The Drivers of Chinese Missile Development

August 24, 2012 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Leah Fae Cochran

China missile development - US missile defense and military deployments in East Asia have encouraged China to improve its strategic nuclear forces and missile capabilities, write Andrew Erickson and Gabe Collins for the WSJ.

--This is an unpleasant reminder of how states respond to missile defenses: “Beijing can build so many missiles, at such an affordable cost, as to exceed the interception capability of any conceivable missile defense system. Attempting to overcome this reality would risk entering the US into a race that it could not afford to wage, let alone win.”

--”It behooves Washington and Beijing to attempt over time to enhance discussion of the sensitive and important subject of strategic deterrence,” write Erickson and Collins. http://on.wsj.com/P2WHQ2

Previewing the Iran report - The IAEA will soon report that Iran has installed hundreds of new centrifuges at the Fordow facility in recent months. The report will also indicate that Iran is increasingly focused on enriching uranium to 20 percent.

--”It is unlikely that Iran has begun to use the new centrifuges to produce fuel, and even with a significant increase in fuel production it would still take months, at the least, to produce a crude weapon,” writes David Sanger of The New York Times. http://nyti.ms/PCgR7M

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Another reason to worry - The Economist reminds us of the myriad of dangers associated with the nuclear situation in South Asia. Longstanding concerns about Pakistan’s nuclear weapons have been bolstered by several events in the past year. http://econ.st/R4y99R

20 reasons - Hossein Mousavian, a former nuclear negotiator for Iran, lists twenty reasons why a military strike on Iran is a “bad idea”.

--Three reasons: “a strike would likely neither completely destroy the Iranian nuclear program, nor cause a major delay to the program...Iran would withdraw from NPT, suspend nuclear talks with international negotiators, kick out inspectors from all nuclear sites and hide its nuclear program...the chance for diplomacy is there but requires the West and Israel to adopt a more realistic position.” Read the other 17 reasons here. http://reut.rs/QvF9fi

Tweet - @TalkingWarheads: On this day in 1968, France became the fifth proven thermonuclear weapon state following its test detonation in the South Pacific.

--@TalkingWarheads: Finally, fallout from the French test irradiated lizard eggs on a nearby island that hatched Godzilla in the 1998 film.

Negative - Ploughshare Fund’s own Joel Rubin, details the “decidedly negative” impact of war talk surrounding the Iran nuclear problem, for Israel in particular.

--Talk of a strike shifts the focus of the debate to Israel which “create[s] confusion between Israel and the international community, distracting Israel’s allies and turning Iran into Israel’s problem alone, rather than a shared challenge to the international community,” writes Rubin in The Jewish Chronicle. http://bit.ly/NL0Vx0

Event - @AmSecProject: ASP Event Invite– Status & Prospects for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty w/ @Gottemoeller http://bit.ly/OA5iML

The Syrian example - Syrian chemical weapons were not high on the list of WMD concerns until widespread violence broke out there last year. “There is now a real alarm that Syria’s chemical weapons might be used,” writes Mark Fitzpatrick in Al-Monitor

--”The dangers associated with Syria’s chemical weapons (CW) are a dire example of why non-proliferation of unconventional weapons must be a top international priority...The Syrian nightmare would be far worse if the regime had stockpiles of nuclear weapons.” Full story here. http://bit.ly/NhCA6r

A different strategy - Turkey sits in one of the hottest neighborhoods for nuclear proliferation. But, instead of breaking for a bomb of its own, Turkey instead has pushed to advance global nonproliferation norms, writes Aaron Stein in The National Interest.

--”Turkey has paired its sustained commitment to developing a defense against Iran’s growing missile capabilities with a more conciliatory foreign policy, one designed to coax the Iranian leadership to be more forthcoming with the international community,” writes Stein. Full story here. http://bit.ly/Rhca3N

On regime change - A recent Foreign Affairs article advocated for regime change in Iran. While democratic change in Iran would be welcome, respond James Dobbins and Alireza Nader of RAND, the article was wrong in its assumptions that sanctions cannot influence Iran’s nuclear decision-making and that the U.S. can support Iran’s domestic opposition. Full response at Foreign Affairs. http://fam.ag/SwfU2P

Returning to Tinian - The island of Tinian was the launching point for the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What does the former WWII airfield look like today? Overgrowth, ruin, and two Louvre-like glass pyramids marking where Fat Man and Little Boy were loaded onto B-29 bombers. Alex Wellerstein at Restricted Data has photos and video of Tinian today. http://bit.ly/Sw65AC

Nuclear tourism - On a bus trip to the Nevada Test Site, Graeme Woods details the kind of people that are interested in seeing the “expanse about the size of Rhode Island that the government has been aggressively blowing up, terra­forming, and polluting for 61 years.” The Atlantic has the story. http://bit.ly/Q0ApDT