In his latest in a long line of faulty foreign policy articles, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney took to the pages of the Washington Post this week to explain what he would do differently, if given the chance, in Iran.

As it turns out, the answer is “not a lot.”

Try as I might, however, I’m not sure my response could hold a candle to Senator Kerry’s remarks, delivered on the Senate floor:

Mr. President, several of us here in the Senate have run for President. Two of us have been our Party's nominees. Dozens of others have played major roles in tough campaigns. None of us are strangers to the rough and tumble of politics.

[snip]

So it is not as an innocent that I say I was troubled to read an op-ed in this morning's Washington Post by the likely Republican nominee for President, Mitt Romney – an attack on the Administration’s Iran policy as inaccurate as it was aggressive.

Kerry pointed out that particularly this week, when Prime Minister Netanyahu was in Washington to discuss the issue with President Obama, “we should all remember that the nuclear issue with Iran is deadly serious business that should invite sobriety and serious-minded solutions, not sloganeering and sound bites.”

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Iran Watch, Congress, 2012 Elections, Romney, Kerry (all tags)

We'll have more to say about the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) nonproliferation budget soon, but in the meantime, House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Pete Visclosky's (D-IN) opening statement at the Subcommittee's March 6 hearing mirrors our own views.

March 6th, 2012

Subcommittee Ranking Member Rep. Peter Visclosky

As Prepared For Delivery:

"Mr. Administrator, it is good to see you again so soon. Ms. Harrington and Admiral Donald, welcome. We're all looking forward to your testimony today on these important national security issues. Admiral Donald, this will be your last appearance before the Subcommittee. I wish you all the best in the next chapter in your life and thank you for your service to our nation.

"The threat of nuclear terrorism is one of the gravest national security threats we face today. The bipartisan 9/11 Commission found that, "The greatest danger of another catastrophic attack in the United States will materialize if the world's most dangerous terrorists acquire the world's most dangerous weapons." Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who served under both Presidents Bush and Obama, stated, "Every senior leader, when you're asked what keeps you awake at night, it's the thought of a terrorist ending up with a weapon of mass destruction, especially nuclear."

"In April of 2009, the President committed to an aggressive nonproliferation agenda to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials worldwide in four years, an objective that I whole-heartedly support. The 2013 request professes to support this commitment by proposing $2.5 billion for the Nonproliferation account, an increase of $163 million over the 2012 enacted level. However, this increase is not to the core program. Rather it is due to the inclusion of $150 million for USEC and an increase to the Fissile Materials Disposition program, neither of which contributes to securing vulnerable materials.

"Mr. Administrator, at your appearance before the Subcommittee last week, I applauded the hard choices NNSA made in its budget request regarding nuclear weapons. However, I cannot do the same today. I have yet to be provided with any compelling reason for including the funding for USEC within Nonproliferation. Further, I must point out that the increase in the account for USEC roughly corresponds to the drastic reduction in the Second Line of Defense program. I cannot fathom an explanation that will be satisfactory for these changes given the importance of this mission, but I am here to listen to your justification.

"Admiral, the 2013 budget request for Naval Reactors funding is flat compared to the 2012 enacted level. This represents a significant change – a decrease of $144 million – to the projected needs outlined in your budget last fiscal year. I understand this reduction is enabled by the Navy's decision to defer the OHIO Replacement by two years. I look forward to your insights regarding the modified program schedule as well as more details on how this initiative has changed since last year.

"Thank you, Mr. Chairman for the time."

###

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Nukes on a Blog, Congress, nuclear terrorism (all tags)

I've got a new article up over at the mothership on NoH BFF Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH).  Here's an excerpt:

Rep. Michael Turner’s (R-OH) love affair with nuclear weapons continues. His national security raison d'être appears to be to protect at all costs spending on an excessively large nuclear arsenal ill-suited to the current threat environment and oppose common sense, bipartisan steps such as the New START treaty that begin to put America’s nuclear posture on a 21st century footing.

On February 8, the Chairman of the House Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee announced that he plans to introduce an updated version of the New START Implementation Act following the release of the President’s budget on February 13.

...

Turner argues that a new version of the bill is needed because the administration’s FY 2013 budget request of $7.58 billion for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Weapons Activities account is less than the $7.95 billion called for as part of the November 2010 update to the Section 1251 report. All told the 1251 report calls for $88 billion in spending on NNSA weapons activities between FY 2011 and FY 2020. The FY 2013 request does not keep pace with this plan. According to NNSA, “the Administration will develop outyear funding levels based on actual programmatic requirements at a later date.” Within weapons activities, the request defers the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility (CMRR-NF), the new plutonium facility scheduled to be built at Los Alamos, by five years.

Turner claims that the U.S. shouldn’t implement the reductions required by the New START treaty (to say nothing about deeper reductions) without spending the amounts outlined in the 1251 report.

Like his previous efforts to constrain U.S. implementation of New START and future changes to U.S. nuclear posture, Turner’s latest gambit isn’t likely to gain much traction outside the House Armed Services Committee. Not only did Turner lose the funding battle when Congress passed the Budget Control Act, but preventing the reductions required by New START would undermine U.S. security.

Read the whole thing here.

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Nukes on a Blog, Congress, nuclear weapons budget (all tags)

Now that budget day has come and gone, it's time to sift through and try to digest all the numbers.  Laicie got us going yesterday with her annual defense budget briefing book.  Below I've put together a chart on the FY 2013 request for strategic nuclear replacement systems (click on the thumbnail for the full PDF). Stay tuned for more in the coming days and weeks.

On nukes there weren't too many surprises.

The FY 2013 Pentagon budget does not make any cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal as future decisions about the size and structure of U.S. strategic forces will be determined by the administration’s ongoing secret review of nuclear deterrence requirements. The Pentagon has hinted that additional reductions are possible, but it remains to be seen how far-reaching they will be.

Though the big decisions about the future of the arsenal have yet to be made, as previously announced the Pentagon will delay the Ohio-Class ballistic missile submarine by two years, saving $4.3 billion from FY 2013 – FY 2017. The plans for a new long-range bomber are moving full steam ahead.  Studies on a follow-on to the Minuteman III ICBM also appear to be progressing, as they received $11.6 million and a new line item in the budget.

On the NNSA side, the budget request provides $7.58 billion, an increase of $363 million over the FY 2012 enacted level but a reduction of $372 million below the projected level outlined in the Section 1251 report. As previously reported, the budget defers the new plutonium production facility at Los Alamos for five years, saving an estimated $1.8 billion over the next five years.

Due to the Budget Control Act, funding levels for weapons activities will not keep pace with the 1251 report.  But the FY 2012 appropriation and the FY 2013 budget request provide major increases for nuclear weapons programs. By way of additional comparison, the FY 2013 request is a $710 million increase over the FY 2011 enacted level and an increase of $1.2 billion over the FY 2010 enacted level! NNSA will still be provided with more than enough money to maintain safe, secure, and effective nuclear warheads.

Of course if sequestration is implemented all bets are off and funding for nuclear modernization activities at the Pentagon and NNSA will take a big hit. As budget analyst Todd Harrison rightly observes, "The budget request and new strategic guidance are of little consequence until this uncertainty is resolved."

Our message on all this remains the same: The U.S. should prioritize scarce dollars on the weapons we need for current threats and spend less on unaffordable nuclear programs with diminishing strategic relevance – with our without sequestration.  The decision to delay the Ohio-class replacement program and defer the new plutonium facility at Los Alamos are good first steps, but there is ample room for more cuts.

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Nukes on a Blog, Security Matters, Congress, nuclear weapons budget, SSBN(X) (all tags)

In his testimony in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing last week entitled “Current and Projected National Security Threats to the United States,” Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. updated Congress on the status of Iran’s nuclear program, and its relevance for U.S. national security.

While Clapper’s statement that it is possible that perceived threats from the United States could encourage Iranian terrorists to seek targets on American soil grabbed most of the headlines, his testimony is an important counter to the alarmist reaction about Iran’s capabilities and intentions that has been permeating the country over the last few weeks.

In his prepared statement, Clapper acknowledged that while “Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons, […] we do not know […] if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”

Clapper did not disguise the fact that Iran appears to be developing the technical capability to produce nuclear weapons. He claims that “Iran’s technical advancement, particularly in uranium enrichment, strengthens our assessment that Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons, making the central issue its political will to do so.”

This is a critical distinction. Clapper went on to add that an Iranian decision to pursue nuclear weapons is not inevitable.

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Iran Watch, Congress, Intelligence (all tags)

Via Elaine Grossman, the Obama administration on January 11 sent a letter to Congress informing Members that it plans to pursue a case-by-case approach to civilian nuclear cooperation agreements with other countries.

In other words, it appears that the administration does not plan to require that future agreements require recipients of U.S. nuclear assistance to forswear the ability to make their own nuclear fuel via the pursuit of enrichment and/or reprocessing capabilities (or adhere to the additional protocol?), as the United Arab Emirates did in its 2009 agreement with the U.S.  

The administration has resumed negotiating nuclear trade deals with Jordan and Vietnam, which slowed in 2011 due to the Arab Spring, the Fukushima disaster, and an interagency policy review to determine U.S. policy on nuclear cooperation agreements.  My sense is that Jordan is likely to agree to something functionally equivalent to the UAE deal, though we'll have to wait and see for final confirmation.

We'll have more to say about the policy as more details become known and/or new cooperation agreements are reached, but as we've suggested to the administration before, we think they can do better than the policy on which they seem to have settled.  Meanwhile Republicans and Democrats in the House are calling for stronger oversight powers over new agreements that do not contain the highest nonproliferation standards, no small feat given the current political environment.

One more thing.  The administration letter to Congress argues that we need to negotiate deals "that open doors to U.S. industry," meaning that agreements with tough nonproliferation conditions could hurt the U.S. nuclear industry.  

It also notes that France and Russia are very aggressive in pursuing nuclear business worldwide, and offer terms that do not include stringent nonproliferation conditions.

Yet I fail to see how getting in a race to the bottom with France and Russia for nuclear business in Jordan, Vietnam, or worse, Saudi Arabia, would necessarily benefit the U.S. nuclear industry, to say nothing about U.S. nonproliferation goals.  

The U.S. has seen its comparative advantage in the trade of materials, reactors, etc. diminish to the point where it can no longer compete with countries such as France and Russia. Tougher nonproliferation conditions wouldn't be, to borrow a phrase from NBA Jam, the nail in the coffin because there are already so many nails in the coffin!

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Nukes on a Blog, Congress, civilian nuclear cooperation (all tags)

Ulrika Grufman and I just published a piece on the status of NATO-Russia missile defense cooperation talks over at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation website.  They're not going well.  We write:  

The current impasse is particularly frustrating given that the planned European missile defense architecture is not a threat to Russia’s deterrent (at least not yet). Meanwhile, the technical and financial foundations of the system are dubious at best. As four experts aptly put it: “The tragedy, if this confrontation results in a breakdown of relations between Russia and the West, is that almost nothing that anybody claims to be worrying about is real yet.”

We conclude that despite the lack of progress to date, the two sides must try to continue to work through their differences on this issue even if not much is likely to be accomplished in 2012 given Presidential elections in both the U.S. and Russia.

Read the whole thing here.

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Nukes on a Blog, missile defense, Russia, Congress (all tags)

Last week I debuted as a regular columnist for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.  I wrote my first column on the implications of the Supercommitee's failure for U.S. nuclear weapons policy.  Here's a taste:

Fortunately, scaling back plans for new and excessively large strategic nuclear weapons systems and warhead production facilities makes both strategic and economic sense. While a fiscal crisis should not determine strategy, the threat of sequestration provides a long overdue opportunity to re-examine the outdated assumptions that require the United States to maintain approximately 5,000 nuclear weapons nearly 20 years after the end of the Cold War. The price tag is not only unaffordable given today's budgetary constraints; it prevents the Pentagon from putting scarce resources toward higher priority programs that address 21st-century threats.

In the article I make the argument that by fundamentally revising U.S. nuclear deterrence requirements, the U.S. could save billions (even over the next decade) largely because there would no longer be a requirement to build as many new delivery systems as currently planned.

As an example, I described how the U.S. could still maintain a devastating deterrent in a more fiscally sustainable manner by building eight Ohio-class replacement submarines instead of 12 as currently planned.

According to a November 14 letter sent by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to Sens. McCain and Graham, delaying procurement of the new sub and reducing the buy from 12 to 10 subs would save $7 billion over the next decade.  Some NGO experts suggest that reducing the buy from 12 to 8 subs could save $27 billion over the next decade.

We could get a clearer sense of the exact cost of the new sub program (and by extension a clearer sense of potential savings) thanks to the final version of the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.  Section 242 of the bill requires the Navy and STRATCOM to prepare an unclassified report and cost assessment of options for the new sub.  Among other things, the report is to examine the procurement cost and total life-cycle costs associated with four different options: 12 subs with 16 missile tubes, 10 subs with 20 and 16 missile tubes, 8 subs with 20 missile tubes, and any other options deemed appropriate.

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Nukes on a Blog, Congress, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists column (all tags)

On December 12 the Senate and House Armed Services Committees filed the Conference report on the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.  Congress is expected to send the measure to the President's desk before the end of the year.  

We’ll have a more comprehensive summary out soon, but our early verdict on the bill’s nuclear weapons policy and missile defense provisions is that Senate and House conferees deserve credit for responsibly bridging the differences between the two versions of the bill.

The original House version of the defense bill (H.R. 1540) included many objectionable limitations on nuclear and missile defense policy matters that would 1) constrain the Pentagon’s ability to implement the New START treaty and 2) undercut the Constitutional authority of the President and senior military leaders to determine U.S. nuclear force structure and engage in discussions with the Russians on missile defense cooperation. The White House threatened to veto the final bill if it included such constraints. You can read our full analysis of the House version of the bill here.

In contrast the Senate bill (S. 1253) contained a number of reporting requirements on nuclear policy issues, but it does not impose policy or funding limitations. You can read our full analysis of the Senate versions of the bill here and here.

The Conference Committee report largely follows in the footsteps of the Senate bill.  It requires a number of reports and includes several Sense of Congress provisions, but it eliminates or significantly scales back the objectionable House provisions without compromising Congress’ important oversight responsibilities over U.S. nuclear policy.  

You can read the longer analysis here.

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Nukes on a blog, Congress, New START (all tags)

Yesterday, the Senate voted 93-7 to approve the defense bill. Senate and House conferees will meet this month in conference to reconcile differences between the Senate and House versions of the bill.  

The bill contains $527 billion for the basic Pentagon budget, $117 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and $18 billion for Department of Energy, for a total of about $662 billion. The total authorization is $27 billion less than the President’s request and $43 billion less than enacted in Fiscal Year 2011.

Prior to passage yesterday, the Senate adopted by unanimous consent a package of 11 “non-controversial” amendments.  It also adopted other amendments by voice vote.  The Senate rejected two amendments offered by Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) to alter the controversial provisions on detainees in the bill, but later approved a compromise amendment offered by Sen. Feinstein by vote of 99-1 that would leave it to the Supreme Court to make the final decision on the constitutionality of holding American citizens in military custody. It is unclear if this compromise language will be enough to prevent the White House from vetoing the final version of the bill, as it threatened to do if the bill's original provision on detainees was not removed.  

The Senate also unanimously approved an amendment offered by Sens. Kirk (R-IL) and Menendez (D-NJ) that would call for sanctions on the Iran Central Bank.  Dozens of other amendments were either not voted on or withdrawn.  Prior to passage of the bill, Sen. Levin (D-MI) indicated that he plans to offer as separate legislation a package of 71 pending amendments to the bill that were objected to by Sen. Cornyn (R-TX).

In all, there were 382 amendments filed to the bill, but many were minor, many were non-germane and many faded away.

On the nuclear side, most of the amendments on the triad and the nuclear weapons complex we've been highlighting were not adopted and melted away.  The Senate adopted three Republican amendments on nuclear weapons and missile defense calling for reports. The amendments don't do anything other than require reports.

As the two sides prepare for conference, they will have to reconcile many differences on nuclear weapons and missile defense.  Recall that the House version of the bill contains many egregious amendments on nuclear policy.  The Senate version is devoid of such provisions.

What's next up on the Senate floor? Congressional Quarterly reported last night that as the House and Senate work to address the impending expiration of the current CR in mid-December, the Senate could turn back to the Energy and Water bill next week.  I've also been told that the House and Senate have already begun to conference this bill.  Stay tuned.

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Nukes on a Blog, Congress (all tags)