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AND GLOBAL SECURITY

INSIDE German Nuclear Stance Stirs Debate

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A Publication of the Arms Control Association

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Volume 39 Number 10DECEMBER 2009

Iran’s Growing Weapons Capability And Its ImpactOn Negotiations

IN THIS ISSUE

By David Albright and Jacqueline Shire

IN THE NEWS

Scientists See Stockpile Lasting for Decades

IAEA Rebukes Iran Over Secret Facility

U.S., Russia Poised for Arsenal Cuts

Countries Ban Investment In Cluster Munitions

Iran and the Problem Of Tactical MyopiaBy Jim Walsh, Thomas Pickering, and William Luers

Using Stronger Sanctions To Increase Negotiating Leverage With IranBy Orde F. Kittrie

Winning on Ballistic Missiles but Losing On Cruise: The Missile Proliferation BattleBy Dennis M. Gormley

Cover photo: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei (left) and Iranian Permanent Representative to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh hold a press conference in Tehran October 4, Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images.

2 Editor’s Note

3 Focus A New START

4 In Brief

51 Letter to the Editor

THE SOURCE ON NONPROLIFERATION AND GLOBAL SECURITY

Volume 39 • Number 10 December 2009

Arms ControlTODAY

News30 Europe and the Former Soviet Union• German Nuclear Stance Stirs Debate• U.S., Russia Poised for Arsenal Cuts• Russia Plans Changes to Military Doctrine

38 The United States and the Americas• Scientists See Stockpile Lasting for Decades 40 The Middle East and Africa• IAEA Rebukes Iran Over Secret Facility• IAEA Disputes Syrian Uranium Claims

44 The World• U.S. Takes New Stance on Some Issues at UN• Work on Cluster Munitions Extended Again• Countries Ban Investment in Cluster Munitions

48 Asia and Australia• U.S. to Send Senior Envoy to Pyongyang

Departments

Contents

6

Features

Iran and the Problem of Tactical Myopia 15Negotiations with Iran will not be easy, but they offer the likeliest route to resolving concerns over that country’s nuclear program.

By Jim Walsh, Thomas Pickering, and William Luers

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Using Stronger Sanctions to Increase Negotiating Leverage With Iran

18

Additional sanctions could constrain Iran’s nuclear program and lead to domestic political pressure on the government.

By Orde F. Kittrie

Cover Story

Iran’s Growing Weapons Capability And Its Impact On NegotiationsBy David Albright and Jacqueline Shire

Winning on Ballistic Missiles but Losing On Cruise: The Missile Proliferation Battle

22

In the last several years, cruise missile proliferation has sharply increased. Controls need to be tightened.

By Dennis M. Gormley

Arms Control Today (ISSN 0196-125X) is published monthly, except for two bimonth-ly issues appearing in January/February and July/August. Membership in the Arms Control Association includes a one-year subscription to Arms Control Today at the following rates: $30 student, $65 individual, $80 international. Non-member subscription rates are: $60 individual, $80 institutional, with international rates of $75 individual and $85 institutional. Letters to the Editor are welcome and can be sent via e-mail or postal mail. Letters should be under 600 words and may be edited for space. Inter-pretations, opinions, or conclusions in Arms Control Today should be understood to be solely those of the authors and should not be attributed to the association, its board of directors, officers or other staff members, or to organizations and individuals that support the Arms Control Association. Arms Control Today encourages reprint of its articles but permission must be granted by the editor. Advertising inquiries may be made to act@armscontrol.org. Postmaster: Send address changes to Arms Control Today, 1313 L Street, NW, Suite 130, Washington, D.C. 20005. Periodicals post-age paid at Washington D.C., Suburban, MD and Merrifield, VA. ©December 2009, Arms Control Association.

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The Arms Control Association (ACA), founded in 1971, is a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to promoting public understanding and support for effective arms control policies. Through its media and public education programs and its magazine Arms Control Today, ACA provides policymakers, journalists, educators, and the interested public with authoritative information and analyses on arms control, proliferation, and global security issues.

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

John Steinbruner Chairman

Volume 39 Number 10 December 2009 A Publication of the Arms Control Association

1313 L Street, NW Suite 130 Washington, DC 20005PHONE 202-463-8270FAX 202-463-8273E-MAIL act@armscontrol.orgWEBSITE www.armscontrol.org

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EDITOR Daniel Horner

MANAGING EDITOR Elisabeth Erickson

ASSISTANT EDITOR Brian Creamer

INTERNATIONAL

CORRESPONDENT Oliver Meier

DEPUTY DIRECTOR Jeff Abramson

SENIOR FELLOW

Greg Thielmann

RESEARCH DIRECTOR

Tom Z. Collina

RESEARCH ANALYST

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CTBT PROJECT

ASSOCIATE

Meri Lugo

ADMINISTRATIVE

ASSISTANT Eric Auner

FINANCE OFFICER

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SCOVILLE FELLOW

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NEW VOICES

NONPROLIFERATION

FELLOW

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INTERNS

Luke ChamplinAndrew FisherAnna Hood

PUBLISHER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Daryl G. Kimball

Editor’sNOTE

The face-off over Iran’s nuclear program has been run-

ning for more than six years. On the basis of that his-

tory, it would be foolish to look into the near future and

claim to see a turning point ahead. There have been too many

false starts and disappointments for that.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to avoid the sense that the deci-

sions made in the next several weeks will set the course of

events for quite a while. In this issue, three articles thought-

fully address the situation and come to different conclusions

on how the United States and its allies should proceed. David

Albright and Jacqueline Shire provide a technical assessment

of the situation and conclude that, at least in the short term,

a form of containment may be the best approach. Orde Kittrie

argues that tough sanctions should be part of the strategy, and

Jim Walsh, Thomas Pickering, and William Luers stress the

importance of continuing to seek a negotiated solution.

In our final feature, Dennis M. Gormley provides a reminder

that missile proliferation is an area that should draw policymak-

ers’ attention. A key part of his analysis is that stronger controls

on the spread of cruise missile capabilities are needed.

—

With the new year, there will be some changes in Arms Control

Today. Most of you have received information about the new

digital edition of the magazine, which is in full color and avail-

able earlier in the month than the print edition is. (For further

information, see our Web site, www.armscontrol.org.)

In both the digital and print editions, certain parts of Arms

Control Today will have a new look. In particular, the table of

contents will be larger and more eye-catching, providing more

information about what awaits you in each issue.

We have put a lot of thought and effort into these refine-

ments. However, as we implement them, I keep thinking of one

letter to the editor after The Washington Post put in place similar

but much more extensive changes in its design. With brevity

and verve that any journalist would have to admire, the Post

reader wrote, “Your opinions still stink. But they are easier to

read in the new format.”

I take that as a reminder that, although Arms Control Today’s

appearance is important, the focus must always be on the quality

of the magazine’s articles. Please continue to let us know how we

are doing on that score, and what you think of the new look, by

contacting me at dhorner@armscontrol.org. —DANIEL HORNER

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FOCUS By Daryl G. Kimball Executive Director

A New START

After eight rounds of talks over nine months, U.S. and

Russian negotiators are expected to complete work

this month on a new strategic nuclear arms reduc-

tion deal that would replace the highly successful 1991 START,

which expires Dec. 5.

Lower, verifiable limits on still-bloated U.S. and Russian stra-

tegic nuclear arsenals are long overdue. Today, the United States

and Russia each deploy more than 2,000 strategic warheads,

most of which exist only to deter a massive nuclear attack by

the other. No other country possesses more than 300 nuclear

warheads, and China currently has fewer than 30 nuclear-armed

missiles capable of striking the continental United States.

As President Barack Obama, Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and

Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), and many prominent national security

track the planned nuclear force downsizing on each side. The

new agreement will carry forward the most essential of START’s

verification and monitoring provisions, which are still needed

for predictability and to provide each side with high confidence

that the other is complying with the terms of the treaty.

The New START will also open the way for more compre-

hensive U.S.-Russian arms reduction talks beginning next year,

which the Obama administration says should address all types of

nuclear warheads: deployed and nondeployed; strategic and non-

strategic. It would also help Washington win broader internation-

al support for measures to strengthen the beleaguered nuclear

Nonproliferation Treaty at the May 2010 review conference.

Unfortunately, a few are already trying to undermine sup-

port for the New START before it arrives. Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.)

because of the ongoing negotiations.

Kyl, who in 2003 praised SORT for its brevity and called

START and its monitoring provisions a “700-page behemoth”

that “would not serve America’s real security needs,” now sug-

gests START should be extended for another five years. That

approach is a nonstarter. At this point, Moscow will not agree

to an extension, and without the lower limits on deployed

warheads under a new START deal, Russia could and would

likely maintain a deployed strategic arsenal in excess of 2,000

warheads indefinitely.

A Sept. 30 Senate Republican Policy Committee white pa-

per suggests that ratification of the New START should be

conditioned on a commitment to modernize U.S. strategic

nuclear forces. Such a condition is unnecessary and would

be unprecedented. Existing U.S. strategic missile and bomber

systems are modern, reliable, and accurate. According to a new

independent report from the JASON scientific advisory group,

“[L]ifetimes of today’s nuclear warheads could be extended for

decades, with no anticipated loss in confidence.”

Delaying action on the follow-on to START and rekindling

U.S.-Russian nuclear competition is unwise and dangerous.

Rather than dither over extraneous issues, the Senate should fo-

cus on the merits of the treaty and seize the chance to enhance

U.S. and global security by approving deeper, verifiable reduc-

tions in the world’s largest and deadliest arsenals. ACT

leaders have argued, deeper U.S.

and Russian strategic nuclear reduc-

tions are possible and prudent.

The New START deal is particu-

larly important because past Demo-

cratic and Republican administra-

tions have squandered opportuni-

ties to conclude meaningful, legally

binding, and verifiable nuclear cuts.

Instead, U.S. and Russian leaders concluded the 2002 Strategic

Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), which calls for no more

than 2,200 strategic deployed warheads each by the year 2012.

Unlike START, the three-page SORT did not establish any

limits on strategic nuclear delivery systems or mandate their

destruction. Making matters worse, SORT established no new

verification mechanism, instead relying on those in START.

Contrary to the advice from Republican and Democratic con-

gressional leaders, the Bush administration did not seek to ex-

tend START or replace it with a new treaty before leaving office.

To their credit, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medve-

dev on April 1 directed their negotiators to finish a follow-on to

START by year’s end. After the United States conducted a prelimi-

nary review of its nuclear force requirements, Obama and Medve-

dev announced July 1 that the new pact would reduce deployed

strategic warheads to somewhere between 1,500 and 1,675 war-

heads each (about a 30 percent cut from current levels).

The two leaders also agreed to reduce strategic delivery vehicles,

(i.e., long-range heavy bombers, plus submarine-launched ballis-

tic missiles and ICBMs) to a level between 500 and 1,100. Wash-

ington currently fields approximately 800 strategic delivery

vehicles, while Moscow deploys an estimated 620, so the new

ceiling will likely be below 800.

Given the limited time frame for the talks, the new treaty will

mandate a streamlined framework for strategic reductions that

erroneously suggested in a Nov.

21 statement “that there had been

virtually no talk…of what happens

after December 5 and prior to the

possible entry into force of the fol-

low-on agreement.” Actually, the

two sides have been discussing the

bridging mechanism for months,

but have not publicized the details

Deeper U.S. and Russian

strategic nuclear

reductions are possible

and prudent.

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December 2009

InBRIEF

Notable Quotable““[I]n many cases, we are a sleepy watchdog because we don’t have the authority.”

—Outgoing International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei,

remarks at the Council on Foreign Relations, New York, November 4, 2009

Five Years Ago in ACT

The Iran Case: Addressing Why Countries Want Nuclear Weapons “Addressing the demand side of proliferation is not a trivial

or secondary approach. Indeed, it should be at the heart of

nonproliferation analysis and strategy. Unfortunately, it is often

downplayed, especially in the United States, where for many years

the emphasis has been either on technical means of limiting the

spread of nuclear weapons or, in cases where that appears likely to

fail, considering military means to destroy a weapons capability or

bringing about a change in regime.”

—Robert E. Hunter, December 2004

NUMBERS Selected UN First Committee Votes*

175-1-3Resolution supporting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. In contrast to previous years, the United States voted yes. North Korea voted no, and India, Mauritius, and Syria abstained.

153-1-19Resolution supporting the Arms Trade Treaty. Reversing the position it held under the Bush administration, the United States voted yes. China, India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Sudan, and Venezuela were among the countries who abstained, while Zimbabwe voted no.

176-0-2Resolution supporting the prevention of an arms race in outer space. In recent years the United States has voted against this issue, but this year it abstained from the vote.

* The First Committee is the UN General Assembly forum in which UN members discuss disarmament and international security matters.

BY

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Conventional Arming and Disarming

In a Web log post Oct. 22, the director of the Defense Secu-

rity Cooperation Agency announced that U.S. foreign mili-tary sales totaled $37.9 billion in fiscal year 2009, which

ended Sept. 30. “[W]e can take pride in the fact we achieved

a new record…slightly over our previous record figure of

$36.4 billion in [fiscal year] 2008,” the post said. It predicted

sales would be $38.4 billion in the current fiscal year. The

United States conducts government-to-government trans-

fers of military items through the Department of Defense’s

foreign military sales program. (See ACT, March 2009.)

The United Kingdom has set “an example” for the Euro-pean Union by revoking arms export licenses to Israel following Israel’s military action in Gaza in January, a Eu-

ropean Commission (EC) official told Arms Control Today

Oct. 15. In July, the United Kingdom revoked five of its

licenses to export arms components to Israel, basing its

decision on British and EU arms export criteria. (See ACT,

September 2009.) The latter criteria are contained in the

EU Code of Conduct on Arms Exports. The United Kingdom

explained the decision to an EU working group meeting

Sept. 4 to ensure that other EU member states understood

the British actions and to encourage other EU member

states to review their licenses against the code’s criteria,

a British diplomat said in a separate Oct. 15 interview. The

“expectation” is that, in handling Israeli arms export re-

quests, other EU countries will apply “the same scrutiny”

that the United Kingdom did, the EC official said. Under the

code, however, other EU member states are under no obli-

gation to review their export licenses, the diplomats said.

In October, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann, a defense company

based in Germany, announced that it had transferred the

Treaty Update

Mine Ban Treaty

The second review conference for the Mine Ban Treaty was sched-

uled for Nov. 30 to Dec. 4 in Cartage-na, Colombia, marking 10 years since the treaty entered into force. Also known as the Ottawa Convention, the accord prohibits the use, stockpiling, transfer, and production of anti-per-sonnel landmines and sets deadlines for stockpile destruction and clear-ance of mine-affected areas.

To date, 156 countries have ratified the treaty, two have signed but not ratified, and 37 have neither signed nor ratified, including China, India, Pakistan, Russia, and the United

On the Calendar Dec. 5 START expires

Dec. 7-11 Biological Weapons Convention meeting of states-parties, Geneva

Jan. 18-Mar. 26 Conference on Disarmament, First Session, Geneva

first of 220 Leopard 1A5 main battle tanks to the Brazilian

army. The deal, which the two governments initiated, will

provide Brazil with training equipment, simulators, driver

training vehicles, and local technical support. Final deliver-

ies are expected to take place in 2012.

Albania is free of all known mined areas nearly a year

ahead of its August 2010 deadline established by the Mine

Ban Treaty, the United Nations Development Program

(UNDP) announced in a Nov. 10 press release. According

to the release, 15.3 million square meters of mines and un-

exploded ordnance have been cleared since 1999. Within

Albania, contamination resulted from mines placed by the

military of the former Yugoslavia along Albania’s border

with Kosovo and from cluster bombs dropped by NATO

forces during the late 1990s. Bulgaria, Costa Rica, El Salva-

dor, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, France,

Guatemala, Honduras, Malawi, Suriname, Swaziland, and

Tunisia have already declared fulfillment of their mine

clearance obligations under the treaty.

In October, a court in Paris found dozens of individuals

in France guilty of fueling the civil war in Angola in the

1990s by selling arms in violation of a UN arms embargo,

including current senator and former interior minister

Charles Pasqua and Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, the son

of former president François Mitterrand. In a scandal now

called “Angolagate,” they were accused of illegally selling

$790 million worth of tanks, shells, mines, helicopters, and

warships to the government of President José Eduardo

Dos Santos through private arms brokers Pierre Falcone

and Arkady Gaydamak, who were both found guilty and

sentenced to six years in jail. The trial strained relations

between Angola and France, with Angola denouncing the

verdict as “unbalanced and unjust, tied up with political

considerations and motives.”

States. (See ACT, December 2007.) Department of State Office of

Weapons Removal and Abatement Director James Lawrence was ex-pected to head the U.S. delegation attending the meeting as observers, the first official U.S. participation at a formal Mine Ban Treaty states-parties meeting. The Clinton administration set the United States on a path to join the Mine Ban Treaty by 2006, but the Bush administration rejected that plan in 2004. (See ACT, March 2004.)

According to the Landmine Monitor Report 2009, a highly regarded annual publication sponsored by the Interna-tional Campaign to Ban Landmines, at least 5,197 casualties were caused by mines, explosive remnants of war,

and victim-activated improvised ex-plosive devices in 2008, continuing a downward trend over recent years. Two countries, Myanmar and Russia, and at least seven nonstate armed groups used anti-personnel landmines in 2008-2009, the report said.

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By David Albright and Jacqueline Shire

The crisis over Iran’s growing nuclear

weapons capabilities is rapidly reaching

a critical point. Recent developments

do not bode well for the prospect of successful

negotiations that can end concerns about Iran’s

nuclear program, at least in the short term.

David Albright, a physicist, is president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). Jacqueline Shire is a senior analyst at ISIS and a former official of the Department of State’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs.

Iran’s Growing Weapons Capability and Its Impact on Negotiations

These concerns center on two related

questions: whether Iran can be prevent-

ed from using its nuclear program for

weapons purposes, and how much confi-

dence the United States and other coun-

tries can have in verification measures

to ensure that the Iranians are not using

their program for such purposes. Iran

still has far to go to establish convinc-

ingly the peaceful nature of its nuclear

efforts. The international community,

chiefly through the diplomatic efforts

directed by the “P5+1”—the five perma-

nent members of the UN Security Coun-

cil (China, France, Russia, the United

Kingdom, and the United States) plus

Germany—has sought to resolve the

issue both through diplomatic engage-

ment and, where necessary, pressure.

President Barack Obama is giving the

diplomatic process until the end of the

year, at which time his administration

will take stock of its initiative to pursue

nuclear negotiations with Iran.1 French

President Nicolas Sarkozy also set De-

cember as a deadline for negotiations to

make progress. These cutoff dates now

appear unattainable, mainly because of

Iranian unwillingness to negotiate limi-

tations on its nuclear program. In early

November, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali

Khamenei expressed reservations about

the prospects for negotiations with the

United States, complaining that the

United States under the Obama adminis-

tration had not “changed” and that the

Iranian-U.S. relationship remains one of

“sheep and wolf.”2

Iran’s ability to negotiate is further

complicated by an ongoing internal

power struggle generated by the June 12

presidential elections and the violent

repression of protests that followed. It

is unclear how long this period of un-

certainty will last. For now, the Iranian

regime might be unable to make signifi-

cant concessions on the nuclear issue

because it remains politically divided

and preoccupied with the long-term

stability of its rule.

The United States might have few op-

tions beyond invoking harsher sanctions

and other methods to isolate and con-

tain Iran while continuing to attempt to

negotiate limitations on Iran’s uranium-

enrichment program in conjunction

with greater transparency over Iran’s

entire nuclear program.

Prospects for negotiations looked far

better only a few weeks ago.

On September 25, in a dramatic an-

nouncement on the margins of the

Group of 20 economic summit in Pitts-

burgh, Obama, joined by Sarkozy and

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown,

announced that Iran had been build-

ing a covert enrichment facility inside

a mountain northeast of the holy city

of Qom. This facility was just what

many had feared: a secret centrifuge

plant in which Iran could potentially

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President Barack Obama delivers a statement on Iran at the Group of 20 summit in Pittsburgh September 25 as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown listen. The trio announced that Iran had been building a covert enrichment facility inside a mountain northeast of the holy city of Qom.

produce weapons-grade uranium for

nuclear weapons.

The revelation was stunning for

its timing and substance. Earlier that

week, in the opening statement at the

64th session of the UN General Assem-

bly, Obama had called on countries to

“stop the spread of nuclear weapons,

and seek the goal of a world without

them” and warned Iranian leaders that

if they chose to “put the pursuit of

nuclear weapons ahead of regional sta-

bility and the security and opportunity

of their own people,” they would be

held accountable.3 The exposure of the

Qom facility and the demand for Inter-

national Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

inspections severely damaged the Ira-

nian regime’s credibility and strength-

ened charges that its covert enrichment

activities continued despite its apparent

openness at the safeguarded Natanz

enrichment facility.

The Qom revelation was followed

by an imaginative proposal put forth

by the IAEA with the support of the

P5+1. Under the proposal, Iran would

send out 1,200 kilograms, or almost 70

percent, of its estimated growing stock

of low-enriched uranium (LEU)4 and

receive a multiyear supply of 19.75 per-

cent fuel for the small Tehran Research

Reactor. The LEU would travel to Rus-

sia for further enrichment and then to

France for fabrication into fuel, before

being shipped back to Tehran in about

a year. Earlier in 2009, this LEU stock

had become large enough to provide a

quick route to a nuclear weapon, which

is suspected to be one of the intended

purposes of the Qom site, which Iran

calls the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant.

Further enrichment of the current stock

could bring it to weapons-grade levels

quite quickly and easily.

By reducing Iran’s stock of LEU, the

deal would have bought time and built

confidence among all the parties in the

negotiations. At current rates of enrich-

ment, Iran would need until almost mid-

2010 to produce enough additional LEU

to have adequate material once again to

produce a sufficient quantity of weap-

ons-grade uranium for a nuclear weap-

on.5 Iran would have received badly

needed fuel for the research reactor. Iran

asked the IAEA last June for help in get-

ting new fuel because it expected to run

out in December 2010. Given the many

months needed to fabricate this fuel and

the inability of Iran to buy new research

reactor fuel in the international market,

the deal is the best way to keep the reac-

tor from shutting down next year.

After tentatively agreeing to the deal

on October 1, Iran backed away from it

in late October and early November. Ira-

nian officials conveyed conflicting signals

about whether the regime had ever accept-

ed this agreement in the first place and

then made a counteroffer to send out the

LEU only once the research reactor fuel

arrived. Other Iranian officials said that

Iran wanted to buy fuel without send-

ing out any LEU at all. All the statements

reflected deep mistrust of the P5+1 to

deliver any fuel once the regime exported

the LEU. Some officials even threatened

that if Iran’s proposals were not accepted,

it would itself enrich the LEU further to

19.75 percent uranium-235, the level cur-

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rently used in the Tehran reactor.6 Abolfa-

zl Zohrevand, adviser to Iranian Supreme

National Security Council Secretary Saeed

Jalili, told the Iranian news agency IRNA

that “circumstances may arise under

which Iran will require uranium enriched

to 63 [percent], which it will have to ei-

ther purchase or manufacture itself under

IAEA supervision.”7

The United States and its European

partners quickly rejected these proposed

changes to the original offer. Secretary

of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said on

November 2, “We continue to press the

Iranians to accept fully the proposal that

has been made, which they accepted in

principle.”8 As discussed further below,

sending out the LEU only after fuel arrives

or in batches would run the risk that Iran

would replace this LEU with fresh mate-

rial and maintain a stock of LEU large

enough for a nuclear “breakout.” Under

that scenario, Iran would remove its LEU

from IAEA safeguards, possibly withdraw

from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty

(NPT), and further enrich its existing

stock of LEU to obtain enough weapons-

grade uranium for a nuclear weapon.

Without the crucial aspect of buying time

and reducing concern about a breakout,

this deal has little benefit to the United

States and its European allies.

Rather than accepting Iran’s strategy

of extended and inconclusive negotia-

tions, the Obama administration and its

partners have little choice now but to

implement strategies to impose harsher

sanctions and take additional steps to

contain Iran. The Obama administra-

tion should make clear to the Iranian

regime that it remains open to negotia-

tions as long as they lead to measures

that increase confidence that Iran is not

seeking nuclear weapons. However, the

recent disclosures regarding the Qom

facility, Iran’s reneging on the LEU deal,

the ongoing uranium enrichment at Na-

tanz, and Iran’s growing nuclear weap-

ons capability do not permit the type of

extended negotiations Iran seeks.

Iran’s Damaged CredibilityFor months before the Qom revelation,

the Institute for Science and Interna-

tional Security had heard rumors of a

secret enrichment plant, but never with

sufficient detail to pinpoint a location.

Notwithstanding these reports, the Sep-

tember 25 announcement about the Qom

facility deep inside a mountain changed

the calculation on Iran.

Obama and IAEA Director-General

Mohamed ElBaradei charged that the fa-

cility was a violation of Iran’s safeguards

obligations. More importantly, the revela-

tion eroded confidence among many na-

tions, including China and Russia, in the

peaceful and transparent nature of Iran’s

nuclear program.

The exact timing of the Qom an-

nouncement was prompted by a letter

from Iran to the IAEA four days earlier,

on September 21, notifying the agency

that a new pilot fuel-enrichment plant

was under construction in the country9

without providing a location or any

further details on the facility. Iranian of-

ficials subsequently announced that the

facility would be completed in about 18

months. It appears that Iran had learned

that France, the United Kingdom, and the

United States knew of the facility; Tehran

apparently decided to try to pre-empt any

diplomatic maneuvering by the three. U.S.

officials stated that the Obama admin-

istration planned to reveal what it knew

about the site to the Iranians at a later

date but that the letter forced their hand.

British, French, and U.S. officials spent

a frantic few days briefing the IAEA and

preparing the public announcement. It re-

mains a mystery how the Iranians learned

that their site was discovered.

Intelligence agencies had monitored the

site outside Qom for several years. Con-

struction of the centrifuge plant reported-

ly started in 2006, utilizing a tunnel com-

plex on a military base originally built

for another purpose. Commercial satellite

images show that the tunnels existed as

early as 2004, but significant new con-

struction activities started no sooner than

2006, consistent with the reported start of

construction of the centrifuge plant.10

Until early 2009, the U.S. intelli-

gence community considered the site

an “enigma” facility, a term used in the

community to underline uncertainties

in ascribing a definitive purpose to a

site.11 Sometime in early 2009, U.S. in-

telligence agencies accumulated enough

evidence to determine with “high con-

fidence” that the site was intended to be

an enrichment facility. One important

indication was the detection of Iran’s

installation at the site of infrastructure

necessary for centrifuges.

At the time of the announcement,

U.S. intelligence officials estimated that

the facility could hold about 3,000 cen-

trifuges. The officials said the facility’s

relatively small size, compared to Natanz,

which is slated to hold about 50,000

centrifuges, reinforced suspicions that it

was intended to produce weapons-grade

uranium, despite Iranian statements that

the Qom site is intended only for civil

research and development. A military

enrichment facility producing weapons-

grade uranium can be far smaller than an

enrichment plant designed to make LEU

for nuclear power reactors. The Qom site

is appropriately sized to make weapons-

grade uranium either in a breakout mode

using diverted stocks of LEU from Natanz

or more slowly as a parallel effort start-

ing from clandestinely produced natural

uranium hexafluoride. No evidence of

a secret uranium hexafluoride produc-

tion facility has surfaced. However, Iran

conducts modest uranium mining opera-

tions, which are not safeguarded by the

IAEA, and some of this uranium could be

diverted to a clandestine uranium hexa-

fluoride production plant.

Intelligence agencies were unable to as-

certain the type of centrifuges planned for

the site, and evidently Iran had not yet in-

stalled any centrifuges. Iran subsequently

announced that the site would hold about

3,000 P-1 centrifuges but also said that it

could reconfigure the facility to contain

more-advanced centrifuges.12 The P-1 cen-

trifuge is installed in the main halls of the

Natanz enrichment facility, while the ad-

jacent pilot plant is testing more powerful

models. The P-1 centrifuge is based on an

old, inefficient model stolen by Abdul Qa-

deer Khan in the Netherlands in the 1970s

and later sold to Iran. Khan also provided

Iran a more advanced centrifuge design,

which he also stole while in the Nether-

lands. Iran has modified this design and

has tested several variants of it at the Na-

tanz pilot enrichment plant. Iran would

like to replace the P-1 centrifuge with one

of these more advanced models.

Surprisingly, the IAEA did not de-

mand immediate access to the Qom site,

which it could have done even under the

relatively weak traditional safeguards

now in force in Iran. A quick inspection

would have reduced the chances that

Iran could have removed incriminating

evidence, as it has done in the past at

some of the enrichment sites that it tried

to hide from inspectors. 8

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The IAEA finally visited the Qom

facility in late October and reported

publicly on the site in mid-November

in its quarterly safeguards report. The

inspectors found the centrifuge facility

to be at “an advanced stage of construc-

tion,” confirming Western intelligence

analysis.13 Iran did not answer all IAEA

questions about the intended purpose

of the facility and the chronology of the

centrifuge plant’s construction. The IAEA

stated that Iran’s declaration of the facil-

ity “reduces the level of confidence in the

absence of other nuclear facilities under

construction and gives rise to questions

about whether there were any other

nuclear facilities in Iran which had not

been declared” to the IAEA.14 One senior

official close to the IAEA said that the

Iranians’ verbal answer to the question

about other sites was so convoluted that

the IAEA insisted Iran provide a written

statement on that point. According to the

November IAEA report, the agency, in a

November 6 letter, asked Iran to confirm

that it had not “taken a decision to con-

struct, or to authorize construction, of

any other nuclear facility that had not

been declared” to the IAEA.15

A Win-Win AgreementAll experts agree that the small safe-

guarded Tehran reactor, which makes

medical isotopes and conducts civil

nuclear research, is running out of fuel;

Iran last received fuel for this reactor in

the early 1990s from Argentina. Because

of Iran’s suspicious nuclear activities,

including secret plutonium produc-

tion in this reactor many years ago, no

country has been willing to provide any

more fuel. As a result, the deal proposed

by the P5+1 would concretely benefit

Iran. In addition to providing a solution

to the reactor’s looming fuel crisis, the

deal includes assistance in upgrading the

safety of the U.S.-supplied reactor, which

is more than 40 years old, perhaps in the

process extending the reactor’s lifetime.

For the United States, the chief appeal

of the deal is that it would buy time,

reducing pressure created by Iran’s abil-

ity for a breakout using the LEU stock.

This aspect of the agreement is especially

important in helping to dissuade Israel

from launching any military strikes. If

Iran sent out the agreed amount of LEU

and continued to enrich at its current

rate, it would take Iran until spring or

early summer 2010 to have the minimum

amount of LEU needed to provide, after

further enrichment, the weapons-grade

uranium for a weapon.16 The exact date

remains uncertain. It could be extended

if Iran slows its enrichment pace or ad-

vanced if Iran brought online some of

the more than 4,500 centrifuges current-

ly installed at Natanz but not currently

enriching. In any case, the deal would

create many months of reduced pressure

that might build confidence in the ne-

gotiating process and encourage Iran to

slow its enrichment output.

One concern raised by this otherwise

elegant solution is that it could be con-

strued as de facto acknowledgment and

acceptance of Iran’s enrichment activity.

U.S. and European officials deny that the

deal does that. In fact, the quantity of

fuel that would be produced by enrich-

ing 1,200 kilograms of LEU hexafluoride,

approximately 120 kilograms of 19.75

percent LEU, would last Iran more than

a decade at past operating power levels

of about 3 megawatts-thermal and more

than five years if Iran operated the reac-

tor at its rated power of 5 megawatts-

thermal.17 Because the Tehran reactor

Figure 1: Construction of the Fordow Uranium-Enrichment Facility

Below are two images from earlier this year of the Fordow uranium-enrichment facility construction site near Qom. (Based on earlier imagery, the Institute for Science and International Security has concluded that construction of the enrichment facility began some time after June 2006 but prior to June 2007.) The January 2009 image shows considerable construction and excavation activity. By September 2009, the two tunnel entrances have been covered, as has the area of excavation.

Satellite imagery provided by DigitalGlobe - ISIS

January 2009 September 2009

9

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Excavated earth from tunneling

Large excavation

and construction

Tunnel entrances uncovered

Excavated earth

Tunnel entrances

New excavation

covered

does not create an ongoing demand for

fuel and any future demand for enriched

uranium could easily be met by a foreign

supplier, this deal does not establish a

precedent for Iran’s continued enrich-

ment. This deal is a small but important

step to build confidence and reduce anxi-

ety in the Middle East.

Moreover, the LEU deal was never seen

as an ultimate goal, even in the near

term. Although it could have stimulated

additional diplomacy, it did not remove

more pressing issues that require Iran’s

cooperation. The principal one is creat-

ing a multilateral negotiating structure

that would lead to Iran’s suspension of its

uranium-enrichment program, which re-

mains in violation of UN Security Coun-

cil resolutions. In addition, Iran must

reverse its continued refusal to address

forthrightly its weaponization research

and development, make scientists en-

gaged in that work available to the IAEA,

open relevant facilities for inspection,

and reaccept the more advanced inspec-

tion and reporting requirements con-

tained in the additional protocol to Iran’s

safeguards agreement with the IAEA.

If Iran acts on its threat to make 19.75

percent enriched uranium, it would

likely succeed relatively quickly by

utilizing centrifuges already installed

at Natanz. Fabricating the fuel for the

reactor would be more difficult, as Iran

does not currently have the capability to

make this type of fuel. Establishing that

capability would likely take at least a few

years. If Iran produced the 19.75 percent

enriched uranium, it would further

advance its nuclear weapons capability,

even though the operations would be

under IAEA safeguards.

Growing CapabilitiesIn a January 2009 assessment delivered

to the Senate Intelligence Commit-

tee on behalf of the U.S. intelligence

community, Director of National Intel-

ligence Dennis Blair stated, “Although

we do not know whether Iran currently

intends to develop nuclear weapons, we

assess Tehran at a minimum is keeping

open the option to develop them.”18

The most visible part of Iran’s nuclear

weapons capability lies in its ability to

enrich uranium at the Natanz enrich-

ment site. As of November 2, 2009, Iran

was enriching uranium in approxi-

mately 3,936 P-1 centrifuges in 24 cas-

cades, each with 164 centrifuges.19 This

number was six cascades fewer than

were operating in June 2009, when the

total number of centrifuges enriching

uranium was 4,920 in 30 cascades. In

addition, Iran had installed or had “un-

der vacuum”20 an additional 4,756 P-1

centrifuges and was installing another

cascade. In total, the underground Na-

tanz plant contained 8,692 centrifuges

in 53 complete cascades.

Iran’s average rate of LEU produc-

tion has remained steady for the nine

months preceding the IAEA’s November

2 inspection. On average, it produced

about 2.75 kilograms of LEU hexafluo-

ride per day during this period. In total,

Iran had produced by that time 1,763

kilograms of LEU hexafluoride. If this

material were further enriched, Iran

could produce more than enough weap-

ons-grade uranium for a nuclear device.

A minimum amount of LEU required

to produce enough weapons-grade ura-

nium for a weapon is estimated to be

about 1,000 to 1,200 kilograms, depend-

ing mainly on a range of assumptions

about the amount of weapons-grade ura-

nium needed for a nuclear weapon.

The reason for Iran not enriching

in more cascades is unknown. One

possibility is that Iran is experiencing

continued failures of centrifuges and is

viewing the additional cascades as a re-

serve in case large numbers of cascades

fail. (Because individual centrifuges can

be replaced after they break, this large

Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, then-head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, visits the Natanz enrichment facility in 2008.

Go

vernm

ent o

f Iran

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�����

�����

�����

�����

�����

�����

�����

�����

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����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� ����� �����

656TOTAL

1,640TOTAL

2,296TOTAL

2,952TOTAL

3,444TOTAL

5,537TOTAL

7,221TOTAL

8,308TOTAL

8,692TOTAL

1,312

1,968

2,9523,280

3,772 3,936

4,9204,592

3,936

328

reserve is not necessary for routine

breakages.) Alternatively, Iran might

be holding some cascades in reserve

in case it decides to produce higher

enriched uranium. A new possibility is

that enrichment work has slowed at Na-

tanz as Iranian centrifuge experts focus

on getting the Fordow site running.

Iran also may have slowed the pace

of enrichment deliberately for political

reasons. It might seek to reduce tensions

with the rest of the world and avoid pro-

voking additional UN Security Council

sanctions. In addition, Iran might have

slowed its centrifuge program as a result

of the installation of new leadership of

the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran

(AEOI), which might have launched a

review of the program. Gholam Reza

Aghazadeh resigned as head of the

AEOI on July 16, 2009. Aghazadeh,

who also resigned as a vice president of

Iran, had been the AEOI’s chief since

1997 and had served in the 1980s as the

deputy to Mir Hossein Mousavi, who

ran against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

in the June 12 presidential election.21

Aghazadeh was replaced by Ali Akbar

Salehi, Iran’s longtime representative at

the IAEA in Vienna.

So little is known about Iranian in-

tentions regarding Natanz that possibly

nothing in particular is wrong. If so,

the pace of bringing the additional cen-

trifuges into full operation at Natanz

will resume when Iran chooses to speed

up the process.

Although Natanz’s cascades so far

are configured to produce LEU (less

than 5 percent enriched), the plant is

large enough to be configured to make

significant quantities of weapons-grade

uranium. Already, the number of P-1

centrifuges at the underground Natanz

enrichment plant exceeds that given in

an early Pakistani design for the Kahuta

enrichment facility to make weapons-

grade uranium using P-1 centrifuges.

Iran received this design from the Khan

network. This design is configured

to produce in four enrichment steps

enough weapons-grade uranium for

two or more nuclear weapons per year.

It requires about 5,800 P-1 centrifuges

in 38 cascades, significantly fewer than

those that are now at Natanz.

Natanz’s design has many similarities to

Kahuta’s. Twenty-four, or approximately

two-thirds, of the cascades in the Paki-

stani design are identical to the existing

cascades at Natanz. Eight more cascades,

which enrich the LEU to 20 percent, are

identical to those at Natanz, except for

relatively minor modifications in the

equipment to feed the uranium hexafluo-

ride into the cascades and withdraw it

later. Weapons-grade uranium (90 percent

enriched) is produced in six smaller cas-

cades in two steps, first from 20 percent to

60 percent, and next from 60 percent to

weapons-grade. The feed and withdrawal

equipment would also be smaller.

If Iran decided to make its own 19.75

percent enriched uranium, it could

straightforwardly modify a fraction of

Natanz’s cascades to make this mate-

rial. The IAEA would apply safeguards

to the enriched material, but Iran would

inch significantly closer to having an

installed capability to make weapons-

grade uranium.

Tota

l N

um

ber

of

Cen

trif

ug

es

Month/Year

Figure 2: P-1 Centrifuges at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant

The chart below shows the rapid growth in centrifuge installation since 2007 and recent slight decrease in the number of centrifuges enriching uranium at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant. The reasons for the decrease are unclear, but even with the decline in the number of centrifuges enriching uranium, Iran has maintained for the last six months an average daily rate of low-enriched uranium production of approximately 2.75 kilograms.

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Centrifuges Installed

Centrifuges Enriching

Note: This chart accounts only for centrifuges judged as “installed” by the IAEA and does not include centrifuges that are “being installed” to complete cascades under construction.Source: Data adapted from IAEA reports between February 2006 and November 2009. All reports available at http://www.isisnucleariran.org/documents/iaea/.

3,936TOTAL

328

328328

1,601

2,301

3,7164,756

If Iran sought to produce weapons-

grade uranium, it would be expected

to pursue covert enrichment, either by

diverting its safeguarded LEU or by de-

pending on covert production of natural

uranium hexafluoride, in order to lessen

the chance of military strikes thwarting

of national intelligence, issued in Janu-

ary 2009, hewed to the 2007 judgment.

Yet, there is growing evidence that

the NIE assessment about weaponiza-

tion might not be the full story. Brit-

ish, French, and German officials have

stated that Iran probably has resumed

siders a reliable nuclear warhead. Its

engineers might not be experienced

enough or have the time to demand

the same level of reliability, safety, and

security for their nuclear weapons as

Western nuclear-weapon states. The

choices these engineers make in con-

its plans. Nonetheless, the above discus-

sion serves to highlight Iran’s growing

nuclear weapons capability. The discov-

ery of the Qom site underscores Iran’s

growing ability to duplicate covertly

what it has accomplished at Natanz. Al-

though the Qom facility became known

to intelligence agencies well before it

started enriching uranium, governments

cannot exclude the possibility of other,

undiscovered clandestine enrichment

sites either now or in the future, a con-

cern now shared by the IAEA.

WeaponizationAlthough few doubt that Iran is acquir-

ing the capability to make weapons-

grade uranium, debate continues on

whether Iran is working on the nuclear

weapon itself, a collection of complex

activities typically called “weaponiza-

tion.” A key question is how close Iran

is to building a reliable, relatively small

nuclear warhead for the Shahab-3 bal-

listic missile. Able to reach Israel, the

Shahab-3 is Iran’s most likely nuclear

delivery system.

The oft-cited 2007 U.S. National

Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran,

now two years old, states with high

confidence that “in fall 2003, Tehran

halted its nuclear weapons program.” 22

The NIE narrowly defines Iran’s nuclear

weapons program to include nuclear

weapons design and weaponization

work and covert uranium-enrichment

work, not its declared and safeguarded

work related to uranium enrichment.

Nonetheless, it assessed with “moderate

confidence” that as of mid-2007, Iran

had not restarted weaponization work.

A subsequent assessment by the director

working on the nuclear weapon itself.23

The German equivalent to the CIA,

the Bundesnachrichtendienst, has pub-

lished in a court case its assessment that

Iran’s nuclear weapons development

efforts likely existed in 2007.24

Perhaps more to the point, the IAEA

has raised doubts regarding Iran’s

claims that its program is entirely

peaceful in nature. An internal IAEA

working document, based on a large

collection of information obtained from

several member states about Iran’s al-

leged weaponization activities through

the fall of 2003, the same period to

which the 2007 NIE refers, sheds light

on just how much Iran already knows

about making nuclear weapons:

Iran has sufficient information to

be able to design and produce a

workable implosion nuclear device

based upon highly enriched ura-

nium as the fission fuel. The nec-

essary information was most likely

obtained from external sources

and probably modified by Iran.

The Agency believes that non-

nuclear experiments conducted in

Iran would give confidence that

the implosion system would func-

tion correctly.25

Overall, the report concludes that

Iran had not yet “achieved the means

of integrating a nuclear payload into

the Shahab-3 missile with any con-

fidence that it would work” but with

“further effort it is likely that Iran will

overcome problems and confidence

will be built up.”26

Little is known about what Iran con-

junction with their military leaders

will have a major impact on the time

Iran will need to field a warhead for

the Shahab-3 missile.

Has Iran resumed work on its weap-

onization problems, getting that much

closer to being able to field a warhead

for the Shahab-3 missile? Answering this

question remains an urgent priority.

TimelinesU.S. intelligence estimates of when Iran

could be technically capable of produc-

ing its first nuclear weapon have been

broad, falling somewhere between 2010

and 2015. The wide range reflects un-

certainties about how fast Iran could

surmount technical problems in its

centrifuge program, produce enough

weapons-grade uranium for a weapon,

and deploy a nuclear weapon. These

judgments are strictly technical; the Ira-

nian regime would still need to make a

political decision to build the weapons.

Most believe that this decision has not

yet been made.

Because 2010 is so near and most as-

sume that the Iranian regime has not yet

decided to build a nuclear weapon, an-

other way to understand Iran’s timeline

is to consider worst-case assessments of

how long Iran needs to produce its first

nuclear weapon. These scenarios might

not be the most probable ones, but they

are unlikely to underestimate the time

Iran needs to build a nuclear weapon, as

long as the assumption is true that the

Iranian regime has not yet made a deci-

sion to make nuclear weapons.

According to a European intelligence

official, in May 2009, France, Germany,

and the United Kingdom agreed on

The discovery of the Qom site underscores

Iran’s growing ability to duplicate covertly

what it has accomplished at Natanz.

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a common position that Iran could

make enough weapons-grade uranium

and then build a nuclear device in 12

months. This device would be unlikely

to be weaponized for the Shahab-3 mis-

sile, the intelligence official said.27

A worst-case estimate for the time

Iran needs to build a weaponized

warhead was reported recently as 18

months.28 This estimate is reportedly

a rough agreement but not a formal

assessment shared by top Western in-

telligence agencies. It is longer than

the previous estimate and includes the

time needed to weaponize the weapons-

grade uranium into a nuclear weapon.

Weaponization means, as stated to

one of the authors, the construction

of a warhead for the Shahab-3 missile.

About six months would be necessary

to produce the weapons-grade uranium

from the LEU and another 12 months

would be needed for weaponization.29

The LEU removal deal would have the

advantage of adding many months to

these estimates. Without this deal, the

soonest one could expect an Iranian

nuclear weapon is late 2010 to mid-2011.

These estimates would be pushed back

if Iran experienced significant technical

problems or delayed a decision to build

nuclear weapons.

Conclusion Iran has an intermediate nuclear status.

It has the technical capability to make

nuclear weapons, but it has not acted

on that capability, as far as is known.

It has been compared in this respect to

Japan, which has a latent nuclear weap-

ons capability because of its advanced

civil nuclear fuel cycle. Yet, Iran differs

markedly from Japan, which has never

had a nuclear weapons program and has

not deceived or stonewalled the inter-

national community as to the purpose

of its major nuclear fuel-cycle activities.

More apt comparisons are South Africa

in the 1970s, Brazil in the late 1980s,

and India in the 1960s and early 1970s,

although those countries were not NPT

parties during the relevant period.

How the United States and its allies

manage this dangerous period of Iran’s

growing nuclear weapons capabilities

could determine whether Iran takes

the step to build nuclear weapons. Like

the other cases, the outcome is by no

means certain. Undoubtedly, the Obama

administration will expand economic,

political, and possibly even military

pressure on Iran in an attempt to keep

Iran from stepping out of its threshold

status and convince it to suspend its

enrichment program. At the same time,

the United States needs to avoid push-

ing Iran into a corner from which the

Iranian leadership believes building nu-

clear weapons is its only option or worth

the risk that such a step entails. All the

while, the United States will need to

avoid giving other states in the region

incentives to seek nuclear weapons.

The prospects for negotiations cur-

rently appear dim, despite Obama’s

promise of a new start to U.S.-Iranian

relations, and Iran continues advancing

its nuclear weapons capabilities. The

manner in which Iran has conducted

negotiations has given little hope that

its current ruling regime intends to

compromise on two critical issues: sus-

pension of its uranium-enrichment pro-

gram and the acceptance of far greater

transparency of its past and current

nuclear program. Nevertheless, efforts

to negotiate with Iran should not be

abandoned, nor should military strikes

of Iran’s nuclear sites be considered.

The latter is unlikely by itself to set

back Iran’s nuclear efforts significantly,

and military strikes carry an immense

risk of significantly worsening the con-

flict and accelerating Iran’s drive for

nuclear weapons.

The Iranian regime must now make

a new choice, if any future negotia-

An Iranian long-range Shahab-3 missile is prepared to be tested at an unspecified location in Iran September 28. The Shahab-3 is Iran’s most likely nuclear delivery system.

Sh

aiegan

/AFP

/Getty Im

ages

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tions are to be fruitful. Few expect the

regime to do so at this time. The most

likely scenario involves a chilling of

relations with the Iranian regime and

the development of a containment and

deterrence strategy similar to the one

deployed against the Soviet Union in

the early days of the Cold War. Under

this strategy, one priority would be to

build alliances with Arab states to meet

their security concerns and head off

any ambitions for their own nuclear

weapons capabilities. Another would

be to improve regional missile defense

systems aimed at reducing the threat

posed by Iranian short- and medium-

range missiles. Bolstered sanctions

would also serve as an important tax on

Iran’s economy as well as a more effec-

tive disruption of Iran’s ability to shop

overseas for goods vital to its nuclear

and missile programs. Containment,

however, is not an end in itself; it must

have the goal of changing Iran’s calcu-

lus on the nuclear issue. But if that fails,

there would already be a mechanism in

place to mitigate the threat of Iranian

nuclear weapons. Its prospects of con-

vincing the Iranian regime to reverse

its nuclear course might not be great in

the short term, but in the longer term,

containment stands a far better chance

of success than military action or the

current path of extended, inconclusive

negotiations. ACT

ENDNOTES

1. Howard LaFranchi, “Iran Nuclear Deal:

Why the Haggling Might Be Different This

Time,” Christian Science Monitor, October

31, 2009, www.csmonitor.com/2009/1031/

p02s04-usfp.html.

2. “Leader: Iran Not Seeing U.S.-Promised

Changes,” Press TV, November 3, 2009.

3. Office of the Press Secretary, The White

House, “Remarks by the President to the

United Nations General Assembly,” New

York, September 23, 2009, www.whitehouse.

gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-

President-to-the-United-Nations-General-

Assembly.

4. As of October 30, 2009, Iran had 1,763

kilograms of low-enriched uranium

(LEU) hexafluoride. See IAEA Board of

Governors, Implementation of the NPT

Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions

of Security Council Resolutions 1737 (2006),

1747 (2007), 1803 (2008) and 1835 (2008)

in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Report by the

Director General, GOV/2009/74, November

16, 2009. When the IAEA Iranian LEU

deal was first agreed on October 1, 2009,

the amount of LEU slated for removal

comprised about 75 percent of the total

LEU stock at that time, or 80 percent of

the LEU quantity in mid-August. The last

quantity is often given in media reports.

5. This estimate assumes that the entire

agreed quantity of LEU would be sent out by

the end of the year.

6. Originally, the Tehran Research Reactor

used weapons-grade uranium fuel (90

percent uranium-235) provided by the

United States. After Iran’s 1979 revolution,

the United States cut off any further fuel

supplies. In the late 1980s, Argentina agreed

to supply more fuel, but insisted that Iran

accept a new fuel enriched to only 19.75

percent, which is just below the level of

highly enriched uranium (HEU), defined as

containing more than 20 percent uranium-

235. Although HEU can be used in nuclear

explosives, the material enriched to 19.75

percent could not for practical purposes be

turned into a nuclear explosive. Until now,

no supplier, including Argentina, has been

willing to provide Iran with more fuel for

this reactor.

7. Middle East Media Research Institute,

“Iranian Supreme National Security Council

Advisor: ‘Circumstances May Arise Under

Which Iran Will Require Uranium Enriched

to 63%,’” MEMRI Special Dispatch, No. 2605

(October 19, 2009), www.memri.org/bin/

latestnews.cgi?ID=SD260509.

8. U.S. Embassy, “Secretary Clinton’s

Remarks With Moroccan Foreign Minister

Taieb Fassi-Fihri in Marrakesh, Morocco,”

London, November 2, 2009, www.

usembassy.org.uk/midest063.html.

9. Mark Heinrich, “Iran Tells IAEA It Is

Building 2nd Enrichment Plant,” Reuters,

September 25, 2009, www.reuters.com/

article/topNews/idUSTRE58O1N420090925.

10. Paul Brannan, “New Satellite Image

Further Narrows Construction Start Date,”

Institute for Science and International

Security (ISIS), November 15, 2009.

11. U.S. intelligence official, communication

with author, September 25, 2009.

12. Implementation of the NPT Safeguards

Agreement, Nov. 16, 2009.

13. Ibid.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid.

16. If Iran sent out 1,200 kilograms of LEU,

then its remaining stock as of October 30

would be 563 kilograms (see note 4). Iran

is estimated to need at least 1,000 to 1,200

kilograms of LEU hexafluoride to enrich

further and end up with enough weapons-

grade uranium for a nuclear weapon. At

current average rates of enrichment (2.75

kilograms of LEU hexafluoride per day, or

about 83 kilograms per month), Iran would

need about 5.3-7.7 months to re-establish

a breakout capability. Thus, Iran is roughly

estimated to achieve this capability once

again in mid-April to mid-June 2010.

17. David Albright, “Technical Note:

Annual Future LEU Fuel Requirements for

the Tehran Research Reactor,” ISIS, October

7, 2009, www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/

pdf/Tehran_reactor_note_7Oct2009.pdf.

18. Dennis Blair, “Annual Threat Assessment

of the Intelligence Community for the

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence,”

February 12, 2009, p. 20, www.dni.gov/

testimonies/20090212_testimony.pdf.

19. Implementation of the NPT Safeguards

Agreement, Nov. 16, 2009.

20. Centrifuge cascades operate under

vacuum in order to reduce the friction

caused by rapidly spinning centrifuge rotors.

Thus, one of the first steps in starting a

centrifuge is to establish a vacuum inside

the cascade. Then, the centrifuge rotors

are turned on, giving rise to the term

“centrifuges operating under vacuum.” The

next and last major step is introducing the

uranium hexafluoride into the cascade.

21. BBC News, “Iranian Nuclear Chief Steps

Down,” July 16, 2009, http://news.bbc.

co.uk/2/hi/8153775.stm.

22. U.S. National Intelligence Council,

“National Intelligence Estimate: Iran:

Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities,”

November 2007, www.isisnucleariran.

org/assets/pdf/2007_Iran_NIE.pdf. The

National Intelligence Estimate incorporates

intelligence reporting available as of

October 31, 2007.

23. Multiple interviews with German,

French, and British officials by ISIS staff

(Albright and Shire), 2008 and 2009.

24. David Albright and Christina Walrond,

“The Trials of the German-Iranian Trader

Mohsen Vanaki,” ISIS, September 16, 2009.

25. ISIS, “Excerpts From Internal IAEA

Document on Alleged Iranian Nuclear

Weaponization,” October 2, 2009, www.

isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/IAEA_info_

3October2009.pdf.

26. Ibid.

27. European intelligence official,

communication with author, August 2009.

28. Louis Charbonneau, “Iran Would Need

18 Months for Atom Bomb: Diplomats,”

Reuters, October 26, 2009.

29. Ibid.

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By Jim Walsh, Thomas Pickering, and William Luers

It seems that every conversation about Iran

is a conversation about sanctions. Even in

the midst of negotiations, the talk is as likely

to be about the sanctions that might follow as

it is about the negotiation itself. This is an odd

and unfortunate state of affairs.

Jim Walsh is a research associate in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program. Thomas Pickering is co-chair of the United Nations Association-USA, former undersecretary of state for political affairs, and former U.S. ambassador to El Salvador, India, Israel, Jordan, Nigeria, Russia, and the United Nations. William Luers is past president of the United Nations Association-USA and was formerly U.S. ambassador to Czechoslovakia and Venezuela.

Iran and the Problem Of Tactical Myopia

Although sanctions can be an effective

policy instrument, they are only that: an

instrument or tactic for achieving a goal.

Given their track record, new sanctions

are hardly the tactic one would rush to as

a promising choice. More importantly, by

narrowly focusing on a tactic rather than

the strategic objective, there is the risk

that policymakers will produce the very

thing they seek to prevent: an Iran with

nuclear weapons.

The use of sanctions, whether in gen-

eral or against Iran, is not new. By one

count, economic sanctions have been

used 174 times since World War I. Iran

has been subject to a variety of sanctions

since its 1979 revolution. Scholarship on

the effect of sanctions presents a chal-

lenge because of the difficulty of coding

“successes” and “failures” and because of

the numerous variables involved (size of

country, duration and scope of sanctions,

etc.) Still, it is clear from the research that,

in general, sanctions are more likely to fail

than succeed.1

For many reasons, the Iranian nuclear

case presents a particularly tough chal-

lenge for sanctions. Iran is a regional pow-

er and an oil supplier—not an ideal target.

With a declining global supply of oil,

countries such as China will not agree to

do the one thing that would most affect

Iran’s economy: refuse to buy its oil. More

importantly, Iran’s government has made

a very public commitment to the nuclear

program, and the track record of the past

several years indicates that it can build

centrifuges faster than others can impose

sanctions. Iran is a proud country with a

cultivated abhorrence of outside interfer-

ence, especially when the interference is

perceived as having imperial overtones.

New U.S. and other sanctions can impose

costs on Iran, but the loud and accusing

character of the sanctions makes them as

likely to induce resistance as compliance.

The real danger is that a myopic focus

on new sanctions will backfire. Sanc-

tions can be a complement to negotiation

when they give a country an incentive

to bargain. Unfortunately, they can also

be a roadblock to negotiations. It would

be tragic indeed if, in the rush to pile

on more sanctions, an opportunity to

achieve the strategic objective, an Iran

without nuclear weapons, was lost.

If the policy focus is not tactics but the

endgame, then the first question should

be, “What is the most likely path under

which Iran remains without nuclear

weapons?” The historical record suggests

that the most probable scenario is one in

which Iran agrees to a negotiated settle-

ment, one in which it receives at least

partial satisfaction on its concerns (e.g.,

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recognition and respect as a regional pow-

er, an end to foreign activities aimed at

fomenting domestic unrest, greater access

to foreign investment in its oil and gas

sectors) in return for enhanced transpar-

ency and new arrangements for some fuel

cycle activities. Indeed, an agreement is

most likely to be effective if Iran feels that

it has a stake in its success. By contrast,

Iran’s leaders are unlikely to agree to one-

sided concessions or abject capitulation.

Today, few commentators are willing

to object to negotiations for fear of seem-

ing unreasonable. Instead, the doubters

emphasize the dangers of negotiation,

urge the “P5+1” (the five permanent mem-

bers of the UN Security Council—China,

France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and

the United States—plus Germany) to set

strict deadlines, and argue that the United

States and its partners should be prepared

to walk away at the first sign of difficulty.

The most common complaint about

negotiations is that they will allow Tehran

to “play for time.” Typically, a country

uses negotiations to play for time when it

takes advantage of the period of negotia-

tion to engage in activities that it would

otherwise be unable to do (e.g., stockpil-

ing armaments or securing territory prior

to a ceasefire). These conditions do not

apply in the Iranian case. The central con-

cern with Iran is uranium enrichment.2

Iran was enriching prior to the negotia-

tions and would be doing so absent any

negotiations. Negotiations do not make

it easier for Iran to enrich. Indeed, it may

be that negotiations, as a process, induce

Iran to be more transparent and coopera-

tive than it would be if it were outside the

process throwing stones. Negotiations

may ultimately prove unsuccessful in ad-

dressing the problems raised by Iran’s fuel

cycle program, but they do not exacerbate

those problems.

As with sanctions, there are situations

in which deadlines can be useful. Govern-

ments, by their nature, are loath to move

forward without the helpful discipline of

a deadline. As noted above, deadlines are

a tactic to be used in service of an over-

arching strategic objective; they are not

a natural good unto themselves. It would

be a mistake, for example, to become at-

tached to an artificial deadline if that

meant missing an opportunity to resolve

the nuclear dispute.

Any negotiation with Iran is going to

be difficult. The current negotiations may

be even more challenging given internal

divisions in Iran following the June 12

election. In the shifting and ironic politics

of postelection Iran, President Mahmoud

Ahmadinejad may be the strongest advo-

cate for a nuclear deal and international

rapprochement, while reformers and anti-

Ahmadinejad hard-liners criticize him for

being soft. Under these circumstances,

Iranian slowness to respond to proposals

may be a reflection of fractured politics as

much as of some master plan.

Negotiations with Iran will not be easy,

but it would be a mistake to assume in

advance, as most of the U.S. press and

punditry appeared to do in the days lead-

ing up to the October 1 opening of nego-

tiations in Geneva, that negotiations will

fail. Moreover, one senses in the strongest

advocates of sanctions and deadlines an

almost religious faith that negotiations

will fail and that, ultimately, Iran will

acquire nuclear weapons.

This “inevitability assumption” has

been a common belief in the nuclear age,

and yet, it has repeatedly turned out to

be wrong. The examples include Egypt,

Germany, Japan, South Korea, and Tai-

wan. The assumption is tantamount to

relying on a worst-case scenario, which in

turn has the effect of truncating the list

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), speaks to the press after meeting with representatives from France, Russia, and the United States at IAEA headquarters in Vienna October 21.

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of potential policy options. Worse yet, an

assumption that Iran is going nuclear can

lead decision-makers to miss the signals

and signs when a negotiated settlement is

actually possible.

military force against Iran, but an effec-

tive deal that keeps Iran from becoming a

nuclear-weapon state would be preferable

to containment or military strikes.

Neither Iran nor the United States can

a latent capability or a hedge posture.

In short, both the opportunities and

the stakes with Iran may have increased.

Given the challenges that can be expect-

ed in any negotiations, the P5+1 needs

Of course, it may be that Iran be-

comes a nuclear-weapon state, leaving

policymakers with an unenviable set of

options. Containment, once seen as he-

retical because it “accepted” an Iranian

nuclear weapon, is a far more popular

option today, particularly among those

who doubt the value of negotiations. Two

decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall,

containment sounds like a safe and pre-

dictable option, but that is only because

of a tendency to forget that the Cold War

was dangerous and difficult and its pro-

tagonists did not live in the Middle East.

Containment is better than the use of

afford to throw away any serious chance

at a negotiated settlement. This was true

before Iran’s June 12 elections, when the

future of Iranian-U.S. relations had direct

implications for U.S. interests in Afghani-

stan and Iraq as well as for nuclear non-

proliferation. It is arguably even more

true after the Iranian election. Ongoing

turmoil in Iran’s domestic politics may

give Tehran new incentives to settle dis-

putes with the outside world so that it

can focus on internal concerns. Paradoxi-

cally, these same events may also have

increased Iran’s incentive to pursue an

overt nuclear weapons status rather than

to be clear about the strategic objective:

permit Iran to operate under the nuclear

Nonproliferation Treaty but create the

inspection, monitoring, and transpar-

ency arrangements to assure the best fire-

wall against weapons development. The

six countries also need to be open about

how to get there, through a negotiation

that accepts Iran’s legitimate activities,

including enrichment under appropriate

safeguards, and does the maximum to

block the illegitimate ones. They should

avoid all-or-nothing gambles, artificial

deadlines, and a preoccupation with

tactics. If they do, it may be possible to

avoid new sanctions, proliferation, con-

tainment, or even war. ACT

ENDNOTES

1. On the 174 cases, see Gary Clyde Hufbauer

et al., Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, 3rd ed.

(Washington, DC: Peterson Institute, 2007).

On sanctions against Iran in particular, see

U.S. Government Accountability Office,

“Iran Sanctions: Impact in Furthering

U.S. Objectives Is Unclear and Should Be

Reviewed,” GAO-08-58, December 2007,

www.gao.gov/new.items/d0858.pdf; Hossein

G. Askari et al., Case Studies of U.S. Economic

Sanctions: The Chinese, Cuban, and Iranian

Experience (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003),

pp. 171-220.

2. One could argue that Iran is playing for

time by avoiding further sanctions, but for

reasons discussed earlier, there is cause for

doubting the centrality of sanctions as a factor

in Iranian behavior. In any case, the timing of

sanctions is not an issue. Whether sanctions

are imposed now or six months from now

will hardly matter, given the time horizon

in which sanctions operate (years or even

decades). As noted in this article, it has to be

emphasized that the strategic objective relates

to nuclear status and thus enrichment, not

sanctions for the sake of sanctions.

Neither Iran nor the United States can afford

to throw away any serious chance at

a negotiated settlement.

IAEA inspectors arrive at Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran October 25, en route to inspect Iran’s recently revealed uranium-enrichment plant.

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By Orde F. Kittrie

Six days after his inauguration, President

Barack Obama declared that “if countries like

Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they

will find an extended hand from us.” Over the 10

months since then, the Obama administration has

followed up on the January 26 declaration with

numerous friendly gestures to the Iranian regime.

Orde F. Kittrie is a professor of law at Arizona State University, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and a former U.S. Department of State attorney specializing in nonproliferation and sanctions. He has testified on nonproliferation issues before Con-gress and is chair of the Nonproliferation, Arms Control and Disarmament Group of the American Society of International Law.

Using Stronger Sanctions To Increase Negotiating Leverage With Iran

The administration was right to offer

incentives to and enter into dialogue with

the Iranian leadership. Unfortunately, the

Iranian regime has responded by continu-

ing its aggressive and illegal behavior. The

Obama administration should increase U.S.

negotiating leverage over Iran by impos-

ing crippling sanctions on Iran, beginning

January 1, until Iran verifiably complies

with its international obligations.

Iran’s record over the past 10 months,

coupled with the collapse of the tentative

deal to ship about three-quarters of Iran’s

low-enriched uranium (LEU) out of the

country, calls for changing Iran’s cost-

benefit analysis.

At the time of Obama’s statement, Iran

had produced a quantity of LEU that, with

further enrichment to weapons-grade levels,

would be enough for a bomb. Since the

statement, Iran has produced more than

half of the LEU that would be needed to

serve as the basis for a second bomb.1 Iran

has created this LEU in violation of legally

binding provisions of three UN Security

Council resolutions, which order Iran to

“suspend all enrichment-related activities.”2

At the same time, Iran has chosen to

flout numerous other international legal

obligations. Iran’s brutal response to post-

election protests violated its human rights

obligations under international law.3 Iran

has also continued its destabilizing and

illegal support for terrorist groups across

the Middle East.4

These violations of its international le-

gal obligations demonstrate both that the

Iranian regime is responding to Obama’s

outstretched hand with a clenched fist and

that any nuclear or other agreement that

is reached with the Iranian regime must

be designed to include measures, such as

rigorous timelines and exceptional verifica-

tion and monitoring provisions, to protect

the West against Iran’s proclivity to break

its international commitments.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s Novem-

ber 3 statement, in response to what he

described as several personal letters from

Obama, that negotiating with the United

States would be “perverted and naïve” also

calls into question the Iranian regime’s

current motivation to negotiate seriously

with the United States.

The Rationale for Stronger SanctionsObama has set the end of 2009 as a

deadline for reassessing engagement with

Iran. Barring unforeseen developments

before the end of the year, if Obama is to

persuade Iran to begin complying with

its existing international nuclear and

other legal obligations and to enter into

rigorous new obligations, he will need to

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change Iran’s cost-benefit analysis.

Although the United States should re-

main open to negotiations with Iran after

December 31, this deadline should not be

allowed to pass without consequence. Ira-

nian officials have crowed about their suc-

cess in using the 2002-2006 nuclear nego-

tiations with the Europeans to buy time

for Iran to advance its nuclear program.5

In order to deter the Iranian regime from

similarly dragging out the current round

of negotiations while advancing its nu-

clear program, it must be made clear that

Iran will incur a significant cost for failure

to suspend its enrichment-related activi-

ties, as required by UN Security Council

resolutions, and increasingly higher costs

if it has still failed to comply at periodic

intervals thereafter.

Strong international sanctions on Iran

have yet to be tried. The entirety of UN

Security Council sanctions on Iran thus far

consist only of (1) a ban on supplying Iran

with various nuclear and ballistic missile

items and technology, (2) a freeze on over-

seas assets of a few dozen named Iranian

officials and institutions, (3) a ban on the

export of arms by Iran, and (4) a ban on

the overseas travel of a handful of Iranian

officials.6 The sanctions imposed on Iran

by the Security Council thus far are much

weaker than the sanctions imposed on

Liberia during its civil war, Sierra Leone

in response to its 1997 military coup, Yu-

goslavia during the Bosnia crisis, Haiti in

response to its 1991 military coup, South

Africa in response to apartheid, Libya in

response to its support for terrorism, and

Iraq in response to its invasion of Kuwait

and weapons of mass destruction (WMD)

programs. The current weak sanctions

on Iran are a missed opportunity because

Iran’s heavy dependence on foreign trade

leaves it potentially highly vulnerable to

strong economic sanctions.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clin-

ton has said the administration will work

to impose “crippling” sanctions on Iran “in

the event that our offers are either rejected

or the process is inconclusive or unsuccess-

ful.”7 Such strong sanctions on Iran would

serve several useful purposes, including

(1) coercing the Iranian regime into halting

its illegal behavior, if the costs of proceed-

ing with the nuclear program or support-

ing terrorism are increased sufficiently

to outweigh the benefits to the regime of

proceeding with the program or supporting

terrorism; (2) constraining Iran from illegal

behavior, if the sanctions materially reduce

Iran’s supply of goods necessary to advance

the nuclear program, oppress its citizens, or

support terrorist groups; (3) deterring other

countries that might be contemplating

similar illegal behavior; and (4) upholding

the credibility of the Security Council, the

nuclear nonproliferation regime, and the

Obama administration.

Opponents of sanctioning Iran often

assert that such sanctions might harm

innocent Iranians as well as the regime.

Yet, whatever harm the Iranian people

might incur from a tightening of sanctions

in response to their government’s illegal

nuclear weapons program would pale in

comparison to the humanitarian costs to

the United States and the world of an Irani-

an nuclear arsenal. Such an arsenal would

almost certainly embolden Iran to increase

its sponsorship of deadly terrorism, likely

cause a dangerous cascade of nuclear pro-

liferation in the Middle East that would

result in the end of the globally beneficial

nuclear nonproliferation regime, and great-

ly increase the risk of a nuclear 9/11.

Strong Security Council sanctions

helped bring down apartheid.8 In addi-

tion, strong sanctions have in recent years

helped stop illegal nuclear weapons pro-

grams and terrorism. For example, strong

Security Council sanctions helped induce

Libya’s government to forsake terrorism

and completely and verifiably relinquish

An Iranian man walks past a damaged gas station in Tehran in June 2007. Gas stations were torched and long lines formed at heavily-guarded fuel pumps after Iran announced the start of fuel rationing.

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its nuclear, chemical, and biological weap-

ons programs.9 In exchange for the lifting

of UN and U.S. sanctions, Libya ceased its

support for terrorism, paid $2.7 billion to

the families of the victims of the Pan Am

flight 103 bombing, and allowed a team of

British and U.S. government experts to en-

ter the country and completely dismantle

its WMD infrastructure.10

Iran “to modify its national priorities and

devote most of its resources to prevent a

major social upheaval.”13

In addition, some Iranian elites have

suggested that Iran make compromises to

avoid economic sanctions. In November

2008, as Iran began to experience the eco-

nomic pain resulting from a sharp drop

in oil prices, 60 Iranian economists sent

nearly 40 percent of its gasoline and much

of its sophisticated machinery and parts

needs from European companies, Euro-

pean exports to that country accounted

for less than 1 percent of the European

Union’s total worldwide trade in 2008.16

The United States could take steps re-

gardless of what the EU and the Security

Council do. For example, the United

In addition, it was discovered, in the

wake of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, that

strong Security Council sanctions had

helped destroy Iraq’s nuclear weapons

program and succeeded in preventing Sad-

dam Hussein from restarting it between

the 1991 Persian Gulf War and the coali-

tion occupation of Iraq in 2003. Sanctions

reduced the Iraqi government’s revenue,

eroded Iraqi military capability and confi-

dence, blocked the import of key materials

and technologies for producing nuclear

and other weapons of mass destruction,

and provided the United Nations with

leverage to compel intrusive inspections

and monitoring.11

There is evidence that sanctions pres-

sure could similarly dissuade Iran from

proceeding with aspects of its nuclear

program. The threat, thus far unrealized,

of strong sanctions, in some cases supple-

mented by the threat of military action,

reportedly contributed to Iran’s decision

to cease assassinating dissidents in Europe

in the 1990s, to reach out in 2003 to the

Bush administration with a conciliatory

fax and a halt to its nuclear weaponiza-

tion research, and agree in November

2004 to a proposal by France, Germany,

and the United Kingdom for a temporary

suspension of its uranium conversion and

enrichment plans.12

There is more recent evidence that

sanctions could force Iran’s leadership

to modify its behavior. For example, a

September 2006 report by an Iranian

parliamentary committee said that a cut-

off of Iran’s gasoline imports could force

a letter calling on the regime to change

course drastically. The letter said that

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s “ten-

sion-creating” foreign policy has “scared

off foreign investment and inflicted heavy

damage” on the Iranian economy.14 Dur-

ing the recent Iranian presidential cam-

paign, Ahmadinejad’s opponents blamed

him and the sanctions engendered by his

combative foreign policy for the country’s

economic woes.

Additional sanctions could further in-

crease these feelings of discontent. Iran’s

leadership presumably values its contin-

ued control over the Iranian people even

more than it values its nuclear program.

Tehran might be willing to make conces-

sions on its nuclear program if it feels that

strong new sanctions are contributing

to social upheaval sufficient to reach the

tipping point at which the regime loses its

grip over the Iranian people.

Although leaders of the opposition

“Green Movement” inside Iran publicly say

they oppose additional sanctions, several

Iranians familiar with the leadership’s

thinking have been putting the word out

in Washington that movement leaders

have privately said that stronger sanctions

would help their cause.15

Making Sanctions WorkStrengthened sanctions could take several

forms. A wide-ranging European embargo,

similar to the one the United States now

has in place, would almost immediately

bring the Iranian economy to its knees.

Although vital for Iran, which purchases

States can increase its leverage over Iran

by forcing the foreign countries and com-

panies that keep the Iranian economy

afloat to choose between doing business

with Iran and doing business in the Unit-

ed States. The U.S. Department of the

Treasury has already successfully forced

foreign banks to make such a choice,

convincing more than 80 banks, includ-

ing most of the world’s top financial

institutions, to cease some or all of their

business with Iran.

As a result of Iran’s insufficient capacity

to refine its crude oil, Iran must import

some 40 percent of the gasoline it needs for

internal consumption. Bills currently be-

fore the U.S. Congress would prohibit any

company that is involved in providing Iran

with refined petroleum products, includ-

ing gasoline, or enhancing Iran’s refining

capacity from doing business in the United

States. Action by individual members of

Congress, including introduction of these

bills, has reportedly already persuaded two

of Iran’s five top gasoline suppliers in 2008

to stop providing gasoline to Iran.17 U.S.

executive branch action, congressional pas-

sage of sanctions legislation, or both could

convince Iran’s remaining and potential

major suppliers to refrain from providing

gasoline to Iran. 18

Such steps would significantly increase

the nuclear program’s economic and po-

litical cost to the Iranian leadership. When

Iran attempted to ration gasoline dur-

ing the summer of 2007, violent protests

forced the regime to back down. As a BBC

report noted at the time, having to ration

Tehran might be willing to make concessions on its nuclear

program if it feels that strong new sanctions are contributing

to social upheaval sufficient to reach the tipping point at

which the regime loses its grip over the Iranian people.

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fuel is “dangerous” for the government

of “an oil-rich country like Iran, where

people think cheap fuel is their birthright

and public transport is very limited.”19

Squeezing Iran’s gasoline imports would

remind the Iranian people that instead of

investing in oil refining capacity to meet

Iran’s growing demands, the Iranian gov-

ernment has chosen to invest in a nuclear

program that is contrary to international

law, is economically inefficient, and has

resulted in international isolation and

various sanctions targeting Iran. Although

Iran probably could replace some of its

current gasoline imports, finding replace-

ment suppliers would take time, and re-

placements would be more expensive.

Obama already has sufficient legal au-

thority to compel Iran’s gasoline suppliers

to choose between the U.S. and Iranian

markets. Quietly squeezing Iran’s gasoline

supplies through low-profile executive

branch action could make the Iranian

people less likely to blame the U.S. gov-

ernment and more likely to blame their

own government for resulting shortages.

The U.S. Treasury has successfully used

this approach with regard to its financial

measures. Such a technique could also be

applied to companies in other sectors that

do business with the United States and

supply key materials to Iran.

Sanctions pressure is the best remain-

ing hope for peacefully preventing Iran

from obtaining nuclear weapons and for

deterring other countries that might be

contemplating following Iran’s bad ex-

ample. The Obama administration must

hold Iran to a December 31 deadline and

insist that Tehran comply with its inter-

national obligations by verifiably relin-

quishing its nuclear weapons program.

If Tehran fails to meet this deadline, it

will be time to change the regime’s cost-

benefit calculus by beginning to impose

crippling sanctions on Iran. ACT

ENDNOTES

1. “Last February, Iran accumulated enough LEU to

be able to enrich enough weapon-grade uranium

for one nuclear weapon. At Iran’s current rate of

2.77 kilograms of LEU hexafluoride per day, Iran

would accumulate in total enough LEU to use as

feed for the production of sufficient weapon-grade

uranium for two nuclear weapons by the end of

February 2010.” David Albright, Paul Brannan,

and Jacqueline Shire, “ISIS Report: IAEA Report on

Iran,” August 28, 2009, http://isis-online.org/up-

loads/isis-reports/documents/Analysis_IAEA_Re-

port.pdf. According to IAEA reports, Iran had pro-

duced a total of 1,010 kilograms of LEU hexafluo-

ride as of January 31, 2009, and 1,763 kilograms by

October 31, 2009. David Albright and Jacqueline

Shire, “ISIS Report: IAEA Report on Iran,” Novem-

ber 16, 2009, http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/de-

tail/iaea-report-on-iran-fordow-enrichment-plant-

at-advanced-stage-of-constructi/.

2. UN Security Council Resolution 1737 orders

that “Iran shall without further delay suspend the

following proliferation-sensitive nuclear activities:

(a) all enrichment-related and reprocessing activi-

ties, including research and development.” UN

Security Council, Resolution 1737, S/RES/1737,

December 23, 2006. Resolutions 1747 and 1803

explicitly affirm that decision. UN Security

Council, Resolution 1747, S/RES/1747, March 24,

2007; UN Security Council, Resolution 1803,

S/RES/1803, March 3, 2008.

3. See International Covenant on Civil and

Political Rights, www2.ohchr.org/English/law/

ccpr.htm.

4. For example, the Iranian ship carrying weap-

ons from Iran to Yemeni rebels, which was

seized by the Yemeni government on October

26, violated UN Security Council Resolution

1747, which orders that “Iran shall not supply,

sell or transfer directly or indirectly from its

territory or by its nationals or using its flag ves-

sels or aircraft any arms or related materiel.”

A second ship, carrying 500 tons of weapons

from Iran to Hezbollah in Lebanon, which

was seized by the Israeli navy on November 3,

violated Resolution 1747 as well as Resolution

1701, which ordered all States to “prevent...

the sale or supply to any entity or individual

in Lebanon of arms and related materiel of all

types.” UN Security Council, Resolution 1701,

S/RES/1701, August 11, 2006.

5. See, e.g., Phillip Sherwell, “How We Duped

the West, by Iran’s Nuclear Negotiator,” Sunday

Telegraph, March 5, 2006, p. 24.

6. See Security Council Resolutions 1737, 1747,

and 1803.

7. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Testimony before

the House Committee on Foreign Affairs,

April 22, 2009.

8. See, e.g., John Kifner, “The Mandela Visit; Man-

dela Backs Sanctions and Meets U.S. Executives,”

The New York Times, June 22, 1990, p. 8.

9. “[T]he surprise decision by Libyan President

Muammar Gadhafi in 2003 to renounce weapons

of mass destruction was partly influenced by his

desire to end the decade-old U.S. sanctions and to

gain access to American oil field technology and

know-how.” Gary Clyde Hufbauer et al., Economic

Sanctions Reconsidered, 3rd ed. (Washington, DC:

Peterson Institute for International Economics,

2008), pp. 12-13.

10. The sanctions on Libya both contained

Gaddafi’s ability to develop weapons of mass de-

struction and ultimately coerced him, including

by grinding down Libya’s oil industry and causing

economic problems so severe they threatened

his grip on Libya. See Orde F. Kittrie, “Averting

Catastrophe: Why the Nuclear Nonproliferation

Treaty Is Losing Its Deterrence Capacity and How

to Restore It,” Michigan Journal of International Law,

Vol. 28, No. 2 (2007), pp. 337-430.

11. Rolf Ekeus, chief UN weapons inspector in

Iraq from 1991 to 1997, said, “Keeping the sanc-

tions was the stick, and the carrot was that if Iraq

cooperated with the elimination of its weapons

of mass destruction, the Security Council would

lift the sanctions. Sanctions were the backing for

the inspections, and they were what sustained

my operation almost for the whole time.” George

A. Lopez and David Cortright, “Containing Iraq:

Sanctions Worked,” Foreign Affairs, July/August

2004, p. 96. “UN-authorized sanctions denying

Saddam Hussein unlimited access to Iraq’s oil

revenues, coupled with the periodic use of force,

provided UN inspectors with enough leverage to

find and destroy Iraq’s stockpiles and facilities

for producing chemical, biological, and nuclear

weapons.” Hufbauer et al., Economic Sanctions

Reconsidered, p. 12.

12. See, e.g., Dennis Ross and David Makovsky,

Myths, Illusions & Peace: Finding a New Direction

for America in the Middle East (New York: Viking,

2009), pp. 188-190, 196-197.

13. Agence France-Presse, “Iranian Lawmak-

ers Feared Social Upheaval From Sanctions,”

January 20, 2007, www.spacewar.com/reports/

Iranian_Lawmakers_Feared_Social_Upheaval_

From_Sanctions_999.html.

14. Borzou Daragahi, “Economists in Iran

Criticize Ahmadinejad,” Los Angeles Times,

November 10, 2008, p. A3.

15. For public reflections of this, see, e.g.,

Nazenin Ansari and Jonathan Paris, “The Mes-

sage From the Streets of Tehran,” The New York

Times, November 6, 2009; House Committee

on Foreign Affairs, Iran: Recent Developments and

Implications for U.S. Policy, 111th Cong., 1st sess.,

2009, pp. 81-83, http://foreignaffairs.house.

gov/111/51254.pdf (testimony of Abbas Milani

and Karim Sadjadpour).

16. See European Commission, “Trade: Iran,”

http://ec.europa.eu/trade/creating-opportunities/

bilateral-relations/countries/iran/index_en.htm.

17. Paul Sampson, “U.S. Gasoline Move Against

Iran Seen Ineffective Without UN Support,” Inter-

national Oil Daily, August 5, 2009; Ammar Zaidi,

“Reliance Shifts Exports to Mideast and Europe

as Jamnagar Ramps Up,” International Oil Daily,

August 12, 2009.

18. In 2009, Iran’s imported gasoline has reportedly

been supplied largely by two Swiss companies. See

Paul Sampson, “Iran’s Parliament Votes to Phase

Out Costly Gasoline Subsidies,” Oil Daily,

November 11, 2009.

19. “Iran Fuel Rations Spark Violence,” BBC News,

June 27, 2007.21

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By Dennis M. Gormley

Dennis M. Gormley is a senior fellow in the Washington office of the Monterey Institute of International Studies’ James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, a faculty member at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, and author of Missile Contagion: Cruise Missile Proliferation and the Threat to International Security (2008).

Because Europe and the U.S. forces based

there face a near-term ballistic missile

threat, President Barack Obama’s decision

to abandon a Bush-era missile defense plan makes

good sense. In contrast to President George W. Bush’s

approach, which focused primarily on a few

potential ICBMs, Obama’s is more suited to Iran’s

growing arsenal of medium- and intermediate-

range ballistic missiles.

Winning on Ballistic Missiles But Losing on Cruise:The Missile Proliferation Battle

The Obama decision also provides an

opportunity to reflect on how the ballistic

missile threat has evolved over the last 25

years. There is reason to believe that mis-

sile nonproliferation policies have contrib-

uted to preventing the flow of specialized

skills and technologies that are critical

to enabling the leap from medium- and

intermediate-range ballistic missiles to

intercontinental ones. This success has

been reinforced by U.S. ballistic missile

defenses, which have kept pace with the

way the ballistic missile threat from Iran

and North Korea has emerged thus far.

Yet, the situation with regard to cruise

missile proliferation is different. Cruise

missile nonproliferation policies are less

potent, and defenses are woefully inade-

quate, which may explain the sudden out-

break of cruise missile proliferation in the

Middle East, Northeast Asia, and South

Asia. Unless the Obama administration

focuses on making missile controls, which

are the primary focus of this article, and

missile defenses function in tandem to

address the threats from both ballistic and

cruise missiles, the overall missile threat

to U.S. interests could severely worsen in

the years ahead.

Partial SuccessNearly a decade ago, Richard Speier, one

of the principal architects of the now

34-nation Missile Technology Control

Regime (MTCR), argued cogently that the

MTCR and missile defenses were not in

fact antithetical pursuits but complemen-

tary ones.1 From the outset of the regime,

Speier noted, this complementarity was

reflected in the MTCR’s goal of targeting

missile research, development, and pro-

duction, while missile defenses focused on

targeting the missile once it was launched.

According to Speier’s analysis, effective

missile defenses should raise the cost of

offensive missiles by compelling nations

to seek more-effective offensive missiles,

larger inventories, and countermeasures

(at least for long-range missiles traveling

in space). The MTCR should make the

job of missile defense easier to achieve by

stretching missiles’ development time,

lowering their reliability, and reducing

their sophistication.

Despite its imperfections, the MTCR—

the only existing multilateral arrange-

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The Iranian medium-range ballistic missile Sajjil-2 is shown at an undisclosed location in Iran prior to its successful flight test May 20.

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ages

ment covering the transfer of missiles

and missile-related equipment, material,

and technology relevant to weapons of

mass destruction (WMD)—has brought

a significant degree of order and pre-

dictability to containing the spread of

ballistic missiles, especially with regard

to a threatening state’s development of

missiles capable of achieving intercon-

tinental ranges. This was evident in the

White House fact sheet issued to support

the Obama administration’s alternative

missile defense plan for Europe, which

said, “The intelligence community now

assesses that the threat from Iran’s short-

and medium-range ballistic missiles is

developing more rapidly than previously

projected, while the threat of potential

Iranian intercontinental ballistic missile

(ICBM) capabilities has been slower to

develop than previously estimated.”2

There is little doubt that Iran’s slower

than expected progress toward achieving

ICBM capabilities is due to the MTCR’s

success in blocking the flow of critical

technologies and specialized expertise

needed for such an achievement.3

Dependence on an intelligence com-

munity threat assessment returns the

Obama administration to the long-

standing notion of “threat-based” plan-

ning wherein major defense acquisition

programs require a specific explication

of the threat in order to justify the ex-

penditure of major resources. The Bush

administration’s secretary of defense,

Donald Rumsfeld, had come away from

chairing the 1998 Commission to Assess

the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United

States newly appreciative of the tendency

of U.S. policymakers, he argued, to un-

derestimate the tenacity, resourcefulness,

and determination of adversaries to ac-

quire weapons of mass destruction and

their means of delivery.4 Consequently,

Rumsfeld formalized capabilities-based

planning in the 2001 Quadrennial De-

fense Review; thereafter, capabilities were

to be developed to handle the full range

of likely future challenges rather than a

narrow set of predictable threat scenari-

os. Missile defense funding, focused pri-

marily on protecting the U.S. homeland,

rose accordingly.

Rumsfeld dismissed planning on the

basis of intelligence community threat

projections. The panel he chaired, known

informally as the Rumsfeld Commis-

sion, established a misguided, though

influential, threat metric that suggested

a straightforward path for states such as

Iran and North Korea to develop ICBMs.

As the commission report argued, “With

external help now available, a nation with

a well-developed Scud-based infrastruc-

ture would be able to achieve first flight of

a long-range missile up to, and including,

intercontinental ballistic missile range

(greater than 5,000 km) within about five

years of deciding to do so.”5

In 1998, Iran and North Korea each pos-

sessed more than just a Scud-based bal-

listic missile infrastructure; both countries

had begun producing Scud missiles in the

mid-1980s. Moreover, the two countries

have benefited from a symbiotic relation-

ship in missile development through

shared research, development, and test

results, bolstered by Iran’s purchases of

North Korean missiles, missile compo-

nents, and technical assistance. A critical

component of this relationship was Iran’s

willingness to conduct proxy tests of

Nodong missiles for North Korea during

the latter’s nearly eight-year test mora-

torium after the 1998 Taepo Dong-1 test

produced a strong international backlash.

What accounts for the fact that neither

North Korea nor Iran has achieved ICBM

ranges more than 10 years after the Rums-

feld Commission issued its report and

nearly 25 years after they achieved Scud

production capability? In light of North

Korea’s pursuit of three-stage ballistic mis-

siles and a space-launch vehicle (SLV) and

Iran’s progress in two-stage missiles and an

SLV program, both states are presumably

seeking such a capability. Their slow prog-

ress attests to the difficult challenges as-

sociated with moving from medium-range

ballistic missiles to intermediate- and

intercontinental-range ones.

The critical variable is the availability

of external technical assistance. The

Rumsfeld Commission assumed the ex-

istence of such help but did not specify

that such assistance comes in various

forms. In ascending order of importance,

these include explicit representations of

missile technology embodied in engi-

neering drawings and blueprints; com-

ponent technologies, such as light alloys

to replace steel-bodied air frames; missile

production equipment; and sustained

and direct help from systems integra-

tion and systems engineering specialists

who can furnish the specialized know-

how needed to grapple with advances in

propulsion systems, thermally protected

re-entry bodies, and the complex staging

needed to achieve intercontinental range.

Because of the MTCR’s expanding

export control guidelines and technical 23

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A Pakistani soldier guards Babur missiles at the International Defence Exhibition in Karachi in 2008. Pakistan first successfully launched the land-attack cruise missile in 2005.

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annex, the ways and means of acquiring a

ballistic missile have become much more

complex since the creation of the regime

in 1987. Prior to that time, the Soviet

Union and secondary proliferators such

as Libya and North Korea had directly

provided Scud ballistic missiles to client

states. Today, largely due to the MTCR,

states seeking a ballistic missile capability

are forced to take a different, more compli-

cated approach, often including multiple

front companies, intermediaries, trans-

shipment means, and diversionary routing

of subsystems and materials, all often sup-

ported by money-laundering transactions,

designed to work around MTCR controls.

During the MTCR’s first decade in

operation, the regime’s denial provisions

and diplomatic engagement helped thwart

the missile programs of Argentina, Brazil,

Egypt, Iraq, Libya, South Africa, South

Korea, Syria, and Taiwan.6 Additional

measures, such as the 2003 Proliferation

Security Initiative (PSI), have greatly

enhanced cooperation among a growing

list of partner states with regard to intel-

ligence sharing, diplomacy, and improved

techniques to detain, inspect, and seize

suspicious cargo. As Denmark’s ambassa-

dor to the United States, Ulrik Federspiel,

declared in May 2005, “[T]he shipment

of missiles has fallen significantly in the

lifetime of PSI.”7 In mid-2006, a senior

Department of State official said that PSI

cooperation had stopped some exports to

Iran’s missile program.8

Another important change has occurred

since 1987: an increasing recognition by

government nonproliferation officials of

the importance of blocking the transfer of

highly specialized knowledge, or “black

art” skills, to missile programs of prolif-

eration concern. These skills are critical

to the goal of achieving substantially

longer-range ballistic missiles. The trans-

fer mechanism for these skills consists of

lengthy face-to-face engagements between

highly skilled missile specialists, especially

systems engineers, and their mentees

within Iran or North Korea, for example.

This more advanced form of external as-

sistance likely began to diminish signifi-

cantly in the aftermath of several of the

more egregious cases of Russian external

support to foreign missiles programs in

the early 1990s.9 The shortage of special-

ized assistance only increases the need

for North Korea and Iran to cooperate

and set up a division of labor in pursuit

of their missile ambitions. Yet, both are

likely to struggle mightily toward the goal

of achieving a capability to produce inter-

continental-range missiles.

The Cruise Missile Problem Although Speier’s ideal approximation

of how the MTCR and missile defense

might complement each other seems to

have proven valid for ballistic missiles,

it does not appear to hold true for cruise

missiles. Cruise missile proliferation

shows dangerous signs of vertical and

horizontal momentum. Beginning in

the 1960s, short-range (about 100 kilo-

meters) anti-ship cruise missiles (about

75,000) spread to more than 70 coun-

tries, including 40 in the developing

world. Until very recently, sophisticated

and much longer-range cruise missiles

for attacks against land targets remained

largely the domain of a few industrial

states, most notably the United States

and Russia. Since 2004, however, land-

attack cruise missiles have begun to

spread across the Middle East, Northeast

Asia, and South Asia.10

In the Middle East, Israel was once

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Country SystemRange

(kilometers)Payload

(kilograms)Status Origin

China Dong Hai-10 (DH-10) 2,000 Operational China

YJ-63 500 500 In development China

India PJ-10 BrahMos 290 300 In development/In service Russia/India

Nirbhay 1,000 In development India

Lakshya 350 600 Potential/Unknown Israeli help

Iran Converted HY-2 350 500 Potential/Unknown China

Kh-55 Potential/Unknown Ukraine

Pakistan Babur/Hatf 7 700+ In development China

Raad/Hatf 8 350 In development China?

South Korea

Cheonryong 500+ In development South Korea

Boramae 500+ In development South Korea

Hyunmoo III 1,000 In development South Korea

Hyunmoo IIIA 1,500 In development South Korea

Taiwan Hsiung Feng-2E (HF-2E) Less than 1,000 400-450 In development Taiwan

Source: Data adapted from Dennis M. Gormley, Missile Contagion: Cruise Missile Proliferation and the Threat to International Security (Westport, CT: Praeger Security International, 2008), app. A.

Table 1: Selected Cruise Missile Programs

Beginning in 2004, there was an outbreak of new land-attack cruise missiles in the Middle East, Northeast Asia, and South Asia. Current capabilities of selected countries in those regions are detailed below.

the sole country possessing land-attack

cruise missiles, but now Iran is pursu-

ing cruise missile programs for land and

sea attack, including the reported con-

version of 300 Chinese HY-2 anti-ship

cruise missiles into land-attack systems.

Iran’s surreptitious acquisition via arms

dealers in Ukraine of at least six Russian

Kh-55 nuclear-capable, long-range (about

3,000 kilometers) cruise missiles in 2001

will likely assist that country’s quest to

produce more sophisticated long-range

cruise missiles for attacking land targets.

Iran has provided the terrorist group He-

zbollah with unmanned aerial vehicles

(UAVs) and sophisticated anti-ship cruise

missiles, one of which severely damaged

an Israeli vessel and killed four sailors

during the 2006 war in Lebanon.

In South Asia, India and Pakistan are

deploying land-attack cruise missiles for

delivery of nuclear and conventional

weapons. India, with Russian collabora-

tion, is developing the BrahMos super-

sonic cruise missile, plans for which

include deployment with Indian army,

navy, and air force units. The BrahMos

can strike targets over land or at sea at

a range of nearly 300 kilometers, while

flying at mach 2.8. India has at least

two other land-attack cruise missile pro-

grams underway, including one, called

Nirbhay, similar to the U.S. Tomahawk

with a range of 1,000 kilometers and

another shorter-range one co-developed

with Israel’s help. In August 2005, Paki-

stan surprised the world by successfully

launching its first land-attack cruise mis-

sile, called Babur, purportedly a nuclear-

capable ground-launched missile with a

range of 700 kilometers. Two years later,

it tested a second land-attack cruise mis-

sile, the air-launched Raad, with a 350-

kilometer range. Pakistan claims they are

indigenously produced, but it appears

evident that at least China has helped in

a substantial way.11

In Northeast Asia, China has recently

unveiled two new land-attack cruise mis-

siles, including the ground-launched DH-

10 with a range of more than 1,500 kilo-

meters and the air-launched YJ-63 with a

range of 500 kilometers. According to the

Pentagon’s 2009 annual report to Con-

gress on China’s military power, the Sec-

ond Artillery Corps has already deployed

between 150 and 350 DH-10s, which

complement the corps’ huge inventory of

more than 1,000 ballistic missiles facing

Taiwan. Taipei, for its part, first tested its

HF-2E land-attack cruise missile in 2005

and seeks to extend its current 600-kilo-

meter range to at least 1,000 kilometers,

to reach targets such as Shanghai, and

potentially 2,000 kilometers, so that

even Beijing is within range. As many as

500 HF-2E cruise missiles were originally

sought for deployment on mobile launch-

ers. Not to be outdone, South Korea

announced after North Korea’s nuclear

test in 2006 that it had four new land-at-

tack cruise missiles under development

with ranges between 500 and 1,500

kilometers. The South Korean press took

immediate note that all of North Korea,

as well as Tokyo and Beijing, would be

within range of these new cruise missiles.

Even Japan, a nation whose constitution

renounces war and offensive forces, is

toying with the prospect of acquiring

land-attack cruise missiles.25

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Uneven Controls, Weak NormsWhat explains the sudden outbreak of

cruise missile proliferation? First, com-

pared to ballistic missiles, cruise missiles

suffer from more unevenly executed

controls and weak international norms

against their spread. When the MTCR

was formulated in the mid-1980s, the

spread of ballistic missiles was a much

greater concern than the spread of

cruise missiles. Moreover, the regime’s

authors found that delineating controls

on cruise missiles and UAVs was a more

challenging proposition than identify-

ing which ballistic missile technologies

to control. Yet, the regime sought to

limit both ballistic and cruise missiles,

called Category I items, capable of car-

rying a payload of 500 kilograms for at

least 300 kilometers.12

After a considerable struggle, MTCR

members succeeded in reaching a modest

consensus on cruise missiles and UAVs,

but actions taken by MTCR members

between 1998 and 2002 cemented the

status of cruise missiles and UAVs as a

lower-priority concern. The first was the

decision taken in 1998 by French and

British leaders to sell the Black Shahine

cruise missile to the United Arab Emir-

ates, notwithstanding U.S. protestations.

Making the transaction even more pro-

foundly disturbing was the missile’s ad-

vanced characteristics. Not only was the

missile subject to the regime’s strong pre-

sumption of denial due to its combina-

tion of range and payload, but it also pos-

sessed an extraordinarily low radar cross

section and stealthy aerodynamic design.

Thus, it had the same characteristics that,

in ballistic missiles, inspired the MTCR’s

authors in the first place, i.e., difficulty of

defense, short warning, and shock effect.

Of even greater concern was the prec-

edent such a sale might have on other

MTCR members or regime adherents,

such as Russia or China, respectively.

Although U.S. objections to the Black

Shahine transaction may have suggested

a firm U.S. position with respect to equal

treatment of ballistic and cruise missile

transfers, U.S. behavior after the Black

Shahine decision was ambiguous. In its

long, drawn-out negotiations with Seoul

prior to South Korea joining the MTCR in

March 2001, Washington strongly urged

a cap of 300 kilometers for the range and

500 kilograms for the payload in Seoul’s

future ballistic missile programs, al-

though allowing Seoul to “research” 500-

kilometer ballistic missiles. Yet, the Unit-

ed States allowed South Korea the option

of pursuing cruise missile development

to what the United States thought would

be a maximum range of 500 kilometers,

as long as the payload was under 500

kilograms.13 Here again, Washington’s

differentiation between cruise and bal-

listic missiles conveyed the impression

that the consequences of cruise missile

proliferation were not terribly important

compared with the spread of ballistic

missiles. Ironically, during missile nego-

tiations with Seoul in 1999, Washington

had steadfastly insisted that Seoul not

pursue missiles beyond the 300-kilome-

ter range, arguing that 500-kilometer sys-

tems provided little additional military

utility, especially in light of the financial

cost and the risk of fueling a missile com-

petition with Pyongyang and fomenting

suspicion in China, Japan, and Russia.

Another form of unwelcome differenti-

ation practiced by some MTCR members

is making a rare exception to the regime’s

“strong presumption to deny” the trans-

fer of proscribed Category I missiles.14

For example, the United States has trans-

ferred Category I Tomahawk cruise mis-

siles to the United Kingdom and Spain,

fellow members of NATO. Although

Russia and South Korea are not formal

allies, Moscow transferred a Category I

first-stage liquid rocket to Seoul to sup-

port South Korea’s program to develop

an SLV called the Naro-1, which made its

inaugural flight August 25. Washington

had earlier refused to help Seoul achieve

its SLV ambitions, which places that na-

tion in the position to convert such a

launcher into a long-range ballistic mis-

sile were Seoul to violate the end-use

restrictions to which it committed itself

in order to acquire support from Russia.

The chief difficulty with this type of dif-

ferentiation is that it makes objecting to

undesired missile proliferation behavior

elsewhere more difficult.

Washington’s informal differentiation

between ballistic and cruise missiles

became even more apparent when the

MTCR membership fashioned the Hague

Code of Conduct against Ballistic Mis-

sile Proliferation, which was launched

in 2002 and now has 130 nations sub-

scribed to its normative principles. By

agreeing on a set of general principles

and commitments designed to establish

broad international norms and confi-

dence-building measures dealing with

the proliferation of ballistic missiles

alone, the code of conduct fostered the

wrong impression about acceptable and

unacceptable missile activity. In effect,

by not including cruise missiles in the

code’s mandate, the initiating states cre-

ated the notion that although curbing

the spread of ballistic missiles was in

the best interests of peace and regional

stability, the unbridled spread of cruise

missiles somehow would have less perni-

cious consequences.

Weak international norms related

to cruise missiles have affected India’s

behavior with regard to the utility of

confidence-building measures and ac-

cess to foreign cruise missile technology.

Although India has not subscribed to the

Hague Code of Conduct, which urges

subscribers to implement pre-launch no-

tifications, New Delhi has cooperatively

pursued a missile launch notification

agreement with Islamabad. From the

outset of negotiations, Pakistan sought

to include cruise missile launches in the

agreement. India balked, not least because

prior to a tentative agreement between the

two countries in August 2005, only India

had tested cruise missiles. With Pakistan’s

surprise launch of its own cruise missile

barely a week after the tentative accord

was reached, New Delhi must have begun

to reconsider its shortsightedness in keep-

ing cruise missiles out of the agreement.

By April 2006, after Pakistan had success-

fully conducted its second flight test of its

new cruise missile, India signaled its in-

terest in bringing cruise missiles into the

joint notification accord. Thus far, cruise

missiles remain outside this important

regional accord, intensifying concerns

about the destabilizing impact of a cruise

missile arms race in South Asia.

The perception of normative differenti-

ation between ballistic and cruise missiles

also appears evident in India’s attempts

to acquire cruise missile technologies to

extend the range of its nascent cruise mis-

sile programs. Pakistan’s surprise cruise

missile test in 2005 prompted calls in the

Indian press to extend the range of the

BrahMos cruise missile at least to that of

Pakistan’s Babur and much farther if pos-

sible. Such an extension in range, it was

noted, would require access to restricted

technologies from Russia, an MTCR mem-

ber state. The Indian press assumed that 26

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A U.S. soldier performs an operational check on an MIM-104 Patriot Missile System mobile generator in Kuwait during Operation Enduring Freedom in 2003. During the conflict, Patriot missile defenses successfully intercepted all nine threatening Iraqi ballistic missiles, but failed to detect or intercept any of the five cruise missiles that Iraq employed.

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obtaining these technologies was feasible

because the BrahMos cruise missile, un-

like India’s ballistic missiles, was not

subject to the same level of international

scrutiny. Although there is no evidence

that Russia has aided India in an extend-

ed-range version of the BrahMos cruise

missile, Indian officials have publicly

spoken of a BrahMos follow-on capable,

within a decade, of traveling 1,000 kilo-

meters at hypersonic speeds.

Even more provocative was India’s

failed attempt in 2006 to flout existing

MTCR guidelines by approaching the

European missile giant, France-based

MBDA Missile Systems, in hopes of ob-

taining a technology transfer arrange-

ment and complete cruise missile sys-

tems. The Indian press reported that

the deal fell apart in last-minute nego-

tiations, but a more likely explanation

is that after the respective French and

Indian defense organizations reached

a tentative agreement, the deal was

nixed by the French government in

light of obvious MTCR restrictions.15

Since then, India has turned to Israel

for assistance in achieving longer-

range cruise missiles while India and

Pakistan compete for advantage with

new cruise missile deployments.

Inadequate DefensesThe second reason that cruise missiles

are spreading relates to another un-

fortunate impression only growing in

strength: that cruise missiles are unde-

tectable and therefore highly survivable.

Until the 2003 war against Iraq, ballis-

tic missiles were broadly seen as capable

of penetrating U.S. missile defenses.

During that conflict, however, while

Patriot missile defenses successfully

intercepted all nine threatening Iraqi

ballistic missiles, they failed to detect or

intercept any of the five primitive cruise

missiles that Iraq employed.16 Further-

more, changes in rules of engagement

necessitated by having to deal with bal-

listic and cruise missiles contributed to

the downing of two friendly aircraft by

Patriot missiles. Before the 2003 war,

cruise missiles were rarely depicted as

weapons virtually impossible to inter-

cept. Soon after, that message became

the featured narrative accompanying the

launch of nearly every new land-attack

cruise missile program discussed earlier

in this article.

Foreign AssistanceAs with ballistic missile proliferation, out-

side technical assistance, particularly the

specialized skills possessed by experienced

systems engineers, is a critical prolifera-

tion factor in most new cruise missile pro-

grams. Chinese fingerprints are all over

Pakistan’s cruise missile developments,

while Russian engineering is known to

have enabled China to further its cruise

missile ambitions beginning in the early

1990s. Russian technical assistance, for-

malized in a joint agreement, has boosted

India’s capacity to join the supersonic

cruise missile club; Israel has helped India

with its subsonic cruise missile programs.

Iranian cruise missile programs depend 27

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heavily on foreign-trained engineers

who honed their skills in five different

countries. Even though the United States

has sought to forestall Taiwan’s cruise

missile ambitions with diplomatic inter-

ventions, Taiwan obtained critical U.S.

is the idea of working with Russia, within

the NATO-Russia Council, on expanding

the mandate of the Cooperative Airspace

Initiative (CAI) beyond its current goal of

achieving a system of air traffic informa-

tion exchange along the borders of Russia

measure equipment, such as towed decoys

and terrain-bounce jammers, which mimic

the missile they protect, is critically impor-

tant. The latter two devices will become

commonplace as cruise missile observabil-

ity shrinks through improved aerodynamic

cruise missile technology to improve the

performance of the cruise missiles being

developed under its new program. Unless

the flow of foreign skills and technology

is stanched soon, cruise missiles will only

spread further.

Repairing the DamageTo address the spread of cruise missiles,

several approaches deserve policymaker

attention. The first is to take a more

evenhanded approach to improving

defenses against ballistic and cruise mis-

siles. Demonstrably improved U.S. missile

defenses against short- and medium-range

ballistic missiles have made cruise missiles

much more attractive to the country’s

adversaries because U.S. cruise missile de-

fenses remain weak and poorly managed.

Fighter aircraft equipped with advanced

detection and tracking radars possess

some modest capability to deal with

low-volume cruise missile threats. If the

cruise missile threat grows uncontrollably,

however, the comparatively high cost of

missile defense interceptors could make

such defenses increasingly unaffordable

and ultimately ineffective in coping with

combined ballistic and cruise missile at-

tacks. Existing U.S. cruise missile defense

programs are underfunded, while doctri-

nal, organizational, and interoperability

issues continue to discourage the military

services from producing truly joint solu-

tions for defending U.S. forces and allies.

Homeland defenses are even more sorely

lacking, but cruise missile defenses for

safely projecting force overseas should

take priority over the more improbable

threat of a terrorist group launching a

cruise missile from a freighter.

Also worthy of policymaker attention

and NATO member countries. The CAI,

working in possible cooperation with

functionally equivalent U.S.-funded Air

Sovereignty Operations Centers in the

former Warsaw Pact states, could form the

basis for investigating an expansion of air

monitoring capabilities to the domain of

cruise missile warning and defense. Rus-

sia’s long-standing prowess in developing

effective air defense systems, including

the S-400, which can intercept ballistic

and cruise missiles as well as aircraft,

could fit nicely into a broad-area concept

for European cruise missile defense.17

No less important is the complemen-

tary challenge of improving MTCR con-

trols covering cruise missiles. Beginning

in 2002, the MTCR began to fill many of

the then-existing shortcomings in cruise

missile controls, notably by creating a

uniform set of ground rules for determin-

ing the true range of cruise missiles, ex-

panding licensing requirements for civil

engines and integrated flight navigation

systems, and establishing new controls

over complete UAVs equipped with aerosol

dispensers. The import of these seem-

ingly arcane adjustments was, in fact,

substantial. Creating a coordinated list of

controlled technologies representing po-

tentially the most dangerous items from

a proliferation point of view is a critical

component of effective, although not

foolproof, nonproliferation policy.

More must be done to shore up cruise

missile controls. The cruise missile threat

could grow dramatically worse if countries

incorporate stealthy features or, worse, add

certain highly tailored countermeasures to

already stealthy cruise missiles. The addi-

tion of language in the MTCR’s technical

annex covering specially designed counter-

design and the addition of stealthy materi-

als.18 Also, as Speier has long argued, the

United States should push to incorporate

controls covering the export of ballistic

missile countermeasures that render ballis-

tic missile defenses more problematic.19

Detection of substantial transfers of

specialized knowledge is conceivable;

such transfers therefore are risky for the

perpetrator. The MTCR should heighten

awareness of the importance of monitor-

ing such intangible technology transfers

and highlight opportunities for intel-

ligence sharing and collaboration among

key member states.

The MTCR is criticized for includ-

ing states that matter little as threats to

proliferate missile-relevant items and

for not including the world’s foremost

proliferators. If China became the chief

global dispenser of cruise missiles and

the specialized know-how central to their

further development, an intensification

of the emerging missile contagion would

be a near certainty. China’s membership

status (it unsuccessfully sought member-

ship in 2004) and its point of view on what

technologies should be controlled (China’s

national export controls fall short with

regard to cruise missiles) stand as perhaps

the greatest MTCR challenge today.

On balance, it would be better to have

China operating from within the MTCR

than as a mere adherent. Even though

China was for years considered a prolif-

erator, Beijing was permitted to join the

Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) in 2004.

Critics used most of the very same con-

cerns about Beijing’s poor proliferation

track record and weak enforcement mech-

anisms to argue against Beijing’s NSG ac-

cession, but Bush administration officials

Unless the flow of foreign skills and

technology is stanched soon, cruise missiles

will only spread further.

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countered by stating that China had

made enough improvements to warrant

NSG membership. Formal accession to

the MTCR would mark not only China’s

involvement in a key security institution

it doubted for many years, but also, more

broadly, its increasingly close engagement

in international economic and political

institutions. Continuing to block China’s

accession to the MTCR could backfire by

encouraging Beijing to increase its incau-

tious behavior regarding missile sales.

That would make it easier for China to

subvert U.S. security interests from the

comfort of Beijing’s imprecise and occa-

sionally self-serving adherent relationship

with the MTCR today, most notably with

regard to cruise missiles.

Last but not least is the need to repair

the Hague Code of Conduct’s shortsighted

normative treatment of missile prolifera-

tion. Certainly, countries such as South Ko-

rea and the United States that are wary of

seeing cruise missiles added to the code of

conduct’s mandate view them as precision

delivery systems for conventional weap-

ons, not as a means of delivering weapons

of mass destruction. Lawrence Freedman

has observed that “cruise missiles…are to

some extent the paradigmatic weapon” of

the revolution in military affairs, which is

perceived as a decidedly conventional, not

WMD, phenomenon.20 Sadly, some states,

notably India and Pakistan, are acquiring

cruise missiles with nuclear and precise

conventional delivery in mind. Cruise

missiles are conservatively 10 times more

effective than ballistic missiles in deliver-

ing biological weapons.21 Moreover, by

tying precision conventional-strike sys-

tems to pre-emptive war doctrines, states

are moving closer to lowering the vital

threshold between peace and war and

escalation to WMD use.

Sentiment is growing for broadening

the code’s mandate to include cruise

missiles. Beginning in 2003, the 14-

member independent Weapons of Mass

Destruction Commission, chaired by

Hans Blix, deliberated for more than

two years to develop “realistic proposals

aimed at the greatest possible reduc-

tion of the dangers of weapons of mass

destruction.”22 On WMD delivery sys-

tems, the commissioners unanimously

recommended the following: “States

subscribing to the Hague Code of Con-

duct should extend its scope to include

cruise missile and unmanned aerial ve-

hicles.”23 As missile proliferation special-

ist Aaron Karp notes, “If it is to prosper,

expanding the Hague Code of Conduct

to include cruise missiles probably is

inevitable, if only because so many gov-

ernments want it.”24 The time is ripe to

make the Hague Code of Conduct rel-

evant to the changing nature of ballistic

and cruise missile proliferation. ACT

ENDNOTES

1. Richard Speier, “Can the Missile Technology

Control Regime Be Repaired?” in Repairing the

Regime, ed. Joseph Cirincione (Washington. DC:

Routledge, 2000), pp. 202-216.

2. Office of the Press Secretary, The White House,

“Fact Sheet on U.S. Missile Defense Policy,”

September 17, 2009, www.whitehouse.gov/

the_press_office/FACT-SHEET-US-Missile-Defense-

Policy-A-Phased-Adaptive-Approach-for-Missile-

Defense-in-Europe/.

3. On the MTCR’s broad accomplishments, see

Vann Van Diepen, “Missile Nonproliferation:

Accomplishments and Future Challenges,”

International Export Control Observer, No. 5 (March

2006), pp. 16-18. See also Dennis M. Gormley,

Missile Contagion: Cruise Missile Proliferation and the

Threat to International Security (Westport, CT: Praeger

Security International, 2008), pp. 32-34, 157-158.

4. Bradley Graham, The New Battle Over Shielding

America From Missile Attack (New York: Public

Affairs, 2001), pp. 41-42.

5. “Executive Summary of the Report of the

Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat

to the United States,” July 15, 1998, www.fas.

org/irp/threat/bm-threat.htm.

6. Dinshaw Mistry, Containing Missile

Proliferation: Strategic Technology, Security Regimes,

and International Cooperation in Arms Control

(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003).

7. Arms Control Association, “Proliferation

Security Initiative (PSI) at a Glance,” 2007, www.

armscontrol.org/factsheets/PSI.asp.

8. Mary Beth Nikitin, “Proliferation Security

Initiative,” CRS Report for Congress, RL34327,

September 10, 2009, p. 3 (citing Under Secretary

for Arms Control and International Security

Robert Joseph’s remarks on July 18, 2006).

9. The Russian case of detecting 200 illegally

obtained passports for Makayev Design Bureau

scientists, engineers, and family members and

the detention of 36 of them at a Moscow airport

before their departure for Pyongyang in 1992

shows that these activities can be detected and

forestalled. The Russian government has advised

scientists and engineers at enterprises suspected of

aiding Iranian and North Korean missile programs

that if they were subjected to U.S. sanctions

for their activities, the government would take

additional measures to penalize such behavior.

Gormley, Missile Contagion, pp. 156-159.

10. For documentation and analysis of these

developments and others discussed in this

article, see Gormley, Missile Contagion.

11. Ibid., pp. 73-74.

12. Frederick J. Hollinger, “The Missile

Technology Control Regime: A Major New

Arms Control Achievement,” in World Military

Expenditures and Arms Transfers 1987, ed. Daniel

Galick (Washington, DC: U.S. Arms Control and

Disarmament Agency, 1988), p. 26.

13. See Mistry, Containing Missile Proliferation,

p. 96. Mistry states that the policy declaration

that Washington negotiated with Seoul included

a trade-off provision allowing South Korea to

develop 500-kilometer-range land-attack cruise

missiles with a 400-kilogram warhead. South

Korean press reports uniformly indicate that the

agreement placed no restriction on the range of

cruise missiles as long as the payload remained

under 500 kilograms.

14. For a discussion of these examples, see

Gormley, Missile Contagion, ch. 9.

15. Former French export control official, e-mail

communication with author, July 2007.

16. For a full account, see Gormley, Missile

Contagion, ch. 7.

17. For further elaboration, see Dennis M.

Gormley, “The Path to Deep Nuclear Reductions:

Dealing With American Conventional

Superiority,” Institute Français des Relations

Internationales, Fall 2009, pp. 40-41.

18. There is reason to believe that endgame

countermeasures for cruise missiles can be

controlled under the MTCR. Equipment that

can be legitimately exported as part of a manned

aircraft is not subject to control under the MTCR.

Endgame countermeasures, however, such as

towed decoys and terrain-bounce jammers, must

be specially designed to work with the particular

missile they are to protect, to achieve the

intended mimicking of the radar signature.

19. Richard Speier, “Missile Nonproliferation

and Missile Defense: Fitting Them Together,”

Arms Control Today, November 2007, www.

armscontrol.org/act/2007_11/Speier.

20. Lawrence Freedman, “The Revolution in

Military Affairs,” Adelphi Paper, No. 318 (Oxford:

Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 70.

21. Eugene McClellan, interview with author,

Arlington, Virginia, August 1997.

22. See Weapons of Mass Destruction

Commission, “Weapons of Terror: Freeing the

World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical

Arms,” May 2006, p. 15, http://wmdcommission.

org/files/Weapons_of_Terror.pdf.

23. Ibid.

24. Aaron Karp, “Going Ballistic? Reversing

Missile Proliferation,” Arms Control Today, June

2005, www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_06/Karp.

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30 Europe and the Former Soviet Union

38 The United States and the Americas

40 The Middle East and Africa

44 The World

48 Asia and Australia

December 2009

InThe NEWS

German Nuclear Stance Stirs Debate

The German government’s explicit support for the

withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Germany has

triggered a debate within NATO and revealed differ-

ences among Germany’s governing parties, official statements

and comments during interviews suggest. NATO allies will

now have to debate the German initiative and the future of

U.S. nuclear deployments in Europe during the current review

of NATO’s Strategic Concept.

The new German coalition government supported the with-

drawal in its Oct. 24 statement of its policy program. Against

the background of the upcoming review conference of the

nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) “and in the context of

the talks on a new Strategic Concept for NATO,” Berlin “will

advocate a withdrawal of remaining nuclear weapons from

Germany, both within NATO and vis-à-vis our American al-

lies,” the statement said.

The document represents an agreement involving the

Christian Democratic Union (CDU), its partner the Christian

Social Union (CSU), and the Free Democratic Party (FDP). It

marks the first time that the government of a NATO country has

publicly promoted the removal of U.S. nuclear weapons from its

territory and, according to several sources, has already triggered

discussions on the future of NATO’s nuclear policies.

Previous German governments had raised the issue of the fu-

ture of U.S. nuclear deployments but never so clearly called for

a nuclear-weapon-free Germany. (See ACT, May 2009.) Canada

and Greece are believed to have initiated a quiet withdrawal of

U.S. nuclear weapons from their countries.

According to an Oct. 29 analysis by Hans Kristensen posted on

the Federation of American Scientists’ Strategic Security Blog, the

United States still deploys 10 to 20 B61 free-fall nuclear bombs at

Büchel Air Force Base in western Germany. Kristensen concludes

that the United States keeps a total of 150 to 240 nuclear weapons

in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey. Under

B61 nuclear bomb trainers are displayed at Carswell Air Force Base in Texas in 1985.

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his introductory visit to Washington, Westerwelle underlined

Germany’s support for the “peace policy and the disarmament

policy pursued by the American administration” and stated that

“we want to do whatever we can not only to accompany it with

words but also with deeds.”

Hoff said the new government views its initiative both as a

disarmament measure and a contribution to nuclear nonprolif-

eration. “We want to send a signal and fulfill our commitments

under the NPT 100 percent,” she said.

NATO nuclear sharing arrangements have been repeatedly

criticized during meetings of NPT states-parties as being at odds

with the treaty’s letter and spirit. (See ACT, June 2008.)

A senior German Federal Foreign Office source said in a Nov.

11 interview that “the interagency process to implement the pro-

gram of the new government has begun.” In the past, Germany’s

Federal Ministry of Defense has supported continued German

involvement in nuclear sharing and deployment of U.S. nuclear

weapons in Germany. Officials speaking privately indicated that

the political agreement to initiate withdrawal is unlikely to lead

to a quick change in that position.

Westerwelle had taken a clear position on the issue of with-

drawal during the campaign before the Sept. 24 election. On

Aug. 16, for example, Westerwelle told the Associated Press that,

if elected, he would conclude negotiations with German al-

lies on the complete withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons from

Germany during the four year-term of the new government.

After his designation as foreign minister, in an Oct. 27 interview

with the German journal Internationale Politik, he insisted that

Germany should lead when it comes to be nuclear disarmament

and “could set an example by working within NATO toward the

NATO nuclear sharing arrangements, these countries would pro-

vide aircraft that could deliver U.S. nuclear weapons to their tar-

gets in times of war. (In his analysis, Kristensen says he believes

that the strike mission of the Turkish air force has expired.) NATO

does not provide details of nuclear deployments, but officials in

the past have confirmed that “a few hundred” U.S. nuclear weap-

ons are deployed in Europe. (See ACT, September 2007.)

NATO allies consult on these arrangements and other aspects

of the alliance’s nuclear policies in the Nuclear Planning Group

(NPG). NATO is currently reviewing its 1999 Strategic Concept,

including its nuclear policies, and hopes to reach agreement on

a new concept by the end of next year.

Domestic Discussions FDP defense spokesperson Elke Hoff told Arms Control Today in

a Nov. 13 e-mail that the members of the coalition were able

to agree only after “a tough struggle” on the goal of creating a

nuclear-weapon-free Germany. According to a knowledgeable

source, the compromise formula in the government program in

the end had to be agreed at the highest level, by party leaders

Chancellor Angela Merkel of the CDU and incoming Foreign

Minister Guido Westerwelle of the FDP. Hoff emphasized that the

two parties now jointly support the initiative and that “the goal

of withdrawal of the remaining nuclear weapons from Germany

is thus a solid part of our government’s program.”

The new government places its initiative in the context of

global nuclear disarmament by stating that it emphatically

supports “President [Barack] Obama’s proposals for new far-

reaching disarmament initiatives – including the goal of a

nuclear-weapon-free world.” At a Nov. 5 press conference during

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle (left) and NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen hold a press conference in Brussels November 3. Rasmussen said discussions about NATO’s nuclear strategy are “only natural.”

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withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons still stationed on our soil.”

The CDU and the CSU are the only parties in the Bundestag

that have recently supported nuclear sharing and Germany’s

participation in the arrangement. In the past, Merkel had em-

phasized that nuclear sharing provides Germany with a unique

opportunity to be involved in the nuclear weapons policies of

NATO allies. After the election, during a Nov. 10 parliamentary

debate on the new government’s policies, Merkel mentioned

neither withdrawal nor nuclear sharing and merely argued

that the new government wants to make sure that NATO’s new

Strategic Concept “will also put the issue of disarmament on

the agenda.” Andreas Schockenhoff, the CDU member of par-

liament responsible for foreign and security policies, told Arms

Control Today in a Nov. 11 e-mail that the government’s new

position does “absolutely not indicate a break” with past policies

of the conservative party. “A withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weap-

ons from Germany would not at all mean that we are no longer

part of nuclear sharing,” he argued. Schockenhoff pointed out

that Greece no longer has U.S. weapons deployed on its terri-

tory but is still taking part in nuclear sharing. Participation in

NATO’s NPG, for example, is not linked to hosting U.S. nuclear

weapons. “Germany’s active participation in the transatlantic

Alliance is therefore not at stake,” he wrote.

Negotiating With the Russians?Differences continue to exist among the German coalition

partners on the conditions for withdrawal. Previous German

governments placed removal of U.S. nuclear weapons in the

context of negotiations with Russia on tactical nuclear weapons.

According to the source close to the negotiations on the govern-

ment’s program, it was a conscious decision during discussions

on the government’s program not to include such a linkage.

By contrast, Schockenhoff in the Nov. 10 parliamentary debate

mentioned an additional precondition by stating that removal

of U.S. nuclear weapons should be pursued in close consultation

with allies and “in the context of disarmament agreements.”

Russia is believed to possess more than 2,000 tactical nucle-

ar weapons in various states of readiness. According to many

observers, these weapons pose a particular security risk be-

cause many are small and easy to use, making them a potential

target of terrorist groups. In interviews, several German and

NATO officials pointed out that the Obama administration has

said it intends to include tactical nuclear weapons in the next

round of nuclear arms control negotiations with Russia, due

to begin once the current talks on a follow-on agreement to

START are completed.

At the same time, the Obama administration seems to have

reconsidered the previous U.S. stance that NATO nuclear weap-

ons are a bargaining chip in future talks with Russia on tactical

nuclear weapons. In July 30 remarks at a U.S. Strategic Com-

mand symposium on nuclear deterrence in Omaha, Robert

Einhorn, the Department of State’s special adviser for nonpro-

liferation and arms control, posed the question of whether the

United States “as an inducement to Russia to limit or consolidate

its tactical weapons, should be prepared to reduce or eliminate

the relatively small number of U.S. nuclear weapons that remain

in Europe,” according to Global Security Newswire.

A U.S. official said in a Nov. 11 interview that Washington’s

position on whether U.S. tactical nuclear weapons deployed in

Europe should be a future bargaining chip with Russia is “nu-

anced.” He explained that the United States is “not talking about

the mere elimination of the whole class of nuclear weapons but

about devaluing the importance of nuclear weapons.” Given the

disproportion in the size of Russian and U.S. tactical nuclear

weapons stockpiles, he said, “What incentive would there be for

Russia to enter negotiations on these weapons even if NATO were

to put all its weapons on the table? Frankly, it would be difficult

to get the Russians to the table in the first place.”

NATO ReactionsThe senior Foreign Office source confirmed that the issue of

withdrawal will be discussed in the context of the ongoing

NATO discussion about a new Strategic Concept and “would be

on the arms control agenda as soon as possible.” Schockenhoff

emphasized that “a consensus within NATO on this question is

a precondition for any changes,” but said that he “expects posi-

tive reactions by NATO allies to this project because disarma-

ment and arms control play an important role in the alliance.”

Hoff emphasized that “it will be particularly important that

talks with our allies in NATO about a withdrawal of U.S. nuclear

weapons from Germany will be conducted on the basis of ratio-

nal criteria and free of Cold War reflexes.”

According to several sources, a presentation by German rep-

resentatives of Berlin’s new position in the NATO Council did

Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen speaks during a press conference in The Hague November 2. The Dutch government reacted cautiously to Germany’s explicit support for withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Germany.

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not trigger a direct reaction by allies. Yet, German representa-

tives were apparently approached on a bilateral basis by several

NATO allies who were seeking clarification of Berlin’s position

on nuclear sharing. The U.S. official said the new German gov-

ernment’s initiative to advocate a removal of U.S. nuclear weap-

ons from Germany has indeed prompted “a lively debate within

NATO.” That debate so far has been limited to “informal discus-

sions and corridor chatter” rather than formal consideration of

the proposal, he said, adding that the discussions “are certainly

going to be interesting.”

Several officials predicted that formal consultations would be

unlikely to take place before the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review

(NPR) is completed in early 2010, making it unlikely that NATO

countries will be able to present a coordinated stance on the

future of nuclear sharing at the next NPT review conference.

Obama administration officials have apparently promised to

brief NATO allies in January on the NPR, although it is unclear

whether Washington will give allies an opportunity to provide

input into the outcome.

During a Nov. 3 press conference with Westerwelle, NATO

Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen evaded a question on

whether the removal of all nuclear U.S. warheads from Europe,

and in particular from Germany, would be conducive to alli-

ance security. He did say that it is “only natural that there is a

political discussion and a discussion in our publics about our

nuclear strategy” and “noted with satisfaction” assurances by

the new German government “that any steps and any discus-

sion or any decision will take place in a multilateral framework.”

Westerwelle took pains to point out that Germany would not

move ahead unilaterally, saying that “we will take decisions to-

gether.… [T]he new federal German government is not aiming

at going matters alone.”

Allied ReactionsThe Dutch government also reacted cautiously. According a

Nov. 2 press release posted on the Dutch Foreign Ministry’s Web

site, Westerwelle and his Dutch counterpart, Maxime Verhagen,

agreed that “the current international situation presents an op-

portunity to take new steps” to reduce the number of nuclear

weapons in Europe, but “stressed that unilateral disarmament is

not on the cards.” Verhagen said that “involving NATO in nu-

clear negotiations between Russia and the United States” would

be “the best way of eliminating the largest possible number of

nuclear weapons.”

However, there are divisions on this issue among the three par-

ties that form the Dutch government. A Sept. 9 article in the Dutch

daily de Volkskrant quotes Labour Party foreign affairs spokesman

Martijn van Dam as saying that the Netherlands should invite

Obama to remove the U.S. nuclear weapons from Dutch territory.

“The Netherlands should tell the American president Obama:

come and get them,” van Dam said. Christian Democrats and the

Christian Union, who are in a coalition with Labour, do not agree

with this and on Oct. 15 rejected three parliamentary resolutions

that supported withdrawal of nuclear weapons. Labour voted in

favor of two of the resolutions, but rejected one that supported

unilateral action by the Dutch government.

A senior Belgian official told Arms Control Today in a Nov. 16

e-mail that “Belgium is and remains supportive of a world free

of all nuclear weapons” and welcomed the U.S. commitment to

that goal. The official argued that Belgium should now “actively

contribute to a coherent and result-oriented strategy, [which

must] be agreed within the relevant multilateral frameworks, in

the first instance within NATO.” He cautioned that “none of this

can be done unilaterally, we must be committed to multilateral

consultation and decision-making.”

The Belgian parliament has repeatedly urged the government

to take action toward withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Bel-

gium and Europe. On Oct. 15, legislation proposing a ban in Bel-

gium of the production, storage, sale, transport, and possession of

nuclear arms was introduced.

Many observers have noted that the issue of providing assuranc-

es, including extended deterrence, to U.S. allies while the United

States pursues a nuclear-weapon-free world is one of the conten-

tious issues in the NPR. Referring to the issues surrounding with-

drawal of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons, the U.S. official indicated

that “the Obama administration is certainly going to be interested

in exploring these issues in the context of the review of NATO’s

Strategic Concept.” He predicted that “the current administration

will be much more receptive to the ideas advocated by Germany

than the previous administration” and said that the current U.S.

ambassador to NATO, Ivo Daalder, personally has a strong interest

in nuclear disarmament. Before taking his new position, Daalder

co-authored an article in the November/December 2008 issue of

Foreign Affairs on “The Logic of Zero,” which argues for strong

U.S. leadership on nuclear disarmament.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks in Berlin November 9. In a radio interview with MDR Radio in Berlin, Clinton said NATO is “the appropriate forum” for discussions of when the United States might withdraw nuclear weapons from Germany.

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Notes of CautionIn a Nov. 9 interview with MDR Radio in Berlin, U.S. Secre-

tary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton gave a cautious response

to the question of when the United States might withdraw

nuclear weapons from Germany, saying that “we have to be

very careful about how we evaluate the different threats, the

need for deterrence.” Clinton pointed to differences among

allies on the need for U.S. nuclear deployments in Europe.

“NATO is the appropriate forum to consider all of the ramifi-

cations, because we have obligations to states further east. We

have obligations to states in the Balkans and further south,”

she said.

German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, in

a Nov. 19 speech in Washington, explicitly warned that new

NATO members might take over Germany’s role in nuclear

sharing, should U.S. weapons deployed in Germany be with-

drawn unilaterally. Guttenberg said that when discussing the

future of nuclear weapons in Germany, “we have to keep in

mind what any step means, as a consequence.” Pointing to

NATO’s 1996 promise not to deploy nuclear weapons on the

territory of new alliance members, Guttenberg said that “we

could have partners in mind who probably would be glad to

offer their grounds and their soil for any weapons. But the

question is whether that makes sense, then, for the security

structures within Europe.”

NATO’s 1996 statement that it “has no intention, no plan

and no need to station nuclear weapons on the territory of

any new members” was essential to reducing Russian opposi-

tion to former Warsaw Pact members joining the alliance.

One option to reduce NATO’s nuclear profile would be

consolidation of U.S. weapons in a few states. A 2006 NATO

report by Jeffrey Larsen entitled “The Future of U.S. Non-Stra-

tegic Nuclear Weapons and Implications for NATO” concludes

that one option is for NATO to decide “to move all of its nu-

clear weapons to storage sites in southern Europe to be closer

to the most likely near-term threats.” Kristensen in his Web

log cites rumors that “have circulated for several years about

plans to consolidate the remaining weapons from the current

six bases to one or two bases” in Italy and Turkey. Officials

interviewed for this article differed as to the likelihood of

such an option. The U.S. official stated that such a proposal is

“now more likely to be realized than in the past, not so much

because of the German initiative but mainly because of the

change in U.S. administration and its new nuclear weapons

policies.” Others pointed out the preliminary nature of the

discussions and that NATO’s High Level Group is currently

only beginning consideration of various options for NATO’s

future nuclear posture. These officials also emphasized that

placing nuclear weapons only in Italy and Turkey might be

controversial in those countries and would face a number of

practical and political hurdles.

Kristensen wrote in his blog that “Turkey does not allow

the U.S. Air Force to deploy the fighter-bombers to Incirlik

that are needed to deliver the bombs if necessary, and has

several times restricted U.S. deployments through Turkey into

Iraq.” Aviano Air Base in Italy, where U.S. nuclear weapons

would presumably be concentrated, is already overburdened

with conventional missions, he said. —OLIVER MEIER

Review of applications is on-going and will continue until the position is filled. A letter of application, c.v. and three letters of recommendation should be sent to:

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President George H. W. Bush (left) and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev laugh during a joint press conference in Moscow July 31, 1991. Nine years of talks were successfully concluded when the two leaders signed START.

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U.S., Russia Poised for Arsenal Cuts

President Barack Obama and Rus-

sian President Dmitry Medvedev

said Nov. 15 they expect to sign a

new arms control treaty to replace START

by the end of December.

The arsenal limits under discussion

would lead to substantial reductions in Rus-

sian and U.S. strategic nuclear forces. The

two sides had not reached final agreement

as of press time.

After meeting with Medvedev at the

Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, Obama

said, “Our goal continues to be to complete

the negotiations and to be able to sign a

deal before the end of the year. And I’m

confident that if we work hard and with a

sense of urgency about it that we should be

able to get that done,” according to a White

House transcript.

Speaking after Obama, Medvedev said,

“I hope that, as was agreed initially dur-

ing our first meeting in London, [and]

was reaffirmed during later meetings,

we will be able to finalize the text of

the document by December.” He added,

“[T]he world is watching.”

The current START expires Dec. 5.

The latest and possibly final round of

Russian-U.S. talks began in Geneva Nov.

9. Obama will travel to Oslo to receive his

Nobel Peace Prize Dec. 10, and the White

House would like to have a new treaty

ready for signature by that time, accord-

ing to administration officials.

If agreement is reached, the new treaty

would significantly tighten bilateral limits

on the number of strategic nuclear war-

heads and delivery vehicles each side can

deploy. Under START and the Strategic

Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), Rus-

sia and the United States are limited to

deploying 2,200 strategic warheads (by

2012) on 1,600 long-range land-based

missiles, sea-based missiles, and bombers.

The new treaty would reduce the warhead

limit from 2,200 to possibly 1,600, a cut

of 600 (27 percent). The launcher limit

would drop from 1,600 to possibly 800, a

cut of 800 (50 percent).

The launcher reduction is larger in part

because the previous limit (1,600) has

not been revised since 1991, when START

was signed. The previous warhead limit

(2,200), by contrast, was agreed to a de-

cade later in SORT, which was signed in

2002, and is thus a more accurate reflec-

tion of current deployments. (For com-

parison, START limits both sides to 6,000

“accountable” warheads, i.e., warheads

that are associated with delivery systems

but not directly counted.)

With regard to deployed strategic war-

heads, the Department of State reported

in July 2009 that the United States had

met its SORT limit of 2,200 three years

early. Russia is believed to have about

2,800 warheads, according to indepen-

dent estimates. Thus, comparing current

warhead stocks to the likely new treaty

limit (1,600), the United States would

have to reduce by 27 percent and Russia

by 42 percent.

The likely new limit of 800 strategic

delivery vehicles (long-range missiles and

bombers) will not directly affect current

forces because Russia and the United

States are at or below these limits already.

The United States is believed to deploy

about 800 (the same number allowed un-

der the new treaty) while Russia deploys

about 620, according to independent esti-

mates. The difference is due in part to the

U.S. preference to keep more missiles with

fewer warheads loaded on each one. Rus-

sia, due primarily to budget constraints,

chooses to deploy fewer missiles with

more warheads on each. Reflecting these

preferences, Russia originally proposed

that the two sides agree to keep only 500

launchers apiece, while the United States

first proposed 1,100.

In 1991, before START was signed, Rus-

sia and the United States each had roughly

10,000 deployed strategic warheads. If the

START follow-on is completed, the bilater-

al arms control process will have reduced

Russian and U.S. deployed strategic war-

heads by more than 80 percent over the

last two decades. If the START successor

is not implemented, both sides would be

free to increase their nuclear forces after

START expires this month and SORT ex-

pires Dec. 31, 2012 (see graph).

Even if the text of the START follow-on

is finalized by Dec. 5, the new treaty can-

not enter into force until ratified by the

U.S. Senate and Russian Duma. To cover

this interval, Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.),

who supports a new treaty and is con-

cerned that inspectors from each side will

lose their access to the other’s facilities

when START expires, has introduced leg-

islation that would give Obama authority

to allow Russian inspectors to continue to

monitor U.S. facilities. Michael McFaul,

special assistant to the president for na-

tional security affairs and senior director

of Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the Na-

tional Security Council, told reporters at

a Nov. 15 White House press briefing that

negotiators are working on a “bridging

agreement” to extend elements of the cur-

rent START until the new treaty has been

signed and ratified. “We do need a bridg-

ing agreement no matter what,” McFaul

said. “The key thing there is verification.

We just want to preserve the verification.”

Indicating that the negotiations may con-

tinue until Dec. 31, McFaul said, “But we’re

not at the endgame yet, we’re not at the end

of the year.” McFaul added, “We still have

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Russia Plans Changes to Military Doctrine

Russia is planning to revise its military doctrine, last up-

dated in 2000, according to a series of statements from

Russia’s National Security Council. The draft, titled “The

New Face of the Russian Armed Forces Until 2030,” is expected to

be presented to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev for approval

by the end of the year.

Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the Russian Security Council,

commented on the pending changes in an Oct. 14 interview

with the Russian newspaper Izvestia. The 2000 doctrine needs to

be adapted to the new security environment, which is likely to

feature “local wars” and armed conflicts, he said. The current ver-

sion allows the use of nuclear weapons “in response to large-scale

aggression with conventional weapons in situations critical to the

national security of the Russian Federation and its allies.” It also

provides for the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear-

weapon state-party to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in the

event of an invasion or any other attack on Russia, its territory,

armed forces, or allies. The new military doctrine would distin-

guish among large-scale, regional, and local wars as well as other

armed conflicts and allow the use of nuclear weapons in regional

and local wars, Patrushev said. It provides the “flexibility to use

nuclear weapons depending on the situation and the enemy’s in-

tentions” and does not exclude pre-emptive nuclear strikes in situ-

ations critical to Russia’s national security, Patrushev said.

Patrushev said the changes were intended to preserve Russia’s

status as a nuclear-weapon state capable of deterring potential en-

emies from attacking the country and its allies. He said the changes

envisioned in the new doctrine are similar to many aspects of U.S.

Origins of New STARTSigned in 1991 and brought into force

in 1994, START still provides far-reach-

ing inspections and data exchanges on

which both sides depend to determine

the size and location of the other’s

nuclear forces. The United States has

conducted more than 600 inspections

in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and

Ukraine while Russia has conducted

more than 400 inspections in the Unit-

ed States, according to the State Depart-

ment. START was signed by the Soviet

Union and includes all the former Soviet

republics that hosted nuclear weapons

at that time. All former Soviet nuclear

forces are now controlled by Russia.

SORT, which entered into force in 2003,

calls for both sides to retain no more than

2,200 “operationally deployed” strategic

warheads, expires the same day the treaty

limit takes effect, and provides no addi-

tional verification provisions.

Motivated by START’s pending expira-

tion, U.S. and Russian officials agreed in

March to negotiate a new treaty to estab-

lish lower, verifiable limits on strategic

nuclear arsenals by year’s end. Talks on

a new START began in April.

Obama and Medvedev agreed July 6

that the new treaty would limit each

side’s deployed strategic warheads to

a number between 1,500 and 1,675

and strategic delivery vehicles to a

number between 500 and 1,100. They

also agreed that the new treaty would

include verification, monitoring, and

information exchange provisions based

on principles and practices established

by START.

None of these treaties is designed to

limit either strategic warheads taken

out of service or tactical nuclear weap-

ons. Those issues are expected to be

addressed in talks on the next START,

which may begin next year. Both sides

are believed to have thousands of war-

heads in reserve (active and inactive)

and awaiting dismantlement.

—TOM Z. COLLINA

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Figure 1: U.S. and Russian Strategic Nuclear ForcesTreaty Limits by Implementation Year

The chart shows the number of strategic nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles each side is permitted to have by the implementation date under the relevant treaty. In 1991 (“pre-START”), the two arsenals were not limited by START but were similar in size. SORT does not limit delivery vehicles. New START limits are not final.

Nuclear Warheads

Delivery Vehicles

10,000*

2,000*

6,000

1,600

2,200

1,600 1,600

800

*Estimate

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nuclear doctrine. He appeared to be referring to the U.S. policy of

calculated ambiguity, which implies that the United States reserves

the right to use nuclear weapons pre-emptively against non-nuclear

targets. Dmitri Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center,

indicated in a Moscow Times op-ed that risk of a U.S. first strike has

been cited in drafts of the new military doctrine as the most serious

external threat to Russia.

Patrushev said the section on the use of Russian military forces

would be amended to allow the use of force to “protect the interests

of its citizens abroad, if their lives are in danger.” The new doctrine

would also allow Russia to engage in armed conflicts on its borders

in the event of “aggression against its citizens,” he said.

The draft would not alter the list of threats identified in the cur-

rent military doctrine. These threats include the United States, the

continued expansion of NATO, and international terrorism. Rus-

sian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov defended the proposed changes

in a statement to RIA Novosti Oct. 23, saying, “There are no innova-

tions here that would create new threats to anyone, except for those

who foster insane plans of attacking the Russian Federation.” Lav-

rov insisted that the doctrine was defensive and that the drafting

process for the document was “transparent.”

Despite the proposed changes, Russia is “categorically op-

posed” to the use of nuclear weapons, Patrushev said in an in-

terview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta Nov. 20. Russia is ready to move

further with arms cuts, “striving for the idea of a nuclear-weap-

on-free world,” he said. However, he said the effort could not be

limited to just Russia and the United States.

Retired Lt. Gen. Gennady Evstafiev, senior vice president of

the Russian Center for Policy Studies in Moscow, said in a Nov.

28 e-mail to Arms Control Today that Russia’s nuclear capacity,

“though dwindling,” allows Russia “for the foreseeable future to

rely on it as a major military and foreign policy instrument.” He

added that in his view, the role of the “nuclear factor in Russian

political thinking will be temporarily strengthened.”

U.S. analysts expressed concern about the impact of the pro-

posed changes. The emerging Russian nuclear doctrine is “con-

trary to President [Barack] Obama’s well-received intention to

devalue the role of nuclear weapons in the 21st century,” Andrew

Pierre, a former senior associate at Georgetown University’s In-

stitute for the Study of Diplomacy, said in a Nov. 17 interview.

James Goodby, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover

Institution and a former U.S. arms control negotiator, said in a

Nov. 13 interview that the changes “would make it difficult for

Obama and Medvedev to carry out the arms reductions they plan

to implement.” According to Goodby, the changes outlined by Pa-

trushev are directed at the 19th and 20th century threats and fail

to address the 21st century threat of nuclear terrorism.

A number of press sources have indicated that the proposed doc-

trinal changes have reinforced the concerns of several former Soviet

states, who consider the doctrine aggressive. These states cite recent

Russian-Belarusian military exercises as proof of Russia’s desire to

use its nuclear forces to intimidate its neighbors.

The exercises, which took place in September, were conducted in

western Russia and Belarus. The exercises simulated a separatist con-

flict with ethnic Poles in western Belarus and a conventional conflict

between a NATO-like force and a force composed of Russian and

Belarusian troops. The exercise featured the simulated use of tactical

nuclear weapons. —LUKE CHAMPLIN AND VOLHA CHARNYSH

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Scientists See Stockpile Lasting for Decades

Weighing in on a long-simmering debate within

the U.S. government, an influential panel of

scientists has found “no evidence” that extending

the lives of existing U.S. nuclear weapons leads to reduced confi-

dence that the weapons will work. The panel, known as JASON,

found that the “[l]ifetimes of today’s nuclear warheads could be

extended for decades, with no anticipated loss in confidence,”

according to an unclassified summary of the report.

The study could affect the ongoing Nuclear Posture Review

(NPR), which is expected to address whether the United States

can maintain its existing warhead designs or might need new

ones. By reaffirming that the arsenal can be sustained with-

out nuclear tests, the report could also bolster efforts by the

Obama administration to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban

Treaty (CTBT).

“The JASON study offers yet more evidence that the United

States can maintain a safe, secure, and effective nuclear arsenal

without resorting to nuclear tests,” an Obama administration

official said in a Nov. 20 interview. “The burden of proof is now

on CTBT skeptics to lay out why the United States must contin-

ue to plan for future testing when we have not tested for almost

two decades and our weapons experts enjoy a greater under-

standing of how our nuclear weapons work than at any previ-

ous time, thanks to the demonstrable successes of our Stockpile

Stewardship Program,” the official said.

However, in a statement e-mailed to Arms Control Today, Rep.

Michael Turner (R-Ohio) said, “Setting aside the political pros

and cons of CTBT ratification, on [a] technical basis alone the

JASON report does not instill confidence that the nuclear se-

curity enterprise is in a position to provide long-term sustain-

ment of our nuclear stockpile in a CTBT regime.”

JASON, which had access to classified nuclear weapons

design information, reviewed the National Nuclear Security

Administration’s (NNSA) Life Extension Program (LEP) at the

request of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcom-

mittee, which released the summary Nov. 19. JASON con-

ducted a similar review of the Reliable Replacement Warhead

(RRW) program in 2007.

The goal of the LEP is to extend the service lives of existing,

well-tested nuclear warhead designs, a process known as refur-

bishment, without nuclear testing. Congress asked JASON to

compare the LEP approach to the RRW program, which calls for

“replacing” existing warhead designs with new, untested ones to

address concerns that the reliability of today’s warheads could

decline as they age. (See ACT, November 2009.)

The U.S. government is extending the life of its existing arse-

nal because no new warhead types have been introduced since

the United States conducted its last nuclear test in 1992. As a

result, existing designs are being kept longer than originally

planned. Through the LEP, the NNSA has refurbished the W87

Minutemen and W80 cruise missile warheads and the B61-7/11

strategic gravity bomb, is refurbishing all W76 Trident D-5 mis-

sile warheads, is planning to refurbish the B61 tactical bomb, and

is evaluating what approach to take for the W78 Minutemen and

W88 Trident D-5 missile warheads. LEP refurbishment involves

swapping older warhead parts with new ones of nearly identical

design or that have the same “form, fit, and function,” accord-

ing to the NNSA. LEPs generally involve the non-nuclear parts

of warheads and, in cases such as the B61-7/11 bomb, have in-

cluded the lithium-deuteride secondary components, also known

as “canned subassemblies.”

So far, the LEP has not changed nuclear primaries, which con-

tain plutonium cores, or “pits.” JASON, the NNSA, and Lawrence

Livermore and Los Alamos national laboratories, in independent

reviews of data gathered by the laborato-

ries, have concluded pits can last 85-100

years or more.

The most prominent advocate of “re-

placement” warheads has been Secretary

of Defense Robert Gates, who in Septem-

ber told the Air Force Association that, “in

one or two cases,” the United States would

“probably” need “new [warhead] designs

that will be safer and more reliable.”

The JASON study, however, found no

basis for concerns that warhead aging

and efforts to address it reduce reliabil-

ity. The panel found “no evidence that

accumulation of changes incurred from

aging and LEPs have increased risk to

certification of today’s deployed nuclear

warheads” and that current U.S. war-

heads could last “for decades, with no

anticipated loss in confidence, by using

approaches similar to those employed in

LEPs to date.”

“We welcome the release of the JASON

scientific advisory panel’s review of war-

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates speaks during an Air Force Association conference in Maryland September 16. He said that, “in one or two cases,” the United States would “probably” need “new [warhead] designs that will be safer and more reliable.”

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head Life Extension Programs,” Strategic

Forces Subcommittee Chairman James R.

Langevin (D-R.I.) and Turner, the panel’s

ranking member, said in a joint state-

ment. “We believe their recommenda-

tions provide a sound technical basis to

inform subsequent U.S. nuclear weapons

policy and program decisions,” they said.

While minimizing concerns about the

reliability of life-extended warheads, the

JASON report highlights surety as anoth-

er potential rationale for replacing exist-

ing warheads. Gates and others point out

that current warheads do not have the

latest surety systems, a term that encom-

passes safety, security, and “use control,”

which refers to technologies to prevent

the use of lost or stolen weapons. That

discussion goes back to 1992, when Presi-

dent George H.W. Bush signed into law

a congressionally mandated moratorium

on nuclear tests and, at the same time,

enterprise as a system, including technologies that can be em-

ployed in the near term.”

Because changes to warheads utilizing reuse or replacement

options may take the weapons beyond previous test experience,

“[c]ertification of certain reuse or replacement options would re-

quire improved understanding of boost,” the panel said. Boost-

ing, the practice of increasing the yield of a warhead’s primary

stage with tritium gas, is one of the most challenging aspects of

nuclear weapons physics to simulate in the laboratory.

According to the summary, the report also concluded that

the NNSA surveillance program, which is responsible for find-

ing age-related problems with the stockpile and therefore

essential to stockpile stewardship, is “becoming inadequate”

and that nuclear weapons expertise is “threatened by lack of

program stability, perceived lack of mission importance, and

degradation of the work environment.” In response, adminis-

tration officials say that the fiscal year 2011 proposed budget,

to be submitted to Congress in February, will include increased

spending on NNSA stockpile maintenance activities.

In his e-mail, Turner said the JASON report “raises serious

concerns” about the adequacy of the surveillance program and

“maintenance of critical expertise and capabilities.”

NNSA spokesman Damien LaVera said in a Nov. 19 written

statement that “[t]he JASON’s review confirms the challenges

associated with adding performance margin and incorporat-

ing modern safety and security features into aging weapons

systems, acknowledges the need to preserve our workforce, and

reaffirms our long held belief that the strength of the science,

technology and engineering at the laboratories and plants is the

key to our success.”

LaVera added that “certain findings in the unclassified Execu-

tive Summary convey a different perspective on key findings

when viewed without the context of the full classified report.”

According to congressional staff, the NNSA was referring to pos-

sible problems with the stockpile that may be discovered once

the surveillance program is improved, otherwise known as “un-

known unknowns.” —TOM Z. COLLINA

authorized additional tests for safety and security purposes.

Those tests were never conducted because the Air Force and

Navy determined that the marginal improvements were not

worth the budgetary cost of deploying the new systems.

Events since then may have changed some attitudes. The

Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the Aug. 30, 2007, incident in

which the Air Force lost track of six nuclear cruise missiles have

focused attention on the vulnerability of nuclear weapons to

theft and on improved security and use control. According to

congressional staffers, the U.S. military may now be more will-

ing to make expensive operational changes to prevent terrorist

acquisition and use, and the NPR is expected to place a high

priority on improving the surety of nuclear forces.

JASON did not take a stand on the need for surety improve-

ments. Instead it found that “[f]urther scientific research and

engineering development is required,” the summary said. The

panel noted that implementation of “intrinsic” surety features,

i.e., those inside the nuclear explosive package, would require

“reuse or replacement” options. In other words, such changes

could not be made through typical refurbishment of existing

designs but would have to “reuse” surplus nuclear parts or de-

signs that have already been tested with modern surety features

(as the W87 warhead’s design has). Information about security

or use control features that would require new “replacement”

designs is highly classified.

The panel found that the surety of nuclear weapons carried

by strategic bombers could be upgraded using reuse options.

That may be a reference to a safety feature known as fire-resis-

tant pits, which are intended to prevent the dispersal of pluto-

nium during an aircraft fire. That feature is used in the most

recently developed weapons, including the W87 warhead and

the B83 strategic bomb. The panel also noted that upgrading

intrinsic surety features in the entire stockpile would “require

more than a decade to complete,” which was described as an un-

derstatement by one source familiar with the study. As a result,

the panel recommended that the potential benefits of surety

technologies be assessed “in the context of the nuclear weapons

A U.S. soldier demonstrates B61 nuclear weapon disarming procedures on a “dummy” in Holland in 2008. Through the Life Extension Program, the National Nuclear Security Administration has refurbished the B61-7/11 strategic gravity bomb and is planning to refurbish the B61 tactical bomb.

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IAEA Rebukes Iran Over Secret Facility

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei (left) listens to the Glyn Davies, U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, during a Board of Governors meeting in Vienna November 27. The IAEA called on Iran to stop constructing a previously secret uranium-enrichment facility revealed in September.

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The International Atomic Energy

Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors

last month called on Iran to stop con-

structing a previously secret uranium-enrich-

ment facility revealed in September. The Nov.

27 resolution, which came during the board’s

quarterly meeting in Vienna, was the governors’

first on Iran in nearly four years.

The resolution also urged Iran to confirm

that it is not constructing and has not made a

decision to construct any other nuclear facili-

ties not declared to the agency and to adhere

to UN Security Council demands to halt all

enrichment-related activities.

Twenty-five member countries of the 35-

member board voted in favor of the resolution,

with only Cuba, Malaysia, and Venezuela op-

posing it. Six members—Afghanistan, Brazil,

Egypt, Pakistan, South Africa and Turkey—ab-

stained, and Azerbaijan was absent. China

and Russia, which have been reluctant to take

additional punitive steps against Iran, voted for

the censure.

A senior U.S. official told reporters Nov. 27

that the resolution “underscores the unity of

purpose” among the P5+1, the five permanent

Uranium-enrichment facilities are generally used to enrich

uranium to low levels for nuclear fuel. Uranium enriched to high

levels can be used for the explosive core in nuclear weapons.

The agency’s report said that the plant was “at an advanced

stage of construction” and that, although no centrifuges had

been installed, piping systems and other process equipment for

the centrifuges had been put in place. According to the report,

Iran said in an Oct. 28 letter to the agency that the plant is

scheduled to be operational in 2011. Because the facility has

now been declared, it is subject to regular IAEA safeguards.

The IAEA report confirmed that the plant is intended to

house about 3,000 centrifuges of the so-called IR-1 variety,

which is based on a 1970s-vintage design that Iran acquired

from a Pakistani nuclear smuggling network. Iran’s commercial-

scale enrichment plant at Natanz is currently using the same

type of centrifuges. The size of the Fordow facility is consistent

with the U.S. intelligence community assessment, which U.S.

officials described in September. At that time, a U.S. official

said that the intelligence community also judged that the facil-

ity would be capable of producing enough material for one or

two nuclear weapons each year.

Iran has left open the possibility of increasing this capacity.

According to the IAEA report, Iran informed the agency that

the facility could be reconfigured to house the more advanced

designs that Iran has been developing, which are capable of

enriching uranium faster than the IR-1. (See ACT, November

2007.) The Iranian newspaper Kayhan quoted Atomic Energy

Organization of Iran (AEOI) Director Ali Akbar Salehi Oct. 6 as

stating that his organization is “hopeful of being able to use our

new version of the centrifuges” at the new facility.

members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, the

United Kingdom, and the United States) and Germany. Since

2006, the six countries have sought a common approach to ad-

dress Iran’s nuclear program through dialogue and UN sanctions.

The senior U.S. official said “there was an intensive American

diplomatic effort” that went into the resolution, including dur-

ing recent meetings between President Barack Obama and the

leaders of China, India, and Russia.

In response to the resolution, Iran has threatened to lessen its

cooperation with the agency, which the IAEA and national govern-

ments have criticized as insufficient. Tehran’s envoy to the IAEA,

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, told reporters Nov. 27 the resolution “will

disrupt the current atmosphere of cooperation and will cause

Iran to discontinue its voluntary cooperation which went beyond

its commitments.” Iran has curtailed its transparency in response

to international censure in the past. (See ACT, May 2007.)

IAEA Report Cites Iran Safeguards FailuresThe resolution followed a Nov. 16 IAEA report, which declared

that Iran’s failure to notify the agency about the construction

of the secret enrichment facility has undermined confidence

that no other undeclared nuclear activities are taking place in

the country.

The findings come after the agency’s first visit to the For-

dow uranium-enrichment plant, which Iran did not disclose

to the agency until Sept. 21. (See ACT, October 2009.) The

leaders of France, the United Kingdom, and the United States

publicly revealed the existence of the facility in a Sept. 25

press conference, stating that it was “inconsistent with a

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Purpose and Construction History UnclearThe IAEA report said that although the agency’s initial visit was

able to confirm that the layout of the facility matched the in-

formation provided by Iran, the IAEA needs more information

to clarify the purpose of the facility and the time frame for its

design and construction. The Nov. 27 resolution urged Iran to

provide such clarifications.

In the Oct. 28 letter to the agency, Iran claimed that it was con-

structing the Fordow plant as a “contingency enrichment plant,

so that enrichment activities shall not be suspended in the case of

any military attack.” Tehran indicated that “contingency centers”

were established in recent years because of what it saw as increasing

threats of military action against Iran.

Tehran told the IAEA that the Fordow facility is intended to be a

pilot enrichment plant. Iran already operates a much smaller pilot

enrichment plant at Natanz. That facility was originally designed

to house about 1,000 centrifuges, but currently operates and tests

several hundred, including Iran’s more advanced designs. More-

over, Iran does not appear to be preparing the Fordow facility to

use the smaller single- and 10-unit centrifuge cascades in use at the

Natanz pilot plant.

At the same time, the Fordow plant is dramatically smaller than

the commercial-scale enrichment facility at Natanz. In comparison

with Fordow’s intended 3,000 centrifuges, the Natanz plant is sup-

posed to accommodate about 50,000 machines.

A diplomatic source familiar with the IAEA investigation said

Nov. 25 that the centrifuge cascades Iran intends to install at the

Fordow plant will contain a larger number of machines than those

installed at the commercial-scale facility at Natanz. The cascades at

Natanz all contain 164 machines each. The 3,000 centrifuges at the

Fordow facility are instead divided into 16 cascades, which works

out to about 190 machines apiece.

According to the diplomatic source, Iranian officials, when ques-

tioned about the cascades, said that the number of centrifuges in

the cascades had to be altered in order to fit the space available in

the contingency center being constructed. The Iranians claimed

specifically how a country’s safeguards agreement is to be ap-

plied. Iran agreed in 2003 to adopt the newer, more stringent

version of the code.

The older version of the provision requires only that a country

inform the IAEA about the construction of a new nuclear facility

six months prior to the start of its operation. Iran reverted to the

older version of Code 3.1 in March 2007 in response to a second set

of sanctions adopted by the UN Security Council. Since that time,

the IAEA and the council have called on Iran to implement the re-

vised version of the code, which requires that countries inform the

agency of any new nuclear facilities as soon as the countries decide

to construct them.

In its latest report, the IAEA went further than in its previous

calls for Iran to implement the revised code. The agency stated that

Iran remains bound by that version, and therefore, even if Iran

began to construct the facility after it declared that it reverted to

the older version of the code in 2007, its failure to declare the plant

until September 2009 “was inconsistent with its obligations under

the Subsidiary Arrangements to its Safeguards Agreement.”

The language is identical to that used by a March 2009 state-

ment by the IAEA legal adviser, which assessed the legality of

Iran’s claims regarding Code 3.1. According to that statement,

subsidiary arrangements “cannot be amended or suspended uni-

laterally by the state” after a country and the IAEA have agreed to

the arrangements.

That determination has relevance to another facility Iran is cur-

rently constructing and one it intends to build. For nearly a year,

Iran, citing its reinterpretation of its safeguards obligations, had de-

nied the IAEA access to the heavy-water research reactor it is build-

ing at Arak. (See ACT, September 2009.) The West has expressed

concern that the reactor, slated to begin operations in 2013, could

produce as much as two bombs’ worth of plutonium in its spent

fuel each year. The IAEA and the Security Council have called on

Iran to halt the reactor’s construction.

The agency has previously expressed concern that the lack of

access to the facility would not allow it time to plan sufficient

that such an adjustment demonstrated that the

facility was not originally designed as an enrich-

ment plant, the source said.

Iran’s October letter stated that the site of the

facility, an excavated mountain tunnel on a mili-

tary facility near the city of Qom, was allocated to

the AEOI for the enrichment plant in the second

half of 2007 and that this was when construction

of the enrichment plant began.

However, the IAEA has said that satellite im-

agery it acquired indicates that construction at

the site occurred in 2002 and 2004 and has been

taking place consistently since 2006. The IAEA

also noted that it received information from

other countries that allege that construction of

the facility began in 2006.

When the existence of the facility was re-

vealed in September, Iranian officials claimed

that their country had not been required yet

to inform the IAEA about the construction

because it is currently implementing an older

version of a safeguards subsidiary arrangement

called Code 3.1. Subsidiary arrangements detail Iranian Permanent Representative to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh attends a Board of Governors meeting in Vienna November 26.

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monitoring for the reactor, leaving the possibility that it would

not be able to detect a diversion of material for military uses.

Iran began providing the agency with additional access to the

facility in August.

The other facility is a nuclear power reactor Iran plans to con-

struct at a site called Darkhovin. The IAEA requested preliminary

design information for that facility in December 2007, following

Iran’s initial announcement of plans to build such a plant. Iran did

not provide that information until September. The agency claimed

that Iran’s failure to provide it with the designs when the decision

for construction was made was “inconsistent with its obligations.”

The IAEA report said that according to a Sept. 22 letter Iran

provided the agency, construction on the Darkhovin reactor is

scheduled to start in 2011 and be completed in 2015. It is unclear

who will construct the reactor.

Iran’s first nuclear power reactor, a Russian-built plant located

at Bushehr, is scheduled to begin operation next year.

Operations at Natanz ContinueContrary to UN demands to suspend uranium enrichment,

Iran continues to enrich uranium to low levels at its commer-

cial-scale enrichment plant at Natanz and has been installing

additional centrifuges.

Since the last IAEA inspection in August, Iran has installed

about 400 centrifuges, for a total of about 8,700 machines. The

number of centrifuges currently enriching uranium, however,

has continued to decline in recent months. In May, Iran was

producing low-enriched uranium (LEU) with about 5,000 cen-

trifuges. The latest IAEA report indicates it is now doing so with

about 4,000. The reason for the decline is unclear.

In spite of the decrease in the number of centrifuges en-

riching uranium, however, Iran’s rate of LEU production has

remained at about 85 kilograms per month, suggesting a slight

increase in efficiency. Iran has accumulated a stockpile of about

1,760 kilograms of LEU since enrichment operations began in

2006, according to IAEA estimates.

Fuel Deal DoubtfulAs the IAEA continues its investigations into

newly revealed Iranian nuclear activities, it is

awaiting a response from Iran regarding a pro-

posed confidence-building measure by which

the majority of Iran’s LEU would be sent abroad

in return for fuel for Iran’s Tehran Research

Reactor. (See ACT, November 2009.) The IAEA

issued the proposal as a compromise during ne-

gotiations involving France, Iran, Russia, and the

United States. The other three countries accepted

the deal in October.

Although Iran has yet to deliver a formal re-

sponse to the proposed arrangement to the other

parties, the Iranian Students News Agency quoted

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki

Nov. 19 as stating that Tehran would not ship its

LEU out of the country. The arrangement requires

that Iran ship about 1,200 kilograms of its LEU out

of the country by the end of the year.

Outgoing IAEA Director-General Mohamed

ElBaradei said that a deal might still be possible

by the end of the year. “I do not consider that I

have received a final answer,” he told reporters at a Nov. 20 press

conference in Berlin, urging Iran not to miss the opportunity for

diplomatic engagement with the West. ElBaradei added that he was

told that Tehran wants to keep the LEU in Iran until it receives the

fuel for the reactor, characterizing such a proposal as “an extreme

case of distrust.” ElBaradei stepped down Nov. 30 after three terms

as head of the IAEA.

Days after Mottaki’s statement about not exporting the LEU,

Tehran appeared to back away from it. Iranian Foreign Ministry

spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast told reporters Nov. 24, “Nobody

in Iran ever said we are against sending 3.5 enriched uranium

abroad,” referring to the percentage enrichment level of the LEU

Iran has produced. He proposed a simultaneous exchange of fuel as

a possible alternative, stating Iran needed “100 percent guarantees”

it would receive the research reactor fuel in return.

ElBaradei rebuffed the suggestion the following day, stating dur-

ing a Nov. 25 press briefing that there were “a number of built-in

guarantees in the agreement.”

ElBaradei has proposed an alternative arrangement to address

Iran’s claim that it cannot trust the other countries involved in

the talks to provide the fuel once the LEU is exported. Rather than

shipping the fuel to Russia, Iran could ship its LEU to Turkey to hold

until Iran receives the reactor fuel, ElBaradei said. “Iran has a lot of

trust in Turkey,” he told Charlie Rose during a Nov. 6 PBS interview.

The P5+1 issued a joint statement Nov. 20 calling on Iran to ac-

cept the fuel exchange proposed by the IAEA. “We urge Iran to

reconsider the opportunity offered by this agreement to meet the

humanitarian needs of its people and to engage seriously with us

in dialogue and negotiations,” the countries said. Iran agreed “in

principle” to the arrangement with the six powers Oct. 1. Iran says

it needs a new supply of fuel for the research reactor to produce

medical isotopes.

The United States has said that the time for Iran to provide a for-

mal answer is limited. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told

reporters Nov. 17, “We always hesitate to give a formal deadline, but

I would just say that time is very short.” —PETER CRAIL

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and others visit the Natanz enrichment facility in 2008.

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IAEA Disputes Syrian Uranium Claims

An analysis by the International

Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

disputed Syria’s explanation for

the presence of man-made uranium par-

ticles at a reactor in Damascus, according

to a Nov. 16 agency report. The results of

environmental sampling carried out at

the reactor in August 2008 “do not sup-

port Syria’s earlier explanation for the

origin and presence of the particles,” the

report said.

The uranium traces come from annual

environmental samples the agency took

from “hot cells,” containments that are

shielded to allow safe handling of radioac-

tive material. The hot cells are in a facility

that also houses Syria’s Miniature Neutron

Source Reactor, a 30-kilowatt miniature

reactor Syria bought from China in 1991

for training and radioisotope production.

(See ACT, July/August 2009.) The reactor is

under IAEA safeguards.

The IAEA described the detected par-

ticles as being “of a type not declared at

the facility.”

According to an Aug. 28 IAEA report,

Syria claimed that the particles “had re-

sulted from the accumulation of sample

and reference materials used in neutron

activation analysis.” (See ACT, September

2009.) The IAEA told Syria in October

about the analysis that disputed this claim.

The agency’s recent report indicated that,

during a Nov. 2 meeting with the IAEA,

Damascus identified other possible sources

of the particles, “including domestically

produced yellowcake and small quantities

of imported, but previously undeclared,

commercial uranyl nitrate.”

Yellowcake is milled and chemically

processed uranium powder. It is not subject

to IAEA safeguards because it is a form of

uranium at the very early stages of creating

nuclear fuel or material for a nuclear weap-

on. A diplomatic source familiar with IAEA

safeguards said in a Nov. 18 e-mail that

“uranyl nitrate on the other hand, is a pre-

cursor chemical for further uranium pro-

cessing, including possibly enrichment, so

it is covered by safeguards and must be de-

clared.” Syria provided the agency with an

explanation of the presence of the uranyl

nitrate at the reactor facility, but the IAEA

report did not reveal that explanation.

The IAEA carried out a follow-up

inspection Nov. 17 to validate a new

Syrian explanation for the presence of

uranium particles.

This marks the second time that Syria’s

explanation of the origin of uranium con-

tamination has been inconsistent with

IAEA findings. The IAEA has been inves-

tigating allegations by the West that Syria

had been engaged in a nuclear weapons

program, focusing on a suspected nuclear

reactor at a site called Dair al Zour. Israel

destroyed that facility in 2007. (See ACT,

October 2007.) The IAEA said in the recent

report that Syria has not provided the in-

formation or access necessary to verify that

Damascus had not engaged in undeclared

nuclear activities.

The first set of uranium traces was

uncovered at the Dair al Zour site by the

IAEA’s initial investigations in June 2008.

(See ACT, December 2008.) Syria claimed

that those particles had come from the

munitions Israel used to destroy the facil-

ity, a claim the agency characterized as

being of “low probability.”

The agency is also continuing to investi-

gate Syrian procurement efforts, which the

IAEA says “could support the construction

of a reactor.” —PETER CRAIL

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U.S. Takes New Stance on Some Issues at UN

The Obama administration’s voting record this year

at the First Committee of the UN General Assembly

marked a departure from the Bush administration in sev-

eral key ballots. In other votes, however, the new administration’s

vote was the same as its predecessor’s.

The First Committee is responsible for drafting resolutions on

arms control and international security issues.

One of the shifts was on a resolution on disarmament submit-

ted annually by Japan. The United States co-sponsored the 2009

version of the resolution. Under the Bush administration, the

United States voted against the resolution every year.

Entitled “Renewed Determination Towards the Total Elimi-

nation of Nuclear Weapons,” the resolution endorses several

prominent disarmament and nonproliferation measures, such as

entry into force of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT),

the negotiation of a fissile material cutoff treaty (FMCT), and

further nuclear arms reductions by Russia and the United States.

It calls on states to consider reducing the operational status of

nuclear weapons and “stresses the necessity of a diminishing

role for nuclear weapons in security policies to minimize the

risk that these weapons will ever be used.”

The resolution also calls for the global application of In-

ternational Atomic Energy Agency safeguards, including the

stronger verification measures established in the 1997 Model

Additional Protocol, and for universal adherence to the nuclear

Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT).

The resolution was approved by a vote of 161-2, with eight

abstentions. The two dissenters were India, which objected to

language in the resolution calling on all states to join the NPT,

and North Korea. China, France, Israel, and Pakistan were among

those that abstained.

In accordance with the Obama administration’s support for

the CTBT, the United States co-sponsored an annual resolution

endorsing the test ban. Only North Korea voted against the reso-

lution, which was supported by 175 countries. India, Mauritius,

and Syria abstained.

On two other resolutions on nuclear disarmament and nonpro-

liferation issues, the U.S. votes were in keeping with recent years.

The United States voted against a resolution entitled “Towards

a Nuclear-Free World,” put forward by the New Agenda Coali-

tion, comprised of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand,

South Africa, and Sweden. The U.S. delegation did not describe its

reasons for voting against the resolution, saying only that, after

“intense consultation” with the sponsors of the resolution, the

two sides could not agree “on changes that would have made the

resolution acceptable to the United States.”

Like the Japanese resolution, the New Agenda Coalition docu-

ment is supportive of the CTBT, an FMCT, and U.S.-Russian

arms control negotiations. The coalition language was generally

stronger than Japan’s in referring to countries’ disarmament and

nonproliferation commitments, in particular the commitments

undertaken by the nuclear-weapon states at the 1995 and 2000

NPT review conferences. The New Agenda Coalition resolution

places more emphasis on nuclear-weapon-free zones, which the

Japanese resolution does not explicitly mention.

The First Committee approved the New Agenda Coalition

resolution on a vote of 165-5, with four states abstaining. France,

India, Israel, and North Korea joined the United States in voting

against the resolution. Pakistan and the United Kingdom were

among the abstainers.

A third resolution on general nuclear issues was submitted by

the Nonaligned Movement (NAM), a large group of developing

countries. The NAM resolution addresses nuclear disarmament

in the strongest terms of the three documents, while putting less

emphasis on nonproliferation, and drew significantly less support

from the First Committee. The draft was approved on a vote of

112-43, with 21 abstentions. The no votes came primarily from

Europe; among the other opponents were Australia, Canada, and

the United States.

Outer SpaceThe United States abstained from voting on a resolution on pre-

venting an arms race in outer space, instead of voting against

the measure as it had in recent years. The resolution “emphasizes

the necessity of further measures with appropriate and effective

provisions for verification to prevent an arms race” in outer space

and calls on states to contribute actively to that objective.

Although the United States did not issue a direct explanation

for its decision to abstain, the Obama administration is cur-

rently conducting a review of U.S. policy toward arms control

in outer space. During the thematic debate on outer space issues

Oct. 19, U.S. representative Garold Larson said that the space

policy review began from a “blank slate,” but noted that it will

“reject any limitations on the fundamental right of the United

States to operate in, and acquire data from, space.” Larson said

that the United States favors voluntary “transparency and con-

fidence-building measures” with China and Russia in order to

help “reduce uncertainty over intentions and decrease the risk

of misinterpretation or miscalculation.”

China and Russia are the primary advocates of a treaty to

prevent the replacement of weapons in outer space and have

submitted a draft agreement on the subject to the Geneva-

based Conference on Disarmament. (See ACT, March 2008.)

Arms Trade In a significant shift, the United States voted in favor of a resolu-

tion endorsing the negotiation of an international arms trade

treaty, after rejecting such proposals in the past. (See ACT, No-

vember 2009.) The resolution calls for the convening of a four-

week UN conference in 2012 to negotiate an agreement regulat-

ing the transfer of conventional weapons. At the insistence of the

United States, the resolution states that the conference will be

“undertaken…on the basis of consensus.” Consensus “is a crucial

concept for the United States, to ensure the high standards nec-

essary in an effective outcome to our future deliberations,” U.S.

representative Donald Mahley said during the debate on conven-

tional arms issues. “It is not, nor should others hope it to be, an

excuse for avoiding hard choices or real, deliberative controls.”

The committee passed the measure Oct. 30 on a vote of 153-1,

with 19 states abstaining. Zimbabwe was the sole dissenter.

The First Committee concluded its 2009 session Nov. 2.

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Work on Cluster Munitions Extended Again

In what has now become an annual

occurrence, delegates to a meeting of

states-parties to the Convention on

Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW)

agreed in November to continue work

on proposals specifically addressing

cluster munitions after failing to reach

consensus during the past year. Mean-

while, a different treaty on the weapons

grew closer to the number of ratifying

states needed for its entry into force,

drawing into question the role of future

CCW efforts on the topic.

Cluster munitions are bombs, rock-

ets, and artillery shells that disperse

smaller submunitions over broad areas

that sometimes strike civilians or fail to

explode initially, later injuring or killing

military forces and noncombatants. An

international outcry over use of cluster

munitions in southern Lebanon in 2006

and the failure of the CCW to adopt new

measures related to the weapons helped

lead to the Convention on Cluster Mu-

nitions (CCM), which was opened for

signature and ratification last year. That

treaty bars the use of nearly all cluster

munitions and obligates countries to

destroy stockpiles, conduct clearance ef-

forts, and take steps to help victims. (See

ACT, December 2008.)

Next year’s CCW group of govern-

mental experts meetings are scheduled

to take place April 12-16 and Aug.

30- Sept. 3 “to address urgently the

humanitarian impact of cluster muni-

tions, while striking a balance between

military and humanitarian consider-

ations,” according to the resolution

authorizing the group. Those meetings

will take into account a draft protocol

on cluster munitions prepared by this

year’s experts group chairperson, Gus-

tavo Ainchil of Argentina, the resolu-

tion said. Ainchil fashioned the draft

text after two weeks of group meetings

in February and April, as well as a week

of informal consultations in August.

(See ACT, May 2009.)

That draft prohibits the use of cluster

munitions unless they leave behind

no more than 1 percent of unexploded

ordnance or possess one of a number of

safeguards. It includes a provision allow-

ing for an eight-year deferral of this pro-

hibition, with the possibility of an ad-

ditional four-year extension if requested.

These provisions differ from the CCM,

as do other aspects of the draft.

Twenty-four countries have ratified

the CCM, and 103 have signed it. The

CCM will enter into force six months

after 30 states ratify it.

Vietnam War cluster bombs are displayed at Hanoi’s military museum May 28.

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Countries Ban Investment in Cluster Munitions

Pursuing what some say is a logical step required for the

implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions

(CCM), several countries have taken action at the na-

tional level by barring investment in companies that produce

cluster munitions.

That step is backed by the Cluster Munition Coalition, an

international group of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)

that actively supports the CCM. The group maintains that the

prohibition on assistance outlined in Article 1(c) of the treaty

should be broadly interpreted to include a ban on investments

in companies that manufacture cluster munitions. The provi-

sion states that “each State Party undertakes never under any

circumstances to assist, encourage or induce anyone to engage

in any activity prohibited under this convention.” Because “fi-

nancing and investing are active choices, based on a clear as-

sessment of the company and its plans,” the group argued for

the investment ban in a 2007 policy paper.

Currently, Belgium, Ireland, and Luxembourg are the only

countries that prohibit investments in cluster munitions

producers. Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway, and

Switzerland are at various stages of considering parliamentary

action on investments. In a June 2009 report, Human Rights

Watch noted that several other states, including Bulgaria,

Lebanon, and Mexico, had voiced support for a broad interpre-

tation of the prohibition on assistance to include investment

although they have not enacted laws to prohibit investment in

cluster munitions production.

Such efforts by a growing number of states have been en-

dorsed by the NGO coalition, which on Oct. 29 launched a

disinvestment campaign aimed at encouraging governments

to end investment in the production of cluster munitions

through national legislation. The groups supported their case

Many delegates from countries that

have already signed the CCM argued

that a CCW protocol must not weaken

progress on controlling the weapons.

Calling her country a “strong support-

er” of the CCM, Australian Ambassador

Caroline Millar said in a Nov. 12 state-

ment to the meeting of CCW states-par-

ties that any future protocol “must pro-

vide for a strong humanitarian outcome

and progress—not hinder—the devel-

opment of international humanitarian

law.” She listed five elements a CCW

protocol should have at a minimum,

including “definitional consistency”

with the CCM.

A number of the world’s major pro-

ducers and stockpilers of cluster muni-

tions, including Russia and the United

States, have opted out of the CCM,

insisting that the CCW is the proper

place to negotiate an agreement. In a

Nov. 9 statement at the CCW meeting,

U.S. representative Harold Koh said,

“[M]any States, including the United

States, have determined that their na-

tional security interests cannot be fully

ensured consistent with the terms of

the CCM. A comprehensive internation-

al response to the humanitarian con-

cerns associated with cluster munitions

must include action by those States that

are not in a position to become parties

to the CCM, because those States pro-

duce and stockpile the vast majority of

the world’s cluster munitions.”

He reiterated U.S. policy set by Sec-

retary of Defense Robert Gates in 2008

that, “by 2018, the U.S. armed forces

will not use cluster munitions that, after

arming, result in more than 1 percent of

unexploded ordnance across the range

of intended operational conditions.”

Critics of this approach have rejected

failure-based criteria, pointing to data

showing that failure rates in the field are

often higher than in tests.

Koh also argued that the United States

needs time to design and replace its

existing stockpile, which contains more

than 700 million submunitions. De-

stroying the stockpile, a step required by

the CCM, would cost $2.2 billion using

current U.S. demilitarization capabili-

ties, he said. —JEFF ABRAMSON

Various types of ammunition, including a submunition (with ribbon) from a cluster bomb, are displayed at a weapons decommissioning facility near Luebben, Germany June 23.

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with a report entitled “Worldwide Investments in Cluster

Munitions: A Shared Responsibility,” published by coalition

members IKV PAX Christi of the Netherlands and Netwerk

Vlaanderen of Belgium.

The report shows a clear trend toward action by govern-

ments and financial institutions to limit or end involvement

in financing cluster munitions production since the beginning

of the Oslo process. That process was led in part by Norway

and named for the site of the effort’s first global conference on

cluster munitions, which took place in February 2007. The pro-

cess brought together NGOs, UN organizations, and interested

governments in a series of major conferences to draft a ban on

cluster munitions. (See ACT, December 2008.)

The report lists 136 financial institutions in 16 countries as being

involved in the direct or indirect financing of cluster munitions

production, with 45 of them in CCM signatory states. One-half of

the institutions are in the United States, which has not signed the

treaty. Together, they provided almost $5.1 billion in commercial

banking services, $4.2 billion in investment banking services, and

$11.8 billion in asset management services over the last two years

to eight major producers of cluster munitions worldwide: Alliant

Techsystems (United States), Hanwha (South Korea), L-3 Communi-

cations (United States), Lockheed Martin (United States), Poongsan

(South Korea), Roketsan (Turkey), Singapore Technologies Engineer-

ing (Singapore), and Textron (United States).

The report shows that there are now 30 financial institu-

tions, nearly all in Europe, with policies on excluding fund-

ing for investment in cluster munitions or other weapons. Of

those 30, the report considers 14 of them to compose a “hall of

fame” of financial institutions that have pioneered disinvest-

ment by establishing transparent and comprehensive policies

of exclusion for funding of cluster munitions. Some of the

institutions on this list, including banks, government pension

funds, and private financial institutions, based their policies

on their country’s involvement with the CCM.

The report also listed 16 “runners-up.” Companies in that

category have policies on cluster munitions in place, but the

authors of the report consider those policies ineffective be-

cause of certain shortcomings or loopholes, such as allowing

for indirect financing of cluster munitions production.

According to the report, Belgium was the first country to

ban the use, production, transfer, and stockpiling of cluster

munitions in 2006. In 2007 its parliament unanimously ex-

panded an existing law, which prohibits direct or indirect

financing in the production of anti-personnel landmines, to

ban investment in companies that produce cluster munitions.

The law covers banks and funds operating in Belgium.

After the law passed, Reuters quoted the lead author, Sen.

Philippe Mahoux, as saying, “The financial groups which

invest in or finance cluster bomb manufacturers will be out-

lawed.” Yet, according to a November report to the United

Nations Association of Sweden from Ethix SRI Advisors, a

consulting firm, the Belgian government “has yet to publish a

list of restricted entities—companies and investment institu-

tions—as set out in the law.”

Ireland and Luxembourg banned investments in cluster mu-

nitions production through national laws designed to imple-

ment their ratification of the CCM.

The European Parliament indicated its support for ban-

ning investment in cluster munitions in October 2007 when,

citing the example of the Belgian law, it passed a resolution

calling for a moratorium on using, investing in, stockpiling,

producing, transferring, or exporting cluster munitions. The

resolution calls on EU countries to follow the lead of Bel-

gium, Ireland, and Luxembourg in adopting national mea-

sures that fully ban the use, production, export, and stock-

piling of cluster bombs.

In the United States, student groups have called on universi-

ties to exclude investments in cluster munitions production

from their endowments. At the University of Vermont, the

board of trustees recently approved a measure to divest from

producers of cluster munitions, other weapons, and depleted

uranium, according to the student newspaper, the Vermont

Cynic. At Columbia University, the Columbia Spectator reported

on Nov. 17 that the university’s Advisory Committee on So-

cially Responsible Investing heard a number of proposals from

students on divestment, including one on cluster munitions.

Students cited the high failure rate and impact on civilians as

the reason for their proposal.

Disinvestment campaigns have been used in the past to

apply pressure on countries to change their behavior or to

achieve certain goals. During the 1980s, state and local gov-

ernments in the United States were targeted by campaign

organizers to disinvest from companies that did business with

the apartheid government in South Africa. More recently, state

and local governments have been encouraged to divest from

companies that operate in Iran. (See ACT, July/August 2008.)

—ANDREW FISHER A Colombian bomb disposal expert prepares cluster submunitions for destruction May 7.

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U.S. to Send Senior Envoy to Pyongyang

The United States has agreed to send a senior diplomat

to Pyongyang Dec. 8 for bilateral discussions with North

Korea to return that country to multilateral talks on

denuclearization, U.S. officials announced last month. The

announcement came just before President Barack Obama made

his first trip to Asia Nov. 12-19. The North Korean nuclear issue

was high on the agenda in meetings with leaders in the region,

U.S. officials said.

Department of State spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters

Nov. 9 that Special Representative for North Korea Policy Ste-

phen Bosworth will head an interagency delegation to Pyong-

yang for direct talks. They would be Bosworth’s first formal

discussions with North Korean officials since he was appointed

to his post in February. (See ACT, March 2009.) Bosworth, who

previously served as U.S. ambassador to South Korea and still

serves as dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at

Tufts University, last traveled to Pyongyang as a private citizen

to hold discussions with North Korean officials in the weeks

prior to his appointment.

North Korea invited Bosworth to Pyongyang in August. Before

November, U.S. officials had maintained that Washington was

willing to hold such discussions only if they were held in the

context of the six-party talks. Those talks were an effort begun in

2003 to denuclearize the Korean peninsula and involved China,

Japan, North Korea, Russia, South Korea, and the United States.

Pyongyang withdrew from the talks in April in response to the

UN Security Council’s condemnation of a North Korean rocket

launch. (See ACT, May 2009.)

U.S. acceptance of the North Korean invitation suggests that

North Korea has taken steps to meet the key stipulations Washing-

ton put forward for holding bilateral discussions, primarily related

to the pledges Washington is seeking from Pyongyang. (See ACT,

November 2009.) U.S. officials held informal meetings with a se-

nior North Korean official visiting the United States in October,

but Washington has not indicated what has changed in North Ko-

rea’s position to lead the United States to accept the invitation now.

Explaining what the United States was seeking from such a

meeting, Crowley said one goal was to bring North Korea back

into the six-party talks. A second goal is “to seek a reaffirmation

of [North Korea’s] commitment under the 2005 joint statement,”

he said, adding, “[W]e believe North Korea understands what the

purpose of the meeting is.”

In September 2005, the six parties agreed to take reciprocal

steps aimed at denuclearizing the Korean peninsula. As part of

that agreement, North Korea committed to abandoning all nu-

clear weapons and existing nuclear programs, accepting Interna-

tional Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors, and returning

to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), from which it

withdrew in 2003.

As part of the reciprocal commitments, the United States af-

firmed that it had no intention to attack or invade North Korea,

and South Korea affirmed that it would not receive or deploy

nuclear weapons and that none exist on its territory.

The parties indicated that they would meet their commitments

“in a phased manner” and in line with the principle of “commit-

ment for commitment, action for action.” The parties agreed in

February 2007 on phased steps toward North Korea’s denuclear-

ization. That agreement focused on disabling three key facilities

involved in producing plutonium at the Yongbyon nuclear com-

plex in exchange for energy aid and political inducements. North

Korea left the six-party talks after only 10 of 12 disablement steps

for those facilities had been carried out. Pyongyang has since

taken steps to reconstitute its reprocessing facility.

In light of such reversals, the Obama administration has main-

tained that it would not take a similar approach to rolling back

North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Jeffrey Bader, National

Security Council senior director for Asian affairs, told an audi-

ence at the Brookings Institution in Washington Nov. 6, “We are

not interested in buying Yongbyon for a third time.”

In 1994, Pyongyang and Washington concluded the Agreed

Framework, an agreement that also focused on North Korea’s plu-

tonium-related nuclear facilities at Yongbyon.

Broader Commitment SoughtInstead of a gradual process, the United States and its allies have

indicated that they are seeking a broader denuclearization com-

mitment from North Korea. In a Nov. 19 joint press conference

with South Korean President Lee Myung-bak, Obama said that

the two leaders “are in full agreement on a common approach”

to achieve a comprehensive resolution to the nuclear issue by

seeking from Pyongyang “concrete and irreversible steps to fulfill

its obligations and eliminate its nuclear weapons program.”

Criticizing the incremental approach under the prior agree-

ments reached through the six-party talks, Lee proposed a

“grand bargain” approach toward North Korea in September.

“The world should be in pursuit of a one-shot deal, rather than

taking steps in negotiations,” Lee told a Council on Foreign

Relations audience in New York Sept. 22. Under this approach,

Lee said, the dismantlement of North Korea’s nuclear program

U.S. Special Representative for North Korea Policy Stephen Bosworth speaks to the media before his departure from South Korea September 6. Bosworth will head an interagency delegation to Pyongyang for direct talks.

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should proceed from the beginning, rather than at the end of

successive stages. At the same time, North Korea would receive

economic assistance and security guarantees.

Pyongyang rejected Lee’s suggestion. In a Sept. 30 statement,

North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)

called Lee’s idea “nothing more than a ridiculous proposal” and

“not worthy of consideration.”

In addition to seeking North Korea’s return to the six-party

talks and recommitment to prior agreements, Foreign Policy

magazine reported on its Web site Nov. 2 and Arms Control Today

confirmed with diplomatic sources that Washington also wanted

to ensure that Bosworth would meet with North Korean First

Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok Ju.

Kang is believed to be more influential than North Korea’s low-

er-lever nuclear envoy, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan. Joel

Wit, former U.S. coordinator for the Agreed Framework at the State

Department, said in a Nov. 17 e-mail that Kang “played a key role

in previous dealings with North Korea during the Clinton Admin-

istration,” noting that he was a key adviser to North Korean leader

Kim Jong Il and his father and predecessor, Kim Il Sung.

Further Plutonium Extraction ClaimedMeanwhile, KCNA said Nov. 3 that North Korea had finished re-

processing its last load of 8,000 spent fuel rods from its Yongbyon

reactor. Through reprocessing, plutonium is extracted from spent

nuclear fuel. “Noticeable successes have been made in turning

the extracted plutonium weapon-grade for the purpose of bolster-

ing up [North Korea’s] nuclear deterrent,” added KCNA.

Former Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Siegfried

Hecker, who has visited the Yongbyon facilities on a number of

occasions in recent years, estimated in the Bulletin of the Atomic

Scientists May 12 that the spent fuel could contain up to 12 kilo-

grams of plutonium, enough for up to two nuclear weapons.

The spent fuel reprocessing was one of the steps that North Ko-

rea said it would take in April in response to the Security Council’s

condemnation of its rocket launch earlier that month. Pyongyang

also said that it would restore the facilities that had been disabled

since 2007 “to their original state.” (See ACT, May 2009.)

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said in response to

the North Korean announcement Nov. 3 that “reprocessing

plutonium is contrary to North Korea’s own commitments that

it committed to in the 2005 joint statement.” Reprocessing also

violates UN Security Council resolutions, Kelly added.

Thus far, however, North Korea has not indicated that it has

taken any steps to bring its five-megawatt Yongbyon reactor back

to operable status. Citing satellite imagery analysis, a Sept. 4

report by the Washington-based Institute for Science and Inter-

national Security concluded that “there do not appear to be any

reconstruction efforts at the reactor site.” Arms Control Today con-

firmed with knowledgeable official sources in November that no

reconstruction efforts at the reactors have been detected.

Obstacles to ReconstitutionNorth Korea would have to reconstitute the reactor in order to

produce any additional plutonium for nuclear weapons. Hecker

estimated in May that prior to the reprocessing of the 8,000 spent

fuel rods this year, North Korea separated enough plutonium for

“at most eight” but as few as four nuclear weapons. North Korea

is believed to have used some of this material to carry out nuclear

tests in 2006 and in May. (See ACT, June 2009.)

To run the reactor again, it would first need an additional

load of fuel. North Korea’s fuel fabrication facility was disabled

under the 2007 agreement. Many of its functions had been

abandoned since the 1994 Agreed Framework, and no additional

nuclear fuel has been produced since that time.

North Korea still has about 2,000 fuel rods for its five-megawatt

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il (right), accompanied by First Vice Foreign Minister Kang Sok Ju, participates in talks with former president Bill Clinton (not pictured) in Pyongyang August 4.

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would be required for preparing the fresh fuel rods.

It is not clear why North Korea has not started reconstituting

the reactor, Wit said. He suggested that one potential explana-

tion is that “the North has already planned out its next cycle

of nuclear force building and escalation of the threat,” but has

decided that the time for those steps is not yet right, for political

or technical reasons. —PETER CRAIL

reactor left over from 1994. It also has about 12,000 bare fuel rods

for a 50-megawatt reactor whose construction was halted under the

Agreed Framework and that has since fallen into considerable disre-

pair. (See ACT, October 2007.) The five other parties to the six-party

talks could not reach an agreement with North Korea on how to

address the fresh fuel rods as part of the disablement actions under

the February 2007 agreement. (See ACT, October 2008.)

In order to ready a full load of 8,000 fresh

fuel rods for the smaller reactor, North Korea

could use some of the 50-megawatt reactor

fuel, with some modifications.

Hecker noted in a Nov. 17 e-mail that the

bare fuel rods for the larger reactor would need

to be clad in a magnesium alloy, which helps

to contain the fission products produced in

the reactor operations. That cladding process

could take about six months, he said.

Although there does not appear to have been

any detectable work on reconstituting the reac-

tor, Hecker said it is “unlikely” that work on

preparing the fuel rods for the reactor could be

detected from overhead.

Beyond preparing the fresh fuel rods, North

Korea would need to repair the secondary

cooling loop severed as part of the disable-

ment process and, more importantly, rebuild

the cooling tower, which it demolished in

June 2008. Hecker said the cooling tower

could take about six months to rebuild, a

time frame similar to the one that probably

A South Korean at a train station in Seoul watches footage of the demolition of a cooling tower at North Korea’s Yongbyon nuclear complex June 27, 2008.

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Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace FellowshipProviding Opportunities for Tomorrow’s Leaders in Peace and Security

The Herbert Scoville Jr. Peace Fellowship invites recent college graduates to apply for six to nine month fellowships in Washington, DC, focusing on arms control, peace, and international security issues. Founded in 1987 to develop and train the next generation of leaders on a range of peace and security issues, the program has awarded 120 fellowships.

Scoville Fellows work with one of twenty-five participating public-interest organizations. They may undertake a variety of activities, including research, writing, and advocacy on issues including nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, non-proliferation, missile defense, weapons trade, environmental and energy security, and peacekeeping, that support the goals of their host organization, and may attend coalition meetings, policy briefings and Congressional hearings. Fellows are supervised by and learn from senior level staff and often have the opportunity to publish articles or reports. The program also arranges meetings for the fellows with policy experts. Many former Scoville Fellows have gone on to pursue graduate degrees in international relations and taken prominent positions in the field of peace and security with public-interest organizations, the Federal Government, and in academia.

Candidates must have an excellent academic record and a strong interest in issues of peace and security. The program is open to all U.S. citizens and non-U.S. citizens living in the U.S. eligible for employment. Benefits include a stipend, health insurance and travel to Washington, DC. The next application deadline is January 22, 2010 for the Fall 2010 fellowship.

For more information visit www.scoville.org or call (202) 543-4100 x2110.50

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Letter TO THE EDITOR

Key CFE Obstacles Are Not “Subregional”

Wolfgang Zellner’s thoughtful article (“Can This

Treaty Be Saved? Breaking the Stalemate on

Conventional Forces in Europe,” September 2009)

reminds us of the contribution to European security that could

result from resolving the impasse over the Conventional Armed

Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. However, the article’s analysis

of contentious issues in discussions of the treaty is mistaken in

distinguishing between “Euro-strategic” issues, including NATO

enlargement and its effect on the European conventional force

balance, and two ostensibly “subregional” issues. The distinc-

tion has important implications for policy decisions on how to

approach the impasse and craft solutions to it.

One of the issues that Zellner classifies as subregional is Russia’s

continued occupation of Georgia and Moldova, which contra-

venes Moscow’s 1999 Istanbul summit commitments. NATO

countries that are parties to the CFE Treaty insist that Russia must

fulfill these commitments before they ratify the 1999 Adapted

CFE Treaty, which updates the CFE Treaty, notably by eliminating

its bloc-to-bloc structure. The second issue is the Adapted CFE

Treaty’s “flank” provisions limiting ground forces equipment in

Russia’s Leningrad and North Caucasus military districts, limits

which Russia rejects and NATO wishes to preserve.

Zellner’s article overlooks the negotiating history and broader

significance of these issues, which extend beyond the regions

immediately involved to the overall strategic relationship be-

tween NATO and Russia. Perhaps the most troublesome issue

in that relationship is the rules governing NATO and Russian

behavior in the entire former Soviet domain, which Russia refers

to as its “near abroad.” The parts of that area where current or

prospective NATO forces are closest to Russia are naturally the

most sensitive. These are areas involved in the flank issue and

the dispute over Georgia.

Zellner would resolve the Georgia issue by somehow updat-

ing the Istanbul commitments to reflect the reality that Russian

forces will not be withdrawn soon. By defining the Georgia

problem as less than Euro-strategic and ignoring the real basis

for linking the Istanbul commitments to the treaty regime,

his article seems to imply a resolution doing little to redress

the situation. Regardless of “who started it,” the result of the

Georgian-Russian conflict of August 2008 has been two Russian

brigades in Georgia’s breakaway regions—a substantial Russian

force south of the Caucasus Mountains, readily reinforced from

Russia and within easy reach of pipelines relieving Europe’s en-

ergy dependence on Russia. In this context, the lack of verifiable

limits on forces in parts of Georgia amounts to a strategically

significant gap in the treaty regime.

Ironically, by recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia as

independent, Russia has ensured their dependence on Moscow

and Russia’s hold over a former Soviet space. In the light of

Vladimir Putin’s 2005 remark that “the collapse of the Soviet

Union was the biggest geopolitical disaster of the century,” this

consolidation of Moscow’s control, whether one motivation for

Russian actions or merely a result, may serve as a precedent for

Russia’s restoration of its influence by encouraging separatism

on its periphery. Ukraine is vulnerable to similar tactics. Ignor-

ing the implications of this precedent by failing to insist on

militarily significant steps to begin to restore confidence would

not enhance European security.

These considerations argue, at a minimum, for substantial

verifiable reductions of Russian and other forces in separatist

areas of Georgia. Such reductions, depending on their scope,

could perhaps overcome a key barrier to Adapted CFE Treaty

ratification or could constitute a significant confidence-building

step that could be matched by, for example, providing some fur-

ther clarification on future NATO force levels.

Complete or near-complete Russian withdrawal is unlikely if

it appears that NATO would then offer Georgia a membership

action plan, a step Russia’s intervention has complicated and

delayed, perhaps indefinitely. NATO will not withdraw its stated

commitment to Georgia’s membership, and even if it or Georgia

were to do so, there is no guarantee that Russia would loosen its

military grip on Georgia. Neither, unfortunately, will Moscow

withdraw its recognition of the separatist governments. Russia

has so far blocked a status-neutral solution to placing observers

from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on

separatist territories. But certainly, there are status-neutral ways

to approach verifiable CFE Treaty reductions in South Ossetia and

Abkhazia. If it wished to pursue them, Russia could preserve its

position by claiming consent from secessionist “governments.”

Zellner says the need for Georgia’s consent to the presence of

foreign forces is a “political consideration.” He never specifies

how the principle of host-nation consent relates to the CFE Trea-

ty. It is integral to both the current and Adapted CFE treaties; it is

strengthened in the latter by requiring explicit host-nation noti-

fication of consent, and it is the underlying basis for linking the

Istanbul commitments to ratification of the Adapted CFE Treaty.

That linkage is neither artificial nor an afterthought. The

Adapted CFE Treaty would never have been signed if Russia had

not first signed the bilateral agreements involving withdrawal

from Georgia and Moldova. NATO made a public issue of the

linkage between Adapted CFE Treaty ratification and the Istan-

bul commitments only in 2002, three years after the signing of

the treaty, because Russian foot-dragging in implementing its

commitments took time to reach a crisis.

Zellner points out that the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh,

a separatist area of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenia, has not

blocked NATO states’ ratification. However, Russia’s occupation

of Georgia and Moldova involves a violation by a major treaty

partner and has larger implications for European security.

The problem in Moldova should be somewhat easier to resolve

than the one in Georgia. The Russian force in Moldova is small,

isolated by Ukraine and Moldova from Russia’s borders, and thus

of less strategic concern, although equally important from a trea-

ty perspective. Moreover, Moldova is not an active candidate for

NATO membership, and Russia has not recognized the indepen-

dence of Transdniestria, a secessionist region of Moldova.

The second issue that Zellner mislabels as subregional is

the flank issue. The Adapted CFE Treaty’s flank provisions, by

limiting reinforcements of ground forces equipment, stabilize

large areas of northern and southern Europe where NATO and

Russian forces are closest to each other. It would be wrong to 51

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suggest that this has no broader impact on European stability.

The flank provisions cover not only the Russian Leningrad and

North Caucasus military districts, but also nearby Norway and

Turkey and, in the near abroad, Romania, Bulgaria, and Georgia.

When Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania accede to the Adapted CFE

Treaty, Russia will doubtless insist that all three be subject to

flank restrictions. Renegotiating the Adapted CFE Treaty to drop

coverage of the Russian flank would mean that, within its over-

all limits, Russia could theoretically bring any size force into its

flank areas, while nearby NATO flank states could receive only

limited reinforcements.

Zellner faults what he sees as a failure to address Russia’s

demand to drop the Russian flank limits. Yet, Russia has repeat-

edly agreed to resolutions of the flank issue only to reopen it.

The limits on Russia’s flank zone were eased in the 1997 Flank

Agreement and again in the Adapted CFE Treaty. Last March,

NATO offered to consider adjusting the treaty’s equipment lim-

its—which include Russian flank limits—once the Adapted CFE

Treaty enters into force.

Dmitry Rogozin, Russia’s ambassador to NATO, has publicly

criticized the treaty flank restrictions as imposing unacceptable

movement restrictions on Russia. Interestingly, however, Russia

has made politically binding commitments outside the treaty to

restrictions on two parts of its territory, the Kaliningrad enclave,

bordering Poland and Lithuania, and the Pskov Oblast, which

borders Estonia and Latvia and was excluded from the northern

part of the flank zone by the Flank Agreement. At the Istanbul

summit, Russia pledged to refrain from permanent stationing

of “substantial additional combat forces” in those areas. This

echoed earlier NATO pledges to refrain from “new stationing,”

i.e., the stationing of “substantial” combat forces on the terri-

tory of new NATO members. Russia has since demanded that

NATO define what it means by “substantial” combat forces.

NATO has publicly offered to do so in the context of Russian

agreement to a NATO compromise proposal calling for parallel

steps toward Russian fulfillment of its Istanbul commitments

and NATO states’ ratification of the Adapted CFE Treaty.

It seems reasonable that Russia should reciprocate such a far-

reaching NATO commitment on stationing. If a definition of “sub-

stantial” were mutually agreed and a similar commitment applied

reciprocally to other areas of Russia, including the Leningrad and

North Caucasus military districts, this might be a useful interim

confidence-building step that could spur progress. In the end,

however, some legally binding and evenhanded means of stabiliz-

ing the flank regions by limiting force buildups must be found.

It would be a mistake to conclude that the choice for the

CFE Treaty regime is either permanent impasse or unwise

concessions. A comprehensive solution will contribute to, and

might require some parallel progress in, resolving larger under-

lying conflicts involving NATO enlargement and Russia’s de-

sire for dominance in its near abroad. But, at a minimum, early

steps to build confidence in the CFE Treaty regime should be

possible and could hasten progress.

Peter Perenyi is a senior analyst at ANSER, a not-for-profit research institute. Until July, he represented the Office of the Secretary of Defense on U.S. delegations dealing with the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty. The views expressed in this letter are his own and are not intended to reflect those of the U.S. government or any of its agencies.

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