Nextgov/FCW - Authors - Rachel Oswald

Senate Bill Mandates Study of Nuclear-Arms Storage Sites

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Mon, 21 Jul 2014 16:03:38 -0400

Senate appropriators last week approved a bill that would require the Pentagon to study how to modernize facilities storing U.S. nuclear warheads.

Language inserted by Senator Mary Landrieu (D-La.) during a committee mark-up of the fiscal 2015 defense appropriations legislation would give the Air Force three months to develop a comprehensive plan for updating its five warhead storage sites, according to a press release from the lawmaker's office.

The five Air Force sites presently authorized to house nuclear arms are Minot Air Force Base, N.D.; Malmstrom Air Force Base, Mont.; F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo.; Whiteman Air Force Base, Mo.; and Kirtland Air Force Base, N.M., according to Hans Kristensen, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Nuclear Information Project.

Landrieu is particularly focused on seeing the Barksdale Air Force Base's conventional-munitions storage area upgraded to handle nuclear arms, as it once did in the past. Presently, B-52 bombers based at Barksdale, headquarters of Air Force Global Strike Command, must fly to other bases to be loaded with atomic weapons.

Barksdale is second-in-line on the Air Force's list of weapon storage areas slated to receive an upgrade, according to the press release. Landrieu's amendment would require the Air Force to explain its rationale for prioritizing which storage sites get upgrades.

"I'm proud to lead the efforts of our delegation to ensure that the Global Strike Command and Barksdale Air Force Base receive the attention they deserve. Modernizing the nuclear weapons storage area at Barksdale will give our military the broad and deep reach it needs to protect our nation and provide stability for our allies across the world," Landrieu said in released comments.

The defense appropriations bill now awaits consideration by the full Senate.

The Louisiana lawmaker's office told the Shreveport Times it would cost approximately $300 million and take several years to restore Barksdale's nuclear weapons-holding capability.

Landrieu also voiced support for seeing the head of Global Strike Command elevated to a four-star position, as is planned by the Air Force.

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U.S.-China Nuclear Security Exchanges Hampered by Lingering Suspicions

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Fri, 18 Jul 2014 11:59:47 -0400

Years after Washington accused China of nuclear espionage, the subject of resuming laboratory-to-laboratory exchanges among scientists remains a sensitive one.

It has been 15 years since a congressional committee accused China of advancing its nuclear weapons program in the 1980s and 1990s by stealing thermonuclear warhead designs from the United States. And 14 years have passed since the FBI's espionage case against former Los Alamos physicist Wen Ho Lee collapsed and he was released from jail.

For at least one expert, that is enough time for the United States to now consider resuming nuclear laboratory exchanges with China in order to assist the latter country in improving its nuclear security practices. In an online post published last week by the National Interest, Hui Zhang, a physicist and expert on China's nuclear arms policies, argues that bilateral laboratory exchanges conducted from 1995 to 1998 should continue, beginning with "less sensitive activities that are identified as mutually beneficial."

The lab-to-lab program was canceled in the aftermath of allegations made in 1999 by a U.S. House select committee led by then-Representative Christopher Cox (R-Calif.) that China was using the scientific exchanges to pilfer classified nuclear weapons information.

In recent years, reports have surfaced that the Energy Department was contemplating restarting the laboratory contacts as a means of building two-way understanding about each side's nuclear arms policy.

Currently, Washington and the Chinese government are jointly funding the construction of a nuclear-securitytraining center in Beijing that is to focus on combating the illicit trafficking of atomic substances and technologies in the region. Last week, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz discussed the issue of reducing the use of highly enriched uranium in research reactors with the head of China's Atomic Energy Authority.

At the same time, concern has been rising in the United States about cyber espionage committed by Chinese hackers. Last year, a Defense Department advisory board alleged that cyber attackers from China had gained access to the design plans for a number of U.S. ballistic missile defense systems. And a Pentagon report revealed a notable increase in recent years in the amount of military cyber espionage -- understood to originate from the Asia-Pacific region -- on radiation-hardened electronics. So-called "rad-hard" technologies have applications in nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

Beijing officially denies ordering digital intrusions against the networks of U.S. defense companies and government agencies. Chinese officials have argued Washington is being hypocritical in its allegations, given recent revelations by former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden about widespread National Security Agency electronic spying.

Still, Zhang, a senior researcher at Harvard University's Project on Managing the Atom, recommends that nuclear laboratory contacts be restarted. He'd like to see them begin with comprehensive bilateral discussions on best practices for remote monitoring of nuclear warheads, tracking and observation of fissile-material shipments, and safeguarding atomic arsenals. If these exchanges proceed smoothly, he proposes that, "based on the experience from U.S.-Russian cooperation, China and the United States may consider mutual visits and joint work at selected key sites."

For other researchers, such as Michael Auslin of the American Enterprise Institute, reinvigorating nuclear laboratory contacts with China is a dangerous proposition.

"Resuming nuclear laboratory cooperation with China ... is a terrible idea," Auslin, an expert on U.S.-Asia relations, wrote in an email response to questions from Global Security Newswire. "It sounds like it would be a good way to promote trust and best practices, but in reality has the high likelihood of becoming a Trojan Horse whereby the Chinese gain sensitive, if not vital, information about how we protect against threats and evaluate our nuclear programs."

Auslin found particularly objectionable Zhang's recommendation that Chinese specialists be allowed to observe"force-on-force" exercises at U.S. civilian atomic sites that are designed to assess a nuclear power operator's ability to protect sensitive materials from theft or disturbance by potential intruders. To do so "is an invitation to give away our deepest plans for defense of nuclear facilities," he said.

Lora Saalman, an associate professor at the Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies, said she found some of Zhang's recommendations for best-practice exchanges worth exploring. But she argued that, at present, the suggestions appeared to be more beneficial to China than to the United States. To get backing from the U.S. government and policymakers, a stronger case should be made on how resuming the laboratory contacts would be good for the United States, she said in an email.

"To my understanding, there is already some momentum in U.S. official channels to re-start the lab-to-lab exchanges, but there has been longstanding reluctance on the Chinese side," which has previously demanded an official apology for the allegations made in the Cox report, Saalman said.

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State Department Downplays Extremist Seizure of Low-Grade Uranium in Iraq

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Fri, 11 Jul 2014 17:07:27 -0400

The U.S. State Department on Thursday moved to reduce concern about the recent seizure of low-grade nuclear material in Iraq by Islamic extremists.

Baghdad in a July 8 letter notified the United Nations that roughly 88 pounds of uranium compounds were now under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria after the group took control of a university in Mosul, where the nuclear material was used for scientific research. Though the Iraqi government has warned that ISIS militants could try to use the substance in a terrorist act, independent issue specialists have said the uranium is not suitable for use in a nuclear device or even a radiological "dirty bomb."

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki directed reporters to a statement put out by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which said it understood the uranium to be of low grade and to pose no significant proliferation risk.

The Vienna-based nuclear watchdog agency is "the appropriate entity to make any decision about whether there is a risk or concern, but it doesn't seem that is the case at this point in time," Psaki said in a Thursdaybriefing.

Psaki noted that Baghdad had said the uranium was "used for scientific and medical purposes." That fact, she added, was "an important contextual point on our level of concern."

Matthew Bunn, a nuclear weapons specialist at Harvard University, in a Friday web post for National Interest said it was likely that the uranium in question was "natural or depleted uranium -- useless for a terrorist group trying to make a nuclear bomb. It’s of no significant use for a 'dirty bomb' either, as uranium is only very weakly radioactive."

The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria at one point was a recognized al-Qaida franchise. However, ties between the two extremist groups were said to be formally severed earlier this year after al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri grew angry that ISIS militants were fighting with another al-Qaida-affiliated group and indiscriminately killing civilians. Al-Qaida's interest in carrying out a nuclear or radiological attack on a Western target has been well documented.

This article was published in Global Security Newswire, which is produced independently by National Journal Group under contract with the Nuclear Threat Initiative. NTI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan group working to reduce global threats from nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.

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Independent Experts Can Now Get Sharper Satellite Images of North Korea, Iran

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Mon, 16 Jun 2014 17:12:20 -0400

Independent nonproliferation experts can now get images offering much greater detail about Iran's and North Korea's above-ground nuclear facilities.

Last week, the satellite company DigitalGlobe announced the U.S. Commerce Department had approved a long-standing license request to sell its highest-available resolution photographs to commercial clients. Previously, the U.S. government had forbidden the sale of images with a resolution better than 50 centimeters out of concern that doing so would hand an important intelligence tool to adversaries.

"We're very happy" about the decision, said Serena Kelleher-Vergantini, a research analyst with the Institute for Science and International Security, adding that she planned to purchase the new images "as soon as they are available."

One of the best tools independent experts have for assessing the status of nuclear and missile programs in countries like Iran and North Korea is analyzing satellite photographs of their weapon sites. However, the resolution of available photographs to date has meant that image experts frequently must hedge their pronouncements, offering a number of possible scenarios that could explain the meaning behind various blurred objects.

"With closer resolution, you are capable of distinguishing items between each other," Kelleher-Vergantini said, noting that one of her big challenges with the currently available commercial satellite imagery is trying to distinguish vegetation from black vehicles.

Also often difficult to discern are ventilation systems on nuclear plants, said the Washington-based analyst.

With currently available images "you can see buildings and determine their sizes and stuff ... with pretty high certainty," she said in a Friday phone interview. "But anything smaller, we can see cars but you're never capable of determining what type of car it is."

Another outfit that relies heavily on satellite images for its analysis of North Korea's nuclear and missile programs is the expert website 38 North.

Joel Wit, who edits the site, told Global Security Newswire he thinks having access to higher-resolution images will "help improve analysis," but that it would help more if DigitalGlobe were to sell a greater quantity of images taken of key weapon sites. "The [current] coverage is very spotty. Sometimes you can go for weeks without any pictures."

DigitalGlobe sought authorization to sell images with a higher resolution out of a desire to protect the company's market share at a time when foreign-owned companies are preparing to launch their own advanced imaging satellites, according to SpaceFlight Now.

DigitalGlobe presently has four operating satellites; a fifth, WorldView 3, is expected to launch in mid-August. The Colorado-based company's updated license allows it to immediately begin selling images with a resolution of 40 centimeters. Once WorldView 3 begins transmitting, the company will be able to sell photographs with a 31-centimeter resolution, according to Turner Brinton, DigitalGlobe spokesman.

The new license permits the sale of images with a resolution of up to 25 centimeters, but Brinton said in order to provide that kind of detail, the company would need to lower the planned orbiting altitude of the Worldview 3 satellite -- something it does not have any immediate plans to do.

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Expert: Curbing Tech Transfers Isn't Stopping Nuclear Proliferation

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Thu, 29 May 2014 10:38:10 -0400

A new academic paper contends that the international community's focus on "supply-side" technology constraints to stop nuclear proliferation is failing.

In a paper published on Tuesday in International Security, R. Scott Kemp argues that policymakers are overly reliant on limiting international market access to certain sensitive technologies and substances that can be used to produce nuclear fuel. This follows the belief -- which the author thinks is "misguided" -- that with the exception of a few advanced industrial nations, a country's capacity to develop nuclear arms "hinges on its ability" to import the necessary equipment.

Kemp, an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Nuclear Science and Engineering Department, examined 21 centrifuge programs around the world. He found that while access to technology once served as a constraint, it ceased doing so in the 1970s and 1980s. Kemp's historical analysis concludes that 14 countries have been able to acquire gas centrifuges "using only a minimum of technical and human resources" that arguably could be attained by "many or most of today's developing countries."

"That this is possible should not be surprising: the technologies needed to make nuclear weapons have remained static, whereas the indigenous capabilities of states have steadily grown over the last half-century," he wrote.

Kemp, a onetime science adviser on nonproliferation issues at the State Department, argues that the international community should recalibrate how much energy it devotes to "supply-side" measures, in contrast to approaches aimed at dissuading states from pursuing atomic arms in the first place. In an interview with the MIT News office, Kemp said, "We need to get past the idea that we can control the destiny of nations by regulating access to technology. International security must ultimately resort to the difficult business of politics."

At the same time, Kemp does not argue for ending regulations on access to sensitive nuclear technologies altogether. He notes that they are useful in constraining the spread of higher-performance centrifuges, as well as "noncentrifuge modes of nuclear proliferation."

In a limited number of cases -- such as Libya and Iraq -- supply-side constraints can actually bolster internal limitations a government might face in establishing the research infrastructure necessary to support an effective warhead development program, Kemp said. Both countries attempted to pursue nuclear weapon programs decades ago, but they were ultimately unsuccessful.

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Feds Are Sharing Less Weapons of Mass Destruction Info With Lawmakers

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Tue, 22 Apr 2014 16:58:02 -0400

The U.S. government lately is sharing less information with Congress about weapons-of-mass-destruction proliferation concerns, a new Capitol Hill study finds.

"The number of unclassified reports to Congress on WMD-related issues has decreased considerably in recent years," concludes an April 16 report by the Congressional Research Service, the internal research arm of the legislative branch.

Congress requires that the government report on the nuclear and missile programs of Iran, North Korea and Syria. Members of select House and Senate panels -- such as the intelligence and armed-services committees, as well as the appropriations subpanels on defense -- have access to some classified findings on weapons of mass destruction-related topics.

Lawmakers not on those panels can request closed-door briefings from administration officials on specific concerns, according to Steven Aftergood, who directs the Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.

But Congress actually has moved to reduce reporting requirements on unconventional weapon concerns, according to the CRS report. Under the fiscal 2013 Intelligence Authorization Act, a mandate for the intelligence community to provide a yearly unclassified report on the "Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions" was lifted.

The report did not offer specifics on the number of classified and unclassified reports and briefings given to Congress over the years.

"There is an annual threat briefing from the [director of National Intelligence] before the House and Senate intelligence committees, but if you look for other open hearings on the subject, they're not there," Aftergood said. "There used to be more."

The longtime transparency advocate said that in the past, there were also more "questions for the record" -- written inquiries by lawmakers that drew officials' responses -- viewable by the public.

"Those also seem to have vanished," Aftergood said. "So there is just less out there and the public has less information at its disposal."

John Isaacs, executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, said lawmakers' access to official assessments on WMD matters could help them make informed decisions in votes on proliferation-related issues, such as sanctions bills, military- and intelligence-spending proposals, and annual defense-authorization legislation.

Still, Isaacs said providing lawmakers with more information would offer no guarantee they would make reasoned voting decisions.

"Congress should get more facts [about weapons of mass destruction], but that wouldn't necessarily say much," he said. "Members of Congress with or without complete information ... tend to vote on ideology and not facts."

For Aftergood, the issue is also a matter of public awareness about proliferation, an issue he says has "a reduced profile" due to the decrease in unclassified reports and hearings.

The CRS report suggests that Congress "consider requiring additional reporting from the executive branch on WMD proliferation."

"Congress has it in its power to change the situation," Aftergood said. "They can say, as they did in the past, we want an unclassified [hearing and report]. It's a decision that's in their hands."

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Pentagon Plans to Ax Missile-Interceptor Redesign If Sequestration Returns

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Wed, 16 Apr 2014 17:41:27 -0400

The Pentagon would ax a redesign of the front-end kill vehicle atop its strategic missile interceptor if future sequestration cuts remain law.

Sequestration levels were relaxed in defense spending legislation for fiscal 2014 and 2015. However, should these congressionally mandated reductions slated for 2016 and beyond remain in effect, the Defense Department plans to cancel an effort to correct design problems in its key missile-defense interceptor.

The Defense Department revealed this budgeting contingency plan for the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle in a report released on Tuesday, titled "Estimated Impacts of Sequestration-Level Funding." The department also announced it would eliminate a separate program to acquire an additional land-based, long-range radar in the event that spending reductions required under the 2011 Budget Control Act will kick in, come fiscal 2016.

The Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle is mounted atop the Ground Based Interceptor and is designed to destroy incoming ballistic missiles by kinetic force. The three most recent intercept tests that employed the kinetic technology all ended in failure, leading the Pentagon's head of weapons testing to recommend a redesignearlier this year. The long-range interceptor is a critical element of the broader Ground-based Midcourse Defense system, which is considered the principal U.S. defense against a potential strategic missile attack.

The department's Missile Defense Agency announced in March it would seek a redesign of the EKV technology and requested $100 million for the project in fiscal 2015. Total funding for the project from fiscal 2015 through fiscal 2019 was planned to be $738 million. The bulk of project funding was slated to come in fiscal 2016 and 2017.

The Missile Defense Agency last month said it was requesting $80 million for the radar in the upcoming fiscal year, which starts Oct. 1. The sensor is expected to monitor the Pacific Ocean, in line with a directive by Congress under the fiscal 2014 Defense Authorization Act to deploy an additional X-band radar that would focus on any threats coming from North Korea.

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Energy to Spend Millions on Improving Arms Control Verification Methods

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Tue, 01 Apr 2014 15:50:15 -0400

The U.S. Energy Department has awarded a multimillion-dollar research grant to explore new technologies for verifying foreign nonproliferation commitments.

A consortium of universities will use the $25 million grant by the department's National Nuclear Security Administration over the next half-decade to investigate, among other things, geophysical models for aiding in the confirmation of underground atomic explosions. Research will also look into methods for verifying that nations are not illicitly diverting nuclear materials toward weapons programs, according to an NNSA news release.

Another goal of the research initiative is to prepare a new generation of scientists for careers in the nonproliferation field, said NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Anne Harrington.

"Developing the R&D expertise of tomorrow can take years to cultivate," she said in a released statement. "But we are linking national laboratories and academia by funding the next generation of researchers to perform complex research and gain understanding of technical challenges in the areas of major importance for the nuclear nonproliferation mission."

The University of Michigan is leading the group of 13 academic institutions, which will be working with a group of national laboratories on the various projects.

Some researchers will be investigating new technologies aimed at determining whether the quantity and concentration of an atomic-energy site's nuclear materials actually match the figures declared by the facility to the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to a University of Michigan press release. Developing new verification methods could enable IAEA inspectors to no longer carry out the lengthy and expensive process of opening up sites' nuclear-material storage containers.

Other scientists are to work on a project focused on confirming that nations are turning atomic warhead material into civilian reactor fuel, and are not processing other, less sensitive materials into fuel as a means of evading their disarmament commitments.

"In Russia, the Megatons to Megawatts program converted hundreds of metric tons from warheads into nuclear fuel used in the U.S.," Sara Pozzi, a University of Michigan associate professor of nuclear engineering and radiological sciences, said in provided comments. "In these scenarios, again, we need tools to verify that what is being turned into fuel is indeed a nuclear warhead and not some other form of nuclear material."

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Negligence to Blame in All 73 Incidents of Missing Radioactive Materials in 2013, Report Finds

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Fri, 21 Mar 2014 15:37:44 -0400

Negligence was involved in all 73 incidents last year in which radioactive substances reported went missing, concludes a new expert report on nuclear trafficking.

The report finding by the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies could suggest there is much work yet to be done in international efforts to improve security around radiological substances that might be seized by terrorists and used to construct a so-called "dirty bomb." This type of device could combine radiological materials and explosives to contaminate populated areas.

The study, published on Wednesday, examined incidents in which both atomic and non-nuclear radioactive materials went unaccounted for. Of the 153 documented incidents last year, 92 percent involved non-nuclear radioactive substances utilized in the medical and industrial fields, according to a summary of the report's findings.

"Few incidents involved the most dangerous materials, and none were reported to have involved material that was nuclear weapons-usable in form or quantity," the summary states.

To reduce the prospects of future incidents stemming from negligence, the report recommends "improved training in nuclear materials security and enhanced end-user accountability."

Leaders from 53 nations are gathering in The Hague, Netherlands, on Monday and Tuesday to review the current status of global efforts to better lock down vulnerable radioactive and nuclear materials. Some experts have criticized the biennial Nuclear Security Summit process -- which began with President Obama hosting the first such gathering in 2010 -- for focusing too much on atomic substances at the expense radiological sources.

While a nuclear terrorism attack could result in a much greater loss of life than a radiological strike, most analysts agree it would be easier for extremists to acquire the ingredients they need to build a radiological dirty bomb than get a hold of a nuclear weapon.

The Center for Nonproliferation Studies analysis relied on a database it built that collected information drawn from foreign regulatory agencies, specialized Internet search engines and international news reports. It is separate from a database kept by the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency, which also tracks incidents of lost or stolen plutonium, uranium and other radiological sources.

The U.N. nuclear watchdog documented roughly 140 incidents last year of lost or unauthorized utilization of atomic and radioactive substances, Reuters reported on Friday. It is not clear if the IAEA database and the CNS database were using different methodology for collecting or assessing information.

(Image via Panachai Cherdchucheep/Shutterstock.com)

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Energy Dept. Seeks $8.3 Billion for 2015 Nuclear-Arsenal Work

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Wed, 05 Mar 2014 14:18:47 -0500

The Energy Department is seeking $8.3 billion in fiscal 2015 funds for nuclear-arsenal activities -- a proposed $534 million increase over current fiscal-year levels.

The department's total budget proposal for the semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration is $11.7 billion, which includes $1.4 billion for naval atomic propulsion systems, according to a Tuesday agency press release. The next fiscal year starts Oct. 1.

"The [fiscal 2015] request provides the resources we need to modernize and maintain an aging nuclear weapons stockpile and supporting infrastructure," Acting NNSA Administrator Bruce Held said in provided comments.

Some $2.7 billion of this year's budget request would go toward refurbishing aging U.S. warheads, including the B-61 gravity bomb. An additional $1.7 billion would be allocated to the "science, technology and engineering base" conducting warhead life-extension research activities, according to the release.

About $2.4 billion would be dedicated to modernizing the National Nuclear Security Administration's "nuclear security capabilities," including further design work for the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 complex in Tennessee.

The requested $335 million for the uranium-enrichment facility would be an increase over enacted fiscal 2014 levels, which at different times have been said to be $309 million or $326 million, according to the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

At the same time, the Energy Department is mothballing an uncompleted South Carolina mixed-oxide fuel fabrication facility, which was intended to turn excess plutonium into nuclear-reactor material.

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Technology That Undercuts Missile Defense Should Face Tighter Export Controls, Report Says

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Mon, 03 Mar 2014 11:12:24 -0500

A new U.S.-funded report calls for tightening international export controls on the sale of technologies that could be used to skirt ballistic-missile defenses.

The policy paper -- produced by the RAND Corp. think tank for the U.S. Defense Threat Reduction Agency -- recommends the international Missile Technology Control Regime adopt new rules for members on the sale of 19 types of so-called "penetration aids." These are technologies that can be incorporated into an offensive missile and used to "saturate, confuse, evade, or suppress" an attempted missile-defense interception.

The report calls for "the tightest controls" on three specific classes of penetration aid-related technologies: boost-glide vehicles; subsystems of dummy missiles used in intercept tests; and complete, integrated-countermeasure subsystems.

Boost-glide vehicles are designed to use aerodynamic forces to control their flight path after they have been released from their carrier missile or bomber. Because they do not adhere to a ballistic trajectory, these hypersonic gliders are more difficult to monitor and intercept, according to the report.

Meanwhile, the target missiles used in intercept tests employ technology that can be interchangeable with -- or even indistinguishable from -- some kinds of penetration aids. Because of this, nations could use the manufacture of such dummy missiles as a cover for developing antimissile countermeasures.

"It's like nuclear weapons and peaceful nuclear explosives," RAND report co-author Richard Speier told Global Security Newswire in noting the minimal technical differences between dummy ballistic missiles and certain types of penetration aids.

The third category for tightest control involves subsystems that are fully developed and essentially ready for "plug-and-play," Speier said in a Friday phone interview. These integrated countermeasures include decoys designed to mimic the movements of re-entry vehicles; maneuvering re-entry vehicles; and electronic countermeasures that may or may not be connected to the re-entry vehicle.

RAND carried out the DTRA research to help U.S. agencies devise policy ideas for preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction and the ballistic missiles that can deliver them. The report notes the deterrence benefits of missile defense "will be lost or reduced if proliferators can acquire effective countermeasures."

The 34 member countries of the voluntary Missile Technology Control Regime agree to follow the same export-control rules on a list of mutually agreed-upon items that are divided into Category 1 and Category 2 technologies. Regime members agree that more-sensitive Category 1 items will be subjected to a presumption of denial, while Category 2 items can be considered for export on a case-by-case basis.

"There may be a reluctance to widen the strict restrictions of Category 1 to a large number of additional items," the paper states. "For that reason, it may be better to place certain items under the case-by-case review provisions of Category 2."

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Nuclear Agency Faulted in Nonproliferation Cost Overruns

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Thu, 20 Feb 2014 16:34:19 -0500

A U.S. Congress watchdog is faulting the Energy Department for not having a clear idea why costs have risen so much on a key nonproliferation program.

The department's semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration forecasts a roughly $3 billion increase in the cost to its efforts to dispose of surplus weapons-grade plutonium by transforming it into atomic reactor fuel known as mixed oxide. Congress' Government Accountability Office in a new report released on Thursday said the agency had erred by not analyzing the "root causes" behind the cost increase.

The congressional auditors noted the nuclear weapons agency historically has "difficulty in completing projects within cost and schedule," which has contributed to a number of these initiatives facing "high risk of fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement."

The Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility under construction at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina has seen its projected price tag rise from $4.9 billion to $7.7 billion. Several government officials and industry insiders recently told the Center for Public Integrity the final cost of building and operating the plant could reach as high as $30 billion. That projected expense reportedly has led the Obama administration to consider looking for another option for disposing of the 34 tons of plutonium that the MOX facility was intended to handle.

One major reason for the rising project costs is that the Energy Department in 2007 approved cost and schedule estimates when the overall designs were only 58 percent complete, according to the GAO report. Because of this early move, agency officials are now reporting that the expense of key components for the plant are on average 60 percent higher than was earlier estimated.

The report concluded there was not a clear understanding as to why the Energy Department approved the cost estimates when the design work was far from being complete. Having that knowledge could help NNSA officials in the future avoiding repeating the mistakes made with the mixed-oxide program, the auditors said.

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New Radar Sought by Congress Likely Would Be Fielded in Alaska, Sources Say

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Mon, 16 Dec 2013 10:37:21 -0500

A powerful new radar that Congress wants the U.S. military to acquire would likely be fielded in Alaska, according to informed sources.

The compromise defense authorization bill worked out by House and Senate negotiators includes a requirement that the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency deploy another X-band radar system aimed at helping defend the United States from any potential intercontinental ballistic missile attack by North Korea.

The Defense Department policy-setting legislation, which the House passed on Thursday and now awaits a final vote by the Senate, would authorize $30 million in new monies to initiate deployment "at a location optimized to support the defense of the United States homeland," reads the draft text.

The likeliest place to host the radar is somewhere on the West Coast, say multiple Capitol Hill sources and others.

"My understanding is they are going to put a down-payment on building a long-range radar that would most likely be based near the Clear Air [Station] to cover a good part of the globe, including all the way down to Hawaii," said Riki Ellison, chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance.

The Air Force base is located some 80 miles southwest of Fairbanks, Alaska. Its mission for decades has been to monitor for possible long-range missiles fired at the United States.

"There's no other place to put it," said a Senate Republican aide. This source and others provided comment anonymously for this article because they were not authorized to speak on the record.

The United States presently deploys an AN/TPY-2 radar, using X-band technology, at the Shariki military base in northern Japan that monitors for signs of possible ballistic missiles fired by North Korea. A second early-warning AN/TPY-2 unit is slated for fielding by fall 2014 at the Kyogamisaki air base on Japan's western coast.

However, that type of radar is not powerful enough to provide the kind of detailed tracking and targeting information needed to initiate a missile-intercept response to protect the homeland, according to Ellison.

The envisioned radar would be "much more powerful than the AN/TPY-2" and could "be used both as a targeting and early-warning radar," he said.

The military also currently fields the Sea-Based X-band Radar 1 -- a powerful floating radar that can detect small objects in outer space as far away as 2,500 miles and track ballistic missiles throughout the entire course of their flight. The radar was repositioned this past spring to better monitor for North Korea missile attacks during a period of heightened tensions with the Kim Jong Un regime.

However, the sea-based radar is not designed to provide "persistent" tracking information of the kind wanted for around-the-clock awareness of North Korea, according to Ellison. Additionally, the floating radar in future years may need to be relocated to the Atlantic Ocean if the Iranian missile threat becomes more pressing, he said.

The GOP aide said an additional X-band radar is something the Missile Defense Agency wants in order to improve the effectiveness of the country's Ground-based Midcourse Defense system.

The Missile Defense Agency declined requests to comment on the matter, including on whether it assesses a military requirement for having yet another radar monitoring North Korea.

The GMD system presently is composed of 30 long-range interceptors located in silos in California and Alaska, along with supporting X-band radar technology. It is the military's primary defense against a possible North Korean ICBM attack on the continental United States.

A 2012 National Research Council report concluded the GMD system was "fragile" and noted particular concerns with its ability to seamlessly monitor and track ballistic missiles and their warheads during all phases of flight.

The decision this past spring to eliminate the Precision Tracking Space System -- an MDA program that would have placed satellites in outer space to provide near real-time tracking data on launched ballistic missiles -- meant it became all the more urgent to do something that would fill the void in GMD system tracking abilities, Ellison said.

Improving the GMD system's radar capabilities is "equally as important as modernizing the Ground-based Interceptor," Ellison said.

It could take roughly three years for the new radar to be operationalized, according to Ellison and the GOP staffer.

The bicameral defense authorization bill also includes a provision requiring the Missile Defense Agency to be ready by 2019 to deploy on the Eastern seaboard "sensor" capabilities that would monitor for possible ICBM attacks from Iran. That timeline would be sped up should Tehran successfully flight-test a long-range ballistic missile before 2019.

The GOP aide said the Republican side of Congress wanted to have sensor capabilities readied on a shorter time scale to track Iranian threats. However, because the North Korean missile danger is seen as "more imminent," the decision reached by Senate and House Armed Services committee negotiators was to prioritize deploying a radar to monitor the North, the staffer said.

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Chemical Arms in Panama Won't Be Sent to U.S. for Disposal, Pentagon Says

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Tue, 03 Dec 2013 16:37:35 -0500

The Defense Department on Tuesday said there are no plans to return aging U.S. chemical weapons left behind in Panama to the United States for destruction, seemingly contradicting a recent statement on the matter made by a top Panamanian official.

Pentagon spokeswoman Jennifer Elzea in released comments said the department would be dispatching a team of chemical weapons experts to the Central American nation "to assess the munitions identified by the Panamanians for appropriate future destruction options," which could include on-site incineration or chemical neutralization.

Panamanian Foreign Minister Fernando Núñez Fábrega last month reportedly announced an agreement had been reached with Washington for U.S. defense specialists to retrieve the handful of degrading toxin-filled munitions that were abandoned by the U.S. Army on San Jose Island after its chemical testing program there ended in 1947.

Núñez Fábrega was reported to have said in a statement posted online Nov. 21 that the intention was for the weapons to be transported to "the New Mexico desert, where they will be buried."

However, Elzea said the notion of sending the chemical arms back to the United States is not on the table.

"Relocation of the munitions from Panama to the Unites States is not an option being considered by the United States government, nor is it an option being discussed between the two countries," she said.

The Pentagon statement did not cite a time frame for when the experts would be going to the country.

The method of weapons destruction would depend on the type, number and condition of the munitions, Elzea said.

Panama City has pushed for years for Washington to dispose of the chemical weapons, arguing that San Jose Island's touristic value cannot be realized as long as the corroding munitions are there, posing a potential threat to public health.

The munitions on the island are thought to contain mustard agent and phosgene.

(Image via The Visual Explorer/Shutterstock.com)

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Senator Seeks to Prevent NATO Use of Chinese Technology

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Wed, 20 Nov 2013 15:20:47 -0500

A measure proposed on Tuesday in the U.S. Senate would prohibit Washington from financially supporting the integration of a Chinese missile system with U.S. technology that is to play an essential role in an evolving NATO defensive shield.

The amendment to the Senate version of the fiscal 2014 defense authorization bill, offered by Senator Mark Kirk (R-Ill.), pertains to a possible Turkish effort to buy an antimissile system from Beijing.

If adopted by the Senate and ultimately moved into law, the provision would prohibit any appropriated monies from being spent "to integrate missile defense systems of the People's Republic of China into United States missile defense systems."

The amendment also offers a separate "sense of Congress" that Chinese antimissile systems "should not be integrated" with the NATO ballistic-missile shield.

It is not known when the amendment might come up for consideration by the Senate, which is currently debating the authorization bill. Once the upper chamber passes the defense legislation, it will have to be meshed in conference committee with a House version -- passed by that chamber in June -- before being sent to the White House for the president's signature.

Kirk and a number of other Republican senators have raised concerns about a possible decision by NATO ally Turkey to purchase the FD-2000 antimissile system produced by a Chinese government-controlled company that is under U.S. sanctions for violating the 2006 Iran, North Korea and Syria Nonproliferation Act.

A Pentagon spokesman on Wednesday said the Defense Department would not comment on pending legislation.

The Obama administration and NATO leaders have publicized their concerns that the Chinese technology will not be compatible with other alliance member states' missile defense technology. Those systems are intended to be integrated with each other, in accordance with a plan to establish a comprehensive anti-ballistic missile capability for Europe.

There are also worries that Chinese developers might install digital backdoors into the FD-2000 so they can gain access to classified NATO data and military plans.

The United States is supplying the bulk of the interceptors, radars and other technology planned for use in the NATO missile shield. For that reason, it is unclear whether Chinese technology could be integrated into the alliance's framework if it is prohibited by the U.S. government from being connected to U.S. defensive systems.

Kirk and a number of other GOP senators in a letter sent last month to the Pentagon and the State Department urged the Obama administration to "ensure NATO will never allow such a system to be integrated into NATO's security architecture."

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Tuesday told reporters that Secretary of State John Kerry in a Monday meeting with his visiting Turkish counterpart, Ahmet Davutoglu, "reiterated our concerns and the importance of procuring a NATO interoperable system."

In response to the uproar, the Turkish government has said it has not made a final decision on acquiring the FD-2000. Ankara has invited European and American defense contractors to sweeten their proposals for providing Turkey with a national missile-defense capability that could be integrated into the NATO shield.

An unidentified senior U.S. diplomat in the Turkish capital told Defense News this week that any Turkish companies that become subcontractors to the China Precision Machinery Import and Export Corp. in building the FD-2000 could be penalized by the U.S. government for working with the blacklisted organization.

"Turkish entities to be involved in this program in partnership with [the Chinese firm] CPMIEC would be denied access to any use of U.S. technology or equipment in relation to this program," the envoy reportedly said.

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Q&A: Author Says Pentagon Underreported Nuclear-Weapon Accidents

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Mon, 23 Sep 2013 17:40:33 -0400

The U.S. government’s desire to maintain tight secrecy around the U.S. nuclear arsenal during the Cold War often left the very scientists and engineers charged with developing mechanisms for preventing atomic mishaps in the dark about hundreds of accidents and near-misses.

That revelation came through extensive investigative reporting by Eric Schlosser, author of the newly published Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Incident, and the Illusion of Safety.

Schlosser, whose previous probes yielded the bestsellers Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness, told Global Security Newswire he was inspired to investigate U.S. nuclear weapon accidents after hearing about a close-call that occurred in September 1980. At the Little Rock Air Force Base in Arkansas -- not far from the town of Damascus -- a Titan 2 intercontinental-ballistic missile exploded and sent its warhead flying into a ditch 200 yards away.

The book, released last week by Penguin Press, includes new details from Schlosser's interviews with former U.S. military officials and nuclear laboratory workers, as well from information gleaned from documents he received through Freedom of Information Act requests.

One noteworthy takeaway learned from a declassified accident report is that from the summer of 1957 to the spring of 1967 there were hundreds of incidents involving U.S. nuclear weapons that were considered too minor by the Pentagon to bother with alerting weapon safety officials at Sandia National Laboratories. A number of those incidents, as detailed by Schlosser, sound anything but minor: “A Genie antiaircraft missile released from a fighter plane by mistake and dropped onto a weapon trailer; a Boar missile crushed by the elevator of an aircraft carrier; a Mark 49 warhead blown off a Jupiter missile when explosive bolts detonated due to corrosion; smoke pouring from a W-31 warhead atop a Nike missile after a short circuit; the retrorockets of a Thor missile suddenly firing at a launch site in Great Britain.”

A 1970 report ordered by Sandia “found that at least 1,200 nuclear weapons had been involved in “significant” incidents and accidents between 1950 and March 1968,” according to Schlosser. By contrast, the Pentagon cites only 32 cases of so-called “Broken Arrows” in its official list of major nuclear accidents since 1950 that resulted in explosion, fire, radioactivity release, loss, theft, accidental launch or actual detonation.

Though most of the accidents detailed in Command and Control happened decades ago, Schlosser noted that the U.S. Air Force more recently has had a string of embarrassing security and safety incidents related to its management of the country’s ICBMs and nuclear bombers.

Now that the Cold War is over, nuclear arms no longer generate the major mainstream news stories they once did, which makes Schlosser concerned there is not enough public awareness about the danger such weapons still pose.

“The world needs to remember that these things are out there, and I hope people will remember it without there having to be a disaster to serve as a reminder,” Schlosser told GSN. “I’m not apocalyptic. I’m not saying that doom is inevitable at all but it’s amazing how close we’ve come and there’s no reason to believe that our luck will last.”

Edited excerpts of the Sept. 16 interview are below:

GSN: You report that historically the Unites States has kept certain kinds of nuclear-weapons safety problems and incidents tightly compartmentalized, for security reasons. This limited how much information was available to the engineers and scientists responsible for nuclear-weapons safety. Why do you think former officials made that decision? And do you think weapon designers today have better access to that kind of safety incidents information?

Schlosser: There was compartmentalized secrecy throughout the national security state during the Cold War, and that was believed to be a way to keep the Soviets from getting our secrets. It proved to be very effective at keeping one part of the national-security system unaware of what the other part was doing. Weapons designers didn’t always know how the military organizations that had the weapons were using them, and the military organizations didn’t always know some of the safety issues of the weapons. One example would be the weapons designers at the labs were unaware that nuclear weapons in the 1950s were being taken out of their bunkers and put on airplanes for ground alerts. They were never consulted about that. The safety characteristics of a weapon when it’s in a bunker are very different from the safety characteristics of a weapon when it’s on an airplane and being driven down the runway.

As for today, I would hope that things are better but again I’m sure that these details are secret and I can’t really tell you. …

Certainly with the documents that I got from the Freedom of Information Act, again and again it was clear that things are being classified not to protect the national security, but to protect bureaucracies from embarrassment, especially when a lot of the incidents and the weapons that I was seeking information on were half-a-century, 60-years-old, weapons that are no longer in existence, designed for an adversary that’s no longer in existence. …

GSN: What enabled the kind of reporting that you did for this book? Could this kind of book have been written earlier, say during the Cold War?

Schlosser: It was a combination of … the declassification of certain documents after the Soviet Union collapsed, the willingness of people now, many years later, to talk bluntly about these issues. And I think in many ways the digital revolution helped considerably. … I went through tens of thousands of pages [of documents] if not more than that and it was the ability to search digitized documents that greatly facilitated my ability to find very specific information. …

GSN: Your past books have dealt with very different subject matters: fast food and America’s so-called black market. What inspired you to write a book about nuclear weapons?

Schlosser: I spent some time with the Air Force more than a decade ago and I was interested in the future of warfare in space. So I was spending time with a lot of people at the Air Force Space Command....One of them told me the story of the accident at Damascus. … I just couldn’t get that story out of my head. … So I decided to investigate that story and I was thinking about just telling the narrative about what happened at Damascus and the more I learned the more I was amazed and the book just got bigger and bigger. The other important narrative in it for me is the story of [U.S. nuclear weapons engineer] Robert Peurifoy and the effort to add modern safety mechanisms to our weapons. It became a dual narrative, and then it became a triple narrative, it became a bigger and bigger book as I found out more and more stuff that I thought was unbelievable.

GSN: Do you think congressional committees are given enough information about these nuclear mishaps and near-misses, so that lawmakers can exercise proper oversight of the U.S. arsenal and related policy?

Schlosser: Speaking historically, the safety problems with our nuclear weapons were kept from the Congress for years. I think the dissolution of the [Joint Committee on Atomic Energy in1977] really reduced government oversight in many ways and congressional oversight of nuclear weapons.

[Then-Sandia National Laboratories Vice President and nuclear weapons safety advocate] Bob Peurifoy was just fortunate [in April 1989] that [former] Senator John Glenn happened to be visiting Sandia and he was able to talk to him about the problems with our arsenal. … That’s what really got some movement … on the nuclear weapons safety issue. But it took sort of the serendipitous presence of a U.S. senator at Sandia for that to happen. Now, engineers at Sandia, one could argue, could have become whistleblowers. They could have gone to the New York Times or theWashington Post or something like that. But there should be things in place within the system that allow for problems to be brought to light.

It’s extraordinary to me that six years after the incident in Minot [Air Force Base in North Dakota] in which half a dozen thermonuclear weapons were misplaced that they are still having these sort[s] of safety questions and problems. I think [former] Secretary of Defense [Robert] Gates did a great job in reading them the riot act [in 2008], but clearly the message wasn’t received.

GSN: Why do you think the message hasn’t been received?

Schlosser: I think there was a cultural shift in the Air Force through the 1950s, into the early 1960s. The Strategic Air Command was in some ways the most- elite unit … in the Air Force. … After the Vietnam War into the ‘70s and ‘80s, there was a cultural shift in the Air Force, [and] a much greater … emphasis [was placed] on tactical air power. The officers who came to run the Air Force were, quote, “fighter generals” -- not “bomber generals.” Once the Cold War ended, the nuclear mission in many ways seemed like a career dead-end. ...

The book goes through all these close calls, crossed wires, almost accidental detonations. But what happened at Minot in 2007 was extraordinary. ... It was multiple levels of failure. It couldn’t be blamed on the ground crew alone. And it’s that sort of system of oversight that needs really close scrutiny. And the blame and responsibility is at the top, not at the bottom. Again and again inCommand and Control, I write about how it’s the technician using the wrong tool, it’s the guy in the silo who makes a mistake who’s severely punished while the leadership isn’t. And that’s why I thought again what Gates did was terrific. I’m not criticizing the current head of STRATCOM or the current head of Global Strike Command. But this is a cultural issue, this is a systems issue and I think they really need to get on top of it.

GSN: President Barack Obama’s administration has made improving global-nuclear security one of its core national-security priorities. But what about U.S. nuclear security, considering we have some of the most powerful weapons?

Schlosser: I’ll give you a mixed answer. On the one hand, I think that we probably do the best job, have the most-sophisticated safety technology, have the most-sophisticated command-and-control technology -- and yet look at the problems that we’ve had for the last 70 years. And that should give pause to any other nation that thinks about having nuclear weapons. Whatever mistakes we’ve made, the places that I feel the greatest concern about isn’t necessarily the United States, it’sPakistan, India, Russia. … Who knows what has happened there or what is happening there. … [Russia] had a submarine fire a couple of years ago.

GSN: Since the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945, there have been no further nuclear warhead detonations. Should this be attributed to cooler heads prevailing and the existence of protocols intended to prevent the unintended launch of a nuclear weapon? Or is it just sheer dumb luck?

Schlosser: It’s not sheer dumb luck. Incredibly elaborate systems were created. The most-advanced technology was applied to solving these problems and great personal heroism was displayed in trying to prevent accidental detonations. If you look at the fact that we’ve built almost 70,000 nuclear weapons and none of them have detonated accidentally and no city has been destroyed by [an atomic warhead] since Nagasaki, that’s an incredible record of success. But in this business, there’s absolutely no margin for error. …Anything less than perfect achievement in this field unfortunately is unacceptable.

I have enormous respect for the people at the weapons laboratories, at the Air Force, in the Navy, who’ve devoted their careers to command-and-control, to nuclear-weapons safety. But the problem isn’t in them. The problem is in us and the fact that anything that is man-made is going to be imperfect. Every single machine that we’ve ever invented has failed at one point or another.

GSN: You detail a number of “Broken Arrows” that came close to resulting in disasters. How aware are lawmakers -- particularly those who advocate maintaining sizable nuclear arsenals to guarantee national security -- of this history of near-misses?

Schlosser: I have no idea. I hope they’ll read the book. They don’t have [to] agree with it, but I hope that they or their staff members will read it. I’d be glad to send them a copy.

It’s interesting that one of the [former] Bush administration’s arguments on behalf of the Reliable Replacement Warhead was that they could add the most modern safety-and-use control devices to it. So, advocates of building new nuclear weapons and more nuclear weapons … can also be advocates of nuclear-weapons safety. The two aren’t necessarily contradictory, although I wonder sometimes if arguments on behalf of safety are just a pretext on behalf of making new weapons.

My own prescription is that the fewer weapons you have, the less likely you are to have a problem with them, just statistically. …

GSN: What from your reporting do you think was the closest the world has ever come to the accidental detonation of a nuclear warhead?

Schlosser: If I were only able to pick one, it would be the crash in 1961 of the B-52 in North Carolina where the weapon went through all of its [arming mechanisms] except the X-unit [ -- the mechanism that triggers implosion-type bombs --] didn’t charge because the arm-safe switch in the cockpit had prevented it from charging but that switch was later found to have defects in it occasionally and stray electricity could have circumvented that switch and resulted in a detonation of a bomb. …

We’ve had many more close calls than the Pentagon has admitted in its list of “Broken Arrows.”

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First U.S. patriot battery goes live in Turkey

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 09:00:00 -0500

NATO on Tuesday announced that the first of two Patriot antimissile units deployed by the United States is now live in Turkey, where it is participating in a broader alliance effort to safeguard the nation from feared missile strikes by neighboring Syria.

U.S. Patriot batteries are deployed in Gaziantep in southeast Turkey. Four other Patriot batteries supplied by the Netherlands and Germany are already operating under NATO command and control in the nation's southwest.

"Today the U.S. has joined fellow allies Germany and the Netherlands in helping to protect the people of Turkey in this region," Lt. Col. Dariusz Kacperczyk, spokesman of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, said in a press release. "This is what NATO allies do for each other."

The U.S.-manufactured Patriot system has the ability to counter tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and enemy fighter planes at distances of up to 50 miles.

Gaziantep is about 60 miles from the Syrian city of Aleppo, where fighting between rebels and forces loyal to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has been particularly brutal. The United Nations in January estimated that in excess of 60,000 people have been killed in the country's protracted civil war.

"This defensive effort by our NATO allies came at the request of our government and is a clear sign of alliance solidarity," Turkish General Staff Maj. Cengiz Alabacak said in provided remarks.

Ankara requested the air-defense aid last year after Syrian shells fell into its territory, causing several deaths. Syria is also believed to have fired at least 20 Scud-type missiles at opposition forces, and to possibly have readied chemical weapons for use.

"Earlier this morning we activated the first of our two Patriot batteries to help protect the more than one and a half million people living in and around Gaziantep city," 10th U.S. Army Air and Missile Defense Command Col. Steve Richmond said in released comments. The sixth and final Patriot unit is expected to begin operating no later than the middle of February, he said.

The entire NATO Patriot operation in Turkey is calculated to provide protection to roughly 3.5 million people.

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North Korea's nuclear test intentions are a puzzle

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Wed, 06 Feb 2013 07:00:00 -0500

While there are plenty of recent satellite imagesof North Korea’s nuclear testing grounds to pore over, extrapolating just exactly what the reclusive nation has planned for its next underground blast is a challenging task.

Among the questions surrounding the anticipated trial are: when will it happen, exactly where, how many devices will be involved and what type of fissile fuel will be involved?

The reclusive regime closely guards all aspects of its nuclear weapons program, making it difficult for interested observers to obtain precise information about the widely anticipated event.

David Albright, who heads the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, has been analyzing photographs taken as recently as Jan. 28 by commercial space imagery company DigitalGlobe of the North’s Punggye-ri site.

“We can’t tell if the test is imminent or not,” Albright said in a Monday interview, summarizing the results of his most recent assessment with ISIS image analyst Robert Avagyan. “North Korea likes to hide what it does. Who knows what their schedule is. I would guess it could be from today to a couple of weeks.”

At the nuclear trial site in the country’s northeast, activity has been detected at the “west portal” used in the 2009 nuclear blast and the more recently excavated “south portal” that is viewed as the likeliest location for the anticipated blast -- assuming the North uses only one tunnel -- given placement of nearby facilities thought to house sensitive monitoring instruments.

The existence of two tunnels that have apparently both been primed for a nuclear test has government officials and independent experts wondering if North Korea intends to detonate multiple devices or if it is all an elaborate feint.

"There is a chance that the southern tunnel is a decoy, but we aren't ruling out that the regime will conduct nuclear tests simultaneously at both tunnels," an anonymous South Korean military source told the Chosun Ilbo newspaper earlier this week.

Albright sees “no evidence to suggest one [tunnel] is a decoy,” though he added that “people are free to speculate” on what they want.

North Korea has a history of attempting to confuse international observers with its weapon tests. One day prior to the country’s December firing of a long-range rocket, satellite imagesseemed to show the three-stage Unha 3 rocket had been removed from its launchpad. This led some foreign analysts to conjecture that there was a problem with the rocket and that the space launch would be delayed. It turned out that, however, that the North had apparently thrown a camouflage net over the rocket, possibly with the aim of catching observers off guard with its launch, which was widely seen as another test of ballistic missile technology.

“Security appears particularly strict around the west portal, potentially indicating that the test device is or will be housed there until emplacement into the south tunnel,” prominent U.S. nuclear weapons expert Siegfried Hecker wrote in a lengthy analysis published Monday inForeign Policy.

“We think it’s unlikely they’d use the west portal but then we decided we don’t have enough evidence to say ‘no it can’t be used,’” Albright said in describing his research with Avagyan.

A likely sign that a nuclear blast is about to take place would be the evacuation of personnel and vehicles from Punggye-ri. Another indicator would be workers plugging the entrance to the testing tunnel or tunnels with a sealant mixture -- possibly one made of sand and cement, according to Albright. “That barrier will take some number of hours to dry.”

Being able to catch that happening will not necessarily be easy.

For analysts relying on the images captured by orbiting satellites, important objects, such as the entrance to a test tunnel, can be difficult to clearly discern depending on the time of day when the photograph was taken and whether it was in the shade, Albright said.

Pyongyang has warned that the coming test will be of a “higher level” than its previous two trials in 2006 and 2009. Guessing exactly what “higher level” portends has led nuclear specialists to throw out a number of possibilities, including that the event could involve a thermonuclear, or hydrogen, bomb -- a much more advanced technology than atomic weapons powered by fission.

Nonproliferation analyst Jeffrey Lewis explored this possibility in an Arms Control Wonk blog post last week. While issue experts generally do not believe North Korea’s nuclear weapons development is yet sophisticated enough to produce a thermonuclear explosion, Lewis said “we should at least consider the possibility that … the North Koreans may burn a fusion fuel like Lithium 6.”

He further noted that China detonated a thermonuclear device in its third nuclear trial.

Albright said he does not believe the North has yet acquired the capability to develop hydrogen bombs: “I doubt if they could detonate an H-bomb and it’s very unclear that they could detonate a boosted-fission weapon,” which is less advanced than a thermonuclear bomb.

Many nuclear analysts believe that the higher level test cited by Pyongyang indicates that more than one detonation is to take place, that the North for the very first time will test a device powered by highly enriched uranium, or both.

The Stalinist regime could even carry out multiple detonations using both plutonium-fueled and HEU-fueled devices, according to Hecker. “One more plutonium test provides valuable information on the yield-to-weight ratio, critical for miniaturized designs. An HEU test allows them to move to a possibly expanded future arsenal.”

North Korea could be interested in saving itself some political condemnation by carrying out multiple detonations in one test. While such blasts are "more challenging to conduct, but they have the huge advantage of not incurring additional political cost -- in other words, they can get two for the price of one," Hecker said.

"They may test a composite [device] of plutonium at the core and weapon-grade uranium wrapped around it to get a greater explosive yield than they could get from either one," speculated Albright.

The ISIS president said there are greater benefits for the North -- if it does intend to carry out multiple denotations -- in housing both explosions in the same portal as it is easier to set up the sophisticated scientific equipment that will be collecting data from the tests in a single tunnel complex. “It’s just easier to instrument it in one.”

A key goal, according to many experts, of the coming test is likely to be the demonstration of some capability to miniaturize nuclear weapons so they can be fitted to a long-range ballistic missile.

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Satellite Images Indicate North Korea Continuing Push for Nuke Test

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:27:23 -0500

Recent surveillance satellite images suggest North Korea has pressed forward with preparations for another underground detonation at its nuclear testing site, the expert website 38 North said in analyses this week.

"Analysis of new satellite imagery from Jan. 23, 2013 and previous images dating back a month reveal that the site appears to be at a continued state of readiness that would allow the North to move forward with a test in a few weeks or less once the leadership in Pyongyang gives the order," according to a report posted on Friday.

The powerful North Korean National Defense Commission on Thursday warned of a "high-level nuclear test we will carry out" that would be aimed at the United States. The aspiring nuclear power was responding to the U.N. Security Council's rebuke one day earlier of the nation's December launch of a long-range rocket.

Fallen snow has been removed from the area around the test tunnel at the Punggye-ri site, indicating it is being kept ready for operations, issue analyst Jack Liu wrote. A mound of material seen in a Dec. 24 picture could be intended for sealing the tunnel ahead of the test blast, he added. That pile appears to be smaller as of Wednesday.

"If this material is intended for stemming, one possible explanation is that operations have begun to seal the test tunnel," the analysis says.

An examination of satellite pictures of the site also shows a number of facilities and structures have been erected or excavated in advance of another test, according to a 38 North analysisissued on Thursday. One facility is expected to house the command-and-control consoles that would be used to activate and oversee the nuclear blast.

The bunker is roughly 150 meters from the opening of the tunnel in which the device would be detonated. Images collected in November and December indicate instruments have been installed nearby for collecting air samples and data on radiation. Walking routes to other instrument locations are seen in pictures from last month.

A covered structure put up last month not far from the testing tunnel is thought by to have been built to provide shelter to delicate machinery intended to collect data from the blast.

The North's previous nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 are judged to have been only partially successful at best.

North Korea is likely to focus its third test on acquiring the capability to make nuclear warheads small enough to be fixed to missiles, according to analysts. The next test could also for the first time be powered by highly enriched uranium rather than the plutonium used in the earlier events.

A South Korean government insider told the Daily NK that "North Korea has filled in a tunnel dug for the purpose of a nuclear test with dirt and concrete brought in from elsewhere. It has also been confirmed that a cable has been run out from the tunnel."

North Korea's principal ally China has joined the United States and other regional nations in warning the North against such a provocation.

For another detonation to take place, the atomic device and its trigger would have to be taken from their holding area and joined together in the underground chamber excavated for the trial. Depending on where the components are located, the step could take one to seven days, according to Liu, writing for 38 North.

Simultaneously, technical workers at Punggye-ri would be making sure all of the testing equipment is properly working and configured to gather as much possible data from the atomic blast, Liu wrote.

Personnel would likely be making certain command-and-control equipment is working so that communications from the Punggye-ri control compound to the detonation chamber and to leadership in Pyongyang can be smoothly transmitted, according to 38 North, which is operated by the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins University.

"After preparations are successfully completed, the site commander communicates to Pyongyang that he is ready. Sometime after, the capitol transmits an order view secure communications channels to the commander to be prepared to conduct the test on a specified day," Liu stated.

"Weather conditions may affect a final decision to go forward with a test. For example, prevailing winds, whether they are blowing towards or away from populated areas, could be an important consideration," Liu wrote.

Once the blast order has been received from Pyongyang, a countdown would likely begin at the control compound at Punggye-ri and a final readiness check would take place. Assuming everything is found in working order, the actual detonation could be accomplished by turning one or two keys in the control console that would send a blast directive to the nuclear device trigger.

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Napolitano suggests DHS will never meet cargo scanning mandate

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:34:50 -0500

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano on Thursday suggested that her department does not plan on meeting a congressional requirement that all foreign cargo shipped to the United States be scanned for dangerous materials that could be used in a terrorism attack.

Congress in 2007 approved a law that requires all ship cargo bound for the United States be screened for weapon-usable nuclear and radioactive materials and other dangerous substances before the vessels sails away from foreign seaports. After missing an initial deadline last July to come into compliance with the law, the Homeland Security Department now has until July 2014 to meet the mandate.

"I actually looked into this issue very thoroughly," Napolitano said during a Wilson Center event here.

Last spring, Napolitano told lawmakers it would cost $16 billion to deploy screening technology at all of the approximately 700 international seaports that send cargo to the United States.

"It's one of those things where as we have grown and become more knowledgeable about how to really manage risk, we have recognized that mandates like that sound very good but in point of fact are extraordinarily expensive and that there are better and more efficient ways to accomplish the same result," Napolitano said on Thursday.

Homeland Security last year said it was using a layered, risk-based approach to direct resources toward scanning all sea cargo determined by prior data collection to be high-risk. That has ensured that 100 percent of such containers are checked for dangerous substances prior to their entry into the United States and is more efficient than the blanket screening mandate called for by Congress, the department said.

"We have a number of things around the world ... negotiation of international agreements and the like, those are the kinds of things that layered together make us confident that we are doing all that can be done to minimize the risk that dangerous cargo will enter the United States," Napolitano said.

As of last summer, 58 foreign seaports that send 80 percent of all ship cargo to the United States were using risk-based assessments based on intelligence findings and computer algorithms to screen tens of thousands of high-threat containers prior to loading them onto U.S-bound freight vessels, according to the Washington Post.

"One of the big developments in the department in the last few years was to say we don’t need to treat all cargo the same," Napolitano said.

In all scanning of foreign cargo, there have been no discoveries of attempts to smuggle nuclear materials into the United States.

Even so, some lawmakers remain alarmed about the potential for nuclear materials to be brought into the country and used in a terrorist attack. They have called for the Homeland Security Department to fully implement the 100 percent scanning requirement. The current approach is "inadequate" in the face of "frighteningly inventive" terrorists, three senior Democratic representatives said in a June 2012 New York Times commentary.

The Obama administration late last year moved to drastically reduce spending on a key program to provide nuclear and radiation detection technology to major foreign seaports. The 85 percent spending cut to the Megaports Initiative for fiscal 2013 was coupled with a halt to plans to add more seaports to the program.

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Defense Department: Antimissile system held back by kill vehicle

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 16:00:00 -0500

The United States’ principal homeland missile defense program against a feared long-range attack by North Korea or Iran made little demonstrable headway last year in moving beyond a restricted capacity to defeat a small-scale threat, according to a new Pentagon report.

The Ground-based Midcourse Defense system has not had a successful test intercept since 2008. The last two attempts in 2010 both failed, with the most recent effort breaking down due to a malfunctioning hit-to-kill vehicle.

It took the Missile Defense Agency two years to ascertain exactly why the system’s Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle was unable to destroy the dummy missile target; develop fixes for the problem; put in place more rigorous requirements for contractors manufacturing EKV components; and to test the redesigned parts.

The Defense Department’s Director, Operational, Test and Evaluation assessment for fiscal 2012 found that while the cause of the previous test failure had been identified and solved, a live space intercept test was needed to confirm the problem had been truly resolved.

Missile Defense Agency spokesman Richard Lehner on Wednesday said no flight tests were conducted in 2012 “because we were working on fixing the component.”

The problem with the kill vehicle was caused by dynamic environments that occur only in space and was identified following extended modeling and ground testing, according to previous statements from the Pentagon branch.

Now that the problem has been solved a fresh flight test is likely to happen in the “near future,” Lehner said in an interview, without offering a specific timeline. It would involve launching a GBI interceptor equipped with the improved hit-to-kill vehicle for the purpose of seeing how the vehicle fixes perform in space.

If that trial goes smoothly, a followup flight intercept test is planned for sometime between April and June, according to Lehner.

There are 30 Ground-based Interceptors in the GMD system spread out in silos at bases in California and Alaska. The long-range antimissile system was created to protect the homeland United States from intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missile strikes.

The Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle is central to the GMD system’s Ground-based Interceptor. It is designed to destroy incoming missiles during the midcourse phase of their flight in space. The technology has been successfully used in eight out of 15 GBI test intercepts to date.

The DOD test and evaluation report found the Missile Defense Agency in 2012 did make headway in returning to GMD interception testing after solving the EKV problem "by conducting a ground test campaign consisting of 11 electrical and mechanical tests designed to further characterize [Capability Enhancement II] kill vehicle component capability and performance."

Despite that, the GMD system continues after years of development efforts to only have a “limited capability” to destroy a small-scale missile threat to the United States. Intercept tests to date have involved only one target, while there are plans to move up to two targets at at some point.

Annual DOT&E reports going back to 2004 have not found any significant advancement in the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system’s “demonstrated limited capacity against a simple [foreign] threat,” according to Kingston Reif of the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, who documented the issue in a Monday post on the Nukes of Hazard blog.

The United States still has some time to improve the GMD system against its intended targets. Though North Korea demonstrated for the first time last month the ability to fire a ballistic missile with a sufficient reach to strike the West Coast, it must still develop a re-entry vehicle, and prove the capability through multiple successful test-firings before it can be said to be a credible strategic missile threat to the United States.

Likewise, Iran is not currently assessed by Congress’ research arm to be aggressively advancing its long-range ballistic missile program. A December report by the Congressional Research Service found it was doubtful Iran would have an ICBM capability before 2016.

Lehner pointed out the GMD system was only intended against lower-level missile threats and not the more robust ICBM programs of Russia and China. That means that while MDA officials will work on taking the antimissile program from a “limited capability” to a robust one, it will still be focused only on defending against the “technology we see from a country like North Korea or Iran.”

“After we have the intercept test [this year], we’ll move along and if the advanced kill vehicle works as it should we will continue our testing program of having a test [every year],” Lehner said.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the number and type of trials slated for this year for the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system. One flight test and one flight intercept test are planned. The article also misstated the number of successful intercepts of the GMD system using the Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle. There have been a total of eight.

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U.S. warns foreign exchange houses are helping Iran skirt sanctions

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:40:25 -0500

The U.S. Treasury Department on Thursday warned financial institutions to be on the lookout for money transfers sent by foreign exchange houses and trading companies that are actually an attempt to mask transactions on behalf of sanctioned Iranian entities.

The United States and allies have targeted Iran’s banking system and energy sector under a sanctions regime aimed at curbing the Persian Gulf power’s alleged pursuit of a nuclear-weapon capability. Tehran is widely understood to have responded by developing methods to avoid the full brunt of the punitive measures.

A 2010 U.S. law goes after foreign companies that do business with designated Iranian financial institutions. As the U.S. dollar is the favored currency for many international transactions, limiting Iran’s ability to utilize it has a powerful impact on opportunities for foreign trade.

The advisory notice by the Treasury Department’s Foreign Assets Control Office warns that increasingly restrictive U.S. measures targeting Iran’s banking system have led the nation to rely “more heavily on third-country exchange houses and trading companies to move funds.” Foreign currency exchange companies and trading firms are increasingly being used by Iranian entities to act “as money transmitters to process funds transfers through the United States in support of business with Iran that is not exempt or otherwise authorized by OFAC,” the notice states.

The department called on U.S. financial firms to keep closer watch on money transfers submitted from foreign trading companies and exchange firms. Treasury did not single out any specific countries as being the sources of these dubious transactions.

Cities and nations with large foreign trade sectors such as Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malaysia are good guesses to be the sources of the transactions, according to a Washington-based expert on sanctions targeting Iran.

“My assumption is that the [United Arab Emirates] is probably a major locus for this activity because of the strong commercial relationships between Dubai and Iran and the presence of very sophisticated trading companies and foreign exchange houses,” said Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

The foreign exchange houses involved are not small ‘mom-and-pop’ operations but highly profitable currency firms that handle commercial transactions worth hundreds of millions of dollars, he said in an interview. “They are interested in the business of major Iranian energy companies or telecommunication companies or construction engineering companies.”

As Dubowitz explained the Iranian scheme to avoid financial sanctions imposed by Washington: a U.S. bank receives a wire transfer from an exchange house that seems on the surface to be a normal transaction between ‘Company A,’ whose address has been removed, and a nonsanctioned entity. “The U.S. bank thinks it’s a normal payment sent from [for example] Dubai on behalf of a UAE company” when the real originator is an Iranian firm, he said.

Tactics used by exchange houses in this scheme to route payments to or through U.S. financial firms include not noting Iranian business addresses where they would otherwise apply and not naming Iranian individuals or businesses as the originator or beneficiary of the money, Treasury said.

“They [Treasury] are trying to warn U.S. financial institutions that these transactions may be a pretense by the Iranian regime to hide the origins of these transactions in order to circumvent U.S. financial sanctions,” Dubowitz said.

In addition to the explicit cautionary message to U.S. firms, Treasury is also giving an implicit warning to the third-party countries that are the sources of these transactions, according to Dubowitz.

Treasury officials have been traveling around the world to inform foreign governments on the risk to their own formal financial institutions under recently passed U.S. laws if they do not crack down on transactions with sanctioned Iranian enterprises. With Thursday’s advisory, Treasury is probably signaling to these governments that their exchange houses and trading companies could also be subject to U.S. sanctions if they do not watch out for these practices, Dubowitz said.

(Image via Kuzma/Shutterstock.com)

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IG says Energy Department facilities still have cyber weak spots

Rachel Oswald, Global Security Newswire — Mon, 19 Nov 2012 15:20:42 -0500

The U.S. Energy Department and its National Nuclear Security Administration have addressed most but not all digital security weaknesses highlighted by an internal audit in 2011, according to the DOE inspector general.

The IG report covering fiscal 2012 and issued earlier this month notes the department and the semiautonomous agency that oversees the U.S. nuclear arsenal had dealt with 40 of the 56 vulnerabilities found during the fiscal 2011 assessment.

The identities of specific NNSA facilities and other DOE sites found to have vulnerabilities to cyber strikes, along with the particular weaknesses identified, were not included in the public analysis due to security concerns, the report states. "Site and program officials were provided with detailed information regarding respective vulnerabilities identified and, in many instances, corrective actions were initiated."

The inspector general found that the total number of identified digital security weaknesses had dropped from 56 to 38 vulnerabilities after fiscal 2011. However, 22 of the 38 weaknesses were found in the budged year that ended on Sept. 30.

"Our review of the Offices of the Undersecretary for Nuclear Security, Undersecretary for Science and Undersecretary of Energy organizations identified various control weaknesses related to access controls, vulnerability management, system integrity of web applications, planning for continuity of operations and change control management," the IG report states.

The new audit notes that the Energy Department and its nuclear security agency had initiated creation of the RightPath program, which is intended to improve digital protections by bringing various DOE agencies' cyber security strategies into alignment. The department also provided training to personnel on proper security practices when accessing e-mail, among other measures.

The report faults the department for not following available best-practice solutions to address its cyber weaknesses, which have been highlighted in previous IG investigations. "The weaknesses identified occurred, in part, because department elements had not ensured that cyber security requirements were fully developed and implemented. In addition, programs and sites had not always effectively monitored performance to ensure that appropriate controls were in place."

Energy officials agreed with the inspector general's conclusions and advice for improving department-wide cyber security.

Richard Bejtlich, of the cyber security company Mandiant, told Foreign Policy magazine the IG assessment "reminded me of the results of most vulnerability assessment reports for any decently sized organization."

"Vulnerabilities of all kinds are found, involving unpatched systems, code waiting to be exploited and the like. The next report will look the same," he said. "It would have been much more useful if DOE had brought a third party to each of its sites to determine 'what intruders are actively exploiting those sites right now,' then prioritize incident response and countermeasures to frustrate the adversary."

Bejtlich predicted "another round of trying to fix every problem, while intruders watch and evade any security 'improvements' that DOE applies."

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