Once again we here reports of the end of the Reliable Replacement Warhead and once again we must express caution. It is indeed true that the House has zeroed out funding for RRW but the attitude that Congress is taking to RRW is one that is very much dependent upon the results of a review on US nuclear strategy post 9/11. As shown in this FCNL press release congress is looking for a bi-partisan consensus on nuclear strategy.

Long range programmes like RRW cannot proceed absent strategic consensus.

Given the situation in Congress it is to be expected that there would be an update to the CRS report on RRW. Alas, we are not disappointed.

The report was updated on May 19.

I am of the firm belief, as I have said previously, that Team Bush is conducting nuclear strategy with reference to what they refer to as a second nuclear age. The updated May 19 CRS report has some gems that help me to convince you of this,

The report states that the critics of RRW note that

…that there are no military requirements for new weapons…

Even supporters have been forced to adopt this line when countering the proliferation and strategic stability implications of RRW (think of the Rice et al statement to Congress) but the CRS report goes on to state (at another section)

…Advocates of RRW note further that while the current stockpile — most units of which were manufactured between 1979 and 1989 — was designed to deter and, if necessary, defeat the Soviet Union, the threat, strategy and missions have changed,leaving the United States with the wrong stockpile for current circumstances.

Ambassador Brooks said that current warheads are wrong technically because “we would [now] manage technical risk differently, for example, by ‘trading’ [warhead] size and weight for increased performance margins, system longevity, and ease of manufacture.” These warheads were not “designed for longevity” or to minimize cost, and may be wrong militarily because yields are too high and “do not lend themselves to reduced collateral damage.” They also lack capabilities against buried
targets or biological and chemical munitions, and they do not take full advantage of precision guidance…

That all sounds like RNEP and the Advanced Concepts Initiative. The RNEP was considered by supporters not to be a new weapon because the physics package was envisaged to be based on the B83 (a gravity bomb) although clearly the RNEP was configuring the B83 package for new missions.

I think RRW is about developing new warheads so that they can be configured for earth penetration and TSV’s for the next generation of ballistic missiles to replace MMIII and D5. Even with Minuteman Elite and the LETB-2 one can develop lower yield warheads and still maintain the damage expectancy criteria of OPLAN-8044’s deliberate plans. That means more useable nuclear weapons and less self-deterrence. You need that if your response to what you perceive to be a second nuclear age is regional intra-war deterrence. It also means using strategic ballistic missiles to support any negligence doctrine for the deterrence of nuclear terrorism.

That’s my hunch….like I say it’s a hunch. I’d need more work to develop that properly.

If, after the review, Congress accepts the strategic assumptions adopted by the Bush Administration post the 2001 NPR then RRW will rise again.

RRW is not dead.