U.S. Official Defends Spending on NATO Missile Shield, Under GOP Attack By Rachel Oswald June 25, 2013 WASHINGTON — A senior State Department official on Friday said that a ballistic missile shield being established in Europe would contribute to defending the U.S. homeland, despite a recent decision to toss out plans for an advanced ICBM […]
Obama in Berlin
President Obama gave a high-profile speech in Berlin last week, approximately 300 words of which was devoted to articulating his 2nd term priorities on nuclear weapons. In particular the President proposed to:
- Reshape America’s obsolete nuclear strategy, paving the way for up to a one-third reduction in deployed strategic nuclear warheads with Russia below the New START levels;
- Work to diminish the numbers of US and Russian tactical or short range nuclear weapons;
- Build bipartisan support in favor of US ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty;
- Stop the spread of nuclear weapons to other states; and
- Secure nuclear materials, prevent nuclear terrorism, and host a 4th Nuclear Security Summit in Washington in 2016
For our press release in response to the speech see here. For my pre-speech preview (in the form of my June Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists column), see here. And for my quick reaction to the speech, see here.
While I commend the President for taking an important step to update nuclear policy guidance and stating that the United States is ready to seek a 1/3 reduction in deployed strategic warheads below New START, the speech was less ambitious than I hoped it would be and didn’t propose much in the way of a plan of action to move the agenda forward.
The directives the new guidance gives to the military will further reduce the diminishing emphasis the departments place on nuclear weapons. But given that the lower bound of our New START negotiating position in 2009/10 appears to have been 1,300 deployed warheads, last week’s announcement hardly seems like that radical of a change. As Hans Kristensen notes, “the official descriptions of the new guidance show that its retains much of the Cold War thinking that President Obama said in Prague four years ago that he wanted to put an end to.”
Perhaps the biggest head scratcher from the guidance is the administration’s new plan to sustain US nuclear warheads and their supporting infrastructure at an estimated cost of at least $300 billion over the next 25 years. Overall, Obama failed to address the immense costs required to maintain an excessive arsenal, and that our policy should reflect need and affordability. Something along the lines of “strategy wears a dollar sign” would have been a great place to start.
Moreover, the President conditioned additional reductions on Russian reciprocity. On the one hand, our willingness to go lower puts the ball in Russia’s court. On the other hand, Russian reciprocity might not be forthcoming anytime soon. In the months ahead the administration should direct the Pentagon to explore other initiatives pursuant to the new guidance that do not require the immediate cooperation of others.
While Obama reaffirmed his support for the CTBT, he didn’t make the national security case for the treaty nor did he outline how he plans to advance the prospects for the treaty’s ratification. Likewise, it is good news that the United States will host a 4th Nuclear Security Summit in 2016, but the President did not provide an update on the goal of securing all vulnerable nuclear materials within four years nor did he describe the great deal of work that remains to be done over the next four years. Meanwhile, the growing budget for nuclear weapons sustainment and modernization continues to eat into the budget for vital nuclear and radiological material security programs.
In short, I think the President identified the right nuclear security objectives and sent the message that this agenda will remain a top priority in his second term. However, Joe Cirincione nicely captured the shortcomings of the speech in a recent tweet: “Obama devoted 280 words to nuclear policy in Berlin, about 35 more than he devoted to saying hello. I hope he has more to say soon.”
While Obama’s speech and the new policy guidance that accompanied it outlined important, albeit relatively modest changes to US nuclear strategy, the Republican reaction to these initiatives has been predictably shrill, obstructionist, and unhinged. (I chalk the ICBM caucus’ reaction up to classic pork barrel politics.) Stay tuned to this space in the coming days for responses to those who argue that the United States must continue to maintain a redundant and unaffordable nuclear arsenal.
Tuscon Sentinel Story on Missile Defense Program Quotes Philip Coyle
Target malfunctions imperil U.S. missile defense effort By Richard H.P. Sia June 22, 2013 Shortly after 11 a.m. local time, a U.S. ballistic missile target loaded with a mock nuclear warhead blasted off from Narrow Cape, a low-lying coastal area of Alaska’s Kodiak Island. A network of radars from Alaska to California tracked the target, […]
Knoxville News Sentinel OpEd: Upgrading B61 nuclear bomb doesn’t make sense
Upgrading B61 nuclear bomb doesn’t make sense By Jacob Bennett & Usha Sahay on June 22, 2013 In a recent interview, Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander expressed his frustration with the out-of-control costs of nuclear weapons facilities. Asked about the increasingly expensive Oak Ridge Uranium Processing Facility, the senator told the News Sentinel’s Frank Munger: “I’ve […]
The Sun Sets on Nunn-Lugar in Russia
Nunn-Lugar in Russia, we hardly knew ye.
Well, that’s not entirely true – in fact, we knew ye fairly well. For more than twenty years, under the auspices of the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program, the United States partnered with Russia to secure, protect, and dismantle weapons of mass destruction throughout the former Soviet Union. However, this past Sunday saw the expiration of the US-Russian “umbrella agreement” that made this program possible.
In its stead the two sides have negotiated a successor agreement that will discontinue some US-Russian WMD cooperative efforts while allowing others to continue.
CTR in Russia arose in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse in the early 1990s, when Russia inherited most of the former Soviet Union’s massive nuclear weapons complex. However, in this chaotic period, the Russian government lacked the funds to maintain the security of its nuclear facilities, materials, and weapons. What resulted was the stuff of WMD security nightmares – accounts of this period reveal stories of vital security upgrades being ignored, salaries for personnel going unpaid, and “sheds [of] world-ending supplies of [highly-enriched uranium] protected by padlock only.”
Enter CTR. Founded in 1991, through legislation sponsored by Senators Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar, CTR saw significant success in securing and dismantling excess Russian nuclear weapons. US-Russian cooperation resulted in the elimination of more than 7,600 warheads, 900 ICBMs, and 680 SLBMs from the Russian nuclear complex, as well as the implementation of important security upgrades at more than two dozen nuclear weapons facilities.
Since its inception, CTR has expanded beyond the realm of former Soviet states, broadening its mandate in order to to provide assistance to governments in Asia, North Africa, and the Middle East. Meanwhile, under the terms of legislation proposed by Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) in May 2013, the program’s presence in the latter two regions would be stepped up significantly, in an effort to prevent WMD from falling into the hands of non-state actors.
Why, then, did the US and Russia allow the aforementioned “umbrella agreement” to expire? In October 2012, the Russian government announced that it would not seek to renew the pact, citing fundamental disagreements with the agreement extension proposed by US negotiators.
Analysts have highlighted a variety of potential reasons for the Russian withdrawal. Several have pointed to the embarrassment felt by many Russian officials about having to rely on a foreign power for domestic security concerns, with the Stimson Center’s Brian Finlay describing Nunn-Lugar as “an enduring political embarrassment for Moscow.” More specifically, the liability provisions of Nunn-Lugar, under which US representatives and contractors were essentially protected from all legal liability for CTR-related incidents, were a constant sticking point for the Russian government.
Despite the end of Nunn-Lugar, US-Russia WMD-security cooperation will continue, albeit in a truncated form. This past Monday, on the sidelines of the G-8 summit, President Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin reached an agreement to continue the US-Russia partnership under a new framework, which our friends over at Arms Control Wonk have cleverly dubbed “non-Lugar.” Within the context of this new arrangement, the US will no longer be assisting Russian officials with the dismantlement of missiles, bombers, and chemical weapons, but, according to a senior US official, will be able to continue most of its nuclear security-related work without issue under the 2003 “Framework Agreement on a Multilateral Nuclear Environmental Programme in the Russian Federation,” and a related protocol signed on June 14, 2013. Former senators Nunn and Lugar have come out in support for this new arrangement, though other analysts have expressed a bit more skepticism.
The end of US assistance in dismantling the Russian chemical weapons arsenal is particularly troubling, given that Russia is estimated to have thousands of tons of chemical agent still awaiting destruction. With the end of Nunn-Lugar, Russia will be left with the responsibility of ensuring that this important arms control mission is fulfilled. As David E. Hoffman pointed out in an October 2012 post for Foreign Policy, the Russian government, buoyed by a resurgent economy, certainly has the means to carry out this task – the more salient question is whether it will actually do so.
Such concerns about Russia’s commitment to Nunn-Lugar’s objectives are nothing new. Back in 2006, in a feature for The Atlantic, William Langewiesche detailed how many National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) technicians, sent abroad to help their Russian counterparts enhance the security of Russian nuclear facilities, questioned Moscow’s commitment to nuclear security, and expressed concerns that the CTR-funded upgrades would “slip into disrepair” upon the termination of US funding.
Though the US will apparently still have a hand in ensuring the security of Russia’s nuclear materials, its involvement in other aspects of the Nunn-Lugar agenda will be more limited. What this means for Russia’s WMD security remains to be seen.
