National Security Legislative Wrap-up, October 15-19 2007

Last week, the House passed one more minor bill on Iraq condemning the State Department for withholding from the public information about corruption in Iraq. Key work on national security issues is being done behind closed doors in House-Senate conference committees.

ACTION IN THE LAST WEEK

The Fiscal Year 2008 Defense Authorization bill is being considered by a House-Senate conference committee to work out the differences between the two bills.

The Fiscal Year 2008 Defense Appropriations bill is being considered by a House-Senate conference committee to work out the differences between the two bills.

The Fiscal Year 2008 Energy and Water Appropriations bill has passed the House and the Senate Appropriations Committee but may never get to the Senate floor, instead going directly to a House-Senate conference as part of a larger package of bills.

The Fiscal Year 2008 State, Foreign Appropriations bill is being considered by a House-Senate conference committee to work out the differences between the two bills.

The Fiscal Year Supplemental Appropriations bill to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- which now totals about $190 billion -- is not likely to be considered until later this year or even early next year. Both Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-WV) and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI) have promised to attach language to bring American troops home from Iraq.

Sens. Clinton and McCain on Nuke and Nonpro Issues

Continuing in its series, Foreign Affairs recently published its third batch of essays by presidential candidates, this time by Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and John McCain (R-AZ). Provided below are the portions relevant to nuclear weapons and nonproliferation issues; key points are bolded.

Security and Opportunity for the Twenty-first Century
By Hillary Rodham Clinton

… As the only senator serving on the Transformation Advisory Group established by the U.S. Joint Forces Command, I have had the chance to explore these issues in detail. Ongoing military innovation is essential, but the Bush administration has undermined this goal by focusing obsessively on expensive and unproven missile defense technology while making the tragically misguided assumption that light invasion forces could not only conquer the Taliban and Saddam Hussein but also stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq.

[snip]

…The Bush administration refuses to talk to Iran about its nuclear program, preferring to ignore bad behavior rather than challenge it. Meanwhile, Iran has enhanced its nuclear-enrichment capabilities, armed Iraqi Shiite militias, funneled arms to Hezbollah, and subsidized Hamas, even as the government continues to hurt its own citizens by mismanaging the economy and increasing political and social repression.

As a result, we have lost precious time. Iran must conform to its nonproliferation obligations and must not be permitted to build or acquire nuclear weapons. If Iran does not comply with its own commitments and the will of the international community, all options must remain on the table.

On the other hand, if Iran is in fact willing to end its nuclear weapons program, renounce sponsorship of terrorism, support Middle East peace, and play a constructive role in stabilizing Iraq, the United States should be prepared to offer Iran a carefully calibrated package of incentives. This will let the Iranian people know that our quarrel is not with them but with their government and show the world that the United States is prepared to pursue every diplomatic option.

Like Iran, North Korea responded to the Bush administration's effort to isolate it by accelerating its nuclear program, conducting a nuclear test, and building more nuclear weapons. Only since the State Department returned to diplomacy have we been able, belatedly, to make progress.

Neither North Korea nor Iran will change course as a result of what we do with our own nuclear weapons, but taking dramatic steps to reduce our nuclear arsenal would build support for the coalitions we need to address the threat of nuclear proliferation and help the United States regain the moral high ground. Former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Defense Secretary William Perry, and former Senator Sam Nunn have called on the United States to "rekindle the vision," shared by every president from Dwight Eisenhower to Bill Clinton, of reducing reliance on nuclear weapons.

To reassert our nonproliferation leadership, I will seek to negotiate an accord that substantially and verifiably reduces the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals. This dramatic initiative would send a strong message of nuclear restraint to the world, while we retain enough strength to deter others from trying to match our arsenal. I will also seek Senate approval of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by 2009, the tenth anniversary of the Senate's initial rejection of the agreement. This would enhance the United States' credibility when demanding that other nations refrain from testing. As president, I will support efforts to supplement the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Establishing an international fuel bank that guaranteed secure access to nuclear fuel at reasonable prices would help limit the number of countries that pose proliferation risks.

In the Senate, I have introduced legislation to accelerate and reinvigorate U.S. efforts to prevent nuclear terrorism. As president, I will do everything in my power to ensure that nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and the materials needed to make them are kept out of terrorists' hands. My first goal would be to remove all nuclear material from the world's most vulnerable nuclear sites and effectively secure the remainder during my first term in office.

Statesmanship is also necessary to engage countries that are not adversaries but that are challenging the United States on many fronts. Russian President Vladimir Putin has … tested the United States and Europe on a range of nonproliferation and arms reduction issues. Putin has also suppressed many of the freedoms won after the fall of communism, created a new class of oligarchs, and interfered deeply in the internal affairs of former Soviet republics.

It is a mistake, however, to see Russia only as a threat. … We need to engage Russia selectively on issues of high national importance, such as thwarting Iran's nuclear ambitions, securing loose nuclear weapons in Russia and the former Soviet republics... At the same time, we must make clear that our ability to view Russia as a genuine partner depends on whether Russia chooses to strengthen democracy or return to authoritarianism and regional interference.

An Enduring Peace Built on Freedom
Securing America's Future
By John McCain

Our counterterrorism efforts cannot be limited to stateless groups operating in safe havens. Iran, the world's chief state sponsor of terrorism, continues its deadly quest for nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. Protected by a nuclear arsenal, Iran would be even more willing and able to sponsor terrorist attacks against any perceived enemy, including the United States and Israel, or even to pass nuclear materials to one of its allied terrorist networks. The next president must confront this threat directly, and that effort must begin with tougher political and economic sanctions. If the United Nations is unwilling to act, the United States must lead a group of like-minded countries to impose effective multilateral sanctions, such as restrictions on exports of refined gasoline, outside the UN framework. America and its partners should also privatize the sanctions effort by supporting a disinvestment campaign to isolate and delegitimize the regime in Tehran, whose policies are already opposed by many Iranian citizens. And military action, although not the preferred option, must remain on the table: Tehran must understand that it cannot win a showdown with the world.

[snip]

North Korea's totalitarian regime and impoverished society buck these trends. It is unclear today whether North Korea is truly committed to verifiable denuclearization and a full accounting of all its nuclear materials and facilities, two steps that are necessary before any lasting diplomatic agreement can be reached. Future talks must take into account North Korea's ballistic missile programs, its abduction of Japanese citizens, and its support for terrorism and proliferation.

[snip]

The nuclear nonproliferation regime is broken for one clear reason: the mistaken assumption behind the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) that nuclear technology can spread without nuclear weapons eventually following. The next U.S. president must convene a summit of the world's leading powers -- none of which have an interest in seeing a world full of nuclear-armed states -- with three agenda items. First, the notion that non-nuclear-weapons states have a right to nuclear technology must be revisited. Second, the burden of proof for suspected violators of the NPT must be reversed. Instead of requiring the International Atomic Energy Agency board to reach unanimous agreement in order to act, as is the case today, there should be an automatic suspension of nuclear assistance to states that the agency cannot guarantee are in full compliance with safeguard agreements. Finally, the IAEA's annual budget of $130 million must be substantially increased so that the agency can meet its monitoring and safeguarding tasks.

Yongbyon from Above

Click below to watch an amazing 3D video flythrough video of the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon, North Korea produced by Satellite Image Corp. (HT to Andreas Persbo of Verification.)

Note: This video (22 MB) requires a broadband connection and the QuickTime media player.

For a better viewing experience, please wait until the movie has completely downloaded before playing it.

Putin's Tongue-in-Cheek Proposal to Expand the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty

Over the last six months, Russia has repeatedly indicated that it is considering withdrawing from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), an arms control agreement signed in 1987 whereby the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to destroy all ground-launched cruise and ballistic missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 km.

A component of a Pershing Missile destroyed in 1988 under the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (photo from the Army's "Pershing Photo Archive")

Last Saturday, during high-level talks in Moscow, Putin offered a new angle on the withdrawal threat:

We need other international participants to assume the same obligations which have been assumed by the Russian Federation and the US. If we are unable to attain such a goal ... it will be difficult for us to keep within the framework of the treaty in a situation where other countries do develop such weapons systems, and among those are countries in our near vicinity.

Though Putin was not explicit, Russian neighbors with ballistic missile programs include Iran, Pakistan, India, and China. At first glance, Putin's demand seems compelling: Fairness would seem to dictate a broadening of the treaty's membership, and Central Asia could certainly benefit from more arms control. However, Putin's proposal is so impractical as to be practically tongue-in-cheek. As the Times of London observed in an editorial,

Mr. Putin's declaration that the INF treaty should become a global agreement was a clever stalling tactic because he knows that it would take years, if ever, to achieve such a deal.

The problem with Putin's proposal--which the Russian president is surely aware of--is that Russia and the United States were able to sign an Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty only because they had substantial arsenals of longer-range Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM). When INF was signed, the United States had 1000 ICBM launchers with 2,300 warheads, and the Soviet Union had 1,418 ICBM launchers with 6,872 warheads (figures courtesy of the Natural Resources Defense Council). Now, besides China, none of Russia's Asian neighbors have ICBMs: "intermediate-range" missiles are actually the longest range missiles in their arsenals.

But destroying intermediate-range missiles when a state has an arsenal of longer range missiles--as the US and Russia did via the INF treaty--is strategically incomparable to destroying those same missiles when they are the longest-range weapons in a state's arsenal.

Putin's laments about being at an unfair disadvantage relative to his neighbors are thus disingenuous--Russia did not, and could not, have signed INF until it had ICBMs, and it does not make sense to expect other countries to act differently. And while Russia may be targeted by its neighbors' intermediate range missiles, as Jacob Quamme of the Center for Defense Information explained, Russia is more than capable of deterring those states, even though it has no missiles with intermediate ranges.

Russian ICBMs do require minimum distances in order to be effective; however, Russia's growing fleet of road-mobile Topol-M missiles, rail-mobile systems and submarine-launched ballistic missiles can be positioned so as to put required targets within range relatively easily. Alternatively, air-launched cruise missiles are not restricted under the INF Treaty and could be used effectively in a hypothetical conflict.

As such, Russia is put at no practical disadvantage by the Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles of its neighbors, nor is it "unfair" for those countries to remain outside the treaty that Russia signed, given the substantial Russian arsenal of ICBMs.

Halting the proliferation of ballistic missiles globally is a security necessity, but a Russian withdrawal from INF would be as counterproductive as it would be unjustified. President Bush should avoid being side-tracked by this red herring of an arms control proposal, and work to ameliorate the U.S.-Russian tensions that are the real cause of Putin's interest in INF withdrawl.

U.S.-India Nuclear Deal Near Collapse

For those who haven't read the good news yet, recent reports indicate that the U.S.-India nuclear deal may be about to collapse. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told President Bush on Monday that "certain difficulties" will prevent the country from moving forward on the pact for the foreseeable future.

A major blow to both the Bush and Singh administrations, the deal appears to have been brought down by the Communists who threatened to withdraw from Singh’s coalition government and call for early elections.

Despite Bush administration claims that “it’s not dead,” the outlook is not good. India may eventually pursue negotiations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), but that’s not likely, at least not in the near term.

As noted by the Center's Executive Director, John Isaacs: "Nuclear non-proliferation efforts may have dodged a bullet. If implemented, this deal would have driven a hole through the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which for decades has stood as our first line of defense against nuclear weapons spreading to dozens of countries."

The "Cool War"?

Elements of Cold War tensions between the United States and Russia seemed to resurface during missile defense talks last week. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates traveled to Russia in an effort to address Russian concerns regarding the U.S. plans to build a missile defense system in the Eastern Europe.

Yet Rice's talk of "promises," "the common good," "commitment," and the issues that "unite" the two countries apparently did little to calm Russia's concerns, especially when preceded by statements that the plan to build receptors in Poland and place radar in the Czech Republic was non-negotiable. According to Reuters, Rice commented, "we have been very clear that we need the Czech and Polish sites."

Though the Bush administration claims that the sites are necessary to intercept Iranian missiles, Russia fears that such a system could make ineffective its own ability to launch ICBMs and deter a nuclear attack. Putin opened the talks with sarcastic remarks at what was supposed to be a photo-op, rebuking the administration for its plans and touching on the topic of U.S. imperialism in world affairs, and again threatened to withdraw from the Conventional Forces in Europe pact and the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

As much as Bush might want to argue that countries "are either with us or against us," the world is much more complex than such a dichotomous description allows. While that may have been appropriate for the bipolar Cold War world, our relationship with Russia is, though less immediately threatening, in a number of ways more complex. Russia may be an adversary on some issues, including its friendliness with Iran, we nevertheless need its cooperation on this and other issues.

The level of tension between our two countries has the power to drastically impact our other foreign policy goals. The tension exhibited at last week's meeting in response will prove a formidable challenge to negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, as well as other non-proliferation issues such as negotiating a successor agreement to START in 2009.

Philip Coyle on Proposed Missile Defense Cuts

A little bit delayed but member of the Center's National Advisory Board and senior adviser at CDI, Philip Coyle, recently put out a terrific piece in Defense News (password required) on the proposed cuts to the missile defense sites in Eastern Europe and the Airborne Laser program.

Missile Defense Folly: Cuts to Proposed U.S. Site in Europe, ABL, Well Aimed
By Philip Coyle
Defense News
October 1, 2007

U.S. lawmakers have cut the weakest portions of the president’s $10 billion-plus missile defense spending request for 2008: funding for the proposed U.S. missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic and possibly part of the budget of the futuristic airborne laser (ABL).

Several more steps remain before Congress completes the missile defense budget for the coming fiscal year. However, considering the harm the proposal is doing to U.S. relations with Europe and Russia, and the unproven state of the technology, the cuts taken so far are well justified.

The Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) requested $310 million in 2008 for a missile defense site in Eastern Europe, supposedly to defend Europe and the United States from Iranian missiles. However, Czech citizens and the Russian government strongly oppose a Czech Republic site. While Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed several practical alternatives, President Bush is pressing ahead with the European site, eager to pour concrete before his term is up.

Reacting to the proposed U.S. missile defense sites so close to Russian borders, Putin announced the development of new ICBMs, warned that its nuclear weapons might have to be aimed at Europe and threatened to pull out of the treaty restricting deployments of conventional forces in Europe if Bush does not reconsider. These moves could potentially reignite the Cold War — or worse.

More to the point, the missile defense system being proposed for Poland and the Czech Republic has no demonstrated capability to defend Europe, let alone the United States, under realistic operational conditions. This is because the ground-based missile defense system, after which the planned European interceptor configuration would be modeled, has failed half the time in flight intercept tests, even though those tests have been scripted to improve the chances for success.

The MDA says it believes its European system would provide a rudimentary capability against an “unsophisticated threat,” meaning one or maybe two missiles fired from Iran with no decoys or countermeasures. Does the Pentagon really believe that Iran would attack Europe or the United States with only one missile and then sit back and wait for the consequences?

Cut the ABL, Too

Another program being debated by Congress, the ABL, is prompting different responses from Congress. The House and Senate Armed Services committees recommended serious cuts to the program, while appropriators in the House suggested a smaller drop in ABL’s funding and Senate appropriators recommended funding it in full.

The primary cause of the debate is the enormous technological hurdles that the program faces. To achieve enough power to damage an enemy missile, six massive laser systems, each the size of a Chevy Suburban sport utility vehicle set on end, are to be carried aboard a jumbo 747 cargo aircraft. The beams from these six lasers are to be combined and aimed at an enemy missile through a turret in the nose of the aircraft.

Understandably, directing a high-powered laser beam through the atmosphere at a target is very challenging. The atmosphere itself interferes with and weakens the beam, and if the target is rotating, as missiles do, or is too reflective, the laser could bounce off without doing any damage.

Moreover, to keep one 747 in the air within range of an enemy missile launch site 24/7, the Air Force would need multiple ABL aircraft, all carrying big lasers. Those aircraft would need to fly close to enemy territory, where they would be vulnerable targets themselves. And if the enemy can launch more than one missile, the chemicals that power the lasers carried on board those 747s would quickly be exhausted.

Even if the ABL worked, which it doesn’t, it would be ineffective in battle. A recent Congressional Research Service report pointed out that the ABL “would likely not have chemical replenishment capabilities, which would necessitate return flights to the United States if the laser is used.”

Thus, the CRS says, the “enemy could wait until an orbiting ABL is being refueled, or is absent before initiating a missile attack.”

The Pentagon plans to purchase seven ABL aircraft, though no production would take place until the second ABL is tested. Maintaining a full ABL orbit likely would require five aircraft. The MDA claims one ABL orbit can defend against all launch points in North Korea, but it admits larger countries, such as Iran, would require more than one orbit and many more costly ABL aircraft.

MDA estimates it will spend a total of $5.1 billion on the first ABL aircraft through 2009. However, a year ago the Pentagon decided not to purchase enough aircraft to cover even a single enemy missile launch site.

Congress should not throw good money after bad. The truth is that lawmakers could have made much deeper cuts in missile defense; saved the taxpayers money; or spent it on higher-priority needs, such as the near-term threats that U.S. soldiers and Marines face in Iraq every day from improvised explosive devices, rocket-propelled grenades and suicide bombs. By cutting funds for the missile defense programs, Congress is telling the president that he needs to sort out his priorities.

National Security Legislative Wrap-up, October 8-12 2007

Last week, the House passed one more minor bill on Iraq written to crack down on war profiteering. This week, the House may adopt a resolution condemning the State Department for withholding from the public information about corruption in Iraq. The Senate returns to session after last week's recess, but has no major national security legislation scheduled.


ACTION IN THE LAST WEEK

The Fiscal Year 2008 Defense Authorization bill is being considered by a House-Senate conference committee to work out the differences between the two bills.

The Fiscal Year 2008 Defense Appropriations bill is being considered by a House-Senate conference committee to work out the differences between the two bills.

The Fiscal Year 2008 Energy and Water Appropriations bill is in limboland, having passed the House and the Senate Appropriations Committee and is awaiting further action.

The Fiscal Year Supplemental Appropriations bill to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars -- which now totals about $190 billion -- is not likely to be considered until later this year or even early next year. Both Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Robert Byrd (D-WV) and House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D-WI) have promised to attach language to bring American troops home from Iraq.