You can read the article on Politico’s site here.

They conclude by saying:

We must choose policy options likely to prevent both a nuclear-armed Iran and the outbreak of regional war.

Rather than hurling the chips off the table by going directly to the war option, we need to keep our eyes on the prize: Reducing the risk of regional conflict by a graduated series of policy options that encourage Tehran to change direction in its march to a nuclear weapons capability.

ASP releases TV ad to encourage debate and political action around smart defense spending on nuclear weapons

WASHINGTON D.C., 22 November 2011 – Today, the American Security Project (ASP) released a new, televised advertisement entitled, “Our Troops Deserve Better.” The TV ad aims to promote the debate around responsible, smart, and effective defense spending while calling on elected leaders to not support proposed funding for a Cold War era nuclear strategy.

The TV ad will air on CNN at 8 p.m. during the Republican GOP debate on Tuesday, November 22,^, 2011.

The ad can be viewed at the following link: www.AmericanSecurityProject.org.

BGen Steve A. Cheney, USMC (Ret.), CEO of ASP, commented: “ASP is a nonpartisan organization. We do not subscribe to the ‘left’ or the ‘right’ – but rather, we are focused on promoting a thorough debate around smart and effective national security spending. Discussions around spending on dated weapons systems must be on the table, especially at a time when our resources are limited.” 

BGen Cheney went on to say: “The modern threat is not the ‘Soviets.’ Today, we live in a world where rogue nations and terrorists desire to acquire nuclear weapons. We have to adapt our national security and nuclear security strategies to the needs of our changing world.”

The TV ad released by ASP will air in the midst of a continued domestic debate around defense spending and ongoing assessments of responsible spending on nuclear weapons. Proposed funding for Cold War era nuclear weapons does not reflect responsible, smart and effective spending in today’s economy, nor does it help allocate more resources toward more effective national security measures and resources for American troops. 

LtGen John “Glad” Castellaw, USMC (Ret.), a member of the Consensus for American Security, said: “Strengthening and updating our approach to national security in the 21^st century is a vital element to protecting America. We must not chain ourselves to the security issues of a bygone, Cold War era. Instead, we must align our weapons, forces and capabilities around modern security challenges and threats because a failure to do so is just too risky.  Our present nuclear posture is suited to face the Soviet Union – a state that dissolved in 1991 – thus, it is outdated.”

Gen Castellaw added: “We can no longer afford to look back. We need to continue to ask: What does 21^st century deterrence look like today and for the future? Still, we need a strong national defense strategy matched with the smartest elements of American power. Effective defense spending must be included in this debate. We hope our elected leaders hear the call for leadership on this at such a crucial time in our nation and economy.”

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE AD

New Report Explains Nuclear Threats and Countermeasures

A new report by the American Security Project uses compelling visuals and facts to depict modern nuclear security challenges to encourage debate among policy makers and the American public.

WASHINGTON D.C., 7 November 2011 – Today, the American Security Project  (ASP), with support from the Consensus for American Security, released a new report entitled, “Nuclear Security Index: Assessing Modern Nuclear Threats and the Tools to Combat Them” (NSI). This unbiased, fact-based report describes the nuclear threats to the United States and the tools that the U.S. and its partners use to defend against such threats.

The spread of nuclear weapons continues to be an urgent national security concern for the United States. The analysis included within the NSI is intended to encourage productive, informed debate about nuclear security challenges while also encouraging broader citizen participation in that debate. The NSI was produced with the American public in mind and it distills this highly technical subject and the complex debate surrounding it.

BGen Steve Cheney, Chief Executive Officer of ASP, said: “At ASP, we are constantly exploring ways to make critical and often complex national security issues more comprehensible for the greater American public— whose tax dollars fund the national security enterprise. As our mission states: an honest public discussion of national security requires a better-informed citizenry. With the publication of the Nuclear Security Index, we demonstrate our commitment to doing just that.”

Dr. Janne Nolan, Director of Nuclear Security Programs at ASP, stated: “20 years after the end of the Cold War, and ten years after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the nuclear security debate has not fully adjusted to modern realities and threats. The United States has not yet fully articulated a strategy for dealing with Iran’s questionable nuclear activities, the threat of nuclear terrorism, or the utility of nuclear deterrence in the 21st century. The Nuclear Security Index provides an excellent primer on these vital issues and will equip readers to understand the latest headlines as well as longer-term nuclear trends.”

Eric Auner, Policy Analyst at ASP and co-author of the NSI, commented: “The Iranian nuclear program is in the news almost every day. It requires urgent, high-level American attention. Crafting a strategy to deal with the global spread of nuclear technologies requires an understanding of the history and evolution of nuclear proliferation as well as an appreciation of the many tools that the United States has at its disposal to contain and combat this challenge.”

The NSI points to key facts about global nuclear threats:

1) The U.S. and its allies and partners still face a wide range of nuclear threats;

2) There are many different kinds of tools to address nuclear threats, such as: military strength, nuclear deterrence, international agreements and organizations, and technological investments like ballistic missile defense;

3) A nuclear weapon cannot be compared to an ordinary bomb since the use of a single nuclear weapon would cause mass devastation and have profound effects on global stability; and

4) To date, only a small number of nations pose a near-term, urgent nuclear proliferation risk. Preventing such threats from escalating in the future will depend on careful leadership and cooperation from all like-minded states working together to enforce common norms.

These facts are further described in the NSI. To learn more and view the illustrative charts, maps, and graphics, please click below to download the report:

Link: http://americansecurityproject.org/NuclearSecurityIndex2011.pdf

#END#

REPORT: Nuclear Threats and Countermeasures
About the American Security Project: The American Security Project is a non-profit, bipartisan public policy and research organization dedicated to fostering knowledge and understanding of a range of national security issues, promoting debate about the appropriate use of American power, and cultivating strategic responses to 21st century challenges. For more information, visit www.americansecurityproject.org.

About the Consensus for American Security: The Consensus for American Security is a non-partisan group of influential military and national security leaders who have come together to highlight growing support for a new and sustainable nuclear weapons policy. The Consensus is an initiative of the American Security Project. For more information, visit securityconsensus.org.

ASP Director of Nuclear Security Programs Dr. Janne Nolan is quoted.

Excerpt:

Butterworth was referring to an August 2009 speech in which President Obama committed the United States “to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” He questioned the rationale for pursuing such a goal. “And about the larger point–do we want to get rid of nuclear weapons? The reason the U.S. built built them to begin with, as General L. Welch (USAF-ret.) puts it, is because we didn’t want Hitler to be the only one who had them. So we probably don’t want to get rid of nuclear weapons until we’re sure there is no Hitler around with one hidden in a cave. You might also note that there was no war between/among the major powers for the past 60 years, and wonder whether nuclear weapons played any role in that record,” Butterworth said.

Another highly experienced nuclear expert, Janne Nolan director of nuclear security programs at the American Security Project, expressed similar skepticism of the announcement. “This is perhaps a milestone the way it would have been to conduct a burial ceremony for dinosaur remains — marking the end of a historical moment from when the earth was still cooling,” she wrote in an email.

The B-53 was introduced into the nuclear arsenal in 1962. It was the highest-yield nuclear bomb the United States ever produced. Weighing about 10,000-pounds and roughly the size of a small truck, the B53 bomb remained the highest-yield U.S. nuke until its retirement in 1997. A team of experts dismantled the bombs near Amarillo, Texas at the Pantex Plant.

Read the whole article at AOL Defense…

Ballistic Missiles: A Serious and Growing Threat

ASP Director of Nuclear Security Programs and Consensus Member, Dr. Janne Nolan, is featured.

“Another positive sign is that decision-makers seem to be following the mantra of “everything is on the table,” according to Janne Nolan, director of nuclear security at the American Security Project.

 “This should be taken as an opportunity to review critical priorities in the American posture,” she said. “We need to think about entitlements, tax reform and the part of federal spending that relates to national security as being part of public policy that is not sacrosanct in some way that elevates it out of the give-and-take of governments and democracy and interest groups.”

Click here to read the full article…

Until August 2011 he was the Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Weapons of Mass Destruction Policy and Director, Nuclear Policy Planning Directorate for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).  In that capacity he was responsible for developing policy on issues related to combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, missile defense, and overseeing and implementing NATO’s nuclear deterrence policy and posture.

Prior to that Mr. Roberts was Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense and Principal Director for Negotiations Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense responsible for advising senior Defense Department officials on the entire range of United States arms control and non-proliferation policies.  He was also responsible for implementing policy guidance and Department of Defense positions for current and emerging proliferation issues in multilateral arms control and disarmament fora.

From 2000 to 2003, Mr. Roberts served as the legal counsel for arms control and non-proliferation in the US Department of the Navy.  In that capacity he was responsible for reviewing all naval programs to ensure compliance U.S. international legal obligations including all arms control and nonproliferation agreements and developing policy on all arms control and nonproliferation agreements or initiatives, which could impact Departmental equities.

Mr. Roberts had a distinguished 25-year career in the US Marine Corps before retiring with the rank of Colonel, holding a wide range of assignments in policy formulation, operations support, negotiations, management, litigation and serving as a policy/legal advisor both in the US and during overseas assignments.  Positions and responsibilities included legal counsel to a four-star Combatant Commander, and military representative for disarmament and arms control issues to the United Nations, Conference on Disarmament and the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Mr. Roberts received his law degree from the University of Denver, and he holds masters’ degrees in international and comparative law from Georgetown University, in international relations from the University of Southern California, and in strategic studies from the Naval War College where he graduated with highest distinction and won the Stephen B. Luce Award for academic achievement. He is admitted to practice in Colorado, California, Arizona and before the Military Court of Criminal Appeals and the US Supreme Court, and he is a member of the International Institute of Strategic Studies and the International Law of War Society. Mr. Roberts has written extensively on nonproliferation, arms control, terrorism and law of war issues.

60,000 people dead—instantly. 150,000 more exposed to hazardous radiation.  All ships and infrastructure at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach destroyed.  An exodus of six million people from the greater Los Angeles region.  Initial costs of $1 trillion.  This is exactly the scenario considered in a 2006 RAND Corporation study of the effects of a possible detonation of a 10-kiloton nuclear device hidden in a standard 20-foot shipping container.  In 2010 alone, these ports received a combined total of over 7.2 million 20-foot equivalent containers.   Haystack indeed.

Yet what exactly are the risks of such an event occurring, and who is likely to attempt such a feat?  The answers are difficult to ascertain.  The most obvious answer to arise over the past decade is the concern over a terrorist organization or rogue nation attempting this route.  Even then, due to the natural complexity of building or obtaining a nuclear weapon, there has been a vigorous debate on the likelihood of such a scenario occurring.

Given the difficulty involved in developing successful delivery systems for  nuclear weapons,  such as missiles, and the attention given to anti-ballistic missile systems in recent years, it would seem both those technologies are rendered partially irrelevant when a shipping container can suffice as a poor man’s ICBM.  Certainly that carries a great amount of risk for the attacker as well, but as the 9/11 commission stated in its report, partial reasoning for the success of the attacks was due to a “failure of imagination” on the part of the United States.

But assuming the ability of nuclear forensics to determine the origin of intercepted or exploded nuclear materials, would a state or terrorist organization be dissuaded from attempting such an attack?  This is also difficult to determine.  Given the number of actors potentially involved in a “nuclear supply chain,” the risk of identification as an involved party may dissuade some, while not affecting others.  Even so, the state of our nuclear forensics capability has been called into doubt, as expertise and resources have declined since the end of the cold war.

Certainly though, the thought of using shipping containers as weapon delivery platforms has not gone unexplored.  In fact, a Russian company recently debuted its “Pandora’s Box” Club-K Cruise Missile system, cleverly hidden inside a shipping container.

Terrorist organizations have also had their eye on shipping infrastructure.  The recently departed Osama Bin Laden himself considered attacks on oil tankers.  Given the issues of piracy in the Gulf of Aden and the Straits of Malacca, the idea of terrorists committing an ecological and economic Hiroshima isn’t so farfetched.

So what is being done to prevent a nuclear or radiological attack?  In the 1990s, the Nunn-Lugar program, also known as Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR), was created to secure and reduce vulnerable WMD materials in the former Soviet states.  At a cost of roughly $500 million per year, it has been measurably successful in pursuit of its goals.

Under the Bush Administration, the US began equipping American ports with radiation detection devices designed to detect nuclear materials, such as those that could be used in the detonation of a “dirty bomb.”  In 2009, President Obama announced the creation of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Second Line of Defense Program (SLD).  SLD is a two-part project, including the “Core Program” to equip 650 sites in 30 countries around the world with detection equipment, and the “Megaports Initiative” to equip more than 100 seaports with radiation equipment by 2018.  This includes training for foreign operators, with a goal of enabling the scanning of around 50% of global shipping traffic by 2018.

But how effective is said detection and scanning equipment estimated to be?  The answer is not very.  The innate problem with nuclear material detection is that nuclear weapons aren’t inherently radioactive.  In fact, the sensitivity level required to detect nuclear weapons is so great, that cat litter, ceramic tiles, and people have been known to regularly set off the detection equipment.

Despite this high sensitivity, in 2003, ABC News successfully shipped depleted uranium into the country, right through the radiological detection devices, twice.  Dense materials like lead can also be used to conceal a radiation signature, though they fortunately light up on x-rays like the Las Vegas strip.  It is therefore important to use multiple layers and different types of technology in any detection apparatus.

On the plus side of things, radiation detection equipment has successfully interdicted a shipment of Japanese radioactive tea in France.  In July 2010, a shipment from the UAE was discovered in Genoa Italy containing radioactive Cobalt-60.  It sat around for a year before officials figured out how to safely deal with it.  Today, it is estimated that the United States is scanning 3.8% of cargo at ports of origin, up from 1% in 2001.  This number is frighteningly low, and more emphasis must be placed on enabling foreign ports to detect dangerous materials before they reach their destinations.

So what is it we’re supposed to do?  Terror organizations need only succeed once in 1,000 times to sow fear and chaos in the American psyche, and equally as important, the economy.  An attack on an American port, or any port, would no-doubt cause absolute devastation on a worldwide economy dependent on maritime shipping.  It is clear that the mere possibility of such an attack, either by a rogue nation or non-state actor, dictates that we take precautions.  But those same precautions must be effective without causing significant slowdown to the shipping process, and thus the global economy.

As a course for the present and future, we must continue securing known sources of nuclear material.  We must develop better, cost-effective technology, and better procedures for detection.  We must decrease the motivation and risk of nations or non-state actors deciding to attempt such a feat.  And within the context of developing a shipping container deterrent, we should seriously consider developing a stated policy in response to an attempted or successful nuclear terror attack.

Consensus member Brig. Gen. John Adams author’s an op-ed on controlling defense spending.

By Brig. Gen. John Adams

“For far too long the quality of our national security has been judged by the quantity of Pentagon spending and by the size of our armed forces.

The truth is, the more we spent like this, the more we have wasted and the less we actually thought about the meaning of national security.  This muscular approach is ill suited for the national security challenges facing the United States in the 21st Century.

Over the past 10 years, the DOD budget increased from $297 billion to $549 billion, not including the Overseas Contingency Operations, which alone stands at $159 billion for FY11.  Even if we factor in inflation, in an era of constant budget deficits, this rate of spending is unsustainable.

Out-of-control defense spending is a major cause for the calamitous state of our overall budget. This threatens the peace and prosperity that responsible national security planning is designed to protect.  We cannot allow the Pentagon to continue to spend exorbitant amounts of money without thought to overall strategy or long-term interests.

In the July agreement reached over the federal debt limit resulted in a $350 billion reduction in planned DOD spending over the next 10 years; with the possibility of a future $500 billion over the same period.

Yet, many of those who benefit from DOD business-as-usual argue that an $850 billion reduction in spending over 10 years would be devastating to our national security.

This argument is wrong…”

Click here to read the full op-ed…

Other notable participants include:

Click here to register and learn more…