Reviving the Nuclear Security Agenda: Options and Priorities

Still time for a disarmament legacy - America’s nuclear weapons program is plagued by operational, personnel and leadership problems, write the editors of The New York Times. Failings including misplaced weapons, drug abuse, and a cheating scandal are symptomatic of a much deeper problem: fundamental doubts about the “future of the program itself and the arsenal of nuclear weapons, which far exceeds the country’s security needs.”

--“Mr. Obama still has time to advance the sensible disarmament agenda he once espoused. That will mean more honest discussion of the diminished importance of nuclear weapons. It will also require more spending on security and management of the existing program, and less spending on pointless new weapons systems.” Read the full editorial here. http://nyti.ms/12jWaXr

Nuclear savings - The Congressional Budget Office annual report on “Options for Reducing the Deficit” contains two options for trimming the bloated nuclear budget over the next ten years: reducing the the number of ballistic missile submarines (savings of $20 billion) and deferring the development of a new long-range bomber (savings of $34 billion). Read the full report here. http://1.usa.gov/1wc1DNr

Tweet - @LobeLog: ICYMI: Iran Talks Miss Deal Deadline: What’s Next? bit.ly/1Cyfb9j

New steps - The additional steps that Iran agreed to under the extension of the interim deal with world powers includes converting more highly enriched uranium into reactor fuel, making it less usable for nuclear weapons. Iran had also made specific commitments limiting its development of advanced centrifuges to refine uranium, thre Arms Control Association tells Reuters’ Fredrik Dahl. http://reut.rs/1z8vXWI

Tweet - @ArmsControlNow: Not our experts or most, just a few out-of-touch experts. "New nuclear weapons [& testing] needed, many experts say" http://lat.ms/1uZNb4r

Rebuilding Cold War nukes - “We shouldn’t rebuild weapons systems just because we had them during the Cold War,” writes Erica Fein, Nuclear Weapons Policy Director for Women’s Action for New Directions, in a letter to the editors of The New York Times. Fein was one of three arms control experts featured in response to a recent op-ed entitled “America mustn't neglect its nukes.” Read the letters here. http://nyti.ms/1HRGxaO

High stakes of deal - “Of the myriad problems facing the Middle East, the question of how to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons capability is potentially the most serious.” As the editors of The Guardian write, “At stake, for example, is Shia Iran’s possible co-operation in ending the war in Syria and vanquishing Sunni terrorism in Iraq. On offer, potentially, if relations with the west are ultimately normalised, is the replacement of Russia by Iran as Europe’s principal oil and gas supplier.”

--“At risk, if the talks collapse, is the very real possibility that Netanyahu and fellow hawks in Israel will order an attack on Iran, with all the terrible consequences such recklessness would entail. For these and many other reasons, and notwithstanding the well-founded misgivings of both sides, it is vital the negotiators make one last, rapid push for success.” Read the full editorial here. http://bit.ly/15MkMum

Report - The Congressional Research Service has updated its report on authority for waiving Iran sanctions. Read the full report by Dianne Rennack here. http://bit.ly/1FHCA4A

Minimum deterrence - Advocates of reducing the U.S. nuclear stockpile are often accused by their critics of “irresponsibly following ideological perceptions at the expense of American security,” write Robert Gard and Greg Terryn in a new column for The National Interest. “These charges represent true irony; few policies are more tainted with ideology than the advocacy of an outdated nuclear strategy with an excessive, ill-maintained arsenal of weapons… The current U.S. arsenal is too large, too unwieldy and too expensive. It’s time to reduce that arsenal to a more practical size.” Read the full column here. http://bit.ly/1yamkKg

Economic frenzy - “Iran's economy minister cautioned against ‘frenzied behaviour’ on Monday after Iranians sold rials for foreign currency over the weekend,” report Parisa Hafezi and Gareth Porter for Reuters. The rial dropped to 35,600 to the U.S. dollar, the lowest in a year. “The currency has been hit by what OPEC member Iran sees as twin setbacks -- a fall in the price of oil, the country's economic mainstay, and the prospect of more months of sanctions curbing its ability to do business with the rest of the world.” Read the full story here http://reut.rs/1zIoiyl

Unintended consequences - “An Iran armed with nuclear weapons would pose a grave threat not only to world peace but to the Iranian people.” Eric Schlosser in The Guardian “They are the most dangerous machines ever invented, extremely difficult to manage, for reasons both technical and administrative. Like every manmade object, they are imperfect. And so are the people who control them.” Read the full story here. http://bit.ly/1rNyzFm

Quick Hits:

--“Hundreds protest against Trident nuclear weapons at Faslane,” via the BBC. http://bbc.in/1vJvQAI

--“How to Keep Future Wars Cold,” by Gregory Koblentz in the Los Angeles Times. http://lat.ms/15Li73Z

--“The nuclear weapons dismantlement problem,” by Robert Alvarez for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. http://bit.ly/1tI3reX

--“Underground nuclear launch pods get first ‘deep clean,’” by Andrew Tilghman for the Air Force Times. http://bit.ly/1rNIsD2

--“France Studies Nuclear Missile Replacement,” by Pierre Tran for Defense News. http://bit.ly/12eXXxM

Events:

--Senate Armed Services Committee, hearing on the nomination of Robert Scher to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs, and other nominations. December 2 at 9:30 a.m.. Located in 216 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington DC. Webcast on the committee website.” http://1.usa.gov/1xMdiAo

--"Breakthrough or Extension: Implications for US and European Relations with Iran," featuring Clifford Kupchan, Eurasia Group; Cornelius Adebahr, Carnegie Endowment; and Erich Ferrari, Ferrari & Associates. December 2 at 10:00 a.m. Located at the Atlantic Council, 12th Floor, 1030 15th St. NW, Washington DC. RSVP online. http://bit.ly/11o3gut

--"The Outcome of the Iran talks and the Next Steps." Hosted by the Arms Control Association and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. December 3 at 9:30 a.m.. Located at Carnegie Endowment, 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW. Washington, DC.

--"Countering WMD's: Semi-annual Workshop," with eight speakers. From 8:30 a.m.-noon, hosted by the Naval Postgraduate School, Located At the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW, Washington. RSVP online. http://bit.ly/1uX6DDM

--"Countering Proliferation Finance,” featuring Leonard Spector and Moyara Ruehsen, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), Dec. 2, 11:00 p.m. EST (4:00 UTC). Online webinar. Sponsored by CNS. Register here by 4:00 UTC, Dec. 2. http://bit.ly/15nJ2mn

--"Countering WMD's: Semi-annual Workshop," with nine speakers. 8:30 a.m.-noon, December 5th at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW, Washington. RSVP online. http://1.usa.gov/15nK3uG

--"From Ypres to Damascus: 100 Years of Chemical Warfare and Disarmament,” hosted by the Arms Control Association. 9:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m., December 12 at the Carnegie Endowment, Root Room, 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington. RSVP online. http://bit.ly/1vbhiqq

Dessert:

Ghost town - “The area around Ukraine's Chernobyl power plant, site of one of the world's most horrifying nuclear disasters, is the subject of endless fascination... On assignment in Chernobyl's environs, British videographer Danny Cooke used a drone to film the Soviet-era facades, residential complexes, the rusted ferris wheels and the layers of dust and decay” of Pripyat, a ghost town where “50,000 Chernobyl factory workers used to live.” Ishaan Tharoor of the Washington Post has the full story of “What Chernobyl looks like now — from a drone.” http://wapo.st/1B2Yhhs