Reality Based Defense Approps Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Today’s shout-out goes to Representative John Spratt (D SC) for joining the guns versus guns tradeoff debate in Congress. Congressman Spratt is planning on offering an amendment to the Defense Appropriations bill that would move $84 million from the missile defense program  to nuclear non-proliferation programs.

During the Presidential debates in 2004, President Bush and Senator Kerry agreed that the greatest threat faced by the United States today is nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists. The best means of preventing that threat is the nonproliferation programs that secure nuclear weapons and materials in Russia and other countries.

The bill that the House will consider provides only $416 million for the Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) program. The Spratt amendment increases the CTR budget to equal the original $500 million requested by Senators Nunn and Lugar in 1991.

Congress has consistently underfunded "loose nukes" programs--aid that pays to secure dangerous materials at their point of origin... while at the same time lavishing billions on the ever-dubious but oh so lucrative missile defense.

Comments

[Lane Brody]

This is exactly what is wrong with the progressive movement and more broadly why the Democratic party is not viewed as very trustworthy on defense issues. To call this "guns vs guns" is to really stretch that definition.

The merits of missle defense need to be argued for and against within that program not vis a vis CTR. CTR is vital to our interests but is simply seen as foreign aid. It also does not belong in DOD to begin with.

On a practical political level transferring money from missle defense to foreign aid is just not smart. It'll never pass so it's pointless; however, proposing to fully fund CTR and attempting to change the focus of that program from foreign aid to stopping loose nukes did have merit. Too bad that gets thrown out in favor of some short term political gain.

Lane Brody

[Lorelei Kelly]

Mr. Brody,
I could not disagree with you more. This is exactly the kind of tradeoff that makes sense right now. CTR plus all of its "foreign aid" components should have been billed as a model post Cold War defense platform right at its inception and then considered a comprehensive package. One of its problems in funding is that the human resources elements were picked off during the legislative process. Nobody wants to live at a chemical weapons destruction plant in freezing Russia if there is no heat/schools/post office/health clinic, etc. Talking about it as a guns versus guns tradeoff also sheds light on one of the biggest corporate boondoggles ever: "Star Wars" is defense industry welfare at its worst. It needs to be scaled back to a minor R and D program and then just focus on the testable and achievable goals.

[Amyfw]

I'll have to come down in the middle here. Mr. Brody is absolutely wrong in his characterization of CTR (by which I mean the DOD portion of our threat reduction and nonproliferation assistance to the FSU, not DOE and State) as foreign aid. I'll go with former Secretary Perry's characterization of "defense by other means." The funding for CTR is focused pretty closely on weapons elimination (cutting up ICBM silos, SLBM launchers, and bombers; securing weapons during transit and storage, eliminating CW weapons.) Congress made sure that the "foreign aid" pieces were removed back in the mid-90s. And I can admire Rep. Spratt for his intent in returning to the original $500 m for Nunn-Lugar, but it has little grounding in reality. Many of the programs that would have received funding in the original years have moved to DOE and State, so total funding is up around $950 m across the 3 agencies. Also, although there are certainly areas in DOE and State that are underfunded, the same is not necessarily true for DOD. Because the CTR program is so focused on weapons areas, I'm not sure where I'd put the added money (actually, I'd put it in DOE and State.) The DOD programs are funded bottom-up. They ask for the amount they need for their next year, and they get it. There are no extra funds for new program starts, but I haven't heard anyone identify programs for new starts in the DOD portion of the budget.

And we all know that a lack of money is not the real obstacle to progress. Its access, transparency, liability protection, and all the other bureaucratic logjams.

So, while I admire Rep. Spratt's intent, I'd need more details before I could say whether CTR needs more money.

At the same time, I'm pretty certain missile defense can get by on lots less money.

[Carl Nyberg]

When will Dems find the courage to argue against anti-ballistic missile weapons systems completely?

Non-proliferation programs should be fully funded, but it's mostly a separate issue.

Anti-ballistic missile weapons are insidious. They are sold to the public under false pretenses and will make it much more likely the United States will get into more wars like Iraq.

Some Bush-like opportunist will rachet up a conflict with Korea because he knows the Navy can destroy the ballistic missiles in their boost phases. Then we fight another war that didn't need to be because war is good politics and lets the Prez spend billions he couldn't get his hands on otherwise. Amazingly much of this money ends up in the pockets of his political supporters.

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