After the Border Clash, Will China-India Competition Go Nuclear?
Toby Dalton, Tong Zhao, and Rukmani Gupta | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
China sees the United States as its primary nuclear rival—the only country that could pose an existential threat. To Chinese strategists, India lacks the will and the military might to pick a fight with Beijing. China has been modernizing its nuclear forces mainly to deter a U.S. nuclear attack. Beijing’s improving arsenal is more than large enough to deter a nuclear attack from India, whose nuclear arsenal is dwarfed by China’s, much less the United States’. Since they don’t see India as a threat, few Chinese analysts focus on the China-India nuclear relationship. Beijing believes that New Delhi developed nuclear weapons in pursuit of deterrence and international prestige, not as a way to threaten China. Chinese leaders are confident that their country’s rising power will discourage India from fighting China and are therefore quite optimistic about the future of the bilateral relationship. To them, a nuclear conflict with India has seemed almost unimaginable.
Satellite Photos Show Construction at Iran Nuclear Site
Jon Gambrell | Associated Press
Iran has begun construction at its Natanz nuclear facility, satellite images released Wednesday show, just as the U.N. nuclear agency acknowledged Tehran is building an underground advanced centrifuge assembly plant after its last one exploded in a reported sabotage attack last summer. The construction comes as the U.S. nears Election Day in a campaign pitting President Donald Trump, whose maximum pressure campaign against Iran has led Tehran to abandon all limits on its atomic program, and Joe Biden, who has expressed a willingness to return to the accord. The outcome of the vote likely will decide which approach America takes. Heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. nearly ignited a war at the start of the year.
Denuclearization Will Bring Prosperity of N. Korea, not end of Regime: O’Brien
Byun Duk-kun | Yonhap News Agency
North Korea's denuclearization would bring prosperity to the communist country, instead of the collapse of its regime as feared by leader Kim Jong-un, the top U.S. security adviser said Wednesday. National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien said that was the vision President Donald Trump tried to lay out for Kim, for which he insisted the U.S. leader deserved praise. "There is a lot of concern on the North Korean side that if the Kim family gives up their nuclear weapons, it could be the end of the regime," the White House adviser said in a webinar hosted by a Washington-based think tank, the Hudson Institute. "So, when you are asking a counterpart in negotiation to do something that could result in their demise, that's a, you know, that's a very difficult negotiation to have," added O'Brien.
South Korea Expresses ‘Serious Concern’ Over Any Japanese Radioactive Water Dump
Hyonhee Shin | Reuters
South Korea expressed alarm on Thursday about the possibility that Japan will dump more than one million tonnes of contaminated water from the tsunami-damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant into the sea. South Korea’s “serious concern” about the contaminated water was conveyed when senior officials from the uneasy neighbours met for talks in Seoul for their first time since Japan’s new prime minister, Yoshihide Suga, took office last month. “Director-general Kim highlighted our grave awareness and serious concern about the issue of the Fukushima reactor contaminated water,” the South Korean foreign ministry said in a statement, referring to Kim Jung-han, director-general for Asia and Pacific affairs, who led the South Korean team.
Vandenberg Launches Test Missile Early Thursday
CBS Los Angeles
Southern Californians up late may have seen a yellow streak shooting across the night sky early Thursday morning. An unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile launched from Vandenberg Air Force base near Lompoc in Santa Barbara County at 12:27 a.m. The launch was originally scheduled for Wednesday morning, but was delayed due to weather. The test launch is done in order to demonstrate the nation’s “nuclear deterrence forces are safe, secure, effective and ready to defend the United States,” Ron Cortopassi, 30th Space Wing executive director, said in a statement.
Stability Amid Strategic Deregulation: Managing the End of Nuclear Arms Control
Dmitri Trenin | Washington Quarterly
That nuclear arms control is on the way out is no news. The unraveling of its Cold War-era architecture started almost two decades ago, when US President George W. Bush welcomed Vladimir Putin to his ranch at Crawford, Texas and told the then-young Russian leader that he intended to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. The withdrawal from this 1972 treaty, which placed severe restrictions on both countries’ strategic defenses, was a severe blow to the Russians, who had long considered it a cornerstone of strategic stability. Bush, however, couldn’t care less. The Cold War was over, and several countries around the world were busy developing ballistic missiles that required US response. Russia was neither an adversary nor a close partner of the United States, and it was lying flat on its back. While Washington was pointing to North Korean and Iranian missile programs, Moscow suspected it was seeking strategic superiority over both Russia and China.