Digests and Blog

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) celebrated its 15th anniversary February 17, 2012. Established in 1997 following the opening for signature of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the organization has matured and its global monitoring capabilities have improved, particularly in the paste decade. Speaking at an event marking the anniversary at the CTBTO’s headquarters in Vienna, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged all countries, particularly those whose ratifications are necessary for entry into force, to sign and/or ratify the Treaty without delay. To date, 157…

The Natanz enrichment complex. (UPDATED at 7:50pm EST) By Peter Crail and Daryl G. Kimball The latest quarterly IAEA report on Iran is now in circulation and provides an updated summary of Iran's nuclear activities and capabilities. The Feb. 24 report suggests that Iran is continuing to make steady progress expanding its enrichment capabilities, but it does not identify any breakthroughs. It also confirms initial impressions that Iran's announcements last week on a series of "nuclear advances" were hyped. Here is our brief summary of key takeaways: Fordow Repurposed Again The agency notes…

Image Source: The Guardian By Peter Crail Iran's formal response to the P5+1 expressing a willingness to discuss its nuclear program helps pave the way for the first such meeting in over a year. The two sides should now work to begin sustained negotiations aimed at ensuring that Iran meets its nonproliferation obligations. Another P5+1 round with Iran is a good start, but by itself will not likely produce a long-term deal that resolves the key issues. Resolving the nuclear issue will require sufficient pressure and inducements to convince Iran's current and future leaders they stand to gain…

By Tom Z. Collina A new study in the March 2012 issue of Science & Global Security suggests that North Korea carried out a small nuclear explosive test in May 2010. If true, this would be the third nuclear test by North Korea and its first that was not announced. CTBTO radionuclide monitoring station, Okinawa, Japan The study argues that because there was no seismic reading to indicate a nuclear explosion at that time, the explosive yield of any such event would have been less than 50 tons (or .05 kilotons). The fact that a test this small could have been detected at all is a promising…

A paper in the March issue of the journal Science & Global Security titled "Radionuclide Evidence for Low-Yield Nuclear Testing in North Korea" by Lars-Erik De Geer, Research Director at the Swedish Defence Research Agency claims that North Korea may have carried out a very low-yield nuclear weapon test explosion in May 2010. North Korea is known to have conducted a nuclear test explosion in 2006 and again in 2009. The paper says that radionuclide data collected between 14 and 23 May 2010 at stations in South Korea, Japan and Russia suggest that North Korea carried out a very low-yield…

By Greg Thielmann DNI James Clapper Testifies at Jan. 31 Senate Intelligence Committee Hearing The United States' intelligence community's judgments on Iran's nuclear program have not fundamentally changed from those revealed in its controversial 2007 National Intelligence Estimate. In presenting the intelligence community's annual "Worldwide Threat Assessment" to the Senate Committee on Intelligence on January 31, Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper used language identical to that used in recent years on a number of critical points: We continue to assess Iran is keeping open…

Today is the first annual National Downwinders Day, recognizing the many people across the United States--but especially in the Mountain West--who were affected by radiation exposure from nuclear test explosions in Nevada. Last year the US Senate voted unanimously to honor downwinders with a special day of recognition. Today is also the 61st anniversary of the nuclear test code-named "Able," the first of 928 nuclear test explosions in Nevada. There's a great collection of information on the health effects of the resulting atmospheric fallout from the CTBT Organization online here. There…

HMS Vanguard launches US-supplied Trident II D5 SLBM off Florida in October 2005. (Image Source: FAS.org.) By Daryl G. Kimball (Note: this post was updated on Jan. 27) Today, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta issued a whitepaper outlining the budgetary implications of the Obama administration's new defense strategic guidance and Congressionally-mandated deficit reduction measures, including the effect on some U.S. nuclear weapons strategic delivery systems. The Jan. 5 strategic guidance review correctly states that: "It is possible that our deterrence goals can be achieved with a smaller…

By Greg Thielmann U.S. policy-makers grappling with the Iranian nuclear challenge require the same psychological insight required for success in playing the stock market. The advice, "buy low, sell high," may be obvious, but it is difficult to apply in practice, because investors' emotions lead them in exactly the opposite direction. When stock prices are rising, one feels good and wants to hold on to stocks in order to maximize the higher returns; when the prices are falling, one feels like selling before any more value is lost. The trick is not to be too greedy or too desperate and let the…

Paul van den IJssel of the Netherlands, president of the 2011 BWC Review Conference, and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (Image Source: U.S. Mission to Geneva) By Oliver Meier The December 2011 review conference of the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) demonstrated the danger of the bioweapons ban drifting into irrelevance. Standstill was the motto of the meeting. Only incremental improvements on some procedural issues were achieved. Between now and the next review conference in 2016, it is going to be near to impossible to take decisions that will strengthen the treaty.…