Lots of debate in the blogosphere among the kids about the Kyl Admendment and modernization.
Allow me to recap. Senator Kyl proposed an amendment that would have prohibited any reductions under START Follow-on until the Administration did a bunch of stuff he liked. A much-watered down amendment passed, along with some other provisions including reauthorization of the Strategic Posture Commission. At the end of the day, no harm done. All of this is explained in letter perfect detail by Kingston Reif, who is just blogging up a storm over at Nukes of Hazard.
Chris Jones, over at PONI, took issue with one element of Kingston’s post, arguing that there exists today a bipartisan consensus in the Senate that “modernization” of the nuclear weapons stockpile is a precondition for ratification fo the START Follow-on:
Kyl’s article in the National Ledger is far from a solo cry for modernization. He writes:
That’s why I offered an amendment that requires the President to deliver a plan to modernize our nuclear deterrent. My amendment, as well as a letter to the President signed by Senators Byrd, Levin, McCain, Kerry, Lugar and me, makes clear that modernization of the nuclear deterrent must accompany START ratification.
Those are some pretty heavy hitters, particularly on national security issues, from both sides of the aisle to agree on modernization measures as a necessary condition for START 2.0.
The problem is, that is not even remotely what the letter said. Here is the full-text of the letter:
July 23, 2009.
President Barack Obama,
The White House,
Washington, DC.Dear President Obama:
We believe that when the START treaty is submitted, you should also submit a plan, including a funding estimate for FY11 (and out years across the next decade), to enhance the safety, security and reliability of the nuclear weapons stockpile, to modernize the nuclear weapons complex (i.e. improve the safety of facilities, modernize the infrastructure, maintain the key capabilities and competencies of the nuclear weapons workforce — the designers and the technicians), and to maintain the delivery platforms.
Sincerely,
Jon Kyl, U.S. Senator.
John McCain, U.S. Senator.
Richard Lugar, U.S. Senator.
Carl Levin, U.S. Senator.
John Kerry, U.S. Senator.
Robert C. Byrd, U.S. Senator.
Modernize the nuclear weapons complex. Note, there are no indications about modernizing — whatever that means — the stockpile itself, which gets “enhanced” safety, security and reliability.
If there is any doubt that Kyl mischaracterized the letter, Kerry made a floor statement that made clear he saw enhancements in terms of Stockpile Stewardship:
I believe that this administration has the will to maintain our nuclear stockpile, and the successes of stockpile stewardship over the last decade have been greater than even its proponents predicted when we last considered CTBT. The report required by this amendment would offer an opportunity to explain to the Senate how far we have come, where we are going next, and how we will fund stockpile stewardship to ensure that we will sustain our deterrent posture even as the United States works with other countries to reduce the numbers and importance of these weapons worldwide.
The full text is in the comments.
The M Word
I wish, by the way, wonks would stop using “modernize” as though it has some technical meaning. If it has any meaning, we are modernizing now, though it seems clear that is not what advocates of modernization mean by the word.
I tend think think that the ongoing Life Extension Program counts as modernization — and that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Replacing an old fuse with a modern fuse to give the W76 a capability it didn’t have before, to pick one example, seems like modernization to me. So do most of the other improvements in the ALT and MOD process.
I see clearly the domestic political advantage in selling a weapons activity as modernization, just as clearly as I see the international downside of doing so. Whether to use “modernization” is an issue of salesmanship and priorities; it doesn’t affect which option along the now famous “spectrum” of activities a policymaker chooses.
On the substance, to borrow Senator Kyl’s taxonomy, it is an open question about whether to refurbish, reuse or replace. For what it is worth, I tend to think that we ought to seek to preserve current capabilities at the lowest cost and technical risk.
Replacement, it seems to me, is unlikely ever to be the optimal option to minimize cost and risk, though I think that option should be available to policymakers as a last resort in the event that something goes terribly wrong in a LEP. WR1 certainly wouldn’t have met this test, given that JASON found certification could not be assured and there was insufficient data to assess the cost.
“But wait!” you complain, “NNSA never got to finish the certification work or complete a cost study because Congress cut them off at the knees!” Well, that is a fair point — though I tend to blame NNSA for getting all starry-eyed about building a new warhead before they got their ducks in row.
Advanced Certification and other activities ought to be completed so that policy-makers have options in the event that a FOGBANK-like foul-up turns fatal for a future LEP. (Say that three times fast.)
Is that moderization? Hell if I know. But my thoughts on the matter are outlined in “After the Reliable Replacement Warhead,” Arms Control Today December 2008.
Jeffrey,
could you comment on the implications for missile defense — are the admin.‘s hands’ being tied by the Kyl amendment?
Above, Kerry appears not to think so, but I remain unsure….
I believe at the end of the summer the admin was going to weigh-in on which direction to take w/ missile defense(?)
We are already modernizing our warheads well enough to deter any any enemy that can be deterred — what’s the problem?
Smells like a political game — just like MDA.
Jeffery wrote:
Replacing an old fuse with a modern fuse to give the W76 a capability it didn’t have before, to pick one example, seems like modernization to me.
I think that would be more formally considered either an “enhancement” or “transformation.”
A “modernization” keeps you roughly in the same capability range. Making the fuzing set with current materials and current techniques, with say, better power management or improved radiation resistance is “modernizing”.
The new capability of using your warheads in ground bursts leads to broad changes in their tactical and strategic uses, and your adversaries tactical and strategic response. It maybe should be considered transformational, with all the serious consideration that this change implies.
As the CRS points out:
“defense transformation can be thought of as largescale, discontinuous, and possibly disruptive changes in military weapons, concepts of operations (i.e., approaches to warfighting), and organization that are prompted by significant changes in technology or the emergence of new and different international security challenges. …Advocates of defense transformation stress that, in contrast to incremental or evolutionary military change brought about by normal modernization efforts, defense transformation is more likely to feature discontinuous or disruptive forms of change.
On RRW, a recent CRS report also quotes Robert Peurifoy, former Vice President of Technical Support at Sandia National Laboratories as saying “The present nuclear weapon stockpile contains 8 or so nuclear weapon types. That population has enjoyed perhaps 100 successful yield tests. These weapons have benefited from a test base of perhaps 1,000 yield tests conducted during the 40 or so years when nuclear testing was allowed. Is the DoD really willing to replace tested devices with untested devices? Why are Livermore and Los Alamos designing devices that can’t be yield-tested?”
It would seem to be a pertinent question.
I’m not Jeffrey, but, on the question of whether the amendment ties the Pres’s hands on missile defense. Short answer, no. Long answer, no. The Joint Understanding calls for a statement on the relationship between offense and defense. This statement could say “there is a relationship;” it could say “there is no relationship”, it could say “we recognize that Russia believes there is a relationship.” It could say any number of things, but it is not going to say “Russia thinks there is a relationship so we won’t do anything they don’t want us to do.” Past treaties have all recognized the link between offense and defense without actually (except ABM) limiting defense. There’s a lot of “boilerplate” whereas statements up front that don’t limit anything. That’s what will probably happen here.
“It is also clear that the complex cannot be defined or optimized unless a decision is made as to whether 8,000, 4,000, or 999, or 300 nuclear weapons are to constitute the future total stockpile. A commitment to an RRW does not in any way promise to ease the problem of definition and operation of the complex until a quantitative plan is provided and evaluated for building RRWs and replacing legacy weapons.
“Improving security of stocks of highly enriched uranium and plutonium against theft and detonation by terrorists should play a far greater role in the complex modification than it has so far, although it is one of the drivers toward consolidation of the complex. If the United States takes so long to reduce the hazard of diversion of its weapons-usable materials, how can it expect an expanded Nunn-Lugar program [10] to significantly reduce the hazard from the stocks of other countries that may be less well protected? Improved surety features in an RRW are far less effective in reducing the overall hazard of terrorist use of nuclear explosives than would be an enhanced program in security of nuclear weapons and materials worldwide, together with massive reductions in nuclear weaponry.
“…in late 2006, the SSP led to the judgment by Livermore and Los Alamos that the plutonium pit in each of our stockpile nuclear weapons has a life exceeding 85 years, perhaps 100 years. This conclusion was endorsed by a technical study by JASON and was published by the NNSA.
“Only by a serious program to lead the way in the massive reduction of stocks of nuclear weapons and of weapon-usable materials, and by an absolute commitment not to have nuclear explosive tests can the United States play a leadership role in eliminating proliferation of nuclear weapons other states, such as Iran and North Korea.”
All quotes from Garwin’s article.
More on whether the combined new steerable RV and groundburst fuzing set (W76/Mk4) is “modernization” or “transformation”“
From NWCC
“Taken together, these changes give the W76 a hard-target kill capability, effectively changing it from a weapon of deterrence to a possible first-strike nuclear weapon.”
FAS points out
…With “advanced fuzing options” the AF&F system will allow targeteers to set the Height of Burst (HOB) more accurately and significantly improve the ability to hold hard targets at risk. Because 63 percent of the W76 stockpile is being added the new fuze, if Admiral Nanos is correct, the U.S. inventory of reentry vehicles with hard target kill capability will increase from 400 today to 2,400 in 2021.
And GlobalSecurity
Separate from the applications programs, a specific technology solution, D-5 Enhanced Effectiveness (E2), has been identified and included in the FY2004 budget request. The E2 program is designed to provide the D-5 SLBM force enhanced capability to conduct prompt, highly accurate strike; defeat hard and deeply buried targets; and reduce collateral damage with selective nuclear options. The E2 program is a 3-year effort culminating in a flight test of a Trident reentry body with dramatically improved accuracy.
These upgrades are being backfitted into Pacific subs. We go from countervalue deterrent mode to counterforce attack mode. From the Chinese point-of-view, these upgrades, combined with a limited US ABM system to mop-up any Chinese retaliation ICBMs or SLBMs that get thru, gives the US the capability to neuter them pre-emptively in minutes.
Kerry should have worked to defeat the amendment. It doesn’t matter what it and their joint letter actually say. Kyl got what he wanted, which is leverage to manipulate the upcoming debate on the CTBT. I agree with FSB, this a political game, and the details, nicely described in the post, don’t matter. Kyl should have been shut down cold, early.
For Yale Simkin:
Congress refused to fund the E2 study, the program limped along on earmarks for a couple of years, then became part of the technology development effort for the prompt global strike/conventional Trident option. The Reentry body is still under development, but Congress still objects to it, in part because it said that no PGS money should be spent on CTM, even though this RV could be used on a variety of missiles. Anyway, the statement “these upgrades are being backfitted into Pacific subs, could not be more wrong if you are looking at the son of E2. It hasn’t completed development and testing, it isn’t even really in the budget, it hasn’t been backfitted onto anything, and, if and when it is, it will be part of a conventional warhead program. Just because the Navy requested funding for a 3 year study in 2004 does not mean it got the funding or completed and deployed the program.
Below is the actual text of the final amendment as adopted.
The thing that makes it useless is the 30-day timeline. DOD and NNSA can’t tie their shoes in 30 days, much less submit a sensible report. Not sure why that is in there – should have just been linked to the treaty itself.
+ + +
“REPORT ON THE PLAN FOR THE UNITED STATES NUCLEAR WEAPONS STOCKPILE, NUCLEAR WEAPONS COMPLEX, AND DELIVERY PLATFORMS AND SENSE OF THE SENATE ON FOLLOW-ON NEGOTIATIONS TO START TREATY.
(a) Report on the Plan for the United States Nuclear Weapons Stockpile, Nuclear Weapons Complex, and Delivery Platforms.—
(1) REPORT REQUIRED.—Not later than 30 days after the date of the enactment of this Act or at the time a follow-on treaty to the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START Treaty) is submitted by the President to the Senate for its advice and consent, whichever is earlier, the President shall submit to the congressional defense and foreign relations committees a report on the plan to enhance the safety, security, and reliability of the United States nuclear weapons stockpile, modernize the nuclear weapons complex, and maintain the delivery platforms for nuclear weapons.
(2) COORDINATION.—The President shall prepare the report required under paragraph (1) in coordination with the Secretary of Defense, the directors of Sandia National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, the Administrator for the National Nuclear Security Administration, and the Commander of the United States Strategic Command.
(3) ELEMENTS.—The report required under paragraph (1) shall include the following:
(A) A description of the plan to enhance the safety, security, and reliability of the United States nuclear weapons stockpile.
(B) A description of the plan to modernize the nuclear weapons complex, including improving the safety of facilities, modernizing the infrastructure, and maintaining the key capabilities and competencies of the nuclear weapons workforce, including designers and technicians.
( C) A description of the plan to maintain delivery platforms for nuclear weapons.
(D) An estimate of budget requirements, including the costs associated with the plans outlined under subparagraphs (A) through ( C), over a 10-year period.
(b) Sense of the Senate on Follow-on Negotiations to the START Treaty.—The Senate urges the President to maintain the stated position of the United States that the follow-on treaty to the START Treaty not include any limitations on the ballistic missile defense systems, space capabilities, or advanced conventional weapons systems of the United States.
(1) is easy “the President shall submit to the congressional defense and foreign relations committees a report on the plan to enhance the safety, security, and reliability of the United States nuclear weapons stockpile…”
Already being done by NNSA in the LEPs.
I am glad that the amendment does tie the hands of the admin for a unilateral decision that NMD is not feasible, only that it not be tied to START.
anon – How is this for clarification:
The W76’s with some new counter-force hard-target kill capability (groundburst) is to be backfitted into Pacific subs. This ability would appear to erode Chinese confidence in its limited deterrent, particularly CCC. Originally planned to be matched with a high accuracy RV upgrade, the combination would make a potent hard-target killer. The RV component is lagging in development and support, and if completed, is supposed to be directed toward conventional attacks. There is, however, nothing to preclude, depending on design details, re-matching a “son of E2” RV and warhead in the future.