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Issue Briefs
ACA Issue Briefs provide rapid reaction to breaking arms control events and analyze key nuclear/chemical/biological/conventional arms issues. They are available for quotation by the media.
Volume 2, Issue 15, November 8, 2011
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.
Volume 2, Issue 14, November 3, 2011
A front-page story in today’s Washington Post (“Supercomputers Offer Tools for Nuclear Testing--and Solving Nuclear Mysteries”) illustrates how far the U.S. Stockpile Stewardship Program has come since nuclear explosive tests ended in 1992. Scientists at the three U.S. national laboratories now have a deeper understanding of nuclear weapons than ever before.
Volume 2, Issue 13, October 13, 2011
Next month the congressional “super committee” is expected to propose major reductions in federal spending. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Oct. 11 that the Pentagon will reduce projected spending by more than $450 billion over the next ten years as a result of Congress’ debt agreement, and that "every program, every contract and every facility will be scrutinized for savings.”
Volume 2, Issue 12, September 12, 2011
A Reply to Jim Woolsey and Keith Payne
The United States signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) fifteen years ago, and the treaty now has 182 members. Russia and China stopped nuclear explosive testing as a direct result of the CTBT and only one nation (North Korea) has conducted a nuclear test since 1998. The CTBT has halted the regular practice of nuclear explosive testing, reducing the nuclear danger to the United States, its allies, and the world.
Volume 2, Issue 11, August 12, 2011
Each year, thousands of civilians around the world are slaughtered by weapons sold to unscrupulous regimes and transferred to illegal militias and criminals. In addition to the human toll, this cycle of violence undermines economic development and political stability in often fragile regions.
Volume 2, Issue 10, July 12, 2011
In light of justifiable concerns about Iran’s potential as a nuclear weapons state, the country’s latest military exercise, ending last week, provided some grounds for qualified relief. Although the official commentary was predictably defiant in tone, the overall choreography and the weapons actually fired bespoke neither the intent nor a current operational capability for Iran to strike at Israel or Europe. The absence in the exercise of systems likely to serve as nuclear weapons delivery vehicles belies contentions that Tehran is moving rapidly to achieve such a capability.
Volume 2, Issue 9, June 20, 2011
After 1,030 U.S. nuclear test explosions, there is simply no technical or military rationale for the United States to resume nuclear explosive testing. At the same time, it is in the U.S. national security interest to prevent nuclear weapons testing by others.
Assessing the “Military Option” for Countering Iran’s Nuclear Program
Volume 2, Issue 8, June 10, 2011
Neither sanctions, cyber sabotage, nor off-and-on multilateral diplomacy has yet convinced the government of Iran to end its pursuit of activities that could give it the capability to build nuclear weapons some time in the next few years.
Iran continues to produce and stockpile low enriched uranium in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions that have repeatedly called for a suspension of its sensitive nuclear fuel cycle activities while a diplomatic solution is pursued. Despite increasingly tougher international sanctions, Tehran is expanding its nuclear infrastructure without fully complying with its International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards obligations. On June 9, Tehran announced its intent to accelerate its enrichment of uranium at the 20% level, substantially closer to that needed for bomb material.
Volume 2, Issue 7, June 9, 2011
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors' decision today to refer Syria to the UN Security Council for noncompliance with its safeguards obligations was an important step in maintaining the credibility of the agency and the safeguards regime. It was critical that the international community demonstrate that countries could not consistently refuse to cooperate with IAEA investigations with impunity.
Volume 2, Issue 6, May 26, 2011
On December 22, 2010, a bipartisan majority of Senators endorsed modest, verifiable reductions in the deployed strategic nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia. After weeks of debate and careful consideration, thirteen Republicans joined fifty-eight Democrats to approve the resolution of ratification for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.