A new report for Congress weighs replacement warheads against extending existing ones

ROGER SNODGRASS Monitor Assistant Editor

Replace or extend?

The choice may sound like a medical decision for an aging patient, and in a way that's not far from the truth.

The American nuclear weapons stockpile is growing older, now going on forty or so, which may only be middle age, but still old enough to concern some of the officials responsible for its health.

Most of the thousands of warheads still in service or in reserve were put together during the '70s and 80s, during the hot spell of the Cold War, when the former Soviet Union and the United States were assuring each other that any use of nuclear weapons by either side would spell doom for both.

Now, more than a decade after the end of the Cold War, the nation's weapons managers are seeing an increasing number of challenges ahead.

In the last few years, they have raised questions about how much longer those weapons will remain adequate, not only in terms of their safety and performance, but also in terms of meeting the changing needs of the 21st century.

Conversely, how can any replacement weapon be more reliable than the current stockpile if it is not tested as the older weapons have been?

A new report released this week by the Congressional Research Service for the next session of Congress delves into many of those questions and spells out some of the main answers to be debated next year.

The report begins with the assertion that, "Nuclear weapons will continue to play a key role in U.S. security policy for many decades." It goes on to focuses on two main options that would not require a resumption of nuclear tests.

Another option, "abolition of U.S. nuclear weapons," is not considered, wrote Jonathan Medalia, author of the report, "because it has garnered no support in Congress or the administration."

The "replacement" option proposed by the National Nuclear Security Administration calls for developing Reliable Replacement Warheads (RRWs) "that are safer, more secure and easier to manufacture and maintain."

But the "extension" option, the current program known as the Life Extension Program (LEP) is also included in the Department of Energy Strategic Plan - "refurbishing a limited number of legacy-design warheads and ensuring their vitality until they are replaced."

NNSA has stated that LEP can extend the life of current warheads by 20-30 years, and that estimate came before a recent independent assessment that plutonium pits, the trigger for nuclear weapons, will last nearly twice as long as previously thought.

For the last year Los Alamos National Laboratory has been involved in a design competition with sister laboratory Lawrence Livermore National laboratory to enable NNSA to determine if the RRW strategy is feasible.

Those plans are now in the hands of headquarter officials, who have not yet chosen a winner, but have seen enough to say - in an announcement at the beginning of this month - that RRW is a "go."

While making no secret of its interest in developing the new warheads, LANL, too, has kept its options open.

Medalia quotes from information provided by LANL in September, referring to the competition:

"Just because this exercise has been successful does not imply that we're opponents of LEP strategies," the lab stated. "At the end of the day, we are service providers and advisors. We will pursue the course of action decided by the Administration, Congress and the DOD."

Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., the new chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has said he would call for hearings on the RRW.

A spokesman for Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M. said recently that Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., who will be the incoming chair of the Senate energy and water appropriations subcommittee will be relatively new to the issues, but that Domenici hopes to bring him out to New Mexico and introduce him to the laboratories soon.

Medalia's report includes a glimpse of how House Armed Services Committee Democrats might evaluate the RRW.

In a statement of additional views in the committee's FY2006 report, they gave their opinion that the RRW program was only worthy of support under stringent conditions.

These include assurances that it:

truly reduces or eliminates altogether the need for nuclear testing;

leads to dramatic reductions in the nuclear arsenal;

does not introduce new mission or new weapon requirements; and

reduces the reliance of the U.S. on nuclear weapons and de-emphasizes the military utility of nuclear weapons.