The Senate Armed Services Committee plans to hold a hearing on Wednesday, March 29th, on the Pentagon’s new offensive Global Strike mission. The Committee has asked the following officials to testify:

* Peter C. W. Flory, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy
* General James E. Cartwright, USMC, Commander, U.S. Strategic Command
* Rear Admiral Charles B. Young, USN, Director Strategic Systems Programs, Department of the Navy
* Major General Stanley Gorenc, USAF, Director, Operational Capabilities and Requirements, Deputy Chief of Staff for Air and Space Operations, Headquarters, U.S. Air Force

This is Congress’ first hearing on this critical new mission, which includes strike options that span from information warfare to preemptive nuclear attacks against weapons of mass destruction targets around the world.

The long-overdue hearing comes three and a half years after the White House published the so-called preemption doctrine (National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction), three years after STRATCOM was tasked to prepare strike plans against WMD targets around the world, nineteen months after Rumsfeld signed the Alert Order that directed STRATCOM to put Global Strike into effect, and six months after the new Joint Functional Component Command for Space and Global Strike became operational at Offutt Air Force Base.

More: Hearing Page | Global Strike Chronology

President Bush has submitted an amazing piece of legislation to Congress that essentially strips Congress of its authority to evaluate and limit nuclear exports to India and asks Congress to approve whatever trade deal the Administration develops, that is, to approve the Indian nuclear deal months in advance, sight unseen.

Much was made of the nuclear “deal” arrived at by President Bush and Prime Minister Singh during Bush’s recent trip to India. But there really isn’t any deal, yet. What the President and Prime Minister really did was agree in principle to develop nuclear technology trade. The actual trade package will be a complex technical business arrangement. It will take at least months, perhaps a year or more, to work out all the details.

When the trade agreement is all spelled out, it must, under current law, be submitted to Congress for evaluation and, under some circumstances, approval. This is all spelled out in the Atomic Energy Act. The key section is 123, Cooperation with Other Nations. (Find it on page 1-52 of the linked document.) Section 123 lays out the requirement for sharing nuclear technology with another country. There are basically four sets of requirements set out in four paragraphs. (And bear with me, I am not a lawyer, so I too was a bit surprised to find a “paragraph” that was two and a half pages long.)

The first, paragraph 123(a), lists nine conditions that must be met. Most have to do with securing material and technology transferred under any agreement. All of these should be met but they can be waived if the President judges that requiring compliance would harm non-proliferation or national security. (Keep that in mind, we come back to it later.)

Paragraphs (b) and (c) describe reports that the administration must submit to Congress.

Paragraph (d) says that if all the reports are in order and have been sent to the right offices, then Congress has sixty days to disapprove the agreement by joint resolution. That is, the default is approval: if the Congress does nothing the deal goes through; Congress has to actively intervene.

Except, if the President invoked his waiver power up in paragraph (a). If there is a waiver, then the burden of proof is completely reversed. Now the deal does not go through unless the Congress explicitly accepts the waiver and approves the deal.

Bush wants this deal, whatever it turns out to be, to go through regardless of what Congress thinks. So the Administration would much prefer to have the default be that the deal goes through unless Congress specifically objects. Then Congressional allies can simply stall, never vote, and tacitly approve the deal.

There are two ways to deal with this. Bush could not invoke the waiver clause of paragraph 123(a), simply asserting that India has met all the conditions. This might not pass the “laugh test.” Subparagraph 123(a) (2), for example, states that for “non-nuclear weapon states” that all “peaceful” nuclear sites anywhere in the country be under IAEA surveillance. Ironically, part of the India deal is that, for NPT purposes, India will remain a “non-nuclear weapon state.” In any case, by not invoking the waiver when a reasonable person thinks it should be invoked, the President lays himself open to court challenge by members of Congress.

Thus, the second approach. Bush has submitted to Congress H.R. 4974. The bill is very short and simply states that the President can, at his discretion and only in the case of India, waive the requirements of 123(a) without activating the approval requirements of 123(d). With this legislation, whatever the India deal eventually turns out to be, it will be approved unless a majority of both houses of Congress disapprove the deal within sixty days by joint resolution, meaning they have to agree on identical language. Moreover, since the President can be expected to veto any attempt to block the deal that he just submitted, disapproval will in practice require a two thirds majority of both houses.

What this amounts to is that the Administration is asking the Congress to approve the India nuclear technology transfer deal in advance, sight unseen. Not even the President now knows what will eventually be included in the package but once this legislation is passed, the Administration can promise India essentially anything it wants with little to no concern about Congressional interference. The President does not have this authority with Britain or Canada. This bill constitutes a major attack on Congressional oversight prerogatives.

The Congressional Research Service has prepared an excellent issue paper on a possible Indian nuclear deal. Sam Nunn was cited in the Washington Post as saying a nuclear deal with India should be examined carefully.

A few months ago, physicist Jorge Hirsch [jhirsch@ucsd.edu] of the University of California, San Diego, and others, organized a petition signed by an impressive array of notable scientists. The petition condemns the administration’s new national security strategy for its over-emphasis on nuclear weapons. The petition also emphasized that just using the term “WMD” blurs the distinction between non-nuclear and nuclear weapons, which are in a class of their own. You can see the petition and a partial list of signatories here.

Nuclear weapons are surprisingly prominent in the Pentagon’s new offensive Global Strike mission, according to the new FAS report Global Strike: A Chronology of the Pentagon’s New Offensive Strike Plan. The 250-page report traces the development of Global Strike through a comprehensive compilation of guidance documents, public statements, budget program descriptions, contracts, and declassified military documents obtained under the FOIA.

One of the FOIA documents is the Concept of Operations for the Joint Functional Component Command for Space and Global Strike, the new organization established in 2005 at U.S. Strategic Command to prepare and execute the Global Strike mission. The mission is normally portrayed as a conventional mission, but the Concept of Operations reveals the prominent nuclear role the command has.

Publication of the FAS report coincides with a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Global Strike on March 16. [Update: Hearing postponed. Check link for details.]

Download: The full report | Background information and FOIA documents.

Charles D. Ferguson, Preventing Catastrophic Nuclear Terrorism, Council Special Report No. 11, Council on Foreign Relations, March 2006.

This report examines options for the United States and other countries to secure and eliminate nuclear weapons and dangerous fissile materials. Despite many national and international programs to secure these materials, there are large security gaps that remain.

View Full Article

A new review of Russian nuclear forces published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists says that the Kremlin appears to be attempting to reassert its nuclear strength after years of decline in order to underscore Russia’s status as a powerful nation. Large-scale exercises have been reinstated and modernizations of nuclear forces continue with reports about a new maneuverable warhead and the mobile version of the SS-27 (Topol-M) expected to become operational later this year.

Yet the reassertion is done with fewer strategic warheads than at any time since the mid-1970s, approximately 3,500 operational strategic warheads. The number of operational non-strategic nuclear weapons has been cut by more than half to approximately 2,300 warheads.

Moreover, during 2005, Russia’s 12 nuclear ballistic missile submarines only conducted three deterrent patrols. This is a slightly better performance than in 2002 when no patrols were made, but a far cry from the 1980s when Soviet ballistic missile submarines conducted 50-100 deterrent patrols each year.

Article: Russian Nuclear Forces, 2006
Background: Russian Submarine Patrols

A long-rumored but never before seen Chinese underground submarine base is shown for the first time in a new article written by analysts from the Federation of American Scientists and Natural Resources Defense Council. The article, published in Imaging Notes, shows newly acquired satellite images of the submarine base, three air bases, and China’s nuclear weapons lab at Mianyang.

A front page article in Washington Times was headlined “Commercial photos show Chinese nuke buildup,” but both the cave and submarines have existed for nearly three decades. Only now, thanks to commercial satellites, can the public see them.

The Imaging Notes article is a snapshot from a larger FAS/NRDC report on US-Chinese nuclear relations scheduled for publication later this spring.

More: Article in Imaging Notes | Analysis and background

The US Chief of Naval Operations has publicly issued an Instruction that orders US Navy personnel not to tell anyone that US warships do not carry nuclear weapons. Yet the same Instruction states that it is US policy not to deploy nuclear weapons on the ships.

The new Instruction, “Release of Information on Nuclear Weapons and on Nuclear Capabilities of U.S. Forces,” was published on February 6 and updates a previous version from 1993. Both versions state that nuclear weapons were offloaded from the ships in 1992.

The reason for updating the Instruction is to incorporate four guided missile submarines (SSGNs) that are being converted from ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). The SSBNs carry nuclear weapons, but the SSGNs will carry conventional weapons, the publicly available Instruction helpfully informs (!).

Background and analysis here.

A resolution introduced in the German Parliament last week calls for the withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons from Germany. The resolution, which was submitted by nine parliamentarians from the newly formed party Die Linken, also calls for the German Air Force to end its controversial NATO mission to deliver U.S. nuclear bombs in times of war.

The U.S. Air Force currently has some 440 nuclear bombs in Europe deployed at eight bases in six NATO countries. About 76 percent of Germans favor a withdrawal, but NATO insists the weapons provide a crucial bond between Europe and the United States.

NATO’s defense ministers are set to meet in Taormina, Italy, on February 9-10 for an informal meeting. Nuclear weapons are not on the agenda.

The Pentagon has formally cancelled a controversial revision of its Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations after the document was exposed last year in an article in Arms Control Today and described in the Washington Post.

The revised draft doctrine included for the first time descriptions of preemptive use of U.S. nuclear weapons, which prompted the Senate Armed Services Committee to ask the Pentagon for a briefing, and 16 lawmakers to protest to President Bush.

The decision to cancel Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations, and with it three other related nuclear documents, was confirmed today by the Pentagon. The cancellation of the documents does not change U.S. nuclear policy which continues to include options for nuclear preemption.

See background briefing and analysis and copies of the doctrine documents.

Cross-posted from Secrecy News: A new report from the Congressional Research Service takes a detailed look at proposals to significantly restructure the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.

The proposals, offered by a Department of Energy Task Force, include closure and consolidation of various nuclear facilities and production of a newly designed Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW).

“Some express concern that Task Force recommendations may be at odds with U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy,” insofar as they envision the indefinite preservation of the existing nuclear weapons stockpile, the CRS report observes.

See “Nuclear Weapons Complex Reconfiguration: Analysis of an Energy Department Task Force Report,” February 1, 2006.

I am Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at FAS. I will be blogging facts, analysis, and declassified documents about new nuclear weapon systems, changes in existing nuclear forces, and developments in the policy and doctrine that guide the use of nuclear weapons.

You may have noticed that the Cold War is over and the total nuclear weapons stockpiles are decreasing. But, surprise, all the nuclear weapons states continue to modernize their forces as if the weapons are going to be around for a very long time in significant numbers. And the nuclear planners have turned out to be very innovative when it comes to creating new missions for the remaining weapons.

I also co-author the Nuclear Notebook in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the World Nuclear Forces overview in the SIPRI Yearbook.