The President's Nuclear (Tunnel) Vision

Friends,

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden did an excellent impression of Chicken Little with his January 29, 2010 opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal titled, The President's Nuclear Vision.  The subtitle would seem to be a prelude to the soon-to-be-released Nuclear Posture Review - "We will spend what is necessary to maintain the safety, security and effectiveness of our weapons" (read "BLANK CHECK with which to maintain our nuclear deterrent").

In one breath the Vice President refers to how "President Obama laid out a comprehensive agenda to reverse the spread [of nuclear weapons], and to pursue the peace and security of a world without them."  In the next he states in no uncertain terms that, "For as long as nuclear weapons are required to defend our country and our allies, we will maintain a safe, secure and effective nuclear arsenal."

If you are confused after these two seemingly contradictory statements, the next one should clear things up:

The president's Prague vision is central to this administration's efforts to protect the American people—and that is why we are increasing investments in our nuclear arsenal and infrastructure in this year's budget and beyond.

If you don't think it can get any worse - IT DOES!  Biden goes on to paint a gloomy picture of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile, infrastructure, and weapons labs.  Here are some of the key phrases:

...slow but steady decline in support for our nuclear stockpile and infrastructure, and for our highly trained nuclear work force... growing shortage of skilled nuclear scientists and engineers and the aging of critical facilities... our nuclear complex requires urgent attention... 

The Websites for Los Alamos, Sandia and Lawrence Livermore Paint a different picture of the state of the nuclear workforce and its work on the nuclear stockpile and other areas.  As for infrastructure, plans to upgrade "critical" facilities have been in the works (and funded) for some time (Y-12 National Security Complex for example).  Biden's concerns about "facilities that date back to World War II" ring hollow when one reads that Los Alamos has been demolishing old buildings and doing site cleanup thanks to generous funding from President Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. 

Yes, there have been cuts in recent years to the workforce at the weapons labs, but those cuts were in keeping with changes in U.S. nuclear weapons strategy; as the size of the nuclear arsenal has been reduced, so has the size of the complex that made and now maintains the arsenal.  We simply do not need the massive complex that once supported 32,193 warheads and bombs (at its peak in 1966).  That being said, the cuts have been small in relation to the overall size of the weapons labs, and their weapons budgets have actually remained steady over the past five years.

As for "confidence in our nuclear arsenal" - the government's own (and highly respected) JASON panel has studied the nuclear warhead Life Extension Programs and found them to be working quite effectively, and has also estimated credible lifetimes for Plutonium (and other) pits already in service to be between 85 and 100 years. 

Our nuclear weapons labs are not, as V.P. Biden states, "a national treasure."  It is time to blow away the smoke and smash the mirrors; the nation's nuclear weapons complex is not about to crumble to dust, nor is it running on empty.  And we certainly do not need to pour more money into it at a time when we are approaching the most important Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in history (May 2010).  It is time to send every signal that the U.S. is prepared to move towards disarmament (of course not unilaterally), and calling for "increasing investments in our nuclear arsenal and infrastructure" is not the way to do so.

Rather than demonstrating the President's broad vision articulated in Prague, Biden's WSJ opinion piece indicates a nuclear tunnel vision, a vision that if implemented, will neither "serve our security", nor help us move toward a nuclear weapons free future.  We can and must spend our money more wisely.

Watch for an opportunity to sign a petition on this subject in the coming week.

Peace,

Leonard

Read Vice President Biden's January 29, 2010 opinion piece at The Wall Street Journal.

More Nukes - It's the Pits!

Friends,

For all the talk coming from The White House, if you want to know where the U.S. is really (and always has been) headed, just listen to the talk coming from the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). Of course the name alone should make us all shudder. Since when was there really any security in anything nuclear???

The NNSA is pushing ahead with its plans for "Complex Modernization", a program initiated by our previous President; you know, the one who said "nucular." The program would expand two existing nuclear bomb production facilities to essentially build new plutonium pits and other bomb parts out of enriched uranium. You may remember previous names for this plan; first there was Complex 2030, and then it was Complex Transformation. Heaven knows what they will come up with next.

Although the NNSA speaks of the plan in terms of "transforming... the complex into smaller and more efficient operations while maintaining the capabilities NNSA needs to perform its national security missions", what it really means is that NNSA wants to keep building bombs.

Los Alamos National Laboratories would be building the new plutonium pits (up to 80 per year), while the Y-12 facility in Oad Ridge, Tennessee would be engaged in enriched uranium processing. A fundamental question surrounding all this planning is how this will affect current disarmament and non-proliferation efforts. Will these pits be simply replacing "aging" pits in currently deployed warheads, or are we talking brand new weapons???

Everybody is currently waiting anxously to see whether they get the thumbs up or thumbs down regarding the go ahead for Complex Modernization. That will depend on the recommendations of the upcoming Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). I suspect that the NPR will promote Complex Modernization; there seems to be strong support, primarily from the military side, for getting the biggest bang for our buck.

And therein lies the rub; just how long can those pits (even though plutonium has a very long half life, it still loses its original properties over time) sit in warheads before they will just fizzle (or at least lose a megaton or two in yield) when detonated. That very question brought the brightest minds in the U.S. weapons complex together in 2006 to determine the lifespan of plutonium pits in the U.S. arsenal. Their findings, which were peer reviewed by the JASONS, were that the plutonium in most nuclear weapons would be "reliable" for at least 100 years, and that "the majority of plutonium pits for most nuclear weapons types have minimum lifetimes of at least 85 years." Hmmmm...

The vast majority of U.S. deployed nuclear warheads are cruising the seven seas in Trident submarine launch tubes waiting patiently to unleash their hellish fury. The Trident D-5 missile was first deployed in 1990. The relatively young warheads on these missiles coupled with the fact that sea-based missiles are currently the "centerpiece" of the U.S. nuclear arsenal would counter any argument for a need to build new pits. We simply do not need them; the warheads of the U.S. premier "deterrent" force (Trident) are so new that you can almost still smell the fresh paint!

Tell President Obama that we have plenty of nuclear weapons (too many in fact), and that if we can't do away with all of them long before they reach their "use by" dates, the world will be in deep trouble. Now is the time to act decisively for disarmament and non-proliferation. And while you are at it, tell your members of Congress.

Email President Obama at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/.

Find your Congressional contact info at http://www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml.

Peace,

Leonard