Breaking the Missile Defense Stalemate

On the radar: “Getting to ‘Yes’ on Missile Defense”; a new path to the bomb; possible Middle East nuclear weapons-free zone talks; 20 years after the Soviet coup; HEU cleanout on with Mexico, stalled with Belarus; and Mr. Kim takes a train ride.

August 22, 2011 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Rizwan Ladha

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Trying to make progress on missile defense - Richard Weitz explains in The Moscow Times, “Russian officials have expressed some interest in [cooperative missile defense] projects, but they have insisted on first achieving consensus with the United States on underlying strategic principles. Above all, they want Washington to sign a legally binding agreement.”

-- Instead, “Russian officials need to retreat from their politically impossible demand for legally binding limitations on U.S. missile defense. They should … redirect their cooperative efforts to easier but important issues, such as securing stability in Afghanistan after NATO’s military withdrawal.” http://ow.ly/1w47NE

“We’re on the verge of a new route to the bomb,” Physicist Frank von Hippel tells The New York Times, in response to to an effort from General Electric to build a $1 billion laser enrichment plant to produce reactor fuel.

-- “[Advancement in laser enrichment] might be good news for the nuclear industry. But critics fear that if the work succeeds and the secret gets out, rogue states and terrorists could make bomb fuel in much smaller plants that are difficult to detect,” William J. Broad writes. http://ow.ly/69lLv

Toward a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone? - The International Atomic Energy Agency hopes to bring together Arab countries and Israel later this year to discuss the possibility of a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, Reuters reports.

-- “A nuclear weapons free zone in the Middle East will not be achieved tomorrow, everyone knows it, but we can get closer,” says IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano. “Increasing confidence is very much needed, even a small step is helpful. I hope that we can host a forum this year.” http://ow.ly/1w49pH

20 years after the failed coup in the Soviet Union - “Russia [has] zigzagged from oligarchic capitalism to crony capitalism, and in politics from proto-democracy to soft authoritarianism. All of us who witnessed the events of those years -- journalists, scholars, government officials, businessmen, and others -- ought to ask ourselves: Why did Russia turn out this way? What did we get right, and what did we get wrong?”

-- David Hoffman, with a “generous dose of humility,” asks, “How’d We Do Covering the Revolution?” http://ow.ly/69kEk

HEU cleanout coming to Mexico - The U.S. and Mexico have signed an agreement to remove 10.8 kg of highly enriched uranium from a research reactor at Ocoyoacac. The effort is part of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Global Threat Reduction Initiative. Pavel Podvig at IPFM has the details. http://ow.ly/69jsJ

HEU cleanout on hold with Belarus - Belarus, which retains a large amount of HEU, has suspended a deal to ship its stockpile to Russia. The move comes in response to U.S. sanctions concerning Belarus’ ongoing political repression, Global Security Newswire reports. http://ow.ly/69oa9

Kim’s summer trip? - Kim Jong-il hopped a train to eastern Russia to meet with President Dmitri Medvedev. “Experts say [Kim’s trip to Russia] may have been prompted by an urgent need for economic aid to assuage a spiraling food crisis at home,” The New York Times reports.

--Kim’s visit comes after several meetings between North Korean officials and counterparts in South Korea, China and the United States, likely aimed at reviving the stalled 6-party talks. http://ow.ly/69mCn