Budget Bailout Sought for $90 Billion Sub

March 13, 2014 | Edited by Lauren Mladenka and Geoff Wilson

Bailout - “Some U.S. lawmakers are calling for funding the Navy's new fleet of ballistic-missile submarines outside its regular shipbuilding budget,” Global Security Newswire reports. “U.S. Representative Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) and Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) contend that the tens of billions of dollars needed to build a successor fleet to the Ohio-class submarine should not come out of the usual funds because the vessels are a national strategic asset.”

--“The Navy plans to start constructing the first new ballistic-missile submarine in 2021, with deployment anticipated to follow a decade later. A total of 12 new such vessels are expected to be built, each outfitted with 16 nuclear-tipped Trident missiles. The program is forecast to cost a total of $90 billion. The Navy says that if it bears responsibility for the entire program price, it would cut significantly into funding for other shipbuilding initiatives.” Read the full report here. http://bit.ly/1iEKNwa

Sanctions and aid - “Senate Republicans are divided over whether to push Iran sanctions as part of a pending financial aid package for Ukraine,” Al-Monitor reports. “A number of hawkish members argue that Republicans should latch on to every legislative vehicle that hits the floor to force Democrats to publicly debate and vote on the sanctions measure.”

--“Others, however, are urging a quick vote on a $1 billion line of credit to Ukraine to help the fledgling interim government stave off fiscal calamity. They say helping Ukraine stand up to Russia should be the top priority.” Full article here. http://bit.ly/1cWDhco

B61 integration - “The US Air Force budget request for Fiscal Year 2015 shows that integration of the B61-12 on NATO F-16 and Tornado aircraft will start in 2015 for completion in 2017 and 2018,” writes Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists. “The integration marks the beginning of a significant enhancement of the military capability of NATO’s nuclear posture in Europe and comes only three years after NATO in 2012 said its current nuclear posture meets its security requirements and that it was working to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons.”

--“The arrangement of equipping non-nuclear NATO allies with the capability and role to deliver US nuclear weapons was in place before the NPT entered into effect and was accepted by the NPT regime during the Cold War. But for NATO to continue this arrangement contradicts the non-proliferation standards that the member countries are trying to promote in the post-Cold War world,” Kristensen says. “How scattering enhanced nuclear bombs across Europe in five non-nuclear countries will enable ‘bold reductions’ in US and Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe and help create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons is another question.” Full article here. http://bit.ly/OolwMZ

Budget roundup - “Over the past two weeks, experts have published over two dozen articles criticizing the nuclear spending plans in President Obama's defense budget for Fiscal Year 2015,” writes Lauren Mladenka for Ploughshares Fund. To help you get up to speed on this issue, “we [have provided] some of the best stories on the nuclear budget and why experts believe these plans do not match our real defense needs.” Read the full article and and bibliography here. http://bit.ly/1gnfEyi

Cheating as culture - As a young ROTC graduate, “Edward Warren was shocked when he learned that the airmen in charge of the nation's nuclear-tipped missiles regularly cheated on tests,” writes Geoff Brumfiel in a piece for NPR. “But while serving at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming from 2009-2013, Warren saw lots of cheating. The cause, according to Warren and other former missile launch officers reached by NPR, was a culture driven by constant demand for perfection. Promotions hinged on perfect test scores, and young officers had a choice, he says: ‘Take your lumps and not have much of a career, or join in with your fellow launch officers and help each other out, and that is what most people did.’”

--“This month, the Air Force is scheduled to release the results of its investigation of cheating at another missile base: Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana… NPR reached eight former missile officers, including Warren, who served over decades. All but one admitted that they had participated in some kind of cheating on tests. What's more, they described a culture of cheating that permeated the remote bases that stand guard over the nation's nuclear stockpile… Accepting mistakes in a culture of nuclear weapons may sound unacceptable, but Warren says the current system is worse. ‘Right now what we're doing is setting a standard of perfection, of 100 percent all the time, and no one can achieve that,’ he says. ‘A perfection standard is no standard at all.’” http://n.pr/1cUx1rn

Working together - “The White House's top arms control official on Wednesday said US cooperation with Russia on agreements limiting nuclear arsenals would survive the worst East-West tensions in years sparked by Ukraine,” AFP reports. “Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall said that US and Russian officials were even now working ‘effectively’ together to prepare for a nuclear security summit in The Hague later this month which President Barack Obama will attend.” Read the full piece here. http://bit.ly/1fVupJO

Tweet - @BulletinAtomic: Read about Castle Bravo, the nuclear weapon test whose detonation was 2 1/2 times what was expected: http://bit.ly/1fzhvAd

Tweet - @Cirincione: Just to be clear, we canceled Bush Euro anti-missile scheme BECAUSE IT DIDN'T WORK, not "to placate" Putin. http://bit.ly/1oPYEl1

Missile defense politics - Some prominent Republican lawmakers are again making political hay out of a 2009 decision to cancel the Bush administration’s unworkable missile defense concept for Europe, this time in response to Russia's recent incursion in Ukraine. Global Security Newswire has the story. http://bit.ly/1iEPvOR

In memoriam - Donald A. Mahley, a retired Army colonel and nuclear weapons officer who went on to become the State Department’s chief nonproliferation negotiator with the rank of ambassador, died March 1 at his home in Vienna, Va. He was 71.” Full piece in The Washington Post. http://wapo.st/1nTgkO0

Quick-hits:

--“White House Expects Russia to Stick to Arms Treaties, Despite Ukraine Crisis” by Douglas Guarino in the National Journal. http://bit.ly/1nTz9Aw

--“Change How We Test, Care, Feed Air Force ICBM Crews” by Bob Butterworth in Breaking Defense. http://bit.ly/1fzrwgR

Events:

--“Nuclear Weapons Gone Missing: What Does History Teach US?” Discussion with Henry Sokolski, Charles Ferguson, Edwin Lyman, and Jodi Lieberman. March 13 from 3:15-5:00, room HC-8, Capitol Building. RSVP by email to monica.herman@mail.house.gov

--“Nuclear Security and Japan’s Plutonium Path.” Discussion with Douglas Birch, Jeffrey Smith, Matthew Bunn, and Ambassador Nobuyasu Abe; moderated by Robert Einhorn. March 14 from 1:30-3:00 at Brookings, Falk Auditorium, 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. RSVP here. http://bit.ly/1jRpx7P