The nation’s three nuclear weapons laboratories – Los Alamos, Livermore, and Sandia national labs – have historically served as a ready-made lobby for the continuation and expansion of U.S. nuclear weapons programs. The three labs combined are slated to receive nearly $3.3 billion in federal funding for weapons activities in the FY 2003 budget (Los Alamos, $1.2 billion; Sandia, $1.1 billion; and Livermore, $943 million). From Edward Teller’s advocacy of the hydrogen bomb in the 1950s and Star Wars in the 1980s, to the role of lab personnel in casting doubts on the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty prior to the Senate’s decision not to ratify the pact in the fall of 1999, the weapons laboratories have frequently had far greater political and policy leverage than might be expected for institutions of their size. More recently, the nuclear weapons labs and former lab personnel have focused on two major issues:

1) Promoting a major modernization and expansion of the nuclear weapons complex;

2) Developing concepts and designs for new, more "usable" nuclear weapons. Both of these objectives were incorporated into the Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture Review.

The most powerful impetus for expanding the weapons complex has come from the Panel to Assess the Reliability, Safety, and Security of the United States Nuclear Stockpile, which was established by Congress in 1999. The panel is chaired by John Foster, the former director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and key members include Harold Agnew, the former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, and James Schlesinger, a former Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Energy and a strong advocate of nuclear testing. The Foster panel is the source of the estimate that the U.S. government needs to spend "$500 million a year for the next ten years" to upgrade the nuclear weapons complex.[60] This funding, which is euphemistically referred to as the "Stockpile Stewardship" program, actually includes substantial resources for the design and possible testing of new nuclear weapons designs.[61] The strongest advocate for stockpile stewardship funding – which has resulted in more funding for nuclear weapons-related work at Department of Energy facilities than they received during the Cold War -- has been former Senate Budget Committee chair (and current ranking Republican) Pete Domenici (R-NM), who not coincidentally has two of the three nuclear weapons labs located in his state. In a 1999 interview, Domenici’s chief of staff Steve Bell that "if it wasn’t for Pete Domenici" there would be no stockpile stewardship program. Domenici is so closely tied to the nuclear weapons complex that he even accepted the loan of a full-time science advisor, Peter Lyons, whose $159,000 annual salary is paid by Los Alamos National Laboratories.[62]

Key executives from the nuclear weapons laboratories have also been among the most vocal advocates of the need to retain substantial numbers of existing nuclear weapons while developing new ones. One of the most persistent lobbyists in this regard has been C. Paul Robinson, the director of Sandia Laboratories, a U.S. government-owned laboratory that designs and builds non-nuclear components of nuclear weapons that is managed by the for-profit Sandia Corporation, a subsidiary of Lockheed Martin. In a "white paper" on U.S. nuclear weapons policy which is posted on Sandia’s web site, Robinson expresses dismay at the notion that nuclear weapons have been "undervalued" by U.S. policymakers in recent years:

Even more influential than Paul Robinson is Stephen Younger, the former Associate Director for Nuclear Weapons at Los Alamos National Laboratory. While at Los Alamos, Younger wrote a paper entitled "Nuclear Weapons in the 21^st Century" which encapsulates much of the thinking on the use of precision conventional strike systems and low-yield nuclear weapons that has now been endorsed in the Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture Review. For example, in his executive summary, Younger makes the following assertion:

Younger is now serving as the Director of the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency (formerly the Defense Nuclear Agency), where he is likely to have a substantial voice in discussions about the implementation of the administration’s nuclear policy.

Foxes in the Chicken Coop: Rumsfeld’s Corporate Model for Missile Defense Development

The potential for conflicts of interest involving former weapons industry executives and their former companies has been substantially increased as a result of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s corporate management style, in which corporate methods and corporate experience receive pride of place. As an April 2001 account in the conservative Washington Times noted, Rumsfeld made corporate experience a virtual litmus test for appointment to key positions in the Pentagon. One Pentagon insider described Rumsfeld’s plan for running the Pentagon as follows: "It’s Department of Defense, Inc. . . . You have the guys who run the Navy, Air Force, and Army, and then you have the comptroller as the financial officer." The article goes on to note that Rumsfeld’s choices for service secretaries, James Roche (Air Force), Thomas E. White (Army), and Gordon R. England (Navy) "all have extensive corporate experience running programs and divisions."[65] Rumsfeld elaborated on this approach in June of 2001 when he announced the establishment of a "Senior Executive Committee" at the Pentagon:

The flaws in Rumsfeld’s corporate approach first became apparent in the case of Army Secretary Thomas E. White, who came straight to the post from an 11-year stint as an executive at Enron. Shortly after assuming his post as Secretary of the Army in June of 2001, White began pushing for an acceleration of utility services privatization at Army installations around the country. While at Enron, White was responsible for securing a ten-year, $25 million contract to run all the utilities at Fort Hamilton, NY, and the company had been looking to dramatically expand its business in this area.[67] The theory behind Rumsfeld's reliance on former corporate executives was that they would be more willing to cut costs and try new approaches than the average Pentagon bureaucrat. The underlying assumption was that corporations -- even weapons contractors -- are by definition run more efficiently than government agencies. As White put it shortly after taking office, "I spent 11 years in corporate America at Enron Corporation… It is very, very clear to me that there is enormous potential to improve the basic business practices of this department."[68] Now Enron Energy Services has essentially gone out of business as a result of revelations regarding its fraudulent accounting practices, and White is under fire from Congress for his handling of his Enron stockholdings and his frequent communications with former Enron associates since taking office.[69] White’s management experience at Enron hardly seems like a model any organization would want to follow.

Given the controversy generated by Thomas White’s appointment, one would think that Rumsfeld might take a second look at his notion of relying so heavily on corporate expertise and corporate methods to reform the Pentagon. Instead, he is moving full speed ahead with a plan to give a small circle of former defense contractor executives and consultants a central role in managing what could be the largest Pentagon project ever – the administration’s multi-tiered missile defense system. Under a program that Lt. General Ronald Kadish has described as the "Freedom to Manage" initiative, Rumsfeld has exempted Missile Defense Agency programs from traditional regulations regarding system requirements, program timelines, accountability for costs, and outside assessments by the Pentagon’s independent testing office. Rumsfeld described his rationale for exempting missile defense from normal checks and balances as follows: "The special nature of missile defense development, operations, and support calls for nonstandard approaches to both acquisition and requirements generation."[70]

Lisbeth Gronlund of the Union of Concerned Scientists, which has called for the creation of an independent panel of experts with no financial ties to missile defense development to evaluate the program, argues that the new approach gives too much power to the contractors: "In effect, they’re saying, "Whatever you’ve got, we’ll take it."[71] Major program decisions will be made by Rumsfeld’s Senior Executive Council, cited above. So much for independent oversight: six of the seven members of the Council – Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim, Secretary of the Air Force James Roche, Secretary of the Navy Gordon England, Secretary of the Army Thomas White, and Pentagon acquisition chief Pete Aldridge – served as executives or paid consultants to defense contractors prior to joining the Bush administration (see Appendix A for full details).

While decisions about budgeting, schedule, and performance will be handled by a Senior Executive Council packed with former defense industry personnel, day-to-day management of missile defense development will be split between Lockheed Martin and Boeing (see section above on systems integration), working in conjunction with the Missile Defense Agency. The firms will head up two integration teams of about 150 people each, drawn from a pool of engineers employed by Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, General Dynamics, TRW, and other major weapons contractors.[72] Given the history of cost overruns, performance problems, and allegations of fraud that have plagued the missile defense effort over the past two decades, entrusting the development and oversight of the program primarily to former defense contractor personnel seems like a particularly risky management strategy.

Following the Money – Political Contributions by Missile Defense and Nuclear Weapons Contractors:

In keeping with their interests in the Bush administration’s approach to nuclear and defense policies, arms makers like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics have heavily favored President Bush and Republican candidates in their campaign contributions, both prior to and after the 2000 elections. Defense contractor contributions of $13.5 million in the last election cycle favored Republican candidates by a margin of almost 2 to 1 (65% to 35%), and by more than 2 to 1 for the 2001/2002 cycle, when 68% of the industry’s $6.1 million in contributions has gone to Republican candidates or committees. And although the industry’s $190,000 in contributions to George W. Bush were a "drop in the bucket" compared to the tens of millions of dollars he raised in his drive for the presidency, the fact that Bush received more than four and one-half times as much defense industry money as Al Gore suggests that the industry had a clear preference for the Republican standard bearer.[73]

On paper at least, candidate Gore was pledging to seek a greater increase in Pentagon spending than candidate Bush -- a $100 billion increase beyond existing plans over 10 years versus a $50 billion, ten year increase proposed by the Bush team. This suggests that the industry’s preference for Bush was either related to areas where strong differences between the two candidates might favor their interests -- as in the case of Bush’s repeated pledges to pursue the construction of a multi-tiered missile defense system -- or that there was a presumption that Bush would ultimately spend far more on the Pentagon than he was suggesting on the campaign trail.

Companies with a specific stake in missile defense and nuclear weapons projects also demonstrated a preference for Republican candidates. A World Policy Institute analysis of campaign contributions by ten major nuclear weapons and missile defense contractors revealed that these firms made $8.6 million in political contributions in 1999/2000, with 61% of the funds going to Republican candidates; and $4.2 million in contributions so far in 2001/2002, with 64% going to Republican candidates (see Appendix B for data on each of the ten companies). Lockheed Martin was by far the most active campaign donor, making $4 million in political donations to federal candidates during the 1999/2000 and 2001/2002 cycles combined, which accounted for almost one-third of the $12.8 million donated by the ten major missile defense and nuclear weapons contractors during the two cycles.

Like many major campaign contributors, major nuclear weapons and missile defense contractors give donations to candidates who are in a position to do them the most good. Five of the top six donors to members of the House Armed Services Committee during the 1999/2000 election cycle were major nuclear weapons and missile defense contractors: Lockheed Martin, $212,834 (1^st); General Dynamics, $201,707 (2^nd); Raytheon, $129,150 (4^th); Boeing, $122,753 (5^th); and Northrop Grumman, $108,350 (6^th). A similar pattern emerged in the Senate Armed Services Committee, where five of the top seven donors were major nuclear or missile defense contractors: Lockheed Martin, $203,388 (1^st); General Dynamics, $120,700 (2^nd); Raytheon, $115,401 (3^rd); Boeing, $93,255 (5^th); and Northrop Grumman, $68,100 (7^th).[74]

The larger contractors also lavished generous donations on other key committees with decision making power over the Pentagon and military aid budgets. For example, Lockheed Martin (5^th, with $238,849) and Boeing (14^th, with $199,200) were major contributors to the House Appropriations Committee; this committee’s Defense Appropriations Subcommittee plays an important role in determining the size and content of the Pentagon budget. Lockheed Martin apparently wanted to leave no stone unturned in the drive for influence: the company was the number one donor to both the Senate Appropriations and Senate Governmental Affairs committees in 1999/2000, with contributions of $339,546 and $214,110 to committee members, respectively.[75]

Lockheed Martin also led the defense industry in lobbying expenditures for the year 2000, the most recent year for which full statistics are available, doubling its spending to $9.7 million, up from $4.2 million in 1999. Other big spenders with interests in nuclear weapons and missile defense projects included Boeing ($7.8 million), Northrop Grumman ($6.9 million), General Dynamics ($4.7 million), Raytheon ($2.3 million), and TRW ($1.1 million).[76] In all, companies with major stakes in missile defense and nuclear weapons work spent more than $58.9 million on lobbying during 1999 and 2000, which accounted for 45% of all lobbying expenditures by weapons contractors during that time period.[77]

Obviously not all, or even the majority, of the campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures by these firms are used to promote their nuclear weapons and missile defense projects. In Lockheed Martin’s case, for example, much of the lobbying effort was probably expended on behalf of lucrative aircraft programs like the F-22 fighter and the Joint Strike Fighter, which involve multi-billion dollar annual procurement and development budgets. But that same lobbying infrastructure can be brought to bear on behalf of the Trident II missile, or one of the company’s missile defense projects, or its nuclear weapons business, as needed. The company can deploy an impressive army of former elected officials on its behalf. On the Democratic side of the aisle, former officeholders who have worked as paid lobbyists on Lockheed Martin’s behalf include former California Representative Vic Fazio, former Georgia Representative George "Buddy" Darden, former Louisiana Senator J. Bennett Johnston, and former Texas Governor Ann Richards. On the Republican side, former Minnesota Representative Vin Weber, former Pennsylvania Representative Joseph McDade, former Mississippi Representative G.D. "Sonny" Montgomery, former House Appropriations Committee chairman Robert Livingston, former Georgia Senator Mack Mattingly, and former Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour are all on call to help Lockheed Martin make its case on Capitol Hill or in the Executive Branch.[78]

Perhaps the best way to see how companies involved in nuclear weapons and missile defense work exert influence is by looking at a few specific cases in which members of Congress supported by these companies have gone to bat on the company’s behalf. It is often hard to prove causality in these cases. For example, did Company x give a contribution to Representative y to induce him to vote for the company’s project, or was the Representative inclined to vote that way in any case? Put slightly differently, do defense companies simply work to elect (and re-elect) members of Congress who support policies that will benefit their bottom lines, or are they able to influence the votes of sitting members through lobbying and campaign contributions? These questions cannot be answered definitively, but they may miss the underlying point: the real problem with the heavy lobbying and campaign contributions engaged in by donors like Lockheed Martin and Boeing is that it frequently gives them privileged access to key lawmakers, access which they can use to shape the terms of debate over Pentagon spending in their favor.

Consider the case of Curt Weldon, a Republican Congressman from the Philadelphia suburbs who decided early in his tenure to champion the cause of Boeing’s V-22 Osprey, an aircraft designed to fly like a plane but take off and land like a helicopter (which not so coincidentally is built at a Boeing-Vertol plant in Weldon’s district). Bush administration Defense Secretary Dick Cheney attempted to cancel the program in response to cost overruns and serious technical problems which had resulted in several crashes of the aircraft during training exercises, but Weldon led an effort within Congress to revive the Osprey program. This won Weldon the gratitude of the Osprey’s prime contractor, Boeing, which went on to become a major player in the missile defense program, another project that Weldon has worked vigorously to promote.

In the mid-1990s, when conservatives in Congress were frustrated with the pace of the Pentagon’s missile defense research efforts, Weldon went to a meeting of the American Defense Preparedness Association, a major defense industry trade group, to solicit their help "to mobilize an army across the country" to force the Pentagon to deploy a missile defense system. Weldon compared the effort to his successful drive to save the Osprey, and, according to an industry reporter at the meeting he told the industry group "to lean on employees of missile defense plants and their subcontractors, asking them to write letters to Washington" so that the administration would know that their would be "a price to pay" for cutting missile defense funding.[79] Weldon clearly feels no shame about engaging in pork barrel politics to get his way on issues he cares about – if anything, he seems to feel that the arms industry should use the jobs argument more aggressively than it has thus far to promote missile defense projects.

Weldon continued his staunch advocacy of missile defense throughout the 1990s from his post as chairman of the Subcommittee on Military Research and Development of the House Armed Services Committee (he has since risen to chair the Military Procurement subcommittee at Armed Services). One of his most effective tactical maneuvers was his sponsorship of an amendment which created a Congressionally-mandated committee to study the threat posed by Third World ballistic missiles. The committee, which was chaired by Donald Rumsfeld, released a report in the summer of 1998 which used extreme worst-case scenarios to exaggerate the threat of Third World ballistic missile programs to the United States. The Rumsfeld report was so useful as a rallying point for boosters of missile defense deployment that it earned Rumsfeld an award from the Center for Security Policy, a missile defense advocacy group whose board of advisors includes Curt Weldon (see next section).

In the run-up to the year 2000 Republican convention in Philadelphia, Weldon redoubled his efforts on behalf of the missile defense cause. In June of 2000, he served as the keynote speaker at an industry-backed "Year 2000 Multinational BMD Conference and Exhibition" that was held downtown at the Wyndham Franklin Plaza Hotel in downtown Philadelphia. The event was sponsored by Lockheed Martin and co-chaired by the President of the company’s Naval Electronics and Surveillance Systems Unit, which is based in Moorestown, New Jersey, a few towns east of Philadelphia in southern New Jersey, commuting distance from Weldon’s district. Like its rival Boeing, Lockheed Martin has been a generous donor to Weldon over the years, and the company has benefitted from his advocacy of missile defense and a modern nuclear arsenal. As noted earlier in this section, Lockheed Martin’s Moorestown unit received a $420 million contract to work on sea-based midcourse missile defense earlier this year, a contract that most likely would not have been issued if George W. Bush had not been elected president, given the Clinton/Gore approach of focusing on land-based options first. Lockheed Martin’s King of Prussia, Pennsylvania facility, also near Weldon’s district, does work on the Trident II missile.

In one of the more outrageous lobbying stunts of recent years, Weldon created a "Congressional Village" at the Philadelphia Navy Yard during the summer 2000 Republican convention, at which 100 Republican House members and their families stayed for the duration of the meeting. The site included a weapons display that was transported, set up, and maintained at Pentagon expense. Weapons on display included a Boeing V-22 Osprey, a Lockheed Martin Theater High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile, and a Northrop Grumman Predator unmanned aerial vehicle. The "village" was financed in part by – you guessed it -- defense contractors Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Litton.[80] To top off the week’s activities, Weldon held a fundraiser to benefit "CurtPAC," his leadership Political Action Committee.[81]

As noted earlier, Weldon’s exploits on behalf of missile defense contractors have not gone unrewarded. During both the year 2000 and 2002 election cycles, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon were among Weldon’s top 20 donors. In all, Rep. Weldon received donations totaling $46,000 from eight of the top ten missile defense and nuclear weapons contractors during the 1999/2000 and 2001/2002 election cycles. These contributions represented roughly one out of every eight dollars received by Weldon during these two election cycles.[82] Weldon also received substantial funding from missile defense contractors and their employees working on missile defense projects near the Army’s missile defense command in Huntsville, Alabama. Whereas most House members raise the majority of their money in their home states, Weldon’s second most lucrative source of funds in the 1999/2000 election cycle was Huntsville, Alabama, which generated $31,925 in donations for his campaign from executives and employees of missile defense contractors.[83] Many of these donations were from employees of smaller missile defense firms like Colsa, Inc., which depend on missile defense spending for a much larger share of their overall revenue than defense behemoths like Lockheed Martin or Boeing do.

Despite his close working relationship with missile defense contractors and his lead role in missile defense advocacy organizations, Weldon apparently views himself as an unbiased participant in missile defense debates. This became apparent in a July 10, 2000 appearance on "The Newshour with Jim Lehrer," when he repeatedly interrupted missile defense critic Dr. Theodore Postol of MIT and accused him of having "somewhat of a bias" because he "is adamantly against missile defense."[84] It apparently didn’t occur to Weldon that given his close working relationship with missile lobbying groups, his energetic embrace of pork barrel politics, and his acceptance of tens of thousands of dollars of contributions from missile defense contractors, most people would assume the he was the one with the bias, not Dr. Postol.

Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott offers a case study in how pork barrel politics can be a "win-win" situation for contractors and influential members of Congress, whether or not the weapons system in question is ready for prime time. One of the projects that Lott took on when he was still majority leader in the Senate was pressing the Pentagon to build a test facility for the Space-Based Laser project at the Stennis Space Center on Mississippi’s Gulf Coast. In a May 1997 letter to incoming Clinton Defense Secretary William Cohen -- his former Republican colleague on the Senate Armed Services Committee -- Lott complained that the Pentagon needed to stop playing in the "technology sandbox" and "select a production site and build a demonstrator." After Lott pushed through a proposal to quadruple the funding for the SBL program to $120 million in the Fiscal Year 1998 budget, an Air Force acquisition official met with a Lott staffer to review options for the test center, noting that "I’m sure he [Lott] would like to see that site bedded down in Stennis."[85] In February 2001, after four years of intensive lobbying, Lott got his wish: the Pentagon agreed to build a $115 million Space-Based Laser Performance Test facility at Stennis, where "Team SBL" – Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and TRW – will construct an experimental laser that will attempt to hit mock-ups of ballistic missiles.[86]

As a result of his efforts on behalf of Mississippi-based defense and space projects, Lott has developed a particularly strong relationship with Lockheed Martin, which ranked 6^th on his list of "career donors" compiled by the Center for Public Integrity for their 1998 book, The Buying of the Congress.[87] Lott has been helpful with a host of Lockheed Martin projects, from promoting regular add-ons of the company’s C-130 transport plane to the Pentagon budget, many of which are then based at Mississippi’s Keesler Air Force base; to going to bat for the company’s embattled F-22 fighter plane project; to helping clear the way for Lockheed Martin’s controversial purchase of Comsat Corp., a U.S.-government chartered global satellite company. The Comsat deal demonstrates the flip side of the "you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours" ethos that can develop between major contractors and the patrons they cultivate on Capitol Hill. In pursuit of Lott’s assistance on the Comsat matter, Brian Dailey, the head of Lockheed Martin’s Washington operations, hired a former Lott staffer as a lobbyist with the explicit task of identifying "business relationships (for Lockheed Martin Global Telecommunications) in Mississippi that will benefit the state."[88]

Lockheed Martin’s direct campaign contributions to Senator Lott have not kept pace with their levels of the late 1980s and 1990s, but the firm has found other ways to contribute funds on his behalf. The company served as one of a select group of corporate sponsors that kicked in $60,000 each in support of the "Lott Hop," a 1950s-style dance party/fundraiser held during the year 2000 Republican convention which was emceed by former American Bandstand host Dick Clark and included live entertainment by the Four Tops and other bands from the 1950s and 60s. And the firm has pledged to donate $1 million to the "Trent Lott Leadership Institute" at the University of Mississippi.[89] Given their ongoing relationship, Lockheed Martin officials can rest assured that Lott will be on their side if battles arise over future funding of the Space-Based Laser project. Even in the fall of 2001, when Lott was supporting President Bush’s decision to block proposed Democratic add-ons to an emergency spending bill to provide more money for homeland defense and aid to New York City on the grounds that spending was "just spiraling out of control," Lott still managed to fit a $10 million add-on for the Stennis Space Center into the same bill.[90]

A number of other major congressional advocates for nuclear weapons and missile defense projects have been on the receiving end of major donations from key contractors. Lott’s Mississippi colleague Sen. Thad Cochran, the key sponsor of the pro-missile defense "Defend America Act" which passed Congress in modified form in the latter part of the Clinton administration, numbers Northrop Grumman ($7,500), Lockheed Martin ($6,500), and the Defend America PAC ($10,000) among his top donors for the period from 1997 through 2002. Defend America PAC is the leadership Political Action Committee of Cochran’s Senate colleague Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) and it draws its donations largely from missile defense contractors centered around the Army’s missile and space command in Huntsville, Alabama. Shelby has received more than $85,000 in donations from PACs and individuals linked to missile defense and nuclear weapons related-firms in the 1997-2002 election cycle, and has garnered more than 12% of his PAC receipts in 2001/2002 from major nuclear weapons or missile defense contractors. Other major recipients of money from Shelby’s "Defend America" PAC in the last two election cycles have included Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), the ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee and a staunch advocate of missile defense projects in his home state ($10,000); Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), a major missile defense advocate and the leader of the successful Senate effort to block the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty ($5,000); and George W. Bush, who received a $5,000 contribution from the PAC towards his 2000 election campaign.[91]

Although defense industry contributions have tilted Republican since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 1994, key Democrats are also on the receiving end of contributions from major contractors. Current Assistant Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) received generous contributions from Lockheed Martin ($7,000) and Bechtel ($6,000) in the 1999/2000 election cycle. The companies are both part of the partnership that runs the Nevada Test Site. As chairman of the Energy and Water Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Reid has jurisdiction over Department of Energy expenditures, including spending on the nuclear weapons complex. During consideration of the supplemental to the 2002 budget, Reid added 50 Nevada-specific items to the original request, including $1 million for an Atomic Testing History Institute based at the Nevada Test Site.[92] Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a vocal supporter of increased military spending and one of the first Democrats to co-sponsor the "Defend America Act," received $36,000 from Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and other major nuclear and missile defense contractors in the 1999/2000 election cycle.

Rep. Norm Dicks (D-WA) will be looking to use any argument available to press for a revival of the Northrop Grumman B-2 bomber program, on which his hometown firm Boeing is a major subcontractor. Dicks’ effort to get 20 B-2s added to the budget have been stymied thus far by the Air Force’s preference for the costly F-22 fighter and a procurement budget that cannot accommodate both aircraft. It will be interesting to see if Dicks’ will play on the "dual use" character of the B-2 – its ability to carry conventional or nuclear weapons – as another argument in its favor in the budget battles to come.

Dicks has had the benefit of ample support from nuclear weapons and missile defense contractors. Boeing was his top contributor during the 1999/2000 election cycle, with $17,900 in contributions from individuals and PACs associated with the company going to Dicks. Nine of the ten major nuclear arms and missile defense contractors contributed to Dicks in the 1999/2000 cycle, accounting for more than 10% of his PAC contributions, a total of $41,500 in donations. For 2001/2002, Dicks can count Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Bechtel among his top contributors, and so far more than 10% of his PAC contributions for this cycle are from major nuclear weapons and missile defense contractors.[93] His pro-B-2 campaign may also benefit from prime contractor Northrop Grumman’s newfound clout with major shipbuilding advocates and Senate powerhouses Trent Lott of Mississippi and John Warner of Virginia, now that the company controls Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi and Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia. But shipbuilding advocates have their own battles to fight: even in a rising budget, lawmakers from shipbuilding states may put those interests first before pitching in on behalf of a project like the B-2.

The case of Norm Dicks and the B-2 raises an important point about the arm lobby’s interactions with Congress – even in relatively flush budget times, not all projects can coexist. For example, if the increases in the B-2 were to come at the expense of the F-22, Boeing, which is a major subcontractor on both projects, might not see a net gain in business. Likewise, if traditional "strike systems" like bombers and fighter planes are funded at multi-billion dollar levels, it may cut into spending on missile defense or unmanned aerial vehicles. The possible tradeoffs between combat aircraft and combat ships have already been mentioned. The only time these conflicting demands within the military industry might not come into play is when the Pentagon budget is rising so rapidly that all major projects can ride the "rising tide" of expenditures. The next few years may be just such a time, if the administration’s $396 billion military budget proposal for 2003 is followed with several more years of substantial increases.

While arms companies devote much of their lobbying to specific projects, there are occasions when company officials press the larger case for expanded military budgets. For example, Lockheed Martin Vice President Bruce Jackson signed onto the founding letter for the conservative Project for a New American Century, which called for major increases in the Pentagon budget and a return to the unilateralist, "peace through strength" policies of the early Reagan era. Jackson now serves on the Project for a New American Century’s advisory board. Co-signers of the letter included current Bush administration Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, along with a host of other individuals who have gone on to serve in the Bush administration. Jackson’s leverage as an advocate for his company is further enhanced by the fact that he served as a chief fundraiser for the 1996 Dole for President campaign and helped write the foreign policy platform for the Republican Party for the year 2000 elections. The next section will go into more detail on how weapons makers can parley support for conservative think tanks into major policy shifts that will help not just specific weapons systems, but will open up whole new areas of business for these firms.[94]

IV. Closing the Circle: The Role of Corporate-Backed Think Tanks

The end of the Cold War posed a particularly strong challenge to the network of neo-conservative hardliners who had coalesced in the 1970s under the general slogan of pursuing "peace through strength." After winning a number of key battles in the mid-1970s under the banner of the Committee on the Present Danger -- which helped set the stage for the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 by promoting an exaggerated vision of the Soviet threat and spearheading efforts to block ratification of the SALT II strategic arms accord -- the network seemed to lose influence and relevance in the late 1980s and early 1990s: the Reagan and Bush administrations concluded major arms reduction agreements with Moscow, and domestic economic issues came to the forefront in the 1992 election, in which Democratic challenger Bill Clinton defeated Republican incumbent George H.W. Bush. The unilateralist credo of peace through strength, with its anti-arms control implications, seemed increasingly out of step with the emerging geopolitical landscape. Even worse, from the standpoint of the unilateralists, influential military and political leaders were beginning to speak out in favor of the elimination of nuclear weapons, a policy which conservative hawks viewed as giving up the ultimate military "trump card" in a still dangerous world.

While some of the hardline conservatives survived the transition from the Reagan to the Bush administrations, they did not always have the upper hand in policy debates. A number of them took refuge in conservative think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, along with smaller, relatively newer groups such as the Center for Security Policy (CSP), founded by former Reagan Pentagon official Frank Gaffney in 1988, and the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP), founded by nuclear warfighting strategist and former Hudson Institute researcher Keith Payne in the early 1980s.

This hardline conservative network – revolving around corporate-backed think tanks like CSP and NIPP – has re-emerged with newfound influence in the administration of George W. Bush. The Center for Security Policy has had a particularly visible role in shaping Bush administration policies on missile defense, as befits its status as a high profile policy advocacy organization. For its part, the National Institute for Public Policy has adopted the posture of a more staid, research-oriented institute, but its behind-the-scenes influence in developing the basic outlines of the Bush administration’s nuclear posture has been extraordinary. A little background on these two think tanks will help to shed light on the origins and intent of the emerging Bush nuclear doctrine.

Since its inception in 1988, the Center for Security Policy has been dedicated to promoting its vision of "peace through strength," with a particularly strong emphasis on opposing international arms control agreements and promoting the deployment of an extensive missile defense system. Center founder Frank Gaffney, a disciple of the quintessential conservative hawk Richard Perle, left the Reagan Pentagon after opposing the administration’s decision to pursue nuclear arms reduction agreements like the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). After spending several years in the political wilderness, promoting policies that even Ronald Reagan had left behind as he grappled with the new realities of the emerging post-Cold War world, Gaffney’s organization regained a foothold in Washington policymaking circles when he persuaded Representatives Dick Armey (R-TX) and Newt Gingrich (R-GA) to make missile defense the only specific foreign policy plank of their "Contract With America," the platform which was used to fuel the Republican takeover of the House of Representatives in the 1994 mid-term elections.[95]

During its years in exile from the levers of power in Washington, CSP and its network were sustained by generous support from conservative donors like the Coors family, Richard Mellon Scaife, and the Krieble family, along with a healthy injection of funding from corporate donors. According to the Center’s own annual reports, it has received more than $3 million in corporate donations since its founding in 1988, which represents more than 25% of its total funding in the thirteen years it has been in existence.[96] Corporate contributors to CSP have included Boeing, General Atomics, General Dynamics, Litton, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Textron, Thiokol, and TRW, all major weapons contractors that benefit from the policies advocated by the Center. CSP’s "National Security Advisory Board" (the new name for the Center’s advisory board) has a strong corporate presence as well, including Stanley Ebner, former Senior Vice President of Washington Operations for Boeing; Northrop Grumman Vice President James Roche, now serving as Secretary of the Air Force; Lockheed Martin Vice Presidents Brian Dailey and Bruce Jackson; Dr. Charles M. Kupperman, Vice President, Space and Strategic Missiles Sector, Lockheed Martin, who serves on both the advisory board and the Center’s seven-member board of directors; and Tidal McCoy, Vice-President for Government Relations with the Thiokol Corporation. Other individuals with ties to the defense sector that have worked closely with CSP over the years include Robert Andrews, the former director of Boeing’s Washington Office, who is cited as a an "informal advisor and faithful supporter" in the Center’s 1998 annual report; and former House Appropriations Committee chairman Robert Livingston, who now runs a lobbying firm whose clients have included military contractors such as Avondale Shipbuilding, Textron-Bell, and Lockheed Martin.[97] Gen. Robert W. RisCassi (Ret.), a member of CSP’s "Military Committee," is the Vice-President for Washington Operations of L-3 Communications, a major defense and intelligence community contractor which recently acquired Coleman Research, a major missile defense contracting firm.[98]

In addition to its corporate connections, CSP has close ties to influential legislators who have been in the forefront of influencing U.S. nuclear and missile defense policies, including Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), who led the fight in the U.S. Senate against ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty; Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), a missile defense booster who chairs the influential Military Procurement Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee and sponsored the amendment that created the Rumsfeld Commission on the threat posed by Third World ballistic missile programs; Sen. Robert Smith (R-NH), who sponsored legislation that created the second Rumsfeld Commission, on U.S. national security missions in outer space; and Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA), who chaired the Cox Committee on allegations of Chinese nuclear espionage. All of these serving members of Congress sit on the Center’s National Security Advisory Board. CSP also has close interlocking ties with other conservative think tanks through advisory board members William Bennett, co-chair of Empower America; Henry Cooper of the High Frontier organization, another missile defense advocacy organization; Edwin Feulner, President of the Heritage Foundation; and Keith Payne, President of the National Institute for Public Policy.

With the election of George W. Bush, Gaffney’s Center has moved from an outside advocacy group trying to influence policy to a friend of the administration. The Center’s web site brags that no fewer than 22 close associates or members of its advisory council now hold positions in the Bush administration, including the former Chair of the Center’s Board of Directors, Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy; J.D. Crouch, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, who has been involved in articulating the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review; Robert Joseph, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs for Proliferation Strategy, Counter-proliferation and Homeland Defense (as noted below, Joseph also worked on the NIPP report on U.S. nuclear forces); Evan Galbraith, Secretary of Defense’s Representative to Europe; Richard Perle, Chairman of the Defense Policy Board; James Roche, Secretary of the Air Force (also a former Vice President at Northrop Grumman); William Schneider, Chairman of the Defense Science Board; and Dov Zakheim, Undersecretary of Defense, Comptroller. As Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, another long-time CSP associate, put it when he spoke at the Center’s November 2001 "Keeper of the Flame" awards banquet, "Frank Gaffney, if there was any doubt about the power of your ideas, one only has to look at the number of Center associates who people this administration. . . I was thinking about calling a staff meeting, but I think I’ll wait until tomorrow morning."[99]

As a result of its newfound clout inside the administration, CSP has seen many of its longstanding recommendations on missile defense implemented in the first year and one-half of the Bush administration. Former CSP board chair Douglas Feith, who pioneered the novel (and widely disputed) theory that because the Soviet Union no longer existed, the United States should not be bound by the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, is now a key player in discussions with Russia over missile defense and nuclear weapons issues. Former CSP advisory council member William Schneider will oversee studies on whether to develop nuclear-tipped interceptors for missile defense, a concept that has frequently been mentioned by CSP director Frank Gaffney in public discussions of missile defense policy. When President Bush decided to give notice of U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in late 2001, he was adopting a recommendation that had long been promoted by CSP, the Heritage Foundation, and other conservative think tanks. The administration’s decision to move full speed ahead towards early deployment of key elements of a multi-tiered missile defense system – which is sketched out in some detail in the posture review -- also conforms to longstanding recommendations urged by CSP and its allies in the missile defense lobby. As noted earlier, these policy shifts will result in billions of dollars worth of new contracts for firms like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman, all of which have been steadfast supporters of CSP.

For its part, the National Institute for Public Policy’s influence on the Bush nuclear policy is grounded in its January 2001 report, Rationale and Requirements for U.S. Nuclear Forces and Arms Control, which was funded by the conservative Smith Richardson Foundation.[100] The Pentagon’s Nuclear Posture Review follows not only the basic logic, but also many of the specific recommendations contained in the NIPP report. The president and research director of NIPP, Dr. Keith Payne, is a former staffer at the Hudson Institute and a longtime advocate of nuclear warfighting strategies. Payne, who served as the project director for NIPP’s nuclear strategy report, is probably best known as the co-author of a 1980 article in Foreign Policy magazine entitled "Victory Is Possible," which argues that the U.S. military should develop concrete plans for fighting and winning a nuclear war.[101] Payne’s co-author on that piece, Colin Gray, serves on the advisory board of NIPP and was a member of the 27-member study group that produced the institute’s report on U.S. nuclear forces.

Other members of the NIPP study group included Stephen Cambone, who now serves as a special assistant to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld; Stephen Hadley, the Deputy National Security Advisor in the Bush White House; and Robert Joseph, who deals with counterproliferation issues at the National Security Council. All three men had input into the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review. And in October 2001, Keith Payne was appointed chairman of the Pentagon’s Deterrence Concepts Advisory Panel, which will have a role in helping the Bush administration decide how to implement the guidance provided in the Nuclear Posture Review.[102]

As a result of its efforts to cultivate a lower profile, less is known about the corporate connections of NIPP. While the Institute notes on its web site that "the National Institute research and educational program is supported by government, corporate, and private foundation grants and contracts," no breakdown is provided, and no donors are listed.[103] But the composition of the Institute’s advisory board suggests that it probably receives support from a similar network of corporate donors and conservative foundations as the Center for Security Policy. In fact, nearly half of the members of NIPP’s board of directors – 6 out of 13 – are also on the advisory council or board of directors of the Center for Security Policy. In addition to Institute CEO, Keith Payne, individuals who served on the advisory bodies of both NIPP and CSP include Kathleen C. Bailey, who spent six years as an analyst at the Lawrence Livermore nuclear weapons laboratory; Henry Cooper of the High Frontier organization; Charles Kupperman, Vice President for National Missile Defense Programs at Lockheed Martin; Dr. William R. Graham, former Science Advisor to Presidents Reagan and Bush; and Professor William Van Cleave, a longtime conservative hardliner who chaired the defense transition committee for President-elect Ronald Reagan in 1980.[104] Robert Barker, a thirty-year veteran of Lawrence Livermore weapons lab and a longstanding opponent of the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty who served on the study group that produced NIPP’s January 2001 report on U.S. nuclear policies, is also on the advisory council of CSP. Other NIPP board members include retired military officials Gen. George Blanchard, (Retired, US Army), Lt. Gen. William Odom (Retired, USA Army), the director of National Security Studies at the Hudson Institute, and Adm. Harry D. Train II, (US Navy, Ret.); and veteran conservative ideologues Colin S. Gray (Payne’s co-author on the 1980 essay on nuclear warfighting, "Victory is Possible,") and Eugene V. Rostow, who asserted early in the first Reagan term that the last international arms control treaty worth supporting was the U.S.-Canada accord on the demilitarization of the Great Lakes in the late 1800s.

While the influential NIPP study on U.S. nuclear forces is couched in the rhetoric of objectivity, its conservative biases are not too far beneath the surface. As the report makes clear from the outset, one of its primary objectives is to counter "public proposals for nuclear ‘abolition’ and deep reductions" which the authors clearly see as posing a severe threat to their vision of what is required to ensure U.S. security.[105] This concern coincides with positions put forward by influential managers of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, such as C. Paul Robinson, the director of Sandia Laboratories, cited in the previous section of this report. Given Robinson’s role as the director of a laboratory dedicated to the design of nuclear weapons, readers of his analysis would no doubt take that vested interest into account in assessing his arguments on nuclear policy. No such skepticism has been evident in the press coverage or policy discussions regarding the neutral sounding National Institute for Public Policy, even though it includes Lockheed Martin Vice President Charles Kupperman on its board of directors, accepts corporate donations, and has included veterans of the nuclear weapons complex like Robert Barker and Kathleen Bailey in major research projects. These connections need to be borne in mind in assessing the Institute’s positions, which are well on their way to becoming the policy of the Bush administration.

As a way of assessing whether the Bush posture does indeed mark a major shift in U.S. policy, it is important to consider the relationship of NIPP study director Keith Payne’s prior views on nuclear strategy to the views presented in the proposed Bush nuclear policy. Not only did Payne’s 2001 study served as the framework for the Bush administration’s proposed revision of the U.S. nuclear posture, but many of the basic assumptions underlying both the Bush Nuclear Posture Review and the January 2001 NIPP report can be seen in Payne and Gray’s 1980 essay. A close reading of the three documents suggests that the Bush nuclear doctrine has been largely shaped by the anti-arms control, unilateralist views of pre-Reaganite Cold War conservatives. The targeted enemies have been changed to reflect the dramatic shifts in U.S.-Russian relations the collapse of the Soviet Union, but the underlying faith in the utility of nuclear weapons remains the same.

For example, one common theme that runs through Gray and Payne’s 1980 essay, the NIPP report, and the Bush Nuclear Posture Review is the notion that in order to have a "credible" deterrent, the United States needs to develop detailed plans for using nuclear weapons in a wide variety of conflict scenarios. As Gray and Payne put it in Victory Is Possible, "[T]he West needs to devise ways in which it can employ strategic nuclear forces coercively, while minimizing the potentially paralyzing impact of self-deterrence. If American nuclear power is to support U.S. foreign policy objectives, the United States must possess the ability to wage nuclear war rationally."[106] As an example of their "rational" approach, Gray and Payne suggested that "an intelligent U.S. offensive strategy, wedded to homeland defense, should reduce U.S. casualties to approximately 20 million" in a nuclear conflict with the Soviet Union.[107]

The National Institute for Public Policy report also suggests a wide range of contingencies in which the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons should be considered. The report’s list of "possible current/future deterrence and wartime roles for nuclear weapons" [emphasis added] including the following: 1."Deterring weapons of mass destruction use (WMD) by regional powers"; 2. "Deterring WMD or massive conventional aggression by an emerging global competitor"; 3. "Preventing catastrophic losses in a conventional war"; 4. "Providing unique targeting capabilities (deep underground/biological weapons targets)"; 5. "Enhancing U.S. influence in crises."[108] The NIPP report goes on to provide specific examples of ways in which nuclear weapons can and should be used in future conflicts. One example involves possible attacks on Iraqi Scud missile launchers: "If the locations of dispersed mobile launchers cannot be determined with enough precision to permit pinpoint strikes, suspected deployment areas might be subjected to multiple nuclear strikes, driving up U.S. requirements."[109]

The NIPP report also recommends the development of a new kind of nuclear weapon: "in the future, the United States may need to field simple, low-yield, precision-guided nuclear weapons for possible use against select hardened targets such as underground biological weapons facilities."[110] This same point is underscored in the administration’s Nuclear Posture Review: "Nuclear weapons could be employed against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack (for example, deep bunkers or bio-weapons facilities)."[111]

The administration’s posture review accepts the NIPP report’s notion that there is a need to develop new roles for nuclear weapons, and makes it clear that deterring a nuclear attack on the United States is only one purpose among many for the U.S. nuclear arsenal: "Nuclear weapons play a critical role in the defense of the United States, its allies, and friends. They provide credible military options to deter a wide range of threats, including WMD and large-scale conventional military force. These nuclear capabilities possess unique properties that give the United States options to hold at risk classes of targets [that are] important to achieve strategic and political objectives."[112] This emphasis on the "critical" and "unique" features of nuclear weapons marks a major shift from the suggestion in the Pentagon’s prior nuclear posture review that nuclear weapons should play a "less prominent" role in U.S. security planning, and that the United States should take the lead in promoting global nuclear reductions.[113]

The Nuclear Posture Review also suggests that in the future the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons may be employed for the broad purpose of trying to "dissuade adversaries from undertaking military programs or operations that could threaten U.S. interests or those of allies and friends."[114] Scenarios for which specific nuclear attack plans are to be developed include "an Iraqi attack on Israel or its neighbors, a North Korean attack on South Korea, or a military confrontation over the status of Taiwan." The review further notes that "North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya are among the countries that could be involved in immediate, potential, or unexpected contingencies" involving possible use of U.S. nuclear weapons [emphasis added]. The only country for which a nuclear confrontation is viewed as less likely in the coming period is Russia: "a contingency involving Russia, while plausible, is not expected."[115]

A second major theme that permeates Payne and Gray’s 1980 essay, the NIPP report, and the Bush nuclear review can be crudely summarized as "peace through strength, not peace through paper."[116] This unilateralist approach to nuclear policy is based on a total denial of the value of international arms control arrangements coupled with a near total faith in the ability of technical/military fixes (from bunker busting nukes to missile defense) to reduce U.S. vulnerability to attack by weapons of mass destruction.

In the strategic environment that exists in 2001, the argument against arms control is no longer that we shouldn’t trust the Soviet Union. Now, the main argument is strategic uncertainty. As the NIPP report puts it "Cold War-style arms control . . . is incompatible with the basic U.S. requirement for adaptability in a dynamic post-Cold War environment." "Adaptability" is defined as "the capacity to both augment and reduce U.S. defensive and offensive forces" and "a capacity to design and build new [nuclear] weapons."[117] This freedom to build nuclear forces up or down as U.S. strategists see fit certainly appears to be incompatible with the notion of abiding by formal arms control agreements. The notion that an uncertain world might suggest the need for concerted international efforts to reduce arsenals of weapons of mass destruction and stockpiles of the materials used to build them is not seriously considered in either the NIPP report or the administration’s posture review.

The NIPP report’s antipathy to arms control is paralleled in the Bush posture review in the concept of a "New Triad." During the Cold War, the nuclear triad referred to land-, air-, and sea-based nuclear delivery vehicles that were meant to keep U.S. forces invulnerable to a surprise attack. As noted above, the New Triad concept set out in the Pentagon’s posture review encompasses the following: 1) "Offensive strike systems (both nuclear and non-nuclear)"; 2) "Defenses (both active and passive)"; and 3) "A revitalized defense infrastructure that will provide new capabilities in a timely fashion to meet emerging threats."[118] The New Triad concept draws directly from the concepts about developing a more "flexible" nuclear arsenal set out in the NIPP report.

The influence of CSP and NIPP on the Bush administration represents a victory for the hardline, anti-arms control faction of the Republican party. Moderate Republicans like Colin Powell have never been embraced by the Center, nor have conservative Republicans like Reagan arms control advisor Paul Nitze, who has in recent years endorsed the abolition of nuclear weapons. Given the source of its advice -- and its appointees -- one has to wonder whether the "new" Bush policy’s goals were inadvertently reflected in a comment made by former CSP board member and current Pentagon official Evan Galbraith at a November 2001 meeting at the Royal United Services Institute, at which he responded to critics of the administration’s unilateralist tendencies with the following assertion: "I know the detractors, many in this room, will undoubtedly continue to groan about the arms race. . . we won the last one and I think that probably wasn’t a bad idea."[119]

The fact that such a narrow, ideologically-driven network now has a dominant role in crafting U.S. nuclear policy is cause enough for concern, raising serious questions about the intent of the new policy: is it merely an attempt to seek greater "flexibility" in U.S. nuclear policy, or does it represent the first steps in a renewed drive for nuclear superiority, regardless of the global consequences? The links between this hardline unilateralist faction and arms manufacturers with their own extensive ties to the Bush administration raises an additional set of issues: who will render independent judgments on the strategy and weapons systems best suited to protecting the United States from an attack by weapons of mass destruction? If the majority of top policymakers have longstanding ties to the companies that will benefit from the development of a missile defense "shield" and a new generation of nuclear weapons, who will represent the public interest?

Notes

1. William M. Arkin, "Secret Plan Outlines the Unthinkable," Los Angeles Times, March 10, 2002.

2. Summary points one through three are based on Arkin, "Secret Plan," (see note 2).

3. Bradley Graham, "Going Backwards: Nuclear-Tipped Interceptors Studied," Washington Post, April 11, 2002.

4. Richard Butler, "Why Nuclear Is Not the Answer," The Age (Australia), March 17, 2002.

5. "America as Nuclear Rogue," The New York Times, March 12, 2002.

6. Cited in Michael R. Gordon, "U.S. Nuclear Plan Sees New Weapons and New Targets," The New York Times, March 10, 2002.

7. Quotations are from Office of the White House Press Secretary, "Press Conference by the President," March 13, 2002.

8. Andrew Krepinevich, "The Real Problems With Our Nuclear Posture," The New York Times, March 14, 2002.

9. On this point see Walter Pincus, "Rogue Nations Policy Builds on Clinton’s Lead; No Nuclear Attack Planned, Cheney Says," Washington Post, March 12, 2002.

10. Nuclear Posture Review excerpts, op. cit., pp. 23-25.

11. Natural Resources Defense Council, "Faking Nuclear Restraint: The Bush Administration’s Secret Plan for Strengthening U.S. Nuclear Forces," Washington, DC, NRDC, February 13, 2001, p.1.

12. The derivation of these estimates will be set out in the remainder of this section; see in particular notes 15, 26, and 43, which explain the estimates for each of the three legs of the New Triad.

13. U.S. Department of Defense, Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System: The DoD Budget for FY 2003, Washington, DC, February 2002, pages 20, 29, and 35.

14. Natural Resources Defense Council, op. cit., note 10, p. 3.

15. Estimate by the author, using data from the Pentagon’s Selected Acquisition Reports, Program Acquisition Costs by Weapons Systems, and other official budget documents. The estimate is conservative in that it does not take into account a likely acceleration in spending on Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles, nor does it estimate the development costs of a new long-range strike system to replace the Tactical Tomahawk.

16. U.S. Department of Defense, "Summary Explanations of Significant SAR Cost Changes (As of December 21, 2001), p. 4; and Program Acquisition Costs, op. cit., p. 30.

17. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, "Prepared Testimony on the FY 2003 Budget Request to the Senate Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Defense," February 27, 2002, p. 6.

18. United States Department of Defense, "DARPA and Air Force Select Boeing to Build UCAV Demonstrator System," press release, March 24, 1999.

19. U.S. Department of Defense, Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System, FY 2003, p. 29.

20. Ibid., p. 35, and U.S. Department of Defense, "Summary Explanations of Significant SAR Cost Changes," op. cit., p. 6.

21. United States Department of Defense, "Contract Listing," September 28, 2001, p. 9.

22. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, op. cit., p. 6.

23. Program Acquisition Costs, op. cit., p. 26.

24. Ibid., p. 28.

25. Ibid., pp.63-64.

26. Estimate by the author, based on Pentagon budget data contained in the Selected Acquisition Reports and Program Acquisition Costs documents. Starting with a baseline of $5.8 billion per year for missile defense, which was the level contained in the 2001 budget, the figure for increased spending for 2002 and 2003 includes $2.5 billion for the increase in overall missile defense spending for 2002 (to $8.3 billion), $2.6 billion for the increase in total missile defense spending for 2003 (to $8.4 billion), plus $800 million for the first year of the revived SBIRS-Low program in FY 2003, for a total of $5.9 billion in added spending on missile defense related projects. Missile defense spending figures include the costs of the Airborne Laser (ABL), which is now being administered by the Air Force, not the Missile Defense Agency. For 2004 to 2008, it is assumed that missile defense spending (including ABL and SBIRS-Low) will average $10 billion per year, a net increase of $21 billion ($4.2 billion per year) over 2001 levels. The five year estimate is likely to be conservative if one considers that the Bush administration will be starting construction of facilities and missile silos in Alaska, seeking to deploy several ABL aircraft, and deploying some ships for an initial sea-based midcourse capability, in addition to carrying on an ambitious development program for other missile defense technologies simultaneously.

27. Congressional Budget Office, Estimated Costs and Technical Characteristics of Selected National Missile Defense Systems, January 2002, pp. 31-35.

28. Ibid., p. 2.

29. U.S. Department of Defense, "Contract Listing," February 20, 2002, p. 1.

30. United States Department of Defense, "National Missile Defense Contract Awarded," December 22, 2000.

31. Program Acquisition Costs, p. 63.

32. William D. Hartung and Michelle Ciarrocca, Tangled Web: The Marketing of Missile Defense 1994-2000, New York, World Policy Institute, June 2000, pp. 8-9.

33. Program Acquisition Costs, p. 65.

34. Ann Roosevelt, "Contractor Picked to Start Building Alaska Antimissile Site," Defense Week, April 22, 2002.

35. Hartung and Ciarrocca, op. cit., pp. 8-9.

36. United States Department of Defense, "Contract Listing," March 4, 2002, p. 1.

37. United States Department of Defense, "Contract Listing," February 19, 2002, p. 1.

38. United States Department of Defense, "Contract Listing," June 29, 2000, p. 1.

39. Program Acquisition Costs, op. cit., p. 64-65.

40. "TRW To Lead Restructured SBIRS Low Missile Defence Program," Defence Systems Daily, April 19, 2002.

41. Nuclear Posture Review Report, January 8, 2002 (submitted to Congress on 31 December 2001), p. 30. Quotations are drawn from an extensive 21 page collection of excerpts from the 65 page report which have been posted on the web site of GlobalSecurity.org, at www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/policy/dod/npr.htm

42. Jonathan S. Landay, "Modernizing U.S. Nuclear Weapons to Cost Millions," Seattle Times, June 1, 2001.

43. The estimate for FY 2003 is based on Department of Energy budget documents and testimony, and reflects marginal increases in construction along with funding for specific experiments (for example, for "bunker busting" nuclear bombs). The figure for 2004 through 2008 assumes an additional $600 million per year for facilities upgrades and development of specific weapons, plus $3 billion towards the construction of a new plutonium "pit" facility. These numbers take into account recommendations by the Foster Commission for investments of $500 million per year to modernize existing infrastructure in the nuclear weapons complex, plus an assumption of at least $100 million per year to get the Nevada Test Site in a state of greater "test readiness" and to carry out experiments on low-yield nuclear weapons. The Department of Energy/National Nuclear Security Administration part of the budget is the element that has been worked out in the least detail thus far by Bush administration officials, so these estimates must be treated as a tentative first cut at the question, to be refined as additional information is released by the administration.

44. Los Alamos National Laboratory site description, in U.S. Department of Energy, "Corporate Context for National Nuclear Security Administration (NS) Programs," FY 2003 Congressional Budget Request. All budget numbers for nuclear weapons facilities in this paragraph are from Table 3, "Site Funding Estimates – Total Weapons Activities," contained in the appendix of the "Corporate Context" document.

45. Natural Resources Defense Council, op. cit., p. 4.

46. "Pantex Organizations," p. 1, and "Pantex Historical Perspective," p. 3, available at www.pantex.com.

47. Information is drawn from site descriptions of the Savannah River, Y-12, and the Kansas City Plant, plus Table 5, "FY 2003 Construction Summary," all in U.S. Department of Energy, "Corporate Context," op. cit. Information on the corporate partners in BWXT Y-12 are from "BWXT Y-12 Establishes Speakers’ Bureau," January 8, 2002, available on the web at www1.y12.doe.gov/scripts/y12/.

48. U.S. Department of Energy, "Corporate Context," op. cit., Table 3.

49. Ibid., Table 3; and Statement of John A. Gordon, Under Secretary for Nuclear Security and Administrator, National Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, Before the Committee on Armed Services, U.S. Senate, February 14, 2002, p. 11.

50. For an excellent summary of prior efforts to develop "usable" nuclear weapons, see Western States Legal Foundation, "Looking for New Ways to Use Nuclear Weapons: U.S. Counterproliferation Programs, Weapons Effect Research, and ‘Mini-Nuke’ Development," WLSF Information Bulletin, Winter 2001, available at www.wslfweb.org.

51. Statement of John A. Gordon, op. cit., p. 9.

52. For an analysis of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator initiative, see Michael Scherer, "Building a Better Bomb," Mother Jones, May/June 2002, pp. 15-16.

53. Bradley Graham, "Going Backwards: Nuclear-Tipped Interceptors Studied," Washington Post, April 11, 2002.

54. James Dao, "Success of 4 Tests Prompts Pentagon to Predict Missile Shield Site by Fall 2004," New York Times, April 15, 2002.

55. The major sources for the analysis on arms and energy company connections to the Bush administration were the Center for Public Integrity’s online data base on the Bush administration’s top 100 appointees, "The Bush 100: Snapshot of Professional and Economic Interests Reveals Close Ties Between Government, Business" available on their web site, www.publicintegrity.org;and the administration’s own list of appointees to date, accessible at www.whitehouse.gov under "appointments." In some cases data supplied on these web sites was supplemented by research in newspapers, industry journals, and corporate annual reports.

56. On Lynne Cheney’s Lockheed Martin connection, see "Lynne V. Cheney Resigns from Lockheed Martin Board," Lockheed Martin press release, January 5, 2001; on Otto Reich’s role in lobbying for Lockheed Martin, see Center for International Policy, "The Otto Reich Nomination," briefing paper, August 2001; all other data is from Center for Public Integrity.

57. For more on Peter B. Teets’ responsibilities, see U.S. Department of Defense, "Under Secretary of the Air Force Peter Teets Briefs on Space Transformation," news transcript, February 7, 2002, available at www.defenselink.mil. National Nuclear Security Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, "Everet Beckner Sworn-in as Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs," news release, February 5, 2002.

58. Program Acquisition Costs by Weapon System, op. cit., p. 11.

59. Data on Bechtel contracts with the Department of Energy is from a federal contracts CD-ROM covering FY 2000, produced by Eagle Eye Services of Vienna, Virginia.

60. On the Foster Panel, see Philipp C. Bleek, "‘Foster Panel’ Critiques Nuclear Weapons Complex," Arms Control Today, April 2001; Address by Pete Domenici (R-NM) to the Nuclear Security Decisionmakers’ Forum, March 26, 2001, available as a link to the Carnegie Endowment on International Peace’s Nuclear Nonproliferation Project web cite, accessible via www.ceip.org; and Prepared Statement of John S. Foster, Jr., Panel to Assess the Safety, Reliability, and Security of the United States Nuclear Stockpile Before the House Armed Services Committee, Special Oversight Panel on Department of Energy Reorganization, United States House of Representatives, March 21, 2002.

61. For more a detailed analysis of the stockpile stewardship program, see Andrew Lichterman and Jacqueline Cabasso, Faustian Bargain 2000: Why ‘Stockpile Stewardship’ Is Fundamentally Incompatible With the Process of Nuclear Disarmament, Oakland, California, Western States Legal Foundation, May 2000, available on the web at www.wslfweb.org.

62. Bill Mesler, "Senator Strangelove," Mother Jones, December 1999, p. 58.

63. C. Paul Robinson, "White Paper on the Role of U.S. Nuclear Weapons in the 21^st Century," no date, Sandia Laboratories web site, at www.sandia.gov.

64. Stephen M. Younger, "Nuclear Weapons in the 21^st Century," Los Alamos National Laboratories, LAUR-00-2850, June 27, 2000.

65. Rowan Scarborough, "Rumsfeld’s ‘Defense Inc.’ Reasserts Civilian Control," Washington Times, April 24, 2001.

66. U.S. Department of Defense, "Rumsfeld Creates Two New Management Councils," news release, June 18, 2001.

67. United States Department of Defense, "Contract Listing," December 2, 1999, p. 2.

68. United States Department of Defense, "DoD News Briefing – Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz and Service Secretaries," news transcript, June 18, 2001.

69. For background on the questions raised by Thomas White’s Enron connection and his management of the Army, see John Hendren, "The Fall of Enron – Army Secretary Takes on Afghan, Enron Wars," Los Angeles Times, January 26, 2002; "Army Secretary Failed to Disclose All Enron Interests, Senators Say; They Urge Him to Cut Financial Ties to Company," St. Louis Post-Dispatch, March 7, 2002; Michael Hedges, "FBI Explores Enron Stock Sales; Army Secretary Sold Before Price Plunged," Houston Chronicle, April 16, 2002; Eliot A. Cohen, "To Preserve Army Integrity, Secretary Must Go," Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2002; and Paul Krugman, "The White Stuff," New York Times, April 12, 2002.

70. Bradley Graham, "Rumsfeld Pares Oversight of Missile Defense Agency," Washington Post, February 16, 2002.

71. Ibid. For recent Union of Concerned Scientists studies on missile defense, see their web site at www.ucusa.org.

72. Anne Marie Squeo, "Boeing, Lockheed Get Lead Role on Missile-Defense Integration," Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2002.

73. Figures on defense industry contributions are from the Center for Responsive Politics, at www.crp.org. The data includes Political Action Committee contributions, soft money donations, and donations of $200 or more from individuals affiliated with defense contractors.

74. Figures on top donors to the armed services committees of the House and Senate are from Center for Responsive Politics, www.crp.org.

75. Center for Responsive Politics, op. cit.

76. Figures are from the Center for Responsive politics, op. cit., based on their review of federal lobbying disclosure forms.

77. Calculations are by the author, based on lobbying expenditure data from the Center for Responsive Politics web site. For purposes of this analysis the CRP data was adjusted by adding Boeing’s lobbying expenditures to the defense lobbying sector (CRP classifies it under transportation, due to the company’s extensive business in airliner production and sales).

78. The list of Lockheed Martin lobbyists is drawn from the profile of the company on the web site of the Center for Responsive Politics, op. cit.

79. John Robinson, "New Group to Wage Grassroots Campaign for Missile Defense," Defense Daily, March 8, 1995.

80. Steven Lee Myers, "Pentagon Taking Opportunity for Show," New York Times, July 28, 2000; and Jim Drinkard, "‘Village’ Adds a Little Bit of Carnival to the Convention,"USA Today, August 1, 2000.

81. The fundraiser is cited in Drinkard, op. cit., note 79.

82. Author’s calculations, based on data from the Center for Responsive Politics’ data base.

83. Center for Responsive Politics, op. cit. For a more detailed examination of the missile defense lobby in Huntsville, see Ken Silverstein, "Huntsville’s Missile Payload," Mother Jones, August 2001.

84. "Missile Mishap," The Newshour with Jim Lehrer, July 10, 2000, transcript.

85. David Rogers, "Cash Flow: Mississippi’s Senators Continue a Tradition: Getting Federal Money," Wall Street Journal, March 6, 1998.

86. "Stennis and Star Wars," New Orleans Times-Picayune, February 6, 2001.

87. Charles Lewis and the Center for Public Integrity, The Buying of the Congress, (New York, NY: Avon Books, 1998), p. 358.

88. Greg Schneider, "Lockheed Martin’s Change of Course Pays Off," Washington Post, February 21, 2000.

89. Frank Bruni, "Donors Flock to University Center Linked to Senate Majority Leader," New York Times, May 8, 1999.

90. John Lancaster and Dan Morgan, "In Congress, Pork Stays on the Menu; Pet Projects Sometimes at Odds With New Spending Demands," Washington Post, November 15, 2001.

91. Data on members of Congress and PACs is from Center for Responsive Politics, op. cit. For further background on Sen. Richard Shelby and the Defend America PAC, see Ken Silverstein, "Huntsville’s Missile Payload," op. cit.

92. Center for Responsive Politics, op. cit.; and Lancaster and Morgan, op. cit., note 89.

93. Center for Responsive Politics, op. cit.