Transparency Measures

The United States wants to increase the "transparency" of its nuclear weapons "on a reciprocal basis with Russia," Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance Rose Gottemoeller said earlier today.

Speaking at U.S. Strategic Command's annual deterrence symposium, Gottemoeller said the administration is "in the process of thinking through how this and other such transparency measures might be implemented." Among the issues and questions Gottemoeller said U.S. officials are mulling:

• Exactly what kinds of information do we think would be useful and appropriate to share and to seek from each other?

• How much detail are we prepared to share regarding numbers, types, and locations of weapons and related infrastructure?

• What classes and types of nuclear weapons should be included?

• What transparency measures should we consider for the total stockpile, in addition to non-strategic nuclear weapons?

• For the United States, what is the best way to consult with Allies on their views to the extent any transparency measures would involve items located on their territories?

• What are the legal mechanisms necessary to permit the sharing of sensitive information?

Gottemoeller said the United States would "consult with our NATO allies and invite Russia to join with us to develop an initiative, including examination of potential reciprocal actions that could be taken in parallel by the United States and Russia."

Gottemoeller also said conversations with Russia "must include defining what exactly constitutes a non-strategic nuclear weapon and whether or not a single overall limit on all nuclear weapons would be possible."

The need to develop a non-nuclear weapon capable of striking worldwide targets in under an hour won't go away regardless of how the Pentagon budget is cut over the next few years, the head of U.S. Strategic Command said Wednesday. As Inside the Pentagon reports today:

Gen. Robert Kehler told reporters that the Conventional Prompt Global Strike concept is designed to respond to an "extremely high-value, time-critical target" that could pop up in a location where other forces aren't available to respond. The only weapon in the current U.S. arsenal that can respond in that scenario is a nuclear one.

"That's not a good position to be in. We would like to have a capability to go after a time-critical target in a very short amount of time with a conventional warhead," Kehler said during a teleconference.

He said the goal behind the effort is to give the president more options. "That need will remain" despite potential cuts, Kehler said. "What I can't predict is, in the overall budget outcome here, how we might have to prioritize at the end of the day. And I'm not backing away from a need here; it's just very hard for me to speculate today on what the ultimate outcome is."

The new debt ceiling deal agreed to in the final hour by Congress and signed into law Tuesday by President Obama puts caps on security spending in fiscal years 2012 and 2013, as well as an overall budget cap on federal spending through the next decade. The debt deal also calls for a super committee of 12 lawmakers to develop legislation by Thanksgiving that would find at least $1.5 trillion in future deficit reductions. Many of these dollars could come from the Defense Department. If the committee is unable to come to a consensus and achieve at least $1.2 trillion in cuts, the bill automatically triggers spending cuts for FY-13 through FY-21 -- with 50 percent of these cuts to come from defense accounts.

Kehler said he doesn't know what the debt ceiling agreement means for the department, or the Conventional Prompt Global Strike program, and has not seen any specific fiscal guidance.