Page 2 of 3 US nukes: Another step
backward By Travis
Sharp
quickly incorporated RRW into its
broader Complex 2030 plan and began laying the
groundwork to produce, according to NNSA deputy
administrator for defense programs Thomas
D'Agostino, "weapons with different or modified
military capabilities ... [as] a hedge against an
inherently uncertain future".
The quest
for a new generation of RRW weapons started with a
competition between the Lawrence Livermore and Los
Alamos nuclear-weapons laboratories to determine a
design to serve as
the prototype for future
RRW development. A winner should be announced
soon, but both labs are expected to be involved
during the development and production phases.
The NNSA doubles down On
February 2, disarmament and non-proliferation
analysts were shocked to learn that the NNSA was
not only undeterred by the prospect of justifying
funding to a newly Democratic Congress, but also
unafraid of expanding the scope of Complex 2030's
already quixotic vision.
In a new report
outlining changes to the Complex 2030 proposal,
the NNSA introduced a fourth alternative for
consideration: the "Consolidated Nuclear
Production Center" (CNPC). Originally proposed by
the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB) in
July 2005, the CNPC "bombplex" goes well beyond
the consolidated plutonium facility proposed in
the original October 2006 NoI.
The CNPC
would be tasked with enormous new
responsibilities, including assembling and
disassembling weapons, prototyping components
designed by the weapons laboratories, and
manufacturing, testing and storing all plutonium
and HEU "required to support the current and
future needs of the Complex" (SEAB Report 14).
The problems involved in this new CNPC
alternative are enormous. First, the NNSA did not
include a CNPC in its October proposal because it
disagreed with the accelerated timeline aimed at
having the facility up and running by 2015. The
original SEAB report proposing a CNPC assumed that
plutonium "pits", the cores that trigger nuclear
weapons, were rapidly becoming unreliable. SEAB
suggested that if these pits only last 45 years,
the CNPC must be constructed by 2014, but if they
last 60 years, it could be delayed until 2034
(SEAB Report 17).
However, a study
conducted last November by US weapons laboratories
and reviewed by Jason, an independent government
advisory body of nuclear scientists originally
founded by members of the Manhattan Project,
revealed that plutonium pits remain viable for at
least 90 years, twice the earlier estimate of 45
years and three times the age of the oldest
weapons in the US nuclear stockpile.
This
new information on plutonium-pit durability
completely discredits the SEAB's timeline and
shows that pit deterioration will not become an
urgent problem for decades. Why on earth has the
NNSA reintroduced a CNPC proposal whose central
justification - producing new pits since the old
ones are degrading rapidly - was just declared
illegitimate by the preeminent nuclear advisory
body in the US?
A few additional details
further reinforce skepticism about the CNPC. The
original SEAB report rather lamely brushed aside
the issue of cost by saying it simply "did not
have the time to study in detail the financial
implications of various major transformation
recommendations" (E-1). But the SEAB of course
went out of its way to recommend that the NNSA
purchase "components and assemblies from
commercial industrial vendors to the degree
practical" (14-15). After all, what would a major
infrastructural overhaul be without billions of
dollars in no-bid contracts for the
military-industrial complex?
The
reintroduction of the CNPC as part of Complex 2030
is just the latest example of the NNSA's recurring
push for costly but unnecessary programs under the
lackadaisical oversight of the Bush
administration. Previously, the NNSA and
Department of Energy (DOE) vigorously pursued new
low-yield nuclear weapons, a "robust nuclear earth
penetrator", a "modern pit facility" for
plutonium-warhead development, and a reduction in
the time needed to approve an underground nuclear
test.
This relentless support for
big-budget, "gee whiz" nuclear weapons - which has
very little use in counterinsurgency campaigns as
in Iraq and Afghanistan or against non-state
terrorist organizations - suggests that the DOE
and the NNSA may be more committed to maintaining
their relevancy and resources within the vast
federal bureaucracy than responding to current
security challenges.
The Government
Accountability Office in November referenced
"DOE's history of poor project management" in a
request for increased congressional oversight of
the department's activities.
An
indecent proposal The NNSA claims that
Complex 2030 will eventually lead to a smaller US
nuclear stockpile because RRW models will be much
simpler to produce and thus can be churned out
more rapidly. This enhanced production capacity
will, in theory, allow the US to reduce the
overall size of its reserve stockpile of 4,225
warheads by offering, in the words of former NNSA
administrator Linton Brooks, "greater confidence
in our weapons' reliability ... [to] reduce the
numbers of spare warheads".
The problem is
that Complex 2030 only promises to eliminate older
warhead models after RRWs are in place, meaning
that the US will be building more nuclear weapons
in order to have fewer. Aside from this
counterintuitive bit of mental gymnastics,
citizens have a responsibility to ask whether
rebuilding the entire nuclear-weapons complex is
absolutely necessary. Are US nuclear weapons
becoming unreliable in a way that justifies
spending $150 billion on the next generation of
new nuclear weapons?
The Jason advisory
body is not the only group that says "no". The
current US stockpile - based on 50 years of
research and more than 1,000 underground nuclear
tests - has been repeatedly labeled "safe and
reliable" by nuclear experts and NNSA
administrators.
The Stockpile Stewardship
Program (SSP) and Life Extension Program (LEP),
which currently exercise primary
stockpile-maintenance responsibilities, are widely
regarded as impeccable success stories. Robert
Nelson, senior scientist at the Union of Concerned
Scientists, said US weapons scientists understand
warhead reliability better today under SSP and LEP
than they did when nuclear tests were actually
being conducted. "There is nothing unreliable with
the nuclear weapons the United States already
maintains," Nelson unequivocally stated.
What about assertions that Complex 2030
will help consolidate the sprawling
nuclear-weapons complex within the US? This
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