Military: New START is Important for U.S. National Security

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

Stories we're following today: Monday October 25, 2010.

GENERALS: Military Gung-ho for New START - Lt. Gens. John Castellaw, Arlen Jameson, Donald Kerrick and Brig. Gen. John Adams in The Washington Times [link]

• Over the course of six months of hearings and briefings, one by one, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the heads of STRATCOM and the Missile Defense Agency and former officials from the last seven administrations, Republican and Democrat alike, all told senators the same thing - the New START treaty makes us safer and should be ratified by the Senate.
• It's worth stepping back for a moment to ask the question why, if any of the things critics claim were remotely true, the treaty would have such overwhelming support among the military?
• The bottom line is this - critics have no answer to the overwhelming support for this treaty among the military and national security experts, so they must resort to confusing the issue.
• For 20 years, we have had American inspectors on the ground keeping tabs on Russian nuclear weapons. On Dec. 5, it will have been an entire year since we lost that ability to conduct on-site inspections and monitoring.
• Every day we wait is a day we lose insight into Russia's arsenal, and that makes us less safe. When the Senate reconvenes after the elections, its top priority should be taking the advice of our military leadership and ratifying the treaty.

EU, Russia Prod Iran to Hold Nuclear Talks in November - Reuters [link]

• European Union foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton reissued an invitation to Iran on Friday to hold talks on its nuclear program next month, while Russia also pressed Iran to take up the offer.
• In a letter to Iran's ambassador to the European Union, Ashton urges Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, to take up the offer of talks in Vienna from November 15-17, with the discussions to cover the nuclear program and "any other items pertinent to the discussion".
• "The meeting could start with a dinner on November 15, followed by two days of consultations to enable substantial discussions," reads a copy of the letter seen by Reuters.
• Separately, Russia urged Iran on Friday to take up Ashton's original offer, the Interfax news agency reported.
• "We urge our Iranian friends and colleagues to officially respond in a positive manner to the invitation," Interfax quoted Ryabkov, Russia's representative to negotiations between Iran and the six powers, as saying in an interview in Brussels.

Blix: Israeli Military Strike on Iran Might be Illegal - Martin Matishak in Global Security Newswire [link]

• Any possible military action by Israel against Iran's nuclear installations is likely to violate the international rule of law, according to former International Atomic Energy Agency chief Hans Blix.
• Since Tehran has not launched an armed campaign on another nation, nor does it appear to be preparing for one, "it doesn't seem to me that an attack on Iran can be legally defended," he said Wednesday during a panel discussion at the Georgetown University Law Center.
• Observers "can see many other reasons, very good reasons, why there should not be an attack on Iran," including the unintended consequences such an event might have throughout the region, but the legal argument has yet to be explored in depth, Blix told the audience.
• Nonproliferation expert Joseph Cirincione, speaking at the same panel discussion as Blix, said an Israeli assault would also end the debate within Iran on whether to manufacture a nuclear weapon, with public opinion firmly tilting toward militarization.
• The recent waves of sanctions by the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and others against Iran are "biting" the country's economy and should be given more time to work, said Cirincione.

Test Fails for Airborne Laser Designed to Shoot Down Missiles - W.J. Hennigan in The LA Times [link]

• A Boeing 747 jumbo jet outfitted with a massive laser gun failed to knock out a dummy missile over the Pacific Ocean, marking the second consecutive setback for a key missile defense program that is years behind schedule and plagued with cost overruns.
• The heavily modified 747, dubbed Airborne Laser Test Bed, was unable to fire the laser gun because its onboard sensors could not accurately track the missile, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said. It was the second time in as many months in which the laser failed to hit the target.
• It has taken nearly 15 years and at least $4 billion to develop the airborne laser, which has been designed and tested in Southern California.
• The jumbo jet flies out of Edwards with a chemical laser affixed to its rotating nose turret that shoots a superheated, basketball-size beam. It's designed to burn a stress fracture in the missile, causing it to explode over the ocean.
• "The reality is that you would need a laser something like 20 to 30 times more powerful than the chemical laser in the plane right now to be able to get any distance from the launch site to fire," Gates said at a congressional conference in May.

Is the United States Committed to Warhead Dismantlement? - Nick Roth in “All Things Nuclear,” a UCS Blog [link]

• The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has just announced that the Pantex Plant accomplished 126 percent of its planned dismantlements for FY10. The problem with claims like this is that NNSA never states their original goal. Doing more than what was planned is always good. The question is whether the original objective was aggressive enough.
• Until recently, there was no way to assess these assertions because NNSA had not disclosed its dismantlement rates. This changed in May when, facing international pressure, the Obama administration made U.S. nuclear stockpile numbers and dismantlement rates public.
• In the 1990s, the U.S. dismantled more than a thousand warheads per year. After NNSA began refurbishments through Life Extension Programs, rates dropped to 200 to 300 from FY99 through FY06.
• In the FY11 budget request, dismantlement is less than a third of the money spent at Pantex for Directed Stockpile Work and slightly more than 10% of the overall budget at Pantex. Over the next five years (if not longer), that is unlikely to change.
• Short of building new dismantlement facilities (which carries with it a whole other set of problems), Congress or the Obama administration will need to step in to prioritize reducing the nuclear threat over fiddling around with the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

Clinton Lost Nuclear Codes, Claims Ex-aide - Daniel Dombey in The Financial Times [link]

• Bill Clinton lost the secret codes that would be used to authorise a US nuclear strike during the last year of his presidency, a new book has alleged.
• General Hugh Shelton, who served as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under Mr Clinton, says the codes were lost for months, leaving the US unable to launch its nuclear weapons.
• “This is the one point in the system where there is no backup and it failed,” he says in his book, Without Hesitation. “Without [the presidential authorisation codes] it doesn’t matter if we’ve got a thousand missiles verified inbound to the US, we would be unable to launch a retaliatory strike.”
• Col Patterson, who carried the “nuclear football” of codes for the president, quotes Mr Clinton as saying: “I don’t have mine on me: I’ll track it down, guys, and get back to you.” He adds that on other occasions Mr Clinton had misplaced the codes, which he attached by a rubber band to credit cards in his wallet.

A View From The Dark Side

Obama's START Treaty Undermines the Defence Systems We Will Need If Iran Decides to Nuke Us - James Corum in The Telegraph [link]

• With bad news pouring in on the eve of the midterm elections, Barack Obama is desperate to show the public some kind of success for the administration. To get his success, Obama and the Democratic leadership in the Senate will try to ram through ratification of the new US/Russia START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) with as little comment as possible.
• Unfortunately, the missile defence systems that the treaty undermines could be useful when Iranian nuclear warheads now being developed (with Russian material and technology) are fired at the US and its allies (from missiles built with Russian and Chinese technology).
• The treaty also assures the superiority of future Russian nuclear weapons. For their part, the Russians are devoting considerable funds and effort to modernising their remaining missiles and warheads. In contrast, Obama has stopped any modernisation of US weapons. Obama administration’s lack of interest in modernising tactical nuclear weapons also means that the Russians will have vast superiority of tactical nukes over America – superior in numbers and technology.
• In short – this treaty seriously undermines American and Western defences in several ways. It cripples any efforts to defend ourselves from Iranian, North Korean and other rogue nation missiles. Coupled with the Obama administration’s refusal to modernise the US nuclear arsenal, or to seriously consider missile defenses, it serves to ensure American military inferiority for decades to come.