Abstract
To get there requires bold thinking and a willingness to cooperate.
The goals of the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) Program aimed at modernizing our aging nuclear infrastructure to make it more efficient, feasible, and environmentally friendly are important and generally noncontroversial. As long as the United States has nuclear weapons, we need to be able to maintain the warheads in the shrinking stockpile to be safe and reliable. But a clear decision must be made with regards to long-term U.S. nuclear policy goals, which will determine the roles and the missions of its nuclear forces–and their overall numbers–before deciding on the appropriate size and scope of the new infrastructure. So far, the government has presented no such long-range policy planning.
The more challenging and contentious part of the RRW Program is the transformation of the current stockpile with newly designed warheads. This presents a daunting technical challenge due to specific limitations that Congress put on this program. In support of U.S. efforts to preserve and strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the authorizing legislation forbids the development of new weapons for new military missions and prohibits underground test explosions to certify the new designs for deployment.
We have learned over the past decade–from the ongoing vigorous and successful Stockpile Stewardship and Life Extension programs–that our current stockpile of so-called legacy weapons remains safe and reliable, with no significant evidence of aging problems. These programs have also implemented critical improvements in non-nuclear components, such as enhancing performance margins and improving the safing, arming, fuzing, and firing mechanisms. It would be a different matter, however, if RRW led to changes in nuclear components that could not be directly validated by test data.
I do not think that, at present, we know the answer to the key question: Can we in fact achieve the goals of the RRW Program of enhanced long-term confidence, safety, and use-control without underground explosive testing? I do believe, however, that it is worthwhile to try and answer that question. A sensible approach should do the following:
Emeritus physics professor at Stanford University's Linear Accelerator Center and a senior fellow at its Hoover Institution; for many years an adviser to the U.S. government on national security issues and a member of Jason. Some of the ideas here appeared in a letter to the Wall Street Journal on January 4, 2007, signed by George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, based on the Hoover Conference on the Reykjavik Summit.
First, proceed carefully with research on modifications or a new design that meets the stated requirements, before moving ahead to development and manufacture. Detailed analyses, subject to fully independent scrutiny, will determine whether it is possible to gain confidence and build a strong consensus that the proposed changes are mutually compatible and have the appropriate test pedigree from our previous work. It is not a question of the individual components working, but of the system–in fact, a system of systems–being reliable. We have previously undertaken comprehensive and independent technical reviews of complex national security problems of this nature, and they have proven to be enormously valuable. A recent example is a determination of a lower limit to the lifetime of the plutonium pits in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. These findings, based on a detailed study in which the Ja-sons participated as reviewers of the conclusions and working in collaboration with the weapons laboratories, confirmed a substantial increase in previously stated minimum lifetime estimates.
Second, we should recognize that there is no pressing urgency in implementing RRW design changes. The current stockpile has been certified annually to be safe and reliable. Resources assigned to the RRW Program should not be permitted to deprive the crucial and highly successful ongoing Stockpile Stewardship and Life Extension programs of their necessary support.
Third, we should recognize the importance of being clear about the limited goals of RRW so as to avoid potentially harmful effects on the nonproliferation objectives of the United States and beyond. We cannot dismiss as irrelevant the trepidation of the many non-nuclear weapon states, whose cooperation we require, about the seriousness of the commitment of the nuclear powers to the NPT. The non-nuclear weapon states strongly registered such concerns in U.N. negotiations seeking to extend the NPT into the indefinite future–they called upon the nuclear powers to restrain their nuclear programs and ratify a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
To address these concerns, the United States should make a commitment to face the longer term challenge: ridding the world of nuclear weapons. There is renewed interest in achieving this goal with the realization that the world is approaching the precipice of a new and even more dangerous nuclear era with the spread of nuclear technology. Unfortunately, we lack a global strategy commensurate with the tremendous dangers ahead.
We need to rekindle the bold vision that President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev brought to their remarkable summit at Reykjavik in 1986. To that end, President Reagan's former Secretary of State George Shultz and I organized a conference at Stanford University's Hoover Institution last October marking the twentieth anniversary of that historic meeting. At the conference, we formulated a set of practical steps to define a path for accomplishing the goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons.
First and foremost, leaders of the countries in possession of nuclear weapons will have to work together intensively to turn the goal of a world without nuclear weapons into a joint enterprise, and create a working mechanism for accomplishing this goal. This would lend additional weight to efforts already under way to avoid the emergence of a nuclear-armed North Korea and Iran.
Sixteen years after the Cold War ended, the doctrine of deterrence continues to be a relevant consideration for many states with regard to threats from other states. But reliance on nuclear weapons for this purpose is becoming increasingly hazardous. As such, we urge a series of specific actions that include substantially reducing the size of nuclear forces in all states that possess them; eliminating short-range nuclear weapons designed to be forward deployed; and changing the Cold War posture of deployed nuclear weapons to increase warning time and thereby reduce the danger of an accidental or unauthorized use of a nuclear weapon. Moreover, the United States and other nations which have yet to act should ratify the CTBT and enable it to enter into force.
Beyond Iran and North Korea, more than 40 nations have already taken substantial steps forward in nuclear technology. Even more have indicated interest in developing such technology for civilian power. And once you can enrich uranium for a civilian power reactor, you are well on your way toward manufacturing nuclear weapons. Consequently, a crucial policy step would be getting control of the uranium enrichment process, combined with the guarantee that uranium for nuclear power reactors could be obtained at a reasonable price–first from the Nuclear Suppliers Group and then from the International Atomic Energy Agency or other controlled international reserves. It will also be necessary to deal with proliferation issues presented by spent fuel from reactors producing electricity.
Furthermore, we recommend halting the production of fissile material for weapons globally, phasing out the use of highly enriched uranium in civil commerce, and removing weapons-usable uranium from research facilities around the world and rendering the materials safe. In the meantime, we urge all governments to provide the highest possible standards of security for all stocks of weapons, weapons-usable plutonium, and highly enriched uranium everywhere in the world.
Accomplishing each of these steps will contribute to reducing nuclear danger and making the world a safer place. They will add credibility to the bold vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, just as that bold vision will add to the urgency of implementing these steps.
Supplementary Material
The Reykjavik File: Previously Secret U.S. and Soviet Documents
Supplementary Material
Pit Lifetime