Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
5/29/2015
The Senate Armed Services Committee is concerned that recent changes within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD), including last year’s elimination of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs position, may lead to a decreased policy focus on nuclear deterrence. In the recently released committee report accompanying the Senate version of the FY 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, lawmakers said that de-emphasis of the nuclear enterprise could also follow from the division of responsibilities for various components of the nuclear mission—including weapons, delivery systems, and command and control—within the Office of the Under Secretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics.
Robert Scher’s position, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans and Capabilities, was carved out of the former Global Strategic Affairs position, which current National Nuclear Security Administration Principal Deputy Administrator Madelyn Creedon held when the post was eliminated. Scher’s position includes oversight of nuclear and missile defense policy, but the former position’s other purviews of countering weapons of mass destruction, cyber policy and space policy have been moved under the new Homeland Defense directorate.
The committee report cites the 2014 internal and external nuclear enterprise reviews, the latter of which directed streamlining “the loosely federated nuclear activities within OSD and the Air Force” into a coherent management structure. “The committee is concerned that recent structural changes within the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) may lead to the opposite result in the long term. … While the committee supports management specialization and seeking efficiencies within OSD, such efforts must not come at the expense of the recently renewed focus on nuclear deterrence,” the report states.
More Nuclear Oversight?
The bill aims to address both perceived and observed issues of Defense Department management of the nuclear enterprise by outlining another layer of oversight for the nuclear mission by the Government Accountability Office. This would be in addition to ongoing actions being taken by the newly formed Nuclear Deterrent Enterprise Review Group (NDERG) and the Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation. The GAO would be required to review DoD’s approach to addressing recommendations outlined by the nuclear reviews, CAPE and NDERG, according to the committee report. Specifically, the GAO would be tasked with giving a briefing and written report to the Congressional defense committees by Feb. 12, examining the “extent” of DoD’s process to implement said recommendations, the ability of DoD to track and provide an annual updated list of the recommendations, and the effectiveness of the recommendations themselves, according to the committee report.
Immediately after the release of the nuclear reviews in November, former Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced the formation of NDERG, which is chaired by Deputy Defense Secretary Bob Work, and brings together senior leadership of the nuclear enterprise across the Pentagon and the four major military branches for quarterly meetings. Hagel also announced that DoD’s Office of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation would regularly track actions taken to implement the recommendations of those reviews, along with the progress and impacts of the implementation process. CAPE reports its findings to Work monthly.
