Subs Crowding Out Ships in Navy Budget

On the radar: Boomers busting budgets; Egypt walks out on PrepCom; Deterring Iran and North Korea; South Korea’s nuclear capability; and IAEA’s detection capability.

May 1, 2013 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Alyssa Demus

Torpedoing the surface fleet - "The recapitalization of our SSBN force will impact our ability to fund investment in other future force structure...Navy has the resources to procure these national assets but doing so will pressurize our procurement accounts,” said Vice Adm. William Burke, deputy chief of naval operations for Warfare Systems. "If we buy the SSBN with existing funds, we will not reach the [goal of] 300 ships, in fact we will find ourselves closer to 250.”

-- “Some arms control advocates have called for the Navy to scale back its SSBN fleet renewal plans in order to save money. Building only eight new ballistic missile submarines instead of the current planned 12 and further postponing initial acquisition until 2023, would save $15 billion, according to the Washington-based Arms Control Association,” writes Rachel Oswald at Global Security Newswire. Full story here. http://bit.ly/11XqMZ8

Egypt on strike - In an “unprecedented move,” Egypt announced it would withdraw from the preparatory meeting for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty review conference, citing the failure to convene a conference to establish a WMD-free zone in the Middle East as the cause. Three years ago member states pledged “to convene by the end of 2012 to discuss the Mideast ban on all nuclear, chemical, and biological arms,” reports Elaine Grossman at Global Security Newswire.

--Despite this promise, states have failed to convene because of a major sticking point - Israel. Arab states refuse to come to the table unless Israel commits to participate in the convening. Yet, Israel who feels it may be “singled out for criticism,” is skeptical, though its leaders have not “ruled out the possibility of taking part in the major conference.” So far the US has not pressured Israel to participate, though some see this as an “opportunity [for Washington] to ‘change the game’ by working to advance President Obama’s 2009 ‘Prague vision.” Full story here. http://owl.li/kBtOY

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Tweet - @nukes_of_hazard: How diplomacy is supposed to work: North Korea cooling war talk may be partial result of Kerry nudging China. http://bit.ly/YdWeDd

If deterrence theory is valid - The Soviet Union regularly threatened the destruction of the US and its allies while waging proxy wars, yet was ultimately deterred from using its nuclear arsenal. Barry Blechman suggests, if deterrence theory is valid, then shouldn’t deterrence also work with Iran and North Korea?

--”Both Iran's and North Korea's supreme leaders will be deterred, just as were successive generations of Soviet leaders. Both would not authorize the use of nuclear weapons, for fear of seeing their nations destroyed...If deterrence theory is no longer valid, the U.S. had better work harder to achieve President Obama's Nobel Prize-winning goal of a world in which no nation possesses nuclear weapons.” Full article at CNN. http://bit.ly/103kLYY

Syria - “Syria and WMD Inconsistency in the Middle East” by Paul Pillar in The National Interest. http://bit.ly/ZmBO8w

Nuclear tension with South Korea - While US-South Korean relations are “better than ever,” one question continues to divide the allies - “how much nuclear technology should South Korea possess?”

--As part of a nuclear cooperation agreement between the two states, Seoul is asking that the US lift its ban on South Korean reprocessing and enrichment of US fissile materials. Washington objects, seeing this as a potential threat to nonproliferation efforts. Audrey Yoo of TIME has the story. http://owl.li/kBxqp

Tweet - @barbaraslavin1: Incremental nuke deal with #Iran is not going to work says ret. #Israel general #Yadlin http://t.co/XNcVMfGnq9

Nuclear sleuthing - The IAEA is still seeking access to Iran’s Parchin facility, where it suspects possible nuclear weapons-related research may have been conducted. Iran spent the last year cleaning up the site. Fredrik Dahl at Reuters describes that situation and profiles the capability that the IAEA has to detect trace nuclear particles - even at a “sanitized” site like Parchin. http://reut.rs/YdXIxk

Events:

--"The Nuclear Security Summit in 2014: Challenges and Opportunities." Piet de Klerk, Dutch Foreign Affairs Ministry. May 2 9:00-10:30am @ Carnegie. Details here. http://owl.li/kwTqp

--"Reducing Global Weapons Dangers: Bolstering the NPT and Building the New ATT Regime," (Part of the Arms Control Association annual meeting). Ellen Tauscher and six other speakers. May 6 9:00-1:30am @ Carnegie. Details Here. http://owl.li/kwU8t

--Senate floor vote on the nomination of Ernie Moniz to be Energy Secretary. Week of May 6. Broadcast and webcast on C-SPAN2 here. http://owl.li/kwUJ7