“New Nuclear Warhead Proposed to Congress,” says the Washington Post this morning. Wha—? When did they decide to do that? But yes, that’s exactly what Linton Brooks, administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, is proposing.
The money, it seems, would coming out of a program Congress approved last year called the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program, which was supposed to “improve the reliability, longevity, and certifiability of existing weapons and their components.” Note the word “existing”. But now Brooks is proposing “replacements for existing stockpile weapons.” That’s a very different thing, and apparently it’s now going to be necessary to keep an eye on the slippery slope from updating our current stockpiles to developing brand new nuclear weapons. Fantastic; this should fit right in with the administration’s new non-proliferation strategy.
