Monthly Archives: April 2009

Obama on Russia, Iran

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President Obama’s Prague speech ran the gamut from CTBT to FMCT to NPT to TD-2. But let’s just examine a handful of things to consider how they inter-relate.

Excerpts from the “full text”:http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/sns-ap-obama-text,0,3505727,full.story via AP:

On START:

bq. To reduce our warheads and stockpiles, we will negotiate a new strategic arms reduction treaty with Russia this year. President Medvedev and I began this process in London, and will seek a new agreement by the end of this year that is legally binding, and sufficiently bold. This will set the stage for further cuts, and we will seek to include all nuclear weapons states in this endeavor.

On a multinational fuel bank (“Angarsk”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2072/the-angarsk-iuec-wants-you, “presumably”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1883/having-ones-yellowcake-and-eating-it-too):

bq. And we should build a new framework for civil nuclear cooperation, including an international fuel bank, so that countries can access peaceful power without increasing the risks of proliferation. That must be the right of every nation that renounces nuclear weapons, especially developing countries embarking on peaceful programs. No approach will succeed if it is based on the denial of rights to nations that play by the rules. We must harness the power of nuclear energy on behalf of our efforts to combat climate change, and to advance opportunity for all people.

On Iran:

bq. Iran has yet to build a nuclear weapon. And my administration will seek engagement with Iran based upon mutual interests and mutual respect, and we will present a clear choice. We want Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations, politically and economically. We will support Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear energy with rigorous inspections. That is a path that the Islamic Republic can take. Or the government can choose increased isolation, international pressure, and a potential nuclear arms race in the region that will increase insecurity for all.

On Euro-GMD:

bq. Let me be clear: Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile activity poses a real threat, not just to the United States, but to Iran’s neighbors and our allies. The Czech Republic and Poland have been courageous in agreeing to host a defense against these missiles. As long as the threat from Iran persists, we intend to go forward with a missile defense system that is cost-effective and proven. If the Iranian threat is eliminated, we will have a stronger basis for security, and the driving force for missile defense construction in Europe at this time will be removed.

Here, perhaps, we get the flavor of the disputed Obama-Medvedev letter. But maybe with more of an edge. I didn’t expect something that sounded so much like an endorsement of Euro-GMD, however conditional (“As long as,” “intend,” “if.”).

This could be read in more than one way. But it sounds “less and less”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1959/dept-of-media-criticism like Obama expects to get anywhere with the Russians on pressuring Iran. Perhaps the correct understanding of this speech is that he’s decided to let Moscow play good cop, since he can’t get a united front of bad cops.

How Euro-GMD will influence the atmosphere at the START talks is another matter.

Yeah, yeah, “light blogging”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1972/light-posting. Over and out.

Light Posting

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I’ll be out of pocket for most of the week, what with “various activities”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2243/carnegie-conference-happy-hour and the “Festival of WMD Terrorism”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagues_of_Egypt.

Surely, you must have other sources of amusement, no?

Russia Eyes North Korea

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Few things are more curious than how senior Russian officials have described the more spectacular North Korean missile and nuclear developments of recent years. Compared to Japan, South Korea, and the U.S., the Russians are outliers.

First, recall the multiple missile launches of July 5, 2006. The “synoptic view”:http://www.cfr.org/publication/11037/north_korea_tests_at_least_seven_missiles.html is that North Korea launched seven missiles, including a TD-2, which failed seconds into flight. The rest were SRBMs and MRBMs.

And here is the “Russian view”:http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/dprk/2006/dprk-060705-rianovosti05.htm:

05/07/2006 14:12 MOSCOW, July 5 (RIA Novosti) – Russia most senior army officer said Wednesday that North Korea may have fired 10 missiles – four more than first thought – in tests late Tuesday night.

“According to some information, North Korea launched 10 missiles of different classes,” Chief of the General Staff Yury Balyuevsky, adding that they could have been intercontinental ballistic missiles.

It seems, moreover, that Russian early warning radars “could not see”:http://russianforces.org/blog/2006/07/did_russian_earlywarning_radar.shtml the missile launches. It’s not at all clear why General Baluyevsky concluded what he did.

Then there was the “nuclear test”:http://blogs.physicstoday.org/newspicks/2006/10/did-north-korea-conduct-a-nucl.html of Oct. 9, 2006:

bq. Russian Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said the North Korean nuclear device was the equivalent of 5 to 15 kilotons of TNT. Calculations based on the US Geological Survey and South Korean results suggest an explosion between 550 tons to 1 kiloton of TNT.

And now, the Unha-2. “U.S. Northern Command”:http://www.northcom.mil/News/2009/040509.html said it went “splash”:

Stage one of the missile fell into the Sea of Japan/East Sea. The remaining stages along with the payload itself landed in the Pacific Ocean.

No object entered orbit and no debris fell on Japan.

But the Russian “Foreign Ministry”:http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/sps/61C14FA4E1D6BB25C325758F0028B242 said it went “zoom”:

bq. Утром 5 апреля КНДР осуществила запуск на околоземную орбиту искусственного спутника Земли. По данным российских средств контроля воздушного и космического пространства траектория запуска не проходила над территорией Российской Федерации. В настоящее время уточняются параметры орбиты спутника.

CNN.com “renders the above”:http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/04/05/north.korea.rocket/index.html?iref=newssearch as:

bq. “North Korea sent an artificial satellite into an Earth orbit on the morning of April 5. The parameters of the satellite’s orbit are being specified now,” Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said in a statement on the ministry’s Web site.

(Credit is due to a “sharp-eyed commenter”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2241/dprk-blip-on-a-screen at ACW.)

Update: Here’s the “official translation”:http://www.mid.ru/brp_4.nsf/e78a48070f128a7b43256999005bcbb3/d002c3e4923343f6c3257590002edeff?OpenDocument.

What’s behind these differences in perception? I only wish I knew. It’s certainly unnerving that senior officials in Moscow seem to have such… _unique_ understandings of nuclear and missile events on the Russian territorial periphery.

Be Perturbed. Be Very Perturbed.

While it’s a positive scandal that RAMOS and JDEC have fallen by the wayside, the problem seems like much more than a matter of a lack of common sensors, information, or operating picture. The RF-US disputes over Euro-GMD and the Iranian missile threat also come to mind.

But the North Korea perception gap is especially troubling for a reason that’s received little attention in national security debates. If North Korea were to launch an ICBM towards the western half of North America, and the U.S. were to launch GMD interceptors from its Alaskan base, the intercept attempts would occur over Russian soil.

Here’s a handy depiction of the scenario, courtesy of Ted Postol. Red tracks are NK ICBMs, blue tracks are GMD interceptors, black fans are EW radars:

p{float: right; margin-left:0px;}. !/images/77.jpg!

For an NK ICBM aimed at _any_ point in North America, the interceptors would fly out in the direction of Russia. And interceptors that didn’t intercept would continue towards, well, a lot of potential places in Russia and beyond:

p{float: right; margin-left:0px;}. !/images/76.jpg!

For comparison, the report of the NAS panel on Conventional Prompt Global Strike endorsed the “Conventional Trident Modification”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1937/flying-killer-robots-that-see-through-walls in large part because conventional ICBMs would have to overfly Russia to get anywhere useful, a proposition the panel deemed unacceptable.

With GMD, unfortunately, the U.S. doesn’t get the choice of when and where to fire, only _whether_ to fire. This delicate and under-appreciated consideration would make the actual use of GMD the world’s biggest game of Russian Roulette.

_Due credit: Elaine Bunn at NDU discussed this problem in her “analysis”:http://www.ndu.edu/inss/strforum/SF209/SF209.pdf of missile-defense deployment._

Update: The link to the Bunn article seems to be (temporarily?) broken. Here’s a “local copy”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/file_download/20.

Update: Cross-posted to “ArmsControlWonk.com”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2248/russia-eyes-north-korea. See the “comments at ACW”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2248/russia-eyes-north-korea#comment.

_Update: “Can Russia detect North Korean missile launches?”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1989/russia-north-korea-worse-than-you-thought It doesn’t look like it._

Kwangmyongsong: Epic Fail, or Epic BS?

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North Korean satellite launch efforts are now “0 for 2”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1968/unha-2td-2-launch-epic-fail — not that you’d know it from their (terrestrial) broadcasts. You’ve got to wonder if there was ever a Kwangmyongsong-1 or Kwangmyongsong-2 in the first place.

(Those paying attention in August 1998 may recall that K-1 and the third stage that was supposed to boost it into orbit came as a surprise to the outside world.)

This “purported picture of K-1”:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipehttp://www.totalwonkerr.net/textpattern/index.phpdia/en/3/3d/Kwangmyongsong.jpg sure looks awfully like China’s “Dongfanghong-1”:http://knows.jongo.com/UserFiles/Image/dongfanghong1.jpg, doesn’t it? Maybe it was a close copy. Or maybe it was just a mockup, based on some North Korean engineer’s (or propagandist’s) idea of what a first satellite should look like.

If the K-1 and K-2 were wholly fictitious, we might actually be _underestimating_ the reliability of NK missiles.

[Update: The emerging consensus says “fail”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/06/world/asia/06korea.html.]

French Wine and Nuclear Power

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For all the potential safety issues with nuclear power, you didn’t think that it would results in “branding issues”:http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,571254,00.html for French vintners, did you?

From “Der Spiegel”:http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,571254,00.html a while back,

France is proud of having the world’s most developed nuclear energy infrastructure, but a series of incidents at the Tricastin nuclear power plant has shaken its self-confidence. Is public sentiment about nuclear power about to shift?

The winegrowers have already made their move. *No longer will they label their product Côteaux du Tricastin. Why? Because the name Tricastin is slowly beginning to stand for something far removed from fine wine.*

The vintners fear that sales might be hurt by a series of recent accidents at a nuclear power plant near Avignon bearing the same name. *”Nuclear energy and food don’t really go so well together in the minds of consumers,”* said Henri Bour, president of the local Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC) wine association, in late July. From now on, the wine will likely bear the label of origin “Grignan,” after the place where the association is based.

Unha-2/TD-2 Launch – Epic FAIL

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Following up on “Josh’s post,”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1966/unha-2-an-overlooked-angle it looks like the NK Unha-2/TD-2 launch failed.

NORTHCOM has “this”:http://www.northcom.mil/News/2009/040509.html announcement:

PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. — North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command officials acknowledged today that North Korea launched a Taepo Dong 2 missile at 10:30 p.m. EDT Saturday which passed over the Sea of Japan/East Sea and the nation of Japan.

*Stage one of the missile fell into the Sea of Japan/East Sea. The remaining stages along with the payload itself landed in the Pacific Ocean.*

*No object entered orbit* and no debris fell on Japan.

NORAD and USNORTHCOM assessed the space launch vehicle as not a threat to North America or Hawaii and took no action in response to this launch.

This is all of the information that will be provided by NORAD and USNORTHCOM pertaining to the launch.

FWIW, this launch was more successful than the 2006 TD-2 launch, in which the missile blew up ~42 seconds into flight.

*Update:*

Retired Lt. Gen. Henry Obering “argues that”:http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/04/05/north.korea.rocket/index.html the rocket “was able to go through the staging event,” signaling success in the rocket reaching long-range capability.

Maybe. I interpreted the NORTHCOM annoucement as saying that the last two stages hadn’t separated, though perhaps I was mistaken.

US-RF CR

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Maybe the first step in Russian-American nuclear talks should be a “Continuing Resolution,” i.e., a simple renewal of START verification measures.

Pavel Podvig quite credibly “suggests”:http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/pavel-podvig/reaction-to-the-obama-medvedev-joint-statement-arms-control that more ambitious undertakings will be tough to achieve by December, when START expires. Perhaps it’s better to take the time to get it right.

Meanwhile, nobody needs a gap in the existing verification regime.

Unha-2: An Overlooked Angle

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Up, up, and away: North Korea has launched its “space rocket”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1956/if-it-quacks-like-a-satellite. For real, “this time”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1963/japan-on-n-korean-launch-our-bad. The “instant report”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/world/asia/05korea.html of the _NY Times_ — most of which was presumably written beforehand — includes this striking tidbit.

While many analysts have looked at the launching through a military lens, some say another perspective involves political rivalries on the Korean peninsula. For years, South Korea has been gearing up to fire a satellite into orbit and join the space club. Its spaceport of Oinarodo is nearly ready, but a launching scheduled for this month was delayed, giving North Korea an opening.

“They’re racing to beat the South Koreans,” said Tim Brown, a senior fellow at “GlobalSecurity.org”:http://globalsecurity.org/, a private group in Alexandria, Va.

That’s probably just gravy, but regardless, it’s an in-your-face moment for the U.S., Japan, and South Korea, all at once.

Japan On N Korean Launch Announcement: Our Bad

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“Strong work:”:http://uk.reuters.com/article/usTopNews/idUKTRE53314H20090404

Japan’s government apologized on Saturday for mistakenly announcing that North Korea had launched a rocket, as the nation’s military remained on alert for the expected move by Tokyo’s secretive communist neighbor.

_snip_

“We caused a great deal of trouble to the Japanese people. This was a mistake in the transmission of information by the Defense Ministry and the Self-Defense Forces,” Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada told reporters, using the formal name for Japan’s military. “I want to apologize to the people from my heart.”

Kyodo has “quite a bit”:http://home.kyodo.co.jp/modules/fstStory/index.php?storyid=431695 more:

bq. The government released information that ”North Korea appears to have launched a projectile” at 12:16 p.m. via its e-mail-based Em-Net emergency information system, but retracted it five minutes later, saying it was a ”detection failure.”

By way of explanation, mistakes were made.

Here’s an excerpt:

According to the Defense Ministry, the ground-based FPS-5 radar at the ministry’s Iioka research and development site in Asahi, Chiba Prefecture, picked up a trace over the Sea of Japan on the radar screen.

The information was immediately conveyed to the ASDF’s Air Defense Command in the suburbs of Tokyo, but *the person who received it mistook the information for satellite early warning information provided by the U.S. military.*

The satellite early warning information is based on data sent by the U.S. Air Force’s Defense Support Program satellite orbiting the Earth. Equipped with an infrared telescope, it is normally the quickest means to detect ballistic missile launches.

The *erroneous information then got passed onto the SDF’s Central Command Post at the Defense Ministry headquarters, from which it was conveyed to the crisis management center at the prime minister’s office,* according to the ministry.

The prime minister’s office sent an emergency e-mail message to local governments across the country and media organizations based on the false information.

One minute *after the Central Command Post received the launch information, it was notified that the trace had disappeared from the radar screen and that no satellite early warning information had actually been received,* the ministry said.

”They *should have confirmed on computer terminals that satellite early warning information had been received. The mistake could have been avoided if they had done so,”* a ministry official said.

The official said he does not know why the airman at the Air Defense Command mixed up the radar and satellite early warning information.

Read the “whole thing.”:http://home.kyodo.co.jp/modules/fstStory/index.php?storyid=431695

*Update:*

Geoff Forden has “more”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2241/dprk-blip-on-a-screen on the J/FPS-5 radar which reportedly “saw” the launch.

Old School T Friedman Bashing

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Off-topic, but I had to share something to which FoKerr MS drew my attention: (probably) the “greatest book review ever written.”:http://www.nypress.com/article-11419-flathead.html

My one regret is that I did not discover it sooner.

An excerpt:

Friedman is such a genius of literary incompetence that even his most innocent passages invite feature-length essays. I’ll give you an example, drawn at random from The World Is Flat. On page 174, Friedman is describing a flight he took on Southwest Airlines from Baltimore to Hartford, Connecticut. (Friedman never forgets to name the company or the brand name; if he had written The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa would have awoken from uneasy dreams in a Sealy Posturepedic.) Here’s what he says:

I stomped off, went through security, bought a Cinnabon, and glumly sat at the back of the B line, waiting to be herded on board so that I could hunt for space in the overhead bins.

Forget the Cinnabon. *Name me a herd animal that hunts. Name me one.*