It’s baaaaack.
SECDEF Robert Gates told the Air Force Association last week that a “ likely conclusion” of the Nuclear Posture Review will be that “in one or two cases” existing warheads would be replaced with “new designs”:
SEC. GATES: Well, the Nuclear Posture Review is well under way, and I would say we’re beginning to see what some of the likely conclusions are. I would say that it is clear, at least to me, that it is important for us to continue to make investments, and I think larger investments, in modernizing our nuclear infrastructure, the labs and so on, the expertise in those places, to have the resources for life-extension programs, and in one or two cases probably new designs that will be safer and more reliable.
We have no desire for new capabilities. That’s a red herring. This is about modernizing and keeping safe a capability that everyone acknowledges we will have to have for some considerable period into the future before achieving some of the objectives of significant arms reduction and eventually no nuclear weapons at all. All recognize that is a considerable distance in the future, and we have an obligation to keep this capability safe.
I also believe that these capabilities are enablers of arms control and our ability to reduce the size of our nuclear stockpile. When we have more confidence in the long-term viability of our weapons systems, then our ability to reduce the number of weapons we must keep in the stockpile is enhanced. So I see this modernization effort, if you will, as a vehicle and an enabler of arms control and stockpile reduction.
I had actually missed Gates’s comment, but the indefatiguable Walter Pincus did not.
This tracks with what I’ve been hearing, reading and saying:
Mark my words, the Reliable Replacement Warhead will be back.
This is good news. We need safer, more-secure, higher-margin, designs that don’t obligate the folks that are making them to use highly hazardous materials. Thanks.
“Mark my words, the Reliable Replacement Warhead will be back.”
Back for what – more refusal to fund the program?
So here’s my question.
This Guardian article is short on details, but implies that Obama saw what the Pentagon came up with and said “nope, sorry guys, do-over”. What do you think?
Bates Estabrooks> “designs that don’t obligate the folks that are making them to use highly hazardous materials”
I for one think that restarting the nuclear arms race for the sake of a greener, less toxic and generally more environmentally friendly weapon of mass destruction is a bad bargain. The “folks” at Pantex are thermonuclear weapons engineers and dealing with fogbank and whatever other horribly dangerous material goes into America’s nuclear deterrent is part of the job.
No, Bates, this is bad news.
At the horns of a Faustian bargain of two exceedingly undesirable alternatives, we have chosen to swallow both types of bitter poison.
As Jeffrey says, this is not unexpected. In my view, it is not widely appreciated the extent to which LEP will ensure the continued role of a huge and extremely exotic nuclear weapons industry – for the ostensible purpose of understanding the very complex current warheads.
Going down the other path, we have the explicit statement that we will require a huge and exotic nuclear weapons industry – for the ostensible purpose of understanding the very complex physics of untested nuclear weapons.
In my view there are other roads, but none are available until such time as there is a good faith political will directed at massive reductions. In effect, it is only our bad faith that forces on us the evident dilemma.
“The “folks” at Pantex are thermonuclear weapons engineers and dealing with fogbank and whatever other horribly dangerous material goes into America’s nuclear deterrent is part of the job.”
No, no – the “thermonuclear weapons engineers” don’t do that. They’re the ones who design the vacuum tubes, spinning wheels, blinking lights & count-down to detonation timer thingy.
The patient, namely us, is told to quit smoking (Article 6) and we are saying sure, but let me exchange my current packs of cigarettes with ones with longer expiration date for now, but quitting is really a good idea!
Anon, I did consider calling the boys and girls at Pantex “technicians” rather than “engineers” but the last thing I want to do is hurt their feelings.
Really.
Any new warhead with an untested design will be, if anything, a marginally less credible deterrent than the existing weapons we have.
Would you prefer to fly on a old 747 or a brand new plane that has never had a test flight?
OTOH, if the new physics package is a slight tweak on a previously tested design (e.g. WR1) then it does not achieve the aim of RRW to exercise our weaponeers’ skills.
How does this story square with Ellen Tauscher saying that there will be no RRW? Is RRW now effectively part of FrankenLEP?