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Science, Security, and Nuclear Weapons: A Conundrum for Our Generation?

A temperature 1000 times hotter than the sun.  Pressures a million times those found in the deepest ocean.  Speeds over a million miles per hour.  Regimes of matter and physics unimaginable and untouchable to humankind.  All of these and more can be created in an instant inside an atomic bomb.  And the results are so potentially horrendous that fear of this massive power has held the world in check for over 60 years.  This is the ultimate conundrum of the atomic age.  A force so deadly, so complete, in its potential to wipe out humanity, that fear alone was sufficient to restrain the ambitions of countries and kings, dictators and despots, presidents and prime ministers. 

For myself as a scientist, this unique, horrifying, and amazing amalgam presents an opportunity, an opportunity for my generation and yours to achieve something of lasting and incredible importance to mankind.  A chance to tame the nuclear genie, to force him back to his bottle, to back away from the precipice that threatened to drop mankind into an endless chasm with the smallest accident, mistake or misstep.

Every generation should understand the dilemma posed by nuclear weapons.  Whether we like it or not, they exist.  Nearly a dozen countries have built nuclear arsenals.  How to do we solve this problem? Is simply getting rid of nuclear weapons the answer? What about the nuclear materials left behind?  These questions and more will impact every one of our lives, and you—the informed young citizens—should contribute to this debate.

Norris Bradbury, the longest serving Director at Los Alamos and the namesake for the Bradbury Science Museum, often said, “We don’t build nuclear weapons to kill people.  We build them to buy time for future generations and leaders to find a better way.”  What is that better way?  Does science have a role to play in illuminating that solution?  I think it does.  Science shows the possibility for nuclear weapons, and a possibility for their ultimate reduction.  As Edward Teller once said, “The Cold War is not a battle between armies.  It is a battle between scientists and laboratories.” 

And what did we learn in the advance of science related to atomic bombs?  We learned how they work—how to have confidence that they would function.   We also learned to make sure they wouldn’t function in cases of accidents or theft.  And that knowledge itself is now a potentially potent asset.  Can the knowledge itself become a deterrent? 

This idea of a “capability-based deterrent” has important requirements that science and engineering can provide.  Most important is the timing.  If the capability is intended to provide a basis for deterrence, the weapons complex itself must be more agile and able to respond more quickly than a potential adversary could develop and deploy a rival nuclear arsenal.  Let’s examine this concept a little more closely.

Today, we keep a nuclear arsenal numbering a few thousand deployed warheads.  As large as that sounds, it’s actually a pretty small number compared to what we had at the height of the Cold War, when we had several tens of thousands of deployed weapons.  Why so many?  Mainly, to counter the deployed nuclear weapons of the former Soviet Union and now Russia.  Most of our nuclear weapons were fielded to counter their nuclear weapons or to ensure that at least some of our weapons would survive a first-strike from the Soviet Union.  From a pure deterrence standpoint, many argue that only a few nuclear weapons are sufficient to deter almost any other state or group that might consider an aggressive act. 

Thus, one reason we’ve been able to cut over 90% of our nuclear arsenal is that we agreed with the Russians to do this jointly.  By most analysts’ accounts, the only credible threat that might require a re-armament of our nuclear arsenal would be a recidivist Russia or possibly an expansionist China.  In either case, we would have years of warning, and that element of the timing is crucial in enabling a capability-based deterrent.  Recall, during the Cold War, we had only minutes notice of a possible threat.  This change—from only minutes to years—allows a very different posture that can rely on far fewer nuclear weapons, while still gaining the benefits of a deterrence strategy. 

Is several years credible for a capability to design, certify, develop, and build a nuclear deterrent?  With some changes to how we undertake this job, I think the answer is yes.  Agility is key.  Elements that once took 3-5years may be done in 12-18 months.  Modern engineering and science tools give us confidence in nuclear designs, and allow us to quickly more through the development stage should that be required.  This is why the government has proposed transforming the nuclear weapons complex, precisely to gain this agility and confidence in a more capability-based deterrent.  In fact, the head of the government’s nuclear weapons programs said, “'because our nuclear weapons stockpile is decreasing, the United States' future deterrent cannot be based on the old Cold War model of the number of weapons. Rather, it must be based on the capability to respond to any national security situation, and make weapons only if necessary.”

Personally, I see this as an excellent, interim step toward a day when we hold vastly fewer nuclear weapons and we fulfill the challenge that Norris Bradbury and Hans Bethe made to our generations.  This is the start of a better way to protect our security, while lessening the nuclear threat worldwide.

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