Technical Nuclear Forensics and the Future of the Weapons ...
Technical Nuclear Forensics and the Future of the Weapons Laboratories Jessica M. Yeats Center for Strategic and International Studies Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) Capstone Conference United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) December 2, 2008
Overview (1/2) Technical Nuclear Forensics (TNF) is one of many vital national security capabilities that survives parasitically on the nuclear weapons program (NWP) at the national labs •
Not sustainable: Despite the urgency assigned to the threat of nuclear terrorism and nearly universal political support for expanding the program, TNF faces severe manpower and resource shortages
•
Decaying “host”; atrophy across the nuclear complex saps TNF resources
NWP has atrophied due to waning political support for funding R&D in the absence of perceived urgency to threats that U.S. NWs are relevant in dealing with •
Widely held perception in Washington that the US NWP – and associated initiatives to sustain it – undermine nonproliferation/counterterrorism
•
From a lab perspective, the opposite is the case: the NWP forms the core capability that gives teeth to those international efforts www.csis.org | 2
Overview (2/2) • The survival of the complex demands reversing the perception that it damages nonproliferation & generating widespread awareness of the capabilities at stake if atrophy is unabated • TNF manpower crisis = a NW complex solution • In so far as TNF is (technically) leveraged off of the NWP, the NWP can be (politically) leveraged off of TNW • A sustainable symbiosis
• NNSA and laboratory leadership have long acknowledged the evolution of the lab mission, but failed to sufficiently exploit it • The focus of their funding requests ought to better align with broader USG national security priorities
www.csis.org | 3
The Future of the Nuclear Weapons Complex Labs must adapt to a policy environment increasingly reluctant to fund new projects with offensive military application •
Efforts to reinvigorate the NW mission are counterproductive; the next admin/congress will prioritize nonproliferation to the NW complex if ever they perceive a conflict
•
Budget pressure coupled with: CTBT; Article IX & NPT credibility; Obama’s “vision”
At the same time, “as long as NW exist” the labs must provide reliable warheads and a responsive infrastructure: a paradox? •
Inverse relationship between military and technical requirements: As the complex downsizes to adapt to a 21stC envt, requirements on responsiveness increase
•
But the ability to meet those demands diminishes; the capability of a scientific enterprise is commensurate with the potential for growth. Science doesn’t “sustain.”
•
Already evident: decaying human infrastructure: Recruitment can’t replenish retirement without a promising academic pipeline
www.csis.org | 4
“Dual Use” Nuclear Weapons Complex (1/2) NW Complex must re-calibrate its rationale, such that: 1. It aligns with broad national security priorities, and, simultaneously: 2. It maintains a technical and political imperative to sustain the appropriate skills and capabilities for a responsive nuclear weapons infrastructure
Broadening to “a spectrum of national security missions” (Bodman, 2008) is not sufficient unless those missions require efforts that simultaneously sustain weapons design and engineering capabilities TNF is unique in degree to which it relies upon the NWP: draws upon the full spectrum of effort: materials, design, engineering, testing •
“Forensics capabilities relating to such areas as NW device modeling, nuclear materials production, radiochemistry and associated specialized facilities, advanced computations and simulations, and the physics and chemistry of fissile materials have been sustained… by leveraging off activities carried out in NNSA’s NWP….All of the nation’s TNF capability ultimately rests on the underlying science base around the accumulated knowledge [from the NWP].” (Steven Aoki, October 10, 2007) www.csis.org | 5
“Dual Use” Nuclear Weapons Complex (2/2) Atrophy Across the TNF Program (In parallel with the NWP) • Manpower crisis; need 2-3X present number to surge in emergency (APS-AAAS); 35 to 50 experts at the labs, more than 1/2 will retire in the next 10-15 years; Designers and Radiochemists (majority of TNF) dwindling rapidly; mentoring is key • Exacerbated by recruitment challenge: no career pathway/ academic “pipeline”; In 4 of the 7 remaining radiochemistry grad programs, only 1 faculty member (APS-AAAS)
NNSA Fellowship program (APS-AAAS rec) good but not sufficient • “It takes two things to produce a Ph.D student: the student, and sustained funding for research in a relevant subject… we must provide research funding in a broader range of nuclear-related fields” (Dr. Carol Burns Testimony)
Science is the nexus between U.S. NWs and counter nuclear terrorism; failure on both sides of the policy divide in Washington to exploit it • Nonproliferation and Arms Control community is biting off the hand that feeds it • DOE, NNSA and National Laboratory leadership also to blame: Ineffective Marketing www.csis.org | 6
Ineffective Marketing Campaign (1/2) DOE & DOD funding requests rely (almost exclusively) on antiquated, esoteric and poorly understood rationales for laboratory capabilities •
What is at stake not communicated to Congress: TNF and related capabilities are in footnotes – if at all – and the degree of dependence on NWP activities is not emphasized
Bodman-Gates: “National Security and NWs in the 21st Century” (2008) •
“Role of NWs” and policy proscriptions (RRW) non sequiturs from 21stC “nuclear threats” o
USG NATIONAL SECURITY PRIORITIES: “The primary national security challenge… is the nexus of violent extremists and regional states of concern that have, or seek to attain, WMD…U.S. policy is to hold state sponsors… accountable for the actions of their proxies.”
o
ROLE OF U.S. NWs: “… the ultimate deterrent capability that supports U.S. national security.”
o
TNF = nexus between the “primary security challenge” and the “role of NW” yet the 28pg “white paper” has NO MENTION of ANY counter nuclear terrorism or nonproliferation program at the NW labs.
D’Agostino Testimony on Complex Transformation (July, 2008) • •
“…the NNSA fundamental mission responsibility to provide safe, secure, and reliable nuclear warheads … remains and guides our future actions.” In a 2-hour testimony, TNF mentioned twice within a list of residual program www.csis.org | 7
Ineffective Marketing Campaign (2/2)
www.csis.org | 8
TNF as a Political Raison D’etre for NW Skills “A major difficulty of counterterrorism in general is that it is no one’s first job, and almost no one’s second job. We… have… the technical…tools… but they have not been focused on… forensics and attribution needs ….. to turn these tools to a new application may involve… competition with existing missions and the…need to think in a new way.”-- Jay Davis
Political Support for Sustaining NW Infrastructure • •
Disarms Critics: Hard to argue with TNF unless you love terrorists and unprovoked war A rationale for R&D on Warhead Design and a responsive NW design infrastructure o o o o
•
Sustaining expertise even on crude designs requires innovation in the field; More advanced designs are attractive to terrorists because they require less fissile material (key barrier); Imprudent to make assumptions about future terrorists’ capabilities, Public won’t tolerate stagnant design capabilities if framed in this context
A rationale for improved fissile material and radiochemistry capabilities
Recruitment and Retention (TNF as an Academic Raison D’Etre for NW Skills) • •
Relevant and stimulating career path with a promising future Non-state actor/WMD nexus will be an increasingly dominant national security concern
www.csis.org | 9
Recommendations (1/2) • Both sides of the policy divide on nuclear issues should recognize their co-dependence and exploit political and technical mutuality • Coordinated and intensive campaign to modernize the image of the nuclear security enterprise to reflect the broadened, integrated mission • Revised “white paper:” National Security and the NW Complex in the 21st Century • The next Sec Def & Sec DOE should author and aggressively push a new nuclear strategy that considers comprehensively the security contributions of the NW infrastructure (not just the weapons) in the 21st century
• DOE/DOE hearings and briefings to: Oversight, Appropriations, OMB. the White House • Harmonized effort across all elements of the nuclear enterprise (Gen. Chilton, etc)
• Department of National Security Sciences • NNSA within DOE not sustainable, but autonomous agency calls for a larger mandate than NNSA; new “home” for the labs could facilitate awareness of broadened mission
www.csis.org | 10
Recommendations (2/2) • At the National Laboratories: • Modify the effort distribution to more effectively leverage the NWP to improve TNF: engage all designers/chemists/engineers in at least some capacity (now 20-30 F/T; 200 P/T) • Increase funding/expand the mandate of the Nuclear Counterterrorism Design Support program that focuses the talent, capabilities, and resources of the NWP on nuclear terrorism •
Ex) Warhead R&D without the intention of fielding the weapon: “red team” warhead design
Final Remarks • Nuclear Weapons Program Still Core Effort • In near-term, discrepancies in scale too difficult to invert; this could change over time
• TNF only a piece of “multi-purpose” mission but politically unique • E.g.) high performance computing, simulations, intelligence, energy security, verification • TNF is unique in its ability to generate support for the NWP due to the convergence of relevance to broad national security priorities and reliance on the weapons infrastructure www.csis.org | 11
Overview (1/2) Technical Nuclear Forensics (TNF) is one of many vital national security capabilities that survives parasitically on the nuclear weapons program (NWP) at the national labs •
Not sustainable: Despite the urgency assigned to the threat of nuclear terrorism and nearly universal political support for expanding the program, TNF faces severe manpower and resource shortages
•
Decaying “host”; atrophy across the nuclear complex saps TNF resources
NWP has atrophied due to waning political support for funding R&D in the absence of perceived urgency to threats that U.S. NWs are relevant in dealing with •
Widely held perception in Washington that the US NWP – and associated initiatives to sustain it – undermine nonproliferation/counterterrorism
•
From a lab perspective, the opposite is the case: the NWP forms the core capability that gives teeth to those international efforts www.csis.org | 2
Overview (2/2) • The survival of the complex demands reversing the perception that it damages nonproliferation & generating widespread awareness of the capabilities at stake if atrophy is unabated • TNF manpower crisis = a NW complex solution • In so far as TNF is (technically) leveraged off of the NWP, the NWP can be (politically) leveraged off of TNW • A sustainable symbiosis
• NNSA and laboratory leadership have long acknowledged the evolution of the lab mission, but failed to sufficiently exploit it • The focus of their funding requests ought to better align with broader USG national security priorities
www.csis.org | 3
The Future of the Nuclear Weapons Complex Labs must adapt to a policy environment increasingly reluctant to fund new projects with offensive military application •
Efforts to reinvigorate the NW mission are counterproductive; the next admin/congress will prioritize nonproliferation to the NW complex if ever they perceive a conflict
•
Budget pressure coupled with: CTBT; Article IX & NPT credibility; Obama’s “vision”
At the same time, “as long as NW exist” the labs must provide reliable warheads and a responsive infrastructure: a paradox? •
Inverse relationship between military and technical requirements: As the complex downsizes to adapt to a 21stC envt, requirements on responsiveness increase
•
But the ability to meet those demands diminishes; the capability of a scientific enterprise is commensurate with the potential for growth. Science doesn’t “sustain.”
•
Already evident: decaying human infrastructure: Recruitment can’t replenish retirement without a promising academic pipeline
www.csis.org | 4
“Dual Use” Nuclear Weapons Complex (1/2) NW Complex must re-calibrate its rationale, such that: 1. It aligns with broad national security priorities, and, simultaneously: 2. It maintains a technical and political imperative to sustain the appropriate skills and capabilities for a responsive nuclear weapons infrastructure
Broadening to “a spectrum of national security missions” (Bodman, 2008) is not sufficient unless those missions require efforts that simultaneously sustain weapons design and engineering capabilities TNF is unique in degree to which it relies upon the NWP: draws upon the full spectrum of effort: materials, design, engineering, testing •
“Forensics capabilities relating to such areas as NW device modeling, nuclear materials production, radiochemistry and associated specialized facilities, advanced computations and simulations, and the physics and chemistry of fissile materials have been sustained… by leveraging off activities carried out in NNSA’s NWP….All of the nation’s TNF capability ultimately rests on the underlying science base around the accumulated knowledge [from the NWP].” (Steven Aoki, October 10, 2007) www.csis.org | 5
“Dual Use” Nuclear Weapons Complex (2/2) Atrophy Across the TNF Program (In parallel with the NWP) • Manpower crisis; need 2-3X present number to surge in emergency (APS-AAAS); 35 to 50 experts at the labs, more than 1/2 will retire in the next 10-15 years; Designers and Radiochemists (majority of TNF) dwindling rapidly; mentoring is key • Exacerbated by recruitment challenge: no career pathway/ academic “pipeline”; In 4 of the 7 remaining radiochemistry grad programs, only 1 faculty member (APS-AAAS)
NNSA Fellowship program (APS-AAAS rec) good but not sufficient • “It takes two things to produce a Ph.D student: the student, and sustained funding for research in a relevant subject… we must provide research funding in a broader range of nuclear-related fields” (Dr. Carol Burns Testimony)
Science is the nexus between U.S. NWs and counter nuclear terrorism; failure on both sides of the policy divide in Washington to exploit it • Nonproliferation and Arms Control community is biting off the hand that feeds it • DOE, NNSA and National Laboratory leadership also to blame: Ineffective Marketing www.csis.org | 6
Ineffective Marketing Campaign (1/2) DOE & DOD funding requests rely (almost exclusively) on antiquated, esoteric and poorly understood rationales for laboratory capabilities •
What is at stake not communicated to Congress: TNF and related capabilities are in footnotes – if at all – and the degree of dependence on NWP activities is not emphasized
Bodman-Gates: “National Security and NWs in the 21st Century” (2008) •
“Role of NWs” and policy proscriptions (RRW) non sequiturs from 21stC “nuclear threats” o
USG NATIONAL SECURITY PRIORITIES: “The primary national security challenge… is the nexus of violent extremists and regional states of concern that have, or seek to attain, WMD…U.S. policy is to hold state sponsors… accountable for the actions of their proxies.”
o
ROLE OF U.S. NWs: “… the ultimate deterrent capability that supports U.S. national security.”
o
TNF = nexus between the “primary security challenge” and the “role of NW” yet the 28pg “white paper” has NO MENTION of ANY counter nuclear terrorism or nonproliferation program at the NW labs.
D’Agostino Testimony on Complex Transformation (July, 2008) • •
“…the NNSA fundamental mission responsibility to provide safe, secure, and reliable nuclear warheads … remains and guides our future actions.” In a 2-hour testimony, TNF mentioned twice within a list of residual program www.csis.org | 7
Ineffective Marketing Campaign (2/2)
www.csis.org | 8
TNF as a Political Raison D’etre for NW Skills “A major difficulty of counterterrorism in general is that it is no one’s first job, and almost no one’s second job. We… have… the technical…tools… but they have not been focused on… forensics and attribution needs ….. to turn these tools to a new application may involve… competition with existing missions and the…need to think in a new way.”-- Jay Davis
Political Support for Sustaining NW Infrastructure • •
Disarms Critics: Hard to argue with TNF unless you love terrorists and unprovoked war A rationale for R&D on Warhead Design and a responsive NW design infrastructure o o o o
•
Sustaining expertise even on crude designs requires innovation in the field; More advanced designs are attractive to terrorists because they require less fissile material (key barrier); Imprudent to make assumptions about future terrorists’ capabilities, Public won’t tolerate stagnant design capabilities if framed in this context
A rationale for improved fissile material and radiochemistry capabilities
Recruitment and Retention (TNF as an Academic Raison D’Etre for NW Skills) • •
Relevant and stimulating career path with a promising future Non-state actor/WMD nexus will be an increasingly dominant national security concern
www.csis.org | 9
Recommendations (1/2) • Both sides of the policy divide on nuclear issues should recognize their co-dependence and exploit political and technical mutuality • Coordinated and intensive campaign to modernize the image of the nuclear security enterprise to reflect the broadened, integrated mission • Revised “white paper:” National Security and the NW Complex in the 21st Century • The next Sec Def & Sec DOE should author and aggressively push a new nuclear strategy that considers comprehensively the security contributions of the NW infrastructure (not just the weapons) in the 21st century
• DOE/DOE hearings and briefings to: Oversight, Appropriations, OMB. the White House • Harmonized effort across all elements of the nuclear enterprise (Gen. Chilton, etc)
• Department of National Security Sciences • NNSA within DOE not sustainable, but autonomous agency calls for a larger mandate than NNSA; new “home” for the labs could facilitate awareness of broadened mission
www.csis.org | 10
Recommendations (2/2) • At the National Laboratories: • Modify the effort distribution to more effectively leverage the NWP to improve TNF: engage all designers/chemists/engineers in at least some capacity (now 20-30 F/T; 200 P/T) • Increase funding/expand the mandate of the Nuclear Counterterrorism Design Support program that focuses the talent, capabilities, and resources of the NWP on nuclear terrorism •
Ex) Warhead R&D without the intention of fielding the weapon: “red team” warhead design
Final Remarks • Nuclear Weapons Program Still Core Effort • In near-term, discrepancies in scale too difficult to invert; this could change over time
• TNF only a piece of “multi-purpose” mission but politically unique • E.g.) high performance computing, simulations, intelligence, energy security, verification • TNF is unique in its ability to generate support for the NWP due to the convergence of relevance to broad national security priorities and reliance on the weapons infrastructure www.csis.org | 11
