Department of Priorities

According to Walter Pincus, the US government is paying less attention to the safety and security of our nuclear arsenals. That doesn't seem very smart to me at all. Robert Farley points out that in addition to the direct costs "the presence of weak safety procedures in the U.S. makes it harder to get other nations to take such procedures seriously, especially those (such as Russia, India, and Pakistan) which run a much more serious risk of a nuclear accident."

It's really pretty hard for me to think of things more worth paying attention to than the safety and security of our own nuclear weapons. This shouldn't be a difficult problem for a rich country with a lavishly-financed defense establishment.

Comments

You get the feeling sometimes that just nothing goes on the government unless someone is getting paid. There is no public service or safety constituency any more.

Posted by Doug | February 15, 2008 1:08 PM

This article is crying out for context. The idea that we have 'loose nukes' wiley niley around our counry is preposterous.

Yes, there is less attention paid to nuclear weapons since the end of the Cold war, and some of the dynamics that Farley points out are indeed in play.

But the change came about over a serious drawdown of forces and consolidation of many mission areas. The reason that O-6's do the job previously reserved for Flag officers is that the job is so much smaller.

And it's important that our forces are *not* emphasisizing nuclear weapons. Indeed part of the problems with Korea and Vietnam is that at the beginning everyone thought conventional war was passe due to nukes, and so the military wasn't as prepared or focused as it should have been in those campaigns. And its good that B-52 are used in conventioal roles. The main boondogle of the B-1 is that its a supersonic bomber for nukes that was obsolete for that mission when delivered and almost useless for others.

The task force is correct in that this was a royal screw up because people weren't doing their jobs. And heads did roll.

But this

One of the panel's recommendations is the appointment of an assistant secretary of defense for nuclear enterprise reporting directly to the defense secretary, as well as the naming of flag officers in each of the services who would focus solely on nuclear weapons.

Yes that is exactly what is needed: more bureaucracy. If this sorta recommendation was made vis a vis Iraq you would (rightly) laugh at it.

All that has to happen to fix this is that you need to ensure people are doing their jobs. This requires accountabiilty up and down the chain of command, and 'inpect what you expect.'

Posted by Kolohe | February 15, 2008 1:35 PM

It's really pretty hard for me to think of things more worth paying attention to than the safety and security of our own nuclear weapons. This shouldn't be a difficult problem for a rich country with a lavishly-financed defense establishment.

One more thing, you would be surprised at the scope in terms of both cost and manpower, of the DOD nuclear weapons establishment even in this day and age. If I can find some unclas open source info, I will post it.

Posted by Kolohe | February 15, 2008 1:39 PM

Oh, its much more comical than that, Matthew.

1) Consider, for example , this mornings report in the NY Times re arrests of illegal immigrant smugglers in Phoenix, Arizona:

2) Near the end of the story, the Times notes:
"The immigrants, who were charged about $2,500 for their transit, were smuggled across the border through the San Pedro River Riparian National Conservation Area, a remote desert site, the authorities said."

3) WHAT the NYTIMES does NOT tell its readers is that the San Pedro National Conservation Area is located right beside the Fort Huachuca Military Reservation.

Do I see some spooks out there starting to grin?

4) Fort Huachuca is an ..uh.. interesting place.
Among other things, it is an alternate landing site for the Space Shuttle as well as being the CENTRAL School for teaching Military Intelligence to spooks in all 4 military services:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Huachuca#Military_Intelligence

5) Isn't there something hysterically funny about all those military spies sitting in classrooms at Ft Huachuca -- brows furrowed in concentration as they read deeply, listen to lectures and solemnly study the black arts in order to protect the Homeland -- while at the same time -- if they looked out their classroom window -- they would see a few hundred invaders infiltrating through their backyard??

Posted by Don Williams | February 15, 2008 1:42 PM

Here's the link to the NY TImes story I mentioned above: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/us/15smuggle.html

Posted by Don Williams | February 15, 2008 1:48 PM

There's really no need for nuclear armed bombers. Land based and sub launched missiles fulfill any nuclear attack function even the most pessimistic and macabre strategist comes up with. Bombers are probably the weakest link in security as well. Someone should step on the necessary toes to get rid of this mission.

Posted by Njorl | February 15, 2008 5:05 PM

"And it's important that our forces are *not* emphasisizing nuclear weapons."

Then one has to ask why it is that the US is building a new generation of nukes (of course, the answer is: because they're being PAID FOR), and also why US strategic doctrine now explicitly allows the use of nukes against non-nuclear-equipped nations and also allows first use of nukes.

The fact is that the Pentagon has a love affair with nukes as the ultimate "blow your load".

Our forces are most definitely starting to emphasize nukes even as the relative need for nukes is virtually obsolete. And this is all because of a military-industrial complex run amuck and consuming 87% of the productive capacity of the US.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 16, 2008 1:10 AM

Kolohe - The main boondogle of the B-1 is that its a supersonic bomber for nukes that was obsolete for that mission when delivered and almost useless for others.

I'm afraid you don't know what you are talking about. The B1-B Lancer carries a larger bombload than a B-52 and was absolutely devestating in close air support missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. One B-1B wiped out over 800 Taliban on the ground.

Recent PGM developments also give it a anti-ship naval mission.

It is still the bomber assigned the most nuke attack role in SIOP. That is because it gets to launch points fast, has great radar, avionics, and can be stuffed to the gills with minaturized thermonuclear gravity bombs (24) - or 8 800KT nuclear cruise missiles.
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Njorl - There's really no need for nuclear armed bombers. Land based and sub launched missiles fulfill any nuclear attack function even the most pessimistic and macabre strategist comes up with.

Hardly. The cost of a nation to defend against an integrated missile/bomber attack is 6 to 8 times more, and more complex, than radar that just detects missiles. With bombers, you have 9/10ths of the rest of the sky to over, you have to deal with active penetration ECM from bomber wings coming in, and you also have to sweat cruise missiles and even cruise missiles that drop, wait, then fire up and go to target hours later.

And sweat radar-defeating B-2s and F-117s in a bomber role.

No mainline military strategist questions the value of the nuclear Triad. Just voices that pop up claiming one component or another is "vulnerable". But as strategist Herman Khan said, the possibility one leg might be established beyond doubt as vulnerable - even subs to a breakthrough technology - that possiblity is the basis of the rational calculus of having of the redundant strategic triad in the 1st place.

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Our forces are most definitely starting to emphasize nukes even as the relative need for nukes is virtually obsolete. And this is all because of a military-industrial complex run amuck and consuming 87% of the productive capacity of the US.

Pile of garbage. Nuke weapons are not obsolete as they are our response to other hostile or potentially hostile nuke powers, our strategic deterrance, and our deterrence to anyone thinging of doing a large biowar or nerve gas attack on us. (we got rid of biowar, but said we could only do so if we maintained a nuclear deterrant to biowar attackers of large scale chem weapons users.)
Your 87% claim was pulled right out of your ass. Defense is 3% of GDP. "Free" Health care for illegal aliens, convicts, and their descendents costs more.

Posted by chris ford | February 16, 2008 5:12 AM

Your 3% of GDP is bullshit. It's more like 10%. And I wasn't referring to GDP, anyway.

Chalmers Johnson, "How To Sink America":

"By 1990, the value of the weapons, equipment, and factories devoted to the Department of Defense was 83% of the value of all plants and equipment in American manufacturing."

I mistakenly wrote 87%.

Also found this elsewhere which taps out in 1986:

"The size of the US military economy, compared to the other countries, is shown in Table 3.2. In 1986 US military expenditure were 6.7 per cent of GDP, against a 5.9 per cent in the UK, 4 per cent in France, 3.1 per cent in West Germany, 2.7 per cent in Italy and about 1 per cent in Japan. Since 1951 the US military budget has been in every year greater than the total profits of all US corporations (Melman 1986b: 4). In 1986 the US Defense Department had 1,100,000 civilian employees, 2,231,000 people were members of the armed forces, while military industries had a total employment of 3,150,000. In all, the US military economy employs almost six and a half million people (ibid.) and one job in twenty depends, directly or indirectly, on military spending The Washington Post, 17 January 1986)."

"Looking behind the narrow view of official definitions, it has been shown that in the US 'roughly 10% of GNP is directly dedicated to military purposes. One-third of all scientists and technicians work on Department of Defense projects."

"While US manufacturing output stagnated in 1985, military and space productions increased by 11 per cent (ibid.: 502); while all categories of manufacturing showed trade deficits, the net exports of military goods tripled between 1980 and 1984 (ibid.: 495).

With production, profits have also risen. In 1984 the ten largest contractors of the Defense Department had an average rate of return after taxes of 35 per cent, almost three times the 12.8 per cent of the average of manufacturing industry (Rubin and Frisvold 1985: 7). The US General Accounting Office reported that 'defense contractors were 35 % more profitable than commercial manufacturers during 1970-79 and 120% more profitable during 1980-83' (quoted in Clayton 1987). The political power of military industry has increased in a parallel way. The political contributions of the twenty largest military suppliers doubled in the period between the two presidential elections, reaching $3.6 billion in 1984. As an example, Rockwell International in the same period multiplied its political contributions by four and its military contracts by eight (Rubin and Frisvold 1985: 7)."

"Many economists, from Murray Weidenbaum to Charles Schultze, focused their questions on the short-term consequences, in limited industrial sectors, fearing bottlenecks in production, shortages of skilled personnel and inflationary effects (Tirman 1984: 4, 20). In 1983 a study of the Congressional Budget Office dismissed the fears of inflationary effects, but concluded that 'a defense build up financed by large federal deficits that continue after the economy recovers could damage economic performance in the long run' (quoted in Tirman 1984: 2). These worries about the long-term effects of military spending are shared by Lester Thurow, who has considered the US military build up as an example of 'how to wreck the economy' (Thurow 1981).

How can the negative effects of military spending on economic performances be shown? Melman suggests considering military expenditure as a capital fund, resources that are used neither for consumption, nor for investment. Summing US military expenditures between 1948 and 1987 at constant 1982 prices, the result is $7,620 billion. In 1982 the value of all fixed reproducible tangible wealth of the US was $7,292 billion. US military expenditure since 1948 'comprise a quantity of capital resources sufficient to rebuild the United States' (Melman 1986b: 6)."

"Besides this subtraction of resources, the growth of the military sector has a more subtle effect on the operation of US industry. Melman argued that the concentration of resources in the military economy has undermined the cost-minimization criteria of business operation and has spread in military contractors the practice of cost-plus pricing (Melman 1970, 1983). In this way profits are maximized not by reducing but by expanding costs. This mechanisms, combined with the dynamics of military technology (see section 4.3), has eroded the productive capacity of a growing number of US firms. The frequent examples of waste, inefficiencies and astronomical costs for ordinary products, such as the bolts that the Pentagon paid $2,043 each for (serf and Beard 1986) are not the result of occasional malpractice or individual corruption, rather they are the result of the very logic of military production. The impact on the rest of the economy is inevitable; Melman has shown that 'the special effects of military economy are an integral part of, and major contributors to, the transformations under way in American management, technology and productivity' (Melman 1983: xiii); this in turn results 'in the looting of the productive capital of the system on behalf of short-term money-making and military-political power' (ibid.: xiv).

With 37,000 firms that are prime contractors of the Defense Department, the high-technology industries that increasingly rely on military contracts and the major US technological programmes concentrated in military research, such as the Strategic Defence Initiative (see section 4.9), the military influence over the US economy has continued to increase. Ann Markusen argued that 'in the United States military spending acts as a de facto industrial policy, and... the poor performance of the economy results from the distortions brought about by this reliance on military-led investment and innovation' (Markusen 1986: 496). Documenting the shift toward military production by the large US corporations, Mike Davis noted that 'for the old "Fordist" industrial core of the American economy - that is for the complex of mass production industries and their suppliers now threatened by import competition - the Pentagon has been the chief instrument of restructuring' (Davis 1985: 55). In the same way, Jeff Faux stressed that in the US 'no person or institution is responsible for increasing the competitiveness of US industry. But we do have industrial policy. Its manager, by default, is the Pentagon, and its implicit goal is to concentrate America's technological future in weaponry' (Faux 1986: 196)."

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | February 17, 2008 12:55 AM