Assessing North Korea’s Next Nuclear Test

April 11, 2014 | Edited by Lauren Mladenka

North Korea’s warning, shot - “In late March, when the U.N. Security Council condemned North Korea for test firing two medium-range missiles into the Sea of Japan, Pyongyang shot back, warning of ‘next-stage steps, which the enemy can hardly imagine’ -- including ‘a new form of nuclear test for bolstering up its nuclear deterrence,’” writes Jeffrey Lewis in Foreign Policy. The phrasing of the statement in the original Korean “suggests that there is something new abouthow North Korea tests, not what it tests… the phrase appears to refer to a new form of testing, as opposed to simply a new device.”

--”The simplest explanation is that North Korea may conduct simultaneous detonations of two or more nuclear devices. Most nuclear powers use these ‘salvo tests’ in order to test more weapons in less time,” Lewis says. If Pyongyang pursues a higher yield test, it is possible “that North Korea might consider atmospheric nuclear testing” or testing with a delivered warhead. Simultaneous tests seem most likely, notes Lewis, but “it is useful to remember that Kim Jong Un has a number of other unpleasant provocations from which he might choose.” Read the full article here. http://atfp.co/1kB0RnY

Banning an ambassador - “The House on Thursday passed legislation by unanimous consent that would ban Iran's new United Nations ambassador, who has ties to a terrorist group, from entering the United States,” writes Cristina Marcos in The Hill. “The legislation creates a politically difficult decision for the White House, which has not said yet whether Obama would sign it,” though the administration “has, however, insisted the nomination would not impact ongoing nuclear negotiations.” Read the full story here. http://bit.ly/1kcR44C

About Aboutalebi - “There was a sad predictability about the American reaction to reports that Iran wanted to send Hamid Aboutalebi as its next ambassador to the United Nations,” writes Barbara Slavin in The New York Times. “All this because the middle-aged career diplomat and former ambassador to Australia, Belgium and Italy was associated with radical students who seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and, by his own admission, on occasion served as a translator for the students, who held 52 Americans hostage in the embassy for 444 days.”

--”By rejecting his nomination, the U.S. government is depriving itself of an authoritative interlocutor with the administration of President Hassan Rouhani and of a chance to finally begin to put the hostage crisis behind us,” Slavin says. “Aboutalebi's youthful revolutionary misdeeds should not have disqualified him from serving in this important post. Someday, the U.S. and Iran need to apologize to each other for mutual harm they have inflicted and move on to a more constructive relationship. Aboutalebi could have been an integral part of that process.” Read the full article here. http://nyti.ms/R9bul0

A boon to hardliners - “The question of whether Hamid Aboutalebi should be admitted to the United States is a needless one,” writes Hooman Majd in The New York Times. “It is clear that under treaty (the U.S./U.N. headquarters agreement of 1947) the host country is obliged to admit, in a timely manner, any permanent representative of a member nation (as ambassadors to the United Nations are called), unless that person poses a direct national security threat to the United States.”

--”If we choose, however, to ignore our international obligations and established diplomatic norms (which, paradoxically, is what Iran did in 1979) by denying a visa to the ambassador of a member state of the United Nations, that body might reasonably question whether New York is a suitable site for its headquarters. But it is also impossible to ignore the sensitivities of the hostages themselves, or of many Americans, who would see as an affront Aboutalebi's presence as a diplomat with immunity -- which the hostages were denied -- no matter how minor his role in the hostage drama may have been… Sadly, it is a measure of the distance in understanding between the governments of Iran and the United States that the Iranians did not recognize how those sensitivities might be provoked by their choice… The appointment of Aboutalebi has been a boon to hardliners on both sides who oppose détente between the United States and Iran. Pragmatic politicians (on both sides) must not provide them with an ultimate victory.” Full piece here. http://nyti.ms/PXwKJs

Tweet - @Gottemoeller: Impressive visit to the Hiroshima memorial this afternoon. Very solemn moment.

Searching for savings - “The U.S. Navy hopes to save money and time by leveraging industry investments as it replaces its Ohio-class nuclear-armed submarines with the Virginia-class attack submarines now built by General Dynamics Corp and Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc.,” reports Andrea Shalal in Reuters. “What we want to do is leverage the volume between the two programs going through the industrial base ... so that we get the affordability we need and hold onto the quality and the schedule performance that we currently enjoy on the Virginia-class program," a Navy weapons buyer told the Senate Armed Services Committee's seapower subcommittee.

--”The congressional Government Accountability Office estimated last month that it would cost $95 billion to develop and build a dozen new submarines to replace the current fleet of Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines as they begin to retire in 2027,” Shalal says. “The Navy views the Ohio-class replacement as its biggest priority, but is asking Congress to help find funding from elsewhere in the Pentagon budget, given that the program will eat up the lion's share of the Navy's annual shipbuilding budget from 2021 on.” Get the full story here. http://reut.rs/1i8ilof

Tweet - @plough_shares: Graphic: 2015 #nuclear defense budget: Building #nukes and cutting #nonpro. http://t.co/vRrJQayOHd

Red Team expansion - “A U.S. Senator on Wednesday suggested the Energy Department should expand a novel approach for finding alternative solutions to future nuclear projects,” Global Security Newswire reports. “A ‘Red Team’ of experts in nuclear safety and security, management, construction and other fields is currently examining options for modernizing the work of processing highly enriched uranium at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. The special team was formed after an official department plan to build a new Uranium Processing Facility ran too far over budget and behind schedule.”

--Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) “plans to convene a special hearing that will examine the Red Team process after recommendations on overhauling uranium work at Y-12 are delivered. Depending on the results of the team's report, Alexander sees the possibility for applying similar approaches to other troubled projects managed by the department's National Nuclear Security Administration.”. Read the full article here. http://bit.ly/1n0TLck

Strategy revamp - “The U.S. Defense Department may be ‘weeks’ from updating an 8-year-old strategy for countering weapons of mass destruction,” reports Diane Barnes in Global Security Newswire. “The revised plan would account for ‘the increasing ability and proliferation of dual-use technologies around the world and an increased emphasis on prevention,’" according to a Pentagon official. Full article here. http://bit.ly/1lVl7jZ

Reduced rank - “The two-star Air Force general fired last fall as commander of the nuclear missile corps because of alcohol-fueled misbehavior will retire in June at a lower rank,” reports Robert Burns for AP. Maj. Gen. Michael Carey “will retire as a brigadier general, one rank below major general.” Get the full story here. http://abcn.ws/1ghIEaQ

Dismantlement verification award - “The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has named Princeton University and the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) as participants in a new $25 million, five-year project to address technology and policy issues related to nuclear arms control,” writes John Greenwald of Princeton University. “The project will include a unique process that Princeton and PPPL are developing to verify that nuclear weapons to be dismantled or removed from deployment contain true warheads.” Read the full statement here. http://bit.ly/1kcU7d7

Push back on plutonium - “Japan's case for stockpiling plutonium risks being undercut by new, local moves to stop the nation's power plants from running on the bomb-usable material,” writes Diane Barnes in Global Security Newswire. “Japanese community officials described new legal steps in opposing the use of mixed-oxide fuel -- a plutonium-uranium blend considered potentially more hazardous than other reactor material -- as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government prepared to authorize the first reactivation of atomic sites since the 2011 Fukushima plant disaster. The city of Hakodate last week sued to stop work on a nearby MOX fuel reactor, and Shizuoka prefecture's governor said he wants to reverse his predecessor's approval of its use.” Full article here. http://bit.ly/1ncd93s

Tweet - @daxe: Israeli B-52s are a bad idea. http://t.co/8yLuFdEeFe

Quick-hits:

--”Envoy: US has Given China a ‘Mission Impossible’ on North Korea” from AFP. http://bit.ly/1hGgKBi

--”Missile Defense Oversight: Pulling the Punches” by Laura Grego in All Things Nuclear. http://bit.ly/1sLRMdb

--”Iran Nuclear Talks: The Real Work is Just Beginning” by Laurence Norman in The Wall Street Journal. http://on.wsj.com/1kQsbdF

--”Ukraine Rejects Reports of Planned Missile -Technology Sales” in Global Security Newswire. http://bit.ly/1kAOGHA

Events:

--“Challenges to Further Nuclear Arms Reduction.” Discussion with Dennis Gromley, Götz Neuneck, and Nikolai Sokov. April 14 from 2:00-3:30 at Brookings Institution, Saul/Zilkha Rooms, 1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington. RSVP here. http://bit.ly/1jnQbFs

--”Garwin: Witness to History.” Film screening and panel discussion with Richard Garwin, Richard Breyer, Anand Kamalakar, and Charles Ferguson. April 22 from 5:00-8:00 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, auditorium, 1200 New York Ave. NW. RSVP by email to rsvp@fas.org.

--“Making a Difference: Faith Communities Speak to the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.” Discussion with Andrew Kanter, Daryl Kimball, and eight other speakers. April 24 from 9:30-4:00 at the U.S. Institute of Peace, 2301 Constitution Ave., NW, Washington. http://conta.cc/1ssfg70