Revisiting the Senate Armed Services Committee markup on Defense Authorization Bill

In late May the Dukes wrapped up some of the important non-proliferation highlights from the May 24 Senate Armed Services Committee markup of the Defense Authorization Bill, which you can find here.

Here are a couple other sweet highlights from the markup:

- Adopting provisions that would repeal all of the required annual certifications and that would expand the Cooperative Threat Reduction program to countries outside of the former Soviet Union.

- With regards to missile defense, authorizing an additional $255 million for the Patriot PAC-3 system, the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system, and the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, with the additional funding offset by reductions to lower-priority programs.

- Directs the Secretary of Defense to submit a report on the retirement schedule for remaining nuclear cruise missiles.

- A provision that would direct the Secretary of Defense in the next administration to conduct a new nuclear posture review.

The Dukes are particularly excited about this last part, since it could provide up to a full week of reading, analysis, and banter for us! We heart reports. You can checkout leaked excerpts from the latest Nuclear Posture Review (2002) here.