Nuclear Weapons

Trump Says DoD IG Reports Should Be “Private”

01.07.19 | 3 min read | Text by Steven Aftergood

The recurring dispute over the appropriate degree of secrecy in the Department of Defense arose in a new form last week when President Trump said that certain audits and investigations that are performed by the DoD Inspector General should no longer be made public.

“We’re fighting wars, and they’re doing reports and releasing it to the public? Now, the public means the enemy,” the President said at a January 2 cabinet meeting. “The enemy reads those reports; they study every line of it. Those reports should be private reports. Let him do a report, but they should be private reports and be locked up.”

It is not clear what the President had in mind. Did he have reason to think that US military operations had been damaged by publication of Inspector General reports? Was he now directing the Secretary of Defense to classify such reports, regardless of their specific contents? Was he suggesting the need for a new exemption from the Freedom of Information Act to prevent their disclosure?

Or was this simply an expression of presidential pique with no practical consequence? Thus far, there has been no sign of any change to DoD publication policy in response to the President’s remarks.

Meanwhile, Rep. Adam Smith, the incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, reiterated his view to the contrary that the Pentagon needs to be more forthcoming with information, not less.

“As Chairman, I will work with my colleagues to promote transparency and Congressional oversight, enhance military readiness, combat inefficiency and waste at DOD, advance green technology in defense and address the threat climate change poses to our national security, fight for an inclusive military, and move towards a responsible approach to nuclear weapons,” he said on January 4. (And, he wrote earlier, “Constant misinformation from the president is a real problem in a democratic society.”)

There are indications that some Pentagon officials may be receptive to Chairman Smith’s concerns.

After reporters complained about the growing use of “For Official Use Only” markings to restrict access to information, Under Secretary of Defense (acquisition and sustainment) Ellen Lord responded that “I understand the need, the requirement” for transparency, “and I will put out guidance to make everything open to the public to the degree we can.” See “Pentagon’s Chief Weapons Buyer Promises Less Secrecy in Reports” by Anthony Capaccio, Bloomberg, January 4.

While secrecy in the Department of Defense has increased noticeably in the Trump Administration, the Pentagon remains an astonishingly prolific publisher of military information, issuing dozens or hundreds of directives, manuals, reports and other publications each day. Most are the product of routine bureaucratic churning, and are of little if any significance, but some have broader interest or appeal. Here are a few that caught our eye.

Techniques for Visual Information Operations, ATP 6-02.40, US Army, January 3, 2019

Military Diving Operations: Multi-Service Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures, ATP 3-34.84, January 2, 2019

DoD support to non-contiguous States and territories in response to disasters, threats, and emergencies, report to Congress, n.d. (Nov. 2018)

The U.S. Army in Multi-Domain Operations 2028, TRADOC Pamphlet 525-3-1, 6 December 2018

DoD Scientific and Technical Information Program (STIP), DoD Instruction 3200.12, August 22, 2013, Incorporating Change 3, Effective December 17, 2018

The latter document directs that “DoD will maximize the free flow of scientific and engineering information developed by or for DoD to the public.”

publications
See all publications
Nuclear Weapons
Report
Nuclear Notebook: Russian Nuclear Weapons, 2023

The FAS Nuclear Notebook is one of the most widely sourced reference materials worldwide for reliable information about the status of nuclear weapons, and has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987.. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: Director Hans […]

05.08.23 | 1 min read
read more
Nuclear Weapons
Blog
Video Indicates that Lida Air Base Might Get Russian “Nuclear Sharing” Mission in Belarus

On 14 April 2023, the Belarusian Ministry of Defence released a short video of a Su-25 pilot explaining his new role in delivering “special [nuclear] munitions” following his training in Russia. The features seen in the video, as well as several other open-source clues, suggest that Lida Air Base––located only 40 kilometers from the Lithuanian border and the […]

04.19.23 | 7 min read
read more
Nuclear Weapons
Blog
Was There a U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accident At a Dutch Air Base? [no, it was training, see update below]

A photo in a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) student briefing from 2022 shows four people inspecting what appears to be a damaged B61 nuclear bomb.

04.03.23 | 7 min read
read more
Nuclear Weapons
Blog
STRATCOM Says China Has More ICBM Launchers Than The United States – We Have Questions

In early-February 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) had informed Congress that China now has more launchers for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) than the United States. The report is the latest in a serious of revelations over the past four years about China’s growing nuclear weapons arsenal and the deepening […]

02.10.23 | 6 min read
read more