Brookings: Topics - Nonproliferation

Options for Reducing Nuclear Arms

Wed, 22 May 2013 10:00:00 -0400

Event Information

May 22, 2013
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Recent visits to Moscow by National Security Advisor Tom Donilon and Secretary of State John Kerry appear to have injected a more positive tone to U.S.-Russian relations, as Washington and Moscow prepare for meetings between Presidents Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin in June and September. Further nuclear arms reductions beyond those mandated by the New START Treaty, now in its third year of implementation, appear to figure high on the U.S. agenda. What sort of additional nuclear reductions, if any, should the United States now pursue?

On May 22, the Arms Control Initiative at Brookings hosted a discussion to explore the possibilities for further nuclear reductions, looking at the spectrum of possibilities. Brookings Senior Fellow Michael O’Hanlon moderated a discussion with Global Zero Co-Founder Bruce Blair, National Institute for Public Policy President Keith Payne and Brookings Senior Fellow Steven Pifer, co-author with O’Hanlon of the recent Brookings Focus Book, The Opportunity: Next Steps in Reducing Nuclear Arms (Brookings Press, 2012).

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Options for Reducing Nuclear Arms

Lessons from America’s First War with Iran

Bruce Riedel — Wed, 22 May 2013 13:35:00 -0400

President Barack Obama has committed the United States to preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Iran seems determined to acquire them. As the United States and Iran approach confrontation and possible war to halt Tehran’s nuclear program, it is useful to remember that America has already fought one war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. During the late 1980s, President Ronald Reagan intervened in the Iran- Iraq War in support of Baghdad and Saddam Hussein, ultimately leading to an Iraqi victory. The United States engaged in an undeclared yet bloody naval and air war, while Iraq fought a brutal land war against Iran. The lessons of the first war with Iran should be carefully considered before the United States embarks hastily on a second.

In hindsight, the central lesson of the war in the 1980s is that it is easy to start a conflict with Iran and very difficult to end it. The Islamic Republic of Iran is not easy to intimidate and is likely to retaliate asymmetrically. Another key lesson is to beware the advice of your allies, both Arabs and Israelis, who are prone to give irresponsible recommendations on how to deal with Tehran.

The Toll of the Iran-Iraq War

The Iran-Iraq War was devastating. It was one of the largest and longest conventional interstate wars since the Korean War ended in 1953. A half million lives were lost, and perhaps another million were injured. The economic cost of the war exceeded one trillion dollars.1 Yet, the battle lines at the end of the war were almost exactly where they had been at the beginning of hostilities. It was also the only war in modern times in which chemical weapons were used on a massive scale.

Although the war ended in 1988, it led to numerous aftershocks that rippled throughout the region including the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the liberation of Kuwait a year later, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003. The bloody U.S. war that President Obama recently ended in Iraq was the finale in this march of folly. The seeds of multigenerational tragedy were planted in the Iran-Iraq War. The world will live with its consequences for decades, if not longer.

There were no “good guys” in the Iran-Iraq War, only two brutal dictatorships. Saddam Hussein was a megalomaniac who built enormous, ugly monuments to his ambitions and dreamed of becoming the dominant power in the Persian Gulf, controlling the world’s oil supplies, and destroying Israel. At the end of the first Gulf War in 1988, Hussein waged genocide against his own Kurdish population. Ayatollah Khomeini created a theocracy in Iran which imprisoned and executed thousands of its own citizens, forced tens of thousands into exile, and even took American diplomats hostage.

U.S. Policy During the War

America had no natural partners in the Iran-Iraq War, but its interests dictated that the United States allow neither Saddam nor Khomeini to dominate the region and the world’s energy supply. For most of the war, it was Iran that appeared on the verge of victory, so Washington had little choice but to support Iraq.

For those who aspire to a national security policy built on the principles of the United Nations Charter or a moral high ground, Iran-Iraq was an immoral swamp. For American policymakers in the 1980s, there was a simple difference. When the war began, Iran held dozens of American diplomats hostage and even tortured some. Only after 444 days in captivity did Iran let the American hostages go. In contrast to Khomeini, many Americans hoped that the Iraqi leader was somehow redeemable and could be worked with as a difficult but manageable partner. We realize now that this was a mirage, but in the 1980s it was still a hope. Thus, America tilted toward Iraq, hoping it would hold back the “medieval fanatics” to the east from gaining control of the world’s oil reserves.

But “our side” kept breaking the rules. First, Iraq was the aggressor in September 1980. Certainly Iraq had been provoked by Iranian actions along the border, but the main act of aggression was carried out by the Iraqi army in the form of a massive attack. As long as Iraq held Iranian territory, Washington did not call for the restoration of the status quo ante as would be the norm for most international conflicts; only when the tables turned did the United States call for respect for the international border. Then Iraq began using chemical weapons—first, in a piecemeal and largely ineffectual fashion, but by the war’s end, on an industrial scale and with decisive effect. The threat of Iraqi chemical warheads on long range missiles cleared Tehran of many of its inhabitants in 1988, and Saddam began using chemical warheads to systematically kill his own people. Rather than fall silent, the guns of war merely changed theaters with the 1988 cease-fire, as the Anfal campaign against the Iraqi Kurds began, an act of pure genocide by the government that the United States had supported during the war.

The conflict was not President Ronald Reagan’s finest hour. At first he tilted toward Iraq, sending the CIA to Baghdad with critical intelligence in 1982 to thwart Iran’s war plans. It worked. Then Reagan tilted toward Iran, sending sophisticated arms to Tehran in an effort to get American hostages in Lebanon freed. It didn’t work. A few hostages were released but more hostages were taken. Then Reagan tilted back toward Iraq and Washington’s undeclared war followed in 1987 and 1988. The principal architect of the policy was Reagan’s Director of Central Intelligence, Bill Casey, who died before the Iran scandal forced his resignation and possible indictment.

Lessons for Today

So what are the lessons of this war for America today? The first lesson is that we should expect to be blamed for all that goes wrong. Both Iraqis and Iranians came to believe the United States was manipulating each of them during the war. Ironically, and perhaps naively, the United States tried to reach out to both belligerents through the course of the war— in great secrecy both times—to try to build a strategic partnership. The disastrous arms-for-hostages policy, which came to be known as the Iran- Contra affair, convinced Iraqis rightly that the United States was trying to play both sides of the conflict. The result was that when the war ended, the Iraqi regime and most Iraqis regarded the United States as a threat, despite Washington’s support during the war. That support had taken the form of critical intelligence assistance to Baghdad, considerable diplomatic cover, and largesse from our Arab allies who loaned tens of billions of dollars to Baghdad to sustain Iraq’s war effort.

Iranians call the war the “Imposed War” because they believe the United States subjected them to the conflict and orchestrated the global “tilt” toward Iraq. They note that the United Nations did not condemn Iraq for starting the war. In fact, the UN did not even discuss the war for weeks after it started, and it ultimately considered Iraq to be the aggressor only years later, as part of a deal orchestrated by President George H.W. Bush to free the remaining U.S. hostages held by pro-Iranian terrorists in Lebanon.

Although the war had tragic consequences for Iran, by portraying the conflict as a “David and Goliath” struggle imposed by the United States and its allies, Iranian leaders managed to consolidate the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The Revolution was fairly short in duration and its cost was miniscule in comparison to the Iran-Iraq War. For the generation of Iranians who are now leading their country, including men like President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the war was the defining event of their lives and a major force in shaping their worldview. Their anti-Americanism and deep suspicion of the West can be traced directly to their understanding of the Iran-Iraq War. We should thus expect the next war to make Iran more extreme and more determined to get the bomb.

Another lesson of the first war is that Iran will not be easily intimidated by the United States. By 1987, Iran was devastated by the war, many of its cities had been destroyed, its oil exports were minimal. and its economy was shattered. But it did not hesitate to fight the U.S. Navy in the Gulf and to use asymmetric means to retaliate in Lebanon and elsewhere. Even with most of its navy sunk by U.S. Naval forces, Iran kept fighting and the Iranian people continued rallying behind Ayatollah Khomeini.

Iran fought a smart war, avoiding too rapid and too dangerous an escalation. As General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has noted, Iranian behavior is rational, not suicidal.2 Iran will not take steps that endanger the revolution’s survival; the country will look to exploit America’s vulnerabilities in Afghanistan and Bahrain, as well as Israel’s in Lebanon and the Saudis’ in Yemen. In the 1980s, Iran created Hezbollah in Lebanon to attack American, French, and Israeli targets as punishment for American support of Iraq. Hezbollah then tried to assassinate the emir of Kuwait to punish that country for being Iraq’s outlet to the Persian Gulf. In essence, Iran expanded the battlefield of the Iran-Iraq War to other countries where it could exploit security vulnerabilities. We should expect the same in a future war, one for which Iran and Hezbollah have had decades to prepare. Indeed, Iran and Hezbollah are already waging a low intensity terror campaign against Israel from Bulgaria to India, and they have reportedly used cyber warfare against Saudi and Qatari oil companies.3

Another lesson is that ending a future war will be a challenge. In 1988, Iran sued for a cease-fire only after suffering catastrophic defeat on the ground against Iraqi forces and after Saddam Hussein threatened to fire Scud missiles armed with chemical warheads into Iranian cities.4 Iranians feared they would face a second “Hiroshima” if they did not accept a truce; indeed many evacuated Tehran in fear of an Iraqi chemical attack. For Khomeini, accepting the truce was like “drinking poison.”5 No two wars are identical, but history suggests that Iran will not back down easily.

The final lesson is to always scrutinize the advice of allies. Ironically, in the 1980s the closest U.S. partner in the region, Israel, pressed Washington hard and repeatedly to essentially switch sides and offer assistance to Iran. Israeli leaders, generals, and spies were obsessed by the Iraqi threat in the 1980s just as they are preoccupied by the Iranian threat today, and they longed to restore the cozy relationship they had with the Shah in the 1960s and 1970s. Through the Iraq-Iran War, Israel was the only consistent source of spare parts for the Iranian air force’s U.S.-made jets.6 Israeli leaders, notably Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres, brought considerable pressure to bear on Washington for an American engagement with Tehran, and Iran-Contra was in many ways their idea. American diplomats and spies deployed abroad were told to turn a blind eye to Israeli arms deals with Tehran, even when it was official U.S. policy (in the Washington euphemism of the day) to “staunch” all avenues by which the Iranians might obtain weapons or other material needed for their war effort.7

America’s Arab allies provided equally bad advice. Egypt’s President Mubarak, Jordan’s King Hussein, and Saudi King Fahd all urged support for Saddam and Iraq, while turning a blind eye to Saddam’s use of chemical weapons against his own people. Egypt sent arms, Jordan sent volunteers, and the Saudis bankrolled Saddam’s war, while telling America that he was a born-again moderate who could be worked with and trusted. It was not to be.

Looking back a quarter century after the war in 1988 is revealing and sobering. America accomplished its immediate goals in the first war: it halted Iran’s advance into Iraq, defended the tankers in the Gulf, and contained the war from spreading into the Arabian Peninsula. Khomeini did not conquer Basra and Baghdad and march on Jerusalem as he dreamed he would. But today, Iran is the dominant foreign power in Baghdad, thanks in large part to another war America fought in the Gulf. President George W. Bush toppled Saddam and ended his brutal dictatorship, but in doing so, Bush opened the door to a Shia majority government which is much friendlier to Tehran than to Riyadh or Amman, or Washington. These are sobering reminders of the unintended consequences of wars.

The first American war with Iran helped make Iran a more radical and extreme country. A second war may well do the same. Thus another war with Iran to stop its nuclear program may ultimately prove to be the catalyst that pushes Iran to acquire a dangerous nuclear weapons arsenal. Rather than stopping proliferation, it could incite it further.

History of course does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Lessons of old wars should be carefully considered before entering new ones. Many Americans have forgotten the lessons of our undeclared war in the 1980s. We have fought so many other wars since: in Iraq (twice), in Afghanistan, and in Libya. While it may be easy for Washington to forget, no Iranian has.

This article was originally published by The Fletcher Forum.

Endnotes
1 Janet Lang et al, Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979-1988 (Plymouth, Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), ix.
2 Fareed Zakaria, “Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: We are of the opinion that the Iranian regime is a ‘rational actor,’” CNN Pressroom, February 21, 2012.
3 Nicole Perlroth, “In Cyberattack on Saudi firm, U.S. sees Iran firing back,” New York Times, October 23, 2012.
4 Lang, 169.
5 Lang, 196.
6 Lang, 89.
7 Lang, 90.

Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: The Fletcher Forum

Image Source: © Morteza Nikoubazl / Reuters

What is Iran's Nuclear Red Line?

Steven Pifer — Tue, 21 May 2013 14:05:00 -0400

Tehran’s denials and protestations to the contrary, its nuclear ambitions clearly go beyond peaceful, civilian purposes. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is soon expected to issue a report stating that Iran has increased its capacity to enrich uranium but is limiting the most worrisome activity. This raises the question of how far Iran wishes to proceed down the nuclear path. The answer is important, as there is an important distinction between an Iran that has assembled (and perhaps tested) a nuclear weapon, and an Iran that has a latent nuclear capability but does not take the final step of pulling the pieces together to have a nuclear weapon.

The short answer to the question now is that we do not know. The U.S. intelligence community assesses that Iran wishes to have a nuclear weapons option but has not yet decided whether to build a bomb.

Concern about Iran’s nuclear intentions has grown as it has enriched uranium at facilities at Natanz and Fordow, facilities about which Tehran did not inform the IAEA until others revealed them. The Iranians conduct uranium enrichment operations to 3.5 percent, which they say they need for fuel rods for nuclear power reactors, despite the fact that Russia has contracted to sell Iran the fuel rods that it needs for its sole power reactor at Bushehr. More troublesome, Iran also enriches to 20 percent. The Iranian government claims that it needs 20 percent enriched uranium for fuel for the Tehran research reactor, though it is not clear that Iran has the technical capability to produce fuel rods for that reactor.

Although 20 percent qualifies as “highly-enriched uranium,” weapons-grade uranium is enriched to 90 percent or greater. Once uranium has been enriched to 20 percent, it is much of the way to 90 percent. Interestingly, while enriching to 20 percent, Iran has taken some of the resulting uranium gas (referred to as uranium hexafluoride) and converted it to uranium oxide, a solid powder. Iran thus has kept its stock of uranium hexafluoride enriched to 20 percent below the amount that, if enriched to 90 percent, would suffice for a nuclear bomb. Some see that as a signal that Tehran is sensitive to Western concerns. While the process of converting uranium hexafluoride to uranium oxide can be reversed, it takes time.

Of course, Iran must do more than have fissile material. Can it construct a deliverable nuclear weapon? Building a “gun-type” bomb is relatively simple (to the extent that the physics of nuclear weapons can be called simple). U.S. scientists in 1945 were so confident of the design for the bomb used on Hiroshima that they did not bother to test it. But a gun-type weapon would be large and bulky, probably weighing on the order of five tons.

Building a sophisticated weapon that could fit in a ballistic missile warhead—the delivery means of choice—poses a more demanding technical task. The weapon needs to be small and durable enough to withstand the dynamic and thermal stresses of ballistic flight. While the IAEA has questions about past Iranian weaponization activities, the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Iran in 2003 halted its nuclear weapons program (PDF), which it defined as weaponization work as well as enrichment.

As for the delivery system, Iran has an inventory of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. The Sajjil-2, currently under development, has an estimated range of 2200 kilometers. That puts the Gulf states, Israel and southeastern Europe in range, but Iran still has a long way to go before it could develop an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States.

So Iran has made varying degrees of progress down the tracks—enrichment, weaponization and delivery system—needed to have a viable nuclear weapon. How far will it proceed?

One option is to build a bomb and, to show the world its nuclear prowess, conduct a test. But that option poses real risks for the Iranian government. It would make Iran even more of a nuclear pariah and increase its international isolation. It would provoke huge concern in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, perhaps leading the Saudis—and others such as Egypt and Turkey—to pursue their own nuclear weapons programs. And it would indisputably cross the red lines that Jerusalem and Washington have drawn.

The second option is that Iran develops its enrichment, weaponization and missile technologies so that it has a latent nuclear weapons capability but stops short of putting the pieces together. In this option, Tehran might continue to limit its stock of uranium hexafluoride enriched to 20 percent by converting some to uranium oxide. Assuming that Iran does not have a covert enrichment facility (something Western intelligence services undoubtedly spend considerable time and effort looking for), we would know of an Iranian decision to enrich its uranium to weapons-grade, as the IAEA monitors its facilities at Natanz and Fordow. While experts differ regarding how much alert time the world would have, there would be tactical warning—currently measured in months—of a decision by Tehran to produce weapons-grade uranium.

The distinction between these two options is important. While no one, particularly Israel, would be comfortable with a latent Iranian nuclear capability, that is vastly preferable to an Iran with even a small stockpile of nuclear weapons. It would pose less of a threat to the nuclear non-proliferation regime. It would leave time for international sanctions to intensify their impact on the Iranian economy and perhaps affect the calculations in Tehran. And it would give the UN Security Council Permanent Five plus Germany time to explore whether the Iranian government is prepared to consider a negotiated settlement that satisfies international concerns.

Authors

Steven Pifer

What Will Keep a U.S. Defense Secretary Up At Night Through the Next Decade?

Mon, 06 May 2013 15:30:00 -0400

Event Information

May 6, 2013
3:30 PM - 5:00 PM EDT

Saul/Zilkha Rooms
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Editor's Note: This book is available to download now on Kindle and Nook. Hard copy and other e-book versions can be ordered through the Brookings Institution Press.

In his new book, Star Spangled Security: Applying Lessons Learned Over Six Decades Safeguarding America (Brookings, 2012), former U.S. Secretary of Defense Harold Brown (under President James Carter) offers an insider’s view of U.S. national security strategy over service to ten presidencies and bridges it to current challenges facing the United States.

Dr. Brown currently sits on the Defense Policy Board and previously served as secretary of the Air Force under President Lyndon B. Johnson; director of U.S. research and engineering under President John F. Kennedy; president of Caltech; director of Livermore Lab; and a negotiator on the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT I and SALT II). He also led the development of the Polaris missile, nuclear ballistic missiles, the stealth bomber, and put the first GPS satellites in the sky.

On May 6, the Brookings Press hosted a discussion of Star Spangled Security. Drawing on his 60 years safeguarding America, Harold Brown discussed how to balance China’s ambitions with U.S. interests to avoid conflict; whose 3 a.m. phone call from the Pacific is most likely to trigger US military action; what strategic positions in the Middle East and in Africa will best serve American interests; what strategy might prevent rogue nations from using nuclear weapons; lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan that ought to shape response to Syria now; a new perspective on drones; and the best ways to cut defense spending and reform the Defense Department.

Vago Muradian, editor of Defense News, moderated the discussion with Brown.

A Possible "Off Ramp" in North Korea

James E. Goodby — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 14:04:00 -0400

At the Brookings panel discussion on North Korea on April 15, “North Korea and Policy Priorities for the United States,” several important points were made that suggest a connecting of the dots would be useful. First, the consensus appeared to be that Kim Jong-un is calling the shots. Second, there is a high risk of catastrophic miscalculation in the present situation. Third, we should pay attention to what the North Koreans are telling us, "in their own words." Fourth, Kim Jong-un would like to open a discussion with the United States but he has left himself no exit from the current confrontation.

It can be argued that Kim Jong-un has in fact left himself an exit in a variety of ways, of which the most commonly mentioned is that the ending of the current United States-Republic of Korea joint military exercise will permit him to ratchet down the rhetoric. There is one other "off ramp" strategy that is never mentioned at all, which is surprising, considering that it was presented in Kim's own words in a highly public manner. It can be found in Kim Jong-un's New Year's Day speech this year, an address that Kim must have seen as a major statement of his intentions but which has been almost totally ignored.

This is what he said: "All the compatriots in the north, south and abroad should launch a dynamic struggle to carry out to the letter the June 15 Joint Declaration and the October 4 Declaration, great unification programs common to the nation in the new century and milestones for peace and prosperity."

The June 15, 2000 Joint Declaration was signed by then-ROK President Kim Dae-jung and former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il at a summit meeting held in Pyongyang. It included some features from the 1992 Basic Agreement, including family reunification, but was much less sweeping in its reach than the 1992 agreement. Its emphasis was on an independent effort by North and South Korea to achieve reunification. The October 4, 2007 agreement was signed by then-ROK President Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang and was much more programmatic and substantive in content than the June 15, 2000 Declaration. Like the earlier summit declaration, the 2007 agreement stressed what it called "by-the-Korean-people-themselves." In the present crisis-filled atmosphere, paragraph 4 of that document can be read as either an anachronism or as a beacon of hope. This is what it said:

The South and the North both recognize the need to end the current armistice regime and build a permanent peace regime. The South and the North have agreed to work together to advance the matter of having the leaders of the three or four parties directly concerned to convene on the Peninsula and declare an end to the war. With regard to the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula, the South and the North have agreed to work together to implement smoothly the September 19, 2005 Joint Statement and the February 13, 2007 Agreement achieved at the Six-Party Talks.

Of course, both the Declaration in 2000 and the Agreement in 2007 were negotiated by leaders of a party that is now out of power in South Korea, and the North Korean leader has been succeeded by his son. Both documents have been gathering dust in the archives for years. But Kim Jong-un's reference to them gave them new relevance. This is the powerful leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea saying that he and all Koreans should live up to the letter of these documents and he was saying that on January 1, 2013.

As an off-ramp strategy, one can find flaws in it, especially in the possibility that it was intended by Kim Jong-un as an attempt to drive a wedge between new ROK President Park Geun-hye and the leaders of South Korea's allies. It also opens the door to economic cooperation and possibly renewed assistance, difficult to contemplate under today's circumstances, which include the shut-down of the Kaesong Industrial Complex. But skillful diplomacy should certainly be able to exploit for the good whatever good there is in it.

Authors

James E. Goodby

Image Source: © KCNA KCNA / Reuters

North Korea and Policy Priorities for the United States

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:00:00 -0400

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April 15, 2013
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

This event was broadcast live on C-SPAN and cspan.org. Click here to watch online.

In the past months, North Korea has issued a series of threats and provocative actions, from testing a nuclear device and conducting a missile launch—in contravention of multiple United Nations resolutions—to cancelling the armistice ending the Korean War and threatening a new war against the United States and South Korea. Harsh rhetoric from North Korea is nothing new, but some observers feel that the recent threats represent real danger. Others claim that they reflect internal dynamics in North Korea and that the crisis will pass.

On April 15, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted a discussion on the policy priorities for the United States in dealing with North Korea during and after the current crisis. Brookings experts debated the threat to the United States and its allies and analyzed steps that the United States can take to mitigate the danger, including sanctions, engaging allies and neighbors in the region, nonproliferation efforts and, if necessary, responding to aggressive actions by North Korea.

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North Korea and Policy Priorities for the United States

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20130415_north_korea_priorities_transcript

North Korea and Nuclear-Armed Missiles: Calming the Hyperbole

Steven Pifer — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

In recent weeks, the North Korean government has ratcheted up its rhetoric to ever loftier heights, even threatening to rain nuclear fire on the United States. That understandably has fueled concerns, but what can the North Korean military reliably do?

On April 11, a member of Congress cited a Defense Intelligence Agency report stating that DIA had “moderate confidence” that North Korea had mastered the ability to put a nuclear warhead on top of a ballistic missile. That triggered new concerns, followed by a rush of qualifications. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released a statement saying “North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear-armed missile.” A spokesperson for South Korea’s Ministry of Defense expressed “doubt that North Korea has reached the stage of miniaturization.”

So what’s going on?

In order to have a nuclear-armed ballistic missile, North Korea must master three challenges: it needs a nuclear weapon; it needs to miniaturize the weapon so that it can fit inside a ballistic missile warhead and withstand the stresses of flight; and it needs a ballistic missile to deliver the warhead. To provide a credible military capability, it must be able to do these things reliably.

As to the first question, North Korea has nuclear devices. It has conducted three underground explosions, although many judged the first two—conducted in 2006 and 2009—to be partial failures, particularly given their low yields. The 2013 test appears to have been more successful.

Jeffrey Lewis at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies notes that North Korea could take one of two approaches to developing a nuclear bomb. One route, which most other nuclear weapons states followed, is to first test a “simple fission device.” That’s big and heavy—no North Korean missile could carry it—and it produces a yield of 15-20 kilotons, much larger than any of the three North Korean tests. Lewis thus inclines to think the North Koreans are developing a miniaturized weapon, which would produce a smaller yield.

This gets to the second question: the need to fit a nuclear weapon inside a ballistic missile warhead that can withstand the stresses of launch, flight and reentry. North Korea may be working on miniaturizing a bomb to fit in a missile warhead. We do not know how successful, or unsuccessful, they have been. We do not know the size of the three devices they tested.

We do know that the North Koreans have not successfully flight-tested a ballistic missile warhead to a range greater than 1300 kilometers. They have tested and deploy Hwasong and Nodong missiles with ranges up to 1300 kilometers, but longer range missiles mean greater stresses on the warhead. For example, an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) warhead reenters the atmosphere at a speed of five-seven kilometers per second or 10,000-15,000 miles per hour. Higher velocity means more heat and requires more weight to protect the “physics package” of the warhead, which has to survive and function in a very stressful environment.

The third question has to do with ballistic missiles. North Korea is estimated to have 550-600 Hwasong-5 and -6 missiles, variants of the venerable Soviet SCUD, which was first flown in the 1950s and exported around the world. The Hwasong missiles have ranges of 300-500 kilometers, giving them the capability to target South Korea. North Korea’s Nodong missile is an enhanced SCUD. Some 200 are estimated to be deployed. With a range of 1000 to 1300 kilometers, they could reach targets in Japan in addition to South Korea.

For ranges beyond the Nodong, there are much more serious questions about the reliability of North Korean ballistic missiles. The Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile—two of which reportedly now sit on mobile launchers near North Korea’s east coast—is estimated to have a range of 3200 kilometers. However, the Musudan has never been flight-tested. As Greg Thielmann, a ballistic missile expert with the Arms Control Association notes, a missile that has not flown cannot seriously be called operational.

The Taepodong-1, with a range of 2200 kilometers, has flown once, in 1998 as a space-launch vehicle. Its third stage failed. Over the past seven years, the ICBM-class Taepodong-2 is one for five in flights, none of which demonstrated a warhead reentry capability. The one success, last December, was a space-launch variant called the Unha. All three stages worked, though the satellite apparently was left tumbling uselessly in orbit. Finally, there is the KN-08, reputedly an ICBM-class missile, which paraded through the streets of Pyongyang last year. Several theories address it, including that it is a developmental missile or just a fake. It has never flown.

This test history raises serious doubts about North Korea’s long-range missile capabilities. As a 2012 RAND report by Markus Schiller notes, the United States tested its Atlas ICBM 125 times before it became operational, while the Soviet Union tested the R-16 ICBM 90 times before making it operational. In the 1980s, when the United States had much more experience with ballistic missiles, it still conducted 30 developmental flights of the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile.

This is rocket science. Are North Korean engineers so good that they can glean from a handful of flight-tests—or no tests—the information needed to produce a reliable missile, when others conducted dozens of flights? The North Koreans undoubtedly are learning more about missiles (and about reentry vehicles and nuclear weapons), which is of concern. But as General Clapper said, they have not demonstrated the full range of capabilities.

The North Korean leadership bases a big part of its foreign policy on bluster. As an element of this, declaring unproven missiles to be operational makes sense. In such a strategy, it may be less important that the ballistic missiles work reliably—or at all—if one can bluff the outside world into fearing that they do.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Image Source: © KCNA KCNA / Reuters

Big Hurdles Ahead for Arms Control

Steven Pifer — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: This article was originally published by The National Interest.

Four years ago in Prague, President Obama announced his desire to reduce the role and number of nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy and set an ultimate goal of a world free of nuclear arms. He returned to the Czech capital one year later to sign the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). The president has said he wants to do more: cut nuclear weapons further and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Those are worthwhile goals, but achieving them will require overcoming significant challenges.

The New START Treaty limits the United States and Russia each to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads on 700 deployed strategic missiles and bombers. That is a good step, but do those weapons levels make sense twenty years after the end of the Cold War? New START, moreover, covers only a part of the total nuclear arsenals of the superpowers; non-deployed (reserve) strategic warheads and non-strategic (tactical) weapons remain free of any constraint.

The superpowers each have total stockpiles numbering 4,500–5,000 nuclear weapons, more than fifteen times larger than the next nuclear weapons state. Washington and Moscow could easily reduce their arsenals by half and retain robust deterrents—and they would clearly remain top dogs in the nuclear-arms world.

In his January state of the union message, Mr. Obama stated his intention to “engage Russia to seek further reductions in our nuclear arsenals.” Press reports in early February suggested the administration was nearing a decision on reductions to no more than 1,000–1,100 deployed strategic warheads and a total of 2,500–3,500 total nuclear weapons. The administration could pursue this in different ways.

One option would seek to negotiate a U.S.-Russian treaty covering all nuclear weapons. It might limit each side to 2,500 total weapons, with a sublimit of 1,000 deployed strategic warheads. That would reduce the New START level by 35 percent and, more significantly, for the first time cap reserve strategic and tactical nuclear weapons.

Negotiating such an agreement would get into new territory; for example, the sides would need to develop agreed definitions, counting rules and verification measures to apply to the classes of warheads not previously limited. None of that would be easy and would take considerably longer than the eleven months it took to finish New START.

The Obama administration might conclude that it lacks time to finish such a treaty before the end of his second term. It thus might consider a fast deal to reduce New START’s limits. That could be as simple as just negotiating new numbers, for example, a limit of 1,000 deployed strategic warheads in place of 1,550. New START’s definitions, counting rules and verification measures would apply equally well to the new numerical limits. As for reserve strategic and tactical weapons, Washington could seek to engage Moscow in a process beginning with transparency and confidence-building measures and ultimately leading to a negotiation of legally binding limits. However, getting to that negotiation, and then concluding it, would take far longer than agreeing to change the New START limits.

Pursuing either approach would encounter challenges. The first and most critical: is Moscow prepared to engage? President Putin and the Russians have shown little enthusiasm recently for further nuclear arms cuts. They may choose not to play.

Perhaps not, but it is too early to close that door. The Russian government could have incentives to negotiate. For example, while the U.S. military can easily maintain its forces at New START levels, the Russian military must build new missiles to keep to the levels. Lowering New START’s limits could provide an attractive cost-saving measure for Moscow.

National Security Advisor Donilon travels to Moscow next week, and presidents Obama and Putin plan to meet in June and September. Those encounters provide opportunities to sound out the Russians’ readiness to deal.

Verification will pose a special challenge for limits on reserve and tactical nuclear arms. The U.S. intelligence community has high confidence in its ability to monitor New START’s limits. But monitoring constraints on reserve strategic and tactical weapons—which are not deployed on large strategic ballistic missiles but sit in storage bunkers—will prove a tougher task.

In the end, the intelligence community likely will not have the same degree of confidence in its ability to monitor those limits as it does with New START. That will raise questions, particularly in the Senate, though the risk posed by less certainty in monitoring limits on reserve strategic and tactical weapons should be set against the current situation, in which there are no constraints of any kind on those weapons.

A third challenge waits on Capitol Hill. Senate turnover has meant the loss of considerable muscle memory on nuclear arms-control questions. Senate Republicans, moreover, tend to be skeptical about the value of arms control. And they feel that the Obama administration has not moved as fast on nuclear modernization as it promised during the New START ratification debate. So, any new nuclear-reductions treaty would face a stiff test in a ratification vote.

That has led the administration to weigh options other than a legally binding treaty. One could be to seek a political commitment by the U.S. and Russian presidents to cut deployed strategic warheads to one thousand on no more than five hundred deployed strategic delivery vehicles. The sides could use New START’s verification measures to monitor these politically binding limits as well as the legally binding limits of 1,550 and 700.

The administration also would like to secure ratification of the 1996 CTBT. The Senate did not consent to ratification in 1999, primarily due to concerns about the reliability of the U.S. stockpile absent testing and the ability to detect cheating. Developments over the past ten years in the stockpile-stewardship program and advances in monitoring, such as improved seismic techniques, have largely allayed those two worries.

Bear in mind also how hard Nevada fought against storage of nuclear waste at the nuclear test site. With the population of nearby Las Vegas having tripled since 1992, the year of the last U.S. nuclear test, does anyone believe a resumption of testing would be feasible politically? Moreover, the United States carried out more nuclear tests than the rest of the world combined and learned more from individual tests. Why not freeze this American advantage?

Persuading Senate Republicans of the validity of these points nevertheless cannot be taken for granted. The administration will want to do a careful head count before making a CTBT ratification push, as a second negative vote in the Senate would be devastating for the treaty.

The president has said he wants to do more on cutting nuclear-arms levels and moving the CTBT closer to reality. Those are worthy goals that could cement his nuclear legacy and make America more secure. But major challenges stand before his agenda. President Obama has to engage personally, both with the Russians and the Senate, if he wants to overcome them.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Publication: The National Interest

Image Source: © Jason Reed / Reuters

Negotiating with Iran: How Best to Reach Success

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 10:00:00 -0400

Event Information

April 1, 2013
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Negotiators from the P5 plus 1—Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States plus Germany—will sit down with their Iranian counterparts on April 5-6 for another round of talks regarding Iran’s nuclear program. These talks take place as concern grows in the international community that Tehran is nearing the point where it could acquire nuclear weapons capability, and against the backdrop of increasingly biting sanctions on Iran’s financial sector and broader economy.

On April 1, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted a discussion to explore what lessons international negotiators should bear in mind when facing the Iranian delegation. Brookings Distinguished Fellow Javier Solana, who led the European Union’s negotiations with Iran in his capacity as EU high representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, and Gary Samore, who as National Security Council coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction had principal responsibility at the White House on the Iranian nuclear question, described their experiences in dealing with Iran’s negotiators and what factors might lead to a successful outcome. Senior Fellow Steven Pifer, director of the Arms Control Initiative at Brookings, moderated the discussion.

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Negotiating with Iran: How Best to Reach Success

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20130401_negotiating_iran_transcript

Examining North Korea’s Recent Heated Rhetoric

Strobe Talbott, Richard C. Bush III, Michael E. O'Hanlon and Jonathan D. Pollack — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 15:04:00 -0400

As the United States and South Korea undertake joint military exercises, North Korea has responded with harsh rhetoric, saying that its people are “burning with hatred” for the United States. Brookings President Strobe Talbott leads a discussion with Richard Bush, Michael O’Hanlon, and Jonathan Pollack focusing on the latest saber rattling by North Korea and exploring the intentions of Kim-Jong Un, North Korea’s young leader.

Strobe Talbott: Do you think that the current bluster (and more) from Pyongyang represents more of what we’ve seen before from North Korea or is there a real danger of conflict? If the latter, what should the U.S. be doing to prevent that terrible prospect and what would happen if it comes to blows?

Michael O’Hanlon: I recently wrote on the subject in Politico following the third nuclear test in an effort encourage the U.S. against overreaction given Kim Jong-Un's youth and inexperience—and his potential for moderation/change as he ages (I hope!). My proposal was to make any additional sanctions temporary, partly as a way to induce Chinese support and partly as an incentive to North Korea not to test again (since the new sanctions would only sunset in the event of no further tests or big provocations).

But, of course, that's not quite the same as an answer to your question. In light of the above thinking, my own druthers would be to make any upgrades in our capability quietly—even secretly—so as not to provoke the action-reaction cycle we are now in (e.g., sending F-22 aircraft to bases in South Korea to improve the effectiveness of any initial air strikes, but not telling anybody except Seoul).

Richard Bush: The consensus opinion among specialists is that North Korea’s recent actions are the same old-same old, the typical way North Korea responds to U.S.-ROK exercises every year. Specifically, because the regime portrays the exercises as a segue for a U.S.-ROK attack, even nuclear attack, then it must make at least verbal threats about what it will do when that war happens. The intensity this time may have been dialed up a bit because Kim 3.0 is feistier than his father was, but it's a question of degree.

What may happen (or may not) is a limited conventional strike at the DMZ, against a ROK naval ship, or against one of the West Sea Islands (like the one that preceded our November 2010 visit to Seoul). The ROKs have pledged retaliation, which does create the problem of escalation, but how it might play out is speculative at this point.

Talbott: Thanks, Richard. Most convincing and, to a point, reassuring.

O’Hanlon: Yes, to a point, indeed. "Consensus among specialists" is not always a concept I find reassuring, though! I am glad, Richard, that you seem willing to deviate somewhat from that consensus yourself (at least to some extent). This is probably the same old-same old….until it's not, that is. I actually do worry that the U.S. default approach of tit-for-tat with North Korea (and the imposition of additional, permanent sanctions after the third test), while of course morally defensible, may exacerbate the situation in this particular case—which feels somewhat different to me than past periods of bluster.

Talbott: Interesting point, Mike. I’d be interested in your assessment of Kim-Jong Un, or Kim 3.0 as Richard calls him. His recent rhetoric and actions show that he is willing to test the boundaries of what is internationally acceptable. But, I had the impression that he was subject to a lot of supervision from the North Korean military, meaning he doesn't have much autonomy, especially, one hopes, when it comes to declaring the Korean War back on and taking other actions that would significantly escalate the situation.

O’Hanlon: Right and Kim-Jong Un wants to be friends with Dennis Rodman and he grew up largely in Europe—and he doesn't strike me as the suicidal type, so I'm hoping that someday he'll want to be the next leader of a "reform from within" movement as in Vietnam years ago, Burma of late, etc. Obviously a long-shot concept at the moment though....

Jonathan Pollack: The reality is that we don't really know very much about what animates Kim 3.0, so we must infer from what we can observe about his behavior. He seems very much like Kim Il Sung and may even be modeling himself on his grandfather. (He has his physicality and extroversion; even his body language seems reminiscent of the grandfather.) Very few foreigners have met 3.0. The Chinese blessed his succession at an early date (November 2010, as I recall), when a then serving member of the Politburo Standing Committee was on the podium with young Mr. Kim. So far as I can determine no senior Chinese official has met with him since then, and he has not been invited to visit China. In contrast to the distinct warming in China-SK relations (including several messages between Xi Jinping and Pres Park), there is a decided coldness/distancing in China-NK relations. I think Beijing early on calculated that there was a potential opening with 3.0 (as did we—witness the abortive February 29 agreement), but this seems largely a dead letter at this point.

The most troubling possibility is that he is very full of himself, listens to few others, and is now consorting regularly with the North Korean military leadership. Despite some early hopes for reform in the North, he has now wrapped himself in the "military first" rhetoric every bit as much as his father did. Worse yet, he has a successful satellite launch and another nuclear test under his belt, with clear expectations that more could be in the offing.

As I wrote in the Foreign Policy program’s Big Bets-Black Swans project, there needs to be a much more determined effort by the United States and ROK to deal fully with China in the event that things go from bad to worse in Korea. Now is definitely the time, lest we find ourselves in an acute crisis. That said, North Korean propaganda always spikes whenever the U.S. and the ROK are in the middle of major exercises, so perhaps the latest campaign will subside as the exercises wind down next month. But the tone and threats are particularly worrisome at present - even they are intended largely for domestic effect.

O’Hanlon: That's an excellent point, Jonathan, if I may say so (the focus on consultation with China).

I can't disagree with any of the analysis, and of course, you know the dynamics in the region very well. However, I still would venture to say that our February 2012 hopes (just two months into 3.0's rule, when he still hadn't even turned 30 years old as I recall) were unrealistically optimistic that early in his tenure within a Stalinist system, and we should remember how unlikely glasnost and perestroika would have seemed (or Chinese and Vietnamese economic reform) a few years before they occurred. But that's a footnote, not a central argument, of course.

Pollack: I and a few others met with the State Department’s Glyn Davies immediately after the signing the 2/29/12 agreement. He remained very sober about the possibilities—and that it seemed too good to be true. Davies was careful not to oversell the agreement, which, in the end, blew up two weeks later.

Authors

Image Source: © KCNA KCNA / Reuters

Why Jordan Is Building Two New Nuclear Power Plants

John P. Banks — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's note: As Jordan looks to develop a civilian nuclear energy program, some domestic and international analysts are questioning the feasibility and intentions of its efforts. In an interview with Monocle, John Banks suggests that while Jordan’s efforts are the result of domestic energy shortages, its program will be hard to develop for a number of reasons. Read an excerpt below.

Monocle: Now the generally accepted role of Jordan is to be the Middle Eastern country which doesn’t make everybody nervous. Possibly because they would like just a little bit of attention for a change, possibly because, who knows, they have a sincere desire to provide for their future energy requirements, Jordan is about to commission two nuclear reactors.

Amman is believed to be choosing between tenders from a French Japanese consortium and a Russian competitor. Jordan is almost totally dependent on oil and gas imports and this twelve billion euro project would spare Jordan from relying on the stability of their neighbors, which as recent events have reemphasized, is one of the world’s very least reliable qualities. Well joining us now to tell us more is John Banks, non-resident Fellow of the Energy Security Initiative at The Brookings Institution in Washington DC.

First of all, should we be pleased about this?

John Banks: Well, first thanks for having me. It depends on your perspective. Certainly from the Jordanian perspective there are several major drivers why they are pursuing a civilian nuclear energy program. The first is they are looking at annual electricity demand of about eight percent per year over the next decade or so. They are expected to need to add several thousand megawatts of capacity just to keep up with that electricity demand. And secondly, as your intro made reference to, they have energy security reasons for pursuing civilian nuclear power. They really have a situation where they’re highly dependent, as the intro mentioned, overwhelmingly on imports of energy, more than 90% dependent imports for energy across the economy, but in particular in transport and in power generation. One of their overall strategies is to diversify fuel sources and in particular to limit reliance on imported fossil fuels.

Monocle: The trouble that has been in the past though is that Jordan has had quite a stop-start nuclear program. It has been stopped by the Israelis; it has been stopped by the Americans. Obviously there is some fundamental concern about, not lightly, the safety of this.

Banks: Any country, but particularly a country that is pursuing its first nuclear reactor is going to be faced with a variety of very serious challenges, not the least of which is the need to develop a very robust framework to provide for the safe operation of the facilities as well as the security of the facilities and also to prevent proliferation. These are some of the major challenges that any county is faced with, but particularly for a country pursuing its first reactor. If you are starting from a position where you have no nuclear infrastructure and very little human resources capacity, this is a very big challenge. You need to develop a legal and regulatory framework, put in place the human resources capabilities, and allocate sufficient funding to ensure that this sector is operating according to the highest standards. So there is no question that, I think the Jordanian government recognizes the challenges, the question is are they going to be able to overcome them.

Listen to the full interview » (starts at 17:30)

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John P. Banks

Publication: The Monocle Daily

Image Source: © Muhammad Hamed / Reuters

U.S.-South Korea Relations in Obama's Second Term: Managing Challenge and Change

Evans J.R. Revere — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:46:00 -0500

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Only weeks into his second term, President Obama is facing the looming prospect of a nuclear-armed North Korea with a long-range ballistic missile capability. Pyongyang’s successful nuclear and missile tests serve as stark reminders that North Korea is making progress in its goal to develop a nuclear strike capability. Now, as President Obama begins to work with his newly inaugurated South Korean counterpart, the North Korean regime is making highly bellicose threats against both the United States and its South Korean ally.

North Korea tops the list of challenges facing the U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance, and it will require priority attention by Obama and Park Geun-hye, South Korea’s first female president and a strong supporter of the alliance. Before assuming office, Park had hoped to engage Pyongyang in “trust-building” diplomacy. North Korea’s latest actions have given her pause, but domestic political needs may require her to test Pyongyang’s willingness to engage. U.S. patience will be needed as President Park forms her government and develops her North Korea policy.

Washington and Seoul have coordinated very well together on North Korea, and the United States would be wise to keep ROK concerns firmly in mind as it mulls how to respond to the latest North Korean threats. An early, well-prepared U.S.-ROK summit, together with a “2+2” defense and foreign ministers’ meeting, will help ensure that the two presidents are on the same page, that the alliance is ready for any contingency, and that Pyongyang does not misinterpret planned changes to our military command structure as a lack of readiness. A U.S.-ROK summit should also issue a strong restatement of our commitment to defend the ROK, including by the provision of extended nuclear deterrence, which commits the United States’ nuclear arsenal to the defense of our ally.

The U.S.-ROK alliance is stronger than ever and well placed to deal with other challenges, as well, including a rising China, a changing regional power environment, historical and territorial legacy issues, deterioration in ROK-Japan relations, and the need to modernize the alliance. U.S.-ROK strategic dialogue should explore in depth the implications of China’s rise and discuss how to increase support in Beijing for a reunified Korean Peninsula. The United States should encourage new leaders in Seoul and Tokyo to put pragmatism and common interest ahead of other concerns and rebuild bilateral cooperation.

As for North Korea, Pyongyang claims denuclearization is off the table and is seeking international acceptance of its status as a nuclear weapons state, something we must not do. Past attempts to end the North’s nuclear program have failed and there may now be no prospect for putting the nuclear genie back in bottle. A new approach is needed to deal with the current impasse, particularly in light of the credible nuclear threat that the DPRK will pose in the near future.

A new situation requires a new negotiating paradigm: We need to talk with those who actually make the decisions in Pyongyang. Only if we engage the North Korean leadership can we lay out a stark choice for them and determine whether denuclearization is dead. This new approach might not succeed, but the current approach will fail.

A prominent U.S. presidential envoy should meet with the North Korean leadership’s inner circle. On behalf of the U.S. President, the envoy should deliver a message that conveys U.S. determination to defend itself and its allies and warns we will act if the North uses or proliferates nuclear weapons or materials. The envoy should also say we are prepared to resolve the nuclear and missile issues in the framework of a comprehensive package that would fundamentally change the nature of U.S.-North Korea ties. We should sharpen both incentives and disincentives for Pyongyang and make its choices as clear as possible. The wrong choice by the DPRK will strengthen support for stronger action by the United States, particularly with China and Russia, which place some of the blame for the current impasse on Washington.

Simultaneously, the United States and its ROK and other allies should actively prepare for the time when we will face a nuclear-armed North Korea with an ICBM capability. We should greatly raise the cost to North Korea of its pursuit of nuclear weapons and missiles. The North’s banking system, including its links to the international financial system, offers a target of opportunity that could begin to undermine the regime’s confidence in its ability to survive.

A more vigorous approach should include much stricter sanctions implementation, including the possibility of stopping suspect DPRK vessels on the high seas; additional steps to isolate the North politically; enhanced deployment of missile defense systems around the Korean Peninsula, including in Japan and at sea; the introduction of more advanced air and naval assets into the Northeast Asia region; more frequent military exercises; and covert measures to affect the North’s WMD programs.

The above approach carries risks, including for our ROK ally, making the closest possible coordination and transparency with Seoul more important than ever. The U.S.-ROK alliance today rests on a solid foundation of trust, cooperation, and shared principles. That foundation will serve the two countries well as they deal with the new challenges that lie before them.

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Evans J.R. Revere

Image Source: © KCNA KCNA / Reuters

Obama Renews Arms-Control Push

Michael E. O'Hanlon and Steven Pifer — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

In his State of the Union address, President Obama said that his administration will engage Moscow to seek further reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, returning to the nuclear arms-reduction agenda that he first laid out in an April 2009 speech in Prague.

The president in Prague called for reducing the role and number of nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy and embraced the goal of a world free of nuclear arms—though he cautioned that much had to happen in order to get to zero. One year later, in April 2010, he recorded his most important arms-control achievement, signing the New START Treaty.

That treaty began its third year of implementation last week. It requires that the United States and Russia each reduce its nuclear forces to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads on no more than seven hundred deployed strategic missiles and bombers. Those limits kick in fully in 2018.

To be sure, New START represents progress. But its levels hardly make sense twenty years after the end of the Cold War.

The president indicated he is prepared to go further. His administration reportedly is considering seeking to reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear forces to a level of 1,000-1,100 deployed strategic warheads. That would be a welcome step. It would cut the number of Russian warheads capable of striking America by 30 percent.

At the same time, the lower level would mean that the Pentagon could build and operate fewer strategic systems in the future, which would save precious defense dollars. The U.S. military nevertheless would still maintain a robust triad of missiles on submarines, land-based missiles and bombers that would deter any adversary from attacking the United States or its allies.

The White House reportedly also would like to expand reductions to include all U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons—reserve strategic warheads and tactical (or non-strategic) weapons as well as deployed strategic warheads. That makes sense as the distinction between strategic and non-strategic becomes increasingly blurry.

At present, New START covers only one-third of the Russian and American arsenals. By constraining all nuclear weapons, a new approach would address the large number of Russian tactical nuclear arms that concern U.S. allies in Europe and Asia. They worry the Senate as well; ratification opponents criticized New START for failing to include tactical weapons.

Limiting all U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons would put Washington and Moscow in a stronger position to insist that any subsequent reductions involve the other nuclear weapons states, most of whose weapons are not strategic.

The Obama administration will face two big challenges in reinvigorating the nuclear agenda. First, how will Moscow respond? The Russians have shown little enthusiasm for further cuts and bear much responsibility for the fact that arms control languished in 2011-2012.

The Russians, however, may have incentives to engage. The U.S. military can with its current force structure easily stay at the New START limits, while the Russian military must build new missiles to do so. Lowering the limits would offer Moscow a chance to save money. Also of interest to the Russians: putting all weapons on the table would mean constraining reserve strategic warheads, where the U.S. military has a significant numerical advantage.

If the Russians engage—admittedly, still an open question—Republicans in the Senate will pose the second big challenge. They are skeptical of arms control in general. The White House and others were surprised by how tough it was to secure ratification of New START. Would Senate Republicans consent to ratification of a new treaty with lower limits? Or would the administration adopt a less formal approach that would obviate the need for Senate approval?

It is not clear whether President Obama’s new arms-reduction push will be able to overcome these challenges. In any case, he should test the proposition with the Russians and put this issue at the top of the agenda when national-security advisor Tom Donilon visits Moscow later this month.

If the Russians show interest, long months of hard bargaining will lie ahead. The sides will have to deal with questions—such as verifying limits on nuclear weapons at storage sites—that they have not faced before. Then there might (or might not) be a debate in the Senate. But success would mean that the president could leave a transformational nuclear legacy when he departs office in 2017. More importantly, Americans would be safer and more secure.

Authors

Publication: The National Interest

Iran’s Nuclear Program: Is a Peaceful Solution Possible?

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 10:00:00 -0500

Event Information

February 19, 2013
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EST

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

After several years of increasingly punishing sanctions against its economy, there is hope that Iran is now prepared to resume negotiations with the international community to reach a solution to the ongoing nuclear standoff. Many experts fear that Iran is quickly approaching the nuclear threshold, and that 2013 could be the last chance to avoid this outcome. If the international community cannot seize that opportunity, it may be left only with much worse alternatives.

On February 19, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings hosted a discussion to examine strategies for resolving the nuclear standoff. Panelists included former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, co-founder of The Iran Project, who presented the organization’s latest set of recommendations for addressing the nuclear issue, and Brookings Senior Fellow Kenneth Pollack. Senior Fellow Tamara Cofman Wittes, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion.

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Iran’s Nuclear Program: Is a Peaceful Solution Possible?

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The Implications of North Korea's Third Nuclear Test

Richard C. Bush III and Jonathan D. Pollack — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 09:37:00 -0500

We do not yet know how much North Korea has advanced its nuclear weapons program as a result of today’s test. Specialists are intensely curious about the fissile material used (plutonium or enriched uranium) and the design of device. Pyongyang claims that the latest test was of a smaller, lighter weapon, and the available seismic data indicates an appreciably greater explosive yield than either of the prior tests. The North is undoubtedly making progress, and it is not too early to assess the implications of this test – and the successful ballistic missile launch in December – for the interests of all countries immediately affected by the detonation.

Kim Jong Un very likely sees himself as the big winner from today’s test. Kim became North Korea’s top leader following the death of his father Kim Jong Il fourteen months ago. His principal goal since then has been to establish his own personal legitimacy and preserve that of the Kim Royal Family. In that regard, securing progress on the missile and nuclear programs is the coin of the realm.

For the United States and Japan, the two tests confirm past judgments about Pyongyang’s long-term intentions. That is, the DPRK is intent on acquiring the ability to strike the continental United States as well as Japan with nuclear weapons, an objective that no package of outside incentives is likely to prevent. The stakes are high. Should North Korea succeed in its quest, it will significantly destabilize the security of Northeast Asia and increase the dangers of proliferation to other regions.

Some will fault Washington, Tokyo, and Seoul for not having engaged Pyongyang to head off the tests of recent months, but there is little or no evidence that Kim Jong Un would have been any more responsive to engagement than his father. Instead, the U.S., Japan, and South Korea have sought in recent years to “sharpen North Korea’s choices,” between sustaining its nuclear and missile programs, in contrast to heightened economic and political benefits with the international community. All three states will likely respond to today’s test by seeking to tighten sanctions. There is ample room to improve the implementation of existing measures, and new financial sanctions are available (see the current Iran menu). But a question lingers, are we indeed shaping North Korea’s choices or is it shaping ours?

The third nuclear test puts China’s new leadership on the hot seat. Under its previous leader Hu Jintao Beijing had multiple objectives in its North Korea strategy: restrain DPRK provocations; limit the impact of multilateral sanctions so that they do not stabilize the North Korean regime; provide economic support to Pyongyang to enhance stability and encourage better behavior; and facilitate a diplomatic approach for managing the problem, if not solving it. By testing in defiance of China’s wishes, Pyongyang has once again demonstrated that it has a very different agenda. It is betting that Beijing’s threats of punishment (as under Hu Jintao) are all bark and no bite. In effect, it is testing China’s new paramount leader, Xi Jinping. Will he cooperate with Washington in tightening sanctions and withdraw material and political benefits to Kim Jong Un? Or will Xi accommodate to a new status quo? Those questions will occupy the Beijing leadership during the Chinese New Year holiday.

The DPRK’s action probably has the greatest impact on South Korea’s president-elect, Park Geun-hye, who will be inaugurated on February 25^th. Madame Park had campaigned on the premise that the North Korea policies of the current president, Lee Myung Bak, had been too tough and one-sided. She had proposed the creation of a “trust-building” process with Pyongyang and a focus on areas of potential mutual benefit. Much of the South Korean public supported that stance when they cast their votes. With today’s nuclear test, Kim Jong Un has signaled that any acts of accommodation must come solely from the South Korean side, thus putting Madame Park on the defensive. Her initiative is now very unlikely to get off the ground. Any claims that the test was directed against outgoing President Lee will ring hollow to the new president, compelling her to rethink her approach to future dealings with the North.

Authors

Possible Scope and Conditions for Information-Sharing and Confidence-Building Measures Regarding Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons in Europe

Steven Pifer — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

At a February 7-8 workshop in Warsaw sponsored by the Polish Institute of International Affairs, the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Brookings senior fellow Steven Pifer presented a paper examining possible information-sharing and confidence-building measures regarding U.S. and Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe.

His paper also discussed useful antecedents from earlier arms control agreements. He concluded that data exchanges, including historical data related to the 1991-92 presidential nuclear initiatives, which eliminated thousands of U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads; affirming policies of keeping non-strategic warheads "demated" or separate from delivery systems; and visits to former nuclear weapons storage sites could be useful first steps for the United States, Russia and NATO.

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Prospects for Progress at New Talks with Iran

Bruce Riedel — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's note: In an interview with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) Bruce Riedel discusses the future of U.S. relations with Iran.

USIP: The world’s six major powers and Iran are due to hold the fourth round of talks in Kazakhstan on February 25. What has to happen to make these talks a success—even if it just means enough to hold a fifth round?

Bruce Riedel: Iran would need to announce a tangible reversal of its enrichment program for the talks to be a success. But, for those who believe like Churchill that “to jaw, jaw” is always better than “to war, war,” agreeing to a fifth round of talks would be good enough.

USIP: How important is Iran in John Kerry’s first year as secretary of state—and why?

Riedel: Iran is certain to be a central issue on Secretary of State Kerry’s agenda. The United States is reaching the moment of truth--one way or another--on Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability. Iran’s technological capacity is getting to a critical point.

On the other hand, Kerry is likely to face a large number of burning crises when he takes office. The conflict in Syria will be a pressing one. There are serious security issues in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well. Tensions between North and South Korea could boil over. The territorial dispute between China and Japan could intensify. So Kerry’s hands will be more than full. But Iran will be high on his agenda.

USIP:What factors might encourage a meaningful deal on the nuclear issue?

Riedel: The growing impact of economic sanctions is the main factor encouraging Iran to make a deal. The Iranians are clearly hurting as sanctions are causing serious distress. But the impact of sanctions may not be a deciding factor in Tehran’s final analysis. Iran has been under U.S. sanctions for three decades. It also survived high inflation and austerity during the 1980-1988 war with Iraq. Other countries have endured sanctions for long periods as well.

Maybe the country will suffer so badly economically that the leadership has no choice but to cry uncle. Iran’s Central Bank reported that the annual inflation rate hit 27.4 percent at the end of 2012, one of the highest official levels ever reported in Iran. And the actual rate could be three or four times higher than the official figure.

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Authors

Bruce Riedel

Publication: United States Institute of Peace

Senator Hagel and Nuclear Weapons

Steven Pifer — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 11:00:00 -0500

Critics of Senator Chuck Hagel’s nomination to be Secretary of Defense cite his views on nuclear arms reduction, including his endorsement of a proposal to cut U.S. nuclear weapons to 900 and his membership in Global Zero, as potentially dangerous to U.S. security. Are Hagel’s positions really over the top?

The senator endorsed a proposal to reduce to 900 total nuclear weapons in a 2012 Global Zero paper. That might be too low for the next step after the New START Treaty. In a recent book—The Opportunity: Next Steps in Reducing Nuclear Arms—Mike O’Hanlon and I proposed a new U.S.-Russia treaty to cut each side to 2000-2500 total nuclear weapons, in large part because we doubt Moscow would agree to go lower without bringing in third-country nuclear arsenals.

The Global Zero paper called for eliminating all intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and maintaining 450 nuclear weapons deployed on submarine-launched ballistic missiles and at bomber bases, with another 450 weapons held in reserve. I personally would prefer to keep some ICBMs in the force mix. That said, if our nearest peer competitor, Russia, also reduced to 900 total weapons, what would be wrong with the outcome? The United States could still maintain a secure, reliable, effective and powerful nuclear deterrent; each of the 900 weapons would be many times the explosive force of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Such an agreement, moreover, could offer significant defense budget savings, particularly as we face tough decisions on recapitalizing our strategic nuclear systems.

Twenty years after the end of the Cold War, 900 nuclear weapons ought to suffice to deter Russia. As for third countries, assume that the Global Zero proposal was adopted by the United States and Russia with others agreeing to do nothing more than freeze their arsenals at current levels. That would narrow the gap between the two nuclear superpowers and other countries, but of the next largest nuclear powers, two—France and Britain—are U.S. allies. The third, China, reportedly has about 300 nuclear weapons, but the number that can reach the United States is just 60, less than one-seventh the number of deployed U.S. warheads under the Global Zero plan.

Negotiating a U.S.-Russia treaty to reduce to 900 would not be easy, but if achieved, nuclear deterrence would continue to function. The burden should be on skeptics to explain which third country would act in a dramatically different manner to challenge U.S. security or that of America’s allies.

Critics also express concern about Hagel’s membership in Global Zero (full disclosure: I also am a member). That organization advocates the goal of eliminating all nuclear arms. Almost every American president since 1945 has endorsed zero nuclear weapons as an ultimate goal. In 1986 in Reykjavik, Ronald Reagan came close to an agreement with Mikhail Gorbachev that would have eliminated all U.S. and Soviet nuclear weapons within ten years.

Nuclear deterrence has been a key element of U.S. security policy for decades, and it helped keep the peace between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War—with one big qualifier: at several points, the United States, the Soviet Union and the world got awfully lucky. What would have happened, for example, if John Kennedy had taken the counsel of most of his advisors and ordered air strikes on Cuba, followed by an invasion, instead of a naval blockade? U.S. intelligence did not then know that the Soviet commander on the island had tactical nuclear weapons and had been given authority to use them in the event of an attack.

Will we always be lucky, particularly if the number of nuclear-weapons states increases? At the time of the Cuban missile crisis, four countries had nuclear arms. Today the number is nine. Today the odds of a nuclear weapon being used are greater than during the Cold War. We face the threat of nuclear-armed rogue states and the ultimate nightmare: a nuclear bomb in the hands of a terrorist organization.

A genuinely non-nuclear world would eliminate that risk. It would offer distinct security advantages for the United States, which has friendly neighbors on its borders, the protection afforded by the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and the world’s most powerful conventional military. In a world without nuclear weapons, the United States could still practice deterrence to protect itself and its allies. U.S. conventional military capabilities would pose very heavy costs to a potential adversary.

Getting to zero would be hugely difficult, as Hagel and other serious advocates acknowledge. It would require extremely intrusive verification measures, a near automatic enforcement mechanism in the event of cheating, and settlement of long-standing international disputes. Zero nevertheless remains a sensible goal; we can move toward it in a step-by-step process of nuclear arms reductions, even if we do not know if we ultimately can get all the way there or how long it might take.

Reductions to 900 warheads or the ultimate elimination of all nuclear arms will not be simple to achieve. But we should ask two questions. What are the requirements of nuclear deterrence in the 21st century? And can we break out of the nuclear legacy of the past 60 years? Hagel seems to be asking those questions. Choosing to ignore them means consigning ourselves to continued reliance on lots of nuclear weapons … and luck.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Image Source: Ralph Alswang

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