wolit@mhuxd.att.com (Jan I. Wolitzky) (05/03/89)
From: wolit@mhuxd.att.com (Jan I. Wolitzky) [ mod.note: I pondered this one a bit, and decided that this topic was probably worth discussing here. In any posted responses, though, please try to avoid the political aspects, and concentrate on more appropriate issues. How will this affect naval policy ? What technologies will replace these weapons ? That sort of thing... Of course, email flames to the author are your own business 8-) - Bill ] I've sent the following letter to the NY Times, in response to their lead article in Sunday's paper about the Navy's decision to drop 3 classes of short-range nuclear weapons. ----- The Navy's recent decision to phase out three families of tactical nuclear weapons was likely based on far more practical, immediate considerations than those vaguely offered by Pentagon officials. The idea of nuclear combat at sea is not simply "a concept whose time has passed," as we have always had "more to lose than the Russians" in this theatre. For the Navy to abandon unilaterally the weapons that for three decades have served as the primary instruments of its warfighting doctrine for the majority of its surface ships and attack submarines (and which have long been bought and paid for), more than a misty, theoretical assessment that it could probably get along without them was required. In fact, these weapons had become enough of an albatross about the necks of the mariners in the Pentagon that they could not afford to wait for disarmament negotiations to permit them to be traded away for concessions from the other side. The pressure on the Navy to jettison these weapons comes from several quarters. For one, the apparent inability of the Energy Department safely to operate a tritium production reactor has made it essential to withdraw from deployment some less important nuclear warheads, in order to maintain those deemed more central to the strategic deterrent, since the tritium that serves as the thermonuclear fuel decays inevitably and continuously as a result of its short half- life. Inter-service rivalries probably contributed to the decision to let the Navy bear the burden of making up this shortfall now: the Army and Air Force were already forced to abandon their Pershing II and Ground-Launched Cruise Missile systems as a result of the recent Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty. Budget pressures also played a role. The withdrawal of these three weapons systems has long been planned. The ASROC anti-submarine missile, first deployed in 1961, was scheduled to be replaced soon by a vertical-launch missile system. Phase-out of the submarine-launched SUBROC actually began in 1983. All non-nuclear versions of the Terrier anti-aircraft missile have already been withdrawn, and the nuclear versions slated for replacement by other weapons. Given the current budget bloodshed in the Pentagon, with many larger, more important weapon systems being axed, it is doubtful that much support could be mustered for paying to develop new nuclear systems to replace these three obsolescent weapons. The largest factor in the Navy's decision, though, must have been the growing public opposition to the presence of nuclear weapons aboard ships based, or making port calls, in crowded cities. In this country, "home porting" plans have met stiff resistance here in New York, in San Francisco, and elsewhere, from citizens who have grown tired of seeing government pronouncements on the safety of nuclear reactors, rockets, chemical plants, and the like, repeatedly vanish in balls of flame. Abroad, nuclear-free resolutions in New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Denmark, and the South Pacific have broken up some of our alliances and threatened others. With a restructuring Soviet Union presenting a more attractive face to the world, and many countries reconsidering basing agreements with the U.S., the Navy could not afford to continue to ignore the calls for the nuclear disarmament of the seas. ----- Jan I. Wolitzky AT&T Bell Laboratories Room 3D-590 600 Mountain Avenue Murray Hill, NJ 07974-2070 USA 1 201 582-2998 fax: 1 201 582-5417 att!mhuxd!wolit