Late last night (about 11:40pm) House Republicans introduced a $915 billion spending bill in a power play that would keep the government in operation beyond the weekend.  The maneuver comes as a response to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's attempt, in conjunction with the White House, to put off movement on nine unfinished 2012 appropriations bills until Congress has agreed upon a separate package to extend a payroll tax break and jobless benefits.  

Senate leaders fear, with good reason, that the House will simply pass its version of key measures and adjourn for the year, leaving the Senate a take-it-or-leave it choice.

The White House has asked Congress to pass a stop-gap spending bill to provide more time to work out a compromise on some controversial provisions included in the spending package, but Republicans have not indicated they would advance such a bill.

Despite some controversial provisions, however, including those on travel to Cuba, the measure is understood to be relatively close to the expected conference agreement.

"We've got an agreement between appropriators in the House and the Senate - Democrats and Republicans - on a bipartisan bill to fund our government. We believe that the responsible thing to do is to move this," said House Speaker John Boehner.

The defense bill advanced by House Republicans would provide $518.1 billion for the Pentagon base budget, an increase of $5.1 billion over fiscal year 2011 (fy11) and a reduction of $20.8 billion below the President’s request.  Senate Appropriations Committee-approved language would provide $513 billion, a number achieved largely through the shifting of funds from the base account to the war account.

In addition, the bill would provide $115.1 billion for ongoing war operations largely in Afghanistan, $2.8 billion below the President’s request and $43 billion below fy11 appropriations.  The Senate Appropriations Committee would fund the wars at $117.5 billion.

A final agreement is expected in the coming days.

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Security Matters, FY12, Defense Spending (all tags)

The U.S. presidential election is less than a year away and the media is currently filled with news regarding the Republican presidential candidates. The week after Thanksgiving, Project for Excellence in Journalism reported that the 2012 election received 23% of all media coverage, and that number will only rise as we get closer to D-day. In light of this, the Center has put together a foreign policy profile on our webpage for each Republican candidate in the race. You can check it out here.

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GOP Candidates, Nukes on a Blog, Security Matters (all tags)

After a lot of moving and shaking over the past 48 hours, today the Senate will begin consideration of the FY 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (now S. 1867).  

The Senate was supposed to consider and hopefully complete action on the FY 2012 Energy and Water Appropriations bill (H.R. 2354, but Majority Leader Reid pulled it from consideration and now plans to move to consideration of the defense bill.  It's doubtful that the bill will be completed before Thanksgiving, and Reid could bring back the Energy and Water bill if the defense bill hits a snag.

If the Energy and Water bill does get back to the floor, we'll be monitoring the fate of two amendments to increase NNSA's weapons activities account by about $321 million.  Recall that the Senate Appropriations Committee reduced the budget for this account by $440 million (or about 5.8%).  One amendment (offered by Begich, McCain, Vitter, and Shaheen) uses the Patriot/MEADS program as the offset, while the other (offered by Corker and Kyl) uses the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Appropriations account as the offset (something we suggested might happen).

In the meantime, in preparation for the Senate's consideration of the defense bill, head over to the mothership for our original and updated analysis of the Senate Armed Services Committee Version of the bill.  I say updated because earlier this week the Committee made some adjustments to the bill in order to cut about $20 billion from its original mark to conform with the lower (Budget Control Act-influenced) spending levels in the Defense Appropriations bill. The Committee also rewrote a controversial provision related to detainee policy which remains, well, controversial.

Get all that?

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Nukes on a Blog, Security Matters, Congress (all tags)

On Thursday, October 20 the San Antonio Express ran my Op-Ed calling on the Super Committee and Congress to make real changes in government spending, read- the defense budget.

You can find it here.

Below is an excerpt:

Both the "supercommittee," a group of 12 Republicans and Democrats, and other congressional panels are working to find at least $1.2 trillion to cut from government spending over the next decade. However, neither the supercommittee in particular nor Congress in general seems to want to make real changes to government spending.

The biggest debate is over cutting military spending, which has grown 81 percent in since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Instead of looking for opportunities to scrap wasteful military programs, some lawmakers are seeking loopholes to avoid making any defense cuts at all.

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Security Matters, Nukes on a Blog (all tags)

Kingston Reif and I argue in World Politics Review today that growing the US nuclear weapons budget is the wrong priority in a time of such fiscal austerity...

A few highlights:

A close look at the Pentagon budget reveals numerous programs that are more suitable to defeating the Cold War-era Soviet Union than to addressing current security threats, such as weak and failing states, cyberattacks and nuclear terrorism. A particularly egregious example is the budget for nuclear weapons programs.

[snip]

The plan to recapitalize the triad includes around $110 billion to build a new fleet of 12 nuclear-armed submarines. The Pentagon estimates the total cost of building and operating each new submarine at nearly $350 billion over its 50-year lifespan. It also plans to spend $55 billion on procurement of 100 bombers and an unknown sum on a new intercontinental ballistic missile. Additionally, the National Nuclear Security Administration plans to spend $88 billion over the next decade to refurbish existing nuclear warheads and rebuild the factories that make key nuclear warhead parts.

[snip]

The U.S. nuclear arsenal of more than 5,000 active weapons may be useful in deterring a large-scale conventional or nuclear attack from a state, but it cannot prevent terrorists from acquiring or using a nuclear device, thwart the spread of nuclear weapons to additional states or ensure a stable and predictable relationship between the U.S. and Russia.

In the fight for scarce resources among national security programs, investments should match capabilities to current threats. The need to prioritize is particularly important as the Pentagon calculates the opportunity costs of building new nuclear-weapons delivery systems at the expense of other defense priorities, such as upgrading conventional air and naval power projection capabilities, confronting unconventional challenges in countries such as Afghanistan and keeping up with the growing medical costs for veterans.

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Nukes on a Blog, Security Matters (all tags)

On August 21, the Libyan opposition forces stormed the capital, Tripoli, and took control of President Ghaddafi’s compound.  The war is not over, as Ghaddafi loyalists continue to battle the rebels, and the Transitional National Council (the organization formed to represent the opposition) will need to begin work to fill the power vacuum. The council has a huge task ahead of it to restore order, rebuild the country, create legitimate national institutions and cobble its different factions into some sort of working government.  More immediately, the opposition and NATO have to secure Ghaddafi’s chemical weapons and low-enriched uranium stockpiles.

In addition to Ghaddafi’s arsenals of conventional weapons, he is rumored to have stockpiled chemical weapons agents.  NATO has pledged to secure the chemical weapons so that Ghaddafi forces cannot use them against the opposition and civilians, but the opposition will also need to be involved.  James Corbett, a member of the Center for Research on Globalization, doesn’t believe the Ghaddafi regime would use these weapons in a last ditch effort to hold on to power, since it hasn’t used them yet.  However, the greater risk is that, amidst the chaos of Ghaddafi’s overthrow, these stockpiles could be susceptible to theft by smugglers or terrorists.  Terrorist organizations, such as Aum Shinrikyo in Japan, have successfully used chemical weapons against civilians in the past.  

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Libya, nuclear security, terrorism, Security Matters (all tags)

Written by John Isaacs, appears in ADA Today:

United States involvement in the Libyan war may turn out to be the straw that broke the political and philosophical back of the military interventionists.

Most of the country having long turned against George W. Bush’s war of choice in Iraq, President Obama has been continuing the process of withdrawal from that (at least tenuously) pacified country. Disaffection with the Iraq war hurt the Republicans at the polls in 2006 and 2008.

As for the Afghan war, many on the left and right were willing to reserve judgment on President Obama’s actions early in his administration because he had inherited a weak position from his predecessor.  Besides, Afghanistan—in contrast to Iraq—was the “good” war, one directly related to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

But the effort to oust long-time Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi means the United States is engaged in three military conflicts at the same time, to say nothing of predator drone strikes in other countries. While liberals are split on the Libyan conflict, the expanding wars are widely perceived to be military interventionism run amuck.

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Security Matters, Libya, Afghanistan, Merkley, McGovern, Iraq (all tags)

There is a lot of confusion surrounding the debt deal and what it means for defense.  Things have gotten so complicated with the defense/non-defense security/non-security debate, that even the experts are uncertain.  

To be clear on at least the definitions, “security,” as defined in the deal, is defense and non-defense security, including the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, Intelligence, International Affairs and the National Nuclear Security Administration.  This definition applies to the first two years of the budget deal, and its relevant spending caps, only.

For the first two years, the bill is clear on this category of spending.  For Fiscal Year (FY) 2012, the bill sets a $684 billion ceiling for “security.”  This number is a $4.5 billion overall decrease in security spending from the FY 2011 level of $688.5 billion.  The FY 2013 security cap is $686 billion, still tracking below FY 2011 levels.  

While the cut is not large, it is significant, since previous cuts have taken reductions from the amount of increases, rather actually reducing the item from the previous year.

However, what we do not know is how these reductions would be allocated between the Pentagon and, say, foreign aid or the nuclear weapons complex.  Exact funding levels will be left up to Congress.

Then things get even more confusing.  If a longer-term deal is not reached, security spending is redefined as the traditional “050” budget category, meaning the Department of Defense and some defense-related funding within the Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security, and FBI.

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security matters, Congress, Defense Spending (all tags)

Laicie Olson and I have put together an analysis of the Senate Armed Services Committee version of the Defense Authorization Bill.  Head over to the mothership for the main course.

In the meantime, here's an appetizer:

The House version of the defense bill (H.R. 1540) includes 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. See our full analysis of H.R. 1540 here.

The Senate bill contains a number of reporting requirements on nuclear policy issues, but it does not impose policy or funding limitations. The Committee significantly watered down the bad House provisions without compromising Congress’ important oversight responsibilities over U.S. nuclear policy.

It remains to be seen when the full Senate will take up the bill.  Could happen this month, I'm told.  To date the Senate has declined to do much of anything until the debt ceiling impasses is resolved.

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

Yesterday, the House Appropriations Committee approved its version of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 Defense Appropriations Bill. The bill contains $530 billion in funding for non-war programs and accounts, an increase of $17 billion over FY 2011 and a decrease of approximately $9 billion from the President’s request.

In addition to $530 billion in base spending, the bill contains $118.7 billion in spending for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, $842 million above the President’s request and $39 billion less than FY 2011, a decrease due to the drawdown of U.S. forces in Iraq. This total includes $12.8 billion for the training and equipping of Afghan Security forces, and $1.1 billion for the Pakistan Counterinsurgency Capability Fund (PCCF), which has moved from the subcommittee on State/Foreign Operations to the subcommittee on defense.

The total in the bill is $648.7 billion. Other portions of defense spending are contained in the Military Construction and Energy and Water Appropriations Bills.

The bill is expected to be considered by the full House of Representatives the week of June 20. It is expected that germane amendments will be permitted.

Check out the full analysis here.

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Security Matters, House, Congress, F-35, Defense Spending (all tags)