The Mismanagement and Skyrocketing Costs of Missile Defense Programs

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

Stories we're following today: Friday February 4, 2011

European Missile Defenses: Following in the Inept Shoes of National Missile Defense? - John Isaacs in The Chain Reaction [link]

• The knock on United States National Missile Defense based in Alaska and California is that it never has been proved to work in real-world situations. Billions of dollars have been spent on that system, now called “ground-based mid-course,” but there is no sure evidence that the defense would work should North Korea launch nuclear-tipped missiles against us.
• Because of the powerful political backing for the program, missile defense has avoided the commonsense “Fly Before You Buy” mantra that prevents billions from being wasted on weapons that may eventually prove ineffective.
• According to a recent report by the Government Accounting Office (GAO), the government auditing agency, the Obama Administration is risking repeating history with its proposed missile defense systems in Europe.
• The GAO notes: "DOD does not have the information it needs to assess whether the EPAA schedule is realistic and achievable, identify potential problems, or analyze how changes will impact the execution of this effort, and therefore is exposed to increased schedule, performance, and cost risks."
• As with National Missile Defense, the Pentagon may follow the proposed schedule and spend billions with no idea whether the system will really work. Pentagon does not yet have an overall cost estimate, according to the GAO.
• The GAO adds: “Without life-cycle cost estimates DOD may not be able to determine whether its revised approach to BMD in Europe is fiscally sustainable and affordable.” In other words, the United States may be buying more pigs in pokes with no ability to rely on the new system during a crisis.
• The Administration should slow down, set realistic goals, come up with a definitive cost estimate, and test the hell out of the system.

Reagan the Abolitionist - Joe Cirincione in Huffington Post [link]

• One of Ronald Reagan's most powerful and living legacies was his dream of a world free of nuclear weapons. It is worth remembering this sixth of February, the centennial of his birth.
• "There is only one way safely and legitimately to reduce the cost of national security, and that is to reduce the need for it. And this we are trying to do in negotiations with the Soviet Union. We are not just discussing limits on a further increase of nuclear weapons. We seek, instead, to reduce their number. We seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth."
• Reagan later wrote in his memoirs, "For the eight years I was President, I never let my dream of a nuclear-free world fade from my mind."
• Sadly, he was never able to sign a comprehensive ban of nuclear weapons, but Reagan did establish a framework for mutual and verifiable reductions -- through the INF treaty and original START treaty -- that the United States and Russia continue to this day.
• Reagan's measures for verification and information sharing helped the United States and Russia navigate a period of great uncertainty. These practices remain today and are codified in the New START Treaty, which was ratified by the Senate in December and, by happy coincidence, will enter into force this weekend.
• Many of the former senior officials who spoke in favor of the New START treaty came from the Reagan administration, including Secretary of State George Shultz. They have stayed true to Reagan's dream. They are actively forging a growing bipartisan consensus dedicated to achieving the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.

The Regime Tightens its Belt and its Fist - The Economist [link]

• Isolation, international sanctions and the removal of subsidies all herald rocky times ahead for Iran’s redoubtable and durable president
• Ahmadinejad spoke live to the nation last month…he was announced the beginning of the end of subsidies on which millions of them depend. These measures are the gamble of his presidency—and may be the most important economic reform in the Islamic Republic’s three-decade history.
• From top ayatollahs to the IMF, everyone agrees that spending $100 billion each year to pin down petrol, gas and electricity prices, besides the cost of staples such as flour and cooking oil, is a bad way to dispose of Iran’s hydrocarbon revenues, accounting for more than 10% of GDP and encouraging waste on an epic scale.
• Although the subsidy reforms are supposed to hand control over prices from the government to the market, the trend is towards more government interference in citizens’ lives. In truth, the president has been chipping away at individual Iranians’ autonomy ever since he came to power, as each internal palpitation and outside threat becomes a pretext for the country’s security chiefs to exert more control over the people.
• American officials depict the international campaign to ostracise Iran as successful coalition-building. It may well end up destabilising the Islamic Republic. In the short run, however, sanctions and isolation have strengthened the hardliners whose policies America most dislikes.
• In foreign affairs the Islamic Republic’s policy is to exploit its reputation across the Muslim world for principled opposition to America and Israel, while strengthening economic ties with China, its main shield against sanctions, and emerging powers such as Brazil and Turkey. At home, the plan is defensive: to hunker down and prepare for the economic, political and perhaps military challenges that lie in store. Before Iran reaches paradise, a spell in purgatory beckons.

The Buck Stops Here … and Here, Too - Nick Roth in All Things Nuclear [link]

• Deviating from past practice, this year’s Department of Energy budget request will explicitly spell out the Department of Defense (DOD) contributions to NNSA budgets for nuclear weapons.
• The request will state, “NNSA’s request reflects the partnership between NNSA and the DOD to modernize the nuclear deterrent. DOD has created a separate account for the amounts for weapons activities that are shown in the table below underscoring the close link between these activities and DOD weapons requirements and missions.”
• From FY11 through FY15, DOD will spend $5.68 billion of its own money on NNSA nuclear weapons programs. For FY11 alone, DOD transferred approximately $642 million to NNSA for weapons activities.
• Since in the past these have been funded out of the DOE budget, there are many in DOD who are not thrilled about now having to spend DOD money on nuclear weapons programs.
• OMB was considering this issue partly as a way of increasing oversight of the nuclear weapons budget. With the release of the FY12 budget request, this could be an option that preserves civilian control, but applies some of the fiscal and practical restraint of the military.

Budget Resolution Hurts Obama’s Nonproliferation Goals, Study Asserts - Martin Matishak in Global Security Newswire [link]

• The short-term continuing budget resolution approved by the U.S. Congress last December undercuts programs crucial to President Obama's goal of securing the world's loose nuclear materials, according to a recent analysis by a nongovernment organization.
• The resolution, the third passed by Congress and signed by the president, eliminates a $320 million increase the administration requested in fiscal 2011 for an array of nonproliferation programs within the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Defense Department's Cooperative Threat Reduction program, the Partnership for Global Security said.
• The program most affected by the current budgetary freeze is the nuclear agency's Global Threat Reduction Initiative, which was slated to receive nearly $560 million in fiscal 2011, a more than $225 million boost from the previous year's total, according to the new analysis. Instead, funding would remain at roughly $333 million if appropriations are stuck at 2010 levels throughout this budget year.
• "These funding shortfalls will delay or prevent important nuclear security initiatives from being executed this year if sufficient funds are not moved into these priority areas by NNSA or DOD or if the CR funding levels are not increased by the Congress," the report says.

New START to Enter Into Force Tomorrow

President Barack Obama's signature on the instrument of ratification of the New START Treaty in the Oval Office, February 2, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)