Nuclear Strategy, Spending on Autopilot

On the radar: Reality vs rhetoric on nuclear spending; IAEA report preview; Detensioning; Minuteman test; and Dogtagging or tattooing children.

May 21, 2013 | Edited by Benjamin Loehrke and Alyssa Demus

Strategic and fiscal realities - Republican members of congress often protest that the Obama administration isn’t spending as much on nuclear weapons as they expected, given plans issued with the New START treaty. Such claims are out of touch with reality, writes Kingston Reif, noting that Republican appropriators in the House - not the Obama administration - are spearheading spending cuts. Regardless, the US can modernize its arsenal for less than what was proposed.

--Reif describes the recent nuclear spending spree as a symptom of a larger problem: “US nuclear weapons policy has been on autopilot since the end of the Cold War.” Threats have changed and budgets are tight, yet defense planners still cling to plans for replacing the nuclear arsenal in ways that “will suck funding from higher-priority security programs and could saddle the United States with an outsized and ill-suited nuclear arsenal for decades to come.”

--“Decisions about the future of the deterrent must be made on the basis of need and affordability - not fealty to a spending plan hashed out for political reasons nearly three years ago...Bringing policy in line with the fact that nuclear weapons play a fading security role would allow for significant changes to the US arsenal, and by extension, significant budget savings,” writes Reif. Full article in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. http://owl.li/lf6cR

Incoming IAEA report - An IAEA report on Iran, due this week, is expected to show Iran is continuing to install advanced uranium centrifuges. The report is also expected to show Iran continues to limit its stock of 20% enriched uranium by converting a portion of it into reactor fuel. Fredrik Dahl at Reuters has the preview. http://reut.rs/10iWbHJ

Tweet - @FMWG: FMWG Press Release -- House Passes Anti-Nuclear Terror Legislation: Experts Call on Senate for Prompt Approval. http://t.co/iLM9ex1rQd

Welcome to Early Warning - Subscribe to our morning email or follow us on twitter.

--Have a tip or feedback for the editor? Email earlywarning@ploughshares.org. Want to support this work? Click here.

Less tense - "A few months ago, we saw underground nuclear tests, we saw long-range missile tests, we saw heated rhetoric...So I think we can safely say that we remain in a period of tensions that are relatively on a small scale by comparison,” said Pentagon spokesman George Little about North Korea’s latest, small scale provocation. From Reuters. http://reut.rs/12SyioO

Missile test - A Minuteman III ICBM test, postponed in April due to tensions with North Korea, was scheduled to take place early this morning. The unarmed missile was to fly 4,190 miles from Vandenberg AFB to Kwajalein Atoll. Story from AP. http://wapo.st/13Ib6f4

Tweet - @CNSWolfsthal: The world's authority on Israel's nukes (and CNS Education Director) just joined twitter. How can you resist following @avnercohen123.

Tweet - @ctbto_alerts: FACES interview with Morton Halperin, Senior Advisor @OpenSociety on making #nuclear weapons obsolete for all http://t.co/vvKKVUHIwl

Other views:

--Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) disagrees with Obama administration missile defense policy, jockeys for an East Coast site. In Real Clear Defense. http://bit.ly/YWBLDp

--James Woolsey and Peter Vincent Pry think we should blast North Korea before they EMP us into the dark ages. More missile defense spending somehow fixes this. In The Wall Street Journal. http://on.wsj.com/10LZK8U

--The Post and Courier, of Charleston, SC, wants money to keep flowing into South Carolina’s “imperiled MOX plant.” They also want Yucca Mountain to reopen, because South Carolina doesn’t want to keep the radioactive waste either. http://bit.ly/1a0FNfu

Tweet - @jrezaian: In #Iran, disputes over foreign policy divide presidential candidates. #iranelection http://owl.li/lfeRZ

Events:

--House Foreign Affairs Committee, markup of the Nuclear Iran Prevention Act of 2013, H.R. 850. May 22, time TBD. 2172 Rayburn House Office Building. Webcast here. http://owl.li/l3A4S

--House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, markup of its portion of the defense authorization bill, H.R. 1960, which includes the nuclear weapons programs of the National Nuclear Security Administration. May 22, 10:30 am. 2212 Rayburn House Office Building. Webcast here. http://owl.li/lcEXg

--”Options for Reducing Nuclear Arms,” Bruce Blair, Keith Payne, and Steven Pifer. Moderated by Michael O’Hanlon. May 22, 10:00-11:30am @ Brookings. Details here. http://owl.li/l3xE2

--Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and NATO officials meet with Russian officials to discuss missile defense. Moscow. May 23-24.

--"Nuclear Terrorism: What’s at Stake?" Jay Cohen, David Waller, Stephen Flynn, Stanton Sloane. May 29 8:00-9:30 am. American Security Project. 1100 New York Ave, NW, Seventh Floor, West Tower. Details here. http://owl.li/lcEuT

--”The Kaleidoscope Turns Again in a Crisis-Challenged Iran,” Yasmin Alem and Suzanne Maloney, moderated by Barbara Slavin. May 30, 12:00-1:30 pm @ The Atlantic Council. Details here. http://owl.li/l8cYq

Dessert:

Branded for armageddon - “In February of 1952 the city of New York bought 2.5 million dog tags. By April of that year, just about every kid in the city from kindergarten to fourth grade had a tag with their name on it. Kids in many other cities like San Francisco, Seattle, Las Vegas and Philadelphia also got dog tags, allowing for easy identification should the unthinkable occur. But educators weren't considering just dog tags to identify the scores of dead and injured children that would result if the cold war suddenly turned hot. They also considered tattoos,” writes Matt Novac for Gizmodo.

--”Somehow I missed that episode of Leave it to Beaver where the Beav gets a tattoo for corpse identification purposes.” Full post here. http://bit.ly/10iRxcC

Tweet - @RANDCorporation: Chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear attacks: What to expect and how to react. A pocket guide. http://trib.al/HYzgO28