First official details of the FY27 budget have been released by OMB. The “topline” factsheet has this on defense spending, confirming reports from yesterday:

“The Budget request for the Department of War (DOW) advances President Trump’s delivery of peace through strength by reinvesting in the foundations of American military power—from defense industrial capacity to the readiness and health of the force—and ensuring the United States maintains the world’s most powerful and capable military by continuing to invest in innovative programs such as the Golden Dome for America. The Budget builds upon the historic $1 trillion overall Defense topline for 2026 and requests $1.5 trillion in total budgetary resources for 2027. This is a $445 billion or 42-percent increase from the 2026 total resource level. Of this amount, the Budget includes $1.1 trillion in base discretionary budget authority specifically for DOW in 2027. The Budget also includes a request for $350 billion in additional mandatory resources through reconciliation for critical Administration priorities such as increasing access to critical munitions and further expansion of the defense industrial base. The mandatory funding protects key priorities such as providing flexibility in maturing technology for delivery and allowing for acquisition approaches for portfolios of capabilities that broaden opportunities for new entrants.”

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/fiscal-year-2027-topline-fact-sheet.pdf
https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/information-resources/budget/

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In the world of nuclear weapons (the clock considers nuclear weapons, climate change, bio-threats, and Artificial Intelligence), the Bulletin noted that leaders are explicitly talking about

• new nuclear weapons development

• arms racing

• the resumption of full-scale nuclear testing

• deployment of new types of nuclear capable weapons

• heavy investment in modernizing weapons and production capabilities

• leaders talking about using nuclear weapons on the battlefield

• arms race instability

Noting that the last existing arms control treaty (New START) will expire on February 6, and no steps are being taken to renew the Treaty, the Bulletin’s panel said the decline in nucler weapons stockpiles around the globe has stopped, and we are now seeing the potential for increases.

Bell noted that the movement of the clock toward destruction is not preordained. “It is time to act,” she said. “Every time we have been able to reduce the risks, it has been because of public pressure, people coming together to say ‘We do not accept this.’”

The panel also cited the rise of autocracies and the undermining of the rules-based social and political order as factors in the 2026 clock decision, citing the current Administration action in Minneapolis as an example of the result of the undermining of democractic systems.

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U.S. Congress Ups Nuclear Arms Spending, Tightens Oversight
Arms Control Today
January/February 2026
By Xiaodon Liang

The Republican-led U.S. Congress approved an annual defense policy bill that green lights $901 billion in discretionary spending and adds more than $2 billion to President Donald Trump’s request for expanded funding for nuclear weapons modernization and strategic missile defense.

Robert Kadlec (C), nominee to be assistant secretary of defense for nuclear deterrence, chemical and biological defense policy and programs, testifies during his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing in November. Later confirmed, he holds a new position as central policy lead for nuclear weapons matters. (Photo by Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)Robert Kadlec (C), nominee to be assistant secretary of defense for nuclear deterrence, chemical and biological defense policy and programs, testifies during his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing in November. Later confirmed, he holds a new position as central policy lead for nuclear weapons matters. (Photo by Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2026, which Trump signed into law Dec. 18, is supplemented by $118 billion in mandatory defense spending approved earlier this year in a budget reconciliation act. It contains various statutory changes relevant to U.S. nuclear forces and their acquisition, while demanding regular briefings on the president’s signature defense program, the “Golden Dome” missile defense system.

Congress will set final budget levels in appropriations bills for fiscal 2026, which remain trapped in negotiations among legislators on a tangle of domestic policy issues.

This year’s defense policy act, which emerged Dec. 7 from negotiations between the House and the Senate, is not as strident as its equivalent from last year in calling for steps to prepare for an arms race. But the legislation reiterates a demand in the fiscal 2025 act for annual briefings on implementation of the recommendations of the 2023 report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, conditioning certain spending on the initiation of these briefings.

The commission report called for planning to upload additional warheads to U.S. intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), reconvert certain B-52H bombers for a nuclear role, and open missile tubes on Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, while also acquiring more Long Range Standoff (LRSO) nuclear cruise missiles, B-21 bombers, and Columbia-class ballistic missile submarines, among other proposals to expand the nuclear force. (See ACT, November 2023.)

This year’s authorization act codifies a requirement that the United States indefinitely deploy no fewer than 400 “operationally available” ICBMs, with 150 launch facilities at each of the three current ICBM bases. This goes beyond a restriction that Congress has imposed in previous years barring the use of annually authorized funds to cut the number of ICBMs or reduce their level of readiness.

The act reflects congressional concern regarding the transition from the presently serving Minuteman III ICBM to the future Sentinel ICBM, which has experienced delays and a large cost-estimate increase. (See ACT, September 2024.) Although the Senate’s version of the policy bill had set a target date of 2033 for the Sentinel to reach initial operational capability, the final version of the act drops the deadline. A Nov. 10 article by the defense trade publication Inside Defense also reported that the service is working toward a late 2033 date.

The new ICBM, which the Air Force expects to cost $141 billion in 2020 dollars, will have an annual authorized budget of $5.3 billion, according to the final version of the defense legislation, $1.2 billion more than Trump requested. That total includes funds appropriated earlier this year in a budget reconciliation act. (See ACT, June 2025.)

Given the delay to Sentinel, which the Air Force had indicated would reach initial operational capability by May 2029, the problem of sustaining Minuteman III missiles has garnered increased attention. (See ACT, October 2025.) The act requires the Pentagon to provide an annual report on its strategy for sustaining the Minuteman III until the Sentinel fully replaces the older missile.

The legislation also authorizes an extra $210 million over the president’s budget and sets a 2034 target for the nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missile to reach initial operational capability, while requiring that the Pentagon and National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) provide a “limited number … to meet combatant command requirements” by the end of September 2032.

The Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program is authorized to spend a total of $11.9 billion across discretionary and reconciliation funding, $710 million more than the president requested.

Although the Senate proposed spending an extra $149 million this year to accelerate the LRSO air-launched nuclear cruise missile program, conference negotiators snubbed the idea. The Senate proposal had included $8 million for advance planning for a conventional variant of the LRSO. Total authorized spending on the missile could reach $1.05 billion in fiscal 2026.

The defense policy act makes several changes to the nuclear weapons enterprise and how it is managed. Statutes governing the Nuclear Weapons Council, a body of five senior Pentagon officials and the administrator of the NNSA, are modified to explicitly entrust the council with the responsibility for “developing options for adjusting the deterrence posture of the United States in response to evolving international security conditions.”

Although the council focused previously on setting priorities for NNSA that reflect Pentagon needs, this year’s statutory changes grant the council more authority to monitor nuclear delivery systems acquisition programs managed by the armed services, as well. The act would grant the council the power to “annually review the plans and budget” of the military departments, whereas previously it only reviewed those of the NNSA.

Last year, Congress modified a senior position within the Pentagon to create a central policy lead for nuclear weapons matters. That role, now titled the assistant secretary of defense for nuclear deterrence, chemical, and biological defense policy and programs, has been further augmented in this year’s defense act by specific instructions to the Pentagon to provide authorities and resources to the new office for overseeing relevant acquisition programs

On Dec. 18, the Senate confirmed Robert Kadlec, the Trump administration’s nominee for the position. Kadlec previously served in the George W. Bush and first Trump administrations as a health and biosecurity expert. As assistant secretary for preparedness and response at the Department of Health and Human Services, Kadlec was an early driver of the Trump administration’s efforts to identify and distribute a vaccine for the COVID-19 pandemic.

Within the NNSA itself, the act creates a rapid capabilities program to “develop new nuclear weapons or modified nuclear weapons that meet military requirements.” According to its new statutory basis, the program will “utilize non-traditional approaches,” adopt “tailored risk-acceptance processes,” “maximize reuse of existing components,” and take other steps to “carry out projects with the goal of achieving first production unit within 5 years of project initiation.”

According to the NNSA’s budget request for fiscal 2026, the agency already has set up rapid capabilities projects under the Stockpile Responsiveness Program “to execute at least two concurrent rapid development activities.”

The act also amends the statutory requirement that NNSA be able to produce 80 plutonium pits per year by specifying that 30 pits be produced at Los Alamos National Laboratories and 50 pits at the future Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility. NNSA’s plans for pit production are the subject of an environmental impact assessment mandated by the outcome of a recent National Environmental Policy Act lawsuit. (See ACT, November 2024.)

NNSA is now only required to publish a report on the Stockpile Stewardship Management Plan each odd-numbered fiscal year, with Congress eliminating a requirement for shorter updates each even-numbered year.

The Trump administration’s proposal to expand U.S. missile defense capabilities, known as the Golden Dome program, receives wary approval in the defense policy act. The legislation codifies changes to the U.S. policy on missile defense, closely tracking the administration’s Jan. 27 executive order. (See ACT, March 2025.)

The new policy states that the government will “provide for the common defense of the United States and its citizens by deploying and maintaining a next-generation missile defense shield.” The act nullifies previous language that the United States would “rely on nuclear deterrence to address more sophisticated and larger quantity near-peer intercontinental missile threats,” an assurance that attempted to address concerns in Beijing and Moscow that an expanding U.S. missile defense architecture could undermine strategic stability.

Despite this endorsement of the goals of the Golden Dome, the defense committees expressed concern about the program’s viability in demanding that the Pentagon provide an annual report on the system in addition to quarterly briefings

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Message of the Holy Father for the 59th World Day of Peace 2026: “Peace be with you all: Towards an “unarmed and disarming” peace”

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New START, which runs out on February 5, caps the number of strategic nuclear warheads that the United States and Russia can deploy, and the deployment of land- and submarine-based missiles and bombers to deliver them.

Putin in September offered to voluntarily maintain for one year the limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons set out in the treaty, whose initials stand for the (New) Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Trump said in October it sounded “like a good idea.”

“We have less than 100 days left before the expiry of New START,” said Sergei Shoigu, the secretary of Russia’s powerful Security Council, which is like a modern-day politburo of Russia’s most powerful officials.

“We are waiting for a response,” Shoigu told reporters during a visit to Hanoi. He added that Moscow’s proposal was an opportunity to halt the “destructive movement” that currently existed in nuclear arms control.
NUCLEAR ARMS CONTROL IN PERIL
Russia and the U.S. together have more than 10,000 nuclear warheads, or 87% of the global inventory of nuclear weapons. China is the world’s third largest nuclear power with about 600 warheads, according to the Federation of American Scientists

The arms control treaties between Moscow and Washington were born out of fear of nuclear war after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Greater transparency about the opponent’s arsenal was intended to reduce the scope for misunderstanding and slow the arms race.
U.S. AND RUSSIA EYE CHINA’S NUCLEAR ARSENAL
Now, with all major nuclear powers seeking to modernise their arsenals, and Russia and the West at strategic loggerheads for over a decade – not least over the enlargement of NATO and Moscow’s war in Ukraine – the treaties have almost all crumbled away. Each side blames the other.

In the new U.S. National Security Strategy the Trump administration says it wants to “reestablish strategic stability with Russia” – shorthand for reopening discussions on strategic nuclear arms control.

Rose Gottemoeller, who was chief U.S. negotiator for New START, said in an article for The Arms Control Association this month that it would be beneficial for Washington to implement the treaty along with Moscow.

“For the United States, the benefit of this move would be buying more time to decide what to do about the ongoing Chinese buildup without having to worry simultaneously about new Russian deployments,” Gottemoeller said.
Writing by Guy Faulconbridge and Lucy Papachristou; editing by Andrew Osborn

____________________

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What with the erratic leadership in world countries a nuclear interchange could blow up into an all-out nuclear annihilation. Rep. Dina Titus (NV CD-1) has introduced HR 5894 in an attempt to halt, at least restrain, renewed nuclear testing.

https://titus.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=5827

Check CU Prof. Brian Toon’s description of a Nuclear Winter. https://www.ted.com/talks/brian_toon_i_ve_studied_nuclear_war_for_35_years_you_should_be_worried

Urge Our congressional delegation to cosponsor and actively support HR 5894 that would prohibit explosive testing of nuclear weapons. Demand real action!

neguse.house.gov; bennet.senate.gov; Hickenlooper.senate.gov Any member of Congress 866-338-1015

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Hungry, Cold, Wet and Muddy

Needless to say, genocide continues in Gaza. In diplomatic babble “a cease fire” exists but in reality, Gazans are murdered, dozens a day, by Zionist Israel’s soldiers and air force. These folks are defenseless against the IDF, a destroyed infrastructure and a cold rainy autumn with little to no housing, food, and medical service. There are thousands wounded.

On the west bank, Zionist Israel continues assisting land thieves (aka settlers) to destroy housing, schools and orchards from longtime Palestinian residents. They then move on to the stolen land.

At the same time Israel continues attacks on Syria, and Lebanon.

Congress regularly sends billions of our tax money, F-15s, bombs and bullets to keep the assaults going. neguse.house.gov; bennet.senate.gov; Hickenlooper.senate.gov Any member of Congress 866-338-1015

Demand answers – What are Neguse, Hickenlooper and Bennet doing to end this misery?

Are they taking money from AIPAC, Zionist Israel’s agent in the US?

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https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.exchangemonitor.com%2Fnew-pro-nuclear-group-makes-presence-known-in-new-mexico-3%2F&data=05%7C02%7C%7C8c3aa8a66d00475f996208de2966f559%7C84df9e7fe9f640afb435aaaaaaaaaaaa%7C1%7C0%7C638993719336621005%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&sdata=xYsTJbrGRzngwzujsNjNOZO1UBR57BV3fcU8M%2B19qc8%3D&reserved=0

New pro-nuclear group makes presence known in New Mexico
By Trey Rorie
A new pro-nuclear group in New Mexico has emerged and seeks to play a role in the state’s transition towards clean energy with nuclear power.

The New Mexico Nuclear Alliance, founded in July, is a non-partisan membership organization that operates out of Santa Fe. The new group has partnered with the Carlsbad Department of Development, Energy Communities Alliance and New Space Nexus.

Carlsbad is a longstanding nuclear community, where the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Carlsbad Field Office is based. DOE’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant is roughly 25 miles outside of Carlsbad.

The New Mexico Nuclear Alliance was founded and led by Scott Lopez, a Marine Corps veteran, investor and business consultant. Lopez’s LinkedIn account does not show a background in nuclear energy.

However, Lopez has ties with DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, as he has “more than 12 family members working there over the last 80 years”, according to New Mexico Nuclear Alliance’s website.

Along with promoting more nuclear power in New Mexico, New Mexico Nuclear Alliance also has an interest in the state’s nuclear waste management, such as advanced recycling and long-term disposal solutions.

“New Mexico can responsibly grow its existing nuclear ecosystem and has the opportunity to lead the country by example, demonstrating that communities once supported by fossil fuels can thrive with carbon-free, reliable and affordable nuclear energy,” according to its website.

On Oct. 24, New Mexico Nuclear Alliance made its first public appearance before the New Mexico state legislature science, technology and telecommunications committee. Lopez spoke before the committee advocating advanced energy technology, particularly nuclear power.

Some environmental groups have taken note of the New Mexico Nuclear Alliance. Nuclear Watch New Mexico Executive Director Jay Coghlan told Exchange Monitor that NukeWatch had heard of the pro-nuclear group but was not a fan.

“Pro-nuke groups are promoting a discredited industry,” Coghlan told Exchange Monitor Wednesday. “ Let’s have a little free market capitalism. The nuclear industry would collapse overnight without taxpayer handouts.That’s at the front end. On the back end, even after ~70 years, they still haven’t solved the radioactive waste problem.”

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https://youtu.be/TksycJmpRFAFA”>https://youtu.be/TksycJmpRFA

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