Below is the list of the just confirmed committee assignments for the 112th Congress that deal with national security and nuclear weapons. Appropriations Democrats: Chairman Daniel Inouye, Patrick Leahy, Tom Harkin, Barbara Mikulski, Herb  …
Cuts are coming: Will the entire budget be on the table?
As expected, President Obama’s address last night focused heavily on the deficit. Most points we saw coming:
So tonight, I am proposing that starting this year, we freeze annual domestic spending for the next five years. (Applause.) Now, this would reduce the deficit by more than $400 billion over the next decade, and will bring discretionary spending to the lowest share of our economy since Dwight Eisenhower was President.
This freeze will require painful cuts. Already, we’ve frozen the salaries of hardworking federal employees for the next two years. I’ve proposed cuts to things I care deeply about, like community action programs. The Secretary of Defense has also agreed to cut tens of billions of dollars in spending that he and his generals believe our military can do without. (Applause.)
(For a translation of that last part, on Defense, see Josh Rogin’s post at The Cable or mine yesterday.)
More importantly, though, in terms of the budget, the President’s speech contained lines like this:
Now, most of the cuts and savings I’ve proposed only address annual domestic spending, which represents a little more than 12 percent of our budget. To make further progress, we have to stop pretending that cutting this kind of spending alone will be enough. It won’t. (Applause.)
The bipartisan fiscal commission I created last year made this crystal clear. I don’t agree with all their proposals, but they made important progress. And their conclusion is that the only way to tackle our deficit is to cut excessive spending wherever we find it –- in domestic spending, defense spending, health care spending, and spending through tax breaks and loopholes. (Applause.)
Today, the Congressional Budget Office raised its estimate of the budget deficit to $1.5 trillion for this year, on track to beat out the previous record of $1.4 trillion, set in 2009.
House majority leader Eric Cantor, House budget chairman Paul Ryan and others have echoed the president’s insistence that the entire budget be on the table. It has yet to be seen what, if anything, will come of these statements. No doubt, cuts are coming. The question is where.
Obama’s 2011 State of the Union Address & North Korea
President Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address is a speech that is always listened to very carefully by North Korea watchers, and North Korea is particularly sensitive to the State of the Union Addresses. We watch for whether “North Korea” is mentioned and how it’s mentioned, which would then set the stage for how Pyongyang will react and the direction of diplomacy (or sometimes absence of diplomacy).
This year’s 2011 State of the Union Address is interesting and positive for several reasons.
President Barack Obama: “On the Korean peninsula, we stand with our ally South Korea, and insist that North Korea keeps its commitment to abandon nuclear weapons.”
First, this year’s State of the Union Address mentions North Korea, which has not always been the case in the past.
Second, it sends a very clear message – that Washington and Seoul stand firmly united, which also has not always been true in the past. Washington and Seoul have been deeply divided on North Korea in past administrations. Pyongyang has also consistently and constantly tried to drive a wedge between the allies and we have seen such movements recently.
Third, it does not condemn Pyongyang or use harsh language about the regime, which was heard in past American SOTU addresses and had aggravated Pyongyang to react with provocations. The absence of condemnation this year, despite recent revelations of a uranium enrichment program, may be seen as Washington’s way of trying to create an environment conducive to dialogue and avoid aggravating Pyongyang.
-The North has proposed on January 26th that the two Koreas hold military talks to discuss the Yeonpyeong attack and Cheonan sinking. Seoul reportedly countered that proposal on January 26th (25th U.S. time) that prior working-level talks be held on February 11, 2011 at 10:00 a.m. on the South Korean side of the truce village of Panmunjeom. Washington’s precondition for dialogue has been inter-Korean dialogue and sincere action toward denuclearization.
-U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg is currently in Seoul to debrief is ally on last week’s U.S.-China summit that called for dialogue, and reportedly to discuss ways to take the North’s uranium enrichment program to the UN Security Council.
Finally, it sends a clear message demanding Pyongyang to surrender its nuclear arsenal and ambitions. However, it does not mention consequences, which may be a way of avoiding confrontation.
Obama’s State of the Union Addresses & North Korea comments:
2009 – (not mentioned)
2010 – “Now, these diplomatic efforts have also strengthened our hand in dealing with those nations that insist on violating international agreements in pursuit of nuclear weapons. That’s why North Korea now faces increased isolation and stronger sanctions, sanctions that are being vigorously enforced.”
2011 – “And on the Korean peninsula, we stand with our ally South Korea, and insist that North Korea keeps its commitment to abandon nuclear weapons.”
Security Spending Conspicuously Absent from Budget Cut Proposals
By now, you’ve probably heard that the theme of tonight’s State of the Union will undoubtedly be the economy. The President is expected to propose a five year freeze on non-security discretionary spending (déjà vu?) and a ban on earmarks, while Rep. Paul Ryan, who is no doubt practicing his best Reagan impression in front of the mirror as we speak, is gearing up to deliver the Republican response.
Meanwhile, House Republicans hoping to go into the evening with a little extra rhetorical firepower spent the day working to pass another bill because they said they would. The measure, passed 256-165, would permit Rep. Ryan to reduce all non-security discretionary spending to fiscal 2008 levels or below, but it is another hortatory exercise that is not going anywhere.
Left or right, though, one thing is certain, most proposals have been carefully crafted to exclude “security spending”: Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs.
CBS News correspondent Mark Knoller reports via Twitter that the President will call for $78 billion in defense cuts over the next five years. One would assume this means he will echo Secretary Gates’ recent announcement citing the same numbers.
The problem here is that the term “cut” is used very loosely in Gates’ plan for the defense budget.
Last year’s $100 billion efficiencies initiative was never meant to reduce the Pentagon’s budget, nor contribute to deficit reduction. Rather, it was meant to reduce Pentagon waste and boost more important mission-critical projects, since the entire $100 billion would be reinvested in DoD. More importantly, though, it was meant to stave off the harsh and inevitable reality that eventually, the Pentagon may have actually to reduce its budget.
Unfortunately for Gates, the Obama Administration was not satisfied. When Jacob Lew took over as the new director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), he directed Gates to trim $150 billion more, and would not allow the Defense Department to keep the savings.
Gates eventually negotiated the $150 billion figure down to $78 billion, the same $78 billion President Obama is expected to discuss tonight, but as Gordon Adams points out in his remarks to The Cable, the math is a little fuzzy:
…because Gates’ $78 billion in cuts aren’t really cuts at all. $54 billion comes from the president’s announcement to freeze federal civilian worker pay. So Gates is capitalizing on Obama’s decision without making any additional sacrifices…
Another $14 billion comes from “shifts in economic assumptions… for example, decreases in the inflation rate and projected pay raises,” Gates said. Adams explained that means the Pentagon simply changed its figure for projected inflation, which changes how much it predicts everything will cost in the future.
Moreover, in Gates’ proposed cuts, the Pentagon’s base budget will not actually go down at any point in the next five years. It will instead amount to slower growth that will eventually stop, and then begin to grow again. This is considered a reduction only because the budget will eventually stop growing with the rate of inflation, so further waste will have to be cut.
The president’s fiscal 2012 budget request, to be released on February 14 or 15, is expected to include $554 billion in base Pentagon funding (not including the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan), $12 billion less than the Pentagon had planned before negotiating with the White House, but $5 billion more than last year’s request.
What does this all mean in reality: domestic discretionary programs are told to go on a strict diet to lose 30 pounds while the Pentagon is supposed to cut down from two cupcakes a day to one.
The Center Joins Bipartisan Calls for Common-Sense Standards for Civilian Nuclear Cooperation
(UPDATE 1/25 5:00 PM: Elaine Grossman over at Global Security Newswire reports today that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are in the beginning phases of negotiating a civilian nuclear cooperation agreement that may not contain restrictions on reprocessing plutonium or enriching uranium on Saudi soil. Stay turned, as this issue is not going away!)
The Cable’s, Josh Rogin recently addressed the growing concern among lawmakers and non-proliferation experts from both parties about ongoing U.S. negotiations with other countries on civilian nuclear cooperation.
The concern is prompted by news reports last summer and fall alleging that the U.S. is negotiating deals with Jordan and Vietnam that won’t include restrictions on indigenous enrichment and reprocessing, which could be used to make nuclear weapons.
Lawmakers and non-proliferation experts are calling for all such agreements to mimic the 2009 deal with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which prohibits enrichment and reprocessing on UAE territory…
According to Rogin’s summary:
[House Foreign Relations Committee Chairwoman] Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, wants to reform the Atomic Energy Act by requiring a vote in Congress before a civilian nuclear deal, like the 123 goes into effect. In addition, she wants to make a pre-condition in which, a country must meet a number of requirements before even considering a deal.
Representatives Ed Markey (D-MA) and Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) introduced a resolution denouncing the 123 agreement between the United States and Russia. Both representatives are put off by Russia’s cooperation with Iran and believe that until they stop their correspondence on nuclear issues with Iran, we should not concede to a nuclear cooperation agreement.
Senators Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and John Ensign (R-NE) also wrote a letter to President Obama demanding the United Arab Emirates (UAE) standard be applied to all civilian nuclear cooperation deals.
In a final bi-partisan effort in November, non-proliferation experts on both sides of the aisle also wrote a letter to President Obama echoing the previous letter on UAE standards for all civilian nuclear deals.
The Center also put together a letter to President Obama calling for consistency in civilian nuclear deals. The letter states:
We understand that the U.S. stands to benefit from improving bilateral ties with Jordan and Vietnam. However, we believe that a “region-by-region” approach to commercial nuclear cooperation would be counter-productive for at least five reasons:
• First, it would undercut the precedent set by the UAE agreement, thereby weakening the global norm against the spread of enrichment and reprocessing.
• Second, a deal with Jordan that allows indigenous enrichment and reprocessing could prompt Abu Dhabi, as stipulated in the U.S.-UAE nuclear agreement, to renegotiate the terms of the agreement if it determines that a U.S.-Jordan pact contains more favorable terms.
• Third, it will likely encourage other allies and partners to insist on the right to enrich and reprocess in future nuclear cooperation agreements and open the U.S. to charges of applying “double standards.”
• Fourth, it could increase the likelihood of forging nuclear cooperation between North Korea and Vietnam, if it does not already exist, while facilitating nuclear proliferation in the Middle East.
• Fifth, it could undermine U.S. leadership and leverage in future Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty negotiations.
While the bipartisanship on this issue is welcome, NoH can’t help but notice that some of the GOP voices now criticizing the Obama administration for its negotiating position were nowhere to be found when the George W. Bush administration negotiated the U.S.-India nuclear deal, which didn’t exactly strengthen the NPT.
