Last week, I co-authored a piece  on “The Hill Congress Blog” that argued for revitalizing a bipartisan organization in the Senate called the Arms Control Observer Group. To summarize, the Observer Group assumed the responsibility of overseeing the Executive Branch’s negotiation of arms control treaties like the Intermediate Nuclear Forces, the Strategic Arms Reduction, Conventional Forces in Europe, and Chemical Weapons Convention treaties. It also oversaw U.S. and Russian Defense and Space talks and, negotiation on confidence and security-building measures.

The Observer Group was a joint idea between Senate Republican and Democratic leadership, but was also welcomed whole-heartedly by the Reagan administration. Senators Dole and Byrd created the Observer Group partially in response to the failures of arms control treaties during the 1970s, such as the 1976 Peaceful Nuclear Explosions Treaty, the 1974 Threshold Test Ban Treaty, and the 1979 Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II, which were all signed, but never ratified. Through the Observer Group, the Reagan administration was able to build support for the arms control treaty negotiating process, which eventually lead to treaty ratification. As members of the Observer Group, Senators gained knowledge that they may not otherwise have acquired about a broad range of issues related to arms control.

At this point, I think it is useful to respond to a couple comments I am receiving regarding the Hill piece.  There are several people who have made the argument that ‘things are different than they were in the 1980s. Senators would not be interested in something like this today.  You would not be able to get Senators interested in arms control in a bipartisan way.’

I concede that things are certainly different than they were in the 1980s. For example, I (sadly) doubt that the “Power of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News would have be a top 10 hit today. However, bipartisan support for arms control is not one of those things, as long as the right circumstances exist.

I agree that partisanship, a decline in knowledge of nuclear policy, and the end of the Cold War makes creating something like the Observer Group more difficult. However, there were a number of factors that made it successful, only some of which were unique to the era.

For one, there was no immediate hurry for a vote on a treaty, as there was in the 2009-2010 timeframe with New START. This allows plenty of time to build support for the arms control process, eventually leading to a treaty. It also minimizes the likelihood that the group would become overly politicized. Also, Observer Group organizers were deliberate in making participants feel like they were part of the process. Senators were allowed to feel like negotiators were taking their concerns seriously. The Arms Control Observer Group was not as much a mechanism to organize support that already existed for arms control. It was more of a venue to slowly foster support as the administration moved forward.

Following the New START debate, there are a number of Senators who are still interested in the outcome of the treaty and the items articulated in the resolution of ratification. They would be a good place to start for Arms Control Observer Group membership.

Another comment I have received has to do with the National Security Working Group. Some have asked whether that was the same group Senator Kyl used to interfere with negotiations on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. While it is true that Senator Kyl used the National Security Working Group (NSWG) as a tool to achieve his own political goals, he was partially able to do so because Senators were not taking the NSWG seriously in the same way that they did the Observer Group. Although this is speculation, I doubt he would have been able to do this if the Observer Group was still in existence.

Supporters of New START were able to use Kyl’s interest in the treaty as a means of convincing other Republicans to support the treaty. As Supporters of the Treaty negotiated with Kyl, they were able to demonstrate how New START was in the United States’ best interest and also demonstrate their commitment to maintaining the nuclear stockpile.  One of the ways Kyl was able to demonstrate his bona fides and interest in nuclear policy to other Republicans was through the NSWG.

Finally, Kyl’s example is a good cautionary tale as to why the Senate needs to choose the “right” people for the Observer Group. The Senate doesn’t need to be rubber stamps for arms control, but they need to be serious about the process. When Republican and Democratic leadership choose members for the newly formed ACOG, they should pick Senators who are serious about the process and about strengthening U.S. national security.

Today in the Hague, the Nuclear Security Governance Experts Group (NSGEG), an organization made up of experts from around the world, released a new report on the future of nuclear security. The group lays out five steps and 30 recommendations that global leaders must take to improve the nuclear security regime by 2020, focusing on improving regime cohesion, promoting greater transparency, and building international confidence in nuclear security governance.

The report, Responsibility Beyond Rules: Leadership for a Secure Nuclear Future, identifies the March 2014 Nuclear Security Summit in the Netherlands as a critical opportunity to begin modernizing the global nuclear security regime and provides three criteria for measuring the 2014 summit’s success.

According to NSGEG experts:

The current nuclear security regime is not robust, adaptable, or coherent enough to adequately protect against the intensifying and evolving threats posed by nuclear terrorism in the 21st century…The governance structure of the current regime cannot be reformed overnight, but the process must be initiated by 2014.

The NSGEG is holding two events in Europe this week to launch the report and start a discussion of how to best take advantage of The Hague summit next year and push the nuclear security agenda forward. On April 10th, 2013 the group will host a panel discussion at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace featuring key authors of the report.

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The NSGEG is a globally diverse group of experts assessing the current state of nuclear security governance.  It is a project of the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, Partnership for Global Security, and the Stanley Foundation.

Another search through the Government Printing Office’s website reveals new information about a key nuclear weapons-related issue.

Following a June 21 Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on implementation of the New START treaty and related matters, Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM) submitted numerous questions for the record concerning the Obama administration’s decision to delay construction of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) by at least five years. The responses provided by then-National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Administrator Tom D’Agostino contain additional detail about NNSA’s proposed alternative to CMRR-NF. In particular, D’Agostino’s responses show that NNSA has concluded that beginning in the early 2020s, it believes it will have the capability to reuse 90 plutonium pits (the fissile cores of modern US nuclear weapons) per year.

Instead of building CMRR-NF now, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plans to pursue an interim strategy to sustain US plutonium capabilities using the existing facilities and buildings around the nuclear weapons complex. Following the submission of the FY 2013 budget request last February, Los Alamos conducted a 60 day study on plutonium sustainment options, including the feasability of reusing pits from nuclear weapons that are no longer in the active US stockpile.

To date, NNSA and Pentagon officials have not divulged much information about the results of the 60 day study or the details of the interim strategy. One thing we do know is the ballpark cost of the interim strategy, which Los Alamos estimates to be “in the range of $590M–$820M over the next 8 years.”

In his responses to Sen. Udall, D’Agostino offered more tidbits about the strategy that I have yet to see in the open source. Here’s one example:

In response to a different question, D’Agostino added: