A Big Step Backward on Nuclear Weapons
by Lisbeth Gronlund, Co-Director and Senior Scientist, UCS Global Security Program
UCS Catalyst Magazine (Spring, 2007) - Perspective
You may be surprised to learn that nearly 20 years after the cold war, the Bush administration plans to begin designing, manufacturing, and deploying a whole new generation of nuclear weapons, with the goal of replacing every nuclear warhead in the U.S. arsenal by 2030. This plan is not only unnecessary, but it also undermines U.S. efforts to prevent other nations from building nuclear weapons.
The centerpiece of the "Complex 2030" plan is a series of new warheads ostensibly designed to be more reliable than the warheads they would replace. The weapons labs have expressed concern that warhead reliability may degrade as the plutonium "pits" at the core of every warhead age. This rationale collapsed in December, however, when a panel of independent scientists concluded that the plutonium pits in U.S. warheads will continue to be reliable for at least 85 years, and possibly much longer.
A Never-ending Cycle
With their main argument now invalid, the weapons labs emphasize other rationales: that only by building new nuclear weapons will the United States be able to train the next generation of weapons designers and create a robust manufacturing infrastructure. The assumption is that this design-and-build cycle will not end in 2030 but will continue indefinitely, in order to train successive generations of nuclear weapons designers and maintain the capability to produce weapons at a moment's notice if needed.
In reality there is no conceivable geopolitical event that would require a rapid large-scale increase in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. The possibility of an entire class of deployed warheads suddenly becoming defective is extremely remote—and the United States will continue to deploy multiple warhead types to guard against this possibility.
The danger is that the Complex 2030 plan will undermine the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which remains essential to preventing the further spread of nuclear weapons around the globe. The United States (and other nations with nuclear weapons) secured the treaty's extension in 1995 by pledging to fulfill its treaty obligations to disarm. Complex 2030 would do just the opposite.
Complex 2030 also increases the likelihood that the United States will drop its moratorium on nuclear testing. While the plan's stated goal is to deploy the new weapons without conducting nuclear tests, it is foolish to assume that U.S. military commanders and policy makers will agree to do so.
Wanted: A New Policy
This brings us to the real problem: U.S. nuclear weapons policy is stuck in the cold war. Our nation continues to maintain thousands of nuclear weapons capable of being launched within minutes. And U.S. military planners continue to emphasize the need to be able to "fight" and "win" a nuclear war with Russia. At the same time, the United States is emphasizing additional roles for U.S. nuclear weapons (such as pre-empting or responding to the use of chemical or biological weapons), which increases the chance that U.S. nuclear weapons will be used.
To decrease the danger from nuclear weapons worldwide, the U.S. must reduce both its nuclear arsenal and the role these weapons play in U.S. security policy. The United States does not need new nuclear weapons or a new weapons complex; it needs a new nuclear weapons policy—and it needs one now.
