The President nominating former Sen.Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) as Defense Secretary, could be interesting for NNSA.
Hagel is a board member of Global Zero (international movement for the elimination of all nuclear weapons).
He
coauthored last year a report that called for the US (through
negotiations with Russia) to reduce over a ten year period the US
arsenal to a maximum of 900 total nuclear weapons. This included going
from the delivery system triad to a dyad (10 Trident subs and 18 US
based B-2 bombers). Eliminating tactical nukes deployed overseas and
converting US nuclear ICBMs to non-nuclear prompt global strike ICBMs
(with conventional warheads). Also a downsized NWC; no PF-4,CMRR, or
UPF. Only 4 types of nuclear weapons would be kept; W-76 and W-88 on
Trident SSBNs, and the B61 (mods 7 and 11) and B83 on B-2 bombers.
I
wonder what would now happen if NNSA got moved into DOD.Don't really
think this will happen, but it looks like there will be a customer
(SecDef) that has a really different vision and smaller future in mind
for the NWC and DOD nuclear forces.
It could really really get
interesting if they put another Global Zero member (like former LLNL and
DOE nuclear weapons executive Philp Coyle) over NNSA.
The full report is at:
http://www.globalzero.org/en/us-nuclear-policy-commission-report
6 comments:
Eliminating tactical nukes overseas (mostly the B-61 gravity bombs held by NATO) would mean that there is little hope that the costly B-61 refurbishment program will go forward as planned.
I take it as a given that this $10 billion program will soon be mothballed, much like the CMRR. With its removal, large layoffs will be necessary at LLNL, LANL and SNL unless the massive funding allocated for this program is redirected to other lab programs.
not enough. should be 5 -10x more. if we have 'em at all, have enough.
900 is enough. 300 different targets with 3 nukes assigned to each. I think DOD would be hard pressed to come up with an OpsPlan that could list 300 things on this planet worth destroying with a nuclear strike.
Misses, misfires, breech bursts, prefires, separation mistakes, misplaced keys, tumbling, guidance errors, communications breakdowns, delayed maintenance, maintenance cycles, sad sacks, missed orders, cowards, heros, saints, sinners...
As Hiawatha used to tell the Iroiqois,
You need a few more bullets than targets, and there are a lot of targets.
Yep. Admiral Kimmel and General Short knew the plan, had radar stations operating, knew the enemy fleet was in motion, had plenty of search aircraft deployed, had plenty of fighter cover and the fleet was in the best protected anchorage 3000 miles from the enemy. One was secure riding a horse and the other was playing golf at 8:55 am Hawaii time on December 7, 1941.
Semper paratus or not.
I vote for 10000.
December 7, 1941.
Followed by a couple of years of our torpedoes bouncing off Japanese shipping because they had not been tested under realistic conditions. Oh well, we have computers and NIF now, so we don't need no testing.
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