What to Expect in Chicago on NATO Nuclear Policy

On the radar: Not much; Kristensen report on NSNW; Russian General gets some headlines; Gen. Jacoby on East Coast missile defense; Senators question rising MOX costs; Playing politics with diplomacy; and Waiting on a GMD test.

May 3, 2012 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Mary Kaszynski

NATO kicks the can, again - NATO is set to release its Defense and Deterrence Posture Review in Chicago. The report is expected to not change anything from NATO’s 2010 Strategic Concept, but instead build in more flexibility for NATO to decide what to do with its nuclear weapons - should the alliance bring itself to do so.

--Muddling through: “For now, it is likely that NATO will be left with inconsistent nuclear doctrines, no clear declaratory policy, and publics left out of the discussion,” write Paul Ingram and Oliver Meier at Arms Control Now. http://owl.li/aG6h1

--Full analysis: “The NATO Summit: Recasting the Debate over U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe” by Meier and Ingram from this month’s Arms Control Today. http://owl.li/aG6Hc

Tweet - Ivo Daalder @USAmbNATO: Shameless plug of the day: I’ll be on @TheDailyShow May 8. Looking forward to chatting about #NATO & #Chicago2012 w/ #JonStewart.

Cold War relics - The U.S. and Russia have a combined total of about 500 and 2,000 non-strategic nuclear weapons, respectively, according to a new report by Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists. The report goes into detail about the numbers, types, locations, and postures. It also covers the obstacles to further reductions. http://owl.li/aG66i

--Perspective on reductions: “Making further reductions in non-strategic nuclear forces conditioned on negotiations to reduce disparity unnecessarily perpetuates the importance of nonstrategic nuclear weapons, instead of moving forward with bold unilateral and bilateral initiatives to consolidate, withdraw and eliminate them.”

--The actual end of NSNW: “The United States has eliminated all but two of its non-strategic nuclear weapons, has decided to retire one of them (TLAM/N), and appears to be on a path toward phasing out designated non-strategic nuclear warheads from its stockpile altogether.”

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Event - “The Path to Lower Nuclear Numbers?” Jon Wolfsthal at the Wilson Center, Friday the 4th at noon. Details and RSVP here. http://owl.li/aBADK

Headline vs. reality - How it played: “Russia’s military threatens preemptive strike if NATO goes ahead with missile plan” is the headline of an AP story on statements by Russia’s Chief of General Staff Nikolai Makarov during Russia’s missile defense conference.

--What it actually meant: ”Makarov’s statement on Thursday doesn’t seem to imply an immediate threat, but aims to put extra pressure on Washington to agree to Russia’s demands.” http://owl.li/aG5y6

Tweet - @Cirincione: Hmmm. NSC Advisor Tom Donilon going to Moscow today. Wonder what that's about. http://bit.ly/IMbpI0

MOX mismanagement - Senate appropriators provided $389 million for the mixed-oxide fuel facility at the Savannah River site but questioned NNSA’s failure to explain the facility’s rising operating costs, GSN reports. http://owl.li/aG5qC

Tweet - @GlobalZero: The Cooperative Threat Reduction program has helped deactivate 7,619 nuclear warheads in former Soviet states since 1991.

Quote - “Today's threats do not require an East Coast missile field and we do not have plans to do so.” Gen. Charles Jacoby (Commander, U.S. Northern Command) at a recent SASC hearing. h/t Kingston Reif at Nukes of Hazard. http://owl.li/aG5lI

Nuclear politics - The sanctions legislation enacted by Congress prevents the president from lifting sanctions, even if Iran makes concessions on its nuclear program. That means the same sanctions that brought Iran back to the negotiating table may prevent a deal.

--“America simply cannot afford another war of choice in the Middle East....while Congress fights over tax policy and the budget, it should take a moment to fix its sanctions legislation and return the power to make peace back to the President. ” writes NIAC’s David Elliott in The Huffington Post. http://owl.li/aG5iX

Tweet - Pavel Podvig @russianforces: When will the GMD national missile defense system finally be tested against ICBMs? 2015? 2020? http://owl.li/aFVaX