Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
8/22/2014
With Congress raising questions about the Obama Administration’s ‘3+2’ strategy for modernizing the nation’s nuclear arsenal, Strategic Command chief Adm. Cecil Haney last week said he is “very concerned” about the future of the strategy but emphasized its importance. Haney spoke to reporters after a speech at U.S. Strategic Command’s Deterrence Symposium last week, addressing the ‘3+2’ strategy the Administration has proposed to sustain the nation’s nuclear stockpile. The strategy consists of two air legs—the B61 bomb and an air-launched cruise missile—and a trio of interoperable warheads that could be used on ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles.
However, several legs of the strategy have come under fire from various Congressional committees, most recently the refurbishment of an air-launched cruise missile warhead, for which funding was zeroed out in the Senate Appropriations Committee’s version of the Fiscal Year 2015 Energy and Water Appropriations Act. The concerns came after the Administration deferred work on an initial interoperable warhead for five years in the face of Congressional skepticism.
Cruise Missile Warhead Called Essential
The cruise missile warhead is essential to give the Air Force “standoff capability to deal with uncertainty and adversary capabilities in the future,” Haney said. “So I’m very concerned and continue to work with the Congress to explain the position and the value of this ‘3+2’ strategy to have the necessary capabilities in all legs of the triad.” Haney’s comments were part of a broader message in support of modernizing the nation’s nuclear arsenal and weapons complex despite continuing budgetary pressure on nuclear weapons spending. “While the overall investment may appear significant and difficult in a fiscal environment with a national debt of more than $17.6 trillion dollars, we should not overlook the value of a credible strategic deterrent to our nation now and into the future,” Haney said. “If we delay recapitalizing our strategic forces and the industrial base it supports we risk degrading this credible 21st century deterrent and its stabilizing effect. Is that a risk that we can afford to take?”
Defense Panel Raises Questions About Affordability of Modernization
Haney’s comments came after a defense panel suggested that plans to modernize the nation’s nuclear deterrent are “unaffordable” under current budget constraints. The study, “Ensuring a Strong U.S. Defense for the Future: The National Defense Panel Review of the 2014 Quadrennial Defense Review,” was chaired by former Defense Secretary William Perry and retired Army Gen. John Abizaid and calls for “reasonable decisions about the appropriate structure for U.S. nuclear forces.” It also notes that modernizing the nuclear triad over the next 30 years could cost between $600 billion and $1 trillion, which it says could cut into funding for conventional forces.
Released late last week, the report advocates for “life extension programs and some modernization” whether the nuclear stockpile is reduced or kept the same size, but it says “reasonable decisions about the appropriate structure for U.S. nuclear forces are crucial for developing and maintaining the lasting and broad-based political support the U.S. nuclear deterrent needs. Such support is critical to ensuring that the U.S. nuclear arsenal is freed from the malign combination of neglect and political whiplash it has endured since the end of the Cold War in favor of a predictable and consistent funding and authorizing horizon.”
The panel also called for a new study of the “intellectual underpinnings” of the nation’s strategic deterrence policy, noting that changes around the world necessitate a new look at deterrence thinking. “We feel this is particularly urgent in the face of limited resources and in light of the changing international environment characterized by a multipolar world of states possessing nuclear arms and biological weapons, either of which could pose an existential threat to the United States,” the study said.
