UN Nuclear Watchdog Inspects Second Iran Site
Al Jazeera
The United Nations nuclear watchdog inspected the second of two suspected former secret atomic sites in Iran as agreed with Tehran last month in a deal that ended a standoff over access, the agency said on Wednesday. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not named either of the two undeclared sites, but it has described activities it suspects took place there in 2003, the year it and US intelligence services believe Iran halted a secret and coordinated nuclear weapons programme. Although the IAEA said it has the power to carry out snap inspections anywhere in Iran it deems necessary, Tehran denied it access to the two sites for seven months until the deal was struck. “As part of an agreement with Iran to resolve safeguards implementation issues specified by the IAEA, the agency this week conducted a complementary access at the second location in the country and took environmental samples,” it said in a statement.
Russia Rebuffs Trump’s Arms-Control Proposal
Michael R. Gordon | Wall Street Journal
Russia’s top arms-control negotiator has rejected the Trump administration’s core requirements for a new nuclear arms-control treaty, dealing a blow to the White House’s hopes of concluding an election-year framework agreement with Moscow. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told The Wall Street Journal that the Trump administration’s demands that a future treaty cover all Russia, Chinese and U.S. warheads and include more-intrusive verification is “clearly a nonstarter for us.” He also warned that Moscow is prepared to respond if the U.S. allows the New START treaty, a nuclear arms-reduction agreement that entered into force in 2011, to lapse and moves to expand its nuclear arsenal. “We would be ready to counter this,” he said. The Trump administration has built its negotiating strategy on the premise that Moscow is eager to avoid an intensification of the arms race with the U.S., which has a larger military budget than Russia and has begun to upgrade its nuclear forces at a cost of more than $1 trillion.
As Kim Wooed Trump With ‘Love Letters,’ he Kept Building His Nuclear Capability, Intelligence Shows
Joby Warrick and Simon Denyer | Washington Post
In a secret letter to President Trump in December 2018, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un likened the two leaders’ budding friendship to a Hollywood romance. Future meetings with “Your Excellency,” Kim wrote to Trump, would be “reminiscent of a scene from a fantasy film.” Yet even as he penned the words, Kim was busy creating an illusion of a different kind. At six of the country’s missile bases, trucks hauled rock from underground construction sites as workers dug a maze of new tunnels and bunkers, allowing North Korea to move weapons around like peas in a shell game. Southeast of the capital, meanwhile, new buildings sprouted across an industrial complex that was processing uranium for as many as 15 new bombs, according to current and former U.S. and South Korean officials, as well as a report by a United Nations panel of experts. The new work reflects a continuation of a pattern observed by analysts since the first summit between Trump and Kim in 2018.
Bipartisan Congressional Task Force Recommends Extending Nuclear Treaty with Russia
Rebecca Kheel | The Hill
A bipartisan congressional task force is recommending the extension of a nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia that is set to expire in February. The recommendation to extend the New START treaty was one of several in the final report of the Future of Defense Task Force, a panel of eight House Armed Services Committee members from both parties tasked with examining long-term strategy to meet emerging threats. “With a rapidly approaching expiration date, the United States and Russia should extend the highly successful Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) while negotiating a follow-on agreement,” the task force wrote in its 87-page report released Tuesday after a year of work. The recommendation comes as the Trump administration has been ramping up pressure on Russia to meet its demands on conditions for extending the treaty.
Boeing Assembles Team to Bid for Next-Gen Missile Defense Interceptor
Jen Judson | Defense News
Boeing has assembled a team with General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems and Aerojet Rocketdyne to bid on the production of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency’s Next Generation Interceptor, or NGI. The agency decided last year to scrap its plans to redesign the kill vehicle of its current Ground-Based Interceptors, or GBI, that is part of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system. The GMD system is designed to defend the homeland against intercontinental ballistic missiles. The MDA is holding a competition instead to design a brand-new interceptor for the GMD system. The company has an extensive history with the GMD system in place at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, having held the development and sustainment contract for years. That contract is set to expire in 2023, and MDA is weighing options to break up the contract to foster competition that promotes increased capability.
Opinion: Washington’s Arms Control Delusions and Bluffs
Steven Pifer | Defense One
The clock for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty runs out on February 5. The Trump administration has not taken up Russia’s offer to extend the treaty, believing it has leverage to get something more from the Kremlin, and it has even threatened an arms race. This is delusion and bluff. If the administration does not change course, New START will lapse and, for the first time in decades, U.S. and Russian nuclear forces will be under no constraints. The terms of New START permit its extension for up to five years. Keeping Russian strategic forces limited and maintaining the current flow of information about those forces are very much in the U.S. interest. The Kremlin is ready to extend. Yet the Trump administration has laid down conditions, apparently believing that Moscow is desperate to continue the agreement.