Publications: Nuclear Security & Deterrence Monitor

The contractor for the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee should in a matter of months deliver a new cost estimate and other information needed for the Department of Energy to sign off on construction of the complex. The Department of Energy expects by the end of fiscal 2017, Sept. 30, […]

A top U.S. general on Thursday joined military leadership and lawmakers in condemning the continuing resolution that is currently funding the government and is soon to expire, asking Congress to deliver a budget for the Pentagon in the coming weeks – even if it is subject to spending constraints. “This is the ninth year that […]

The new diplomatic push at the United Nations to establish a global prohibition on nuclear weapons could undermine the path laid out under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to one day rid the world of such armaments, a senior U.S. diplomat said this week. “A ban treaty will come at enormous cost to the NPT political […]

The nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia continue to fluctuate as the two countries work to meet the terms of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), according to the latest aggregate data released Monday by the U.S. State Department. The bilateral accord requires each country by next February to cap its […]

Energy Secretary Rick Perry and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley have been named as regular attendees on the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, according to a new national security presidential memorandum. The memo, published Wednesday in the Federal Register, notes the addition of those two positions as well as the reinstatement of […]

The Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday voted 22-5 in favor of Heather Wilson’s nomination as secretary of the Air Force, moving the matter on to the full Senate for final consideration. During her confirmation hearing before the committee last week, some lawmakers raised ethics concerns surrounding Wilson’s past consulting work. She was asked in particular […]

New legislation on enhancing nuclear energy research and developing new nuclear reactor technologies has reached the U.S. Senate. Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) in January introduced the legislation, called the Nuclear Energy Innovation Capabilities Act of 2017, which is intended to enhance civilian research and development of nuclear energy technologies. The bill highlights the need to maintain […]

A National Nuclear Security Administration field office has identified need for improvement in several operational areas by the management and operations contractor for the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee and the Pantex Plant in Texas, according to a newly released Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board activity report. The DNFSB document, dated March 13 and […]

Air Force Gen. John Hyten, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said Tuesday he is “reviewing” the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, underscoring the Defense Department’s focus on addressing Russia’s violation of the 1987 accord. U.S. officials in February said Russia has deployed a ground-launched nuclear-capable cruise missile with two battalions in breach of the treaty, which […]

The National Nuclear Security Administration plans to extend its task order with TechSource Inc. for technical support services for the agency’s Office of Advanced Simulation and Computing and Institutional R&D Programs, according to a notice posted last week. The NNSA’s advanced simulation office provides technical guidance to create and manage computational modeling and simulation capabilities […]

The head of U.S. military forces in Europe said Tuesday the United States should do more to bring Russia back into compliance with the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty; former U.S. officials on Thursday then discouraged a “tit-for-tat” response and gave their own suggestions to the new administration. The Trump administration has determined that Russia is […]

Pat Host Defense Daily Most Republicans at Heather Wilson’s confirmation hearing to become the next Air Force secretary seemed largely uninterested in probing her alleged ethics missteps, instead saluting her experience and supporting her nomination. Aside from Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) inquires, it was Democrats, led by Ranking Member Jack Reed […]

Redacted documents released to a nuclear watchdog group show that the Savannah River Site in South Carolina will receive shipments of plutonium, uranium, and other nuclear materials for the next 15-plus years, with no current disposition pathway for much of the material already stored on-site. Savannah River Site Watch in January received via a Freedom […]

The Government Accountability Office said this week it has accepted a request from two senior Democrats in the House of Representatives to study the value of a new nuclear warhead that would be manufactured to fit onto both ICBMs and sea-launched ballistic missiles. At issue is the National Nuclear Security Administration’s first “interoperable warhead,” or […]

The United Nations General Assembly this week began substantive negotiations on a draft of a legally binding global prohibition on nuclear weapons, which the official nuclear-weapon states condemned and boycotted. Elayne Whyte Gomez, ambassador of Costa Rica to the U.N. Office in Geneva and president of the ban treaty conference, said Thursday that over 115 states […]

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of quarterly news summaries and analyses about President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office. We’ll check in with one long, big-picture update every 25 days, with a regular flow of updates in between to keep you up on news affecting the U.S. nuclear deterrent during […]

The Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) is after the Energy Department for a long-overdue update on the agency’s plan to tighten emergency preparedness at active and former nuclear weapons sites. Sean Sullivan, appointed DNFSB chairman by President Donald Trump in January, made the request in a Feb. 16 letter to then-acting Energy Secretary Grace […]

The prime contractor at the Energy Department’s Savannah River Site in South Carolina illegally fired an employee in 2014 for cooperating with a congressionally led investigation into whistleblower retaliation at the site, according to DOE’s Office of Hearings and Appeals. The quasi-judicial Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) subsequently ordered Fluor-led Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (SRNS) […]

In a message that was fundamentally preordained, the Trump administration on Thursday officially made clear that it opposes a treaty for a global ban on nuclear weapons, which will be debated next week at the United Nations. “We recently met with Ambassadors about the upcoming conference to establish a treaty banning nuclear weapons,” U.S. Ambassador […]

The Nuclear Threat Initiative has named former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz its new chief executive officer and co-chairman of its Board of Directors. Moniz, a Ph.D. physicist, served under the Barack Obama administration as head of the Department of Energy from 2013 to 2017. He left his position upon the inauguration of President […]

U.S. and international officials are wrestling with the question of what the State Department funding cuts the White House proposed last week would mean for U.S. diplomacy worldwide. In the fiscal 2018 budget blueprint released last week, the White House requested $25.6 billion in base funding for the State Department, or 28 percent less than […]

Defense Secretary James Mattis on Wednesday reaffirmed the necessity of sustaining all three legs of the U.S. nuclear triad and indicated the “level” of that deterrent is under consideration. “The need for a nuclear deterrent . . . requires a triad,” Mattis said during a hearing of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee. “To determine what […]

The Trump administration is reconsidering every piece of U.S. nuclear arms policy – even the broad end goal of global nuclear disarmament – in its upcoming Nuclear Posture Review, a senior National Security Council official said Tuesday. “We’re being encouraged . . . to do a real honest-to-God, bottom-up review, to rethink things from the […]

The international community is concerned about the future of arms control, particularly the fate of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) – issues that featured prominently during this week’s Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference in Washington, D.C. The INF Treaty prohibits the fielding of ground-based cruise and ballistic […]

New Mexico Democratic Sens. Martin Heinrich and Tom Udall on Tuesday introduced a resolution that calls on the secretary of the Navy to name the next nuclear submarine the “USS Los Alamos” in honor of the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s contributions to the service. The senators’ press release noted that 2018 will be the 75th anniversary […]

A federal judge on Monday ordered that 1 metric ton of plutonium be removed from South Carolina, but did not set a schedule for that to happen because she wants the Energy Department and the state – the two sides in a year-old lawsuit – to make that determination together over the next month. The […]

An advisory committee to the Savannah River Site is scheduled next week to discuss an international program that has previously sent, and is expected to continue sending, controversial shipments of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) from other countries to the Department of Energy facility in South Carolina. The SRS Citizens Advisory Board (CAB) will on March […]