Will Obama Leave a Radioactive Legacy?

Obama’s budget passes the buck - “Whoever wins in November, President Obama is handing him or her a huge headache. There is a defense budget crisis on the horizon, but the Pentagon is hiding its head in the sand. Defense Secretary Ash Carter’s reluctance to deal with it threatens to waste billions and saddle the next president with a political time bomb before she/he even sets foot in the White House,” writes Ploughshares Fund’s Policy Director Tom Collina for Defense News.

--“18 major Pentagon programs were terminated in the 2000s, but only after the nation wasted $59 billion on them. That $59 billion could have bought Army brigades, Navy carriers groups, Air Force fighter wings, or Marine infantry. Or it could have bought better public schools, more alternative energy or more snowplows. Instead it went down a rat hole… Here is a radical thought; let’s not do this again. What if the Pentagon only started programs that it had high confidence it could actually finish?” Find the full article here. http://bit.ly/1V6cfWM

Tweet - @DefTechPat: President's FY 2017 budget requests $1 billion for ICBM research and testing vs. $39 mil enacted in FY 2016. The Cold War is back, baby.

New budget is a missed opportunity - “The president’s final budget request released today is divorced from reality. The Fiscal Year 2017 proposal contains significant increases for several Defense and Energy department nuclear weapons systems pursuant to the Obama administration’s redundant, all-of-the-above approach to remodeling the arsenal… The request does not make significant changes to the planned development timelines for these programs,” writes Kingston Reif for Arms Control Now.

--“The president missed one of his last opportunities to make common sense adjustments to the current nuclear weapons spending trajectory. According to a Congressional Budget Office report in January 2015, the direct costs of the administration's plans for nuclear forces will total about $350 billion between fiscal 2015 and fiscal 2024. Over the next 30 years, the bill could add up to $1 trillion, according to three separate independent estimates.” Read the full piece here. http://bit.ly/1TajfCW

See also - “Pentagon Protects Nuclear Modernization Programs in FY17 Budget,” by Aaron Mehta for Defense News. http://bit.ly/1Xirtt1

Time for NATO’s nukes to go - “The nuclear agreement with Iran… will preclude an Iranian bomb and mitigate the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East... But North Korea continues to develop and test its nuclear capabilities, India and Pakistan show no signs of winding down their nuclear competition, and Russia and China have forged ahead... And in Europe, the risk of nuclear use, although low, may be increasing,” by Richard Sokolsky and Gordon Adams in Foreign Affairs.

--“Ridding Europe of its Cold War nuclear legacy would be a good place for the next president to achieve early progress in making the world a safer place. U.S. tactical nuclear weapons on the continent and NATO’s plans to modernize and increase the capabilities of its nuclear systems may be increasing the risk of nuclear use and undermining NATO’s conventional defense capabilities. The United States needs to take bold action to rethink NATO’s nuclear deterrent…” Full story here. http://fam.ag/1PCm76X

SC won’t let MOX die - “The Obama administration has proposed to put a stake through the heart of a huge nuclear [weapon explosive to fuel program] in South Carolina that Congress just won’t let die, despite billions of dollars in cost overruns and a long-term price tag that officials say is wildly unaffordable… ‘I don’t think there’s any question that they’re just trying to salvage a jobs program at this point,’ [Union of Concerned Scientists’ Edwin] Lyman said,” writes Patrick Malone for The Center for Public Integrity. http://bit.ly/1o0AX0l

Tweet - @Ali_Gharib: TROLL SO HARD is basically the GOP's Iran policy, at this point. http://1.usa.gov/1QaDQYT

Iran Deal doesn’t have to cause conflict - “Global powers agree: diplomacy with Iran is essential, and it has proven successful. Saudi Arabia, however, begs to differ. It leads a group of countries that can be counted on one hand who refuse to budge from their zero sum position. As Kurt Vonnegut would say: So it goes. We love it, the Saudis hate it—one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. And yet, a quixotic mix of excuses is being used to blame America for the Saudi-Iran conflict. This is nonsense,” writes Reza Marashi for The Cairo Review of Global Affairs.

--“The Saudi argument is bipolar. First they argued that Washington should ‘cut off the head of the snake’ and bomb Iran in order to stop it from building nuclear weapons and taking over the region. Now they argue that a deal preventing Iran from building nuclear weapons empowers its efforts to take over the region. Riyadh put President Barack Obama in a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ position, and he wisely chose the path that prioritized American interests.” Full piece here. http://bit.ly/20qG0CY

Avoiding the apocalypse - “In the early 1980s, American and Russian scientists working together outlined a stark vision of the Cold War future. In a battle between the two superpowers, smoke from fires ignited by nuclear explosions would be so dense that it would block out the sun, turning the earth cold, dark and dry, killing plants and preventing agriculture for at least a year. This dystopia became known as nuclear winter,” write Alan Robock and Owen Brian Toon for The New York Times.

--“A nuclear war between any two countries using 100 Hiroshima-size atom bombs, less than half of the combined arsenals of India and Pakistan, could produce climate change unseen in recorded human history. This is why we should celebrate the recent agreement with Iran, which may stop it from producing a nuclear weapon. And it is also why we should look with deep alarm at North Korea’s recent launching of a rocket to put a satellite in orbit, in what is believed to be an effort to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile.” Full article here.
http://nyti.ms/1Q9qs0E

The overblown North Korean threat - “Any North Korean weapons test comes with great concern for Japan... With almost a week’s worth of notice, Tokyo put the Japan Self-Defense Forces on high readiness. Tokyo wheeled out its PAC-3 anti-ballistic missile launchers and sent its AEGIS-equipped destroyers to the Sea of Japan… But like every launch, nothing fell on Japan. Not even a single bolt. This left some Japanese critics asking ‘what was it all for?’ writes James Simpson for War is Boring.

--“Few politicians consider North Korea a serious threat to Japan today, and conservatives are far less cautious about their desire to balance against a more powerful China. When North Korea rattles its sabers, Japan’s conservative leadership will milk it for all its worth. Left out is a realistic — and skeptical — appraisal of the North Korean threat.” Find the full story here. http://bit.ly/1o2wtpi

Quick Hits:

--“6 Reasons Not to Reboot the Cold War: Back to a future we really need to leave behind,” by Miriam Pemberton for Otherwords.
http://bit.ly/1WgbBpM

--“Los Alamos lab would get $2.1 billion in proposed budget; officials discuss plans for making plutonium ‘pits,’” by Mark Oswald for the Albuquerque Journal. http://bit.ly/1SKj4jq

--“CTBTO’s Verification System Thwarts Nuclear Tests,” by Thalif Deen for Inter Press Service. http://bit.ly/1o2fELi

--“Trident: the British question,” by Ian Jack for the Guardian. http://bit.ly/1QsULjB

--“What Obama’s Air Force Budget Request Says About the Future of Warfare,” by Patrick Tucker for Defense One. http://bit.ly/1o2MJrf

--“Nuclear deal done. Embargo lifting. What about tea?” by Marco Werman for PRI. http://bit.ly/1o6VFvD

Events:

--House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic forces, hearing on “Fiscal Year 2017 Budget Request for Atomic Energy Defense Activities,” with Frank Klotz, Administrator, National Nuclear Security Administration; Monica Regalbuto, Assistant Secretary of energy for Environmental Management; and Joyce Connery, Chairwoman, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. Feb. 11 at 2:00 p.m., at 2118 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington. Webcast on the committee website. http://1.usa.gov/1XlBl5q

--“North Korea: The Human Rights and Security Nexus,” featuring Michael Kirby, Chair, United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in North Korea; Sonja Biserko, President, Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia; Marzuki Darusman (invited) UN Special Rapporteur on the Situation on Human Rights in the DPRK; Signe Poulsen Head, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Seoul; and Robert King, Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights Issues, U.S. Department of State. Feb. 19 from 9:00 a.m. to 4:20 p.m. at the Center for International and Strategic Studies, 2nd Floor Conference Center 1616 Rhode Island Avenue, NW Washington. http://bit.ly/20jOMTb

--Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, hearing on “Department of Energy Atomic Energy Defense Activities and Programs,” featuring Frank Klotz, Undersecretary for Nuclear Security and five other witnesses. Feb. 23 at 2:30 p.m. Located at 232 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington. Webcast on the committee website. http://1.usa.gov/1o2ystZ

Dessert:

How to Survive a Nuclear Bomb - In this interactive experience presented by the BBC, make choices to survive in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. http://bit.ly/1QY3Vag