nuclear-news

Complicated nuclear weapons problems for USA’s new secretary of defense-in-waiting

VOICE The Nuclear Trials of Ashton Carter The new secretary of defense-in-waiting faces some complicated decisions when it comes to the modernization of America’s nuclear triad.  FP, BY JEFFREY LEWIS FEBRUARY 5, 2015

“………Carter inherits a mess. In November, the Pentagon received two reviews of the Department of Defense’s nuclear enterprise. Outgoing Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel pledged more money and high-level attention to the nuclear mission after a series of embarrassing stories that undermine public confidence in the stewardship of the nation’s nuclear stockpile. Implementing those changes will land in Carter’s lap.

It will not be an easy task. The pair of reviews were, depending on how one counts them, the ninth and tenth separate review ordered to stop the series of humiliations visited upon the nation’s nuclear stewards in the past seven years.

A partial list of embarrassing stories includes: the so-called “munitions transfer incident” in which six nuclear weapons were mistakenly flown across the country; an accidental shipment of Minuteman III nosecones to Taiwan; the removal of the commander of the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force for an epic bender involving a Beatles cover band at a Mexican restaurant in Moscow; the reprimand of the number two official at U.S. Strategic Command who is the subject of a criminal probe involving gambling with fake casino chips; the court-marshal of a launch officerinvolved with a drug ring — as well as a plethora of other embarrassments ranging from widespread cheating on examinations, poor marks in unit assessments, and violations of security procedures including launch officerssleeping with the door to the command capsule propped…….

American nuclear posture has remained essentially unchanged since the Cold War. There was, during the early years of the Clinton administration, a brief moment when something different seemed possible. The Clinton administration undertook a comprehensive review of defense policy after the end of the Cold War called the Bottom-Up Review. As a kind of complement, the administration also conducted the first Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). ……..

The problem is that just outside of 10 years, the United States will be simultaneously purchasing the following systems:

• A new ballistic missile submarine (called SSBN-X) with procurement stretching overFY21-35. Cost: $77-102 billion.
• A new ICBM, with procurement stretching over FY 2027-2034. Cost: $80-120 billion.
• A new long-range strike bomber (LRS-B) that will be in service “by the mid-2020s” with procurement stretching into the 2030s. Cost: $55 billion, plus a few tens of billion in R&D.
• A new long-range standoff cruise missile (LRSO) that no one thinks will survive austerity.Cost: $20-30 billion, including that of a new warhead.

Oh, and let’s not forget that the Air Force will also be spending between $8-10 billion per year through 2037 on procuring F-35 aircraft.

People who don’t want to admit that the current nuclear modernization plan is impossible like to imply that my estimates are somehow off. That’s what I don’t make my own estimates. I am simply curating the estimates by the Department of Defense, the services, or independent government entities like Government Accountability Office or Congressional Budget Office. (Go ahead, click on the links.) When you put the plans next to one another, it is immediately clear there isn’t enough money.

Defense Department officials are already calling this period in the late 2020s a “modernization mountain” — a period when the United States will be attempting to simultaneously replace all three legs of the triad, in addition to purchasing new fighters. I have already written that I think our effort to climb the modernization mountain ends like Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air. ……..https://foreignpolicy.com/2015/02/05/nuclear-triad-modernization-strategic-defense-ashton-carter-pentagon/

February 6, 2015 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war