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Summary
Russian and US officials have been grappling with the challenge of elaborating the details of nuclear arms reductions in the context of an as yet ill-defined 'new strategic framework' between the two sides. The aim of the talks is to draft an agreement for signature by Presidents Vladimir Putin and George W. Bush in Moscow in May. The broad outline of a deal is clear. At their November 2001 summit in Washington and Crawford, Texas, the two leaders announced their willingness to bring down their strategic nuclear arsenals: the US to 1,700-2,200 warheads by 2012, Russia to 1,500-2,200 over an unspecified period. But the devil, in this instance, is in the lack of detail over US plans.
The headline figure given above is acknowledged to refer to the operationally-deployed arsenal, raising the question of the extent and status of the reserve and contingency forces. Additionally, while the US is clearly prepared to sign an agreement covering the reductions it now envisages, it has made equally clear its aversion to codifying the cutbacks in a 'traditional' arms control agreement with rigorously defined categories and ceilings, etc. Russia, conversely, champions the cause of precisely such an accord, enshrining the principles of the transparency and irreversibility of reductions characterising the strategic arms reduction (START) process so far. A further complication lies in an imminent, major change to the overall strategic framework within which START operated - the guarantee provided by the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty that mutual reductions in offensive capability would not be accompanied by a one-sided increase in defensive capability. With the announcement by President Bush on December 13, 2001 that the US planned to withdraw from the treaty in May this year, in order to pave the way for the full-speed development and deployment of ambitious nationwide missile defences, the principle of equal or mutual security has joined transparency and irreversibility as a previous point of common ground now thrown in doubt.
The period under review saw two formal rounds of pre-summit discussions: in Washington on January 29, and in Moscow on February 19. The delegations are headed by Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov and Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton.
At the Washington round, according to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement (January 30), "the focus of the talks was [on] the main elements proposed by the Russian side of a future Treaty on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. It was stressed that this would be a legally binding document presupposing radical, real and reliably verifiable cuts in strategic offensive arms levels - down to ceilings of 1,700-2,200 nuclear warheads within 10 years." The statement continued: "The American side was simultaneously handed a draft declaration on ways of shaping new strategic relations between Russia and the USA, setting forth the principles and guidelines for such relations in the political, economic and military-strategic fields." Speaking on Russian television on January 30, Mamedov enthused about the outcome of the meeting: "Above all, I want to say that our delegation is satisfied with the results of the talks that we held in Washington: notably talks, not consultations. We laid on the table proposals for a Draft Treaty on Radical Reduction of Strategic Offensive Arms and a Draft Declaration on New Strategic Relations... The American side, as we could see from their reaction, appreciated this...initiative." Mamedov reassured his audience that the Russian draft on nuclear reductions preserved the key element of irreversibility: "Under the new conditions, when we are reaching a radically lower arms level, a firm confidence is necessary. In the Draft Treaty...there are new proposals that are directed to ensuring precisely the liquidation of the carriers and the warheads alike."
The Moscow round saw the submission of US proposals, details of which were not forthcoming from statements or reports. State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher would only comment (February 20) that both sides were working intensively to draw up a "legally binding document on reductions in strategic offensive weapons and other associated documents" before the May summit. Detailed comments on February 27 by Alexander Yakovenko, official spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry, gave a flavour of the debate and differences involved:
"There is some progress. First of all, a common understanding was reached that a treaty on the reduction of strategic offensive arms will bear a legally binding character and the sides will submit it for the consideration of their legislative bodies. The duration of the treaty has been fixed at ten years. Agreement has been reached that it will be based on the verification mechanisms of the existing START I Treaty and supplemented with new transparency and confidence measures with respect to nuclear warheads, the post-reduction levels of which must be 1,700-2,200 units. ... Yet a number of serious outstanding issues still remain. The main thing now...is to agree on real, not 'virtual', strategic arms reductions and limitations that would be ensured by proper measures of control and generally lead to predictability and the consolidation of strategic stability and international security. ... The Russian and US Presidents defined as a priority task the preparation of a new Russian-American agreement...by the upcoming visit of President George W. Bush... But a lot now depends of the readiness of the American negotiators to realise the presidential accord on effective, radical reductions in strategic offensive arms under adequate control."
Speaking in Rome on March 1, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov gave his assessment of progress, indicating that if the third official round of talks, scheduled for March, failed to achieve progress, a troubling impasse would be in view:
"On individual questions we have a rapprochement of positions. Yet questions remain on which the positions diverge. And in the first place this concerns the elimination of nuclear warheads and their means of delivery. If during the talks some dead-end situations arise that will require the involvement in the negotiation process of the heads of the foreign affairs agencies of Russia and the USA, we will be ready at any time to hold a meeting, including in a third country, in order by joint efforts to find a mutually acceptable solution. ... The Russian-American talks are not proceeding smoothly, as [is to] be [expected] when such complicated issues are discussed. But for the present I see no necessity of an urgent meeting with US Secretary of State Colin Powell. ... The deadline for signing the...treaty has been fixed by the Russian and US Presidents, and we are working in this direction. We will be doing everything necessary for agreements to be reached. But we are not going to sign any documents which would run counter to the interests of our national security just in order to meet a particular deadline."
For its part, the US is working to persuade Russia that its commitment to a legally binding agreement can be reconciled with the three great START principles - mutual security, transparency and irreversibility - at a time when its Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), unveiled in broad outline in early January (see last issue), overtly vaunts the virtues of maximum flexibility in determining the fate and function - destroyed, reserved, mothballed, redeveloped - of the warheads to be removed from the operationally-deployed arsenal.
On February 14, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing dedicated to teasing out the military and arms control implications of the NPR. Opening the hearing, Committee Chair Carl Levin powerfully spelt out the main concerns of many of his fellow Democrats:
"After the Cold War, the United States forged a new relationship with Russia, including the first strategic arms control agreement - the 1991 START I Treaty - that significantly reduced US and Russian nuclear forces. At Helsinki in 1997, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin pledged that - following the entry into force of START II, with its additional reductions - our two nations would work toward a START III agreement, with a deep reduction in the number of nuclear warheads to between 2,000 and 2,500 by the end of 2007. Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin specifically said that: 'START III will be the first strategic arms control agreement to include measures relating to the transparency of strategic nuclear warhead inventories and the destruction of strategic nuclear warheads.' President Bush pledged to seize the historic opportunity afforded by our new relationship with Russia. Declaring that Russia ' is no longer our enemy', then-Governor Bush stated in a May 23, 2000 speech that 'it should be possible to reduce the number of American nuclear warheads significantly further than what has been already agreed to under START II'. ... But the recommendations of the Nuclear Posture Review may not in fact reduce the actual number of warheads in the US arsenal, because instead of destroying warheads...the NPR proposes to shift some or all of the warheads removed from missiles, bombers and submarines to a 'responsive' force - in other words, a back-up force. Instead of being irreversible, those warheads could be redeployed in a matter of weeks or months. The Nuclear Posture Review proposes simply to move those warheads from one location to another. But just as Enron [the bankrupt US energy corporation] couldn't make its debts disappear by moving them from one set of books to another, we are not going to make nuclear warheads go away by moving them from launchers to warehouses. This approach will make it highly unlikely that Russia will destroy its nuclear warheads. If we store our nuclear weapons, Russia is likely to follow suit. And if there are more warheads retained by Russia, the risk of proliferation of nuclear weapons will increase. ... By failing to destroy nuclear warheads, the Nuclear Posture Review would increase the threat of proliferation at the very time when the Al Qaeda terrorist network is known to be pursuing nuclear weapons. In addition to compounding the proliferation threat, this new approach to nuclear weapons appears to compound the military threat to our nation. One of the significant achievements of START II was that it would have eliminated Russia's land-based multi-warhead missiles, its so-called MIRVed ICBMs. By essentially abandoning efforts to bring START II into force, the administration leaves open the possibility that Russia may retain missiles that it was prepared just recently to destroy. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld says that this new approach 'increases our security'. I fear the opposite is true: over time, America would be less secure."
The Committee heard from three main administration witnesses: Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, John Gordon, Undersecretary of Energy for Nuclear Security and Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and Admiral James Ellis, Commander-in-Chief of US Strategic Command.
Undersecretary Feith's testimony summarised the rationale and advantages of the 'New Triad' unveiled in the NPR, replacing the traditional strategic nuclear triad of land-, air- and sea-based strike forces with the following 'legs': 1) "nuclear forces and non-nuclear strike means (including information warfare)"; 2) "passive and active defenses (notably missile defense", and 3) "the defense-industrial infrastructure needed to build and sustain the offensive and defensive elements of the New Triad". One major political consequence of the New Triad, Feith argued, was "the rejection of the Cold War's adversarial style of arms control negotiations". Feith elaborated: "We see no reason to try to dictate the size and composition of Russia's strategic nuclear forces by legal means. Russian forces, like our forces, will decline about two-thirds over the next decade. In truth, if the Russian government considers the security environment threatening enough to require an adjustment in its nuclear capabilities, it would pursue that adjustment irrespective of its obligations under a Cold War-style treaty. ... A highly dynamic security environment such as we now confront ultimately cannot be tamed by rigid, legal constructs, however sincerely entered into. It would be highly imprudent now to rigidly fix our capacity to respond to and shape such an environment by extending the negotiating practices of the Cold War into the future. We seek a new strategic framework in our relationship with Russia, not a perpetuation of the old."
With regard to the third leg of the New Triad, Feith noted that "the pace with which we reduce the nuclear stockpile will be determined in part by the state of our infrastructure and the very real limits of physical plant and workforce, which has deteriorated significantly. For example, the United States today is the only nuclear-weapon state that cannot remanufacture replacements or produce new nuclear weapons. Consequently, we are dependent on stored weapons to maintain the reliability, safety, and credibility of our stockpile and to guard against the possibility of a technical or catastrophic failure in an entire class of nuclear weapons. Other nuclear states are not bound by this limitation of their infrastructure. Repairing the US nuclear infrastructure and building the responsive infrastructure component of our New Triad may well permit us to reduce the size of the nuclear stockpile needed to support the responsive force."
NNSA Administrator John Gordon is the official entrusted with overseeing this repair work. In his testimony, Gordon directly tackled the two most controversial questions arising from debate of the infrastructure renewal programme: would the US like to design new nuclear warheads, particularly 'bunker-busting' battlefield weapons, and would the US like to resume nuclear testing. Gordon made clear that the US certainly wanted to keep its options open on both counts. With regard to "new warhead design, development and initial production", he told the Committee:
"New or emerging WMD threats from rogue states make it difficult to predict future deterrence requirements. If the US is to have a flexible deterrent, it must be able to adapt its nuclear forces to changing strategic conditions. Adaptation and modernisation of forces, including implementation of new technologies, will enable us to continue to achieve deterrence objectives more efficiently even as we move to significantly lower force levels. Our goal is to maintain sufficient R&D and production capability to be able to design, develop, and begin production on the order of five years from a decision to enter full-scale development of a new warhead. To achieve this goal, we must work with DoD to determine and prioritise potential weapons needs over the long term. In certain cases, it may be appropriate to design, develop and produce a small build of prototype weapons, both to exercise key capabilities and to serve as a 'hedge', to be produced in quantity when deemed necessary."
Later in his statement, Gordon elaborated on the specific steps being taken with regard to new design work: "The NPR recognised the need to revitalise nuclear weapons advanced concepts activity, which could include extending concepts that have been developed and tested but not yet deployed, as well as new concepts. To assess further nuclear weapons modernisation options in connection with meeting new or emerging military requirements, NNSA has taken an initiative, endorsed by the NPR, to re-establish small advanced warhead concepts teams at each of the national laboratories and at Headquarters in Washington. DoD and NNSA will jointly review potential requirements for new or modified warheads, and identify opportunities for further study. The vision is for small, focused teams...to assess evolving military requirements... The teams will carry out theoretical and engineering design work on one or more concepts, including options to modify existing designs or develop new ones. In some instances, these activities would proceed beyond the 'paper' stage and include a combination of component and subassembly tests and simulations to introduce an appropriate level of rigour to challenge our designers."
As detailed below, the Department of Energy's Fiscal Year (FY) 2003 budget request for the NNSA includes funding for a study into a potential new design, the 'Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator'.
With regard to the potential contribution of resumed nuclear testing to infrastructural renewal - and possibly also its role in 'challenging our designers' - Gordon was equally forthcoming:
"President Bush supports a continued moratorium on underground nuclear testing; nothing in the NPR changes that. Over time, we believe that the stewardship program will provide the tools to ensure stockpile safety and reliability without nuclear testing. But there are no guarantees. It is only prudent to continue to hedge for the possibility that we may in the future uncover a safety or reliability problem in a warhead critical to the US nuclear deterrent that could not be fixed without nuclear testing. Based on a 1993 Presidential directive, NNSA currently maintains a capability to conduct an underground nuclear test within 24 to 36 months of a Presidential decision to do so. Test readiness is maintained principally by the participation of nuclear test program personnel in an active program of stockpile stewardship experiments, especially the subcritical experiments carried out underground at the Nevada Test Site (NTS). During the NPR, two concerns were raised about our test readiness program. First, a two to three year readiness posture may not be sustainable as more and more experienced test personnel retire. Not all techniques and processes required to carry out underground nuclear tests are exercised with the work carried out at the NTS. As experienced personnel retire, it will become more difficult to train new people in these techniques, further degrading test readiness. ... Second, the current two to three year posture may be too long. If we believed that a defect uncovered in the stockpile surveillance program, or through new insight gained in R&D efforts, had degraded our confidence in the safety and/or reliability of the W76 warhead - the warhead deployed on Trident submarines and comprising the most substantial part of our strategic deterrent - the ability to conduct a test more quickly might be critically important. To address these concerns, the NPR endorsed the NNSA proposal to enhance test readiness by reducing the lead-time to prepare for and conduct an underground nuclear test. To support this, NNSA has allocated $15 million in FY03 to begin the transition to an enhanced test readiness posture. Funds will be used, among other things, to: augment key personnel and increase their operational proficiency; begin the mentoring of the next generation of testing personnel; conduct additional subcritical experiments and test-related exercises; replace key underground-test-unique components; modernize certain test diagnostic capabilities, and; decrease the time required to show regulatory and safety compliance. NNSA will work with DoD over coming months to refine test scenarios and evaluate cost/benefit tradeoffs in order to determine, implement, and sustain the optimum test readiness time."
A dominant theme of Admiral Ellis's testimony was the significant increase in the offensive strike options the first leg of the New Triad will make available to US Strategic Command: "The inclusion of non-nuclear, and potentially non-kinetic, capabilities into our strategic options [under the NPR] provides a number of benefits. First, it helps to raise the nuclear threshold by providing the President with strategic options in a crisis that do not rely solely on nuclear weapons, yet still convey the nation's resolve and determination. Second, integrating non-nuclear capabilities into strategic forces strengthens our joint approach to developing and operating military forces. In the past, there have often been unique requirements for nuclear forces beyond those of conventional forces. Now, with technological advances, we have the potential to seamlessly integrate existing or projected enhancements to non-nuclear capabilities such as communications, intelligence flow and precision strike to improve our strategic capabilities. The integration of what had previously been considered conventional capabilities into national strategic plans allows for the development of responsive, adaptive, and interoperable joint forces that can be employed in a wider range of contingencies. There are certainly challenges associated with incorporating non-nuclear capabilities into our strategic forces; however, the benefits far outweigh the concerns."
Democratic members of the Committee were uniformly unimpressed with the presentations, particularly Undersecretary Feith's summary of the nature and extent of planned warhead reductions. Senator Daniel Akaka argued: "It appears as if the only difference between 'operationally deployed' and 'responsive' warheads is that the responsive warheads would not be mounted on missiles. This is a distinction without much of a difference." Akaka added: "This is not a reduction. It is unclear which new threat requires maintaining such a large arsenal of nuclear weapons." Senator Jack Reed suggesting "we are rearranging the furniture", rather than preparing to make serious cuts. "You claim," Reed challenged Feith, "we've had a revolutionary change in thinking, but still we have roughly the sane total number of warheads, and the same basic platforms... It seems that it might be dead, but MAD [mutual assured destruction] is still ruling us from the ground."
Republican members, however, applauded the administration's stance. Senator John Warner said simply: "In think this document, the Nuclear Posture Review, is an excellent one... A very creative approach..." Warner also expressed his view that a resumption of nuclear testing may soon become a national security necessity, arguing that "we're going to cross that point" at which US weapons scientists "may be perceived as not maintaining credible weapons". Senator Jeff Sessions shared Feith's distrust of rigorously defined arms control limits, warning that "to freeze ourselves into a situation in which we could, by such low numbers, encourage other nations to believe they could reach parity with us...would be a mistake." As for destroying warheads removed from the operationally deployed arsenal, Sessions asked: "If we destroy these weapons totally...we could be in a situation where we would not have the kind of clear superiority which deters war... Are we sure we're not going too fast?"
Secretary of State Colin Powell, testifying to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, February 5: "We do expect that as we codify this [new strategic] framework, it will be something that will be legally binding, and we are examining different ways in which this can happen. It can be an executive agreement that both Houses of Congress might wish to speak on, or it might be a treaty. And we're exploring with Russia and we're discussing within the administration the best way to make this a legally binding or codified agreement in some way."
Undersecretary of State John Bolton, Moscow, February 19: "At the moment I don't see any insuperable obstacles to achieving an agreement, although there are a number of serious issues that still require pretty detailed discussion... [We do require] upward flexibility in the offensive weapons area should the international geostrategic situation change."
Former Defence Minister General Igor Sergeyev, Military Adviser to President Putin, February 19: "Real and irreversible liquidation of nuclear weapons will show how reliable and serious the course for nuclear disarmament is... It's important to codify mutual understandings and guarantees in the field of missile defence..."
Colonel-General Yuri Baluyevsky, First Deputy Chief of the Russian General Staff, March 1: "We are running out of time, but I hope the time limit will prompt us to work more efficiently. ... The United States wants to stockpile the balance between [the START I level of] 6,000 and [the proposed operationally-deployed level of] 1,700 to 2,200 warheads, and that raises the question of where the promised radical cuts are... The Russian military sees that as a simple reduction in the level of combat readiness of nuclear weapons. ... We are searching for a compromise...but we won't give up the principle of equal security. ... If our Presidents only meet and enjoy nice weather...without signing anything, we shall miss a chance that we have today..."
Colonel-General Baluyevsky, February 6: "[If we don't get a deal,] we could increase the number of deployed missiles and warheads that they carry, but that would be a road to nowhere, a new round of the arms race... Russia doesn't need that and it wouldn't take that path."
Colonel-General Baluyevsky, January 19: "We believe these agreements must set down specific limits on the system of anti-missile defence which the United States intends to create...We believe the issue is considerably broader [than US-Russia reductions]... We must think of cutting strategic weapons from other members of the nuclear club and including them in the process."
Unnamed Russian Foreign Ministry official, February 6: "We don't want reductions on paper, we want real reductions... The further you go in reducing strategic offensive weapons, the more important other factors become. Naturally, that includes the possible creation by the United States of a global anti-missile defence system... We will speak to the Americans about some sort of self-imposed limitation to their anti-missile system...so that it does not threaten Russia's nuclear deterrent..."
Leonid A. Skotnikov, Russian Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament, January 22: "We regard issues of offensive and defensive systems as interrelated... We would like to hope that after the withdrawal from the ABM Treaty the USA will not treat in a similar way other arms control and disarmament agreements. ... We are convinced that the issue of missile proliferation can and should be resolved without ruining the existing architecture of strategic stability. ... In connection with the US decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, we are gravely concerned over what is, perhaps, the most negative aspect of all the possible implications of such a step, namely the extension of an arms race to outer space."
Hu Xiaodi, Chinese Ambassador to the Conference on Disarmament, February 7: "The ABM Treaty...will soon be abolished. How to establish and preserve the global strategic balance...in the new context stands out as a pressing issue before the international community. In our view, the following principles and measures are of vital importance: a sustainable strategic stability framework based on international legal regimes should be established...; the negotiations between the Russian Federation and the US...should take into account the interests of every state and aim at ensuring common security...; major nuclear powers should further cut their huge arsenals in a verifiable and irreversible manner through legally-binding instruments; the CTBT...deserves respect and should enter into force...; the commitment of mutual de-targeting by the nuclear-weapon states should be observed; the nuclear deterrence doctrine characteristic of the policy of first-use should be abandoned; measures should be taken to prevent the weaponisation...of outer space."
UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, February 6: "What missile defence should do is give pause to those tempted down the path of proliferation even before they begin. Those who seek to acquire weapons of mass destruction are not usually irrational. They must make a cost/benefit calculation before seeking to acquire such weapons or the means of delivering them. Anything that affects this calculation by raising the cost or reducing the benefit has to be worth considering. As such, it is possible that missile defence may pave the way for greater progress on disarmament, not an arms race. Indeed, Presidents Bush and Putin have agreed to make substantial reductions in their respective strategic nuclear arsenals. Missile defence, then, is not an alternative to the wider non-proliferation effort, but could be part of it."
Jayantha Dhanapala, UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, January 22: "We hear of a reduced dependency on nuclear weapons, but [also] a continuing need for a strategic 'triad' that includes non-nuclear means of deterrence... We hear reaffirmations of the doctrine of the first-use of nuclear weapons and, from some nuclear-weapon states, words on behalf of the continuing value of tactical nuclear weapons. We hear of reductions in deployed, operational weapons, but also of transfers of operational weapons to various reserve categories, rather to facilities for their verified physical destruction. We also hear that these reductions will occur unilaterally, outside of any binding treaty framework, and hence will be reversible, and free from any bilateral or international verification. One senior US official recently stated that 'we are currently projecting to keep the nuclear forces that we have to 2020 and beyond - and longer, and beyond'."
Susan Eisenhower, President of the Eisenhower Institute, February 11: "There is a feeling of suspicion in Moscow that the United States has been planning to 'pull one over on them' when we suggested that instead of radical reductions in nuclear weapons, the United States might store the warheads as a reserve or a 'hedge'. In protest, Russian Minister of Defence Sergei Ivanov has called for 'real; radical verifiable transparent arms reductions'. ... The US decision to abandon the ABM Treaty could create chaos in the nuclear area unless there is a written, legally binding agreement outlining the mutually agreed-upon principles. Otherwise the Russians, according to their law, will no longer be subject to START II. Since Cooperative Threat Reduction involves securing weapons scheduled for dismantlement, we could lose our ability, over time, to work with the Russians in securing their arsenal."
On February 4, the US Departments of Defense and Energy unveiled their budget proposals for FY 2003. The defence budget request is $379 billion, including $7.8 billion for the missile defence programme, the same figure as FY 2002. The overall architecture of the missile defence effort is set out in the Department's budget summary: "A multi-layer, multifaceted development program designed to protect the United States, our allies and deployed forces from missile attack. The program is managed as one system that will explore concepts and eventually develop sea, air, ground, and space systems that will intercept any range of threat in the boost, midcourse or terminal phases of flight trajectory. As these programs mature in their acquisition cycle they will transfer to the respective military department. Major systems include Ground Based Midcourse (formerly National Missile Defense), Air Based Boost (formerly Airborne Laser), Sea Based Midcourse (formerly Navy Theater Wide), Theater High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), PATRIOT PAC-3 and Space Based Infra-Red System-Low [radar system] (SBIRS-L)."
The $7.8 billion will be allocated to these major elements as follows: "missile defense system", $1.1 billion ($0.8 billion in FY 2002); "terminal defense", $0.2 billion (from $0.1 billion); "midcourse defense", $3.2 billion (from $3.8 billion); "boost defense", $0.8 billion (from $0.6 billion); "THAAD", $1 billion (from $0.9 billion); "PAC-3", $0.6 billion (from $0.9 billion); "MEADS [Medium Extended Air Defense System, a US-Germany-Italy programme]", $0.1 billion (unchanged); "Other", $0.9 billion (from $0.6 billion). The Department identified the following four "highlights" in its missile defence request: "terminate Navy Area Theater Ballistic Missile Defense program"; "slip Space Based Infra-Red System-Low (SBIRS-L) 2 years"; "increase Sea, Air and Space based boost programs"; and "establish Missile Defense Agency [to replace Ballistic Missile Defense Organization - see last issue] and joint government/contractor Missile Defense National Team for system integration".
The budget also includes spending requests under the heading 'New Strategic Triad for 21st Century', as follows: "Convert four Trident submarines to [conventional] SSGNs - $1,018 million"; "Modernize strategic command and control - $154 million"; "Enhance DoD strategic systems infrastructure - $89 million".
Presenting the budget to a joint session of the House of Representatives' subcommittees on military procurement and research and development, the Director of the new Missile Defense Agency (MDA) elaborated on the programme's open-ended ethos: "We have changed our approach to development and are moving more to a capabilities-based approach, rather than a requirements-based approach for this acquisition... Some have interpreted this as doing away with requirements or doing away with discipline in general. That is not the case. ... At this moment we don't yet know all the technical approaches that will work best... Five years ago, we could not have foreseen, let alone written, all the uses defining today's Internet. We always face the risk of being surprised by changes in the threat, but a capabilities-based approach allows us to adjust to those changes in a way the traditional requirements-based approach does not."
Such an approach necessarily makes long-term budget forecasting a hazardous enterprise. On January 31, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected required expenditure of between $26 billion and $74 billion by 2015 in order to develop and deploy a ground-based missile-interceptor system, $50-$64 billion by 2015 to deploy sea-based interceptors, and $82-$100 billion by 2025 to deploy a space-based laser system - a very grand total of $238 billion (for the full text of the CBO study, see http://ftp.cbo.gov/32xx/doc3281/NMD.pdf).
The value of the findings was quickly questioned by MDA spokesperson Lt. Colonel Rick Lehrer (January 31): "It's too early to start using these numbers. You don't know whether any of these programmes will ever be deployed. Obviously, we will have a missile defence system, but what will be deployed remains to be determined." However, in a written statement issued on then day of the report's release, three senior Democratic Senators - Majority Leader Tom Daschle, Budget Committee Chair Kent Conrad, and Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin - expressed alarm at the possible impact of such high costs: "If the administration decides to pursue such a costly program, it could draw resources away from programs to counter other, more likely and more immediate threats we know we face: terrorism, [or] attacks with anthrax or other biological or chemical agents".
On February 27, British officials told the House of Commons Select Committee on Defence that UK participation in the US missile defence programme could cost as much as £10 billion. The US is known to be keen to incorporate two sites in Britain into its global early-warning missile defence infrastructure: the US intelligence gathering facility at Menwith Hill in Yorkshire, northern England, and the early-warning station at Fylingdales, also in Yorkshire. In the words of Brian Hawtin, Director General for International Security Policy at the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the "facilities feature very large in their calculations". On January 16, Labour Member of Parliament Peter Kilfoyle, a former MoD Minister of State in the government of Tony Blair, accused the Prime Minister of "slavish support" of US missile defence plans. Warning that British involvement would convert the country into a "frontline target", Mr. Kilfoyle stated: "I would ask the government to do what America does and place its own national interests first... National Missile Defence is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, threats to global security that we face in contemporary times..."
In terms of concrete plans for US missile defence deployment, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told a House Appropriations subcommittee on February 27 that four prototype missile-interceptor systems were scheduled to enter service at Fort Freely in Alaska by September 2004.
There were two important US missile defence tests during the period under review. On January 25, the MDA and US Navy conducted, in the words of a Defense Department news release, "a successful flight test in the continuing development of a Sea-Based Midcourse (SMD) Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS)". The statement elaborated: "Flight Mission-2 (FM-2) involved the launch of a developmental Standard Missile 2 (SM-3) and kinetic warhead (KW) interceptor from the Aegis Cruiser USS Lake Erie and an Aries target missile launched from the Pacific Missile Range facility (PMRF) on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. ... The SM-3 acquired, tracked and diverted toward the target... Although not a primary objective...the KW was aimed at the target, resulting in a hit-to-kill intercept... Friday's test was the fourth in a planned series of nine developmental test flights for the SMD program. ..." Note: doubt was cast on aspects of the test's validity - particularly with respect of the size of the intercepted target - in an analysis of results provided by David Wright of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) on March 3. See next issue for more details.
On February, the MDA and US Army conducted, in the words of an MDA statement, "an operational test of the Patriot Advanced Capability-3 (PAC-3) system at the White Sands Missile Range [in New Mexico]... A PAC-2 missile successfully intercepted and destroyed a QF-4 full-scale drone aircraft. However, a second PAC-2 missile and a PAC-3 missile missed their assigned sub-scale targets. The causes of the two intercept failures are under investigation. ... The PAC-3 missile is a high velocity, hit-to-kill missile and is the next generation Patriot missile being developed to provide increased defense capability against advanced tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and hostile aircraft."
The FY2003 Department of Energy budget request of $21.9 billion includes $8 billion - a 5.7% increase on FY 2002 funding - for the National Nuclear Security Administration in charge of the US nuclear weapons programme. In a February 4 statement, the Department summarised the main NNSA spending items:
"Within the FY 2003 total, funding is provided to continue and expand activities to respond to the rapidly changing security environment... [including] $358 million for activities in response to the September 11 events. ... The budget requests $510 million for the physical and cyber security activities at the laboratories, plants and Nevada Test Site. The FY 2003 Defense Nuclear Non-Proliferation request of $1.1 billion is $87 million over the FY 2002 appropriations. Included in that appropriation is an additional $223 million for activities related to the war on terrorism. Directed Stockpile Work and Campaigns budget totals $3.3 billion. This funding will support the maintenance and evaluation of the existing stockpile and weapons refurbishment programs as well as fund 15 scientific, engineering and readiness campaigns to develop new capabilities to assess weapon status, extend weapon life and certify the reliability of the stockpile."
In Congressional testimony on March 6, Abraham detailed the range of nuclear weapons work covered by the budget, including a study into the possible development of a new 'bunker-busting' warhead:
"The...request for Weapons Activities supports all scheduled alterations, modifications, and limited life component replacements for the current stockpile; and scheduled surveillance evaluation and dismantlement activities. It supports all scheduled refurbishment for the W87, W76, and W80 refurbishments and will include the B61 refurbishment when approved by the Nuclear Weapons Council later this year. Included in the FY 2003 request is support for an advanced concept initiative, a Phase 6.2/6.2A study for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, which also maintains weapons design capabilities."
The Defense Nuclear Non-Proliferation budget is broken down as follows: Non-Proliferation and Verification Research and Development, $283 million (down from $286 million in FY 2002); Non-Proliferation and International Security, $92 million (from $75 million); International Nuclear Materials Protection and Cooperation, $233 million (from $291 million); Russian Transition Initiatives, $40 million (from $57 million); Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) Transparency, $17 million (from $14 million); International Nuclear Safety and Cooperation, $64 million (from $21 million); US Fissile Materials Disposition, $350 million (from $241 million); Russian Surplus Materials Disposition, $98 million (from $61 million).
The full budget is available at http://www.mbe.doe.gov/budget/03budget/index.htm.
See also:
Reports: Son of Star Wars 'threatens stability', BBC News Online, January 16; Russia, US both want formal arms pact - General, Reuters, January 19; Statement by Ambassador Leonid A. Skotnikov to the Conference on Disarmament, January 22, 2002, Russian Foreign Ministry transcript; Russian envoy urges nuclear arms cut breakthrough, Reuters, January 22; US missile defense test a success, Associated Press, January 25; Multilateral approaches to WMD threats after September 11, speech by Jayantha Dhanapala, UN Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, January 22 (http://www.un.org/Depts/dda/speech/22jan2002.htm); Sea-based midcourse test completed, US Defense Department News Release 037-02, January 26; Sea-based interceptor hits target, Global Security Newswire, January 28; Russian-American talks on Strategic Offensive Arms, Russian Foreign Ministry Statement, Document 169-30-01-2002, January 30; Remarks by Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov, January 30, 2002, Russian Foreign Ministry transcript; Missile defense cost may increase, Associated Press, February 1; Plan to stop missile threat could cost $238 billion, New York Times, February 1; US plans - missile defenses could cost more than $200 billion, CBO report, Global Security Newswire, February 1; 2003 defense budget is investment in transformation, US Defense Department News Release 046-02, February 4; Secretary of Energy unveils DOE '03 Budget, US Energy Department News Release PR-02-016, February 4; Powell, in a possible shift, calls US willing to sign nuclear pact, New York Times, February 5; Russia upbeat on arms deal, warns of problems ahead, Reuters, February 6; Powell says US plans to work out binding arms pact, New York Times, February 6; Russia praises US on nuke stand, Associated Press, February 6; The Future of Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, speech by UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, February 6 (http://www.fco.gov.uk/news/speechtext.asp?5869); Statement by Hu Xiaodi, Chinese Ambassador to the CD, February 7 (http://www.reachingcriticalwill.org/cd/chi070202cd.pdf); Terrorism and the Nuclear Question, speech by Susan Eisenhower to the National Press Club, Washington, February 11 (http://www.eisenhowerinstitute.org); Congressional testimony by John A. Gordon, Undersecretary for Nuclear Security, US Department of Energy, February 14 (http://www.senate.gov/~armed_services/); Congressional testimony by Admiral James O. Ellis, Commander-in-Chief, United States Strategic Command, February 14(http://www.senate.gov/~armed_services/); Statement by Senator Carl Levin, February 14, 2002, Office of Senator Levin (http:levin.senate.gov); Text - Feith says US is developing new defense triad, Washington File, February 15; Democratic Senators attack Bush plan on nuclear cuts, Reuters, February 14; Democrats fault Bush plan to reduce active nuclear warheads, say weapons should be destroyed, Associated Press, February 14; No live testing needed for now, Global Security Newswire, February 15; Senate Democrats fault Bush nuclear plan, Washington Post, February 15; Democrats attack Bush Nuclear Posture Review, Global Security Newswire, February 15; Missile fails in test to intercept target, Reuters, February 16; Rumsfeld pares oversight of missile defense agency, Washington Post, February 16; Nuclear plans go beyond cuts, Washington Post, February 19; Russia, US complete talks on arms cuts, Associated Press, February 19; Russia, US officials consult, Associated Press, January 19; Russian-American talks on strategic relationship and SOW reduction, Russian Foreign Ministry Statement, Document 290-19-02-2002, February 19; US, Russia reach stalemate on arms, Washington Times, February 20; Pentagon sees sample rocket by '04, Associated Press, February 27; Remarks by Foreign Ministry official spokesman Alexander Yakovenko, February 27, 2002, Russian Foreign Ministry transcript; Missile system's 10bn pound price tag, The Guardian, February 28; Missile agency head details progress to Congress, American Armed Forces Press Service, February 28; US-Russia stuck on nuclear arms deal, Associated Press, March 1; Remarks by Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, Rome, March 1, 2002, Russian Foreign Ministry transcript; Statement by US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, March 6, Energy Department transcript.
© 2002 The Acronym Institute.