DoD To Report on Nuclear Programs of US, Russia, China
In a challenge to Pentagon secrecy, Congress has told the Secretary of Defense and the Director of National Intelligence to prepare an unclassified report on the nuclear weapons programs of the United States, Russia and China.
The requirement was included in the new House-Senate conference version of the FY2020 defense authorization act (sect. 1676).
The mandated report must include an assessment of “the current and planned nuclear systems” of the three nations, including “research and development timelines, deployment timelines, and force size.”
The Pentagon has been reluctant to issue its own unclassified estimates of foreign nuclear programs. Earlier this year DoD even refused to declassify the current size of the US nuclear stockpile, though it had previously done so every year since 2010.
The newly required report must be produced in unclassified form, Congress directed, though it may include a classified annex.
“Across the Department of Defense, basic information is becoming harder to find,” wrote Jason Paladino of the Project on Government Oversight in “The Pentagon’s War on Transparency,” December 5, 2019.
This report serves as a landscape assessment and toolbox from which local governments can negotiate an informed position when it comes to the levers available to them and includes a first-of-its kind analysis of eight executed community benefits agreements.
When a hurricane hits, it’s all hands on deck – that goes for federal data, too. Pulling back from our investments in timely, accurate, and accessible public data will only make us less prepared and put us all at greater risk.
This is bigger than a singular elimination of race and ethnicity questions. It could accelerate the second wave of widespread reductions to demographic data, leaving public health officials with even less information to deliver better health outcomes for all Americans.
Soft law was never meant to be a permanent solution. Treating it as one, and letting the sandcastle stand in for the skyscraper indefinitely, is how we end up with a decade of voluntary commitments and no enforceable accountability to show for it.