I’m not going to discuss Dick’s many accomplishments—his bio in the New York Times does a great job of that. Moreover, I did not witness these things myself.

What I did see up front was Dick’s ongoing public involvement in a range of nuclear security issues—from nuclear arms control, to missile defenses, to US–China and US–Russia relations.

For some seven decades, Dick was deeply involved in advising the government on a wide range of security issues. There are very few scientists in the classified world who also prioritize working in the unclassified world, but Dick was committed to doing so because he felt this was essential to changing government policy when his inside work could not do so.

Dick was invaluable to our work and to international efforts to reduce the threat posed by nuclear weapons.

He co-authored several of the reports UCS produced, including Countermeasures, a technical report that showed that any country capable of building a nuclear-armed, long-range missile—like North Korea—could readily defeat the planned US defense system. His involvement was important both because he knew so much about all the issues we worked on and because his co-authorship inoculated us against the inevitable response that our physics calculations were irrelevant because we did not have access to classified information. Dick had access to all of it.

Our team could email him questions about almost any topic, and he would typically reply within 10 minutes. When he didn’t, we would joke, “something has happened to Dick.” Most likely, he was on a flight headed to one of the many, many meetings he participated in around the world.

He often would respond by writing that he had first worked on this topic several decades ago and we should look at the trove of his past publications available on the Garwin Archive on the Federation of Atomic Scientists (FAS) website. Which we did, and which was always useful.

Dick was generous with his time. He also was very respectful towards us—when I told him how important his deep expertise and credibility were in a meeting we had with a member of Congress, he said that what I did was equally important and that he wouldn’t know how to be most effective without me and others at UCS.

Dick believed the threat of retaliation would prevent nations from attacking each other with nuclear weapons, but he was a strong critic of what he saw as unnecessary for or threatening to deterrence. That included many new nuclear weapon systems; large arsenals, both deployed and stored; missile defenses; and US policies that made accidental nuclear war more likely or could cause other nations to doubt their ability to deter the United States.

For example, Dick and I, along with several faith leaders, met with Susan Rice, President Obama’s national security adviser, at the end of 2015, to urge the President to change US nuclear policy. The two top things we urged him to do in his remaining year in office were to declare that the US would not use nuclear weapons first during a conflict—giving other nations less incentive to do so—and to eliminate launch-on-warning options for the US silo-based missiles and risk an accidental launch. President Obama did not take our advice, but we continued to advocate for these policies.

Dick was a master at multitasking (how else could he respond to emails within ten minutes?). The conventional wisdom is that none of the things you are doing simultaneously are getting the attention they need. This did not seem to apply to Dick. He served on the board of UCS for many years, and I often sat next to him at board meetings. He was emailing, looking up research papers and skimming through them, searching for information, and more. Then he would raise his hand and ask a zinger of a question, always right to the point, sometimes referring to one of the papers he had just looked at that was relevant to the issue at hand.

Dick could be quirky and had a sly sense of humor. During our collective fight against Star Wars in the 1980s, the two of us and a handful of other physicists were sitting in our hotel lobby in Washington, waiting to head to Capitol Hill. The table was wobbly and Dick pulled a screwdriver out of his bulging backpack, which he always carried with him. He never used a briefcase, which would have been completely inadequate for his needs. He then laid down on the floor and fixed the table. I said, “It’s a good thing you didn’t need a soldering iron,” to which he replied, “Oh, I have one of those in my hotel room.” I think it was a joke, but I was never quite sure!

We shared a love of dessert, and we were both quite discerning. Following dinner at UCS board meetings, there was always a selection of sweets. We consulted on the best ones and often brought each other the options we thought were most promising. One time when Dick approached our table with only one dessert in hand, I said accusingly “you didn’t bring me a dessert,” to which he responded “Yes, I did,” and put the plate down in front of me. He then turned around and went to get one for himself.

Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s desire to extend New START from February 2021 until 2026 and clarified that two of Russia’s new weapon systems would be covered under the treaty. This alone should be reason for the United States to extend New START. But Russia has also said it is open to negotiating a new treaty that would limit other Russian weapons systems now under development.

This is a no-brainer. It is foolhardy for the United States to throw out something good because it wants something better, leaving it with nothing.

The United States should extend the New START agreement until 2026, as Russia wants to do. Extending the treaty does not preclude negotiating a new one. But by continuing to limit existing US and Russian deployed long-range nuclear weapons to 1,550 and providing strict verification measures, New START makes everyone safer.

In its report on Russian treaty compliance that the State Department submitted to Congress last week, the administration certified that Russia remains in compliance but again contended that the agreement is flawed because it does not cover new Russian weapons systems and should include China.

In fact, as Lavrov explained to Pompeo, the treaty does cover several new Russian weapons. Because it is launched from intercontinental-range ballistic missiles (ICBMs), Russia concluded that its Avangard hypersonic weapon was covered by the terms of New START. When it entered service in December 2019, Russia gave US inspectors access to the Avangard, just as it does for other missile systems under New START.

Ironically, as a recent UCS blog post by my colleague Cameron Tracy discusses, the United States demanded New START exclude hypersonic weapons during negotiations, but has changed its stance now that Russia has deployed such a weapon and United States has not.

Moreover, Russia’s Sarmat ICBM, which is still under development, would also be covered by New START, according to Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov.

Russia is developing two other nuclear weapons that would not fall under New START provisions: the Burevesttnik cruise missile and the Poseidon underwater drone. These weapons, as well as the Avangard, are designed to evade US missile defenses.

According to the APNews article, Ryabkov previously stated that Russia is willing to discuss including these weapons in a future arms agreement “as part of a wider dialogue about strategic stability.” In other words, any future agreements would have to include limits on US missile defenses, something the United States will be loath to do. Russia has long stated that further reductions would require limits on missile defenses.

China is wary of entering negotiations with the United States and Russia on a new nuclear treaty. Its nuclear arsenal is ten times smaller than those of the United States and Russia, and the United States has not similarly called for including France and Britain, whose nuclear arsenals are similar in size to China’s, in the negotiations. My colleague Gregory Kulacki assesses China’s rejection of the proposed negotiations in a blog, and explains what might bring China to the negotiating table in a recent DefenseOne op-ed.

The Trump administration should also begin discussions with Russia—and perhaps other countries—on a follow-on treaty to New START. However, for progress to be possible, the United States must be willing to accept limits on its long-range missile defenses. It cannot point fingers at other countries for impeding arms control—the ball is squarely in its court.

Moreover, any future arms agreement that includes China should include Britain and France as well. Britain and France should not be given a pass but should be expected to accept limits on their arsenals as well. Also, China may be more willing to participate if it is not singled out.

The featured image in this blog is courtesy of the White House

This plan has resulted in a lot of confused—or perhaps deceptive—verbiage on the part of some of our elected officials. They seem not to know or neglect to mention that the United States already deploys a wide array of low-yield nuclear weapons.

Or it could be that they have their own set of alternate facts?

Alternate Facts in the House

For example, on May 22, Mike Roger (R-Ala.), who chairs the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, laid out his reasons for supporting the new warhead. Discussing the possibility of a Russian attack with low-yield weapons, he said:

“…[W]e have to understand Russia has this capability. … I think one of the reasons they don’t believe we would respond is we don’t have the capability [emphasis added] to do it without all-out nuclear war. They have to understand that we can, with precision, do exactly what they would do to us.”

Given Roger’s position in Congress, you would expect him to know quite a bit about US nuclear weapons. Yet he seems to believe that the United States has no low-yield nuclear weapons, so that the only US option would be to use its regular-size nuclear weapons and start an all-out nuclear war. (He also seems to believe that using low-yield nuclear weapons could not itself lead to an all-out nuclear war, but let’s ignore that for now.)

Alternate Facts in the Senate

More recently, Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), who was then serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee, weighed in with a November 29 op-ed on The Washington Post website, “Why America needs low-yield nuclear warheads now.” He and his co-author Michael Morell, who is a former deputy director and acting director of the CIA, argue that the United States needs the new low-yield Trident warhead “because a high-yield, long-range U.S. response to Russia’s first, limited use of a low-yield nuclear weapon against a military target is not credible. The Russians believe we are not likely to risk a global thermonuclear war in response to a ‘tactical’ nuclear attack by them.”

Again, the claim is that if Russia were to use low-yield nuclear weapons, the United States would have only two options: no response or launching a global thermonuclear war by using its regular- size weapons.

Again, given the responsibilities and experience of these two men, one would expect them to know a fair amount about the US arsenal. Yet they seem not to know—or at least don’t acknowledge—that the United States has other options because it already deploys a wide array of low-yield nuclear weapons, and has for decades.

The Real Facts

Exactly what low-yield weapons does the United States have in its arsenal?

The B61 bombs—which include 150 deployed at US air bases in six NATO countries—have variable explosive yields. The lowest available option has an explosive power of 0.3 kilotons of TNT—just 2 percent of the yield of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The bombs also can be set to a yield of 1.5, 10, 45 or 60 kilotons.

The United States also deploys air-launched cruise missiles with yields of 5 to 150 kilotons.

The United States is upgrading these weapons to extend their lifetimes for several decades and to add improvements, such as greater accuracy.

The planned new warhead—the W76-2—will have a yield of 6.5 kilotons and will replace some of the existing 100-kiloton W76 warheads on US submarines. It would add yet another weapon to the low-yield nuclear arsenal that our elected officials apparently don’t know exists.

You have to admit, though, the W76-2 will nicely fill in the gaping hole between 5 and 10 kilotons in the figure below.

Fig. 1 (Source: UCS)

Indeed, General Mattis may have privately assured some members of Congress that he would get into the loop to restrain President Trump if it looked like a nuclear crisis was brewing. So people are naturally worried that Mattis’ resignation will put Trump back in full control of US nuclear weapons.

But regardless of what Mattis may or may not have told members of Congress, the secretary of defense is not in the decision chain for a nuclear launch and has no ability to stop a launch order from going through. Perhaps Mattis could have talked Trump out of ordering an attack in the first place, assuming he knew the president was considering such an attack, but he had neither the legal authority nor the ability to prevent one from being carried out.

(Source: Dept. of Defense)

The fact is that the US president has sole and complete authority to order a launch of nuclear weapons. No consultation with military or political advisors is necessary.

It’s just the president’s finger on the button, and no one gets a veto.

One Phone Call is All it Takes

To order the use of nuclear weapons, the president would simply call the Pentagon’s “War Room,” read a code to an officer to confirm that he or she is indeed the president, and specify what targets to attack. (If the president is not at the White House or other location with secure communication, he or she would use the so-called nuclear football to order the use of nuclear weapons.)

After confirming the president’s identity, the War Room would send an encrypted launch order directly to aircraft pilots, the underground crews that launch land-based missiles, and/or the submarine crews that launch submarine-based missiles. This whole process would take only minutes and does not involve anyone else in the Pentagon. Secretary of Defense Mattis might only find out after the fact.

Nuclear-armed aircraft would take some time to prepare for takeoff and reach their targets, meaning in principle there may be time for the secretary of defense to intervene and order the planes to return to base. It would be illegal and the pilots would likely ignore the order, but it would be physically possible. Some fraction of US submarine-based missiles could be launched within about 15 minutes of receiving an order, which may or may not be enough time for someone to attempt to intervene.

However, it would likely not be physically possible to intervene in the launch of US land-based missiles. These 400 missiles are kept on high alert and it would only be a matter of minutes from the presidential order to when missiles would leave their silos.

(Keeping these missiles on high alert results in another significant risk—a US launch based on a false alarm. The United States keeps these weapons on hair trigger alert to maintain the option of launching them quickly on warning of an attack—before they could be destroyed by incoming warheads. However, there have been numerous false alarms in the past and this danger remains. Because it takes only 25 minutes for a long-range missile to travel between the United States and Russia, the timeline for making a launch decision a very short and the president would have only a few minutes to be briefed, confer, and make a launch decision.)

So while people might hope that someone like Secretary Mattis could rein in the president’s dangerous impulses, there is essentially nothing Mattis or anyone else could do to stop a launch they thought was not justified.

The Real Problem: US Policy

While the current president has highlighted the risks inherent in this system, the problem is far bigger than President Trump. At its core, the problem is US nuclear weapons policy.

The policy must change.

The United States should:

• End the president’s sole authority to order a nuclear attack. We have developed a plan to do just that by adding two more people to the decision-making process;
• Adopt a policy that the only purpose of US nuclear weapons is to deter their use by another country, so that the United States will not be the first to use nuclear weapons in a future conflict;
• Take weapons off hair-trigger alert and end the option of launching on warning of an attack.

It includes a wide range of changes to US nuclear weapons policy and calls for deploying additional types of nuclear weapons. Some of these changes can take place relatively quickly—within the time remaining in President Trump’s term—and others will take years to realize. In the latter case, however, political repercussions could occur well before completion of the effort.

This post looks at some of the near-term changes and consequences. In a future blog, I’ll talk about some of the longer-term implications of the NPR.

1. Preparing for nuclear war-fighting

One of the most significant changes to US policy outlined in the NPR is the tighter integration of US nuclear and conventional forces, including training and exercising with these integrated forces, so US forces can fight “in the face of adversary nuclear threats and employment.” The NPR states:

The United States will … strengthen the integration of nuclear and non-nuclear military planning. Combatant Commands and Service components will be organized and resourced for this mission, and will plan, train, and exercise to integrate U.S. nuclear and non-nuclear forces and operate in the face of adversary nuclear threats and employment. (p. VIII)

The document asserts the new US policy “is not intended to enable, nor does it enable, ‘nuclear war-fighting.’”(p. XII) For a regional conflict, “nuclear war-fighting” refers to using nuclear weapons in an ongoing way once a conventional conflict has expanded to include nuclear weapons.

And if training to use nuclear and conventional forces in an integrated way isn’t preparing for nuclear war-fighting, what is? Russia and China will certainly view it that way, and the exercises themselves will be provocative. The new policy deliberately blurs the line between nuclear and conventional forces and eliminates a clear nuclear fire break. Doing so is not in US security interests.

Low-yield, accurate nuclear weapons are often described as “suited for war-fighting,” and would be an important component of the integrated nuclear and conventional force that the administration is planning for. As discussed below, the administration plans to deploy a new lower yield weapon on submarines. But the United States already has two types of low-yield weapons that it could use as part of an integrated force.

The United States currently deploys 100 B61 bombs in the United States for delivery by long-range bombers, and 150 B61 bombs at US airbases in five NATO countries—Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey—that would be delivered by pilots from those countries using their short-range aircraft. (Hundreds more are in storage.) These bombs allow the user to choose the yield of the weapon; depending on the variant, the yield ranges from 0.3 to 170 kilotons. The lowest yield of 0.3 kilotons is 50 times smaller than the yield of the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki—which certainly qualifies as a warfighting weapon.

The United States also deploys 200 nuclear air-launched cruise missiles in the United States for delivery by long range bombers. These have variable yields ranging from 5 to 150 kilotons.

With these weapons the US military can begin planning, training and exercising with an integrated force of conventional and nuclear weapons—including low-yield weapons—within a year or two.

2. Broadening scenarios for using nuclear weapons first

The new policy described in the NPR broadens the scenarios under which the United States would use nuclear weapons first, thus lowering the threshold for first use. The document explicitly lists a wide array of non-nuclear attacks that could constitute grounds for a US nuclear response. These “include, but are not limited to, attacks on the U.S. allied or partner civilian population or infrastructure, and attacks on U.S. or allied nuclear forces, their command and control, or warning and attack assessment capabilities.” (p. 21)

Ironically, the Trump NPR makes a very strong case for a no-first-use policy. It states:

Russia must … understand that nuclear first-use, however limited, will fail to achieve its objectives, fundamentally alter the nature of a conflict, and trigger incalculable and intolerable costs for Moscow. Our strategy will ensure Russia understands that any use of nuclear weapons, however limited, is unacceptable. (p. 30)

Surely, the same is true for the first use of nuclear weapons by the United States. However limited, US nuclear first-use will “fundamentally alter the nature of a conflict, and trigger incalculable and intolerable costs.” Any such use is “unacceptable.”

3. Deploying new lower-yield submarine-launched weapons

The NPR states that the United States will replace some of the warheads on its submarine-launched Trident ballistic missiles with “low-yield” versions. These warheads would have a yield of roughly five kilotons; for comparison, the W76 and W88 warheads currently deployed on submarines have yields of 100 and 455 kilotons, respectively. Such a low-yield warhead can be produced by modifying an existing two-stage W76 or W88 warhead so that just the first stage explodes, which can be done relatively quickly. These weapons can—and likely will—be deployed during this presidential term.

As noted above, the United States already deploys low-yield bombs and air-launched cruise missiles with yield options that range from 0.3 to 150 kilotons. But the NPR argues that the new weapon will offer several advantages: it will not require “host nation support,” it will provide additional diversity, and it will be able to penetrate defenses. (p. XII) These arguments are spurious. The United States can deliver its bombs and air-launched cruise missiles using long-range bombers based in the United States—these require no host nation support. It is a truism that adding new types of weapons increases diversity, but it is irrelevant. It is also true that a ballistic missile will be able to penetrate defenses (especially since none exist), but this does not give it an advantage over the existing systems. The B-2 stealth bomber is designed to evade sophisticated air defenses, and the air-launched cruise missile can penetrate air defenses.

But the ultimate rationale the NPR gives for the low-yield Trident warhead is that it “will help counter any mistaken perception of an exploitable ‘gap’ in U.S. regional deterrence capabilities.” (p. 55) Regardless of what the military thinks US nuclear weapons are deterring other countries from doing, to argue that the current arsenal is inadequate but will become adequate if we throw in a few low-yield Trident warheads is just silly.

4. Undermining the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

The NPR describes the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as the cornerstone of the nuclear non-proliferation regime. However, the new US policy undercuts the treaty in several ways:

Ignores NPT obligation to take measures toward nuclear disarmament

While claiming that the United States “continues to abide by its obligations” under the NPT, the NPR ignores the US obligation to take effective measures toward nuclear disarmament. Since the end of the Cold War, the United States has made progress—albeit slow progress—in reducing the number, types, and role of US nuclear weapons. The new policy reverses that progress. The non-nuclear weapon states are already fed up with the slow progress of the United States and Russia, and in response last year they negotiated a treaty banning nuclear weapons. The Trump NPR is a giant slap in their face.

Walks back from negative security guarantees.

Negative security guarantees—in which the nuclear weapon states assure countries without nuclear weapons that they will not be subject to a nuclear attack—are vital to the NPT.  Such guarantees reduce the incentive for countries to acquire their own nuclear weapons to counter threats from the nuclear weapon states. They were also key to the 1995 decision by the non-nuclear weapon states to extend the treaty indefinitely.

Current US policy is:

The United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the NPT and in compliance with their nuclear nonproliferation obligations.

The Trump NPR reiterates this policy but follows it with a disclaimer:

Given the potential of significant non-nuclear strategic attacks, the United States reserves the right to make any adjustments in the assurance that may be warranted by the evolution and proliferation of non-nuclear strategic attack technologies and U.S. capabilities to counter that threat. (p. 21)

In other words, don’t count on it.

Rejects CTBT Ratification

For 50 years now, the NPT non-nuclear weapon states have made it clear that they place high importance on achieving a treaty prohibiting nuclear explosive testing. The 1968 preamble to the NPT discusses the imperative of negotiating such a treaty, and when the non-nuclear weapons states agreed to indefinitely extend the NPT in 1995, it was predicated on their understanding that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was near completion. The CTBT was opened for signature in 1996. The United States has signed, but not ratified the treaty. Over 20 years later, the treaty has still not entered into force, in part because the United States has not ratified it.

In another slap in the face of the non-nuclear weapon states, the NPR explicitly states, “the United States will not seek ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.” (p. 63)

Stay tuned for future blogs on the new US policy!

Updated 4:00 pm Feb. 2, 2018

As the New York Times reported, in response to this development over 90 prominent scientists sent a letter to leading members of Congress yesterday urging them to support the Iran Deal—making the case that continued US participation will enhance US security.

Many of these scientists also signed a letter strongly supporting the Iran Deal to President Obama in August 2015, as well as a letter to President-elect Trump in January. In all three cases, the first signatory is Richard L. Garwin, a long-standing UCS board member who helped develop the H-bomb as a young man and has since advised the government on all matters of security issues. Last year, he was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

What’s the Deal?

Diplomats announcing the framework of the JCPOA in 2015 (Source: US Dept. of State)

If President Trump did pull out of the agreement, what would that mean? First, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) (as it is formally named) is not an agreement between just Iran and the US—but also includes China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK, and the European Union. So the agreement will continue—unless Iran responds by quitting as well. (More on that later.)

The Iran Deal is not a treaty, and did not require Senate ratification. Instead, the United States participates in the JCPoA by presidential action. However, Congress wanted to get into the act and passed The Iran Agreement Review Act of 2015, which requires the president to certify every 90 days that Iran remains in compliance.

President Trump has done so twice, but declined to do so this month and instead called for Congress—and US allies—to work with the administration “to address the deal’s many serious flaws.” Among those supposed flaws is that the deal covering Iran’s nuclear activities does not also cover its missile activities!

According to President Trump’s October 13 remarks:

Key House and Senate leaders are drafting legislation that would amend the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act to strengthen enforcement, prevent Iran from developing an inter– —this is so totally important—an intercontinental ballistic missile, and make all restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activity permanent under US law.

The Reality

First, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which verifies the agreement, Iran remains in compliance. This was echoed by Norman Roule, who retired this month after working at the CIA for three decades. He served as the point person for US intelligence on Iran under multiple administrations. He told an NPR interviewer, “I believe we can have confidence in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s efforts.”

Second, the Iran Deal was the product of several years of negotiations. Not surprisingly, recent statements by the United Kingdom, France, Germany, the European Union, and Iran make clear that they will not agree to renegotiate the agreement. It just won’t happen. US allies are highly supportive of the Iran Deal.

Third, Congress can change US law by amending the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, but this will have no effect on the terms of the Iran Deal. This may be a face-saving way for President Trump to stay with the agreement—for now. However, such amendments will lay the groundwork for a future withdrawal and give credence to President Trump’s claims that the agreement is a “bad deal.” That’s why the scientists urged Congress to support the Iran Deal as it is.

The End of a Good Deal?

If President Trump pulls out of the Iran Deal and reimposes sanctions against Iran, our allies will urge Iran to stay with the deal. But Iran has its own hardliners who want to leave the deal—and a US withdrawal is exactly what they are hoping for.

If Iran leaves the agreement, President Trump will have a lot to answer for. Here is an agreement that significantly extends the time it would take for Iran to produce enough material for a nuclear weapon, and that would give the world an alarm if they started to do so. For the United States to throw that out the window would be deeply irresponsible. It would not just undermine its own security, but that of Iran’s neighbors and the rest of the world.

Congress should do all it can to prevent this outcome. The scientists sent their letter to Senators Corker and Cardin, who are the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and to Representatives Royce and Engel, who are the Chairman and Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, because these men have a special responsibility on issues like these.

Let’s hope these four men will do what’s needed to prevent the end of a good deal—a very good deal.

Because nuclear weapons are so destructive, the goal must be to eliminate—and not just minimize—the risk of nuclear war, which will require eliminating nuclear weapons.

Until then, it is essential that nations with nuclear weapons minimize both the risk and consequences of a nuclear war.

Numbers matter.

The consequences are directly related to the numbers of weapons used—which is limited by the number of weapons a nation has. Depending on the targets, the use of even a small number of weapons can result in horrific consequences.

For example, climate scientists using the latest climate models find that if India and Pakistan each used 50 of their weapons against the other’s cities, fires would inject so much soot into the atmosphere that the global climate would be affected for a decade. The decreased sunlight and lower temperatures would result in lower agricultural productivity and could lead to the starvation of over 1 billion people. This would be in addition to the people directly killed by the weapons.

Policy-makers and military officials often refer to the US nuclear arsenal as “our deterrent,” as if it were some sort of disembodied force rather than actual weapons. A “deterrent” is obviously a good thing, whereas “nuclear weapons” are more problematic. So, let’s take a look at what this “deterrent” actually consists of.

We have a new web graphic that displays all the US nuclear weapons. It provides a step-by-step visualization of the weapons the US deploys on land-based missiles in underground silos, on submarines, and on aircraft. All of these 1,740 weapons are ready for use.

But that is not all. The graphic then adds in the weapons the US keeps in storage for potential future use.

It all comes to a whopping 4,600 nuclear weapons.

Take a look—you can find more detail about the arsenal on the final page by hovering over each dot.

Policy matters, too.

Policy is what determines the risk of nuclear war.

As the graphic notes, the US keeps its land-based missiles on hair-trigger alert. Why? To allow the option of launching all these weapons in response to warning of an incoming attack from Russia. The warning is based on data from US satellites and ground-based radars, which is processed by computers.

No problem there, right? Wrong—not surprisingly, there have been false alarms in the past. Even more troubling, it takes only some 25 minutes for a missile to travel between Russia and the US. By the time the data has been analyzed, the president has about 10 minutes to decide whether or not to launch US missiles.

Which brings us to the next issue highlighted by the graphic: the president has the sole authority to use the 1,740 deployed nuclear weapons—meaning he or she can order an attack of any kind without the input of anyone else. Unless there is reason to think the president is incapacitated (e.g., drunk), the military is obligated to follow orders and launch.

Finally, it turns out that US nuclear weapons are not just a “deterrent” to dissuade other countries from using nuclear weapons first because the US could respond in kind. US policy also allows the first use of nuclear weapons against another country.

The US could reduce the risk of nuclear war by changing these three policies—by removing its land-based missiles from hair-trigger alert and eliminating launch-on-warning options from its war plans; by requiring the involvement of other people in any decision to use nuclear weapons; and by adopting a no-first-use policy. To reduce the potential consequences of war, it would need to dramatically reduce its arsenal.

And taking these steps would still leave the US with a strong “deterrent.”

His record so far has been somewhat mediocre—but it’s not too late to make a little more progress. Obama could reduce the hedge stockpile of weapons the US keeps in storage, and the amount of highly-enriched uranium and plutonium that the US keeps in case it wants to build even more weapons. It’s surprising that he hasn’t already taken these incremental steps. But their incremental nature also means that the Trump administration is unlikely to object.

The record so far

President Obama in Prague (Source: State Dept.)

Those of us who have been working to change US nuclear weapons policy were delighted by the Prague speech. While reducing arsenal size is important, so is reducing the potential that US weapons will be used. The US practice of keeping its land-based missiles on high alert creates the risk of an inadvertent launch in response to a false warning of an incoming Russian nuclear attack. And under US policy, the purpose of its nuclear weapons is not just to deter the use of nuclear weapons by other countries. Rather, US plans include options for the deliberate first use of nuclear weapons.

But frankly, it’s been a pretty disappointing eight years.

The US did negotiate the New START agreement with Russia, which will limit deployed long-range (“strategic”) nuclear weapons to 1,550 by 2018. Actually, because the treaty’s rules count all the weapons on an aircraft as just one, the real number will be more like 1,750 nuclear weapons. When Obama entered office, the US deployed some 2,200 strategic weapons, which is the upper limit permitted under the US-Russian Moscow Treaty negotiated by President Bush. The difference—450 weapons—amounts to a 20% reduction. That’s good.

And Obama did reduce the number of countries the US would attack first with nuclear weapons. The 2001 Nuclear Posture Review conducted by the George W. Bush administration named as potential targets Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea and Syria. At that time only Russia and China had nuclear weapons; North Korea did not conduct its first nuclear test until 2006.

Obama’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review states that the US reserves the right to use nuclear weapons first against countries with nuclear weapons or not in compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). While the document doesn’t name names, this currently amounts to three countries: Russia, China, and North Korea. (The U.S. is presumably not in the business of using nuclear weapons against the other countries with nuclear weapons—Britain, France, Israel, Pakistan and India.) So Iran, Iraq, Syria and Libya are no longer on the target list. That’s also good. But Obama’s failure to decide that the US would never use nuclear weapons first is a big disappointment.

And that’s pretty much it when it comes to reducing the US nuclear arsenal and changing US nuclear weapons policy.

What about removing land-based missiles from hair-trigger alert? Before Obama was elected to his first term, he wrote that “Keeping nuclear weapons ready to launch on a moment’s notice is a dangerous relic of the Cold War. Such policies increase the risk of catastrophic accidents or miscalculation. I believe that we must address this dangerous situation…” But he left this Cold War practice in place.

What about further cuts to the deployed arsenal? In 2013, following a comprehensive review, the administration concluded that the United States could safely reduce by an additional third from New START levels—even if Russia did not make similar reductions. Again, Obama did not move forward.

Remaining steps

As noted above, there are two remaining things Obama could do. They are mundane enough that it’s likely the Trump administration won’t care, especially if they are not accompanied by excessive self-congratulation. But they are still steps in the right direction.

First, he could cut the hedge stockpile of weapons the US keeps in storage. Currently the hedge is actually 50% larger than the deployed arsenal. The US keeps weapons in reserve for two reasons: (1) in the unlikely event that an entire class of deployed weapons experienced a technical problem, weapons of a different type could be deployed from the hedge to replace the faulty ones; and (2) if political leaders decided to rapidly increase the number of deployed weapons, weapons from the hedge could be added to existing delivery systems.

Leaving aside the merits of these rationales, the current hedge is larger than it needs to be to fulfill its purpose, as my colleague Eryn MacDonald explains. Obama could cut it by almost half, from 2,750 weapons to 1,400—and move the rest into the queue to be dismantled.

Second, he could cut the amount of weapon-usable fissile material—plutonium and highly-enriched uranium (HEU)—that the US originally produced for weapons and still keeps on hand. Ultimately, weapons cuts will only be meaningful if this material is disposed of. Previous administrations have declared that tons of this material is excess to weapons purposes and slated it for disposal, but much remains. As Eryn discusses here, the US produced almost 100 metric tons of plutonium, and has declared about 2/3 of it excess. Obama could declare an additional 15 metric tons as excess. The US stockpile also includes some 600 metric tons of HEU, of which 250 is available for weapons. Obama could declare an additional 140 metric tons of HEU excess.

This amount of plutonium and HEU—15 and 140 metric tons, respectively—would be enough to build several thousand nuclear weapons.

By cutting the hedge and declaring more fissile material excess, Obama would go a little further in fulfilling the promise he made in 2009.

His advisors have apparently abandoned the idea of removing US land-based missiles from hair-trigger alert. Ditto the idea of establishing a no-first-use nuclear policy, which would rule out the first use of nuclear weapons in a conflict. Still on the table: cutting the US arsenal and stockpiles of weapon-usable materials.

What would that mean?

Thousands of weapons

B61 bombs in storage (Source: US Govt)

The US has some 4,500 nuclear weapons on land-based missiles, on submarine-based missiles, waiting to be loaded on airplanes, and in storage. On top of that there are some 2,500 weapons in the dismantlement queue—weapons the military thinks the US no longer needs.

These 4,500 weapons fall into several categories. There are 4,000 so-called strategic weapons, with 1,750 deployed and 2,250 in storage. The remaining 500 weapons are considered tactical, with 180 deployed in five European countries and 320 in storage in the US.

The US keeps weapons in storage for two reasons: (1) if one type of deployed weapons develops a technical problem, it can replace those with a different type of stored weapon, and (2) if it decided to rapidly increase the number of deployed weapons it could do so.

As our new factsheet shows, the US could cut the current arsenal by at least 1,850 weapons, while still meeting current Pentagon requirements. These weapons would be moved to the dismantlement queue. President Obama should:

• Reduce the number of deployed strategic US nuclear weapons by roughly 550, leaving 1,200—a level that the administration has already determined is sufficient to maintain US deterrence.
• Reduce the number of strategic weapons in the hedge by roughly 1,000, leaving 1,250.
• Eliminate the hedge of 320 tactical weapons.

Tons of Weapon-Usable Materials

The US also has many tons of plutonium and highly enriched uranium (HEU) left over from its weapon program. While it plans to dispose of some of this material, it still keeps some of it in reserve for military use. As our factsheet shows, President Obama could declare more of this material excess to its military needs. This includes:

• At least 15 metric tons of plutonium—enough for almost 4,000 nuclear weapons
• At least 140 metric tons of HEU—enough for more than 5,000 nuclear weapons

So there’re lots of good things the president could do in his final months in office! Now let’s get down to business, Mr. President.

As we’ve discussed previously on this blog and elsewhere, keeping these weapons on hair-trigger alert so they can be launched within minutes creates the risk of a mistaken launch in response to false warning of an incoming attack.

This practice dates to the Cold War, when US and Soviet military strategists feared a surprise first-strike nuclear attack that could destroy land-based missiles. By keeping missiles on hair-trigger alert, they could be launched before they could be destroyed on the ground. But as the letter notes, removing land-based missiles from hair-trigger alert “would still leave many hundreds of submarine-based warheads on alert—many more than necessary to maintain a reliable and credible deterrent.”

“Land-based nuclear missiles on high alert present the greatest risk of mistaken launch,” the letter states. “National leaders would have only a short amount of time—perhaps 10 minutes—to assess a warning and make a launch decision before these missiles could be destroyed by an incoming attack.”

Minuteman III launch officers (Source: US Air Force)

Past false alarms

Over the past few decades there have been numerous U.S. and Russian false alarms—due to technical failures, human errors and misinterpretations of data—that could have prompted a nuclear launch. The scientists’ letter points out that today’s heightened tension between the United States and Russia increases that risk.

The scientists’ letter reminds President Obama that he called for taking nuclear-armed missiles off hair-trigger alert after being elected president. During his 2008 presidential campaign, he also noted, “[K]eeping nuclear weapons ready to launch on a moment’s notice is a dangerous relic of the Cold War. Such policies increase the risk of catastrophic accidents or miscalculation.”

Other senior political and military officials have also called for an end to hair-trigger alert.

The scientists’ letter comes at an opportune time, since the White House is considering what steps the president could take in his remaining time in office to reduce the threat posed by nuclear weapons.

Photo: Campaign for Barack Obama

According to the president’s speech writer, Ben Rhodes, Obama’s remarks “will reaffirm America’s longstanding commitment — and the President’s personal commitment — to pursue the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. As the President has said, the United States has a special responsibility to continue to lead in pursuit of that objective as we are the only nation to have used a nuclear weapon.”

But the president must do more than give another beautiful speech about nuclear disarmament. The world needs—indeed, is desperate for—concrete action.

There are many meaningful steps that President Obama can take that will make every American safer—without the approval of Congress or agreement of Russia. As UCS and its faith partners—the National Association of Evangelicals, the Committee on International Justice and Peace of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the National Latino Evangelical Coalition—noted in their May 4 statement Faith and Science Leaders Agree: Reduce the Threat of Nuclear Catastrophe Now, the president should:

• Scale back his plans to spend more than $1 trillion building a new generation of nuclear warheads, missiles, bombers, and submarines and cancel the new nuclear-armed cruise missile, which is destabilizing and unneeded.
• Reduce the U.S. deployed strategic arsenal by a third, which is a level the Pentagon agrees is adequate to maintain security.
• Remove U.S. land-based nuclear missiles from their current hair-trigger status and eliminate the option in U.S. war plans of launching them on warning.

In Prague in 2009, President Obama committed the United States to reducing the role of nuclear weapons and putting an end to Cold War thinking.

It’s time to walk the talk, Mr. President.

The RIC featured speeches by NRC Chairman Stephen Burns and NRC Commissioners Kristine Svinicki, William Ostendorff, and Jeff Baran, as well as more than three dozen technical sessions. Dave and Ed participated in three of the sessions.

Ed participated in the Fukushima session. UCS had just released Ed’s report Preventing an American Fukushima, which assessed the work done in the five years since the Fukushima disaster to reduce the vulnerability of U.S. nuclear plants to such severe accidents. In his presentation, Ed discussed the lessons learned—and the lessons unheeded—by the NRC and U.S. nuclear industry.

Dave participated in the session on Enhancing the Significance Determination Process (SDP) used in the NRC’s Reactor Oversight Process. When an NRC inspector identifies a safety violation, the NRC uses the SDP to determine the severity of that violation. The NRC wanted to “enhance” the SDP, contending it consumed too many resources and yielded untimely outcomes. Dave’s presentation showed that the data does not support either of those contentions and concluded “If it ain’t broke, don’t break it.”

Dave also participated in the session on Project AIM, the NRC’s initiative to downsize and re-focus its efforts now that the anticipated nuclear renaissance has fizzled and there have been several closures of nuclear power reactors across the country, with more possible. The NRC recently identified 151 items (including programs, projects, and procedures) that it is considering eliminating. Dave pointed out that the 2015 RIC cost the NRC $920,000—nearly double the meeting expense limit set by the Office of Management and Budget—and was exceeded by only two of the candidates on the chopping block. The candidate list did not include the RIC. Dave called on the NRC to provide more public information about why it chose the 151 items, and why it left other things off the list.

Radiation hotspot in Kashiwa, February 2012

Five years ago today, the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant in Japan was hit first with a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and then with a 50-foot tsunami.

The reactors shut down as they were designed to do, but the nuclear core of a shut-down reactor remains hot and needs to be cooled to prevent a meltdown of the fuel. In addition, the radioactive spent fuel stored in pools of water needs to be cooled. Cooling requires electrical power—but the electric grid was destroyed and the backup diesel generators, located in the basements, were flooded and rendered useless.

In the following days, the three operating reactors suffered melt-downs and released radiation into the environment, significantly contaminating hundreds of square miles. Fortunately, Fukushima is located in a rural area, but some 100,000 evacuees remain unable to return to their homes.

Japan has been cleaning up the surrounding region by removing contaminated soil and placing it in large plastic bags, but has no long-term storage facility to accommodate the millions of waste-containing bags. The ultimate cost to Japanese taxpayers for the cleanup and compensation is estimated to be $100 billion.

A U.S. Fukushima?

But what has this got to do with nuclear power in the United States? A lot, it turns out.

There are many ways a reactor can lose offsite and backup electrical power—triggering a “station blackout” and disabling cooling equipment. Many U.S. reactors are more vulnerable to earthquake and flooding risks than was assumed when the reactors were built. For example, 34 reactors—one-third of the U.S. fleet—could face flooding hazards greater than they were designed to withstand if an upstream dam fails. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), the agency that oversees the nuclear industry, has known about these risks for over 15 years and has failed to adequately address them.

Similarly, seismologists have determined that the earthquake risk in the central and eastern parts of the U.S. is greater than was understood when most reactors in those areas were built. The NRC now requires new reactors built in these areas to be designed with protection against the greater hazard—but has done nothing about existing reactors. The agency has identified 27 reactors that were not built to withstand the local earthquake risk based on current seismic information.

The NRC receives a wake-up call but falls back asleep

Following the Fukushima accident, the NRC understood that the United States needed to do a better job of preparing for natural disasters and other events that a reactor was not built to withstand. The NRC calls these “beyond design-basis” or “severe” events.

The agency appointed a task force of senior staff to determine how to make U.S. reactors safer if they were to confront an accident like that at Fukushima. In July 2011 the task force released a report with a dozen detailed multi-part recommendations.

So far, so good. But what has happened since then?

My colleague Ed Lyman, a senior scientist here at UCS, has just released a report assessing what the NRC and industry have done to carry out these recommendations: Preventing an American Fukushima: Limited Progress Five Years after Japan’s Nuclear Power Plant Disaster.

The bottom line is that the NRC “has rejected or significantly weakened many of the commonsense recommendations made by the task force.” And while “the NRC and the nuclear industry have devoted several billion dollars and much time and labor to addressing [some] of the task force recommendations … it is difficult to assess to what extent that considerable effort will reduce the risk to the public from severe nuclear accidents.”

Perhaps most disturbing is that the NRC rejected the top recommendation made by the task force—to overhaul what it called a “patchwork” of NRC regulations and industry voluntary guidelines for “beyond-design-basis” events.

A half measure

The main industry response to the Fukushima accident has been the FLEX program (short for “diverse and flexible coping capability”). The goal of this program is to stockpile extra emergency equipment, including diesel-powered pumps and backup power supplies, to allow cooling during a prolonged loss of alternating current power. But as Ed’s report details, the industry got out ahead of the NRC and began buying equipment before the NRC developed any requirements for the equipment. One result is that the industry bought commercially available equipment, which is cheaper but may not be able to survive a severe accident of the sort it would be needed for.

So, the more than 100 million people living within 50 miles of a U.S. reactor may—or may not—be safer than they were five years ago. They certainly aren’t as safe as they would be had the NRC followed more closely the recommendations of its own task force.

Time to wake up

To improve the safety of U.S. reactors in the event of a severe accident, the NRC must revamp its regulatory framework for beyond design-basis events. UCS hopes that future NRC commissioners will revisit the decision not to do so.

Wrong.

MOX and nuclear terrorism

Producing MOX fuel would make it easier for terrorists to steal the plutonium, which they could then use to make their own nuclear weapon(s). Neither plutonium nor MOX fuel is highly radioactive, and it would be relatively easy for terrorists to extract the plutonium from MOX. The MOX production facility would handle plutonium in vast quantities, and it would be impossible to keep track of it with enough precision—down to a few kilograms out of many tons—to make sure the small amount needed for a bomb was not missing. And transporting the MOX fuel to reactors would provide another opportunity for terrorists to steal the material.

An alternative approach is to dilute the plutonium with an inert material and dispose of it by burying it deep underground, making it hard to steal. This “dilute and dispose” option would not only be safer, it would be cheaper.

Yet in 1999 the United States set off down the MOX path. It has now half-finished constructing a MOX production facility in South Carolina. But it has run into problems along the way. The facility is now behind schedule and way over budget: an initial estimated lifecycle cost of $5 billion (in 2015 dollars) has now ballooned to $30 billion or more.

Good news

But now there’s some good news. According to the Fiscal Year 2017 budget request to Congress released by the administration last week, “beginning in FY 2017 the MOX project will be terminated.” This is a big step, but Congress will also have its say. The South Carolina delegation will press hard to fund completion of the MOX plant, throwing good money after bad.

The budget request also states that the Department of Energy will instead pursue the dilute and dispose option. It is important to note that even though the MOX plant is half-built, it will still be cheaper to dilute and dispose of the plutonium.

UCS has been working for years to cancel the MOX project. Most recently, UCS Senior Scientist Edwin Lyman made the case against the MOX option and explored alternatives in his 2015 report, Excess Plutonium Disposition: The Failure of MOX and the Promise of Its Alternatives.

At the same time, UCS has also sought to make the MOX plant less susceptible to theft should the project proceed. For over a decade, Ed has been providing expert assistance to local citizens’ groups that legally challenged the MOX plant licensing by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). There have been some positive outcomes: the NRC licensing board required the plant owner to strengthen its plan for plutonium monitoring. However, the licensing board did not require the owner to have a NRC-approved cybersecurity plan in place to protect its computerized monitoring system from hackers. But this won’t matter if the United States truly lays the MOX plan to rest.

Of course, UCS will not let up on its efforts until it is clear the program will not be resurrected.

Featured photo: The MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility, under construction. (Source: Friends of the Earth)

First, the forest:

The Iran nuclear deal is a good thing. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as it is officially titled, will make it more difficult for Iran to produce the fissile material needed to make a nuclear weapon, should it decide to do so.

And if Iran did decide to pursue a nuclear weapon, the deal will make it more likely that the world will have warning and the warning time will be longer than it would without a deal, providing more time for the  international community to respond.

Thus, the deal is an important step forward in curbing Iran’s ability to produce a nuclear weapon.

(Source: US Dept of State)

Nuclear power and nuclear weapons

Let’s take a step further back. At the core of this issue is a problem inherent to nuclear power: some types of civil nuclear facilities can also be used to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons. In particular, almost all power reactors worldwide use uranium fuel that has been “enriched” to increase the concentration of the isotope U-235 above that in uranium found in nature. Natural uranium ore contains less than 1% U-235, and reactor fuel typically contains 3 to 5% U-235. Nuclear weapons typically use uranium that has been enriched to 90% or greater, but enrichment facilities producing low-enriched uranium (LEU) for fuel can be operated to produce weapons-grade highly enriched uranium (HEU) instead.

Reactors fueled with uranium produce plutonium as they use the fuel. Some countries have reprocessing facilities that extract the plutonium from spent fuel, and this plutonium can be used to build nuclear weapons as well as to fuel reactors.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) gives its signatories the right to develop nuclear power, including enrichment and reprocessing facilities. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is charged with both facilitating nuclear power programs in these countries and carrying out inspections to verify that their facilities are not used to produce fissile material for weapons.

However, any country that possesses enrichment or reprocessing facilities will have the latent ability to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons. In other words, a country could throw out the IAEA inspectors and use these facilities for weapons purposes. The time needed to produce enough material for a nuclear weapon—the “breakout time”—will depend on the type and size of the facilities. But ultimately, the real barrier to a weapons program is not technical, but political.

The history of Iran’s nuclear program

The United States provided Iran with its first research reactor in 1967 as part of its “Atoms for Peace” program. The Shah had plans to build some two dozen nuclear power plants, and a German company was building Iran’s first two reactors at Bushehr when construction was halted by the Iranian revolution in 1979. One of the reactors was later completed by a Russian contractor, and began operating in 2011. Russia has a contract to provide fuel for the Bushehr reactor, and Iran will return the spent fuel to Russia.

Iran signed the NPT on the day it opened for signature in 1968, obligating it to not produce or acquire nuclear weapons. Accordingly, the IAEA applies “safeguards” to Iran’s nuclear facilities to verify that they are not being used for nuclear weapons purposes.

In 1997, the IAEA developed an “Additional Protocol” that NPT signatories can voluntarily adopt. The protocol requires the signatory state to provide additional information about its nuclear activities to the IAEA and allows the agency to conduct inspections at any facilities or sites that it suspects may be engaged in undeclared nuclear activities. The majority of NPT states have adopted the Additional Protocol, but Iran has not.

In 2002, an Iranian dissident group publicly revealed that Iran had two nuclear facilities under construction that it had not informed the IAEA about: a uranium enrichment facility in Natanz and a heavy water production facility in Arak. The latter would provide heavy water for the planned research reactor in Arak. U.S. and other intelligence agencies almost certainly knew about these facilities before their existence was made public.

At the time Iran was only required to inform the IAEA about these facilities six months before nuclear material was introduced into them, which had not yet happened, so it was still in compliance with its safeguards obligations. Nonetheless, these revelations put into motion a series of negotiations between Iran, the IAEA, and various European nations. As a result, in 2003 Iran agreed to inform the IAEA of any nuclear facilities as soon as it decided to build them. Iran also signed the Additional Protocol. However, it did not ratify the agreement, and suspended it in 2006, although it has continued to allow the IAEA to conduct its regular safeguards inspections.

The IAEA found that Iran had failed to report numerous nuclear-related activities, and in 2006 reported to the UN Security Council that Iran was not in compliance with its safeguards agreement. Shortly thereafter, the Security Council demanded that Iran suspend all enrichment activities and then imposed sanctions on Iran after it refused to do so.

In 2011, the IAEA also reported that it had evidence that Iran had conducted non-nuclear experiments relevant to designing nuclear weapons until 2003. In particular, the agency believes that Iran had conducted research on the high explosives needed to kick off a nuclear explosion at its Parchin military base.

Details of the Iran nuclear deal

Now for the trees:

Under the terms of the nuclear deal, Iran will accept significant constraints on its nuclear program for the next 10 to 15 years (recall that the NPT places no restraints on the peaceful nuclear programs of its signatories). It will sign and implement the Additional Protocol, the provisions of which will extend indefinitely. It will also allow IAEA monitoring and inspections beyond those required by the protocol for the next 15 to 25 years.

There are several potential pathways for Iran to produce the fissile material needed for a bomb—it could enrich uranium using known facilities, produce plutonium using known facilities, or operate covert facilities. The deal constrains those pathways for the next 10 to 15 years.

Iran has uranium enrichment facilities at Fordow and Natanz, with a total of some 19,000 centrifuges. Under the deal, Iran will disassemble and store roughly 13,000 centrifuges. It will not enrich uranium at Fordow, but will maintain 1,000 centrifuges at that facility, some of which will be used to produce stable isotopes for research or commercial purposes with the remaining kept idle. It will continue to enrich uranium at Natanz, but only using about 5,000 of its first-generation IR-1 centrifuges, and only to an enrichment level of 3.67 percent.

But perhaps most significantly, Iran will reduce its current stockpile of about 10,000 kg of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to 300 kg of 3.67 percent LEU for 15 years. It is much easier to produce weapon-grade uranium if you start with 3.67 percent LEU rather than natural uranium—by about a factor of three. By essentially eliminating Iran’s stockpile of LEU, the deal extends the time it would take Iran to produce enough material for a weapon.

How long would it take for Iran to acquire enough HEU to build a bomb, if it decided to leave the NPT and threw the inspectors out?

There is no precise answer to this question, because it depends on a host of factors that are not precisely known—such as the amount of HEU required for Iran’s bomb design, the performance of its centrifuges, and how quickly Iran could reinstall the centrifuges that will be disassembled and in storage under the terms of the deal. The administration states that currently, it would take Iran 2-3 months, and that under the agreement the “breakout time” would increase to a year. A breakout time of roughly a year is consistent with the following reasonable assumptions: (1) a nuclear weapon would require roughly 28 kg of weapons-grade HEU (90% enriched), which is the standard IAEA assumption; (2) the average capacity of Iran’s IR-1 centrifuges is about 0.75 SWU/year, as indicated by the latest data from Iran’s May 2105 report to the IAEA; and (3) Iran would use all 6,000 installed IR-1 centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow, but could not reinstall the 13,000 disassembled centrifuges within a year.

While the breakout time would vary somewhat depending on the details, it will be significantly longer under the deal than it is today.

What if Iran decided to instead follow a plutonium route to a bomb? Iran could produce plutonium at its Arak research reactor, now under construction. While all reactors fueled with uranium produce plutonium, some types of reactors produce it at a higher rate than others. As initially configured, the Arak reactor would produce enough plutonium in its spent fuel for roughly one nuclear weapon each year. However, the spent fuel would need to be reprocessed to extract the plutonium, and Iran has no reprocessing facility.

Under the agreement, Iran will destroy the existing reactor core, and replace it with one of a new design, which would require ten years to produce enough plutonium for one nuclear weapon. Iran will ship all spent fuel out of the country for the lifetime of the reactor.

Moreover, under the deal Iran has agreed to not reprocess or engage in reprocessing R&D for 15 years, and states that it does not intend to do so after that.

Finally, what if Iran tried to build a covert enrichment or reprocessing facility? Under the agreement, the IAEA will monitor all uranium ore mined in Iran or imported, cutting off Iran’s ability to supply uranium to any covert enrichment facility. In addition, Iran would not be able to surreptitiously acquire spent fuel to reprocess since its reactors will be monitored.

Moreover, under the agreement, the IAEA has the right to inspect any site where it suspects Iran is engaged in prohibited activities. An inspection must take place within 24 days from the time of the request, and any work with fissile material would leave a detectable trace.

Where to go from here?

The agreement puts strong, verifiable restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program, and the U.S. Congress should endorse it.

In addition, the United States and other countries can do more to widen the gap between nuclear power and nuclear weapons—in Iran and elsewhere.

The United States does not reprocess its spent fuel, and this policy has helped constrain reprocessing by other countries. The United States should continue to work to persuade other nations to forgo reprocessing.

As several researchers at Princeton—Alexander Glaser, Zia Mian and Frank von Hippel—advocate in an article in Science, the parties to the Iran agreement should invest in Iran’s enrichment facility so that it becomes multinational. And the United States should abandon its plan for a new national enrichment facility, instead continuing to rely on Urenco, a company owned by Britain, Germany and the Netherlands. A U.S. commitment to multinational enrichment would help create a regime in which all enrichment facilities were multinational and, as the Princeton group put it, “in which nuclear power rules apply equally to all states.”

The bomb was later determined to have the explosive power of 21,000 tons of TNT. But in addition to a blast wave, and intense heat and light, this bomb produced something new: radioactivity. High levels of radiation spread as far as 90 miles from the test site, dropped by the mushroom cloud as it dispersed toward the northwest.

The Trinity Test

The Trinity explosion (Source: Jack Aeby, DOE)

The test, code-named “Trinity,” was of a plutonium bomb. During the Manhattan Project, the United States built two types of atomic weapons—one using uranium, and one using plutonium. The uranium bomb had a design that was almost assured of working. And the United States had only been able to produce enough uranium for one bomb—the one that destroyed Hiroshima, Japan on Aug 6, 1945.

But the plutonium bomb needed a more complicated design. It was an implosion-type weapon, which required a spherical shell of conventional high explosives to detonate symmetrically around a plutonium core to compress it enough to create a critical mass, thus allowing the plutonium to fission. And the United States had produced enough plutonium for several bombs—so one could be used up in a test.

Some of the scientists had worried that the test might ignite the atmosphere, but decided that this was a low enough probability to proceed with the test.

Others believed the bomb would not work at all. They were proved wrong, and another such weapon was dropped on Nagasaki on August 9.

Another nuclear milestone

Another milestone of the nuclear age was the 1952 “Ivy Mike” test by the United States of the first “hydrogen” or “thermonuclear” weapon. Such weapons can be much more powerful than the atomic bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They have two stages, the first of which is essentially a plutonium-based atomic bomb. Because these weapons are complex, to confirm that a new design will work, it needs to be explosively tested.

Testing, testing, testing…

Following the Trinity Test, the United States, Soviet Union, Britain, France, and China conducted some 500 nuclear tests above ground, leaving a detectable layer of radioactive elements in sediment worldwide. The tests also resulted in strontium-laced milk from cows that had eaten grass contaminated by fallout. In response to growing public concern about the effects of radioactivity, an international treaty banned above ground testing went into effect in 1963 and these nations switched to underground testing, which largely eliminated fallout. (However, some underground tests have “leaked” and vented radioactivity into the atmosphere.)

Since 1963, another 1,500 tests have been conducted worldwide, and India, Pakistan and North Korea have joined in. (There is lingering disagreement about whether Israel, which has nuclear weapons, conducted an atmospheric test in 1979 off Antarctica.)

An international treaty banning all nuclear testing—the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)—was negotiated in 1996. Only India, Pakistan and North Korea—which have not signed the treaty—have tested since then. The United States was not just the first to test—it has conducted the most tests: 1,054. It produced 65 different types of nuclear weapons.

New nuclear weapons

The main motivation for negotiating the CTBT was that it would both prevent existing weapon states from developing new types of nuclear weapons and prevent other nations from going nuclear. The 185 non-nuclear parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have made the CTBT a priority for the five nuclear states to fulfill their obligations under the NPT.

But now the United States has called into question the efficacy of the CTBT. Scientists at the U.S. weapons laboratories now believe that their computer simulations are sophisticated enough that the United States can forgo nuclear testing of new designs. Despite President Obama’s pledge to “not develop new nuclear warheads” the United States is planning to do just that. The alternative is for the United States to refurbish existing weapons, which it has done to date.

This plan to develop, produce and deploy new types of nuclear weapons undermines the CTBT, and hence the NPT. Yet it is in U.S. security interests to strengthen these two international regimes.

Moreover, while U.S. weapons designers may be confident that these new weapons will work as intended even if they do not undergo nuclear testing, future U.S. policy makers may not share this confidence and push for a resumption of U.S. nuclear testing. This would likely unleash a spate of nuclear testing by other nations.

For these reasons, the United States should abandon its plan to develop and produce new weapons. It could finally end the continuous development of new weapons that it began 70 years ago.

Unfortunately, the statement is disingenuous and misleading, and relies on word games to obfuscate the real issues. It inappropriately seeks to dispel NPT delegates’ concerns about the U.S. practice of keeping nuclear missiles ready to be launched within minutes, giving the president the option of launching these missiles based on warning of an incoming attack.

In rejecting the term “hair-trigger” alert, the administration’s statement implicitly denies that the United States keeps its missiles on high alert. This is false: the United States can launch hundreds of its nuclear weapons in minutes. Moreover, “hair-trigger alert” is a widely-used term to describe this practice. Presidents Bush and Obama have used the term, as have many high-ranking U.S. military officers.

The U.S. statement also rejects the term “launch-on-warning policy.” But the fact is that the United States maintains the option of launching its missiles when warning sensors indicate an attack is underway. A false or misinterpreted warning could lead to a deliberate but mistaken launch of U.S. missiles. This is not just a theoretical possibility—human and technical errors have led to false warnings in the past.

What the U.S. statement omits is as important as what it says. It notes that the United States has taken steps to reduce the risk of an accidental or unauthorized launch of nuclear missiles. But it fails to note that these safeguards do nothing to prevent a mistaken launch; they are not intended to prevent a launch authorized by the president.

The U.S. statement points to the fact that all U.S. nuclear-capable bombers have been taken off day-to-day alert. It is important to note, however, that it was President George H.W. Bush who took this step using his executive authority almost 25 years ago. And while the United States has reduced the overall number of nuclear warheads on alert—by reducing the number of warheads on land-based missiles and on submarines at sea—hundreds of warheads remain at the same alert level they were during the Cold War, ready to be launched in minutes.

Rather than arguing about how to refer to the hundreds of nuclear-armed missiles that it keeps ready to launch within minutes, the United States should eliminate this dangerous practice.

The 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, or “NPT”, divides the world into nuclear weapons haves and have-nots, with the five nuclear weapon states—the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, and France—committed to nuclear disarmament in exchange for which the other 186 parties have pledged not to acquire nuclear weapons. The treaty includes inspections to make sure that countries with nuclear power programs don’t use the technology to produce nuclear weapons materials.  

The 2010 NPT Review Conference. (Source: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe)

All but five countries are party to the treaty—India, Israel, and Pakistan have nuclear arsenals and have never signed; North Korea withdrew from the treaty in 2003 and now has nuclear weapons; and South Sudan, which came into existence in 2011, has yet to sign.

So what will happen at this Review Conference? The five nuclear weapon states will try to convince the rest of the world that they are making progress on disarmament, and the other nations will push for concrete steps to match the rhetoric.

Does this dialogue matter? You bet it does. The non-nuclear weapon states are increasingly frustrated that the weapon states are making slow progress toward fulfilling their half of the bargain. If this continues, the NPT could eventually unravel, and more countries may decide to get nuclear weapons.

U.S. and Russian launch-on-warning policies

The U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals and policies will be a subject of particular concern, and for good reason. With some 4,500 weapons each, the two nations account for over 90% of the world’s weapons. And both countries keep large numbers of their nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert to allow their launch on warning of an incoming attack.

But warning systems are not perfect, creating the risk of a mistaken launch based on false or misinterpreted warning. And this is not a theoretical concern: the U.S. and Soviet/Russian systems have suffered false warnings of an incoming attack.

Another problem with launch-on-warning is that the decision time is so short. It would take only 25 minutes for a land-based missile to reach the other country (and even less for a missile launched from a submarine). It would take roughly 10 minutes for satellite- and ground-based sensors to detect the launch, leaving less than 15 minutes for the U.S. or Russian president to decide whether the warning is accurate and whether to launch in response.

Yet another problem is that keeping missiles primed to be launched quickly increases the risk of an accidental or unauthorized launch.

The world wants an end to hair-trigger alert

At the last Review Conference, in 2010, one of the recommendations adopted by consensus was to: “Consider the legitimate interest of non-nuclear-weapon states in further reducing the operational status of nuclear weapons systems in ways that promote international stability and security.” (“Reducing the operational status” is code for taking weapons off hair-trigger alert.)

And last year at the United Nations, 166 countries voted in support of a resolution to “decrease the operational readiness of nuclear weapons systems, with a view to ensuring that all nuclear weapons are removed from high alert status.” Four countries—guess which ones—opposed it (the U.S., Russia, Britain, and France).

The topic will come up again at this Review Conference. The Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Initiative (NPDI), a coalition including Japan, Canada and Germany, will bring to the meeting a working paper that calls on all nuclear weapons states to take “concrete and meaningful steps, whether unilaterally, bilaterally or regionally, to further reduce the operational status of nuclear weapons.”

The United States has little to say for itself

What does the United States have to say for itself? The State Department has just put out a fact sheet—Myths and Facts Regarding the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Regime—that tries to make the case that the U.S. is already doing its part to fulfill the requirements of the NPT. It includes a discussion of the U.S. hair-trigger posture.

First, the United States objects to the term “hair-trigger” (the U.S. military uses the terms “prompt launch” or “ready alert” instead). Second, the fact sheet notes that the United States “employs multiple, rigorous and redundant technical and procedural safeguards to protect against accidental or unauthorized launch.” Presumably true, but things can still go wrong. And note that the fact sheet doesn’t say anything about a mistaken launch based on wrong information about an incoming attack, because all the safeguards are irrelevant if the president decides to launch.

Finally, the fact sheet states that “we are taking further steps to maximize decision time for the president in a crisis.” That’s not very comforting when the U.S. maintains a launch-on-warning posture, since the upper limit of the time the president will have to make a decision is 25 minutes—the time it would take for a Russian land-based missile to reach the U.S.

The only way to give the president a reasonable amount of time to make the momentous decision to launch U.S. nuclear weapons is to remove the launch-on-warning option. And if the U.S. does not plan to launch on warning, there is no reason to keep its weapons on hair-trigger alert.

It’s worth noting that high-level military and political leaders continue to call for an end to launch-on warning and for taking missiles off hair-trigger alert, and that this can be done quickly.

Time to change course

Instead of being defensive, the administration should use the occasion of the NPT Review Conference to announce an end to the Cold War practice of keeping U.S. ground-based nuclear missiles on hair-trigger alert to allow launch-on-warning. This is something President Obama can do without Congressional action. Hopefully, Russia would follow suit. But the world will be safer even if the United States goes it alone.

Eric Schlosser, author of Command and Control. Photo: Kodiac Greenwood

The current situation, in which the United States and Russia keep their nuclear-armed missiles on hair-trigger alert so they can be launched within a matter of minutes, makes everything worse. System failures could lead to the accidental, unauthorized, or erroneous launch of these weapons.

As we’ve discussed in previous posts, UCS is urging President Obama to take U.S. land-based nuclear missiles off hair-trigger alert, since that would essentially eliminate the risk of accidental, erroneous, or unauthorized launch. High-level U.S. officials support the idea.

UCS recently interviewed Eric about his book, and the continuing risks posed by nuclear weapons:

UCS: You spent six years researching Command and Control. Given what you uncovered, how worried should we be about the possibility of a nuclear accident or inadvertent nuclear launch?

ES: I think the danger posed by the world’s nuclear arsenals is the single greatest national security threat we face. I’m not apocalyptic. I’m not predicting there’ll be a nuclear detonation tomorrow at 3pm. But there’s been remarkably little public discussion and attention paid to this issue considering what’s at stake.

Today I’m more worried about an unauthorized launch than an accidental detonation —something going wrong in the system itself so that a launch either happens by mistake or someone who shouldn’t have access to things gets access. It takes constant vigilance to make sure that doesn’t happen. And, while the nuclear weapons we have today are much safer than the ones we had in the 1970s and 1980s, our nuclear infrastructure is also aging and a lot of the equipment is outdated. So accidents absolutely are possible. The probability is greater than zero. There’s no question about that.

UCS: The Union of Concerned Scientists is now calling for the United States to take its land-based nuclear missiles off hair-trigger alert. How helpful do you think this step would be for our safety here at home?

ES: I support the idea of taking our land-based missiles off of hair-trigger alert. Our land-based missiles are really only useful for attacking Russia. And to take them off of hair-trigger alert is to signal to Russia that we’re not going to have a first strike with our land- based missiles. It would be great to see a similar effort on Russia’s part because there’s much more we can do in a partnership to reduce the danger. But I believe we need to do everything we can to prevent accidents with our nuclear arsenal and this seems like a sensible and important first step.

UCS: Back in the 1980s, a million people gathered in Central Park to call for a nuclear freeze. Why do you think the public seems to be paying such comparatively little attention to the subject now?

The prospect of a nuclear war was a source of tremendous anxiety during the Cold War. And the collapse of the Soviet Union was so sudden and unexpected that I think everyone just breathed a sigh of relief. People started to believe that the danger ended with the end of the Cold War. And of course, the risk of nuclear war was greatly reduced. The nuclear arsenals in the U.S. and in Russia have declined in size by about eighty or ninety percent. That’s terrific. But the danger never fully went away. The danger is still with us. And, unfortunately, I think people are pretty much in denial about it.

UCS: By explaining in detail how close we’ve come on a number of occasions to an accidental nuclear cataclysm, your book is a terrifying read. What has the reception been like since it was published?

ES: My aim with this book has been to provoke discussion about this issue. And I’m very gratified that there seems to have been a significant uptick in attention to the issue since the book was published. This the first book I’ve written that seems to have been read by people in power—people in the Air Force, people at the weapons labs. And, to some extent, I think it is encouraging a discussion about the safety of our nuclear infrastructure and I’m very glad about that. I’m also happy to be speaking about this with the Union of Concerned Scientists—an organization that has played an important leadership role on this issue for the past 40 years.

UCS: Your book highlights a number of accidents and near misses since the development of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Do you think there more accidents and near misses that haven’t been publicly disclosed?

ES: I think there were a great many incidents we don’t know about. The really big accidents are hard to conceal. When there’s a serious incident, like when we lost a hydrogen bomb off the coast of Spain, it’s likely to become widely known. But there are many kinds of accidents that are more mundane and banal—like someone pulling the wrong wire and inadvertently arming a nuclear weapon. That kind of accident could also potentially lead to a catastrophic outcome but may not be as likely to come to light.

At a book talk I gave in New Mexico, someone in the audience came up to me afterwards and complained that I was very tough on the Air Force in the book—but kind of let the Army off the hook.  He had worked at Sandia and done a command and control study of the Army’s tactical weapons in Germany in the early 1970s. He was terrified by what he’d seen there. Of course, I asked him to enlighten me, but he said ‘no, no, no. He couldn’t do that.’ The study remains classified.

I did the best I could while researching the book.   But there is much more out there that I was unable to uncover. Still, the incidents I did include point to how lucky we’ve been so far. And we don’t want a national security policy based on luck.

UCS: At UCS, we’re encouraging our members to get more involved and take action on the issue of the safety of our nuclear arsenal. What would you say to encourage them? 

Well, first of all, in the coming years, Congress will be discussing the modernization of our nuclear arsenal and infrastructure. Much of this debate will take place in secret with very little public input. There will be some people proposing to spend about $1 trillion to upgrade our nuclear weapon capabilities. So I think it is vital to learn about these issues.  People need to get involved, and this country needs a vigorous, informed public debate about this spending and its goals.

Today we are witnessing the beginning of an international discussion—a serious discussion—about the abolition of nuclear weapons. From a humanitarian perspective, these weapons do not discriminate between civilians and military targets. And there are many who are making the argument that nuclear weapons should be abolished on those grounds alone. You know, we banned landmines and chemical weapons and cluster munitions. A growing number of people are working toward the abolition of nuclear weapons as well.

The key point I want to make is that we can reduce the threat posed by our existing nuclear arsenals. There are all kinds of things we can do. Taking our land-based missiles off of hair-trigger alert is certainly one such thing. But, in order to meaningfully reduce the threat, we absolutely need to start talking about it—and stop living in denial.

New nuclear warheads may be less reliable—and lead to resumed nuclear testing

On the technical side, the military may have less confidence in the performance of these new warheads than those they replace.

B61 bombs in storage. (Source: US Govt.)

Until 1992, the United States conducted nuclear explosive “proof” tests to verify that its new warhead designs would work as intended. Since then, the United States has observed an international moratorium on nuclear explosive testing and in 1996 signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) banning such tests. The CTBT is an important barrier to nuclear weapons development by more nations.

In the past two decades, the United States has not produced or deployed any new warheads. Instead it has refurbished existing warheads by replacing aging components with new ones.

But the administration now plans a change in course. It will develop new warheads by using components from existing warheads, but in combinations that have never been proof tested. Confidence in the performance of these weapons will instead be based on experimental data from other types of tests and computer simulations. This approach could raise serious questions about the reliability of the U.S. arsenal—and lead to calls for resumed nuclear explosive testing. And a future administration might decide to do just that. If the United States resumed testing, other nuclear nations would likely follow suite and the CTBT would unravel.

New nuclear warheads would undercut non-proliferation goals

On the political side, this new approach flies in the face of President Obama’s promise not to develop new types of warheads. His 2010 Nuclear Posture Review flatly states that “The United States will not develop new nuclear warheads,” noting that the United States “can ensure a safe, secure, and effective deterrent without the development of new nuclear warheads or further nuclear testing.”

Some argue that current plans do not violate this promise. They say that these new warheads are not truly new because they will use components from existing warheads, but this is semantic shenanigans. A warhead that has never existed before is new.

Why did Obama make this pledge? To demonstrate that the United States intends to make good on its commitment as a nuclear weapons state under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to move toward eliminating nuclear weapons, and hence strengthen the NPT regime. The 178 NPT signatories that have forsworn nuclear weapons in return for this commitment from the nuclear weapons states undoubtedly take this pledge seriously.

If the United States proceeds to build new nuclear weapons, it will undermine the NPT regime and make a mockery of the CTBT, which was intended to prevent the development of new nuclear weapons. The United States is one of the greatest beneficiaries of these treaties, which help keep other states from building nuclear weapons.

A better approach

Rather than going down this path, the United States should simply refurbish (or, in some cases, retire) existing warheads as needed, continuing past practice. This will preclude concerns about the reliability of new types of warheads, and be consistent with President Obama’s pledge not to develop new nuclear warheads.

Apparently some folks at Los Alamos National Laboratory—one of the two labs that design and help maintain U.S. nuclear weapons—missed that day in class.

Source: National Archives

Last year, Jim Doyle, then a nuclear security and non-proliferation specialist who had been at the Lab for 17 years, published an article in the journal Survival titled Why Eliminate Nuclear Weapons? Doyle included the requisite disclaimer: “The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not represent those of the Los Alamos National Laboratory or the US government.” So far, so good.

But soon Los Alamos officials claimed the article contained classified information. Then they docked Doyle’s pay, took away his security clearance, and ultimately fired him. Not subtle.

The shameful tale of Los Alamos and Jim Doyle is thoroughly detailed in an article by Douglas Birch, an investigative journalist who works at the Center for Public Integrity. Among other things, Birch interviews several experts with security clearances who say that Doyle’s article contains nothing classified.

What’s at Stake Here?

So what does Doyle’s article say that so upset Los Alamos officials? His call for eliminating nuclear weapons is consistent with long-standing official U.S. policy: as a nuclear weapon state signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the United States is obligated to work for nuclear disarmament. His call is also consistent with President Obama’s April 2009 speech in Prague, where he stated that the United States would “seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.”

But Doyle’s article is more than a call for the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons—it is a critique of nuclear deterrence itself. He writes: “The international community must reject the myths and expose the risks of the ideology of nuclear deterrence if it is to successfully meet the mutual global challenges of the twenty-first century.”

He writes that the price of deterrence outweighs its value, and that the price “is the constant risk that a complex, tightly coupled and largely automated system subject to normal, systemic and human error will, as science tells us, inevitably fail, and fail catastrophically, with unprecedented and unjustified loss of civilian life. Mistakes with conventional weapons can have limited physical impact. Small mistakes are not possible with nuclear weapons.”

Doyle is right. All systems are fallible, and when it comes to nuclear weapons a system failure could be catastrophic. For example, as I have written about previously, the United States keeps almost all its 450 land-based nuclear missiles on high alert ready to be launched within a few minutes. This policy increases the risk of an accidental or unauthorized launch or one in response to a false warning of an incoming attack. These risks outweigh any potential benefits, and President Obama should remove these missiles from hair-trigger alert.

An informed public debate about U.S. nuclear weapons policies is essential. That Los Alamos Lab officials went out of their way to stifle such debate is especially disturbing. Ironically, their actions have now brought Doyle’s article to the attention of a much larger group of people.

Frontpage photo courtesy of Paul Shambroom.

John Oliver in action. Photo: Comedy Central

The episode was funny and sobering all at once.

Oliver pointed out that when you have that many weapons sitting around, plenty of things can—and do—go wrong. Like the time in 1961 when we accidentally dropped two nuclear bombs on North Carolina, and one almost detonated. Or the time in 2007 when we unknowingly flew six nuclear-armed cruise missiles across the country and no one realized it for 36 hours, while they were sitting unguarded on the tarmac.

My favorite part is where he compares U.S. nuclear weapons to the tiny arms of a T. Rex dinosaur, noting that they are useless and that the T. Rex is plenty scary without them. But it’s not just a joke—as Oliver makes clear when he next shows a clip of General Colin Powell saying these weapons are useless.

What Oliver left out—and this is definitely not funny—is that the United States keeps almost all of its 450 U.S. land-based missiles on hair-trigger alert so that they can be launched within a few minutes. This increases the risk of an accidental or unauthorized launch, or one in response to a false warning of an incoming attack.

There is no reason to accept these dangers. Keeping missiles on high alert is completely unnecessary. A reliable and credible U.S. nuclear deterrent does not require the ability to retaliate immediately, and U.S. submarine-based nuclear weapons are invulnerable to attack.

When he was running for president in 2008, Barack Obama called attention to the dangers posed by this alert policy, noting that they are unacceptably high. Now that Obama is president, he can make us all safer by taking these missiles off hair trigger alert. It’s past time that he does so.

As Dick himself noted during a panel discussion after the screening, the film presents an impressionist view of him and his life. There is no narration, and his life’s events are not portrayed in chronological order. But the sense it conveyed of Dick was exactly right—calm, rational, persistent, purposeful. My favorite part was the beginning, which featured footage of him walking in front of the White House and up the stairs of a congressional office building in his suit and with his backpack on. Just doing what he does, with no sign of stopping.

Although the film includes footage of the Manhattan Project and the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, Dick was too young to be involved with that effort. In many respects, however, it set the stage for the rest of his life. After completing his Ph.D. in physics at the age of 21, he was invited by his thesis advisor Enrico Fermi to Los Alamos. Over the next year, Dick designed the first hydrogen bomb test, which was detonated on November 1, 1952, on one of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Dick spent most of his career at the IBM research center in Yorktown Heights, New York, where he had an arrangement that allowed him to spend a third of his time advising the government. Rather than a focus on academic research, he wanted to follow his wide-ranging interests, and IBM gave him the resources and freedom to do that. In one scene in the film, he is sitting in the office he still maintains there, noting that more important things have taken precedence over filing all his papers.

Indeed, Dick has spent his life doing important things. As the film notes in passing, he developed the touch screen, but that is the tip of the iceberg. He also was instrumental in developing the laser printer, the GPS navigation system and reconnaissance satellites, among many, many other things in both military and civil realms (including a mussel washer!). And he has done ground-breaking physics research.

But perhaps the most important thing Dick has done—and still does—is advise the government on nuclear weapons and nuclear arms control issues. That’s the focus of the film, and it touches on many of the arms control issues he has been involved in. He has served on the president’s Scientific Advisory Council and an array of government advisory panels, has testified before Congress innumerable times, and has long been a member of the JASON group of elite scientists that advises the government on a wide range of security issues. But his advice has not always been welcome, and unlike many people with security clearances and inside access, Dick works to publicly promote his analysis and ideas (without revealing secrets, of course). He travels the globe to speak about arms control issues at meetings and conferences. The filmmaker followed him to Erice, Sicily, for one such meeting.

Dick also collaborates with UCS and other like-minded groups that are working to change U.S. nuclear weapons policies—which is how I know him. He has been an invaluable ally.

For example, Dick has worked long and hard to make the case for U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which would ban all nuclear explosive testing, and against unworkable missile defenses of the sort the United States first deployed under President George W. Bush and continues to develop under President Obama.

Some 25 years ago, I was sitting in a D.C. hotel lobby with a group of scientists in town to make the case against President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, the so-called “Star Wars” program. The coffee table we were sitting around wobbled when someone put a cup on it. Dick pulled a screwdriver out of his backpack and got down on the floor to repair the table. I quipped that it was a good thing he didn’t need a soldering iron to fix it, and he replied that he had one in his hotel room. I’m still not sure if he was joking.

At any rate, Dick, at 86, is still working to fix things.

The MOX plant under construction. Photo: Shaw AREVA MOX Services

In 2000, the United States and Russia agreed to each dispose of at least 34 metric tons of plutonium from their nuclear weapons programs. U.S. nuclear weapons contain less than four kilograms of plutonium, so the combined total of 68 metric tons is enough for some 17,000 nuclear weapons. Disposing of this plutonium would make it more difficult to reverse U.S.-Russian nuclear weapons reductions and would prevent terrorists from gaining access to this material.

The United States eventually settled on a plan to convert most of its surplus plutonium into fuel for power reactors. U.S. reactors use uranium fuel, but could burn a mixture of plutonium and uranium oxide, known as MOX. The resulting waste would be buried with all the other nuclear waste from U.S. reactors in an underground repository, once one is sited and built.

But this cure had some serious side effects—namely, it would be easier for terrorists to steal the plutonium during MOX production, transportation or storage at reactors. UCS has long promoted alternative strategies in which the plutonium would be disposed of directly. In one approach, the plutonium would be placed with existing nuclear waste, “immobilized” in a large glass canister, and buried in a repository. Indeed, the United States will have to develop an immobilization strategy for some of its surplus plutonium that is not suitable for use as reactor fuel.

But these security concerns are not what led to the decision to put the plant on ice—the costs are.  The construction cost of the MOX plant was initially estimated to be $1 billion, and climbed to $4.8 billion, and then to $7.7 billion. As Secretary of Energy Moniz noted yesterday, with operating costs, the project would top $30 billion.

What’s next? Cold standby suggests the end is near, but the South Carolina congressional delegation is not ready to give up. The administration will now take another 12-18 months to investigate alternatives. We’re waiting, with fingers crossed.