Issue No. 1308 30 March 2018 - Defense.gov
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Issue No. 1308 30 March 2018
// USAFCUWS Outreach Journal Issue 1308 //
Feature Report
“Nuclear Weapons: NNSA Should Clarify Long-Term Uranium Enrichment Mission Needs and Improve
Technology Cost Estimates”. Published by the U.S. Government Accountability Office; February 2018
https://www.gao.gov/assets/700/690143.pdf
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a separately organized agency within the
Department of Energy (DOE), is taking or plans to take four actions to extend inventories of low-
enriched uranium (LEU) that is unobligated, or carries no promises or peaceful use to foreign trade
partners until about 2038 to 2041. Two of the actions involve preserving supplies of LEU, and the
other two involve diluting highly enriched uranium (HEU) with lower enriched forms of uranium to
produce LEU. GAO reviewed these actions and found the actual costs and schedules for those taken
to date generally align with estimates. NNSA and GAO have identified risks associated with two of
these actions. One of these risks has been resolved; NNSA is taking steps to mitigate another, while
others, such as uncertainty of future appropriations, are unresolved.
NNSA’s preliminary plan for analyzing options to supply unobligated enriched uranium in the long
term is inconsistent with DOE directives for the acquisition of capital assets, which state that the
mission need statement should be a clear and concise description of the gap between current
capabilities and the mission need. The scope of the mission need statement that NNSA has
developed can be interpreted to meet two different mission needs: (1) a need for enriched uranium
for multiple national security needs, including tritium, and (2) a specific need for enriched uranium
to produce tritium. The DOE directives also state that mission need should be independent of and
not defined by a particular solution. However, NNSA is showing preference toward a particular
solution—building a new uranium enrichment capability—and the agency has not included other
technology options for analysis. Without (1) revising the scope of the mission need statement to
clarify the mission need it seeks to achieve and (2) adjusting the range of options it considers in the
analysis of alternatives process, NNSA may not consider all options to satisfy its mission need.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
US NUCLEAR WEAPONS
US Nuclear Stockpile Decreasing in Size, But Not Capability
Perry Sees Plutonium Pit Work Staying at LANL ‘into the Future’
Energy Secretary Rick Perry Promises More Triggers for Nuclear Weapons
Want to Demolish a Uranium Enrichment Facility? Ask a Pipe-crawling Robot First
Navy to Congress: Columbia-class Submarine Program Still on Schedule with Little Margin for Error
US COUNTER-WMD
For Special Operations Forces, Fighting WMD Means Getting Deeper Into Enemies’ Leadership and
Decision-Making
Raytheon to Begin Modernizing Missile Defense
US ARMS CONTROL
How to Spot a Nuclear Bomb Program? Look for Ghostly Particles
It’s No Cold War, but Relations with Russia Turn Volatile
National Security Veterans Urge Trump Not to Scrap Iran Nuclear Deal
ASIA/PACIFIC
Japan’s Top Diplomat Taro Kono Mulls Attending Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Meeting
Russia, China Eclipse US in Hypersonic Missiles, Prompting Fears
EUROPE/RUSSIA
Poland Officially Signs Deal to Buy Patriot from US
Spying on U.S. Nuclear Submarine Base Factor in Closing of Russia’s Seattle Consulate
Russia to Receive Entire Fleet of Upgraded Supersonic Nuclear-Capable Bombers by 2030
European Powers Press for Iran Sanctions to Buttress Nuclear Deal
MIDDLE EAST
Saudi-led Coalition Threatens Retaliation against Iran over Missiles
Netanyahu: Israel Has Consistent Policy – Prevent Enemies from Obtaining Nuclear Weapons
INDIA/PAKISTAN
China Sell DANGEROUS Nuclear Weapons to Pakistan as Conflict with India ESCALATES
US Slams Pakistani Firms with Sanctions for Nuclear Trade
WW3: India Will 'DESTROY Pakistan and CRIPPLE China in Two-front Nuclear War'
COMMENTARY
A North Korean Gordian Knot: Undoing the Nuclear Link
The Strategic Wisdom of Accommodating North Korea’s Nuclear Status
On Iran and North Korea: Don’t Trust, and Verify, Verify, Verify
Red Glare: The Origin and Implications of Russia’s ‘New’ Nuclear Weapons
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US NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Defense News (Washington, D.C.)
US Nuclear Stockpile Decreasing in Size, But Not Capability
By Daniel Cebul
March 27, 2018
WASHINGTON — The number of nuclear warheads kept in U.S. stockpiles decreased by nearly 200
since the end of the Obama administration, according to information released by the Defense
Department in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from the Federation of American
Scientists. This reduction brings the total number of warheads down to 3,822 as of September
2017.
While this downsizing may seem to contradict the Trump administration’s position on U.S. nuclear
posture, these reductions reflect “a longer trend of the Pentagon working to reduce excess numbers
of warheads while upgrading the remaining weapons,” according to Hans Kristensen, director of the
nuclear information project at FAS.
In October 2017, President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis denied reports
claiming the president was calling for an increase in the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
“Although defense hawks home and abroad will likely seize upon the reduction and argue that it
undermines deterrence and reassurance, the reality is that it does not; the remaining arsenal is
more than sufficient to meet the requirements for national security and international obligations,”
Kristensen said. “On the contrary, it is a reminder that there still is considerable excess capacity in
the current nuclear arsenal beyond what is needed.”
The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review introduced two new low-yield nuclear-capable weapons to the
U.S. arsenal, a sea-launched cruise missile and a nuclear-tipped D-5 Trident submarine-launched
ballistic missile.
Although the necessity and cost of these systems have been heavily questioned by critics, the
capabilities have been defended by those inside the Pentagon as a necessary response to the return
to great-power competition and a rapidly evolving 21st century threat environment.
https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2018/03/27/us-nuclear-stockpile-decreasing-in-size-
but-not-capability/
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The Los Alamos Monitor Online (Los Alamos, N.M.)
Perry Sees Plutonium Pit Work Staying at LANL ‘into the Future’
By Tris DeRoma
March 23, 2018
Plutonium pit manufacturing and whether Los Alamos National Laboratory will remain the center
of plutonium pit production was the highlight of Thursday’s Senate Armed Services Committee
hearing.
U.S. Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., asked Secretary of Energy Rick Perry how confident he was that Los
Alamos would be able to get 80 pits manufactured a year by 2030.
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The National Nuclear Security Administration is expected to release an analysis of alternatives
study by May 11 that may favor moving the facility to the Savannah River Site in South Carolina.
“Now there’s talk of stopping and recalculating and looking at another approach. I just don’t think
we have the time to do that,” Reed said.
“Sen. Heinrich (D-N.M.) and I have discussed this at length many times. I’ve been to Los Alamos and
I’ve visited P-4 (the plutonium manufacturing facility) out there, and it is populated with some very
extraordinary men and women,” Perry said. “…Los Alamos is going to be the center for plutonium
excellence for as long into the future as there is a future.”
Perry further added that manufacturing at least 30 plutonium pits are guaranteed at the Los
Alamos plutonium pit manufacturing facility.
He also acknowledged however that the Department of Energy is going to take a hard look at the
NNSA’s analysis of alternatives document before the May 11 deadline.
“I think we know, to get the job done… I think 2026 is for the 30 pits per year to be done… the 31
through 80… I think it’s important for us to be able to send a clear message that we can get it done,
that we can get it done in a timely basis in a way that the taxpayers know we are thoughtful about
their concerns,” Perry said.
Heinrich recited testimony given Tuesday before the committee by USAF Gen. John Hyten, where he
emphasized the Department of Defense’s requirement of 80 pits per year by 2030, and having Los
Alamos National Laboratory have the first 30 pits done by 2026.
Heinrich echoed Reed’s statement in another criticism of the NNSA’s pending analysis of
alternatives document, and how there is no time to reconsider another site. The document is
allegedly considering the Department of Energy’s Savannah River Site as another option for
plutonium pit manufacturing.
“Spending three years on what I have viewed as a flawed analysis of alternatives does not inspire
confidence in regards to the timeline,” Heinrich said. “As you know, I had serious doubts about the
NNSA’s analysis of alternatives study to meet the 80 pits per year, and in December, I sent you a
letter citing specific concerns with the AOA, in that the modular approach at Los Alamos was not
even considered.”
Heinrich asked Perry if the modular approach would be fully considered in the analysis of
alternatives study the NNSA is considering.
Perry said that it would be.
Heinrich also asked the secretary if he and Department of Energy Deputy Secretary Dan Brouillette
would also do a detailed review of the modular design approach before the analysis of alternatives
document came out May 11.
Heinrich also wanted assurances that the best available cost estimates are used and that the
recommended option will meet U.S. Strategic Command’s demands by 2030.
Perry answered in the affirmative to both questions.
U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton, R-AR, questioned the Department of Energy’s $200 million plus increase
request for upgrading infrastructure throughout the DOE complex, where “a more of a quarter of it
dates back to the Manhattan Project.”
“Is the budget we passed last month, the spending bill we may be on the verge of passing going to
give you the money you need to make real progress on this infrastructure backlog?” Perry said yes.
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Earlier this month, the Department of Energy put in a $30.6 billion budget request to Congress.
Congress is scheduled to vote on a $1.3 trillion spending bill by Friday.
http://www.lamonitor.com/content/perry-sees-plutonium-pit-work-staying-lanl-%E2%80%98-
future%E2%80%99
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The Washington Post (Washington, D.C.)
Energy Secretary Rick Perry Promises More Triggers for Nuclear Weapons
By Paul Sonne
March 22, 2018
The U.S. military is concerned that the government isn’t moving quickly enough to ramp up
American production of the plutonium cores that trigger nuclear warheads, as the Trump
administration proceeds with a $1 trillion overhaul of the nation’s nuclear force.
Energy Secretary Rick Perry, the Cabinet official who oversees the nation’s nuclear labs, promised
in testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that he would meet the
Pentagon’s demands, even though the only lab capable of producing the triggers hasn’t made one
suitable for a nuclear weapon in years.
“It is important for us to be able to send a clear message that we can get it done, we can get it done
on a timely basis and get it done in a way that taxpayers respect is thoughtful about their concerns,”
Perry said in a rare appearance by the nation’s top energy official at the Senate body overseeing the
military.
Known as “plutonium pits” because they rest inside nuclear bombs like a pit inside a stone fruit, the
roughly grapefruit-size spheres are a critical component of nuclear weapons because they trigger
nuclear fission when squeezed by explosives. They require replacement as they degrade over time
or end up destroyed during regular checks of the nation’s nuclear weapons.
At issue is the Pentagon’s demand that the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) —
overseen by the Energy Department — be able to produce 30 plutonium pits a year by 2026 and 80
a year by 2030 to sustain the military’s plans for its nuclear weapons.
The Los Alamos National Laboratory is just coming back on line after suspending pit production
years ago because of safety concerns. The lab recently restarted its operation but is still producing
only research-and-development pits that are unsuitable for U.S. weapons. The lab would require a
sizable expansion to ramp up to 80 pits a year.
Air Force Gen. John E. Hyten, who oversees U.S. nuclear forces as the head of Strategic Command,
said he was worried about whether the nation’s nuclear establishment will be able to meet the
requirement, despite assurances from officials at the Energy Department and NNSA.
“I still have concerns,” Hyten said in a Senate testimony earlier this week. He said he was “very
nervous” that the requirement might be met only “just in time.”
Hyten warned that the nuclear weapons the Pentagon is developing — new bombers, submarines,
ICBMs, low-yield submarine-launch ballistic missiles, air-launch and sea-launch cruise missiles —
all require reliable warheads. He expressed concern about the age of some plutonium pits being
used.
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Nearly all current pits were produced between 1978 and 1989, according to the Pentagon. There is
some debate about how long they can last and whether the military in fact needs such high
production levels. In 2006, a study by two of the nation’s nuclear labs assessed that majority of
plutonium pits for most nuclear weapons have minimum lifetimes of at least 85 years.
Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States has discontinued many of the nuclear weapons
capabilities the nation built up during the Cold War. The country began to rely largely on
dismantling existing nuclear weapons for plutonium pits and stockpile management, particularly as
defense spending priorities diverted to the global war against terrorism.
Now the United States is facing a reckoning as Russia and China also race to advance their nuclear
arsenals and much of the infrastructure the military relies on to support its nuclear capabilities
ages out. The United States no longer operates the full range of facilities capable of producing
nuclear weapons and for nearly two decades stopped producing plutonium pits altogether.
“Past assumptions that our capability to produce nuclear weapons would not be necessary and that
we could permit the required infrastructure to age into obsolescence have proven to be mistaken,”
the Trump administration said in the nuclear weapons policy it published in February. “It is now
clear that the United States must have sufficient research, design, development, and production
capacity to support the sustainment and replacement of its nuclear forces.”
Perry highlighted the Trump administration’s decision to budget more funding for the NNSA for
that purpose in his testimony Thursday. The 2018 spending bill that the House approved Thursday
allocates $10.6 billion to weapons activities within the NNSA — which includes infrastructure
updates, maintenance and repairs — an increase from $9.2 billion in 2017 and $8.85 billion in
2016. The administration has requested $11 billion in 2019.
But doubts persist about whether the agency charged with stewarding the country’s nuclear
weapons can achieve such a complex task, while escaping a past marred by cost overruns and safety
incidents.
The administration faces billions of backlogged repairs to aging facilities. At one point in recent
years, chunks of the ceiling were falling out at the Y-12 complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn., a facility
established during the Manhattan Project to enrich uranium for the first atomic bombs.
“When I go to Oak Ridge, and I’m in facilities that were built in some cases before I was born, and
that’s a spell ago, then it becomes abundantly clear to me,” Perry, who is 68, said Thursday.
For the first 13 months of the Trump administration, the NNSA lacked a Senate-confirmed director
chosen by President Trump, resulting in lost time on some of the most pressing political decisions
to be made on nuclear matters.
Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty, a former health physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory,
was sworn in to administer the agency on Feb. 22. The Trump administration had kept in place an
Obama-era appointee, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz, in the meantime.
Gordon-Hagerty has promised to prioritize resolving the plutonium-pit issue and escape the past
problems at the NNSA, where big projects have resulted in cost overruns and mismanagement.
For much of the Cold War, the United States produced plutonium triggers at a facility called Rocky
Flats outside Denver. The facility shut down in 1989 months after federal agents raided the
premises due to environmental crimes.
Nearly two decades later, the United States resumed a limited operation to manufacture plutonium
pits in 2007, this time at Los Alamos.
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By then, the NNSA was in the midst of plans to build a bigger plutonium pit production facility at
the lab, which would have increased capacity and added protections against earthquakes. But the
NNSA canceled the project in 2012 after spending nearly half a billion dollars on designs as cost
estimates spiraled out of control.
Around the same time, the existing Los Alamos production line was shut down amid safety
incidents documented last year in reports by the Center for Public Integrity. The lab only recently
restarted the operation.
Now the NNSA must decide how to expand production of plutonium pits to meet the Pentagon’s
requirements by 2030. Under one option being considered, less ambitious “module” buildings
would be constructed at the existing Los Alamos site.
An alternative would include repurposing one of the most problematic projects the Department of
Energy has ever undertaken, the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility in South Carolina, to produce
pits instead of fulfilling its original purpose of turning weapons-grade plutonium into reactor fuel.
The facility is billions of dollars over budget and still only partially built. Both the Obama and
Trump administrations have tried to kill the project, but Congress has continued funding it
primarily due to political support from the South Carolina delegation.
The NNSA is due to deliver its final recommendation to Congress about how to expand plutonium
pit production by May 11.
The Senate committee members pointed out that the NNSA took three years to analyze where the
new production facility should be housed and still failed to issue a decision. The former Texas
governor said he would be “greatly concerned” if the new timeline isn’t met.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-us-military-wants-more-
plutonium-triggers-for-nuclear-warheads/2018/03/22/b5d1516c-2d58-11e8-911f-
ca7f68bff0fc_story.html?utm_term=.4057149969e7
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Ars Technica (New York, N.Y.)
Want to Demolish a Uranium Enrichment Facility? Ask a Pipe-crawling Robot First
By Megan Geuss
March 25, 2018
This robot will test radiation levels in 15 of the 75 miles of pipes.
A government facility in Piketon, Ohio produced enriched uranium between 1954 and 2001 for
both energy and weapons-grade purposes. Several years ago, the Department of Energy (DOE) and
a third-party contractor, Fluor-BWXT, began decommissioning the plant.
But now a new set of "hands" is being brought in to speed up the work. Well, not hands exactly, but
a radiation sensor and a pair of flexible tracks. A small pipe-crawling robot named RadPiper will be
unleashed in 15 of the 75 miles of pipes that were once used to make enriched uranium through a
gaseous diffusion process.
According to a press release from Carnegie Mellon, each one-foot segment of pipe needs to have
radiation measurements taken to rule out any potentially hazardous amounts of uranium-235 still
left over in the pipes. If RadPiper discovers a hazardous section of pipe, it has to be removed and
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decontaminated. Clean sections of piping can remain in place and will be demolished with the rest
of the building.
Fluor-BWXT has already decommissioned one of the three process warehouses on the Ohio site,
which contain 75 miles of piping all together. The first process warehouse demolition took the
company three years to finish, not least because humans (wearing protective gear) had to measure
each foot-long segment of the pipes for elevated levels of uranium-235 from the outside of the
pipes. The humans took 1.4 million measurements to thoroughly assess the first process
warehouse. RadPiper should expedite the process significantly and cut down on potentially harmful
exposure to humans. Another benefit: RadPiper's measurements are more accurate since they will
be taken from inside the pipes.
The university is seeking a patent for the sensor on top of RadPiper, which uses a sodium iodide
sensor to count gamma rays and two disc-shaped blinders that prevent the sensor from measuring
radiation beyond the one-foot section of pipe that the bot is measuring.
RadPiper was funded by $1.4 million from the DOE, which worked closely with Carnegie Mellon
University and Fluor-BWXT to build a prototype and test it on a quick-turnaround schedule. Now,
the DOE expects that RadPiper will save labor costs by an eight-to-one ratio.
"DOE officials estimate the robots could save tens of millions of dollars in completing the
characterization of uranium deposits at the Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant in Piketon, and
save perhaps $50 million at a similar uranium enrichment plant in Paducah, Kentucky," Carnegie
Mellon wrote.
RadPiper and a second robot of the same name will be able to crawl through 30- and 42-inch-
diameter pipes to take its measurements. In some sections of the piping, humans will still be
required to take measurements from outside the pipes. But this little robot is equipped with a
fisheye lens and a lidar sensor to take corners and identify obstructions in the pipe ahead. "After
completing a run of pipe, the robot automatically returns to its launch point," Carnegie Mellon said.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/radpiper-the-pipe-crawling-robot-to-tour-us-uranium-
enrichment-facility-pipes/
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USNI News (Annapolis, Md.)
Navy to Congress: Columbia-class Submarine Program Still on Schedule with Little Margin
for Error
By John Grady
March 21, 2018
Overheating problems with a test motor being developed Navy’s next nuclear ballistic missile
submarine has not thrown the “no-margin-for-error” program off-schedule, senior service leaders
have told Congress.
Testifying Tuesday before the House Armed Services seapower and projection forces
subcommittee, Rear Adm. John Tammen Jr. said the problem, discovered before the motor arrived
at Philadelphia “consumed considerable flex time” in the program. But “the risk is manageable and
well in hand,” Rear Adm. Michael Jabaley, program executive officer for submarines, added.
Last week before the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, Navy nuclear programs
director Adm. James Caldwell said “it required us to have another motor built” by the
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subcontractor. The overheating problem was traced to faulty insulation. The new motor has not yet
been tested.
By overlapping some other testing in the program and other tweaks, the overall Columbia program
is on schedule. “We’re managing it very tightly” to meet the 2021 date to begin construction,
Caldwell said.
James Geurts, the assistant secretary for Research, Development and Acquisition, said at Tuesday’s
hearing “early work on missile tubes” for the new submarine also was a factor in keeping to
schedule. Also having 83 percent of the ship’s design done at this stage of production, versus 42
percent for Virginia-class at a comparable time helps the program’s on-time prospects.
Delivery for the first Columbia boomer is expected in 2031. The no-margin-for-error comes with
that date because the first Ohio–class ballistic missile submarine is set to retire.
Caldwell termed the development of the life-of-the-ship nuclear core “a pretty big step for us” at the
Senate hearing. Instead of coming in for refueling as nuclear-powered carriers do every 25 years,
the core for Columbia class is to last the ship’s 40-plus-year service life. This longer core life is
central to the Navy’s planning for 12 ballistic missile submarines instead of the 14 in the existing
Ohio class.
Even with the Navy’s long history in nuclear propulsion, he told the panel that the longer life core
“requires new materials,” which can present additional challenges. “We expect to start building the
new core next year.” Caldwell added the longer life core would first be installed in future Virginia-
class submarines.
Tuesday, Jabaley said the combined work on the quad-pack missile tubes and payload with the
United Kingdom “is going very well.” The first five tubes have been delivered to the United States —
four to Quonset Point, R.I., and one to Cape Canaveral, Florida.
He added the congressionally-approved continuous production authorities have been helpful aids
in keeping the schedule intact. The Navy is looking to expand authorities into other areas, possibly
the electric drive motor.
“It allows a more smooth ramp up” in building as repair work for other submarines decline, he said.
That also helps Electric Boat maintain a steady skilled workforce over a long period of time. The
authorities also “de-risk” the dangers of the early work problems surfacing in new class building,
delaying the program and raising costs.
At the Senate panel last week, Lisa Gordon-Hagerty, recently confirmed as undersecretary for
nuclear security at the Department of Energy, said the across-the-board nuclear weapons
modernization programs has “everything is on track and on budget.” But she warned the panel that
even with her program’s $15.1 billion budget request for Fiscal Year 2019, Congress “needs to
sustain predictable funding” to deliver systems such as the replacement vessels for aging ballistic
missile submarines.
In her opening statement, Gordon-Hagerty noted that $1.8 billion has been put against naval
reactors in that request. “That’s a 20 percent increase” over last year’s and in line with Navy
shipbuilding plans.
David Trimble, from the congressionally-established the General Accountability Office, agreed the
longstanding challenge will be sustainability for all the nuclear programs — from ships to weapons.
He also raised the affordability issue of bringing all the modernization programs into the services
on schedule. He added a further problem may lay in having all this work done at the same time as
the Department of Energy is overhauling existing laboratories, reprocessing plants and other
facilities such as the Naval Reactors Facility in Idaho.
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Gordon-Hagery said the facilities are on the average 40 years old.
For example, recapitalization of the naval facilities at the Idaho Nuclear Laboratory is closely linked
to the Columbia-class construction program.
Keeping all that spending in balance makes the task more daunting. “A change in one area [one
weapons program] can affect others [infrastructure and other weapons program]” dramatically, he
said.
Trimble categorized the weapons programs as being on the “high-risk list” because of their
demands on the overall budget, the need to keep each synchronized with the other, all requiring
infrastructure modernization and many needing a growing, competent workforce with the
necessary security clearances even for non-nuclear work.
Gordon-Hagerty projected the nuclear weapons modernization program alone would have “a
sustained, profound and significant” impact on the Pentagon’s budget. She told the panel the cost
would consume about 6.5 percent of the defense budget, up from slightly more than 3 percent in
recent years.
“We are leaning as far forward as we can” on all these efforts and making sure “that we have
priorities correct.”
She told the panel she expected to report back by year’s end on infrastructure needs with cost
estimates.
https://news.usni.org/2018/03/21/navy-congress-columbia-class-submarine-program-still-
schedule-little-margin-error
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US COUNTER-WMD
Defense One (Washington, D.C.)
For Special Operations Forces, Fighting WMD Means Getting Deeper Into Enemies’
Leadership and Decision-Making
By Patrick Tucker
March 22, 2018
SOCOM is getting more intel and gear as it settles into its role as the Pentagon’s anti-WMD
coordinator.
As U.S. Special Operations Command has settled into its role as lead U.S. agency for planning
military operations to counter weapons of mass destruction — that is, chemical, biological, and
rogue nuclear weapons — it’s getting access to new realms of intelligence.
“Differentiating between peaceful scientific research and nefarious intent requires exquisite access
into adversary leadership and decision,” said Lt. Gen. Joseph Osterman, SOCOM’s deputy
commander, told the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday.
Osterman said that the two-month-old National Defense Strategy, with its focus on Russia and
China, had already made it easier for SOCOM to get both the intelligence capabilities and the tactical
gear it needs to better plan counter-WMD missions.
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“I do believe that there has been a significant change with an emphasis on those hard problem sets
in that peer competitor range,” he said — meaning China and Russia. That change has allowed
SOCOM to “open up that planning beyond just that counter [violent extremist] threat from our
previous mission sets.”
In particular, he said, SOCOM planners have been better able to contemplate whole-of-government
approaches.
About a year ago, SOCOM became the Defense Department’s lead agency for countering WMDs.
“Our primary counter-WMD effort as a coordinating authority is really: how best to orchestrate
Department of Defense activity in that pre-crisis phase” just short of open conflict, he said.
Also at the hearing, the Defense Department’s top homeland-defense official said it appears quite
probable that Russia is behind the recent nerve agent attack that targeted Russian military officer-
turned-British informant Sergei Skripal and his daughter in London.
“It appears highly likely, with the information at hand, that the Russians are responsible fo the use
of an advanced chemical agent against this individual,” said Ken Rapuano, the assistant defense
secretary for homeland defense and global security.
The United States is “working very closely with the UK as well as other partners and allies” as the
government in London completed its forensic investigation, Rapuano said.
http://www.defenseone.com/threats/2018/03/special-operations-forces-fighting-wmd-means-
getting-deeper-enemies-leadership-and-decision-making/146897/
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UPI (Washington, D.C.)
Raytheon to Begin Modernizing Missile Defense
By James LaPorta
March 27, 2018
March 27 (UPI) -- Raytheon announced this week that the company has begun work on a contract
from the U.S. Army to sustain and modernize missile defense for both military commands and
government agencies.
Raytheon said on Monday it would start work on the three-year service contract for system
upgrades valued at $600 million that was first announced in June 2017. The work was held up by a
protest bid, the company said.
The Army systems set to receive services are the THAAD, the AN/TPY-2 radars, the Ground-Based
Midcourse Defense System, the Sea-Based X-Band Radar and Upgraded Early Warning Radars,
according to the company.
The Government Accountability Office defines a bid protest as "a challenge to the award or
proposed award of a contract for the procurement of goods and services or a challenge to the terms
of a solicitation for such a contract."
Raytheon said that the bid was withdrawn in February 2018, which paved the way for the
agreement between the federal government and Raytheon -- enabling the company to provide
software sustainment and system engineering services for U.S. Army systems.
Raytheon will receive direction from the U.S. Army to begin work within the 30 to 60 days.
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"We're bringing state-of-the-art, commercial software practices, such as DevOps and Agile, to make
sure the systems the Army depends on stay ahead of evolving threats," Todd Probert, vice president
of Mission Support and Modernization at Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services, said in a
press release.
Work on the contract will occur at Systems Simulation, Software and Integration Directorate, U.S.
Army Aviation and Missile Research, Development and Engineering Center at Redstone Arsenal.
https://www.upi.com/Raytheon-to-begin-modernizing-missile-defense/8421522167105/
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US ARMS CONTROL
The New York Times (New York, N.Y.)
How to Spot a Nuclear Bomb Program? Look for Ghostly Particles
By Kenneth Chang
March 27, 2018
What are nations like North Korea and Iran really doing at nuclear reactors that are out of sight?
Someday, wispy subatomic particles known as antineutrinos could provide a clear view of what
countries with illicit nuclear weapons programs are trying to hide.
Antineutrinos are devilishly difficult to detect, but this quality is precisely what makes them
potentially ideal for monitoring international nonproliferation agreements aimed at preventing the
spread of atomic weapons.
A collaboration of American and British scientists announced on Tuesday that they would build a
test antineutrino detector called Watchman in a mine on the northeast coast of England. The project
is sponsored by the National Nuclear Security Administration, part of the United States Department
of Energy.
When completed in 2023, the apparatus is to consist of a cylinder about 50 feet in diameter and 50
feet in height, filled with 7.7 million pounds of water and located about 3,600 feet underground in
the Boulby Mine, which produces salt and potash, a fertilizer. Sensors lining the inside of the
cylinder will observe the occasional flashes generated when an antineutrino resulting from
reactions in the Hartlepool nuclear power plant, about 15 miles away, slams into a particle in the
detector liquid. The experiment would run for two years.
“It’s a demonstration of a capability,” said Adam Bernstein, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory in California who is the principal investigator for the project. “Once we’ve
operated, then that would give one confidence that you could use this technology for actual
monitoring.”
Dr. Bernstein said the United States will contribute $30 million over six years to the project.
Neutrinos, particles with no electrical charge and little mass that travel at close to the speed of light,
are generated by nuclear fusion, as in the sun, where hydrogen atoms merge into helium, releasing
heat and light. Antineutrinos are the antimatter version of neutrinos and are created when atoms
fall apart in fission reactions like the decay of uranium. The fission of uranium also produces
plutonium, which can be used in nuclear weapons.
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Antineutrinos rarely interact with anything. That makes them very difficult to detect, but it also
means there is no known way to shield a reactor and prevent antineutrinos from flying out.
The vast majority of antineutrinos from the Hartlepool reactor would pass unimpeded through the
new detector, but calculations by the scientists indicate that two to four a day would collide with a
hydrogen nucleus — a proton — in a water molecule.
When this collision occurs, the proton transforms into a neutron and ejects a positron, the
antimatter version of an electron. Because the positron moves so quickly through the water, it
emits the optical equivalent of a sonic boom, called Cherenkov radiation. (Watchman is a
shortening of Water Cherenkov Monitor of Antineutrinos.)
Mixed in the water will be the element gadolinium, which will absorb the neutron generated in the
collision, emitting a second flash of Cherenkov light.
The demonstration will scale up previous work that was able to detect antineutrinos at a distance
of about 80 feet from a reactor core. Detectors as large as the one at Boulby could be placed near
the nuclear infrastructure of a state that had agreed to shut down its nuclear reactors, allowing
international authorities to verify compliance. Potentially, much larger detectors could monitor
sites hundreds of miles away in hostile nations that do not allow inspections.
The same apparatus would also assist astronomers studying supernovas, the explosions of distant
stars. In 1987, several large neutrino detectors detected a few handfuls of neutrinos and
antineutrinos from the explosion of a star more than 160,000 light-years away.
Watchman would similarly detect such cosmic explosions, but with improved acuity. The presence
of gadolinium in the new detector would make it possible to differentiate neutrinos, which would
generate just one flash of Cherenkov light, from antineutrinos, which would generate two.
“We couldn’t do that in 1987,” said Robert Svoboda, a professor of physics at the University of
California, Davis and a member of the Watchman team.
For neutrino scientists, Watchman will also finance the development of improved technology to
record the Cherenkov flashes. These are to be deployed in a second phase of Watchman and then
could be used in other neutrino experiments.
“There’s this nice duality between basic science research and nonproliferation,” Dr. Bernstein said.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/27/science/nuclear-bombs-antineutrinos.html
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The New York Times (New York, N.Y.)
It’s No Cold War, but Relations with Russia Turn Volatile
By Andrew Higgins
March 26, 2018
MOSCOW — The expulsion of scores of Russian diplomats from the United States, countries across
Europe and beyond has raised, yet again, the question of whether the world is veering back where it
was during the Cold War. The alarming answer from some in Russia is: No, but the situation is in
some ways even more unpredictable.
For all the tension, proxy conflicts and risk of nuclear war that punctuated relations between
Moscow and the West for decades, each side knew, particularly toward the end of the Cold War and
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collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, roughly what to expect. Each had a modicum of trust that the
other would act in a reasonably predictable way.
The volatile state of Russia’s relations with the outside world today, exacerbated by a nerve agent
attack on a former spy living in Britain, however, makes the diplomatic climate of the Cold War look
reassuring, said Ivan I. Kurilla, an expert on Russian-American relations, and recalls a period of
paralyzing mistrust that followed the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.
“If you look for similarities with what is happening, it is not the Cold War that can explain events
but Russia’s first revolutionary regime,” which regularly assassinated opponents abroad, said Mr.
Kurilla, a historian at the European University at St. Petersburg.
He said that Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, had no interest in spreading a new ideology and
fomenting world revolution, unlike the early Bolsheviks, but that Russia under Mr. Putin had
“become a revolutionary regime in terms of international relations.”
From the Kremlin’s perspective, it is the United States that first upended previous norms, when
President George W. Bush withdrew the United States from the Antiballistic Missile accord, an
important Cold War-era treaty, in 2002.
Russia, Mr. Kurilla said, does not like the rules of the American-dominated order that have
prevailed since then, “and wants to change them.”
One rule that Russia has consistently embraced, however, is the principle of reciprocity, and the
Kremlin made clear on Monday that it would, after assessing the scale of the damage to its diplomat
corps overseas, respond with expulsions of Western diplomats from Russia.
The Russian Parliament also weighed in, with the deputy head of its foreign affairs committee,
Aleksei Chepa, telling the Interfax news agency that Russia would not bow to the West’s diplomatic
“war.” Russia, he said, “will not allow itself to be beaten up, the harder they try to intimidate us, the
tougher our response will be.”
When Britain expelled 23 Russian diplomats this month in response to the nerve agent attack in
Salisbury, England, Moscow not only evicted an equal number of British diplomats, but ordered the
closing of the British Council, an organization that promotes British culture and language.
While denying any part in the March 4 poisoning of Sergei V. Skripal, a former spy, and his
daughter, Yulia, both still critically ill in the hospital, Russia in recent years has built up a long
record of flouting international norms, notably with its 2014 annexation of Crimea, the first time
since 1945 that European borders have been redrawn by force.
The attack on the Skripals was another first, at least according to Prime Minister Theresa May of
Britain, who denounced the action as the “first offensive use of a nerve agent in Europe since the
Second World War.”
Kadri Liik, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said she was
mystified by the nerve agent attack. Ms. Liik said she had expected Mr. Putin, who won a fourth
term by a lopsided margin on March 18, to back away from disruption during what, under the
Constitution, should be his last six years in power.
Mr. Putin, she said, might not be predictable but usually follows what he considers fairly clear logic.
“Putin does not do disruption just for fun, but because he is Putin and he can,” she said.
Each time Russia has been accused of having a hand in acts like the seizure of Ukrainian
government buildings in Crimea or the 2014 shooting down of a Malaysian passenger plane over
eastern Ukraine, in which nearly 300 people were killed, Moscow has responded with a mix of self-
pity, fierce denials and florid conspiracy theories that put the blame elsewhere.
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In the case of the poisoning in Salisbury, Russia’s denials became so baroque that even the state-run
news media had a hard time keeping up.
After officials denied any Russian role and insisted that neither Russia nor the Soviet Union had
ever developed Novichok, the nerve agent identified by Britain as the substance used against the
Skripals, a state-controlled news agency published an interview with a Russian scientist who said
he had helped develop a system of chemical weapons called Novichok-5. The agency later amended
the article, replacing the scientist’s mention of Novichok with an assertion that the “chemical
weapons development program of the U.S.S.R. was not called ‘Novichok.’”
The attempted murder of Mr. Skripal on British soil, however, “was the straw that broke the camel’s
back,” said Vladislav Inozemtsev, a Russian scholar at the Polish Institute of Advanced Studies in
Warsaw. “Western leaders finally decided that enough is enough” because Moscow has played the
denial game so many times and showed no real interest in establishing the truth, he said.
Unlike Soviet leaders during the Cold War, he added, Mr. Putin follows no fixed ideology or rules
but is ready to pursue any “predatory policies,” no matter how taboo, that might help “undermine
the existing order in Europe,” while insisting that Russia is the victim, not the aggressor.
When the United Nations in 2015 proposed an international tribunal to investigate the MH-17 air
disaster a year earlier over territory held by Russian-armed rebels in eastern Ukraine, Moscow
used its veto in the United Nations Security Council to block the move, the only member of the
Council to oppose the investigation.
Ian Bond, a former British diplomat in Moscow who is now director of foreign policy at the Center
for European Reform in London, said Russia’s often implausible denials had made it “like the boy
who cried wolf.”
“If you keep putting forward crazy conspiracy theories, eventually people are going to ask whether
what you are saying is just another crazy Russian denial,” he said.
Mr. Bond said diplomacy during the Cold War, even when it involved hostile actions, tended to
follow a relatively a calm and orderly routine. No longer is that the case, he added, noting that the
Russian Embassy in London and the Foreign Ministry in Moscow have issued statements and
tweets mocking Britain as an impotent has-been power and scoffing at the Salisbury poisoning as
the “so-called Sergei Skripal case.”
President Putin, Mr. Bond added, “is not trying to foment international revolution, but he is the
great disrupter” and revels in wrong-footing foreign governments by flouting established norms.
While Russia may have been surprised by the magnitude of the coordinated expulsions by Britain’s
allies on Monday, it was clearly anticipating something. Hours before they were announced, it went
on the offensive.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, posted a message on Facebook sneering
at the European Union for showing solidarity with Britain at a time when London is negotiating its
exit from the bloc. Britain, she wrote, is “exploiting the solidarity factor to impose on those that are
remaining a deterioration in relations with Russia.”
While President Trump has expressed a curious affinity with Mr. Putin and raised expectations of
improved relations, the Russian leader has always been more measured. The underlying mistrust
seemed to be reinforced on Monday by Russia’s ambassador in Washington, Anatoly Antonov, who
told the Interfax news agency that “what the United States of America is doing today is destroying
whatever little is left in Russian-U.S. relations.”
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Despite the unpredictability under Mr. Putin, the possibility of nuclear conflict between the
Russians and the West, the most frightening aspect of the Cold War, does not appear to have
increased. Arms control agreements reached since the 1970s are still honored — with the
exception of the 1972 Antiballistic Missile accord, known as the ABM Treaty, which Mr. Bush
abandoned 30 years later.
Mr. Bush’s decision, questioned by even some American allies, opened the way, in Moscow’s view,
to a free-for-all in international relations that has left the United States and Russia struggling to
recover the trust developed by President Ronald Reagan and the last Soviet leader, Mikhail S.
Gorbachev, in the 1980s.
In a state of the nation address in February, President Putin unveiled what he described as a new
generation of “invincible” long-range nuclear missiles but, speaking later in an interview with NBC,
he blamed Washington for pushing Moscow into a new arms race by disregarding a Cold War status
quo.
“If you speak about the arms race, it started when the U.S. withdrew from the ABM Treaty,” he said.
Confronted with Moscow’s disruptive actions in the 1920s, Britain and other European countries
“did not know how to respond and took 10 years or more to figure out how to deal with Moscow,”
said Mr. Kurilla, the St. Petersburg historian.
In the case of Britain, the leading power of the day and the first Western country to recognize the
Soviet Union, the process had echoes of the present. It recognized the new Bolshevik government in
1924 but then expelled Soviet diplomats and shuttered their embassy three years later after the
police uncovered what they said was a Soviet espionage ring bent on spreading mayhem.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/26/world/europe/russia-expulsions-cold-war.html
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CNN (Atlanta, Ga.)
National Security Veterans Urge Trump Not to Scrap Iran Nuclear Deal
By Zachary Cohen
March 27, 2018
Washington (CNN) — A bipartisan group of more than 100 US national security experts -- including
nearly 50 retired military officers and more than 30 former ambassadors -- is urging President
Donald Trump to remain in the Iran nuclear deal as sources say it is becoming increasingly likely he
will withdraw.
The statement titled "Keep the Iran deal -- 10 Good Reasons Why" calls on Trump to "maintain the
US commitment to the Iran nuclear deal" as doing so will "strengthen America's hand in dealing
with North Korea, as well as Iran, and help maintain the reliability of America's word and influence
as a world leader."
"Ditching it would serve no national security purpose," the statement said.
Penned by a group that calls itself the National Coalition to Prevent an Iranian Nuclear Weapon, the
coordinated message comes as US officials are taking a two-track approach to the deal --
negotiating with allies to make changes demanded by Trump even as they prepare to walk away
from the international agreement.
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Trump set a May 12 deadline -- the next date by which he has to waive sanctions against Iran or
leave the deal -- for the US and its European allies to agree on changes to address what he sees as its
flaws.
The President's thinking, officials say, is that if the US and Europe are united on amending the deal,
the other signatories -- Russia and China -- will come along, and Iran will have no choice but to
comply.
But Trump himself has dismissed the deal as "terrible," and recent changes within the
administration giving Iran hawks John Bolton and Mike Pompeo significant influence on the issue,
mean many officials in the US and Europe are bracing for Washington to abandon the agreement.
Against that backdrop, US officials leading the negotiations with European allies say that at the
same time, they are readying contingency plans should Trump decide to pull the US out.
By releasing a joint statement on Monday, the group of more than 100 national security veterans
join a shrinking contingency within the administration that has advised the President to remain in
the deal -- which notably includes Defense Secretary James Mattis and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen.
Joseph Dunford.
Active duty four-star generals Joseph Votel and John Hyten have also advocated for staying in the
agreement.
The group argues that maintaining a US commitment to the deal will not only enhance US and
regional security by implementing unprecedented international monitoring of Iran's nuclear
program but will also set a precedent for future dealings with emerging threats like North Korea.
"North Korea could not claim that the US abrogates agreements without cause and would be more
likely to negotiate an end to its nuclear program," the statement said.
Remaining in the accord will also help strengthen US leadership on the world stage and bolster
relations with key European allies, the group argues.
"US relations with major European allies, who all oppose US withdrawal, would be preserved for
advancing US national security interests beyond the nuclear deal," the statement said. "The US will
build credibility and retain influence with its negotiating partners to ensure strict implementation
with the agreement, be able to lead efforts to strengthen it, or garner strong support for imposing
additional sanctions if necessary."
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/27/politics/experts-trump-iran-nuclear-letter/index.html
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ASIA/PACIFIC
The Japan Times (Tokyo, Japan)
Japan’s Top Diplomat Taro Kono Mulls Attending Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Meeting
Author Not Attributed
March 27, 2018
GENEVA – Foreign Minister Taro Kono said Tuesday he is considering attending a meeting this
spring of the preparatory committee for the 2020 review conference of the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
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“If various circumstances allow, I want to properly attend and explain the Japanese government’s
position based on the recommendations of our eminent persons’ group,” Kono said after a Cabinet
meeting.
At the second meeting of the NPT panel, to be held in Geneva starting in late April, Japan is
scheduled to offer recommendations on the course of nuclear disarmament that are soon to be
compiled by Foreign Ministry-appointees.
It is not clear whether Kono will be able to attend in view of the uncertainty over the situation
surrounding North Korea, a U.N. diplomatic source said Monday.
But if he can, the source said, it would mark the second straight year that a Japanese foreign
minister has taken part in the meeting and could further establish the country’s presence in the
arena of international nuclear disarmament.
Japan sees itself as a bridge builder between nuclear-armed nations and non-nuclear countries at a
time when the gulf between the two has been growing, particularly since the adoption last year of a
landmark U.N. treaty outlawing nuclear weapons.
Then-Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida attended the first preparatory committee meeting in Vienna
last year, and called on the international community to strengthen efforts against nuclear
proliferation.
The second preparatory committee meeting is one of three to be held ahead of the 2020 NPT
review conference. It will take place between April 23 and May 4.
Prior to the Vienna meeting, a 2015 review conference fell apart as parties failed to reach
agreement and could not adopt a final document, largely due to a rift between the United States and
Arab countries over discussions on efforts aimed at denuclearizing Israel.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/03/27/national/japans-top-diplomat-taro-kono-mulls-
attending-nuclear-non-proliferation-treaty-meeting/
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The Hill (Washington, D.C.)
Russia, China Eclipse US in Hypersonic Missiles, Prompting Fears
By Rebecca Kheel
March 27, 2018
Russia and China are outpacing the United States in the development of super-fast missile
technology, Pentagon officials and key lawmakers are warning.
Russia says it successfully tested a so-called hypersonic missile this month, while China tested a
similar system last year expected to enter service soon.
“Right now, we’re helpless,” Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), a senior member of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, said in advocating for more investment in hypersonics, along with missile
defense.
Hypersonics are generally defined as missiles that can fly more than five times the speed of sound.
Gen. John Hyten, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, last week described a hypersonic as a
missile that starts out “like a ballistic missile, but then it depresses the trajectory and then flies
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more like a cruise missile or an airplane. So it goes up into the low reaches of space, and then turns
immediately back down and then levels out and flies at a very high level of speed.”
In November, China reportedly conducted two tests of a ballistic missile with a hypersonic glide
vehicle that U.S. assessments expect to reach initial operating capability around 2020. The country
had already conducted at least seven tests of experimental systems from 2014 to 2016.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a flashy state of the
nation address to tout a slate of new weapons, including a hypersonic missile he claimed was
“invincible” against U.S. missile defenses. About a week later, Russia claimed it successfully tested a
hypersonic.
At the time of Putin’s announcement, the Pentagon said it was “not surprised” by the report and
assured the public that it is “fully prepared” to respond to such a threat.
But in congressional testimony last week, Hyten conceded U.S. missile defense cannot stop
hypersonics. He said that the U.S. is instead relying on nuclear deterrence, or the threat of a
retaliatory U.S. strike, as its defense against such missiles.
“We don't have any defense that could deny the employment of such a weapon against us, so our
response would be our deterrent force, which would be the triad and the nuclear capabilities that
we have to respond to such a threat,” Hyten told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
To bolster missile defenses against hypersonics, Hyten advocated space-based sensors.
“I believe we need to pursue improved sensor capabilities to be able to track, characterize and
attribute the threats, wherever they come from,” he said. “And, right now, we have a challenge with
that, with our current on-orbit space architecture and the limited number of radars that we have
around the world. In order to see those threats, I believe we need a new space sensor architecture.”
Asked if the U.S. is really falling behind Russia and China on hypersonics, Thomas Karako, director
of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said flatly: “Yes.”
“And the reason is the U.S. hasn’t been doing anything near the same pace both in terms of
developing our own capabilities but also failing to develop sensors and shooters necessary to shoot
down theirs,” he continued.
Terrestrial sensors are limited in their ability because of the curvature of the earth, Karako said, but
“you can’t hide from a robust constellation of space-based sensors.”
Yet while the last five administrations have identified space-based sensors as a critical need on
paper, nothing has come to fruition, he said.
“One of the reasons that we haven’t prioritized the hypersonic threat is we were slow to kind of
appreciate not merely the Russia and China problem, but the Russia and China missile problem,”
Karako said.
In that regard, he credited the National Defense Strategy and the Nuclear Posture Review, both of
which were unveiled by the Trump administration earlier this year, for their renewed focus on a
"great power competition" with Russia and China.
Sen. Deb Fischer (R-Neb.), chairwoman of the Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces
Subcommittee, likewise cited them as helping the U.S. get back on track in the area of hypersonics.
“I think we are aware of the capabilities that our adversaries have, and … whether it’s the Nuclear
Posture Review, National Defense Strategy, these are all laid out because of the identification of the
threats we have,” she said.
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