On a recent trip to Tucson, Arizona I visited the Titan Missile Museum, something I recommend for all FAS blog readers who might be in the area. The tour was great. You get to visit the silo and the launch control area. They even have a decommissioned Titan missile in the silo. All very impressive.

I confess, I was a bit apprehensive about the lecture I was going to get as part of our orientation. I fully expected it to be a Cold War propaganda fest. But the comments were, in fact, quite good. There was one description of deterrence that I could have quibbled with a bit but overall I was pleased. Still, it is sometimes best to look to a child for clarity. One young visitor sent in a drawing that I think sums up the Titan missile perfectly, everything else is just details. I posted it here.

The Pentagon yesterday released its annual warning of the growing Chinese military threat. This year’s version continues the refrain from previous years and reiterates the conclusion from the recent Quadrennial Defense Review that China now is seen as the top large-scale military threat to the United States.

The signs of a Chinese threat are all there: An increasing defense budget that may equal half of ours in 20 years, new long-range mobile nuclear missiles that will be harder for us to destroy, an increase in the number of nuclear warheads that can hit the United States to perhaps as much as two percent of the warheads we can hit them with, new cruise missiles similar to the hundreds of cruise missile we have deployed in the region for decades, warships that may be able to disturb the unhindered operations of our carrier battle groups and surface action groups, a handful of nuclear-powered attack submarines that our 30 nuclear-powered attack submarines in the Pacific will have to sink too, more fighters and bombers that will be harder for the hundreds of advanced fighters we have deployed in the region for decades to shoot down.

This year’s Pentagon report dedicates more space than previous versions to discussing the big unknown: will China abandon its policy not to use nuclear weapons first? Of cause, there is “no evidence that this doctrine has actually changed” and China’s senior leadership assured Rumsfeld in 2005 that it “will not change,” the report states. Yet the attention this issue gets in the report suggests that the Pentagon suspects a change is underway. The circle of “military and civilian national security professionals” that discuss the value of the no-first-use policy “is broader than previously assessed,” the report hints.

Just imagine if China had a nuclear policy like the United States: a first-use nuclear doctrine with highly-accurate flexible nuclear forces on high alert, many of them forward deployed, capable of conducting a decapitating preemptive first strike. That would be highly destabilizing.

So let’s try not to get to that situation. Unfortunately, after having targeted China for 50 years, the Pentagon is reacting to China’s military modernization in the old-fashioned way: moving the majority of its nuclear ballistic missile submarines into the Pacific, increasing the number of attack submarines operating in the region, and forward-deploying bombers and cruise missiles to Guam. It has even built a whole new war plan, known as Operations Plan (OPLAN) 5077, according to Willliam Arkin, to defend Taiwan which includes options for attacks on the Chinese mainland, even the potential use of nuclear weapons.

Last time we got into this tit-for-tat game with a large military power it took 50 years, trillions of dollars, and several nuclear crises to get out. The Pentagon’s report on China’s military modernization should warn us that it is important that the White House and Congress take charge of U.S.-Chinese relations so we avoid a new Cold War in the Pacific.

See also: Chinese Nuclear Forces, 2006 | China’s Nuclear Submarine Cave

At first glance, who could complain about replacing current nuclear warheads with ones that are more reliable? After all, since we have them they should work. But the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program may do no good, may do much harm, and will cost a lot if carried forward.

The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) Program is, as one might guess from the name, intended to develop more reliable nuclear warheads to replace existing warheads. One of the most important Congressional supporters of the Reliable Replacement Warhead Program, Congressman David Hobson of Ohio, was recently quoted saying, “This [the RRW] is a way to redo the weapon capability that we have and maybe make them more reliable, make them better mission capable.”

There are a couple of problems with this statement. First, it implies that there is some problem with the reliability of the current stockpile. I was recently at a meeting held under the “Chatam Houes Rule” (that is, I can use what was said at the meeting but I cannot attribute it) to discuss the RRW. Among several of the participants, who had extensive knowledge of nuclear weapons’ design and the stockpile stewardship program, a debate arose about the reliability of the current arsenal. Some claimed that the current arsenal is 98% reliable while others challenged that number, arguing that the reliability is better than that. No one suggested the reliability was less. The fact is, the current arsenal is extremely reliable and there are no foreseeable problems that will change that assessment. (One should note that 98% “reliable” does not mean that 2% of the weapons will not go off, but that they might explode with a yield somewhat less than specified; so a 400 kT bomb that explodes with a yield of 300 kT is considered “unreliable.”)

It is possible that an RRW could be more reliable than current weapons. If the current arsenal is 98% reliable, then an RRW could, in theory, be 99% reliable. But 98% is a pretty high bar to vault and it is not at all clear that an RRW could be made more reliable than existing weapons. Moreover, there is no conceivable meaningful difference between the two cases. If some war plan depends on the difference between 98% and 99%, then we need a new war plan, not a new warhead. Also, the warheads sit atop missiles that are reckoned to be about 90% or so reliable, which swamps the unreliability of the warheads themselves. Indeed, given the finite number of weapons and tests that might be available even in theory, it will be difficult, from a statistical point view, to even measure the difference between 98% and 99%. In this case, the RRW is clearly a solution to a problem that we either do not have or don’t need to fix. It is highly unlikely that the RRW will be more reliable than the highly reliable current arsenal and certainly not meaningfully more reliable. There are two great dangers here: The first is that discussion about the “need” for a new “reliable” warhead will make people think that current warheads are not reliable when they are, making us do something uncalled for, or even reckless, to solve a non-existant problem. The second, ironically, is that after an RRW has been introduced a new group of decision-makers will realize the thing has never been tested and might begin calling for renewed testing.

It appears, however, that the main justification for the program is not the first “R” (increased reliability), but the second “R” in RRW (to replace existing warheads). Some who acknowledge that the current stockpile is adequately reliable nevertheless claim that maintaining the stockpile, and that level of reliability, will become increasingly expensive. An RRW might reduce those costs, but not necessarily. There are, as yet, no detailed cost estimates for the RRW Program so it is merely an assertion to say that the program will save any money.

Besides, the Departments of Defense and Energy are not going to stop the stockpile stewardship program for existing warheads while the RRW is being developed. There are several hints that the RRW will be deployed, not in place of existing warheads, but in parallel with existing programs. Even if the new warhead replaces old warheads in a one-to-one exchange, the old warhead program will remain in place until it has been completely replaced by the new warhead. There is some indication that the military users will want to keep the two types of warheads deployed in parallel for some time, a decade or more, to reassure themselves that the RRW holds up to its billing, before completing any replacement. The Replacement Warhead Program might eventually be cheaper than the current Stockpile Stewardship Program, but the two programs together can’t possibly be cheaper than Stockpile Stewardship alone. And costing less is not enough if “saving” that money requires a big up-front investment. As Richard Garwin has pointed out, we have to take into account the discounted value of future savings. It makes great sense to spend $1.00 today to save $1.10 tomorrow but it makes no sense to spend $1.00 today to save $1.10 thirty years from now.

The National Labs are energized by the RRW Program because it allows them to exercise their design skills. One of the stated objectives of the Administration is to have a responsive nuclear weapons “complex” and building a new warhead will test, and help maintain, that complex. Indeed, one way to look at the RRW program is to see the warhead as just a means to an end; the end is keeping a ready nuclear design and manufacturing capability. Last autumn I wrote a short article on the RRW in the FAS journal, the Public Interest Report. Logically, it had to be written in the form of, “If the RRW turns out to be X, then Y…” because it was not at all clear then what the RRW program really was. The program is still not entirely clear, but clearer. It seems that the RRW is grist for the mill of the nuclear weapons complex. The overarching objective is indefinite maintenance of a warm nuclear weapons manufacturing base. The Department of Energy, no matter how far into the future it looks, cannot envision an America without thousands of nuclear weapons.

The Arms Control Association has a good piece on the RRW.

The administration has a new plan: as it prepares for production of the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) to replace most of the nuclear warheads in the operational stockpile, it will “accelerate” dismantlement of retired nuclear warheads to “assure other nations that we are not building up our stockpile.”

According to this plan, Deputy Secretary of Energy Clay Cell told the House Energy and Water Subcommittee last week, the DOE will “increase dismantlements planned for FY 07 by nearly 50% compared to FY 06,” and is “committed to increasing average annual warhead dismantlements at the Pantex Plant by 25%.”

Big percentages sound good, but here’s the problem: Since the DOE didn’t plan to dismantle very many warheads in 2007 anyway, increasing the rate by 50% won’t dismantle much either. As congressional and administration sources told the Washington Post, fewer than 100 warheads have been taken apart annually in recent years.

Under the new plan, assuming an increased annual dismantlement rate of 150 warheads, it will take the DOE over 28 years to dismantle the roughly 4,300 warheads it has pledged will be cut from the stockpile by 2012. To meet the deadline, DOE will have to increase the dismantlement rate to more than 700 warheads per year.

What does “accelerated dismantlement” look like? It looks like what we did back in the 1990s, when the United States scrapped some 11,000 nuclear warheads! Since then, the DOE’s priorities have changed from nuclear dismantlement to life-extension of the “enduring” nuclear stockpile. For the next decade, unless Congress or a new administration intervenes, DOE will be busy extending the life of the stockpile rather than dismantling it.

But since an official objective of the administration’s new plan is to “assure other nations,” why not tell them what the warhead numbers are? Why this Cold War nuclear secrecy? The numbers need to be kept secret, the nuclear custodians warn, because if we told other nations how many warheads we dismantle, they might be able to figure out the size of our stockpile, and that would be bad for national security. But how does the administration plan to assure other nations if they cannot be told? While we wait for the administration to figure that out, here is the stockpile number: today, roughly 9,960 warheads; in 2012, nearly 6,000 warheads. Reassured?

The Chinese nuclear stockpile appears to be only half as big as previously thought, according to a new overview published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Up to 130 warheads may be deployed out of a total stockpile of some 200 warheads. Several new weapon systems are under development which the Pentagon says could increase the arsenal in the future, but past US intelligence projections have proven highly inflated and inaccurate. The new overview will be followed by a more detailed report published by the Federation of American Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council this spring.

See also: Chinese Nuclear Submarine Cave Discovered

Our ace FAS researcher, Lucas Royland, has developed a simple calculator that allows prediction of when Iran will first have enough highly enriched uranium to build a simple gun-assembled nuclear bomb. We must emphasize that the calculator gives the best case (from the Iranian point of view, the worst case from the rest of the world’s point of view). In other words, the user enters, for example, the rate at which Iran can produce centrifuges. The calculator assumes those are used to best efficiency as produced. There are never any management errors, supply problems, or misallocation of resources, that is, the things that always slow down any real-world construction project. So, for the parameters entered, the calculator gives the “not before” date.

The President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , announced on Tuesday that Iran has successfully enriched uranium to levels useable in a nuclear reactor. The calculator shows that the announcement is important but not quite as momentous as it might first appear. Certain events really are “milestones.” The day before the United States exploded the first nuclear bomb or the day before the Soviets launched Earth’s first artificial satellite, no one could be absolutely certain the feat was possible but the day after we knew it was possible. The Iranian announcement is not in this category.

The Iranians had built some centrifuges using plans and parts bought from Pakistan. The world knew they had some experience operating individual centrifuges. But no centrifuge can enrich uranium to reactor grade; the output from one centrifuge is passed on as the input to the next, and so forth through several layers in what is called a “cascade.” Optimizing a cascade is a complex business and the Iranians linked their 164 centrifuges together to study the problem. Using this small experimental cascade, the Iranians were able, they claim, to enrich some small quantity of uranium from a natural concentration of 0.7% U-235 to 3.5% U-235. This is an important accomplishment but not a Sputnik-like milestone. It is one step in a long engineering and production process that eventually will lead to the capability to produce significant quantities of bomb-grade uranium and, perhaps, the material itself if the Iranians chose to go that route.

The Arms Control Association has a great resource page on Iran. Anthony Cordesman and Khalid R. Al-Rodham released this week a long review of the Iranian nuclear program.

An earlier FAS blog entry analyzed, and criticized, proposed legislation that grants the Bush Administration pre-approval of the details of an eventual nuclear trade deal with India. FAS has also organized a petition campaign to encourage members of Congress to vote against the legislation. (And blog readers are encouraged to sign the petition.) The Times of India picked up on the petition. The Times piece was, in my view, pretty good and fair. They did not agree entirely with the FAS position but I think the article did a good job of representing the FAS position.

Nevertheless, with the Times article, many in India learned of FAS involvement in the issue, resulting in a lot of emails to FAS and almost all of the letters were negative, specifically saying that the FAS position is anti-Indian. I can imagine that if all anyone knew about FAS was its position on the Indian nuclear deal, it might somehow appear that we have some gripe against India. And for those people, I simply ask that they view all of the work of the Federation. We have worked hard against what we believe is an oversized U.S. arsenal. We worked against the RNEP, or nuclear bunker buster. We are working now against the U.S. Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, that will restart plutonium reprocessing in the United States after a three decade hiatus. We have publicized the inflation of the Chinese threat and the growing importance of tactical nuclear weapons in military planning. (Once we figure out what the Reliable Replacement Warhead Program actually is, we might work against that, too, but we don’t think anyone is absolutely certain what the program is yet.)

The point is that FAS works to reduce the number and salience of U.S. nuclear weapons. We want to reduce the world’s nuclear weapons and fully realize that most of those are in the United States and Russia. We also oppose the Indian deal but not because we are anti-Indian but because we are anti-proliferation.

One of the tragedies of the Cold War is that a confrontation between the United States and Russia sucked in other “balancing” powers like China, India, and Pakistan. Due to circumstances that had little to do with India and the United States directly, the world’s two largest democracies ended up, certainly not enemies, but suspicious of one another looking across that divide. FAS, and we suspect an overwhelming majority of Americans, strongly support closer ties with India. India has some of the best scientists in the world and there are a hundred different ways that the United States and India could work together. Even in the area of energy research, programs in clean coal, carbon dioxide sequestration, wind and solar power, improved efficiency in buildings, transportation, and electricity transmission, could benefit from close U.S.-Indian collaboration. But not nuclear power, not with an agreement that critically undermines the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Update (February 22, 2007): DTRA announces that Divine Strake has been canceled.

The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) today confirmed to FAS that the upcoming Divine Strake test widely reported in the media to be a non-nuclear event is in fact a low-yield nuclear weapons calibration simulation against an underground target.

A few, including Albuquerque Journal and disarmamentactivist.org, have speculated that Divine Strake was a nuclear-related event, but DTRA has up till now declined to confirm or deny the nuclear connection.

In response to an email earlier today, a DTRA spokesperson confirmed that Divine Strake is the same event that is described in DTRA budget documents as being a low-yield nuclear weapons shock simulation designed to allow the warfighters to fine-tune the yield of nuclear weapons in strikes on underground facilities.

It also turns out that Divine Strake is “an integral part” of STRATCOM’s new Global Strike mission, which is normally reported to develop mainly non-nuclear capabilities against time-urgent targets. Global Strike is one of the pillars of the Bush administration’s so-called New Triad which is said to be reducing the role of nuclear weapons.

According to a Department of Energy document associated with Divine Strake, the event comes only two years after President George W. Bush in Summer 2004 signed a presidential decision directive that ordered STRATCOM to “extend Global Strike to counter all [Hard and Deeply Buried Targets] to include both tactical and strategic adversarial targets.”

Divine Strake was not mentioned during last week’s Senate hearing on the Global Strike mission.

More: Divine Strake Background | Global Strike Chronology

Hans M. Kristensen and two analysts from the Natural Resources Defense Council examine the debate over China’s modernization of its nuclear forces, review the composition and possible future development of the Chinese nuclear arsenal, describe past and current U.S. nuclear targeting of China, and use government software to simulate the effects of Chinese and U.S. of nuclear attacks. The report (PDF) concludes that both countries use the other as an excuse to modernize their nuclear forces, and recommends that urgent steps are needed by both sides to halt and reverse a nuclear arms race.

Download Full Report

Will the New Triad of nuclear and non-nuclear capabilities reduce or increase the role of U.S. nuclear weapons? To get an answer to that question I went to a hearing the Senate Armed Services Committee held earlier today on the Pentagon’s new Global Strike mission. But instead of giving a clear answer, the Pentagon muddled the issue by saying that it is reducing its dependence on nuclear weapons while at the same time increasing the nuclear strike options.

Four officials were lined up to explain the Global Strike mission to the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Strategic Forces Subcommittee: Peter C. W. Flory, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy, General James E. Cartwright, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, Rear Admiral Charles B. Young, Director of the Navy’s Strategic Systems Programs, and Major General Stanley Gorenc, Director of Air Force Operational Capabilities and Requirements and Deputy Chief of Staff for Air and Space Operations. These guys ought to know what the nuclear policy is.

STRATCOM Commander General Cartwright explained to the Subcommittee that the New Triad provides increased flexibility in dealing with a wider range of contingencies, “while reducing our dependence on nuclear weapons….” Although he mentioned that the President has committed the United States to sustaining a credible nuclear deterrent capability “to ensure our nuclear force remains ready to meet any contingency,” Gen. Cartwright only mentioned non-nuclear weapons when describing the new capabilities of the New Triad, and he never explicitly stated that the Global Strike mission also includes nuclear weapons.

Secretary Flory described the role of nuclear weapons very differently. Although his testimony echoed Cartwright’s statement about reducing the role of nuclear weapons, Flory described an important role for nuclear weapons in Global Strike. In fact, his prepared statement appears to suggest that the nuclear role is increasing. In three consecutive paragraphs describing the continued “critical role” of nuclear weapons, Flory stated that flexible and credible nuclear forces will provide the President with “a broader range of options” that will make it possible to “tailor deterrence” against adversaries armed with “chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons….” “What we need is not a smaller version of the Cold War-era nuclear stockpile; we need capabilities appropriate for 21st Century threats,” he advocated. “Making tailored deterrence a reality…will require us to make adjustments in our force posture, in our residual nuclear stockpile, and in our thinking,” Flory explained.

Will the right nuclear policy please stand up! Is there a nuclear option in Global Strike or is there not? Is the range of options broadening or is it not? Why does STRATCOM gloss over the nuclear option while the Office of the Secretary of Defense emphasizes it? Three years after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld assigned a new Global Strike mission to STRATCOM, 18 months after the first Global Strike plan became operational, and six months after the new Space and Global Strike component command stood up at Offutt Air Force Base, one would have hoped that Congress could have gotten a more coherent account of the role of nuclear weapons in this critical new mission.

This is serious stuff. Embedded in Global Strike is preemption against proliferators of weapons of mass destruction. Try adding nuclear weapons to those scenarios, and the ramifications become truly immense. Several countries, including Russia and North Korea, have already referred to the Bush administration’s preemption doctrine to justify their own preemptive strikes if necessary. Moreover, if we can preempt with nuclear weapons, why can’t terrorists?

A clear account of how U.S. nuclear weapons could potentially be used under Global Strike should have been part of today’s Congressional hearing. After all, if the Pentagon cannot articulate a coherent nuclear policy to the Senate, how does it expect to communicate the policy to the countries it is trying to deter?

More: Global Strike background | Not Just A Last Resort?

The Senate Armed Services Committee plans to hold a hearing on Wednesday, March 29th, on the Pentagon’s new offensive Global Strike mission. The Committee has asked the following officials to testify:

* Peter C. W. Flory, Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy
* General James E. Cartwright, USMC, Commander, U.S. Strategic Command
* Rear Admiral Charles B. Young, USN, Director Strategic Systems Programs, Department of the Navy
* Major General Stanley Gorenc, USAF, Director, Operational Capabilities and Requirements, Deputy Chief of Staff for Air and Space Operations, Headquarters, U.S. Air Force

This is Congress’ first hearing on this critical new mission, which includes strike options that span from information warfare to preemptive nuclear attacks against weapons of mass destruction targets around the world.

The long-overdue hearing comes three and a half years after the White House published the so-called preemption doctrine (National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction), three years after STRATCOM was tasked to prepare strike plans against WMD targets around the world, nineteen months after Rumsfeld signed the Alert Order that directed STRATCOM to put Global Strike into effect, and six months after the new Joint Functional Component Command for Space and Global Strike became operational at Offutt Air Force Base.

More: Hearing Page | Global Strike Chronology

President Bush has submitted an amazing piece of legislation to Congress that essentially strips Congress of its authority to evaluate and limit nuclear exports to India and asks Congress to approve whatever trade deal the Administration develops, that is, to approve the Indian nuclear deal months in advance, sight unseen.

Much was made of the nuclear “deal” arrived at by President Bush and Prime Minister Singh during Bush’s recent trip to India. But there really isn’t any deal, yet. What the President and Prime Minister really did was agree in principle to develop nuclear technology trade. The actual trade package will be a complex technical business arrangement. It will take at least months, perhaps a year or more, to work out all the details.

When the trade agreement is all spelled out, it must, under current law, be submitted to Congress for evaluation and, under some circumstances, approval. This is all spelled out in the Atomic Energy Act. The key section is 123, Cooperation with Other Nations. (Find it on page 1-52 of the linked document.) Section 123 lays out the requirement for sharing nuclear technology with another country. There are basically four sets of requirements set out in four paragraphs. (And bear with me, I am not a lawyer, so I too was a bit surprised to find a “paragraph” that was two and a half pages long.)

The first, paragraph 123(a), lists nine conditions that must be met. Most have to do with securing material and technology transferred under any agreement. All of these should be met but they can be waived if the President judges that requiring compliance would harm non-proliferation or national security. (Keep that in mind, we come back to it later.)

Paragraphs (b) and (c) describe reports that the administration must submit to Congress.

Paragraph (d) says that if all the reports are in order and have been sent to the right offices, then Congress has sixty days to disapprove the agreement by joint resolution. That is, the default is approval: if the Congress does nothing the deal goes through; Congress has to actively intervene.

Except, if the President invoked his waiver power up in paragraph (a). If there is a waiver, then the burden of proof is completely reversed. Now the deal does not go through unless the Congress explicitly accepts the waiver and approves the deal.

Bush wants this deal, whatever it turns out to be, to go through regardless of what Congress thinks. So the Administration would much prefer to have the default be that the deal goes through unless Congress specifically objects. Then Congressional allies can simply stall, never vote, and tacitly approve the deal.

There are two ways to deal with this. Bush could not invoke the waiver clause of paragraph 123(a), simply asserting that India has met all the conditions. This might not pass the “laugh test.” Subparagraph 123(a) (2), for example, states that for “non-nuclear weapon states” that all “peaceful” nuclear sites anywhere in the country be under IAEA surveillance. Ironically, part of the India deal is that, for NPT purposes, India will remain a “non-nuclear weapon state.” In any case, by not invoking the waiver when a reasonable person thinks it should be invoked, the President lays himself open to court challenge by members of Congress.

Thus, the second approach. Bush has submitted to Congress H.R. 4974. The bill is very short and simply states that the President can, at his discretion and only in the case of India, waive the requirements of 123(a) without activating the approval requirements of 123(d). With this legislation, whatever the India deal eventually turns out to be, it will be approved unless a majority of both houses of Congress disapprove the deal within sixty days by joint resolution, meaning they have to agree on identical language. Moreover, since the President can be expected to veto any attempt to block the deal that he just submitted, disapproval will in practice require a two thirds majority of both houses.

What this amounts to is that the Administration is asking the Congress to approve the India nuclear technology transfer deal in advance, sight unseen. Not even the President now knows what will eventually be included in the package but once this legislation is passed, the Administration can promise India essentially anything it wants with little to no concern about Congressional interference. The President does not have this authority with Britain or Canada. This bill constitutes a major attack on Congressional oversight prerogatives.

The Congressional Research Service has prepared an excellent issue paper on a possible Indian nuclear deal. Sam Nunn was cited in the Washington Post as saying a nuclear deal with India should be examined carefully.