Talking Points: Turning Off Code Red

COMPLEX TRANSFORMATION

The Department of Energy recently proposed a plan that would dramatically increase the U.S.’s ability to produce new nuclear weapons, called “Complex Transformation”

What will be the environmental impacts of resumption of testing nuclear warheads? What will the global security impacts of the U.S. building more nuclear weapons and testing them be?

• Complex Transformation is the Bush Administration’s plan to overhaul the U.S. nuclear weapons complex, including building a new bomb plant that would enable mass-production of nuclear weapons for the first time in two decades
• The plan calls for more production of plutonium pits, the essential core of nuclear weapons. The U.S.’s current policy doesn’t require production of new plutonium pits until at least 2015 and more likely 2022. Existing plutonium pits are expected to have a lifetime in excess of 85 years. Is there a need?
• Until the nation decides on the future size of its nuclear arsenal, the DOE’s recommendation to build the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement (CMRR) Nuclear Facility and the Uranium Processing Facility (UPF) are premature
• Although Complex Transformation consolidates the Complex, consolidating weapons-grade nuclear materials into fewer locations, it also increases the nuclear weapon production capacity by proposing to build a new bomb plant
• The new bomb plant would be located in Los Alamos National Laboratory northwest of Santa Fe, New Mexico. There have been serious security concerns at Los Alamos in the past
• DOE’s own estimates suggest that the Complex Transformation initiative will cost well over $200 billion over the next two decades
• A U.S. plan to build new nuclear weapons and production facilities could spur nuclear proliferation because, for example, the U.S. is asking North Korea to scale back and challenging Iran (a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), while building their own complex and making deals with India, a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

FCNL’s information page on Complex Transformation

FCNL’s Q&A’s on Complex Transformation

Comments of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research on the National Nuclear Security Administration of the Department of Energy in its Draft Complex Transformation Supplemental Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (By Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D., and Annie Makhijani 30 April 2008)

“Nuclear Bailout: A Critique of the Department Of Energy’s Plans For a New Nuclear Weapons Complex” (by William Hartung, New America Foundation, March 25, 2008)

“The Cart before the Horse: DOE’s Plan for the Future of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex” (Stephen Young and Lisbeth Gronlund, Union of Concerned Scientists, May 2008)

FUTURE DIRECTION FOR A FUTURE ADMINISTRATION

The next President will have the ability to set the future of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy. What kind of policy will set the future for U.S. nuclear policy and thus foreign policy?

State of the Union 2008, by Craig Eisendrath and Kevin Hansen, addresses many of the policy choices that the next President faces:

• Congress has mandated a Nuclear Posture Review, which the next president will implement, looking into the Nuclear Complex from bottom to top and implementing a new nuclear weapons policy

• The U.S. can reverse the “hegemonic policeman” direction of our policy that is unilateral and enforces a “go it alone” strategy in foreign affairs. We can be world leaders in diplomacy by working on our issues through international bodies and international partnerships.

• The U.S. needs to work out a deal with the Russians to de-alert a threatening 5,000 active nuclear warheads, to tell the world that we will not be the first to use nuclear weapons, to control fissile materials with international inspection and to sign on to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

• The U.S. needs to move faster on getting rid of the weapons we have and adhering to the legal requirements of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The U.S. could compromise its integrity under the NPT Treat through a deal with India which would ship fissile material to the country, which is not a signatory to the NPT.

• The U.S. could set the example by coming down from code red, de-alerting nuclear weapons and planning to shrink and eventually end our stock pile. This example could be used to influence the rest of the world to end their proliferation plans and to not make any new plans.

• The U.S. should declare that we will never use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state which is presently contradicted by the Administration’s Global Strike Policy, which unconstitutionally excludes Congress.

• The U.S. should sign on to a treaty prohibiting all weapons in outer space. If the U.S. does pursue space weapons, we will need to test them, sending thousands of pieces of debris into our atmosphere which would be lethal and would threaten hundreds of billions of dollars of satellites we already have in space for many military and non-military uses.

10 steps for the next president to take to bring U.S. nuclear weapons policy into line with today’s political and strategic realities:

1. Declare that the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter and, if necessary, respond to the use of nuclear weap­ons by another country.
2. Reject rapid-launch options by changing U.S. deployment practices to allow the launch of nuclear forces in days rather than minutes.
3. Eliminate preset targeting plans, and replace them with the capability to promptly develop a response tailored to the situation if nuclear weapons are used against the United States, its armed forces, or its allies.
4. Promptly and unilaterally reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal to no more than 1,000 warheads, including deployed and reserve warheads. The United States would declare all warheads above this level to be in excess of its military needs, move them into storage, begin dismantling them in a manner transparent to the international community, and begin disposing—under international safeguards—of all plutonium and highly enriched uranium beyond that required to maintain these 1,000 warheads. By making the end point of this dismantlement process dependent on Russia’s response, the United States would encourage Russia to reciprocate.
5. Halt all programs for developing and deploying new nucle­ar weapons, including the proposed Reliable Replacement Warhead.
6. Promptly and unilaterally retire all U.S. nonstrategic nuclear weapons, dismantling them in a transparent manner, and take steps to induce Russia to do the same.
7. Announce a U.S. commitment to reducing its number of nuclear weapons further, on a negotiated and verified bilateral or multilateral basis.
8. Commit to not resume nuclear testing, and work with the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
9. Halt further deployment of the Ground-Based Missile Defense system, and drop any plans for space-based missile defense. The deployment of a U.S. missile defense system that Russia or China believed could intercept a significant portion of its survivable long-range missile forces would be an obstacle to deep nuclear cuts. A U.S. missile defense system could also trigger reactions by these nations that would result in a net decrease in U.S. security.
10. Reaffirm the U.S. commitment to pursue nuclear disarma­ment, and present a specific plan for moving toward that goal, in recognition of the fact that a universal and verifiable prohibition on nuclear weapons would enhance both nation­al and international security.

From “TOWARD TRUE SECURITY: Ten Steps the Next President Should Take to Transform U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy” (Union of Concerned Scientists, in partnership with the Federation of American Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council, February 2008)