A joint report on Pakistan by the Atlantic Magazine and the National Journal highlights some important issues in U.S.-Pakistani relations with regards to nuclear weapons. It also offers insight into the geopolitical situation that plagues the region as a whole, such as the conflict in Afghanistan, the rivalry between India and Pakistan, and Iran’s regional and nuclear ambitions. The main aim of the U.S. should be to ensure the security of nuclear weapons and vulnerable nuclear weapons material in the region even though this entails looking at a broader range of issues than the threat posed by terrorism.

In the report, Graham Allison, an expert on nuclear weapons from the Belfer Center at Harvard, argues that there are three big threats with regards to Pakistan and nuclear weapons:

  1. A terrorist theft of nuclear weapons (a nuclear 9/11 or Mumbai).

2. The transfer of nuclear weapons to a state like Iran.
   
3. The takeover of a nuclear weapon by a military group during a period of state instability.

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Nukes on a Blog, Pakistan (all tags)

Two new reports from the IAEA shed light on the current nuclear status of both Iran and Syria.  The confidential reports were issued ahead of the IAEA Board of Governors’ June 6-10 meeting, where Iran and Syria will be at the top of the agenda.

There is both good and bad news, so in the spirit of ending on an optimistic note, let’s start with the bad.

The Bad

1) Syria was probably building a nuclear weapon:

The IAEA reports that a long-gone Syrian site (the one that was bombed by Israel in 2007) was “very likely” to have been a nuclear reactor.  The US has made this assertion all along, stating that the site was near-completion partially due to the help of North Korea.  The IAEA, however, has never shown its explicit support for the claim.  This is no longer the case.

"Based on all the information available to the agency and its technical evaluation of that information, the agency assesses that it was very likely that the building destroyed at Dair Alzour site was a nuclear reactor which should have been declared to the agency," the report said.

Syria, like Iran, denies harboring a secret nuclear weapons program, but has refused to allow inspectors to return to the site after an initial visit revealed traces of uranium and other suspicious materials.

2) Iran is probably building a nuclear weapon:

Building on previous comments by Director General Amano, the IAEA’s second report says that the agency has “received further information related to such possible undisclosed nuclear-related activities, which is currently being assessed.”

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Iran Watch, Nukes on a Blog, Syria, AQ Khan, Pakistan (all tags)

UPDATE: Under the supervision of Pakistani intelligence, U.S. investigators interviewed Bin Laden's three wives late last week.

Two weeks ago, as you know, Osama Bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by a team of U.S. Navy SEALs. The operation to take out public enemy number one, though successful, has fractioned an already capricious relationship between the United States and Pakistan.

Pakistan is less than pleased that President Obama ordered the raid without notifying Pakistani officials in advance.  Now, echoing past fissures in U.S.-Pakistani relations, Pakistan is being uncooperative in lieu of the news that Osama Bin Laden was essentially hiding in plain sight.

Although President Obama did not directly accuse Pakistan of harboring Osama Bin Laden for five years in the affluent city of Abbottabad, he did convey his belief that there was likely a network inside of Pakistan that helped to keep him hidden. Largely for this reason, the U.S. is demanding that Pakistan allow American investigators to speak with Osama Bin Laden’s three widows. Unfortunately, Pakistan’s response has been less than forthcoming.  

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Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden, Security Matters (all tags)

Last week the public learned a few new things about Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. The size of its deployed stockpile is now estimated to be more than 100 weapons.  It also is believed to possess the nuclear material for somewhere between 40-100 additional weapons, a capability which could make Pakistan the 4th or 5th largest nuclear weapon state – surpassing both France and the United Kingdom .

As David Sanger and Eric Schmitt pointed out in the New York Times and Karen DeYoung in the above article in the Washington Post—Pakistan’s nuclear-lust is a challenge to the twin goals of prohibiting the production of fissile material for weapons purposes and reducing nuclear stockpiles globally.

Pakistan is the only country publically opposing the beginning of negotiations on a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) in the 65-nation UN Conference of Disarmament (CD). Their chief concern is India and the disparity between the two country’s arsenals. Even though, the latest estimates suggest that Pakistan may have more weapons than India. New Delhi does have the capacity to produce more weapons due to a larger fissile material stockpile.  

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security matters, Pakistan, FMCT (all tags)

Critics of the U.S-India Deal have long warned that not only did the arrangement have the potential to undermine the global nonproliferation regime, but it would also make it more difficult to say no to other countries, particularly Pakistan, demanding the same treatment in the future.  Unfortunately, the critics’ worst fears are now becoming reality…

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Nukes on a Blog, U.S.-India deal, Pakistan (all tags)

After ending 12 years of deadlock on May 29, the UN Conference on Disarmament (CD) is once again stuck in the mud due to Pakistan’s objections.

The 65-member conference, which operates by consensus, has spent much of 2009 in procedural wrangles after agreeing to a work plan that addressed four main issues, including the negotiation of a verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for use in nuclear weapons (FMCT), in May.

Today, Pakistan blocked the adoption of the 2010 agenda for the CD, suggesting that 2010 may be another slow year for progress.

Adoption of the agenda at the start of the annual session is normally a formality.  One veteran official, unable to recall a similar delay in the past, states that, “Even in the darkest days the agenda was adopted, because everything can be discussed under the agenda.”  

Pakistan, however, has an interest in delaying the start of substantive talks, since a limit on the production of fissile material could put it at a disadvantage against longer-standing nuclear powers such as India…

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Nukes on a Blog, Conference on Disarmament, Pakistan (all tags)

Friend-of-NOH and IT guru Gil Wilson responds below to the WSJ report that insurgents have been hacking U.S. drones…

[The insurgents] didn't hack the drones. They ease dropped on an unencrypted (or badly scrambled) video feed. That's different…

The Pentagon's response? "But the Pentagon assumed local adversaries wouldn't know how to exploit it, the officials said."

I haven't decided yet if this is the age-old “security through obscurity” line or if the Pentagon is dumb enough to think that people who can make remote bombs with cell phones aren't smart enough to use a satellite dish and laptop to capture over-the-air data.

The U.S. military is a modern marvel. When we show up in an area the airwaves light up like Clark Griswold's house on Christmas Eve. There's no need for sophisticated wire tapping, just put a dipstick in the sky. That's why it's so damn important to encrypt the data. It shouldn't even be a question.

If the drones are sophisticated proprietary technology, as one person in the article states, then they should use pre-existing DOD communications systems that already use sophisticated encryption. If, on the other hand, drones use inexpensive "off-the-shelf" components, as others have said in the past, then they should use inexpensive "off- the-shelf" encryption (that is actually quite good).

Attackerman and Danger Room have more.

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Security Matters, Iraq & Afghanistan, Pakistan (all tags)

In a recent controversial article in The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh points to growing radicalization within Pakistan’s military that could endanger the security of its nuclear arsenal...

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Nukes on a Blog, Pakistan (all tags)

In July, the CTC Sentinel published an analysis stating that over the past two years, several Pakistani nuclear weapons sites have come under attack. Shaun Gregory, the author of the report and an expert on Pakistani security, pointed to three instances where Pakistani sites were targeted by militants:

…an attack on the nuclear missile storage facility at Sargodha on November 1, 2007, an attack on Pakistan’s nuclear airbase at Kamra by a suicide bomber on December 10, 2007, and perhaps most significantly the August 20, 2008 attack when Pakistani Taliban suicide bombers blew up several entry points to one of the armament complexes at the Wah cantonment, considered one of Pakistan’s main nuclear weapons assembly sites.

Pakistan’s problem emanates in part from the location of its nuclear facilities. Worried about their vulnerability to an Indian invasion or strike, Pakistan placed many of its complexes around Islamabad and in the northwestern portion of the country. With the rise in militant extremism, many of these facilities now find themselves in or near areas populated by the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda...

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Nukes on a Blog, Pakistan (all tags)