Senate Line of Attack: Process

During last week’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the fiscal year 2011 U.S. Navy budget request, Senator John Thune (R-SD) stuck to his parochial and political guns by quizzing the witnesses about U.S. nuclear force posture. His line of attack on the administration’s policy process suggests an argument that opponents of New START may advance during Senate debate on the agreement, whenever that occurs.

Following an exchange on nuclear delivery vehicles (pun!), Thune cited last year’s Guardian article and asked whether it was true that President Obama had rejected the Pentagon’s previous Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) draft because it was too timid. This question dovetailed with the “numbers game” criticism I dissected last week, wherein conservatives claim that the White House is cutting nuclear weapons sans either strategy or international/ intragovernmental consultations.

In response, Navy CNO Adm. Gary Roughead detailed just how inclusive and accountable the Obama administration’s NPR process has been. He said:

I've been involved in the NPR and I believe that the process we've had, the considerations we've had, has placed great value on our nuclear deterrent force, all legs of that triad, and the considerations of being able to feel the strategic needs of the nation.

[snip]

I'm very comfortable with the discussions we've had, the involvement that we've had, and how we're looking at things.

[snip]

I think as we have worked our way through what's a very complex process, I've been very comfortable with the discussions that we've been having, sir.

Policymakers and analysts will inevitably disagree about what the new NPR contains. Yet there is clear evidence that the White House has not unilaterally imposed its agenda on the Pentagon. The process has been collaborative, responsible, and, perhaps as a consequence, a teensy bit behind schedule.