In a statement on the New START treaty with the press this morning, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that the full Senate must provide its advice and consent to ratification of the agreement when it returns in September.

“Our national security is at risk,” Clinton said. “It’s been more than eight months since we’ve had inspectors on the ground in Russia” who give “a vital window into Russia’s arsenal.”

Clinton added: The treaty “will advance our national security and provide stability and predictability between the world’s two leading nuclear powers.”

NoH will post a full copy of the statement when it’s available.

UPDATE 8/11: Secretary Clinton’s full statement is pasted below the jump.

UPDATE #2 8/11: Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) gave a great speech on New START this morning to open the 2010 Strategic Deterrence Symposium in Omaha, Nebraska. His remarks can be found here.

SECRETARY CLINTON: Rose, why don’t you come up here and Rich, come on up here. They are two of the numerous people here in the State Department, the Defense Department, the Energy Department, the White House, you name it, across our government who have worked on this treaty and are now working on its ratification.

Next month, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will bring the new START treaty one step closer to ratification. Last week, I was pleased to meet with Chairman John Kerry to discuss the committee’s schedule for consideration of the treaty on September 15th or 16th and in the full Senate soon after. The Chairman and Ranking Member Senator Lugar have constructed a good plan, and I am confident about the prospects for ratification.

In the weeks and months since the treaty was submitted to the Senate, it has earned bipartisan support from senators on both sides of the aisle as well as statesmen in and out of government from both parties. They understand that once the new START treaty is ratified and enters into force, it will advance our national security and provide stability and predictability between the world’s two leading nuclear powers.

We have worked closely with the Senate throughout this process. We welcomed senators to Geneva to observe the negotiations. The Senate has held 18 hearings, along with three classified briefings on the treaty. And in the wake of the hearings, we are providing answers to nearly 800 questions submitted for the record. There’s a lot of material for senators to review during this break, and we are working to resolve any outstanding questions they might have. We’ve already addressed several key issues, reassuring those who had had questions on such issues as missile defense or investment in our nuclear complex or verification.

This treaty will verifiably limit the strategic nuclear forces of Russia and the United States and will establish equal limits on both countries’ strategic warheads, delivery vehicles, and launchers.

This treaty will provide for inspections that the United States would not otherwise be able to hold. For 15 years, START provided us access to monitor and inspect Russia’s nuclear arsenal. START, as you know, expired last December. It, therefore, has been more than eight months since we have had inspectors on the ground in Russia. This is a critical point. Opposing ratification means opposing the inspections that provide us a vital window into Russia’s arsenal. This treaty in no way does or will constrain our ability to modernize our nuclear enterprise or develop and deploy the most effective missile defenses for the sake of our security and for our allies, friends, and partners.

With respect to our nation’s nuclear complex, Secretary of Energy Chu, the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, Tom D’Agostino, and the directors of our nation’s three national laboratories have all testified that nothing in the treaty will affect our ability to modernize our nuclear complex and maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear deterrent.

In fact, President Obama’s budget request for the next fiscal year represents a 13 percent increase for weapons activities and infrastructure. Over the next decade we are asking for an $80 billion investment in our nuclear security complex. Linton Brooks, the head of President Bush’s national security complex, has applauded our budget and our commitment to nuclear modernization. Seven former commanders of the U.S. nuclear strategic planning effort have endorsed the new START treaty and recommended early approval by the U.S. Senate.

President Bush actually began this process more than two years ago with broad, bipartisan agreement that a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty was imperative for the peace and security of our world. The Obama Administration has followed through with painstaking negotiations to finalize an agreement that lives up to this high standard and makes concrete steps to reduce the threat of strategic arms.

This treaty is another step in the process of bilateral nuclear reductions initiated by President Reagan and supported overwhelmingly by both Republican and Democratic presidents and congresses alike. In every instance, the Senate has ratified such treaties with overwhelming bipartisan support.

The Chairman’s decision to give members of both sides of the aisle additional time to review the underlying materials, but set a committee vote for the middle of September, is a gesture of good faith and underscores the tradition of bipartisan support.

But when the Senate returns, they must act, because our national security is at risk. There is an urgency to ratify this treaty because we currently lack verification measures with Russia which only hurts our national security interests. Our ability to know and understand changes in Russia’s nuclear arsenal will erode without the treaty. As time passes, uncertainty will increase. With uncertainty comes unpredictability, which, when you’re dealing with nuclear weapons, is absolutely a problem that must be addressed. Ratifying the new START treaty will prevent that outcome.

So this month and next, I look forward to working with members of the Senate, especially Senators Kerry and Lugar, to move the treaty out of committee and on to consideration by the full Senate. We’d be happy to take your questions and I’ll have Rose and Rich respond to most of them.

An advisory panel to Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan is poised to recommend that Japan reevaluate its Three Non-Nuclear Principles, report the Asahi Shimbun, Global Security Newswire, and Bloomberg. The three principles, which comprise some of the most stringent anti-nuclear legislation in the world, have guided Japanese nuclear policy since the 1960s. The principles forbid the possession and production of nuclear weapons by Japan as well as the introduction of foreign nuclear arms into Japanese territory.  

Arguing that “it may not necessarily be wise to have as a principle anything that unilaterally limits what the United States can do,” the panel’s report calls for a review of the third principle’s ban on introducing American arms into Japan. This recommendation comes on the heels of government admissions that the third principle had been violated secretly throughout the Cold War. Even given recent revelations about Cold War secret agreements, however, official governmental approval for the introduction of nuclear arms into Japan would carry significant domestic and international political repercussions.

First announced by Prime Minister Eisaku Sato in 1967, the Three Non-Nuclear Principles were enthusiastically endorsed by both the Japanese public and the international community. The Diet adopted the principles as kokuze or “irrevocable policy” in 1971, and the principles earned then-Prime Minister Sato the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize. They have remained Japan’s official nuclear policy through twenty-two Japanese administrations.

Nevertheless, rumors about Japan’s nuclear intentions have swirled for decades. To a large extent, this suspicion stems from Japan’s technical bomb-making capability. While Japan’s redundant legal and rhetorical rejections of nuclear armament are impressive, Japan’s nuclear infrastructure is remarkably extensive for a country so outwardly committed to disarmament. Much of this infrastructure stems from Japan’s civilian nuclear energy program, the third largest in the world. Japan possesses both enrichment and reprocessing facilities, dual-use technologies that can be used to produce fuel for nuclear power plants or fissile material for nuclear weapons. Furthermore, through its determined adherence to reprocessing, Japan has developed what is estimated to be the largest stockpile of weapons-usable plutonium in a non-weapons state.

A signatory of the NPT, Japan is unlikely to pursue the nuclear option in the near future.  Japan’s Atomic Energy Basic Law and Three Non-Nuclear Principles forbid nuclear armament; its populace firmly opposes nuclear armament, and its trade-based economy is particularly vulnerable to sanctions.  Nevertheless, given Japan’s technical bomb-making capability, amending the principles would raise questions about Japan’s adherence to its anti-nuclear ideals and possibly strain ties with some its neighbors.

The advisory panel’s recommendation likely reflects Japan’s deteriorating security environment. In advocating for a more assertive defensive posture, the panel cites the threat posed by North Korea’s nuclear program and China’s increasing naval strength. In the past half decade, North Korea has twice tested nuclear weapons, first in 2006 and again in 2009, and repeatedly fired missiles directly over or in the immediate vicinity of the Japanese home islands. When paired with its hostile rhetoric – the DPRK has publicly threatened to “plunge Japan into a nuclear sea of fire” – North Korea’s growing nuclear capabilities present perhaps the most salient and immediate threat to Japanese security. Meanwhile, China’s growing economic and military might pose a long-term challenge to Japanese influence in Asia.

Despite the regional challenges facing Japan, amending the principles is likely to be a hard sell to the Japanese public. Anti-nuclear sentiment has remained constant since the 1950s, a phenomenon that suggest that the public’s opposition to nuclear armament has become detached from security concerns. For example, in a Yomiuri Shimbun poll taken immediately after the DPRK’s 2006 nuclear test, 80% of respondents held that Japan should continue to abide by the Three Non-Nuclear Principles despite North Korea’s military threat.

It remains to be seen whether Prime Minister Kan will act on the report’s recommendation.  Public opposition to nuclear weapons in Japan cannot be overstated, and in a country where recent PMs can’t seem to hold on to power for more than a year, messing with Japan’s long-standing and extremely popular policy of anti-nuclearism would be a pretty brazen move. Also, Japan already enjoys the protection of the U.S. nuclear umbrella, so stationing nuclear weapons on Japanese territory would not further improve Japanese security.

***Update: According to Global Security Newswire, at a ceremony commemorating the 65th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Nagasak on August 9th, Prime Minister Kan announced he “would like to consider enshrining the [three] principles into law.” At the moment, the Three Non-Nuclear Principles function as Japan’s official policy towards nuclear weapons but are not legally binding. The article notes that Kan’s proposal is likely to face significant opposition, even from members of his own cabinet like Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, but Kan’s announcement evidences continued support for Japan’s policy of anti-nuclearism among the Japanese political elite.

Come on, you know the end…  Well, if U.S. Aerospace didn’t know the end before, they certainly do now.

Late is unacceptable.

After their late delivery (by five minutes) of an already last minute bid for the KC-X tanker contract, U.S. Aerospace has filed a complaint with the GAO.  Since the tanker competition clearly needed an extra dose of juvenile behavior, the California-based firm has claimed that U.S. Air Force officials:

Or… they could have just rejected the hastily thrown together proposal on its merits, but I suppose that’s an unfair assumption…

The company includes a very detailed explanation for their tardiness:

I wonder… did the dog eat the first copy too?

Iran’s semi-official Fars news agency allegedly reported Wednesday that Tehran has acquired “four S-300 surface-to-air missile systems”.  Iran apparently acquired two “S-300 from Belarus and two others from another unspecified source”, with Fars adding, “Iran possesses four S-300 PT missiles.”  The news comes following June reports that suggested the seemingly never-ending saga between Russia and Iran over the sale of the S-300 PMU1 air defense system had finally come to a close – as a result of a recent tightening of UN sanctions.

As explained before, if Iran really did acquire the much touted S-300 PMU-1, it would make an air attack of its controversial nuclear program a lot harder.  However, from looking at the Fars report in more detail and the context in which it was released, it seems that there are a number of issues which cast doubt on the credibility of the notion Iran has acquired a robust S-300 air defense system from Belarus.

In terms of the detail of the report, there is firstly no elaboration on what is meant with regards to the “four S-300 surface-to-air missile systems”.  Indeed, does the wording refer to launchers or batteries?   One battery of S-300 PMU1’s, the system that Iran was trying to buy from Russia, consists of up to 12 semi-trailer erector-launchers (TEL) which mount four tubular missile container-launchers and a launcher complex of several other components, detailed photographically here.  Should this report merely infer that Iran has acquired four launchers, then there is little for any would-be aerial attacker to worry about.  Indeed, even with a launcher complex, four TELs would only ever be able to provide a highly limited air defense….

Secondly, and to confuse things further, the report adds that “Iran possesses four S-300 PT missiles”.  It is important to note Iran was hoping to buy the S-300 PMU1 from Russia, a major refinement of the original Soviet era S-300 technology.  The S-300 PT that Fars cites Iran as now owning however entered service in 1978 and is considerably less capable than the S-300 PMU1.   What is more, the fudgy wording of the report here implies Iran possesses only the missiles themselves – with no mention of the rest of the launch complex required or even the TELs.  Even assuming the launch complex is there, in perfect conditions only four missiles could stop a maximum of four aircraft – hardly representative of a robust air defense.

Thirdly, the Fars report suggests Iran purchased two of the ‘systems’ from Belarus, with a further two coming from an unknown source.   But this all sounds rather familiar.  According to Jane’s, Iran acquired four S-300 PT ‘battalions’ in 2008, with two sourced from Belarus and two “ sourced from an undisclosed nation [that] were recently refurbished by Belarusian technicians working at an IRGC facility in Iran, where the units were stored.”  However, Belarus has vehemently denied both this and the recent Fars report, yesterday saying “The State Military-Industrial Committee can officially state that Belarus has never held talks with Iran on the deliveries of the S-300 air defense systems…Belarus has never supplied S-300 systems or their components to Iran.”   While it is likely that the recent UN sanctions would make such a transfer politically controversial, part of this denial will be down to the fact that the Soviets originally sold the S-300 PTs to Belarus on condition that they could never be resold.  Of course that only explains half of the four systems being talked about though.  But from the questionable reporting described so far, one cannot really assess the credibility of the claim two systems came from an “unknown source”– although there is the possibility that these may just be the units Iran paraded recently in Tehran.

Aside from the sketchy reporting by Fars on the alleged S-300 acquisition, events in recent weeks paint a possible motivation for Iran to suggest it may finally have obtained its ‘holy grail’ of air defense.  Indeed, with Admiral Mike Mullen for the first time mentioning U.S plans to attack Iran should negotiations fail, Time magazine now suggesting that Israel is tacitly involved in building attack plans with the U.S, and intelligence experts rumor mongering about the possibility of an imminent Israeli strike, its quite possible that in combination with recent UN sanctions, Iran is feeling under possibly unsustainable pressure.  This pressure is perhaps what drove Iran to now agree to restart nuclear fuel swap talks in late August, and may also be motivating Tehran to suggest its military capabilities have improved, through the acquisition of the S-300s, in order to help deter any attack.  Such a strategy would seek to decrease impetus toward any imminent attack while simultaneously increasing ‘deterrence’ against one actually being carried out.

Regardless of the credibility of this report, it nonetheless suggests Iran remains desperate to implement a robust air defense system as soon as possible.  Whether it ultimately goes to China, fields an indigenously produced alternative, or ever persuades Russia to provide it with its cancelled order, remains to be seen.