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The Future Of Nukes

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By MICHAEL O'HANLON

Special to The Washington Post

Published: December 28, 2008

For all their agreement on matters such as Afghanistan and defense spending, President-elect Barack Obama and Defense Secretary Robert Gates are on record disagreeing over a central matter for U.S. security: the future of nuclear weapons.

The issue is whether the United States should build the "reliable replacement warhead," a matter that has major ramifications for all U.S. nuclear policy, including whether to ratify the comprehensive treaty banning nuclear tests and whether we will be able to work with other countries to stem proliferation.

If Obama wants the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and commit the United States never to test weapons again, it appears that he will have to gather votes in the face of opposition from his defense secretary. Waiting until Gates leaves the Pentagon is not a good option: A review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty is scheduled for early 2010, and U.S. ratification of the test ban treaty is probably a prerequisite for strong international support to extend and strengthen the NPT.

The right strategy has two elements: redefine the RRW program as a remanufacture of an older design, and delay that program to allow Obama to create momentum for arms control.

Redefining the RRW might seem like semantics but is, in fact, a reasonable move. The United States developed more conservative weapons designs in the early years of the nuclear era that might be usable. Even if they had to be modified, the designs would remain more "old" than "new." Moreover, building such warheads would not create new capabilities for American war planners but would deprive them of some targeting options they possess today, while emphasizing safety and reliability.

Obama's budget request should not include money for the reliable replacement warhead, but his administration's first nuclear review should commit the United States to building more conservative and less deadly bombs by about 2015. With any luck, Gates will consider this a reasonable compromise, and with his support the United States will ratify the long-delayed comprehensive test ban treaty during Obama's first year in office.

The writer was a nuclear weapons analyst at the Congressional Budget Office from 1989 to 1994.

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