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NEWS BRIEFS
Ukraine to Meet 2001 START I Deadline
THEL Test a Success
State and Lockheed Settle Export Control Dispute
U.S., Pakistan Resume Non-Proliferation Talks
Senate Authorizes Unilateral Nuclear Reductions
China Repeats Call for CD Outer Space Talks
Congress Approves Helicopters for Colombia
Ukraine to Meet 2001 START I Deadline
Ukraine will destroy its remaining strategic nuclear bombers and cruise missiles by the end of 2001, meeting its commitments under START I, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry announced May 25. Ukraine currently has 15 strategic bombers and 354 cruise missiles, all slated for dismantlement before December 2001, the treaty implementation deadline.
Under the Lisbon Protocol, signed in May 1992, Ukraine committed itself to accede to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a non-nuclear-weapon state. This action was taken in concert with its ratification of START I, which designated Ukraine as one of the successor states to the Soviet Union. Under the terms of the Trilateral Agreement, signed in January 1994 by the United States, Ukraine, and Russia, Ukraine agreed to transfer its strategic nuclear weapons to Russia in exchange for security assurances, compensation for fissile material contained in the weapons, and financial assistance.
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma announced in June 1996 that all strategic nuclear warheads had been transferred to Russia. But strategic nuclear delivery vehicles on Ukrainian soil remain START-accountable because the treaty regulates warheads by limiting their associated delivery vehicles. Ukraine has continued to dismantle its strategic nuclear delivery vehicles with U.S. assistance under the Cooperative Threat Reduction program.
THEL Test a Success
Under development for nearly four years, the joint U.S.-Israeli Tactical High Energy Laser (THEL) destroyed an in-flight, short-range Katyusha rocket for the first time during a June 6 test. Although Lieutenant General John Costello, commanding general of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, hailed the test as turning "science fiction into reality," the laser must still undergo several more tests, including tests against multiple rockets, before being shipped to Israel later this year, as currently planned.
Stemming from an April 1996 commitment from President Bill Clinton to then-Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres to help defend northern Israeli cities from terrorist attacks, THEL is a high-energy chemical laser designed to shoot down short-range rockets. In the June 6 test, THEL identified, tracked, and shot down the Katyusha rocket, which was traveling at about a speed of Mach 1, without any preprogrammed information on the rocket's trajectory or outside guidance. The effective range of the laser is classified, and its operational performance is susceptible to environmental factors, such as wind, rain, and fog.
At present, Israel only intends to take delivery of the current THEL demonstrator, while the United States has no plans to acquire the system, which Pentagon officials say is not mobile enough for U.S. defense needs. However, a U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command spokesperson remarked that the "THEL success demonstrates that high-energy lasers do have the potential for meeting the Army's need" for defenses against rockets, mortars, and artillery. The current program is expected to total more than $250 million dollars, including an Israeli contribution of $67.5 million.
State and Lockheed Settle Export Control Dispute
The State Department and the Lockheed Martin Corporation reached a settlement in their dispute over the company's alleged transfer of technical reports detailing sensitive rocket information to a company partially owned by the Chinese government, the State Department reported June 14. The aerospace company will have to pay $13 million in fines, the highest civil penalty ever imposed under the Arms Control Export Act and the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.
The State Department charged Lockheed Martin April 4 with the violations, contending that the firm had supplied the Chinese Asia Satellite Telecommunications Corporation with an illegal technical assessment of a Chinese Long March rocket kick motor in 1994. The Long March rocket had failed twice in 1992 to properly deliver satellites to its targets but successfully launched a satellite in 1995, after Lockheed Martin provided its report. The U.S. government was concerned that Lockheed Martin's appraisal may have identified weaknesses that could have helped China's ballistic missile program. (See ACT, May 2000.)
Under the terms of the settlement, Lockheed Martin will have to pay $8 million in fines over four years and is required to spend $5 million on specified measures to upgrade its internal security procedures, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher explained June 14. One such measure is the institution of a computer control system that will "cover all technical data and technical assistance in any form to all foreign persons," according to the settlement. The departments of State and Defense will have access to this computer system for the next four years, Boucher said.
The settlement neared the maximum penalty of $15 million but did not include the harshest punishment: denial of satellite export licenses for up to three years. Lockheed Martin was not required to admit or deny guilt as a result of the settlement. In a statement made June 15, the Chinese Foreign Ministry characterized the charges as "entirely groundless."
U.S., Pakistan Resume Non-Proliferation Talks
Reviving non-proliferation talks dormant since February 1999, Pakistani Foreign Minister Abdul Sattar visited Washington June 15 to meet with Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and other high-level U.S. officials. Initiated after the May 1998 Indian-Pakistani nuclear tests, the talks, which have also been undertaken with India, have produced little concrete progress to date. Instability on the subcontinent—including the April 1999 fall of the Indian government, ongoing Indian-Pakistani fighting in Kashmir, and the October 1999 coup that ousted Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif—contributed to the long lapse since the last meeting.
The latest round of talks covered a wide range of non-proliferation and security issues, including the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), a fissile material cutoff treaty, potential restraints on Pakistan's nuclear program, export controls, and the security environment in South Asia. The U.S. and Pakistani views are reportedly closest on national export controls and steps that could lead to Pakistan's signature of the CTBT, while they remain sharply divided on nuclear restraints and ways to improve the security environment on the subcontinent. Their positions reportedly converge somewhat on steps to negotiate and conclude a fissile material cutoff treaty.
A follow-up meeting has not been scheduled, but the two sides agreed to "continue to work closely together to prevent further proliferation, an arms race, and conflict in the region," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said during a June 16 briefing.
Senate Authorizes Unilateral Nuclear Reductions
The Senate approved an amendment to the fiscal year 2001 defense authorization bill that allows the president to implement unilateral nuclear reductions below START I levels following a strategic review. The amendment, approved June 7 by a largely party-line vote of 51-47, with most Republicans in support and most Democrats in opposition, would partially overturn a previous amendment in place since 1998 that prohibits the president from implementing unilateral reductions until START II enters into force. The amendment must now be considered in conference between the Senate and the House.
Senator John Warner (R-VA) put forward the amendment as an alternative to an amendment offered by Senator Bob Kerrey (D-NE). Kerrey's amendment sought to repeal the restriction entirely, while Warner's requires a strategic nuclear posture review before reductions are implemented. Warner's amendment also appears to leave in place the original amendment's restriction on "early deactivation" of weapons absent a negotiated U.S.-Russian deactivation agreement in the context of START II. The early-deactivation restriction limits many possible forms of dealerting, including removing warheads and taking other steps to "remove…systems from combat status."
Support for repealing the unilateral reductions restriction built in the Senate after George W. Bush, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, announced in a May 23 speech that he would pursue unilateral nuclear reductions if elected. (See ACT, June 2000.) Warner offered his amendment June 6, apparently in a last-ditch effort to oppose the Kerrey amendment. Arms control advocates have long called for repeal of the restriction, arguing that it requires the United States to maintain an unnecessarily large arsenal even if Russia's arsenal declines dramatically below START I levels.
The Warner amendment's posture review requirement appears to be directed toward allowing the next president to implement reductions while preventing President Bill Clinton from doing so. The nuclear posture required must be conducted concurrently with the next Quadrennial Defense Review, scheduled to be concluded in December 2001.
China Repeats Call for CD Outer Space Talks
Without naming the United States, on June 22, China cited national and theater missile defenses as examples of programs aimed at the domination of outer space. Speaking to the UN Conference on Disarmament (CD), Ambassador Hu Xiaodi repeated China's long-standing call for the 66-member conference to begin negotiations to prevent an arms race in outer space. Sole U.S. opposition to such negotiations, combined with China's refusal to start any negotiations without formal outer space talks, has prevented the conference, which operates by consensus, from starting any arms control negotiations this year. Claiming that current efforts to amend the 1972 ABM Treaty, which proscribes national strategic missile defenses, are only the "tip of the iceberg," Hu warned that the ABM Treaty would be "increasingly weakened, leading to its total abolition." According to Hu, such a development would lead to the weaponization of and an arms race in outer space, as well as "trigger off global weapons proliferation." If negotiations do not start now to prevent the weaponization of outer space, Hu concluded that the CD would eventually need to undertake negotiations on the disarmament of outer space.
The United States, which is seeking to modify the ABM Treaty to permit a limited U.S. national missile defense, maintains that there is no arms race in outer space and that the 1967 Outer Space Treaty banning the stationing of weapons of mass destruction in outer space is sufficient. Washington's preference is to start negotiations on a fissile material cutoff treaty and to discuss, but not negotiate on, outer space as well as nuclear disarmament. But Hu indicated that China wanted "negotiating mechanisms" for all three items.
At this year's nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference, the NPT states-parties, which include China, urged the conference to complete negotiations on a fissile material cutoff treaty within five years. Conference members last agreed on cutoff negotiations in August 1998, but formal talks did not get underway before the negotiating session expired.
The conference concludes the second of its three working periods July 7. Finland's CD ambassador, also speaking June 22, warned that there was little time left to reach an agreement for doing any substantive work in the CD's final negotiating session this year, scheduled to take place from August 7 to September 22.
Congress Approves Helicopters for Colombia The United States will provide Colombia with 18 UH-60L Blackhawk and 42 UH-1H Huey II helicopters, as well as support for another 15 UH-1N Huey helicopters, as part of a $1.3 billion counter-narcotics aid package approved by Congress at the close of June. The Colombia package was part of a larger $11.2 billion spending bill approved by the House of Representatives on June 29 and by the Senate a day later. President Bill Clinton welcomed passage of the bill and is expected to sign the legislation soon.
In January, the Clinton administration announced it would seek 30 Blackhawk and 33 Huey helicopters for Colombia, but the Senate subsequently endorsed shipping 60 of the cheaper Hueys, while the House sought a package of 30 Blackhawks. On June 22, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon pushed the Blackhawks, arguing that they are more capable and more survivable than the Hueys, as well as more compatible with Colombia's helicopter force, which includes 31 Blackhawks and has another 14 on order. The ranking members of the Senate and House appropriations committees worked out the final compromise.
The helicopters are intended for counter-narcotic operations. The U.S. State Department estimates Colombia is the source for more than 80 percent of the cocaine that enters the United States. Sensitive to criticism that the United States may entangle itself in Colombia's ongoing war with a number of rebel groups, the State Department argued in March that U.S. support for the Colombian military "is targeted at reducing the flow of narcotics and not against guerrilla or paramilitary groups." However, the aid will help fund a drive by the military to gain control of drug-producing areas in southern Colombia, where anti-government forces control much of the territory.
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