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Nuclear Instability at Levels Not Seen Since Cuban Missile Crisis, Says Former U.S. Ambassador

IN THIS ISSUE: Nuclear Instability at Levels Not Seen Since Cuban Missile Crisis, Meet DARPA’s ‘Glide Breaker’: A Hypersonic Missile Killer?, China and Russia Warn of ‘Arms Race’, The Missile Defense Review is Out. Will Congress Fund it?, Russia Conducted Another Successful Test of an Anti-Satellite Missile, U.S. and North Korean Spies Have Held Secret Talks for a Decade

Published on January 22, 2019

Nuclear Instability at Levels Not Seen Since Cuban Missile Crisis, Says Former U.S. Ambassador

David Reid | CNBC

The risk of a global nuclear arms race has risen to a level not seen since the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, according to a former U.S. ambassador to Russia. In October, President Donald Trump announced the U.S. will end its 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia, accusing Moscow of violating its terms. At the same time, Trump has also called for billions of dollars of new spending on new missile defense programs. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday, the president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former US ambassador, William Burns, said a conflation of events was creating instability. “2019 could be as consequential a year for nuclear order since the immediate aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis where that brush with Armageddon cause the beginnings of a serious U.S./Soviet effort at arms control,” Burns said.

Meet DARPA’s ‘Glide Breaker’: A Hypersonic Missile Killer?

Michael Peck | National Interest

DARPA calls it “counter-hypersonics.” The rest of us would call it a way -- or a prayer -- to stop nuclear warheads coming down on our heads at 20 times the speed of sound. DARPA, the Pentagon's pet research agency, wants an interceptor that can stop weapons that are hypersonic (travel faster than Mach 5). The agency has begun soliciting proposals for Glide Breaker, its project to stop boost-glide vehicles that are lofted high into the atmosphere atop a ballistic missile, and then glide down to Earth. The current exemplar is Russia's Avangard, touted by President Vladimir Putin as unstoppable by anti-missile defenses. The Avangard is lofted by a giant RS-28 Sarmat ICBM, and then glides down to its target at Mach 20. But China and the U.S. are also developing boost-glide vehicles.

China and Russia Warn of ‘Arms Race’ in Response to Donald Trump’s U.S. Missile Defense Plan

Tom O’Connor | Newsweek

Chinese and Russian officials have warned of a potential arms race breaking out in response to the new missile defense plan introduced by the United States. President Donald Trump introduced the 2019 Missile Defense Review on Thursday, vowing to instate a global missile shield that could “detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States anywhere, anytime.” His proposals included space-based sensors and advanced interceptors that would block against new cruise and hypersonic missile technology being developed by its top military competitors Russia and China, which have accused the U.S. of attempting to provoke further geopolitical tensions.

The Missile Defense Review is Out. Will Congress Fund it? 

Aaron Mehta, Joe Gould, and Tara Copp | Defense News

The Missile Defense Review, formally unveiled Jan. 17 at the Pentagon by President Donald Trump, calls for major investments from both new technologies and existing systems. “I will accept nothing less for our nation than the most effective, cutting-edge missile defense systems,” Trump said. “We have the best anywhere in the world. It's not even close.” But unless Congress approves the major funding increase that will be required to make it all a reality, many of those programs may fall by the wayside — and questions are emerging over whether these systems will be funded by a Democratic House of Representatives that is looking to cut defense spending. House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, D-Wash., signaled at the competing budget pressures in a hallway interview after the rollout, saying: “It’s not sustainable to expand everything.” “I mean, you saw the Air Force, they wanted 25 percent more planes than were currently projected.” Smith said. "We got the nuclear modernization program that’s enormously expensive; we’re hellbent to have a 355-ship Navy; they want an end strength — I forget what the hell it was Trump said about that. Missile defense, they want more for that.

Russia Conducted Another Successful Test of an Anti-Satellite Missile, According to a Classified U.S. Intelligence Report

Amanda Macias | CNBC

Russia conducted another successful flight test of its new anti-satellite missile system last month, according to two people with direct knowledge of a classified U.S. intelligence report. The anti-satellite missile flew for 17 minutes and 1,864 miles before successfully splashing down in its target area. The latest revelation comes on the heels of the Pentagon’s 108-page missile defense review, which marks the first overhaul of America's missile defense doctrine in nearly a decade. The unclassified review, which singles out emerging Russian, Chinese, North Korean and Iranian missile threats, also focuses on anti-satellite capabilities that “could threaten U.S. space-based assets.”

U.S. and North Korean Spies Have Held Secret Talks for a Decade

Michael Gordon and Warren Strobel | Wall Street Journal

U.S. intelligence officials have met with North Korean counterparts secretly for a decade, a covert channel that allowed communications during tense times, aided in the release of detainees and helped pave the way for President Trump’s historic summit last year with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The secret channel between the Central Intelligence Agency and spies from America’s bitter adversary included two missions to Pyongyang in 2012 during the Obama administration by Michael Morell, then deputy CIA director, and at least one by his successor, Avril Haines, say current and former U.S. officials. The channel appears to have gone dormant late in the Obama administration. Mike Pompeo re-energized it while CIA director, sending an agency officer to meet with North Korean counterparts in Singapore in August 2017.

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