Can't NNSA afford a flat screen for D'Agostino?
Kingston Reif | Oct 26, 2010 |
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The Vacuum Tube Saga, Part VI
Kingston Reif | Nov 04, 2009 | 0 
Chu and his vacuum tubes
Remember when Gen. Chilton brought an old-school vacuum tube to a meeting with the Wall Street Journal and reportedly suggested that this technology cannot be replaced without building new nuclear warheads? Remember when Jeffrey Lewis and I argued that vacuum tubes have nothing to do with the RRW debate? Remember when Gen. Chilton told Global Security Newswire’s Elaine Grossman that we were “confused, frankly” (i.e. we didn’t know what we were talking about)? Remember when John Harvey, the former head of NNSA’s policy planning staff, and the Washington Times’ Bill Gertz revealed that it was Gen. Chilton who was in fact confused? Of course you do! Well, the saga continues.
An RRW Revival?
Kingston Reif | Aug 19, 2009 | 1 
Joe Biden, Hero
By Travis Sharp and Kingston Reif
Yesterday GSN’s Elaine Grossman had a huge scoop on the ongoing debate within the Obama administration about what is required to maintain a safe, secure, and reliable nuclear deterrent. According to Grossman’s sources, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, with the support of Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James Cartwright and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, tried to revive the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program at a National Security Council Principals’ Meeting in early June. Vice President Joe Biden was the only voice of opposition, arguing that designing and building new warheads would undermine the ambitious nonproliferation agenda laid out by the President in Prague.
As Grossman notes, this is hardly “the final word on the warhead-replacement matter.” The issue is clearly being hotly debated in the context of the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR). According to one senior Defense Department official consulted by Grossman, “It’s not clear where we’re going to go [on the warhead issue]….We need an effective stockpile [but] we haven’t got a consensus within the administration on what that means. And so I can’t say that, forever, this ‘replacement’ idea is verboten.”
The article is long, but a must read. Below are some of our reactions.
Vacuum Tubes, Cont'd
Kingston Reif | May 14, 2009 | 0 
It's been a rough week for Gen. Chilton
As I hinted at yesterday, Gen. Chilton's performance at last week's Defense Writers Group Breakfast was not only noteworthy for his outlandish statements on the relevance of nuclear weapons to deterring cyber attacks.
In response to a question from Global Security Newswire's Elaine Grossman, Gen. Chilton pushed back against the article Jeffrey Lewis and I penned in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on how vacuum tubes are irrelevant to the RRW/modernization debate. Yet in lieu of refuting any of the specific points we made in the piece, Gen. Chilton changed the subject:
...the strategic commander said Lewis and Reif had misconstrued his point, which he insisted was to call for a broad overhaul in the nuclear stockpile and the complex that maintains the weapons.
"A life-extension program is what we have [had] to do for the last 15 years, and I think it's been successful to this point," Chilton told reporters at a May 7 Defense Writers Group breakfast. However, he said, "I don't think that gets you to where you want to be 20 years from now."
Rather, steps must be taken to "modernize" the arsenal, giving the weapons increased reliability, safety, security and maintainability, he said.
I won't summarize our entire response here but we pushed back pretty hard. However, I do want to briefly note that what I found really bizarre about Gen. Chilton's remarks (other than fact that he clearly did not read our piece) is that his central point seems to be that vacuum tubes aren't the issue. Funny, since that's central to our argument as well. While I certainly disagree with Chilton about how best to maintain the safety, security, and reliability of our arsenal, that's exactly the debate we need to be having. Based on his most recent remarks Chilton seems to agree that vacuum tubes should have no part in that debate. As Jeffrey notes, if that's the case, then, Gen. Chilton needs to correct the ridiculous claims he fed to the Wall Street Journal. If that's not the case, then he needs to refute the specific points we made in our article.
Vacuum Tubes
Kingston Reif | May 01, 2009 | 0 
Gen. Chilton, sans vacuum tube
Ever wonder why there is the perception that NNSA and STRATCOM have about as much credibility on stockpile maintenance and modernization issues as a screen door on a submarine? As Jeffrey Lewis and I explain in a recent piece published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, one reason is vacuum tubes.
Last fall, STRATCOM commander General Kevin Chilton sat down with The Wall Street Journal, one of the nation’s most reliable suppliers of nuclear misinformation. The goal of his visit: to convince the paper’s Editors that U.S. nuclear weapons have more in common with ’57 Chevys than they do with, well, nuclear weapons. Chilton pulled out a vacuum tube to illustrate is point.
According to Chilton, “This is the technology that we have . . . today.” He then took out a microchip, explaining to the credulous editorial board that, by withholding funding for the RRW Program, Congress has prevented the nuclear weapons complex from replacing outdated vacuum tubes with modern solid-state electronics.
While few would deny that our nuclear arsenal is aging, Chilton's account is complete nonsense.
