“The submarine-based deterrent is considered advanced and strong, the most survivable when we are attacked,” [Frank] Hoffman, [who until June 2011 was a senior Navy capabilities and readiness executive and now is at the National Defense University] says. “But since its purpose is to deter attacks, it is most survivable when it’s failed. It has huge investment costs.”

“The replacement being developed for the Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine is expected to cost between $6 billion and $8 billion per copy, with the first purchased in the latter part of this decade. Hoffman warns that when the Navy, which now spends about $14 billion to $15 billion annually on shipbuilding, starts buying one ballistic-missile submarine a year, it will consume half of that budget over the ensuing 12 years.

““The rest of the Navy is going to shrink and erode, so you are not as present, you’re going to be late, you are going to respond later,” Hoffman says. “So the nation needs to decide where it needs to place its strategic-deterrent investment.” Hoffman suggests that the land-based and air-based deterrent would be sufficient, noting that nations such as China are already pursuing a “minimalist” deterrent capability.

“Within the military establishment, Hoffman’s argument is tantamount to blasphemy." [emphasis mine]

Excerpted from Frank Oliveri's excellent November 21, 2011, Congressional Quarterly article "Pentagon: The Power of Intertia".  Apologies for not providing a link; the story is subscription only.

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

I’m a little late to this, but it looks as though Maj. Gen. William Chambers, the Air Force’s Assistant Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration, recently had some interesting things to say about the B61 life extension program.  Here’s a summary, courtesy of Air Force Magazine:

No Wavering: The Air Force—and the United States—"remain committed" to providing aircraft capable of delivering nuclear weapons to support NATO's nuclear mission, said Maj. Gen. William Chambers, who oversees nuclear issues on the Air Staff. "There is nothing currently being considered to undo or change that commitment," said Chambers during a Capitol Hill speech on Oct. 28. "We are a nuclear alliance. We believe in the deterrent force. We are going to help provide that." However, some issues still are uncertain regarding that US force's future shape, he said. Decisions regarding the integration of a modernized version of the B61 nuclear bomb on the F-35 strike fighter have slipped to the right due to the F-35's overall schedule delays, said Chambers. "It is probably not" going to be resolved as part of the Pentagon's Fiscal 2013 to Fiscal 2017 budget program, he said. Further, there has been "no decision made yet" on the specific course of action for extending the B61's life, he said. Chambers later told reporters that the Air Force's current nuclear-capable aircraft for NATO—Europe-based F-15Es and F-16s—"remain very viable into the next decade and beyond. In fact, the F-15E will be viable with a nuclear-weapon-carrying capability into the mid 2030s." [emphasis mine].

Meanwhile, Inside Defense quoted Chambers as stating: “there are a lot of different ways to meet the requirements [for the B61 life extension program]. If there's money available to do a little more than the basic requirements, then that's been put on the table as well."

Contra Air Force Magazine’s headline, there does appear to be some wavering going on...  

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

“The amount of money we’re spending on maintaining nuclear weapons, modernizing nuclear weapons, is not in keeping with the modern world,” Levin said. “It’s much more a Cold War remnant.”

So said Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) during a November 11 interview on Bloomberg Television to air this weekend.  

Sen. Levin is right: Current and planned U.S. spending on nuclear weapons is totally out of whack with the 21st century security environment and poses financial and opportunity costs that can't be justified given the current economic climate. Following through with current plans to replace all three legs of the triad could saddle the U.S. with an excessively large nuclear arsenal for the next half century. Check out our resource center on nuclear weapons spending for more information!

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Nukes on a Blog, quote of the day, modernization, Congress (all tags)

*Note: This post has been updated.

How much does the U.S. spend (and plan to spend) on nuclear weapons?  This important question is finally receiving the public scrutiny that it deserves.

On October 11, Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) held a press conference to highlight a letter he sent to the Congressional Supercommittee urging them to reduce nuclear weapons spending and use the resulting savings to invest in higher priority programs.  In the letter, which was signed by 65 Members, Markey argued that the U.S. will spend an estimated $700 billion on nuclear weapons and related programs over the next ten years.

Later that day, Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH), Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, disputed Markey’s $700 billion cost-estimate, calling it “not factual.”  According to Turner, “The President submitted to Congress and pledged to fund nuclear modernization programs at $212 billion over ten years, or approximately $21.2 billion a year.”

The debate between Markey and Turner resurfaced at a November 2 Strategic Forces Subcommittee hearing on the current status and future direction for U.S. nuclear weapons policy.  Turner asked the witness panel consisting of administration officials responsible for U.S. nuclear weapons about the accuracy of Rep. Markey’s estimate of nuclear weapons spending.    

In response, Dr. James Miller, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy said:

“I've had an opportunity to look at some of the materials that were referenced in those cost estimates just before coming over here and I- without giving this more time than it deserves - suffice it to say there was double counting and some rather curious arithmetic involved.”

Miller went on to state that

“the Section 1251 Report that was submitted by the administration included our best estimate of the total costs [of] the amount of a nuclear enterprise and the delivery systems from FY12 through FY21….was $125.8 billion for the delivery systems and about $88 billion for the NNSA related costs. And my math suggests that that is…a little over $200 billion over that period, close to $214 billion.”

So who’s right?  How much does the U.S. plan to spend on nuclear weapons over the next decade?  It appears that Turner and the administration may only count a portion of the projected cost.

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Nukes on a Blog, triad, Congress, modernization (all tags)

Over at the mothership we've put together some handy resource centers on U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear material security spending.  

At our nuclear weapons funding resource center you'll find estimates of how much the U.S. spends on nuclear weapons, information on the nuclear triad, charts on Congressional action on the nuclear weapons budget, our own original analysis on the budget, and more.

Likewise, the non-proliferation funding resource center includes information on recent budget cuts to NNSA's nuclear terrorism prevention programs and why these cuts are so short-sighted.

We plan to regularly update and add content to these pages so be sure to visit them often!

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

*UPDATE (10/26): This post has been revised.

On October 19 the White House sent a memo to Congress outlining its priorities for Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 appropriations within the constraints imposed by the deal reached over the summer to raise the federal debt limit (a.k.a. the Budget Control Act).  A big hat tip to Josh Rogin and the Stimson Center for posting the letter.  

The administration threw its support behind the Senate Appropriations Committee-passed allocation for defense, which freezes the Pentagon base budget (not including funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) at the FY 2011 enacted level.  As Stimson's Matt Leatherman notes, "the BCA’s security cap made it difficult to increase military resources above inflation in FY12, and this newly-announced administration position makes that even less likely."

The White House also supported the Senate's allocation for the State, Foreign Operations, and Related Appropriations account, which is just over $6 billion below the FY 2012 request but $5 billion above the FY 2012 House enacted level.  

Indeed, among the different spending bills that comprise security spending under the Budget Control Act, the House and Senate are farthest apart on the allocations for the Pentagon and the State Department (conversely, they are within $500 million of each other on the other security accounts: Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, and NNSA).  It remains to be seen when the Senate and House will come together to conference the security spending bills, but when they do, to quote Matt again, "for the most part, appropriators have created a direct trade-off in which every new dollar for defense will come from State and Foreign Operations."

Could State and Foreign Operations also be a bill payer for NNSA weapons activities, which could be bad news given how much has already been cut from the State Department? Supporters of more money for nuclear weapons may be looking at how to use State and Foreign Operations as a potential offset, especially now that we're hearing that the bill could be considered along with the energy and water bill (which funds NNSA) as part of a "minibus" appropriations bill on the Senate floor next week.

As I noted last week, there is also a risk that more money for weapons could be filched from from the defense nuclear nonproliferation account, an outcome which (like further cuts to the State Department) could severely undermine U.S. national security depending on which programs are cut.

Speaking of weapons and nonproliferation, the White House letter to Congress stated:

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Nukes on a Blog, Congress, modernization (all tags)

STRATCOM Commander General Robert Kehler spoke to the Defense Writers Group yesterday and according to GSN's Elaine Grossman, raised some interesting albeit vague questions about the future of the triad.  He also repeated an oft-heard argument about the likely impact of further reductions below New START levels on the triad:

Kehler said a key concern about maintaining a triad at lower numbers is that remaining weapons could become "hollow" -- a situation in which forces might appear robust on paper but fail to reflect a diminished capability out in the field.

...

"We need to be very careful," Kehler told reporters. One worry, he said, is that "you can have a hollow nuclear force in the industrial complex that supports the weapons. I think you [also] can have a hollow nuclear force in the force itself."

...

"But I think there will be some very tough decisions to make here at certain [nuclear force] levels, and whether or not you can then sustain a leg of the triad without it becoming hollow," Kehler said. "Can you have enough expertise? Can you have enough sustainment horsepower, if you will, behind it to really make it a viable leg? Those are all great questions and those are questions we're going to have to address."

 In a September interview with Arms Control Today, White House coordinator for arms control and weapons of mass destruction terrorism Gary Samore stated that "we’ve reached the level in our forces where further reductions will raise questions about whether we retain the triad or whether we go to a system that only is a dyad."  He didn't elaborate as to why he believes this to be the case.

Is the conventional wisdom correct?  

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Nukes on a Blog, triad, modernization (all tags)

Yesterday, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) began construction of a new 45,000 square foot $142 million high explosives facility at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas. The public account (which cites the wrong cost estimate) of the groundbreaking primarily focused on how the new facility, called the High Explosives Pressing Facility (HEPF), will replace old buildings and increase efficiency. In reality, the HEPF is part of a plan to significantly increase the United States’ capacity to produce high explosives for nuclear weapons.

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Nukes on a Blog, NNSA, Nuclear Weapons Complex, modernization (all tags)

Last Wednesday the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee held a hearing on NNSA's FY 2012 budget request.

The hearing prompted a very interesting and lively exchange between Subcommittee Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein and the team of NNSA Administrator Tom D'Agostino and NNSA Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs Don Cook on plutonium pit aging and production.  Jeffrey Lewis has a short write up about the discussion of pit corrosion over at Armscontrolwonk.

Of particular interest to me was NNSA’s rationale for why they need to produce new pits, Feinstein’s frustration with this explanation and NNSA’s unwillingness to tell her how many pits they plan to produce, and Feinstein’s general awesomeness.  Re: Feinstein's awesomeness, below are my three favorite quotes from her from the hearing:

1. "I mean, it's one of the reasons why I'm sitting right here, why I run for this office because I want my grandchildren and their children to grow up in a nuclear-free world. And I'm going to do everything I can to be helpful to get there.

So this is not something that I'm just going to fluff off and forget about."

2. “And it’s fair to say that you guys wanted to develop new nuclear weapons. That’s what RRW essentially did. It was killed because of it. And I don’t want to see, you know, RRW in Mufti right now.”

3. (to D’Agostino) “I don’t want you to do it off the top of your head. As much as I think you’re terrific, I really — this is a big thing for me.”

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Nukes on a Blog, modernization, Congress (all tags)

Such calculations may seem bizarre, but our best protection against a nuclear war is to convince potential aggressors that no matter what they throw at us in a surprise attack, we can respond by causing unacceptable damage in their country.

Loren Thompson, CEO of the Lexington Institute, writing in today's Washington Post in response to Walter Pincus' excellent article last week on the questionable rationale for spending so much money on our nuclear weapons.

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