Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
10/24/2014
The United States could save $70 billion by cutting five planned nuclear modernization programs, an arms control group said in a report released Oct. 20. Authored by Tom Collina, director of policy for the Ploughshares Fund, and Arms Control Association (ACA) research staff, “The Unaffordable Arsenal: Reducing the Costs of the Bloated U.S. Nuclear Stockpile” suggests that delaying plans for building new nuclear-capable bombers would save $32 billion. Shrinking the planned Ohio-class nuclear ballistic missile submarine replacement program from 12 to eight subs would conserve $16 billion, recapitalizing instead of replacing Minuteman 3 ICBMs would save $16 million, scaling back the B61 life extension program would bank $4 billion, and canceling a new air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) would generate $3 billion in savings.
Speaking to attendees of ACA’s annual meeting in Washington on Oct. 20, Collina emphasized that the report does not call for deployed strategic warheads to drop below the 1,550 warhead ceiling set by the New START Treaty. “You could stay at New START warhead levels, which is the plan currently, and still save $70 billion,” Collina said. “So this does not require a new arms control agreement. This does not require [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin to all the sudden become friendly again. We can do this on the current international situation that we have today. And to do this, we basically have to do three things: We have to stop deploying submarines far off the coasts ready for prompt launch; we have to stop buying systems before we really need them; and we have to not replace things just because we had them before. We have to think, ‘Do these things still make sense?’ If they do, fine. If not, don’t build them.”
Report Projects Major Savings in Scaling Back, Delaying Sub Buy
Looking beyond the next decade, the ACA report projects the total costs of 12 new SSBNs at $100 billion, Minuteman 3 modernization at $100-200 billion, 80-100 new long-range strike bombers at $80 billion, research and development of the long-range standoff cruise missile at $20 billion, and the upgrade of 400 B61 gravity bombs at $10 billion. In addition to reducing SSBN posture, the report calls on officials to delay the first planned sub procurement from 2021 to 2023. Collina insisted that today’s nuclear threat landscape does not necessitate the forward deployment of SSBNs, an active policy that calls for a posture of 12 subs to ensure prompt strike capability. “The boats have to be deployed pretty far out, and then that requires a large supply network of subs in port, steaming out to being on station and then coming back,” Collina said. “That’s what justifies the 12 subs.”
He went on to say, “If, instead, you were to say, ‘Look, folks, nuclear world war ended 25 years ago. We don’t need subs ready for prompt launch on station. We can pull them back to the coasts and have them just be invulnerable deep in the ocean, but not forward-deployed,’ then you’d have a much smaller radius for these deployment circles and you would not need 12 subs. In fact, you could deploy 1,000 warheads as the current plan, within subs.”
Long-Range Standoff Capability Called Redundant
The report suggests updating the existing Minuteman 3—instead of modernizing it—starting construction in the mid-2020s. “It is hard to imagine what would justify a military requirement for a new ICBM capability beyond that offered by a life-extended Minuteman III,” the report states. “If the Air Force decides to extend the life of the Minuteman indefinitely, there would be no need to develop a new ICBM and no additional costs to maintain the Minuteman over the next decade.”
In addition to extending the current ICBM, the report calls for the Air Force to exclusively rely on B61 gravity bombs in lieu of replacing the ALCM. “If you’re into [an enemy’s] airspace, then you don’t need a cruise missile, you can drop a gravity bomb, and that’s why we have the B61-12 gravity bomb program that is under way,” Collina said. “So you don’t need both, and in these days of having a penetrating bomber, having cruise missiles that you would launch from afar, from outside of enemy airspace, not above it, is a redundant capability that we really just don’t need anymore, and it’s time to phase that out.”
‘Something’s Got to Give’
Collina called current nuclear funding plans a “zero-sum game” in relation to the constrained defense budget. “Something’s got to give,” he said. “Fortunately, we have something that can give, which is the nuclear budget. In my view, this is really a nuclear ATM that we can cash in on and take money out of this program and spend it on other things. There’s simply too much money in the nuclear modernization account to justify all that is going on there.” The report identifies the KC-46A tanker and F-35A fighters as direct prospective beneficiaries from delayed LRS-B development. “Even with a 10-year delay, a new bomber would still be ready by about the time current bombers are reaching the end of their service life, according to CBO, and the delay would allow the new bomber to incorporate technological advances made during that time,” the report states.
Speaking to attendees of the ACA meeting, Lord Des Browne, former UK Secretary of State for Defence and current vice chair of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, praised the ACA report’s potential to inspire innovative thinking on arms control, but noted that the projected $70 billion in savings was a small fraction of the U.S. defense budget. “This is not a criticism of it, but it only saves 70 billion,” he said. “It doesn’t significantly reduce the scale of the challenge.”
Modernization Debate Rages On
Adam Mount, Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, joined Collina at a debate late this week at George Washington University in Washington, where he touted the ACA report’s proposals as “low-hanging fruit” to cut unneeded nuclear posture and capabilities. He added that current nuclear weapon funding plans would likely draw money away from other defense spending priorities. “Without additional funding on top of [the Navy’s] shipbuilding budget, building the Ohio replacement is likely to crowd out 32 other ships,” Mount said. “That’s eight attack submarines, eight destroyers and 16 others. So that’s real money, and that’s a real way that could make a difference to the world.”
Thomas Moore, senior fellow and deputy director of the Proliferation Prevention Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, disagreed with Mount’s and Collina’s stance that the proposed funding cuts targeted superfluous programs. Debating alongside Matthew Kroenig, associate professor and international relations field chair in the Department of Government at Georgetown University, Moore argued that the report’s suggestions would gut integral defense programs. “It’s a difficult matter for us because we’re not budget analysts and knit through every program,” Moore said. “But I would hazard to say that what they’re not telling you is the things they’re cutting aren’t really optional. [Kroenig] says it’s getting to the muscle, and it is. There are fixed costs associated with all these programs that no matter whether you reduce some of the things they’re talking about, we will have to continue to pay for.”
Modernization Advocates Make Their Case
Kroenig contended that the current U.S. nuclear stockpile should be maintained as insurance against threats, and said the weapons cost a small percentage of the overall defense budget. “Nuclear weapons do cost money,” he said. “Everything the federal government spends money on costs money. The question is: Is it worth it? And the answer is yes. We only spend about 4 percent of the defense budget on nuclear weapons. It seems like a pretty small slice of the defense budget to have strategic deterrence, to prevent our adversaries from attacking us, to reassure our allies.”
Moore also expressed concerns about Russian modernization outpacing that of the U.S. “We don’t make anything new,” Moore said. “The Russians have been deploying and flight testing new missiles launched from submarines, new missiles launched from land, and a variety of other nuclear weapons that we don’t have any plans on the table to either have in place to replace the ones we have now by 2029 or maybe even 2030. Russia’s nuclear weapons will be younger and more capable than ours area over the next decades.” Russia’s recent aggressive and unpredictable behavior, such as its annexation of Crimea, shows a potential for that country to renege on its commitments, such as New START, he said. “We might not even have another arms control agreement with them with all the problems we have now,” Moore said.
