The agenda for nuclear arms control and related issues in the 2020s is a broad one. As the United States, Russia and others figure out how to maintain and enhance strategic stability in a multi-player, multi-domain world, Washington and Moscow will continue to have a central role, writes Steven Pifer, a fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy and a retired US Foreign Service officer.

The Biden administration sees arms control as a tool that can advance security and stability. It will seek to engage Russia on further nuclear arms reductions and other measures. Arms control in the 2020s will reflect continuity with earlier efforts—nuclear arms reductions will remain a bilateral matter between Washington and Moscow—but also contain new elements. That reflects the fact that strategic stability has become a more complex concept.

Start with Strategic Stability

Donald Trump was the first American president in 50 years to reach no agreement in the area of nuclear weapons. President Biden sees arms control as an important policy tool. On his first full day in office, he agreed to extend the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) for five years. His administration plans to do more. On February 3, Secretary of State Blinken said Washington would “pursue with the Russian Federation, in consultation with Congress and US allies and partners, arms control that addresses all of its nuclear weapons.”

This will not happen immediately. The administration needs to get its team in place. It will conduct a review of US programs and doctrine, which may be broader than the nuclear posture reviews conducted by past administrations.

The first serious US-Russian engagement on nuclear arms issues will likely occur in strategic stability talks. The classic definition of strategic stability is a situation in which neither side has an incentive, in a severe crisis or conventional conflict, to use nuclear weapons first. For five decades beginning in the 1960s, strategic stability was based largely on comparing US and Soviet strategic offensive nuclear forces. If each side had the ability, even after absorbing a massive first strike, to retaliate with devastating consequences, neither had an incentive to use nuclear weapons.

Today’s strategic stability model is more complex. Instead of a two-player model based just on strategic nuclear forces, today’s is multi-player and multi-domain. Third-country nuclear forces such as China need to be factored in. In addition to nuclear weapons, the model should take account of missile defense, precision-guided conventional strike, space and cyber developments.

US-Russian strategic stability talks should address all these factors. They should also address doctrine. Case in point: escalate-to-deescalate. Most Russian experts assert that this never became official Russian doctrine. However, the Pentagon believes it has, and that influenced the 2018 US nuclear posture review. At the least, each side appears to believe that the other has lowered the threshold for using nuclear weapons. That should leave no one comfortable.

Nuclear Arms

Formal nuclear arms negotiations will, for the foreseeable future, remain a bilateral US-Russian matter. That is due to the disparity in numbers. According to the Federation of American Scientists, the United States has about 3,600 nuclear warheads in its active stockpile, while Russia has about 4,300. No third country has more than about 300.

The Trump administration tried to bring China into a US-Russia negotiation, but it never articulated a plan for doing so. That is no surprise. Washington and Moscow would not agree to reduce to China’s level, nor would they agree to legitimize a Chinese build-up to their levels, and China would not accept unequal limits.

New START caps the United States and Russia each at no more than 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and nuclear-capable bombers and no more that 1,550 deployed strategic warheads. Those limits will remain in force until February 2026.

However, New START’s limits do not cover 60-65 percent of the active nuclear stockpiles of the two countries. Reserve (or non-deployed) strategic nuclear warheads, and non-strategic nuclear warheads—whether deployed or non-deployed—are unconstrained.

After the Cold War, the United States dramatically reduced its non-strategic nuclear weapons, eliminating all sea-based and land-based systems. Today, the only US non-strategic nuclear weapon is the B61 gravity bomb. Russia, on the other hand, maintains a large number and variety of non-strategic nuclear warheads—close to 2,000 for land-, sea- and air-based delivery as well as for defensive systems. This raises concern that Russia might be postured to use such weapons in a conflict.

The US military maintains more reserve strategic warheads. This reflects a desire to hedge against technical surprises or adverse geopolitical developments. The US military has implemented New START reductions in a manner that would allow it, should the treaty collapse, to add or “upload” warheads on ICBMs and SLBMs that now carry fewer than their capacity. As Russia modernizes its strategic ballistic missiles, it also is expanding its upload capacity.

The logical next step for the United States and Russia would entail negotiation of an agreement with an aggregate limit covering all their nuclear warheads. (Retired but not yet dismantled warheads could be dealt with separately.) An aggregate limit could offset reductions in Russia’s numerical advantage in non-strategic nuclear warheads with reductions in the US numerical advantage in non-deployed strategic warheads.

For a notional agreement, assume an aggregate limit of no more than 2,500 total nuclear warheads. Within that aggregate, there could be a sublimit of no more than 1,000 deployed strategic warheads on deployed ICBMs, SLBMs and any new kinds of strategic systems with deployed warheads—the weapons most readily launched. This approach would treat bomber weapons as non-deployed, since they are not maintained on board aircraft. Ideally, all nuclear weapons other than those on deployed strategic delivery systems would be kept in storage. A new agreement could also lower the New START limits on deployed delivery systems and deployed and non-deployed launchers.

This would be ambitious. That said, it would leave each nuclear superpower with eight times as many nuclear weapons as any third country. Even if the agreement did not entail such dramatic reductions, the structure would, for the first time, capture all US and Russian nuclear warheads.

Such an agreement could enable the United States and Russia to begin to deal with third-country nuclear weapons states, and here is where nuclear arms control in the 2020s might get into new territory. Washington and Moscow could ask China, Britain and France to undertake unilateral commitments not to increase their nuclear weapon numbers as long as the United States and Russia were reducing theirs and agree to limited transparency measures to provide confidence that they were abiding by those commitments.

This US-Russian agreement would require new verification measures to monitor numbers of nuclear weapons in storage. That likely will make both sides’ militaries uncomfortable. But both have adjusted to uncomfortable monitoring measures in the past.

Some arms control experts assess that an agreement limiting all nuclear weapons, particularly non-strategic nuclear arms, is too ambitious and have suggested alternative approaches. One would expand New START’s limits to capture systems such as intercontinental ground-launched boost-glide missiles and nuclear-powered torpedoes, ban other new kinds of strategic systems, and reduce the ratio of deployed strategic warheads to deployed strategic delivery systems, but would not attempt to constrain non-strategic nuclear weapons.

Another alternative would require that non-strategic nuclear weapons be relocated away from bases with associated delivery systems to a small number of storage sites, with monitoring activities designed to verify the absence of nuclear weapons at the bases housing delivery systems, not at confirming or monitoring the number of weapons in storage. While originally suggested for Europe only, it could be broadened to apply on a global basis.

A third alternative would simply seek to lower New START’s limits. Hopefully, however, the US and Russian governments will demonstrate greater ambition.

Other Possible Issues on the US-Russia Agenda

Arms control may enter new territory in the 2020s on issues and types of weapons that, while not nuclear arms, still affect strategic stability. They could be discussed in US-Russian strategic stability talks. If a mandate were agreed, they could be spun off into separate negotiations.

One set of issues concerns missile defense. The US ground-based mid-course defense (GMD) system is designed to defend against rogue states, such as North Korea, not against a Russian or Chinese ballistic missile attack. Russian officials in the past have nevertheless indicated an interest in constraining missile defenses. Whether they will insist on negotiating on missile defense in connection with a next round of nuclear arms negotiations remains to be seen.

US missile defenses now and for the foreseeable future pose no serious threat to Russian strategic ballistic missiles, a point Russian officials sometimes appear to acknowledge. (China, with a much smaller strategic force, has greater grounds for concern, though the performance of GMD system has not been particularly good.) On the other hand, it would not seem difficult to craft an agreement covering strategic missile defenses such as the GMD system and Moscow missile defense system that would apply constraints but still leave the United States room for capabilities to defend against a North Korean ICBM attack. What would prove difficult would be the Washington politics, where Republicans oppose any limits on missile defense.

Another issue is precision-guided conventional strike weapons. In some cases, these can fulfill missions that previously required nuclear weapons. Air- and sea-launched cruise missiles have been in the US inventory for decades and now in the Russian inventory. Both sides are developing hypersonic weapons. With the demise of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty, there is the 9M729 ground-launched cruise missile and likely other future intermediate-range missiles. It would be difficult to devise an arrangement that constrained all such weapons, but US and Russian officials might consider whether a subset poses a particular threat to strategic stability and should be subject to negotiation.

One possibility would seek to ban nuclear-armed intermediate-range missiles. Another possibility, though it has drawbacks, would build on the Russian idea for a moratorium on the deployment of intermediate-range missiles in Europe, provided that it would mean relocation of 9M729 missile systems out of Europe.

Operations in space—used for early warning, command, control and communications and other purposes—also can affect strategic stability. A broad agreement banning the militarization of space is difficult to envisage. However, US and Russian officials might explore more limited measures, such as keep-out zones around certain declared satellites, a ban on anti-satellite tests that generate orbital debris and a ban on emplacing weapons in space designed to strike targets on the Earth.

As for the cyber domain, traditional arms control measures appear ill-suited. Washington and Moscow might pledge not to interfere in the other side’s nuclear command, control and communication systems, but neither could be certain the pledge was being observed.

In contrast to nuclear arms reductions, which will remain a US-Russia issue in the 2020s, some related issues might be considered on a broader basis. For example, China increasingly appears a peer competitor with the United States and Russia in space operations. Moreover, China has many intermediate-range missiles. It remains in the US interest to engage China in strategic stability talks. At some point, trilateral or multilateral discussions might be appropriate.

The agenda for nuclear arms control and related issues in the 2020s is a broad one. As the United States, Russia and others figure out how to maintain and enhance strategic stability in a multi-player, multi-domain world, Washington and Moscow will continue to have a central role. There is much that could be done to enhance stability and strengthen global security. Washington and Moscow will have to overcome the mistrust created by violations of earlier arms control agreements and take an innovative approach, even if certain problems prove insoluble, at least in the near term. But they have an opportunity, and an obligation, to try.

Originally for Valdai Discussion Club

The China Program at Shorenstein APARC had the privilege of hosting Jude Blanchette, the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies​ (CSIS). The program, entitled "What’s ‘Communist’ about the Communist Party of China?," explored the goals and ideology of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as well as what they might mean for the future of China in the global community. Professor Jean Oi, William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics and director of the APARC China Program, moderated the event.

After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, the goals of the CCP became less clear. As the country began to adopt market reforms in the 1980s and 1990s, CCP theorists were forced into contortions providing ideological justifications for policies that appeared overtly capitalist. Deng Xiaoping’s concept of “Socialism with Chinese characteristics” came to be seen as a theoretical fig leaf rather than a description of an egalitarian economic system, and by the 2000s, a consensus emerged that the CCP had completely abandoned any pretense of pursuing the Marxist vision it purported to hold. With the rise of Xi Jinping, however, the Party talks with renewed vigor about Marxism-Leninism and the goal of achieving actual, existing socialism. Has the CCP re-discovered communism?  In his talk, Blanchette discussed the abandoned and existing legacies of Mao Zedong, Marxism-Leninism, and the CCP’s vision of socialism. Watch now: 

On March 11, 2011, Koide Hiroaki was in his laboratory in Kyoto, Japan. It was a gray, wet afternoon, and the 61-year-old nuclear engineer was hard at work when the earthquake hit. Fifteen miles beneath the surface of the sea, one tectonic plate rumbled beneath another. A slippery clay layer helped the great pieces of crust slide, releasing centuries of stress. The seabed rose up 16 stories, and slipped sideways 165 feet.

Read the rest at National Geographic

In January, the French historian Benjamin Stora filed a report commissioned by the French President Emmanuel Macron aimed at “reconciliation of memories between France and Algeria,” which France ruled as the jewel of its colonial empire for more than 130 years.

Read the rest at Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

On February 10, 2021, the China Program at Shorenstein APARC hosted Professor Oriana Skylar Mastro, Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies​ for the virtual program "Military Competition with China: Harder to Win Than During the Cold War?" Professor Jean Oi, William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics and director of the APARC China Program, moderated the event.

As US-China competition intensifies, experts debate the degree to which the current strategic environment resembles that of the Cold War. Those that argue against the analogy often highlight how China is deeply integrated into the US-led world order. They also point out that, while tense, US-China relations have not turned overtly adversarial. But there is another, less optimistic reason the comparison is unhelpful: deterring and defeating Chinese aggression is harder now than it was against the Soviet Union. In her talk, Dr. Mastro analyzed how technology, geography, relative resources and the alliance system complicate U.S. efforts to enhance the credibility of its deterrence posture and, in a crisis, form any sort of coalition. Mastro and Oi's thought-provoking discussion ranged from the topic of why even US allies are hesitant to take a strong stance against China to whether or not Taiwan could be a catalyst for military conflict. Watch now: 

Extending the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, with Russia was one of President Biden’s first foreign policy acts after he took the oath of office on Jan. 20. The treaty would have otherwise ended on Feb. 5, leaving the U.S. and Russia without any agreed upon limits on their strategic nuclear forces for the first time since 1972. When relations are as bad as they are now between Moscow and Washington, U.S. national security would suffer from severe uncertainty over an unconstrained Russian nuclear arsenal.

Read the rest at The Hill

    For nearly five decades, nuclear arms control has been an exclusive enterprise between Washington and Moscow. The resulting agreements have provided significant constraints on the U.S.-Soviet (later, U.S.-Russian) nuclear relationship while mandating substantial reductions in their arsenals. However, since the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which reduced U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces to levels not seen since the 1960s, no further progress has been made. Instead, the nuclear arms control regime appears to have broken down, leading some to conclude that the era of negotiated arms limitations has passed.

    The U.S. government has decisions to make: is it prepared to accept a world in which nuclear weapons go unconstrained, or do the reasons that led Washington to pursue limits on nuclear arms for more than 40 years remain valid? If the latter, U.S. officials will face a broad set of issues. Formal agreements can no longer entail just constraining U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear forces; they invariably will have to address related issues, including non-strategic nuclear arms, the nuclear forces of other countries, and perhaps missile defense. These questions will confront the U.S. government with a range of tough choices, such as whether to accept some limits on missile defense in order to secure limits on non-strategic nuclear weapons, and how hard to press for constraints on China’s modest nuclear arsenal. This article explores those issues and choices.

Read the rest at The Brown Journal of World Affairs

The Biden presidency that begins in January will adopt some very different directions from its predecessor in foreign policy. One such area is arms control, particularly nuclear arms control with Russia—the one country capable of physically destroying America.

President-elect Biden understands that arms control can contribute to U.S. security, something that President Donald Trump never seemed to fully appreciate. Biden will agree to extend the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the sole remaining agreement limiting U.S. and Russian nuclear forces. His administration should aim to go beyond that and negotiate further nuclear arms cuts. That will not prove to be easy. Doing so, however, could produce arrangements that would enhance U.S. security and reduce nuclear risks.

Little to Build On

The outgoing administration will leave behind an unimpressive record on arms control. Trump withdrew from the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty without trying political and military measures to press the Kremlin to end its violation and come back into compliance. Trump administration officials also considered conducting a nuclear test that would have ended a long-standing moratorium and triggered nuclear tests by other countries, eroding the U.S. nuclear knowledge advantage.

The Trump administration unilaterally abandoned the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that reduced Iran’s ability to produce fissile material, then found itself isolated when calling for more sanctions on Tehran. While Kim Jong-un exchanged “beautiful” letters with President Trump, North Korea increased its nuclear weapons stockpile and produced larger and larger missiles.

The one bit of good news: the Trump administration did not withdraw from New START. That said, the administration failed to extend the treaty. It can be extended for up to five years, and the Russians offered the full extension. Instead of agreeing, the Trump administration miscalculated the degree of Moscow’s interest and demanded conditions for a one-year extension. The Russians refused, and negotiations collapsed in late October, 2020.

New START and Strategic Stability Talks

With U.S.-Russia relations at a low point, arms control offers a means to constrain some of the more adversarial aspects of the relationship. When Biden takes office on January 20, he will have to move quickly to extend New START, as only two weeks will remain until the treaty will expire. It would be politic to consult first with Congress, but the new administration should rapidly communicate an extension offer to Moscow—for five years and with no conditions.

New START limits the United States and Russia each to no more than 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and nuclear-capable bombers, as well as no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, the lowest levels since the 1960s. Extension of the treaty would constrain Russian strategic forces until 2026, and the verification measures would ensure that the U.S. military and intelligence community would continue to receive important information about those forces. New START extension would not require the Pentagon to change its modernization plans, as they fit within the treaty’s limits.

Extending the treaty also would continue the Bilateral Consultative Commission, which meets periodically to discuss the treaty’s operation. The Biden administration could use that body to address new kinds of Russian strategic arms not currently covered by New START, such as a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed drone torpedo.

The Biden administration should early on conduct a nuclear posture review. One issue for the review is whether the United States should make deterrence of a nuclear attack on the United States and its allies the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons. Biden has endorsed this idea in the past, though adopting it should only follow consultation with U.S. allies.

The nuclear posture review should also examine current and planned U.S. strategic forces. In 2013, the Pentagon concluded that about 1,000 deployed strategic warheads would suffice. Does that hold true today? Numerous experts question the need for a triad of ICBMs, SLBMs and nuclear-capable bombers, suggesting that ICBMs be retired. There are reasons to maintain ICBMs in the force mix, but the current number of 400 deployed missiles is unnecessary. A smaller ICBM force, as well as perhaps delaying a new missile, could save precious dollars for other defense needs, particularly conventional forces.

Even while conducting the review, the administration should launch strategic stability talks with Russia. Those should have a broad agenda, including doctrine, strategic nuclear forces, non-strategic nuclear weapons, missile defense, long-range precision-guided conventional strike systems, hypersonic weapons and third-country nuclear forces. The talks could also consider how developments in space and the cyber world affect strategic stability.

Such talks would provide a useful venue for U.S. and Russia officials to discuss doctrine. The Pentagon believes that Russia has adopted an “escalate to deescalate” doctrine that lowers the nuclear threshold. Elements of the Trump administration’s nuclear posture review, such as the low-yield warhead for the Trident SLBM, could well suggest to Moscow that the U.S. military is lowering its nuclear threshold. The two countries share an interest in understanding when and under what circumstances the other might consider using nuclear weapons.

Strategic stability talks would not aim to produce agreements. But they could help each side better understand the other’s doctrines and concerns. Ideally, they would prepare subjects to take up in formal negotiations.

Moving Forward

Extending New START for five years would give the Biden administration and Russian officials time to work out what might come next. One approach would essentially build on New START and include new kinds of long-range weapons that essentially replicate the capabilities of current strategic forces but are not now captured by New START. Such an agreement would offer a structure familiar to both sides and prove easier to negotiate.

However, the Biden administration should try, at least initially, for something more ambitious: an agreement with a single limit covering all U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons, strategic or non-strategic, deployed or in reserve. Within an overall limit of, say, 2,000 to 2,500 nuclear weapons for each side, there could be a sublimit (1,000 each) on the number of strategic warheads on deployed ICBMs, SLBMs and like systems that could be quickly launched. The agreement should have a separate limit on strategic delivery systems, as does New START.

Limiting all nuclear weapons is the logical step after New START. President Barack Obama favored it in 2010. The Trump administration, when it belatedly engaged in nuclear arms talks in 2020, also sought Russian agreement to limit all nuclear weapons.

Negotiating such an agreement would raise a host of difficult issues. Some relate to verification. Monitoring limits on all nuclear warheads will require new procedures to check on weapons kept in storage facilities—some of the two militaries’ most sensitive sites. While not an insoluble problem, working out verification provisions would take time.

In the past, Russian officials demanded that the United States withdraw its nuclear bombs from Europe before they would discuss non-strategic nuclear weapons. If Moscow holds to that, the negotiation would make little progress. In the context of the right treaty, Washington might agree that all nuclear arms be based on national territory, but not as a precondition.

On a related issue, reviving the INF Treaty would prove to be difficult, in part because the U.S. and Russian militaries show strong interest in conventionally armed intermediate-range missiles. The Biden administration might, however, consider proposing an agreement to ban nuclear-armed variants of such missiles.

Missile Defense

In the past, Russian officials have conditioned their readiness to include non-strategic nuclear arms on U.S. agreement to address missile defense, precision-guided, conventionally armed strike systems and third-country nuclear forces. The Russian military over the past five years has developed precision-guided air- and sea-launched cruise missiles and has begun to close the quality gap with the U.S. military in such systems. That could temper Moscow’s interest in constraining precision-guided conventionally armed systems.

Given past Russian concerns on missile defense, the Biden administration could face a difficult decision: Is it prepared to consider some constraints on missile defense in order to get Moscow to negotiate limits covering all nuclear arms? That would be a delicate issue in Washington, where Republicans have made clear their opposition to constraints on missile defense.

Forty-four ground-based interceptors (GBIs) based in Alaska and California currently provide the U.S. homeland a degree of protection against attack by an ICBM or SLBM warhead. How much protection is debatable: the GBIs have proven successful in only about 50% of their tests. Meanwhile, Russia and China have modernized and expanded their strategic offensive forces, in part to ensure that they could overcome any possible U.S. defense, even if a U.S. first strike decimated their strategic forces.

The United States should seek to avoid a race between missile defenses and strategic offensive forces. Future technologies might alter the calculation, but now and for the foreseeable future, defense will lose. Russia, China and, for that matter, North Korea can deploy additional nuclear warheads and decoys far more cheaply than the U.S. military can add additional GBIs.

The Biden administration thus should be prepared to put missile defense on the table if Moscow agrees to negotiate limits on all nuclear weapons. Constraints on missile defenses could be negotiated that would permit some capability to defend against North Korea or another rogue state but would not threaten the ability of Russia (or China) to retaliate against a U.S. attack. The agreement constraining missile defenses could be time-limited, as any new U.S.-Russia treaty on nuclear weapons presumably would be.

Third-Country Nuclear Forces

The Trump administration spent much of 2020 seeking a trilateral nuclear arms negotiation with Russia and China. The Chinese, whose nuclear arsenal is less than one-tenth the size of those of the United States and Russia, adamantly refused. Russian officials said they would not press Beijing and instead called for bringing into account the nuclear forces of Britain and France. Those countries’ nuclear arsenals also are less than one-tenth the size of either of the two superpowers’ arsenals.

Those (and other) nuclear weapons-possessing states should not sit on the sidelines forever when it comes to reducing nuclear forces. That said, a negotiation seeking a trilateral or five-way treaty now is doomed to fail. Neither Washington nor Moscow would agree to reduce to the levels of the other three countries, nor would they be prepared to agree that the others could build up to their levels.

The Biden administration should pursue a more nuanced approach. It should discuss with Russia, China, Britain and France nuclear risk-reduction measures (such as the U.S.-Russia agreement on prenotification of ICBM and SLBM test launches) and greater transparency regarding nuclear forces. If the administration can reach another bilateral agreement with Russia on further cuts in U.S. and Russian nuclear forces, Washington and Moscow could then ask Beijing, London and Paris not to increase their total number of nuclear weapons so long as the United States and Russia were reducing. That could be reflected in unilateral commitments, which should also include a degree of transparency regarding weapons numbers.

Washington has long sought to engage Beijing in a meaningful strategic stability discussion. The Biden administration should continue to seek that. A readiness to put some constraints on missile defense (in a U.S.-Russia context) and/or move toward a sole-purpose policy would increase the chances for a fruitful dialogue.

Conclusion

All of this would combine to make an ambitious agenda for nuclear arms control, one that would enhance stability and U.S. security. There is, of course, no guarantee of achieving it. Success in any negotiation depends in part on the other side. Success in this endeavor would require that Russian officials see commensurate security benefits for their country.

Still, the Biden presidency should try for something far-reaching. Extending New START for five years would allow time to work out some very knotty questions. If, in the end, an agreement to limit and reduce all U.S. and Russian nuclear arms proves to be a bridge too far, the administration could fall back to negotiate an agreement similar to New START and maintain caps on U.S. and Russian strategic forces. It would be a shame, however, to pass up the opportunity to take a stab at a more ambitious and meaningful result.

Originally for American Ambassadors Review

The U.S. nuclear waste and disposal system is a failure--even though it has been active for more than 50 years at a cost of tens of billions of dollars. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 was born in optimism and naivete.

Read the rest at  Groundwater

I was surprised this summer to see a letter to the editor about nuclear waste in The Vermont Standard, a small weekly paper whose most interesting regular features are the police report and calendar of local events.  The letter encouraged readers to contact Vermont’s Congressman and urge him to oppose any bill that would authorize the centralized interim storage of high-level nuclear waste, referring to the spent fuel from the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant that was shut down in 2014. The writers argued that instead of allowing the spent fuel to be shipped to a site in Texas, “it is safer to keep our waste within our state in monitored, hardened, on-site storage in stainless steel and concrete dry casks while a scientifically-based permanent storage site is located.”

Read the rest at  Bulletin of Atomic Scientists