Login/Logout

*
*  

"In my home there are few publications that we actually get hard copies of, but [Arms Control Today] is one and it's the only one my husband and I fight over who gets to read it first."

– Suzanne DiMaggio
Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
April 15, 2019
May 2010
Edition Date: 
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Cover Image: 

Lab Chiefs Question JASON Study Summary

Meri Lugo

The unclassified summary of a major study on technical efforts to maintain the U.S. nuclear stockpile does not present a fully accurate picture of the challenges that the stockpile faces, directors of U.S. national nuclear weapons laboratories said in letters to a key congressman.

In December, Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, solicited comments from the three lab directors on last year’s JASON study of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) warhead Life Extension Programs (LEPs). The NNSA is a separately organized agency within the Department of Energy.

The directors wrote the letters in January; Turner released them in late March.

JASON, an independent panel of prominent scientists, undertook its classified study last year at the request of the strategic forces panel. A declassified executive summary of the JASON findings was released last November and concluded that the “[l]ifetimes of today’s nuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss in confidence, by using approaches similar to those employed in LEPs to date.” (See ACT, December 2009.)

In a press statement issued when he released the letters March 25, Turner said, “I welcomed the release of the JASON scientific advisory panel’s review of warhead Life Extension Programs last November. However, I was concerned about the manner in which certain unclassified findings were being interpreted, so I asked the lab directors for their views on the issues addressed in the JASON report.”

“I am releasing these letters to build upon the JASON’s work to further inform the public discussion on U.S. nuclear weapons policy and strategy,” he added.

Two of the letters appeared to share Turner’s skepticism of the unclassified executive summary. “With respect to the JASON report, I agree in general with its findings and recommendations. However, there are certain findings that have been misinterpreted, especially as presented in the unclassified summary,” wrote Michael Anastasio, director of Los Alamos National Laboratory.    The other two letters were written by George Miller, who directs the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and Thomas Hunter, head of Sandia National Laboratories.

Responding to JASON’s confidence in the long-term viability of the stockpile as expressed in the unclassified summary, Miller said that, “[i]n the absence of the more complete discussion provided in the classified report,” the JASON findings on that point “understate, in my view, the challenges and risks encountered in ensuring a safe and reliable nuclear force.”

Suggestions that the executive summary is not completely consistent with the full report have followed the summary since its release. NNSA spokesman Damien LaVera said in a November 19 press release that “[w]hile we endorse the [JASON’s] recommendations and consider them well-aligned with NNSA’s long-term stockpile management strategy, certain findings in the unclassified Executive Summary convey a different perspective on key findings when viewed without the context of the full classified report.”

The lab directors underscored the “unknowability” of future problems with the warheads and questioned whether technical breakthroughs at the laboratories would be able to keep pace with stockpile aging. “It cannot be assumed that increasing insight and understanding in the future will necessarily increase confidence in the stockpile; such knowledge is fundamentally unknowable in advance,” Anastasio said.

All three letters did agree with the JASON report on specific findings. For instance, they endorsed the report’s findings that the nuclear weapons complex suffers from a “lack of program stability” and that a “revised surveillance program” of the stockpile is necessary. “The Nuclear Weapons Enterprise must have the foresight to continuously invest in workforce and capabilities that, even if not immediately needed, will be required for future LEPs,” Hunter wrote.

Since the letters were written, the Obama administration has requested $7 billion in its fiscal year 2011 budget for the NNSA “weapons activities” budget to maintain the nuclear stockpile, which includes upgrades to key facilities, ongoing stockpile surveillance, and further warhead life extensions. The request is an almost 10 percent increase from the previous year’s appropriation. (See ACT, March 2010.) Further, the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), released April 6, commits an additional $5 billion to stockpile stewardship over the next five years.

In a statement issued April 9 on the NPR, Anastasio, Hunter, and Miller said, “We believe that the approach outlined in the NPR, which excludes further nuclear testing and includes the consideration of the full range of life extension options (refurbishment of existing warheads, reuse of nuclear components from different warheads and replacement of nuclear components based on previously tested designs), provides the necessary technical flexibility to manage the nuclear stockpile into the future with an acceptable level of risk.”

 

The unclassified summary of a major study on technical efforts to maintain the U.S. nuclear stockpile does not present a fully accurate picture of the challenges that the stockpile faces, directors of U.S. national nuclear weapons laboratories said in letters to a key congressman.

In December, Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), the ranking member of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, solicited comments from the three lab directors on last year’s JASON study of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) warhead Life Extension Programs (LEPs). The NNSA is a separately organized agency within the Department of Energy.

U.S. Nuclear Review Shifts Threat Focus

Tom Z. Collina

Flagging nuclear terrorism and proliferation as the top U.S. national security priorities for the first time, the White House released its long-awaited Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) April 6. The congressionally mandated report provides a comprehensive description of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and strategy for the next five to 10 years. The 2010 NPR is the third post-Cold War review—the others were in 1994 and 2001—and is the first to be published in an unclassified form.

President Barack Obama, who reportedly played a major role in crafting the final language of the report, said in an April 6 statement that the NPR “recognizes that the greatest threat to U.S. and global security is no longer a nuclear exchange between nations, but nuclear terrorism by violent extremists and nuclear proliferation to an increasing number of states.”

In language similar to that of the 2001 NPR, the new one states that “Russia and the United States are no longer adversaries” and that prospects for military confrontation have declined dramatically.

The review indicates that global security can be “increasingly defended” by the United States’ “unsurpassed conventional military capabilities and strong missile defenses,” Obama said. The NPR’s reduced emphasis on large-scale nuclear forces as a guarantor of U.S. security allows the United States to take “specific and concrete steps to reduce the role of nuclear weapons,” Obama said.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and other senior officials said in briefings that, in response to the risks posed by nuclear proliferation and terrorism, the 2010 NPR emphasizes the central importance of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), initiatives to strengthen and update the treaty, and programs designed to better secure vulnerable nuclear materials.

Updated Assurances

Administration officials highlighted the shift in U.S. nuclear weapons negative security assurances described in the NPR, which states that the United States “will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.” This covers the vast majority of states in the world today.

This policy updates earlier versions of U.S. negative security assurances first enunciated in 1978 and reaffirmed in 1995, which had left open the option to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states that are “in association or alliance with” a nuclear-weapon state—generally understood to be a reference to the Warsaw Pact allies of the Soviet Union.

In his April 6 statement, Obama said the United States was updating its negative security assurance policy to emphasize “the importance of nations meeting their NPT and nuclear non-proliferation obligations.”

In an April 14 article, CQ Today Online News quoted several Republicans questioning the new policy. According to the article, Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), chairman of the Republican Conference, said, “I prefer the ambiguity of our [previous] nuclear policy,” under which the United States would not specifically rule out the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states in any scenario, including the use of chemical or biological weapons.

However, Gates said at the April 6 Pentagon press conference that “[i]f any state eligible for this assurance were to use chemical or biological weapons against the United States or its allies or partners, it would face the prospect of a devastating conventional military response.” The NPR notes that the United States also reserves the right to adjust its policy if the threat from biological weapons grows.

For recognized nuclear powers, such as Russia and China, and states not compliant with the NPT and other nonproliferation obligations, such as Iran, North Korea, and perhaps Syria, the new NPR makes clear that the United States will reserve the right to use nuclear weapons first or in response to an attack even if that attack does not involve nuclear weapons. The NPR notes, however, that the United States would only consider the use of nuclear weapons in “extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners.” As Gates put it in his April 6 remarks, nuclear weapons are “obviously a weapon of last resort.”

For these states, the NPR foresees “a narrow range of contingencies” in which the United States might still use nuclear weapons to deter an attack with conventional, chemical, or biological weapons.

In contrast, the 2001 NPR reportedly said that nuclear weapons “provide credible military options to deter a wide range of threats, including WMD [weapons of mass destruction] and large-scale conventional military force.”

Although the new NPR states that the “fundamental role” of U.S. nuclear weapons is to “deter nuclear attack on the United States, our allies, and partners,” other roles remain. This falls short of the policy declaration that some experts were advocating, that the “sole purpose” of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack. The NPR says that the United States will continue to strengthen its conventional capabilities “with the objective of making deterrence of nuclear attack on the United States or its allies and partners the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons.”

Obama and other administration officials highlighted another shift in policy spelled out in the 2010 NPR. Obama said the United States is “fulfilling our responsibilities as a nuclear power committed to the NPT” by not conducting nuclear testing and by seeking ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

No New Nuclear Weapons

Obama said “the United States will not develop new nuclear warheads or pursue new military missions or new capabilities for nuclear weapons.” Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Gen. James Cartwright stated in an April 6 press briefing at the Pentagon, “[N]o new testing, no new warheads…no new missions or capabilities.”

The “no new nuclear weapons” policy in the 2010 NPR is a significant change from the 2001 NPR, which emphasized the need for new types of “[nuclear] warheads that reduce collateral damage” as well as “possible modifications to existing weapons to provide additional yield flexibility.” The earlier review specifically cited the need to improve “earth-penetrating weapons,” designed to threaten hardened and deeply buried targets, such as command and control and weapons storage bunkers. (See ACT, April 2002.)

One of the central questions going into the Obama NPR was how far down the road to new nuclear warheads the Obama administration would go to maintain the nuclear stockpile and how the administration would define “new” in this context. (See ACT, April 2010.) The NPR says that the United States will extend the life of warheads currently in the nuclear arsenal as an alternative to the development of new nuclear warheads, “which we reject.” The NPR lays out several principles that will guide this effort. For example, Life Extension Programs (LEPs) for U.S. weapons “will use only nuclear components based on previously tested designs and will not support new military missions or provide for new military capabilities.”

In the document, the administration pledges that, “[i]n any decision to proceed to engineering development for warhead LEPs, the Administration will give strong preference to options for refurbishment or reuse. Replacement of nuclear components would be undertaken only if critical Stockpile Management Program goals could not otherwise be met, and if specifically authorized by the President and approved by Congress.”

These principles suggest that the door to new warheads is well guarded but not completely closed. Senior White House Coordinator for WMD Counterterrorism and Arms Control Gary Samore told the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace April 21 that a new nuclear weapon is one “based on a design that’s not previously tested,” referring to the “physics package,” or the nuclear components. Using the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program canceled by Congress as an example, Samore said that “some of the RRW warheads were based on designs that were not previously tested, that would be a new nuclear weapon.”

“Replacement,” Samore said, “would be to make a weapon with a physics package that had been previously tested but is not currently deployed.…I think refurbishment and reuse will be perfectly fine for the foreseeable future. But if I’m wrong and replacement becomes necessary, the president has the option to do that.”

Cartwright, in his April 6 comments, said, “I think we have more than enough capacity and capability for any threat that we see today or might emerge in the foreseeable future.”

The NPR sets the stage for additional reductions in U.S. nuclear forces beyond the force levels outlined in the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), but it does not specify how much further the United States will reduce its nuclear stockpile. According to the NPR, the U.S. nuclear triad of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and nuclear-capable heavy bombers will be maintained under New START, although the ICBMs eventually will carry only one warhead each. Trident submarines will likely be reduced from 14 to 12, and the bomber force will likely be cut, according to the NPR. The only specific system that the NPR says will be retired is the nuclear-tipped, submarine-launched cruise missile known as TLAM-N. The NPR notes that the future of the remaining forward-deployed U.S. nuclear weapons stationed in five NATO countries in Europe will be decided through the alliance’s Strategic Concept process, due to be completed at year’s end.

Future Cuts Envisioned

The NPR states that the United States will pursue post-New START arms control with Russia that addresses not only strategic weapons, but also nonstrategic and nondeployed nuclear weapons. The document also pledges the United States will pursue high-level bilateral dialogues with Russia and China aimed at promoting “more stable, resilient, and transparent strategic relationships.”

The NPR calls for a presidentially directed review of post-New START arms control objectives and the launching of a national research and development program to support progress toward a world free of nuclear weapons, including work on verification technologies. According to the NPR, future efforts should “set a course for the verified elimination of all nuclear weapons” while minimizing the risk of cheating and breakout by focusing verification efforts on nuclear warheads rather than delivery vehicles.

The implementation of the Department of Energy’s Stockpile Stewardship Program and the modernization of the nuclear infrastructure will allow the United States to “shift away” from keeping thousands of nondeployed warheads as a “hedge” against geopolitical surprise, the NPR says. The policy of maintaining substantial warhead reserves while reducing the deployed arsenal was established by the 1994 NPR.

Principal Undersecretary of Defense for Policy James Miller said April 6 at the Pentagon that reducing the hedge force will depend “on our success in getting congressional approval for infrastructure investments” so that the United States can move from relying on spare warheads to the ability to build new ones if needed.

On nuclear weapons alert status, the NPR found that the current posture of U.S. nuclear forces—bombers off full-time alert, nearly all ICBMs on alert, and “a significant number” of SLBMs at sea—should be “maintained for the present.” However, it said that efforts should continue to reduce the possibility of accidents, unauthorized actions, or misperceptions and to maximize presidential decision time by continuing “open-ocean targeting” (targeting nuclear missiles at the open ocean in peacetime), strengthening command and control, and exploring new ICBM basing modes that “enhance survivability” and reduce “incentives for prompt launch.”

The NPR concludes that “a nuclear force of thousands of weapons has little relevance” to preventing nuclear terrorism and proliferation and that “more can and must be done” to reduce these forces.

Table 1: Nuclear Posture Reviews, Then and Now

The Obama administration’s Nuclear Posture Review is the third since the end of the Cold War. It differs from its predecessors in several key areas.

Issue

Obama, 2010

Bush, 2001

Clinton, 1994

Missions for nuclear weapons

"Fundamental" role is to deter nuclear attack; also to deter chemical, biological attack

Deter weapons of mass destruction and conventional forces; "all options on the table"

Deter nuclear attack on the United States and its allies as well as deter and respond to chemical and biological threats

Negative security assurances

United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states in compliance with NPT

Maintains the possibility that U.S. nuclear forces may be used to counter threats from non-nuclear-weapon adversaries

Maintains the possibility that U.S. nuclear forces may be used to counter threats from non-nuclear-weapon adversaries

Arms reductions

New START, 1,550 strategic deployed warheads; calls for future reductions to include nondeployed and tactical weapons

SORT, 2,200 strategic deployed warheads; rejected verifiable, binding arms control; rejected ABM Treaty

START II, 3,500 strategic warheads; creation of "hedge" force, warheads removed from delivery platforms would be kept in storage; calls for further reductions

New weapons and testing

Ratify CTBT, no nuclear testing, no new weapons development, no new missions for nuclear weapons

Called for new-design weapons and new missions (bunker busters); rejected CTBT

No nuclear testing, no new-design nuclear warhead production

ABM: Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty
CTBT: Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
NPT: Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
SORT: Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty
START: Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty

 

 

Flagging nuclear terrorism and proliferation as the top U.S. national security priorities for the first time, the White House released its long-awaited Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) April 6. The congressionally mandated report provides a comprehensive description of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and strategy for the next five to 10 years. The 2010 NPR is the third post-Cold War review—the others were in 1994 and 2001—and is the first to be published in an unclassified form.

World Leaders Vow to Boost Nuclear Security

Volha Charnysh and Daniel Horner

Four dozen world leaders meeting in Washington last month agreed on general principles and individual steps for improving the security of nuclear materials around the world and for preventing nuclear terrorism.

Speaking to reporters at a news conference at the close of the April 12-13 summit, President Barack Obama, who convened the event, said the participating nations “seized” the opportunity “to make concrete commitments and take tangible steps to secure nuclear materials.”

At a separate press conference, White House Coordinator for WMD Counterterrorism and Arms Control Gary Samore said one of the summit’s most important outcomes was eliminating doubts on whether the threat of nuclear terrorism “is really serious.” Another key result, he said, was the “consensus” that “the solution to the threat is actually pretty simple” because “[p]hysical protection is something that governments know how to do, something that private companies know how to do, if they invest the resources.”

Forty-seven national delegations—38 of them represented at the level of head of state or head of government—attended the event, as did the European Union, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the United Nations. The participants agreed on a communiqué, which included an endorsement of Obama’s goal to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials in four years, first announced in April 2009 in Prague, and a work plan. Although no binding commitments were made, in their national statements many states described specific steps they will take to advance nuclear security.

According to the U.S. national statement, Washington’s “first priority is to ensure that nuclear materials and facilities in the United States are secure.” The United States said it plans to invite the IAEA to review the security at its National Institute of Standards and Technology’s Center for Neutron Research, whose reactor is to be converted from highly enriched uranium (HEU) to a new low-enriched uranium (LEU) fuel once the fuel has been tested and approved. In addition, the United States is working to develop and deploy new neutron detection technologies and has started an international effort to develop a “framework for cooperation between governments investigating the illicit use of nuclear materials,” the statement says. The document expresses U.S. readiness to commit up to another $10 billion to the Group of Eight’s Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction as well as to complete ratification procedures for the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism and the 2005 amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM). The amendment strengthens the provisions of the 1980 CPPNM by making protection of nuclear facilities and material in peaceful domestic use, storage, and transport legally binding for states-parties. The original provisions apply only to material during international transport.

Twenty-nine countries announced what Samore called “house gifts,” or measures they have taken or plan to take to strengthen nuclear security.

President Dmitry Medvedev announced the shutdown of Russia’s last weapons-grade plutonium-production reactor, ADE-2. The shutdown marks the end of a long-running effort, which Russia pursued with U.S. assistance. (See ACT, March 2003.)

Also, Russia and the United States signed a protocol revising their stalled 10-year-old agreement on disposition of surplus weapons plutonium (see page 43).

Differing Emphases

At his press conference, Obama said the participants agreed “on the urgency and seriousness of the threat” and reached a “shared understanding of the risk.” The U.S. national statement starts by stressing “the risk of nuclear terrorism as the most immediate and extreme threat to global security.” However, Russia’s April 13 memorandum, posted on the Kremlin’s Web site, mentions the risk of nuclear terrorism only in the sixth paragraph. The memorandum begins by describing the nuclear industry as “one of the strategic directions of development.” Although it acknowledges that the industry requires “a high level of physical nuclear security,” it also says that “reliable physical protection is being provided for all nuclear materials and related facilities” on Russian territory and that there are no “vulnerable nuclear materials and facilities with the level of physical security that would cause any concerns” in Russia.

Ukraine agreed to eliminate its stockpile of about 90 kilograms of HEU by 2012 with U.S. technical and financial assistance. At his press conference, Obama said, “For about 10 years, we had been encouraging Ukraine to either ship out its highly enriched uranium or transform it to…lower-enriched uranium. And in part because of this conference, Ukraine took that step.”

Although he won praise at the summit for making the commitment, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych was criticized for his decision by the opposition at home. Opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko said in an April 16 statement on her Web site that his decision to give up HEU “is not in Ukraine’s national security interests and negatively affects its research potential in fields such as nuclear energy, medical technology, chemistry and others.” The opposition plans to submit a draft law to the parliament banning HEU removal, she said.

Canada promised to return to the United States “a large amount” of spent HEU fuel from its medical isotope production reactor. Canada also agreed to fund HEU removals from Mexico and Vietnam, host and fund a World Institute for Nuclear Security (WINS) best practices workshop in Ottawa, and provide $100 million in new bilateral security cooperation with Russia, according to a White House summary of the national commitments made at the summit.

Canada, Mexico, and the United States agreed to convert a Mexican research reactor from HEU fuel to LEU fuel, according to an April 13 trilateral announcement. Kazakhstan reaffirmed a commitment to convert a HEU research reactor and eliminate remaining HEU, and Chile gave up its entire 18-kilogram stockpile of HEU.

The Chilean material left the country March 4 on two ships to the United States and arrived several weeks later, an official from the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said in an April 30 interview.

The NNSA, a separately organized agency within the Department of Energy, administers the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI). One focus of the GTRI is to secure HEU and plutonium from research reactors supplied by Russia and the United States and repatriate that material.

Recently, the GTRI has also begun to cover “gap material”—HEU and plutonium from countries other than Russia and the United States. The Chilean HEU was the first material to receive authorization to be returned to the United States under that effort, the NNSA official said. Funds for the removal of the gap material from Chile and five other countries were requested and approved for fiscal year 2010.

The Chilean HEU consisted of two batches, 13.9 kilograms of British-supplied material enriched to 45 percent uranium-235 and 4.6 kilograms of French-origin material enriched to 90 percent uranium-235, the NNSA official said.

Sarkozy Proposes Tribunal

France promised to ratify the 2005 amendment to the CPPNM and invite an International Physical Protection Advisory Service security review from the IAEA. “We support the IAEA and its director-general …and are going to go further in our cooperation with the agency,” President Nicolas Sarkozy said at an April 13 press conference.

Sarkozy proposed establishing an international tribunal to deal with states supplying nuclear materials to nonstate actors. He later said this could be accomplished “either by amending the statute of the International Criminal Court to broaden its powers or by establishing an ad hoc court to bridge the gap in international law.” Sarkozy said Obama asked the sherpas—the aides who do the preparatory work, including the drafting of statements, before a summit—to work with the UN secretary-general on this initiative. Samore, at the postsummit press conference, said the idea prompted “a very lively discussion,” after which “the leaders agreed that this is one of the things the experts will be discussing” in the meetings prior to the next summit, which South Korea agreed to host in 2012.

Speaking at an April 14 event at the Hudson Institute in Washington, Andrew Semmel, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for nuclear nonproliferation who attended the summit as an IAEA consultant, said a number of countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, and Russia, supported Sarkozy’s suggestion.

Argentina and Pakistan announced new steps to strengthen port security and prevent nuclear smuggling. China, India, Italy, Japan, and other states agreed to create new centers to promote nuclear security technologies and training.

Some countries pledged new resources to help the IAEA meet its responsibilities and agreed to hold regional or national conferences or meetings in support of nuclear security. The communiqué reaffirmed the “essential role” of the IAEA “in the international nuclear security framework and will work to ensure that it continues to have the appropriate structure, resources and expertise needed to carry out its mandated nuclear security activities.”

Many states, including Belgium, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, and the United Kingdom, promised to contribute to the IAEA Nuclear Security Fund. The IAEA summit commitment was to complete the final review of its nuclear physical security guidance document.

Focused Efforts

Implementing the communiqué by following the specific steps outlined in the work plan will lead to “focused national efforts to improve security and accounting of nuclear materials and strengthen regulations at the national level,” said Laura Holgate, senior director for WMD terrorism and threat reduction, speaking at the same April 13 news briefing as Samore.

In the work plan, states agree to advance nuclear security with measures that include ratification and implementation of international treaties; support for UN Security Council Resolution 1540, which requires all states to put in place a wide variety of “appropriate effective” national controls over nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and related materials and the means to deliver them; conversion of civilian facilities from HEU to non-weapons-useable materials; research on new nuclear fuels, detection methods, and forensic technologies; development of corporate and institutional cultures that prioritize nuclear security; education and training; and joint exercises among law enforcement and customs officials to enhance nuclear detection opportunities.

According to the communiqué, states “[r]ecognize that highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium require special precautions and agree to promote measures to secure, account for, and consolidate these materials, as appropriate.” They endorsed “strong nuclear security practices that will not infringe upon the rights of States to develop and utilize nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.” Although emphasizing “the role of the nuclear industry, including the private sector, in nuclear security,” the work plan “recogniz[es] that national governments are responsible for standard setting within each State.”

In response to a question about the numerous qualifying phrases in the communiqué, such as “where appropriate” and “where feasible,” Samore said that “the structure of nuclear security is fundamentally a sovereign responsibility of nation states.” He said it is not possible to get an international agreement to give the IAEA the same kind of authority in nuclear security that it has in nuclear safeguards.

The communiqué recognized “that measures contributing to nuclear material security have value in relation to the security of radioactive substances,” but the issue of radiological security was not on the summit’s agenda. Speaking at the same press conference as Samore and Holgate, Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, said the gathering focused on “the highest-consequence threat,” a nuclear explosion, which would result from a device made from plutonium or HEU “as opposed to a dirty bomb.”

At the Hudson Institute briefing, Semmel said several countries brought up the issue of radiological threats in the course of the meeting even though it was not on the formal agenda.

Industry Role

In the communiqué, the meeting participants said they “[r]ecognize the continuing role of nuclear industry, including the private sector, in nuclear security and will work with industry to ensure the necessary priority of physical protection, material accountancy, and security culture.”

Nuclear industry leaders met in a separate session April 14. That meeting, organized by the Washington-based Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), drew more than 200 industry officials, NEI said in an April 15 press release.

In the release, NEI President and Chief Executive Officer Marvin Fertel praised Obama for being “able to elevate the issue of securing nuclear materials that are not secure now to such a high level.” Participants in the industry meeting agreed to form an executive task force to “look at how the industry can align with the goals of the communiqué and work plan,” the NEI release said. The industry leaders also agreed to improve the sharing of “lessons learned in securing materials” and to “strengthen engagement between industry and government,” NEI said.

A delegation of industry officials also met with Vice President Joe Biden April 14. After the meeting, Biden’s office released a statement saying that he “made clear that since roughly half of the world’s nuclear materials are in the hands of industry, public-private cooperation is essential to preventing the spread of nuclear materials to terrorists.” He “challenged the nuclear industry to prepare a set of best practices” by the 2012 summit.

A likely candidate to work with industry to meet that challenge is the Vienna-based WINS, the institute’s executive director, Roger Howsley, said in an April 20 interview. “Unless WINS takes a lead [role], I don’t know who is going to do it on behalf of the worldwide nuclear industry,” he said. That is not because of a “lack of will,” but because WINS was created “to fill a gap” and is already preparing a series of best-practice security guides, which should be completed by the end of 2011, he said. Those guides then will be turned into accredited training materials, he said.

Howsley noted that the Canadian, Japanese, and U.S. national statements at the summit specifically cited WINS.

Next Steps

As follow-up to the summit and preparation for the one in South Korea, there is likely to be an experts meeting “by the end of the year” in Buenos Aires, Samore said. He said he “would expect to have two or three more before the summit in Korea.”

In an April 22 interview, another White House official said it would be up to Seoul to determine the structure and attendance list for the 2012 summit.

Samore said at the briefing that “my prediction is that we are likely to have even more concrete results in 2012. We’ll be able to do better than we did this time because I think we’ve set a pattern; countries will want to come to the next meeting with even bigger and better house gifts.”

 

Four dozen world leaders meeting in Washington last month agreed on general principles and individual steps for improving the security of nuclear materials around the world and for preventing nuclear terrorism.

Speaking to reporters at a news conference at the close of the April 12-13 summit, President Barack Obama, who convened the event, said the participating nations “seized” the opportunity “to make concrete commitments and take tangible steps to secure nuclear materials.”

Russia, U.S. Sign Plutonium Disposition Pact

Daniel Horner

Russia and the United States last month signed an agreement clearing the way for Russia to turn dozens of tons of weapons-grade plutonium into reactor fuel.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov signed the accord in Washington April 13, during the nuclear security summit convened by President Barack Obama.

The new agreement is a protocol to a 2000 pact, known as the Plutonium Management and Disposition Agreement (PMDA), that commits each side to the disposition of at least 34 metric tons of surplus weapons plutonium. The combined 68 metric tons of plutonium is “enough material for approximately 17,000 nuclear weapons,” the Department of State said in a document released in conjunction with the signing.

Under the earlier version of the plan, Russia would have turned the plutonium into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel—so called because it is a mix of plutonium and uranium oxides—for use in Russian light-water reactors (LWRs). That effort stalled over programmatic, financial, and legal differences.

A main issue, as the State Department document put it, was that “the Russian program set forth in 2000 proved incompatible with Russia’s nuclear energy strategy and was, thus, not financially viable.”

U.S. officials and others have long said that Russia never fully supported the plan for LWR disposition, preferring instead to use fast-neutron reactors. Russia and the United States eventually began renegotiating that aspect of the agreement and in November 2007 issued a joint statement outlining a plan for use of fast-neutron reactors by Russia. They said they planned to negotiate a protocol to change the PMDA accordingly. (See ACT, December 2007.)

The Obama administration’s fiscal year 2011 budget request, which was released Feb. 1, said the two sides had “completed negotiations” on the protocol and expected to sign the new document “in early 2010.” (See ACT, March 2010.)

The administration requested $113 million for fissile material disposition in Russia. In an April 21 interview, a U.S. official said “Congress made clear” that it wanted the protocol signed before it approved the funding request.

The switch to fast-neutron reactors has drawn criticism from some nonproliferation specialists because such reactors, unlike LWRs, can produce more plutonium than they consume. The protocol includes “certain nonproliferation conditions,” as the State Department described them, that are designed to minimize the potential nonproliferation drawbacks of using fast-neutron reactors.

Another significant change from the original PMDA is that the protocol caps total U.S. funding for the effort at the $400 million amount that the United States previously pledged. As the protocol notes, the funding is subject to U.S. congressional appropriations decisions.

In his remarks at the signing ceremony, Lavrov said the Russian government would spend about $2.5 billion on the effort.

Under the original plan, the United States had spearheaded a multinational effort to fund the Russian disposition effort. According to the protocol, Russia and the United States will “seek other donor funding that would be used to reduce Russian outlays,” but implementation of the program “will not be dependent” on contributions beyond the U.S. pledge.

Spending, Nonproliferation Rules

The protocol specifies that “up to $300 million” of the $400 million can be spent on “development and construction activities.” That money can be spent “beginning as early as 2010 and continuing thereafter,” the document says. “Not less than $100 million” is to be spent after disposition actually begins; expenditures are to be “based on a fixed rate per metric ton” of disposition, according to the protocol.

That funding is intended to serve as an “incentive,” the U.S. official said. The two sides have not yet determined the payment rate, he said.

Under the protocol, the $300 million sum can be used for a wide variety of activities, including those “associated with the development, construction, and modification of facilities for fabricating MOX fuel and long-term storage of spent plutonium fuel” and “development of a system for monitoring and inspections.”

The funding also can be used for certain types of work on the two fast-neutron reactors in which Russia would irradiate the MOX fuel—the BN-600, which is currently operating at the Beloyarsk site, and the larger BN-800, which is under construction at the same site. The protocol specifies that none of the U.S. funding shall be used for the construction of the BN-800, but the money can be used for “BN-800 core design.”

U.S. negotiators made clear to their Russian counterparts that the U.S. government was “not in a position of helping [the Russians] build their own reactors,” but it would help them redesign the BN-800 core so that it has a breeding ratio of less than one, the U.S. official said.

A breeding ratio of less than one means that the reactor is operating as a plutonium “burner,” consuming more plutonium than it produces, rather than as a breeder.

The protocol continues the restriction from the original PMDA that spent fuel containing the weapons plutonium cannot be reprocessed until after the disposition mission is completed. However, unlike the original PMDA, the protocol does provide for some reprocessing of other materials that may be irradiated in reactors used for disposition.

It says that “uranium assemblies that have been irradiated in the BN-600” can be reprocessed “if this does not result in the accumulation of new separated weapon-grade plutonium by itself or in combination with other materials.” The U.S. official said the provision was important to the Russians. The BN-600 will be operating with a partial MOX core, with only about one-quarter to one-third of the assemblies being MOX and the rest being uranium assemblies, he said. The Russians want to continue their current practice of reprocessing the uranium assemblies, he said, although the goal is to extract uranium rather than plutonium. The plutonium in this case is merely “an unfortunate byproduct,” the official said.

Under another new provision, “up to thirty (30) percent of the assemblies with fuel containing plutonium prior to irradiation that have been irradiated in the BN-800” can be reprocessed if the reprocessing is “for purposes of implementing research and development programs for technologies for closing the nuclear fuel cycle” in Russia and the United States. However, the protocol specifies that the exception applies only if “such assemblies do not contain disposition plutonium and such reprocessing does not result in the accumulation of new separated weapon-grade plutonium by itself or in combination with other materials.”

The U.S. official emphasized that it was not clear how vigorously Russia would pursue that option. The 30 percent figure is an “upper limit for sure,” he said.

Reduced Disposition Rate

Under the protocol, each side “shall take all reasonable steps” to be able “to achieve a disposition rate of no less than 1.3 metric tons per year of disposition plutonium within as short a time as possible.” That figure represents a drop from the target disposition rate of 2 metric tons per year in the 2000 PMDA. The rate had to be reduced because the combined disposition capacity of the BN-600 and BN-800 is lower than that of the several LWRs that were to be used under the earlier agreement, the U.S. official said.

In the U.S. disposition program, the Department of Energy and its National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have had difficulty securing agreements with U.S. utilities to take the MOX fuel that is to be fabricated at a plant now being built by an NNSA contractor at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina. However, that was not a factor in the reduced goal for the disposition rate, the official said.

An NNSA press release at the time of the November 2007 preliminary agreement said the Russian reactors could dispose of “approximately 1.5 metric tons of Russian weapon plutonium per year.” That figure, the U.S. official said, was the “very best ballpark guesstimate,” and the new, slightly lower figure represents “technical refinements.”

The protocol adds that if ongoing work on a different kind of reactor, a gas-cooled high-temperature reactor, is successful, there could be “additional possibilities for increasing the disposition rate in the Russian Federation in 2019-2021.” Russia and the United States are cooperating on the development of that reactor.

According to the protocol, disposition in the BN-600 and the BN-800 “is targeted to begin in 2018.” The 2007 NNSA press release had said disposition in the BN-600 would begin in the “2012 timeframe” and in the BN-800 “soon thereafter.”

The U.S. official said the protocol uses the 2018 date “for symmetry reasons” because that is when U.S. reactors are supposed to start irradiating MOX fuel made from U.S. weapons plutonium, but an earlier start for the Russians is “not precluded.”

Once disposition starts, it probably will take 20 to 25 years to handle the 34 metric tons, the U.S. official said.

Verification Issues

With regard to monitoring and inspections, the protocol says that Russia and the United States “shall begin consultations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at an early date and undertake all other necessary steps to conclude appropriate agreements with the IAEA to allow it to implement verification measures with respect to each Party’s disposition program.”

In the April 21 interview, the U.S. official said those consultations had not yet started. He said he expected they would begin in “the May-June time frame,” adding that there had been “major progress” on monitoring and inspections during a March 12 meeting of the co-chairmen of the PMDA’s Joint Consultative Commission. According to the State Department’s April 13 document, the co-chairmen at that meeting “approved a number of key elements clarifying how monitoring and inspections will be developed and carried out.”

The U.S. official said he would expect those verification provisions to be “nailed down” before the United States expended new monies, but not necessarily before the protocol’s entry into force.

The target date for completing the verification provisions is “as early as possible next year” while entry into force is expected later this year, he said. The agreement will come into force when the two sides exchange diplomatic notes after each side has completed its “national procedures,” the protocol says.

Because it is an executive agreement, the protocol does not require congressional approval, although the administration must provide a formal notification to Congress, the U.S. official said. The Russians, however, have to submit the protocol to the Duma, he said.

 

Russia and the United States last month signed an agreement clearing the way for Russia to turn dozens of tons of weapons-grade plutonium into reactor fuel.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov signed the accord in Washington April 13, during the nuclear security summit convened by President Barack Obama.

New START Signed; Senate Battle Looms

Tom Z. Collina

Setting the stage for what could be a major showdown with Senate Republicans, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) April 8 in Prague. The signing of the treaty “demonstrates the determination of the United States and Russia—the two nations that hold over 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons—to pursue responsible global leadership,” Obama said. Medvedev said, “What matters most is that this is a win-win situation.… [B]oth parties have won. And taking into account this victory of ours, the entire world community has won.”

Obama said that the new treaty marks the beginning of a longer process. “As I said last year in Prague, this treaty will set the stage for further cuts. And going forward, we hope to pursue discussions with Russia on reducing both our strategic and tactical weapons, including nondeployed weapons.” On April 5, 2009, in a speech in the Czech capital, Obama declared his support for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

Medvedev said, “I am convinced that all that has been done so far is just the beginning of a long way, long way ahead. I wouldn’t like to see the Russian Federation and the United States be narrowed down to just limiting strategic offensive arms.”

But in a note of caution, Medvedev said, “It matters to us what will happen to missile defense. It is related to the configuration of our potential and our capacities, and we will watch how these processes develop.”

The Russian government issued a unilateral statement April 7 that it could withdraw from the treaty if U.S. missile defenses “give rise to a threat to the strategic nuclear force potential of the Russian Federation.” The United States made its own unilateral statement the same day, declaring that its missile defenses “are not intended to affect the strategic balance with Russia.” These statements are not legally binding, and similar statements were issued with previous treaties, including START I.

With the new treaty now signed, the focus has shifted from the U.S.-Russian negotiations to the Russian Duma and the U.S. Senate, which must both approve the agreement before it can enter into force. “We intend to proceed promptly and to do all the necessary procedures to ensure that our parliament…starts reviewing this treaty,” said Medvedev in Prague. Obama said, “I feel confident that we are going to be able to get it ratified.”

Senate Outlook

The Obama administration plans to submit the full treaty (text, protocols, annexes, and the administration’s analysis of each part) and the 10-year nuclear stockpile plan (required by section 1251 of the fiscal year 2010 defense authorization bill) to the Senate on or around May 7 and is seeking ratification of New START by the end of the year, according to administration officials and Senate staff. “I’m going to do everything I can to advance this as quickly as I can. It may take until the first of the year to get it done, but I think it’s important we try to get this done,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said April 13.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, which has jurisdiction over treaties, said in a statement April 8 that he plans to begin hearings on the treaty “in the coming weeks,” and to report a resolution of advice and consent out of the committee for approval by the full Senate “as soon as possible.” Under the U.S. Constitution, only the president can ratify treaties; the Senate can provide its advice and consent with a two-thirds majority vote. In a March 26 statement, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), the committee’s ranking member, said, “I also look forward to working with Chairman Kerry…so that we can work quickly to achieve ratification of the new treaty.” Senate staffers said the panel could vote before the August recess. It is not clear how committee Republicans other than Lugar plan to vote.

Some Republican senators who are not on the committee have been more vocal. Sen. James Inhofe (Okla.) told the Associated Press April 18 that New START faces a hard battle in the Senate, “and I’ll lead the opposition to it.”

“There’s not a chance the treaty will be approved this year. It took a year and a half to approve the START I treaty,” Senate Republican Conference Chairman Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) said April 11 on Fox News Sunday. “And with the Supreme Court pushing to the front of the agenda in the Senate and jobs, terror, and debt being our major issues we should be worrying about, this is a treaty for next year.” But he told CQ Today Online News April 14, “There is an openness to considering the treaty” within the Republican Conference. “The treaty itself is modest,” he said.

“The Obama administration will need to meet three requirements if it expects favorable consideration of the START follow-on treaty,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said in a statement April 8. “The Senate will assess whether or not the agreement is verifiable, whether it reduces our nation’s ability to defend itself and our allies from the threat of nuclear armed missiles, and whether or not this administration is committed to preserving our own nuclear triad.”

The Obama administration says that it has already addressed all three Republican concerns. On verification, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen said March 26 that New START, in comparison to START I, “features a much more effective, transparent verification method that demands quicker data exchanges and notifications” and that the Joint Chiefs “stand solidly behind this new treaty.” On missile defense, Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, the head of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, told the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces April 15 that New START “actually reduces constraints on the development of the missile defense program” because “[o]ur targets will no longer be subject to START [I] constraints, which limited our use of air-to-surface and waterborne launches of targets.”

On maintaining the nuclear arsenal, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote in an April 6 cover letter for the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) that the document “calls for making much-needed investments to rebuild America’s aging nuclear infrastructure” and that “to this end” he has asked for almost $5 billion to be transferred from the Pentagon to the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. This investment, he said, “and the NPR’s strategy of warhead life extension, represent a credible modernization plan necessary to sustain the nuclear infrastructure and support our nation’s deterrent.”

As for Duma ratification, “the Russians will work hard to convince the United States that ratification in Moscow is in doubt and that, therefore, the United States must really take Russian concerns about [missile] defenses into account,” said former START negotiator Linton Brooks at an Arms Control Association press briefing April 7. “But the historic record suggests that the Russian Duma is a good deal more responsive to their executive branch than our Congress is to ours,” he said. “If President Medvedev and Prime Minister [Vladimir] Putin…want ratification, ratification will happen.”

What the Treaty Says

New START replaces START I, which expired Dec. 5, 2009, and the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), which will terminate when New START enters into force.

Nuclear Arsenal Limits. Seven years after entry into force, New START limits “accountable” deployed strategic nuclear warheads and bombs to 1,550, a decrease of approximately 30 percent from the 2,200 limit set by SORT and a decrease of 74 percent from the START I-accountable limit of 6,000. Under START I, warheads were counted indirectly by associating a certain number of warheads with each delivery system.

Deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and heavy bombers assigned to nuclear missions are limited to 700. Deployed and nondeployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and bombers are limited to 800; that figure includes test launchers and bombers and Trident submarines in overhaul. That is a 50 percent reduction from the 1,600 launcher limit set under STARTI. (SORT did not directly cover launchers.) Each side has the flexibility to structure its nuclear forces as it wishes. “We will retain, throughout the life of the treaty, the nuclear triad,” Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Gen. James Cartwright told the media April 6.

Counting Rules. For deployed ICBMs and SLBMs, the number of warheads counted is the actual number of re-entry vehicles (RVs) on each missile. (RVs protect the warhead as it re-enters the atmosphere from space; they carry only one warhead.) START I did not directly count RVs, but instead counted missiles and bombers that were “associated with” a certain number of warheads. New START counts each heavy bomber as one warhead (although the maximum loading is 16 to 20 warheads), the same counting rule that START I used for bombers carrying short-range weapons. Neither side typically deploys nuclear bombs or cruise missiles on bombers, but keeps them in storage (and thus inspections of bombers would find no weapons to inspect), so the parties agreed to arbitrarily count each bomber as one warhead. New START, like START I, does not track or limit warheads or bombs once they have been removed from deployed launchers.

Each deployed ICBM, SLBM, and bomber is counted as one against the 700 limit. Each deployed and nondeployed missile launcher or bomber is counted as one against the 800 limit. Nondeployed missiles are counted toward that limit unless they have been converted to other missions or eliminated.

Ballistic Missile Defense. Administration officials have stated repeatedly that “current or planned U.S. missile defense programs” are not constrained by New START. The treaty’s preamble acknowledges the “interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and strategic defensive arms” and that “current strategic defensive arms do not undermine the viability and effectiveness of the strategic offensive arms of the Parties.”

The treaty prohibits both sides from converting launchers for ICBMs and SLBMs into launchers for missile defense interceptors and vice versa. This provision does not apply to five U.S. ICBM silo launchers at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California that were previously converted to missile defense interceptor launchers. The United States has no plans for any such conversions in the future, according to administration officials.

This provision drew criticism from some Republican senators, who saw it as a way to limit missile defenses. “While we were initially advised that the only reference to missile defense was in the preamble to the treaty, we now find that there are other references to missile defense, some of which could limit U.S. actions,” Sens. Jon Kyl (Ariz.) and John McCain (Ariz.) said in a joint statement April 8. The Wall Street Journal editorialized April 17 that “[t]he Obama Administration may not currently plan to convert an ICBM silo into a missile defense site. But Mr. Obama won’t be in office beyond 2017, and a future President might want to. [New] START wouldn’t allow it.”

“It’s a limit in theory, but not in reality,” responded national security adviser James Jones in an April 20 letter to the Journal. “We have no plans to convert any additional ICBM silos. In fact, it would be less expensive to build a new silo rather than convert an old one. In other words, if we were to ever need more missile defense silos in California, we would simply dig new holes, which is not proscribed by the treaty.”

Verification. The treaty’s verification regime includes relevant parts of START I as well as new provisions to cover items not previously monitored. For example, the old treaty did not directly limit warheads, but instead assigned a certain number of warheads to each launcher; a count of the launchers gave an upper limit on the number of warheads that could be deployed but not necessarily an actual count. New START includes direct limits on deployed warheads and allows for on-site inspections to give both sides confidence that the limits are being upheld.

START I required telemetry (missile-generated flight-test data) to be openly shared, with limited exceptions, to monitor missile development. New START does not limit new types of ballistic missiles, and thus the START I formula for extensive telemetry sharing was no longer considered necessary. New START allows for the exchange of telemetry recordings and other information on up to five missile tests per side per year to promote openness and transparency.

To monitor Russian mobile ICBMs, all new missiles are subject to the treaty as soon as they leave a production facility, and each missile and bomber will carry a unique identifier. Russia must notify the United States 48 hours before a new solid-fueled ICBM or SLBM leaves the Votkinsk production facility and when it arrives at its destination. That requirement is designed to facilitate monitoring by national technical means, such as satellites. The treaty does not limit the modernization of strategic forces.

Verification of treaty limits is carried out by national technical means and 18 annual on-site inspections. The treaty allows 10 on-site inspections of deployed warheads and deployed and nondeployed delivery systems at ICBM bases, submarine bases, and air bases (“Type One” inspections). It also allows eight on-site inspections at facilities that may hold only nondeployed delivery systems (“Type Two” inspections).

Duration and Withdrawal. The treaty’s duration is 10 years unless it is superseded by a subsequent agreement and can be extended for an additional five years. Each party can withdraw if it decides that “extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests.” The treaty would terminate three months from a notice of withdrawal.

Conventional Warheads. New START does not prohibit either side from deploying conventional warheads on ballistic missiles, although they would be counted against treaty limits. The preamble states that both sides are “mindful of the impact of conventionally armed ICBMs and SLBMs on strategic stability.” Any future U.S. Prompt Global Strike deployments are likely to be small. For example, the Bush administration had planned to arm 28 Trident D-5 missiles with one conventional warhead each. According to Obama administration briefing materials, the treaty limits would “accommodate any plans the United States might develop during the life of this treaty to deploy conventional warheads on ballistic missiles.” Trident submarines converted to carry conventional cruise missiles would not be counted under New START, nor would bombers that have been fully converted to conventional missions, such as the B-1B.

U.S.-Russian Nuclear Arms Control Agreements at a Glance

Over the past four decades, U.S. and Soviet/Russian leaders have used a progression of bilateral agreements and other measures to limit and reduce their nuclear warhead and missile and bomber arsenals. The following is a brief summary.

Strategic Nuclear Arms Control Agreements

SALT I

Begun in November 1969, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) produced by May 1972 both the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, which banned nationwide strategic missile defenses, and the Interim Agreement, an executive-legislative agreement that capped U.S. and Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) forces. Under the Interim Agreement, both sides pledged not to construct new ICBM silos, not to increase the size of existing ICBM silos “significantly,” and capped the number of SLBMs and SLBM-carrying submarines. The agreement ignored strategic bombers and did not address warheads, leaving both sides free to enlarge their deployed forces by adding multiple warheads to their ICBMs and SLBMs and increasing their bomber-based forces. The agreement limited the United States to 1,054 ICBM silos and 656 SLBM launch tubes. The Soviet Union was limited to 1,607 ICBM silos and 740 SLBM launch tubes. In January 2002, the United States unilaterally withdrew from the ABM Treaty.

SALT II

In November 1972, Washington and Moscow agreed to pursue a follow-on treaty to SALT I. SALT II, signed in June 1979, limited U.S. and Soviet ICBM, SLBM, and strategic bomber-based nuclear forces to 2,250 delivery vehicles (defined as an ICBM silo, a submarine missile-launch tube, or a bomber) and placed a variety of other restrictions on deployed strategic nuclear forces. The agreement would have required the Soviets to reduce their forces by roughly 270 delivery vehicles, but U.S. forces were below the limits and could actually have been increased. President Jimmy Carter asked the Senate not to consider approving SALT II after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979, and the treaty was not taken up. Both Washington and Moscow subsequently pledged to adhere to the agreement’s terms despite its failure to enter into force. However, on May 26, 1986, President Ronald Reagan said that future decisions on strategic nuclear forces would be based on the threat posed by Soviet forces and “not on standards contained in the SALT structure.”

START I

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), first proposed in the early 1980s by Reagan and finally signed in July 1991, required the United States and the Soviet Union to reduce their deployed strategic arsenals to 1,600 delivery vehicles, carrying no more than 6,000 warheads as counted using the agreement’s rules. The agreement limited deployed warheads by imposing limits on delivery vehicles and requiring the destruction of excess delivery vehicles. The destruction was verified using an intrusive verification regime that involved on-site inspections and regular exchanges of information, as well as national technical means such as satellites. The agreement’s entry into force was delayed for several years because of the collapse of the Soviet Union and efforts to denuclearize Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine by making them parties to the agreement and consolidating their nuclear weapons in Russia. START I reductions were completed in December 2001, and the treaty expired on Dec. 5, 2009.

START II

In June 1992, Presidents George H. W. Bush and Boris Yeltsin agreed to pursue a follow-on accord to START I. START II, signed in January 1993, called for reducing deployed strategic arsenals to 3,000 to 3,500 warheads and banned the deployment of destabilizing multiple-warhead land-based missiles. START II would have counted warheads in roughly the same fashion as START I and, also like its predecessor, would have required the destruction of delivery vehicles but not warheads. The agreement’s original implementation deadline was January 2003, but a 1997 protocol extended the deadline until December 2007 because of Russia’s concerns over its ability to meet the earlier date. Both the Senate and the Duma approved START II, but the treaty did not take effect because the Senate did not ratify the 1997 protocol and several ABM Treaty amendments, whose passage the Duma established as a condition for START II’s entry into force. START II was effectively shelved as a result of the 2002 U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty.

START III Framework

In March 1997, Presidents Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin agreed to a framework for START III negotiations that included a reduction in deployed strategic warheads to 2,000 to 2,500. Significantly, in addition to requiring the destruction of delivery vehicles, START III negotiations were to address “the destruction of strategic nuclear warheads…to promote the irreversibility of deep reductions including prevention of a rapid increase in the number of warheads.” Negotiations were supposed to begin after START II entered into force, which never happened.

SORT

On May 24, 2002, Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), under which the United States and Russia agreed to limit their strategic arsenals to 1,700 to 2,200 warheads each. The warhead limit takes effect as well as expires on Dec. 31, 2012. Although the two sides did not agree on specific counting rules, the Bush administration asserted that the United States would reduce only the number of warheads deployed on strategic delivery vehicles in active service, i.e., “operationally deployed” warheads, and would not count warheads removed from service and placed in storage or warheads on delivery vehicles undergoing overhaul or repair. The agreement’s limits are similar to those envisioned for START III, but SORT does not require the destruction of delivery vehicles, as START I and II did, or the destruction of warheads, as had been envisioned for START III. The treaty was approved by the Senate and Duma and entered into force on June 1, 2003. SORT will terminate when New START enters into force.

New START

On April 8, 2010, the United States and Russia signed New START, a legally binding, verifiable agreement that limits each side’s deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 and strategic delivery systems to 800 deployed and nondeployed, such as submarines in overhaul, with a sublimit of 700 deployed. The treaty-accountable warhead limit is 30 percent lower than the 2,200 limit of SORT, and the delivery vehicle limit is 50 percent lower than the 1,600 allowed in START I. The treaty has a verification regime that combines elements of START I with new elements tailored to New START.

Measures under the treaty include on-site inspections and exhibitions, data exchanges and notifications related to strategic offensive arms and facilities covered by the treaty, and provisions to facilitate the use of national technical means for treaty monitoring. To increase confidence and transparency, the treaty also provides for the exchange of telemetry (missile flight-test data on up to five tests per year) and does not limit missile defenses or long-range conventional strike capabilities. The treaty limits take effect seven years after entry into force, and the treaty will be in effect for 10 years, or longer if agreed by both parties.

Nonstrategic Nuclear Arms Control Measures

Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty

Signed Dec. 8, 1987, the INF Treaty required the United States and the Soviet Union to verifiably eliminate all ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. Distinguished by its unprecedented, intrusive inspection regime, the INF Treaty laid the groundwork for verification of the subsequent START I. The INF Treaty entered into force on June 1, 1988, and the two sides completed their reductions by June 1, 1991, destroying a total of 2,692 missiles. The agreement was multilateralized after the breakup of the Soviet Union, and current active participants in the agreement include the United States, Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are parties to the agreement but do not participate in treaty meetings or on-site inspections. The ban on intermediate-range missiles is of unlimited duration.

Presidential Nuclear Initiatives

President George H. W. Bush announced on Sept. 27, 1991, that the United States would remove almost all U.S. tactical nuclear forces from deployment, and the Soviet Union made similar commitments, reducing the risk of nuclear proliferation as the Soviet Union dissolved. Specifically, Bush said the United States would eliminate all its nuclear artillery shells and short-range nuclear ballistic missile warheads and remove all nonstrategic nuclear warheads from surface ships, attack submarines, and land-based naval aircraft. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev reciprocated on Oct. 5, pledging to eliminate all nuclear artillery munitions, nuclear warheads for tactical missiles, and nuclear landmines. He also pledged to withdraw all Soviet tactical naval nuclear weapons from deployment. However, significant questions remain about Russia’s implementation of its pledges, and there is considerable uncertainty about the current state of Russian tactical nuclear forces.

 

Strategic Nuclear Arms Control Agreements

SALT I
SALT II START I START II START III SORT
New START
Status Expired Never Entered Into Force Expired Never Entered Into Force Never Negotiated In Force To Be Ratified
Deployed Warhead Limit NA NA 6,000 3,000-3,500 2,000-2,500 2,200 1,550
Deployed Delivery Vehicle Limit US: 1,710 ICBMs & SLBMs
USSR: 2,347
2,250 1,600 NA NA NA 700; 800 including non-deployed
Date Signed May 26, 1972 June 18, 1979 July 31, 1991 Jan. 3, 1993 NA May 24, 2002

April 8,2010

Date Ratifed, U.S. Aug. 3, 1972 NA Oct. 1, 1992 Jan. 26, 1996 NA March 6, 2003
Ratification Vote, U.S. 88-2 NA 93-6 87-4 NA 95-0
Date Entered Into Force Oct. 3, 1972 NA Dec. 5, 1994 NA NA June 1, 2003
Implementation Deadline NA NA Dec. 5, 2001 NA NA Dec. 31, 2012
Expiration Date Oct. 3, 1977 NA Dec. 5, 2009 NA NA Dec. 31, 2012 or when New START takes effect

Setting the stage for what could be a major showdown with Senate Republicans, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) April 8 in Prague. The signing of the treaty “demonstrates the determination of the United States and Russia—the two nations that hold over 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons—to pursue responsible global leadership,” Obama said. Medvedev said, “What matters most is that this is a win-win situation.… [B]oth parties have won. And taking into account this victory of ours, the entire world community has won.”

NATO Chief’s Remark Highlights Policy Rift

Oliver Meier

A comment by NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on the importance of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe has put a spotlight on disagreements among member states on the alliance’s nuclear posture.

On the first day of an informal April 22-23 meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Tallinn, Estonia, Rasmussen said at a press conference, “I do believe that the presence of American nuclear weapons in Europe is an essential part of a credible deterrent.”

Diplomatic sources emphasized in interviews late last month that Rasmussen’s statement did not represent a consensus within the alliance. A senior U.S. official said April 27 that “we were surprised by the urgency with which Rasmussen emphasized the importance of not changing NATO nuclear policies.” According to officials, several NATO members subsequently made clear to Rasmussen that they disagree with his statements on the necessity of continued deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe.

Because the Tallinn meeting was informal, NATO did not release an official communiqué on its results. In an April 23 press briefing, Rasmussen summed up the meeting by saying that ministers had agreed “that a broad sharing of the burden for NATO’s nuclear policy remains essential.” In contrast to his statement the previous day, Rasmussen did not specifically mention the need for continued forward-basing of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe. He said he expects discussion on nuclear issues among NATO’s 28 members to “continue right up to November when the new Strategic Concept will be agreed,” referring to the next NATO summit in Lisbon, scheduled for Nov. 19-20.

The current debate about the future role of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe was triggered by the German government’s October 2009 initiative for a withdrawal of remaining U.S. nuclear weapons from Germany and Europe. (See ACT, December 2009.)

Under NATO nuclear sharing arrangements, the United States keeps an estimated 150 to 200 nuclear weapons in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey. These countries would provide aircraft that could deliver U.S. nuclear weapons to their targets in times of war, although the strike mission of the Turkish air force probably has expired. NATO does not provide details of nuclear deployments, but officials in the past have confirmed that “a few hundred” U.S. nuclear weapons are deployed in Europe. (See ACT, September 2007.)

In addition to forward-deployed U.S. tactical nuclear weapons, NATO relies on the nuclear arsenals of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States for nuclear deterrence.

The Tallinn meeting marked the first time that NATO foreign ministers were officially discussing NATO’s nuclear posture, a precedent apparently viewed with trepidation by some in NATO headquarters, who would have preferred to leave discussions on nuclear matters in the hands of defense ministers.

Rasmussen had been forced to put the issue on the agenda by an open letter sent to him by the foreign ministers of Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Norway on Feb. 26, in which the five countries argue for a “comprehensive discussion” of NATO’s contribution to nuclear disarmament. Officials said in interviews that the letter, which had been initiated by the Dutch government, was mainly motivated by fears that existing differences among NATO allies on nuclear issues would be papered over in the new Strategic Concept. (See ACT, March 2010.)

By and large, central and east Europeans appear to be content with the status quo of NATO’s nuclear posture. A March 2010 Royal United Services Institute report, based on interviews with NATO diplomats and officials, concludes that new NATO members generally see no reason “to change existing arrangements.” France, which does not participate in NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group but did join discussions in Tallinn, is consistently cited as also not being interested in changes to NATO’s nuclear posture. Several officials said these positions did not fundamentally change in Tallinn.

“The only thing we could agree at Tallinn was to disagree,” the senior U.S. official said April 27. He emphasized that given existing differences among NATO members, “that was the best we could expect at this point in time.”

In an April 20 interview, a senior German official drew a distinction between “discussions on Germany’s position to work for a removal of U.S. nuclear weapons from Germany and the debate about NATO’s nuclear posture.” He said “the former is a more practical and limited issue, although of high importance to Germany, while the latter relates to the question of how NATO fundamentally will view the role of nuclear weapons in the new Strategic Concept.”

Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said in an April 21 parliamentary debate that he does not “see the need for having U.S. nuclear weapons on Dutch territory as a security guarantee.”

Arms Control Linkage

In an April 22 dinner speech at the Tallinn meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined “five principles” that should guide NATO’s approach to nuclear weapons. According to the written excerpts of her statement distributed at the meeting, they are:

•  “[A]s long as nuclear weapons exist, NATO will remain a nuclear alliance”;

•  “[A]s a nuclear Alliance, sharing nuclear risks and responsibilities widely is fundamental”;

•  A “broad aim is to continue to reduce the role and number of nuclear weapons” while “recogniz[ing] that in the years since the Cold War ended, NATO has already dramatically reduced its reliance on nuclear weapons”;

•  “Allies must broaden deterrence against the range of 21st century threats, including by pursuing territorial missile defense”; and

•  “[I]n any future reductions, our aim should be to seek Russian agreement to increase transparency on non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe, relocate these weapons away from the territory of NATO members, and include non-strategic nuclear weapons in the next round of U.S.-Russian arms control discussions alongside strategic and non-deployed nuclear weapons."

The recently released U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) states that talks on reducing the arsenals of nonstrategic, or tactical, nuclear weapons should only commence after the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty has entered into force (see page 38).

NATO allies support the inclusion of tactical nuclear weapons in a future arms control agreement, but Russia has sent conflicting signals on its willingness to include its stockpile of several thousand short-range nuclear weapons in any future arms control regime. (See ACT, April 2009.)

Deliberate Ambiguity

The senior U.S. official on April 27 strongly rejected the notion that Clinton wanted to tie changes in NATO’s nuclear posture to a possible arms control agreement with Russia on tactical nuclear weapons. “This is a complete misunderstanding of Secretary Clinton’s statement,” which was “deliberately ambiguous” on the future of the U.S. nuclear posture in Europe, he said. “The last thing we wanted to do was give a timeline for any changes,” he said.

The NPR states that, with regard to “future decisions within NATO about the requirements of nuclear deterrence and nuclear sharing,” Washington wants to “keep open all options.”

In response to questions at a press conference on the exact connection between NATO and Russian nuclear reductions, NATO spokesman James Appathurai said on April 22 that “what NATO decides, it decides on its own, but it does not take its decision in a vacuum.”

Similarly, the senior German official said that Berlin does not support a linkage between NATO’s nuclear posture and a future agreement with Russia on tactical nuclear weapons. “The decision by NATO to revise its nuclear posture should be based on an internal assessment of changed circumstances. Of course, removal [of tactical nuclear weapons] would also send a signal that we are serious about the objective to constantly further reduce the nuclear arsenals,” he said.

Other sources said that, by linking withdrawal to an agreement with Russia, NATO would relinquish the initiative on arms control. Instead of waiting for Moscow to move, NATO should strive to actively shape the international environment in order to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons, they said.

By contrast, Foreign Ministers Radek Sikorski of Poland and Jonas Gahr Støre of Norway in an April 9 joint open letter argued that, in the field of tactical nuclear weapons, “reciprocity and mutually agreed measures are called for.”

On March 29, the Guardian’s Julian Borger reported in his Web log that the NATO Group of Experts, which is currently developing a first draft of NATO’s new Strategic Concept, would recommend in its report that U.S. nuclear weapons should only be removed from Europe as part of a quid pro quo with Russia. “You cannot get rid of them without reciprocity,” a member of the Experts Group is quoted as saying.

It appears that the reciprocity requirement has subsequently been challenged by at least one NATO member state and that discussions on this point could be reopened or the issue avoided altogether. Other officials additionally cautioned that the Experts Group will not determine the outcome of the Strategic Concept discussions on nuclear issues. Thus, the senior U.S. official on April 16 emphasized that the report will “help to inform the debate about the new Strategic Concept but it will only precede the actual drafting exercise.” The Experts Group report was supposed to be delivered to Rasmussen on May 1, but that date has been postponed for at least two weeks, officially because the flight ban imposed in Europe after the eruption of an Icelandic volcano in April prevented meetings of the group.

Rasmussen on April 23 summarized discussions among ministers by saying that they had agreed “that NATO must continue to maintain a balance between credible deterrence and support for arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation.” He reconfirmed the consensus view that NATO would decide on any changes to its nuclear posture only on the basis of an alliance-wide agreement and that missile defense “will not replace deterrence, but can complement it.”

The Obama administration in the NPR had stated its intention “to increase reliance on non-nuclear means,” such as missile defenses, for deterrence in regional security arrangements.

The NPR says that the United States will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states that are party to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if those countries are complying with their nonproliferation obligations, but officials differed on how this new policy would affect NATO.

The senior German official said the NPR “should trigger an interesting debate” in the alliance “on its own new nuclear doctrine, which, as the NPR [does], should—from a German perspective—further restrict the circumstances under which NATO might use nuclear weapons.” Other officials were skeptical as to whether the alliance would be able to mirror new U.S. security guarantees. The senior U.S. official said April 16 the Obama administration will “want to wait and see how allies respond to the new nuclear doctrine” as outlined in the NPR “before we see whether we can align NATO policies with U.S. nuclear policies.” The issue of restricting the circumstances under which nuclear weapons could be used has not “come up yet in discussions,” he said.

 

A comment by NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen on the importance of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe has put a spotlight on disagreements among member states on the alliance’s nuclear posture.

On the first day of an informal April 22-23 meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Tallinn, Estonia, Rasmussen said at a press conference, “I do believe that the presence of American nuclear weapons in Europe is an essential part of a credible deterrent.”

New START: Good News for U.S. Security

Steven Pifer

On April 8 in Prague, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a new strategic offensive arms agreement to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), which expired in December 2009.[1]

If the Senate and the Russian Duma consent to ratification of the treaty, the United States and Russia each will be limited to 1,550 deployed strategic warheads on no more than 800 deployed and nondeployed strategic nuclear delivery vehicles—a steep cut from START I levels, which permitted each side 6,000 warheads on 1,600 delivery vehicles or launchers.[2] The New START limit on deployed strategic warheads is 30 percent lower than the warhead ceiling of 2,200 set by the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT).

The new treaty is supported by a set of effective verification measures, which should provide high confidence that any militarily significant violation would be detected in a timely manner. The verification regime, however, differs from the 1991 agreement. For example, New START is a simpler agreement in several ways, requiring less-demanding monitoring measures.

The new treaty is good news. It will reduce Russian and U.S. strategic forces while allowing the United States to maintain a robust nuclear deterrent. It will provide transparency and predictability regarding Russian strategic nuclear forces. Its conclusion demonstrates that Washington and Moscow are fulfilling their nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) commitments on the eve of the May NPT review conference; that will strengthen the administration’s hand in seeking to tighten the nonproliferation regime. The treaty also should give a boost to the overall U.S.-Russian relationship. Finally, it provides a framework for further reductions in strategic nuclear forces.

This article describes New START, its principal numerical limits, its monitoring measures, and the ways in which it will advance U.S. national security interests.

The Treaty’s Numerical Limits

Under New START, the United States and Russia must reduce their strategic forces to no more than 1,550 deployed warheads each. This limit covers the warheads on deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), as well as counting each deployed heavy bomber equipped for nuclear armaments as carrying one warhead. The reductions are to be implemented within seven years of the treaty’s entry into force. The treaty has a 10-year duration, with a provision for extension of up to five years.

The 1,550 deployed-warhead limit represents a significant reduction for both sides. According to the last data exchange conducted under START I, in July 2009, the United States was attributed with more than 5,900 warheads, although it actually deployed about 2,200. The Russians’ START-attributed number at that time was almost 3,900. Most analysts believe the actual number of deployed Russian strategic warheads is 2,600 to 2,700.[3]

New START will limit each side to 800 deployed and nondeployed ICBM launchers and SLBM launchers and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments. Each side will be allowed no more than 700 deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments. Nondeployed systems include training and test launchers and bombers. Launchers without missiles will count as nondeployed. For example, a Trident ballistic missile submarine that goes into long-term overhaul has its 24 SLBMs first removed. Under the new treaty, those 24 missile tubes will count as nondeployed launchers until the overhaul is finished and the SLBM tubes are reloaded.

What Is Different and Why

In its approach to counting warheads, New START differs from START I. The 1991 treaty used a type-attribution counting rule that assigned each ballistic missile type a number of warheads, regardless of the number of warheads a specific missile of the type actually carried. For example, the Trident D-5 SLBM counted as carrying eight warheads, even though today most if not all Trident D-5s have had some warheads removed, known as downloading, so that they carry fewer than their capacity. The new treaty uses an actual-load counting rule, monitored by on-site inspections. This provision allows the sides to deploy different numbers of warheads on missiles of the same type.

The actual-load counting rule is of particular interest to the United States. The U.S. Air Force plans to download its Minuteman III ICBMs to carry one warhead each, as opposed to the Minuteman III’s capacity of three warheads, but the U.S. Navy now loads and plans in the future to load different numbers of warheads on its Trident D-5 SLBMs. The actual load-counting rule is preferable to a type-attribution rule because the latter would overcount the number of warheads on the Trident force.

The new treaty maintains something of an attribution rule for heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments: each will count as carrying one warhead. An actual-load counting rule would not work for nuclear bombers. Currently, it is neither U.S. nor Russian operational practice to maintain nuclear weapons onboard heavy bombers, in contrast to the warheads deployed on ICBMs and SLBMs. The New START negotiators thus agreed to a somewhat arbitrary rule of one warhead per deployed heavy bomber equipped for nuclear armaments.

The rule reflects the same philosophy as the approach in the 1991 START I. That treaty attributed heavy bombers equipped to carry air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) with fewer ALCMs than they could actually carry, and it attributed bombers not equipped to carry ALCMs as carrying only one warhead. That resulted from a U.S. push in the START negotiations to discount weapons loads on bombers compared to ballistic missiles, as bombers are slower than missiles (thus making them less useful for a surprise attack), can be recalled, and would have to contend with unconstrained air defenses. This push for preferential treatment for bombers in the belief that they are the least destabilizing leg of the strategic Triad has been a central feature of U.S. arms control policy for some 40 years.

The new treaty and protocol set out procedures for the conversion or elimination of strategic offensive arms. In contrast to START I, the new treaty’s limits will not apply to heavy bombers that are not equipped for nuclear armaments, i.e., bombers that have been converted to solely conventional roles.[4] Likewise, the missile tubes on the four Trident submarines that have been modified to carry canisters with conventional cruise missiles rather than Trident D-5 SLBMs will not count under the launcher limits. Although these bombers and submarines will not be subject to the new treaty’s numerical limits, the treaty contains inspection provisions to assure the Russians that these launchers no longer have a nuclear role. This approach will allow the U.S. Air Force and Navy greater flexibility to deploy conventional systems than would be the case were these launchers to count under the treaty.

These limits—1,550 warheads; 800 deployed and nondeployed ICBM and SLBM launchers and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments; and 700 deployed ICBMs, SLBMs, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments—are the new treaty’s sole numerical limits, reflecting its simplified nature in comparison to START I. The 1991 agreement complemented its overall ceilings (1,600 launchers capable of carrying up to 6,000 warheads) with a series of nested sublimits for launchers and warheads. Under START I, the Russians were allowed to deploy no more than 154 SS-18 heavy ICBMs, and the sides could deploy no more than 4,900 warheads on ballistic missiles, no more than 1,540 warheads on heavy ICBMs, and no more than 1,100 warheads on mobile ICBMs.

In contrast, New START gives each side complete “freedom to mix,” that is, the ability to choose its own force structure within the overall limits. Several reasons account for this shift. First, given the strategic and political changes of the past 20 years, including the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union, neither side felt the need to have a say in determining the shape of the other’s force structure.

Second, as the Russian SS-18 ICBM force continues to age and is retired, Russia will become less dependent on  the heavy ICBMs that were the backbone of its strategic arsenal 20 years ago and a major break-out concern of U.S. negotiators because of the SS-18’s warhead upload potential.[5] The plant that built the SS-18s is located in Dnipropetrovsk, which today is in Ukraine. It is doubtful that renewed interest in an SS-18 replacement among some in Russia’s military will result in actual deployments, particularly in light of New START’s warhead limits.

Third, the START I limit on mobile-ICBM warheads was driven by a concern that Russia would produce and deploy hundreds of these missiles. In fact, although the Russians see mobile ICBMs as an important part of their strategic force, over the past two decades they have produced those ICBMs at a relatively modest rate.

Streamlining Verification

The purpose of verification measures is to give each side high confidence that it can detect a militarily significant violation of the agreement in a timely manner, that is, rapidly enough to respond before the violation jeopardizes its security interests. The new treaty has a full set of verification measures, but as the presidents agreed last July, the negotiators have streamlined the monitoring provisions where possible. The negotiators took the START I verification measures as a starting point and did away with monitoring provisions that were not required to verify the new treaty. This will be welcomed by the U.S. and Russian militaries, which have to adjust operational practices to accommodate inspections and other verification measures.

New START includes provisions that will prohibit each side from interfering with the other side’s national technical means of verification, such as imagery satellites. It also will require the sides to exchange and regularly update data on their strategic forces and to notify each other of certain changes regarding their forces. New START will require unique identifiers on each ICBM, SLBM, and heavy bomber. The treaty makes provisions for two types of inspections: “Type One” inspections, which will take place at ICBM bases, submarine bases, and air bases, and “Type Two” inspections, which will occur at other facilities, such as ICBM loading facilities, test ranges, training facilities, and formerly declared facilities. The treaty’s protocol specifies that each side may conduct up to 10 Type One inspections and eight Type Two inspections per year.

One purpose of Type One inspections is to confirm the number of warheads on a deployed ICBM or deployed SLBM. Under the terms of New START’s protocol, when an inspection team arrives at a submarine base, for example, the inspected side must present the inspectors certain information, including the number of warheads on each deployed SLBM at the base. The inspectors have the right to choose one of the deployed SLBMs for inspection to confirm the accuracy of the information provided. Inspectors cannot check more than one missile per inspection, but the risk of discovery should deter a side from cheating. Similar rules apply during inspections at ICBM bases.

In some areas, the treaty provides for less intrusive measures than START I did. The 1991 agreement required, with limited exceptions, that each side not encrypt the telemetry[6] from its ballistic missile tests and that it share the data that it collected. The new treaty provides that each side will share telemetric data on up to five ballistic missile tests per year, with the specific tests to be agreed. Another streamlining of the START I verification regime is the end of permanent monitoring at the Votkinsk missile production plant, something that the Bush administration had already agreed to forgo.

There are several reasons for such changes. First, national technical means of verification have improved significantly over the past 20 years. Although the United States rarely discusses the capabilities of its satellites and other national technical means, they can provide more information relevant to monitoring arms control treaties than they could in the past.

Regarding telemetry, New START does not contain the kinds of START I provisions that required telemetry access for monitoring purposes. For example, the 1991 treaty had a provision specifying what constituted a new type of missile as opposed to an existing type and prohibiting putting multiple warheads on an existing single-warhead ballistic missile. The effect of the provision was to require a side to build a new type of missile to carry multiple warheads. Telemetry access helped to verify whether a missile test was of an existing or new type. The new treaty defines “new type,” but for purposes of information; the treaty does not impose any limits on new types.

Senior administration officials, including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, have said the United States does not need any telemetry access to monitor the new treaty. The administration negotiated some telemetry access, however, bearing in mind the importance attached to telemetry by some in the Senate.

The Russians resisted providing telemetry, in part because the Russian military does not want to provide information that it believes is not needed for monitoring the treaty’s limits. The Russians argued, moreover, that providing all telemetry was unfair, in that Russia is now developing two new missiles—the Bulava SLBM and Topol-M ICBM—while the United States intends to deploy its existing Minuteman III and Trident D-5 missiles for another 20 to 30 years. The Russians felt the United States would learn a lot from the telemetry of their two new missiles, while they would learn relatively little from telemetry from Minuteman III and Trident D-5 tests, as they have monitored those tests many times. This reluctance to share information not needed for treaty verification is not just a Russian proclivity; the U.S. military encrypts and intends to continue encrypting the telemetry on missile defense tests.

As for Votkinsk, mobile ICBMs have always represented a verification challenge. On the one hand, a side needs to be able to count the number of the other side’s mobile missiles for arms control purposes. The advantage of mobile ICBMs, however, is that moving around makes them difficult to locate and increases their survivability, thereby reducing motivations for launching a first strike in a crisis. The solution encapsulated in START I was to allow U.S. inspectors to monitor mobile ICBMs as they left the production facility at Votkinsk. The Obama administration believes that the other measures in the new treaty give confidence that the United States can monitor the number of mobile ICBMs without having a presence at Votkinsk. Having observed Russian practice with mobile ICBMs over the past 20 years, the United States now has a better understanding of where they fit in the overall Russian strategic force. Moreover, Russia likely will deploy significantly fewer launchers than allowed under the new treaty. The Russians in 2009 proposed a launcher limit of just 500, which provides an indication of their planned post-treaty force structure. The new treaty would permit the Russians to deploy many more launchers without exceeding its limits.

Finally, the United States will have a hedge against Russian cheating. The U.S. military will reduce to its 1,550 warhead limit primarily by downloading ballistic missiles and, at least initially, will store many of the extra warheads. (Nondeployed warheads are not limited by the treaty.) The United States will thus have a significant upload potential. Indeed, in the unlikely event of Russian cheating that was deemed a significant threat, the U.S. military could within a matter of months increase the number of its deployed warheads, to perhaps more than 3,000.

Advantages for U.S. Security

New START offers significant benefits for U.S. national security. First, it will reduce by about 30 percent the number of strategic nuclear warheads with which Russia could target the United States. With or without the reductions, Americans need not spend a lot of time worrying about a Russian nuclear strike, but reducing the potential threat nonetheless makes the United States more secure.

Second, the treaty will provide transparency and predictability regarding Russian strategic forces. With New START, the United States will know far more about Russian strategic force deployments than would be the case without the agreement. For example, national technical means of verification cannot peer inside a Russian missile and reveal the number of warheads it carries. The treaty’s on-site inspection provisions will allow U.S. inspectors to check precisely that. The treaty will give Washington a good sense of what Russian strategic forces will look like over the coming decade. That kind of predictability will lead to more-informed decisions about the investment that the United States should make in its strategic nuclear forces as opposed to other kinds of military capabilities.

Third, although U.S. strategic forces will be reduced and capped by the treaty, the United States will still maintain a strong and effective nuclear deterrent. The Pentagon has not yet decided on a specific post-treaty force structure, but the New START limits would appear to allow the United States to maintain most of the current force structure: 400 to 450 Minuteman III ICBMs (each with a single warhead), 288-336 Trident D-5 SLBMs on 12-14 submarines (the missiles will be downloaded), and a small number of heavy bombers. According to the Nuclear Posture Review released on April 6, some B-52H bombers currently in the nuclear force will be converted to conventional-only roles and thus will fall outside the treaty’s limits. The force structure will be survivable, robust, and agile. Moreover, the conventional capabilities of bombers assigned a conventional-only role and Trident submarines modified to carry conventional cruise missiles will be unconstrained.

Fourth, the new treaty will bolster the basic bargain of the NPT. Under the NPT, the nuclear-weapon states agreed to work to disarm while the non-nuclear-weapon states gained access to civil nuclear technology and agreed not to acquire nuclear arms. The new agreement demonstrates that the United States and Russia are living up to their part of the deal. That will strengthen Washington’s hand in pressing for a tighter nuclear nonproliferation regime, particularly at the May NPT review conference.[7]

Fifth, New START should contribute to the administration’s effort to “reset” relations with Russia. Over the past 40 years, when Washington and Moscow have made progress on strategic arms control issues, it has had a positive effect on the broader bilateral relationship. Indeed, one reason that the Obama administration sought at the beginning of 2009 to address certain Russian concerns regarding strategic arms control, such as the Bush administration’s refusal to limit launchers, was to shape a more positive relationship. The administration hopes that this will help secure Moscow’s cooperation on issues such as Afghanistan and blocking Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The jury is still out, but the Russians have been more helpful on these questions over the past nine months than they were previously; they are allowing U.S. overflights to Afghanistan carrying lethal military equipment and have adopted a tougher stance with regard to Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.

Finally, the new treaty sets the stage for further reductions. Obama has made clear that he sees this as the first step in a process. He wishes to continue negotiations with the Russians to lower the number of strategic nuclear weapons and, for the first time, address the issue of tactical (nonstrategic) nuclear weapons. The new treaty’s framework can accommodate further reductions in nuclear forces.

Possible Criticism

Even before New START was complete, critics voiced concerns over possible weaknesses. Those concerns can be grouped into three categories.

First, some worried that the treaty would limit missile defense. The treaty does acknowledge the interrelationship between offense and defense. That is stating an obvious point: there is a link between the number and type of strategic offensive forces and the number and type of strategic defenses, including missile defense. Yet, the treaty does not limit any current or planned U.S. missile defenses. New START will bar the United States from placing missile interceptors in ICBM and SLBM launchers, but the U.S. military does not plan to do that.[8] The Russians made a unilateral statement to the effect that a significant change in missile defense could lead them to conclude that their supreme interests were jeopardized and thus lead to their withdrawal from the treaty.[9] The Russians have the right to say whatever they want in a unilateral statement, which will have no legal impact on the treaty. With or without such a statement, Russia will have the right to decide unilaterally on withdrawal from the treaty, just as the United States decided to exercise its right to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty during the Bush administration.

Second, some may be concerned that the treaty limits conventional warheads on ballistic missiles. The treaty will treat all warheads on ICBMs and SLBMs as if they were nuclear; should the United States or Russia later decide to put some conventional warheads on its strategic ballistic missiles, those warheads would be counted under the 1,550 warhead limit. This is different from how the treaty handles Trident SLBM launchers and heavy bombers that have been converted or modified to a conventional-only role; such systems are not counted under the 800 and 700 limits, respectively. Counting all warheads obviates the need for a far more intrusive verification regime that would be necessary to distinguish between nuclear and conventional warheads on strategic ballistic missiles. Moreover, at this point, the United States does not even have firm plans to deploy conventional warheads on its Minuteman III or Trident D-5 missiles. Should it decide to do so in the future, the number of conventional warheads is likely to be very small, which would not cut deeply into the permitted overall level of warheads.[10]

Third, some are concerned that the verification regime has been weakened by reducing telemetry access and not allowing permanent monitoring at Votkinsk. The new treaty’s verification provisions will allow each side to have high confidence that the other side is complying with the treaty’s provisions. Although it might be nice to have additional provisions and the insights they would give into Russian strategic forces, such provisions are not necessary for monitoring the treaty’s limits. It is a bit ironic that some of those who assert that the new treaty falls short on verification supported SORT, which was signed by Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin in 2002. That treaty had no verification provisions.

Conclusion

The administration should not pursue and the Senate should not ratify nuclear arms control agreements for the sake of arms control. The key questions are: Does the treaty in question advance U.S. national security interests? Does the treaty allow the United States to maintain a reliable and effective nuclear deterrent? Does the treaty contain sufficient verification measures such that any militarily significant violation would be detected in a timely manner so that an appropriate response could be taken?

New START differs significantly from START I. On each of these three key questions, however, the answer for the new agreement is “yes.” It will cut U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces to their lowest level in four decades in a stabilizing and verifiable manner. When the Senate examines the treaty and considers these questions, it should conclude that the treaty serves U.S. national interests and merits ratification.


Steven Pifer is a senior fellow and director of the Arms Control Initiative at the Brookings Institution. A retired Foreign Service officer, he has spent much of his career working on arms control and security issues.

An earlier version of this article was posted on the Arms Control Association Web site April 2, 2010. For more information, e-mail the editors.


ENDNOTES

1. The presidents signed the treaty and the protocol on April 8. In addition, the treaty package will include three technical annexes covering notifications, inspection activities, and telemetric information. U.S. officials expected to have the annexes finalized by the end of April.

2. START I limited intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launchers (missile silos and transporter-erector-launchers—TELs—for mobile missiles), submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) launchers (missile tubes), and heavy bombers. It limited silos, TELs, and missile tubes rather than the missiles themselves because it was easier to monitor the number of silos, TELs, and tubes, and the sides produced additional missiles for use in tests or as spares.

3. The discrepancy between the U.S. START I count of more than 5,900 warheads and the actual count of some 2,200 warheads is explained by three factors. First, most U.S. strategic ballistic missiles have been downloaded so that they carry fewer warheads than the number with which they were attributed by START I. Second, a number of U.S. delivery vehicles, for example, the B-1 bombers, have been converted to conventional-only roles, although they still were counted under START I rules. Third, the START I count included a number of “phantom” systems. For example, 50 Minuteman III silos sit empty, but because the silos (the launcher counted by START I) remained intact, they still counted as if they contained 50 Minuteman III missiles, each attributed with three warheads. Similar factors led to the discrepancy on the Russian side.

4. START II, signed in 1993 but which never entered into force, had a provision allowing each side to deploy up to 100 heavy bombers converted to conventional-only roles.

5. Upload refers to the ability to put downloaded warheads back on a ballistic missile. For example, a Trident D-5 downloaded to carry three warheads would still have five slots for additional warheads.

6. Telemetry is the information broadcast by a missile during its flight test that describes how the missile is performing. START I required that telemetry not be encrypted and that, following a flight test, the side conducting the test provide a copy of the telemetric information it had recorded to the other side. Each side thus gained a considerable amount of information about the other side’s ICBM and SLBM performance.

7. A tighter regime would place more obstacles in the path of a future nuclear weapons aspirant. An important example would be securing broader adherence to the additional protocol to countries’ safeguards agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency. The additional protocol gives the agency greater authority to conduct inspections to ensure that a country’s nuclear program complies with the NPT.

8. The United States does deploy ground-based missile interceptors in former ICBM silos at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. These are grandfathered by the treaty.

9. New START contains a standard provision allowing each side to withdraw should it consider its supreme interests to be jeopardized by the treaty.

10. The Bush administration plan envisaged arming two Trident D-5 missiles on each of the 14 SLBM-carrying submarines with one conventional warhead each. That would have meant no more than 28 conventional warheads on the Trident force.

 

 

On April 8 in Prague, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a new strategic offensive arms agreement to replace the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I), which expired in December 2009.

Strengthen the Nonproliferation Bargain

Daryl G. Kimball

Once again the nuclear nonproliferation system is facing a crisis of confidence. New measures to update and strengthen the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) are needed. The May 2010 treaty review conference provides an important opportunity for the pact’s 189 members to adopt a balanced action plan to improve nuclear safeguards, guard against treaty withdrawal, accelerate progress on disarmament, and address regional proliferation challenges.

There is widespread support for commonsense initiatives that would advance treaty implementation and compliance. But friction over Iran's nuclear program and pending UN Security Council sanctions and the lack of progress toward a Middle East nuclear-weapon-free zone could impede efforts to bolster the treaty. To succeed, responsible states must work together in six key areas.

Supporting Tougher Nuclear Safeguards. Although the vast majority of NPT states-parties have implemented traditional International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards, many have not adopted an additional protocol, which would give the IAEA enhanced authority to detect undeclared nuclear activities. States-parties can and should recognize the Model Additional Protocol as the new international standard and call for universal accession by 2015.

Increasing the Costs of Treaty Withdrawal. North Korea’s declared but unrecognized withdrawal from the NPT in 2003 highlights that countries can acquire technologies that bring them to the very brink of nuclear weapons capability without violating the treaty and can leave the treaty without automatic penalties. In the years ahead, others such as Iran may be tempted to follow. NPT members have a common interest in ensuring that noncompliance comes with consequences. States should agree to convene an emergency session to develop a collective response to any case of withdrawal and affirm that a state remains responsible for violations of the treaty committed prior to withdrawal.

Recognizing Nuclear Rights and Responsibilities. To avoid being isolated at the conference, Iran will seek to justify its pursuit of sensitive fuel-cycle activities in defiance of Security Council resolutions with the NPT’s Article IV peaceful nuclear use guarantee. It is crucial that non-nuclear-weapon states do not play into Iran’s strategy. They should urge Iran to respond fully to the outstanding questions about its nuclear activities, suspend its sensitive fuel-cycle activities as a confidence-building measure, and agree to tougher IAEA inspections.

Accelerating Progress on Nuclear Disarmament. The continued possession of nuclear weapons by a few states, reinforced by lackluster progress on NPT Article VI disarmament commitments, has eroded the willingness of the non-nuclear-weapon-state majority to agree to strengthen the nonproliferation end of the NPT bargain.

Washington and Moscow have a better story to tell than they did five years ago. But there is clearly more to be done, and the NPT conference should outline the immediate next steps. To begin, the conference should recognize the value of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty and call for deeper verifiable and irreversible reductions of all types of nuclear warheads, including NATO’s forward-deployed tactical nuclear bombs, and urge all nuclear-armed states to refrain from increasing the size or military capabilities of their nuclear forces.

The conference should also call on all NPT members to ratify the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty no later than 2015. Nuclear testing is a dangerous vestige of the 20th century, yet the United States, China, and Iran are still among the nine CTBT holdout states that must ratify before the treaty enters into force.

Supporting Progress Toward a Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in the Middle East. As part of the package of proposals leading to the extension of the treaty in 1995, states agreed to support “practical steps toward the establishment of an effectively verifiable” zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.

Egypt and other states are understandably frustrated about the lack of progress toward this goal and are prepared to press their case. Visible and early support for tangible steps toward a Middle East nuclear-weapon-free zone, such as appointing a special envoy and organizing an international conference on the matter, would strengthen the nonproliferation cause.

Holding Non-NPT Members Accountable to NPT Standards. The India-specific exemption from nuclear trade rules adopted in 2008 is a body blow to the treaty because it extends to a non-NPT state the peaceful nuclear use benefits that have been reserved so far only for states that meet their nonproliferation obligations. It has led Pakistan to seek a similar deal and block negotiations on a treaty to stop fissile production for weapons.

To mitigate the damage, the United States and other nuclear supplier states should make clear there will be no further exemptions and that any nuclear test explosion would lead to the termination of nuclear trade with the offending country.

U.S. leadership is necessary but not sufficient to strengthen the NPT regime. All states have a responsibility to fulfill their part of the NPT bargain and ensure that the treaty continues to underpin collective security for another 40 years.

Once again the nuclear nonproliferation system is facing a crisis of confidence. New measures to update and strengthen the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) are needed. The May 2010 treaty review conference provides an important opportunity for the pact’s 189 members to adopt a balanced action plan to improve nuclear safeguards, guard against treaty withdrawal, accelerate progress on disarmament, and address regional proliferation challenges. (Continue)

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - May 2010