Policymakers Condemn New Cruise Missile

Cruise missiles are destabilizing - “The president should reconsider the Defense Department’s effort to develop a new nuclear weapon called the Long-Range Standoff Weapon… Our backgrounds, voting records and entire careers show that we understand and value the deterrent effect of our nuclear stockpile. However, building new nuclear weapons like this one could be unnecessary, costly and dangerous,” write Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Ellen Tauscher, former under secretary of state for arms control and international security for The New York Times.

--“As former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry and Andy Weber, a former assistant defense secretary, wrote last year, ‘Cruise missiles are a uniquely destabilizing type of weapon’ because ‘they can be launched without warning and come in both nuclear and conventional variants.’ We can reduce the risk of setting off accidental nuclear war by retiring nuclear cruise missiles and instead rely on conventional weapons.”

--“Defense Secretary Ashton Carter needs to address these issues. He should provide Congress with an analysis of alternatives to this missile. In particular, we want to know if the Defense Department has studied whether existing nuclear and conventional weapons are sufficient to strike enemy targets. He should also certify that the sole objective of the weapon is nuclear deterrence. We want to eliminate any ambiguity that this new missile would be an offensive weapon.” Full piece here. http://nyti.ms/28Jdd9m

Rep. Smith calls for cancelling LRSO - “Any rational attempt to plan for America’s future security must begin with a clear-eyed reassessment of the costs, trade-offs, and dangers of the trillion-dollar plan Washington is undertaking to modernize the U.S. nuclear weapons complex. That reassessment should include an effort to eliminate the new nuclear cruise missile,” writes Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) for Foreign Policy.

--“This week, I co-sponsored an amendment to the defense appropriations bill that would cut funding for the development of this missile, the Long-Range Standoff Weapon, by $75.8 million. If adopted, that preliminary cut would have slowed its development by three years … Now is the time for serious oversight and a realistic approach to these issues in order to stop an emerging arms race and avoid wasting billions of dollars we cannot afford.” Full article here. http://atfp.co/1tu7kXw

Scientists call for end to hair trigger - More than 90 scientists called for President Obama to take U.S. land-based missiles off hair-trigger alert in a letter released by the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Numerous incidents of technical failures, human errors and misinterpretations of data have demonstrated that missile warning and launch systems — like all systems — are fallible. While safeguards can reduce the frequency of system failures, they cannot eliminate them. By keeping missiles on high alert, such a failure could be catastrophic.”

--“This policy increases the risk that one or more nuclear-armed missiles could be launched accidentally, without authorization, or by mistake in response to a false warning of an incoming attack. A launch could, in turn, trigger a retaliatory nuclear attack. Even if the probability of such a launch is small, the overall risk — the probability multiplied by the magnitude of the destruction — is unacceptably high… We urge you to take U.S. land-based missiles off hair-trigger alert and to remove from U.S. war plans the option of launching these weapons on warning.” Full letter here. http://bit.ly/28LdAEF

Tweet - @nukes_of_hazard: The 10th anniversary of the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism highlights progress made & work to be done http://1.usa.gov/28JXmZD

The Forgotten atomic veterans - “It was a late winter night in 1966 and a fully loaded B-52 bomber on a Cold War nuclear patrol had collided with a refueling jet high over the Spanish coast, freeing four hydrogen bombs that went tumbling toward a farming village called Palomares… It was one of the biggest nuclear accidents in history, and the United States wanted it cleaned up quickly and quietly. But if the men getting onto buses were told anything about the Air Force’s plan for them to clean up spilled radioactive material, it was usually, ‘Don’t worry,’” writes Dave Phillips for The New York Times.

--“Radiation near the bombs was so high it sent the military’s monitoring equipment off the scales. Troops spent months shoveling toxic dust, wearing little more protection than cotton fatigues. And when tests taken during the cleanup suggested men had alarmingly high plutonium contamination, the Air Force threw out the results, calling them ‘clearly unrealistic.’” Full story here. http://nyti.ms/28KtDyI

See also - “Even Without Detonation, 4 Hydrogen Bombs From ’66 Scar Spanish Village,” by Raphael Minder for The New York Times. http://nyti.ms/28LxcsR

Trump’s nuclear insanity- Trump “is unmatched as a spirit guide to the dark recesses of our brains, the place that convinces us the best guarantor of peace and security is the unending and permanent threat of nuclear holocaust,” writes Jeffrey Lewis for Foreign Policy. “There is probably no idea about nuclear weapons that is simpler, older — or more harmful — than the idea that we ought to measure our nuclear weapons against theirs. The idea is a simple one, and it befits Trump, a man who sincerely seems to believe that size matters in all things. But Trump isn’t alone.”

--“Too often the question left unasked in our finely tuned analyses of nuclear quality and nuclear superiority is: So what? Why would deterrence require that weapons be tippy-top? Would it matter if you were incinerated with a new shiny warhead rather than an old rusty one? These comparisons are ultimately appeals to emotion, not logic. And those appeals work only if we accept the metaphor that the nuclear dilemma is a race and our only escape is to cross the finish line first … What if there is no finish line other than nuclear catastrophe and that the United States and Russia are jogging in tandem on a treadmill?” http://atfp.co/28P2RWu

See also - “No Time For Trump, Part Two: Nuclear Proliferation, ISIS And The Threat Of Nuclear Terrorism,” by Richard North Patterson for the Huffington Post. http://huff.to/28Kwojr

U.S. must act to protect Iran Deal - “European banks are still reluctant to enter Iran because they have no solid legal assurance from Washington that its enforcement agencies would not later sue them for violating residual American sanction laws that predate the nuclear negotiations. These laws are complex and ambiguous even to sophisticated legal departments in European banks. So the banks, understandably, have been unwilling to do business with Iran and risk fines in the billions of dollars if they unwittingly violate the rules,” write Seyed Hossein Mousavian and Reza Nasri for The New York Times Opinion Pages.

--“There is no vigorous action from the American administration to better facilitate Iran’s access to the global financial system. One result is that a narrative is emerging in Iran that the United States has failed to live up to a key commitment under the nuclear agreement … If this narrative gains momentum and wipes out the sense of hope and optimism that the nuclear deal brought to Iran’s business community and its general public, we risk re-entering the tired old path of mistrust and antagonism.” Full article here. http://nyti.ms/28J6wV6

See also - “U.S. sanctions agency beefs up staff to help implement Iran deal,” by Yeganeh Torbati for Reuters. http://reut.rs/28KAxmy

Tweet - @ReThink Defense: Who supported the #IranDeal? These editorial boards.

Israel open to ratifying test ban treaty - “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Monday that his country backs ratification of a treaty banning nuclear tests but did not commit to a time frame, a senior U.N. official said… Lassina Zerbo, who heads the U.N. organization created to implement the treaty, told The Associated Press that Netanyahu considers the issue of ratifying the treaty a matter of ‘when, rather than if.’” Full story by George Jahn for the AP here. http://apne.ws/28JTGHl

Quick Hits:

--“The Affordability Challenge of Nuclear Modernization,” by Walter Pincus for The Cipher Brief. http://bit.ly/28KkgPf

--“One Year In, the Iran Nuclear Deal Is Working,” by Barbara Slavin for Voice of America. http://bit.ly/28KvbZl

--“Just Leave It: NATO’s Nuclear Weapons Policy at the Warsaw Summit,” by Tom Sauer for Arms Control Today. http://bit.ly/28M8R6l

Events:

--“The Future of U.S. Army Missile Defense,” with four speakers. June 22 from 3:30 to 5:00 p.m. at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW, Washington. RSVP online. http://bit.ly/28JdY5l

--“An Assessment of the Iran Agreement One Year Later,” with Sen. Chris Coons (DE). June 23 at 12:30 p.m. Webcast on the Council on Foreign Relations website. http://on.cfr.org/28JeNd7

--“Russian Nuclear Strategy,” with Pavel Podvig, Russian Nuclear Forces Project; and Nikolai Sokov, James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. June 27 from 10:00 to 11:30 a.m. at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1616 Rhode Island Ave. NW, Washington. RSVP online. http://bit.ly/28KmgZU

--“U.S. Nuclear Weapons in the Twenty-First Century,” with Brad Roberts, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; and George Perkovich, Carnegie Endowment. June 28 from 10:00 to 11:15 a.m. at the Carnegie Endowment, 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington. RSVP online. http://ceip.org/1UXkD99

--“The Iran Nuclear Deal After One Year,” featuring Barbara Slavin, Atlantic Council; and Kate Gould, Friends Committee on National Legislation. June 28 from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m. Webinar sponsored by women's Action for New Directions. Register here. http://bit.ly/28Ivd41

--“The JCPOA: Looking Ahead After One Year,” featuring William Burns, former Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, and seven other speakers. June 29 from 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. at the Carnegie Endowment, 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington. RSVP online. http://ceip.org/1UxNvc7

Dessert:

A Nuclear Kodak Moment - “The ground shook, a brilliant white flash enveloped the sky, and the world changed forever. Code name ‘Trinity,’ the bomb test at dawn on July 16, 1945 in Alamogordo, New Mexico was the first large-scale atomic weapons testing in history … More than 1,900 miles away from Alamogordo, at the Rochester, NY headquarters of Eastman Kodak, a flood of complaints came in from business customers who had recently purchased sensitive X-ray film from the company,” writes Matt Blitz for Popular Mechanics.

--“Black exposed spots on the film, or ‘fogging,’ had rendered it unusable. This perplexed many Kodak scientists, who had gone to great lengths to prevent contaminations like this … The fogging of Kodak's film and the Trinity test in New Mexico were eerily connected, revealing some chilling secrets about the nuclear age.” Read the full story here. http://bit.ly/28P70d3