Nuclear Weapons

Wired Magazine (04/28) cites Jeffrey Lewis' research on the Syrian Nuclear Program
The Week Daily (04/25) quotes Steve Clemons on the implications of Syria's Nuclear Program
The New Republic (04/25) responds to Steve Clemons' debate against a Beijing Boycott

It's a curious honor to have the New York Times trolling your blog for reported story ideas. Nonetheless, that honor goes to our own Jeffrey Lewis, publisher of ArmsControlWonk.com, and director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative here at the New America Foundation.

Here's the scoop. Published in today's New York Times, William J. Broad's article, "A Tantalizing Look at Iran's Nuclear Program," explored an intriguing new source of intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program: photographs by the official Iranian news agency of President Ahmadinejad touring nuclear facilities with his defence minister, intelligence minister, and top nuclear expert.

The highest compliment, however, was the inclusion of the Times' own annotated photograph. Showing his true geek credentials, Jeffrey's original, hand-drawn annotated picture, shown above, focused only on the hardware.

Leading the world towards a more secure international order requires the United States pursue our long-term interests while answering to a higer standard. The same goes for getting Iran to play by the global ruleset. Yet both have been systematically undermined by our willingness to proliferate nuclear technology to India, disregarding our leadership role in the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Now, our own Jeffrey Lewis is reporting that what many thought was a one-off incident, the unauthorized movement of nuclear weapons from one military base to another, is actually part of a broader dysfunction in the management of our nuclear forces. If we cannot even control our own nuclear program, how can we expect others to?

America's nuclear posture is problematic. The weapons needed for a credible deterrent are far smaller than our current stockpile while the Bush administration's plan for revising that posture makes the use of a tactical nuclear weapon much more likely. After more than a year in session, the new Congress is finally taking on this question and now they have named their greybeards. Jeffrey Lewis reports:

And the nominees are …

The following individuals have been nominated to the Commission by the House Armed Services Committee:

• William Perry, Commission Chairman, former Secretary of Defense;
• John Foster, Director Emeritus of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory;
• Lee Hamilton, former Congressman and Vice Chair of the 9/11 Commission;
• Keith Payne, CEO and President, National Institute for Public Policy;
• Ellen Williams, University of Maryland Distinguished Professor; and
• Harry Cartland, former physicist, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

The following individuals have been nominated to the Commission by the Senate Armed Services Committee:

Just in case you were hoping that Defense Secretary Robert Gates' speech at the University of Kansas represented a real turning point in how the current Administration thinks about the formation and substance of foreign policy, Jeffrey Lewis, director of New America's Nuclear Strategy and Non-Proliferation Initiative, shows evidence to the contrary. Blogging at ArmsControlWonk, Jeffrey uncovers two more incidents of counter-productive arrogance, this time having to do with the India nuclear deal.

Want to know one reason that I hate the US-India nuclear deal?

The House Committee on Foreign Affairs asked 40 questions about the US-India Nuclear Deal, to which the State Department provided unclassified answers that it refuses to release to the public.

Daryl Kimball and Sharon Squassoni, now joined by Fred McGoldrick and Henry Sokolski, have been asking the State Department to drop what described as a “gag order” and release the responses.

That would be offensive enough, of course, but the story got more irritating today.

Continue reading...

Frida Berrigan, senior program associate at ASP's Arms and Security Initiative published the following article in today's Madison Capital Times.

FOR many Americans, nuclear weapons bring up old memories and forgotten associations -- the duck and cover drills of the 1950s, President Reagan's exhortations against the "evil empire," and the plot lines of countless straight-to-video political thrillers. It may then come as a surprise that in 2008 the United States is considering a huge new investment in nuclear weapons.

The U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration is pushing for an estimated $150 billion to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons and a more "responsive" production network. The centerpiece of this move is called Complex Transformation, a multiyear plan to build new or upgraded facilities at each of the NNSA's eight nuclear weapons-related sites. The plan also calls for building a new nuclear weapon called the reliable replacement warhead, which would replace all deployed weapons in the U.S. arsenal.

Jeffrey Lewis, director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative, takes a look at a suspect Iranian missile site on his blog, ArmsControlWonk:

REMEMBER that crazy, though possibly true BM-25 story? One detail in the story, originally published by Bild, was that BND had identified a suspect facility near Tabriz.

Reader Allen Thomson noticed that someone recently ordered a Digital Globe Image of Tabriz and found what looks a lot like a missile facility to me at 38.252 N, 46.128 E.