A US plan for simpler, safer nuclear arms?
Pastor Dale Morgan
March 09, 2007
*A US plan for simpler, safer nuclear arms?*
Cold War-era US warheads are too complex for the needs of today's
geopolitical climate, some say.
By Peter Grier | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON
US nuclear weapons are among the most sophisticated scientific devices
on the planet. Through the years of the cold war, US designers labored
to make warheads that were frighteningly powerful, yet so small that as
many as 10 could fit on top of a single missile.
Now the nation's nuclear bureaucracy believes the time has come to start
replacing these complex weapons with simpler ones. Last week the
Department of Energy announced the selection of a design for a new
Reliable Replacement Warhead, meant to be safer, easier to manufacture,
and more robust than current models.
If approved by Congress, development of this warhead could set the
course for the US nuclear arsenal for decades to come.
But when it comes to nuclear weapons, does the US really need to swap
Cadillacs for Fords? Critics say the current arsenal is reliable enough
– and that any new US bomb would send the wrong message to potential
nuclear proliferators such as Iran and North Korea.
"Other countries are going to look at this, and they are going to keep
their warhead development and production options open," says Daryl
Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
Stockpiles: cold war legacy
The current US nuclear stockpile is the legacy of decades of scientific
and military competition with the Soviet Union. Driven by what they felt
was a need to counter an existential threat to the nation, US scientists
perfected methods of extracting enormous explosive yields from weapons
that were also as small as possible.
That meant designing weapons with little margin for engineering or
manufacturing error. For example, the W-88 submarine-launched warhead is
crammed into a dart-thin reentry vehicle to decrease its susceptibility
to wind and thus increase its accuracy. The W-76, an older Navy weapon,
has a uranium radiation case the thickness of a soda can. That case must
remain intact for a microsecond upon detonation if the warhead is to
fully explode.
Throughout the cold war, US scientists also treated plutonium as a
scarce and valuable resource and made weapons whose fissile hearts were
relatively small.
But today's geostrategic world is vastly different than the one of
decades ago. The US has no need to counter a large nuclear adversary
move for move.
"We still have the same missiles, but they carry far fewer warheads, so
there's no particular premium on making those warheads light. And I'm
spending money to get rid of plutonium, not conserve it," said Linton F.
Brooks, then-administrator of the Department of Energy's National
Nuclear Security Administration, in a discussion on the future of
nuclear weapons last year.
According to current and former US officials, the US can take advantage
of change in the world and to redesign existing warheads so that they
have more margin for error, are easier to manufacture, and may be secure
against terrorists if they are ever stolen.
Picking a new warhead design
Enter the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW). The RRW design project
began three years ago. Per congressional order, it is supposed to
produce only replacements for existing warheads – not to create
additional warheads for new missions such as attacking underground
bunkers. The US has an arsenal of about 6,000 deployed warheads and has
previously said it would reduce the number to 1,700 to 2,200 by 2012.
On March 2, the National Nuclear Security Administration announced the
selection of a design from Lawrence Livermore and Sandia National
Laboratories for RRW development. Under the program, Navy
submarine-launched weapons would be the first warheads replaced.
US officials indicated that the Lawrence Livermore design beat out a
competitor from the Los Alamos National Lab in large part because it was
based on older designs that have already been proven effective in
underground nuclear tests.
The US has maintained a moratorium on nuclear tests since 1992. It has
signed, but not ratified, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which bans
explosions in all environments for military or civilian purposes.
The chosen design "builds on the successful scientific accomplishments
of our Stockpile Stewardship Program, which helps to maintain our
nuclear weapons without underground testing," said Thomas P. D'Agostino,
NNSA acting administrator, on March 2.
Over the next year, US lab scientists will put together cost estimates
and an engineering and production plan that Congress will be able to
consider next year, Mr. D'Agostino added.
Not everyone likes the plan
The point of this effort is not to start a new arms race, said the NNSA
acting administrator. But the new weapon design has already drawn
opposition from key members of the new Democratic-controlled Congress.
Rep. Peter Visclosky (D) of Indiana, the chairman of the House
Appropriations subcommittee on Energy and Water – which has jurisdiction
over nuclear development funding – says the administation needs to set a
coherent policy for the future of nuclear weapons before it starts
building new warheads.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) of California, a member of the Senate
Apppriations panel that will consider RRW funding this year, remains
adamantly opposed to a new design.
In a statement, Ms. Feinstein said that potential proliferators such as
Iran and North Korea would look at the program and see hypocrisy on the
part of the US.
"The minute you begin to put more sophisticated warheads on the existing
[delivery systems], you are essentially creating a new nuclear weapon,"
Feinstein said.
Some critics consider the very name of the effort to be a misnomer. To
call something a "reliable replacement" is to imply that the thing which
is to be replaced is unreliable – but that's not the case, notes Mr.
Kimball of the Arms Control Association.
Studies have shown that, with current maintenance programs, the existing
stockpile will be reliable for decades, says Kimball.
But is it worth spending billions to add a minute additional increment
of reliability, especially when the production of a new weapon might
inevitably increase pressure for the resumption of nuclear tests?
It is also arguable, Kimball adds, that new warheads can be certified as
safe and reliable without new test explosions.
"With all the associated geostrategic costs, it is not worth it," he says.