The clock is ticking for upgrades on America’s oldest atomic bomb before the 1960s-era electronics become outdated - and unpredictable - in the next decade, the head of US Strategic Command said.
The B61 bomb was designed in the 1960s for NATO bombers and
tactical fighters to defend against Soviet incursion into Western
Europe.
NATO air bases in Europe are stocked with 180 B61s, according to
Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at
the Federation of American Scientists. He said that another 250
remain in North Dakota and Missouri to arm B-52 and B-2 strategic
bombers, while another 500 are inactive.
Now that the bombs are around five decades old, electronic parts
have made their maintenance “unpredictable and irregular,”
said a senior USAF official quoted by Air Force Magazine in
April. The Pentagon now wants to upgrade four aged B61 variants
into a new version called the B61-12.
Gen. C. Robert Kehler, commander of the Nebraska-based US
Strategic Command, told the Omaha World-Herald that now is the
time to address making a decision on these bombs.
“The B61 life-extension program is absolutely necessary,”
Kehler said. “Much has been deferred. Now we don't have the
luxury of waiting.”
But the cost estimates of such a project have now reached $28
millon per bomb, which is part of a potential $65 billion effort
to upgrade America’s total nuclear arsenal and various missiles,
aircraft, and other hardware to carry the bombs.
“The B61 is the first in that queue,” Kingston Reif, director
of nuclear non-proliferation at the Center for Arms Control and
Non-Proliferation, said. “There's concern about whether these
plans make any sense.”
Even proponents of a full-scale upgrade of B61 capabilities have
pointed out that much of the old technology cannot be redeemed.
They are pushing to begin the weapons reset as soon as possible.
“Some of the components are so old, they can't be
replaced,” said Michaela Dodge, defense and strategic policy
analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation, who supports
upgrading. “We are facing a very serious situation when it
comes to nuclear weapons.”
Yet US President Barack Obama’s nuclear modernization plan, which
calls for a $4 billion, 10-year effort to upgrade 400 bombs,
includes replacing obsolete parts of the B61. The project was set
in motion in 2010, when the US Senate agreed to extend the
Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that Obama negotiated with Russia
in exchange for more spending on weapons upgrades.
While military sources say the renewal project is crucial for
security purposes and NATO cohesion, advocates for reducing
nuclear weapons say the retooling of the B61 is a violation of
the president’s pledge to lessen the global nuclear arsenal –
much of which is still around from the Cold War.
Towering B61 upgrade costs - estimates have reached $10.4 billion
- have united conservative and liberal members of Congress in
calling for cuts to the B61 program.
Pentagon budget reductions in the current fiscal year already cut
appropriations for Obama’s renewal project by about 20 percent.
And next year, members on committees that oversee the nuclear
stockpile budget are threatening to drop one-third of the $537
million that the Obama administration has requested for the B61.
Nevertheless, Kehler is pushing for more B61 capabilities as soon
as possible.
“We think this is a good investment in the long term,” he
said. “It makes the most sense to do a more comprehensive
life-extension now because, also in the long term, that's going
to be the most cost-effective way to go forward.”
The first of the upgraded B61s are scheduled to be ready in 2019
- around the time the older versions should be phased out.