The Need for a Strong Science and Technology Program in the Nuclear Weapons Complex for the 21st Century

Download or read book The Need for a Strong Science and Technology Program in the Nuclear Weapons Complex for the 21st Century written by and published by . This book was released on 2009 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this paper I argue for the need for a strong Science and Technology program in the Nuclear Weapons Complex as the basis for maintaining a credible deterrence capability. The current Nuclear Posture Review establishes a New Triad as the basis for the United States deterrence strategy in a changing security environment. A predictive science capability is at the core of a credible National Nuclear Weapons program in the 21st Century. In absence of nuclear testing, the certification of our current Nuclear Weapons relies on predictive simulations and quantification of the associated simulation uncertainties. In addition, a robust nuclear infrastructure needs an active research and development program that considers all the required nuclear scenarios, including new configurations for which there is no nuclear test data. This paper also considers alternative positions to the need for a Science and Technology program in the Nuclear Weapons complex.