Jon Stewart: "The problem seems to be the weapon."
Kingston | Feb 08, 2010 |
0 Long-time readers of NoH know that Jon Stewart has been a big fan of ours for some time.
Last week Stewart once again sported his nuke policy wonk credentials in an interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly. Below is a brief excerpt from the exchange on nukes, which occurred in the context of O'Reilly vetting Stewart for a hypothetical O'Reilly-Stewart '12 ticket. A transcript of the full conversation can be read here. Or watch it beginning at the 1:22 mark of the embedded video. O'REILLY: All right, let's go to Iran. If you're my VP, I'm going to have to put you in charge of very delicate negotiations. Now Iran's building, you know, nuclear weapons over there. And if they get them, they might give them to some guy named Ahmed, who might take then to them Cleveland and blow everything up. So what are we going to do with that?
STEWART: Well, doesn't Pakistan have a nuclear weapon?
O'REILLY: Yes, they do.
STEWART: Well, couldn't they give it to somebody?
O'REILLY: I don't know. I don't think…
STEWART: Doesn't Russia have nuclear weapons?
O'REILLY: Russia does.
STEWART: Couldn't they give it to somebody?
O'REILLY: They could.
STEWART: The problem isn't the country that gets them. The problem seems to be the weapon." [emphasis mine.]
Full Disclosure
Travis | Feb 05, 2010 | 1 Up until the minute I submitted it, my last post was titled, “Yeeaaahhhh, It’s a Budget on the N.O.H.”
After reflecting upon the 3 days I spent reading transcripts, budget documents, and procurement plans in order to write the post, however, I decided MiCy just wasn’t getting the job done.
Don’t lie. You know you get amped when they play it at WSC. Anyone? Anyone?
UPDATE 2:20PM: A friend-of-NOH emails in this doozy. I'm pretty sure I spotted Kirk Bansak in there.
New Nuclear Bombers and Submarines in the 2011 Budget
Travis | Feb 05, 2010 | 1 The big funding increase for nuclear nonproliferation has become, at this point, a well-developed part of the narrative surrounding the new fiscal year (FY) 2011 budget. Vice President Biden messaged it in the Wall Street Journal. An administration apparatchik followed up on background with tastemaker Laura Rozen. And the press guys (and they are all guys) covered it: Fleck, Landay, Matishak, Pincus, and Ambinder.
More nonproliferation funding is always good. If the Pentagon is as serious about stopping nuclear terrorism as the 2010 QDR suggests, it ought to spend at least 0.074 percent of its total budget on Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction, as is proposed for FY 2011, right?
Yet there’s more to the nuke game than nonproliferation. Yep, you guessed it: I’m talking about hardware. How much leg did the FY 2011 budget show on new nuclear bombers and submarines? And what does it mean for President Obama’s arms control agenda? Read on, read on…
Nukes on a Blog, Air Force, Defense Spending, FY 2011 Budget Request, Posture Review, Navy (all tags)
Ellen Tauscher, Age 10
Travis | Feb 05, 2010 | 1 
More juvenile behavior from Pyongyang?
Chad | Feb 05, 2010 | 0 
Artists rendering of the KN-02
The DPRK on Sunday announced five new ‘no sail zones’ on both its east and west coast, raising concerns in the South that Pyonyang may be gearing up for more short-range ballistic missile tests.
North Korea’s last round of short-range missile launches in October were passed off by many observers as evidence of Pyonyang’s ‘two-track’ strategy of asserting strength whilst trying to bring the Obama administration back to the negotiating table on the nuclear issue. So was last week’s artillery barrage near the ROK border. References to bargaining chips, double standards and even ‘the juvenile behavior of a teenager’ continue to pepper analysis of most North Korean belligerency. As North-South relations warm with talk of a possible summit between Kim Jong-Il and President Lee Myung-bak, any tests in the next few days will no doubt also be explained in similar terms. However, should we accept this conventional wisdom…
FY 2011 Funding for Air Force Bombers & ICBMs
Travis | Feb 04, 2010 | 0 NNSA isn’t the only agency looking to get paid next fiscal year. From the Air Force’s budget summary:
Starting in FY 2011 the B-2A will receive funding across the Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) to improve the [Defensive Management System] on the aircraft. This initiative will allow the B-2A to continue operations around the world in more advanced threat environments while decreasing the maintenance required to operate the system. The B-2A will also have funding increased for the Weapon System Support Center (WSSC) which enables testing of current as well as developmental aircraft systems. The B-52H is undergoing several modernization programs in order to maintain its viability through 2040. Current initiatives include installing the 1760 bus on the B-52H for increased smart weapon capability while progressing with the Strategic Radar Replacement program, aimed at replacing its current radar (which is experiencing sustainment and obsolescence issues). The B-52H Extremely High Frequency program integrates communications and data and supports United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) requirements for secure, survivable communications via Emergency Action Messages.
As part of the effort to sustain ICBMs, funding was realigned in FY 2011 to complete the installation of new environmental control systems at the launch facilities. The Air Force also procured more Minuteman III test equipment over the FYDP to provide the necessary flight test components for follow-on test and evaluation launches to ensure reliability, accuracy and viability of the fielded ICBM force. Additionally, funding provided for the development of software to validate message generator processes critical for nuclear certification. The FY 2011 Budget Request includes $295M to modernize out-dated fuzing mechanisms and to sustain test equipment and environmental control systems for the aging but capable Minuteman III ICBMs. The UH-1N that supports missile launch complexes will begin replacement activities with an Initial Operational Capability (IOC) date of FY 2015. The Air Force continues to analyze and address requirements to maintain the Minuteman III ICBM to 2030 as directed by Congress.
Raise your right hand and repeat after him: The United States is the only declared nuclear power that is not modernizing its nuclear forces. The United States is the only declared nuclear power that is not modernizing its nuclear forces. The United States is…
Nukes on a Blog, Air Force, Defense Spending, FY 2011 Budget Request, Posture Review (all tags)
Belgian Airbase with U.S. Nuclear Weapons Toured by Uninivited Peace Activists
Kingston | Feb 04, 2010 | 1 Can Secretary Gates fire Belgian Ministry of Defense officials too? Via the Federation of American Scientists, it appears that last week some peace activists with a video-camera managed to infiltrate Kleine Brogel Air Base, which happens to house 10-20 U.S. B61 non-strategic gravity bombs.
Watch the incredible video here. Apparently they even managed to stroll by the aircraft shelters beneath which are believed to be the vaults that house our nukes before they were apprehended by base security.
The incident reminded me of something Jeffrey highlighted at the Carnegie Endowment last September:
And if I think there’s – the dominant – the dominant character I would say of the existence of those weapons in Europe is that we don’t talk about them. I think NATO countries have been incredibly reluctant to make the public case about why they need U.S. nuclear weapons on their soil. And as a result, because there is no public case, I think you see a corresponding lack of funding for security at the sites at which the European allies provide security, and you see a corresponding lack of investment in dual-capable aircraft. And NATO’s aircraft are getting quite old, and we’re coming up to a series of decision points.
...
[B]ecause there is no support, I worry very much about a singularity, an event. It could be a security event. Our friends from Peace Action, Belgium, could get in the wire with a cell phone and take a picture of a [sic] vault. It could be a very ugly public debate about certifying a particular new aircraft for nuclear weapons. It could be a debate about deploying refurbished B-61s on airbases.
I do worry that something could happen that will deny NATO its preferred option of not talking about this, and then force the participants into a very ugly public debate in which the result would be the rapid, disorganized, uncoordinated withdrawal of the weapons amidst recriminations. And to me that would be much worse than beginning the dialogue about what the optimal posture is and whether that includes weapons.[emphasis mine.]Well, they didn't get pictures of the vault per se, but close enough! It will be interesting to see what, if any, impact this incident has on the debate about U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe, extended deterrence, and the future of the B61.
UPDATE 2/4: Jeffrey has some more thoughts on the incident here.
Nukes on a Blog, B61, tactical nuclear weapons, extended deterrence (all tags)
Always Look on the Bright Si…ide of Life
Laicie | Feb 04, 2010 | 0 
In case you haven’t heard, the President’s FY 2011 budget request was released this week.
For a full report, see my budget briefing book online.
For Fiscal Year (FY) 2011, which begins on October 1, 2010, the Obama Administration has requested a base budget of $548.9 billion for the Department of Defense (DoD). This is approximately $18 billion, or 3.4 percent, above FY 2010 appropriations.
In addition, the administration has requested $159.3 billion to support Overseas Contingency Operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, which brings the FY 2011 defense budget request to a total of $708.3 billion.
Including an expected $33 billion in supplemental appropriations, the planned percent increase in total DoD spending for FY 2011 will be 2.1 percent over FY 2010.
Adjusted for inflation this amounts to a $9 billion, or 1.3 percent, increase over FY 2010.
In addition to an initial $708 billion, the administration has requested $18 billion for nuclear weapons activities at DoE and $7 billion for additional non-DoD defense related activities. This brings total non-DoD defense related spending (053/054) to a total of $25 billion, a $2 billion increase over FY 2010.
Though the numbers are large, particularly compared to non-military discretionary spending, let’s look at the bright side of things...
Administration Official on START Hush Money
Travis | Feb 03, 2010 | 0 The National Nuclear Security Administration is slated to receive $11.2 billion in fiscal year 2011, a 13.4 percent increase over the current fiscal year. Undersecretary Tauscher said the increase will make a "very crucial investment" in the new Stockpile Management program. Vice President Biden said the increase “reverses this decline [in nuclear laboratories and facilities] and enables us to implement the president's nuclear-security agenda.” Hell, even NNSA framed the increase as part of “implementing the nuclear security agenda President Obama outlined in his Prague speech.”
NNSA is definitely all about the Prague.
Notice that nobody said what we all know: the NNSA budget increase is hush money; or, as KReif put it, proof that the Obama administration “views increased funding for the nuclear enterprise as a necessary step to secure Republican support for a new arms control agreement and the CTBT.” Perhaps “retainer fee” sounds less gangster?
Leave it to a number cruncher to cut through the BS. In response to a question about the cost of New START implementation at his budget briefing Monday, DOD Comptroller Robert Hale said “the adds to the budget of the National Nuclear Security Administration…will improve nuclear infrastructure in a variety of ways and – and we think that is an important step toward START ratification.”
I’m glad we’re all on the same page now.
UPDATE 2/4: I didn't see it before posting, but Jeffrey Lewis takes up this same issue over at ACW.
