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"Though we have acheived progress, our work is not over. That is why I support the mission of the Arms Control Association. It is, quite simply, the most effective and important organization working in the field today." 

– Larry Weiler
Former U.S.-Russian arms control negotiator
August 7, 2018
Kingston Reif

Live Blogging the Nuclear Security Summit

Recap: The Summit Process and Beyond The Nuclear Security Summit process has forged cooperation and catalyzed action to prevent the common threat of nuclear and radiological terrorism. It has facilitated cooperative efforts between dozens of states to eliminate, consolidate, and secure stocks weapons-usable nuclear material. The process has also accelerated the adoption of tougher standards for the physical protection of nuclear materials where they remain, as manifested today by the news that enough states have ratified the 2005 amendment to the Conventional on the Physical Protection of...

Air Force Seeks Mobile ICBM Option

April 2016

By Kingston Reif

The U.S. Air Force is planning to design a next generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) that will have the capability to be deployed on mobile launchers, a knowledgeable source told Arms Control Today last month.

Initial Air Force estimates suggest that it would cost roughly $400 million in development funding to provide the “modularity” that would allow this option, the source said.

A decision by the United States to deploy ICBMs on a mobile platform would represent an unprecedented development in U.S. nuclear strategy. The United States explored two mobile ICBM options during the Cold War—the Peacekeeper, which would have been carried by railcars, and the small ICBM, or Midgetman, which would have been carried by trucks—but both programs were canceled before they became operational.

Developing transportable ICBM forces would cost at least $80 billion more over the next 50 years than retaining only silo-based missiles, according to Air Force estimates.

In an email exchange last month, Maj. Robert Leese, an Air Force spokesman, confirmed that the service is pursuing a replacement for the silo-based Minuteman III system “that will provide the option for alternative modes of operation in the future.” The replacement is known as the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD).

Leese declined to provide additional details, saying that “[t]he design features and the total cost required to support this option will be evaluated” later in the acquisition process.

A 2014 report by the RAND Corp. on the future of the ICBM force said a “mobile missile must be designed and built to more-demanding specifications then a silo-based ICBM,” such as remaining “reliable under the rigors of periodic movement.” The Minuteman III currently is not capable of being put on a mobile platform.

The requirement to examine future ICBM mobility appears to have originated with the 2010 “Nuclear Posture Review Report.” The document stated that the Defense Department would study “new modes of ICBM basing that enhance survivability and further reduce any incentives for prompt launch.” Under this argument, a mobile ICBM would enhance the overall survivability of the ICBM force by making the missile more difficult to target and destroy, thereby reducing the pressure the president might feel in the event of a nuclear attack to use ICBMs quickly lest they be destroyed.

The current Air Force proposal for replacing the Minuteman III calls for procuring 642 replacement missiles and rebuilding the existing missile infrastructure at an estimated acquisition cost of $62.3 billion (in then-year dollars) over the next 30 years. (See ACT, July/August 2015.)

That number of missiles would allow the United States to have a capability extending into the 2070s to deploy 400 ICBMs, the number that the United States will have in 2018 under the terms of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START).

To meet the treaty limits, the Defense Department has said it will reduce the U.S. arsenal from its current level—441 deployed missiles as of September 2015—while retaining 50 nondeployed missile launchers.

Leese said that, under the GBSD program, the Air Force is proposing to build “an improved system” that replaces the entire Minuteman III flight system, including the re-entry vehicles, guidance system, and propulsion system. The program also would renovate the associated missile-launch facilities, launch control centers, and command-and-control system, he said. The Nuclear Security and Deterrence Monitor reported last August that the plan is to replace the missiles first, followed by the support systems. The program is scheduled to achieve an initial operating capability of nine missiles by fiscal year 2029, the report said.

The Obama administration is requesting $114 million for the program in fiscal year 2017, an increase of almost $39 million over the appropriation for the current fiscal year. (See ACT, March 2016.)

The knowledgeable source said that, under the Air Force plan, the replacement missiles that will be fielded between 2028 and 2036 will not include mobile missiles.

ICBMs make up the land-based leg of the U.S. nuclear triad of delivery systems, which also consists of submarine-launched missiles and long-range bombers. The bombers can carry air-launched cruise missiles and gravity bombs.

The Minuteman III, which has a range of more than 8,000 miles, was first fielded in 1970 with a planned service life of 10 years. Several multibillion-dollar life extension programs have kept the missile in service for more than 40 years.

Costs Revealed

In 2014 the Air Force completed an analysis of alternatives to sustain the ICBM force beyond the anticipated end of the Minuteman III’s service life in 2030.

The analysis focused on three alternatives: a “baseline” option that would extend the life of the Minuteman III through 2075, a “replacement system” that would “capitaliz[e]” on the existing Minuteman III silo infrastructure, and a “hybrid” option that would mix the existing Minuteman III silo infrastructure with new road-mobile ICBMs.

The analysis ultimately recommended that the Air Force proceed with the replacement option. The total life-cycle cost of this approach was estimated at $159 billion (in fiscal year 2014 constant dollars) between fiscal years 2016 and 2075, according to Leese.

The baseline option was estimated to cost $160 billion and the hybrid option $242 billion.

Leese said that mobile forces would not have been deployed until around 2050 under the hybrid option. 

Incremental Upgrade Rejected

Like the Air Force, the 2014 RAND study ruled out basic sustainment of the Minuteman III as a realistic follow-on option, noting that “replacement of failed items with exact replicas is not possible in some instances.”

The RAND study took a more favorable view of an approach to sustaining the Minuteman III beyond 2030 that the authors called “incremental modernization,” which differed from the three main alternatives that the Air Force considered. The report said maintaining the missile through continued life extension programs and “gradual upgrades is a relatively inexpensive way to retain current ICBM capabilities.”

The study identified two challenges to this approach. First, the number of Minuteman III missile bodies is declining due to test launches. Based on the current testing pace, maintaining a force of 400 missiles, as is the plan under New START, would deplete the test inventory by 2035. Second, the report said incremental modernization would be “viable” only if the capability the Minuteman III provides “is not substantially changed.”

In the March email exchange, Leese said the analysis of alternatives “looked at a ‘phased’ implementation of” system “improvements” but did not recommend this option. “Incremental modernization is hindered by” the near-term need to upgrade key parts of the missile “and the remaining elements of the weapon system,” such as ground security and communications, he said.

This approach would also increase the near-term cost of sustaining the Minuteman III, Leese added.

Meanwhile, an Air Force official told Politico last October that “as enemy capabilities continue to progress...more advanced technologies are required to meet” the ICBM mission. The official did not specify what new technologies would be required or if a future mobile option is desired to enhance the U.S. capability.

A Feb. 17 story in The Daily Beast cited concerns among some military officials that the Minuteman III lacks the required accuracy to destroy key hardened targets.

In addition, Gen. Robin Rand, the commander of the Air Force Global Strike Command, told lawmakers at a House Armed Services Committee hearing on March 2 that the Minuteman III “will have a difficult time surviving” against missile defenses or other anti-missile capabilities—known as “anti-area access denial”—that potential adversaries are expected to possess “in the 2030 and beyond time period.”

When asked to clarify whether future Russian or Chinese missile defenses could prevent the Minuteman III from delivering nuclear warheads to their targets, a second Air Force spokesman said in an email last month that the “[s]pecifics regarding the survivability of the Minuteman III weapon system are classified.” The spokesman added that the GBSD program will “address future threats, especially those that may emerge in a post-2030 Anti-Access/Area Denial environment.”

A second knowledgeable source who has been briefed on the GBSD program questioned the Air Force’s approach to replacing the Minuteman III. The source said in an interview that the Air Force had yet to adequately explain why the Minuteman III could not be sustained until the 2040s, thereby allowing the Air Force to defer until then its decision on whether to build a replacement system.

Todd Harrison, director of defense budget analysis and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in a January report that “delaying GBSD by five years would yield savings in the early 2020s averaging $2 billion annually.”

Deploying intercontinental ballistic missiles on mobile launchers would represent an unprecedented development in U.S. nuclear strategy.

New Missile Defense Concepts Advance

April 2016

By Kingston Reif

The Obama administration’s fiscal year 2017 budget request would increase funding to improve the capability of the U.S. system intended for protection of the U.S. homeland against long-range missiles launched from North Korea or Iran and the pursuit of advanced technology efforts to ensure the system stays ahead of foreign missile threats.

These proposed increases come amid growing concerns from high-ranking military officials that the current U.S. strategy to defeat adversary ballistic missiles is “unsustainable.”

Some of the advanced anti-missile technologies the Defense Department is pursuing, such as airborne lasers to zap missiles in the early stages of their flight, have been unsuccessfully pursued in the past.

Overall, the administration is asking for $8.5 billion for missile defense efforts in fiscal year 2017, a decrease of $500 million, or 5.5 percent, below what the administration requested for fiscal year 2016. In the request for fiscal year 2017, $7.5 billion would be for the Missile Defense Agency (MDA).

Congress appropriated $8.3 billion for the MDA, which is part of the Defense Department, for fiscal year 2016.

At a Feb. 9 press briefing at the Pentagon, Vice Adm. James Syring, the director of the MDA, said that although the agency’s fiscal year 2016 budget request projected a decrease in funding for fiscal year 2017, the bipartisan budget deal approved by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama last October set new spending levels that reduced the MDA’s fiscal year 2017 request by an additional $300 million.

The program to protect the U.S. homeland against a limited long-range missile attack, known as the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, would receive $862 million under the budget proposal, a decrease of $408 million, or 32 percent, from last year’s enacted level of $1.3 billion. The request keeps on track the Defense Department’s plan to increase the number of interceptors in Alaska and California from 30 to 44 by the end of fiscal year 2017 in response to concerns about North Korea’s growing nuclear and long-range missile capabilities. (See ACT, April 2014.) Fiscal year 2017 begins on Oct. 1.

In addition, the request would provide $274 million to design a new kill vehicle for the GMD system, a slight decrease of $5 million below the fiscal year 2016 appropriation of $279 million. Over the next five years, however, the MDA is seeking $2.2 billion for this effort, a major increase over the $626 million the agency was projecting to request from fiscal years 2016 through 2020.

The kill vehicle sits atop the interceptor’s booster rocket and is intended to collide with a target in outer space.

There have been serious concerns about the GMD interceptors since they were rushed into service by the George W. Bush administration in 2004. In response to these concerns, the MDA announced in March 2014 that it would build and deploy by 2020 a redesigned kill vehicle that would be more reliable and cost effective than the current versions. (See ACT, July/August 2014.)

The budget request also seeks a funding increase for a new ground-based sensor to provide enhanced tracking and discrimination capabilities for the GMD system. The program would receive $317 million in fiscal year 2017, an increase of $180 million over the current-year level.

In a Feb. 17 report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) repeated its warnings about the strategy the MDA is pursuing to improve the GMD system. According to the report, the MDA “has not demonstrated several key homeland missile defense capabilities and is relying on high-risk acquisition practices to achieve its goal of fielding 44 interceptors by the end of fiscal year 2017.”

The report also raised concerns that the MDA is pursuing “an aggressive schedule to begin fielding” the redesigned kill vehicle by 2020 and that it is “unclear whether MDA has allowed enough time for modifying and maturing” the desired components and technologies for the redesign.

Advanced Technology Sought

According to budget documents released on Feb. 9, the fiscal year 2017 proposal supports the MDA’s efforts to develop advanced technologies “to adapt as the threat changes in the future.”

The request includes $72 million, an increase of $21 million above the fiscal year 2016 appropriation, to advance work on a next-generation laser system “capable of defeating advanced threats and [missile] raids more efficiently than existing missile interceptors.”

The request would provide $90 million, an increase of $63 million from the current-year level, to place a sensor on the MQ-9 reaper drone to improve missile tracking and design a laser that could be put on unmanned aerial vehicles, as drones are more formally known, to destroy intercontinental ballistic missiles in their boost phase—that is, the early part of the missile’s ascent when the missile’s rocket motor is still burning.

Syring told lawmakers at a House Armed Services Committee hearing on March 19, 2015, that the MDA’s goal is to deploy a laser-armed drone by 2025.

The MDA also is requesting $72 million, an increase of $10 million above the fiscal year 2016 enacted level, to develop a new “multi-object kill vehicle” to allow a single GMD interceptor to destroy multiple targets. The program is envisioned as a follow-on to the redesigned vehicle the MDA is seeking to deploy by 2020.

Syring said at the March 2015 hearing that kill vehicles capable of destroying multiple objects “will revolutionize our missile defense architecture, substantially reducing the interceptor inventory required to defeat an evolving and more capable threat to the homeland.”

The George W. Bush administration initiated programs to put a high-powered laser on a Boeing 747 and develop a multiple-object kill vehicle, but both efforts were discontinued by the Obama administration during its first term due to concerns about their effectiveness and cost. The airborne laser program was canceled in 2012 after $5.3 billion had been spent on the program. The Defense Department spent $700 million developing a multiple-object kill vehicle concept before shelving it in 2009.

Cost Effectiveness Questioned

The MDA’s efforts to improve the effectiveness of the GMD system against current and potential threats come as senior military leaders are raising alarms about the sustainability of current U.S. missile defense efforts.

Adm. Bill Gortney, the head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on March 10 that the U.S. missile defense system “is in an unsustainable cost model, which has us postured to shoot down inexpensive rockets with very expensive ones.”

Gortney said that the Defense Department must augment current defenses with capabilities “designed to defeat ballistic missile threats in the boost phase as well as before they are launched.”

He added that the MDA “is working on emerging technology that will enable us to employ...methods to defeat ballistic missile threats” without physically destroying them with an interceptor “when we receive indications that a launch is imminent.” Gortney did not specify what these methods would entail.

Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work stated in March 2015 that the Pentagon is seeking to develop electronic warfare tools to provide additional options to defeat the increasingly sophisticated missile capabilities of U.S. adversaries. (See ACT, April 2015.)

The Obama administration’s fiscal year 2017 budget request would increase funding to improve the capability of the U.S. homeland missile defense system.

Nuclear Summit Seeks Sustainable Results

March 2016

By Kelsey Davenport and Kingston Reif

17_NEWS_NSS.jpgA consensus document on nuclear security that will be released at the upcoming nuclear security summit in Washington will outline further steps to strengthen the global nuclear security architecture and spur progress on tangible nuclear security improvements, a senior White House official said last month.

In a Feb. 12 email to Arms Control Today, the official said that the document will “highlight progress” toward these goals and “look forward to further steps required to achieve them.”

The official said that multilateral initiatives and institutions are critical components of the “architecture,” along with “treaty regimes, informal arrangements, and national regulations.”

The March 31-April 1 meeting will be the fourth and final biennial summit on nuclear security since President Barack Obama hosted the first one in April 2010 as part of an accelerated effort to secure civilian nuclear material worldwide.

Given that the upcoming summit will be the final meeting in this format, the official said the United States hopes to “establish a mechanism to sustain momentum” on the nuclear security agenda.

The summit participants, comprising 52 countries and four international organizations, are expected to endorse five action plans for key institutions and initiatives to carry on parts of the summit agenda. The action plans are for the United Nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Interpol, the Global Initiative to Combat Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT), and the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction. 

The action plans “will reflect the intent” of the participating states “to promote and enhance the nuclear security contributions” of these key organizations and initiatives, said the official.

Although some observers have expressed concern that momentum on the nuclear security agenda will fade after the high-level political attention brought to the summit process ends, the White House official said that there are “many vehicles that can carry forward the senior-level engagement.” The official said that the “primary vehicle” would be the IAEA’s nuclear security meeting, scheduled to be held in Vienna at the ministerial level every three years.

The IAEA held the first such meeting in July 2013. The second is scheduled for December 2016.

The official said that, by “maximizing participation at the ministerial level and by developing a practice of announcing accomplishments and pledges at this meeting, the Summits’ momentum can be carried forward.”

Beginning with the 2010 summit, participating countries were encouraged to announce actions they intended to take to enhance nuclear security. (See ACT, May 2010.) At the subsequent summits in 2012 and 2014, countries were encouraged to report on their progress and announce further commitments. (See ACT, April 2014; April 2012.)

A German official said in a Feb. 18 email that “[t]here is consensus that nuclear security will remain a priority” after 2016.

The official added that the “security of radioactive sources is of particular importance for Germany” and requires the country’s “full attention.”

In a separate Feb. 18 email, a French official, asked whether there are nuclear security risks that the summit process has not adequately addressed, said “No.”

The German official said that “[o]ne particular challenge” for the future “is to build up sustainable and robust protection” against cyberattacks for civilian nuclear power reactors and other nuclear installations. He said that the summit process has addressed the issue but that more work needed to be done.

Accomplishments Since 2014

One of the most tangible accomplishments of the summit process has been the acceleration of removals of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and, to a lesser extent, separated plutonium.

Since the summit process began in 2010, the number of countries with weapons-usable nuclear material has dropped from 32 to 24, according to reports by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI).

The senior White House official noted that all HEU was removed from Switzerland and Uzbekistan since the 2014 summit in The Hague and said to expect new announcements on the removal of HEU and plutonium at the upcoming summit.

Switzerland participates in the summit process, while Uzbekistan does not.

The official also highlighted progress on ratifications of key nuclear security treaties as one of the significant accomplishments since the 2014 summit and noted that the United States completed ratification of the 2005 amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (CPPNM) and the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism in 2015. (See ACT, July/August 2015.)

The CPPNM amendment expands the original treaty to require parties not only to protect nuclear material in international transit, but also to protect nuclear facilities and nuclear material that is in domestic storage, use, or transit. It is not yet in force.

The anti-terrorism convention establishes a framework to strengthen cooperation among countries in combating nuclear terrorism and provides details on how offenders and illicit materials should be handled by states when seized.

18_NEWS_NSS.jpgAlthough the summit process has spurred visible progress in securing and minimizing civilian HEU, some government officials and independent analysts have criticized the process for not focusing more intensively on reducing civilian stockpiles of separated plutonium and stockpiles of nuclear materials categorized for military uses and on increasing the transparency of these categories of materials.

Global stocks of plutonium and HEU found outside civilian nuclear programs, such as material in noncivilian naval reactors or material declared excess to military needs and awaiting disposition, make up more than 80 percent of the global stockpile of weapons-usable material, according to an NTI report in November 2015.

The White House official said some countries may address military materials or civilian plutonium stocks in their national progress reports or national statements at the summit. The official added that progress in these areas is “most likely to be made working directly with and among the small number of countries” who possess these materials rather than through a summit statement on behalf of all the participants.

Russian Participation

With the exception of Russia, all of the countries from the 2014 summit are expected to attend in 2016. Russia announced in 2014 that it would not attend the Washington meeting. (See ACT, December 2014.)

The White House official said “the door remained open” for Russia to join the remaining preparatory process for the 2016 summit and that the United States “regret[s]” Moscow’s decision not to participate.

The official added that Russia now has limited bilateral cooperation with the United States on nuclear security, but expressed the hope that Moscow will “deliver on its pledge to maintain the nuclear security improvements” the two countries have made since the end of the Cold War.

 Russia continues to work “constructively with the United States” on projects to remove nuclear materials from other countries and as a member of the GICNT, the official said.

In September 2015, Russia worked with the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration and the IAEA to remove Uzbekistan’s remaining stockpile of HEU. Russia and the United States co-chair the GICNT, a voluntary organization launched in 2006 to strengthen global abilities to prevent and respond to acts of nuclear terrorism. 

The White House hopes to spur “further steps” at this month’s gathering in Washington. 

Budget Would Raise Nuclear Spending

March 2016

By Kingston Reif

In this video image, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work speaks to reporters about the fiscal year 2017 defense budget request at the Pentagon on February 9. Photo credit: Defense Department)The Obama administration on Feb. 9 released a final budget request that proposes to continue increasing spending for programs to rebuild the U.S. nuclear triad as Defense Department officials repeated warnings that the modernization plans may become unsustainable.

Comments by U.S. civilian and military officials suggest that several programs will hit their periods of peak spending at about the same time, forcing the U.S. government to choose between the nuclear modernization effort and other military priorities unless overall defense spending rises significantly above the levels currently projected.

The Air Force and Navy are seeking approximately $3.6 billion in fiscal year 2017, which begins on Oct. 1, to build new fleets of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), ballistic missile submarines, long-range bombers, and short-range tactical aircraft, an increase of roughly $1.2 billion, or 50 percent, over the amount that Congress approved for fiscal year 2016. The request keeps the expected production timeline for these programs largely on schedule.

Meanwhile, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semiautonomous agency of the Energy Department, is requesting $9.2 billion for its nuclear weapons activities, an increase of almost $400 million, or 4 percent, above the enacted level for the current year.

Nuclear modernization costs are scheduled to peak during the 2020s and overlap with large increases in projected spending on modernization programs for conventional weapons systems. Todd Harrison, the director of defense budget analysis and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), wrote in a January report that “if not altered from current plans,” these modernization programs “will require either an increase in defense spending or a reallocation of resources within the defense budget.”

At a Feb. 9 series of press briefings at the Pentagon, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said that if funding for nuclear modernization “comes out of our conventional forces, that will be very, very, very problematic for us.”

Similarly, Pentagon Comptroller Mike McCord said at a CSIS event on Nov. 30 that the long-term cost to modernize the triad is “a concern.” He explained that the “easy solution” would be to “bump up” resources for nuclear weapons for the next 15 years but that such a funding increase is “probably not realistic.”

Overall, the administration requested $551 billion for national defense in fiscal year 2017. That figure includes the Defense Department’s regular budget activities and the Energy Department’s nuclear weapons programs.

Spending on Delivery Systems Rises

The highest-priority nuclear triad replacement program remains the Navy’s plan to replace its current fleet of 14 Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines with 12 new subs, called the Ohio replacement program. Under the Navy’s budget request, the program would receive $1.9 billion in fiscal year 2017, an increase of $360 million above the fiscal year 2016 appropriation.

The request includes $1.1 billion in research and development and, for the first time, $778 million in advance procurement funding to build the first boat in the new class.

An Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine moves through the Hood Canal on its way to Naval Base Kitsap in Washington state on February 15. (Photo credit: Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Amanda R. Gray/U.S. Navy)Navy officials have repeatedly warned that the service’s projected long-term budget is not large enough to accommodate the program to build the new submarines and meet its needs for conventional ships. (See ACT, October 2013.) The Navy estimates that the 12 planned boats, which are slated to be purchased between 2021 and 2035, will cost $139 billion to develop and build.

In another high-profile program, proposed funding for the Air Force’s plan to build approximately 1,000 nuclear-capable cruise missiles in the coming years continues to rise. The service is seeking $95.6 million in fiscal year 2017 for research and development for a long-range standoff weapon, almost six times as much as the $16.1 million that Congress appropriated for the current fiscal year. The new standoff missile would replace the Air Force’s nuclear-armed air-launched cruise missile (ALCM), which has been operational since 1986.

Government and think tank estimates suggest that the total cost of building the new missile and refurbishing the associated warhead would be about $25 billion over 20 years. 

In addition, the Air Force is seeking $1.4 billion in fiscal year 2017, an increase of $624 million over the fiscal year 2016 appropriation, for the program to build a new fleet of 80-100 nuclear-capable long-range strategic bombers. The new bombers are scheduled to enter service in the mid-2020s, and the entire fleet could cost more than $100 billion to produce, according to some nongovernmental estimates.

In the budget documents, the Air Force said it is planning to request $12.1 billion for the new bomber program between fiscal years 2017 and 2021, a significant reduction relative to the five-year budget projection of $15.6 billion cited in last year’s budget documents. Carolyn Gleason, a senior Pentagon budget official, told reporters during the Feb. 9 briefings that the change reflects a revised cost estimate for the program in the wake of the awarding of a contract to Northrop Grumman last fall to build the bombers.

The program to develop a replacement for the current force of land-based Minuteman III ICBMs also would get a boost under the administration’s request. The Air Force is requesting $114 million for the program, an increase of almost $39 million over the appropriation for the current fiscal year.

The service is currently planning to procure 642 replacement missiles and update the existing missile infrastructure at an estimated cost of $62.3 billion over the next 30 years. (See ACT, July/August 2015.) According to the new budget documents, the projected deployment date for the replacement missiles is 2028. That represents slippage of a year since last year’s request.

Air Force officials have expressed growing alarm about the cost of the service’s nuclear modernization plans. “Our problems become unmanageable” when the costs for the ICBM replacement program begin to peak, said Lt. Gen. James Holmes, the Air Force’s deputy chief of staff for strategic plans and requirements, at a Feb. 12 press briefing at the Pentagon.

Warhead Request Grows

The NNSA is requesting $220 million to refurbish the existing ALCM warhead that would be delivered by the new ALCM under development by the Air Force. That is an increase of $25.2 million above the fiscal year 2016 appropriation.

The NNSA weapons budget also would increase funding to update a key part of the W88 submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead and build a new uranium-processing facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. In contrast, the budget would slightly decrease spending to rebuild the B61 gravity bomb.

In a Feb. 10 press call with reporters, retired Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz, the NNSA administrator, said the NNSA is facing a “formidable” planned increase in spending on life extension programs and infrastructure improvements. Peak funding for these efforts occurs earlier than the Defense Department’s expected peak funding years for triad modernization, he said.

The budget calls for increases even as officials warn the plan may be unsustainable. 

Terminate MOX Fuel Plant, Budget Says

March 2016

By Kingston Reif and Daniel Horner

The Obama administration is seeking a permanent stop to construction of the facility that has been the centerpiece of the effort to get rid of plutonium withdrawn from the U.S. nuclear weapons program.

Under the plan, described in budget documents released Feb. 9 and a conference call with journalists the following day, the administration would spend $270 million in the coming fiscal year for termination costs for the plant, with costs of a similar magnitude expected for the next few years. At the same time, the administration would spend $15 million in fiscal year 2017 for preliminary work on the new plutonium-disposition path that the Energy Department and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) have chosen.

The proposal was part of the administration’s $1.8 billion request for NNSA nonproliferation programs in fiscal year 2017.

The plant, which is under construction at the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, was designed to turn surplus weapons plutonium into mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel—so called because it is a mix of plutonium and uranium oxides—for use in nuclear power reactors. Under an agreement that Russia and the United States signed in 2000, each country is required to dispose of at least 34 metric tons of surplus weapons plutonium.

The Obama administration was widely seen as skeptical of the viability of the MOX fuel strategy since it announced in 2013 that it was considering alternatives. (See ACT, May 2013.) In the recently released budget documents, the NNSA said studies it had commissioned “confirm that the MOX fuel approach will be significantly more expensive than anticipated and will require approximately $800 million to $1 billion annually for decades.”

The new approach, known as “dilute and dispose,” would down-blend the plutonium with an inert material for direct disposal in a repository. During the Feb. 10 conference call, Kelly Cummins, NNSA associate assistant deputy administrator for fissile materials disposition, said the annual costs would rise to $300-400 million.

Supporters of the MOX fuel plant, led by the South Carolina congressional delegation, have suggested that the new approach could face technical, legal, and political obstacles.

Cummins said the termination costs for the MOX fuel plant were expected to total $500-750 million. But she emphasized that those figures are a rough estimate and are “subject to negotiation” with the contractors hired to build the plant.

The lead contractor is CB&I Areva MOX Services Group.

Nuclear Security Programs Cut

Excluding the MOX fuel program, the Obama administration is asking for $1.5 billion for NNSA nuclear nonproliferation and counterterrorism programs, a decrease of $62.4 million, or 3.8 percent, from the fiscal year 2016 appropriation.

The drop is even steeper when measured against what the NNSA projected it would request for these programs in its fiscal year 2016 submission, which was issued in February 2015. The agency had said it planned to ask for $1.7 billion in fiscal year 2017, or $185 million more than the actual proposal.

The largest proposed reduction in the request is to the Global Material Security program, which has the task of improving the security of nuclear materials around the world, securing orphaned or disused radiological sources, and strengthening nuclear smuggling detection and deterrence. The program would get $337 million, a $89.6 million reduction from the fiscal year 2016 appropriation.

The NNSA is requesting $46 million for the international security subcomponent of this program, a decrease of $84.5 million from the fiscal year 2016 enacted level and $182 million from the level projected in last year’s request. According to budget documents, the decline from the enacted level “reflects a commitment to reduce” unspent money left over from previous fiscal years by spending it in fiscal year 2017, permitting a lower request.

In a Feb. 18 email to Arms Control Today, an NNSA spokesperson said the agency does “not have exact projections of carryover” but anticipates “sufficient funds to implement priority tasks” in fiscal year 2017.

In addition, the budget submission reveals that the NNSA is now planning to secure 4,394 buildings containing high-priority radioactive nuclear material by 2033, a change from the previous goal of securing 8,500 sites by 2044.

The NNSA spokesperson said the revision is the result of shifting the focus “from a primarily protect[ion]-based approach to one that emphasizes permanent threat reduction through the removal of sources and promotion of non-isotopic, alternative technologies, when feasible.”

The Material Management and Minimization program, which supports the removal of civilian highly enriched uranium (HEU) and plutonium around the world and converts HEU-fueled research reactors and medical isotope production facilities to the use of low-enriched uranium, would receive $341 million, an increase of $24.5 million over the fiscal year 2016 appropriation.

Nuclear material removal activities would get $68.9 million, a decrease of $46 million. The drop is based in part on “a reduced scope of work” in fiscal year 2017 due to “the completion of several major initiatives in time for the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit, including completion of the removal of all HEU and plutonium from Japan’s Fast Critical Assembly,” according to budget documents. 

Elsewhere in the NNSA nonproliferation budget, funding for Nonproliferation and Arms Control activities would fall slightly, from a fiscal year 2016 appropriation of $130 million to $125 million. Spending for Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development activities, which focus on technologies used in tracking foreign nuclear weapons programs, illicit diversion of nuclear materials, and nuclear detonations, would fall to $394 million from its $419 million fiscal year 2016 appropriation.

The NNSA nonproliferation budget request also includes $13 million to support the nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, which passed a critical point in its implementation in January (see "Iran Nuclear Deal Implemented"). 

Funding Proposal Questioned

Some observers continue to question the wisdom of proposed reductions in funding for NNSA nuclear and radiological security activities, especially in the run-up to the final nuclear security summit, which is scheduled to take place in Washington March 31-April 1 (see "Nuclear Summit Seeks Sustainable Results").

An Energy Department task force report on NNSA nonproliferation programs released last year expressed concern about the recent trend of falling budgets for those programs, noting that appropriations declined from $2.2 billion in fiscal year 2013 to $1.6 billion for fiscal year 2015, a reduction of 25 percent. “The need to counter current and likely future challenges to nonproliferation justifies increased, rather than reduced, investment in this area,” the report said. (See ACT, May 2015.)

Matthew Bunn, a professor of practice at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, said in a Feb. 19 interview that “to propose big cuts in nuclear security spending weeks before hosting the last nuclear security summit is a mistake that will undermine U.S. leadership.”

“Congress should act to correct President [Barack] Obama’s mistake,” added Bunn, a member of the Arms Control Association Board of Directors.

During the Feb. 10 conference call, retired Lt. Gen. Frank Klotz, the NNSA administrator, disputed the claim that the budget request sends a bad signal ahead of the summit.

The proposed fiscal year 2017 spending levels on nonproliferation programs reflect “a hard-headed business decision about where the money is and how we pay for all the things we need to do,” Klotz said. “We’re satisfied with what we have.”

Designed to make plutonium fuel, the plant is now too expensive, officials say. 

Interim Step on HEU Reactors Proposed

March 2016

By Kingston Reif

The Advanced Test Reactor at the Idaho National Laboratory, shown above in a May 2013 photo, is one of the high-performance U.S. research reactors that uses highly enriched uranium fuel and is not able to use existing types of low-enriched uranium fuel. (Photo credit: Idaho National Laboratory)The U.S. government should seek to convert some civilian research reactors currently using weapons-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel to lower-enriched HEU fuel as an interim step on the way to fueling the reactors with a new kind of low-enriched uranium (LEU), according to a new report from a committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The report, which was released on Jan. 28, also recommends that the White House develop a 50-year strategy that evaluates future U.S. civilian needs for neutrons and “how these can best be provided by reactors and other sources that do not use highly enriched uranium.”

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) said it had “concerns” about the recommendation for an interim conversion step. In a Feb. 24 email to Arms Control Today, a spokesperson for the NNSA, a semiautonomous agency of the Energy Department, said the recommendation “runs counter to” the U.S. policy of pursuing “the minimization of the civilian use of HEU globally.”

Research reactors fueled by weapons-grade HEU continue to be used to produce neutrons for research and other civilian applications. Since 1978 the United States has sought to minimize and where possible eliminate the use of HEU in civilian research reactors. Currently, 74 such reactors remain to be converted or shut down, according to the report. Eight reactors in the United States still use HEU fuel.

Weapons-grade uranium is enriched to 90 percent uranium-235, and LEU is enriched to less than 20 percent. Converting reactors to LEU use would reduce the risks that this material could be used to make a nuclear explosive device.

The report expressed concern that the conversion of the remaining reactors is taking much longer than originally envisioned. It noted that the U.S. goal in 2004 was to complete the conversions by 2014 but that the goal today is to complete them by 2035.

“There are significant technical and nontechnical obstacles associated with eliminating HEU from civilian research reactors,” the report said. 

One obstacle has been that making the higher-density LEU fuel required to convert high-performance research reactors in the United States and Europe has turned out to be much more difficult than anticipated. The report warned that the new fuel might not even be available by 2035.

Consequently, in order to reduce the use of weapons-grade HEU in high-performance reactors, the report called for conversion of these reactors to the use of fuel that has an enrichment level of 25 to 45 percent. All but one of the nine high-performance reactors in the United States and Europe that use weapons-grade HEU could be converted in this manner in approximately five years, the report said.

Reducing the fuel enrichment to 45 percent “cuts the attractiveness” of the fuel for use in a nuclear explosive device “by about 40 percent,” compared to 90 percent enrichment, according to the report. The report calculated that, by pursuing this approach for the eight reactors, the use of approximately 3,400 kilograms of weapons-grade HEU could be avoided until the reactors are converted to run on LEU in roughly 12 to 17 years.

In a Feb. 3 posting on the website of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, William Tobey, a senior fellow at the center and a member of the National Academies panel that produced the report, wrote that the interim-step recommendation “should in no way be construed as lack of support for eliminating civilian use of HEU. Rather, it is recognition of the fact that estimates of when conversion would be possible have changed, and an effort to minimize risk in light of those changes.”

But another expert disagreed with the recommendation, expressing a concern similar to the NNSA’s about the impact on the global effort to phase out civilian use of HEU. In a Feb. 24 email, Alan Kuperman, a political scientist at the University of Texas, said one problem with the National Academies’ approach is that it “would reduce the prospect of converting existing high-performance research reactors to LEU fuel since their operators would resist the expense and inconvenience of having to convert twice.”

The most significant nontechnical obstacle to converting the remaining HEU-fueled civilian reactors identified by the report is that more than 40 percent of these reactors are located in Russia. The report said that  “conversion of its domestic research reactors is not a high national priority for Russia” and noted that “Russian-U.S. collaboration on research reactor conversion...has all but ceased during the past year” due to the downturn in relations between the two countries over Russia’s actions in Ukraine.

Due to the downturn, the NNSA is no longer planning to support the conversion of 41 reactors in Russia, according to the department’s fiscal year 2017 budget submission. This figure includes both civilian reactors and reactors used to power Russian icebreaker ships.

The National Academies report recommended that the United States seek to engage “Russian scientists and engineers to continue scientific exchanges and interactions that formed the basis for previous progress in....HEU minimization,” primarily in countries that used to be members of the Soviet Union.

In 2012, Congress tasked the National Academies with assessing the progress toward eliminating all worldwide use of HEU in research reactor fuel and medical isotope production facilities. The January report examined the status of conversion of research reactors to LEU use. Another report examining the status of medical isotope production without HEU targets is to be issued later this year.

Julia Phillips, former vice president and chief technology officer at Sandia National Laboratories, chaired the committee that authored the January report.

Experts outline a plan for converting some reactors now using weapons-grade fuel. 

U.S. Will Skip Disarmament Meetings

March 2016

By Kingston Reif

The United States will not participate in a working group on disarmament taking place in Geneva this year, according to the State Department.

In a Feb. 18 email to Arms Control Today, Blake Narendra, a U.S. State Department spokesman, said the United States has been open to participating in the disarmament group. But he said that the agenda and rules for the Geneva meetings “will not result in constructive dialogue on nuclear weapons or conditions under which nuclear disarmament can best be achieved.”

During last year’s meeting of the UN General Assembly First Committee, UN member states voted to approve a resolution sponsored by Mexico creating the working group. (See ACT, December 2015.) It is open ended, which means that all UN members can participate.

Under the resolution, the mandate of the group is to “substantively address concrete effective legal measures, legal provisions and norms” necessary to “attain and maintain a world without nuclear weapons.”

The working group also will “substantively address recommendations on other measures that could contribute to taking forward multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations.” The resolution said the group should convene in Geneva in 2016 for up to 15 days and present a report on its work to the General Assembly at its session later this year.

The working group held its first meeting Feb. 22-26. Many NATO members and East Asian U.S. allies that attended the meeting joined a statement delivered by Canada saying they “chose to participate” in the group in part because existing institutions that deal with disarmament have been bogged down by “both internal and external challenges which seriously impede [their] effectiveness.”

Like the United States, the four other countries recognized as nuclear-weapon states by the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty—China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom—did not attend the February meeting.

The working group is scheduled to reconvene during the first two weeks of May and once more during the week of Aug. 22. 

The United States will not participate in a working group on disarmament taking place in Geneva this year, according to the State Department.

Pentagon Wants to Resume JLENS Exercise

March 2016

By Kingston Reif

The U.S. Army is asking Congress for additional funding to resume an exercise of a blimp-borne radar system designed to detect and track objects such as cruise missiles and other airborne threats despite a major malfunction last October.

Defense News last month quoted Adm. Bill Gortney, head of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, as saying that “[i]t is in the best interest of the nation to continue the program.”

“Investigators took a hard look at the causes of the incident, and I am confident that we have a plan of action to safely fly the aerostat again,” he added.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter concurred with the decision to resume the exercise, according to multiple news reports.

One of the two tethered blimps that make up the current test deployment of the Joint Land Attack Cruise Missile Defense Elevated Netted Sensor System (JLENS) detached from its mooring station near Baltimore last October, dragging 6,700 feet of cable for three hours before finally coming to rest. (See ACT, December 2015.)

At the time of the crash, the system was in the midst of a planned three-year exercise over the area around Washington. The exercise was designed to demonstrate the system’s capabilities for homeland defense and determine its future.

In the fiscal year 2016 omnibus appropriations bill, Congress slashed $30 million from the budget request of $40.6 million for JLENS in the wake of the crash. (See ACT, January/Feburary 2016.)

InsideDefense.com reported on Feb. 17 that, in order to resume the exercise, the Defense Department is asking lawmakers to transfer an additional $27 million to the program for the remainder of the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30. It is not clear where the additional funds will come from.

The Los Angeles Times reported on Feb. 14 that the blimp crashed because a device designed to automatically deflate it in the event of trouble failed to activate because batteries had not been installed as a power source.

Meanwhile, in a new report released in January, Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s director for operational test and evaluation, reiterated concerns he has raised in the past about whether JLENS can work as intended. The report identified numerous problems, including vulnerability to electronic interference, that could undermine the effectiveness and suitability of the ongoing exercise of the system. 

The U.S. Army is asking Congress for additional funding to resume an exercise of a blimp-borne radar system designed to detect and track objects...

Last Obama Budget Goes for Broke on Nuclear Weapons

Consider the following facts. The United States is planning to rebuild all three legs of the nuclear triad and their associated warheads at a cost and on a schedule that many military leaders say is unsustainable. In addition, these plans would leave the United States with a larger deployed strategic nuclear arsenal than President Barack Obama has said is needed for U.S. security. Unfortunately, the president’s final budget request released today is divorced from reality. The Fiscal Year 2017 proposal contains significant increases for several Defense and Energy department nuclear weapons...

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