NORTH KOREA
N. Korea’s nuclear standoff tops agenda at security forum in China
Yonhap News – September 26, 2012
Long-standing tensions over North Korea’s nuclear weapons program will top the agenda of an annual security conference that brings together all key regional players committed to resolving the communist country’s nuclear drive, a diplomatic source said Wednesday.

IRAN
What 371 metric tons of uranium hexafluoride could mean to Iranians
Gordon Lubold, Foreign Policy – September 27, 2012
Lost in the debate on Iran is the human cost of a strike against the country’s nuclear sites, according to a new report published by an Iranian-American with a background in industrial nuclear waste and chemicals. Khosrow Semnani argues in “The Ayatollah’s Nuclear Gamble,” that striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, where the IAEA has verified an inventory of 371 metric tons of uranium hexafluoride, could have devastating effects on tens of thousands, and possibly hundreds of thousands of Iranians, who would be exposed to highly toxic chemical plumes and even radioactive fallout.

Netanyahu brings fears about Iran nuclear ambitions to UN, believes sanctions have failed
AP, Washington Post – September 27, 2012
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will make his case against Iran before the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday, arguing that time is quickly running out to stop the Islamic Republic from becoming a nuclear power and the threat of force must be seriously considered.

RUSSIA
Compromise on Missile Shield Possible – Vershbow
RIA Novosti – September 26, 2012
A compromise with Moscow on U.S. missile defense system in Europe is possible despite the current deadlock, NATO Deputy Secretary General Alexander Vershbow said on Thursday. Several prominent Russian researchers and military experts have recently supported NATO’s claims that the alliance’s plans are not targeting Russia, Vershbow said.

NUCLEAR POWER
China nuclear reactor program to resume in fourth quarter : report
Reuters – September 25, 2012
China’s ambitious reactor building program is set to resume in the fourth quarter following a suspension imposed after Japan’s March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, official media reported on Wednesday. The Shanghai Securities News, citing government sources, said new safety regulations were about to be published, paving the way for China to launch new projects for the first time since an earthquake and tsunami left the Fukushima Daiichi reactor complex in northeast Japan on the verge of meltdown.

AFGHANISTAN
Michele Flournoy, Obama Adviser: Afghanistan Insider Attacks Are Sign Of ‘Taliban Desperation’
Joshua Hersh, Huffington Post – September 26, 2012
Michele Flournoy, a former top Pentagon official and current foreign policy adviser to President Barack Obama’s campaign, said Tuesday that insider attacks by Afghan troops against their American partners are a “very occasional” problem and a sign of “Taliban desperation.”

The Real Pivot
David Barno, Foreign Policy – September 25, 2012
Last week marked a major inflection point in the war in Afghanistan. NATO decided to suspend joint operations with Afghan forces below the battalion level, while the last of the 30,000 U.S. “surge” troops returned home. After eleven years of conflict, the United States and its allies now stand at a fork in the road. They can continue to press ahead with an increasingly risky advisory effort, where the remaining 68,000 U.S. troops would continue widespread partnering with Afghan forces. Or they can start shifting now to a much-reduced military effort aimed at supporting the Afghan military in combat differently while protecting broader U.S. interests with smaller counter-terror forces.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Paul Ryan Says President Obama’s Policies ‘Project Weakness’
John Parkinson, ABC News – September 26, 2012
 At a rally this evening here in the Rocky Mountain State, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan sharpened his criticism of President Obama’s leadership as commander-in-chief, telling this military-friendly crowd that the president’s policies “project weakness abroad.” Obama proposals to cut defense spending, Ryan said, would scale back missile defense and directly cost Colorado almost 18,000 jobs.

UNITED NATIONS
UN Nuclear Chief Amano to Stand for Another Term
Reuters – September 26, 2012
United Nations nuclear agency chief Yukiya Amano, a key figure in international diplomacy over Iran’s disputed nuclear activity, will seek a new four-year term next year, the Vienna-based organisation said on Wednesday.

IRAN
Iran Pushes Ahead in Building Nuclear Reactor
Fredrik Dahl, Reuters – September 26, 2012
Iran appears to be making headway in building a research reactor that could yield potential nuclear weapon material, adding to Western concerns about Tehran’s atomic aims, experts and diplomats say.
The West’s worries about Iran are focused largely on underground uranium enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordow, but it is also pressing ahead with construction of a heavy-water reactor near the town of Arak, which analysts say could produce plutonium for nuclear arms if the spent fuel is reprocessed.

AP Interview: Ahmadinejad Pushes New World Order
Christopher Chester, AP – September 26, 2012
After an hour of fielding questions about Syria, sanctions and nuclear weapons, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had enough. Now, he said, it was his turn to choose the topic — his “new order” which will inevitably replace the current era of what he called U.S. bullying. Continuing his hectic pace of media appearances and diplomatic meetings, Ahmadinejad presented an air of boredom when it came to the hot topic on everyone’s mind — Iran’s nuclear program and the possibility of impending war.

NORTH KOREA
North Korea Farmers to Test Regime Appetite for Reform
Carol J. Williams, LA Times – September 26, 2012
North Korea’s communist leadership is now reported by recent visitors to be experimenting with smaller-sized farming cooperatives and incentives for expanding food production by letting farmers keep and sell more of what they grow. The dilemma faced by the Pyongyang regime, say academics who scrutinize the hermetic state, is whether opening the agricultural sector will rescue the economy, as it did in China, or whet North Koreans’ appetite for more opportunity and political choice, thereby bringing down one-party rule, as it did in the Soviet Union.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION NEWS
In the Face of GOP Criticism, Addressing Obama’s Foreign Policy Challenges
PBS – September 25, 2012
Discussion between Gwen Ifill, former U.S. ambassador Nicholas Burns, and Council on Foreign Relations’ Richard Hass concerning President Obama’s foreign policy following his speech at the United Nations yesterday.

Foreign Affairs: Romney, Obama Play the Same Defense
Michael O’Hanlon, Statesman Journal – September 25, 2012
The new turmoil in the Middle East, including the recent killing of our U.S. ambassador in Libya, has raised the profile, and the rhetoric, on foreign policy and national security in the presidential race. But an examination of two central issues in the race, proper levels of U.S. military spending and the use of military force, suggests a more nuanced and intelligent debate between the two men.

UNITED STATES
Alvarez: America’s Own Nuclear Weapon Problem
Robert Alvarez, September 25, 2012
The government can’t simply bury its uranium-233 problem. If you knew that more than 200 pounds of nuclear bomb material may be missing from government nuclear facilities in the United States, would that worry you? Recently, three activists, including an 82-year-old nun, broke past the barriers of one of the world’s largest and most modern nuclear explosive storage facilities. But long before that incident, a little-known nuclear security problem was festering at a nearby 69-year-old building – the site of enough bomb-grade uranium to fuel dozens of nuclear weapons.

A Victory for Common Sense on Nuclear Weapons
William Hartung, Huffington Post – September 25, 2012
Most Americans aren’t expecting much out of Washington these days, given the prevalence of partisan gridlock and the power of special interest money. But positive action is possible even in this climate, as evidenced by the recent decision to zero out funding for an unneeded, overpriced plutonium facility that was slated to be built in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

Obama’s Address to the United Nations
Helene Cooper, New York Times – September 25, 2012
President Obama on Tuesday used his last major address on a global stage before the November election to deliver a strong defense of America’s belief in freedom of speech, challenging fledgling Arab and North African democracies to ensure that right even in the face of violence. The speech was in many ways a balancing act for Mr. Obama, who has had to contend with angry anti-American demonstrations throughout the Middle East during the past several weeks, and a Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, who says the president has projected weakness in his foreign policy.

IRAN
‘Time is not unlimited’ on Iran, Obama to tell U.N.
David Ariosto, CNN – September 25, 2012
The United States will “do what we must” to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, President Barack Obama is expected to tell the United Nations General Assembly Tuesday in a speech that will also touch heavily on the death of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Libya.

Breakfast with Ahmadinejad
Susan B. Glasser, Foreign Policy – September 24, 2012
Since Republican candidate Mitt Romney has been outspoken in declaring he would support Israeli military action against Iranian nuclear facilities, asked CNN correspondent Erin Burnett, did that mean Ahmadinejad would be supporting President Barack Obama’s re-election? No, he replied through an interpreter, “We do believe that the U.S. elections are a domestic issue and we will not get in the middle of that at all.” Then he cracked a smile before adding, “I believe the people of the U.S. are not a war-seeking people.”

Senate Passes Measure Rejecting Containment Of A ‘Nuclear Weapons Capable’ Iran
Ben Armbruster, ThinkProgress – September 22, 2012
The Senate passed a resolution early on Saturday by a vote of 90-1 “joining” President Obama in rejecting any policy that would seek to contain Iran “as an option in response to the Iranian nuclear threat.” However the non-binding measure — which all but two Democrats voted for — breaks significantly with the president’s policy on containment’s threshold.

DISARMAMENT
Nuclear Disarmament Disarmed
Gareth Evans, Project Syndicate – September 25, 2012
US President Barack Obama’s foreign-policy landscape is littered with deflated balloons. Soaring speeches, high hopes, and great expectations have yielded minimal returns. Across the Islamic world – from North Africa to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan – we see fragile relationships, unhappy transitions, unresolved conflicts, and outright attacks on the United States, despite Obama’s case for a new beginning, movingly articulated in his June 2009 speech in Cairo. Israel, deaf to Obama’s urging, is further from reconciliation with Palestine, and closer to war with Iran, than it has ever been.

RUSSIA
Russian Military Dumps Unified Nuclear Command Plan
RIA Novosti – September 24, 2012
Russia’s Defense Ministry has abandoned plans to set up a unified command structure for the country’s nuclear triad, the newspaper Izvestia reported on Monday. As a result, each major branch of the Armed Forces – the Strategic Missile Forces (SMF), the Air Force and the Navy – will retain control over its own triad component, Izvestia said, citing an unidentified source in the ministry.

NORTH KOREA
AP Exclusive: Images show NKorea launch pad halt
CNBC – September 25, 2012
North Korea has stopped construction on a launch pad where intercontinental-range rockets could be tested, an interruption possibly due to heavy rains and that could stall completion up to two years, according to an analysis of new satellite imagery. Despite the setback, however, Pyongyang is also refurbishing for possible future use another existing pad at the same complex that has been used for past rocket launches, according to the analysis of Aug. 29 images provided to The Associated Press by 38 North, the website of the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

MISSILE DEFENSE
Poland Eyes $4 Bln Missile Modernization Program
RIA Novosti – September 24, 2012
Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski has submitted a defense bill to parliament designed to initiate the comprehensive modernization of the country’s missile defense system, the presidential staff said on Monday. This bill is key to ensuring stable funding for the modernization program, which has been described as “the highest priority for the Polish Armed Forces in the coming decade.”

SOUTH ASIA
Pak developing non-strategic nuclear weapons
Hindustan Times – September 25, 2012
To enhance its nuclear capability, Pakistan is developing non-strategic nuclear weapons, and thus joining the ranks of countries like the US and Russia, a leading American think-tank has said. India, however, not listed among five of the nine-nuclear weapons powered countries that has or is developing non-strategic nuclear weapons said Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project, and Dr Robert S Norris, senior fellow for Nuclear Policy, in a new edition of Nuclear Notebook.

IRAN
Iran Threatens Attacks on US Bases in Event of War
AP – September 23, 2012
A senior commander in Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guard warned that Iran will target U.S. bases in the region in the event of war with Israel, raising the prospect of a broader conflict that would force other countries to get involved, Iranian state television reported Sunday. The comments by Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, who heads the Guard’s aerospace division, came amid tension over Iran’s nuclear program and Israel’s suggestion that it might unilaterally strike Iranian nuclear facilities to scuttle what the United States and its allies believe are efforts to build a bomb. Tehran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes.

UPDATE 2-Iran Accuses IAEA of Passing Nuclear Secrets to Israel
Yeganeh Torbati, Reuters – September 23, 2012
A senior Iranian lawmaker accused the UN nuclear watchdog on Sunday of passing confidential details of Iran’s atomic work to Israel, and a military commander said Tehran may consider a pre-emptive strike on the Jewish state if it looked set to attack. Javad Jahangirzadeh, a member of parliament’s presiding board, said International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano had made “repeated trips” to Israel, divulging sensitive information about what Tehran says is its peaceful nuclear programme.

Iran Denies Hacking into American Banks
Reuters – September 23, 2012
Iran denied its hackers attacked American banks, the semi-official Fars news agency reported on Sunday, following a Reuters report that three of the largest American lenders were repeatedly targeted over the past year. The hacking of websites and corporate networks at Bank of America Corp, JPMorgan Chase & Co and Citigroup Inc began in late 2011 and escalated this year, people familiar with the situation told Reuters.

NORTH KOREA
Will North Korea Strike Again in NLL Area
Evan Ramstad, Wall Street Journal – September 24, 2012
For months, South Korean politicians and spectators have been speculating about what North Korea may do to influence the outcome of the December presidential election. Guesses have ranged from some type of skirmish in Yellow Sea where there’s been action before, to small-scale terrorist-like action by North Korean agents in the country to a surprise summit between Kim Jong Eun and Lee Myung-bak.

Iraq Blocks Syria-Bound North Korea Plane, Suspects Weapons Cargo
Suadad al-Salhy, Reuters – September 21, 2012
Iraq said on Friday it has denied permission to a North Korean plane bound for Syria to pass through Iraqi airspace on suspicion it could be carrying weapons, and the United States stressed the need to prevent any such arms transfers. Iraq has also denied a Western intelligence report that Iranian aircraft had flown weapons and military personnel over Iraqi airspace to help Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his 18-month-old fight against rebels seeking to end his rule.

MOLDOVA
Moldova Says it Detains Uranium Leaders from Rebel Region
Chisinau, Reuters – September 21, 2012
Moldovan police have detained seven suspected members of a group that traded firearms and uranium, operating in the separatist Transdniestria region, the former Soviet republic’s interior ministry said on Friday. “We have documented numerous cases involving shipments of hand grenades, TNT blocks, Kalashnkikov assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) launcher charges and containers with radioactive uranium-235,” Vitalie Briceag, the head of the ministry’s investigations department, told reporters.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Leadership for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World
Ramesh Thakur, The Japan Times – September 24, 2012
In a world beset by many grave problems that threaten to unleash a perfect storm at short notice, many people bemoan the dearth of responsible and high-quality leadership to point the way forward to a more prosperous, peaceful and just future.
Yesterday’s leaders may no longer be in power but have much to contribute by drawing on their accumulated experience, wisdom and detachment from the everyday concerns of making and executing public and foreign policy.

Uranium Substitute is No Longer Needed, But Its Disposal May Pose Security Risk
Matthew L. Wald, New York Times – September 23, 2012
At the dawn of the civilian nuclear age in the 1950s, one of the pressing questions was how to find enough fuel for reactors and bombs. The government and the private sector seized on a man-made substitute for natural uranium, producing about 3,400 pounds of an exotic and expensive material called uranium 233. Today, the problem is how to safely get rid of it.

The Threat of a New Nuclear Arms Race
Washington Post – September 22, 2012
Advocates of nuclear weapons use terms such as modernization to make the case that our nuclear weapons complex is dangerously out of date. In Sept. 16 and 17 news articles on proposed spending on our nuclear arsenal, The Post explored the skyrocketing costs but did not question the assertion that modernization is needed for our security.

NORTH KOREA
Nuclear deal? New North Korea and Iran pact raises international concern
Donald Kirk, Christian Science Monitor – September 21, 2012
North Korea and Iran appear to be increasing their dealings in nuclear technology and missiles with each other under a breakthrough agreement reached between the two nations in Tehran three weeks ago. “It’s likely the tempo of shipments of technology to Iran has increased,” says Bruce Bechtol, a former US intelligence official and author of two books and other studies on North Korea’s military buildup. “We have seen a large number of North Korean scientists visiting Iran.”

South Korea Fires Warning Shots at Fishing Boats From North
Martin Fackler, New York Times – September 21, 2012
South Korean patrol boats fired warning shots at North Korean fishing vessels in contested waters in the Yellow Sea on Friday, but the North’s boats fled without casualties, the South Korean military said.

PAKISTAN
Pakistan film protests: Ten die in Karachi and Peshawar
BBC News – September 21, 2012
Five people were killed in the port city of Karachi and a further five died in the north-western city of Peshawar, hospital officials said. Protesters also breached the diplomatic enclave in the capital, Islamabad, near the US embassy.

IRAN
Iran Atomic Official Says Iran Used False Data to Fool Spies
Rick Gladstone and Christine Hauser, New York Times – September 20, 2012
Iran’s top atomic energy official said in an article published Thursday that because of foreign espionage, his government had sometimes provided false information to protect its nuclear program, which Western powers and Israel have called a cloak to develop a nuclear weapons capacity.

Iran displays new air defense system said to be made to confront US warplanes in Gulf
AP, Washington Post – September 21, 2012
Iran on Friday displayed a new, all-Iranian-made air defense system, saying it was designed to confront American warplanes in case of a U.S. attack on the country. The system was on show during a military parade in Tehran commemorating the start of the Iraq-Iran war 32 years ago.

U.S. doesn’t support tying Iraq aid to cooperation on Iran
Reuters, Chicago Tribune – September 20, 2012
The State Department said on Thursday it did not support a suggestion from a prominent senator that future U.S. assistance to Iraq be made conditional on Baghdad’s cooperation in stopping Iranian aircraft suspected of ferrying weapons to Syria. “We’ve been very clear about our ongoing conversation with the government of Iraq, and our view that they either need to deny overflight requests for Iranian aircraft going to Syria or to require that such flights land in Iraqi territory for inspection,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland told a news briefing.

AFGHANISTAN
U.S. Troop Surge In Afghanistan Over, Panetta Says
Lolita C. Baldor, Huffington Post – September 21, 2012
The 33,000 additional U.S. troops that President Barack Obama ordered to Afghanistan to tamp down the Taliban attacks nearly two years ago have now left the country, but a new wave of deadly insider attacks and a reassessment of how NATO troops partner with Afghans have raised questions about how well the military strategy is working. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced on Friday the troops had come out, declaring the surge had accomplished its mission.

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
2 candidates’ views on defense
Michael O’Hanlon, Politico – September 19, 2012
So how do Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama stack up against each other on the enormously important question of U.S. military spending and broader defense strategy?  If the argument was just one of Democratic incumbent against Republican challenger, I’d assume the country couldn’t go too far wrong, regardless of who won. But with the trillion-dollar deficits, looming sequestration and other woes afflicting the policy process, I’m less sure things will work out.