On the basis of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s assessment of perceived threats to the U.S. – and a subsequent top-secret Nuclear Posture Review – Pentagon pooh-bahs have reportedly told him that there is no “requirement” to develop new kinds of nukes in the foreseeable future. That’s odd, because eight years ago, after the Pentagon pooh-bahs completed similar assessments, Secretary of Defense Aspin was reportedly told that new kinds of nukes – including a low-yield “micro-nuke” bunker killer – were needed.
If they were needed then, they are needed now, more than ever.
The incoming Clinton-Gore administration had supposed that what we had learned from the collapse of the Soviet Union and from our stunning victory in the Gulf War was that we no longer needed nukes of any kind. Clinton-Gore intended to rid us of all nukes and to make it impossible for us to ever again design, build, test and stockpile any new ones.
But what Clinton-Gore supposed we had learned was not what the Bush-Quayle administration actually had learned.
True, after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact, neither we nor the Russians any longer needed some types of nukes, such as atomic demolition munitions. So, even before Clinton-Gore came to town, Russia and the U.S. set about dismantling them by the thousands. We learned in the Gulf War, however, that we did need some types of nukes that we didn’t yet have.
Consequently, even though Clinton-Gore didn’t allow the development of any new kinds of nukes, because the need was there, they eventually did allow the Pentagon to drastically “modify” the existing B-61 20 KT gravity bomb to make a dumbed-down, low-yield bunker killer.
The Gulf War had also demonstrated the need for a small, low-yield “mini-nuke” for terminal ABM defense.
In the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein launched about a hundred Scud ballistic missiles at us. Even though the Scud warhead stays attached to the missile – and hence, presents a large relatively slow-moving target on reentry – our air-defense systems only destroyed about half of them. And if the warheads had not still been attached to the missiles, it is unlikely we could have destroyed any of them. So, in addition to upgrading our air-defense systems so as to be capable of intercepting and destroying the warhead, itself, as it re-entered the atmosphere in its “terminal” dive on target, Bush-Quayle also began developing defense systems capable of destroying the slowly ascending missile back at the launch point.
For launch-point interception, Bush-Quayle intended to use hyper-velocity, heat-seeking, kinetic-energy kill vehicles, or KKVs, carried by unmanned aerial vehicles which could loiter for days near likely launch sites. As the huge ballistic missile slowly ascends, its rocket engine exhibits for several minutes an intense infrared signature which the heat-seeking KKV can easily target and destroy.
But homing-in on and destroying the warhead in its terminal dive is much more difficult. While the warhead also exhibits an intense infrared signature as it re-enters the atmosphere, it does so only for fractions of a second. Hence, to be certain of a kill – to obviate having to hit a hot bullet with a heat-seeking bullet – a new type of small, low-yield nuke needed to be developed.
Instead of pursuing that development, Clinton-Gore soon cancelled the Bush-Quayle “terminal” and “point-of-launch” ABM interceptor programs. When, years later, they were forced by Congress to develop some sort of ABM system, they decided to try to intercept the warhead in its exo-atmospheric “cruise” phase, using heat-seeking KKVs.
But when it’s exo-atmospheric, the warhead is cold, exhibiting almost no infrared signature. So, Clinton-Gore had to hit a cold bullet with a heat-seeking bullet. With a non-nuke, heat-seeking KKV, a miss by a hundredth of a meter is as bad as a miss by a hundred meters. But, with a heat-seeking mini-nuke, a hundred meters is close enough for government work.
For the past 30 years, we have been prevented by the ABM Treaty from developing and deploying homeland ABM defenses. President Bush has now pledged to develop ABM defense for our homeland, for our forces overseas and for our friends and allies. The exo-atmospheric cruise-phase ABM defense proposed by Clinton cannot – even if made to work – address the threat to our overseas forces, friends and allies.
However, the Bush-Quayle “terminal” and “point-of-launch” ABM systems could meet that threat. Effective point-of-launch ballistic missile defenses would not “require” a new class of mini-nukes, but an effective exo-atmospheric or terminal ABM defense certainly would. Maybe the Nuclear Posture Review pooh-bahs better take another look at the threat they’re supposed to be addressing.
