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"The Arms Control Association’s work is an important resource to legislators and policymakers when contemplating a new policy direction or decision."

– General John Shalikashvili
former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Arms Control Today

Congress Eliminates ARRW System Funding


January/February 2024
By Shannon Bugos

As anticipated, Congress discontinued funding for the U.S. Air Force flagship hypersonic weapons program, the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW).

After a string of testing failures since 2021 and the cancellation of ARRW system procurement earlier this year, Congress zeroed out the Biden administration’s request for $150 million for the hypersonic boost-glide system in the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act. (See ACT, May and November 2023.)

The Air Force intends to shift its focus instead to its Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile program, for which Congress authorized the requested $382 million.

Congress also reduced the procurement budget for the Navy’s hypersonic boost-glide system, Conventional Prompt Strike, by 33 percent as the full requested amount of $341 million was “early to need,” according to budget documents. Lawmakers ultimately authorized $256 million for procurement and $901 million for continued research and development.

The other Navy hypersonic weapons program, the Hypersonic Air-Launched Offensive Anti-Surface Warfare Increment II, was authorized at $92 million, a relatively slight decrease of 4 percent from the request.

Meanwhile, Congress authorized the requested $944 million for continued R&D and $157 million for procurement of the Army Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) system, known as Dark Eagle, despite recent testing setbacks. Less than 10 days after a canceled LRHW test, the Army acknowledged that it would not meet the 2023 deployment goal.

 

The move to discontinue the Air-Launched Rapid Response Weapon was expected after a string of testing failures. 

U.S. Says Shift to Safer Nuclear Fuel Would Be Costly


January/February 2024
By Shizuka Kuramitsu

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

The issue of nuclear fuel for navy ships has drawn increased attention since 2021, when the United States and the United Kingdom agreed to sell nuclear-powered submarines to Australia. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (L), U.S. President Joe Biden (C) and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak discussed the issue at a press conference in San Diego last March. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)The United States now relies on highly enriched uranium to provide safe, long-lived, and reliable naval propulsion fuel. But nonproliferation experts have been urging a switch to LEU, which is more difficult to convert for use in nuclear weapons.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The United States is making progress in developing a safer low-enriched uranium fuel for use in Navy ships, but the project is very costly, and success is not assured.

Russia Completes Last IMS Station


January/February 2024

Russia has completed construction of its 32nd and final seismic station designed to detect nuclear tests banned under the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and the facility is now in operation.

The station, located at Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, more than 6,000 kilometers east of Moscow in the Oblast Republic, is part of a unique global monitoring network operated by the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) called the International Monitoring System (IMS). The system was established to verify compliance with the CTBT.

“The 32 stations in the Russian Federation’s now complete IMS segment are crucial components of the global network that helps maintain peace and security by making sure that no nuclear test goes undetected,” CTBTO Executive Secretary Robert Floyd said in a Dec. 14 statement on the organization’s website.

When completed, the IMS will consist of 321 monitoring stations and 16 laboratories hosted by 89 countries around the globe, according to the CTBTO website. About 90 percent of these 337 facilities are already operational, providing a steady flow of real-time data.

Construction of the station at Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk commenced in May 2021, but experienced several delays due to harsh winter conditions, deforestation, and unexpected discoveries of endangered plants. The station was finished in August 2023 and now transmits seismic data to the data center at the CTBTO headquarters in Vienna.

In November 2023, Russia rescinded its ratification of the CTBT. Nevertheless, it remained a signatory to the treaty and expressed its intention to continue adhering to the nuclear testing moratorium and operating IMS stations on its territory. (See ACT, November 2023.)—SHIZUKA KURAMITSU

Russia Completes Last IMS Station

Global Partnership Reaffirms Support for Ukraine


January/February 2024

A multilateral group of countries pledged to continue efforts to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and support efforts in Ukraine to mitigate the threat posed by those weapons.

Participants from 15 of the 30 member states of the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction attended the Nov. 9-10 meeting in Nagasaki. The Global Partnership, an initiative of the Group of Seven industrialized countries (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States), was founded in 2002 to prevent the proliferation of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and related materials.

In a statement opening the meeting, Takei Shunsuke, Japan’s state minister for foreign affairs, said the work of the Global Partnership “has become increasingly important” in light of the recent COVID-19 pandemic and “Russia’s aggression in Ukraine,” which “caused concerns over nuclear safety and security” at power plants.

When Japan took over as chair of the Global Partnership for 2023, it identified support for counterproliferation efforts in Ukraine as a key priority.

According to a Nov. 10 press release, the countries “made statements on [their] own initiatives under the Global Partnership and…exchanged their opinions on [counterproliferation] support to Ukraine in light of Russia's aggression.”

Participants also discussed funding for projects under the initiative’s match-making process. The process provides a forum for states with funds and expertise to connect with recipients looking to implement projects that align with the initiative’s mission.

The meeting included technical discussions among members of the four working groups: biosecurity, chemical security, nuclear and radiological security, and counterproliferation.

Italy will chair the Global Partnership in 2024.—KELSEY DAVENPORT

Global Partnership Reaffirms Support for Ukraine

Russian Weapons Transfer Said Complete


January/February 2024

Russia completed the transfer of some of its tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus in October, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko disclosed on Dec. 25.

The tactical nuclear warheads were delivered “a long time ago,” Lukashenko said while attending an economic meeting in St. Petersburg, according to Tass, the Russian news agency. “At the beginning of October. Everything is in its place and in good condition.” Russia and Belarus first struck the deal to transfer Russian tactical nuclear weapons in June 2022 and formalized it in May 2023. Belarus said that it finished retrofitting about 10 Russian-made Su-25 fighter jets in service with its air force for the warheads in August 2022 and completed training Belarusian crews for the nuclear mission in April 2023. (See ACT, May 2023.)

The transfer of Russian tactical nuclear weapons began in the June-July time frame, according to the two countries. Lukashenko gave no details about how many weapons were transferred or where exactly they were deployed, The Associated Press reported.

Although Belarus will host the weapons, Russia has said that Russian President Vladimir Putin will retain control over their potential use.—SHANNON BUGOS

Russian Weapons Transfer Said Complete

40 Years After ‘The Day After’


December 2023
By Daryl G. Kimball

On Sunday, Nov. 20, 1983, I left my college dorm to visit my parents’ home in the suburbs of Oxford, Ohio. That evening, along with some 100 million other Americans, we witnessed two hours of stunning television that would mobilize the nation, as well as some of its leaders, to take meaningful steps to reduce the nuclear danger.

A scene from the 1983 film "The Day After." (United Archives GmbH / Alamy Stock Photo)“The Day After,” shown on the ABC television network, took viewers into the lives of characters in typical towns and cities in the midwestern United States, not far from U.S. nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silos. Following a fictional NATO-Russia military confrontation that spun out of control, the film showed the shocking effects of an all-out nuclear exchange designed to hit “military and related-industrial targets” and the catastrophic aftermath.

The film remains a devastating reminder that nuclear deterrence is a strategy that can and will fail someday. It fueled criticism of the Reagan administration’s aggressive nuclear buildup and added momentum to the powerful public movement demanding that U.S. and Soviet leaders freeze and reverse the arms race. It spurred concerned citizens into action. It inspired me to help form a chapter of United Campuses Against Nuclear War at Miami University.

Four decades later, as a result of landmark bilateral nuclear arms reduction agreements, Russian and U.S. Cold War nuclear stockpiles have been reduced drastically, but continue to pose an existential danger. Russia and the United States still cling to Cold War-era nuclear doctrines and deploy thousands of high-yield nuclear warheads on hundreds of ICBMs, designed to annihilate each other’s military and command capabilities within 30 minutes of a presidential launch order.

A new study by Princeton University researchers in Scientific American this month documents the effects of a nuclear attack from Russia on the 450 U.S. ICBM silos located in North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska. These high-yield nuclear detonations would rain lethal fallout on several million people in the first hours, with tens of millions more people dying of radiation sickness thereafter—the same scenario as the 1983 film. Depending on weather patterns, more than 300 million people in the continental United States, the most populated areas of Canada, and northern Mexico would be at risk of lethal fallout.

The Pentagon’s official rationale for the U.S. ICBM arsenal is to force China or Russia to direct a large portion of their long-range nuclear forces at U.S. ICBMs to try to limit the damage that they would suffer from a U.S. nuclear counterstrike. Because the bulk of the U.S. ICBM force would be destroyed in a large-scale nuclear attack, it remains U.S. policy to keep the ICBMs on prompt alert to allow for “launch under attack.” This gives the president mere minutes to decide whether to authorize the use of ICBMs, which increases the risk that a false alarm or misinformation could trigger a nuclear catastrophe.

A large ICBM force hair-trigger alert is not only dangerous, but also pointless. The United States has more than 1,000 nuclear warheads on invulnerable strategic ballistic missile submarines at sea and long-range nuclear-armed bombers that can be airborne ahead of a surprise nuclear attack. Just one U.S. nuclear-armed submarine, carrying 160 thermonuclear warheads, each with an explosive yield of 100 kilotons TNT equivalent or more, could devastate a large country and kill tens of millions of people. The United States maintains eight strategic subs on continuous patrol. Furthermore, U.S. ICBMs, which likely are targeted against Russia’s land-based strategic rocket forces, would be hitting empty silos because Russia’s ICBM forces also would be launched on warning of a U.S. retaliatory attack if they were not already part of a Russian first strike.

Nevertheless, the United States has initiated a program to replace its existing Minuteman III missiles with 666 newly designed Sentinel ICBMs, 400 of which would be deployed through 2070 at a cost in excess of $150 billion. That assumes, incorrectly, that the United States needs to have 400 ICBMs for the indefinite future. Presidents can change outdated military requirements, and future arms reduction agreements certainly can reduce the number of ICBMs or, better yet, eliminate them altogether.

Amid the catastrophic destruction of “The Day After,” one character, a woman about to give birth, complains to her doctor, “We knew the score. We knew all about bombs. We knew about fallout. We knew this could happen for 40 years. But nobody was interested.”

We may not be so lucky to avoid nuclear Armageddon for another 40 years. Once again, our survival depends on more interest, more public engagement, and more pressure on policymakers to turn away from dangerous nuclear deterrence policies of the past. We must push leaders to reengage in disarmament negotiations to reduce the risks, the role, and the number of nuclear weapons, beginning with ICBMs.

 

On Sunday, Nov. 20, 1983, I left my college dorm to visit my parents’ home in the suburbs of Oxford, Ohio. That evening, along with some 100 million other Americans, we witnessed two hours of stunning television that would mobilize the nation, as well as some of its leaders, to take meaningful steps to reduce the nuclear danger.

Nuclear Mirage: U.S. Nuclear Cooperation With Saudi Arabia


December 2023
By Sharon Squassoni

Before the violent attack by Hamas on Israel in the early morning hours of October 7, Israel and Saudi Arabia had been inching toward a bilateral agreement on normalizing relations, reportedly brokered by the United States.

U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower (2nd from R) marks the issuance in 1955 of an “Atoms for Peace” commemorative stamp at the White House with, from left, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, Chairman of the atomic Energy Commission Lewis Strauss, Senator Clinton Anderson (D-N.M.), Postmaster General Arthur Summerfield and Wilhelm Munthe de Morgenstierne, Norwegian ambassador to the United States. (Photo by Bettmann Archives via Getty Images)For the Middle East, this could have had huge implications for peace, security, and cooperation akin to those of the 1978 Camp David Accords. The rumors began circulating in August that the United States was not just brokering the agreement but would provide security guarantees, access to military technology, and civilian nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia to sweeten the deal.1 By September, Saudi officials announced a long-awaited step to upgrade implementation of their comprehensive nuclear safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). This step, fully implementing comprehensive inspections, would be the bare minimum requirement for any significant nuclear cooperation between Saudi Arabia and the United States.

The details of this deal are still murky, but press reports suggest that the United States was considering supplying the kingdom with a uranium-enrichment facility that the United States would control.2 It is not clear whether the Saudis or the United States would own the facility or whether there was a plan to establish multilateral control over the plant.

The need for control in addition to monitoring the plant’s operation and output is essential because uranium-enrichment plants are inherently dual use: they can prepare uranium to fuel nuclear research and power reactors or to be used as the fissile material in an atomic bomb. In the case of Iran, its secret construction of uranium-enrichment facilities led the international community first to sanction the country, then to negotiate limits on its use of that technology. Saudi Arabia repeatedly has declared since 2011 that it would match Iran’s capabilities.

Nuclear cooperation often has been promised by the United States to allies for far fewer returns but never with such obviously high proliferation risks.3 First, the United States is offering nuclear latency to a country that basically has said “all bets are off” if a regional competitor, Iran, proliferates. Second, the United States is no closer to reining in Iran’s nuclear program, which increases the risk of a proliferation cascade. Third, a decision by the United States to build a uranium-enrichment plant in Saudi Arabia would undermine two important U.S. nonproliferation policies: a global policy not to spread uranium-enrichment or spent fuel reprocessing technology to any additional countries and a regional policy to maintain equal terms and conditions for nuclear cooperation with partners in the Middle East.

The war in Gaza has forced a postponement of the broader normalization agreement and, hopefully, the scheme of supplying Saudi Arabia with its own uranium-enrichment capabilities. It raises questions, however, about what exactly the United States is trying to achieve through its nuclear cooperation policies.

A Short History of Nuclear Cooperation

Even as radioactive fallout was settling over Nagasaki, U.S. President Harry S. Truman announced that the United States would seek the means “to control the bomb so as to protect ourselves and the rest of the world from the danger of total destruction.” In his radio address on August 9, 1945, he told Americans that he would instruct Congress “to cooperate to the end that [nuclear weapons] production and use would be controlled, and that its power be made an overwhelming influence towards world peace.”4

International control of nuclear weapons would never materialize, and neither would international control of peaceful nuclear energy. The 1946 Baruch Plan, proposed by the United States, allowed for the destruction of U.S. nuclear weapons only after strict control of all nuclear assets under an international Atomic Development Authority ensured there would be no other proliferation of nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union and Poland, fearing a U.S. nuclear monopoly, abstained from voting on the plan in the UN Security Council, where it failed. As diplomacy faltered, nuclear weapons development continued. In just a few years, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom tested nuclear weapons.

Against this backdrop, the December 8, 1953, speech by U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower to the UN General Assembly that launched the “Atoms for Peace” program seems odd. Whether a Cold War propaganda effort or a genuine attempt to allay human fears by suggesting that peaceful uses of the atom could balance military destruction by the atom, the speech heralded a sea change in the U.S. approach. Shifting from strictly guarding all things nuclear, the United States began encouraging access to information, material, and nuclear technology for peaceful uses. Over the next four years, the United States overhauled its laws to allow nuclear cooperation, promoted a 1955 international conference in Geneva showcasing nuclear technology, and helped create the IAEA in 1957, more than 10 years before countries banded together to negotiate and sign the landmark nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) that was designed to halt the nuclear arms race and the spread of nuclear weapons.5

For nuclear cooperation, the 1954 revision of the Atomic Energy Act was pivotal. It called for “a program of international cooperation to promote the common defense and security and to make available to cooperating nations the benefits of peaceful applications of atomic energy as widely as expanding technology and considerations of the common defense and security will permit.”6 The amended law allowed for both military nuclear cooperation and peaceful nuclear cooperation. On the peaceful side, the scope of activities included civilian reactor development, production of special nuclear material, and non-electricity industrial applications, as well as research and development. Within a little more than a decade, the United States signed 34 bilateral agreements, two-thirds of which were strictly for research.7

The United States sought to achieve specific foreign policy aims through nuclear cooperation. A 1955 National Security Council report declared that

U.S. determination to promote the peaceful uses of atomic energy, with calculated emphasis on a peaceful atomic power program abroad as well as at home, can generate free world respect and support for the constructive purposes of U.S. foreign policy. Such a program will strengthen American world leadership and disprove the communists’ propaganda charges that the U.S. is concerned solely with the destructive uses of the atom. Atomic energy, which has become the foremost symbol of man’s inventive capacities, can also become the symbol of a strong but peaceful and purposeful America.8

The report gave a nod to preventing the diversion of nonpeaceful uses of any fissile material provided to other countries, but required just two conditions: reprocessing in U.S. facilities or under international arrangements and “the adequate provision of production accounting, inspection, and other techniques” largely not yet devised.

The program promoting nuclear cooperation boldly envisioned a range of technical and financial assistance to foreign countries for research and power reactors, including the design of small reactors specifically for export, continued declassification of reactor technology, and transfer of material. In particular, it urged that cooperation agreements should “seek opportunities for maximum U.S. cooperation in those power reactor projects abroad which offer political and psychological advantages.”

It is fair to say that the United States overreached with the Atoms for Peace program. After sending more than 25 tons of highly enriched uranium overseas as fuel for research reactors, the United States spent millions of dollars and decades trying to get the material back because it belatedly realized that the material posed nuclear security risks. A few early projects, such as those in the Philippines and Brazil, were failures.9 The United States ceased to fund nuclear energy projects with foreign assistance funds by 1960, and although research reactors spread widely, nuclear power did not spread quickly.

For some states, however, assistance for research capabilities helped provide the initial basis of clandestine nuclear weapons programs. By the mid-1970s, it was apparent that nuclear trade needed to be restrained because several countries, including Brazil, Pakistan, and South Korea, were intent on acquiring sensitive nuclear fuel-cycle facilities from foreign suppliers. The United States and other key countries advocated for greater restraint in nuclear trade, establishing the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and tightening national export controls.

In 1974 the Ford administration adopted the first restraint policy in the transfer of sensitive nuclear technology and facilities, prohibiting export of reprocessing and other nuclear technologies, firmly opposing reprocessing in South Korea and Taiwan, and negotiating agreements for cooperation with Egypt and Israel that contained “the strictest reprocessing provisions.”10 In his 1976 statement on nuclear policy, President Gerald Ford called on all nations to join the United States “in exercising maximum restraint in the transfer of reprocessing and enrichment technology and facilities by avoiding such sensitive exports or commitments for a period of at least three years.”11

Almost 30 years later, President George W. Bush called for a similar moratorium in reaction to revelations about the black market transfers to North Korea, Iran, and Libya by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan. A U.S. policy of restraint has endured despite the fact that the Atomic Energy Act itself does not prohibit sharing of enrichment and reprocessing technologies.

Nuclear Energy in the Middle East

Nuclear power has been slow to establish a firm footing in the Middle East. Early nuclear cooperation agreements signed by the United States with Israel, Iran, and Lebanon from 1955 to 1964 focused on nuclear research rather than nuclear power. In 1980 and 1981, the United States signed agreements with Morocco and Egypt, respectively.

Undoubtedly, Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel opened the door to other normalization steps by Egypt, including ratification of the NPT and adoption of a full-scope safeguards agreement as the treaty requires. These developments were especially timely because the passage of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act in 1978 moved the goalposts for Egypt by requiring these steps before nuclear cooperation with the United States was permissible.12 Today, after many delays, Egypt is just beginning construction of two Russian nuclear power reactors.

The history of countries in the Middle East with clandestine nuclear activities (Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, and Syria) is well known, and regional rivalries amplify concerns. In 2007 the Gulf Cooperation Council states explored the possibility of a regional nuclear power effort, but by 2009, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia each decided to develop nuclear energy on their own. At the time, Iran’s nuclear activities were a significant concern. Whereas the UAE, in launching its nuclear energy program, understood the need to allay international concerns about nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia seems impervious. In contrast to the UAE’s public renunciation of uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing, Saudi Arabia has declared explicitly that it would match Iran’s capabilities, including nuclear weapons.

The Saudis have been relative latecomers to nuclear energy or at least slow to implement their plans, compared especially to the UAE. After establishing the King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy in Riyadh in 2010, Saudi officials announced their intention to construct 16 nuclear reactors to generate 20 percent of the kingdom’s electricity by 2032. In 2017, the Saudi National Atomic Energy Project declared that its civil nuclear program would feature large nuclear power plants, small modular reactors, and fuel cycle activities. Initially, Saudi fuel-cycle activities were limited to assessing uranium and thorium reserves and yellowcake production with Jordan.13

Saudi Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman al-Saud speaks at a conference in Riyadh in June, six months after he declared that the kingdom “wants the entire [nuclear] fuel cycle.” (Photo by Fayez Nureldine/AFP via Getty Images)In January 2023, Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman told a local mining conference that Riyadh wants “the entire nuclear fuel cycle, which involves the production of yellowcake, low-enriched uranium, and the manufacturing of nuclear fuel both for our national use and of course for export.”14 At the same time, the Saudis are only slowly moving ahead with small modular reactor projects and now estimate they will procure just two large nuclear power reactors. Their interest in fuel cycle capabilities seems disproportionate to a scaled-back nuclear energy program.

Saudi Arabia signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States in 2008 as a prelude to a nuclear cooperation agreement. The text stated the Saudi “intent to rely on existing international markets for nuclear fuel services as an alternative to the pursuit of enrichment and reprocessing.”15 Since then, official negotiations with the United States have been sporadic. In 2020, U.S. officials revealed that the United States had asked specifically for Saudi Arabia to sign an additional protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, which allows for more intrusive IAEA inspections of nuclear facilities, and for restrictions on enrichment and reprocessing.

In testimony last spring, U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator Jill Hruby told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the United States has asked the Saudis “to be consistent with nonproliferation standards that we have for every other country that we work with.”16 Meanwhile, between 2011 and 2016 the Saudis signed arrangements with France, South Korea, Argentina, Russia, China, and Kazakhstan. Some of these projects have already begun training programs for Saudi nuclear workers.

Providing a U.S.-owned and likely U.S.-operated enrichment plant on Saudi soil might be politically more palatable than a national Saudi plant, especially since the size of the Saudi nuclear program does not justify domestic enrichment. NSG guidelines state that suppliers “should encourage recipients to accept, as an alternative to national plants, supplier involvement and/or other appropriate multinational participation in resulting facilities.”17 For actual transfers, NSG guidelines require the recipient to bring into force a comprehensive nuclear safeguards agreement and an additional protocol, which the United States requires as a matter of policy.

A fallback option for Saudi Arabia would be to purchase equity in a foreign enrichment company such as Orano, but this may be unattractive because of Iran’s historically negative experience investing in Eurodif. The Saudis likely would not want to risk a similar fate.

In addition to political hurdles, the technical hurdles of building a new centrifuge plant in Saudi Arabia could be considerable. The case of URENCO’s plant in Eunice, New Mexico, may be instructive. URENCO, an international fuel-cycle service supplier, did not transfer its technology to the United States and required specific procedures to guard against technology transfer. That said, the status of the United States as a nuclear-weapon state made certain processes less difficult, such as hiring U.S. workers with requisite security clearances in the construction phase.

Nonetheless, it still took 10 years between the licensing at the outset of the project and the operation of the first cascades in New Mexico. If the United States were to build a plant for the Saudis, it likely would have to use U.S. centrifuge technology. Yet, Centrus, the U.S. supplier of nuclear fuel and services for the nuclear power industry, currently is operating only a demonstration cascade in Piketon, Ohio, under a U.S. government contract and has not scaled its new technology for the commercial market.18

A plan to build a multinational facility, perhaps with the cooperation of URENCO, might overcome some of the hesitance among NSG members, but the experience of multinational fuel-cycle facilities is not entirely promising. For example, Eurochemie, the multinational reprocessing plant in Belgium, made no effort to compartmentalize knowledge among its international workforce, and URENCO allowed each country involved in the project (Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom) to develop its own technology before choosing one.

Saudi Arabia has been a relative latecomer to nuclear energy, at least compared to the United Arab Emirates, which built this Barakah Nuclear Power Plant in Abu Dhabi. (Photo via Emirates Nuclear Energy Corporation)Finally, URENCO Netherlands was the source of much technology for the Khan nuclear black market network. Although there have been many proposals, including from governmental experts and the IAEA, to multilateralize fuel cycle facilities with the objective of diminishing national control of sensitive fuel-cycle capabilities, these usually assume that the benefits will outweigh the risks. The historical evidence, however, is mixed.

Possible Outcomes

The United States has been courting Saudi officials for 15 years on negotiating a nuclear cooperation agreement, with little to show for it. Few nuclear deals have taken so much time to negotiate as this one, and it is still far from finished. Some agreements, such as the first civil nuclear cooperation agreement between the United States and China, were relatively quick to negotiate but then languished before Congress because of proliferation concerns. Others, such as the U.S. agreement with South Korea, were extended provisionally to provide more time to negotiate delicate details where interests diverged.

To conclude a nuclear cooperation agreement, the United States almost certainly will need Saudi Arabia to sign an additional protocol to its comprehensive safeguards agreement. The kingdom may chafe at this because Iran does not have an additional protocol in force. Other past requests of Riyadh by Washington, such as forswearing enrichment, may be particularly difficult to achieve in the current environment if press reports are accurate. It also carries a risk: If Saudi Arabia forswears enrichment in an agreement with the United States and then procures the capability from other states, the U.S. agreement likely would be terminated. Sanctions likely would follow.

A decision to allow Saudi Arabia to go forward with uranium enrichment, on the other hand, would overturn decades of U.S. policy. The United States has never sold uranium-enrichment or spent fuel reprocessing plants to any country and has led the campaign within the nuclear nonproliferation regime for almost 50 years to prevent such sales globally. Moreover, the United States rarely grants other countries its consent to enrich or reprocess U.S.-origin nuclear material even if they use their own capabilities.

The United States has been adamant about seeking assurances from partners, particularly in the Middle East, that they will not enrich or reprocess, notably in a 1981 nuclear cooperation agreement with Egypt and a 2009 agreement with the UAE. In return, Washington promised in those agreements that it would not grant more favorable terms to other partners in the region. If the United States provided such capabilities to Saudi Arabia, it would face pressure from the UAE and, in the future, Jordan and likely South Korea to provide the same.

Some may argue that if the United States does not supply Saudi Arabia with enrichment capabilities, China or Russia might be willing to supply them. This ignores the fact that NSG guidelines state a preference for avoiding the spread of national capabilities and that the NSG operates by consensus. Russia, which supplies Iran with nuclear fuel, may not desire to supply Saudi Arabia with enrichment capabilities.

Even without a uranium-enrichment plant on offer, approval of a nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia could be contentious in the United States, given the kingdom’s poor human rights record and its frequent statements regarding its intentions to pursue nuclear weapons. It will likely be tough for members of Congress to ignore the brutal dismemberment in 2018 of U.S. journalist Jamal Khashoggi, which the CIA blamed on Riyadh. Although the bar is set rather high for Congress to disapprove a nuclear cooperation agreement that has been finalized by a U.S. president, there are still ways for determined lawmakers to delay, derail, and block implementation of the deal until policy goals are satisfied.

Nuclear cooperation agreements, like nuclear energy, carry inherent risks. As vehicles for transferring technology, material, and equipment that can serve peaceful and military uses, such agreements must balance the competing objectives of facilitating engagement without increasing proliferation risk. Their use in cementing strategic relationships often can come into conflict with their basic purpose of delineating the substance and methods of collaboration. The more important the relationship is in terms of commercial, political, and security needs, the greater the pressure there is to adjust the balance of obligations toward engagement. The U.S. government at times has used nuclear cooperation agreements to create strategic alliances, as with India, or to bolster existing alliances, as with Japan and South Korea. With Saudi Arabia, nuclear cooperation seems oriented toward fending off rising competition from China and Russia.

Risks tend to rise when special deals for special allies undermine principled stands. In the last 20 years, two major U.S. principles have been breached: a ban on nuclear trade with countries that had not signed the NPT and a refusal to share nuclear-fueled submarines beyond cooperation with the UK. The United States rationalized both of these exceptions—nuclear cooperation with India and the sale of U.S. nuclear-powered submarines to Australia—by arguing the need to compete strategically with China.

It may be that China’s role in brokering an agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran on the war in Yemen helped push Israel and the United States to concoct this trilateral peace-for-arms-and-nuclear-latency deal with Saudi Arabia. It is no secret that China already has provided nuclear assistance to Saudi Arabia and Iran in uranium processing in the form of uranium conversion and uranium hexafluoride production, respectively. More recently, China has proposed building nuclear power reactors for Saudi Arabia.19 The United States was able to dissuade China in the 1990s from making such sales, but since then, China has made nuclear exports a foreign policy objective, much as Russia has done.

What stands out especially about the Saudi nuclear deal is the willful refusal of U.S. officials to acknowledge the kingdom’s overt proliferation intentions. Saudi officials have insisted since 2011 that they will acquire whatever capabilities Iran has. This should be a red flag for any country providing nuclear technology purely for peaceful purposes. No deal should move forward until Saudi Arabia commits to using nuclear technology solely for peaceful purposes regardless of what Iran does.

The Camp David Accords led the way to a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in 1979. The United States began negotiating with Egypt in 1979, but only after Egypt signed a comprehensive safeguards agreement in 1981 could the United States complete a nuclear cooperation agreement. Although Egypt had plans to reprocess spent fuel and had been courting Russia, it agreed to put those ambitions on hold and consented to language that specified it would not conduct reprocessing on its soil.

Egypt’s welcome into the nuclear fold took a few years and contained more restrictions than it perhaps desired. In the case of Saudi Arabia, the United States apparently was prepared to put the kingdom on the fast track toward a latent nuclear capability, matching or perhaps exceeding Iran’s enrichment capabilities. Even if the United States owned and operated the enrichment plant, there would be no guarantees against Saudi nationalization in a time of crisis.

Saudi Arabia faces no legal barriers to building a uranium-enrichment facility on its soil if it is prepared to accept full-scope safeguards, but it does face policy barriers. No matter what, the kingdom will have to adopt an additional protocol to its comprehensive safeguards agreement if it would like to receive enrichment technology and equipment from a country that is an NSG member. Outside the NSG, North Korea and Pakistan are potential suppliers, but this scenario is unlikely. Clandestine help likely would be detected, and transparent help would place Pakistani and North Korean technology under monitoring, something that neither supplier would welcome.

It might be possible for Saudi Arabia to receive enrichment technology from other NSG suppliers, but Saudi Arabia, like the UAE, probably has judged that U.S. approval is helpful to allay proliferation concerns, effectively conferring a “Good Housekeeping” seal of approval. The kingdom does not particularly desire U.S. nuclear reactor sales. In fact, because U.S. dominance in nuclear technology exports has been on the decline for a very long time, U.S. influence is now largely sought as a means of enlisting the cooperation of other states that can build nuclear power plants abroad quickly and cheaply, such as South Korea.

U.S. officials should keep in mind, however, that the United States still is a leader in promoting nonproliferation, nuclear safety, and nuclear security standards and that deviating from key principles, such as opposing the spread of sensitive fuel-cycle capabilities, will only reduce its influence.

More broadly, the United States should embrace the possibility that normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia is possible without nuclearization and look to bestow other key benefits on the kingdom in exchange for a regional peace that would truly reflect democratic and sustainable development goals.

 

ENDNOTES

1. Dion Nissenbaum, “Saudis Agree With U.S. on Path to Normalize Kingdom’s Ties With Israel,” The Wall Street Journal, August 9, 2023.

2. Dion Nissenbaum and Dov Lieber, “Israel Mulls Accepting Saudi Nuclear Enrichment,” The Wall Street Journal, September 21, 2023.

3. It could be argued that the U.S. nuclear cooperation agreements with Russia, China, and India contain security risks, but because these are all states with nuclear weapons, they would not strictly constitute proliferation risks.

4. “August 9, 1945: Radio Report to the American People on the Potsdam Conference; Transcript,” Miller Center, n.d., https://millercenter.org/the-presidency/presidential-speeches/august-9-1945-radio-report-american-people-potsdam-conference (accessed November 21, 2023).

5. For an excellent description of the origins of the International Atomic Energy Agency, see Bertrand Goldschmidt, “The Origins of the International Atomic Energy Agency,” IAEA Bulletin, Vol. 19, No. 4 (August 1977).

6. 42 U.S.C. § 2013(e).

7. Ellen C. Collier, “United States Foreign Policy on Nuclear Energy,” Library of Congress Legislative Reference Service, May 6, 1968, p. LRS-7.

8. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1955-1957, Regulation of Armaments; Atomic Energy, Volume XX, ed. David S. Patterson (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1990), doc. 14 (NSC report no. 5507/2, dated March 12, 1955, on peaceful uses of atomic energy).

9. Maria Drogan, “The Atoms for Peace Program and the Third World,” Cahiers du monde russe, Vol. 60, Nos. 2-3 (2019): 441-460.

10. Nuclear Proliferation Factbook, S. Prt. 103-111, December 1994, pp. 48-62 (containing President Gerald Ford’s statement on nuclear policy, dated October 28, 1976).

11. Ibid., p. 54.

12. Sharon Squassoni, “Looking Back: The 1978 Nuclear Nonproliferation Act,” Arms Control Today, December 2008.

13. See Rashad Abuaish, “Saudi National Atomic Energy Project,” n.d., https://gnssn.iaea.org/NSNI/SMRP/Shared%20Documents/Workshop%2012-15%20December%202017/Saudi%20National%20Atomic%20Energy%20Project.pdf (presentation).

14. Simon Henderson and David Schenker, “Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear ‘Asks’: What Do They Want, What Might They Get?” PolicyWatch,
No. 3771 (August 15, 2023), https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/saudi-arabias-nuclear-asks-what-do-they-want-what-might-they-get.

15. Christopher M. Blanchard and Paul K. Kerr, “Prospects for U.S.-Saudi Nuclear Energy Cooperation,” CRS In Focus, IF10799, September 28, 2023, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10799.

16. Ibid.

17. International Atomic Energy Agency, “Communication Received From the Permanent Mission of Kazakhstan to the International Atomic Energy Agency Regarding Certain Member States’ Guidelines for the Export of Nuclear Material, Equipment and Technology,” INFCIRC/254/Rev14/Part 1, October 18, 2019 (containing “Guidelines for Nuclear Transfers”).

18. Office of Nuclear Energy, U.S. Department of Energy, “HALEU Demonstration Project
Starts Enrichment Operations in Ohio,”
October 11, 2023, https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/haleu-demonstration-project-starts-enrichment-operations-ohio.

19. Summer Said, “Saudi Arabia Eyes Chinese Bid for Nuclear Plant,” The Wall Street Journal, August 25, 2023.


Sharon Squassoni is a research professor at The George Washington University who previously held positions at the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the State Department, and the Congressional Research Service.

The United States often has promised nuclear cooperation to allies for far fewer returns than it discussed with Saudi Arabia but never with such high proliferation risks.

How the Next UK Government Could Reduce the Risk of Nuclear War


December 2023
By Louis Reitmann

The next UK general election is due by January 2025, and for the first time in more than 10 years, a win by the Labour Party seems possible. Polling between 44 and 47 percent, Labour is as popular as the Conservative Party was when Boris Johnson won a landslide victory in 2019.1 Remarkably, 62 percent of members of Parliament believe that Labour will win the next election, as do most voters and 48 percent of Conservative voters.2

The administration of UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the Conservative Party (L), seen here in 2020, stunned the world in 2021 by raising the limit on the country’s nuclear stockpile. The government of his Conservative Party successor, Rishi Sunak (R),  shows no interest in changing course. (Photo by House of Commons/PA Images via Getty Images)With a potential change in government on the horizon, the United Kingdom has an opportunity to rethink its nuclear weapons policy and return to a leadership role on nuclear risk reduction and disarmament among the five nuclear-weapon states recognized under the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). After decades of reductions, the Johnson government stunned the world in 2021 by raising the limit on the UK nuclear stockpile from 180 warheads to 260 warheads and by reducing arsenal transparency.3 With this decision, the UK lost political leverage over other nuclear powers, further polarized the global disarmament debate, and contributed to growing nuclear risk. The present government of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has shown no interest in changing course.

Although Labour has criticized Conservative nuclear weapons policy, it is far from united on the issue. The party seems stuck in a cyclical debate about whether to appear tough on defense or pursue nuclear disarmament, but there is a clear path by which a Labour government could take meaningful yet realistic action to reduce nuclear risk and make progress toward disarmament without unilaterally surrendering the country’s nuclear arsenal.

Giving Perspective to a Disillusioned Party

The issue of the UK’s nuclear weapons has been thorny for Labour. Its vocal pro-disarmament wing has exposed the party to questions about its commitment to national defense and nuclear deterrence. Credibility issues intensified under Jeremy Corbyn, the previous party leader and a lifelong disarmament advocate who said that he would never use nuclear weapons if elected prime minister.

The current leader, Keir Starmer, has tried to silence the critics by cementing Labour’s commitment to the UK’s nuclear weapons as “non-negotiable” and by underlining support for the ongoing modernization program.4 More recently, Starmer abolished the Office of Shadow Minister for Peace and Disarmament, held by a lawmaker who campaigned for the country to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).5 In terms of electoral strategy, this seems smart; voters currently prefer Labour policies in all areas except defense, where the Conservatives have an 18-point lead.6 To win the next election, Labour must appeal to more center-right voters, the majority of whom support the UK having nuclear weapons.7

At the same time, Starmer’s Labour Party has condemned the Johnson government for breaking its goal of gradually reducing the stockpile, criticized the Dreadnought-class submarine program’s spiraling cost as wasteful, and pledged to “lead efforts to secure multilateral disarmament.”8 There is a clear desire to differentiate Labour from the Conservative approach without appearing “weak” on defense.

To do so, Labour has to move beyond the limits of its internal debate, which has long been defined by an imagined binary choice between maintaining the arsenal as it is and complete nuclear disarmament, when in reality there are many options in between. If Labour wants to restore UK leadership in the global nuclear order, it should take a long, hard look at them.

Taking Meaningful, Realistic Action

A future Labour government’s nuclear weapons policy should be based on several broad objectives: countering the trend toward nuclear armament, reducing the risk of nuclear war, and easing the tension between the five nuclear-weapon states and TPNW states-parties that undermines a collaborative pursuit of nuclear disarmament. Implementing the following policy options would help achieve these objectives.

The lowest hanging fruit for a Labour government would be to declare a moratorium on increases to the nuclear weapons stockpile enabled by the 2021 Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy. This would leave open the option of growing the stockpile in the future while acknowledging the questionable strategic necessity of a larger stockpile at this moment.

Defense officials at the time said that the cap increase was “driven by a desire to be more assertive and ‘not apologize’ for the UK’s position as a nuclear state,” rather than by strategic thinking.9 Not only was the decision unforeseen by the expert community, it also contained very little detail about the capabilities of adversaries that made a stockpile increase necessary and why alternatives, such as increasing the operational part of the stockpile, arming the patrolling submarine with more than 40 warheads, or enhancing submarine stealth or missile reentry for greater arsenal survivability, were not viable options. Going a step further, a Labour government could reinstate the previous limit of 180 warheads and resume work toward this goal to be completed in the mid-2030s.

Reversing a second decision announced in the 2021 Integrated Review, a Labour government could enhance transparency by resuming publication of the number of deployed UK missiles and warheads, and the size of the operational stockpile. The decision to pursue strategic ambiguity was meant to complicate the decision-making of adversaries during crises, but critics note that there is little evidence that ambiguity about capabilities strengthens deterrence. Indeed, the principal lesson from the Soviet-U.S. arms control experience was that mutual transparency increased both sides’ confidence that credible deterrence was possible even with fewer nuclear weapons.10 Strategic ambiguity raises the risk of miscalculation, which is why governments, such as those involved in the Stockholm Initiative, a cross-regional group of 14 countries committed to advancing nuclear disarmament, have been calling for enhanced information exchanges, dialogue, and transparency to reduce nuclear risk.11

Strategic ambiguity is inconsistent with the UK’s practice of lobbying for transparency and national reporting under the NPT and undermines its ability to credibly criticize Chinese and Russian nuclear secrecy. It also may increase distrust within the P5 process, a consultative mechanism initiated in 2009 to facilitate cooperation among the NPT’s five nuclear-weapon states that the UK inaugurated and shepherds. As former UK Defense Secretary Desmond Browne concluded, “There is really no good explanation for ending this transparency.”12

Adopting a Sole-Purpose Policy

By adopting a sole-purpose policy, the UK would declare that its nuclear weapons are only intended to deter an attack with nuclear weapons, not with any other weapons of mass destruction, conventional weapons, or cyberweapons. This change would reflect the broad consensus in the UK nuclear community that it is unthinkable that London would ever use nuclear weapons first and that the arsenal is too small to deliver a preemptive strike against its main adversaries, Russia and China. There also is no majority support among the UK public for a first-use policy.13

A sole-purpose declaration would be a positive step toward risk reduction, helping to prevent miscalculations by adversaries that could trigger a nuclear first strike against the UK. The argument that retaining a first-use option deters conventional war ignores the fact that even a lower-yield nuclear response to a conventional attack easily could escalate into full-blown nuclear war.

Adopting a sole-purpose policy would require coordination with allies to ensure complementarity with NATO’s nuclear posture. There is potential for the UK and the United States to act jointly on this in the future since the Biden administration was viewed as likely to adopt a sole-purpose policy prior to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Another option is for a Labour-led Parliament to adopt legislation linking future nuclear weapons modernization to further reductions in the stockpile or nuclear posture, affecting updates to the arsenal after the Dreadnought-class submarines now under construction leave service in the 2070s. This would be a long overdue response to criticism that the nuclear-weapon states are not making concrete plans for disarmament in the spirit of the NPT while still giving the UK another 40 years to prepare for reductions.

Although politically difficult, this option must be considered seriously, not least because each modernization bears a considerable risk that the update cannot be delivered on time, at the expected capability, or at all. Currently, concerns are emerging that the Dreadnought program will not be completed; several components are already severely behind schedule and billions over budget.14 Regarding the development of a new reactor to power the submarines, the UK Infrastructure and Projects Authority has concluded that the “successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable.”15 Facing many challenges from economic security to public health, the UK may not want or be able to take on an immense financial risk like this again.

As for alternatives to the current UK posture with at least one nuclear-armed submarine always at sea, a 2013 governmental review gave concrete options, for example, coordinating deployment schedules more closely with France and the United States to ensure that the UK is protected by NATO capabilities when not deploying its own submarines.16 Reductions in the stockpile or nuclear posture could be combined with a UK Ministry of Defence program to investigate how the state could bolster its conventional capabilities with the savings that accrue from a smaller nuclear arsenal.

Attending a TPNW Meeting

A Labour government could make history if the UK becomes the first nuclear-weapon state to attend a TPNW meeting of states-parties as an observer. This could be a step toward a broader change in the UK approach to the treaty if it no longer works to undermine the TPNW, discourages states from joining it, or asserts the treaty’s incompatibility with the NPT.

Normalizing the UK relationship with the TPNW would be a smart choice. It would acknowledge that the campaign by the nuclear-weapon states against the treaty has backfired by antagonizing many non-nuclear-weapon states and strengthening support for the TPNW. At the same time, a less hostile approach would not prevent the UK from continuing to assert that the treaty has no political or legal effect on itself or other states that are not party to it.

It is worth remembering that the UK previously has changed course in a similar way. After abstaining from the first two conferences on the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, in Oslo and Nayarit, the UK and the United States attended the third conference, held in Vienna in 2014, and were the only nuclear-weapon states to do so.

Finally, a Labour government could fund assistance for victims of UK nuclear testing and for restoration of the ecosystems that UK tests have destroyed in Australia, the Pacific region, and Nevada. Assistance could be given directly to the affected communities or via a trust fund that TPNW states-parties are discussing.17

Emphasizing humanitarian and environmental concerns would align well with Labour’s ambitions to carve out a new, progressive role for the UK on the world stage. It also would help address the country’s colonialist legacy as nearly all 45 of its nuclear tests were conducted on or near indigenous land. The UK pays pensions to veterans who worked on the tests, and Labour has promised each veteran a ₤50,000 lump sum.18 Yet, the UK has never extended apologies or support to indigenous peoples who for generations have suffered the trauma and health consequences of nuclear testing. In Kiribati alone, 189 families have been afflicted by illness due to UK tests.19 Despite persistent lobbying, including at the 2023 UN General Assembly, calls for compensation have been ignored.

From an opportunistic perspective, providing such support could further the UK’s self-perception as a responsible nuclear-weapon state. Along with France and the United States, the UK has used this term to differentiate itself from China and Russia, which have embarked on modernization and expansion programs for their nuclear arsenals with minimal transparency.

The UK could even fund assistance to people and places affected by Soviet testing, for example, in Kazakhstan, thus demonstrating the difference between Russian and UK conduct as nuclear powers. TPNW states-parties reject the idea that any state with nuclear weapons could be considered responsible, but expanding the concept to include victims assistance and environmental remediation could strengthen the UK case that there are more responsible ways of maintaining nuclear weapons.

An Opportunity to Be Seized

If elected, Labour must move past its self-sabotaging internal struggle between unconditional commitment to the status quo and unilateral disarmament toward a balanced and results-oriented approach to the country’s nuclear arsenal. Labour’s pursuit of a “safe-choice-for-defense” image should not prevent it from seizing this unique opportunity to restore the UK’s international leadership regarding nuclear risk reduction and disarmament. There are plenty of policy options on the table, from low-hanging fruit to ambitious initiatives.

 

ENDNOTES

1. Ipsos, “Latest UK Opinion Polls: Government Approval Recent Changes,” October 4, 2023; YouGov, “YouGov/The Times Survey Results,” n.d., p. 1, https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/TheTimes_VI_231018_W.pdf.

2. Matthew Smith, “Half of Tory MPs Say the Conservatives Are Going to Win the Next Election,” YouGov, July 14, 2023, https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/45901-half-tory-mps-say-conservatives-are-going-win-next.

3. Kingston Reif and Shannon Bugos, “UK to Increase Cap on Nuclear Warhead Stockpile,” Arms Control Today, April 2021, pp. 18-19.

4. Helen Catt, “Labour Renews Vow to Keep Nuclear Weapons,” BBC News, February 26, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-56198972.

5. Labour Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, “Starmer Removes Peace and Disarmament Role From Shadow Team,” September 8, 2023, https://www.labourcnd.org.uk/2023/09/starmer-removes-peace-and-disarmament-role-from-shadow-team/; Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, “Parliamentarians Supporting the TPNW,” January 7, 2021, https://cnduk.org/parliamentarians-supporting-the-tpnw/.

6. Gideon Skinner et al., “British Public Think Labour Have the Best Policies on Key Issues but Are Often Unsure How They Would Tackle Them,” Ipsos, June 27, 2023, https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/british-public-think-labour-have-best-policies-on-key-issues.

7. Milan Dinic, “YouGov Study of War: Nuclear Weapons and War,” YouGov, September 21, 2022, https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/43812-part-three-nuclear-weapons-and-war.

8. Dan Sabbagh and Jessica Elgot, “Keir Starmer Accuses PM of Breaking Policy on Nuclear Disarmament,” The Guardian, March 16, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/16/keir-starmer-accuses-pm-of-breaking-policy-on-nuclear-disarmament; Dan Taylor, “Row as Labour Criticises ‘Significant Issues’ With Dreadnought Programme,” The Mail, September 7, 2022, https://www.nwemail.co.uk/news/20988403.row-labour-criticises-significant-issueswith-dreadnought-programme/; Helen Catt, “Labour Renews Vow to Keep Nuclear Weapons,” BBC News, February 26, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-56198972.

9. David Cullen, “Extreme Circumstances: The UK’s New Nuclear Warhead in Context,” Nuclear Information Service (NIS), August 2022, p. 36, https://www.nuclearinfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Extreme-Circumstances-print-version.pdf.

10. Pavel Podvig, “Transparency in Nuclear Disarmament,” UN Institute for Disarmament Research, March 2012, p. 6, https://unidir.org/files/publication/pdfs/transparency-in-nuclear-disarmament-390.pdf.

11. 2020 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, “A Nuclear Risk Reduction Package: Working Paper Submitted by the Stockholm Initiative, Supported by Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Ethiopia, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland,” NPT/CONF.2020/WP.9, May 14, 2021, p. 3.

12. James McKeon, “Q&A: Des Browne on the UK’s Decision to Increase the Cap on Nuclear Warheads,” Nuclear Threat Initiative, April 14, 2021, https://www.nti.org/atomic-pulse/qa-des-browne-on-the-uks-decision-to-increase-the-cap-on-nuclear-warheads/.

13. Tim Street, Harry Spencer, and Shane Ward, “The British Government Doesn’t Want to Talk About Its Nuclear Weapons. The British Public Does,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 6, 2023, https://thebulletin.org/2023/04/the-british-government-doesnt-want-to-talk-about-its-nuclear-weapons-the-british-public-does/.

14. NIS, “Trouble Ahead Update - Winter 2022/23,” YouTube, December 20, 2022, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLRP8Q70LA0.

15. NIS, “Increasing Risk of Problems in Derby Delaying Dreadnought Schedule,” August 7, 2023, https://www.nuclearinfo.org/article/increasing-risk-of-problems-in-derby-delaying-dreadnought-schedule/.

16. Government of the United Kingdom, “Trident Alternatives Review,” July 16, 2013, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7c65b1e5274a7ee2567320/20130716_Trident_Alternatives_Study.pdf.

17. International Human Rights Clinic, Harvard Law School, “Designing a Trust Fund for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: Precedents and Proposals,” January 2023, https://humanrightsclinic.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/011323_Trust-Fund-Report-Combined.pdf.

18. UK Labour Party, “It’s Time for Real Change: The Labour Party Manifesto 2019,” November 2019, p. 101, https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Real-Change-Labour-Manifesto-2019.pdf.

19. Becky Alexis-Martin, “Veterans Join Pacific Islanders in Bid for Nuclear Testing Compensation,” The Telegraph, October 19, 2023, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/terror-and-security/britain-nuclear-testing-programme-kiribati-compensation/.


Louis Reitmann is a research associate at the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation, focusing on nuclear disarmament, export controls, and diversity, equity, and inclusion in the nuclear field.

With a potential change in government on the horizon, the United Kingdom has an opportunity to rethink its nuclear weapons policy and return to a leadership role.

AI and the Bomb: Nuclear Strategy and Risk in the Digital Age


December 2023

Nuclear Deterrence: Unsafe at Machine Speed

AI and the Bomb: Nuclear Strategy and Risk in the Digital Age
By James Johnson
Oxford University Press
May 2023

Reviewed by Douglas B. Shaw

James Johnson’s book is the most important book about preventing nuclear war that has been published in recent years. The author confronts head-on the complexity of the dangers that artificial intelligence (AI) and other emerging technologies pose for nuclear deterrence. He combines a commanding view of deterrence theory with the imagination to point toward where technology is already obscuring deterrence practice and concludes darkly that, “[i]n the context of AI and autonomy, particularly information complexity, misinformation, and manipulation, rationality-based deterrence logic appears an increasingly untenable proposition.”

AI and the Bomb opens with a gripping account of a “flash war” between China and the United States, taking place over less than two hours in June 2025, in which nuclear weapons are used, millions of people die, and afterward, no one on either side can explain exactly what happened. This story underscores the fact that even if not given control of nuclear weapons, AI and emerging technologies connected to adjacent or seemingly unrelated systems may combine in unforeseen ways to render nuclear escalation incomprehensible to the humans in (or on) the loop.

Johnson’s book is the first comprehensive effort to understand the implications of the AI revolution for the Cold War notion of “strategic stability” at the core of nuclear deterrence. He finds new challenges for deterrence theory and practice in emerging technologies, centering inadvertent escalation as a “new model for nuclear risk.” He formulates a novel “AI-security dilemma” more volatile and unpredictable than the past. He also adds a new dimension of “catalytic nuclear war” by which states without nuclear weapons or nonstate actors might use AI to cause nuclear war among nuclear-armed states.

Artificial Intelligence, Emerging Technology, and Deterrence Theory

The author embraces and extends the emerging conventional wisdom that AI should not be plugged into nuclear command-and-control systems, observing that “the delegation of the decision-making process (to inform and make decisions) to machines is not a binary choice but rather a continuum between the two extremes—human decision-making and judgment and machine autonomy at each stage of the kill chain.” Beyond using AI to facilitate nuclear launch decisions, Johnson shows how AI could affect the nuclear balance by changing nuclear weapons system accuracy, resilience and survivability, and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance for targeting. AI capabilities also may give conventional weapons systems dramatic new capabilities to attack nuclear weapons systems, through increased ability to penetrate air defenses; increased ability to “detect, track, target, and intercept” nuclear missiles; and advanced cybercapabilities, potentially including manipulation of “the information ecosystem in which strategic decisions involving nuclear weapons take place.”

Importantly, Johnson uses AI as a shorthand for referring to AI and a suite of other emerging technologies that enable AI, including “cyberspace, space technology, nuclear technologies, GPS technology, and 3D printing.” This choice mirrors the practice of other thought leaders, including Henry Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, and Daniel Huttenlocher in The Age of AI and Mustafa Suleyman in The Coming Wave.

The book is a grim journey for scholars of nuclear deterrence theory, forcing them to confront concepts such as “machine-speed AI warfare,” “non-human agents,” nuclear arsenals with a “larger attack surface” in a world in which ubiquitous sensors feed data oceans, and “disinformation cascades” that could lead to an “unravelling of deterrence in practice.” These ominous signs begin to flesh out the broad concerns about nuclear strategy that Kissinger, Schmidt, and Huttenlocher raise, including that “[t]he management of nuclear weapons, the endeavor of half a century, remains incomplete and fragmentary” and that the “unsolved riddles of nuclear strategy must be given new attention.”

Johnson centers Barry Posen’s concept of “[i]nadvertant escalation” as “a new model for nuclear risk.” He finds that “AI-enhanced systems operating at higher speeds, levels of sophistication, and compressed decision-making timeframes will likely…reduce the scope for de-escalating situations and contribute to future mishaps.” He observes AI undermining the utility of Herman Kahn’s familiar “escalation ladder” metaphor: “AI is creating new ways (or ‘rungs’) and potential shortcuts up (and down) the ladder, which might create new mechanisms for a state to perceive (or misperceive) others to be on a different rung, thus making some ‘rungs’ more (or less) fluid or malleable.” Instead of a discrete escalation ladder, Johnson helps the reader envision any number of misperceptions, miscommunications, accidents, and errors interacting with one another across distances, failure modes, and time scales beyond effective human cognition.

‘The AI Security Dilemma’

The book arrives at a moment of urgent, real-world demand for updated nuclear deterrence theory. Last year, Admiral Charles Richard, the U.S. Strategic Command commander, told the annual Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Alabama, that his command was “furiously” rewriting deterrence theory to solve a “three body problem” resulting from China’s emergence as a near-peer nuclear arms competitor to the United States and Russia.1

Johnson carefully examines the specific challenges that AI poses for nuclear deterrence theory. He identifies three ways that AI and other emerging technologies have become a singular aggravator of the security dilemma, the enduring challenge at the heart of international relations by which development of defensive capabilities by one state necessarily threatens others.

First, the AI security dilemma features the possibility of extraordinarily fast technological breakthroughs, incentivizing states in competition with peers in AI technology to move first rather than risk being second. For example, the U.S. National Security Commission on AI found that “defending against AI-capable adversaries [notably China] operating at machine speeds without employing AI is an invitation to disaster.”

Second, the AI security dilemma risks placing latent offensive capabilities in civilian hands, such as the massive data facilitated by communication and navigation satellites. Whereas the traditional security dilemma is driven primarily by the misinterpretation of defensive military capabilities, the AI security dilemma also can be driven by the misinterpretation of ostensibly peaceful commercial capabilities.

Third, the AI security dilemma is driven by commercial and market forces not under the positive control of states. Whereas the traditional security dilemma causes states to fear each other’s actions, the AI security dilemma drives states increasingly to fear the actions of private firms. Taken together, these three novel characteristics of potentially explosive technological breakthroughs, ambiguous commercial capabilities, and the absence of positive control over commercial capabilities led Johnson to conclude that AI is “a dilemma aggravator primus inter pares.”

AI extends the problem of nuclear deterrence stability beyond the nuclear-armed states to all states or other actors with offensive AI capabilities. During the Cold War, nuclear proliferation threatened a possible future world with too many nuclear-armed states for confidence in stable nuclear deterrence. Fortunately, nuclear proliferation has been limited enough to be forced, however awkwardly, into various dyads by which mutual threats render nuclear deterrence practice more or less comprehensible, stable, and aligned with necessary assumptions. Johnson worries that offensive AI capabilities may add additional variables to the nuclear escalation equation. Even without the further spread of nuclear weapons, states or other actors could use AI to leverage the deterrent arsenals of nuclear-armed states through “catalytic war.” As the author writes, “The catalyzing chain of reaction and counter-retaliation dynamics set in motion by nonstate or third-party actor’s deliberate action is fast becoming a more plausible scenario in the digital era.”

Beyond Rational Nuclear Deterrence?

The book demonstrates repeatedly how revolutionary change in the technological terrain in which nuclear deterrence takes place demands urgent theoretical and practical adaptation. Old assumptions and human rationality may decrease sharply in effectiveness as tools for preventing nuclear war.

Johnson offers some initial ideas of how to manage the stark challenges that AI poses for nuclear deterrence. Arms control will remain important, if challenging, in new ways; he suggests that banning AI enhancements to nuclear deterrence capabilities might be an important first step.

Another early step that could align with Johnson’s insight might be to work toward the internationalization of processes modeled on the U.S. nuclear “failsafe review” mandated by Congress in the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act and now underway at the Department of Defense. The failsafe review “aims to identify nuclear risk-reduction measures that the [United States] could implement to strengthen safeguards against the unauthorized, inadvertent, or mistaken use of a nuclear weapon, including through false warning of an attack.” Since early 2020, Co-chair Sam Nunn and Co-chair and CEO Ernest J. Moniz of the Nuclear Threat Initiative have championed the initiative’s effort to encourage the U.S. government to undertake such a review aimed at strengthening nuclear failsafe and to challenge other nuclear powers to conduct their own internal reviews.2

Johnson recommends applying AI as part of the solution to support nuclear risk reduction, including through “normative, behavioral and confidence building measures to increase mutual trust.” There may be ways that dangers created or accelerated by AI can be mitigated or better managed through adjustments to legacy nuclear deterrence force structures and practices in which patterns of daily life and the massive “data exhaust” of people and systems constituted less of a vulnerability.

The author also recommends bilateral and multilateral dialogue on strategic stability, including with an expanded range of stakeholders through which “partnerships should be forged between commercial AI developers and researchers to explore risk reduction measures in the nuclear enterprise.” AI-enabled capabilities make more states and even nonstate actors immediately relevant to strategic stability. Multinational corporations and leading innovators increasingly own capabilities and data that may be implicated in nuclear deterrence.

Elon Musk’s change to Starlink operations in apparent response to a nuclear threat from Russian President Vladimir Putin earlier this year is a clear signal that the potential exposure of nuclear deterrence to the commercial sector should no longer be ignored. Observing that “it is inevitable that AI is going to be used for things that touch nuclear weapons,” Jill Hruby, the administrator of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration, recently imagined a path forward, a future in which “you’re almost going to need AI systems battling each other to do the verification.”3 If the world wants to prevent a future in which algorithms fight nuclear war, leaders must act and invest now in algorithms to prevent nuclear war.

Ultimately, Johnson expects that “AI technology in the nuclear domain will likely be a double-edged sword: strengthening the [nuclear command-and-control] systems while expanding the pathways and tools available to adversaries to conduct cyberattacks and electronic warfare operations against these systems.” He encourages policymakers to act “before the pace of technological change outpaces (or surpasses) strategic affairs.”

Johnson concludes his book with a quote from machine learning pioneer Alan Turing: “We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done.” AI and the Bomb is a must read for those seeking to understand the first signals of revolutionary change that AI is bringing to the challenge of preventing nuclear war. It sends a clear warning that the world does not yet know how to manage the effects of AI on nuclear deterrence and, without significant urgent effort, it is likely to fall short.

 

ENDNOTES

1. Theresa Hitchens, “The Nuclear 3 Body Problem: STRATCOM ‘Furiously’ Rewriting Deterrence Theory in Tripolar World,” Breaking Defense, August 11, 2022, https://breakingdefense.com/2022/08/the-nuclear-3-body-problem-stratcom-furiously-rewriting-deterrence-theory-in-tri-polar-world/.

2. Nuclear Threat Initiative, “The Failsafe Review,” January 25, 2023, https://www.nti.org/analysis/articles/the-failsafe-review/.

3. Jill Hruby, Remarks to the Nuclear Threat Initiative Board of Directors, Washington, October 24, 2023.


Douglas B. Shaw is senior adviser to the president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative.

This book is a must-read for those seeking to understand the first signals of revolutionary change that AI is bringing to the challenge of preventing nuclear war.

China, U.S. Hold Rare Arms Control Talks


December 2023
By Shizuka Kuramitsu

China and the United States held long-awaited talks on nuclear arms control on Nov. 6, the first such meeting in nearly in five years.

After U.S. President Joe Biden (L) and Chinese President Xi Jinping met in San Francisco on Nov. 15, they directed their teams to hold long overdue followup discussions on nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. The groundwork was set nine days earlier in discussions between senior Chinese and U.S. arms control officials in Washington. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)Although the meeting in Washington produced no specific result and no specific date for follow-on talks was announced, U.S. officials said the discussion, which occurred amid rising nuclear and geopolitical tensions, was worthwhile simply because it took place.

In separate statements issued shortly after the meeting, the Chinese Foreign Ministry and the U.S. State Department described the discussion between Sun Xiaobo, Chinese director-general of arms control, and Mallory Stewart, U.S. assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification, and compliance, as candid, in-depth, and constructive.

The State Department said the issues under discussion “related to arms control and nonproliferation as part of ongoing efforts to maintain open lines of communication and responsibly manage the [bilateral] relationship.”

The United States, it said, “emphasized the importance of increased [Chinese] nuclear transparency and substantive engagement on practical measures to manage and reduce strategic risks across multiple domains, including nuclear and outer space,” and “the need to promote stability, help avert an unconstrained arms race, and manage competition so that it does not veer into conflict.”

The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the officials discussed the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, cooperation among the five nuclear-weapon states, nuclear security, nonproliferation and export control, compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention, and outer space security and regular arms control.

According to Reuters, a senior U.S. official said on Nov. 7, “I wouldn't say we learned anything new from them or that they delved into a great amount of detail in terms of their own nuclear force, their buildup and whether or not their policy or doctrine could be shifting over time.”

The meeting occurred as Beijing and Washington sought to reengage after a prolonged estrangement and to find a way to manage their way forward as major competitors in an unstable world. The last bilateral meeting on arms control issues took place in 2018 in Beijing when Chinese and U.S. officials “exchanged views” on their respective nuclear policies and on mutual cooperation on nonproliferation, among other topics, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Among Washington’s major current concerns is Beijing’s nuclear weapons buildup and its refusal to allow more transparency into the country’s nuclear program.

In its latest report on China’s military power, the U.S. Defense Department estimated that China will possess in excess of 1,000 nuclear warheads by 2030 and will accelerate development of its intercontinental-range ballistic missiles. (See ACT, November 2023.)

“Compared to the PLA’s [People’s Liberation Army] nuclear modernization efforts a decade ago, current efforts dwarf previous attempts in both scale and complexity,” the report said. Regardless, China’s arsenal is dwarfed by those of Russia, which has 4,500 warheads, and the United States, which has roughly 3,800 warheads.

Biden has long called for China to join in arms control talks. The United States is ready to “engage China without preconditions, helping ensure that competition is managed and that competition does not veer into conflict,” National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told the Arms Control Association annual forum on June 2.

“It’s our hope that…Beijing will be willing to include substantive engagement on strategic nuclear issues, which
would benefit the security of both of our countries and the security of the entire world,” Sullivan said.

During the Stewart-Sun meeting, the U.S. delegation “highlighted the need to promote stability, help avert an unconstrained arms race, and manage competition so that it does not veer into conflict,” the State Department statement said. Beijing, on the other hand, “emphasized that China and the United States should carry out dialogue and cooperation on the basis of mutual respect,” according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

China also “stressed that the two sides should adhere to the vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security [in order to] realize lasting peace and universal security in the world.”

The meeting between Stewart and Sun preceded the Nov. 15 meeting in San Francisco between Chinese President Xi Jinping and U.S. President Joe Biden and followed other recent high-level bilateral engagements, including between the U.S. secretary of state and the U.S. national security advisor with their Chinese counterparts.

According to a readout by the White House on the Xi-Biden talks, the leaders agreed that their teams will follow-up their discussions in San Francisco with “continued high-level diplomacy and interactions, including visits in both directions and ongoing working-level consultations in key areas, including on…arms control and nonproliferation.”

The State Department reported that the two leaders agreed to resume military-to-military communications and to continue their bilateral engagements “in key areas, including on commercial, economic, financial, Asia-Pacific, arms control and nonproliferation, maritime, export control enforcement, policy-planning, agriculture, and disability issues.”

In 2014, Xi told U.S. President Barack Obama that “the Pacific Ocean is broad enough to accommodate the development of both China and the United States and our two countries to work together to contribute to security in Asia.” When he met Biden, Xi told him that “planet Earth is big enough for the two countries to succeed.”

The first such meeting in nearly five years produced no obvious result but it did begin a dialogue.

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