US nukes: Another step backward
By Travis Sharp
More than 15 years since the end of the Cold War initiated a new era finally
making major advances in nuclear disarmament possible, the administration of
President George W Bush is proceeding with a radical plan to design new nuclear
weapons and rebuild the US nuclear-weapons complex.
This plan - known as Complex 2030 - may come under increased congressional
scrutiny with the new Democratic majority in place this year, but activists and
concerned citizens need to become familiar with Complex 2030 now to equip
themselves to oppose
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intelligently yet another misguided Bush administration policy.
President Bush has proved willing to reverse the positive steps toward
post-Cold War disarmament his father's administration set in motion. After the
last US nuclear test in September 1992, then-president George H W Bush
instituted a US testing moratorium that resulted in other nuclear-weapons
states abandoning testing as well.
This was followed by president Bill Clinton's substantial disarmament efforts
from 1992 to 1997, a period when the US withdrew nuclear weapons from 10
domestic states and several European bases and reduced the overall size of the
US stockpile from 18,290 to 12,500 warheads.
In the waning years of the Clinton administration and throughout George W
Bush's time in office, however, nuclear disarmament has slowed to a snail's
pace. The US stockpile was reduced by only 2,500 warheads (to the present total
of about 10,000) from 1997 to 2007, and fewer than 100 inactive warheads are
dismantled annually today, compared with the 1,000-1,500 eliminated each year
during the 1990s.
Although the 2002 Treaty of Moscow (also known as the Strategic Offensive
Reductions Treaty, or SORT) between the US and Russia stipulates that both
countries reduce their number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads to between
1,700 and 2,200 by 2012, the treaty has an ambiguous counting procedure, fails
to adopt explicit verification mechanisms from previous agreements, and doesn't
even address delivery vehicles, reserve stockpiles or short-range tactical
nuclear weapons.
The US currently deploys about 5,400 strategic warheads, a long way from its
ultimate SORT pledge, and recent Russian overtures to negotiate further
reductions have been labeled ill-timed and insincere by Bush administration
officials.
Since US-deployed strategic nuclear weapons - even if reduced to SORT-mandated
levels - clearly satisfy any and all security obligations, why does the US
continue to retain about 4,225 warheads in its reserve stockpile?
The short answer is that pro-nuclear analysts argue that the US must have a
substantial "hedge" in case any deployed warheads ever malfunction or the US is
confronted with a renewed existential threat such as a resurgent Russia or a
confrontational China.
Advocates of nuclear disarmament, on the other hand, counter that the US should
fulfill its promises under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which
stipulates in Article VI that nuclear-weapon states end the arms race and begin
disarmament "at an early date". Anti-nuclear analysts argue that US policy,
especially its Complex 2030 plan, strengthens the nuclear ambitions of such
states as Iran and North Korea.
The case that they should give up these ambitions is harder to make when
nuclear-weapon states such as the US consistently demonstrate "do as I say, not
as I do" hypocrisy by invoking the NPT to prevent new countries from acquiring
nuclear weapons but conveniently forgetting that the NPT also requires them to
disarm.
The genesis of Complex 2030
The easiest path to a sharp reduction in the US nuclear stockpile has been
completely ignored by the Bush administration. If the US simply reconfigured
its outdated nuclear-targeting doctrine - which is based on Cold War-era
requirements for massive retaliation against thousands of military, industrial
and population centers in Russia, China, and elsewhere - the need for such
large numbers of both deployed and reserve nuclear weapons would be eliminated
without undermining necessary deterrence calculations.
Bush has instead taken a completely illogical approach: he wants to reduce the
US nuclear stockpile by building more nuclear weapons. Under the aegis of the
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), a semi-autonomous agency
within the Department of Energy responsible for overseeing the nuclear-weapons
complex, the US is on the brink of producing new nuclear weapons and rebuilding
the supporting infrastructure via Complex 2030.
In a preliminary Notice of Intent (NoI) issued last October 19, the NNSA
presented four central proposals as part of its Complex 2030 planning scenario:
Select a site for construction of a consolidated national plutonium center.
Consolidate plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) within each of the
eight pre-existing facilities and reduce the overall number of facilities
containing plutonium and HEU.
Consolidate, relocate or eliminate duplicative facilities and programs.
Accelerate activities for nuclear-weapons dismantlement.
Aware that this full slate of proposals might not be well received - especially
when you consider the sticker shock of a Government Accountability
Office-estimated initial cost of US$150 billion - the NNSA presented two
alternatives for consideration during the Complex 2030 public scoping period,
which ran from October 19, 2006, to January 17, 2007.
The "No Action" alternative would maintain the stockpile status quo but permit
already scheduled upgrades to proceed that could potentially lead to greater
weapons-production capabilities at several nuclear facilities. These upgrades
fail to address lingering environmental and human-health concerns from Cold
War-era production.
The second alternative, "Reduced Operations", doesn't include a consolidated
national plutonium facility like the full Complex 2030 proposal but could still
substantially increase current bomb-making capabilities by establishing "a
basic capability for manufacturing technologies for all stockpile locations", a
condition that doesn't currently exist.
Besides these massive changes to the stockpile infrastructure, another
controversial program that has become part of the overarching Complex 2030
vision is the reliable replacement warhead (RRW) program. Originally introduced
in the fiscal-2005 Consolidated Appropriations Bill by Republican Congressman
David Hobson, RRW was vaguely defined as "a program to improve the reliability,
longevity and certifiability of existing weapons and their components".
Although Hobson believed the new program would simply "challenge the skills" of
weapons designers "without developing a new weapon that would require
underground testing", the NNSA
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
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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
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.
(Posted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/IC07Aa01.html
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