Discussing (or Not) Our Nuclear Future

A potentially enormous change in the way the US manages its nuclear weapons program is playing out with very little discussion.

Several books have been published this year on Robert Oppenheimer and Los Alamos. They remind us that even when Manhattan Project scientists were working flat out to develop and build the bombs, most of the scientists kept discussing the larger issues of national policy and how the bombs were to be used. Contrast that with today.

At present the major medium of discussion of the future of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and by implication the nation's nuclear weapons program seems to be the LANL blog (http://lanl-the-real-story.blogspot.com/). Discussion there of the impending change in laboratory management ranges from apprehension about benefits to character assassination of those _1figuring in recent Los Alamos controversies. Few comments have addressed the larger issues, and responses to them have ranged from nonexistent to derisive.

Few people now working at the lab recall, or know those who recall, the Manhattan Project and the dispirited days after World War II. Fascinatingly, some of the blog blather resembles withdrawal behaviors that were manifested 60 years ago in reaction to the new and dreadful reality of the bomb.

Most of today's adults were born and educated without having to learn to dive under their desks in case of nuclear attack, during which time we could contemplate the futility of that little action in the face of megaton weapons. Understanding of the danger of nuclear weapons is being lost as they are being conflated with chemical and biological agents as weapons of mass destruction. The reality is that there are nuclear weapons and then there is everything else.

The management of one of the nation's design laboratories by a private contractor reflects a change in US nuclear weapons policy. The possibility of a private contractor directing nuclear weapons design work was a subject of intense discussion at various times during the history of the weapons laboratories. It is now a done deal.

Other changes may follow. The reliable replacement warhead is under consideration for funding by Congress. The Overskei Report¹ describes one possible future: a single-site weapons development and manufacturing complex, with decreased competition between the design laboratories.

During the Manhattan Project, Los Alamos had a single, clearly-defined purpose. It then went through a period of drift and confusion until the decision was made to develop thermonuclear weapons. During the latter part of the cold war, additional projects were accreted without adequate planning. As a result, Los Alamos now comprises many kinds of scientists and engineers doing many kinds of research and development. Consequently, there are many voices—and those voices need to be talking to each other and asking the big questions. How might a profit-making, business-expanding mindset affect the nation's nuclear policies? Conversely, can such a mindset support necessary basic research?

Los Alamos and the physics community should be engaging the nation in discussing those questions. What kind of nuclear future do you want?

Reference

1. 1.Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, Recommendations for the Nuclear Weapons Complex of the Future, final report, US Department of Energy, Washington, DC (13 July 2005), available at [LINK].