Foreign Policy In Focus

As we reported recently:

The new budget for fiscal year 2013 (which begins on October 1) just released, reports Chris Schneidmiller for Global Security Newswire, calls for the

Energy Department's semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration to receive $11.5 billion [which is] $372 million less for weapons programs than it had anticipated requesting as of 2011. 

Most encouraging of all:

The administration aims to freeze development of the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement complex at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, which would conduct work on materials such as plutonium employed in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. … Under the proposal, funding for the Los Alamos site … estimated to cost up to $6 … would be cut by $165 million and building would be pushed back by no less than five years.

But, as always with nuclear weapons, it's not long before the parade is rained on. At the New York Times, David Sanger and Alan Cowell report that druing a visit to Iran by International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors "Tehran not only blocked access to a site" -- Parchin, to which the IAEA has previously been granted access -- "the inspectors believe could have been used for tests on how to produce a nuclear weapon … but it also refused to agree to a process for resolving questions about other 'possible military dimensions' to its nuclear program."

Of course, Iran's apparent obstinacy may not be due to it's hiding nuclear-weapons work, but because it feels singled out for the West for persecution. But perception, as they say, is everything:

Iran's refusal to deal with the inspectors' questions is likely to increase tension, at a moment of heightened sanctions and after the assassination of nuclear scientists in Iran and suspected retaliation against Israeli diplomats.

Also, Iran bridling at the IAEA's probing comes on the heels of Iran halting oil exports to Britain and France. Also reports Bloomberg, "Iranian state-run Press TV said yesterday 3,000 'new- generation' Iranian-made centrifuges were installed at its main uranium enrichment site at Natanz." Though State Department Spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said that -- Bloomberg again -- "the announcement was 'hyped' for a domestic audience."

But, in addition, as Sanger and Cowell write, Iran also

… struck an increasingly bellicose tone on Tuesday, with an Iranian official warning that the country would take pre-emptive action against perceived foes if it felt its national interests were threatened.

Iran aside, the Dec. 29 fire on Russian nuclear sub Yekaterinburg, undergoing maintenance at the time, might have been more serious than previously thought. Gleb Bryanski of Reuters reports: 

At the time, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed the strategic missile submarine had been unarmed as is required for upkeep activities and that there was no danger of radiation exposure to the public.

But Russian Deputy Prime Minster Dmitry Rogozin

… noted that Soviet rules from 1986 do not mandate the unloading of weapons from submarines for small maintenance projects.

Worst-case scenario:

The prominent news magazine Vlast earlier this month reported that the blaze could have triggered … explosions in the submarine's two atomic reactors and possible detonations of 16 nuclear-armed missiles.

A telling clue that nuclear weapons might have been aboard:

The submarine traveled to the Russian navy's arms depot directly after the fire, which would not be normal for an unarmed vessel that had just been through a fire, according to the magazine.

Important as preventing nuclear proliferation is, it must always be preceded in importance by nuclear risk. Which means it's at least as incumbent on states with nuclear-weapon programs to wind theirs down as it is to keep other states from proliferating.

As regular readers know, we've been tracking the progress of the design and construction of a new nuclear facility (the CMRR-NF) at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. As we posted yesterday … Nuclear Pit Boondoggle at Los Alamos Temporarily Scuttled due to a combination of the economic climate and the efforts of the Los Alamos Study Group (LASG), which has been educating the public, lobbying Washington, and filing two suits to halt the CMRR-NF on environmental grounds.

But sociologist Darwin BondGraham, who is on the LASG Board of Directors, is in no mood to gloat about the victory. In an elegiac article for Counterpunch titled Starving the Real Beast, he writes

The war machine has begun to eat itself for the sake of preserving hyper-inequalities resulting directly from the less progressive tax code instituted a decade prior, and the multitude of shelters capital now hides behind.

See what he's saying here? By paying minimal taxes, the rich and corporations are depriving the nuclear-weapons program and defense in general of funds (or forcing their reallocation from budget needs other than defense). In other words, BondGraham is providing progressives with a stunning talking point -- one seldom seen (never, in my case). It might be worded something like this: When the corporate rich don't pay their fair share of taxes, it leaves us more vulnerable to attack. (Not that we necessarily have to believe the last part.) BondGraham again (emphasis added):

Whether the Right realizes their folly at this point is not yet clear. After a decade of record breaking tax cuts for the wealthy, and economic deregulation … leading to explosive inequality and a historic crash of over-leveraged and debt ridden markets, the American plutocracy has not only [driven] millions into poverty, they have now gone so far as to undermine the budgetary and organizational basis of the military establishment upon which a larger global system of inequality, which they benefit from, rests.

Yes, you read that right. As well as putting the nation in harm's way (theoretically) they're undermining the security of their own enterprises. But less and less moored to the United States and able to afford their own security, perhaps that's their plan.

Long-time Democratic representative from Massachusetts and member of the member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Edward Markey is the chief sponsor of a bill mandating $100 billion U.S. nuclear-weapon spending over the next decade. Not just bombs, but the nuclear triad -- missiles, aircraft, and submarines -- and perhaps most significant, nuclear-weapon design laboratories.

In particular, reports Brian Bender of the Boston Globe, Markey and 27 other Democratic congress members seek to kick one leg out from under the nuclear triad almost entirely -- aircraft. The bill would constrain F-35 fighter planes, as well as B-52 and B-2 bombers, from serving as nuclear-weapon delivery systems, and, as well, delay production of a new bomber. Of course the nuclear weapons program would still be able to stand on its own two feet. Bender writes:

… the legislation would also require that the military and Department of Energy, which builds and maintains the warheads, to keep at least 200 intercontinental missiles and 250 submarine-launched missiles to keep a strong nuclear deterrent in an uncertain world. 

Rep. Markey summed up: "We need more nuclear weapons programs like Lady Gaga needs another outfit."

Foreign Policy in Focus contributor Paul Mutter takes issue. "The analogy doesn't work too well," he writes. Why? Because: "You can never have too many steak dresses!" 

Oh, right. Meanwhile, this just in (again, thanks to Paul Mutter):

Amidst mounting geopolitical tensions. … Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi. … said Wednesday. … "Our intelligence estimates indicate that, if it is allowed to progress with its aggressive nuclear program, the United States may soon possess its 8,500th atomic weapon capable of reaching Iran. [This] is very distressing to Iran. … After all, the United States is a volatile nation that's proven it needs little provocation to attack anyone anywhere in the world whom it perceives to be a threat."

Okay, it's the Onion.

At the Washington Post's the Fact Checker, Glenn Kessler writes:

In these grim economic times, the cost of maintaining and upgrading the United States’ aging nuclear arsenal of 5,000 warheads is certainly a ripe topic for discussion. The U.S. government has never officially disclosed the exact cost, and whether one should include environmental clean-up costs, missile defense and other programs related to nuclear weapons is a legitimate topic of debate.

But the Obama administration objects to the figure of $700 billion that it ostensibly plans to spend on nuclear weapons over the next decade. The arms control group the Ploughshares Fund arrived at the figure, which has been cited by the media and Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.). Kessler writes:

James Miller, principal deputy undersecretary of defense, told Congress on Nov. 2 that the figure was close to $214 billion over ten years, with $88 billion being spent at the Energy Department, which maintains nuclear weapons, and more than $125 billion spent on delivery systems at the Defense Department.

“I've had an opportunity to look at some of the materials that were referenced in the cost estimates just before coming over here and I—without giving this more time than it deserves—suffice it to say there was double counting and some rather curious arithmetic involved,” Miller said.

"Without giving this more time than it deserves"? Excuse me, but if, as Kessler writes, the "U.S. government has never officially disclosed the exact cost" -- never mind "whether one should include environmental clean-up costs, missile defense and other programs related to nuclear weapons [should be] a legitimate topic of debate," does Miller really expect disarmament advocates to refrain from trying to divine the figures on their own?

When it comes to "curious arithmetic," it seems like a case of a kettle trying to find a pot to call black. Furthermore, writes Kessler

A big unknown question is whether the DOD figure of $125 billion really includes all of the modernization costs, as Miller suggested. … “It's a little like saying it costs me $1,000 a year to operate my car, except that I am not counting the cost of insurance, repairs, registration, taxes, etc.,” [Stephen Schwartz, editor of the Nonproliferation Review] said. “The actual cost is higher, maybe even much higher. But unless the folks at DOD can provide us with a breakout of the costs for each system, it's impossible to say what's included and what's not.”

As for the Ploughshares Fund figure that Rep. Markey used:

Schwartz said that he warned Ploughshares and Markey’s office to be careful with these estimates, especially when lumping many things together. “Unfortunately. … Ploughshares wanted a large number to make their case for political reasons.”

Its president, Joseph Cirincione,responded with a full explanation of how he arrived at $700 billion. Then he added:

Because the government keeps so much of its budget hidden from the public, reasonable people can and will argue over the total costs. … In fact, it is an absolutely essential debate.

But it needs to be a transparent debate. It is not acceptable for politicians to push their favorite programs with false, incomplete or misleading cost estimates.

While this author has reservations about the Ploughshares Fund, it's impossible not to agree with Cirincione. Besides, whatever the numbers, it's just a pleasant surprise to see a discussion of the nuclear-weapons budget playing out in the media.

Cross-posted from the Dissent Magazine blog Arguing the World.

One upshot of the debt-ceiling debate is that politicians might finally be ready to trim the outrageously bloated U.S. military budget. That’s the story, anyway, being told by the Washington Post. The paper reported: “[A]s lawmakers and the White House move closer to a grand bargain that could reshape the country’s fiscal priorities, Pentagon budget planners are...girding for the possibility that they will have to reduce projected spending by as much as $800 billion over the next 12 years.” 

Certainly, it would make sense, in a time when conservatives are insisting on austerity, that the military—a huge and pork-laden area of discretionary spending—would be on the table. But there’s a good rule of thumb about defense cuts: Don’t believe them until you see them.

The Nation’s Robert Dreyfuss is optimistic that real cuts will be in the offing. In a piece entitled, “Defense on the Chopping Block,” he wrote: “Now, it appears that Obama is backing cuts as much as $886 billion, and that might just be an opening bid.” Of hawkish conservatives who are warning against reductions in Pentagon spending, Dreyfuss wrote:

It’s okay to laugh at their contention that the military is being 'stretched thin' after a decade of unbridled expansion and a doubling of military spending since 2000, not even counting Iraq and Afghanistan. But they’re right that cuts are coming.

This argument is one that Dreyfuss has been making throughout the year. In January, he suggested that “deficit-minded Republicans and the incoming class of Tea Party types” would result in squeezed military budgets, and again in March he contended that a “politics of debt and deficit reduction [that] has taken hold in Washington, tied to an economic crisis that has convinced many that the United States can no longer afford an oversized Pentagon,” will force down defense spending.

Again, this position seems plausible. But, in practice, talk of cuts to the military has a way of evaporating when it comes time for appropriations. There are several reasons for continuing skepticism.

First, the military and its hawkish defenders are very effective at pulling a sleight of hand with their budget projections. Every year, the Pentagon puts in a request for a big funding increase. Then, if politicians offer anything less than that, the hawks portray it as a cut.

We saw this with Paul Ryan’s budget proposal. The media highlighted conservative willingness to slash even sacrosanct programs, and the Republican proposal supposedly included billions in cuts that had been preemptively proposed by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. Yet, as the libertarian Cato Institute pointed out in frustration, the budget in question was only a “cut” in the sense that it did not fully fund every item on the military’s wish list. It actually proposed an $8 billion increase in the Pentagon base budget over the previous year.

The bill that ended up passing the conservative-controlled chamber showed even less restraint. On July 8, after a year of Tea Party ascendancy, the House passed a defense appropriations bill that included a $17 billion budget increase for the Pentagon. So much for austerity.

Viewed in this light, a quote Dreyfuss included in his March article is revealing:

"Five years from now, we’ll turn around and the defense budget will be a lot lower than we thought it was going to be five years ago, and we’ll look back and say, Wow," says Gordon Adams, a Stimson Center fellow and American University professor who’s been analyzing military spending for four decades.

If you read carefully, you’ll notice that “a lot lower than we thought it was going to be” does not necessarily entail actual cuts. It could just as easily mean slower increases.

The politics of defense pork make this latter outcome the more likely of the two. Many Republicans fervently denounced stimulus spending by the Obama administration and campaigned last fall against socialistic government jobs programs. But when it comes to federal funding for defense contractors and military bases in their home districts, they quickly turn around and paint any stemming of government dollars as unwise and unpatriotic. I noted one example in an article I wrote for the Guardian in February:

Congressman Howard “Buck” McKeon of California, for instance, attacked White House stimulus spending, arguing, 'Congressional Democrats and the administration continue to insist that we can spend our way out of this recession and create jobs, but the numbers just don’t add up.' Yet in 2010 alone, he secured $24.2m in defense earmarks for his district, which includes the city of Palmdale, known as the 'aerospace capital of America,' where over 9,000 employees rely on Pentagon largesse for their jobs.

It’s not just long-time defense boosters like McKeon. In May, a Capitol Hill Blue headline read, “Tea Party-backed GOP freshmen pack defense bill with pork.” The article highlighted the actions of Illinois Representative Bobby Schilling, who pushed for $2.5 million in weapons and technology funding for the Rock Island Arsenal—a facility in his district—even after having criticized his Democratic opponent in last year’s election for directing funds to the very same institution. Likewise, after Missouri Representative Vicky Hartzler pushed for $20 million for her district’s Whiteman Air Force Base, she claimed that she didn’t think the ban on earmarks she promoted during her campaign applied to Pentagon spending. 

Think Progress noted other similar examples of hypocrisy from elected officials that had been backed by the Tea Party and cited Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank’s observation that “It was probably inevitable that [grassroots] Tea Party activists would be betrayed, but the speed with which congressional Republicans have reverted to business-as-usual has been impressive.”

On a final note, it’s important to recognize that, while numbers like $400 billion or $800 billion sound big, proposed defense cuts of this magnitude are spread out over ten to twelve year periods. In that same time span, the Pentagon base budget alone will total well over $5 trillion, and that does not include trillions more that will go toward veterans benefits, nuclear weapons, and wars the country is actually fighting. (Appropriations for conflicts like those in Iraq and Afghanistan are not included in the base budget.) What’s more, there’s no guarantee that something like a 10 percent budget reduction would ever be carried out. Long-term plans for budget cuts often delay the most painful, difficult, and significant cuts until the back end of their schedules—when current policymakers will be least accountable for making them real.

For all these reasons, talk by right-wingers about extending their demands for fiscal discipline even to the military warrants skepticism. When it comes to reining in the Pentagon, seeing is believing.

Mark Engler is a senior analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus and author of How to Rule the World: The Coming Battle Over the Global Economy (Nation Books, 2008). He can be reached via the website Democracy Uprising.