Abstract
An unlikely theory
The March/April NRDC Nuclear Notebook, “North Korea's Nuclear Program, 2003,” does not discuss the reasons North Korea might have for developing an enriched uranium bomb if it already has a plutonium bomb. The CIA's latest assessment, as your article reports, is that “the North has one or possibly two weapons using plutonium.”
Surely, one type of bomb is enough–especially for an impoverished country like North Korea. India has a plutonium bomb and Pakistan has a uranium bomb–neither seems to need a second type.
What would Nuclear Notebook's authors think of the theory that the reason North Korea has been buying centrifuges to enrich uranium is that it has not mastered the art of making bombs out of plutonium? At one time, it was thought to be more difficult to make a bomb with plutonium than with uranium. It was for that reason that the United States never bothered to test the uranium bomb it dropped on Hiroshima, whereas it felt it had to test the plutonium bomb before dropping it on Nagasaki.
Could it be that by acquiring centrifuges, North Korea has unwittingly tipped its hand and let it be known that it has no bombs just yet?
Ancaster, Ontario, Canada
Robert S. Norris responds:
Unfortunately, Douglas Scott's theory about the North Korean bomb program falls into the category of wishful thinking. It is also based on certain misunderstandings.
Scott says that neither India nor Pakistan “seem to need a second type” of bomb. But the facts are otherwise. Indian officials claimed they tested a “thermonuclear device” on May 11, 1998, although it is unclear whether the device was successful. Throughout the 1990s, Pakistan vigorously pursued a plutonium production capability, and in April 1998 Pakistan announced that its Khushab reactor had begun operation. The Pakistani reprocessing facility is nearby at Chasma.
Scott's example of the Hiroshima bomb also misses the point. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima was a gun-type design thought so simple by its designers that they didn't even feel the need to test it before its delivery over Japan. But we believe the North Koreans are planning to use their centrifuge-produced highly enriched uranium in the more advanced implosion design, likely provided to them by the Pakistanis, who received missile technology and parts in exchange. One possible reason the North Koreans may wish to pursue a highly enriched uranium capability, as I discussed in the article, is to use composite core implosion designs so that greater numbers of bombs can be produced.
Not us
Lincoln had confidence in the people's wisdom. We can only trust that the world will duly note and long remember that it was not the American people who promoted the executive who diverted the last, best hope of Earth to international aggression. It was a flawed judiciary.
Lambertville, Michigan
Don't censor science
The recent news from Denver–that more than 20 scientific journals, including Nature and Science, have agreed to censor and/or modify information that the editors believe might compromise the security of the United States–is appalling.
The security of the United States is important to all Americans, but stifling scientific progress through censorship is not the way go about protecting the country.
Mesquite, Texas
Too much tritium
Charles Ferguson, in his review of my book, Tritium on Ice (March/April 2003), captured well my two main arguments against the U.S. plan to produce tritium for nuclear weapons in commercial nuclear power plants–that it was contrary to U.S. nonproliferation interests, and that the choice of the particular two plants to be modified for tritium production was unwise for safety reasons. But he took exception to a third argument–that there would be no need for a fresh supply of tritium for 20 years or more.
My argument was that if only those weapons in the active arsenal needed to be supplied with tritium, then the tritium in weapons removed from that inventory could provide the needed supply for a very long time. But Ferguson observes that shortly before my book went to press there were clear signals that the Bush administration intended to maintain a tritium supply for a much larger inventory than the 1,700-2,000 deployed strategic warheads agreed to in the May 2002 “Moscow Treaty” (enough, in fact, for the much larger START II levels negotiated by the first President Bush). Ferguson points out that, given the administration's apparent intent in this regard, a new supply of tritium would be needed much earlier.
My thinking then, as it is now, was that if President George W. Bush expected to receive any credit at all for the strategic arms “cuts” negotiated with Vladimir Putin, then maintaining a supply of tritium for the weapons that were cut would be an egregious inconsistency, regardless of whether the decommissioned weapons were destroyed or merely stored away, and that there was reasonable hope that someone in the administration's decision-making chain would recognize that embarrassing inconsistency and move to bring the tritium production policy in line with presidential rhetoric on strategic arms levels. My hopes in that regard are fainter today than a year ago, but they are not altogether gone.
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Force projection from space
James Moltz's “Reining in the Space Cowboys” (January/February 2003) was particularly interesting not for what it covered, but for what it failed to mention.
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Update
Based at Fort Benning, Georgia, the U.S. Army's School of the Americas–recently renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation–is a controversial training school for Latin American soldiers, and, many add, dictators and thugs. Last November, more than 10,000 people gathered (as they do from time to time) at the gates of Fort Benning to call for the closure of the school, where they say subjects include torture, assassination, counterintelligence, and “handling of sources.”
After peacefully crossing onto government property, 86 protesters were charged with criminal trespass and, in two cases, destruction of government property. In the past, line-crossers have received only slaps on the wrist, but this year the Feds are throwing the book at them.
To date, 51 protesters have received prison sentences of between three and six months and fines of up to $1,000 each. The remaining defendants, all of whom were first-time offenders, received 12 months' probation, 250 hours of community service, and up to $500 in fines.
Many defendants accepted their unusually harsh sentences with dignity. Caitlin Harwood of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, told the court that her sentence is an opportunity to release herself from the “guilt of standing aside in silence.”
The School of the Americas Watch (soaw.org), some of whose members were arrested, says that the group's goal is to expose double standards in the “war on terrorism” and to put the School of the Americas and U.S. foreign policy on trial.
While the systems Moltz discusses are a threat to the future use of space, the military has an even more ominous system in mind. The idea behind the “Military Space Plane,” which has been discussed in trade publications such as Aviation Week & Space Technology and Space News, is a vehicle that can carry out a variety of missions in low Earth orbit. A vehicle that could be launched into orbit on short notice would allow Defense Department planners the flexibility of action in space that they only dream of today.
The Military Space Plane (MSP) is touted as a rapid-response vehicle that would allow the replacement of satellites damaged in war, or for the number of satellites in orbit to be quickly increased in times of tension. It is also described as a “temporary” platform for various sensors that could be placed in orbit, maneuvering multiple times to keep an opponent from scheduling activities around knowing when a satellite passes. Also talked up is the MSP's potential to fix, refuel, and even retrieve satellites in orbit. Of course, if a vehicle can be used to retrieve or fix a satellite, it can also be used to damage or remove a satellite the Pentagon doesn't want to remain in operation. But that is far from the most disturbing use that an MSP could be put to.
That other use, which has been talked about more and more openly of late, is “global projection of force.” The MSP would be launched carrying weapons that it could deliver anywhere on the face of the Earth within an hour or less. The weapons could be either nuclear or conventional, or perhaps kinetic energy weapons that derive their destructive power simply from the speed with which they impact their targets.
Unmentioned is the option of stationing a fully armed vehicle in orbit, in preparation for a near-term strike at the beginning of a war. If weapons were placed on a vehicle that was only “temporarily” based in orbit, this administration–or one like it–would likely argue that it was not violating prohibitions against the basing of weapons of mass destruction in space. But even if weapons were not based on a temporary space platform, the power that having a Military Space Plane would give the country that possessed it would be great, and the temptation to use and/or abuse it would be great indeed.
Because the MSP could confer extreme power on any nation that possessed it, the time to begin a discussion on whether such a system should be fielded is now. To do otherwise will leave the final decision on its development and use in the hands of those most interested in using it to its fullest, the military and military contractors. Do we want that to happen?
Rochelle, Illinois
Wake up, babus
Developments on the Korean peninsula hold ominous portents for South Asia. Japan, China, and even South Korea advocate restraint in dealing with the North Korean regime, but none should be shown when it comes to India.
It is high time Indians take a hard look at themselves while viewing the nuclear and missile crisis in Southeast Asia. Blame it on the sinister nexus between bone-headed politicians and the babus of civilian, military, and high-science officialdom, who have taken the gullible for a feel-good joy ride while the world views the people of this region as pariahs.
These manipulators are playing with nuclear fire just to preserve the parasitic structures erected in 1947 to suck the sweat and blood of the people.
North Korea warned that Washington's hostile policy toward it would backfire and result in “an uncontrollable catastrophe.” It dismantled U.N. monitoring equipment from mothballed nuclear power plants. Most Americans see that as retaliation for cutting off agreed supplies of oil. The White House says it wants a peaceful resolution to the situation and the president has said, “We have no intention of invading North Korea.”
India, in contrast, cannot boast of any legitimacy in continuing its hostile posture with regard to nuclear proliferation.
Its peaceful program started off with the promise of abundant energy, too cheap to meter, but was hijacked in 1974 to make a Durga (Hindu goddess of power) out of tyrant Indira Gandhi. Sycophants under Raja Ramanna teamed up with her and went back on their solemn commitment not to divert fissile material. Ramanna's successors ensured that India continued its “rogue state” status, obfuscating on signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty even as they lectured on peace and nonviolence.
Bogged down in secrecy and international isolation, the nuclear program became a scandal that invites uncontrollable catastrophe. Corrupt and fraudulent practices abound in the nuclear establishment, resulting in horrific design flaws and construction lapses in atomic power projects. Poor quality parts made of imitation, look-alike materials are nonchalantly palmed off in dirty deals between the bandicoots of the nuclear establishment and entrenched businesses. The result is that the deadly tritium leaks from Kakrapar are at three times the permitted level. If left unremedied, the leaks could become a torrent that would dwarf the devastation of the earthquake that hit Gujarat in 2001.
Top nuclear bureaucrats even got the chief of the regulatory authority sacked for daring to point out the grave risks that the people are being subjected to. The mafia persuaded the Hindu fundamentalist regime that took over in New Delhi to opt for irresponsible nuclear proliferation in 1998–a ploy to divert public attention away from the chronic nonperformance of this flop show.
One hopes that the more conscientious media will unmask the villains and force the powers that be to abandon pursuit of mass-destruction weapons before they are compelled to do so.
Ahmedabad, India