On the radar: The steep costs of the military option; Costs spiraling, earth shaking for CMRR; Accurately sizing China’s nuclear arsenal; the Latest from Keith Payne; Nunn-Lugar at Newseum; Questioning triad, cost; and Iran steals the invasion plans.

December 5, 2011 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Mary Kaszynski

Escalation, consequences, and regret - Asked how long a military strike on Iran would postpone it from getting a bomb, Secretary Panetta said, “that kind of shot would only, I think, ultimately not destroy their ability to produce an atomic weapon, but simply delay it – number one. Of greater concern to me are the unintended consequences, which would be that ultimately it would have a backlash and the regime that is weak now, a regime that is isolated would suddenly be able to reestablish itself, suddenly be able to get support in the region, and suddenly instead of being isolated would get the greater support in a region that right now views it as a pariah.”

--”Thirdly, the United States would obviously be blamed and we could possibly be the target of retaliation from Iran, striking our ships, striking our military bases. Fourthly – there are economic consequences to that attack – severe economic consequences that could impact a very fragile economy in Europe and a fragile economy here in the United States.”

--”And lastly I think that the consequence could be that we would have an escalation that would take place that would not only involve many lives, but I think could consume the Middle East in a confrontation and a conflict that we would regret. So we have to be careful about the unintended consequences of that kind of an attack.” From last week’s talk at Brookings. http://owl.li/7OXLl

Spiraling cost for new plutonium lab - “Final preparations for [Los Alamos’ CMRR] — whose the high-end price tag estimate of $5.8 billion is almost $1 billion more than New Mexico's annual state budget and more than double the lab's annual budget — also comes as a cash-strapped Congress looks to trim defense spending and cut cleanup budgets at contaminated facilities like Los Alamos. It also comes as the inspector general recommends that the federal government consider consolidating its far-flung network of research labs,” reports AP.

--”Watchdog groups, however, call [CMRR] an effort by the DOE and NNSA to escalate the production of new nuclear weapons and turn what has largely been a research facility into a bomb factory.” http://owl.li/7OXRh

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”No, China Does Not Have 3,000 Nuclear Weapons” - “China does not have 3,000 nuclear weapons. It neither has produced the fissile material needed to build that many, not does it have delivery vehicles enough to deliver that many warheads. The Georgetown University study warhead estimate appears to be off by an order of magnitude,” writes Hans Kristensen of the Federation for American Scientists.

--Read the full blog post for fissile material analysis, image analysis, and assessments from the US intelligence community of China’s modernization efforts. http://owl.li/7OXTE

”China’s Underground Great Wall” - Dr. Phillip Karber, the above Georgetown study’s author, presents his findings at the Elliott School this Wednesday, Dec. 7 @ 12:30. RSVP here. http://owl.li/7OXVL

Payne’s bottom line - Keith Payne in the National Review: “Missile-defense cooperation [with Israel and “moderate Arab states”] certainly is a necessary part of the answer to Iranian nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile threats. Also important is moving past naïve hopes that diplomatic “engagement” will disarm Iran’s nuclear program, that experimenting with deterrence and assurance now by retracting the American nuclear umbrella will be an effective way to further the administration’s anti-nuclear agenda, and that dramatic cuts in defense spending should be implemented now, given unfolding international threats.”

--Payne’s analyses have a way of becoming the foundation for conservatives’ nuclear policy talking points. Expect to see this language again. http://owl.li/7OXXO

Event - “Nunn-Lugar at 20: Assessing America’s Progress on Risk Reduction and Terrorism Prevention.” Sen. Richard Lugar and Sen. Sam Nunn give a lunch talk with James Kitfield at the Newseum. Mon. Dec. 12 @ 12:30. Details and RSVP. http://owl.li/7OYwJ

Questioning the triad - The debate over how many billions the US spends on nuclear weapons highlights the need to reexamine nuclear strategy, including the triad, argues Chris Preble. “Long after the Cold War and the Soviet Union have become, for most Americans, a distant, fading memory, the triad lives on...The costs of such redundancy would hardly seem to be offset by the benefits.” http://owl.li/7OY1G

The high price of nukes - “The real issue [of the nuclear budget debate] is that we are slated to spend far too much on things we don't need,” writes William Hartung in the Huffington Post. “At the most fundamental level, we have to ask why -- 20 years after the end of the Cold War -- our government is still primed to spend such a huge chunk of our tax dollars on systems for delivering and maintaining nuclear weapons.” http://owl.li/7OY4q

”Most Secret” invasion plans - During the storming of the UK embassy in Tehran, the raiders made off with “most secret” invasion plans. Said a British diplomat, “We're hoping it takes the IRGC translators a good long time to realise the plans are 70 years old and talking about the invasion of France.”

--”Amid the mayhem when the British embassy in Tehran was stormed last Tuesday, a mob destroyed antique oil portraits of Queen Victoria and Edward VII, made off with a poster from the film, Pulp Fiction, but narrowly missed dog-napping the ambassador's terrier, Pumpkin,” reports Julian Borger. http://owl.li/7OY9H