The Washington Declaration Is a Software Upgrade for the U.S.-South Korea Alliance
ANKIT PANDA | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Washington Declaration is best understood as a software upgrade for the U.S.-South Korea alliance. Despite growing calls for the redeployment of U.S. nuclear weapons to the Korean Peninsula, the declaration takes no steps in this direction—consistent with the Biden administration’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review. Instead, it focuses on expanding the ambit of intra-alliance consultations on nuclear weapons matters and further integrates the forces of the United States and South Korea in ways that can limit unintended escalation and buttress deterrence.
U.S. Wires Ukraine With Radiation Sensors to Detect Nuclear Blasts
William J. Broad | The New York Times
The United States is wiring Ukraine with sensors that can detect bursts of radiation from a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb and can confirm the identity of the attacker. In part, the goal is to make sure that if Russia detonates a radioactive weapon on Ukrainian soil, its atomic signature and Moscow’s culpability could be verified.
North Korea Issues Warning After US-South Korea Summit
Mitch Shin | The Diplomat
Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Pyongyang’s main voice on inter-Korean relations, denounced the “Washington Declaration” and “Nuclear Consultative Group,” two main initiatives that were introduced during the South Korea-U.S. summit meeting on April 26.“The formation of ‘Nuclear Consultative Group,’ the regular and continuous deployment of U.S. nuclear strategic assets, and the frequent military exercises made the regional politico-military situation unable to extricate itself from the currents of instability,” Kim said. “This provides us with an environment in which we are compelled to take more decisive action in order to deal with the new security environment.”
US-ROK Nuclear Coordination Group ‘More Effective’ Than NATO Analog: Yoon
Shreyas Reddy | NK News
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol hailed a new U.S.-ROK platform for discussing nuclear deterrence against North Korean threats on Tuesday as “more effective” than NATO’s analog for nuclear sharing, though experts say the two mechanisms cannot be compared as they are designed for different roles…NATO’s NPG discusses policy relating to the alliance’s nuclear sharing arrangement, under which U.S. nuclear weapons are stationed in other countries. But while Biden and Yoon agreed to increase the visibility of strategic assets on the peninsula under the Washington Declaration, this does not entail the permanent deployment of U.S. weapons of mass destruction in the ROK. The NCG is instead likely to resemble existing bilateral consultations on nuclear weapons policy, Ankit Panda, Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, stated in an NK Pro analysis.
Kremlin Plays Down Idea that Russia is Preparing a Nuclear Weapons Test
Reuters
The Kremlin on Friday played down the idea that Russia might be preparing to carry out a nuclear weapons test, saying all nuclear states were abiding by a moratorium on the testing of nuclear weapons. It was responding to an interview given by Lynne Tracy, the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, who told the Kommersant newspaper that Russia was the only country talking about the possible resumption of nuclear testing.
Never Give Artificial Intelligence the Nuclear Codes
Ross Andersen | The Atlantic
The world’s major military powers have begun a race to wire AI into warfare. For the moment, that mostly means giving algorithms control over individual weapons or drone swarms. No one is inviting AI to formulate grand strategy, or join a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But the same seductive logic that accelerated the nuclear arms race could, over a period of years, propel AI up the chain of command.