An independent group of nuclear weapons experts said Monday that substantial work remained to be done on a new generation of warheads in order to show, short of underground testing, that the bombs would be reliable.
The United States has made little progress in developing a conventional "prompt global strike" capability, leaving the military few options short of a nuclear attack in certain scenarios, according to the head of U.S. Strategic Command.
The United States took another step yesterday toward building a new stockpile of up to 2,200 deployed nuclear weapons that would last well into the 21st century, announcing the start of a multiyear process to repair and replace facilities where they would be developed and assembled and where older warheads could be more rapidly dismantled.
A congressional committee took major steps this week toward financing the Bush administration's controversial program to build new generations of nuclear warheads, roughly doubling the budget for the design of the new weapons while reducing the money for maintaining the old stockpile.
The Bush administration plans to speed up the dismantling of old, retired nuclear warheads in coming years, in part to counter any impression that the United States is starting a new arms race with its work to develop a new generation of more reliable nuclear arms, according to U.S. officials.
By the end of the year, the government plans to select the design of a new generation of nuclear warheads that would be more dependable and possibly able to be disarmed in the event they fell into terrorist hands, according to the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration.
The United Kingdom has been secretly operating a program to develop a new nuclear warhead. The effort is akin to the U.S. Reliable Replacement Warhead program, and aims to produce a warhead that could be tested without an actual nuclear detonation.
The Bush administration is developing plans to design and deploy refurbished or replacement warheads for the nuclear stockpile, and by 2030 to modernize the production complex so that, if required, it could produce new generations of weapons with different or modified capabilities.
A senior Bush administration official and the House Appropriations Committee this week declared the Energy Department’s controversial Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator study dead. The study, intended to assess the feasibility of developing a reliable, deeper-penetrating nuclear weapon than currently in the arsenal has been the subject of domestic and international criticism. Proponents say it is needed to threaten hardened and deeply buried targets. Critics say it could cause mass civilian destruction if used, might be deemed a more “usable” weapon, and undermines global nonproliferation efforts.
The United States should immediately begin efforts to produce a new "family" of nuclear weapons to replace the current U.S. arsenal, according to an Energy Department-commissioned task force report.