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– General John Shalikashvili
former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Kingston Reif

U.S. INF Treaty Termination Strategy Falls Short

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Volume 10, Issue 10, December 4, 2018

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo today declared Russia in material breach of the landmark 1987 Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and announced that the United States plans to suspend U.S. obligations under the treaty in 60 days unless Russia returns to compliance.

In a new statement on the INF Treaty also released today, NATO foreign ministers collectively declared for the first time “that Russia has developed and fielded a missile system, the 9M729, which violates the INF Treaty. The ministers also stated: “It is now up to Russia to preserve the INF Treaty.”

In delivering the Trump administration’s ultimatum, Pompeo expressed the “hope” that Russia will “change course” and return to compliance with the treaty.

But hope is not a strategy.

If NATO member states want to preserve a key arms control treaty that has enhanced their security for more than two decades, they will insist that the United States and Russia exhaust diplomatic options and should put forward proposals for how the two sides can resolve issues of concern about treaty implementation.

Unfortunately, Pompeo provided no indication that the administration wants to make a final effort to save the treaty by engaging in talks with Russia to address the compliance concerns raised by Washington and Moscow.

Notably, the NATO foreign ministers statement does not express support for, or even reiterate, Pompeo's ultimatum that the United States will suspend its obligations in 60 days unless Russia returns to compliance.

Once a withdrawal notification is issued, Article XV of the treaty requires the United States to wait six months before it can leave the agreement. Pompeo said the administration will issue a withdrawal notice in 60 days. 

Reports last week indicated that the Trump administration planned to give formal notice of withdrawal from and suspend implementation of the treaty today, but the administration was persuaded to postpone that action for two months following President Trump’s meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel last Saturday at the G-20 summit in Argentina.

European Concerns

Several NATO allies have expressed concern about president Trump’s announcement last October that he planned to withdraw from the treaty and that they had not been consulted about the decision. For example, the European Union declared in a statement that the United States should “consider the consequences of its possible withdrawal from the INF on its own security, on the security of its allies and of the whole world.”

Russia’s production, testing, and deployment of an illegal, ground-launched cruise missile with a range between 500 to 5,500 kilometers is unacceptable and merits a strong response from all nations that value arms control and the reduction of nuclear risks. Without the INF Treaty, we will likely see the return of Cold War-style tensions over U.S. and Russian deployments of intermediate-range missiles in Europe and perhaps elsewhere.

A Path Forward

Clearly, diplomatic options to resolve the INF crisis and avoid a new missile race in Europe (and Asia) have not yet been exhausted. To date, diplomatic efforts to resolve the issue have been limited and unsuccessful. Since Trump took office, U.S. and Russian officials have met only twice at the working level to try to resolve the compliance dispute, the last time being in June 2018.

However, the delay of the suspension notification provides little time and will be of little value unless NATO governments, along with Russia and the United States, use the time productively. The focus should be on negotiating a solution that addresses U.S. and NATO concerns about Russia’s noncompliant 9M729 missile and addresses Russia concerns about, in particular, U.S. Mk-41 Aegis Ashore missile-interceptor launchers in Romania (and by 2020 in Poland) that could be used for offensive missiles.

Averting the collapse of the treaty at this point requires NATO members (starting at the NATO foreign ministerial Dec. 4-5 in Brussels) to call on the United States and Russia to immediately meet to redouble off-and-on diplomatic efforts to resolve the INF Treaty compliance crisis. It is disappointing the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has not yet done so.

On Nov. 26, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov said that Russia is “open to any mutually beneficial proposals that take into account the interests and concerns of both parties.” If Washington is serious about removing the 9M729 missile threat, NATO should explore what that means and table a serious proposal.

If Russia is serious about preserving the INF Treaty, it will agree to discuss U.S. concerns, agree to implement transparency measures, and, if the 9M729 is found to be noncompliant, either modify or eliminate the illegal missile as a “sign of good faith.”

In addition, the United States needs to acknowledge Russia’s concerns about U.S. implementation of the agreement, specifically the Mk-41 launchers for the Aegis ashore missile interceptors in Romania (and soon in Poland) and agree to transparency measures that reduce concerns that the launchers could be used to deploy offensive missiles.

There is precedent for using diplomacy to resolve treaty violations. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan continued to observe the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Moscow despite its determination that a large radar located at Krasnoyarsk in Siberia violated the treaty. It also engaged in negotiations with the Soviet Union on the INF Treaty and what became the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty during this period. It took time, but diplomacy worked, and the Soviets eventually tore down the radar.

“No New Missiles” Pledge

The United States must ensure that Russia does not gain a military advantage from 9M729 ground-launched missile, which the U.S. intelligence community assesses has a range capability beyond the 500km range limit set by the INF Treaty and has been deployed in areas of Russia that enable it to reach parts of Europe. But even without the INF Treaty, there is no military need for the United States to develop a new and costly treaty-noncompliant missile for deployment in Europe.

The United States can already deploy air- and sea-launched systems that can threaten the same Russian targets that new ground-launched missiles prohibited by INF Treaty would. In addition, no European nation has agreed to host such a missile, which could take years to develop, and even if one did, it would be a significant source of division within the alliance—one Russia would be eager to try and exploit.

Instead of accepting the U.S. intention to begin “developing and deploying” new ground-based missiles to counter Russia, the U.S. Congress, as well as NATO member states should insist that if the United States and Russia do not find an 11th hour diplomatic solution to preserve the INF Treaty, they will at least pledge not to be the first to deploy intermediate-range missile systems anywhere in or in-range of NATO Europe.

And regardless of the fate of the INF Treaty, responsible governments and members of the U.S. Congress should also insist that Presidents Trump and Putin agree to extend the 2010 New START agreement by five years (from 2021 to 2026) to guard against the possibility of an unconstrained nuclear arms race.

—DARYL G. KIMBALL, executive director and KINGSTON A. REIF, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy

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Analysis from Daryl G. Kimball, executive director, and Kingston A. Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy

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MOX Fuel Plant Layoffs Begin


December 2018
By Kingston Reif

The contractor responsible for building the mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication facility at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina began issuing layoff notices last month in the wake of the department’s action to terminate the project.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) fought in Congress for years against the efforts to terminate the costly and delayed mixed-oxide fuel fabrication project in his state. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)Approximately 600 workers, or roughly one-third of the project’s workforce, have been notified by the main contractor, CB&I Areva MOX Services LLC, that they will be laid off beginning in January 2019.

The layoff notices follow years of controversy over the MOX fuel program. In a Nov. 8 statement in response to the first round of layoff notices, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) called the decision to end construction “a colossal mistake,” adding that “there is no viable alternative.”

On Oct. 10, the Energy Department notified MOX Services in a letter that it was terminating the company’s prime contract to build the MOX fuel facility. (See ACT, November 2018.) The letter came a day after the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a temporary stay of a district court’s June injunction preventing the termination of the project. The ruling allows the Energy Department to proceed with shutting down the facility pending the appeals court’s final decision on the department’s appeal of the lower court ruling. (See ACT, September 2018.)

The MOX fuel plant, designed to turn 34 metric tons of surplus plutonium from the U.S. nuclear weapons program into power-reactor fuel, has been plagued by major cost increases and schedule delays. The Energy Department has sought to end the program since 2014 in favor of a cheaper alternative, known as dilute and dispose. That process would down-blend the plutonium with an inert material for direct disposal at the deep underground Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.

Congress, led by South Carolina’s delegation, blocked the department’s effort to transition to the alternate approach. But the fiscal year 2018 National Defense Authorization Act, signed by President Donald Trump in November 2017, included a provision allowing the energy secretary to stop construction if there is an alternative to dispose of the plutonium at “less than approximately half of the estimated remaining [life-cycle] cost” of the MOX fuel program. (See ACT, May 2018.)

Energy Secretary Rick Perry submitted the required waiver to Congress on May 10. (See ACT, June 2018.)

The dilute-and-dispose process would cost at most $19.9 billion, or 40 percent of the $49.4 billion cost of continuing the MOX fuel program, according to a report prepared by the independent cost office of the Energy Department’s semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration, which was certified by Perry and submitted to Congress on May 10.

The Trump administration’s fiscal year 2019 budget request submitted in February called for $220 million to close down the MOX fuel facility and $59 million to support the dilute-and-dispose option.

The fiscal year 2019 version of the defense authorization bill signed by Trump in August mandated the continued construction of the facility and authorizes $220 million for that purpose, but like last year’s bill allows the secretary to waive this requirement.

The fiscal year 2019 energy and water appropriations bill similarly provided $220 million for construction of the facility, but, also like last year’s bill, follows the authorization bill in allowing the funds to be used to terminate the facility. (See ACT, November 2018.)

The appropriations bill provided $25 million for design activities for the dilute-and-dispose approach, a reduction of $34 million from the budget request. The final amount was a compromise between the Senate Appropriations Committee, which provided the full $59 million requested by the administration, and the House Appropriations Committee, which provided no funding for the option, due to concerns that the approach lacked key specifics.

In his Nov. 8 statement, Graham warned that the dilute-and-dispose plan in New Mexico “is not feasible and simply will not work.” He added that “it’s yet another half-baked idea from [the Energy Department] that simply has no chance of success.”

Energy Department shifts to cheap plutonium-disposal plan.

Nuclear Warhead Costs Rise


December 2018
By Kingston Reif

The estimated cost of the Energy Department’s plans to sustain U.S. nuclear warheads and their supporting infrastructure has risen sharply over the past year, adding to concerns about affordability.

Frank Klotz, former National Nuclear Security Administration administrator, has raised concern about the level of demands on the agency envisioned by the Trump administration. (Photo: Leon Roberts/USACE)The department’s semi-autonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) on Nov. 1 released the sixth version of its annual report on the Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan. The fiscal year 2019 iteration projects more than $390 billion in spending on agency efforts related to sustaining and modernizing the nuclear weapons stockpile over the next 25 years. This is an increase of $70 billion, or 22 percent, from the 2018 version of the plan.

The new NNSA plan begins to reflect the recommendations of the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) report released in February, which called for developing two additional low-yield nuclear capabilities, retaining the B83-1 nuclear gravity bomb, and expanding the NNSA’s plutonium-pit production capacity. (See ACT, March 2018.) These initiatives are part of a proposed expansion of NNSA nuclear weapons work that the report says would provide “capabilities needed to quickly produce new or additional weapons” beyond the 3,800 warheads currently in the active U.S. nuclear stockpile.

The NNSA states that the projected growth in spending “is generally affordable and executable” due in part to large funding increases provided to the agency by Congress over the past two years. But according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published in April 2017, the NNSA’s plans to modernize its nuclear weapons “do not align with its budget, raising affordability concerns.”

Like the GAO, former NNSA Administrator Frank Klotz raised concern about the level of demands on the NNSA in coming years envisioned by the Trump administration. “The agency is “working pretty much at full capacity, and you can draw your conclusion from that,” he said in an interview with Defense News two days after leaving office in January and before the release of the NPR report.

The Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives as a result of the November midterm elections is likely to bring greater scrutiny of the administration’s efforts to upgrade the nuclear arsenal. (See ACT, November 2018.) Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the ranking member on the House Armed Services Committee who is poised to become chairman in January, told Arms Control Today in a Nov. 16 interview that the current Energy and Defense Department plans are “certainly unsustainable from a fiscal standpoint.”

The largest source of projected growth in the new stockpile plan is in the area of nuclear and non-nuclear production facility modernization, including new plutonium-pit production, uranium processing, and uranium-enrichment facilities. Whereas last year the agency projected $8.6 billion to $39.3 billion in spending, including the effects of inflation, on these and other facilities, it now estimates the cost at $61.1 billion to $90.7 billion.

The NNSA plan also foresees an increase in spending relative to the 2018 version on warhead life extensions programs through the beginning of the 2020s even as it follows the NPR report in backing away from a controversial proposal to develop three interoperable warheads for deployment on land- and sea-based ballistic missiles as part of the so-called 3+2 strategy.

Since 2013, the NNSA had planned to jointly replace the W78 intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) warhead and the W88 submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) warhead with a new interoperable warhead known as IW-1. Two subsequent interoperable warheads were slated to replace the W87 and W76 warheads.

Instead, the NPR report called for accelerating replacement of the W78 by one year to support deployment on the Air Force’s new ICBM by 2030 “and investigate the feasibility of fielding the nuclear explosive package in a Navy flight vehicle.” The report did not commit developing additional common warheads.

But the uncertain future of interoperable warheads does not appear to have reduced the projected cost of replacing the W78, which is projected to cost $12.5 billion, an increase of $500 million above last year’s estimate. The stockpile plan states that the warhead will consist of “all newly manufactured components” and “new technologies.”

Congress repeatedly questioned the wisdom of the prior plan to buy interoperable warheads, citing the cost and risks involved with the plan. In a March 2017 letter to the GAO director, Reps. Smith and Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), the likely next chairwoman of the energy and water appropriations subcommittee, expressed “concerns about the affordability of the IW-1.”

The fiscal year 2019 energy and water appropriations bill, signed by President Donald Trump in September, called on the NNSA to produce a report estimating the cost of a possible, less expensive alternative to the current plan to replace the W78.

The stockpile plan notably does not include any projected costs associated with developing a sea-launched cruise missile warhead and potentially extending the life of the B83-1 as proposed in the NPR report. Work on the cruise missile warhead is slated to begin in fiscal year 2020 and, according to the NNSA, “will be a major new addition in the next decade.”

Are the administration’s nuclear weapons plans achievable and affordable?

Congress Increases ICBM Funding


Congress has provided $168 million more than the Trump administration’s budget request over the past two years to keep the development of the Air Force’s new intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) system ahead of schedule. Lawmakers approved the transfer earlier this year of $100 million in unspent fiscal year 2018 Pentagon funds to the program known as the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD). In addition, the final fiscal year 2019 defense appropriations bill provided $69 million above the initial request of $345 million for the program. (See ACT, November 2018.)

The GBSD program is slated to replace the current force of 400 deployed Minuteman III missiles and their supporting infrastructure and remain in service through the 2070s. The Air Force in August 2017 selected Boeing Co. and Northrop Grumman Systems Corp. to proceed with the development program. (See ACT, October 2017.) There is significant uncertainty about the projected acquisition cost of the new missile system, raising questions about affordability. An independent Pentagon cost estimate conducted in 2016 put the GBSD program’s price tag at between $85 billion and $150 billion, including the effects of inflation, well above the Air Force’s initial estimate of $62 billion. Pentagon officials ultimately approved the $85 billion figure as the initial official cost of the program. (See ACT, March 2017.) The Air Force had planned to produce an updated cost estimate by the end of 2018. The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment on whether the service has done so.—KINGSTON REIF

Congress Increases ICBM Funding

Incoming Chair of House Armed Services Committee Calls for Reducing Role, Size, and Cost of U.S. Nuclear Arsenal

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For Immediate Release: Nov. 27, 2018

Media Contacts: Kingston Reif, director for disarmament and threat reduction policy, 202-463-8270 ext. 104

(Washington, D.C.)—In January 2019, control of the U.S. House of Representatives will shift to the Democratic Party and Representative Adam Smith (D-Wash.) is in line to become Chairman of the powerful House Armed Services Committee.

In an in-depth interview with Arms Control Today, Smith signals that he will take a closer look at the Trump administration’s nuclear weapons policies and spending plans. He hints that he will seek to block plans for new, lower-yield warheads, questions the need for a “triad” of nuclear delivery platforms, and says he wants the U.S. to shift to a policy of nuclear no first use.

“Nuclear weapons are a great example of where we could save money and still maintain our national security interests,” Smith told Arms Control Today, the monthly journal of the nonpartisan Arms Control Association. “We could meet our needs from a national security standpoint with a lot fewer nuclear weapons. The path we are going down now is certainly unsustainable from a fiscal standpoint and it doesn’t make us safer,” Smith says.

On dealing with tensions with China and Russia, Smith says, “It is our responsibility as global powers to make sure that nuclear weapons are never used, and we need to have a consistent dialogue to avoid that.”

When asked about what he thinks the impact of a U.S. withdrawal or failure to extend New START would be, Smith said: “An escalating arms race which gets us into dangerous territory. I think it would be problematic to let that treaty expire."

The full interview with Rep. Smith will appear in the December 2018 issue of Arms Control Today. An advance copy is available online.

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Interview with Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), incoming chair of the House Arms Services Committee

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