On December 7, 1998, a cross-industry group of professionals interested in information security met to discuss perspectives on information security and prospects for multilateral cooperative activity to advance information and infrastructure security. Participants reviewed the information-security activities of their respective organizations, identified areas of mutual concern, and generated ideas for future group efforts.

This report reviews Chinese participation in the international negotiations for a Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) at the Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva and provides background for China’s decision-making procedures during the negotiations.

The CTBT negotiations marked the first important international negotiations for a multilateral disarmament treaty in which China participated from beginning to end. They were the first important international negotiations in which China, as a nuclear power, had great influence. The Chinese delegation to the CD assumed a serious and responsible attitude during the entire course of the negotiations. In part to increase international confidence that it would sign the CTBT by 1996 as scheduled and in part to indicate its intent to adapt itself to the world trend toward increased international cooperation and nuclear arms reduction, China announced during the latter stage of the negotiations that it would suspend nuclear testing.

As an example of successful multilateral negotiations, the conclusion and signing of the treaty, although long postponed, is an important achievement in arms control. As the sole declared nuclear-weapon state of the Third World at that time and the last among the five nuclear-weapon states (P5) to cease nuclear testing, China’s stance toward the CTBT negotiations was the object of world attention and concern. The population of China accounts for nearly one-quarter of the world’s total; China’s positive position on the CTBT and its contributions toward this end has a major worldwide impact now and in the future.

Prior to the commencement of the CTBT negotiations in Geneva, China declared on October 5, 1993, that while supporting an early conclusion of the treaty it would “take an active part in the negotiating process and work together with other countries to conclude this treaty no later than 1996.” China kept its promise.

China pursued a fair, reasonable, and verifiable treaty with universal adherence and unlimited duration. During the negotiations, China presented many working papers, non-papers, and suggestions regarding the CTBT draft text (including a number of revisions), and dealt with a series of critical issues in the Preamble, Basic Obligations, Organization, Verification, and Entry into Force sections of the treaty. The Chinese delegation played an active role at the conference table, and contributed positively to the weekly P5 consultations that ran in parallel with the CTBT talks.

China adhered toughly to its positions on two issues in the latter stage of the CTBT negotiations. One concerned potential abuses of the on-site inspection procedures. The other was that all nuclear-test-capable states (assumed to be the P5, India, Israel, and Pakistan) must accede to the treaty in order for it to enter into full legal force. Although China was not entirely satisfied with the final draft CTBT, it accepted the treaty. It agreed to sign the CTBT in the belief that the treaty text represented the best achievable result of the negotiations of the preceding two and a half years, reflected by and large the state of the negotiations, and was in general balanced.

Signing the CTBT was in line with China’s consistent stand in support of “the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons.” This was one of the major reasons China supported an early conclusion of the treaty. Of course, China’s desire to meet the trend of the modern world also motivated it to sign. Because economic development had long been Beijing’s top priority, China needed a peaceful security environment in order to devote itself completely to the modernization of the nation. To this end, its defense buildup had been steadily subordinated to national economic development. Beijing’s decision on the CTBT negotiations stemmed also from its self-defense and no-first-use nuclear policies. China had established an effective nuclear force for self-defense.

China is now making preparations for the treaty to enter into force. After the conclusion of the CTBT, China will continue efforts in pursuit of world peace, development, and cooperation. Meanwhile, China will continuously ensure the safety and reliability of its nuclear weapons without nuclear testing.

In the 1990s, global concern over illicit trafficking in nuclear material to terrorists and nation-states has intensified. Two major changes are responsible: the evident new intent of terrorists to wound or kill thousands of civilians and the availability of inadequately protected "loose" nuclear materials in Russia and the newly independent former Soviet republics. These changes have made more likely attempts to acquire weapons-usable nuclear materials for terrorist use or for sale to state sponsors of terrorism. As a result, many efforts are being made to strengthen national and international standards for protection of nuclear material from theft and sabotage. One problem with current efforts is that national stnadards now vary widely. Although the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) mandates that non-nuclear weapon parties accept the safeguards requirements of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for their nuclear activities, the relevant international standards for physical protection are mostly advisory.

Russia's current strategic nuclear force will become obsolete shortly after the turn of the century. Strategic modernization is therefore essential if Russia is to remain a nuclear power on a par with the US. But modernization will be extremely difficult because of the country's economic and political turmoil. Russia can probably maintain slightly more than 4,000 strategic nuclear warheads under the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) I Treaty - roughly half of what the United States could, in theory, deploy. Under START II, Russia's strategic force will likely contain between 1,800 and 2,500 warheads, compared to 3,500 for the US. Hence, the easiest - perhaps the only - way for Russia to recover rough parity with the United States would be through a START III Treaty that limits both sides to 2,000-2,500 warheads.

This paper examines how well future U.S. national and theater missile defense systems will have to perform to meet reasonable defense objectives as a function of the level of the threat. Deploying a thin U.S. national missile defense today is premature because the threat is not readily apparent, the United States can deter most threats, and the United States has some conventional counterforce options against a developing state's nascent ICBM arsenal.

However, if, or when, intercontinental ballistic missile threats appear, a defense with 100 interceptors deployed at one or two sites around the continental United States should be able to to intercept between 10 and 20 apparent warheads, assuming NMD systems can detect and track warheads with a probabilty above 0.99 and that NMD interceptors have a single-shot probability of kill (SSPK) against warheads between 0.35-0.65. Theater-range ballistic missiles present a greater near-term threat. The current THAAD program may provide an effective upper-tier defense, but only if it can achieve detection and tracking probabilities in the range 0.96-0.98 and interceptor SSPKs in the range 0.4-0.65 for threats with between 100-200 apparent warheads. Larger threats will require even higher technical performance.

Similarly, the current NTW program will require the same detection and tracking probability, but with interceptor SSPKs in the range of 0.55-0.80 to deal with the size of the threat.

Moreover, for these defenses to be truly useful, they must be accompanied by an equally effective lower tier, e.g., using PAC-3 terminal defenses. The main challenge for upper- and lower-tier defenses is responsive threats that use countermeasures such as decoys and chemical or biological submunitions. Airborne boost-phase theater missile defenses are relatively robust with respect to these countermeasures and they pose relatively little threat to the nuclear forces of the five major nuclear powers. Hence, more emphasis should be placed on such systems in current U.S. missile defense plans.

This report is a product of the Catastrophic Terrorism Study Group, a nine-month long collaboration of faculty from Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, and the University of Virginia. The Group involves experts on national security, terrorism, intelligence, law enforcement, constitutional law, technologies of catastrophic terrorism and defenses against them, and government organization and management.

The Group is co-chaired by Ashton B. Carter and John M. Deutch, and the project director is Philip D. Zelikow. Organized by the Stanford-Harvard Preventive Defense Project, the work of the Study Group is part of the Kennedy School of Government's "Visions of Governance for the Twenty-First Century" project, directed by Dean Joseph S. Nye, Jr. and Elaine Kamarck.

While the danger of catastrophic terrorism is new and grave, there is much that the United States can do to prevent it and to mitigate its consequences if it occurs. The objective of the Catastrophic Terrorism Study Group is to suggest program and policy changes that can be taken by the U.S. government in the near term, including the reallocation of agency responsibilities, to prepare the nation better for the emerging threat of catastrophic terrorism.

This paper develops a probabilistic model that can be used to determine the number of ballistic missile defense interceptors required to meet a specific defense objective, given the technical performance of the defense. The defense objective is stated as some probability that no warheads leak through the defense. The defense technical performance is captured by the interceptor single-shot probability of kill and the warhead detection, tracking, and classification probability. Attacks are characterized by the number of warheads and decoys that cannot be discriminated by the defense. Barrage and shoot-look-shoot firing modes are examined, with the optimal interceptor allocation derived for the shoot-look-shoot mode. Applications of this model to national and theater missile ballistic missile defense are discussed.

Gail Lapidus of Stanford University assesses the factors leading to Moscow's decision in December 1994 to use military force to crush Chechnya's resistance to the authority of the Russian leadership. Exhaustively researched and documented, Lapidus's study traces the evolution of the secessionist struggle through six stages. At the heart of the conflict, she says, was the Chechens' growing desire for sovereignty and territorial integrity sparked by Mikhail Gorbachev's political liberalization initiatives and further fueled by the establishment of a number of new states after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Lapidus also considers the role of Western governments and international institutions first in preventing the outbreak of hostilities and then in mitigating and, finally, terminating the conflict. She concludes that when the behavior of a major power is at issue, the potential for outside intervention is limited, which in turn raises a host of troubling questions about the prospects for future internal conflict resolution.

The majority of Russia's current strategic nuclear force will become obsolete shortly after the turn of the century. Hence, Russian strategic force modernization is essential if Russia is to remain a nuclear power on a par with the United States. Numerous uncertainties, especially financial uncertainties, prevent accurate estimates of Russia's future strategic force structure. Nevertheless, under the START I Treaty, Russia can probably maintain a force with slightly more than 4,000 strategic nuclear warheads over the next two decades-about half the number of the United States. Under START II, Russia is likely to maintain a strategic force of between 1,800 and 2,500 warheads, compared to 3,500 warheads for the United States. Therefore, Russia's main interest in ratifying the START II Treaty would be to pursue a START III Treaty that limits both sides to between 2,000 and 2,500 strategic nuclear warheads. This is the least expensive way to retain rough parity with the United States. Several reasons have been educed for why Russia should not ratify the START II Treaty, namely, because the Treaty allows a U.S. advantage in reconstitution capability and prompt hard-target-kill capability. However, these advantages are neither so great nor so consequential that Russia should reject the START II Treaty for these reasons alone. If Russia ratifies the START II Treaty, and presumably a follow-on START III Treaty, Russia's future strategic nuclear force will appear a lot different than its Soviet predecessor due to the reduced emphasis on land-based ICBMs. Nevertheless, the Russian force should remain a highly survivable, stable force-assuming Russian leaders allocate sufficient resources to ensure that their ballistic missile submarines, mobile ICBMs, and bombers can survive all plausible counterforce threats.