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Front and Center: 11/22

FRONT & CENTER

An update on arms control, national security & politics from the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

November 8 – November 22 WHAT’S NEW:

The Disillusioned Babysitters of America’s Nuclear Weapons
Last Friday, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel gave a lengthy press conference in which he pledged to invest billions to repair a U.S. nuclear enterprise that’s falling apart at the seams. Hagel’s comments were made seemingly in response to in-depth assessments of the nuclear silos and personnel from Mother Jones and New York Magazine, both of which offered the same conclusions: the U.S. nuclear fleet is out of date, and so is its mission. Angela Canterbury, executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, articulates it well in the Wall Street Journal, “They’re going to throw billions of dollars at this problem, which is like saying they’re going to throw billions of dollars at dial-up Internet.”

Closing in on a Deal
With just a few days until the November 24 deadline to secure a nuclear deal with Iran, Policy Director Laicie Heeley has been busy keeping the media fully apprised of the latest on the negotiations, and of course her expert analysis. Watch her interview on Voice of America, and read her quotes in the International Business Times and Bloomberg News.

Recognizing Our Allies on Capitol Hill
On the evening of November 18th, the nuclear security community gathered to recognize our Congressional allies in support of more sensible nuclear weapons policies. On behalf of the Center and the Council, executive director Angela Canterbury presented the award to Representative Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE), who co-founded and chairs Congress’s Nuclear Security Working Group. Other award recipients included Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL), and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).

WATCH:

The Highest Priority Mission?
Watch Senior Fellow John Isaacs give his analysis of Hagel’s press conference and the Pentagon’s plans to overhaul the nuclear weapons enterprise on HuffPost Live. [11/18]

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Slush Fund
Laws are made for a reason–but then sometimes the government finds a way to circumvent them: the Overseas Contingency Operations account is a poster child. Angela Canterbury and Sarah Tully take to the blog to show that, with Obama’s recent request, the Pentagon and Congress are poised to use this off-budget account as a slush fund and to evade the budget caps yet again. Is this necessary? Read more here. [11/21]

Making Good on Prague Promises
This year, Obama has gone under fire for continuing to stumble in the wrong direction over U.S. nuclear weapons policies. Last week, however, the Obama Administration finally made some forward progress by announcing the U.S. will attend the 2014 Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in early December. Read our press release and learn more on our blog. [11/10]

Thawing the Ice
Ever since Putin’s hasty seizure of the Crimea last spring, nearly two decades of U.S.-Russia nuclear cooperation has deteriorated to an icy standstill, with diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic folding their arms and turning their backs on nuclear security teamwork. Scoville Fellow Greg Terryn provides analysis from various experts who all agree that new approaches are needed to bridge the impasse. [11/17]

Thawing the Ice
Along the same vein, this week marked the twenty-year anniversary of Project Sapphire, a major diplomatic success in removing and down-blending loose nuclear material from the former Soviet Union in 1994. Programs intern Sarah Tully writes, “Fissile material across the country was stored in rooms and warehouses easy for an amateur burglar to crack…with a Civil War padlock…The threat of nuclear war isn’t our greatest danger, loose nuclear material and weapons are.” The point bears repeating: diplomacy with Russia is our best chance of keeping the world’s most dangerous weapons out of the wrong hands. [11/21

The Pentagon’s Slush Fund Continues to Raise Eyebrows

By Angela Canterbury and Sarah Tully

It was a strong start earlier this year, when President Obama made a budget request for the Pentagon that was finally in line with the law of the land—the Budget Control Act (BCA). But that’s ancient history.

The President’s original request came in just under the BCA budget caps for Pentagon spending at $496 billion for Fiscal Year 2015. But that didn’t include the other Pentagon spending request that was to follow. There was an additional $59 billion requested for the Overseas Contingency Operations (known as OCO). Taken together, this $555 billion would appear to bust the budget caps set by the BCA, but not really. That’s because OCO doesn’t count against the caps.

Now the administration has announced it would will submit a request to add another $5.6 billion dollars to their OCO request to Congress for “activities to degrade and ultimately defeat ISIL.” This adds up to $65.6 billion dollars in extra spending for the Pentagon. Many experts say there is plenty of funding in the base budget to cover the current military engagement in Iraq and Syria, and we agree.

As you can see below, while the Pentagon budget has decreased and leveled out over the course of Obama’s term, OCO spending has remained relatively high. In fact, when adjusted for inflation, the amount is higher than what President Bush spent in each of his first five years in office, from FY 2002 to FY 2006. If you take OCO out of the equation, Obama’s Pentagon is still spending more than all but the final year of the Bush administration.

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But put aside how much we are spending on overseas contingencies, the Overseas Contingency Operations account isn’t used for that alone.

OCO was established under President Obama in 2009 to replace the emergency supplemental appropriations that had previously been used to fund the wars. OCO was intended to institutionalize this funding and force the Pentagon to be more transparent about what was actually being funded by the war request.

In recent years, however, OCO has been treated more as a slush fund for projects sometimes only tangentially related to overseas operations. Todd Harrison of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments estimates that the projected FY 2015 OCO budget includes over $30 billion in DoD base budget funds that have been shifted to the OCO budget.

To give a recent example, as part of the DoD portion of the FY 2014 omnibus, $9.3 billion dollars for operations and maintenance was transferred directly from the base budget to OCO. OCO is not subject to budget caps or sequestration, thus the Pentagon, thanks to Congress, is able to use OCO to soften the blow of the budget caps, effectively defeating the purpose of the Budget Control Act.

Even advocates of higher defense spending have a problem with this abuse of the system. Incoming Senate Armed Services Committee Chair John McCain, speaking on the Senate floor about the FY 2011 Defense Appropriations bill said, “…billions in the war-funding accounts – my staff has estimated close to $8 billion – have been allocated by the Appropriations Committees for new spending not requested by the Administration, or transferred to pay items that were originally requested in the base budget for non-war related expenses.”

In September, House Defense Appropriations rejected part of a reprogramming request from the Pentagon that would have funded, among other things, 8 additional F-35s and 21 Apache helicopters using money from the OCO. This was a request to move $1.3 billion from OCO account back to the base budget.

In USA Today, Ryan Alexander, President of Taxpayers for Common Sense, noted with interest some fuzzy math. The new OCO request includes an additional “$464 million in Defense-wide operations and maintenance and an additional $779.6 million in those accounts for the Army.” Alexander quips:

Now, I don’t have access to any of the fancy calculators they have at the Pentagon, but the one on my smart phone tells me if you add those two numbers together you come up with $1.243 billion, which is pretty close to the $1.3 billion the Pentagon said it didn’t need and could transfer to the F-35.

So is the OCO request for ISIL or the F-35?

In any case, the OCO account itself has become a budget gimmick. Further, it is simply irresponsible budgeting: All military spending should be subject to the oversight of the actual military budget. Meanwhile, we hope Congress will continue to question OCO being used as a slush fund.

Finalizing the FY 2015 National Defense Authorization (NDAA): Key Issues for Congress

For the third year in a row, the United States Senate is unlikely to approve its own version of the critically important Fiscal Year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). So much for being “the world’s greatest deliberative body.” After voting on September 18 on a bill to keep the government running through mid-December and […]

Front and Center

FRONT & CENTER

An update on arms control, national security & politics from the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.

October 11-October 26 WHAT’S NEW:

An Evening in Boston
Save the date: On the evening of November 6th, we’ll be in Boston for a night of expert analysis, substantive discussion, and fun! We’ve invited Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey, among other notable speakers, to lead our Election Forum and Reception on the Future of National Security. Best part? It’s free! We hope you can join us. Space is limited, so RSVP today.

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Growth in Pentagon Spending Since 2001
We’ll start with the good news: the overall trend for the U.S. defense budget is on a downward slope. That said, the U.S. is spending $7-10 million per day on its new war in the Middle East against the Islamic State, meaning Congress may decide to up the ante in Fiscal Year 2015. Check out our reporton the center site to learn more. [10/20]

2001-2015 budget

Window of Opportunity to Change US Nuclear Spending:
“Folks are understandably confused by the juxtaposition of the exorbitant price tag attached to current plans to upgrade all three legs of the triad at once, and the waning U.S. budget,” writes Katie McCarthy on the Nukes of Hazard blog. That’s why, rather than modernize the triad, the time is now to reassess exactly what we need and what we can afford. [10/24]

But What About Grandma?
It’s a well-known fact that Western sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran were key in bringing the Iranians to the negotiating table. What’s less well-known is exactly how these sanctions have impacted your everyday Iranian citizen. Sarah Tully provides a few personal accounts of the effects of these sanctions and the domestic pressure that has arisen. Rouhani may have no choice but to stay at the table until a deal is reached. [10/21]

BE SOCIAL:

Infographic: Not Getting a Deal Won’t Make Us Any Safer
Remember BiBi’s infamous “red line?” Well, this week, one former US official put the kibosh on Israel’s “no deal is better than a bad deal” rhetoric. The highly respected former Under Secretary of State, Ambassador Stuart Eizenstat told the Jerusalem Post that failing to get an Iran deal should not be considered a success. We loved Eizenstat’s argument so much, we made an infographic. Don’t forget to share it on Facebook, Twitter, or by email! [10/24]

No Iran Deal Is Not a Success

Kendall: Money doesn’t grow on trees, even at the Pentagon

The Pentagon is making the case for an overhaul of its fleet, and according to Undersecretary of Defense Frank Kendall, the nuclear enterprise is at the front of the line. That is, if they can just figure out how to pay for it.

At the Air Force Association’s annual conference this week, Kendall delivered remarks that had been prepared by the Secretary of Defense, who had been pulled away at the last minute. The speech referred to the nuclear enterprise as, “the very foundation of U.S. national security.”

Driving the point home, Kendall repeated twice, “No capability we maintain is more important than our nuclear deterrent.”

Of course, Kendall and Hagel have reason to want to reassure the Air Force that nukes are a top priority, but Kendall’s speech leaves little room for interpretation.

Know that what you do every day is foundational to America’s national security and the top priority of the Department of Defense – the top priority of the Department of Defense.

Secretary Hagel wants you and our entire military to know that comes from him personally.

But paying for those upgrades will take more than reassurance. And there’s the rub. The Pentagon simply does not have enough resources to pay for its entire wish list of upgrades, both nuclear and conventional. And, perhaps surprisingly, Kendall acknowledges that fact, telling reporters that:

There’s been some conversation about that, but at the end of the day we have to find money to pay for these things one way or another, right? So changing the accounting system doesn’t really change that fundamental requirement. We still need the money and it has to come from somewhere.

Kendall’s bout of honesty comes on the heels of some speculation that world events might allow for some wiggle room in the DOD’s budget – or at least OCO. But the acknowledgement of the budget challenges to come is significant nonetheless.

At a time when the Air Force is in need of a multitude of updates more relevant to the current threat environment, the issue is likely much greater than Kendall lets on. The true cost of focusing myopically on the nuclear enterprise is that it will leave other programs to starve in its wake.