IRAN FIRES MISSILES IN DRILL, PROMPTING U.S. BASES TO GO ON ALERT
Sune Engel Rasmussen and Aresu Eqbali | Wall Street Journal
Iran attacked a replica aircraft carrier with ballistic missiles and drones as part of a drill in the Persian Gulf, prompting two nearby U.S. military bases to briefly go on alert Tuesday amid fresh tensions between the two countries. The paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which spearheaded the two-day exercise, also hit targets on a cluster of uninhabited islands in the Gulf with jet fighters, Iranian media reported Wednesday. State television showed soldiers dropping by rope from a helicopter onto the deck of the warship mock-up, which resembled U.S. Navy carriers that routinely sail in the area. Iran regularly holds war games aimed at displaying its weaponry and rallying the nation against foreign enemies. This week’s drill came just days after an American jet fighter intercepted an Iranian passenger plane over Syria, forcing it to descend abruptly and injuring several passengers.
TRUMP TEAM’S CASE FOR NEW NUKE CITES RISKS IN CURRENT ARSENAL
John M. Donnelly | CQ Roll Call
The Trump administration, in a closely held memo to lawmakers this spring, justified developing the first new U.S. atomic weapon since the Cold War by citing vulnerabilities and risks in the current nuclear arsenal that are rarely or never acknowledged in public. In an unclassified five-page white paper sent to Congress in May, the Pentagon and the Energy Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, affirm a point they have long minimized: the dangers of land-based missiles ready to launch minutes after a warning of enemy attack. They also discuss threats to U.S. nuclear missile submarines that have previously been depicted as all but undetectable. They say, too, that a new class of ballistic missile submarines lacks the firepower of its predecessors, creating a need for a lighter and more powerful type of warhead — in addition to the two existing types. As for the current two sets of warheads, they say they have too few of the most destructive kind and too many of the less forceful variety — and excessively rely on the latter. The document, which was obtained by CQ Roll Call and has not previously been disclosed, makes the fullest case yet for the $14 billion W93 submarine-launched atomic warhead program and its MK7 reentry vehicle, which would cost several hundred million more dollars.
OPINION: CHINA’S ARMS BUILDUP THREATENS THE NUCLEAR BALANCE
James Anderson | New York Times
Nuclear arms control is at a crossroads — not because we are approaching the deadline on an extension of the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, but because China’s nuclear expansion threatens to upend decades of relative nuclear stability between the United States and Russia. The United States and Russia have been reducing their strategic nuclear arsenals since the end of the Cold War. The 1991 Start Treaty allowed each side 6,000 deployable strategic nuclear warheads; the 2010 treaty, known as New Start, lowered that limit to 1,550 operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads. But stability at these lower force levels will be challenged by China’s nuclear ambitions. China is clearly moving away from the small, limited nuclear force of its past. It is fielding modern land- and sea-based strategic systems and plans to introduce an air-launched ballistic missile delivered by heavy bombers in the near future, achieving its own strategic nuclear triad.
NUCLEAR OFFICIAL SAYS WARHEAD MODERNIZATION PROGRAM ON TRACK DESPITE COVID, GAO CONCERNS
Aaron Mehta | Defense News
Replacements for components that caused cost increases and program delays for two multibillion-dollar nuclear warhead programs have passed tests, putting the programs on track for new production dates, according to a top official from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). But Charles Verdon, deputy administrator for defense programs at the NNSA, pushed back Wednesday on a recent report from a government watchdog that warned the agency is moving too fast on another major warhead modernization project. The issue, found within the B61-12 and W88 Alteration 370 warhead programs, was first revealed by Verdon during last September’s Defense News Conference. It involved commercially available capacitors that, during stress testing, did not give NNSA confidence they could survive the 20-30 years needed for these designs. Verdon emphasized then that the parts were not at risk of failure under normal circumstances, but that the agency was acting out of an abundance of caution for the long-term life of the weapons.
A NEW NUCLEAR MODEL COULD UPEND HOW COUNTRIES COUNT BOMBS
Jonathan Tirone | Bloomberg
Nuclear analysts from the U.S. and Russia settled on a new method to account for atomic weapons that may shrink estimates on the size of North Korea’s arsenal and could be used to aid future disarmament. Accounting for nuclear material stockpiled by countries is at the heart of the global arms-control system and plays a central role in verifying disarmament agreements. Publication of the new model in a forthcoming edition of Janes Intelligence Review comes as diplomats from the two countries with the biggest nuclear stockpiles convene in Vienna to discuss an extension of a treaty to limit the number of deployed weapons. “You cannot agree to get rid of something unless you know how many there are,” said Robert Kelley, a former nuclear-weapons engineer at the Department of Energy, who helped create the new accounting method with Vitaly Fedchenko, a Russian nuclear physicist who works at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
PHILIPPINES TAKES ‘MAJOR STEP’ TOWARD USING NUCLEAR POWER
Enrico Dela Cruz | Reuters
The Philippines has taken a big step towards tapping nuclear power, its energy minister said on Wednesday, after President Rodrigo Duterte created an inter-agency panel to study the adoption of a national nuclear energy policy. As power demand soars in what has for years been among the world’s fastest-growing economies, Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi has been passionately advocating use of nuclear power, despite public concern over safety in a country hit frequently by natural disasters. Nuclear power is seen as a potential answer to the Philippines’ twin problems of precarious supply and Southeast Asia’s highest electricity costs, but Duterte has yet to express full support for Cusi’s proposal. In a July 24 executive order and made public on Wednesday, however, Duterte created a committee to conduct the study, indicating openness to reviving the country’s nuclear energy ambitions. The Philippines spent $2.3 billion to build what was Southeast Asia's only nuclear power facility, but never used it.