.Defense Chief: Give Us New Nukes, or Else
The U.S. needs new nukes. That's the message Pentagon chief Robert Gates is delivering right now, as part of a broad, spirited defense of America's nuclear arsenal.
Congress and the Bush administration have been wrestling for years over the so-called Reliable Replacement Warhead — the next generation of nuclear weapon designs. Lawmakers have had the upper hand in the match, eliminating funding for RRW. Today, in a speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Gates looks to scramble back on top, with a dire warning to Capitol Hill.
"To be blunt, there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program," Gates says, according to his prepared remarks.
In other words, fund this thing, mothertruckers, or we start testing. The United States concluded the last full-scale underground test of a nuke in 1992, and declared an official moratorium two years later; a return to testing would be a really big deal. In a speech last month on the limits of U.S. power, he alluded — briefly — to the importance of RRW. That part of the speech earned few headlines, but for nuke-watchers, it was a telling moment.
Gates is also teasing out a novel argument for RRW: Everyone else is doing it.
Wired
Congress and the Bush administration have been wrestling for years over the so-called Reliable Replacement Warhead — the next generation of nuclear weapon designs. Lawmakers have had the upper hand in the match, eliminating funding for RRW. Today, in a speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Gates looks to scramble back on top, with a dire warning to Capitol Hill.
"To be blunt, there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program," Gates says, according to his prepared remarks.
In other words, fund this thing, mothertruckers, or we start testing. The United States concluded the last full-scale underground test of a nuke in 1992, and declared an official moratorium two years later; a return to testing would be a really big deal. In a speech last month on the limits of U.S. power, he alluded — briefly — to the importance of RRW. That part of the speech earned few headlines, but for nuke-watchers, it was a telling moment.
Gates is also teasing out a novel argument for RRW: Everyone else is doing it.
"Currently, the United States is the only declared nuclear power that is neither modernizing its nuclear arsenal nor has the capability to produce a new nuclear warhead. The United Kingdom and France have programs to maintain their deterrent capabilities. China and Russia have embarked on ambitious paths to design and field new weapons"Depending on which nuclear weapons design lab you are talking to, there have been two justifications for RRW: either because of problems with the Los Alamos-designed W-76 nuclear warhead, or because the labs need to keep a cadre of designers with experience designing a new weapon. This adds a new twist. We'll take a closer look at this speech later — it will be an important one to watch.
Wired
posted by madtom at 1:50 PM
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