In the most recent issue of Newsweek, Sharon Begley argues that Iran’s nuclear program has become an issue of national pride akin to Palestinian claims to Jerusalem. According to Begley, for many Iranians the nuclear program now constitutes a “sacred value” and trumps rational cost-benefit analysis, creating a barrier to further diplomatic engagement.

Begley’s argument is based on a new experiment by Morteza Dehghani, Douglas Medin and colleagues in the December issue of the journal Judgment and Decision Making. The study asked 72 young (average age, 28), Iranian, college graduates if Iran should give up its nuclear program. Twenty-two percent chose “I think this definitely needs to happen,” while 15 percent chose “I do not object to this,” and 52 percent chose “this is acceptable only if the benefits of stopping the program are great enough.” Good news, right? Not according to Begley.

Begley focuses on the 11 percent who chose “this shouldn’t be done no matter how great the benefits are.” This is the group for whom, according to the study, the nuclear program seems to constitute a sacred value.

Though the percentage seems small, Begley argues that “it is likely that more ordinary Iranians than educated, English-speaking Iranians—those surveyed for the study—view the nukes as a sacred value, suggesting that the 11 percent is an underestimate.”

Assuming this hypothesis is correct; it suggests a bleak outlook for current nuclear negotiations. But do they draw the rights conclusions from their experiment? Or are they overplaying the views of a fringe population that often exists at the margins of survery experiments?

Leaders of Iran’s Green Movement (which is arguably more engaged than the 11 percent of Iranians Begley speaks of and is made up of, at the very least, hundreds of thousands of Iranians) have repeatedly articulated their opposition to nuclear weapons, though they seem to favor a peaceful nuclear program for Iran.

Unfortunately, Dehghani et. al.’s experiment did not seek to ascertain whether Iranians also view nuclear weapons as a sacred value. For the purposes of negotiation, which is Begley’s main focus, this is a crucial distinction. All material incentives are not off the table, as Begley would have us believe, if 11 percent of Iranians view only peaceful nuclear enrichment – not nuclear weapons – as a sacred value.

Moreover, let’s not forget that twenty-two percent of those surveyed believe that Iran should “definitely” give up its nuclear program. Although “even a minority, if it is committed enough, can carry the day” it looks as if Begley’s minority is outnumbered in almost every way.

I’m still sifting through some of the nuclear headlines from the holiday break and wanted to address the hyperventilating in the blogosphere and the media about Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin’s end of the year comments on missile defense.  In a visit to Vladivostok on December 29, Putin stated:

If we don’t develop a missile defense system, a danger arises for us that with an umbrella protecting our partners from offensive weapons, they will feel completely safe….The balance will be disrupted, and then they will do whatever they want, and aggressiveness will immediately arise both in real politics and economics.

The view from the U.S. press seems to be that this means missile defense is the main issue holding up completion of the New START agreement.

Maybe we’re in too much of a “don’t freak out mood” over here at the Center, but I don’t put much stock in Putin’s remarks.  The reality is that despite Russia’s initial positive reaction to the Obama administration’s new approach to missile defense in Europe, it remains deeply concerned about U.S. missile defense plans.  Putin didn’t say anything new…

While the Russians have certainly been more difficult negotiating partners than we would have hoped, I still don’t believe that missile defense is going to be a deal breaker during this round of arms reduction talks.

The U.S. has made it clear that limits on U.S. missiles defenses cannot be part of a START follow-on agreement.  In fact, Presidents Obama and Medvedev have stated that New START will deal only with strategic offensive arms.  As far as I know, this remains the official Russian position, Putin’s remarks notwithstanding.  As Linton Brooks put it at a December 8 press briefing the Center co-hosted with the Arms Control Association:

I think it is very unlikely that this treaty will constrain in any way ballistic missile defenses, first because I think that would complicate ratification enormously in this country, but secondly, because I don’t think the Russians are interested in doing that at this stage.

Could Putin’s comments have been a negotiating tactic to try and extract some additional concessions from the U.S. as the New START negotiations come to a close? I think there could be some truth to this, but I don’t think we should view them in the first instance as some kind of narrow instrumental means to an end.  

Rather, they reflect the standard Russian view on missile defense, which is that the current status quo of unconstrained U.S. development of long-range missile defenses is a threat to Russia’s deterrent and not tenable in perpetuity.  Pavel Podvig summed up the implications of this view nicely back in August:

There is, however, one common element to all positions – they all assume that deployment of U.S. missile defense in Europe is a fundamental issue in U.S.-Russian relations and cannot be reduced to technical arguments. Whether this is justified or not, this means that any changes of the system configuration that would try to address Russia’s concern in a narrowly defined technical way – e.g. changes in the deployment area or a move toward mobile or ship-based interceptors – are unlikely to change Russia’s position on missile defense in a substantial way. Rather, Russia might see it as an attempt to circumvent its objections and to altogether exclude it from the discussion of missile defense and larger security issues.

I think this explains a lot about why Russia remains wary of U.S. missile defense plans despite the cancellation of the Czech and Polish sites.  If anything, Putin’s comments are probably aimed at what we’ve been calling the follow-on to the follow-on, or the next round of much deeper nuclear arms reduction negotiations. Such reductions will almost certainly have to be accompanied by a far more formal and robust modus vivendi between the U.S. and Russia on missile defense than what we’re likely to see in the initial New START agreement.

The Wall Street Journal has begun 2010 a lot like it ended 2009: By attempting to undermine the Obama administration’s pursuit of a new nuclear reductions agreement with Russia.

2010’s first offering focuses on the December 15 letter sent by 40 Republican Senators (and Sen. Joe Lieberman) to President Obama claiming that “the National Defense Authorization Act of 2010 requires that the submission of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) follow-on agreement to the Senate be accompanied by a plan to modernize the U.S. nuclear deterrent.”

As I noted in a pre-holiday interview with DailyKos’ Plutonium Page, the Republican Senate letter grossly distorts the Defense Authorization Act.  The bill requires a plan to enhance the safety, security, and reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile, modernize the nuclear weapons complex, and maintain the delivery vehicles (i.e. bombers, subs, and missiles).  However, it says nothing about modernizing the “nuclear deterrent” or building new nuclear warheads. Nothing at all, except to those whose aim is to mislead.

Both the Senate letter and the Journal claim that the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States links nuclear force reductions and modernization.  In the words of the Journal: “The bipartisan report noted, among other things, that the U.S. needs new warheads and nuclear research facilities.”  This too is misleading.  The bipartisan report cited by the Journal said no such thing…

On arms reductions the Commission is clear and unequivocal:

The moment appears ripe for a renewal of arms control with Russia, and this bodes well for a continued reduction in the nuclear arsenal. The United States and Russia should pursue a step-by-step approach and take a modest first step to ensure that there is a successor to START I when it expires at the end of 2009.

Nowhere in the chapter of the report on arms control is there any attempt to make modest reductions along the lines of those called for in New START contingent upon the design and production of new warheads and new warhead production facilities.  

A finding in an earlier chapter does state that the U.S. could pursue further reductions “if this were done while also preserving the resilience and survivability of U.S. forces.”  The Commission clearly used the words “resilience” and “survivability,” which suggests that reductions could occur without building new warheads and production facilities.  

It is highly questionable whether the Commission calls for the production of new warheads in any event.  While the Commission did endorse the Bush administration’s plan to build new production facilities at Los Alamos and the Y-12 facility in Tennessee, it took a far more nuanced view of how best to maintain the nuclear weapons stockpile.  In doing so it gave the following advice:

• The decision on which approach [to refurbishing and modernizing the nuclear stockpile] is best should be made on a case-by-case basis as the existing stockpile of warheads ages.

• Congress [should] authorize the NNSA to conduct a cost and feasibility study of incorporating enhanced safety, security, and reliability features in the second half of the planned W76 life extension program. This authorization should permit the design of specific components, including both pits and secondaries, as appropriate.

• As a general principle for subsequent life extensions, the Commission recommends that NNSA select the approach that makes the greatest technical and strategic sense.

• As a matter of U.S. policy, the United States does not produce fissile materials and does not conduct nuclear explosive tests. Also the United States does not currently seek new weapons with new military characteristics. Within this framework, it should seek all of the possible benefits of improved safety, security, and reliability available to it.

The Commission, simply does not say that the U.S. needs new warheads, as the Wall Street Journal claims.  Instead it notes that existing life extension programs and new warhead designs represent opposite ends of a spectrum of options. What we have learned about our nuclear weapons to date suggests that existing life extension programs, not new warhead designs, make the greatest technical and strategic sense.  

For example, The JASON scientific advisory group could not certify that the chosen design for the now defunct Reliable Replacement Warhead program could be officially confirmed as reliable without nuclear explosive testing, a key condition set out by the Commission.  In addition, a 2006 JASON report concluded that the explosive cores in U.S. warheads will remain reliable for many, many years.  A September 2009 JASON report went even further, noting that “lifetimes of today’s nuclear warheads could be extended for decades, with no anticipated loss in confidence by using approaches similar to those employed in [life-extension programs] to date.”

Furthermore, the U.S. is already modernizing its nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles.  Some Republicans seem to think that because the U.S. is not building new missiles and warheads like the Russians and Chinese, we’re falling way behind.  In reality, our nuclear arsenal remains and will continue to remain second to none.  

But don’t expect the Journal to ever admit this. The nuclear alarmists are looking to oppose a treaty that is clearly in American national security interests, even if it means deliberately misconstruing a bipartisan Congressional Commission report.

The Nuclear Posture Review seems to have been on the mind of more than one reporter over the holidays.  Both Bryan Bender over at the Boston Globe and Paul Richter at the LA Times penned very strong articles on some of the fault lines within the ongoing Review.  However, each article contains a mixup/error that requires a correction and some further explanation…

First, Richter’s piece contains the following graf:

For instance, some U.S. submarines in the Pacific carry nuclear-tipped torpedoes, which, Ferguson said, many Japanese officials like for their possible deterrent effect against a growing Chinese navy. Because nuclear weapons provide such assurance to a key ally, some U.S. officials are reluctant to cut back on the capability.” [emphasis mine].

I’m not sure what is meant by “nuclear-tipped torpedoes” but the context of the paragraph suggests that the piece may be referring to the SLCM known as the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile-Nuclear (TLAM-N).  As Jeffrey noted last May, the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States erroneously asserted that the TLAM-N is deployed on some U.S. Los Angeles-class attack submarines. In reality, as a result of President George H.W. Bush’s 1991 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives (PNIs), the U.S. “cease[d] deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on surface ships, attack submarines, and land-based naval aircraft during ‘normal circumstances’”.  We do however apparently retain the capability to redeploy TLAM-N on attack submarines if necessary.  

Bender’s suspect graf reads as follows:

But for war planners, they [submarines] also bring more bang for the buck. Under the terms of the proposed treaty with Russia, each submarine and its 24 Trident missiles would count as only one “delivery system,’’ unlike the land-based missiles, which each count toward the total allowed.”[emphasis mine].

Either Bender or his editors messed something up here.  I find it hard to believe that the Russians would agree to allow our entire strategic submarine force to count for only 12 (or 14 depending on whether the two U.S. subs in overhaul at any onetime are included) delivery vehicles.  Those 24 missile tubes certainly aren’t phantoms! As one colleague put it to me earlier today, if the Russians had agreed to count them as one delivery vehicle, then the U.S. could have easily agreed to the Russian-proposed limit of 500 delivery vehicles for the New START treaty!