Reflections on Transparency and Monitoring under the 1993 United States-Russian Federation Highly Enriched Uranium Purchase Agreement

ABSTRACT

The 1993 Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Purchase Agreement between the United States and Russian Federation is often described as one of the world's most successful nuclear nonproliferation programs. In 2013, the two states achieved the agreement's major goals of downblending 500 metric tons of Russian weapon-origin HEU to low enriched uranium (LEU) and delivering all resultant LEU to the United States. At one time, the LEU delivered under the agreement generated nearly 10 percent of all electricity in the United States. The agreement achieved its nonproliferation goals through a unique government/industry partnership. Commercial executive agents contracted for the annual sale and delivery of downblended LEU, while the US and Russian governments exercised reciprocal transparency monitoring measures to demonstrate that all LEU delivered under the agreement was derived from Russian weapons-origin HEU, and that the same LEU was used for exclusively peaceful purposes in the United States. The commercial development, negotiations, and implementation of the agreement have been well documented. This article describes the scope of US transparency monitoring activities in Russian HEU processing facilities, as well as Russian monitoring in the United States. In addition, it discusses the results of twenty years of reciprocal transparency monitoring and data analysis, and outlines lessons learned that are potentially applicable to future transparency monitoring and verification regimes and similar cooperative efforts.     

Defense Spending Promotes Aggregate Output in the United States--Evidence from Cointegration Analysis

This paper provides new evidence on the question of the effects of defense spending on aggregate output in the United States. Earlier studies of this basic issue relied on traditional econometric techniques and the neoclassical production function theory. In this paper, recently developed cointegration methodology and modeling that is inspired by new macroeconomic theory is employed. The results from earlier studies concerning the effects of defense spending are mixed. The findings presented in this paper reveal that there is a quantitatively important and positive relation between defense spending and aggregate output in the United States.     

陆军战术部队用天体系能力研究

以未来信息化战场联合作战为背景,强调天基资源在陆军战术部队作战体系中的重要地位,深入分析美国陆军天基资源运用现状和能力形成途径,从陆军装备转型建设实际需求出发,研究陆军用天(基)体系架构,阐述体系能力特征。     

America’s Prescient Dissenters: Senator J. William Fulbright and Dr. Andrew J. Bacevich’s Principled Dissent of US Policy in Vietnam and Iraq and their Enduring Perspectives

During the Cold War, the spread and fear of communism furnished the overarching ideological rationale for American foreign policy and for the deployment of United States military forces and resources. Subscribing to the domino theory and its potential impact on Southeast Asia, the Johnson Administration committed the United States to the Vietnam War. Following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, and the commencement of the Global War on Terrorism, Washington once again set a national agenda rooted in a simplistic analysis reminiscent of Vietnam and the domino theory. Ignorant of Iraq’s mammoth sectarian, historical, ethnic, and global strategic complexities, the Bush Administration launched Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF). The absence of critical analysis, contrarian viewpoints, and sound judgment characterized the US policy and strategy for both the Vietnam War and OIF, exhibiting the lack of moral courage that the national security enterprise seeks, but seldom attains. Faced with this challenge, this article draws attention to the ethical lessons we can learn from the dissent of William Fulbright and Andrew Bacevich.     

TIME-VARYING CHARACTERISTICS OF SOUTH KOREA-UNITED STATES AND JAPAN-UNITED STATES MILITARY ALLIANCES UNDER CHINESE THREAT: A PUBLIC GOOD APPROACH

This paper investigates the nature of two military alliances under Chinese threat. The findings are as follows: First, South Korea does not consider China a significant threat while Japan and the United States have recognized China as a serious threat since the 1990s and the 2000s, respectively. Second, the relationship between South Korea and the United States is a true military alliance for all time periods, but the nature of the alliance has changed since the 1970s. Third, although Japan began to form an alliance relationship with the United States in the 1990s, Japan is considered a more significant ally by the United States. This paper implies that, should China provoke a military confrontation, it might be difficult to deduce a common solution among the three countries because of the different response to military threats from China.     

The crisis of American military assistance: strategic dithering and Fabergé Egg armies

ABSTRACT

The United States has provided substantial amounts of military assistance and aid since the end of World War Two. During the Cold War, it proved vital in protecting numerous regimes from communist takeovers. Successful outcomes occurred when American leaders made large initial aid commitments, and the states had the capacity and political willpower to use it effectively. However, Vietnam was an example of how U.S. support lagged, as leaders in Saigon preferred political survival instead of creating regime legitimacy. Following 9/11, American security aid focused on making weak countries develop stronger security forces. Unfortunately, this created Fabergé egg militaries: expensive and easily broken by insurgents. This article suggests long-term strategic commitments need to be made alongside more resources for the American State Department and similar organizations to focus on the politics of state-building. Finally, this article suggests strategies, such as “whole-of-government” approaches, to improve long-term security and political institution building.     

Terrorism,insurgency, kidnapping,and security in Africa's energy sector

Energy continues to serve as the bedrock of modern economies and the main driver of modern society. For Africa, the production and supply of energy resources such as crude oil, natural gas, uranium, coal, biomass, biofuels and other renewables are an important source of employment, rents, taxes, royalties and profits. This sector brings in several tens of billions of dollars of revenue annually. The production and delivery of such resources, however, depend on critical infrastructures such as pipelines, refineries, processing plants, terminals, rigs, electrical energy pylons, substations, pump stations, vessels, and tankers. These infrastructures have been attacked by terrorists, insurgents, vandals and saboteurs, all of whom see them as targets against which to register their grievances and extract concessions from the state. This paper is a chronological account of some of the documented incidents of terrorism, insurgency, kidnapping, destruction, sabotage, and human casualties suffered in the oil and gas sectors in Africa between 1999 and 2012. It is based on data extracted from the databases of the RAND Database of World Terrorism Incidents and the University of Maryland's Global Terrorism Database (GTD).     

Estimating defence budget saving from disarmament: the United States’ case

Probing the technology in the production of US national defence by using a dynamic cost‐function model with adjustment costs, this paper evaluates the effect of reducing the level of national defence on the defence budget saving. Our inquiry involves estimating the defence production structure without output data for non‐market goods that are normally unavailable. Our findings include: (i) the United States behaves rationally to minimize cost in the production of national defence; (ii) the adjustment costs are larger in disarmament than in military build‐up; (iii) due to the adjustment costs peculiar to disarmament, the defence budget saving from disarmament appears small, but cutbacks allow great savings on the defence budget.     

FACILITATING NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT: Verified Declarations of Fissile Material Stocks and Production

Unprecedented interest in seeking progress toward nuclear disarmament exists today; even some nuclear weapon states are looking for new ways to strengthen this process. National declarations of fissile material holdings—highly enriched uranium and plutonium—could play an important role in supporting this effort, facilitating not only transparency but also the irreversibility of the process. This article discusses what kind of content such declarations could have in order to be meaningful and effective, the sequence of data on fissile material holdings that states might release, and some of the challenges to be expected in reconstructing historic fissile material production; it also summarizes current attitudes of weapon states toward making such declarations. Initial declarations can be valuable as confidence-building measures, but better and more background data are necessary if declarations are to serve as the groundwork for deeper cuts in the nuclear arsenals. A robust verification approach would ultimately require inspectors to have access to fissile material production and storage sites. The methods and tools of nuclear forensic analysis—in this context also dubbed nuclear archaeology—would be a key element of this process. This article discusses the capabilities and limitations of potential approaches to verifying declarations of historic production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium; it also identifies and discusses opportunities for further research and development.     

The Trump effect downunder: U.S. allies,Australian strategic culture,and the politics of path dependence

Donald Trump’s election precipitated a debate in Australia about the value of retaining close alliance ties with the United States. Similar dynamics are discernible in other U.S. allies as the negative impact of Trump administration policies becomes clearer. Yet despite this “Trump effect,” we argue Australia is unlikely to distance itself from the United States because at the core of Australia’s strategic culture is a very positive “cultural orientation” toward the United States that is highly institutionalized in treaties, formal bilateral ties, Track 2 diplomacy, and public opinion. Such institutionalized ties have powerful path dependent effects. Accordingly, we conclude that the Trump effect does not constitute a powerful enough “exogenous shock” to move Australia off its well-worn grand-strategic path. But this alliance relationship is marked by both high cultural affinity and high institutionalization: American policy-makers should seriously consider whether other U.S. allies can tolerate similar levels of “stress.”     

The Race that wasn't

ABSTRACT

Graham Farmelo's new book on the early British nuclear weapon program assembles a fascinating cast of characters in a gripping narrative. It particularly succeeds at illustrating the importance of “atomic energy” imagery in the United Kingdom well before the discovery of fission, and provides nuanced insights into Churchill's handling of issues relating to the atomic bomb and scientific expertise. However, in arguing that the British had a “lead” on the manufacture of atomic bombs that was “lost” to the United States during the early Manhattan Project, the book overstates its case, and in the process misunderstands what it took to make the bomb.     

Don't stop with Joint Forces Command … cut AFRICOM too

Abstract

The United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) has been a military success but a strategic messaging failure. The United States’ relationships across Africa cannot be boiled down to military affairs. This paper argues that Africa has many more opportunities than challenges and thus requires a more balanced foreign policy solution from Washington DC than a new military command. For the military engagement that does need to take place, a more low-profile approach would benefit the United States in Africa.     

Multilateral defense cooperation in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region: Tentative steps toward a regional NATO?

Some U.S. military leaders have asserted that the United States, Japan, Australia, and India and the Republic of Korea are developing multilateral defense cooperation to deter aggression and uphold norms much like North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has in Europe. Frequent military exercises and China’s threats to freedom of navigation (FoN) and North Korea’s nuclear missiles comprise the motive force for such cooperation. However, cooperation thus far has been trilateral and minimal, given divergent national interests and dispersed geopolitical locations. Cooperation among Japan, Republic of Korea (ROK), and the United States is increasing given the threat, but ROK’s public opinion is divided about Japan. Australia, Japan, and India have increased cooperation with the United States but are reluctant to conduct FoN operations with the United States to challenge China’s expansionism in the South China Sea. If China becomes more aggressive and blocks FoN or seizes territory, development toward an Asian NATO is possible.     

美国退出《中导条约》与俄美关系发展走向

2018年10月，美国宣布单方面退出《中导条约》。《中导条约》是美苏两国在冷战后期达成的，并得到了切实执行的条约，对于维护冷战后全球战略平衡发挥了至关重要的作用。冷战后，俄美曾经企图将《中导条约》多边化，构建俄美新型战略关系，但最终反目成仇，使得俄美关系严重倒退，并迈入新的相互战略遏制的时代。     

某型自行加榴炮抽筒过程动力学分析

分析了某型自行加榴炮钢质药筒不抽筒产生的原因,简述了火炮抽筒机构改进的措施,建立了抽筒过程的动力学方程,分别对四种方案进行了计算。     

Deterrence of Nuclear Terror

Nuclear proliferation, lax security standards in the storage of fissile materials, and international apathy in the prosecution of terrorists make nuclear terror a serious threat to the United States and its allies, yet no doctrine of retaliation has been established. To decrease the probability of terrorist use of nuclear weapons, a doctrine of retaliation—a negligence doctrine—should be considered. If the United States can distinguish whose fissile material was used for a nuclear terror event, a negligence doctrine would prescribe retaliation against that state. Where the proximate cause—terrorists—is unavailable for deterrent retaliation, deterring an accessible mediate cause—a state that has failed to adequately secure its fissile material—is one of a few effective alternatives. In the absence of such a negligence doctrine, the United States and its allies are increasingly vulnerable to a nuclear terror attack and the ensuing negative consequences.     

The U.S. versus the Soviet incentive models

This paper is concerned with models of the use of performance incentives in the Soviet Union and United States. The principal analytical result is an extension of an analysis of the methods whereby Soviet planners make the decision about production targets a variable under control of the producer, who is the only one possessing a knowledge of the uncertain condition of production. It is shown that this device can be viewed as a classical inventory problem. There is also an examination of the “U.S. incentive program” referring to multi-incentive contracts in which the profits received by the private producers are related to performance, outcome and cost. The analysis describes how this device can be extended to solve the target output selection problem of the Soviet planning system.     

REFASHIONING AUSTRALIA'S NUCLEAR BARGAIN?

This article explores the challenges that Australia faces in reconciling its commitments to nonproliferation and uranium exports during a time when the international nuclear nonproliferation regime is under major stress and the world uranium market is bullish. The “grand bargain” that has framed Australian participation in the nonproliferation regime and the nuclear fuel market since the 1970s was only tenable in an era of stagnant uranium demand and a stable nuclear balance. However, contemporary nuclear proliferation dynamics and the revival of interest in nuclear energy have accentuated the incompatibility between Australia's commitment to nonproliferation and the desire to profit from uranium exports. The contemporary international strategic environment, international nonproliferation regime, and nuclear energy market are characterized by developments that not only undermine the basis of Australia's grand bargain, but also present challenges and opportunities for the refashioning of Australian policy.     

军事工程用磷酸盐水泥材料研究

磷酸盐水泥是一种适用于快速抢修机场跑道、高速公路、桥梁等建筑工程的新 型胶凝材料。相对硅酸盐水泥而言,磷酸盐水泥在生产工艺、性能及用途等方面具有独特的 性能。分析了磷酸盐水泥的原料及制备、水化机理及主要水化产物,探讨了磷酸盐水泥凝结 时间和强度的影响因素,并对磷酸盐水泥在战时快速抢修抢建、工程防护等军事工程保障中 的应用作了初步探讨。     

UNDERSTANDING CHINA'S ANTISATELLITE TEST

In discussing China's January 2007 hit-to-kill intercept of the Chinese weather satellite FengYun-1C, most American analysts sought the “message” for the United States—either by asserting that China's test was a deliberate step toward a comprehensive counterspace capability to offset U.S. conventional military superiority or an attempt to force the United States to the negotiating table on “the prevention of an arms race in outer space.” Chinese officials, after a long silence, eventually claimed the test was an “experiment” that was “not targeted at any country.” We traveled to China several times in 2007 and had a series of conversations with Chinese individuals knowledgeable about the history of this particular antisatellite program and with access to information about the decision-making process prior to and after the final test. These discussions were off the record, not for attribution, given the sensitivity of the subject. They reflected the views of some of the key institutions involved in the test from the State, the Communist Party, the People's Liberation Army, and aerospace experts involved in debris calculations. The information conveyed to us suggests that American commentators tend to place much greater importance on the United States as a driver in China's decision to develop the technology and conduct the test than do the Chinese.