Nuclear Weapons

U.S.-Russia Nuclear Arms Control
The U.S. and Russia have signed various arms control agreements through the years, but recent fissures once again raise the specter of a nuclear arms race.

Timeline by Jonathan Masters and Sabine Baumgartner May 10, 2022

If Russia Goes Nuclear: Three Scenarios for the Ukraine War
The odds remain slim, but an increasingly desperate Vladimir Putin could use Russia’s nuclear arsenal to turn its fortunes in the Ukraine war. 

Article by J. Andrés Gannon Nov 9, 2022

Factors Driving the Nuclear Weapons Debate in South Korea
The public debate in South Korea over nuclear weapons reflects South Korean desires to have greater agency over their own security, shaped by factors beyond concerns over U.S. credibility.

Blog Post by Jennifer Ahn Feb 17, 2023

The New Nuclear Era
The world is on the cusp of a new era where nuclear weapons are likely to play a bigger role.

Article by Richard Haass Oct 19, 2022

  • North Korea
    THAAD: The Moment of Decision Has Arrived
    Sungtae “Jacky” Park is research associate for Korea studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and is the author of The Korean Pivot and the Return of Great Power Politics in Northeast Asia. On January 5, North Korea conducted its fourth nuclear test. Pyongyang also conducted another submarine-launched ballistic missile ejection test in December of last year, demonstrating that the Kim regime is intent on developing deliverable nuclear weapons that can hit the United States. Yet, China, which can do the most to clamp down on North Korea, is still refusing to do so, despite the deterioration in Beijing-Pyongyang relations over the last few years. To be sure, China began to implement UN sanctions after North Korea’s third nuclear test in February 2013—except that Chinese trade with North Korea grew by 10.4 percent in 2013 and by 4.9 percent in 2014. In 2015, China-North Korea trade decreased by 15 percent, but the decline was due to the slowdown in China’s economy. In fact, Beijing has been working to improve relations with Pyongyang since late 2014 and early 2015. Instead of pressuring the Kim regime, China wants to restore a “normal,” and perhaps even still “special,” relationship with North Korea, although the upward trajectory in Beijing-Pyongyang relations will be bumpy (as demonstrated by the recent Moranbong incident and the nuclear test). While China’s shifting position on North Korea is disappointing, Seoul now has every reason to discuss the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) openly at the senior official level with the United States. Seoul also has reason to present an ultimatum to Beijing: Clamp down and remove the North Korean nuclear and missile threats by any means necessary, or South Korea will exercise its sovereign right to deploy the missile defense system in response to the growing danger posed by the Kim regime. Read more in the National Interest...
    Blog Post by Guest Blogger for Asia Unbound January 29, 2016 Asia Unbound
  • Iran
    The Iran Nuclear Agreement and Reform in Iran
    It was widely assumed that with the end of sanctions, Iran would "join the world" and become a less repressive state. To take just one example, the Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo argued in Huffington Post that the nuclear deal created "the opportunity for Iranian civic actors to enable and empower Iran’s civil society space" and "help the country to become more open, transparent and susceptible to international pressure on issues like the death penalty and the imprisonment of civic actors in Iran." Last summer Reuters carried this story: "Iranian pro-democracy activists, lawyers and artists have thrown their weight behind last month’s nuclear deal with world powers, hoping it will lead to a promised political opening that President Hassan Rouhani has so far failed to deliver." Oh well. That was the last thing Iran’s rulers had in mind, and they have acted quickly this week to crush such reformist efforts. Here’s the Wall Street Journal account:   Days after Iran secured relief from economic sanctions under a contentious nuclear deal, the country’s powerful hard-liners are moving to sideline more moderate leaders who stand to gain from a historic opening with the West.   Almost two-thirds of the 12,000 candidates who applied to run in next month’s parliamentary elections were either disqualified by Iran’s Guardian Council or withdrew.   Actually the picture is even worse: 99% of reformist candidates were rejected. So the hopes that the nuclear agreement would lead to reform are vanishing very quickly. As is, and always was, logical: reform was never the intention of the Ayatollah Khamenei, the IRGC, the Quds Force, the Basij thugs, or any of the groups and individuals that hold a monopoly on force and hold real political power in Iran. As we just saw in the seizure of American sailors in the Gulf, having more money will embolden Iran’s rulers--and do nothing for the vast majority of its citizens who detest the tyranny under which they live. That’s the real problem with the nuclear deal, and with the whole Obama approach to Iran since he became president. He has always sought an improved relationship with the Iranian regime, not with the Iranian people. When the people rose up in 2009, he was silent in the crucial early days--because the uprising was inconvenient, threatening to spoil his diplomacy with the ayatollahs. One cannot condemn Iranian reformers for seeing some hope in the nuclear deal. One can only feel sorry that the United States and others in the P5+1 made an arrangement with their oppressors that will likely lengthen the life of this criminal regime.
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams January 20, 2016 Pressure Points
  • North Korea
    North Korea’s H-Bomb and the Costs of American Indifference
    The White House moved quickly to debunk North Korea’s exaggerated claim that a Jan. 5 "artificial earthquake" at the site where Pyongyang had conducted three previous nuclear tests was a breakthrough detonation of a hydrogen bomb. The size of the blast was similar to that of North Korea’s January 2013 test and had a yield thousands of times lower than the yield expected of a hydrogen blast. But in downplaying North Korea’s claim so as not to feed Kim Jong-un’s cravings for international attention, the Barack Obama administration risks underplaying the growing danger posed by North Korea’s unchecked efforts to develop nuclear and missile capabilities needed to threaten a nuclear strike on the United States. Instead, the Obama administration is conducting what then-Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice in February of 2013 called the "usual drill" in responding to a North Korean nuclear test: Condemnation of North Korea, expressions of assurance to allies including nuclear-capable B-52 overflights of the peninsula, diplomacy to strengthen U.N. sanctions on North Korea, and temporarily increased pressure on China to squeeze North Korea. Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress has expressed outrage and is seeking to impose additional sanctions on North Korea, but such sanctions will bite only if China cooperates. North Korea’s calculation in creating another nuclear provocation is that China’s need for stability on its periphery and its geostrategic anxiety about a unified Korea allied with the United States will protect Pyongyang from retribution and give it the space it needs to survive. North Korea’s decision to conduct a fourth nuclear test in defiance of Chinese opposition shows the extent to which Kim Jong-un has taken Beijing’s extensive food and fuel support for granted. Instead, Kim rationally bets that China will not stomach the consequences of regime change by U.S.-led or supported military coercion in North Korea; Pyongyang is likely correct in its assessment. In the absence of a strategic end and unified political will among the concerned parties, particularly the United States, China and South Korea, the "usual drill" will likely be ineffective in convincing or coercing North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons. From the beginning of the Obama administration, North Korea has rejected the extended hand that President Obama offered to other U.S. adversaries, instead clenching its fists and doubling down on the goal of developing a survivable nuclear strike capability. The young Kim’s claim to have developed hydrogen bomb capability underscores the fact that the nuclear program has become a useful tool for maintaining domestic legitimacy of the Kim regime. The Obama administration tried to talk the North Koreans into denuclearization through a failed 2012 "Leap Day understanding" that sought a North Korean pledge to freeze nuclear and missile testing and come back to the negotiation table. But that effort failed three weeks later as the "Great Successor" sought to burnish his credentials with further "satellite" launches and later another nuclear test. The 2013 push for sanctions, which the Chinese reluctantly accepted, may have slowed North Korea’s progress. But last week’s test shows that North Korea has not yet digested the international community’s message that North Korea’s nuclear development will endanger rather than enhance the Kim regime’s prospects for survival. To show the North Koreans that nuclear development is indeed a dead-end option, the United States must work with its allies to expand sanctions to target businesses and banks that refuse to cease cooperation with North Korea. North Korea must bear a tangible cost for its defiance of repeated warnings from its neighbors to desist from further nuclear and missile tests. Such a course is a necessary self-defensive step short of regime change to contain North Korea’s continuing nuclear and missile development efforts and to impose a de facto freeze on its program. China’s cooperation toward this end is an essential litmus test of Beijing’s willingness to work together on a clear and present common threat to regional and global security. Only if the international community can impose a freeze on North Korea’s nuclear and missile development will there be a prospect that Kim might move back to denuclearization. Otherwise, it is reasonable to expect North Korea to continue its quest to obtain a survivable nuclear deterrent and strike capabilities that the Kim regime has judged to be critical for survival. This piece originally appeared on the Washington Examiner. See the original op-ed here.
    Blog Post by Scott A. Snyder January 19, 2016 Asia Unbound
  • North Korea
    The Logic of North Korea’s Nuclear Ambitions
    Despite North Korea’s defiance of international censure and sanctions, revived diplomacy is the best path to curb its nuclear program, says CFR’s Amy J. Nelson.
    Interview with Amy J. Nelson and CFR.org Editors January 12, 2016
  • North Korea
    Where China and the United States Disagree on North Korea
    The “artificial earthquake” in North Korea caused by its fourth nuclear test has set off geopolitical tremors in U.S.-China relations, exposing the underlying gap between the two countries that has long been papered over by their common rhetorical commitment to Korean denuclearization. At their Sunnylands summit in June of 2013, Presidents Xi Jinping and Barack Obama vowed to work together on North Korea. Last September in Washington, the two leaders underscored the unacceptability of a North Korean nuclear test. But Secretary of State John Kerry stated in his January 7 conversation with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that previous approaches to the North Korean problem have not worked and that “we cannot continue business as usual.” The Global Times, a mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist Party, responded by stating that “[t]here is no hope to put an end to the North Korean nuclear conundrum if the U.S., South Korea, and Japan do not change their policies toward Pyongyang. Solely depending on Beijing’s pressure to force the North to give up its nuclear plan is an illusion.” The now exposed Sino-U.S. gap over North Korea runs deep and extends to at least four critical dimensions:           Influence: Since China controls the food and fuel lifelines to North Korea, Western analysts see Beijing holding Pyongyang’s fate in its hands. Yet, North Korea snubbed China and exposed its lack of influence by going ahead with a nuclear test that Xi Jinping had opposed publicly and privately. North Korea has taken Chinese support for granted by assuming that Beijing’s geopolitical interests in stability will not permit China to pull the plug. Washington is now pressing Beijing to move in that direction.             Ideology: It is particularly hard for China to turn on its last ally despite the clear economic and strategic divergences that have weakened the Sino-North Korean relationship for decades. It appears even harder for China to give up the idea that, despite four North Korean nuclear tests, U.S. enmity toward Pyongyang is the root cause of peninsular hostility. This view persists despite U.S.-North Korea negotiations leading to agreements such as the Agreed Framework, forbearance despite continued North Korean double-dealing and renewed negotiation efforts through Six Party Talks even despite North Korea’s first nuclear test, and even seeming indifference to Pyongyang’s provocations under the moniker of “strategic patience” during the Obama administration.             Instruments: The record of diplomacy with North Korea shows that neither incentives nor efforts at coercion have been successful in inducing North Korean cooperation. Neither has U.S. signaling (in the form of nuclear-capable B-2 and B-52 overflights of the Korean peninsula) worked to draw a line designed to contain North Korean provocations. But China fears that additional pressure will lead to peninsular instability and has moved too slowly to ratchet up pressure on Pyongyang.             End state: Underlying surface agreement on the necessity of denuclearization is a yawning gap over the type of Korean peninsula that would be acceptable if, as more and more Americans have concluded, the only way to get rid of North Korea’s nuclear weapons is to get rid of the Kim Jong-un regime. China opposes a unified Korea allied with the United States, preferring to maintain a security buffer on the Korean peninsula against U.S. forces. The broader impact of rising competition from the U.S. rebalance and Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea has begun to inhibit prospects for Sino-U.S. cooperation on North Korea. North Korea to date has counted on Sino-U.S. geopolitical mistrust to secure space for its survival.   North Korea’s underlying assumption behind its nuclear gambit is that it can survive and perhaps even benefit from an open geopolitical rift between the United States and China. Sino-U.S. cooperation is costly to North Korea, while a failure to cooperate on Pyongyang would severely exacerbate Sino-U.S. friction and competition. However, if North Korea cannot exploit geostrategic mistrust between China and the United States for its own gain, the assumption behind Pyongyang’s man-made tremors may lead to fatal consequences for the Kim regime.
    Blog Post by Scott A. Snyder January 8, 2016 Asia Unbound
  • Iran
    Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program Confirmed
    The nuclear deal with Iran requires that it tell the truth--the whole truth--about its previous efforts to build a nuclear weapon. As Sen. Mark Kirk said this week,   senior Administration officials repeatedly told the American people that Iran should come clean on all nuclear weapons activities as part of any final deal:               “…[W]e have required that Iran come clean on its past actions as part of any comprehensive agreement....”—Then-Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, February 4, 2014               “They have to do it.  It will be done.  If there’s going to be a deal; it will be done.”—Secretary of State John Kerry, April 8, 2015       After the Iran nuclear agreement was signed, the Administration reversed itself:           An Iranian admission of its past nuclear weapons program is unlikely and is not necessary for purposes of verifying commitments going forward.”—Unclassified Verification Assessment Report for Congress Pursuant to the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015, July 19, 2015, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal   Why this reversal? We now have some evidence of why: Iran was in fact working on nuclear weapons until at least 2009, and has refused to "come clean." To have demanded that Iran truly comply with the language of the nuclear deal might have torn the deal apart, and the Obama administration would not allow that--at any cost. The newest IAEA report on the Iranian program is described in The New York Times:   Iran was actively designing a nuclear weapon until 2009, more recently than the United States and other Western intelligence agencies have publicly acknowledged, according to a final report by the United Nations nuclear inspection agency.   The report, based on partial answers Iran provided after reaching its nuclear accord with the West in July, concluded that Tehran conducted “computer modeling of a nuclear explosive device” before 2004. It then resumed the efforts during President Bush’s second term and continued them into President Obama’s first year in office. But while the International Atomic Energy Agency detailed a long list of experiments Iran had conducted that were “relevant to a nuclear explosive device,” it found no evidence that the effort succeeded in developing a complete blueprint for a bomb. In part, that may have been because Iran refused to answer several essential questions, and appeared to have destroyed potential evidence in others.   Where does that leave us? First, we see that all the Iranian propaganda about never, ever building a weapon, and about the mysterious "fatwa" barring Iran from having a nuclear weapon, was a pack of lies. They were working on a weapon as recently as 2009. Second, we see that the nuclear deal, however weak its terms, will not in any event be enforced. Read again those words from our top negotiators, Kerry and Sherman. If those demands on Iran have been abandoned, which will be next? The treatment of the famous PMDs, the "possible military dimensions" of Iran’s nuclear work, has now been abandoned--and the IAEA apparently was not even allowed to speak with the head of the program, the Iranian official Mohsen Fakrizadeh. The lesson this teaches Iran is that the United States, at least under this administration, has too much invested in the agreement to demand full Iranian compliance with it. There are other implications, as The Times suggested:   Iran’s refusal to cooperate on central points could set a dangerous precedent as the United Nations agency tries to convince other countries with nuclear technology that they must fully answer queries to determine if they have a secret weapons program.   Quite right. The deal itself is bad enough, but a failure even to enforce it means the likelihood of nuclear proliferation has risen even further.
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams December 4, 2015 Pressure Points
  • North Korea
    Addressing North Korea’s Nuclear Problem
    Since defecting from Six Party negotiations on denuclearization in 2008, North Korea has pursued nuclear development unchecked by international constraints. Barack Obama's administration has demanded that Pyongyang make a strategic choice to denuclearize and tried to build a regional consensus opposing North Korea's nuclear efforts, but it has been unable to halt the country's nuclear weapons development. Instead, North Korea's continued nuclear and missile development is designed to force U.S. policymakers to make an undesirable choice: either acquiesce to the reality of a nuclear North Korea or mobilize international support for the destabilization of the North Korean regime. To stop the North Korean nuclear threat, the United States should take three steps. First, Washington should increase pressure on Pyongyang so that the regime recognizes its existential choice between survival and nuclear status. Second, the United States should pursue five-party talks (Six Party framework members minus North Korea) to develop a viable pathway for North Korea to survive and benefit from denuclearization. Such a regionally supported consensus on a route to denuclearization would seek to induce a debate inside North Korea regarding the costs and benefits of its pursuit of nuclear status. And third, the United States should encourage China and Russia to withdraw political support for and increase pressure on North Korea until the regime commits to denuclearization. North Korea's Rising International Threat Since Kim Jong-un came to power in 2012, he has used nuclear weapons development—a legacy of his father's rule—as a pillar of the regime's national strategy. In addition to expanding its nuclear strike capabilities by conducting nuclear and missile tests, North Korea has also built a light-water nuclear reactor and uranium enrichment facility and restarted its five-megawatt nuclear reactor at Yongbyon, enabling the country to slowly build its nuclear fuel stockpile. Recent estimates suggest that North Korea's nuclear weapons stockpile comprises ten to sixteen nuclear weapons, and could grow rapidly by 2020 to a low-end estimate of twenty weapons and a high-end estimate of 125 weapons. In the future, North Korea might also consider selling excess nuclear fuel or devices to earn money for its economic development, which would expand the risk of proliferation. North Korea has procured a mobile launch capability for its untested long-range (7,500 km) KN-08 missile, reducing time available to respond to a North Korean missile launch. In May, North Korea claimed to have successfully tested a submarine-launched ballistic missile and to have mastered the miniaturization technologies needed to place a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile. Moreover, the U.S. Department of Defense's 2010 Ballistic Missile Defense Review estimates that a North Korean Taepodong-2 rocket "could reach the United States with a nuclear payload if developed as an ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile]." The Costs of Continued Nuclear Development North Korea's nuclear development enhances its capacity to credibly threaten its neighbors and the United States with a nuclear strike, as well as to survive one. Although nuclear use would likely result in massive retaliation and the end of the regime, it complicates allied planning for conventional war, expands North Korea's capability to threaten both South Korea and Japan, and raises potential doubts about the credibility of U.S. extended deterrence commitments. The North Korean leadership has historically exploited geopolitical fault lines, blackmailing patrons to ensure regime survival. Acquiescence to North Korea as a nuclear weapons state will erode the credibility of the global nonproliferation regime. North Korea signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in 1985 before it formally withdrew in 2003, when it publicly pursued nuclear weapons development. Hence, North Korea may serve as an example to other nuclear aspirants that it is possible to outwit and outwait the global commitment to nonproliferation. Most worrisome is that North Korea under Kim Jong-un has pursued a policy of diplomatic self-isolation while ramping up vituperative accusations and threats of preemption toward its neighbors, including U.S. ally South Korea. North Korea has distanced itself from China and rejected Russian invitations to participate in a May 2015 summit in Moscow. Pyongyang's nuclear development has reportedly emerged as a stumbling block in its diplomatic relations with both Beijing and Moscow. The absence of communication channels with Kim Jong-un raises the risk of North Korean miscalculation or false assumptions regarding the likely international response to North Korea's nuclear pursuits. These signals, combined with Pyongyang's growing capability to act on threats, have increased the need for coordinated action based on the international consensus that the potentially disruptive pariah state should be reined in. Recommendations To address the risk that a self-isolated and risk-tolerant North Korean leadership might follow through on its threats when it achieves these capabilities, the United States should redouble efforts to lead coordinated multilateral action to oppose North Korea's nuclear status, while still leaving a denuclearized North Korea a route for regime survival. A coordinated international effort should demonstrate that there are tangible prospects for regime survival in a denuclearized North Korea in order to prompt an internal debate among leadership in Pyongyang over the merits of its nuclear program. The United States should take the following measures to achieve this objective: The Obama administration should apply increased political and economic pressure on North Korea to convince its leaders that a nuclear North Korea is a dead-end option. The United States should work with its allies to expand sanctions to target businesses and banks that refuse to cease cooperation with North Korea. At the same time, the United States and its allies should emphasize to Pyongyang that expanded sanctions will be relieved if North Korea takes meaningful, concrete steps toward denuclearization, such as resuming cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by allowing the return of international inspectors to the country. The United States should also remind North Korea that military provocations risk escalation that could lead to the country's demise. Alongside these sanctions, the United States and South Korea should commission the World Bank to identify sectoral trade and investment opportunities best suited to yield concrete economic benefits that would accompany North Korea's integration into the region. The objective of such an approach would be to spell out the benefits to North Korea of denuclearization, integration, and peaceful coexistence in conjunction with strengthened sanctions. The U.S. and South Korean presidents should leverage an emerging debate within the Chinese government about North Korea's strategic value and press Chinese President Xi Jinping to strengthen Chinese sanctions on North Korea, even at the risk of inducing North Korean instability. To convince Beijing to take such a course, U.S. President Barack Obama and South Korean President Park Geun-hye should pledge that no U.S. troops would be permanently stationed north of the 38th parallel in the event of a North Korean collapse. At the same time, the two leaders should note that Korean reunification would allow for the reduction in the overall number of U.S. troops on the Korean Peninsula while affirming that the U.S.-South Korea alliance will remain strong even after unification. In return for Chinese cooperation to enhance pressure on North Korea, the United States should respond to China's long-standing calls for resumption of North Korea-focused diplomacy by working with the other five parties in the Six Party Talks to develop detailed measures to peacefully pursue a transformation of the North Korean regime. The parties should recognize that forcible regime change would be the only remaining means to achieve denuclearization if North Korea fails to accept these measures. The parties would spell out a detailed pathway to peaceful coexistence, denuclearization, diplomatic normalization, and improved internal governance. The purpose of this process would be twofold: to establish a coordination mechanism that enables the United States and its allies to address Chinese and Russian geopolitical concerns surrounding North Korea in exchange for increased pressure on the North Korean leadership, and to induce a policy debate among North Korean leaders regarding the value of its nuclear program. The United States and South Korea should strengthen deterrence against North Korean military provocations at the demilitarized zone and the Northern Limit Line by coming up with a detailed escalation ladder comprising tailored responses to match different types and levels of provocations. U.S. and South Korean forces should also design a clear protocol for officers on the ground to implement these responses swiftly, in consultation with senior officials. To counter North Korea's growing missile capabilities, the United States and South Korea should obtain appropriate defense mechanisms such as the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense (THAAD). Conclusion A U.S. strategy designed to induce debates within the North Korean leadership over its current course represents possibly the last chance to redirect a self-isolated North Korea toward peaceful coexistence. If the West acquiesces to North Korea as a nuclear weapons state, the scope and magnitude of North Korean blackmail efforts toward its neighbors will likely intensify; alternatively, it will be necessary to use military force to bring about regime change in order to achieve denuclearization. Given China's interests in stability on the Korean peninsula and its growing reticence to support the regime under Kim Jong-un, pursuit of an internationally coordinated approach that spells out conditions for North Korean regime survival and economic stability should be attractive to Beijing. The risk that increased economic pressure on Pyongyang will induce instability or backlash is relatively small compared to the costs of military conflict, consequences of North Korean nuclear proliferation, or additional military preparations necessary to contain North Korea's nuclear capabilities. The risk of North Korea's increased proliferation by 2020 and its efforts to develop the capability to mount a direct nuclear strike on the United States means that failure to address these developments now will likely require the next U.S. administration to choose among far less palatable options in the face of an even more serious North Korean crisis.
    Policy Innovation Memorandum by Scott A. Snyder November 19, 2015
  • Asia
    Southern Asia’s Nuclear Powers
    China, India, and Pakistan have relatively small but growing nuclear arms programs. This nuclear competition is raising concern because of long-simmering tensions and a lack of efforts at minimizing the risk posed by these weapons.
    Backgrounder by Eleanor Albert November 9, 2015
  • Iran
    Assessing the Nuclear Deal with Iran
    In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Philip Gordon argues that, while the Iran nuclear agreement is not a perfect deal, it is far better than any realistic alternative and Congress should support it. Takeaways: Without the JCPOA we would very quickly face the unpalatable choice between acquiescing to an Iranian nuclear weapons capability or using military force to temporarily stop it. A rejection would result not in Iran agreeing to all our demands or even a "better deal" but the continued expansion of its nuclear program. History suggests that continued economic pressure will not force Iran to agree to everything we might want. Despite harsh sanctions and isolation, North Korea still became a nuclear-weapons state. Crippling sanctions on Iraq still did not lead to Saddam relenting to U.S. demands—even under the threat of invasion. There is no guarantee that even powerful sanctions and the threat of force will lead Iran to eliminate all aspects of its nuclear program, and plenty of reason to think that it will not. It is a fair concern that Iran will use some of the assets it gains from sanctions relief to support its regional foreign policy agenda, which in many ways threatens U.S. partners and interests.  But keeping all the current sanctions on Iran and getting a good nuclear deal at the same time was never a realistic option, and the concerns about lifting sanctions would be the same whether the deal allowed Iran to keep 5,000 centrifuges, or zero. Insisting on no sanctions relief would mean no nuclear deal.  Through continued and increased military and intelligence support to partners in the region—who collectively spend many times more on defense than Iran does—the United States can continue to contain Iran, just as it did before the international sanctions were put in place. Iran continuing to develop its nuclear program is far more destabilizing to the region—especially if it becomes a nuclear-weapons state. The verification mechanisms in this agreement are extensive, including not just continued monitoring and daily access to declared enrichment facilities but the monitoring of the entire nuclear fuel cycle. To cheat successfully, Iran would have to somehow mine and mill uranium, convert it to gas at an industrial facility, enrich it to weapons grade at a different facility, and successfully develop a covert weaponization program—all without being detected by separate monitoring regimes. Many of the most important restrictions last for a very long time—until 2025 for number of centrifuges; until 2030 for the limited nuclear stockpile; until 2035 for centrifuge production; until 2040 for access to Iran's uranium mines and mills; and indefinitely for adherence to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the commitment not to pursue nuclear weapons, and the application of the IAEA's Additional Protocol, which requires access by inspectors to any suspected sites. Iran must prove that its nuclear program is peaceful. If it fails to do so, with this deal the United States will have all of the tools it does now in the future.
    Testimony by Philip H. Gordon August 5, 2015 Middle East Program
  • Iran
    Unraveling the Iran Nuclear Deal on "Day One"
    Two of the Republican candidates for president, Gov. Scott Walker and Gov. Jeb Bush, are in an argument over how the United States can best get out of the Obama nuclear agreement. This argument has now become the subject of press comment too: for example, by Steve Hayes in an article entitled "Bush-Walker Dispute Catches Fire Over Iran Nuclear Deal" in The Weekly Standard, and by CFR’s own Max Boot in a Commentary blog post entitled "Can the Iran Deal be Reversed on Day One?" In my view the argument is not much ado about nothing, because both men are making strong and valid observations. They are both right--just right about different aspects of the problem opponents of the Iran deal face. The argument began when Gov. Walker said “We need to terminate the bad deal with Iran on the very first day in office.” Bush then commented that “At 12:01 on January, whatever it is, 19th [2017], I will not probably have a confirmed secretary of state; I will not have a confirmed national security team in place; I will not have consulted with our allies. I will not have had the intelligence briefings to have made a decision. If you’re running for president, I think it’s important to be mature and thoughtful about this.” Both men have expanded on their views. Gov. Bush stated his opinion this way to Hayes:   I have repeatedly said is a terrible deal. Congress should reject it and it would be best to do so before Iran is given more than $100 billion in sanctions relief that they can use to further destabilize the region. Should it be upheld, as President I would begin immediately to responsibly get us out of this deal, with a comprehensive strategy that is responsive to the conditions at the time and confronts Iran’s continued pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability, its support for terrorism and instability, its ballistic missile proliferation, and its horrific human rights record. Such a strategy will require a new national security team that is committed to rebuilding our defenses and restoring our alliances, starting with our relationship with Israel. It will require sustained diplomatic efforts to put significant financial, diplomatic, and military pressure on Iran to change its behavior. And because of the massive sanctions relief provided by this terrible deal, the impact of unilateral U.S. sanctions will be limited and it will be important to work with our allies to reimpose multilateral sanctions and pressure.   Walker’s view was this:   I believe that a president shouldn’t wait to act until they put a cabinet together or an extended period of time. I believe they should be prepared to act on the very first day they take office. It’s very possible – God forbid, but it’s very possible – that the next president could be called to take aggressive actions, including military action, on the first day in office. And I don’t want a president who is not prepared to act on day one. So, as far as me, as far as my position, I’m going to be prepared to be president on day one.   Bush’s argument is right in the sense that unraveling the agreement after 18 months, and against possible opposition from the British, French, and Germans (and other allies), will be complicated politically. If we intend to reimpose sanctions, we will want to let them know this and we will hope to get them on board (or at least mute their opposition). The new president will want to think about possible Iranian responses and how to blunt them as well. And Bush is right in saying that we need a comprehensive Iran strategy--something the Obama administration has lacked. Reversing the JCPOA is only part of that, and blunting Iran’s terror and aggression in the region are critical. Some of the work needed can begin during the transition, which now starts after the nominating conventions--not, as was the case until 2012, after Election Day. Certainly, the President-Elect and Vice President-Elect can get full intelligence briefings, and these can be extended to the secretary of state-designate, national security adviser-designate, chief of staff-designate, and a few other top officials. But it would be wrong to conduct an independent foreign policy during the transition. During the first part of it, in September and October, the candidate will only be a candidate--not President-Elect. And even when President-Elect, it’s wrong to act as if you’re president and start conducting your own foreign policy. Moreover, on "Day One" it is correct that the government will be manned by Obama holdovers in many key posts. The new secretary of state will just be arriving in his or her office on January 20th, and the assistant secretaries who must carry out the new policy will not usually be confirmed for weeks or months. (In 1981, I was confirmed as an assistant secretary of state in the new Reagan administration in mid-April. This was typical.) The National Security Council team can be selected during the transition and can be in place on January 21st, but will they have mastered their new responsibilities? Their own teams will consist almost entirely of Obama holdovers, likely for weeks or months. Because presidential records leave with the president, NSC file cabinets will be empty and it will be take time to figure out exactly who said what to whom when in the Obama years about Iran and the JCPOA. Moreover, won’t we want to talk with the Israelis and Arabs about all of this? So Bush is right as a matter of governance. Gov. Walker is right in a different way: about international politics and psychology. Max Boot explained this well in his Commentary blog. It’s critical to send the strongest possible message that the JCPOA will not be a ten-year deal but an 18-month deal, because the United States will turn away from it under a Republican president. That message must come through loud and clear. European and other investors will start making calculations soon about how they will act next year, when sanctions are removed. Opponents of the deal want them to go slowly, figuring that they may be better off to wait until November, 2017 to see who is elected president. It’s true that the JCPOA, in one of the provisions most favorable and beneficial to Iran, grandfathers in contracts signed while the deal is in effect. But the reimposition of U.S. sanctions of various kinds can become very expensive for banks and companies, and the idea would be to tell them now that the United States will investigate and prosecute violations vigorously. More generally, the goal is to affect everyone’s behavior: Iran, the Arabs and Israelis, investors and oil purchasers, and on and on. Here’s one example: switching to Iran as an oil supplier may seem less attractive if you’re not sure how easy it will be to purchase and ship the oil after January, 2017. But this is about more than sanctions: the goal is also to avoid defeatism by our friends in the Middle East. The danger is wide adoption of the view that Iran is the rising regional power now, the United States sees it as a partner, and countries had better just adapt. Gov. Walker is emphasizing the importance of sending a crystal-clear one-line message, that the deal and the policy it represents are dead if he is president. In my view, both men are right--about the JCPOA, the difficulty of unraveling it, and the need both to do so and to say clearly now that we will do so. Because they are political opponents today, the differences between them are being stressed--and there are differences in emphasis, though also of style. But both Gov. Bush’s message and Gov. Walker’s carry serious points that were worth making.        
    Blog Post by Elliott Abrams July 20, 2015 Pressure Points
  • Nonproliferation, Arms Control, and Disarmament
    Meeting Halfway: Nuclear Weapon States and the Humanitarian Disarmament Initiative
    Below is a guest post by Naomi Egel, research associate in the International Institutions and Global Governance program. Nuclear weapons rarely appear on lists of pressing humanitarian concerns. Yet for a growing movement of both nonnuclear weapon states and civil society groups, the devastating humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons use has been a rallying cry for prompt disarmament. While the Obama administration has repeatedly declared its commitment to nuclear disarmament, momentum to put this commitment into action has waned as the glow of the New START treaty has faded. However, on November 7, the State Department announced that the United States will attend the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons from December 8–9, 2014. Vienna will be the third such gathering organized by a coalition of nonnuclear weapon states (NNWS) and civil society groups. For the United States, which declined to attend the two previous conferences in Oslo, Norway (March 2013), and Nayarit, Mexico (December 2013), this marks a small but significant step forward for multilateral disarmament. On December 2, the United Kingdom announced that it too would attend. The United States and United Kingdom should demonstrate their commitment to disarmament by taking concrete steps toward this goal in a multilateral context, but nonnuclear weapon states and civil society groups will also need to ditch the quixotic assumption that a world without nuclear weapons will necessarily be more peaceful—and offer alternatives for maintaining international security. Talking past one another will not lead to a productive conference or to nuclear disarmament. The humanitarian disarmament initiative (HDI) emphasizes the indiscriminate humanitarian effects of nuclear weapons use to advocate for nuclear disarmament. It also frames disarmament as a responsibility for nonnuclear as well as nuclear weapon states (NWS). The widespread support for HDI—which has been endorsed by more than 155 governments—reflects frustration of many NNWS at the slow pace of disarmament by the nuclear powers. The NNWS also perceive themselves as excluded from disarmament negotiations, unable to influence a process in which they have a major stake. Meanwhile, many civil society participants seek to emulate the Mine Ban Treaty process, which civil society helped enact by generating initial momentum for a ban, encouraging states to support it, and even drafting parts of the treaty text. Many civil society members of the HDI advocate for a total ban on nuclear weapons, trying to shame states that possess nuclear weapons into giving them up. The humanitarian disarmament initiative has also gained strength from the inaction of the permanent five (P5) members of the UN Security Councilthe United States, China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom—which are recognized as NWS under the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Although divided on other issues, the P5 have adopted a unified stance, advocating a ‘step-by-step’ approach to disarmament within the framework of existing multilateral mechanisms, including the NPT and the Conference on Disarmament. This consolidated, gradual approach has antagonized many NNWS and civil society organizations, which seek to move disarmament discussions and negotiations to less stale forums. What, then, to make of U.S. and UK attendance at the forthcoming Vienna conference? Neither country has altered its official position on disarmament. Indeed, the State Department has explicitly stated that the United States does not regard the meeting as an appropriate venue for disarmament negotiations (or even pre-negotiations) and that it will not engage in such discussions in Vienna. Still, participation has important symbolic value, suggesting a willingness to listen to opposing views about disarmament and a desire to rebuild battered trust between NWS and NNWS. It also implies recognition that disarmament involves a larger community of stakeholders, including civil society. As both Washington and London are well aware, the next NPT review conference will be held in May 2015, and will likely be highly contentious. Participation at the Vienna conference may help clear the air in advance of that gathering and facilitate a more productive outcome. More substantively, the United States and the United Kingdom will have an opportunity to shape the outcome of the meeting in Vienna. At the Nayarit meeting last December, the Mexican chair caused consternation when he produced a summary calling for a legally binding nuclear weapons convention—a goal many states did not fully support. While this document represented only the view of the chair, any consensus-based outcome document from the Vienna conference will need to strike a balance between diverse views, ranging from civil society groups such as the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) to states that continue to rely on nuclear weapons for deterrence. How the United States and the United Kingdom choose to engage the Vienna conference, however, may be even more important than their decision to attend. The United States could simply repeat its longstanding position that disarmament is the responsibility of NWS and should take place through existing channels and a step-by-step process, while highlighting its past accomplishments, including the New START treaty with Russia. This tired approach won’t achieve anything, though. It will likely further antagonize NNWS, many of which adamantly insist that nonproliferation efforts must be linked to tangible steps toward disarmament. The United States needs these partners to prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons. U.S. officials, and their UK counterparts, therefore should adopt a more positive agenda in Vienna, engaging NNWS as essential partners and taking steps to demonstrate their commitment to disarmament. For example, the United States could take an active role in the joint UK-Norway Initiative [PDF], which seeks to develop a way for a nonnuclear weapon state to verify disarmament by a nuclear weapon state. The United States could also alleviate a potential sticking point in further disarmament negotiations by funding more research on how to verify nuclear disarmament at low numbers of warheads (which will require new verification methods). In this light, the December 4 announcement of a new U.S.-led international partnership for nuclear disarmament verification is welcome news. The two countries should both consider new forums for disarmament negotiations, particularly since the Conference on Disarmament—the sole multilateral forum for disarmament negotiations—has been deadlocked since 1996. The United States could also build on its 2013 Nuclear Employment Strategy—which reduced the situations in which the United States might potentially use nuclear weapons—and seek to further limit the role of nuclear weapons in national security. Similarly, the United Kingdom could update the 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review [PDF], which outlined a plan for nuclear weapons reductions, and identify additional measures toward disarmament. Future progress in the step-by-step disarmament process, such as ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), would also demonstrate to NNWS that the United States is committed to reducing the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. The United Kingdom has already ratified the treaty. Admittedly, the outcome of the November 2014 midterm election has made U.S. CTBT ratification an even more distant prospect. For Vienna (and the HDI overall) to succeed, however, NNWS and civil society groups will need to show movement of their own. Perhaps the most important shift would be to understand and appreciate that not only NWS but also many NNWS (particularly those under the U.S. nuclear umbrella) regard nuclear weapons as a valuable deterrent. The HDI can only make progress if its members, both states and civil society groups, engage with the security concerns raised by those who rely on nuclear deterrence, rather than dismiss their arguments out of hand. The HDI should seek to answer how security would be maintained in a world without nuclear weapons rather than assuming that such a world would inherently be more peaceful. All states and civil society groups that will attend the conference share the goal of promoting global peace and security: the HDI should seek to find points of agreement between its diverse participants, and build from there. Nuclear disarmament cannot exist without the cooperation of states that possess nuclear weapons. To avoid mimicking the disarmament talk shops that have frustrated the HDI, participants at the Vienna conference will need to develop suggestions to lay the groundwork for multilateral disarmament discussions and negotiations. Both states and civil society groups should arrive in Vienna prepared to discuss what they themselves can do to create these conditions. The Vienna conference is not intended to result in a consensus-based road map to nuclear disarmament—nor should it aspire to, given the diversity of opinions on how nuclear disarmament should take place. What it can do is end the dialogue of the deaf that has too long characterized interaction between nuclear weapons states and those calling for prompt nuclear disarmament.
    Blog Post by Guest Blogger for the Internationalist December 4, 2014 The Internationalist
  • Syria
    Assessing the Nuclear Threat
    Play
    Jessica Tuchman Mathews of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace joins CFR President Emeritus Leslie H. Gelb to discuss the current state of nuclear nonproliferation efforts.
    Event with Jessica Tuchman Mathews and Mitchel B. Wallerstein April 30, 2014 Paul C. Warnke Lecture
  • Nuclear Weapons
    The Six Party Talks on North Korea’s Nuclear Program
    China’s recent push to renew the Six Party Talks, stalled since 2008, has raised hopes for progress on the peninsula despite worries that Pyongyang may have restarted its old nuclear reactor.
    Backgrounder by Jayshree Bajoria and Beina Xu September 30, 2013
  • Defense and Security
    Israel’s Nuclear Weapons Program and Lessons for Iran
    During an interview with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in March 2011, Piers Morgan posed a serious question: MORGAN: Do you have nuclear weapons? NETANYAHU: Well, we have a longstanding policy that we won’t be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East, and that hasn’t changed. MORGAN: So you don’t have any? NETANYAHU: That’s our policy. Not to be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East. Despite the word games, it is well known that Israel has been a nuclear weapons power for forty-five years. As several Israeli historians and journalists have revealed, Israel crossed the nuclear threshold on the eve of the Six Day War in May 1967. Summarized by Patrick Tyler in his book, A World of Trouble: The White House and the Middle East—from the Cold War to the War on Terror: “[Prime Minister Levi] Eshkol, according to a number of Israeli sources, secretly ordered the Dimona [nuclear reactor] scientists to assemble two crude nuclear devices. He placed them under the command of Brigadier General Yitzhak Yaakov, the chief of research and development in Israel’s Defense Ministry. One official said the operation was referred to as Spider because the nuclear devices were inelegant contraptions with appendages sticking out. The crude atomic bombs were readied for deployment on trucks that could race to the Egyptian border for detonation in the event Arab forces overwhelmed Israeli defenses.” It took years, however, for the United States to verify that Israel had developed a nuclear weapon. This uncertainty persisted despite numerous U.S. inspections of the Dimona reactor—carefully stage-managed by the Israeli government to deceive the Kennedy and Johnson administrations—and assurances that Israel would not “introduce” nuclear weapons into the region. On May 1, 1967, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach wrote to President Johnson under the heading, “The Arab-Israeli Arms Race and Status of U.S. Arms Control Efforts:" “Nuclear Weapons. Concerned that over the long run the Arabs will achieve superiority in conventional forces, Israel is carefully preserving its option to acquire sophisticated weapons, including, we believe, nuclear weapons. We have no evidence that Israel is actually making a bomb, but we believe Israel intends to keep itself in a position to do so at reasonably short notice should the need arise. The Israeli reactor at Dimona is capable of producing enough plutonium to make one or two bombs a year, but thus far our periodic inspections of this facility (most recently on April 22, 1967) have uncovered no evidence of weapons activity.” If you replaced the words “Israel” with “Iran,” it would largely echo the recent findings of the U.S. intelligence community on the suspected Iranian nuclear weapons program. In a twist of historical irony, Iran’s contemporary playbook mirrors the one used by Israel to acquire a nuclear weapon in the 1950s and 1960s. As Tehran worries about an Israeli attack on its nuclear program today, Israeli officials in the 1960s were also deeply paranoid that Egypt would initiate a preventive attack on the Dimona reactor. In 1965, the chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, Yitzhak Rabin, warned, “If Egypt bombs Dimona, and we want to wage a war, we could be issued an ultimatum from the entire world.” While Israel assembled its first nuclear weapon in May 1967, Egypt conducted high-altitude reconnaissance flights of Dimona. After sifting through the evidence, historian Avner Cohen concluded, “Egypt may have been very close to launching an aerial attack on Dimona on May 26 or May 27, but it was called off by [Egyptian Prime Minister Gamal Abdel] Nasser on a few hours’ notice.” In 1974, the CIA revealed in a special national intelligence estimate (SNIE), “we believe that Israel already has produced nuclear weapons,” but, “we do not expect the Israelis to provide confirmation of widespread suspicions of their capability, either by nuclear testing or by threats of use.” [That same SNIE assessed: “[Iran] is a party to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and all its reactors and other facilities will be safeguarded. Although withdrawal from the NPT or abrogation of safeguards is possible, no Iranian leader is going to take that step while a nuclear energy program is in the middle of implementation.” Of course, we now know this was wrong, because by April 1984 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini had already decided to restart the Iranian nuclear program to defend the Islamic Revolution from external threats.] Today, Israel’s nuclear arsenal is estimated to include up to two hundred nuclear warheads that can be delivered by F-16 fighter-bombers, Jericho missiles, and Diesel-powered Dolphin-class submarines supplied by Germany. The existence of this vast destructive power—with secure second-strike capability—has never been acknowledged by Israeli officials, and is rarely vocalized by U.S. policymakers. In his recent interview with The Atlantic last Thursday, echoed before the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference, President Obama warned that if Iran had a bomb, “It is almost certain that others in the region would feel compelled to get their own nuclear weapon, triggering an arms race in one of the world’s most volatile regions.” Concerns regarding a cascade of proliferation instigated by an Iranian nuclear weapon are as likely today as when Israel built the bomb forty-five years ago. It is no coincidence that nuclear weapons were introduced to the region primarily by adversaries of Iran: the United States via its nuclear-weapons capable submarines; the Soviet Union’s vast arsenal that included deployments in countries bordering Iran; Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities that emerged in the mid-1980s; and the 60-70 B-61 bombs that still remain in Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. Excluded from this list are Iraq’s dual-track covert uranium enrichment efforts in the 1980s, which were eliminated by the Gulf War in 1991. Israel gains nothing by sacrificing its moral and political authority to maintain the farce of "nuclear opacity" that no one believes. As I’ve written elsewhere, Israel should come out of the nuclear closet by following three concrete steps:                   Provide transparency about the size, command and control, nuclear security features and nonproliferation objectives of its nuclear arsenal as other non-NPT nuclear powers do. Sign a safeguards agreement with the IAEA covering all existing or future civilian nuclear facilities Participate in legitimate international forums where the issue of a WMD-free Middle East is debated.  
    Blog Post by Micah Zenko March 5, 2012 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action
  • Defense Technology
    iPhones, Drones, and Nuclear Weapons
    On Tuesday, Apple released its financial results for the first quarter of fiscal 2012, which comprised fourteen weeks and ended on December 31, 2011. The company earned record quarterly revenues of $46 billion, largely due to the thirty-seven million new iPhones  sold in that quarter—an increase of 128 percent from the same period last year. Overall, however, smartphones like the iPhone are becoming increasingly ubiquitous, as they are now used by 43 percent of all Americans and 27 percent of all people worldwide. The past few years have witnessed an exponential development of applications (or, ‘apps’) that can be used wherever a smartphone has high-speed data access via mobile broadband or Wi-Fi. In the App Store alone, there are over 500,000 apps, which have been cumulatively downloaded tens of billions of times. Many are silly in nature, such as Hangtime—toss your smartphone in the air and see how far it goes and how long it takes to hit the ground—and CatPaint—add cat pictures to any photo! Others are practical: iNap@Work produces noises such as keyboard clicks and rustling while you take a nap at the office (because that is sure to fool your boss), and Designated Dialer, which prohibits you from calling certain contacts (think exes or frenemies) that you wouldn’t call sober. The ongoing expansion of smartphones, apps, and high-speed data access provide users with a networked system that can serve almost any purpose, and are limited only by the imagination. In many ways, the components and uses of a “smartphone system” are comparable to unmanned aerial systems, or drones. Within the military, only fifteen years have passed since drones were first used in a meaningful way for surveillance missions—and only ten years since they dropped bombs—and yet they already comprise one-third of all aircraft. On the civilian side, drones are used by environmental activists to track and monitor Japanese whaling ships, and a paparazzi drone could soon be used to track down celebrities. Last summer, engineers at the University of Southampton even “printed” a nearly silent surveillance drone with a 3-D laser printer that was assembled by hand within minutes. It is not surprising, then, to learn that smartphone apps have been applied to drone technology. In 2009, the MIT Human and Automation Lab, in coordination with Boeing Research and Technology, designed and built an iPhone app and a miniature drone—a helicopter with four rotors called the Ascending Technologies Hummingbird—within six weeks for $5,000. In a test, the Boeing engineers in Seattle successfully flew the drone, located over 3,000 miles away at the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Last July, Stephen Colbert interviewed Professor Missy Cummings, director of the MIT Lab, and demonstrated how to use an iPhone to control a drone, although with limited (albeit entertaining) success. As Professor Cummings acknowledged: “The military stuff is kind of passé. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist from MIT to tell you if we can do it for a soldier in the field, we can do it for anybody.” Active duty soldiers are also capitalizing on the pilot programs and designing smartphone apps to use in the field. The apps cover a wide range of utilities, including assessing burn wounds, providing visual feeds of base perimeters, and even tracking the Taliban. As of September 2011, the Marines had more than thirty iPads in the cockpits of their helicopters and fighter jets, used for pinpointing locations and quickly determining best flight patterns. It goes without saying that if engineering students can create a functioning unmanned aerial system quickly and cheaply, intelligent nonstate actors with deep pockets and malicious intent could do so as well. There are well-known examples when American students did as much, but with a vastly more destructive weapons system. In 1964, U.S. government scientists devised the “Nth Country Experiment,” in which they hired two PhD students, with no knowledge of nuclear physics, to determine “if a credible nuclear explosive device can be designed with modest effort, by a few well-trained people without contact with classified information.” Within three years, using only publicly available scientific literature and the crude computational power of punch-card computers, the two students created technical specifications for an implosion bomb fueled by plutonium. The bomb was subsequently deemed credible and classified by the U.S. government. In 1977, Princeton undergraduate student John Phillips famously repeated this feat with his term paper, “How to Build Your Own Atomic Bomb." His advisor physicist Freeman Dyson later recalled: "I remember telling him I would give him an ‘A’ for it, but advised him to burn it as soon as the grade was registered.” Over time, the guarded knowledge of how to build a nuclear weapon has only widened. In 2004, then-Senator Joe Biden went so far as to tell an arms control conference at Georgetown University: “When I was chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee…I gathered the heads of all the national laboratories and some of their subordinates in [the Capitol]. I asked them a simple question. I said I would like you to go back to your laboratory and try to assume for a moment you are a relatively informed terrorist group with access to some nuclear scientists. Could you build, off-the-shelf, a nuclear device? Not a dirty bomb, but something that would start a nuclear reaction—an atomic bomb. Could you build one? They came back several months later and said, “We built one.”… I literally asked the laboratories to physically take this device into the Senate…it was bigger than a breadbox and smaller than a dump truck but they were able to get it in. They literally put it in a room and showed and explained how—literally off-the-shelf, without doing anything illegal—they actually constructed this device.” Of course, these nuclear weapons designs would still require access to the essential ingredient of fissile material to fuel any explosion. Nevertheless, the fact that what the Pentagon terms “Critical Nuclear Weapons Design Information,” the most highly classified documents within the U.S. government, could have been replicated by educated nonexperts and built with Home Depot components, is a prime example that even the biggest national security secrets cannot and do not remain truly secret. As compared to nuclear weapons, smartphone applications and basic drone designs are freely available and designed to be user-friendly, cost efficient, and modular. There are effectively blank-slate platforms that are intended to be updated constantly to meet the innovative user demands, with an ever expanding repertoire of tasks and functions. Beyond the iPhone app created by Boeing and MIT, there are several that already allow you to operate a drone from afar, including AR.Drone, Free Flight, and Drone Control. As one would expect, the App Store will give the green light to any app that is “free of explicit and offensive material.” What someone does with these apps, or with smaller, cheaper, faster, and more lethal drones, is anybody’s guess—for good or bad.
    Blog Post by Micah Zenko January 26, 2012 Politics, Power, and Preventive Action