Page 3 of 3 US nukes: Another step
backward By Travis
Sharp
seems to be a laudable upgrade, since
the danger of fissile-material theft or of a
terrorist attack on a nuclear facility is very
real.
Under the current NNSA Complex 2030
planning scenario, however, the US nuclear-weapons
complex would be "consolidated" from eight major
sites into exactly eight major sites. In other
words, the proposal doesn't call for the closure
of a single facility, merely recommending the
internal relocation of
sensitive nuclear material at
each facility.
While consolidating within
each facility is a good idea and stands out as one
of Complex 2030's positive elements, there is
still a complete failure to address the
environmental degradation caused by Cold War-era
production and to consider shutting down one or
more of the facilities and moving its operations
elsewhere. "Consolidation" seems to be more of an
NNSA talking point than a reflection of Complex
2030's desire to move beyond bloated Cold War-era
production and maintenance practices.
Impacts on US foreign policy It
seems unlikely that a new generation of warheads
would be deployed without real-life nuclear
testing.
"I can't believe that an admiral
or a general or a future president who is putting
the US survival at stake would accept an untested
weapon if it didn't have a test base," said Sidney
Drell, a physicist and longtime adviser to the
government and nuclear weapons labs.
Princeton University physicist Frank von
Hippel echoed this sentiment: "The question really
is whether this thing will work [and] whether you
can have confidence in an untested warhead."
If Complex 2030 did lead to reinstated US
nuclear testing, the international security
repercussions would be enormous. A test of an RRW
design would likely dissolve the current testing
moratorium honored by the permanent five nuclear
powers (the United States, the United Kingdom,
Russia, China and France) and permit these
competing nations to enhance their nuclear
capabilities in a renewed global arms race.
For example, a test might cause China to
feel that its rising superpower status was being
threatened and it was losing its ability to deter
the US reliably in a confrontation over Taiwan.
Since it is only a few short development phases
away from miniaturizing its warhead design and
acquiring a MIRV (multiple independently targeted
re-entry vehicle) capability, a renewed
nuclear-testing environment - initiated by Complex
2030 - could provide China with a pretext to build
on its recent successful test of an anti-satellite
weapon.
Neither will new nuclear weapons
slow the emerging nuclear programs of Iran and
North Korea. Both Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Kim
Jong-il cite the overwhelming superiority of the
US nuclear arsenal as a justification for their
aggressive nuclear brinkmanship. Upgrading and
adding to the US reserve stockpile - with a flimsy
promise to reduce it later - will not convince the
Iranian Scylla, North Korean Charybdis, or any
other less attention-grabbing nascent nuclear
state that the US is serious about dampening the
visibility of nuclear weapons in its security
policy.
Last, US nuclear supremacy failed
to prevent the attacks of September 11, 2001, and
a new generation of weapons will not stop the next
terrorist attack. Non-state organizations such as
al-Qaeda do not respond to classic Cold War
state-to-state deterrence and are unlikely to stop
their quest for nuclear devices just because the
United States constructs fancier warheads.
The road ahead The only part of
Complex 2030 that has received congressional
funding up until this point is the RRW program,
which received $9 million and $25 million in its
first two years of existence. Although RRW funding
for fiscal 2007 was frozen at the previous year's
levels thanks to the "continuing resolution", the
DOE just requested $89 million for RRW in fiscal
2008, a 220% increase from fiscal 2007. The
Department of Defense also requested $30 million
for RRW in FY2008, bringing the inter-departmental
total to $119 million.
On February 5, the
DOE revealed that it would not address the entire
Complex 2030 in its fiscal-2008 budget request.
The department did, however, make an initial $25
million request for a consolidated plutonium
center, which was part of the original October
2006 proposal. The massive funding that activists
should prepare for now, however, will be in the
out-years when Congress will be asked to up the
ante, and the DOE will either need a larger budget
or will have to make cuts in some of its other
programs (environmental management, for example).
With the new Democratic Congress in place,
opponents of a renewed nuclear-arms race are
presented with a unique opportunity to stop
Complex 2030 once and for all. Democratic
Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher, the new chairwoman
of the House of Representatives Armed Services
Strategic Forces Subcommittee, has promised to
hold a series of oversight hearings on new nuclear
weapons.
Although Tauscher supports RRW
(largely because the Lawrence Livermore weapons
laboratory is in her district and 8,700 jobs are
at stake), she has explicitly stated that she
opposes restarting nuclear testing. "If new
warheads can't be made and fielded without
testing, I see no alternative but to terminate
funding for the program," Tauscher said recently.
Democratic Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey just
introduced legislation (HR 68) that calls on
President Bush "to eliminate ... weapons of mass
destruction from United States and worldwide
arsenals", and Democratic Congressman Jim
Matheson's office plans to reintroduce HR 1194,
"The Safety for Americans from Nuclear Weapons
Testing Act". Matheson's father died from cancer
linked to nuclear testing, and the congressman has
expressed anger that Americans have been used, in
his words, as "guinea pigs".
A huge boost
to nuclear-disarmament and non-proliferation
efforts came from an unlikely source in January.
George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger and
Sam Nunn penned a momentous op-ed in the Wall
Street Journal calling for "A world free of
nuclear weapons".
Emerging from several
normally hawkish members of the realist
foreign-policy establishment, this op-ed
challenged conservative Republicans' right flank
and may provide an opportunity for Congress to
propose relevant legislation addressing the issues
raised in the op-ed. "Reassertion of the vision of
a world free of nuclear weapons and practical
measures toward achieving that goal would be ... a
bold initiative consistent with America's moral
heritage. The effort could have a profoundly
positive impact on the security of future
generations," the authors conclude.
Activists and analysts are buzzing with
these exciting developments. We may finally see
some progress on limiting the role of nuclear
weapons in US security policy and honoring
international non-proliferation and disarmament
commitments after years of willful dereliction
under the Bush administration. In the meantime,
activists and citizens should focus their efforts
on raising awareness about Complex 2030 and
pressuring members of Congress to oppose funding
for any new nuclear weapons.
Travis
Sharp is the Herbert Scoville Jr peace fellow
at the Center for Arms Control and
Non-Proliferation.
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