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Publication Laka-library:
The Nuclear Smokescreen. Warhead safety and Reliability and the Science Based Stockpile Stewardship Program

Author	IEER, Zeriffi, Arjun Makhijani
Date	May 1996
Classification	3.01.3.12/02 (UNITED STATES - PROLIFERATION POLICY - NUCLEAR WEAPONS & TESTS)
Front

Summary of Findings and Recommendations

As the United States participates in negotiations for a Comprehensive Test Ban 
treaty in Geneva, it is simultaneously putting into place a program to enhance the 
capabilities of its nuclear weapons design laboratories. The U.S. Department of 
Energy's Science Based Stockpile Stewardship (SBSS) program would build new 
experimental facilities to study the nuclear components of the United States nuclear 
arsenal, as well as a large scale computing initiative in order to more accurately 
model nuclear weapons. The implementation of the SBSS program is currently a 
part of the U.S. position to support a Comprehensive Test Ban treaty under which 
no nuclear explosions would be permitted (the "zero yield" CTB). Officially, the 
purpose of the SBSS program is to maintain the safety and reliability of the nuclear 
arsenal in the absence of nuclear testing. The Department of Energy (DOE) has 
argued that, as the nuclear arsenal ages, it will be an increasingly complex task to 
maintain the level of safety and reliability necessary without nuclear testing. The 
SBSS program is supposed to aid in this endeavor by providing information on the 
basic physical processes of nuclear weapons in order to create more accurate 
computer models, in essence to be able to conduct ''virtual tests."

The purpose of this report is to examine DOE's statements regarding the safety and 
reliability of the nuclear arsenal and to assess the usefulness of the SBSS program in 
addressing the relevant issues. Our analysis of historical data regarding problems 
with nuclear warheads leads us to conclude that the SBSS program would provide 
little aid in maintaining the safety of the existing arsenal. Indeed, DOE's own data 
show that there have been no aging-related nuclear safety problems in warheads.

While the SBSS program's claims in regard to improving safety of the arsenal appear 
dubious at best, it has a clear relationship to increasing U.S. capability to design new 
warheads and to design major modifications to existing ones. The new SBSS facilities 
are of the types used previously as part of the weapons design program. One of the 
main goals of the program is to retain and attract new weapons designers. 
Furthermore, various official documents indicate that the ability to maintain weapons 
design capabilities is a priority of the DOE. Another purpose appears to be to 
maintain the reliability of the nuclear arsenal at extremely high levels. Such high 
levels of reliability may be necessary only if the United States pursues a strategy of 
first strike against opponents with large nuclear arsenals rather than retaliatory 
nuclear deterrence. However, the data that we have are too limited to enable us 
to arrive at a definitive conclusion in this regard.

The SBSS program is coupled with other problematic provisions in the U.S. 
position on the CTB. (2) Specifically, the U.S. government wants to:
• maintain the Nevada Test Site in a state of permanent readiness to resume 
full scale testing;

(2) As noted in the preface, the other nuclear weapons states are pursuing similar
policies.

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