Two Reflections on Ukraine

The present standoff in Ukraine makes me think of two things. First, in 1994 Ukraine voluntarily gave up its control of Soviet nuclear weapons then stationed on its territory under American pressure. Kiev wanted to please Washington, which wanted only one nuclear successor state for the Soviet Union rather than four (Belarus and Kazakhstan were the other two republics with nuclear weapons). For the sake of the nuclear non-proliferation regime, Washington wanted Moscow to assume complete control of all Soviet nuclear weapons. I remember thinking that given Russian history, Ukraine was crazy to give up control of its deterrent to Moscow--the capital that had twice in the past strangled Ukrainian sovereignty. Had I been an adviser in the Clinton administration I would have urged Clinton not to pressure any of the three republics to give up their weapons for a few years until Moscow had proved its good intentions.

North Korea's New Nuclear Potential

Starting in 2006 North Korea has conducted three nuclear tests. All three weapons tested were fueled by plutonium, a by-product of nuclear reactor operations. In the decade before he was finally stopped in February 2004 Pakistani metallurgist and nuclear scientist A.Q, Khan managed to sell uranium-enrichment technology, which he had earlier stolen from the European consortium URENCO in the 1970s, to three countries: Iran, Libya, and North Korea. Iran got thousands of centrifuges used to separate the lighter U235 isotope from the heavier and more common U238 isotope in order to enrich uranium, ostensibly for peaceful uses. Iran is presently subject to severe Western economic sanctions and is presently negotiating with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany (P5 + 1) over the lifting of sanctions in exchange for Tehran limiting its enrichment activities. Libya gave up its military nuclear ambitions in 2003 following the American-British invasion of Iraq. That leaves just one country: North Korea.

South Asian Nuclear Triangle

Toby Dalton at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace's Nuclear Policy Program recently wrote a piece that was reprinted in the Proliferation News email newsletter put out by the Endowment's Global Think Tank.  The gist of the article was that whereas most analysts and policy makers dealing with South Asia though in terms of an Indian-Pakistani dyad and an Indian-Chinese dyad it make much more sense to think in terms of an Indian-Pakistani-Chinese triad in which each country had a relationship with the other two that affected both of them. He wrote that China had a much closer connection to Pakistan's nuclear development than many people realized.

By chance I just finished reading a 2000 report from the RAND Corp. on India's nuclear options. This 700 plus page report by analyst Ashley Tellis, India's Emerging Nuclear Posture, in very clear readable English spelled out the likely doctrine, size, and policy options for India in the decades ahead regarding her nuclear options.