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41. The US Trillion Dollar Nuclear Triad

Author:
Jon Wolfsthal
Publication Date:
01-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Abstract:
The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) convened an event to release its latest report “The Trillion Dollar Nuclear Triad: US Strategic Nuclear Modernization Over the Next Thirty Years.” The report concludes that the United States will likely spend over $1 trillion during the next three decades to maintain its current nuclear arsenal and purchase their replacement systems. The necessary level of procurement spending, as a percentage of the defense budget, will peak at levels comparable to the Reagan-era build-up of nuclear forces. To date, few senior officials from the White House or Department of Defense or in the Congress have publicly acknowledged or laid out the full scale of these costs to the American public. This lack of public debate will likely lead to sticker shock as the full cost of these programs come due, leading to budget cuts and program delays. “The strategic and financial challenges facing our country are enormous,” said Jon Wolfsthal, CNS Deputy Director and former nuclear advisor to Vice President Joseph Biden. “Policy makers lack the basic information needed to make smart choices about our nuclear arsenal, putting both our deterrent and future reductions at risk.” The report cites particular concern over the pace of planned construction of strategic systems to replace systems that are set to retire starting in 2030. The United States plans, from 2024-29, to build five strategic submarines, 72 strategic bombers, and 240 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). This represents more delivery vehicles than the combined nuclear forces of China, the United Kingdom, and France. It is unclear that the industrial and management capabilities in the United States are capable of this production rate in times of budget constraint.
Topic:
Nuclear Weapons, Military Strategy, Nuclear Power, Budget, and Military Spending
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

42. Mind the Gap: Regimes & Strengthening Radiological Security

Author:
Miles A. Pomper
Publication Date:
08-2014
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies
Abstract:
According to a new paper from CNS Senior Research Associate Miles A. Pomper, inadequate liability and insurance regimes mean that users of high-risk radiological sources have insufficient incentive to protect those sources from terrorists or substitute less risky alternatives. Such sources are used in medicine, oil and gas exploration, and industry, among other fields, and can be used in “dirty bombs” or other forms of radiological terrorism. Since the 9/11 attacks, governments, including the United States, have taken it upon themselves to institute emergency measures to improve source security, often using public funds. However, these measures are less than optimal and are expected to take many more decades. Moreover, even the United States—the lead country in spending on these efforts—routinely sacrifices radiological security to other budget priorities. Pomper therefore recommends two potential options to improve liability and insurance regimes governing radiological sources in order to incentivize users to reduce the risk of radiological terrorism.
Topic:
Security, Terrorism, Budget, Radiological Weapons, and Medicine
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

43. Making the Case: The President's Budget is a Step in the Right Direction

Author:
Mieke Eoyang and Ben Freeman
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Third Way
Abstract:
The President's proposed defense budget has been criticized for shrinking the military at a time when the world is getting more dangerous. This argument is simply wrong. In fact, the President's budget strengthens American security by: Providing more military funding than Ronald Reagan ever did. Investing in 21st century weapons, not Cold War relics. Cutting the Pentagon bureaucracy.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Military Strategy, and Budget
Political Geography:
America and North America

44. Aging Eagle and Dark Clouds on the Security Horizon

Author:
Dong-Joon Jo
Publication Date:
10-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
East Asia Institute (EAI)
Abstract:
The financial crisis in 2008 exposed a latent weakness that the United States would not have resources enough to cope with its population aging and maintain its global leadership. The crisis led the federal government to increase its welfare spending, bail out faltering industries, and rely on measures of economic stimulation. These measures resulted in the swelling of the public debt, which increased by $5,077 billion from fiscal year 2006 to fiscal year 2010, and intensified the U.S. federal government’s budgetary difficulties in meeting the welfare and medical needs of senior citizens and carrying out the war on terror abroad (See Figure 1). The belief in the sustainability of the public debt severely weakened, as the interest expense on the public debt rose to 8.6 percent of the total federal spending in 2010; the belief in the comparability between U.S. domestic welfare and its global leadership eroded. The financial crisis evoked a fairly routine set of behavior in partisan politics in 2011. When the public debt was about to reach the ceiling in 2011, Republicans and majority members of the Tea Party threatened not to agree on raising the debt ceiling. They pressured the Barack Obama administration to reduce the federal budget and governmental regulations. Meanwhile, the Obama administration and Democrats wanted to raise the maximum amount of governmental borrowing and keep boosting the economy. In the gunfire between the two parties loomed the possibility of sovereign default. Amid the partisan conflict the credit rating of the U.S. government bonds was downgraded for the first time in history; major market indexes plunged in the third quarter of 2011. The Budget Control Act was the result of bipartisan negotiations, accommodating conflicting goals and instruments from both sides. It provided breathing room for the Obama administration and Democrats by allowing the debt ceiling to increase by $900 billion two times in 2011 and additionally by $1.2 trillion in 2012. Meanwhile, it reduced the budgetary leeway of the administration and gave more power to the House, where Republicans and Tea Party members held the majority. More specifically, it established binding limits on annual appropriations bills to reduce the funding for discretionary programs, relative to the funding in the Congressional Budget Office’s 2010 baseline; it set up a Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, the “Supercommittee,” to come up with a bill to reduce deficits by at least $1.5 trillion through 2021. The legislation appeared to keep the partisan gunfire under control.
Topic:
Security, Financial Crisis, Budget, and Welfare
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

45. Defence After the Recession

Author:
David Perry
Publication Date:
04-2012
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI)
Abstract:
With unfortunate timing, the Harper government released a well-intended plan pledging “predictable, long-term funding”1 for the Department of National Defence (DND), mere months before the collapse of Lehman Brothers signalled the onset of a global recession. The Canada First Defence Strategy (CFDS) built on the defence budgetary renaissance begun under Paul Martin’s tenure as Prime Minister and promised the Canadian Forces the resources to project leadership abroad over the next twenty years. Economic circumstances quickly intervened, however, and in 2011 the government launched a Strategic and Operating Review (SOR) to reign in government programs. As a result, defence spending has peaked in 2011/2012 and will decline for the next three years. For DND, this fiscal retrenchment presents a significant problem. Although defence funding increased 54 percent nominally between 2003/2004 and 2010/2011, the CFDS was never adequately funded. While its capital investment plan was long rumored to be insufficient, the Report on Transformation 2011, led by Lieutenant General Andrew Leslie, acknowledged this openly.2 As a result, DND faces a perfect fiscal storm as its already inadequate funding is battered by deficit fighting measures and the results of the departmental Strategic Review announced in Budget 2011, which both take effect April 1, 2012.3 This combination of factors means the CFDS is likely no longer viable, at least in its original twenty year timeframe. Although a lack of detail makes the full impact of Budgets 2011 and 2012 difficult to discern, enough information is available to provide a preliminary assessment of the probable impact on the Canadian military.
Topic:
Defense Policy, Budget, Military, and Recession
Political Geography:
Canada and North America

46. Budget 2011 – Restraining Growth in Defence Spending?

Author:
Brian MacDonald
Publication Date:
08-2011
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI)
Abstract:
The Canada First Defence Strategy (CFDS) was tabled on June 19, 2008. Among its promises was “A Military with Stable, Predictable Funding,” which was to be delivered through a twenty year “new long term funding framework for the Defence Department,” which had not been the practice of previous White Papers and Policy Statements. The framework included the promise of an increase in the annual inflation adjustment from 1.5% to 2%, plus a “Real Growth” adjustment of 0.6% annually for a total of 2.6%. The CFDS also forecast an increase in the total defence budget “from approximately $18 billion in 2008-09, to over $30 billion in 2027-28. In total, the Government planned to invest close to $490 billion in defence over this period.” In addition, the Government committed to fund separately the incremental costs of any expeditionary deployments such as that in Afghanistan. The CFDS also promised “A Military with the Right Equipment and Training.” The first new equipment tranche would include the already purchased four C-17 strategic airlifters, plus maritime helicopters, plus “17 new CH47F Chinook helicopters, three replenishment ships, 2,300 trucks, up to 100 Leopard 2 tanks and 6-8 Arctic/Offshore patrol ships.” Further down the road the second tranche would add “15 ships to replace existing destroyers and frigates, 10 to 12 maritime patrol aircraft, 17 fixed wing search and rescue aircraft, 65 next generation fighter aircraft, and a fleet of land combat vehicles and systems.” The CFDS also proposed to increase the Regular Force strength to 70,000 and the Reserves to 30,000. The CFDS planned to allocate the total budget to the following categories: Personnel – 51%, Equipment – 12%, Infrastructure – 8%, and Readiness – 29%. Over the 20 year period personnel expenses would amount to $250 billion; the first tranche of equipment purchases would account for $15 billion of capital; the second tranche of major fleet acquisitions would account for $20 billion; Infrastructure would account for $40 billion and Readiness would account for $140 billion.
Topic:
Budget, Defense Spending, and Military
Political Geography:
Canada and North America

47. Does “Starve the Beast” Work?

Author:
Jerry H. Tempelman
Publication Date:
10-2006
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
The Cato Journal
Institution:
The Cato Institute
Abstract:
Starve-the-beast proponents believe that in order to tame the beast, one needs to starve it, with the beast being an obvious reference to Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan depiction of an out-of-control state apparatus. The idea of tax reductions as a way to enforce discipline in government spending holds regardless of whether the nation is in the midst of an economic expansion or a recession. Following the recurrence of federal budget deficits that coincided with the enactment of federal tax cuts during 2001–2003, the starvethe-beast approach to fiscal policy that once was one of the underpinnings of the Reagan Revolution has become increasingly controversial. It is no longer mainly the political left that criticizes the starve-the-beast approach. Even some Republicans who once participated in the move to a smaller government during the Reagan presidency now criticize starve-the-beast thinking. Recently, William Niskanen (2005) has used statistical evidence to demonstrate that a decrease in taxes in a given year is followed by an increase in spending the next. Bruce Bartlett (2005) has proposed raising taxes, namely by introducing a value-added tax, presumably to prevent having to increase less efficient income taxes later.
Topic:
Budget, Economy, Tax Systems, and Fiscal Policy
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America