NNSA’s New Nuclear Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan

汉斯·克里斯滕森（Hans M. Kristensen）

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has published its long-awaitedStockpile Stewardship and Management Plan (SSMP)在2018财年。SSMP是NNSA的25年战略记录计划。

I’ll leave it to others to analyze the infrastructure and fissile material portions and focus on the nuclear weapons life-extension programs (LEPs) and cost estimates.

This year’s plan shows complex LEPs that are making progress but also getting more expensive (some even with funding gaps). There are some surprises (the retirement of the B61-10 tactical bomb), some sloppiness (the stockpile table has not been updated), and some questionable depictions (how to cut stockpile in half with no effect on average warhead age).

Nonetheless, the SSMP is a unique and important document and a service to the public discussion about the scope and management of the nuclear weapons arsenal and infrastructure. NNSA deserves credit for producing and publishing the SSMP. As such, it is a reminder that other nuclear-armed states should also publish factual overviews of their nuclear weapons programs to enable fact-based discussions and counter unsubstantiated rumors and worst-case suspicion.

核坚果和螺栓

2017 SSMP不会更新核储备数，但继续使用4,018-Warhead号码（截至2016年9月）declassified by the Obama administration in January 2017。特朗普政府尚未解解任何核库存数量。号码now is estimated at around 4,000。

该报告包括一张图表，该图显示了多年来库存的平均弹头年龄。该图显示，直到2009年左右，该年龄一直持续增长，此时它会放慢速度，直到2014年升级为止，大概是因为W76-1弹头的大量产生（LEP将弹头年龄重置为零）。2016年，平均年龄开始下降，大概是因为奥巴马政府在2016年削减了500-Warhead，并继续生产W76-1。

The near-continuous age increase through 2003-2007 is curious, however, because it shows hardly any visible effect from the massive stockpile reduction that occurred in those years. Why did a 50-percent reduction of the stockpile in 2003-2007 not have any effect on the average age of the remaining stockpiled warheads, when a 12-percent reduction in 2016 did? (The reductions in 1992-1994 also had a clear effect on the average warhead age.)

为此，NNSA将不得不完全退休，每种弹头类型的较新的和较旧的弹头，这似乎很奇怪。

The report reveals that the B61-10 tactical bomb was quietly retired in September 2016. The B61-10 has been in the inactive stockpile since 2006. The retirement is a surprise because the B61-10 is one of four B61 versions NNSA has listed to be consolidated into the B61-12. Once the B61-12 was produced and certified, so the argument was, the older versions would be retired.

尽管B61-10退休，但官员们仍在2017年国会听证会上为B61-12的“合并”辩解中包括武器。B61-12程序：“将将B61的四个版本合并为单个变体。”

尽管退休了B61-10，但SSMP的当前核武器和相关运输车辆的主桌子仍然列出了炸弹（报告中的另一个表格未列出B61-10）。

该表还将B-52H列为携带重力炸弹，即使其他政府文件不再列出分配给轰炸机的重力炸弹。作者似乎已经完成了一份草率的作业，并简单地从2016 SSMP复制了表，而无需更新。

The 2017 SSMP breaks down the extensive nuclear weapons modernization plan:

• W76-1 LEP：2019年的完整产量。随着W76-1/MK4A的生产已达到80％，计划于2019年完成，W76-0的联合飞行测试现已停止。这意味着它是官方的库存，所有W76战争储备弹头现在都是新的W76-1设计。
• W87: Gas Transfer System (GTS) field refurbishment appears to have slipped halfway through 2019 with completion in 2024 instead of 2023.
• B61-12 LEP: First production unit in March 2020. Because program is moving ahead, the Nuclear Weapons Council in 2016 agreed to reduce surveillance tests for the B83 and B61-3, -, -7, and -10 bombs (the -10 has been retired).
• W88 Alt 370: First production unit December 2019. Cost estimate has increased by 11 percent since 2015.
• W80-4 LEP: First production unit in 2025. Will use IHE of W80-1 but with new surety features. Unique program risks due to parallel integration with LRSO missile.
• IW1 (W78/W88): Studies and engineering to begin in 2020 and production to run from 2031 to 2041, a bit shorter than depicted in the 2016 SSMP. Will use W87 pit. ICBM first production unit in 2030 for use in Mk21 RV. SLBM first production unit in 2032 for use in Mk5 RB. PF-4 facility at Los Alamos in August 2016 “fabricated a W87 pit as part of the planned development series,” but next War Reserve pit is not scheduled until 2023.
• IW2（W87/W88）：2035年ICBM第一生产单元。SLBM2036年的第一生产单元。
• IW3（W76-1）：2041年ICBM第一生产单元。SLBM第一生产单元在2042年。

2017 SSMP还重申了对“ 3+2”弹头战略（实际上是6+2策略）的承诺，即使该计划过于昂贵，并且有可能威胁到美国的核测试暂停。“ 3”是旨在在洲际弹道导弹和SLBM上部署的所谓“互操作弹头”。SSMP将核武器委员会对IW的定义描述为“可互操作的NEP（核爆炸软件包），并在SLBM和ICBMS上具有适应性的非核电组件。”

But even though “[f]inal designs of NEPs for the IW1, IW2, and IW3 warheads are yet to be determined,” the SSMP nonetheless confidently declares that the “3+2 Strategy preserves confidence in the stockpile’s operational reliability and effectiveness, while mitigating risk and uncertainty.” IW1 production is not expected until 2031, and I bet there are a couple of more design evaluations and decisions before NNSA can make any realistic assessment about reliability and effectiveness.

Moreover, I hear a lot of grumbling in the Navy and Air Force with concerns about introducing significantly modified warhead designs when the existing versions work just fine. Indeed, because the IW designs have not been tested in the assembled configuration envisioned, the 3+2 plan could introduce new uncertainties into the stockpile about warhead reliability and performance.

The Nuclear Posture Review is considering modifying a SLBM warhead to primary-only configuration to enable rapid low-yield strikes with ballistic missiles.

And The Money?

NNSA’s nuclear weapons budget has increased by 60 percent since 2010, and the agency is hoping for another $1 billion increase in 2018. In anticipation of the new NPR, the 2017 SSMP does not include budget numbers for 2019-2022 (the 2016 SSMP included these out-year numbers). And the detailed cost graph cuts off after 2018, unlike the 2016 SSMP graph that continued through 2021. But NNSA provides a new graph that plots expected weapons activities costs through 2042; there are significant changes compared with the graph included in the 2016 SSMP.

分析数据将花费更多的时间，但第一印象是NNSA重组了预计的成本，以使2016年SSMP中显示的弓波在2020年代出现在2020年代现在已经散布并上升，以便几乎立即开始并在2020年代中期结束。此外，该图显示了2020年代后期出现的新的高程估计成本，并且在2042年之前的预测明显更高。

As part of that projection, all of NNSA’s LEPs high-end cost estimates appear to have increased, and there are still funding gaps toward the end of some of the programs, a budgeting problem that has previously beenpointed out by GAO。

而且，如果您认为100亿美元的B61-12计划很昂贵，只需查看下一个B61 LEP的高端成本估算（称为B61-13）：高达137亿美元至263亿美元。在NNSA的插图中，所有LEPS在2017年总计14亿美元，在2021 - 2037年每年增加到近20亿美元，然后在2041年膨胀至每年超过28亿美元。

Production Infrastructure

2017年SSMP还包括一些有关生产复杂能力的有趣信息，尤其是在洛斯阿拉莫斯国家实验室计划生产plut矿坑。生产计划从2018年的四个矿坑增加到2024年的10个矿坑，2025年的20个矿坑，2026年的30个矿井，并建立了到2030年每年生产50-80个坑的能力。

Later in the SSMP (p. A-10), it turns out the requirement for the 10, 20, and 30 pits in 2024, 2025, and 2026, respectively, actually is to produce “not less than” those numbers. And the requirement for 2030 is no less than 80 pits.

当然，所有这些都取决于是否以及如何完成NNSA完成所需的昂贵生产设施的构建。

Testing

2017年SSMP得出的结论是：“目前尚无要求进行地下核试验以维持任何核弹头的认证。”这是个好消息。1993年的总统决策指令（PDD-15，“股票管理”）指示NNSA保持在24至36个月内进行核试验的能力，以防万一将来需要进行测试。

But the 2017 SSMP states that NNSA has changed its assessment of what that guidance means and says “the fundamental approach taken to achieve test readiness has also changed.” Unlike the 2016 SSMP, the 2017 SSMP introduces a much shorter readiness timeline for a simple test:

• 6至10个月for a simple test, with waivers and simplified processes;
• 24至36个月for a fully instrumented test to address stockpile needs with the existing stockpile;
• 60 monthsfor a test to develop a new capability

This reassessment of the test readiness requirement appears to erode the US commitment to the testing moratorium. And it implies that NNSA is anticipating that future and more complex LEPs might potentially require “a simple test” with a nuclear yield. Such a test would be devastating to the international security environment and trigger a wave of nuclear tests in other nuclear-armed states.

目前，弹头的开发和监视依赖于亚临界水动力学测试，这些测试逐渐变得越来越复杂并使用了更多的裂变材料。2017 SSMP描述的工作正在进行中，以开发到2020年代中期的亚临界实验的操作“增强能力”。

2016年进行了七个“综合流体动力实验”，其中包括SSMP所说的“库存选项”。这些选项似乎与已知的LEP和库存维护工作不同。

结论和建议

这甚至不是特朗普的SSMP。该文件描述了记录计划：奥巴马政府发起的维护和现代化计划。Yet in setting the policy framework for the 2017 SSMP, NNSA invokes president Trump’s January 2017 memorandum (NSPM-1) on rebuilding the armed forces to conduct a “new Nuclear Posture Review to ensure that the U.S. nuclear deterrent is modern, robust, flexible, resilient, ready, and appropriately tailored to deter 21^英石-century threats and reassure our allies.”

这种配方与2016 SSMP中列出的要求不同，该要求要求NNSA“保持核库存的安全，安全性和有效性”。

From NSPM-1, the 2017 SSMP highlight an overall intension “to pursue peace through strength” and “give the President and the Secretary [of Defense] maximum strategic flexibility.”

“最大值”是一项危险的要求，因为它可以用来为提高能力而辩护各种增强功能。“足够”是一个更好的词，因为它迫使计划者思考多少足够，并在其他现实和要求与其他现实和要求之间取得平衡。

特朗普政府在今年年初预期的核态审查将主要集中在实施奥巴马政府的核现代化计划的主要要素上，但它也正在考虑采用新武器和修改的弹头。

And the tone describing the international environment will certainly darken. In describing the strategic context, the 2017 SSMP unfortunately makes the usual mistake of lumping Russia in among the countries that are “expanding” their nuclear arsenals. In terms of the total number of launchers and warheads,that is not the case。

NNSA’s nuclear warhead modernization plan forms part of a boarder nuclear modernization plan that is unaffordable as currently designed.国会预算办公室最近提出了选择for how to reduce the costs. Several of those options include scaling back or canceling warhead programs, options that NNSA should actively consider.

修改需求和缩减的野心can have considerable effects on what the Nation gets in return for its investments. Consider for example that the complex $10 billion B61-12 LEP only adds 20 years of life for 480 warheads, while the simpler $4 billion W76-1 LEP adds 30 years of life for 1,600 warheads.

此外，B61-10的提前退休提出了明显的问题，说明为什么其他一些“合并”版本（B61-3，-4和-7）也无法提前退休。此外，目前在库存中维持的许多B83可能也可能提早退休并拆除。

在拆除方面，2017年SSMP是明确的一步。2016年SSMP的要求是从2017年更新中删除了在2009年之前退休的弹头拆卸的要求。尽管2016年SSMP中拆除的资金增加到了指导股票预算的2％，但2017年的报告将弹头拆除和处置的预算减少到只有百分之一。2009年之前已退休的弹头拆除完成，定于2022年9月 - 比2016年SSMP中列出的截止日期晚了一年。但是2017 SSMP甚至没有解决拆除大约1000枚已退休的弹头积压的计划后2009.

虽然拆除并不是专注于现代化的NNSA或国防策划人的优先事项，但对国际社会来说，这是一个重要而有力的信息，即美国不仅是现代化的，而且实际上还取消了核武器。毕竟，没有新的武器控制条约来取代新的起点（甚至没有谈判），一项接近崩溃的INF条约，拒绝禁令条约以及猖ramp的现代化计划，以扩展到本世纪剩余时间的核时代，我们（以及其他P5）还必须在2020年的核非扩散条约审查会议上展示什么？

这份出版物是由格兰特成为可能the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the New Land Foundation, and the Ploughshares Fund. The statements made and views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.