Personnel from the National Nuclear Security Administration and the State Department met recently with counterparts from the five Nuclear Weapons States to discuss strategic risk reduction and stemming the spread of nuclear weapons.
Chaired by the U.S. delegation of the Nuclear Weapons States, officials met with counterparts from China, France, Russia and the U.K. in Cairo on June 13 and 14, according to a statement from the State Department. Other nations such as India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons but are not officially recognized under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) signed in 1968.
The gathering was held primarily to discuss that treaty, aimed at stemming the spread of nuclear weapons technology, the State Department said in a statement published June 23 on its website.
The U.S. delegation, which included National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and personnel from the U.S. State and Defense departments, organized the meeting of “working-level experts” from the countries’ diplomatic corps and defense departments to discuss “strategic risk reduction, as well as nuclear doctrines and policy,” the State Department said in the statement.
Jill Hruby, the administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, spoke at the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization’s Science and Technology Conference 2023 this week.
In prepared remarks, Hruby discussed President Joe Biden’s Nuclear Posture Review, portions of which Congress has opposed, as well as zero-yield nuclear-weapon tests at the Nevada National Security Site, among other things.
Although the Department of Energy was among scores of organizations hit in an international cyberattack last week, it experienced minimal impact, the agency’s chief information officer said Thursday in Washington, D.C.
“I wasn’t planning to talk about it,” but “needless to say we did have some challenges last week,” Ann Dunkin told the Energy Facility Contractors Group of the Moveit data breach. “I am not at liberty to say much about [it] in this space.” The exposure associated with the breach is “extremely small,” Dunkin said.
Dunkin also lauded the DOE Office of Environmental Management’s embrace of DOE’s intranet system. “From idea to rollout it took 10 months and is available [to] all 16 affiliate EM organizations.” The National Nuclear Security Administration “is now coming onboard” with DOE’s intranet system, Dunkin said.
