Nuclear Policy News – April 13, 2020

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Top News

Navy targets sub-launched hypersonic test by mid 2020s
Breaking Defense

North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site: personnel movement continues throughout the site
38 North

OPINION: What the United States loses by quitting the Open Skies treaty, in one chart
Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

United States

NNSA production sites hunker down amid COVID-19 crisis; no workforce-wide testing
Defense Daily4/10/20
All but one of the main Department of Energy nuclear weapons production sites have now hunkered down into minimum mission-critical operations.

Navy targets sub-launched hypersonic test by mid 2020s
Breaking Defense4/10/20
For the rest of this year, the Navy is doubling down on its boosters, conducting a series of static fire tests to collect data before another test firing.

OPINION: What the United States loses by quitting the Open Skies treaty, in one chart
Bulletin of Atomic ScientistsThomas Gaulkin
4/13/20
Reports emerged this week that the White House may be moving “soon” on withdrawing from the Open Skies treaty, a nearly two-decade-old agreement that allows 34 countries to fly and share reconnaissance missions over each other to promote military cooperation and transparency.

East Asia

North Korea’s Punggye-ri nuclear test site: personnel movement continues throughout the site
38 North4/10/20
Commercial satellite imagery of North Korea’s Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site shows personnel movement throughout the complex, including around the previously abandoned East Portal, where some additional unknown activity has been evident.

‘Cosplay democracy’: North Korea’s assembly holds rare meeting
Al Jazeera4/10/20
The Supreme People’s Assembly meets as the North steps up missile tests and nuclear talks with US remain stalled.

ANALYSIS: Expect a surge in North Korean missile tests, and of greater range
Defense NewsShea Cotton
4/12/20
North Korea is signaling this will be its busiest year of missile testing yet. In March, the regime conducted nine tests, the most in a single month recorded in our database.

Middle East

Iran defies EU, declaring continued nuclear uranium enrichment
Jerusalem Post4/11/20
The Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee declared that Tehran will move forward with its uranium enrichment process, triggering sharp criticism from the US State Department on Thursday.

Russia and Europe

OPINION: We spend billions on nuclear weapons. Let’s fund the NHS instead
The GuardianBruce Kent
4/10/20
This Covid-19 crisis focuses our minds on where priorities really lie; the NHS will undoubtedly emerge as a frontrunner.

Multilateral Arms Control

OPINION: Extend New START — The world can’t afford a U.S.-Russia nuclear arms race too
Just SecurityKingston Reif, Shannon Bugos
4/10/20
The unrelenting and rapid spread of the novel coronavirus underscores the cost of neglect and indecision by the Trump administration in the face of serious threats to U.S. and global security.

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