On Citizen Control of Defense
by Jason Sibert
Bipartisanship is rare in Congress these days.
But one place to consistently find agreement between Democrats and Republicans is support for modernizing the US nuclear arsenal–currently numbering over 5,000 nuclear warheads, plus the triad of missiles, submarines and bombers that delivers them. Unfortunately, that consensus also extends to turning a blind eye to the exploding costs, which helps explain why the original $1 trillion modernization program proposed in 2010 today has a price tag of $2 trillion. That estimate is likely to escalate even further by 2050–the supposed end date for modernization, as stated by writer Sharon Weiner in her story “Nuclear Weapons at Any Price, Congress Should Say No”.
Supporting nuclear modernization at any price is neither necessary nor affordable. Instead, Congress must improve and be held accountable for fiscal oversight of the nuclear arsenal. It can start by looking at intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). In January of this year, the Air Force announced that the price tag for its new ICBM–the Sentinel–had increased by more than 37 percent. This triggered a review mandated by the Nunn-McCurdy Act–a 1982 law that sought to rein in the spiraling cost of military spending. Sentinel’s increased cost–from $96 billion to $130 billion over the next 10 years–is a violation of the act and should lead to termination of the program. To avoid this, the secretary of defense must explain the cause of the cost growth and restructure the program, which he is expected to do within months.
The taxpayer money involved in this project is mind-boggling. In 2015, the US Air Force put the price of a new ICBM program at $62 billion and argued that a new missile would be cheaper than maintaining the current Minuteman III ICBMs. A year later, an independent Pentagon evaluation argued that costs could go as high as $150 billion, yet the official estimate put the price at $85 billion. Congress failed to investigate why the budget request was based on the lower figure. No hearings are planned to investigate the Sentinel cost overrun or to consider the options for restructuring or eliminating the program. Remember, Congress has held two hearings on UFOs.
If major projects at NASA, the Veterans Administration, or almost any other government agency mimicked these problems, there would be a political fallout. Nuclear modernization deserves the same treatment as any other government agency. Congress should require independent cost estimates of the Sentinel program and any other major nuclear modernization program where the estimated cost exceeds the original baseline by 50 percent or more–a threshold in the Nunn-McCurdy Act.
We, the people, should take charge of our country’s defense instead of letting the powers that be control it. We must defend our country and not let the debate be carried by the well-funded military-industrial complex. This will be a tough task, considering money’s hold over our elected officials. It will take some people’s power to defeat money’s power! I hope we can keep that in mind as we move forward.
