Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has ordered what is being described in media reports as top-to-bottom changes in how the nation’s nuclear arsenal is managed.
Largely unreported in the coverage of the possible nuclear forces shakeup is that until his appointment as defense secretary, Hagel served on the board of a George Soros-funded group that advocates a nuclear-free world.
Ploughshares opposes America’s development of a missile-defense system and contributes funds to scores of anti-war groups highly critical of U.S. foreign policy and military expansion.
The fund identifies itself as a “publicly supported foundation that funds, organizes and innovates projects to realize a world free from the threat of nuclear weapons.”
On Friday, the Associated Press reported Hagel was slated to announce actions to improve nuclear force management, vowing to invest billions of dollars more to fix what that the agency described as a force suffering from leadership lapses, security flaws and sagging morale.
Senior defense officials speaking to the AP said Hagel would propose an amount between $1 billion and $10 billion in additional investments to the nuclear forces, including the replacement of a dated helicopter fleet.
While the exact nature of the investment is unclear and Hagel’s proposed top-to-bottom changes have not yet been specified, the defense secretary’s long-time association with the Ploughshares Fund may be cause for concern.
The fund calls itself “the largest grant-making foundation in the U.S. focusing exclusively on peace and security issues.”
The Ploughshares Fund has a long history of anti-war advocacy and is a partner of the Marxist-oriented Institute for Policy Studies, which has urged the defunding of the Pentagon and massive decreases in U.S. defense capabilities, including slashing the American nuclear arsenal to 292 deployed weapons.