The Unaffordable Costs of Nuclear Redundancy

May 29, 2014 | Edited by Lauren Mladenka

Poor planning - “Congress is conducting its annual debate over the defense budget and programs in the National Defense Authorization Act,” writes Jon Wolfsthal in Roll Call. “Sadly missing is a debate over the nuclear weapons budget. The United States plans to spend more than $1 trillion over the next thirty years to maintain and modernize its nuclear arsenal. Some of this spending is truly needed and can help ensure that Washington maintains a safe, secure, and effective arsenal to defend itself and its allies. But many of the projects are too expensive or redundant, and out of step with today’s strategic and budgetary environment. Put simply, the United States does not need a penetrating stealth bomber, a new air dropped bomb AND a long-range standoff cruise missile armed with nuclear weapons on top of a new submarine and new ICBM. Priorities have to be set and choice have to be made.”

--“During the cold war when we planned for and equipped ourselves for all and any contingencies, such a duplication of effort and expense might have made sense. But such extravagance and redundancy today does not, especially in the face of severe budget constraints that are preventing the Government from pursuing critical programs in many other areas even inside the Pentagon.”

--“The Congress appears unable to rationalize these choices so far in its annual budget process, and the White House has yet to try to knit these long-range programs together in a way that is sustainable after the end of the five-year pentagon planning process. Finally, however, it appears that planners inside the military itself are starting to realize that the pie will not be large enough to feed every nuclear project and that some tradeoffs will have to be made. Eliminating — not just delaying — the plan for long-range standoff missiles is a small but important step toward freeing up resources for so many other more supportable, logical priorities.” Read the full piece here. http://bit.ly/1k7qsTi

Expanding missile defense - “The United States is considering deploying more regional missile-defense systems in the Pacific to counter North Korea,” writes Dan Lamothe in The Washington Post. “Adm. James A. Winnefeld Jr. said that as the United States faces an era of declining budgets, it is likely that Washington will increasingly rely on its allies to protect themselves from the threat of ballistic missiles. But he highlighted the deployment last year of a U.S. Army battery manning an advanced missile-defense system in Guam and left open the possibility that the United States may make similar moves in the future.”

--“‘There it remains, readily deployable if necessary to somewhere else in the world if needed, but in the meantime defending U.S. soil from potential threats,’ Winnefeld said of the system in Guam. ‘And with the unpredictability of the North Korean regime, we may find ourselves doing more of this sort of thing in the future elsewhere in the region.’ The comments came as the Pentagon is reportedly exploring the idea of placing a similar system in South Korea. He did not mention that during his remarks Tuesday but said the United States continues to rely on ‘strong bilateral alliances in the Pacific with South Korea, Japan and Australia.’ South Korea is thought to be hesitant to participate in a regional missile shield with the United States and Japan, preferring to develop its own instead.” Get the full story here. http://wapo.st/1kkdPj9

Tweet - @nukes_of_hazard: W/talk of THAAD to ROK, further proof Obama admin doing more to broaden geographic scope/diversity of missile defense than any prior admin

Upsetting the balance - “China warned against the deployment of a proposed U.S. missile-defense system in South Korea, saying such a move would unnecessarily raise regional tensions,” write Te-Ping Chen and Alastair Gale in The Wall Street Journal. “South Korean President Park Geun-hye said in an interview Wednesday that any new proposal by the U.S. to introduce a missile-defense system in South Korea could be discussed by the countries' defense ministers. But China, North Korea's main ally in the region, was less supportive of the prospect of such a system. ‘We believe that the deployment of antimissile systems in this region will not help maintain stability and strategic balance in this region,’ said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang,” highlighting “the region's ‘uncertainties, complexities and sensitivities’” and reiterating “China's desire for denuclearization on the Korean peninsula.” Get the full story here. http://on.wsj.com/1hBODVw

Not interested - “Georgia is not interested in hosting NATO antimissile systems on its territory, despite Russian claims to the contrary,” Global Security Newswire reports. “‘Moscow is likely to be well informed about this,’ said Zurab Abashidze, the Georgian prime minister's special envoy on Russian relations, in denying that his government held aspirations of missile defense cooperation with NATO. Russia last week voiced concern that Georgia was trying to convince the Western military alliance to deploy missile defense systems on its soil.” Full story here. http://bit.ly/1gDLnhf

Not interested either - “South Korea on Tuesday rejected recent calls by American lawmakers to join a U.S.-led antimissile framework in East Asia,” Global Security Newswire reports. “South Korea's evolving national antimissile framework -- the Korea Air and Missile Defense system -- is focused on responding to nonstrategic missiles launched from nearby North Korea. Seoul has rejected repeated proposals from Washington to connect its antimissile capabilities to a regional missile shield that the United States is constructing with support from Japan. The South wishes to avoid antagonizing China, which views the U.S.-led framework as aimed at containing its military rise, and is also leery about entering into defense agreements with Tokyo.” Full article here. http://bit.ly/1k7yETv

Unproven defenses - “The history of the debate over missile defense is full of miscalculations about its possible benefits versus its risks and costs,” writes Laura Grego in All Things Nuclear. “Probably much of that is due to the fact that strategic missile defense always sounds better after 30 seconds than it does after 30 minutes. Its capabilities are frequently overstated and its downsides not always appreciated (although the Government Accountability Office’s recent cost assessment for the Ground Based Midcourse missile defense (GMD) system—$41 billion—is hard not to appreciate).”

--“When it comes to strategic missile defense—defending the homeland against long-range missiles—the U.S. has been incurring the costs, both financial and geopolitical, for decades. And yet the system’s ability to actually defend against an attack is totally unproven. That’s because despite decades of effort and many billions of dollars, there has never been a single operationally realistic test of the system. For example, the GMD system has never been tested against an intercontinental range missile. It hasn’t been tested without the system knowing the time and place of the target missile’s launch ahead of time. It hasn’t tried to hit a tumbling warhead, or a warhead accompanied by significant amounts of launch debris or numbers of intentional decoys. And so on.” Read the full piece here. http://bit.ly/1mv4JDb

Considering alternatives - “After a billion dollars and almost a decade of designing and redesigning, the Department of Energy has conducted a review of alternatives to the costly Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) construction project at the Y-12 nuclear complex,” writes Lydia Dennett for the Project on Government Oversight. “In January 2014, the Energy Department formed a ‘Red Team’ led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory Director Thom Mason to review the UPF project and suggest alternatives. This Red Team review may be the last nail in the coffin for this 19 billion-dollar boondoggle. The costs for the facility, a new building originally designed to replace the uranium processing capabilities of several facilities at Y-12, have skyrocketed since the project was first sold to Congress in 2005.”

--“The Red Team identified several steps that must be taken in order to complete the project within budget constraints as soon as possible. For instance, the report expressed the need for a strong and continuous leadership, and “significant and sustained oversight.” And the Red Team recommended immediately scrapping the current ‘big box,’ above ground UPF design and instead focusing on augmenting and utilizing existing Y-12 facilities as well as constructing smaller, ‘new build’ facilities... The review was an important first step in moving away from the costly, and unnecessary ‘big box’ UPF design. It is our hope that the Energy Department will carefully consider the many recommendations by the Red Team, POGO, and others before wasting any more taxpayer dollars on this facility.” Full piece here. http://bit.ly/1k46tVB

Rethinking nonproliferation - “A new academic paper contends that the international community's focus on ‘supply-side’ technology constraints to stop nuclear proliferation is failing,” reports Rachel Oswald for Global Security Newswire. “In a paper published on Tuesday in International Security, R. Scott Kemp argues that policymakers are overly reliant on limiting international market access to certain sensitive technologies and substances that can be used to produce nuclear fuel. This follows the belief -- which the author thinks is ‘misguided’ -- that with the exception of a few advanced industrial nations, a country's capacity to develop nuclear arms ‘hinges on its ability’ to import the necessary equipment.”

--“Kemp, a onetime science adviser on nonproliferation issues at the State Department, argues that the international community should recalibrate how much energy it devotes to ‘supply-side’ measures, in contrast to approaches aimed at dissuading states from pursuing atomic arms in the first place. In an interview with the MIT News office, Kemp said, ‘We need to get past the idea that we can control the destiny of nations by regulating access to technology. International security must ultimately resort to the difficult business of politics.’" Read the full article here. http://bit.ly/RG0Yko

Waste transfer - “U.S. regulators have opted against ordering the expedited transfer of spent atomic fuel from above-ground pools to dry casks,” Global Security Newswire reports. “The Nuclear Regulatory Commission decided to abide by an internal advisement to cease exploring the idea of requiring atomic energy plants to speed up the removal of used fuel from storage pools to metal and concrete containers, according to a Friday commission memo.”

--“A number of U.S. lawmakers and activists have criticized the nuclear energy industry's longstanding practice of keeping large quantities of highly radioactive atomic material in lightly protected storage pools. Their concern is that the used fuel could escape its container and disperse harmful radiation into the environment in the event of an earthquake, flood or terrorist attack.” Full piece here. http://bit.ly/1rklKGQ

Mulling over ratification - “Singapore is considering updates to its laws that would enable the country to join a treaty on protecting nuclear materials from theft,” Global Security Newswire reports. “The bill -- introduced days before Singapore is set to host the annual Shangri-La regional security forum -- would allow the Southeast Asian nation to join the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, as well as a 2005 amendment expanding on the original pact… The original treaty sets standards for securing international shipments of civilian nuclear material, while the 2005 update would apply similar measures for the domestic use and transfer of nonmilitary atomic substances.”

--“We are small and densely populated. Any nuclear or radiological incident would be a major disaster, perhaps an existential one,” says Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Full piece here. http://bit.ly/ShL00C

Events:

--“U.S.-Iran Relations Past Present and Future.” Discussion with Hossein Mousavian and John Marks. June 3 at 9:30am at the Atlantic Council, 1030 15th St., NW, Floor 12. RSVP here. http://bit.ly/1knlaU2

--“Chain Reaction 2014.” Ploughshares Fund Gala with Michael Douglas, Jeremy Ben-Ami and Trita Parsi. June 3 from 6:00 to 8:30 at The Open Square at Futures Without Violence, 100 Montgomery Street, The Presidio of San Francisco. Purchase tickets here. http://bit.ly/1nexkld

--“U.S. Missile Defense Developments: How Far? How Fast?” Discussion with Cristina Chaplain, Phil Coyle, Laura Grego, and James Miller; moderated by Steven Pifer. June 4 from 10:00-11:30am at the Brookings Institution, Saul/Zilkha Rooms, 1775 Massachusetts Ave., NW. RSVP here. http://bit.ly/1lUd81A

--“Israel, Saudi, and Iranian Responses in the Days After a Deal With Iran.” Discussion with Alireza Nader, Dalia Dassa Kaye, and Jeffrey Martini. Moderated by Lynne Davis. June 4 from 1:00 to 2:00 at 2200 Rayburn House Office Building. RSVP here. http://bit.ly/RBn07W

--“Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era: India, Pakistan, China and the Future of Deterrence Stability." Discussion with Vipin Narang and Peter Lavoy. June 4 from 3:00 to 4:30 at the Stimson Center, 1111 19th St., NW, Floor 12. RSVP here. http://bit.ly/1h9mbzS

--“Nuclear Flashpoints: U.S.-Iran Tensions Over Terms and Timetables.” Discussion with Stephen Hadley, Jon Wolfsthal, Daryl Kimball and Robert Litwak. June 10 from 9:30 to 11:00 at the Wilson Center, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, floor 6. RSVP here. http://bit.ly/1tqM3Hk