General Kehler, in June of 2010 as the Senate was considering the New START Treaty, your predecessor, General Chilton, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that force level under that treaty, meaning 1,550 warheads on 700 delivery vehicles, was, quote, “exactly what is needed today to provide the deterrent,” close quote.
Beyond March Madness: The Nuclear Weapons Budget after Sequestration
In elementary school, they taught us that March comes in like a lion, and this year, it’s especially true – and not just for basketball fans. This March 1st brought with it the dreaded budget sequester – the automatic, across-the-board federal budget cuts that have prompted doomsday predictions about the government not being able to function, as well as a lot of slideshows of cute animals.
So now that March 1st has rolled around and the Pentagon hasn’t yet been downsized to a square, what exactly is going on with the defense budget? The main thing you need to know is the sequester cuts approximately $48 billion from national defense (specifically the “050” budget function, covering the Department of Defense, the nuclear weapons-related spending at the Department of Energy, and a few other areas) over the next seven months. This is actually the sum total of two sequesters – one that already happened on March 1, and a smaller one set to occur on March 27, 2013.
Technically, approximately $500 billion must come out of the 050 budget function over the next ten years, or until Congress and the White House devise a replacement budget that reduces the deficit by the amounts mandated by the Budget Control Act. Alternatively, Congress could adjust or even eliminate the sequester as part of negotiations to replace the current continuing resolution set to expire on March 26. March Madness indeed.
Hopefully it won’t take ten years to come up with a bipartisan budget agreement that cuts spending in a more sensible way than the “meat-cleaver” approach of sequestration. And that brings us to the important question: as Congress looks to stop the madness and devise a workable budget, what can be cut from the Pentagon budget without compromising national security?
We’ve argued in this space and elsewhere that the nuclear weapons budget is an ideal place to look for savings. Over the next ten years, nuclear weapons and related programs will cost roughly $640 billion. Compare that to the $500 billion in savings (over the same amount of time) that we need to find to replace the automatic cuts, and it starts to seem like we could save some money on nuclear weapons.
By one estimate, maintaining and upgrading our current nuclear arsenal costs the Pentagon over $30 billion a year. In this budget climate, it makes sense to ask whether expensive nuclear weapons programs are the right place to be spending scarce defense dollars.
Consider some examples: the Navy’s plan to build a whole new fleet of ballistic missile submarines will cost about $100 billion. By reducing the size of the fleet, we could save $18 billion over the next ten years – without having to reduce the number of nuclear warheads that the submarines carry. Another $18 billion in savings could come from delaying development of a new strategic bomber – an option recommended by Republican Senator Tom Coburn in a deficit reduction plan called “Back in Black.” And we’ll spend another $10 billion alone to modernize the B61 gravity bomb, a 1950s-era weapon that numerous military officials have described as having “no military value.” The examples go on and on.
Of course, this is far from the only area where the Pentagon spends a lot. What’s doubly doable about cutting the nuclear budget is that it makes fiscal sense as well as strategic sense – as strategist Bernard Brodie famously put it, “strategy wears a dollar sign.” True, trimming the arsenal will save money, but its primary benefit is to increase U.S. national security. Nuclear reductions with Russia could promote more stable US-Russia relations and help bring more countries into the disarmament process.
I’ve digressed from the discussion of sequestration and the budget – but in some ways, that’s the point. From a strategic point of view, nuclear reductions would make sense even if they didn’t free up billions of dollars for more useful defense programs. But they do that too. And that’s why nuclear spending at Cold War levels must be on the table in the ensuing search for budget savings.
The budget crisis in general, and the sequester specifically, will force government agencies to make tough choices about what they can and can’t afford. But targeting the bloated nuclear weapons budget shouldn’t be a difficult call: in fact, given the financial and strategic benefits, it should be a no-brainer.
The Fiscal Cliff Deal and Nuclear Reductions
On January 1, as I was psychologically preparing for the Rose Bowl (sadly my Wisconsin Badgers lost for the third year in a row), I was shocked to find that the text of the Biden-McConnell fiscal cliff deal (H.R. 8) included a section on strategic delivery systems. Obviously intrigued, I had a look at the text and found that the provision amended Section 1035 of the Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) “(1) by striking ‘‘that’’ before ‘‘the Russian Federation’’ and inserting ‘‘whether’’; and (2) by inserting ‘‘strategic’’ before ‘‘arms control obligations’’.”
Now doubly intrigued, I went back and had a look at the original text of Section 1035 in the NDAA. The specific language in question stated:
`(c) Prior Notification- Not later than 60 days before the date on which the President carries out any reduction to the number of strategic delivery systems, the President shall–
`(1) make the certification under subsection (a) for the fiscal year for which the reductions are proposed to be carried out;
`(2) transmit the additional report matters under subsection (b) for such fiscal year, if such additional report matters are so required; and
`(3) certify to the congressional defense committees that the Russian Federation is in compliance with its arms control obligations with the United States and is not engaged in activity in violation of, or inconsistent with, such obligations.
It turns out that the President would be unable to certify that Russia is in compliance with all of its arms control obligations since Russia is in fact not in compliance with all of its arms control obligations if said obligations are defined to include the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (CFE), the Chemical Weapons Conventions (CWC), etc. Given the President’s inability to certify “that the Russia Federation is in compliance…” the provision could prevent the reduction of strategic delivery systems under the New START treaty (and beyond). By adding “whether” in place of “that” and “strategic” before “arms control obligations”, the language cannot stop reductions required by New START and is consistent with the rest of the provision.
I missed this subtle wording during my first run through of the NDAA, but thankfully better minds in the administration did not. Indeed, the administration issued a signing statement with the bill which included this:
Section 1035, which adds a new section 495(c) to title 10, is deeply problematic, as it would impede the fulfillment of future U.S. obligations agreed to in the New START Treaty, which the Senate provided its advice and consent to in 2010, and hinder the Executive’s ability to determine an appropriate nuclear force structure. I am therefore pleased that the Congress has included a provision to adequately amend this provision in H.R. 8, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012, which I will be signing into law today.
Clearly this was a very big deal behind the scenes (it has also generated a surprising amount of media coverage) and the language of the statement suggests the President may not have signed the NDAA if this provision wasn’t fixed. What’s less clear is whether the House authors of this conference provision, which was a compromise version of two differing provisions on strategic delivery system reductions in the original House and Senate version of the defense bill, deliberately worded Section 1035 to prevent implementation of New START, made a drafting error, or something in between.
In any event, it’s obviously a good news that the problem was fixed (reportedly there was bipartisan agreement on the need for the fix). As our friends at the Arms Control Association point out, New START shouldn’t be “held hostage to longstanding disagreements with Russia on other issues.”
I’d go a step further and argue that even the amended version of Section 1035 is unnecessary and redundant because the issues it raises re: nuclear weapons spending and Russian compliance with New START are already adequately addressed in the New START resolution of ratification and the FY 2012 NDAA.
While Section 1035 may not initially have been deliberately worded to impede New START, Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee have been on a mission the last two years to delay and even block implementation of the treaty and further changes to US nuclear posture via the NDAA. As we’ve tried to regularly remind readers, doing so defies the bipartisan counsel of former government officials and military leaders and would be a major setback for US national security.
Laicie Olson and Kingston Reif Quoted on 2013 NDAA in the Korean Herald
Revised U.S. defense act urges tougher measures against N.K. By Shin Hyon-hee The Korean Herald The NDAA resulted from months-long negotiations between Democrats and Republicans through the double-chamber legislature’s conference committee. The Democrat-controlled Senate had resisted some hard-line proposals from the Republican-dominated House including the MD base plan due to uncertainty and budget pressure. It […]
Analysis of the Conference Version of the FY 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)
by Kingston Reif and Laicie Olson On December 18 the Senate and House Armed Services Committees filed the Conference version of the FY 2013 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Click here for the text of the Conference report and here for the Joint Explanatory Statement. The House is scheduled to take up and approve the bill […]
