Reliable Replacement Warhead Program

The Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program is an initiative to, "demonstrate the feasibility of developing reliable replacement components that are producible and certifiable for the existing stockpile."[1] The main laboratories involved in the program are the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory. While the intent of the program is to facilitate paving the way to a smaller, cheaper and more modern nuclear arsenal, the RRW may be viewed as a provocative and unnecessary move by the United States to modernize its nuclear arsenal, which would undermine the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Background

The United States has observed a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing since 1992. The integrity and longevity of America's aging nuclear weapons arsenal has been sustained under the current "Life Extension Program" (LEP) and the Stockpile Stewardship program, which monitors and replaces warhead components as they deteriorate without creating new weapons. Concerns about the archaic Cold War arsenal's strategic relevance prompted a reassessment by the Bush Administration of US military requirements for nuclear weapons, entitled the Nuclear Posture Review (2002). The document recommended new nuclear weapons capabilities, particularly to address deeply buried and hardened targets. In 2004 the reversal in Congress of 1993 legislation banning the, "development of new nuclear weapons with a yield of under 5-kilotons, or so-called 'tactical nuclear weapons,'" facilitated the Administration's efforts to pursue new weapons technology.[2]

Stemming from these developments has been a push from the Administration, the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), and the national nuclear laboratories to increase the budget for new weapons research. One of the most controversial efforts has been the Administration's request for funding to development a Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) a program which Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld argues to be "strictly research" and cannot lead to actual development without Congressional approval. The project's proposed five-year budget of $465 million has led skeptics to believe the Administration's intentions go beyond research; due primarily to concern from Rep. Hobson about the project, the Defense Authorization Bill for FY 2005 rejected funds for the project. Also rejected in the FY 2005 Defense Authorization Bill was the Administration's $9 million request from for the Advanced Concepts Initiative (ACI) to research the creation of new 'mini-nukes. This $9 million was redirected toward the creation of a RRW program.

Funding

FY 2005	FY 2006	FY 2007
Budget request: $9 million for ACI	Budget request: $9.4 million	Budget request: $27.7 million
Appropriations: redirected $9 million to RRW	Appropriations: $25 million	House Appropriations: $52.7 million (a $25 million increase contingent on the Department of Energy providing the Appropriations Committee a transformation plan for the nuclear weapons complex) Senate Committee Appropriations: $62.7 million (a $35 million increase)

The House fully funded the RRW program in its FY 2007 appropriations bill and added $25 million above the Administration's request contingent on the DOE submitting to Congress a plan for implementing the recommendations that the Task Force within the Secretary of Energy's Advisory Board (SEAB) made in 2005. The report also provides for the JASON Defense Advisory Group to act as an "outside peer reviewer to evaluate the competing RRW designs" and to assess whether the RRW "can be designed and produced and certified for use and deployed as an operationally-deployed nuclear weapons without undergoing an underground nuclear explosion test."

In its FY 2007 version of the bill, the Senate Appropriations Committee provided $52.7 million for RRW (including a $35 million increase to accelerate the RRW design activities, including $10 million to initiate a second RRW design competition to replace one or more of the existing legacy systems).

The difference in funding will be resolved in the House-Senate conference expected in the fall.

Concerns About The Reliable Replacement Warheads Program

While the RRW program proposes to "trad[e] off features important in the Cold War, such as high yield and low weight, to gain features more valuable now, such as lower cost, greater ease of manufacture and certification, and increased long-term confidence in the stockpile," without creating new weapons or testing, the RRW program poses several considerable risks for nuclear non-proliferation efforts due to its vague objectives and because it represents a program to build new nuclear weapons.

• Vague objectives: In 2004 Congress stated that the NNSA's, "obsession with launching a new round of nuclear weapons development runs counter to those priorities...[of] maintaining our Nation's integrity in the international effort to halt the proliferation of WMD." The RRW project appears to be the Administration's attempt to pursue new weapons after the ACI was rejected, under the guise of modernizing outdated technology.
• Overreach: The LEP program is widely recognized for effectively maintaining the nuclear arsenal. If it has worked for nine years then why should it be expected to fail in the future. Experts such as former nuclear weapon designer Richard Garwin believe the RRW is not necessary3 and that existing nuclear weapons can be kept reliable for several decades under the Stockpile Stewardship program. So there is no near-term need to build new weapons based on a reliability concern. Analyses of the explosive packages on current warheads consistently show them to be 100% reliable, suggesting there is no need to improve them in the first place.[4]
• Not necessary: There are no military requirements for new weapons. RRW proponents emphasize that the goal of the program is to provide reliable weapons for unforeseen future problems, but skeptics both question the need to build new nuclear weapons when current designs still work.
• Increase the need for testing: Changes in the explosive packages of nuclear warheads will decrease confidence in their credibility and therefore may require new testing. New nuclear testing would significantly undermine America's nonproliferation efforts, which are a critical component to U.S. and global security. Many skeptics emphasize that creating and testing new U.S. weapons will lead other countries to wonder if they too need new weapons, potentially instigating a dangerous bout of global nuclear proliferation. If the United States creates new nuclear weapons then other nations may as well. Also ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was a promise made as part for the Agreement on Principles and Objectives at the 2000 NPT Review Conference and represented a commitment by the five nuclear weapon states to over 180 non-nuclear weapon states to abide by their international obligations to make progress on nuclear disarmament efforts.
• Undermines U.S. and international nuclear non-proliferation efforts: Skeptics worry the RRW program send the signal to other countries that the United States is modernizing and improving its nuclear arsenal, undermining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at a time when the United States is seeking to convince countries such as Iran and North Korea to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions.
• Undermines Congressional intent: There is concern that the National Laboratories are proceeding with the RRW as an attempt to build a new nuclear weapons program and possibly nuclear weapons testing even after the ACI failed to pass in Congress. For example, in a May 2005 report titled Sustaining the Nuclear Enterprise - A New Approach, three nuclear weapons laboratories, Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia National Laboratories, outlined the arguments for modernizing America's nuclear arsenal.[5]