Bush plan for earth-penetrating nuclear weapon hits roadblock

Issues in Science and Technology, Summer 2005

Despite a continuing strong push from the Bush administration, the House of Representatives is providing a cool reception for a program to study earth-penetrating nuclear weapons. The recently approved House fiscal year (FY) 2006 Energy and Water Development appropriations bill does not include money for the administration's Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), also known as an earth "bunker buster," which is designed to put at risk deeply buried targets beyond the range of conventional weapons. In addition, the House-passed version of the FY 2006 Defense Authorization bill removed the nuclear component from a study of earth-penetrating weapons and shifted the proposed work to the Department of Defense (DOD) from the Department of Energy.

Meanwhile, a recent National Research Council report concluded that earth-penetrating nuclear weapons cannot penetrate to the depths required to contain all of the effects of a nuclear explosion. According to the report, "For attacks near or in densely populated urban areas using nuclear earth-penetrator weapon on hard and deeply buried targets (HDBTs), the number of casualties can range from thousands to more than a million, depending primarily on weapon yield. For attacks on HDBTs in remote, lightly populated areas, casualties can range from as few as hundreds at low weapon yields to hundreds of thousands at high yields and with unfavorable winds."

Although the Senate has not yet taken action this year, the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces addressed the issue in the context on the country's overall nuclear capability during an April hearing. Only administration officials were invited. Gen. James E. Cartwright, Commander, U.S. Strategic Command (StratCom) for the Marine Corps, framed today's nuclear weapon programs in the context of a broad reconfiguration of DOD. He said that in order to respond to post-Cold War threats, a realignment of various combat commands must take place, with emphasis on a quick, agile, and precise response to worldwide threats. He noted that whereas most of DOD's commands focus on threats in specific regions, StratCom's role is to supply worldwide "enablers" to these localized commands, including missile defense, sensors, reconnaissance, and surveillance capabilities. Nuclear weapons are another such enabler, and StratCom is working to update the U.S. nuclear arsenal to reflect today's threats.

Cartwright testified that a leading force in shaping U.S. nuclear weapons policy is the Moscow Treaty, signed in 2001 by President Bush, which limits the U.S. nuclear arsenal to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads by the year 2012. A critical means for protecting the reliability of the arsenal and the sufficiency of the number of warheads is to sustain target precision to meet emerging needs. As it has argued in previous years, StratCom believes that hardened, underground bunkers are one area where conventional weapons are not useful, and thus, the RNEP program is being pursued.

Subcommittee Chairman Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) challenged the witnesses to refute claims that the RNEP study will disrupt the world's nuclear balance. Ambassador Linton F. Brooks, administrator at the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, responded by discussing four classes into which the defense world is currently divided.

First, he argued, current nuclear powers will not be affected if the United States develops a new nuclear weapon. Second, aspiring nuclear states, such as North Korea or Iran, won't be influenced either, because they already feel threatened by the sheer size of U.S. conventional forces. Third, terrorists are unlikely to be deterred regardless of our activities, so we should not worry about them. The final class, and the only one affected by RNEP development, Brooks argued, would be the non-nuclear states who help the United States uphold the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty through their cooperation. Brooks admits that these nations have reason to worry but contends the RNEP study alone won't convince any of these nations to go nuclear.

Brooks' arguments in favor of the RNEP study received no dissent from the two senators presiding over the subcommittee hearing. However, Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), ranking member on the subcommittee noted that the RNEP would not move past its study phase without explicit consent from Congress.