The U.S. focus on extending the service life of the nation’s nuclear arsenal could threaten critical warhead design and development capabilities, John Harvey, former principal deputy assistant to the secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical, and biological defense programs, said on Tuesday. “In order to maintain critical capabilities, nuclear designers and engineers must routinely exercise them on challenging warhead design and development activities. Over the past decade and more, such opportunities have been very few and very far between,” Harvey said at a Peter Huessy breakfast. While acknowledging progress in U.S. nuclear modernization, Harvey said existing life-extension programs do not “present sufficiently complex design and development challenges to fully exercise skills” among nuclear weapons designers and engineers.
“With constrained budgets and with a nuclear enterprise that is stretched with existing life extension programs and infrastructure recapitalization, innovative approaches will be needed to achieve benefits without the high costs typical of full-scale engineering development,” Harvey said. “Absent this effort, and possibly within a decade, there are serious risks that the nuclear enterprise will not be able to provide a timely response to adverse contingencies.” Harvey recommended that weapons scientists and their military counterparts in the Departments of Energy and Defense conduct not only the Phase 1 and 2 warhead concept and feasibility studies, but also “parts of Phase 3 engineering development and Phase 4 production and engineering, associated with building and integrating actual hardware.” He said this would also bring together the DOE and DOD “in the integration of the warhead with the delivery system” and for performance assessments.