Abstract
Less than a minute after a 1969 ungerground nuclear test at the Nevada Test site.
Weapons designers are starting to discuss what is, for many in the arms control community, the unthinkable: the resumption of nuclear testing. But maybe it shouldn't come as a gigantic surprise. For the last decade, talk of smaller–and more usable–tactical weapons has popped up from time to time.
Stephen M. Younger, head of Los Alamos National Laboratory's nuclear weapons work, said in a June 2000 report, “Nuclear Weapons in the Twenty-First Century,” that the United States should consider developing smaller-yield nuclear weapons that are more effective against hardened targets than its current arsenal of megaton warheads.” ∗
But what aroused wider concern was James Glanz's November 28, 2000, New York Times article, “Testing the Aging Stockpile in a Test Ban Era.”
Glanz quotes Merri Wood, a senior weapons designer at Los Alamos National Laboratory, who says that it is becoming impossible to say with certainty that the stockpile is entirely functional, and that some weapons could become unreliable “at any time.”
Glanz then describes monitoring the viability of the U.S. stockpile as a fiendish technical challenge. “The degradation turns symmetrical components,” he says alarmingly, “into irregular shapes whose properties are a nightmare to model.”
New tests would mean trashing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (ctbt), a process the Senate began in October 1999 when it rejected the treaty in a partisan vote. The rejection was a frightening moment for the arms control community, but many saw it for what it was–a rejection of President Bill Clinton by the Republican party. The current hype over new weapons, on the other hand, is not so easy to dismiss as politics. Something is afoot.
“What is especially surprising is the urgency of this call to action. Even the CTBT allows a signatory to resume testing if it feels its stockpile is unreliable. So where's the problem?
Although the science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program (ssp) cannot reverse problems in the aging stockpile, expert after expert has verified that the program does let us see catastrophe coming from a mile away. If U.S. weapons were to become unusable, there would be plenty of time to legally build more. If they're even wanted. (Many hold out hope that by the time weapons degrade into useless museum artifacts, they'll also be unwanted.)
On the other hand, all three nuclear weapons lab directors testified that the program is not only doing its job, but doing it well. Sidney Drell, one of the most respected authorities on nuclear weapons maintenance, said in a December 2000 report that the program is “adequate to the task” of monitoring the U.S. stockpile. “The CTBT in no way limits most of the testing and analysis work that goes on in connection with maintaining the U.S. deterrent,” he said.
In addition to testing the non-nuclear high explosives and conducting missile flight tests, Drell noted that “all of the approximately 6,000 parts of the nuclear warhead, other than the nuclear package, will continue to be tested under the ssp as they have been for more than 40 years.”
Asking the public to fear a total and sudden failure of the U.S. nuclear arsenal is deceptive and alarmist, Chuck Hansen writes in the following piece. Most of the problems in the U.S. arsenal are actually the result of problems with a relatively small number of shared components. He fears that deceptive arguments by proponents of renewed testing could erode decades of arms control efforts. He also questions if the nuclear weapons establishment is being altogether truthful. In the past it has played fast and loose with the facts.
Also, if the arsenal degrades, it won't fall apart all at once, especially given the extraordinary variety of U.S. warheads. There's a mountain of extra parts, and the United States has the ability to manufacture replacements if components go bad. And nobody seems to be talking about the “hedge arsenal,” which in a pinch can bring hundreds more weapons online quickly.
Stephen I. Schwartz addresses the very definition of reliability in his article on page 55.
Does a defect that reduces a weapon's reliability 1 percent or less really create a defective weapon? Most so-called defects (68 percent) fall into this category. In fact, only 5 percent of known defects reduce reliability by more than 10 percent.
When reliability is defined–as it is by Sandia National Laboratories–as the ability of a weapon to perform exactly as designed (or better), almost any variation is intolerable. But should the test moratorium be broken to determine whether a weapon is likely to explode at a yield of 400 kilotons rather than 475 kilo-tons over its target?