Powell, Kissinger, Shultz, Baker and Eagleburger Endorse New START

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

Stories we're following today, Thursday, December 2, 2010:

The Republican Case for Ratifying New START - Henry A. Kissinger, George P. Shultz, James A. Baker III, Lawrence S. Eagleburger and Colin L. Powell in The Washington Post [link]

• Republican presidents have long led the crucial fight to protect the United States against nuclear dangers. That is why Presidents Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush negotiated the SALT I, START I and START II agreements. It is why President George W. Bush negotiated the Moscow Treaty. All four recognized that reducing the number of nuclear arms in an open, verifiable manner would reduce the risk of nuclear catastrophe and increase the stability of America's relationship with the Soviet Union and, later, the Russian Federation. 
• Along with our obligation to protect the homeland, the United States has responsibilities to allies around the world. The commander of our nuclear forces has testified that the 1,550 warheads allowed under this treaty are sufficient for all our missions - and seven former nuclear commanders agree. The defense secretary, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the head of the Missile Defense Agency - all originally appointed by a Republican president - argue that New START is essential for our national defense.
• Although each of us had initial questions about New START, administration officials have provided reasonable answers. We believe there are compelling reasons Republicans should support ratification.
• First, the agreement emphasizes verification, providing a valuable window into Russia's nuclear arsenal. Since the original START expired last December, Russia has not been required to provide notifications about changes in its strategic nuclear arsenal, and the United States has been unable to conduct on-site inspections. Each day, America's understanding of Russia's arsenal has been degraded, and resources have been diverted from national security tasks to try to fill the gaps.
• Second, New START preserves our ability to deploy effective missile defenses. The testimonies of our military commanders and civilian leaders make clear that the treaty does not limit U.S. missile defense plans.
• Finally, the Obama administration has agreed to provide for modernization of the infrastructure essential to maintaining our nuclear arsenal. Funding these efforts has become part of the negotiations in the ratification process. The administration has put forth a 10-year plan to spend $84 billion on the Energy Department's nuclear weapons complex.
• Whenever New START is brought up for debate, we encourage all senators to focus on national security...With our country facing the dual threats of unemployment and a growing federal debt bomb, we anticipate significant conflict between Democrats and Republicans. It is, however, in the national interest to ratify New START.

Let’s Get Back to Work With Russia: We Need New START Treaty In Force - Rose Gottemoeller in The Hill [link]

• By midnight on Dec. 4, 2009, the last U.S. inspector had to be out of the Russian Federation — at that moment, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) was going out of force. Nearly a year has passed since that day, and in all that time, we have had no data exchanges on Russia’s strategic forces and no opportunity to inspect Russian strategic nuclear bases.
• The lack of regular data exchanges and on-site verification measures means our understanding of Russian missile and bomber forces will diminish over time. As Gen. Kevin Chilton, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, has said: “Without New START, we would rapidly lose insight into Russian strategic nuclear force developments and activities, and our force modernization planning and hedging strategy would be more complex and more costly. Without such a regime, we would unfortunately be left to use worst-case analyses regarding our own force requirements.”
• President Reagan famously challenged the Soviets to “trust but verify.” His concept for a strong verification regime that includes on-site inspections was first implemented in July 1988 under the treaty between the United States and the U.S.S.R. on the elimination of their intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles (the INF Treaty).
• Once New START enters into force, we will — after a year-long hiatus — receive extensive declarations from Russia every six months of the number, type and location of all the strategic offensive forces under the treaty. What’s more, New START calls for an unprecedented level of information about those forces because, under New START, a unique identifying number will be assigned to each missile and bomber, which will allow the U.S. to follow that item through its life.
• New START is a continuation of the international arms control and nonproliferation framework that the United States has worked hard to foster and strengthen for the last 50 years. It preserves the United States’s ability to maintain the strong, credible nuclear deterrent that is a key element of U.S. national security and the security of U.S. allies and friends. The time is now to ratify it.

Nuclear Lab Directors ‘Pleased’ With Modernization Plan - Peter Baker of The New York Times [link]

• The directors of the nation’s three nuclear laboratories said Wednesday that they were satisfied with the Obama administration’s 10-year plan to modernize their facilities, a declaration Democrats hope will clear Republican obstacles to a new arms control treaty with Russia.
• In a letter to the Senate, the three directors pronounced themselves “very pleased” with the administration’s plan to spend $85 billion over the next decade to upgrade the nuclear weapons complex, saying that was “a workable funding level for a balanced program that sustains the science, technology and engineering base.”
• The letter added: “In summary, we believe that the proposed budgets provide adequate support to sustain the safety, security, reliability and effectiveness of America’s nuclear deterrent within the limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads established by the New Start treaty with adequate confidence and acceptable risk.”
• The letter was meant to address the concerns raised by Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the lead Republican negotiator on the so-called New Start treaty who has insisted on a robust program to upgrade the nation’s nuclear complex even as it reduces its arsenal of weapons
• Supporters of the treaty hope to use the letter by the laboratory directors to win over Mr. Kyl or, failing that, to persuade other Republicans that they have gone the extra mile. The letter was solicited on Tuesday by Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, the Democratic chairman and ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee who are also prime supporters of the treaty.

The North Korean Enigma - Joseph S. Nye for Project Syndicate [link]

• What is going on in North Korea?
• On November 23, its army fired nearly 200 artillery rounds onto the South Korean island of Yeonpyeong, near the two countries’ disputed maritime border, killing four – including two civilians – and demolishing scores of houses and other structures. And, just a few weeks before the shelling of Yeonpyeong, North Korea showed a delegation of American scientists a new and previously undisclosed uranium-enrichment plant, which will increase the regime’s capacity to make nuclear weapons.
• North Korea’s nuclear weapons program has been a matter of concern for two decades. Pyongyang violated its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty by secretly reprocessing enough plutonium to produce two nuclear weapons in the early 1990’s. After it withdrew from a restraining agreement negotiated by the Clinton administration in 1994, it expelled International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors and began reprocessing spent fuel that could produce another six bombs’ worth of plutonium.
• Most observers attribute the recent provocations to the anticipated succession of power in Pyongyang. Kim Jong-il had years to prepare as an understudy to his father, Kim Il-sung , but many reports suggest that he is nearing the end of his life. This autumn, he promoted his hitherto little-seen son, Kim Jong-un, to the rank of general, and introduced him at a Communist Party conference.
• Demonstration of military success in “protecting” the regime may indeed be designed to strengthen the 28-year-old general’s claim to power. If so, the risky behavior we have seen recently is part of the process of solidifying a unique political system: a hereditary Communist monarchy.

New START: The World is Watching - Nancy Gallagher for The Baltimore Sun [link]

• As the Senate considers whether to vote on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) this month, the debate has largely overlooked the most fundamental reason why rapid approval is important. From a technical standpoint, the treaty's lower limits on U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons, data exchanges and inspections would make a modest but important contribution to reducing nuclear risks. Of far greater significance, though, is the political message that the Senate's action — or inaction — will send the rest of the world.
• As the Senate deliberates, U.S. allies and other world leaders are watching closely. The amount of time and concessions required to secure Senate support for this treaty will reveal much about what the United States values, how it sees its role in the world, and whether its political system can reach bipartisan agreement on a low-cost, low-risk step that is an essential part of a global bargain to prevent proliferation and catastrophic terrorism.
• Foreign observers have followed the U.S. ratification process closely enough to know that the treaty provides valuable transparency and predictability without requiring changes to the U.S. nuclear posture beyond those recommended by a bipartisan congressional commission. They know that it does not constrain missile defense or conventional weapons and that the Obama administration has already increased funding to upgrade remaining nuclear weapons programs.
• Endless delay [of ratification] could be a way to derail this treaty without acknowledging that one opposes any legal obligations or verification that constrains U.S. nuclear choices. The treatment of New START could also signify that Republicans care more about making the president look weak and improving their electoral prospects than they do about national security or international efforts to reduce shared nuclear risks.
• Only eight more Republicans who share Sen. Richard Lugar's convictions and political courage are needed. If they do not come forward soon, it will not just be President Obama's popularity and agenda that suffer.

Russia Opens World's First Nuclear Fuel Bank - Dmitry Zaks for Agence France-Presse [link]

• Russia announced Wednesday that it had created the world's first international atomic fuel bank as part of a global effort to curb the spread of nuclear arms to nations such as North Korea and Iran.
• The Rosatom state atomic energy corporation said the Siberian fuel reserve -- which will operate under the auspices of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear watchdog -- will have enough material to refuel two civilian nuclear power plants.
• "The purpose of this facility is to reduce the risk of other countries processing their own uranium to a minimum," former Foreign Intelligence Service chief Gennady Yevstafyev told AFP. "This will dramatically improve control over the proliferation of nuclear weapons."
• The Angarsk bank is the first of about a dozen facilities proposed by various nations following the 2003 discovery of covert enrichment activity in Iran.
• The idea was backed by 23 of the 35 IAEA members at the Vienna meeting but opposed by countries such as Brazil and Pakistan that are just beginning to establish their own nuclear programmes.