So the Arab states are worried about the prospects of a nuclear Iran.  I don’t doubt that some of those worries are genuine (see the marked growth in U.S. arms sales to the Gulf states in recent years, for instance) but as the Brookings Institution’s Suzanne Maloney noted in a July 2009 Senate Finance Committee hearing,

I recognize that the Gulf states spend a lot of time talking about the Iranian threat; they don’t spend a lot of time doing anything about it….[T]hey’ve been very averse to doing anything that would curtail their business relationships with Iran and their political relationships, both of which are quite substantial. So I will take that rhetoric much more seriously when I see them behaving in a way that suggests that they believe that threat is as real as they say.

Take, for example, the pending U.S.-U.A.E. civilian nuclear cooperation agreement.  Opposition to the agreement has hinged in part on concerns about the U.A.E.’s export controls, as the U.A.E. has served as an alleged transit point for military and dual-use exports to Iran.   Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Kahn used the U.A.E. as a transit point to illegally transfer uranium and other sensitive materials to Libya and Iran in the 1990’s.  The U.A.E. claims that it has enacted a stronger national export control law, though according to a July 2009 Congressional Research Service report, “the government had yet to issue implementing regulations for the law or to fully staff a national export control body to enforce it.”  The U.A.E. ambassador to the U.S. characterized the law as a “work in progress” during a June 2009 briefing.

Likewise, one of the key problems with the growing calls emanating from Congress for tougher sanctions on Iran’s gas and petroleum sector is that their success will hinge upon the support of key actors such as Russia, China, and yes, the U.A.E.  But would the U.A.E. support sanctions on firms and states that export gasoline to Iran or help it refine oil, given that roughly $12 billion in foreign goods destined for Iran pass through Dubai, including nearly all of Iran’s refined petroleum imports?  Doing so would require the U.A.E. to breach the fine line it appears to be trying to walk between maintaining its close economic/political relations with Tehran and expressing its worries about a nuclear Iran.

Yesterday the Senate and House Committees on Appropriations released their conference report on the FY2010 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill.  The bill summary can be found here and the complete bill text here.  

Of particular interest is the Conference Committee’s action on the proposed refurbishment of the B61 gravity bomb.  NNSA initially requested $65 million to complete the Phase 6.2/6.2A Refurbishment Study authorized by the Nuclear Weapons Council (NWC) to address “end of life components, aging and reliability.”  Though the request did not explicitly say so, the $65 million was only enough to study a non-nuclear refurbishment of the B61.  

In July the House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee zeroed out the request for the 6.2A study.  The bill summary stated that “Until the Administration finalizes its plans for the nation’s nuclear strategy, stockpile, and complex plans, the Committee does not support the effort to develop what is essentially a new nuclear weapon.”  In contrast, the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee fully funded the B61 request.

Apparently Gen. Chilton’s shiny briefing slides weren’t enough to convince the members of the Conference Committee to fully fund the proposed refurbishment (at least for now)…  

The Committee appropriated $32.5 million, half the initial request, for the Phase 6.2A study, adding that NNSA is authorized to reallocate an additional $15 million for the study “upon completion of the Nuclear Posture Review and confirmation of the requirement for the B61-12.”  The Joint Explanatory Statement of the Committee of Conference placed additional conditions on the study:

No request was made for funds for Phase 2/2A study of the nuclear components of the B61-12, and the conference agreement provides that no funds may be obligated or expended for this purpose without prior approval by the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations. The conference agreement directs the Nuclear Weapons Council in cooperation with the Secretary of Energy to, within 60 days of release of the Nuclear Posture Review, enter into an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences to execute a study addressing the national security and extended deterrence value of the B61 for both strategic and tactical purposes in light of nuclear terrorism risks and military threats. The conference agreement directs the Nuclear Weapons Council in cooperation with the Secretary of Energy to, within 90 days of release of the Nuclear Posture Review, commission a further study by the JASON Defense Advisory Group examining whether the planned B61-12 can be expected, without nuclear testing, to offer sufficient margin and other advantages as to constitute a long-term 21st Century weapon, or whether it is more likely to be an interim weapon leading to near-term replacement or retirement, and to recommend any additional research that may be needed to make an informed decision on this matter. The conference agreement directs the Secretary of Energy to submit each study to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations not later than 180 days after commissioning the study.[emphasis mine].

The requested NAS and JASON studies are especially interesting, given that the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) is undoubtedly evaluating these very same issues.  In fact, if recent remarks by Secretary of Defense Gates are any indication, the NPR may already have issued a verdict on the necessity of maintaining the B61:

Well, the Nuclear Posture Review is well under way, and I would say we’re beginning to see what some of the likely conclusions are. I would say that it is clear, at least to me, that it is important for us to continue to make investments, and I think larger investments, in modernizing our nuclear infrastructure, the labs and so on, the expertise in those places, to have the resources for life-extension programs, and in one or two cases probably new designs that will be safer and more reliable.[emphasis mine]

During the heady days of the RRW, the two prime candidates for replacement were generally understood to be the W76 and the B61.  Depending on the outcome of the NPR, the $32.5 million appropriation may just end up being a placeholder that ultimately gives way to a massive appropriation for a wholesale nuclear and non-nuclear refurbishment or perhaps even replacement.  It of course will be verrry intriguing to see how this all plays out.  

On final note: While Congress is already referring to the proposed refurbishment as the “B61-12”, my understanding is that a new modification number implies a degree of change to the weapon that ultimately depends on the level of nuclear and non-nuclear refurbishment approved.  Its not clear that the funding approved by the Conference Committee will be enough to support even a full non-nuclear refurbishment of the B61.  While NNSA and STRATCOM appear to want to push the envelope on the B61 as far as they can (and the NPR might ultimately agree), those decisions have yet to be made, rendering the “mod 12” designation a bit premature.

And one more final note: Notice how I managed to get through an entire post on the B61 without mentioning vacuum tubes!

Today the Senate Republican Policy Committee (RPC) released a policy paper titled “START: Do Time Extension Instead of a Bad Treaty.”    

According to the paper, the Senate is unlikely more likely to ratify a START follow-on treaty unless if it includes at least six conditions and restrictions, including a requirement that the follow-on deal with Russian tactical nuclear weapons, that would essentially make it impossible to complete an agreement by the time START I expires on December 5.  Naturally, these limitations fit quite comfortably with the RPC’s preferred outcome, which is that START should simply be extended more or less indefinitely without any further reductions in the U.S. arsenal.

Where to start (and end, since it’s getting late in the day).  By my count, the paper cites the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States 25 times.  Of course, it omits the one Commission statement that is most relevant:

“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.  Beyond a modest incremental reduction in operationally deployed strategic nuclear weapons, the arms control process becomes much more complex as new factors are introduced.” [emphasis mine].

As I’ve argued on countless occasions in this space, the Commission makes a clear distinction between a modest first step (as embodied by the Joint Understanding signed in Moscow) and the challenges associated with deeper reductions (such as the asymmetry in U.S. and Russian tactical nuclear weapons).  At no point does the Commission hinge taking a modest first step on a completed NPR (which the RPC begrudgingly concedes has already progressed far enough to account for the limits contained in the Joint Understanding in any event), modernizing the complex, or dealing with tactical nuclear weapons.

Then again, it shouldn’t be surprising that the RPC is purposefully misconstruing the Commission’s findings and recommendations, since two of the Commission’s conservative members, including the vice-chairman, have also conveniently chosen to forget the consensus* they agreed to in the final report (see here and here).  

*Jeffrey’s point about this “consensus” being ephemeral notwithstanding, I still think it should count for something.

In the commotion of European missile defense, UN speeches, Security Council resolutions, and Iranian and Korean developments, it is possible that you missed Nicholas Thompson’s chilling gift to the world on September 21st in Wired: a public unveiling of an alleged Soviet nuclear doomsday system that remains in operation today.

According to Thompson’s sources, the system, named “The Perimeter” but also known as “Dead Hand,” was built to ensure a nuclear retaliatory capability in the case of a successful American first strike.  Even in the direst of circumstances—if the entire command-and-control structure had been eliminated—Dead Hand would bypass all layers of command and put retaliatory authority in the hands of a single man inside of a hidden bunker with a launch button.

The title of the article, “Inside the Apocalyptic Soviet Doomsday Machine”, may cause more alarm than appropriate; the architecture of the existing system does not entail quite the apocalyptic automaticity as the machine in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove.  Various safeguards have been built into the existing system.  Nonetheless, the existence of such a system, if true, is unnerving on the most fundamental and instinctual levels.  It is truly bewildering that hardly anyone knows about it, and Thompson and his sources hope to expose it.  A fully integrated retaliation system like Dead Hand could be capable of turning a single accident into nuclear holocaust.

Here are a few excerpts from the article to tickle your fancy:

When I recently told former CIA director James Woolsey that the USSR had built a doomsday device, his eyes grew cold. “I hope to God the Soviets were more sensible than that.” They weren’t.

One Soviet official who spoke with Americans about the system died in a mysterious fall down a staircase.

Once initiated, the counterattack would be controlled by so-called command missiles. Hidden in hardened silos designed to withstand the massive blast and electromagnetic pulses of a nuclear explosion, these missiles would launch first and then radio down coded orders to whatever Soviet weapons had survived the first strike. At that point, the machines will have taken over the war. Soaring over the smoldering, radioactive ruins of the motherland, and with all ground communications destroyed, the command missiles would lead the destruction of the US.

In fact, the Soviet military didn’t even inform its own civilian arms negotiators. “I was never told about Perimeter,” says Yuli Kvitsinsky, lead Soviet negotiator at the time the device was created. And the brass still won’t talk about it today.