Simon Saradzhyan was invited to publicly brief the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee addressing the adequacy of strategies to prevent, counter, and respond to nuclear terrorism, and identify technical, policy, and resource gaps. The consensus study is a congressionally mandated analysis included in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act (Section 1299I) sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (Policy).  Nearly 60 stakeholders concerned about this topic from the Department of Defense, US Department of Energy, National Nuclear Security Administration, State Department, National Security Council, US Congress, the National Labs, and many non-governmental organizations were in attendance. The briefings are available at the NAS event website. Video of the presentation can be found here.

• U.S.-Russia Elbe Group Maintains Focus on Threat of Nuclear Terrorism.
• Former Chernobyl Plant Manager Bryukhanov Dies.
• Matthew Bunn on Threat to Nuclear and Radiological Transports.
• On 9/11 Anniversary Russian Officials Call for Resumption of U.S.-Russian CT Cooperation.
• Experts Weigh in on 9/11 Anniversary.
• U.S. and Norway Agree to Eliminate All of Norway’s HEU.
• Two Soviet Nuclear Submarine Reactors Located.
• Russian Security Council: Terrorists Remain Interested in NBC.
• IAEA Adopts Resolutions on Nuclear Security, NS Center Planned.
• Allison on Risk of Mega-terrorist Attack After U.S. Withdrawal From Afghanistan.
• Arbatov Warns of Enduring Threat of Nuclear Terrorism to Russia in His New Volume.
• Russia’s New Security Strategy Drops References to CT Partnership With U.S.
• NNSA’s Non-Proliferation Budget to Decrease in ’22, Provides for US and Russian Visits.
• Should U.S.-Russian Interaction in Cyberspace Involve CT? 
• Russia’s NPP Operator Conducts Emergency Preparedness Exercise.
• Putin and Biden Discuss Terrorist Threat Emanating from Afghanistan, but No Deal.
• U.S. Experts on Ensuring Access to Neutrons While Reducing Nuclear Terrorism Risks.
• Beebe Weighs in on U.S.-Russian CT Interaction.
• Duo Detained for Alleged Attempt to Sell Americium-241.
• 12th GUMO Guard’s Sentence Upheld.
• NDAA-Mandated Group to Identify Nuclear Terrorism Risks.
• Belfer’s MTA Hosts Conference on Lessons of Fukushima and Chernobyl.
• Russia Withdraws from Uranium Hexafluoride Transportation Deal with U.S.
• Bell: U.S. Needs to Convince Russia on Contending With Nuclear Terrorism Threat.
• U.S. and Canada Complete Repatriation of HEU Material.
• Siegfried Hecker Outlines his Vision of Future for Nuclear Security Cooperation.
• Hackers Breach U.S. Nuclear Agency.
• Tobey on Assassinations of Nuclear Scientists and Terrorists.
• Rosatom Has Checked Nuclear Sites, Following a Tip on Terrorism from U.S.

One of the few things America’s Joe Biden and Russia’s Vladimir Putin had agreed upon prior to their first summit almost half a year ago was that they would not hold a joint press conference after their June 16 huddle at an 18th century villa in Geneva. The two presidents’ decision to talk to press separately came as no surprise, given how many major issues they publicly disagreed on at the time.

The overarching question imparting urgency to this exploration is: Can U.S.-Russian contention in cyberspace cause the two nuclear superpowers to stumble into war? In considering this question we were constantly reminded of recent comments by a prominent U.S. arms control expert: At least as dangerous as the risk of an actual cyberattack, he observed, is cyber operations’ “blurring of the line between peace and war.” Or, as Nye wrote, “in the cyber realm, the difference between a weapon and a non-weapon may come down to a single line of code, or simply the intent of a computer program’s user.”

The last time Joe Biden met Vladimir Putin, the two did not exactly hit it off. During the March 2011 meeting the-then vice president of the United States urged the then-prime minister of Russia not to return to the Kremlin, and then claimed to have reached unflattering conclusions about his Russian counterpart’s soul after the meeting was over. Putin too seems to have no love lost for Biden, even if he has been less blunt in showing it.

• Elbe Group Discusses Strategic Stability, Hybrid Warfare and Terrorism.
• Mowatt-Larssen’s Book Details Lessons He Learned While Tracking Al-Qaida’s WMD Programs.
• Experts on New START Extension and Other Nuclear Priorities of Biden Presidency.
• Kazakhstan’s Last HEU Eliminated.
• William Potter Joins Russian Academy of Sciences.
• COVID, Nuclear Security On Agenda of IAEA’s 64th General Conference.
• Mayak Aims to Process Entire range of SNF.
• Atomguard Reports Foiling Unauthorized Access.
• Allison: US Vital Interest in Prevention of Nuclear Terrorism Will Continue to Guide Its North Korea Policy.
• Learning from COVID-19 to Prepare for Nuclear Attack.
• Hecker, Kassianova Encourage Young US and RF Professionals to Explore Lessons of Nuclear Accidents.
• Experts Weigh in on 75th Anniversary of Hiroshima Bombing.
• A New Look at IAEA’s Nuclear Security Recommendations.
• Azerbaijan Has Threatened to Strike Armenia’s NPP With Missiles.
• IAEA Notified of 189 Incidents Of Material Being Out Of Regulatory Control in 2019.
• Russia To Retrieve More Radioactive Debris from Bottom of Ocean.
• Researchers Propose Fast Way to Detect Weapons Grade Materials.
• Keeping Nuclear Power Plants Out of Reach of Terrorists During the Coronavirus Pandemic.
• Bunn, Tobey and Roth Testify on Prevention of Nuclear Theft, Call for Cooperation With Russia.
• Budapest Memorandum Parsed.
• IAEA Holds A Ministerial on Nuclear Security.
• Assessing Progress on Nuclear Security.
• 12^th GUMO Officer On Trial for Embezzlement.
• Lukashenko: Pompeo Alerted Me to Nuclear Materials at Border.
• US and Russia Reported HEU and Plutonium to IAEA.
• IAEA Bank Receives LEU.
• GICNT Hosted 8 Multilateral Activities in 2019.

Simon Saradzhyan writes that Russia’s decision not to employ leverage to stop the conflict in its early stages made a lasting impression on its allies.

Simon Saradzhyan writes that the benefits that discontinuing the war on Russia’s terms can generate for defending or advancing Russia’s vital interests will exceed the costs of doing so.

Putin is rumored to prefer focusing on foreign policy, where the Kremlin has proved itself to be a skilled player, while finding structural problems at home too boring to focus on. However, unless these are solved, he or his successor will continue to confront the reality that Russia remains too far behind the United States and China economically and demographically to be a true peer to these countries in the changing global order.

As we are all well aware, the original Cold War, which officially ended 40 years ago this month, featured a number of close calls that almost turned it into a hot war. Thankfully, neither the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 nor the Able Archer exercise of 1983 (nor any other perilous incidents), led to a war between Washington and Moscow. More recently, however, respected statesmen have again begun to sound alarms. “Not since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis has the risk of a U.S.-Russian confrontation involving the use of nuclear weapons been as high as it is today,” former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and former U.S. Sen. Sam Nunn warned in a recent article in Foreign Affairs. I have expressed some doubts about this proposition, but it is nevertheless worth asking what it is—other than the fear of mutually assured destruction—that keeps the U.S. and Russia from stumbling into a war today or tomorrow. Part of the answer lies in the bilateral and multilateral agreements specifically designed to prevent incidents that could escalate into a war.