Tag: Nuclear weapons
Stevenson’s army, July 6
– “Middle East intelligence” sources tell the NYT that Israel was responsible for the explosion at Iran’s nuclear enrichment facility.
-Both US and China have major naval operations now in South China Sea.
– FP says WH personnel will conduct loyalty interviews with DOD political appointees.
– AP says Trump-connected lobbyists captured billions in pandemic funds,
– Defector details weakness and corruption in North Korean military.
-LA Times says WH has agreed to keep 4000 US troops in Afghanistan after US elections.
-And for this week of 90+ degree weather, New Yorker has a 1998 article on life before air conditioners. [I remember]
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Stevenson’s army, July 1
– NYT details numerous Russian activities against US
– WSJ says NSA and CIA disagreed over Russian bounty evidence.
– NYT says US warned Russia of Chinese military buildup.
– NDAA provision would put DOD in charge of Energy Dept weapons budget.
-Fight continues over HFAC chairmanship.
– Many former congressmen are now foreign agents.
– New study documents US heavy use of contractors abroad. Here’s the study
– Germany is cracking down on right-wing extremism in its special forces.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Nuclear reminders
Former International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Pantelis Ikonomou writes occasionally for peacefare.net. We have never met in person, or even spoken on the phone, but his unequivocal commitment to containing and reducing nuclear risks, combined with his technical expertise, has been more than enough reason for me to open the blog to his always welcome contributions.
He has now written and published with Springer a wonderful comprehensive volume modestly titled Global Nuclear Developments: Insights from a Former IAEA Inspector. It is a first-rate primer on:
- the technology required to make a nuclear weapon,
- how the current international regime to control nuclear weapons evolved and how it functions,
- how major nonproliferation crises have been handled in North Korea, Iran, Syria, Libya, Romania, and the former Soviet Union,
- possible future proliferators, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Japan, and South Korea,
- nuclear incidents/accidents, and
- the nuclear weapons states, both within the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty–US, Russia, China, UK, and France–and outside it–India, Pakistan, Israel, and South Africa.
Throughout, Pantelis demonstrates his excellent and dispassionate command of the details while also offering practical and well-founded guidance for the future. North Korea, he thinks, will not be giving up nuclear weapons but its program might be frozen, given the right incentives. The US, he thinks, made a colossal error in withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal (the JCPOA) and thereby shortening the time required for Tehran to obtain the material needed to build a nuclear weapon. He understands that the deal in which Libya gave up its military nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief was a good one, but Qadaffi’s ultimate end will have strengthened North Korean resolve not to do likewise. I found his discussion of the South African and Israeli pursuit of nuclear weapons particularly interesting.
Pantelis is proud of the work of the IAEA, but blunt about the shortcomings of the regime it administers. He regards its Additional Protocol as adequate to limiting the possibility of hiding a military nuclear program within a civilian one, but he also notes that it is not universally and unconditionally accepted, most notably by Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran (which accepts it only within the context of JCPOA) as well as Israel, which remains outside the NPT. He also underlines the tensions between nuclear weapons and non-nuclear weapons states over the reluctance of the former to deliver on nuclear disarmament, which contributed to the failure of the 2015 review conference and what he feared would be the likely failure of the 2020 edition before it was postponed this spring.
In the end, Pantelis speculates on the emergence of a new “tetra”-polar equilibrium among nuclear weapons states:
- US and UK;
- Russia and India;
- China, Pakistan, and North Korea;
- Israel and France.
I am not sure how he comes to this conclusion. Even if 1. and 3. are historically well-rooted, I’m not convinced that India will ally with Russia or that today’s France is interested in allying with Israel, even if Pantelis is correct that France helped Israel develop its nuclear weapons in the past. Nor do I see why this configuration should be stable. It seems to me that two-party nuclear standoffs (US/USSR, India/Pakistan, US/China) are far more likely to be stable than anything with four corners to it.
Pantelis reserves his final enthusiasm for an epilogue in which he pleads with the world’s scientific community to convince the nuclear weapons states, especially the US and Russia, to engage seriously in nuclear disarmament rather than their current race to modernize and proliferate nuclear weapons, which is intensifying. I wouldn’t fault him there at all. The craziness of pursuing weapons that can never be used without sealing your own country’s destruction has not been lost on most of the world’s states. Lowering the level of mutual assured destruction could free up a lot of resources for more useful things. It is fortunate we have well-informed observer/participants like Pantelis to remind us of what we should be doing.
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Stevenson’s army, June 14
– FP details administration efforts to kill Iran nuclear deal before the election.
– And it wants to undermine Missile Technology Control Regime in order to sell drones.
– Politico says Foreign Service is still disproportionately Ivy League
– Hudson has a good roundup on South Asia..
– NYT says GOP Senators have a common theme — bashing China.
– WSJ’s Michael Gordon surveys US civil-military tensions.
– Fred Kaplan critiques Trump West Point address.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, June 9
– Esper and Ryan are open to renaming military bases. Urging them on is Gen. David Petraeus.
– Erdogan says he has a deal with Trump on Libya.
– New bill would prevent Trump from using nuke against a hurricane.
–State Dept in DC reopening June 15.
-Reuters says senior officials blindsided by Germany troop withdrawal announcement.
– NDAA markups beginning despite few hearings.
– Prof. Edelman and others see China and Russia practicing “strategic corruption.”
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, May 23
-SAIS grad and former SASC staff director Chris Brose, who was in a Strat webinar Friday, has a section from his new book in WSJ.
-Prof Brands and Jake Sullivan say China has 2 paths to global leadership, and we in America may be expecting the wrong one.
-Fred Kaplan defends the Open Skies treaty.
-Meanwhile, the Administration ponders conducting the first nuclear test since 1992.
– NYT lays out options in US response to Hong Kong crackdown.
– WSJ cites study saying jungle primaries lead to more moderate candidates [click on the “new research” link for the actual study].
TOP-TWO PRIMARIES in congressional elections, in which candidates of all parties run in the same primary and then the top two finishers face off in a second round, are associated with more moderate legislators, according to new research by University of Southern California political scientist Christian Grose. Open primaries, in which voters of any party registration can vote in a party primary, also reduce ideological extremity, though to a lesser degree than the top-two scheme. Just three states—California, Louisiana and Washington—used the top-two system in 2020, but Grose suggests “that those in the policy community looking for ways to reduce ideological extremity among legislators” should consider them.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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