Our guest blogger is Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund.

The U.S. government spends $54 billion a year on nuclear weapons and related programs. Despite the deep fiscal crisis, these budgets are about to go up — to a whopping $700 billion over the next 10 years. It is not at all clear why.

When President Obama committed in April 2009 to seek “the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” he also said he would maintain a “safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary.” But the procurement of new weapons is racing ahead of the policy to shrink the arsenal. Negotiated reductions and development of a new nuclear policy are lagging. The nuclear bureaucracy remains entrenched, pushing new contracts and new programs that will lock in out-dated nuclear postures for another generation. Budgets are dictating strategy.

Case in point is the Navy’s program to build a new fleet of nuclear-armed submarines to replace the 14 subs now carrying 1,150 warheads, each 10 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The Navy has almost $1 billion in the current budget to begin production of 12 replacement boats that will start slipping into the water around 2030 and patrol well past the middle of this century.

The program’s cost has skyrocketed to over $100 billion, or over $8 billion per sub — even after DOD reviews scrubbed the requirements down from original designs. During procurement, each new nuclear sub will consume at least 40 percent of the Navy’s annual shipbuilding budget. This will force the service to drop an estimated 56 conventional ships from its 30-year plan.

Congress has not been presented with a coherent strategy for why America requires the ability to launch 8,000 Hiroshimas from sea 40 years from now — or field new bombers, or new long-range missiles, or new warheads. But all are barreling forward in current budgets.

This procurement-policy gap not only undermines the bipartisan expert consensus that nuclear reductions enhance American security, but keeps alive weapons designed for last century’s conflict by draining funds from military programs needed for today’s challenges. Twenty-first century threats will not be solved by 1950s thinking.

Independent experts have detailed the substantial savings available by delaying or canceling some of these nuclear programs. CAP’s Larry Korb concluded as part of a defense task force that $140 billion could be saved over the next ten years by reducing down to 1,000 deployed nuclear weapons. Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) recommended a different mix of weapons carrying 1,220 warheads for a savings of $79 billion over the next 10 years.

The budget crunch is shifting the nuclear policy ground faster than most analysts understand, faster than the White House understands. This February, an administration colleague advised that my concerns about the submarine program were pointless, that stopping a major Navy procurement program was “unthinkable.” Yet, just last month, Norman Polmar, the dean of Navy analysts, said the $100 billion price tag had made the sub “simply unaffordable.”

From “unthinkable” to “unaffordable” in under six months. The same is true for nuclear programs across the board, from bombers to bomb factories.

The White House has to catch up. The election cycle has been closing the policy “window” that opens up with the start of every new administration. But now the budget cycle has opened a new window, a new lever to achieve the president’s original goals. He has one more chance to bend the arc of nuclear policy. If he misses it, he may not get another.

While the mention of defense spending cuts puts hawks on a war footing to justify the staggering Pentagon budget, a new report from the Center for American Progress’ Lawrence J. Korb, Sam Klug, and Alex Rothman examines bipartisan proposals for defense spending cuts. Their report concludes that any cuts in military spending, in all likelihood, will be moderate, at best, but that wide bipartisan support exists for returning spending to fiscally responsible levels.

First, it’s important to recognize that the debt ceiling deal puts caps on security spending — limiting the security budget to $684 billion in 2012 and $686 billion in 2013 — which includes funding for the Department of Defense, Veterans Affairs, Homeland Security, State Department, and intelligence agencies. The authors observe:

Congress could potentially keep security spending within the caps without touching DOD spending at all, instead slashing the budgets of the other, already underfunded “security” agencies.

Doing so would continue to overstate the proper role for the military within our foreign policy. After an unprecedented streak of 13 consecutive years of rising defense budgets, the United States is now spending more on defense than at any time since World War II and almost as much as the rest of the world combined.

Watch CAP Senior Fellow Lawrence J. Korb discuss defense spending and the debt ceiling deal:

The report highlights four bipartisan plans (see chart) for defense spending reductions from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), the Bowles-Simpson fiscal commission, the Project on Government Oversight/Taxpayers for Common Sense, and the Center for American Progress.

All four plans would bring significant savings, ranging from Coburn’s proposed plan, which would save more than $1 trillion over 10 years, to the Bowles-Simpson Deficit Commission proposal with $100.1 billion in estimated savings by 2015. But all four plans agreed on reducing F-35 and V-22 Osprey procurement, reforming the DoD’s healthcare plan, and cutting European and Asian troop levels.

Three out of four plans agreed on reducing the carrier fleet; implementing former Defense Secretary Robert Gates’s strategy for cutting costs and boosting efficiency; reducing the use of contractors; and reducing the nuclear arsenal.

Today, National Defense Magazine notes that the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), the major trade group for a whole host of robotics equipment and the Predator Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), will be hosting a major trade show in Washington, DC next week.

The trade show is coinciding with what the magazine calls a “PR offensive” to defend the image of the robotics industry. The industry apparently is worried that the American public views them solely as the makers of killer drones, rather than other robots:

But the widespread use of UAVs in airstrikes also created a PR problem for the drone industry: Its products were no longer just just seen as cool novelties, but as “killer drones.” UAV and ground robot manufacturers are trying to push back on that negative stereotype. The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, which is gearing up for the industry’s biggest trade show next week in Washington, D.C., hosted a news conference at the National Press Club Aug. 10 to talk about the warm and fuzzy side of robotic machines. “While many headlines have been devoted to the ‘killer drones’ and battlefield robots, these same platforms have many other uses,” said an AUVSI press release. “They can extend the reach of first responders, scientists and aid agencies while keeping people out of harm’s way.”

While it’s true that many of the companies represented by the AUVSI do make robotic devices intended for civilian and non-military use, a look at the exposition it will be hosting next week finds a heavy military emphasis. The largest booths on the trade show floor go not to purely science-related firms but rather major defense contractors like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. The primary manufacturer of the Predator drones the U.S. uses, General Atomics Aeronautical Systems, is also well-represented.

Part of the PR campaign at the upcoming show is “RoboTour,” a kid-friendly section of the convention center that will be reserved to “introduce future generations of scientists and engineers to the exciting world of unmanned systems.” Included among the sponsors of this section is Northrop Grumman, Oshkosh Defense, and DRS Defense Solutions and American Dynamic Flight Systems, both of which make Unmanned Aerial Systems used by the U.S. military.

Last night, President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on the phone to discuss key issues of concern between the U.S. and Israel. As reported this morning, the call had to do with the Obama administration’s efforts to heal the rift between Israel and Turkey, efforts which have apparently been scuttled by Netanyahu.

Via the Israeli news site YNet, “The Prime Minister’s Office stated that the phone conversation between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama was ‘friendly and touched on political and economic issues that are on both countries’ agenda.’”

The White House issued this readout of the call:

President Obama spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu today to consult on regional issues and efforts to achieve Middle East peace. The Prime Minister expressed appreciation for U.S. support for Israel’s security, in particular the Iron Dome short-range rocket and mortar defense system. The two leaders agreed to continue to work closely together to address common security concerns.

And here’s how Israel thanked its most important ally this morning:

Israel’s interior minister gave final authorization to build 1,600 apartments in disputed east Jerusalem and will approve 2,700 more in days, officials said Thursday, detailing a plan that could complicate diplomatic efforts to dissuade Palestinians from declaring statehood at the United Nations.

The announcement drew immediate criticism from the Palestinians, and from Israel’s leading anti-settlement group, which accused the government of seizing on mass protests over housing costs to give economic justification to the always explosive issue of building in the holy city.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office knew the construction plans were moving ahead, Interior Ministry spokesman Roi Lachmanovich said. An earlier approval for the 1,600-apartment project embarrassed Netanyahu and caused a diplomatic rift with the U.S. because it coincided with a visit to Israel by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden.

In addition to the Obama administration’s unprecedented military support for Israel, and its significantly deepened intelligence cooperation with Israel on the Iranian nuclear issue, the Obama administration is currently using up an enormous amount of diplomatic energy and capital on Israel’s behalf in trying to head off the Palestinians’ bid for UN recognition.

The Netanyahu government’s idea of gratitude is to announce thousands of new settlement homes in occupied areas of Jerusalem, further undermining the moderate Palestinian leadership, and embarrassing (once again) its key patron and gratuitously complicating its efforts to achieve its goals.

Last year, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), “acting on his party’s behalf,” blocked Robert Ford’s confirmation as the next U.S. ambassador to Syria. While President Obama ended up using his power to recess appoint Ford to the position, in a May 14, 2010 letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, twelve Senate Republicans complained that sending an envoy rewarded Syria for its support for terrorism.

The Senate still must confirm Ford if he is to remain at his post. His visit last month to the Syrian city of Hama — which has recently been under assault by the Syrian military — drew wide praise. Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), who opposed Ford’s confirmation last year, now says he supports it and he is urging his colleagues to follow suit. And as The Cable reported yesterday, “Congress is warming to the idea of confirming” Ford. Or is it?

A Coburn aide told ThinkProgress that the Oklahoma senator “continues to stand by the concerns outlined” in the May, 2010 letter to Clinton. Moreover, the same aide did not respond to repeated inquiries into whether that statement meant Coburn still opposes having Ford as U.S. ambassador or that he will again block his confirmation. ThinkProgress also contacted most of the Republicans that co-signed the letter to Clinton asking if they still oppose sending Ford, or any other envoy, to Syria and none responded.

Giving some insight into the GOP’s thinking, the Cable reported that “[s]ome on Capitol Hill don’t like the optics of the United States confirming an ambassador to Syria while other countries withdraw their envoys as a means of registering their opposition to Assad’s crackdown”:

“Senator Lieberman is one of the great national security leaders of this generation, and Robert Ford is a skilled diplomat, but it makes no sense to have an American ambassador in Damascus now,” one senior GOP congressional aide told The Cable. “It’s a sad day when the Saudi king has greater moral clarity than the president of the United States.”

While it’s unclear how exactly having an ambassador in Syria means President Obama lacks “moral clarity,” the neocons at the Foreign Policy Initiative offered a similarly confusing explanation as to why Ford should be recalled. “It is doubtful that, if confirmed by the Senate, Ford will be allowed by the Assad regime to be an effective voice for the United States,” FPI executive director Jamie Fly wrote yesterday, adding, “unless the administration is prepared to use Ford as a proactive envoy to the Syrian people, the White House should seriously consider keeping him in Washington.”

But as evidenced by his visit to Hama, and his Senate testimony last week, Ford is already a “proactive envoy to the Syrian people.” Ford is not there to be “an effective voice for the United States,” as Fly said. As Ford said last month, “This is not about Americans, it is about the way the Syrian government mistreats its own people.” And he told the Senate last week, “It’s really important now to give Syrians an ear and to amplify their voices especially when the international media is barred from Syria.”