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.