WHAT'S LEFT AFTER SORT?

By Bob Aldridge

The Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT) signed in Moscow on 24 May 2002 by US President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin put the seal of approval on what both countries were planning to do anyway.  SORT also swept away the limitations being negotiated for START-III and scrapped what was an obstacle in START-II.  The setbacks to meaningful nuclear arms reduction are crippling.  So what's left after SORT? - A good deal.

Minuteman-III
Warheads from the 50 MX missiles being retired are replacing older bombs on 500 silo-based Minuteman-IIIs - one for each missile instead of three previously. Today's Minuteman-IIIs have been continuously upgraded for decades - components and parts replaced, support systems and missile facilities improved, command and control systems constantly tweaked to top performance including retargeting and the length of time to do that.  Pinpoint accuracy can be achieved by using Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite navigation updates.  With GPS receivers installed in 6-inch diameter artillery projectiles, we should assume that they are also on Minuteman-III missiles.

An Air Force's fact sheet succinctly describes today's Minuteman-III force: "Through state-of-the-art improvements, the Minuteman system has evolved to meet new challenges and assume new missions.  Modernization programs have resulted in new versions of the missile, expanded targeting options, improved accuracy and survivability.  Today's Minuteman weapons system is the product of almost 40 years of continuous enhancement."

Q. What's left after SORT? 
A. 500 modern, powerful and very precise warheads on 500 highly reliable Minuteman-IIIs Inter Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) in hardened silos across the mid-United States. 

Trident
The original 18 Trident submarines carried 24 missiles each.  Each missile carried eight warheads for a total of 3,456.  The four oldest submarines are being retired from strategic service to become Tomahawk cruise missile launchers.  Ten of those remaining currently carry the modern Trident D-5 missile while the other four are being back-fitted to do so.  Six submarines are based on the US west coast at Bangor, Washington and eight on the east coast at King's Bay, Georgia.

Trident missiles are undergoing a service life extension program to make them operational until 2040.  This involves new rocket motors, re-certifying components and parts for a 40-year life, replacing the guidance systems and missile electronics, and extending missile production to 2013.

Trident warheads are also going through a life extension program which appears to be providing a surface burst capability.  Although not as destructive as earth-penetrating bombs, detonations at the surface are more deadly to hardened targets than the present air bursts.  The first production unit is to be available by 2008.

Q. What's left after SORT?
A. Up to 3,456 powerful and extremely accurate warheads on 432 sophisticated Trident Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBMs) deployed on 14 stealthy submarines in the oceans of the world. 

Regional Wars and Counter-Terrorism
A late 1991 Joint Strategic Target Planning Advisory Group made four far reaching recommendations:

1. Retain a significant number of strategic nuclear weapons to preserve America's superpower status.

2. Rethink America's pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries (which have chemical and biological weapons).

3. Use nuclear arms to protect America's interests by preventing hostilities in the Third World.

4. Establish a 'Nuclear Expeditionary Force' armed with a few air-launched and submarine-launched nuclear weapons.

All four recommendations are currently being implemented.

The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) completed in 2002 named Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, and Libya as potential targets for tactical nuclear weapons.  It called for the use of nuclear weapons under three conditions: 1) to destroy targets invulnerable to conventional weapons, 2) in retaliation to a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons attack, and 3) in the event of a 'surprising military development.'  Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, General Richard Myers, alluded to a 'surprising military development' as something like Iraq attacking Israel, North Korea attacking South Korea, or China attacking Taiwan.  That is, a regional war.

In the early 1990s, America's national weapons laboratories started work on small nuclear warheads under a program called 'Plywood' (for Precision Low Yield Weapons Development). One concept studied was modifying the B61, Mod-7 nuclear gravity bomb deployed in 1985 with a selectable yield down to 0.3 kilotons.  The modification was deployed in 1997 as the B61, Mod-11 strategic/tactical bomb.  William Arkin reported in 1992 that Los Alamos National Laboratory was working on a nuclear bomb in the 0.01 kiloton range (equivalent to ten tons of TNT).  Low yield technology has already been developed.

Interest in earth-penetrating warheads dates back to the 1950s.  In September 1988 a Genie rocket tested an inert full scale penetrating warhead.  The first stage carried it up four miles and the second drove it down into volcanic rock at 1,400 miles per hour.  The warhead burrowed 22 feet deep and was recovered in good condition.  Since 1999 the warhead for the Tactical Tomahawk Penetrator - designed to plow through layers of steel-reinforced concrete - has been tested and is to be operational in 2003.  The B61, Mod-11 bomb, described above, is also an earth penetrator.  Penetration technology is also available.

To reach the depth needed to destroy very deeply buried targets, the penetrator would have to be very hard and very heavy, driven into the ground at tremendous speed.  The velocities of Minuteman-IIIs and Tridents - up to 15,000 miles per hour - would provide the deepest penetration.  Weight would pose no problem with a single warhead.

In April 2002, the US Department of Energy (DOE) announced plans to begin a study on a 'Robust Nuclear Earth Penterator' suitable for destroying deeply-buried command bunkers in a regional war. DOE plans a three year cost and feasibility study to cost approximately $45 million on the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is looking at modifying the B-83 hydrogen bomb.  Los Alamos National Laboratory is investigating further modifications to the B-61 bomb.

Q. What's left after SORT?
A. A developing strategy and capability to destroy hardened targets anywhere in the world.

The United States, after SORT, will have a smaller nuclear arsenal which is modern, lethal, and effective.  Low-yield, penetrating warheads on Minuteman-III ICBMs and Trident SLBMs could play a surgical role in Washington's 'War on Terrorism'.

* Bob Aldridge is a former engineering design specialist for Trident missiles.

CHANGING THE GUARD IN AFGHANISTAN AND MACEDONIA

Chris Lindborg
BASIC

Peacekeeping in Afghanistan: Germany and the Netherlands Take Over from Turkey.

Germany and the Netherlands take charge of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan on February 10 for a period of at least six months. In preparation for their co-leadership roles, Germany and the Netherlands are ramping up their ongoing contributions to the peacekeeping force.  Germany is increasing its force presence from 1,200 to about 2,500 troops and the Netherlands is increasing its presence from 250 to about 650 troops.

The Germans will take responsibility for military matters and the Dutch will take the lead on political issues surrounding the ISAF command.  The Corps Commander will be Lieutenant General Norbert van Heyst from Germany, and Brigadier General Robert Bertholee from the Netherlands will serve as the Deputy Commander.  Their future cooperation will apparently benefit from the arrangement of the First German/Netherlands Corps, which is one of six NATO High-Readiness Forces Headquarters.

Not long after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan forced the Taliban from power, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1386 in December 2001 tasked the ISAF with the protection and stabilization of the Afghan capital.  Although the ISAF is not a NATO-sponsored operation, all of the countries that have led the ISAF have been members of the alliance and the Dutch-German command will continue this trend.  The United Kingdom was the first country to lead the ISAF starting in January 2002. Turkey took command of the force six months later and has held the position until now. 

When asked whether the joint Dutch-German command of the ISAF would prepare the ground for NATO to take formal control of the operation, Han Peters, a Counselor in the Political Department of the Dutch Embassy in Washington said, "It is difficult to say what will happen right now.  It's obvious that there aren't many countries that have this ability to take on an operation like this and it's also obvious that at least up to and including 2004, some sort of international presence will be expected."

Controversy continues over whether the ISAF should expand beyond Kabul because of the sporadic fighting and lawlessness plaguing the rest of the country.  When asked whether the Dutch government would use its leadership role to push for an expansion of the force, Mr. Peters told BASIC Reports that, "So far, we have been hesitant to go along with an expansion of the ISAF. There are already 4,000 to 5,000 troops in Kabul.  If you want to secure the whole country, then there would need to be many, many more troops."

Testing Ground in Macedonia: Will the EU Live-up to Expectations as NATO Draws Down?

On January 27, the Council of the European Union issued a Joint Declaration approving the deployment of a peacekeeping operation in Macedonia. The proposed mission would be the EU's first military operation in its history.

Macedonian authorities had sent a written request to EU Secretary-General Javier Solana on January 17 for a peacekeeping presence.  The Joint Declaration prepares the legal basis, financial mechanisms, and the overall framework for the EU's pending peace operation.  The final details for the operation will also hinge on additional discussions with Skopje and NATO.

On December 16, NATO replaced Operation Amber Fox with Operation Allied Harmony.  NATO will continue this mission at least until it is reviewed in February 2003.  Allied Harmony has been assigned the task of protecting international monitors and advising the Macedonian Government on taking responsibility for security throughout the country. 

NATO took on disarmament operations in Macedonia in August 2001 after ethnic Albanians clashed with the Macedonian Government.  As a follow-up to the initial disarmament mission, NATO conducted operations to protect international monitors and to oversee the implementation of a peace plan.  Despite some continued violence, Macedonia has remained relatively stable in recent months and NATO has been looking to reduce its presence in the country.  The EU may be ready as early as March to take over peacekeeping operations from the alliance.  The initial operation would last six months and its extension would depend upon another request by Skopje and a review by the EU. 

After numerous setbacks, the EU-NATO Declaration on the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) put forward on December 16 was a critical turning point for the EU in its plans for a peacekeeping operation in Macedonia.  The declaration assures the EU's access to NATO's planning capabilities, and is considered by some to be critical for the EU to operate in any military capacity in the short-term and to prevent the EU from duplicating the alliance's assets. 

The proposed EU peacekeeping operation in Macedonia would mean a transition from a NATO to an EU chain of command, but with a continued reliance on NATO resources and headquarters.  Overall, the EU mission would look similar to the current NATO operation in Macedonia with about 450 troops. 

When asked how the EU's operation would be different from NATO's peacekeeping operations in Macedonia, Cristina Gallach, Spokesperson for Mr. Solana, told BASIC Reports that, "The EU will be a civilian power with military instruments ... NATO has political and military means ... but the EU has a wider spectrum of instruments in the way of diplomacy, trade, political instruments ... and civilian crisis management." 

The EU does not have plans to deploy a police-training mission in Macedonia such as the one it deployed when it replaced the Bosnian U.N. police mission in January.  Rather, Ms. Gallach said that EU military personnel would work closely with the current Spillover Monitor Mission to Skopje of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which has helped to facilitate the training of police in Macedonia.  

THE PROBLEM OF CIVIL PLUTONIUM STOCKPILES

By Dave Andrews

In 1978, persuaded of the proliferation risks associated with separated plutonium, President Jimmy Carter signed into law the US Nuclear Non Proliferation Act (NNPA) and approved a comprehensive package of policies and measures aimed at reducing the links between civil nuclear power and the spread of nuclear weapons. Believing that commercial use of plutonium was unnecessary, the US committed itself to a 'once through' fuel cycle in which the plutonium that is inevitably produced during the operation of a nuclear reactor remained locked, and relatively secure, within the highly radioactive spent nuclear fuel.

Despite initiating a two-year study, the International Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE), under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) the US was unable, however, to convince other nuclear nations to follow suit. The European nations, and Japan in particular, were more optimistic about nuclear power growth and favoured reprocessing of spent fuel to recover plutonium for use in fast breeder reactors which they saw as near commercial use.

INFCE thus produced no radically new ideas or solutions to the proliferation problem and both 'sides' continued in their preferred way, even though the US assumptions about recycle and reuse of plutonium have proved far more realistic and fast breeder programmes have now largely been cancelled worldwide, including the UK in 1994. Even Japan, the country that maintains the most active interest, acknowledges that commercial development is still several decades away.

Each year around 75 tonnes of plutonium is discharged from the world's civil nuclear reactors and some 24 tonnes is separated out in reprocessing plants. The IAEA expect these rates of discharge and recovery to continue to 2010. At the end of 2000 national submissions to the Agency indicated that global stocks of separated plutonium stood at around 200 tonnes, of a similar magnitude as stocks of military plutonium. Whereas the latter were finally being reduced, however, with the US and Russia declaring 100 tonnes to be surplus to requirements, the civil stockpile will continue to grow to around 400 tonnes by the end of the decade. Most of this plutonium will be held in the UK and France, but significant amounts would accrue in several other countries.

Faced with the growing inventory of civil plutonium the nuclear industry has, over the last decade or so, aggressively pursued the use of mixed oxide (MOX) fuel in Light Water Reactors (LWRs). Comprised of a mixture of uranium and up to 10% plutonium, MOX was originally a stopgap pending the fast breeder. Now, says former AWE Aldermaston scientist Professor Frank Barnaby "The industry energetically promotes MOX as a means of dealing with the plutonium stockpile, conveniently ignoring the proliferation potential of transporting unirradiated plutonium around the world in a form in which it is easily recovered by relatively simple chemical means".

The proliferation threat posed by the plutonium stockpile is exacerbated by the fact that it requires only a small amount for a nuclear weapon - a mass of 4kgs is sufficient. Nuclear weapons designers tend to prefer plutonium rich in the isotope Pu239.  Higher numbered isotopes are more awkward to handle, so that the percentage of the most common of these, Pu240, is used to define the quality of plutonium. Weapons-grade plutonium typically contains less than 7% Pu240; fuel-grade plutonium contains 7-18% Pu240; and reactor-grade plutonium contains 18-30% Pu240. Notwithstanding these definitions, the IAEA essentially regards all mixtures of plutonium, except that containing more than 80% Pu238, as weapons-usable. Both the UK and the US have tested nuclear weapons made from fuel-grade plutonium.

For many years, however, the nuclear industry has hidden behind the smokescreen that the plutonium produced in civil nuclear reactors is unsuitable for nuclear weapons. Today that contention is no longer tenable.

In 1997 the US Department of Energy set out the most detailed information to date about the utility of reactor-grade plutonium for weapons:

"At the lowest level of sophistication, a potential proliferating state or subnational group using designs and technologies no more sophisticated than those used in first generation nuclear weapons could build a nuclear weapon from reactor-grade plutonium that would have an assured, reliable yield of one or a few kilotons (and a probable yield significantly higher than that). At the other end of the spectrum, advanced nuclear weapons states.....could produce weapons from reactor-grade plutonium having reliable explosive yields, weight and other characteristics generally comparable to those of weapons made from weapons-grade  plutonium..... Proliferating states of intermediate sophistication could produce weapons with assured yields substantially higher than the kiloton range possible with a simple, first-generation nuclear device" and

"The disadvantage of reactor-grade plutonium is not so much in the effectiveness of the nuclear weapons that can be made from it as in the increased complexity in designing, fabricating and handling them. The possibility that either a state or sub-national group would choose to use reactor-grade plutonium, should sufficient stocks of weapons-grade plutonium not be readily available, cannot be discounted. In short, reactor-grade plutonium is weapons-usable, whether by unsophisticated proliferators or by advanced nuclear weapons states. Theft of separated plutonium, whether weapons-grade or reactor-grade, would pose a grave security risk".

Moreover, the generic term 'reactor-grade' has often been used by the nuclear industry to disguise the fact that plutonium is produced in many different types of reactors with different burnups and operating histories. Even within the generally higher burnup plutonium produced by LWRs, the IAEA calculate that there is at least 100kgs of weapons-grade and around 5 tonnes of fuel-grade plutonium. Gas cooled reactors, such as UK Magnox reactors, and heavy water reactors operate at much lower burnups and produce correspondingly larger amounts of weapons-grade and fuel-grade plutonium.

Naturally, the presence of such large stocks of weapons-usable civil plutonium places considerable burdens on an already overstretched nuclear safeguards system. The IAEA's safeguards budget has been constrained for many years with member countries unwilling to provide additional resources even though the complexity and size of the workload on the Agency has increased considerably over the last decade. Nor has the dramatically changed security environment since 11 September 2001 improved matters. Despite wide recognition that those attacks require a fundamental rethinking of the threats that nuclear security systems must be designed to address and that there are highly capable terrorist groups with global reach bent on mass destruction (Osama bin Laden, for example has called the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction a religious duty and Al Q'aida has made several attempts to purchase stolen nuclear material and recruit disaffected nuclear scientists. Meanwhile, the IAEA has tracked 376 cases of trafficking in nuclear or radioactive materials between 1993-2001) the IAEA member states are still reluctant to adequately fund a strengthened safeguards system.

The presence of the civil plutonium stockpile also has a knock on effect on nuclear disarmament, casting a shadow over the Fissile Material Control Treaty (FMCT) which has been deadlocked in the Conference on Disarmament since 1993, partly because of a reluctance by the UK and others to consider the implications of such historic stockpiles. It is also questionable, for example, if China would seriously pursue nuclear disarmament measures whilst Japan is accumulating a large inventory of plutonium for a civil power programme that is decades away.

Meanwhile, in Britain, there were just under 80 tonnes of separated plutonium in store at Sellafield at the end of 2001, of which 63 tonnes was UK owned. A further 41 tonnes was contained in spent fuel awaiting reprocessing. In their 1998 Report 'Management of Separated Plutonium', The Royal Society called this stockpile "a radio-toxicity and proliferation risk".

For the last three years a diverse group of mainly British stakeholders has been looking at ways of dealing with this plutonium. Part of the British Nuclear Fuel (BNFL) National Stakeholder Dialogue, established under the auspices of the Environment Council, the Plutonium Working Group (PuWG) was set up to develop and recommend principles for BNFL's management and reduction of separated plutonium stocks. Comprising representatives from the nuclear industry, regulators, government departments, trade unions, local government and the NGO community, the PuWG's fourth and Final Report will be published at the end of February.

Urgent action is obviously required to deal with stocks of separated civil plutonium on a worldwide basis. A world where such stockpiles exist is a world that is inviting nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism. It is all the more disappointing, therefore, that whilst a former senior IAEA safeguards official can readily acknowledge that "Plutonium is indeed a material of interest for the making of nuclear devices by states or terrorist groups", many in the nuclear industry still see the closing of the nuclear fuel cycle and the development of a 'plutonium economy' as a strategic goal for the industry and that an industry spokesperson can still assert in a recent discussion that "plutonium is an asset".

* Dave Andrews has been an NGO representative on the Plutonium Working Group of the BNFL National Stakeholder Dialogue since December 2000. Their report will be available from the end of February 2003 (www.the-environment-council.org.uk).

THE MISSILE DEFENCE DEBATE GAP

By Nigel Chamberlain
BASIC

The U.K. Government has been moving inexorably towards both endorsing U.S. proposals for missile defense in principle and acceding to the Defense Department's request for the upgrading of Fylingdales radar station in practice.

Having spent almost all of 2002 prevaricating, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon announced on 9 December that he was initiating a public consultation on missile defense, but did not say how long the process would last or how it was to be conducted. The following week, just before the Parliamentary recess, the Defence Secretary informed Parliament that he had received a letter from Donald Rumsfeld formally requesting an upgrade at Fylingdales saying:

"The decision on Fylingdales upgrade is an important one, and the Government is keen for it to be informed by public and Parliamentary discussion. We shall ensure that this House has appropriate opportunities to debate the issue in the new year."

The House of Commons Defence Committee moved quickly to instigate a further inquiry into the subject, called for written submissions to be with them by 8 January (just after the recess) and announced that Geoff Hoon would be giving oral evidence on 15 January.

Somewhat unexpectedly, the Defence Secretary rose in the House on Wednesday 15 January to make a lengthy statement in support of missile defense and the upgrade of Fylingdales: "Based on the analysis and discussion which we have undertaken so far, I have therefore come to the preliminary conclusion that the answer to the U.S. request must be yes, and that we should agree to the upgrade as proposed."

While, at last, clearly and firmly nailing his Government's colors to the missile defense masthead, he emphasized that he had not yet formally responded to Donald Rumsfeld's request and said that the Defence Debate the following week would provide "a further opportunity for discussion in this House."

A little later that day, the Defence Secretary walked briskly along the corridor to Committee Room 15 and confidently addressed his Parliamentary colleagues on the Defence Committee, "Shall we get on with it then?" The opening statements from the Chair of the Committee, Bruce George, were forthright and carried more than a hint of frustration about how the Defence Secretary had dealt with this issue in terms of information sharing and the truncated process of consultation.

Having explained his, and the Ministry of Defence's reasoning behind the decision to be openly supportive, Geoff Hoon explained that there was no specific deadline he was working to but acknowledged that the United States would probably appreciate an early decision and again referred to the 'Defence in the World' debate the following week. Pressed on this by Bruce George, who was concerned that a decision may be made in advance of the Committee's initial deliberations and report (which was expected to be published about a month later), the Defence Secretary indicated he would prefer not to pre-empt the report's publication, but would give no assurances.

Several dissenting questions about missile defense were put to the Defence Secretary during the Defence Debate on 22 January, and robustly rebutted. Perhaps mindful of suggestions that the Government might make a formal response to the U.S. Administration before the end of the month, the Defence Committee Report on Missile Defence was published on 29 January. The report concluded that "the U.K. should agree to the upgrade of a U.S. early warning radar on British soil for use in the U.S. missile defence system."

The Committee also largely agreed with the U.K. Ministry of Defence's assessment of the growing threat from ballistic missile proliferation. The report acknowledges that an upgrade to Fylingdales may draw Britain into active participation in deployed missile defense systems and hoped for U.K. industrial participation and benefit. However, the report also questioned whether the overall missile defense system would work.

The report was also extremely critical of the Government's consultation process, stating: "The Committee strongly regret the way in which the issue has been handled by the Government." The Committee also noted that the Ministry of Defence "has shown no respect for either the views of those affected locally by the decision or for the arguments of those opposed to the upgrade in principle." The Committee noted that it "will also wish to follow up those matters relating to the upgrade of RAF Fylingdales which could not be addressed fully in this report."

Labour MP Malcolm Savidge told BASIC Reports that: "As the Defence Select Committee has indicated, the so-called consultation process has been derisory, and it has been abundantly obvious that the Government took a decision probably early in 2001, and is seeking to bring MD in steadily by stealth, without proper democratic debate either within the Labour Party or in Parliament, because it lacks confidence in the strength of its own arguments."

In a Parliamentary statement on February 5, Defence Secretary  Hoon said: "I am therefore replying today to the United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, conveying the Government's agreement to the U.S. request." A MoD Press Officer explained to BASIC Reports - the decision to upgrade Fylingdales does not bring the consultation to a close as this is but a small part of the wider debate on missile defence which will go on for years.

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