Login/Logout

*
*  

“We continue to count on the valuable contributions of the Arms Control Association.”

– President Joe Biden
June 2, 2022
July/August 2018
Edition Date: 
Sunday, July 1, 2018
Cover Image: 

Navy, NNSA Say No to Naval LEU


July/August 2018
By Kingston Reif

The U.S. Navy and Energy Department jointly determined that the United States should not pursue research and development of an advanced naval nuclear fuel system using low-enriched uranium (LEU) instead of highly enriched uranium (HEU), according to a March 25 letter to Congress obtained by Arms Control Today.

Admiral Bill Moran, the vice chief of naval operations, speaks with sailors assigned to the USS George Washington during a January 10 tour of the ship at the naval shipyard in Newport News, Va. The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier is undergoing a four-year overhaul that includes refueling of the ship's two nuclear reactors as well as significant repair, upgrades and modernization.  (Photo: Jamin Gordon/U.S. Navy)But lawmakers appear determined to continue exploring the feasibility of shifting to LEU and have proposed doubling funding for the effort in fiscal year 2019.

In their joint letter to the leadership of the House Armed Services Committee, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer and Energy Secretary Rick Perry stated that the replacement of HEU with LEU “would result in a reactor design that is inherently less capable, more expensive, and unlikely to support current life-of-ship submarine reactors.”

“A program to pursue R&D of an LEU advanced fuel system would compete for necessary resources against all other NNSA [National Nuclear Security Administration] and Department of Defense priorities as part of a future budget request,” the letter added.

The fiscal year 2016 National Defense Authorization Act and the energy and water appropriation bill required the Energy Department’s semiautonomous NNSA to submit a conceptual plan for an R&D program on an LEU-based naval fuel system and provided $5 million for this work. The authorization bill also required the energy and naval secretaries to determine whether the United States should continue to pursue R&D on an LEU system.

The subsequent NNSA report, published in July 2016, identified “an advanced naval nuclear fuel system technology” that could power a U.S. aircraft carrier using LEU and presented a conceptual R&D plan to assess the viability of the fuel system that would take 15 years and cost at least $1 billion in fiscal year 2016 dollars. Deploying the new fuel system is projected to cost an additional “several billion dollars,” assuming the development program is successful. (See ACT, October 2016.)

The report added that a successful development effort “might enable” an aircraft carrier reactor fueled with LEU in the 2040s. The conversion of current submarine reactors to run on LEU would be “a larger challenge,” according to the report, which was produced by the Office of Naval Reactors, the NNSA division tasked with overseeing U.S. naval nuclear propulsion matters.

Lawmakers earmarked an additional $5 million annually in fiscal years 2017 and 2018 that could be transferred from the NNSA nonproliferation account to the naval reactors office to research the LEU system.

Roughly 290 metric tons of weapons-grade HEU, enough for more than 11,000 nuclear weapons, are in global naval inventories to power submarines, aircraft carriers, and icebreakers, according to a March 2016 report published by the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Weapons-grade HEU is enriched to 90 percent uranium-235.

The United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, and India use HEU for naval propulsion. France uses and China is believed to use LEU to power their naval reactors. LEU is enriched to less than 20 percent U-235 and cannot be used in nuclear weapons.

Critics argue that relying on HEU undermines U.S. nonproliferation objectives and could make it easier for other countries to justify the production of the sensitive material.

Indeed, Iran announced in December 2016 that it would begin researching and developing nuclear propulsion for marine vessels. (See ACT, January/February 2017.)

The 2016 NNSA report said pursuing naval fuel that uses LEU would “demonstrate United States leadership toward reducing HEU and achieving nuclear non-proliferation goals” and sustain the nation’s reactor fuel technical expertise.

Despite the Trump administration’s rejection of shifting to LEU, Congress has taken initial steps to continue funding the effort for fiscal year 2019, which begins on Oct. 1.

The Senate and House versions of the energy and water appropriations bill would provide up to $10 million to evaluate the LEU alternative. The funding would support R&D at the national laboratories rather than transferring the funds to the NNSA naval reactors office, noted Alan Kuperman, an associate professor and founding coordinator of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

The naval reactors office has been reluctant to spend the money authorized and appropriated by Congress, Kuperman said in a June 15 email to Arms Control Today.

 

But proponents of a reactor-fuel change say using low-enriched uranium (LEU) would reflect U.S. nonproliferation goals.

Japan Looks to Purchase Cruise Missiles


July/August 2018
By Monica Montgomery

Japan is moving forward with its plans to purchase mid- to long-range air-launched cruise missiles, which would give Tokyo the capability to conduct pre-emptive military strikes against North Korea.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis welcomes Japanese Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera during an honor cordon at the Pentagon on April 20.  (Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)The defense budget for fiscal year 2018, approved at the end of March by the Japanese bicameral legislature, the Diet, included funds to introduce cruise missiles to the country’s overall military capabilities. Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera first officially announced Japan’s intentions to purchase the missiles in December 2017, saying that they would be used exclusively for defense purposes as “stand-off missiles that can be fired beyond the range of enemy threats.”

Japanese lawmakers have been more vocal, however, about the intentions behind the procurement of the new weapons, citing the need for a first-strike capability against North Korea. “It is time we acquired the capability; I don’t know whether that could be with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, or even the F-35 [fighter jet], but without deterrence North Korea will see us as weak,” said Hiroshi Imazu, a member of Japan’s House of Representatives and chairman of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) security policy council.

North Korea currently has a self-imposed moratorium on all nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) tests as a part of its recent effort to diplomatically engage with the Trump administration, but has conducted tests over the Sea of Japan in recent years with multiple missiles landing in the Japanese exclusive economic zone.

The budget allocated 2.2 billion yen ($20 million) for the purchase of the Joint Strike Missile (JSM) for its F-35A stealth fighters and 30 million yen ($270,000) for research on modifying existing Japanese F-15 fighters to be equipped with Long-Range Anti-Ship Missiles (LRASM) and extended-range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM-ER).

The JSM and LRASM have a range of 500 kilometers (310 miles), and the JASSM-ER can reach targets up to 1000 kilometers away. Compared to the 300-kilometer limit of current Japan Self-Defense Force missiles, the JSM, JASSM-ER, and LRASM could be used to strike North Korean missiles on the launch pad. Additionally, the missiles would have the range to counter strike threats from China, as tensions continue to rise in the East and South China seas.

The purchase of the cruise missiles and the logic behind their use presents a potential legal issue of constitutionality. Written in the wake of World War II, Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution renounces war and the threat of force as a method for resolving international disputes and states that “land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained.”

Japan justifies the maintenance of its current military capabilities by its explicit self-defense purpose. Onodera has asserted that striking a nuclear-tipped missile on an enemy base falls under this category of self-defense if the attack is imminent and “no other options exist,” but the new cruise missiles may be perceived as offensive weapons with more war potential than any other existing Japanese military capability.

According to a 2017 Defense Ministry report, the acquisition of certain types of offensive weaponry is not permissible under any circumstance. But if the Diet approves funding for a new military capability not explicitly prohibited, such as cruise missiles, then it is seen as compatible with the constitution’s requirement of possessing only what is minimally required for self-defense.

Regardless, the cruise missile issue adds to the overall debate in Japan about the need to reconcile actual military capabilities and intentions with constitutional constraints.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed his desire for constitutional changes to explicitly incorporate the defense forces into the document, and in May 2017, he set a goal of doing so by 2020. Abe’s proposed change still would not allow for offensive military actions, but could certainly open the way to a more military-friendly constitution. Amending the constitution would require approval from two-thirds of the Diet and the majority of voters in a referendum.

Plans to buy cruise missiles raise the issue of what is permitted militarily by Japan’s constitution.

Google Renounces AI Work on Weapons


July/August 2018
By Trushaa Castelino

Google decided not to renew its Defense Department contract for Project Maven, a Pentagon program that seeks to advance artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities that could be used to improve targeting of drone strikes.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai delivers the keynote address at the 2018 Google I/O conference May 8 in Mountain View, Calif. (Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)The decision, in response to internal protest against the project, is the latest chapter in the growing debate about the development and use of autonomous weapons systems, sometimes called “killer robots.”

In April, about 4,000 Google employees signed a letter petitioning CEO Sundar Pichai to end the company’s involvement in Project Maven because “Google should not be in the business of war,” the letter read. The letter was followed by a dozen resignations and a second petition from more than 1,000 academics.

As part of Project Maven, Google was responsible for using AI to help analyze footage captured by U.S. military drones, a process heavily dependent on computer vision for detecting and identifying objects. Expected to free up human analysts for other tasks, Google’s AI work could help set the stage for fully autonomous drone strikes.

Drones are a contentious component of U.S. military action in places such as Afghanistan, Iraq, and other locations outside formal U.S. war zones, such as Yemen. Critics cite a lack of transparency in U.S. policy and actions, as well as evidence of larger-than-reported numbers of civilian casualties from drone strikes.

What differentiates the rise of weaponized computer vision technology is a movement in the direction of weapons systems capable of and even allowed to act on their own, without sufficient legal or political restraints governing their use. Military officials have said the United States will not use lethal weapons systems that leave human judgment out of the decision loop, but have not foreclosed use of such capability at some unspecified future time.

Forays into machine learning and other technological advances have to be “navigated carefully and deliberately,” Pichai acknowledged in his keynote address at the 2018 Google I/O developers conference on May 8, adding that Google feels “a deep sense of responsibility to get this right.” A Google executive reportedly told employees on June 1 that the company would not seek to extend its work on Project Maven.

Google declared its ethical principles relating to the pursuit and innovation of machine learning technology in a blogpost June 7. AI developed by Google, Pichai explained, would be socially beneficial, avoid the creation or reinforcement of bias, be built and tested for safety, accountable to people, uphold high standards of scientific excellence, and only make technology available for use in accordance with Google’s principles.

The post pledged that Google would not pursue technologies that are “likely to cause overall harm” or “cause or directly facilitate injury to people.” It simultaneously maintained that the company would continue working with militaries and governments in other ways. Similar to the boycott of the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology by academics and researchers over reports of collaboration with a major arms company, this episode indicated that Google’s workforce has the ability to influence its priorities.

It is unclear whether Google’s new principles are adequate to hold the company accountable and prevent it from pursuing other programs similar to Project Maven, but many activists are encouraged.

Mary Wareham of Human Rights Watch, global coordinator of the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, an international coalition working to pre-emptively ban fully autonomous weapons systems, has said the campaign “welcomes Google’s pledge.” The campaign has nudged Google to express public support for a treaty to ban fully autonomous weapons systems and to invite other technology companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Oracle to do so as well.

Multilateral attempts at grappling with military systems lacking meaningful human control are underway. In 2016 the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons established a governmental experts group tasked to look into emerging technologies such as lethal autonomous weapons systems. This year, the group met in Geneva on April 9–13, discussing among multiple issues the widening gap between technological advances and international legal constraints.

“Technological developments that remove or reduce direct human control over weapon systems are threatening to outpace international deliberations,” said the International Committee of the Red Cross in its statement to the experts group, urging states to act with more urgency.

Following the meeting, the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots reported a total of 26 nations calling for a ban on lethal autonomous weapons systems, even as five countries—France, Israel, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—explicitly rejected negotiating new international law on these systems.

Google has been ambiguous about where it would draw the line, but momentum from Google’s announcement is a win for treaty advocates. Amazon employees this month wrote to CEO Jeff Bezos criticizing an Amazon facial recognition program to be used by governments.

The experts group is scheduled to meet Aug. 27–31. Google will continue working on Project Maven until its contract expires next year.

Employees protested the company’s involvement in drone-data analysis project known as Project Maven.

OPCW Granted Mandate to Place Blame


July/August 2018
By Alicia Sanders-Zakre

The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) will begin investigating and attributing responsibility for chemical weapons attacks in Syria following an 82–24 vote at a special meeting of OPCW member states on June 26–27 in The Hague.

Ahmet Üzümcü, director-general of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, speaks January 23 in Paris during a French-led meeting of diplomats from countries seeking to identify and punish those responsible for the prohibited use chemical weapons. (Photo: Jacques Demarthon/AFP/Getty Images)The United Kingdom and 11 other countries requested the special session in a May 29 letter, and more than 64 countries approved the request in early June. The special session was only the fourth in the organization’s 21-year history. A French-led coalition of 34 countries, which seeks to increase accountability for chemical weapons use, first called for the special session during its May 18 meeting in Paris.

Although the OPCW has been investigating suspected chemical weapons use in Syria through an investigative body called the Fact-Finding Mission, it was not previously mandated to assign blame for attacks. The body that had attributed responsibility, the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM), ceased operations after Russia blocked a proposed extension of its UN Security Council mandate last November. (See ACT, December 2017.)

The OPCW mission released a report June 13 determining that chlorine and sarin were very likely used as chemical weapons in Ltamenah, Syria, on March 24 and 25, 2017. “This OPCW report underscores the urgency of establishing, as swiftly as possible, a new mechanism to determine those responsible for these attacks,” the French Foreign Ministry stated in a June 13 press release. A mission report on the use of chemical weapons in an early April 2018 attack in Douma that killed dozens is expected imminently.

Since the breakdown of the JIM, confirmed uses of chemical weapons in Syria have not been attributed. Several attempts in the Security Council to restart independent investigations to assign blame were blocked by Russian vetoes. (See ACT, April 2018.)

OPCW Director-General Ahmet Üzümcü called the lack of attribution for chemical weapons attacks a “major gap” in a June speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C. and earlier in May voiced his support for the OPCW to assume an attribution role.

“Today, there might be good reasons actually to clarify the role of the OPCW itself in terms of attribution once it has the necessary information at its disposal,” he said in a speech in London. “Willful defiance of a valued norm should not be allowed to go unchallenged.”

Once granted the mandate to conduct attribution investigations, the OPCW can transmit its technical findings to the UN Security Council and the OPCW Executive Council for those bodies to take further action to hold perpetrators accountable, Üzümcü said in Washington.

Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s UN ambassador, opposed the decision. “The only legitimate way to re-establish an attribution mechanism is an agreement within the Security Council,” he told reporters on June 13, calling attempts through other forums “illegitimate.”

 

The action seeks to get around Russia’s roadblock at the UN Security Council involving chemical weapons use in Syria.

NATO Sees Defense Spending Rise


NATO expects to see a 3.8 percent increase in defense spending by its European members and Canada this year, as President Donald Trump hammers the closest U.S. allies to shoulder more of the defense burden.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg gives a press briefing June 7 during a Defense Council meeting at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization headquarters in Brussels. (Photo: John Thys/AFP/Getty Images)The increase would be the fourth in a row, although it lags behind last year’s estimated 5.2 percent increase, according to a chart released June 7 by the alliance. “All allies have stopped the cuts,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said following a defense ministers meeting. “All allies are increasing defense spending.”

The increases mean European allies and Canada will have spent an additional $87 billion on defense since 2014, he said. Trump has wrongly claimed credit for this turnaround, which began in 2015 spurred by Russia’s military moves against Ukraine and its subsequent annexation of Crimea, as well as by pressure from the Obama administration.

The increases are unlikely to end the criticism from Trump, who is scheduled to join the leaders of the other 28 countries at the NATO summit July 11–12. Trump’s souring relationship with key European leaders, particularly over his trade policies, may spill over to the defense alliance talks. Following this year’s Group of Seven summit in Canada, Trump tweeted his criticism that the United States spends money “protecting many of these same countries that rip us off on trade.”—TERRY ATLAS

NATO Sees Defense Spending Rise

New Contract for Los Alamos National Lab


The Los Alamos National Laboratory will be led by a new management partnership starting in 2019, the Energy Department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced June 8. Los Alamos is one of the three national laboratories that design and develop nuclear weapons for the U.S. stockpile.

The contract was awarded to Triad National Security, LLC, which is a partnership of Battelle Memorial Institute, Texas A&M University, and the University of California. The group was granted a contract that includes a five-year base with five one-year options at an estimated annual value of $2.5 billion. The current contract is set to expire on Sept. 30, but will be extended for four months to allow for a transitional period.

The University of California is also a partner in the lab’s current management company, along with Bechtel, AECOM, and BWX Technologies Inc. The lab’s management has come under scrutiny in recent years. The issues include security breaches, electrical incidents, mishandling of plutonium, accidental transport of nuclear materials on a commercial cargo aircraft, and improper packaging of nuclear waste that led to a radiation release costing $2 billion and a three-year closure of the only U.S. nuclear waste repository.––MONICA MONTGOMERY

New Contract for Los Alamos National Lab

Fissile Material Report Points Toward Treaty


An expert group tasked by the United Nations with laying the groundwork for the negotiation of a fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT) completed its work June 8 with consensus recommendations that could be taken forward by a new subgroup of the Conference on Disarmament (CD).

“With this report, which has been aptly described as ‘two inches from a negotiating text’, the range of possible treaty provisions is further distilled in a manner that makes clear there is little more to be done on an FMCT other than to negotiate it,” Canadian Ambassador Heidi Hulan, who chaired the high-level preparatory group, told Arms Control Today in a June 18 email.

The FMCT preparatory group, mandated by a 2016 UN General Assembly resolution, was made up of representatives from 25 states who met for two weeks in 2017 and 2018. It followed on from the meetings of a group of governmental experts, convened in 2014 and 2015, on the same subject. The UN General Assembly in 1993 approved the negotiation of an FMCT in the CD, but the consensus-based CD has failed to start negotiations due to a few states’ objections.

The preparatory group’s discussions sought to clarify issues concerning a potential treaty’s scope, definitions, verification measures, and legal and institutional arrangements before negotiations begin. Its recommendations will go to the UN secretary-general, the General Assembly, and the CD, where they could inform the work of a new subsidiary body, created in February in part to discuss the negotiation of an FMCT. With the preparatory work completed, the CD “needs to be held to account for its negotiation, and finally end the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons,” wrote Hulan.—ALICIA SANDERS-ZAKRE

Fissile Material Report Points Toward Treaty

UK Passes Safeguards Bill


The United Kingdom passed a nuclear safeguards bill and signed a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in preparation for withdrawal from the European Union in March 2019.

International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Yukiya Amano and David Hall, resident representative of the United Kingdom to the IAEA, shake hands following the signing of UK’s additional protocol at IAEA headquarters in Vienna June 7.  (Photo: Dean Calma/IAEA)The UK’s exit from the EU includes withdrawing from Euratom, a body established by a 1957 treaty to coordinate European civil nuclear research and power and conduct safeguards in conjunction with the IAEA.

The UK, as a recognized nuclear-weapon state under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, does not have the same legal obligation to conclude a safeguards agreement as non-nuclear weapon states, but London reached a voluntary safeguards agreement with the IAEA and Euratom for its civil program in 1978 and concluded an additional protocol to strengthen its IAEA safeguards in 2004.

The UK’s safeguards agreement with the IAEA, signed June 7, replaces the Euratom arrangements and helps ensure that inspection and verification activities continue uninterrupted. The safeguards bill enables the UK to establish a domestic safeguards regime.

Richard Harrington, UK minister for business and industry, said that the new agreements emphasize the UK’s “continued commitment” to safeguards and nonproliferation and demonstrate that the country will continue to act as a “responsible nuclear state.”

Concluding a safeguards agreement was also critical for reaching new nuclear cooperation agreements to replace Euratom arrangements that facilitate the UK’s importation of nuclear materials necessary for its civil nuclear program. The House of Lords had warned in a January report that failure to reach a safeguards arrangement would have “severe consequences for the UK’s energy security.”

Suella Braverman, parliamentary undersecretary of state at the UK Department for Exiting the European Union, said on June 7 that the agreements “help ensure our cooperation with third countries in the field of nuclear energy” and provide confidence that there will be “no disruptions” when the UK exits the EU.
—KELSEY DAVENPORT

UK Passes Safeguards Bill

Syria’s CD Presidency Sparks Boycotts

Syria took the helm of the Conference on Disarmament (CD) on May 28 under the four-week presidency rotation among member states, sparking boycotts and threatening to unravel recent progress in the long-stalled forum. Syria’s presidency drew anger due to its repeated use of chemical weapons and its past suspected covert nuclear weapons program.

U.S. Ambassador Robert Wood walks out during a statement by Syria at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on May 29 in protest of Syria’s four-week presidency of the body. (Photo: Eric Bridiers/U.S. Mission)The United States attended the plenary meetings, but skipped in protest meetings of the body’s subsidiary bodies and informal consultations called by Syria during its presidency. Some other delegations participated on a reduced level, by sending low-level officials or only listening to the proceedings. The European Union, while stating it regretted Syria’s presidency, stated it still would participate fully in the disarmament body so as not to hamper its work.

Work in the consensus-based CD has been stalled for decades, but there has been recent movement. On Feb. 16, it created five subsidiary bodies to advance different disarmament topics, such as negative security assurances and risk reduction measures. (See ACT, April 2018.)
—ALICIA SANDERS-ZAKRE

Syria’s CD Presidency Sparks Boycotts

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - July/August 2018