“Threat reduction should not be the bill payer for weapons modernization. This request craters non-proliferation programs that keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists,” said John Isaacs, executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. “We should prioritize such programs that actively enhance national security instead of over budget, unrealistic and behind schedule nuclear weapons programs.”
In the Shadow of the Nuclear Modernization Mountain, Nuclear Weapons Budget Ripe for Savings
I’ve published a new piece on the Center homepage on Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel’s preview of the FY 2015 Pentagon budget request last week and the implications for nuclear weapons. Here’s the intro:
Last week, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey previewed the Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 Pentagon budget request. Additional details are not scheduled to be released until Tuesday (March 4), but the broad outlines of the request are already clear.
And despite cuts to many Pentagon programs, Hagel stated that the budget had “preserved all three legs of the nuclear triad and will make important investments to preserve a safe, secure, reliable, and effective nuclear force.”
Hagel announced a number of cost saving measures driven by the Congressional mandate to reduce military spending as part of an overall deficit reduction effort, including reducing the size of the Army, retiring the A-10 fleet of aircraft, reducing the planned buy of the Littoral Combat Ship, and modest reforms to the escalating and unsustainable growth in personnel compensation costs.
Yet the Pentagon either couldn’t find, or, more accurately, was unwilling to find, additional savings and thus proposed an unrealistic budget blueprint through FY 2019 that exceeds the Budget Control Act caps by $115 billion. The Pentagon also invited Congress to further inflate its coffers by proposing an additional $26 billion in spending for FY 2015 that didn’t make it into the formal budget submission. Without this additional funding, Hagel argued, “the military will still face significant readiness and modernization challenges next year.”
Given the requirement to find budget savings beyond current plans and also maintain the world’s finest military, the Pentagon should be prioritizing military programs that are the most critical to combatting the current threats we face, since every dollar spent on lower priority programs is a dollar that can’t be spent on more important needs.
It would therefore be puzzling if the Pentagon shields nuclear weapons from the chopping block in its budget request (which it largely appears to have done) – especially since our military leaders have already determined that we have more nuclear weapons than we need for our security. But just as the administration’s FY 2015 budget is divorced from reality, so too are its nuclear weapons spending plans.
Read the whole thing here. I’ll have more to say about the budget, particularly on the NNSA side, when the full details are released tomorrow.
Military Experts Respond to Sec. Hagel’s FY15 Budget Preview
“Dollars spent is not the measure of merit for our security any more than it is for our health care system,” said Col. (USAF ret.) Richard Klass. “The measure of merit is whether our spending matches our strategy and the current and future threats. Clearly there are reductions, such as outmoded nuclear systems and unneeded bases, whose reduction would increase our security by strengthening our fiscal integrity.”
Fact Sheet: FY 2014 Budget Request and Appropriations for Replacement Nuclear Delivery Systems and Warhead Life Extension Programs
by Kingston Reif On January 17 the President signed the Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 Omnibus appropriations bill (H.R. 3457 or the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2014). The charts below outline the FY 2014 budget request and Congressional appropriations for the Obama administration’s current plans to rebuild the nuclear triad and its associated warheads and their supporting […]
Center Releases In-Depth Study of the Conference Version of the FY2013 NDAA
“While the NDAA covers a broad spectrum of national security issues, the House version raised some serious concern for the future of nuclear weapons and non-proliferation programs,” said John Isaacs, Executive Director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. “Fortunately, the conferees watered down or eliminated many of the objectionable nuclear provisions including limitations on the implementation of the New START treaty.”
