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The US military plans to detonate a 700 tonne explosive charge in a test called "Divine Strake" that will send a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas, a senior defense official said. "I don't want to sound glib here but it is the first time in Nevada that you'll see a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas since we stopped testing nuclear weapons," said James Tegnelia, head of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency.
Tegnelia said the test was part of a US effort to develop weapons capable of destroying deeply buried bunkers housing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. "We have several very large penetrators we're developing," he told defense reporters. "We also have -- are you ready for this - a 700-tonne explosively formed charge that we're going to be putting in a tunnel in Nevada," he said. "And that represents to us the largest single explosive that we could imagine doing conventionally to solve that problem," he said. The aim is to measure the effect of the blast on hard granite structures, he said.
"If you want to model these weapons, you want to know from a modeling point of view what is the ideal best condition you could ever set up in a conventional weapon -- what's the best you can do. "And this gets at the best point you could get on a curve. So it allows us to predict how effective these kinds of weapons ... would be," he said. He said the Russians have been notified of the test, which is scheduled for the first week of June at the Nevada test range. "We're also making sure that Las Vegas understands," Tegnelia said.
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US to test 700-tonne explosive
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US to test 700-tonne explosive
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conestogo_flood
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There is a story on drudge about people getting upset over this. Ya think! I wouldn't want a mushroom cloud in my back yard.
It's going to be June 2. Yeah it is knid of cool in way, but it is rather easy to say when it's not going to be near me. They seem to be concerned about ground contamination from previous experiments getting kicked up into the atmoshere.
It's going to be June 2. Yeah it is knid of cool in way, but it is rather easy to say when it's not going to be near me. They seem to be concerned about ground contamination from previous experiments getting kicked up into the atmoshere.
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Aren't there better places to do such tests? What happened to abandoned Pacific islands? 
We get all kinds of explosions here in Fayetteville, but certainly nothing big enough to cause a mushroom cloud! It is pretty fun to see the visitor's faces however when they hear mortar and machine gun fire in the middle of a quiet neighborhood...fun to listen to as well!
Hope the people in Vegas enjoy this!
We get all kinds of explosions here in Fayetteville, but certainly nothing big enough to cause a mushroom cloud! It is pretty fun to see the visitor's faces however when they hear mortar and machine gun fire in the middle of a quiet neighborhood...fun to listen to as well!
Hope the people in Vegas enjoy this!
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brunota2003
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brunota2003
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Well here is a quote from another site that I found.
So it looks like we are going to test a bunker buster nuke. The problem is we can't test nuclear bunker buster because of the non-proliferation treaty, but they can put enough conventional explosive in one place to simulate a small nuke. It appears they have dug a large hole 32 feet in diameter and that is where they will place the 700 tons of explosives. This is near an existing underground bunker at the test site. That figures out to about 1.4 million pounds of explosive for those that are keeping track of it. This should figure out to be a one megaton nuke. So this looks in part like a warning shot to countries doing work with bunkers. We get the benefit of seeing what damage it will do and send a signal to a few countries that this is in your future. This will figure into CONPLAN 8022 for initial strikes.
The largest aircraft in the American inventory is a C-5. According to the Air Force it can only lift 270,000 pounds, or 135 Tons. Keep in mind, this is a cargo plane that's the size of a football field. It can't maneuver like a bomber. And more to the point - as our largest aircraft - it couldn't lift the weapon in question.
If you're talking a missile, our largest launch vehicle - a Titan IV (now retired) could only put 47,800 lb, or 23.9 tons, into low earth orbit. Well short of 700 tons. Even the Saturn V which sent our astronauts to the moon couldn't carry this weapon.
So it looks like we are going to test a bunker buster nuke. The problem is we can't test nuclear bunker buster because of the non-proliferation treaty, but they can put enough conventional explosive in one place to simulate a small nuke. It appears they have dug a large hole 32 feet in diameter and that is where they will place the 700 tons of explosives. This is near an existing underground bunker at the test site. That figures out to about 1.4 million pounds of explosive for those that are keeping track of it. This should figure out to be a one megaton nuke. So this looks in part like a warning shot to countries doing work with bunkers. We get the benefit of seeing what damage it will do and send a signal to a few countries that this is in your future. This will figure into CONPLAN 8022 for initial strikes.
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Non-Nuclear Test Will Simulate Nuclear Weapon Strike
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) today confirmed to FAS that the upcoming Divine Strake test widely reported in the media to be a non-nuclear event is in fact a low-yield nuclear weapons calibration simulation against an underground target.
A few, including Albuquerque Journal and disarmamentactivist.org, have speculated that Divine Strake was a nuclear-related event, but DTRA has up till now declined to confirm or deny the nuclear connection.
In response to an email earlier today, a DTRA spokesperson confirmed that Divine Strake is the same event that is described in DTRA budget documents as being a low-yield nuclear weapons shock simulation designed to allow the warfighters to fine-tune the yield of nuclear weapons in strikes on underground facilities.
It also turns out that Divine Strake is "an integral part" of STRATCOM's new Global Strike mission, which is normally reported to develop mainly non-nuclear capabilities against time-urgent targets. Global Strike is one of the pillars of the Bush administration’s so-called New Triad which is said to be reducing the role of nuclear weapons.
According to a Department of Energy document associated with Divine Strake, the event comes only two years after President George W. Bush in Summer 2004 signed a presidential decision directive that ordered STRATCOM to "extend Global Strike to counter all [Hard and Deeply Buried Targets] to include both tactical and strategic adversarial targets."
Divine Strake was not mentioned during last week's Senate hearing on the Global Strike mission.
http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2006/04/non ... ulated.php
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) today confirmed to FAS that the upcoming Divine Strake test widely reported in the media to be a non-nuclear event is in fact a low-yield nuclear weapons calibration simulation against an underground target.
A few, including Albuquerque Journal and disarmamentactivist.org, have speculated that Divine Strake was a nuclear-related event, but DTRA has up till now declined to confirm or deny the nuclear connection.
In response to an email earlier today, a DTRA spokesperson confirmed that Divine Strake is the same event that is described in DTRA budget documents as being a low-yield nuclear weapons shock simulation designed to allow the warfighters to fine-tune the yield of nuclear weapons in strikes on underground facilities.
It also turns out that Divine Strake is "an integral part" of STRATCOM's new Global Strike mission, which is normally reported to develop mainly non-nuclear capabilities against time-urgent targets. Global Strike is one of the pillars of the Bush administration’s so-called New Triad which is said to be reducing the role of nuclear weapons.
According to a Department of Energy document associated with Divine Strake, the event comes only two years after President George W. Bush in Summer 2004 signed a presidential decision directive that ordered STRATCOM to "extend Global Strike to counter all [Hard and Deeply Buried Targets] to include both tactical and strategic adversarial targets."
Divine Strake was not mentioned during last week's Senate hearing on the Global Strike mission.
http://www.fas.org/blog/ssp/2006/04/non ... ulated.php
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http://www.nukestrat.com/us/stratcom/gs ... strake.htm
Divine Strake: Global Strike Low-Yield Nuclear Simulation
The conventional Divine Strake test scheduled for June 2006 is expected to create a large mushroom cloud, an image associated with atmospheric nuclear tests in the 1950s and early 1960s. This image shows the Misers Gold test at White Sands in 1989, a surface blast equivalent of 5 kt TNT. Divine Strake will be nearly 0.6 kt TNT.
The Department of Energy is readying the Nevada Test Site for a large-scale, open-air, high explosive detonation on a tunnel complex. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), the DOE customer which is conducting the test, is stressing that the test is not a nuclear blast and the Russian government reportedly has been notified to avoid misunderstanding about the event. "The test is aimed at determining how well a massive conventional bomb would perform against fortified underground targets," the Washington Post reported on March 31st.
No one - with the notable exception of Andrew Lichterman and John Fleck who first reported on this - seems to have tried to dig deeper than the press release from DTRA. I too have monitored the preparations for Divine Strake; It is much more than was reported.
Divine Strake is neither a bomb nor conventional. Instead, the test is a detonation of a pile of chemical explosives to simulate a "low-yield nuclear weapon ground shock" effect to "improve the warfighter’s confidence in selecting the smallest proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities while minimizing collateral damage."
Divine Strake, moreover, is an integral part of STRATCOM's new Global Strike mission, which is otherwise said to provide mainly non-nuclear means of defeating time-critical targets. Divine Strake is the first nuclear effects simulation of this kind against underground targets since President George W. Bush in Summer 2004 directed STRATCOM to "extend Global Strike to counter all HDBTs [Hard and Deeply Buried Targets] to include both tactical and strategic adversarial targets." (see guidance overview here)
The Divine Strake Event
Divine Strake was approved in 2002 as part of the congressionally authorized DOD FY2002 Tunnel Target Defeat Advanced Concept and Technology Demonstration (ACTD). Since then, DTRA has prepared for the event under its Counterforce program. DTRA confirmed today that Divine Strake is the event described in the budget documents. The DTRA counterforce RDT&E (Research, Development, Testing and Engineering) budget for FY2006 described the experiment this way:
"Conduct the Tunnel Target Defeat Advanced Concept and Technology Demonstration(s) (ACTD) Full-Scale tunnel defeat demonstration using high explosives to simulate a low yield nuclear weapon ground shock environment at Department of Energy's Nevada Test Site."
Divine Strake event involves placing high explosives on the surface similarly to the Misers Gold experiment in 1989.
The reference to low-yield nuclear weapons was omitted from the section in the FY2007 budget request, which instead describes the event like this: "Conduct the Tunnel Target Defeat ACTD large-scale tunnel defeat demonstration using high explosives to produce the desired ground shock environment at the Department of Energy's Nevada Test Site." Yet the nuclear reference is used elsewhere in the FY2007 budget:
"The Tunnel Target Defeat ACTD will develop a planning tool that will improve the warfighter’s confidence in selecting the smallest proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities while minimizing collateral damage."
Divine Strake reflects a concern in the Pentagon over what is said to be an increasing number of a underground facilities in potentially hostile countries. The 2001 Nuclear Posture Review warned that the existing B61-11 nuclear earth-penetrator does not have sufficient capability against certain deeply buried targets. The Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator was supposed to provide additional capability, but Congress has refused to fund the weapon due to concern that it could lower the nuclear threshold.
The U16B tunnel shown in a 3D simulation of a 10 kt nuclear agent defeat experiment conducted by Los Alamos in 2004.
Divine Stake is not an RNEP-type experiment because it simulates the use of a very low-yield nuclear weapon against an relatively shallow underground target. Divine Strake follows a previous 3D computer simulation conducted by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2004, which examined the use of a 10 kt nuclear detonation inside the U16B tunnel as an agent defeat weapon. The experiment concluded that the relatively large yield was necessary for radiation to penetrate through the entire length of the tunnel "indicating that such yields might be necessary to guarantee agent destruction stored inside large tunnel complexes."
Divine Strake, in contrast, does not simulate agent defeat destruction but simply envisions using the explosive yield of a small nuclear weapon to destroy or severely damage and underground structure. Also important is that the simulation is not directed against the tunnel entrances, but involves detonating the explosives on top of the surface above the tunnel.
The Divine Strake explosion is half as powerful as the lowest yield option of the B61 nuclear gravity bomb.
The contract for collecting the seismo-acoustic data from Divine Strake was awarded to Southern Methodist University on March 16, 2006.
The "Weapon"
Contrary to most of the media reports, Divine Strake is not testing a conventional bomb but simply detonates a huge pile (700 tons) of Ammonium Nitrate and Fuel Oil (ANFO). For comparison, the largest conventional weapon in the U.S. inventory is the MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast) bomb, which contains nearly nine tons of explosives with a yield of approximately 0.12 kt TNT.
The explosive power of Divine Strake will be approximately 593 tons of TNT equivalent, or roughly 0.6 kt. This is about half as powerful as the lowest yield option on the non-strategic B61 nuclear gravity bomb, and suggests that Divine Strake may be intended to fine-tune use of the B61 bomb. There are three modifications of the non-strategic B61 bomb in the U.S. stockpile with yields ranging from 0.3 kt to 170 kt.
B61 Nuclear Bomb Characteristics
Weapon Yield Years Build Total U.S. Stockpile
Active Inactive Total
B61-3 0.3, 1.5, 60, or 170 kilotons 1979-1989 200 196 396
B61-4 0.3, 1.5, 10, or 45 kilotons 1979-1989 200 212 412
B61-10* 0.3, 5, 10, or 80 kilotons 1990-1991 0 208 208
Total 400 610 1,010
* The B61-10 is a converted Pershing II missile W85 warhead.
The B61 also exists in a strategic version (B61-7) with four yields up to 350 kt, but given then strategic mission of this weapon the lowest yield option may be higher than the non-strategic version.
Divine Strake is not the first large-scale, open-air, high explosive detonation conducted by DTRA. Such events apparently play an important role in fine-tuning the plans for using nuclear weapons against underground and surface targets. Since 1977, at least 10 similar events have been carried out at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The events have involved from 24 tons to as much as 4,744 tons of high explosives.
The Minor Scale event in 1985 (left) detonated 4,744 tons of high explosives on the ground, the largest such event ever conducted. The experiment simulated the use of a 4 kt nuclear weapon. The 609 tons Direct Course event in 1983 (right) simulated the effect of a tactical nuclear weapon exploding above the ground.
Source: DTRA
Other detonations have included an underground detonation of 1,410 tons in the U12n tunnel at NTS in 1993. In addition, Seven 120-ton detonations were carried out at Misers Bluff at Planet Ranch in Arizona in 1978. Finally, in 2002, an 18 tons explosion was set off at the Nevada Test Site.
Experience obtained from these detonations were used to develop the plans for Divine Strake scheduled for June 2, 2006, at the U16B tunnel complex at the Nevada Test Site.
Divine Strake will be conducted at the U16B complex on the Nevada Test Site. U16B consists of a hook-shaped tunnel drilled through a limestone formation and connected to three portals and a vent hole. Each of the tunnel entrances are sealed by large steel doors 14x13 feet and 1.5 foot thick.
The Divine Strake detonation will be conducted at the U16B Tunnel Complex approximately 83 miles northwest of Las Vegas, only eight miles west of the Yucca Flat where hundreds of nuclear tests were conducted between the 1950s and 1992. The precise coordinates of the site are 37° 1'20.51"N, 116°10'54.30"W.
The U16B target was "carefully chosen" for Divine Strake so that it "simulates the characteristics of important potential, global adversaries," according to the DOE. The detonation will be conducted in a limestone bed with specific geological properties, according to the DOE's draft environmental assessment for Divine Strake: "As a number of potential adversarial military targets are based in similar limestones, [Divine Strake] needed to be sited in a similar geological setting to actual military targets."
According to the DOE, such HDBTs are used by adversaries for command and control, storage of munitions (including weapons of mass destruction, and long-range missiles), modern air defenses, a variety of tactical weapons, wartime refuge for national leaders, and a multitude of other offensive and defensive military uses.
An example of such a target may be the Chinese airbase at Feidong, which includes what appears to be a large underground facility for hiding aircraft and potentially also other of the capabilities mentioned by DOE.
The tunnel at the Chinese airbase at Feidong is one of many military facilities that may be a potential target for the nuclear capabilities developed by Divine Strake.
Divine Strake: Global Strike Low-Yield Nuclear Simulation
The conventional Divine Strake test scheduled for June 2006 is expected to create a large mushroom cloud, an image associated with atmospheric nuclear tests in the 1950s and early 1960s. This image shows the Misers Gold test at White Sands in 1989, a surface blast equivalent of 5 kt TNT. Divine Strake will be nearly 0.6 kt TNT.
The Department of Energy is readying the Nevada Test Site for a large-scale, open-air, high explosive detonation on a tunnel complex. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), the DOE customer which is conducting the test, is stressing that the test is not a nuclear blast and the Russian government reportedly has been notified to avoid misunderstanding about the event. "The test is aimed at determining how well a massive conventional bomb would perform against fortified underground targets," the Washington Post reported on March 31st.
No one - with the notable exception of Andrew Lichterman and John Fleck who first reported on this - seems to have tried to dig deeper than the press release from DTRA. I too have monitored the preparations for Divine Strake; It is much more than was reported.
Divine Strake is neither a bomb nor conventional. Instead, the test is a detonation of a pile of chemical explosives to simulate a "low-yield nuclear weapon ground shock" effect to "improve the warfighter’s confidence in selecting the smallest proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities while minimizing collateral damage."
Divine Strake, moreover, is an integral part of STRATCOM's new Global Strike mission, which is otherwise said to provide mainly non-nuclear means of defeating time-critical targets. Divine Strake is the first nuclear effects simulation of this kind against underground targets since President George W. Bush in Summer 2004 directed STRATCOM to "extend Global Strike to counter all HDBTs [Hard and Deeply Buried Targets] to include both tactical and strategic adversarial targets." (see guidance overview here)
The Divine Strake Event
Divine Strake was approved in 2002 as part of the congressionally authorized DOD FY2002 Tunnel Target Defeat Advanced Concept and Technology Demonstration (ACTD). Since then, DTRA has prepared for the event under its Counterforce program. DTRA confirmed today that Divine Strake is the event described in the budget documents. The DTRA counterforce RDT&E (Research, Development, Testing and Engineering) budget for FY2006 described the experiment this way:
"Conduct the Tunnel Target Defeat Advanced Concept and Technology Demonstration(s) (ACTD) Full-Scale tunnel defeat demonstration using high explosives to simulate a low yield nuclear weapon ground shock environment at Department of Energy's Nevada Test Site."
Divine Strake event involves placing high explosives on the surface similarly to the Misers Gold experiment in 1989.
The reference to low-yield nuclear weapons was omitted from the section in the FY2007 budget request, which instead describes the event like this: "Conduct the Tunnel Target Defeat ACTD large-scale tunnel defeat demonstration using high explosives to produce the desired ground shock environment at the Department of Energy's Nevada Test Site." Yet the nuclear reference is used elsewhere in the FY2007 budget:
"The Tunnel Target Defeat ACTD will develop a planning tool that will improve the warfighter’s confidence in selecting the smallest proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities while minimizing collateral damage."
Divine Strake reflects a concern in the Pentagon over what is said to be an increasing number of a underground facilities in potentially hostile countries. The 2001 Nuclear Posture Review warned that the existing B61-11 nuclear earth-penetrator does not have sufficient capability against certain deeply buried targets. The Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator was supposed to provide additional capability, but Congress has refused to fund the weapon due to concern that it could lower the nuclear threshold.
The U16B tunnel shown in a 3D simulation of a 10 kt nuclear agent defeat experiment conducted by Los Alamos in 2004.
Divine Stake is not an RNEP-type experiment because it simulates the use of a very low-yield nuclear weapon against an relatively shallow underground target. Divine Strake follows a previous 3D computer simulation conducted by scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 2004, which examined the use of a 10 kt nuclear detonation inside the U16B tunnel as an agent defeat weapon. The experiment concluded that the relatively large yield was necessary for radiation to penetrate through the entire length of the tunnel "indicating that such yields might be necessary to guarantee agent destruction stored inside large tunnel complexes."
Divine Strake, in contrast, does not simulate agent defeat destruction but simply envisions using the explosive yield of a small nuclear weapon to destroy or severely damage and underground structure. Also important is that the simulation is not directed against the tunnel entrances, but involves detonating the explosives on top of the surface above the tunnel.
The Divine Strake explosion is half as powerful as the lowest yield option of the B61 nuclear gravity bomb.
The contract for collecting the seismo-acoustic data from Divine Strake was awarded to Southern Methodist University on March 16, 2006.
The "Weapon"
Contrary to most of the media reports, Divine Strake is not testing a conventional bomb but simply detonates a huge pile (700 tons) of Ammonium Nitrate and Fuel Oil (ANFO). For comparison, the largest conventional weapon in the U.S. inventory is the MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Blast) bomb, which contains nearly nine tons of explosives with a yield of approximately 0.12 kt TNT.
The explosive power of Divine Strake will be approximately 593 tons of TNT equivalent, or roughly 0.6 kt. This is about half as powerful as the lowest yield option on the non-strategic B61 nuclear gravity bomb, and suggests that Divine Strake may be intended to fine-tune use of the B61 bomb. There are three modifications of the non-strategic B61 bomb in the U.S. stockpile with yields ranging from 0.3 kt to 170 kt.
B61 Nuclear Bomb Characteristics
Weapon Yield Years Build Total U.S. Stockpile
Active Inactive Total
B61-3 0.3, 1.5, 60, or 170 kilotons 1979-1989 200 196 396
B61-4 0.3, 1.5, 10, or 45 kilotons 1979-1989 200 212 412
B61-10* 0.3, 5, 10, or 80 kilotons 1990-1991 0 208 208
Total 400 610 1,010
* The B61-10 is a converted Pershing II missile W85 warhead.
The B61 also exists in a strategic version (B61-7) with four yields up to 350 kt, but given then strategic mission of this weapon the lowest yield option may be higher than the non-strategic version.
Divine Strake is not the first large-scale, open-air, high explosive detonation conducted by DTRA. Such events apparently play an important role in fine-tuning the plans for using nuclear weapons against underground and surface targets. Since 1977, at least 10 similar events have been carried out at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The events have involved from 24 tons to as much as 4,744 tons of high explosives.
The Minor Scale event in 1985 (left) detonated 4,744 tons of high explosives on the ground, the largest such event ever conducted. The experiment simulated the use of a 4 kt nuclear weapon. The 609 tons Direct Course event in 1983 (right) simulated the effect of a tactical nuclear weapon exploding above the ground.
Source: DTRA
Other detonations have included an underground detonation of 1,410 tons in the U12n tunnel at NTS in 1993. In addition, Seven 120-ton detonations were carried out at Misers Bluff at Planet Ranch in Arizona in 1978. Finally, in 2002, an 18 tons explosion was set off at the Nevada Test Site.
Experience obtained from these detonations were used to develop the plans for Divine Strake scheduled for June 2, 2006, at the U16B tunnel complex at the Nevada Test Site.
Divine Strake will be conducted at the U16B complex on the Nevada Test Site. U16B consists of a hook-shaped tunnel drilled through a limestone formation and connected to three portals and a vent hole. Each of the tunnel entrances are sealed by large steel doors 14x13 feet and 1.5 foot thick.
The Divine Strake detonation will be conducted at the U16B Tunnel Complex approximately 83 miles northwest of Las Vegas, only eight miles west of the Yucca Flat where hundreds of nuclear tests were conducted between the 1950s and 1992. The precise coordinates of the site are 37° 1'20.51"N, 116°10'54.30"W.
The U16B target was "carefully chosen" for Divine Strake so that it "simulates the characteristics of important potential, global adversaries," according to the DOE. The detonation will be conducted in a limestone bed with specific geological properties, according to the DOE's draft environmental assessment for Divine Strake: "As a number of potential adversarial military targets are based in similar limestones, [Divine Strake] needed to be sited in a similar geological setting to actual military targets."
According to the DOE, such HDBTs are used by adversaries for command and control, storage of munitions (including weapons of mass destruction, and long-range missiles), modern air defenses, a variety of tactical weapons, wartime refuge for national leaders, and a multitude of other offensive and defensive military uses.
An example of such a target may be the Chinese airbase at Feidong, which includes what appears to be a large underground facility for hiding aircraft and potentially also other of the capabilities mentioned by DOE.
The tunnel at the Chinese airbase at Feidong is one of many military facilities that may be a potential target for the nuclear capabilities developed by Divine Strake.
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x-y-no
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I'm not quite sure what to think about this ...
On the one hand, it's obviously useful to advance our knowledge of what it takes to destroy advanced underground bunkers.
On the other hand, I have a hard time seeing the practical value of such knowledge as being high enough to outweigh the value in preserving the status of nuclear weapons as something so far outside of the norm as to be almost unthinkable to actually use.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not a starry-eyed believer in disarmament, and that neccesarily implies that I envision scenarios in which we would actually use nuclear weapons. I just see value in keeping the idea as abhorrent as possible, and it seems to me that being seen to be developing a new class of tactical nukes erodes that to some extent.
On the one hand, it's obviously useful to advance our knowledge of what it takes to destroy advanced underground bunkers.
On the other hand, I have a hard time seeing the practical value of such knowledge as being high enough to outweigh the value in preserving the status of nuclear weapons as something so far outside of the norm as to be almost unthinkable to actually use.
Don't get me wrong - I'm not a starry-eyed believer in disarmament, and that neccesarily implies that I envision scenarios in which we would actually use nuclear weapons. I just see value in keeping the idea as abhorrent as possible, and it seems to me that being seen to be developing a new class of tactical nukes erodes that to some extent.
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