POTENTIAL PROLIFERATION POINTERS FROM THE PAST: Lessons from the British Nuclear Weapons Program, 1952–69

Becoming a nuclear weapon state and sustaining a militarily credible nuclear weapons capability is far from trivial, especially for medium powers. Such a capability is demonstrated by much more than firing a first test or acquiring significant quantities of fissile material; capability is indicated by factors including weaponization, delivery of weapons, reliability and effectiveness of weapons and their delivery systems, fissile material availability, and nuclear and non-nuclear testing. Files in the British National Archives shed considerable light on the problems faced by the nuclear weapon program of the United Kingdom from 1952 through the late 1960s. The question is whether this experience is unique or if it instead offers insights into the potential problems faced by, or facing, other medium or aspiring nuclear weapon states. The proliferation-related topics highlighted include: fissile material production, nuclear testing, the first weapon, weapon delivery rates, non-nuclear testing, delivery platform problems, and long-term maintenance and capability sustainability. Further research could provide clearer insights.     

美国陆军数字化建设探析

在世界范围面向21世纪的军队发展中,美国陆军率先进行了数字化建设,以谋求重新建构力量体系,其影响深远,作用巨大,是陆军发展史上的新阶段.笔者对美陆军数字化建设的背景及现实基础、主要内容和特点以及所面临的主要问题等方面进行了深入分析.     

美军装备建设投入历史规律多维分析

作为国防和装备建设的血液,美国防预算及装备经费投入的变化是表征美国防及装备建设方向重点和资源投向投量的基本指标。本文对美国朝鲜战争以来国防预算和装备预算数据进行梳理分析,从国防部预算、装备预算、各军种装备预算等多个层面,以及预算性质、预算阶段、预算类别等多个维度进行分析,从一个较长历史维度描绘了美国防预算的变化情况,总结了美装备经费投入的特点规律。     

One Step Forward,Two Steps Back

This article explores the potential impact of U.S. disarmament leadership on the nuclear diplomacy of North Korea and Iran, the “defiant states.” The first part of the article introduces the concept of “interaction capacity,” which measures a state's integration into international society, based on its physical communication systems and its adoption of shared norms. The theory predicts that lower levels of interaction capacity will generate a greater propensity for nuclear defiance, as the affected states reject and try to resist integration pressures. In the second and third parts of the article, this conceptual framework is applied to the cases of North Korea and Iran. The analysis suggests that efforts to reassert U.S. disarmament leadership could increase the alienation of North Korea and Iran, leading to provocation and escalation of nuclear tensions. The final part of the paper explores the policy implications of this analysis for the potentially defunct six-party talks, for hopes of renewed negotiations with Iran, and for the 2010 Review Conference of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.     

Mind over matter? Multinational naval interoperability during Operation Iraqi Freedom

ABSTRACT

The increasing frequency of multinational operations has heightened the importance of interoperability. While human and cultural factors are only two pieces of the interoperability jigsaw they are of enduring significance. The cohesiveness of the relationship amongst the Royal Australian Navy, the Royal Navy and the United States Navy during the 2003 Iraq War was underpinned by high levels of perceptive interoperability, which manifested itself in effective working relationships. That conflict demonstrated that while historical ties provided a foundation for cooperation, a number of multinational initiatives were undertaken to further enhance interoperability. This article addresses how such a high level of perceptive interoperability was achieved by examining the conduct of multinational exercises, the importance of personnel exchanges and the role of liaison officers, before considering the effect it had on the conduct of operations. The Iraq War demonstrated that cultural factors are at least as important as other facets of interoperability.     

Investigating optimal replacement of aging air force systems

An availability‐oriented approach has been developed to decide when to replace an aging system. For an existing system, it is optimal to operate another year if and only if the incremental cost per available year is less than the lifetime average cost per available year of a new aircraft. We illustrate our approach using United States Air Force KC‐135 tanker data. In demonstrating our approach, we find it will be optimal to replace the KC‐135 by the end of the decade.     

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.     

SYMBIOTIC SPIES

Spying on the Nuclear Bear: Anglo-American Intelligence and the Soviet Bomb, by Michael S. Goodman. Stanford University Press, 2007. 295 pages, $50.     

VERIFIABILITY,RELIABILITY, AND NATIONAL SECURITY

The rejection of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) by the U.S. Senate in October 1999 could have been avoided, and the consequences of that vote still loom in the minds of supporters of the treaty. President Barack Obama has embraced the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, and a key element of the Obama administration's arms control agenda is delivering on U.S. CTBT ratification. In order to secure the two-thirds majority in the Senate necessary to ratify the treaty, senators that remain skeptical of nuclear disarmament must also be convinced that the entry into force of the CTBT is in the national security interest of the United States. This article provides an analysis of the issues surrounding U.S. CTBT ratification divided into three segments—verifiability of the treaty, reliability of the U.S. stockpile, and the treaty's impact on U.S. national security—and concludes that CTBT ratification serves the security objectives of the United States. The CTBT constitutes an integral component of the multilateral nonproliferation architecture designed to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and it constrains the qualitative development of nuclear weapons, thereby hindering efforts by states of concern to develop advanced nuclear weapons.