TOP NEWS House Armed Services Committee Members Show Alarmingly Poor Knowledge on Nuclear Weapons Forbes – Hans Kristensen Out of The Hanoi Summit’s Ashes, North Korea Experts Propose A New Strategy: Contain The Threat, Encourage Change Washington Post James Schlesinger’s Lifelong Creed of Public Service and the Schlesinger Doctrine National Institute for Public Policy – Keith Payne Asia & Pacific Out of The Hanoi Summit’s Ashes, North Korea Experts Propose A New Strategy: Contain The Threat, Encourage Change Washington Post3/7/2019 North Korea is not about to surrender its nuclear weapons, because the regime considers them essential to its survival. You cannot starve North Korean leader Kim Jong Un into submission, and sanctions will only make him more hostile and unpredictable. Those views, shared by many North Korea experts, are reflected in a new Federation of American Scientists report released Thursday. After No-Deal Hanoi Summit, One Area of Progress: North Korea’s Nuclear Program Wall Street Journal3/6/2019 “Unfortunately, the opportunity to dramatically curtail fissile materials production was lost by walking away,” said Siegfried Hecker, a Stanford University nuclear scientist who has visited North Korea’s main nuclear complex at Yongbyon. Without a deal to halt or cap production, Pyongyang will likely increase production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium, as well as missiles, said Mr. Hecker. Meet America’s Secret Weapon to Kill China’s ‘Underwater’ Nuclear Weapons National Interest3/6/2019 The increasing global reach of Chinese nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines, armed with JL-2 weapons reportedly able to hit parts of the US, continues to inspire an ongoing Navy effort to accelerate production of attack submarines, prepare long-dwell drones for deployment to the Pacific and continue acquisition of torpedo-armed sub-hunting planes such as the P-8/A Poseidon. US Nuclear Policy A Former US Missile-Launch Officer Says Trump’s Nuclear Policy Could Get Us All Killed Quartz3/6/2019 Drastically reducing America’s nuclear arsenal will strengthen US national security, nonproliferation expert Bruce Blair, a former US Air Force nuclear launch officer, told Congress today (March 6). Russia/Europe/FSU EU Plans to Set Up Nuclear Security Center in Iran, Says Russian Envoy TASS Russian News Agency3/6/2019 The European Union plans to establish a nuclear security center in Iran, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the Vienna-based international organizations Mikhail Ulyanov said following a meeting of the Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for Iran’s nuclear program, which involved Iran and five international mediators (Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, France and China). South Asia India and Pakistan on the Brink: A Nuclear Nightmare in Southeast Asia National Interest3/6/2019 With last week’s U.S.-North Korea summit in Hanoi, Congressional Democrats’ revolt against President Donald Trump’s state of emergency and Michael Cohen’s testimony before the House Oversight Committee; you may have missed the news that the Indian Air Force launched airstrikes against targets in Pakistan. Report: India, Russia Sign $3 Billion Nuclear Attack Submarine Deal The Diplomat3/7/2019 India and Russia have signed an intergovernmental agreement for a 10-year lease of a Russian nuclear-powered attack submarine (SSN), according to Indian media reports. Opinion and Analysis House Armed Services Committee Members Show Alarmingly Poor Knowledge on Nuclear Weapons Forbes – Hans Kristensen3/6/2019 The House Armed Services Committee held a long-awaited hearing Wednesday on U.S. nuclear policy and posture. But the hearing soon descended into partisan posturing, cheerleading of panelist responses, and surprisingly uninformed questions that demonstrated a worrisome lack of basic knowledge about nuclear forces. Not good for a committee that is supposed to oversee billions of dollars of nuclear weapons programs. James Schlesinger’s Lifelong Creed of Public Service and the Schlesinger Doctrine National Institute for Public Policy – Keith Payne3/6/2019 The Schlesinger Doctrine advanced much of what was right about U.S. nuclear deterrence policy during the Cold War, and remains so today. Indeed, Secretary Schlesinger articulated the basic parameters of U.S. nuclear deterrence policy that contributed to the peaceful ending of the Cold War and have remained constant across Republican and Democratic administrations to the present. It is hard to conceive of a more significant defense policy legacy. Special Interest Report on the International Study Group on North Korea Policy Federation of American Scientists – Adam Mount & Andrea Berger3/7/2019 From the report: “The unrealistic goal of rapidly dismantling the North Korean nuclear arsenal has consumed the military, economic, and diplomatic policies of the United States and its allies. However, an exclusive pursuit of disarmament will come at the cost efforts to manage other critical interests, including the risks of conventional war, ballistic missile proliferation, contagion of infectious disease, and the continued suffering and repression of the North Korean people.”