Shifting from a nuclear weapons triad to a nuclear dyad

Jeff Richardson

A serious debate is underway in policy circles, the national weapons laboratories and government about how to reshape and reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal. If the United States decides to maintain some nuclear weapons capability for the foreseeable future, decisions will have to be made regarding the size and composition of the force structure and nuclear weapons complex. The option explored here envisions the United States moving from a strategic triad of nuclear weapon systems — submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), strategic bombers (B-52s) and intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) — to a strategic dyad of SLBMs and bombers. This configuration would prove more cost-effective than the current arrangement and would provide latitude for the United States to address threats to national and international security for which nuclear deterrence is irrelevant. The two main reasons a strategic dyad would be an attractive option for U.S. defense planners are cost and the changing nature of threats facing the United States.

The Department of Energy is planning a long-term effort to convert its Cold War nuclear weapons complex to a smaller, more secure and less expensive nuclear weapons capability — one that will support continuation of the U.S. strategic triad. The size of the future U.S. nuclear weapons infrastructure, however, is dependent on the formulation of the White House’s strategy. It remains to be seen how President Obama will adjust policy regarding nuclear weapons following release of the forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review.

">Many defense policy makers and observers argue that the United States needs to maintain a capability conceptually similar to what was in place during the Cold War in order to provide future flexibility. But the United States simply cannot afford to replace even a substantial fraction of the Cold War “bombplex” that was responsible for manufacturing the many parts that go into nuclear weapons. Only Russia has a dedicated nuclear weapons complex comparable to that of the United States. Other nations, such as Britain and China, maintain adequate nuclear deterrents with a much smaller capability. Now is the time to appropriately size the U.S. nuclear complex for the future, based on a rational expectation of need rather than a desire to maintain existing capability as a hedge against future uncertainty.

">Reliability and performance are cornerstones to a credible nuclear deterrent. As the number of weapons and weapon systems is reduced, it is even more important to have confidence in the systems in place. Ageing and cost of replacement are issues confronting currently stockpiled nuclear weapons and their associated delivery systems. That is the case especially with the B-52 bomber and Minuteman III ICBM, whose service lives have already been repeatedly extended.

">There are few compelling reasons to maintain the third triad leg, the ICBMs. The Air Force has already dismantled all MX (Peacekeeper) ICBMs and put on hold its plans for a future land-based strategic deterrent to replace the Minuteman. The industrial infrastructure that supports the manufacture of ICBMs has atrophied. The basic Minuteman infrastructure dates back to the 1960s, and the Minuteman III is now on its last major life extension. After planned refurbishments, the Minuteman III is expected to remain in service through 2030.

">The development time for a new bomber to replace the B-52 is long and the expense is large. More importantly, the number of weapons in this leg of the triad is modest, and they are not meant to deter Russia or China. However, there would be significant operational advantages to maintaining a portion of the U.S. nuclear capacity to be delivered via aircraft. Only air delivery provides the option to recall weapons once orders are given to deploy. Also, while possible attack scenarios are limited because air delivery requires aircraft to have a high likelihood of penetrating enemy airspace, the option would still provide visible and credible deterrence values.

">SLBMs always have been the most robust of the triad legs. The United States has embarked on a life-extension program for the W76 nuclear warhead used on Trident ballistic missile nuclear submarines. This will extend the warhead’s usable lifetime by 20–30 years, without requiring any new facility for production of plutonium pits. The extended life of the W76 warhead coincides with that of the Trident D5 missiles and expected lifetime of the 14 huge submarines.

">The Navy has a substantial, largely effective infrastructure to manage the operation of its Trident fleet and missiles. However, the baseline infrastructure to maintain the submarines at sea is considerable and costly. Nevertheless, the SLBM fleet remains the U.S’s most cost-effective countervalue deterrent. [“Countervalue” is the targeting of an enemy’s cities and civilian populations, in contrast to “counterforce,” which refers to the targeting of an enemy’s military personnel, forces and facilities. – Editor’s note]

">All parties should recognize that the end state of the nuclear arsenal should mitigate possible risk and provide a hedge against potential scenarios, but also acknowledge that it is impossible to eliminate all risk and that financial resources are limited. A total stockpile on the order of 500 warheads would satisfy the principle objectives of strategic nuclear deterrence in “rational” scenarios where strategic deterrence is a useful concept. This size stockpile would pose the threat of certain destruction in the event of an escalating exchange, and it would provide a flexible response and the potential for incremental use [i.e., “limited” nuclear war] in cases of extreme military or political necessity. It would be credible in both the continental United States and forward-deployed scenarios and could be sustained with a reduced nuclear weapons complex.

">The end state described above will provoke debate from certain camps, most notably the pro-nuclear camp that feels unconstrained by fiscal resources and strives for a risk-free world. In response to those who suggest that a low level of nuclear forces invites Russian superiority and Chinese parity, I would argue that reducing its force levels in the manner described above would provide the United States with the opportunity to lead by example, while not significantly sacrificing national security. In the final analysis, both Russia and China will do what is best for them, and U.S. actions are only part of the equation. The negotiation of a START follow-on treaty with Russia is a positive step in this regard.

">I would add that Russia and China have coexisted for decades along a contentious border with a large mismatch in conventional and nuclear forces. From this situation, strategists have learned that it is more important to have a sufficient deterrent than an equal deterrent. China, Britain and France all have, from their viewpoint, sufficient nuclear deterrence with several hundred warheads each.

">Others will argue that reusing existing stockpile components would undermine the transformation of the weapons complex and infrastructure of the arsenal. Yet, in the absence of strong military or policy requirements, and in a climate of stockpile reduction, it is hard to justify large expenditures for an industry leaning toward obsolescence. Yes, the United States has to guard against a potential breakout capability or technological surprise, but a newly configured weapons complex that manufactures weapons in the absence of concrete requirements is not a fiscally prudent insurance policy.

">A properly sustained national laboratory system provides the first bulwark against technological surprise. The second is trickle production of nuclear weapons [an existing capability at Los Alamos].Trickle production can ensure the existence of a domestic manufacturing capability by diversifying the U.S. production base to include commercial suppliers for non-nuclear components. Coupled with a total stockpile — deployed plus reserve — of well less than 1,000 warheads, a trickle production capability centered at the national laboratories and involving the private sector will provide a sustainable strategy for the future.

Jeff Richardson is a senior scientist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, the second U.S. nuclear weapons lab. In his 35 years at LLNL, he has worked on both nuclear weapons programs and nonproliferation activities. The views expressed are his own and do not represent official positions of his employer or the United States government. This article is edited from a longer article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September/October 2009.

– PeaceMeal, Jan/February 2010

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Strategic failure: Congressional Strategic Posture Commission report

The Congressional Strategic Posture Commission report published May 6 is definitely not where President Obama or the nation should look for new ideas on how to lead us to a world free of nuclear weapons. The report comes close to dismissing the President’s vision — and the enthusiastic support it has generated worldwide — as a utopian dream. Even for a compromise document written by a diverse group, it is a work of deeply disappointing failure of imagination. The recommendations can be summarized as: the nuclear world should stay pretty much the way it is but at slightly lower force levels; incrementalism in arms reduction is the most we can hope for; and even that should be approached very cautiously.

 The United States should retain a viable nuclear deterrent indefinitely, the report says: “The conditions that might make the elimination of nuclear weapons possible are not present today and establishing such conditions would require a fundamental transformation of the world political order.” The Commission surrenders to the nuclear problems of the world rather than recommending a proactive way forward out of the mess.

While President Obama believes the United States should “put an end to Cold War thinking” and “reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, and urge others to do the same,” the Commission offers little support for this approach or analysis of what it would mean. Indeed, while the report concludes that, “... as long as other nations have nuclear weapons, the U.S. must continue to safeguard its security by maintaining an appropriately effective nuclear deterrent force,” the Commission fails to ask fundamental questions about what nuclear weapons are for and what their character should be.

In describing the role of deterrence, the Commission glosses over many important developments that have shaped U.S. nuclear policy, strategy and doctrine over the years. Likewise, the report does not describe the development after the end of the Cold War, when U.S. nuclear targeting policy was actually expanded under the Clinton administration from Russia and China and their satellite states to also deterring the use of chemical and biological weapons by countries that do not have nuclear weapons.

One of the most important conclusions in the Commission report is that the “tradition of non-use [of nuclear weapons] serves U.S. interests and should be reinforced by U.S. policy and capabilities.” But what that implies for policies and capabilities is not explained.

Without examination of the mission of nuclear weapons, how can we say what their characteristics should be? Even if nuclear weapons are for deterrence, how do they deter? What are their targets? If we do not answer, or even ask, those questions, how can we say that we need high levels of reliability? How can we say we need land-based missiles that can be launched on a moment’s notice? How can we say we need a vast nuclear weapons complex to design thermonuclear weapons with hundreds of kilotons of yield? There are other issues as well, about reliability, safety and so on, that presume missions for nuclear weapons that simply should not be presumed. After nearly two decades of the Clinton and Bush administrations insisting that Russia is not an adversary, the Commission admits that Russia is largely what drives U.S. nuclear posturing: “The sizing of U.S. forces remains overwhelmingly driven by the requirements of essential equivalence and strategic stability with Russia.”

The report seems to accept that we are locked in an arms race with Russia and it is surprisingly cautious about how to free ourselves from it. Overall, the Commission asserts that the United States should “retain enough capacity, whether in its existing delivery systems and supply of reserve warheads or in its infrastructure, to impress upon Russian leaders the impossibility of gaining a position of nuclear supremacy over the United States by breaking out of an arms control agreement.”

Based on many assumptions, the Commission concludes that the United States should retain the Cold War nuclear force triad — land, air and sea-based nuclear weapons — because the three legs have unique characteristics that are all needed. But even during the Cold War it was argued persuasively that the “safest” and smartest way to deter a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union was to have submarine-based nuclear weapons only. Land-based ICBMs only serve as fixed targets for an adversary to attack.

Yet the Commission could not come up with a specific structure or size for the U.S. nuclear force, even though it was asked to do so by Congress. The issue is too complex, the authors concluded, and really should be left for the President to deal with in consultation with the military.

The Congressional Strategic Posture Commission report disappointingly fails to offer anything helpful to change the status quo. The crucial task at hand is how to challenge the role of nuclear weapons, not perpetuate it.

– edited from an article by Ivan Oelrich and Hans M. Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists (www.fas.org), May 6, 2009
PeaceMeal, July/August 2009

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Nuclear weapons at a crossroads as Obama takes office
Modernized warheads and new production facilities are on hold

As a new administration promising change takes office, the future of nuclear weapons and of the weapons complex are arguably less certain than at any time since the end of World War II. Thousands of nuclear warheads have been or are being dismantled or mothballed. Such authorities as former defense secretary William Perry, former secretaries of state George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, and former senator Sam Nunn have endorsed the goal of global nuclear disarmament. Even Linton Brooks, the former head of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), recently acknowledged that the number of nuclear weapons required for deterring a nuclear attack on the United States and its allies is “almost certainly” fewer than 1700 — the low-end of the range of warheads that Pres. George W. Bush and Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin established under the 2002 Moscow Treaty.

President Barack Obama has enumerated a 12-point action plan to prevent terrorists from obtaining nuclear weapons or materials. Those points include negotiating directly with nuclear aspirants Iran and North Korea, strengthening the International Atomic Energy Agency, reducing numbers of weapons, and securing weapons-usable materials at vulnerable sites worldwide within four years. The plan also calls for establishing an international nuclear fuel bank and “fuel cycle centers” to meet an anticipated explosion in demand for nuclear power, while simultaneously containing the dual-use technology needed to manufacture the fuel. A recent State Department report identified 32 nations that have no experience with nuclear power but are expressing serious interest in acquiring it.

Apart from a pledge to seek further deep reductions in numbers of warheads through negotiations with Russia, Pres. Obama has yet to enunciate his plans for addressing a drifting U.S. nuclear weapons policy. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is staying on in that post in the new administration, has indicated where he stands. “As long as other states have or seek nuclear weapons — and potentially can threaten us, our allies, and friends — then we must have a deterrent capacity that makes it clear that challenging the United States ... could result in an overwhelming, catastrophic response,” he said in a November speech.

For its part, Congress rejected repeated attempts by the Bush administration to begin updating the aging nuclear arsenal, which makes the United States the only declared nuclear weapons nation not modernizing its forces, according to Gates.

Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-CA), who chairs the strategic forces subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, said that any proposals to replace aging weapons with safer, more secure, and more reliable designs won’t be considered for at least another year. That delay is to give the Obama administration time to prepare the new nuclear weapons policy that Congress ordered in 2007 legislation. And NNSA’s ambitious and expensive plan to shrink and modernize its weapons production complex will also have to wait, she told a conference on deterrence in early December.

The new nuclear weapons policy is to consider recommendations due next April from a bipartisan commission co-chaired by William Perry and John Foster, a former director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory who favors a strong nuclear arsenal. “We can’t do anything until we have been informed by a significant set of facts and we have a bipartisan agreement on how to move forward,” said Rep. Tauscher, whose district includes LLNL.

In an interim report released December 15, the commission warned that if Iran and North Korea are allowed to build nuclear arsenals, proliferation will be at a “tipping point,” with a cascade of other nations likely to follow suit and a corresponding increase in the risk of a weapon or fissile materials winding up in terrorist hands. The report also affirmed the importance of DOE’s science-based approach to maintaining the U.S. stockpile, saying that high confidence in the deployed weapons will allow bigger reductions to be made in the thousands of warheads that are kept as backups.

Today’s nuclear weapons stockpile has been cut in half since Bush took office, NNSA administrator Thomas D’Agostino told the conference. The actual numbers are classified, but D’Agostino said NNSA is on course to beat by two years the 2200-to-1700-weapon ceiling that the Moscow Treaty sets for 2012. Both he and his predecessor Brooks emphasized that having fewer weapons increases the need for those remaining to be reliable. Air Force General Kevin Chilton, commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, said the reductions do not lessen the imperative to modernize the arsenal or the complex that manufactures and maintains it.

A recently completed white paper from a joint task force of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies urged the U.S. to reestablish its leadership in nuclear nonproliferation matters by, among other things, ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. John Browne, a member of the task force and a former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory, said in an interview that the U.S. “gave up a high-ground position” in nonproliferation when it rejected the CTBT in 1999. Since then, the system for monitoring and detecting underground explosions has been refined to the point where cheating is nearly impossible anywhere in the world, Browne said.

The task force also called for serious negotiations with Russia toward a follow-on arms control agreement to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, which expires at the end of 2009, with the goal of further reductions in the stockpiles of both nations.

– edited from Physics Today, January 2009
PeaceMeal, Jan/February 2009

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)