Nuclear Options
Do we need new nukes?
By Fred Kaplan
http://politics.slate.msn.com/id/2116692/
Do we need new nukes?
By Fred Kaplan
Back on the horizon
The nuclear gurus are staging a comeback. Their wedge of opportunity is a technical debate that's emerged inside the weapons labs, a debate so arcane that probably only a few hundred scientists can engage its issues fully. Yet the outcome of this debate could zap new jolts of life into a vast nuclear complexof strategic thinking, nuclear testing, warhead production, and missile deploymentthat's lain moribund for more than a decade.
The spark of all this is a nuclear warhead called the W-76, the hydrogen bomb packed inside roughly 3,300 of the United States' 5,000 or so strategic nuclear weapons. Eight of them are packed inside every Trident I and Trident II missile, which are loaded into the U.S. Navy's fleet of submarines that roams the oceans, under the surface, undetectable and therefore invulnerable to pre-emptive attack. In short, the W-76 is the mainstay of America's nuclear deterrent.
When the W-76s came into the arsenal between 1972 and 1987, they were expected to have a 20-year lifespan. Most of the warheads have long passed that expiration date, and the remaining few are approaching it. So, this is the question: Is the W-76 literally obsolete? Does it work anymore? If the president pushed the button, would these bombs explode? If it seems very likely that they wouldn't, should we build a new warhead? And if we go that far, should we test it to make sure it worksthat is, explode it underground and, in the process, break the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the United States signed in 1995 and started observing under the first President Bush in '92? (Every country in the world except India, Pakistan, and North Korea has signed it, though the United States and China haven't ratified it.) And as long as we're building and testing a new warhead, should we simply go with a remodeled W-76or design something new for the post-Cold War era?
http://politics.slate.msn.com/id/2116692/