Current Nuclear Weapons Development

Inside the Air Force - 02/28/2014

W80, W84 being considered


Air Force And NNSA To Select Nuclear Cruise Missile Warhead In Mid-2015


Posted: Feb. 27, 2014

The National Nuclear Security Administration will begin its formal study this July of the two potential warheads that could go on a new nuclear cruise missile, according to an Air Force official. A selection between them would then be expected about a year later.

The two warheads being considered that would give the Long-Range Standoff Missile (LRSO) its nuclear capability are the W80, which is fielded on today's Air-Launched Cruise Missile, or the W84 -- a retired warhead formerly fielded on the Ground-Launched Cruise Missile. Either one would require a life-extension and improvement program to provide the capability the Pentagon is looking for.

In a Feb. 21 interview at the Pentagon, Air Force Lt. Col. Karson Sandman and Lt. Col. Benjamin Travers discussed the status of the LRSO program, which requires both the development of a new missile and the rehabilitation of an existing nuclear warhead. Sandman is the chief of the service's stockpile science and technology branch, responsible for monitoring warhead activities, while Travers is the weapons and platforms branch chief; both of those branches fall within the capabilities division of the Air Force's strategic deterrence and nuclear integration directorate.

Sandman, who works closely with the National Nuclear Security Administration that will perform the planned warhead development work in the near future, said the NNSA will truly begin comparing the two potential warheads in July. That analysis phase is referred to as the "6.1" stage of the administration's acquisition cycle.

A selection between the W80 and W84 would then come around the summer of 2015, he said.

"Activities involved in the 6.1 phase will include an analysis of each of the two warhead candidates against military requirements ranging from quantities to desired technical and surety features," Sandman wrote in a follow-up Feb. 26 email. "One of the first priorities will be to identify the scope of the study and balance that against NNSA and Air Force budgets. The Air Force has requested that a warhead selection be jointly agreed to by the end of the 6.1 phase (approximately one year from inception)."

During the interview, Sandman said the Air Force and NNSA work under a general rule of designing life-extension programs for a period of 10 years, although the actual performance time may vary depending on requirements and funding. That schedule dictates the process should begin shortly, as the Air Force picks up the pace of its LRSO development in fiscal year 2015 as well.

Travers said the LRSO program staff is working on a variety of "pre-milestone A" activities, with a milestone A decision that would clear the program to award one or several technology development contracts expected in the summer. He said the Air Force has not yet decided how much competition is appropriate for LRSO development.

"Do you do competitive prototyping? Do you do prototyping only at the component level? Those questions are being asked and vetted and answered now," Travers said.

As Inside the Air Force has previously reported, four of the defense industry's most prominent companies -- Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon -- are performing LRSO trade studies on a variety of topics. Travers said those studies do not need to be complete ahead of the milestone A review.

The Air Force completed an LRSO analysis of alternatives in 2013.

Sandman noted that the NNSA's somewhat limited warhead production capabilities and its budget -- much more restricted than the Pentagon's -- sometimes cause nuclear programs to progress more slowly than would otherwise occur. That may impact the LRSO program, as NNSA has a number of ongoing warhead life-extensions in the works today.

"They have their labs and then they have their production facilities, and if their production facilities only have a certain capacity and they're doing a full [life-extension program], then they can only fit some discreet amount of work into that schedule," he said. "So then we have to time other events and other program upgrades into that overall schedule."

The service does have some flexibility in its schedule, as the current AGM-86 Air-Launched Cruise Missile is set to remain in service until 2030. But the desire to field a new missile simultaneously with a new nuclear-capable bomber dictates that LRSO be ready by the mid-2020s, the Air Force's stated time line for fielding of the developmental Long-Range Strike Bomber. -- Gabe Starosta
 
bobbymike said:
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I have tabled the Intolerable Naive Senator Against Nuclear Everything - The INSANE ACT :eek:
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;D
 
Are Nuclear Weapons Getting a Smaller Slice of the U.S. Budget Pie?


March 3, 2014

By Douglas P. Guarino

Global Security Newswire

A B-52 bomber being prepared for refueling in 2002. The aircraft type has been in service since the 1950s, when nuclear weapons spending accounted for a larger percentage of the federal budget. A B-52 bomber being prepared for refueling in 2002. The aircraft type has been in service since the 1950s, when nuclear weapons spending accounted for a larger percentage of the federal budget. (Greg M. Kobashigawa/USAF/Getty Images) Has the percentage of U.S. federal budget dollars devoted to nuclear weapons activities declined in recent decades? The answer, generally speaking, is yes, but what that means and whether it matters depends on who you talk to. Sherman McCorkle cited the issue in an interview last month with Global Security Newswire. He leads a new Strategic Deterrent Coalition that is looking to convince Americans that maintaining existing nuclear weapons is essential to national security. McCorkle was asked to respond to growing concerns that an increasingly tight budget environment would make it impossible to follow through on the government's current plans for modernizing the nuclear arsenal. The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, for instance, released a report last month asserting the current plan would cost at least $1 trillion over the next 30 years and would be fiscally impossible to implement.

McCorkle, chairman and CEO of the Sandia Science & Technology Park Development Corporation, said he doesn't put too much stock in such studies. His company is located near the Energy Department's Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, which works on nuclear arsenal-related projects. "I think most people in America have learned over the last three or four decades that [for] anybody's point of view, there can be a study that would support that view," he said. "There are as many studies are there are points of view." McCorkle added that over time, nuclear arms have taken a shrinking portion of the federal budget pie. "If you track in cost and dollars going back to the 60s, 70s, 80s … the cost of the nuclear deterrent vis a vis the total defense budget or vis a vis the United States budget … is a smaller percentage now than it was then. … It's a decreasing amount of both our defense budget and our national budget." While exact figures on all nuclear weapons-related expenditures can be difficult to pin down, nuclear-weapons activities do generally account for a smaller percentage of the U.S. defense budget today than they did in past decades. For example, in 1962, the military's strategic forces budget was $10.6 billion, or about 22 percent of the Defense Department's total $48.4 billion budget that year, according to Defense budget documents. The now-defunct Atomic Energy Commission, meanwhile, spent roughly an additional $10 billion on nuclear warhead activities, according to Stephen Schwartz, editor of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies' Nonproliferation Review. This means that, in 1962, nuclear weapons spending amounted to more than $20 billion, or roughly 18 percent of a $106 billion federal budget that year. This was at the height of the Cold War, when the United States was building up its nuclear arsenal in competition with the Soviet Union, the world's other superpower. In 2012 -- more than two decades after the Cold War ended -- the strategic forces budget was $12.6 billion, less than 2 percent of the $652 billion in defense spending that year. The Energy Department spent an additional $16.8 billion, meaning total nuclear weapons spending amounted to about $29.4 billion -- roughly 0.8 percent of all federal expenditures. These numbers are far from a perfect representation of nuclear weapons costs however, budget experts say. For example, the strategic forces budget includes things like B-1 bomber aircraft, which can fly long distances but no longer carry nuclear weapons. It also includes B-52 bomber aircraft, some of which no longer carry nuclear weapons, and also four Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines that have been converted to conventional missions only.

Also, of the $16.8 billion the Energy Department spent on nuclear defense activities, only $7.2 billion were directly tied to the nuclear stockpile, said Schwartz. "The other costs are important and related in various ways to the nuclear stockpile and nuclear security generally, but in all but a few cases they are costs we would continue to bear even if we gave up nuclear weapons tomorrow," he said. On the other hand, the 2012 strategic forces spending figure excludes several key items, such as costs associated with nonstrategic nuclear weapons in the United States and Europe, and relevant intelligence operations. "If just 10 percent of the total current intelligence budget were allocated to the nuclear mission -- a figure that may well be too low based on historical precedent -- the nuclear weapons budget would increase by $7.5 billion," said Schwartz. However, "it is dramatically true" that the percentage of federal spending that nuclear-weapons activities account for is less than it once was, said Russell Rumbaugh, director of budgeting for foreign affairs and defense at the Stimson Center. This is "largely because the size of the U.S. budget has increased so much," he added.

Whether the reduced percentage of budget dollars spent on nuclear arms over time suggests that the sector should be spared any cuts in the years to come -- as McCorkle suggests -- is another question, however. Benjamin Loehrke, senior policy analyst for the Ploughshares Fund, argues that they do not. "I'm skeptical of what can be learned from such comparisons," Loehrke told GSN. "Of course the percentage is in relative decline. At the height of the Cold War, the nuclear arsenal was irrationally big and extremely expensive." According to Loehrke, the comparison "tells you nothing about how many nuclear weapons we need today and how much the U.S. should spend on them." Such "strategic questions are more relevant than Cold War budget nostalgia," he says. Schwartz notes that, in 1962, the United States had 25,540 operational warheads -- as opposed to 4,680 in 2012. "The percentage figures say very little about trends, actual amounts of spending, or decisionmakers' views of the overall importance of the program, or lack thereof, across time," he argued. "As the federal budget expanded with the cost of the Vietnam War, the Great Society, etc., the relative percentage of everything else -- including nuclear weapons -- shrank," said Schwartz. "It's entirely possible for actual nuclear weapons spending to go up even as its share of the federal budget -- or the overall DOD budget -- goes down." According to Schwartz, current Energy Department weapons spending is nearly $2 million more than the average annual expenditures for the same activities during the Cold War, when adjusted for inflation.

He offered an analogy. "If I make $100,000 a year and spend $5,000 annually on a home security system, it doesn't follow that if I get a new job that pays me $200,000 a year that I need to double what I spend on home security for the same house in order to maintain the same percentage to keep my family and possessions as safe as they were before I began earning more," Schwartz said.
 
Report: China Working on New Intermediate-Range Missile

March 4, 2014

China is working on a new intermediate-range, nuclear-capable missile, the Washington Free Beacon reported on Monday.

The new ballistic missile, dubbed the Dongfeng-26C, is projected to be able to travel a minimum of 2,200 miles.

The newspaper said it confirmed the missile’s development with U.S. intelligence agencies, though specifics about the weapon were few. The missile is thought to be solid fueled and road mobile.

The Dongfeng-26C is anticipated to be mentioned next month in the Defense Department’s yearly briefing to Congress on China’s armed forces.

“China is developing and will soon deploy new longer-range theater missiles as part of its anti-access, area denial strategies,” China defense expert Richard Fisher wrote in an email cited by the newspaper.
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Time to abrogate the INF Treaty for IRBM's but conventional only.
 
Especially since Russia has already breached it with their Iskander/cruise missile tests.
 
http://defensetech.org/2014/03/04/russian-missile-test-was-planned-u-s-says/#more-22450
 
sferrin said:
Especially since Russia has already breached it with their Iskander/cruise missile tests.
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Not that the US diplomatic corp/arms-control wonks would deign to take notice of the USSR/Russia's long history of treaty violations.
But they're apoplectic because the B-61 now has INS guidance.
 
50 years ago in Air Force Magazine - The Myth of Overkill

http://www.airforcemag.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/1964/February%201964/0264overkill.aspx
 
http://en.ria.ru/military_news/20140305/188117197/Russia-Plans-2-More-Ballistic-Missile-Tests-in-March.html
 
http://www.nti.org/gsn/article/us-energy-dept-seeks-83-billion-nuclear-arsenal-work/
 
And now another nuclear program delayed;


Long-Range Standoff Missile Development Pushed Back By Three Years


Posted: Mar. 05, 2014

The Pentagon's next-generation nuclear cruise missile will not begin development in fiscal year 2015 as scheduled and will instead slip by three years, deferring almost $1 billion in spending beyond FY-18.

The Defense Department has not yet released the budget justification documents that provide line-by-line details about military spending, but an Air Force spokeswoman provided those figures for the Long-Range Standoff (LRSO) missile to InsideDefense.com in a March 5 email. The funding table for LRSO, covering the period between FY-15 and FY-19, shows that the service will ramp up spending extremely slowly: $5 million in FY-15, $10 million in FY-16, $20 million in FY-17, $41 million in FY-18, and $145 million in the last year of the current five-year budgeting window, for a total of $221 million in the future years defense program.

That contrasts dramatically with the Air Force's previously documented plans. The service spent just $5 million on the missile's development in FY-14 but projected a need for $40 million in FY-15, and then a major jump to $204 million in FY-16. The funding requirement only grew from there, to $349 million in FY-17 and $440 million the following year.

The rephased and slowed-down development schedule pushes $959 million outside of the FY-14 to FY-18 FYDP.

Service spokeswoman Capt. Erika Yepsen attributed the restructure to financial pressures and an uncertain acquisition plan. As InsideDefense.com reported last week, the Air Force and National Nuclear Security Administration have not yet chosen a nuclear warhead to go on LRSO; that selection process should begin this summer and last about a year.

"The FY-15 [president's budget] shifts funding out three years due to warhead uncertainty and the continuing fiscal challenges of the Budget Control Act," Yepsen said. "The Air Force anticipates teaming with the National Nuclear Security Administration to begin the Concept Assessment Phase (Phase 6.1) of the LRSO warhead effort in 4Q FY-14. As the acquisition strategy matures, the Air Force will address additional funding for the program in future budgets."

The weapon LRSO is intended to replace, the Air-Launched Cruise Missile, is slated to stay in service until 2030. It has already undergone some refurbishments to ensure it does so, and other such efforts are ongoing, giving the Air Force some breathing space on the pace of the next-generation munition's development.

Tom Collina, research director for the Arms Control Association, voiced his support for the LRSO delay in a March 5 email.

"The Pentagon's decision to delay a new nuclear cruise missile makes sound fiscal and security sense," he said. "The current cruise missile is good until around 2030, so there is no rush, and it is not clear that we need to replace it. The Cold War ended 20 years ago and we do not need to replace systems just because we had them before. There are much more pressing defense needs."

The Air Force and NNSA are considering two warheads for the munition: the retired W84 and the W80 warhead, which is fielded on today's Air-Launched Cruise Missile. In addition, four of the defense industry's leading companies -- Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon -- are under contract for LRSO trade studies. -- Gabe Starosta
 
Experts See Russian Strides on Nuclear-Force Updates

Global Security Newswire

Analysts say Russia achieved "important steps" over the last year in modernizing submarines, aircraft and missile forces critical to its nuclear deterrent. Moscow's new weapons-development initiatives -- as well as its recent progress in updating aging combat systems -- have added "to growing concern in other countries about Russian intentions and help justify nuclear modernization programs and political opposition to reductions in other nuclear-weapon states," issue experts Hans Kristensen and Robert Norris wrote in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. "Those developments are not in Russia's long-term interest," they asserted in a 2014 edition of their longtime data-and-analysis series on "Russian nuclear forces," published this week. The analysts said Russia is closing in on its goal of phasing out long-range nuclear missiles dating back to the Cold War, in favor of newer technology. The country has finished fielding a more modern force of Topol-M intercontinental ballistic missiles, while its deployment of even newer road-mobile RS-24 Yars ballistic missiles is "well under way," the report states.

Separately, Moscow appears set this year to begin manufacturing its new Sarmat long-range ballistic missile, according to the analysts. They added, though, that it is unclear whether the forthcoming weapon will be of an entirely new design or a more minor modification to its predecessor, the Cold War-era SS-18. Meanwhile, the analysts saw what they described as a worrying reduction in Russia's overall missile count of favor of placing more nuclear warheads on fewer delivery systems. They said Moscow is on track by 2022 to decrease to between 220 and 250 long-range nuclear missiles, a fraction of the 400 land-based nuclear missiles that the United States is expected to still hold at that time. "That trend is unhealthy for strategic stability because relatively few warheads on more U.S. ICBMs can threaten many warheads on fewer Russian ICBMs," Kristensen and Norris wrote. The dynamic could make Russia more inclined to pre-emptively launch its ground-based nuclear missiles in a crisis, if Moscow leaders believe they might otherwise lose their weapons to a U.S. strike, according to nuclear strategists. Russia's missile activities ran parallel to its progress toward fielding eight planned new-generation Borei-class submarines, according to the report. However, the analysts said Moscow has faced continued technical setbacks tied to the Borei vessel's planned key weapon, the Bulava missile. Russia's sea-based nuclear deterrent will continue to rely on half-dozen Delta 4 submarines for the remainder of this decade, and reports have conflicted on whether a planned update to the vessel's Sineva missiles would revamp the entire missile or just its warhead, the analysts wrote. They added that Russia in November approved plans to develop and build a "a subsonic stealthy flying wing aircraft" to serve as a future nuclear bomber. Kristensen and Norris added that a Russian missile test allegedly conducted in breach of an arms-control pact with Washington "probably involved" the developmental R-500 Iskander-K cruise missile. The analysts did not take a position on whether the reported trial constitutes a violation of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty, but they attributed arguments in the affirmative to U.S. security "hardliners."
 
Please, this thread was changed into a "NEWS ONLY" one, because the arising discussions again
and again were getting ut of control. By limiting it to news, we could prevent it from being locked.
Feel free to discuss a nuclear Small Diameter Bomb in a separate thread, if it runs reasonable,
there should be no problem.
But please stay with NEWS ONLY in this thread, getting half a dozen reports because of posting
opinions or starting discussions here is just annoying.
 
11.39 Russia is considering halting foreign inspections of its strategic weapons arsenal, including nuclear-capable missiles, in response to "threats" from the US and Nato over the Ukraine crisis, the defence ministry has said.

"The unfounded threats towards Russia from the United States and Nato over its policy on Ukraine are seen by us as an unfriendly gesture that allows the declaration of force majeure circumstances," a high-ranking defence ministry official, who was not named, said in a statement to all Russian news agencies.

The inspections that could be halted are carried out in line with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with the United States and the Vienna Document between Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) member states.
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10682341/Ukraine-Russia-crisis-live.html
 
Nuclear Modernization Adjusts to Sequester

The Defense Department will update Congress this spring on the status of its nuclear delivery vehicle modernization, said Elaine Bunn, deputy assistant secretary of defense for nuclear policy. Speaking to members of the Senate Armed Services Committee’s strategic forces panel last week, Bunn noted that there is a gap between the original plan, which was laid out during the New START treaty debate in 2010 before sequester caps were implemented, and the reality of the budget. At the time, the White House sent an extensive plan to modernize and maintain the US nuclear arsenal between 2010 and 2020, which detailed over $100 billion of proposed modernization activities for the Department of Defense’s delivery systems and infrastructure. The upcoming report will address the modernization plan in more detail, Bunn said, but she noted the Administration’s modernization goals “have not changed” since 2010. “We’ve made considerable progress, but we have had to make some adjustments due to fiscal constraints.” Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) jumped on this, asking Bunn if DOD was “significantly behind” its modernization plan for both platforms and the warhead stockpile. Bunn declined to detail exact figures, noting the funding “is not what we thought” in the updated report coming out, but the nuclear triad continues to receive priority in the President’s Budget.
 
Some U.S. Lawmakers Eye Funding New Submarines Outside Normal Process

March 12, 2014

Some U.S. lawmakers are calling for funding the Navy's new fleet of ballistic-missile submarines outside its regular shipbuilding budget, Inside Defense reports. U.S. Representative Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) and Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) contend that the tens of billions of dollars needed to build a successor fleet to the Ohio-class submarine should not come out of the usual funds because the vessels are a national strategic asset. "I would urge the secretary of Defense to look outside and help support the program," Reed, who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told the news website. Courtney said he intends to pursue the matter in the fiscal 2015 defense authorization legislation and is already engaging with Representatives Randy Forbes (R-Va.), who chairs the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, and Rob Wittman (R-Va.), who may be the full committee's next leader. Courtney, who is also member of the subcommittee, in an interview said he would lobby his own party about "how we start getting this thing outside of bar talk and into a real policymaking process."

The Navy plans to start constructing the first new ballistic-missile submarine in 2021, with deployment anticipated to follow a decade later. A total of 12 new such vessels are expected to be built, each outfitted with 16 nuclear-tipped Trident missiles. The program is forecast to cost a total of $90 billion. The Navy says that if it bears responsibility for the entire program price, it would cut significantly into funding for other shipbuilding initiatives. Navy Secretary Ray Mabus in late February told a think tank audience there should be public debate over how to fund the submarine-modernization program. "I think this is a debate that, between now and 2019, which is now inside the five-year defense budget, that we need to have because we need to build these [submarines]. ... If the money to build these comes out of Navy shipbuilding, comes out of procurement, it will take at least half, every year, of all our shipbuilding dollars." The service in its fiscal 2015 budget proposal requested $1.2 billion for the submarine-modernization program.
 
New START on the Ropes


Russia threatened to bar US nuclear inspectors from verifying its nuclear arsenal complies with the New START in retaliation for severing military ties, reported the state news agency RIA Novosti. The Pentagon halted all military-to-military cooperation with Russia in response to Russian military operations in Ukraine last week. Under the New START agreement, both countries are permitted 18 on-site verification inspections of deployed and non-deployed weapons and delivery vehicles, making the Kremlin's proposed ban a direct treaty violation. House lawmakers raised concerns that Russian weapons testing already breached another arms treaty, which banned medium-range nuclear missiles. For its part, Ukraine relinquished the world's third largest nuclear arsenal, joining the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. It did so in exchange for US, British, and Russian assurances that its borders would be respected. In light of recent events, "there's a strong sentiment in Ukraine that we made a big mistake," said Ukrainian parliamentarian Pavlo Rizanenko, according to a USA Today report. (Click here for more on New START)
 
Russia to Field Robots to Guard Nuclear Missiles


A robot lifts a rucksack containing a bomb shortly before it exploded in downtown Moscow, circa July 2003. Russia plans to field robots this year to guard its nuclear-armed missile sites. (Denis Sinyakov/AFP/Getty Images) Russia on Wednesday announced the military would begin fielding robots this year to guard the country's strategic nuclear missile sites, RIA Novosti reported.


Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Dmitry Andreyev said the mobile, unmanned security systems would be deployed at five missile-launch sites around the country. "In March, the Russian Strategic Missile Forces began testing mobile robotic systems being developed to protect key ... installations," he said. The robots can provide backup to security guards, discover intruders, "destroy" moving targets and conduct surveillance missions, the spokesman said. The U.S. Energy Department similarly has used robots to patrol remote areas of its former nuclear-weapons testing grounds in Nevada. The move to improve site security at Russian nuclear weapon sites comes amid a sharp rise in East-West tensions not seen since the end of the Cold War. NATO and the United States have stepped up their military presence in countries bordering Ukraine. Russia thus far has refused European and American demands to withdraw its military presence from Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula.
 
"All stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers, becoming fully unmanned. Afterwards, they fly with a perfect operational record." B)
 
Modernization Of Minuteman III Needs To Begin Now

Author: Constance Baroudos
March 11, 2014.
Posted in Early Warning Blog


The Minuteman missile is a core component of the U.S. nuclear triad originally created in the late 1950s. Minuteman missiles were deployed in underground silos in the Great Plains in the early 1960s to deter a Soviet nuclear attack. Some critics claim the Minuteman is a Cold War era weapon irrelevant to today’s force, but this is not true. In fact, the Minuteman is more applicable to present and future security threats than ever before and must be modernized to continue protecting the U.S. and its allies and partners from emerging global threats.

The modern day Minuteman III is the result of almost 40 years of continuous enhancement. There have been three models of the Minuteman since its creation, and each version increased targeting options and improved accuracy. The modern version of the Minuteman has a range of approximately 8,100 miles (13,000 km) – the exact range is classified. Minuteman missiles are connected to an underground launch center through hardened cables and launch crews consist of two officers on twenty-four hour duty, ready to launch a nuclear missile within two minutes of the president’s order. Also, Minuteman missiles were the first to be equipped with multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) which means they carry three nuclear warheads at a time (that feature has now been dismantled).

Just because the Minuteman was crafted during the Cold War does not mean it is useless today. During the Cold War, the U.S. focused on one nuclear threat, the Soviet Union. Today, a group of states, and possibly eventually non-state actors, possess nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. More players in the nuclear weapons game complicate the task of sustaining nuclear deterrence. Furthermore, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty calls for intercontinental ballistic missile force levels of 420 or less – the lowest number in decades. The U.S. ambition to reduce force sizes further complicates balancing complex relationships with nations that have nuclear capability or desire.

The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) identified multiple emerging situations in which strategic forces may play a role in deterring adversaries and stabilizing regions and also urged policymakers to begin considering and assessing alternatives for next generation intercontinental ballistic missile. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel recognizes the importance of the nuclear triad – nuclear weapons practically escaped Pentagon budget deductions. The Pentagon plans to spend billions of dollars revamping nuclear vehicles, missiles, submarines, and bombers that transport warheads.

The Department of Defense currently plans for the Minuteman III force to serve until about 2030. While that may seem like a long time, it takes a decade or more to field a new system. This means research, development, and testing of a new missile must begin soon – especially since fiscal and technical obstacles might slow down any modernization effort.

The U.S. must assure its ability to protect itself and its allies from nuclear agression. One way to do this is by ensuring the Minuteman III evolves to remain relevant to worldwide security threats. Critics need to acknowledge that today’s nuclear threat is potentially more dangerous than during the Cold War due to the increase in the number of nations that possess and desire nuclear capability. The U.S. must maintain its ability to deter nuclear aggression and effectively respond if such an attack were to occur. As the NPR recommended, assessing alternatives for the next generation intercontinental ballistic missile needs to begin now.
 
FAS Strategic Security Blog - B61-12 Nuclear Bomb Integration On NATO Aircraft To Start In 2015


By Hans M. Kristensen


The US Air Force budget request for Fiscal Year 2015 shows that integration of the B61-12 on NATO F-16 and Tornado aircraft will start in 2015 for completion in 2017 and 2018.


The integration marks the beginning of a significant enhancement of the military capability of NATO’s nuclear posture in Europe and comes only three years after NATO in 2012 said its current nuclear posture meets its security requirements and that it was working to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons.


The integration will take place on Belgian, Dutch, and Turkish F-16A/B and on German and Italian PA-200 Tornado fighter-bombers. It is unknown if US and NATO F-16s happen simultaneously or US aircraft are first, but the process will last four years between 2015 and 2018. Integration of German and Italian Tornados will take a little over two years (see graph below).
The B61-12 will also be integrated on USAF F-15E (integration began last year), F-16C/D, and B-2A aircraft, and later on the F-35A Lightning II. The F-35A will later replace the F-16s. The US Air Force plans to equip all F-35s in Europe with nuclear capability by 2024.


In addition to the US Air Force, the nuclear-capable F-35A will be supplied to the Dutch, Italian, Turkish, and possibly Belgian air forces.


From the mid-2020s, the B61-12 will also be integrated on the next-generation heavy bomber (LRS-B) planned by the US Air Force.


The integration work includes software upgrades on the legacy aircraft, operational flight tests, and full weapon integration. Development of the guided tail kit is well underway in reparations for operational tests. Seven flight tests are planned for 2015. The nuclear warhead and some non-nuclear components won’t be ready until the end of the decade. The first complete B61-12 is scheduled for 2020.


Through 2019, the integration efforts are scheduled to cost more than $1 billion. Another $154 million is needed to improve security at the nuclear bases in Europe.


Integration of US nuclear weapons onto aircraft of non-nuclear weapon states that have signed the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and promised “not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly,” is, to say the least, problematic.


The arrangement of equipping non-nuclear NATO allies with the capability and role to deliver US nuclear weapons was in place before the NPT entered into effect and was accepted by the NPT regime during the Cold War. But for NATO to continue this arrangement contradicts the non-proliferation standards that the member countries are trying to promote in the post-Cold War world.


How scattering enhanced nuclear bombs across Europe in five non-nuclear countries will enable “bold reductions” in US and Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe and help create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons is another question.


This publication was made possible by a grant from the Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

About Hans M. Kristensen
Hans M. Kristensen is director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists where he provides the public with analysis and background information about the status of nuclear forces and the role of nuclear weapons. He specializes in using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in his research and is a frequent consultant to and is widely referenced in the news media on the role and status of nuclear weapons.
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http://breakingdefense.com/2014/03/change-how-we-test-care-feed-air-force-icbm-crews/

Link also has interesting MMIII flight animation.
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/defence/10697895/Navy-warship-accidentally-fires-torpedo-at-nuclear-dockyard.html

Woops.
 
http://freebeacon.com/russian-inspectors-to-check-u-s-nuclear-cuts-amid-ukraine-crisis/

The irony.
 
GAO: Nuclear Command, Control and Communication

http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-414R

Report at the link
 
George Allegrezza said:
Overview of Russian strategic modernization plans by our man LO:


http://www.aviationweek.com/Article.aspx?id=/article-xml/AW_11_11_2013_p48-632594.xml
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From the linked story:
Beyond that, notes leading Russian nuclear-arms analyst Pavel Podvig, an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, “it appears that Russia has successfully managed to confuse everyone with its new missile-development programs.” Since even the officially unveiled Russian systems have more names than one of Tolstoy's aristocrats, the potential for confusion with developmental systems is huge. The absence of Soviet secrecy does not solve the problem, rather allowing for official and unofficial sources to disseminate diverse and often conflicting stories.

Four officially announced flight tests of a “new ICBM” between September 2011 and June 2013 seem to point to the development of a weapon that will supersede Topol and Yars in production, both developed by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (MITT). It has been associated with the designation RS-26 and may be the missile referred to as Yars-M and Avangard, but recently it has most consistently been identified as Rubezh (Frontier).

The Rubezh missile is believed to be mated to a new six-axle TEL, the Belarus-built MZKT-27291, which was unveiled this year. If it is used with this launcher, it must be smaller than the Topol/Yars family and easier to move. As in the case of some other recent ICBM tests, official announcements described it as a “maneuverable” system. According to Russian media, Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin, speaking after the test in June, called the new ICBM a “missile-defense killer—neither current nor future American missile defense systems will be able to prevent that missile from hitting a target dead on.” It is expected to be operational next year.

Like the Yars with MIRVs—an upgraded version of an existing missile—the apparently all-new Rubezh originated after the end of the Start II and ABM treaties. Despite Washington's protestations to the contrary, Russia has continued to insist that U.S. ballistic missile defense plans are aimed at tipping the nuclear balance between the two nations. Technically, it is possible that the missile could carry a maneuverable, evading warhead: Such a system, the Advanced Maneuvering Reentry Vehicle (AMaRV), was tested in 1979-80 in the U.S. as a counter to ballistic missile defense systems, which are designed to intercept nonmaneuvering targets. The AMaRV can also be launched on a flattened, aero-ballistic trajectory to reduce the defender's warning time.

Mark Schneider, an analyst with the hawkish National Institute of Public Policy, suggests another potential issue with the new weapon: I could represent the start of a breakout from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty signed in 1987, which bans both the U.S. and Russia from deploying any ground-launched missiles, nuclear or conventional, with a 270-3,000-nm range (500-5,500 km). Schneider notes that the Russian military has yet to release any images of the Rubezh missile. “They have not even released a photo of the missile in flight, which is very usual. That would probably tell if it has two or three stages,” he explains. If it is a two-stage missile, he says, it would be an INF violation. Podvig, however, remains convinced that the missile is an ICBM.

The relatively small Rubezh could be the basis of a project disclosed in April—the revival of rail-mobile missiles, extinct since the retirement of the last RT-23UTTH (SS-24 Scalpel) train in 2005. Russian media say MITT is the prime contractor, and either the Rubezh or the bigger Yars could be carried. The advantage of a rail-mobile missile, Russian commentators suggest, is that it is faster than a road-mobile ICBM—it could be relocated as far as 1,000 km in 24 hr.

Following behind the Rubezh, according to multiple reports, is a new heavy liquid-fueled ICBM to replace the R-36M2 (SS-18 Mod 6 Satan), a late-1980s development of a design that originated in the 1960s. Forty R-36M2s remain in service and can carry ten MIRVs each.

According to Russian media reports, the Makeyev design bureau was selected in 2011 to develop the new heavy missile, which is to replace the R-36M2 starting late in the decade. This was an unusual move since Makeyev has previously specialized in submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM)—but the design team seems to have distinguished itself in the development of the modernized R-29RMU2 missile, which has been deployed aboard aging Delta IV-class submarines, helping to fill the gap caused by delays to the Bulava SLBM.
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Grey Havoc said:
Four officially announced flight tests of a “new ICBM” between September 2011 and June 2013 seem to point to the development of a weapon that will supersede Topol and Yars in production, both developed by the Moscow Institute of Thermal Technology (MITT). It has been associated with the designation RS-26 and may be the missile referred to as Yars-M and Avangard, but recently it has most consistently been identified as Rubezh (Frontier).

The Rubezh missile is believed to be mated to a new six-axle TEL, the Belarus-built MZKT-27291, which was unveiled this year. If it is used with this launcher, it must be smaller than the Topol/Yars family and easier to move.
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Here:
 

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http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.aspx?plckBlogId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7&plckPostId=Blog:27ec4a53-dcc8-42d0-bd3a-01329aef79a7Post:85552e57-ea13-4b3d-b712-e730fad61bdc
 
US Nuclear Warhead Pit Production Options

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R43406.pdf
 
ICBMs Are Essential to America’s Strategic Second-Strike Capability

Author: Constance Baroudos
March 21, 2014.
Posted in Early Warning Blog


One critical aspect of nuclear deterrence is a nation’s second-strike capability — its capacity to respond to an aggressor’s assault with nuclear arms that have not been destroyed as a result of the initial attack. America maintains a triad consisting of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), bombers and missile-carrying submarines to assure enough nuclear weapons survive to respond in kind to an aggressor. Some critics believe eliminating ICBMs would be a cost-effective solution to reduce defense spending, but this is not a safe option. The U.S. needs to maintain the ICBM component of the nuclear triad to ensure it has an array of options for deterring potential nuclear aggressors and maintaining a solid second-strike capability.

According to some critics, Minuteman III ICBMs no longer serve a vital purpose. These opponents argue that ICBMs should be eliminated because they are vulnerable and inflexible. This is not true. ICBMs definitely have a purpose: they enhance the U.S. second-strike capability by providing a third method to respond in the event of a nuclear attack. Needless to say, bombers and submarines also have unique capabilities that strengthen Washington’s nuclear deterrent and second-strike capability. Bombers attack ground and sea targets by dropping bombs, firing torpedoes, and launching cruise missiles. The aircraft also offer flexible options since they can adjust targeting while airborne, can be withdrawn in flight (unlike launched missiles), and can be stationed abroad to reassure allies. Submarines, on the other hand, are able to patrol the world’s oceans undetected and could respond with a deadly counterattack if U.S. bombers and ICBM forces were destroyed.

It is important for Washington to maintain its ICBM force because the other two components of the nuclear triad, bombers and submarines, have potential weaknesses that may be exploited in the future. For instance, bombers are very large aircraft and must refuel, which makes them potentially easy targets for future aggressors. Secondly, even though submarines roam the world’s oceans today undetected, they would become much less useful as a deterrent if a technological breakthrough were discovered that enabled aggressors to detect their location – a fear Admiral Jonathan Greenert, Chief Naval of Operations, has called “the oceans becoming transparent.”

In comparison to bombers that can fly anywhere in the world and submarines that can wander in oceans undetected, ICBMs may be viewed as vulnerable since they remain in fixed silos. However, their fixed locations assure they remain under firm control of national command authorities, and any attacker would have to wonder whether U.S. missiles had already been launched before they were hit. In contrast, bombers and submarines are in principle free to travel anywhere in the sky or ocean, meaning their operators must be trusted to use the weapons they carry as intended.

While President Barack Obama desires to decrease dependence on nuclear weapons, that does not mean other nations will follow his lead. Nuclear deterrence is no longer focused on one nation as was the case during the Cold War. Contemporary nuclear threats include a range of non-state actors, rogue regimes, and rising powers. Russia also has recently test-launched an ICBM and has publicly stated it will begin to test a new family of warheads to place on such missiles.

Recent tension between Russia and Ukraine underscores the importance of U.S. commitments to protect its overseas friends from aggression. As a result of the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, Ukraine returned its nuclear arsenal to Moscow in exchange for security guarantees from Russia, the U.S. and the United Kingdom. Since Moscow has clearly violated this agreement, Kiev is dependent security-wise on the U.S. and U.K. This recent example is one of many promises Washington has made regarding the protection of allies from hostility and further underscores the need to modernize the nuclear triad. After all, doing away with ICBMs would mean reducing the nuclear triad to two legs — potentially emboldening adversaries, increasing chances of a future aggressor wiping out Washington’s second-strike capability, and undermining the credibility of U.S. commitments.

The technology to develop nuclear weapons continues to proliferate to other nations. The U.S. must modernize all three components of the nuclear triad to guarantee its relevance to emerging threats. In particular, the ICBM force should be cost-effectively modernized over time as suggested by a recent RAND study, not eliminated, to allow the U.S. to continue creating the psychological effect of nuclear deterrence that prevents an aggressor from attacking the U.S. and its allies.

Another story hopefully a beginning to building political pressure to modernize Triad and nuclear enterprise.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2014/03/20/ukraine-fallout-putin-hands-the-pentagon-a-rationale-for-new-nuclear-weapons/
 
U.S. Nuclear Security Agency Has 'Failed,' Says Advisory Panel

March 27, 2014By Diane Barnes

Global Security Newswire

A congressionally mandated panel says a key Energy Department agency has "failed" in its mission to effectively oversee U.S. nuclear-arms operations. Drastic reforms are crucial to address "systemic" management shortcomings at the National Nuclear Security Administration, according to preliminary findings unveiled on Wednesday by the co-chairs of the Advisory Panel on the Governance of the Nuclear Security Enterprise. "The unmistakable conclusion of our fact-finding is that, as implemented, the 'NNSA experiment' involving creation of a semiautonomous organization has failed," according to Norm Augustine, who headed the bipartisan group with retired Adm. Richard Mies. "The current DOE-NNSA structure has not established the effective operational system that Congress intended," Augustine told the House Armed Services Committee in a written summary of the panel's initial conclusions. "This needs to be fixed as a matter of priority, and these fixes will not be simple or quick."
The former officials attributed the National Nuclear Security Administration's history of high-profile security lapses at atomic-complex facilities and soaring cost overruns in major projects to problems that became embedded in the nation's nuclear weapons culture after the end of the Cold War. Congress established the agency in 2000 following the Wen Ho Lee spy scandal at Los Alamos National Laboratory, giving it the responsibility to oversee arms activities that were previously handled by the Energy Department itself. Today, both organizations contain "too many people [who] can stop mission-essential work for a host of reasons," Mies said in a written statement to the committee, provided for a Wednesday hearing. Headded that "those who are responsible for getting the work done often find their decisions ignored or overturned." He also asserted that a culture of mistrust has developed between NNSA officials and the nuclear-weapons laboratories they oversee. Augustine said nuclear-arms efforts managed by both the Energy and Defense departments have been bedeviled by "complacency" and a "loss of focus" since the end of the Cold War.

Mies added that "there is no affordable, executable joint DOD-DOE vision, plan, or program for the future of nuclear-weapons capabilities." The panel's initial findings did not endorse any specific plan for altering oversight of the nuclear-weapons complex. The group -- mandated early last year under a provision of the fiscal 2013 National Defense Authorization Act -- is expected to issue its final report this summer. Past reform proposals have included a Republican-led push to eliminate Energy Department oversight of NNSA operations and increase contractor independence. Others have advocated a boost in Energy's oversight, or to place the atomic agency under Pentagon control.

Augustine said the president and his administration would shoulder primary responsibility for instituting changes. "Probably the most important individual under today's organization is the secretary of Energy who, in many cases in the past, did not have a background at all within this arena," he said during the committee question-and-answer session.
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Time to give this mission exclusively to DOD under a new Nuclear Deterrence Agency. We need absolute assurance our deterrent forces remain effective not only today but 50 years from now.
 
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=1451
 
http://breakingdefense.com/2014/03/improve-nuclear-weapons-missiles-bombers-to-deter-putins-russia/
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/northkorea/10735940/Signs-of-earthquake-off-North-Korea-prompts-nuclear-test-fearsn.html
 
Russia Said to Deploy Updated Ballistic Missile on Submarines
April 2, 2014

Russia has reportedly begun fielding an updated ballistic missile on some of its submarines that is thought capable of carrying up to 10 warheads. An unidentified Russian defense industry source told Voice of Russia that the submarine-launched ballistic missile Liner "was put into service in the beginning of this year." The Liner SLBM is being deployed on Delfin strategic submarines, according to the source. The Liner missile is a modernized version of the Sineva ballistic missile. The weapon's deployment on the Delfin submarine should enable the vessel to remain operational for another approximately 15 years. The updated missile is understood to be capable of carrying between four and 10 nuclear warheads. If fewer warheads are mounted on the missile, they can be equipped with more countermeasures for defeating missile defenses, according to Voice of Russia.
 

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