Defense & Military

Senate leaders are hoping to wrap up debate on the Fiscal Year 2012 Defense Authorization Act by the end of this week in order to allow time for a jam-packed legislative agenda. With more than 250 amendments proposed for the bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) filed a cloture motion yesterday to limit debate, […]

Could the Pentagon help prop up the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons program again, this time as NNSA faces cuts to its $7.6 billion Fiscal Year 2012 request from House and Senate appropriators? That’s the idea behind a controversial amendment to the FY2012 Defense Authorization Act that would give Defense Secretary Leon Panetta the ability […]

New Defense Secretary Leon Panetta weighed in on the debate over modernization funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration yesterday, telling a House panel that the nation needs to maintain funding for work on the nation’s nuclear deterrent. House and Senate appropriators have both cut liberally from the Obama Administration’s $7.6 billion request for the […]

New Defense Secretary Leon Panetta weighed in on the debate over modernization funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration yesterday, telling a House panel that the nation needs to maintain funding for work on the nation’s nuclear deterrent. House and Senate appropriators have both cut liberally from the Obama Administration’s $7.6 billion request for the […]

Gen. Robert Kehler, the head of U.S. Strategic Command, acknowledged yesterday that Congressional belt-tightening is forcing the command to examine all facets of its deterrent mission, but he advocated for maintaining the modernization plan for the nation’s nuclear weapons complex and arsenal and maintaining the current triad of nuclear delivery vehicles. Speaking to reporters at […]

The Pentagon’s willingness to transfer additional budget authority to the National Nuclear Security Administration’s weapons program depends largely on the appetite in Congress for the agency’s modernization program, Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy James Miller told NW&M Monitor. The Pentagon transferred $5.7 billion of its budget authority for Fiscal Years 2011-2015—and another […]

As the nation’s nuclear deterrence mission faces budgetary constraints from Congress, Maj. Gen. William Chambers, the Air Force’s Assistant Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration, warned Friday against removing one “leg” of the traditional nuclear triad of intercontinental ballistic missiles, bombers and submarine-launched missiles. “We believe not only its proven reliability over […]

Four senior Obama Administration officials are slated to appear before the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee Wednesday as the panel examines the ongoing Pentagon nuclear deterrence review, the impact of budget cuts to the Administration’s nuclear modernization plan and plans for future nuclear reductions. Jim Miller, the Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for […]