Skip to main content

SUPPORT FOR INTEROPERABLE WARHEAD STRATEGY

Image
By scooby
Weapons Complex Morning Briefing
July 18, 2013
SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL VOICES SUPPORT FOR INTEROPERABLE WARHEAD STRATEGY

The Obama Administration’s support of a “3+2” vision for the future of the nation’s nuclear stockpile, which includes the production of three interoperable warheads, has received in recent months some pushback from Congress and arms control experts, both because of technical concerns and the potential price tag of the warheads. But Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Jim Miller said yesterday that the Administration isn’t wavering in its support for the strategy, which is key to the potential stockpile reductions laid out by President Obama last month in a speech in Berlin. “We continue to think it’s very sensible,” Miller said during a speech at the Capitol Hill Club. “We’ve been talking to people on the Hill in this regard and it comes down … to the resources required to implement the strategy. I’ve seen nothing in either our analysis or in comments that have come from the Hill or elsewhere to make me think we should shift from that strategy, and it does undergird the approach that we’re taking in the hedging for technical and geopolitical change.”

Key Congressional committees have raised concerns about the approach, especially in light of the potential price tag, which last month was revealed to be approximately $14 billion for the first interoperable warhead, a combination of the W78/W88-1 warheads. Two subsequent interoperable warheads could cost $13 billion and $12 billion, respectively. At the same time, the Senate Defense Appropriations Committee has put the brakes on the Navy portion of a study on the W78/W88-1 interoperable warhead, rejecting a $3 million request to reprogram Fiscal Year 2013 funds. Miller, however, was undeterred. “We’ll continue to make the case,” he said. “We think the case makes sense and we’ll continue to answer any and all questions about why it makes sense, how to implement it, that Congress and others may have.”
July 22, 2013 at 7:35 AM
Anonymous said...

Comments

Anonymous said…
What does the 3+2 mean for the labs? Did they identify which systems? Who gets the short end of the stick?
7/24/2013 3:14 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Plutonium Shots on NIF.

By scooby
Tri-Valley Cares needs to be on this if they aren't already. We need to make sure that NNSA and LLNL does not make good on promises to pursue such stupid ideas as doing Plutonium experiments on NIF. The stupidity arises from the fact that a huge population is placed at risk in the short and long term. Why do this kind of experiment in a heavily populated area? Only a moron would push that kind of imbecile area. Do it somewhere else in the god forsaken hills of Los Alamos. Why should the communities in the Bay Area be subjected to such increased risk just because the lab's NIF has failed twice and is trying the Hail Mary pass of doing an SNM experiment just to justify their existence? Those Laser EoS techniques and the people analyzing the raw data are all just BAD anyways. You know what comes next after they do the experiment. They'll figure out that they need larger samples. More risk for the local population. Stop this imbecilic pursuit. They wan...
155 comments
Read more

Trump is to gut the labs.

By scooby
The budget has a 20% decrease to DOE office of science, 20% cut to NIH. NASA also gets a cut. This will  have a huge negative effect on the lab. Crazy, juts crazy. He also wants to cut NEA and PBS, this may not seem like  a big deal but they get very little money and do great things.
124 comments
Read more

Rumor corner

By scooby
LLNS may have excluded the wrong people in last VSSOP? The exclusions were based on outdated job categories and related skills. ULM are now thinking that in the future, job categories and functional areas will have to be re-defined. The next VSSOP/ISP will be based on the new categories and functional areas. The questions I have are: 1) Why didnt they think of that before the transition. It seems like their style is “change things as you go”. Planning is out the window! 2) Who will give input on the new changes? The next RIF apparently is going to be more lucrative than the VSSOP. Depending on the length of employment, a RIFed person, not only gets their 1 week pay per year of service but also from 30 to 120 days notice, essentially 30 to 120 days pay. Please feel free to comment on the rumors or add new ones you actually heard.
92 comments
Read more