Page 2 of
3 THE NEXT WAR, AND THE NEXT,
Part 1 The futuristic
battlefield By Jack A Smith
$200 billion to become fully
operational by the projected date of 2025. Even
then, all this money will be able to equip only 15
out of 70 combat brigade teams with the full array
of FCS technology. The original cost was supposed
to be $100 billion, and some sources are
predicting the price may go up to $300 billion
before its finished.
The US Navy is
modernizing, as well. According to the
Congressional Research Service (CRS), "The navy in 2006
introduced a new ship force
structure plan that calls for achieving and
maintaining a 313-ship fleet," including another
three aircraft carriers to join the existing dozen
already in service.
US Air Force
modernization includes obtaining 60 F-22A Raptors
(out of 183 on order, each costing more than $100
million (but $300 million each when research and
development expenses are added to production
costs) and F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, which the
CRS describes as the largest aviation program in
terms of estimated cost ($276 billion) and numbers
(2,458 aircraft). In addition, contracts are out
for building 180 C-17 Globemaster strategic
airlifters, a sure sign the Pentagon anticipates
quickly flying a great deal of military tonnage to
distant countries.
Upgrading the
nuclear force According to Article VI of
the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the
existing nuclear powers - primarily the US and
Russia - are obligated to "pursue negotiations in
good faith on effective measures relating to
cessation of the arms race at an early date and to
nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general
and complete disarmament under strict and
effective international control".
Washington and Moscow did in fact reduce
the number of nuclear warheads in the 15 years
since the end of the Cold War, but there have been
absolutely no steps toward general and complete
nuclear disarmament - the only way to end nuclear
proliferation and to prevent nuclear war. Russia
(including when it was the USSR) affirms a
willingness to rid the world of nuclear weapons
but insists that all states, including the US,
must be willing to do so as well before Moscow
destroys its stockpiles. Washington will not
agree.
At this stage, the US has about
6,000 strategic warheads compared with Russia's
5,000, down from the 1990 total of about 14,000
and 11,000 respectively. (A "strategic" nuclear
weapon can produce thousands of kilotons of
explosive force. One kiloton equals 1,000 tons of
TNT. The largest ever tested was 50,000 kilotons
in 1961. A "tactical" nuclear weapon possesses the
explosive power of a fraction of a kiloton. The
small 12-kiloton atomic bomb with which the United
States decimated Hiroshima in 1945 killed more
than 150,000 people immediately or in its
aftermath.)
According to the terms of the
2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT),
the US and Russia must reduce the number of their
deployed strategic warheads to 2,200 by 2012 when
the treaty expires - a size that can still destroy
the entire population of our planet many, many
times over. The key word here is "deployed",
meaning mounted and ready to be fired in minutes.
SORT does not call for the remaining strategic
warheads to be destroyed, which means the weapons
will be put in storage, along with thousands of
tactical weapons. The treaty does not cover
tactical weapons.
The latest plan for
increasing US nuclear power was made public on
October 20 under the title Complex 2030, the
number standing for the year of its supposed
completion. The cost at minimum will be $150
billion, but it will end up with a much higher
price tag. This program, according to the Union of
Concerned Scientists, will "entail upgrading the
entire US nuclear-weapons complex while designing
and producing a series of new nuclear warheads".
These new weapons, produced through the
Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) Program, would
ultimately replace the entire US nuclear arsenal.
Under Complex 2030, "the US nuclear weapons
laboratories would return to the Cold War cycle of
nuclear weapon design, development, and
production. This initiative would risk a return to
underground nuclear testing and would undercut US
efforts to limit the development of new nuclear
weapons by other countries."
The Bush
administration's proposed new budget calls for
spending $89 million in 2008 on research and
development of the new warheads, double the amount
for fiscal 2007. Incidentally, the Pentagon's
existing stockpile of nuclear weapons is expected
to remain viable for another 50 years, but the new
warheads evidently will be more technically
proficient.
The Energy Department's
National Nuclear Security Agency, which is in
charge of the warheads, claims Complex 2030 will
not entail nuclear-weapons testing, but this could
change. The US signed the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty (CTBT) in 1996, but it has not been
ratified by the Senate. Under the terms of the
NPT, the US was supposed to have ratified the
treaty years ago.
War hawks in and around
the Bush administration are worried about reducing
the strategic arsenal to 2,200 warheads at the
ready, even when enhanced by Complex 2030. A
subcommittee of the Defense Science Board, an
important advisory group to the Defense
Department, reported in December that the new
program does "not provide for a nuclear-weapons
enterprise capable of meeting the nation's future
needs".
Wade Boese, writing in Arms
Control Today (January-February 2007), says the
task force wants the reduction to be "reversible
in case relations sour with China or Russia". The
Defense Science Board is evidently contemplating
World War III, and it is clearly not alone.
According to the authoritative magazine
Foreign Affairs (March/April 2006), "Today, for
the first time in almost 50 years, the United
States stands on the verge of attaining nuclear
primacy. It will probably soon be possible for the
United States to destroy the long-range nuclear
arsenals of Russia or China with a first strike.
"This dramatic shift in the nuclear
balance of power stems from a series of
improvements in the United States' nuclear
systems, the precipitous decline of Russia's
arsenal, and the glacial pace of modernization of
China's nuclear forces. Unless Washington's
policies change or Moscow and Beijing take steps
to increase the size and readiness of their
forces, Russia and China - and the rest of the
world - will live in the shadow of US nuclear
primacy for many years to come."
To ensure
its ability to deliver a knockout blow with a
first strike, the Bush administration is moving
ahead with a so-called "defensive" anti-missile
system intended to destroy any possible
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