Partisan Ransom for New START

On the radar: New START held hostage; Sinking the Navy with nuclear excess; NATO to declare interim BMD capability; Framework of a deal; the Parchin chamber; Nuclear politics; Polish and Norwegian FMs on tac nukes; Extended deterrence after TNW; and Oversized arsenals risk nuclear famine.

May 14, 2012 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Mary Kaszynski

HASC holds up New START - The HASC draft of the 2013 defense authorization bill blocks New START implementation unless Congress approves higher spending levels for nuclear weapons activities.

-- “This type of partisan ‘hostage taking’ threatens to undermine U.S. national security,” write Daryl Kimball and Tom Collina in Defense News. “It ignores the fact that there is bi-partisan agreement among congressional appropriators that additional nuclear weapon budget increases are unaffordable and unnecessary.” http://owl.li/aTvZD

A few subs too many - Some in Congress want the Navy to indefinitely retain 12 nuclear-armed submarines - a proposal that would capsize Navy budgets in order to have more nuclear weapons capability than the military thinks is necessary. “We can defend our national security interests and those of our allies with fewer nuclear-armed submarines,” writes your humble editor Ben Loehrke in Roll Call.

--”With defense budgets tipping downward, the military cannot afford to spend billions of dollars on wasting nuclear assets.” http://owl.li/aTvRq

Rasmussen on NATO missile defenses - At its upcoming summit in Chicago, NATO plans to declare an “interim capability” that “will provide the alliance with a limited but operationally meaningful and immediately available capability against a ballistic-missile threat,” writes NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen in the WSJ.

--Rasmussen also mentions how NATO’s missile defense plans have been referred to as “the U.S. defending Europe.” He counters this view by saying the alliance is already sharing the financial, political, and military burdens. Relative dollar amounts by country are not given. http://owl.li/aTvTf

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Don’t bring back CMRR - Some in Congress want to fund “a nuclear facility that DOD and NNSA say they cannot currently afford, do not currently need, and the construction of which would squeeze out higher-priority nuclear modernization and defense activities.” Nick Roth at Nukes of Hazard explains why this wasteful proposal is a bad idea. http://owl.li/aTwbg

Next steps - Assuming Iran and the West can come to an agreement on Iran’s 20% enriched uranium, the next steps for a long-term deal will include defining nuclear weapons work and dealing with dual-use technology. David Ignatius outlines George Perkovich and Ariel Levite’s proposed framework for a deal.

--“This approach is not a zero-sum game,” argue Perkovich and Levite. “It would require commitments and concessions from both sides.” http://owl.li/aTvX4

Parchin - The IAEA has obtained a drawing of a high-explosives containment chamber, providing evidence that such a chamber exists at iran’s military base at Parchin. Such a chamber could be used to perform high explosives tests for nuclear weapons-related research. George Jahn at AP has the story.

--Jahn also provides information on the chamber’s technical specifications. The chamber was built in the early 2000s and has been used for detonation experiments in 2003, 2005 and 2006. http://owl.li/aTwW2

Tweet - @nukes_of_hazard: In case readers think otherwise, IAEA not saying #Iran tested device at Parchin that produced a nuclear explosive yield.

The politics of reduction - Unlike Republican presidents, Democrats in the White House often face pushback from Congress when making changes to U.S. nuclear posture. The current standoff between HASC members and the administration (plus congressional appropriators) is no exception, writes Kingston Reif in The Bulletin. http://owl.li/aTw6C

NATO-Russia nuclear dialogue - Tactical nuclear weapons remain an uncontrolled threat and a thorn in the side of the NATO-Russia relationship. “It is high time to hold a meaningful dialogue” on these weapons, write Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski and Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store in the New York Times.

--They argue that talks should bring about greater transparency and confidence, in order to improve the likelihood of further nuclear reductions and the elimination of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. http://owl.li/aTvVg

Tac nukes to South Korea? - The recent HASC defense bill includes a provision that would require the Secretaries of Defense and State to write a report on putting tactical nuclear weapons back in South Korea. Writes Jeffrey Lewis at Arms Control Wonk, “So, you know, apart from not having the bombs, airplanes, shelters, or people, redeploying tactical nuclear weapons to South Korea is a great...idea.”

--With the B-61 life extension program - the last U.S. “tactical” nuclear weapon - in serious danger of collapsing under its budgetary weight, Lewis provides some options for the U.S. to promote extended deterrence without tactical nuclear weapons. http://owl.li/aTAN5

Event - Shadow NATO Summit III in Washington. BASIC, The Bulletin, The Elliott School, NATO Watch and Strategy International hold a two day summit on implementing NATO’s new Strategic Concept. Topics include nuclear policy and relations with Russia.

--May 14-15 from 8:30am-5:00pm at The Elliott School of International Affairs. Details and RSVP here. http://owl.li/aKmro

Nuclear famine - A limited nuclear war, involving less than half of 1% of the world's nuclear arsenals, would cause climate disruption that could set off a global famine, according to a new report from Physicians for Social Responsibility.

--The oversized U.S. and Russian arsenals, which could cause the global famine scenario many times over, are “an archaic, but lethal, holdover from the Cold War,” write Jayantha Dhanapala and Ira Helfand in CNN. http://owl.li/aTw1q

--“Nuclear Famine: A Billion People at Risk” is available here. (pdf) http://owl.li/aTw4A