The Nonproliferation Regime Is Breaking
Toby Dalton and Ariel Levite | Foreign Affairs
To restore the nonproliferation regime’s role as a bulwark of global stability, international nonproliferation institutions and states need new ways to track and tackle the development of nuclear weapons. This requires an innovative approach to monitoring and constraining dangerous activity. But given that more countries are acquiring or producing highly enriched uranium, material constraints alone are not enough. Monitors will need fresh tools to credibly track additional indicators of potential bomb activity that are hard to pass off as peaceful in nature, such as weaponization: the development and manufacture of nuclear warheads for missiles or other delivery vehicles. Monitoring this kind of activity, in particular, goes beyond the traditional focus of nuclear observers, but it may now offer the best, most reliable way to know whether states are trying to acquire nuclear weapons.
Amid Energy Crisis, EU Fights Over Whether Nuclear Is Green
Mark Hibbs | Foreign Policy
With European energy prices skyrocketing and pressure growing on the European Union to cut carbon emissions more quickly, it was only a matter of time before the debate over zero-carbon nuclear power came back to the fore—and with it, old divisions among EU member states. On New Year’s Eve, the European Commission presented the 27 EU member states with a draft regulation designating natural gas and nuclear power as “green” fuels for electricity generation. The draft includes nuclear because it produces virtually no emissions and gas because it is seen as a relatively clean transition fuel that will help the EU phase out much dirtier coal. If the European Parliament and member states approve, nuclear and gas will join renewable sources such as wind and solar energy on a list of technologies approved for private investment and EU financial support beginning in 2023. Why is this important, when each EU country decides on its own how to produce electricity?
Biden Team Weighs Killing Trump’s New Nuclear Weapons
Bryan Bender | POLITICO
The Biden administration is considering killing off several nuclear weapons programs that were greenlit by the Trump White House as an internal debate over the nation’s atomic arsenal enters its final phase. According to nine current and former officials with knowledge of the deliberations, the Nuclear Posture Review, which is expected to be completed as early as next month, is not expected to make major changes to nuclear policy. Nor is it likely to recommend deep cuts to multibillion-dollar plans to build new intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-armed submarines and stealth bombers, they said. But national security officials are debating whether to jettison a new nuclear-armed cruise missile now in the research phase, retire a Cold War-era thermonuclear bomb, and possibly even remove a new “low-yield” warhead that the previous administration deployed on submarines, the current and former officials said.
Trading Threats, the U.S. and Iran Inch Closer to a Nuclear Pact
Farnaz Fassihi and Lara Jakes | New York Times
Iran and the United States have recently engaged in a spiraling escalation of threats and warnings, even as they are progressing in diplomatic talks about reviving the 2015 nuclear deal. On Saturday, Iran’s Parliament placed largely symbolic sanctions on 51 Americans, many of them prominent political and military officials, for “terrorism” and “human rights violations,” in retaliation for the U.S. assassination of Iran’s top commander, Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, two years ago. Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, then warned that Iran would “face severe consequences” if it attacked any Americans, including any of the 51 people hit with the sanctions. And American officials generally have been quite circumspect in their appraisals of the state of the negotiations on the nuclear deal. Yet on the same day that Iran issued the sanctions, the country’s top nuclear negotiator, Ali Bagheri Kani, said outstanding differences in the deal were diminishing and that talks were moving forward, the official news agency IRNA reported.
N.Korea’s Kim Calls for More ‘Military Muscle’ After Watching Hypersonic Missile Test
Hyonhee Shin and Josh Smith | Reuters
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for boosting the country’s strategic military forces as he observed the test of a hypersonic missile, state media said on Wednesday, officially attending a missile launch for the first time in nearly two years. On Tuesday authorities in South Korea and Japan detected the suspected launch, which drew condemnation by authorities around the world and prompted an expression of concern from the U.N. secretary-general. The second test of a “hypersonic missile” in less than a week underscored Kim’s New Year’s vow to bolster the military with cutting-edge technology at a time when talks with South Korea and the United States have stalled.
Incoming North Korean Missile Warning Prompted FAA's Mysterious Air Traffic Halt
Tyler Rogoway | The Drive
Two days after the Federal Aviation Administration issued a highly peculiar ground-stop order to aircraft operating across the western United States and Hawaii, and after the release of a remarkably murky official statement from the agency, we were no closer to understanding exactly what prompted the order than we were initially. While U.S. Strategic Command would not comment on the incident and NORAD denied it had any hand in it, information that has come to the attention of The War Zone from sources with knowledge of the events clearly paints a different picture—one that points directly to the North Korean hypersonic weapon test that occurred at nearly the exact same time as the culprit.