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(CUWS) Outreach Journal # 1247 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies (CUWS) Outreach Journal CUWS Outreach Journal 1247 13 January 2017 Feature Item: “The Requirement for a Nuclear Triad: Strategic Stability and the Critical Value of America’s ICBMs.” Authored by Peter Huessy; Published by Real Clear Defense.com; January 11, 2017. http://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2017/01/11/strategic_stability_and_the_critical_value_ of_americas_icbms_110614.html Russia and China are both markedly improving their nuclear forces at a pace not seen even during the height of the Cold War. Russian President Putin has called for continued such modernization, describing Russian nuclear forces as already sixty percent modernized and the strongest in the world. Russia also has a multi-thousand advantage in tactical or theater nuclear weapons (not subject to arms control limits) which further complicates U.S. and allied deterrent policy. What then should be the U.S. response? One former Secretary of Defense has argued that the U.S. should not seek to match the Russian modernization even though both countries are parties to the New Start treaty that caps strategic nuclear weapons at 1550. Other disarmers argue that despite the dramatic drop in casualties from conventional war in the Post World War II era, there is nothing definitive to conclude that nuclear deterrence has kept the nuclear-armed superpowers from major war for the past seventy years, compared to the 1914-1945 period. Still, others have concluded that nuclear deterrence plays a minor role in today’s strategic stability and a fully modernized force is not needed. Are these assertions true? My analysis points to the need for a full modernization of our nuclear enterprise especially going forward with the ground-based strategic deterrent or ICBM modernization effort. Despite much wishful thinking, nuclear weapons remain critical to deterrence, and as such, the new administration should definitely “greatly strengthen and expand” the capability of our nuclear deterrent forces as called for by the President-elect. U.S. Nuclear Weapons 1. Atomic Arsenal Costs Ballooning by Billions of Dollars 2. Air Force to Examine Maintenance Problems at ICBM Bases 3. The F-35 May Carry One of the US's Most Polarizing Nuclear Weapons Sooner than Expected 4. Mattis Enthusiastic on ICBMs, Tepid on Nuclear Cruise Missile U.S. Counter-WMD 1. Stopping a North Korean Missile No Sure Thing, U.S. Tester Says 2. Carter Says U.S. Would Shoot Down North Korea Missiles as Beijing Voices Concern over ICBM Test 3. US THAAD in Japan Aimed at Containing Russia, China's Nuclear Capabilities Korea, US Reaffirm THAAD Deployment 4. China, Russia Agree to Further Respond to THAAD Deployment Issue No.1247, 13 January 2016 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies| Maxwell AFB, Alabama https://cuws.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies CUWS Outreach Journal Maxwell AFB, Alabama U.S. Arms Control 1. Russia Won’t Be Drawn into New Arms Race — Defense Minister 2. Obama Administration Cuts Back Size of Nuclear Arsenal Homeland Security/The Americas 1. Chinese Chips Not a Threat to US Security 2. China Develops New 'Humpback' Nuclear Submarines with 'Capability of Striking US' Asia/Pacific 1. DPRK Says to Launch ICBM Anytime 2. N. Korea Aims to Produce ICBM with Nuke Warhead by End of 2017, Defector Claims 3. North Korean Missile Can’t Reach US Mainland: Expert 4. N.Korea 'Could Fire Long-Range Missile from Mobile Launcher' 5. Bomber Flights Part of Training 6. North Korea Has 50kg of Weapons-Grade Plutonium: Seoul's Defense White Paper 7. N.K. Rehashes Vows for Marvelous Developments in ICBM 8. China Issues White Paper on Asia-Pacific Security Cooperation 9. U.S. High-Tech Radar Watches for N.Korean Missiles Europe/Russia 1. US Tanks and Soldiers in Poland Pose Threat to Russia – Kremlin 2. British Nuclear Weapons Workers to Go on Strike over Atomic Weapons Establishment Pensions Dispute Middle East 1. Report: Israel Spy Satellite Discovers Secret Russian Missile Cache in Syria 2. Araghchi: Iran to Let No Sides Violate JCPOA Commitments 3. Iranian Administration Required to Boost Missile Production 4. JCPOA Permits Iran to Import Natural Uranium: State Department 5. Iran Explains Concerns over US Sanction Act in Vienna 6. Diplomat: Iran to Enrich More Nuclear Material with New Plan India/Pakistan 1. India To Deploy First Squadron of Nuclear-Capable Rafale Fighter Jets in Bengal to Counter China 2. Pakistan Test-Fires First Nuclear-Capable Submarine Cruise Missile Babur-3 3. India to Test Nuclear-Capable Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile 4. Pakistan's Babur Missile Test Claim May Be Fake, Navy Sources Tell NDTV Issue No.1247, 13 January 2016 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies| Maxwell AFB, Alabama https://cuws.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies (CUWS) Outreach Journal Commentary 1. Nuclear Weapons Race Could Weaken US Security 2. How Might North Korea Test an ICBM? Return to Top Roll Call – Washington, D.C. Atomic Arsenal Costs Ballooning by Billions of Dollars By John M. Donnelly January 9, 2017 America’s nuclear arsenal is getting billions of dollars more expensive with each passing year, the Obama administration said in a recent report to Congress obtained by CQ. The report shows how nuclear weapons costs are beginning to crest as the Pentagon and the Energy Department move into a $1 trillion modernization effort over the next three decades. It is the biggest looming issue in the defense budget. From fiscal 2017 to 2026, it will cost $341.78 billion, including inflation, to buy and sustain new nuclear submarines, aircraft, missiles, bombs, warheads and associated computers, according to the report. Last year, the administration told Congress that the cost from fiscal 2016 to 2025 of the nuclear arms program was $319.8 billion — or $22 billion less. The rise in budgets is due partly to some new or expanded plans, but mostly it is a function of programs moving into more expensive phases of late development or early production. The unclassified document, a summary of a classified report, was submitted to Congress late last year. The document’s total cost implications for the nuclear budget have not been previously publicized. The cost of the nuclear arsenal could balloon further still if President-elect Donald Trump makes good on recent promises. “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes,” Trump tweeted Dec. 22. “Let it be an arms race,” he told MSNBC the next day. “We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.” The high and rising cost of maintaining, if not expanding, U.S. nuclear weaponry will be a major debate in Congress in the next several years. The two parties take contrasting approaches to the issue. Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee, which funds Energy Department nuclear programs, told CQ that the swelling cost of nuclear arms is “devastating for everything else” in the budget. Issue No.1247, 13 January 2016 United States Air Force Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies| Maxwell AFB, Alabama https://cuws.au.af.mil \ https://twitter.com/USAF_CUWS Phone: 334.953.7538 USAF Center for Unconventional Weapons Studies CUWS Outreach Journal Maxwell AFB, Alabama “As this goes up, it just smashes against the other things that should be done,” she said. “It’s a real problem.” Republicans generally have a different perspective. “If we’re going to be the No. 1 power in the world militarily, we’re going to have to pay for it,” said Alabama Republican Sen. Richard C. Shelby, another senior appropriator, in a brief interview. “We’ve got to modernize our nuclear arsenal.” Swelling cost projections Several programs account for most of the higher 10-year nuclear cost estimate since last year. A dozen new nuclear-armed subs, known as the Columbia class, will cost $8.4 billion more from fiscal 2017 through 2026 than was projected last year for the fiscal 2016 through 2025 timeframe, the report said. A planned intercontinental missile, the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, would cost $4.8 billion more. The Long Range Standoff Cruise Missile would cost $900 million more. Nuclear command and control systems will cost $3 billion more. The Energy Department’s weapons stockpile and supporting infrastructure will cost $4.3 billion more. Some new programs are included, such as a $2.7 billion initiative to replace aging Huey helicopters that ferry security forces charged with protecting ground-based missile fields that are scattered across hundreds of miles in the northern Great Plains. The report may understate the full cost of nuclear modernization for several reasons, apart from the fact that it only addresses the next ten years’ costs. It does not include a likely new submarine- launched missile program that has yet to get going. Secondly, it is not clear if the most recent estimate includes a larger total acquisition cost projection for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent — $85 billion today, up from $62 billion last year. And the report does not reflect the likelihood of historical rates of cost growth. Most importantly, the projected increases may only foreshadow larger price hikes to come, because expenditures on nuclear modernization will not peak until after the report’s 10-year window. “This snapshot captures the beginning of the major planned ramp up in spending on nuclear forces, but even larger bills are still to come,” said Kingston Reif, an expert on nuclear budgets with the Arms Control Association. “The current approach is unnecessary and runs a high risk of forcing damaging cuts to higher priority national security programs if pursued to completion.” On the other hand, the costs may be overstated in at least one respect.
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