FAS Strategic Security Blog

By Ivanka Barzashka

FAS has posted a report on “Enrichment Supply and Technology Outside the United States” by S. A. Levin and S. Blumkin from the Enrichment Department of the Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant, operated at the time by Union Carbide. The document, prepared for the U.S. Energy Research and Development Administration, reviews international uranium enrichment capacity and isotope separation technology as of 1977.

Apart from being of historical interest, the report explicitly states that Eurodif, a French-organized multinational enrichment consortium, was in part owned by Iran.

Continue reading »

written by ioelrich \\ tags: uranium enrichment

Missile Watch
A publication of the FAS Arms Sales Monitoring Project
Vol. 2, Issue 2
October 2009
Written by Matt Schroeder and Matt Buongiorno

Continue reading »

written by Matt Schroeder \\ tags: arms trafficking, manpads, Russia, small arms, UN, United States, Venezuela

US Senate consideration of a new biosecurity bill has been delayed to accommodate requests for additional information from the Administration.  The Weapons of Mass Destruction Prevention and Preparedness Act of 2009 (S.1649), introduced by Senators Lieberman and Collins at the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, seeks to overhaul the US response to biosecurity threats.  In particular, the legislation focuses on research into potentially dangerous infectious diseases.

Highly infectious diseases are currently designated as select agents and regulated by the Departments of Agriculture (diseases of plants and livestock) or Health and Human Services (human pathogens).  The new legislation would replace this single list with three “tiers”, and research using the most dangerous agents would be overseen by the Department of Homeland Security.  An amendment by Senator Claire McCaskill would allow DHS to shut down labs that do not comply with safety regulations.  However, the bill would also implement so-called personnel reliability programs, common in nuclear research, as a condition for researchers to access the labs.  Recent reports by the government’s National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity and the National Academies’ Board of Life Sciences did not recommend such measures at this time.

Though Lieberman, who chairs the committee, has made the bill a top priority, it is unclear when time would permit consideration of the legislation on the Senate floor.

written by Allen Dodson \\ tags: Biosecurity, United States

Security personnel monitor nuclear weapons transport at German air base. Image: USAF

.
By Hans M. Kristensen

The new German government has announced that it wants to enter talks with its NATO allies about the withdrawal of the remaining U.S. nuclear weapons from Germany.

The announcement coincides with the Obama administration’s ongoing Nuclear Posture Review, which is spending an unprecedented amount of time pondering the “international aspects” of to what extent nuclear weapons help assure allies of their security.

Germany and many other NATO countries apparently don’t want to be protected by U.S. forward-deployed tactical nuclear weapons, which they see as a relic of the Cold War that locks NATO in the past and prevents it’s transition to the future. Continue reading »

written by hkristensen

by Ivanka Barzashka and Ivan Oelrich

After a cascade of disclosures and official announcements, followed by a great deal of conjecture from experts and the media, the Fordo enrichment plant, Iran’s newest enrichment facility located in the mountains near Qom, opened its doors on October 25 to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. The US, France, and Britain accuse Iran of building the facility covertly and “challenging the basic compact at the center of the non-proliferation regime.” Iran claims the accusations are “hypothetical” and “fantasy” and are part of a conspiracy against Iran’s nuclear program. The Agency has an indispensable role of providing an objective technical account of the facility and ultimately determining whether Iran violated its Safeguards Agreement. But how much can we expect to learn from the first visit to the facility and would that provide sufficient information to resolve the accusations made against Iran?

The text under the Iranian flag with the atomic symbol says, "Nuclear power is our undeniable right."

Continue reading »

written by ioelrich

No preemptive nuclear options, according to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

By Hans M. Kristensen

During an interview with Ekho Moskvy Radio last week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was asked if “the American [nuclear] doctrine incorporate[s] preemptive nuclear strikes against an aggressor?”

The Secretary’s answer was: “No, no.”

Ahem…. Continue reading »

written by hkristensen

President Barack Obama, here shown speaking to the United Nations in September, is seeking to delay a UN Resolution calling for De-Alerting Nuclear Forces.

.
By Hans M. Kristensen

The Obama administration has asked four countries to postpone a resolution at the United Nations calling for reducing the alert-level of nuclear weapons.

The intervention apparently is intended to avoid the Obama administration having to vote against the resolution before the important Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in May 2010 — on an issue Barack Obama promised to support when he ran for president.

The resolution, which was last adopted by the U.N. General Assembly with overwhelming support on December 2, 2008, calls for “further practical steps to be taken to decrease the operational readiness of nuclear weapons systems, with a view to ensuring that all nuclear weapons are removed from high alert status.” Continue reading »

written by hkristensen

Retirement of the W62 warhead, seen here at Warren Air Force Base, has been been delayed.

.
By Hans M. Kristensen

The Pentagon has missed the deadline set by the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review for the retirement of the W62 nuclear warhead.

Retirement of the warhead, which arms a portion of the 450 U.S. Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles, was scheduled for completion in Fiscal Year 2009, which ended on September 30th.

But the Department of Defense has been unable to confirm the warhead has been retired, saying instead earlier today: “The retirement of the W62 is progressing toward completion.”

The 2001 Nuclear Posture Review decided that, “the W62 will be retired by the end of Fiscal Year 2009.”  The schedule was later reaffirmed by government officials and budget documents. But the February 2009 NNSA budget for Fiscal Year 2010 did not report a retirement but a reduction in “W62 Stockpile Systems” – meaning the warhead was still in the Department of Defense stockpile, adding that a final annual assessment report and dismantlement activities will be accomplished in FY2010.

Offloading of the W62 from the Minuteman force has been underway for the past several years. First deployed in 1970, the W62 has a yield of 170 kilotons and is the oldest and least safe warhead in the U.S. stockpile. It is being replaced on the Minuteman III by the 310-kiloton W87 warhead previously deployed on the MX/Peacekeeper missile.

written by hkristensen

By Matt Schroeder

Documents provided to the Federation of American Scientists by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York provide additional details about the case against alleged arms trafficker Viktor Bout, but many important questions remain (publicly) unanswered. Below is a brief summary of these documents and their significance. Continue reading »

written by Matt Schroeder \\ tags: Arms Sales, arms trafficking, Colombia, manpads, Russia, small arms

The mysterious DF-41 missile did not appear at the Chinese National Day parade on October 1st, but the Chinese Ministry of National Defense says the DF-31A did. But did it, or was it in fact the DF-31?

.
By Hans M. Kristensen

The military parade at China’s 60th National Day celebration last week was widely rumored to be displaying a new long-range ballistic missile described in the news media as the DF-41. The rumors turned out to be, well, rumors.

Instead the Chinese Ministry of National Defense identified two other missiles: the nuclear DF-31A and the conventional DF-21C, to my knowledge a first.

But was it the DF-31A that rolled across the square or the shorter-range DF-31 already displayed ten years ago at the 1999 parade?

Continue reading »

written by hkristensen