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"[Arms Control Today] has become indispensable! I think it is the combination of the critical period we are in and the quality of the product. I found myself reading the May issue from cover to cover."

– Frank von Hippel
Co-Director of Program on Science and Global Security, Princeton University
June 1, 2018
December 2023
Edition Date: 
Friday, December 1, 2023
Cover Image: 

Drones Target Ukrainian, Russian Nuclear Facilities


December 2023
By Kelsey Davenport

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) warned that strikes against nuclear power plants must be avoided after an explosion damaged a nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Two days after the Ukrainian facility was targeted, Moscow alleged that Kyiv attempted a drone strike on a nuclear facility in Russia.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, warned that strikes against nuclear power plants must be avoided after an explosion damaged ancillary buildings at the Khmelnitsky Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, shown here in 2013. (Photo by RLuts)The Khmelnitsky Nuclear Power Plant is located in northeastern Ukraine and includes two reactors, one of which is shut down for maintenance. There was no direct strike on the nuclear power facility, but ancillary buildings at the site suffered damage from the shockwaves after Ukraine shot down two drones in the vicinity of the power plant.

IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a press release on Oct. 25 that the explosion shattered windows and temporarily cut power to external radiation monitors but did not affect nuclear safety and security at the facility.

Grossi said the incident underscores “the extremely precarious nuclear safety situation in Ukraine, which will continue as long as this tragic war goes on.” He warned that “hitting a nuclear power plant must be avoided at all costs.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the attack on the Khmelnitsky plant shows Russia’s willingness to “target nuclear power stations and other critical facilities” and demonstrates that the “pressure on the terrorist state is insufficient.”

Zelenskyy also said that his country will “not only defend ourselves, but also respond” to attacks on critical infrastructure.

An IAEA press release on Oct. 27 noted that Russia reported drone activity in the vicinity of the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in western Russia near the Ukrainian border. The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that it thwarted a Ukrainian attempt to carry out a “terrorist attack” against the nuclear facility that same day.

According to the ministry, none of the three drones caused any damage to the facility, but one exploded near a building used to store spent nuclear fuel.

Russia also said it shot down nine Ukrainian drones near the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant on Nov. 2.

Ukrainian nuclear energy company Energoatom continues to operate the Zaporizhzhia complex, but the site has been occupied by Russian forces since Moscow attacked it in violation of international law during the early days of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. (See ACT, April 2022.)

In October, Grossi said that Zelenskyy “personally assured” him that Ukraine will not directly bomb or shell the Zaporizhzhia plant but that “other options are on the table” as Ukraine tries to retake the facility.

Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, accused Ukraine of attempting to disrupt the IAEA’s rotation of staff stationed at Zaporizhzhia and of “carrying out criminal and irresponsible provocations.”

Despite the drone attack, the IAEA confirmed in a Nov. 3 statement that a new team of agency experts was able to rotate into the Zaporizhzhia complex.

Grossi said that the IAEA presence at the site is “vital for efforts to keep this major nuclear facility safe and protect people and the environment in Ukraine and beyond.”

Two of the six units are in hot shutdown to generate steam to heat the nearby city of Enerhodar, where many Zaporizhzhia plant personnel live, and to run the power plant. The other four units are in cold shutdown.

According to the IAEA statement, Russia is still blocking agency access to three of the reactor rooftops. Earlier this year, Zelenskyy accused Russia of planting explosives on the rooftops of the reactors. (See ACT, September 2023.)

An IAEA expert mission was able to access the roof of one of the reactors in October and could observe parts of the rooftops of two other reactors. Grossi said in an Oct. 11 statement that agency experts did not see any mines or explosives, but he emphasized the importance of visiting all six rooftops “one after the other.”

Grossi said the agency will continue to request access to assess adherence to the five principles for ensuring the safety and security of the Zaporizhzhia complex that he presented to the UN Security Council in May. The principles include refraining from using the power plant to store heavy weapons or station military personnel and refraining from attacks “of any kind from or against the plant.” (See ACT, July/August 2023.)

The IAEA also said its experts “need access to all six turbine halls together” and have only been granted partial access to three of the turbine halls.

Grossi said the agency will continue to maintain an expert presence at the Zaporizhzhia site “as long as it is necessary.”

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency warned that strikes against nuclear power plants must be avoided.

IAEA Condemns Iran for Failure to Cooperate


December 2023
By Kelsey Davenport

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) strongly condemned Iran’s decision to reject experienced agency inspectors and continued failure to fulfill its safeguards obligations. Despite these concerns, the agency’s Board of Governors took no action against Iran during its quarterly meeting in November.

Rafael Mariano Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, addresses journalists on November 22 after an agency board meeting in which he condemned Iran’s failure to comply with its safeguards obligations. (Photo by Joe Klamar / AFP via Getty Images)States are permitted to reject IAEA inspectors, but IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi told the board that Iran’s actions are “unprecedented and contrary to the cooperation that is required” to effectively implement a comprehensive safeguards agreement.

In a Nov. 22 press conference following his statement to the board, Grossi said that the inspectors that Iran de-designated in September include some of the agency’s most experienced experts on uranium enrichment. He said that excluding these inspectors is a “very serious blow” to the agency’s efforts to implement safeguards in Iran. The IAEA and Iran are discussing reinstating the inspectors, Grossi said.

The head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Mohammad Eslami, defended Iran’s decision to reject the inspectors. He said in October that the inspectors in question had “politically oriented agendas.”

Grossi also reported that implementation of an agreement reached on March 4 between the agency and Iran on addressing outstanding safeguards issues and voluntarily enhancing monitoring has “come to a standstill.” He said that there has been no progress on additional transparency since May and no further cooperation on the agency’s investigation into previously undeclared nuclear activities. (See ACT, June 2023.)

According to an IAEA report on Nov. 17, Eslami told Grossi during a September meeting not to expect progress on the March 4 agreement until sanctions are lifted. The report did not specify which sanctions, but Eslami likely was referring to U.S. and European sanctions that should have been lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Although Iran is not legally obligated to provide further monitoring, it is required to meet its safeguards obligations, which include addressing IAEA questions about uranium detected at two locations not declared to the agency. (See ACT, July/August 2021.) The undeclared uranium activities took place prior to 2003, according to samples taken by the agency, but the IAEA is still obligated to determine if the material involved is accounted for.

The IAEA also is looking into a discrepancy in uranium accountancy at Iran’s conversion facility. Iran’s initial responses regarding the discrepancy did not address the agency’s questions, but the IAEA noted in a Nov. 17 report that it is reviewing additional information provided by Iran on Nov. 8.

Grossi reminded Iran that all safeguards issues “need to be resolved” for the agency “to be in a position to provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear [program] is exclusively peaceful.”

Laura Holgate, U.S. ambassador to the IAEA, told the board on Nov. 22 that Iran’s “inadequate cooperation with the agency overall is unacceptable.” She said that Iran “should take actions that build international confidence, rather than undermine the [a]gency’s essential assurances.”

Holgate said that “Iran argues it is treated unfairly…[but the] reality remains that Iran continues to single itself out through its actions.”

In a Nov. 13 report, the IAEA provided updates on Iran’s uranium-enrichment activities. It said that Iran continued to produce uranium enriched to 60 percent uranium-235 at a reduced rate. The stockpile of uranium enriched to that level grew by nearly seven kilograms, to 128 kilograms. That quantity is about enough material for three nuclear weapons if it were enriched to weapons grade, or 90 percent-enriched U-235.

The IAEA report noted that the number of centrifuges Iran used to enrich uranium remained unchanged. Since the last quarterly report was finalized in August, Iran did install one additional cascade of IR-4 centrifuges at its Natanz uranium-enrichment facility, but did not begin operating it.

There were no changes to the number of centrifuge cascades at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant, despite Iran’s commitment in November 2022 to increase the number of cascades from eight to 16.

Holgate said Iran’s nuclear expansion has “no credible peaceful purpose” and called on Tehran to halt production of 60 percent-enriched U-235.

The United States also warned Iran against transferring ballistic missiles to Russia. Tehran has support the Russian invasion of Ukraine by transferring drones to Moscow in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which endorsed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and restricted Iran’s ability to import and export certain missiles, drones, and related technologies. Those UN restrictions expired in October.

The Biden administration expressed concern in a Nov. 21 statement that Iran is considering providing Russia with short-range ballistic missiles for use in Ukraine.

France, Germany, and the United Kingdom have warned Iran that it could face a snapback of UN Security Council sanctions, including the missile restrictions that expired in October, if it provides Russia with ballistic missiles. Iran has threatened to withdraw from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty if UN sanctions are reimposed.

A provision in Resolution 2231 allows for the reimposition of UN sanctions on Iran. The reimposition cannot be vetoed.

Although the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency condemned Iran’s failure to implement its safeguards obligations, the agency’s Board of Governors took no action against Tehran at its November meeting.

Russia Mulls U.S. Arms Control Proposal


December 2023
By Shannon Bugos

Russia said it will consider and respond to the formal written arms control proposal from the United States, which announced the proposal in June but did not transmit it until September.

A Russian RS-24 Yars intercontinental ballistic missile is shown in Moscow during a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade in May. Russia says it is considering a U.S. proposal for new nuclear arms control negotiations. (Photo by Contributor/Getty Images)The Wall Street Journal first reported on Nov. 1 that Washington sent Moscow a proposal in September. A senior Biden administration official told the newspaper that the United States awaits a response but hopes to initiate “a conversation on what a framework after New START could look like,” referring to the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty expiring in 2026.

The proposal reflected U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s speech in June at the Arms Control Association annual meeting and “added additional details,” Pranay Vaddi, senior director for arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation at the U.S. National Security Council, told the Russian newspaper Kommersant on Nov. 3. (See ACT, July/August 2023.)

“Russia has not responded to it, but [Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei] Ryabkov said Russian authorities are working on a response,” Vaddi added.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has expressed skepticism that Russian-U.S. nuclear arms control talks would occur. “Dialogue is unequivocally necessary,” he said on Nov. 8. “But so far, the actual situation has not changed in any way.” Moscow repeatedly has stated that, as a precursor to any nuclear arms control talks, Washington must first withdraw support from Ukraine. (See ACT, April 2023.)

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials have boasted about having what they called a superior Russian nuclear arsenal. No one “in their right mind would consider using nuclear weapons against Russia,” Putin said on Oct. 5.

A month later, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev touted that, “[f]or the first time in the history of the existence of nuclear weapons, our country is ahead of its competitors in the [nuclear] domain.”

Russia launched its annual nuclear exercise, known as Grom, on Oct. 25, but it proved relatively scaled down compared to exercises in previous years.

“Putin led a training exercise that involved the forces and resources of the ground, sea, and air components of Russia’s nuclear deterrence forces,” the Kremlin said in a statement.

“The exercise included practical launches of ballistic and cruise missiles,” it added.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that this year’s exercise involved “delivering a massive nuclear strike by strategic offensive forces in response to an enemy nuclear strike.”

Meanwhile, NATO held its annual exercise for 10 days beginning Oct. 16. Known as Steadfast Noon, the exercise included the participation of 13 allied countries and more than 60 aircraft taking part in training flights over Italy, Croatia, and the Mediterranean Sea.

“The exercise involves fighter aircraft capable of carrying nuclear warheads, but does not involve any live bombs,” the alliance said in a statement on Oct. 13. “The exercise is not linked to current world events and the bulk of the training is held at least 1,000 kilometers from Russia’s borders.”

After the exercises ended, Shoigu warned of “the threat of a direct military clash between nuclear powers,” laying blame on the United States for its “steady escalation” of conflict and its destruction of “the foundations of international security and strategic stability,” including arms control agreements.

Russia said it will respond to the formal written U.S. arms control proposal, which was announced in June but was not transmitted until September.

NATO Allies Suspend Participation in CFE Treaty


December 2023
By Mohammedreza Giveh and Daryl G. Kimball

The United States and its NATO allies will suspend participation in the landmark Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, following Russia’s decision earlier this year to withdraw from the pact.

Ground troops from Bulgaria, Italy, and the United States take part in a NATO military exercise in May. Since then, the alliance announced plans to suspend participation in the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty, effective Dec. 7, following Russia’s decision to withdraw from the pact. (Photo by Borislav Troshev/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)The North Atlantic Council, the alliance’s principal political decision-making body, announced the decision Nov. 7, stating that the allies “will suspend the operation of their obligations to the treaty” effective Dec. 7.

“We concluded that we should not continue to be bound by a treaty to which Russia is not bound,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement. “Suspension of CFE [Treaty] obligations will strengthen the [a]lliance’s deterrence and defense capacity by removing restrictions that impact planning, deployments, and exercises.”

In its announcement, the council said that, with this “decision fully supported by all NATO allies,” the alliance intends “to suspend the operation of the CFE Treaty for as long as necessary” as a consequence of Russia’s withdrawal.

The decision was described by U.S. officials as a “suspension of all legal obligations” under the treaty that allows individual states to comply with certain provisions, such as data exchanges, on a voluntary basis.

At some point, states that have suspended participation might resume full, legally binding participation. Since Nov. 7, several NATO states have issued national statements outlining the provisions that they will voluntarily continue to meet.

The treaty, often described as the cornerstone of European security, was signed in 1990 and put equal limits on the quantity of conventional weaponry deployed by NATO and the Warsaw Pact countries. It eliminated the Soviet Union’s quantitative advantage in conventional weapons in Europe and more than 72,000 pieces of NATO and Soviet military equipment.

Polish army soldiers undergoing high-intensity training session at the Nowa Deba training ground in Poland in May. The exercises include collaboration with forces from Romania, Slovenia and the United States. (Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, its withdrawal from the CFE Treaty, and now the decision by NATO states to suspend participation in the accord puts the conventional arms control system in Europe, which was painstakingly built over decades, into near total collapse.

The United States withdrew from the 1990 Open Skies Treaty in 2020 over a compliance dispute, and Russia followed suit in 2021. (See ACT, July/August 2021.) This leaves the Vienna Document, a confidence-building mechanism by which participating states of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe agree to inspections and data exchanges to increase the transparency of their conventional forces, as the only remaining piece of the post-Cold War conventional arms control security architecture. U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Arms Control Today that the United States intends fully to participate in and comply with the terms of the Vienna Document.

The dispute between Russia and NATO over the CFE Treaty dates back nearly a quarter century. After the breakup of the Warsaw Pact and the expansion of NATO in the 1990s, efforts were made to revise the agreement to replace the bloc-to-bloc and zonal limits with a system of national and territorial ceilings reflecting the new geopolitical reality.

During the 1999 treaty summit in Istanbul, treaty members signed an agreement known as the Adapted Conventional Armed Forces in Europe Treaty to update the CFE Treaty structure. Russia also pledged to withdraw its forces from Moldova and Georgia and to show restraint in its deployment near the Baltics. (See ACT, November 1999.)

But the United States and its allies did not ratify the adapted treaty, citing the ongoing deployment of Russian forces in Moldova and Georgia. Russia disagreed and complained that Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovenia were not subject to CFE Treaty limits. Moscow also wanted constraints eliminated on how many forces it could deploy on its southern and northern flanks. (See ACT, January/February 2008.)

In 2007, Moscow declared its “suspension” of the original treaty in reaction to the ongoing delay of the adapted treaty’s entry into force, thereby halting Russian implementation of treaty-related transparency commitments and conventional force ceilings.

In May 2023, Russia announced that it would withdraw formally from the pact in objection to NATO countries “fueling the Ukraine conflict” and embracing Finland and Sweden as new alliance members. (See ACT, June 2023.) The withdrawal will not have any impact on Russia’s military posture.

At a briefing on Nov. 8 for nongovernmental experts, U.S. officials reaffirmed public statements that the United States and its NATO allies remain committed to effective conventional arms control as a critical element of Euro-Atlantic security.

The officials also said that the allies will continue to pursue measures with responsible partners that aim to bolster stability and security in Europe by reducing risk, preventing misperceptions, avoiding conflicts, and building trust. They did not elaborate on specific measures that would be pursued.

The United States and its NATO allies announced their plans following Russia’s decision earlier this year to withdraw from the pact.

Pentagon Struggles to Exploit Advances in AI


December 2023
By Michael T. Klare

The U.S. Defense Department has announced several initiatives designed to accelerate the military’s appropriation of private sector advances in artificial intelligence (AI) while still adhering to its commitments regarding the responsible and ethical utilization of these technologies.

U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks arrives at a classified briefing on artificial intelligence for the Senate at the U.S. Capitol Building in July. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)Senior Pentagon officials are keen to exploit recent progress in AI in order to gain a combat advantage over China and Russia, considered the most capable potential U.S. adversaries.

But they recognize that the large language models used to power ChatGPT and other such generative AI programs have been found to produce false or misleading outcomes, termed “hallucinations” by computer experts, that make them unsuitable for battlefield use. Overcoming this technical challenge and allowing for the rapid utilization of the new technologies have become major Pentagon priorities. The Defense Department took one step toward that goal on Nov. 2 with the release of an updated “Data, Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence Adoption Strategy,” which will govern the military’s use of AI and related technology in the years ahead.

Pentagon officials said the strategy, which updates earlier versions from 2018 and 2020, is needed to take advantage of the enormous advances in AI achieved by private firms over the past few years while complying with the department’s stated principles on the safe, ethical use of AI.

“We’ve worked tirelessly for over a decade to be a global leader in the fast and responsible development and use of AI technologies in the military sphere,” Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks told a Nov. 2 briefing on the new strategy. Nevertheless, she said, “safety is critical because unsafe systems are ineffective systems.”

Although the new strategy claims to balance the two overarching objectives of speed and safety in utilizing the new technologies, the overwhelming emphasis is on speed. “The latest advancements in data, analytics, and artificial intelligence technologies enable leaders to make better decisions faster, from the boardroom to the battlefield,” the strategy states. “Therefore, accelerating the adoption of these technologies presents an unprecedented opportunity to equip leaders at all levels of the Department with the data they need.”

The emphasis on speed is undergirded by what appears to be an arms racing mindset. “[China] and other strategic competitors…have widely communicated their intentions to field AI for military advantage,” the strategy asserts. “Accelerating adoption of data, analytics, and AI technologies will enable enduring decision advantage, allowing [Defense Department] leaders to…deploy continuous advancements in technological capabilities to creatively address complex national security challenges in this decisive decade.”

To ensure that the U.S. military will continue to lead China and other competitors in applying AI to warfare, the updated strategy calls for the decentralization of AI product acquisition and utilization by defense agencies and the military services. Rather than having all decisions regarding the procurement of AI software be made by a central office in the Pentagon, they can now be made by designated officials at the command or agency level, as long as these officials abide by safety and ethical guidelines now being developed by a new Pentagon group called Task Force Lima.

Such decentralization will accelerate the military’s utilization of commercial advances in AI by allowing for local initiative and reducing the risk of bureaucratic inertia at the top, explained the Pentagon’s chief digital and AI officer, Craig Martell, at the Nov. 2 press briefing.

“Our view now,” he said, is to “let any component use whichever [AI program] pipeline they need, as long as they’re abiding by the patterns of behavior that we need them to abide by.”

But some senior Pentagon officials acknowledge that decentralization on this scale will diminish their ability to ensure that products acquired for military use meet the department’s standards for safety and ethics.

“Candidly, most commercially available systems enabled by large language models aren’t yet technically mature enough to comply with our ethical AI principles, which is required for responsible operational use,” Hicks said. But she insisted that they could be made compliant over time through rigorous testing, examination, and oversight.

Overall responsibility for ensuring compliance with the department’s safety and ethical standards has been assigned to Task Force Lima, a team of some 400 specialists working under Martell’s supervision.

The task force was established to “develop, evaluate, recommend, and monitor the implementation of generative AI technologies across [the Defense Department] to ensure the department is able to design, deploy, and use generative AI technologies responsibly and securely,” Hicks said on Aug. 2 when announcing its launch.

As she and other senior officials explained, the task force’s primary initial mission will be to formulate the guidelines within which the various military commands can employ commercial AI tools for military use.

Navy Capt. Manuel Xavier Lugo, the task force commander, said the project will examine various generative AI models “in order for us to find the actual areas of [potential] employment of the technology so that we can go ahead and then start writing specific frameworks and guardrails for those particular areas of employment.”

 

The Defense Department announced initiatives to appropriate private sector advances in artificial intelligence while still using AI responsibly.

Biden Issues Executive Order on AI Safety


December 2023
By Michael T. Klare

Responding to growing public anxiety over the potential dangers posed by the expanding use of artificial intelligence (AI), President Joe Biden issued an executive order on Oct. 30 intended to ensure the “safe, secure, and trustworthy” application of the powerful technology.

With Vice President Kamala Harris (R) looking on, U.S. President Joe Biden signs an executive order on advancing the safe, secure, and trustworthy development and use of artificial intelligence at the White House on October 30. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images)The order followed the public release of ChatGPT and other generative AI programs that are able to create text, images, and computer code comparable to that produced by humans. On occasion, these programs have suffused those materials with false and fabricated content, provoking widespread unease about their safety and reliability.

Other AI-enabled products used to identify possible criminal suspects also have been shown to produce inaccurate outcomes, raising concerns about racial and gender biases introduced when the systems were being “trained” by computer technicians.

To overcome such anxieties, the executive order mandates a wide variety of measures intended to bolster governmental oversight of the computer technology industry and to better protect workers, consumers, and minority groups against the misuse of AI. Most of these apply to domestic industries and institutions, but some have a significant bearing on national security and arms control.

One of the order’s most consequential measures is a requirement that major tech firms such as Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI notify the federal government when developing any “foundational model”—a complex AI program such as the one powering ChatGPT—“that poses a serious risk to national security, national economic security, or national public health.” They must also share the results of all “red team” tests, programs designed to probe newly developed AI products and identify any hidden flaws or weaknesses, conducted by those firms.

Although the Oct. 30 order does not empower the government to block the commercialization of programs found to be deeply flawed in these tests, it might deter major institutional clients, including the U.S. Defense Department, from procuring such products, thereby prompting industry to place greater emphasis on safety and reliability.

Along similar lines, the order calls on the National Institute of Standards and Technology to establish rigorous standards for red-team testing of major AI programs before their release to the public. Compliance is not obligatory, but such standards are likely to be widely adopted within the industry. The same standards also will be applied by the departments of Energy and Homeland Security in overcoming potential AI system contributions to “chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and cybersecurity risks.”

More closely related to national security and arms control is a measure intended to prevent the use of AI in engineering dangerous biological materials, a significant concern for those who fear the utilization of AI in the production of new, more potent biological weapons. Under the Biden order, strong new standards will be established for biological synthesis screening, and any agency that conducts life science research will have to abide by them as a condition of future federal funding.

Several other key provisions bear on national security in one way or another, but in recognition of the issue’s complexity, the order defers full consideration of AI’s impact on these issues to a separate national security memorandum to be developed by the White House National Security Council staff in the coming months. Once completed, this document will dictate how the U.S. military and intelligence communities “use AI safely, ethically, and effectively in their missions.”

The President acted to ensure the “safe, secure, and trustworthy” application of artificial intelligence in response to growing public anxiety over AI’s potential dangers.

Israeli Arrow System Downs First Missiles in Combat


December 2023
By Mohammadreza Giveh

Israel used its Arrow-3 missile defense system to shoot down a ballistic missile, marking the system’s first combat interception. The ballistic missile was launched at Israel from the direction of the Red Sea on Nov. 9, presumably by Houthi militants in Yemen.

A version of the Arrow-3 missile defense system that Israel on November 9 used to shoot down a ballistic missile, marking the system’s first combat interception. (Photo by Sven Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images)Produced by Israel Aerospace Industries in collaboration with the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the surface-to-surface Arrow missile defense system, considered the top tier of Israel’s multilayered air defenses, is focused on incoming ballistic missiles and consists of the Arrow-2 and the Arrow-3 variants.

The more advanced Arrow-3 is intended to defend against longer-range missile threats and the Arrow-2 to defend against regional short-range or medium-range threats. The Arrow-2 system had its first successful intercept on Oct. 31.

The Nov. 9 interception came as Israel and Hamas militants were waging war in Gaza. It was the Arrow-3’s “first operational interception since its operational deployment in 2017…[and] follows the recent success of the first operational interception” by the Arrow-2 the prior week, according to a joint statement by the Israeli Defense Ministry and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Breaking Defense quoted the IDF as saying the missile on Nov. 9 came from the Red Sea region, presumably meaning that Houthi militants launched that attack.

The Arrow-2 interception happened outside the atmosphere at an altitude of approximately 60 miles, making it the first instance of space combat, The Jerusalem Post reported.

“Our armed forces launched a large batch of ballistic and winged missiles and a large number of drones at various targets of the Israeli enemy,” a Houthi spokesperson said in claiming responsibility for the Oct. 31 attacks, according to CNN.
 

Israel used its Arrow-3 missile defense system to shoot down a ballistic missile.

December 2023 Digital Magazine

December 2023 Digital Magazine

Submitted by Allen Harris on Thu, 2023-11-30 19:56

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