The knock on United States National Missile Defense based in Alaska and California is that it never has been proved to work in real-world situations.  Billions of dollars have been spent on that system, now called “ground-based mid-course,” but there is no sure evidence that the defense would work should North Korea launch nuclear-tipped missiles against us.

Because of the powerful political backing for the program, missile defense has avoided the commonsense “Fly Before You Buy” mantra that prevents billions from being wasted on weapons that may eventually prove ineffective.

According to a recent report by the Government Accounting Office (GAO), the government auditing agency, the Obama Administration is risking repeating history with its proposed  missile defense systems in Europe.

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missile defense, Obama administration, Iran, North Korea (all tags)

The Obama administration notified Congress today of a "a significant defense package that will promote regional security and enhance the defensive capabilities of an important Gulf partner with whom we have had a longstanding and close security relationship.”  The deal with Saudi Arabia, worth up to $60 billion, will become one of the largest-ever single US arms deals.

The State Department and Pentagon informed lawmakers that the delivery of weapons would be spread over 15-20 years.  Weapons systems include 84 new F-15 fighter jets, 70 upgrades of existing Saudi F-15s, 70 Apache attack helicopters, and 72 Black Hawk helicopters as well as a wide array of missiles, bombs, launchers and equipment.  

Andrea Shalal-Esa notes that in these tough economic times, with increasing budgetary pressure on both the US and Europe, US defense firms have begun to look to the Middle East and Asia for continued weapons sales in the coming years.  This particular deal might help to offset the UK's decision to trade its planned buy of 138 F-35B short takeoff and vertical landing versions of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter for the F-35C carrier variant.

While Congress has 30 days to block the deal, it seems unlikely that they will.  “Congress is a big place and there's a lot of members, and there may be differing opinions about the sale,” said Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro, “but we feel comfortable that we have done adequate pre-consultations with members of Congress that there will not be a barrier to completing this sale.”

And don’t expect any flack from Israel.  While it has not been stated directly, the deal has been widely acknowledged as a move to counter the perceived threat of Iran to its neighbors.  Israel has traditionally been wary of arms sales to nearby Arab countries, but in this moment of uncertainty, the rules have changed.  Israeli strategists now predominantly consider Iran, rather than the Arab countries, to be the greatest external threat to Israel’s security.  Some rumors have even speculated that Saudi Arabia has already granted Israel permission to use its airspace in the event of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

On the question of “where these arms may be in 10 or 20 or 30 years’ time?”  Shapiro remarked that after extensive review, the administration is, “comfortable that this sale will serve to enhance U.S. national security.”

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Iran Watch, Security Matters, Nukes on a Blog, Saudi Arabia, Obama Administration, Arms Sales (all tags)

Following an August 3 report in the Wall Street Journal, the arms control blogosphere has been buzzing about a nearly finalized nuclear cooperation agreement between the United States and Vietnam. According to the Journal, and now other outlets including The Guardian and Global Security Newswire , the U.S.-Vietnam deal has considerably weaker proliferation controls than the Obama administration has demanded in the past – specifically, the agreement would allow Vietnam to retain the right to enrich uranium.

The Risks and Benefits of Enrichment

Uranium enrichment technology has both civil and military applications: it can be used to produce fuel for nuclear power plants or fissile material for nuclear weapons. Any country that possesses enrichment facilities would be able to use this technology to jumpstart a weapons program. But any country without enrichment facilities is unable to independently produce nuclear fuel for its reactors and thus required to import fuel for its nuclear energy program.

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Nukes on a Blog, Security Matters, Obama Administration (all tags)

Center Chairman General Gard has written an op-ed on the support of military leadership for the President’s nuclear weapons agenda published today by the McClatchy-Tribune news service. The article, GOP critics vs. the Pentagon, appeared in Lexington, Kentucky in the Lexington Herald-Leader

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New START, Nuclear weapons, Obama Administration, Senate, Conservative High Jinks (all tags)

In this morning’s WSJ, NSA Jim Jones rebuts the paper’s April 17 editorial claiming that New START places too many restrictions on U.S. missile defenses. Jones argues that the treaty’s limits on converting ICBM silos for missile defense interceptors is not a problem because the United States would probably just dig new holes, which is apparently cheaper than converting existing silos, if it ever needed to add additional missile defense silos in California or elsewhere.

Sounds reasonable, although one wonders what the timeline would be for converting silos versus building new ones. In a rapidly-developing crisis situation, would the United States have time to dig new holes? I ask because Keith Payne raised concerns about a rapid, unforeseen scenario in his April 8 WSJ op-ed, which will continue to be plagiarized heavily by the Journal and Senate Republicans.

Here’s the full text of Jones’s letter…

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Nukes on a Blog, Obama Administration, New START, FY 2011 Budget Request, Missile Defense (all tags)

Late last week, KT “Queen of All Media” Mounts took to the pages of Maine’s The Times Record to drop some knowledge on how important young people are becoming in the fight to reduce the threat posed by nuclear weapons.

Can KT work a “Tommy Boy” reference into her first paragraph? Yes, she can!

I was born into the millennial generation in 1985. I have no memory of the Soviet Union. “Fat Man” to me refers to a Chris Farley dance in the movie “Tommy Boy.” And “duck and cover” in my elementary years meant we would get to play “Heads Down, Thumbs Up.”

In a funny twist of fate, however, despite a lack of experience with these symbols of the Cold War, it may be my generation that will be left to clean up the nuclear weapons mess that remains from it.

[snip]

As the involvement of young people in current debates about nuclear weapons grows, momentum builds for a more secure global future. The road to a world free from the threats of nuclear weapons may be long, but current efforts can get America securely onto the right path.

My generation has been offered a unique opportunity to take the reins — and I believe we’re ready to lead.

Consider this a warm up for tomorrow night’s youth/student conference call with President Obama’s deputy NSA, Ben Rhodes, on U.S. nuclear weapons policy.

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Nukes on a Blog, New START, Obama Administration, Outreach (all tags)

“I'm so hungry [for New START] I could eat the ass end out of a dead rhino!”

(h/t Thrillist)

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Nukes on a Blog, Obama Administration (all tags)

In a CNN poll conducted April 9-11, 70 percent of respondents said that the U.S. Senate should vote in favor of the U.S.-Russia New START agreement, versus 28 percent who think the Senate should oppose it.  As Prof. Julian Zelizer writes today in CNN, this level of public support comports with historical precedent and suggests that New START may be good politics for the Obama administration and congressional Democrats.

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

Rarely Foggy Bottom

When Jim Jones and Adm. Mike Mullen traveled to Moscow to discuss New START back in January, the folks at the State Department must have been on edge. While State’s Rose Gottemoeller and Ellen Tauscher had been killing themselves for a year negotiating the agreement, it seemed like Jones and Mullen might swoop in, seal the deal, and steal the glory.

Now, I’m sure State was not rooting against its military teammates or anything like that. Nevertheless, it’s understandable that Foggy Bottom wanted to be the agency that gave the Obama administration a much-needed foreign policy win—particularly in an age when the military is increasingly squeezing out State as the primary executor of U.S. foreign policy...

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Nukes on a Blog, New START, Obama Administration (all tags)

As analysts prepare for the impending release of the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review (see 1 – 2 – 3), a grading scale would help to illustrate which policies are under consideration. Thankfully, Prof. Tom Sauer provided such a scale in “A Second Nuclear Revolution: From Nuclear Primacy to Post-Existential Deterrence,” his contribution to the October 2009 issue of The Journal of Strategic Studies.

Sauer argues that nuclear weapons states may choose to downgrade the importance of nuclear weapons in their security policies sooner than is commonly expected. He then digs into some Global Zero analysis towards the end, so if that’s your bag, check him out.

Here is the excellent typology Sauer presents for considering nuclear weapons policy. Click to enlarge.

Here are the definitions and historical examples Sauer uses to illustrate his typology.

Nuclear Primacy
Description: the capability to eliminate the nuclear weapons force of the enemy with a first strike
Example: U.S. during the late 1940s

Maximum Deterrence
Description: role of nuclear weapons in the defence posture is emphasized, literally maximized, in order to squeeze as much benefit as possible out of deterrence
Examples: U.S. and Soviet Union during the Cold War; U.K. and France during the Cold War, albeit at much lower levels

Minimum Deterrence
Description: minimize the emphasis on nuclear weapons…a secure second-strike force does not require a very large arsenal, as long as a small number of nuclear weapons are invulnerable
Examples: current postures of Israel, France, and U.K.; perhaps the U.S. and Russia in 15-20 years?

Existential Deterrence
Description: nuclear weapons are able to deter thanks simply to their existence, regardless of the nature of the nuclear posture
Examples: China, North Korea, India, and Pakistan, although the latter two want to move up the chart

Post-Existential Deterrence
Description: nuclear deterrence without the existence of nuclear weapons (i.e. tracking Mazarr)
Examples: Japan and Germany

When the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review comes out in the next few weeks, analysts might ask how closely it adheres to Sauer’s full description of minimum deterrence:

Minimum deterrence tries to minimize the emphasis on nuclear weapons. According to minimum (and existential) deterrence, in contrast to maximum deterrence, a secure second-strike force does not require a very large arsenal, as long as a small number of nuclear weapons are invulnerable. As long as the opponent believes that he can be attacked with tens of nuclear weapons in a retaliatory strike, the fear of assured destruction will prevail. Parity, let alone superiority, is therefore not a requirement. Because of the relatively small nuclear forces, counterforce targeting and massive attack options are excluded. To the same extent, high alert rates are not needed, except maybe for the invulnerable part of the arsenal. A no-first-use declaratory policy then also becomes an option, at least for states that cannot be easily overrun by non-nuclear means.

How will the Obama administration’s review stack up?

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Nukes on a Blog, Posture Review, Obama Administration (all tags)