WMD

How Many Nukes Does it Take?

Communications — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 08:15:00 -0400

A New America Event
04/18/2008 - 12:15pm

Most scholars and policymakers favor stemming the tide of nuclear proliferation, even as they acknowledge the pacifying effects of established nuclear arsenals on great power relations. When it comes to nuclear arsenals, how robust must a country's nuclear arsenal be--how much is enough? Some of the key variables in existing studies - e.g., the nuclear "balance of power" - have been poorly conceived, and the data used to measure the nuclear balance and its effect on policy has come from suspect sources. High quality declassified evidence began to percolate just as the Cold War ended and analysts turned their attention to seemingly more important topics.

With an eye toward future potential problems in the U.S.-China relationship, Keir Lieber and Daryl Press will evaluate four major schools of deterrence theory with some of the newly available evidence from the Cold War. Their preliminary findings indicate that we should not be complacent about the deterrent effects of the short-to-medium term nuclear balance between the U.S. and China.

Join the New America Foundation for an engaging and relevant discussion on nuclear deterrence. The American Strategy Program's Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative is designed to build a new bipartisan consensus around a reduced role for nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy and a renewed emphasis on building international institutions to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear Mind Reading

Communications — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 05:15:00 -0400

A New America Event
04/09/2008 - 12:15pm

On April 9th, Jeffrey Lewis, director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative, hosted James Acton, a Lecturer in the Centre for Science and Security Studies in the Department of War Studies at King's College London for a talk entitled "Nuclear Mind Reading: Iran's Nuclear Intentions and the IAEA". Acton analyzed the IAEA's ability to assess states' intentas opposed to their capabilitiesand then asked what the IAEA means when it announces that an issue is no longer considered to be outstanding. Finally, he discussed the implications this analysis has for the enforcement of arms control treaties.

Acton began by reconstructing the contentious debate on Article II of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Article II, the injunction that states not manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or nuclear explosives, had a central dilemma because of the indeterminacy of deciding what counts as "manufacture." For example, if a state were to develop all the parts but did not assemble them, then does it "count" as a violation of Article II? To overcome these problems, a purpose criteria was introduced which made the intent of a state the deciding factor in determining violations. Acton argued, however, that this intent clause has seriously hurt the ability to enforce nonproliferation agreements.

People often look to the IAEA to judge intent yet, as Acton noted, this mistakes the role of the IAEA. Its self-professed goal is fact-gathering and not to determine intent. The IAEA determines the what of a state's action and not the why. Thus, it is unable to perform the kind of "nuclear mind reading" necessary to determine violations. This is the proper realm of intelligence agencies who can use human and signals intelligence but the IAEA does not and should not have this capacity. Iran exemplifies these problems. The IAEA has recently closed the file on Iran because it says there are no outstanding issues and this has been interpreted to mean there is no intent to acquire a nuclear weapon. The IAEA makes, however, no such claim. Furthermore, whenever the IAEA finds suspicious activity Iran claims innocent usage and thus the definite proof demanded by states is impossible to find. Intent serves, in the end, as a loophole allowing states to side-step compliance. Acton argues that, beyond the Iranian crisis, a dangerous precedent has been set because debates have crystallized around intent without a credible way of assessment.

Acton concluded that the role of intention must be superceded by an objective, rules-based regime. He proposed that, in enforcement by international bodies, states should be penalized on what it has done and not why it acted. This provides an added deterrent effect because states can no longer deploy the motives card. In state-to-state interactions, however, intentions are crucial because one needs to understand why a state such as Iran wants to develop nuclear weapons. This happens when states talk behind the scenes but not publicly. Acton provided, finally, a set of implementation mechanisms to transition to this new process. First, states should stop talking about intent in international forums. The US, UK, France, and Germany have been guilty of this regarding Iran allowing China and Russia to bandwagon upon it to support Iran. Second, rules should equally applied without exemptions for US friends and allies. Lastly, states should consider Pierre Goldschmidt's proposal for a generic UN resolution to create automatic punishments for states found in non-compliance.

- Kailash Srinivasan is an intern for the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative.

Nuclear Bailout

Ron Tang — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:10:00 -0400

The Department of Energy (DOE) plans to undertake an extensive, multi-billion dollar investment in new nuclear weapons facilities and new nuclear warhead designs. The initiative, known as “Complex Transformation,” is unnecessary on strategic and technical grounds, not to mention exorbitantly expensive. The various plans being considered by the DOE have more to do with bailing out the nuclear weapons industry than they do with determining what size complex makes sense in an era of nuclear arms reductions. At a minimum, current proposals should be put on hold until the new president taking office in January 2009 has a chance to… more

Posturing About the Future of Nuclear Weapons

Communications — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:15:00 -0500

A New America Event
05/20/2008 - 12:15pm

The next President will conduct yet another Nuclear Posture Review -- the third since the end of the Cold War. What's the point? Will it be any different or just more of the same?

Dr. Janne Nolan will tackle these tough questions and others. Dr. Nolan, currently a professor of international affairs at the University of Pittsburgh, is author of An Elusive Consensus: Nuclear Weapons and American Security after the Cold War, considered to be the definitive study of the 1994 Nuclear Posture Review.

The American Strategy Program's Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative is designed to build a new bipartisan consensus around U.S. nuclear policy, posture and forces and renew U.S. leadership on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.

Space Race With China?

Communications — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:15:00 -0500

A New America Event
02/12/2008 - 12:15pm

Before China carried out an anti-satellite test in January 2007, some U.S. policy-makers, including NASA Administrator Michael Griffin and the U.S. House China Working Group, advocated greater cooperation between the United States and China in space. After the test, which created a massive cloud of space debris that angered international space professionals and alarmed the American public, increased references to U.S.-China competition and hints of a new space race drowned out calls for cooperation.

Using the experience they gained from visiting China several times in the last eight months, analysts Jeffrey Lewis and Gregory Kulacki will evaluate the costs and benefits of cooperation and competition between the United States and China in light of the history of Chinese interest in ASAT technology and an assessment of China's growing aerospace industry.

The New America Foundation invites you to join these two space policy experts in an engaging panel discussion and robust question-and-answer session. The American Strategy Program's Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative is designed to build a new bipartisan consensus around a reduced role for nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy and a renewed emphasis on building international institutions to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

Surge in Spending on Nukes a Grave Error

Ron Tang — Sat, 09 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

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 multi-year plan… more

The Threat of Nuclear Terrorism

Communications — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 14:30:00 -0500

A New America Event
01/30/2008 - 2:30pm

Nuclear terrorism is an urgent threat, but policy debates have been dangerously dominated by caricatured depictions of terrorist groups and potential plots. In his latest book, On Nuclear Terrorism, Michael Levi argues that an obsession with worst-case scenarios and finding perfect defenses has blinded us to important opportunities to confront the nuclear threat.

On Jan. 30, the Nuclear Strategy & Nonproliferation Initiative drew together Levi and New America’s Priscilla Lewis and Jeffrey Lewis to engage in a discussion of this issue. A brief summary follows, while an MP3 audio recording of the 86-minute event can be downloaded below and the video can be viewed at right.

Worrying about the obsession with worst-case scenarios and its impact on policymaking, Levi tried to bring this discussion back to reality with a list of facts that debunk the presumptions generally made of our defense system and the terrorists. For instance, he noted the chance for nuclear terrorists to successfully implement an attack inside the United States is indeed minute when one considers our defense network as a whole rather focusing on individual layers. Moreover, he argued that the terrorists’ opportunities to acquire nuclear technology does not necessarily translate into their capability to operate a nuclear weapon or a terrorist attack.

Levi called for an improved intelligence assessment that includes not only the worst case but also all possible outcomes. He also urged the audience to neither underestimate nor overestimate the threat of nuclear terrorism, but instead to be “pragmatic agnostic” in confronting it.

Priscilla Lewis, director of New America’s U.S. in the World Initiative, elaborated on Levi’s perspective by pointing to the power of framing. She noted the dramatic change in public opinion about public policy’s priority when fear, as the word “nuclear terrorism” suggests, becomes a factor. Indeed, surveys show that the normally low-priority “prevention of nuclear weapons smuggling into the country” was named the top of the list when "nuclear terrorism" was referred to. Framed by fear, she argued that no wonder why the public desires “perfect defense”.

To minimize the fear factor, Lewis suggested that, instead of focusing on the problem, we should focus on our capability to handle the nuclear threat and prevent nuclear terrorism from standing alone as the symbol of terrorism itself.

A framing focused on nuclear terrorism, according to Lewis, has also resulted in an increasingly narrow-minded public that believes this is a national security issue rather than a nuclear proliferation problem shared globally, inadvertently damaging our effort to curb the nuclear arms race. And this, as she concluded, should prompt us to carefully revise and select our frame.

The robust Q&A session, moderated by NSNI director Jeffrey Lewis, touched on a variety of topics, including the use of nuclear detector and how to measure the scale of response, pointing to the political means that draw people’s attentions, and the relationship between state proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear terrorism and its implication on the Non-Proliferation Treaty. -- Event summary by Ronald Tang

China's Boomers

Communications — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 12:15:00 -0500

A New America Event
01/09/2008 - 12:15pm

This summer’s public revelation that China has constructed two or more new ballistic missile submarines raises a number of strategic, operational and bureaucratic questions about the future of nuclear arsenals held by China and the United States. How China deploys and operates these systems, as well as how the United States responds, will significantly impact the stability of deterrence in the Pacific.

The New America Foundation invites you to join five national security scholars as they participate in a round-table discussion on the subject of whether China’s deterrent will go to sea and what that means for U.S. national security. As these questions play out over the next decade, these five experts are well poised to understand and inform the debate in the public sphere and policy arena.

The American Strategy Program’s Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative is designed to build a new bipartisan consensus around a reduced role for nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy and a renewed emphasis on building international institutions to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

Nukes and the Elections

adminn — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:20:00 -0500

In this extra-long (and far from finished) campaign season, we have heard a lot from the candidates. We have seen them in many debates and public forums -- engaging with one another and with the animated snowmen and gun-toting hunters that populated the YouTube debates.

But all this exposure has not resulted in an abundance of substance. Hot issues like immigration and gun control provide juicy sound bites and smoking zingers on both sides but fail to inform voters on the candidates' stances on looming and critical foreign policy issues. Perhaps even more importantly, this flavor-of-the-week approach fails to engage or… more

Best of Bush 2007

adminn — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 15:14:00 -0500

Sure, there were some downsides to the Bush administration foreign policy in 2007 such as [INSERT YOUR FAVORITE EXAMPLE HERE]. But what about the good news?

No New Wars: Iraq and Afghanistan haven't quite reached the "pace of success" (Bush's phrase) that the president would like to see. But give him some credit: he didn't start any new wars in 2007. No "Nucular" attacks: since Dubya can't pronounce the word "nuclear" and can't locate most countries on a map, it's hard for him to push the button: he doesn't know where to aim. No War With Iran: That damned… more