Albright and Ivanov Look Beyond New START

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

Stories we're following today: Wednesday October 13, 2010.

We Must Restart our Stalled Nuclear Talks - Madeleine Albright and Ignor Ivanov in The Financial Times [link]

• In signing [New START] Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev bolstered a growing US-Russian partnership. Yet, given these delays, they should now do more. In particular, a number of interim steps can help to maintain momentum.
• Washington and Moscow should open up new talks on nuclear deterrence. A frank conversation, including a discussion about how missile defence and long-range conventional weapons affect the relationship between both countries, could reveal similarities in thinking. 
• Talks should certainly examine the verification challenges posed by limits on tactical nuclear weapons and non-deployed strategic warheads, which may need to include monitoring limits on nuclear warheads kept in storage sites, something the US and Russia have never before had to do.
• Talking about nuclear weapons remains a delicate topic for both our countries...But by pursuing these ideas the US and Russia can cement their improved relationship, give new impetus to efforts to curb nuclear proliferation, and help build a safer and more secure world – even as we await the ratification of New Start.

Will New START Get a Vote This Year? - Josh Rogin for The Cable a Foreign Policy Blog [link]

• The Obama administration is pushing for a debate and vote on the New START nuclear reductions treaty before the membership of the Senate changes next January. Leading GOP senators, however, are doing everything they can to resist that plan.
• The likelihood of the Senate making time to debate and vote on the treaty, which Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) estimates would take three legislative days, is far from certain. Depending on whether Democrats retain control of the Senate and whether Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) loses his own election, the lame duck session or sessions could be brief.
• The administration will have to make a choice whether to push hard for a vote in the lame duck session and risk alienating senators who are calling for more time, or let the vote slip until next year, when the makeup of the Senate, and therefore the politics of New START, may be very different.

 Anti-Proliferation Naval Drill Starts Off South Korea - AFP [link]

• South Korea for the first time Wednesday joined an international naval exercise to prevent the transfer of weapons of mass destruction, despite North Korea's strong opposition.
• The two-day drill off the southern port of Busan involves warships and aircraft from the United States, host South Korea, Japan and Australia, the defence ministry said.
• "It marks the first time that South Korea has participated in the PSI drill," a spokesman told AFP, referring to the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative aimed at blocking cargoes of weapons of mass destruction.
• Other nations, apart from the four taking part, sent representatives and observers for the exercise.

UN Nuclear Agency Faces Dilemma Over Syria - Fredrik Dahl for Reuters [link]

• The U.N. nuclear agency says Syria is stonewalling its investigation into suspected atomic activity, but it may hold back from escalating the dispute to avoid opening a new front at a time of rising tension with Iran.
• It has been more than two years since Syria allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect the Dair Alzour desert site, where secret nuclear work may have taken place before it was bombed to rubble by Israel in 2007.
• If Syria were to reject a possible special inspection request, the IAEA board could vote to refer the issue to the U.N. Security Council, as it did with Iran four years ago.

U.S. Announces Repatriation of Spent Fuel - UPI [link]

• The United States has helped remove more than 1,000 pounds of highly enriched uranium spent fuel from Poland, officials announced Tuesday.
• The administrator of the National Nuclear Security, Tom D'Agostino, said the campaign is a major step toward the goal of securing all nuclear material worldwide within four years.
• "These shipments also support the goals of the April 2010 Nuclear Security Summit where 47 nations committed to strengthening nuclear security and reducing the threat of nuclear terrorism," D'Agostino said.

A View From The Dark Side

Stop START: Do Fewer Weapons Invite More Attacks? - Peter Huessy for Hudson New York [link]

• Although approval of the new START treaty by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 16 appeared to be a slam dunk...unrealized at the time was that Senate Republicans, despite the lopsided vote of 44-4 (sic), were warning the Obama administration that it still had work to do to ensure the treaty's ratification in the Senate.
• [An amendment by Senator DeMint (R-SC)] originally sought to enshrine robust missile defenses as fundamental to US strategic security... The DeMint amendment states: "…the United States will welcome steps by the Russian Federation to adopt a fundamentally defensive strategic posture that no longer views robust strategic defensive capabilities as undermining the overall strategic balance."
• As you reduce platforms, you may easily get to the point where your adversaries think they can disarm you if they strike first. During the Cold War, the fear was that with 12,000 warheads -- the rough level of weapons on both sides -- the Russians could use half of their warheads to wipe out all of our land-based missiles, all our submarines in port, and all our bomber bases, and still have thousands of warheads left with which to stare us down or, in a crisis, induce us to capitulate.
• Unfortunately, advocates of zero-nuclear weapons are already proposing that the new START level of 1500 warheads is still too high. Bruce Blair, for example, proposed in Foreign Affairs, that the US reduce its arsenal as soon as possible to at least 1000, and perhaps 500 total warheads, as the next local step toward zero.
• In a crisis, whoever has the only nukes will determine how it ends.
• NOTE: US Military says that New START does nothing to limit American missile defense capabilities [link]