Three CISAC scientists have joined 26 of the nation’s top nuclear experts to send an open letter to President Obama in support of the Iran deal struck in July.

“The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) the United States and its partners negotiated with Iran will advance the cause of peace and security in the Middle East and can serve as a guidepost for future non-proliferation agreements,” the group of renowned scientists, academics and former government officials wrote in the letter dated August 8, 2015.

“This is an innovative agreement, with much more stringent constraints than any previously negotiated non-proliferation framework.”

CISAC senior fellow and former Los Alamos National Laboratory director Sig Hecker is a signatory to the letter, along with CISAC co-founder Sid Drell, and cybersecurity expert and CISAC affiliate Martin Hellman.

Six Nobel laureates also signed, including FSI senior fellow by courtesy and former Stanford Linear Accelerator director Burton Richter.

The letter arrives at a crucial time for the Obama administration as it rallies public opinion and lobbies Congress to support the Iran agreement.

You can read the full letter along with analysis from the New York Times at this link.

Click the link for the transcript of “The Widening Cracks in Iran’s Regime.”
 

Unrest at Home

The March elections were the first held since the 2022 protests in response to the suspicious death of Mahsa Amini following her arrest for not wearing a hijab. The incident catalyzed the Iranian public into a movement calling for the support of “Women, Life, and Freedom,” and sparked the largest and most wide-spread public demonstrations since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. In response, the regime claims more than 80,000 protestors were arrested, and reports claim executions reached record levels.

Even with this repression, people continue to push back, says Milani.

“There are people [in Iran] who are doing what Navalny was doing in Russia on a much smaller scale, and in a much more timid way, exposing the corruption of this regime and these sites within Iran. These defiant people who keep going to prison but don't stop exposing the deep corruption of the leaders of the Iranian regime and their multi-multibillion dollar heist of property.”

Some, like Iranian women’s rights activist Bahareh Hedayati, are even so bold as to openly advocate for a regime change. Even among hard-line supporters of the regime, Milani says there is growing recognition that business cannot continue as usual. 

“In a lead editorial in the newspaper Jomhouri-e Eslami, which Khamenei himself founded, it was said that these elections were a major defeat, and unless that message was heeded, the regime is going to lose,” Milani told McFaul.
 

Trouble in the Neighborhood

The elections also came on the heels of the October 7 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, and the ensuing war in Gaza. While the Khamenei government initially tried to use the attacks to its advantage, Iran’s poor economy and its adamant opposition to a two-state solution has left it at odds with both the Iranian and Palestinian publics.

“Iran isn’t really standing up with Palestinians. If Iran was standing up with them in Gaza, the regime would have suggested what the majority of the Palestinians want, which is a two-state solution,” reasons Milani. 

There is a lingering question of why the U.S., and the democratic world in general, aren’t doing more to support democracy in Iran. Dr. Milani asserts that roots of the caution is two-fold: one part stemming from a perception among U.S. progressives that criticizing the Iranian regime could be viewed as Islamophobic, and the other from uncertainty over the status of Iran’s nuclear program and enrichment capabilities. 

The latter is a threat which needs to be taken seriously, says Milani.

“If you read what the Iranian officials have been saying, I think anyone has to be not paying attention if they’ve not concluded that Iran is clearly, unmistakably, threatening to go nuclear with weapons,” he cautions.
 

An Uncertain Road Ahead

There are no easy diplomatic solutions, given the breakdown of the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal and Russia’s destabilization of nuclear policy norms and saber-rattling over the war in Ukraine. Russia, a strategic partner of Iran, is unlikely to be helpful in cooling such tensions, says Milani. But China might.

“I think China can make the regime understand,” says Milani. “Russia can work with the regime in espionage. Russia can help them in threatening dissidents. But Russia can’t have the kind of economic muscle that the regime needs to get out of this pipeline. That will only be China.”

While uncertainties about the future remain both within Iran and in regards to the consequences of its geopolitical influence, Milani is certain the tide is turning:

“These events and this election are as clear an indication as I've ever seen that the great majority of the people of Iran don't want this regime. They might not be clear on how they want to get rid of it and who they want to bring in, but clearly this has been a historic defeat.”

The Korean Peninsula stands at a perilous crossroads. Recent missile tests and provocations, coupled with historical trends, paint a worrisome picture of the current state of affairs, prompting some analysts to warn of a looming conflict. The Korea Program at Shorenstein APARC recently hosted two events to analyze these escalating tensions that have sparked global concern.

On February 21, the seminar “Slow Boil: What to Expect from North Korea in 2024,” featured Victor Cha, D.S. Song-KF Chair, Professor of Government at Georgetown University, and Senior Vice President for Asia and Korea Chair at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Cha discussed historical behavioral patterns of North Korean missile tests, military provocations, and weapons demonstrations, and what all these might mean for security on the Korean peninsula.

The following week, on March 7, at the seminar  “Is North Korea Preparing for War?,” we were joined by Robert Carlin, a non-resident scholar at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey and Siegfried Hecker, a professor of practice at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, and in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University. Carlin and Hecker, both formerly our colleagues at the Stanford Center for International Security and Cooperation, discussed their recent 38 North article, “Is Kim Jong Un Preparing for War?,” which posits that Pyongyang has already made the strategic decision to go to war. 

The speakers at both events delved into the various rationales behind North Korea's actions and provided contrasting viewpoints on the trajectory of the situation. While Carlin and Hecker painted a grim picture of North Korea's intentions to engage in warfare and advocated for robust security measures, Cha argued that, while 2024 will be a challenging year, established approaches such as diplomacy and deterrence will remain effective in managing relations with Pyongyang. 

Rhetorical Preparations for Conflict

Carlin and Hecker provided a grave assessment, suggesting that “Kim Jong Un has made a strategic decision to go to war,” akin to his grandfather's stance in 1950. Hecker provided historical context, indicating that despite attempts at normalization with the United States, each North Korean leader has simultaneously explored the development of its nuclear weapons arsenal and accumulation of its conventional armaments. Hecker argued, "The Korean War was never settled, it was an armistice, and so, more or less, North Korea has been preparing for war, but this is different and we are really concerned.”

Carlin noted a shift that occurred at the Workers’ Party plenum at the end of 2022, in which “Pyongyang announced new measures that demonstrated that the old policy with the U.S. was over and that they were going to move much more towards the Russians.” The plenum also marked a rhetorical shift where Kim Jong Un introduced the phrase “war preparations.” “Some people say, ‘Oh that's normal North Korean rhetoric’ — it's not normal. They had not been talking at that level to their own people about war preparations […] they talked a lot about deterrence which meant building up, but not war preparations,” said Carlin.

According to Carlin, Pyongyang has “primed the pan for a clash in the Yellow Sea […] everything we have seen in the last year suggests very strongly that this is a decision the regime has made, and that it will patiently move in this direction.”

The speakers both argued that Kim's shift stems from a perceived failure of past diplomatic endeavors and a traumatic setback at the 2019 Hanoi summit, when, as Hecker indicated, the North Koreans decided to abandon the 30-year policy of seeking normalization with the United States. “This is a more dangerous time than any time since the start of the Korean War,” Hecker warned.
 

The Inevitable Tensions of Deterrence

In contrast, Cha’s assessment of the situation is more cautiously optimistic, anticipating a surge in North Korean provocations in 2024 but attributing it to historical patterns rather than a definitive strategic shift. According to Cha, we should  expect North Korean belligerence to increase in 2024, while dialogue looks unlikely.” He highlighted North Korea's tendency to ramp up provocations during U.S. election years, produced data on the increasing number of provocations since the 1990s, and emphasized Kim's repeated rejections of dialogue with the Biden administration.

Cha also provided four reasons why he does not expect a war with North Korea in 2024: “First, Pyongyang is not confident enough in its capability to deter U.S. and South Korean retaliation […] Second, the uptempo in U.S.-ROK and U.S.-ROK-Japan exercising […] Third, if North Korea were ready to go to war, they would not be selling all their ammunition to Russia […] and fourth, if North Korea were really ready to go to war, they would not be decoupling from South Korea.”

Cha suggested that, while war is unlikely, “coercion, particularly against South Korea, and North Korea-Russia relations are only going to grow.” He described North Korea’s transfer of armaments from Najin to Dunai in Russia to three munition storage facilities near the Ukrainian front. Cha sees a possible change in the U.S. North Korea policy approach from focusing on denuclearization to curtailing and disincentivizing this behavior.

An Uncertain Year Ahead

Whether or not the escalating tensions since the 2019 Hanoi Summit mean that Pyongyang is headed to war, its increased belligerence is a clear signal that Kim’s government has shifted its efforts. North Korea is now pursuing its security and economic agendas without any indication of attempting to normalize relations with the United States or South Korea. Furthermore, it continues to strengthen its partnership with the China-Russia bloc. The assessment of continued tensions on the Korean Peninsula is undisputed.

Ultimately, both perspectives shared by the speakers highlight the need for vigilance, strategic coordination, and innovative policy solutions to address the escalating tensions in the region.
 

Impacts on Russia, Ukraine, and Beyond

Michael McFaul

The implications of the 72-hour mutiny will last much longer and extend much further beyond Rostov and Moscow, says FSI Director and former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul.

Speaking with Madeline Brand of KRCW, McFaul outlined the difficult situation Putin now finds himself in.

“This whole series of events has made Putin look a lot weaker than he looked three or four days ago. The very fact that the Wagner group exists is a sign of weakness. Putin needs them because he couldn’t rely on his armed forces.”

Elaborating further on Putin’s dilemma, McFaul says:

“As those mercenaries were getting closer to Moscow, Putin went on TV and sounded very macho, calling Prigozhin’s men traitors and promising to crush them, but then four hours later, he capitulates and starts to negotiate. And now he’s given another speech where it sounds like he’s pleading with these mercenaries to lay down their weapons and join the Russian forces. That clearly shows he hasn’t resolved this Wagner crisis yet.”

McFaul predicts that Putin’s remaining partners are also taking note of his fumbled reaction to the rebellion.

“​​If you’re Xi Jinping watching this, the big bet you made on Putin as a partner in opposing the West is looking really problematic right now.”

What Chinese officials fear most, McFaul explained to MSNBC’s Jonathn Capehart, is instability and dissolution, both internally and amongst their neighbors. Historically, the collapse of the Soviet Union was a catastrophic event for Chinese Communist Party officials, and a lesson the current leadership is loath to repeat.

McFaul asserts that, “The longer Putin’s war in Ukraine goes, the more probable it becomes that Russia becomes more unstable. The longer this war goes on, the more likely it is we could see something like this play out over and over again. So I would hope that Xi Jinping understands that putting pressure on Putin to end the war in Ukraine is the best way to prevent chaos on China's borders.”

There are also important lessons the United States and its allies need to consider when evaluating the kind of support they are willing to give Ukraine as the war wears on.

“Putin capitulated very fast, and I think that says a lot about how he’s going to fight in Ukraine and whether he needs an ‘off ramp’ like we’ve been saying. We’ve heard all of these arguments that if he’s backed into a corner he’ll never negotiate. Well, this weekend Putin was in a corner, and he didn't double down. He didn't escalate. He negotiated,” McFaul observes.

Continuing this thought on his Substack, McFaul emphasized that, “The lesson for the war in Ukraine is clear. Putin is more likely to negotiate and end his war if he is losing on the battlefield, not when there is a stalemate. Those who have argued that Ukraine must not attack Crimea for fear of triggering escalation must now reevaluate that hypothesis. The sooner Putin fears he is losing the war, the faster he will negotiate.”

Or, as McFaul writes in Journal on Democracy, “Anything that weakens Putin is good for Ukraine. It is as simple as that.”  

Fallout on Nuclear Security and Norms

Rose Gottemoeller

Throughout the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, there have been concerns about nuclear sabre rattling by Putin and Kremlin-backed propagandists. Writing in the Financial Times, Rose Gottemoeller, the Steven C. Házy Lecturer at CISAC and former Deputy Secretary of NATO offered this insight:

“The fixation with nuclear apocalypse seems to be the symptom of a wider anxiety that the west is bent on Russian dismemberment because of its aspirations in Ukraine. The Kremlin argues that it only wanted to resume its ancestral right to a Slavic heartland, but that the U.S. and NATO are seeking as punishment Russia’s full and complete destruction as a nation state.”

Gottemoeller has been quick to condemn Putin’s casual threats of nuclear use and clear in her recommendations to the U.S. administration and its allies to find constructive ways to keep nuclear arms talks open despite the war in Ukraine and setbacks like Russia’s suspension of its participation in the New START Treaty.

The Wagner takeover of Rostov-on-Don adds a new layer to the security concerns surrounding Russia’s nuclear posture. Looking at the evolution of Putin’s nuclear rhetoric over the last 18 months, Gottemoeller writes:

“Putin embraced nuclear weapons to keep the United States and its NATO allies off his back and out of his way as he pursued his adventure in Ukraine. It did not work out that way. The United States and NATO were not ready to fight inside Ukraine, but they were willing to do everything else to support Kyiv’s cause — economic, political, security and military assistance to ensure Russia’s defeat. Nuclear weapons failed Putin as a guarantee against external meddling.”

Turning to the events of the last week, Gottemoeller continues:

“We learned on June 24 that they are no help to him internally, either. He could not brandish nuclear weapons in the face of the Wagner Group uprising . . . Nuclear weapons are not the authoritarian’s silver bullet when his power is strained to the breaking point — far from it. In fact, they represent a consummate threat to national and global security if they should fall into the wrong hands in the course of domestic unrest.”

In light of Prigozhin’s mutiny, she urges global leaders to “focus on the problem, stop loose nuclear talk, and put new measures in place to protect, control and account for nuclear weapons and the fissile material that go into them.” 

The Unknown Unknowns of the Settlement

Steven Pifer

Major questions remain about the deal struck between Putin, Prigozhin, and Lukashenko. While Lukashenko has confirmed that the Wagner boss is now in Belarusian territory, it is unclear — and many feel, unlikely — that he will stay there in quiet retirement. 

Weighing in on Twitter, Steven Pifer, an affiliate at the Center for International Cooperation and Security and The Europe Center, and a former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, acknowledged, “We likely do not know all carrots and/or sticks that were in play to lead to Prigozhin’s decision to end his mutiny . . . Something does not add up.”

Following up in Politico, Pifer added:

“The ‘settlement’ supposedly brokered by President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus leaves Putin, who was invisible during the day except for a short morning TV broadcast, as damaged goods. It provided the impression that all was forgiven, likely because the Russian president feared the prospect of Prigozhin’s troops parading in Moscow — even if they lacked the numbers to take control of the capital. It is harder to understand Prigozhin. His demands went unmet, yet he ordered his troops back to garrison, accepted that they might join the Russian army that he detests, and meekly set off for Belarus. There clearly is more behind this ‘settlement’ than we understand.”

North Korea remains a puzzle to Americans. How did this country—one of the most isolated in the world and in the policy cross hairs of every U.S. administration during the past 30 years—progress from zero nuclear weapons in 2001 to a threatening arsenal of perhaps 50 such weapons in 2021?

Hinge Points brings readers literally inside the North Korean nuclear program, joining Siegfried Hecker to see what he saw and hear what he heard in his visits to North Korea from 2004 to 2010. Hecker goes beyond the technical details—described in plain English from his on-the-ground experience at the North's nuclear center at Yongbyon—to put the nuclear program exactly where it belongs, in the context of decades of fateful foreign policy decisions in Pyongyang and Washington.

Describing these decisions as "hinge points," he traces the consequences of opportunities missed by both sides.The result has been that successive U.S. administrations have been unable to prevent the North, with the weakest of hands, from becoming one of only three countries in the world that might target the United States with nuclear weapons. Hecker's unique ability to marry the technical with the diplomatic is well informed by his interactions with North Korean and U.S. officials over many years, while his years of working with Russian, Chinese, Indian, and Pakistani nuclear officials have given him an unmatched breadth of experience from which to view and interpret the thinking and perspective of the North Koreans.

For more information and purchasing please visit sup.org.

Visit the book website for an in-depth look at Dr. Siegfried S. Hecker time spent in North Korea.

Watch on CNBC

Putin has made thinly veiled threats about using nuclear weapons against those who interfere with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The logic of nuclear deterrence suggests that it’s never in the interest of a nuclear power to engage in war with another country possessing nuclear weapons, as that would lead to mutually assured destruction. But preventing nuclear war is not the sole goal of any nuclear power. Putin might well believe that a world without Russia in its rightful position of power is not worth existing. We can’t be sure of what Putin is thinking, or whether his decision making is compromised – all we can do is prepare for the possibility of Russia’s use of nuclear weapons, writes Herbert Lin.

Read the rest at iai news

The Pentagon estimates that 600 Russian missiles have been fired at Ukrainian targets in the first 10 days of war alone. Additionally, the infamous abandoned Chernobyl nuclear plant has been seized by Russian forces and, most recently, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station in Enerhodar has been attacked and occupied by armed Russian soldiers. Zaporizhzhia is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe and Russian projectiles started a localized fire in an auxiliary building on the site on March 3, 2020.

Russian forces have also cut off the power supply to the Chernobyl reactor and containment site. This means that spent nuclear fuel is not being cooled at the site in accordance to internationally recognized standards. The head of the Chernobyl nuclear plant has said that the back-up generators have enough fuel to power the site for 48 hours. We can only guess what might happen after that. If this were not enough, there is still ongoing shelling at a nuclear research facility in Kharkiv. The current conditions there are unknown.

Despite these chaotic circumstances, the SaveEcoBot team, in coordination with the Ministry of Environmental Protection, has put a lot of effort into radiation monitoring and informing the public about changes in background radiation. We’ve been set back in this critical work by the damages done to our monitoring equipment by Russians, but Ukrainian technicians are restoring the systems as fast as they can.

The assaults on the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia power plants have already had implications for the environment. The radioactive dust raised by the wheels and trucks of the Russian combat vehicles in the Chernobyl zone has raised the background radiation levels to a hundredfold excess of the normal threshold. Just imagine what chaotic attacks, with Russians shooting, firing missiles, and bombing other parts of Ukrainian territory might lead to. In Ukraine, we have a saying, “мавпа з гранатою,” which means, “Like a monkey with a grenade." Russia is playing the monkey to all of Europe.

Russia continues to assert that its forces are in Ukraine for reasons of safety and security. The takeover of Chernobyl disturbed large amounts of radioactive soil, propelling it into the air. The attack on Zaporizhzhia resulted in a fire on the site of an active nuclear plant. This is not what safety looks like. To pretend that these actions are anything but a dangerous disregard for life is an insult to all sane, rational people. We are all very lucky that none of Zaporizhzhia’s six reactors were hit by the tank shell that started that fire.

Russia, the U.S. and the UK committed 20 years ago to ensure Ukraine’s peaceful sovereignty in exchange for Ukraine giving up its nuclear weapons program. This agreement was built on the idea that Ukraine without nuclear weapons would never have cause to be the target of any attack. This assurance was guaranteed by the signers of the memorandum.

But Russia’s violent attacks have proven that a nuclear threat still exists in Ukraine. It is not a threat of Ukraine’s making, but one engineered by Russia’s own reckless assault on our civilian nuclear facilities. The consequences of this diabolical action go well beyond a potential environmental catastrophe for Ukraine; our neighbors, including Russia itself, and even countries outside of Europe could all be affected by nuclear fallout carried on high-atmosphere winds across continent and over oceans.

One way to mitigate this threat and to realize security assurances to Ukraine is to implement a no-fly zone over Ukraine. The hesitance of the EU and U.S.  to implement a no-fly zone is understandable. But at the same time, it is critically important to develop options and generate models for other types of no-fly zones beyond the proposals being discussed today. Such alternative options could be the key to helping prevent a Ukrainian tragedy not only in terms of nuclear security, but also in averting a similar tragedy to what the world witnessed in Aleppo.

To do this, Ukraine needs more military support. We have gratefully received strong military support from our allies, but even this bounty is not enough to defend our country. Stinger missiles can shoot down small, low-flying aircraft from a fairly short distance, but are useless against ballistic missiles and high-altitude bombers. We need weapons that can shoot down planes at considerable distances and altitudes, systems to detect and shoot down cruise missiles, and planes to protect our airspace. Early Russian attacks targeted our airports to deplete our air defense capabilities and frustrate our ability to get planes in the air. But we still stand. But if we want to avert a second Chernobyl or another Aleppo, we need to strengthen our air defenses.

We learned in 1939 that making concessions to tyrants is no plan for peace. Putin is a bully. Like all bullies, he will take as much as he can get while treating all harm — including environmental harm — as merely incidental. Like all bullies, he will stop only when he meets strong resistance. Putin and the Russia propaganda machine frame all attempts to stymie Russian aggression as not only a provocation, but a provocation that could trigger a nuclear response. Such veiled threats of nuclear attacks are a form of prior restraint meant to constrain Ukraine’s allies from even suggesting that the Russian invasion is improper. But we must not accept this starkly irrational framework. Nuclear weapons are weapons of deterrence, not tools to chill diplomatic criticism.

American analysts say that they expect the Russian attacks to become increasingly more brutal. Any increased risks to civilian and military targets commensurately increases risks to nuclear sites as well. And any compromised nuclear facility in Ukraine inherently becomes an international problem, not just a local one. Like Putin, radioactive fallout does not respect borders.

Just ten days ago, my life changed dramatically. I used to be a successful civil leader and entrepreneur with an innovative business. Now I sleep on the floor of an abandoned building with my gun in hand. My daughter knows exactly how the air raid siren sounds. But we are still Ukrainians. We are still Europeans. We still count on our allies. So to our allies, I say: close the Ukrainian sky. Provide us with enough weapons. We will do the rest.