Nuclear Policy News – September 12, 2018

FacebookTwitterLinkedInEmailCopy Link
Top News

Putin says North Korea doing a lot to disarm but Washington not responding
Reuters

Nuclear weapons budget gets boost in US spending bill
Defense News

NTI Nuclear Security Index
Nuclear Threat Initiative

East Asia

Kim’s Peace Push Gives Trump Leverage to Finally Win Concessions
Bloomberg9/11/2018
Three months after U.S. President Donald Trump’s historic handshake with Kim Jong Un, the North Korean leader is holding up talks over one consequential demand: a declaration ending the Korean War.

Middle East

Iran Deal Advocate Says EU Will Have to Bend to U.S. Sanctions
Bloomberg9/12/2018
Europe will have no choice but to comply with U.S. sanctions on Iran, according to Javier Solana, a former NATO secretary general and early advocate of the nuclear deal abandoned by Donald Trump.

Russia/FSU/Europe

Putin says North Korea doing a lot to disarm but Washington not responding
Reuters9/12/2018
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that North Korea was taking a lot of steps toward denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula but Washington was not responding and was making endless demands for full disarmament instead.

U.S. Nuclear Policy

Nuclear weapons budget gets boost in US spending bill
Defense News9/11/2018
Congress could, in the coming days, finalize a nuclear weapons budget that adds $458 million in 2019 over last year, after a conference committee released a compromise funding plan on Monday.

Opinion and Analysis

Escalation Dominance in America’s Oldest New Nuclear Strategy
War on the RocksAaron Miles
9/12/2018
While working deterrence policy under the Obama and Trump administrations, I never encountered a belief that there is any way to guarantee that escalation will remain limited if a conflict goes nuclear. Within the U.S. defense establishment, there is consistent understanding that even limited nuclear use between capable adversaries would bring grave risk of further escalation. Fortunately, planners and policymakers don’t conclude as a result that uncontrolled escalation is certain and that there is no point trying to limit the consequences if that awful day ever comes. In any nuclear conflict, there is a chance that efforts to limit escalation will succeed, and a chance that they will fail. Escalation control strategies reduce the likelihood of the worst possible outcomes if deterrence fails. Such strategies are also necessary to underwrite the credibility of efforts to deter conflict in the first place.

Special Interest

NTI Nuclear Security Index
Nuclear Threat Initiative9/5/2018
Full Report – Global nuclear security is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain. Today’s threats are dynamic. The need for action is clear. The NTI Index helps spark international discussion about priorities to strengthen security and encourages governments to act.

Important Nuclear Security Progress Now in Jeopardy, According to 2018 NTI Index
Nuclear Threat Initiative9/5/2018
After years of progress on nuclear security, the fourth edition of the NTI Nuclear Security Index finds that the steps countries have taken to reduce the threat of catastrophic nuclear terrorism are jeopardized by a deterioration of political stability and governance, an increase in corruption, and the expanding presence of terrorist groups around the world. The 2018 NTI Index also finds that many countries remain poorly prepared to defend against rapidly expanding and evolving cyber threats to nuclear facilities.

FacebookTwitterLinkedInEmailCopy Link