Abolitionists beware!  It would be easy to go through an entire bottle of ibuprofen (not in one sitting of course) while attempting to make any sense of all the analysis of the U.S. Fiscal Year 2012 Budget!  As for the “defense” budget the great shell game continues.  It gives peacemakers a tremendous headache.

As for issues of a nuclear nature, actions speak even louder than numbers.  While it is easy to get sidetracked by the figures (and I don’t mean to discount the costs; they ARE important), it is crystal clear from the projects currently in the works and those on the planning table that the U.S. Government’s focus is  much like a horse with blinders – Can you say “DETERRENCE?”

Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists has summarized The Nuclear Weapons Modernization Budget in the FAS Strategic Security Blog (Feb 17, 2011).  Between “maintenance and modernization” the government is ensuring that the nuclear weapons development, construction, maintenance deployment and delivery infrastructure is thoroughly protected from the budgetary axe.  If spending is the true indicator of intention, then President Obama’s disarmament rhetoric rings hollow.

Nuclear weapons, based on FY2012 budget request, continue to stand at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy, and if the government’s current plans are realized the prospects for global nuclear disarmament before the year 2100 – should we not commit nuclear omnicide before then – look grim.

From missiles to bombs, “the budget includes significant investments in maintaining and modernizing the nuclear weapons in the stockpile through the life-extension programs (LEPs).”   But that’s not all folks!  The Obama administration will make sure that the “missiles, submarines and bombers designed to deliver the warheads” are also “modernized.”

But wait!  We are talking about way more than mere modernization here.  As Kristensen states, the Minuteman III ICBM is analogous to the Six Million Dollar Man (but way more expensive) and “is essentially a new missile.”  The Air Force’s heavy bombers and fighter-bombers will be upgraded, and in the case of the B-52 “will provide for further nuclear weapons in both bay and under wings.”  Great – More nuclear weapons!!!

 The biggest and scariest news of all is the intention (and research has been underway for some time now) to build a new generation of ballistic missile submarines (SSBN(X).  Although Kristensen covers this only briefly, it is a huge issue as Trident is the nations premier first strike weapon, and according to estimates would be in service through 2082!

And finally, the infrastructure that has developed, built and maintained the nations nuclear weapons continues to receive more than adequate funding to continue rebuilding itself.  Construction at Los Alamos and Y-12 in Tennessee are well under way and well over budget, and the Kansas City Plant (not mentioned by Kristensen) is on a roll.

As for the “Implications and Outlook” of the current nuclear weapons budget, here’s what Kristensen has to say:

With massive investments in widespread modernization of nuclear forces and industry, the FY2012 budget shows that the Obama administration is following through on its promise to make significant investments in modernizing the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

The “generational” modernizations proposed in the budget represent a commitment to extending the nuclear era as long into the future as it has lasted so far. A challenge will be whether nuclear modernization will overshadow nuclear disarmament in the administration’s public nuclear image.

Following on the heels of the Prague speech and the New START treaty, it remains to be seen whether other nuclear weapon states and the international non-proliferation community will see the nuclear modernization programs as progress toward reducing the role and numbers of nuclear weapons and putting an end to Cold War thinking, or business as usual only at lower numbers.

To what extent the Congress will fund these programs is another unknown. With unprecedented deficit and a new Congress that appears determined to cut government spending, several of the nuclear modernization programs will like come under considerable scrutiny.

It is obvious that the Obama administration is locked into a decades old pattern of thinking linked to a deeply entrenched military-nuclear-industrial complex that perpetuates a potentially deadly reliance on weapons that by their very design indiscriminately kill civilians, and if ever used in even a limited conflict would result in devastating immediate and long-term global effects.  The world cannot afford a continuation of “business as usual” at any numbers!!!

I urge everyone to read Kristensen’s summary and analysis, and consider how we can respond. We need to send a clear message to President Obama and Congress that planned modernization efforts are antithetical to the President’s stated “goal of a world without nuclear weapons.” We need to ask the President just what kind of legacy he wants to leave the world when he leaves office.

Peace,

Leonard

August 29th marked the first observance of the International Day against Nuclear Tests, proposed in 2009 by the Government of Kazakhstan at the sixty-fourth session of the United Nations General Assembly. The Preamble of the resolution emphasizes “that every effort should be made to end nuclear tests in order to avert devastating and harmful effects on the lives and health of people … and, that the end of nuclear tests is one of the key means of achieving the goal of a nuclear-weapon-free world”.

In his message for the Day, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that “there is real momentum behind this great cause”, and that he looked forward to “working with all parties to rein in spending on nuclear weapons and rid the world of the nuclear threat”.

Meanwhile, back on the Homeland “reigning in spending on nuclear weapons” is not on the table, and ironically the very efforts the U.S. government is putting into building up the U.S. nuclear weapons complex is doing nothing to “rid the world of the nuclear threat”, but everything to increase it. And what of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning President Obama??? According to Nukewatch:

President Obama has declared that he intends to increase next year’s funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA’s) nuclear weapons research and production programs by 14%. Further, despite crippling national debt, he claims their budgets will rise by more than 40% from $6.4 billion in 2010 to $9 billion by 2018. This means that eight years from now, nearly three decades after the end of the Cold War, spending on NNSA research and production programs for nuclear weapons will be 75% higher than the annual Cold War average of $5.1 billion. Is this the right path to Obama’s declared long-term goal of a nuclear weapons-free world?

Now isn’t that special! As part of the “modernization” of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, the government will soon break ground on a brand new bomb production plant in Kansas City. Rougly 85 percent of the non-nuclear components for the nation’s nuclear weapons come from the current Kansas City plant. Don’t worry about the employee health concerns and huge environmental contamination at the current plant though; they’ll probably get it right the second time around. Won’t they???

Well, there are lots of us out there who don’t want to see a second time around. The nation has plenty of nukes with plenty of shelf life left, and we should be spending a whole lot more energy working towards that “nuclear weapons-free world” the Pres has been touting (although his deeds have not followed his words).

What is extra special about this project is that the local Kansas City, MO government is subsidizing private developers, who will build and eventually own the plant (can you say PRIVATIZATION???), using over $750 million in municipal bonds, while the City closes schools and hospitals. What’s wrong with this picture?!?!?!

I know that most of us can’t drop everything and swing over to Kansas City, but we can certainly show our support and solidarity with those who will be there, some of them likely engaging in acts of resistance that will get them arrested.

Please send your message of support (either individual or organizational) to Ann Suellentrop (annsuellen@gmail.com) Kansas City Physicians for Social Responsibility, one of the co-sponsors of the September 8th action. Then ask others to do the same.

I can only hope that some Raging Grannies will show up at Highway 50 and Botts Road on September 8th and perform an appropriate (or should I say inappropriate) version of that great song, Kansas City in dishonor of the new bomb plant.

Supporting our comrades in the struggle for a nuclear weapons-free world.

Peace,

Leonard

Read the Statement of Resistance to Nuclear Weapons Production that was delivered to workers and officials during the August 16th civil resistance at the site of the new Kansas City nuclear weapons production plant. 14 resisters were arrested at the August 16th action.

CLICK HERE to learn more about the Kansas City bomb plant and the upcoming September 8th civil resistance. Here you will find a huge archive of materials courtesy of the Greater Kansas City Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility and Nuclear Watch New Mexico.

Below is an alert we sent to some of our supporters on the nuclear pork in the Fiscal Year 2011 budget. Click on the following committee links to check if your representative is a member of a key committee that decides how much funding nuclear weapons will actually get. If your representative is on either the House Armed Services Committee or the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, please take action and email your representative.

Next year’s budget has just been released and while it has a spending freeze for most domestic programs, there’s plenty of nuclear weapons pork. The nukes budget comes in at roughly $7 billion, getting a ten percent increase.

It’s outrageous, unnecessary, and expensive.

Worst of all, the budget has hundreds of millions in nuclear pork for several new facilities that would enable the U.S. to increase its capacity to create new nuclear weapons in the future. A new plutonium pit facility in New Mexico would allow for a huge increase in the production of plutonium pits – the bomb cores of nuclear weapons. These facilities could cost taxpayers $3 billion each in the long run. Meanwhile, funds to dismantle nuclear weapons we no longer need have been slashed.

The budget has millions for new nuclear weapons facilities we don’t need. Ask your representative to cut nuclear pork today!

The international community is coming together in May to evaluate progress on the cornerstone treaty of nuclear disarmament. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligates nuclear weapons states – like the U.S. – to work toward nuclear disarmament in exchange for non-nuclear weapons states not acquiring them. Other countries are looking to the U.S. for signs that we are serious about living up to our nuclear disarmament obligations, and this budget undermines our credibility.

Last year, your emails and calls created the grassroots pressure that successfully eliminated pork for the nuclear weapons complex from the economic stimulus. Please email now and ask your representative to cut funding for these new facilities.

Analysis of the Fiscal Year 2011 Budget Request

Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

“Proposed DoE funding also includes large increases for a facility that will expand plutonium production in Los Alamos, New Mexico and for a new highly enriched uranium production facility near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, each estimated to cost about $3 billion. The Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Project (CMRR) plutonium facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory increased from $97 million in FY 2010 to $225 million in FY 2011. Y-12’s Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) also increased to $115 million from $94 million in FY 2010.”

Click here to download a PDF of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation’s budget briefing book.

Alliance for Nuclear Accountability

Click here for ANA’s press release.

Nuclear Watch New Mexico

Click here for their blog post on the budget.

Project on Government Oversight

Click here for their blog post on the budget.

Tri-Valley CAREs

Click here for their press release.

Upcoming activities on nuclear weapons

1. For Peace and Human Needs: Nuclear Disarmament Now! is a new website with resources on activities and demonstrations being planned for the May NPT Review Conference. Hundreds of organizations from the U.S. and around the globe are taking new steps to renew the commitment to a nuclear free world. The website includes an online petition on nuclear disarmament.

2. Groundbreaking is expected in April for a major new production facility, the Kansas City Plant, that will be responsible for 85% of all components for possible new designs and/or half-century life extensions of existing U.S. nuclear weapons. Protests and demonstrations in Kansas City are currently being planned, just before the NPT Review Conference that begins May 3. Contact Nuclear Watch New Mexico for more information.

Photo by: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cjbrenchley/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

For all the talk coming from The White House, if you want to know where the U.S. is really (and always has been) headed, just listen to the talk coming from the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Of course the name alone should make us all shudder. Since when was there really any security in anything nuclear???

The NNSA is pushing ahead with its plans for “Complex Modernization”, a program initiated by our previous President; you know, the one who said “nucular.” The program would expand two existing nuclear bomb production facilities to essentially build new plutonium pits and other bomb parts out of enriched uranium. You may remember previous names for this plan; first there was Complex 2030, and then it was Complex Transformation. Heaven knows what they will come up with next.

Although the NNSA speaks of the plan in terms of “transforming… the complex into smaller and more efficient operations while maintaining the capabilities NNSA needs to perform its national security missions”, what it really means is that NNSA wants to keep building bombs.

Los Alamos National Laboratories would be building the new plutonium pits (up to 80 per year), while the Y-12 facility in Oad Ridge, Tennessee would be engaged in enriched uranium processing. A fundamental question surrounding all this planning is how this will affect current disarmament and non-proliferation efforts. Will these pits be simply replacing “aging” pits in currently deployed warheads, or are we talking brand new weapons???

Everybody is currently waiting anxously to see whether they get the thumbs up or thumbs down regarding the go ahead for Complex Modernization. That will depend on the recommendations of the upcoming Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). I suspect that the NPR will promote Complex Modernization; there seems to be strong support, primarily from the military side, for getting the biggest bang for our buck.

And therein lies the rub; just how long can those pits (even though plutonium has a very long half life, it still loses its original properties over time) sit in warheads before they will just fizzle (or at least lose a megaton or two in yield) when detonated. That very question brought the brightest minds in the U.S. weapons complex together in 2006 to determine the lifespan of plutonium pits in the U.S. arsenal. Their findings, which were peer reviewed by the JASONS, were that the plutonium in most nuclear weapons would be “reliable” for at least 100 years, and that “the majority of plutonium pits for most nuclear weapons types have minimum lifetimes of at least 85 years.” Hmmmm…

The vast majority of U.S. deployed nuclear warheads are cruising the seven seas in Trident submarine launch tubes waiting patiently to unleash their hellish fury. The Trident D-5 missile was first deployed in 1990. The relatively young warheads on these missiles coupled with the fact that sea-based missiles are currently the “centerpiece” of the U.S. nuclear arsenal would counter any argument for a need to build new pits. We simply do not need them; the warheads of the U.S. premier “deterrent” force (Trident) are so new that you can almost still smell the fresh paint!

Tell President Obama that we have plenty of nuclear weapons (too many in fact), and that if we can’t do away with all of them long before they reach their “use by” dates, the world will be in deep trouble. Now is the time to act decisively for disarmament and non-proliferation. And while you are at it, tell your members of Congress.

Email President Obama at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/.

Find your Congressional contact info at http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml.

Peace,

Leonard