The Ridiculously Redundant Warhead
There is Precious Little Science Behind the RRW
SOURCE: AP
A Minuteman III missile being prepared for refurbishing.
Former Senator Sam Nunn says the Bush administration’s plan to build a brand new nuclear warhead will be “misunderstood by our allies; exploited by our adversaries; complicate our work to prevent the spread and use of nuclear weapons and…make resolution of the Iran and North Korea challenges all the more difficult.”
The New York Times calls it “a make-work program” for weapons labs. The American Association for the Advancement of Science warns that the project should not proceed without clear “policy statements that articulate the role of nuclear weapons in a post-Cold War and post-9/11 world and lay out the stockpile needs for the future.” And the Jasons, the scientific advisory group that advises the Pentagon, said the 10,000 nuclear weapons now in the U.S. arsenal have at least a 100-year life expectancy. In a late-September report, the group found the new weapon design “needs further development” before proceeding, including “substantial work” on the security features that are a major justification for the program.
So, why is this weapon still alive?
Politics Over Science
Many analysts back this program with little knowledge of the underlying technology. Some Republicans believe that new warheads are needed to maintain a large nuclear arsenal and, thus, U.S. supremacy in global affairs. Some Democrats, fearful of appearing weak, believe it a safe weapon to champion, perhaps even essential to a deal for final ratification of the nuclear test ban treaty.
Once a fringe idea in the nuclear labs, officials repackaged it with a name designed to minimize opposition: the “Reliable Replacement Warhead,” or RRW. Who, after all, could be against a warhead that would simply replace existing weapons and be more reliable? It is, however, just the tip of a campaign by administration officials to implement the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review plan for a “responsive” nuclear weapons infrastructure that could surge to build hundreds of new weapons. It is, in fact, a ridiculously redundant addition to a Cold War-era arsenal.
The U.S. nuclear weapons budget continues to top $54 billion annually. Since 1994, in part as a reward to the nuclear labs for supporting the negotiation of a nuclear test ban treaty, Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore and other national laboratories have enjoyed a large budget boost for a Stockpile Stewardship Program to “sustain a safe, secure, and reliable nuclear weapons stockpile.” Begun with a $3 billion annual budget, the program has now ballooned to over $6 billion a year. Linton Brooks, former head of the National Nuclear Security Administration, assured Congressional members that “stockpile stewardship is working” and that the “stockpile is safe and reliable.”
Still, administration officials want more—a lot more. After the Republican-controlled Congress refused to fund a new “low-yield” nuclear warhead, or a new earth-penetrating nuclear “bunker buster,” or a new plant for the production of plutonium cores, the administration came back with the RRW program in 2005. They claimed the weapon was necessary to modernize the nuclear stockpile.
The scientific evidence does not back up the political claims.
Officials argue that as nuclear weapons age, they may become ineffective, unpredictable, and even dangerous. Though warheads are currently safe, they argue, continued alterations might move the weapons further away from the original designs that were tested for effectiveness. What’s more, these officials worry that the knowledge and parts needed to refurbish warheads are becoming increasingly hard to find, and with the ban on nuclear testing, there is no way to test aging warheads.
The RRW, they claim, can apply old designs verified by testing, but could utilize the newest technology without being restricted by limitations on size and weight that constrained Cold War era weapons. The new designs would be easier to maintain and would also be able to utilize the latest in security features, which would prevent unauthorized use of the bomb, even in the event of a weapon theft.
In a four-page statement defending the program against Congressional cuts, administration officials threatened that delaying RRW “will force the United States to maintain a large stockpile of nuclear weapons and sustain it through increasingly costly and risky Life Extension Programs.”
Technical Truths
The scientific evidence does not back up the political claims. Jason scientists have concluded that most weapon systems primaries in the national stockpile in the have “credible minimum lifetimes” of at least 100 years. Since the oldest warheads in the arsenal were built in the 1970’s, it is more than prudent to assume that there is at least fifty years of secure use of the current stockpile. The W76 warhead, which the first incarnation of the RRW would replace, has just begun a 30-year life extension refurbishment program to be completed in 2017. These warheads, carried by Trident ballistic missile submarines, are the core of our nation’s nuclear deterrence arsenal and will be reliable until at least 2037 to 2047.
Moreover, there is little evidence to suggest that the RRW would save taxpayers any money over the next 25 years, despite claims by proponents. Legacy weapons would still need to be put through the costly Life Extension Program, and expensive surveillance measures would need to continue. Production of the RRW would proceed in tandem with the maintenance of the current stockpile, thus multiplying the cost of the nuclear deterrence system.
Finally, the RRW could well be a test ban buster. Though based on an old design previously tested, there is no certainty that officials would not add new features that could require testing. The U.S. military has never accepted into service an untested nuclear weapon. That might be one of the political aims of the RRW: to kill a test ban treaty many officials opposed when it was negotiated during the Clinton administration and that is seen as handcuffing future weapons production.
Sidney Drell, physicist and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, has noted, “I can’t believe that an admiral or a general or a future president, who are putting the U.S. survival at stake, would accept an untested weapon if it didn’t have a test base.” Breaking the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty of 1996 would immediately and directly threaten the national security of the United States by triggering a cascade of new tests around the world, raising nuclear tensions and allowing other states to perfect their still-rudimentary designs.
Congress Acts
Congress, aware of these facts and political calculations is opting for bipartisan action to reject or restrain the program. The House of Representatives has zeroed out all funding. The Senate initially allowed some funding, but in August Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) introduced legislation to eliminate funding until a complete policy review and posture review are submitted to Congress.
The two senators, joined by others, want an independent policy review to consider the range of possible roles for nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy and then provide options and recommendations for the more narrow nuclear posture review traditionally performed by the Defense Department. There is similar legislation in the House. In fact, the House Appropriations Committee cited the lack of such a review as a key reason for withholding funding.
The lack of any definitive analysis or strategic assessment defining the objectives of a future nuclear stockpile makes it impossible to weigh the relative merits of investing billions of taxpayer dollars in a new nuclear weapon production activities when the United States is facing the problem of having too large a stockpiles as a Cold War legacy. Currently, there exists no convincing rationale for maintaining the large number of existing Cold War nuclear weapons, much less producing additional warheads, or for the DoD requirements that drive the management of the DoE nuclear weapons complex.
Conclusion
The administration now lacks both scientific and congressional support for its nuclear expansion efforts. Officials are still pushing, though, and continue to promote their plan to build new facilities for the production of hundreds of new warheads a year known as “Complex 2030.” But the facts do not support the lobbying. Consider that
- Each year for the past 11 years the secretaries of the departments of Energy and Defense have certified that the nuclear stockpile is safe and reliable.
- There is no new military requirement to replace existing warheads.
- With routine maintenance the oldest current weapons should last at least another 30 years.
- The plutonium cores in the current stockpile should last another 85 to 100 years.
- There is no compelling rationale for the current plans to maintain a stockpile of thousands of weapons indefinitely.
It is unlikely that the RRW will proceed beyond paper studies, if science is allowed to guide this decision. It is up to Congress to see that it does.
Joseph Cirincione is a Senior Fellow and the Director for Nuclear Policy at the Center for American Progress.
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