Budget Cuts Impede Administration Efforts to Secure Nuclear Material

Today's top nuclear policy stories, with excerpts in bullet form.

Stories we're following today: Wednesday February 23, 2011

FY 2011 and FY 2012 Budgets for Nuclear Security - Kingston Reif and Patricia Morris of The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation [link]

• The international effort to secure all vulnerable nuclear materials and keep our nation safe from nuclear terrorism is at a crossroad
• In Fiscal Year (FY) 2010, the President’s budget request and Congressional appropriations for threat reduction programs did not reflect the urgency of the threat. Funding for these programs was actually less than what Congress appropriated in FY 2009. The administration attempted to close this gap in FY 2011 by requesting a $320 million increase over the FY 2010 appropriated level that enables the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Defense Department’s Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program to accelerate their efforts to lock down and eliminate nuclear materials around the world.
• On February 11 the Republican-controlled House of Representatives proposed a Continuing Resolution to fund the government for the rest of FY 2011 that cuts funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account by approximately $600 million below the administration’s FY 2011 request.
• These cuts occurred because Republican leaders did not consider the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nonproliferation programs to be “security spending” – which they exempt from major budget cuts – even though the purpose of many of the programs in this account is to prevent nuclear terrorism.
• Failure to correct the shortfalls for nuclear security in the Continuing Resolution would significantly hamper U.S. leadership in the important effort to secure vulnerable weapons and materials around the world.
• NOTE: The Center for Arms COntrol and Non-Proliferation is a Ploughshares Fund grantee. 

Russia to Prepare Missile Defense Proposals For NATO - Global Security Newswire [link]

• Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has directed the formation of a working group to brainstorm ideas for missile defense collaboration with NATO.
• Participants "will suggest areas of possible missile defense cooperation with NATO with due account of Russia's interests in the formation of the European missile defense network," stated the presidential directive.
• A Russia-NATO report is expected in June on areas of potential missile defense collaboration. The two military powers presently have notably differing views on what that cooperation should entail, with the alliance calling for separate systems that allow the sides to exchange data on missile threats. The Kremlin wants to see a combined "sectoral" system in which each side would assume responsibility for eliminating missiles flying above specific geographical regions.
• Moscow has long been wary of U.S. and NATO plans to field missile defense infrastructure in Europe, seeing in the initiatives an underlying scheme to undermine the Russian nuclear deterrent. 

Pakistan Doubles Its Nuclear Arsenal: Is It Time to Start Worrying? - Alexander Rothman and Lawrence Korb in The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists [link]

• According to recent reports in the New York Times and Washington Post, Pakistan has nearly doubled its nuclear arsenal to more than 100 weapons and appears on track to soon surpass Britain as the world's fifth largest nuclear power.
• Pakistan's entry into the "nuclear 100 club" does little to change the strategic situation in South Asia, nor does this determined pursuit of nuclear weapons signal a major policy shift in Pakistani behavior. In fact, Pakistan's nuclear buildup is unlikely to affect US, Pakistani, or global security in the short term.
• Pakistan's jump from an estimated 60 to 110 nuclear weapons is unlikely to shift the balance of power vis a vis India. While the jump to 110 weapons may put Pakistan's arsenal slightly ahead of India's in numerical terms, it does not increase the effectiveness of Pakistan's deterrent.
• The Pakistani government, which receives billions of dollars each year in American aid, has a generally positive relationship with the US, and, should this relationship change, Pakistan's nuclear delivery vehicles would still lack the range necessary to reach American shores.
• It may be too soon to panic, but it is not too soon to be proactive. For the Obama administration, winning sufficient Republican support to ratify the New START treaty was a struggle. However, the only viable options to regulate the spread of nuclear technology and materials and combat the threat of nuclear terrorism require further international cooperation.
  

In an Era of Tightening Budgets, Can America Remain a Superpower on the Cheap? - Michael Mandelbaum in The Washington Post [link]

• In the years ahead, the United States will have to take dramatic steps to curb its ever-expanding fiscal deficits. No matter what our politicians promise, this will mean both raising taxes and cutting expenses, including Social Security, Medicare and national defense - the largest items in the federal budget.
• President Obama's budget proposal already begins this process by reducing the Pentagon's spending by $78 billion over the next 10 years, but far deeper cuts are sure to come.
• We will have to distinguish between the military missions, weapons systems and diplomatic initiatives that are vital to the safety and prosperity of the American people and those that are merely desirable - and therefore, in our current fiscal straits, dispensable.
• Continued American influence in the Middle East is crucial, of course, because the region harbors so much of the world's oil. It is also a region where the United States may have to do more, not less, in the years ahead.
• That said, the most immediate danger to U.S. interests in the region comes not from instability in Egypt but from ambition in Iran. The country's radical regime seeks to dominate the region, which would give it sway over the oil reserves so critical to the world's industrial economies. The other oil-producing countries of the Middle East are not capable of defending themselves against Iran; that task falls to the United States.
• A war with Iran, like all wars, would be a decidedly perilous undertaking, but this administration, or its successor, may ultimately decide that any alternative policy would be even more perilous.

David Cameron Threatens More Iran Nuclear Sanctions - BBC [link]

• David Cameron has threatened Iran with fresh sanctions if it continues its nuclear weapons programme, saying it risks becoming "a pariah state".
• Speaking in Qatar, Mr Cameron told the BBC: "Iran remains a grave concern because of its intent to acquire nuclear weapons.
• "They are already suffering from international sanctions their economy is weak and vulnerable and the regime only survives by cracking down on its political opposition.”
• "Britain and its international partners remain ready to negotiate and we are not going to be taken for a ride. We will continue to find ways to increase the pressure.”
• During a question-and-answer session with Qatari students, Mr Cameron said: "Iran is trying to get a nuclear weapon. It's in the interests of everyone here and everyone in the world that we don't get a nuclear arms race."