Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of quarterly news summaries and analyses about President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office. We’ll check in with one long, big-picture update every 25 days, with a regular flow of updates in between to keep you up on news affecting the U.S. nuclear deterrent during the new administration’s crucial first days.
The Donald Trump administration’s creeping progress in filling leadership positions across its Cabinet agencies continues to leave questions about the specific policies the administration will develop for the U.S. nuclear deterrent.
Comments from Trump and his appointees provide insight into the administration’s thinking on these matters: the importance of having the strongest nuclear arsenal, skepticism of arms control, definite opposition to the nuclear weapons ban treaty now being negotiated at the United Nations. But how these will translate into policy is not yet known, crucially awaiting completion of a new Nuclear Posture Review due later this year.
The future focus of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which uses the majority of its roughly $13 billion annual budget to maintain the reliability of the nation’s nuclear stockpile, will be shaped once new leadership is in place to drive the agency’s mission and defend its budget. For now, here is where things stand for policy-making and the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
PERSONNEL
Former Texas governor Rick Perry was finally confirmed as secretary of energy on March 2, but he has not articulated a specific direction for the nuclear deterrent. Meanwhile, Obama administration holdover Frank Klotz is still serving as head of the NNSA, while the administration considers candidates for the job – these are said to include former agency deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation and current Fluor executive Paul Longsworth and retired Navy admiral Jay Cohen.
The administration plans to fill top-level positions before moving to less senior ones. Longsworth is also said to be under consideration for a deputy-level position, along with Rob Hood, CH2M vice president for government affairs, and Willie Clark, federal business development manager at engineering consulting firm Burns & McDonnell.
Below Klotz, the No. 2 job at the NNSA – principal deputy administrator – has been vacant for more than two months following Madelyn Creedon’s retirement in January. The deputy administrator positions for defense programs and defense nuclear nonproliferation are currently filled in an acting capacity by Philip Calbos and David Huizenga, respectively. Adm. James Caldwell remains on the job as deputy administrator for naval reactors.
“I would like to see more key people in place but don’t have concerns right now and I think the positions will be filled before it becomes a major issue,” Michaela Dodge, senior policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, said by email.
Meanwhile, hundreds of other lower-level appointed positions remain vacant across the federal government. Many of these are in the State Department, including the top arms control official spot. Frank Rose, former assistant secretary of state for arms control, verification, and compliance, warned the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee Thursday of the department’s staffing difficulties. “We have a problem getting younger staff into the State Department . . . we’re losing expertise and we’re not training the next generation,” he said.
Rose said he made a plea to Trump’s transition team before leaving office to find a way to recruit younger people into the department. “Every administration, it takes a little bit of time to get up,” he said. “So let’s hope that over the next couple of months we see some solid appointments by the president, and I’m actually encouraged to see some of the people at the Pentagon who I’ve worked with in the past.”
We’re watching for: New NNSA leadership.
POLICY
The White House released its budget blueprint earlier this month, which proposes an 11 percent funding increase for the NNSA while cutting overall spending at the Department of Energy. It requested $28 billion for DOE for fiscal 2018, down 5.6 percent from its current level of funding through the continuing budget resolution that expires April 28.
The document said the proposed $1.4 billion increase to the NNSA’s current funding level of $12.5 billion would starting Oct. 1 support “moving toward a responsive nuclear infrastructure and advancing the existing program of record for warhead life extension programs.”
The NNSA’s fiscal 2017 budget request outlined the agency’s plan to finish production of the W76-1 submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead by 2019; complete the first production unit of the B61-12 gravity bomb by 2020 and the submarine-launched ballistic missile W88 alteration 370 warhead by 2019; and meet the 2025 target for the first production unit of the W80-4 warhead, to be used on the long-range standoff nuclear cruise missile, as well as the 2030 target for the interoperable warhead IW-1.
The NNSA currently receives $8.8 billion for weapons activities – which includes the warhead life extension programs – and requested $9.2 billion for this category for fiscal 2017. Under the weapons activities category, directed stockpile work currently receives $3.4 billion; the NNSA requested $3.3 billion for this work in fiscal 2017.
The White House budget proposal did not provide a detailed breakdown for program spending; observers predict the funding increase will largely be channeled into weapons activities.
The NNSA said at the time it would not provide additional details until the budget request is finalized and transmitted to Congress. A full budget is expected in May. Klotz said that week, however, that the proposed increase would go to NNSA’s line items: weapons activities, defense nuclear nonproliferation, naval reactors, and federal salaries and expenses – as well as toward warhead life extension and infrastructure recapitalization and maintenance.
We’re watching for: A breakdown of proposed NNSA funding from the White House.
ARMS CONTROL
The administration continues to consider potential U.S. actions in response to what it determined was Russia’s deployment of a ground-launched cruise missile in violation of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which prohibits the two countries from fielding surface-to-surface ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers.
Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of U.S. European Command, said this week that he does not believe Russia will return to compliance with the INF at this time and that there is “more probably that we need to do” to encourage such a move, although he did not suggest any specific policies.
The Pentagon’s upcoming Nuclear Posture Review is expected to outline possible U.S. responses to a problem that is considered a major obstacle in the negotiation of any future arms control agreement between the two nations – and something that, if unresolved, could imperil the entire nuclear arms control regime, observers say. This week, Inside Defense reported that Secretary of Defense James Mattis has given the military a six-month timeline for completion of the review.
Of particular concern is the future of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which requires each country by next February to cap its arsenal at 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads and 700 long-range delivery systems. The Trump administration can either extend the treaty upon its 2021 expiration, negotiate a follow-on, or abandon it entirely.
The administration made clear that it is reassessing each aspect of U.S. nuclear policy and may even depart from the broad end goal of global nuclear disarmament, Christopher Ford, senior director for weapons of mass destruction and counterproliferation at the National Security Council, said last week. This would be a major shift in high-level policy that former President Obama had established in his 2010 review.
Meanwhile, the new administration is maintaining the same policy as Obama on the nuclear weapons ban treaty efforts under way this week at the United Nations. Roughly 115 nations began negotiating a legally binding nuclear weapons prohibition, to continue in June, which the nuclear weapon states have boycotted.
We’re watching for: INF Treaty violation response options.
