SEN. GRAHAM: …So my state, Madame Chairman, years ago accepted 34 metric tons of plutonium with the promise we would dispose of it in a way to make the world safer, create jobs in South Carolina and Georgia and at the end of the day not be stuck with…
Understanding China’s Nuclear Arsenal – Comments by Maj. General Yao
On April 8, 2013, the Carnegie Endowment hosted their biannual Nuclear Policy Conference. The first day was marked by a panel featuring U.S. Acting Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security, Rose Gottemoeller, People’s Liberation Army Major General Yao Yunzhu (China,) and former Deputy Chairman of the Duma Defense Committee, Alexei Arbatov.
The panel was entitled Prague 2.0? Deterrence, Disarmament and Nonproliferation in Obama’s Second Term but the conversation provided an opportunity for General Yao, director of the Center on China-American Defense Relations at the Academy of Military Science, to offer some insights into China’s strategic thoughts and vision for its largely opaque nuclear program.
The major take-away from General Yao’s comments was her articulation of the three underpinnings of Chinese nuclear strategy. According to General Yao, China’s nuclear arsenal requires three components: survivability, a penetration capacity and a deterrent threat.
General Yao repeatedly highlighted the Chinese no first-use doctrine and that more than ninety percent of the global nuclear arsenal is still controlled by the US and Russia, either as stored or deployed nuclear weapons. In order to move toward a multilateral framework for arms control, General Yao said that the “U.S. and Russia have to do one or two rounds of negotiations to further reduce” their arsenals.
The panel also discussed further US-Russian bilateral reductions. During this conversation MP Abratov stated that “China is the only state that could quickly build up to level of U.S.-Russian” nuclear arsenal size.
General Yao responded that, “China will not seek nuclear superiority” and that the smaller Nuclear Weapons States should promise not to enter an arms race with the U.S. or Russia.
MP Abratov called on the Chinese to be more transparent about the size of their nuclear arsenal. “China is the only serious specter,” according to MP Abratov. It seems strange for a Russian to criticize the Chinese on a lack of transparency with their arsenal which has been a hallmark of Soviet and Russian policy.
General Yao responded that due to the small size of the Chinese arsenal and its no first-use a “certain amount of opaqueness is necessary” to achieve its three required characteristics.. General Yao also noted the presence of Chinese underground tunnels as part of their survivability strategy. These tunnels have prompted a small number of observers to argue that China could be storing a much larger number of nuclear warheads than US intelligence estimates suggest, though there is little evidence to support this view.
Undersecretary Gottemoeller did praise the Chinese for their efforts to lead a terminology working group for nuclear weapons that would help to create mutual understanding among the permanent five members of the UN Security Council. She cited the need to “create fabric, environment for future multilateral negotiations.” However, Undersecretary Gottemoeller seemed to be the only panelist looking forward to multilateral arms controls talks in the near-term.
Nukes, Missiles and Feints: The Real Deal on Iran and North Korea
A Conversation about the Current Situation in North Korea and How it Differs from Iran
Washington DC – April 16, 2013– Press Advisory– The rhetoric from North Korea has become increasingly hostile. Last Friday, the country warned that “nuclear war is unavoidable” and declared that Tokyo would be its first target in the event of a war on the Korean Peninsula. This statement is just the latest in an escalating war of words and rising tensions between North Korean officials and the United State.
Join Truman Project President Rachel Kleinfeld – just back from Japan – and an expert panel as they discuss the current situation in North Korea, how the situation differs from that of Iran, and how we can better understand Asian hard security and the nuclear challenge?
Who:
L. Gordon Flake, executive director, Mansfield Foundation
Laicie Heeley, senior policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation ?
Alexandra Toma, founder, Fissile Materials Working Group
Moderator: Rachel Kleinfeld, President of the Truman Project
When: Friday, April 19th, 9:30am-10:45am ET
Where:Center for National Policy
One Massachusetts Ave. NW Suite 333
Washington, 20001
Breakfast will be served.
RSVP here
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The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation is a Washington-based non-profit think tank working to reduce the number of nuclear weapons stockpiled across the globe, increase international nonproliferation programs targeted at preventing the further proliferation of nuclear weapons and nuclear terrorism, redirect U.S. military spending to address 21st century security threats and halt the proliferation of biological and chemical weapons. www.armscontrolcenter.org
Quote(s) of the Day: Non-treaty based nuclear reductions edition
REP. ROGERS: Mr. Secretary, your predecessor, Secretary Panetta, stated in here that he believed that the treaty route with confirmation by the Senate was the only appropriate way to undertake nuclear reductions with another state. Do you concur with that observation and that position?
SEC. HAGEL: Well, generally, that has been the route that we’ve taken — I mean, it’s been Soviet Union, Russia — and for the reasons treaties are important, I’ve always supported.
REP. ROGERS: Well, there was an attempt under the Bush administration to try to, outside the parameters of a treaty — as you know; you were in the Senate at the time —
SEC. HAGEL: Yes, yes.
REP. ROGERS: It was criticized soundly then for trying to get around the Senate and that it would not be verifiable. So I hope that you still feel as you did when you were a senator that the Senate should have to ratify any nuclear arms reduction agreements.
SEC. HAGEL: Well, I think all those treaties are important. That route, that process, if for no other reason than what you just noted. It brings the American people into it; it brings the Congress, that represents the American people into that process.
Now, there may well be — as we get into complicated pieces here down the road — some variables to, well, can we do something better this way than a treaty? I don’t know. But you look at all the options. You look at all the ways to accomplish the purpose and the end mean, but overall, I have not changed my opinion, as I sit here, from where I was in the Senate.
REP. ROGERS: Thank you.
General Dempsey, do you believe such an agreement would be verifiable outside the parameters of a treaty, if confirmed by the Senate?
GEN. DEMPSEY: That’s, obviously, a policy decision. What I have said as the military adviser is that any further reduction should be done as part of a negotiation and not unilaterally.
REP. ROGERS: All right. Thank you both and all of you for your service, again.
The above exchange occurred at the House Armed Services Committee’s April 11 hearing on the FY 2014 Department of Defense budget request. Note how Secretary of Defense Hagel and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dempsey refuse to rule out possible further nuclear weapons reductions with Russia outside the framework of a legally-binding treaty.
For an excellent overview of the options available to the President for reducing nuclear arms, see this report from the Congressional Research Service’s Amy Woolf. Here’s an excerpt
Each of the mechanisms for reducing nuclear forces can possess different characteristics for the arms control process. These include balance and equality, predictability, flexibility, transparency and confidence in compliance, and timeliness. Provisions in formal treaties can mandate balance and equality between the two sides’ forces. They can also provide both sides with the ability to predict the size and structure of the other’s current and future forces. Unilateral measures allow each side to maintain flexibility in deciding the size and structure of its nuclear forces. In addition, the monitoring and verification provisions included in bilateral treaties can provide each side with detailed information about the numbers and capabilities of the other’s nuclear forces, while also helping each side confirm that the other has complied with the limits and restrictions in the treaty. With unilateral reductions, the two sides could still agree to share information, or they could withhold information so that they would not have to share sensitive data about their forces.
Early Budget Analysis: GTRI cut; big increase for nuclear weapons
For the second year in a row the Obama administration has slashed funding for a key program to keep America safe from the threat of nuclear terrorism. Meanwhile, funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear weapons programs continues to rise at an incredible rate.
As others have pointed out, the administration’s release today of its FY 2014 budget request for the Department of Defense and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was largely an exercise in political theater, as it completely ignores the budget caps mandated by sequestration. Nonetheless, the request is revealing in that it shows which defense programs the administration believes are a priority and those that it does not.
The administration requested $424.5 million for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), a decrease of $76.5 million (or 15%) below the pre-sequester FY 2013 appropriated level. GTRI is housed within NNSA’s Defense Nuclear Non-Proliferation Account and reduces and protects vulnerable nuclear and radiological materials located at civilian sites worldwide. Since 2009, GTRI has removed more than 1,400 kilograms of HEU and plutonium, enough for dozens of nuclear weapons. Last week NNSA announced the removal of the last remaining HEU from the Czech Republic.
Yet beginning last year the administration began to significantly scale back funding for this vital program. This is especially puzzling given the emphasis the administration has (rightly) placed on keeping nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists. As President Obama noted in a speech last December, “I continue to believe that nuclear terrorism remains one of the greatest threats to global security. That’s why working to prevent nuclear terrorism is going to remain one of my top national security priorities as long as I have the privilege of being President of the United States.”
As NNSA has yet to release detailed budget information for its programs, it is unclear which activities within GTRI have been scaled back. The summary budget documents released today also do not provide a justification for the cut to GTRI.
Last year, the administration’s attempt to slash GTRI met with stiff resistance from Congress. Both the Senate and House Appropriations Committees increased funding for the program in their respective versions of the FY 2013 Energy and Water Appropriations bills.
Elsewhere in the Defense Nuclear Non-Proliferation account, the budget request provides a slight increase for the Second Line of the Defense program, which installs radiation detectors and other equipment to ferret out illicit trafficking of weapons of mass destruction at border crossings, airports, and seaports across the globe. Recall that the administration’s FY 2013 budget request eviscerated the budget for this program pursuant to a strategic review.
The budget request also significantly reduces funding for the controversial Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel program. This is good news. MOX, which aims to dispose of excess weapons-grade plutonium by mixing it with uranium and burning it in civilian reactors, has been plagued by cost overruns and schedule delays, and the Energy Department has yet to receive firm commitments from any utility to use the fuel. According to NNSA, “the administration will assess the feasibility of alternative plutonium disposition strategies, resulting in a slowdown of MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility construction in 2014.”
While funding for GTRI was reduced for the second year in a row, the administration’s budget request for NNSA nuclear weapons activities continues to explode. NNSA requested 7.87 billion for nuclear weapons sustainment and modernization programs, an increase of $311 million (or 4.1%) above the pre-sequester FY 2013 appropriated level. In reality, when accounting for the fact that NNSA moved $256 million in spending for nuclear counterterrorism and counterproliferation programs from weapons activities to defense nuclear nonproliferation, the increase actually exceeds 7%. This is an extraordinary plus-up given that most defense programs are either decreasing, flat-lining, or experiencing much slower rates of growth. It is also a testament to the President’s effort to make good on his pledge to significantly increase funding for nuclear modernization as part of his effort in 2010 to win Senate approval for New START.
Given that the FY 2014 budget request ignores sequestration, Congress must either act to obviate the defense spending reductions required by the Budget Control Act or make significant cuts below the budget request. Whatever the outcome, Congress must prioritize anti-nuclear terror programs, which address one of the most extreme and immediate threats to US security. As Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) put it last year, “While modernizing the nuclear weapons stockpile is important it cannot come at the expense of nonproliferation activities.”
Stay tuned for more information about the budget request in the coming days, including Laicie’s analysis of national defense spending, an assessment of the Pentagon’s request for new nuclear weapons delivery systems and missile defense, detailed funding charts for nuclear material security and nuclear weapons programs, and suggestions for where Congress might look for reductions within the bloated and unaffordable nuclear weapons budget.
