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.

Read more

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

Let's turn to "New Start" and global zero. Without regard to China's modernizing strategic arsenal, Obama signed an agreement with Russia to reduce the number of deployed U.S. nuclear warheads from 2,200 to between 1,500 and 1,675.

American Enterprise Institute Resident Fellow Daniel Blumenthal, November 29, 2011.  Back on planet Earth, the New START agreement in reality limits the U.S. and Russia to no more than 1,550 deployed (New START accountable) warheads.  The 1,500 to 1,675 warhead range referred to by Blumenthal reflected the status of the New START negotiations as of the Joint Understanding for the START Follow-on Treaty.  When was that Joint Understanding released, you ask?  Try July 6, 2009.

It's also noteworthy that in a piece designed to convince his readers that the New START treaty is tempting China to expand its nuclear arsenal, Blumenthal can't actually bring himself to state how many nuclear weapons China actually has.  This is understandable, since the best estimates suggest that China possesses approximately 250 nuclear warheads.  Instead Blumenthal links to a story highlighting the research conducted by Georgetown Professor Phil Karber and his students suggesting that China has thousands of nuclear weapons.  What Blumenthal again fails to mention is that Karber's estimate is highly suspect - at best.

Read more

Nukes on a Blog, quote of the day, New START (all tags)

Note: For our analysis of the first New START data exchange, see here.

Category of Data       

Deployed ICBMs, Deployed SLBMs, and Deployed Heavy Bombers       
822 United States of America
516 Russian Federation

Warheads on Deployed ICBMs, on Deployed SLBMs, and Nuclear Warheads Counted for Deployed Heavy Bombers   
1,790 United States of America
1,566 Russian Federation

Deployed and Non-deployed Launchers of ICBMs, Deployed and Non-deployed Launchers of SLBMs, and Deployed and Non-deployed Heavy Bombers       
1,043 United States of America
  871 Russian Federation
______________

(As of September 1, 2011, as drawn from the exchange of data by the Parties. Data in this Fact Sheet comes from the biannual exchange of data required by the Treaty. It contains data declared current as of September 1, 2011. Data will be updated each six month period after entry into force of the Treaty.)

Fact Sheet
Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance
October 25, 2011

Read more

New START, nuclear weapons (all tags)

But Bush’s Presidential Nuclear Initiatives (PNIs) still mark an extraordinary moment in history, the point at which it might be said that the US truly won the Cold War. For decades, the superpowers had been piling warhead upon warhead. As historian Raymond L. Garthoff has noted, Bush’s September speech and Gorbachev’s response were a time when the arms race ran in reverse—downhill. Furthermore, the PNIs showed that ponderous negotiations aiming at a treaty were not the only way to cut nuclear arsenals. Unilateral arms control turned out not to be an oxymoron. And it was perhaps a good example of the deftness with which Bush handled the US response to the USSR’s collapse and Russia’s rebirth as a separate state.

Peter Grier, "When the Nuke Plan Changed".  Air Force Magazine, September 2011.  Read the whole thing; it's really an excellent piece on the origins of the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives, the 1991 reductions in U.S tactical nuclear weapons order by President George H.W. Bush, which led the Soviet Union to take similar steps, dramatically increasing U.S. security.

Read more

Nukes on a Blog, tactical nuclear weapons, New START (all tags)

Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller spoke to the U.S. Strategic Command 2011 Deterrence Symposium on August 4, and her comments regarding progress on the New START treaty were encouraging.

Gottemoeller stated that the Treaty, which entered into force on February 5, has been “very successful,” and she likened its implementation to a “fast moving train.”

To date more then 1,000 notifications have been passed between Washington and Moscow, tracking movements and changes in the status of each country’s strategic offensive arms and delivery vehicles. Gottemoeller noted that U.S officials and their Russian counterparts have been “constantly in communication,” strengthening mutual understanding and confidence.

Read more

New START, Goettemoeller, Nukes on a Blog (all tags)

By Kingston Reif and Trish Morris

Last summer, Mitt Romney unintentionally proved in a Washington Post Op-Ed attacking the New START treaty that his national security GPS is less effective than a broken compass.

His argument was promptly devastated by critics wielding facts.  

Slate’s Fred Kaplan noted that he had “never seen anything quite as shabby, misleading and—let's not mince words—thoroughly ignorant.”  Senator John Kerry (D-MA) used words like “uninformed” and “baloney” to describe Romney’s attack on the treaty.  Most devastatingly for Romney, fellow Republican Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) publically excoriated the former Massachusetts Governor for defying the advice of U.S. military leaders and raising “discredited objections.”

Despite these stinging rebukes, Romney held firm in his opposition to New START, which was approved by the U.S. Senate on December 22, 2010, by a vote of 71-26.  

With the race for the 2012 Republican nomination for President now in full swing, Romney is revisiting his opposition to the treaty in an attempt to score political points.

In a June 15 post on his blog titled “The Price of Inexperience,” Romney stated that because Russia is already below New START’s limits on deployed warheads and delivery vehicles, “we’re the ones who now have to give, while Russia gets.”  Both Keith Payne and Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) have made the same argument.

Like Payne and Kyl, what Romney fails to recognize is that without the treaty there would be no verifiable limits on the size of Russia’s nuclear arsenal.  Whether some Russian reductions might have happened with or without the treaty is beside the point, as former STRATCOM Commander Gen. Kevin Chilton argued last April:

One thing I was pleased to see in the treaty were these limits because as you look to the future though Russia may be close to or slightly below them already, when you look to the future we certainly don’t want them to grow and they would have been unrestricted otherwise without these types of limits articulated in the treaty...

Read more

Mitt Romney, New START (all tags)

With the Senate Armed Services Committee set to begin its mark up of the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act tomorrow, head over to the mothership for a review and analysis of the nuclear weapons related provisions in the House version of the bill (H.R. 1540), both good and bad.  

Read more

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

The ink is barely dry on the New START treaty, and Russia has nearly met the 2018 deadline for reductions.

On June 1 the State Department released a fact sheet detailing the aggregate numbers for the strategic nuclear weapons limited by the treaty.  

New START limits the U.S. and Russia to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, 700 deployed strategic delivery vehicles (long-range missiles and bombers), and 800 deployed and non-deployed strategic launchers (long-range missile tubes, missile silos, and bombers).  Each side has until 2018 to meet these limits.

According to the fact sheet, as of February 5, 2011, Russia had 1,537 deployed strategic warheads, 521 deployed strategic delivery vehicles, and 865 deployed and non-deployed launchers.  The United States had 1,800 deployed strategic warheads, 882 deployed strategic delivery vehicles, and 1,124 deployed and non-deployed launchers.  This means that Russia has already met two of the treaty’s three limits eight years early.

The numbers come from the first exchange of data between the U.S. and Russia, which occurred on March 22, 2011, 45 days after entry into force of the treaty.  The data is current as of February 5, 2011 (the date of entry into force) and will be updated every six months until the treaty’s expiration.

What do these numbers count?  What do they mean?  Below are some brief responses to these and other questions.  For additional analysis, read these excellent posts by Hans Kristensen and Tom Collina.

Read more

Nukes on a Blog, New START, Keith Payne (all tags)

As we noted last week, the White House threatened to veto the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act if it included two provisions offered by Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH) in Committee that would delay implementation of the New START treaty and constrain the President's ability to make changes to U.S. nuclear doctrine.

Rep. Turner issued the following in response to the White House veto threat:

Lastly, I would like to note that earlier today the President issued a veto threat on several provisions contained in the NDAA related to nuclear modernization and objections to provisions relating to missile defense. This is curious because these provisions are consistent with the administration's own stated policies and that of our NATO allies. By this threat, is the President saying he does not intend to implement the nuclear modernization guarantees that were part of the New START Treaty? Does the President intend to unilaterally withdraw nuclear forces from Europe? Does the President want to share sensitive data of missile defense technology with Russia? And does the President intend to strike deals with Russia to limit our missile defense capabilities? If the answer to these questions is no, then the administration should have no objections to these provisions. If, on the other hand, the answer to these questions is yes, then it is all the more reason to make these provisions law.

The initial legislation (H.R. 1750) upon which these provisions are based was so poorly written that Rep. Turner was forced to rewrite and amend it both in Committee and on the floor, lest the Department of Energy be prevented from dismantling weapons already slated for destruction and performing essential activities necessary to maintain and modernize U.S. nuclear weapons.  As one colleague put it to me, Turner's response to the veto threat is akin to receiving an "F" on an exam and blaming the teacher for grading it.

These egregious errors reflect a fundamental lack of seriousness and suggest that Turner's intent is not to solidify the commitments made during the Senate's consideration of New START as he claims, but rather to draw out implementation of New START for as long as possible and prevent the President from making any more changes to U.S. nuclear policy so long as he remains in office.   It should surprise no one that the administration's is threatening to veto the bill if it includes such measures.

Read more

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

Earlier today the Office of Management and Budget released a Statement of Administration Policy (SAP) on the House version of the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 1540), which is being debated on the House floor this week.  The SAP supports passage of the bill, but express serious reservations about a number of provisions, including four ugly sections on nuclear policy.  The White House threatens to veto the bill if two of these sections are included in the final version:

Limitations on Nuclear Force Reductions and Nuclear Employment Strategy: The Administration strongly objects to sections 1055 and 1056, which impinge on the President’s authority to implement the New START Treaty and to set U.S. nuclear weapons policy. In particular, section 1055 would set onerous conditions on the Administration’s ability to implement the Treaty, as well as to retire, dismantle, or eliminate non-deployed nuclear weapons. Among these conditions is the completion and operation of the next generation of nuclear facilities, which is not expected until the mid-2020s. The effect of this section would be to preclude dismantlement of weapons in excess of military needs. Additionally, it would significantly increase stewardship and management costs and divert key resources from our critical stockpile sustainment efforts and delay completion of programs necessary to support the long-term safety, security, and reliability of our nuclear deterrent. Further, section 1056 raises constitutional concerns as it appears to encroach on the President’s authority as Commander in Chief to set nuclear employment policy – a right exercised by every president in the nuclear age from both parties. If the final bill presented to the President includes these provisions, the President's senior advisors would recommend a veto.

Them's fighting words! For more information on these two sections, see here and here. The White House also objects to the sections of the bill on missile defense cooperation with Russia and tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.  

Nick Roth and Stephen Young note over at All Things Nuclear that Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH), the Dr. Strangelove behind the effort to undermine U.S. nuclear security, has offered a floor amendment that would alter Section 1055 to permit the retirement/dismantlement of warheads if it is “determined by the Secretary of Defense to be necessary to ensure the continued safety, security, and reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile.”  This shouldn't change anyone's negative opinion of the amendment, but at least Turner agrees that it was poorly written.

Read more

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