The U.S. needs new nukes. That's the message Pentagon chief Robert
Gates is delivering right now, as part of a broad, spirited defense of
America's nuclear arsenal.
Congress and the Bush administration have been wrestling for years over the so-called
Reliable Replacement Warhead — the next generation of nuclear weapon designs. Lawmakers have had the upper hand in the match, eliminating funding for RRW. Today, in a speech to the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, Gates looks to scramble back on top, with a dire warning to Capitol Hill.
"To be blunt, there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program," Gates says, according to his prepared remarks.
In other words, fund this thing, mothertruckers, or we start testing. The United States concluded the last full-scale underground test of a nuke in 1992, and declared an official moratorium two years later; a return to testing would be a really big deal. In a speech last month on the limits of U.S. power, he alluded —
briefly — to the importance of RRW. That part of the speech earned few headlines, but for nuke-watchers, it was a telling moment.
Gates is also teasing out a novel argument for RRW: Everyone else is doing it.
Depending on which nuclear weapons design lab you are talking to, there have been two justifications for RRW: either because of problems with the Los Alamos-designed W-76 nuclear warhead, or because the labs need to keep a cadre of designers with experience designing a new weapon. This adds a new twist. We'll take a closer look at this speech later — it will be an important one to watch.
[PHOTO: U.S. Department of Energy]
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