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Digests and Blog
By Tom Z. Collina If you need proof that outdated, Cold War thinking is blocking smart budget decisions and progress to trim nuclear excess, read on. Open warfare has broken out between the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Navy over how many nuclear-armed submarines the nation needs for the future. As reported at defense.aol.com, OMB is challenging the Navy's claim that it needs 12 new subs to carry more than 1,000 nuclear weapons into the 2080s. Over its 50 year lifetime, a 12 sub fleet is expected to costs about $350 billion, a hefty price tag even in good economic…
De-miners working to eradicate an agricultural area in Lebanon of cluster munitions deployed by Israel in 2006. By Daryl G. Kimball This week, diplomats from 114 countries will gather in Geneva for the Fourth Review Conference of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW). The focus of the November 14-25 meeting will be a controversial draft protocol that would regulate the use of cluster munitions, a weapon already banned by the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM). Cluster munitions are bombs, rockets, and artillery shells that disperse smaller submunitions over broad areas that…
By Daryl G. Kimball, Peter Crail, and Greg Thielmann NOTE: For a more detailed summary and analysis of the IAEA's November 8 report, see www.armscontrol.org The IAEA report and annex released today provides disturbing and "credible" additional details regarding Iranian nuclear warhead development efforts that have allowed Tehran to acquire some of the expertise needed to build nuclear weapons, should it decide to do so. The broad outline in the IAEA's latest report on the military dimensions of Iran's program is not new, but rather, provides greater detail regarding weapons-related activities…
An image taken from inside China's 5,000-kilometer long network of tunnels (Source: The Korea Times) By Kathleen E. Masterson The modernization of China and Russia's nuclear arsenals and delivery systems were the subject of a House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee hearing on Oct. 14. The hearing took place in the context of a recent debate over proposed budget reductions to U.S. nuclear weapons modernization, which strategic forces subcommittee chairman, Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH), denounced in his opening remarks as tantamount to "unilateral disarmament." The purpose of the…
By Xiaodon Liang and Daryl G. Kimball Child soldier in Sierra Leone. Viktor Bout has been suspected of moving arms to West Africa during the 1990s. (Source: Keystone) After two days of deliberations, a New York jury has convicted Russian arms smuggler Viktor Bout on multiple conspiracy charges that could lead to his life imprisonment. Bout was found guilty of conspiring to aid the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a U.S.-designated foreign terrorist group, providing it with surface-to-air missiles, and conspiring to kill U.S. nationals and officials. A Feb. 8 sentencing has been…
Mock Scud-B missiles on display at the Korean War Museum in Seoul. (Source: AP Photos) By Kathleen E. Masterson South Korea and the United States have recently entered working-level talks to discuss extending the range of South Korea's missiles. A decade ago Seoul successfully lobbied Washington for entry into the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), an informal coalition of 34 states committed to limiting the proliferation of ballistic missiles and other unmanned delivery systems capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction. At the time Washington was hesitant to allow the South…
It's not easy being a nuclear superpower at a time of tight budgets. The simple truth is that the United States cannot afford to spend over $400 billion on new strategic weapons over the next few decades. The Nation needs a new plan, and ACA has one. Read on for how the Pentagon can save billions on submarines and bombers while still fielding as many nuclear warheads as planned under New START. The following was originally posted on Defense News on October 24, 2011. U.S. Must Rethink New Subs, Bombers By TOM COLLINA and KELSEY DAVENPORT Twenty years after the break-up of the Soviet Union,…
Iranian Rhesus monkeys in containers of type used for failed space launch. By Greg Thielmann Iran's unsuccessful attempt to launch a Rhesus monkey into space last month merits more mention than it has received in the press thus far, because of what it implies for U.S. nonproliferation objectives. The failure provides two timely reminders: 1) a long-range missile threat from Iran is not imminent; and 2) Iran's quest for space-faring nation status is encumbered by the international sanctions that have been imposed due to Tehran's unwillingness to abide by its safeguards obligations to the…
GOP Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney (Image Source: CBS News) By Greg Thielmann The White Paper on U.S. security strategy released October 7 by "Romney for President, Inc." shows some improvement over the July 2010 articles of GOP presidential candidate Romney regarding New START, which were riddled with factual errors. His public comments were severely criticized then by the leading treaty experts of both parties. Perhaps Romney's recently announced foreign policy team deserves credit for helping the candidate with fact-checking and with establishing the pledge that, as president, he…
By Xiaodon Liang Next week, the world's most notorious arms trafficker, Viktor Bout, will go on trial in New York. Bout's case underscores the urgent need for stronger national and international efforts to curb illicit gun running and conventional arms proliferation. Viktor Bout walks out of a Thai jail August 2009 after an initial ruling barring his extradition to the United States. Source: Narong Sangnak/EPA Bout faces four conspiracy charges stemming from a U.S. Department of Justice Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) sting operation conducted in 2007 and 2008. According to the…