“We’ve invested billions of dollars. We’ve proven this technology,” says Sessions, who represents the state where much of the GMD development work was conducted. “An extra site [on the East Coast] would clearly provide extra protection. And I think it would validate our investment. It’s such an unacceptable thing to have developed a system that will work and then not deploy it.”

Senator Jeff Session (R-AL), May 17, 2012.

And for a different view...

To date, GMD has demonstrated a limited capability against a simple threat.

Dr. Michael Gilmore, Director, Operational Test & Evaluation, December 2011.

The current GMD system has serious shortcomings, and provides at best a limited, initial defense against a relatively primitive threat.

National Research Council Report "Making Sense of Ballistic Missile Defense: An Assessment of Concepts and Systems for U.S. Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives", April 30, 2012.

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Security Matters, missile defense, quote of the day (all tags)

UPDATE 5/18, 12:00 PM: Post now includes results of roll call votes that occurred this morning.

The House began consideration of the FY 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (H.R. 4310) yesterday and plans to complete action on amendments and hold a final vote on the bill this afternoon. Below is a summary of the key amendments debated (and not ruled in order by the Rules Committee) on nuclear weapons and missile defense. We'll have a full wrap up and analysis when the House finishes the bill.

Quick summary: the HASC version of the bill was bad, but the final House version of the bill will be worse.

Action on Amendments to Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization Bill

(The numbers to the left of the permitted amendments are listed in the Rules Committee amendment list and may be the order in which the amendments are brought up on the House floor.)

11. Long-range bomber: Markey(D-MA)-Welch (D-VT)-Conyers (D-MI) amendment #64 to delay the development of the new long-range nuclear-capable bomber by ten years and the funding in the bill would be reduced by $291,742,000, which is the amount planned for this bomber. Failed 112-308.

12. Missile defense spending: Polis (D-CO)-Sanchez (D-CA) amendment #198 to eliminate the additional $403 million approved by the committee for the Ground Based Midcourse Defense System based in California and Alaska, still leaving approximately $858 million for the troubled program. Failed 165-252.

(more below the jump)

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

We've made a point of highlighting the different funding decisions made by the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) and GOP-controlled House Appropriations Committee (HAC) regarding the National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) weapons activities account, particularly the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement - Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF). Whereas HASC increased funding for these programs, the appropriations committee funded them at the administration's request (including no funding for the CMRR-NF pursuant to the administration's decision to delay the facility by 5 years).  

Now that the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee report is out (the full Committee is scheduled to approve it today), we have still more examples of differences between HASC and GOP appropriators, in this case regarding the Ohio Class replacement program (also known as the SSBN(X)) and the Ground Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system. For example, while the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee increased the Pentagon's base budget (051) request by $3.1 billion, it supported the Pentagon's decision to delay the Ohio-Class replacement program by two years. HASC added money in an attempt to reverse this delay.

Defense News' Kate Brannen reported on the dust-up going on within the GOP on these issues a few days ago. Below is a chart which highlights them in more detail:

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By Lt. Gen. Robert Gard (USA, ret.)

In its mark-up of the Defense Authorization bill for Fiscal 2013, the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee lauded the prior accomplishments of the Airborne Laser Test Bed program. It then went further by directing the Missile Defense Agency to provide a report by 31 July 2012 on the costs that would be involved in returning the Airborne Laser aircraft to an operational readiness status to continue technology development and testing, and to be ready to deploy in an operational contingency, if needed, to respond to rapidly developing threats from North Korea.

This Airborne Laser program, instituted in 1996, envisioned mounting a chemical laser in a modified Boeing 747-400F aircraft to destroy enemy missiles in their boost phase before they could deploy their nuclear weapons and countermeasures. After spending about $5.2 billion on the program over 16 years, the Missile Defense Agency announced its termination in February 2012, and advised that the modified aircraft would be mothballed and retired to the aircraft bone yard in Arizona. Lt. General Patrick O’Reilly, Director of the Missile Defense Agency, noted that a new generation of smaller and far more powerful unmanned solid-state lasers, capable of operating at higher altitudes, would be developed over the decade in the hope of creating an operationally effective anti-missile laser program.  

A basic problem with the Airborne Laser is that the effective range of the weapon is limited by the attenuation of the beam as it passes through the atmosphere. During a House Armed Services Committee hearing on 13 May 2009, then Secretary of Defense Robert Gates stated that “the reality is that you would need a laser something like 20 to 30 times more powerful than the chemical laser in the plane … to be able to get any distance from the launch site to fire. So right now, the ABL would have to orbit inside the borders of Iran in order to be able to shoot down that missile in the boost phase.” The conclusion regarding its lack of effectiveness was not limited to the Iran case. The Secretary advised in conclusion that “nobody in uniform that I know … believes that this is a workable concept.”

Nor are current prospects for the Airborne Laser any brighter in combatting missiles launched from North Korea as well as Iran. In a letter dated as recently as 30 April 2012 to the chair and ranking member of the same Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee that is advocating revival of the Airborne Laser, the co-chairs of the “National Academy of Sciences National Research Council Committee on an Assessment of Concepts and Systems for U.S. Boost-Phase Missile Defense in Comparison to Other Alternatives” stated that “the defense cannot be based close enough to the threat during the boost-phase to kill it, even with the most optimistic assumptions about technical performance.”  

Why, given the consistently negative evaluations, would the House Subcommittee want to revive this discredited weapons system? Hopefully, common sense will prevail, especially in this period of fiscal stringency, and we will allow the Airborne Laser 747 aircraft to rest in peace in the aircraft bone yard.

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In my May Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists column I explore the history of post-Cold War GOP efforts to constrain Democratic presidents from making reductions to the size of the US nuclear arsenal and how such efforts harm US national security. Here's the intro:

One of the perks of being a Republican president in the United States is the freedom to make drastic changes to US nuclear posture while Democratic presidents are forced to travel a much tougher road, often in the pursuit of far less ambitious goals. This pattern has been ongoing since the end of the Cold War and sadly continues unabated today. On May 9, the House Armed Services Committee wrote the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, and Republican leaders used their majority to pass legislative provisions that will restrict and perhaps even block the Pentagon's ability to implement the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) and prevent the president and senior military leaders from making future changes to the size and structure of the US nuclear arsenal. According to Republican Strategic Force Subcommittee Chairman Michael Turner, "It’s not even clear that the unilateral reductions to U.S. nuclear forces required by the New START are in the interest of our national security. ... The president’s most recent budget, however, abandons the nuclear modernization funding he promised. This can only be described as bait and switch. The Senate has been deceived."

This overblown bluster, however, ignores a few basic realities: Spending on nuclear weapons has increased dramatically under President Obama, constraints on New START would restrict the military from fielding the most capable force possible, fewer weapons won't obviate deterrence, and preventing future nuclear force reductions would lock in an excessively large nuclear arsenal ill-suited to the current terrorist threat and to the current economic environment.

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Nukes on a Blog, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Column, Congress, nuclear weapons budget, nuclear guidance review (all tags)

We're taking a break from our regularly scheduled nuke programming for a public service announcement regarding a great opportunity to dust off your Driver and make some birdies for charity. Below are the event details:

The 6th Annual DC Atomic Open Golf Tournament  
Monday, June 11th (1:00pm Registration, 2:00 PM shotgun start)
Reston National Golf Course
11875 Sunrise Valley Dr., Reston, Virginia
(703) 620-9333
$80 Entry Fee

Anyone connected with the nuclear world, as well as their friends and family, are eligible to join this fun event. Pro-nukes to no-nukes are welcome. The event will be a scramble captain’s choice, and players at all skill levels are encouraged to participate.

NoH will definitely be putting a team together and we hope to see some of you in attendance! If you're interested, let us know and we'll send you the registration form.

(Me, back in the day when I still had hair, off the 18th green at the Old Course, St. Andrews Scotland, after 18 holes with everyone's favorite B-list celebrity, Jason Biggs.)

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Yesterday the House Armed Services Committee marked up the Fiscal Year (FY) 2013 National Defense Authorization Act. Head over to the mothership for our initial summary.  If you thought last year’s version of the bill was bad, this year’s iteration includes a number of proposed funding proposals and policy provisions on nuclear weapons and missile defense that are even more extreme.

Click here, here, and here for our earlier previews of the bill.

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

Today House Armed Services Committee (HASC) Chairman Rep. Buck McKeon released his version of the FY 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Click here for the Chairman's mark, which includes detailed funding tables for national defense (function 050) spending.  

The Chairman's mark will serve as the basis for the full Committee markup on Wednesday, May 9. It will be supplemented by the subcommittee marks and whatever amendments are adopted to the individual marks and the Chairman's mark.

The Chairman's mark provides $554 billion for national defense (function 050). This is an increase of approximately $4 billion above the President's request and $8 billion above the Budget Control Act's FY 2013 cap on 050 spending. While Republicans decry the national debt and denounce unnecessary spending, HASC is proposing to add hundreds of millions of dollars to defense programs the Pentagon says it doesn’t want.

Some highlights from the Chairman's mark re: nuclear weapons funding include:

-The mark authorizes $7.9 billion for NNSA weapons activities, an increase of $323 million above the FY 2013 requested level and the Senate and House Appropriations Committee approved levels. The purpose of the increase is to ensure that nuclear weapons spending keeps pace with the funding levels outlined in the Section 1251 report, which outlines the 10-year, $88 billion funding plan for NNSA weapons activities proposed by the administration in the context of the Senate's debate on the New START treaty.

-The mark authorizes $100 million for the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) at Los Alamos. The administration's budget request did not contain any funding for CMRR-NF due to its decision to delay construction of the facility for at least five years.

The five-year deferral of the CMRR will not compromise NNSA’s ability to maintain the stockpile as essential plutonium missions can be performed by the existing complex.

Referring to the delay to the CMRR, NNSA Administrator Tom D’Agostino testified to Congress in April that: “And the good news by all of this, frankly, is there are a number of options, a number of different paths that we can proceed. We are not hampered by saying the nation has to have a capability right now to make 50 or 80 pits per year in order to take care of the stockpile. That's great news for the country because we are not forced into making rash decisions on significant investments in a very short period of time. So we have time to evaluate this area.”

Both the Senate and House Appropriations Committees supported the five-year delay to the facility in their marks of the FY 2013 Energy and Water bill in April. They are in agreement that NNSA can’t afford to build CMRR right now, an alternative to maintaining pit manufacturing and pit sustainment exists, and NNSA must demonstrate better project management when embarking on multibillion dollar construction projects.

It remains to be seen whether Strategic Forces Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH) will seek to further increase funding for CMRR in Committee on Wednesday, as the 1251 report included $300 million in projected funding for CMRR in FY 2013.

-The mark authorizes a $374 million increase above the requested level for Advanced Submarine System Development, the Pentagon research and development account that includes the program element which funds the Ohio-class replacement program. The Committee also authorized an additional $97 million above the request for the Ohio-class replacement reactor development program within the NNSA Naval Reactors account.  As we suspected, HASC appears bent on reversing the administration's proposed two-year delay to the Ohio-class replacement program.

-Finally, the mark authorizes $2.46 billion for NNSA's defense nuclear nonproliferation account, the same as the administration's request. The mark fully funds the Global Threat Reduction Initiative and the International Nuclear Materials Protection and Cooperation program. Recall that both the Senate and House Appropriations Committees increased funding for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative. Suffice it to say that HASC is prioritizing spending on weapons programs above spending on material security programs.

Stay tuned this space for full coverage of the HASC mark on Wednesday and reaction in the days afterward as the bill heads to the House floor next week.    

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The landmark civil nuclear agreement that the two countries signed in 2008 was supposed to lead to tens of billions of dollars in business for U.S. companies that build nuclear power plants. But it has not yielded anything except a disagreement over who would be liable in the event of a nuclear accident.

The nuclear deal was seen as the cornerstone of the broader strategic partnership between the two nations. Both countries are wary of China’s growing influence, have fallen victim to Islamist extremism emanating from Pakistan and share a commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan.

But at the same time, each pursues its own independent strategic agenda. India’s unwillingness to join international sanctions against Iran — which New Delhi sees as an important oil supplier — and its reluctance to intervene in other countries’ internal affairs — in Libya and Syria,?for example — are among the many wrinkles in the relationship.

India’s decision in January to buy 126 fighter jets from France’s Rafale for $11 billion instead of its American competitors was a major disappointment in Washington, though high hopes persist for business between the world’s largest weapons buyer and many of the world’s largest defense contractors, based in the United States.

Trade between the two countries is growing fast and reached $100 billion in 2011, but it is dwarfed by trade with China and remains a fraction of what most people see as its long-term potential. Indian concerns about U.S. agricultural policies that subsidize farmers and restrict imports are matched by American concerns about market access and jobs being outsourced to India.

Simon Denyer, "Promise of U.S.-India economic partnership remains unfulfilled", Washington Post, May 3, 2012.

Glad reporters are noticing - we've been banging this drum for a while!

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SEN. LEVIN: And there have been suggestions by some in Congress that we should deploy a ground based interceptor or interceptors on the East Coast of the United States, to defend the homeland against a possible future long range Iranian missile threat. Now, you're the combatant commander who establishes the requirements for homeland missile defense capability. Is there a requirement for deploying an East Coast GBI site? And are you seeking to deploy such a site on the East Coast?

Army General Charles Jacoby Jr., (Commander, U.S. Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command): Chairman, today's threats do not require an East Coast missile field and we do not have plans to do so.

Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on U.S. Southern Command and U.S. Northern Command in review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2013 and the Future Years Defense Program, March 13, 2012.

Recall that House Strategic Forces Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Michael Turner (R-OH)  included a requirement in his mark of the defense bill that the Missile Defense Agency develop a plan for the deployment of missile defense site on the East Coast of the United States to be operational not later than the end of 2015.

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