Nuking Nevada: A New Era in Terror
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The Sunday Times March 12, 2006
For nearly a year British scientists at Aldermaston have been secretly working with the Americans on a replacement for Trident. Do we need it? Is it legal? Michael Smith reports
Two weeks ago a group of Britain’s brightest young physicists gathered at the US nuclear test site in the Nevada desert and headed for Control Point 1. There they waited for a test codenamed Operation Krakatoa to erupt.
A thousand feet beneath the desert scrub, components for a new British nuclear warhead were ready for detonation. Though it was not to be an earthquaking full nuclear blast — since Britain is a signatory to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty — the physicists were about to witness only the second “sub-critical” test Britain has conducted in nearly a decade.
The controlled detonation, measuring the effect of conventional explosives on a small piece of plutonium, was ostensibly to help ensure that the UK’s nuclear warheads, deployed on Trident submarines, remain effective. But that was only half the story.
As The Sunday Times reveals today, the data produced by the test were part of a much wider, secret research programme to build a new nuclear weapon that some experts say will breach the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT).
Over the past few years the government has quietly been pouring hundreds of millions of pounds of extra funding into the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), based near the Berkshire village of Aldermaston, in pursuit of a replacement warhead for the Trident ballistic missile system. Among the purchases have been powerful new supercomputer and laser systems and the recruitment of a new generation of boffins.
“We have been investing in the best young scientists coming out of the nuclear physics departments at British universities,” said one British official. “Watching the AWE scientists standing next to their US counterparts it was noticeable how young they were.” Perhaps it was no surprise that a week later the head of the American nuclear programme was talking about “revitalising” his own team.
While the British remain highly secretive about their plans, sources interviewed in America were more forthcoming and say the architecture or concept for the new weapon has been settled and that the race is now on to produce a working design.
The prize both teams are chasing, they say, is a new weapon known as the “Reliable Replacement Warhead” (RRW), a system that can meet the demands of modern warfare but also the rigours of international law against full-scale nuclear testing.
Britain’s nuclear warheads, they point out, ought to undergo occasional tests, which are now banned. The RRW, in contrast, will be a powerful and flexible “production line” nuke that can be designed, constructed and maintained without full-scale testing. It must also be capable of dispatch on an upgrade of the Trident delivery system.
“The argument made for Reliable Replacement Warhead is that you can have your cake and eat it,” said one US official. “We have our new warheads and we don’t have to test them.”
A senior British defence source admitted: “We’ve got to build something that we can never test and be absolutely confident that when we use it, it will work. We are ahead of the Americans.”
The Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore laboratories have been working on an RRW since May 2005, but the officials in Washington are impressed the way “the Brits have done so much with so little”.
The initiative threatens to be hugely controversial, however. While Tony Blair and his government are committed to retaining Britain’s existing nuclear deterrent, the question of replacing or renewing the system is far more contentious. The need, cost and legality of any new system are all challenged by politicians, lawyers and even some former military commanders. Under the NPT, which came into force in 1970, Britain is committed to prevent proliferation and to “pursue” disarmament.
The issue is heading inexorably towards a clash. Britain’s Trident missiles have highly sophisticated warheads with a number of components that deteriorate with age; they include the plutonium trigger, the beryllium that surrounds it and plastic seals. Guaranteeing their effectiveness without full-scale tests is almost impossible. Last year a former warhead designer from the Los Alamos laboratory revealed there was a serious flaw in the US
W76 warhead, on which British warheads are based, that could prevent it exploding.
It is this worry that first sparked Britain’s secret co-operation with the Americans on the new warhead nearly a year ago — a move that critics characterised yesterday as “underhand” and designed to undermine the “open public debate” on the issue that Blair has long promised.
This week that debate will start in earnest. Tomorrow the Foreign Policy Centre, a Blairite think tank, will publish a report questioning whether Britain needs a nuclear deterrent at all.
“The unfortunate reality for the British people is that, unknown to them, they have a nuclear weapon that is not independent and is committed to support unrealistic US-led policy for the military use of nuclear weapons,” the report will state.
“The UK should cease to try to keep up appearances and adopt a policy based on the reality that it is not an independent nuclear power.”
The temperature will be raised further on Tuesday when the House of Commons defence select committee will begin an inquiry into the future of Britain’s nuclear bomb.
Far from rubber- stamping a Trident replacement for which work is already under way, many backbench MPs are calling for the government to publish a full assessment of national threats, nuclear costs and alternative options.
“The government denies it, but it’s possible (a decision has already been taken),” said Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North and chairman of the parliamentary CND group. “The evidence for it is the huge amount of money being spent on Aldermaston. One can only infer that it is possibly for a new generation of warheads.”
So what exactly is the “reliable” new system that scientists in Britain and America have been working on? Is it really just a Trident upgrade, or an entirely new system? Is it legal? And how does it fit with Britain’s commitment to fighting nuclear proliferation?
THE journey towards Britain’s Trident submarines — the most sophisticated nuclear weaponry in the world — began with a humble frigate, the HMS Plym. Sailing from Britain, the Plym ferried a nuclear device to the Monte Bello islands, off Australia, where Britain exploded is first atomic weapon in October 1952.
That was a fission bomb, generating a runaway chain reaction of splitting atoms. Five years later Britain developed “hydrogen” or “thermonuclear” bombs in which a fission reaction is used to create fusion, generating an even more awesome explosion.
By the late 1950s Britain had its own nuclear deterrent in the form of RAF Vulcan jets armed with Blue Danube bombs, ready to strike against the Soviet empire. Soon the navy had nuclear bombs for delivery from aircraft carriers.
But the deployment of such weapons was beset with problems: many airstrips in overseas locations were too small to take Vulcans, and naval vessels suspected of carrying nuclear weapons were unwelcome in foreign ports.
The development of ballistic missiles, and a 1958 agreement between the USA and Britain to co-operate over nuclear defence, changed everything: in 1962 Britain bought into the US Polaris system, which could be fired from a submarine hidden anywhere in the world.
The secrecy in which Polaris, and its successor, Trident, were developed and acquired is instructive.
Harold Wilson, then Labour prime minister, ordered an upgrade of Polaris without telling his cabinet.
His successor, Jim Callaghan, confined discussion of an entirely new system to a committee of just four trusted ministers known as Misc 7: “miscellaneous cabinet committee seven”.
Callaghan personally gave the Ministry of Defence (MoD) clearance to work on a new nuclear deterrent so that his defence minister could in public truthfully, but misleadingly, say that he had not authorised any such work.
Under Margaret Thatcher, discussions about Trident were so shielded from public scrutiny that one deal was struck at a restaurant on the Champs Elysées in Paris and another was signed on the boot of a diplomat’s car in Washington.
That Trident system, conceived long before the cold war thawed, is immensely powerful.
Each missile is ejected from a vertical launcher on submarines on a wave of super-heated steam that takes it out of the water in a second.
The first stage rocket then ignites, thrusting it to speeds of 2,750mph and 18 miles above the earth’s surface within 30 seconds. A second stage rocket takes it up to
55 miles where a third stage kicks in, propelling it out of the atmosphere to 600 miles above the earth. Onboard computers then adjust the missile’s flight in virtual weightlessness until, two minutes after launch, the warheads, each with a yield of 100 kilotons, are fired at their individual targets. As they fall back through the atmosphere, internal guidance systems fly the warheads onto those targets.
The radiation and shockwave would kill about 98% of people within a mile of the blast. Most buildings within a mile and a half would be destroyed and 50% of people between a mile and a mile and a half away would die. All those exposed to the direct heat of the blast would be killed and many more would die later from the fallout.
The total number of dead from a bomb dropped on the centre of Moscow would exceed 150,000. But by the time the first Trident submarine was commissioned in 1994, and the fourth in 1999, the Soviet empire and cold war were gone.
DESIGNED to last 30 years, Britain’s Trident fleet will start to come out of service from about 2024. Given that it took 14 years from the decision to buy Trident to getting a submarine in the water, the government has publicly been hinting that decisions about a potential replacement must be made soon.
It has been preparing the ground for some time. In the 2003 defence white paper it said that “decisions on whether to replace Trident are not needed in this parliament but are likely to be required in the next one”.
Shortly before the 2005 election, Blair said: “Well, we’ve got to retain our nuclear deterrent, and we’ve had an independent nuclear deterrent for a long time . . . in principle I believe it’s important to retain our own independent deterrent.”
In its election manifesto, Labour stated: “We are committed to retaining the independent nuclear deterrent.”
It makes financial sense, says Lord Garden, former nuclear bomber pilot and now Liberal Democrat spokesman on defence in the House of Lords. Decommissioning nuclear subs and missiles is extremely expensive, while “motoring them round the ocean” is relatively cheap once the capital costs have been paid.
Then two months after the election John Reid, the defence secretary, said in the Commons: “Decisions on any replacement of the United Kingdom’s nuclear deterrent are likely to be necessary in the lifetime of the current parliament.”
Not everyone agrees. Garden believes no decision is needed until at least 2011, in the next parliament. The Americans are planning to keep producing the missiles, he argues, and in an uncertain world it is best to wait and see what threats develop before deciding on a new system.
“Things might get better in terms of proliferation, though there’s not much sign of that at the moment,” he said. “Or they might get hairier and more risky, though that tends to get overstated. Either way, the longer you wait to find out (what future threats are), the better.”
The new Astute submarine planned by the Royal Navy is big enough to house the Trident launch tubes, and the US Navy is extending the life of its own Trident missiles to 2042.
Whatever the precise timings, this approach would have political advantages. “You wouldn’t actually replace Trident, perhaps not even upgrade,” said Garden. “You would just repair it. That would cause much less hassle in the political debate.”
That is the thinking behind the research into the Reliable Replacement Warhead. In comparison with the existing warhead, RRW will do the same job but require much less maintenance, dramatically extending its shelf life.
The inability to test weapons means the scientists must rely entirely on simple components, using the extensive data built up in the 50 years when testing was conducted to construct a failsafe weapon.
“Robustness is the goal,” says Robert Norris, of the US National Resources Defense Council, the most authoritative independent watchdog. “That could mean working through the same stages with more of everything. More plutonium, more tritium gas, not designing it on the margins.
“During the cold war each warhead was tailor-made for a specific mission and highly specialised in its specifications and use of materials. They were like high-performance sports cars. They were Ferraris. Now they say they want good, sturdy, dependable Fords that will not need testing and be sure to work.”
The RRW, as one official explained, is intended to be a warhead that can almost be produced on a production line, built to deliver as small or large a blast as required. That may breed new risks. “The danger is you lower the threshold at which you will use them to the point that someone does,” said one official. “It’s just too tempting and highly dangerous. We were better off in the cold war with mutually assured destruction.”
For politicians, however, it has a clear attraction. Easier and quicker to produce, the RRW could be presented as an update, even a simplification, of Trident rather than a new system. That, proponents could argue, would not breach the non-proliferation treaty.
TO campaigners for nuclear disarmament, the Trident system already contravenes international treaties. CND believes that “Trident is illegal, immoral and a waste of resources.” Kate Hudson, chairwoman of CND, will be one of those giving evidence this week to the defence committee. Matrix Chambers, the law firm for whom Cherie Blair works, has drawn up a legal opinion advising the Peacerights organisation that any replacement of Trident would constitute “a material breach” of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The opinion has been prepared by Christine Chinkin, a professor of international law at the London School of Economics, and Rabinder Singh QC, a barrister who challenged the legality of the Iraq war. (Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, has yet to pronounce on the legality of replacing Trident; but his judgment on the Iraq war was infamously last-minute, so there is time yet.) Others object that persisting with a nuclear deterrent after the the end of the cold war will spur, not curb, the proliferation of weapons.
“The missiles are there as virility symbols,” said Paul Flynn, a Labour backbencher. “Who on earth are we going to take on with them anyway? We certainly need a debate before any decision is made. Replacing them wrecks any standing we have when we preach non-proliferation to countries like Iran.”
In addition to the defence select committee hearings, Corbyn and other backbenchers are pressing for an investigation by the foreign affairs select committee. “We want an inquiry into the compliance or otherwise with the non- proliferation treaty and any replacement,” said Corbyn.
Others, such as Julian Lewis, the Conservative defence spokesman, say that in an uncertain world Britain could not afford to give up its nuclear deterrent. “We are talking about a strategic nuclear deterrent being replaced during the period 2020-2050. Nobody can possibly foretell what threat this country will face that far in advance,” said Lewis.
The subject and the semantics are fertile ground for lawyers and politicians. When does an upgrade become a new system? Is a repair a replacement? Does either count as proliferation? It leaves the way open for much machiavellian manoeuvring.
“The government says quite truthfully that no decision has yet been taken . . . in the sense that ministers haven’t fully addressed the decisions yet,” says Michael Clarke, professor of defence studies at King’s College, London. “On the other hand, these things are never a one-off decision and the MoD is working to keep all options open.”
The MoD, he points out, needs to invest new money and people in Aldermaston simply to avoid technical skills being lost over time. But he also believes that “as an organisation the MoD is hard-wired to replace Trident” to the exclusion of other options.
Just up the hill from the pretty village of Aldermaston the countryside morphs into a barbed-wire encampment. Behind the 10ft fence, there is little sign that this is the site of world-leading research into new nuclear weapons. But the AWE has just ordered one of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, a Cray XT3 costing £20m. To be known as Larch, the computer will be so fast that, as the AWE systems manager puts it, “the 6 billion inhabitants of earth would have to make nearly 7,000 calculations per second each to keep up with it”.
That enormous number-crunching will model nuclear explosions, helping to design the next generation of RRW warheads.
The reality, as one US official put it, is that whatever the public political niceties, “Britain is focused on a successor to the Trident warhead”.
