Nuke Subs Sinking Navy Budget

Posted on May 14, 2013 by
Ohio class ballistic missile submarine USS West Virginia (SSBN 736) transits the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway as it returns to Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Ga. from a patrol mission. (U.S. Navy photo Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Kimberly Clifford/Released)

Ohio class ballistic missile submarine USS West Virginia (SSBN 736) transits the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway as it returns to Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Ga. from a patrol mission. (U.S. Navy photo Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Kimberly Clifford/Released)

By Tom Z. Collina

In these days of high-stakes budget battles on Capitol Hill, it is typical for budget managers to point at someone else’s program as the problem. But when everyone starts pointing at the same program, you know it’s in trouble.

And everyone—including the Navy—seems to be pointing their fingers at the Navy’s $100 billion program to build 12 new nuclear-armed submarines, known as the Ohio Replacement or the SSBN(X).

On May 10, the Navy sent its much-anticipated FY2014 long-range shipbuilding plan to Congress. The plan lays bare why the new sub is in hot water. In his cover letter to the report, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel wrote, in an understatement, that “there will be resourcing challenges…largely due to investment requirements associated with the SSBN(X) program.”

The report itself is more blunt. It says that if the Navy funds the SSBN(X) “from within its own resources,” the program will “take away from construction of other ships in the battle force such as attack submarines, destroyers, aircraft carriers and amphibious warfare ships. The resulting battle force will not meet the requirements of the [2012 Navy Force Structure Assessment] and will therefore not be sufficient to implement the [Defense Strategic Guidance]. In addition, there will be significant impact to the shipbuilding industrial base.” Continue reading →

Posted in Nuclear Weapons | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Alleged Syrian Chemical Weapons Use: What’s Next?

Posted on April 25, 2013 by
U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel speaks with reporters after reading a statement on chemical weapon use in Syria during a press conference in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Thursday, April 25, 2013. (Image source: AP)

U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel speaks with reporters about Syria during a press conference in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on Thursday, April 25, 2013. (Image source: AP)

By Daryl G. Kimball, Greg Thielmann, and Kelsey Davenport

The U.S. intelligence community “assesses with varying degrees of confidence, that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons on a small scale in Syria, specifically, the chemical agent sarin,” according to information released by the White House on April 25 in a letter to Senators Levin and McCain.

The U.S. allegations follow letters written to the UN Secretary General by both France and the United Kingdom, and public allegations by Israel, that chemical weapons have been used in the Syrian civil war on multiple occasions since December 2012.

Despite the mounting evidence, it is important to emphasize that the U.S. assessment of chemical weapons use is not yet definitive. The April 25 letter said that the “chain of custody is not clear” making it difficult to determine how the exposure occurred and “under what conditions.”

This assessment increases the urgency of empowering the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to thoroughly investigate the very serious possibility that the Syrian government has authorized the use of internationally banned chemical weapons against its own people.

Next Steps

Now, the international community must unite in efforts to achieve a full investigation of the evidence. In particular, the UN Security Council should meet to outline a course of action to prevent any further use of chemical weapons, including ensuring that the Syrian Government permits and facilitates access by the team the UN Secretary General has called on to conduct the investigation.

Continue reading →

Posted in Biological and Chemical Weapons, Chemical Weapons, Middle East | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

The Prague Nuclear Agenda, Part Two

Posted on April 22, 2013 by
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Sen. Jeanne Shaheen speaks at ACA’s event at the National Press Club on April 11, 2013

By Tom Z. Collina

Four years after the historic speech in Prague laying out his nuclear policy priorities, President Barack Obama must now decide which issues to focus on in his second—and last—term.

The administration accomplished many important arms control and nonproliferation milestones since April 2009, such as the New START treaty, the Nuclear Posture Review, the Nuclear Security Summits, and the 2010 NPT review conference consensus, but much is left to be done, as this ACA fact sheet underscores.

To better understand the nuclear policy to-do list and help inform priorities, ACA held a press conference (transcript available) on April 11 with Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), who sits on both the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees; Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz (USAF, ret.), former Commander, U.S. Global Strike Command; Amb. Steve Pifer, Director, Brookings Arms Control Initiative; and Amb. James Goodby, Research Fellow, Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

Continue reading →

Posted in Asia, CTBT, Europe, Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, Iran, Middle East, Missile Defense, New START, Non-proliferation, North Korea, Nuclear Security, Nuclear Weapons, Russia, Tactical Nuclear Weapons | Leave a comment

How to Read the North Korean Nuclear Missile Threat

Posted on April 12, 2013 by

By Greg Thielmann

North Korea parades a KN-08 in an April 2012 parade.

North Korea parades a KN-08 in April 2012. Experts believe it is a mock-up.

Enduring the continuous barrage of nuclear missile threats coming out of North Korea in recent days is not for the faint-hearted. But seeking to separate the real from the rhetorical is an essential task for policy-makers, pundits, and the public.

What is clear is that North Korea is not likely to have nuclear-tipped missile capable of threatening the U.S. mainland for quite some time. However, North Korea can launch on short notice a devastating artillery attack on the ten million inhabitants of Seoul, the capital of South Korea.

North Korea could also launch missile attacks on cities in both the South Korea and Japan. Although it is possible that these missiles may already or could soon have a capability to deliver a few nuclear weapons, they almost certainly do not have a reliable capability to do so today.

If North Korea ever develops a credible threat to launch nuclear-tipped ballistic missile warheads against the United States and its allies, it will be the certain prospect of retaliation rather than the uncertain prospect of successful interception by missile defenses that will stay the hands of the leadership in Pyongyang.

Having spent some years in government seeking to answer policy-makers’ questions about complicated technical issues when critically relevant information is unavailable, I wanted to suggest a couple of tips to readers. Following this guide will lead one to some reassuring conclusions as well as some continuing reasons for concern:

Start with what is known

  • In this case, we know that North Korea has processed plutonium from its now inoperative Yongbyon reactor that could be used as fissile fuel for nuclear weapons and we know what that amount was.  Plutonium was used in at least the first two of North Korea’s three underground nuclear tests.  This would leave North Korea with sufficient plutonium to build 4-8 nuclear weapons, depending on the sophistication of the design.
  • North Korea has centrifuges to enrich uranium to the high level necessary to be used as fuel for nuclear weapons. We do not know about the amount of North Korea’s highly enriched uranium stockpiles. We do not know whether a uranium device was used in the third nuclear test. Continue reading →
Posted in North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, Regions | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

NNSA Nuclear Weapons Budget Ignores Fiscal Realities; Congress Should Re-Examine B61 Project

Posted on April 11, 2013 by

By Daryl G. Kimball and Tom Z. Collina

The Barack Obama administration’s fiscal year 2014 budget request proposes spending $7.87 billion for National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Weapons Activities, which would be an increase of $654 million, or nine percent above the 2012 enacted level, and $300 million more than the Continuing Resolution for fiscal year 2013.

The cost of the NNSA's ambitious B61 bomb life extension program may exceed $10 billion. Cost-effective alternatives are available.

The cost of the NNSA’s ambitious B61 bomb life extension program may exceed $10 billion. Cost-effective alternatives are available.

And as John Fleck of the Albuquerque Journal notes in a report he posted Wednesday, “The Obama administration’s budget request, being rolled out today, calls for a 23 percent increase in the budget for U.S. nuclear weapons research, manufacturing and maintenance over the next five years,” according to a budget summary document (PDF, page 371) released by the Office of Management and Budget.

So long as the United States has a nuclear arsenal, funding for the core programs to maintain an effective arsenal will be needed, but that can be accomplished in a more cost-effective manner.

Unfortunately, the administration’s proposal for increased NNSA weapons activities spending doesn’t take into account the fiscal headwinds now blowing across the federal budget and it ignores some common-sense cost savings strategies on some of the most costly projects. Continue reading →

Posted in Nuclear Weapons, Tactical Nuclear Weapons, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

What Does DoD’s Missile Defense Announcement Mean?

Posted on March 15, 2013 by
(Image Source: Missile Defense Agency - FTM-16 E2a Flight Test)

(Image Source: Missile Defense Agency – FTM-16 E2a Flight Test)

By Tom Z. Collina, Daryl G. Kimball, and Greg Thielmann

Today, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced adjustments to U.S. missile defense plans designed to counter a potential limited attack involving a small number of unsophisticated long-range ballistic missiles that could, at some point in the future, be developed by states such as North Korea and Iran.

The Obama administration’s decision to cancel the fourth phase of its missile defense plans in Europe is a prudent move given that the technology involving the Standard Missile 3-IIB is not ripe and given the fact that the Iranian long-range missile threat has yet to materialize. Phase four of the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA) is a system that may not work against a threat that does not yet exist.

As explained in detail in an article in Foreign Policy, the decision on phase four should reduce Russian concerns about the impact of these deployments on their sophisticated nuclear-tipped ICBMs and facilitate Russian support for further, reciprocal reductions in still bloated U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, which would benefit U.S. and global security.

The Pentagon’s plan to deploy 14 more ground-based strategic interceptors at Fort Greely in Alaska would add a very modest, mostly symbolic response to North Korean nuclear and missile saber-rattling. The 30 ground-based strategic interceptors already in Alaska and California are, at best, only useful to counter a simple, limited ballistic missile attack from North Korea or Iran.  When they were deployed in 2004, they were not ready for prime time. Today, it remains unclear whether these ground-based interceptors can work effectively and they should be subjected to much more rigorous field-testing before taxpayer resources are spent on a system that is ineffective.

As missile expert Michael Elleman writes in this month’s issue of Arms Control Today, North Korea still has a long way to go before it can credibly threaten the United States with nuclear weapons. It is likely to be years away from fielding an ICBM, which could deliver a nuclear warhead to the U.S. mainland. There is still time to halt and reverse current trends before North Korea’s nuclear capabilities become more substantial.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Worldwide Threat Assessment (2013)

Posted on March 13, 2013 by

By Greg Thielmann

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testifies at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on March 12, 2013.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testifies at a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on March 12, 2013.

The “Worldwide Threat Assessment,” which Director of National Intelligence James Clapper presented to the Senate Intelligence Committee on March 12, contains some closely-watched language on evolving weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation threats. Although this year’s edition borrowed liberally from the language used last year, there were also some interesting changes.

Iran

As before, the report stresses that Iran has the capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so. This time, the report adds “Iran has made progress during the past year that better positions it to produce weapon-grade uranium using its declared facilities and uranium stockpiles.” The report also judges that Iran is trying to balance its desire to advance its nuclear and missile capabilities with the need to avoid a military strike or regime threatening sanctions.

One of the most significant and puzzling additions to this section was an expression of “increased concern” that the regime’s demonstrated ability to launch small satellites, along with its hostility toward the United States and U.S. allies, provides Tehran with “the means and motivation to develop larger space-launch vehicles and longer-range missiles, including an…intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).”

It is difficult to discern from publicly available information what prompted this new elaboration and explicit mention of an Iranian ICBM. The most conspicuous (non)development on this score during the last year was the total absence of large space rocket or long-range ballistic missile launch activity.

The lack of flight activity has been matched by explicit statements from Iran’s Guard Aerospace Force commander that Iran’s existing medium-range missiles were specifically designed for Israel and U.S. targets in the region and that no greater range was needed.

Why the U.S. intelligence community should be “growing increasingly concerned” about Iranian ICBMs remains a mystery.

Continue reading →

Posted in Asia, Iran, Middle East, Non-proliferation, North Korea, Nuclear Weapons, Russia | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments