MDA’s FY21 Budget Paves Way for New Homeland Missile Defense Plans
Jen Judson | Defense News
The Missile Defense Agency’s fiscal year 2021 $9.2 billion budget request shows a refocus on developing and deploying a layered homeland ballistic missile defense system. The focus: operational regional missile defense capability to underlay the current Ground-Based Midcourse Defense System designed to protect the continental United States, following the abrupt cancellation of an effort to upgrade the system’s interceptors. The MDA is funding a Next-Generation Interceptor instead of pursuing the now-canceled Redesigned Kill Vehicle (RKV) program, which would have upgraded GMD’s current GBIs with a more capable kill vehicle than is currently deployed at Fort Greely, Alaska, and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. But the agency is also going to take regional missile defense capability already resident within the Navy and Army and use it to provide a layered defense against intercontinental ballistic missile threats to the United States homeland. According to supporting budget request documents, the agency plans to add these layers of defensive capability to its architecture and is taking steps to assess the Aegis Weapon System to determine if it can be upgraded to bolster homeland defense against ICBM threats, particularly the SM-3 Block IIA missiles used in the system.
No Funding for Nevada Nuclear Waste Repository in Proposed Federal Budget
John Sadler | Las Vegas Sun
President Donald Trump’s proposed fiscal 2021 budget doesn’t include any funding for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada. Released today, the budget includes language criticizing the political stalemate over the stalled project, which was defunded a decade ago. Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has been designated as the nation’s sole storage site for spent nuclear waste. “One large hurdle that still faces the nuclear industry is the disposal of spent nuclear fuel,” the budget document notes. It says the standstill “has gone on too long,” and the Trump administration is “initiating processes to develop alternative solutions and engaging states in developing an actionable path forward.” It’s not clear what those solutions might be. The Department of Energy did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Gov. Steve Sisolak today released a letter sent to the White House asking the president to veto any legislation that doesn’t let state, local and tribal governments ultimately decide if they want to allow a nuclear storage facility.
The Air Force Is Massively Scaling Back a Major Upgrade for the B-2 Stealth Bomber
Valerie Insinna | Defense News
After years of delays and technical issues, the Air Force is restructuring a key B-2 modernization program, transforming it from a suite of technologies meant to help the bomber evade Russia and China into a less ambitious cockpit display upgrade. In the Air Force’s fiscal year 2021 budget request, the service zeroes out the Defensive Management System Modernization program, or DMS-M, over the next five years. Instead, it intends to put about $155 million toward a cockpit upgrade that will include a more advanced graphics processor and modernized displays. According to the budget, restructuring the DMS-M program will save the Air Force about $327.9 million in fiscal 2021. However, it comes at a cost to the aircraft’s future survivability, omitting new antennas and avionics that help detect and identify ground-based air defense systems and other threats.
Trump Flirts With a New Nuclear Arms Race
Nahal Toosi | Politico
Aides to President Donald Trump want to name a high-level negotiator to oversee nuclear talks with Moscow, former U.S. officials say – an effort that may be delaying a Trump decision on whether to extend America’s last major arms control treaty with Russia. The negotiator would act as a special envoy focused on arms control talks. And while Moscow would likely be his or her primary overseas negotiating partner, Trump may insist that the envoy take on the even harder task of convincing China to engage in such discussions. So far, the administration has been unable to find someone willing to take the position, two former U.S. officials told POLITICO. The search has been going on since late last year. Trump, meanwhile, faces growing pressure to agree to extend the New START Treaty, a landmark Barack Obama administration arms control agreement that took effect in 2011.
Air Force Discloses Drug Investigation Into Nuclear Missile Guards in Colorado, 2 Other States
Robert Burns | AP
Security guards at an Air Force base responsible for protecting strategic nuclear missiles in three states are under investigation for alleged marijuana use, Air Force officials said Monday. They are part of the same security force whose members were caught using the hallucinogen LSD four years ago. Officials declined to disclose the number under investigation or provide other details, but they said Gen. Tim Ray, the top general in charge of Air Force nuclear weapons, flew to F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming, to hold a “no-notice” meeting Monday to address the reported misbehavior by members of the 90th Security Forces Group. Those under investigation have been removed from their duties until the probe is completed, the Air Force said. The 90th Security Forces Group is responsible for security at F.E. Warren as well as for the network of nuclear-armed Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles — a key segment of the U.S. nuclear force — in underground launch silos in western Nebraska, southeastern Wyoming and northeastern Colorado.
Norway’s Intelligence Chief Fears More Accidents With Russia’s Reactor-Powered Weapons Systems
Thomas Nilsen | Barents Observer
On Monday, the Lieutenant General presented the Intelligence Service’s annual report with threat assessments to Norway’s national security. In a speech for Oslo Military Society, Morten Haga Lunde elaborated on the facts and figures of Russia’s military build-up in the north. The report points to 19 people killed as a result of military activities in the Russian north near Norway. Those 19 mentioned in the intelligence report are likely the 14 men killed in the fire on board the Losharik special purpose submarine on July 1 and the five Rosatom experts killed as radioactivity leaked out in the explosion during recovery of a Burevestnik missile from the seabed of the White Sea on August 8. For Norway, neighboring Russia in the north, testing of such reactor-powered weapons systems are worrisome. “We must expect development and testing of new advanced weapons systems in the areas east of Norway. Several of these will have nuclear propulsion systems,” Haga Lunde said.