January/February 2024
By Shizuka Kuramitsu

The United States is making progress in developing a safer low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel for use in Navy ships, but the project is very costly, and success is not assured, according to a report by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).

The United States now relies on highly enriched uranium to provide safe, long-lived, and reliable naval propulsion fuel. But nonproliferation experts have been urging a switch to LEU, which is more difficult to convert for use in nuclear weapons.

In a message accompanying the report, NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby said she was “pleased with the progress…made in this technically challenging effort…[because in] fiscal 2021, we reached a critical milestone” with experiments that will produce the first information evaluating novel fuel-fabrication techniques, as well as fuel performance characteristics.

Nevertheless, the report struck a downbeat tone, concluding that “these initial activities are the first steps on a long, costly path to fuel development and success is not assured.”

It predicted a reactor fuel system design effort lasting 20 to 25 years that would cost more than $1 billion and detract from higher-priority nonproliferation and naval propulsion research and development activities.

“Even if successful, the propulsion system would be less capable, only [be] applicable to aircraft carriers and require several billion dollars, in addition to fuel development costs, to deploy the supporting engineering, manufacturing and testing infrastructure,” the report said.

It added that “the analysis showed that the use of LEU would negatively impact reactor endurance, reactor size, ship costs and operational effectiveness.”But the nonproliferation expert who obtained and publicized the report, which was sent to Congress in 2022 and kept secret until now by the government, argued that the expense for the LEU project should not be questioned. “The program’s price tag is a tiny fraction of the cost of the nuclear Navy or a nuclear terrorist attack,” Alan J. Kuperman, an associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin and coordinator of the university’s Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project, told Reuters.

“These documents clarify three things for the first time: the program is vital to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, is making rapid progress, and will be implemented only if it can preserve the performance of U.S. Navy vessels,” Kuperman said.

The NNSA has been researching LEU fuel use in Navy systems since 2018 with $50 million appropriated by Congress, but the program is now in doubt after a House subcommittee cut the funding, Reuters reported.

The nuclear fuel issue has drawn increased attention since 2021, when the United States and the United Kingdom raised proliferation concerns by agreeing to sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, which would become the first non-nuclear-weapon state to field a ship with an HEU-powered reactor.

January/February 2024
By Kelsey Davenport

The tenuous relationship between North and South Korea deteriorated further after Seoul announced its intention to suspend part of a joint military agreement in response to Pyongyang’s illegal launch of a satellite in November. North Korea responded by terminating its participation entirely. It later announced that unification with South Korea is no longer a viable policy goal.

South Korea announced on Nov. 22 that it will no longer abide by a no-fly zone established over the border area between the two Koreas in the Comprehensive Military Agreement. That agreement, concluded in September 2018 between South Korean President Moon Jae-in and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, also contains restrictions on guard posts and live-fire exercises near the Demilitarized Zone between the two countries.

The move by South Korea to rescind the no-fly zone component of the agreement in response to the satellite launch does not come as a surprise. South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik repeatedly has raised concerns about the agreement limiting South Korea’s ability to conduct surveillance and threatened to withdraw if North Korea launched a satellite.

Later on Nov. 22, North Korea’s Central Military Commission responded to the South Korean announcement, saying that, “from now on [North Korea] will never be bound” by the 2018 agreement. The commission said that North Korea will “immediately restore all military measures” that were halted by the agreement.

The commission blamed the collapse of the agreement and heightened tensions on South Korea, saying Seoul is creating the “most dangerous situation” and will be “wholly accountable” if conflict breaks out between the two countries.

Since Nov. 22, the two sides have redeployed additional soldiers along the demarcation line and taken steps to restore guard posts that were not in use under the agreement.

Although not directly referencing the agreement, Moon appeared to criticize the current South Korean government for revoking the agreement and its hard-line approach. In a Dec. 10 post on Facebook, Moon said that “abandoning agreements” and dialogue has “only hastened the development of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.”

In addition to withdrawing from the miltiary agreement, Kim suggested that unification of the Korean peninsula is “impossible,” departing from a long-standing policy goal of uniting the two countries. In remarks on Dec. 31, he said that “reunification can never be achieved,” given South Korea’s goal of absorbing North Korea into its democracy, and that the two countries are no longer “homogenous.”

Kim Yung-ho, the South Korean minister of unification, disputed the claim that unification is impossible. In a Jan. 1 speech, he said that Seoul will work to establish a “master plan” for unification and warned that Kim Jong Un is trying to “suppress” South Korea.

Meanwhile, Kim Jong Un announced further plans to accelerate the production of nuclear warheads and launch an additional three surveillance satellites in 2024. Satellite imagery suggests that North Korea started operating a nuclear reactor in late 2023 that would provide additional fissile material for nuclear weapons.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Dec. 21 that the agency observed signs consistent with commissioning what may be a light-water reactor at the Yongbyong nuclear complex.

North Korea justified its military actions and nuclear expansion as a necessary response to the United States.

During a UN Security Council meeting on Nov. 27, Kim Song, North Korea’s ambassador to the United Nations, said that it is North Korea’s “legitimate right…to develop, test, manufacture, and possess weapons systems equivalent to those that the United States already possess.”

The Security Council meeting was convened to discuss North Korea’s Nov. 21 satellite launch. Pyongyang is prohibited from launching satellites under council resolutions because the rockets utilize technologies common in ballistic missiles.

Kim said that the sanctions are “illegal and unlawful” and it is necessary for North Korea to pursue satellites to “get a clear picture of the dire military moves” of the United States.

The Security Council did not take any formal action to respond to North Korea’s activities due to continued resistance from Russia and China.

U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield asked the council “how many more times” it must gather in response to illegal North Korean activities before China and Russia “join us in demanding [that North Korea] abandon its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs.”

During the meeting, Russia denied accusations that it provided North Korea with any technical military assistance.

Anna Evstigneeva, Russia’s deputy permanent representative to the UN, called the allegations “groundless” during the council meeting and said that attempts to “vilify” Russia reflect a desire to “divert” the council’s attention from “the United States’ ambitions to strangle Pyongyang at any cost.”

She said that Russia “does not support steps by either side that run counter to the objectives of establishing long-term peace in the region…[but that it] does not come as a surprise” that North Korea would take steps in the “interests of self-defense.”

Thomas-Greenfield disputed the idea that North Korea is reacting to U.S. military activities. She said Pyongyang is “unabashedly trying to advance its nuclear weapons delivery systems by testing ballistic missile technology” and warned that the “reckless, unlawful behavior” is a threat. She reiterated the Biden administration’s “call for dialogue on any topic” with North Korea.

As the United States urges dialogue with North Korea, it continues to take steps to strengthen its alliance with South Korea. The two countries met on Dec. 15 for a second meeting of the Nuclear Consultative Group, which was announced when South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol met with U.S. President Joe Biden in April. (See ACT, May 2023.)

In a joint statement following the Dec. 15 meeting, the United States and South Korea reiterated that “any nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States or its allies is unacceptable and will result in the end of the Kim regime.”

The Dec. 16 statement noted that U.S. and South Korean officials acknowledged that “nuclear deterrence cooperation deepened” through the Nuclear Consultative Group process. It said that the United States and South Korea “reviewed the enhanced visibility of strategic assets to bolster extended deterrence” and discussed “future plans to demonstrate a strengthening of deterrence.”

In a Dec. 17 statement published in the state-run Korean Central News Agency, a spokesperson from the North Korean Defense Ministry described the work of the Nuclear Consultative Group as “an open declaration on nuclear confrontation.”

The spokesperson accused South Korea and the United States of “maximizing the tension in and around the Korean peninsula with hostile and provocative acts” against North Korea and said the move “pressurizes our armed forces to opt for more offensive countermeasure[s].”

The following day, North Korea tested what appears to be a solid-fueled intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on a lofted trajectory from near Pyongyang. North Korea last tested an ICBM in July.

January/February 2024
By Shizuka Kuramitsu

States-parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) have begun challenging the long-standing deterrence rationale for nuclear weapons in an effort to inject new momentum into their campaign to rid the world of these armaments.

At their second annual TPNW meeting held Nov. 27 to Dec. 1 in New York, they approved a political outcome document that unveiled the new strategy, declaring that the states-parties “will not stand by as spectators to increasing nuclear risks and the dangerous perpetuation of nuclear deterrence.”

At the suggestion of the Austrian delegation, the states-parties decided to establish a “consultative process on security concerns of TPNW states” that aims to reframe the debate over nuclear disarmament as a necessary instrument to ensure human security and national security.

“This shift at the TPNW conference indicated in Austria’s working paper is important. There are deep flaws in the assumptions that underline the current nuclear paradigm, and deterrence, although [it] works most of the time, is inherently flawed and will fail over the long run,” Ward Hayes Wilson, executive director of RealistRevolt, told Arms Control Today.

Amid a deteriorating international security environment due to the Russian war in Ukraine and other factors, nuclear-armed states recently have reaffirmed the need to possess nuclear weapons on the grounds that such armaments deter adversaries. This nuclear deterrence doctrine has been at the core of NATO’s mutual security guarantee and collective defense since the alliance was created in 1949.

At the meeting, Germany, a TPNW observer state, stressed that, “confronted with an openly aggressive Russia, the importance of nuclear deterrence has increased for many states.”

“Germany, as a NATO member, is fully committed to NATO’s nuclear deterrence, the purpose of which is to preserve peace, deter aggression, and prevent nuclear coercion,” the head of the German delegation said.

Similarly, during a meeting of the Group of Seven industrialized countries in Hiroshima in May, world leaders reaffirmed their view that “our security policies are based on the understanding that nuclear weapons, for as long as they exist, should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression and prevent war and coercion.”

But in their political document, the TPNW states-parties countered that “[t]he renewed advocacy, [and] insistence on and attempts to justify nuclear deterrence as a legitimate security doctrine [give] false credence to the value of nuclear weapons for national security and dangerously [increase] the risk of horizontal and vertical nuclear proliferation.”

In addition, nuclear threats “only serve to undermine the disarmament and non-proliferation regime and international peace and security,” the declaration stated.

The states-parties named Austria as coordinator for the new consultative process and called for a report to be submitted at the next TPNW meeting with a set of arguments and recommendations.

The process is expected “to better promote and articulate the legitimate security concerns, [and] threat and risk perceptions enshrined in the treaty that result from the existence of nuclear weapons and the concept of nuclear deterrence,” the parties decided.

Further, states-parties in partnership with scientists and civil society decided “to challenge the security paradigm based on nuclear deterrence by highlighting and promoting new scientific evidence about the humanitarian consequences and risks of nuclear weapons and juxtaposing those with risks and assumptions that are inherent to nuclear deterrence.”

Reflecting this move to delegitimize nuclear weapons, Juan Ramón de la Fuente, the Mexican ambassador who served as the TPNW meeting president, told a press conference on Dec. 1 that “there is an incompatibility between nuclear weapons and international security. That is why we are more convinced now than before [that] the only way to really move towards [a] more secure world for all of us is with the prohibition of nuclear weapons.”

At Mexico’s initiative, the meeting reinforced the new strategy by elevating debate on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons use and by including scientists from the newly established TPNW scientific advisory group, a speaker from the International Committee of Red Cross, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations and affected communities, including Australia, Kiribati, and Japan, to share their perspectives and findings.

“This was extremely important because it was the first time that we were addressing at this level [of an official UN conference] the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear detonation,” de la Fuente said.

Setsuko Thurlow, an atomic bomb survivor from Hiroshima, told the press conference that “[n]ow with the humanitarian initiative as a guide, we were able to look at the [nuclear weapons] issue as a human issue, to put human being[s] right in front and a center of discussion.”

Some 59 states-parties, 35 observer states, and 122 nongovernmental organizations, participated in the weeklong TPNW meeting, which elected Akan Rakhmetullin, Kazakhstan’s UN ambassador, as president of the next meeting, to be held in March 2025.

January/February 2024
By Chris Rostampour

Congress cut compensation for victims of U.S. nuclear testing-related activities from a compromise version of the 2024 fiscal year National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) was passed by Congress in 1990 to offer health benefits and compensation to some victims who had developed serious illnesses due to radiation exposure caused by U.S. nuclear weapons development and testing in the 20th century.

Over the years, as awareness increased about the full effects of these activities and new lawsuits were filed against the U.S. government related to radiation exposure claims, RECA’s narrow scope of coverage was broadened to include more affected communities.

In July, a bipartisan group of senators won approval to include a 29-page amendment to the draft NDAA that would extend RECA for two decades and expand its eligibility coverage to new regions and communities harmed by nuclear testing fallout. Additional harmed uranium miners and workers and certain Missouri communities affected by discarded Manhattan Project nuclear waste would have been covered for the first time. (See ACT, September 2023.)

The Senate passed its version of the NDAA by a vote of 87-13 on Dec. 13, and the House passed its version 310-118 on Dec. 14. The RECA amendment was not part of the House version of the NDAA, and the compromise hammered out by a House-Senate conference committee did not include the Senate amendment. The reconciled legislation was signed into law by President Biden on Dec. 23.

Senators who had introduced the RECA amendment blamed its exclusion on the Republican leadership in both chambers of Congress. “Earlier this year, the Senate made real progress on strengthening [RECA] when Democrats and Republicans passed my legislation” as part of the Senate NDAA, Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) said in a statement. “However, at the eleventh hour, [the] Republican Leadership blocked its inclusion in the final bill.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who joined Luján in pushing the amendment, also blamed Republican leaders. In an interview with Bloomberg, he said taking the measure out of the NDAA was “100 percent a leadership decision,” referring to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Hawley told The Hill that Democratic leaders in both chambers “were supportive.”

The Hill reported that McConnell had personally expressed opposition to including the amendment in the bill, telling Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) early in the conference negotiations, “I don’t want RECA in there. I want to get rid of it.”

Hawley filed a motion on Dec. 12 to stop the NDAA procedural vote from taking place, but his plea to table the bill in the Senate failed 26-73.

“The Senate passed the defense bill tonight, but it’s nothing to celebrate. Defense contractors get paid billions, while Missourians poisoned by their government get nothing. It’s a travesty,” Hawley posted on his social media account shortly after the vote.

The RECA program still could still be extended and expanded if it is added as an amendment to another piece of legislation. Luján, who has secured multiple extensions for the program, introduced a separate RECA bill in the Senate in July.

Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.), who has introduced a companion bill in the House, said in a statement that the fight is not over.

“Our bipartisan coalition will not give up—we will fight to pass RECA and secure justice for our beloved New Mexico communities who unknowingly sacrificed so much for our nation’s security,” she wrote.

January/February 2024
By Kelsey Davenport

Iran accelerated its production of uranium enriched to near-weapons grade levels in November, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

In a Dec. 26 report, the IAEA noted that Iran is now producing approximately nine kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent uranium-235 per month. Iran was producing 60 percent enriched U-235 at a similar rate in early 2023, but decreased production by about two-thirds in June. (See ACT, October 2023.)

Accelerating the production of uranium enriched to 60 percent U-235 is concerning because the material can be quickly enriched to weapons-grade levels or 90 percent.

France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States condemned Iran’s decision in a Dec. 28 statement and described it as a “backwards step” that demonstrates Tehran’s “lack of good will” toward deescalation. The statement said that Iran’s actions “represent reckless behavior in a tense regional context” and urged Tehran to “immediately reverse these steps.”

Mohammad Elsami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, dismissed the IAEA report as propaganda. The increase in enrichment of uranium to 60 percent U-235 comes amid mixed signals from Tehran regarding its interest in nuclear diplomacy and restoring the 2015 nuclear deal.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said in a Dec. 9 speech that the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is becoming “useless.” The United States and Iran are “not currently on the path to return” to the nuclear deal, he said, but Iran would consider restoring the accord if it “serves our interest.”

The comments appear to suggest a subtle shift in Iranian messaging regarding the JCPOA. Iran publicly continued to support restoring the accord long after the United States signaled that returning to the nuclear deal is no longer a U.S. priority.

Kurt Campbell, U.S. National Security Council coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs, reaffirmed the U.S. position before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Dec. 7. Campbell, the Biden administration’s nominee for deputy secretary of state, said that the nuclear deal is “just not on the table” in the current environment.

It is unclear how the United States intends to respond to Iran’s advancing nuclear program. Iran took limited steps to slow certain nuclear activities in the second half of 2023, but the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza appear to have put discussions on further deescalatory measures on hold. (See ACT, October 2023.)

The Biden administration continues to enforce sanctions against Iran, but it is more challenging now for the United States to garner international support than it was in the period leading up to the JCPOA, when Washington, Beijing, and Moscow were aligned on pressing Tehran to negotiate.

Elsami said that sanctions have failed to halt the country’s nuclear program. In a Dec. 15 speech, he said that Iran will continue to invest in expanding its nuclear energy activities.

Tehran also is strengthening ties with Moscow and supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi met on Dec. 7 with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who said that Russia “gained good momentum over the past year” thanks to the support of Iran.

France, Germany, and the United Kingdom accused Iran of “deliberately supporting Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine” and knowingly transferring drones for use against Ukrainian civilians.

The three states made the accusation during a UN Security Council meeting on Dec. 18 to discuss the UN secretary-general’s biannual report on implementation of Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the JCPOA and modified UN sanctions on Iran.

They described Iran’s “continued and long-lasting contempt” for Resolution 2231 and urged Tehran to “cease its reckless proliferative activities in the region and beyond.”

The UN missile restrictions in the resolution expired in October, but the three states referred to evidence that Iran transferred missiles, drones, and related technologies without Security Council approval prior to that date. (See ACT, November 2023.)

During the Dec. 18 meeting, Vassily Nebenzia, Russian ambassador to the United Nations, denied that Moscow received military assistance from Iran in violation of Resolution 2231. He said “there were not and could not be any deliveries to circumvent” the resolution.

Nebenzia also disputed that the UN Secretariat has the authority to investigate and attribute violations of the resolution and blamed the United States and Europe for the current nuclear crisis.

The United States and the European parties to the JCPOA “bear the key responsibility for the failure to implement the nuclear deal,” he said. Nebenzia added that Russia “remains convinced there are no alternatives” to the 2015 nuclear deal and expects “Western countries to abandon their policy of unilateral restrictions” against Iran.