Mapping a National Security Failure: Ratification of the New START Treaty

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As Sen. Kyl wrote in The Wall Street Journal:

The nuclear weapons plan Mr. Obama submitted to Congress in May raises as many questions as it answers. Despite pledging over $100 billion to maintain and modernize nuclear delivery systems, the plan make a commitment only to a next-generation submarine—not to a next-generation bomber, ballistic missile, or air-launched cruise missile. The administration has also made no decision about whether or how it will replace the B-52 bomber, which first flew in 1952, and under current plans will continue to fly until possibly 2037. Nor does the White House intend to decide what the new U.S. nuclear force structure will look like until as many as seven years after the treaty is ratified.

The administration’s plan for modernizing U.S. nuclear warheads and infrastructure is similarly sketchy. It claims funding of $80 billion over 10 years, but that amount reflects double-counting of money that was going to be spent anyway merely to keep seriously aging weapons and equipment operational. What little new funds may be available under the president’s plan will not cover even pressing needs like replacing two decrepit and dangerous facilities that produce plutonium and uranium. What’s more, the administration’s working budget documents for the next several years suggest that the modernization plan is underfunded by as much as $2.4 billion.[138]

Robert Monroe, the former Director of the Defense Nuclear Agency, pointed out other shortcomings:

Our nuclear weapons modernization program – which is required by law to be considered with treaty ratification – is totally inadequate. It omits modernization of the nuclear weapons themselves; it omits testing of nuclear weapons to prove their viability; it omits construction of a pit (trigger) production facility of adequate capacity to rapidly replace our overaged stockpile; and it omits replacement of SDVs for two legs of our strategic triad.[139]

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee was sufficiently concerned about the need for modernization of the nuclear arsenal to include provisions on the 1251 Plan in its resolution of ratification. These provisions—which would be retained later in the full Senate’s resolution of ratification—reiterated the Senate’s commitment to modernization, and placed requirements on the President with respect to modernization:

(B) If appropriations are enacted that fail to meet the resource requirements set forth in the President’s 10-year plan, or if at any time more resources are required than estimated in the President’s 10-year plan, the President shall submit to Congress, within 60 days of such enactment or the identification of the requirement for such additional resources, as appropriate, a report detailing—

(i) how the President proposes to remedy the resource shortfall;

(ii) if additional resources are required, the proposed level of funding required and an identification of the stockpile work, campaign, facility, site, asset, program, operation, activity, construction, or project for which additional funds are required;

(iii) the impact of the resource shortfall on the safety, reliability, and performance of United States nuclear forces; and

(iv) whether and why, in the changed circumstances brought about by the resource shortfall, it remains in the national interest of the United States to remain a Party to the New START Treaty.[140]

Subsequently, in response to a request from Senators Kyl and Bob Corker (R-Tennessee), the Obama administration would submit an updated 1251 Plan on 17 November, 2010, raising the total to be spent on nuclear weapons/infrastructure modernization over a ten year period to roughly $85 billion.[141]

The unclassified November 2010 updated 1251 report did propose several funding increases on life extension programs for the nuclear weapons stockpile and physical infrastructure refurbishment.[142]  However, with respect to strategic delivery systems, two of the three legs of the nuclear “triad”—the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) and heavy bomber—received commitments to their modernization broadly speaking, but did not receive specific funding commitments beyond FY 2015, with the report focusing instead on the need to complete various studies to determine the way forward on these two legs of the triad.

The updated modernization plan received high-level support from inside the U.S. nuclear enterprise. As the directors of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories wrote to Chairman Kerry and Ranking Member Lugar of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee:

We are very pleased by the update to the Section 1251 Report, as it would enable the laboratories to execute our requirements for ensuring a safe, secure, reliable and effective stockpile…In summary, we believe that the proposed budgets provide adequate support to sustain the safety, security, reliability and effectiveness of America’s nuclear deterrent within the limit of 1550 deployed strategic warheads established by the New START Treaty with adequate confidence and acceptable risk.[143]

Ben Lerner

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