US to loosen nuclear weapons constraints and develop more 'usable' warheads

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

US to loosen nuclear weapons constraints and develop more 'usable' warheads

• New proposal is significantly more hawkish than Obama-era policy
• Critics call development of new weapons ‘dangerous, Cold War thinking’

Julian Borger in Washington
Tue 9 Jan ‘18 19.43 GMT

The Trump administration plans to loosen constraints on the use of nuclear weapons and develop a new low-yield nuclear warhead for US Trident missiles, according to a former official who has seen the most recent draft of a policy review.

Jon Wolfsthal, who was special assistant to Barack Obama on arms control and nonproliferation, said the new nuclear posture review prepared by the Pentagon, envisages a modified version of the Trident D5 submarine-launched missiles with only part of its normal warhead, with the intention of deterring Russia from using tactical warheads in a conflict in Eastern Europe.

The new nuclear policy is significantly more hawkish that the posture adopted by the Obama administration, which sought to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in US defence.

Arms control advocates have voiced alarm at the new proposal to make smaller, more “usable” nuclear weapons, arguing it makes a nuclear war more likely, especially in view of what they see as Donald Trump’s volatility and readiness to brandish the US arsenal in showdowns with the nation’s adversaries.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/09/us-to-loosen-nuclear-weapons-policy-and-develop-more-usable-warheads

[DetroitLegalBeagle]

1. Cannot comment on the new posture....

As i can't read the article yet. But I will say the development of new weapons is an unfortunate necessity of being a nuclear power. Nuclear weapon design requires unique knowledge and skills and not developing new designs risks a "brain drain" where people with the necessary skills either die off or retire without passing useful knowledge on. Unfortunately, as long as the rest of the nuclear powers modernize and develop new weapons, we must as well to maintain our technological leads and parities.

[Anon-C]

2. I think there's some misdirection at foot here.

Equipping SLBMs with just their "fission primary" warheads doesn't make much sense tactically or strategically, imho. They are low-yield but "dirty" and unnecessarily fall-out producing...essentially "a-bombs" like Fat Man.


I suspect the US has deployable (loll...autocorrect wanted to say deplorable) "pure fusion" warheads ...thermonuclear weapons that don't require a fission primary. These weapons could in theory be made to low-yield, and would be much "cleaner&quot pardon my euphemism) and less fallout producing.

These are the kinds of nukes they would want to have to contemplate a greater range of options for their use, tragically.

[gladium et scutum]

3. It takes a fission reaction

as the primary event to detonate a fusion reaction. At the heart of every H bomb is a standard A bomb.

[Anon-C]

4. Yes, but understand that technology was perfected in the 1950s.

I am saying there is some speculation that the US has pure fusion weapons. You do not require a fission implosion primary to initiate a fusion reaction, and indeed we've have billions in fusion research in the intervening seven decades. Most of that research is understood to be "dual use".

I understand if you don't want to follow that rabbit hole, suffice to say in stars, where fusion reactions occur in nature, they are initiated by massive heat and pressure. Scientists have attempted to do the same with magnetic fields, and high powered lasers, for a long time.