“Nuclear proliferation” on The Daily Caller

VIENNA (AP) — The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency said Monday he cannot guarantee that Iran is not trying to develop atomic arms, comments that reflect the lack of progress in his attempts to probe Tehran’s nuclear secrecy. (more)

(Reuters) – South Korea said on Tuesday it suspects the North has been secretly enriching uranium at more locations besides its main nuclear site — which could mean it has more material for building nuclear bombs. (more)

# 10. An Out-moded, Unreliable Nuclear Arsenal Is No Deterrent. New START offers no assurance that the U.S. nuclear force will be an effective deterrent in the future. President Obama has already declared he won’t replace and modernize the nuclear arsenal. Yes, he said he would spend billions on the supporting infrastructure and called that “modernization.” But that’s like saying you’ll take your car to Jiffy-Lube and calling it a transportation system “modernization” initiative. Furthermore, Obama’s budget still underfunds our nuclear support structure — and delays most of the funding to out-years after the president’s term expires. Obama’s claim to the mantel of nuclear modernization is bogus. (more)

(Via Ricochet.com) Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona yesterday announced that he opposes any consideration by the lame duck Senate of the New START treaty, which reduces the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union. Kyl, who is the leading conservative voice on nuclear weapons issues in the Senate, has a lot of support in the Republican caucus, and his opposition probably has doomed consideration of the treaty for now. John Bolton and I had publicly called on Senators to put off consideration of the agreement because of its many flaws, the top three of which are the low limits on nuclear warheads, the limits on delivery systems, and the linkage of arms control with national missile defense. Kyl wisely is bargaining with the Obama administration to win more funding for the modernization and maintenance of our nuclear arsenal and to make clear that our missile defense programs will go forward. (more)

Despite the worst, the human mind tends to assume the best. Twenty-one years ago, as fragments of the Berlin Wall were being seized by souvenir hunters, a collective sigh of relief went up and the specter of nuclear Armageddon suddenly dimmed. (more)

Chinese officials are indicating that one of the results of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il’s visit to China last week was that he has agreed to rejoin the Six-Party Talks aiming to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. Unfortunately, we have heard this before, and one should not expect Beijing to exert itself to achieve this result any more than it has in the past. (more)

John Q. Public is no arms control expert, but his views on nuclear weapons are grounded in common sense. (more)

WASHINGTON – Israel has only mere days to launch an attack on Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor if Russia makes good on its plan to deliver fuel there this weekend, former US ambassador to the UN John Bolton warned Tuesday. (more)

Most Americans think a nuclear weapon arsenal is critical to the country’s safety, and they feel more is better. (more)

William Hartung, Director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation, has come up with what he seems to think is a clincher argument for why the Senate should approve the New START treaty: Conservatives are against it. (more)

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — The Obama administration moved Wednesday to push new sanctions against North Korea over its nuclear weapons program, as Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Robert Gates showed solidarity with South Korea during a visit to the area that separates it from the North. (more)

Tim Starks recently penned a piece for Congressional Quarterly titled “Republicans Take Pause at START Accord’s Missile Defense Implications.” His bottom line: “No matter how often Democrats or Obama administration witnesses try to sway them, Republicans continue to express doubts about whether a new arms treaty would constrain U.S. missile defense plans.” (more)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran agreed Monday to ship most of its enriched uranium to Turkey in a nuclear fuel swap deal that could ease the international standoff over the country’s disputed nuclear program, just as pressure mounts for tougher sanctions. (more)

This past week, Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) provided remarks to the Heritage Foundation as Protect America Month kicked off. Outlining the ongoing threats facing the United States, Rep. Cantor emphasized two issues of pressing importance: global nuclear proliferation and domestic and foreign terrorism. (more)

The Obama administration is likely to reveal a closely guarded secret — the size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile — during a critical meeting starting Monday at which Washington will try to strengthen the global treaty that curbs the spread of nuclear weapons, several officials said. (more)

This week, President Obama welcomes leaders from more than forty countries to the United States for a nuclear security summit. Most of the discussions will focus on the president’s vision to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials around the world by 2012 and reinforcing existing commitments, but the signing of a new nuclear weapons reduction treaty with Russia and the release of the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review will garner significant attention. Considering all of these elements, this summit will require some heavy lifting by President Obama and his national security team. (more)

I wasn’t going to write about President Obama’s new nuclear weapons strategy–a central tenet of which is that the U.S. would not authorize a nuclear strike against a nonnuclear country in retaliation for a chemical or biological attack if that country is in compliance with its nonproliferation obligations under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). (more)

In a tart public clash over Iran, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said here Thursday that the planned opening this summer of a Russian-built nuclear power plant in Iran would send the wrong signal at a time when the West was trying to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions. (more)

Thirty-one years after revolution brought about an Islamic Republic, Iran is on the threshold of acquiring a nuclear weapon capability—if it chooses to do so. Despite a kinder, gentler U.S. policy of engagement during the past year, there is no credible evidence that the current Iranian regime can be dissuaded from crossing that fateful point to possessing the bomb. (more)

VIENNA – Iran expects to produce its first batch of higher enriched uranium in a few days but its initial effort is modest, using only a small amount of feedstock and a fraction of its capacities, according to a confidential document shared Wednesday with The Associated Press. (more)