Rao bulletin 1 October 2016 html edition this bulletin contains the following articles pg Article Subject
Download 7.71 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- NDAA 2017 Update 18 ► Roadblock Pushes Bill to Lame Duck Session
- Whether DoD should get extra funding above the caps in the last budget deal.
- Where any extra funds should come from.
- What the extra money should pay for.
- TRICARE fee hikes.
- Housing allowances.
- Greater sage grouse.
- NDAA 2017 Update 19 ► Sage Grouse Impasse
DoD Nuclear Mission ► Highest Priority | Bedrock of Our Security Calling the nuclear mission “the bedrock of our security, and the highest priority mission of the Department of Defense,” Secretary of Defense Ash Carter on 26 SEP offered a full-throated defense of the need to modernize all three legs of the nuclear triad. Carter’s comments came during a visit to Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota, home to both B-52s and Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles. Defense News is travelling with Carter this week. Under the fiscal year 2017 budget request, Carter said, the department pledged $19 billion to the nuclear enterprise, part of $108 billion planned over the next five years. The department has also spent around $10 billion over the last two years, the secretary said in prepared comments. The “nuclear triad” references the three arms of the US strategic posture — land-based ICBMs, airborne weapons carried by bombers, and submarine-launched atomic missiles. All of those programs are entering an age where they need to be modernized. Pentagon estimates have pegged the cost of modernizing the triad and all its accompanying requirements at the range of $350 to $450 billion over the next 10 years, with a large chunk of costs hitting in the mid-2020s, just as competing major modernization projects for both the Air Force and Navy come due. 
Critics of both America’s nuclear strategy and Pentagon spending have attempted to find ways to change the modernization plan, perhaps by cancelling one leg of the triad entirely. But Carter made it clear in his speech that he feels such plans would put America at risk at a time when Russia, China and North Korea, among others, are looking to modernize their arsenals. “If we don’t replace these systems, quite simply they will age even more, and become unsafe, unreliable, and ineffective. The fact is, most of our nuclear weapon delivery systems have already been extended decades beyond their original expected service lives,” Carter said. “So it’s not a choice between replacing these platforms or keeping them … it’s really a choice between replacing them or losing them. That would mean losing confidence in our ability to deter, which we can’t afford in today’s volatile security environment.” He also hit at critics of the nuclear program — which include former Secretary of Defense William Perry, widely seen as a mentor for Carter — who argue that investing further into nuclear weapons will increase the risk of atomic catastrophe in the future. “None of these investments is intended to change the nature of deterrence or how it works; after all, no one can. And not only are they not intended to stimulate competition from anyone else; we know they aren’t having that effect, because the evidence is to the contrary,” Carter said. “We didn’t build anything new for the last 25 years, but others did — including Russia, North Korea, China, India, Pakistan, and, for a period of time, Iran — while our allies around the world — in Asia, the Middle East, and NATO — did not.” Carter expressly called out Russia for its “recent nuclear saber-rattling” that “raises serious questions” about Moscow’s commitment to the global post-Cold War nuclear posture. In contrast, the secretary said China “conducts itself professionally in the nuclear arena, despite growing its arsenal in both quantity and quality.” While the efforts to modernize the ICBM, bomber and submarine fleets garner major attention, there is a second tier of vital nuclear programs – including the command-and-control structure, the B61-12 warhead upgrade, and the Long Range Standoff (LRSO) nuclear cruise missile – that are also part of the modernization effort. The LRSO has become a popular target for Congress and the nonproliferation community, with the argument being made that the capability is duplicative to conventional stand-off weapons. Notably, Minot is home to several hundred Air Launched Cruise Missiles (ALCMs), which provide the US stand-off, plane-launched nuclear strike capability and which would be replaced with the LRSO. Those weapons are increasing in age, with one maintainer telling reporters here that the Pentagon is exploring the use of 3-D printing to help compensate for out-of-production parts vital to the weapon. Speaking at last week’s Air Force Association conference outside Washington, Gen. Robin Rand, head of Air Force Global Strike Command, defended the need for the LRSO program to continue. “The deterrent value of it; the options that it gives the president,” Rand responded when asked why the weapon was needed. “The ability not to penetrate enemy airspace, not to fly directly to the target. I don’t believe we should put 100 percent of our eggs all in one basket and solely rely on stealth, so this gives you a long-range strike capability.” Rand then presented a broader justification for the triad as a whole, one in line with Carter’s 26 SEP comments. “We say the ICBM land-based missile gives us incredible responsiveness. We are on 24/7 alert. The air leg gives us tremendous flexibility. You can generate them, you can show that you’re generating, they can take off, and you can recall. You can’t recall a sea or a land based missile. Once it comes out of the hole you ain’t getting that bad boy back,” Rand said. “The sea-based gives you tremendous survivability. Those are options that I think the president has found, every president since President Eisenhower, has found those to be compelling reasons to keep the triad.” [Source: Defense News | Aaron Mehta | September 26, 2016 ++] ***************************** NDAA 2017 Update 18 ► Roadblock Pushes Bill to Lame Duck Session Any hopes of pushing the annual Pentagon policy bill through the House and Senate before Congress adjourns have now faded, as the Armed Services committees have shelved the bill until after the November election due to discussions over a big snag over a familiar bird; The two panels had quickly resolved a number of competing provisions — including how to handle the topline spending — but hit a roadblock 14 SEP over House language on the greater sage grouse (i.e. wildlife conservation). With the Senate planning to leave town in the last weeks of SEP, the panels have pushed any further negotiations off until the lame-duck session. But by pushing negotiations into November, the two committees will return to Washington to a very different political environment. That means issues that are resolved now — such as the topline — could be reopened after the election. The delay also will give the lame-duck Congress little time to deal with the expected veto of the bill, putting in jeopardy the Armed Services committees’ impressive 54-year streak of getting the NDAA bill enacted. As of 16 SEP there was a wide array of differences between the House and Senate respective versions of the FY17 Defense Authorization Bill. Some of the key sticking points include: Whether DoD should get extra funding above the caps in the last budget deal. Leaders of both Armed Services committees believe the answer is “yes.” The president and most Democrats in Congress believe any relief from the cap on defense spending should be matched by equal relief from the cap on non-defense spending. Where any extra funds should come from. Both chambers have proposed using the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund, either by pulsing it up or by diverting some of the existing OCO funds to the base defense budget. The latter route would require the next president to request supplemental war funding for FY17. Some object to this as underfunding war needs, but Congress did the same thing between the Bush and Obama administrations. What the extra money should pay for. The Senate defense bill caps the military pay raise at 1.6 percent and cuts force levels for all services, as proposed in the Pentagon's budget. The House bill would fund a full 2.1 percent raise and plus up force levels. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) has supported adding funds for both increases, so that gives us hope on those scores, subject to resolution of the two issues mentioned above. TRICARE fee hikes. The Senate bill would phase in substantial increases for retirees under 65 years old and roughly double pharmacy copayments over nine years. The House bill would impose increases for future entrants but would mostly grandfather current fee levels for currently serving and retired beneficiaries. Housing allowances. The Senate bill would impose dramatic allowance cuts for servicemembers who share housing with other servicemembers, whether they are married or roommates. The House bill makes no such changes. Military health system organization. Both bills would impose new requirements to improve health care access, quality, and continuity. Both also would put all service hospitals and clinics under the purview of the Defense Health Agency. Service leaders have been spending a lot of time on Capitol Hill arguing for modifications on the latter issue. Greater sage grouse. If you can believe it, an initiative by an Armed Services Committee member to prevent the greater sage grouse from being declared an endangered species is proving to be a significant stumbling block. The provision is aimed at freeing up land for military use that is now blocked to protect the grouse. Thankfully, the lesser sage grouse is not a problem, or things would really break down. [NAUS Weekly & MOAA Legislative Updates | September 16, 2016 ++] ***************************** NDAA 2017 Update 19 ► Sage Grouse Impasse Long considered a joke to defense watchers, the odd-looking sage grouse is not longer a laughing matter, but a bona fide threat to progress of a massive multibillion-dollar defense policy bill. The bird is at the center of a high-level showdown between House Republican leadership and the "Big Four" leaders of congressional armed services committees. That's because accommodations for the sage grouse touch energy, mining and ranching interests, and at least if some House Republicans are to be believed, such accommodations would hinder operations at some US military bases. The House's No. 2 Republican, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, of California, has indicated he will not let the annual National Defense Authorization Act proceed to a vote in the House unless it contains language to bar the sage grouse from the federal endangered species list until at least 2025. “I think it needs to stay in the bill,” McCarthy told reporters on 26 SEP, referring to the sage-grouse measure. “I think that’s been delivered very clearly to everybody.” Yet the "Big Four" — Senate Armed Services Chair John McCain (R-AZ); and Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-RI); and House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX); and Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-WA) — argue the Defense Department has said it has no need for the provision and it should be excluded from the final bill. Asked whether the sage grouse was a worthy-enough cause to stall the defense policy bill, McCarthy said, “I don’t know. Ask McCain about that.” For McCain's part, he said he opposes the language for practical reasons. The president has threatened a veto over it. “The veto would be sustained — and I don’t know what the point is because it has nothing to do with defense,” McCain told Defense News on 27 SEP. “The commanding officers of bases can train and go where they want.” The impasse assures the bill will not be resolved until the post-Nov. 8 lame duck session, McCain and other lawmakers say. It has derailed the Big Four's closed-door negotiations to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the NDAA. House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry (R-TX) told Defense News in a brief interview on 26 SEP GOP leadership had tied his hands on the sage grouse matter, adding that lawmakers otherwise were making significant progress on a defense-bill compromise. “It’s a very significant issue to some people, but essentially, these decisions get made above my pay grade, as far as whether a bill can come back to the House without a sage grouse provision in it,” Thornberry said. “So I think we’ve come to a very good place, not in total agreement on all the defense-related issues, but obviously it’s not going to happen now until the lame duck,” Thornberry said. “We’re ready, whenever.” This is the second year in a row the defense-policy bill has been roped into the sage grouse debate — a high-stakes battle between industry and anti-regulation advocates on one side, and conservation groups like the Audubon Society on the other. So far this year, 61 different groups have actively lobbied the Hill on the issue this year, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. “The NDAA gets into all kinds of things that are not the province of the national security committee; Can anyone say sage grouse?” HASC Ranking Member Adam Smith (D-WA) said at a public forum last week. “We have a vehicle that moves, so people try to latch everything onto it.” Smith characterized the sage grouse as “the biggest problem remaining” for the NDAA, without huge differences on other issues. “The Obama administration said they’re not going to list the darn thing anyway, but promises have been at a very high level in the Republican caucus, and I don’t know how we get around that because that would be veto bait,” Smith said. 
Directory: uploads uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10 uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? uploads -> For want of a nail uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models uploads -> Police Militarization uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016 uploads -> Township of winfield uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now! Download 7.71 Mb. Share with your friends:
|