Newsletter des Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
Nuclear Policy News – September 6, 2017
Good morning,
Here is the Nuclear Policy News for September 6, 2017. If others in your community are interested in the NPN, please encourage them to join our mailing list.
Bert Thompson
Research Intern | Project on Nuclear Issues
CSIS | Center for Strategic and International Studies
1616 Rhode Island Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036
Nuclear Policy News – September 6, 2017
EAST ASIA
China Carefully Monitors for Radiation Following North Korean Nuclear Test
The Diplomat
9/6/17
[China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection] has carried out emergency monitoring and analysis of artificial radioactive nuclide samples collected in all four provinces — Jilin, Heilongjiang, Liaoning, and Shandong — surrounding North Korea.
Satellite Images of North Korea Show Landslides at Nuclear Test Site
The New York Times
9/5/17
Analysts peering at satellite images of North Korea after the latest nuclear test reported Tuesday that they had spotted many landslides and wide disturbances at the country’s test site, in the North’s mountainous wilds.
US Intelligence: North Korea’s Sixth Nuclear Test Was a 140 Kiloton ‘Advanced Nuclear’ Device
The Diplomat
9/6/17
North Korea’s sixth nuclear test on Sunday released 140 kilotons of TNT equivalent, according to a new U.S. intelligence assessment. The margin of error on the early U.S. assessment is not known and the specific explosive yield figure may be revised, but the U.S. intelligence community assesses this device to have been several times more powerful than North Korea’s previously most powerful nuclear test in September 2016.
Additional THAAD launchers to be deployed Thursday: villagers
Yonhap News Agency
9/6/17
http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/news/2017/09/06/9/0200000000AEN20170906009351315F.html
The U.S. military will deploy additional missile interceptor launchers to its base in a southern town early Thursday despite strong opposition from residents and activists, according to local villagers.
MIDDLE EAST
Haley: Nuke deal allows Iran to become new North Korea
Al-Monitor
9/5/17
Washington’s ambassador to the United Nations warned Tuesday that, if left unchanged, the Iran nuclear deal could allow Tehran to pose the same kind of missile threat to US cities as North Korea.
Haley: Leaving Iran nuclear deal is ‘tempting’
The Hill
9/5/17
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Tuesday laid out an argument in a speech Tuesday for President Trump to potentially declare Iran in violation of the nuclear deal later this year.
Missile sanctions aimed to undermine Iran’s deterrence power: defense chief
Tehran Times
9/6/17
http://www.tehrantimes.com/news/416580/Missile-sanctions-aimed-to-undermine-Iran-s-deterrence-power
[Amir] Hatami said Iran’s defense policies are in accordance with international law and regulations of the Islamic Republic “but the global arrogance seeks to weaken our country’s deterrence power through fabricated interpretations.”
Velayati: World resisting U.S. to annul nuclear deal
Tehran Times
9/6/17
http://www.tehrantimes.com/news/416581/Velayati-World-resisting-U-S-to-annul-nuclear-deal
Ali Akbar Velayati, the senior foreign policy advisor to the Leader, said on Wednesday that the U.S. is seeking to abrogate the nuclear deal but the world is standing against it.
RUSSIA/FSU/EUROPE
Moon, Putin agree on need to denuclearize N. Korea, but differ on methods
Yonhap News Agency
9/6/17
South Korean President Moon Jae-in and Russian President Vladimir Putin both called for efforts to stop North Korea from making any more provocations and denuclearize the communist state Wednesday, but differed over how to do so.
Putin Rejects Cutting Off Oil to North Korea
The New York Times
9/6/17
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/world/asia/north-korea-putin-oil-embargo.html
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said his country opposed cutting off oil supplies to North Korea as part of new sanctions being considered in the wake of the country’s latest nuclear test, according to official accounts of his meeting Wednesday with President Moon Jae-in of South Korea.
SOUTH ASIA
Despite nuclear weapons, threat of two-front war is real: Army Chief Bipin Rawat
The Hindu
9/6/17
Despite having credible deterrence, India should be prepared for a two-front war on the western and northern borders, Army Chief Gen. Bipin Rawat said on September 6 even as he underscored the primacy of the Army over other two services.
U.S. NUCLEAR POLICY
Dem pushes amendment to force Trump strategy on North Korea
The Hill
9/5/17
Under [Senator Joe] Donnelly’s amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the administration would have 90 days to develop a North Korea strategy that covers the threats posed by the country, the economic and political relationships between North Korea, China and Russia, and a “detailed roadmap” to achieving specific objectives, among other elements.
Mattis, Song confirm deployment against N. Korea
NHK World
9/6/17
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20170906_21/
Defense chiefs of the United States and South Korea have agreed to deploy US aircraft carriers, bombers and stealth fighters around the Korean Peninsula regularly to check North Korea’s further provocations.
OPINION AND ANALYSIS
A Nuclear Slap in China’s Face
Foreign Policy, William Tobey
9/5/17
Xi styles himself as the strongest Chinese leader since Mao, but Kim Jong Un has humiliated him repeatedly, for example by killing Kim family members who were close to Beijing. In the latest affront, North Korea’s sixth, and by far largest, nuclear test upstages a BRICS summit meeting Xi is hosting, and comes just before next month’s crucial Chinese Communist Party Congress, where he hopes to consolidate further his hold on the country. The specter of nuclear chaos is hardly consistent with the image of control that he seeks to project.
North Korea’s Sixth Nuclear Test: A First Look
38 North, Frank V. Pabian, Joseph S. Bermudez Jr., and Jack Liu
9/5/17
http://www.38north.org/2017/09/punggye090517/
Commercial satellite imagery from Planet, obtained the day after North Korea conducted its largest test to date (currently estimated in the 100+ kiloton range), appears to show numerous landslides throughout the Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site and beyond.
How Can US Stop North Korea Nukes? 3 Experts Have Ideas
The New York Times
9/6/17
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/09/06/world/asia/ap-as-nkorea-us-the-next-move.html
But Washington hasn’t tried everything yet. Below, three experts offer ideas on how the U.S. might get out of its policy box on North Korea. And none of them require firing a shot.
Building an H-Bomb in Plain Sight
Defense One, Alex Wellerstein
9/6/17
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/09/building-h-bomb-plain-sight/140762/?oref=d_brief_nl
So could [North Korea] have an H-bomb? Well, why not? If they don’t have two-stage weapons yet—that is, if they are “just” boosting fission weapons with small amounts of fusionable materials—they will soon. Because this is the kind of thing that states who test lots of nuclear weapons are capable of doing, eventually. And at some level, it hardly matters: If they can pull off 100 kilotons, then you might as well treat them like they have an H-bomb. Because it’s good enough. Even 20 kilotons, which is what they were estimated to have as of a year ago, is enough to cause enough destruction that it wouldn’t be worth risking except in the most dire of circumstances.
South Korea is Right
Defense One, Peter Beinart
9/6/17
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/09/south-korea-right/140763/?oref=d_brief_nl
South Korean President Moon Jae In favors a different approach. In June, his top adviser on North Korean affairs proposed that “we and the U.S. can discuss reducing the South Korea-U.S. joint military exercises if North Korea suspends its nuclear weapons and missile activities.” Moon himself reportedly broached the idea with Trump when he visited Washington in July. This sort of mutual freeze, the South Korean leader believes, could be the first step toward negotiations aimed at a formal peace agreement ending the Korean War.
SPECIAL INTEREST
Here’s What the US Could Sell South Korea and Japan to Counter North Korea
Defense One
9/5/17
But ships and aircraft take years to build, and even less-complicated weapons may require months to boost production, so the U.S. would likely need to raid its own stockpiles to have an immediate impact. Here’s what South Korea and Japan already have in their arsenals, and what might be on their shopping list.
