What’s Driving China’s Nuclear Buildup?
Tong Zhao | Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
China’s nuclear arsenal appears to be expanding substantially for the first time in years. Over the past few decades, China had maintained only about twenty silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). But recent evidence from independent U.S. experts shows that the country is likely constructing more than 200 new missile silos. China’s current program to modernize and update its nuclear weapons is moving at an unprecedented speed and scale.
Iran Nuclear Deal Talks Are Stuck After Substantial Progress, Negotiator Says
Amanda Macias | CNBC
The fragile discussions over the revival of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal were about two weeks away from reaching a conclusion in June, but several complicated items remain unresolved, according to a senior German government official participating in the talks. Earlier this year, signatories of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, began the first of what would become six rounds of all-day negotiations at multiple hotels across Vienna.
N.Korea Wants Sanctions Eased to Restart U.S. Talks -S.Korea Lawmakers
Hyonhee Shin | Reuters
North Korea wants international sanctions banning its metal exports and imports of refined fuel and other necessities lifted before it restarts denuclearisation talks with the United States, South Korean lawmakers said on Tuesday. Pyongyang has also demanded the easing of sanctions on imports of luxury goods, including fine liquors and suits, the lawmakers said after being briefed by Park Jie-won, head of the South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS).
After Latest Flight Test Failure, US Air Force Hopes to Keep First Hypersonic Missile on Track for Production
Valerie Insinna | Defense News
The U.S. Air Force is in the process of determining the root cause of last week’s failed hypersonic missile test, but the program still has time to push through flight testing and begin production of the new, cutting-edge weapon by the end of fiscal 2022, a program official said Wednesday. During the second booster flight test of the AGM-183A Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon, which occurred July 28 over Point Mugu Sea Range near southern California, the missile’s engine failed to ignite after the weapon was launched from a B-52 bomber. Program officials have been unable to identify what went wrong during the test or how to fix it, said Brig. Gen. Heath Collins, the Air Force’s program executive officer for weapons.
Britain Rethinks Letting China Enter Its Nuclear Power Industry
Stanley Reed | New York Times
A few years ago, Britain agreed to let China take an ownership stake in its newest nuclear power plants, figuring Beijing had the nuclear know-how and the construction smarts to help replace the country’s aging power stations. It was a warm moment in British-Chinese relations, a deal signed in 2015 during a carefully choreographed visit to London by President Xi Jinping of China with the British prime minister at the time, David Cameron. Six years later, Britain is having second thoughts. Financing for a planned power station facing the North Sea, estimated at 20 billion pounds ($28 billion) and necessary to ensure a steady stream of electricity for decades, is unexpectedly in doubt. Part of the problem: attracting investors to a project one-fifth owned by China.
Open-Source Intelligence Challenges State Monopolies on Information
Shashank Joshi | The Economist
In 1960 John Kennedy, the Democratic candidate for the American presidency, accused the incumbent Republican administration of having allowed a “missile gap” to open up between America and the Soviet Union. The idea seemed plausible. The Soviet Union’s success in launching the first satellite, Sputnik, on a rocket which could double as an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) had naturally led to speculation that it was far ahead of America in the deployment of such weapons. Plausible, but wrong. Soviet ICBMs could be counted on the fingers of one hand. But although, by the final days of the campaign, President Dwight Eisenhower had strong evidence of this from the corona spy-satellite programme, he could make no mention of it. The ability to spot ICBM sites from space was so precious that it was worth risking the White House to keep it secret.