A New U.S. Missile Defense Test May Have Increased the Risk of Nuclear War
Ankit Panda | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has confirmed that, for the first time, a Standard Missile 3 (SM-3) Block IIA interceptor successfully destroyed an intercontinental-range ballistic missile (ICBM) target in a test. With this milestone, the SM-3 Block IIA becomes only the second U.S. interceptor type to exhibit this capability. The consequences for strategic stability and future arms control are serious. Since the late 1990s, U.S. homeland missile defense efforts have been scoped around defending the country from a “limited” ballistic missile threat from North Korea and Iran. Earlier post–Cold War efforts focused on a wider range of potential threats. Because Iran does not currently possess an ICBM capability, the nominal threat today concerns North Korea, which has conducted three ICBM tests involving two separate missile designs.
Iran Admits Breach of Nuclear Deal Discovered by UN Inspectorate
Patrick Wintour | Guardian
Iran has admitted a further breach of the 2015 nuclear deal by firing up advanced uranium-enriching centrifuges installed at its underground plant at Natanz. The finding was made by the UN nuclear weapons inspectorate, the International Atomic Energy Association, and confirmed by the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA. Donald Trump last week considered but rejected a military strike on Natanz, south of Tehran and the country’s main uranium-enrichment site. But the latest move by Iran may be regarded by his administration as a provocation that changes his, or Israel’s, calculation of risk. The development comes weeks ahead of him standing down and being replaced by Joe Biden, who is committed to re-entering the nuclear deal struck under Barack Obama.
Cooperating on Nukes Better Than Sharing Them, Navy Strat Systems Chief Says
Dan Leone | Defense Daily
The Navy is happy to share knowledge about weapons with the Air Force, so long as it does not actually have to share a nuclear weapon with the Air Force, the sea service’s director for strategic systems programs said Tuesday. “I think a couple years ago, commonality started to put us on a path where I’m not sure it was getting the teams where it needed to get us,” Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe said during a question and answer session at the annual Naval Submarine League Symposium. The Navy’s Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines now carry Trident II-D5 missiles, tipped with W88 and W76 warheads. The successor Columbia submarines, the first of which is scheduled to begin patrols in the early 2030s, will also carry Trident missiles. Successor missiles to Trident could carry the proposed, but unfunded, W93 warhead, which would use the Navy’s Mark 7 aeroshell: a reentry body the service is now free to develop, since the Trump administration dumped the Obama administration’s plan to pursue a so-called interoperable warhead that could have tipped both Air Force and Navy ballistic missiles.
Navy Says Hypersonic Weapons Coming to Subs in 5 Years
Megan Eckstein | USNI News
The Navy is on track to field a hypersonic strike weapon on submarines by 2025, the head of the Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs said today. Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe said the hypersonic weapon, which will be used as a conventional prompt strike (CPS) alternative to long-range nuclear weapons, “is very much a priority within the Navy.” He said the challenge facing the Navy, as well as its Army, government and industry, is to “take all the successes we’ve had in the research and development of flight testing, and how do we start to productionize that, and how do we transition that into a military capability that we can give to the Army – because we’re kind of doing this collaboratively with the Army – for what they want to do for their first all-up round capability in about the 2023 timeframe, and then how do we continue to push that forward so that we get to a Navy capability on SSGN in the 2025 timeframe?”
U.S. Senate Proposal Rejects Trump’s $748 Million Budget Cuts for Hanford
Annette Cary | Tri-City Herald
The U.S. Senate has joined the House in rejecting a deep cut to Hanford spending proposed by the Trump administration. A Senate proposal that would provide $748 million more in annual spending than proposed in the Trump administration’s budget for fiscal year 2021 for the Hanford nuclear reservation has been released by a subcommittee. The Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee proposes a budget of nearly $2.6 billion for the nuclear reservation, where environmental cleanup is underway after the site produced plutonium for the nation’s nuclear weapons program during World War II and the Cold War. The budget proposal would be $43 million more than current spending.
Iran: Saudi Arabia ‘Scapegoating’ its Pursuit of Nuclear Arms
Maziar Motamedi | Al-Jazeera
Iran’s United Nations ambassador says Saudi Arabia is trying to use Iran as an excuse to develop nuclear arms after a Saudi minister said the kingdom reserves the right to arm itself with nuclear weapons. In tweets in Farsi and English, Iran’s ambassador and permanent representative to the UN, Kazem Gharibabadi, said “scapegoating and fearmongering are two common and classic methods used by demagogues”. “If you want to pursue a nuclear weapon programme, or you are seeking for an excuse to justify your lack of cooperation with the IAEA or your outdated safeguard system, at least have the courage to admit it and pay the price for it,” he said in reference to the International Atomic Energy Agency. “Don’t blame your wrongdoings on others by lies.”