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Project Sapphire: a model for defense by other means

David Hoffman’s chapter on Project Sapphire in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book The Dead Hand reads like a spy-thriller novel — complete with a young American diplomat protagonist, angry Russians, a top-secret “Tiger Team” and enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) to make 24 nuclear bombs.

Project Sapphire was the first major success of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which passed just after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In November 1994, a team of 25 Americans transported 1,322 pounds of HEU from the Ulba metallurgical factory in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan to the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee to be blended down to low-enriched uranium.  The operation was an enormous success thanks to the cooperation and discretion of the Kazakh and American governments.

In 1994, “the Russian nuclear establishment was showing the same signs of deterioration as the rest of the country.” Fissile material across the country “was stored in rooms and warehouses easy for an amateur burglar to crack;” the 90 or 91 percent-enriched Uranium 235 (nearly weapons-grade) was kept “safe” by what was described by the American diplomat protagonist Andy Weber as “a Civil War padlock.”

The dismal standard of safety and security of nuclear material at the fall of the Soviet Union lends to the fact that threat of nuclear war isn’t our greatest danger, loose nuclear material and weapons are.

Since Project Sapphire, Central Asia and specifically Kazakhstan have become a world leader in non-proliferation efforts. In 1991, Kazakhstan inherited 1,410 nuclear warheads and the world’s largest bioweapons plant. By 2001, Kazakhstan was free of nuclear weapons; and in 2009, all five Central Asian republics ratified the Central Asia Nuclear-Weapons-Free-Zone (CANWFZ) treaty.

At the 20th anniversary event commemorating Project Sapphire at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), David Hoffman and Andy Weber, along with Laura Holgate (Senior Director of WMD Terrorism and Threat Reduction at the National Security Council) spoke of last year’s removal and destruction of chemical weapons from Syria under the auspices of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) as the “child” of Project Sapphire and an example of how interagency cooperation and technical experts working together has made the world a safer place.

The destruction of Syrian chemical weapons and Project Sapphire were as much logistical successes as examples of how diplomacy is just as important to our security enterprise as military action. Speaking at the Department of Defense in March 1995, former Defense Secretary William Perry spoke of Project Sapphire as “defense by other means.”  

Projects like the National Nuclear Administration’s (NNSA) Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) established in 2004 have demonstrated the power of defense by other means.In the past 10 years, the GTRI has shut down 49 HEU reactors in 25 countries and disposed of more than 4,100 kilograms of HEU and plutonium.  But some of the most difficult countries to extract from, such as Belarus and South Africa, still have weapons-usable nuclear materials.

In his historic 2009 Prague speech, President Obama reinvigorated efforts to secure rogue nuclear materials:

“Today I am announcing a new international effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear material around the world within four years. We will set up new standards, expand our cooperation with Russia, [and] pursue new partnerships to lock down these sensitive materials.”

The administration surged funding for the GTRI after the President’s 2009 and since, funding for non-proliferation programs such as GTRI has been on the decline. For the third year in a row the FY 2015 budget request for the NNSA was slashed.

While it is all fine and good to celebrate the success of GTRI and its predecessor programs in helping secure loose nuclear material, the program’s progress should be measured not by how much material has been secured, but by how much could potentially end up in the hands of terrorists. Funding for nuclear weapons programs at the expense of non-proliferation efforts is counterproductive to U.S. national security.

As Obama mentioned in his 2009 speech, cooperation with Russia is integral to reducing nuclear threats worldwide.  At the CSIS event, Laura Holgate spoke of the need for the non-proliferation advocacy community to be creative in encouraging Congress to engage diplomatically with Russia. It is in the interest of U.S. national security to continue working with Russia on areas of consistent cooperation such as the elimination of chemical weapons from Syria, and as members of the P5+1 and Iran negotiations.

An amicable relationship between Russia and the United States is not only good for national security but for the world.

Front and Center: An Update on Arms Control, National Security and Politics

FRONT & CENTER

An update on arms control, national security & politics from the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

WHAT’S NEW:

We’re Hiring!
Know any accounting experts interested in working at a mission-oriented non-profit? Because the Center and Council are looking for a full-time financial controller to join our team. Please share the job description–applications are due by October 20!

READ:

Planes, Trains, and Mobile-Basing?
Cold War ideas of where to house our nuclear weapons—such as hiding missiles on trains and trucks—are beginning to re-surge. Writing on the Center blog, Scoville Fellow Greg Terryn reminds us that “mobile-basing”—like nuclear weapons themselves—is an expensive and dangerous idea that is better left in the past. [10/2]

Don’t Forget About the Other ‘Rogue State’:
For over a year, the U.S. has been all eyes on Iran, but is this distracting us from states that already have nuclear weapons—such as the ever-unpredictable North Korea? On the blog, Sarah Tully suggests that the DPRK’s nuclear program is “flying under the radar” while the U.S. spends its days engaging Iran and refusing to engage North Korea. [10/2]

Who’s Minding the Nukes?
It’s no secret our nuclear weapons enterprise has been under fire this year for a truly inexcusable culture of complacency. Katie McCarthy underlines the irony that poor management in the NNSA has arisen despite the NNSA’s initial mission: to escape poor management. However, the incoming NNSA director, Frank Klotz, may come as a ray of hope for much-needed reform. [10/3]

BE SOCIAL:

Almost to 5,000 Followers!
Just last week, the National Security Council’s WMD advisor cited the Nukes of Hazard Twitter handle and blog as an “expert source” at the Military Reporters & Editors Conference. Make sure you follow Nukes_of_Hazard on Twitter for all your nuclear and national security related news!

ICYMI: the Iran Talks on Buzzfeed
When it comes to these complex international negotiations, sometimes it helps to dumb down the wonk for a moment and just have some fun. That’s why we teamed up with our friends at Win Without War to break down the talks with quotes from the 2004 hit film, Mean Girls. If you’re ready for a laugh, check out our BuzzFeed article—and don’t forget to give it a share on Facebook and Twitter!

Alarming Nuclear Security Blunder Demonstrates Need for Change

The Inspector General of the Department of Energy reported on September 24th that the Office of Secure Transportation (OST) failed to correctly report an incident involving unauthorized access to nuclear weapons.

Background

The OST is managed by the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and is responsible for safely and securely transporting special nuclear material owned by the U.S. Government. “Special nuclear material” can include nuclear weapons, nuclear weapon components and fissile material. The OST implements the Human Reliability Program (HRP), which ensures that only authorized individuals with the “highest standards of reliability as well as physical and mental suitability” have access to special nuclear material. The vetting process includes a Q-level clearance, drug testing, and more. While the HRP was created with the aims of streamlining management and clarifying responsibilities, problems most assuredly remain.  

What happened?

As this IG report suggests, there continues to be management and clarity issues within the NNSA-run office, of which this incident is a clear example considering the main cause was a lack of understanding of the duties, responsibilities and reporting requirements of personnel.

First, the OST agent who was allowed access to nuclear weapons was not properly checked for HRP status. Consequently, limitations that had been placed on the agent while temporarily off HRP status were not upheld.

Secondly, the OST failed to submit a complete report of the incident relating to the actions of the Unit Commander, and an internal investigation reached a flawed conclusion based on the incomplete report. (The IG report notes that the “Unit Commander did not take physical possession of the nuclear weapons.”)

The Report is marked For Official Use Only (FOUO) so further details are currently unavailable but can potentially be attained through a Freedom of Information Act Request.

This incident is the latest in a list of security and transparency issues that plague the NNSA and nuclear laboratories. As recently reported, Congress and the Government Accountability Office eagerly await a “roadmap” promised by the NNSA outlining a new clear vision and structural improvements to mitigate further ambiguity and security incidents. For more on the NNSA restructuring, click here.

Nuclear Security Enterprise Struggles with the Issues it was Created to Solve

Nuclear weapons spending has become a hot-button issue in recent years, particularly as it becomes increasingly clear that our budget cannot sustain the current nuclear modernization strategy. Those in favor of upgrades argue that in order to reduce nuclear weapons numbers while maintaining our deterrent capability, modernization is key. This myopic view of spending on nuke upgrades fails to bring key internal and external inadequacies into view, and instead undermines the legitimacy of our future deterrent strategy.  

By not keeping an eye on internal inadequacies and by perpetuating a culture of complacency, our nuclear weapons management reputation has been tarnished, likely affecting the way our allies and enemies see our future deterrent capability.

Background
In the late 1990s, the Department of Energy fell victim to cost overruns and security issues. At the urging of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, Congress created a new semi-autonomous entity in 1999 called the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). By creating a separate governing body, the security and overhead could be streamlined to minimize gaps in security and duplication in oversight.

However, while the role of NNSA has remained the same—to oversee our nation’s nuclear weapons management, development, and nonproliferation and nuclear security efforts—the entity itself has run into the same budgetary and security issues that it was created to solve.

Where we stand today
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has criticized NNSA’s inefficiencies, structure, and cost/security balance for years without change. In one of the latest attempts to create positive momentum, the Congressional Advisory Panel on the Governance of the Nuclear Security Enterprise, created in 2013, released its interim report in March.

The Panel reports that NNSA is doing relatively well on the physical management and modernization side. It states that, “Stockpile Stewardship has succeeded in sustaining confidence in our nuclear deterrent.” But it also reports that NNSA is not focusing enough on the culture, hierarchy, and vision of the Enterprise, which has led to mistrust, confusion, and ineffective, reactionary solutions. “This is not time for complacency about the nuclear deterrent,” says the panel, “our allies depend on these forces and capabilities for extended deterrence and could well pursue their own nuclear weapon capabilities if they perceive the US commitment or competency to be weakening.”

In other words, by focusing on nuclear weapons’ physical structure without also putting substantial effort into repairing the NNSA’s rocky foundation, we may very well be damaging the future of our security and the legitimacy of our nuclear deterrent. This sentiment is echoed by the panel’s key finding that “[t]he current viability of our nuclear deterrent is not in question. At the same time, the existing governance structures and practices are most certainly inefficient and in some instances ineffective, putting the entire Enterprise at risk over the long term.”

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) weighs in

From September 2012 to May 2014, the GAO conducted an examination of DOE/NNSA 2009 – 2012 security reforms and the implementation of these reforms aimed at improving the security enterprise. The main conclusion of the May 2014 report was that while the NNSA has made efforts toward improvement, they have not been enough, have not been implemented evenly across sites, and there has not been diligent record keeping of quantifiable progress. The report states, the “efforts to-date have not prevented several serious security incidents” and “the goals for security appear to be less clearly defined and less focused than previous attempts at security reform.”

One of the worst and perhaps most well-known security breaches during this period was at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Protestors including a nun, Sister Megan Rice, were able to use simple bolt cutters to reach a restricted area that contained highly enriched uranium (HEU). The consequent DOE report cited a litany of inadequacies leading up to the incident including “troubling displays of ineptitude…, misunderstanding of security protocols, poor communications, and weaknesses in contract and resource management.”

Finally, the GAO says that “without developing a clear vision and path forward for its security program,” the NNSA risks further deterioration of inter-agency collaboration, NNSA/nuclear laboratory trust, physical security, and of the organizational health of our security enterprise.

The bright side

The new Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and NNSA Administrator, Frank G. Klotz, responded to the GAO report in a three-paragraph letter stating that the “NNSA agrees with the GAO’s recommendation and has already initiated  an effort to develop a security roadmap for NNSA.” The “road map” Klotz refers to has an estimated due date of December 31, 2014.

Beyond this anticipated course of action, Klotz’s presence itself might be a guiding light for positive change. Klotz is a retired Air Force Lieutenant General who has made safety and security his top priority in his new post. Additionally, Klotz has experience streamlining nuclear weapons control and amending faulty security systems, having successfully led Global Strike Command from 2009 to 2011, the team that was created to rectify issues with the Air Force’s management of nuclear weapons.

The NNSA’s mission and success are vital to our national security. Perhaps Klotz’s experience and commitment coupled with a new, forward-looking vision will drive the NNSA’s internal structure towards balance and more effective policies.

26 Senators sign letter to Obama administration urging increased nuclear security funding

Earlier today (August 18) Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Feinstein (D-CA) released a bipartisan letter calling on the Obama administration to support increased funding for vital programs at the Department of Energy to keep nuclear and radiological materials out of the hands of terrorists. The full text of the letter is pasted below the jump. You can read the Merkley and Feinstein press release announcing the letter here.

26 Senators signed the letter, including 22 Democrats, 2 Independents, and 2 Republicans.

The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation and Council for a Livable World strongly support the letter’s message and urge the White House to act on this bipartisan call for increased funding to prevent nuclear and radiological terrorism.

The Obama administration’s recent budget requests have not reflected the rhetorical emphasis it has rightly placed on combatting nuclear terrorism. The FY 2015 budget request for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) reduces funding for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI) and the International Nuclear Materials Protection Program (IMPC) by 25% and 27%, respectively, signaling a major retreat in the Obama administration’s effort to secure nuclear and radiological materials at an accelerated rate. This is the third year in a row of budget cuts to these core nonproliferation programs. The proposed budget cuts to these programs are difficult to understand since the danger of nuclear and radiological materials falling into the hands of terrorists remains a serious threat.

Reducing funding for these programs increases the amount of time it will take to secure or eliminate dangerous materials that could be used by terrorists in an improvised nuclear explosive device or a dirty bomb. This is an unacceptable risk to U.S. national security. Important nuclear security efforts should not be slowed by lack of funds.

Fortunately, both the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee significantly increased funding above the budget request for NNSA’s core material security and nonproliferation programs. However, it remains to be seen if these higher funding levels will survive and whatever final authorization and appropriations bill is passed by Congress for FY 2015.

For more information on the budget cuts, see our handy fact sheet. For a more detailed discussion of the Obama administration’s nuclear security request and the harmful impacts of budget cuts, see this excellent recent report by Harvard’s Managing the Atom Project co-authored by Nukes of Hazard alum Nickolas Roth.

August 13.2014

Mr. Shaun Donovan
Director
Oftice of Management and Budget
725 I th St NW
Washington, DC 20503

Dear Director Donovan,

We write to request the Administration, in its next budget request, seek increased funding for vital nuclear material security and nonproliferation programs. We have been concerned that the President has proposed cuts to these programs over the last several years. We believe that unsecured nuclear material poses an unacceptable risk to U.S. national security and hope future budgets will reflect the importance of nuclear security efforts.

The President has said that nuclear terrorism is the most immediate and extreme threat to global security.” He followed these words by hosting the first Nuclear Security Summit in 2010. While we applaud the President’s leadership in spearheading an accelerated international effort to enhance the security of nuclear and radiological materials, we remain concerned about what the future would look like if we slow these programs. For example, through programs such as the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), thirteen countries eliminated all the highly enriched uranium (HEU) or separated plutonium on their soil since 2009, including all HEU from Ukraine. I applaud those efforts been slowed by anemic funding, it is possible that the United States would face the threat of weapons-grade nuclear material in the hands of Ukrainian separatists.

Despite these noteworthy achievements, significant work remains to be done. There are still
hundreds of sites spread across 30 countries that have weapons-usable nuclear material. Many of these locations have very modest or insufficient security measures. For these reasons and others. the FY 201 5 Senate Energy and Water bill increased funding for these programs above the President’s budget request by $136 million for the GTRI, $33 million for research and development, and $50 million for the International Nuclear Materials Protection and Cooperation program.

Reducing budgets for agencies and programs that help keep nuclear and radiological materials out of the hands of terrorists is out of sync with the high priority that President has rightly placed on nuclear and radiological material security and signals a major retreat in the effort to lock down these materials at an accelerated rate. The recent spate of terrorism in Iraq, Pakistan, and Kenya is a harrowing reminder of the importance of ensuring that terrorist groups and rogue states cannot get their hands on the world’s most dangerous weapons and materials.

Given current world events, now is not the time to pull back on nonproliferation, a major U.S.
policy objective. Going forward, we urge you to work with us to ensure that critical nuclear
material security and nonproliferation programs have the resources they need. We seek your
support for a FY 2016 budget that builds on the Senate Energy and Water proposed FY 2015 funding levels to further accelerate the pace at which nuclear and radio logical materials are secured and permanently disposed.

Sincerely-