What would YOU do in the first 100 days? Public policy director Marie Rietmann and WAND executive director Susan Shaer offer some words of advice to President-elect Barack Obama. Read the letter here.

"The current U.S. federal budget shows dangerous imbalances in our “security” spending. Over 54% of discretionary spending goes to the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons programs.

We hope that your Administration will reorder budget priorities in the FY 2010 budget amendment, to accurately reflect the values you espoused during your campaign."

Senate Calendar Sets Busy Pace in 2009
By Daniel Peake | CongressNow | December 03, 2008

...the Senate is due to convene Jan. 6 and will be in session for much of the month. The chamber is set to count electoral vote ballots on Jan. 8, a move that will make official the election of President-elect Barack Obama....

The busy early schedule is likely to allow the Senate to move quickly on passing economic recovery legislation. Democratic leaders have said they would like to have a stimulus package ready for Obama to sign on the day that he’s sworn in. [Rumor has it the House will be in session as well.]

FEDERAL BUDGET WATCH

As Obama looks for areas of fat to cut in the federal budget, a helpful suggestion...

Quoted in New York Times: “We can’t sustain a system that bleeds billions of taxpayer dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness or exist solely because of the power of politicians, lobbyists or interest groups,” Mr. Obama said. “We simply can’t afford it.”

Need cash? Cut nuclear weapons budget
Joseph Cirincione in The Boston Globe, December 3, 2008

There is no better place to start [finding money in the federal budget] than the nuclear weapons budget. [Obama] can cut obsolete programs and transfer tens of billions of dollars per year to pressing conventional military and domestic programs.

The Commonwealth Institute releases two reports on US security policy

CMOW released two special reports" "Forceful Engagement: Rethinking the Role of Military Power in US Global Policy" and "Re-Envisioning Defense: An Agenda for US Policy Debate & Transition."

The reports are available on the Project on Defense Alternatives website as well as on a special publications page. Executive summaries and supporting material are also available there.

Forget Holiday Sales -- Struggling Retailers May Turn to Defense Contracts to Keep From Going Under
By Nick Turse, Tomdispatch.com. Posted December 16, 2008.

Is it possible that one of the Pentagon's contractors has a tripartite business model for our tough economic times: one division that specializes in crock-pots, another in adult diapers, and a third in medium caliber tactical ammunition? Can the maker of the SaladShooter, a hand-held electric shredder/dicer that hacks up and fires out sliced veggies, really be a tops arms manufacturer? Could a company that produces the Pizzazz Pizza Oven also be a merchant of death? And could this company be a model for success in an economy heading for the bottom?

NUCLEAR NOTES

New news on no nukes: Add Your Voice to the Call for Nuclear Disarmament
Mainstream. Possible. Common sense.

Finally -- it's becoming apple pie to accept the idea of the reduction and elimination of nuclear weapons. In Vegas recently, at the Museum of Atomic Testing, we watched a movie where they portrayed the Nuclear Freeze folks as just a little wacky and possibly unpatriotic...

Now who do we got in the camp? A quartet of venerable statesmen and erstwhile defense hawks: George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn. They've been advocating for elimination since January 2007; as Obama gets closer to the Oval Office, that idea is spreading.

From our letter to the President-Elect: "You have pledged that 'this is the moment to begin the work of seeking the peace of a world without nuclear weapons.' We look forward to making great strides in reducing, and one day eliminating, these most dangerous weapons the world has ever known." In addition, a group of over 100 international dignitaries has launched a new campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons called Global Zero.

You can add your voice to the call for nuclear weapons elimination by signing on to the be free petition from the Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World.

Can We Get The Nuclear Genie Back In The Bottle? Scientists focus on 21st-century perils
By Dan Vergano | USA Today | December 15, 2008

A new nuclear weapons report by a panel of scientists and two new books by weapons scientists show just how deeply the nuclear genie still haunts the scientific heirs of the Manhattan Project.
"Scientists have always felt a special responsibility for nuclear weapons, the one weapon they have created of such import," says physicist John Browne, a former head of Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory.
Now, amid pressing economic and wartime worries, nuclear weapons are poised once again to enter public debate, fueled by warnings from Congress and a campaign pledge by President-elect Barack Obama to support the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The treaty, which bans nuclear weapon test explosions, has been ratified by 143 nations, but not the United States.

Global Zero, a group of world diplomats, generals and leaders, met in Paris earlier this month to discuss plans to eliminate nuclear weapons worldwide over the next 25 years. And weapons scientists are joining the jousting for the nuclear attentions of the Obama administration. Read more.

Nuclear Weapons in 21st Century U.S. National Security
Report by a Joint Working Group of AAAS, the American Physical Society, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies

...The truly pressing nuclear issues that will demand presidential attention are few in number:

• Preventing the spread of nuclear weapons to more countries, including dealing with the nuclear proliferation threats of North Korea and Iran
• Securing and reducing global inventories of nuclear weapons and materials to prevent them from falling into the hands of terrorists
• Reversing Russia's apparent increasing reliance on nuclear weapons in its security policy through strategic engagement in an attempt to both prevent the emergence of a new 21st-century nuclear threat and gain Russian agreement to significantly lower U.S.-Russian stockpiles

Nuclear Weapons Decision Awaits Obama
By Peter Eisler | USA TODAY | December 9, 2008

Oak Ridge, TN -- One of the most important national security decision facing President-elect Barack Obama will unfold in this remote valley of aging factories, where workers enriched uranium for the first atomic bomb of World War II.

The site is a linchpin in a hotly contested Bush administration plan to build the first new U.S. warheads since end of the Cold War. Now, following Congress' demand that decisions on new warheads be deferred until an assessment of U.S. nuclear weapons needs is finished next year, the issue is set to come to a head early in Obama's presidency. Read more.

WARSAW--With nuclear weaponry proliferating and Iran moving closer to a nuclear capability, the United States and Russia should, in the view of many prominent security experts, swiftly start negotiations to reopen new arms control talks that will include the new nuclear powers.

This view emerged strongly from November discussions among American, Russian, Middle Eastern, Pakistani and European experts who all sense an opportunity with the new U.S. administration to prevent the collapse of longstanding agreements on arms control and nuclear proliferation.

WOLF BLITZER: President-Elect Barack Obama and the defense secretary he’s asked to stay on at the Pentagon have a seriously different opinion when it comes to nuclear weapons. Or at least that would seem to be the case.
Let’s go to our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre...
JAMIE MCINTYRE: Well, Wolf, this is another case where the lofty rhetoric of the campaign trail has come into direct conflict with the realities of the real world.
Barack Obama says he’s committed to ridding our planet of its deadliest WMDs.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL): It’s time to send a clear message to the world – America seeks a world with no nuclear weapons.
MCINTYRE: But his holdover defense secretary, famous for his pragmatism, has a different view.
DEFENSE SECRETARY ROBERT GATES: Try as we might and hope as we will, the power of nuclear weapons and their strategic impact is a genie that cannot be put back in the bottle – at least for a very long time.
MCINTYRE: Robert Gates sees the world with the gimlet eye of the old spy master he is, and argues forcefully America not only needs its atomic arsenal, but needs new, improved bombs to strike fear in future foes.
GATES: Let me be clear. The program we propose is not about new capabilities – suitcase bombs or bunker busters or tactical nukes. It is about safety, security and reliability.
MCINTYRE: The U.S. hasn’t tested its nukes for 16 years. It’s one reason Defense Secretary Gates is anxious to replace America’s aging nuclear weapons with a new, smaller arsenal of modern warheads. But even without testing, the newer nukes would be far more reliable, he argues. And they could be outfitted with high tech safeguards to prevent their use if they ever fell into the wrong hands.
So President-elect Obama wants no nukes and Gates wants new nukes. Good thing Obama gave himself plenty of wiggle room.
OBAMA: As long as nuclear weapons exist, we’ll retain a strong deterrent. But we will make the goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons a central element in our nuclear policy.
MCINTYRE: So what exactly does Barack Obama have to decide? One thing is whether to build the so-called reliable replacement warhead – a multi-billion dollar program to replace aging weapons. Congress so far has rejected money for that. And the other issue is whether the U.S. joins the countries of the world who have agreed never to test nuclear weapons again. That treaty has not yet been ratified by the Senate.
And the answers to those questions, Wolf, will determine whether Barack Obama’s pledge to eliminate nuclear weapons remains an elusive goal or a more solid promise.

For nearly 40 years, American presidents have expressed their intention to fulfill the U.S. obligation under the 1968 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to pursue "effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament." Still, few presidents have taken that goal seriously, and those who did missed historic opportunities to move closer toward a nuclear weapons-free world.

Under the presidential administration of Barack Obama, U.S. nuclear weapons policy and nonproliferation diplomacy can and must change, or else the global effort to reduce the risk of nuclear war, curb proliferation, and prevent catastrophic terrorism will falter. Read more.

IRAQ UPDATES

Blackwater Operatives Indicted for Slaughter of Iraqi Civilians
By Jeremy Scahill, TheNation.com. Posted December 9, 2008.

"The government alleges in the documents unsealed today that at least 34 unarmed Iraqi civilians, including women and children, were killed or injured without justification or provocation by these Blackwater security guards in the shooting at Nisour Square," said Patrick Rowan, assistant attorney general for national security. "Today's indictment and guilty plea demonstrate that those who engage in unprovoked and illegal attacks on civilians, whether during times of conflict or times of peace, will be held accountable."

One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex
By DAVID BARSTOW | New York Times | November 29, 2008

Through seven years of war an exclusive club has quietly flourished at the intersection of network news and wartime commerce. Its members, mostly retired generals, have had a foot in both camps as influential network military analysts and defense industry rainmakers. It is a deeply opaque world, a place of privileged access to senior government officials, where war commentary can fit hand in glove with undisclosed commercial interests and network executives are sometimes oblivious to possible conflicts of interest.

IRAN HAPPENINGS

Neocons, Thirsty for Blood, Look to Quash Iran Negotiations

By Ali Gharib, IPS News. Posted December 16, 2008.

While Obama has spoken of meaningful engagement without taking any options off the table, Iran hawks, often skeptical of diplomatic efforts, advocate tough sanctions and, in some instances, military strikes to dissuade Iran's leaders from their ambitions.

NEWS FROM WiLL

Learning to be strong and progressive on national security issues

In December, WiLL gathered 23 women state legislators in Las Vegas to participate in a National Security Communication Seminar. The seminar was coordinated with the Truman National Security Project, a leadership institute that trains progressives to lead on national security issues.

On the first day, two retired military officers taught us about how to talk to and about the military. Bobbie Wrenn Banks gave a presentation on federal budget basics, which Sen. Sue Errington (IN) called “eye-opening”; Rep. Rebekah Warren (MI) said “Bobbie is a real gem! I learned so much.” The second day focused on communication and media training, and ended with each legislator practicing interviews in front of a camera. It was an exhausting, but inspiring, two days where we learned how to convey our progressive values while also communicating our commitment to keeping our nation safe. Check out some photos here.

IDEAS, VISIONS, RESOURCES FOR A BETTER WORLD

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