Experts Warn New U.S. Weapon Could Jumpstart Nuclear Arms Race
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NEW YORK, Mar 6 (OneWorld) - A U.S. plan to develop a new hydrogen bomb could spark production of new nuclear weapons by other countries, including several foes of the Bush administration, warn some of the nation's leading arms control and disarmament advocacy groups.
Last Friday, the Department of Energy announced it was seeking to develop a new hydrogen bomb that would replace the existing W76 warhead now deployed on submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Many analysts say the Bush administration's plan would undermine international efforts to control the spread of nuclear arms and would provide justification to those countries currently suspected of trying to build such weapons. "It will not convince the Iranian Scylla, North Korean Charybdis, or any other less attention-grabbing nascent nuclear state that the U.S. is serious about dampening the political value of nuclear weapons in its security policy," says Travis Sharp, a research fellow at the Washington, DC-based Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. The Bush administration has justified the move by arguing that the condition of existing warheads essentially demands that a new hydrogen bomb be developed in the next two decades, but experts on nuclear weapons find this line of reasoning out of step with reality on the ground. "The administration claims [it] is necessary in order to maintain long-term confidence in the future stockpile," says John Isaacs, "but the fact is that the U.S. stockpile has been confirmed 'safe and reliable' for at least another half century," noting that the effectiveness of the existing stockpile is based on 50 years of research and over 1,000 underground nuclear tests. Other nuclear policy experts agree with Isaacs' view that the plan to build the new hydrogen bomb is unjustified. "The main reason for new nuclear weapons--possible uncertainties about whether the specified projected yield of the existing weapons would remain precisely reliable--was recently invalidated by both the national nuclear weapon labs scientists and independent experts," says Leonor Tomero, a non-proliferation policy expert at the Center. Last November, a study carried out by American weapons laboratories and reviewed by JASON, an independent government advisory body of nuclear scientists, revealed that plutonium pits (the cores that trigger nuclear weapons) remain viable for at least 90 years. "The concern was never that the existing weapons would not detonate," according to Tomero, "the concern was that the weapons would not detonate at their precise expected yield. Even that is no longer a valid concern now." Despite the end of the Cold War in 1991, the United States continues to possess thousands of nuclear weapons. In addition to the United States, other major powers that have built huge nuclear arsenals include Russia, Britain, France, and China. Currently the five countries combined have more than 36,000 nuclear warheads in their possession, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a Sweden-based think tank. In addition to the declared nuclear powers, India, Pakistan, and Israel are also believed to be in possession of hundreds of nuclear weapons and at this point, unlike Iran, which has joined international agreements against the spread of nuclear weapons, none of them seems willing to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. As Iran continues to claim that it has no intention to build nuclear weapons, in response to Western criticisms and suspicions surrounding its nuclear program it often points out the presence of thousands of nuclear weapons in the possession of the United States. On Monday, a new report from a leading British scientist concluded that a military strike, rather than setting back Iran's nuclear program, could actually speed up the country's production of a nuclear weapon. "[It] would certainly lead to a fast-track program to develop a small number of nuclear devices as quickly as possible," said Dr. Frank Barnaby, the report's author, about the likely Iranian reaction to any U.S. military action. Sponsored by the Oxford Research Group, an independent charity based in Britain, the study concluded that if Iran was moving toward nuclear-weapon capacity, it was doing so "relatively slowly," with most estimates suggesting that no weapon would be produced within the next five years. In his report, Dr. Barnaby argued that it is "much more likely" that, following an attack, all resources would be focused on the manufacture of "one or two crude" devices. "This realignment of Iran's nuclear program towards a so-called 'crash program' could lead to a nuclear armed Iran within one or two years," he said. The report's conclusions were fully backed by Dr. Hans Blix, the former UN chief nuclear inspector and head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). "Armed attacks on Iran would very likely lead to the results they were meant to avoid--the building of nuclear weapons in three years," Blix said in a foreword to the report. In addition to their concerns about the negative implications for non-proliferation, some critics in Washington, such as Isaacs, worry that the focus of George W. Bush's new nuclear policy could harm U.S. interests. "Costly warheads won't help the U.S. win the counterinsurgency campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan," says Isaacs, "and non-state actors like al Qaeda do not respond to classic Cold War state-to-state nuclear deterrence." For this fiscal year, Bush is seeking more than $118 million to fund development of the new nuclear weapons (also known as the Reliable Replacement Warhead program). Noting that Bush's request for the new weapons is almost five times greater than the amount he asked for last year, experts at the Center say costs are likely to go much higher as the new weapons program moves into the production phase between 2009 and 2012. Last Friday the Los Angeles Times reported that over the next two decades the cost of developing the new bomb might grow into the tens of billions of dollars. |
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"Nuclear Proliferation"Author:
david graham
Time: 03/22/2007 19:52
Comment: No lawful nation, no peaceful nation, needs any more nuclear weapons than those required to maintain a credible deterrence. As a natural corollary, each nation has the right to nuclear weapons sufficient to maintain a credible deterrence.
The problem is not nulcear proliferation per se. Rather, adverse consequences obtain when nuclear powers seek to deny non-nuclear powers the capability of developing a nuclear deterrence and when nuclear powers seek to expand their nuclear arsenals beyond those types and numbers of weapons needed to maintain a credible deterrence. This is the world we live in today. Why should signatories to the Non Proliferation Treaty like Iran foreswear the right of peaceful nuclear technology, or indeed even a credible nuclear deterrence when nuclear powers like the U.S. and Great Britain seek to "modernize" and expand their nuclear arsenals? Why does the world focus with such scrutiny on North Korea and Iran and not at all on Israel? Israel has an active nuclear program and enough fissile material to have made scores, perhaps dozens of nuclear bombs. Israel has demonstrated its willingness to engage in pre-emptive war (just like the U.S.) Consider Pakistan. As a purported ally in Washington's "War on Terror," Pakistan gets a pass from U.S. harrassment, both on its nuclear arsenal and on the technical data A.Q. Kahn, the father of the Pakastani a-bomb, sold to other nations, including Lybia and North Korea. Washington seems to be acting as if Pervez Musharef was going to be in power forever, or that the possibility of Islamic revolution in Pakistan were precluded. A nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan is perhaps the most likely scenario for the start of Armageddon, but the U.S. provides material assistance to each countries' nuclear program. If the sole objective of foreign policy decisions regarding nuclear (non) proliferation is to obtain an unfair advantage for one country or another, then nuclear disarmament is an illusion and a nuclear holocaust is an eventuality. Wanting to defend one's country, patriotism, is one of the finest human sentiments and is compatible with a nuclear strategy limited to deterrence. Wanting to project power elsewhere by the threatend use or (God forbid) actual first use of nuclear weapons is immoral and, potentially suicidal. The deterrence value of nuclear weapons has prevented a major war since World War Two. The threat of the first use of nuclear weapons, now part of official U.S. policy, may well some day be the start of World War Three. A nuclear war not fought must always be preferable to a nuclear war "won." |
"New bombs"Author:
Chris Horton
Time: 03/07/2007 19:17
Comment: Heider Rizvi's article is important and timely and should spur people to action. It does not however bring out the greatest threat by far to the regime and possibility of nuclear arms control: US development of "small" "bunker buster" fission weapons for use in Iran, and the many indications that the US intends to wage war on Iran and may be planning to use these weapons.
Using even "small" nuclear bombs would release large amounts of radioactive material, and would cause mass casualties and panic spreading beyond the borders of Iran. It would destroy the distinction between nuclear weapons - held in reserve for deterrence - and conventional weapons for actually fighting wars. It would eliminate the belief that nuclear weapons will not be used against non-nuclear state., It would scuttle the non-proliferation treaty, and would send the message loud and clear that no nation can consider itself truly soverign unless it posesses these fiendish devices. Exposing and stopping US plans to use these bombs against Iran, and exposing and blocking plans to precipitate this war, should be everyone's A#1 priority right now. Chris Horton |
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