Center intern Emma Lecavalier and I took to the pages of the Bulletin last week to opine on the future of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.

The piece uses former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ recent speech in Brussels criticizing NATO members for not bearing a greater share of the Alliance defense burden as a pivot to question the logic and feasibility of continuing the European deployment.  

You can read the full piece at the Bulletin’s website.  Here’s a teaser:

US tactical nuclear weapons in Europe provide a capability for a threat that no longer exists at a financial and opportunity cost that can no longer be justified.

The original rationale for deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Europe was to deter a Soviet conventional attack on Western Europe. This threat disappeared when the Soviet Union disintegrated in the early 1990s. In fact, the continued storage of tactical nuclear weapons at multiple bases in Europe increases the risk that they could be targeted for theft or sabotage by terrorists. The presence of these weapons also provides Russia with a convenient excuse to refuse to talk about its enormous non-strategic arsenal.

…

The longer NATO puts off a collective decision about removing tactical nuclear weapons, the greater the odds that financial and political realities in Europe could force changes to alliance nuclear policy under circumstances not of its own choosing. For example, if the German parliament decides not to fund a nuclear capability for the Eurofighter — a distinct possibility given the current economic climate — the other host nations will find it difficult to pursue their own modernization programs. This could lead to a situation where the weapons are removed in a disorganized fashion, undermining alliance cohesion and effectiveness.

As is often the case with op-eds/articles a few things got left on the cutting room floor. Expect two areas in particular to receive future attention on the blog…

The Baltic States. A colleague recently pointed out to me that while the new members of NATO (in particular the Baltic states) are the strongest defenders of NATO’s nuclear status quo and claim to feel the most threatened by the Russians, they all spend less than the Alliance’s recommended level of 2% of GDP spending on defense.  These states are some of the worst examples of the phenomenon Gates was railing against, as the Economist recently highlighted.  Talk about burden sharing being out of whack.  

This isn’t to say the concerns raised by new members are all unfounded.  As one senior Alliance official put it last year to Malcolm Chalmers and Simon Lunn:

It is not that we think the Baltic concerns are unreasonable. It’s that we think there are better ways of dealing with them than the deployment of gravity bombs on short range aircraft – ways that will leave us all feeling more secure.

Russian Reciprocity. NATO’s 2010 Strategic Concept document states:

In any future reductions, our aim should be to seek Russian agreement to increase transparency on its nuclear weapons in Europe and relocate these weapons away from the territory of NATO members. Any further steps must take into account the disparity with the greater Russian stockpiles of short-range nuclear weapons.

Whether one views this as a recipe for inaction or a potential blueprint for the ultimate removal of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from Europe depends in large part on how one defines “our aim” and “take into account”.  I tend to view it as a recipe for inaction.  I hope I’m wrong.

Including Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons in the next round of arms control negotiations with Moscow is a good goal, but the U.S. weapons deployed in Europe are a useless bargaining chip, since Russia retains tactical nuclear weapons primarily to make up for its conventional weakness.  

In other words, when it comes to tactical nuclear weapons, the U.S. and NATO shouldn’t make changes to Alliance nuclear posture contingent on reciprocity from Moscow, which is unlikely to be forthcoming.  

Doing so would legitimize Russian concerns about NATO and give Russia undue influence over NATO’s decisionmaking.  Instead the Alliance should make a collective decision based on its own security needs, as was the case in 1991 when President George H.W. Bush unilaterally reduced the number of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, which led the Soviet Union to take similar steps, dramatically increasing U.S. security.  

And as Emma and I write, this would also ensure that the host nations for U.S. nuclear weapons will not have to make costly and politically divisive decisions about upgrading their dual-capable nuclear aircraft, which could force the weapons out of Europe in a manner that undermines alliance cohesion and unity.

Despite the blistering heat, Leon Panetta was jovial and informal as he addressed troops, U.S. officials and reporters in Afghanistan in his first trip as Secretary of Defense. He was too casual, immediately sending his spokesperson, Doug Wilson, into clean-up mode.

Panetta announced to reporters that the U.S. would keep 70,000 troops in Afghanistan until the end of 2014 .  “And obviously, as we get to 2014, we’ll develop a plan as to how we reduce that force at that time. For at least the next two years, we’re going to have a pretty significant force in place to try to deal with the challenges we face,” he said.  

However, President Obama said in his speech on July 22, 2011 that after recalling 33,000 troops by summer 2012, “our troops will continue coming home at a steady pace as Afghan security forces move into the lead.  By 2014, this process of transition will be complete…”  Though the President did not define “steady pace,” Panetta clearly contradicted the President by saying that troops would be there until the end of 2014.  When reporters questioned him, he repeated his timeline, not understanding their confusion.

Spokesman Wilson sprang into action, to explain that Panetta misspoke and was “not here making new policy.”  However, Wilson and aides might also have been quick to correct Panetta because he exposed the Pentagon’s continued preference for high troop levels in Afghanistan.  

Deciding when and how many troops to recall was a significant debate between the Pentagon-White House.  Before the decision, General David Petraeus, until recently the top commander in Afghanistan, urged the President to limit withdrawal to no more than 3,000 to 5,000 troops over the next eighteen months. After the decision, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, told the House Armed Services Committee that the proposed pace and number were “more aggressive and incur more risk than [he] was originally prepared to accept.”  According to an unnamed U.S. official, Secretary Gates had to broker the agreement between the military leadership and the President.  

Perhaps Panetta’s mistake was that unlike Gates, he was too open.  Panetta revealed that the Pentagon was still challenging the President’s policy.

Intent is hard to discern, but the U.S. cannot afford to have the Pentagon and military leadership undermine the drawdown effort.  To paraphrase Council for a Livable World board member, former Senior Civil Officer in Afghanistan and Marine in Iraq, Matthew Hoh, the presence of U.S. troops in Afghanistan is fueling the insurgency and Americans are dying in another’s civil war.  

70,000 men and women holding on until 2014 is simply not tenable.    

On July 13, the House approved an amendment to the Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill (H.R. 2354) offered by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) and Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) to increase the appropriation for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative by $35 million.  

Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ), the chair of the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, and Rep. Pete Visclosky (D-IN), the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee, both spoke in favor of the amendment, which was adopted on a voice vote.

The result is an important bipartisan victory for the international effort to secure and eliminate vulnerable nuclear material at an accelerated rate and keep our nation safe from the threat of nuclear terrorism – especially in light of the current budget environment and recent irresponsible cuts to nuclear security programs in the House.  The Senate should capitalize on Reps. Fortenberry and Sanchez’s leadership and restore what remains of the House cut to the Global Threat Reduction Initiative when it takes up the Energy and Water bill later this year…

On June 15, the House Appropriations Committee appropriated $2.086 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account, a reduction of $463 million below the FY 2012 request of $2.549 billion. For a detailed breakdown of the appropriation, see our analysis here.

Within the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account, the Committee reduced by $120 million (or 24%) the administration’s FY 2012 request for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, the key program in the effort to lock down and eliminate dangerous nuclear materials around the world.  The cut comes on the heels of a $123 million (or 22%) cut to the Global Threat Reduction Initiative below the FY 2011 request in the final FY 2011 Continuing Resolution.

Technically the Fortenberry-Sanchez amendment restores $35 million to the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account, as the bill language does not provide detail at the subaccount level.  However, the clear intent of Congress as expressed by Reps. Fortenberry and Sanchez is that the additional funds be used for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, specifically the Highly Enriched Uranium Reactor Conversion program.

The Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Reactor Conversion program supports the conversion of domestic and international research reactors and medical isotope production facilities that use HEU to low enriched uranium (LEU).  Dozens of reactors worldwide are still powered by HEU, many of which are not adequately secured.  Unlike HEU, LEU cannot be used to make a nuclear bomb.

The National Nuclear Security Administration requested $148.3 million for Highly Enriched Uranium Reactor Conversion in FY 2012.  The Appropriations Committee cut $70 million from this program, nearly half the request.  

As I detailed here, the $70 million cut would delay the essential effort to accelerate the elimination of the use of HEU in civilian applications, including reactor conversions currently underway in Poland, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ghana, and Nigeria.  Delays in reactor conversions would also postpone the final removal of vulnerable HEU from numerous countries, since HEU cannot be removed until the reactor has been converted to use LEU and the HEU is removed from the reactor core.  

As Sanchez outlined in her statement on the amendment, the restoration of $35 million, or nearly half the cut to the program, would ensure that many of these vital efforts remain on track.

The Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee is scheduled to draft its version of the bill in September. The restoration of additional funds on the House floor will provide strong momentum for increased funding for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative in the Senate.

There is an overwhelming bipartisan consensus that the greatest threat to U.S. national security is the threat of nuclear terrorism.  The Global Threat Reduction Initiative is America’s first line of defense against this threat.  

In his statement on the House floor Rep. Fortenberry argued:

I am committed to strengthening momentum on efforts to secure fissile materials and prevent the proliferation and misuse of sensitive nuclear materials and technologies here and around the world….There are some relatively straightforward steps that we can take to reduce our vulnerabilities, and one of these is to strengthen the Global Threat Reduction Initiative.

The House cut to this program the last two budget years is difficult to comprehend, since it counters the most serious threat confronting our national security: the threat of nuclear terrorism.  

The restoration of $35 million is a step in the right direction toward reversing these reckless cuts.

Laicie Olson and I have put together an analysis of the Senate Armed Services Committee version of the Defense Authorization Bill.  Head over to the mothership for the main course.

In the meantime, here’s an appetizer:

It remains to be seen when the full Senate will take up the bill.  Could happen this month, I’m told.  To date the Senate has declined to do much of anything until the debt ceiling impasses is resolved.

The Washington Post revealed yesterday accusations and alleged evidence of North Korean bribes for nuclear “know-how” in an article that if true, will prove extremely damning for Pyongyang, Islamabad, and Washington.  Any iota of faith left in North Korea’s desire to ever denuclearize would disappear among any of the remaining believers, for it would confirm that Pyongyang was pursuing a uranium path to nuclear weapons simultaneous to the steps it was taking towards denuclearization in the late 1990s.  The reputation of Pakistan’s former Chief of Army Staff, General Jehangir Karamat (also ex-U.S. Ambassador and Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Commissioner) would be in tatters, raising serious questions in Washington about nuclear security in a country increasingly plagued by terrorism.

In essence, The Post’s story suggests that Abdul Qadeer Khan personally handed over North Korean money to a Pakistani general in 1998 in exchange for nuclear know-how.  To corroborate, Khan provided The Posts’ source (Simon Henderson) with a letter he allegedly received from North Korean Workers’ Party Secretary, Jon Bong-ho, which detailed payments of cash and jewelry intended for two Pakistani generals.  Henderson received the backstory and letter “in the years after  [Khan’s] 2004 arrest by Pakistani authorities”, deciding to pass them onto The Post in 2011 “because he lacked the resources to authenticate it himself”.  But despite The Posts best efforts, the articles author R. Jeffrey Smith admits he was unable to confirm the allegations, instead providing argument and counter-argument from U.S. and Pakistan officials respectively.  Given the serious allegations contained in the article and the potential ramifications if proved true, it is important to look closer at both source and evidence before making any hasty conclusions.

This A.Q. Khan leak is not the first that appeared in The Post via Simon Henderson, with a piece last year (also written by Smith) drawing criticism in some areas for the faith then in Khan’s proliferation narrative.   As Jeffrey Lewis explained of Khan at that time, “he is not an historian, attempting to document the operation of a proliferation network for future scholars, or a journalist with a big scoop. He’s a perp, trying to save his own skin and repair his reputation.”  In 2009, another Khan-leaked story appeared in The Post which drew similar reactions from ISIS.  On that occasion, Albright et al suggested that, “many of his assertions are self-serving and highly dubious… He has proven that he is unable to honestly relate the facts fully as he knows them and has many reasons to deceive, obfuscate or suppress the truth.”  Whether we can take Khan’s word on this occasion as being authoritative, is thus difficult to gauge.

Another interesting aspect to The Posts’ story is timing.  From the reference to Henderson having received the letter from Khan in the years following 2004, one must ask why then it was only passed on in summer 2011.  The information would have been much more relevant to release in 2002, when allegations were rife that North Korea was simultaneously pursuing a uranium enrichment program (the form of nuclear technology AQ Khan was most knowledgeable of).  Could political reasons be behind the timing, perhaps to discredit Pakistani officials further in the aftermath of the Osama Bin Laden debacle?   Or is this because The Post needed significant time to check the credibility of an otherwise highly damaging letter and story.

Of the letter – which provided the main evidence to yesterday’s story – The Post spoke to former IAEA staffer Olli Heinonen and an unnamed Pakistani embassy official to get their opinions on its authenticity.  According to yesterday’s article, Heinonen claimed that the letter was similar to other North Korean notes that he had seen or received over the years, lacking a letterhead and bearing similarities “of clandestine payments by North Korea to Pakistani military officials and government advisers.”   Unsurprisingly the Pakistani official explained, “it is not on any official letterhead and bears no seal… The reference to alleged payment and gifts to senior Pakistani military officers is ludicrous.”  So what should we make of this difference in testimony?

Regardless of whose side you take, several things do nevertheless seem unusual for correspondence emanating from such a senior North Korean political figure in 1998, as Peter Hayes has already pointed out.   To start, all DPRK correspondence received after 1997 was dated according to the Juche calendar, with (on occasion) the regular format date alongside it.  Interestingly, the letter published by The Post only features the standard format date.  Secondly, with the degree of secrecy required by nuclear bribery, it would have been highly imprudent for Jon Byong Ho to make reference to any payments or gifts in writing – especially so when the reference in question is both casual and secondary to the main contents of the letter, reporting on a transaction that had already took place.   Another suspicious element is the quality of the photocopy of the letter itself – would its source, AQ Khan, only have had access to a photocopier so evidently on its way out (note the grainy texture and distortion).

With regards to the actual content of the language, it would seem that tonality of the English in the letter doesn’t quite seem right.  Even the works of North Korea’s finest translators at the Foreign Language Publishing House sound awkward to a native ear, so it is surprising that the language found in Jon Byong Ho’s writing sounds as natural as it does.  Today, Mark Fitzpatrick of IISS added to this point, noting the repeated unnecessary use of the present progressive tense in the letter (“I am hoping”), in his experience “more akin to South Asian usage than what those schooled in British or American English would use”.  In addition, he observed the absence of an apostrophe in “Korean Workers’ Party”, something he claims to have never seen in communications emanating from North Korea.

Despite the unusual characteristics of the letter, some have nevertheless suggested that because The Post seems to have established that Simon Henderson did indeed receive the materials from Khan, inconsistencies with Khan’s own proliferation narrative prove the letter might well be real.  This is because it includes details that Khan himself would not have chosen to invent or publicize after his arrest in 2004. As Arms Control Wonk explained, “the letter depicts [Khan] as primarily responsible for dealing with the North Koreans and shipping centrifuge parts and components abroad. This undercuts Khan’s recent claims that various foreign black-market suppliers were acting autonomously.”   Nevertheless, by naming Jehangir Karamat and Zulfiqar Khan, A.Q. Khan is buttressing “his claims about the role of senior Pakistani military officials in sanctioning his activities,” something he might presumably have been motivated to do not long after his 2004 arrest.

While it appears more than likely that the letter and notes behind The Posts’ article were willingly passed from Khan to Henderson, the evidence to suggest the letter might be authentic from a North Korean perspective is a lot harder to ascertain.   However, North Korea’s recent uranium enrichment revelations suggest that the country has almost certainly had foreign technical assistance in this domain.  Whether that dates back to 1998 will only be answered if and when Pyongyang’s diplomatic archives become available.

Tad Farrell runs NKNews.org – a North Korea News and Information Resource