U.S.-Saudi Arabia Nuclear Trade Deal in the Works, Likely Without Key Safeguards

Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today: Thursday January 27, 2011.

Obama Team Eyes Saudi Nuclear Trade Deal Without Nonproliferation Terms - Elaine Grossman for Global Security Newswire [link]

• The Obama administration is taking initial steps to negotiate a civil nuclear trade pact with Saudi Arabia that could lack key nonproliferation provisions included in a similar 2009 deal with one of Riyadh's Persian Gulf neighbors, according to U.S. officials and experts.
• Critics are warning that the approach -- reportedly driven by Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman -- might signal Washington's tacit blessing for the Saudis to reprocess plutonium or enrich uranium on their soil. Such activities can be useful for atomic energy needs but also introduce the potential to advance a clandestine nuclear weapons effort.
• Many nonproliferation experts appear to agree, saying Washington currently has a unique opportunity to head off the further spread of nuclear weapons. However, they say, that opening could disappear if the Obama team fails to seize it.
• In its 2009 nuclear trade agreement with the United States, the United Arab Emirates volunteered to forgo any domestic enrichment or reprocessing…Leading nonproliferation advocates have urged the White House to pursue a similar commitment to nonproliferation practices from Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries -- if not in other regions, as well.
• Nonproliferation experts are warning, though, that if a U.S.-Saudi agreement fails to include provisions that discourage enrichment or reprocessing, the earlier UAE pledge could be withdrawn.
• Lawmakers on Capitol Hill signaled their ire last summer after learning that the administration did not intend to advocate a renunciation of domestic enrichment and reprocessing in negotiating nuclear trade deals with Jordan and Vietnam.
• Pending a presidential decision, it has been left to the Energy and State departments to sort out how they would approach anticipated talks with Saudi Arabia aimed at landing a formal agreement on terms for their future nuclear trade, Washington sources said.

Russian Duma Ratifies New START, Marking Two Years Of Immense Progress On Non-Pro - Max Bergmann for The Wonk Room [link]

• The Russian Duma voted to ratify the New START treaty today, thereby ensuring that the treaty will enter into force. While this was more or less a forgone conclusion, START’s completion represents a significant achievement for the President.
• In fact, the past two years have seen remarkable progress on nuclear non-proliferation that has not simply moved the ball forward on non-proliferation but as Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association noted, “has put the United States back in the role of global nuclear risk-reduction leader.”
• The extent of the accomplishments lays the groundwork for future progress. Action can now begin on a new round of arms reduction talks with the Russians, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and further action on nuclear threat reduction and nuclear security programs.
• As the chairman of the international affairs committee in the Russian senate, Mikhail Margelov, remarked upon START’s passage, "The arms race is a thing of the past… The disarmament race is taking its place."
• ome may point to the knock-down drag out fight in Congress over the START treaty as evidence that ratifying future treaties will be too hard to do. But this ignores the extent of the defeat suffered by the nuclear-right…Fights over future treaties will be similar, making them hard but doable.

Is Nuclear Deterrence Dead? - David Hoffman in Foreign Policy [link]

• Russia's parliament has approved the New START treaty. The Senate has ratified it. You might think that it's time to stop worrying about The Bomb, arms control and all that mind-numbing stuff from the Cold War...Not Entirely.
• While the new treaty is a small step in the right direction, there will still be as many nuclear warheads in the United States and Russia uncovered by this treaty as those which are covered…That's the next problem for arms control: make sure there are no weapons out of bounds, beyond the playing field, where they can escape verification.
• Meanwhile, intercontinental ballistic missiles are still on launch-ready alert, another legacy from the Cold War we haven't yet dealt with. Is there any reason for both sides to maintain the threat to launch fast -- in our case, four minutes for land-based missiles from the time an order is given -- if we are no longer adversaries?
• So, in the sense that we need to bring it up to date, nuclear deterrence is still with us. The missiles and warheads and bombs are still out there. The software changed when the Cold War ended, but the hardware lingers.
• So, we have to finish cleaning up the legacy of the Cold War, but at the same time, discover entirely new methods to cope with new dangers. Nuclear deterrence isn't dead, but it won't unlock all the doors to our future, either.

NATO, Russia Vow unity on Terrorism, Disagree on Shield - Laurent Thornet for AFP [link]

• NATO and Russia vowed Wednesday to stand side-by-side against terrorism after Moscow's airport bombing but remained at odds over cooperation on a missile shield for Europe's population.
• Wednesday's talks [at the NATO-Russia Council] follow a landmark Lisbon summit in November, when Russia agreed to allow NATO to transport more goods to Afghanistan through its territory, and explore the possibility of working with the Western alliance on the missile defence system.
• The two sides agreed Wednesday on a work plan in six areas of cooperation including combatting terrorism, countering sea piracy and renewing cooperation on a missile defence system to protect troops.
• But the military powers remained apart on the missile shield project to defend European populations and territories.
• NATO insists on keeping two independent systems that would share intelligence while Russia proposes a "sectoral" system in which each side would shoot down missiles coming from a certain geographic area.

G.O.P. Splits Over Plans to Cut Defense Budget - Elisabeth Bumiller and Thom Shanker in The New York Times [link]

• To hear the Republican leadership tell it, the once-sacred Pentagon budget, protected by the party for generations, is suddenly on the table. But a closer look shows that...divisions have opened among Republicans about whether, and how much, to chop Pentagon spending that comes to more than a half trillion dollars a year.
• The discordant Republican voices on military spending have bred confusion on Capitol Hill, among military contractors and within the military itself, where no one is exactly sure what the members backed by the Tea Party will do.
• It also shows why taking on the military budget will be so hard, even though a widening deficit has led the president and the leaders of both parties to say this time they are serious.
• Dick Armey, a former Republican House majority leader and now a leader of the Tea Party movement, said in an interview that Tea Party-backed members of Congress would rigorously look for places to prune the Pentagon budget. “A lot of people say if you cut defense, you’re demonstrating less than a full commitment to our nation’s security, and that’s baloney,” he said.
• But so far, few Tea Party-backed members on the House Armed Services Committee have said specifically where they would cut. In public remarks at the hearing on Wednesday, several spoke up in favor of favorite military programs or of protecting military installations at home, illustrating the difficulty of balancing their overarching philosophy and goals with the immediate concerns of their districts.