The United States is launching a new nuclear arms race: to catch up and outsmart Russia and China

August 6th, 2024
Подробнее: https://eadaily.com/en/news/2024/08/06/the-united-states-is-launching-a-new-nuclear-arms-race-to-catch-up-and-outsmart-russia-and-china

Under the slogan of “nuclear deterrence”, the United States began investing in nuclear weapons. Washington plans to modernize and adopt new systems in order to catch up with Russia and China and be able to confront two adversaries at once.

“As a result of investments made under the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, NNSA was able to deliver more than 200 upgraded nuclear weapons to the Department of Defense last year. This is our largest delivery in one year since the end of the Cold War,” Jill Hruby, administrator of the National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA), said at the breakfast of the National Institute for Deterrence Studies “Peace through Strength.“

She noted that the situation with US nuclear weapons has undergone significant changes compared to what it was just a few years ago. The representative of the NNSA explained the reasons for the sharp turn in US policy by external threats.▼ читать продолжение новости ▼

“This is a unique, unprecedented time in the field of global nuclear security. We face growing threats of nuclear weapons from Russia and an expanding nuclear arsenal in China. Russia has deployed nuclear weapons in Belarus, strengthened its partnership with China, and developed new military partnerships with North Korea and Iran.… It is also exploring the possibility of using nuclear weapons in space, which poses an asymmetric threat to the West. In addition to ramping up the pace of nuclear weapons production, China has demonstrated an amazing ability to improve its delivery systems, including deploying hypersonic missiles faster than the United States. If this direction does not change, China will become an equal nuclear adversary with significant economic power,” said Jill Hurby.

In her opinion, the current situation represents a fundamentally different “nuclear” landscape than the last 80 years.

“In general, this is a less predictable and more dangerous time, and our thinking about deterrence needs to be adjusted,” the representative of the department explained. She added that the situation is complicated by the fact that nuclear power is on the verge of revival to combat climate change.

“If this renaissance happens, there will be more nuclear materials and know-how in the world than ever before. In addition, advanced nuclear reactor technology is likely to use higher-grade low-enriched uranium instead of 5 percent low-enriched uranium. Reactor types and reactor fuels are likely to evolve. Despite the fact that this renaissance will bring the necessary options for an environmentally friendly electric power base, it will challenge the current nuclear non—proliferation regime,” the NNSA also notes the potential of breakthrough technologies such as artificial intelligence, which can simplify and accelerate the design of nuclear devices.

But for now, the United States is focusing on confrontation with Russia and China.

“Russia and China are ready to change and expand their nuclear arsenals. But so will we, if we continue to invest and support the program. This means that although we are facing a deteriorating global security situation, we do not need to panic. There is still a lot of work to do, but we also need to prepare well, take the time and think intelligently about the future,” Jill Hurby continued.

According to her, over the past few years, the United States has continued to implement five programs to modernize the weapons of the nuclear triad (strategic aviation, intercontinental ballistic missiles and nuclear submarines).

“Last year we added two more types of weapons to the existing program. These new systems directly respond to emerging deterrence needs and expand the nuclear capabilities available to the president,” the NNSA representative said that we are talking about the B61—13 nuclear bomb and the SLCM−N sea-based cruise missile.

“We now have seven systems that should be developed and put into production by the mid-2030s. This program is not only a major modernization of all three components of the nuclear triad, but also adds new deterrence capabilities that do not currently exist,” said Jill Hurby.

According to her, for 2025, NNSA has applied for the allocation of $ 25 billion from the state budget.

Since the end of the Cold War, a significant part of the scientific and industrial infrastructure in the United States has fallen into disrepair and needs to be restored and modernized, the NNSA representative noted.

“Some of the buildings that we currently use for key processes belong to the Manhattan project or use manufacturing technologies that are less safe and efficient than modern methods. Therefore, in our budget request over the past few years, approximately equal amounts have been spent on inventory modernization and infrastructure modernization,” said Jill Hurby.

The main priority, she added, is to restore the ability to produce new plutonium cores.:

“NNSA is implementing a production strategy at two sites at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and at the Savannah River site in South Carolina. When both sites are fully operational, we expect that we will have the necessary capacity: Los Alamos will produce 30 cores per year, and Savannah River will produce at least 50.”

The construction of a uranium processing plant in Tennessee is also considered a priority in the United States. It is planned to complete its construction in 2027, and bring it to full capacity by 2031.

This year, the United States is completing work on the creation of a scheme that will identify high-priority facilities needed for science, production, safety and security until 2050.

“Our thinking about deterrence needs to be changed in order to create an effective deterrence of two equal opponents. Although we all recognize that Russia and China are innovating in their means of deterrence, we have not yet fundamentally changed our own thinking. But we know that we need to outsmart our opponents. It’s time to start this work seriously, not in a panic,” added Jill Hurby.

August 9, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

World-Ending Maneuvers? Inside the Nuclear-Weapons Lobby Today

A prime example of the power of the nuclear weapons lobby is the Senate ICBM Coalition. That group is composed of senators from four states — Montana, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming — that either house major ICBM bases or host significant work on the Sentinel. Perhaps you won’t be surprised to learn that the members of that coalition have received more than $3 million in donations from firms involved in the production of the Sentinel over the past four election cycles.  Nor were they alone. ICBM contractors made contributions to 92 of the 100 senators and 413 of the 435 house members in 2024. Some received hundreds of thousands of dollars.

TomDispatch, By Hekmat Aboukhater and William D. Hartung August 7, 2024

The Pentagon is in the midst of a massive $2 trillion multiyear plan to build a new generation of nuclear-armed missiles, bombers, and submarines. A large chunk of that funding will go to major nuclear weapons contractors like Bechtel, General Dynamics, Honeywell, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. And they will do everything in their power to keep that money flowing.

This January, a review of the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program under the Nunn-McCurdy Act — a congressional provision designed to rein in cost overruns of Pentagon weapons programs — found that the missile, the crown jewel of the nuclear overhaul plan involving 450 missile-holding silos spread across five states, is already 81% over its original budget. It is now estimated that it will cost a total of nearly $141 billion to develop and purchase, a figure only likely to rise in the future.

That Pentagon review had the option of canceling the Sentinel program because of such a staggering cost increase. Instead, it doubled down on the program, asserting that it would be an essential element of any future nuclear deterrent and must continue, even if the funding for other defense programs has to be cut to make way for it. In justifying the decision, Deputy Defense Secretary William LaPlante stated: “We are fully aware of the costs, but we are also aware of the risks of not modernizing our nuclear forces and not addressing the very real threats we confront.”

Cost is indeed one significant issue, but the biggest risk to the rest of us comes from continuing to build and deploy ICBMs, rather than delaying or shelving the Sentinel program. As former Secretary of Defense William Perry has noted, ICBMs are “some of the most dangerous weapons in the world” because they “could trigger an accidental nuclear war.” As he explained, a president warned (accurately or not) of an enemy nuclear attack would have only minutes to decide whether to launch such ICBMs and conceivably devastate the planet.

Possessing such potentially world-ending systems only increases the possibility of an unintended nuclear conflict prompted by a false alarm. And as Norman Solomon and the late Daniel Ellsberg once wrote, “If reducing the dangers of nuclear war is a goal, the top priority should be to remove the triad’s ground-based leg — not modernize it.” 

This is no small matter. It is believed that a large-scale nuclear exchange could result in more than five billion of us humans dying, once the possibility of a “nuclear winter” and the potential destruction of agriculture across much of the planet is taken into account, according to an analysis by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

In short, the need to reduce nuclear risks by eliminating such ICBMs could not be more urgent. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ “Doomsday Clock” — an estimate of how close the world may be at any moment to a nuclear conflict — is now set at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it’s been since that tracker was first created in 1947. And just this June, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a mutual defense agreement with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, a potential first step toward a drive by Moscow to help Pyongyang expand its nuclear arsenal further. And of the nine countries now possessing nuclear weapons, it’s hardly the only one other than the U.S. in an expansionist phase. 

Considering the rising tide of nuclear escalation globally, is it really the right time for this country to invest a fortune of taxpayer dollars in a new generation of devastating “use them or lose them” weapons? The American public has long said no, according to a 2020 poll by the University of Maryland’s Program for Public Consultation, which showed that 61% of us actually support phasing out ICBM systems like the Sentinel.

The Pentagon’s misguided plan to keep such ICBMs in the U.S arsenal for decades to come is only reinforced by the political power of members of Congress and the companies that benefit financially from the current buildup. 

Who Decides? The Role of the ICBM Lobby

A prime example of the power of the nuclear weapons lobby is the Senate ICBM Coalition. That group is composed of senators from four states — Montana, North Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming — that either house major ICBM bases or host significant work on the Sentinel. Perhaps you won’t be surprised to learn that the members of that coalition have received more than $3 million in donations from firms involved in the production of the Sentinel over the past four election cycles.  Nor were they alone. ICBM contractors made contributions to 92 of the 100 senators and 413 of the 435 house members in 2024. Some received hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The nuclear lobby paid special attention to members of the armed services committees in the House and Senate. For example, Mike Turner, a House Republican from Ohio, has been a relentless advocate of “modernizing” the nuclear arsenal. In a June 2024 talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which itself has received well over a million dollars in funding from nuclear weapons producers, he called for systematically upgrading the nuclear arsenal for decades to come, while chiding any of his congressional colleagues not taking such an aggressive stance on the subject.

Although Turner vigorously touts the need for a costly nuclear buildup, he fails to mention that, with $305,000 in donations, he’s been the fourth-highest recipient of funding from the ICBM lobby over the four elections between 2018 and 2024. Little wonder that he pushes for new nuclear weapons and staunchly opposes extending the New START arms reduction treaty.

In another example of contractor influence, veteran Texas representative Kay Granger secured the largest total of contributions from the ICBM lobby of any House member. With $675,000 in missile contractor contributions in hand, Granger went to bat for the lobby, lending a feminist veneer to nuclear “modernization” by giving a speech on her experience as a woman in politics at Northrop Grumman’s Women’s conference. And we’re sure you won’t be surprised that Granger has anything but a strong track record when it comes to keeping the Pentagon and arms makers accountable for waste, fraud, and abuse in weapons programs. Her X account is, in fact, littered with posts heaping praise on Lockheed Martin and its overpriced, underperforming F-35 combat aircraft.

Other recipients of ICBM contractor funding, like Alabama Congressman Mike Rogers, have lamented the might of the “far-left disarmament community,” and the undue influence of “anti-nuclear zealots” on our politics. Missing from the statements his office puts together and the speeches his staffers write for him, however, is any mention of the $471,000 in funding he’s received so far from ICBM producers. You won’t be surprised, we’re sure, to discover that Rogers has pledged to seek a provision in the forthcoming National Defense Authorization Act to support the Pentagon’s plan to continue the Sentinel program.

Lobbying Dollars and the Revolving Door

The flood of campaign contributions from ICBM contractors is reinforced by their staggering investments in lobbying. In any given year, the arms industry as a whole employs between 800 and 1,000 lobbyists, well more than one for every member of Congress. Most of those lobbyists hired by ICBM contractors come through the “revolving door” from careers in the Pentagon, Congress, or the Executive Branch. That means they come with the necessary tools for success in Washington: an understanding of the appropriations cycle and close relations with decision-makers on the Hill.

During the last four election cycles, ICBM contractors spent upwards of $226 million on 275 extremely well-paid lobbyists. For example, Bud Cramer, a former Democratic congressman from Alabama who once sat on the defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, netted $640,000 in fees from Northrop Grumman over a span of six years. He was also a cofounder of the Blue Dog Democrats, an influential conservative faction within the Democratic Party. Perhaps you won’t be surprised to learn that Cramer’s former chief of staff, Jefferies Murray, also lobbies for Northrop Grumman.

While some lobbyists work for one contractor, others have shared allegiances. For example, during his tenure as a lobbyist, former Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Trent Lott received more than $600,000 for his efforts for Raytheon, Textron Inc., and United Technologies (before United Technologies and Raytheon merged to form RX Technologies). Former Virginia Congressman Jim Moran similarly received $640,000 from Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics.

Playing the Jobs Card

The argument of last resort for the Sentinel and similar questionable weapons programs is that they create well-paying jobs…………………………………………………………………….

Unwarranted Influence in the Nuclear Age

Advocates for eliminating ICBMs from the American arsenal make a strong case.  (If only they were better heard!) For example, former Representative John Tierney of the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation offered this blunt indictment of ICBMs:

“Not only are intercontinental ballistic missiles redundant, but they are prone to a high risk of accidental use…They do not make us any safer. Their only value is to the defense contractors who line their fat pockets with large cost overruns at the expense of our taxpayers. It has got to stop.”

The late Daniel Ellsberg made a similar point in a February 2018 interview with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists:

“You would not have these arsenals, in the U.S. or elsewhere, if it were not the case that it was highly profitable to the military-industrial complex, to the aerospace industry, to the electronics industry, and to the weapons design labs to keep modernizing these weapons, improving accuracy, improving launch time, all that. The military-industrial complex that Eisenhower talked about is a very powerful influence. We’ve talked about unwarranted influence. We’ve had that for more than half a century.”

Given how the politics of Pentagon spending normally work, that nuclear weapons policy is being so heavily influenced by individuals and organizations profiting from an ongoing arms race should be anything but surprising. Still, in the case of such weaponry, the stakes are so high that critical decisions shouldn’t be determined by parochial politics. The influence of such special interest groups and corporate weapons-makers over life-and-death issues should be considered both a moral outrage and perhaps the ultimate security risk.

Isn’t it finally time for the executive branch and Congress to start assessing the need for ICBMs on their merits, rather than on contractor lobbying, weapons company funding, and the sort of strategic thinking that was already outmoded by the end of the 1950s? For that to happen, our representatives would need to hear from their constituents loud and clear.

Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch Books, John Feffer’s new dystopian novel, Songlands (the final one in his Splinterlands series), Beverly Gologorsky’s novel Every Body Has a Story, and Tom Engelhardt’s A Nation Unmade by War, as well as Alfred McCoy’s In the Shadows of the American Century: The Rise and Decline of U.S. Global Power, John Dower’s The Violent American Century: War and Terror Since World War II, and Ann Jones’s They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America’s Wars: The Untold Story.  https://tomdispatch.com/world-ending-maneuvers/

August 8, 2024 Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment