By Hans M. Kristensen

The January 2011 issue of Air Force Magazine has a nice spread on the Chart Page where they reproduce a chart I produced of U.S. and Russian nuclear warhead inventories.

The chart is the product of the research and public education I do about the status of nuclear forces in collaboration with the nuclear program over at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

This chart was initially used in a de-alerting briefing at the United Nations last October.

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.

The FY2012 budget request includes considerable nuclear weapon modernization

By Hans M. Kristensen

The Obama administration has published its budget request for Fiscal Year 2012, which includes its plans for maintaining and modernizing its nuclear weapons arsenal.

Due to the extensive debate about the New START treaty last year a great deal of the nuclear plans were already known. And the budget request demonstrates that the administration follows through on its promise to modernize the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal and production facilities.

How this modernization effort will color the administration’s public nuclear legacy remains to be seen.

Warhead Maintenance and Modernization

The budget includes significant investments in maintaining and modernizing the nuclear weapons in the stockpile through the life-extension programs (LEPs). Including the costs from FY2011, the administration plans to spend $6.3 billion through FY2016 on the warheads in the stockpile. Additional LEPs are planned after 2016 (see Stockpile Stewardship Management Plan).

Determining what portion of these costs will be spent on LEPs is difficult because LEP costs for each warhead in the budget are included in the stockpile costs until the LEP gets full go-ahead. That means that stockpile costs are significantly ballooned for some years. When compensating for this accounting rule, the total cost for LEP work in FY2011 through FY2016 is roughly $4.9 billion.

There are three primary LEPs in the budget involving the B61, W76, and W78 warheads. The W88 is also undergoing a small LEP to replace the Arming, Fuzing and Firing (AF&F) unit. Details of the LEPs are:

W76 LEP: Production of W76-1 at the Pantex Plant in Texas is well underway after start-up problems. The first warhead was produced in 2008 and warheads are now being delivered to the navy and deployed on Trident II D5 ballistic missiles. Full-scale production will be achieved in 2013 and continue through 2018. The FY2012 budget request shows $1.5 billion spent on the LEP through FY2016. The LEP extends the life of the warhead for another 30 years and adds new safety features and improves the military capability of the W76.

B61 LEP: Production of a new B61 version called the B61-12 will begin in FY2017 and increase during FY2018 as the W76 production fades out and continue through FY2022. The B61-12 will combine three older B61 versions  (B61-3/4/7) into one. The consolidation was previously also scheduled to include the B61-10, a converted W85 Pershing II warhead, but the B61-10 has recently been retired. The B61-12 will reuse the B61 plutonium pit for the primary and reuse or remanufacture the B61-4 secondary. The modification will extend the life of the B61 for another 30 years.

The budget states that the new version will have better reliability, enhanced margin against failure, increasing safety, and improving security and use control. The budget also states that, “insensitive high explosives could replace conventional high explosives,” a curious statement given that the government has previously stated that the remaining B61 versions already have insensitive high explosives.

The B61-12 will be based on components from three different B61 types: B61-3, B61-4 and B61-7. The secondary will be from the B61-4 or remanufactured. Although the NNSA budget mentions replacing conventional high explosives with insensitive high explosives, all stockpiled B61s already have insensitive high explosives.

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W78 LEP: This warhead program is evolving into a whole new experiment with the plan to develop a “common high-surety warhead” for deployment of the Minuteman III ICBMs and Trident II D5 SLBMs. Studies are still defining the full scope of this warhead but it includes new safety and use-control features. A new AF&F will “maximize” use of the fuze program for the navy’s Mk5/W88 program. Approximately $1 billion is budgeted for this LEP through FY2016, but the program extends well beyond 2025 with significant additional costs.

W87: The budget also shows that a new AF&F for the Mk21/W87, the second warhead on the Minuteman III, is being considered to match the W78 LEP.  Like the common warhead, this will also maximize use of Mk5 fuze program elements.

W88: Although not yet scheduled to under a full LEP, the Mk5/W88 is undergoing a crash program to replace its AF&F unit. Fuzes are very expensive, and the budget includes roughly $432 million through FY2016. This new fuze technology will probably form the basis for the new fuze planned for the W78 and W87.

The navy budget also indicates development of an advanced radiation-hardened GPS receiver for ballistic missile reentry bodies, a technology that would be required for maneuverable warheads. A flight test of the GPS unit is scheduled for FY2011.

The dismantling of retired warheads does not appear to be a priority for the Obama administration. There are several thousand retired warheads – probably around 3,500 – in storage awaiting dismantlement. Most were retired during the reduction of the stockpile by nearly half in 2004-2007, but the annual dismantlement budget will be less than in 2010 and comparable to that of the Bush administration. The $56.8 million scheduled for FY2012 is a 40% reduction compared with FY2010. At the planned rate, all warheads retired prior to FY2010 will be dismantled by 2022.

Nuclear Delivery Vehicles

In addition to modernizing the warheads and the production complex, the Obama administration has also pledged to spend “well over 100 billion dollars” on modernizing some of the missiles, submarines and bombers designed to deliver the warheads.

Ballistic missile submarine: The next class of ballistic missile submarines – commonly called SSBN(X) – is called Sea Based Strategic Deterrent (SBSD) Advanced Submarine System Development (ASSD) in the budget.  The budget includes $781.6 million in FY2012 and shows $5.1 billion through FY2010-FY2016.

The next SSBN class will have 16 missile tubes, unlike the Ohio-class seen here, which has 24 tubes. The first unit is scheduled to enter service in 2029, carry a life-extended version of the Trident II D5 SLBM, and be in service through the 2080s.

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The SSBN development strategy is to maximize re-use of existing Ohio-class SSBN systems and new designs from Virginia-class SSNs.

The budget does not specify the number of missile tubes per submarine, but the Defense Acquisition Board decided in December 2010 that the new design should have 16 tubes. The navy purchased another 24 D5LE missiles in FY12.

The previous ambition to deploy conventional warheads on SLBMs has suffered many setbacks but lives on in the new budget, although only as a study to examine the ambiguity issues involved in launching conventional weapons from a nuclear strike platform and “better understand the capabilities that could be delivered from naval platforms.”

Land-based missiles: There is no money listed in the budget for the initial study of alternatives promised by the Nuclear Posture Review, but a small amount – $2.6 million – are included to study current or “future ICBM weapon systems.” But with the intension to extend the service life of the Minuteman III ICBM through at least 2030 – possibly longer – it is too early for a new missile to appear in the budget.  The Minuteman III is in the final phase of a decade-long upgrade that has replaced all major components; it is essentially a new missile.

Efforts to equip ICBMs with conventional warheads continue, and a conventional strike mission integration demonstration study is scheduled for completion at the end of FY2011.

Heavy bombers: Both B-2 and B-52 are being upgraded for the new Advanced Extremely High Frequency (AHEF) satellite constellation, and to equip the bombers with additional nuclear hardening.

The B-2 will be equipped to carry the new B61-12 gravity bomb. The B-52 is undergoing a Reconstitution Study that will provide for further nuclear weapons in both bay and under wings. One of these is the Long Range Stand-Off (LRSO) cruise missile intended to replace the Air Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM) in 2030. The warhead might be the W80-3, a modified LEP version of the current W80-1. Nearly $10 million are scheduled to study the new missile in FY2012, with a total of $884,297 million through FY12-16.

The budget does not present a schedule for the next generation bomber, but it is in design development with $197,023 earmarked for FY2012 and $3.94 billion through FY2016. [Update: According to The Hill, Pentagon comptroller Robert Hale stated that the plan is to build 80-100 new bombers to replace the B-2 and B-52H. Only a portion of these would, presumably, become nuclear-capable.]

Fighter-bombers: The budget gives new details about the scope and nuclear capability of the Joint Strike Fighter. Follow-on development will be initiated of the F-35A CTOL Variant Air Vehicle for dual-capability (DCA). DCA integration is scheduled for FY2011-FY2017 with nuclear capability added in the first post-SDD (System Development and Demonstration) block upgrade (Block IV). F-35A will have capability to carry two B61s internally. There are $10 million budgeted for FY2012 with $262.7 million through FY2016 to support Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan (JSCP) requirements from FY2017.

The F-35A CTOL (conventional take off and landing) will be capable of carrying two B61-12 nuclear bombs, one in each bay.

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The F-35A Block IV will replace the F-15E and F-16 in the nuclear mission and also be offered to NATO allies that are tasked to deliver U.S. nuclear weapons.

Nuclear Factories

The budget provides new cost estimates for the two new nuclear weapons production factories that are under construction; the CMRR (Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement) facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, and the UPF (Uranium Production Facility) at the Y-12 complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Both factories are already over budget.

Based on 45% design completion, the CMRR is now estimated to cost $3.7-$5.8 billion to complete. The UPF is estimated at $4.2-$6.5 billion. A total of $9.9-$12.3 billion. But even this is probably too low and NNSA promises that a new estimate will come in FY2013 after the factories reach 90% design completion. Full operation of the two factories is planned for FY2023 and FY2024, respectively. GAO recently concluded that NNSA has very poor basis for making realistic cost estimates.

Implications and Outlook

With massive investments in widespread modernization of nuclear forces and industry, the FY2012 budget shows that the Obama administration is following through on its promise to make significant investments in modernizing the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

The “generational” modernizations proposed in the budget represent a commitment to extending the nuclear era as long into the future as it has lasted so far. A challenge will be whether nuclear modernization will overshadow nuclear disarmament in the administration’s public nuclear image.

Following on the heels of the Prague speech and the New START treaty, it remains to be seen whether other nuclear weapon states and the international non-proliferation community will see the nuclear modernization programs as progress toward reducing the role and numbers of nuclear weapons and putting an end to Cold War thinking, or business as usual only at lower numbers.

To what extent the Congress will fund these programs is another unknown. With unprecedented deficit and a new Congress that appears determined to cut government spending, several of the nuclear modernization programs will like come under considerable scrutiny.

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.

The General Accounting Office concludes that NNSA lacks the basis for justifying multi-billion dollar modernization projects such as the Chemical and Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico.

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By Hans M. Kristensen

At a time when the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) is asking Congress to authorize billions of dollars to modernize what it calls its “aging” nuclear infrastructure for maintaining and producing nuclear weapons, a new report from the General Accounting Office (GAO) concludes that “NNSA does not have accurate, reliable, or complete data on the condition and replacement value of its almost 3,000 weapons activities facilities.”

The new budget request to be released today is expected to request billions of dollars to modernize the nuclear weapons complex.

In a blunt statement that appears to challenge the administration’s request for more money to build new nuclear weapons factories, the GAO report points out that “NNSA has not estimated total costs for the largest projects it is conducting—the Chemical and Metallurgy Research Replacement Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, and the Uranium Processing Facility at the Y-12 Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. DOE regulations do not require a total cost estimate until the initial design phase is complete, but without reliable cost and schedule data NNSA does not have a sound basis to justify decisions and planned budget increases.”

[Addition: The GAO report unfortunately makes the same mistake that the news media makes all the time when describing the New START treaty. According to the report, “As part of this plan and arms control treaties, the United States has agreed to reduce the size of its strategic nuclear weapon stockpile from a maximum of 2,200 to 1,550 weapons.” But the United States has not agreed to reduce its strategic nuclear weapon “stockpile” to 1,550 weapons. The limit it has agreed to is to deploy no more than 1,550 strategic warheads on operational launchers (essentially all ballistic missiles because bomber weapons are not counted even if they were loaded on the aircraft). Several thousand reserve but fully intact strategic warheads as well as nonstrategic warheads are not limited by New START. The new treaty is important for many reason, but the difference is actually important. The U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile currently contains approximately 5,000 nuclear warheads.]

See also this blog about the Obama administration nuclear weapons stockpile stewardship management plan.

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 Nuclear Notebooks Robert Norris and I publish in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists are now the most frequently read articles in the magazine, according to their latest announcement.

The highlight of the announcement is Senator John Kerry’s use of our estimate of Russian nonstrategic nuclear weapons during the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the New START treaty on December 19, 2010.

The Bulletin announcement states that all current and previous Nuclear Notebooks are now freely available online. Issues back to 1999 are here. You’ll have to scroll down to the end of each table of content to find the Notebook in each issue. Earlier versions are available on Google Books.

In the past, Norris and I have urged the publisher of the Notebooks to make them freely available to the public to ensure that this important resource on the status of the world’s nuclear arsenals is available for the debate about the future of nuclear weapons.

The Notebooks are very popular. As of January 4, 2011, our Notebook on Chinese nuclear forces from November 2010 was listed as the most read article on the Bulletin’s web site, and 11 of the 50 most read articles were Notebooks.

Good estimates on nuclear arsenals don’t come easy or cheep but require time-consuming and persistent research. We’re grateful for the generous support we have received to do this work over the years from foundations including the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the John D. and Catherine MacArthur Foundation, and the Ploughshares Fund.

The New START treaty is in the bag, approved by the US Congress and Russian Duma.

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By Hans M. Kristensen

The upper house of the Russian Parliament (Duma) earlier today approved the New START treaty signed by presidents Medvedev and Obama in Prague on April 8, 2010. This follows approval of the treaty by the U.S. Senate in December despite opposition from hard-liners.

The Russian approval was followed by optimistic statements by Mikhail Margelov, the chairman of the international affairs committee, who declared: “The arms race is a thing of the past. The disarmament race is taking its place.”

What Now?

Now that the treaty has been ratified by both countries, the next step will be an exchange of Instruments of Ratification, at which point the treaty formally enters into effect. When that happens, the Moscow Treaty from 2002 will expire. Within 45 days after entry into force, the two countries will have an initial exchange of data (an initial exchange of site diagrams occurred 45 days after the treaty was signed on April 8, 2010), and photographs of the strategic offensive arms covered by the treaty will be exchanged. After that the inspectors go to work.

No it Doesn’t

But the treaty does not, as the New York Times report mistakenly states, “require the United States and Russia to reduce their nuclear arsenals…to 1,550 warheads each, from between 1,700 and 2,200 now.” This is a misreporting that is frequent in the news media (see also RIA Novosti). In fact, the treaty does not place any limits on the total size of their nuclear arsenals — in fact, it doesn’t require destruction of a single nuclear warhead. Rather, New START reduces the limit for how many of their strategic warheads the two countries may deploy on long-range delivery vehicles at any given time. Both countries may – and do – have thousands of other nuclear warheads that are not deployed or not counted.

Of the estimated 5,000 and 8,000 US and Russian, respectively, nuclear warheads in their military stockpiles, New START affects how 1,550 can be deployed on each side. How to deal with the remaining thousands of non-deployed and nonstrategic nuclear warheads is the focus of the next round of US-Russian nuclear arms control efforts. In addition, both countries have thousands of additional retired but intact warheads awaiting dismantlement, for total estimated inventories of 8,500 US and 11,000 Russian warheads.

New START is in the bag but a lot of work remains to be done.

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.

The US Air Force deploys 150-200 B61 nuclear bombs in Europe.

Following  NATO’s strategic concept and expectations that the next round of US-Russian nuclear arms control negotiations will deal with tactical nuclear weapons in some shape or form, Stan Norris and I have published our latest estimate on U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Although the strategic concept states that “any” further reductions “must take into account the disparity with the greater Russian stockpiles of short-range nuclear weapons,” NATO has in fact been willing to make significant unilateral reductions in this decade regardless of disparity. Likewise, the United States has scrapped most of its tactical nuclear weapons because they are no longer important. It is important that the disparity argument does not become an excuse to prevent further reductions.

Our estimate of Russian tactical nuclear weapons is here with more details here.

Later this spring we will publish a more comprehensive report on U.S. and Russian tactical nuclear weapons.

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 Federation of American Scientists today applauded the Senate’s ratification of the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) between the United States and Russia.

The Senate voted 71 to 26 in favor of ratification of the treaty.

The approval of the treaty is a victory for common sense and an impressive achievement for the Obama administration in overcoming stubborn opposition from Cold Warriors to modest nuclear arms reductions.

New START does not require destruction of a single nuclear warhead, but it reduces the limit for how many of them can be deployed on long-range ballistic missiles and heavy bombers.

The United States and Russia possess more than 90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons and will continue to do so when the treaty limit is reached seven years from now.

During the past year and in an effort to ensure Congressional support for New START, the administration has committed to significant increases in spending on modernizing nuclear weapons and the production complex over the next decade: well over $100 billion for modernization of missiles and bombers, and more than $85 billion for modernizing warheads and production facilities.

This modernization will have to be balanced against the other important goal of U.S. nuclear policy: securing international support for strengthening non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials. Demonstrating clear intensions to reducing the number and role of nuclear weapons will be essential to winning support for this agenda.

Despite its limitations, the approval of the New START treaty brings U.S-Russian strategic relations back on track, reestablishes a vital on-site inspection regime, and potentially opens the way for negotiations on additional reductions in the future.

Those negotiations must establish limits on and verification of U.S. and Russian non-deployed and non-strategic nuclear weapons, and prepare the ground for broadening nuclear arms control to the other nuclear weapons states.

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.

PDUSPD Jim Miller appears to confirm FAS/NRDC estimates for NATO and Russia tactical nuclear weapons.

By Hans M. Kristensen

A Wikileaks document briefly posted by The Guardian Monday appears to give an official number for the U.S. nuclear weapons deployed in Europe: 180.

The number appears in a leaked cable written by U.S. NATO Ambassador Ivo Dalder in September 2009, describing an earlier Nuclear Posture Review briefing U.S. Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Jim Miller gave to NATO in July 2009.

Miller’s number is smack in the middle of the estimate Stan Norris and I have developed. I recently published a snapshot here (previous NATO posts are here), and a more detailed overview will appear in the January Nuclear Notebook in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Miller also stated that Russia had 3,000-5,000 plus tactical nuclear weapons. That also fits our estimate of approximately 5,300 weapons, previously published here and here.

Whether Miller was providing certified U.S. intelligence numbers or simply referenced good-enough nonofficial public estimates is less clear. But his use of a specific number (180) for Europe rather than a range suggests that it might an official number.

It’s Up, It’s Down

The cable first appeared in a Guardian story that was posted on the news paper’s web site Monday with the cable. The posting was a mistake and the story was quickly taken down (the editors decided that the initial story didn’t contain significant news; it may get back up), but not before bloggers had picked it up. The first reposting of the document appeared on Hedgehogs.

I’ve since tried to find the cable on the Wikileaks web site, but it doesn’t seem to be there. If anyone knows the original link, please let me know.

Implications

I’ll publish on U.S. and Russian tactical nuclear weapons later in 2011, but the importance of the number 180 (if correct) is that it confirms that the United States during the past decade has been unilaterally reducing the deployment in Europe without demanding reductions in Russian tactical nuclear weapons. Miller correctly points to “the difficulty of bringing Russia to the bargaining table with 180 NATO sub-strategic warheads on offer against the estimated 3-5 thousand Russian warheads in that category.”

As I recently pointed out, there is important progress in NATO’s new Strategic Concept, but some language is unfortunate because it appears to reinstitute Russian as an adversary by demanding that any addition reductions in U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe must take into consideration Russia’s larger inventory of tactical nuclear weapons.

Some Baltic NATO countries have called for new contingency planning against Russia, but Ambassador Dalder pointed to the dilemma this creates for NATO’s long-held position that Russia is not an enemy.

I couldn’t agree more. NATO and the United States should certainly try to convince Russia to reduce its tactical nuclear weapons, but the previous unilateral U.S. reductions in Europe demonstrate that NATO can and should decide the future of the remaining U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe independent of the number of Russian tactical nuclear weapons.

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.

A white paper describes plans for a joint warhead.

By Hans M. Kristensen

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has sent Congress a white paper describing plans for extending the life of the W78 warhead on the Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

According to the paper, W78 Life Extension Program Description and Work Scope, a Phase 6.1 study would begin in February 2011 and seek to produce the first warhead in 2021.

Although focused on extending the life of the W78 warhead itself, the study includes an adaptable warhead option to join the W78 and W88 warheads for the purpose of producing a modified warhead that can be deployed on both the Minuteman and the Navy’s Trident II D5 sea-launched ballistic missile (SLBM).

A Joint Warhead

The NNSA white paper states that the Phase 6.1 study will explore the “W78 Military Characteristics (MCs) including military requirements for a system that could be fielded with both the Mk12A and Mk5 reentry systems.”

A joint warhead option raises important questions: How different will the new warhead be compared with the current W78 and W88 types? Will it be closer to the W78 or the W88 design? Will it be a “reliable replacement warhead”?

Part of the white paper language suggests that the joint warhead might be closer to the W78 than the W88. Indeed, the initial requirement for the W78 back in the 1970s was for both ICBM and SLBM deployment:

“The planned approach represents an important opportunity to extend W78 service life, incorporate modern safety, security, and control features and, if the W78 LEP is also able to address the requirements of the W88, gain substantial efficiencies and cost reduction.  In fact, the original MCs of the W78 (published in 1974) defined a requirement, yet technologically unmet, for a nuclear warhead for both the Minuteman III and the Trident II delivery systems. This was not feasible then but, in all likelihood, is feasible today.” (Emphasis added)

The white paper promises that, “the W78 LEP will use only nuclear components based on previously tested designs, and will not support new military missions or provide for new military capabilities.”

But for a joint warhead option, a W78 LEP deployed on SLBMs will obviously have to meet similar military requirements as the W88. Both warheads are hard-target kill weapons, yet the yield of the W88 is more than 100 kt greater than the W78 (see table). So unless the military reduces its requirements for the SLBM mission, then the capability of the W78 LEP warhead obviously would have to be increased to meet both missions.

W78 and W88 Warhead Profiles

* Pits (plutonium cores) for W88 replacement warheads are currently being produced at the  Los Alamos National Laboratory.

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The W78 and W88 designs currently have “single yield” so one possibility could be to add more yield options to a joint warhead to meet both missions. A new Arming, Fuzing and firing (AF&F) unit might also provide new targeting flexibility that improves the kill capability of the warhead (similarly to the Mk4A/W76-1 SLBM warhead currently being produced). Or a decision to increase the accuracy of the missiles could reduce the yield requirement.

Regardless of which design option is chosen, a joint warhead would appear to require some new military capabilities.

NNSA’s previous warhead refurbishment chart from FY2009 did not list a new AF&F for the W78 LEP, nor did it list new surety features for the W78 or W88 warhead. But the chart in the FY2011 Stockpile Stewardship Management Plan (SSMP) lists new AF&F and surety features for all future life-extension programs (see chart).

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How Many Warheads?

If the joint warhead becomes a modified version of the W78, what will happen to the W88? The Nuclear Posture Review stated that the W78 LEP study would examine “the possibility of using the resulting warhead also on SLBMs to reduce the number of warhead types.” (Emphasis added) And a joint warhead, the NNSA white paper states, “could provide opportunities to reduce further reserve warheads.” (Emphasis added)

That language suggests an intention to replace the W88. If so, how many W78 LEP warheads would be needed for both missions?

Nearly 1,000 W78 warheads were produced between 1979 and 1982, but only 250 or so are currently deployed with an additional 350 in reserve for a total of about 600 W78s remaining in the stockpile. Over the years, a couple of hundred W78s have been consumed in destructive quality control experiments.

Approximately 400 W88s were produced between 1989 and 1991, of which roughly 380 are deployed. Warheads lost in destructive quality control experiments are currently being replaced by new production warheads at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Assuming the number of deployed ICBMs and SLBMs will shrink to 420 and 240, respectively, over the next decade, the potential number of new joint warheads might be roughly 800 (in addition to the W87 and W76-1s deployed on the two platforms).

Stockpile Diversity and Reliability

A strategy to reduce warhead types is different from the RRW program of the Bush administration, which argued that replacement of warheads was important partly to preserve “diversity” of the stockpile. The thinking was that two warhead types per delivery platform would safeguard against a catastrophic technical warhead defect crippling a leg of the Triad.

Since a joint ICBM/SLBM warhead would reduce the warhead types for those platforms from four to three, a technical failure of the joint warhead would significantly affect the capability of both legs, instead of just one of them. That, ironically, could increase the vulnerability of the two legs and drive a requirement to maintain more W87 and W76-1 warheads in reserve than otherwise.

The administration is rushing a W88 AF&F replacement in 2018-2919, well ahead of the full LEP schedule.

The white paper states that “the W78 LEP will use only nuclear components based on previously tested designs,” a pledge also made by the NPR. But the addition of new components such as the AF&F and safety and security features can potentially create serious risks for predicting weapons reliability.

Some of the safety features being explored by the weapons labs include replacing chemical high explosives (CHE) with insensitive high explosives (IHE), and adding multi-point safety to the warheads.

Except for the W87, all U.S. ballistic missile warheads have conventional high explosives, potentially making them less safe than the W87. The newest missile warhead, the W88, was designed with the less safe explosive to reduce weight in order to increase the number of warheads that would be delivered by each missile. Using the W87 to replace the W88 would seem a better option (although the W87 yield is less than the W78), but there are too few W87s in the stockpile to load both ICBMs and SLBMs and the warhead is not scheduled for an LEP until the late-2030s. Another way to increase safety is to handle the warheads less and improve handling procedures. Deploying warheads on high alert, for example, significantly increases safety risks.

All warheads are currently single-point safe, which means if the high explosive is detonated at any single point, there will be less than one chance in a million that more yield will result than the equivalent to exploding four pounds of high explosives. Multi-point safety would ensure the same safety margin if multiple high explosives detonated simultaneously, but that would require significant changes to the warhead design and potentially decrease confidence in its reliability. Besides, no warhead accident has ever resulted in a nuclear yield.

In other words, the risks and uncertainties associated with producing a new joint warhead are many and it is far from clear that they would allow a reduction of the number of reserve warheads.

Cost Projections

The NNSA white paper does not include cost projections for the W78 LEP, but the FY2011 Stockpile Stewardship Management Plan does. Through 2025, the program is projected to cost more than $4 billion, or roughly $7 million per stockpiled W78 warhead.

Projected W78 Life Extension Program Costs

The administration projects the cost of the W78 life extension program will reach more than $4 billion through 2025. A joint ICBM-SLBM warhead would increase costs significantly.

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Combining the W78 and W88 would significantly increase this cost projection.

The administration’s budget includes $26 million to begin the Phase 6.1 study in February 2011, and STRATCOM apparently has already completed its assessment for a joint warhead but has not yet released its report.

But the Phase 6.1 study cannot begin until the Pentagon provides Congress with a clear need or military requirement for NNSA to pursue the joint warhead option. There are many questions that need to be answered.

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.

Morton Halperin speaks at CSIS

By Hans M. Kristensen

Kevin Kallmyer at CSIS has an interesting recap of a recent debate between Paula DeSutter and Mort Halperin about the New START Treaty.

Ratification of the treaty is held up in Congress by a handful of Senators who (mis)use questions about, among other issues, verification to extort billions of dollars to pet nuclear modernization projects at the expense of greater U.S. interests.

During the CSIS debate, Mort Halperin provided an enlightening anecdote about how to judge whether ratification of the treaty is in the U.S. interest. It cuts to the heart of what is important and deserves a repost here:

How do you decide whether a Treaty is in the American interest in relation to verification? The question cannot be are we sure that we will have 100% confidence that we would detect the first instance of Russian cheating. The question has to take into account the limits of the Treaty, and some degree of Russian cheating, is it in our interest to have the limit in the treaty, as opposed to not constraining the Russian forces. Our notion of what is acceptable verification goes back to the Reagan administration, it actually goes back before that…because the last time the Joint Chiefs of Staff held the view that a limit was not acceptable unless it could be 100% verifiable was in 1968. At that point, the Administration was planning to put forward a proposal to the Soviet Union to ban the further production of any ballistic missiles or submarines. The Joint Chief’s position then was to we can only include things in the agreement if we could be absolutely certain there will be no Russian cheating. A navy officer came to me one day and said, “Well, we cannot include submarines in the agreement.”

I said, “Why is that?”

He said, “Because the CIA has just come out with its estimate that said the Russians could cheat on an agreement that bans Russia from building any more ballistic missile submarines.”

And I said, “What does it say?”

He said, “It says the Russians could build as many as 3 submarines and we wouldn’t detect it, and only if they build a fourth submarine could we have very high confidence of detection.”

And I said, “How many submarines doe we have now?”
He said, “41.”

I said, “How many submarines do we plan to have 10 years from now.”

He said “41.”

I said, “How many submarines do the Russians have now?”

He said, “I think one.”

I said, “How many do we think they will have in 10 years from now.”

He said, “50.”

I said, “So, you prefer a world where we do not limit this and the Russians have 50 submarines and we have 41, to a world where we have 41, and the Russians have [4] until we can be sure we detect the [5th] submarine.”

And he said, “That’s right, the principle is that you do not include something in an agreement that cannot be verified.”

I looked at him and said, “Well, I think I’m going to win this fight…and I did.”

And the Joint Chiefs changed their position then, to what is clearly the correct position. You ask yourself about each limit, including the warhead limit in this treaty; is it in our interest to have this limit, recognizing that there obviously could be some amount of Russian cheating. The question is how much Russian cheating can there be before we detect it, and the question is what is the strategic significance of that cheating. We have seen no such analysis, because no such analysis that could be presented would be the slightest bit persuasive. The fact is that with the margin of deterrence we have to deter a Russian attack, that the margins of cheating the Russians can do is simply insignificant to the security to the United States.

Check out the full debate at the CSIS web site.

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.

Senator Kit Bond, Republican of Missouri, gave a speech in the Senate on the New START treaty.  Eli Lake’s summary is in the Washington Times.  He made accusations of serious shortcomings in the treaty.  I address these points because they appear to be substantive and earnest, unlike some of the hysteria and outright silliness coming from other treaty opponents.  I believe that the Senator’s concerns are sincere but that does not make them correct.  They reflect, instead, shortcomings in understanding about the treaty, misrepresentation of exiting U.S. and Russian nuclear forces, and a mistake in statistics.

Bond claims of the treaty’s limits on missile defense are spurious.  The only limit the treaty places on defenses is that neither Russia nor the United States can use existing offensive launchers to house defensive missiles.   The United States has no plans to do such a thing so the treaty keeps us from doing something we do not want to do.   If the treaty forbid us from painting our defensive missiles purple, would anyone object?  (I suppose, the answer is “yes.”)

He also objects to Moscow’s unilateral statements that it can reevaluate offensive arms limitations if U.S. defenses threaten to defeat Russian retaliatory capability.  This issue is more subtle than it is serious.  First, either side can say whatever it likes but the treaty is what it is.  Moreover, the U.S. is unlikely to have the necessary defensive capability within its technical reach in the imaginable future but, even so, to say, as the preamble of the treaty does, that there is a connection between offense and defense should be an obvious statement of fact.  Indeed, why would we be spending billions on a missile defense system that is unconnected to offensive missiles?  Finally, he claims that Russian threats to abandon the treaty are leverage over U.S. defensive plans.   There is no treaty that we, or the Russians or any other nation, can sign up for that cannot be repudiated.  But that is our decision, not the Russians, to decide  whether that is leverage or not.   The U.S did withdraw from the ABM treaty in 2001 with strong support from the conservatives in Congress.  It is a fact of life, not a criticism of treaties or this treaty in particular.

Senator Bond also objects that the treaty allows deployed missiles to be rapidly uploaded with additional warheads.  This is, in fact, a big concern about the treaty, but it is a concern the Russians have about the U.S., not the other way around.   The Russians pushed for lower launcher limits while we pushed for lower warhead limits.  The U.S. gets down to the warhead limit in part by off-loading warheads from multiple warhead missiles on its submarines, so the US has lots of empty launch spots on its missiles.  (This is precisely why Russia pushed for lower launcher numbers.  See discussion in the next paragraph.)  The problem Senator Bond points out is precisely the problem that Russia sees when looking at US systems.  The Russians, with lower launcher numbers, will be much closer to their maximum missile loading than the US will be.  If Russia breaks out of the treaty, which they cannot do undetected, the U.S. is in a far stronger position to react than Russia is to act.  Russia knows this, making this breakout tactic unappealing to them.

The Senator’s misleadingly claims that “ this treaty … forces the United States to reduce unilaterally our forces, such as missiles, bombers, and warheads, in order to meet treaty limits.  On the other hand, the Russians will actually be allowed to increase their deployed forces because they currently fall below the treaty’s limits.”  As shown in the graph above, prepared by my colleague Hans Kristensen, we see that the US makes almost no reductions from current numbers of launchers and warheads.  (Indeed, talk of how the treaty demands a reduction of third in deployed warheads is overstated because current counting rules overstate the actual number of warheads.  There is a one third reduction in accounted warheads, but not in actual warheads.)  The Russians have to make significant reductions in warhead numbers.  Perhaps what the Senator is referring to is that Russia’s launcher number is below the limit and the Russian’s current plans are to cut launchers even further below New START limits anyway, so they could build up launchers from where they are expected to be.  But this is just to say that the treaty favors the U.S. because we are going to exploit both the launcher and warhead limits to the fullest but the Russians will not.  The alternative seems to be to further restrict U.S. launchers to get them down to where Russia is.  How does that make the treaty stronger?  The bottom line is that Russian warhead numbers have to come down.  And it is warheads, not missiles that blow things up.  (Note that in both cases, the deployed warhead numbers are above the treaty “limit” because of the counting rule on bombers.)  We can be absolutely certain that the Russians pushed for a launcher limit that was as low as where they were heading anyway.  The fact the launcher limit is higher, where the Americans, not the Russians, want it to be, is a sign of successful U.S. negotiation, not a weakness of the treaty.

Senator Bond’s statements that the treaty requires unilateral reduction in the number of bombers is flatly wrong.  Indeed, each U.S. bomber, which can carry a dozen nuclear bombs, is counted as though it carries only one, which is considered a major shortcoming by those of us who wanted a more ambitious treaty.

When he says that “unlike START” this treaty places no limit on non-deployed missiles he is overstating the limits of START.  The 1991 treaty did place some limits on certain Russian mobile missiles, for example, but it only limited launchers for fixed ICBMs and for SLBMs, not the missiles that went into those launchers.  When Bond argues that START allowed us to count warheads precisely because we could count launchers precisely and had a warhead counting rule, he is again mistaken.  We counted launchers as a surrogate for missiles and those were a surrogate for warheads.  (We counted launchers not because it was a great idea but, given limitations on monitoring, it was the only thing we could count.)  True, at the end you come up with a nice precise number that everyone can agree on but that number is only indirectly related to the actual number of warheads.  That has been perceived by most as a major weakness of past arm control verification schemes that New START rectifies.   It is clear that Senator Bond actually prefers missile limits with counting rules to counting warheads directly, apparently because that is a better measure of the worst case.  That is a valid objection but most nuclear planners would rather have a direct count on warhead numbers than have an exact count on launchers that are a surrogate for a surrogate for warhead numbers that might be off by a third.   It is important to note that the Russians actually have limited capacity for the breakout that Bond worries about and it could not occur undetected.

The Senator misunderstands statistics and the purpose of inspections:  he says that the 10 inspections a year will only check on 2 percent of the Russian forces, the implication being that 98% will be a complete mystery to us so we really don’t have any idea what is going on.  This is not true:  with just a sampling provided by inspections, we can have extremely high confidence in compliance.

As he says, “…these inspections cannot provide conclusive evidence of whether the Russians are complying with the warhead limit.”  True, checking on 10 weapons sites is not enough to develop a statistical picture of Russian forces.  But the treaty requires data exchanges to declare how many warheads are on which missiles.  The data exchanges include the entire arsenal on both sides.  The inspections are not really to inspect the weapons themselves so much as to confirm the data exchanges.  Say the Russians wanted to cheat by putting more warheads than allowed on, say, 10% of their missiles.  (I pick 10% because I don’t think anyone is arguing that 10% more or fewer weapons will make any discernable military difference.  The number of warheads we have ready to launch changes by about 10% every time a ballistic missile submarine goes on or off patrol.)  They would have to put the warheads on missiles and then lie on the data exchange and hope they don’t get caught.  So, if we pick our inspection sites randomly, then there is a 10% chance they will get caught in one inspection and a 90% chance they will get away without detection on that one inspection.  But there is only an 81% chance of getting past two inspections, 73% chance away with three, and so on.  If we do 10 inspections, there is a 2/3 chance we will catch a violation of only a 10% cheat, hardly odds that would appeal to a prospective cheater.  There is a 90% chance we would catch a 20% cheat.  Just in the first 10 inspections.  Remember that inspections continue over the years and our confidence will increase over time, approaching near certain that even small violations will be detected by the time the warhead limits are reached.  Compare this to our complete lack of knowledge of warhead numbers without inspections.

Note that the important number is the number of inspections, not the fraction of sites inspected.  The statistics are essentially the same whether we inspect ten out of a hundred sites or ten out of ten thousand.  Therefore, the Senator’s point that the inspections look at only 2-3% of the sites is wholly irrelevant from a mathematical perspective.

It is also important to understand that, contrary to Senator Bond’s implication, our National Technical Means, that is, overhead satellites, do not suddenly disappear.  If the Russians tried to quickly load more warheads on missiles, we would see it.

Senator Bond’s objections are not simply politically motivated hysteria but his objections have been addressed and met.  The treaty will reduce the nuclear threat and the verification is carefully tailored to meet the provisions of the treaty.  Ratify.

NATO General Secretary Anders Fogh Rasmussen presents the alliance’s new Strategic Concept

By Hans M. Kristensen

The new Strategic Concept adopted today by NATO represents one step forward and a half step backward for the alliance’s nuclear weapons policy.

The forward-leaning part of the nuclear policy pledges to actively try to create the conditions for further reducing the number of and reliance on nuclear weapons, recommits to the ultimate goal of nuclear disarmament, and reaffirms that circumstances in which the alliance could contemplate using its nuclear weapons are “extremely remote.”

But the strategy fails to present any steps that reduce the number of or reliance on nuclear weapons. As such, the new Strategic Concept – Active Engagement, Modern Defence – falls short of the Obama administration’s recent Nuclear Posture Review.

Even so, there are important changes in the document that hint of things to come.

The Role of Nuclear Weapons

The new Strategic Concept does not explicitly reduce the role of NATO’s nuclear weapons. Instead, it echoes the Obama administration’s formulation that “as long as nuclear weapons exist,” NATO will remain a nuclear alliance.

And the formulation in the 1999 Strategic Concept that “NATO’s nuclear forces no longer target any country” is gone from the new document. Instead, it states that NATO “does not consider any country to be its adversary.”

Overall, the 2010 document is far less explicit than the 1999 document about what the role of nuclear weapons is. The previous document explicitly described the role “to preserve peace and prevent coercion and war of any kind…by ensuring uncertainty in the mind of any aggressor about the nature of the Allies’ response to military aggression,” and “demonstrate that aggression of any kind is not a rational option.”

The new document, in contrast, describes the role of nuclear weapons in very general terms, essentially with no specifics, and as part of an overall mix of nuclear and conventional capabilities.

Gone is the previous language about U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe providing an essential political and military link between Europe and North America, or that sub-strategic forces provide a link with strategic forces.

Instead, the document states that it is the strategic forces of the United States, in particular, and to some extent Britain and France, that provide the “supreme guarantee of the security of the Alliance”.

US Nuclear Forces in Europe

Combined, these significant changes could be seen as hints of an attempt to lessen the importance the alliance attributes to having U.S. tactical nuclear weapons forward deployed in Europe.

To be sure, the document still contains what appears to be a commitment to some form of U.S. nuclear presence in Europe, by committing to “the broadest possible participation of Allies in collective defence planning on nuclear roles, in peacetime basing of nuclear forces, and in command, control and consultation arrangements.” (Emphasis added)

But this is vague language compared with the 1999 document. It could simply be met by Allies taking part in Nuclear Planning Group meetings, deployment of some U.S. dual-capable aircraft in Europe but without weapons, and Allies continuing to be part of the decision making process for potential use of nuclear weapons.

The number of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe today is down to 150-200 B61 bombs deployed at six bases in five countries (see table).

The Role of Russia

In the years between the 1999 and 2010, NATO unilaterally reduced the number of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Europe by more than half, from 480 to 150-200 B61 bombs. The 1999 Strategic Concept did not mention Russia at all as a factor for sizing the U.S. deployment.

The new Strategic Concept, in contrast, returns Russia to a central position for how the Alliance sizes the number of U.S. nuclear weapons deployed in Europe.

“In any future reductions,” NATO declares, “our aim should be to seek Russian agreements to increase transparency on its nuclear weapons in Europe and relocate these weapons away from the territory of NATO members.”

Moreover, “Any further steps must take into account the disparity with the greater Russian stockpiles of short-range nuclear weapons.”

While seeking to achieve reductions in Russian tactical nuclear weapons is important – it has more than 5,000 of them, formally linking the U.S. deployment in Europe to Russia seems to contradict the policy of the past two decades that the U.S. weapons in Europe are not directed against Russia. And NATO has repeatedly made unilateral reductions without demanding Russian reductions. Indeed, the new Strategic Concept declares that “NATO poses no threat to Russia,” and that the Alliance “does not consider any country to be its adversary.”

So to begin now to argue that the size of the U.S. arsenal in Europe is linked to Russia after all resembles the Cold War policy when NATO looked to Russia for sizing the U.S. arsenal in Europe.

Moreover, Russia’s tactical nuclear weapons posture is less tied to the U.S. nuclear posture in Europe and more to Russia’s perception of countering NATO’s superior conventional forces and defending the long border with China. Since those factors determine the size of the large Russian tactical nuclear weapons arsenal, it is hard to see why Moscow would agree to reduce its tactical nuclear weapons in return for reductions of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Europe.

The Future

The changes in the new Strategic Concept are many and important. The language could hint that NATO may be preparing the ground for the withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe. But the way forward is muddled with preconditions on Russian reductions.

A joint communiqué from the Lisbon Summit might make things clearer tomorrow but it will require a new deterrence review in 2011 for NATO to translate what the Strategic Concept means for NATO’s nuclear posture.

Conditioning future reductions on Russia could be a roadblock, so hopefully the vague “aim to seek” and “taking into account” formulations don’t imply tit-for-tat reciprocity. The success of the unilateral withdrawals in the early 1990s suggests that a unilateral withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons from Europe would be more effective in stimulating a Russian response.

The Obama administration sees the emergence of a “new, tailored, regional deterrence architecture” that “make[s] possible a reduced role for nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.” The new Strategic Concept seems to agree, so hopefully the Obama administration can now become more assertive in pushing for a withdrawal of the last U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from Europe so it can focus on an agreement to reduce U.S. and Russian tactical nuclear weapons in general.

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.