| December 8, 2010 |  |
Campaign to Block New Start Agreement Exaggerates Need to Modernize Nuclear Arsenal
The Obama administration’s efforts to get Senate approval of the New START agreement that would reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear stockpiles has run into a Republican roadblock. Leading the opposition is Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.) who has argued that U.S. nuclear weapons need to be “modernized.” That suggests that our existing nuclear weapons are somehow out-of-date, which simply is not the case, according to experts at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).
Two UCS experts, Lisbeth Gronlund, co-director of UCS’s Global Security Program, and Stephen Young, a senior analyst, were joined at a recent press briefing by National Medal of Science Laureate Richard Garwin, who helped develop the thermonuclear bomb. Here are the main points they made at the briefing:
1) There already are programs specifically designed to maintain the reliability, safety and security of our nuclear arsenal.
Under the Department of Energy’s Life Extension Programs (LEPs), all US nuclear weapons either have or will go through a program to extend their functional life. LEPs recently were completed on the B61-7 and B61-11 bombs, extending their life for an additional 20 years. Currently, the W76 warhead deployed on the Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile is undergoing a life extension program, one that will extend its life for another 30 years. (For more detail, see the DOE webpage on LEPs.)
2) Ongoing nuclear stockpile surveillance shows existing weapons are highly reliable.
The weapons labs have long assessed the status of U.S. nuclear weapons through a surveillance program in which they remove weapons from deployment, subject them to extensive tests, and then return them to the field. Currently, the labs examine 11 of each of the seven warhead types in the U.S. stockpile each year.
Public data are available for these stockpile surveillance activities from 1958 through 1995, during which time more than 13,800 weapons were tested. For about 180 of those weapons (1.3 percent), the tests identified failures that would have prevented the weapon from exploding with the power it was designed to have. Thus, U.S. nuclear weapons had a reliability of greater than 98 percent. While the data since 1995 have not been made public, it is safe to say that reliability has not diminished since then. If it had, the weapons labs would have used such information to make their case when they lobbied for a new “reliable replacement” warhead a few years ago.
3) Research shows the lifetime of plutonium pits in nuclear warheads is at least twice as long as originally thought.
The weapons labs also regularly conduct “accelerated aging” experiments to determine how nuclear weapons and their components will behave as they age. For example, based on such research, DOE announced in 2006 that the lifetime of the plutonium pit at the core of every nuclear weapon was at least 85 to 100 years and probably longer. Previously, the DOE believed the maximum lifetime of a plutonium pit was about 45 years.
4) Weapons labs directors say the Obama administration’s proposed budget for the nuclear weapons complex is sufficient.
The Obama administration has pledged more than $85 billion for nuclear weapons maintenance and the weapons complex over the next 10 years.
On December 1, the directors of the three weapons laboratories—Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia—sent a letter to Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) stating: “In summary, we believe that the proposed budgets provide adequate support to sustain the safety, security, reliability and effectiveness of America’s nuclear deterrent within the limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads established by the New START Treaty with adequate confidence and acceptable risk.”
That said, even with adequate funds it is critical that the labs get their priorities right. It is especially important that large capital expenditures do not displace the funding needed to sustain a high-quality staff and to conduct the stockpile surveillance inspections and analysis necessary to evaluate the state of the U.S. nuclear stockpile.
Given the Obama administration’s $85 billion commitment to improve the weapons complex, plus the fact that the nuclear arsenal already has been found to be 98 percent effective, Sen. Kyl’s rationale for blocking the treaty does not hold up to scrutiny.
For more detail, see Richard Garwin’s January 28, 2010 discussion paper, “The Reliability and Safety of U.S. Nuclear Weapons.”
The Union of Concerned Scientists puts rigorous, independent science to work to solve our planet's most pressing problems. Joining with citizens across the country, we combine technical analysis and effective advocacy to create innovative, practical solutions for a healthy, safe, and sustainable future.
