Source: www.kremlin.ru

The venerated first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) will expire on December 5, 2009. The importance of this treaty lies not merely in the fact that it reduced the numbers of nuclear warheads and the platforms on which they reside in both the Soviet and US arsenals (later the five weapon holding successor states of the Soviet Union and the US.) Perhaps more important were the unprecedented levels of verification and information exchange incorporated into the Treaty- a codification of President Reagan’s often quoted “trust, but verify” line.

Currently, negotiations are underway to replace the expiring START. Reports indicate that there are two major outstanding bones of contention. The first involves the issue of ground-based mobile launchers, which the Russians have but the US does not. The US would apparently like to see more control over them, but the Russians object to what they see as a unilateral concession. This may be a gambit in search of a concession on the US side. The second issue deals with the details of the allowable numbers of various weapon platforms.

There has been talk in the US Senate of extending START I six months because, even if a new treaty is concluded in the next three weeks, it won’t be ratified and enter into force until much later.

RoK Navy Ships Like Those Involved in Skirmish

The navies of North and South Korea engaged in a brief, 2-3 minute, skirmish that resulted in the North Korean ship returning to port for repair. The engagement occurred after a North Korean ship apparently ventured across a limit line off the west coast of the peninsula and then failed to heed an extended volley of warning shots. There were no South Korean casualties.

There seems to be a widespread belief that the North Koreans engaged in the provocation to send a signal in advance of President Obama’s impending  trip to Asia. Incidentally, the US recently announced that it would send a special envoy, Stephen Bosworth, to North Korea to engage in talks on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.  Of course, this rationale may or may not be accurate. For all we know, the North Korean captain and crew were attempting to carry out a “Hunt-for-Red-October-esque” defection plot. However, the hypothesis about sending a message does seem consistent with North Korean behavior historically, which tends toward the provocative and crisis bargaining.

Assuming that the North Korean action is an attempt to either send a message or influence behavior, what is the goal and how does Kim Jong Il imagine this behavior will translate into his objective? From this side of the street one might assume that the provocative action is designed to push the Obama Administration away from the negotiating table. One does not have to have a great understanding of American politics to understand that the more North Korea engages in provocation, the more it makes it impossible for President Obama to extend an olive branch. While the President may enjoy creating a more peaceful tone for global diplomacy and a large swath of the American citizenry may support him in this, he is also well aware that politically he cannot afford to respond to aggression with conversation or concession. More broadly than just the President, the Democratic Party realizes that one of its greatest Achilles’ Heels is an appearance of weakness that the American public finds unappealing in times of crisis. Of course, this assumes that Kim Jong Il has internalized the old lesson from Sun Tzu, and that he knows his enemy as well as himself. The evidence doesn’t seem to support this in that what Kim Jong Il says he wants often seems to be paired with actions that are designed to do anything but achieve his stated goals.

A second possibility is that Kim wants to negotiate but wants to avoid starting from a position in which his country is seen as the weak party in the negotiation. I suspect this is what most people refer to when they say that Kim Jong Il ordered his Navy to be provocative because of Obama’s visit. This raises the question of how provoking a naval force whose capabilities seem to be several generations ahead of yours achieves this goal. The somewhat predictable outcome of the North Korean ship returning to port in flames while the South Korean ships remain untouched does not seem to bode well for an expression of strength. However, there is an alternative to showing strength by might, and that is showing strength by way of the will to be kooky. That is, Kim Jong Il may be saying: “Look I know my country is poor and seems too weak to have leverage, but I am willing to press things to the limit so don’t discount me.”

There is another possibility, and that derives from the inability to segregate domestic from foreign messages. That is, Kim Jong Il may be trying to convince his people that the dynasty is still alive and well without having any intended message for actors abroad. I have not heard much about Kim Jong Il’s successor in all this, but internally there may be an attempt to build some gravitas for him.

I don’t know what resides in the mind of Kim Jong Il or Kim Jong Un, but it seems clear they need better advice on strategy.

Iran’s President Ahmedinejad has a lot to keep straight. When he’s inside Iran, the Holocaust didn’t happen, but when abroad it did happen (no, may have happened?) – but is irrelevant to today’s world. Is it any wonder that it would have slipped his mind to mention to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran was building another uranium enrichment facility until, once again, Tehran was caught with its hand in the cookie jar.

This does answer a question that I’ve asked many times, which is how Iran intended to get from its current position to having a nuclear weapon without the intervening event of having its offending nuclear infrastructure bombed to smithereens. There were essentially two paths available to an Iran bent on having the bomb. The first was to build yet another covert facility (which is apparently what Tehran chose to do.) The second, and this is the one I’ve never heard a convincing explanation of the process by which it could succeed, would be a “strategic breakout” of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) regime. The idea of strategic breakout is to get all your ducks in a row, and then withdraw from the NPT and kick inspectors out of the country / remove surveillance equipment. The problem with this is that it is essentially saying “we’d like to build our atomic bomb now, please leave us in peace.” While it is true that they could get a lot of their affairs in order, there would seem to be plenty of time between their announcement and the production and machining of the requisite material to allow a country to bomb the facilities into oblivion, perhaps even with a Security Council resolution in hand.  The second covert facility was the only path I’ve ever suspected was workable, though there have been proponents of a strategic breakout scenario.

This building of covert facilities only to have them discovered has got to get prohibitively expensive at some point. I’m not saying Allah is trying to send you a message, Mr. Ahmedinejad, but maybe you should consider it a hint. Allah might just find an Iran with a nuclear weapon to be as disturbing a prospect as the rest of us do.

Two news stories this morning highlight the bold independent-mindedness of a couple of South Asian scientists, and how they might yet manage to get tens of millions of people killed.

The first story involves the complete unshackling of Abdul Qadeer Khan from the last “official” vestiges of restriction on his movement. [I say "official" because he probably can't leave the country without being abducted for interrogation - there remains a great deal that is unknown about the extent of his proliferation network and who it gave what.] Better known in the West as A.Q. Khan, this Pakistani national hero is responsible for spreading the technology and knowledge necessary to build nuclear bombs to anyone willing and able to pay. Among most well-known customers are / were Iran, North Korea, and Libya. While Libya has since verifiably disarmed of Weapons of Mass Destruction and the technologies used to produce them and is in such good stead that they are now being handed back their brutal terrorists from decades past, Iran and North Korea are probably both much closer to a working nuclear weapon than they would have been without the “Johnny Appleseed of Nuclear Weapons”, Khan. While Islamists love to portray Khan as a great equilizer who has helped spread nuclear weapons technology in the Islamic world, they forget that North Korea, whose position on religion is that it is the opiate of the masses and should either be brutally crushed or usurped by the party, was also a customer. This makes Khan more of a greedy bastard who is willing to put the whole world in peril to make some cash than any kind of hero to Islam.

The other story involves Indian scientist, K Santhanam, who claims that his country’s 1998 test of a thermonuclear device was actually a dud. Santhanam goes on to state that because of this unexpectedly low yeild, that India needs to conduct further testing in order to have a reliable nuclear deterrent. The Indian government and high-ranking military officers have dismissed this suggestion. Why might a citizen of India shout from the roof-tops that his country’s strategic forces are defective? [If you were worried that a criminal had entered your house, would you shout out that you didn't have a gun?] A prevailing theory is that not only do Santhanam and a few others want more tests to be conducted, they want to put the kibosh on any momentum toward India’s signing and ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The CTBT will have a profound impact on nonproliferation because members that don’t have nuclear weapons won’t be able to develop any sophisticated weapons while complying with the treaty, and states that do have nuclear weapons will not be able to build new models.

Love it, hate it, or satire it hilariously (ala. Dr. Strangelove), it is hard to argue that there isn’t a satisfying elegance to the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). By satisfying, I mean that there is a clearly defined logic that results in unambiguous policy prescriptions. If two countries each have the “absolute weapon” [i.e. weaponized thermonuclear warheads], and can retain the ability to blow the hell out of each other, they won’t go to war. It is as simple as that. It is true that the policy prescriptions often sound completely daft at worst or faintly fortune-cookie-esque at best, as in: “defending yourself increases your danger”, or “targeting cities is less belligerent than targeting missile silos.” 

If you take a positive view of MAD, and turn the words around to “increases your danger, defending yourself does”, it sounds sage – like something Yoda might say. However, for those opposed to MAD,  it sounds like the kind of thing you might hear a crazy homeless person mumble to themselves as they push their shopping cart down the street, just like “I get drunk to think clearly”, “I built this city from pudding and matchsticks”, or “buying up mortgage-back securities,…how could I lose?” However, the Zen koan-like quality of the policy prescriptions aside, it is a pleasant rarity to not have counter-veiling forces pulling policy in multiple directions. ”Cash for clunkers” results in a lot of energy and material being expended on vehicles that might not otherwise be built, and may result in people going through more vehicles than they otherwise would (i.e. the environmental laudableness of the program is not as patently clear as it first seems.)  Increasing minimum wages will, under most conditions, increase unemployment. Subsidizing farmers results in more grain production and depressed grain prices (exacerbating the condition that led to the policy in the first place.) In short, the realm of policy-making is rife with catch-22s, but MAD seems, ironically, straight forward.

 The challenge before us is to find an equally compelling logic of strategic stability in a world disarmed of nuclear weapons. It may require taking the most brilliant people in the country and shipping them off to someplace like Santa Monica for a few years (just like the formation of RAND after Word War II, whose eminent scholars were largely responsible for MAD), but I’m confident there is a way.

India’s first indigenously-built nuclear reactor-propelled submarine today begins a two year shake-down that, if successful, will result in its addition to the fleet of the Indian Navy. It is interesting to consider the potential strategic ramifications of the sub. It should be noted that this is not India’s first submarine (it has purchased from other countries in the past – notably Russia, who was credited in assisting in this project as well) and that, as mentioned, it’s launch ceremony is not synonymous with it entering service because it is still untried.

In general, nuclear submarines have a mixed influence on strategic stability. A  sub’s ability to hide beneath the seas and to operate there exceptionally quietly for extended periods, means that it is a weapons platform whose survivability is high. This is consistent with deterrence theory. A state needs survivable weapons so that the enemy knows that massive retaliation to an attack is imminent, and that there is no use in trying to swamp an enemy’s deterrent capability.

On the other hand, submarines make the opponent exceedingly concerned about the sub owner’s intentions. Because a sub can pop up off-shore and launch along varying azimuths relatively close and without warning, there is a fear that they will be used to eliminate the enemy’s retaliatory capability as part of a plan to negate the opposition’s deterrent. Both China and Pakistan have small arsenals, and are, therefore, theoretically vulnerable to having their deterrent destroyed by a first strike. In reality China’s deterrent is apparently heavily fortified by being built into a mountain and is not so tiny as to make an opponent confident about knocking it out.

It should be noted that Prime Minister Singh emphasized during the launch speach that India did not have agressive intentions with the new weapon system . Of course, talk is cheap, and whether Pakistan and China believe the rhetoric will be determined by more than word choice. It will be interesting to see what effect, if any, the new system has on regional stability.

Yesterday the New York Timesreported that the Obama administration had judged that there was a high likelihood that the North Korean freighter, Kang Nam, was probably just leading the US on a wild goose chase. In other words, that the rusty ship probably had no illicit cargo onboard, and was hoping that it could draw the US or one of America’s allies into the embarrasing position of searching the boat only to find no booty. (See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/world/asia/01sanger.html?hp)

The US Navy has been tracking and monitoring the ship’s movements since it left North Korean waters, and it had earlier been speculated that the ship might contain a small arms shipment for Burma. The question has been whether UN Security Council Resolution 1874 that encourages states to board and search North Korean vessels suspected of violating the arms export embargo would be put to the test. The DPRK had said it would consider such a search a violation of its sovereignty, and an act of war.  (See: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2009/sc9679.doc.htm)

The latest news seems to be that the Kang Nam has turned around, and, for the moment, is headed back in the direction of North Korea. (See: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-tc-nw-briefs-0630-07014jul01,0,3444662.story)

There has been speculation about the rationale for making such a jaunt, but it seems to be a quite beneficial test for the DPRK. I think the little vessel’s voyage is disconcerting. If North Korea wants to ship missiles in order to earn some funds, one of the few ways it is able to, then it would not send those missiles out on the first voyage. Rather, conducting a test is a win – win for the Kim’s. If they don’t get searched, they gain confidence that they won’t be searched in the future – as long as the level of intelligence remains the same. If they had been boarded, they would have also made it hard for the US to repeat the venture in the future without a much higher standard of intelligence. It is true that they would have had to deal with the fact that they had said such a search would be an act of war, but since the Korean War is not legally over, the Kim’s could worm their way out of that threat at low-cost manner.  The question of the day is what happens if the next time the Kang Nam goes out (or the third time or the sixth time) it does have missiles on it. We can’t count on having better information, so at best there is the lucky guess possibility. For those who want to dismiss the Kim dynasty leaders as irrational and incompetent (and I, myself, have certainly had trouble accounting for some behaviors with motives other than childishness or narcissism), consider the masterstroke of this gambit.

In the past I have always found the Central News Agency of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) (see: http://www.kcna.co.jp/index-e.htm) to be less than compelling and rarely worthy of examination. The stories are generally about how such-and-such Sub-Saharan African dictator sent congratulations to Kim Jong Il, or how the North Korean People wished to pay their respects to such-and-such nation. In essence, it was not only propaganda, but propaganda of the dullest and most mundane sort imaginable.

However, in recent weeks it is becoming increasingly worthwhile to visit the Agency’s site. Oh, it is still wild propaganda, but it is entertaining propaganda. Consider some of the current headlines:

“US Wild Ambition to Dominate Whole of Korea Can Never Come True”

“US Termed Chief Culprit of Nuclear Proliferation”

“Japanese Reactionaries Urged to Stop Their Rash Acts”

This last one is particularly amusing. It essentially rebukes elements inside Japan who would like that country to develop nuclear weapons. The irony is, of course, that the only way the Japanese will be sufficiently motivated to make major changes in their law as required to build a nuclear arsenal is in response to the continued provocations of their nutty newly nuclear neighbor who is constantly shooting missile tests across their bow lately.

Today the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) passed sanctions against North Korea consisting primarily of a complete arms export embargo and a partial arms import embargo. The big news seems to be China’s support for these efforts. While Chinese diplomats were careful to state that inspections must be carried out in accordance with international law, and, therefore, the sanctions did not equate to open season on DPRK shipping, they did go along with the provisions as stipulated. The Chinese don’t want a nuclear armed Japan any more than the North Koreans do. The difference is that the Chinese recognize that the way to avoid a Japan with nuclear weapons is a sane and stable North Korea.

Besides the long-range missile test that was earlier estimated would take place early next week, it will be interesting to see of what the North Korean response consists. As I have mentioned before, when you go as provocative as nuclear weapons tests, it is hard to up the ante without risking war. While the North Korean rhetoric is harsh, it is difficult to imagine what North Korea can do besides the same old bag of tricks it has been playing.

It may be true that there isn’t any reason to expect that Iran’s position on its fuel cycle facility policy will change  regardless of who wins tomorrow’s election. After all, the Ayatollah Khamenei is the Supreme Leader, and does dictate policy on issues at that strategic a level. However, with Mr. Mousavi holding his own, we may yet see what can happen without the Howard Stern of heads of state in the Presidency of Iran.

It may, in fact, be a test case for the role of harsh rhetoric in international diplomacy. Are acrimonious words just for the benefit of domestic consumption and devoid of any influence on foreign policy outcomes. Or, on the other hand, can less vitriol translate into gains at the negotiating table? With both a US and Iranian leadership that is less prone to engage in harsh language, will we see progress toward reduction of the threat or not?

Babcock and Wilcox (B&W) have announced plans to sell a scalable modular reactor called mPower(TM) that would come in sizes as small as 125 MegaWatt (electrical) [MW(e)]. (See:  www.babcock.com/products/modular_nuclear/) This is not the first we have heard of small nuclear power plants with long (5 year) fueling cycles. For well over a decade it has been argued that economies of scale for nuclear power plants are a myth, and that there are benefits to be had by building smaller plants. To clarify, the argument is that, while multiple units per site may be beneficial, the monstrous 1000+MW(e) plants do not result in lower average costs of construction than do smaller plants. While many studies seem to bear this out, it seems clear that utilities globally have not bought into the argument. One need only look at the plants being constructed to see that, except for Pakistan, these units tend to be on the order of 1000MW(e). B&W seem to be banking that they can gain purchase with an idea that has not proved immensely popular in the past, but their approach of combining the strengths of existing approaches to nuclear power with the small modular design may, in deed, give them an edge over some past plant ideas.

The arguments in favor of such small reactors are several. Smaller reactors mean that a utility will be taking a smaller amount of its base-load power off-line each time refueling takes place.  The modular design is anticipated to allow one to cut delays and the capital costs incurred in building power plants, though the fact of this will remain to be seen. Furthermore, such reactors could be used on smaller grids. There are safety gains resulting from having the containment area underground, and from passive safety systems that are also seen on other commercial designs of this generation. (Passive safety uses things like gravity-fed and convection-operated systems to achieve emergency cooling- rather than pumps and other mechanical devices. This reduces the amount that can go wrong and the amount of complexity in the system.) If these advantages prove to be true to a sufficient degree, they might change the fate of nuclear power.

The term “nuclear renaissance” has been bandied about a lot in recent years. The presumption is that we are on the leading edge of a massive world-wide expansion of nuclear power. As the argument goes, as costs and /or regulatory constraints are put on carbon emissions (e.g. the cap and trade system being worked on in the US), nuclear power, whose operation does not result in greenhouse gas production, will be a big winner. However, it remains unclear to what degree an expansion of nuclear power will include either nascent nuclear power generating countries, or, for that matter, the US. 

A review of the list of states currently constructing nuclear power shows that, except for Iran, all of the countries with plants under construction have a history with nuclear power plants. The bulk of construction is being carried out in large emerging market economies. 26 of the 45 plants being built are in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) countries, and other large emerging markets including Taiwan, Argentina, and the Republic of Korea account for eight more of the new plants. Of those building plants, many (e.g. Finland and Iran, though for very different reasons)  are experiencing major problems with delays and cost-overruns.  

Delays and cost-overruns are at the heart of the apparent death and only slow recovery (if it proves to be the case) of nuclear power. The appeal of nuclear power goes like this: While the cost of building nuclear power plants is enormous, the cost of running it afterwords (fuel and operations costs) compared to fossil fuel plants are quite low. Therefore, you can put some of that high revenue relative to cost into paying back your loans, and eventually, once the debt has been paid off, nuclear becomes the utility’s cheapest (and, therefore, most profitable) energy source.

There are several potential flies in the ointment with respect to the dream of nuclear power. First, delays translate into postponement of the date at which you are beginning earn a return on your investment with which to pay back loans. Readers from Georgia will be familiar with the controversial end run around this problem that utilities have made by successfully lobbying to get rate hikes in place that allow them to build a pool of funds with which to pay off debt before the plant begins to operate. Such schemes are hugely controversial for many reasons, including that they reduce the incentive to stay on schedule, current power customers subsidize future customers, and they raise a lot of questions about what happens if the plants don’t come on line. Second, cost-overruns also have the effect of increasing the capital costs. Finally, there is always risk that due to regulatory, legal, or political reasons, there will never be a return on investment. The ill-fated Long Island Lighting Company experienced this first-hand when they fully-constructed the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant, but it never earned revenues.  Not only were massive construction costs incurred in building Shoreham, but there were also not-inconsequential costs of decommissioning, all of which had to be paid for from sources other than earned plant revenue.

Suffice it to say, a lot of nuclear energy’s woes revolve around the shear scale both with respect to finance as well as plant size. There are several nuclear aspirant countries that could not go nuclear even if they could manage to secure a few billion dollars in loans because their electrical grid or grids are not large enough to support even the smallest of the commercially available reactor designs now sold. Typical nuclear power plants are in the area of 1000+ MW(e) per unit. If that one unit makes up more than ten percent of the installed capacity on a grid, it is not likely to be feasible.

The B&W claims indicate that it would mitigate both the cost / finance difficulties and the grid size limitation issues. How the problem of grid size limitations are affected is elementary, but the mechanism by which the financial challenges are reduced is less intuitive. The idea is that the modular design would mean that the reactors could be factory-constructed and rail-shipped to  the plant location. Of course, the reactors themselves are only a portion of the infrastructure that must be build, so I’m not certain of the degree of savings to be had. That is, the cooling system, turbine housing, and systems maintain the pressure in the system are all built on site. (Of course, many of these systems are very similar to fossil fuel plants.) If it is true that you can bring the units on-line more quickly, and that they can be operated while construction is being done on the others, this could be a significant benefit. It would speed the time to receipt of revenues and the capacity to pay back loans, and would reduce the value of interest to be paid. Of course, if more utilities are successful in achieving Georgia Power’s sweet-heart deal (and it is not certain that many US utilities will build nuclear power plants if they have to shoulder a bigger portion of the risk) then there may be little incentive to reduce delays or cost-overruns.