The assignments are finished, the sickness is fading, so its time to get back to some (semi)substantial blogging. The NPT PrepCom which i mentioned a while ago wrapped up last week, and NGO reaching critial will has a great selection of documents and reports from the meeting.

The documents are relatively bland, and most of them mention the same unfulfilled treaties and the additional protocol, all look to Iran/North Korea as major threats to the regime, and call for more disarmament by the NWS. But a few significant issues did come up.

I'll start off with the Australian delegation, and the first thing that strikes you is the similarity with last years conference papers. A significant difference this year was that 2 NGO representatives made up part of the official Australian delegation. Definitely something to be proud of, and one of them was from MAPW. The interesting thing about this year was that they raised the idea of a nuclear weapons convention. The chair's factual summary also highlighted this. This is pretty new stuff, the idea of the NWC is an NGO idea floated around for a while. ICAN has a pretty detailed draft convention here. Its interesting stuff, and worth looking at and working towards. 

The final day of the conference saw the P5 finally come out with a joint statement, unlike in past years. Tensions between the states, and of course their virtual disregard for their NPT obligations, means the statement put the emphasis largely on non-nuclear weapons states compliance with the treaty. they also failed to mention the Comprehensive Test ban Treaty (CTBT) which is yet to be fully ratified by the US and China. The language is also differs significantly with other states, reflecting the P5s use of the treaty as an instrument of policy rather than something they themselves are actually bound by. Many states at the meeting expressed concern over the disarmament clause, and the seemingly opposite moves that some NWS are making in developing new nuclear weapon systems, and retaining nuclear weapons as a vital part of defence planning.

An interesting issue is that of nuclear weapons free zones (NWFZ) and in particular the middle east. The vast majority of states were quite ready to criticise Iran and North Korea, as they should, and make empty calls for the realisation of the 1995 resolution on a NWFZ in the Middle East. However, the elephant in the room was Israel. The only state in the middle east to have actually acquired nuclear weapons, and it was never actually named. The Iranian delegation let the cat out of the bag in this statement, 

"[the] Israeli clandestine nuclear program [is], the main obstacle to NWFZ in the region"
...
"Regrettably the trend of support and assistance of certain western countries to [the] Israeli nuclear weapon program has reached such a horrendous and indeed ridiculous state that the Israeli regime, a non-party to the NPT, whose nuclear arsenal coupled with its expansionst, repressive and state-terror policies and behavious is repeatedly recognised as the single most serious threat to regional and international peace and security, finds the audacity to cry wolf about [the] peaceful nuclear program of the NPT state parties. The agressive nature of that regime and the unequivocal support of the United States to it has let this regime belive that the law of the jungle rules the world.

Unfortunately, in the current session we witnessed that the attack of a non-party to the NPT on Syria a state Party to the treaty not only was not condemned by some western countries but also they turned their criticism to a non-nuclear weapon state who by joining the NPT has legally foregone [the] nuclear option. The position of this group of countries would send a wrong message that it is ok for some to have nuclear weapons and stay outside of the NPT, while others who are state parties to the treaty should be targeted"

Wow! I hope that shook things up a little. Even if it is left to Iran to say it, a state that has violated the NPT itself, its still pretty awesome to hear.  

I feel like this blog is coming across a bit like a spokesman for the Iranian foreign minister, and I really dont want to do that, but alot of the stuff written here should be said.

NTI reported yesterday (US) that director of the CIA Mike Hayden has questioned last years NIE and has personally concluded that Iran does in fact have a weaponisation program.

"...when asked whether he personally believed Iran was developing nuclear weapons, he replied “Yes.”

"You know, this is not court of law stuff … in terms of beyond all reasonable doubt,” he said. “This is Mike Hayden looking at the body of evidence.”

But, as the report notes...

"He cited Iran’s behavior as suggestive of a nuclear weapon intention rather than any specific evidence."

Does that seem a little familiar? The report makes the point that suspicious behaviour as evidence was what led us to war with Iraq five years ago. But many other top US officials are making similar claims, and disputing the NIE, with little to no evidence. I dont claim that any NIE can be a flawless document, but the attacks do have the hint of political motivation. Dick Cheney has claimed Iran is intent on weapons grade enrichment, Bush has claimed that Iran is pushing for the bomb, and even the man who authored the report, National Intelligence Director Mike McConnel, has said he "...would change a few things."

Now, I havent seen what they've seen. But there does seem to be little real evidence pointing towards any Iranian weaponisation program. Two major documents on Iran's nuclear program, the latest IAEA report and the NIE, put forward litle confidence that Iran currently  has a weapons program, and at worst one existed until 2003. 

The weaponisation issue now is where any future Iranian bomb program is going to come from. Diversion of nuclear material under the guise of the civil program would be near impossible under the IAEA and the amount of attention Iran is recieving, so any program now must be an undeclared facility. This is where the focus should be

We also have to remember that Iran did break its safeguards agreement with the IAEA, and still refuses to stop its enrichment program after calls (and sanctions) from the UN to do so. 

However, this does not mean we should base policy on suspicions. Dubious suspicions have already led us to one bad conclusion, we cant let it lead us to another.

162. "Labor considers that the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile delivery systems is one of the most serious international security issues confronting the world today. Labor considers effective efforts to combat these developments require sustained multilateral, diplomatic and defence cooperation and action.

163. Labor is concerned that as a unilateral response to the problem of ballistic missile proliferation, national missile defence is disproportionate, technically questionable, costly and likely to be counterproductive. It also has the potential to undermine non-proliferation and derail world progress towards nuclear disarmament. Labor also notes that national missile defence would impact on the security situation in the Asia Pacific region, and that this could have serious consequences for Australia's strategic circumstances and national security.

164. Labor is committed to ensuring that all efforts are made to protect ADF personnel deployed on operations. Labor supports the development of capability for in-theatre defence of ADF personnel and key strategic interests from ballistic missile attack."

The first two points make perfect sense and are a completely rational policy to follow. (clearly the third point is stupid, as you cant just ignore the strategic implications of BMD and consider it an 'in theatre' instrument).

BUT, winning government has the strange ability to push previously well thought and reasoned policy out the window. Now, The Age reports that Foreign Minister Stephen Smith (Is he really the best they could find?) is considering some Australian role in the US project. 

The first few questions would be, what sort of role?

But, then you would have to ask why? Smith argued in a previous Age article that his opposition to Missile Defence was based on purely technical grounds. But what has really changed? And how have the arguements of the ALPs national conference less than a year ago changed?

North Asian BMD is supposedly meant to counter a missile threat from North Korea. First of all, Pyongyang probably doesnt really have the capability to hit any Australian territories (and why would they waste scarce resources in hitting Darwin anyway?) Secondly, any North Korean threat would not need Australian involvement, as a couple of ships in the Sea of Japan could probably take care of it. Thirdly, it is really expensive for very little reward (besides pleasing the US). Fourthly, the technology is not entirely certain or reliable, and many simple measures (such as decoys) could theoretically evade such a system. 

And finally, we return to the strategic concerns hinted to in the 2007 conference. They certainly havent changed, and Missile defence, in Asia and Europe, is still one of the most destabilising factors in international politics and arms control today. 

Why should Australia risk worsening strategic stability and the relationship with China (the more likely target of Asian BMD) for a system that we arent needed for, is expensive, and probably wont even work?

The US House Appropriations Committee has rejected funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program. 

The committee "prohibits the development of a reliable replacement warhead until the President develops a strategic nuclear weapons plan to guide transformation and downsizing of the stockpile and nuclear weapons complex."

So basically they're saying you cant develop new nukes without a new nuclear posture, which makes sense. The US nuclear weapons stockpile is still based around the cold war arms race model, with warheads numbering in their thousands. While it is true that the stockpile has declined to lower than that during the Eisenhower Administration in the fifties, Ike's stockpile was a casual 19,000 when he left office so that isnt really a gear benchmark to work from. The nature of the stockpile, along with its intended purpose, needs to change.

Congress made the decision based on the assumpton that if you want to build more nukes, you need to have a good reason for doing it. They seem to think that the nuclear strategists who were pushing for RRW didnt really know what they needed it for, but they do, they just dont want to tell us. This also doesnt mean that RRW is dead and buried, we still have the closely related UK's 'High surety warhead' program that US labs will most likely share info with. We also have to remember that the CMR replacement project at Los Alamos is still going with about $95.5 million worth of funding. 

RRW, or at least a hybrid version, will probably live again.  

I was overjoyed yet slightly saddened today to learn that my once trusted lecturer Tony Jarvis had lied to me, and the rest of 'States Nations and Security' in 2006, on the existence of so calle 'suitcase bombs'. Whereas Jarvis had accepted the idea of suitcase sized bombs being smuggled around the world, with more than 50 presumably Russian made bombs unaccounted for, it seem that the story is false. 

While such bombs technically are possible, they dont seem all that likely due to the problems of technical difficulty, cost, and durability. A nuclear weapon in such a small package would not last very long, and is not all that efficient.

The story is interesting though, because both the US and the USSR had at various points toyed with the idea of miniature nukes, such as the W-54 Davey Crockett warhead, which weighed around 23kgs and could produce a blast up 1Kt. Compared to other nukes that isnt that big, but compared to conventional explosives in an urban setting it could actually be quite devastating.


A mock-up of the hypothetical suitcase bomb.

However, despite the very low threat of any such bomb actually being used, policymakers ave found it a useful story to hold on to, for obvious reasons. Such stories have given the impetus to intensify border and other security measures, although detecting such weapons is harder than first imagined. While a radiation detector sounds like a great idea, the US Homeland Security Department has spent over $1 billion on detectors that cant distinguish between benign sources of radiation such as kitty litter, and highly enriched uranium.

The real threat of nuclear weapons lies primarily in the hands of the states who possess them and are continuing to develop new weapons and plans for using them, not small scale terrorist groups that many fear. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) recently got its hands on a 2003 US nuclear strategy documents that shows plans for nuclear strikes against states such as Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Libya. These potential weapons proliferators are not even nuclear weapons states, and this nuclear war planning has expanded the scope for nuclear strikes from countering other nuclear states to destruction of states that are not a real threat to the US.  

This widening of the scope for the use for nuclear weapons from the 'ultimate insurance policy' to just eliminating threats to regional hegemony, and thus making their use more likely, is far more dangerous than any suitcase bomb could ever be.