The Biden administration dropped its opposition to a proposed nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missile in its response to this year’s House defense policy bill. 

July/August 2024
By Xiaodon Liang

The Biden administration dropped its opposition to a proposed nuclear-capable, sea-launched cruise missile, also known as SLCM-N, in its response to this year’s House defense policy bill. Officials say work on the missile has begun.

A conventionally-armed Tomahawk cruise missile launches from the USS Arleigh Burke. The Pentagon may field a nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missile after the Biden administration decided to drop its opposition to the weapon. (Photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Carlos Vazquez/US Navy)

In its June 11 statement of administration policy in response to the House Armed Services Committee’s version of the national defense authorization bill for fiscal year 2025, the Biden administration did not repeat its previous years’ opposition to the missile. When asked for comment, a U.S. official told Arms Control Today that last year’s defense bill “directed” the Defense Department and the National Nuclear Security Administration “to establish and commence implementation” of a nuclear-capable, sea-launched cruise missile program.

“We will comply with the [bill] requirement and will look to execute in a manner that provides the most deterrence value for the least risk to the modernization program, the production enterprise, and other defense priorities,” the official said.

In fiscal year 2024, Congress appropriated $90 million for the missile and $70 million for work on its warhead. It also instructed the Defense Department to establish a development program for the missile. The House bill for 2025 would raise the missile’s annual budget to $190 million and maintain warhead funding at $70 million.

Last year’s statement of administration policy said the president “strongly opposes” the missile and that it “has marginal utility.” The statement also said “deploying [the missile] on Navy attack submarines or surface combatants would reduce capacity for conventional strike munitions [and] create additional burdens on naval training, maintenance, and operations.”

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) raised these issues during a May 24 hearing of the Senate Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee. “One of my biggest concerns is that we would be giving up something we really need for something we are unlikely to use,” Kelly said, referring to the possibility that the missile would displace conventional munitions aboard Navy attack submarines.

In response, Vice Adm. Johnny R. Wolfe Jr., the Navy’s director for strategic systems programs, acknowledged that “yes, there will be some impact” to the nuclear-powered attack submarine force.

“Anytime you have a conventional mission with a nuclear mission, you have to be very careful to segregate those and make sure that our war-fighters understand how that operates,” he said. Wolfe said the Navy is analyzing how to minimize the impact of fielding the missile.

In his prepared remarks, Wolfe also hinted at the resource constraints that would affect the program. “Executing this program successfully will require careful balancing of [missile] programmatic manning with ongoing Navy programs, which draw from a limited pool of experienced government personnel and the same nuclear weapons industrial base,” he said.

Testifying at an April 30 hearing before the House Armed Services strategic forces subcommittee, Bill LaPlante, undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, said that the Navy has set up an office to manage the missile program and that it aims to clear its first programmatic hurdle, known as Milestone A, within a year. Before passing Milestone A, program officials must produce documents justifying the need for the missile, conduct an analysis of alternatives, and provide an initial cost estimate.

The Navy said on June 14 it likely would award the first contract for the missile in July. In a presolicitation notice required under contracting rules, the Navy said it intends to negotiate a sole-source contract with Virginia-based Systems Planning Analysis Inc., covering research and development for up to four years.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a mutual defense treaty as Russia continues to court North Korean support for its war in Ukraine. 

July/August 2024
By Kelsey Davenport

Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un signed a mutual defense treaty and committed to strengthening military ties during a June summit in Pyongyang.

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un shake hands after signing a mutual defense treaty in Pyongyang on June 19. (Photo by Kristina Kormilitsyna / POOL / AFP via Getty Images, distributed by Sputnik, the Russian state agency)

The treaty comes as Russia continues to court North Korean support for its war in Ukraine and as tensions between North Korea and South Korea escalate.

According to Article 4 of the treaty that Kim and Putin signed on June 19, North Korea and Russia “shall immediately provide military and other assistance” to the other party if it “falls into a state of war due to armed invasion from an individual or multiple states.” The treaty stipulates that the assistance must be in accordance with Article 51 of the UN Charter, which preserves the right to “individual or collective self-defense” in response to an armed attack against a UN member.

Putin told reporters after the summit that the treaty represents a “breakthrough” in Russia’s relationship with North Korea and a “new level” of strategic partnership between the two countries. Putin last visited North Korea 24 years ago, although he did meet with Kim in September 2023 near Vladivostok. (See ACT, October 2023.)

Kim described the treaty as “a most powerful agreement” that is “peaceful and defensive in nature.” He said it will be a “driving force” toward a “new multipolar world.”

In a June 23 joint statement, Japan, South Korea, and the United States condemned the “deepening military cooperation” between North Korea and Russia, noting in particular Pyongyang’s provision of arms to Moscow that “prolong[s] the suffering of the Ukrainian people.”

The three states said the partnership between North Korea and Russia is “of grave concern to anyone with an interest in maintaining peace and stability” on the Korean peninsula. The statement said that Japan, South Korea, and the United States will “further strengthen diplomatic and security cooperation” to counter the threat from North Korea and prevent escalation.

In a June 25 televised speech marking the 74th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean War, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said that the treaty is in direct violation of UN Security Council resolutions on North Korea. South Korea “must stand up to North Korea’s provocations and threats overwhelmingly and decisively,” he said.

In addition to the provision of military assistance in the event of attack, the treaty suggests that Russia and North Korea may engage in military cooperation. According to Article 8, the parties “shall establish mechanisms” to “strengthen defense capabilities to prevent war.”

In a June 19 video statement released by the Kremlin, Putin said Russia does not rule out the possibility of military cooperation with North Korea.

Kim said that North Korea would continue to support Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.

Chang Ho-jin, the South Korean national security adviser, responded by saying that Seoul will reconsider selling arms to Ukraine. Currently, South Korea is providing humanitarian support, but has not offered any weaponry to Ukraine due to a policy of not exporting arms to states involved in conflict.

Putin warned South Korea to refrain from providing military assistance to Ukraine, saying Seoul would be making a “very big mistake” if it transfers arms. He said Russia’s partnership with North Korea does not pose a threat to South Korea. Because South Korea “does not plan aggression against” North Korea, there is “no need to be afraid” of defense cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang, Putin told reporters during a June 20 press conference in Vietnam.

The treaty also opens the door for Russian assistance to North Korea’s nuclear energy and space programs. Article 10 states that North Korea and Russia will “develop exchanges and cooperation” in certain scientific fields, including space and “peaceful nuclear energy.”

Russia is prohibited from providing assistance to North Korea’s nuclear and space programs under the terms of UN Security Council sanctions, but Moscow has already violated the sanctions by accepting armaments from Pyongyang.

Putin said Russia will continue its opposition to sanctions imposed on North Korea, which he described as “illegal,” and suggested the two countries will work to develop payment systems that are “not controlled by the West.”

During a June 12 event at the Stimson Center, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said that Washington will be “watching carefully” to see what assistance Russia provides to North Korea.

Kim’s visit to Russia in September 2023 suggested that North Korea is interested in assistance in developing its space program. Despite announcing ambitious plans to deploy satellites, North Korea has struggled with its launch vehicles. On May 27, North Korea attempted to put a satellite in orbit using a new space launch vehicle, but it exploded midflight.

North Korea’s National Aerospace Technology Administration said that the explosion likely was caused by a defect in the first stage of a new type of rocket motor that the country is developing.

Kim said that the failure will not stop North Korea’s space ambitions and reiterated that Pyongyang needs satellite capabilities due to South Korean and U.S. threats.

The failed launch took place shortly after leaders from China, Japan, and South Korea, met in Seoul. Yoon, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, and Chinese Premier Li Qiang released a joint statement during the May 27 summit that included a reference to “denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.”

In a rare criticism of China, the North Korean state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) denounced the trilateral statement, saying that denuclearization “means a power vacuum and hastened war.” KCNA said North Korea viewed the reference to denuclearization as “a blatant challenge” to the country’s sovereignty.

South Korean Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lim Soo-suk defended the reference to denuclearization, saying that UN Security Council resolutions call for North Korea’s “complete abandonment of nuclear weapons.”

North Korea claimed to have tested a missile armed with multiple warheads on June 26, but South Korea called the launch a failure. KCNA reported on June 27 that the test involved three mobile warheads and a decoy separating from a missile. The warheads were guided to three different targets, KCNA said, adding that North Korea will now begin full-scale testing of the capability. Japan and South Korea said the missile exploded and described the test as a failure.

The test took place after South Korea conducted a live-fire exercise near the inter-Korean maritime border on June 25. South Korea was prohibited from conducting live-fire exercises along the border under a 2018 joint military agreement with North Korea, but Seoul suspended its participation in that agreement on June 4 after Pyongyang sent more than 1,000 balloons filled with trash into South Korea. North Korea withdrew from the agreement in 2023.

It is unclear whether the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act program, which has aided thousands of people harmed by U.S. nuclear testing, can be revived.

July/August 2024
By Chris Rostampour

A federal program that has aided thousands of people in communities harmed by U.S. nuclear testing and weapons production activities expired June 7, and it is unclear whether it can be revived.

U.S. Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), at podium, other Congress members, and activists advocate in May for extension and expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which has aided people harmed by U.S. nuclear testing. (Photo by Chris Rostampour)

Since the Senate voted in March to extend and expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has not scheduled a House vote on the Senate bill or any variant.

Lawmakers continue to debate how they could salvage the program, but Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) told a press conference May 17 that Johnson’s office has cited high costs as the reason for not acting. Later, she told Arms Control Today that she finds the argument ironic because the government always seems to have “money for war and weapons.”

To date, the RECA program has approved claims totaling $2.7 billion for 40,000 people, according to the Justice Department. The Congressional Budget Office estimated the future cost of the Senate-approved bill at $50 billion over 10 years.

Originally passed in 1990, RECA established a program to provide health screening and one-time payments to people harmed by exposure to radiation from atmospheric nuclear testing or uranium mining. It was limited to those who lived in 22 largely rural counties of Arizona, Nevada, and Utah between 1951 and 1958 and in the summer of 1962 and had developed leukemia or one of 17 other kinds of cancer.

The program also covered uranium workers from 1942 through 1971 who could document a subsequent diagnosis of diseases that are deemed eligible for compensation. Numerous health studies since 1990 have shown that fallout from past nuclear tests did not stop at the county or state lines recognized under the original RECA program.

The Justice Department announced in June that it is no longer accepting new claims, saying that “only claims postmarked on and before June 10, 2024, will be filed and adjudicated.” But health facilities continue to offer screenings for cancer and other radiation-induced illnesses. The U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration said health facilities providing screening under RECA “would remain active” for the time being, Radio KJZZ in Arizona reported.

The Senate bill, sponsored by Sens. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), would extend RECA for six years and expand the program to communities that previously were excluded. This would include people in New Mexico affected by the first nuclear test explosion and communities in Missouri and Kentucky dealing with contamination from Manhattan Project-era uranium operations. The Senate passed the bill 69-30 in March. President Joe Biden has said he would sign it if it arrived on his desk.

Since the Senate vote, lawmakers from both parties and activists have urged Johnson to hold a House vote on RECA, either as a stand-alone bill or as an amendment to another legislative vehicle. (See ACT, May 2024.) 

In mid-April, Utah Republican Sens. Mike Lee and Mitt Romney, who both voted against the Senate-approved bill, introduced legislation to extend RECA for two years without expanding coverage. In late May, Johnson announced that the extension legislation would be put to a vote, but later pulled it from the House calendar due to opposition from downwinder communities and Hawley, who called the move inadequate and vowed to block the bill if taken up by the Senate.

In a May 7 letter to House leaders, dozens of downwinder communities and organizations wrote, “Our communities 
have been suffering under this injustice for many decades, and it cannot continue. Congress must improve RECA to include many communities that have been excluded and abandoned by our government.”

Tina Cordova, a nuclear exposure survivor from New Mexico and a long-time advocate of expanding RECA, told KOBTV that “while they play politics, we’re gathering up our resources for someone to have cancer treatment.”

Efforts are underway to breathe new life into the campaign to expand nuclear-weapon-free zones as nuclear disarmament negotiations remain stalemated.

July/August 2024
By Shizuka Kuramitsu

Efforts are underway to breathe new life into the campaign to expand and strengthen nuclear-weapon-free zones as nuclear disarmament negotiations remain stalemated.

Indonesia’s Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi delivers opening remarks during meeting on the Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone in Jakarta in 2023. (Photo by Pool/ Adi Weda/ EPA/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Kazakhstan and the UN Office for Disarmament Affairs have scheduled a workshop August 27-28 in the Kazakhstan capital of Astana to explore ways to cooperate in advancing these zones.

This will be the first time in five years that states-parties to the five nuclear-weapon-free-zone treaties, international organizations, and various other interested parties are gathering to discuss zone-related issues, including “fostering cooperation and enhancing consultation mechanisms” among the existing zones, according to the organizers’ planning document.

Participants plan to “explore how [the zones] can help respond to the existing and emerging threats that challenge the international community today, including through the full realization of the zones’ provisions and potential for new zones in other regions of the world,” the document stated.

The five existing zones are in Latin America and the Caribbean region, the South Pacific region, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central Asia. In addition, Mongolia maintains a self-declared nuclear-weapon-free status. Nuclear-weapon-free-zone treaties commit states-parties within the designated zones to refrain from manufacturing, stockpiling, testing, developing, and possessing nuclear weapons.

The zones have played an important role in maintaining the global and regional nuclear nonproliferation regime. Article VII of the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) affirms the right of NPT states-parties “to conclude regional treaties in order to assure the total absence of nuclear weapons in their respective territories.”

The five states recognized under the NPT as nuclear-weapon states (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) have been called on to provide legally binding assurances to states in the zones that nuclear weapons will not be used against them. The workshop expects to discuss how to strengthen such security assurances.

“Sadly, the risk of a nuclear weapon being used, deliberately, or by mistake or miscalculation, has risen dramatically,” the planning document said.

“However, many of the challenges facing [the zones] have also not changed since 2019. In today’s fragile geostrategic context, finding ways to fully implement the security benefits due to member states in light of the commitments they have made as parties to [the zones] must be a top priority,” the document said.

The United States remains the only NPT nuclear-armed state that has failed to ratify three existing zone treaty protocols, for the South Pacific (Treaty of Rarotonga), African (Treaty of Pelindaba), and Central Asian treaties. Some members of Congress are discussing ways to remedy that situation.

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he will not rule out lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons in Russia’s nuclear posture.

July/August 2024
By Garrett Welch

Russian President Vladimir Putin said he will not rule out lowering the threshold for using nuclear weapons in Russia’s nuclear posture.

Russian President Vladimir Putin told the 2024 St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on June 7 that he will not rule out lowering his country’s policy threshold for using nuclear weapons. (Photo by Contributor/Getty Images)

During a June 7 discussion at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, Putin was urged by Sergey Karaganov, head of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policy think tank, “to escalate much more forcefully and be prepared to use” nuclear weapons to achieve victory in Ukraine. In response, Putin said that nuclear weapons would only be used in “exceptional cases…when there is a threat to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country,” reaffirming Russia’s official declaratory policy issued in 2020. But he refused to “rule out the possibility of making changes to this doctrine.”

Speaking to journalists June 20 during a state visit to Vietnam, Putin said that possible changes to Russia’s nuclear doctrine would be driven by concerns about adversaries’ development of “explosive nuclear devices of extremely low power,” Reuters reported.

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Putin has made several direct and indirect threats referencing Russia’s nuclear weapons in the context of military setbacks and in protest of NATO support for Ukraine. (See ACT, June 2024; October 2022.)

Russia maintains a stockpile of 1,000 to 2,000 nonstrategic nuclear weapons, according to the Federation of American Scientists. The Trump administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review asserted that Russia had adopted a strategy of “escalate to deescalate” as part of its nuclear posture. This hypothesized strategy would involve the use of low-yield nuclear weapons early in a conventional conflict with the goal of shocking the adversary and deterring further aggression. Although the Biden administration’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review did not repeat this assertion, it raised concerns about the possibility that Russia would use nonstrategic nuclear weapons to “try to win a war on its periphery or avoid defeat if it was in danger of losing a conventional war.”

The Financial Times reported in February that it had obtained training documents on nuclear operations originating from the Russian Navy, describing a low threshold for nuclear use. The documents date from 2008 to 2014 and are incompatible with Russia’s declared nuclear doctrine as reaffirmed by Putin this month.

In his comments in St. Petersburg, Putin also refused to rule out the resumption of nuclear testing, stating that “if necessary, we will conduct such tests.” He added that there is currently no need for testing because Russia’s “information and computing capabilities allow us to conduct this entire process in its present-day form.” Russia revoked its ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty on Nov. 2. The Kremlin justified the move as mirroring the U.S. failure to ratify the treaty.

 

The censure reaffirms the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governor decision that it is “essential and urgent” for Iran to clarify “all outstanding safeguards issues.” 

July/August 2024
By Kelsey Davenport

Iran expanded its uranium-enrichment capacity after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Board of Governors passed a resolution censuring Tehran for failing to cooperate with the agency.

Holger Federico Martinsen of Argentina, chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors, convenes board meeting in June when Iran was censured for failing to cooperate with the agency. (Photo by Dean Calman/IAEA)

The June 5 censure “reaffirms” the board’s decision from November 2022 that it is “essential and urgent” for Iran to clarify “all outstanding safeguards issues,” including providing the agency with “technically credible explanations” for the presence of uranium at two locations in Iran that were not declared to the IAEA. The resolution also calls on Tehran to provide the agency with design information for new nuclear facilities, as required by Iran’s safeguards agreement.

The resolution, which passed by a vote of 20-2, was expected. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom said at the previous board meeting in March that they would put forward a resolution at the June meeting if the IAEA reported no progress on its investigation. (See ACT, April 2024.)

IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi traveled to Iran in May, but his trip did not produce any concrete results. Iran delayed further talks with the agency after the deaths of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian in a May 21 helicopter crash. (See ACT, May 2024.)

In a joint statement on June 5, the three European states said that the resolution demonstrates that the board “will not sit idly by” when Iran undermines the safeguards regime and will “hold Iran accountable” for failing to meet its legal obligations.

The statement noted that the IAEA has been investigating the sites in question for five years and that Iran has “not reacted in substance” since the previous resolution was passed 18 months ago. The three states urged Iran to “resolve these outstanding matters so that no further board action is necessary.”

Iran described the resolution as “hasty and unwise.” In a June 5 statement, Mohsen Naziri Asl, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, said the resolution would “severely affect” efforts between Tehran and the agency to address outstanding issues. He said the Europeans will “bear responsibility” for Iran’s actions in response to the resolution.

The following week, Iran appeared to walk back Asl’s suggestion that cooperation with the agency would be affected by the resolution. The foreign ministry said on June 14 that Iran will continue “constructive interaction” with the IAEA.

The United States voted for the resolution, but was initially reluctant, according to a June 4 email from a European official to Arms Control Today. The official said that the Biden administration was cautious because Iran was “certain to escalate” its nuclear activities in response.

In a June 5 statement expressing U.S. support for the censure, Laura Holgate, ambassador to the IAEA, said that the resolution must be “tied to a broader strategy.” It should be a “first step” toward “achieving a sustainable, effective solution to Iran’s nuclear program that includes full cooperation with the IAEA,” Holgate said.

The European and U.S. statements referenced the importance of making progress before October 2025 when the option to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran expires. The so-called snapback option allows members of the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, to reimpose UN sanctions using a process that cannot be vetoed.

Once the option expires, it is highly unlikely that the Security Council would pass new sanctions on Iran for its nuclear activities because Russia likely would veto any new measures.

China and Russia voted against the censure resolution. The two countries joined Belarus, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe in a June 5 joint statement criticizing the resolution prior to the vote. The states called the approach “unconstructive and confrontational.” They called on all states to provide the IAEA and Iran “with the necessary time and space to take further constructive efforts.”

Unlike Iran’s reactions to the two previous board resolutions, Tehran did not announce immediately what steps it would take to expand its nuclear program in response to the resolution.

According to an IAEA report on June 13, Iran informed that agency on June 10 of its intention to install an additional 18 cascades of IR-2 centrifuges at the fuel enrichment plant at Natanz and an additional eight cascades of IR-6 centrifuges at the Fordow fuel enrichment plant. The IR-2 and IR-6 centrifuges enrich uranium more efficiently than the IR-1 model, which Iran was limited to using for 10 years under the 2015 nuclear deal.

On June 11, the IAEA verified that Iran had completed the installation of two of the six cascades at Fordow and that installation of the remaining four cascades was underway. The report did not provide any details about whether Iran intends to operate these centrifuges.

Iran had long planned to expand capacity at Fordow, a deeply buried enrichment facility near the city of Qom. In November 2022, Iran announced that it would install an additional eight cascades of IR-1 and IR-6 centrifuges at the facility. Although the IAEA reported that Iran had taken steps to prepare for additional centrifuges, it did not report any newly installed machines until the June 13 report.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said in a June 14 press release that Iran’s nuclear expansion has “no credible peaceful purpose” and that the United States will respond “if Iran implements these plans.”

The Group of Seven industrialized nations also criticized Iran for an expanding uranium-enrichment program with “no credible civilian justifications” and called on Tehran to “cease and reverse nuclear escalations.” The June 14 statement said that Iran should comply with the IAEA board censure resolution and fully cooperate with the agency. It also called on Iran to “stop assisting Russia’s war in Ukraine” and refrain from transferring ballistic missiles to Moscow.

Sentinel ICBM Costs "Unacceptable and Unsustainable," Say Critics

Description

The Pentagon review of the program claims that there are no alternatives to the Sentinel program that could meet their "requirements" for 400 missiles through the year 2070.

Body

For Immediate Release: July 9, 2024

Media Contact: Daryl G. Kimball, executive director, (202) 463-8270 ext. 107; Xiaodon Liang, senior policy analyst, (202) 463-8270 ext. 113

(Washington, D.C.)—The Department of Defense announced yesterday that the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) program will continue despite a projected 81% cost overrun.

The Pentagon now believes the Sentinel program will cost taxpayers $141 billion to build, up from an original estimate of $78 billion in 2020. The Pentagon also ordered a restructuring of the program that will very lead to a delay the schedule for missile system's initial operating capability (IOC) of "several years." The initial IOC goal was 2029; in January the Air Force announced there would be a further 2-year delay.*

The Pentagon review of the program claims that there are no alternatives to the Sentinel program that could meet their "requirements" for 400 missiles through the year 2070 and the Sentinel is a higher priority than other programs, which will face budget cuts as a result of the Sentinel missile cost growth.

“The department’s decision fits a pattern of willful avoidance of alternatives, dating back to the origins of the Sentinel ICBM program,” said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. "The Sentinel missile program is not only too costly, but it is redundant and dangerous."

The announcement follows a mandatory review of the program that was triggered by a breach of the critical cost growth thresholds in the Nunn-McCurdy Act, which the Defense Department first acknowledged in January.

"The Pentagon reportedly assessed the costs of a Minuteman III service life extension through 2070 as part of the Nunn-McCurdy process, but the time frame chosen, and force size assumptions prejudge the outcome of the analysis. It is unrealistic and foolhardy to assume that the United States’ strategic requirements will not change over the next 50 years," Kimball said.

A decade ago, Air Force leadership ignored the results of a 2014 RAND study commissioned by the service itself which found that “incremental modernization and sustainment of the current Minuteman III force is a cost-effective alternative that should be considered within the [formal Assessment of Alternatives].” Again in 2021, the Pentagon decided to ignore a request from 20 Democrats for an in-depth analysis of whether the existing Minuteman III force could be fielded further into the future.

Earlier this year, the Defense Department made clear in congressional testimony that it never had any intention of conducting a thorough review of “the projected cost of completing the program based on reasonable modification of [current] requirements” as mandated by the Nunn-McCurdy Act. Testifying April 30 before the House Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces subcommittee, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, Bill LaPlante, admitted that the review was focusing on “small r requirements” only.

“The Secretary of Defense should evaluate whether the Minuteman III could be extended to 2030, 2040, and even 2050 and at what cost, as recommended by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. John Garamendi in a March 13 letter to Kristyn Jones, assistant secretary of the Air Force for financial management and comptroller,” said Xiaodon Liang, senior policy analyst with the Arms Control Association.

"Congress should also exercise its oversight responsibilities by tasking the Government Accountability Office to conduct a review of the Pentagon’s handling of the Nunn-McCurdy process for the Sentinel program," Liang suggested.

“The skyrocketing cost of the Sentinel program is also squeezing the Air Force’s other priorities,” Liang noted.

Last month, Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said the service was being forced to scale back its ambitions for the Next Generation Air Dominance fighter program because of cost concerns. And in April, senior Air Force officers said the service’s next-generation tanker and airlifter programs likely will be postponed because of nuclear rearmament costs. Nuclear modernization is now consuming roughly a quarter of the Pentagon’s funds going toward Major Defense Acquisition Programs, according to the White House’s fiscal year 2025 budget proposal.

“The Sentinel missile program doubles down on an obsolete nuclear deterrence concept with dangerous implications for strategic stability,” Kimball said.

"Russia and the United States still cling to dangerous Cold War-era nuclear doctrines and deploy thousands of high-yield nuclear warheads on hundreds of ICBMs, designed to annihilate each other’s military and command capabilities within 30 minutes of a presidential launch order," he noted.

"Maintaining a large ICBM force in fixed locations makes them vulnerable to pre-emptive attack, which increases the risk of false alarms and catastrophic miscalculation," Kimball said.

“In reality, ICBMs are not necessary to deter Russian or Chinese nuclear attack. The United States deploys more than 1,000 nuclear warheads on invulnerable strategic ballistic missile submarines,” Kimball said.

Nevertheless, proponents argue that land-based ICBMs, which are now deployed in North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, and Nebraska, are needed to act as a “sponge” to absorb a significant portion of Soviet nuclear attack. As a recent study published in Scientific American indicates, such a strategy means that tens of millions of people living in and downwind from those states would be sacrificed in a nuclear war without their knowledge or consent.

“The astronomical costs of Sentinel are unacceptable and unsustainable,” argues Liang. “Rather than rush ahead, the Pentagon and the Congress should pause the Sentinel program and deemphasize the role of ICBMs, seriously evaluate the option of extending the life of a portion of the current Minuteman III ICBM force at a lower cost, and seek ways to create momentum for deeper mutual reductions in the bloated U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals,” he suggested.

*Updated to reflect further information regarding schedule delays for the system's initial operating capability.

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Most American voters may not realize it, but nuclear weapons testing may be on the ballot in November.

July/August 2024
By Daryl G. Kimball

Most American voters may not realize it, but nuclear weapons testing may be on the ballot in November.

Aerial view of Yucca Flat looking south. In the foreground is Sedan Crater. Measuring 320 feet in depth, it is the deepest crater on the Nevada Test Site. (Photo courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy.)

The United States conducted the last of its 1,030 nuclear test explosions in late 1992 just before bipartisan congressional majorities approved legislation halting U.S. nuclear testing and mandating negotiations on a global treaty to ban all nuclear tests.

The treaty has not entered formally into force due to the failure of China, the United States, and a handful of other states to ratify it, but the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) effectively has halted nuclear testing worldwide. The only country that conducted a nuclear test explosion in this century is North Korea.

But ahead of the first presidential debate on June 27, Robert O’Brien, a national security adviser under former President Donald Trump, argued in a Foreign Affairs article subtitled “Making the Case for Trump’s Foreign Policy” that “[t]he United States has to maintain technical and numerical superiority to the combined Chinese and Russian nuclear stockpiles. To do so, Washington must test new nuclear weapons for reliability and safety in the real world for the first time since 1992—not just by using computer models.”

Resuming U.S. nuclear testing is technically and militarily unnecessary. Moreover, it would lead to a global chain reaction of nuclear testing, raise global tensions, and blow apart global nonproliferation efforts at a time of heightened nuclear danger.

The vast majority of the 2,056 nuclear test explosions worldwide since 1945 were conducted to develop new and more deadly types of nuclear bombs. The U.S. nuclear weapons labs now have a generously-resourced, highly-developed Stockpile Stewardship Program to maintain the U.S. arsenal.

The program has provided U.S. weapons scientists with a deeper understanding of nuclear weapons dynamics than they had during the nuclear explosive testing era. Simply put, nuclear explosive testing is not needed for “safety and reliability,” according to the most senior National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) officials.

O’Brien’s 2024 proposal echoes statements from the Trump administration, which declared in 2018 that the United States did not intend to ratify the CTBT and formally shortened the time necessary to resume nuclear testing from 24 to 36 months to 6 to 10 months. In May 2020, senior Trump national security officials reportedly discussed the idea of a demonstration U.S. nuclear test explosion to try to intimidate China and Russia at the negotiating table. Later that year, Trump’s “arms control” adviser threatened that the United States would spend China and Russia “into oblivion” in a nuclear arms race if they did not accede to U.S. proposals.

The Trump administration’s nuclear testing threats did not soften Chinese or Russian nuclear behavior. In fact, China has accelerated its nuclear weapons buildup, and Russia withdrew its 2000 ratification of the CTBT in 2023 to mirror the U.S. stance. Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to resume nuclear testing if the United States does. China, which conducted 45 nuclear test blasts before stopping in 1996, likely would leap at the chance to proof-test new warhead designs if U.S. leaders are dumb enough to resume explosive testing first.

During the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden called the idea of resuming nuclear testing “as reckless as it is dangerous” and asserted that “[w]e have not tested a device since 1992; we don’t need to do so now.” Since Biden took office, his administration has reaffirmed U.S. support for the treaty, but has not taken steps to secure Senate advice and consent for ratification. To help reinforce the global nuclear testing moratorium, in 2023 the head of the NNSA proposed technical talks with Beijing and Moscow on confidence-building arrangements at their former test sites to ensure that their subcritical nuclear experiments are not nuclear test explosions, which would violate the CTBT.

As former Trump administration officials revive talk of nuclear testing, many people who have suffered the toxic effects of radioactive fallout from past U.S. atmospheric nuclear testing continue to wait for Congress to adopt overdue legislation that would extend and expand a program established in 1990 to compensate downwinders suffering from radiation-related health effects.

The program under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) expired on June 7 because House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) refused to allow a vote in the House on a bill passed in the Senate with a strong bipartisan majority that would extend and expand the program to cover affected populations excluded from the original program, including downwinders in New Mexico who were irradiated by the first nuclear test explosion. The bill very likely would win approval in the House, and Biden has said he would sign it.

The era of nuclear testing is a dangerous vestige of the past. Resuming this practice would add insult to the injuries inflicted on U.S. downwinders and undermine global security.

 

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