The Defense Department will strongly support Administration requests for nuclear weapons initiatives like the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), reports Ian Hoffman in the Oakland Tribune (via John Fleck): [A]s the administration revives [new nuclear-weapons initiatives] Monday in the president’s 2006 budget request, civilian leaders at the Pentagon are expected to come out swinging, especially …
STRATCOM to lead DOD WMD efforts
by | 2005-02-05 | No Comments
Secretary Rumsfeld has signed a memorandum designating the Commander, US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) as the “lead combatant commander for integrating and synchronizing DOD in combatting WMD.” Choosing STRATCOM reflects a certain emphasis on preventive military action to combat the spread of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons—counterproliferation. STRATCOM’s “first priority is to assess, advocate for the …
Hobson at ACA
by | 2005-02-05 | 1 Comment
The Arms Control Association posted the prepared remarks by Representative David Hobson (right) from lunch on Friday. Dave Ruppe summarizes of what he called a “scathing speech” in Global Security Newswire. One thing I would add to Dave’s excellent coverage—and that isn’t in Hobson’s prepared remarks—were a couple of references Hobson made to starting a …
Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat (NASIC, 2003)
by | 2005-02-04 | No Comments
Hans Kristensen has posted the most recent edition of Ballistic and Cruise Missile Threat (National Air and Space Intelligence Center, August 2003). This is the same document that Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough “obtained” and reported on in a recent column. I was in the process of “obtaining” the document myself—through interlibrary loan. (If you …
