The first contract was signed yesterday for the development of the guided tail kit that will increase the accuracy of the B61 nuclear bomb. This conceptual drawing illustrates the principle of adding a guided tail kit assembly to the gravity bomb.

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By Hans M. Kristensen

The U.S. Air Force’s new precision-guided nuclear bomb B61-12 moved one step closer to reality yesterday with the Pentagon issuing a $178.6 million contract to Boeing. The contract covers Phase 1 (Engineering and Manufacturing Development) to be completed in October 2015. The contract also includes options for a Phase 2 and production.

In a statement on the contract, Boeing said that the tail kit program “further expands Boeing’s Direct Attack weapons portfolio” and that the precision-guided B61-12 would “effectively upgrade a vital deterrent capability.”

The expensive B61-12 project will use the 50-kiloton warhead from the B61-4 gravity bomb but add the tail kit to increase the accuracy and boost the target kill capability to one similar to the 360-kiloton strategic B61-7 bomb.

Because the B61-4 warhead also has selective lower-yield options, the tail kit will also allow war planners to select lower yields to strike targets that today require higher yields, thereby reducing radioactive fallout of an attack. The Air Force tried in 1994 to get a precision-guided low-yield nuclear bomb (PLYWD), but Congress rejected it because of concern that it would lead to more useable nuclear weapons. Now the Air Force get’s a precision-guided nuclear bomb anyway.

The U.S. Air Force plans to deploy some of the B61-12s in Europe late in the decade for delivery by F-15E, F-16, F-35 and Tornado aircraft to replace the B61-4s currently deployed in Europe. The improved accuracy will increase the capability of NATO’s nuclear posture, which will be further enhanced by delivery of the B61-12 on the stealthy F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

Increasing the capability of NATO’s nuclear posture contradicts the Deterrence and Defense Posture Review (DDPR) adopted in May 2012, which concluded that “the Alliance’s nuclear force posture currently meets the criteria for an effective deterrence and defense posture.” Moreover, improving NATO’s nuclear capabilities undercuts efforts to persuade Russia to decrease its non-strategic nuclear forces.

Instead of improving nuclear capabilities and wasting scarce resources, the Obama administration must re-take the initiative to reduce the role of nuclear weapons and work with NATO to withdraw the nuclear weapons from Europe.

See also: Modernizing NATO’s Nuclear Forces: Implications for the Alliance’s Defense Posture and Arms Control
And: Previous blogs about NATO and nuclear weapons

This publication was made possible by a grant from the Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

Linton Brooks and I discussed nuclear modernization at a November 13 panel organized by BASIC.

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By Hans M. Kristensen

BASIC invited me to discuss nuclear weapons modernization with Linton Brooks at a Strategic Dialogue panel held at the Capitol Hill Club on November 13, 2012. We’re still waiting for the official transcript, but BASIC has a rough recording and my prepared remarks are available here. [Update: all material, including transcript with questions/answers, is available from BASIC].

In my talk, I argued that the Obama administration’s nuclear arms control profile is at risk of being overshadowed by extensive nuclear weapons modernization plans, and that the approach must be adjusted to ensure that efforts to reduce the numbers and role of nuclear weapons and put and end to Cold War thinking are clearly visible as being the priority of U.S. nuclear policy.

The administration has nearly completed a strategic review of nuclear targeting and alert requirements to identify additional reductions of nuclear forces. Release of the findings was delayed by the election, but the administration now needs to use the review to reinvigorate the nuclear arms reduction agenda that has slowed with the slow implementation of the modest New START Treaty and the disappointing “nuclear status quo” decision of the NATO Chicago Summit.

Only three days after the 2012 national election, FAS hosted a day-long symposium that featured distinguished speakers and provided recommendations to the Obama administration on how best to respond to catastrophic threats to national security at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

These experts addressed the policy and technological aspects of conventional, nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; nuclear safety; electricity generation, distribution, and storage, and cyber security. These policy memoranda call for a coordinated national effort to prepare for, prevent and respond to catastrophic threats to the United States.

Download Full Report

During a recent visit to Germany I did an interview with the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk magazine FAKT on the status of the B61 nuclear bomb modernization.

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By Hans M. Kristensen

Last week, I was in Berlin to testify before the Disarmament Subcommittee of the German Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee on the future of the U.S. B61 nuclear bombs in Europe (see my prepared remarks and fact sheet).

One of the B61 bombs currently deployed in Europe is scheduled for an upgrade to extend its life and add new military capabilities and use-control features. The work has hardly begun but the project is already behind schedule and the cost has increased by more than 150 percent in two years, from $4 billion to $10.4 billion. The subcommittee wanted to know if the program is in trouble. I said I believe it certainly is.

The German television magazine FAKT did an interview (article; video) with me and it came as somewhat of a surprise to them that the B61 life-extension will not install a fire-resistant pit to improve the safety of the weapon. They also tried to get German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle on the program. The policy of the German government coalition is to try to have nuclear weapons removed from Germany and Westerwelle has publicly promoted this position clearly in the past. This time he did not want to talk, however, as journalists and camera-teams chased him down the hallway. He may have gotten shell-shocked by the pushback from the old nuclear guard in NATO.

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle did not want to talk with MDR FAKT about withdrawal of US nuclear weapons.

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Although NATO recently determined that the current nuclear posture in Europe meets the Alliance’s deterrence and defense needs, NATO has decided – with German backing – to introduce a new precision-guided nuclear bomb in Europe with increased military capabilities at the end of the this decade for delivery by a new stealthy aircraft.

During my briefing to the foreign affairs committee I urged Germany to continue to push for a withdrawal. Otherwise it will have to explain to the German public why it has decided instead to support deployment of precision-guided nuclear bombs on stealth-delivered aircraft in Europe. The two positions will be hard to square.

This publication was made possible by a grant from the Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis blockade, unknown to the United States, the Soviet Union already had short-range nuclear weapons on the island, such as this FKR-1 cruise missile, that would most likely have been used against a U.S. invasion.

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By Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris

Fifty years ago the world held its breath for a few weeks as the United States and the Soviet Union teetered on the brink of nuclear war in response to the Soviet deployment of medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba.

The United States imposed a military blockade around Cuba to keep more Soviet weapons out and prepared to invade the island if necessary. As nuclear-armed warships sparred to enforce and challenge the blockade, a few good men made momentous efforts and decisions that prevented use of nuclear weapons and eventually defused the crisis.

What the Kennedy administration did not know, however, was that the Soviet Union had 158 nuclear warheads of five types already in Cuba by the time of the blockade. This included nearly 100 warheads for short-range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. If the invasion had been launched, as the military recommended but the White House fortunately decided against, it would most likely have triggered Soviet use of those short-range nuclear weapons against the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo and at amphibious forces storming the Cuban beaches. That, in turn, would have triggered wider use of nuclear forces.

In our latest Nuclear Notebook – The Cuban Missile Crisis: a nuclear order of battle, October and November 1962 – we outline the nuclear order of battle that the United States and the Soviet Union had at their disposal. At the peak of the crisis, the United States had some 3,500 nuclear weapons ready to use on command, while the Soviet Union had perhaps 300-500.

The Cuban Missile Crisis order of battle of useable weapons represented only a small portion of the total inventories of nuclear warheads the United States and Russia possessed at the time. Illustrating its enormous numerical nuclear superiority, the U.S. nuclear stockpile in 1962 included more than 25,500 warheads (mostly for battlefield weapons). The Soviet Union had about 3,350.

For all the lessons the Cuban Missile Crisis taught the world about nuclear dangers, it also left some enduring legacies and challenges that are still confronting the world today. Among other things, the crisis fueled a build-up of quick-reaction nuclear weapons that could more effectively hold a risk the other side’s nuclear forces in a wider range of different strike scenarios.

Today, 50 years later and more than 20 years after the Cold War ended, the United States and Russia still have more than 10,000 nuclear weapons combined. Of those, an estimated 1,800 nuclear warheads are on alert on top of long-range ballistic missiles, ready to be launched on short notice to inflict unimaginable devastation on each other. The best way to honor the Cuban Missile Crisis would be to finally end that legacy and take nuclear weapons off alert.

Nuclear Notebook: The Cuban Missile Crisis: A nuclear order of battle, October and November 1962

What’s wrong with this picture? Despite NATO’s call for greater nuclear transparency, old-fashioned nuclear secrecy prevents media access to the Nuclear Planning Group.

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By Hans M. Kristensen

Less than six months after NATO’s Deterrence and Defense Posture Review (DDPR) adopted at the Chicago Summit called for greater transparency of non-strategic nuclear force postures in Europe, the agenda for the NATO defense minister get-together in Brussels this week listed the Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) meeting with the usual constraint: “no media opportunity.”

Why should the news media not have access to the NPG meeting just like they have access to other meetings discussing NATO security issues? After all, the high stakes that justified nuclear secrecy in the past disappeared with the demise of the Soviet Union, no urgent military mission is (publicly) attributed to the remaining nearly 200 U.S. nuclear bombs left in Europe, and NATO now officially advocates greater nuclear transparency.

Whatever the reason, the “no media opportunity” is symbolic of the old-fashioned secrecy that continues to constrain NATO nuclear policy discussions. The nuclear planners are insulated deep within the alliance with little or no public scrutiny. Even for NATO officials, tradition, past political statements, and turf can make it difficult to ascertain and question the rationales behind the nuclear posture.

The DDPR determined “that the Alliance’s nuclear force posture currently meets the criteria for an effective deterrence and defense posture.” The reasons for that conclusion remain elusive and the news media should have access to the NPG meeting to ask the questions. Not least because the conclusion is now resulting in significant modernization of NATO’s nuclear forces at considerable cost to the Alliance and some of its member countries. Another potential cost is how it will affect relations with Russia.

If NATO wants to increase nuclear transparency, it should and could break with old-fashioned nuclear secrecy and disclose the broad outlines of its non-strategic nuclear deployment in Europe. It is already widely known and NATO’s nuclear members are already transparent about the broad outlines of their strategic nuclear forces – those that unlike the non-strategic weapons in Europe are actually tasked to provide the ultimate security guarantee to the Allies.

Rather than limiting nuclear transparency efforts to prolonged negotiations for what’s likely to be small incremental steps that essentially surrender the agenda to hardliners in Moscow, unilateral disclosure of NATO’s non-strategic posture would jump-start the process, put pressure on Russia to follow suit, and be consistent with the already considerable transparency of NATO’s strategic forces.

See also: Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons, FAS, May 2012.

This publication was made possible by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

A Department of Defense (DOD) report on Russian nuclear forces, conducted in coordination with the Director of National Intelligence and sent to Congress in May 2012, concludes that even the most worst-case scenario of a Russian surprise disarming first strike against the United States would have “little to no effect” on the U.S. ability to retaliate with a devastating strike against Russia.

I know, even thinking about scenarios such as this sounds like an echo from the Cold War, but the Obama administration has actually come under attack from some for considering further reductions of U.S. nuclear forces when Russia and others are modernizing their forces. The point would be, presumably, that reducing while others are modernizing would somehow give them an advantage over the United States.

But the DOD report concludes that Russia “would not be able to achieve a militarily significant advantage by any plausible expansion of its strategic nuclear forces, even in a cheating or breakout scenario under the New START Treaty” (emphasis added).

The conclusions are important because the report come after Vladimir Putin earlier this year announced plans to produce “over 400” new nuclear missiles during the next decade. Putin’s plan follows the Obama administration’s plan to spend more than $200 billion over the next decade to modernize U.S. strategic forces and weapons factories.

The conclusions may also hint at some of the findings of the Obama administration’s ongoing (but delayed and secret) review of U.S. nuclear targeting policy.

No Effects on Strategic Stability

The DOD report – Report on the Strategic Nuclear Forces of the Russian Federation Pursuant to Section 1240 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 – was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act. It describes the U.S. intelligence community’s projection for the likely development of Russian nuclear forces through 2017 and 2022, the timelines of the New START Treaty, and possible implications for U.S. national security and strategic stability.

Much of the report’s content was deleted before release – including general and widely reported factual information about Russian nuclear weapons systems that is not classified. But the important concluding section that describes the effects of possible shifts in the number and composition of Russian nuclear forces on strategic stability was released in its entirety.

As long as a sufficient number of U.S. SSBNs are at sea, strategic stability is intact even with significantly greater Russian nuclear forces, the DOD says.

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The section “Effects on Strategic Stability” begins by defining that stability in the strategic nuclear relationship between the United States and the Russian Federation depends upon the assured capability of each side to deliver a sufficient number of nuclear warheads to inflict unacceptable damage on the other side, even with an opponent attempting a disarming first strike.

Consequently, the report concludes, “the only Russian shift in its nuclear forces that could undermine the basic framework of mutual deterrence that exists between the United States and the Russian Federation is a scenario that enables Russia to deny the United States the assured ability to respond against a substantial number of highly valued Russian targets following a Russian attempt at a disarming first strike” (emphasis added). The DOD concludes that such a first strike scenario “will most likely not occur.”

But even if it did and Russia deployed additional strategic warheads to conduct a disarming first strike, even significantly above the New START Treaty limits, DOD concludes that it “would have little to no effects on the U.S. assured second-strike capabilities that underwrite our strategic deterrence posture” (emphasis added).

In fact, the DOD report states, the “Russian Federation…would not be able to achieve a militarily significant advantage by any plausible expansion of its strategic nuclear forces, even in a cheating or breakout scenario under the New START Treaty, primarily because of the inherent survivability of the planned U.S. Strategic force structure, particularly the OHIO-class ballistic missile submarines, a number of which are at sea at any given time.” (more…)

A new satellite image appears to show part of India’s new SSBN partly concealed at the Visakhapatnam naval base on the Indian east coast (17°42’38.06″N, 83°16’4.90″E).

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By Hans M. Kristensen

Could it be? It is not entirely clear, but a new satellite image might be showing part of India’s first nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, the Arihant.

The image, taken by GeoEye’s satellite on March 18, 2012, and made available on Google Earth, shows what appears to be the conning tower (or sail) of a submarine in a gap of covers intended to conceal it deep inside the Visakhapatnam (Vizag) Naval Base on the Indian east coast.

The image appears to show a gangway leading from the pier with service buildings and a large crane to the submarine hull just behind the conning tower. The outlines of what appear to be two horizontal diving planes extending from either side of the conning tower can also be seen on the grainy image.

The Arihant was launched in 2009 from the shipyard on the other side of the harbor and moved under an initial cover. An image released by the Indian government in 2010 appears to show the submarine inside the initial cover.

The Indian government published this image in 2010, apparently showing the Arihant inside the initial concealment building.

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The new cover, made up of what appears to be 13-meter floating modules that can be assembled to fit the length of the submarine, similarly to what Russia is using at its submarine shipyard in Severodvinsk, first appeared in 2010. Images from 2011 show the modules in various configurations but without the submarine inside.

The movement of the Arihant from the initial cover building to the module covers next to the service facilities and large crane indicates that the submarine has entered a new phase of fitting out. The initial cover building appeared empty in April 2012 when the Indian Navy show-cased its new Russia-supplied Akula-class nuclear-powered attack submarine: the Chakra.

It is thought that the Arihant is equipped with less than a dozen launch tubes behind the conning tower for short/medium-range nuclear-armed ballistic missiles. Before it can become fully operational, however, the Arihant will have to undergo extensive refitting and sea-trials that may last through 2013. It is expected that India might be building several SSBNs.

Like the other nuclear weapon states, India continues to modernize its nuclear forces, despite pledges to work for a world free of nuclear weapons.

See also: Indian nuclear forces, 2012.

 

U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta meets with New Zealand Defense Minister Jonathan Coleman, in a first step to normalize relations between the two countries nearly 30 years after the U.S. punished New Zealand for its ban on nuclear weapons.

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By Hans M. Kristensen

Hat tip to the Obama administration for doing the right and honorable thing: breaking with outdated Reagan administration policy and sending Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to New Zealand and ease restrictions on New Zealand naval visits to U.S. military bases.

The move shows that Washington after nearly 30 years of punishing the small South Pacific nation for its ban against nuclear weapons may finally have come to its senses and decided to end the vendetta in the interest of more important issues.

The New Zealand defense minister made it quite clear that the move does not mean a change to New Zealand’s policy of denying nuclear warships access to its harbors. “New Zealand has made it very clear that the policy remains unchanged and will remain unchanged.”

Whether (or how soon) the move will result in a resumption of U.S. naval visits to New Zealand remains to be seen. The U.S. Navy still has two policies that would appear to prevent this. One is a “one-fleet” policy that holds that if any U.S. ships are restricted from an area, it will refrain from sending any ships there. The other is the Neither Confirm Nor Deny Policy (NCND), which prohibits disclosing if a warship carries nuclear weapons or not, a leftover from the Cold War when stuff like that was important.

These policies leave an irritant in place that doesn’t need to be there. It seems that both countries can makes modifications to their policies to allow normal military relations to resume.

Cold War Policy in Need of Change

Panetta’s visit to New Zealand is the first by a U.S. defense secretary in 30 years since the gong ho nuclear policy of the Reagan administration threw New Zealand out of the Australia-New Zealand-US (ANZUS) alliance for refusing to accept visits by nuclear-armed warships to its ports. The treatment of New Zealand was intended as a warning to countries not to dare enforce their non-nuclear policies. As former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Leslie Gelb diplomatically put it in the New York Times at the time: “Unless we hold our allies’ feet to the fire over ship visits and nuclear deployments, one will run away and then the next.”

At the core of the dispute is the so-called Neither Confirm Nor Deny Policy (NCND), according to which the U.S. will not reveal – directly or indirectly – whether nuclear weapons are present on a warship, an aircraft, or on a base. The policy emerged in the 1950s as a way to counter anti-nuclear and left wing demonstrations in Europe during port visits. Later it was re-coined as a way to protect ships against terrorist attacks and to complicate Soviet military planning. Spin aside, the central objective was always to ensure unfettered access for U.S. warships to foreign ports – no matter the nuclear policy of the host country. (For a chronology of the NCND policy, see: The Neither Confirm Nor Deny Policy: Nuclear Diplomacy at Work).

During the Cold War, U.S. warships bristled with non-strategic nuclear weapons. Bombs, anti-submarine rockets, air-defense missiles, land-attack cruise missiles, depth bombs and torpedoes were continuously at sea onboard aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers, frigates, supply ships and attack submarines. Every single day some of them sailed into foreign ports around the world. The deployment war part of a global posture against the Soviet Union, which also deployed non-strategic nuclear weapons on its fleet (Britain and France had similar postures).

The NCND was a brilliant diplomatic arrangement. The host country could have whatever nuclear policy it wanted and the United States could continue to visit its ports with nuclear-armed warships. The only problem with the NCND was that it put allied governments with non-nuclear policies in an unreasonable dilemma: one, reject the visit or ask the United States to deny that the ship carried nuclear weapons; or, two, turn a blind eye and accept that nuclear weapons come in on warships once in a while.

That dilemma is the dirty little secret of the NCND: It required not just that the United States was ambiguous about the weapons loadout, but also that the host country accepted ambiguity about the armament. For the host country to accept ambiguity was, of course, incompatible with a policy that prohibited nuclear weapons on its territory.

New Zealand was the first allied country that refused to accept that ambiguity. It did so in 1984 by adopting a law that prohibited access for nuclear-armed and nuclear-propelled vessels. The law did not demand that the United States confirm or deny whether there were nuclear weapons on the ships (that is a widespread misperception); it only required the New Zealand government in its own right to make a determination and announce its decision. But such an announcement was incompatible with the NCND, which required the host country to keep quiet about what it knew.

The USS Buchanan (DDG-14) arrives in Sydney, Australia, in March 1985 after it was barred from visiting New Zealand.

When the U.S. wanted to send a warship to New Zealand in the spring of 1985, it could have sent a warship that was not nuclear-capable (in fact, the News Zealand government asked the U.S. to do so, but it refused). But that would not have fully tested New Zealand’s adherence to the NCND. So the Reagan administration decided to send the guided missile destroyer USS Buchannan (DDG-14), which was equipped to carry nuclear ASROC missiles. This visit was to be followed by several other ships, some of which most likely carried nuclear weapons.

The New Zealand government turned down the request and the Reagan administration retaliated by throwing New Zealand out of the ANZUS alliance, curtailing intelligence sharing, and prohibiting New Zealand warships from visiting U.S. military and Cost Guard facilities in the region. In effect, the Reagan administration chose to sacrifice an ally in a part of the world where the military implications were limited to prevent the anti-nuclear “allergy” from spreading to other more vital parts of the world.

The strategy failed. In 1988, the nuclear port visits issue triggered an election in Denmark, and in 1990 the Swedish governing party decided to enforce Sweden’s ban against nuclear weapons on its territory after a study determined that U.S. warships routinely carried nuclear weapons into Swedish ports despite the ban.

Instead of a tool for protecting nuclear warships and ensuring allied security, the NCND policy became a lightening rod for political controversy and soured relations with U.S. allies all over the world. Whenever a nuclear-capable warship sailed into a foreign port on a “goodwill visit,” the thorny issue of whether it carried nuclear weapons and the host government being seen as turning a blind eye to violations of its own non-nuclear policy overshadowed the goodwill the U.S. and the host government were trying to demonstrate.

Today the policy continues even though it is hopelessly outdated and counterproductive. All non-strategic nuclear weapons were removed from U.S. surface ships and attack submarines by the first Bush administration in 1992 – effectively rendering the nuclear port visit issue moot. Moreover, the Clinton administration decided in 1994 to denuclearize all U.S. surface ships. The only remaining non-strategic naval nuclear weapon – the Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile (TLAM/N) – has been stored on land since 1992 and is now being scrapped. (Russia has also offloaded its naval non-strategic nuclear weapons and Britain has completely eliminated its inventory.)

Restoration of Normal Relations is Possible

There is nothing that prevents restoration of normal U.S.-New Zealand military relations. Yet even though the non-strategic nuclear weapons have been offloaded and the U.S. surface fleet denuclearized, there are still Cold War warriors inside the bureaucracies who argue that it is necessary to maintain ambiguity about what U.S. warships carry and that no warship should sail where others are rejected.

Likewise, given that the U.S. surface fleet has been denuclearized and the last non-strategic naval nuclear weapon is being retired, there is no problem in the New Zealand government ascertaining – even publicly – that visiting U.S. warships do not carry nuclear weapons.

The policies that required nuclear ambiguity for warship visits to New Zealand are unnecessary and counterproductive and should be abolished. Hopefully they will not prevail for long. It is only a matter of time before U.S. warships begin visiting New Zealand again and Panetta must order the navy to stop pretending ambiguity where there is none: U.S. warships no longer carry nuclear weapons.

In the meantime, the U.S. embassy in Wellington might want to update its fact sheet on New Zealand-U.S. relations, which doesn’t seem to have caught up with Panetta’s visit:

“New Zealand’s legislation prohibiting visits of nuclear-powered ships continues to preclude a bilateral security alliance with the U.S. The legislation enjoys broad public and political support in New Zealand. The United States would welcome New Zealand’s reassessment of its legislation to permit that country’s return to full ANZUS cooperation.” (Emphasis added).

I think that ship has sailed.

STRATCOM Commander estimates that China has “several hundred” nuclear warheads.

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By Hans M. Kristensen

The commander of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) has rejected claims that China’s nuclear arsenal is much larger than commonly believed.

“I do not believe that China has hundreds or thousands more nuclear weapons than what the intelligence community has been saying, […] that the Chinese arsenal is in the range of several hundred” nuclear warheads.

General Kehler’s statement was made in an interview with a group of journalists during the Deterrence Symposium held in Omaha in early August (the transcript is not yet public, but was made available to me).

General Kehler’s statement comes at an important time because much higher estimates recently have created a lot of news media attention and are threatening to become “facts” on the Internet. A Georgetown University briefing last year hypothesized that the Chinese arsenal might include “as many as 3,000 nuclear warheads,” and General Victor Yesin, a former commander of Russia’s Strategic Rocket Forces, recently published an article on the Russian web site vpk-news in which he estimates that the Chinese nuclear weapons arsenal includes 1,600-1,800 nuclear warheads.

In contrast, Robert S. Norris and I have published estimates of the Chinese nuclear weapons inventory for years, and we currently set the arsenal at approximately 240 warheads. That estimate – based in part on statements from the U.S. intelligence community, fissile material production estimates, and our assessment of the composition of the Chinese nuclear arsenal – obviously comes with a lot of uncertainly and assumptions, but we’re pleased to see that it appears to fit with the “several hundred” warheads mentioned by General Kehler.

Like the other nuclear weapon states, China is modernizing its nuclear arsenal, but it is the only one of the five original nuclear powers (P-5) that appears to be increasing the size of its warhead inventory. That increase is modest and appears to be slower than the U.S. intelligence community projected a decade ago. Those who see an interest in exaggerating China’s nuclear developments thrive on secrecy, so it is important that China – and others who know – provide some basic information about trends and developments to avoid exaggerated estimates. The reality is bad enough as it is.

This publication was made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

By Hans M. Kristensen

It’s been a busy week with two talks; the first to the U.S. Strategic Command’s Deterrence Symposium on August 9, and the second to the Public Policy and Nuclear Threats “boot camp” workshop at the University of California San Diego on August 10.

STRATCOM asked me to talk on the question: Will advanced conventional capabilities undermine or enhance deterrence. My panel included former STRATCOM Commander General James Cartwright, former SAC CINC General Larry Welch, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs Madelyn Creedon. The panel was chaired by Rear Admiral John Gower of the U.K. Ministry of Defense. My speech is reproduced below. The video of Panel #7 is available later at the STRATCOM web site.

UCSD asked me to speak on New Directions for U.S. Nuclear Strategy. My panel included Daryl Press, who is Associate Professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College, and Anne Harrington, a Postdoctoral Fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. A copy of my briefing slides is available here.

Speech: USSTRATCOM Deterrence Symposium 2012

Hans M. Kristensen
Federation of American Scientists
August 9, 2012

The question for this panel – Will advanced conventional capabilities undermine or enhance deterrence? – is a difficult question to answer for several reasons. First, “advanced conventional capabilities” is a very broad definition that can include everything that’s better than what we had last year. Second, deterrence is a subjective condition that doesn’t come in one shape or form but depends on actors and scenarios.

So at the outset, I’ll say: Whether advanced conventional capabilities will undermine or enhance deterrence depends on what kinds of adversary we seek to deter, with what, in what scenario, and for what objective.

Unfortunately, “deterrence” is one of the most overused and abused terms. It is still widely associated with nuclear weapons, which are often called “the deterrent force” or “the strategic deterrent,” or the SLBMs, which are referred to as “the sea-based deterrent.” National leaders have been busy after the end of the Cold War reminding us that deterrence is not just nuclear but a much wider host of capabilities and scenarios.

For purpose of this talk, I will focus on advanced conventional weapons such as Prompt Global Strike (PGS), how they might effect deterrence, how they are different from nuclear weapons, whether they can be used as strategic deterrents – perhaps even replacing nuclear weapons?

Currently, much of the public debate on advanced conventional capabilities has focused on speed: that very quick strikes are needed to knock out targets in rogue states or non-state actors armed with weapons of mass destruction. Part of that perception is rooted in the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review and its promotion of a New Triad with a seamless string of Global Strike capabilities ranging from nuclear, to non-nuclear, to non-kinetic effects.

This led to the Global Strike mission assigned to STRATCOM in 2003, at first a designated prompt Global Strike plan known as CONPLAN 8022, but later an integrated plan known as OPLAN 8010-08: Strategic Deterrence and Global Strike, which is currently in effect. The name reflects the dual mission of providing deterrence and, if that fails, Global Strike (or counterforce war fighting).

Compared with the old SIOP, the new plan includes “more flexible options to assure allies, and dissuade, deter, and if necessary, defeat adversaries in a wider range of contingencies.” So despite the challenges of tailoring deterrence to today’s world, it would seem that out strategic war plan has already been tailored to a considerable extent.

For the purpose of deterrence, despite significant advances in conventional weapons, nuclear weapons are still in a completely separate category because of their immensely destructive capability and will remain so for the foreseeable future.

But for war fighting, the Global Strike mission appears to accept that advanced conventional weapons can serve some missions that previously were only available for nuclear weapons. I have heard knowledgeable people say that up to 30 percent of the target base potentially could be covered with PGS weapons. But for all the talk of the urgency and importance of this mission, the weapons have been slow to emerge.

But what strikes me about the quest for PGS weapons is that it appears to be motivated less by deterrence and more by an expectation that deterrence will fail, and that new capabilities are therefore needed to destroy time-critical targets without having to resort to nuclear weapons.

Adversaries and allies alike have all seen the United State after the Cold War repeatedly being willing to use its ever-improving conventional forces in scenarios ranging from brief and limited punitive strikes to massive use of force over extensive periods of time to decisively defeat even large adversaries. In all of those cases, deterrence obviously failed despite our overwhelming capabilities; otherwise it wouldn’t have been necessary to strike.

PGS weapons would add to the toolbox and an adversary would obviously have to work around the capability. But it is much harder to predict whether – or to what extent – that would deter the adversary from taking action more or better than current capabilities would.

In the public debate the mission is almost entirely focused on regional and non-state adversary scenarios. Planners spend a lot of time trying to get inside the heads of these adversaries to understand what they value so we can figure out what to hold at risk to deter them. But if they’re already set on taking hostile action and know that they would be turned into rubble, why would PGS matter for deterrence?

Regional adversaries already bury their time-critical assets. Just look at North Korea where everything seems to live underground. Why has Iran focused its ballistic missile posture on mobile launchers? It’s a lot cheaper and simpler to build silos. China is no different; it’s hard to find a high-priority base that doesn’t include underground storage and their entire mobile missile modernization program is a reaction to someone holding their silos better at risk with more capable weapons.

All of these adversaries are already trying to work around our targeting capabilities. So why do we think that hitting them a little faster or a little better would strengthen deterrence? It seems more likely that PGS would push them even further toward more prompt launch capabilities. More trigger-happy postures could in fact weaken deterrence and increase the risk of mistaken, inadvertent, or even deliberate escalation. Keir Lieber made a similar argument yesterday.

What if the mission includes holding Chinese ASAT launchers a risk? China’s demonstration of an ASAT capability appears to have triggered a requirement for a quick-strike conventional capability to protect our eyes and ears in the sky.

Targeting ASAT missiles on DF-21 launchers is only a hairbreadth away from targeting other road-mobile launchers, whether for conventional DF-21C medium-range ballistic missiles, DF-21D anti-ship ballistic missiles, or even nuclear DF-31A missiles.

And how about using unmanned aerial vehicles with Hellfire missiles to hunt down Chinese mobile launchers?

Chinese planners would obviously have to assume that strikes would come quickly, that it could be preemptive, and that the risk to their nuclear launchers were increasing. In fact, they would have to conclude that a strike against their nuclear deterrent could come before the conflict had escalated to nuclear use.

Then suddenly the deterrence question changes dramatically. Add to that that some of the enablers for making PGS possible would require improvements to ISR (Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance) and C3 (Command, Control, Communication) systems that would probably also significantly improve the capability of nuclear forces. Russia and China will probably detect these improvements and compensate for them in their own nuclear planning.

Add to that an advanced ballistic missile defense system that could take out some of the surviving weapons, and we could end up significantly exacerbating a budding and counterproductive nuclear competition with Russia and China. Whether we agree or not, Russia is already making this argument in Europe and China has warned against it.

The point here is not that we should simply give in and capitulate to Russian and Chinese concerns. The point is that we better think carefully about these side-effects before rushing to acquire more advanced conventional capabilities for what in any case is argued to be a very limited niche mission against small adversaries that won’t be able to provide an existential threat. And these are very expensive systems. So they better be essential and not just good to have.

In summary, in some limited scenarios, such as escalation, advanced conventional capabilities might enhance deterrence by providing senior leaders with additional non-nuclear options for signaling or striking. But it is hard to predict, to say the least. In other scenarios they may do exactly the opposite and weaken deterrence by triggering use-it-or-loose-it postures and deepen nuclear competition.

So to answer the panel question of whether advanced conventional capabilities will undermine or enhance deterrence, I’d say the answer is: probably yes.

For additional background on the Global Strike mission, see: Hans M. Kristensen, Global Strike: A Chronology of the Pentagon’s New Offensive Strike Plan, FAS, March 2006.

This publication was made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

By Hans M. Kristensen

The disclosure during yesterday’s Senate Appropriations Subcommittee hearing that the cost of the B61 Life Extension Program (LEP) is significantly greater that even the most recent cost overruns calls into question the ability of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) to manage the program and should call into question the B61 LEP itself.

If these cost overruns were in the private sector, heads would roll and the program would probably be canceled.

At the hearing yesterday, Senator Dianne Feinstein revealed that NNSA recently told her that the $4 billion cost estimate they provided in the FY2011 Stockpile Stewardship Management Plan was too low and that they would need $4 billion more to complete the program. Two months ago I reported that the cost had increased to $6 billion.

NNSA’s new cost estimate is already being challenged, this time by the Pentagon’s Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE) office, which only a few days ago increased the estimate by another $2 billion to a whopping $10 billion.

But get this: the already too high B61 LEP cost estimate does not include other pricy elements of the B61 modernization program. In addition to the LEP itself comes a new guided tail kit assembly that the Air Force is developing to increase the accuracy of the B61. The cost estimate for that tail kit has recently increased by 50 percent from $800 million to $1.2 billion.

Add to that the cost of equipping the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter with the capability to carry the new weapons, recently estimated at around $340 million. If the LEP and tail kit increases mentioned above are any indication, however, then the cost of equipping the F-35 with nuclear capability is also likely to increase.

The escalating costs may eventually make the B61 LEP the most expensive nuclear weapons program (per warhead unit) in the U.S. arsenal. Already the projected B61 LEP cost far exceeds the cost of the W76 LEP, which probably involves three times as many warheads as will produced by the B61 LEP. As Nick Roth points out, the new $10 billion estimate is equivalent to two-thirds of what NNSA planned to spend on life extending all the other warhead types in the US arsenal over the next twenty years!

The precise number of B61-12 planned is still a secret. My take currently is around 400. If so, that would mean each B61-12 bomb would cost $28 million (including cost of tail kit).

Because of the way the B61 LEP has been presented, many have the impression that the program will life-extend all four versions of the B61. In reality, only one of the four versions will be life-extended: the B61-4. It may cannibalize components from the other three (B61-3/7/10), but the heart of the new B61-12 is the B61-4 nuclear explosive package. Instead of the simple chart that STRATCOM has been circulating, the following chart more accurately illustrates the process:

 

Implications and Recommendations.

The fact that the B61-12 will use the B61-4 nuclear explosive package obviously limits the number of B61-12s that can be built to the number of B61-4 that were originally produced. That number is about 660. But most of those have been retired and only about 200 are thought to be left in the DOD stockpile. If B61-12 production is to exceed 200, then it would have to also use warheads from retired B61-4s. Given that the B61-12 will not be carried on the B-52 bomber, that B-2 bombers are probably not allocated a maximum load of weapons (they also carry others), and that the stockpile in Europe is likely to decrease within the next decade, it seems reasonable to assume a B61-12 stockpile of around 400 weapons. But the number is secret – not because it matters to national security but because it is nuclear.

The escalating cost of the B61 LEP adds to NNSA’s abysmal record of underestimating costs of nuclear weapons programs. It follows enormous budget overruns of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement – Nuclear Facility (CMRR-NF) at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) at the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge in Tennessee.

As mentioned above, if these cost overruns happened in the private sector, heads would roll and the program would probably be canceled.

Apart from poor planning, the B61 LEP cost escalation is probably also fueled by planners that appear to be drunk on promises of increased nuclear funding and political commitments to nuclear modernization. The result is an overly ambitious program that instead of doing basic life-extension of existing designs is trying to add exotic features and components to the weapon that was originally tested. And the planned B61-12 is not even the most ambitious version the planners had asked for (they were not allowed to add multi-point safety and optical firing sets), which would have been even more expensive.

If poor planning is not the reason, then NNSA must be working under the assumption that costs should be underestimated when seeking initial program approval from Congress because the taxpayers will have to pay for the cost increase later on anyway. To her credit, Senator Feinstein is pushing for greater program control and told Aviation Week that the cost escalation will trigger additional congressional scrutiny. “We have to find a way to stop this from happening. …We’ve asked that we receive monthly reports, that one person be put in charge. … The purpose of that is to make people solve problems quickly, before they are left and they just continue to grow.”

The B61 LEP is not the only or necessarily most complex LEP on the horizon. NNSA and DOD are already planning the W78 LEP and envision building a “common” warhead that can be used on both ICBMs and SLBMs. Such a warhead is not currently in the stockpile. Although the design is still being worked out, it could combine W78 and W88 features and use a plutonium pit from a third warhead – the W87. If you’re worried about B61 LEP costs, just wait for the W78 LEP! Is Congress prepared to authorize $10 billion-plus per exotic LEP versus more basic LEPs?

But apart from money, the escalating B61 LEP costs must also raise questions about the importance of the mission. While the strategic mission on the B-2 strategic bomber is probably not in doubt, the non-strategic mission certainly should be. Under current plans, the B61-12 will be fitted onto four tactical aircraft – F-15E Strike Eagle, F-16 Falcon, F-35A Lightning and PA-200 Tornado. There are no important or urgent threats that require the United States to equip all these tactical aircraft with the new bomb. But the modernization will increase the military capability of NATO’s nuclear posture, not exactly in sync with the pledges from the White House and NATO to reduce the role of nuclear weapons and not increase military capabilities during LEPs.

And the few NATO officials that have either misunderstood their security requirements or been lobbied by nuclear cold warriors to support continued deployment of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe need to be debriefed – or asked to pay their share. That would certainly end the deployment quickly.

Whatever the best way forward, the U.S. should phase out its remaining non-strategic nuclear weapons, delay and redesign the B61 LEP, and focus its resources on maintaining the strategic nuclear weapons and conventional forces that are actually needed for U.S. and allied security in the foreseeable future.

This publication was made possible by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.