At a Crossroads? China-India Nuclear Relations After the Border Clash
Toby Dalton and Tong Zhao | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
On June 15, 2020, a lethal military conflict over disputed territory in the Himalayas shook the edifice of China-India relations. The clash in the Galwan Valley along their shared border is the gravest military confrontation the two nuclear powers have faced in fifty years. This event and ongoing tensions focus attention on the long-standing but tempered competition between China and India. One of the most interesting puzzles of that relationship is why nuclear weapons, which both possess, have not played a more important role. With the potential for a major reset in China-India ties after the Ladakh crisis, are Beijing and New Delhi finally approaching a long-anticipated crossroads in their nuclear relations?
Trump Administration Shifts Course on Russian Arms Talks, Easing Insistence China Join Now
Michael R. Gordon | Wall Street Journal
After months of insisting that China join nuclear arms control talks with the U.S. and Russia, the Trump administration signaled Tuesday that it will seek to negotiate a separate framework agreement with Moscow and move to bring Beijing on board later. The administration’s new negotiating strategy could open the door for an election-year arms control understanding with Moscow—and possibly a meeting between President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as the temporary extension of the soon-to-expire New START nuclear weapons treaty. “The two presidents, I presume, would like to get together,” Marshall Billingslea, the chief U.S. arms control negotiator, told reporters after two days of talks with his Russian counterpart in Vienna. “We laid down what we need to see from the Russian Federation, and it is now a question of whether they are ready to walk down that path with us.”
Iran Sanctions: U.S. Set to Demand ‘Snapback’ of Measures at U.N. Security Council
Alexander Smith | NBC News
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is set to demand Thursday that crippling international sanctions are reinstated against Iran. President Donald Trump has directed Pompeo to travel to the United Nations Security Council in New York to enforce what's known as the “snapback,” a mechanism built into the Iran nuclear deal signed under President Barack Obama in 2015. This would reinstate all United Nations sanctions on Iran that were lifted in exchange for curbs on the country's nuclear program. The problem for Trump is that none of the other co-signatories — China, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany and France — believe the president has the power to do this because he withdrew from the deal in 2018.
Senators Warn Trump Saudi-Chinese Uranium Plant Risks Spread of Nuclear Weapons
Warren P. Strobel | Wall Street Journal
A bipartisan group of U.S. senators warned President Trump on Wednesday that Saudi Arabia’s undeclared nuclear and missile programs pose a serious threat to efforts to stop the spread of nuclear weapons in the region and requested briefings on the subject. The letter follows a Wall Street Journal report earlier this month that the Saudis, with Chinese help, had constructed a facility for extracting uranium yellowcake from uranium ore, an advance in the oil-rich kingdom’s drive to master nuclear technology, according to Western officials. “Saudi Arabia is positioning itself to develop the front-end of the [nuclear] fuel cycle. These technologies, if unchecked, would give Riyadh a latent capacity to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons,” Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.), along with two other Democratic and three Republican senators, wrote in a letter to the president.
Iran Announces Locally Made Ballistic and Cruise Missiles Amid U.S. Tensions
Parisa Hafezi | Reuters
Iran displayed a surface-to-surface ballistic missile on Thursday that Defence Minister Amir Hatami said had a range of 1,400 kilometres and a new cruise missile, ignoring U.S. demands that Tehran halt its missile programme. “The surface-to-surface missile, called martyr Qassem Soleimani, has a range of 1,400 km and the cruise missile, called martyr Abu Mahdi, has a range of over 1,000 km,” Hatami said in a televised speech. Pictures of the missiles were shown on state TV, which it said was “the newest Iranian cruise missile that will further strengthen Iran’s deterrence power”. Soleimani, head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, and Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis were killed in January in a U.S. strike on their convoy in Baghdad airport.
Missile Defense Agency Director Lays Out Hurdles in Path to Layered Homeland Missile Defense
Jen Judson | Defense News
The Missile Defense Agency is planning to develop a layered homeland intercontinental ballistic missile defense architecture, but it must clear a range of hurdles to get after an approach that addresses emerging threats and fills a gap while a next-generation interceptor is developed, according to the agency’s director. The agency unveiled plans in its fiscal 2021 budget request in February to create a more layered homeland defense system that would include regional missile defense capability already resident with the Navy and Army to bolster homeland defense against ICBMs. The plan would include establishing layers of defensive capability relying on the Aegis Weapon System, particularly the SM-3 Block IIA missiles used in the system, and a possible Aegis Ashore system in Hawaii. The underlay would also include the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. The Army is already operating a THAAD battery in South Korea and Guam.