restrained by sanctions. The Soviet Union was once a crucial economic backer of North Korea. But in recent decades, Moscow has carried out a carefully balancing act with Pyongyang. Russia, a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, signed onto tougher sanctions amid North Korea’s nuclear and missile tests in 2016 and 2017. It has since called for the sanctions to be eased - a move that would require unanimous Security Council support. https://www.voanews.com/a/kim-putin-vow-closer-ties-at-vladivostok-summit/4890696.html Return to top
The Hill (Washington, D.C.) 2020 Dems Rebuke Trump on Iran, Say They’d Put US Back in Nuclear Deal By Rebecca Kheel April 23, 2019 Most of the Democrats running for president are vowing to put the United States back in the Iran nuclear deal that President Trump withdrew from nearly a year ago. “Our intelligence community told us again and again: The #IranDeal was working to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. If Iran continues to abide by the terms of the deal, you bet I will support returning to it,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) recently tweeted. Warren, whose campaign pointed to the February tweet when contacted this month by The Hill, backed the Iran deal in a Senate vote like several of the other Democratic senators running for president. 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. “This was a horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made,” Trump said in announcing his decision in May 2018. Former President Obama, in a rare response to Trump, said his successor’s decision would make the world less safe and war more likely. Hoping to further dial up pressure on Iran, Trump on Monday announced he will not renew sanctions waivers that allowed eight foreign governments to continue buying Iranian oil. Trump and other opponents of the deal argued it fell short of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon because several provisions sunset and inspectors cannot demand to see some military sites. They also pilloried it for not addressing other troubling behavior such as Iranian support for terrorist groups. It’s not surprising that Democrats running for president would oppose Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Iran deal. But the agreement itself was controversial, and Democrats were not united in backing it.
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Four Senate Democrats — including Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) — broke with Obama over the deal when the Senate voted on a measure that would have rejected it. Israel’s government was strongly opposed to the Iran deal, and Trump has signaled he intends to use his support for Israel as a wedge issue against any Democrat who runs against him next fall. Still, while some Democrats are attaching qualifiers to their support for the deal, they all are indicating they’d seek to put the United States back into the agreement. And they are casting Trump’s decision to withdraw as a textbook case of his penchant for isolationism that they argue is damaging to U.S. interests. An aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) told the news site Al-Monitor last month that the candidate would “rejoin” the Iran deal “and would also be prepared to talk to Iran on a range of other issues, which is what Trump should’ve done instead of simply walking away.” Sanders, considered a front-runner for the Democratic nomination, like Warren backed the deal in a 2015 vote in the Senate. A spokesman for Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) told Al-Monitor she supports re-entering the deal “if the U.S. could verify Iran is not cheating.” Harris was not serving in the Senate when it voted on whether to block the deal from entering into force. Pete Buttigieg, the South Bend, Ind., mayor who is rising in Democratic presidential polls, would rejoin the deal, a spokeswoman told The Hill. Buttigieg, who would have the least experience with the deal of all the top candidates in the race, “sees it as a floor not a ceiling,” the aide said, suggesting he would like negotiations to expand the agreement. A spokesman for former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) said he supports rejoining the deal. During his failed Senate campaign last year, O’Rourke said the deal was “imperfect,” but that it “demonstrably makes the world and especially the Middle East a safer place.” Former Vice President Joe Biden, who has led a number of 2020 polls but has yet to enter the race, served in the administration that negotiated the deal. A spokesman did not respond to three requests for comment. The other three senators in the race — Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) — all voted in favor of the deal. So did Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio). During a stop at the University of Colorado in Boulder over the weekend, Klobuchar cited the Iran deal as she talked about getting back in step with U.S. allies. “Joining in these international agreements, and climate change is one of them, but the other is getting back in the nuclear agreement with Iran and allies — that would be one example of that,” Klobuchar said. The 2015 debate over whether to support the deal was heated, with pro-Israel lobbyists pushing hard against it and some high-ranking Democrats such as Schumer opposing it. But things have changed since then, said Logan Bayroff, a spokesman for the progressive Jewish group J Street. For starters, he said, international inspectors have repeatedly found Iran to be in compliance with key aspects of the agreement. Second, Trump’s decision to withdraw can be framed by Democrats as one of several moves that have alienated allies and “pander to a far-right political base,” Bayroff said.
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“We just think this is a clear slam-dunk policy position for a Democrat,” he said, citing a May 2018 Morning Consult survey that found 68 percent of Democrats supported the deal. Experts say bringing the U.S. back into the deal could be done simply and with executive action, and that it would not require votes in Congress. J Street has been pushing an online petition calling on Democratic candidates to support re-entering the deal, while highlighting on social media which ones have and have not voiced support. Bayroff did not provide an exact tally for the petition, but said signatures are in the “thousands.” He added that J Street has also met privately with campaigns to discuss the issue. Several long-shot presidential candidates also said they would put the U.S. back in the deal, though a few raised caveats. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) said he would “lead negotiations” with Iran and the deal’s other signatories to return the United States to the agreement. “We have to hold Iran accountable for its funding of terrorism, its actions in Syria and Lebanon, and its threats to Israel and America. But more than anything else, we cannot allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon,” he said in a statement to The Hill. The accord “dismantled Iran’s nuclear capabilities and allowed U.S. monitoring and verification,” he added. “Alienating ourselves from the world and acting alone accomplishes neither.” A spokesman for Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said he would rejoin the deal, directing The Hill to his congressional record. Moulton voted in support of the deal in 2015 and in 2018 said Trump's withdrawal "turns our back on our allies" and "makes the world more dangerous." Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) told The Hill she would return to the deal, saying Trump's withdrawal "increases the likelihood of war and undermines talks with Kim Jong Un to denuclearize North Korea." “While the Iran deal is far from perfect, Iran is in compliance and the deal is working by preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon and preventing an all-out war,” she said in a statement. A spokesman for former Rep. John Delaney (D-Md.) said he would “seek” to rejoin the deal, but added Delaney would “look to strengthen aspects of the deal as part of re-entering, including extending its duration.” Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro tweeted in March that “if Iran continues to comply with the terms of the agreement as determined by the intelligence community, I will re-enter the U.S. into the #JCPOA as President.” A spokesman for Washington Gov. Jay Inslee told The Hill “he would return to the deal.” Long-shot candidates Wayne Messam and Marianne Williamson are also on board, they said in comments to Al-Monitor and The Hill, respectively. Other groups that have been pressing Democrats to take a position include the National Iranian American Council, which released a paper in November saying a return to the Iran deal should be “central to the foreign policy platform of those seeking to challenge Trump in 2020.” The Democratic National Committee adopted a resolution in February calling on the U.S. to rejoin the agreement. Experts say part of the reason Iran continues to follow the deal is because Tehran hopes Trump is a one-term president and that his successor rejoins the agreement.
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But the Trump administration is putting increased pressure on Iran, most recently by ending the oil sanctions waivers. Trump also recently designated its Revolutionary Guard a “foreign terrorist organization.” U.S. allies in Europe strongly opposed Trump’s decision to withdraw, and they have been scrambling to save the pact. As a workaround to Trump's sanctions, the European Union set up mechanism to facilitate trade with Iran. But no transactions have gone through it, leading to mounting frustration from Tehran, said Barbara Slavin, director of the Atlantic Council’s Future of Iran Initiative. “Clearly there are people in the administration and outside … who are trying to make it extremely difficult to return” to the deal, she said. But Iran knows that if it leaves the deal it would be “falling into trap” set by the administration, Slavin said, adding that Trump’s withdrawal and Revolutionary Guard designation could likely be undone with executive action. “I would expect that [returning to the deal] will be in the platform for the [Democratic National Convention], assuming Iran stays in the agreement,” she said. “Everything depends on Iran staying through the election. If it leaves the agreement, all bets are off.” https://thehill.com/policy/defense/439712-2020-dems-rebuke-trump-on-iran-say-theyd-put-us- back-in-nuclear-deal Return to top
VOA (Washington, D.C.) North Korea’s Strategy: Slam Everyone but Trump By William Gallo April 22, 2019 SEOUL — North Korea has directed a wave of criticism at top White House officials, as talks with the United States have stalled. But one person Pyongyang hasn’t criticized: Donald Trump. The pattern reflects North Korea’s apparent preference to continue negotiating directly with Trump, who has taken a more conciliatory approach to the nuclear talks than many of his deputies. It also appears to be a carefully calibrated effort by North Korea to increase negotiating pressure on the U.S. without completely derailing the talks. “They’re good at drawing the line,” says David Kim, who specializes in East Asia security policy at the Washington-based Stimson Center. “As long as they don’t bash Trump, we’ll be OK.” North Korea has bashed plenty of other U.S. officials in recent weeks. Pompeo ‘talking nonsense,’ North says Last week, after announcing the test of a “tactical guided weapon,” North Korean state media took aim at U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Pompeo is “talking nonsense” and “fabricating stories like a fiction writer,” said the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), quoting a foreign ministry official.
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“Whenever Pompeo pokes his nose in, the talks go wrong,” said the official, who called for Pompeo to be removed from the negotiating team. North Korea was apparently unhappy with a recent Senate hearing during which Pompeo agreed with the characterization of Kim Jong Un as a “tyrant.” Pyongyang has also accused Pompeo of making unreasonable denuclearization demands during meetings with his North Korean counterparts. Pompeo downplayed the comments, insisting last week he’s “still in charge” of the team negotiating with North Korea. North Korea: Bolton ‘dim-sighted’ White House National Security Advisor John Bolton, who North Korea once referred to as “human scum” and a “bloodsucker,” also received the KCNA treatment last week. “He looks dim-sighted to me,” a North Korean foreign ministry official said of the glasses-wearing Bolton. “We have never expected that adviser Bolton would ever make a reasonable remark.” Bolton, who also dealt with North Korea during the administration of former U.S. President George W. Bush, is one of Washington’s most hawkish officials on North Korea issues. Just a month before joining the Trump administration last year, Bolton wrote an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal titled: “The Legal Case for Striking North Korea First.” Bolton has also angered North Korea by proposing it follow Libya’s model of unilaterally handing over its entire nuclear program. Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi gave up his nuclear program in the early 2000s; he was killed by protesters during a NATO-backed uprising against his rule in 2011. Trump-Kim ties ‘excellent’ In contrast to its treatment of Pompeo and Bolton, North Korea has gone out of its way to praise the friendly relations between Trump and Kim. The personal chemistry between Trump and Kim is still “mysteriously wonderful,” senior North Korean diplomat Choe Son Hui said in March. Trump and Kim weren’t always friendly. In 2017, Trump dubbed Kim “Little Rocket Man” and threatened to “totally destroy North Korea” amid North Korea’s repeated nuclear and missile tests. Kim returned the threats of nuclear war and referred to Trump as a “dotard.” Trump now insists his friendship with Kim could be key to convincing the young North Korean leader to give up his nuclear weapons. “We fell in love,” Trump said last year, touting the “beautiful letters” he has exchanged with Kim. Given Trump’s softer approach, North Korea likely believes it can get a better deal if it negotiates directly with Trump, analysts say. “They still have trust in President Trump,” says Kim Joon-hyung, a professor at South Korea’s Handong Global University. “So they are trying to separate him from his staff.” Trump overrules the hawks Trump has repeatedly disagreed with and sometimes overruled the North Korea policies of his more hawkish deputies.
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For example, although Bolton and some senior State Department officials have spoken about timelines for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons, Trump regularly insists he is in “no hurry.” Trump has overruled some of his top advisors, including former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, with his decision to suspend large-scale military exercises with South Korea. Last month, after the U.S. Treasury Department announced sanctions against two Chinese shipping companies because of deliveries to North Korea, Trump abruptly reversed the move. A day earlier, Bolton had publicly praised the sanctions on Twitter. In explaining the sanctions reversal, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said “President Trump likes Chairman Kim, and he doesn’t think these sanctions will be necessary.” So what’s next? Even though Trump and Kim have stopped insulting each other for now, the talks remain stalled. Despite two summits between Trump and Kim, U.S. officials now acknowledge they have not even reached an agreement on what the idea of denuclearization means. With such fundamental disagreements, it’s not clear that personal diplomacy alone can rescue the talks. And both sides appear to be hardening their stances. Trump says he is not willing to relax sanctions unless North Korea agrees to completely dismantle its nuclear program. Pyongyang has offered only partial dismantlement in exchange for lifting most U.N. sanctions. In a speech earlier this month, Kim said he was open to a third summit with Trump. But he gave the U.S. until the end of the year to change its approach. https://www.voanews.com/a/north-korea-negotiations-with-trump/4885758.html Return to top
COMMENTARY
National Interest (Washington, D.C.) America and Russia Must Agree to Avoid a New Arms Race By Lily Wojtowicz April 23, 2019 A decade ago this month, President Barack Obama stood before a cheering crowd in Prague and said, “I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” Today, however, we are on the cusp of a world with more nuclear weapons, not fewer. The future of U.S.-Russian arms control—a tradition of bilateral frameworks to reduce the threat of two superpowers instigating nuclear war dating back to Nixon and Brezhnev—looks dim. Once both countries officially leave the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty in August, there will remain only one formal agreement between the two nuclear possessors limiting the size and scope of their nuclear arsenals, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). And if that wasn’t enough, New START is due to expire in February 2021.
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The Trump administration says it is looking into extending New START, however, there is cause for skepticism about this claim. U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton—who’s gotten his way on the United States leaving the Iran Nuclear Deal and the INF Treaty—is a likely advocate for scrapping New START as well. In fact, he once bombastically referred to U.S. participation in the treaty as “Unilateral Disarmament.” Trump himself reportedly declined Putin’s offer of extending New START during their first official phone call. Russia remains interested in extending the treaty beyond 2021, at least publicly. President Vladimir Putin has put out an open invitation for the two countries to begin discussions on an extension. Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov expressed similar interest at this year’s Munich security conference. However, one should view Russia’s intent with a healthy amount of skepticism as well. Putin has expressed his disinterest in further bilateral agreements for several years, preferring a multilateral framework instead. As he explained in 2012, his concern is that the United States and Russia might wind up “endlessly disarming themselves while other nuclear powers would be building up arms.” Without these agreements, Moscow and Washington could well be heading towards a new arms race, a possibility that Russian public and American public seem to have picked up on. According to a new survey conducted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and the Levada Analytical Center, seven in ten Russians (72 percent) and Americans (70 percent) say that it’s likely their countries are heading towards a new arms race. Yet there is still reason for hope. Most Russians (87 percent) and Americans (74 percent) are in favor of Moscow and Washington coming to an agreement to limit nuclear weapons. This support matters most in the United States, which is where public opinion has played a critical role in pushing leaders to negotiate agreements in the past. In 1986, Joseph Nye Jr. penned his Farewell to Arms Control, expressing his concerns that if negotiations between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev failed, the only agreed framework on strategic stability between the United States and the Soviet Union would be the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Reagan’s interest in the early 1980s in building up the U.S. nuclear arsenal stirred up public concern. The Nuclear Freeze campaign—which included a protest of one million Americans calling for an end to the arms race—is credited with forcing Reagan’s hand to begin negotiations with Gorbachev in 1985. In 1982, three-quarters of Americans favored freezing production of nuclear weapons (75 percent), according to an NBC News/Associated Press poll. The plurality of Americans also disagreed with Reagan’s assertion that the freeze movement was being manipulated by foreign interests to weaken the country (48 percent). Reagan soon reversed course. The differences between the 1980s and today are not insignificant. In 1982, the United States had lived through thirty-five years of the Cold War. Americans had practiced duck and cover drills in primary school and most Americans vividly remembered the Cuban Missile Crisis. Public sentiment was easier to utilize because of the constant threat of nuclear war. In part, this explains why despite the support we see among Americans for a new arms control agreement and the sense that a new arms race is upon us, only 54 percent of Americans opposed the U.S. decision to withdraw from the INF Treaty. Like so much today, the INF decision has become a partisan issue, with 73 percent of Republicans supporting Trump’s decision to withdraw and 74 percent of Democrats opposing it. This, then, is the challenge for arms control advocates today; breaking through the partisanship that surrounds individual decisions on arms control. Still, Americans remain pragmatic at heart. They seem to understand the value of arms control agreements. Even as 78 percent of the U.S. public describes Russia as a rival rather than a partner,
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Americans of all political affiliations still support pursuing new limits on the United States and Russian nuclear arsenals (90 percent Republican, 89 percent Democrat, 84 percent independent). Lily Wojtowicz is a research associate at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs focusing on U.S.- Russian public opinion. https://nationalinterest.org/feature/america-and-russia-must-agree-avoid-new-arms-race-53912 Return to top
The Hill (Washington, D.C.) The Importance of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles to Nuclear Defense By Dana Struckman April 23, 2019 How much should our strategic nuclear deterrent cost? What should it look like? There is still bipartisan support, even long after the end of the Cold War, for keeping strategic nuclear weapons as a foundation for United States national security. However, the cost is getting steep. The Department of Defense and Department of Energy have begun to plan, program, and budget a modernization of American nuclear forces at a cost that could exceed $1 trillion over the next two to three decades. While House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith supports nuclear modernization, he is an outspoken critic of the overall costs of the program. He hosted a recent hearing with nuclear experts to debate modernization costs. During the hearing, one of the experts advocated for transitioning from a triad to a “monad” featuring only nuclear submarines, while retiring the nuclear bomber and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) forces. Those who argue for completely eliminating ICBMs, in particular, do not seem to fully appreciate their strategic attributes. The argument against ICBMs is not new. Numerous senior government and defense officials have publicly claimed ICBMs should be scrapped. Advocates of retaining ICBMs state that they present a complicated targeting challenge for an opponent contemplating a first strike. Because ICBMs launched in retaliation would be fast and accurate, a first strike must destroy them immediately. This requirement presents would be attackers to simultaneously cover in excess of 400 targets requiring almost instant elimination in order to deliver a nuclear knockout punch. However, advocates often fail to mention one of the most important attributes of ICBMs, which is their location. While costly, their location is key to the continued deterrence enemies armed with nuclear weapons. As Tom Nichols and I have written in the National Interest, “The major virtue of an ICBM force, then, is not what it can do after an attack, but what the enemy will have to take it into account before an attack, and consider the cost of starting an all-out nuclear exchange between the homelands.” In other words, a major strategic virtue of the ICBM force is where they reside. In an environment after the Cold War, a “bolt out of the blue” scenario is unlikely. Even during the Cold War, it was the least likely attack once the both the United States and the Soviet Union fielded their respective triads. Today, a nuclear crisis will likely develop over time, allowing the United States time to disperse its nuclear bombers and submarines. This would leave the ICBMs as the most effective and vulnerable retaliatory force and this, paradoxically, is why they are valuable as a deterrent. An adversary would have to strike the heartland, in an effort to take out our entire ICBM force, resulting in an immense retaliation from the remaining legs of the American strategic triad.
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In short, we are undervaluing ICBMs if all we intend is to “make it harder for an adversary to launch a major nuclear strike against the United States.” Rather, an adversary should view our ICBM force as the ultimate backstop to the ultimate act of violence. Because of their responsiveness and location, ICBMs based on land reinforce the message that in any first strike plan, the adversary has nothing to gain and everything to lose. Currently, the ICBM force is facing some significant issues. Modernization efforts have now reached their limit for the Minuteman III, a system that entered service in the early 1970s with a life expectancy of about 10 years. With nearly 50 years of continuous service, the system has reached the point where modernization efforts can only do so much. Numerous key component parts of the Minuteman III are aging out and, in some cases, it is not technically or financially feasible to replace them. The existing plan to replace the Minuteman III is focused on the development of a missile that is sustainable and adaptable to several emerging technologies. Replacing the Minuteman III will be expensive, but utilizing new digital and modular technologies will certainly help. Moreover, a “one for one” replacement may not be required. It may be possible, and some would argue sensible, to reduce the current fleet of 400 missiles to a smaller number of more sustainable and adaptable ICBMs for cost savings, as long as they are still dispersed throughout United States territory. ICBMs are a strong nuclear deterrent, perhaps the strongest, for many reasons. American adversaries must face intensely complicated targeting requirements in a first strike or face an armada of retaliatory warheads. However, the number of ICBMs and their responsiveness do not fully define their total strategic value. As long as nuclear armed countries rely on nuclear forces to guarantee their security, fixed sites on sovereign United States soil should never be completely eliminated. A “monad” consisting of nuclear submarines simply will not do. It might even tempt future opponents into reckless calculations that we, and they, will regret. Dana Struckman is a retired Air Force colonel and an associate professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College. He was a missile launch officer on active duty and commanded a United States missile squadron at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. The views expressed here are solely those of the author and not of the Naval War College, the Department of the Navy, the Department of Defense, or the United States government. https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/440175-the-importance-of-intercontinental- ballistic-missiles-to-nuclear-defense Return to top
War on the Rocks (Washington, D.C.) Pressing the Button: How Nuclear-Armed Countries Plan to Launch Armageddon (and What to Do about the U.S.) By Jeffrey Lewis and Bruno Tertrais April 24, 2019 “What would happen if the president of the U.S.A. went stark-raving mad?” That question appeared on the cover of Fletcher Knebel’s bestselling 1965 novel, Night of Camp David. Knebel, who also wrote Seven Days in May, described a president succumbing to paranoia as those around him struggled to keep him from starting a nuclear war. For obvious reasons, the book was re-released in 2018 in a new edition.
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The presidency of Donald Trump has renewed a lingering debate about how much of the terrible responsibility to inflict large-scale nuclear destruction nuclear-armed countries should invest in a single person. The question is not only about Trump, of course. He is a member of a club that also includes Russia’s Vladimir Putin, China’s Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un — “Rocketman” himself. It is a club that is far more exclusive than the Mar-a-Lago. The terms of this debate are well-known and relate to the specific requirements of nuclear deterrence. On the one hand, there is a broad desire to retain political control over the use of nuclear weapons and to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used by accident or by an unauthorized person. On the other hand, it is typically thought that the credibility of deterrence relies on the certainty of retaliation under all circumstances, even in difficult ones, such as in response to a surprise attack. These twin goals are in tension, a situation that Peter Feaver famously termed the “always/never” dilemma — the weapons should “always” launch when ordered by a legitimate authority, but “never” if no legal order has been given. Each nuclear-armed state has struck a slightly different balance at different points in time, with states shifting “back and forth between delegative and assertive postures” depending on the importance placed on the urgency of response and the general state of civil-military relations and domestic politics. A preference for “always” — certainty that any lawful launch order will be executed — may lead a state to accept a greater risk that nuclear weapons could be used without proper authorization. The preference for “always” could, in extreme cases, lead to so-called “dead hand” systems that would ensure the launch of nuclear- armed missiles even if political leaders were dead. A common procedure to manage the always/never dilemma is to require two or more persons at various links in the chain of command to agree on a step involving nuclear weapons (the so-called “two-man” rule.) The two-person rule may differ greatly in practice across states. In some cases, it may be a physical requirement for at least two people to execute any nuclear-related procedure, which may include two simultaneous moves or gestures, or the insertion of two codes (or separate parts of a single code — a “half dollar bill”). It may be the legally mandated presence, alongside the authority giving the order, of an authenticating, controlling, or verifying authority for any nuclear- related procedure (possibly as a separate chain, with reporting upward along the line). It may also be the existence of two different chains of command, with separate orders given all along the line: for instance, one for launchers and one for warheads. “Code” generally refers to a short alphanumeric series (say, four to twelve letters or numbers) that can be read or memorized. However, codes may also be more complex signals, communicated only by electronic means. Codes may serve different functions. “Authentication codes” prove that the person giving the instruction is legally entitled to do so. “Enabling codes” unlock missiles or, in the case of permissive action links, warheads. 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. Here is a key distinction: Authority is not the same thing as ability. The former is a legal or political concept, the second a physical and military one. In most if not all nuclear-armed countries the authority to use nuclear weapons is held at a much higher level than the ability to use those weapons. What the two-person rule accomplishes is to divide the ability to take an action among multiple persons, thereby increasing the likelihood that nuclear weapons will only be used on the order of the appropriate authority. The election of Donald Trump has renewed debate over the wisdom of this arrangement. The fundamental issue, however, is not merely the question of Trump himself. Many nuclear-armed states are expanding the number and type of nuclear weapons they possess, introducing systems
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// USAF CSDS News and Analysis Issue 1363 // that complicate the always/never dilemma for command and control. Several countries are deploying nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines for the first time, for example. Moreover, new developments in communications and encryption technologies may improve the security of nuclear command and control, or they may introduce new vulnerabilities such as the possibility of hacking. In a recent study for the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, we sought to address five questions for each of the nine known nuclear-armed states: Who has the legal authority to use nuclear weapons and on what grounds? How would the decision to use nuclear weapons be taken and how would that decision, in the form of an order, be transmitted? What are the procedures designed to ensure political control? Have any states pre-delegated the authority to use nuclear weapons, particularly to military commanders in the field in specific circumstances? And, what would happen if the legitimate authority was incapacitated? There is no single national model for authorizing the use of nuclear weapons, although almost all countries claim to have some variant of the two-person rule. Many countries, though not the United States, assign an important role to a civilian defense chief or the head of a military general staff (details are often unclear), and some have set up “devolution” procedures that hand down launch authority if something happens to the president or prime minister: such authority is automatically “devolved” to another institution (e.g. a government minister) even if constitutional succession is not permitted by circumstances. There are, however, important differences. Parliamentary-type governments where political authority to command the armed forces (and thus use nuclear weapons) is delegated to a prime minister tend to emphasize collective decision-making. The decision to launch a nuclear strike is not expected to be a purely individual one — even if the prime minister has that authority in a legal sense. The United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, and Israel operate under this kind of system. Presidential systems, where executive authority clearly rests in the hands of one single person elected by the people, tend to treat the decision to order the use of nuclear weapons as an individual one, with the ability to give such an order becoming a kind of metaphor for the power of the president. In this regard, France and Russia appear to be the closest models to the United States. China’s nuclear decision-making is thought to be more collective, although that may no longer be true in the era of Xi Jinping. Even in presidential systems, it is too simplistic to claim that one single person’s orders are enough to launch a nuclear strike. This is often true legally but of course an entire chain of command is needed to execute such an order. From the officer holding the “football” to the officers in launch units with keys or combinations to safes, the chain of command and process of authentication always requires the positive participation of a number of human decision-makers. There may be automated processes along the chain of command, but there is nothing automatic in the execution of a launch order. Even the Russian system Perimetr (sometimes inappropriately confused with the “Dead Hand,” a Soviet-era concept which was never implemented) must be switched on and a person remains in the decision-making loop. Moreover, the presence of human decision-makers throughout the chain of command is usually augmented with two-person rules. With the exception of North Korea — about which information is unsurprisingly thin — all nuclear-capable countries claim to require two people at certain points in the nuclear use process, albeit in various ways. The presence of multiple human decision-makers in the chain of command raises the possibility that individuals would resist an unlawful order to use nuclear weapons in the case of a completely out-of-the-blue nuclear strike. For example, there are some reports that captains of U.S. ballistic missile submarines are expected to make communications contact in the event of an unexpected launch order that seems out of place or character. At least one captain has indicated that, in the event of a peacetime launch order, he would insist on confirmation and a justification.
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There are, however, legitimate questions that might be asked about such arrangements, particularly the idea that troops in the line of duty might resist an unlawful order. Good order and discipline within military organizations mean that in the vast majority of cases, an order to use nuclear weapons would be followed. In states where the authority is conferred upon a single person, even a completely irrational order might be followed if it occurred in the midst of a crisis. And there are questions of legitimacy: In many cases, there is a process to devolve authority if top leaders are incapacitated, eventually to unelected officials. (In the United States, succession eventually devolves to the eligible heads of federal executive departments in the cabinet.) There is no obvious way to reconcile all the above-mentioned imperatives such as credibility, legitimacy, efficiency, safety, and security. At the same time, whatever balance is struck at any given moment must be regularly reassessed. The great George Quester, testifying during the first hearings on presidential control of nuclear weapons in 1976, outlined the important questions that continue to shape the public debate: “Can we achieve tighter control over a President without sacrificing the same important credibilities in deterrence? Can we do so without sacrificing controls over the military? Have we perhaps left the President too uncontrolled in earlier days, in the process of balancing deterrence and the control of the military?” More than 40 years later, we think the answer to each of these questions for the United States is a qualified “yes.” Neither of us is terribly convinced by recent proposals from Congress to insert itself into the process and usurp, in part, the president’s authority to order a nuclear strike. The president is the commander in chief. Once Congress appropriates the funds for military forces, it has little to say about how these forces might be used beyond the power to declare war. Congress has consistently avoided even this responsibility, as the failure to revise the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force demonstrates. Nevertheless, Congress could attempt to compel the president, time and circumstances permitting, to confer with at least the vice president, secretary of defense, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff regarding any decision to use nuclear weapons and especially a decision to initiate the use of nuclear weapons. These individuals need not be given a veto in the process, but each must be offered a chance to give advice. There would be little downside to such an approach. In our work, we find no evidence that states requiring a collective decision are seen by potential adversaries as less credible than single-person models that favor speed and legitimacy. In NATO, the collective use of nuclear weapons requires consensus of all members of the North Atlantic Council, although the United States, the United Kingdom, and France retain the ability to use nuclear weapons on their own. Whatever doubts we might have about the certainty of retaliation in the most extreme scenarios, those doubts pale in comparison to the ones we have about the wisdom of allowing a single individual unfettered authority to order the use of nuclear weapons. Jeffrey Lewis is a scholar at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Bruno Tertrais is Deputy Director at the Fondation pour la recherche stratégique in Paris. https://warontherocks.com/2019/04/pressing-the-button-how-nuclear-armed-countries-plan-to- launch-armageddon-and-what-to-do-about-the-u-s/ Return to top
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ABOUT THE USAF CSDS The USAF Counterproliferation Center (CPC) 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’s Director for Nuclear and Counterproliferation (then AF/XON) and Air War College commandant established the initial personnel 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. In 2008, the Secretary of Defense's Task Force on Nuclear Weapons Management 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." This led to the addition of three teaching positions to the CPC in 2011 to enhance nuclear PME efforts. At the same time, 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 professional continuing education (PCE) through the careers of those Air Force personnel working in or supporting the nuclear enterprise. This mission was transferred to the CPC in 2012, broadening its mandate to providing education and research on not just countering WMD but also nuclear operations issues. In April 2016, the nuclear PCE courses were transferred from the Air War College to the U.S. Air Force Institute for Technology. In February 2014, the Center’s name was changed to the Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies (CUWS) 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. In May 2018, the name changed again to the Center for Strategic Deterrence Studies (CSDS) in recognition of senior Air Force interest in focusing on this vital national security topic. The Center’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. The Latin inscription "Armis Bella Venenis Geri" stands for "weapons of war involving poisons."
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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