By Hans M. Kristensen

CBS’s 60 Minutes program Risk of Nuclear Attack Rises described that Russia may be lowering the threshold for when it would use nuclear weapons, and showed how U.S. nuclear bombers have started flying missions they haven’t flown since the Cold War: Over the North Pole and deep into Northern Europe to send a warning to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The program follows last week’s program The New Cold War where viewers were shown unprecedented footage from STRATCOM’s command center at Omaha Air Base in Nebraska.

Producer Mary Welch and correspondent David Martin have produced a fascinating and vital piece of investigative journalism showing disturbing new developments in the nuclear relationship between Russia and the United States.

They were generous enough to consult me and include me in the program to discuss the increasing Cold War and dangerous military posturing.

Nuclear Bomber Operations Context

Just a few years ago, U.S. nuclear bombers didn’t spend much time in Europe. They were focused on operations in the Middle East, Western Pacific, and Indian Ocean. Despite several years of souring relations and mounting evidence that the “reset” with Russia had failed or certainly not taken off, NATO couldn’t make itself say in public that Russia gradually was becoming an adversary once again.

Whatever hesitation was left changed in March 2014 when Vladimir Putin sent his troops to invade Ukraine and annexed Crimea. The act followed years of Russian efforts to coerce the Baltic States, growing and increasingly aggressive military operations around European countries, and explicit nuclear threats against NATO countries getting involved in the U.S. ballistic missile defense system.

Granted, NATO may not have been a benign neighbor, with massive expansion eastward of new members all the way up to the Russian border, and a consistent tendency to ignore or dismiss Russian concerns about its security interests.

But whatever else Putin might have thought he would gain from his acts, they have awoken NATO from its detour in Afghanistan and refocused the Alliance on its traditional mission: defense of NATO territory against Russian aggression. As a result, Putin will now get more NATO troops along his western and southern borders, larger and more focused military exercises more frequently in the Baltic Sea and Black Sea, increasing or refocused defense spending in NATO, and a revitalization of a near-slumbering nuclear mission in Europe.

Six years ago the United States was this close to pulling its remaining non-strategic nuclear weapons out of Europe. Only an engrained NATO nuclear bureaucracy aided by the Obama administration’s lack of leadership prevented the withdrawal of the weapons. Russia has complained about them for years but now it seems very unlikely that the modernization of the F-35A with the B61-12 guided bomb can be stopped. The weapons might even get a more explicit role against Russia, although this is still a controversial issue for some NATO members.

But the U.S. military would much prefer to base the nuclear portion of its extended deterrence mission in Europe on strategic bombers rather than the short-range fighter-bombers forward deployed there. The non-strategic nuclear weapons are far too controversial and vulnerable to the myriads of political views in the host countries. Strategic bombers are free of such constraints.

A New STRATCOM-EUCOM Link

Therefore, even before NATO at the Warsaw Summit this summer decided to reinvigorate its commitment to nuclear deterrence, former U.S. European Command (EUCOM) commander General Philip Breedlove told Congress in February 2015, EUCOM had already “forged a link between STRATCOM Bomber Assurance and Deterrence [BAAD] missions to NATO regional exercises” as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve to deter Russia.

Less than two months later, on April 1, 2015, four nuclear-capable B-52H bombers took of from their bases in the United States and flew across the North Pole and North Sea in a simulated strike exercise against Russia. The bombers proceeded all the way to their potential launch points for air-launched cruise missiles before they returned to the United States. Such an exercise had not been conducted since the late-1980s against the Soviet Union. Combined, the four bombers could have delivered 80 long-range nuclear cruise missiles with a combined explosive power of 800 Hiroshima bombs.

Despite its strategic implications, Polar Growl also had a distinctive regional – even limited – objective because of the crisis in Europe. Planning for such regional deterrence scenarios have taken on a new importance during the past couple of decades and they have become central to current planning because it is in such regional scenarios that the United States believes it is most likely that nuclear weapons could actually be used.

“The regional deterrence challenge may be the ‘least unlikely’ of the nuclear scenarios for which the United States must prepare,” Elaine Bunn, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy, in 2014 predicted only a few weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine, “and continuing to enhance our planning and options for addressing it is at the heart of aligning U.S. nuclear employment policy and plans with today’s strategic environment.”

Two weeks after the bombers returned from Polar Growl, Robert Scher, the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy, Plans, and Capabilities, told Congress: “We are increasing DOD’s focus on planning and posture to deter nuclear use in escalating regional conflicts.” This includes “enhanced planning to ensure options for the President in addressing the regional deterrence challenge.” (Emphasis added.)

Nuclear Conventional Integration

Much of this increased planning involves conventional weapons such as the new long-range conventional JASSM-ER cruise missile, but the planning also involves nuclear. In fact, conventional and nuclear appear to be integrating in a way they have done before. This effort was described recently by Brian McKeon, the Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Acting Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, during the annual STRATCOM Deterrence Symposium:

In the Department of Defense we’re working to effectively integrate conventional and nuclear planning and operations. Integration is not new but we’re renewing our focus on it because of recent developments and how we see potential adversaries preparing for conflict. This is an area where the focus in Omaha has really led the way and I want to commend Admiral Haney and STRATCOM for being able to shift planning so quickly toward this approach and thinking though conflict. No one wants to think about using nuclear weapons and we all know the principle role of nuclear weapons is to deter their use by others. But as we’ve seen, out adversaries may not hold the same view.

Let me be clear that when I say integration I do not mean to say we have lowered the threshold for nuclear use or would turn to nuclear weapons sooner in a conventional campaign. As we stated in the Nuclear Posture Review, the United States will “only consider the use of nuclear weapons in extreme circumstances to defend the vital interests of the United States or its allies and partners.” The NPR also emphasized the importance of reducing the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, a requirement that has been advanced in our planning consistent with the 2013 Nuclear Employment Guidance, including with non-nuclear strike options.

What I mean by integration is synchronizing our thinking across all domains in a way that maximizes the credibility and flexibility of our deterrent through all phases of conflict and responds appropriately to asymmetrical escalation. For too long, crossing the nuclear threshold was through to move a nuclear conflict out of the conventional dimension and wholly into the nuclear realm. Potential adversaries are exploring ways to cross this threshold with low-yield nuclear weapons to test out resolve, capabilities, and Allied cohesion. We must demonstrate that such a strategy cannot succeed so that it is never attempted. To that end we’re planning and exercising our non-nuclear operations conscious of how they might influence an adversary’s decision to go nuclear.

We also plan for the possibility of ongoing U.S. and Allied operations in a nuclear environment and working to strengthen resiliency of conventional operations to nuclear attack. By making sure our forces are capable of continuing the fight following a limited nuclear use we preserve flexibility for the president. And by explicitly preparing for the implication of an adversary’s limited nuclear use and providing credible options for the President, we strengthen our deterrent and reduce the risk of employment in the first instance.

Regional nuclear scenarios no longer primarily involve planning against what the Bush administration called “rogue states” such as North Korea and Iran, but increasingly focus on near-peer adversaries (China) and peer adversaries (Russia). “We are working as part of the NATO alliance very carefully both on the conventional side as well as meeting as part of the NPG [Nuclear Planning Group] looking at what NATO should be doing in response to the Russian violation of the INF Treaty,” Scher explained.

STRATCOM last updated the strategic nuclear war plan (OPLAN 8010-12) in 2012 and is currently about to publish an updated version that incorporates the changes caused by the Obama administration’s Nuclear Employment Strategy from 2013.

Two months ago, a little over a year after Polar Growl, another bomber strike exercise was launched. This time six bombers (4 B-52s and 2 B-2s) flew closer to Russia and simultaneously over the Arctic Sea, North Sea, Baltic Sea, and North Pacific Ocean. The six Polar Roar sorties required refueling support from 24 KC-135 tankers as well as E4-B Advanced Airborne Command Post and E-6B TACAMO nuclear command and control aircraft.

The routes (see below) were eerily similar to the Chrome Dome airborne alert routes that were flown by nuclear-armed bombers in the 1960s against the Soviet Union.

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

Seattle busses warn of largest nuclear weapons base. Click image to see full size.

The US Navy has quietly built a new $294 million underground nuclear weapons storage complex at the Strategic Weapons Facility Pacific (SWFPAC), a high-security base in Washington that stores and maintains the Trident II ballistic missiles and their nuclear warheads for the strategic submarine fleet operating in the Pacific Ocean.

The SWFPAC and the eight Ohio-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs) homeported at the adjacent Bangor Submarine Base are located only 20 miles (32 kilometers) from downtown Seattle. The SWFPAC and submarines are thought to store more than 1,300 nuclear warheads with a combined explosive power equivalent to more than 14,000 Hiroshima bombs.

A similar base with six SSBNs is located at Kings Bay in Georgia on the US east coast, which houses the SWFLANT (Strategic Weapons Facility Atlantic) that appears to have a dirt-covered warhead storage facility instead of the underground complex built at SWFPAC. Of the 14 SSBNs in the US strategic submarine fleet, 12 are considered operational with 288 ballistic missiles capable of carrying 2,300 warheads. Normally 8-10 SSBNs are loaded with missiles carrying approximately 1,000 warheads.

To bring public attention to the close proximity of the largest operational nuclear stockpile in the United States, the local peace group Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action has bought advertisement space on 14 transit buses. The busses will carry the posters for the next eight weeks. FAS is honored to have assisted the group with information for its campaign.

The Limited Area Protection and Storage Complex

Although the new underground storage complex is not a secret – its existence has been reported in public navy documents since 2003 – it has largely escaped public attention until now.

The new complex is officially known as the Limited Area Protection and Storage Complex (LAPSC), or navy construction Project Number P973A. The complex was originally estimated to cost $110 million but ended up costing nearly $294 million.

The US Navy describes the complex as “a reinforced concrete, underground, multi-level re-entry body processing and storage facility” with “hardened floors, and hardened load-bearing walls and roof.” Glen Milner at the Ground Zero Center helped locate some of the budget documents. Other construction details provided by the navy further describe the complex as:

A 16,000-m² [180,000 square feet] multi-level, underground, hardened, blast-resistant, reinforced concrete structure, with approximate dimensions of 110 meters long by 82 meters wide. Two tunnels (approximately 122 meters long, 6 meters wide, and 6 meters tall) will provide heavy vehicle access to and from the LAPSC. An aboveground portion of the facility will provide administrative and utility support spaces. Special features of the facility include: power-operated physical security and blast-resistant doors, TEMPEST shielded rooms, seven (7) overhead bridge cranes (2 ton capacity), three (3) elevators, lightning protection system, grounding system, liquid waste collection/retention system, emergency air purge system, fire protection systems, and multiple HVAC systems. This project will also provide a new 1000 kW emergency generator (enclosed within a new hardened, reinforced concrete structure), two security guard towers, lightning protection, utilities, and other site improvements. The existing Limited Area perimeter fence, security zone, and patrol roads will be expanded to encompass the new LAPSC.

The underground complex is similar to the general design of the large underground nuclear weapons storage facility Kirtland AFB in New Mexico, known as Kirtland Underground Munitions Storage Complex (KUMSC) – except KUMSC appears to be four times bigger than the SWFPAC complex. It appears to include 10 weapons storage bays (each 30 x 8 meters; 98 x 26 feet) where nuclear W76 and W88 warheads in their containers will be stored when they’re not deployed on submarines (see image analysis below).

New underground nuclear weapons storage site at Naval Base Kitsap. Click to view full size.

The primary building contractor, Ammann & Whitney, describes the unique blast doors and gas-tight features intended to ensure the safe storage and handling of the nuclear weapons:

The structures are reinforced concrete containment structures designed to withstand both interior and exterior explosions. All exterior penetrations and blast doors are gas-tight. There are a total of 24 blast doors; 12 are located in the above ground structures and 12 in the buried structure. All 12 doors in the above ground structures are subject to exterior blast loads while seven are subject to additional internal gas loads. Of the 12 doors in the buried structure, six doors are subject to blast loads from both sides, the remaining six are subject to blast loads from one side only but three must be gas-tight. Penetrations from the buried structure are blast resistant and gas-tight.

Design of the complex began in 2002, construction in 2007, and by 2009 the excavation and main outlines were clearly visible on satellite images. The complex was completed in 2012. Construction required enormous amounts of concrete. Over an 18-month period between December 2008 and mid-2010, for example, two hundred cement trucks entered the base every two weeks.

Nuclear weapon at SWFPAC were previously stored in above-ground earth-covered bunkers, or igloos, from where they were transported to two above-ground handling facilities for maintenance or for loading onto Trident II sea-launched ballistic missiles for deployment on operational SSBNs.

But the navy has concluded that a “single underground protected structure provides the most robust protection for fulfilling this mission against all threats.” With the completion of the underground complex, the old surface facilities (2 handling buildings and 21 igloos) will be demolished (see site outline above).

The US Navy plans to operate nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines at Naval Base Kitsap at least through 2080.

Over the next could couple of years the navy will “convert” four of the 24 missile launch tubes on each SSBN. The conversion will remove the capability to launch missiles from the four tubes, which no longer count under the New START treaty. The 384 excess warheads associated with the 24 missiles will likely be dismantled, leaving roughly 1,000 warheads at SWFPAC.

In the longer term (in the 2030s), the US Navy will transition to a new fleet of 12 SSBNs that will replace the current 14 Ohio-class SSBNs. Each of the new submarines will only carry 16 missiles, a reduction of an additional four tubes from the 20 left on the New START compatible SSBNs. Assuming seven of the 12 new SSBNs will be based at Bangor, that will leave 112 missiles with an estimated 896 warheads at SWFPAC and Bangor submarine base, or a reduction of about one-third of the warheads currently stored there.

Despite these expected reductions, the Naval Base Kitsap complex (the SWFPAC and Bangor submarine base) will remain the largest and most important nuclear weapons base in the United States for the foreseeable future.

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

By Hans M. Kristensen

In its quest to secure Congressional approval for a new nuclear cruise missile, the Pentagon is putting words in the mouth of President Barack Obama and spinning and overstating requirements and virtues of the weapon.

Last month, DOD circulated an anonymous letter to members of Congress after it learned that Senator Dianne Fenstein (D-CA) was planning an amendment to the FY2017 National Defense Authorization Act to put limits on funding and work on the new Long-Range Standoff (LRSO) nuclear air-launched cruise missile. The letter not surprisingly opposes the limits but contains a list of amazingly poor justifications for the new weapon.

The letter follows another letter in March from Under Secretary of Defense Frank Kendall to Senator John McCain that contains false claims about official documents endorsing the LRSO, as well a vague and concerning statements about the mission and purpose of the weapon.

The two letters raise serious questions about DOD’s justifications for the LRSO and Congress’ oversight of the program.

 

About That Strategy…

The DOD letter circulated to Congress in May presents surprisingly poor arguments in defense of the LRSO. In response to Senator Feinstein asking the Pentagon to show “the types of targets the LRSO is needed to destroy that cannot also be destroyed by existing U.S. nuclear and conventional weapons, “ DOD spins off into an off-topic, incoherent, and vague defense for retaining different nuclear capabilities in the arsenal:

Using the ability to destroy the target as the sole metric would also fail to address the dependence of effective deterrence on possessing credible options for responding to adversary attacks. A strategy of relying on large-scale or high-yield response options is credible and effective for deterring large-scale nuclear attack, particularly against the U.S. homeland, but it is less credible in the context of limited adversary use against an ally or U.S. forces operating abroad. Maintaining a credible ability to respond to a limited as well as large-scale nuclear attack against the United States or our allies strengthens our ability to deter such attacks from ever taking place.

But Feinstein’s draft amendment doesn’t say that destruction of the target is or should be “the sole metric” for deterrence. Even so, the bottom line for an effective nuclear deterrent is the credible capability to hold at risk the targets that an adversary values most. One can try to do that in many different ways, of course, but the DOD letter’s portrayal of an either-or choice between “large-scale or high-yield response options” against large attacks or limited-scale and lower-yield response options to limited adversary attacks is obviously a strawman argument because no one – certainly not Feinstein’s draft resolution – is arguing that the United States should eliminate its large inventory of lower-yield gravity bombs on heavy bombers and dual-capable fighter bombers. The US nuclear arsenal would still be able to provide limited and lower-yield options if the LRSO were canceled.

Next the DOD May letter tries to paint the LRSO decision as a choice between nuclear and non-nuclear weapons:

We do not and should not think of nuclear weapons as just another tool for destroying a target. The President’s guidance directs that [sic] DoD to assess what objectives and effects could be achieved through non-nuclear strike options, but also recognizes the unique contribution of nuclear weapons to our overall deterrence strategy. For example, the President might require a nuclear response to a nuclear attack in order to restore deterrence and prevent further attacks, even if a conventional weapon could also destroy the target.

This is another strawman argument because Feinstein’s draft amendment does not call for the elimination of all nuclear weapons or gravity bombs on heavy bombers and dual-capable fighter-bombers. Those weapons would of course still provide limited escalation-control options if the LRSO were canceled. Not to mention what non-nuclear cruise missiles could accomplish.

Next the DOD May letter gets into the obscure issue of “hedging” where multiple warhead types are used to provide backup against possible failure of one of them. I won’t go into a detailed analysis of hedging (Union of Concerned Scientists has a good report here) but critique the claims made in the DOD letter:

Requiring that only one warhead type is suitable for a given target also misses the LRSO’s critical role in providing the ability to hedge against significant geopolitical or technical issues. An effective bomber force with standoff capability can be put on alert in response to a serious technical problem in another leg of the Triad, or if the nature of the threat changes suddenly. Reliance on a single warhead type would threaten the stability of our deterrence posture, and would have changed the approach required for negotiating the New START Treaty with Russia.

The Feinstein draft amendment does not argue “that only one warhead is suitable for a given target” but asks for clarity about what the LRSO targets are that cannot also be destroyed by other existing nuclear or conventional weapons. That’s a reasonable question when someone is asking you to pay for a weapon that might cost $20 to $30 billion dollars over its lifetime.

But an effective bomber force does not require the LRSO to hedge. A force that includes 20 B-2 and 100 B-21 stealthy bombers (60 of them equipped with nearly 500 B61-12 gravity bombs) would still provide a considerable hedging capability against a serious technical problem in another leg of the Triad. Under the New START Treaty force structure the ICBMs are planned to deploy 400 warheads and the SLBMs 1,090 warheads.

However, the bomber hedging argument is weak. Under the Pentagon’s so-called 3+2 warhead plan (which is actually a 6+2 warhead plan according to a 2015 JASONs study), billions of dollars will be spent on building six new warhead types for the two ballistic missile legs partially to hedge against warhead failures on each other. So if the two ballistic legs are already designed to hedge each other, why are bomber weapons needed to hedge them as well? It sounds more like the Pentagon is using the hedge argument as a way to get the LRSO.

It is also amazing to see DOD bluntly advocating that the “bomber force with standoff capability can be put on alert… if the nature of the threat changes suddenly.” The bombers were taken off alert in 1991 and the Pentagon strongly argues against the dangers of rapidly increasing the alert level of nuclear forces.

The Kendall letter from March also defends the LRSO because it gives the Pentagon the ability to rapidly increase the number of deployed warheads significantly on its strategic launchers. He does so by bluntly describing it as a means to exploit the fake bomber weapon counting rule (one bomber one bomb no matter what they can actually carry) of the New START Treaty to essentially break out from the treaty limit without formally violating it:

Additionally, cruise missiles provide added leverage to the U.S. nuclear deterrent under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. The accounting rules for nuclear weapons carried on aircraft are such that the aircraft only counts as one weapon, even if the aircraft carries multiple cruise missiles.

It is disappointing to see a DOD official justifying the LRSO as a means to take advantage of a loophole in the treaty to increase the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons above 1,550 warheads. Not least because the 2013 Nuclear Employment Strategy determined that the Pentagon, even when the New START Treaty is implemented in 2018, will still have up to one-third more nuclear weapons deployed than are needed to meet US national and international security commitments.

Finally, the DOD May letter also takes issue with the Feinstein draft resolution demand to certify that the sole objective of the LRSO is to deter nuclear attack. This would be inconsistent with the Administration’s nuclear weapons policy and the President’s guidance on nuclear employment, DOD says. Even though the NPR and guidance both affirmed that “the fundamental purpose of all U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack,” they also determined that a sole-purpose nuclear policy can not be adopted yet because there “remains a narrow range of contingencies in which U.S. nuclear weapons may still play a role in deterring a conventional or CBW attack against the United States or its allies and partners.”

The public DOD report on the 2013 guidance does not mention the “role in deterring a conventional or CBW attack” that the NPR specifies. And there are rumors that the guidance removed the requirement to plan nuclear missions against chemical weapons attacks. If so, that would leave only biological and conventional attacks other than nuclear attacks as a role for US nuclear weapons. Deterring biological attacks is thought to remain a mission because of the widespread human casualties such weapons can cause. And conventional might for example refer to a devastating North Korean conventional attack against Seoul or a Russian conventional attack against Eastern European NATO allies. But it is unclear and such attacks would in any case almost certainly be more likely to trigger non-nuclear responses; why would the US escalate to nuclear use if no one else has?

It is curious why Senator Feinstein chose the wording “sole objective” given that the NPR and guidance both clearly rejected a “sole purpose of nuclear weapons” for now (although the policy is to “work to establish conditions under which such a policy could be safely adopted”). She must have known that it would be easily rejected.

But it is also possible that what she was really after was a way to limit the almost tactical warfighting mission of the LRSO that numerous officials have widely described in public statements. Only a week after Kendall sent his LRSO letter to Senator McCain, Senator Feinstein said during a hearing:

The so-called improvements to this weapon seemed to be designed candidly to make it more usable, to help us fight and win a limited nuclear war. I find that a shocking concept. I think this is really unthinkable, especially when we hold conventional weapons superiority, which can meet adversaries’ efforts to escalate a conflict. (Emphasis added.)

The two DOD letters seem to confirm Senator Feinstein’s worst fears. The Kendall letter speaks of “flexible options across the full range of threat scenarios” with “multi-axis” attacks, and the DOD May letter talks about using “lower-yield” options in limited regional scenarios “even if a conventional weapon could also destroy the target.”

About Those Claims…

The Kendall letter, first published by Union of Concerned Scientists, makes numerous claims about official documents endorsing the LRSO. But when you check the documents, it turns out that they don’t explicitly endorse the weapon. Some don’t even mention it.

For example, Kendall claims that the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review “committed to maintaining a viable standoff nuclear deterrent for the air leg of the Triad…” But the NPR made no such commitment. The pubic version of the NPR only stated that “the Air Force will conduct an assessment of alternatives to inform decisions in FY 2012 about whether and (if so) how to replace the current air-launched cruise missile (ALCM)…” (Emphasis added). Contrary to Kendall’s claim, there is no explicit commitment in the public NPR to a nuclear cruise missile capability beyond the lifespan of the current ALCM.

Kendall also claims that the 2014 Nuclear Enterprise Review “committed to maintaining a viable standoff nuclear deterrent for the air leg of the Triad…” But that is also wrong. The public version of the document does not mention a cruise missile replacement at all but instead acknowledges “a moderate public attack on the need for the cruise missile carrying B-52 force…”

In terms of how the LRSO aligns with US nuclear employment strategy, the Kendall letter also explains that the DOD report Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense, to which President Obama provided the foreword, “reaffirmed the need for U.S. forces to project power and hold at risk any target at any location on the globe, to include anti-access and area denial environments.”

That may be so but neither the DOD report nor President Obama’s foreword mention a requirement for a nuclear cruise missile with one word. Instead, here is what the report says:

Project Power Despite Anti-Access/Area Denial Challenges. In order to credibly deter potential adversaries and to prevent them from achieving their objectives, the United States must maintain its ability to project power in areas in which our access and freedom to operate are challenged… Accordingly, the U.S. military will invest as required to ensure its ability to operate effectively in anti-access and area denial (A2/AD) environments. This will include implementing the Joint Operational Access Concept, sustaining our undersea capabilities, developing a new stealth bomber, improving missile defenses, and continuing efforts to enhance the resiliency and effectiveness of critical space-based capabilities.

On the same issue, President Obama’s foreword states:

As we end today’s wars and reshape our Armed Forces, we will ensure that our military is agile, flexible, and ready for the full range of contingencies. In particular, we will continue to invest in the capabilities critical to future success, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; counterterrorism; countering weapons of mass destruction; operating in anti-access environments; and prevailing in all domains, including cyber.

Neither the DOD report nor Obama’s foreword makes any explicit commitment to a new nuclear cruise missile. Yet Kendall nonetheless uses them both to argue for one.

Humanitarian Crocodile Tears

The DOD May letter contains some really interesting statements about nuclear weapons and international law and collateral damage. The letter argues that not acquiring the LRSO would be “inconsistent with Administration policy and Presidential guidance” because the June 2013 Nuclear Employment Guidance “directs that all plans must apply the principles of distinction and proportionality and seek to minimize collateral damage to civilian populations and civilian objects.”

According to the 2013 Nuclear Employment Strategy report DOD sent to Congress in June 2013, the guidance “makes clear that all plans must also be consistent with the fundamental principles of the Law of Armed Conflict. Accordingly, plans will, for example, apply the principles of distinction and proportionality and seek to minimize collateral damage to civilian populations and civilian objects. The United States will not intentionally target civilian populations or civilian objects.”

This has been US policy for several decades but it is great that it was included in the new guidance. And it is even better if it actually restrains nuclear strike planning. But the authors of the DOD May letter forget to mention that even if the Obama administration were to cancel the LRSO, the Pentagon still plans to retain nearly 500 nuclear gravity bomb with lower yields for delivery by heavy bombers and dual-capable fighter-bombers. Retiring the ALCM or canceling the LRSO would not be incompatible with the guidance.

Yet the May letter illustrates how the new guidance is already being used by nuclear advocates in a twisted effort to use concern about civilian casualties in war as an argument against retiring existing nuclear weapons and to justify acquisition of new nuclear weapons that are more accurate with better lower-yield options to reduce radioactive fallout from nuclear attacks. The LRSO is one example; the B61-12 gravity bomb is another. As STRATCOM commander Gen. Robert Kehler told Congress in 2013 shortly after the guidance was published, “…we are trying to pursue weapons that actually are reducing in yield because we’re concerned about maintaining weapons that would have less collateral effect if the President ever had to use them.” (Emphasis added.)

“Electing to retire a lower-yield option because a higher-yield weapon can also destroy the target would be inconsistent with this principle and direction,” the DOD May letter concludes.

What makes this newfound “humanitarian” concern of the nuclear planners particularly hypocritical is that they don’t use the same guidance to conclude that the thousands of high-yield nuclear warheads on ICBMs and SLBMs therefore would be equally “inconsistent with Administration policy and Presidential guidance.”

Apparently, limiting damage to civilians is only worth it if you can get a better weapon in return.

Conclusions and Recommendations

It is the responsibility of the Pentagon to advocate for nuclear forces but this should also require it to have clear and valid justifications for why it needs them. The March letter from DOD’s Frank Kendall and the anonymous DOD letter from May arguing for why the Congress should approve and pay for the LRSO clearly fall short of that standard. Instead, they are full of false claims, spin, and vague and overstated assertions about its mission.

The scary part of this is that a majority in Congress appears to have accepted these poor justifications for the LRSO. The majority leadership in the Senate Armed Services Committee recently rejected an amendment by Senator Edward Markey to delay funding for the LRSO to allow Congress to better study the justifications. The rejection made use of many of the same false claims, spin, and vague overstatements that the DOD letters contain.

The DOD May letter rejecting Senator Feinstein’s draft amendment insisted that the LRSO Assessment of Alternative provided to Congress in 2014 “does not and should not address why we have an airborne standoff leg of the Triad,” and that the AoA therefore “only examined technical options to meet an air-based stand-off strategy in a cost and mission-effective manner.”

But then, in the next sentence, DOD essentially told the lawmakers that unless they approved more money for the LRSO program to advance it further, they cannot be told what the cost will be.

This is tantamount to blackmailing and wrong because several officials privately have said that they have already seen preliminary briefings on estimated life-cycle costs for both the LRSO missile and W80-4 warhead.

Providing false claims, spin, and vague overstatements about the requirements and mission of the LRSO is bad enough. But unless President Obama during his remaining time in office decides to cancel the LRSO program, it could end up costing the taxpayers $20-$30 billion over the lifetime of the weapon for a nuclear weapon the United States doesn’t need.

Further reading about the LRSO:

• Questions About The Nuclear Cruise Missile Mission
• Forget LRSO; JASSM-ER Can Do The Job
• LRSO: The Nuclear Cruise Mission
• W80-1 Warhead Selected For New Nuclear Cruise Missile
• B-2 Stealth Bomber To Carry New Nuclear Cruise Missile

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

Yesterday I gave a talk at the Arms Control Association’s annual meeting: Global Nuclear Challenges and Solutions for the Next U.S. President. A full-day and well-attended event that included speeches by many important people, including Ben Rhodes, who is Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications in the Obama administration.

My presentation was on the panel “Examining the U.S. Nuclear Spending Binge,” which included Mark Cancian from CSIS, Amy Woolf from CRS, and Andrew Weber, the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs. I was asked to speak about the enhancement of nuclear weapons that happens during the nuclear modernization programs and life-extension programs and the implications these improvement might have for strategic stability.

My briefing described enhancement of military capabilities of the B61-12 nuclear bomb, the new air-launched cruise missile (LRSO), and the W76-1 warhead on the Trident submarines. The briefing slides are available here:

Nuclear Modernization, Enhanced Military Capabilities, and Strategic Stability.

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

By Hans M. Kristensen

Shortly before President Barack Obama is scheduled to arrive for his historic visit to Hiroshima, the first of two Japanese cities destroyed by U.S. nuclear bombs in 1945, the Pentagon has declassified and published updated numbers for the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and warhead dismantlements.

Those numbers show that the Obama administration has reduced the U.S. stockpile less than any other post-Cold War administration, and that the number of warheads dismantled in 2015 was lowest since President Obama took office.

The declassification puts a shadow over the Hiroshima visit by reminding everyone about the considerable challenges that remain in reducing excessive nuclear arsenals – not to mention the daunting goal of eliminating nuclear weapons altogether.

Obama’s Stockpile Reductions

The declassified data shows that the stockpile as of September 2015 included 4,571 warheads. That means the Obama administration so far has reduced the stockpile by 702 warheads (or 13 percent) compared with the last count of the Bush administration.

Although 702 warheads is no small number (other than Russia, no other nuclear-armed state has more than 300 warheads), the reduction constitutes the smallest reduction of the stockpile achieved by any previous post-Cold War administration (see table).

The declassified 2015 number is about 100 warheads lower than the number we estimated in our latest Nuclear Notebook. The reason for the difference is that the number of warheads retired in 2014-2015 turned out to be higher than the average retirement in the previous three-year period. The increase probably reflects a quicker than anticipated retirement of excess warheads for the navy’s Trident missiles.

It can be deceiving to assess stockpile reduction performance by only comparing numbers of warheads. After all, there are significantly fewer warheads left in the stockpile today compared with 1991 (in fact, 14,437 warheads fewer!) so why wouldn’t the Obama administration be retiring fewer warheads than previous post-Cold War administrations?

To overcome that bias we also compare the reductions in terms of the percentage the stockpile size changed during the various administrations. But even so, the Obama administration’s performance comes in significantly below that of all other post-Cold War administrations (see table).

Obama’s Dismantlements

The declassified numbers also show that the Obama administration last year only dismantled 109 retired warheads. This is the lowest number of warheads dismantled in any year President Obama has been in office. And it appears to be the lowest number dismantled by the United States in one year since at least 1970.

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) says the poor performance in 2015 was due to “safety reviews, unusually high lightning events, and a worker strike at Pantex.”

But the decrease cannot be explained simply as disturbances. Although 2015 was unusually low, the Obama administration’s dismantlement record clearly shows a trendline of fewer and fewer warheads dismantled (see table).

There are currently roughly 2,300 retired warheads awaiting dismantlement, most of which were retired prior to 2009. NNSA says it plans to “increase weapons dismantlement by 20 percent starting in FY 2018” to be able to complete dismantlement of warheads retired prior to 2009 before the end of September 2021.

With the Obama administration’s average of about 280 warheads dismantled per year, it will take at least until 2024 before the total current backlog is dismantled. The several hundred additional warheads that will be retired before then will take several additional years to dismantle.

Yet in the same time period NNSA has committed to several other big warhead jobs that will compete with dismantlement work over the capacity at Pantex, including: complete production of the W76-1 by 2019, start up production of the B61-12 and W88 Alt 370 in 2020, preparation for the start up of the W80-4 in 2025, as well as the ongoing disassembly and reassembly for inspection of the existing warhead types in the stockpile.

Conclusion and Recommendations

President Obama’s visit to Hiroshima takes place in the shadow of his nuclear weapons legacy: he has reduced the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile less than any other post-Cold War president and nuclear warhead dismantlement has declined on his watch.

For the arms control community (and that includes several important US allies, including Japan) the Obama administration’s modest performance on reducing the number of nuclear weapons – despite the New START Treaty – is a disappointment. Not least because the administration’s nuclear weapons modernization program has been anything but modest.

To be fair, it is not all President Obama’s fault. His vision of significant reductions and putting an end to Cold War thinking has been undercut by opposition ranging from Congress to the Kremlin. An entrenched and almost ideologically opposed Congress has fought his arms reduction vision every step of the way. And the Russian government has rejected additional reductions while New START is being implemented (although we estimate Russia during the Obama administration has reduced its own stockpile by more than 1,000 warheads).

Ironically, although Congress is vehemently opposed to additional nuclear reductions – certainly unilateral ones, the modernization plan Congress has approved has significant unilateral nuclear reductions embedded in it: a reduction of nuclear gravity bombs by one-half, a reduction of 48 sea-launched ballistic missiles beyond what’s planned under the New START Treaty, and unilateral reduction in the late-2020s of excess W76 warheads.

Curiously, there seems to have been less resistance to stockpile reductions from the U.S. military. The Pentagon’s Defense Strategic Guidance from 2012, for example, concluded: “It is possible that our deterrence goals can be achieved with a smaller nuclear force, which would reduce the number of nuclear weapons in our inventory as well as their role in U.S. national security strategy.”

Likewise, the Pentagon’s Nuclear Employment Strategy report sent to Congress in 2013 concluded that the nuclear force levels in place when the New START Treaty is fully implemented in 2018 “are more than adequate for what the United States needs to fulfill its national security objectives,” and that the United States “can ensure the security of the United States and our Allies and partners and maintain a strong and credible strategic deterrent while safely pursuing up to a one-third reduction in deployed nuclear weapons from the level established in the New START Treaty.”

And despite a significant turn for the worse in East-West relations, Russia is not increasing its nuclear arsenal but continuing to reduce it. But even if President Vladimir Putin decided to break out from the New START Treaty, the Pentagon concluded in 2012, 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, 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.” (Emphasis added.)

Those conclusions reveal a significant excess capacity in the U.S. nuclear arsenal that provides plenty of room for President Obama to do more in Hiroshima than simply remind of the dangers of nuclear weapons and reiterate the long-term vision of a world without them. Steps that he could and should take before leaving office include:

• Cancel plans to build a new nuclear air-launched cruise missile (the LRSO) or delay the plans as part of a focused effort to get international support for a global ban on nuclear cruise missiles;
• Retire now the majority of the gravity bombs scheduled to be retired in mid/late-2020s;
• Reduce now the number of ballistic missiles on U.S. strategic submarines to the lower number already planned for the Ohio replacement submarine in the 2030s;
• Retire now the excess sea-launched ballistic missile warheads scheduled to be retired in the mid/late-2020s;
• Reduce the ICBM force below the 400 planned under New START, probably to 300 as recommended by STRATCOM when Obama first took office;
• Reduce the alert level of U.S. nuclear forces to reduce risk of accidents and incidents, motivate Russia to also reduce its alert level, and to pave the way for an international effort to prevent other nuclear-armed states from increasing the readiness of their nuclear forces.

These actions would help bring U.S. nuclear policy back on track, remove excess capacity in the nuclear arsenal, restore the credibility of its arms control policy, retain a Triad of long-range nuclear forces, provide plenty of reassurance to allies and friends, maintain strategic stability, and free up resources for conventional forces. If Obama doesn’t do it, President Hillary Clinton will have to clean up after him.

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

By Hans M. Kristensen

I was reading through the latest Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and wondering what I should pick to critique the Obama administration’s nuclear policy.

After all, there are plenty of issues that deserve to be addressed, including:

– Why NNSA continues to overspend and over-commit and create a spending bow wave in 2021-2026 in excess of the President’s budget in exactly the same time period that excessive Air Force and Navy modernization programs are expected to put the greatest pressure on defense spending?

– Why a smaller and smaller nuclear weapons stockpile with fewer warhead types appears to be getting more and more expensive to maintain?

– Why each warhead life-extension program is getting ever more ambitious and expensive with no apparent end in sight?

– And why a policy of reductions, no new nuclear weapons, no pursuit of new military missions or new capabilities for nuclear weapons, restraint, a pledge to “put an end to Cold War thinking,” and the goal of disarmament, instead became a blueprint for nuclear overreach with record funding, across-the-board modernizations, unprecedented warhead modifications, increasing weapons accuracy and effectiveness, reaffirmation of a Triad and non-strategic nuclear weapons, continuation of counterforce strategy, reaffirmation of the importance and salience of nuclear weapons, and an open-ended commitment to retain nuclear weapons further into the future than they have existed so far?

What About The Other Nuclear-Armed States?

Despite the contradictions and flaws of the administration’s nuclear policy, however, imagine if the other nuclear-armed states also published summaries of their nuclear weapons plans. Some do disclose a little, but they could do much more. For others, however, the thought of disclosing any information about the size and composition of their nuclear arsenal seems so alien that it is almost inconceivable.

Yet that is actually one of the reasons why it is necessary to continue to work for greater (or sufficient) transparency in nuclear forces. Some nuclear-armed states believe their security depends on complete or near-compete nuclear secrecy. And, of course, some nuclear information must be protected from disclosure. But the problem with excessive secrecy is that it tends to fuel uncertainty, rumors, suspicion, exaggerations, mistrust, and worst-case assumptions in other nuclear-armed states – reactions that cause them to shape their own nuclear forces and strategies in ways that undermine security for all.

Nuclear-armed states must find a balance between legitimate secrecy and transparency. This can take a long time and it may not necessarily be the same from country to country. The United States also used to keep much more nuclear information secret and there are many institutions that will always resist public access. But maximum responsible disclosure, it turns out, is not only necessary for a healthy public debate about nuclear policy, it is also necessary to communicate to allies and adversaries what that policy is about – and, equally important, to dispel rumors and misunderstandings about what the policy is not.

Nuclear transparency is not just about pleasing the arms controllers – it is important for national security.

So here are some thoughts about what other nuclear-armed states should (or could) disclose about their nuclear arsenals – not to disclose everything but to improve communication about the role of nuclear weapons and avoid misunderstandings and counterproductive surprises:

Russia should publish:

– Full New START aggregate data numbers (these numbers are already shared with the United States, that publishes its own numbers)

– Size and history of overall nuclear weapons stockpile

– Number of history of nuclear warhead dismantlement (has made statements about percentage reductions since 1991 but not disclosed numbers or history)

– Basic overview of which nuclear forces are nuclear-capable (has made some statements about strategic forces but not shorter-range forces)

– Plans for future years force levels of long-range nuclear forces (has made occasional statements about modernizations but no detailed plan)

– Overall status and out-year budgets for nuclear weapons and nuclear forces

 

China should publish:

– Size and history of overall nuclear weapons stockpile (stated in 2004 that it possessed the smallest arsenal of the nuclear weapon states but has not disclosed numbers or history)

– Basic overview of its nuclear-capable forces

– Plans for future years force levels of long-range nuclear forces

– Overall status and out-year budgets for nuclear weapons and nuclear forces

 

France should publish:

– History of overall nuclear weapons stockpile (has disclosed the size of its nuclear stockpile in 2008 and 2015 (300 weapons), but not the history)

– Number and history of nuclear warhead dismantlement (has declared dismantlement of some types but not history)

(France has disclosed its overall force structure and some nuclear budget information is published each year.)

 

 

Britain should publish:

– History of overall nuclear weapons stockpile (has declared some approximate historic numbers, declared the approximate size in 2010 (no more than 225), and has declared plan for mid-2020s (no more than 180), but has not disclosed history)

– Number and history of nuclear warhead dismantlement (has announced dismantlement of systems but not numbers or history)

(Britain has published information about the size of its nuclear force structure and part of its nuclear budget.)

 

Pakistan should publish:

– History of overall nuclear weapons stockpile

– Basic overview of nuclear-capable forces (occasionally declares that a missile test involves nuclear-capable weapon)

– Plans for future years force levels of longer-range nuclear forces

– Overall status and out-year budgets for nuclear weapons and nuclear forces

 

 

India should publish:

– History of overall nuclear weapons stockpile

– Basic overview of nuclear-capable forces (occasionally declares that a missile test involves nuclear-capable weapon)

– Plans for future years force levels of longer-range nuclear forces

– Overall status and out-year budgets for nuclear weapons and nuclear forces

 

 

Israel should publish:

…or should it? Unlike other nuclear-armed states, Israel has not publicly confirmed it has a nuclear arsenal and has said it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Some argue Israel should not confirm or declare anything because of fear it would trigger nuclear arms programs in other Middle Eastern countries.

On the other hand, the existence of the Israeli nuclear arsenal is well known to other countries as has been documented by declassified government documents in the United States. Official confirmation would be politically sensitive but not in itself change national security in the region. Moreover, the secrecy fuels speculations, exaggerations, accusations, and worst-case planning. And it is hard to see how the future of nuclear weapons in the Middle East can be addressed and resolved without some degree of official disclosure.

 

North Korea should publish:

Well, obviously this nuclear-armed state is a little different (to put it mildly) because its blustering nuclear threats and statements – and the nature of its leadership itself – make it difficult to trust any official information. Perhaps this is a case where it would be more valuable to hear more about what foreign intelligence agencies know about North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. Yet official disclosure could potentially serve an important role as part of a future de-tension agreement with North Korea.

 

Additional information:

Status of World Nuclear Forces with links to more information about individual nuclear-armed states.

“Nuclear Weapons Base Visits: Accident and Incident Exercises as Confidence-Building Measures,” briefing to Workshop on Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons in Europe: Transparency and Confidence-Building Measures in Practice, German Institute for International and Security Affairs, Berlin, 27-28 March 2014.

“Nuclear Warhead Stockpiles and Transparency” (with Robert Norris), in Global Fissile Material Report 2013, International Panel on Fissile Materials, October 2013, pp. 50-58.

The research for this publication was made possible by a grant from the New Land Foundation, and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

By Hans M. Kristensen

[Updated April 3, 2016] Russia continues to increase the number of strategic warheads it deploys on its ballistic missiles counted under the New START Treaty, according to the latest aggregate data released by the US State Department.

The data shows that Russia now has almost 200 strategic warheads more deployed than when the New START treaty entered into force in 2011. Compared with the previous count in September 2015, Russia added 87 warheads, and will have to offload 185 warheads before the treaty enters into effect in 2018.

The United States, in contrast, has continued to decrease its deployed warheads and the data shows that the United States currently is counted with 1,481 deployed strategic warheads – 69 warheads below the treaty limit.

The Russian increase is probably mainly caused by the addition of the third Borei-class ballistic missile submarine to the fleet. Other fluctuations in forces affect the count as well. But Russia is nonetheless expected to reach the treaty limit by 2018.

The Russian increase of aggregate warhead numbers is not because of a “build-up” of its strategic forces, as the Washington Times recently reported, or because Russia is “doubling their warhead output,” as an unnamed US official told the paper. Instead, the temporary increase in counted warheads is caused by fluctuations is the force level caused by Russia’s modernization program that is retiring Soviet-era weapons and replacing some of them with new types.

Strategic Launchers

The aggregate data also shows that Russia is now counted as deploying exactly the same number of strategic launchers as when the New START Treaty entered into force in 2011: 521.

But Russia has far fewer deployed strategic launchers than the United States (a difference of 220 launchers) and has been well below the treaty limit since before the treaty was signed. The United States still has to dismantle 41 launchers to reach the treaty limit of 700 deployed strategic launchers.

The United States is counted as having 21 launchers fewer than in September 2015. That reduction involves emptying of some of the ICBM silos (they plan to empty 50) and denuclearizing a few excess B-52 bombers. The navy has also started reducing launchers on each Trident submarine from 24 missile tubes to 20 tubes. Overall, the United States has reduced its strategic launchers by 141 since 2011, until now mainly by eliminating so-called “phantom” launchers – that is, aircraft that were not actually used for nuclear missions anymore but had equipment onboard that made them accountable.

Again, the United States had many more launchers than Russia when the treaty was signed so it has to reduce more than Russia.

New START Counts Only Fraction of Arsenals

Overall, the New START numbers only count a fraction of the total nuclear warheads that Russia and the United States have in their arsenals. The treaty does not count weapons at bomber bases or central storage, additional ICBM and submarine warheads in storage, or non-strategic nuclear warheads.

Our latest count is that Russia has about 7,300 warheads, of which nearly 4,500 are for strategic and tactical forces. The United States has about 6,970 warheads, of which 4,670 are for strategic and tactical forces.

See here for our latest estimates: https://fas.org/issues/nuclear-weapons/status-world-nuclear-forces/

See analysis of previous New START data: https://fas.org/blogs/security/2015/10/newstart2015-2/

The research for this publication was made possible by a grant from the New Land Foundation, and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on March 16, Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the ranking member of the committee, said that U.S. Strategic Command had failed to convince her that the United States needs to develop a new nuclear air-launched cruise missile; the LRSO (Long-Range Standoff missile).

“I recently met with Admiral Haney, the head of Strategic Command regarding the new nuclear cruise missile and its refurbished warhead. I came away unconvinced of the need for this weapon. The so-called improvements to this weapon seemed to be designed candidly to make it more usable, to help us fight and win a limited nuclear war. I find that a shocking concept. I think this is really unthinkable, especially when we hold conventional weapons superiority, which can meet adversaries’ efforts to escalate a conflict.”

Feinstein made her statement only a few hours after Air Force Secretary Deborah James had told the House Armed Services Committee on the other side of the Capitol that the LRSO will be capable of “destroying otherwise inaccessible targets in any zone of conflict.”

Lets ignore for a moment that the justification used for most nuclear and advanced conventional weapons also is to destroy otherwise inaccessible targets, what are actually the unique LRSO targets? In theory the missile could be used against anything that is within range but that is not good enough to justify spending $20-$30 billion.

So Air Force officials have portrayed the LRSO as a unique weapon that can get in where nothing else can. The mission they describe sounds very much like the role tactical nuclear weapons played during the Cold War: “I can make holes and gaps” in air defenses, then Air Force Global Strike Command commander Lieutenant General Stephen Wilson explained in 2014, “to allow a penetrating bomber to get in.”

And last week, shortly before Admiral Haney failed to convince Sen. Feinstein, EUCOM commander General Philip Breedlove added more details about what they want to use the nuclear LRSO to blow up:

“One of the biggest keys to being able to break anti-access area denial [A2AD] is the ability to penetrate the air defenses so that we can get close to not only destroy the air defenses but to destroy the coastal defense cruise missiles and the land attack missiles which are the three elements of an A2AD environment. One of the primary and very important tools to busting that A2AD environment is a fifth generation ability to penetrate. In the LRSB you will have a platform and weapons that can penetrate.” (Emphasis added.)

Those A2/AD targets would include Russian S-400 air-defense, Russian Bastion-P coastal defense, and Chinese DF-10A land-attack missile launchers (see images).

Judging from Sen. Feinstein’s conclusion that the LRSO seems “designed candidly to make it more usable, to help us fight and win a limited nuclear war,” Admiral Haney probably described similar LRSO targets as Lt. Gen. Wilson and Gen. Breedlove.

After hearing these “shocking” descriptions of the LRSO’s warfighting mission, Senator Feinstein asked NNSA’s Gen. Klotz if he could do a better job in persuading her about the need for the new nuclear cruise missile:

Sen. Feinstein: “So maybe you can succeed where Admiral Haney did not. Let me ask you this question: Why do we need a new nuclear cruise missile?”

Gen. Klotz: “My sense at the time, and it still is the case, is that the existing cruise missile, the air-launched cruise missile, is getting rather long in the tooth with the issues that are associated with an aging weapon system. It was first deployed in 1982. And therefore it is well past it service life. In the meantime, as you know from your work on the intelligence committee, there has been an increase in the sophistication and capabilities as well as proliferation of sophisticated air- and missile-defenses around the world. Therefore the ability of the cruise missile to pose the deterrent capability, the capability that is necessary to deter, is under question. Therefore, just based on the ageing and the changing nature of the threat we need to replace a system we’ve had, again, since the early 1980s with an updated variant….I guess I didn’t convince you any more than the Admiral did.”

Sen. Feinstein: “No you didn’t convince me. Because this just ratchets up warfare and ratchets up deaths. Even if you go to a low kiloton of six or seven it is a huge weapon. And I thought there was a certain morality that we should have with respect to these weapons. If it’s really mutual deterrence, I don’t see how this does anything other…it’s like the drone. The drone has been invented. It’s been armed. Now every county wants one. So they get more and more sophisticated. To do this with nuclear weapons, I think, is awful.”

Conclusion and Recommendations

Senator Feinstein has raised some important questions about the scope of nuclear strategy. How useful should nuclear weapons be and for what type of scenarios?

Proponents of the LRSO do not seem to question (or discuss) the implications of developing a nuclear cruise missile intended for shooting holes in air- and coastal-defense systems. Their mindset seems to be that anything that can be used to “bust the A2AD environment” – even a nuclear weapon – must be good for deterrence and therefore also for security and stability.

While a decision to authorize use of nuclear weapons would be difficult for any president, the planning for the potential use does not seem to be nearly as constrained. Indeed, the nuclear LRSO anti-A2AD mission that defense officials describe raises some serious questions about how soon in a conflict nuclear weapons might be used.

Since A2AD systems would likely be some of the first targets to be attacked in a war, a nuclear LRSO anti-A2AD mission appears to move nuclear use to the forefront of a conflict instead of keeping nuclear weapons in the background as a last resort where they belong.

And the nuclear LRSO anti-A2AD mission sounds eerily similar to the outrageous threats that Russian officials have made over the past several years to use nuclear weapons against NATO missile defense systems – threats that NATO and US officials have condemned. Of course, they don’t brandish the nuclear LRSO anti-A2AD mission as a threat – they call it deterrence and reassurance.

Nor do LRSO proponents seem to ask questions about redundancy and which types of weapons are most useful or needed for the anti-A2AD mission. The A2AD targets that the military officials describe are not “otherwise inaccessible targets,” as suggested by Secretary James, but are already being held at risk with conventional cruise missiles such as the Air Force’s JASSM-ER (extended range Joint Air-to-Surface Missile) and the navy’s Tactical Tomahawk, as well as with other nuclear weapons. The Air Force doesn’t have endless resources but must prioritize weapon systems.

Gen. Klotz defended the LRSO as if it were a choice between having a nuclear deterrent or not. But, of course, even without a nuclear LRSO, US stealth bombers will still be armed with the new B61-12 guided nuclear bomb and the US nuclear deterrent will still include land- and sea-based long-range ballistic missiles as well as F-35A stealthy fighter-bombers also armed with the B61-12.

The White House needs to rein in the nuclear warfighters and strategists to ensure that US nuclear strategy and modernization plans are better in tune with US policy to “reduce the role of nuclear weapons in deterring non-nuclear attacks” and enable non-nuclear weapons to “take on a greater share of the deterrence burden.” Canceling the nuclear LRSO would be a good start.

The research for this publication was made possible by a grant from the New Land Foundation, and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the authors.

By Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris

Our latest FAS Nuclear Notebook has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. This issue provides a new overview of the status and plans for US nuclear forces and updates our estimate of the number of nuclear weapons in the stockpile and deployed force.

The next issue scheduled for May will be on Russian nuclear forces.

For an update on worldwide nuclear weapons inventories, see our World Nuclear Forces web page.

The research for this publication was made possible by a grant from the New Land Foundation, and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the authors.

By Hans M. Kristensen

The US Air Force has published the first official image of the next-generation bomber, formerly known as LRS-B (Long Range Strike Bomber). Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James revealed the image during her talk to the 2016 Air Warfare Symposium and gave it its official designation: B-21.

The “21” refers to the 21^st Century and is intended to signal cutting-edge technology and capability. (Last time the Pentagon named a major defense program after the 21^st Century was the SSN-21, the Navy’s Seawolf-class attack submarine. That program was canceled after only three boats.)

But just how different the B-21 is remains to be seen. The B-21 image shows the new bomber is not a significantly new design but looks more like an upgrade of the B-2. The main focus may have been to improve stealth and sensors. The Air Force has promised to disclose more details in March. They’ll certainly have to, if they want all the money they’re asking for it.

Preliminary Design Comparison

A preliminary comparison of the B-21 and B-2 bomber images suggests a very similar overall design, perhaps a little smaller, but with some significant modifications.

The most apparent difference is that the B-21 has a clean diamond-shaped center body section in contrast to the B-2’s more jagged rear center wing outline. The indents in the B-2’s rear center wing were created by the engine exhausts, a design feature that appears to be absent from the B-21. Engine exhaust is an important source of detectable heat. It is unknown if the engine exhausts have been moved below the body, integrated better into the edge of the wing, or omitted from the drawing because it is still a secret.

The elimination of the two engine exhaust wing-indents appears to have resulted in longer outer wing sections. And the wings on the B-21 appear a little more backswept than the wings on the B-2 resulting in a pointier aircraft nose, although that could be an optical illusion from the the quality of the images.

Another difference is that the air-intakes of the two engines have been extended forward and the edges angled, presumably to further reduce the aircraft’s radar signature.

Whatever else is “hidden under the hood,” the Air Force says that the design “allowed for the use of mature systems and existing technology while still providing desired capability” but with “an open architecture allowing integration of new technology and timely response to future threats across the full range of military operations.” (Emphasis added.)

It Doesn’t Have A Name

The new bomber has a designation (B-21) but not yet a name. The B-2 is called the Spirit. The B-52 is called the Stratofortress. The B-1 is called the Lancer. So Secretary James invited air force personnel to come up with a name. There are already many suggestions – some serious, some gung ho, others highly critical:

Defense News has a voting page and there is a growing list of suggestions in the comments to Secretary James’ announcement. Just to mention a few:

Spirit II, Deliverance, Thunderbolt, Sand Melter, Nightwing, Stormbringer, Flying W, Batwing, The Obama, Lemay, Regurgitating Pigeon, Flying Money-Pit, 2-Bad (the Cold War never really ended), Boondoggle, Budgetbuster, or Another Flying Turd from Northrop Hunk Of Overpriced Under-Performing Long Delayed Useless Waste of Taxpayers Money.

Or how about Resurrection? The Air Force didn’t get its 132 B-2 bombers, only 21 because they were too expensive. So now the Air Force tries again with what looks like a modified B-2: the B-21.

Looming Costs

The Air Force says each B-21 will “only” cost $564 million (in FY2016 money) plus $23.5 billion for overall program development, or a total of nearly $80 billion for 100 bombers.

The Air Force also claims the average procurement cost of each B-21 will be approximately a third of what the B-2 cost was.

These cost projections are already being met with considerable skepticism. Based on the Air Force’s own projections, according to a recent study, the cost of major Air Force aircraft programs “is projected to peak in FY2023 at nearly twice the FY2015 level of funding, adjusting for inflation, and is a driving factor behind the overall defense modernization bow wave.”

Senator John McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee that has to approve B-21 funding, has already voiced opposition to key provisions in the current B-21 contract. This should make for some interesting hearings on the Hill later this spring.

And new defense programs historically tend to go 20-30 percent over budget, which would put further pressure on the Air Force’s budget.

If so, the total cost for developing and producing 100 B-21 bombers might reach $96 billion to $104 billion. Oh, and don’t forget to add the costs of integrating the new B61-12 nuclear guided bomb and new nuclear air-launched cruise missile (LRSO) on the B-21 as well.

I just wonder what the Air Force’s fallback plan is. Delay? Fewer bombers? Less advanced design? Fewer fighters? Fewer satellites? Fewer tankers? No LRSO? Fewer ICBMs? Absent a major infusion of additional money into the defense budget, the Air Force’s current modernization plan seems unsustainable.

The research for this publication was made possible by a grant from the New Land Foundation, and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the authors.

By Hans M. Kristensen

It has almost become dogma: the United States needs to keep a Triad of strategic nuclear forces. Therefore, expensive modernization of every leg is necessary plus a fourth leg of non-strategic fighter-jets. Oh, and don’t forget nuclear command and control systems such as terminals and satellites.

Without that, deterrence of potential adversaries will fail and they will use nuclear weapons, allies will loose faith and develop their own, and potential adversaries will win a nuclear war. That’s the picture being painted by a vast and influential community of nuclear warfighters, planners, strategists, defense contractors, and former nuclear officials. They’re having a field day now because of Russia’s misbehavior in Eastern Europe and China’s military modernization.

In reality the situation is less clear-cut: the choice is not between modernization or no modernization, nuclear weapons or no nuclear weapons, but how much and of what kind is necessary for which scenarios. When have strategists and warfighters not been able to come up with yet another worst-case scenario to justify status quo or even better nuclear weapons?

The reality is that if we don’t think carefully about missions and priorities and overspend on nuclear weapons, maintenance and modernization of conventional forces – the weapons that are actually useable – will suffer. And that’s bad defense planning.

The PBS Newshour program does a good job (in the limited time it had) in taking on the Holy Triad, bringing in people from both sides of the isle. This was the third program in a series about the U.S. nuclear arsenal and mission. The others two episodes were: How many ballistic missile submarines does the U.S. really need? from July 2015, and America’s nuclear bomb gets a makeover from November 2015.

Watch them, learn, and think…

The research for this publication was made possible by a grant from the New Land Foundation, and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the authors.

By Hans M. Kristensen

The final defense budget of the Obama administration effectively crowns this administration as the nuclear modernization leader of post-Cold War U.S. presidencies.

While official statements so far have mainly justified the massive nuclear modernization as simply extending the service-life of existing capabilities, the Pentagon now explicitly paints the nuclear modernization as a direct response to Russia:

PB 2017 Adjusts to Strategic Change. Today’s security environment is dramatically different from the one the department has been engaged with for the last 25 years, and it requires new ways of thinking and new ways of acting. This security environment is driving the focus of the Defense Department’s planning and budgeting.

[…]

Russia. The budget enables the department to take a strong, balanced approach to respond to Russia’s aggression in Eastern Europe.

• We are countering Russia’s aggressive policies through investments in a broad range of capabilities. The FY 2017 budget request will allow us to modify and expand air defense systems, develop new unmanned systems, design a new long-range bomber and a new long-range stand-off cruise missile, and modernize our nuclear arsenal.

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The cost for the new long-range bomber (LRS-B) is still secret but will likely total over 100 billion. But the new budget contains out-year numbers for the new cruise missile (LRSO) that show a significant increase in funding in 2018 and 2019. More than $4.6 billion is projected through 2021:

The total life-cycle cost of the new cruise missile may be as high as $30 billion. Excessive and expensive nuclear modernization programs in the budget threaten funding of more important non-nuclear defense programs.

The Pentagon and defense contractors say the LRSO is needed to replace the existing aging air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) to shoot holes in enemy air defenses, fight limited nuclear wars, and because Russia has nuclear cruise missiles. The claims recycle Cold War justifications and ignore the effectiveness of other military forces in deterring and defeating potential adversaries.

Last year Defense Secretary Carter promised NATO’s response to Russia would not use the “Cold War playbook” of large American forces stationed in Europe.

But other pages in the Cold War playbook – including those relating to nuclear forces – appear to have been studied well with growing nuclear bomber integration in Europe, revival of escalation scenarios and contingency planning, development of a new bomber and a cruise missiles, and deployment of guided nuclear bombs on stealth fighters in Europe within the next decade.

Russia – after having triggered a revival of NATO with its invasion of Ukraine, large-scale exercises, and overt nuclear threats – is likely to respond to NATO’s military posturing by beefing up its own operations. Russian officials quickly reacted to NATO’s latest announcement to boost military forces in Eastern Europe by pledging to improve its conventional and nuclear forces further.

It is obvious what’s happening here. The issue is not who’s to blame or who started it. The challenge is how to prevent that the actions each side take in what they consider justified responses to the other side’s aggression do not escalate further into a new round of Cold War.

The explicit inclusion of nuclear forces in the tit-for-tat posturing is another worrisome sign that the escalation has already started.

The research for this publication was made possible by a grant from the New Land Foundation, and Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the authors.