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Digests and Blog
Shahab 3 MRBM launch during Iranian military exercise on July 3. (Photo credit: ARASH KHAMOOSHI/AFP/GettyImages) By Greg Thielmann Last week the Pentagon delivered to Congress an unclassified report on Iranian military power, containing just enough information to leave its readers yearning for more. Signed on June 29 by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the report also was provided in a classified edition, according to Tony Capaccio, who broke the story for Bloomberg News. Missile Programs The most interesting and potentially newsworthy portion of the report is its description of Iranian…
By Daryl G. Kimball The ongoing conflict in Syria--like recent wars in Sudan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Congo--underscores the urgent necessity of common-sense rules to prevent the international transfer of weapons, particularly when it is determined there is a substantial risk of human rights abuses or if the weapons are going to states under arms embargoes. [vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/44865879 w=500&h=281] An unregulated arms trade increases the availability of weapons in conflict zones. Arms brokers can exploit these conditions to sell weapons to criminals and insurgents, including…
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton (left) and chief Iranian nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili (right) at the talks (AFP/EU Pool, Kirill Kudryavtsev) By Daryl G. Kimball Given the infrequency of serious, direct talks with Tehran on its disputed nuclear program, the failure to achieve a diplomatic breakthrough in Moscow this week is disappointing but not surprising. At the same time, there was no breakdown and there will be follow-on technical talks in Istanbul on July 3. The meetings over the past three months have yielded greater clarity on the positions of the sides and point-by-point…
In retrospect, the Bush administration should not have fielded its national missile defense system. The technology was not ripe; the threat had not materialized; and the opportunity cost was too high. President George W. Bush announcing his intentions to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) on December 13, 2001. By Tom Z. Collina Ten years ago this week, the United States withdrew from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, becoming the first nation since World War II to exit a major arms control agreement. At the time, the George W. Bush administration's decision was…
By Greg Thielmann The German weekly news magazine Der Spiegel carried an eye-catching cover story last week on Israel's secret program to deploy nuclear-tipped cruise missiles on German-built submarines. For more than a decade, outside observers have speculated about whether Israel's nuclear arsenal has included a sea-based component. Spiegel's dramatic account provides a compelling and detailed confirmation of the German Government's intimate involvement in facilitating the development of this capability. Although Israel continues to maintain a policy of "opacity," neither-confirming-nor-…
Hossein MousavianPhoto: Jackie Barrientes/ACA By Kelsey Davenport and Greg Thielmann This week, former Iranian nuclear envoy Hossein Mousavian presented a fresh take on the 20 percent uranium enrichment issue. With the next round of nuclear talks in danger of bogging down over Iran's right to continue enriching uranium, Mousavian's suggestion warrants a closer look as a potential interim compromise for the P5+1 (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany) and Tehran. Speaking on June 4 at the Arms Control Association's annual meeting, Mousavian put forth a…
By Daryl G. Kimball This week in Baghdad, the P5+1 group (the United States, China, France, Germany, Russia, and the U.K.)--led by EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton--met for two days with the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, Saeed Jalili, and his team on Tehran's disputed nuclear program. As the diplomats met inside a guest house in the fortified Green Zone, the world waited anxiously for some tangible progress. While each side presented revised versions of earlier proposals to resolve their respective concerns, the meeting concluded without an agreement on…
The NATO summit in Chicago ended, as expected, with the Alliance and Russia at loggerheads on missile defense. With great fanfare, NATO inaugurated the first phase of its missile interceptor system. In response, Russia skipped the summit, tested a new long-range ballistic missile, and threatened to attack parts of the NATO missile interceptor system to be deployed in Eastern Europe. This is not progress. Yet the United States and Russia must solve the missile defense puzzle if they hope to get on with reducing their nuclear arsenals below the limits set by the 2010 New START Treaty. Both…
By Daryl G. Kimball, Oliver Meier, and Paul Ingram At their May 20-21 summit in Chicago, NATO leaders missed an important opportunity to change the Alliance's outdated nuclear policy and open the way to improving European security by the removal of the remaining 180 U.S. nuclear bombs in Europe, which serve no practical military value for the defense of the Alliance. The Alliance's Deterrence and Defense Posture Review (DDPR) was launched at NATO's Lisbon summit in November 2010 primarily to resolve differences among allies on the future role of nuclear weapons. The result is an indecisive…
(Image Source: Missile Defense Agency - FTM-16 E2a Flight Test) By Tom Z. Collina The House Armed Services Committee's (HASC) May 9 vote to build a third strategic missile interceptor site on the East Coast by the end of 2015 is generating a great deal of controversy, and for good reason. A close look at the HASC proposal shows that it is premature at best. House Republicans, such as Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), are using a forthcoming classified report by the National Research Council (NRC) to justify their proposal for an East Coast site. However, Rep. Turner is cherry-picking the NRC's…