Arms Control Wonk

Several readers have mentioned a piece that Bridge Colby and I wrote in The Diplomat (“How To Worry Kim Jong Il”) arguing that the Obama Administration should seriously consider modifying the B83 to hold at risk certain targets in North Korea.

After receiving a number of angry emails (and few thoughtful criticisms from good friends), I went back to reread the piece Bridge and I wrote.  Allow me to make two observations: First, some people are over-reacting.  Second, people are holding us to a higher standard than the one to which they hold the Obama Administration.  That’s interesting.

It is difficult to write about a piece written with a co-author.  One doesn’t want to speak for a co-author or revisit agreed language.  In this case, however, the fact of my support for a modified B83 has drawn as much attention as the arguments themselves.  So let me make a few arguments, while being clear that I am speaking for myself.

Read Full Story →

I really hate putting public service announcements on the blog, in part because there are so many worthwhile causes.  Still, I make an exception every now and again.

Friday, September 30 is the deadline for two really important opportunities.

First, the Council on Foreign Relations is offering an International Affairs Fellowship in Nuclear Security, with a stipend of $125,000 to work in the US government or an international organization.

Second, CNS is hosting the annual Doreen & Jim McElvany Nonproliferation Challenge.  A 2,500-3,500 word essay could win up to $10,000.

Think about it, you could spend the next few days writing like a maniac and find yourself sitting in Vienna with $135,000 to burn.  That’s a lot of schnapps.

It’s been a long time since I last guest blogged on ACW, and it feels good to be back. I’m glad to see that my avatar still looks stern and angry.

As some may have noticed, last week’s IAEA General Conference ended without member states being able to agree on a safeguards resolution. Reuters put the blame on some member states, quoting two Western envoys. This story was picked up by Global Security Newswire on 27 September. While there is some truth to the story, it doesn’t pick up on all the complexities of the debate.

Read Full Story →

Admiral Mike Mullen, the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke plainly about Pakistan’s military and intelligence services during his last appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee on September 22nd. Here is what he said:

The fact remains that the Quetta Shura and the Haqqani Network operate from Pakistan with impunity. Extremist organizations serving as proxies of the government of Pakistan are attacking Afghan troops and civilians as well as U.S. soldiers. For example, we believe the Haqqani Network—which has long enjoyed the support and protection of the Pakistani government and is, in many ways, a strategic arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency—is responsible for the September 13th attacks against the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. There is ample evidence confirming that the Haqqanis were behind the June 28th attack against the Inter-Continental Hotel in Kabul and the September 10th truck bomb attack that killed five Afghans and injured another 96 individuals, 77 of whom were U.S. soldiers. History teaches us that it is difficult to defeat an insurgency when fighters enjoy a sanctuary outside national boundaries, and we are seeing this again today. The Quetta Shura and the Haqqani Network are hampering efforts to improve security in Afghanistan, spoiling possibilities for broader reconciliation, and frustrating U.S.-Pakistan relations. The actions by the Pakistani government to support them—actively and passively—represent a growing problem that is undermining U.S. interests and may violate international norms, potentially warranting sanction. In supporting these groups, the government of Pakistan, particularly the Pakistani Army, continues to jeopardize Pakistan’s opportunity to be a respected and prosperous nation with genuine regional and international influence.

When Mullen, the foremost U.S. defender of trying to maintain sound working ties with Pakistan’s military, pretty much throws in the towel, the downward trend in bilateral relations is likely to accelerate. By publicly confirming and not qualifying reality, Mullen has changed the rules of the game, while laying the predicate for actions that will further inflame anti-U.S. sentiment within Pakistan by embarrassing Pakistan’s military hierarchy. The prosecution of the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan will then become much harder, and whatever residual support Pakistan provides to the United States on other issues will be placed at risk.

Read Full Story →

This morning at the 2011 IAEA General Conference in Vienna, the IAEA’s member states passed the resolution GC(55)/L.5, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement between the Agency and the DPRK,”  by consensus.

It was sponsored by 44 states. Yeoman’s work was done by Canada, and the original sponsoring group included Australia, Japan, ROK, U.K., and the U.S.

Readers might recall that a year ago, a similar resolution introduced under the same agenda item at GC/54 stirred up a hornet’s nest. That didn’t happen today, for a couple of reasons.

Read Full Story →

The Obama administration’s arms control team has to be tired. It took great effort to secure two time-sensitive and essential agenda items – negotiating a new strategic arms reduction treaty to replace one that was due to expire in December 2009, and engineering a positive NPT Review Conference in May 2010.

President Obama succeeded on both fronts. On its merits, New START should have been a walk in the park, but die-hard Republicans turned ratification into a cliff-hanger. The NPT RevCon was also a must win, since the Treaty couldn’t afford another train wreck like the previous conference in 2005.

There was much else to do, right away. President Obama oversaw policy reviews, hosted a meaningful nuclear security summit, and articulated his vision of a world without nuclear weapons. There were also wars to conduct in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other pressing agenda items with Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, the Arab Spring, Muammar Qaddafi, a flagging economy, a debt crisis, and Republicans on Capitol Hill who equate compromise with surrender. This list is exhausting, but not exhaustive.

Read Full Story →

“urumqi – best lamb kebabs ever! And that’s ￥1.50 (or $0.20) per stick!” Urumqi, Xinjiang, China, August 2005  Photo credit and caption: Flickr User Cåsver

Now that Fox News has released several of the documents that AQ Khan gave to Simon Henderson, I have had the opportunity to go through three stories published by the Post with the benefit of the original source material (“A nuclear power’s act of proliferation”; “Pakistani scientist depicts more advanced nuclear program in North Korea”; “Pakistani scientist Khan describes Iranian efforts to buy nuclear bombs”).

An interesting question arises: Where are the rest of the documents?

Read Full Story →

Micah Morrison at Fox News, with the cooperation of Simon Henderson, has published the set of documents that AQ Khan provided to Henderson including (1) his so-called “confession” (which is hardly contrite and probably better described as a “statement“), (2) An ISI report, presumably for foreign governments in lieu of access to Khan himself, on Khan’s activities that is revealing in its many ommissions and elisions, (3) the oft-discussed letter to his wife, Hendrina.

Morrison also published a few photos, a response by Jehangir Karamat to Khan’s allegations that he accepted a bribe, as well as some correspondence with the Governments of China and Iran.

I am glad to finally see the documents in print.  (I missed the broadcast, but that is just because I don’t watch television.) The documents clear up at least one minor mystery and shed considerable light on Khan’s motives, which helps make the case for putting them into the public domain.

The documents may not be reliable, but boy are they interesting!

Read Full Story →

September 24th marks the fifteenth anniversary of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty’s celebratory signing ceremony at the United Nations. That’s fifteen years in which the treaty has remained in limbo, due to the worst entry-into-force provision ever negotiated. A much longer wait is in store, as long as entry into force depends on the United States, China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and Indonesia depositing their instruments of ratification, and India, Pakistan and North Korea deciding to sign and ratify the treaty.

The treaty’s tortured entry-into-force provision was the handiwork of China, Russia, and France, whose leaders felt obligated to sign, but remained reluctant to end nuclear testing permanently. They resolved this conundrum by giving other recalcitrant states vetoes over the treaty’s entry into force.

The fifteen year-long wait for the CTBT has been put to good use. A Preparatory Commission and a Provisional Technical Secretariat have worked diligently in Vienna setting up a global monitoring system and dispensing data that have undeniable value. This network, which is 80-85% complete, currently consists of ten laboratories and over 250 monitoring stations. I’m told by the CTBTO that seventeen of the remaining facilities have already been built and are in the process of calibration and certification. Twenty-seven more are under construction. Twenty-three stations and six laboratories remain to be built for a variety of political, administrative, technical or financial reasons.

Read Full Story →

It’s mid-September, so it must be Vienna, and that means it’s time for another spin on the Prater with the IAEA Board of Governors followed by the annual IAEA General Conference. After that there’s one more board meeting on Sept. 26, and, and before you know it, the Riesling vines in Alsace are turning yellow, and I’ll be ready after all this IAEA stuff in Vienna for a quick swing back through the byways of the Route de Vin in Haut- and Bas-Rhin on the way home, inspired this time by a summer reading of Buerger und Soldaten, Alfred Doeblin’s fine novel on the last days of World War I in Strasbourg and Hagenau.

Business before pleasure, however.

Read Full Story →