Nuclear Weapons Program
New era brings many new challenges to Sandia
Despite another year of international efforts to halt nuclear proliferation:
- North Korea detonated a nuclear device,
- In defiance of requests to stop, Iran
continues developing a nuclear program
that most in the West believe is
aimed at producing nuclear weapons,
and
- Japan — whose constitution many
believe forbids even the presence of
nuclear weapons on its soil — has
talked openly about the possible need
to develop them.
On the Indian Subcontinent, India
and Pakistan, both of which acknowledge
at least a limited nuclear weapons capability, have, in
the past year, tested missiles
capable of delivering nuclear warheads, as has
Iran — despite Tehran’s
continuing denials of interest in nuclear weapons. As the
U.S. debates the need and process for developing the
Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW), the United
Kingdom is also nearing a decision on extending the
life of its deterrent.
The middle of this first decade in
the 21st century has brought with it
a new era for nuclear weapons, their
development, and the maintenance of
a national nuclear deterrent. “On the
international scene, the Cold War and
the associated bipolar world is a thing
of the past,” says Joan Woodard, Sandia
Executive Vice President and Deputy
Laboratories Director for Nuclear Weapons.
“Now we face the rise of multifactionalism
and the complex environment
that comes with it.”
Computational model used for a simulation of a B61-7 impact.
Sandia is working to maintain a
deterrent that is aligned with national
policy. Changes in overall stability of
Europe and Asia and the advent of
global terrorism have altered the way
the stockpile is being thought of by
policy makers. The U.S. stockpile of the
future will be smaller — much smaller
than at the height of the Cold War. Its
weapons will be less costly to design,
manufacture, and sustain. The threat of
theft or sabotage to the stockpile will be
considered even more carefully. The loss
of a weapon, especially into the hands
of a group that will not hesitate to use
it, is not an acceptable outcome for
tomorrow’s world.
Alignment with national policy also
means reductions in funding for the
nation’s nuclear weapons program as a
whole and for Sandia. Nuclear weapons staffing
levels at the Labs dropped by 200 full-time
equivalent positions by the end of 2006.
