Arms Control Today articles from January 2003

Arms Control Today archives from January 2003

Beyond the 'axis of evil'. (Focus).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... In response to the rapidly worsening crisis surrounding North Korea's nuclear weapons program, the George W. Bush administration has quietly reversed itself and agreed to restart direct talks with Pyongyang--and none too soon. Recently, North...

Confusing ends and means: the doctrine of coercive pre-emption.
January 1, 2003... In a speech at West Point last June, in a more formal statement of national security strategy submitted to Congress in September, and in a White House document published in December, President George W. Bush has proclaimed what appears to be a...

A strategy for defusing the North Korean nuclear crisis.
January 1, 2003... The recent revelation that North Korea has a uranium-enrichment program has triggered a mounting crisis. It has forced the Bush administration to seriously consider its policy on the Korean Peninsula at the worst possible moment--as it is...

How U.S. strategic policy is changing China's nuclear plans.
January 1, 2003... The extent to which U.S. policy influences China's strategic decision-making, especially its ongoing nuclear modernization, has been a matter of much debate. But in the past year, the Bush administration has made several significant changes to...

N. Korea quits NPT, says it will restart nuclear facilities. (News and Negotiations).(Nonproliferation Treaty)
January 1, 2003... IN A PROVOCATIVE decision, North Korea announced December 12 that it was restarting nuclear facilities that had been frozen since 1994, and it ordered international monitors to leave the country. As international concern grew that Pyongyang was...

Inspectors try to fill gaps in Iraqi declaration. (News and Negotiations).
January 1, 2003... AFTER SIX WEEKS of work in Iraq, UN inspectors announced January 9 that they had yet to find a "smoking gun" indicating that Baghdad still has prohibited weapons programs, but they maintain that there are significant gaps in Iraq's weapons...

Bush to deploy 'modest' missile defense in 2004. (News and Negotiations).
January 1, 2003... LESS THAN A week after its latest missile defense test failed, the Bush administration announced December 17 that it will deploy a limited missile defense system comprising a small number of ground- and sea-based missile interceptors to be...

Code of conduct aims to stop Ballistic Missile Proliferation. (News and Negotiations).
January 1, 2003... A NEW ARRANGEMENT to prevent the spread of ballistic missiles was launched in The Hague November 25-26 when 93 countries, including the United States, signed the International Code of Conduct against Ballistic Missile Proliferation (ICOC). It...

Wassenaar members adopt small arms initiative. (News and Negotiations).(Wassenaar Arangement)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... MEETING IN VIENNA December 11-12, the 33-member Wassenaar Arrangement approved a document setting out non-binding guidelines for exporting small arms and light weapons but failed to agree on other initiatives largely due to Russian opposition....

Bush administration releases strategy on WMD threats. (News and Negotiations).
January 1, 2003... ON DECEMBER 11, the Bush administration released a three-prong strategy for tackling threats posed by biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons. Divided into sections on counterproliferation, nonproliferation, and consequence management, the...

IAEA to visit two 'secret' nuclear sites in Iran. (News and Negotiations).(International Atomic Energy Agency)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... THE INTERNATIONAL ATOMIC Energy Agency (IAEA) has postponed its first visit to two Iranian nuclear sites until February after Tehran asked it to delay a previously scheduled December visit. According to a nongovernmental report released...

Russia agrees to use U.S. MOX facility design. (News and Negotiations).(mixed oxide fuel fabrication)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... TO HELP MEET their obligations under a fissile material agreement with Washington, Russian officials agreed in December to dispose of excess plutonium using a design of a mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel fabrication plant offered to them by the United...

Russia, Iran finalize spent nuclear fuel deal. (News and Negotiations).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... RUSSIAN ATOMIC ENERGY Minister Alexander Rumyantsev concluded but did not sign an agreement with Iranian officials in late December stipulating that Russia will import the spent nuclear fuel generated over the next 10 years by Iran's nuclear...

U.S. stops, then releases shipment of N. Korean missiles. (News and Negotiations).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... SPANISH AND U.S. forces intercepted and searched a ship December 9 carrying a shipment of Scud missiles and related cargo from North Korea to Yemen. The United States, however, said it lacked the necessary legal authority to seize the cargo and...

Latest ground-based missile defense test fails. (News and Negotiations).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... BREAKING A STRING of four straight successes, the Pentagon's ground-based midcourse missile defense (GMD) system failed to intercept its target December 11 when the missile interceptor malfunctioned shortly after its launch. The system's record...

PAC-3 production to pick up.(Patriot Advanced Capability-3 missiles)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... WITH THE PROSPECT of another war with Iraq looming, a top Pentagon official approved a decision December 2 to accelerate acquisition of Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) missiles. As a result, the Army is projected to receive a total of 238...

Countries agree to Negotiate on explosive remnants of war. (New and Negotiations).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... STATES-PARTIES TO THE Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW) agreed December 13 to negotiations on addressing the dangers posed by unexploded munitions on the battlefield and to continue discussing possible limits on anti-vehicle...

Bush signs 2003 defense authorization act. (News and Negotiations).(George W. Bush)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... ON DECEMBER 2, President George W. Bush signed the fiscal year 2003 Defense Authorization Act, which grants him temporary authority to waive congressionally mandated requirements on Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs and requires the...

OPCW annual report cites progress, problems. (New and Negotiations).(Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... BY THE END of 2001, India and the United States had destroyed 20 percent of their most dangerous chemical weapons, according to an annual report the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons(OPCW) released in October. The OPCW, which...

An extra year for Russian withdrawal from Moldova. (News and Negotiations).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... ACKNOWLEDGING THAT RUSSIA would not meet its end-of-2002 deadline to withdraw all of its military equipment and troops from Moldova, the 55-member Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) took note December 8 of a Russian...

Study finds chemical weapons incineration is safe. (News and Negotiations).(U.S. )(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... THE INCINERATION TECHNOLOGY the United States plans to use at three new sites to destroy chemical weapons can be safe and effective, despite some safety concerns, according to a report released December 3, 2002, by the National Research Council...

India establishes formal nuclear command structure. (News and Negotiations).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... FOR THE FIRST time since declaring itself a nuclear-weapon state in 1998, India publicly announced a formal nuclear command structure under civilian control January 4. It had previously been assumed that India's nuclear arsenal was under...

Oil-for-food extended, goods review list revised. (News and Negotiations).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... ON DECEMBER 30, the UN Security Council voted 13-0 to expand the list of items that a UN committee can prevent Iraq from importing. The changes, which were proposed by the United States and are contained in Resolution 1454, are intended to...

BWC won't harm export controls, GAO says. (News Briefs).(Biological Weapons Convention; General Accounting Office)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... A September report by the General Accounting Office (GAO) concluded that a draft protocol designed to strengthen the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) would not have weakened export controls, disputing one of the chief reasons U.S. officials...

Chemical weapons destruction begins at Gorny. (News Briefs).(Russian Federation)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Russia's first chemical weapons destruction facility began operations December 19 at Gorny in the Saratov region. The facility destroyed 840 kilograms of mustard gas on its first day, said Alexander Kharichev, advisor for the Russian state...

ABM lawsuit dismissed. (News Briefs).(Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty)
January 1, 2003... A federal judge dismissed a lawsuit December 30 by 32 members of the House of Representatives charging that President George W. Bush could not unilaterally withdraw the United States from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. It is...

Poland Opts for F-16s. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... Poland announced December 27 that it would buy 48 U.S. F-16C/D fighter aircraft in a deal estimated to be worth approximately $3.5 billion. The package deal includes the weapons, engines, and electronic packages for the planes. Poland...

Nuclear-weapon states dispute C. Asian pact. (News Briefs).(Brief Article)
January 1, 2003... The five official nuclear-weapon states are divided in their support of a proposed Central Asian nuclear-weapon-free zone treaty and an additional protocol, known as the Samarkand text, that outlines their responsibilities under the agreement,...

National strategy to combat weapons of mass destruction. (Document).
January 1, 2003... Amid escalating tensions with Iraq and North Korea over their weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs, President George W. Bush released on December 11 his administration's plans for protecting against and responding to the proliferation of...