Nuclear Bomb Refurbishment May Alarm Russia, Imperil Obama Plan
A U.S. Air Force plan to refurbish aging nuclear bombs deployed in five European countries would increase the weapon’s power and accuracy and risks re-igniting tensions with Russia, an arms control group says.
The $4 billion program to extend the life of the B61 bomb is part of a larger atomic weapons maintenance plan approved by President Barack Obama. The work is designed to ensure the reliability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent force without building new weapons or adding capabilities that might prompt Russia to do the same.
The aim is “to modernize them, not in the sense of capability, but in terms of security and reliability,” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in budget testimony yesterday before the Senate Appropriations subcommittee on defense. “The risks are to our own program in terms of being able to extend the life of our weapons systems.”
Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons specialist at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, said the B61 refurbishment plan may make the bombs more capable, in violation of that stated policy.
The Air Force plans to add a new tail section that will effectively replace the four different current versions of the B61 with one that would achieve the same effect as the version with the highest explosive force, the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, said in a May report.
“There’s no way this can happen without increasing the military capability,” Kristensen, a former adviser to Denmark’s Ministry of Defense, said in a telephone interview.
U.S. Stockpile
The B61 is among seven types of nuclear weapons remaining in the U.S. stockpile of more than 5,000 bombs. The version of the B61 that currently has the higher explosive force, or yield, isn’t deployed in Europe, so the refurbished weapon with that level of effect would amount to a new capability, he said.
The result may undermine Obama’s stated goal of easing tensions with Russia and working toward eliminating nuclear weapons worldwide. Obama last year reached a new agreement with Russia to further cut each side’s nuclear weapons and has offered cooperation on a Europe-based missile defense system that officials in Moscow oppose.
Obama has budgeted a record $80 billion over 10 years to maintain and modernize the existing nuclear stockpile, while pledging not to add capabilities that might spark a new arms race.
Gates told the Senate panel yesterday that the modernization project is “really important.”
Weapons in Europe
While the U.S. won’t discuss the locations of its Cold War- era nuclear arms in Europe, Kristensen said research has shown they are in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.
Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, declined to comment and referred questions to the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, which oversees design and production of U.S. nuclear warheads in its laboratories and other sites.
The facilities are managed by subsidiaries or consortia of companies including Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT) and Babcock & Wilcox Co. (BWC) of Charlotte, North Carolina.
“The president made clear in his Nuclear Posture Review that this administration will not develop new nuclear warheads with new military capabilities,” said Damien LaVera, a spokesman for the nuclear agency. “The NNSA is in the beginning stages of a life-extension program that is not intended to give the B61 weapon system new military capabilities, but simply to ensure the safety, security and effectiveness of an aging system for decades to come.”
More Efficient
The Air Force said its plan for a single version for the overhaul is more efficient and reduces the total cost of the life-extension project.
The program “maintains the current military capability of four variants of the B61 with a single bomb type,” Air Force spokeswoman Vicki Stein said in an e-mail.
The GAO cited the increased capability in a May report that largely focused on concerns the overhaul would be delayed because of planning complications. Delays risk leaving the U.S. unable to ensure the European nuclear deterrence it has pledged to provide as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the GAO said.
The NNSA estimated the cost of the B61 life-extension project at about $4 billion through its projected completion in 2022, the GAO reported.
“The new bomb tail section is estimated to cost $800 million and is designed to increase accuracy, enabling the military to achieve the same effects as the older bomb, but with lower nuclear yield,” the GAO said in the report. “The addition of the new tail section also allows NNSA to consolidate the different versions of the B61 bomb into a single version.”
Letter to Biden
In a May 24 letter to Vice President Joe Biden to alert him to the issue, Kristensen warned that the increased accuracy may mean “war planners and adversaries might see such nuclear weapons as more usable, allowing some targets that previously would not have been attacked because of too much collateral damage to be attacked anyway.”
Kristensen, who with other experts accurately estimated the size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile before the Pentagon revealed the figure of 5,113 warheads last year, said he doesn’t think the White House is deliberately circumventing its own public pronouncements.
“But they’re not giving specific enough guidance to the NNSA and the military services,” he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Viola Gienger in Washington at vgienger@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net.
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