The National Nuclear Security Administration hosted experts on a visit to show how the Nevada site has transitioned from nuclear explosive testing to experiments aimed at ensuring the era of nuclear testing is over.
January/February 2024
By Daryl G. Kimball
(Nye County, Nevada)—When I visited the primary location for U.S. nuclear weapons testing, the Nevada Test Site, in September 1994 for the first time, whether the era of U.S. nuclear testing had come to a permanent end and whether a worldwide testing halt was possible were still open questions.
Two years before that visit, bipartisan majorities in Congress, acting over the objections of the George H.W. Bush administration, approved legislation mandating a nine-month U.S. nuclear test moratorium in response to a Soviet testing moratorium declared in October 1991. In 1993, President Bill Clinton, following intensive interagency consultations, decided that further nuclear testing was not necessary. He would extend the U.S. nuclear test moratorium, establish the Stockpile Stewardship Program to maintain the arsenal without testing, and pursue multilateral negotiations for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) (see box).
Thirty years later, however, on a return visit to the site on November 30 at the invitation of senior leaders of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), I saw ample signs that although the dangerous era of U.S. nuclear weapons testing has ended, the site and the NNSA still have critical roles to play to ensure that nuclear explosive testing is not resumed by the United States or other countries. The visit, which included 12 other nongovernmental experts on arms control and nonproliferation, marked an unusual effort by NNSA leaders to demonstrate transparency about current activities at the site, most of which are now focused on maintaining the U.S. nuclear arsenal without nuclear testing. This new mission is underscored by the site’s new title, the Nevada National Security Site.
The visit’s aim was to provide firsthand information about how the former nuclear explosive test site “has been transformed into an experimental test bed and training ground for nonproliferation and national security missions,” according to the official invitation from Corey Hinderstein, the NNSA deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation. In addition to the Arms Control Association, participants represented the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Federation of American Scientists, Harvard Kennedy School, Middlebury Institute of International Studies, National Academy of Sciences, Nuclear Threat Initiative, Open Nuclear Network, and Ploughshares Fund and included a French physics professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology and a German physicist affiliated with the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg.
The Nevada Test Site in 1994
Carved out of tribal land seized from the Shoshone Nation of Native Americans,1 the Nevada Test Site was the location for 928 of 1,054 U.S. nuclear tests, including 100 atmospheric nuclear test explosions between 1951 and 1962 and another 828 tests performed underground.2 The last underground nuclear test, code-named Divider, was conducted in September 1992.
At the time of my 1994 tour, the Nevada Test Site Control Point facility, which was used to oversee and conduct nuclear tests and was located on the southern side of the site, was quiet but still operational and receiving authorized visitors. The 152-foot-tall test tower that was scheduled to house the next nuclear test explosion, dubbed Icecap, was clearly visible from the paved, two-lane highway that traverses the 1,355-square-mile site from south to north. The tower was still surrounded by mobile trailers stuffed with diagnostic equipment to monitor an underground nuclear blast. Icecap, a joint Los Alamos National Laboratory project with the United Kingdom, also demonstrated how the U.S. test site facilitated UK nuclear weapons development under the terms of the 1958 UK-U.S. agreement on cooperation on the uses of atomic energy for mutual defense purposes.
The Test Ban and Test Site Tensions
Three years after Clinton extended the U.S. test moratorium, diplomats at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva concluded negotiations on the CTBT. To overcome an effort by India to block adoption of the text there, states supporting the treaty instead won approval from the UN General Assembly to open the pact for signature on September 24, 1996. Clinton was the first leader to sign it.
Although not yet formally entered into force because the treaty requires that the United States and eight other specific states ratify it, the CTBT, which now has 187 signatories, has established a de facto halt to nuclear testing. It has become one of the most successful and valuable agreements in the long history of nuclear nonproliferation, arms control, and disarmament. Today, no state is conducting nuclear test explosions. North Korea is the only country to have done so in this century. Without the option to conduct nuclear tests, it is more difficult, although not impossible, to develop, prove, and field new warhead designs.
Yet, as with other nuclear risk reduction agreements, the CTBT is under stress due to inattention and worsening relations between nuclear-armed adversaries, as evidenced by Russia’s recent decision to withdraw its CTBT ratification to “mirror” the U.S. posture vis-à-vis the treaty. As recently as October 10, 2023, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov suggested that the United States might be carrying out preparations at its nuclear test site in Nevada.
Moreover, China, Russia, and the United States are racing to modernize their nuclear arsenals and continuing to engage in weapons-related research activities at their former test sites. As a result, some future subcritical nuclear experiment or chemical high-explosive detonation at one of these sites potentially could be mistaken or alleged to be a CTBT-prohibited supercritical nuclear explosion that produces a self-sustaining chain reaction.3 This might lead these or other countries to consider resuming full-blown nuclear explosive tests for the first time in decades.
Although the International Monitoring System established to verify CTBT compliance is fully operational and far more effective than originally envisioned, very low-yield nuclear test explosions still can be difficult to detect without on-site monitoring equipment or inspections, which will not be in place until the treaty formally enters into force.
During a speech in Vienna in June, NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby said her agency is “open to working with others to develop a regime that would allow reciprocal observation with radiation detection equipment at each other’s subcritical experiments to allow confirmation that the experiment was consistent with the CTBT.”4 Such a dialogue has not begun.
Hruby acknowledged that a primary reason why the NNSA has stepped up efforts to be more transparent about its activities at the Nevada site is to dispel allegations by Russian officials and others that the United States is preparing to resume nuclear explosive testing in violation of the CTBT, which bans all nuclear explosions at any yield.5
The Nevada Site Today
On my November visit to the former test site, little appeared to have changed on the surface. The serene, sagebrush-covered flatlands that stretch for miles are still pockmarked by hundreds of subsidence craters from past underground tests, which produced radioactive contamination that is embedded permanently under the desert floor.
The massive Sedan Crater, the product of a misguided “peaceful nuclear explosions” program from 1961 to 1973, still stands out as a stunning reminder of the destructive power of nuclear weapons and the excesses of the Cold War-era nuclear weapons establishment. The program was intended to explore the use of nuclear bomb explosions to create canals and expand harbors and to stimulate natural gas production.6
The crater, which is 1,280 feet in diameter and 320 feet deep, was produced by a 104-kiloton thermonuclear device detonated 635 feet underground. The explosion displaced and contaminated about 12 million tons of earth and sent radioactive fallout into the atmosphere. For all intents and purposes, much of the site will remain a national nuclear sacrifice zone for many decades to come.
Yet in many other ways, the NNSA transparency tour revealed how the site’s functions and activities have shifted significantly from a once-active nuclear weapons testing zone to a laboratory for experiments designed to safely maintain the U.S. nuclear arsenal without nuclear test explosions and for conducting nonproliferation research. As Marvin Adams, NNSA deputy administrator for defense programs, emphasized in a briefing preceding the visit, “[T]he United States has no technical need to conduct additional nuclear explosive tests and no plans to do so.”
The Icecap test tower, above a shaft drilled to a depth of 1,600 feet, still stands tall in Area 7 of Yucca Flats, but now serves mainly as a monument to the end of U.S. nuclear testing. Stripped of diagnostic cables for the test, it still houses a custom-made, cylindrical instrumentation rack, which would have weighed 350,000 pounds at the beginning of descent and 500,000 pounds by the time it was buried to contain the blast from the nuclear test explosion, which never took place.
Our delegation also explored one of the horizontal nuclear testing tunnels in Rainier Mesa that was excavated in the late 1970s and is known as the P-Tunnel. It was used for six separate nuclear weapons test explosions during the Cold War, but is now utilized for non-nuclear explosive experiments designed to improve capabilities for detecting potential foreign nuclear weapons test detonations. The P-Tunnel, in Area 12, was the site of an October 2023 nonproliferation experiment involving 16 metric tons of chemical high explosives and radiotracers to simulate the blast effects and the movement of gases that would be created by a prohibited nuclear explosion.
According to the NNSA, the experiment, which collected measurements using accelerometers, seismometers, infrasound sensors, electromagnetic sensors, chemical and radiotracer samplers, and meteorological sensors, helped “validate new predictive explosion models and detection algorithms.” Seismic data collected from these experiments are made available to researchers around the globe for analysis via the EarthScope Consortium website.
Although the October 18 verification experiment was designed to improve detection of low-yield nuclear test explosions, recent events suggest that it and similar non-nuclear experiments that produce explosions could create the potential for Russia or another nuclear-armed state to misconstrue or mischaracterize such activities as a CTBT-prohibited nuclear test explosions. In a coincidence of bad timing, the U.S. verification experiment took place the same day that the Russian parliament formalized the country’s decision to withdraw its ratification of the CTBT and as Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Russia will only continue to refrain from nuclear testing if the United States does the same.
Two days after the NNSA experiment, the deputy speaker of Russia’s upper house of parliament called for an international assessment to determine whether the NNSA’s announced experiment was compliant with the CTBT. Ryabkov added that if the experiment was an underground explosion using chemical explosives and “if this information is true—it is presently being verified—this does not involve nuclear weapons testing, and this blast does not contradict either the U.S. moratorium on nuclear tests or the provisions” of the CTBT.
In keeping with the spirit of the treaty, the NNSA notified the Vienna-based Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) in advance about the verification experiment. The organization’s IMS seismic stations detected a very small-scale, human-made explosion at the Nevada site that day. Regardless, these off-site seismic monitors alone cannot distinguish with high confidence between non-nuclear and nuclear explosions at very low yields.
After arriving at the P-Tunnel entrance, our delegation was outfitted with safety gear and escorted into the P-Tunnel for a briefing on the recent nuclear test verification experiment and future NNSA plans for similar experiments. The walking tour deep into the tunnel provided further confirmation that the October 18 verification experiment involved chemical high explosives.
In another sign of the site’s changing mission, our entourage went through Area 3 of Yucca Flats, where the NNSA stores equipment for a presidentially directed program that requires the agency to be ready to resume a nuclear explosive test within 36 months. The large, fenced-in outdoor storage yard was strewn with weather-worn equipment and massive spools of cable and wire and showed no signs of recent or planned activity. The large cranes once used to lower heavy diagnostic nuclear test assemblies into vertical tunnels are no longer at the site. Several experts in the delegation speculated that although an underground demonstration test of the kind reportedly discussed by senior Trump administration officials in 20207 could be conducted in less than 36 months, a fully instrumented, large-scale nuclear test explosion of a new or existing warhead design would take at least three years to tee up and that preparations for such a test would be detected easily by foreign governments and open-source imagery.
The delegation also spent nearly two hours at another key facility, known as U1A and located some 960 feet underground. This site, which was originally intended to be used for nuclear explosive testing, is now called the principal underground lab for subcritical experiments (PULSE).
Since the mid-1990s, the NNSA has conducted 33 subcritical experiments in the underground tunnels at the U1A complex primarily to improve the U.S. understanding of the physics of the aging plutonium in the cores of the Cold War-era nuclear devices that still comprise the U.S. nuclear arsenal. In a briefing, Adams emphasized that subcritical experiments are not “needed” to maintain confidence in the reliability and performance of the warheads in the U.S. nuclear arsenal but provide “important additional data on the plutonium in those warheads to support the continued certification of the reliability and performance well into the future without nuclear explosive testing.”
Originally, subcritical experiments were conducted in single-use alcoves mined into the walls or in vertical boreholes in the floor of the U1A complex. Our group walked over several of the metal seals that today cover the boreholes from some of these experiments. In more recent years, the experiments have been conducted in a robust confinement vessel located in an isolated “zero room,” which prevents the release of radiological material and conserves space in the underground facility.
The delegation also was shown the main subcritical experiments machine now in use, called Cygnus, a pulsed X-ray radiography system designed to take at least two, time-separated radiographs of an explosive-driven experiment involving a small quantity of weapons-grade plutonium under dynamic shock. Each subcritical experiment takes approximately five years to conduct, from the initial planning to execution. Two more subcritical experiments are planned before mid-2024.
Tunnels under construction will house the more powerful Advanced Sources and Detectors Scorpius machine and the Neutron Diagnosed Subcritical experiments machine, dubbed ZEUS (Z-Pinched Experimental Underground System). These new machines, projected to cost more than $2 billion, will enable subcritical experiments that image the weapons-grade nuclear material with higher fidelity during multiple stages of the experiment. They are due to go online by 2030.
Hinderstein and Adams said that the NNSA continues to examine different technical approaches for potential confidence-building measures that could be applied to PULSE experiments and potentially subcritical experiments at other former test sites to provide independent confirmation that the experiments remain subcritical without revealing any classified information. Because subcritical experiments by design do not allow a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction, or criticality, to occur, Adams suggested that the most reliable strategy for independent verification of the absence of a nuclear explosion would involve measuring for the absence of a self-sustained chain reaction. That would be indicated by a very rapid drop-off in the production of neutrons and gamma rays from the experiment.
Some independent experts, including two members of the delegation, said that because the yields of supercritical explosions are typically orders of magnitude larger than those of subcritical experiments, other technical methods also could be used to determine the amount of fission energy released by a contained, very low-yield nuclear experiment months or years later. This could be achieved, they suggested, by measuring the gamma rays from the radioactive decay of fission products and from transmutation products produced by the irradiation by fission neutrons.8
At this juncture, it is not clear whether the United States and the CTBT states-parties can find new ways to address concerns about potential very low-yield nuclear explosions at the former test sites in Russia, China, and the United States before the long-awaited entry into force of the CTBT. What is apparent is that the current NNSA leadership and the Biden administration are determined to show that the 1993 decision to extend the U.S. nuclear test moratorium “was not,” as Hruby said in September 2022, “a mere pause in our nuclear testing efforts but rather the bookend to the nuclear testing age.”9
Decisions Leading to the End of U.S. Nuclear Testing President Bill Clinton’s July 3, 1993, decision to extend the U.S. nuclear test moratorium and seek to negotiate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) halted plans for the next nuclear test at the Nevada Test Site and put a permanent ban on nuclear testing within reach. Although the CTBT had been on the international nonproliferation agenda for decades, Clinton’s decision was precipitated by a crucial chain of events that forced a shift in policymakers' attitudes about nuclear testing. In the Soviet Union, popular sentiment against nuclear testing grew stronger following a 1989 Soviet nuclear test in Kazakhstan that vented radioactivity into the atmosphere. A popular Nevada-Semipalatinsk Movement emerged to oppose further nuclear testing in Kazakhstan and elsewhere. Meetings and demonstrations were organized in many Kazakhstani and Soviet cities, including Moscow. The Soviets were forced to cancel 11 of 18 scheduled tests in 1989, and the Kremlin officially closed the main Soviet test site near Semipalatinsk in eastern Kazakhstan on August 29, 1991. Three months later, on October 5, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev announced a unilateral, one-year testing halt and invited the United States to reciprocate. In response, a bicameral, bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers, including House Majority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.), Representative Mike Kopetski (D-Ore.), Senator Mark Hatfield (R-Ore.), and Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell (D-Maine), introduced legislation calling for a one-year U.S. moratorium. Backed by a strong citizen lobbying campaign, the legislation gained co-sponsors and momentum, especially after France joined Russia in declaring a nuclear test moratorium in April 1992 and the new Russian president, Boris Yeltsin, reiterated support for the testing moratorium. Another key development was the role of Senator Jim Exon (D-Neb.), a member of the Armed Services Committee who toured the Nevada Test Site earlier that year. By the summer, he proposed a compromise bill to establish a nine-month U.S. test moratorium; an end date for all U.S. nuclear tests of September 30, 1996; limits on the purpose and the number of any further tests to no more than 15; and a requirement for a plan to secure a global test ban treaty. By September, the revised test moratorium legislation was approved by solid majorities in the House and Senate as part of a larger appropriations measurea over vigorous objections from President George H.W. Bush, who reluctantly signed it on October 3 and vowed to rescind it the following year. Bush lost the 1992 election to Clinton, who said during the campaign that he would pursue a global test ban treaty. Once inaugurated, Clinton had just a few weeks to decide whether to extend the test moratorium. Initially, the White House considered a plan that would have allowed the resumption of U.S. nuclear testing by late 1993 and nuclear test explosions with yields of less than one kiloton as part of a global test ban regime. When The Washington Post broke the story about the draft plan in April 1993, test ban advocates and congressional leaders were furious.b They argued that congressional intent was to bring about a comprehensive test ban treaty, not one that would allow low-yield test explosions. In the following weeks, as pressure from congressional leaders, newspaper editorial boards, and test ban campaigners to extend the U.S. test moratorium grew, the views within the Clinton administration shifted. Over the objections of the U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Clinton was persuaded by his new energy secretary, Hazel O’Leary; his science adviser, John Gibbons; and the Arms Control Disarmament Agency that further nuclear explosive testing was not necessary to maintain the safety and reliability of the nuclear arsenal and that he could and should extend the U.S. nuclear test moratorium and seek a comprehensive test ban treaty.—DARYL G. KIMBALL a. Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act of 1993, 50 U.S.C. § 2530 (2003). b. R. Jeffrey Smith, “White House Studies Nuclear Test Limits,” The Washington Post, April 30, 1993. |
ENDNOTES
1. Princeton University, “Western Shoshone,” n.d., https://nuclearprinceton.princeton.edu/western-shoshone (accessed December 30, 2023).
2. National Nuclear Security Administration Nevada Field Office, “United States Nuclear Tests, July 1945 Through September 1992,” DOE/NV--209-REV 16, September 2015, https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1351809.
3. Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, U.S. Department of State, “Scope of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty,” n.d., https://2009-2017.state.gov/t/avc/rls/212166.htm (accessed December 30, 2023).
4. National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), “Remarks by NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby at the CTBT: Science and Technology Conference 2023,” June 19, 2023, https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/articles/remarks-nnsa-administrator-jill-hruby-ctbt-science-and-technology-conference-2023.
5. “Managing an Arsenal Without Nuclear Testing: An Interview With Jill Hruby of the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration,” Arms Control Today, December 2023.
6. Nevada National Security Site, “Sedan Crater,” NNSS-SEDN-U-0047-Rev01, May 2022, https://nnss.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/NNSS-SEDN-U-0047-Rev01-1.pdf.
7. John Hudson and Paul Sonne, “Trump Administration Discussed Conducting First U.S. Nuclear Test in Decades,” The Washington Post, May 22, 2020.
8. Julien de Troullioud de Lanversin, Christopher Fichtlscherer, and Frank N. von Hippel, “Reducing Tensions Over Nuclear Testing at Very Low Yield,” Arms Control Today, November 2023.
9. See NNSA, “NNSA Administrator Jill Hruby Commemorates the 30th Anniversary of the Divider Nuclear Explosive Test,” September 23, 2022, https://www.energy.gov/nnsa/articles/nnsa-administrator-jill-hruby-commemorates-30th-anniversary-divider-nuclear-explosive.
Daryl G. Kimball is executive director of the Arms Control Association.
This hasn’t exactly been a year of good news when it comes to our war-torn, beleaguered planet, but on Nov. 15, President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping took one small step back from the precipice.
Inside the Arms Control Association
December 2023
Bright Spots in a Difficult Year
Overall, 2023 was another difficult year for arms control and international security.
In fact, it has been a difficult decade as relations among the states with the world’s largest nuclear arsenals have deteriorated and progress on disarmament has stalled.
The P4+1 and Iran Nuclear Deal Alert
A top U.S. official said that restoring the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran is not a viable option in the current environment, confirming the shift in the Biden administration’s strategy for addressing the risk posed by Iran’s advancing nuclear program.
These nominees and their outstanding efforts during the past year illustrate how many different people can, in a variety of creative and sometimes courageous ways, contribute to a safer world for the generations of today and tomorrow.
For Immediate Release: Dec. 8, 2023
Media Contacts: Daryl G. Kimball, executive director, (202) 463-8270 ext. 107; Tony Fleming, director for communications, (202) 463-8270 ext. 110
(Washington, D.C.)—Since 2007, the independent, nongovernmental Arms Control Association has nominated individuals and institutions that have, in the previous 12 months, advanced effective arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament solutions and raised awareness of the threats and the human impacts posed by mass casualty weapons.
"In a field that is often focused on grave threats and negative developments, our Arms Control Person(s) of the Year contest aims to highlight several positive initiatives—some at the grassroots level, some on the international scale—designed to advance disarmament, nuclear security, and international peace, security, and justice," noted Daryl G. Kimball, executive director.
"These nominees and their outstanding efforts during the past year illustrate how many different people can, in a variety of creative and sometimes courageous ways, contribute to a safer world for the generations of today and tomorrow," he added.
This year's nominees are listed below and a link to the ballot is available at ArmsControl.org/ACPOY.
Voting will take place between Dec. 8, 2023, and Jan. 11, 2024. The results will be announced Jan. 12, 2024. Follow the discussion on social media using the hashtag #ACPOY2023.
A full list of previous winners is available at ArmsControl.org/ACPOY/previous.
The 2023 nominees are:
December 2023 Digital Magazine
The First Committee of the UN General Assembly has called for a comprehensive study of lethal autonomous weapons systems, which some see as a first step to international regulations.
December 2023
By Michael T. Klare
The First Committee of the UN General Assembly, which is responsible for international security and disarmament affairs, has adopted a draft resolution calling for the secretary-general to conduct a comprehensive study of lethal autonomous weapons systems.
The measure was approved on Oct. 12 by an overwhelming 164-5 vote, suggesting that it will be adopted by the full assembly before it adjourns in December. Eight UN member states abstained.
The committee action marked the first time that the UN has addressed the issue of lethal autonomous weapons systems, which are governed by artificial intelligence (AI) rather than human operators.
In conducting the study, the secretary-general is instructed to consult the views of member states and civil society “on ways to address the related challenges and concerns they raise [regarding the use of autonomous weapons] from humanitarian, legal, security, technological and ethical perspectives.”
A final report is to be readied for the 2024 session of the General Assembly, where further action on these systems
is expected.
“The objective is obviously to move forward on regulating autonomous weapons systems,” Alexander Kmentt, director of disarmament, arms control, and nonproliferation in the Austrian Foreign Affairs Ministry, told Arms Control Today in an email. “The resolution makes it clear that the overwhelming majority of states wants to address this issue with urgency.” Austria was one of the lead sponsors of the proposed measure.
In calling for the study, the resolution notes that considerable disquiet has arisen among UN member states over the ethical, legal, and humanitarian implications of deploying machines with the capacity to take human lives. Concerns also have emerged over the “impact of autonomous weapon systems on global security and regional and international stability,” the resolution states. In seeking the views of member states and civil society on the use of such systems, the secretary-general is specifically instructed to solicit feedback on those concerns.
Although the resolution would not impose any specific limitations on the use of these systems, as some governments and civil society organizations have demanded, it demonstrates the desire of many states to create options for more vigorous UN action on the topic.
Until now, international efforts to control the development and deployment of autonomous weapons systems have centered largely around negotiations in Geneva to ban such systems in accordance with the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW). That treaty is designed to prohibit or restrict the use of munitions that cause unnecessary or unjustifiable suffering to combatants or indiscriminately affect civilians.
Civil society organizations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots, have joined with representatives of Austria, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and numerous other governments to press for the adoption of an “additional protocol” under the CCW restricting the use of lethal autonomous weapons systems or banning them altogether. But because decisions at meetings of the treaty’s state-parties are made by consensus, Russian and U.S. opposition to binding measures in this area has stymied these efforts. (See ACT, April 2023.)
In light of this impasse, proponents of a ban or restrictions on these systems have turned to the General Assembly as a potential arena for achieving progress on the issue because decisions there are made by majority vote, not consensus, and support for such measures appears to be strong, given the lopsided vote in favor of the Oct. 12 resolution.
“Unfortunately, some states seem intent on continuing discussions in Geneva but not to allow progress towards negotiations of a legally binding instrument,” Kmentt observed. “Even if we can’t reflect any substantive progress in the discussions in Geneva, UN member states now have this other avenue to clearly reflect and express what they think ought to be done on this extremely crucial issue.”
Kmentt also noted that the resolution calls for a wider discussion of lethal autonomous weapons systems and the risks they pose than has been conducted at the negotiations in Geneva. “Humanity is about to cross a major threshold of profound importance when the decision over life and death is no longer taken by humans but made on the basis of pre-programmed algorithms, [raising] fundamental ethical issues,” he wrote in his email. “The resolution and the mandated report will hopefully broaden the international debate.”
Israel used its Arrow-3 missile defense system to shoot down a ballistic missile, marking the system’s first combat interception.
December 2023
By Mohammadreza Giveh
Israel used its Arrow-3 missile defense system to shoot down a ballistic missile, marking the system’s first combat interception. The ballistic missile was launched at Israel from the direction of the Red Sea on Nov. 9, presumably by Houthi militants in Yemen.
Produced by Israel Aerospace Industries in collaboration with the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the surface-to-surface Arrow missile defense system, considered the top tier of Israel’s multilayered air defenses, is focused on incoming ballistic missiles and consists of the Arrow-2 and the Arrow-3 variants.
The more advanced Arrow-3 is intended to defend against longer-range missile threats and the Arrow-2 to defend against regional short-range or medium-range threats. The Arrow-2 system had its first successful intercept on Oct. 31.
The Nov. 9 interception came as Israel and Hamas militants were waging war in Gaza. It was the Arrow-3’s “first operational interception since its operational deployment in 2017…[and] follows the recent success of the first operational interception” by the Arrow-2 the prior week, according to a joint statement by the Israeli Defense Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).
Breaking Defense quoted the IDF as saying the missile on Nov. 9 came from the Red Sea region, presumably meaning that Houthi militants launched that attack.
The Arrow-2 interception happened outside the atmosphere at an altitude of approximately 60 miles, making it the first instance of space combat, The Jerusalem Post reported.
“Our armed forces launched a large batch of ballistic and winged missiles and a large number of drones at various targets of the Israeli enemy,” a Houthi spokesperson said in claiming responsibility for the Oct. 31 attacks, according to CNN.
Although the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency condemned Iran’s failure to implement its safeguards obligations, the agency’s Board of Governors took no action against Tehran at its November meeting.
December 2023
By Kelsey Davenport
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) strongly condemned Iran’s decision to reject experienced agency inspectors and continued failure to fulfill its safeguards obligations. Despite these concerns, the agency’s Board of Governors took no action against Iran during its quarterly meeting in November.
States are permitted to reject IAEA inspectors, but IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi told the board that Iran’s actions are “unprecedented and contrary to the cooperation that is required” to effectively implement a comprehensive safeguards agreement.
In a Nov. 22 press conference following his statement to the board, Grossi said that the inspectors that Iran de-designated in September include some of the agency’s most experienced experts on uranium enrichment. He said that excluding these inspectors is a “very serious blow” to the agency’s efforts to implement safeguards in Iran. The IAEA and Iran are discussing reinstating the inspectors, Grossi said.
The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Mohammad Eslami, defended Iran’s decision to reject the inspectors. He said in October that the inspectors in question had “politically oriented agendas.”
Grossi also reported that implementation of an agreement reached on March 4 between the agency and Iran on addressing outstanding safeguards issues and voluntarily enhancing monitoring has “come to a standstill.” He said that there has been no progress on additional transparency since May and no further cooperation on the agency’s investigation into previously undeclared nuclear activities. (See ACT, June 2023.)
According to an IAEA report on Nov. 17, Eslami told Grossi during a September meeting not to expect progress on the March 4 agreement until sanctions are lifted. The report did not specify which sanctions, but Eslami likely was referring to U.S. and European sanctions that should have been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
Although Iran is not legally obligated to provide further monitoring, it is required to meet its safeguards obligations, which include addressing IAEA questions about uranium detected at two locations not declared to the agency. (See ACT, July/August 2021.) The undeclared uranium activities took place prior to 2003, according to samples taken by the agency, but the IAEA is still obligated to determine if the material involved is accounted for.
The IAEA also is looking into a discrepancy in uranium accountancy at Iran’s conversion facility. Iran’s initial responses regarding the discrepancy did not address the agency’s questions, but the IAEA noted in a Nov. 17 report that it is reviewing additional information provided by Iran on Nov. 8.
Grossi reminded Iran that all safeguards issues “need to be resolved” for the agency “to be in a position to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear [program] is exclusively peaceful.”
Laura Holgate, U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, told the board on Nov. 22 that Iran’s “inadequate cooperation with the agency overall is unacceptable.” She said that Iran “should take actions that build international confidence, rather than undermine the [a]gency’s essential assurances.”
Holgate said that “Iran argues it is treated unfairly…[but the] reality remains that Iran continues to single itself out through its actions.”
In a Nov. 13 report, the IAEA provided updates on Iran’s uranium-enrichment activities. It said that Iran continued to produce uranium enriched to 60 percent uranium-235 at a reduced rate. The stockpile of uranium enriched to that level grew by nearly seven kilograms, to 128 kilograms. That quantity is about enough material for three nuclear weapons if it were enriched to weapons grade, or 90 percent-enriched U-235.
The IAEA report noted that the number of centrifuges Iran used to enrich uranium remained unchanged. Since the last quarterly report was finalized in August, Iran did install one additional cascade of IR-4 centrifuges at its Natanz uranium-enrichment facility, but did not begin operating it.
There were no changes to the number of centrifuge cascades at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, despite Iran’s commitment in November 2022 to increase the number of cascades from eight to 16.
Holgate said Iran’s nuclear expansion has “no credible peaceful purpose” and called on Tehran to halt production of 60 percent-enriched U-235.
The United States also warned Iran against transferring ballistic missiles to Russia. Tehran has support the Russian invasion of Ukraine by transferring drones to Moscow in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and restricted Iran’s ability to import and export certain missiles, drones, and related technologies. Those UN restrictions expired in October.
The Biden administration expressed concern in a Nov. 21 statement that Iran is considering providing Russia with short-range ballistic missiles for use in Ukraine.
France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have warned Iran that it could face a snapback of UN Security Council sanctions, including the missile restrictions that expired in October, if it provides Russia with ballistic missiles. Iran has threatened to withdraw from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if UN sanctions are reimposed.
A provision in Resolution 2231 allows for the reimposition of UN sanctions on Iran. The reimposition cannot be vetoed.
Top defense officials from 18 countries condemned North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and pledged to respond to any attack that threatens South Korea.
December 2023
By Kelsey Davenport
Top defense officials from 18 countries condemned North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs and pledged to respond jointly to any attack that threatens South Korea’s security.
In a Nov. 14 statement, the states said that they “will be united upon any renewal of hostilities or armed attack on the Korean peninsula” that challenges UN principles and the security of South Korea.
The 18 states were South Korea and 17 of the 22 member states that contribute military personnel to the UN Command, the multilateral forces established by the UN Security Council in 1950 to restore peace on the Korean peninsula. The UN Command continues to monitor the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea and enforce the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War.
South Korea is not a member of the UN Command, and the Nov. 14 meeting in Seoul was the first high-level defense meeting between UN Command members and South Korea. South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol prioritized holding this meeting as part of his strategy to bolster South Korea’s defense against North Korea.
In a speech opening the meeting, South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik said that if “North Korea again commits an illegal invasion of the South,” it would be a “serious act of betrayal” against the United Nations and “inevitably lead to strong punishment” by the UN Command and the international community.
He said that any country that assists North Korea in an attack “will face the same punishment.”
According to the joint statement, the officials also discussed “the utility and necessity of dialogue” for achieving peace on the Korean peninsula and the important role that all UN member states must play in implementing Security Council resolutions targeting North Korea’s illicit nuclear and missile programs.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin participated in the meeting and said in a keynote speech that the UN Command “helps maintain deterrence by assuring that we can sustain our forces” in the event of a conflict.
Austin noted that since the UN Command was created, there have been “major changes in the regional security environment,” including North Korea’s nuclear, missile, and cybercapabilities, and that the “shared commitment to the defense” of South Korea remains vital. He also expressed concern that Russia and China are helping North Korea evade sanctions and expand its military capabilities.
The North Korean Foreign Ministry called for the dissolution of the UN Command and referred to the body as
a “U.S.-led multinational war tool” that endangers the “security in the Asia-Pacific region.”
In a Nov. 13 statement published by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the Foreign Ministry said the meeting proves that the United States plans to “occupy the whole Korean peninsula by force of arms” and is creating the conditions “for igniting the second Korean war.”
Prior to the UN Command meeting, Austin met with Shin to discuss the South Korean-U.S. alliance. The U.S. Defense Department said in a Nov. 13 press release that Austin and Shin agreed on three key priorities for the future: deterring strategic attacks, modernizing South Korean and U.S. capabilities to strengthen the “combined defense architecture of the alliance,” and strengthening security cooperation with partners in the region.
Austin and Shin also updated the 2013 Tailored Deterrence Strategy, which outlines U.S. extended nuclear deterrence commitments to South Korea.
According to Shin, the revisions are necessary to take into account North Korea’s advances over the past decade. He said the document outlines how South Korea will provide conventional assistance to support U.S. nuclear operations and states that the United States will use its full range of conventional and nuclear capabilities to defend Seoul from a nuclear attack by Pyongyang.
In a press conference following the meeting, Austin also said the United States will use its “full range of nuclear, conventional, and missile defense capabilities” to defend South Korea and that the recent deployment of U.S. strategic assets to the region demonstrates the “ironclad” U.S. commitment to South Korea. He said the United States is now “more forward deployed and more capable to respond.”
The North Korean National Defense Ministry said in a Nov. 16 statement in KCNA that the new deterrence strategy is “aimed at a preemptive nuclear strike” on North Korea and accused the United States of aggravating tensions by bringing strategic assets to the region.
Austin and Shin also met virtually with Japanese Defense Minister Mioru Kihara. Shin said the three countries discussed a previous commitment to share information about North Korean missile launches in real time and agreed to activate the mechanism to enable the information sharing in December.
The launch of the mechanism will enhance the “detection and assessment capabilities” of all three countries, according to a South Korean Defense Ministry statement.
Austin’s visit followed a joint U.S.-South Korean military exercise on Oct. 25 aimed at responding to “Hamas-style surprise artillery attacks,” referring to the Oct. 7 terrorist attack where Hamas fighters crossed into Israel and killed an estimated 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
The three-day drill was aimed at detecting a surprise attack and preemptively striking North Korea’s long-range artillery, which can target Seoul.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also traveled to Seoul in November. After meeting South Korean Foreign Minister Park Jin, Blinken said that the military relationship between Moscow and Pyongyang is “growing and dangerous” and that Washington will continue to track and expose military transfers between the two countries. In October, the Biden administration accused North Korea of shipping military equipment and munitions to Russia. (See ACT, November 2023.)
In a Nov. 11 statement in KCNA, the Foreign Affairs Ministry said that the United States should become “accustomed to the new reality” of North Korean-Russian relations, which “will steadily grow stronger.”
The statement said that if the United States is concerned about the relationship, it should “abandon the hostile policy toward the two countries” and “withdraw political provocations, military threats and strategic pressure” directed at North Korea and Russia.
One area where North Korea expressed interest in Russian assistance involves satellite launches. After failed launches in May and August, North Korea attempted to put a military reconnaissance satellite into orbit on Nov. 21 using the Chollima-1 space launch vehicle.
KCNA described the satellite launch as a success in a Nov. 22 statement and said that North Korea now has “eyes overlooking a long distance.”
The South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff confirmed that the satellite entered orbit in a Nov. 22 press release but said it is too soon to say if it is functional.
It is unclear the extent to which Russia assisted North Korea with that launch.
