Nuclear Weapons . Scientists and the
Post–Cold War Challenge Selected Papers on Arms Control
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Nuclear Weapons . Scientists andthe
Post–Cold War Challenge Selected Papers on Arms Control
Sidney D. Drell Stanford University, USA
World Scientific NEih. J E R S E Y * LONDCIR;
SINGAPORE
EEiJING
SEIAbGHAl
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HONG K O N G
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TAlPEl * C H E N N A I
Published by
World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. 5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224
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British Library Cataloguing-in-PublicationData A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
The author and publisher would like to thank the following publishers of the various journals and books for their assistance and permission to include selected reprints found in this volume: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (Beam Line);National Reconnaissance Office and American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (Beyond Expectations -Building an American National Reconnaissance Capability);American Physical Society (Reviews of Modern Physics); Springer Science and Business Media (In the Shadow of the Bomb: Physics and Arms Control); Bulletin o f the Atomic Scientists (Bulletin ofthe Atomic Scientists); National Academy o f Sciences, Washington, DC (Issues in Science and Technology); Foreign Affairs, NY (Foreign Affairs); Palgrave Macmillan (Adlai Stevenson’s Lasting Legacy); Blackwell Publishing (New Perspective Quarterly); New York Times (New York Times Op-Ed); The Washington Post (The Washington Post Op-Ed); Annual Reviews, CA (Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science); American Institute of Physics (Physics Today);Arms Control Association, Washington, DC (Arms Control Association Report).
NUCLEAR WEAPONS, SCIENTISTS, AND THE POST-COLD WAR CHALLENGE Selected Papers on Arms Control Copyright 0 2007 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved. This book, orparts thereoJ may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the Publisher.
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ISBN 98 1-256-896-4 ISBN 981-256-897-2 (pbk)
Printed in Singaporeby Mainland Press
V
Contents
INTRODUCTION
1
CHAPTER I My Involvement as a Scientist Working on Issues of National Security and Views on Scientists’ Responsibilities and Ethical Dilemmas - Reflections - Physics and U.S. National Security - The Moral Obligation of Scientists and a Rekindling of Hope - Response on Behalf of Degree Recipients at the University of Tel Aviv Ceremony Granting Honorary Doctors Degrees - Response at the Ceremony Awarding the William Oliver Baker Award - Beyond Expectations - Building an American National Reconnaissance Capability: Recollections of the Pioneers and Founders of National Reconnaissance - The Impact of a Public Constituency - Science and Society: The Troubled Frontier - To Act or Not To Act
5 7 17 28 34 36 38
45 51 65
CHAPTER I1 Issues Coming to the Fore Immediately Following the Collapse of the Soviet Union and the End of the Cold War - Science and National Security - Testimony on the Future of Arms Control - Abolishing Long-range Nuclear Missiles - Reducing Nuclear Danger
67
68 76 89 91
CHAPTER I11 At the End of the 20th Century: The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Emergence of the New Terror of Biological and Chemical Weapons - Adlai Stevenson and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of Today - On Stockpile Stewardship and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty - Putting the Nuclear Genie Back in the Bottle - Reasons To Ratify, Not To Stall - This Treaty Must Be Ratified - Technical Issues of a Nuclear Test Ban
107 109 113 118 124 125 126
vi
- Merits and Risks of More Underground Tests - Safety in High Consequence Operations - The Route to the CTBT - The Present Threat
169 171 189 197
CHAPTER IV New Challenges in the 21st Century: Escaping the Nuclear Deterrence Trap and Facing Terrorism - The Gravest Danger - Nuclear Weapons and Their Proliferation: The Gravest Danger - Tough Challenges - What Are Nuclear Weapons For - Recommendations for Restructuring U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces? - In the Shadow of the Bomb
205
207 213 231 235 270
CHAPTER V Memorials to Four Colleagues who were Great Scientists and Citizens - Amos deShalit: Statesman of Science - Viki: A Passionate Leader for International Cooperation in Science and in the Pursuit of Peace - Hans Bethe: Shaping Public Policy - Report on the Progress in Reducing Nuclear Danger, Presented at an International Conference in Honor of Andrei Sakharov - Andrei Sakharov and the Nuclear Danger
277
278 286 294 303 317
AFTERWORD What Are Nuclear Weapons For?
323
1
Introduction
This volume includes a representative selection of my recent writings and speeches (circa 1992 to the present) on public policy issues that have substantial scientific components. Most deal with national security, nuclear weapons and arms control, reflecting my personal involvement in such issues, dating back to 1960. These essays are a sequel to the collection in my book ”In the Shadow of the Bomb: Physics and Arms Control” published by the American Institute of Physics in 1993 in its series ”Masters of Modern Physics.” My preface to that book started with the following paragraph: “As a physicist, I have tried to understand nature’s mysteries. As a citizen, I have worked to decrease the dangers posed by the nuclear weapons of mass destruction that are one of the consequences of scientific progress. Since 1960, my life has been divided between pursuing the dream of discovery and working to avoid the nightmare of a nuclear holocaust. The essays, speeches, and Congressional testimony in this collection touch on both endeavors.” The essays in ”The Shadow of the Bomb’’ reflected the fact that in 1993 we were just emerging from the Cold War, during which efforts had been focused primarily on avoiding a nuclear holocaust. The success that the United States and the Soviet Union achieved in that effort was based on their recognition that the enormous destructive potential of nuclear weapons meant, simply, that any nation that initiated nuclear war would, most likely, be committing suicide. This fact reflects the technical reality that there is no effective defense of one’s society against nuclear retaliation. The two superpowers managed their confrontational relationship by establishing a balance of terror in the form of nuclear deterrence based on mutual assured destruction. The 1986 summit at Reykjavik, Iceland, between President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev marked the beginning of a major change in the U.S./Soviet confrontation, starting with the call for sizable reductions in their arsenals of nuclear weapons. The two leaders even went so far as to consider removing all nuclear-armed ballistic missiles that were poised on hair-trigger alert to deliver devastating destruction on an unparalleled scale in less than 30 minutes. Gorbachev and Reagan also presented a vision of escaping from the nuclear deterrence trap based on mutual assured destruction, and flirted with the revolutionary idea of removing all nuclear weapons. In the end, that bold idea was judged to be premature for 1986. However they lit a glimmer of hope that still flickers. Today, 20 years later, and 15 years after the demise of the Soviet Union, the gravest danger presented by nuclear weapons comes in a new form. It is no longer a superpower conflict resulting in a radioactive holocaust. It is the danger that the spread of advanced technology may result in the proliferation of nuclear weapons to a growing number of nations, and hostile governments, including terrorists and suicidal fanatics not constrained
2
by accepted norms of civilized behavior. Our challenge now is to prevent this from happening. At the same time, now that the Soviet Union no longer exists, we should aggressively pursue the opportunity to escape from the nuclear deterrence trap. These themes - sustaining and strengthening a nonproliferation regime against severe challenges, preventing the world's most devastating weapons from falling into the most dangerous hands, and escaping the deterrence trap - are the main focus of the essays in this book. I have divided this book into five chapters. Each starts with a short commentary on the individual articles it includes. Chapter I describes how I originally got involved in technical issues of national security as a complement to my academic career in physics research and teaching. In addition to giving a broad account of my activities on specific problems as a government advisor, these articles also address my views on the responsibilities of scientists and the importance that I attach to the scientific community helping society to benefit from the technical advances resulting from scientific progress. I also discuss ethical dilemmas that we may face in working on technical issues of national security. The next three chapters proceed chronologically in pace with the evolving strategic context for U.S. national security policy and nuclear weapons through the post-Cold War years into the 21st century. Chapter I1 focuses on issues that came to the fore immediately following in the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Chapter I11 addresses the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and its strategic importance for maintaining and strengthening a nonproliferation regime that is under increasing pressure as we enter into the 21st century. I discuss technical issues that have to be evaluated and understood for the United States to conclude that a CTBT is consistent with our national security needs. I also include an essay summarizing a study on the what I call the New Terror, that is the growing threat of biological and chemical weapons that we must now face due to the proliferation of the technology to make and use them. Chapter IV addresses the new challenges of the 21st century. Can the nuclear nonproliferation regime be maintained? What strengthening of the restrictions of the NonProliferation Treaty will be required to prevent the spread of nuclear technology and weapons into the most dangerous hands? Can we now, 15 years after the demise of the Soviet Union, escape from the trap of nuclear deterrence based upon mutual assured destruction that guided us through the most dangerous period of the Cold War? And indeed, "What are nuclear weapons for?" in the post-Cold War era with our former adversary, the Soviet Union, now relegated to the dustbin of history, and our new partner, Russia, accepted formally as an ally in the war against terrorism. Chapter V is devoted to memorials to four great human beings who were admired both as scientists and leaders in the endeavor for a better world, with peace and human justice: Amos de Shalit, Viki Weisskopf, Hans Bethe, and Andrei Sakharov. It is inevitable that there is a significant amount of overlap in the essays included in this book since, in one way or another, they are all addressing the challenge we face to
3
reduce the nuclear danger, to walk away from the brink of nuclear holocaust, to extend the nonproliferation regime, and to negotiate a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. But one can also see a changing emphasis in the discussion as it tracks the changing strategic context since the historic Reykjavik Summit of 1986. There and then, 20 years ago, President Ronald Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev flirted with such far out and visionary ideas as getting rid of all nuclear armed ballistic missiles, or "fast fliers," and even contemplated a world ultimately free of nuclear weapons. These ideas are surfacing once again with the question "What Are Nuclear Weapons For?"
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5
Chapter I
My Involvement as a Scientist Working on Issues of National Security and Views on Scientists’ Responsibilities and Ethical Dilemmas The nine essays in Chapter I review how I first came to be involved as a theoretical physicist working on technical matters of national security, nuclear weapons, and arms control. They give a broad overview of the issues of primary concern to me that I encountered at the interface of science and public policy. The first essay, entitled ”Reflections,” is an autobiographical account of my career that I wrote at the time of my retirement as Deputy Director and Professor of Theoretical Physics at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC).It was published in the summer of 1998 in Beam Line, at that time the in-house magazine of SLAC. The second article entitled ”Physics and U.S. National Security” appeared as an invited paper for the Centenary Issue of the Reviews ofModern Physics Vol. 71, No. 2, 1999. It describes the contributions of physicists, and my personal ones more extensively as an advisor to the U.S. government, on three of the most important technical national security issues during the Cold War years. These were the development of technical reconnaissance from space as a way of penetrating the Iron Curtain; the debate on whether to limit the development of ballistic missile defenses, taking realistic account of their technical capabilities and limitations; and the developments leading to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996. This article also illustrates the importance of independent scientific advice to government leaders at the highest levels and the ethical dilemma that scientists who get involved in military work often face. The third essay is adapted from a speech in Hiroshima, Japan in 1995 at a conference commemorating the 50th anniversary of the dropping of the first atomic bomb. The theme of the conference was the Future of Hope, and it came at a time of renewed hope as the world was moving on a path away from the nuclear brink in the aftermath of the Cold War. On that occasion I presented my views on the moral obligations of scientists to help society shape the applications of our scientific advances for their overall benefits and to minimize their dangers and risks. I also discussed the ethical dilemmas that scientists face when engaged in weapons work, as best illustrated by the trials of Andrei Sakharov. My view of the deeper responsibility of the broad community of university scholars to help mold the character of a society is discussed in the fourth article based on my remarks representing the honorary degree recipients at Tel Aviv University in 2001. The next two articles give more detailed accounts of my involvement, and my views on scientists’ responsibilities, in national security issues. They were prepared for two of the occasions at which I was responding to formal recognition for my technical contributions to US.national security.
6
The seventh essay, reproduced from my 1993 book ”In the Shadow of the Bomb” elaborates my concerns about the importance of educating a public constituency able to understand and weigh in responsibly when important decisions have to be made on issues of national security, and of the obligation of scientists to help build such a constituency. The eighth essay entitled ”Science and Society: The Troubled Frontier,” was delivered at the National Forum and Annual Meeting of Sigma Xi in 1995 upon receiving the John I? McGovern Science and Society Medal. It draws on my efforts to improve working relations between the U.S. government and the scientific community based on improved understanding of the nature and practice of science on one hand, and of the practical realities of the government funding process. In 1945 Vannevar Bush, in his influential report ”Science: The Endless Frontier” designed the nation’s post-World War I1 scientific research program that has become the envy of the world. But by the 1990’s it was fraying at the seams and serious problems were emerging. This was the topic of primary concern that I addressed in my lecture. The ninth essay was written in 1973in response to Professor E. H. Burhop’s questioning my, and my scientific colleagues’, involvement in weapons related work. It was triggered by events in the spring of 1972 at the University of Rome where I spent a sabbatical. After several months in residence at the University’s Physics Department, I was invited to give a seminar on my research work during my time there. When I arrived at the seminar room and attempted to start my talk, I was immediately confronted by a number of the younger pre- and post-doctoral research students who insisted that I talk first on U.S. policy in Viet Nam and Cambodia. Based on what I said, they would then vote as to whether or not I would be permitted to give a physics seminar. This came as quite a shock, as I had talked on numerous occasions with these young scientists during the several months I had been there and they never expressed an interest in my activities as a member of JASON, the group of U.S. academic scientists who did technical studies and gave advice to the U.S. government on issues of national importance. It had come to public attention that some members of JASON were involved with the U.S. military and defense officials on issues directly related to the fighting in Viet Nam. This fact had caused much discussion and some hostility in academic circles. I personally was not involved in those particular activities, due not to any opposition in principle, but to my heavy involvement in other national security issues of a technical nature, including strategic nuclear weapons and ballistic missile defenses. That fact was irrelevant, and I objected strongly, on principle, to being subjected to a political inquisition in order to gain permission to give a scientific talk. This led to further disruption and I was not permitted to give my seminar. I faced a similar confrontation several weeks later at a French summer school in physics at Cargese on the island of Corsica. The result was the same and the school was closed down. Nor was I the only JASON to have been thus confronted. These events led to several articles challenging the participation by individuals such as myself working with governments on weapons and technical issues of national security. This essay states my principles in response to those articles, and in particular to the one addressed to me by Professor E. H. Burhop. It appeared in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in 1974.
7
COHERENT PRODUCTION AS A MEANS OF DETERMINING THE SPIN AND PARITY OF BOSONS S.M. Berman, S D DreIl(SLAC) SLAC-PUB-0010. 1963 5pp Phys Rev Lett. 1 I 220-224,1963
0sS
MESO BOUNDS ON PROPAGATORS, COUPLING CONSTANTS AND VERTEX FUNCTIONS S D DreII (SLAC), A C Finn. A C Hearn (Stanford U , ITP). SLAC-PUB~0039,Jul 1964. 43pp. Phys 9ev. 136 81439-51.1964 DOUBLE CHARGE EXCHANGE SCATTERING OF PIONS FROM NUCLEI R G Parsons, J S Ti-efil (Stanford U., ITP). S D Drell (SLAC) SLAG-PUB-0063. Nov 1964 16pp Phys.Rev 738.6847-50.7965 ANALYSES OF MUON ELECTRODYNAMIC TEST J A. McClure. S D Drell (SLAC) SLACPUB-0067, Dec 1964 18pp Nuovo Cim.37 1638~1646,1965 PHOTOPRODUCTION OF NEUTRAL K MESONS S D Drell, M Jacob (SLAC) SLACPUB-0065, Dec 1964 24pp. Phys Rev 138.B1313-7,1965
s
ANOMALOUS MAGNETIC MOMENT OF THE ELECTRON, MUON, AND NUCLEON D Drell, H R Pagels (SLAC) SLAC-PUB-0102, Apr 1965 44pp Phys Rev. 140 6 3 9 7 ~ 8407,1965 TEST OF ROLE OF STATISTICAL MODEL AT HIGH~ENERGIES.S D Drell (SLAC), D R Speiser J Weyers (Louvain U.) SLAC-PUB-0138. Jun 1965 8 p p . Preludes in Theorelicai Physics, ed b y A De-Shalit. H Feshbach, I Van Hove N Y . Wiley 1966, pp 294-301 SPECIAL MODELS AND PREDICTIONS FOR PHOTOPRODUCTION ABOVE I-GEV S D Drell (SLAC) SLAC~PUB-0118,Jun 1965 46pp lnvrted talk to the lnt. Symp on Electron and Photon lnteractioiis at High Energies, DESY 1965 Proc of the lnt Symp on Electron and Photon Interactions at High Energies. DESK 7965 Hamburg, Deulsche Physikalische GeseIIschaft. 7965 vol 1. p. 71-90 AXIAL MESON EXCHANGE AND THE RELATION OF HYDROGEN HYPERFINE SPLITTING TO ELECTRON SCATTERING S.D Drell, Jeremiah 0. Sultivai? (SLAG) SLAC-PUB-0745. Oct 7965 9pp PhyS Lett 19516-518.1965 DETERMINATION OFRHOO - NUCLEON TOTAL CROSS-SECTIONS FROM COHERENT PHOTOPRODUCTION S.D Drell (SLAC). James S TrefiI (Stanford U , ITP) SLAC~PUB0170, Feb 1966. 1 l p p Phys.Rev. Lett. 16 552-555.1966 PERIPHERAL PROCESS€S. A C Hearn (Stanford U , ITP). S D. Drell (SLAC). SLAG-PUE~ 0176. Apf 1966 95pp Burhop. E H S . e d High Energy Physics N Y.Academic Press, 1967 vot 2.p 219-64 EXACT SUM RULE FOR NUCLEON MAGNETIC MOMENTS S D Drell (SLAC). A C Hearn (Stanford U.. IJP) SLAC~PUB-0187.Apr 1966 l 0 p p Phys. Rev Lett. 16.908-911.1966 POLARIZABILITY CONTRIBUTION TO THE HYDROGEN HYPERFINE STRUCTURE S D Drell. J.D Sullivan SLAG-PUB-0204, JuI 1966. 84pp Phys Rev 154 1477-1498.1967 ELECTRODYNAMIC INTERACTIONS S.D. DrelI SLAC-PUB-0225, Sep 7966 57pp Report 10 the 13th Int. Conf on High Energy Physics. Berkeley 1966 Proc of the In1 Conf on High Energy Physics, 13th. Berkeley 1966. Berkeiey, Univ of Calif. Press, 1967 p 8599 ELECTROMAGNETIC FORM-FACTORS FOR COMPOSITE PARTICLES AT LARGE MOMENTUM TRANSFER S D. Drell. A C Finn. M H Goldhaber SLAC-PUB-0237, Dec 1966 37pp PhysRevl57 7402-1411 1967 LAMB SHIFT AND VALIDITY OFQUANTUM ELECTRODYNAMICS 0609 Jan 1967 4pp Comments NucI Part Fhys 1.24-26,1967
SD
DreII SLAC~PUB-
PION PHOTOPRODUCTIONATO-DEGREES S D Drell, J D Sullivan SLAC~PUB-0372, May 1967 13pp Phys Rev. Lett 19 268-271.1967 REGGE POLE HYPOTHESIS IN AMPLITUDES WITH PHOTONS S D. DreIl SLAC~PUB0425. Sep 1967 8pp Comments NucI Part Phys 7 196-200.1967 WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED ABOUT ELEMENTARY PARTICLES FROM PHOTON AND ELECTRON INTERACTIONS? S D. Drell (SLAC) SLAC-PUB-0355. Sep 1967 50pp. Paper presented ar lnt Symposium on Electron and Photon Interactions at High Energies. SLAC, Sep 1967 Proc of the In1 Symp on Electron and Photon Interactions at High Energies, SLAC. 1367 Stanford. Calif. SLAC. 7967 p3-31
S I D N E Y 4
SUMMER1998
M
Y CAREERINRESEARCH
as a theoretical physicist
dates back to fifty years ago shortly after the end of World War 11. And it has been the best of times, Back then, it was a dream time to have been a graduate student! There was no need to worry about a job, unless for Some strange reason you felt that Harvard was the only place to be. Vannevar Bush had laid out a map for the support of science in his perceptive report to President Truman in 1945 enti. tied Science, the Endless Frontier, With clear and brilliant insight he presented the design and foundations of the nation‘s post-World War 11 scientific research program that has become the envy of the world. Here was his far reaching, visionary blueprint: “Science, by itself, provides no panacea for individual, social, and economic ills. But without scientific progress no amount of achievement in other directions can insure our health, prosperity, and security as a nation in the modern world,” Furthermore, he reminded Wash. ington that research is a difficult and often very slow voyage Over uncharted Seas and therefore, for science to flourish with governmental support, freedom of inquiry must be preserved, and there must be funding stability over a period of years so that long-range programs may be undertaken and pursued effectively. Physics was then a growth industry with an unreal coefficient of inflation that nurtured us all.
D R E L L
8
“%a was the best of times but it could
have been the worst of times."
L o o h g b a c k a t the particle physics of fifty years ago-which now seemi like the Dark Midilie Ages-we had a theory of qi~antumelectrodynamics {QED)with which w e could do lowest order calculations &at were adequate ac.ccunt for what wzs observed in processes involving photons, electrons, an positrons. Bgt heyon0 that, exceedingly laborious calculations generally gave i d i m ~ t ya~result t h t was usudly equated to zero and ignored. The infrared diivergewes alone were wdersrood, thanks to Felix Bloch and .Amold Nerdslecir. Although fragile, limited, and trustrating to work with, QED was the only “s’sccrssfd“ field theosy, and was variously, m d usually unsuccessfully, used as a. model t c try md to anderstand other physical systems. These included nuclei and nuclear forces and what was occurring in situations where mesons were assuxed to be the quanta and perturbation theory w-as invalid. The first W t c i n g &shes of red progress came in 1947 horn Richard Fep-man, julian Schwinger, and Sin-Itira Tomonaga, with a thunderous rw&le fro= Freeman Dyson. They turned QED into a beautiful, qrtantitatiire theory whose divergences would be isolated into renormalization constants, and W ~ Q S Ppredictions could be calculated to very high precision. -reyrman propagators tmned h o n e d ~ u calculations s by the old metho into (well, a l i ~ o s tbaby‘s ] play, 2nd Feynman graphs helped us know what %=ewere doing. It was a very heady time as we found theory sgredcg with the beautiful precision measurements of the Lamb Shih, rhe electron g-2 value, h3yerfine splitting in p o s i t r o ~ u ma, bigher order radiation prccesses. Shcrtly theredter thex was great excitement as we disc o - z e d that there were two m e s o n s t h e C Q S I ~ ~ray C one and the nuclear force one-aad lage new accelerators produced a s7eritsb1ezoo ~f strange particles. Not only was the physics ~ e r exiring y but also we were buoyed up by the strong sup port h r science, and physics in particular, inspired by the demonstrated importance of the contributions that physici.sts had made :c the successfu1conclusion of TVorld War 11 tlzough development oi radar and the atomic bomb. As the cold war intensified there was growing cmcem t h , perhaps, we would be needed again and so we better be courished.and rejuvmated as a strategic asset D-u-isg
9
T H E STRUCTURE OF H I G H - E N E R G Y L A R G E MOMENTUM TRANSFER C O L L I S I O N PROCESSES H D I Abarbanel S D Drell F .I Gilrnan I S L A C ) SLAC-PUB-0371 Dec 1967 17pp Phys Rev lell 20 280~2831968 DIFFERENCE OFNUCLEON AND PiON ELEC~ TROMAGNETIC RADii S D DreIl D J Siiverman (SLAC)SLAC~PUB-0404.Api 1968 1 ipp Phys RevLeft20 13251329 1968 REMARKS ON EXPERIMENTS AT NAL S D DmiI i.Sraniord U ITPJ FERMiLAB~TM-0108Jul 1968 18PP QUANTUM ELECTRODYNAMiCS THEORY S D Dreii. S J Bmdsky (SIACJ SLAC~PUB-0454.JuI 1968 18pp inviled taik a1 101 Conf on Atomic Physics, N Y U , Jun 1968 Pioc of in1 Conf on Alomic Physics New York. 1968 N Y , Plenum Press. 1969 p 53-70 PROTON FORM-FACTORS S D Die11(SIAC) SLAC~PUB~O427, AuQ 1968 9pp Comments NuciPart Phys 236~40,1968
THE STRUCTURE OF HIGKENERGY PROTON PROTON SCATiERiNG H D i Abarbaoei. S D DreU FJ Gman WAC) SLAC-PUB-0476, AUQ 1968 44pp Phys Rev 17724458-2469.1969
gpp ~ ~ ~ i p a i r r94-98 ~ h y196i ~ HiGH-ENERGYLlMiTFOR THEREAL PARTOF FORWARD COMPTON SCAJTERING M J Creutz. S 0 DreM E A Paschos 1SLAC) SLAC-PUB-0499, Ocr 1968 8pp Phys Rev 178 2300-2301.1969 ELECTROMAGNETiC THEORY AND EXPERiMENT S 0 DreiilSLACI SLAC-PUB-0612, Oct 1968 8pp Comrnenls NUCi Part Phys 2 1-6.1968 A FlFi n THFORETiC MODEL FOR ELECTRON . . . NUCLEON DEEP INELASTiC SCATTERiNG S D Dreii, D J Levy i M Yan (SLAC) SLAC~PUB-0556 Feb 1969 1 lpp Phys RevLe1IZ2 744-748.1969 ~
Phys Rev 1872159~2171,1969
A THEORY OFDEEP iNELASTiC LEPTON NUCLEON SCATTERING AND LEPTON PAiR ANNiHILA~ TION PROCESSES 2 DEEP INELASTIC EIECTRON SCATTERiNG S D DieIi, D J L w y , FM Yan (SL4C) SLAC PUB-0645, Sep 1969 96pp Phys RevD? 103568,1970 A THFORY OF DEEP INELASTiC LEPTON NII ~
A THEORY OF DEEP iNELASTiC LEPTON - NUCLEON SCATTERiNG AND LEPTON PAiR ANNiHi~ LATiON PROCESSES 4 DEEP INELASTiC N E U ~ TRINO SCATTERING i M Yan. S D Dreii (SLAC) SLAC-PUB-0692. No" 1969 36pp Phys Rev D I 2402,1970 INELASTIC ELECTRON SCATlERtNG. ASYMPTOTiC BEHAViOR AND SUM RULES S D Dreil Dec 1969 42pp Lectures at in1 SLAC~PUB~0689. Schooi of P h y s m 'Ellore Majorana'. Ence Sialy, JuI 1969 Pmc int Schooi 0iPhysics Eltore M a p iana. Eirce. July 1969 NY. Academic Press, 1970
0699. Dec 1969 l l p p Phys Rev Lelt 24 181 185,1970
6
SUMMER1998
CERN in Geneva, we truly became one international community collaborating productively on experiments and theories. Parity fell, and we learned the beauty of broken symmetry, spontaneous and otherwise. Muons and neutrinos came into the fold and a theory of weak interactions was completed. We dispersed, analytically continued, and Reggeized to study strong interactions. The proton and neutron revealed their inner structures and acquired many relatives in a strange particle zoo with new symmetries and selection rules; eventually quantum chromodynamics or QCD-a non-abelian gauge theory of quarks and gluons, with confinement and asymptotic freedom-was developed as a fundamental field theory of the strong interactions. Here a t Stanford a new laboratory was created based on the peculiar idea that very high energy electron beams were also valuable probes for advancing our frontiers of understanding in parallel with the still higher energy protons. Thus the Stanford Linear Accelertor Center came to be and soon generated its own miraculous decade of discoveries-partons, charm, tau leptons-and developed progressively higher energy electron-positron storage rings and colliders as extraordinarily productive new tools for exploration. Our sister labs on the high energy frontiers also made landmark scientific and technical achievements of comparable importance. Today, fifty years later, we have a Standard Model that unifies weak, electromagnetic, and strong interactions. We are able to put to the test our ideas on energy scales that reach back almost to the Big Bang fourteen billion years ago, and on distance scales hundreds of million times smaller than the Bohr radius. Currently we are awash in a sea of revolutionary and powerful new, and perhaps even correct, ideas of supersymmetry, strings, branes, etc., that have incorporated gravity into a unified theory of everything, as even its most modest practitioners describe it. The union of our progress in particle theory with the probing by our astrophysicist colleagues into the farthest reaches of the Universe makes our extraordinary voyage of the past fifty years even more exciting. We are now beginning to read the history of the Universe almost all the way back to the Big Bang. Puzzles abound, but astrology has mutated into a science of cosmology. It has ceased to surprise us to wake up in the mornings to new pictures of clashing galaxies, stars being born and dying or being sucked into Black Holes, and other sensational evidence of what was going on far out there way back when! What a gig this has been! And what fun to have been ringside to so much of the action. The strong interaction with our
10
expexL~~enta; collagues that has long been a SLAC hallmark has added greatly t o the stimulating and enjoyable climate ior wodk In ~ e c eyears ~ t we have silifered occasional disappointments in receiving less thzn hoped-far financial support for cur activities a n d p l w lor the fut?ue. Gone are some oi the momentum and optimism of the ewlier years. More patience is required of us in itr!l?iling OLE aspbations. %his i s especially tau& on the yamger scientists looking for opportunities to spread their wings and fly. &it the future remains rich with promise. The Departillmt of Eilergy m d the National Science Poundation prograxl offices in Washington, with help from the High EneTgy Physics A&visoryPanel, contime their stmag and erJi&tened suppmt ior our work with due respect for Cie princi9Ies established by Vannevar Bush's report. We have also forged increasingly strong bonds of a single interaational communiv, cooperatively at work OR a t i d y international Large Ilaciron Collider a t clim. Looking back retrospectively, we cannot forget that, at the same time as &amed of the theory oi Grand 'O~fcation,there were the nighmares of what c o d d have been the worst of times. Scientific progress had also led to new techn&@es of nuclm weapons, missaes in space, and the possibihy, for the Erst t h e ia human h ~ t o r y that , the new weapons we had created had such great destructive potentiai that they could lead to the end oi civilization as we laow it.
F I M L PARTICLE COREL4TIONS IN DEEP INELASTIC LEPTON PROCESSES S D. DrslI, Tw;QMow Rev ietl,2i Wii SUC-PL!B-0718, 655-1358,'970 Feb lB70. ? ! p p Phys.
IMPORTANT PROBLEMS AND QUESTIONS FOR
.MASSIVELEPTOV PAIR PROUUCTION IN .LIADR
:HE CHALLENGE TO PRE'JENT that nightmare from materia k i n g led many physicists to work with the military and the government. Their commitment took many forms, some working at wezpons 1aboratories and others working as technical advisers in the armscoctroi negotiating a06 poiicy initiatix7es. Some of us had the good fortune of being ablc to d i d e oT;r Jives between our academic research trying to understand Nsture's mysteries and our technical efforts to help better underitand and thereby rrp to reduce or counter the dangers we face. It is my personal comiction t i a t the scientific C3mmEnity--nQt each individr;al but as a whole-bears a responsibility, a mom1ohligstioa, to project the implieatiom of the technological charages jxitiated by our scientific progress, and to
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help citizens and their governments shape their practical applieations in ways beneficial to all society. This responsibility is most cogently manifest in dealing with nuclear weapons, whose enormoss destmctive potential leaves SO little mar@ for error. In my case the dual tracks of academic research and teaching and involvement in government work opened in 1960 when the JASON g o u p was organized. Its purpose was to edist fresh scientific talent to work on problems of importance for our national security. We were in the dawning new age of nuclear weaporrs, space and intercontinental missiles, and the challenges they presented to formdating national security policy. At the same time, the great physicists and other scientists, whose contributions were so important in the winning oi World War a with radar and the atomic bomb, had other respnsibllitles and were twenty years older than at the start of that war. I was iospired and greatly influenced in considering TASQN by the example of two of my heroes. As physicists and wise counselors, Wolfgang K. €3.("Pief") Panofsky and Hans Bethe had made great personal commitments and enorm o d y valuable contributions to informed policy choices by the United States concerning arms control and national security. I very much admired what they had done. JASON thus became a new component of my scientific work. It served as an introduction for me to new problems that were often scientifically fascinating m d strategically compelling. Subsequently many other doors opened for my involvement, both inside and outside of the govemment. Over time I ended up working on a variety of interesting technical issues of national security and arms control.
ARLY ON 1 B E C M E TATVOWEDin the technical possibilities of gaining htelhgence from space-basedsatellite systems as a way of piercing the hon Curtain erected by an obsessively secretive Soviet gaxzmrnent. Photoreconnaissancefrom satellites circling the earth above the atmosphex at altitudes above 400 d e s enabled the United States to pierce the shrmd of secrecy by means that were effective, and that were accepted as non-provocative. With the photography brought back to earth we could more accurately assess the g r o w i g threat of Soviet nuclear warheads mounted on intercontiaentai range missiles and bombers. Subsequently it also opened the p t h to amis control. Since w e could count and size the Soviet's threatening strategic foxes froin the satdlite photographs, we could negotiate treaties and verify complimce with treaty provisions to hvit thek deployment and to
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FAFlTONS. ELEMENlXRY CGNSTIIUENTS M THE PROTON? S.D. DieN SUCPUB-1545, (Received Mar 1075J.12pp. Physical Reality end M€I8IemafKaiDexdption, Ed. by C. En;. et 31, NY, Reidd, 1974,p. 1 1I - 123,
QUARK CONFINEMENT SCHEMES IbJ FiELD THEORY S D Drall SLAC-PUB-l6BS,IVov 1975 clpp. LecfrUeSQivenaf 'Eitwe Ms,erans:iid Summer Schixh', E k e , Siui: Jui 11 .Aug 1, 1975 Erbe SiibnuciPhp. /975:?43(QCDlsl:i65:1975PTAJ VARIATIONALAWROACN TO STWNG COU FLING FIELD THEORY 1. P H r 4 TMORY S.D Dml!, M Welmtiln, S.?3;ikiriuwicr SUIC-PUB-
isitlate reductions. Photoreconnaissaee satellites were the &st big step toward achieving the Open Skies that President Eisenhower had first called for
b 1955. of t e c h n i d intelligence was compelfing for its obV J o r k Fn tkis vious strategic importance. n e n o r e accurately -we can gauge the nature and imminence of devehpping threats from o w perceived or potential foes, +hemore responsibly a ~ co&dently d we c m act in crises a s d plan for our national security. This truism is consonant with the fundamental tenet of an academic career-the more we l e a , a d the better we understand a situation, the better prepared we are to address it and act wisely. 1also found &is work, eo~~tinuing up to the present, extraordinarily fascinating on technicd grounds as I intexacted with scientists and errgineers from both the academic a d die industrial world whose accomplishments were remarkable. Throughout the mid war the issue of how best to discourage, deter, or defend ourselves against the use of nuclear weapons was on centei stage, front a d center. Debates about the potential value, versus the dangerous ilIusions, of nationwide anti-ballistic missile (ABMJdefenses were ongoing! with periodic crescendes, for more than three decades. Though often driven by political considerations, these wexe serious debates &out strategic policy that toliehed a fundamental instinct o€all human beings to protect our families a d homes. Nuclear warheads with their enormous destructive potential h d greatly chansed the requirements of an effective defense from &e pre-nuclear era. Bat how different, and what constituted sensible prograins and goals? Was it practical to try to defend society with M M s l What was the best way to maintain a survivable miss% force in order to pstablish a strategic stability that relies on mutual assured destruction to deter a wodd-be attacker? %ere is an essential technical core to m y informed debate between defense and deteuerice. It has commanded the attention of many scientists fox a long time, and li did not escape involvement in this important issue of national security At the root of this issui: are two technicd realities: the relative ease and economy of designing and deploying offensive countermeasures ro overpower any conceivable defenses; and the reqcirement that a missile defense against nuclsar-tipped misdes m ~ sbe t neax perfect i f it is to be effective in protecting so addition, m d of utmost iinpurtance, one has to consider the almost certainly harmful impact of 2x1a-ms build r;p bet147een competing offenses and
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defenses, and their countermeasures and coernter-countermeasures, on strategic stability and futme prospects of reducing the nuclear theat. These considerations are still centrd to : the continuing debate about ballistic missile defenses in 1998. Technology has changed enormously over the years and new ideas have come to the fore, such as directed-energyweapons and space-based sensors. Furthermore we face new stratein the post-cold wa years. However, I still see the situation pretty much as stated by President Eisenhower in 1953 in his "Atoms for Pesce" speech at the United Nations: "Let no one think that expenditures of vast sums for systems and weapons of defense can guarantee absolute safety. The avviul arithrnetic of the atom bomb does not permit any such easy solution. Even against the most powerful defense, an aggressor in possession of the effective minimum number of atomic bombs for a surprise attack could place a sufficient number of h s bombs on the chosen targets to cause hideous damage." Simply put?as much as one would like to have an effective defense against nnclear attack, one cannot escape limitations dictated by laws of Nature i~ a futile effort to achieve a policjr goal that is technically unrealistic, even if desirable. In his famous "Star Wars" speech in March 1983, President Ronald Reagan sought to escape these limitations and build an effective nationwide defense by relying on the new and emerging technologies of beam weapons and advanced space-based sensors. Some of the most ardent supporters of his proposed Strategic Defense Initiative indulged in hyperbole with claims that they could and would create an "astrodome," or impenetrabie defense, of the entire nation against a massive attack by intercontinental ballistic missiles. In the absence of a careful analysis of the practical technical realities, fanciful claims preceded more measured judgments, and a largely political and highly acrimonious debate ensued. Subsequently, much more modest, but more realistic, goals for a limited M M system emerged after a lot of hard woxk and careful analyses by many physicists in scademria, think tanks, and industry, who analyzcd the broad repertoire of new a s d prosppcstivc technologies along with rel.evant operational issues.
14
THEWSEAGAINST SiRATEGiC DEFENSE: TECHNICALAND Si3ATEGIC 8f?EALlTlESS D C W W K H . Panofsky Print-85-0833, 1g84 23pp Issues In Scienceand G?chmkg~ p 4544. Fall 1984
'This experience was the most compelling and clearest case I know !ox restoring a high-level nonpz~ism presidzntid science ad3riso1-ymechanism that is acti.rely engzged Cn technical national securi. ty prcblems. President Eisenhower created one in 1957 €cjEowri?gthe SoT,Tiet Ia-Llmch of Sputsik and dewbpmeEt of long-range missiles as a potential threat to the United. States. The scientists involved ir this mechanism were his resource for direct, indepth m d y s e s and advice as to what to expect from science and technology, both current and future, in establish% reaiistic national policy gods. They were selecieed apolitically a d solely on the grounds of demonstrated achievements 111 science and engineeriztg. TWOt h i n g s set them and their work apart from the existmg gcv~rnmearalline organizations and cabinet departments with operational responsibilities, and from nongovcmmeatal organizations engaged in policy research. First of all, they had White Home backing and the requisite security clearances to gain access to dl the relevat information for their studies on highly classified national sec;-lr',ty issues. Second, the individual scientists were independent and presum&ly, therefore, h m u n e from having their judgments affected by operational a d institutional responsibilities. Therein lay their unique value. Udortunately the advisery mechanism that served the White House and the nation a ell -when it was created, eroded in :he late 1960s during the political strains and pubiic discord of the Viet Narn conflict and has not been reertergized effectively in natiooal security matters. Mcst recently I have becn h v o l s d in helping to provide the technical basis for the U.S. decisim to sign, m d to lead the effort to rat*, 3 worldwick Comprehensi~eTest Ban Treaty [CTBT]that wo3d4 once-and-for-all, end all testing of nuclear weapons of my yield, anywhere, anytime after more than f2ky years a d more than 2000 nuclear test explosions. The politi. csl znd strategic importance d such a treaty far accomplishing our nonprcliierdon gads was r ~ d clear e in the debate in May 1995, at the 'United Nations. One hundred a d eighty one nations signed on to the indefinite extension oi:the Son-Froliferation Treaty based on the commitment of the nuclear powers to w x k toward ;he cessation oi all nuclear weapons tests. Bef~crecomritting itself to honor t h s commitment, the United States ha$
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to determine what would have to be included as permitted activities in a negotiated CTBT, so that we could retain confidence in the saietj7 and reliability oi o w enduring nuclear warheads into the future. A Jason study was organized to answer this question in 1995. ItWas our finding that confdence in the safty and reliability of the endur ing stockpile can be maintained, even if very low yield tests are banned under a true CTBT, so long as the United statessustains a strong scientific and technical infrastructure in nuclear weapons simply put, with a strong scienceµbased stockpile stewardship and management program, equipped with ad-
vanced diagnostic equipment and led, as it presently is, by first-dass scientists and engineers at the national weapons laboratories, there is n o need to continue nuclear testing at any level of yield. Instead we will rely on enhanced attention to surveillance and diagnostic information, and accurate simulations that will be made possible by major advances in computational speed and power to deepen our understanding of the physical processes in a nuclear explosion. By filling in the substantial gaps in that understanding that we could accept SO long as we could directly monitor the performame of our bombs by testing, we will establish a basis for retaining confidence in our ability to hear whatever warning bells may ring-however unanticipated they may be-dating us to evidence of deterioration of an aging stockpile. There will also be facilities to provide for warhead refurbishing or remmdacture in response to identified needs. This program is consistent with the spirit, as well as the letter of the CTBT: without testing the United States :dl not be able to develop and deploy with real confidence incjre advanced weapons at either the high or ehe low end of destructive power. Our conclusion was endorsed by the weapons laboratories and proved to be persuasive in Waslungton. It pxovided the technical base for President C h t ~ n ' decision s for the United States to support and seek a true, zeroyield Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in August 1996. The scientific challenge to develop and successfully accomplish this nission is a major one for the W C Z ~ Q I I ~labs, and for all Involved in the process.
16
L
OOKING BACK, it has been the best of times. SLAC has been and
remains a wonderful home with great science, colleagues, students, and friends. Indeed it is one of the great pleasures of a career in physics to have such wonderful colleagues worldwide. The future of our field-and of SLAC too-depends on the continuing extraordinary inventiveness of its scientists-the accelerator builders and experimentalists on whom we rely for data, the lifeblood of science. By all signs the future looks bright, with no end in sight. With amazing inventiveness, theorists have introduced new concepts that one couldn't even have dreamed of fifty years ago. The questions we must still answer are certainly sharper and at least as compelling as they were fifty years ago: Where has all the antimatter gone? What is the origin of c p violation? Of particle masses, especially for fermions? Whether or whither sypersymmetry and sparticles? On the nuclear front we have had the good fortune to avoid the worst of times, but much work remains to be done. The end of the cold war has greatly reduced the immediacy of the nuclear fear that was a recurrent element of that long contest. But that danger persists, inherent in what we know how to do, concrete in the between 20,000 and 30,000 warheads possessed today by at least eight nations, and present in the ambitions of others. And new threats are emerging, involving other weapons of indiscriminate destruction-chemical and biological-in the hands of sub-state entities and terrorists. They can no longer be ignored, as the attack in the Tokyo subway system by the Aum Shinrikyo reminded us in 1995. The community of scientists will have to remain strongly involved, as we have been up to now, in efforts to build a safer twenty-first century as we advance our understanding of Nature.
REDUCING NUCLEAR DANGER THE ROAD AWAYFROM THEBRINK McG Bundy W J Crowe Jr S D Dieif [Councrl on Foiergn Rela !ions NYJ 1993 1G7pp
ANDRE1 DMITRIEVICH S A K H A R O V P l MAY 7927 - 14 DECEMBER 1989) S D Drell (SLACj 1994 6 p p Proc Am Phil Soc 138 777- 182,7994 TECHNICAL ISSUES OFANUCLEAR TESTBAN S D Die11 W A C ) , B Peunloy 1994 43pp Ann RevNucI Farf Scr 44 285~327.7994 HIGH ENERGY PHYSICS ADVISORY PANEL'S SUBPANEL O N VISION FOR THE FUTURE OF HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS SIDNEY D URELL, CHAIRMAN S.D Diell. DOE-ER-0614~PMay 1994 a9pp SCIENCE BASED STOCKPILE STEWARDSHIP S D Drell. JSfi-94~345,No" 1994 113pp A MITRE Coip Jason report. S Diell, Chairman SAFETY IN HIGH CONSEOUENCE OPEfiATIONS: C epp KEYNOTE ADDRESS D. DWI D ~ 1994 Proc High Consequence Opeiatmns Salefy S y m ~ posrum,Jul 1 2 ~ 1 4 1994 . [SANDIA report SAND-942364)
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SCIENCE AND SOCIETY THE TROUBLED FRON T1ER ADDRESS ON RECEIVING SIGMA X I S 1995 JOHN P MCGOVERN SCIENCE AND SOCIETY AWARD S D Drell 1995 16pp Publtshedin Van nevai Bush 11 Science for fhe 2151 Ceniury Forum proceedings M a r 2 3 1995 p 92 107 ACCELERATOR PRODUCTION OF TRITIUM 1995 REVIEW S D Drell J S R ~ 9 5 ~ 3 1Jun 0 1995 52pp A MITRE Corp Jason report, S Drell, Chaiimaii NUCLEAR TESTING SUMMARY AND C O N C L U ~ SIONS S D Drell JSR~95-320,Aug 1995 9pp A MITRE Coip Jason report, B d m y Did1 Chariman THE LANDAU~POMERANCHUK~MIGDAL EFFECT FOR FINITE TARGETS R Blankenbecler, S D Drell [SLAC) SLAC~PUB-95~6944. Sep 7995 48pp Fhys Rev053 6 2 6 6 2 8 7 , 1 9 9 6
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Physics and U.S. national security Sidney D. Drell Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford Universify, Stanford, California 94309 Throughout history there has been a close relation between physics and the military. In this article the author concentrates on the connection between physics and U.S. national security. In particular he discusses applications of physics to photo reconnaissance from space, antiballistic missile systems, nuclear testing, and scientific advising. The author also touches briefly on ethical aspects of the relation between science and the military. [S0034-6861(99)00402-X]
I. INTRODUCTION
Throughout history scientists and engineers have contributed to the military strength and ultimate security of their societies through the development of new technologies for warfare. And throughout history the military and the governmental leaders have called on scientists and engineers to help devise the means to counter or neutralize the technologies developed by adversaries as a threat to their national security. Looking back to the third century B.C., one recalls the legend of Archimedes designing the great catapult to help thwart the Romans besieging Syracuse. That was but one example of a variety of fortifications and instruments of war he contributed. Perhaps best known of the great military scientists throughout history is Leonardo da Vinci, of whom Lord Zuckerman wrote in his 1982 book, Nuclear Illusion and Reality (Zuckerman, 1982) “The letter which [Leonardo] wrote to Ludovico Sforza, the ruler of the principality of Milan, offering to provide any instruments of war which he could desire-military bridges, mortars, mines, chariots, catapults, and other ‘machines of marvelous efficacy not in common use’-was that of an arms salesman, the sort of offer which a later generation might have regarded as emanating from a ‘merchant of death.’ ” And later Michaelangelo spent time as the engineer-inchief of the fortifications in Florence. Based on their expertise, scientists and engineers can contribute to developing new military technology. Equally importantly, their understanding of the laws of nature helps them define the limits of what one can expect from technology-existing and prospective-which must be understood when governments formulate military plans and national security policy. Nature cannot be coerced to meet unrealistic military goals. During World War 11, in most of the combatant countries there was a total mobilization of scientists into the war effort. In the United States and Britain they tackled many technical problems, from rockets and antisubmarine warfare to operations research (Jones, 1978). Physicists played an especially important role in collaboration with the military in developing microwave radar (Buderi, 1996; see the article by R. V. Pound in this volume) and the atomic bomb (Rhodes, 1986). And the decisive role of these weapons has been widely chronicled. This 5460
collaboration and its achievements formed the foundation for expanded cooperation following W.W. 11. A new circumstance emerged in the 1950s with the development of the hydrogen bomb. With its greatly enhanced energy release from a second, or fusion, stage, the hydrogen bomb meant that science had now created a weapon of such enormous devastating potential that, if used in large numbers in a future conflict, it could threaten the very existence of civilization as we know it. This new circumstance, and the growing danger of renewed conflict in the developing Cold War, greatly enhanced the importance of cooperation and understanding between physicists and the military and national policy leaders. A whole raft of new, serious issues had to be explored and understood-not only hydrogen bombs, but additional challenges including worldwide radioactive fallout from nuclear weapon tests above ground, the global effects of large-scale nuclear war, the leap into space with missiles and rockets, and the role of antiballistic missile (ABM) systems. It was also important to communicate with Soviet and other international scientific colleagues to develop a mutual understanding of these issues. Upon becoming involved with technical issues of national security, scientists must also deal with the inhibiting requirements of secrecy. There is a natural tension between the openness that we scientists value so highly in our research and the secrecy that surrounds so much of the technical work for national security. This is clearly evident in the domain of technical intelligence and in issues pertaining to nuclear weapons, which were born secretly during W.W. I1 and have remained so to this date. The need for secrecy is understandable, but it is important to recognize that there are serious costs when the walls of secrecy are too encompassing or too high for too long. One cost is the loss of critical analyses of assumptions and decisions by highly qualified peers, a process of proven importance to scientific progress. The barrier of secrecy also makes it difficult to develop an informed citizenry, beyond the policy specialists, whose inputs can be important for making enlightened policy choices. Scientists are in a good position to judge which matters are readily open to discovery by first-class minds anywhere, and therefore futile to guard by secrecy. We have a special role to help establish a proper balance between secrecy and openness. In the following, I shall discuss three general topics of importance raised by the new circumstance. First I shall describe some of the scientific initiatives by physicists that were designed to help meet the new challenges starting shortly after W.W. 11. In this I shall be selective
01999 The American Physical Society Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 71, No. 2, Centenary 1999 0034-686l/99/71(2)/460(11)/$17.20
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Sidney D. Drell: Physics and U S . national security
on two counts: I shall only discuss efforts of which I have firsthand knowledge and about which sufficient information can be publicly analyzed to make fully informed judgments. There are many others. Then I shall discuss briefly a mechanism for ensuring that needed scientific advice is available to the President on important issues of national security. Finally I shall discuss the responsibility of the scientific community in helping the U.S. and, more generally, all societies meet these new challenges that we have created and that leave us precious little margin for error.
II. PHOTORECONNAISSANCE FROM SPACE
Aerial reconnaissance for tactical purposes emerged as a major asset for battle planning and fighting during W.W. 11. It provided important targeting information on enemy facilities and deployments, as well as post-action damage assessment as a guide for future missions. As the Cold War confrontations intensified, the U.S. military and national security leaders realized the enormous potential of reconnaissance from space for strategic purposes, especially against a society so obsessed with secrecy as the Soviet Union was. Strategic reconnaissance from space could alert us to threats that might be developing, as well as dispel some that we incorrectly assumed to exist. This was especially critical in an era of nuclear weapons and intercontinental-range delivery systems no more than 30 minutes away with their almost unimaginable destructive potential. This concern stimulated a major effort by the U.S. to develop means to penetrate the Iron Curtain in peacetime from high above ground and into space. The means would have to be sufficiently nonintrusive and nonmilitarily threatening to avoid triggering conflict, and also be essentially invulnerable to being intercepted and destroyed (Hall, 1996; this article contains many further references on this subject). The original vehicles for strategic reconnaissance were high-flying aircraft, notably the U2, which began to overfly the Soviet Union in 1956. It could fly at altitudes above 60 000 feet, sufficiently high to avoid being shot down by the interceptors or surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) that existed prior to 1960. It was also quiet and invisible from the ground by the naked eye, and thereby its intrusion of sovereign airspace was not politically embarrassing to Soviet leaders. Aside from the challenge of building the U2, there were the technical challenges of developing an accurate high-resolution camera system operating near its diffraction limit, with compensation for image motion during the filming, among other major operational requirements. It was also realized that it was only a matter of time before the U2 could be shot down as technology improved. This led to a major effort to develop photoreconnaissance satellites circling the earth at sufficiently high altitudes (above 100 miles) that they could stay aloft for days to weeks, and eventually years, without having to carry prohibitively heavy fuel loads to compensate for atmospheric friction. Rev. Mod. Phys., Vol. 71, No. 2, Centenary 1999
S461
The strategic value of overhead photographic intelligence-from aircraft and subsequently from satellites-has been recognized for many years. It is best illustrated by several examples. During the 1950s, before the U S . could rely on effective aerial reconnaissance, we understandably made worst-case assumptions and spent huge sums on a very large and expensive air defense system against what was erroneously believed to be a major Soviet bomber threat, but which in reality was nonexistent. Furthermore a fictitious missile gap played center stage in the Presidential election of 1960. No one alive at the time will ever forget the intensely frightening drama of the Cuban missile crisis in October of 1962. It was the U2 overflights of Cuba by the Central Intelligence Agency that alerted the U.S. to the introduction there of nuclear-capable missiles and bombers by the Soviet Union early enough to enable a peaceful resolution before matters got out of hand, possibly triggering nuclear conflict. In the 1970s and 1980s the “national technical means” of surveillance, as photoreconnaissance satellites were called, gave sufficient transparency through the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain that the US. could enter into strategic arms negotiations to control and eventually start to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons mounted on large delivery systems of intercontinental ranges. The number of such missiles that were actually deployed could be counted from space, so that compliance with treaty limitations could be verified. Verification, understandably, was a sine qua non of arms control agreements. Until recently the nonintrusive means of inspection from space were the primary means of acquiring the necessary information to ensure compliance. Photoreconnaissance satellites were the first big step toward achieving the Open Skies that President Eisenhower had first called for in 1955, and opened the door to arms control negotiations. With the declassification in 1995 of the first generation of photoreconnaissance satellites, known as Corona, it is now possible to give a technical description of the remarkable scientific and engineering achievements in developing that system (Wheelon, 1997; this article contains references to a number of more detailed documents; Day et al., 1998). Over a twelve-year period from August 12, 1960, the date of its first successful mission, until its last one on May 25, 1972, more than two million feet of film were recovered from 145 satellites successfully placed in low polar orbits, above the atmosphere. During this period more than 800 000 photographs of earth targets were taken with a camera system that ultimately achieved a ground resolution of six feet. A large number of American scientists and engineers contributed to this remarkable feat. I will mention four physicists with whom I collaborated extensively through the years on this subject, who made major technical and leadership contributions to the development and the continued technical advances of aerial and space reconnaissance: Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid; Edward Purcell from Harvard; Richard Garwin from IBM, and Albert D. Wheelon, an MIT physics Ph.D. who was the CIA’S Deputy Director for Science and Technology
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Sidney D. Dreli: Physics and U.S. national security
from 1962 to 1966, in which capacity he headed the U2 program, development of the Mach 3 SR71 airplane that was its successor, and the Corona program, plus follow-on satellite systems. To give a sense of the magnitude of what was accomplished, consider the following numbers. An optical system with a 1-m aperture, operating under ideal conditions, can resolve a separation of approximately 5 inches from a distance of 100 miles. This is the theoretical limit of performance. What one actually achieves from a camera moving in earth orbit depends on how well system vibrations are damped; how accurately the image motion is compensated from a satellite moving at a speed of 5 miles per second in orbit; and the limiting resolution of the photographic film. In addition there is the unavoidable image degradation as a consequence of atmospheric scattering and turbulence and their effects on image contrast and blurring. The Corona satellite used a panoramic camera that panned 70” transverse to the orbit direction. For most of its life this system had two counter-rotating cameras with 7-inch-diameter lenses, one tipped 15” forward of the vertical and the other 15” to the rear, for stereoscopic coverage. This provided important information on the vertical dimension of the targets on the ground. With a 70-mm-wide film format and a focal length of 24 inches, the camera panned a ground swath width approximately 120 miles long cross-track and 10 miles wide along orbit. With a pan being made every two seconds, successive ground swaths were contiguous with one another. On successive orbital passes new swaths of denied territory were photographed as the earth rotated under the YO-minute retrograde polar orbits (with -100-mile perigees and -240-mile apogees). During each pan the film was held stationary on a cylindrical platen as the rotating lens assembly (“telescope”) scanned a slit image over it. The film then moved forward and the process was repeated when the telescope reached the starting position. A very thin but strong acetate-base film was developed so that the camera could carry a large load for maximum photographic coverage. In its ultimate design 16000 feet of film were carried aloft for each Corona mission, 8000 feet for each of the stereoscopic pair. This film was three-thousandths of an inch thick and had the capacity to resolve 170 lines per millimeter at 2 to 1 contrast ratio. For reference, the best film used in aerial reconnaissance during W.W. I1 resolved 50 lines per millimeter. With this resolution and the 24-inch focal length for its optics, Corona could theoretically achieve, and eventually closely approximated in practice, 6-foot ground resolution from orbit. On this scale of resolution, the degradation of image quality due to random inhomogeneities in the atmosphere’s refractive index arising from turbulence plays a minor role under normal viewing conditions. As was known from extensive data from ground-based telescopes, as well as from theoretical studies of atmospheric properties, a beam of light vertically traversing the atmosphere is typically spread over 1 to 2 arc secRev. Mod Phys., Vol. 71, No. 2, Centenary 1999
onds of angle. Since most of the turbulent atmosphere lies below 40 000-feet altitude, this translates into a blur circle with a radius of 2 to 4 inches for the image of a point target as seen from high altitudes by the satellites. The development of the Corona system also had to surmount many additional operational problems ranging from the powerful rocket stages needed to insert it into the proper near-polar orbits, to the design of the film capsules to survive reentry into the earth’s atmosphere, where they would be caught by trailing hooks from a C11Y aircraft before sinking into the ocean. Corona-a truly wondrous achievement-was just the first of several generations of satellites that have advanced space reconnaissance to higher resolutions and provided real-time return of valuable intelligence information when solid-state detectors replaced film. With this technical advance and others, including satellite communication and data relays, both tactical battlefield intelligence and strategic intelligence have been achieved, as made evident by recent experience in the Gulf War and Bosnia. The full story of impressive achievements in surveillance from space, utilizing a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum, is yet to be told. 111. ABM SYSTEMS
The enormous destructive potential of nuclear weapons has greatly changed the balance between offense and defense. The British won the Battle of Britain in World War I1 with an aerial defense that shot down approximately 1 in 10 attacking aircraft. This meant that the attacking units of the German Air Force were reduced by close to two-thirds after ten raids, but London still stood, although battered. Not much of London or its population would survive today, however, if but one modern thermonuclear warhead arrived and exploded. Death and destruction would be very extensive within five miles of a one-megaton air burst at an altitude of 6-8 thousand feet. A fire storm could be ignited, further extending the range of destruction. Clearly a defense would have to be essentially perfect to provide effective protection against nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles arriving at speeds of -7 km/sec on trajectories above the atmosphere from across the oceans. This new circumstance triggered extensive and intense debates. Would an effective nationwide anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defense be feasible against a massive attack, and what impact would efforts to develop and deploy such an ABM system have on strategic stability? Or would it be more realistic and conducive to arms control to deploy a survivably based retaliatory force of missiles and long-range bombers, and rely on mutual assured destruction to deter a would-be attacker and maintain a stable strategic balance? This debate has lasted for more than three decades, with periodic crescendos that have often been driven more by political agendas than by technical realities. On an issue as important and complex as this, it is critical to have the technical factors right before drawing
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conclusions or making decisions. There are no simple or obvious answers when all the relevant strategic and economic factors are included with the technical ones. For example, if one starts with the assumption that the threat is known and severely limited and will not change or grow over the many years required to build a defensive system, many, if not most, scientists would agree that an effective defense could be constructed, given the necessary resources. After all, we met the challenge to put a man on the moon and that was indeed a major technical challenge. However, in the real world, the offense would not remain frozen in time. There is a whole repertoire of countermeasures that a determined opponent could rely on to overpower a growing defense: decoys, maneuvering reentry bodies, reentry bodies with reduced radar cross sections, piling more multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) atop the missiles, or attacking the defensive system. In a competition of countermeasures and counter-countermeasures, what are the costs of a defensive system designed to maintain a desired level of effectiveness against the offense? Can a defensive system, whether ground-based, space-based, or both be made invulnerable to being blinded or destroyed if it, itself, were attacked as the initial target? Answers to such questions depend on how far one can reach in developing a reliable and effective system with newly developed technologies, as well as on the overall scale and scope of the planned defensive and offensive systems. No less important than these technical and economic questions is the strategic one: what will be the effect, over the long run, for strategic stability and for future prospects of reducing the nuclear threat of a continuing offense-defense competition? When the Soviet Union started building an ABM system ringing Moscow, which was perceived as the first step in a possible nationwide ABM deployment, the U.S. responded by deploying many MIRVs, on both land- and sea-based ballistic missiles. This was the surest and cheapest way to overpower the emerging defense with more warheads than it could engage and thus to maintain our nuclear deterrent. The net result was that the nuclear danger, measured in terms of total number of threatening warheads and worldwide consequences of a total nuclear war, increased greatly. With very accurate and highly MIRVd missiles sitting in silos (like the Soviet SS18 and the U.S. MX) there was also a threat to strategic stability in a perceived advantage of launching first to take advantage of the MIRV multiplier that allows one or two warheads to destroy up to 10 warheads per missile in each silo. Another important factor fueling the ABM debate was a very human and emotional one. Throughout history, protecting our families and defending our homes has been one of the most basic human instincts. Did we now have to accept, as inescapable, the conclusion that defense in the nuclear age was no longer possible and that we would have to settle for deterrence? The technical realities lie at the core of a responsible answer to this question. Clearly this was an issue in which physicists would play a central role, together with other sciRev. Mod. Phys., Vol. 71, No. 2, Centenary 1999
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entists and engineers and the military. Whatever we may prefer as the goal of our policy, realities consistent with the laws of nature cannot be denied. The first serious commitment by a U.S. President to deploy an ABM system was a “thin” area defense against China proposed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1967. President Richard Nixon mutated the mission of this system in 1969 and proposed deploying it as a “hard-point” defense of Minutemen ICBM silos. It acquired the system name of “Safeguard.” A t that time the technology at hand consisted of phased-array radars for long-range target acquisition and more sophisticated ones that managed the battle by launching and guiding nuclear-tipped defensive missiles to intercept the incoming warheads. The interceptors were of two kinds. For defending hardened targets like Minutemen silos one could engage the incoming warhead well below the top of the atmosphere, thereby using its friction to strip away decoys. In this case the interceptor was relatively small, had very high acceleration, and was armed with an enhanced neutron warhead for relatively long-range kill of the incoming warhead. For defending soft targets like cities, the interceptor was designed for long-range flyout to keep the engagement far from the target, and it was intended to engage an incoming warhead, or any decoys accompanying it on identical Newtonian trajectories, above the atmosphere relying on long-range x-ray kill. The problems and limitations of an anti-ballistic missile defense based on the then-available technology were described by Hans Bethe and Richard Garwin (Garwin and Bethe, 1968) in Scient@c American. This was the first comprehensive technical analysis to be published in the unclassified literature and played an important role in informing and framing the public debate. So did extensive congressional testimony on the technical and strategic issues raised by the proposed Safeguard deployment. The debate involved many scientists in the first comprehensive public hearings on a proposed major new weapon system. In the end Safeguard was deployed at one field of Minuteman ICBM silos, at Grand Forks, North Dakota, consistent with the provisions of the 1972 ABM Treaty; and soon thereafter it was decommissioned and abandoned because of cost ineffectiveness. Following the negotiation of the 1972 ABM Treaty by the United States and the Soviet Union, technology continued to advance swiftly and new possibilities such as directed energy weapons and space-based sensors came to the fore for ABMs. In his famous Star Wars speech in March, 1983, President Ronald Reagan sought to rely on the new and emerging technologies to build a nationwide defense, which some supporters claimed would create an “astrodome” or impenetrable defense of the entire nation. In the absence of a careful analysis of practical possibilities and limitations, fanciful claims preceded more measured judgments, and a largely political and highly acrimonious debate ensued. Many physicists contributed to the careful analyses that led eventually to more realistic goals for a much more modest potential
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ABM system (cf. Carter and Schwartz, 1984; Drell, Farley, and Holloway, 1985; Office of Technology Assessment, 1985). A very important contribution by physicists to the ultimate resolution of that debate was the report prepared by the American Physical Society Study Group on “Science and Technology of Directed Energy Weapons” cochaired by N. Bloembergen of Harvard and C. K. Patel, then of Bell Labs. It was published in the Reviews oJ Modern Physics, July 1987, four years after President Reagan’s speech. This was a definitive analysis of the new and prospective technologies along with the relevant operational issues. Laser and particle beams; beam control and delivery; atmospheric effects; beammaterial interactions and lethality; sensor technology for target acquisition, discrimination, and tracking; systems integration including computing power needs and testing; survivability; and system deployment were all analyzed carefully, as were some countermeasures. Aspects of boost-phase, midcourse, and terminal intercepts that were all parts of the Star Wars concept of a layered “defense in depth’ were included in their comprehensive analysis. The sober findings of the APS Directed Energy Weapons Study are summarized in part as follows: “Although substantial progress has been made in many technologies of DEW over the last two decades, the Study Group finds significant gaps in the scientific and engineering understanding of many issues associated with the development of these technologies. Successful resolution of these issues is critical for the extrapolation to performance levels that would be required in an effective ballistic missile defense system. At present, there is insufficient information to decide whether the required extrapolations can or cannot be achieved. Most crucial elements required for a DEW system need improvements of several orders of magnitude. Because the elements are inter-related, the improvements must be achieved in a mutually consistent manner. We estimate that even in the best of circumstances, a decade or more of intensive research would be required to provide the technical knowledge needed for an informed decision about the potential effectiveness and survivability of directed energy weapon systems. In addition, the important issues of overall system integration and effectiveness depend critically upon information that, to our knowledge, does not yet exist.. . . Since a long time will be required to develop and deploy an effective ballistic missile defense, it follows that a considerable time will be available for responses by the offense. Any defense will have to be designed to handle a variety of responses since a specific threat can not be predicted accurately in advance of deployment.” Physicists and, more generally, scientists and engineers, played quite different roles vis-i-vis the military and government in the ABM debates relative to the deRev. Mod. Phys., Vol. 71, No. 2,Centenary 1999
velopment of space-based reconnaissance. In the latter case we faced what was exclusively a technical challenge, with physicists in the forefront pushing and accelerating technical advances to open new possibilities for enhanced and more timely coverage. The work was done totally in secret with no political or policy debates beyond bureaucratic wars (some very intense) for control and budgets. In contrast, the ABM debates were and remain very public and political, and many of us found ourselves arguing on technical grounds for more realism in making claims for what could be achieved, as opposed to what would be pie-in-the-sky against a determined opponent. The point is that, as described above, ABM defenses presented not only a technical challenge, as did space reconnaissance, but also major strategic and economic challenges, as countermeasures and countercountermeasures were developed. Fundamentally it came down to man and resources against the same. Putting man on the moon was indeed a great technical challenge and a glorious success. But the moon did not object to being landed on. It could not and did not, for example, maneuver away, or turn out its lights, or deploy decoys, or destroy the invading lander. Physicists in the ABM debate also played a very significant role in the education of a public constituency for arms control. The public discussion of the competition between offense and defense, and their countermeasures and counter-countermeasures, went beyond purely technical matters. Out of the many exchange calculations of casualties due to blast, burns, and radioactive fallout, with or without various assumed ABM systems, two conclusions became indelibly etched in the public awareness: (1) In any large-scale nuclear conflict, the unknowns far exceeded what could be predicted. In any event, the level of casualties and destruction would be almost unimaginably high. (2) The sizes of nuclear arsenals of the U.S. and the Soviet Union were large beyond all reason or purpose. What does one do with 10-20 thousand warheads when Hiroshima and Nagasaki revealed to us the enormous destruction caused by the mere trigger of one such modern bomb? An awareness of these facts that was sharpened by the ABM debates added to the cogency of the public support for arms reductions. As a strong believer in the power of an informed public constituency, I see this as a very important achievement by scientists in the ABM debates, and more generally in efforts to reduce nuclear danger. The continuing debate on ABMs in the post-Cold War world of 1998 is concerned with two issues. The first is the deployment of regional ABM systems in areas of potential conflict to provide a defense of societies and combatants against short-range ballistic missiles carrying non-nuclear warheads. During the Gulf War, upgraded air defenses provided political comfort, though they were not effective for physical protection when used in Israel and Saudi Arabia against short-range SCUD mis-
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Sidney D. Drell: Physics and U.S. national security siles launched by Iraq. This was not surprising since the so-called Patriot defense system had not been designed as a ballistic missile defense. After the Gulf War there were very heated debates as grossly exaggerated claims of Patriot effectiveness were made and then used in a political effort to sell the case for nationwide ballistic missile defenses against strategic systems. Those claims were effectively debunked after extensive analysis (Lewis and Postol, 1993) and current U S . programs are focused primarily on the limited mission of protection in regional conflict against tactical, or relatively slow and short-range, ballistic missiles. Technical analyses and political discussions with Russian officials are addressing the important issue of establishing an appropriate demarcation between permitted activities and deployments, and deployments of nationwide strategic defenses that are severely constrained by the ABM Treaty of 1972. The second issue that is currently being addressed by the United States is the potential deployment of longrange ballistic missile threats against our society by other so-called “third-world’’ nations, such as North Korea, who do not at present pose such a threat, but whose activities can be perceived as an effort to develop one. Of course such nations who wish to develop threats to the U.S. mainland can rely on much less demanding technologies, such as, for example, ship-launched cruise or ballistic missiles whose range is measured in hundreds, rather than many thousands, of kilometers; or covert delivery into harbors. We see here yet again the critical value of strategic intelligence, including space reconnaissance to keep us informed of what, if any, threat is emerging, and to do so in a timely way, so that we will have ample opportunity to respond appropriately, if need be.’
IV. NUCLEAR TESTING
When President Clinton signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) at the United Nations on September 26, 1996, he said that the CTBT was “The longest sought, hardest fought prize in the history of arms control.” The effort to end all nuclear tests commenced four decades earlier. Upon leaving office President Eisenhower commented that not achieving a nuclear test ban “would have to be classed as the greatest disappointment of any administration-f any decade-of any time and of any party. . . ” ‘In this connection see “Intelligence analysis of the longrange missile threat to the United States: hearing before the Select Committee on Intelligence of the United States Senate, One Hundred Fourth Congress, second session.. . Wednesday, December 4,1996.” (US. Government Printing Office). See also the report of the “Commission to Assess the Ballistic Missile Threat to the United States,” the so-called Rumsfield Commission, whose unclassified Executive Summary was issued July 15, 1998. Rev. Mod. Phys.. Vol. 71, No. 2, Centenary 1999
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A decisive political and strategic reason for the United States and the other four declared nuclear powers-China, France, Russia, and the United Kingdom2-to sign a ban on all nuclear testing in 1996 was the importance of such a treaty for accomplishing broadly shared nonproliferation goals. This was made clear in the debate at the United Nations in May 1995 by 181 nations when they signed on to the indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at its fifth and final scheduled five-year review. A commitment by the nuclear powers to cease testing and developing new nuclear weapons was a condition for many of the nonnuclear nations when they signed on to the Treaty. Not only will the CTBT help limit the spread of nuclear weapons through the nonproliferation regime, particularly if current negotiations succeed in strengthening the provisions for verifying that treaty and appropriate sanctions are applied for noncompliance. It will also dampen the competition among nations who already have nuclear warheads, but who now will be unable to develop and deploy with confidence more advanced ones at either the high or the low end of destructive power. The CTBT would also force rogue states seeking a nuclear capability to place confidence in untested bombs. Notwithstanding a strong case for the CTBT, the United States, if it is to be a signatory of this treaty, must be confident of a positive answer to the following question. Under a ban on all nuclear explosions, will it be possible to retain the currently high confidence in the reliability of our nuclear arsenal over the long term, as the weapons age and the numbers are reduced through arms control negotiations? A study was organized in 1995 to address the scientific and technical challenge of answering this question. It was sponsored by the Department of Energy (DOE) and done under the auspices of JASON, an independent group of predominantly academic scientists who work as consultants for the govemment on issues of national importance. The participants were academic research physicists plus leading weapons designers with long and distinguished careers at the three weapons labs. We analyzed3 in great detail the experimental and theoretical basis for understanding the performance of each of the weapon types that is currently planned to remain in the U.S.’s enduring stockpile. This understanding has been gained from 50 years of experience and analysis of data from more than 1000 nuclear tests, including the results of approximately 150 nuclear tests of modem weapon types in the past 25 years. We found that this experience does, indeed, provide a solid basis *In May 1998 the two so-called “threshold” or undeclared nuclear powers, India and Pakistan, joined the nuclear club with a short series of underground nuclear tests. Since then there have been no further test explosions. 3For an unclassified summary of the JASON study on “Nuclear Testing” (JSR-95-320) see the Congressional RecordSenate: S-11368 (August 4,1995).
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for the U.S. to place high confidence for today and the near-term future in the safety, reliability, and performance of the nuclear weapons that are designated to remain in the enduring stockpile. We also studied in detail the full range of activities that would enable us to extend our present confidence in the stockpile decades into the future under a CTBT. This greater challenge can be addressed with a more comprehensive science-based understanding than now exists of the processes occurring at each stage during the explosion of a modern thermonuclear warhead. What is required to gain this understanding is enhanced surveillance and forensic studies of the aging stockpile, coupled with improved diagnostic data against which to benchmark full-physics three-dimensional codes of material behavior in conditions representative of those occurring in a nuclear explosion [Office of Defense Programs, October 1997; see also JASON Report JSR-94-345 (November, 1994); PeEa, 19971. It will then be possible to simulate accurately, with greatly enhanced computer speed and power, the effects of aging on the performance of a warhead. These studies will alert us to when remedial actions will be needed to avoid significant performance degradations, and will also provide confidence in retaining weapons that exhibit no such need. Finally facilities are required for undertaking necessary remanufacturing or refurbishing of components in a timely fashion as may be needed. These are identified as the necessary components of a science-based stockpile stewardship program being implemented by the DOE as a substitute for continued nuclear testing. This program will permit the United States to preserve the integrity of our enduring nuclear stockpile. It is fully consistent with the spirit and intent of the CTBT: in the absence of tests the U.S. will not be able to develop and deploy with confidence new, improved warheads. To see what is involved, here is a brief schematic review of the successive stages of a modern warhead. The first step is to ignite the layer of chemical high explosive that surrounds the primary assembly, which has a central core called the ‘pit.” “e “pit,” which contains the fissile material, Pu2 or highly enriched UZ3’, is driven into a highly compressed mass at the center of the primary assembly by the imploding chemical shock. A technique called “boosting” is used to achieve higher explosive yields from relatively small primaries. Boosting is accomplished by injecting a mixture of D and T gases, stored separately in high-pressure reservoirs, into the pit just before it starts imploding. With the onset of fission in the compressed pit, the D-T gas mixture is heated to the point of initiating D-T fusion, with the subsequent production of large numbers of fast neutrons via the nuclear reaction D+T*He4+n + 17.6 MeV. These neutrons produce many more fission reactions, thereby boosting the yield of the primary sufficiently to drive the secondary assembly, or main stage, which contains lithium deuteride and other materials. A large fraction of the bomb’s energy release comes from the secondary, as D + D and D + T neutrons convert Li6 to He4 plus T, which in turn undergoes fusion with the D. Rev. Mod. Phys., Vol. 71, No. 2, Centenary 1999
The operation of the primary of a nuclear weapon is critical to its performance: if the primary does not work nothing nuclear happens, and if its yield is too low it will not succeed in igniting the secondary, or main stage, as expected. Age-related changes that can affect a nuclear weapon and that must be understood and evaluated include the following: (i) (ii) (iii) (iv)
Structural or chemical degradation of the high explosive leading to a change in performance during implosion, Changes in plutonium properties as impurities build up due to radioactive decay, Corrosion along interfaces, joints, and welds, Chemical or physical degradation of other materials or components.
An intensified stockpile surveillance program that looks for cracks, component failures, or other signs of deterioration, and that develops quantitative measures to determine when these unacceptably affect the performance of the primary, will be crucial for the short-term confidence in the stockpile over the coming decade. There are very many other non-nuclear components of a weapon system that are crucial to its successful operation, including arming and firing systems, neutron generators, explosive actuators, safing components, permissive action link coded control, radar components, batteries, and aerodynamic surfaces. All of these are critical to mission success, but testing of these nonnuclear components and making improvements as may be indicated are not restricted by a CTBT. To ensure performance over the longer term, there will be a need for new facilities to do more detailed measurements of the behavior of the bomb components right up to the initiation of fission, including greatly increased computer power for analyzing effects of aging on bomb performance to the required accuracy. A hydrotest is the closest non-nuclear simulation of the operation of a primary. In these experiments, the fissile material is replaced by another material, e.g., depleted uranium, tantalum, or lead. The behavior of an imploding pit that has been modified by this substitution is then studied very close to, but not beyond, the point where a real weapon would become critical; i.e., the nuclear chain reaction would be ignited. These experiments are consistent with the CTBT and can be done above ground. Properly designed, they can address issues of aging as well as safety by providing dynamic radiography of the imploding pit, and therefore they can detect any possible changes in the energy or symmetry of the imploding primary assembly due to aging that could unacceptably alter performance. “Core punching” is the technique of dynamic radiography that allows one to study properties of the pit at the late stages up to what would be ignition in a real primary with fissile material. The idea is quite simple. The x-ray source is an accelerator producing precisely timed bursts of 10-30MeV electrons with pulse widths of perhaps 60 ns and spot sues of approximately 1 mm that impinge on a high-Z target to yield a burst of gamma rays. These in-
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Sidney D. Drell: Physics and U.S. national security tense beams of photons (currently comprising a dose of about 300 roentgens at a meter) have a broad energy spectrum, with a mean energy of several MeV, and can penetrate the imploding pit from one side and be detected on the other side to produce an image. A highresolution system with a small beam spot and an efficient, high-speed solid-state detector can produce an accurate image of x rays penetrating some 100 g/cm2of heavy metal. The ultimate resolution depends not only upon the spot size of the electron beam but also on the efficiency with which the transmitted gamma rays are detected. In order to get several looks from two different directions for better diagnostic details, a Dual-Axis Radiographic Hydrodynamic Test Facility (DARHT) that produces two beams from two electron linear accelerators at right angles, with multipulsing in one arm to provide successive snapshots, is now under construction at Los Alamos. Beyond this, the value of obtaining tomographic movies of the late stages of an imploding pit using a variety of different look angles and time intervals is under study, including the relative merits of electron/ photon and proton beams. Beyond hydrotesting there are still important nuclear aspects that need to be carefully measured and analyzed in order to develop a deeper science-based understanding of the performance of the enduring stockpile. These include the behavior of plutonium at high temperatures and pressures, the nature of the ejecta and spa11 from the surface of the imploding plutonium, and a better knowledge of its equation of state at pressures and temperatures created in a nuclear explosion. Important information on such properties is being obtained from a series of subcritical underground experiments. The meaning of “subcritical” is that fewer nuclei fission in each successive generation of the chain reaction after it has been initiated, perhaps by a high explosive shock or by injection of a burst of neutrons. This contrasts with a sustained and steady rate of chain reaction, as in a reactor, or a positive coefficient of exponential growth, as in a bomb. Such subcritical experiments are consistent with the CTBT as generally interpreted. In addition, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) is being built at Livermore to study inertial confinement fusion. It is designed to deliver a high-energy laser pulse of about 1.8 MJ, which is divided into 192 beamlets to excite a hohlraum to temperatures of 300 eV and higher, in which to symmetrically implode and initiate fusion in millimeter-size pellets, as well as for the study of other phenomena. Its relevance to the weapons program includes the study of the physics in the bomb’s secondary stage during an explosion and measurements of opacity, hydrodynamic behavior, and equations of state of constituents during the primary explosion. It will also be possible to benchmark advanced explosion codes by comparing their predictions with NIF data, including analysis of changes due to aging. Many scientists also see NIF as an important facility for the study of inertial confinement fusion and the processes that control its efficiency and prospects for energy production. Rev. Mod. Phys., Vol. 71, No. 2,Centenary 1999
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Finally supercomputer capacity and codes are being rapidly expanded by factors of greater than lo3 in the so-called Accelerated Strategic Computing Initiative (ASCI) in order to make effective use of all this data from the new facilities for realistic bomb performance calculations. Beyond their weapons-related activities, these advanced facilities will be of great interest to physicists in better understanding extreme temperature and pressure conditions in burning stars, as well as advancing our understanding of inertial confinement fusion. No stockpile stewardship program can be better than the quality of its scientists and engineers. A n important consequence of this multifaceted program that the DOE has developed is that it will generate a large body of valuable new data and challenging opportunities capable of attracting and retaining experienced nuclear weapons scientists and engineers. To summarize the JASON conclusions, with a strong science-based stockpile stewardship and management program, equipped with advanced diagnostic equipment and led by first-class scientists and engineers at the national weapons laboratories, there is no need to continue nuclear testing at any level of yield. Instead the U.S. will rely on enhanced surveillance and diagnostic information and far more accurate and reliable simulations, to deepen our understanding of the physical processes in a nuclear explosion. We shall fill substantial gaps in that understanding, gaps that we were formerly willing to accept as long as we could monitor the performance of our bombs by testing. This will provide the necessary scientific basis for retaining confidence in our ability to hear whatever warning bells may ring, however unanticipated they may be, alerting us to the deterioration of an aging stockpile. We shall also maintain facilities to provide for warhead refurbishing or remanufacture in response to identified needs. This program, as emphasized earlier, is consistent with the spirit, as well as the letter of the CTBT: without testing, the U.S. will not be able to develop and deploy with confidence more advanced weapons. This conclusion was endorsed by the weapons laboratories and proved to be persuasive in Washington. It provided the technical base for President Clinton’s decision, announced in September, 1996, for the United States to support and seek a true zero-yield Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The scientific challenge of developing, successfully accomplishing, and correctly interpreting the findings of such a program is a major one for the weapons laboratories and for all physicists involved in the process. V. SCIENCE ADVICE
In World War 11, the American scientific community-from university and industrial research laboratories and including many refugees from persecution in Europe-was recruited to large projects focused on developing the latest scientific advances in support of the military effort of the U.S. and its Allies. The Radia-
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tion Laboratory organized at MIT under the leadership of Lee duBridge developed microwave radar into instruments that proved decisive in the aerial defense of England and in the ultimate defeat of German U-boat raiders against the lifeline of convoys crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Out of the latest developments in nuclear physics and the theory of fission, a successful nuclear chain reaction was achieved by Enrico Fermi and his collaborators a t the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory on December 2, 1942. This led to the production of plutonium and eventually to the construction of the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos under J. Robert Oppenheimer’s leadership. These are the two best-known examples of a focused massive civilian effort by scientists to create new weapons of war that played critically important roles in the outcome of a military conflict. They served as models of continuing close scientific-militaryrelations and large secret projects at national laboratories through the Cold War and up to the present. In all the major industrial powers, such laboratories have continued to develop new technologies that have had great impact on policy options for their governments. As we discussed, American Presidents were presented with important choices for this nation’s security as a result of some of these developments: What should we do about ABM defenses? Are advanced diagnostics and simulations of the behavior of nuclear weapons adequate for us to maintain confidence in our nuclear deterrent under a CTBT? The rapid and, in some instances, revolutionary advances in military technology have created a growing gap between science and government leaders. This circumstance led former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to lament, in his 1972 book Pointing The W a y (MacMillan, 1972) that “In all these affairs Prime Ministers, Ministers of Defense, and Cabinets are under a great handicap. The technicalities and uncertainties of the sophisticated weapons which they have to authorize are out of the range of normal experience. There is today a far greater gap between their own knowledge and the expert advice which they receive than there has ever been in the history of war.” President Eisenhower understood very well the importance of closing this gap. Following the Soviet launch of Sputnik and development of long-range missiles as a potential threat to the U S . in 1957 he created the position of a full-time Science Advisor in the White House and also established the President’s Science Advisory Committee. This mechanism was his resource for direct, in-depth analyses and advice as to what to expect from science and technology, both current and in prospect, in establishing realistic national policy goals. Members of the PSAC and consultants who served on its hardworking panels were selected apolitically and solely on the grounds of demonstrated achievements in science and engineering. Two things set the PSAC apart from the existing governmental line organizations and cabinet departments with operational responsibilities, as well as Rev. Mod. Phys., Vol. 71, No. 2. Centenary 1999
national security
from nongovernmental organizations engaged in policy research. First of all, they had White House backing and the requisite security clearances to gain access to all the relevant information for their studies on highly classified national security issues. Secondly, the individual scientists were independent and presumably, therefore, immune from having their judgments affected by operational and institutional responsibilities. Therein lay their unique value (Golden, 1988). Unfortunately, the advisory mechanism that served the White House and the nation well when it was created eroded in the late 1960s under the political strains and public discord of the Viet Nam conflict. Although a scientific presence in the White House has been recreated in various forms since then, it has not been reenergized effectively to bridge the gap on issues of military and national security importance. Thus the very influential White House advisory mechanism, which was so effective in advancing the development of space-based photoreconnaissance, was notably absent in 1983 at the time of the Star Wars decision, with unfortunate consequences as we discussed earlier. It was simply fortuitous that the JASON study on nuclear testing was completed and used to brief senior officials in time to influence the 1995 policy choice by the Clinton Administration to support a true zero-yield CTBT. Fortuitous timing, however, is a very poor and unreliable substitute for a formal, nonpartisan, high-level scientific presence in the White House to help ensure that the President has the technical input and advice needed when he faces major policy and strategic decisions. The importance of recreating such a mechanism cannot be overemphasized. The President will continue to face decisions on issues vital to U.S. national security with major technical components. In the nuclear area we still have a long way to go, and major decisions to make, in reducing nuclear danger, and not just by reducing the sizes of the arsenals. There is need, and technologies offer new opportunities, to strengthen safeguards against the accidental launch of nuclear weapons due to faulty indicators that they are under attack, and against unauthorized launch. There is an urgent need to reduce the danger of rogue leaders or terrorists acquiring “loose nukes,” i.e., nuclear weapons or their fissile material. More broadly we must prepare to deal with emerging threats posed by new weapons capable of large-scale indiscriminate destruction. In particular, biological weapons present a rapidly growing-indeed already imminent-global danger as a result of advances in biotechnology, spurred by recent discoveries in molecular biology and genetics (Office of Technology Assessment, December 1993; Stimson Center, January 1998). A growing number of countries are capable of biological warfare. Reports have identified a dozen or more countries that already have, or may be developing, biological weapons. These include some of the smallest and poorest countries, with relatively primitive technical infrastructures and led by reactionary and unstable regimes.
26 Sidney D. Drell: Physics and U S . national security Such weapons may be of limited value for tactical military purposes due to the unpredictability in the spread of microbial pathogens and the incubation period of days to weeks between infection and the appearance of their debilitating effects in humans. However, their devastating potential against society if used by terrorists is terrifying and presents a threat that can no longer be ignored. Modem biotechnology has increased the accessibility of virulent pathogens, and the prospect of terrorists using bugs grows even more frightening with anticipated development of genetically engineered pathogens that are easier to manufacture, propagate, and deliver, as well as being more toxic, more difficult to detect, and harder to counter. VI. THE ETHICAL DILEMMA OF SCIENTISTS
I have always felt that the scientific community has a special responsibility to be alert to the implications and practical uses of our progress. We bear an obligation to assist society, in its political deliberations, to understand the potential benefits and risks and to shape in beneficial ways the applications of scientific progress for which we are responsible. Though it need not be fulfilled by each individual scientist, this is a moral obligation of the community as a whole, including scientists engaged in basic research and in applied industrial and weapons research and development. The moral dilemma is particularly sharp for individual scientists when facing decisions as to whether or how to involve themselves in work on nuclear weapons. With their scientific training, they can contribute to public understanding of the devastating effects of nuclear explosions and of the importance of arms control efforts to achieve truly major reductions in the size of today’s bloated arsenals. There are scientists and citizens alike who believe that getting rid of all nuclear weapons is more than a distant vision, but is a realistic possibility. Some scientists believe that the prospect of achieving such a goal is improved if all work on nuclear weapons ceases or is reduced to a minimal custodial role attending to their safety and security. Others see the prospects for reducing nuclear danger to be better served by contributing to a strong science-based stockpile stewardship program, as described earlier, as a necessary basis for adhering to a CTBT. Which of these two, or other possible, choices to make is a decision individuals must answer for themselves. This issue is highlighted in ongoing discussions of the DOE’S Stockpile Stewardship Program and of worldwide calls to get rid of all nuclear weapons sooner rather than later. I am reminded of the saga of Andrei Sakharov, who in 1948 was drawn to work on the development of the Soviet hydrogen bomb by his judgment that the world would be safer with a socialist bomb to balance the capitalist bomb (Sakharov, 1990). But by the 1960s, after seeing his work help fuel a worldwide arms race of tens of thousands of nuclear bombs, Sakharov felt increasing concern about the dangers to mankind of thermonuclear war. Disillusioned when Soviet leaders Rev. Mod. Phys., Vol. 71, No. 2, Centenary 1999
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rejected his advice not to resume atmospheric testing in 1961 after a three year moratorium, Sakharov turned into an energetic, outspoken, courageous dissident and opponent of a continuing nuclear arms buildup of mindless proportions. Can we or should we make a judgment that Sakharov was wrong in 1948 and right in the 1960s? Sakharov’s saga is but one example of the ethical dilemmas that scientists must resolve when entering into work that can seriously impact the human condition. Decisions will and should be affected by political circumstances that, in contrast to the immutable and rational laws of nature, can and frequently do change unpredictably. The best a scientist can do is to carefully weigh the ethical dimensions, in addition to the political and technical ones, before making a decision as to whether or not, or how, to become involved. One cannot ask more of one’s colleagues, nor should one expect less from them or from oneself, than to make the best informed and objective technical judgments, to try seriously to understand the often murky and confusing political issues, and ultimately to anchor one’s actions solidly in one’s true principles. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I wish to thank R. L. Garwin, K. Gottfried, W. K. H. Panofsky, R. L. Peurifoy, and A. D. Wheelon, who read earlier versions of this article, for valuable suggestions. REFERENCES
Bloembergen, N., C. K. Patel, et al. (APS Study Group on Science and Technology of Directed Energy Weapons), 1987, Rev. Mod. Phys. Buderi, Robert, 1996, The Invention that Changed the World (Simon and Schuster, New York). Congressional Record, 1995, Senate: S-11368 (August 4, 1995) [Summary of the JASON Study, “Nuclear Testing” (JSR-95320)].
Carter, A. B., and D. N. Schwartz, 1984, Eds., Ballistic Missile Defense (The Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C.). Day, D. A,, J. M. Logsdon, and B. Latell, 1998, Eds., Eye in the Sky: the Story ofthe Corona Spy Satellites (Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C.). Drell, S. D., P. J. Farley, and D. Holloway, 1985, The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative: A Technical, Political, and Arms Control Assessment (Ballinger Publishing, Cambridge, MA). Garwin, Richard L., and Hans A. Bethe, 1968, “AntiballisticMissile systems,” Sci. Am. March, pp. 21-31. Golden, William T., 1988, Editor, Science and Technology, A d vice to the President, Congress, and Judiciary (Pergamon, New York). Hall, R. Cargill, 1996, Quarterly of the National Archives and Records Administration 28, 107. JASON Report JSR-94-345, November 1990, “Science Based
Stockpile Stewardship.” Jones, R. V., 1978, The Wizard War (Coward, McCann, and
Geoghegan, New York). Lewis, George N., and Theodore A. Postol, 1993, “Video Evidence on the Effectiveness of Patriot during the 1991 Gulf War,” Science and Global Security, Vol. 4, pp. 1-63.
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MacMillan, Harold, 1972, Pointing the Way (Macmillan, London). Office of Defense Programs, October 1997, Stockpile Stewardship Program: Overview and Progress (Department of Energy, Office of Defense Programs). Office of Technology Assessment, 1985, Ballistic Missile Defense Technologies, report (Office of Technology Assessment, Washington, D.C.). Office of Technology Assessment, December 1993, “Technologies Underlying Weapons of Mass Destruction,” U.S. Congress OTA-BP-ISC-115 ( US. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.). Pefia, Federico, 1997, testimony before the Senate Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, October 29, 1997. Rhodes, Richard, 1986, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (Si-
Rev. Mod. Phys., Vol. 71, No. 2,Centenary 1999
mon and Schuster, New York). Sakharov, A. D., 1990, Memoirs (Knopf, New York). Select Committee on Intelligence, U S . Senate, 1996, “Intelligence analysis of the long range missile threat to the United States: hearing before the Select Committee. . . One hundred fourth Congress, second session.. . Wednesday, December 4 (US. Government Printing Office, Washington,
D.C.). Stimson, Henry L., Center, January 1998, Report NO. 24 “Biological Weapons Proliferation: Reasons for Concern, Courses of Action.” Wheelon, Albert D. 1997, Phys. Today 50, 24, and references therein. Zuckerman, Lord, 1982, Nuclear Illusion and Reality (Viking, New York).
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“The Moral Obligation of Scientists and a Rekindling of Hope” Presented at the Conference on the “Future of Hope” Hiroshima, December 6, 1995 Sidney D. Drell Stanford University The new technologies that are responsible for transforming the world in which we live derive from scientific progress. Mankind has reaped enormous benefits from advances in medical care, agricultural productivity, energy supply. Indeed all facets of the human condition have benefited from the deeper understanding of nature, both animate and inanimate, that we have gained from science. At the same time we face new risks and challenges, even to the very survival of the human species. One need not look beyond Hiroshima for a powerful reminder that what we learn about nature in our laboratories is linked, closely and inextricably, with the fate of our civilization. Scientific research is an adventure of discovery by the human mind over uncharted seas toward the distant, endless frontiers of nature. As such, it is intrinsically amoral. But there is no ducking a special obligation of the community of scientists. We must be alert to the implications and practical applications of our scientific advances. We must assist society in its political deliberations to understand their potential benefits and risks, and to shape the applications of scientific progress in beneficial ways. And in this effort we should make good use of two important available channels: government advisory mechanisms and public outreach.
I view this as a moral obligation of scientists, not necessarily of each individual, but of the community as a whole. This community, whose work has initiated complex technological change, is especially well equipped to project its implications. Without our involvement, how else will society - governments as well as the public - be able to judge accurately the potential and the limits, and thereby the benefits and the risks, of what we have made possible? Moreover scientists are linked worldwide into a community that speaks one common language, that of the universal laws of nature; or to quote Anton Chekhov: “There is no national science just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science.”. Although individual countries or societies may weigh the risks and benefits of new technologies quite differently according to their needs and aspirations, scientists are constrained by basic technical facts in making their judgments. The moral dimension of science is not a new circumstance - but the imperative for the scientific community to address our moral obligation has grown vastly in 1
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importance as the advancing frontiers of knowledge have given us unprecedented powers t o affect our lives, be it through genetic engineering, environmental changes, or the creation of weapons of such enormous destructive power. We face staggering ethical, legal, and social issues as we progress in deciphering the human genome. In dealing with thermonuclear weapons of mass destruction, whose use could mean the end of civilization, we have dangerously little margin for error. The challenge for scientists is what to do, consistent both with our own strong moral principles and with the practical technical realities that derive from scientific advances and can shape our world for better or worse. The question is how to go about meeting this challenge - both effectively and properly. One “rule of the road” is easy. Apply the same high standards of integrity and caution when operating in the public arena as we do when working in the laboratory. This requires carefully identifying one’s political views as distinct from one’s technical judgments based upon scientific expertise. The credibility of scientific advice demands that we make clear the line of demarcation between it and personal opinions. Some say that we should stick to our technical expertise only. I disagree; we are humans as well as scientists, but we must be careful and responsible when speaking out.
A second “rule of the road” is much more difficult. I am talking about the ethical decision that a scientist must make as to what role t o play in helping develop new technologies or improving instruments that bring potential risks as well as benefits. To illustrate what I mean by this, I will focus on an area I know best, and discuss the moral responsibility of scientists working on weapons of mass destruction. The career of Russian physicist Andrei Sakharov, recipient of the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize and father of the Soviet H-bomb, epitomizes the dilemma and struggles of a scientist with such an involvement. I am privileged to have known Andrei as a friend and can only wish he were alive today to speak on this subject himself. No one is better qualified than he who, in words used by Anatole France in referring to Emile Zola and his quest for justice in the Dreyfus affair, became “a moment in the conscience of humanity.” Sakharov’s original judgment in 1948 to involve himself in the Soviet hydrogen bomb project was motivated by his conviction that the world would be safer with a socialist bomb to balance the capitalist one. Reflecting on his first involvement in the Soviet H-bomb project in 1948 he has written “I had no doubts as to the vital importance of creating a Soviet superweapon-for our country and for the balance of power throughout the world.” But by the 1960’s, after seeing his work help fuel a world-wide arms race of many thousands - indeed tens of thousands - of nuclear bombs, Sakharov felt increasing concerns about the dangers to mankind of a thermonuclear war. Troubled by the harmful effects of radioactive fallout from continued testing of nuclear bombs 2
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in the atmosphere, and disillusioned when Soviet leaders rejected his advice not to resume atmospheric testing in 1961 after a 3-year moratorium, Sakharov turned into an energetic, outspoken, courageous dissident and opponent of a continuing nuclear arms build-up of mindless proportions. Can we - or should we - make a judgment that Sakharov was wrong in 1948 and right in the 1960’s? His dilemma, his struggle, the evolution of his views, illustrate the tremendous difficulty when scientists bring their ethical values to bear in their decisions on being involved in work that will clearly have major impact on how we live and survive. Sakharov himself addressed this dilemma and his past actions in remarks he made in 1988 during his first visit to the United States following his rehabilitation by Mikhail Gorbachev. Referring to changing political and strategic realities, Andrei said “I and the people who worked with me at the time were completely convinced that this work was essential, that it was vitally important.” Characterizing himself as being involved in a kind of war, just as American scientists who viewed their work in the same light as being vital for the interests of their country, he said “...while both sides felt that this kind of work was vital to maintain balance, I think that what we were doing at that time was a great tragedy. It was a tragedy that reflected the tragic state of the world that made it necessary, in order to maintain peace, to do such terrible things. We will never know whether it was really true that our work contributed at some period of time toward maintaining peace in the world, but at least at the time we were doing it, we were convinced this was the case. “The world has now entered a new era, and I am convinced that a new approach has now become necessary. And I think in each case when a person makes a decision, he should base that decision on an absolute conviction of his rightness, and only under such circumstances can we ever find mutual understanding. And under such circumstances and in doing so, it is very important, and essential in fact, to find out all points of difference as well as the points of coincidence and the points where the views are the same.” Sakharov’s saga is but one example of the ethical dilemmas that scientists must resolve when entering into work that can seriously impact the human condition. Decisions will and should be affected by political circumstances that can and frequently do change unpredictably, but through it all there remains one fixed moral obligation of the scientist. It is to weigh carefully the ethical dimension, in addition to the political and technical ones, before making a decision as to how or 3
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whether t o become involved. All three dimensions are critical. One cannot ask more of one’s colleagues, nor should one expect less from them or from oneself, than t o make the best informed and objective technical judgments; to try seriously to understand the often murky and confusing political issues; and ultimately to anchor one’s actions solidly to one’s true moral principles. The theme of this conference is the Future of Hope, and I want to emphasize that I see a renewed cause for hope as we approach the end of the 20th century, and close the first 50 years of the nuclear era. First of all, in the aftershocks of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we have created a 50-year-old tradition of non-use of nuclear weapons. This tradition has grown out of fear of, and respect for, the enormous, devastating potential of nuclear weapons, a fear so strong that the nuclear powers, although engaged in struggles that were otherwise unwinnable, chose not to use them or to provoke their use by others. This is a unique achievement in history and one for which we should thank our good luck as well as some enlightened leadership. I can think of no higher priority than to work to continue this tradition of non-use. Among the international dangers confronting the world today, I know of none that has more serious implications for worldwide security and stability than the danger of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and in particular of nuclear weapons. Excepting for a few would-be proliferators, most nations and people of the world clearly share a common interest in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. This common interest led 175 nations to affirm their support for the indefinite extension of the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) at the United Nations last May, when it faced its fifth and final five-year review. The agreement to extend the NPT indefinitely, without a limit of time, is a major achievement. And it puts an obligation on all signatory nations - non-nuclear as well as nuclear to work together to reduce incentives and opportunities for proliferation, and also to provide effective means for ensuring compliance with the Treaty’s provisions. A special obligation for the nuclear nations is to honor their commitments under this Treaty to reduce its discriminatory nature between themselves and the non-nuclear nations. To this end the nuclear states have agreed, as part of the bargain under the NPT, to reduce their nuclear weapons stockpiles and their reliance on these weapons. In addition they agree not to transfer nuclear weapons material, design information, or components to non-nuclear weapon states. For their part the nonnuclear states agree not to receive such information and material. The nuclear weapons states also agree to cooperate with the non-nuclear signatories to transfer science and technology relating to civilian uses of nuclear energy so that all may equally share in its benefits. In return, the non-nuclear weapons states agree to 4
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execute their nuclear power activities under full-scope safeguards administered by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). How are we doing t o make good on these promises and t o establish an effective non-proliferation regime? A number of positive steps have been taken or are in progress, including non-use pledges by the U.S. and Russia, and deep reductions in numbers of deployed nuclear weapons. Negotiations are underway in Geneva for a true zero-yield Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by September 30, 1996 - less than one year from today. It is my best technical judgment after careful study that, with today’s technology, such a true zero-yield treaty limit is consistent with maintaining a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent as their numbers shrink. More broadly, such a treaty will be an important boost to worldwide non-proliferation efforts. I welcome and strongly endorse President Clinton’s announcement in August committing the U.S. to seek such a treaty in the Geneva negotiations. I also welcome France’s shift in policy to support this goal, as well as Russia’s recent endorsement of it. I hope to hear soon that China will join the other nuclear powers to accomplish this goal. An end to all nuclear testing will be a tremendous achievement after 50 years and some 2000 nuclear tests worldwide. Additional important steps to reducing nuclear danger have emerged from U.S.-Russian cooperation in recent years. These include summit agreements to a cut-off in the production of bomb fuel; further reductions in the nuclear arsenals; and enhanced cooperation to exchange information and to ensure effective protection, controls, and accounting of nuclear fuel, including that removed from dismantled warheads. I anxiously await a full and timely implementation of these immensely important agreements. Progress in a cooperative effort to protect nuclear fuel and t o monitor the dismantlement of warheads will help to ensure that the reductions are irreversible and transparent. I regret that I also have to confess to a growing anxiety that progress toward these goals is running in to obstacles due to newly emerging political tensions, both in and between Washington and Moscow. All nations working to build an effective worldwide non-proliferation regime face further political tasks. We still need t o develop political and economic incentives and security assurances that can help dissuade non-signatory nations from joining the nuclear club. Both Iraq and North Korea, although signatories of the NPT, have reminded us recently of the imminence of the dangers, and also of the inadequacies in today’s efforts against proliferation. We have also learned only too well from this recent experience and from recurring reports of leakage and theft of potential bomb fuel, perhaps involving terrorists, that the capability of the IAEA must be expanded and strengthened. It, or its successor, must be given the political support to inspect more than just 5
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those sites identified by signatory nations as their nuclear installations. IAEA must also enhance its technical ability to detect diversions of nuclear material and t o provide assurance of the absence of undeclared nuclear activities. Both political and technical support are required to strengthen its safeguards system.
To do such a more thorough job, the agency will need more staff, a larger budget, a wider range of skills, and also support from the large information collecting services maintained by a number of member states. Most notably, but not uniquely, this means the United States. The IAEA or its successor must also oversee a coordinated effort involving all important supplier nations so it can assess their actions. This will require strong political will on the part of the supplier nations who will have to put their interest in the effort against proliferation above their interest in commercial exports and profits. Nations and governments must recognize, and at times act on, a moral obligation to all peoples and the future of our civilization. For nations and for all citizens, no less than for scientists, there is need for a moral dimension in one’s actions. Much work remains t o be done. The end of the Cold War has greatly reduced the immediacy of the nuclear fear that was a recurrent element of that long contest. Great events have drastically changed the shape of nuclear danger, but it would be wrong to suppose that the end of the Cold War means an end of nuclear danger, and it would be a grave error to let nuclear fear be replaced by nuclear complacency. As Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama said in his excellent speech to the United Nations Conference on Disarmament Issues on June 12, we are just entering a new age of disarmament, with actions replacing slogans. Indeed it is not at all clear that the overall level of nuclear danger has gone down. That danger persists, inherent in what we know how to do, concrete in the between 40,000 and 50,000 warheads possessed today by at least eight nations, present in the ambitions of others, and connected by fear and hope to the changing political relations of states both with and without nuclear weapons. We still have a long way to go in reducing nuclear danger. And new threats involving other weapons of indiscriminate destruction - chemical and biological - in the hands of sub-state entities cannot be ignored, as recent events in Japan have reminded us. The community of scientists will have to remain strongly involved, as we have been up to now, to meet our moral obligations toward building a safer 21st century.
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Response on Behalf of Degree Recipients at the University of Tel Aviv Ceremony Granting Honorary Doctors Degrees Tel Aviv, Israel May 12,2001 On behalf of my fellow degree recipients I want to thank Tel Aviv University, its Trustees and distinguished faculty, and President Rabinovich for this high honor we have just received.
Future scholars looking back at the 20thcentury will wonder at the record of our scientific achievements. After centuries of the philosophers’ quests, scientists discovered the elusive atom. We now understand it, and have put the atom to work for us in a myriad of useful ways to improve all aspects of our material existence. We have pushed the frontiers of exploring the tiniest dimensions of nature to sizes 10’s of billions of times smaller than the atoms themselves, in search of the elementary building blocks and the fundamental forces of nature. By joining what we are learning in this sub-atomic realm with explorations out to the farthest extremes of space and time, we have begun -just begun - to read the history of our physical universe all the way back to its initial beginnings some 15 billion years ago. This is one of the greatest voyages of discovery for modem man. At the same time scientists have begun to unravel the secrets of living organisms in the revolution initiated by the discovery of DNA, and now the decoding of the human genome. What we are learning offers us the potential of being able to deal with, if not totally eradicate, debilitating diseases and genetic flaws. This possibility is staggering. But the historians of the 20th century will also lament the record of horrors that man perpetrated upon man: the Holocaust, the Gulag, brutal wars and conflicts of unspeakable horror. Does it always have to be that way? We have now entered the 21Stcentury. What will future historians have to write about it? Will it be a tale of visions realized, of dreams come true? Or will the legacy of the 2lSt century be nightmares once again - perhaps made even more horrible by new lethal technologies unleashed by our ever advancing frontiers of science? One shudders to think of terrorism with biological weapons. Standing here at this great university - or visiting other comparable research institutions, where powerful new technologies are being spawned by the advances in fundamental science - I am aware of being in a community that can and should have a lot to do with the answer to that question. It is, I believe, a special responsibility of the scientific community to help societies and governments understand the implications both the potential benefits and risks - of the scientific advances for which we are responsible. This community with its technical insights is an essential resource to help society make the right choices for beneficial applications of new scientific developments. Fundamental science - as a voyage of discovery on uncharted seas to unknown ports - is, in itself, neither moral nor immoral - but the community of scientists bears a moral obligation to see it well used.
I also believe that the broader community of university scholars bears a deeper responsibility. The character of a society is molded from its values and ideals, by its
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ethical principles and commitment to justice. These are developed from many sources and roots, and those of us who are privileged to be associated with great universities like this have a special responsibility to join in the effort to mold that character so as to achieve a better 2lStcentury. During our lifetimes, no one expressed this conviction more eloquently and persistently than Andrei Sakharov, the great Russian physicist and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, whom I was privileged to know as a close personal h e n d and colleague. He personally risked everything and sacrificed much as a courageous fighter for human rights and for the freedom of the human spirit. His name graces Tel Aviv University’s distinguished list of previous recipients of the honorary doctorate degree that I and, I’m sure, my fellow honorees are proud to join today. On this occasion, just one week shy of what would have been his SOth birthday, it is fitting to recall Sakharov’s urging to the community of scientists and scholars to reach beyond narrow professional interests and embrace a broad range of universal issues. In his essay from exile in Gorky 20 years ago, he insisted that “scientists and scholars cannot fail to think abut the dangers stemming from uncontrolled progress”, and he further emphasized their responsibility to join the struggle, again I quote: “to preserve peace and those ethical values which have been developed as our civilization evolved.” Andrei Sakharov left us with another important and timely message that is pertinent, here and now, in these days of great turbulence. Even during times of greatest discouragement, or even despair, he never lost hope. Looking ahead in the dark days of 1974, Sakharov wrote: “I believe that mankind will find a reasonable solution to the complex problem of combining tremendous, necessary and inescapable technological progress with the preservation of the human in a human being and of the natural in nature.” His unshakable, unflagging commitment to principle and his opposition to injustice wherever he found it - his lone voice - moved governments and people alike. Sakharov’s example should sustain our own commitment to the efforts - local, regional, and global - to build a better future with peace, humanity and social justice - and it should give us faith that we can succeed.
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Response at the Ceremony Awarding the William Oliver Baker Award For “Contributions to National Security of the United States, Particularly in the Field of Foreign Intelligence”, Presented by the Security Affairs Support Association at the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center, Bolling Air Force Base, Maryland May 17,2001
1 am truly honored to receive the William 0. Baker Award from a community whose work I value highly and support strongly; and to see here so many fiiends and colleagues in that community with whom I have had the privilege of working for many years. It is a personal thrill for me to receive an award that carries the name of William 0. Baker. He has contributed in so many ways, both visionary and technical, to the advances in the intelligence strength of this nation that have enabled us to open our eyes and ears to threats to our national security - emerging threats as well as enduring ones. Bill is a true patriot, a gentleman, and a great scientist and inventor, a real triple threat, as well as a personal friend. I am also very proud to have my name added to the list of previous illustrious recipients of this award. My entry into the technical intelligence field dates back almost 38 years to a phone call from Bud Wheelon, then the Deputy Director of the CIA for Science and Technology and a most worthy Baker Medallist. Bud and I had met and become fhends a decade earlier at MIT. He was finishing his theoretical physics thesis when I arrived there as a post-doctoral research fellow. In 1963 Bud called me at Stanford and asked me to come to his office so he could introduce me to a problem he wanted me to work on. I flew east and first learned from him that there were satellites up there photographing the earth with high enough resolution to give us useful intelligence information. I must confess that, for me, this was an amazing revelation. Bud persuaded me to take temporary leave from Stanford and lead a panel of scientists and engmeers he had just assembled - an extraordinary group, as talented and dedicated as I have ever worked with. Our mission: to find out why the lst generation CORONA orbiting satellite camera was producing so much streaking on its film - i.e. corona - and what needed to be done to fix it. We did our job, and I am still entrapped with the intelligence community. My work on CORONA led to service on the overhead reconnaissance panel chaired by Din Land of Polaroid. We encouraged and drove advances in photo-reconnaissance to higher resolution and reliability, and especially to real-time electro-optical systems, as strongly as we believed it to be technically responsible. Over the years the extent of my involvement in national security and intel problems has grown considerably, most recently with 8 years of heavy duty on PFIAB. One conclusion remains clear to me: Our intelligence dollars rank with the very best of our investments in national security. I am speaking of all the ints: imint, sigint, comint, elint, compint, masint, ints yet to be invented, and always at the core, humint. All are vital. A personal word about PFIAB. Especially during the past four years with Senator Warren Rudman as its extraordinary chairman, it was a terrific opportunity to deal effectively with a number of very important issues, and also to give the DCI some problems when we thought George looked too comfortable. I have known and worked with many outstanding individuals who have gwen valuable, patriotic pro bono service to this nation
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very generously, but my friend Warren is unquestionably the pro bonissimo of all - and the United States owes him a great debt of gratitude. This is a festive occasion - a particularly happy one for me, but I ask your forbearance to raise, briefly, two serious issues.
You here tonight understand better than most that the challenges faced by the intelligence community to meet the needs of this country’s security have become greater, more diverse, and more difficult to meet since the end of the Cold War. We are now looking all over the globe for threats from terrorists and other bad actors - large and small who may come at us in every which way with few, if any, restraints. I think we - those of us here tonight - have to do a better job of getting this message out to the people who pay the bills and sign the checks - the public and more members of Congress. They must come to realize how difficult the task, how great the need for steady, adequate support, and how important a challenge the US intelligence system still faces today, after the Cold War, and will continue to face in the days and years ahead. You who are here tonight also appreciate better than most that good technical and scientific work in intelligence requires a strong foundation in R&D. I am here now because I strayed from my research home in academia - my day job so to speak - to help the nation’s security, as best I could, by working with you full-time members of the intelligence community. Perhaps I may conclude from tonight’s award, at least I will assume so, that I have contributed usefully to this effort. Here now I want to enlist you in a cause which is important both to the intelligence community, and to my colleagues in basic science. We need your active support to help wake up our nation to the urgent need to restore its eroding base in the sciences, both in research and education. This need was stated starkly in the report released earlier this year by the United States Commission on National Security/21st Century. I quote from it: “Americans are living off the economic and security benefits of the last three generations’ investment in science and education, but we are now consuming capital. Our systems of basic scientific research and education are in serious crises, while other countries are redoubling their efforts.. .” This report - known by the names of its 2 cochairs, Senators Gary Hart and, once again, Warren Rudman - goes on to call for a “conscious national commitment to maintain our edge,” and then warns, and I quote again: “The inadequacies of our systems of research and education pose a greater threat to US national security over the next quarter century than any potential conventional war that we might imagine. American national leadership must understand these deficiencies as threats to national security.” To meet this threat the Commission backs its strong words with strong medicine, including doubling the federal R & D budget within the coming decade. Our national security requires the best possible intelligence; and the best possible intelligence benefits tremendously from the best possible science. It demands it! We must also get this message across. Again thank you very much for a most wonderful honor and evening.
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A r t i c l e P r e p a r e d f o r t h e C e n t e r f o r the Study of N a t i o n a l Reconnaissance upon b e i n g honored as one o f t h e 10 Founders of t h e U . S . Reconnaissance Program by t h e N a t i o n a l Reconnaissance O f f i c e September 2 7 , 2000
Beyond Expectations-Building
an American National Reconnaissance Capability: Recollections of the Pioneers and Founders of National Reconnaissance Robert A. McDonald, Ph.D. Editor
Reproduced with permission of the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ASPRS) and the Center for the Study of National Reconnaissance (CSNR), National Reconnaissance Office. Originally published by ASPRS in cooperation with CSNR, in Beyond Expectations - Building an American National Reconnaissance Capability: Recollections of the Pioneers and Founders of National Reconnaissance, edited by R. A. McDonald, Bethesda, MD, 2002, pp. 11-16.
~~~~~~~~~~~@~ of on I vs.s intrpoduced CQ tile world of classified national defense probiems in 1960, the year JASON was create6.I The purpose of forming the JASON groap was to enlist fresh, then~ Q ' o " I -and I~ promising scienti6c d e n t to work on problem of importance for United States nationai secwity. TXe were in rhc new age o€ n u c l w weapons, space, and intercontinental missiie, and tke chhdIenges they presented to formulating national security policy were sign&cafr_r.The great physicists ma scientists who contributed to winning World War I1 with the dewhpnenes that led to radar, the atomic bomb and m~-subbmarinewarfare capability had grown older and moved cpn to ocher responsibilities. There was a need to train a new generation of scientists who would be willing to commit rime and eEort to areas in national security that were presenting new and formidabie challenges. I was one of s w e d dozen scienrists, mainly physicists, who were invired t~ join JASON zt its inceprion. I accepted. I then continued to work as a member cafJASON and on a variety of government advisory panels where we addressed problems of nariond security-many ~~~~
of great t e c h i d interest-and
~~~~~~~~
some of critical importance to our national security.
' This section is based on wrirren i n p t &ax Sioatey DreH submitted
KO the
Center for the Study of National
R&CX-lTEiSWiCC
' JASUN is 2n independent, senior-lad scientific and t e c h i d "think tanlil' composed primarily of scientists md academics representing the most prestigious universiries and research instirusions Ir! t h e U.S. The tzrm J M S N i s nor an ~ C F O ~ nor F ~ does , it have any parriculaf meaning. The principal fikcdon of the JhSOh' group is EO p~oyidesenior-level government mmagers, primarily in rhe Deparmenrs of Defense and E n e r g aiid the Intelligence C h m r n s n i ~wkh ~ scienrific and rechnical expertise.
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Cih&enge of Detecting Bdlistic Missile Launches The first problem I worked on during che first JASON summer study in 1968 concerned expinring ti& possibiiicy of deploying semisors on earth-orbiting satellites to obtain early warning of ballistic missile Iaunches. Together wirh my friend and JASON colleague, Malvin Ruderman, I sm&ed the infrared (IR) radiation generated in the atmosphere, at high altitudes of roou&+ 90 Mornems, by an intense burst of x-rays. This in itself was an interesting science probiem, but it was motiva~edby a more immediate purpose. When a megaton-level nuclear bomb explodes a~high altimde, it suddeniy dumps a lot of x-ray energy into the atmosphere. Tlar energy iniriates a series of intermions &at transform a large number of the W, and Q2 molecdes char are predenr a1 around 9Okm duimde into nitrogen oxide (No) mokcules in vibrationally m c k d states. Because hey are non-hamopolar, the excited NO molecules radiare excensivdy in &e IR spectraI region when they decay back down to their ground stares. The questions to be mm-ere6were how much NO was formed and how extensive, dense, and longlasting was the IR blmket (“red-our”) that was created. This wodd solve the problem of how effemive a h@-alrimde precursor n u d m burst w0dd be in blinding she HR sensors of a sadite. This sysceem was h o r n as the Missile Defense Alarm System (Mi&> in its origin4 incarnation, designed to detect the launch of Sovier Figure 2-3. Kidas 1 lifting off from Launch Complex f 4, Cape Intercontinental Ballistic CPnaireraI, 196C. (Photo cou:tesy MRO History Office, lihiy U.S. Air Missiles (ICBM). Force photo.) Rudermm and I assembled everything known in I960 about the reievant chemical reactions, highaltitude atmospheric parmeters, and the like. We calculated energetidly and concluded that it would take a lot of megatons to make an IR cloud that would last long enough and extend far enough to be of strategic value by preventing Midas from detecting, and hence denying us early warning of ICBM l a ~ n c h e s For . ~ g0od reason, the Midas program went ahead and has been of great value to the U.S. As a consequence of chis work, I was invited to join the Strategic Military Pane1 of the President’s Scientific Advisory Committee (PSAC), then chaired by the I k k h x ’ s Science Advisor, ’
The work of Drdl and Kuderman in &is m a was published in the scienrific journal, Infrared P&cs 2, r s . 183, Sent-Dsc, 1962).
(vd
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Jerome ’iViesner. Call it entrapment, commitment, or whatever, but I have remained actively involved in technicai narional secwirJjwork for the United States.
The World of Satelhe Reconnaissance The extent iif my government involvement increased by a qumturn leap in the fdl of 1963 when I was intrrrdlrced to the ce&,siCaS possibilities of doing photoreconnaissance from spacebased satellite systems. Phomremnnaissance satellites, together with signals intelligence (STGINT) and electronic intel&gence (ELlNn satellites that constituted the so-called “national technical means,” mdd pierce the Iron Curtain that had been erected by an obsessively secretive Soviet government. These systems represented a big step toward achieving the Open Skies &ar President Eisenhowex had firsr d e d for in 1355. h o n g their other values, these sarellites opened the dmr to mns control nego6ations based on eEectiveIy verifiable treaties. The firs: generarim of phctoreconnaissmce satellites, known as Corona, was declassified in 1’%5.4 I was introduced t~ this amazing achievement by Bud Wheelon in h e fall of 1963. He was &en &e Central Indigence Agency (Cut) Deputy Director for Science and T‘chnobgy (DDS&T>and he telephoned me at Stanford University and asked me eo come 10 Wibingcon.5 He said he wanted to show me something that was important, and he needed my help. I dutifully obeyed and found my way to the CIA Headquarters ~ u ~ ~ ~ ~ n g , then identified by the words Bureaia a€Public Roads, or something similar, on a sign kpn the George LVbshington Pararkway. For a discussion o f h e decision to declassifv h e Corona program, see “The Declasifiarion Decision,” In G r m a Bersen &e S m and rhe Earrh-The Firsr NRO Reconn2sznceE,ve in Space (R.A. McDonald, Uitcir), Berhesda, MD: American Socieg far Photogrammetry and Rernotc Sensing, 1997. Corona B e w e m die Sw, md &he Za-&dso inciudes a comprehensive aliecrion of Other Corona-related articles, x a c y of which were wrirten by participants En rhe progrsnr. h associzred Corona reference is “Corona: Success for Space Reconnaissance, h Look 1n.o the Cold War, and ,4 Revolution for Intelligence,”in Pbtogranaertjc E~~j~eeri~~andRemo:eSensinLg. (-PE&RS) (vd. 61,110.6,June 1335). ’ Aibert D. iBudj X.X%rt$on sm7ed as CLYs DDS&T from 5 Aug~ar1363 to 26 September 1966. He is a Pioneer of National Recoxuissance (inducted into the NRO Hall of Pioneers, 27 Scpcernber 2000). See Chqxer 42 fo: his recdlecrions. AIso see Wheeloni arricie in P h p k &day (vok 50, page 24, 1997) f’r his o v e n k t of rbe Corona project.
*
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I learned, to m y amazement, that we could photograph the earth with fairly good resolution from satellites. I also learned that these Project Corona satellites were producing a corona-like electrical discharge that was streaking the film, thereby diminishing the quality of the images and reducing the intelligence value of the photography. Concerned that this problem was not getting the priority attention it needed, Bud had assembled a team of industrial scientists from each of the corporations that had contributed major components of the Corona system, including Itek, Eastman Kodak, and Lockheed. He asked me, as an independent academic, to lead the team in a detailed technical investigation into what was causing this problem and how to fix it. Thus began a most extraordinary experience. The industrial team that Bud assembled was a group of scientists and engineers, a group that was as outstanding as any I ever have known. I added to my panel two superb physicists, whom I knew as personal friends and respected highly-Luis Alvarez and Malvin Ruderman. The investigation was to be in a scientific realm that was then new to me, and I wanted my two colleagues to add to my confidence that I would stay on track and not go off on useless tangents. Our effort was intense, and lasted about four months, during which time I essentially lived in Washington, except for weekends at home and a weekly Friday physics lecture at Stanford. Our work was successful in resolving the Corona project’s corona problem. In order to avoid the buildup of electrostatic charges, we recognized that extreme care was required to maintain a clean vacuum and balanced electrical and thermal conditions. Particular attention had to be given to the condition and type of material of the rollers across which the film was spooled. All these factors were important to avoid the electrical discharges on the ultra-thin film speeding rapidly across the rollers. We also gained further understanding of the limits in optical resolution that could be achieved with a system based on Corona technology, before moving ahead with more advanced ones. At the conclusion of our study, I briefed our findings to the Director of Central Intelligence, John McCone (frequently referred to in code those days as Earthquake McGoon), and members of the Overhead Reconnaissance Panel chaired by Edwin Land of Polaroid.
The Land Panel I was then made a member of the so-called Land Panel that advised the White House on overhead photoreconnaissance. We reviewed and stimulated the development of new technologies and systems to provide timely, high-quality photoreconnaissance from space. This proved to be a fascinating activity throughout the panel’s existence for a decade. Someday, the subsequent advances beyond Corona will have their day in the sun, and people will be astounded to learn of the enormous achievements and incredible value of scientists and engineers in the Intelligence Community.6 A critical activity of the Land Panel during the Nixon Administration had to do with the possibility of gaining real-time intelligence from space instead of waiting to recover and develop exposed film, and the choice of a technology to achieve this goal. On one occasion, Dick Garwin and I, with extensive information on this subject as members of both PSAC and the Land Panel, successfully intervened with National Security Advisor Henry Kssinger to argue the case for selecting electro-optical technology and reversing what we believed to be a flawed decision that favored an alternative technical choice.’ The result proved to be of great value in the years since it was implemented. Subsequently, Drell also was appointed as a member of the PSAC and served under Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon from 1766-1971. Richard L. Gamin is a Founder of National Reconnaissance (See chapter 3 for his recollections).
’
A?
More of the People Throughout my experience on the Land Panel and the PSAC, I had the privilege of working with Don Steininger, a retired Lieutenant Colonel and physics Ph.D. who was a staff man to the President’s Science Advisor and a person of extraordinary wisdom and effectiveness. He knew when and Somedaj thesubsequent advances how to push the “system”without closing clown coopbeyond Corona will have their day eration. He worked with great dedication, and he was respected for his integrity and objectivity. He was one of in the sun, and people will be asmy cherished friends, and a colleague in these endeavors tounded to learn of the enormous for more than a decade. He died tragically at an early age because of cancer, but only after being awarded a National achievements and incredible value Intelligence Medal for his invaluable service. In addition ofscientists and engineers in the to Bud Wheelon and Don Steininger, I also want to Intelligence Communiq mention one of Bud’s successors as DDS&T, Les Dirks, who was a brilliant government servant in intelligence. I recall, from my early years of involvement, the very strained and occasionally harmful rivalry between the CIA and NRO (then very young and still very secret) for control and turf in the photoreconnaissance program. At times, it was hard to tell who was the enemy. I am glad that this rivalry is a memory of the distant past.
Challenges for Today and The Future Improving intelligence through the better application of science and technology has been a major theme of my government work. In 1988, I had the good fortune to accompany a bipartisan delegation of five Senate leaders, including then-Senator Bill Cohen, to Moscow to meet then-President Gorbachev, Foreign Minister Shevardnadze, and Marshal Akhromeyev. I was one of several advisors to the delegation, and as an expert on technical national security issues, my role was to keep discussions on defense, nuclear policy, arms control, and the like on the straight track with facts. During that week in Moscow, I had a number of opportunities to talk with Cohen about my concerns at the loss of aggressive leadership in our government driving the reconnaissance and intelligence programs to the frontiers of what was technically possible. The Land Panel no longer existed, and the science advisory apparatus in the White House, diminished in importance, had almost no involvement in national security issues. Upon our return, Bill Cohen, then the ranlung minority member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), called me to Washington to meet with him and Senator Dave Boren-then its chairman-to discuss my proposal for the SSCI to create a Technology Review Panel to fill this vacuum. In my view, it was needed and could be of great value both in photoreconnaissance as a successor to the Land Panel, and in signals intelligence as a successor to the panel that had been chaired by Bill Baker of Bell Telephone Labs.’ Senators Boren and Cohen agreed with my concerns and asked me to form such a technology review panel and serve as its first chairman. I did that for four years during the administration of President George H.W. Bush, and we made some genuine contributions. That panel still exists. In early 1993, I received a telephone call from Admiral Bill Crowe, whom President Clinton had asked to chair the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB). Bill called to ask me if I would be willing to serve with him on the PFIAB as his nuclear expert. I felt greatly honored and said yes. Bill and I had gotten to know each other very well during the 1990-93 period during our collaboration with McGeorge Bundy in writing a
’William 0. Baker is a Founder of National Reconnaissance.
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book encirled rPeduchgNuclear Danger: The Road Away From rhe Brink published by the Councii QPI Foreign KeIations. eight years on h e E'FfiB were interesting and rewarding. A major theme of my work on PFNB was emphasizing how Irnporxant the roie of science and technology for US.inte2iigence apablities has been in the past, and most certainly wilB be in the future.
Rgure 2-3.Siddsey hell [second from I&) being recognized as a founder of national r e c ~ ~ ~ a 27 ~ ~ a ~ c e ~ September 2WO.The fowder award plaque was presented by DNRO Kelh Hall (left) and DCI George Tenet (third born the left) {Pkato by Sara J~dy,NRO Visual Design Center) ~
germ advisory roles. He senred as a key scientific consultant to Program B, and served on the Technology Review Panel of the Senate Select Commi:tee on Intelligence where he was
NRG specid projects. Service to hia r i o d ~ e ~ o ~ ~ d 960-2000 ~ i ~ 5 ~ ~ c ~ :
4s
The Impact of a Public Constituency
It has often been said that war is too important to be left to the generals and that peace is too vital to be left to the politicians. So, too, are matters of nuclear weapons and policy too important to be left to the nuclear-strategy “experts.” In reality, there are no experts on nuclear war. We have never had a nuclear war, and any scientist knows that you must have data before you can become an expert. We do not know how a nuclear war would start, be waged, or finally stopped. No one, including nuclear-strategy “experts,” knows what would be left after such a “war.” What this means is that the public must inform and involve itself actively in the formulation of policy on these issues. This requires public outreach, public education, and active dialogue with our public officials. The record we will explore in this article shows that an informed and active public constituency can have a significant effect in shaping sound policy in highly technical areas that determine our very survival. In the United States, there was no public debate at the time of the fateful decision by President Truman in 1950 to develop the second generation of nuclear weapons-that is, the H-bomb or hydrogen bomb. This was early in the cold-war period, and secrecy was applied broadly. As a result, the public played no role in the decision to move ahead to the megaton-scale H-bomb. The debate within government on whether, and then how, to proceed with work on the H-bomb in response to the first Soviet A-bomb Reprinted from In the Shadow of the Bomb: Physics and Arms Control (Masters of Modem Physics, Vol. 6) (AIP Press, 1993), pp. 191-196., with kind permission of Springer Science and Business Media.
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explosion in late summer of 1949 was carried on almost completely under a thick cloak of secrecy. We have no idea whether, in those strained times, an effort to negotiate with the Soviet Union to head off the development of the H-bomb might have succeeded, but we didn’t even try. It was nine years later before a serious initiative on peaceful uses of nuclear energy was made, in 1958, but, by then, it was too late. The genie was out of the bottle, and there was no way to deny the basic scientific reality of the hydrogen bomb. By the early 1960s, the design and building of hydrogen bombs had advanced to a mature technology. The scientists in the nuclearweapons laboratories had become what Lord Zuckerman calls “the alchemists of our time, working in secret ways that cannot be divulged, casting spells which embrace us all.” Testing of H-bombs in the atmosphere continued at a rapid pace through most of the decade of the 1950s, leading to a substantial, worldwide build-up in the level of radioactivity. By 1960, an active and vigorous public constituency around the world had become concerned about this radioactive fallout and its effects on the health of their families and friends. They joined many scientists who understood the weapons in detail to protest continued testing. Scientists could bring a highly informed judgment to bear on the question of how the cessation of nuclear tests in the atmosphere would affect our national security. This was the first important issue of nuclear weapons in which the public in the United States played a major role. Around the same time, some scientists in the USSR, and, in particular, Andrei Sakharov, were also advocating a ban on testing. In the Western world, concerned citizens by the hundreds of thousands applied strong political leverage, while the technical case in support of an atmospheric test ban treaty was presented by concerned scientists. These forces inside and outside of government enhanced one another. Working together, they helped accomplish what may well have been beyond the power of either alone: the Limited Test Ban Treaty signed in 1963 by President Kennedy and General Secretary Khrushchev. By the end of the 1960s, scientists had developed important new weapons technologies that could potentially alter, in a fundamental way, the nuclear forces of the United States and the USSR. One new development was antiballistic missile (ABM) systems, using advanced computers, very high acceleration interceptor missiles, special nuclear warheads, and phased-array radars. The original proposal to deploy ABM systems near large population centers in the United States stirred a major public debate, primarily
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THE IMPACT OF A PUBLIC CONSTITUENCY
193
because many people did not want nuclear-tipped missiles located, figuratively, “in their own backyards.” Triggered by these public concerns, the ABM decision became an opportunity for extensive public debate. The halls of Congress and the media became vital educational forums for careful and informed technical analysis of the effectiveness and arms-control implications of the proposed ABM system. Through this unprecedented public debate on a weapons system, Congress came to understand that the proposed ABM system was not going to do what was promised. By 1970, it was clear, on the basis of technical facts alone, that offensive missiles could respond with relative ease to any practical ABM system. Technical arguments for deployment collapsed, and the ABM debate boiled down to its value solely as political leverage for the arms-control talks-its value as a bargaining chip for the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). The outcome of this was the successful negotiation with the Soviet Union at SALT I of the ABM Treaty severely limiting deployment of ABM systems. That treaty is currently in force. I consider it to be our most important arms-control achievement to date. At the same time as the ABM debate, however, the United States moved ahead rapidly with the development and deployment of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs). The original American justification for MIRVs was that they would penetrate ballistic-missile defenses by overwhelming their defensive firepower with an intense rain of many warheads. They were offered as an insurance policy against Soviet ABM deployments, which had then begun around Moscow. However, when the SALT I treaty of 1972 prohibited the deployment of nationwide ABM defenses, American MIRV programs proceeded full tilt. The new rationale for MIRVs became our alleged need for counterforce-the need to threaten a wide repertoire of Soviet military targets, including their retaliatory forces. MIRVs did not lead to an increase in the visible presence of nuclear weapons. Therefore, in contrast to ABMs, they did not cause a reaction from citizens who wanted no nuclear weapons nearby. In such circumstances, we deployed MIRVs with very little public attention or concern, the USSR responded with its own major buildup of MIRVed forces, and arms control suffered a setback. It is not that there was no opportunity for serious public debate about the pros and cons of MIRVs and their impact on the arms race and our national security. It was simply that there was no specific issue to bring the MIRV decision home to the man in the street and arouse public reaction. Therefore, no U.S. public constituency was created to nurture the cause of arms
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control in opposition to the MIRV. Moreover, the country was becoming increasingly concerned first with Vietnam and then with Watergate. There was also little expressed public interest in the SALT I1 treaty when it came up for ratification by the United States Senate in 1979. The arms-control advocates and a few politicians pitched in and argued mightily. However, there was no public outcry, as there had been at the time of the ABM debate that set the stage for SALT I. The Senate debate on SALT I1 dragged on with little public pressure for ratification. Debate was eventually terminated as a result of the Soviet armies entering Afghanistan and the reaction of the American public to it, making it politically impossible to obtain ratification in the United States. In a reverse way, Afghanistan mobilized public opinion in the West against arms control, which again demonstrates the essential power of public opinion. The original rationale for the United States developing the MX missile was to respond to the buildup of highly MIRVed Soviet ICBMs and to decrease the vulnerability of our land-based missile force, thereby improving deterrence. We sought to base the new ICBM so that it could not be attacked and destroyed. However, the debate in the United States, which was covered in the media much more thoroughly than the original MIRV decision, revealed deep differences of opinion on counterforce versus deterrence, on the effectiveness of the proposed basing scheme, and on its environmental impact. The MX basing plan, as it was originally perceived, is no longer with us. Claims of the survivability and effectiveness of “Densepack,” “Bigbird,” and “Racetrack”-the three schemes with, at one time or another, administration backing-just did not stand up under close technical scrutiny. Today we are deploying only fifty MX missiles, and they have little to do with our security or with deterrence. They are not a major arms-control issue. I see a pattern in this mixed record of the past. The atmospheric test ban treaty and the ABM debate that culminated in SALT I are two major successes in American nuclear-weapons policy. Further, the MX program has been restructured and sharply cut back from the original plans. It is notable that these results were achieved with vigorous and constructive public participation and support. By contrast, the development of the H-bomb and of MIRVs greatly increased the devastating potential and the threat posed by our nuclear weapons. As such, they may be considered failures of our nuclearweapons policy. Although there may have been no feasible alternative
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THE IMPACT OF A PUBLIC CONSTITUENCY
195
to developing the H-bomb, we didn’t try to head it off. I find it significant that these technical escalations were undertaken without public involvement or debate, and also without a serious effort at negotiating them away. Another serious setback, after years of negotiating, was the Senate’s failure to ratify the SALT I1 treaty because of a similar lack of an involved public constituency. On March 23, 1983, President Reagan described to the nation his vision of the future in which we are protected against nuclear weapons by a space-age defense, popularly labelled “Star Wars,” and no longer have to live in a balance of terror. We are, therefore, encountering once again major decisions that will determine the course of our nuclearweapons policy until the end of the century and beyond. These decisions present challenges and opportunities to our citizens, scientists, and government. The good news is that this issue is itself not shrouded in secrecy or ignored in the shadows of apathy-to the contrary. In the press, in the churches, in civic organizations, in universities, and in the political arena, a process of education about deterrence has begun in earnest, and nuclear weapons policy is commanding priority attention at this time. There now exists an active and concerned arms-control constituency ready to participate in a national debate that we all should welcome-scientists, government, and citizens alike. As a result of this public-inspired debate, Star Wars is still undergoing tough, critical scrutiny, including in particular its technical prospects and its impact on arms-control progress. And certainly the president, when he gave his speech in 1983, did not expect to find himself in 1987 with only half the money he wanted to get. The public arms-control constituency created during the past few years must continue to grow and prove that it is enduring, informed, constructive, and energetic and that it has a broad political base. To endure, it must have a clear and understandable goal. This means going beyond a freeze, which was an important goal in building a constituency but was inadequate to sustain it. The public must also be informed. It must have a realistic sense that there are no easy, absolute solutions-not in the short term. We must keep working at the issue to make it become part of the public agenda through public education, public outreach, and meetings with our elected officials. We can make sure that public officials know that this is one of the issues on which they are going to be elected or not elected. It is effective to choose a few issues and to be very well informed about them, so that one does not get caught out or discredited as a
50
result of using shallow overgeneralizations, and then to hold to those positions like a bulldog. And one should avoid spending all of one’s time in talking with like-minded friends. It is important to spend time reasoning with those who hold opposing views. The public constituency must also be constructive. The attitude must be one that takes other people’s arguments seriously, recognizes that opponents feel deeply about what they believe, and engages in civilized, constructive debate. The public arms-control constituency must be energetic. Every citizen has his or her talents. Consequently, different people are going to be effective in different ways: in the electoral process, through public outreach, or through active research on the issues. Finally, it is important to seek a broad political base-that is, not simply from the left or the right. Support will be required from a broad spectrum of the public. Public involvement in arms-control issues is not only useful, it is essential. We have had no progress without it. Stimulated by the involvement of the public, we negotiated and ratified SALT I. Without it, we ended up with MIRVs and failed to ratify SALT 11.
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S C I E N C E A N D S O C I E T Y : THE TROUBLED F R O N T I E R S i g m a Xi 1995 N a t i o n a l Forum a n d Annual M e e t i n g Research Triangle Park, N o r t h Carolina S i d n e y D. D r e l l S t a n f o r d Linear Accelerator C e n t e r , Stanford University M a r c h 2, 1995
I am honored to receive the John P. McGovern Science and Society Medal and by the invitation to give this lecture. I have a very special affection for Sigma Xi. It presented me with my first ever significant apwaad: election t o associate membership in 1946 during my senior year at Princeton - I presume for my senior thesis work under Johnny Wheeler. At the award banquet I also received a copy of Fritz Zworykin’s treatise on the Electron Microscope. That I soon traded that volume for an advanced theoretical physics text sounds, perhaps, ungracious but it wasn’t by any means. It was simply evidence of the narrow - and properly so focus of a young theoretical physicist’s interests in esoteric fundamental science.
It would be 15 years later, after a turbulent period during which the United States faced some of the most dangerous confrontations of the Cold War, before I would reach out beyond the academic mold of teaching, training and pure research and commit a significant portion of my time and energy to issues where science and society interact strongly. My initial efforts were almost totally concentrated on technical issues of national security and arms control. The challenge of working to help avoid a nuclear holocaust was, and still is, of special significance to the international community of scientists who created the nuclear weapoiis whose very existence poses so grave a danger to our survival. Fundamental decisions of nstioiial security a,re based predomiimntly on political and military assessments but they should - and must - be informed by solid technical understanding. The physica.1 and technical facts are crucial because they help define the range of choices in formulating a practical policy toward reducing nuclear danger and avoiding conflict. For example, it is important to understand how technology and the laws of nature can be applied to increase transparency for monitoring and, hopefully, limiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We must also understand what we can and should be doing to retain a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent as we continue our negotiations to reduce the number of warheads, as well as to ban all nuclear bomb tests as ail aide to our efforts to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. I note tha,t the final review conference on the NPT extension opens next month at the UN in New Yorlc.
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It is no less important to understand that there are practical technical limits that cannot be altered by any effort to achieve strongly desired goals. I am referring here to the periodically renewed quest for nationwide protection against a determined onslaught of long-range nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles. Although there are indeed some limited missions for an anti-ballistic missile defense that are realistic and very worth pursuing, there is no contest against a determined offense, given the awesome destructive potential of nuclear warheads, and the variety of means of delivery, including cruise missiles and ships, as well as covert entry. Looking beyond the national security arena, we find that the end of the Cold War has in no way reduced the importance of science as an enabling mechanism for society to be able successfully to address many of its other challenges, be they economic, medical and health, environmental, conservation of limited resources, or over-population. But how unfortunate that today, as these pressing issues emerge from the shadows of the Cold War, we as a nation seem to be growing less interested in science. There is less optimism about its potential, a growing sense of impatience with its prospects, an erosion of public trust in its institutions and integrity, and pressure to cut budgets and programs. I am troubled by emerging government and public attitudes toward science as a luxury, unless it can justify its support by a promise of immediate practical benefits and economic pay-offs. I fear that the likely consequence of such a short term view and gross misunderstanding of the nature and practice of science will be the U.S. forfeiting its mantle of world-wide scientific preeminence. Indeed I view this to be the inevitable consequence unless other societies fall into the same trap with us. Let me give what I find poignant and to me the most compelling evidence that suggests this troubling prospect. I do so not in the sense of whining or looking to find culprits, but rather in search of the remedies to help us meet the challenge ahead of assuring that in the U.S. we make best use of what SStT have to offer our society. My concerns about the future of science in the United States are rooted primarily in the message I am hearing from the young researchers and students who are the critical resource in our nation’s scientific future. It is their voices that sound the alarm; more than the various budget figures, or the noise and heat generated by our internal squabbles that erupt periodically due to shifting balances in scientific priorities between different fields of basic research, or between basic and applied research - or what is now called strategic research. In the wake of the cancellation of the SSC in October 1993, the Secretary of Energy created a panel to help define a, new vision for a. future U.S. High Energy Physics Program. I chaired that panel which worked hard during the first half of 1994 to formulate a challenging, competitive, and fiscally practical iiational prograin in high energy
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physics that would rise as a phoenix out of the ashes of the ruins of a decade of planning for the SSC. The supercollider was a project that the HE community supported with top priority. Many young scientists had bet on it - and committed to it - for their futures. When my panel set to work in January of last year I solicited written input from all members of the particle physics community. In excess of 400 of my colleagues responded to this request - some cynically, some rudely, many thoughtfully - but there was one large segment that touched an especially tender nerve and gave serious root to my concerns. These were the young, newly discouraged and disillusioned cadre of graduate students and post-doctoral research fellows who saw years of their hopes, hard work, and exciting prospects go down the tubes. They questioned their prospects for future careers in science. This discouragement is widespread, and not confined to any one branch of science. It breeds on the decreasing opportunities for scientists - particularly the young - to find the support and the opportunities to spread their wings, and actually do independent research. To the extent that their diminishing prospects, as broadly perceived, deter the best young minds from entering into careers of scientific research we are in trouble, for a strong infusion of the top rank talent is essential to sustaining a strong and productive scientific endeavor as a national resource. Vannevar Bush emphasized the need, and laid out the requisites, for this nation to build and to manage a major league scientific endeavor in his perceptive and pathbreaking report in 1945 to President Truman, entitled (‘Science: the Endless Frontier.” With clear and brilliant insight he presented the design and foundations for the nation’s post-WWII scientific research program, a program that has become the envy of the world.
I reread that superb report in preparing my remarks for tonight. Vannevar Bush’s words ring as true and right on the mark today as they did when he first presented his report 50 years ago this summer. I really have little to add - and I cannot say it any better than he did when he urged this nation, as it built for a post WWII future: “Science, by itself, provides no panacea for individual, social, and economic ills. It can be effective in the national welfare only as a member of a team, whether the conditioiis be peace or war. But without scientific progress no amount of acliievement in other directions can insure our health, prosperity, and security as a na.tion in the modern world.” And he went on to caution: Scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free intellects, working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown. Freedom of inquiry must be preserved under any plan for Government support of science. ..’, ((
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Furthermore Vannevar Bush reminded Washington that research is a difficult and often very slow voyage over unchartered seas - as we here know very well - and therefore, for science to flourish with governmental support, there must be funding stability over a period of years so that long range programs may be undertaken and pursued effectively. The American scientific effort that has developed over the past five decades, following Vannevar Bush’s defining guidance, still remains today the envy of the world. Its achievements and its contributions to the nation and t o people everywhere are a source of great pride and value to this nation. But there is no denying today’s problems. The young - the vital resource for the future - have given us clear warning by their actions and their words. Their concerns present us with a serious challenge, and we who have benefited so much from what grew out of Vannevar Bush’s vision, should respond with 3ur best practical efforts to renew that vision of the endless frontier. To be successful, any such effort must engage the scientific community - i.e. the collective us - jointly with society - i.e. the public and governments on which we rely for support and of which we are a part. We must begin by identifying the root causes of today’s troubles on the frontier of science and society. Here are my four prime candidates for serious concern:
1. The public and our government officials, by and large, do not understand science - how it is done, and what it means to make progress; 2. Science is an engine of change, but it is distressing that society views science with such great suspicion as a source of new hazards and of problems that arise in association with change. This view tends to obscure society’s appreciation of the critical role that science plays as a revolutionary force for improving the human condition.
3. In recent years the idea of a partnership between the scientists and government as envisioned by Vannevar Bush in the management of the nation’s research enterprise has eroded. Increasingly the government has imposed bureaucratic layers of microma.na.geineiit and excessive oversight that have become a detriment to the actual performance of the research.
4. There are serious mismatches between the planning time scale and resource levels used by society and by science in developing future plans. The length of time to train and develop new scientists and to carry through substantive research programs is much longer than the typical duration of government funding plans aad commitments. Here are several examples of how these four prime candidates that I have identified as root causes of today’s problems manifest themselves. There is no
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clearer example of a profound lack of understanding of the scientific process, the nature of scientific hypothesis and evidence, aad the very meaning of scientific progress, than the recurring debate on teaching creationism in the schools. T h e creationist’s argument is couched in such language as “I can’t prove my model and you can’t prove yours.” Absent from such an assertion is any idea of how science amasses evidence, develops and tests hypotheses, generalizes, and makes new predictions t o be confronted by further evidence. Valid models must have an empirical base and offer the possibility of being toppled by new data. There is also a great difference between the image of science in the mind’s eye
of the public at large, and how most science is actually done and makes progress. Aside from the overdrawn figure of a very rare genius like Einstein, the public typically thinks of science in terms of an organized project with an externally set strategic goal of immediate national importance. The standard of success is the building of the atom bomb by the Manhattan Project 50 years ago; or at least of equal importance, if somewhat less sensational, the development of radar at the MIT Rad Lab in World War 11. Those, indeed, were terrific and timely achievements with immensely important consequences. As such they created inflated expectations as well as a false picture of science. The scientific story of the atom bomb has to be understood in terms of the preceding decade’s quiet and profound scientific achievements by the likes of Chadwick, Fermi, Hahn and Strassman, Meitner and Frisch, and Niels Bohr, in their lonely laboratories and studies. Their work was, in Vannevar Bush’s words that I cited earlier: “the free play of free intellects, working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown.” The legacy of the Manhattan project, and of other similar ventures like the Apollo moon landings, has created inflated expectations and a false picture of what science can do. It has led to today’s call of society to mount an assault on maladies such as cancer and AIDS, with an expectation that the victory will be timely and total. Anything less is viewed to be a failure. There are undesirable consequences of this view of science as a targeted endeavor with externally set agendas t o solve strategic goals. With today’s spending caps the consequences of targeting increased funding in the federal budget on such strategic goals is likely to divert funds from the all important quest of deeper understanding and thereby delay progress. In the examples of cancer and AIDS, the critically important search for a deeper understanding of fundamental cellular processes would most likely be the loser. In addition such targeted assaults on specific illnesses creates false hopes in those who develop unrealistic expectations of being cured. In spite of this we have been hearing a crescendo of goveriiinent voices in
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recent years defining strategic gods and setting the agenda for scientific research. This growing tendency to earmark Congressionally appropriated funds for strategic goals is based on an underlying a,nd totally false assumption that one can program intellectual curiosity and the free play of free iiitellects in exploring the unknown. Baruch Blumberg, Nobel Laureate and discoverer of the hepatitis B virus, which led to a life-saving vaccine now used extensively world-wide, addressed this point in a column that appeared in the Financial Times of London earlier this year. He wrote that he started this research “from a question in basic science without a specific application in mind.” In his opinion, he wrote, this discovery would not have happened as fast, if at all, had he been assigned the task of finding a hepatitis B virus. In a recent commencement address, my distinguished colleague Dr. Lucy Shapiro, Head of the Department of Developmental Biology at the Stanford Medical School spoke to the same point in emphasizing the importance of retaining the focus on basic research: “For exa.mple, drug-resistant pathogenic bacteria, like those which cause tuberculosis, a.re increasing a.t a ra,pid ra.te a.nd the antibiotics that we have used for the past 50 years don’t work any more on these resistant organisms. Our dependence on antibiotics and our coiifidence in rapid cures is jeopardized. This could result in the end of the era of presumptive good health that we have all taken for granted. Today infectious diseases are the leading cause of death in the world. 111 order to combat drug-resistant bacteria, wide-spread viral infections like AIDS, and new virulent strains of viruses and bacteria, we have to have new strategies, and this won’t happen unless we have a profound understanding of ba.sic life proces~es.” The concern I am expressing here is not with the government’s setting long term goals for science and technology, as a.n integral part of its policymaking and budgeting processes. Such long term thinking is important for all of society and should benefit basic research. My concern is strategic goal setting with earmarked funds which will have a stifling effect on the free play of free intellects driven by curiosity. The second prime candidate for serious concern that I identified is the public’s insecurity in the face of scientific progress. The alarm generated amongst the public by the words “nuclear” and “radioactivity” is a good example of the highly exaggerated suspicions and fears of new risks and hazards being generated by scientific progress. The “shiver reaction” to the word nuclear has led the medical profession to label its new and enormously valuable diagnostic tool for taking the most precise pictures of what is going on inside our bodies by noninvasive means as Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or MRI. We all lmow of course that the basic scientific process
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in this instrument is nuclear magnetic resonance, a process first understood in t h e study of nuclear physics more than 50 years ago and measured shortly after World War I1 b y Felix Bloch and Edwin Purcell. We can bury the word “nuclear” in MRI and that technique is generally trusted and highly appreciated for its far-reaching health benefits. The same holds true for CAT scans. However we cannot avoid t h e use of nuclear in connection with nuclear reactors for civilian power. As a result of exaggerated, and sometimes false, claims of the risks, the industry to build this cleanest and safest source of electrical energy has ground to a halt in this country. This in spite of the fact that nuclear power is the only well-developed and proven alternative to carbon dioxide polluting fossil fuels that sooner or later will enhance a greenhouse effect on earth. The same goes for radioactivity and nuclear radiation more generally, although radiation therapy is a crucial weapon against cancer. Your distinguished McGovern lecturer two years ago, Dr. J. Michael Bishop, noted that concern about radioactivity has created an immensely costly challenge t o the ability of the University of California at San Francisco just t o continue biomedical research in the residential area where it is now located. Turning next to my third prime area of concern about the growing burdens of bureaucracy, there is strong testimony to this problem in the recently released report of the Galvin Task Force, entitled “Alternative Futures for the Department of Energy National Laboratories.” It presents a scathing indictment of how counterproductive the government’s micromanagement and excessive oversight of the DOE’S great national laboratories has become in recent years. The Task Force properly recognized the outstanding quality of R & D being done, but also expressed serious concerns, as in this quote from their overview of laboratory governance: “The Task Force observed multiple symptoms of institutional stress at the national laboratories, including the following: Increasing overhead cost, poor morale and gross inefficiencies as a result of overly prescriptive Congressional management and excessive oversight by the Department ; Inordinate internal focus at every level of these laboratories on compliance issues and questions of management processes, which takes a major toll on research performance;. ..’’ High-energy physics offers an extreme exa.mple of the fourth prime candidate for serious concern that I raised; that is the mismatch between the scientists’ and the government’s resource a.ssuniptions and planning time scales. Between 1990 and 1995, optimism in preparing for research at the superconducting supercollider,
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that is the SSC, being built in Texas, led to an increase of roughly 10% in the number of experimental groups supported by the Department of Energy in highenergy physics. But now, in the aftermath of the cancellation of the SSC in late 1993, there is roughly 8% less total funding for the field than there was in 1990 in terms of dollars with constant buying power. In addition, on top of this squeeze, we lost substantial funds that were supporting physicists employed a t the SSC Laboratory. Understandably this sequence has generated much discouragement and disillusion among the new generation of young physicists about their prospects of being able to build research careers and find opportunities to fulfill their dreams of scientific exploration and achievement in high energy physics. Evidence of a strong government commitment t o reverse this trend and support a stable long term research program with predictable funding levels will be needed to restore the faith of these young people. Here is another example of a serious problem due to a large difference between resource assumptions underlying scientists’ plans and those used by the government in setting support levels. As reported in the series of three excellent articles on American science by Boyce Rensberger in the Washington Post this past December, the ranks of university-based scientists supported by federal grants has been growing a t a steady rate over the last decade a t 5.7% a year. That is 2 - l / 2 times faster than the U.S. work force as a whole. The situation is particularly acute in medical science where the growth has been 10 times faster than the overall work force. Against this pattern of growth the federal funding for science in constant value dollars has to a vei-y good approximation been flat since 1987. This has evidently created a glut of applications for support, an especially serious problem for the younger scientists looking for a first grant to begin their research careers. Such examples show how important it is, both to avoid mismatches in anticipated vs. realistic funding levels, and also to maintain a stable predictability in the support for long-term research programs. Without such predictability, efficient research plans go by the boards. Program starts and stops in response to unplanned funding changes from year to year lead to wasted effort. And when the time from the initial idea to completion of an experimental research program stretches out to a good fraction of the productive lifetime of a young scientist, we can expect nothing less than the defection of some of the younger generation’s best talent to other more promising careers. Now comes the hard part. Having defined our problem - what can and should we do to solve it? In theoretical physics it is frequently said that the key, the most difficult step, to making progress, is being able to ask the right question, or to properly define the right problem. I find - and I always have found - the situation
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to be very different when facing social or political issues. It is just the opposite. For these, the hardest part is finding solutions - which is why Einstein was as usual right when he said “Politics is much harder than physics.” One common theme runs through the first two concerns I have raised. In society’s lack of understanding of science and how it is done, and its concerns about risks and hazards that scientific progress purportedly generates, I see a common theme: science simply has not entered our culture. By and large the society and government we rely on for support is scientifically illiterate. And that is a situation for us to correct - not only in our self interest, but more so in our nation’s and society’s interest. Science and technology are so essential a part of modern day life that scientific literacy is assuming an importance comparable t o the ability to read and write - which are the more familiar domain of literacy. It belongs in the core of the education curriculum no less than reading, writing, and arithmetic - and not just to train scientists, any more than English courses should focus on training professional writers. Our challenge is to prepare a broad student community to function and contribute as informed citizens equipped to cope with the choices and make important decisioiis that will shape the quality of the human condition as we enter the 21st century. And education does not take place only in the classroom. We must also make use of a wide range of effective outreach channels - both printed and electronic - to reach a larger public.
I realize I am not saying anything new, and that many in this very audience have done more and better than I have in addressing this need. Never mind. I salute you, but we must do better and, in particular, give special attention to informing citizens to appreciate what science is and how it is done, so that they will then be able to participate in civic affairs with a basic understanding of the process and concepts of science. That is what one means by scientific literacy! And no one else can do it for us. Just as life has become increasingly difficult in modern society for illiterate people who cannot read or write, American citizens are increasingly being confronted with choices for which a basic understanding of science - its potential, its limits, and its process and ways of thinking - is necessary in order to make informed decisions. In the recently published report “On Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research” by our National Academy* it was estimated that nearly one-half the bills before Congress have significant scientific or technical components. -
Evidence of the enormous impact of modern science on society is plain to see from the development of nuclear weapons and energy that grew out of study of
* Committee
011 Science, Engineering, and Public Policy of the National Academy of Science, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine: 1995
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nuclear physics to the development of recombinant DNA that grew out of investigations of certain bacterial enzymes. Those facts need no rehearsing or repeating. What I am emphasizing is our self-interest, beyond our responsibility as scientists, to help see to it that the concepts and processes of science enter our culture and become ingrained in it. The better the citizens and the officials on whom we rely for our essential support are educated and trained to understand the nature of process and progress in basic scientific research, the better will be our prospects for restoring a more productive mutual partnership with our society and government. That statement is not mere wishful thinking. It is a basic axiom of enlightenment. One consequence of such education should be a better understanding of the fact that none of us the public, government officials, nor we scientists - are wise enough to know how best to mount a directed attack on a strakegic goal to defeat this or that disease, or t o create this or that new technology as our strategic goal. Our best weapon for making leaps of progress of major significance is the free play of strong intellects exercising their curiosity. This is what I have in mind when I advocate ensuring that science enters into our culture. And in any effort to bring this about we should make use of one of
our most powerful allies, namely industry. Advanced technology-based industry understands our mutual dependence just as well as we do. We rely on the latest technologies to advance our experimental capabilities, and we can speed up the technical applications of scientific progress by working closely together with industry. From their perspective technology-based industry understands the limitations of basic research that is narrowly targeted to achieve specific technological advances, and recognizes its own dependence on scientific progress. Who could have predicted that the development of quantum mechanics to explain the behavior of atoms in the 1920s would have a crucial role to play, decades later, in the development of the transistor, the semiconductor, and the highly miniaturized nanotechnologies of the future? In 1911, when the phenomenon of superconductivity was discovered, who would have anticipated the benefits to basic and applied science and technology, and to medicine, of the innovative technologies it would make possible half a century later? And think of the enormous growth of the biotechnology industry and the new potential for treating diseases that is a direct consequence of the discovery of the genetic basis of life in the DNA and RNA and recent progress mapping the huma.n genome.
I also believe a good dose of scientific literacy - and I have in mind particularly statistical literacy - is a critical antidote to counter the severe allergy to any risk, no matter how small, that may accompany new technical applications spawned by progress in science. Progress here will be particularly difficult. It is not just a
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problem of creating a society of citizens and leaders who are much more literate on scientific and statistical matters. We also have to overcome a legacy of distrust because of previous occasions on which the public has concluded, not entirely without cause, that it has been treated by government officials and scientists working both in and out of government with less than full candor. And there are few things that are more difficult to recover in a democratic society than lost credibility. We entered the nuclear age with assurances that there were no dangers of fallout from nuclear tests in the atmosphere. This claim was made by the same officials whose dual, and often conflicting, responsibilities were to develop our nuclear arsenal, in support of which hundreds of tests were performed that introduced radioactivity into our atmosphere, and, simultaneously, to ensure our safety from harmful fallout. Only after 18 years, and much world-wide popular protest, together with mounting evidence that the assurances of safety were exaggerated, did atmospheric testing cease. The danger t o health and limb may not have been large, given the natural background exposures in everyday life, but memories of the hyperbole in the original claims still linger. And for many located nearby and downwind from the test areas, the damage was very real. During the past year much more information about experiments involving humans exposed to controlled doses of radioactivity has been made public by the Clinton Administration. It may be true that most exposures were voluntary and based on contemporary medical practice. We knew much less then about effects of radiation - I well remember insisting on buying shoes at those stores with x-ray machines which showed me the bones in my feet and toes. But a limited number of experiments admittedly were also involuntary and more conjectural. Such actions have left a residue of distrust that further complicates the task of improving the understanding of what kinds and levels of risks, if any, are involved in scientific activities that touch the public. And this difficulty affects all realms of science today - even to the extent that fear and opposition are encountered to processes that scientifically are well understood to be totally harmless. For instance we still hear concerns and public opposition to keeping tomatoes from rotting in the stores, simply by mutating a specific gene in them. This change prevents the gene from making the enzyme that breaks down the material of tomatoes. We have two important weapons against such science-induced anxieties:
1. Education - to create a scientifically literate population that can bring a reasoned and informed judgment to bear on issues on the frontier between science and society. These issues include resources in support of basic science, and formulating regulations governing its activities so as to permit its maximum benefits to be realized while at the same time giving confidence that the public will not be exposed to unacceptable hazards or unreasonable
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risks.
2. Trust - the sina qua non for building a productive dialogue between scientists and the public and political leaders whose cooperation and support are so essential to our sustained scientific progress. In these dealings, as within science itself, hyperbole and arrogance are no substitutes for credibility based on accuracy and moderation in our promises of progress and claims of success. It is imperative that we bring to the political and public process the same total integrity and high scientific standards that we demand in our laboratories. That is the bedrock for a relationship of trust.
M y prescription here is neither tough nor original. It calls for putting more energy into reaching out to society by every possible means to improve scientific literacy. We must, in particular, figure out how to reach students who are not planning to be scientists, or engineers, or doctors. I think that there is an important role for prestigious national scientific organizations, like Sigma Xi, in enhancing scientific literacy and strengthening the bonds of trust between the scientific community and society. With respect to the third concern I raised about excessive government interference, I welcome the way the report of the Galvin Task Force has taken that issue head on. We need to remind ourselves that U.S. government management of scientific research and laboratories as government-owned, contractor-operated, or GOCO, entities worked superbly for many years. It was admirably enlightened, efficient, and flexible. I hope that actions taken in response to the criticisms made in the Galvin report will contribute to restoring that productive partnership. I a m encouraged that Secretary of Energy Hazel 0 ’Leary immediately responded t o the report by agreeing to its indictment that DOE’S management of the laboratories has become excessively costly, bureaucratic, and inefficient , and committing her department to an urgent effort to fix the problem. It is not just the DOE laboratories that need such a fix. For its part the scientific community must demonstrate and maintain a quality of leadership and responsibility in managing our affairs that will satisfy the government that there is no need for it to impose excessive oversight on management regulations. Finally, I turn to the fourth concern that I raised: the mismatch between the scientists and the government’s planning time scales. Multi-year budget cycles in the Congress and the effective setting and holding to long term planning goals would be of enormous importa.nce. I have nothing to add to the extensive and thoughtful discussion of such prospects except my hope that an improved scientific literacy in our culture will make them more realistic and less fanciful than in the past. I am more concerned about wha,t we scientists ourselves should be doing to better match our long term research plans and priorities with realistic funding
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prospects. By doing better on this score, we will be able to manage our programs more successfully and efficiently. We will also be able to provide more realistic, as well as promising, research opportunities for bright young students who plan t o pursue careers in science. The public treasury cannot and will not support all our dearest research dreams, and we must face up to the task of setting priorities throughout all science. Making such choices can be very difficult and hard on collegial relationships, but the examples I cited earlier show there is need for improvement in how we plan. The alternative of leaving priority decisions exclusively to the political process without our strong guidance is certainly worse. For almost thirty years high energy physicists have relied on so-called HEPAP prodess, i .e. the High-Energy Physics Advisory Panel to develop scientific priorities for the U.S. program within funding guidelines from Washington. The process created and sustained a community wide consensus - or at least a working covenant. It had a high batting average of success up until the demise of the SSC. We achieved this by providing a process and a forum that was credible in the eyes of both the scientific community and the program managers and funding agencies in government. With respect to the SSC we ran into some unique difficulties, due in part to its enormous size and cost, and we suffered a major failure. We lost credibility in the eyes of the public for a variety of reasons, some of our own doing, but none due t o technical failures. Costs rose and conflicted with other national needs at a time of economic difficulties. In my own mind, our failure to undertake the SSC as a truly international project at the outset was decisive. But rather than discuss the SSC, I want to emphasize that over this past year, with the help of the HEPAP mechanism, we have succeeded in reestablishing a vision for our future. And it is one that has received strong support in Washington, at least in these very early days of putting together the budget for the coming year in Congress, because of its modest budgetary assumptions. The strong program that has been proposed cuts new ground with its call for a greater involvement in international collaboration. This is quite appropriate. As our scientific instruments have grown so large and expensive, it is essential as well as scientifically advanta,geous to collaborate more broadly in the future in the actual building as well as utilizing of international facilities. National advisory mechanisms like HEPAP are of great value for the task of setting priorities in individual fields of science. They may take different forms in the various scientific disciplines, but I will emphasize one aspect of my experience last year with the panel to put back the pieces of the high energy program and develop a practical post-SSC vision. I insisted that the majority of the panel members be active young tigers on their way up with a strong track record and
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building for their own long term futures. They were terrific - resourceful, energetic, imaginative, and committed. That was a great choice, one that I highly recommend for similar undertakings in the future. Looking ahead, and particularly with the current budget cutting mood in Washington, I believe that we will have to face up to the need to do more in setting priorities, including between broadly different fields of science. That will not be our responsibility alone, but the better our guidance the more likely it is that sensible priorities will be set. This calls for consensus and coalition building with colleagues in diverse fields of science working together with sensitivity to our mutual concerns and needs. Nothing gives Washington a better excuse t o look away from our needs than conflicting views and intensive warfare on priorities. That was one of the lessons to draw from the debate over the SSC. We should recognize our rich and profound interdependence as equal partners with the technical industrial community. There is too high a prestige, or success, factor associated with students being cloned for academia in the image of their mentors. In our training and tutoring we should emphasize a career vista that is more broadly rich. At least in some realms of science this calls for a change in our cultures - or at least a modification in behavior.
I have described major challenges, as I see them, that we are facing on the troubled frontier of science and society. Both scientists and the nation have a lot riding on our success in meeting this challenge. Every American can take justifiable pride in the contribution that science in the United States has made to our country and to humanity. Throughout history we have learned that improved productivity, economic vitality, and strengthened national security have accompanied scientific progress in comprehending the world and nature around us. This message was the fundamental theme of Vannevar Bush in his wonderful report. It is also our legacy as scientists to future generations.
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T O ACT OR NOT T O ACT
fl Have Accepted the Obligation to Try to
He& the Government Functiofl’
Dear Professor Burhop: I a m responding to your letter of April 11 describing views and concerns expressed at the last meeting of the Bureau of the World Federation of Scientific Workers with reference to participation by U.S. scientists in military activities of our government, I n particular y o u ask of those who “have participated in the work of the Jason committee . . . how they felt it is possible to justify their actions t o their consciences.” Your letter poses a serious issue and deserves, I believe, a serious response. I think all men of conscience and intelligence face obligations associated with their knowledge and its potential effects o n fellow citizens throughout the world. Some may choose to act solely through their scientific teachings and writings, others through their involvement with their governments, and still others through international organizations seeking to promote better human conditions. For myself, I have chosen a course which, inter alia, includes substantial efforts to affect i n whatever way I can the policies of the United States through various scientific and technical advisory and working mechanisms. I do this out of the conviction that it is generally an unhealthy situation for a society when its leaders are split into two camps: the intellectual-scientist critics o n the outside and the governmental decision-makers on the inside. Since I live in a country in which I a m privileged to have the opportunity to choose m y government representatives, I have accepted the obligation to try to help the government function. T o be sure I fully recognize that there are many parts o f this (or any other) government that are engaged i n many diverse activities. I n some areas of governmental policy I work publicly through the political processes. I n other problem areas I apply m y technical expertise through various official channels within the government. I n m y personal efforts as a scientist working with m y government I have been, and fully expect that I will continue to be, guided by my conscience and by basic principles as I see them. At the forefront of these I attach overriding importance to working for peace, for reduced human suffering, and for improved conditions of free human expression as well as survival through0 u t the world.
W e all recognize that scientists and all intellectuals in the different countries around the world are faced with problems and issues deriving from their governments’ policies and activities. I n some instances there may be full support for these policies; whereas i n others there may be a basic feeling of their error. I n each case i t is each individual’s choice whether, or how, to involve himself in the functioning of his government when and if the opportunity is made available t o him. As a scientific community we are inevitably divided by such activities because present political realities dictate that not all such work can enjoy the full and open exchange of ideas as well as the public scrutiny that is traditional and cherished in our purely scientific world. I hope your conference will discuss broader aspects of the issues you raise and will not simply focus narrowly on Vietnam and U.S. scientists. Do you wish to oppose all involvement of scientists in their country’s military programs, whether it be atmospheric nuclear testing as now carried out by France and the Chinese People’s Republic, or strategic missile developments leading to more deadly and/or safer weapons, or “national technical means” for making possible arms limitation agreements that can be verified? Do you think scientists are more pure if they adopt a hands off attitude than if they try to guide or influence the direction of military policy? Do you wish to propose an official organizational stamp of approval or disapproval upon a scientist’s activities that is to be given a higher moral value or force than an individual‘s own conscience and values? Do you think you can unambiguously define good and bad activities? I for one feel no need nor desire for any such official political guidance! I also have confidence and faith in most o f m y colleagues in the worldwide scientific and intellectual community and I certainly assume, unless faced with evidence to the contrary, that they are guided by general principles concordant with those I have expressed above. Sincerely yours, Sidney D. Drdl Sidney D. Drell is professor of physics at Stanford University in California and deputy director of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center. His letter is reprinted here with his permission.
Reprinted with permission from Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists: The Magazine of Global Security, Science, and Survival, November 1974, p. 6. Copyright (1974) by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Chicago, IL 60637.
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Chapter I1
Issues Coming to the Fore Immediately Following the Collapse of the Soviet Union and the End of the Cold War
With the collapse of the Soviet Union we entered the post-Cold War era. This brought to the fore new diplomatic opportunities for walking away from the brink of catastrophic nuclear war. Most importantly they included the 1991 initiatives by Presidents George H. W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev to remove most of the tactical, or short-range, nuclear forces, and to reduce the size of the strategic nuclear arsenals. Interest was renewed in the proposals at the 1986 Reykjavik Summit to do away with all strategic ballistic missiles, or "fast fliers" as President Reagan called them, so that there would be no need for hair-trigger response in time of crisis. There were also renewed calls for an end to all underground nuclear explosive tests and negotiation of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. These issues are addressed in this chapter in four essays. The first essay, "Science and National Security,'' covers the broad landscape of these possibilities and provides a framework for the essays that follow. It is a major part of my closing address at the 1991 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that was included in my previous book "In the Shadow of the Bomb." The second essay is my testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in March 1992 on The Future of Arms Control. I discuss the importance of reductions in strategic forces and the opportunities to accomplish them now that the Cold War was over. I also elaborate on the role of ballistic missile defenses in the new era of arms reductions. The third essay, published in Issues In Science and Technology (National Academy of Sciences; Spring 1992), is an elaboration of the idea presented by President Reagan at Reykjavik to ban all long-range ballistic missiles. The deal came close to being made, but foundered when the negotiations on restricting ABM systems stalled on the word "laboratory." Nevertheless it offers an attractive option for removing the concern of serious mistakes being made under the pressure for a hair-trigger response. President Reagan's proposal is being pursued once again today with renewed vigor. The fourth essay is an article published in Foreign Afaivs (spring 1993) co-authored with McGeorge Bundy and Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr. on the range of steps that would contribute to reducing nuclear danger. This essay is abstracted from a book by the same authors with the title: "Reducing Nuclear Danger: The Path Away from the Brink that was published in 1993 by the Council on Foreign Relations. It covers a broad range of initiatives that expand the political dialogue and reduce the nuclear arsenals and activities.
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Science and National Security Adapted f r o m the concluding address to the 6th Annual American Association f o r the Advancement of Science Colloquium on Science and Security, Washington, D . C . , November 22, 1991
My talk was given a prescient title by the organizers of this program. It has the virtue of allowing me to talk about pretty much anything on my mind. I am grateful for that because any more specific title that might have been proposed several months ago would very likely have been somewhat overtaken by events, particularly following the speech of President Bush on September 27 and the October 5 response by President Gorbachev. We now have a constructive dialogue between the United States and the fragmented Soviet Union. The United Nations proved that it could play a constructive political role following Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, now that it is no longer split by Cold War confrontations between the East and the West. The START I treaty has been signed. And, best of all, we have the Bush and Gorbachev initiatives of September 27 and October 5 , respectively. I consider those two speeches a turning point in the U.S.-Soviet nuclear confrontation-the best news on that front since we started living under the nuclear threat following Hiroshima. They accomplished four big things. First, they dramatically reduced the role of the less-than-strategic weapons, giving promise that, in Europe, the reduced ground forces on all sides will be free of nuclear weapons, as will the worldwide naval forces for all but the strategic submarines with their ballistic missiles. The weapons being retired include the ones that have presented the largest difficulties in safety and in command and control. They are among the oldest, technically the most primitive and most accident prone in the arsenal, and they present the greatest dangers of unauthorized dispersion. The Soviets in particular have deployed many thousands of nuclear warheads in this short-range class throughout their republics. Their elimination will greatly relieve worldwide concerns that these weapons, with their deadly nuclear material, may fall into the hands of dissidents or terrorists or may actually be used in civil strife. Second, both leaders reduced the alertness of strategic forces, moving further away from postures that presented the possibility of sudden Reprinted from In the Shadow of the Bomb: Physics and Arms Control (Masters o f Modem Physics, Vol. 6)(AIP Press, 1993),pp. 326-333., with kind permission of Springer Science and Business Media.
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attack. Along with this, they also accelerated reductions in the numbers mandated b y the START treaty. Third, by announcing unilateral steps, the leaders set a precedent for a new and more flexible process of arms control to serve as a companion to the increasingly cumbersome negotiations of formal treaties. Nothing remotely like President Bush’s announcement would have been conceivable even three years earlier. The value of that announcement has, of course, been greatly increased by the rapidity and range of President Gorbachev’s response. The differences of emphasis in the two statements are peripheral and much less important than the large degree of their overlap. They indeed reinforce each other. Both countries have now opened the path to arms reductions by reciprocal unilateral actions to join the more developed one of increasingly complex bilateral agreements. These new initiatives mark progress much larger than was expected by any one outside the circle of decision. Above anything else, this shows how much the old rules have changed for the good in the US.-Soviet basic nuclear relationship. And fourth-and perhaps the most important of all as we look ahead-the courageous and broad decisions by both leaders reflect and reinforce in both countries a growing public judgment that our two countries, the Soviet Union and the United States, are and should be much less adversarial as we face our common problems in the twentyfirst century. Much, of course, remains to be done. A speech marks a turning point, not the end of the road. President Bush, for example, proposed an important new negotiating agenda, including a new initiative to enter into detailed technical discussions of cooperative measures to improve command and control of nuclear weapons and to enhance their physical security. Technical information that we share with the Soviets on improving command and control and weapons safety will enhance our safety since we are the most likely targets of an accidental or unauthorized missile launch from the Soviet Union or one of their submarines. The president’s agenda also includes negotiating verifiable means of dismantling nuclear warheads as the United States and Soviet Union begin to actually reduce the number of warheads in our excessively large stockpiles. That, too, will be a most important first. However, I want to focus on a different theme here, and that is, What can science do to contribute to better security during the corning years, in view of the new developments on the political scene? The most threatening new development we face comes from the proliferation of the technology for building and delivering weapons of
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mass destruction. In particular, I refer to nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles. The recent discoveries of how extensive and advanced were the Iraqi programs toward building nuclear weapons provided a rude wake-up call on the imminence of the danger of nuclear proliferation. The challenge to counter or slow the pace of proliferation is one with many complex political dimensions, and it calls for devising the right mix of carrots and sticks-both economic and political-to provide incentives to discourage new countries from entering the nuclear club. Some will no doubt go nuclear for whatever regional or ideological reasons, but it will surely remain in the highest interest of the more developed and wealthier nations of the world to preserve the 46-yearold tradition of not using nuclear weapons. If that tradition goes, we will have the most to lose. The very successful application of technology in the Persian Gulf War showed one valuable contribution of science and technology to strengthening this tradition of avoiding the use of nuclear weapons. The development of high-tech, precision-guided munitions, together with timely information and total awareness of events on the battlefield, served two important roles in this regard. First, there was no need for the greater fire power of even the smallest nuclear weapons that some would urge us to develop in order to make them “more usable.” After all, against a localized hard military target, a factor of 10 in the improvement of accuracy is worth about a factor of 1000from ton to kiloton-in bomb yield. But have no doubt about how great are the dangers of further escalation to higher yield, once the nuclear threshold has been crossed. And, second, although the U.S. nuclear arsenal failed to deter Saddam Hussein, the effectiveness of our conventional forces, enhanced so substantially by the high-technology sensors and precision guidance, should greatly raise the stakes for the next would-be agressor. Our forces will continue to need the best that technology has to offer, so long as the world we inhabit remains peopled by nations that still see the image of an enemy in one another. Furthermore, the United States, with its global interest and responsibilities, will continue to require better sensors and communications to maintain an awareness of developments around the world, even as we reduce our reliance on overseas bases. This, by the way, is more than a technical challenge, because the product we seek is understanding-and that also requires good education, knowledge of languages, and familiarity with many cultures. One may hope that, in the future, with better global awareness, we shall be able to pick up earlier and more accurate signals of
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proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Without question, it will require a strong scientific community and a technical R&D base to undergird these activities. Let me turn to another challenge for science. In a world with new nuclear countries that may be less deterred by our nuclear weapons than was our Cold War adversary, we may find that a better case can be made for limited defenses against accidents or primitive missile attacks. To prepare for an informed policy choice, we must rely on the research-and-developmentcommunity to learn the best possible opportunities for, as well as the realistic limitations on, ballistic-missile defense. We can hope that this is what we will now learn from the new R&D program on ballistic-missile defense, which has changed from its initial unrealistic goal of a nationwide “astrodome defense” to a more achievable one of Global Protection Against Limited Strikes (GPALS). The United States and the Soviet Union understandably share a desire to improve their security against the threat posed by one or a few ballistic missiles, whether launched accidentally against each other’s homeland or launched by another country with a newly emerging, relatively primitive system. How to do this-or even whether the potential threat warrants deploying an expensive system-has yet to be decided. Any decision must be based on a realistic assessment of the available technologies, as well as on the impact of such deployments on our security, on the stability of the nuclear-deterrent balance, and on prospects of further arms reductions. If these questions are addressed in the same spirit of cooperation and of shared mutual interests that set the tone of President Bush’s speech on September 27, there is good reason to be optimistic about the prospects of making welcome progress on this issue.
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Very much has been written or said about both the requirements for, and the tensions between, deterrence and ballistic-missile defenses. I have nothing to add to that long record, but I would rather step back and take a deep plunge here, looking further ahead with the question whether the United States, the Soviet Union, and the world in toto might not now be ready for what President Reagan proposed at Reyjkavik five years ago, and that is to reduce all ballistic missilesthe “fast fliers”-to zero. Removing the ballistic-missile force would not eliminate the capacity for nuclear offensive actions. Rather, it would put a greater burden on the strategic-bomber force, which has the dual advantages of being recallable in the event of accident or misunderstanding and of being many hours rather than minutes away from delivering its deadly devestation. With bombers, we would no longer be living a mere 20-30 minutes away from nuclear obliteration. Not only do the strategic bombers take many hours to reach their targets, they can be removed from an armed, alert posture-a step recently implemented by both President Bush and President Gorbachev-thereby further lengthening the time interval to catastrophe. Moreover, with modern technology that has already been developed and demonstrated, one can have the necessary confidence in the effectiveness of a long-range bomber with accurate and stealthy stand-off cruise missiles (ALCMs) armed with nuclear warheads. A U.S. proposal to eliminate all offensive ballistic missiles was first presented by President Reagan at the Reyjavik Summit in October 1986. Embraced by President Gorbachev, it eventually foundered on the difference between the U.S. and Soviet positions on SDIparticularly the Soviet misguided insistance to limit all SDI research, development, and testing to the “laboratory.” Speaking at the University of Chicago on November 17, 1986, Secretary of State George Shultz stated the argument for zero ballistic missiles forcefully:
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In such circumstances, both the United States and the Soviet Union would lose the capability provided by ballistic missiles to deliver large numbers of nuclear weapons on each others’ homelands in less than 30 minutes time. But Western strategy is, in fact, defensive in nature, built upon the pledge that we will only use our weapons, nuclear and conventional, in self-defense. Therefore, the loss of this quick kill capability-so suited to preemptive attack-will ease fears of a disarming first strike. The nuclear forces remaining-aircraft and cruise missileswould be far less useful for first-strike attacks but would be more appropriate for retaliation. They would be more flexible in use than ballistic missiles. The slower flying aircraft can be recalled after launch. They can be re-targeted in flight. They can be reused for several missions. And he concluded that they “would be capable of fulfilling the requirements of the Western alliance’s deterrent strategy.” Any consideration of total elimination of ballistic missiles-or even of their deep reductions-has to start by answering the hard questions, such as, What are our targeting requirements? What if any risks do such reductions present? How do we get there from today’s force structure? Our requirements and risks have been analyzed thoroughly in the context of a U.S.-Soviet Cold War confrontation. The result is the current triad of ICBMs, SLBMs, and strategic bombers-and the not altogether comfortable acceptance of living less than 30 minutes from oblivion. New factors emerging in the post-Cold War era may radically change that conclusion. A new analysis is called for that fully incorporates the sweeping worldwide political changes of the past few years. Targeting requirements have diminished considerably with the demise of the Warsaw Pact and the Conventional Forces in Europe negotiation of balanced limits on conventional forces at greatly reduced strengths. These developments have muted arguments for extended deterrence against a massive conventional attack, and, in fact, we are now removing the battlefield nuclear weapons and have substantially reduced the number of targets in our Single Integrated Operating Plan. Correspondingly reduced is the need for “time-urgent counterforce,” which requires the capabilities of fast-flying, accurate ballistic missiles in contrast to slow-flying, ALCM-loaded bombers. Another factor is cost. At greatly reduced levels of deployment of
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the strategic offensive forces, the cost differential between missile and bomber forces will decrease in importance for two reasons. The first is that the total costs will be less; the second is that, as we continue to lower the degree of fractionation of the missile payload enroute to de-MIRVing the missiles, the difference in cost per deliverable warhead between bomber and missile payloads will also decrease, especially if we insist on mobility in order to retain invulnerability of land-based as well as sea-based missiles. Moreover, it should be practical to maintain confidence in the safety, security, and survivability of a dispersed bomber force. In particular, no direct Soviet threat to such a force would exist with no ballistic missiles or nuclear-armed SLCMs, which Presidents Bush and Gorbachev also proposed to remove in their initiatives. Confidence in the bombers’ survivability would be a most critical requirement before going this route, as would be the most careful technical and operational analysis for assessing risks to their survivability. There would be no concerns about SDI deployments and their threat to stability if there were no offensive ballistic missiles. Any country could choose its own unilateral or cooperative path for deploying defenses against shorter-range ballistic missiles as insurance against hostile neighbors. Peaceful cooperation in space would become a reality. I give great importance to building a world order that, if free of U.S.-Soviet confrontation, is also as free as possible of nations retaining any “quick-kill capability” for nuclear attack at long range. It is generally assumed that, early in the next century, a dozen or more countries will have the capability of delivering weapons of mass destruction over very long distances-up to intercontinental range. It is certainly in our interest to avoid such a threat to the U.S. homeland if at all possible. It is axiomatic that the ability to head off the deployment of such weapons by political means will be considerably enhanced if all nations are willing to forego them. Although recent experience with Iraq illustrates the difficulty in verifying how far a country can move covertly toward a nuclear capability, long-range ballistic missiles are large and their testing and deployment is impossible to hide from “national technical means” of detection. It will undoubtedly be a very difficult challenge to remove all longrange ballistic missiles. Although this proposal seemed all too visionary when President Reagan first proposed it in 1986, it now seems to be more realistic in the aftermath of the Cold War-and also more compelling under the threat of proliferation. Such a proposal as this
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faces primarily political obstacles, but meanwhile science and technology should give a serious look at how to get us more than 20 to 30 minutes away from potential obliteration. It would require worldwide assurance of treaty compliance and of attack warning-capabilities we already demonstrate pretty well technically. More openness would also be important-such as open skies, the more-than-35-year-old Eisenhower proposal recently agreed to by the Russians-but, beyond that, more openness and less obsessive secrecy in all matters nuclear. Such secrecy does harm to the process of policy-making, and by now there are few real secrets to protect. It may not be a near-term goal-but a world free of long-range, nuclear-armed ballistic missiles is surely an eminently worthwhile goal to strive for. It should serve for us as the distant star of Robert Frost, “to stay our minds on and be staid.”
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Testimony on The F u t u r e of Arms Control before T h e Senate Foreign Relations C o m m i t t e e March 3, 1992 Sidney D. Drell With the end of the Cold War, and indeed of the Soviet Union itself, we are witnesses t o momentous changes in the world’s political and strategic balance. These changes have triggered spectacular developments in arms control as confrontation and stalemate have transformed to cooperation and a dizzying pace of progress. The treaty reducing conventional forces in Europe (CFE) was signed on November 19, 1990 after more than two decades of negotiating effort. It balances the conventional forces on the European continent at a greatly reduced level and, together with the freeing of the countries of eastern Europe, removes any threat of a major attack from the east against western Europe. Less than a year ago, on July 31, 1991, the START Treaty was signed in Moscow almost ten years after the start of negotiations to reduce the strategic nuclear forces. START represents important progress. Its prompt ratification and implementation are in the security interests of the United States. Among its major accomplishments I mention three: 1. It reduces the nuclear attack potential. In particular the number of the most threatening warheads on ballistic missiles is cut in half and their aggregate throw weight is cut by almost a factor of 2 below the current total of the former Soviet Union. 2. It contains incentives for both nations preferentially to reduce the numbers of multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) carried on ballistic missiles. Its provisions will result in a more balanced mix of forces less capable of threatening a first strike, especially by the forces of the former Soviet Union. 3. It institutionalizes unprecedented cooperative verification measures. Its carefully crafted provisions not only meet the requirements for verifying compliance with the Treaty’s numerical limits and operational restrictions, they also guard against using verification procedures as intelligence fishing expeditions. The greatly increased transparency in military activities that is achieved by the verification regime created by START is more important than ever for the United States as we view the political uncertainty and chaos in the former Soviet Union. Based on more than 28 years of involvement in technical verification issues, I strongly endorse these provisions as ensuring that covert
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activities on a scale and of a nature that could threaten discovered promptly.
US. security will be
The counting rules and the comprehensive verification structure established by START provide a framework for further reductions of the nuclear forces in the future. More recently we have received the best news by far, especially for those of us of a generation that has lived under the fear of nuclear weapons ever since Hiroshima. It came with the remarkable speech by President Bush on September 27 and President Gorbachev’s bold response 8 days later. These initiatives bid fair to go into the history books as a turning point of the superpowers away from their dangerous nuclear confrontation. First of all, they have dramatically reduced the role of the less than strategic weapons, giving promise that in Europe the reduced ground forces on all sides will be free of nuclear weapons as will the world-wide naval forces for all but the strategic submarines with their ballistic missiles. The weapons being retired are among the oldest, technically the most primitive and accident prone in the arsenal. Additionally they present the greatest danger of unauthorized dispersion, a matter of particular concern for the battlefield and short-range nuclear systems that had been deployed widely in the former Soviet Union. Altogether more than 3000 nuclear weapons will be destroyed, and almost as many more will be stored or taken off alert. Second, both leaders reduced the alertness of their strategic forces, moving further away from postures that presented the possibility of sudden attack. Third, by announcing unilateral steps, the leaders set a precedent for a new and more flexible process of arms control to serve as a companion to the increasingly cumbersome negotiations of formal treaties. Above anything else, this shows how much the old rules have changed for the good in the arms control process, now that cooperation has replaced confrontation and the fear of unilateral concessions that were so pervasive during the Cold War. Most recently in his State of the Union message on January 28, 1992, President Bush proposed to match the Russians with another factor of 2 reduction in strategic nuclear forces. This would leave each country with 4700 strategic warheads.*
* The notional US. force under
this proposal would consist of 500 Minuteman I11 missiles each with a single warhead; a Trident SLBM force reduced to about 2300 warheads by downloading the payload on each of the 432 missiles on the 18 boats from eight warheads to between four and six warheads and a SAC nuclear force of about 150 bombers loaded with approximately 1900 air launched cruise missiles and bombs. The US. would retain in addition about 1600 tactical, or short range, nuclear weapons.
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Shortly thereafter President Yeltsin proposed a still deeper cut to 2500 warheads. The two countries have now entered into very high level discussions on a broad range of arms control initiatives including, in addition to deeper reductions, assistance in safely transporting weapons to storage for disarming and dismantling, and cooperative development of early warning and ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems. It would be difficult - if not downright foolish - to look very far ahead and try to predict the future of arms control with so many unprecedently bold initiatives on the table, a somewhat chaotic transition still in progress among the republics of the former Soviet Union, and a prospective July summit coming up. However, there are some clear national security gods for the United States that, together with the new dangers we can anticipate during the coming decade, should guide our programs and policies for the immediate future. The most threatening new development we face is proliferation of the technology for building and delivering weapons of mass destruction. In particular I refer to nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles. The recent discoveries of how extensive and advanced the Iraqi programs were toward building deliverable nuclear weapons provided a rude wake-up call on the imminence of the danger of nuclear proliferation. This is further underscored by activities in North Korea, Iran, Pakistan and several other “hot spots” around the world. I agree with Secretary of State James Baker who, in a Washington, D.C.speech on September 19, 1990, pointed t o “proliferation as perhaps the greatest security challenge of the 1990’s” and indicated that “stopping and countering proliferation must be a central part of our agenda.” The challenge to counter or slow the pace of proliferation is one with many complex political as well as technical dimensions. It calls for devising the right mix of carrots and sticks - through the application of export controls on one hand and economic and technical aid on the other - as incentives discouraging new countries from entering the nuclear club. Above and beyond that, the Iraqi experience shows that it is important to take three specific actions. The first is to strengthen the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) by giving it both the authority and resources needed to more effectively carry out its mission of verifying compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The second is to develop technologies, including improved sensors and a strengthened world-wide communication network, enabling the United States to achieve a better global awareness in order t o pick up earlier and more accurate signals of covert nuclear programs. Third, and most important, is to develop a broad international consensus and an effective policy for controlling the export of sensitive technologies and weapons-related materials. Such equipment is more essential to the success of would-be proliferators than are
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the surplus Russian weapons scientists they are trying to attract (and to whom the U.S. is rightly offering support to stay home and convert t o non-weapons work). The year 1995 marks an important date in facing the proliferation challenge. That is the year when the NPT with 140 signatories comes up for its crucial 5th review conference which will determine the Treaty's future duration. According to Article 10 of the NPT, the 1995 conference will convene "to decide whether the Treaty shall continue in force indefinitely, or shall be extended for an additional fixed period or periods. This decision shall be taken by a majority of the Parties to the Treaty." It is reasonable to assume that the support for extending the NPT will be strengthened among the non-nuclear weapons nations by evidence that the nuclear powers have achieved concrete results in reducing their arsenals, and thereby narrowing the gulf that divides the "haves" from the "have nots." This is one more strong reason to expedite the ratification of START, implement its provisions and get on with further reductions, guided by what has already been accomplished. The very fact of the current political instability in the former Soviet Union enhances the urgency of ratifying the START Treaty in order to lock its important provisions firmly into place. All four of the republics of the former Soviet Union in which strategic weapons are deployed have expressed their support for START and their willingness to fulfill its obligations. Once its provisions are ratified and implemented, it will be that much more difficult for a future Russian government to abrogate START in order to create a new threat. There is a natural temptation to call for amendments to START that would cut the force levels even more deeply in an effort to catch up with, or to get ahead of, President Bush's recent initiatives. I believe this would be unwise. The START Treaty achieves a very carefully crafted balance of the interests and concerns of its two signatories, as contained in 19 articles plus numerous annexes and unilateral statements extending over some 300 pages. They represent years of compromises and mutual concessions on types and numbers of weapons as well as accommodations on verification procedures that all fit together tightly. Any opening up of the Treaty for change is bound to cause prolonged delays as a new equilibrium of concessions has to be negotiated. I strongly recommend - in the interest of expediting progress, as well as improving the national security of the United States that the U.S. Senate expeditiously ratify the Treaty as is. The U.S. and Russia could then push ahead to further progress, both at the negotiating table and on the more flexible path of reciprocal unilateral measures. A START Treaty that is ratified and in progress of being implemented would be concrete evidence that the United States and Russia were honoring their commitment to reducing their nuclear arsenals as called for in the preamble to the NPT.
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For further evidence that the two countries were honoring this commitment, we should negotiate verifiable procedures for eliminating the nuclear warheads themselves. Such an initiative goes beyond START, which mandates reducing only the strategic nuclear delivery vehicles. It is clearly in US. security interests to eliminate warheads that would otherwise be available for rapid rearming if a future Russian government were to revert to confrontational policies. Eliminating warheads in a verifiable manner could further advance the objectives of nuclear non-proliferation by demonstrating to the non-nuclear nations that the nuclear ones were actually reducing the stockpiles of nuclear weapons and not simply putting them on the shelf. For these two reasons I recommend giving high priority to the elimination of warheads in the next step on the arms control agenda. In the spirit of the preamble to the NPT we should also seek to open negotiations with the Russians and with the other nuclear nations on a verified cut-off of production of plutonium and highly enriched, weapons grade uranium. We have no current needs for continued production and our existing stockpile exceeds any foreseeable requirements. We would naturally want to retain a capacity to restart production at an adequate rate should the need arise. (This goes for delivery systems as well as nuclear material and warheads). An issue that has been raised prominently in connection with the NPT review, and is also discussed in the Preamble to the Treaty, is the cessation of underground explosions of nuclear weapons, i.e. the negotiation of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Two factors are important for the United States to weigh in deciding whether or not a CTBT is in our national interest. One is political: is a CTBT central to our efforts to prevent or counter proliferation? The other is technical: do we have something important to gain or to learn from continued testing? The dominant technical issue is whether or not we can have confidence that our nuclear weapons meet appropriately conservative safety criteria for our stockpile against the possibility of an unintended chemical or nuclear detonation as a result of an accident or incident. Technical advances have permitted great improvements in weapons safety since the 1970’s. At the same time technical advances in the past few years - and especially the latest supercomputers - have given a much deeper understanding of the hydrodynamic and neutronic development of a nuclear detonation. A major consequence of these new results is a realization that unintended detonations leading to dispersal of harmful radioactivity, or even to a nuclear yield, present a greater risk than previously estimated (and believed) for some of the warheads in the stockpile.
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A comprehensive review of the safety of the U. S. nuclear weapons stockpile that I chaired in 1990 for the House Armed Services Committee* concluded that it was important to "identify the potential sources of the largest safety risks and push ahead with searches for new technologies that do away with them and further enhance weapons safety." The report argued further that today the uncertainties in the safety of nuclear weapons are simply too large. It also emphasized that we do not presently have the necessary data base to adequately assess the risks.
It is my personal view on this subject that we should be working technically toward enhanced safety of our nuclear stockpile. Many laboratory activities and operational procedures will contribute, but to go further and design new warheads with safety-optimized designs, or just simply safer configurations, it will be necessary t o perform some underground nuclear tests. The importance and desirability of these tests will have to be weighed against the political judgment as to how central a complete ban on underground testing would be to strengthening or even preserving the non-proliferation regime. It is very difficult for me at present to judge just how important a CTBT at this time would be. However, looking ahead, I presume that a CTBT would help strengthen a non-proliferation regime. It might also be a constructive step simply to reduce the number of permitted underground nuclear tests as well as their maximum yields, in a program justified and directed solely to enhanced safety.
At some point we will have to make a political decision on the importance and timing of a CTBT. If, or when, it is judged that agreeing to a CTBT would be an important aid to the non-proliferation effort, I recommend that the U.S. should agree to such a ban. Meanwhile I recommend that the U.S. abandon its current official position that we must continue to test as long as we have nuclear weapons. It shouId be replaced by a policy that limits underground tests to those that are required to insure that all the weapons constituting our future nuclear forces - i.e. warheads together with their delivery systems - do meet appropriately conservative criteria for nuclear weapons safety. This program would consist of several low yield tests per year. However, based on our 1990 review of nuclear weapons safety for the House Armed Services Committee, I do not believe that one can say now what is the total number of tests, or how many years of testing will be required, to meet this safety goal. We should talk publicly about our safety criteria, the objectives of our tests and the technologies we are developing in order to enhance safety. There would be no compromise of U.S. security to share many of these technologies with the Russians - or any sophisticated nuclear power - to help improve safety. On
* Nuclear
Weapons Safety, a Report of the Panel on Nuclear Weapons Safety of the House Armed Services Committee (Sidney D. Drell, Chairman; John S. Foster, Jr., Charles H . Towns. (December, 1990)).
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purely military grounds I see no strong reason to avoid an exchange of general information on test goals. By now there are few real secrets to protect. It is about time for more openness and less obsessive secrecy in all matters nuclear. The recent presidential initiatives raise two additional issues of major importance that require prompt attention: 1. The future of ballistic missile defense (BMD) and the ABM Treaty.
2. The desired mix as well as size of a further reduced nuclear strategic force. 1). The Future of BMD In a world with new countries approaching or entering the “nuclear club” the United States and the former Soviet Union understandably share a desire to improve their security against the threat posed by one or a few ballistic missiles, whether launched accidentally against each other’s homeland, or from another country with a newly emerging, relatively primitive system. How to do this - or even whether the potential threat warrants deploying an expensive system - has yet to be decided. Any decision must be based on a realistic assessment of the available technologies, as well as on the impact of such deployments on our security, on the stability of the nuclear deterrent balance, and on prospects of further arms reductions. The U.S. R & D program on ballistic missile defense has now been redirected from its initial unrealistic goal of a nationwide “astrodome defense” to a more achievable one of global protection against limited strikes, or GPALS. We should learn from this effort what are the best technical possibilities as well as their realistic limitations. If the United States and Russia address the strategic and arms control issues raised by such a program, in addition t o the technical issues, in the same spirit of cooperation and of shared mutual interests that set the tone of the recent Presidential exchanges, there is reason to be optimistic about the prospects of making welcome progress. The key questions for GPALS are whether or when it is politically and strategically desirable to go ahead with any deployment; what realistic threats it should be designed to counter; and how many dollars should be committed to it?
A number of very different missions have been proposed for GPALS. They include a theatre defense of battlefield deployments of U.S. and Allied military forces and of population centers from attack by low-technology short-range ballistic missiles of Third World countries in regional conflicts. Very different kinds of missions include defense of the U.S. homeland either from unintentional or accidental launches of sophisticated Soviet strategic weapons, or from attack by primitive
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weapons from newly emerging nuclear nations (who incidentally have vastly simpler options than intercontinental range ballistic missiles for their delivery systems ranging from smuggling and boats to aircraft). These threats present very different technical problems - advanced countermeasures and penetration aids, or none; high vs. low reentry velocities - and a single unitary approach to all of them is not sensible.
I believe that we can have effective ground-based defenses against short-range tactical missiles with conventional warheads, and that this is a sensible mission for GPALS to address. The Gulf War has demonstrated the importance of developing such defenses. It is in our interest to move ahead on such a program, to which the Congress has already given its support. The execution of such a program will present no difficulties for the strategic arms control regime or for the ABM Treaty if the testing parameters are suitabIy restricted and we proceed in consultation with Russia, as President Bush has called for. Only when we have a better knowledge of what technologies we might deploy to deal with a direct threat to the U.S. homeland, together with an informed consensus of what potential threat it is realistic to prepare for, will we know enough to be specific about how, if at all, we want to modify the ABM Treaty. Then the negotiations can begin, as well as any deployments of actual systems on U.S. soil. Before negotiating changes in the ABM Treaty that would permit a significant growth in BMD deployments beyond the ceiling of one-site, 100 launchers allowed by the 1972 Treaty, it will be important to understand what impact such changes will have on prospects for further reducing the strategic offensive missile forces. In particular, if Russia were to deploy a BMD system up to the newly negotiated limits, would it forestall further reductions of the U.S. and Russian missile forces in the future? Would it freeze the sizes or encourage upgrades of the British, French, and Chinese forces? For the present and particularly with the current uncertainties in Moscow, we should reaffirm our commitment to the ABM Treaty and continue a high quality, treaty-consistent R & D program on defenses against ballistic missiles. We should offer to work cooperatively with Moscow to minimize, by technical and operational procedures, the threat of accidental or unauthorized missile launches. We and our friends and allies should also exploit fully the diplomatic and economic channels in an effort to head off proliferating deployments of long-range ballistic missiles armed with nuclear warheads. In my judgment we are at least a decade away from any new threats of this type against continental U.S.An annual total funding of about $3B is appropriate for a well focused, high quality GPALS program. Finally, it is important to remember one clear lesson from the Gulf War when considering BMD, especially against nuclear warheads. In its first engagement PA-
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TRIOT found itself operating against unanticipated, and even unintended decoys - the fragmented SCUD booster and/or a warhead that wobbled and spiralled on reentering the atmosphere. The result was that the incoming warhead was often
not destroyed. In conventional conflict there is time for misses, and opportunity for a learning curve to improve performance. Against nuclear warheads, however, a defense of U.S.territory must work the first time in combat t o be at all effective. There is no margin for the kind of surprise we experienced in the Gulf War. This too must be remembered in assessing the value of BMD. 2). Mix and Size of Offensive Forces
A number of factors will determine the size and character of the future nuclear forces of the United States. We will want our forces to remain no smaller nor less capable than those retained by the republics of the former Soviet Union, and larger than those of other nuclear powers. We will also require that they can not be destroyed if attacked, and that they can be launched and effectively retaliate if called on. Ultimately our force structure should be sized by the missions and targeting requirements dictated by national policy.
U.S. nuclear forces can be reduced considerably below the levels negotiated at START and still meet their one and only valid mission: to deter nuclear attack against the United States or our alliance partners. The military requirements for our nuclear forces are very different from what they were during the Cold War when we also relied on them for the defense of western Europe against a conventional military force that was larger than NATO’s. The Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact are gone, along with the massed conventional forces that threatened a major blitzkrieg into western Europe. As a result many targets have now been removed from the U.S. single integrated operating plan (SIOP). The Gulf War showed once again the irrelevance of U.S. nuclear forces in a regional conflict in which our adversaries lacked a nuclear capability. They did not deter the Iraqis from invading and remaining to fight in Kuwait. Nor did they have a role to play in defeating them. The Gulf War also showed that with our precision guided munitions we don’t have much need for even low yield nuclear weapons. A factor of 10 improvement in accuracy increases the effectiveness of a conventional warhead by a factor roughly of lo3 = 1000 against a localized hardened target. It should be the clearly stated policy of the U.S. not to introduce nuclear weapons in a regional conflict that involves no other nuclear powers. In order to apply such a policy we must of course be certain that all our adversaries in the conflict do not possess nuclear weapons. Otherwise they should know that they are also at risk. It is clearly in the U.S. interest to avoid the use of nuclear weapons under any circumstance, if at all possible. The United States has the most to gain by
QC
preserving the 46 year-old tradition of non-use of nuclear weapons; and conversely the most to lose if it is discarded. The targeting requirements for U.S. forces include the ability to deny political adversaries the capability to project power, to destroy the energy sources, storage and transportation facilities required for their society as well as their military to function, and to prevent the continued operation of critical defense industries essential to sustained military operations. Because such targets are distributed throughout an industrialized society, the collateral damage resulting from an attack against them will cause enormous, and unprecedented levels of human casualties and urban devastation. Another alternative for retaliation would be to directly target the urban population itself. This would require no more than about one hundred warheads (or more accurately, effective megatons of yield) to cause about 100 million casualties and create an unimaginable holocaust. There are military arguments against such a minimum force designed for "city busting" the population, particularly its lack of adequate options for measured military responses. I reject such a strategy more strongly on ethical and moral grounds. One can challenge the relevance of morality in a war waged with weapons of mass destruction. But it is morally unacceptable and inconsistent with our values as a society for this country to plan in peacetime to retaliate by targeting for "city busting." One can set a scale for the number of warheads required for the U.S. strategic forces by reviewing the number of military and industrial targets, transportation lines and nodes, and energy sources in the former Soviet Union. According to the U.S.National Academy of Sciences 1991 study on "The Future of the US.-Soviet Nuclear Relationship", "the most important 200-300 defense related industrial targets ...comprise over half of the total Soviet industrial capacity, both defense-related and other." More recently Dr. George Lewis of the MIT Defense and Arms Control Study Program has undertaken a detailed analysis of the data available from unclassified sources on the number and distribution of energy, transportation, and industrial targets in the former Soviet Union and come to a similar conclusion that "250 warheads, neglecting overlaps between types of industries, would devastate the Soviet industrial base, probably doing considerably more than 50% damage to nine key industrial sectors." He also commented that "attacks limited to Russia could be roughly 30-40% smaller in size" than for the totality of the former Soviet Union. Force projection targets fall into two categories. First there are the major
naval ports, intercontinental bombers bases and key nuclear storage ar,d infrastructure facilities numbering perhaps 50. In addition there is the Russian ICBM
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force including the 12 mobile missile bases declared in the START Treaty Annex. Assuming that there will be a major drawdown of land-based missiles in the post-START era, and also assuming that the remaining Russian ICBMs will primarily be mobile and carry single warheads, and therefore not useful to target for counterforce strikes, the total number of force projection targets including major communications links is no greater than about 150. One should also add about 300 warheads for other military contingencies that may arise, and for a strategic reserve. If we then multiply by a factor of two for reliability and possible losses due to an enemy’s first strike, this adds up to a total of 1500 warheads. Before reducing to such a force as a deterrent for the “foreseeable future”, additional requirements would have to be satisfied: the continued development of political cooperation between the U.S.and Russia, the emergence of no major new threats, no major deployment of BMD systems, and participation of the other nuclear powers in reducing their nuclear forces.
A notional force at this level is shown in the following table and compared with the one given for the Bush State of the Union proposal (in the footnote on page 2). The only tactical nuclear forces that would be retained are airborne weapons based overseas if they were judged to be required as in situ evidence of the U.S. nuclear umbrella for allies such as Germany and Japan who remain non-nuclear. Notional Forces
Bush Proposal System
ICBMs SLBMs SAC Bombers
Total
Early 21st Century
Equivalent Launchers Warheads Megatonnage
Equivalent Launchers Warheads Megatonnage
500
500
250
100
100
50
432
2300
650
250
750
300
100
650
250
160 1900 - 1092 4700
900
1800
-~ 450 1500 600
(Equivalent megatonnage is defined as the yield in megatons to the 2/3rds power. It measures the relative destructive power of warheads versus a large target like an airbase, a naval base, or an industrial area).
No major modernization programs would be required for the delivery systems envisaged for these forces. One can consider still deeper reductions below 1500 warheads for a world in which Russia and U.S.have become comfortable allies. If one followed current preferences in making these cuts we would preferentially preserve the SLBMs at sea as
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highly survivable, accurate, reliable, and quick. There is, however, a very different direction for such reductions towards building a safer world - one that is free of the threat of a preemptive nuclear attack poised just 20-30 minutes away from Washington, D.C. and the US. homeland. That is to remove all strategic ballistic missiles - or “fast-fliers” - as President Reagan first proposed at the Reyjkavik Summit in October 1986. Removing the strategic ballistic missile force of ICBMs and SLBMs would put the entire burden for retaliation on the strategic bombers. They constitute a flexible force with the dual advantages of being recallable in the event of accident or misunderstanding and of being many hours rather than minutes away from delivering their deadly devastation. It should be practical, if due attention is paid to maintaining our technical capabilities for surveillance and attack warning, to maintain confidence in the safety, security, and survivability of a dispersed bomber force. In particular no direct threat to such a force would exist if no long-range missiles were deployed.
I give great importance to building a world order that, if free of US.-Russian confrontation, is also as free as possible of nations retaining any ”quick-kill’ capability for nuclear attack at long range. It is generally understood that early in the next century a dozen or more countries may have the capability of delivering weapons of mass destruction over very long distances - up to intercontinental range. It is certainly in our interest to avoid such a threat to the U.S. homeland if at all possible. It is axiomatic that the ability to head off the deployment of such weapons by political means will be considerably enhanced if all nations are willing to forego them. Although recent experience with Iraq illustrates the difficulty in verifying how far a country can move covertly toward a nuclear capability, long-range ballistic missiles are large and their testing as well as deployment is impossible to hide from “national technical means” of detection. Although the idea of no “fast-fliers” seemed all too visionary when President Reagan first proposed it in 1986, it now seems to be more realistic in the aftermath of the Cold War - and also more compelling under the threat of proliferation. Such a proposal as this primarily faces political obstacles, but meanwhile science and technology should give a serious look at how to get us more than 20 to 30 minutes away from potential obliteration. It would require world-wide assurance of treaty compliance and of attack warning - capabilities we already demonstrate pretty well technically. More openness would also be important - such as open skies, the more than 35 year old Eisenhower proposal recently agreed to by the Russians.
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Conclusion
I have never known the prospects for a major reduction in nuclear arms to be brighter or the opportunities more promising. There is much to be done - and that can be done. The important first step is for the Senate to ratify the START Treaty - to provide the framework for further progress and to help strengthen the efforts against nuclear proliferation.
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SIDNEY D. DRELL
Abolishing Long-range Nuclear Missiles During the Cold War, the possibility of a nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States was always remote. To be sure, there were crises, and there was always the chance of an accident or misunderstanding leading to catastrophe. But the buildup of huge arsenals of long-range nuclear missiles on both sides-and the assurance that they would be used to counter a f is t strike-kept disaster at bay. Deterrence worked. Still, the scariest aspect of the Cold War era was that nuclear missiles fired from Soviet soil could hit the U.S. mainland (or vice versa) in less than 30 minutes. This fear was felt deeply by millions of U.S. and Soviet citizens and was a major motivation behind Ronald Reagan’s astonishing proposal at the Reykjavik summit in October 1986 to abolish all longrange land- and sea-based ballistic missiles. Although embraced by Mikhail Gorbachev, that proposal eventually foundered on differences between the U.S. and Soviet positions on the Strategic Defense Initiative.
Sidney D. Drell, a physicist and arms control specialist, is professor and deputy director, Stanford Linear AcceleratorCenter, Stanford University.
The end of the Cold War and the threat of proliferation are compelling reasons to banfast-fliers. Today, however, the basic reason for the existence of these deadly fast-fliers, as President Reagan termed them-to deter a Soviet nuclear attack on the United States-has all but disappeared. Russia, which now effectively controls the arsenal of the former Soviet Union, and the United States are making remarkable progress on arms control and political issues, and they are rapidly building a genuinely trusting, constructive, and cooperative relationship. Might it not be time to reconsider Reagan’s bold proposition? The end of the U.S.-Soviet confrontation would be reason enough to abolish all strategic missiles. But there is an even more pressing concern, one that the United States and Russia share: the threat of proliferation of long-
range, nuclear ballistic missiIes. Whereas the United States could be almost certain that the Soviets would never launch a nuclear strike, can we be all that sure that at some point in the not-too-distant future a rogue state might not fire-suddenly and with little warning-a long-range nuclear missile at the U.S. homeland? By early next century, a dozen or more countries may be capable of delivering weapons of mass destruction over long distancesup to intercontinental range. It is certainly in our interest to build a world order that, if free of U.S.Russia confrontation, is also free from any nation retaining quickkill, long-range nuclear capability. Further, it is axiomatic that the ability to head off by political means the deployment of such weapons will be considerably enhanced if all nations take decisive steps to forego them. Although the recent experience with Iraq illustrates the difficulty of detecting covert efforts to attain nuclear capability, long-range ballistic missiles are large and their testing and deployment are impossible to hide from current detection technology. A ban on strategic missiles would not, of course, eliminate the capacity for offensive nuclear action. Rather, it would put a greater burden on the strategic bomber
Reprinted with permission from Issue in Science and Technology, Spring 1992, pp. 34-35. Copyright (1992) by the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC.
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force. But strategic bombers have many advantages. These slowflying planes are hours rather than minutes away from delivering their nuclear devastation and thus are far less threatening or useful for first strikes. They can be recalled in the event of a misunderstanding or accident, and they can be removed froman armed, alert posture-a step recently taken by both the United States and Russia-thereby further lengthening the time interval to catastrophe. Before we could rely on a force of strategic nuclear bombers as a deterrent, we would have to make surethat the bomber force would be able to survive a conflict. Already, however, there is a strong basis for believing that our bombers would be secure. For one thing, if there were no long-range missiles, it would be impossible to destroy a dispersed bomber fleet. Equally important, technology that we already have developed and demonstrated gives us confidence that our bombers--equipped with stealth technology and the ability to fire their nuclear-tipped cruise missiles from as far as 1,500 miles away from their target4an be effective. In the Gulf War, for instance, sealaunched Tomahawk cruise missiles-the same basic technology used in air-launched cruise mis-
siles-were successfullydeployed. With the disappearance of long-range missiles, there no longer would be any rationale for a costly, futuristic, Star-Wars-type missile defense system. However, cooperation in space exploration would be required to ensure that no country used acceptable space activities as a cover for military programs that would effectively circumvent a missile ban.
Remaining questions Difficult questions remain, most notably: How do we get there from today’s force structure? It won’t be easy and will take time, most likely a decade or more. Abolishing strategic missiles would cause tremendousdisruptions in our force structure-far greater than those occurring in the current downscaling. It would mean the end of our nuclear triad of submarines, bombers, and land-based missiles developed to meet the Cold War threat. Once we have satisfied ourselves on technical grounds that a strategic bomber force can survive and its cruise missiles can penetrate to their assigned targets, there would be no strategic reason for continuing to deploy long-range missiles. Politics would be the only remaining major obstacle to their
elimination. Not the least of the difficulties would be getting the other powers with long-range nuclear weapons-Britain, France, and China-to go along. Nuclear weapons confer great power, status, and prestige on their owners, and leaders will be reluctant to give them up. In his State of the Union speech in January, President Bush proposed cuts that, although large, would still retain a nuclear advantage for the United States. In particular,he called for eliminating all land-based missiles with multiple warheads-the category in which Russia is strongest-while proposing only a 30 percent cut in the area where the United States is supreme-submarine-launched missiles. The problems of balancing these disparate missile forces would end if we got rid of all strategic missiles. Although the idea of no fastfliers seemed too visionary when President Reagan proposed it, it now seems more realistic in the aftermath of the Cold War and also more compelling under the threat of proliferation. It may not be achievable in the near term, but a world free of long-range, nuclear ballistic missiles is certainly an eminently worthwhile goal for which to strive.
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REDUCING NUCLEAR DANGER NlcGeorge Bundy William J. Crowe, Jr. Sidney Drell
A Dramatically New Situation
T
W O ENORMOUS EVENTS of recent years have
opened the way for effective worldwide action against the danger of nuclear weapons. The first is the end of the Cold War and Soviet communism. The second is the sharp double lesson of the case of Saddam Hussein: that a rich and aggressive tyrant could get close to building a bomb of his own, but also that his effort could be blocked by effective international action. There is now a real prospect that almost all countries-those with many warheads, those with few and those with none-can come together in a worldwide program to reduce the existing nuclear arsenals and to prevent their further proliferation. There are three immediate tasks: to execute the large bilateral reductions in U.S. and Russian forces that have been announced in recent years, to assure that Russia remains the only nuclear weapon state among the successor states of the McGeorge Bundy is a Scholar-in-Residence, Carnegie Corporation of New York. He was Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, 1961-66, and is the author of Danger and Survival. Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr., a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is Professor of Geopolitics at the University of Oklahoma, Conriselor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Wasliington, D.C., and Chairman of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Sidney Ilrell, a physicist and Professor at Stanford IJniversity, is a longtime adviser to the U.S. government on technical national security and arms control issues. He recently chaired a study of nuclear weapons safety for the Congressional Armed Services Committees. The three authors are jointly responsible f i x a forthcoming report of the Carnegie Commission, Reducing the Nuclear Dan,p (Council on Forei
Reprinted with permisssion from Foreign Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 2 (1993) pp. 14G1.55 Copyright (1993) by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.
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old Sovict Union, and to reform arid reinforce the worldwide effort t o rcclucc the spread of nuclear weapons by applying the lessons lcarncd in the case of Saddam Hussein. I n a dr;tmatically new situation we must ask ourselves afresh thc question that belongs to us all by the basic rules of our society: IVliat should we ask of Washington in its policy and its behavior with respect to nuclear danger? What do present worldwide conditions tell us abput what our government's policy should be, and what it should tiy to achieve, in the rest of this century? We have been led to the following propositions. The United States should respect the reality that as long as there are bombs, there will be a nuclear danger that is unique in all history. The bomb is uniquely dangerous because it is uniquely destructive so destructive that in all the conflict and tumult of tlie Cold War no one chose to use it or to provoke its use by others. That reality must permeate American policy choiccs w c n more thoroughly in the future than in the past. It rcquires intense and continuous effort to reduce the danger that comes from the very fact that the bomb is technically possible. It requires respect and support for those who have responsible control over such weapons. It also requires, at the other end of policymaking, a higher priority than ever for choices that can help prevent the possession of this weapon by international adventurers like Saddarn Hussein. ~
From Opponents to Friends
w
H A 1 UNDERLIES the great new Russian-American arms control measures of tlie last two years, and gives promise of further progress, is a set of interlocking political decisions and actions that have turned the Russians and the Americans from opponents to friends. Their nuclear competition now has no cause but itself, and both sides, in their actions of the last few years, have shown their understanding that all they need from these weapons, with respect to each other, is clear assurance that neither side will ever be able to achieve, without ample notice, any nuclear advantage that might be considered usable against the other. There is no short road to complete nuclear disarmament, but the road away from superpower confrontation has indeed been opened; thc United States and Russia can walk that road together, to thcir common advantage, as they learn the art of cooperative nuclear niodcration under the first arid second Strategic Arms
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14.2
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
Reduction trcaties (START) and their exchanged announcements of major tactical reductions. What is also important for the long run, and less often remembered, is that Americans have a parallel absence of underlying political hostility toward all other announced nuclear weapons states. The United States does not think of any of them as potential enemies in wal-not the British or the French, self-evidently; not the Chinese because both countries have learned better over the forty years since Korea. The absence of direct hostility between the United States and China does not make that relationship the same as the American relation to England or France, or even Russia, but it is enough to mean that the nuclear danger between them that both have felt in the past no longer exists. Other differences with China persist, but it makes no sense for either side to let such differences prevent cooperation against nuclear danger. Americans can expect differences with all four of the other permanent members of the Security Council, but not warfare with any. The political changes required to produce a change in this expectation are very large. Before they could have a direct impact on nuclear balance or nuclear danger, there would be plenty of time for any necessary American response in either conventional or nuclear rearmament. The prudent judgment for the present is that it should be both the American purpose and the American expectation that in the 1990s the five permanent Security Council members should continue on their new course of cooperation against nuclear danger. In these matters they are not in hot competition, and there is no underlying political animosity that need prevent them from working together. Pride is another matter; so is greed; so is misunderstanding. Any one of the three can hamper or even prevent cooperation. But the common real interest is to work together against nuclear danger. The same general rule applies to our nuclear-danger relations with all other countries. Except for a few-perhaps Iraq, Iran, North Korea and Libya-all the world’s governments now favor an end to nuclear proliferation. What is true of the five announced nuclear weapon states is true of the three other states that must be judged to have nuclear warheads of their own: Israel, India and Pakistan. Their formal status is a question of some difficulty, but neither their neighbors nor the world can doubt that, in terms of what they could do in des-
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143
peration, they are nuclear weapon states. Still they are riot eager h r nuclear competition or open threat, let alone for aggrcssivc use of what they have. They can join in reducing their own contribution to nuclear danger. Still more clearly on the side of reducing nuclear danger are the scores of states, large and small, that have definitely rejected the course o f obtaining their own nuclear weapons. T h e basic division in the world on the subject of nuclear proliferation is not hctween those with and without nuclear weapons. It is hctwecn almost all nations and the very few who currently seek weapons to reinforce their expansive ambition.
A Doctrine of Defensive Last Resort
A
N Y A M E R I C A N first use of nuclear weapons should be governed by a stringent doctrine of defensive last resort, which can also be adopted by all other nuclear weapon states. As matters stand at the beginning of 1993, there is no vital interest of the United States, except the deterrence of nuclear attack, that cannot be met by prudent conventional readiness therc i s no visible case where the United States could be forced to choose between defeat and the first use of nuclear weapons. ‘This is one crucially important meaning of the 1989-9 1 transformation of Europe. 111 the foreseeable future, the American president will be able to accompany support for a doctrine of defensive last resort with the assurance that the president and commander in chief sees no present likelihood of any confrontation that would require this dreadful choice. Indeed the U.S. government has already gone a long way in this direction. A doctrine of last resort was adopted by NATO in 1991, and in the NATO context the word “defensive” can fairly be taken for granted by its own lankpagethe North Atlantic Treaty is a defensive alliancc. This new NATO doctrine gives reassurance to all members, both of support and of prudence. It can do the same thing more broadly as a basic doctrine of the United States. Both nuclear history and present nuclear politics would support a doctrine one step more rigid-- -a doctrine that nuclear weapons should be used only in response to their use by othcrs commonly called no first use. ‘I’his posture was urged by some for NATO when the dominant opinion was that only a
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FOREIGN AFFAIRS
readiness for first use would deter communist aggression.‘ President Carter moved toward this posture when he declared in 1978 that the United States would never use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapon state unless that state were acting as the ally of a nuclear power. The last clause was aimed at the possible case of an aggressive ally of the Soviet Union; the case lively in memorv was that of North Korea in 1950-53. In 1993 the clear priority for American military “The clear priority planners is that they should for American miliaim to keep their present capability to deter or defeat a tary planners is to conventional aggressor by conbe able to deter or ventional means. There is no defeat a convention- early danger that this capabilial aggressor by con- ty will be lost, and accordingly the present leaders can reafventional means.” firm the 1978 assurance. Indeed. taking account of the end of the Cold War, they can strengthen it.-There is no present obstacle to an American declaration against any use at all of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear weapon state. In recognizing the possibility of a future case in which there might be justification for a use of nuclear weapons in defensive last resort, we are simply resisting the notion that our country can be certain, a priori, that there will never be a case when such use might be the least bad choice. The steady policy of the United States should be to do its part, by arms control, conventional capability and the general worldwide reduction of nuclear danger, to ensure that no such terrible choice ever becomes necessary. All of these lines of action can and should be pursued under a doctrine of defensive last resort. The doctrine of defensive last resort has one further advantage. It corresponds to the nuclear policy of other nuclear weapon states much more closely than a flat policy of no first use. At present Russian possession of nuclear weapons helps to give the Russians confidence that they do not endanger their homeland when they accept the independence of Eastern Europe and the breakup of the old Soviet Union. As long as the Russians have the bomb, there is little danger of large‘See, for rxample, McCrorge Bundy, George F. Krnnan, Robert S MrNamara and Gciard Smith, “Nuclear Weapon7 and the Atlantic Alliancr,” Foregn Afuar, Spring 1982.
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scale attack by others on Russia for the decisive reason that 110 one could expect them to accept any large defeat without resort t o the bomb. There is a parallel protection for France in its nuclear capability; without it Paris might be deeply uncomfortable with its larger but bomb-free German neighbor. The position of Britain is less clear-cut, because the surrounding seas protect it from those nearby and because the possible threat from Russia is not only distant but more nuclear than conventional-requiring defense by deterrence, not by a last resort to first use. But it is not surprising that among the five permanent members of the Security Council only China has declared an unqualified policy of no first use. T h e Chinese have become confident, after conflicts with Soviets, Americans, Indians and Vietnamese, that they can hold their own against all possible opponents without resort to nuclear weapons except as a deterrent to the nuclear weapons of others. If Americans had only themselves to defend they could make a parallel declaration; no one is going to threaten the United States conventionally on its own territory. But as it is, with contingent obligations overseas and friends who still rely in some measure on its nuclear protection, and with other nuclear powers sharing its caution for their own reasons, it makes sense for the United States to have a doctrine one step broader-a doctrine of defensive last resort. This doctrine also fits the requirements of the three unannounced nuclear weapon states--Israel, India and Pakistan. The Israeli case is the clearest: the underlying motivation for the Israeli bomb is clearly the reality of vastly outnumbering unfriendly neighbors. The fact that the Israeli bomb is not for casual use is evident both in the desperate conventional battles that have been fought without its use and in the intense Israeli commitment to conventional strength. Evidence on Indian and Pakistani policy is thinner, but the general weight of informed judgment is that each country is governed more by fear than by ambition, and that each feels its nuclear need primarily because of perceived danger from the other. In this situation the immediately urgent requirement is to reduce the level of tension between the two; the first contribution that nuclear policy can make is that of mutually recognized moderation in weapons development and deployment. Sharing in the worldwide adoption of a doctrine of defensive last resort could be helpful here.
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T h e American interest in a worldwide effort against any use of nuclear weapons is clear and strong, and it is equally clear that it will take visible American leadership to ensure such an effort.
Reducing Nuclear Reliance E SUPPORT the new budgetary priorities that reflect the end of the Cold War and the need to attend to domestic concerns, but we also believe it makes sense to keep room, as a matter of the most elemental national defense priority, for a financially solid program of reducing nuclear danger. American budgetary priorities in action against nuclear danger should be shifted away from U.S. nuclear deployments to support cooperative reduction with Russia, encourage full acceptance of non-nuclear status by other successor states like Ukraine, and reinforce international action to prevent further proliferation all around the world. The United States should think about all its national actions and expenditures affecting nuclear danger with a recognition that there is no a priori reason to prefer arms to arms control. What is essential is to understand the particular advantages and disadvantages of particular choices and act accordingly. During the Cold War Americans thought the best way to reduce the Soviet nuclear threat was by a fully matching set of nuclear developments and deployments. Now the best way is cooperative reduction. The last Congress and the Bush administration both took remarkable steps in this direction. Congress, with bipartisan support, assigned $400 million a year, in the Defense budgets for 1992 and 1993, to the task of assisting the nuclear weapons cleanup in the old Soviet Union. The executive branch in 1992 agreed in principle to purchase up to 500 tons of formerly Soviet weapons-grade uranium. These actions had general bipartisan support, demonstrating that there is wide understanding of their contributions not only to arms reductions but to the national security of the United States. They should also be seen as the first steps toward further cooperation, by all the nuclear-capable states, to limit the supply and control the diffusion of fissionable material. Need for action of this sort will continue and expand. American readiness to help will strengthen the hands of all those in Russia and other successor states who prefer the turn
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against iiiiclcar danger t o any more adventurous course. Moreover, actions o f this kind, when they provide American dollars for activities in the common interest of reducing nuclear danger, can also he a general reinforcement to the ec-onorny of Russia and other afkcted states, and therefore scwc the t)roader American interest in the political success of dcniocratic and moderate governrnents. A quite par;illel value attaches to the strengthening of international arrangenicnts for limiting nuclear proliferation. If agcncics likc the International Atomic Energy Agency are to Iiavc wider ~.csponsihilitiesand powers in this field, American “The power that rc~iiili~rccinciit will h e essential, backs UP any insisand the more so ticcause both habit and interest will produce tence on unwelcome strong dcrnands from other inspection is likely states that i f the IAEA is to be stronqer in enforcement it to be insuficient iririst also be stronger in its unless the Amerwork for cwopcration in peace- icans visibly ful nuclcar uses. If the IAEA is t o pet a sriflicient flow of infor- able and ready to ma tion a tiorr t trade in relevant help.” materials and devices, there must also hc reinforcement of the most important single source of information, American intelligence-and indeed such reinfijrcrment has begun. ‘I’herc is a complex question about the possible future role of a separate agency of the Security Council, functioning like the special commission that has been necessary in the case of Iraq. It is not clear that the IAEA, with its inherited ethos of trust in those it monitors, can do all the hard work alone. \.Vhat is clcar is that if there is to be timely international action against suspect states, there must he readiness to act in the IJ.N. Security Council, and here American support will be crucial. \Ylicii thcrc is also need for a U.N. blue-helmet force, it will help grcatly if there is a new American readiness to participatc. Similarly, if there is to he effective regional action that encourages restraint and penalizes its opposite, there must in inost casts be American readiness for a share in such action. hlorc gcncrally, as the case of Saddam Hussein illustrates almost too clrarly, the power that hacks up any insistence on unwrlconw inspection is likely t o he insuficient unless I ,
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Americans are visibly able and ready to help. Fortunately it is probable that very few cases will be as sharp as that of Iraq. What is largely missing so far on the American scene, and greatly needed, is a major effort, always including leaders from both parties, to make it clear to the American people that U.S. assistance of this kind is as much a matter of attending to nuclear danger as any direct payment for American nuclear weapons systems. The funds for such work should somehow be considered a part of a national budget against nuclear danger, because treating them in this way will make clear not only what they are for, but how moderate they are in comparison with the tens of billions the United States will still be spending on all aspects of American nuclear weapons even as such forces are reduced.
Phasing Out Nuclear Testing
THE
UNITED STATES can strengthen its own effort against nuclear danger by durable changes from its past policy on such matters as testing and strategic defense. The problem of nuclear testing presents both an obvious opportunity and a somewhat less obvious difficulty for the United States. The comprehensive test ban has been debated for more than thirty years. In principle the United States has supported it, but in practice the Cold War produced nuclear fear and competitiveness that prevented agreement. Now, with the end of the Cold War and the beginning of nuclear moderation, the United States does not need tests for new warheads with either larger or smaller capabilities than those it now has. America’s present large-yield warheads are quite destructive enough, and at the lower end of the scale it would do much better to seek conventional weapons with improved accuracy and penetration. It is excellent that the Bush administration in 1992 ruled out nuclear weapons tests for new designs, and it is wrong for anyone to encourage the nuclear weapons laboratories to seek support for such designs, except for safety improvements. Programs of this kind, indeed, would sharply weaken the American effort to reduce nuclear danger. They would make it plain to the rest of the world that the U.S. policy of reduced reliance on nuclear forces was for export only. In this situation the most important past arguments against a comprehensive treaty fade, and the historic arguments in its
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favor conic. to the lbrcx: it will hclp limit the spread of weapons; i t will hclp dampen the competition ainorig those who a l r c d y l i a i ~warheads. hlore gcncrally, thc. end of testing has been an asserted ol?jcctivc o f all memhcr,s of the Nonproliferation Treaty for almost tuc’nty-five years. In that time the United States, which has always fi)imd reasons of one sort or another for resisting a ban, Iias (wine to be perceived as deliberately hostile to an objcctivc it fimrially accepted as part of the bargain struck betwccn states with and without nuclear weapons in that treaty. ‘I’hcrr is therefore a consitlerable political cost in any continucd American opposition to a comprehensive test ban. For all thesc. reasons we support the emerging U.S. policy of 1992: a p1i;wd approach to an internationally agreed end of tcsting during this decade, an approach that permits a limited nunihcr of tests in the 199Os, with the primary objective of sakty. In this period overall safety will also be improved if the decp reductions of START II are carried out as scheduled, hccxise m;my present concerns about safety center on warheads that will lie retired in these reductions; in this sense nuclear arms reduction is itself a contributor to weapon safety. l o r remaining nuclear weapons the most important safety goals can br achieved by the cut-off date, September 30, 1996, that w a s enacted by Congrcss late in 1992. I t may wcll h e true, as partisans of testing often argue, that American trsting is not a cause of nuclear ambition in a Icadcr like Saddani Hussein; such leaders will want the bomb, if t h y can get it, with or without American underground tests. But the comment misses the real point: a great many people, in many countries, who are strong believers in a common eftin-t against nuclear danger, have learned over a long period t o p u t a trst b a n high on their list of priorities, and to measure tlic seriousness of the nuclear weapon states by their readiness to support such a ban. The United States does not need ncw nuclear capabilities, and it would strengthen its position among prople whose help it needs by supporting a nuclear test I3an. Still a limited and temporary exception for safety testing makes scnsc. ‘I’he safety of nuclear weapons is a common intcrrst of‘ ;dl states, and since we cannot expect an early end to tlic currcnt stockpiles-only their steady and sober reduction - l i i n i t c d salilty testing is justified to reduce real concerns ahout wiirtwads rc.iiiaining in the stockpile. A limited and tem-
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porary exception for underground safety testing will not seriously affect the prospects for a comprehensive test ban treaty, especially if the safety testing is conducted as openly as possible so that the international community of nuclear experts can be assured that safety is indeed the object of such testing. The need for safety tests is not good news for those who have both a deep commitment to early achievement of a complete test ban and a long experience of delays defended on the ground that there was this or that continued justification for testing. But the reality is that some American weapons are not as safe as they could and should be. They can be made properly safe, but not without some time and some tests. While the uThe United States 1996 cutoff in the new law does not need new does not hold if a foreign state nuclear capabilities, tests after that date, it is a reaand it would sonable deadline for American safety testing. The passage of its POsithis conditional test-ban legislation among people tion is a landmark showing the whose help it needs new post-Cold War priorities of the American government. by supporting a A comprehensive test ban nuclear test ban.” extending over generations would eventually bring a gradual erosion of confidence in the reliability of remaining nuclear warheads. (Reliability in this context means dependable explosion on command; it is not the same as warhead safety.) This would present new issues, and the proper response will depend on the degree of progress that has been made by then in reducing both nuclear danger and ;the traditional reliance on nuclear deterrence of high technical precision. The congressional action of 1992 has laid the basis for U.S. leadership in reaching a comprehensive test-ban treaty while also attending to real problems of safety. Such a treaty, much more than a fragile moratorium, will weigh against proliferation, and indeed against enlargement of nuclear arsenals.
Strategic Defense HE CASE OF STRATEGIC defense is one of the best examples of the requirement that we respect the realities of nuclear warheads. There is a recurrent tendency to
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ask technical experts to do more than nature permits- to make us safe, by science and technolo~gy,from what science and tectinolocgy have made possible. Sometimes technological enthusiasts contribute to the confusion by advertising more than thcy can deliver. ‘The case that is currently relevant is that of strategic defense. There really is no present prospect that all-out defense can outrun all-out offense in nuclear warfare, lirrause of one simple reality: the overwhelming destructiveness o f every single nuclear warhead. A kill-rate of even ten percent will defend you against ordinary aircraft with ordinary bombs the largest bomber force will fade in a month of such continued attrition. But with nuclear warheads a kill-rate of 90 pcrcent extraordinarily hard to actiieve-is wholly inadequate. Even 95 percent is not enough: for the smallest American and Russian forces in sight at the end of the century, it could mean some 150 warheads on homeland targets. And no one is now asserting that a defensive force of this quality is possible by any technoIo
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any prospect of a defensive capability that would make it useful to seek a change in the ABM treaty. It is important to remember that a basic principle undergirding the strategic reductions of recent years is that any nation remains inescapably vulnerable to a large-scale attack. It is hard to accept this reality, but not so hard to see that all one can get from imperfect defense is the same situation with multiplied costs and fears.
Lowering Weapons Deployments
THE
U.S.-RUSSIAN R E D U C T I O N S now under consideration should not be seen as the end of the road; in the long run Americans should work for still further reductions and improvements. There is no higher priority for the reduction of nuclear danger than the orderly execution of all that is promised in START I and 11 and in the 1991 exchange of unilateral assurances on tactical warheads. Over the next few years the execution of these agreements and assurances should have operational pnority, but the resulting level of 3,000-3,500 strategic warheads on each side should not be accepted as permanent. Any such acceptance, over time, could pin both sides into levels of expense that would be undesirable in themselves and destructive in their impact on the political relations between the two powers. If we should disregard the present size of the two great arsenals and simply ask ourselves what is the lowest level of strategic strength, measured in warheads, that would give both sides ample assurance, both against nuclear attack and against the other side’s breakout to any significant strategic superiority, we would not come out with the currently agreed range. That range reflects an understandable respect for existing habits of targeting, indeed for existing targets, that will not survive the changes already in prospect. It may be better to examine the long-run prospects for lower warhead ceilings by a fresh start upward from zero, with ample safety factors. Assume that the United States will want to be able to hit both military and industrial targets, while keeping substantial forces in reserve and having insurance against losses from a surprise attack. The table on the following page shows two alternative force levels for these purposes. If the reductions now being considered are carried out SUC-
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ccssliilly. tlic LJnited States and Krissia may well he ready by the year 2000 - ;tnd perhaps sooner-to go to still lower levels. Numlm-s like these might raise a question, in Moscow or Wasliiiigtori or both, ahout the comparative strength of British or 1rctic.h o r Chinese forces. NI three in 1993 appear to he licitdrd u~)ward,toward numbers of strategic warheads in this wmr grneral range. But there is nothing immediately troubling hcrc. If a continuing improvement in superpower nuclcar rrlations permits the big two to agree on such reductions fivc or ten years from now, there may well emerge a parallel prcfercnce for reductions elsewhere, hut it may also tiecomc necessary for Americans and Russians to accept forces in tliosr corintries that become relatively larger as time passes. Any resistancc to such a relative change would be based more on habits o f thought than on true national interest. Happily tlirrc i y sonic evidence from the events of recent years that nuclear niodcration can be as contagious as nuclear competition was in the Cold War years. 'Ib sonic arms controllers, even these reductions will seem likc slow work. I V e can only remark that as it took time to get orirsclves burdened by these enormous forces, so it will take time- though much less-to cut them back. Nor is 1,000-1,300 warheads (lie lowest level obtainable by the early 21st century. Our concern here is simply to make it clear that there is no good reason to accept the much higher targets of 1992 as the I~cstt h a t can ever be done. '[lie truc interest of both sides is that each step toward lower and lcsq threatening deployments should be seen as a step fi)rward hy healthy majorities on both sides, so that nuclear niotlcration remains, for both, as it was in 1992, a broadly
Number of strategic Warheads Alternative 1 ALternative 2
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popular policy. In particular America should avoid the temptation to use a season of great Russian economic stress to drive for one-sided advantages, either by negotiation or appropriation. At any levels now in prospect such marginal advantages would have no real value, and their political damage could be serious. Complaints against such “advantages” supposedly gained by the other side have helped hard-liners to gain strength in both countries in the past. A time of general political success is not a time to risk that success by making the mistake of “piling on.” Finally, reductions in warhead numbers are not the only means of nuclear restraint. The same broad objectives can also be served by reducing vulnerability, improving controls, avoiding destabilizing surprises and making a broad attack on controlling and limiting weapons-grade material.
Immediate Steps and Long-Term Progress
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ODERATE AND IMMEDIATELY practicable courses of action like those recommended here for the reduction of nuclear danger must also be held to the test that they should contribute to the prospect of still larger progress over the longer term. The question could be raised, why not go further? Can we not roll back or even end the nuclear programs of some existing nuclear states? Can we not insist that there must be absolutely no first use of these weapons by anyone, especially ourselves? Can we not get to numbers of warheads, even in the United States and Russia, that are well below the four-figurc levels we have considered? Can we not, perhaps, revive thr old notion of putting all nuclear weapons in the hands of an international agency? Could a properly arranged monopoly be operated by a selected government or governments on behalf of the United Nations? Should we not, in short, be more bold? We have two answers to this set of questions. First, by the standards of the past and by what we know of the ways of nations, our proposals are more demanding than cautious. We are asking for a sustained and genuine partnership of the nuclear superpowers in a shared program of national reduction, and of proliferation avoided in the other countries of the old Soviet Union. We are also proposing that the United States call on all others to join in giving a new worldwide pri-
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ority to the avoidance of further nuclear proliferation. We have argued that the nuclear moderation of every existing nuclear weapons state will be critical to any such program. Second, these short-term efforts must always he consistent with further progress later toward the further reduction of worldwide nuclear danger. We have examined all our proposals by this test, arid they all make further steps easier, not harder. In particular it is right to urge greater strength for international agencies, greater use of open formal agreements governing numbers, safeguards and disclosure, and lower reliance 0 1 1 the threat of nuclear warfare. More generally it is right to begin to displace the inherited distinction between those with weapons and those without by a wider assertion that in reality all the nations should be on the same side, against nuclear danger, whatever their present degree of reliance on nuclear weapons. This last proposition is so clear and strong that a steady respect for it is the best single guide to action for any country, both now and in the Iong run. I n their actual behavior recent presidents and Congresses have done much to reduce the level of nuclear danger in the world, but they have done much less well in explaining and winning support for the new policy of partnership against that nuclear danger that they have joined with foreign leaders to begin to create. Effective future action will require a stronger policy of public explanation from American political leaders than ever before. &L
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Chapter 111
At the End of the 20th Century: The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Emergence of the New Terror of Biological and Chemical Weapons
As the 20th century ended two major U.S. National Security issues were being debated energetically. One had to do with the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the second addressed growing concerns about bio- and chemical-terrorism. In 1992, President George H. W. Bush initiated a moratorium on underground explosive tests of nuclear weapons. His successor President Bill Clinton continued it when he entered office, and shortly thereafter the U.S. Department of Energy enhanced its stockpile stewardship program at the national weapons laboratories (Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia) into a multi-faceted comprehensive one with a deeper emphasis on the fmdamental science involved in nuclear explosions. This was done in order to establish a firm basis for maintaining our nuclear arsenal in the future without resorting to underground tests. In 1996 President Clinton signed a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) banning all underground nuclear explosions without a limit of time. By 1999 much evidence had been gained from the successful science-based stockpile stewardship program to provide confidence in our ability to maintain a healthy U.S. nuclear infrastructure, and a reliable, effective and safe stockpile without having to rely on underground nuclear explosive tests. However, in the fall of 1999 the Senate rejected an Administration request to give its consent to ratification of the CTBT by the United States. The first of the ten essays in this chapter recalls Adlai Stevenson’s advocacy of a ban on testing thermonuclear weapons - that is H-bombs - during his second presidential campaign against President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. It is excerpted from an article prepared together with James Goodby for the book “Adlai Stevenson’s Last Legancy” edited by Alvin Leibling (2007). The second article is my testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1999 endorsing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty as meeting technical requirements consistent with US. national security and advancing our strategic goals. The third article, ”Puttingthe Nuclear Genie back in the Bottle” was published in a special edition of the N e w Perspectives Quarterly, 1997. It emphasizes the CTBT’s importance in the broad strategic context of strengthening the nuclear nonproliferation regime and the future of the NonProliferation Treaty (NPT). In particular the CTBT would meet concerns expressed strongly by many non-nuclear weapons states, when the NPT was extended indefinitely into the future in 1995 at the United Nations, about the continued weapons testing and development programs of the nuclear powers.
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The next two items are brief op-ed contributions: to the New York Times arguing for the ratification of the CTBT after the Indian and Pakistani tests in 1998, and to the Washington Post at the time of the Senate debate on ratification of the Treaty. The second one, “This Treaty Must Be Ratified,”is one of the last articles bearing the name of Paul Nitze, a major officialand voice on national security issues in many U.S. administrations following World War 11, who died in 2004 at the age of 97. The sixth essay in this chapter is an article analyzing comprehensively ”Technical Issues of a Nuclear Test Ban.” It is co-authored with Robert Peurifoy, retired Director of Weapon Development and Vice President for Technical Support at the Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and appeared in the Annual Reviews of Nuclear and Particle Science in 1994. The continuing moratorium on underground nuclear explosive tests, that was initiated in 1992 by President George H. W. Bush, stimulated many questions about the wisdom of negotiating and ratifying a CTBT: Could or would the United States maintain a reliable, safe, and effective nuclear deterrent under such a restriction? My contributions to this debate are illustrated by the next three essays. The first one entitled ”Merits and Risks of More Underground Tests,” appeared as a letter to the editor in Physics Today, November 1991. It was written in response to a misleading news report about a study on ”Nuclear Weapons Safety’’ that I chaired for the U.S. Congress in 1990. The second is the text of talk I gave to Sandia National Laboratory scientists and engineers in the nuclear weapons program in 1994 on the demands for ”Safety in High Consequence Operations,” certainly a very high concern when dealing with nuclear explosives. The third essay is the text of a talk to the weapons scientists from Livermore, Los Alamos, and Sandia at their convention in Las Vegas in 1995, emphasizing the importance of their work, my support for their achievements, and offering suggestions for success in their efforts to make a CTBT a goal consistent with, and of value for, U.S. national security. Terrorists’ attacks, primarily in the middle east, and the Aum Shinrikyochemical agent (sarin) release in the Tokyo subway in 1994, greatly enhanced world-wide concern about the threat of biological and chemical weapons. The tenth and last article in this section is a summary of a conference on this topic at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution in 1998. It is adapted from a book on the conference proceedings entitled ”The New Terror: Facing the Treat of Biological and Chemical Weapons” co-edited with Abraham Sofaerand George Wilson and published by the Hoover Institution Press in 1999.
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Adlai Stevenson and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of Today+ by Sidney D. Drell and James E. Goodby During his second campaign for the presidency against Dwight Eisenhower in 1956, Governor Adlai Stevenson spoke out strongly and clearly for an end to the testing of thermonuclear “H-bomb” weapons. His call for such a ban came shortly after the first demonstration of a successful hydrogen bomb, or so-called super bomb, of such great destructive power that it released explosive energy equivalent to millions of tons of TNT, a hundred times more destructive than the primitive atom bombs that obliterated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The hydrogen bomb triggered concerns about the very survival of civilization. Stevenson viewed a test ban to prevent their further development to be a small step “for the rescue of man from the elemental fire which we have kindled,” p. 329 in McGeorge Bundy’s “Danger and Survival” (Random House, NY, 1988). Adlai Stevenson’s position about “the urgency of halting test explosions of these thermonuclear super bombs” was, in his words, based “on humanitarian, strategic, and international political grounds.” As he stated then, “there are at least three imperative reasons why we must take the lead in establishing a world policy of halting further test explosions of super bombs: 1. The survival of manlund may well depend upon it.
.2. It would increase our national security. 3. It would strengthen our position in the Cold War.” The first of these three reasons referred to the dangers due to radioactive fallout contaminating large areas as a result of testing weapons above ground in the atmosphere. It would be an issue discussed intensely for the next six years during the Eisenhower and Kennedy Administrations, leading to a limited test ban treaty in April 1963. That treaty banned all nuclear test explosives in the atmosphere, in outer space, or under the seas. Only underground testing that did not disperse radioactive debris above ground was authorized under the treaty. This exemption for underground testing was based on an inability of the U.S. and the Soviet Union to agree on cooperative means for verifying compliance with the treaty. President Eisenhower’s decision in 1958 to propose a moratorium on all nuclear testing, not just thermonuclear, and to pursue for the remainder of his time in office a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing was certainly a vindication of This is an excerpt from an article that appeared in the book “Adlai Stevenson’s Lasting Legacy”, edited by Alvin Liebling and published by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press in New York (2007). +
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Adlai Stevenson’s stance. T o the extent that Stevenson’s advocacy of a partial test ban influenced Eisenhower, we can give Stevenson much credit for the successful negotiations that followed. The legitimacy that Eisenhower - a former general - gave to the idea of a test ban enabled President Kennedy thereafter to carry the plan forward. Without those debates and decisions of 1956-58, there would have been no limitation on testing until much later. The Limited Test Ban Treaty was extended in 1974 to a Threshold Test Ban Treaty that banned underground nuclear explosions of weapons with yields exceeding 150 kilotons, or approximately 10 times the yield of the Hiroshima bomb. For 20 years thereafter, there were abortive attempts to address the second and third concerns raised by Adlai Stevenson and reach agreement for a comprehensive or total test ban treaty. Arguments with various degrees of intensity have continued to this day on issues of technological improvements, the limits of verification of a comprehensive test ban, and alleged strategic needs in a world whose survival rested upon avoiding a nuclear conflict, without much progress being made. Lost in the noise of these debates were the words of President Eisenhower in May 1961 shortly after he returned to private life after eight years in the presidency, in which he said that “not achieving a nuclear test ban would have to be classed as the greatest disappointment of any administration -of any decade -of any time and of any party.” Following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the possibility of a comprehensive test ban drew greater attention, and the second and third arguments of Adlai Stevenson as to the merits of a ban on testing super weapons, to “increase our national security” and to “strengthen our position in the Cold War,” returned to prominence. The Cold War was over, but strengthening the position of the United States in the world where the dangers of nuclear proliferation were growing and emerging powers without nuclear capability grew increasingly restive under the discriminatory restraints against them of the NonProliferation Treaty, brought into force in 1970, led to increasing pressures that the nuclear powers reduce their reliance on these weapons and terminate programs for their continued refinement and improvement. Arguments that had been made by Stevenson more than 30 years earlier were viewed with renewed cogency and prominence. A first step towards a full test ban treaty was taken by President George H. W. Bush in 1992, when he declared a one-year moratorium on testing and terminated a program to develop a new nuclear weapon with the observation that we had no need for new weapons following the collapse of the Soviet Union and its threat of
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worldwide domination. As the Non-Proliferation Treaty approached its fifth and final scheduled five-year review at the United Nations in 1995, the chorus of voices of the non-nuclear powers for a ban on continued testing grew louder. A comprehensive test ban treaty was increasingly viewed as a strong reinforcing mechanism for the Non-Proliferation Treaty, as well for helping to assure compliance with it. Bringing a comprehensive test ban treaty into force would also fulfill the commitment made by the nuclear powers in gaining the agreement of 185 nations to extend indefinitely the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1995. The Nonproliferation Treaty remains the cornerstone now of the worldwide effort to limit the spread of nuclear weapons and reduce nuclear danger. Many nations signed on to the indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1995 on the explicit condition that the nuclear powers would cease all nuclear-yield testing. This situation presented the United States and the other nuclear powers with a strong political and strategic incentive to formalize the moratorium on testing by ratifying and working to bring into force the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) signed by the United States in 1996. It is obviously one of the critical cornerstones of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which, as Secretary of State Colin Powell said in his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 9, 2002, “is the centerpiece of the global non-proliferation regime.” A U.S. decision to ratify the already signed comprehensive treaty and lead the effort to bring that treaty into force would be an effective way of strengthening the Non-Proliferation Treaty and, through it, worldwide anti-proliferation efforts. The White House and the U.S. Senate should enter into a serious debate to clarify the underlying issues, both the concerns and the opportunities. This debate was not adequately joined in 1999 when the comprehensive treaty first came before the Senate for its advice and consent and did not receive the necessary votes for ratification. Regrettably, the current Bush Administration has thus far refused to reopen the question. Adlai Stevenson was told that his support for a ban on thermonuclear testing would hurt him in the presidential campaign of 1956. Perhaps it did. He was attacked ferociously for proposing it. But this is the way it is with those who think of the long-term consequences of our actions. Only later does it become clear how right they were. Stevenson helped to create a constituency for a test ban. He helped to build political pressures that were felt by the Eisenhower White House. Today, he would be in the lead calling on the United States and nations
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around the world to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and working to bring it into force. And without a doubt, his eloquent voice would be heard urging America truly to move beyond the Cold War by cutting the numbers of nuclear weapons in our arsenal to levels more in keeping with the shrinking role for nuclear deterrence. His courage and his vision still serve as an example for those who seek and occupy public office in our country.
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Testimony Before the Senate Armed Services Committee On Stockpile Stewardship and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty October 7,1999 Sidney D. Drell Thank you for this invitation to appear before you once again. I last had this privilege little more than three months ago, on June 23, when I testified on the findings of the Special Investigative Panel (the Rudman Panel) of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board on the security problems at the Department of Energy. We recommended creation of a semi-autonomous agency and I am pleased that this has now come to a reality. I hope its implementation will meet the country’s need to establish appropriate security at our DOE weapons laboratories while at the same time preserving the outstanding science they are doing, as we emphasized in our report. Turning to today’s topic - Stockpile Stewardship and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), I want to make two points: 1. With your bipartisan support, the country is pursuing a well-designed program of stockpile stewardship to maintain a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent without nuclear explosive testing. There is no technical need for underground nuclear testing by the U.S. 2. This treaty can be effectively verified. With the full power of its international monitoring system and protocols for on-site inspection, we will be able to monitor nuclear explosive testing that might undercut our own security in time to take prompt and effective counteraction. Stockpile Stewardship is not a new creation. The careful management, or stewardship, of the United States nuclear arsenal - its evaluation, surveillance, and maintenance - has been going on for forty years. This program, led and implemented by outstanding scientists at the weapons labs, has given this country a nuclear deterrent that today is reliable and safe. We have a good statistical basis for high confidence in our deterrent. Following the end of the Cold War at the beginning of this decade, President George Bush terminated the requirement to develop new and improved weapon designs for deployment, either at the upper or lower end of destructive yield. In 1992 he initiated a moratorium on underground tests that has since been extended by President Clinton who signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in September 1996. This new circumstance of developing no new weapons designs for deployment, and performing no underground nuclear yield-producing explosions, puts a stronger burden of proof on the DOE’S stewardship program. In response, DOE and the weapons labs, starting in 1994, have developed a more sophisticated and extensive program. It is being implemented today with strong and critically important support of Congress and the White House. With sustained steady support by the government and the American public in the years ahead, this program will, in the absence of nuclear yield testing:
114
1. Make it possible for the country to maintain confidence in the performance, reliability and safety of our nuclear arsenal. 2. Enable the nuclear weapons complex to respond appropriately and in a timely fashion, if needed, to protect U.S. security under changed circumstances. Such change may be the result of strategic developments that call for the U.S. to develop new designs for warheads to meet new military requirements, or the result of unanticipated technical developments in the future. 3. Ensure that the nation preserves the core intellectual and technical competencies to manage this program.
Simply put, this program will deepen our scientific understanding of the nuclear weapons, of what goes on during the explosion process, and of the signatures and effects of their aging. It will tell us what is required to refurbish or remanufacture warheads as needed. It will, most importantly, enable us to hear whatever warning bells may ring, signaling evidence of deterioration due to aging, no matter how unanticipated, and enable us to make the necessary fixes in a timely fashion. These are strong claims that I have made, so 1 will take a moment to tell you on what basis I am making them. I am a scientist, and my conclusion that the stewardship program is meeting US national security requirements under the CTBT is based on many years of familiarity with the labs’ programs, and especially on my extensive personal involvement and leadership in more than a dozen official technical studies over the past decade. These studies analyzed our nuclear arsenal and programs in detail. Some of you may remember one in particular: the comprehensive review on nuclear weapons safety that I did for this Committee and the House Armed Services Committee in 1990 at your request. It was the first comprehensive study of the safety of our arsenal and came to the conclusion that the enduring arsenal does meet the official and rigorous safety standards of the U.S. The question of the CTBT came up in the hearings when I presented the report to the Congress. My response then was that, if and when the CTBT became an essential component of advancing the non-proliferation agenda through the NPT, it would have to be seriously considered, and that I thought that developing an effective, verifiable non-proliferation regime would add more to U.S. national security than would the marginal improvements that one might still make in the modern U.S. weapons in our enduring stockpile. Today, I believe we have come to the point that the CTBT has become essential to the future of the non-proliferation regime. I refer to Article VI of the NPT and the debate at the U.N. in 1995 at the time of its extension into the indefinite future. But let me return to the technical grounds to further amplify my confidence in the stewardship program and its potential for maintaining U.S. national security under a CTBT. I want to make my first point, that today, with no requirement to develop new nuclear devices for deployment, the U.S. has no technical need for underground nuclear explosive testing. The coin of the realm in science and technology is not opinions or general allegations; it is data. What data does the U.S. need to provide any clues that our nuclear warheads are deteriorating to the extent that will cause them to fail to meet their required military characteristics? Any scientist will welcome more quality data, but the question is, what data is necessary. Can the U.S. base confidence in the current stockpile - not designing new warheads - from the diagnostic data being gained from the enhanced
115
surveillance program, the stockpile life extension program, and the remanufacturing program, using the new facilities including the frontier computation facilities with their advanced simulation capabilities? Or is there a need for additional data than can come only from underground nuclear yield producing explosions? The detailed analyses that I have been involved in, or led, with expert colleagues, including several of our leading weapons designers, lead me to conclude quite strongly that, underground nuclear explosions have little to contribute, and nothing essential, relative to what we are presently learning from the stewardship program. For example, a variety of dynamic and static tests, including the important subcritical experiments being pursued with very sophisticated equipment underground at the Nevada Test Site, are revealing detailed features of the crystal structure of plutonium and whether its aging affects its strength and integnty under the enormous pressures and temperatures during the implosion. In addition we are doing detailed forensics on each weapon type in the stockpile. In particular each year 11 copies of each type are removed from the stockpile and evaluated for changes. One of each set is destructively disassembled and inspected in every detail for signs of cracks or defects developing as the warhead ages due, for example, to the radiation environment created by the plutonium, or due to water vapor not being completely baked out in the assembly of the sealed pit. These are areas in which the data are now available and in which actionable findings so far have shown that the weapons are not noticeably aging.
We also have the ability now with the world’s most powerful computers acquired by the Accelerated Strategic Computation Initiative (ASCI) to make detailed analyses and simulations using quantitative three-dimensional explosion codes. With these advanced codes and computers we can model imperfections due to cracks or voids that may develop in the structure and calculate to what extent they would degrade the performance of a warhead. Overall this is a very sophisticated and technically challenging program. And with the two device labs, Livermore and Los Alamos, peer-reviewing each others work, there is no room for slack. It is the kind of scientific work that can attract the best scientists and engineers. Furthermore it must provide what the directors of each laboratory must have to be able to stand up at the end of each year and say “Mr. President, Mr. Chairman, we can certify today that our weapons meets their military requirements.” They have done so successfully for the past three years. Based upon what has been learned from this stockpile stewardship program, I, today have more confidence in the long-term credibility of our stockpile than was possible five years ago. The data being derived from our stockpile stewardship program is far more important for understanding our enduring nuclear arsenal and maintaining confidence in its performance then continued underground low yield testing. Most of the U.S. underground tests in the past were devoted to developing newer and more advanced warheads for which the U.S. presently has no stated military requirements. Very few were stockpile confidence tests. If I were giving a physics seminar I would be more specific on details here, but I believe you will appreciate it if I go no further than to say that I speak on the basis of detailed technical studies and reviews for the government. Many of the stewardship reports are public documents, but some crucial parts are properly classified. Let me move to my second point. The CTBT can be effectively verified and will benefit U.S. security. First of all, given that we have the most advanced and sophisticated
116 diagnostic, analytic, experimental and computation facilities, we are in a stronger position to maintain a deterrent under a test ban than other nations. Secondly, when it comes into force, the CTBT will improve America’s ability to detect very low yeld nuclear testing being done in violation of the provisions of the CTBT. In particular the Treaty will add a significant number of seismic, hydroacoustic, radionuclide, and infrasound sensors that are part of the CTBT’s International Monitoring System to supplement the existing system, including our national monitoring capabilities. Furthermore with the CTBT in force we will have the ability to request short notice, on-site inspection of suspicious events. Added together these will make it much more difficult for other nations to believe that they can get away with very low-yeld clandestine testing. I consider cooperation with appropriate transparency and confidence building measures to be essential ingredients of a successful CTBT regime. I support every serious effort to achieve such cooperation with other weapon states - and Russia and China in particular. I know that there are serious questions about what the Russians are doing at their test site in Novaya Zemlya. I am limited as to what I can say about this in an open hearing. I can say that I am aware of extensive work there as part of the Russian stewardship program, but I am not persuaded by the evidence that nuclear-yield producing testing has occurred in violation of the CTBT. Previous allegations that the Russians carried out nuclear yield producing tests at Novaya Zemlya in August 1997 were demonstrated to be false. Issues of our detection limits and of possible value to the Russian military of very low yield testing are not for discussion here but I can make two comments: We will be able to strengthen our ability to monitor and detect nuclear explosions when the CTBT’s full international monitoring network and challenge on-siteinspection regime is in force. And secondly, I see no threat to U.S. security in what is going on at present at Novaya Zemlya. This is an issue that will require resolution in a satisfactory treaty regime for which improved information exchange and transparency with the Russians will be required.
The International Monitoring System of the CTBT will also greatly strengthen the ability to monitor and interpret activities by rogue states seeking to develop a new weapon capability. The Treaty will of course not affect those who choose to ignore it and it will be up to the international community to deal with such states through sanctions and political pressure, aided by whatever added credibility and power of dissuasion that is gained fi-om establishing a no-testing norm. However for those countries seeking to enter the nuclear club clandestinely the task will be made much more difficult and perilous. I will conclude with a comment on the political value of a CTBT. I recall that 187 nations signed on to the NPT’s indefinite extension following its fifth and final scheduled five year review in 1995, with the explicit understanding that the nuclear weapons states were committed to implementing Article VI of the Treaty calling for an end to all explosive testing. They are looking to the United States to lead the world in making good on this commitment. I view this as a powerful argument against simply continuing a moratorium without committing ourselves to the test ban.
I urge the Senate to ratify the CTBT. The U.S. - with a strong and steady stewardship program has no need to test. The CTBT significantly strengthens our ability to monitor compliance with its added technical sensors and protocols for on-site
117
inspection, and confidence building measures. Furthermore the Treaty has a series of strong safeguards, including the specific and explicitly emphasized requirement to withdraw with six months notification if there are strategic changes - on political or technical grounds - that require such a step in order to protect our national security. But until such a time, should it arise, the CTBT will enhance our security.
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Putting the Nuclear Genie Back in the Bottle SIDNEY
D. DRELL,
ONE OF THE WORLD’S TOP NUCLEAR PHYSICISTS WHO
CH AM P I O NE D T H E CAUSE OF HIS FRIEND A N D COLLEAGUE, T H E LATE
ANDREISAKHAROV,IS
A MEMBER OF
NPQ’s ADVISORY
BOARD.
PRESENTLY,DR. DRELL IS DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF THE STANFORDLINEAR ACCELERATOR LABORATORY AS
WELL AS A MEMBER O F THE PRESIDENT’S
FOREIGNINTELLIGENCE ADVISORY BOARDA N D
THE
NON-PROLIFERATION
ADVISORY PANEL. STANFORD
-Since the first issue of NPQ appeared ten years ago,the Soviet Union
has ceased to exist and the Cold War has ended. It was also a period during which the United States and the Soviet UniodRussia signed landmark bilateral arms control treaties in their continuing efforts to reduce the danger of nuclear conflict. As a result of the Intermediate Nudear Forces (INF) agreement of 1987 and the
second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START 11) of 1 9 9 3 , the fear of a nuclear I
holocaust rhar had been a persuasive component throughout
A ban on all tedting og
nuke6 ha6 become an e ~ e n t i a element l in the worldwide egbon againdt prdigeration.
the decades of the Cold War has been greatly reduced. Americans and Russians are now engaged in a number of joint effom, cooperating both technically and financially to diminish further the remaining nudear risks. These &om include improving che security in Russia of nuclear material harvested from dismanded warheads and adopting so-called
“transparencymeasures”with which to confirm murualcompliI ance with agreed limits on military activities and levels of armaments. But serious hazards remain. They are concrete in the several tens of thousands of nuclear warheads still possessed by at lcast eight nations. They exist in the knowledge of how to build nuclear weapons.Thcy are present in the ambitions of other nations, and connected by fear and hope to the changing political relations of states both with and without nuclear weapons. New dangers have also come into sharper focus. Discoveries in Iraq following its defeat in Deserr Storm in 1990 have rudely
38
SPECIAL ISSUE 2997
Reprinted with permission from New Perspective Quarterly, Special Issue 1997, pp. 38-43. (Blackwell Publishing, 1997).
119
alerred us to the imminence of the threat of nuclear proliferation,. and the danger that nuclear weapons may come into the hands of unpredictable and adventurous rulers. North Korea also reminds us today that we may face more difficult cases to solve. And the behavior and dealings of Iran disquiering Recent events have also alerted us to the reality of major new dangers that are growing inour world of today tha extend beyond the nuclear dimension. The dangers of large-scale terroeism with chemical or biological munitions are not new: but they have been underlined in recent yeras, notablt by the
sarin gas released in 1994 in the Tokyo subway system, causing XI
deaths and more than
1,000
injured, by the Aum
Shinrikyo -the Supreme Truth Sect. That incident came uncomfortably close to creating massive death and destruction. Moreover a cult member said in wun earlier this year that their
guru, Shoko Asaharo, told his followers in 1994 to work out
It ib p o b b i b k tor the US to maintain conbidenee in the pe?$ormance and b a b e 0 ob our nuclear weapon6
Id (
during a test ban.
plans to ship and release that deadly nerve gas in the US. The starkest way to describe this danger is to observe that,
with modern biotechnology developments, an individual with the sick determination, the dedication and scientific training ofsomeone like the Unabomber, now can threaten the lives of millions in an urban population with just tens of kilograms of bacterial agents such as anthrax spores that can be distributed in aerosol form and spread by atmospheric winds. I mention these newly growing dangers to furrher emphasize the urgency of reducing nuclear dangers and moving ahead wich a more focused and aggressive effort to combat them. To be effective, such an effort will have to go far beyond formal treaties between established nations, such as the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention (ratified by the US and entered into force in April 1997). It will also have to address threats that can be developed by small terrorist groups and rogue leaders, sin- no large technical infrastructure is required to develop biological
or chemical weapons threats. This poses intelligence as well as political challenges among the most formidable that loom ahead in the zIst century.
NUKE PROLIFERATION
I 1995 and 1996 were banner years in international
efforts against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The vote in the United Nations in New York, on May
11,
1995, was overwhelming in support of an
indefinite extension of the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treary (NPT) treaty. The current count of 18s nations as signers, with only five non-signers, shows that except for a few would-be proliferators’ most nations and people of the world
SPECIAL ISSUE 1S97
120
clearly share a common interest in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. The NPT agreement is a major achievement that puts an obligation on all signatory nations
-non-nuclear as well as nuclear-
to
work together to reduce
incentives and opportunities for proliferation, and also to provide more effective means than currently exist for ensuring compliance with the treary’s provisions.
All nations working to build an efkctive worldwide non-proliferation regime face major political tasks. We still need to develop political and economic incentives and security assurances that can help dissuade non-signatory nations from joining the nuclear club. Both Iraq and No& Korea, although signatories of the NPT, have reminded us recendy of the imminence of the
India b the lone dbeenter,
dangers and also of the inadequacies in today’s efforts against
demanding that the nuclear powers first
proliferation. They have also reminded us, as have recurring reports of leakage, thefr and smuggling of potential nuclear
declare a date Bor destroying their entire
bomb fuel, perhaps involving terrorists, that the capabilities of
the International Atomic Energy Agency
nuclear arsenals.
(LAEA) must be ex-
panded and strengthened. Indeed the overall level of effort to
I
assure safe and secure storage of bomb fuel must be enhanced
and made more effective- especially in the former Soviet states-and this, too, is an ongoing effort.
The IAEA, or its successor, must be given the political support to inspect more
than just those sites identified by signatory nations as their nuclear installations.The
IAEAmust also enhance irs technical abiliry to detect diversionsof nuclear materid and to provide assurance of the absence of undeclared nuclear activities. Both political and technical SUPPOK are required to strengthen its safeguards system. To do a more thorough job as required, the agency will need more st&,
a larger budget,
a wider range of skills and also support from the large information-collectingservices maintained by a number of member stares. Most notably, but not uniquely, this means the US. The
IAEA or its
successor must also oversee a coordinated effort
involving all imponant supplier nations so it can assess heir actions. This will require strong political will on the pan of the supplier nations who will have to put their interest in the effort against proliferation above their interest in c o m e r c i a exports and profits.
BANNING TESTS
I The non-nuclear nations accepted verification protocols
and trade restrictions when they renounced the effort to join the nuclear club. The nuclear nations, for their part, have a special obligation to honor the commitments under this treaty to reduce its discriminatory nature bemeen themselves
40
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121
and the non-nuclear nations. Toward this end the nuclear nations rook an with the signing of enormously imponanr step at the UN on September 24,1996,
the Comprehensive Test Ban Treary (CTBT). This treaty bans all nuclear explosions by its signatories-of
any size, at any time and in any place. It has already
been signed by more than 140 of the 187 nations-including
all five declared
nuclear powers.
The treaty contains extensive provisions to verify compliance with its restrictions, based on a worldwide network of seismic monitoring stations, satellites and other technologies. A formal process of on-site challenge inspections will also be established in accord with US insistence. The CTBT is the culmination of40 years of effort starred during the Eisenhower Administration. The 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty prohibited nuclear rest explosions in the atmosphere, in outer space and underwarer, but permirred them underground. The 1974 Threshold Test Ban Treary set a size limit on underground test explosions of150 kilotons, roughty 10times the size ofthe atom bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. When the CTBT enters inro force, the nations who signed it will end all nuclear explosions after more than 2,000 nuclear tests spanning half a century.
For the CTBT to enter force, ir must be signed and ratified by all 44 narions thar possess nuclear reactors for research and civilian energy production and are considered to be porential
An individual with the bick determination and bcientific training 08 the Unabomber can now threaten the lives 08 hundreds 08 thousandb to millions oQpeople with ju6t tens oj kilograms ob bacterial agentd.
I /
or actual nuclear powers. This includes the five declared
nudear powers-the
US, the United Kingdom, Russia, France and China-and
the three undeclared ones- Israel, India and Pakistan. Thus far, India is the lone dissenter, demanding thar the nuclear powers firsr declare a deadline for destroying their entire nudear arsenals. The US and other nuclear nations are negotiating to meet India’s security concerns. Pakistan will nor sign it until India does, but has not opposed the mBT. The present US position is to work to reduce the number of, and reliance on, nuclear weapons through an orderly step-by-step process of bilateral negotiations with the Russians in the START forum. Complete nuclear disarmament remains a declared bur a distant goal
/i
-too
far ahead for me to see or know how to get there. Although proponents of the CTBT value it as a major achievement, as I certainly do, opponents have raised objections on both political and technical
SPECIAL ISSUE 1997
122
grounds. I believe the political objections have little merit relative to the real value of the CTBT, and that the technical ones can be answered. On political grounds, opponents of the CTBT have argued that tan conducted by the nuclear powers are not the cause of nuclear ambition in a leader l i e Saddam Hussein or Moammar Khadafii. Such leaders would want the bomb ifthcy could get it-with
or without underground tests by the nuclear powers. Furthermore, h e y
argue, even without nuclear testing, non-nuclear nations can develop primitive weapons, as did the US in 1945with the uranium bomb that exploded over Hiroshima. That argument misses the red point The CTBT is an important step in the direction of uniting the world in a concerted effort to contain the nuclear danger. It addresses the concernsand suspicions of many people and counrria around the world. As the nuclear weapons states continued to test and modernize their arsenals, many
I have, for years, exprwed growing doubn about the seriousness of Not only does the CTBT help limit the spread ob nuclear weapons, it will dampen the competition among thost? who already have warheads, but who now will be unable to develop and deploy more advanced nuclear weapons.
their commitment to
a
common effort against nudcar danger.
For this reason a ban on all testing of nukes has become an essential element in the worldwide effon against prolieration. Not only does the CTBT help limit the spread of nuclear
weapons, it wiU dampen the competition among those who already have warheads, but who now will be unable to dzvelop and deploy more advanced nuclear weapons at either the high end or the low end of destruction power. Through the years of the Cold War, the US nuclear program was driven by fear and competiriveness. The primary purpose of nuclear testing was to develop more effective and safe nuclear warheads. The end of the Cold War changed all that. When President Bush instituted a moratorium on nuclear testing in July 1992, he declared that
there was no need for the US to develop or deploy new nuclear warhead designs. Notwithstanding the politid case for a comprehensivetest ban to help stem the threat of the spread of nuclear weapons, it was ZLo necessary for the US
to
be
convinced that it would be possible to retain the currently high confidence in the safety and reliability of our nuclear arsenal over the long term under a ban on all nuclear explosions. Other nudear powers must also address this technical issue. President Clinton answered this question in the affirmative for the US in 1995 following a thorough analysis of the technical issues that was carried out by a ream of independent scientists and endorsed by the weapons laboratories.This conclu-
sion, that a CTBT that prohibits all tats of any yield, anywhere and for all time, is
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consistent with our national security, is based on two important assumptions.The first is that the political climate worldwide continues to move forward and that there
is no need to design new weapons, a US position since 1992. T h e second is that the US will continue to maintain a strong scientific and technical infrastructure in nudear weapons. This means sustaining the strength and qualiry of the work at the nuclear weapons labs, including the scientists0'1 whom the nation will rely for continued assurance of the effectiveness of the enduring stockpile as it ages and
continues to shrink in numbers under negotiated limits. The basic conclusion of the technical srudies was that the experience of such a program will make it possible for the US to
11
neus will continue
to
II
maintain Q strong scientific and technical infirastructurein nuclear weapona.
maintain confidence in the performance and safety of our nuclear weapons during a r a t ban, and also to maintain the capability to respond appropriately should the need arise to renew testing as a result of unanticipated technical or political developments.This program can also be pursued in a manner consistent with our objectives of non-proliferation and stockpile reduction. Specifically it should be understood that. given the sophisticationand complexity of modern nuclear weapons, the development of newer and "better" weapons designs is not practid in the absence of underground tests.
Clearly the other nuclear nations had to satisfy themselves also as to the quality of their existing weapons and the prospects for maintaining confidence in their effectiveness without relying on underground tests. The path ahead remains long and difficult, and we face new challenges due to the increasing availability of biological and chemical weapons that can wreak indiscriminate destruction. At least on the nuclear front, as I have described, imporrant progress has been made during the last two years in extending the Non-Proliferation Treaty and negotiating a t r u e ComprehensiveTest Ban Treaty -welcome
and tangible evidence
that we are moving forward in the continuing worldwide effort to reduce nuclear danger in the next century. A
SPECIAL ISSUE 1.97
43
124 T H E N E W YORK T I M E S
OP-ED T U E S D A Y , J U N E 2,1998
Reasons To Ratify, Not To Stall ~
By Sidney D.Drell STANFORD Calif he nuclear tests by India and Pakistan have led some in the United States Senate to seek further delay on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which has already been awaiting ratification for more than a year and a half Senator Trent Lott of Mississippi. the majority leader, said on Friday that “the nuclear spiral in Asia demonstrates the irrelevance of U S action” on the treaty, calling the pact “unverifiable and ineffectual To the contrary, the treaty’s international monitoring system, when used in combination with our own intelligence resources, provides the means to verify the test ban effectively Moreover, a quick vote u1 the Senate approving the treaty is an essential response to the South Asian nuclear gambit While it is true that American intelligence failed to provide imminent warning of India’s first three nuclear tests on May 11, we were well aware that the technical preparations had been made for testing Furthermore, the global network of seismic sensors that will form the core of the treaty’s verification system did detect, locate and identify the main nuclear blast that day It is evldent that the system also proved effective in detecting PakiStan’s tests, both on Thursday and on Saturday And the treaty calls for the monitoring system to be beefed up Also, the treaty would allow us to request a short-notice. on-site inspection if we had any evidence suggesting that a nuclear weapons test might have occurred India h a s claimed that its last two
T
@rooRumer
I’
Sidney D Dreii, a physics professor a t Stanford University, has advised the United Slates Government on national security since 1960
announced tests, on May 13, had very low yields, in the subkiloton range. Whether or not we succeed in corroborating possible tests of such relatively small magnitude, we need to remember that very low yield tests are of questionable value in designing new nuclear weapons or confirming that a new design will work as intended. Any failure by the monitors to detect such tests is not the proper benchmark for determining the system’s or the treaty’s effective ness. I know from my own work for the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet, that the existing monitoring system did the job last summer, detecting a “seismic event” off Novaya Zemlya in Russia and eventually helping to determine that it was not from a nuclear test. Our intelligence services are rightly assigned the task of monitoring for nuclear explosions, with or without the treaty. But with the treaty, additional sensors would be deployed in a global network that would complement our own intelligence. Some of these additional sensors would be “aimed” at the subcontinent. And with the treaty, we could request onsite inspection of suspicious activities. The test ban treaty which has already been s i p e d by 149 nations
-
-
-
and ratified by our nuclear allies, Britain and France provides the legal framework for a long-term solution to the problem of nuclear testing in India and Pakistan. The best way for these two nations to begin
-
Senator Lott is wrong about the test ban treaty. addressing the international condemnation and sanctions that have resulted from their tests is for them to sign the treaq-, without condition. Senate ratificati(.a would strengthen our hand in pushing India and Pakistan toward a responsible course, and it would help dissuade other states from going down the dangerous road of developing nuclear w e a p ons. Senator Lott also expressed concern that the treaty “will not enter into force unless 44 countries, including India and Pakistan, ratify it.” Precisely for this reason, Article 14 of the treaty calls for a review con-
ference in September 1999 to Iwk for ways io put the treaty into effect if it has not been approved by all 44 nuclear-capable nations (i.e., those with nuclear weapons or with nuclear reactors for research or power). Only those nations that have ratified will have a seat at that conference. Thus the United States must ratify the treaty this year if we are to be a leader, as we must be, in an effort to put the treaty into force. Previous Senates have shown that they can act quickly and courageously on such matters. When Pres ident John F. Kennedy submitted the Limlted Test Ban Treaty to the Senate in 1963, the Foreign Relations Committee held its first hearing four days later, and the treaty was a p proved by the full Senate in less than two months. Yet in the wake of the Indian and Pakistani tests, it would appear that the Senate will not act even to bring the treaty to a vote. Inaction will not help to deter further nuclear tests or reduce nuclear dangers. Rather than pointing to India’s and Pakistan’s tests as an excuse for inaction, the Senate should be approving the treaty without delay. Four decades ago President Dwight D. Eisenhower said that not achieving a nuclear test ban “would have to be classed a s the greatest disappointment of any administratlon of any decade of any time and of any party.’’ It would be tragic if once more we fail to seize this opportunity. 0
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125
THEWASHINGTON POST
612 1/99
Paul H. Nitze and Sidney D. Drell
This Treatv Must Be Ratified J
For more than five decades, we have served in a variety of foreign policy, national security and intelligence positions for both Republican and Democratic administrations. A common thread in our experience is that our national interest is best served when America leads. When America hesitates, opportunities to improve our security and lost, and our strategic position suffers. This year, America has an opportunity to lead a global effort to strengthen nuclear nonproliferation by ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). This fall, a review conference will meet to discuss ways to bring the CTBT into effect even if it has not been approved by all 44 nuclear-capable nations (i.e., those states with nuclear reactors for research or power). The United States was the first nation to sign the CTBT in September 1996; 151 nations have now followed that lead. The U.S. Senate, however, has refused to consider ratification of the treaty, and only those nations that have ratified it will have a seat at this fall’s conference. Approval of the CTBT by the Senate is essential in order for the United States to be in the strongest possible position to press for the early enforcement of this vital agreement. Failure to act will undercut our diplomatic efforts to combat the threat from the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The president rightly has referred to the CTBT as the “longest-sought, hardest-fought prize in the history of arms control.” President Eisenhower was the first American leader to pursue a ban on nuclear testing as a means to curb the nuclear arms race. Today, such a ban would constrain advanced and not-so-advanced nuclear weapons states from developing more sophisticated and dangerous nuclear weapons capabilities. This is particularly important in South Asia. Last year, both India and Pakistan conducted nuclear tests, threatening a dangerous escalation of their nuclear arms competition. Both countries now have expressed a commitment to adhere to the CTBT this year. U.S. ratification would remove any excuse for inaction on the part of these nations and would strengthen their resolve. The CTBT also fulfills a commitment made by the nuclear powers in gaining the agreement of 185 nations to extend indefinitely the Nuclear NonproliferationTreaty in 1995. The NPT remains the cornerstone of the worldwide effort to limit the spread of nuclear weapons and reduce nuclear danger. We strongly embrace President Reagan’s vision of a world free of nuclear weapons. The adminis-
tration needs to engage Russia on deep reductions in nuclear forces, despite the disruption in our bilateral relations resulting from the crisis in the Balkans. In the meantime, the United States will be able to maintain the safety and reliability of its own stockpile through the Department of Energy’s science-based stockpile stewardship program. Our confidence in this program underpins our judgment that there is no technical reason why the CTBT is not the right thing to do. President Reagan’s maxim-trust but verify-is still true today. With the CTBT, the United States will gain new tools to assess compliance with a ban on nuclear testing-including the right to request a short-notice, on-site inspection if we had evidence
‘‘President Reagan ’s maxim-trust but verify-is still true today.” that a test might have occurred. Combined with the treaty’s extensive international monitoring regime and our own intelligence resources, the CTBT is effectively verifiable. The Senate has an obligation to review expeditiously major treaties and agreements entered into by the Executive so that the world can be sure of America’s course. When President Reagan signed the INF Treaty in December 1987, which eliminated an entire class of missiles, hearings in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began within weeks, and the Senate voted to approve the treaty within six months. In comparison, the CTBT was signed by President Clinton more than 2% years ago but still awaits its first hearing. In May 1961, President Eisenhower said that not achieving a nuclear test ban “would have to be classed as the greatest disappointment of any administration-of any decade-of any time and of any party.” Similarly, failure to ratify the CTBT would have to be regarded as the geatest disappointment of any Senate, of any time, of any party. We urge the Senate to ratify the CTBT now.
Paul H . Nitze is a former arms control negotiator and was an ambassador-at-large in the Reagan administration. Sidney D. Drell is an adviser to the federal government on national security issues.
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Annu. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 1994. 44:285-327 Copyright 0 1994 by Annual Reviews Inc. All rights reserved
TECHNICAL ISSUES OF A NUCLEAR TEST BAN Sidney Drell Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, P.O. Box 4349, Stanford, California 94309
Bob Peurifoy 909 Four Hills Road Southeast, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87123 KEY WORDS:
testing, safety, reliability
CONTENTS I . INTRODUCTION ............................................................................. 2. TECHNICAL ARGUMENTS FOR TESTING ....................................... 3. NUCLEAR WEAPON SYSTEM SAFETY ........................................... 3. I Enhanced Nuclear Detonation Safety ............................................. 3.2 Insensitive High Explosive ...................... 3.3 Fire-Resistant Pits .................. ............................................ 3.4 Missile Propellant ....................................................................... 4. RELIABILITY OF THE NUCLEAR WEAPON STOCKPILE 4.1 A Nondevice Component .............................................................. 4 . 2 The Device ................................................................................. 4.3 Reliability Assessment of the Stockpile .............................. 5 . NUCLEAR WEAPON EFFECTS ....................................................... 6. DESIGN COMPETENCE. ........ 7. VERIFICATION .............................................................................. 8. POLITICAL ISSUES IN THE COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY .................... DEBATE
285 293
309 311 314 317 318 3 19 321 322 323 324
1 . INTRODUCTION With the breakup of the Soviet Union and the emerging US policy of reduced reliance on nuclear forces, most of the important reasons given for continuing nuclear testing have faded, and the historic arguments in support of a comprehensive test ban (CTB) have come to the fore. 285 Reprinted with permission from Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Science, Vol. 44 (1993) pp. 285-327. Copyright (1994) by Annual Reviews www.annualreviews.org.
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This was acknowledged when President Bush signed into law the FY93 Energy and Water Appropriations Bill, which contains a provision that mandates a permanent ban on all US nuclear testing after 1996 if all other countries also cease testing. This provision, known as the Hatfield-Exon-Mitchell Amendment after its primary sponsors in the US Senate, states that “no underground tests of nuclear weapons may be conducted by the United States after September 30, 1996 unless a foreign state conducts a nuclear test after this date.” The legislation also required a nine-month suspension of all US tests from October 1, 1992 until July 1, 1993, with any resumption of testing delayed until at least 90 days after the President submits for congressional approval a report on the number and type of tests planned through that fiscal year. The three annual reports to Congress for FY94,95, and 96 require a description of proposed tests and a plan for installing modern safety features-enhanced nuclear detonation safety (ENDS) systems, insensitive high explosives (IHEs), or fire-resistant pits (FRPs)-in the warheads slated for testing. Another provision of this legislation is that before October 1 , 1996, no more than 15 tests may be conducted, with a maximum of 5 in any one year. All of these tests must be conducted for safety purposes with the exception of one reliability test per year that must be approved by Congress and one test each year that may be conducted by Great Britain at the Nevada test site. Finally, the law directs the administration to submit a schedule to Congress for the resumption of talks with Russia on limiting or banning underground tests and on a plan for achieving a multilateral CTB by September 30, 1996. Since then, on July 3, 1993, President Clinton announced his decision to continue the current moratorium on testing at least until September 1994 unless other countries begin testing. On March 15, 1994, he extended the moratorium to September, 1995. Within the cloistered community that designs nuclear weapons’ and studies their potential employment there is understandable unease about the consequences of a nuclear test ban or an extended moratorium. After all, this community and its professional descendants will be expected to continue to certify the performance of weapons without fully testing its best collective judgments. In this article, we review the issue and attempt to put into perspective the risks associated with a ban. Specifically, we consider the arguments concerning weapon safety and reliability if such a ban were in place. Some tend to use the terms “weapon” and “weapon system” interchangeably. However, we distinguish between the two and define weapon system as the weapon (payload), the delivery system, the support equipment, and the associated trained personnel.
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The safety and reliability of nuclear weapons, surely no less than that of civilian nuclear power reactors, are common interests of all. As the major nuclear nations work to further reduce the current stockpiles, it is important to carefully evaluate the proper actions to ensure responsible and safe custodianship of the remaining weapons. As technical arguments are developed and analyzed for activities that may or may not include continued underground testing to meet the desideratum of a safe and reliable stockpile, we must also determine the importance of continuing a moratorium or achieving a comprehensive test ban treaty (CTBT) that prohibits all underground nuclear testing as a means of preserving and even strengthening a nonproliferation regime. Later in this review we make some observations about the complex political factors involved, but here and for most of this article we focus our analysis on the technical issues concerning weapon safety and reliability and on other arguments that have been introduced for continued testing. In this review we divide the weapon into two parts: ( a ) the device that produces a thermonuclear explosion when properly stimulated and (6) everything else, e.g. structures, safing, arming, firing apparatus, use-control features, etc. Specifically, for our purpose we assume that the device consists of one or more of several types of chemical high explosive, which is used to compress a pit made of plutonium and/or uranium, and a main stage that produces the major yield. The main stage is typically constructed of lithium deuteride and uranium. These components are contained in a sealed and desiccated metal case that also includes various metallic, plastic, and elastomeric parts. The device is sophisticated but not complicated. The knowledge and experience necessary to design a modern US weapon are indeed impressive and demand many skills and robust data bases. As presently conceived, a nuclear test ban does not affect our ability to inspect, monitor, test, and-if necessary-replace the “everything else” hardware to assess and maintain its reliability. The “everything else” is now regularly examined, tested, and evaluated at statistically significant levels, with no need for nuclear testing. See Section 4 for the methodology. Nuclear weapon systems (less the device) are also examined and tested in realistic configurations. The test ban issue, thzn, is restricted to the device. We treat safety and reliability concerns separately. From 1945 to the mid 1950s,*there was no peacetime nuclear weapon
* During this period, several plans to introduce international control of nuclear weapons and technology were proposed by the US. Among them was the Baruch Plan, which
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safety concern. To assure safety, the fissile material was stored separately from the rest of the weapon, initially in the custody of the AEC. It was not until the Korean War that the military services assumed custody of some weapons. Even then, the weapons were stored disassembled. From 1945-1949 (the interval from Trinity to Joe-1, the first Soviet Union nuclear detonation), US nuclear weapon designers focused on improving performance of the weapons-specifically , on more efficient use of fissile material and the design of higher-yield weapons. Program momentum was sustained largely by the excitement fostered by the development of the new technology. Led by the Armed Forces Special Weapons Project (AFSWP), the military services began to examine weapon effects on military targets and hardware. Nuclear tests were infrequent, and fallout was not a publicly recognized issue. At the same time, unease increased over the international intentions of the Soviet Union. Threats to our European friends3 were the prevalent concern, because there was no real chance that the Soviet Union could harm us .directly. The first Soviet Union nuclear detonation changed this attitude. From 1949 through the mid-l950s, the weapon program grew rapidly, and the thermonuclear debate gained public attention. In response to growing concern about a variety of perceived Soviet threats, weapon technology allowed development of weapons of smaller diameter and lighter weight that required less maintenance. These changes led to new methods of delivery and reduced strike-preparation time. So-called battlefield nuclear weapon designs were studied as a means of countering USSR threats to Western Europe without the huge expense of forward-deploying large US conventional forces. Still, as long as the fissile material remained separate, these weapons posed no threat of peacetime accidental nuclear detonation and little risk of plutonium scattering. Nevertheless, accidents did occur, the major ones as a result of air transport.
had as its precursor the Acheson/Lilienthal report. The Soviet Union declined to cooperate on U S terms. Parallel with the international issue, the executive and congressional branches debated the issue of military vs civilian domestic control. The end result was the passage in 1946 of the McMahon bill, which granted control of atomic research and development to a five-member civilian Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The AEC has since evolved into the Department of Energy (DOE). During this period, the Iron Curtain fell over Eastern Europe and the Berlin Blockade was overcome by the airlift ordered by President Truman. In China the Communists were victorious.
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Both the US and the Soviet Union mastered thermonuclear weapon technology. Testing of thermonuclear weapons brought to the surface the threat and reality of worldwide fallout, which resulted in growing public recognition that nuclear weapons had a major downside. This increased awareness opened a national debate over opportunities and needs for national defense vs health and environmental hazards that continues today. The introduction into the national stockpile of completely assembled weapons in the mid-1950s necessitated a fundamental transition in reliability and safety philosophy. For the first time, weapons could be-and were-built “ready to go.” These new weapon designs were attractive because they conserved special nuclear materials (SNM), were essentially maintenance free, and required almost no strike preparation time. As a result, questions concerning peacetime accidental nuclear detonation and plutonium-scattering risk levels had to be addressed. For example, given an assembled weapon, i.e. fissile material, associated with the chemical high explosive, how would one assure, to some agreedto probability, that an accident would produce no (or at least very little) nuclear yield or plutonium scattering? Section 3 addresses this concern. The nuclear test moratorium (November 1958 to November 1961) was preceded and followed by extensive testing by both the US and the Soviet Union (see Figure I). In the US, these tests essentially completed the impressive improvements in the yield-to-weight capability of US weapons. The impressive progress in nuclear weapon technology from the mid-1950s through the mid-1960s was paralleled by major advances in weapon system technology, specifically in the development of ballistic missile delivery systems. The ability of both the US and the Soviet Union to threaten one another with thermonuclear weapon systems on 30-minute time scales was highly unsettling. From the perspective of the US, the adventures of the Communist world seemed increasingly threatenir~g.~ The US military response was to place a fraction of its strategic aircraft on quick-reaction ground alert and a significant subset of these weapon systems on armed airborne alert. In both the US and the Soviet Union, solid-fueled and storable-liquid-fueled ballistic missiles were deployed in large numbers. Ballistic missile defense research and development expanded. The reaction time of strategic systems took on critical importance. Additional, more threatening accidents occurred. These included Communist China’s threat toward Quernoy and Matsu, the crushing of the Hungarian uprising, Sputnik, the erection of Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis, China’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, and the Sino-Soviet border confrontation.
13 1
(Tot&) - - U.S. F.S.USRusia *
World Total
~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~
Figure i Total number of known nuclear tests. The US total (solid line) is given by the DOE (December 1993). me toed of h e w n tests by the former Soviet Lh'kioniRussia (dfished-dorted line) is taken from the Builttin of Atomic Scientists (April 1993). The shaded area for the world total is also taken €ram the Butletin, corrected for the US total number as given by the DOE in December IW3.
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The maintenance philosophy and reliability-assessment methodology of weapons continued to evolve. Designers began to design weapons expected to require no field maintenance except for periodic replacement of a few components containing tritium (12-year decay half-life). The weapons were sealed and desiccated. Sampling of the weapon types in the stockpile became the method of assessing reliability. Randomly selected weapons of each type were returned to an AEC laboratory each year for disassembly, examination, testing, and evaluation. Reliability estimates were based on the findings. The AEC joined with the Department of Defense (DOD) and the military services in conducting a few instrumented flight tests and drop tests of weapon systems per year-of course, without the device. The early 1960s were a time of rapid technological advances for nuclear weapons. This period witnessed large weapon yield-to-weight improvements, impressive reductions in the amount of SNM needed for a given yield, and reduced size and weight of a device for a given yield. In 1963 a joint US, Soviet Union, and UK limited test ban treaty (LTBT) went into effect that forbade testing above ground, in the atmosphere, underwater, and in outer space. Only underground testing was allowed. The US device design laboratories (Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore) began to explore special-effect weapons-low fissionyield, enhanced neutron, and hot X-ray devices-for possible use in peaceful activities (Plowshare), enhanced radiation effects (the neutron bomb), and antiballistic missile (ABM) systems. At the same time, the growing involvement of the US in Vietnam fueled opposition to expanding military intervention and distracted the American public from the issue of nuclear testing. From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, weapons and weapon systems continued to evolve, but the advances slowed and emphasis was on improvements (evolution) rather than on real breakthroughs (revolution). Both the US and the Soviet Union completed the deployment of first- and second-generation multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) ballistic missiles. Limited ABMs were deployed by both sides (but never activated by the US) under strict limitations of the 1972 ABM treaty. Long-range theater missiles were deployed in NATO countries. During these years the publicly estimated size of the US nuclear stockpile began to decline (see Figure 2), and the aggregate yield of the US stockpile decreased substantially as the nation increased its reliance on missile rather than bomber delivery. During the 1980s, as the threat of nuclear weapon proliferation became increasingly troublesome, interest in achieving a CTBT continued to grow, and verification issues became highly visible. President Re-
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iE 20.000
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1960
1970
1980
Year
1990
2000 m 3 A 2
Figure 2 Estimated total of U S and Soviet (Russian) nuclear warheads as given in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (November 1992).
agan announced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in 1983. Negotiations toward agreements on verification of nuclear events seemed to reach an impasse. Then came the meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev in Reykjavik in 1986, the beginning of the end of the Cold War, and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.5 These events led to a reduced US reliance on nuclear weapons and the recognition of a greater challenge: the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction-nuclear, chemical, and biological. For example, we were disturbed by the extent of Iraq’s nuclear program under Saddam Hussein. Because many view a CTBT as a contributing, if not a significant or Some suggest that the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan (1980) and the U S defense buildup during the early 1980s were significant events in tiring and economically stressing the Soviet Union.
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even decisive, element in the effort against proliferation, the test ban issue has once again come to the fore. Today the availability of several types of stockpiled weapons of known capability and the incorporation of safety improvements developed during the 1970s appear to satisfy all currently anticipated national security needs. The nuclear weapon community is now-properly , in our view-more focused on preserving the existing deterrent than on improving devices. It appears that the DOD and the military services are quite satisfied with the capabilities of the existing stockpile, given the emerging national security policies and commitments. The present stockpile appears reliable and age-stable and serves deterrence. The possibility of significant improvement in nuclear device performance is remote, and arguments for continued yield testing for device improvements are no longer persuasive. In the following sections we review and evaluate the remaining technical arguments for testing in today’s post-Cold War world. Finally, in Section 8 we discuss the political issues that enter into the current CTBT debate.
2. TECHNICAL ARGUMENTS FOR TESTING Six arguments are generally given for nuclear weapons testing:
1 . Tests are required to improve the safety of the US nuclear arsenal. 2. Tests are required to maintain confidence in the reliability of the stockpile. 3. Tests are required to measure the effects of nuclear weapons. 4. Tests are required to maintain competence in the nuclear weapons community in support of responsible stewardship of the US deterrent. 5 . It is impossible to verify a ban on testing, or even a low ceiling (less than or of the order of a few kilotons), on the yields of permitted tests. 6. Tests are needed to develop new designs to meet new military requirements. In 1992, further progress in reducing reliance on and numbers of nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War era led President Bush to rule out nuclear weapon tests for new warheads, a policy continued by President Clinton. Our present large-yield warheads are considered to be destructive enough, and at the low-yield end of the scale, conventional weapons with improved accuracy and penetration are adequate. Argument 6 is thus moot. We now examine individually the first five arguments listed above.
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3. NUCLEAR WEAPON SYSTEM SAFETY Extensive improvements in weapon design since 1945 have resulted in a versatile and powerful arsenal of weapons and delivery systems that incorporate military characteristics responsive to US needs as formulated during the Cold War. These military characteristics include highyield and light-weight warheads that can be delivered accurately over long distances and that are mounted on delivery vehicles-aircraft and missiles based on land or at sea-so that the overall weapon system is deployed ready for strike. Inevitably, tensions arise when balancing safety vs readiness requirements, and compromises must be made. In particular, established technologies that increase the yield-to-weight ratio of a nuclear warhead may result in a reduced margin of safety for the total weapon system. We explore these technical issues in this section. Discussion of the safety of a nuclear warhead focuses on the primary or boosted fission stage. In modern US weapons the pit of radioactive, fissile material-plutonium (239Pu)and/or uranium (235U)-containing a H2/H3gas mixture is surrounded by a shell of high explosive. Upon properly phased detonation, it generates the nuclear yield and creates the high temperature (106"C) required to initiate the fusion process in a multistage thermonuclear weapon. An accident could initiate detonation of the high explosive, which potentially could lead to significant nuclear yield and/or plutonium scattering. For the first of these two scenarios there are two possibilities: 1. The accident stimulates the weapon's arming and firing system, which causes the weapon to detonate. This concern is valid, but its evaluation does not require nuclear tests. 2. The high explosive is detonated by some method other than the weapon's arming and firing system. For this risk, we must examine two conditions: detonation at one point and detonation at more than one point. If detonation occurs at more than one point, one cannot confidently calculate or adequately test for the probability distribution of possible yields. On the other hand, the probability that an accident would cause a detonation at more than one point was thought to be vanishingly small in the context of agreed-to risk by the Los Alamos and Livermore National Laboratories, the AEC, the DOD, and the military services. This assumption is based on the fact that, when detonated at one point, all the chemical explosive will be consumed in a few tens of microseconds. It was difficult to imagine an accident that would cause multiple detonation points
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during this short time span.6 Another factor to consider is the possibility of multipoint initiation of weapons due to propagation of explosions in bunkers. For a detonation at one point, the problem resolves to the question: What is the probability of assembling a critical mass, given that the one-point detonation occurs at the most sensitive point on or in the chemical explosive? One-point safety nuclear tests were essential to the development of the codes used to evaluate configurations and risk probabilities. At first, these codes were two-dimensional at best, and by today’s standards they were superficial and inadequate. As a result of considerable advancements in computing power, code sophistication, data bases and, in particular, development of three-dimensional codes of appreciable capability, our ability to examine one-point safety risks has improved greatly. The codes could not have been improved without the ability to conduct dedicated nuclear safety tests. From 1945-1951, the fission bombs of the US were designed with nuclear capsules that could be manually inserted and removed. The capsule was to be inserted while the aircraft was en route to the target and removed before landing if the mission was aborted. Beginning in 1952, warheads were designed with mechanically inserted capsules so that bombs could be carried external to the aircraft and to facilitate the making of nuclear-capable first-generation missiles. This technique relied on an electrically operated screwjack that would be activated to insert the capsule in flight en route to a target and (for bombs) that was reversible prior to landing if the mission was aborted. Normally the capsule would be positioned in the weapon but offset from the center of the high-explosive sphere. As long as the screwjack’s motor was not activated inadvertently or by an accident, such a configuration was thought to be nuclear safe, although a chemical explosion would result in dispersal of plutonium. This configuration is similar in principle to the binary concept for modern chemical weapons. As noted above, in the mid-1950s the design of nuclear weapons advanced to the present-day concept of sealed pits, with the fissile material permanently sealed within the high explosive. The superior military characteristics of this design include the more efficient use of nuclear material, and hence less weight and volume, for a given explosive yield. The sealed-pit configuration also improves operational readiness while reducing handling operations by military and maintenance However, the geometric configuration of warheads in the Trident I and I1 systems has called this assumption into question. Later in this section this issue is discussed further. The discussion of this section on safety draws on Ref. 1.
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personnel. However, it places increased safety demands on the electrical system for detonating the warhead in the case of severe abnormal environments or accidents. These demands were cause for serious concern because the early electrical systems for detonating the warhead could result in a nuclear yield if triggered inadvertently or by an accident. Some of the early sealed-pit warheads also could produce an unacceptably large nuclear yield if the high explosive was initiated at a single point. Nuclear testing demonstrated this characteristic and allowed appropriate corrective actions. At about the same time, the US entered a period of heightened international tensions, especially with the Soviet Union, that lasted for three decades. In 1957 the Strategic Air Command (SAC) began operating with forces armed on ground alert, and in 1958 it instituted around-theclock airborne-alert operations. The US also initiated large deployments of nuclear weapons to Europe. One consequence of the rapidly expanding arsenal, then widely deployed and on airborne alert, was a large increase in the number of accidents involving nuclear warheads and components. The official list of US-announced accidents involving nuclear weapons numbers 32, of which 5 occurred prior to 1956 and 26 occurred between 1956 and 1968, when the US ended the SAC aerial alert following serious and wellpublicized accidents over Palomares, Spain in 1966 and at Thule Air Force Base, Greenland in 1968. Table 1 briefly summarizes these accidents, which raised concerns about the unpredictability of the potential accident environments and the vulnerabilities associated with early electrical safing features of US weapons. Other incidents have involved delivery systems, but without weapon damage, e.g. when the engine of a B-52 caught fire upon being started during a practice drill at the Grand Forks, North Dakota SAC base in 1980. Over the years, concerns about the safety of nuclear weapons have received continuing attention. At times they have competed with established requirements for military characteristics in the modernizing of the US nuclear arsenal. Safety requirements for nuclear weapons apply both to the weapons themselves and to the entire weapon system. For the warheads these requirements mean that design choices for the nuclear components and for the electrical arming system must meet the desired safety criteria. For the weapon system, one must not only select the appropriate design choices but also implement operational, handling, transportation, and use constraints or controls to satisfy the safety standards. Safety of the US stockpile is the shared responsibility of the DOE and the DOD, by explicit direction of the President. The quantitative nuclear weapons safety criteria in effect today were established in 1968
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by Carl Walske, then chairman of the Military Liaison Committee, and are summarized as follows: 1. One-point safety criteria. a. In the event of a detonation initiated at any one point in the highexplosive system, the probability of achieving a nuclear yield greater than four pounds TNT equivalent shall not exceed one in one million (1 x lo6). b. One-point safety shall be inherent in the nuclear design, i.e. it shall be obtained without the use of a nuclear safing device. 2. Warhead/bomb premature probability criteria. “The probability of a premature nuclear detonation of a bomb (warhead) due to bomb (warhead) component malfunctions (in a mated or unmated condition), in the absence of any input signals except for specified signals (e.g., monitoring and control), shall not exceed: Prior to receipt of prearm signal (launch) for the normal’ storage and operational environments described in the STS, 1 in lo9 per bomb (warhead) lifetime. Prior to receipt of prearm signal (launch), for the abnormal’ environments described in the STS, 1 in lo6 per warhead exposure or accident.”
In addition, qualitative safety standards have been specified for all US-deployed weapon systems as well as for nuclear explosives in DOE custody. These criteria are to be implemented in the design of nuclear explosives and nuclear weapon systems to guard against nuclear detonations and (in the case of nuclear explosives in DOE custody) the dispersal of harmful radioactive material due to accidents, natural causes, or deliberate, unauthorized acts. Four safety standards for nuclear weapon systems are stated in DOD directive 3150.2 (February 8, 1984): 1. “There shall be positive measures to prevent nuclear weapons involved in accidents or incidents, or jettisoned weapons, from producing a nuclear yield. 2. “There shall be positive measures to prevent DELIBERATE prearming, arming, launching, firing, or releasing of nuclear weapons, except upon execution of emergency war orders or when directed by competent authority.
’
“Normal environments are those expected logistical and operational environments, as defined in the weapon’s stockpile-to-target [STS] sequence and military characteristics in which the weapon is required to survive without degradation in operational reliability.” * “Abnormal environments are those environments as defined in the weapon’s stockpile-to-target sequence and military characteristics in which the weapon is not expected to retain full operational reliability.”
E
Table 1 Summary of accidents involving US nuclear weaponsa Weapon configurationb Accident number 1
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Date 02113/50 0411 1/50 07/13/50 08/05/50 11/10/50 03/10/56 07/27/56 05/22/57 07/28/57 10/11/57 0113 1/58 02/05/58 03/11/58 11/06/58 11/26/58 0 1/08/59
Location Puget Sound, WA Manzano Base, NM Lebanon, OH Fairfield-Suisan AFB, CA Over water, outside US At sea (Mediterranean) SAC Base Kirtland AFB, NM At sea (Atlantic) Homestead AFB, FL SAC base overseas Savannah, GA Florence, SC Dyess AFB, TX Chenault AFB, LA US base, Pacific
Assembled weapons
Unassembled weapons X X X X
X X X X X X
X X -
X
Nuclear weapon response HE response Type of accident Jettison, 8ooO’ Crash into Mountain Crash in dive Emergency landing, fire Jettison Aircraft lost B-47 crashed into bunker Inadvertent jettison Jettisons, 4500’ & 2500’ Crash on takeoff, fire Taxi exercise, fire Mid-air collision, jettison Accidental jettison Crash on takeoff Fire on ground Ground alert, fuel tanks on fire
HE burn
-
HE detonate X
X
-
-
X X
-
-
-
-
-
X
X
-
-
X X
X (low order)
-
X -
X X
-
ContaminationC
8 .e
c
P 0
17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32
07/06/59 09/25/59 10/15/59 06/07/60 01/24/61 03114161 11/13/63 0111 1/64 12/05/64 12/08/64 1011 1/65 12/05/65 01/17/66 01/21/68 Spring ’68 09119/80
Barksdale, AFB, LA
X
Off Whidbey Is., WA
-
Hardinsburg, KY McGuire AFB, NJ Goldsboro, NC Yuba City, CA Medina Base, TX Cumberland, MD Ellsworth AFB, SD Bunker Hill AFB, IN Wright-Patterson AFB, OH At sea, Pacific Palomeres, Spain Thule, Greenland At sea, Atlantic Damascas, AK
X X X X
X X X
X X X X
x
Crash on takeoff, fire Navy aircraft ditched Mid-air collision, impact Missile fire Mid-air breakup Crash after abandonment Storage igloo at AEC plant Mid-air breakup, crash Missile reentry vehicle fell Taxi crash, fire Transport aircraft fire on ground Aircraft rolled off elevator Mid-air collision, crash Crash after abandonment Lost weapons Missile fuel explosion
a Source: DOD in coordination with DOE. 1981. Narrative Summaries of Accidents Involving U.S. Nuclear Weapons 1950-1980.
The term “assembled weapon” refers to either the separable nuclear capsule that was installed but was not in the bomb’s pit or a sealed-pit type of weapon with the nuclear material integral with the HE subsystem. “Unassembled weapons” means that the separable nuclear capsule was not installed in the weapon or that only weapon components were involved. (The USAF press release for accidents 1-13 used the term “assembled weapon” for the above plus where a capsule was on the aircraft). Contamination from all accidents except 29 and 30 was low in radioactivity and highly localized in areas affected. In the parentheses, the first number indicates the number of weapons that had the named response, and the second number gives the total involved in the accident.
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> 3cr r3
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3. “There shall be positive measures to prevent INADVERTENT prearming, arming, launching, firing, or releasing of nuclear weapons in all normal and credible abnormal environments. 4. “There shall be positive measures to ensure adequate security of nuclear weapons, pursuant to DOD Directive 5210.4.”
In this directive a positive measure is defined as “a design feature, safety device, or procedure that exists solely or principally to provide nuclear safety.” The draft of a revised DOD directive 3150.2 (July 7, 1989) amends this definition to “a design safety and/or security feature, principally to enhance nuclear safety.” A similar DOE directive on nuclear explosives added a fifth requirement with regard to dispersal of plutonium into the environment as formulated in the DOE 1990 policy statement 5610.10 (October 10, 1990): “All DOE nuclear explosive operations, including transportation, shall be evaluated against the following qualitative standards (in the context of this Order, the word, prevent, means to minimize the possibility, it does not mean absolute assurance against): 1. “There shall be positive measures to prevent nuclear explosives involved in accidents or incidents from producing a nuclear yield. 2. “There shall be positive measures to prevent deliberate prearming, arming, or firing of a nuclear explosive except when directed by competent authority. 3. “There shall be positive measures to prevent the inadvertent prearming, arming, launching, firing, or releasing of a nuclear explosive in all normal and credible abnormal environments. 4. “There shall be positive measures to ensure adequate security of nuclear explosives pursuant to the DOE safeguards and security requirements. 5 . “There shall be positive measures to prevent accidental, inadvertent, or deliberate unauthorized dispersal of plutonium to the environment. ”
The DOE order defines positive measures as “design features, safety rules, procedures, or other control measures used individually or collectively to provide nuclear explosive safety. Positive measures are intended to assure a safe response in applicable operations and be controllable. Some examples of positive measures are strong-link switches; insensitive high explosives; administrative procedures and controls; general and specific nuclear explosive safety rules; design control of electrical and mechan-
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ical tooling; and physical, electrical, and mechanical restraints incorporated in facilities and transport equipment .” These official criteria and standards have stimulated and guided the efforts to advance the design of nuclear weapons for the past 25 years. These efforts and their experimental and analytical validation led to the concept of a modern, enhanced nuclear detonation safety (ENDS) system against premature detonation. They also stimulated the development of an insensitive high explosive (IHE), which possesses a unique insensitivity to extreme, abnormal environments, and of fireresistant pits (FRPs) designed to further reduce the likelihood of plutonium dispersal in fire accidents. Over time, these and other design features and new technologies have been increasingly, but not completely, incorporated to further enhance weapon system safety to minimize the largest safety risks identified by fault-tree analyses and probabilistic risk assessments of the STS for each system. These technical advances have permitted great improvements in weapon safety since the 1970s. Nuclear tests have been required in order to validate the IHE and FRP improvements. At the same time, technical advances have increased the speed and memory capacity of the latest supercomputers by factors of 100 and greater. As a result, during the past six years it has become possible to carry out more realistic calculations in three dimensions to trace the hydrodynamic and neutronic development of a nuclear detonation. These new results, though still relatively primitive, show how inadequate, and in some cases misleading, the earlier twodimensional simulations were in predicting how an actual explosion might be initiated and lead to dispersal of harmful radioactivity or even to a nuclear yield. Technical arguments for continued underground testing must be judged in the context of our confidence in and understanding of the critical components of weapon design, the steps that can be taken to improve safety, the requirements to validate any design changes, and finally, the determination of “how safe is safe enough.” We discuss these issues in the following subsections.
3.1 Enhanced Nuclear Detonation Safety Modern nuclear weapons are detonated by exploding the detonators placed in the high explosive that surrounds the nuclear material. A firing set that electrically initiates all the detonators must be armed before it can be fired. In a typical firing set, a capacitor discharge unit (CDU) initiates firing of the detonators. To arm the CDU, a high-voltage capacitor would have to be charged to several thousand volts, typically produced by a transverter within the firing set. The transverter converts
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a 28-volt DC arming signal to AC voltage and then, through transformer action and rectification, back to high DC voltage. The transverter output charges the high-voltage capacitor, and at the time of intended weapon detonation the energy stored in this capacitor is switched into the nuclear-system detonators for initiating the weapon. Figure 3 depicts the general concept. The ENDS system is designed to prevent premature arming of nuclear weapons subjected to abnormal environments. Electrical elements critical to detonation of the warhead are isolated in an exclusion region physically defined by structural cases and barriers that exclude the region from all sources of unintended energy (see Figure 4). The only access point into the exclusion region for normal arming-and-firing electrical power is through special devices called strong links that cover small openings in the exclusion barrier (see Figure 5). Exclusion barriers may include diversion barriers designed to shunt unintended energy away from elements essential to detonate the weapon and/or insulation barriers designed to isolate elements essential for detonation from unintended energy. In addition to isolating the detonators from abnormal environments, essential elements for detonating the warhead are designed to become inoperable, i.e. to fail, before the isolation features fail. The strong links are designed so that the probability that they will be activated by stimuli from an abnormal environment is acceptably small. In other words, strong links require an enabling input different
Firing Signal
-
i
1 /
I
Arming Signals
Hiah-Voltage Switching Device
-
Explosive
High Voltage Source
. I ) r
I
Detonators
I
'
High-Voltage Capacitor (Weak Link)
Firing Set 721001
8IU7000.08
Figure 3 Simplified basic configuation of the firing circuit used to detonate a nuclear weapon. Figure courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories Defense Programs and Surety Assessment Organizations.
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NUCLEAR TEST BAN ISSUES Fire
Crush
303
Lightning
Exclusion Region Barrier
Detonators Exclusion Region
~~
Other Electrical Power
impact 7230.01
BOM7000.06
Conceptual exclusion region used to protect critical firing apparatus. Figure courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories Defense Programs and Surety Assessment Organizations.
Figure 4
from any electrical, mechanical, or environmental stimuli produced by exposure to an abnormal environment or accident (See Figure 6). Over the years, detailed analyses and laboratory tests have strongly indicated that over a broad range of abnormal environments, a single strong link can provide isolation for the warhead at a probability of failure of less than 1 in 1000. However, prudence argues that to achieve the safety requirement of a probability of less than 1 in 1,000,000 requires two independent strong links (of different designs to minimize Abnormal Environments
Strong-Link Switch
\
Exclusion Region Barrier
.-m i; 0
m
High
Nuclear Explosive
Firing Set
Detonators
+
Exclusion Region
Abnormal Environments 7230.01
BBM7000.01
Figure 5 Conceptual exclusion region entry protection. Figure courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories Defense Programs and Surety Assessment Organizations.
145
?23t 0’
E ~ ~ 7 ~ 0 ~ . 0 3
Figure 6 Conceptual weapon system-level unique signal generation and communication channel. Figure courtesy (PF Smdia National Laboratories Defense Programs and Surety Assessment Organizations.
the chance of common-mode failures) in the firing set. ENDS is designed to meet this criterion, i.e. both strong links must be closed eiectrically for the weapon to arm. Typically, one is closed by specific operator input, e.g. by the insertion into the aircraft electronics of a read-ody memory chip containing the prescribed pulse-train information, and the other is closed by environmental input that corresponds to ar, appropriate flight trajectory (see Figure 7). ENDS includes one or more weak links in addition to the two dependent strong links, a181 enclosed in the exclusion region, to maintain assured electrical system safety at extreme Bevels of certain accident environments such as very high temperatures and crush. Safety weak links are functional elements such as capacitors (and the weapon high explosive) that are also critical to thc normal detonation process. These weak links are designed to fail or become irreversibly inoperable in less stressing environments, e.g. bwer temperattures than those that might bypass the strong links or cause them to fail. Calculations and tests study the time-race between failure of the strong and weak links (see Figure 8). The ENDS system provides a technical sohtion to the problem of preveBting premature arming of nuclear weapons subjected to abnormal environments, In concept. this system is relatively simple and lends itself weL1 to safety assessments, tests, and pr~ductioncontrols to assure that the ENDS design deployed meets the previorasly stated official weapon detonation safety criteria. The Sandha Kational Laboratories develaped the ENDS system in the early 1970s and began introducing
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7230.01
305
00~7D0~.3~
Figure 7 Conceptuai two-strong-fink controt and communication system. Figure courtesy of Smdia N a k n a l Laboratories Defense Programs and Surety Assessment OrganiZatiQnS.
* strong Limk $witches a m prcdietrtPly safe ta, at teast qOOaag
Figarc8 Representative thermal environment test results for a weapon. Figure courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories Defense Programs and Surety Assessment Brganizatisns.
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it into the stockpile in 1976. At present, more than three fourths of US weapons are equipped with ENDS. According to current plans, all weapons without ENDS will be removed from the stockpile by the end of this decade. No nuclear testing is required to complete this important stockpile improvement program for enhanced detonation safety. However, new designs that might be deployed in the interest of higher confidence in command and control and, in particular, of better protection in the event of a terrorist seizure of a weapon would require limited nuclear testing to verify their effectiveness and reliability.
3.2 Insensitive High Explosive An insensitive high explosive (IHE) was developed to reduce the danger that an accident or incident would cause the high explosive surrounding the primary pit to detonate, causing radioactive contamination of the surrounding area and possibly a small nuclear yield as well. From the outset of the US nuclear weapon program, designers have worked to reduce the probability of accidental nuclear explosions. Concerns about accidental explosions led the government in 1968 to adopt a formal set of safety criteria (listed above in Section 3 ) . In addition to the probable catastrophic consequences of significant nuclear yield as a result of an accident, the lesser but significant consequence of plutonium dispersal was recognized. Toxicity of plutonium is far greater than that of any substance in previous experience, particularly if the plutonium is raised to a high temperature as a result of a detonation (in contrast to a deflagration) and is aerosolized into micron-size particulates that can be inhaled and become lodged in the lung cavity. Table 2 illustrates the high degree of biological danger from the long-term a decay of 239Pu compared with other less carcinogenic substances.' The plutonium dispersal hazard, inherent in the sealed-pit designs of most US nuclear weapons, gave priority to developing a high explosive Table 2 The hazards of plutonium exposure (comparing Pu with common nuclides)
Nuclide Pu-239 (3-137 Sr-90
3H (water) a
Sv per Bq" 3.9 3.5 3.4 1.7
x 10-5 x 10-9 x 10-7 x lo-"
REM/FCi I44 0.01
1.26 6.3 x 10-5
Data from ICRP 1979. Report #30. Weighted by the relative cancer risks for each organ
it is estimated that only 0.003%of the larger 239Puparticulates created in a deflagration are retained in the gastrointestinal system, in contrast to -3.6% of inhalation-ingested Pu.Moreover, no more than 0.2%of exposed Pu is released in respirable form by fuel-fed (lOOO°C)fires, in contrast to -10-20% in detonations.
-
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that also had a very high energy density (and thus was required in small quantity) as well as a considerable insensitivity to detonation as a consequence of a violent accident such as an airplane fire or crash. In the 1950s, with the advent of the sealed-pit design, an energetic and stable high explosive known as PBX-9404was developed. This explosive was composed of 94% hexamine nitromene (HMX) (C4HsNsOs), 3% nitrocellulose, and 3% of a phosphate ester plasticizer. Both the fuel and the oxidant are in the same molecule in HMX. Once initiated, chemical reactions proceed at extremely fast rates on a time scale of submicroseconds. Hence they can sustain detonation waves-shocks propelled by the quick release of chemical energy at supersonic velocities, typically 8mm/microsecond-but only if the reactions are complete before dissipated rarefaction waves reduce below a pressure/time or energy threshold. These conditions, which are necessary to sustain a minimum balance of energy loss from the region in which the reaction occurs, depend on the diameter of the material. The minimum diameter necessary to support the reaction is known as the failure diameter (see Ref. 2). Although PBX-9404 could not be processed safely under normal munitions factory procedures, this explosive proved reasonably safe to handle under closely controlled procedures and could be fabricated to close dimensional tolerances and with low lot-to-lot tolerances. The immensity of plutonium-dispersal problems-in terms of both the hazards and the costs of cleanup-created by accidents such as those at Palomares and Thule added urgency to the development of PBXs based on TATB (2,4,6-tri-nitro-1,3,5-benzenetriamine).Although this explosive, known as IHE, was first synthesized around the turn of the century, it remained a laboratory curiosity until it was realized that it possessed a unique combination of relatively high explosive energy density and an extraordinary chemical stability that makes it uniquely insensitive to extreme, abnormal environments. Table 3 illustrates the added stability properties and the safety advantage of IHE Table 3 Comparison of high explosives
Relevant properties Minimum explosive charge to initiate detonation (oz) Diameter below which the detonation will not propagate (in) Shock pressure threshold to detonate (kilobars) Impact velocities required to detonate (ft/s)
Conventional HE
IHE
-10-3
>4
-10-'
--1
-20
-90
-100
1800-2000
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compared with ordinary high explosives such as PBX 9404. IHE can be impacted into rigid targets at velocities exceeding 1500 feet/sec without provoking the release of substantial chemical energy. Traditional explosives release most of their chemical energy on impact at velocities on the order of 100 feet/sec. It is generally believed that the detonations that led to plutonium dispersal in the Palomares accident would not have occurred if those early warheads had been equipped with IHE. Although IHE designs are a significant improvement, they do not alleviate all safety concerns. For example, accidents may scatter some level of fissionable material simply as the result of mechanical breakup of the weapon. In contrast to these highly desirable safety advantages, IHE is needed in greater weight and volume to initiate the detonation of a nuclear warhead because it contains, pound for pound, only approximately two thirds of the energy of conventional high explosive. Therefore, the choice of IHE or high explosive in designing a warhead has an impact on the military characteristics of the weapon system that deploys it. The 1983 decision to design the W88 warhead for the US Navy’s new Trident I1 weapon system with conventional high explosive was based on operational requirements during the Cold War that were judged to override what were perceived as relatively minor safety advantages of IHE. This Trident safety issue was reviewed and new questions posed in the 1990 report of the Nuclear Weapons Safety Panel. For more detail, see Ref. 1 , from which the following paragraph is excerpted to illustrate the effect of the choice of IHE vs high explosive on the military characteristics of Trident 11: “A major requirement, as perceived in 1983, that led to the decision to use high explosive in the W88 was the strategic military importance attached to maintaining the maximum range for the D5 when it is fully loaded with eight W88 warheads. If the decision had been to deploy a warhead using IHE, the military capability of the D5 would have had to be reduced by one of the following choices: 1. retain the maximum missile range and full complement of 8 war-
heads, but reduce the yields of individual warheads by a modest amount. 2 . retain the number and yield of warheads but reduce the maximum range by perhaps 10%; such a range reduction would translate into a correspondingly greater loss of target coverage or reduction of the submarine operating area. 3. retain the missile range and warhead yield but reduce the number of warheads by one, from 8 to 7.”
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Replacing warheads with high explosive with new systems with IHE is at present perhaps the most effective way to improve safety of the weapon stockpile by reducing the danger of scattering plutonium. An understanding between the DOE and the DOD signed in 1983 calls for the use of IHE in new weapon systems unless system design and operational requirements mandate use of the higher energy (and thus the smaller mass and volume) of conventional high explosive. Moreover, the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1978 under Chairman John Stennis strongly recommended that “IHE be applied to all future nuclear weapons, be they for strategic or theatre forces. Although IHE was first introduced into the stockpile in 1979, by 1993 little more than one third of the stockpile was equipped with it because most US warheads currently deployed are those in the Trident I and I1 missile systems. The same is true for the stockpile envisaged under Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) reductions. These warheads are denoted W76 for the low-yield Trident I version and W88 for the highyield version developed for Trident 11. Because IHE and high explosive have different detonation characteristics, a redesign of the Trident warheads to replace high explosive with IHE would require an underground test program, albeit a modest and limited one. Details of the test program would depend on how the warheads were redesigned, i.e. whether a warhead with IHE currently deployed in other weapons was adapted to the Trident system or whether the pit of a retired warhead was rebuilt with IHE and adapted to the Trident. Differences between high explosive and IHE are sufficiently large that one cannot rely on simulations and computer modeling alone to establish the effectiveness of a warhead thus altered. Much can be learned from the so-called hydro(dynamica1) tests that analyze the chemical detonation and its impact on an inert nonfissioning pit. However, such tests, which would be allowed under a comprehensive test ban (CTB), would not estimate with sufficient confidence and accuracy the reflected shock waves, the final compression of the metal, and the condition of the boost gas. These are important in the analyses of the implosion and in determining whether the yield of the primary explosion is adequate to trigger the secondary explosion. Therefore, several underground tests would be required to confirm a new configuration with IHE and to establish that the primary has the designed characteristics and energy content. ”
3.3 Fire-Resistant Pits When examining ways to enhance weapon safety, replacement of the high explosive with IHE should be considered together with the con-
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figuration of the rest of the weapon system. Risk analyses of the accidents that might occur during normal handling procedures and that could trigger an explosion are also needed. An accident might take the form of a dropped missile, which would lead to direct detonation of the warhead high explosive or the missile propellant, which in turn would initiate explosion in the warhead. A fuel fire on a bomber, provoked by an accident, an engine malfunction, or human error, might threaten the integrity and safety of any weapons on board. In the fireaccident scenarios, nuclear weapons could be involved in a hydrocarbon fuel fire of such intensity and duration as to breach the pit and thereby disperse the plutonium as a result of combustion and entrainment of the plutonium oxide particles into the fire plume. This concern led to the development of fire-resistant pits (FRPs). An FRP has a metal shell with a high melting point that can withstand prolonged exposure to a jet fuel fire without melting or being breached by the corrosive effect of molten plutonium. One possible example of a suitable substance is vanadium, which can withstand a temperature of 1000°C for several hours and prevent the dispersion of plutonium into the environment. However, current technology for FRPs would not provide containment against the much higher temperatures (-2000°C) created by burning missile propellant. FRPs would also fail in the event of detonation of the high explosive surrounding the pit and therefore contribute to safety principally when used in weapons equipped with IHE. Once again, the sophistication of nuclear weapons and the effect of an FRP on the details of the implosion process would necessitate several tests to verify the theoretical design if this technology were introduced into weapons that currently do not contain an FRP. At present, only -10% of US weapons are equipped with an FRP. Before adopting FRP technology, one would also need to accurately assess how much its improved containment of plutonium against fire would contribute to the overall safety of the weapons. For warheads on aircraft with bombs and air-launched cruise missiles, FRPs would add protection against the type of event that could have occurred in 1980 at the Grand Forks, North Dakota SAC base when an engine that was started on an alert B-52 caught fire. Fortunately, during the several hours that the aircraft fuel burned, the wind blew the flames away from the fuselage. The weapons on board had no modern safety features. At present, with the end of the Cold War, the SAC (now Stratcorn) no longer maintains bombers loaded with nuclear weapons on alert. All of the weapons have been returned to their bunkers, which greatly reduces the probability of an accident that could result in plutonium dispersal. However, such an accident could still occur if elements of
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the strategic bomber force are alerted during times of tension. One must take this possiblity into account when evaluating the importance of underground tests in redesigning such weapons with FRPs. One can also envisage going beyond FRPs to minimize the danger of plutonium dispersal or of a nuclear yield by separating the plutonium capsule from the high explosive prior to arming the warhead. This concept is a familiar one in the world of binary chemical weapons. However, the US abandoned this nuclear weapon design in 1968 when it posited safety criteria that required inherently safe design. Recent advances in weapon technology and, particularly, in the means of reducing the weight and enhancing the reliability of mechanical devices may make the binary concept more attractive when evaluated against military requirements in the post-Cold War world than it was in the past. However, a move toward such safety-optimized designs would be costly and would require a more extensive development and underground bomb-testing program than may be appropriate in a post-Cold War world. In any case, before any such development is initiated, its contribution to safety should be analyzed in detail. The question of FRPs also arises in connection with the missile force, in particular the Trident missile, which loads the warheads in a throughdeck configuration (illustrated in Figure 9) in close proximity to the propellant and third-stage motor of the missile. In evaluating weapon safety and the need for testing, we next consider the missile propellant and its impact.
3.4
Missile Propellant
Two classes of propellants are in general use in the long-range ballistic missiles of the US. One is a heterogeneous mixture of -70% ammonium perchlorate, 16% aluminum, and 14% binder. This composite propellant is dubbed 1.3 class. The other is a high-energy propellant dubbed 1.1 class. It is a cross-linked, double-base plastic made of -52% HMX, 18% nitroglycerine, 18% aluminum, 4% ammonium perchlorate, and 8% binder. The 1.1 class denotes materials capable of mass detonation that can propagate from an initiation site to adjacent material or cause sympathetic detonation. The 1.3 class material is a fire hazard, but in contrast to the 1.1 class, it is much more difficult, if not impossible, to detonate. Table 4 illustrates the important safety differences between these two classes of propellants. Of course, in addition to safety and stability of the material against shock-initiated detonation, the maximum specific impulse in a propellant is desirable in order to achieve long flight range. The maximum velocity achieved by a rocket at fuel exhaustion is proportional to the specific impulse for a given burn time,
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Nose Fairing
Second-stage Motor Dome
1-94
Figure 9 Through-deck configuration for the Trident I1 warhead. Figure courtesy of Harvey & Michalowski (see Ref. 3).
and the maximum flight range after rocket motor fuel exhaustion is proportional to the square of the velocity at burnout. Therefore, a 4% difference in specific impulse, as shown in Table 4, translates to an -8% range increase for the 1.1 high-energy propellant relative to the 1.3 composite propellant for constant burning times. The choice of propellant raises the question of whether a n accident during handling of an operational missile in transporting and loading might detonate the propellant, which in turn could cause a chemical explosion in the warhead. This explosion could then result in the dispersal of plutonium or worse-i.e. the initiation of a nuclear yield. This issue is a particular concern for the Navy’s fleet ballistic missiles, the Trident I and Trident 11, which are, designed with through-deck configuration (illustrated in Figure 9) to fit the geometric constraints of the
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Table 4 Comparison of missile propellants Relevant properties Minimum explosive charge to initiate detonation (oz) Diameter below which the detonation will not propagate (in) Shock pressure threshold (kilobars) Specific impulse (s)
1.3 Composite
1 . 1 High energy
>350
-10-3
>40
-10-1
No threshold established -260
-30
-270
submarine hull and at the same time achieve maximum range. In this configuration, if the third-stage motor were to detonate in a submarine loading accident, for example, a patch of motor fragments would impact on the side of the reentry bodies encasing each warhead. As a result, some combination of such off-axis multipoint impacts might detonate the high explosive surrounding the nuclear pit in one or more of these warheads and lead to plutonium dispersal or possibly a nuclear yield. The 1990Nuclear Safety Study Report (see Ref. 1) raised the throughdeck configuration, together with the facts that the Trident warheads are designed with conventional rather than IHE and the rocket motor uses the detonable 1.1 class propellant, as a potential safety problem of the Trident force. The report questions whether the Trident warheads should be redesigned with IHEs and FRPs, perhaps with a buffer to shield them from the shock wave in the event of a third-stage detonation. Other possibilities were also considered, e.g. whether the propellant in the third stage should be changed to the nondetonable 1.3 class. This change would result in a range loss of no more than 4%, or a few hundred miles, because approximately half of the last velocity increment comes from the third-stage motor. Furthermore, when the START I1 reductions are implemented, the Trident force will carry fewer warheads-probably no more than four on a Trident I1 missile, which now carries a full load of eight. In this case a Trident I1 would have a maximum range no less than its present fully loaded configuration, even without a third-stage motor. The Trident safety issues lead us to question how much money the US wants to invest in further enhancing weapon safety and whether we want to continue underground testing in the years ahead. Changing the propellant in the third stage of the missile or removing the third stage altogether would require no yield testing of the warhead but would necessitate a development program of the weapon system at a cost that the Navy has estimated to be 1.6-1.8 billion dollars (3). These cost figures apply if the high explosive in the Trident warheads is not
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changed. If the high explosive is replaced with IHE, the costs climb to 3.6-3.8 billion dollars for a START 11-size force. To realize the full safety advantage of the change to a nondetonable propellant would require changing the high explosive in the warhead to IHE and adding an FRP.
4. RELIABILITY OF THE NUCLEAR WEAPON STOCKPILE Figure 10 illustrates the process of predicting and assessing the reliability of a US nuclear weapon type. The initial step is the development of a reliability model of the weapon design, less the device. Figure 11 shows an example of a top-level model for a bomb. This block diagram is greatly simplified and is intended only to illustrate methodology. To complete the model each major node is broken into more detailed models. For example, J 1 would be expanded to contain the safety switch and wiring. The safety switch in turn would be further expanded. In some cases the system designer chooses to include parallel (dualchannel) components to assure adequate reliability. For example, in Figure 11, the thermally activated pulse batteries and main thermal batteries (bomb power, node K2), are duplicated. Either (OR gate) will power the weapon if it was prearmed at release and if the pullout switch and pulse battery actuators function correctly. Some events require two properly timed inputs (AND gate). For example, the trajectory arm event (K5) requires electrical power during a proper parachute opening-a voltage-deceleration-time profile. This reliability model, which allocates a degree of reliability (actually,
of unreliability) to each component, is used to estimate the overall bomb reliability. Furthermore, it provides the necessary detailed insight to determine where the dual-channel approach is effective in meeting the overall reliability goal or where redesign or increased emphasis on the reliability of a specific component has the greatest potential for overall increased reliability. Components used in previous designs have an established production and stockpile history. If the stockpile-to-target environments are expected to be similar in a new application, the reliability allocation is straightforward, i.e. the existing data base is used. For new component designs, either the allocation is based on “looks-like’’ performance of similar components or, if there are no known “looks-like’’ components one relies on engineering judgment, and the component is flagged for special design and evaluation attention.
t DATA
sotmcEs
Figure 10 Block diagram displaying reliability allocationipredictioniassesment process. Figure courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories Defense Programs and Surety Assessment Organizations.
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BLOCK DIAGRAM AND RELIABILITY MODEL PREARM
HIGH VOLTAGE GENERIM
HIGH VOLTAGE
APPLKAM DETONATlON
Figure 11 Simplified bomb reliability block diagram. Figure courtesy of Sandia National Laboratories Defense Programs and Surety Assessment Organizations.
Once the component designers have agreed to the reliability allocations, test and evaluation programs are established to reasonably assure that the allocations will be met or, if not, that the shortfalls will be discovered. During development, this process results in refined or modified allocations and reliability predictions. As the development program winds down, emphasis shifts to prepa-
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ration for production and initial fabrication of piece parts (i.e. nuts, bolts, gears, levers, batteries, integrated circuits, resistors, capacitators, etc) and component assembly. The thrust of this effort is to establish a production capability of sufficient quality and stability to assure that the product reliability requirement will be met with homogeneous hardware of this type. During this development and preparation-forproduction period, we refer to allocation and prediction, not assessment. The Sandia National Laboratories’ weapon reliability and stockpile evaluation organizations hold that true reliability cannot be assessed without test and evaluation data from components and subsystems that could enter, will enter, or already have entered the stockpile. This information comes from three sources: component sample test programs, which test random samples of components designated acceptable for use in next assemblies: the New Material Evaluation Program, which examines, tests, and evaluates newly assembled weapons by tearing them down: and the Stockpile Evaluation Program, which draws random samples of weapons of each type (typically 11 per cycle-a cycle is every one or two years, depending on the accumulation of test results). Laboratory examinations and tests and realistically configured, instrumented droplflight tests are conducted, the latter as part of military service evaluations of weapon systems. This multiphase program yields two useful results: ( a ) this-point-in-time reliability assessment, which draws on the cumulative reliability data bases, and ( b ) performance trends. The first is useful for real-time reliability assessments and feeds targeting algorithms. The real-time assessment is generally considered valid for future projections if no significant degradation is detected. The second is important for contemplating corrective actions in case a significant performance degradation is detected.
4.1 A Nondevice Component An example of a nondevice component is the MC2969 strong-link switch, a safety switch used in early ENDS designs. The MC2969 was first used in bombs. The function of this switch is described in Section 3.1. The MC2969 contains 14 electrical contacts that, when closed, allow passage of all arming and firing signals into the exclusion region.’O The switch is moderately complex and contains -500 piece parts. Closure of the switch is accomplished by delivering a precise pattern of l o This switch is not a use-control feature. The pulse train required to change the state of the switch is a unique pattern, not a classified code. Use-control needs are accomplished by other methods, e.g. two-man rules, security forces, and permissive action links (PALS). More recent detonation-safety themes rely on “other-than-electrical’’ power and signal control, e.g. magnetic and optical coupling, as used in the W88 Trident I1 warhead and described in Ref. 4.
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29 long and short electrical pulses plus 10 operating pulses, typically by a bomb-prearming controller in the delivery aircraft. The pulse logic is stored in a read-only memory (ROM) chip physically separated from the controller circuit until the weapon is to be armed for drop. This separation is intended to prevent accidental generation of an enabling pulse train in case of an accident. A single incorrect pulse will lock up the switch and prevent closure. The MC2969 is also used with the W78/MK12A/Minuteman I11 weapon system. In this application the switch is enabled if the Minuteman missile delivers to the weapon prearm electronics a proper threestage acceleration profile and a signal from the guidance system indicating proper guiding. This acceleration profile is a result of the three stages of the Minuteman, each of which burns its propellant to exhaustion and then falls away. The resulting acceleration profile ramps to acceleration peaks at the instant before propellant exhaustion. The acceleration then drops sharply to near zero as the expended stage falls away and thrust of the next stage begins but gradually increases during the burn time of the lower-thrust next stage. The resulting waveform is a three-peak acceleration-time sawtooth. This sawtooth and the generation of a good guidance signal are uniquely associated with proper performance of the Minuteman missile. This design is intended to provide high probability that peacetime accidents will not generate the requisite prearming inputs. Weapons containing this switch first entered the national stockpile in 1977. From 1977-1993, 852 switches (as parts of a weapon) were subjected to new-material drop or flight tests or drawn from the stockpile for examination and drop/flight testing. For the new-material and stockpile evaluations no switches have been found in the closed position, nor have they failed to close when properly signaled. However, 7 countable failures have occurred in 1,100 tests at the component and next assembly levels. The reliability assessment of the switch is 0.996. No nuclear tests are required to continue this assessment process.
4.2
The Device
The device is a special case. As noted above, it is sophisticated but not complicated. The device designers hold that its performance is guaranteed if it is manufactured according to exacting specifications prepared during the design phase of the program. During this phase, the device is carefully tested, e.g. with yield tests. During production and while in stockpile, it (as part of the weapon) undergoes new-material and stockpile evaluations without yield testing. In the recent past a few weapons have been drawn from the stockpile, modified in some cases to comply with the Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT), and detonated
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underground. Because these tests were infrequent (a given weapon type underwent perhaps one test during its stockpile life), they do not assess reliability except in the grossest sense, i.e. either 1 or 0. Many observers view these tests as a demonstration that perhaps tests the designer more than the weapon. Such tests should be considered tests of confidence, not reliability.
4.3 Reliability Assessment of the Stockpile With the introduction of completely assembled, maintenance-free weapons, the method of reliability assessment of the stockpile metamorphosed from total dependence on field-testing results to a stockpile sampling program. This program, begun in 1958, involved withdrawal of weapons and testing of the nondevice hardware at an initial rate of 50 weapons at 6-month intervals for the first 18 months of stockpile life. The sampling program could subsequently draw fewer weapons per cycle (perhaps 50 weapons per year), depending on initial evaluation results. All tests were laboratory examinations; no flight or drop test program was included. The test program quickly revealed that most problems were related to design and/or production. As a result, a new-material evaluation program was introduced in 1959 that examined newly produced weapons immediately after assembly at the final assembly plants. In this program, a few weapons were examined each month at production outset. Based on initial findings, this rate was modified in later production. Again, only laboratory tests were performed. In 1963 the new-material evaluation program was expanded to include joint AEC/DOD-sponsored flight and drop tests-generally four per year for most weapon types. Randomly selected weapons of a given type are withdrawn from the national stockpile and returned to the DOE final assembly plant (Pantex) near Amarillo, Texas. The device is separated from the remainder of the weapon, and an instrumentation/ telemetry package is mounted in its place. The mass and dynamic properties of this package match as closely as practical the mass and dynamic characteristics of the device. This package monitors the performance of the safing, arming, fuzing, and firing system as well as inputs from the carrier vehicle. Where appropriate, sensors are included to monitor the dynamic performance of the test item. This pseudoweapon, called a Joint Test Assembly, is then returned to the military for installation in a delivery vehicle for a weapon system test in a realistic environment. The results are telemetered to one or more receiving stations for analysis and evaluation. Beginning in 1970, accelerated aging units (AAUs) were added to the evaluation program in an attempt to obtain early warning about
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significant materials-related degradation. One or two complete weapons from early production were subjected to temperature cycling and high-temperature storage for one or more years. The interior volume was monitored by gas sampling. The AAUs were disassembled periodically for more complete inspection. AAU activity is not considered a formal part of the stockpile evaluation program because its environmental exposure is not representative of normal stockpile conditions. This activity is admittedly qualitative because there is no known way to predict an exact accelerated aging factor owing to the complexity of the reaction kinetics as a result of the numerous activation-energy coefficients associated with the materials in the weapon. Nevertheless, the information obtained from the accelerated aging program is important to the design and stockpile-evaluation community in its attempt to forecast aging effects. In the mid-1980s the evaluation program was again rebalanced to further emphasize the new-material assessment based on expanding data bases, which continued to indicate that most defectiveness resulted from design or production errors, not from degradation. The stockpile-evaluation portion of the program was relaxed to biennial sampling of 11 weapons per cycle after completion of production, another indication that the weapon types in the stockpile, when well designed and produced, exhibit good age stability. For example, some weapon types have been in the national stockpile for 25-30 years and with periodic attention exhibit no significant reliability degradaticn. Since the start of the current stockpile evaluation and reliability assessment program in 1958, 13,000 weapon evaluations have been conducted. During this period, the failure rate of the nondevice hardware suggests an expected weapon failure rate of 1-2% for the stockpile. This forecast assumes that the device has a reliability of one. The nondevice hardware is not perfect, and retrofits have been necessary to correct the problems noted above, the majority of which have been caused by design oversights and/or fabrication/assembly mistakes. Military service mishandling and aging-induced defectiveness represent only a small fraction of the total unreliability. Twice a year the DOE issues a document containing one or more reliability assessments for each weapon type in the stockpile. Several assessments are sometimes necessary to address different deployment options. Given that the stockpiled weapon types underwent thorough and complete design, development, testing, and evaluation, we have no compelling arguments for the necessity of continuing yield testing to retain confidence in the reliability of hardware for an extended period of time. To maximize the useful life, one can take such steps as refriger-
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ated storage, limited movement, no modifications, aggressive surveillance, etc. Most importantly, in the case of a test ban, one should not tamper with the device hardware once it has been certified. An article by Flectcher Pratt ( 5 ) occasionally has been cited as an argument for continued yield testing. We believe that, instead, the situation Pratt described supports the argument that thorough design, development, test, and evaluation are required before deployment, and in the absence of follow-on stockpile testing, hardware modifications must be avoided. The torpedo failures resulted from violations of all of these steps. New, untested devices should not be considered.
5 . NUCLEAR WEAPON EFFECTS The effects of nuclear weapons have been well studied. We consider two general categories of interest: (a) the effects of weapons on targets, i.e. military forces and structures; equipment such as ships, aircraft, land vehicles, and communication, command, and control systems; and civilian centers and populations, and (b)the effects of nuclear weapons on other nuclear weapons, either in the form of ABMs or fratricide (the effects of one of our weapons on other weapons of our own). Large data bases developed principally by the Defense Nuclear Agency (DNA) and its predecessor agencies, the AFSWP and the Defense Atomic Support Agency (DASA), inform analyses of the first category. The primary source of these data was atmospheric nuclear explosions prior to the LTBT of 1963. These data bases are widely available and rather complete. In the recent past a few large nonnuclear explosions have been used to study blast effects on military structures such as aircraft shelters. Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and electromagnetic radiation (EMR) effects are under study in large, above-ground, nonnuclear simulators. We believe that further underground nuclear tests would add little to the extensive DNA data base as it pertains to the first category of interest. For the second category of interest, low-yield underground nuclear tests, permitted since the LTBT, have allowed continuation of studies of the interaction of weapon outputs on weapons and quasiweapon systems. These outputs include neutrons, X rays, y rays, and their offspring: impulse, heating, overpressure, EMP, system-generated EMP (SGEMP), etc. The failure mechanics are generally defined as structural overload, fissile material heating, and electrical circuit damage. These effects tests, usually conducted in tunnels at the Nevada test site, were also largely sponsored by the DNA and executed at a recent rate of approximately one per year.
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More recently, these underground effects tests were supplanted by above-ground simulators constructed by the DNA and the military services, and by the DOE, mainly at Sandia National Laboratories. The simulators can generate threat-level effects, although not always at the desired geometric cross-section. In many cases the above-ground machines are considered superior to exposure to nuclear explosives for effects studies. For example, pulse reactors have replaced underground tests for neutron damage studies. For other effects, above-ground simulators are used for initial examinations. The underground effects test has been used principally as a final proof test in the recent past. Continuing weapon testing to support weapon-effects needs makes little sense for at least four reasons: ( a ) the current stockpile has been tested and certified in accordance with military needs and requirements; ( b )new weapon designs are no longer likely to be required; ( c ) no significant nuclear ABM forces are in existence or under serious development; and (6)hardening against neutrons, y and X rays, and blast has been limited to strategic ballistic missile reentry vehicles (RVs) and their warheads. With regard to strategic RVs, the in-flight deployment approach adopted by the US has always been to require hardening against nuclear effects only to a level that would avoid two kills per defense interceptor. The tradeoff then becomes investing weight in shielding vs weight in bus maneuvering fuel for spacing purposes. As a result of the ceilings on the number of warheads that are being negotiated by the US and Russia, fewer warheads are expected to be loaded on individual ballistic missiles than they were designed to load. This means that the missiles will be carrying less than the maximum throw weight for which they were designed so that more weight is available for maneuvering fuel. Increased spacing is therefore possible, although not likely necessary. From a strictly technical viewpoint, continued access to an occasional underground nuclear test for effects studies would be useful, but a growing above-ground simulation capability suggests many “workaround” opportunities.
6. DESIGN COMPETENCE By all applied measures, the existing nuclear weapon stockpile is robust and appears stable in the sense of performance for the forseeable future. Nevertheless, the cessation of underground yield testing eventually will raise questions of confidence concerning the performance of the existing weapons.
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A nuclear-yield test ban would leave the US with two options. The first is to allow device design competence, currently centered at the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, to decline and eventually disappear. This would be the inevitable consequence of failure to support a weapon program adequate to maintain responsible stewardship of the nation’s nuclear arsenal, either by neglect or by deliberate choice. The alternative is to maintain strong scientific and engineering competence at the two laboratories while at the same time ceasing yield testing as a contribution to the attempt to control nuclear weapon proliferation. This competence is required to maintain and certify long-term safety, reliability, and effectiveness of the nation’s remaining arsenal in accordance with the standards and criteria discussed in Sections 3 and 4. In addition, the new circumstances of the post-Cold War place increased technical emphasis on nonproliferation work as a growing challenge to the weapon community. These issues raise the question of how to maintain design competence, confidence, and credibility. We see three national committments as requirements to maintain these design capabilities: 1. Maintain a motivation for excellence within the design community through appropriate statements of national policy and strong laboratory management actions. 2. Fund the design laboratories at a steady level sufficient to maintain a trained staff of weapon designers and support personnel as required for responsible stockpile stewardship. 3. Invest in the maintenance and improvement of computational and simulation facilities associated with retaining weapon design skills. Such facilities will be expensive and their designs challenging. Nevertheless, an investment in such facilities will likely be less costly than a several-year integral of the costs associated with the recent underground testing program.
7. VERIFICATION Since the 1950s, verification has been a key factor in all public debates over a CTB or even an LTB. Restrictions on nuclear tests cannot be verified with 100%certainty. Treaty restraints must be judged in terms of acceptable levels of risks and the cost-benefit ratio to all signatories. During the Cold War, test-ban opponents feared that the Soviet Union would evade a test ban by detonating explosions in large cavities that would muffle their seismic signals (a process known as decou-
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pling)" and as a result gain important military advantages. Since the LTBT of 1963, tests of nuclear weapons have been prohibited everywhere but underground. There is high confidence that the LTBT can be monitored by ( a ) satellites whose sensors can detect the visible and near infrared light emitted by a nuclear explosion in the atmosphere and ( b )acoustic sensors used to detect submarines and explosions conducted in the oceans. The difficulties of secretly conducting tests outside the atmosphere or in deep space and of retrieving useful data together with the risks of detection are generally considered to be prohibitive and to exceed any potential benefits. In 1974 a further restriction on testing was negotiated in the form of the Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT), which limited the yields of underground tests to a maximum of 150 kilotons. This treaty was ratified in 1990. 1993 saw two major changes in the CTBT debate. The first is the disappearance of the former Soviet resistance to intrusive monitoring with on-site seismic stations arrayed throughout their territory, and their acceptance of cooperative on-site challenge inspections to verify compliance with arms reduction treaties negotiated in recent years. The second change is that the US has reduced its reliance on nuclear weapons since the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union, which led President Bush in 1992 to er,d US development of new nuclear weapons. These changes seem to have caused the old debates over verification of a CTB to run out of steam. It now seems practical to use an array of in-country seismic stations to identify explosions down to a small fraction of a kiloton and fully decoupled shots down to at most a few kilotons. Cooperative on-site challenge inspections make the risk of an attempted evasion and the political cost to a country if caught much greater than the potential technical benefit of such low-yield explosions. Further, regardless of whether the US continues to test nuclear weapons, our lead in nuclear weapon technology cannot be overtaken by any emerging nuclear state that depends on clandestine testing. The future of a CTB rests largely on political decisions about its importance for achieving a robust and effective nonproliferation regime worldwide. The successful development of greater transparency among all nations to effectively monitor the activities of would-be proliferators is important; it will require progress in both political and technical dimensions. l ' A cavity with a diameter of at least 86 m-larger than the Statue of Liberty-would be required to fully decouple a five-kiloton explosion in salt. At high frequencies such a fully decoupled test would still generate a seismic signal 10-14% as large as that from a fully coupled explosion (see Ref. 6).
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8. POLITICAL ISSUES IN THE COMPREHENSIVE TEST BAN TREATY DEBATE Our examination of the technical arguments for testing in the preceding section suggests that in the short term (within the decade), the primary reason-and in our opinion the only compelling one-for continued underground nuclear testing is to improve the safety of the US nuclear arsenal through further incorporation of IHEs, FRPs, and possibly safety-optimized designs based on the binary munitions concept. From a technical point of view, safety improvements could be achieved in a continued underground testing program focused on safety. From a political perspective, however, continued testing of nuclear weapons may hinder efforts to counter, if not prevent, the proliferation of nuclear weapons in the years ahead. This raises the difficult challenge of weighing technical vs political judgments: technical ones as to how important continued testing would be to enhance safety, and indeed “how safe is safe enough,” against political ones as to how important a CTBT would be for preserving or even strengthening the nonproliferation regime. For the longer term, we must examine the additional issue of how to maintain design competence. If we want to sustain the ability to evaluate and, if necessary, repair the devices in the current stockpile as well as the ability to design new weapons, we must devote careful attention to preserving this expertise. Arguments against a CTBT during the Cold War were based primarily on nuclear fear and competitiveness with the Soviet Union. However, with the end of the Cold War and the emerging US policy of reduced reliance on nuclear forces, these and most other arguments for continuing nuclear testing have faded. The end of testing has been an asserted objective of all signatories of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) for almost 25 years. As noted elsewhere (7) the US, which has always found reasons of one sort or another to resist a ban, has come to be perceived as deliberately hostile to an objective it accepted in 1968 as part of the bargain struck between states with and without nuclear weapons in the NPT. Any continued American opposition to a CTB therefore carries with it considerable political cost. Although one cannot argue that American testing affects the nuclear ambition of leaders like Saddam Hussein, for more than 20 years many people in many countries have continued to consider a test ban a high-priority item and to measure the commitment of nuclear weapon states to the prevention of nuclear weapon proliferation by their readiness to support a ban. Because our strengths are technical, we are much more confident in our technical judgments of the overall safety and reliability of the US
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arsenal and what can be achieved by way of enhanced safety with further testing than we are in assessing the contribution of a CTBT to the nonproliferation regime. With this caveat, and on the basis of our technical assessment of the current US nuclear arsenal, we do not feel that the need for safety testing is urgent or compelling enough to override all other objectives. We share the concern that continued US opposition to a CTBT could weaken the worldwide effort against proliferation. In our view, the early achievement of a strengthened and durable worldwide nonproliferation regime will contribute more significantly to worldwide nuclear safety than will further improvements in the safety of part of the US nuclear force. The current moratorium on testing initiated by President Bush in October 1992 and extended on March 15, 1994 by President Clinton until September 1995 (to be followed by a comprehensive ban on testing subject to conditions noted in the introduction) provides a valuable grace period during which the US should take the initiative and give priority to the following goals, which are essential to reducing nuclear danger: 1. The US should initiate and lead a joint effort by the five declared nuclear powers to negotiate an end to all nuclear weapons testing. Once the five declared nuclear powers achieve agreement in principle, the discussions will have to be broadened to include all signatories of the NPT participating in the 1995 NPT Review Conference. Beyond negotiating a worldwide NPT, this enlarged forum should promote the means of achieving greater openness in nuclear matters in all nations that develop a nuclear infrastructure, whether for power production, fuel reprocessing, or research. This openness will be required for timely discovery of any potential activities in violation of a NPT, including the production of bomb fuel or the conduct of very low-yield tests (less than a kiloton) that might not be detected and identified. 2. The DOE should develop, and Congress fund, a diverse and coordinated scientific program at the national weapons laboratories so that they can maintain and certify confidence in the US nuclear deterrent over a long period without testing. We disagree with those who argue that, without continued testing, it will be impossible to motivate first-rate scientists and retain nuclear competence. But this challenge will not be easy, and will require good planning and stable funding. As General Lee Butler, the then Commander-in-Chief of the US Strategic Command, emphasized in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on April 22, 1993, to retain the ability to handle technological surprises in the CTB regime “will
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require immediate and imaginative investigation by the scientific community. ” Inevitably, a CTB extending over several professional generations will gradually erode confidence in the reliability of remaining nuclear warheads, even though they are properly maintained and refurbished and diagnosed in experiments that do not produce nuclear yields. This diminished confidence will present new issues, and the proper response will depend on how much progress has been made in countering proliferation and in reducing both nuclear danger and the traditional reliance on nuclear deterrence of high technical precision. Should new challenges arise, the country will be able to respond,I2 as we learned at Los Alamos and Alamogordo in 1945, if we maintain a strong national base in science and engineering. Continued testing will not halt proliferation, nor will it protect us from it. We will fare better by devoting a portion of the savings obtained from terminating the testing program to strengthening our intelligence capabilities against proliferation by both technical and cooperative means and by increasing our ability to discover and deal with new nuclear threats, should they arise. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank William L. Stevens for providing us with Table 1 and Barbara Peurifoy for her invaluable assistance in preparing the manuscript. Any Annual Review chapter, as well as any article cited in an Annual Review chapter, may he purchased from the Annual Reviews Preprints and Reprints service.
1-800-347-8007;415-259-5017;email:
[email protected] ~~
Literature Cited 1. Drell SD, Foster JS Jr, Townes CH. Print N o . 15, Nucl. Weapon Safety
Panel House Armed Serv. Comm. lOlst Congress, 2nd session, US Gov. Print. Off. (1990) 2. James E. Rep. UCRL-LR-113578 Lawrence Livermore Natl. Lab. ( 1993) 3. Harvey JR, Michalowski S. Rep. Cent. Znt. Secur. and Arms Control, Stanford Univ. (1993)
4. McCaughey KG. In Characteristics and Development for the MC3831 Dual Strong Link Assembly, Sand88-1412.6, Sandia Natl. Lab. 5 . Pratt F. Atlantic Monthly 186:25 (1950) 6. van der Vink GE. Arms Control Today 20:9 (1990) 7. Bundy McG, Crowe WA Jr, Drell SD. Reducing Nuclear Danger; The Road Away From the Brink, Counc. Foreign Relats. Books (1993)
The stability built into the nuclear balance by START assures that there will be time enough, and more.
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MERITS AND RISKS OF MORE UNDERGROUND TESTS The news report “End of an Era: Superpowers Sign START,Limiting Nuclear ICBMs” (August, page 49) contains the incorrect statement that the House Armed Services Committee Panel on Nuclear Weapons Safety endorsed continued underground nuclear tests. That Danel. which I headed (John S. Foster df TRW and CharlesH. Townes of the Universityof California, Berke ley, are the other members), was asked to provide Congress with a technical analysis of the safety of US nuclear weapons as a basis for debating future policy decisions. Last year we did the first (and only) comprehensive review of the safety of the US nuclear stockpile since World War I1 and the subsequent buildup to more than 20000 warheads. The House Armed Services Committee initiated this study because of concerns about the safety of several weapons systems in the US arsenal--concerns that led the Secretary of Defense to take immediate steps to reduce the risk of accidental detonations that could disperse plutonium into the environment in potentially dangerous amounts or even generate a nuclear yield. Those steps included removing the short-range air-to-ground attack missiles from the alert bombers of the Strategic Air Command and modifying some of the artillery-fired atomic projectiles deployed with the US forces. It was a major conclusion of our study that “unintended nuclear detonations present a greater risk than previously estimated for some of the warheads in the stockpile.” An important contribution to the understanding of these greater risks has come from advances in supercomputers that make it possible to cany out more realistic, three-dimensional calculations to trace the hydrodynami c and neutronic development of nuclear detonations. We now appre-
ciate-and underground tests have confirmed-how inadequate, and in some cases misleading, were the earlier, two-dimensional calculations. The panel concluded that it is important to “identify the potential sources of the largest safety risks and push ahead with searches for new technologies that do away with them and further enhance weapons safety.” We also argued that “it is no longer acceptable to develop weapons systems without a factual data base with which to support design choices that are critical to the system’s safety.” The final recommendations of our study-some of which are being implemented, while others are still under review-include both technical goals and organizational changes to strengthen the safety assurance process. We also concluded: To accomplish the goals we have set out in this study the US nuclear weapons program will have to give higher priority and devote more of its resources to efforts to enhance safety-taking a long-range view in search of big advances in technology beyond just evolutionary, incremental improvements. Such a call for reorienting the emphasis of the current program should not be viewed as requiring an enlargement of the total prcgram, particularly a8 we look forward t o m a inta ining a smaller nuclear force in the new strategic environment. It does, however, require that adequate and steady resources be made available for the RM’&E [research, development, testing and evaluation] needed to underpin such a program. Our recommendations directly raise the issue of continued underground testing. It is a political issue to properly weigh the political benefits of a comprehensive test ban
Reprinted with permission from Physics Today, November 1991, pp. 9-1 3. Copyright (1991), American Institute of Physics.
170 against the fact that, today, the uncertainties in the safety of nuclear weapons are simply too large. In fact, as the report emphasizes, scientists do not now have the data base they need to assess the risks adequately. As individuals, my colleagues and I addressed the question of continued underground bomb tests in our testimony of 18 December 1990 before the House committee. Not surprisingly, our common technical conclusions did not translate into identical political views. My own views are expressed in the following statement, which I had prepared in anticipation of being questioned on this subject during the hearings (and which I read into the record almost verbatim): It is not easy to answer a question about what implications our report and its recommendations have on continued underground explosions versus a CTBT [comprehensive test ban treaty] b e cause difficult political, as well as technical, judgments must be made. On the technical side, which I am more comfortable to judge, I would emphasize that we can and should make important progress toward enhanced safety of the nuclear stockpile in a number of ways that do not require underground nuclear test explosions. They include: D r e d i r e c t i n g t h e weapons RDT&E program toward enhanced safety as its principal goal; D performing laboratory experiments to develop a data base that is required for sound analyses of the risks of initiating a nuclear yield or of dispersing plutonium under a variety of abnormal circumstances for existing weapons; D retiring older weapons from the stockpile that fail to meet modem safety design criteria; D adapting common warheads of compatible size that already exist and incorporate the desired safety features to several different weapons systems that are designated to remain in the US arsenal; and D adopting operational procedure-uch as limiting aerial overflights-to minimize handling and transporting risks. However, to go further and design new warheads with safetyoptimized designs, or just simply safer configurations, it will be necessary to perform underground nuclear tests. For a program focused on safety alone, the number of tests would be limited
and their yields considerably lower than the maximum of 150 kT permitted under t h e TTBT [Threshold Test Ban Treaty]. The importance and desirability of these tests will have to be weighed against the political judgment as to how central-now or perhaps five years from nowa complete ban on underground testing, i.e., a CTBT, would be to strengthening or even preserving the nonproliferation regime. I agree with Secretary of State James Baker when he said in Washington, DC, on 19 September [1990] that we cannot a p proach nuclear proliferation in a business-as-usual manner, and further when he went on to say, both in his name and in that of [former] Soviet Foreign Minister Shevardnadze, that “we both see proliferation as perhaps the greatest security challenge of the 1990s.. . and we agree that stop ping and countering proliferation must be a central part of our agenda.” A number of actions by the United States and the Soviet Union, the two nuclear superpowers, can play a role in strengthening the nonproliferation regime-in particular, the ending of the cold war and the development of constructive pclitical relations, and the signing of arms reduction treaties like the INF [Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces], CFE [Conventional Forces in Europe] and START [Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty]. It is very difficult for me a t present to judge just how important a CTBT a t this time would be, in addition to these steps. However, looking ahead, I presume that a CTBT would help strengthen a nonproliferation regime; it might also be a constructive step simply to reduce the number of permitted underground nuclear tests as well as their maximum yields, in a program justified and directed solely to enhanced safety a t least for a fixed period of time. At some point we will have to make a political decision on the importance and timing of a CTBT. Recall that the NPT [Nuclear Proliferation Treaty] review conference is scheduled for 1995. While the US would like the NPT to be continued indefinitely, or for an extended period, we may well face proposals in the absence of a CTBT for only a very limited, or even a terminal, extension.
The US and, indeed, the nations of the world should support and work to implement Secretary Baker’s priority call to stop and counter proliferation. If, or when, it is judged that agreeing to a CTBT is important to “stop ping and countering proliferation,” in Secretary Baker’s words, I think we should agree to such a ban. Meanwhile, our testing program should be designed to advance the possibilities and understanding of enhanced safety and thereby help us prepare for the possibility of a CTBT. As scientists my fellow panelists and I did our best to present an informed, objective set of technical findings and recommendations on this important subject. As responsible citizens we also expressed our individual conclusions about its political policy implications. I regret that in PHYSICS TODAY’S reporting on this important technical safety issue, the political dimension was presented inaccurately. SIDNEY D. DRELL Stanford University Stanford, Culifomia
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“Safetyin High Consequence Operations”
Presented to the Safety in High Consequence Operations Symposium Sandia National Laboratory July 12, 1994
Dr. Sidney Drell Deputy Director Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
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“Safety in High Consequence Operations” There is a bit of a gambler in each and every one of us. This is evidently a rather wide-spread and prevalent condition as one reads about all the activities and wide participation at lotteries, gambling casinos, pari-mutual betting and the like. Gambling is no big deal if properly controlled and sensibly waged; that is if it does not threaten the life of oneself or others, or the physical overall well being and responsibilities to one’s family - in other words, if it’s a low consequence activity. I, personally, only make minor, relatively low consequence wagers: a bet there won’t be a traffic jam en route to the airport to catch a plane or not lugging a raincoat around all the time in changeable weather. But I’ve never bet that I could walk a tight rope more than 6” above the ground either.
I gambled when I accepted the invitation to talk here today that I would be able to come up with something to say that was perceptive, interesting, penetrating.
I suggest that you don’t invest in that wager, but I don’t want to imply that I view this to be a low consequence undertaking. Not at all. I am here because of respect for the organizers and all the important contributions made here at SNL in managing such high consequence operations as nuclear weapons with so exemplary a safety record.
It’s all very, very different for high risk operations and that is what we are here to talk about: really high stake operations. I thought a lot about safety and high risk operations a few years back, when together with two distinguished colleagues, Johnny Foster and Charlie Townes, I took on the task of reviewing the safety of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. This added greatly to my sensitivity to, and appreciation of, the world of high consequence operations, a world in which many
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of you here in this audience have been living, and indeed the world you have been
defining through your careers. And I’m happy to see here in the audience one of you who was such a valuable guru for Foster, Townes, and me, and my panel’s work: Bob Peurifoy. It is difficult to overemphasize or overstate the importance of avoiding an accident with nuclear weapons. When one considers the potential for tragedy, should a serious accident occur, as well as the consequences of such an accident for our national security, it is clear that no reasonable effort should be spared to prevent such an accident from occurring. Just a chemical explosion - not even a nuclear detonation - involving a nuclear weapon that aerosolized and spread plutonium could do serious damage to our nuclear deterrent posture and potentially harm our security given the sensitivities that we have to the word ”nuclear” now. Aside from our good safety record with the nuclear weapons themselves, very little in this country that is associated with the word ”nuclear”retains credibility in the public eye much less a welcome image. In medicine, we don’t say nuclear magnetic resonance but magnetic resonance imaging, without the nuclear, in referring to the new and very valuable diagnostic tool that many of us have already benefited from. So no effort should be spared to avoid such an accident - and this task has become more challenging - not more difficult - but, if anything, more challenging as we look to the future in the post cold war world with no underground testing in prospect. We have an obligation to assure formally that our stewardship of the remaining stockpile meets the rigorous criteria for safety that this nation set 26 years ago in 1968. What then should we be doing to meet the challenge of maintaining safety, and avoiding accidents in a high consequence operation such as stewardship of the
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nuclear stockpile? How do we go about maintaining and assuring the safety, not to mention confidence and reliability over the years ahead? I see the requirements as follows: First, we have to consider the intrinsic criteria to be met by the
process we establish for such a high consequence operation. Then we should also address important external factors that affect the process. Let me turn first to the intrinsic criteria for safety for high consequence operations. I will list four. They are listed in no particular priority:
1 Set the priorities in the proper order.
2 Bring to bear the best available analytical tools to analyze and understand the risks and consequences.
3 Enforce rigorous discipline and accountability at each step in the process. 4 Red Team the activities with good communication channels up and down
the chain between management and engineers. They may not be easy to enforce, but all four of these criteria are critically important. We have learned from tragedies in the past what can happen when one or more has failed to come up to standards. Perhaps the most analyzed case, because it was publicly so visible, was the Challenger space shuttle accident in 1986. For example, it was known from some previous flights preceding the fatal
51L Challenger launch, as described in the Presidential Review Board report, that
0 rings of the solid rocket boosters showed some erosion during some of the previous flights and as a result allowed blow-by of the hot gases. As Dick Feynman emphasized in his notorious, or by now almost legendary, Appendix F to the report
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of the shuttle commission, these 0 rings of the solid rocket boosters were not designed to erode and evidence of any erosion was an indication of something not totally understood; of something that was going on from which it was impossible to infer safety in any rigorous way. Why, in fact was there erosion on some previous flights and not on others? And why was this accepted and used as a basis for proceeding ahead with confidence in safety? It happened because of the success of all previous flights; and because of a measurement that, under normal temperatures, it would take something like three or so times as deep a level of erosion beyond what had been observed on Flight
51C before the 0 ring would fail. Computer models were made, codes written and carried through, parameters fitted and the summary of what came out of these models appeared in the analyses of previous flights. But note the following words that were written in the Summary Report of the accident: “Lack of a good secondary seal in the field joint is most critical and ways to reduce joint rotation should be incorporated as soon as possible to reduce criticality.” Shortly later however the summary report also said “Analysis of existing data indicates that it is safe to continue flying existing design as long as all joints are leak checked with the 200 psig stabilization etc., etc.,”. Evidentially as Feynman emphasized there is a contradiction between saying on one hand that something is most critical and subsequently that it is safe. All one can say is that the computer model didn’t indicate a failure. But if the computer model was only a phenomenological fit, without an understanding, the conclusions that can be drawn have to be carefully circumscribed especially with respect to excursions from normal conditions and sensitivities to factors not varied.
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What comes out of a computer never exceeds the quality of its input. Thus in this example the best available analytical tools were not brought to bear, nor was there adequate "red teaming." It is also documented in the shuttle report that there was a lack of discipline in following the manuals that existed for procedures when applying high pressure to make the reusable booster rocket sections circular in restoring their round shape. Procedures were not followed.
No doubt there must be a strong "can-do", success oriented leadership of programs like the shuttle, but not by lowering the priority of safety. One way to help avoid that danger of relegating safety to a lower priority is by assuring strong, confident good communications up and down the line. Feynman's Appendix F raises a serious concern in this regard when he tells of his asking for estimates of the
failure probability of the space shuttle's main engines. The responses varied from
a failure probability of one in a hundred, according to a consulting engineer to
NASA; or one in three hundred according to the engineers working at the Marshall Space Center; all the way down to one in one hundred thousand according to a claim coming from NASA management that was made at that time. This large a variation is troubling in trying to assess safety in a high consequence operation. It reminds us how difficult and sensitive it is when dealing with the far edges, or tails, of probability distributions for failure, and how critical it is to get solidly informed judgments on the variances and all the relevant sensitivities. There are many examples, and I don't want to pick just on NASA. Let me just mention a more recent example also leading to a tragedy when good analysis was available but did not prevail, whether due to business, political, or economic
interests, or due to lack of vigor in presenting the analyses; I don't know. There
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were two fatal accidents in the last year and a half involving planes operating too closely behind the new Boeing 757 and getting caught up in their wake turbulence.
8 people were killed in 1992 at Billings, Montana and 5 last December in Santa Ana. It could have been much worse had the trailing plane been say a 737. The 757, due to its fuel efficient design, creates invisible, horizontal tornadoes
that emanate from each wingtip and are more powerful and longer lasting than any produced by any other aircraft of the same size. This was known to the top FAA scientist who warned his agency of the danger, but, as reported by the
LA Times quoting from documents obtained under the FOIA, concerns about the harmful effect of the loss of revenues to the airline industry if a larger separation distance were enforced between the 757 and following planes during landing or take-off seems to have tipped the balance against safety. I have no idea of what the detailed evidence was, how vigorously the concern was pressed, or how rigorous the technical case was developed. But one is fortunate that larger planes were not involved so that the casualties were not of a higher number, as they might well have been. Incidentally there is another reminder in this case: Just as management has the obligation to know the facts, to listen, and not distort priorities, so scientists and engineers have a responsibility and bear a burden: to be heard, and to work at it if need be, Bob Peurifoy also called my attention to another recent case where failure of an organization to operate coherently and responsibly led to disaster: the
$1.7Bflood in Chicago’s tunnels. In 1992 defects were found, reported, videotaped and subsequently ignored by management for three months. These examples remind us how important it is to remain ever vigilant in high consequence operations even, and especially, when they become routine. No mat-
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ter how successful or lucky a system has been, it must not be allowed to breed complacency or justify the status quo. And that brings me to my primary subject for today
- the nuclear weapons
program with its safety system. Our 1990 study on Nuclear Weapons Safety for
Congress commended the Departments of Energy and Defense for their safety record in managing the nuclear arsenal. We were particularly impressed, and said so, by the extreme care and high professionalism of the military services in man-
aging and maintaining surety - secrecy, security, control - of the deployed nuclear
systems. But we also made clear that there was still room for substantial improvement, both in management and technology. Indeed we recommended specific changes to meet all four of the intrinsic criteria that I listed on page 174. In reviewing them here, briefly, it is not to criticize, but to learn from them to prepare for our future when we must responsibly steward our nuclear arsenal under new restrictions with changing priorities and new challenges - both political and strategic - and with the benefit of vast improvements in technology and analytic tools. First of all, setting the right priorities means insisting that the burden of proof rests on proving that the system is safe, rather than being satisfied with lack of evidence that it is unsafe. It was exceedingly difficult to implement such a priority for the stockpile in the chilling environment of the cold war and within a process
that evolved gradually through those years starting in the 1950’s. Modernization and improvement programs for the weapons gave priority to meeting military requirements, such as achieving maximum yield-to-weight ratios for warheads and maximum payloads and ranges for missiles. Safety was,in general, not viewed with
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quite the same urgency. Moreover in the earlier years we knew much less, had few analytical tools and limited capabilities for simulation. By 1984 policy guidance was formulated in DOD Directive 3150.2 “to incorporate maximum safety consistent with operational requirements.” Modifications of stockpile weapons, in order to bring them up to modern safety criteria, proceeded slowly under a stockpile improvement program that, within its budgetary limits during those years, gave priority to the introduction of new weapons rather than fixing up the already deployed ones. Thus, in anticipation of acquiring new weapons, many older systems remained in the stockpile up until a few years ago. These were weapons that did not meet the modern safety design criteria that were developed in 1968. These criteria call for a probability of a premature nuclear detonation due to malfunction in the absence of any input signal, except for specified monitoring and control ones, to be one in a billion, prior to receipt of a pre-arm signal, for normal storage and operational environments in the lifetime of the weapon; and one in a million per warhead exposure or accident for abnormal environments prior to receipt of a pre-arm or launch signal. Some of the results of compromises made on the priority of safety are now well known. Short-range attack missiles with the W69 remained loaded on the alert strategic bomber force for more than a decade after the danger of their detonation in an accident was emphasized by people in this audience. The reason for this danger was the fact that the weapon had none of the modern safety devices, neither the modern electrical detonation system (ENDS) nor insensitive high explosive, nor fire resistant pits to protect against an aircraft fuel or engine fire; particularly for
the alert a-force parked near ends of operating runways, and occasionally exercised
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in engine start exercises, even after the 1968 end of an airborne alert force. In fact, recall that the 1985 report of President Reagan's Blue Ribbon Task Group on management of the nuclear weapons program, that was chaired by Judge William
T. Clark, commented in its appendix that "technical means to improve stockpile safety were identified in 1973" adding "the task group finds it distressing that it took until 1984 to begin modifying weapons" - and how lucky we were in the 1980 Grand Forks SAC fire on an alert B52 in a training exercise. Evidently, there's room, even in so successful a system as for the nuclear weapons, to improve the safety assurance process. And setting priorities has remained a difficult process until more recently. In 1983, the cold war requirements for range, megatonnage and numbers of warheads led to the decision that the Navy's new Trident 2 W88D5 warhead system would be built with sensitive high explosive; this because it has some 30-40% higher energy density than the insensitive one, thereby allowing an extra warhead to be loaded per missile, or an extra few hundred mile range for a given warhead loading, or somewhat larger megatonnage to be packed into a given volume. This was a decision which is now less than optimal as we face the post cold war situation, and under START are off-loading warheads. Technology, of course, will never replace judgment in making such priority calls and it is true that decisions made under one set of circumstances in
1983 may look less wise in 1994 than it did back then. Judgment is and always will be important, but it must be founded as strongly as possible on data, and that is why, using the best analytical tools to analyze and understand the risks and consequences is so important. We have those methods - they're called "fault-tree analyses" or "probabilistic risk assessments" - and they allow one to find the large
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partial derivatives in the safety chain and to identify common failure modes, when these factors are understood based on data and analysis.
Such fault-tree analyses have been initiated and carried through in the past few years, both for some of the missile systems and their operational configuration, and for handling and transportation procedures. They require a lot of hard, careful work to calculate overall safety risk and safety levels in terms of all the individual steps for complex operational procedures and for many system components. One has to make many measurements and assemble a lot of data to evaluate overall safety, carefully using the available analytic tools. This procedure - along with modern analytic tools, in particular the ability to do 3-dimensional hydronuclear computations on the behavior of primaries, have taught us that there were safety problems not previously appreciated. Their value is clear. The Trident 2 warhead, with its highly detonable propellant and sensitive high explosive in a thru-deck configuration wrapped around the 3rd stage is a case in point. Only with refined analyses - including all the uncertainties - could we begin to appreciate with any accuracy the risks of loading and unloading them, fully mated with warheads, onto the sub; and still there are questions about multi-point impact and detonation if the motor goes. We can only begin to approach this with 3-d calculations, and the
W88 is a warhead slated to remain in our arsenal. In several examples in the past 7 or 8 years we have seen how the latest analytic tools, in particular the ability to do three-dimensional calculations on poten-
tial warhead accidents, have given us new and more conservative estimates of the safety of the weapons in the arsenal. The most vulnerable location for single point detonations has moved. This data is critical as input to inform judgments about
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how best to handle the weapons, how best to move them, load them and meet the stated criteria that we gave earlier. Our history of stockpile problems with bombs that were introduced into the arsenal without adequate testing after the 1961 test moratorium is a testament to the importance of enforcing rigorous discipline at each step, and not introducing changes in manufacturing process or design without rigorous analysis and test data. Above all, we should not be so arrogant that we think about improving or changing so sophisticated a system, its manufacturing procedure, components, or design, when we are dealing with such high consequences of a failure to safety. A strong management system that challenges would-be innovators at each stage is the best antidote to either arrogance or complacency when it comes to theorizing one’s way around the problem. And I say this as a theoretical physicist who knows how wrong one can go by making simple changes until data is available to put us back on the right track. Finally, criterion 4 is important - essential - when dealing with an operation that is required to meet such exacting standards as we have put for the nuclear program; and it also applies for other comparable operations with high risks associated with them. It takes a special organization to establish confidence and maintain vigilance in the process; one that challenges the weapons designers and weapon handling procedures in the case of nuclear weapons, in search of any or all dangers that may have been overlooked or not properly evaluated. And this is what one can achieve with a red team or a rigorous peer review process, as well as good communications up and down the line.
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In our weapons safety report we spelled out in detail what this would mean in a nuclear weapons safety process: Red Teams and also transparent communication
channels back and forth, up and down the chain between the top management, the decision folks, and the engineers and scientists doing the designs and integrating the systems. The 1985 presidential panel of Judge Clark and the subsequent one formed by Adm. Watkins as Secretary of DOE and chaired by Gordon Moe in 1988 tried to improve this communication process. We found it still necessary in our
1990 study to carry it further as we reviewed actual implementation of the earlier recommendations and realized there was still too much impedance between the top and bottom in the channels of communication. Therefore we recommended Red Teams in the evaluation of weapons design at stages known by Phase 2a: Design Definition, and Phase 3: Development Engineering. Of course now we are not designing new warheads, but we are in an evaluation program of aging
and handling of weapons. Red Teams with a pipeline up to the Nuclear Weapons Council are critical, plus a Joint Advisory Committee or JAC for nuclear weapons surety, which now exists under Gen. Larry Welch as chair, reporting directly to the Secretaries of DOD and DOE. It is charged to provide oversight and to be responsible for examining on-going practices with respect to safety and surety, It has over-sight of the safety reviews conducted by the Departments of Energy and Defense for specific systems, and it would identify and inform the Secretaries of Energy and Defense of any serious issue, and provide advice as to
the appropriate response. Such a process should insure accountability at all levels and strengthen the process for resolving surety issues in an effective, informed and expeditious manner.
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I think of this process of red teams, peer reviews, advisory committees and effective oversight to insure communication links as a way of leveling the playing field, to use a popular phrase, between the safety and military requirements. In the early days of pro football, there were the offensive players and leaders, who were the great heroes. Now we see, for every Joe Montana, a Lawrence Taylor or a Mike Singletary. Offense and defense are both fully appreciated. The same must be for the red teams here. They must not be dismissed or view as “party poopers”, as was the case for the countermeasure folks who brought, or tried to bring, reality into the early
SDI program with reality checks on early extravagant
claims of effectiveness. They’re essential and must be recognized as such. Many a scientist has said that we are much more prone to fool ourselves, but nature cannot be fooled. In fact, in a statement at the end of his Appendix F, Dick Feynman wrote a sentence that summarizes the need for all four of the criteria
I have given in discussing high risk operations when he said, ”For a successful technology reality much take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.” In any and every important, high risk operation, that precedence for reality is important over all other aspects, not just for its
P.R.Decision makers
and managers should have a “can do” attitude; it is essential. It is also important
for scientists and engineers. But a good scientist and a good engineer is one who also inevitably has doubts and concerns, because there is no absolute certainty in our work, nor any system absolutely free of accidents. Appropriately the first talk at this conference by Prof. Charles Perrow is entitled “The Inevitability of Accidents.” They will occur and we must do our best to be prepared for them. These issues are important as well as timely to discuss here because we are
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now entering a future where the nuclear arsenal is going to have to be sustained with a stockpile stewardship program that can no longer rely on underground tests to maintain or confirm safety, or our confidence in them, or to help us identify potential aging problems. That means that we must work harder to understand some of the phenomenology in our codes and to improve the scientific base of our understanding of nuclear explosions in detail. Today’s uncertainties and phenomenological characterizations are wrapped up into aged words that have been
around for decades, like the fudge factor. Since we can no longer rely on tests for data to scale or extrapolate from laboratory results, we must work harder with the best analytic tools to understand better the underlying science of the weapons. We have now computers and diagnostics that can help us advance our understanding of the science without underground nuclear tests to supply new data. They are a necessary part of stockpile stewardship program. In fact, to use a word that the
Assistant Secretary for Defense Programs at DOE likes, since we don’t have underground tests available, our stockpile stewardship program should be a science
based stockpile stewardship (SBSS) program. Peer review and red teams will remain essential and at least for the near term future, more important than ever, as we begin to master with confidence the challenge of maintaining a stockpile over a long period without being able
to use underground tests for reality checks, relying instead exclusively on above ground experiments and excellent diagnostics of secondaries and primaries, and advanced computer modeling tested against above ground data in order to maintain confidence in our stockpile. I have to say that for me that means in today’s changing and uncertain world, and certainly for the next 2pi-3pi years, not “greening” one
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of the weapons labs. Not yet anyway as we move to a smaller stockpile with fewer types, and no underground tests to validate our judgments and safety demands. Also necessary for a strong SBSS program is retaining, sustaining, recruiting high quality scientists and engineers without which a responsible stockpile stewardship effort is not possible. This is then a major challenge for the government, the country, the public at large to understand for the future. Responsible stockpile stewardship will require a program that brings together good science, sustains, retains, develops outstanding young people and provides the weapons physics and diagnostics that we will be relying on in place of underground nuclear explosions. Only people who don’t want such a program for their own political reasons, or who don’t understand the sophistication required to do a good job, can think otherwise.
I hope the leaders in Washington, in Congress and the Executive, understand, and act, appropriately. It will require money - it doesn’t come free. But the weapons program also has to understand not to ask for or to insist on too much either. We are entering a comprehensive test ban (CTB) era because in the post-Cold War, it is believed that a CTB Treaty will be a contribution to non-proliferation - a goal of great value to overall security if achieved. This also then requires us to find that fine line of a strong SBSS program that is not viewed as a continuing effort
to advance and enhance nuclear capabilities for new missions. I want to turn to my last point now. In addition to these four intrinsic criteria we have been discussing, there are two important, external variables that one has
to pay attention to in maintaining important high consequence operations in our democratic society, and these are listed in the next transparency. One is to provide strong motivation to the participants in that program and the second, is to keep
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the public adequately informed on the risks that it entails. The first of these I have addressed in part by saying we had to challenge the best young people and sustain them with good science. But we also have to recognize that in the melliu of public life the pride and honor that go with a good job that is understood to be important for the nation has to be recognized. And that means for the nuclear program in particular that it will be up to society and Washington to show the kind of support and respect for a community that has done so much to win the cold war, and that we now need to continue to drive ahead for a
more peaceful world and a safer 21st century. That is a short statement for a big
problem, but it is a real one. The second requirement, keeping a public adequately informed on risks, needs no more defense than to see what's happened to those highly visible, high risk operations where such an effort to keep the public informed was inadequate. The odor that goes with the word "nuclear" in connection with nuclear reactors, nuclear
waste, and nuclear fallout in modern times is certainly an expression of lack of effort in the early days of the nuclear era to inform people that, yes, nuclear energy and nuclear radiation may have many benefits to offer, but they are not totally risk free: fall out, waste disposal, the inevitability of accidents. The whole nuclear endeavor started with the responsibility for development and for safety cautions combined together under one and the same direction, and with the public assured of "no risks". It can't and shouldn't be done that way. This is the most difficult problem of all that 1 have talked about - how to help the public understand risk; but if one should lose their confidence in a democratic society, it is very hard, nigh impossible, to gain it back. Choices about risk and
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risk management need to be discussed and understood in a democratic society. It is a responsibility that cannot be ducked. Thanks for hearing me out.
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S. Drell
The Route to the CTBT Las Vegas, NV - May 13,1998 The U.S. commitment to a true zero-yeld comprehensive test ban treaty, that President Clinton signed on September 26, 1996, depends on you - on the success of this community to meet the major challenge that has been presented to you. Under a ban on all nuclear explosions, you must do the good science, which means gathering the critical data and developing the understanding that will be necessary if we are to maintain, as we must, in the years ahead what we now enjoy, i.e. confidence in our enduring nuclear weapons stockpile. You, and through you our government and military leaders, must have the confidence that you will hear whatever warning bells that may ring, however unanticipated they may be, alerting us to evidence of deterioration of an aging stockpile. You also must have the means, and the knowledge, to do what has to be done, in a timely way, by way of refurbishment and/or remanufacturing in order to fix problems that may arise. The importance of your succeeding in meeting this challenge also puts a serious obligation on the American public, and on our political leaders. That obligation is to provide steady support for a strong stockpile stewardship and maintenance program - that is for your work - so that you can do this job. You will need the tools. These include the
necessary facilities for enhanced surveillance and forensics, for detailed diagnostics, and for accurate and reliable simulations and validation of codes based on greatly increased computer power. This support will make it possible for you to get the vital data that you must have. Many factors will be involved in maintaining the support required for a strong and successful SSMP
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not the least of which will be the credibility you maintain with the
public, the military, the political leaders and with your scientific peers, both in and
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outside the national security community. This credibility is a priceless asset, and must be guarded assiduously. Finally there is a third factor that will be critical for bringmg the CTBT into force and that is the behavior of other nations - particularly the nuclear ones like India. More on that later. Let me develop these thoughts a bit more. First of all, let me make clear why I think the CTBT is so important. The importance of a ban on all nuclear testing was made clear in the debate in the United Nations in 1995 that led to an indefinite extension of the 1970 Nonproliferation Treaty at its fifth and final scheduled five-year review. A commitment by the five nuclear powers to cease testing, and developing and deploying new weapons, was a condition by many of the 181 signatories of the NPT extension (now 185). It is nonproliferation that is so important for reducing nuclear danger around the world. The nuclear powers must now honor that commitment to cease testing and reduce the current discriminatory situation between the nuclear and non-nuclear nations who have signed the Nonproliferation Treaty. For me this is a new circumstance. I had doubts about the necessity of the comprehensive test ban as an ingredient of maintaining and extending the nonproliferation regime as recently as 1990 when I led the study on Nuclear Weapons Safety for the House Armed Services Committee, and again in 1992 in the debate on the Hatfield-Mitchell-Exon Amendment to allow 15 tests, over a three year period, that were designed to improve weapon safety. No longer do I have those doubts. A CTBT clearly became a policy necessity in the debate over extending the NonProliferation Treaty in 1995. Not only does the CTBT help limit the spread of nuclear weapons through an NPT regime, particularly if current negotiations agree on effective provisions for verifying that Treaty, and appropriate sanctions are applied for non-compliance. The CTBT will also
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dampen competition among those who already have warheads, but who now will be unable to develop and to deploy with confidence more advanced ones at either the high end or the low end of destructive power. It will also force rogue states seeking a nuclear capability to place confidence in untested bombs. India is a special problem to which I shall return later. Notwithstanding a strong case for the CTBT, the U.S. must be convinced that, under a ban on all nuclear explosions, we
can retain
our currently high confidence in the
reliability of our enduring nuclear arsenal over the long term as the weapons age and their numbers are reduced. This technical question was of course thoroughly studied, leading to a conclusion that was accepted broadly - if not unanimously - by an informed scientifichechnical community. The conclusion can be stated simply as follows: with a strong scientific and technical infrastructure in nuclear weapons, and a balanced and multi-faceted program of stockpile stewardship and management that has the necessary diagnostic equipment and analytic capabilities, and will continue to be led, as it is at present by first-class scientists and engineers at the National Labs, there is no need to continue nuclear testing at any level of yield. We are now relying on you folks and your Labs to make good on that promise and that judgment. The immediate working challenge to you is to fill in substantial gaps in our understanding of the physical processes in a nuclear explosion and in our knowledge of long term aging effects in components in the weapons systems that will remain in our enduring stockpile. Age related changes that can affect a nuclear weapon and must be understood and evaluated include: 0
Structural or chemical degradation of the high explosive leading to a change in performance during implosion.
0
Changes in plutonium properties as impurities build up due to radioactive decay
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0
Corrosion along interfaces, joints, and welds
0
Chemical or physical degradation of other materials or components.
An intensified stockpile surveillance program that looks for cracks, component failures or other signs of deterioration, and develops quantitative measures to determine when these can unacceptably affect the performance of the primary, will be crucial for the short term confidence in the stockpile over the coming decade. This confidence can be gained only when one has the necessary data. There are very many other non-nuclear components of a weapon system that are crucial to its successful operation, including arming and firing systems, neutron generators, explosive actuators, safing components, permissive action link coded control, radar components, batteries and aerodynamic surfaces. All of these are also critical to mission success, but testing of these non-nuclear components and making improvements as may be indicated are not restricted by a CTBT. To ensure performance over the longer term, there will be a need for new facilities to bench mark advanced full-physics 3-D burn codes against physical conditions during an explosion, and greatly increased computer power to handle such codes. There must also be a significant industrial infrastructure to enable us to do required replenishing, refurbishing, or remanufacturing of age-affected components, and to evaluate the resulting product. And above all on top of this, and in fact supported by the data that these challenging technical opportunities will provide, there is a critical importance of retaining experienced nuclear weapons scientists and engineers, and training a new generation to maintain a high standard of excellence in the program.
I realize that what I am calling for here is a tall order. I also have to tell you that when I carried out reviews of the program, both with the UC Oversight Panel and with JASON a year ago, I became very concerned. I kept hearing strong statements fi-om the labs of
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serious worries about the aging of weapons and the problems we faced. By and large these were based on a lack of data, and I did not see then a priority effort in the program to get the necessary data in a timely way. Of course it is essential to be very critical and uncertain about agmg weapons if you don’t have the data. But it is also essential to make the commitment and give high priority to getting that data. There is no substitute for such data; and getting it without undo delay so timely action can be taken if needed. Today I am now happier and more encouraged, and so are my participating colleagues. We revisited this issue during the past winter, and saw a real change in culture with intensified efforts to acquire data on signatures of aging (e.g. void swelling and surface damage from recoiling U and He in radioactive decay of aged Pu). What is more this data has added greatly to the confidence we can all have today in our understanding of agmg and in the continue reliability of the weapons in our stockpile over the coming decade.
So I am pleased to say here that the recent developments in the stewardship program have added greatly to my confidence that you are doing - and proving that you can do the essential job of getting the necessary data. Of course you still have a long way to go, but the route to meet the challenge of the CTBT is indeed being properly paved and I applaud you for that. What is more, your data and understanding will enable you to assure our military and defense officials and government leaders that they can have high confidence in the stockpile. That confidence will be the heart of your establishing the high credibility in this program and in your work as a foundation on which to assure continued program support and success. Beyond the stockpile stewardship program itself, I also want to add it is enormously satisfylng to me to see how much the scientific atmosphere has improved in your laboratories over the past four years. It is not an exaggeration to say that the weapons
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labs are enjoying a real scientific renaissance. I look back to the time of the election in November 1992 when I was called in at the very last moment to the DOE transition team, only after the people there realized that they had totally forgotten to bring someone to look into the needs and problems involving the national laboratories that the new Administration had to face. Not only you folks, but also high energy labs doing basic, unclassified research like SLAC and FERMILAB, for example, were forgotten. That is how far out on the fringe our activities were viewed by many of the new people coming into government. That is no longer true. Budgets for the nuclear weapons program are no longer plunging. They are now solid. Political support nationwide is high, also for very important problems that are broader than just the stockpile stewardship program. For example the labs are challenged to provide the technology to put some verification teeth into the NonProliferation Treaty as well as to the comprehensive test ban. Advances in the ability to simulate the behavior of scientific systems, using computers whose power has advanced by orders of magnitude years ahead of the anticipated industrial schedule, are going to be a boon to all science. Your mission is recognized as one of great national importance, and your support is solid - and will remain so, I believe, so long as you deliver, and maintain your credibility. I have emphasized the scientific/technical component of your credibility. There is
also the public component. I cannot overemphasize the importance of caution, balance, and precision when you make public statements. Coming from senior scientists in the program like you, they are heard by our political leaders and the editorial writers, and will influence their continued support for the stewardship program, as well as for ratification and world-wide implementation of the CTBT. You are a unique community working on nuclear weapons. Your statements are of singular importance. All of us involved in this
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process must measure our words carefully, guarding as best we can against hyperbole and statements that can be taken out of context, misinterpreted or distorted. Of course the fundamental rule is: at all times say what you believe is true, but say it carefully. I urge you to make a serious effort to help build public understanding, and support and confidence in this program. Let me add a bit of advice on this very point, specifically addressed to the managers in the audience. The labs should at this time be making a stronger effort to broaden the communication of your results with the Department of Defense and military leaders, especially on the enhanced surveillance program, and their implications for the behavior of the weapons during the coming decade. This will help provide them with a better understanding, a needed understanding on their part, of the relevance of the stewardship program for meeting their mission needs - both for the short and long terms. There is an evident need for DOD to better recognize the benefits it will gain as your customer. The DOD budget has been tithed for the coming decade to help pay for the SSMP’s annual
$4.5billion budget. This has led to strained relations between defense and energy. The better they understand why you need all this program including their dollars, the better will be your relations and the stronger their support. At this time the stewardship program holds a high ground in the policy debates. There are extremists chipping away, including those of the chicken little school who assert that we are incompetent to maintain the weapons without testing, as well as the anti-nuclear cadre who view a well supported, good stewardship program as an end run around the CTBT. I believe neither of these extremes will be decisive if you do your jobs well and represent your work accurately. Above all, success starts with getting the necessary data; building the infrastructure to permit timely response to problems as they
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may arise; providing the deliverables required by your customers in the military; and investing in necessary facilities for the long haul. Two final brief comments. First, there will be great value in managing the program as openly as consistent with U S . security needs. You will thereby benefit from scrutiny and valuable peer review by colleagues outside of the weapons community - a process of long recognized value in the scientific process. Furthermore openness will provide convincing evidence to other nations, and to skeptics in general, that our ambitious stewardship program is in fact totally consistent with the CTBT, and indeed is an integral part of that policy decision. And finally I emphasize the importance of the U.S. moving ahead with CTBT ratification during the coming year. The treaty as currently written won’t go into effect until all 44 nuclear capable nations have signed on. India as you know claims to have carried out 5 tests this week, and has been a hold-out demanding the five declared nuclear powers set a date-definite for getting rid of all nuclear weapons before joining the treaty. That of course won’t happen anytime soon. There will be a scheduled review conference next year
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in 1999
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3 years after the signing to attempt to resolve this issue by
considering changes in the conditions for the treaty to enter into force. Unless we ratify the CTBT by then the U.S. will have no place at the table. After India’s action we are in danger of losing the world-wide commitment to the CTBT. Only with U.S. leadership can I see hopes for keeping the CTBT on track and keeping the 185 signatory nations to the NPT together. For this we must be at the table and lead a united effort through application of political pressures and sanctions. We ought to get moving. India’s recent tests have increased the urgency,
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Sidney D. Drell, Abraham D. Sofaer, and George D. Wilson
THE PRESENT THREAT The threat of biological and chemical weapons is already upon us-and
in
some ways is even more grave than the threat of nuclear weapons.
The existence of a direct threat from abroad to the U.S. homeland is not new. Nuclear weapons have posed one for more than fifty years. But today we face the new-and
in many ways more challenging-threat
of attack from biological and
chemical weapons (BCW). This present threat is not posed by just one or two nuclear-armed nations. It is much more pervasive. With modern advances in biotechnology and pharmaceutical manufacturing, there is a threat of attack against U.S. society from a growing number of nations and terrorist units. Although the BCW threat cannot be eliminated, there are constructive steps we can take to reduce the dangers or mitigate the consequences of BCW attacks and perhaps even move toward establishing a norm for the nonuse of BCW, such as has existed, de facto, for nuclear weapons for more than fifty years. That a “nonuse norm” for nuclear weapons exists is strongly indicated by the fact that the United States, the former Soviet Union, France, and China have all been denied victories in military conflicts in which they nevertheless refrained from using their nuclear arsenals against nonnuclear-armed adversaries. Steps that would raise the cost-tobenefit ratio for the use of BCW would also reduce their attractiveness and thereby move the world along a path toward establishing another nonuse norm. Sidney D. Drell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, an emeritus professor oftheoretical physics at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and a member oftbe National Academy of Sciences. Abraham D. Sofaer is the George P. Shultz Distinguished Scholar and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. George D. Wilson is a research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
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2000 . No. 1
South Korean sddiers prepare for the possibiility d a biologicat and chemicar weapons attack in this military exercise i n a Seoul subway station, August 1994.
An agenda to deal with the BCW h e a t is essential and feasible. Here are the five areas where actions can be effective in reducing the dangers and potential damage from tine use of BCW:
1 . Intelligence. A primary goal of an effective program against BCW is to obtain early and reliable intelligence and, best of all, clues as to the intentions of would-
be perpetrators. Clues as to intentions are critically important for discovering emerging BCW threats. The relevant facilities, equipment, and material can have dual purposes. They ma? be used in legitimate civilian activities, such as manufxturing commercial drugs, pesticides, antibiotics, and vaccines, as well as in manufacturing arid sxackpiling BCM? Discerning intentions requires a strengthened, robust capability for h u a n intelligence and clandestine means of acquiring this information. On the domestic front, information gathering and surve2hce by the Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and local law-enforcement personnef will be critical, but it must remain within legal restraints as man&ted by the Constitution and be consistent with the core values of our S Q C ~ ~ ~ Y .
199 Comprehensive and timely databases maintained by health officials on disease
and illness patterns can provide early evidence of hostile actions. Similar efforts by U.S. aFim1tw-e officials monitoring crops and livestock conditions m d contamination can proxide vital intelligence warnings.
An overall information system and technical tools for detecting and identifying developing threats (or actual atxackscs)can be upgraded in significant ways. Possibilities exist for detecting small quantities of agents -with compact, covert, autonomous, as well as remote, sensors -using advanced technologies. The Department of Defense is developing new sensors of great sensitivity for warning and detection. The Department of Energy’s weapons laboratories are applying their impoTtmt assets and experience with nuclear sensors to the advancement of sensor t e c h o l o u for use against BCVi7, a task currently supported by the 1996 kderal Nu-Lugar-Domenicilegislation. Better intelligence of traditional types
will be important against delivery systems and, in particular? against theater or short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, such as the SCUDS and their derivatives that (together with their launchers) the United States failed to locate
during the GdLf war. 2. Research. On both the scientific and the medical fronts, a strong research base is i.taaH to stay ahead of n a t w d y occurring bacteria and viruses as they mutate into
forms &at evade current antibiotics and vaccines. A strong public heal& system supporting good health practices will help provide a database and a system on
.it-hich to bifd for recovery. Improved techniques are needed for simply mcl retiably detecting Infections during the early inncubation period, for example, by using E92
Hoover Dlgest n 2000 No. I
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saliva tests, nose swipes, or sophisticated sensors. Above all, the biomedical community should get more heavily involved in these efforts.
It is increasingly important for doctors and scientists with relevant expertise to become more deeply involved in helping address what can and cannot be done technically, in developing ethical standards for their own activities, and in educating the public. An "extended" Hippocratic oath by the scientific and medical community, taking a moral stand against any actions violating the international BCW conventions, could be a powerful influence.
3 . Inspection. The involvement of industry will be key in developing protocols for inspections to implement the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC). T h s is the way a consensus was achieved in the United States to support the signing and Senate ratification (April 1997) of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), a treaty banning all chemical weapons. Regrettably, the Senate added unilateral waivers and exemptions that could weaken the CWC regime and undercut its effectiveness. Implementing the BWC is a more difficult challenge because constraints based on the quantity of a biological agent are not effective, given the rapid rate at which such agents multiply. In addition, the pharmaceutical industry is extremely sensitive to the potential loss of proprietary information. Experience
with nuclear weapons has demonstrated a need for effective challenge inspections. The International Atomic Energy Agency has recently developed a strengthened safeguard regime and is currently negotiating bilateral agreements with member states for its implementation. This is a difficult, but,not impossible, problem to address for BCW. The value of routine inspections has been called into question, however, and should be determined on the basis of sound and objective criteria, to avoid unwarranted burdens. Emphasis should also be placed on the high costs to would-be proliferators if these efforts fail and they feel that they must build up and maintain sophisticated BCW stockpiles and capabilities. In both the nuclear weapons and the chemical weapons debates in the United States, serious opposition to ratification of treaty limits or to accepting verification protocols has been based, in part, on the fear that success in negotiating a set
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of provisions and treaties will lull us into false confidence that we are safe or have accomplished more than, in reality, has been achieved. This points up the importance of not making excessive claims, of insisting on effective verification as a necessary part of any control regime, and of diligent enforcement of compliance measures. Violations of treaties must not go unpunished. Furthermore, although the United States should support the treaties and abide by them, it should at the same time proceed in its national-security planning with contingency preparations for appropriate responses to potential treaty violations and noncompliance.
4. Consequence management. A great deal remains to be done to enhance national, state, and local programs for managing the consequences of BCW attacks. The United States must build a bottom-up system from the local level, making effective use of national resources, such as databases, information banks, and communication systems. We have to develop an effective process for making crisis decisions, both in periods of true catastrophe and in situations where panic is the greatest danger. A public affairs policy must also be crafted that applies available resources and benefits fairly, in accord with U.S. law and codes of social justice, and that also establishes a proper balance between transparency and secrecy in malung information available to ensure proper public awareness of dangers and actions without causing panic. We must honor our values as a society in any restriction on citizens’ freedoms, including the right to travel, while at the same time preventing victims of contamination from contributing to the further spread of disease. This is a complex problem of information management and deserves serious and timely attention. Preparations for consequence management should also highlight the risks that will be faced by would-be perpetrators should they initiate BCW attacks.
5. Defense. Defense encompasses both passive and active efforts. Passive defenses, including equipment, preparations, and training of medical response and cleanup teams, can play an important role. Ongoing efforts for active defenses are also essential, but need continued, careful evaluation of their realistic potential and
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202 the prospect of operational countermeasures. Sanctions, and in particular trade as well as military sanctions, can be important, although their effectiveness against indigenous terrorist groups as opposed to state actors is highly doubtful. Export controls over critical substances and equipment are essential. Preemptive or preventive strikes have been, and will likely continue to be, taken regarding BCW. Accepted rules concerning such actions are elusive, however, and unilateral measures would need to satisfy the stringent criteria under the United Nations Charter. Nations that act preemptively will have to be prepared to balance their unilateral aims against their international policy goals, as well as to defend their conduct by revealing intelligence as a basis for action-in addition to meeting the conventional requirements of proportionality and necessity for acting against a BCW threat. Such issues have to be addressed on a caseby-case basis. The economic and scientific strength of a nation and, even more, its credibility are important factors in its ability to dissuade, discourage, or even prevent a BCW attack. For this and other reasons, the United States must maintain credibility by forgoing unwarranted threats and by following through on such threats as it does make-while
insisting on, and subjecting itself to, strict account-
ability. As to what specific means, nuclear or otherwise, will or will not be employed in undertaking reprisal actions, little can be gained by explicitly “tipping one’s hand.” The prospect, however, that the fifty-year norm against use of nuclear weapons would come to an end in response to the use of BCW is patently unappealing. Our policy should clearly show that we will seek to rely on other credible options, but it should stop short of ruling out any single action absolutely and totally. Finally, examining the full range of issues relating to BCW conveys one overriding lesson. In every major respect, apart from battlefield use in open military conflict, the dangers posed by BCW-and thereby reduce those dangers-are
the measures needed to manage and
similar in principle to the dangers posed by,
and the measures needed to manage, peacefully generated biological and chemical hazards.
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203 The p&&c he&
inhastructure and methods needed to respond to naturally
occurring and ncnmilitaq biological and chemical hazards overlap significantly with those requked to deal with deliberate BCW attacks. The medical data needed to eduate h e incidence of injury or disease are the same for both peacem a d defensive purposes. The detection and evaluation technologies &at are being d ~ d o p e in d both the chemical a d the biological fields will serve equally critical roles, regardless of the source or motives behind the substances endangering the pcp-dation. The infrastructure needed to deal with cbemicd and biological hazards is afso t l e same: (a) properly equipped response teams able to circumscribe, nneu~Aize,and decontaminate areas; (b) a system for informing the affected public md for isolating and treating injured or contagious individuals; ( c ) the produ&orm, distribution, and adr&&trztionn of necessary medications; (d) securing public cooperation without causing panic; md ( e )the development of long-term protection in the form of protective devices and treatments.
f m p m t m differences do exist between nondeliberate and deliberate chemical
and biological hazards with respect to the measures &at may be possible to regulate, deter, and defend against &ern. States that are threatened by identifiable regimes or terrorists may be able to slow or diminish the effectiveness of BGW programs by limiting the availability of necessary prerequisites, such as equipment, ehemicd precursors? biological! media, delivery systems. The dangerous Libyan chemical weapon program of Colonel Muammar Qadddi, for instance, :asbeen sign&CzntJy slowed and limited through such egorts. Preemptive actions, such ;as the U.SLattack ~n &he SMa pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, S u d q in August 1998: may also be possible. B 16
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Although potentially valuable, these measures are only feasible in the case of known enemies whose intentions are discernible and pose a substantial threat. The growing threat posed by BCW is largely composed of situations that fall outside this narrow category. In many, if not most, situations, it will be impossible to determine whether and where potential users are developing BCW, and it may often be impossible to know who is responsible for such attacks or even whether a particular incident or outbreak of disease was deliberately caused. The relative ease of access to BCW-even
by nonstate actors-and
the diffi-
culties of using such weapons as a deterrent strongly support the policies adopted in the CWC and BWC, prohibiting not only use but also possession and development. For the same reasons, however, it is essential to assume that no practical means exist to prevent all violations. Consequently, effective deterrence can only be assured through the imposition of severe sanctions for proven violations of the conventions. Significantly, no sanction has yet been imposed for such violations or use by states, groups, or individuals, and no prospect exists for including any in the conventions. Therefore, an effort to adopt an international convention to criminalize serious violations of the CWC and BWC is worthy of serious consideration. In addition, it appears equally important to persuade the U.N. Security Council to adopt a resolution for the mandatory imposition of appropriate, punitive measures by member states for BCW violations-as peace and security under the U.N. Charter-even that refuse to ratify the CWC and BWC.
a threat to international
with respect to those states
CI
Adapted f r o m t h e introductory essay in t h e new Hoover Press book The New Terror: Facing the Threat of Biological and Chemical Weapons, edited by Sidney D. Drell, Abraham D. Sofaer, and George D. Wilson.
The N e w Terror: Facing the Threat of Biological and Chemical Weapons is now available
from the Hoover Press. To order, call 800-935-2882.
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Chapter IV
New Challenges in the 21st Century: Escaping the Nuclear Deterrence Trap and Facing Terrorism
Chapter IV of this book takes us forward in time into the 21st century, up to the present. The gravest danger today is no longer viewed to be a nuclear holocaust between two superpowers, one of which has passed into history. In fact the United States and Russia have declared themselves to be allies in the war against terrorism. The gravest danger we face today is the chilling prospect that nuclear weapons, capable of destruction and devastation on an historically unprecedented scale, may be acquired by very dangerous hands be they rogue nations or suicidal terrorists. Our daunting challenge -brought home so vividly on 9/11 - is to preserve and strengthen a nuclear nonproliferation regime that is threatened by the spread of technology. The main policy issues of this growing danger and their related implications were analyzed in a book, ”The Gravest Danger: Nuclear Weapons,” co-authored with former Ambassador and arms control negotiator James Goodby that was published in 2003 by the Hoover Institution Press at Stanford University (with a Foreword by George Shultz). The first essay in this chapter, ”The Gravest Danger,” is an abstract from that book. It appeared in the Hoover Digest in 2004. The second essay in this chapter, entitled ”Nuclear Weapons and their Proliferation: The Gravest Danger” draws on the text of that book, as adapted in a number of talks I have given to changing circumstances on the political and strategic stage over a several year period since 2003. (It appeared in abbreviated form with the title “The Shadow of the Bomb, 2006” in Policy Review ((No. 136, April and May, 2006)) published by the Hoover Institution). I emphasized the growing danger of nuclear proliferation as one of the Tough Challenges, in an address with the same title, to Stanford University students at the ceremony marking their initiation into the Phi Beta Kappa scholastic honorary society in 2004. It is the third essay included in this chapter. By 2005, more than a decade after the end of the Cold War, the United States and Russia had formally buried their adversarial hatchets, as declared by Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin. As allies the two nations were seeking to escape the trap of nuclear deterrence based on massive assured destruction. This changed circumstance clearly called for a fresh look at the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense planning. James Goodby and I undertook to do that in a report commissioned by the Arms Control Association in Washington, D.C. as a sequel to our earlier book. That report, ”What Are Nuclear Weapons For? Recommendations for Restructuring U.S. Strategic Forces” is the fourth article in this chapter.
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The fifth article, entitled ”In the Shadow of the Bomb,” is essentially a wrap-up of much of what has been said throughout this volume. It was presented in 2005 as the keynote address to the annual meeting of the American Committee for the Weizmann Institute of Science in San Francisco.
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Sidney Orel! md James Goodby
The Gravest Danger weapons could onfy too easily fall into the hands of rogue and terrorists. Sidney Drett and James Sootfby explain how to ffmt Last year CIA director George Tenet cautioned the U.S. Senate that we are seeing "the continuing weakening of the international nonproiiferation consensus" and that "the domino theory of the twenty-first century may well be nuclear." Lets hope he will be proved wrong, Iraq was a dry well as far as existing nuclear weapons are concerned, but the danger of their proliferation is very real, as is evident in North Korea and Iran, Nuclear bombs are not jyst one more weapon. With an energy release a million times larger than that of previous explosives, mass destruction is inevitable. These weapons pose an existential issue: Can civilization survive? Ronald Reagan, who understood this, often said, "A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought." This prospect of the spread of nuclear weapons and other dangerous technologies to the hands of suicidal terrorists and rogue nations unrestrained by the norms of civilized behavior has led George W, Bush to remark that "the gravest danger our nation faces lies at the crossroads of radicalism and technology." The nuclear restraint regime constructed by the nuclear superpowers during the Cold War is not necessarily going to be replicated. A worst-case scenario can easily be imagined: « The era of managed nuclear weapons competition, essentially by two nations, is over, and, with it, the stability fostered by a long period of nonproiiferation will break down.
Stingy Orett is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution ana a /wfessor
of physics at Stanford University,
James GoodDy was (tiptomat-in-residBnce at Stanford's Institute for International Studies in 2003, ft
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* This wjJi generate increased pressures many countries in unstable regions 10 make biological weapons to offsetdie the growing nuclear capabilities round chess. * T«s3snationai terrorist organizations will have an easer time gaining access 10 tiucleaf weapons, by theft o? by deliberate transfer o the weapons, * Thiscascade of easily forseeable events will lead,sooner or later to the use of nudear weapons in combar by nation-states or to attacks on major
population centers, jaciudmg American cities, by terrorists equipped with nudear weapons. work widh all the inspiration and determiThe United status will have to nation it can muster m meet new throats to the proliferation regime and prevent such a scenario from occurring.
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Since 1945, restraint to .nuclear affairs km played an important role in preventing the use of nuclear weapons in war, .Leaders recognized thai their dererrence to be used as weapons of defensive only artional purpose was for for last resort This lias helped Emit As nycrsber of nuclear weapon statestoto eight. However, prospects for formaintaining and aospfollfcratlon and strengrhening the nonproliferation regime would Inevitably be dashed if she Ursited States, with the most powerful military forces in the world, now to conclude that it has no choicebut to nuclear develop weapons for use In limited military engagements. Regrettably, raked., signals from Washington Jaave raised the prospect chat this is "A new requirement tor our national security. Such an action, by broadening the missions the threshold ami loweringAe tor Ruclear use, would .nvite oslier countries to concludethat they too need nuclear weapons for their security purposes.
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Military force—whether applied for preemption for against an imminent attack or for prevensionto forestall a developing potential attack—is not likely to be the key to solving the genera! problem of nuclear proliferation, an indispensable backup role. Obviously, factors quite although k will plplay apart from worries about nudear proliferation reinforced the determination or PresideiK Rush to wage war against lraq. Iraq,
forrunately they are other actions available to thre United states in cases where military force is mot the right answer la fact, strong-willed diplomacy, backed by all the instruments of national power is b generally going to be the right response IsspottajK took of diplomacy include * Ssreaf .dhejfung die Nuclear Honprolifemion Treaty by expanding the autboritfof the international Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for inspectioo of suspicious activities * Combtulsg rhe moratorium, -on umbrgtound nuciear explosive resting and working roward bringinga aCompieheosbe-lest Treaty into force * Piusumg multilateral cooperationosonbfir^ng-eariy-waming and. defensive systemslate in to force can help buIM a stronger anri-p»lifetado.n coalition The most direct way for terrorists to acquire a usable nuclear weapons capability would be through theft or illegal purchase,and the danger is real The best means of denying a nuclear capability to terrorists is to provide maximum protection for existing stockpiles of weapons and nuclear materials and to reduce their size. This calls for the geographic extension and aggressive application od effective cooperative threat reduction measures, first developed in the 1990sunder the nunn-Lugr legislation for the formar sovier Union, plus an expedited implementation of the nuclear force reductions negotiated by presidents bush and putin in moscow in 2002 Potential proliferants are motivated to acquire nuclear weapons primarily by feraof aggressive neighbors and by a desire to enhance their status. We must
target our policies to deal with these concerns, rather than viewing each
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proKferam simply as a nuisance at best aad a dangerousenemy at worst. A targeted diplomatic approach, including cooperation as well as confrontation, woulsdofter ffi« option of actually trying to respond to the specific motivations of .potential proliferants, The United States,, therefore, must address issues of regional security and prestige in a cooperative, as well as coercive, way. Developing the habits of cooperation can begin with modest confidence-building measures, but cite ultimas ga should be clear to roll back, cmefcar proliferation, not just to improve iatmmionai relationships. The priority assigned to achieving this 4 goal must match rise gravity of the danger presetttt d by the spread of nuclear weapons capabilities. Tkis has not always beea the case due to conflicting policy requirements.
I
Is it possible for the United States and Its friends to agree on criteria compelling action against terrorirts who are attempting to acquire nuclear capabilities or against the ststes that arc harboring them? The experience as the United Nations leading up to the .invasion of Iraq shows how difficult that challenge will be. But there is a need to .restore and strengthen the international consensus that nuclear proliferation should be prevented, and it must begin with building a consensus within the U.N. Security Council OR what to ck> aJbous terrorists and their to nuclear weapons. Tk international Atomic EnergyAgency is the monitoring for the NoRproiifemrion Treaty; It needs to be given more support, including a requirement that tougher monitoring arrangements ("the Additional Protocol") be a prerequisite for nuclear-related assistance. Enforcement of the Noaproliferadon Treaty is a task for the U.N, Security Council, and k must become a higher priority for the councils five permanent members, A closer, more routine connection between the IAEA and the LIN. Security Coimcii is needed: she United States should take the lead in this.
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Plutonium reprocessing and uranium enrichment plants (die front-ead of the nuclear fbei cycle) in the possession of non-nuclear weapons states should be discouraged. These plants provide stares with the capacity to develop nuclear weapons rapidly. They tend to destabilize the entire .nuclear restraint regime Guaranteed assurances of uninterrupted nuciear fuel supplies from multiple sourceswill be a necessary part of such a policy. A Security Coiaicil resolution setting forth guidelines for acceptable behavior, applying to all U.N. member stares, should be adopted as a means of reinforcing site Nonproliferation Treaty.
One reasonthat the United states is not enjoyingthe broad international support k -should have for the campaign against the linked problems of terrorism and proliferation of nudear weapons is the perception that uniiateraJ prevbentive war has become the dominant strain in American diinking about the problem, Th« adtninlstradon can and should changeddbar perception by emphasizing that a continuum of meatts— keyed 0n patient, determined diploimqr supported by coercion force when required—mast be used to deaf with the threats posed by such weaponsagainst the the security of the United stares and 'as allies, A high degereofdegree mtermdfiaal consensusand a eooperaii'/e ouclear restraint regime are the essential foundations foe a successful U.S.anti-prolioferation program. This providesa the basis for establishing standards of expecred behavior & wgll~.undet$3xxxl .cause arotiad which like-minded nation can raMy. "Tills is die first first of defense against audear terrorism, ss
D D G G
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Nuclear Weapons and Their Proliferation: The Gravest Danger
We are going to be talking about nuclear weapons. A good place to start is by reminding you what they are and what they can do. Nuclear weapons are unique in their terrifying destructive potential. Their energy release is millions of times larger than that of previous explosives. Mass destruction is inevitable if they are used in conflicts. One primitive atomic bomb destroyed - literally wiped out the Japanese city of Hiroshima at the end of WWII, causing more than 200,000 casualties. That bomb was little more than a trigger of a modern thermonuclear or so-called hydrogen -bomb that releases 100 times or more destructive energy. There are several 10’s of thousands of them in the world today. Through the decades of the Cold War, the prospect of a nuclear holocaust was all too real. The U.S. and the former Soviet Union stood toe to toe with their fingers on the trigger ready to launch, perhaps by accident or misunderstanding if not deliberately, many thousands of nuclear warheads to annihilate one another. During his presidency, Dwight Eisenhower remarked that war with nuclear weapons can come close to ”destruction of the enemy and suicide.” The fate of civilization as we know it lay in balance. Thank goodness that specter of doom has passed. But today we face a grave new danger that has emerged. It is the danger of nuclear weapons and the material that fuels them falling into very dangerous hands, whether they be those of state leaders or terrorists, or simply suicidal fanatics unrestrained by the norms of civilized behavior. The top priority for U.S. nuclear weapons policy must be to keep that from happening. It is easy to recognize and to state this priority - but it is a most difficult challenge to figure out how to prevent such proliferation. On the diplomatic front, which is the most challenging, we must strengthen and sustain an international nonproliferation consensus that today appears to be fragile and weakening. At the same time, on the technical front, so long as we retain a nuclear deterrent, we must work to ensure its security, reliability, and effectiveness against newly emerging threats. A Cold War Success During the darkest days of the Cold War, we were successful in limiting the spread of nuclear weapons to no more than a handful of nations. A norm of nonpossession of these weapons was established, as was a norm of their non-use in
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2
military combat that has extended over 60 turbulent years. This record belies a view frequently expressed by those who disparage the value of international cooperation and arms control treaties, and who consider continuing negotiating efforts against nuclear proliferation to be futile. Today only eight nations are confirmed nuclear weapon states: the United States, United Kingdom, Russia, China, and France, India, Pakistan, and Israel, a non-declared nuclear weapon state (see Figure). The evidence is unclear as regards North Korea, though North Korea's government has the fuel for nuclear bombs and wishes the world to worry that it has them. Iran has been aggressively building a nuclear infrastructure. This number of eight nuclear weapons states is much smaller than was anticipated in the early 1960's when President Kennedy predicted 16 by the end of the decade. And the number has not grown over the past two decades.
United Stptes 7940
50
,
I
60
70
I
I
80
Year
I
I
90
I
I
2000
I
10 't20"l
law,
This is all the more impressive when one recalls the many nations that flirted with the idea of going nuclear plus those that started down the path to nuclear weapons and turned back. These include Argentina, Brazil, Taiwan, South Korea, and Sweden; and South Africa, Belarus, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan which gave them up. But we are reminded daily by what is happening in North Korea and Iran, that the nuclear restraint regime is facing tough challenges. And we cannot forget Pakistan with its precarious arsenal and the extensive, wholesale nuclear supplier network created by Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan.
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3
The nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT) which entered into force in 1970, more than 35 years ago, has been a bulwark for worldwide efforts to counter the spread of nuclear technology and weapons to other nations. These are its basic provisions: First, it requires that there be no transfer of nuclear weapon technology between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states. Second, it assigns authority to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna for full scope safeguards over the declared sites for peaceful nuclear activities of all signatories; this is designed to prevent the diversion of nuclear materials to use for weapons. Third, it stipulates, as part of the Grand Bargain with the non-nuclear weapon states, the peaceful benefits of nuclear technology will be made available to them. The partners to the Treaty are also committed to good faith negotiating efforts toward an eventual goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons. At present the Treaty has almost universal support: 188 nations, all but four in the world have signed on to it. The only outliers are India and Pakistan, which became nuclear after the treaty entered into force in 1970; Israel, which has never explicitly admitted to being a nuclear power; and North Korea, which withdrew in 2003. And currently Iran is threatening. As we face the new challenge of the spread of technology to rogue nations and terrorists, some are asking if the NPT still meets our security needs. The United States and our allies, including the other nuclear weapon states, recognize a need for new restraints and modifications to make the Treaty effective in keeping the worst weapons out of the worst hands. On the other hand, many non-nuclear states expressed serious reservations about extending the Treaty into the indefinite future, when it faced its final scheduled review in 1995 at the United Nations. They objected to its discriminatory features and, as a quid-pro-quo for their continuing to renounce nuclear weapons, called on the nuclear powers to make serious and timely progress in reducing their excessively large arsenals and reducing their reliance on nuclear weapons. They also called on them to continue to adhere to the moratorium on all underground nuclear explosive tests that had been initiated in 1992by the first President Bush, and to continue to work toward a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that would formalize a test ban and extend it without limit of time. Without a doubt, the leadership and example of the U.S. will be decisive to efforts to sustain and strengthen the nonproliferation regime. This is an important
216 4
factor for Washington to weigh in our nuclear policy decisions and actions. The U.S. and Russian commitment to the NPT, and to fulfilling their obligations under it, was explicitly affirmed by Presidents Bush and Putin in their Joint Declaration at the Moscow summit in May 2002. However those good words and promises have yet to be turned into the solid actions needed to convince the world that the U.S. and Russia, possessors of more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons, are serious and determined partners in the campaign against proliferation. Preventing Proliferation
Cooperation among all nations - non-nuclear as well as nuclear - will be crucial in preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. The most direct way for states or terrorist entities to acquire nuclear weapons is through theft or illegal purchase. Barring that, their biggest hurdle to achieving a nuclear capability is getting their hands on nuclear fuel by legal or illegal means. Fuel €or nuclear weapons can be made either by enriching uranium ore from its original mix as found on the earth that contains 0.7% of the fissioning isotope of uranium, U235,to highly enriched uranium (HEU) containing go+% U235;or alternatively, it can be made into fuel rods for a nuclear reactor that produces plutonium, an element that does not occur in nature. (The most common reactors utilize ordinary water for cooling and are fueled by uranium which is enriched to 3-5% U235,or LEU). Of particular concern in this regard is the large quantity of nuclear materials and nuclear warheads stored in the former Soviet Union in far less than ideal security circumstances. Their stockpiles are the largest in the world. Russia still has many hundreds of tons of dangerous nuclear material as a legacy of the Cold War, enough fuel for more than 50,000 nuclear warheads, in addition to its in excess of 10,000 warheads that still exist. The material is spread over many dozens of sites in structures and bunkers, many of which are only poorly guarded and protected. This constitutes a very rich treasure for would-be proliferators, and especially for terrorist organizations, emphasizing the importance of cooperative measures to secure them from theft or sale. With the lifting of the oppressive measures that regulated travel and other aspects of life in the Soviet Union, and the deterioration of Russian security services, there is currently a need for better systems of protecting and accounting for their vast stores of nuclear materials that remain as a legacy of the Cold War. Technology is available to protect this material by installing new security systems, and substantial progress has been made in the former Soviet Union under the Nunn-Lugar CTR program that has been funded by the U.S. Congress since 1992. (The United States currently spends approximately $1B/ year, including funds from
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the Departments of Defense, Energy, and State). It is an outstanding example of U.S. statecraft. But vulnerabilities still remain. Roughly half of the nuclear material in the former Soviet Union still remains to be protected by improved security for material protection, control, and accountability; and there is an eager market to get their hands on it. And many border crossings are unprotected. A review of the Nunn-Lugar CTR program in 2001 was commissioned by the Secretary of Energy’s Advisory Board and led by former Senator Howard Baker and former White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler. Under the title “A Report Card on the Department of Energy’s NonProliferation Programs with Russia,” this bipartisan senior group wrote: ”The most urgent m e t national security threat to the United States is the danger that weapons of mass destruction or weapons useable material in Russia could be stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nation states.” Beyond endorsing the Nunn-Lugar program, they recommend greatly strengthening it in Washington by designating this threat as top priority; giving it an overall strategic plan with a senior official at the White House level in the United States being put in charge of carrying it out; and tripling financial support for the program by the U.S. from $lB/year to $3B/year for the next ten years -which is still less than 1%of our defense budget. In practical terms the U.S. should translate this into a definite goal of putting all vulnerable nuclear material under tight security control within five years. Also, to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on it elsewhere, we must do the same at other locations around the world by removing or safeguarding nuclear usable material from all power and research reactors. An international funding base should be engaged in this effort including the G8, which, in an important and commendable action, have very recently pledged up to $10B for the decade ahead. For those nations that possess uranium deposits within their borders, or manage to purchase large quantities (many tons) from abroad, the challenge to deny them a nuclear capability is quite stark: it is to keep them from acquiring or constructing the infrastructure to enrich uranium or to manufacture plutonium. A nation with access to uranium ore that possesses such an operating facility is a potential and, in fact, a latent, nuclear weapon state. This is the prospect looming today in Iran. A blueprint meeting this challenge is contained in the May 2002 Bush-Putin Declaration of Moscow. It calls on all nations to cooperate to prevent such infrastructures from being developed by strictly enforcing export controls, interdicting illegal transfers, prosecuting violators, and tightening border controls. In addition
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to working to broaden the coalition of nations that are cooperating on implementing these powers, as called for in the Proliferation Security Initiative that has been proposed by the Bush administration, the authority of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will have to be expanded. Currently the IAEA has the authority for inspecting only the declared peaceful nuclear activities of the signatory nations to the NonProliferation Treaty. Its authority will have to be expanded to include on-site challenge inspections of undeclared and suspect activities as well. Such inspection rights are included in the Additional Protocol to the NPT that has been negotiated with the IAEA by many, but not all, nations. So far 107 nations have signed, and 73 have ratified, the Additional Protocol. Effective enforcement will also require the United Nations Security Council to give appropriate enforcement powers in cases where nations refuse to admit or give access to inspectors. This program presents a considerable intelligence challenge, and also a political one, requiring broad international cooperation to monitor such compliance measures and activities in a nation that has initiated a serious effort to build nuclear weapons. To illustrate what is required, consider a nation that has adequate uranium deposits in its territory as well as the technical-industrial base to produce nuclear weapons indigenously. Let us assume it chooses to build a gaseous centrifuge plant to enrich uranium to fuel a gun-type weapon. Technology for gas centrifuge machines is widely available. Such a first generation fission bomb, fueled by HEU in a gun-type assembly was what the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima. No large reactor to produce PuZ3’ is required, nor perfecting the more sophisticated implosion mechanism as needed for a plutonium bomb. Furthermore, it could be deployed with confidence without requiring an underground nuclear explosive test just as we did with the Hiroshima bomb. I do not want to imply that building up a functioning nuclear weapons program is a simple task. In spite of all that is now known and is widely available in the public domain about nuclear technology, it still requires a major capital investment in the plant and a substantial effort involving large numbers of trained people with specialized engineering and scientific skills. Nevertheless, if a proliferating country wished to conceal a gas centrifuge plant capable of enriching enough uranium to fuel several weapons per year, the required facility could be contained on a factory floor space of modest size that could be readily built underground. The large halls at the uranium enrichment facility recently observed at Natanz in Iran -roughly two football fields in size - are estimated to be capable of holding over 50,000 centrifuges that would have a capacity to fuel a dozen or more uranium bombs per year. For several bombs per year the plant could be proportionally smaller. With current widely available technology it would require perhaps
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3,500 gas centrifuge machines, depending upon their efficiency, to produce HEU fuel for just one primitive enriched uranium weapon in a year. This is an order of magnitude smaller than the infrastructure and size of the centrifuge cascade that would be required to provide the fuel for a large civilian power reactor delivering a gigawatt of power. With more modern gas centrifuge technology, the plant size could be significantly still smaller. This emphasizes the importance of monitoring from the very beginning of the construction, together with insisting on authority for on-site challenge inspections once a suspicious activity has been identified. This will almost certainly require mandatory full-scope on-site inspection measures beyond authority that the IAEA currently has to monitor only the declared peaceful nuclear activities. It will have to include challenge on-site inspections also of undeclared and suspect activities as well, as called for in the Additional Protocol to the NPT as described above, and that has yet to be acted on by many nations. That protocol to the NPT, advocated by the Bush Administration, will also require in addition to universal acceptance, enforcement powers to deal with cases where a nation refuses to admit or give access to inspectors. These observations give a picture of the scale of effort and difficulty involved in detecting and/or hiding nuclear production activities. This monitoring problem is a complex one that requires more than just the satellites, or so-called national and technical means, circling the earth and sampling all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum from a couple of hundred kilometers up to synchronous orbits. On-site inspection and familiarity with the culture and the language have become the part of the new intelligence challenge. We have a measure of confidence in the ability to meet this challenge based on our experience with Iran and North Korea and the fact that their efforts at covert programs have not succeeded for extended periods of time. But for high confidence in timely detection we will require bringing into effect the Additional Protocol to the NPT strengthened with enforcement authority. This presents one of the really hard problems for maintaining a nonproliferation regime in today’s world, as illustrated in current discussions with Iran and North Korea. I have described a broad menu of intrusive procedures that will be required to monitor compliance and to identify any and all serious efforts by a would-be nuclear power to build nuclear weapons covertly. Negotiating to bring them into force with clear inspection protocols presents a major intelligence and diplomatic challenge. In our approach we must also recognize and deal with the concerns and basic motivations which drive some countries to seek to become nuclear powers. That requires much more than simply arguing that proliferation is bad for your
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health but nukes are OK for me and the other seven nuclear weapon states that already have them. As diplomats and all parents know from experience, when you brandish the stick, it helps a lot to offer a carrot. This means that the restrictions I have described that are designed to prevent nuclear proliferation must be balanced by offering benefits in the form of compensating security guarantees and economic aid. There is one more guarantee that will be of great importance. It is a guarantee of secure sources of energy, nuclear or otherwise, to NPT signatories that accept the restrictions of the Proliferation Security Initiative. This guarantee is included in constructive and important proposals that have been made in considerable detail by Dr. Mohamed EIBaradei, Director of the IAEA and also by the Bush administration in Washington. According to these proposals, the nuclear fuel to power nationally operated reactors for peaceful research and for civilian electrical power will be guaranteed. However this fuel and the technology to enrich it at the front end of the cycle and to reprocess it at the back end will remain under international control under IAEA safeguards. Such international control and guarantee of adequate supply would replace national control and manufacture of materials that could be diverted to weapons use at some future date. This issue is currently being discussed.
U.S.Nukes It is not necessary to look abroad for challenges to the present nonproliferation regime. There is also an apparent challenge originating in Washington as a result of American initiatives for new nuclear weapons that signal potential changes in our own policy. The Bush administration’s Nuclear Posture Review (December 31,2001), issued by the Department of Defense, highlighted a need for new earthpenetrating nuclear weapons to defeat emerging threats of hardened underground targets of military interest being built in many countries. According to recent official government reports there are some 70 nations with more than 1,000 hardened buried facilities being built in a number of countries for protecting strategic military, and leadership targets. This recommendation raises two important questions: What will be the effectof developing new nuclear weapons on the nonproliferation regime and U.S. security? And, on technical grounds, what is the military utility of such weapons? Consider first the technical issues. The effectiveness of warheads for destroying hardened underground targets is enhanced if their designs are sufficiently rugged so that, when delivered by aircraft or missile, they can be rammed into the ground intact and penetrate some ten or so feet into the earth without damage before deto-
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nating. Such warheads will deliver a shock to destroy an underground bunker that is considerably stronger -by a factor of ten to 25 - relative to the shock from the same warhead if it is exploded at or above the earth’s surface, in which case much more of its blast energy would be spent in the atmosphere. Many hardened underground targets are at relatively shallow depths of a hundred or so feet, particularly large industrial targets for manufacturing weapons or producing fissile material to fuel nuclear weapons. Others of very high value are more likely to be built at depths of 1,000 feet and hardened to withstand the order of 1,000 atmospheres over-pressure. Doing the very best possible, taking into account experimental data and known limits on material strengths, the yield of a warhead would have to be significantly larger than 100 kilotons for the shock from its blast to reach down to 1,000 feet with enough strength to destroy such targets. Very low-yield warheads allegedly offer a possibility of attacking underground military targets, particularly those containing biological or chemical warfare agents, at shallow depths and are purported to be ”more useable” since they would cause reduced collateral damage. It is unavoidable, however, that any such warhead that has penetrated into the earth as deeply as it can before detonating will still create a huge cloud of radioactive debris and a very large crater. The blast of even a very “low-yield”one-kiloton earth penetrator detonated at the maximum depth to which it can penetrate in intact in hard rock will eject more than one million cubic feet of radioactive debris from a crater about the size of ground zero at the World Trade Center - bigger than a football field. A nuclear weapon with a yield capable of destroying a hard target 1,000 feet underground - well over 100 kilotons - will dig a very much larger crater and create a substantially larger amount of radioactive debris. That would certainly not be a low-yield weapon. The primitive atom bomb that pulverized Hiroshima had a yield of only 13 kilotons. The United States has many high-yield weapons in its arsenal for attacking hardened, deeply buried targets. The main problem is being able to identify and locate such targets accurately. The technical realities of nuclear weapons and their value in destroying biological and chemical weapons in neutralizing the deadly effects of biological pathogens and chemical gases is severely limited by the fact that the blast effects of nuclear weapons, when detonated in earth, extend beyond the range of high temperatures and radiation they create and that are required for destroying such agents. Therefore, they would be more likely to spread these agents widely than to destroy them completely. On quantitative technical grounds, one is led to conclude that low-yield penetrators are of marginal military value, useful only for relatively shallow targets.
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The collateral damage they cause may be reduced due to their lower yield, but it will still be very substantial. President Eisenhower’s warning of ”destruction and suicide” as the potential outcome of nuclear war suggests the dangers and risks if one crosses the nuclear threshold, especially for limited military missions. Improvements in intelligence can lead to valuable payoffs in the ability of the military to functionally defeat as opposed to destroying physically hardened underground targets. What is needed is the ability to locate, identify, and characterize such targets with accuracy and to define, identify, and seal off their vulnerable parts - such as air ducts and tunnel entrances for equipment, resources, and personnel. These vulnerabilities can be exploited with specialized delivery systems and conventional munitions with multiple detonations for enhanced earth penetration. What is the likely impact on U.S. security of a new initiative for new low-yield weapons? First, it is generally agreed that already tested weapons are available for most bunker-busting missions. In view of that, a decision by the world’s only superpower to develop and deploy such presumably ”more useable,” low-yield nuclear weapons as bunker busters would send a clear and negative signal about the nonproliferation regime to the nonnuclear states. If the United States, the strongest nation in the world, concludes that it cannot protect its vital interests without relying on nuclear weapons in limited war-fighting situations, it would be a clear signal to other nations that nuclear weapons are valuable, if not necessary, for their security purposes too. It would be counter to repeated urging by the nonnuclear weapon states, when they agreed to the NPT extension at the UN in 1995, for the nuclear-weapon states to reduce reliance on nuclear weapons, to continue the moratorium on underground explosive tests of nuclear weapons, leading to a CTBT, and for further reductions in nuclear forces. The United States could thereby be dealing a fatal blow to the nonproliferation regime in order to provide itself with a capability of questionable military value. The 188 signatories to the NPT are calling on the nuclear-weapon states to decrease rather than increase the discriminatory nature of the nonproliferation regime by developing new warheads for new missions while they themselves renounce any such armaments. For fiscal year 2006, Congress zeroed out funds supporting the development of new so-called bunker busters, or robust nuclear earth penetrators. This followed their action in fiscal 2005 to remove spending for the development of new concepts for low-yield weapons designed to attack shallow hardened underground targets. Members did, however, fund an important new program of fiscal 2006 called the Reliable Replacement Warhead, or RRW. Its stated purpose is to adapt nuclear infrastructure and weapons so that the U.S. will be able to maintain long-term high confidence in its arsenal more efficientlyand economically without requiring the
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resumption of nuclear testing. The specific direction given to the activities under this program, as stated in the House-Senate conference report on the authorizing legislation, forbids the development of new weapons for new military missions. It reads: ”The conferees reiterate the direction provided in fiscal year 2005 that any weapon design work done under the RRW program must stay within the military requirements of the existing deployed stockpile and any new weapon design must stay within the design parameters validated by past nuclear tests.” It is very important to restrict design changes to weapon parameters validated during the half-century of more than 1,000 tests in developing our current stockpile. Otherwise it would take an extraordinary flight of imagination to place higher confidence in a new design, that lacks a test pedigree, relative to our current stockpile without resuming underground nuclear test explosions. Would a responsible leader - president, general, or admiral - seriously consider relying on an untested new design to protect our national security? If underground nuclear explosive tests were to be resumed, the damage to the broader nonproliferation regime, and thus to U.S. security interests, would far outweigh any conceivable advantages to be gained from the new designs. Nonnuclear-weapon states would interpret resumed U.S. nuclear testing as a repudiation of Washington’s NPT commitments, which could have serious implications for how they might then view their own treaty obligations. It seems inconceivable that the nonproliferation regime would, or could, survive if the newly established Reliable Replacement Weapons program were to become a design program for new U.S. weapons, as some advocate, rather than focusing on increasing long-term confidence in our current arsenal within experimentally established parameters.
The Case for the CTBT For a truly positive leadership step of singular importance I believe that it is time for the U.S. to step up and ratify the CTBT. Technically as well as politically it is in our interest to do so - now. All U.S. allies in NATO, including Great Britain, Germany, and France, have signed and ratified the CTBT, as have Japan and Russia. Israel has signed the CTBT and is participating energetically in the work of setting up a verification system. Others, including China, have indicated they will work to bring the treaty into force once the United States has ratified it. Currently 33 of the 44 states that have built nuclear reactors, the so-called ”nuclear-capable states,” that must ratify the treaty for it to enter into force have done so. In all, 129 states have ratified and 176 have signed. It is time for the U.S. to reconsider the issue of ratifying the CTBT. More
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than 40 years ago, in May 1961, shortly after he completed his eight years in the White House, President Eisenhower remarked that not achieving a nuclear test ban ”would have to be classed as the greatest disappointment of any administration of any decade - of any time and of any party.” President Clinton, upon signing the CTBT back in 1996, heralded it as “the longest sought, hardest fought prize in the history of arms control.” The White House and the Senate should enter into a serious debate to clarify the underlying issues, both the concerns and opportunities. This debate was not adequately joined in 1999 when the CTBT first came before the Senate for its advice and consent to ratification. I deeply regret that the Bush administration, in 2001, announced it had no intention to seek ratification of the CTBT, and I am not aware of any change in their position. It has thus far refused to reopen the question. Why is the United States reluctant? Opponents of the CTBT have raised two questions: (1) ”How can we be sure that many years ahead, we will not need to resume underground explosive yield testing in order to rebuild the stockpile?”; and (2) ”How can we monitor compliance by other CTBT signatories to standards consistent with U.S. national security?” The answer to the first question is that total certainty can never be achieved. But I am confident that the United States can be assured of the reliability of our nuclear forces under the CTBT. I say this because we are successfully pursuing a strong technical and scientific program at the national weapon laboratories (Los Alamos, Lawrence Livermore, Sandia) that is providing a deeper understanding of their performance, and is maintaining and refurbishing them as appropriate. This is a rigorous program relying on extensive surveillance, forensics, diagnostics, extensive simulations with new computers, and experiments with advanced facilities. It is, in fact, enhancing our confidence in the arsenal - and in our ability to hear any warning bells of unanticipated problems that may develop in the future. This conclusion has been demonstrated by a number of detailed technical analyses. In 1995 a team of JASON scientists working with colleagues from the weapons community, including technical leaders involved in creating the current nuclear arsenal, reached this finding provided the U.S. has a well-supported, science-based stewardship and maintenance program, together with a capability to remanufacture warheads as needed (”Nuclear Testing” JASON Report, JSR-95-320, August 3,1995). Such findings were important to the U.S.decision to negotiate the CTBT and sign it in 1996. More recently, in August 2002, a panel of the National Academy of Sciences (”TechnicalIssues Related to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test
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Ban Treaty”, 2002) reaffirmed this conclusion. And in 2001 so did a government sponsored study, led by General Shalikashvili, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs that addressed strategic as well as technical issues. (“Findings and Recommendations Concerning the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty”, January 2001). In his letter to the President, General Shalikashvili affirmed that the CTBT ”is a very important part of global nonproliferation efforts and is compatible with keeping a safe, reliable U.S. nuclear deterrent.’’ I know of no leader at the laboratories who says that there is a need at present for nuclear testing to maintain the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Looking ahead, I see no need for the foreseeable future. Concerning the question of compliance, there is a broad, if not unanimous, agreement that the United States could monitor CTBT compliance to standards consistent with its national security. Based on its technical analysis, the National Academy of Sciences study group concluded that The worst-case scenario under a no-CTBT regime poses far bigger threats to U.S. security - sophisticated nuclear weapons in the hands of many more adversaries -than the worst-case scenario of clandestine testing in a CTBT regime, within the constraints posed by the monitoring system. When fully implemented under a CTBT, the verification system becomes more robust and difficult to evade, by acquiring challenge rights to check out data initially derived from remote sensors and conduct short-notice, on-site inspections of suspicious events. A further strengthening of the sensitivity of the CTBT to detect covert, treaty-violating activities could be negotiated by adding appropriate bilateral transparency and confidence-building measures with the other nuclear powers, Russia and China in particular. These would permit on-site sensors to be introduced at their instrumented test sites to monitor for signals - seismic and radiological - from possible underground tests that are banned by the CTBT. The Bush administration should clearly state its willingness to initiate such an arrangement, reciprocally with the Russians, at Novaya Zemlya and the Nevada Test Site. The CTBT does not increase the requirements for the U.S. to monitor and identify underground testing. The U.S. will want all information on testing activities, with or without the treaty. It does, however, add to the difficulties for a country to evade the treaty not only by strengthening the system but also by adding the inspection rights. Furthermore, given that the United States has the most advanced and sophisticated diagnostic, analytical, experimental, and computation facilities, it is in a stronger position than other nations to maintain a deterrent under a test ban. As General Shalikashvili concluded in his study, ”I believe that an objective
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and thorough net assessment shows convincingly that U.S. interests, as well as those of friends and allies, will be served by the Treaty’s entry into force.” What If Our Nonproliferation Efforts Fail?
Back to policy issues: Despite our best efforts, we may fail to keep dangerous people from getting their hands on the most dangerous material by whatever means - theft, illegal purchase, or simply by refusing to cooperate with our antiproliferation efforts. And we may then have to face the prospect of their moving ahead toward building nuclear weapons. What do we do then? This is not an idle theoretical question. This issue is very much on the agenda, and was explicitly raised in our most recent official National Security Strategy document in 2002 (and updated in 2006). It states that against emerging threats of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, the United States must be prepared to take ”anticipatory action to defend ourselves even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy’s attack”; that is we will take preventive military action before the existence of an established threat. While we cannot rule out the use of force under any circumstance, we have to recognize that the use of force brings its own serious risks and raises tough new questions. Under what circumstances can and should we apply military force? Against whom? Which targets? When and how? Preventive military action requires exquisite intelligence to evaluate the danger accurately and to identify the critical targets correctly. Our current difficulties and debates about U.S. policy in the mid-East, however you view the choice that the U.S. has made to initiate war against Iraq, are clear evidence of the risks of taking such actions. Most decisions to initiate preventive action have to be made even though there may be big uncertainties, as well as gaps and wrong information on essential facts. This is almost inevitable. It is the very nature of intelligence information. These circumstances may result in divided support and challenges to the legitimacy of the mission, both at home and abroad, if not its outright failure. That is all the more reason to exhaust all possible avenues of diplomacy before relying on force only as a last resort. To be sure, it is a very tough order and a frustrating ordeal to engage in patient, multi-national diplomacy with rogue nations that are bent on joining the nuclear club. It is even more daunting to get at the roots of what generates fanatical destructive behavior in terrorists. Changing such behavior patterns takes a lot of time and determined effort. In the short term, we have to pursue practical measures that can be effective in keeping evil despots and suicidal terrorists from being able to threaten us with nuclear weapons.
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We have several examples from recent history that illustrate the three conditions that almost certainly will have to be satisfied simultaneously if preventive military action, or even its threat, is to be effective:(1)there is very little likelihood of successful retaliation by the potential proliferant, against the homelands of the attacking powers; (2) the proliferant is viewed by large parts of the international community as a threat to its neighbors; (3) peaceful means of blocking nuclear weapons programs has failed or seems unlikely to work. To support this judgment, recall several cases where not all three conditions existed, and military force or the threat of force was not credible and was not brought into play. They include the Soviet Union in the 1950s as it tested and began to deploy nuclear weapons, and China, when it began to move toward a nuclear weapons capability in the 1960s. There were influential voices in the United States that spoke out for preventive war against the Soviet Union in the 1950s, fearing that a Soviet nuclear arsenal would prove devastating for American’s position in the world and for the American homeland itself. Fortunately, President Eisenhower knew better. A similar discussion took place at high levels of the American and Soviet governments during the Kennedy administration when China was seen to be nearing a nuclear weapons capability. The discussion led nowhere, another example of the disutility of military force under the circumstances then existing. In both these cases patient diplomacy proved its superior mettle. What about today’s most worrisome cases: North Korea and Iran? North Korea is already close to posing an actual nuclear threat, if indeed it does not already exist, and our military options are tightly constrained by the existence of their million man army with many, many thousands of artillery tubes almost on the outskirts of Seoul. In targeting diplomacy for halting and reversing North Korea’s nuclear programs, the U.S. and our allies in the region will undoubtedly have to negotiate a non-use of force commitment in the context of a freeze and dismantlement of all North Korea’s nuclear weapons programs. The Agreed Framework of 1994 during the Clinton Administration froze their nuclear reactor and reprocessing activities in return for promises of power for civilian needs and of limited economic aid. We now would insist on the return of IAEA inspectors with the authority to inspect not only the reactors and the Pu they already produced, but also the elements of a gas centrifuge facility for enriching uranium components which North Korea has recently been acquiring in violation of the Agreed Framework. We would also insist on setting a firm schedule for removing the plutonium, including all spent fuel rods, from North Korea and dismantling its nuclear weapons facilities and program.
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It would be a serious mistake to allow the process to stop there. The North Korean leadership is primarily interested in survival and seems to be aware that economic changes will be necessary for that to happen. Our diplomacy must help support efforts on their part to make such changes, and convince them that it will be safe for them to pursue them. A broad program of economic cooperation and security guarantees should ultimately include North Korea’s neighbors - South Korea, above all. Since North Korea poses a threat to its neighbors, guarantees must be a two-way street. Looking Ahead
Are the U.S. Congress and the American public ready for this? With presidential leadership, perhaps so, especially since the alternative very likely will be not only a nuclear-armed North Korea but also, as a consequence, the entry of Japan and South Korea into the ranks of nuclear-weapon states; maybe Taiwan also. This would affect China, which would affect India, which would affect Pakistan.* An Asian arms race rivaling the Cold War’s U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms race could be the result. We are also currently engaged, in support of our NATO allies and Russia, in negotiations trying to resolve the differences with Iran on their building an infras*Note added in Proof In this context I am troubled by the U.S.-Indian agreement calling for full nuclear cooperation that was signed by President Bush in March, 2006 during his trip to India. Instead of conforming with measures presently required by the NPT for assuring treaty compliance, plus the additional initiatives for enhanced monitoring that I discussed earlier, it provides important exceptions from meeting some of the existing requirements. For example, not all of India’s reactors for producing civilian power will be under IAEA monitoring and safeguards and there will be no cut off on their producing fissionable material for nuclear weapons. As the world’s largest democracy, India should have the global role that rightfully belongs to it, including access to technology and resources to build up its civilian nuclear power industry. Moreover America and India should be partners in world affairs. But the recent U.S.-Indian agreement on nuclear cooperation is not the right way to achieve those goals. No one should have any illusions. The nonproliferation regime will be weakened if the U.S. Congress amends American nonproliferation laws to carry out the deal as it now stands. For decades, responsible leaders in many countries, including India and America, worked together to build internationalrules to constrain nuclear weapons. If this new agreement is approved as it now stands, the measure of merit for nuclear cooperation will no longer be based on rules but on whether the recipient is believed to be a responsible friend of the United States. This judgment will be the basis for dividing nations into two groups and deciding who can and who cannot enrich uranium, and thus acquire a capability to build nuclear bombs. The new exemption proposed for India will mean that other nuclear weapon states, can, and likely will, apply their own standards for their friends. Can the United States expect to be effectivein preventing or dissuading other nations from following this precedent? Probably not in every situation and so similar exemptions to nuclear restraints will be made for others, including many less worthy than India. Before giving its approval to this agreement, Congress should insist on appropriate conditions to the US.-India deal to counter the harm it is likely to cause to our nonproliferation goals. I agree with former Senator Sam Nunn, currently the head of the Nuclear Threat Initiative think tank in Washingtonwho wrote in the Wall Street Journal on May 24,2006: ”Unless Congress attaches conditions, the agreement is likely to make securing nuclear materials around the globe and preventing nuclear terrorism more difficult . . . Congress has a crucial choice: It can unconditionally approve the US.-India deal and watch the world get more dangerous - or it can impose principled conditions that would make the world safer and help prevent our worst nightmare.” It will be difficult to negotiate such changes, but diplomatic efforts to fix the deal without killing it should be pursued.
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tructure to enrich uranium allegedly for peaceful nuclear purposes. The situation sounds grim but recall Libya this past year and its decision to abandon its nuclear program after much pressure and difficulties from abroad. Finally, we have to ask: Is it possible for the United States and its friends to agree on criteria for diplomatic initiatives to head off other crises like the one we now face in North Korea, and possibly looming with Iran? And if the diplomatic initiatives fail in North Korea and Iran, and perhaps elsewhere in the future, will we be able to agree on criteria appropriate for imposing sanctions and perhaps, eventually, if necessary, initiating forceful actions against those who insist on moving ahead toward acquiring nuclear capabilities and are behaving aggressively? The experience at the United Nations leading up to the invasion of Iraq shows how difficult that challenge will be. A serious effort to come to such agreements will have to start by restoring and strengthening the international consensus against nuclear proliferation, and defining clear responsibilities and authority for action by the UN Security Council. It will be essential for the United States to change a perception that the use of elective, or preventive, force has become a dominant strain in American thinking about international challenges such as nuclear proliferation. The lesson that the United States and our allies and friends have learned since the dawn of the nuclear era in 1945 is that deterrence waged with patient and firm diplomacy will be key to keeping the worst weapons out of the most dangerous hands. This will require that we resort to a continuum of means keyed on patient, determined diplomacy, supported by coercion if or when required, to face the challenge to us and indeed to civilization posed these terrible weapons. The Bush administration, as of this writing in the spring of 2006, is pursuing a multilateral diplomatic approach to this challenge. There is initial optimism that it is making some progress but the need for caution and patience is evident. The nuclear genie cannot be put back in the bottle. It is noble to strive for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons as an ultimate goal. However, for the present the United States must engage diplomatically and give the strongest support for specific actions that can reduce nuclear danger by preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons. These include, to summarize: 0
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Expanding the authority of the International Atomic Energy Agency to carry out onsite, challenge inspections of all suspect nuclear sites under the Additional Protocols to the NPT. Broadening the international participation in the Proliferation Security Initiative allowing interdiction of suspect shipments and improved export controls. Guaranteeing nuclear fuel under international control for peaceful purposes as
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an alternative to indigenous fuel cycles for enriching uranium and processing plutonium which henceforth will be forbidden. Giving strong support to beefing up protection of large stores of dangerous nuclear materials around the world, in particular the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Reduction Threat program for securing repositories of nuclear material in the former Soviet Union and around the world, as protection against terrorists and their kin; and Continuing to adhere to the moratorium on underground nuclear bomb testing.
We should work to bring the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty into force rather than developing new, putatively more useable, nuclear weapons. At the very least we should continue U.S. adherence to the moratorium. The urgency for such a commitment to deal with the nuclear threat - a danger with no precedent in human history - has been expressed powerfully and dramatically by Father Bryan Hehir, former dean of Harvard Divinity School, in his keynote address on "Ethical Considerations of Living in the Nuclear Age" at a Stanford University conference in 1987: For millennia people believed that if anyone had the right to call the ultimate moment of truth, one must name that person God. Since the dawn of the nuclear age we have progressively acquired the capacity to call the ultimate moment of truth and we are not gods. But we must live with what we have created. This is our challenge!
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TOUGH CHALLENGES Presented at the Phi Beta Kappa Initiation Ceremony at Stanford University June 11,2004 Sidney D. Drell
For you students this is a wonderful moment of recognition. Congratulations. By your own good work, and with valuable encouragement from your families and teachers, you earned the opportunity to attend one of the world’s great universities; and, as is clear from the recognition you are receiving here tonight, you took full advantage of it to widen and deepen your horizons of knowledge. This achievement is all the more impressive to me considering where you did it, surrounded by the extraordinary beauty and attractions of nature in this region that present monumental temptations to distract you away from work. I stand in awe of your achievements. You have witnessed a number of changes on campus during your years here: new buildings, new academic programs, some great successes on the playng fields. Overall it’s a pattern we have grown to expect from Stanford as it continues to strive toward ever higher goals. During these years, while you were doing your thing on campus, there have been some truly momentous changes out there in the wide world. Some take the form of breathtaking successes that are deepening our understanding of nature and life. But troubling new challenges have also emerged that must be understood and addressed if we are to avoid our worst fears of terror and destruction. Let me start with successes: Of extraordinary importance is the sequencing of the human genome that provides hope for developing new ways to defeat diseases and infections that threaten populations on a global scale, from HIV/AIDS to cancer. Here is another example that closely overlaps my own area of research in particle physics: With powerful new eyes and ears on spacecraft circling far above the distorting and absorbing effects of our atmosphere, we have begun to draw detailed maps of the universe and its hundreds of billions of galaxies each with some hundreds of billions of stars. We can see and hear signals arriving from sources out there that are racing away from us with ever increasing speed out at the farthest horizons, many tens of billions of trillions of miles away. These signals are providing clues as to what was happening more than 13 billion years ago when our physical universe was created in the Big Bang. What we think we have learned so far is rather humbling. Up until Copernicus and Galileo less than five hundred years ago, people thought that we and our planet Earth were the center of the universe. It was a shock to them to learn that we inhabit a small planet rotating about a minor star far out in the suburbs, near the outer edges of our galaxy. During your years at Stanford, we have now learned that what we are made of, including the earth, our solar system, and all that we actually see out in space with our powerful instruments, is basically different stuff from whatever it is that constitutes 95% of the energy in the universe. We call that 95% dark energy and dark matter, meaning we don’t have the slightest clue of what it is. Are we after all just an apostrophe or impurity in the big picture of our universe, or is it deeper than that? Great puzzles indeed - and dreams of future discoveries yet to be made.
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But: Unfortunately and inexorably, just as the forward march of science inspires great dreams of discovery, it also raises the specter of increasingly more ominous nightmares of terror and devastation that we cannot ignore. Figuring out how to prevent these nightmares from materializing into real tragedies presents a serious challenge to all of us - and that includes your generation as you now begin to assume the burden and the opportunity of shaping a future for this nation, and indeed, for the world. There is nothing surprising about your facing difficult new challenges. It is a simple fact of history common to all generations. For my generation that came of age during World War 11, nuclear weapons presented a grave new challenge, perhaps our greatest one. Through the darkest days of the Cold War, our imperative was to avoid the nuclear holocaust which would result from weapons that are a million times more destructive than their predecessors. With nuclear weapons, war was no longer an option. Mass destruction would be inevitable. We were presented with a fundamental issue: can civilization survive? As President Eisenhower said in 1956: “We are rapidly getting to the point that no war can be won.” Conventional wars can be fought to exhaustion and surrender, but nuclear war can come close to, in his words, “destruction of the enemy and suicide.” New thinking about conflict resolution was urgently called for. It was essential for us to learn how to resolve our dangerous confrontations and to terminate deadly conflicts before they escalated into a nuclear war that nobody wanted and all too few would survive. When the grim realities and futility of nuclear war finally sank in, nations around the world recognized the necessity of working together to prevent one. With American leadership, they began to cooperate in multi-national diplomatic efforts to reduce the danger and prevent the proliferation of these weapons. Despite some very hghtening crises en route, we have achieved major successes. The spread of nuclear weapons has been limited to no more than a handful of nations, a norm of not using them in conflict has been established, and this norm has lasted 59 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nuclear weapons have become weapons of last resort. We recognized that their only use was to deter nuclear attack; to send a warning by their very existence, that, if you do it to us or our fhends, the response will be the end of you. Physicists who were responsible for creating nuclear weapons understood only too well the horror they could create. Not surprisingly many played prominent roles in technical efforts to reduce their danger and in developing a global community united in the effort to bring them under control. Here is an example of one of the great technical challenges emerging in 1960 that I happened to get deeply involved in. It was to penetrate the Iron Curtain surrounding the Soviet Union in order to learn how serious was the threat of a surprise nuclear attack against the American homeland from their ballistic missiles. This mission required us to build and operate fantastic cameras mounted on satellites circling the earth above the atmosphere that could detect and identify detailed activities at distances greater than 100 miles. We faced extreme demands on precision optics and targeting that stimulated major advances on many technical frontiers that are evident today in our exploration of the universe from space.
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American overhead reconnaissance satellites served an additional function of enormous value. They enabled us to initiate important negotiations with the Soviet Union aimed at setting mutual and verifiable limits on deployments of threatening nuclear armed missiles and bombers. Confidence in our ability to verify Soviet compliance with negotiated limits was an essential ingredient for maintaining a stable strateBc balance and reducing nuclear danger. Blind trust alone was not adequate for either country. Scientists also recognized the power of international cooperation. This has long been the hallmark of scientific efforts to understand nature. After all, the laws of nature are universal, or in the words of the great Russian writer, Anton Chekhov: “There is no national science just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science.” This need for working together in a community with a common sense of purpose - so important both to advancing the frontiers of science and to keeping a lid on the nuclear threat - is evident today as the world is gearing up to confront a serious new danger that has emerged during your Stanford years. The emerging danger I am referring to is this: very dangerous people, including fanatical and often suicidal terrorists, may acquire and use advanced weapons capable of devastating destruction and terror - particularly nuclear and biological ones. As President Bush has cautioned’, “The gravest danger to freedom lies at the crossroads of radicalism and technology.” All nations must work together as a community with a common goal to prevent this danger of very bad people getting their hands on very bad weapons. If we take a long term point of view, in order to achieve enduring success against terrorism and the dangers it spawns, we must get to its roots. We must try to understand it better. What generates terrorists? What can we do to reduce, if not remove, its causes - ignorance, desperation, poverty, fear, religious fanaticism, and just plain hate? To accomplish this will take nothing less than a sustained world-wide cooperative effort grounded in patient diplomacy, economic aid and cultural understanding, and backed, if and when needed, by forceful persuasion. As we have learned all too well from history, such an effort will take a lot of time. In the meantime, therefore, we have to pursue practical measures that can be effective in the short term in protecting us from destructive attacks by governments and terrorists who are willing to act outside of civilized norms. The terror strikes of 9/11 and, just three months ago in Spain, provide ample warning of this need.
To meet the developing challenge at the crossroads of radicalism and technology the United States has adopted an official policy2 stating that we “will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed.” But we must recognize the serious risks in implementing such a policy. Preventive military action requires exquisite intelligence to evaluate the danger accurately and to identify the critical targets correctly. It is almost inevitable that decisions to initiate preventive action have to be made while there are big uncertainties, as well as gaps and wrong information on essential facts, resulting in West Point, N.Y.: June 2002
* The National Security Strategy of the United States of America; September 2002
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challenges to the legitimacy of the mission and divided support for it, both at home and abroad, if not its outright failure. That is all the more reason to exhaust every avenue of diplomacy before relyng on force as a last resort. If the use of military force is deemed necessary, its effectiveness will benefit when decisions about its use are informed by judgments and contributions of a broad community of nations strongly opposed to terrorism. In order to build such a global community, the United States will have to avoid creating a perception that the unilateral use of force is becoming a dominant strain in American thinking about problems we face abroad. Here again we face a challenge to build a global community united in purpose. Yes, indeed you and your generation face tough challenges. What is more, these challenges are dynamic - they evolve under changing circumstances - and so must our understanding of how to tackle them. That requires commitment to continued learning a talent you have demonstrated very ably at Stanford, and for which you are being honored here tonight. But, hey we - my generation - didn’t do so badly in meeting the tough new challenges of the nuclear age. Why then should we expect less of you and your generation in facing today’s new challenges? It is my fondest personal wish that you will do better than we have done: that you and your generation will be in the vanguard of building a better 21St century. Historians marvel at the advances in science and technology during the 20thcentury, but lament its record of brutality: the Holocaust, the Gulag, the Killing Fields, brutal wars and conflicts of unspeakable horror. Does it always have to be that way? Can we not build a better society? The character of a society is molded from its values and ideals, by its ethical principles and commitment to justice. I look to you outstanding and highly honored graduates of this great university to contribute to molding that character and providing a better text for historians of the 2 lStcentury. Who better than you? I salute you and wish you good luck in pursuing your dreams and enjoying a happy and fulfilling life. Once again, congratulations.
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ssociation Report An Arms Control Association
What Are Nuclear Weapons For? RECOMMENDATIONS FOR RESTRUCTURING
U>S> STRATEGIC NUCLEAR FORCES
April 2005
Sidney D. Drell and James E. Goodby
Reprinted with permission from An Arms Control Association Report, April 2005. Copyright (2005) by Arms Control Association.
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Executive Summary he role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense planning needs a fresh look. The United States and Russia have now officially adopted a policy of cooperation against the new threats, faced by both nations, of terrorists and unstable or irresponsible governments acquiring nuclear weapons. This replaces the former adversarial relationship of nuclear deterrence based on mutual assured destruction. As stated in the Joint Declaration
of Presidents Bush and Putin of November 13, 2001: “The United States and Russia have overcome the legacy of the Cold War. Neither country regards the other as an enemy or threat.” What then are the anticipated missions and targets for the thousands of nuclear warheads remaining in their arsenals? Based on an analysis of the present and prospective threats that define missions for U.S. nuclear weapons we conclude that the strategic arsenal required by the United States can be reduced to considerably lower numbers. We recommend a U.S. force structure of 500 operationally deployed nuclear warheads, plus 500 in a responsive force. The United States and Russia should cooperate to achieve this in the year 2010. We propose, as a specific suggestion for the individual components of a “500+500 in 2010” force for the United States, the following:
OperationallyDeployed Force m Three Trident submarines on station at sea,
each loaded with 24 missiles and 96 warheads (a mix of low-yield W76s and high-yield W88s). Reducing the D5 missiles from their full complement of eight warheads to four per missile will substantially increase their maximum operating areas. @
B
100 Minuteman I11 ICBMs in hardened silos, each with a single W87 warhead in a Mk 12a reentry vehicle. 20-25 B2 and B52H bombers configured for gravity bombs or air-launched cruise missiles.
Responsive Force B
Three Trident submarines, each loaded with 96 warheads, in transit or being replenished in port for their next missions as part of a Ready Responsive Force for a rapidly building crisis, plus two or three unarmed boats in overhaul.
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50-100 additional Minuteman I11 missiles taken off alert and without warheads, and 20-25 bombers, unarmed, in maintenance and training, all of which would comprise a Strategic Responsive Force, for a more slowly building confrontation.
This force is composed of existing warheads and delivery systems and requires no new nuclear weapons. It retains the current diversity of systems as a hedge against common failure modes. We believe that, in time, nuclear deterrence might be maintained entirely with a responsive force, with the responsive force consisting of no more than the 500 warheads that are initially postulated for the operationally deployed force. We find no need for designing new nuclear weapons against potential new threats, believing that those weapons which the United States has already developed to counter the Soviet Union will be sufficient for new threats. To the contrary, we do
237 see important opportunities for the United States to seize that would improve its national security by strengthening the nonproliferation regime. To this end, timely initiatives by the nuclear-weapon states to significantly reduce their nuclear arsenals and to
restrain the development of new nuclear weapons can play an important role by addressing increasingly voiced concerns of the non-nuclear-weapon nations about the discriminatory nature of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
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What Are Nuclear Weapons for? he role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense planning needs a fresh look. Although the U.S.-Soviet superpower competition that gave rise to the building and deployment of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons ended more than a decade ago, the thinking of that era dangerously persists. Yesterday’s doctrines are no longer appropriate for today’s realities. The traditional role of deterrence has diminished with Russia’s
ongoing transition from strategic foe to partner. The new threats faced by the international community do not present situations where the net effect of using nuclear weapons except in the most extreme circumstances would benefit U.S. interests. The U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile and attendant doctrines should be adjusted to minimize the salience of nuclear weapons and to ensure that they are truly weapons of last choice. Adopting such a posture would support the nation’s highest national security priority: preventing the use of nuclear weapons and their proliferation to terrorists and to additional states. Official U.S. thinking about nuclear weapons has changed many times during the 60 years since the first nuclear explosions in 1945. These changes reflected evolving assessments of what it would take to deter a well-armed adversary, the Soviet Union, from attacking the United States, its European allies, or its vital interests. In turn, the reassessments resulted in changes in strategic planning, targeting, and the types and numbers of weapons in the U.S. stockpile, all of which are interrelated. The clarity of the bipolar US.-Soviet world has given way to the ambiguities and uncertainties of a world where international security is threatened by transnational terrorists, unstable and failed states, and regimes that scorn a world order based on broadly accepted principles. The dangers inherent in such a stew are magnified by easier access to nuclear technology, inadequately protected stockpiles of plutonium and highly enriched uranium-the two key fissile materials needed to build nuclear weapons-the growing availability of missiles worldwide, black market nuclear supply networks, and a trend toward acquisition of “latent” nuclear
weapons capabilities through the possession of the entire nuclear fuel cycle. The history of the nuclear age shows that concepts of what it takes to have a sufficient nuclear weapons capability are far from immutable and that the unique character of nuclear weapons has become ingrained in the nuclear-age culture. A sense of doom persists even today, but in an attenuated form. The first atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 had a destructive energy 10,000 times larger than previous explosive devices. Within a decade, the United States and the Soviet Union designed and built thermonuclear bombs, the so-called hydrogen bombs, a thousand times more powerful than fission bombs. Fearful for the fate of civilization and of humanity itself, a shocked world asked why these terrible weapons existed. Under what circumstances and for what purpose could the use of the world’s most destructive mass-terror weapons ever be justified? Could or would civilized people actually use them again, causing the indiscriminate deaths of innocent civilians on an unprecedented scale?
239 As nuclear arsenals grew larger and the "secret" both expanded their forces to numbers exceeding technologies behind them became more widely tens of thousands of warheads on several thousand available, a deeper understanding of the horrors launchers capable of delivering several thousand of a nuclear conflict spread throughout the world. megatons of destructive energy. This was done despite This awareness was sharpened a greater understanding and fear by repeated tests of hydrogen The U.S. nuclear weapons of the devastating consequences of bombs that could destroy all life using nuclear explosives in combat, stockpile and attendant and structures within a distance even at a much lower level. The doctrines should be of approximately ten kilometers evolution of the deterrence concept adjusted to minimize around a single bomb's detonation and the highlights of the nuclear the salience of nuclear age are discussed in Appendix 1. point. That scale of potential destruction was unprecedented Despite the excessive numbers, weapons and to ensure in human history, and it became not because of them, policy that they are truly obvious that such weapons could choices of governments and a good weapons of last choice. not be treated simply as more measure of luck brought the world through the danger years without effective and efficient tools for waging war. Instead, the value of such weapons began a nuclear conflict and with broad agreement on the to be seen by U.S. political leaders almost from the need to limit the spread of materials and advanced technology necessary for building nuclear arsenals. outset as a means of deterring a Soviet attack on the United States or its allies. Soviet political leaders The two superpower rivals averted a direct clash, eventually accepted the same view, in reverse. in part because the existence of nuclear weapons Perversely, the two adversaries' arsenals grew had the effect of imposing prudence on a Cold War confrontation that had the potential for erupting into rapidly to senseless numbers in the name of deterrence, which was defined as requiring nuclear World War III. This prudential effect surely would have been achieved at far lower levels of nuclear forces that could survive an adversary's all-out first strike and respond with an attack capable of stockpiles and could be achieved at far lower levels delivering massive destruction on the initial attacker. than currently planned by the United States for a wholly different era and set of security challenges. Over time, the United States and the Soviet Union
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A New Strategic Paradigm and Its Implications he stage had been set for a fundamental transition in U.S.-Russian strategic nuclear relations as early as the end of the Reagan administration in 1988, but Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton failed to fully realize the opportunity presented by the winding down and eventual end of the Cold War. Bush, Ronald Reagan's vice president and successor, chose to remain within the Cold War arms control paradigm of retaining nuclear forces sufficient to respond to an all-out Soviet nuclear attack by inflicting complete annihilation on that country, its military forces, and its people if necessary. Bush stayed with this inherited course partly because of his uncertainty about the irreversibility of political changes taking place in Russia. Still, he signed two major strategic nuclear arms
reduction agreements, START I and START 11, and initiated reciprocal US.-Soviet withdrawals
of tactical, or "battlefield," nuclear weapons. Clinton, who became president in 1993, made essentially the same decision to remain within the Cold War arms control paradigm, although his freedom of action during his last years in office was significantly constrained by a hostile Congress. Yet, he enlarged and modified the arms control agenda with his strong support for the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program to help Russia and other former Soviet states secure and dispose of their surplus nuclear forces and materials following the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Although accomplishing much, more remains to be done in this area. Clinton also sought to devise a framework for a START 111to reduce US. and Russian nuclear forces dramatically. Russian President Boris Yeltsin accepted in principle the notion of a START 111at a 1997 meeting in Helsinki, but Russia at the same time remained staunchly opposed to U.S. missile defense plans and any tinkering with the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty banning nationwide ballistic missile defenses. This Russian opposition combined with congressional pressure to advance a national missile defense system ultimately stalled START
111 and frustrated further progress in US.-Russian strategic nuclear reductions. In October 1999, the Senate even rejected Clinton's prize achievement, the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. President George W. Bush took office in January 2001, halfway through the sixth decade of the nuclear era, with a new vision for America's foreign policy. In part, his thinking embraced ideas long advocated by a group of policy entrepreneurs known as the neoconservatives, who had been highly suspicious of U.S. arms limitations agreements involving nations that could not be trusted, in their view, to keep their promises. They adapted their ideology rapidly to post-Cold War circumstances by arguing that formal bilateral arms control agreements with a friendly Russia were no longer appropriate to the changed relationship. Global arms control agreements were a snare and a delusion because they equated the "good guys" with the "had guys" and unduly constrained U.S. freedom of action. Bush essentially accepted that point of view. Bush also quickly initiated steps to impose his own vision on the U.S.-Russian strategic nuclear relationship. His new paradigm was overdue in the
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sense that his h t h e r a r d Clinton night have been able to x t more rapidiy to move out of the shadow of mutual US-Russian nuclex deterrence had political circumstmces at home and abioad been more favorable. They were not able to do so, but George W Bush made a major effort during his first year in office to define a new relationship between Russia and the United States. Bush 3nd Russiarr President Vladimir Putin on November 13, 2001, released a document, “joint Statement on a New Relationship Between the United States and Russia,” announcing an alliancel i k relatiomhip between the two counwies. The two presidents bluntly stated that “[tjhe Uxited States and Russia hare oyercome the legacy of the Cold Wax. Neithe: country regards the other as a n enemy or threat.” They called for “the creation of a new strategic k m e w o r k tc ensme the rnucual security ci the United States and Russiz, and the world community.” They asserted, 3s 3 fact, not merely an aspiration, “that the members of NATO and Russia are increasingly dl$edagainst tenorism, regional instzbitity and other contemporary threats,” Having reinforced the proposition that Russia and +keUnited States were partners itt mutual security facing 3dversr;riesbent on acquiring nuclear weapons, Bosh felt 351e to achieve one oi his major goah: U.5. witkdrawal from the ABM Treaty. The president axncmced this act in a December 13, 2001, Diplomatic Note, which gave notice to the governments of Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan; and Ukraiae-the recognized successor parties to the treaty aiter the Soviet Union’s breakup-that the UEited States intended to withdraw kom the aveemznt at the end of the six-month waiting period as allovled in the treap That note describe<
the changed threat environment that the U.S. administration saw at that time: A number of state and non-state entities have
acquired or are actively seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction. It is clear, and has recently been demonstrated, that some of these entities are prepared to employ these weapons against the United States. Moreover, a number of states are developingballistic missiles, including long-range ballistic missiles, as a means of delivering weapons of mass destruction. These events pose a direct threat to the tenilory and security of the United States and jeopardize its supreme interests. A5 to the Russian nuclear threat posed to the United States, the US. note stated, “We have entered into a new strategic relationship with Russia that is cooperative rather than adversarial.” If confirmed by subsequent events, this note and its date deserve a place in history, along with the November 13, 2001, Joint Statement. Taken at face value, the two statements seem to mark the formal end of the era of mutual nuclear deterrence between Russia and the United Stares. Yet, concerns persist that these two declarations by Bush did not reflect objective reality and were primarily connected t o the impending abrogation of a treaty that he and his supporters had long disliked. Either way, a valid question remains: Has mutual nuclear deterrence between the United States and Russia really ended? The ABhf Treaty, which had been the cornerstone of the mutual deterrence relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States, was R Q longer necessary, in the judgment of the Bush administration. Putin obviously did not share that view, describing the U.S. action as a “mistake.” Furthermore, a Pentagon
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reyort submitted Decernber 31,2001, to Congress shewed how far the two camtries stit! had to travel to tmlt; erase nuclear deterrence from their national aemories. In this congressionally mmdated xeport, known as the NucIezr Fosture Review, Secrrtay of Defense Donald Xumsfeid laid a m the direction for U.S. nuclez forces over the iolbwing five to 10 years. In a ixger sense, the document began comeaing what Bush had been saying about the U.S.-Russian relationship with what the US. defense establishment acaaliy did. Tke preyious xview, conducted by the Clinton administration in 1994, had concluded that the capabilities of the fonr,et Soviet Union remained a major concern in assessing t h e rniiitiq requirement for E.S. strategic nodear forces. The authors of the earlier report arped that the United States must be prepared for the possible emergenc.eof a hostile Rmsian government or the failure of the arms control process ir. the fomer Soviet Union. In contrast, Rurnsfeld wrote in his foreword to Congress !hat the United ‘;Fates “will n o longer pian, size, or sustain its forces as though Russia presented merely a smaller version of the threat posed by the former Sorriet Union.” Yet, in the report’s body, the D e p a m e n t of Defense hedged, asserting, ”Russia’s nuclear fsrces and programs nevertheless remain a ccncern ... in the event that U.S. relations with Russia 3igni6cantIy worsen in :he future, the U.S. may have to revise its naclear force levels and posture.” The Pentagm p h n e d to accompiish this by drawing on what it called a Responsive Force, essentially a reserve force, which could be available “in weeks, months, or even years.” The report stated that “operationally
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deployed forces” are sized “to meet the U.S. defense goals in the context of immediate, and unexpected contingencies.” As the report explained, “[A] contingency involving Russia, while plausible, is not expected. ’’ Presumably driven bj7 these concerns, the report conciuded that 1,700-2,200 nuclear warheads in the operationally deployed strategic force by 2012 would support U.S. deterrence policy and thus meet U.S. security needs. The Responsive Force, those weapons not operationally deployed, would contain several thmsand z o r e nuclear warheads, while U.S. strategic bombers and missiles would be retained rather than being destroyed. Later, in June 2004 the Bush administration announced that total holdings of nuclear warheads would be cut almost in half, leading to estimata that there will be approximately 6,000 warheads in the total US. stockpile (i.e., warheads operationally deployed plus those in reserve) in 2012 aMer those reductions have been made. Planning and budgeting functions in the U.S. defense establishment for the nuclear forces obviously still assign a heavier weight to Russia’s nuclear capabilities than should be the case given the changed relationship formalized by Bush and Putin. Legally binding codification of the U.S. nuclear planning recommendations came in the form of the Strategic C€fensiveReductions Treaty (SORT), aiso known as the Moscow Treaty, signed by Bush and Putin in Moscow on May 24, 2002. The treaty commits the two countries to having no more than 1,700-2,200 operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads each by December 31,2012, although there was no agreed definition of what was to be counted in that aggregate and after that date there would be no numerical Limits. The November 13, 2001, Joint Statement n-as cited in justifying the commitment. The two countries agreed that compliance with the treaty’s provisions would be verified by the procedures and systems agreed to in the 1991 START, which expires in 2009. More interesting and potentially more important than SORT was a Joint Declaration issued by the two presidents the same day. That declaration, reinforcing the ones made severai months earlier, affirmed that “the era in which the United States and Russia saw each other as a n enemy or strategic threat has ended.” It outlined several topics for further discussion, including:
i e Joint research and development of missile defense Russian President Viadimb Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush sign the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty LSORTl on May 2 4 2002. SOW commits the United States and Russia to opetationally deploy iess than 2,200 strategic warheads each by December 31,2012. after which the limit expires.
technologies;
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Cooperation on missile defense for Europe;
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Strategic offensive reductions to the ioweft levels con~istentwith their national security
243 requirements and alliance obligations, reflecting the new nature of their strategic relations; and o
Measures, including transparency, to supplement further strategic offensive reductions.
A vigorous implementation of these programs would consolidate the changed relationship in practical ways. Yet, the task of escaping from the mutual assured destruction trap has not been completed, nor is it fully reflected in the Defense Department’s budgeting and planning or in the sizing of the operationally deployed and reserve nuclear forces. It remains a challenge for Bush’s second administration to change the remaining missions of these forces to conform to his policy statements. Even so, the Bush administration has emphatically asserted that nuclear deterrence should be erased from the relationship with Russia. Particularly striking was Bush’s December 13, 2001, statement that “the greatest threats to both our countries come not from each other, or from other big powers in the world, but from terrorists who strike without warning, or rogue states who seek weapons of mass destruction.” This implies that the size and characteristics of U.S. nuclear deterrent forces should be determined by the terrorist or rogue state threat, not by Russia or other major nations. The Bush administration also has accepted as a planning principle the idea that the appearance of unanticipated threats in the strategic environment can be accommodated by activating elements of what it calls the Responsive Force. A n important component of this planning concept, which is a contemporary version of “reconstitution,” is the infrastructure for nuclear weaponry, as discussed in the Nuclear Posture Review.
Rethinking Deterrence Planning for U.S. nuclear forces will inevitably take into account plausible scenarios in which the use of nuclear weapons by the United States might seem to decision-makers of the future to be a necessary option, although a thoroughly unattractive one. Our thesis is that, even if one accepted the validity of these scenarios, some of which we describe below, the requirements for nuclear weapons do not add up to anything like the Bush administration’s projected numbers. Our view is that most of the potential military tasks we cite could be accomplished with modern conventional weapons. An example of “well recognized current dangers” in the Nuclear Posture Review is “a military confrontation over the status of Taiwan” with China. Tensions in the Taiwan Strait eased somewhat following the 2004 Taiwanese elections, which tended
to reaffirm the “one China” doctrine supported by the United States and China. They have risen again with the passage of the anti-secession law in Beijing in March 2005, but the Nuclear Posture Review had longer-range reasons for worrying about China in its discussion of sizing the nuclear force. It called attention to “China’s still-developing strategic objectives and its ongoing modernization of its nuclear and non-nuclear forces.” CIA director Porter Goss echoed these thoughts in February 16,2005, congressional testimony: “China continues to develop more robust, survivable nuclear-armed missiles as well as conventional capabilities for use in a regional conflict.” China’s long-range strategic nuclear forces (i.e., those capable of striking U.S. territory) have held steady at about two dozen single-warhead missiles for many years. China’s military modernization has emphasized survivability of their nuclear forces and a non-nuclear buildup, including aircraft and missiles based opposite Taiwan. Thus far, the evidence is not clear as to whether its nuclear modernization plans include a major increase in force levels. As a rapidly rising economic power, however, China has the long-run potential to be a formidable military power. So, in addition to the role of U.S. nuclear forces in assuring allies such as Japan and South Korea and encouraging prudent behavior on all sides, the Bush administration’s notion of dissuading any future military competition with the United States comes into play. This concept of dissuasion broadens the definition of how nuclear weapons can play a part in today’s diplomacy. It warrants careful examination because the Bush administration emphasizes its importance as a different concept from deterrence. In fact, the distinction between them depends on individual circumstances. Against a major nuclear power such as Russia, the distinction between deterrence and dissuasion is somewhat artificial. When the Bush administration’s September 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States speaks of dissuading potential adversaries from pursuing a military buildup, the idea amounts to deterring a peacetime activity from occurring that could present a future threat to peace and security. There are ways to accomplish this that do not rely on an instantly useable force, for example, the threat of a U.S. military buildup, but the idea also has been applied to would-be “peer competitors” in the hope of dissuading such nations from even thinking of competing with U.S. military forces. Thus, the National Security Strategy states that “[olur forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States.”
244 states determined to have them and will clearly Overwhelming destructive force is a convincing not dissuade al Qaeda from attempting to make or deterrent to the use of force against U.S. interests, but it has its limits. History does not support the notion steal them. Some experts argue that new nuclear that superior force in itself is sufficient to dissuade a weapons are needed because existing ones cannot reach deep underground bunkers where weapons weaker state from strengthening its defenses. Recent of mass destruction may be stored. It is doubtful, experiences in Korea, the Middle East, and South however, that having new nuclear Asia does not support it either. History does not support bunker busters in the U.S. inventory Instead of encouraging restraint, would dissuade an adversary an arms race is the typical result. It the notion that superior would not make sense to indulge in f&rce in itself is sufficient convinced of the need for a nuclear deterrent. (See Section IV for further nuclear overkill in the attempt to to dissuade a weaker discussion of this issue.) Neither persuade China not to try to surpass state ff&m strengthening the vast nuclear superiority of the U.S. power. Many other factors, its defenses. United States, nor the prospect of a especially economic ones, will help U.S. ballistic missile defense system, determine that decision. Increasing has as yet succeeded in stopping North Korea's drive U.S. operationally deployed forces to dissuade China to build a nuclear deterrent of its own. The same may from building the kinds of forces that it thinks are be true for Iran. In both cases, however, the United necessary to achieve its regional goals would probably States, up to this writing, has not been willing to offer have an effect opposite to the one intended. any substantial upfront incentives, relying instead on To be effective, a dissuasive posture must be pressure and threats. As noted above, the dissuasive accompanied by explicit incentives. Otherwise, it is merely another variant of assured destruction—useful effect of nuclear weapons is likely to be most in deterring attack, less useful in dissuading an effective when coupled with measures that meet the adversary from improving his military position. adversary's security and economic requirements. As to deterring the use of nuclear weapons, the administration and most independent experts New Goals for Deterrence? acknowledge that nuclear deterrence has little For the foreseeable future, there are no other "big effect on suicidal, fanatical terrorists. Martyrdom is powers" that U.S. nuclear forces need to deter, something welcomed by Islamic fundamentalists. Otherwise, no role for U.S. nuclear weapons in any dissuade, or defeat. France, Israel, India, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom have nuclear weapons but mode is very likely in the case of terrorists. The best way of blocking nuclear-armed terrorism is to prevent are not currently adversaries, and their nuclear forces are much smaller than those of the United States. nuclear weapons or materials from escaping the Hence, the remainder of this discussion can turn to control of responsible governments. the implications of the new strategic paradigm for What about the rogue states of the world? They surely have something of value to lose if a what Bush has called the "crossroads of radicalism and technology": rogue states and terrorist groups nuclear attack were launched against them. Nuclear that try to acquire nuclear weapons and who, if deterrence probably would work to prevent the use successful, might then think of using them against of nuclear weapons by Iran, for example, against their enemies, including the United States. the United States or its allies. North Korea already It is not out of the question that a war could may be a small-scale nuclear-weapon state, as it yet develop from one or the other of the two most alleges, but powerful neighbors all around North Korea contain it. The first use of nuclear weapons by pressing proliferation situations, Iran and North Korea, but what role could U.S. nuclear weapons play? North Korea cannot be excluded under some unlikely Nuclear weapons might be thought to be necessary circumstances, but a credible U.S. nuclear deterrent if a conventional war got out of hand. Some analysts can be had at very low levels of forces and certainly suggest that a nuclear weapon might be used against without acquiring new bunker busters. For example, a a stockpile of biological agents, for example, as a last-ditch suicidal gesture by North Korea's leadership means of pre-emptively eliminating a developing in the endgame of a losing war cannot be ruled out, threat before it matures. Deep underground, hardened but the levels and types of U.S. nuclear forces are shelters have been mentioned as possible targets for irrelevant to this situation. nuclear weapons because non-nuclear weapons might U.S. military and intelligence documents also not be powerful enough. Yet, the potential targets identify Syria as a potential nuclear proliferant. Thenfor nuclear weapons appear to be very small, as the CIA director George Tenet told the Senate that Syrian following analysis suggests. nuclear intentions were being "closely monitored." U.S. nuclear weapons have not been useful in He reported that Syria was developing longer-range preventing the acquisition of nuclear weapons by missile programs, such as Scud D. There is no
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indication that U.S. nuclear weapons would come into play in this situation any more than they did in Iraq. As to other "generic" rogue states, it may be that, if substantial U.S. conventional forces could not be brought to bear in a war launched by a rogue state against a U.S. friend or ally, nuclear weapons might be seen as the only answer, especially if the aggressor had used biological or chemical weapons. This worstcase scenario, of course, is what has caused the Bush administration to declare that it will use military force, not excluding nuclear weapons, to anticipate an emerging threat posed by such weapons. This was the administration's case for war against Iraq. Such a decision would have very serious consequences, as will be discussed in Section I1 Is it likely that there will be many instances where an anticipatory action against a rogue state to prevent a nuclear weapons capability could be prosecuted? Probably not, as we elaborated in more detail in The Gravest Danger: Nuclear Weapons.' In fact, the 2002 National Security Strategy stipulates that force, non-
nuclear as well as nuclear, would not be used in all cases to pre-empt emerging threats. The two cases of Iran and North Korea already show that military force has its limitations. Using nuclear weapons would be very unlikely and not only because the regional political and human costs would be very high. Most decisions to initiate preventive action have to be taken under conditions of huge uncertainty. There will inevitably be gaps and incorrect information about essential facts. This is the very nature of intelligence information and is one of the reasons for exhausting all possible avenues of diplomacy before relying on force. To sum up, even without ruling out a possibility, however unlikely it may seem today, of circumstances that would lead the United States to resort to first use of nuclear weapons, the numerical requirements for U.S. warheads to prevent nuclear use by rogue states or terrorists are very low. It is not nuclear deterrence but activities such as the Cooperative Threat Reduction program that are key to preventing nuclear terrorism.
1. Sidney Drell and James Goodby, The Gravest Danger: Nuclear Weapons (Hoover Institution Press, 2003)
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Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century uclear deterrence theory and practice were developed and implemented in a unique historical era, one in which the protagonists competed in a highly focused bipolar mode in t-he arena of nuclear weaponry. (See Appendix 1.)The United States and the Soviet Union came to share many beliefs about nuclear weapons and they cooperated, both formally and tacitly, through much of the Cold War to make sure that their nuclear weapons were not used against each other. Nevertheless, it was an imperfect way, at best, of managing nuclear competition. By the 1980s, both governments were convinced that deterrence required them to maintain nuclear forces that could survive a first strike and then launch a retaliatory strike capable of delivering assured destruction against the other. It was a prescription for overkill on a scale unique in history. Illustrative of this thinking was an article written by Paul Nitze in Foreign Policy in the winter of 1976-77.* Nitze tried to answer the question “How much is enough?” He argued that, “to keep the Soviet population hostage to a countervalue attack,” the United States needed “something of the order of 3,000 deliverable megatons remaining in reserve after a counterforce exchange.” A counterforce attack is limited to targets of military value, such as actual weapons systems and command posts, whereas a countervalue strike targets an adversary’s population, society, and economy. Nitze’s prescription translated into a strategic nuclear force of several thousand missiles and bombers capable of delivering many thousands of warheads. This effort was required, Nitze believed, because the Soviets were bent on “deterring the deterrent.” They wanted to be able, after a counterforce attack on the United States, to have sufficient reserve megatonnage to hold the U.S. population and industry hostages. Analyses of this type were a direct outgrowth of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s early 1960s conclusion that “assured destruction is the very
essence of the whole deterrence concept.” He was one of the first to try to answer the question “How much is enough?” Nitze had adapted the assured destruction idea to the technology of succeeding decades and had made the seemingly rational case that U.S. presidents should have options other than an all-out attack on Soviet population and industry even after a Soviet attack aimed at U.S. nuclear strike forces. It is unlikely that the combination of circumstances that made such an extravagant version of nuclear deterrence almost inevitable will appear again. In the present era, what is being said about the case where dissuasion and deterrence both fail and a confrontation should come with a big power armed with nuclear weapons? The February 2004 report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Future Strategic Strike Forces suggested that the United States should try first to transform relations through dissuasion and assurance. If that failed, the objectives should be: a “To dissuade, to deter, and to prevail, while
minimizing the prospects of unwanted escalation and damage to allies; and
2. Nitze, Paul H., “Deterring Our Deterrent,” Foreign l‘oliq, no. 25 (Winter 1976-1977) pp. 195-210.
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e
To terminate the conflict as quickly as possible on terms consistent with U.S. values and objectives.”
There is nothing here about protracted nuclear war. Rather, the emphasis is on avoiding escalation and ending the conflict. The task before us now is to analyze how deterrence/dissuasion works in present circumstances and what are the implications for the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal: e in the case of former adversaries (i.e., Russia) 0
in the case of present adversaries
e
in the case of potential adversaries
e in regional conflicts, for example, the Middle East e
in the special cases of the threatened use of biological and chemical weapons, where the Bush administration has reserved the right to use nuclear weapons if attacked with such weapons.
The connection between nuclear deterrence and other forms of military deterrence exercised by the United States should also be considered in relation to the objective of preventing both nuclear proliferation and the use of nuclear weapons.
Russia The bipolar nuclear competition of the Cold War era has largely been liquidated, but the legacy of those days still exists in a lingering mistrust between Moscow and Washington. The Nuclear Posture Review furnished evidence of this enduring distrust, as do current nuclear force deployments. If the Bush-Putin statements are taken literally, it should suffice to have a responsive force to hedge against renewed hostility in the U.S.-Russian relationship. Ready-to-launch, operationally deployed nuclear forces should not be required between two countries that mutually declared in November 2001 that they do not regard each other as an enemy or threat. Deterrence/dissuasion, in the case of Russia, now should be seen logically as applying to peacetime behavior, not to the existential act of launching a strategic nuclear attack. Thus, the threat of activating a “responsive force” of the type described in the Nuclear Posture Review should dissuade or deter Russia from embarking on a renewed nuclear arms race. Further verifiable U.S.-Russiannuclear weapons reductions would also decrease the possibility that either side could quickly rearm in a way that would upset strategic stability. In Section 111, we will discuss appropriate and much smaller transitional force
deployments, taking into account the historical baggage that acts as a brake on more rapid reductions, as well as other deterrent tasks.
Present Adversaries The cases of present adversaries, such as North Korea and Iran, are more complex. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are now involved in an intensive effort to dissuade Iran from becoming a nuclearweapon state. For the Europeans, incentives are a big part of the effort. Until recently, the United States has been watching skeptically from the sidelines, considering that the threat of economic sanctions is the main card to be played, although that position seems to have changed somewhat since Bush’s February 2005 trip to Europe. Efforts at dissuasion may have already failed in preventing North Korea from becoming a nuclear-weapon state. There has been no progress as of this writing in the six-party talks involving the United States, China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and North Korea. Very few incentives have been offered to North Korea, whose leaders broke earlier commitments not to pursue nuclear weapons. In the two cases of Iran and North Korea, what does it mean for dissuasion to fail, and what should the United States do if North Korea or Iran openly deploys nuclear forces and engages in threatening policies or actions? An anticipatory U.S. attack might be expected as the next step, according to the theoretical deterrence ladder constructed by the Bush administration. The administration has said, however, that military action is not always appropriate, and so far, the option of preventive war has not been exercised in the case of North Korea, the more advanced of the two potential new nuclear-weapon states and the only one to claim it already has nuclear weapons. In fact, Bush has emphasized that the circumstances in this case demand a diplomatic approach. The administration restated this position even after the North Korean government made its most explicit claim of manufacturing nuclear weapons in February 2005. If diplomacy is to be pursued with any reasonable hope for success, incentives as well as threats must be included among the tools used. Otherwise, the unadorned threat of assured destruction of targets in North Korea would be seen by most U.S. friends in Northeast Asia as all that diplomacy has to work with. They would see that as out of proportion to the provocation presently being offered, posing the risk of widespread devastation in Korea and elsewhere in Northeast Asia. As things stand, the United States is still leaving to others the role of offering up-front incentives, while hinting at rewards that would greatly benefit North Korea after it dismantles its nuclear programs.
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Deterrence in Korea may now be forced to return to its more Limited Cold War meaning of prevmting a North Korean zmck on the United States or North Korea’s neighbors. Contamnent, the other camponert of C.S. Cold War stmten, also s e a s to be relevant in Northeast Mia, fofIowlngwhat increasicigly appears t o be the failure of the dissuasive phase or‘ deterrence.A pre-ezptive U.S. attack a k m s t certainly wouid lead to massive destruction This appears to be presently ruled out by *he Bush admimation. The fartliliar options of countervalue an5 cwmterfsrcew~ilbe availabk for deterrence, although an a scale that is miniscule as compared wrth the U.S.-Soviet cQmpetition.
Potsratis3 Adveraari%Js Like R~~ssia, China prssents a special case. The United States m d China are working fairly closely together cx securityissues and are strongly iinked by trade m d Snancia! interests. Xevertheless, it is understood that China’s long-rmge retaliatory capabiliv has the United Sates in its crosshairs in some way. Simiarlj: the target 11st for U S . nuclear forces presumably includes Chinese targets. Taiwan, of course, could become a major Bashpoint in the bilateral relationship at my moment. China remains a ptential adversary. The adversarial relationship and the concomitmt threat of nuclear attack have RO: been formally excluded from the US.-Chinese the U.S.-Russian relationshig~as they haw k~nrelationship, but US,poliqmakeers have not invoked +&e thieat of nuclear re+&iationas a response to potenfiai Chi?ese incursions in the Taiwan Strait since President Dwight Eisenhowei’s ndministntion. As the XucIez Posture Re~itewstates, nuclear weapons can assure allies, and this is particularly the case Wth Jzpan,a country that has set @eat store by the U.S. “nuclearumbrella.” This is an important role for U.S. nuclear weapons, for the pzesence of that m h e l i a Ims made it easier for the Japanese and other a l k s to c o n h u e theeir renuxiation of mcleas weapons. “liere now ace pressures corning i?om iduential groups in Jzpan to mendJapan’s mmtitution with i?g& to the renunaation of war. Jzpzn’snon-nxlear-weapor, staais h x aim k n cluejtioned. The roie of the U.S. mclear umbrella may be less diSpositiw in Japan in the future than it has been in the pat, but it mag still be useful in tlwating a nuclear arms i x e between China and japan. If deterrence 3f a Chinese attack on Taiwan weie to fail, the U.S. response wouid very likely be a n o w to defend Taiwa-. U . S . use of nuclear weapons would allnost certaidy n o t be the first step in an attempt to convince China to stop nilitav action, but one d e wt: m y c!rmstmces where a I Tesponse might be considered. A
CNnase ships stage a mock m e k on an island in .the Taiwan Strait in 19% aceording to inhcarmetiian released by Chins‘s government-run Xinhata Mews Agency. IR March 2005, Baijing adopted legbbtion authorizing tho use of military h v c e against Taiwan if it asserts fts independence.
credible C.S deterrent against the current threat of C k i a can be managed while reducing the number of warheads. The United States certainly does not need additional nuclear weapons to achieve some dissuasive effect. What should the United States do if Chira began a buildup of the type that the Soviet Union began after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis? For quite a whae, present or even greatly reduced U.S. nuclear force Leyels would suffice to maintain the direct deterrent effect against a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Present U.S. superiority is such that a number of years would pass before the buildup of China’s nuclear forces would require additional U.S. warheads to target the new threat or reinforce the deterrent against any imprudent behavior. There is no doubt that, in the present situation where peace is condixional, the U.S. government would see a need for maintaining the capability for an appropriate nuclear response. Fu~ther,that c o m e of events would haw repercussions in the U.S.-Russian relationship. The U.S. nuclear force structure is only one of the factors infhaencing China’s force posture decisions, but deeper reductions in U.S. operationally deployed nuciear forces than presently contemplated might contribute to dissuading China from a major buildup. This point is discussed further in Section V.
Regionat c0fif;iCts Eurape, where the nuclear confrontation was most lntense cluring the Cold War, is not likely to be the scene of conflict or disputes that would rise to the threshold where nuclear deterrence would become a consideration.The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) commits each of its 26 members to regard the security of other members as its own. A response ro aa attack on any one of them could include the counter-use of U S . nuclear weapons according to
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NATO doctrine, but as a practical matter, nuclear deterrence has essentially disappeared from NATO’s missions. No doubt the attraction of NATO for eastern European countries lies in the connection it affords to overall U.S. military strength. Attractive power is not to be lightly dismissed, but this is as far as it goes, as far as the present-day role of nuclear deterrence is concerned. Reportedly, the United States maintains a stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. No need exists for them under present circumstances, and they should be removed. Three other regions where simmering disputes have boiled over into open conflict and could do so again are the Middle East, South Asia, and Northeast Asia. In the Middle East, the United States has been and remains an active player in regional security issues. In 1973, President Richard Nixon put U.S. nuclear forces on alert to send a warning signal to the Soviets that they should not intervene in the Middle Eastern war of that year. Prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Secretary of State James Baker hinted at the use of nuclear weapons if Saddam Hussein used chemical or biological weapons. A stated if unsubstantiated reason for the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 was to eliminate the possibility that Iraq would build nuclear weapons. The dispute with Iran over its nuclear programs has evoked some media and even official discussion of air attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities, like the 1981 Israeli attack that destroyed Iraq’s Osirak reactor. In such a volatile region, where nuclear weapons have figured in several disputes, it is reasonable to think that U.S. nuclear weapons must exercise some deterrent effect. If a war with Iran were to occur, for example, U.S. nuclear weapons looming in the background might suggest to Tehran that the war should be limited and terminated as soon as possible. In other cases, their deterrent effect is probably negligible as compared with Israel’s own nuclear deterrent and other actions that the United States is capable of taking. Their deterrent effect against use of biological or chemical weapons by Hussein in the Persian Gulf War is far from clear. George H. W. Bush apparently believed that the threat of regime change would be a more effective deterrent than the use of nuclear weapons, and perhaps it was. The most likely result, if deterrence failed in the Middle East, would be a war fought with conventional weapons and, as is being demonstrated in Iraq, by asymmetric warfare on the part of U.S. adversaries. South Asia presents even fewer scenarios where U.S. nuclear weapons would deter or dissuade a protagonist from taking actions that the United States wanted to prevent. Would Washington authorize the use of U.S. nuclear weapons against India to stop an Indian attack against Pakistan? Would it consider an attack on Pakistan to stop a war that Pakistan had
started? The answer is no in both cases; it is simply inconceivable. The only plausible situations in which U.S. nuclear deterrence might come into play in South Asia is in the context of a radical Islamist government in Pakistan gaining control of its nuclear program or reassurance to India in the event of a serious dispute with China. These contingencies are not out of the question, but the effect of U.S. nuclear deterrence is apt to be marginal in either case. A crisis in Northeast Asia has more potential for erupting into a conflict. As already discussed, the assured destruction/containment type of deterrence is essentially where things stand now. The three U.S. goals are to deter North Korea from invading South Korea, to deter North Korea from launching missile attacks against Japan or South Korea, and to deter North Korea from using nuclear weapons under any circumstances. Actual U.S. use of nuclear weapons would probably be constrained by the opinions of all of North Korea’s neighbors, but that should not diminish their deterrent effect against Pyongyang’s use of nuclear weapons, except perhaps as a last desperate act of a defeated regime. Biological and Chemical Weapons In many of the cases discussed so far, preventing an adversary’s use of biological or chemical weapons would be a key U.S. goal, as it was in the Persian Gulf War and the 2003 invasion of Iraq. In neither case was a threat to use nuclear weapons made explicit. War crimes trials against any Iraqi commanders who authorized the use of “weapons of mass destruction” were explicitly guaranteed by the United States. Other countries with biological or chemical weapons could give rise to similar challenges in the future. Deterrence, not necessarily nuclear, would have two components in each situation: to dissuade development, deployment, and plans for use of biological or chemical weapons and to deter the actual use of such weapons. The first objective, one of those that seems to be included in the Bush administration’s strategy, is important but will be difficult to accomplish in practice. Biological and chemical weapons can be manufactured covertly and relatively easily. More than 15 countries, several of which are hostile to the United States, are believed to be pursuing or already to possess such arms, of which perhaps up to one-third are “states of concern.” They see these as their own deterrents and will be reluctant to give them up. Once again, this type of dissuasion, which is aimed at influencing other countries’ force structure decisions, cannot be carried out effectively, if at all, without accompanying incentives. One of the most important incentives would be to improve the security situation for the countries concerned by settling regional disputes.
250 Experts spend a great deal of their time wondering The other goal of preventing biological or chemical weapons use in combat may be easier to whether a threat to use nuclear weapons is credible. achieve, although the record of the Iran-Iraq War A weapon that has not been used in combat for 60 waged in the 1980s is not very encouraging on this years is not a weapon that is used lightly, and the score. Of course, the United States was not directly consequences of its possible use are so dire that even the most irresponsible of rogues probably is involved, aside from providing Hussein intelligence information, but no effort was made to punish Iraq impressed. To make the consequences less dire by for initiating chemical weapons attacks. In a case making them "more useable" by lowering their yields where U.S. or allied forces might be involved in the is probably not going to do much to influence such future, an explicit U.S. threat to use nuclear weapons people. Here, the subject is deterrence, and images in in retaliation for use of chemical or biological the minds of dictators are what count. weapons might be considered. Before voicing that What is credible beyond doubt is that the United threat, however, it must be weighed against other States has built the world's most effective and very troubling considerations, including the issue powerful war-fighting force, excluding its nuclear of whether nuclear weapons should be used against weapons. In fact, to the extent that the United States non-nuclear-weapon states, the advisability of ending depends on nuclear weapons to make a point, the 60 years of non-use of nuclear weapons in combat, more this will encourage asymmetric warfare and and whether a nuclear response is proportional biological and chemical weapons use on the part of to a biological or chemical U.S. enemies and the less effective weapons attack. Nuclear weapons future U.S. fighting forces will be. The United States are unique in their terrifying The Nuclear Posture Review treats only diminishes its potential for massive destruction nuclear weapons as an embedded own advantages and on an unprecedented scale. element in U.S. offensive forces. Of strengths by pursuing Their capability for widespread course, in the real world nuclear nuclear weapons policies weapons are not treated simply as destruction vastly exceeds that that boost the perceived of chemical weapons. For now, an extension of the most powerful this also holds true for biological conventional forces. They are value of biological and weapons, which should be feared chemical weapons in the treated separately. Their use would primarily for their terror-creating require exceptional circumstances, eyes of others. potential, although ultimately they and no president has seen such may come to rival nuclear weapons exceptional circumstances, even in as a threat to populations on a global scale. The the midst of two otherwise unwinnable wars, Korea present posture of "calculated ambiguity" regarding and Vietnam. Wisely, U.S. military leaders think of the U.S. response to an adversary's use of chemical nuclear weapons as the ultimate deterrent and not or biological weapons is preferable to a more explicit just as another weapon. Former Chairman of the Joint threat. Unrivaled in conventional military power, the Chiefs of Staff and future Secretary of State Colin United States only diminishes its own advantages and Powell expressed this perspective clearly in his 1995 strengths by pursuing nuclear weapons policies that autobiography. "No matter how small these nuclear boost the perceived value of biological and chemical payloads were, we would be crossing a threshold. weapons in the eyes of others. Using nukes at this point would mark one of the most significant political and military decisions since Hiroshima," Powell wrote.3 An assessment about Nuclear Deterrence in Context whether nuclear weapons should be used always This discussion underscores the point that nuclear takes place in the context of whether there is some deterrence cannot be considered in a vacuum, nor non-nuclear weapon that could do the job. In short, can it be seen as the only or even the most powerful nuclear weapons are not weapons of first choice, but deterrent available to the United States in every case. of last choice. 3. Powell, Colin L. and Joseph Persico, My American Journey, Random House. 1995, pg. 324.
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Implications for U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces U ~ SNucBsar . Force size
n his foreword to the Nuclear Posture Review, Rumsfeld supported “a credible deterrent at the lowest level of nuclear weapons consistent with U.S. and allied security.” Based on the analysis in the preceding sections, the Nuclear Posture Review’s conclusions should be adjusted. It appears to be entirely possible and feasible to maintain a credible U.S. deterrent at much lower levels of nuclear weapons than were recommended in that report. It may have been reasonable to err on the high side at that time. The report implied that, stating, “[Iln a fluid security environment, the precise nuclear force level necessary for the future cannot be predicted with certain ty....[T]he range of between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads provides a degree of flexibility.” It is very difficult to escape from the mutual deterrence mindset, even after conditions have changed very considerably, but we think the United States can do better than it has As the preceding analysis pointed out, the Russia contingency, which is the danger of a hostile government taking power in the future, can be met through greater reliance on a smaller responsive force than currently planned and which need not be available in a matter of days or weeks, but months or even years. If operationally deployed nuclear warheads are not the prime deterrent against possible Russian actions, then they can be reduced to lower levels earlier than the date of 2012 prescribed both in the Nuclear Posture Review and in SORT. Certainly, the number could be much lower than the 3,800 operationally deployed U.S. warheads forecast for the end of 2007 by the Nuclear Posture Review. Lower warhead levels reached more rapidly would be consistent with the Bush-Putin November 13, 2001, statement that “neither country regards the other as an enemy or threat.” It also would be consistent with the 2002 Moscow Declaration in which Bush and Putin stated their intentions “to carry out strategic offensive reductions to the lowest possible levels consistent with their national security requirements and alliance obligations, and
reflecting the new nature of their strategic relations.” That declaration described SORT as “a major step in this direction.” A straightforward reading of this passage implies that the two presidents did not see the treaty as the last word in strategic offensive reductions. Furthermore, the treaty itself included a clause that it could be “superseded earlier [than 20121 by a subsequent agreement.” The Consultative Group for Strategic Security, which was established by the Moscow Declaration, could determine how to accomplish this revision. Chaired by the foreign and defense ministers of each country, this group has not yet proved effective or developed an agenda for addressing important issues such as this. We believe that SORT should be amended to set a ceiling of 500 operationally deployed strategic warheads. This would be accomplished during a transition period that might last five years. Another 500 warheads could be held for the Responsive Force. Deeper reductions could be considered and possibly implemented during the five-yeartransition period, taking into account developments in China, among other things. The rationale for this conclusion follows.
252 First, as to tke numbei of potentizl targets, we asrme that Russian nuclear forces will decrease in numbers comparabie to %hat we are proposing for the C.S. force. For reasons having as much to do with historical and political baggage as witk miIitary requirements. Chis aSsurnption wili be a major determinant of the size of the U.S. operationally deployed force, as it appears to he today. Even given the history, however, the numbex assigned to deterrence are much too high In addition, the United States should, as we have a w e d , maintain a Responsive Force to couriter the possibility of a resurgent and hestiie Russia. Under these assurnpions End taking icto account the new relationship nith Zuissia that Bush hs prociaimed, we estimats t;hat a US.strategic force of some 500 operational$ deplqred warheads would be more than adqaate for deterrence. Borrowire the notion of the Ndclear Poskre Review, this force level would be enoug:? to pmvicte a tiegree cf flexibility in a Guid semriyi environment. 3 1 s wmber Is Iarge enough to deai with the targets described genericaliy in the Xuclear Postwe Re\.iew as “insjllments of political control and miiitq-power.. ieadership and military capabilities, partir~larlyweapons of mass destruction, military command farigties and other centers of control and infrastructure that support nilitary forces.” We estimate these military targets, unde: the conditions we postulate, to number between 208 and 300, and we have sked the o?eEationail\; deployed force of strategic warheads at a larger m m b e r of 500 for reasons of operation31 consewatism.‘ The excess allows for force readiness concerns, multiple targeting where needed, and the possibility of very sudden and unexpected surprises from Russia, for example, a breakdown in its military command and cmtrol caused by technical Mlures or a takeover by renegades. .4s Russia and the United States move farther away from +he nuclear deterrent trap in which they are still emxired, the sizing of their stockpiles would d e p n d on other concerns and could be further reduced. The 500 operationally deployed warheads would be augmented by those from the Responsive Force; which wouid be configulred in two parts, the Grst able to respcd to a rapidly building cisis-a Ready Responsive Force-and a second able t n respocd to strategic -r;arning dgnals on a timescale of a year or more-a Strategic Responsive Force. This use of the Xespcnsive Force undersco:es the need for sustaining an L?frastmctwe for supporting it as well as ihe need
The US. Navy currently has 14 Trident nuclear-powered submarines for delivering nudear weapons.
to provide this force with appropriate hardening and concealment. As we look ahead a few years into the future, the total Responsive Force should have 4 0 - 5 0 0 warheads, a number comparable to the operationally deployed one. This number would be adequate to target roughly 200 additional Russian sites, for example, those affecting industrial recovery-the major nodes in the electric power grid and air, ground, and rail transportation systems, as well as major industrial sites. These targets and the forces to attack them may be viewed, we hope, as only temporary remnants of the Cold War policy of assured destruction that may be discarded before long in the dustbin of history. In time, nuclear deterrence might be maintained mtireiy with a Responsive Force without an operationally deployed force. That Responsive Force
4. Pax4 Podvig at Stanhrd-s Center for Intrmationai Security has siiggested a mtional Xussian strategic nuclear
force stmcture in the future. His an+i.sis, :basL& o?. rheir r m e x t pmdi?aionpcogrxms fm a t d a l force size oi 1,500 warheads, suggests thei; strategic rocket forces sized to 600 warireids on 159 launchers 2nd 5OQ warheads DE their submarine force. These numben wiI1 presumably decrease by agreement in proportion to the Ioered ceilings pmposgd €orthe US.forces. See ~ttp:!:R;ssianforces.ordpodrig!m;;/es/Z0050100a~p.shtnil See also: Th.: X x l c g r T m i n ~ P o i f i rHarold : A. Feiirsan, editor; E i m h g s lnsiitnt? Press, 1999; The Fuuluw of US.M&”r Wtapoons PQfily,National 4cademiei ofSc.;er.ieCornmittre or.International Security and .4m? Control, Wittioiial Academics I’ress, 1997; and Deutch, John, “A Nuclear POS?IIX for Tday:” FGT&II Arain gatl.!kb. 2005).
n 0
-I .+
15
253
could consist of considerably fewer than 1,000 wxheads, perhzps no more than the 500 that Rye postxlate w-odd initially be in the operationally deployed force. Operational& Deployed force 4r
Three Trident submarines on station at sm,each loadeC with 24 Enissites and 96 wzheads (a mix of low-yietd W76s and high-)leld k\%Ssj. Reducing the D5 rnissiies' fd complement of eight warheads to €our per missile d i substantially increase their maximum operating ifreas.
o 100 Minuteman 111 ICBMs in hardened silos,
each Ttjith a single W87 warhead in a Mkl2a re-entr).vehicle. o 20-25 E 2 and 35ZH bombers configured for
gravity bombs or air-launched cruise missiles.
a Three Trident submarines, each loaded with
96 WErheads, in transit or being replenished in porP for their next nrissions as part of a Ready Responsive Force for a rapidly brrilding crisis, plus avo or three -manned boats in overhad. D
50-100 addi;ional Mintiteman III missiles taken of: alert and without warheads, and 20-25 bombers, unarmed, in maintenance and training, all of which would comprise a Strategic Responsive Force, for a more slowly building confrontation.
Tkroughoui the Cold War the United States insisted on maintaining a triad of strategic nuclear delivery qstems-bombers plus land-based and seabased Sailistic missiles--to avoid common failure modes and vdnerabilities. There is value in retaining this diversity as the totaf stockpi!e is decreased to 1,000 Q-arheads,as a way of preserving flexibbty and conxdence i zreiizb2ity so long as operational costs do not exceed their perceived value. The structure of the noticmii foice of 1,000 war5eads we are proposing is based on the existing ele-
i
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;ji 4
The United Sates currently deploys 500 Minuteman IR intercontinentalbdllistic missiles. merits of the U.S. nuclea arsenal and its delivery systems: ballistic missile-armed submarines; land-based ICBMs; and cruise missiles and strategic bombers. It is designed specificalIy to meet in a timely manner today's uxgent challenge to take advantage of the opportunity opened by the new US.-Russian strategic relationship. We believe that moving out of the deterrence trap mole expeditiously would help Russia and the United States work more cooperatively against the looming threat of nuclear weapons proliferation into dangerous hands. Bold actions by the two powers that still possess more than 90 percent of the world's nuclear warheads would be a powerful stimulus toward preserving and further strengthening a nonproliteration regime that i s under Severe strain. Meeting their commitments under Article VI of the 1968 nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to reduce their nuciear arsenals and work toward an eventual, no matter how
5 . W'iih reduced numbex a: warheads below their mrrent loadings. the Tri3eai SLBMs will have sipificanily iargei maximum tlight ranges. For rircressmg the modern Trjdent 3s loading from the current 8 ivaiheads to 4 as proposed here ?randates into a SO percent inmaie in ihe missile's m s m u n ) range from 4,lW nauticd miles to 6,200 nauticd Mies. ?his in turn means suhsrantizl target coverage whiie the boats are ,n ~ 3 as %w t i l as during &amit. (See: John p.. Harvey and Stefan Michdowski, "Nuclea; Weapons Safety: The Case of Trident," Scienre and Giobcri Srm?ef, iY94, w l . 4). in liir event of hriher force reductions, to say a tutalo: S O 0 warheads. there would rims? likely be a further reauction in Eqe number of r;arbea& carried by each indi.iidux! bow 1621 to miain a tlexible on- station and in- pofi refurbishing cycle. This could be acconp'is!~i.d either by sea@ o f fsome o! rhc 24 laundi rilbes on tach Trident, or further downloading ?he number of warheads per missile, thereby fi;r%fhH inasjsing ?heirmmimwn range.
254 that contains tritium with a half-life for radioactive distant goal of eliminating them would be good for decay of 12.3 years and the plutonium that the nonproliferation regime. Moreover, it would also constitutes the fission fuel. be good for their bilateral relationship. The radiation environment created by the In sum, we propose an appropriate U.S. force plutonium in the so-called pit of a nuclear weapon structure of 500 operationally deployed warheads, can lead to changes in its crystal structure that may plus 288 warheads in a Rapid Responsive Force, affect its explosive performance, and delivery systems in a Strategic Bold actions by the two resulting in warhead failure. The Responsive Force capable of stockpile stewardship program at deploying up to 212 additional powers that still possess the national weapons laboratories warheads. The United States and more than 90 percent in the United States is increasing Russia should cooperate toward of the world's nuclear the understanding on which to achieving this over the next five warheads would be base confidence in the lifetime of years, leading to forces of "500 plus a powerful stimulus existing pits and in calculating the 500 by 2010." It is a practical and toward preserving and number of new ones that will have timely step en route to the ultimate, to be manufactured annually to if distant, goal of eliminating further strengthening a maintain an arsenal. For example, nuclear weapons. We recognize nonproliferation regime a 1,000-warhead arsenal with pits that achieving that vision would that is under severe that can age to 45 years before require a world fundamentally strain. they need replacement requires different from today's world, but an annual production rate, on the first steps can lead to changed average, of fewer than 23 certified pits.6 This is well circumstances and changed political and security within currently envisaged U.S. production capacity relationships. This initiative can help pave a path and would remain true for a force double the size toward realizing a vision that has been embraced by many world leaders and U.S. presidents since 1945. we recommend. If a longer lifetime for aging pits is proved out, it would further reduce the requirements. Such issues illustrate the necessity of maintaining a To Sustain This Force nuclear warhead production infrastructure for as long as the United States retains a nuclear force, but the Several existing defense programs will have to be carried forward with the appropriate priority in order requirements are quite modest compared to Cold War to sustain a credible deterrent at lower levels. The first levels, with their much larger numbers of warheads and shorter anticipated pit lifetimes. The nuclear is stewardship of the Responsive Force. The current infrastructure must also sustain confidence in the Defense Department plan is to achieve reductions to long-term reliability of U.S. nuclear weapons as the 1,700-2,200 operationally deployed warheads in the later stages of the process by downloading warheads United States works to reduce the size of its arsenal from missiles and bombers and putting them into drastically. Currently, a comprehensive and rigorous storage. As the Nuclear Posture Review states, science-based stockpile stewardship program is being "[DJelivery systems will not be retired following initial successfully pursued at the Los Alamos, Lawrence reductions and downloaded warheads will be retained Livermore, and Sandia National Laboratories. This as needed for the responsive force." If the Responsive program gives strong assurance that the current U.S. Force is to serve as insurance against the need for a nuclear stockpile is reliable and will remain so for the buildup, the Departments of Defense and Energy will foreseeable future. have to treat it as such, including assigning resources More emphasis on adaptive planning also will to the upkeep of the delivery systems and warheads be required to meet the contingencies discussed and contingency plans for reactivating the force. in preceding sections of this paper. As the Nuclear The U.S. nuclear warhead infrastructure must Posture Review explains, "[A]daptive planning is also be maintained and updated as required if more used to generate war plans quickly in time-critical reliance is to be placed on the Responsive Force to situations." This will probably require an upgrading of sustain and back up a credible nuclear deterrent. U.S. command and control capabilities. Planning to maintain a nuclear force structure of There are three final comments to be made on a given size must include an infrastructure able force size. First, the warhead numbers we discuss to refurbish or remanufacture the limited-lifetime here are for the strategic nuclear forces and do not components of a nuclear warhead as required. These include the tactical nuclear arsenal. Reductions in the components include, for example, a gas boost system numbers of tactical weapons are a factor to be taken 6. "Modern Pit Facility Draft Environmental Impact Statement," National Nuclear Security Administration, January 4, 2003. See
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255 into account in implementing the strategic force reductions. The force structure we have outlined is a very conservative one in terms of target coverage, allowing for the fact that the door is closing too slowly on the Cold War orthodoxy of assured destruction thinking by the United States and Russia. After a transition stage of surely less than a decade, a further halving of the warhead levels should follow, with all remaining warheads being assigned to a Responsive Force. Second, this number of warheads would also cover for deterrence purposes all the other potential targets in other countries, assuming nuclear restraint elsewhere in the world. It is not necessary to have a separate deterrent force for each potential or present adversary because two or more nuclear conflicts at the same time is a very unlikely scenario. Pre-planning and adaptive planning can make use of deployed warheads for a variety of contingencies. Third, in order to insure against the possibility of negotiated force reductions being rapidly reversed and to provide confidence to the rest of the world, the United States and Russia should negotiate verifiable procedures for destroying excess warheads and delivery systems beyond those slated for the operationally deployed and responsive forces.
Contingencies involving As we noted earlier, future contingency planners are likely to consider whether nuclear weapons are needed to deal with conceivable wartime scenarios. Our view, to repeat, is that modern non-nuclear weapons almost
certainly would be able to handle most foreseeable military challenges. Even if one assumes otherwise, the target list would not generate requirements for large numbers of nuclear warheads. Potential Chinese targets are likely to cover the same generic list as for Russia, cited above, including their strategic strike forces, command and control centers, major military bases, and ports in the vicinity of Taiwan. With China’s long-range nuclear forces remaining at anything like their present levels, the target list would be considerably smaller than the 200-300 estimated for Russia. This list would not generate U.S. force requirements in addition to the numbers we have proposed for hypothetical emergencies involving Russia. The same warhead can be targeted against multiple designated ground zeros. Yet, if there were drastic changes in the worldwide strategic picture that led the United States to simultaneous major nuclear confrontations against Russia and China, the United States would evidently begin a major buildup of its own. This would take time, but so would a major Chinese buildup. The force configuration of “500+500”that we propose provides a ready basis for such U.S. action. The warhead delivery capacity of the Trident force can be doubled above the level to which we have proposed downloading it, and as we have described earlier, the United States would maintain a functioning nuclear infrastructure. Regarding potential targets in North Korea or Iran, the list presumably would be much shorter because the territories are smaller, and the numbers of defense-related installations are much fewer than in Russia and China. That list would very likely be limited to single digits in each country.
256
Are New U.S. Nuclear Weapons Needed? lthough the systems we propose for the “500+500”force were designed against a very different Cold War threat, they can readily be adapted to meet today‘s challenges to U.S. national security. Were the United States to start from scratch to build a new nuclear force structure to counter today’s threats, it would very likely create different weapons incorporating newer technologies that would provide maximum flexibility to readily adjust to changes in the strategic scenario. Here, we will discuss potential benefits as well as problems with undertaking some of the technical changes that may be considered for adapting U.S. forces to the new post-Cold War strategic environment. In some cases, the changes would be straightforward and valuable to implement and are already underway. Others of questionable military value might prove more harmful than helpful to U.S. national security due to their potential, even likely negative impact on efforts to sustain and strengthen the nonproliferation regime. They should be rejected. The United States has built and currently maintains a nuclear arsenal that is robust and reliable and should remain so for the foreseeable future. Congressional pressure during George H. W. Bush’s presidency led the U.S. government to recognize that there was no need to develop and test new nuclear warhead designs. This resulted in a moratorium on underground nuclear tests that is still in effect. As a consequence, existing warheads are remaining in the arsenal for more years than originally anticipated and longer than had been the case during the first five decades of the nuclear era, during which the arsenal was being regularly modernized with new designs based on technological advances. An enhanced, multifaceted, science-based program of stockpile stewardship was established in 1994 to provide confidence to the U.S. weapons community and, through it, to the government that the health of the stockpile and the way in which special bomb materials age is well understood. This strong technical and scientific program at the national weapons laboratories is providing a deeper
understanding of the performance of these weapons. Maintaining and refurbishing the warheads, as well as sustaining the competence of the weapons scientists, is proceeding, relying on comprehensive surveillance, forensics, diagnostics, extensive simulations with new computers, and experiments with advanced facilities. In fact, it has served to enhance confidence in the arsenal and in the U.S. ability to hear and heed any warning bells of unanticipated problems that may develop in the future. One direct way to simplify the process of certifymg the reliability and effectiveness of the warheads and to sustain this confidence over a longer period of time is to increase their performance margins. An example of this is to further enhance the explosive energy provided by the primary stage of a nuclear weapon above the minimum required to ignite the secondary, or main, stage of a nuclear weapon. A straightforward way to do this that requires no explosive testing to validate is by adjusting the boost gas fill in the primary during scheduled maintenance or remanufacturing activities. This is a n example of
257
an existing process for maintaining long-term high delivered by aircraft or missile, they can be rammed confidence in the arsenal. It is already available, has into the earth intact and penetrate some three or high merit, and should continue to be implemented.' more meters into the earth without damage before This approach is the appropriate focus of effort for detonating. Such warheads will deliver a shock to the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program destroy an underground bunker that is 10-20 times currently being funded at the U.S. national weapons stronger than that of the same warhead exploded laboratories. at or above the earth's surface, in which case much Turning the RRW program into an effort to develop more of its blast energy would be spent in the new-warhead designs by altering the nature of the high atmosphere. explosives or the amount of nuclear fuel in the primary Many hardened underground targets are at without testing, as some have suggested, would be a relatively shallow depths of some 30 meters, mistake. It takes an extraordinary flight of imagination particularly large industrial targets for manufacturing to postulate a modern new arsenal composed of such weapons or producing fissile material to fuel nuclear untested designs that would be more reliable, safe, weapons. Other targets of very high value are more and effective than the current U.S. arsenal based on likely to be buried at depths of 300 meters or more more than 1,000 tests since 1945. A and reinforced to withstand overcomprehensive and rigorous stockIt takes an extraordinary pressures of 1,000 atmospheres pile maintenance program confirms or more. Assuming the optimal flight of imagination to and sustains this high confidence. penetration capability into postulate a modem new the earth, taking into account If testing is resumed, the damage to the broader nonproliferation regime, arsenal composed of such experimental data and known limits untested designs that and thus to U.S. security interests, on material strengths, a warhead's would far outweigh any conceivable yield would have to be significantly would be move reliable, advantages to be gained from the larger than 100 kilotons for the safe, and effective than new designs. Other nuclear-weapon shock from its blast to reach down the current U.S. arsenal to 300 meters with enough strength states, most notably China, would based on more than surely follow the U.S. testing lead. to destroy such targets. That is 1,OOO tests since 1945. Non-nuclear-weapon states would certainly not a low-yield weapon. interpret resumed U.S. nuclear The primitive atomic bomb that testing as a repudiation of Washington's NPT commitpulverized Hiroshima had a yield of only 15 kilotons. ments, which could have serious implications for how Low-yield warheads, with yields less than five they might then view their own treaty obligations. kilotons, offer a possibility of attacking underground Two initiatives proposed by the Bush military targets at shallow depths, particularly those administration for developing new earth-penetrating containing biological and chemical weapons. Their weapons have also raised serious concerns. One alleged value is that the reduced collateral damage calls for developing advanced concepts for very lowthey would cause makes them more useable. It is yield weapons that are advocated as being "more unavoidable, however, that any such warhead that useable" for limited military missions, particularly has penetrated into the earth as deep as it can before against shallow underground targets, because of the detonating will still create a huge cloud of radioactive reduced collateral damage they will cause. They are debris and a very large crater. The blast of even a very low-yield, one-kiloton earth penetrator, detonated also proposed for neutralizing stored biological and chemical agents without dispersing them widely. at its maximum penetration depth of 15 meters into A second program, called the Robust Nuclear Earth dry hard rock, will eject more than one million cubic Penetrator (RNEP) program, would convert an existing feet of radioactive debris from a crater about the size high-yield, air-delivered nuclear bomb into an earth of ground zero at the World Trade Center. A nuclear weapon with at least a 100-kiloton yield capable of penetrator to make it more effective against deeply buried and hardened targets. destroying a hardened target 300 meters underground will dig a much larger crater and create a substantially The need for such earth-penetrating weapons is highlighted in the Nuclear Posture Review, in order greater amount of radioactive debris. "to defeat emerging threats such as hardened and The technical realities of nuclear weapons and their value in destroying biological and chemical deeply buried targets" of military interest being built in many countries. weapons must also not be exaggerated. In order to The effectiveness of warheads for destroying neutralize the deadly effects of biological pathogens hardened underground targets is enhanced if and chemical gases, they must be subjected to very their designs are sufficiently rugged so that, when high temperatures or radiation levels. The energetic E <
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7. Executive Summary, JASON Report on Nuclear Testing, JSR-95-320 (August 1, 1995).
25 8
Yha 661-33 bomb being deopped here is an aarth penetaator curre?rrtiy in the U.S. nudear arsenal. The Bush ~ srrppm expiorha rnodlficatims to the htgk-yield 883 warhead to make it an earth-penetrator as well.
neutrons and ganima r a y emitted in a nuclear explosion that =gate such extreme corrditions, however, d o not travel many meters from the point of an explosion underground before they are absarbed by the earth. In contrast, the shock from the explosion will extexd out far and wide, as is observed in earthquaker, spreading debris from large craters, as discuss& above, +&at very likely wid contain sizable quantities of the deadly agents.&Therefore, they would be more likely to spread these agents w3dely rather than to destroy them completely. On quantitative technical grounds, one is led to condude that low-yield penetratcrrs are of marginal mjiitary value, useful only for relatively shallow targets. The colateral damage they cause ma!; be reduced &m?to thei? lower yield, but the physical destruction, not to mention the political fallout, would stili be very considerable. Recalling Eisenhower's wzming in 1956 that, with nucieaT weapms: "WE are rapidly g e ~ i n gto the point that no war can be won" and +Aat, althcxgh cmventional wars can be fought to exhaustion and swecder, nuclear war a n come dose ta "destruction of the memy and suicide.'' does ense a: 33 to cross the nsuclear threshofd, espccidly for Limited military missions? What is the l i k e impact on U.S. security of a new ini5ative foi. new lowyield weapons? F k t , the United Stzties already possesses tested and Stployed weapons, both cozwentional and nuclear. that .would be
~
~
effective for missions against shallow bunkers. In view of that, a decision by the world's only supelpower to develop and depioy new tow-yield nuclear weapons as bunker busters that are presumably "more useable" in limited war-fighting situations, would send a clear, negative signal about the nonproliferation regime to non-nuclear-weapon stares. If the United States, the strongest nation in the world, concluded that it could not protect its Viral interests without relying o n a newly developed nuclear weapon, it would be a clear signal to other nations rhat nuclear weapons are necessary for their security purposes too. This would hardly contribute to dissuading them from joining the nuclear club. In fact, because resumed nuclear explosive testing might eventually be required for a newly designed weapon, the United States would most likely deal a fatal blow to the nonproliferation regime in order to have a capability of questionable military value. Such concerns Zed Congress to refuse funding for this concept in the fiscal year 2005 budget. To date, the proposal for a new, low-yield nuclear earth penetraror has not been renewed in the irsra! year 2006 budget request. The argument for the RNEP initiative to develop a high-peld earth-penetrating weapon is based OR the goal of holding at nsk hardened and deeply buried targets at depths of 300 meters or mole. In this instance, we are calking about weapons with yields of hundreds of kilotons to megatons. This wartime
M.a n d Hddernu; Z., "€.fkctiYe.mS3 of Nuclear W e a p n i Against Buried Biolny'cal &enis," pgs. 91-114; and, and Neison R. MI,Nuclear 'Bunker Bu\i?rs' iToul5 Mure Likely Disperse thax I f w ~ i o yR w i e d Stockpjlesof Aiolog%il and Chmiral Agerits," pps. 69-90, Science nnd Global %:.m'v>VU!. 12: 39s. 1-2, 2004. 8. Yay.
259 situation may be one in which conventional weapons have vulnerable points, such as air ducts and tunnel might not be able to do the job, and thus a nuclear entrances for personnel, equipment, and resources that weapon might be required. As such, this requirement can be sealed off by conventional munitions if their needs thorough analysis. positions can be pinpointed. These vulnerabilities can The need for such a capability was recognized be exploited with accurate intelligence; specialized and addressed appropriately for many years during delivery systems; tailored munitions; and when the Cold War. The Soviet Union no longer exists, possible, special forces on the ground at the critical however, and, in words of Bush and Putin, neither sites. The United States is, as it should be, working the United States nor Russia "regards on important projects to achieve the other as an enemy or threat" gains in the effectiveness of tactics It is not necessary but as "increasingly allied against such as these. It is not necessary to destroy hardened terrorism." to destroy hardened underground underground targets If any new threats are emerging targets physically by crushing them physically by crushing in other countries with deeper and with large nuclear blasts in order to defeat them as a threat. harder targets than those presented them with large nuclear by the former Soviet Union, the Given enormous U.S. blasts in order to defeat United States has a number of intelligence and conventional them as a threat. options for holding them at risk. military assets, not to mention its One, of course, is to target them great relative strength, is there a credible military case for RNEP? Recognizing existing with several of our existing nuclear bombs with the U.S. military capabilities, including high-yield highest yields. Furthermore, the effectiveness of these weapons can be greatly enhanced by improvements nuclear warheads, and the likely harmful impact of in precision of delivery and in accuracy of the such an initiative by the world's only superpower on intelligence in locating and identifying such targets. international efforts to preserve and strengthen the nonproliferation regime, the additional capabilities The United States also has a substantial ability to render hardened underground targets ineffective with of new nuclear bunker-buster weapons are not worth conventional military systems. These kinds of targets the high costs.
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Including Other Nuclear-Weapon States e suggested above that a significant buildup of China's strategic nuclear forces could adversely affect the builddown that Russia and the United States should carry out in the next few years. The broader point is that each of the de jure and de fact0 nuclear-weapon states will have to be invoIved in some fashion in the effort to reduce the salience of nuclear weapons in international security relations. Given the history of the U.S.-Russian relationship, it seems reasonable to assume that their reductions in
operationally deployed nuclear warheads could be managed by the U.S.-Russia Consultative Group for Strategic Security and recorded by amending SORT. In the cases of other countries, unilateral decisions that, in effect, reciprocated the actions of Russia and the United States would be the most practical way of proceeding. The actions that each of the states directly involved might take are described below. China We suggested in ' f i e GmvestDanger that a U.S.China Consultative Group for Strategic Security be established, along the lines of the US.-Russia group. This could be a vehicle for exchanging information concerning strategic nuclear force structures in each country. For China, a key agenda item probably would be the U.S. ballistic missile defense program, while for the United States, the Chinese ICBM modernization programs would be of interest. If both sides were convinced that their worst-case threat scenarios would probably not materialize, nuclear restraint would be easier to manage.
[ndie and Pakistan Both countries are already shotvvng restraint in their nuclear programs. In the environment we are projecting, third-country threats such as China would not increase to the level where a response, in the case of India, would bc required. That said, the tensions between the two countries of the subcontinent could foster a buildup of operationally deployed nuclear
forces. The point here is that the reductions programs we are advocating require an effort to resolve or at least contain regional conflicts. The impact on requirements for U.S. operationally deployed warheads of a worsening situation in regional conflict situations would be minimal, as noted above. Yet, the impact o n the force levels of other states, for example, China, could be more pronounced, and this could unravel the effort to reduce the salience of nuclear weapons on a global scale. In addition to political negotiations between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, measures to improve the safety and security of Indian and Pakistani nuclear forces would have a positive effect on the regional security environment. Indian and Pakistani cooperation with other nuclear-weapon states in this regard could run afoul of the NPT, but if properly calculated, the effort should strengthen the NPT regime.
Israel Resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be the first step in including Israel in a program to reduce the salience of nuclear weapons globally.
26 1 Therrafter, the most likely diploaatic track would be a resumption of disclrssions concerning a nuclearweapon-freezcne in t h e Middle East.
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The current effom by France, Germany, and the United Kingdom deserve :he stroag support of all other nudear-weapon states. If these discussions pros;xr, i: is lilrelp that security assuranceswill rise &entuaily to the top of the agenda, and In that case, the United States RW h a w to make a strategic decision about its fu-e relations with Iran. Iran will have to do the same. The most immediate need wouid be to reassure Iran that U.S. forces in the Middle East zre not a tlrezt to its security and in fact can serve Iran's interests in that v51at& region of the world.
would loom larger as the United States and Russia reduced their operationallydeployed nuclear warheads to the levels we believe should be possible. This suggests the UnUnited Kingdom and France would want to consider their force requirements in light of the levels that the United States and Russia are actually able to achieve. As in other cases, such as China, the mechanism to record any revised force IeveEs wculd be through unilateral decisions announced in consultations with other concerned states, probably in this case meaning Russia, first and foremost.
Coaper-stlan In BaBEistic Miissiis Dej;FesaSCi?
If the holdings of nuclear weapons by the United States 2nd other countries can be brought down to very low levels, an idea discussed during the MQrr;h K o r e a Reagan presidency should be reconsidered, that of "'defense dominance." In principle, there should be It may not be too late to reverse the North Korean a crossover point in the oifense-defenseequation nuclezr weapons piogram, although the prospects where defensive capabilities against ballistic missiles ~ Q Idoing that are not very bright. North Korea is exceed the ability of an attacker to penetrate ballistic a key factor in decisions that otha .4sian states missile defenses. In Reykjavik in 1986, Reagan may make concerningtheir own nuclear weapons ~ leader Mikhail Gorbachev a discussed w i Soviet status. Of these, Japan is the most consequential. plan to zero out all U.S. and Soviet ballistic missiles An overt Xorth Kcrean effort to enter the ranks of and to cooperate fully in ballistic missile defenses. the nuclear-weapon states, for example, by testing In doing so, Reagan was quite a nudear device and flight-testing consciously pursuing this argument a long-rangeb d h t i c missile would to its logical condusion. Is it too ~ a v major e repercussions on the much to think that such action may Asian geopolitical scene. POI that define a path leading to a world free reason, &forts to engage North of the curse of nuclear weapons? Koiea, as i? the six-party talks, are W e suggested in The Gravest essential despite the disappointing Danger that international results to date. Failing to d3 so or cooperation in ballistic missile ha;ing tried and Wed to reach an defense should be a key component accommodation, :he only resort will of a multinational coalition to be c o n t m e n t , in which the United combat the further spread of States and at5er regional powers nuclear weapons capabilities. In shoaid cooperate, of course, ir, a an environment where total global nonprovocative fashion.This calls numbers of deployed warheads for a posi3.r.e program of cooperation on ballistic missiles are in the few among ail of North Korea's neighbors hundreds, it would make sense to and others, rather than mobilizing have a joint ballistic missile defense a ~mrowlyconstructed anti-North program among cooperating states. Korean alliance. As in the Middle East it would help to stabilize their own and Smth Asia, an effort to reduce the strategic nuclear relationships with saliulce of nuclear weapons globally each other and would link them in to *he resolution or r e q ~ e attention s an effort to thwart the ambitions of ~~ntainm ~ ~ t codias. of ~regional In August 1998, Moeth Korea ncncooperating states. A cooperative slerprisedthe United S H e s by program to develop an international, conducting B Right test d is Taspo satellite-based early warning Bong-'8 medium-asnge ballistic system against potential missile missile. The mlssilab tihiid stage hailed, and North Korea has mot atxacks could further strengthen ccndueted another test of a Taepo these relationships. The principal Dong-typemissile since then.
262
President Ftenaid Reagan at the Reykjavik summit in October 1986 with (left) White House chief of staff Donald T. Regan and national security adviser John M. Poindsxtar. At Reykjavik, Reagan and Soviet leader RSikhail Gorbachev discussed eliminating sK ballistic missiies, but they failed to reach an agreement because of a dispute over U.S. missile defense efforts.
requirement for membership in this coalition would be a firm agreement that each of them will act in accordance with the prescriptions of the NPT. Bush and Putin formally agreed at Moscow in May 2002 that they would cooperate in baEistic missile defense
activities, but little has been done in this regard. The sole LI.S.-Russian joint missile defense project, the Russian-American Military Observation Satellite, was cancelled In 2004, arid no replacement program has been launched.
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Why the Urgency? hy not let well enough alone and take deeper reductions in U S. nuclear forces after 2012? Has the matter become m0re urgent since a few years ago? In our view, it has, There are four factors that necessitate deeper reductions faster. e The nonprolikration regime needs to be
strengthened, and it can be by a visible effort by Russia and the United States to reduce the salience of nudea: rveapns in their force postures. a
Neithcr Russia nor the United States will resolve their most basic national securicq problems through maintaining higher levels of nuclear weapons than necessary. Rathe?, they should focus more intently o n preventing the acquisition of nuclear materials by terrorist groups, an almost certain outcome if present trends continue.
(2) the post-Cold War regime estabiished mainly through the U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction program sponsored originally by Senators Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), and (3) the set of multinational arrangements put in place during Bush's first term, including the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), and UN Security Council Resolution 1540, designed to strengthen national controls over fissile material. Each of these three layers of defense would be strengthened by a more dramatic . .
o A tipping paint has k e n reached in Asia that could fead to a nuclear arms race there and %opressures on Russia and the United States to increase, rather than reduce, their nuclear forces. o
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Btldgetary pressures in Russia and in the United States indicate rhat, where unnecessary defense expenditme$ can be arjcided in favor of a mQre rationa! use of resources, perhaps in other areas of defense, t t i s s h s d d be done.
To amplify these points, first, as to the nailproliferation repine, Tenet told the Senate on March 9, 2004, that the proliferation pictwe "is changing befare our eyes; changing at a rate I have not seen since the end of the Cold War." It is a l i m e when the outccrne of a decades-long nonproliferation effort hangs in the balance. A failu:e to move vigorously to r n a i n t a i ~the nonprdiferation @me could lead to a world far more dangerom than at present. Here, it should bc r e d i e d thzi :he nonproliieratior, regime consists of several layers of defenses: {l)the global 110rms established by the K?TP mopitored by the International Atomic Energ)r Agency @AF..kj,and supporting export control regime: put into effect through the mechanism of the NP?;
"Grabie" wzs id 15 hiloion nuclear test ~ x ~ ~ Q s E fired o ~ on May 25, 3953 at the Nevada Test Site. The United Gtz?es conducted a total of 4,032 nuclear detonations; the Soviet Union conducted 780 test explosions. A total of seven states have ~anducted2,052 nuclear explosions since 1845.
264 China is accelerating its military buildup. Its 2004 U.S.-Russian turn away from reliance on nuclear budget was 11.6 percent larger than the 2003 budget, weapons and a turn toward stronger support for the according to Tenet’s report. Tenet added, “China is nonproliferation regime. also moving on with its first generation of mobile Second, the spread of nuclear technology, strategic missiles.” particularly for enriching uranium, has heightened Is another nuclear arms race just over the horizon? concerns that terrorists or rogue nations will acquire Quite possibly. Action is needed now to head it off, nuclear weapons. Regarding U.S. and Russian security, and not just because the results in themselves would it is generally agreed that the gravest threat they each be catastrophic. The sad and ironic fact is that these face is at the crossroads of technology and radicalism, competitive efforts would do nothing to deal with as Bush has put it. National resources and energy the more urgent threats of nuclear terrorism and of spent on supporting a higher level of strategic nuclear the increasing probability that, somewhere in the forces than necessary means that those national world, nuclear weapons will be used in warfare. In efforts are being misdirected. fact, a new arms race would only make the problem Third, in North Korea, Iran, and probably China, worse. national decisions are pending about how far to go For all these reasons, we judge that the urgency in developing strategic offensive forces. If the battle of getting on with deeper reductions in U.S. and to hold back this potential surge of nuclear buildups Russian operationally deployed nuclear warheads is lost, decisions will be made by other countries, is greater than the two nations’ leaders thought in certainly including Japan and probably, ultimately, 2001 and 2002. Both leaders clearly envisaged deeper Russia and the United States, which will restart a reductions and enshrined the idea nuclear arms race. Over the uast in a solemn document they signed. three decades, the nonproliferation is wrong-headed to regime has successfully staved off Now is the time to move toward place more reliance on dire uredictions that dozens of that vision, weapons when couitries would arm themselves The U.S. priority should be the nation’s chiefpriority timely and bold actions, consistent with nuclear weapons, but that nuclear nightmare could still unfold with U.S. national security needs, i s in preventing the if existing nuclear-weapon states to shore up international support further spread of these reverse their downward trend. for the nonproliferation regime. weapons. Fourth, regarding the budgetary Elsewhere in The Gravest Danger, squeeze, the Bush administration we have written of the need to buttress the NPT with adequate means of verifying requested for fiscal year 2006 a total budget of nearly $7 billion for funding nuclear weapons programs, and enforcing compliance. This includes the PSI an increase over the fiscal 2005 appropriations. Last to intercept proliferation in progress; the creation year, Congress did not grant the administration’s of regional centers under international control for supplying enriched uranium as fuel for power entire request, in particular for the research of earthpenetrating nuclear warheads and enhancing test reactors and reprocessing plutonium; enhanced site readiness. Congressional motivation in rejecting support for an expanded Cooperative Threat the administration’s request is exactly the same as Reduction program; and the Additional Protocol the argument being made here: it is wrong-headed allowing IAEA on-site inspections as appropriate. We to place more reliance on nuclear weapons when the have also called for economic and security guarantees nation’s chief priority is in preventing the further as the “carrots” to accompany the enforcement spread of these weapons. “sticks” for NPT compliance. The proposal presented In Russia, overall defense spending reportedly will above sets a practical, short-term goal for nuclear rise by 26 percent in 2005. The budget includes money force reductions that the United States could initiate for modernizing strategic offensive forces, among jointly with Russia and that the other nuclear powers them the development of a mysterious weapon, could subsequently join. We see it as enhancing the purported to be a hypersonic cruise missile, touted by nonproliferation regime by encouraging the present Putin. Russia is also pushing ahead with plans to field nuclear-weapon states to collaborate more effectively a mobile, land-based version of its Topol-M ICBM and together to roll back nuclear proliferation before it is a new sea-based ballistic missile, the Bulava. too late.
265
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Cold War Thinking About Nuclear Weapons
The First Decade, 1945-54 During the first decade after the obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and following the failure of US.-Soviet discussions about the possibility of mutual nuclear restraint, an all-out technical-industrial race to develop nuclear weapons began. The U.S. arsenal grew rapidly, driven by advancing technology and by mounting fears of the expansionist policies of the Soviet autocrat, Joseph Stalin. Starting with only a few primitive fission bombs in 1945, the U.S. arsenal, supported by a rapidly expanding production base, exceeded 3,000 bombs by 1955.9These weapons were mostly aircraft-delivered gravity bombs, but some low-yield weapons were also developed for battlefield use if needed to repel a Soviet attack on Western Europe. The danger of the actual use of nuclear weapons in combat, whether in Asia or in the event of an attack on Western Europe, loomed menacingly since the early years of the Cold War, which were marked by repeated crises, including the 1948 Berlin blockade and North Korea’s 1950 invasion of South Korea. The test of the first Soviet atomic bomb in 1949, followed by a Soviet buildup to an arsenal of several hundred bombs by 1955, raised tensions in an environment in which fear and suspicion were already pervasive. A wider range of military options became possible for both sides, given the growing numbers and sophistication of nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Competition in building hydrogen bombs (twostage fission-fusion bombs) commenced with the detonation of the initial U.S. device in 1952 and of the Russian one not long after. By the end of the first nuclear decade, 1945-1954, the United Kingdom also had become a nuclear-weapon state.
The Second Decade, 1955-64 During the second decade of the nuclear era, the buildup of nuclear arsenals accelerated. The Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first earth-orbiting
satellite, in 1957, signaling the advent of the age of ICBMs. Soon, the two superpowers could deliver hydrogen bombs anywhere in the world within about 30 minutes. Fears of a devastating surprise attack haunted military planners and political leaders. The response was not to rid the world of these weapons but rather to make them more survivable. France (1959) and China (1964) joined the United States, the Soviet Union, and the United Kingdom as nuclear-weapon states. The size of the world’s nuclear arsenals ballooned from slightly more than 3,000 in 1955 to more than 37,000 by 1965, with more than 99 percent held by the United States (approximately 31,000) and the Soviet Union (an estimated 6,000). Yet, also in this period, serious diplomatic discourse and formal negotiations between the West and the Soviet Union were resumed, after a lapse of several years, to address the risks of nuclear weapons. These risks included not only their use in combat, but also the environmental and health hazards created by nuclear fallout from test explosions and the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries. The question “What are nuclear weapons for?” was broadened to include: e
How can choices in force structure reduce the risk of pre-emptive use of these weapons in combat?
e
Through diplomatic means, can we make a start in containing the dangers of an unrestrained arms race, of radioactive fallout, and of proliferation of nuclear weapons?
In practice, as can be seen from the numbers above, the fear of surprise nuclear attack did next to nothing to limit the overall magnitude of the buildup of U.S. and Soviet nuclear forces. In fact, it spurred the buildup. The enormous growth during this decade was driven not only by political forces reacting to the strategic dangers on the world scene, but also by the irresistible lure of technology-multiple warheads on a single missile and much greater accuracy, for
9. This and the following estimates of force levels are taken from R.S. Norris and T.B.Cochran, Nuclear Weapons Databook: US-U.S.S.R./Russian Strategic Offensive Nuclear Forces, 1945-96. (Washington, D.C.: Natural Resources Defense Council, January 1997).
266 example-which opened doors for new missions for nuclear weapons. It was a matter of worst-case threat analysis feeding the most optimistic technical projections. Mounting fears about nuclear war were driven during this period by a number of events: the Soviet repression of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik, the 1961 construction of the Berlin Wall, and the test of the Soviet Union’s largest nuclear device that same year. The 1962 Cuban missile crisis appeared to give confirmation to the inevitability of nuclear catastrophe. Of key importance for the United States in those circumstances was the survivability of its deterrent forces. This problem was managed by deploying a broad array of retaliatory systems to ensure a capacity for inflicting massive and unacceptable destruction in response to any pre-emptive first strike by an enemy. This force included the B-52 bombers that could take off under severe threat conditions and be recalled if desired; a land-based ICBM force in hardened underground silos that could be destroyed only by weapons targeted and delivered with precise accuracy and little, if any, warning; and a mobile naval force of nuclear-powered Polaris submarines with prolonged underwater endurance that could sail undetected and thus were invulnerable to a potential first strike. The U.S. strategic triad was put in place during this decade. It remains in place today. The stated U.S. force mission was not pre-emption, but deterrence by threat of nuclear retaliation. It was to convince the Soviet Union that, no matter how successful a nuclear attack on the United States and its forces might be, U.S. retaliatory capability would inflict unacceptable devastation on the attacker. The Soviet Union made similar claims about its intentions and forces, but it was increasingly difficult for either side to accept such assurances at face value. So, it had become politically important to moderate and, if possible, dispel fears of nuclear pre-emption. Otherwise, those fears would drive out all possibility of finding a cooperative solution to the nuclear dilemma and become a selffulfilling prophesy. As early as 1956, the creation and deployment of thermonuclear weapons led Eisenhower to remark, “We are rapidly getting to the point that no war can be won.“ He added that conventional wars can be fought to exhaustion and surrender, but nuclear war can come close to “destruction of the enemy and suicide.” In this spirit, Eisenhower led an effort to initiate a broad dialogue on nuclear dangers and also peaceful benefits, with the 1955 Atoms for Peace Conference and the 1956 creation of the IAEA. Additional diplomatic initiatives to limit the explosive testing of nuclear weapons were pursued at a disarmament conference in London in 1957.
Following the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, President John F. Kennedy stepped up efforts to achieve a treaty banning nuclear weapons testing. This succeeded in part in 1963 with a limited treaty ruling out all tests except those conducted underground. A technical effort had been initiated earlier, under Eisenhower and starting with the U-2 flights, to penetrate the Iron Curtain by photo and electronic reconnaissance from space to gauge the growing threats better, without either under- or overestimating them. Eventually, this made it possible to begin the negotiation of subsequent strategic nuclear arms agreements with verifiable limits on offensive nuclear deployments. Throughout this decade, there was a growing appreciation that the only rational mission for nuclear weapons was for a second-strike retaliation as a way of deterring potential enemy attack. In the Kennedy administration, U.S. doctrine began to emphasize conventional arms buildups as the more realistic alternative response to threats. Kennedy graphically expressed the dangers nuclear arsenals posed to survival on June 10, 1963: Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all of the Allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn.
The Third Decade, 1965-74 During the third decade of the nuclear era, the concept of deterrence by mutual assured destruction was elaborated, with added nuances and requirements. With improving accuracy of missiles and the variety of reliable nuclear warheads being deployed, both nations started developing strike forces with counterforce capability against hardened military and industrial targets. Technology inspired scenarios of controlled strikes, that is, limited attacks by nuclear weapons as opposed to an all-out massive strike, and protracted nuclear war. It also inspired concerns that the advantages of a first strike might tempt an opponent to attack in order to end up “relatively better ofY in the nuclear rubble. Warfighting doctrines replaced simple massive retaliation threats as the best means of sustaining nuclear deterrence. Technological advances in weaponry were accompanied by broadening diplomatic efforts to try to cap the nuclear arms competition. Two new nations, India and presumably Israel, became
267 de fact0 nuclear-weapon states during this period, and concerns about proliferation led to the negotiation of the NPT, which entered into force in 1970. This treaty became the cornerstone of a worldwide effort to freeze the number of nuclear-weapon states. As expressed in the preamble to the NPT and in Article VI of that treaty, the original five nuclear-weapon states were committed to efforts to reduce the nuclear arms competition and eventually to eliminate nuclear weapons. The rate of growth in the total numbers of nuclear weapons slowed somewhat during this period. The total inventories of the two superpowers reached 47,000, comprising more than 98 percent of the world’s total. While the estimated U.S. total decreased slightly to 27,000, the Soviet Union’s arsenal increased to 20,000. As the U.S. and Soviet numbers of nuclear weapons converged, their negotiations focused on limiting those forces directly threatening each other’s homeland. These negotiations became known as the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT). The advent of multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs),which enabled single missiles to deliver multiple warheads with precision against separate targets, complicated the SALT negotiations. A first strike by MIRVed ICBMs targeted against the silos of an opponent’s ICBM force could destroy many more missiles than used in the attack. This ratio would thereby give an advantage to the first attacker by seriously diminishing the opponent’s retaliatory force. MIRVing had the result of significantly increasing the total number of warheads and opened up the possibility of targeting a broader array of industrial sites and military installations. Yet, negotiations failed to limit MIRVing. New targets were added to an already long list in the war plans. The increasing accuracy of missiles made counterforce a more attractive strategic option. Post-war recovery of the enemy also became a consideration for targeteers. MIRVing pointed to a conclusion that it would be more important for arms control agreements to focus on limiting warheads rather than delivery systems. However, the technology of photoreconnaissance satellites circling the earth in space could not count the individual warheads, and the state of US.-Soviet relations was such that direct inspection of the delivery vehicles was unacceptable. Therefore, the arms control talks focused on limiting the number of long-range bombers and missile launchers for nuclear weapons. Ballistic missile defense had been under study in the United States since shortly after World War 11. The first major U.S. effort to deploy some defenses against a nuclear attack commenced in the last years of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration and, before that, in the Soviet Union. Subsequently, the ABM Treaty was concluded in 1972 as part of the SALT
negotiations. It recognized the limits of technology in providing such a defense but allowed for thin system deployments, more for cosmetic than real military purpose. In the United States, these deployments were eventually dismantled, being of little or no value. At the same time, the United States and the Soviet Union signed an Interim Agreement to limit their number of deployed ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles as well as their modernization programs. The treaty also recognized the legitimacy of verifying treaty compliance using national technical means (i.e., satellites in earth-circling orbits). Despite these successes, the two superpowers remained poised eyeball to eyeball, with their nuclear pistols cocked. Mutual assured destruction, a phrase popularized by McNamara, continued to be accepted as an inescapable condition of the nuclear age. Nuclear weapons were not used in the bitter war in Vietnam, just as they had not been used earlier in Korea. This extended the tradition of non-use, even in otherwise unwinnable conflicts.
The Fourth Decade, 1975-84 The fourth decade of the nuclear era was a period in which force modernization continued apace and the size of the Soviet nuclear weapons stockpile almost doubled to approximately 39,000 while the U.S. force shrank slightly to 23,000 warheads. The two superpowers continued to possess more than 98 percent of all the nuclear weapons in the world and the nuclear club was enlarged, surreptitiously, by only one nation, South Africa. After the ABM Treaty and two strategic offensive arms limitation treaties, SALT I and SALT 11, little negotiating progress was made with the Soviet Union under several years of transitional leaders in the Kremlin and as anti-dktente attitude hardened in the United States. President Jimmy Carter withdrew SALT I1 from Senate consideration following the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Soviet deployment of MIRVed SS-20 missiles, designed to target Western Europe, led to countermeasures by NATO in the form of intermediate-range nuclear forces. The decision to deploy these forces, made by NATO in 1979, was implemented in 1983 after a failed negotiation to limit such deployments on both sides. When Reagan took office in 1981, he proposed that the total number of nuclear warheads should be reduced rather than simply capped at higher levels. Later, in 1983, he launched perhaps the most contentious and potentially significant initiative in this decade: the proposal to build a missile defense shield, despite the ABM Treaty’s prohibitions, in an effort to break out of the doctrine of mutual assured destruction by providing significant protection against ballistic missile attack.
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The Fifth Decade, 1985-94 In the fifth decade of the nuclear era, fundamental political developments took place in relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. With the rise of Gorbachev and the development of a productive relationship between him and Reagan, a number of assumptions about the threat were swept away on both sides. In the aftermath of the deadly 1986 accident at the Soviet nuclear reactor in Chernobyl, worldwide concern about the dangers of nuclear conflict were heightened significantly, especially in the Soviet Union. At the landmark October 1986 meeting between Reagan and Gorbachev in Reykjavik, the two leaders discussed the elimination of all ballistic missile systems. Stymied by differences on what limits to put on ABM research and development, they settled for progress in the negotiations to ban all intermediaterange ballistic missiles. This culminated in a treaty which they signed in 1987 to eliminate all such ground-launched missiles from U.S. and Soviet arsenals. Beyond that, the impulse given to nuclear reductions at Reykjavik led to enough progress in the strategic arms reduction talks (START) thereafter that an agreement was within reach by 1989 when George H. W. Bush took office. Bush and Gorbachev signed the START I treaty in July 1991. This treaty, for the first time, called for major reductions in the number of accountable strategic nuclear warheads and for a ceiling on such warheads of 6,000 for each country. This progress was based on procedures allowing onsite inspection that made verifying limits on numbers of warheads for each type of missile and aircraft possible. Further progress in negotiations between Bush and Yeltsin led to agreement on deeper cuts in strategic forces, to 3,000-3,500, formalized with the January 1993 signing of START 11. This treaty never entered into force, however, even after modification by Clinton and Yeltsin in 1997 to accommodate some practical Russian concerns about the pace of reductions. Moscow announced that it would no longer consider itself bound by its START 11 signature following the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty in June 2002. The Kremlin’s act was largely symbolic given the conclusion of SORT a month earlier.
Shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Bush and Gorbachev also agreed to reciprocal unilateral steps to reduce their tactical nuclear weapon systems. In 1992, beginning with the unilateral declaration by Bush of a moratorium on underground nuclear explosive testing in response to congressional pressure, the path to negotiations on a lasting ban on all nuclear testing was opened. These developments played an effective role in the 1995 indefinite extension of the NPT. By the end of this fifth decade of the nuclear era in 1994, there had been a drop of roughly one-third in the total nuclear forces in the world, with the U.S. number dropping to slightly less than 15,000and Russia reducing to approximately 27,000. This decade ended with no net increase in the number of nuclearweapon states, but the group was joined by Pakistan, while South Africa gave up its nuclear weapons. Also during this period, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus, which had become de fact0 nuclear-weapon states upon the dissolution of the Soviet Union, renounced any nuclear ambitions and returned nuclear warheads stationed on their soil to Russia. This era marked significant progress in the rethinking of the purpose of nuclear weapons. Renewed consideration was given to certain questions. o How many nuclear weapons are enough?
What is the remaining mission for nuclear weapons after the Cold War? o How can the concerns of non-nuclear-weapon
countries about the discriminatory nature of the nonproliferation regime be met? The fact of mutual assured destruction as a basis
for nuclear deterrence between the United States and Russia remained long after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Eventually, new thinking challenged the notions of deterrence based upon mutual assured destruction, and with this came a realization that the high levels of nuclear weapons that still existed could not be justified.
269
U.s. and Russioian Strategic Nuclear Forces
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S. Drell
IN THE SHADOW OF THE BOMB May 20,2005 Luncheon Talk American Committee for the Weizmann Institute San Francisco, CA Most, if not all of us, have experienced the disappointment of arriving at an event, expecting to hear or see a great star in action, only to be disappointed. Perhaps Pavarotti had to cancel with a sore throat or Barry Bonds had a bum knee. But I never thought much about how the stand-in or the pinch hitter must have felt in such a situation. Now I know, and my disappointment is even greater. I am here because George Shultz, a good friend of Israel, and whom I also have the pleasure of counting as a close friend, learned only recently that it is simply impossible for him to be here. Together with many millions in this country, in Israel, and around the world, I have enormous admiration for what George stands for and what he has accomplished as a great American and statesman who numbers among his many achievements working with President Reagan to make possible the immigration of Soviet Jews to Israel. There is no secret about his great admiration and strong support for Israel as a nation built on the bedrock principles of democracy and sustained by a courageous citizenry that has had to fight for their very survival throughout the entire 57 years of their existence. And amidst these major challenges, a nation and a people with the culture and the wisdom to create and support one of the world’s greatest institutions of science and culture, the Weizmann Institute, a treasure for the entire world. I am sure that George, were he here today, would be expressing his strong support and admiration for the Weizmann Institute, not only for its scientific achievements but for what it has contributed to every aspect of Israel’s economy and education. I am pleased that I have this opportunity to join him in expressing my own great admiration for the Weizmann Institute. While my cultural ties to Israel, and to the struggle of the Jewish people leading up to its creation, extend back to my childhood, my professional interest and close contact with the Weizmann Institute date back to the early 1950’s. That is when I met an extraordinary individual, Amos de Shalit. Amos was a brilliant scientist and patriot who was devoted to Weizmann and to Israel. He dedicated himself to achieving the high aspirations of both, serving as Weizmann’s scientific director and founding its outstanding department of nuclear physics. We met as young researchers starting our careers in theoretical physics at MIT, and with our families developed a close bond of fiiendship. Tragically Amos was struck down by cancer in his early 40’s but those here who, like me, had the privilege of knowing him will never forget him. Amos was truly a beautiful person. It was he who introduced me to the Weizmann Institute, which I have visited many times during the past half century, and with which I have developed a long and close relationship. Evidence of this bond of which I am most proud is the large number of senior physicists at Weizmann who started their research careers at the
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Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, and continue to interact with us to our mutual benefits. A most outstanding example of this is your former president, Haim Harari. He came to my theory group at SLAC in 1965 for his first research appointment on the wings of a very strong and prescient recommendation fiom Amos, and he still returns fkequently with exciting new ideas. Weizmann has been a second home to me and I am pleased and proud to see it today, continuing its tradition of great science and scientific leaders. From George Shultz, I presume you would also be hearing a broad and masterful analysis of the strategic challenges, dangers, and opportunities that we must face up to in the world today. And by “we” I mean the great majority of nations and people who seek a 2 1St century that will be remembered in history by its achievements in peacefd progress toward a better human condition, rather than by the devastating world conflicts, the depravity of a holocaust, and massive starvation and disease that are burned into the record of the 20th century. I cannot and will not attempt such a review. I remember the admonition of Albert Einstein that “Politics is much harder than physics.” You may think otherwise because of the mysterious formulas, the sophisticated instruments, and the conhsing terminology that physicists rely on - like quarks with color interacting with gluons. But remember: we can do controlled, repeatable experiments and check our predictions and results against nature. There is no question about when we are right or wrong. You can’t do that in the world of politics. I will stick with Einstein. This year we are celebrating the centenary of the miracle year of scientific discovery, 1905, when Einstein, in addition to his three other Nobel Prize level works, wrote his famous equation E = M C 2 , an equation that is seared in our minds by the total annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that ended WWII in 1945. In 1905, Einstein, of course, had no idea of the full significance and ultimate impact on civilization of his scientific work. Science after all is a voyage of discovery through uncharted waters to unknown shores. However its advances spawn new technologies. They can be enormously beneficial for the human condition, and most have been. But they also have a potential for creating grave new dangers if misapplied. This presents societies with policy choices that are important and often very difficult. I believe the scientific community has a moral obligation to use our special insights to assist society to make wise choices in applying new technologies. Einstein realized this in 1939 when the discovery of fission, together with E = MC2 made it conceivable that we could build bombs 10’s of thousands of times more destructive than their predecessors. This led him to address a letter to President Roosevelt alerting the g o v e m e n t to this danger and urging him to put the scientific and technical talent of the United States - a talent strengthened enormously by the flux of refugee scientists - many of them Jewish - fleeing the Nazi holocaust - to work to make sure we beat Hitler to the bomb. The critical importance of these immigrant scientists to our winning that race - and the comparable value of the rich talent flowing to Israel with the Jewish immigrants fiom Russia - should serve as stark reminders to those who, in the name of post 9/11 security, have placed harmful obstacles to the flow of scientific talent to our shores. It will hurt us greatly in the long run.
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In 1945, after two atomic bombs annihilated Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Einstein was again in the forefront as a moral leader urging the governments and the people of the world to wake up to the terrible dangers that the existence of such weapons of massive destruction posed. He warned of the urgent need to control the beasts and cautioned about the dangers we face as a result of the unleashed power of the atom, since, as he said, “everything has changed but our way of thinking.” The world was slow to respond and nuclear arsenals grew rapidly - particularly during the early days of the Cold War as we confronted a hostile Kremlin. The United States and the former Soviet Union stood toe to toe with their fingers on the trigger ready to launch, perhaps by accident or misunderstanding if not deliberately, many thousands of nuclear warheads to annihilate one another. In 1956, during his presidency, Dwight Eisenhower remarked that with nuclear weapons war can now lead to “the destruction of the enemy and suicide.” The prospect of a nuclear holocaust was all too real. The fate of civilization as we know it lay in the balance. Eventually however the great danger of nuclear weapons, and the grim realities and futility of nuclear war, began to sink in - especially after the development of hydrogen bombs, or thermonuclear weapons, which are a thousand times more powerful than the atomic bomb of Hiroshima. Nations around the world recognized the necessity of working together to avoid nuclear conflicts. And we succeeded with American leadership playing an important role. The proliferation of nuclear weapons was limited to no more than a handful of nations; and a norm of their non-use in military combat was established that has lasted 60 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is all the more impressive when you recall that, during those 60 years, the United States was engaged in otherwise unwinnable wars in Korea and Viet Nam; and the Soviet Union faced the same situation in Afghanistan. It became widely recognized that nuclear weapons were not just another instrument of warfare. However, although the Cold War specter of a nuclear holocaust has passed, at least for the time being, a grave new danger has emerged. It is the growing danger of nuclear weapons and the material that fbels them being acquired by very dangerous hands, whether they be those of state leaders or terrorists, unrestrained by the norms of civilized behavior. This danger arises because the technology to manufacture nuclear weapons is spreading worldwide, and is potentially available to people of evil intent, including suicidal terrorists. The gravest danger as President Bush has said lies at the crossroads of technology and radicalism. Today the top priority for the United States, for Israel, and for all nations seeking progress and peace, must be to prevent that danger from developing. This won’t be easy and recent events are discouraging. But there is reason for hope based on what we managed to accomplish in getting through the darkest days of the Cold War.
A key element of our Cold War success was the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) which entered into force in 1970,35 years ago, and has been signed and ratified by all but 4 of the world’s 191 nations. At this very moment, as we speak, it is undergoing its regularly scheduled five-year review at the United Nations in New York. The crucial challenge facing the delegates is this. In view of the technologies that are now widely
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available, can they craft and agree to new provisions that will make the treaty more effective in preventing the most dangerous people from getting their hands on the most dangerous weapons? The NPT is based on a grand bargain. Nations without nuclear weapons agree not to acquire them. In return, the nuclear weapon states will make available to them the peaceful benefits of nuclear energy in the form of nuclear medicine and civilian power reactors. The problem with this arrangement is that with today’s technology, any nation that acquires the industrial infrastructure to operate nuclear reactors for civilian power, in accord with the treaty, also has the essential ingredients to make atomic bombs. It thus becomes a nascent or latent nuclear power. How can we prevent countries from using this path to approach the nuclear threshold? Is it at all possible to? I believe yes, but as a result of the spread of new technologies, it will require broad international agreement to supplement the current provisions in the treaty. Specifically new and more intrusive protocols that permit challenge, on-site inspections of all suspect activities are needed in order to assure compliance with restrictions on weapon related work. You may recall that this was an issue with Saddam Hussein in Iraq and currently is being attempted with some difficulty in Iran. In addition, cooperative procedures will be required to enforce export controls and to interdict illegal shipments of nuclear fuel and equipment, such as gas centrifuge systems, for enriching uranium into bomb fuel. Progress has been made on these issues, but there still is a long way to go. These are the issues on the table at the NPT conference right now. There are also important technical dimensions to a campaign against proliferation, particularly better intelligence to identify emerging threats before it is too late to do something about them. But above all, strong and enlightened U.S. leadership is required. We are the world’s only superpower, and together with Russia, the possessors of more than 90% of all the nuclear weapons in the world. Choices made by Washington and Moscow on nuclear policy issues matter. I’m not talking about whether they will effect decisions by Kim Jong I1 in North Korea. I mean their impact on gaining the cooperation and support that we need fiom all other nations on whom we must rely to join us in implementing the cooperative measures that I have just identified, in order to be able to ensure compliance with anti-proliferation measures. An example of an important policy choice by both Russia and the United States would be implementing deep reductions in the sizes of their nuclear arsenals. Such a visible effort to reduce the salience of their nuclear weapons would be a big step toward meeting increasingly voiced concerns by the non-nuclear nations who complain that the restrictions of the nonproliferation regime discriminate against them; reducing those concerns would encourage, and strengthen, their willingness to cooperate in nonproliferation efforts.
Furthermore, there is no need to retain the thousands upon thousands of nuclear bombs that we and the Russians possess now. As declared officially by Presidents Bush
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and Putin two months after 9/11, we have “overcome the legacy of the Cold War”; and are allied as partners against the terrorist threat. Large numbers of nuclear weapons have nothing to do with deterring Islamic fundamentalists who welcome martyrdom in any form. Moreover major reductions in their number will leave many fewer targets available for the theft of nuclear materials, which is the most direct way for dangerous leaders or terrorist entities to acquire nuclear weapons. Of particular concern in this regard is the large quantity of dangerous nuclear materials stored in many dozens of poorly guarded sites throughout the former Soviet Union. Russia’s stockpile, a legacy of the Cold War, is the largest in the world. It contains enough fuel for upward of 70,000 nuclear bombs. We have made significant progress to secure these sites in cooperation with the Russians under the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, funded by the U.S. Congress since 1992. This is commonly known as the Nunn-Lugar Program after the two senators, Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar, who proposed this important initiative. But today a lot more works remains to be done. Less than half of the material is secure. In their powerful report for the Secretary of Energy issues in 2002, a blue ribbon panel chaired by former Senator Howard Baker and White House counselor, the late Lloyd Cutler, wrote that this stash of materials represents “the most urgent unmet national security threat.” The report also strongly recommended raising the priority of this program, expanding it, and increasing its funding. These recommendations have yet to be adequately implemented. Too bad.
So far I have only discussed measures to dry up the supply of the fuel for making nuclear weapons. However, serious sustained progress against proliferation inevitably will also require patient negotiations to reduce, if not remove, the demand for nuclear fuel; i.e. we must deal with the basic motivations for states to acquire nuclear weapons. What motivates them: a wish for security guarantees; economic aid, including guaranteed supplies of energy; regonal instability? A key unresolved issue is how to guarantee energy security to treaty signatories who seek nuclear power. One do this would guarantee them access to the necessary fuel for controversial proposal to operating their civilian nuclear reactors, but the fuel itself would remain under international control. The complexity of these issues and the difficulty in reaching consensus is evident in the daily news. But recalling our success in getting through the Cold War years, there is no reason to despair, and every reason for the community of nations to work the problem with patience, intensity, and creative diplomacy, as we did through the Cold War.
To be realistic, however, we must face the prospect that, despite our best efforts, we may fail to keep dangerous people from getting their hands on the most dangerous material. They may do so by theft, illegal purchase, or simply by refusing to cooperate with our anti-proliferation efforts, and initiating steps to make their own nuclear weapons. What do we do then? Of course we cannot rule out the use of force under any circumstance, but we also have to recognize that, while the potential use of force is a component of effective diplomacy, its actual use brings its own serious risks and raises tough new questions. Against whom? Which targets? When and how?
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Preventive military action, i.e. the use of force in anticipation of a developing threat before it is fully formed, in contrast to preemptive action against an imminent threat, requires exquisite intelligence to evaluate the growing danger accurately and to identify the critical targets correctly. Most decisions to initiate preventive action have to be made even though there may be big uncertainties, as well as gaps and wrong information on essential facts. This is almost inevitable. It is the very nature of intelligence information. These circumstances may result in divided support and challenges to the legitimacy of the mission, or even its outright failure. That is all the more reason to exhaust all possible avenues of diplomacy before relying on force only as a last resort. This is a festive occasion - celebrating Albert Einstein’s genius and the great achievements of the Weizmann Institute. But as we admire the advances in science, and dream of deepening our understanding of the universe, we must not forget that we live in the shadow of the bomb. I am sorry to leave you with my concerns about the possible nightmares resulting from the proliferation of nuclear weapons. But it is a problem that the world must continue to work - urgently. We cannot put the nuclear genie back in the bottle. The knowledge of the bomb cannot be erased. It is a noble thing to strive for a world that achieves such human perfection that the complete elimination of nuclear weapons would be more than a distant dream. I fear that such a day is far beyond the horizon of the most ambitious plans of the world’s visionaries. For our time, the most compelling imperative is to avoid nuclear wars and to contain and diminish the potential for nuclear devastation. These weapons are unique in their terrifying potential for massive destruction on an unprecedented and unimaginable scale. With them, for the first time in history mankind has the capacity to threaten human survival. Their challenge to us was eloquently summarized in a talk by Father Bryan Hehir, a catholic priest, who also served for some years as Dean of the Harvard Divinity School:
For millennia people believed that if anyone had the right to call the ultimate moment of truth, one must name that person God. Since the dawn of the nuclear age we have progressively acquired the capacity to call the ultimate moment of truth and we are not gods. But we must live with what we have created.
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Chapter V
Memorials to Four Colleagues who were Great Scientists and Citizens
Chapter V includes the text of five speeches presented at memorial conferences celebrating the lives and contributions of four individuals who were revered both as great physicists and as leaders in the efforts to see that progress in science was used for the betterment of humanity. Amos de Shalit was a contemporary of mine, a distinguished nuclear physicist, and very close personal friend who worked throughout his short life to ensure that the government in his native country, Israel, recognized the importance of basic research in building a society. He also strove diligently to develop trust and internationalcooperation as essential ingredients for both peace and good science. Viki Weisskopf was my mentor, and a wonderful partner for many enjoyable evenings of violin/piano sonata playing. Throughout his life he devoted himself to improving international cooperation as essential for the advancement of science, and for the improvement of relations between countries with adversarial political relations. Hans Bethe, mentor and friend, was both a great scientist and an important leader among those who felt and acted on the responsibility of the scientific community to help governments and society to reap the benefits and avoid the potentially harmful impact of scientific advances. He made major contributions to nuclear arms control and the development of civilian nuclear power. My previous book "In the Shadow . . included an adaptation of my talk at a memorial symposium in Moscow on May 21, 1991 marking the 70th anniversary of Andrei Sakharov's birth. I concluded then: "Throughout his life, Andrei Sakharov sought to improve the world as he worked and fought against injustice and oppression as well as against the danger of nuclear war. The words Anatole France wrote to honor Emile Zola for his ultimately victorious quest for justice in the Dreyfus affair apply as an eloquent epitaph for Andrei Sakharov: 'His destiny and his courage combine to endow him with the greatest of fates. He was a moment in the conscience of humanity."' The first of the two essays in this chapter about Sakharov reviews diplomatic progress in reducing nuclear danger as seen five years later. It was presented at an international conference in Moscow in 1996 marking what would have been Sakharov's 75th birthday. The second essay is based on my speech at a conference at Stanford University in 1999 that reviewed his legacy 10 years after his death. .'I
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Talk at the Weizmann Institute Commemorating the 30thAnniversary of the Death of Amos deShalit October 26,1999 Amos deShalit: Statesman of Science Sidney D. Drell
Speaking at the Weizmann Institute 10 years ago at a similar occasion marking the 20th anniversary of Amos deShalit’s tragically premature death, I recalled our first meeting in 1952 and said the following: “We soon developed close bonds, as did our families, and I learned to appreciate and love Amos as the gentlest, wisest, and most honorable &end and colleague I have ever known. I grew to respect him as a creative scientist of the highest achievements and standards, a patriot of inexhaustible energy, a person of noble values, and, generally, a very beautiful person.” Today with the further passage of time those sentiments have been even more indelibly etched into my memory as I recall Amos’s extraordinary achievements, unfailing commitment to the highest standards and noblest values, and his devotion to his country, to peace, and to his family. Friendships with individuals such as Amos are among life’s richest experiences, and are cherished throughout one’s lifetime. At the memorial service 10 years ago Haim Harari noted that five different individuals, independently and on five different occasions remarked that when facing decisions in critical situations, they would ask themselves, ‘‘I wonder what Amos would have done.” It was indeed a natural reaction for those among us privileged to know Amos, and respect his judgment, his wisdom, and his objectivity. “What would Amos have done? What would he have thought?”
In his all-too-short lifetime, the breadth and depth of Amos’s contributions were legendary: contributions to scientific research, training, and education at all levels, here and around the world; contributions to the development of Israel’s scientific infrastructure and institutions during their early most formative stages; contributions to the quest for peace, stability and cooperation in the Middle East. With that record of achievements, Amos would be an extraordinary resource for us to turn to for the benefits of his thoughts and understanding whenever we face crises and opportunities. Today we are witness to great changes, here and around the globe, that bring challenges in the form of new opportunities and dangers. The Cold War may be over and, to the extent that one can declare a victor, democracy and freedom have won. But longstanding enmities based on ethnic, religious and racial differences remain, and all too frequently trigger bloody conflict. We are reminded daily of the numerous tasks before us if we are to succeed in building a safer 2lSt century and avoid repeating the unprecedented devastation and inhumane Holocaust that scarred a 20th century now in its final days. Many of our greatest new challenges have been generated by science and the technology it has spawned: the threat of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons of
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indiscriminate, and potentially massive, destruction; the emergence of virulent new strains of bacteria - by genetic engineering in the laboratory or by natural processes of mutation - that are resistant to currently known antibiotics; the accumulation of hazardous waste contaminating the environment; the threat of global climate change; and so on. As scientific progress continues at a breathtaking pace, the efforts of scientists such as Amos will be needed if we are to reap the benefits and avoid new dangers that accompany it. The importance of developing and marshaling the resources of science was recognized in the United States at the end of WWII as it organized itself to face challenges of the post war era. This was highlighted in the superb report that Vannevar Bush, the Director of the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development during WWII, prepared in 1945 for President Truman. In his perceptive and path breaking report entitled “Science: The Endless Frontier” Bush wrote: “Science, by itself, provides no panacea for individual, social, and economic ills. It can be effective in the national welfare only as a member of a team, whether the conditions be peace or war. But without scientific progress no amount of achievement in other directions can insure our health, prosperity and security as a nation in the modem world.” Bush also cautioned Washington that research is a difficult and often slow voyage over uncharted seas, and that scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free intellects working on subjects of their own choice in a manner dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown. Amos well understood all this and committed himself to the development of a strong, world-class scientific establishment to help Israel address its health needs, economic growth, and national security problems shortly after its birth as a nation in 1948. As is characteristic for an outstanding scientist that he was, Amos brought broad vision and optimism to his approach to practical problems. But Amos also brought something even more precious, and that is so very rare. And that is trust. Trust is the bedrock, the sine-qua-non for developing a productive dialog between scientists and the public and political leaders, as well as between neighbors and adversaries - whether they are former adversaries or potentially future ones. Amos was listened to with universal trust and respect. It came from his scientific colleagues around the world, as well as from his government. There was no room for doubt that he did the necessary hard work before offering his counsel. In presenting his views he unfailingly applied the same rigorous standards of objectivity, integnty, and care that were the trademark of his creative scientific work. If you asked Amos what he would do, you knew that his views would be based solidly on principle, but would also be tempered with a healthy pragmatism in pursuit of the possible, enroute to the ideal - that distant star “to stay our minds on and be staid” in the words of the American poet Robert Frost. Ten years ago I spoke about Amos’ vision and optimism, and the trust with which he was viewed. The record was very impressive based upon what I knew then, personally as well as from what I learned. Preparing my remarks for today and with new information made available to the public in recent years, I find the record of Amos’ contributions and influence even more remarkable. His was the wisdom of Solomon to
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insist in 195lwhen he returned from his education in Europe and even before his postdoctoral year at MIT, where we met and kindled our fnendship, that the scientific future of Israel required developing an academically based teaching, training and research program in basic, as well as, applied science. He understood that basic research was essential to build a sturdy foundation, the very roots of a strong world-class scientific enterprise. This was a particularly important principle for Israel as it entered the world of modern nuclear physics. Given the precarious geopolitical situation that Israel faced then, and could anticipate as growing even more threatening for its foreseeable future, there were enormous pressures to move out swiftly and directly toward accomplishing strategic goals of immediate practical value. This was quite understandable. To Amos, with the wisdom of maturity, it was clear that such a course would, more likely than not, lead to failure, both for the short term and the long haul, unless there existed a solid foundation on which to build. He argued persuasively for planting and nurturing at the outset the strong roots in basic research that would be vital for Israel’s future. One important element of his success is the Weizmann Institute Department of Nuclear Physics, created and headed by Amos at the young age of 27, on May 1, 1954, 45 years ago. In this he was joined by similarly wise and far-seeing colleagues, one of whom I see here today: Igal Talmi. They planted a sturdy tree of science that, today, bears fruit with one of the outstanding physics departments in the world. I know from long experience how hard it is to keep the focus of a national commitment to science on basic research as a long-term investment in the future. Doing so is more than a desideratum; it is a necessity. This was also part of the message of Vannevar Bush that I referred to earlier. In the United States we often hear the crescendo of government voices attempting to define strategic goals and set the agenda for scientific research. There are recurring efforts to earmark congressionally appropriated funds for near terms goals based on an underlying and totally false assumption that one can program intellectual curiosity in exploring the unknown. Baruch Blumberg, Nobel Laureate and discoverer of the hepatitis-B virus which led to a lifesaving vaccine now used extensively, world-wide, addressed this point in a column that appeared in the Financial Times of London several years ago. He wrote that he started his research “from a question in basic science without a specific application in mind.” In his opinion, he wrote, this discovery would not have happened as fast, if at all, had he been assigned the task of finding hepatitis-B virus. Amos also clearly understood the important benefits to be gained from ensuring that an effective process be established to advance the new knowledge generated by basic research through the development cycle to practical applications. There are two very good reasons for this: with such a bond, the benefits of scientific progress will reach society, and will do so sooner. At the same time the new technologies made possible by science, will enable the design of powerful new instruments that make it possible to extend our ability to probe nature in the laboratory, and thereby further advance the frontiers of science. Amos expressed these ideas eloquently in an article that he wrote for the Tel Aviv daily Haaretz in 1963 pointing out that pure science is capable of becoming one of Israel’s profitable exports. He wrote:
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“The additional knowledge gained from research becomes in general the property of all who engage in that field. It does not belong exclusively to the scientist or of the body that “bought” his talents. This may sound strange; and it may sound even more peculiar that these bodies are willing to invest money under such conditions. But anyone who follows the trend of industrial and economic development throughout the world quickly learns that it is not necessarily the possession of new knowledge which determines the pace and direction of these activities; or it is rather an alert eye to the potentialities of the knowledge.”
How fortunate for Israel and the world at large that your leaders had the wisdom to turn to Amos - and people like him - and to trust them and recognize the wisdom of their advice. The great scientific community now flourishing here in many fields of science, and your aggressive process of proceeding through the stage of development to industrial application have been a benefit and a model far beyond Israel’s borders. Amos also understood very well - how often one says “Amos also understood very well” - the importance of developing economic interdependence with ones neighbors as a means to help change their relationship from hostility to cooperation, and to develop a stability and peace in the Mid East. There is no escape for nations here and elsewhere from the need to share scarce resources. There is no escape from the imperative of building trust, respect, and cooperation with ones neighbors. I recall hearing of his enthusiastic efforts and optimistic vision in working to create cooperative projects between Israel and its neighbors in scientific and technical education and in advanced agncultural methods. Immediately following the six-day war in 1967 Amos spelled out his vision in this regard in a letter to scientific colleagues around the world. In it he spoke of the challenge to bring a meaningful peace to this area in the Mid East. “If peace is arranged so that the economies of the countries become deeply interwoven, the chances of its being a real peace are increased tremendously. One can think of a large petrochemical industry in Israel which is connected with the oil industry of a neighboring country, or of a combined desalination - power plant which stands in one territory and feeds the other, or a combined irrigation project using the Jordan River, or a cotton industry in Israel based on the cotton in Egypt, or of many other similar projects.” In this spirit, Amos and his colleagues in the so-called Rehovoth Group that was formed following the 1967 war helped formulate principles for cooperative economic development in the Mid East. The principles of the Rehovoth Group, as stated in their manifesto, emphasize cooperative economic development to raise the standard of living among all of Israel’s neighbors, and help build and plant the seeds of an economically healthy and cooperative region. In the words of their manifesto: “To create a peace with both substance and content which will in turn bring in its wake suitable frameworks for normal relationships between Israel and its neighbors.” The importance of reestablishing relations and developing cooperation with former enemies was a constant, universal theme of Amos’s. The depths of his conviction, his appreciation of the difficulties, and the special role of science in getting the process started are all revealed in this excerpt from a speech he gave in Munich, Germany, in the
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summer of 1962 at a meeting of the Max Planck Gesellschaft in honor of the Weizmann Institute: “The history of relations between Israel and Germany is marked by the very unfortunate happenings in the not to distant past. These times are not forgotten, cannot be forgotten and, to my mind, should not be forgotten. However, the Torah teaches us that we should not hold children responsible for the deeds of their parents, a whole community responsible for the deeds of individuals no matter how large their number is. Loyal to this principle, I believe we should try to reestablish relations, and scientific cooperation probably forms the best first step. I hope that by understanding each other we can make sure that the happenings of the past will never repeat themselves, and warn other nations who may be blindly reaching such horrible situations, to stop before it is too late.” We may hope that such vision, optimism, understanding and wisdom of the Torah, and of other great religions, will prevail in the efforts to heal the wounds of the past and realize the promise of the future as the peace process unfolds in the Mid East; and also in so many other troubled regions - in Africa, the Balkans, and Ireland as we are reminded by tragic news reports. I have to think Amos, were he here today, would look with renewed optimism at the political developments of the last few years in the Mid East, from the Wye accords up to the present tentative and fragile begmning of expanded dialogues with Israel’s neighbors. I can just see and hear him thinking out loud of what needs to be done and what it is practical to think of doing - for his hopes were always tempered by realism - to make genuine progress toward lasting peace and stability in this volatile area of the world.
I have no doubts whatsoever that he would be working hard to build a consensus among Israeli scientists and scientists in your neighboring countries in support of bold new initiatives to build regional collaboration in scientific research and training. I wonder what Amos would think about a recent proposal toward that goal, initiated by my colleague at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Herman Winick. His idea is to move an existing synchrotron light source, that has been offered by Germany fiee of charge, from Berlin to the Middle East and upgrade it into a more powerful instrument capable of research at the scientific frontiers. This research facility would be the centerpiece of a Middle East center of scientific excellence that would be accessible to scientists from all nations in the region, including of course Israel and the Palestinian Authority. This past June the Director General of UNESCO, Frederico Mayor, stated at a meeting hosted in Paris that “UNESCO is ready and eager to help” in the efforts to relocate the synchrotron and build this project, as it did with the great Center for European Nuclear Research, or CERN, in Geneva shortly after WWII. As Mr. Mayor said “The Middle East project would in turn become a quite extraordinary example of science overcoming divisions to bring nations together in the spirit of peace and cooperation. .. offering an impressive practical illustration of ‘science for peace’.’’ There are many obstacles before this plan can be hlfilled, including the need for a substantial amount of money for developing and operating such a facility. But there is broad scientific interest. A number of countries have expressed their support in principle as well as their interest in hosting the laboratory. Such a facility, located presumably outside of Israel, would be well suited for studies in structural biology, in environmental science, and for other applications of hard x-rays in areas which would make it
competitive with more modem and advanced machines. This kind of thinking, this vision for the future, is intriguing. Perhaps there are better and more practical ideas than this for developing scientific cooperation, both for science and for peace. Perhaps not. I am sure that Amos would put this proposal to the same tests he used in guiding the initial stages of Israel’s scientific development. Beyond its purely scientific merits, Amos would insist that the project is matched to the scientific and technical talent available to complete and operate it successfully. In addition he would need to be convinced that it would provide the desired training opportunities for nurturing a strong regional scientific-technical community. Always looking ahead in terms of practical possibilities, Amos was particularly mindful of the dangers as well as the benefits that accompanied the latest advances in atomic and nuclear physics. He expressed his concerns in a speech he made here during the last year of his life. In it Amos noted that the peaceful atom owes its fame and status to its older brother, the war-like offensive atom, and emphasized the importance of pursuing ways, and I quote him, “to make the atomic family us rather than &p us.” For this, and for several of the earlier quotes that I cited, I am indebted to Ilana Eisen who collected some of Amos’ speeches and writings for me. I gained from them new insight into the broad range of his activities and of his views of interesting topics. I was moved, in particular, to learn that Amos already at the tender age of 10 years exhibited a strong social conscience and a desire to help other children in less fortunate circumstances. Here is a direct quote from an excerpt from his diary: “Yesterday I started to learn harmony in theory classes. First I learned unharmony, that means changing the name without the changing the note. The music class was successful. Today I had an idea to establish a fund in the class for the benefit of the poor children of Yaffo. Who knows what their fate will be. Participants in the fund would be only those who undertake to give a set sum every week (at least 2 mils).” I refer to one more thought of Amos’ because it is a reflection on his own scientific career. I am sure many of you here recall, and the younger you are the more likely, Jacques’ soliloquy in William Shakespeare’s play “As You Like It” that starts with the famous line “All the world’s a stage”. He goes on to list the seven stages of man, moving up from infancy to schoolboy, lover, soldier, and eventually back down to a second childishness and mere oblivion. I was reminded of those lines by reading Amos’s own characterization of the three periods in the active life of a scientist. In the first period, as he described it, a scientist worked in a non--prestigious corner concentrating all his efforts on tackling his problems and manifesting his full ingenuity. Following success there, the scientist starts on a downhill path to the second period marked by the building of a program or an institute. On this path the scientist must now spend time with support personnel and with fund raising, at the expense of his research. From then on the scientist continues further downhill in the third period with additional obligations and demands on his time as maitre d’ of an institute that requires continual nourishing if it is to flourish. Amos loved the first period in his career above all. That is true of all good scientists. Amos and I shared that first exciting period starting in 1952 as research associates of Professor Viki Weisskopf at MIT. Our duties were minimal and time was
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our own. I had the luxury of extending those most wonderful years of that first period in the life of a research physicist much longer than Amos. He very soon accepted many responsibilities and transitioned to the second period in response to his powerful sense of duty to Israel and its government, to the Weizmann Institute and to the development of science and the training of scientists in Israel. Amos did this with grace and patience, while still maintaining, it seems almost miraculously, an extraordinary personal research career - extraordinarily productive in both quality and quantity. We came together on a number of occasions during the 1950’s and 60’s, often with our families, in Israel; in the United States at Cambridge, Stanford, and Washington; in Geneva at CERN. No matter where or when, no matter what responsibilities weighed on Amos or what troubles were brewing on the world scene, especially in and around Israel, we would talk physics and recapture that cherished first period in the life of a research physicist. It was wonderful to be arguing physics again with Amos at a chalkboard with his enthusiasm, his quick humor, his hand and body motion, and his unforgettable smile. Haim knows what I am talking about. Were he alive today Amos would surely be fascinated, thrilled, and struggling to understand and keep up with amazing progress in modern particle and astrophysics and in molecular biology. For the first time in human history, we can now begin to develop an understanding based on real data of the history of the universe following the Big Bang of some 14 or so billion years ago. This progress has carried us closer to an understanding of living organisms and their growth and evolution at the molecular level. These are extraordinarily exciting times in science. I have no doubt that Amos would be deeply engaged in helping to explain the latest advances and their significance to a public that is finding itself increasingly confused about the meaning of scientific theory and the distinction between scientific understanding and personal, deeply-held beliefs. This is evident from the current debate in the United States about what to teach and what not to teach in the public schools. A growing number of citizens are feeling squeezed between their religious beliefs and what scientific data is telling us about the early evolution of the universe and of life forms. Some are now challenging the very concepts of the big bang and of evolution. I would love to be able to talk to Amos about these and similar questions as we had so much pleasure doing in our youthful years together. I am sure he would have relished the following beautifully reasoned passage about evolution, not by Charles Darwin, but by his grandfather, Erasmus Darwin. It was written in 1794 and appears in a recent letter to the editor of SCIENCE magazine: (by George B. Dyson, Science Vol. 285, 27 August 1999) “The world itself might have been generated, rather than created; that is, it might have been gradually produced from very small beginnings, increasing by the activity of its inherent principles, rather than by a sudden evolution of the whole by the Almighty fiat. What a magnificent idea of the infinite power of THE GREAT ARCHITECT! THE CAUSE OF CAUSES! PARENT OF PARENTS! ENS ENTIUM! For if we may compare infinities, it would seem to require a greater infinity of power to cause the causes of effects, than to cause the effects themselves.” In their touching tribute to Amos that appeared in your magazine REHOVOTH in 1970, Herman Feshbach, an MIT physics professor who co-authored a two-volume treatise on Nuclear Physics with him, and the late Jerome Wiesner, former President of
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MIT and Science Advisor to U.S. President John Kennedy, recalled some of Amos’s most attractive characteristics: an openness of mind; a refreshing willingness to consider and accept new ideas; an ability to infect others with his own confidence and enthusiasm; a gifted leader, an imaginative dreamer; and a tireless worker. Amos was truly gifted in so many dimensions - a leader and statesman of science, a true patriot, and as I said before, the gentlest, wisest, and most honorable colleague I have ever known.
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VIM: A PASSIONATE LEADER FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN SCIENCE AND IN THE PURSUIT OF PEACE MIT, November 16,2002 We are here to celebrate the wonderfully full and rich life of one of the most beloved physicists of our time. I have visited MIT many times since I first arrived here 50 years ago to audition for the appointment as Viki’s Research Associate. This is the first time that I have come to MIT and there is no Viki here; and I cannot help but feel a sense of tremendous personal loss. Viki often reminisced about Der Kopenhagener Geist - the spirit of Copenhagen that Niels Bohr created. Viki created very much the same thing here at MIT - a Viki Geist, that made this so special a place for those of us who had the good fortune to experience it. Indeed Viki created a Viki Geist just about everywhere he went. Louis Leprince Ringuet, who was head of the CERN Science Policy Committee in 1966 when Viki completed his term as Director General, praised him for creating the spirit of CERN - another Viki Geist. It was a spirit that we who whiffed it tried to create at our own institutions. I won’t attempt to define the Viki Geist, but let me describe its essential ingredients. Viki infused the medium around himself with his own insatiable striving for a better understanding of natural phenomena. He simply found it compelling to think about problems in nature. Discussions with him were challenging, rewarding, stimulating and also fun. No questions were stupid, all were worth confronting. They were springboards to probe to deeper levels, trylng to figure out what’s going on, and his range of interest was all encompassing. This was enormously valuable to his junior colleagues. He drew us out to engage in these discussions, and we quickly lost all sense of embarrassment or fear of approaching him. This special trait made him nothing short of a magician in dealing with students. He fascinated students of all ages, including children, as I later learned with my own children, with his explanations of even everyday events. He had a special gift of making science exciting and understandable. Just take a look at his 1963 book “Knowledge and Wonder: The Natural World as Man Knows It” which is a collection of his lectures that were first presented to young students at the Buckingham School in Cambridge. Viki may have been cavalier with plus and minus signs, and humbled by factors of 272. and i, but he relished the world of ideas - be they in science, literature, ethics and values, - and music, which, it is no exaggeration to say, was his religion, and he went at it with enormous enthusiasm. I had the great privilege not only to do physics with Viki, but also to enjoy in close collaboration with him our mutual passion for music as we attacked on many occasions - also with varying success - the classical repertoire of violin-piano sonatas. Since he was the pianist, I, the violinist, could call him my accompanist. Viki expressed his wonderful personality and understanding of themes and variations no less intensely and enthusiastically through music at the piano keyboard than at the physics blackboard. Even if we missed a sharp or flat or two, now and then, the idea was always right. A dominant theme for Viki - whether doing science or working to help build a safer world was the critical importance of forging bonds of international cooperation, in order to bring to bear all the best resources to achieve both goals: to advance our understanding of nature and to reduce the nuclear danger to our very survival.
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Throughout his life no one was more committed to the value of international collaboration in science than Viki. This commitment was much more than simple theoretical idealism on his part. He worked at it - and he did what he did because it was good for science -big science and small science - to strengthen the bonds between communities in different countries working to understand nature. Toward this end, when he came to MIT from Los Alamos at the end of WWII, Viki worked hard to resume contacts with scientists abroad, particularly those in Europe, to help their recovery from the tragic years of the preceding decade. When Viki went to CERN as the Director General in 1961 he opened doors to welcome scientists from all parts of the globe. In Viki’s own words “I saw that a vital and ongoing part of my job would be to encourage the organization to reflect the two aims of CERN: first, to be an outstanding research institution imbued with the traditional spirit of the quest for scientific truth and, second, to be a successful example of European collaboration.” And indeed he committed himself to very difficult negotiations during his term to bring the particle physicists from eastern Europe into the family of science at CERN. This effort culminated in 1964 when the Soviet Union itself became a partner at CERN. Viki recounts perhaps the hardest step in achieving that partnership in his 1991 book “The Joy of Insight” when he describes the 1964 Rochester Conference held in the Soviet Union in Dubna. During the conference cruise, the then Chief of the USSR State Committee for Atomic Energy, Adronik Petrosyants, challenged him to toast successful collaboration between the east and west with a large glass of vodka. Viki tried to get away with drinking only a small part but when his host said “Oh I see that you only want a little collaboration”, Viki, in the interest of international cooperation, gamely accepted the challenge, and drank the whole glass. Thereafter he describes having a hard time tottering down the gangplank of the boat at the end of the conference cruise. That must have been quite a sight! Too bad it’s not preserved on film! Viki brought CERN into a major position as an international institution. I am told that some 6,500 scientists from universities and research institutes in over 50 countries have come to CERN to carry out research, including some 900 Ph.D. and diplome students who typically spend a year or more at CERN during their studies. Viki later described his 5 years as CERN’s Director General as “Among the most wonderful of my life.” Viki’s accomplishments at CERN gave proof that even a theoretical physicist with the right human qualities - should I single out Viennese charm as an essential one? - can be an outstanding administrator and leader of a great laboratory at the technological as well as scientific frontier. I spent a year at CERN at the beginning of Viki’s reign and the atmosphere there was charged with electric enthusiasm and high expectations for great achievements. He had already created the Viki Geist. His skills in achieving consensus among fellow scientists, and in identifjmg the important directions of physics on which to focus, not only served CERN well, but were also valuable in helping mold the successful U.S. national program in high-energy physics. The year after his return to MIT from CERN, where he had led the establishment of the European Committee for Future Accelerators that united representatives of the European high-energy physics community in a coherent program, he proposed that a similar organization be created for the American community. Thus was born HEPAP in 1967, the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel, which he led for the first seven years working with our good friend, then in charge of the AEC program in Washington, Bill Wallenmeyer, who was one of our most committed and effective supporters. HEPAP was envisaged as helping formulate coherent plans for a national high energy physics research program that could take full advantage of new opportunities, would keep us at the
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research frontiers and attract outstanding talent, and that could be pursued with a level of financial support that one could reasonably expect from the government. I succeeded Viki in this position in 1974 and all of us in the American program continued for many more years to benefit from him and his foresight in creating that organization. In good times and bad, HEPAP has helped keep the U.S. at the research frontiers, doing the best we can within the resources provided by our govemment, and occasionally even helping to expand those resources. Viki certainly drew great satisfaction in the later years of his life from observing the progress made by the international physics community in strengthening the bonds for exploring new frontiers of science. We suffered the failure of the SSC 10 years ago, but out of the ashes there emerged a strong international collaboration on the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. And, today, there is a growing international concensus toward developing a Linear Electron Collider as the next major accelerator advance into the future. An international scientific effort to develop the design and make real the concept of a highenergy linear electron-positron collider is going forward with formal organizations working together. There is agreement that this effort will be pursued as a purely scientific endeavor, independent of where the collider is to be built. That will be determined later by politicians based largely on non-scientific considerations. The road ahead to maintain this unity and achieve our goal won’t be easy, and we know from other experiences not to expect quick results, as we have learned from the ups and downs of ITER, the International Tokamok Experimental Reactor project. But a process to achieve a high-energy LC has been established and is functioning. Meanwhile at all our institutions and laboratories, it is clear that our physics community is truly an international community in the finest sense. Viki’s total commitment to international cooperation was deeper and broader than its value to science alone. He saw the cooperation as strengthening the bonds between communities striving toward a better, more peaceful world based on common principles of humanity and brotherhood. International collaboration for the advancement of science, and international collaboration in the quest for a peaceful and better world, were just two variations of the same theme for Viki. He spoke most eloquently to this point in his speech in Warsaw in 1967 honoring Marie Curie. This is what he said 35 years ago: “The significance of scientific collaboration far exceeds the narrow aim of a more efficient prosecution of our scientific endeavors. It stresses a common bond among all human beings. Scientists, wherever they come from, adhere to a common way of thinking; they have a common system of values that guides their activities, at least within their own profession. New approaches in bringing nations together can perhaps be discussed with more ease within this community, some political misunderstandings can be cleared up, and dangerous tensions reduced. As an example, we recall that the agreement to stop the testing of nuclear bombs above ground stemmed in part from prior meetings among scientists. We must keep the doors of our laboratories wide open and foster the spirit of supranationality and human contact, of which the world is so much in need. It is our duty to stick together, in spite of mounting tension and threatening war in the world today. The present deterioration in the political world is a reason stronger than ever for closer scientific collaboration. The relations among
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scientists must remain beyond the tensions and the conflicts of the day, even if these conflicts are as serious and fi-ustrating as they are today. The world community of scientists must remain undivided, whatever actions are taken, or whatever views are expressed in the societies in which they live. We need this unity as an example for collaboration and understanding, as an intellectual bridge between the divided parts of mankind, and as a spearhead toward a better world.” Those words are no less appropriate and important today, 35 years later. The challenge of building international collaborations to advance science has a big advantage over comparable efforts through diplomacy and negotiations to build a safer more peaceful world. What makes it easier in science was understood by the great Russian playwright Anton Chekhov when he wrote: “There is no national science just as there is no national multiplication table; what is national is no longer science.” Sadly, an appreciation of a comparable universality as the basis for an international quest for peace and progress is still wanting. Beyond his firm belief that worldwide scientific collaboration would improve the mutual understanding between the different cultures of a divided world, Viki also felt deeply the responsibility of scientists to participate in the public process helping to shape OUT efforts toward building a safer world. To quote him once again: “What we do is essential in shaping our physical and mental environment. We, therefore, carry a responsibility to take part in the improvement of the human lot and to be concerned about the consequences of our ideas and their applications. This burden makes our lives difficult and complicated and puts us in the midst of social life and strife.” After he completed his work at Los Alamos helping to build the first atomic bomb, Viki never again engaged directly in military related work. In his words: “After Los Alamos I refused to have anything to do with nuclear weapons development. Never again would I be tempted to join in a project that would use my scientific knowledge to fashion a weapon of mass destruction.” What he did do instead was devote considerable energy to raising the sensitivities of scientists and world leaders, both political and spiritual. Among his important contributions was helping found FAS and BAS. Viki was also a charter member of the Pugwash meetings that started in 1957. He remained active for many years thereafter in discussions at and beyond Pugwash concerned with nuclear proliferation, arms control and a ban on all nuclear explosive testing, starting with a ban on all but underground tests, and now with a ban on all tests under a CTBT. He particularly enjoyed prodding the Pontifical Academy, to which he had been appointed in 1976, and in personal meetings with the Pope, to address consequences of science. He was proud of his role in successfully urging the Pope to speak out publicly on the devastating effects of a nuclear war and in opposition to the nuclear arms race. Viki often referred to the paradox that one of the greatest scientific and intellectual achievements, the unlocking of the secrets of the nucleus, had two such contrasting impacts. On one hand, it enormously advanced our understanding of nature and created life-saving possibilities for medical diagnostics and treatment as well as new sources of energy. And simultaneously on the other hand, it led to the development of one of the greatest dangers that humanity has ever faced, that of nuclear weapons with their awesome devastating potential for
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destroying civilization as we know it. Recognizing that paradox as one we would have to live with, Viki became “One of the wisest and most morally sensitive participants” in the public effort to educate citizens worldwide to face up to it. That quote is from Father Bryan Hehir, an extraordinary individual and a treasured friend who was a major architect of the American catholic bishops’ influential pastoral letter adopted in 1983 on “The Challenges of Peace”, that included a profound discussion of the moral paradox of our policy of nuclear deterrence. I spoke earlier of the progress being made in international collaboration in science to advancing our field and how much this pleased Viki. Unfortunately the U.S. approach to a number of important foreign policy issues in recent years - especially arms control and national security, as well as natural resource and environmental questions - has been putting more emphasis on our going it alone, unilaterally, with our nation acting and sounding at times like the school yard bully, rather than strengthening bonds of collaboration. This surely was, and would be today were he with us, a cause of great disappointment and serious concern to Viki. . National security has always been pursued in the two dimensions of diplomacy and military strength. Both are essential. Today with increasing numbers of nations having access to technology for making nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons whose use in military action would be devastating on such a large scale - the dimension of diplomacy is more important than ever before. The price of failure is just too great. Looking ahead, it is especially critical to forge broad alliances to deal with the threat of the spread of such weapons to suicidal terrorists or societies with hostile intentions. It is not a task for unilateral action. This is evident from recent findings in North Korea - and abundantly clear from events in the mid-east over the past decade and longer. It is - and will remain - a major diplomatic challenge to develop and maintain the required international cooperation for the fight against terrorism - and in particular to control, if not prevent, the proliferation of such weapons of terror, especially nuclear weapons.
Throughout the Cold War, a major goal of U.S. diplomacy - and that of our allies - was to slow, if not totally prevent, the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries in the world. To achieve this goal a nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was negotiated and entered into force in 1970. At its fifth and final scheduled five-year review at the United Nations in 1995, the NPT was extended into the indefinite future. 185 nations - all but 4 in the world - have signed onto this extension. But they did so with an important proviso. An essential condition for many of them when they agreed to this extension was the commitment by the nuclear powers to cease all nuclear explosive testing and all work on developing new nuclear weapons for deployment. Today - 57 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki - just eight nations are believed to possess real nuclear weapons. I consider that a pretty good score for our nuclear non-proliferation efforts. Also there are ongoing negotiations at the IAEA in Vienna to strengthen the provisions for verifylng compliance with the treaty. The need for strengthening these provisions became clear in 1991 after Desert Storm when we found out that Iraq, a signatory of the NPT, was well on the way to a nuclear capability of which we were unaware. And more recently we have the revelations about North Korea’s program. The danger of nuclear proliferation was a major concern of Viki’s. He addressed it frequently, in public speeches and writings over many years. It remains today a high priority concern of the U.S. as it properly must. A strong statement to this effect was made by Secretary of State Colin Powell in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this past summer (July 9) when he said “The committee members know that the NPT is the centerpiece of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime. It plays a critical role in efforts to prevent the spread
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of nuclear weapons including to terrorists and states that support them. The NPT’s value depends on all parties honoring their obligations. The United States places great importance on fulfilling its NPT undertakings.” Well how are we doing on that obligation - in terms of deeds as well as words?
As I already noted, an end to all explosive testing of nuclear weapons by the nuclear powers is a critical requirement of the NPT. It was a condition of its extension into the indefinite future in 1995. This situation presents the U.S. and all the seven other nuclear powers with a strong political and strategic motivation to agree to a CTBT which President Clinton did in 1996, calling it “The longest sought, hardest fought prize in the history of arms control.” The effort to achieve this Treaty goes back five decades to when President Eisenhower commented that not achieving a nuclear test ban “would have to be classified as the greatest disappointment of any administration - of any decade - of any time and of any party.” Regrettably the United States Senate refused to ratify the treaty when it came up for action in 1999 and the present administration, while continuing, for the time being, a moratorium on all testing that has been in effect since 1992, when it was initiated by the first President Bush, has refused to reopen the question. And so today the treaty has not yet entered into force. For what reason? The conclusion that a CTBT is consistent with an essential requirement that, under a ban on all nuclear explosions, the U.S. will be able to retain a high confidence in the reliability of our nuclear deterrent over the long term has been demonstrated convincingly for the government since 1995, by a number of detailed technical analyses. The studies were officially commissioned by Washington and performed by independent scientists working with colleagues from the weapons community, including leaders involved in creating our current nuclear arsenal. Most recently, this past August a comprehensive study by the National Academy of Sciences on Technical Issues Related to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty concluded once again that the U.S. could maintain confidence in the stockpile with a well supported, science-based stockpile stewardship and maintenance program. This is a strong condition that must be and can be met. The study also verified that we could monitor compliance by others under such a ban on all nuclear yield testing to standards consistent with our national security. Many of our allies in NATO, including England, Germany, France; also Japan and Russia have ratified the CTBT. Others including China have said they will join us in bringing the treaty into force once we ratify it. Currently 166 have signed and 96 ratified the CTBT. The latter number includes 3 1 of the 44 nations designated “nuclear capable” and required for the CTBT to enter into force. However a potential challenge to a CTBT was raised early this year in the new Nuclear Posture Review, issued by the U.S., substantial portions of which were leaked to the media. This was touted as a fundamental updating of our national policy from the last review during the first Clinton Administration which itself offered little new from previous official statements on this subject. To my great disappointment the new NPR - at least as leaked - contains no mention at all of counter proliferation efforts, or of the impact, on our would-be and our need-be allies, of the initiatives and policies it advocates. Rather it puts emphasis on unilateral actions. To cite just one example, the Nuclear Posture Review speaks of “a need [that] may arise to modify, upgrade, or replace portions of the extant nuclear force or to develop concepts for follow-on nuclear weapons better suited to the nation’s needs. It is unlikely that a reduced version of the Cold War nuclear arsenal will be precisely the nuclear force that the United States will require in 2012 and beyond.”
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Implementing such a policy could have a profound impact on the CTBT. There is broad agreement that our current arsenal can be maintained by the ongoing program of stockpile stewardship without underground nuclear testing - i.e. under a CTBT. This was most succinctly stated this June by Bruce Goodwin, the head of the nuclear weapons program at Livermore, when he said “There is nothing I can think of that would make a nuclear test necessary.” However, if or when it comes to meeting new military requirements and defining new missions for nuclear weapons, as suggested by the NPR, I fear - indeed I think it very likely - that resumption of underground nuclear explosive testing will be right there as a requirement. This is particularly true if we seek to develop a new, low-yield, so-called “more usable” nuclear bomb to threaten deep underground hardened targets that are becoming increasing numerous in the world - and pose a significant military problem. I surely would welcome Viki’s voice in the effort to prevent the U S . from going down that path. There is absolutely no question in my mind as to what he would be saying. I had such discussions with him. As he wrote in 1991 in his book The Joy of Physics: “Only a CTBT would slow down the unnecessary and dangerous increases in the power of existing nuclear weapons.” I think this effort is going to require a lot of work. Already a myth is emergmg that low-yield nuclear weapons will destroy hardened deeply buried targets of military interest, and at the same time contaminate the surrounding area with acceptably low levels of nuclear fallout. There are problems with this myth: its validity is doubtful and its consequences dangerous. As to its validity: yields much greater than one kiloton are required to damage hard targets deeper than about 200 feet in dry rock soil, where they would most likely be built. Much larger yelds in the range of a hundred kilotons or more are needed to create enough ground shock to destroy hardened structures at a 1,000 foot depth, which are often cited as targets of concern. Even a 1 kiloton warhead, just 1/20th the yeld that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, detonated at a depth of 50 feet - which is about the maximum depth a hardened warhead delivered from above ground could dig down into hard rock, and maintain its integrity, would eject more than a million cubic feet of radioactive debris from a crater larger than the size of Ground Zero at the World Trade Center. So much for the validity of the myth. As to the consequences of what I call the dangerous myth: there is no question that the development and deployment of such weapons would have an extremely harmful affect on the ongoing efforts to maintain and extend the nonproliferation regime. It would directly violate the commitment by the nuclear powers in 1995 in gaining support for the extension of the CTBT into the indefinite future. The point is: The issue of resuming testing to develop new weapons for new missions of deep underground bunker busting must be judged not just by its intentions but it must be tested by its technical feasibility, on which I have commented, and on its consequences - for the CTBT and world-wide cooperation to strengthen a non-proliferation regime which is anchored on a commitment to cease all underground nuclear explosions and to reduce dependence on nuclear weapons rather than create new missions for them.
On this issue - as on many others of contemporary concern involving uses of recent scientific and technical advances - not to mention of raw military power, there is no way that the Viki I knew, the Viki we all knew, would - or could - remain quiet.
I will close by quoting from two beautihl and fitting tributes to Viki. James Killian, former President of MIT until President Eisenhower selected him as his science advisor when he created that as a full time position in the White House back in 1957, spoke at Viki’s retirement in 1973 as MIT Institute Professor and Head of the Physics Department. After labeling Viki as Mr. Science at MIT, Killian added: “Without yelding any of the rigor and imagination of his scientific work, he has also given meaning both to the scientific and humanistic values of science for his students and colleagues. By his largeness and liberality of spirit he has drawn about him a constellation of scholars both scientist and non-scientist who have found in his values and his clarity of mind sustenance and reassurance in these days when science has come under attack from so many different directions. In the spirit of Copenhagen he has spoken eloquently to the layman about the role of science and, to use the title of one of his books, about knowledge and wonder and the natural world as man knows it.” Hans Bethe said it all about Viki with his characteristic brevity and directness: “All his life he has sought and contributed to knowledge, and all his life he has shown compassion.” We will miss Viki -truly, without exaggeration, he was one of a kind.
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“Shaping Public Policy” Hans Bethe Symposium Los Alamos National Laboratory August 19,2005 Sidney D. Drell I am of the generation that entered in to serious study of physics just after World War 11. I soon realized that some of the great names of modern physics, from whose theories and experiments I was learning the most exciting new stuff, were prominently in the news. They were speaking, debating, testifjmg in Congress on issues of grave policy importance concerning the impact on the human condition of the new technologies spawned by the latest scientific progress, and discussing what our government should be doing about it. Nuclear weapons were of special concern in this regard. With their enormous destructive potential that posed a threat to civilization as we know it, in the event of a nuclear war. As students and young aspiring researchers, we had many discussions on civilian vs. military control of nuclear weapons; whether or not to build the super, or hydrogen bomb; was it appropriate for the government to require security clearances for its fellowships for us to get through graduate school. These questions were ever present, and it didn’t take very long for us to recognize that, amidst many grandiose, often hyperbolic statements about the challenges we faced, one voice came through straightforward, clear, firm, and on target. It was that of Hans Bethe, and it carried an authority and weight just like his writings and lectures in physics with which we were so familiar: the Bethe/Heitler formula; the Bethe/Bloch energy loss formula; the Bethe bible on nuclear physics; his theory explaining the production of energy in the burning sun that sustains life on earth; the Lamb Shift. Just as Bethe’s physics went directly, clearly and logically to the point, so did his analyses, based on his vast scientific and technical knowledge, of new problems presented by nuclear weapons and missiles. We listened carefully when Hans Bethe testified or wrote about building the H-bomb; about what could and should be done to limit the build up of nuclear weapons as well as their spread to other nations; when he explained the serious technical limitations of ballistic missile defenses as well as the relative ease of countering their postulated effectiveness; and when he spoke on stopping test explosions of nuclear weapons, particularly in the atmosphere. It wasn’t until 1960 that I first became actively involved in actually working on technical aspects of those issues. That came with the formation of JASON, a group of then young, and at least to some, promising scientists. We were academics invited to work, at summer studies and in our spare time, on important technical issues of national security. This gave me my first opportunity to meet Hans, who served as a senior adviser in those early days of JASON. That was the beginning of a great friendship, in Humphrey Bogart’s unforgettable closing words in Casablanca; indeed a cherished friendship that further deepened my great admiration and respect for Hans. Personal friendships are hard to describe. But I have one quantitative measure of the extent of this one. I can think of no one, outside of my immediate family members, with whom, over the past 40 years, I have had more meals than with Hans, whether working in Washington, Livermore, or visiting Ithaca frequently during the years my daughter was there, or wherever.
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Hans had an important, and at times decisive, impact on just about every major issue involving nuclear weapons policy that called for scientific and technical knowledge and judgment. He gave unstintingly of his enormous scientific talents to help the United States government make wise policy choices when it came to building a safe and reliable nuclear deterrent, to negotiating and verifylng arms control treaties, or to understanding technical limits on complex systems. Hans approached technical problems with an open mind. His integrity, together with his extraordinary scientific knowledge, gave great credibility to his input in policy decisions, and made his advice to the government and his public testimony uniquely valuable. Unfortunately in this role one is not always listened to. The batting average in activities of this type, measured by the percentage of success in moving policy decisions in the desired directions, is not high, nowhere near as high as one would hope, and as it should be. This never discouraged Hans. He would just work harder the next time. Hans also had the intellectual integrity and courage to stand up and speak out in criticizing the government and officials in defense of colleagues that he felt were being attacked unjustly. This was evident in his ringing defense of Robert Oppenheimer whose loyalty was impugned during the communist witch hunting days in the early 1950’s. When asked during Oppie’s loyalty hearings “to express an opinion about Dr. Oppeheimer’s loyalty to the United States, about his character, about his discretion in regard to matters of security”, Hans pulled no punches in his response: “I am certainly happy to do this. I have absolute faith in Dr. Oppenheimer’s loyalty. I have always found that he had the best interests of the United States at heart. I have always found that if he differed from other people in his judgment, that it was because of a deeper thinking about the possible consequences of our action than the other people had. I believe that it is an expression of loyalty - of particular loyalty - if a person tries to go beyond the obvious and tries to make available his deeper insight, even in making unpopular suggestions, even in making suggestions which are not the obvious ones to make and are not those which a normal intellect might be led to make. I have absolutely no question that he has served this country very long and very well. I think everybody agrees that his service in Los Alamos was one of the greatest services that were given to this country. I believe he has served equally well the GAC (the General Advisory Committee of the AEC) in reestablishing the strength of our atomic weapons program in 1947. I have faith in him quite generally.” Hans was no less strong, persistent, and courageous in defending less-well-known colleagues he knew and trusted when they were attacked in Congressional hearings, viciously and often falsely, for past political associations.
In presenting his advice and stating his views, Hans conveyed the strength of a realist with deep moral feelings and ideals. In his case it was the special strength of one who
had challenged his ideals against troubling realities and inescapable ambiguities that we often must confront in today’s world. Consider Hans’ words in struggling with the challenges, dangers, and opportunities of moving ahead to build thermonuclear weapons
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so-called hydrogen bombs. In 1954 he wrote an article entitled “Comments On The History of the H-Bomb.” Originally classified, it wasn’t released until 1982 when it was published in the magazine Los Alamos Science. In it he quoted a conclusion from the report of the GAC on proceeding to build the H-bomb: We all hope that by one means or another, the development of these weapons can be avoided. We are all reluctant to see the United States take the initiative in precipitating this development. We are all agreed that it would be wrong at the present moment to commit ourselves to all-out efforts toward its development. Bethe then commented that the GAC report “might well be considered as a prayer for some solution to the dilemma, not as an answer. Scientists are not especially qualified to find a solution in the domain of statecraft. All they could do was to point out that here was a very major decision and it was worth every effort to avoid an irrevocable, and perhaps fatal, step.” And he concluded: “In summary I still believe that the development of the H-bomb is a calamity. I still believe that it was necessary to make a pause before the decision and to consider this irrevocable step most carefully. I still believe that the possibility of an agreement with Russia not to develop the bomb should have been explored. But once the decision was made to go ahead with the program, and once there was a sound technical program, I cooperated with it to the best of my ability. I did and still do this because it seems to me that once one is engaged in a race, one clearly must endeavor to win it. But one can try to forestall the race itself.” Later, in 1968 in an interview for an article in the NY Times magazine, Hans reflected on his decision to work on the H-bomb as follows’: “Just a few months before, the Korean war had broken out, and for the first time I saw direct confrontation with the Communists. It was too disturbing. The cold war looked as if it were about to get hot. I knew then I had to reverse my earlier position. If I didn’t work on the bomb somebody else would - and I had the thought if I were around Los Alamos I might still be a force for disarmament. So I agreed to join in developing the H-bomb. It seemed quite logical. But sometimes I wish I were more consistent an idealist.” One can only admire an individual who forthrightly confronts the dilemmas, the ambiguities, the occasional inconsistencies that must be resolved in making difficult decisions - and, after fully acknowledging that they exist, makes the hard choices and acts on them!
S.S. Schweber ’‘In the Shadow ofthe Bomb” (Princeton University Press, 2000), page 166
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Throughout four decades of the Cold War, Hans advocated and worked to create effective tools for verifjmg and validating negotiated agreements to slow the nuclear arms competition between the United States and the former Soviet Union. As one of the original members of the President’s Science Advisory Committee (PSAC), established by President Eisenhower in 1957, Hans proposed a study of a ban on nuclear weapons tests. In typical Bethe fashion the initial work was intended to focus on specific and very important technical questions: What affect would such a ban, or a temporary moratorium, have on the U.S. and Soviet programs? And, would it be possible to monitor compliance by being able to detect explosive tests in violation of such a ban? The original goal was a comprehensive ban on explosive testing in all environments. If it could be established on technical grounds that compliance with such limitations could be verified, the hope was to engage with the Soviets and British in exploring the prospects for such an agreement. James Killian, the President’s first Science Advisor and Chairman of PSAC, appointed an interagency panel, chaired by Hans, to make technical assessments on the ability of the U.S. to detect Soviet nuclear tests under various conditions, and to assess how such constraints on testing would affect the weapons laboratories and their work, as well as the then-existing Soviet and U.S. nuclear arsenals. The panel did their work well and responsibly, describing a practical detection system that would be able to identify nuclear explosions except for very low-yield underground detonations. However they relegated to a more appropriate and broader forum the judgment of whether a test ban would be in the net military interests of the United States or of the Soviet Union, recognizing in particular that such restrictions would delay if not prevent additional testing of “clean” small and relatively inexpensive nuclear weapons. One hears echoes of that concern in some of today’s debates on building new weapons. This work of the Bethe panel led to a conference of technical experts from the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union meeting in Geneva during the summer of 1958. There were serious - excessively serious - concerns by the Soviets about the motives of the Western negotiators and the necessity of preserving the secrecy surrounding their own nuclear program. There were also intense debates within the United States as committed opponents of any such ban, led by Lewis Strauss, Ernest Lawrence, and Edward Teller, insisted that nothing less than an unrestricted, on-site, challenge inspection system could guarantee that the Soviets were not cheating. The resolution of the matter of a test ban came five years later, in 1963, when the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union signed a treaty banning nuclear weapons tests in the atmosphere, in outer space, and in the oceans, but allowing underground explosive tests that spread no dangerous radioactive fallout to continue. Hans was disappointed that the negotiators failed to reach an agreement that would permit underground tests below a low yield threshold, above which they could be detected by long range seismic signals. But he also recognized the importance of his efforts in ending the era of extensive atmospheric testing, and in having issues of arms reduction discussed and taken seriously at the highest level of the U.S. government. In his book, Schweber comments (on page 177) that Hans considered this to be his most satisfylng and important contribution as a scientist in the public arena. Killian summarized Bethe’s contributions as follows in his 1977 memoir “Sputnik Scientists, and Eisenhower”:
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“Bethe, a man of tremendous intellect, an idealist with a whiplash mind.. ...was to become one of the heroes of the long campaign that led to the test ban of 1963...Bethe possesses a grave nobility of character that has commanded the respect and affection of all who have worked with him. With these qualities and his deep knowledge of nuclear matters, Bethe gained the confidence of the interagency committee and directed its work with skill. ....the members worked well together and some even changed their views during the study.” In 1966, on the occasion of Bethe’s 60thbirthday, President Lyndon Johnson summarized why Hans had become a national treasure with these words in a letter he sent to him: “You are not only an outstanding scientist, you are also a devoted public servant.
The nation has asked for your help many times and you have responded selflessly. You have made profound contributions in the fields of atomic energy, arms control and military technology. And you have been an important source of the immense contribution which science and the university community are making to society as a whole. Our country is deeply indebted to you.” The work of the Bethe panel starting in 1958 that culminated in the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 is but one example of the enormously valuable advice that a strong scientific advisory mechanism in the White House can provide for the president and his staff. President Eisenhower recognized this in 1957 when he established PSAC as his resource for direct, in-depth analyses and advice as to what to expect from science and technology, both current and in prospect, in establishing realistic national policy goals. Two things set PSAC apart from the existing governmental line organizations and cabinet departments with operational responsibilities, as well as from nongovernmental organizations engaged in policy research. First of all, its members had White House backing and the requisite security clearances to gain access to all the relevant information for their studies on highly classified national security issues. Secondly, the individual members, selected on grounds of demonstrated achievements in science and engineering, were independent and presumably, therefore, immune from having their judgments affected by operational and institutional responsibilities. Therein lay their unique value. Highly respected, leading American scientists like Ed Purcell, Hans Bethe, Pief Panofsky, Din Land, and George Kistiakovsky made contributions of enormous value to U.S. security as we grappled with new threats posed by nuclear weapons and intercontinental range missiles. They were also instrumental in pushing forward technology for gaining strategic reconnaissance from space. Starting with U2 overflights of the Soviet Union in 1956, followed by the enormous technical leap into space in 1960 with CORONA, the first photo reconnaissance satellite, we pierced the Soviet’s iron curtain, making it possible to accurately assess new threats that might be developing as
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well as to dispel some that we incorrectly assumed to exist. This was especially critical in an era when the danger of surprise nuclear attack was now only 30 minutes away, which is the ICBM flight time, and we were no longer shielded by large oceans. Of equal importance, with the ability to monitor the growth of the Soviet strategic nuclear threat in numbers of large nuclear armed missiles, bombers, and submarines, we could initiate negotiating efforts to limit the arms race - and eventually reverse it - based on the essential ability to verify compliance with treaty provisions. It is too bad that there no longer exists a mechanism comparable to the original PSAC that is providing the White House today with the kind of high level independent scientific advice that proved so valuable back in 1957. But to get back to the important contributions of Bethe, they continued unabated for decades following the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963. Throughout the 1970’s and 80’s other issues replaced a nuclear test ban as the main focus of public attention. The most important of these were the ABM Treaty of 1972 and the Nonproliferation Treaty that entered into force in 1970. Bethe was a particularly active participant in the debates on ABM systems. He recognized their inherent technical limitations relative to countermeasures readily available to the offensive missile forces. Moreover, in view of the enormous destructive potential of nuclear weapons, the level of perfection that was required to provide protection for civilian populations was impossible to achieve. In 1968, together with Richard Garwin, he published the first comprehensive and unclassified analysis on the hndamental technical limitations of ballistic missile defense. That article in the Scientzjk American played a major role in informing and framing the public debate. The ABM debate was waged with extraordinarily fierce passion and intensity because it challenged a deep human instinct. We had to recognize that, against all history of the pre-nuclear era, we now had to accept the conclusion that protecting people, our families and fnends, and cities in the nuclear age was no longer possible. The technical realities dictated this conclusion, and thus scientists and engineers were critical participants in the public policy debates. Whatever we may prefer as the goal of our policy, we cannot deny or evade the laws of nature! During those years efforts to negotiate further testing limitations on nuclear weapons continued. In 1974 a small step of progress was made in the agreement to limit underground nuclear explosions to ylelds no larger than 150 kilotons, which is 10 times larger than the Hiroshima bomb. But the testing issue did return to center stage in 1992 for both technical and political reasons. Technically it was broadly recognized that the existing U.S. nuclear arsenal was reliable, met established and very strict safety criteria, and was effective, and hence there was no strong reason to continue underground nuclear explosive tests. This in turn generated strong congressional pressure to cease underground tests, in response to which the first President Bush initiated a one-year moratorium on such tests in 1992. In addition, political pressure for an end to testing was growing around the world. It became increasingly vocal at the regular 5-year reviews of the NonProliferation Treaty at the United Nations, and particularly so in 1995 at its final scheduled 5-year review. At that occasion, many nations criticized the Treaty’s discriminatory features, and, as a quid-pro-quo for their continuing to renounce nuclear weapons, called on the nuclear
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powers to make serious and timely progress in reducing their excessively large arsenals and their reliance on nuclear weapons. They also called on them to continue to work toward a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that would formalize the existing moratorium on testing and extend it without a limit of time. It is in this context that the United States must evaluate the impact of new initiatives to develop a new generation of nuclear warheads, an issue that has been under serious consideration for the past two years in Washington. Will the non-nuclear nations be willing to continue their policy to forego developing them if we, the strongest nation in the world, by far, the only super-power, insist that our security requires that we develop new ones - bunker-busters or robust nuclear earth penetrators (RNEPs), or new low yeld concepts - for new missions to meet our security needs? What will be the fate of the testing moratorium and of the entire nonproliferation regme if the newly established Reliable Replacement Weapons program evolves into a design program for new weapons, as some suggest, rather than focusing on increasing long term confidence in our current arsenal within experimentally established parameters. Would a responsible leader President, General, or Admiral - seriously consider relying on an untested new design to protect our national security? What flight of imagination is required to place higher confidence in a new design without a test pedigree than in our stockpile with a halfcentury of more than 1000 tests in its making?
I think we know very well what Hans would say. He supported the CTBT as consistent with maintaining an effective, reliable &d safe deterrent, and important to preserving a nonproliferation regime. Addressing Los Alamos scientists in 1995, on the 50th anniversary of Hiroshima, Hans issued the following statement urging scientists in all countries to refuse to support the design and development of new improved weapons: “As director of the Theoretical Division of Los Alamos, I participated at the most senior level in the World War I1 Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic weapons. Now, at the age of 88, I am one of the few remaining such senior persons alive. Looking back at the half-century since that time, I feel the most intense relief that these weapons have not been used since World War 11, mixed with the horror that tens of thousands of such weapons have been built since that time - one hundred times more than any of us at Los Alamos could ever have imagined. Today we are rightly in an era of disarmament and dismantlement of nuclear weapons. But in some countries nuclear development still continues. Whether and when the various Nations of the world can agree to stop this is uncertain. But individual scientists can still influence this process by withholding their skills. Accordingly, I call on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further
nuclear weapons - and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons.” This sentiment closely reflects an earlier comment made by Andrei Sakharov, the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb and brave fighter for human rights, on his first visit to the United States in December 1988. Recognizing that he and the people who worked with him at the time “were completely convinced that this work was essential, that it was vitally important,” and that “the American scientists in their work were guided by the same feelings of this work being vital for the interests of the country,” Sakharov said “While both sides felt that this kind of work was vital to maintain balance, I think that what we were doing at that time was a great tragedy. It was a tragedy that reflected the tragic state of the world that made it necessary, in order to maintain peace, to do such terrible things. We will never know whether it was really true that our work contributed at some period of time toward maintaining peace in the world, but at least at the time we were doing it, we were convinced this was the case. The world has now entered a new era, and I am convinced that a new approach has now become necessary.”
In his last interview before his death, Sakharov also called for a permanent halt of nuclear tests.2 Two of the great pioneers of the nuclear age, delving again deep into their moral convictions near the end of their lives, urged the world to recognize that in the post-Cold War world we have entered a new era. Other factors than modernizing nuclear weapons for potential new missions have priority importance. Our most pressing concern now is the danger of the proliferation of nuclear know-how. As President Bush has remarked: “The gravest danger facing the nation lies at the crossroads of radicalism and technology.” Our urgent need is to strengthen and preserve a nonproliferation regime. At stake may very well be the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty signed on September 24, 1996 at the United Nations, and with it the NonProliferation Treaty. A point of clarification here: Neither Bethe’s call for weapons restraint - nor my own concerns expressed earlier about the hture of the NPT and the CTBT - should be interpreted as saying it is time for the weapons labs to close up shop, lock the door and go home. Far from it. The labs and NNSA have created a very challenging scientific and technical program that is allowing us to maintain confidence in our arsenal by pursuing a broad range of activities that are deepening our basic understanding of nuclear explosions. They include critical experiments, from small tabletop ones to subcrits at the Nevada Test Site; also validating and verifylng high fidelity codes for the new supercomputers that support advanced simulation techniques that can be tested against new data in extreme physical conditions relevant for bomb processes. This data can now, or soon will be obtained from advanced new facilities like DARHT, NIF and Z-pinch pulse power devices. What you are doing is important work. It is good science and is consistent with our national strategic goals to maintain a strong U S . nuclear deterrent as we downsize it, and at the same time, to continue to maintain the support and cooperation See S.D. Drell, Physics Today, May 2000 (American Institute of Physics)
of our non-nuclear allies in our efforts to preserve and strengthen a nonproliferation regime. We must have their active collaboration to enforce effective means of preventing the world’s most dangerous people getting their hands on the world’s most dangerous weapons. Recall the poignant words of President Eisenhower who commented in 1960, upon leaving office, that not achieving a nuclear test ban “would have to be classed as the greatest disappointment of any administration - of any decade - of any time and of any party.. .” Upon signing the CTBT in 1996, President Clinton heralded it as “the longest sought, hardest fought prize in the history of arms control.” Regrettably the United States has so far failed to ratify the Treaty, although all U.S. allies in NATO have, as have Japan and Russia. In all 173 nations have signed, and 120 have ratified the CTBT, including 33 of the 44 so-called nuclear-capable states, i.e. those that have built nuclear reactors, who must ratify it for the Treaty to enter into force. When that day comes, it will mark the success of an effort which Hans pioneered, and in which he played an important role for more than four decades. Hans Bethe was the last of the founding giants of modem quantum and nuclear physics. He was present at its creation and for more than seven decades contributed enormously to deepening our understanding of the physical nature of the earth and the stars. Beyond his major contributions to advances in modem science and to the development of the atom bomb, he became an important leader among scientists who felt, and acted on, the responsibility of our community to help governments and societies understand the potential impact of these achievements on the human condition. As a government adviser at the highest levels and a participant in public forums he strove to ensure that consequences of scientific and technical advances - particularly in nuclear weapons and energy - were utilized toward peaceful and beneficial purposes. Ten years ago, in 1995, at a celebration of Hans’ 60th anniversary as a professor at Come11 University, Viki Weisskopf gave a perfect one word description of Hans when he characterized him as “dreadnaught”, plowing straight ahead with irresistible force to accomplish his scientific, technical, and policy goals. In the words of his long-time collaborator on astrophysical problems, Gerald Brown, Hans “worked like a bulldozer, heading directly for the light at the end of the tunnel.” His achievements led Freeman Dyson to recognize him as the “supreme problem solver of the past century.” Those of us who had the privilege to work with Hans always stood in amazement when difficult questions arose, and out of his mind, which his wife, Rose, once likened to me as a “filing cabinet”, came a treasure trove, a veritable catalogue, of the necessary numbers, all the important points, whether they be basic science or applied physics. And Hans could give you, on the spot, a back-of-the-envelope answer that you could bet on. We admired and respected Hans for what he stood for and what he did. He was a gmnt in his time. We are all going to miss him.
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“Report on the Progress in Reducing Nuclear Danger” Second International Sakharov Conference Moscow
- May 20, 1996
Sidney D.Drell
To start with I bring to you the greetings of the American Physical Society on this occasion honoring the memory of our late distinguished colleague and very dear friend, Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov, on the 75th anniversary of his birth.
I do this on behalf of Dr. Robert Schrieffer, President of the American Physical Society, who is unable to attend. Ten years ago, when I began my own term as APS President, Andrei Sakharov was isolated to internal exile in Gorky. My first formal action as President was to send a letter to your then General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev on January 23, 1986 urging him to free Andrei and permit him to return to a normal citizen’s privileges in Moscow, no longer isolated from
his scientific colleagues, their discussions, criticisms, and latest results which are so essential to a scientist’s work. I recall with great pleasure that, in my last
official act as President, I was able to send the following telegram to Gorbachev on December 19, 1986: “Greatly appreciate important action by Soviet government granting permission to the Sakharovs to return to Moscow and resume normal academic work. I expect this to contribute to improving scientific cooperation.”
Our cooperation has indeed improved in all aspects. Physicists worldwide recognize that we are all members of a single international community striving to
underst,and universal laws of nature. We share the benefit of each others strength and progress, and today we actively support constructive collaboration with our
c.olleagues in the former Soviet Union through a very difficult transition period.
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The American Physical Society also has an ever vigilant Committee on the International Freedom of Scientists that will continue to monitor violations of scientists’ human rights worldwide, wherever they occur, aiding and informing the efforts of
APS’s leadership to speak out in support of our colleagues who may be harassed, imprisoned, or denied visas, for non-scientific reasons, for travel t o scientific congresses - as we did when needed in the past for Andrei Sakharov.
I am happy to report that there has been much progress in reducing the danger of a major nuclear confrontation since the years of the Cold War, and especially since the first Sakharov Memorial Congress five years ago. At that time in May of 1991 the United States and the Soviet Union had successfully negotiated impor-
tant treaty limits on the development and deployment of defenses against ballistic missiles and had removed the intermediate range land-based missiles, the so-called theatre ballistic missiles, from Europe. Those were the U.S. Pershing IT’S and ground launched cruise missiles in NATO threatening to the east, and the Soviet
SS2O’s in the Warsaw Pact forces threatening to the west. Furthermore after a decade of intense U.S./Soviet negotiation there existed on May 21, 1991 a 700 page-long draft Treaty that contained provisions reducing warheads deployed on
intercontinental range bombers and missiles. Those are the so-called strategic systems, and the treaty draft that existed then was still encumbered with many bracketed sections that marked numerous issues yet to be resolved. In essence
this Treaty, the START I Treaty, mandates reductions of 30% in the numbers of warheads deployed. Even more importantly, it includes unprecedented cooperative verification provisions. These provisions are innovative and the most thorough ones ever negotiated.
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When I spoke here in Moscow at the first Sakharov Congress five years ago
I said “What a great tribute it would be to the memory of Andrei Sakharov if the governments of the Soviet Union and the United States completed the current round of negotiations and ratified a START treaty during this year, the 70th anniversary of his birth. Let us send out a message tonight: On Andrei Sakharov’s
70th birth date, we call on the Ieaders of the two nuclear superpowers to honor his memory by completing the START I Treaty this year.” In preparing those remarks little did I anticipate that sitting in the audience on that occasion would be your then President Mikhail Gorbachev and the current Russian President Boris Yeltsin.
What an exhilarating experience it was as an enthusiastic audience expressed to them, directly and in person, their strong support for that call. Happily that START I n e a t y was signed two months later on July 31, 1991
in the Kremlin by Presidents Bush and Gorbachev. And most welcome, after just two more months, additional steps of major progress were taken in reducing nuclear danger. The two leaders - acting unilaterally
, with reciprocal initiatives
that required no formal negotiations and haggling, with mutual trust and just good common sense of the dangers, simply announced the removal of thousands of
warheads on short-range battlefield systems that were but tens of seconds, or at most minutes, from their intended targets. No longer would there be major nuclear forces confronting one another, eyeball to eyeball, in Europe between NATO and
the Warsaw Pact. These systems were simply withdrawn, together with all nuclear missiles from the surface navies and the attack submarines of the two nations. And soon thereafter a one year moratorium was announced on all underground nuclear
tests.
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In my remarks five years ago I also issued the following call for further progress: "Once the first round of START is completed, the United States and the Soviet Union should get back t o the negotiating table for what I would like to call tbe Sakharov Round. The goal of the Sakharov Round should be to negotiate truly deep reductions. Several thousand remaining warheads in reliable, safe, and survivably-based systems would be more than adequate for deterring nuclear aggression. Negotiating such a deep reduction in time to honor Andrei's 80th birthday in the year 2001
- or better yet to honor his 75th birthday in 1996 - would be the
finest tribute to his memory and the most important fulfillment of his principles I can think of." Well here we are five years later, and those deep reductions have indeed been negotiated in the START I1 Treaty. Signed by Presidents Yeltsin and Bush on January 3, 1993, START I1 will reduce by 2003, seven years from now, the number
of deployed warheads remaining in the enduring strategic arsenals by 2/3rds, to just under 1/3rd of their initial number. Furthermore the Treaty has been ratified
by the IJnited States Senate in an overwhelming vote last January in this year of Sakharov's 75th birthday. It only remains for the Duma, the Russian Parliament, to ratify this Treaty this year - and that is our call today - so that
we
can move
ahead and take another big step toward the goal of Sakharov, and of millions of people around the world, of eventually ridding the world of all such weapons of mass destruction.
The U.S. and Russia have made a number of additional important commitments to reduce nuclear danger between these two countries that possess more than 95% of the nuclear bombs in today's world. Consider these:
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We are pursuing a formal convention on a multi-lateral cut-off on the production of special nuciear materials - i.e.
Pu
and highly enriched
U
for bomb fuel.
The U.S. has not produced any such materials for a number of years. In Russia the quantity still being produced at several reactors that also provide electric power needed for civilian communities is under control, separate from military stocks.
In March 1994 the U.S.Secretary of Energy, Hazel O’Leary, and the head of Minatom, the Russian Atomic Energy Commission, Victor Mikhailov, agreed to reciprocal inspections to confirm stocks of excess weapons grade material from dismantled weapons. This is a very important step toward bringing potential bomb fuel under control, protect it from theft, and irreversibly remove it from the weapons’ stockpiles.
Building on this agreement based on the principle of mutual, or reciprocal, transparency, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin issued a most important statement at the conclusion of their summit on May 10, 1995, just one year ago. It emphasized their commitment to increase transparency and irreversibility in the process of reducing nuclear warheads. Three specific steps called for are: 1. A regular exchange of information on aggregate stockpiles of warheads and
of bomb fuel and their safety;
2. Work toward reciprocal monitoring of bomb fuel that has been removed from dismantled warheads to insure irreversibility of the reductions, and safety of the material while policy issues as to its eventual disposition are resolved in terms of their impact on future energy supply, economics, and security;
3. Developing new means to improve confidence in verification.
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On September 28, 1995 the White House issued a statement by President Clinton directing his administration to take specific steps on an accelerated time sched-
ule toward implementing these commitments. Hopefully the upcoming elections in our two countries will not derail, or further delay, important progress toward our
mutual goal of a safer 21st century. Perhaps the most important progress of all was the agreement at the United Nations in New York on May 11, 1995 by some 178 nations to aflirm their support
for an indefinite extension of the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty when it faced its fifth and final five year review. This agreement to extend the NPT indefinitely, without a limit of time, is a major achievement. Among the international dangers confronting the world today I know of none that has more serious implications for
world-wide security and stability than the danger of the proliferation of weapons of m a s destruction, and in particular of nuclear weapons. The action at the United Nations last May shows that, except for a few would-be proliferators, most nations and people of the world clearly share a common interest in preventing the spread
of nuclear weapons. This agreement is not only a major achievement; it puts an obIigation on all the signatory nations - non-nuclear as well as nuclear - t o
work together, to reduce incentives and opportunities for proliferation and also to provide effective means for ensuring compliance with the Treaty’s provisions. The nuclear nations have a special obligation to honor their commitments under this Treaty to reduce its discriminatory nature between themselves and the non-nuclear nations. Toward this end negotiations are underway in Geneva for a true zero-yield Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by September 30, 1996
-
little more than four
309
months from today. It is my best technical judgment that, with today’s technology, such a true zero-yield treaty limit is consistent with maintaining a safe, reliable, and effective nuclear deterrent as the deployed forces shrink under the provisions of
START I, 11, and hopefully beyond. I welcome and strongly endorse President
Clinton’s announcement on August 11, 1995 committing the
U.S. to
seek such a
treaty in the Geneva negotiations. I also welcome the strong support expressed for negotiating a true, zero-yield CTBT at the Moscow summit last month of the
G?
- the seven major industrial powers in the West - plus Russia.
Now it remains only for China to endorse this commitment t o negotiate a comprehensive test ban this year. The
U.S.,Russia, U.K., and France, following
its series of six shots in the South Pacific, are fully committed. In fact French President Chirac announced earlier this year on January 29, two days after its
sixth and final test at the Fangatanfa Atoll in French Polynesia, that France’s test program was definitely ended, and their testing site in the South Pacific was permanently closed. On March 25, France, the U.K., and the U.S. joined China, Russia and other regional nations in signing the Protocols t o the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty - the Treaty of Rarotonga. China alone has announced that it will continue its nuclear testing until a CTBT enters into force. China
has detonated several underground tests during the past year; and is also insisting on an exception that would allow peaceful nuclear explosions among the treaty
consistent activities. Throughout most of the world, support for such activities
- formerly known as Plowshare in America - was abandoned many years
ago on
both economic and environmental grounds. So today the jury is still out, but there are grounds for hope that before the
310
end of 1996 a true zero-yield CTBT will be negotiated. The negotiators still have a lot of issues to resolve as they approach the endgame. They are seeking
a true CTBT that bans all explosions that could release any nuclear energy, but, at the same time permits sound experiments important to maintaining a safe and reliable nuclear force as its size shrinks with progress in the arms control process. Verifying compliance with such a treaty puts great demands both on technology and on the political process itself to cooperate in good faith on procedures for
intrusive inspection. Verification has been a key factor in all public debates since the 1950’s about a comprehensive test ban, or about any partial ban that limits testing to low
yields only. However the nature of this debate over a CTBT has undergone major changes in recent years. Of primary importance is the acceptance of truly unprece-
dented measures of cooperative on-site challenge inspections to verify compliance
with provisions of negotiated arms reduction treaties. Cooperative actions and inspections are routinely and satisfactorily being carried out at present t o assure compliance by both the U.S.and Russia to arms reduction agreements already ratified. Recall the pictures of the U.S. Secretary of Defense and the Russian Defense Minister jointly blowing up one of each others excess launch silos. These changes have caused the old debates over verification of a CTB to run out of steam. The heart of the matter is achieving greater openness, and in 1996 this seems a much more practical challenge than during the Cold War years.
A comprehensive test ban will be an important boost to world-wide nonproliferation efforts.
The end of testing has been
an asserted objective of all
members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty for almost 25 years, but in practice the
Cold War produced nuclear fear and competitiveness that prevented agreement. It may well be true, as opponents of a CTRT have argued, that continued nuclear testing is not a cause of nuclear ambition in a leader like Saddam Hussein. Such leaders will want the bomb if they can get it, with or without American, Russian, French, Chinese, or U.K. underground tests. But the argument misses the
red point: many people in many countries, who are strong believers in a common effort against nuclear danger, put a test ban high on their list of priorities and measure the seriousness of the nuclear weapons states by their readiness to support such a ban.
The very fact of the strong effort to achieve a true CTBT, as we also work cooperatively to halt further proliferation of nuclear weapons and to negotiate further reductions in the sizes of the nuclear arsenals, is welcome and tangible evidence that the world is making genuine and important progress toward implementing the new thinking that Albert Einstein said was so desperately needed once the nuclear genie was out of the bottle. An end to all nuclear testing will be a tremendous achievement after 50 years and some 2000 nuclear tests worldwide!
If this were the whole story Andrei, were he alive, would be very pleased and so would all of us. But now comes the bad news part. As in physics we must look
not just at the static equilibrium, but also at the dynamics; not just at the current situation, but at the forces of change, how they are developing and how they effect progress. On this score there are plenty of causes for concern, even t o the extent that some of the recent progress in retreating from Cold
War confrontations
and
moving to reduce nuclear danger may unravel in the months and years ahead. For example, in Europe today there are no military threats from east to west or
3 12
west to east. In fact the complete absence of a military confrontation at present
is reflected in the fact that the efforts to bring peace to the suffering inhabitants
in strife-torn Bosnia are supported by a Russian armed brigade operating in an American division, commanded by an American general as part of the NATO forces
in Bosnia. Who would have believed that 5
years ago! But, at the same time, the
effort to build a stability in Europe with Russia, not against Russia, is seriously threatened by conflicting views as to what should be the future of the structure, mission and boundaries of NATO. We also face serious questions about the future of tbe ABM Treaty of 1972. These are triggered by the recognized need to respond to threats of the spread of short-range ballistic missiles, such as the SCUDS used in the Gulf War in 1990, and to provide a defense against them in regional conflicts. How to face that threat
within appropriate constraints of the ABM Treaty, which rules out nationwide defenses against long-range strategic missiles, is a matter of dispute; so is what t o do about potential long-range missile threats that may emerge in the future as missile technology spreads t o other nations of the world. If we cannot preserve deterrence based on negotiated restraints on missile defenses, whether groundbased or of the Star Wars vintage, further reductions in nuclear arsenals will be impossible. Nothing less than extensive, good faith collaboration and cooperation, particularly between the United States and Russia, will be needed to preserve the
basic assumptions underlying the START process as we evaluate potential future needs of both deterrence and protection.
The START I1 Treaty is in jeopardy not only from those who see an urgent need to abrogate or unilaterally modify the ABM Treaty, but also from revisionists
313
seeking to correct alleged disbdances in the provisions of START 11. The warm politicd climate that gave such optimism to the recent summit statements of mutual cooperation, transparency, and irreversibility of the nuclear reductions has now
been chilled by domestic political forces and insecurities on all sides in this year of elections in Washington and Moscow. We have come so far, and yet the difficulty of making further progress alerts us to a sober realization of how fax we still have
to go, and how fragile is the progress we have made thus far. All nations working to build an effective worldwide non-proliferation regime
face further political tasks. We still need to develop political and economic incentives and security assurances that can help dissuade non-signatory nations from
joining the nuclear club. Both Iraq and North Korea, although signatories of the
NPT, have reminded us recently of the imminence of the dangers, and also of the inadequacies in today’s efforts against proliferation. They have also reminded us, as have recurring reports of leakage and theft of potential nuclear bomb fuel, per-
haps involving terrorists, that the capabilities of the IAEA must be expanded and strengthened. It, or its successor, must be given the political support to inspect more than just those sites identified by signatory nations as their nuclear installations. IAEA must also enhance its technical ability to detect diversions of nuclear material and to provide assurance of the absence of undeclared nuclear activities. Both political and technical support are required to strengthen its safeguards system.
To accomplish these broader tasks, the agency will need more staff, a larger budget, a wider range of skills, and also support from the large information collecting services maintained by a number of member states. The IAEA or its successor
3 14
must also oversee a coordinated effort involving all important supplier nations so it can assess their actions. This will require strong political will on the part of the supplier nations who will have to put their interest in the effort against proliferation above their interest in commercial exports and profits. The end of the Cold War has greatly reduced the immediacy of the nuclear fear that was a recurrent element of that long contest. Great events have drastically changed the shape of nuclear danger, but it would be wrong to suppose that the end of the Cold War means an end of nuclear danger, and it would be a grave error to let nuclear fear be replaced by nuclear complacency. As we look around we see many other compelling problems facing the world in addition to the nuclear danger: energy, the environment, resources. New challenges have been created by technological advances nourished by our scicntific progress during the 20th century. These challenges raise important technical issues that we - the scientific community - have a major obligation to help society to address.
As scientists we view our research as an adventure of discovery over uncharted seas toward the distant, endless frontiers of nature. As such, it is intrinsically amoral. But there is no ducking a special obligation of the community of scientists to be alert to the implications and practical applications of our scientific advances. We must assist society to understand their potential benefits and risks, and to shape the applications of scientific progress in beneficial ways.
I view this as a moral obligation of scientists, not necessarily of each individual, but of the community as a whole. This community, whose work has initiated complex technological change, is especially well equipped to project its implications. Without our involvement, how else will society - governments as well as the public
3 15
- be able to judge accurately the potential and the limits, and thereby the benefits and the risks, of what we have made possible? The moral dimension of science is not a new circumstance - but the imperative for the scientific community to address our moral obligation has grown vastly in
importance as the advancing frontiers of knowledge have given us unprecedented powers to affect all our lives, be it through genetic engineering, environmental changes, or the creation of weapons of such enormous destructive power. We face
staggering ethical, legal, and social issues as we progress in deciphering the human genome. In dealing with thermonuclear weapons of mass destruction, whose use could mean the end of civilization, we have dangerously little margin for error. Were Andrei alive today, I have no doubt we would find him engaged and
committed to addressing these problems - and doing so powerfully and effectively.
That was the story of his life. As he wrote in 1981: “Scientists, engineers and other specialists derive from their professional knowIedge and t h e advantages of their occupations a broad and deep understanding of the potential benefits - but
also the risks - entailed in the application of science and technology. They also develop an awareness of the positive and negative tendencies of progress generally,
and its possible consequences.” One thing we can be sure of is that he would never swerve from his fundamental commitment to the principle that “the questions of war and peace and disarmament are so crucial that they must be given absolute priority even in the most difficult circumstances. It is imperative that all possible means be used to solve these questions and to lay the groundwork for further progress. Most urgent of all are steps to avert a nuclear war, which is the greatest
peril confronting the modern world.” (from the New York Times Magazine of 8
3 16
June 1980)
For twenty-one years, from 1968 when his remarkable essay on “Progress, Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom” appeared in public print until his death in 1989, Andrei Sakharov spoke out forcefully, persistently and wisely on problems of peace, the dangers of nuclear weapons, and in opposition to oppression wherever it occurs in the world. The 1975 Nobel Peace Prize citation honored him as “the
spokesman for the conscience of mankind.” Today we remember and honor Andrei for adhering to the highest standards in his unflagging commitment t o reduce nucleu danger and prevent a nuclear holocaust; €or fighting with great courage and
strength in support of human rights; and for waging his campaigns on both fronts with equal priority and uncompromising integrity. He focused on the important and the practical without ever losing sight of his distant goals and dreams. Would
that he were still with us to help realize the world-wide desires for a safer, more humane world.
317
ANDREI SAKHAROV AND THE NUCLEAR DANGER A decade after Sakharov's death, his major concern of Andrei guidance remains relevant to the nuclear ning it. Nuclear weapons Dmitrievich Sakharov. Abril- per jls we face "m today's DOSt-Cold W3T cfnttot be viewed as a mean8 liant physicist whose work r lA of restraining aggression carwas instrumental in the ereWOOU. ried out by means of convenation of the Soviet hydrogen tional weapons." bomb, Sakharov was led by Sakharov pointed out his concern about the danSidney D. Drell that NATO's strategy during gers of nuclear weapons and the cold war years contrathe threat of nuclear war to become a courageous activist dieted the principle of deterrence. At that time, the Sovifor peace and disarmament, as well as for human rights ets were credited with possessing an overwhelming supe(A 1989 talk by Sakharov is reprinted in PHYSICS TODAY, riority in massed conventional forces in Europe, and July 1999, page 22; for more on Sakharov, see PHYSICS NATO's doctrine called for early reliance on nuclear TOBiff, August 1990, which was a special issue devoted to weapons to blunt an assault from the east by those forces. him; also see the American Institute of Physics's Center Today, with the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact a grim for the History of Physics on-line exhibit on SakharoY at memory of the past, the imbalance of conventional milihttp:/As?ww,aip.org/history/sakharov/). In his lifetime he tary strength has shifted in the opposite direction and saw the problems and dangers associated with creating raises new issues to which I will return shortly. A second principle embraced by Sakharov is that of such massively destructive weapons through the highly refracting lens of the cold war. That war is over. The Sovi- strategic parity, that a balance in both nuclear and conet Union no longer exists. But great dangers remain, ventional forces should be a precondition for making albeit mutated into new forms. We still face grave perils. progress toward auclear weapons reductions. SakharoVs As I see it, there are four basic principles that commitment to the principle of parity goes all the way Sakharov held constant as his thinking evolved apace back to 1948, when he joined a research group developing with the changing political and strategic circumstances of thermonuclear weapons. As he wrote in Ms Memoirs* in the cold war. My purpose in this article is to see how these 1989,1 had no doubts as to the vital importance of creatprinciples apply hi today's post-cold war world, with a ing a Soviet superweapon—for our country and for the new strategic and political landscape and with rapidly balance of power throughout the world." There, and on a advancing and more widely accessible technologies. More number of other occasions, Sakharov wrote of the importhan a decade after Sakharov's death in 1989, bis think- tance of balancing the capitalist bomb with a socialist ing remains relevant to the most pressing contemporary bomb. Later, Sakharov was led by his growing concern about the harmful effects of atmospheric nuclear testing issues in peace and disarmament. The four principles that I derive from Sakharov's and by his passionate opposition to Soviet abuses of writings and my discussions with Mm are, briefly stated: human rights to become a courageous and outspoken dis1) deterrence is inescapable; 2) strategic parity is essen- sident. Through it all, he continued to insist on the necestial; 3) negotiations are of primary importance; and 4) sity of strategic parity for progress in controlling nuclear trust, developing from cooperation and openness, is a pre- weapons and the arms race, and for eventually achieving the long-term goal of disarmament. SakharoVs position is requisite for progress. well summarized in a letter he wrote to me in 1981 from Sakharov's four principles Gorky8: I consider disarmament necessary and possiSakharov*g first general principle, the inevitability of deterrence, is based on his concern that any use of nuclear ble only on the basis of strategic parity. Additional agreements covering all kinds of weapons would amount to "collective suicide." Indeed, he frequently emphasized that "a large nuclear war would be weapons of mass destruction are needed. After a calamity of indescribable proportions and absolutely strategic parity in conventional arms has been unpredictable consequences, with the uncertainties tendachieved, a parity which takes account of all ing toward the worst." The principle of deterrence is statthe political, psychological and geographical ed clearly in his open letter to me of February 2, 1983, factors involved, and if totalitarian expansion entitled "The Danger of Thermonuclear War."1 In this letis brought to an end, then agreements should ter, which he considered his most detailed public statebe reached prohibiting the first use of nuclear ment on the consequences of nuclear conflict, he asserts, weapons, and, later, banning such weapons. "Nuclear weapons only make sense as a means of deterSakharoVs third principle was the importance of ring nuclear aggression by a potential enemy, i.e,, a diplomatic negotiations, to avoid a direct nuclear conflict, reduce the size of nuclear arsenals, and reduce the dangers associated with nuclear weapons. He stressed this theme repeatedly. For example, in Ms book My Country and The World* he emphasised the importance of "disarmament talks, which offer a ray of hope in the dark world ""' •-•••--••:•• of suicidal nuclear madness." The strength of his commitS> 3030 American Matt* of Ptrriia, SOOil-K
MAY 2000 PHYSICS TODAY 37
318 ment is nowhere more evident thaa ia his statement during the first year of his exile to Gorky: "Despite all that has happened, I feel that the questions of war and peace and disarmament are BO crucial that they must be given absolute priority even in the most difficult circumstances. It is imperative that all possible means be used to solve these questions and to lay the groundwork for further progress. Most urgent of all are steps to avert a nuclear war, which, is the greatest peril confronting the modern world. The goals of all responsible people in the world coincide in this regard, including, I hope and believe, the Soviet leaders . . ." Whereas Sakharov insisted on giving "absolute priority" to questions of psace and disarmament, he also emphasized the importance of fighting for human rights and freedom. Both campaigns must be fought with equal vigor, he insisted, just as one fights with both fists and walks with both legs. He himself did so with total disregard of the consequences to himself. Sakharov's fourth principle, building trust, was cast in the context of the cold war confrontation between the West and the Soviet Union, In an interview with Time magazine that appeared in March 1387, he asserted that international security and real disarmament are impossible without greater trust, built on cooperation and openness between nations of the West and the Soviet Union. He also emphasized the critical importance of human rights and democracy, saying, "Without a resolution of political and humanitarian problems, progress in disarmament and international security will be extremely difficult, if not impossible."5
imously—agreed that such a quest was futile: It was beyond scientific and technical reality to build an effective nationwide defense against a massive attack by one of the two superpowers, each possessing many thousands of nuclear weapons. Sakharov fully recognized the futility of antimissile defense in the context of the cold war and argued strongly against deployment of an antiballistic missile (ABM) system. He repeatedly said that an effort to construct a protective shield against massive nuclear attack would be both, illusory and provocative. In Ms Memoirs he summarizes a study he did with colleagues at "the Installation"— the secret city where he was a leader of Soviet nuclear weapons development—during 1965-67, just prior to his formal break with the Soviet government: In the course of many heated discussions, I, along with the majority of my colleagues, reached two conclusions which, in my view, remain valid today: 1. An effective ABM defense is not possible if the potential adversary can mobilize comparable technical and economic resources for military purposes. A way can always be found to neutralize an ABM defense system—and at considerably less expense than the cost of deploying it. 2. Over and above the burdensome cost, deployment of an ABM system is dangerous since it can upset the strategic balance. If both sides were to possess powerful ABM defenses, the main result would be to raise the threshold of strategic stability, or in somewhat simA changed world plified terms, increase the minimum number The post-cold war. world ia very different from the one of nuclear weapons needed for mutual assured that Sakharov was concerned with when he developed destruction. and applied the four basic principles of deterrence, parity, Sakharov spoke out on the "practical impossibility of negotiations, and trust. No longer is the dominant concern preventing a massive rocket attack" in his first public the prospect of a nuclear holocaust, triggered by mistake, essay,6 in 1968: "The experience of past wars shows that misunderstanding, or miscalculation in a confrontation the first use of a new technical or tactical method of attack between the two superpowers. Instead, there are growing is usually highly effective even if a simple antidote can concerns about terrorism in a world with one superpower soon be developed. But in a thermonuclear war the first and a growing number of emerging powers—some unsta- blow may be the decisive one and render null and void ble, some poor, and many with access to advancing tech- years of work and billions spent on creation of an antimisnologies of biological and chemical weapons of indiscrimi- sile system." He also emphasized what he called "the nate destruction. Notwithstanding these changes, I instability introduced by such a system if started by one believe that the four basic principles of Sakharov remain side." These two arguments were the basis of many of the just as cogent for addressing issues of war and peace in writings on this subject in the West during the cold war, today's world as they were when he relied on them over a and I, with many other scientists, found them decisive, I decade ago. In the words of a physicist, they are invariant heard him argue them persuasively in bis Moscow apartover time. Let us now look at several contemporary issues ment in March 1988 to five leaders from the US Senate, to see how Sakharov's thinking applies today. including the current Secretary of Defense, then Senator Throughout the cold war, the mutual hostage rela- William Cohen, who had challenged him on this question. tionship implied by the principle Today, of course, the situation of deterrence was generally but is very different and some of reluctantly accepted by the Sakharov's arguments against nuciear powers and their allies. antimissile defenses are no longer Accepting that there was ulticompelling. The Soviet Union no mately no defense from nuclear longer exists, and Russia currentattack involved considerable disly lacks the resources necessary to ~-mfort, because it ran counter the fundamental human instinct to defend our families, THE 1975 NOBEL PEACE PRIXE, ourselves, our friends, and our commemorated in this 1991 society. Serious efforts were Swedish postage stamp, was awardmade to escape the mutual ed to Sakharov for his "fearless perhostage relation through new sonal commitment to upholding the formulations of strategic policy fundamental principles for peace or technological fixes. Neverthebetween men." less, it was broadly—if not unan-
C
38
MAY 2000 PHYSICS TODAY
319 HARVEY L. LYNCH
develop and deploy powerful nationwide ABM defenses. Fear of the danger of a massive nuclear attack on the US homeland has been replaced by: concerns about very limited attacks. These concerns are spurred by the rapid development and proliferation of missile technology in many areas of the globe, together with emerging threats from rations seeking nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. Whereas deterrence between advanced nuclear powers remains broadly accepted as unavoidable, the new problem is to find a way to protect against threats of very limited attacks by new members of the nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons club. Can't we do better against a very limited threat, both to deter or discourage attack, and to provide some defense? And can we accomplish this without simultaneously stimulating a new arms buildup, or foreclosing prospects for further reductions in existing arsenals of many thousands of nuclear warheads? This is a tall order, a terrific challenge. My guess is that Sakharov today would support efforts to develop some protection against very limited threats, based on a realistic assessment of what technology can and cannot do. This would be consistent with his views back in 1967, as Elena Boaner pointed out hi a letter to The. New York Times on 27 October 1999. But before modifying the 1972 ABM Treaty, I think Sakharov would insist'that there be an understanding between the US and Hussia that honored all four of Ms principles. This means recognizing that mutual deterrence between the two countries remains inescapable so long as both nations possess large numbers of nuclear weapons. It means there should be no initiatives on either side to seek a military dominance that could disrupt stability in their current relationship, which now mixes cooperation with competition. It means that primary importance should remain with ongoing diplomatic efforts,, rather than taking unilateral steps to abrogate the ABM Treaty. Unilateral action would almost certainly shatter the structure of the arms control dialogue in which the nations are now engaged, a dialogue that provides the political basis for the continuing efforts to reduce nuclear arsenals and to develop an effective nonproliferation regime. Finally, there is no substitute for cooperation and openness as a prerequisite for progress. The two newest members of the nuclear club, India and Pakistan, probably view nuclear deterrence differently from the US and Russia in defining their security interests. However, there is one simple fact they cannot escape: As neighbors with a long common border, both would suffer an almost unimaginable disaster if either were to use nuclear weapons. In their search to avoid nuclear conflict and improve stability in their confrontational relationship, their diplomatic efforts to resolve conflicts and maintain peace have become more important than ever.
DREIX AND SAKHAROV at the Lepton Photon Symposium at
Efforts to limit and then reduce US and Russian nuclear weapons at the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks were a centerpiece of diplomacy during the cold war, but have since ground to a halt. The talks looked promising at the time of Sakharov's death, when the reductions of the first round, STAKT I, had just been negotiated, but a decade later we are still at START I levels. The further reductions of START II have not been achieved because of continuing reluctance on the part of the Russian Duma to ratify that treaty. The US has not been very helpful in this effort: Although it has been evident since the demise of the Soviet Union and the collapse of the Russian economy that Russia is unable to sustain even the force levels and mix of START II, we have rigidly insisted that they must ratify that treaty before we will sit down and work out the still lower limits for START in. [Note added in proof: The lower house of the Doma finaSy ratified STABT II on 14 April 2000, with the condition that the US does not renounce or unilaterally violate restrictions of the ABM Treaty.] Sakharov would certainly be very pleased by one provision that is at the heart of START II, namely the deMIRVing of landbased missiles, that is, Hmiting them to one warhead per missile. He called for removing vulnerable silo-based missiles,1 as a threat to stability, as long ago as 1983. I have no doubt that Sakharov would be profoundly disappointed by the lack of progress in the START process, and would be urging renewed efforts to move the process forward. Just as Sakharov castigated NATO for its policy of early first use of nuclear weapons against overwhelming Soviet nonnuclear forces during the confrontation between NATO and the Warsaw Pact, he surely would be saddened to find that, today, the policy has not disappeared but rather has been reversed. It is now Russia that has adopted a doctrine of early first use of nuclear weapons in critical situations against large-scale aggression involving conventional forces. This reflects Russia's lack of confidence in its own current conventional forces. Surely NATO is not about to invade Russia, but the situation will be more stable when strategic parity removes excuses, or a perceived need, for Russia to rely on nuclear first use for its homeland defense. Building trust and cooperation Sakharov would surely support, and urge expanding, modern initiatives to build trust and cooperation between the US and Russia. I have no doubt that he would encourage and support. US cooperation in helping Russia safeguard its nuclear weapons and material, as well as the ongoing US-Russian govemment-to-government discussions for sharing information to help provide early warning of a
MAY 2000 PHYSICS TODAY 39
320
m E R E W.4S A STEADY SPREAD OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS capa-
bility, at the rate of one new nuclear weapons state every five years, throughout the cold war. During the past decade, South Africa and the three newly rndependent states Belarus, K d s m , and Ukraine have abandoned their nuclear weapons capabilities, but concern remains about the future course of Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. The Non-Proliferation and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaties provide the diplomatic framework for current efforts to cap further proliferation. strong opposition to such atmospheric testing in the Sovi-
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nudear miss& attack This infomation sharing is a very good idea to p m e more b r d y with all interested counk e s . Confidence i naccess to early warning inforrmttionis a purely defensive measure that will enhance stabililq by reducing fern of a preemptive h i t strike. sakharov wodd h o s t ce-y also support the Cfiemid Weapons Conwntion L b t has now been brought mto T o m with carefirlly cr& safepard provisions, and the ongob4 eEo& to complete protmols for eE&ive comlJliance the Biological F'mpms Convention. Nuczclear proliferation was a major cancern of Sakharov. I a m confident that he would strongly endorse the 1995 extension of the nuclear Non-Prolifmation Treaty (NET) for the indeJMte future by 187 of the nations of t h e world, plus ihe effort to give it a more ef€ective verification system. The extended treaty is a major success of negotiations, and shows the broadening of the principle of par:ty in a multilateral world through its offering of pasitivs and negative s e c d t y assurances by and for all signatories. The positiw assurances are a guarantee by the nuclear weapons states of "nuclear umbrellaFprotection to nonnuclear weapons states, and the negative assurances ere a pledge not to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear mapons states. The WT p r o 9 o " s for sharing the benefits of nuclear energy, whde putfing any activities capable of producing fuel for nudear weapons under iaternational inspection, constitute a critic2 step in the effort to increase cooperation m d trust among nations.' A commitment by the nrrclew powers to cease all mclear test explosions became an essentid p ~ r of t the NPT bmgain in 1995, when worldwide support was obtamed for the mdefhite extension of that treaty at its &ah and final schedded fiveyear review. Such "a commitment to negctiaw 8 c~mprehensrvetest ban treaty (CTBT) is written m the prembjes to both the Limited Test Bur Treaty of 1963 and tu the NPT of 1910 ' The issw of nuclear testing was one of longtime concern t.a Sakhmv. In his Wetime, he spoke passionately and repestteclly against atmospheric nuclear testing because of the pok&d impact of its radioaetiw fallout on t h a h d t h of peopIe-pmticdariy children-by means of accmuiation iho~ughthe food chain. The futility of his
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et Union, following the USSR's abrogation of the moratorim in 1961, was a major factor in his disaffection with and public opposition to the Soviet g o v e m e n t . However, Sakharov's support for a comprehensive test ban was muted in a Jamary 1981 intervien7 in the ~it~rat~rnaya Gazefa,"where he said, The problem of banning underground nuclear testing seems t o be secondary compared to other problems of nuclear disarmament." We cannot know for sure whether or how strongly h e would be supporting a CTBT today. However, in view of Sakharov's stated concerns about proliferation and the fact that a ban on testing has ROW become central t o achieving widely shared nonproliferation goals, I think it likely that he would favor CTBT ratification today. I regret the recent failure by the US to ratify the CTBT, and comments by Sakharov in the last interview before his deathgstrongly suggest he would too: 1 think that our country may run political risks for the sake of a very significant goal. It may declare a permanent halt Of nuclear tests, which would only be resumed if there is a drastic change in the world's political situation. . . . We can be finnly convinced that our action will make it politically necessary for the Western countries ta take reciprocal steps. And the consequences will be of tremendous character. ...We ean [make] all the system function excepting. . . the last step of the nuclear blast, if we repIaee the nuclear firelby any passive substance. . . . The nuclear explosion will occur ipevitably if we replace the passive substance by plutonium and m y enriched uranium]. '"his control i s absolutely reliable. And we can accomplish it under conditions maximally approaching the combat ones. And we can be absolutely sure that in case of need, everything will operate ti-ouble-free. I fully share that technical judgment, and draw the further conclusion that the United States needs no additional explosive testing to maintain confidence in om deterrent. The necessary data-which is the coin of the realm--is being obtained horn the Comprehensive stockpile stewardship program now being pursued.10 In order for the CTBT to be ratzied by the nuclear weapons states (as France and the United Kingdom already have done), these states will have to satisfythemselves that they can maintain their deterrent under such a ban. They will also need to be convinced that the treaty is effectivelyverjfiable; that is, no significant new military threats to their security can be developed clandestinely or under the guise of stockpile stewardship. To achieve this level of confidence, treaty negotiators will inevitably have to extend the boundaries of cooperation and openness (or transparency) in their respective stewardship activities." The increased need for openness should present no gem uine barriers to progress, given the advanced kvel of coop-
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eration already developed during the past decade between the US and Russian nuclear weapons communities in their joint efforts for safer material protection and better control and accountability in Russia. It would also be consistent with Sakharov‘s fourth principle, increased trust.
A new approach is necessary At the dawn of the nuclear age 55 years ago Einstein warned “The unleashed power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking; we thus drift toward an unparalleled catastrophe.” I will close with Sakharov‘s updated version of that warning as expressed12on his first visit to the US, in December 1988. In referring to his work on the hydrogen bomb in 1948, he noted I and the people who worked with me a t the time were completely convinced that this work was essential, that it was vitally important. At that time our country had just come out of a very devastating war in which I personally had not had a chance to take direct part, but the work in which I became involved was also a kind of war. In the United States, independently, the same kind of work was being carried out. The American scientists in their work were guided by the same feelings of this work being vital for the interests of the country. But, while both sides felt that this kind of work was vital to maintain balance, I think that what we were doing at that time was a great tragedy. It was a tragedy that reflected the tragic state of the world that made it necessary, in order to maintain peace, t o do such terrible things. We will never know whether it was really true that our work contributed at some period of time toward maintaining peace in the world, but a t least a t the time we were doing it, we were convinced this was the case. The world has now entered a new era, and I am convinced that a new approach has now become necessary. That is Andrei Sakharov’s challenge to us as we enter the 21st century.
References 1. A. Sakharov,ForeignAffairs 61, 1001 (1983). 2. A. Sakharov,Memoirs, Knopf, New York (1990).
3. A. Sakharov, letter dated January 10, 1981. In the samizdat journal A Chronicle of Current Events 61, 219, Amnesty
International, London. 4. A. Sakharov,My Country and The World, Knopf, New York
(1975). 5. Time magazine, March 16, 1987,p. 40. 6. A. Sakharov, Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom, 2nd ed., Norton, New York (1970).First appeared in English in The New York Times, July 22, 1968. 7. See Arms Control and Disarmament Agreements: Texts and Histories of Negotiations, United States A r m s Control and DisarmamentAgency, Washington, DC (1980). 8. Quoted by Yu. B. Khariton in Andrei Sakharou: Facets of a Life, Editions Frontieres, France (1991),p. 413. 9. In Voter, newspaper of the popular anti-nuclear movement “Nevada-Semipalatinsk,”no. 8 (1990).I thank F. Von Hippel
for this reference. 10. For further technical discussion, see S. Drell, R. Jeanloz, B. Peurifoy, Science 283, 1119 (1999); S. D. Drell, Rev. Mod. Phys. 71,5460 (1999). 11. Cf S. D. Drell, Testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on stockpile stewardship and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, October 7,1999. 12. A. Sakharov, Remarks at a jubilee honoring Edward Teller, Washington,DC, November 1988.
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Afterword: What Are Nuclear Weapons For? It has been clear, at least since 1956, when President Eisenhower said that with nuclear weapons wars had now become ”destruction of the enemy and suicide,” that they are not for fighting, i.e. for actual use in combat. The rationale for maintaining excessively high levels of many thousands of nuclear warheads to enforce deterrence by mutual assured destruction evaporated with the end of the Cold War. Large nuclear forces also have nothing to do with facing the threat of suicidal terrorists. As I have urged in my essays, this leads to a direct logical conclusion that their numbers should be reduced at least by one order of magnitude from the existing arsenals. October 11-12, 2006, marked the 20th anniversary of the Reykjavik Summit between Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev that initiated radical changes in U.S.-Soviet nuclear weapons policy and tackled the challenge to escape from the balance of terror, starting with major reductions. The two leaders came breathlessly close to removing all nuclear armed ballistic missiles and brought the vision of a nuclear free world tantalizingly close to reality. Fifteen years after the end of the Cold War the time is overdue for the world to seriously revisit the 20-year-old vision of Reykjavik. Our first order of business today remains keeping the world’s most dangerous weapons out of the hands of the world’s most dangerous people. At the same time, and without distracting from that effort, we should reaffirm getting rid of nuclear weapons as a practical goal - not just a distant vision and implement policy initiatives toward that ultimate goal. Many years ago Ronald Reagan said ”It just doesn’t make sense for the world to be sitting here with these weapons aimed at each other.” And in 2005 (Arms Control Today, July/August) Mikhail Gorbachev called on the world to return to the Reykjavik vision: “We must reassert the goal of nuclear weapons elimination as both a moral duty and a legal obligation of nuclear powers under Article VI of the NonProliferation Treaty. The abolition of nuclear weapons is also a practical necessity, given the new threat emerging at the intersection of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. Ultimately the only way to avert that threat is to destroy the stockpiles of nuclear as well as chemical and biological weapons.” These weapons bring us to an end of the road in mankind’s ability to destroy himself. Luck and some wisdom have avoided nuclear war for 61 years since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but we cannot count on them forever. Historians record that Pope Innocent 11, in the year 1139, declared the recently developed crossbow “Hateful to God and Unfit for Christians” and forbade its use. However this edict of the Second Lateran Council was amended a few years later to permit the use of the crossbow against Moslems. And soon thereafter this limitation also broke down as Christians took up the crossbow against one another before it was superseded more efficient means of killing. So we better get moving on the challenge to realize the vision of Reykjavik.
