Dirty Bombs: What Every Presidential Candidate Needs to Know

On the radar: How they work, and why Iran is a different threat; Technology, common sense blocking adventurism at labs; Misreading the “red lines” of the Cuban Missile Crisis; Scrapping Sturgeons; Obama’s nuclear security record; More than scorpions in bottles; and Creative ways to nuke things other than enemies.

September 19, 2012 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke

Dirty bombs - “Anyone running for the highest office in the land simply must know the basics about dirty bombs, nuclear weapons, and the threat from Iran. This video does not help Gov. Romney prove that he does,” writes Joe Cirincione in Foreign Policy on the presidential candidate’s recent missteps on nuclear policy. Cirincione takes the lectern for a whirlwind class on Nuclear and Radiological Weapons 101: the physics, the threat and the policy solutions.

--On Romney’s portrayal of the Iranian regime’s leadership as “crazy people,” Cirincione notes that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, believes that “the Iranian regime is a rational actor.” Intelligence assessments agree. If Gov. Romney disagrees, poses Cirincione, “he should explain why and what he would do differently.” http://bit.ly/SB8dDK

See also - “A Dirty Bomb In Chicago? Mitt Romney’s Dangerous Take on Iran” by Usha Sahay in Nukes of Hazard http://bit.ly/Uoz2zc

--“Mitt Romney does not understand how one creates a dirty bomb” by Xeni Jardin at Boing Boing. http://bit.ly/T3VKib

Labs in search of purpose - Despite many recent attempts, the nuclear weapons labs have been unable to field a new nuclear warhead in the post-full scale testing era. “A combination of Congressional resistance, technical challenges and good old common sense has held them back,” writes Stephen Young at All Things Nuclear.

--Young explains the labs’ recent evolutions and charts the rise and fall of the RNEP, RRW and, perhaps, B-61 LEP nuclear warhead programs. http://bit.ly/UjkZIy

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Tweet - @BarbaraSlavin1: Ashton, Jalili hold ‘constructive’ four-hour dinner meeting http://bit.ly/UdfHme

Welcome to the twitters - @StrobeTalbott of Brookings.

JFK and red lines - “President Kennedy put a red line before the Soviets in the Cuban missile crisis. He was criticized for it, but it actually pushed back the world from conflict and maybe purchased decades of peace,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on CNN’s “State of the Union” last Sunday.

--Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post and historian Michael Dobbs give that statement three pinocchios. Kennedy’s blockade and demand for the Soviets to remove the missiles could be interpreted as a red line, “After drawing this line, however, JFK went out of his way to avoid a nuclear confrontation with the Soviet Union, and was willing to go to considerable lengths to make concessions.” http://wapo.st/SBdwTw

Tweet - US-UN Mission Vienna (@USUNVIE): Over past 3 years we worked w partners 2 impose toughest UNSC sanctions to date on #Iran & #DPRK nuke programs http://t.co/25nrDgAn

Scrapping Sturgeons - A U.S.-Russian cooperative effort this month finished a long-term project to dispose of 78 R-39 (SS-N-20 Sturgeon) submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Global Security Newswire has the story. http://bit.ly/UcXvZQ

Moscow missile defense - Russia is reactivating the A-135 missile defense system that rings Moscow in an effort to modernize the system, reports UPI. http://bit.ly/PzZOBP

Prague, revisited - With President Obama’s first term drawing to a close, how is his record on nuclear security policy? “Overall, his record has been strong; the steps taken over the past three years have increased US national security and set the stage for further action,” writes Kingston Reif at The Bulletin. However, challenges from Russia, Iran, North Korea, and congressional Republicans have stymied several next step initiatives.

--”As Obama hits the home stretch of his campaign for reelection, he has an impressive story to tell voters about the steps he has taken to protect the United States from the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. But there is still much work to do. What remains to be seen is whether or not President Obama will have the opportunity to finish what he started.” http://bit.ly/RtNK98

The heart of deterrence - Deterrence “is about rational actors, game theory, and logical persuasion — but the method of persuasion is threatening to burn everybody alive. It’s about nations being rationally terrified of each other’s capabilities,” writes Alex Wellerstein at Restricted Data.

--It is also “coldly logical and deeply emotional” - two features that are both “essential” for deterrence to work and “deeply incompatible.” Wellerstein goes through the theory, psychology, and cultural imagery of deterrence and offers recalls some quirky suggested improvements to it. http://bit.ly/QmKytU

Fun with nuclear weapons - The U.S. has had a lot of nuclear weapons on hand over the last several decades. Idle hands and idle nuclear weapons produced some rather terrible ideas for how to use them in peacetime. Included: blasting out an artificial harbor, stimulating natural gas flow, digging big holes, space propulsion, stopping a hurricane, plugging oil wells, and even nuking volcanos. Skulls in Stars has the list. http://bit.ly/PqskpB