Russia Follows U.S. Out of Landmark Nuclear Weapons Treaty
Andrew Kramer | New York Times
President Vladimir V. Putin on Monday formally suspended Russia’s observance of a key nuclear arms treaty that the United States withdrew from last month, setting the stage for the return of a long-banned class of weapons. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed in 1987 in the waning years of the Cold War, had prohibited land-based missiles with relatively short ranges of 300 to 3,400 miles. Because of their quick flight times, such missiles were seen as a hair trigger for nuclear war.
Russian Ambassaor to the U.S. Warns Arms Control is ‘in Crisis’
Julian Borger | Guardian
Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. has warned that arms control is “in crisis” and claimed that “some politicians and generals in Washington” were beginning to think in terms of winning a nuclear conflict. Anatoly Antonov was speaking on the day Vladimir Putin followed Donald Trump’s example in suspending participation in the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, which is due to expire entirely in August unless there is an 11th-hour effort to save it. That would leave the 2010 New Start treaty as the last constraint left on the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, and that agreement is due to expire in 2021. Moscow has signaled its willingness to extend New Start, but the Trump administration has said it has not yet made up its mind on the issue.
U.S.-North Korea Nuclear Talks Must Resume Quickly, Says Worried South
Andrew Jeong and Dasl Yoon | Wall Street Journal
Troubled by the failure of the U.S. and North Korea to reach a deal on sanctions relief in exchange for Pyongyang’s disarmament, South Korea is pressing the two sides to return to negotiations to prevent the diplomatic detente from unraveling. Officials in Seoul worry that, unless Washington and Pyongyang re-engage sooner rather than later, the rapprochement that began last year risks losing steam, and that North Korea may opt to exit the talks. South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in on Monday instructed his top security officials to help the U.S. and North Korea renew talks at the earliest opportunity, with the hope of mediating a compromise.
Team Trump Keeps Pushing Deal to Send Nuclear Tech to Saudis
Erin Banco and Betsy Woodruff | Daily Beast
The Trump administration is still actively working to make a deal to send U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, according to two U.S. officials and two professional staffers at federal agencies with direct knowledge of those conversations. American energy businesses are still hoping to cash in on Riyadh’s push for energy diversification. “This could be a very big contract. This administration is all about contracts,” said Hussein Ibish, a resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. “And there is a big market here that U.S. companies can get in on. The question is if the U.S. will decide, in the end, to go through with an official agreement or not.”
France is Prepared to Extend its Nuclear Deterrent to Germany
William Drozdiak | Washington Post
As exasperation grows in Europe about U.S. leadership of the Atlantic alliance, France has taken the bold and unprecedented step of pledging to extend its nuclear deterrent to cover German territory in the case of armed aggression. The French action comes as perhaps the strongest signal yet that European governments are reevaluating basic defense doctrines that have underpinned the Western alliance for the past 70 years. The implicit French promise is contained in a 16-page treaty signed in the town of Aachen, Germany, last month by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron.
Resposible Disruption
Mareena Robinson Snowden | N Square
How can we encourage an atmosphere of collaboration and responsible disruption in the nuclear security field? By ensuring that all feel empowered to contribute. In my mind, the first barrier to that empowerment is whether or not you see yourself and your ideas as legitimate. Given that legitimacy is in many ways a product of public opinion, part of the mission is to influence the way the public considers who is a legitimate voice on nuclear issues and what ideas are both credible and justified. In the nuclear security space, we often equate the most dominant voices with the most legitimate voices. Whether we are talking about the military, the scientific community, or the highest level of government, experience and ideas from these perspectives have been held up as the most authoritative and thus the most valuable.