Las Vegas Review-Journal (Nevada) August 25, 2003
Expert says U.S. should consider using mininukes
By Keith Rogers
Standing in an empty hall that next year will display Cold War artifacts from the heyday of atomic testing, Troy Wade pondered the need for research into a new generation of nuclear bombs called 'mininukes.'
These low-yield bombs, known in nuclear weapons circles as 'robust earth penetrators,' would be small enough to deliver to fortified targets deep underground. They'd also be powerful enough to do the job that conventional, bunker-buster bombs can't do: generate enough energy and heat to crumble rock-hard command facilities or render missiles or stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons useless with minimal damage on the surface.
'The whole issue of war fighting has changed,' said Wade, a longtime Las Vegan, former Energy Department defense chief and veteran nuclear weapons expert. His resume dates to the days of atmospheric nuclear tests and the shift to below-ground detonations at the Nevada Test Site in the 1950s.
'We've moved from superpower-to-superpower, where the goals were mutually assured destruction, to dealing now with rogue states,' Wade, 69, said during an interview last week in the building on Desert Research Institute's Flamingo Road campus that will house the Atomic Testing Museum.
The targets today are not population centers but rather military facilities and command locations.
'Instead of destroying a city, you want to destroy a single building or a single factory or a single structure, and you want to do it in a way that minimizes damage to civilians and makes occupation much simpler, safer and easier,' he said.
That, in essence, was a key part of the discussion that took place earlier this month during a closed-door meeting of 150 scientists, administration officials, arms experts and Pentagon planners at Offutt Air Force Base south of Omaha, Neb.
The meeting was spawned from the brainstorming that took place a year ago during the Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review. The purpose of that review 'was to look at the perceived needs of the military in nuclear weapons over the next couple decades,' said Wade, who since his retirement in 1989 has acted as an adviser to both the National Nuclear Security Administration and the Department of Defense on nuclear weapons matters.
Wade would neither confirm nor deny that he attended the meeting at the Offutt base's Strategic Air Command but spoke of his knowledge about it.
'It's a well-known fact that in many countries around the world, defense facilities and command facilities are in deeply buried, underground locations and this nation is struggling with a better way to defeat those deeply buried targets,' he said. 'There is a very logical interest in discussing whether or not a small nuclear weapon might be part of the answer.'
The United States has one type of nuclear weapon in its arsenal for use against underground targets: the B61 Mod 11 earth penetrator. That weapon, designed for delivery by a B-2 bomber, was altered in 1999, according to globalsecurity.org, a defense and intelligence policy organization based near Washington, D.C.
The B61 has been modified many times to improve its performance since it was stockpiled in 1968. It was developed and put in the stockpile without full-scale nuclear tests, the organization's Web site says.
Wade said, however, that some defense planners believe there's a need for a lower-yield weapon that will go deeper than the B61.
'It's not a mininuke like we're talking about here,' he said, noting that the envisioned yield from such a weapon would be on the order of factors of 10 less yield than that of a B61.
The idea behind a mininuke is that the energetic punch could reach greater depths if the bomb is smaller, yet many times more powerful than a conventional bunker-buster.
'If you can penetrate to a great depth before you detonate either a conventional or nuclear weapon, you can get the shock waves down where they would damage the various facilities with minimum effect on the surface,' he said.
There would always be a risk of surface contamination, 'but you just have to minimize it as much as you could through tailored effects. The risk isn't zero,' Wade said.
Over the next 'couple years,' Wade said, 'I think you're going to see a complete review of the current stockpile and a detailed review of the need for any new design.'
Among the challenges, he said, is assuring that the United States can come up with a way to defeat any target, for example, such as an underground plutonium production facility or deeply buried command bunker that North Korea could build.
The threat became more of a reality on June 9, when North Korea officials said they intend to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent. That announcement came six months after North Korea took steps to restart its nuclear facilities and asked the International Atomic Energy Agency to remove its cameras from the Yongbyon facility.
'A lot of the facilities in North Korea are underground and we have to be assured that we would hold those facilities at risk,' Wade said.
'Maybe it's a submarine-launched (nuclear-tipped missile) or maybe it's an earth penetrator. You have to convince them that you can come and get them and only then do you achieve deterrence,' he said.
Developing a new generation of warheads raises the question about resuming full-scale nuclear weapons tests that were put on hold indefinitely in 1992, launching a new era for the nation's nuclear proving grounds, the sprawling Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
As a result, the United States has relied on a science-based, stockpile stewardship program to ensure that the weapons in the enduring stockpile are safe and reliable to maintain deterrence.
Though other independent experts and at least one Bush administration official have said the chances of resuming nuclear tests are slim in light of current world politics, in Wade's opinion putting an earth penetrator design through the rigors of a full-scale test might be in order.
'There are physicists who will tell you that it's not necessary to test. But I believe if you're going to have one opportunity on one target, you're going to have to do everything you can to know it will work,' he said. 'And the best way to ensure it will work is through a test.'
© Copyright 2003, DR Partners d/b Las Vegas Review-Journal
