Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
2/6/2015
Without budgetary relief, planned upgrades to the aging nuclear command and control (NC2) system could suffer. The Air Force’s Fiscal Year 2016 budget request includes $287 million for modernization of the NC2 architecture, about $147 million more than the FY 2015-enacted amount. With the 2011 Budget Control Act (BCA) caps set to return next fiscal year, a top Pentagon official on Feb. 2 identified the long-awaited modernization of the NC2 architecture, which includes the 1960s-era Strategic Automated Command and Control System (SACCS), as an area that could be canceled or see funding cuts without action from Congress.
Despite currently being a top priority for the nuclear enterprise, NC2 modernization was among four service programs that Maj. Gen. James Martin, Air Force Deputy Assistant Secretary for Budget, listed as potential sequestration-related cuts during a Feb. 2 Pentagon press briefing following the Obama Administration’s rollout of its FY 2016 federal budget proposal. In addition to NC2, possible cuts include the B-2 Defensive Management System (DMS), adapted engine technology and the conventional aircraft Global Hawk Block 30. Martin’s words came days after Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) during a hearing last week asked the four service chiefs, including Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh, to provide lists of “decisions you would have to make” if the BCA caps continue.
Meeting NC2 FY 16 Budget Peak Could Require Congressional Relief
After peaking in FY 2016, Air Force budgeting for NC2 is expected to trend downward, as the Future Years’ Defense Program shows the amount tumbling to $80.1 million in FY 2017, $37.8 million in FY 2018, $14.8 million in FY 2019, and $14.9 million in FY 2020. Overall, the Defense Department asked for $534 billion for FY 2016, exceeding the established BCA cap by about $35 billion, and whether the Air Force gets its FY 2016 funding requests would depend on Congressional action to remove the budget caps. “Before we made any final decisions, we’d have to know what the actual BCA funding levels were,” Martin said. “Then we would go back and we’d look across all five core mission sets and make sure that we’re meeting the most urgent requirements that are expected out of the Air Force, and then we would … work this with [the Office of the Secretary of Defense]. Of course, Congressional feedback is part of that process as well.” The Air Force would try to spread the imprint of any BCA-forced cuts among the service’s five stated core missions: Air and Space Superiority; Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance; Rapid Global Mobility; Global Strike; and Command and Control, Martin said.
NC2 Cuts Could Impact GBSD
While NC2 falls under the core mission of “Command and Control,” cuts to its modernization could impact Global Strike, too, as analysts have said a slash or delay could translate to a postponement in developing the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD), the planned follow-on system of the Minuteman 3. According to a request for information for the GBSD, the service plans to begin fielding the next ICBM in FY 2027, with a complete GBSD force of up to 450 ICBMs by FY 2034. DoD requested $75 million for the GBSD in FY 2016, and estimates the system’s cost over the next five years at $944 million.
Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman have expressed interest in leading development of the system, NS&D Monitor reported last week. Officials have recently cited the need to overhaul the Strategic Automated Command and Control System, which includes a 40-plus-year-old nationwide network of buried cables, while highlighting service plans to leverage ongoing Minuteman 3 modernization into the GBSD. NC2 is included in those modernization plans. The most recent official on-the-record comments on the subject came from Maj. Gen. Garrett Harencak, Air Force Assistant Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration, who during a speech on Jan. 20 in Arlington, Va., pointed to a decades-old computer system consisting of aging equipment and floppy disks. “Being prudent… once we decide what this weapons system is going to look like, we’re going to have to then decide how it’s going to operate, how we’re going to command and control it…and I think that’s where you’ll see some differences,” Harencak said. Adm. Cecil Haney, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, earlier in January announced a meeting with commanders and stakeholders who support the nuclear enterprise to discuss investment and progress of the strategic command and control system.
While the GBSD program involves “hollowing out” existing Mk12 and Mk21 reentry vehicles and replacing components including guidance systems and motors, the Air Force’s plans for NC2 appear to entail a more full-scale modernization, Hans Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, told NS&D Monitor. “The real modernization is happening in the command and control systems and the launch control centers,” he said.
At least one nuclear analyst agrees with Harencak that NC2 modernization is needed. Peter Huessy, a nuclear expert and founder and president of the defense consulting firm GeoStrategic Analysis, told NS&D Monitor that funding reductions or a cut of NC2 modernization would most likely push back GBSD development, but would stop short of translating to cancelation of the program. “I don’t think it would kill it,” Huessy said. Over time, he added, risk and operating costs for postponed programs usually increase. “Will it end up killing the programs? No, Congress won’t do that. The Administration, I don’t think, will. But, it’ll basically mean that next year, when they sit down and go through all this, they’ll say, ‘Holy cow, it’s now going to cost us even more money to do the same thing,’ and then, we’ll have to face the music again.” Huessy said he sympathized with Martin about possibly having to cut modernization programs, and said the prospect of the Air Force having to cut back on nuclear modernization plans was “crazy.”
When asked why the Minuteman 3 NC2 infrastructure was being considered as a possible BCA cut if it is also part of the GBSD weapon system/infrastructure, Maj. Melissa Milner, spokesperson for the Air Force Secretary, wrote in an email to NS&D Monitor that sequestration would require the service to consider options for cuts that would balance readiness, modernization and personnel accounts. “Sequestration shrinks Air Force funding to levels that impact our ability to sustain readiness and modernization,” Milner wrote. “The Air Force would be required to consider all funding options to include the Minuteman III Ground [N]C2 program to balance readiness, modernization, and personnel accounts at the BCA level while simultaneously fulfilling Combatant Commander requirements.”
Cutting NC2 ‘Most Ridiculous Thing You Could Do’
BCA caps would force the service to make a “tough call” of possible cuts within an Air Force budget request that calls for a big slate of modernization—including plus-ups for the long-range strike bomber, long-range standoff weapon, and B-52 squadrons—according to Kristensen. “To me, delaying command and control seems to be the most ridiculous thing you could do, because that’s the key of things,” Kristensen said. “You want to make sure that you have good eyes and ears, and systems that work so that the deterrent is critical and reliable. It’s much easier to cut in structure and save money there, but it seems to me that command and control would be the last place you’d want to delay or cut significantly. That just is counter-intuitive, it seems to me. But these are the tradeoffs.”
Possible B-2 DMS Impacts
The Obama Administration also more than doubled the $98.8 million FY 2015-appropriated request for research and development of the B-2 DMS system in its FY 2016 request, asking for $272 million. Research and development for the system is projected to cost $1.7 billion over the FYDP, with steady funding decreases after FY 2016, down to $93.3 million for FY 2020. DMS modernization is aimed at addressing future threats by leveraging modern electronic warfare antennae, processors, controllers and displays to increase battlespace awareness and real-time threat avoidance in the “most common radio frequency emitter environments,” according to Air Force budget documents. All 20 of the U.S.’ B-2s still employ their original DMS installed in the 1980s.
How Do Major Nuclear Projects Fit in Air Force’s Portfolio?
Echoing the words of several top officials across the Air Force, Martin said strengthening the nuclear enterprise remains the service’s No. 1 mission priority. Huessy said he didn’t think Martin’s list calls into the question the service’s commitment to the nuclear enterprise. Conversely, Kristensen said service actions in the near future, especially decisions related to NC2, could reveal more about where service priorities lie. He said: “If the ICBM force is identified and it becomes one of the first items that’s delayed or elements of it you can cut or cancel, well that speaks to where the emphasis is in the nuclear posture plan and how important or not that system is.”
