So the possibility of nuclear annihilation is a thing again. Perhaps a look at the management of America’s atomic arsenal is in order.
The manner in which nukes can ruin your whole day is easy to understand — big bombs fall out of the sky, destroying everything in sight — but Washington’s vast architecture of Armageddon is tough to grasp. As the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported, the Pentagon “is responsible for developing, fielding, and operating all delivery systems for nuclear weapons.” Unbeknownst to many Americans, the military is not, the CBO explained, “responsible for developing and sustaining nuclear weapons.” That task is assigned to the civilians of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), who labor in “a complex of laboratories and production facilities,” producing and handling “special materials (like uranium and plutonium) used in nuclear weapons” and conducting “research into the dynamics of nuclear explosions.” Since D.C. barred all types of atomic detonations, back in 1992, the department must “certify” that its warheads “are safe and reliable without exploding them in underground tests.”
The Swamp is undertaking a massive “modernization” of the nation’s nuclear deterrent. And the mission is not going well. This summer, the Union of Concerned Scientists lamented that “projected costs have risen considerably,” and “two-thirds” of the increase is attributable to the DOD, thanks to “increased budget estimates for the new Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile … and for ballistic missile submarines.”
That leaves one-third of the overrun at the doorstep of the DOE. An August audit by the U.S. Government Accountability Office bared the truly dismal performance of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), “a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science.” Congressional investigators documented that 18 NNSA “major” modernization projects will “collectively exceeded their cost estimates by over $2 billion,” and surpass “their collective schedules by almost 10 years.”
Seriously? Some of the brightest minds in the world can’t work on budget and on time? What in the name of J. Robert Oppenheimer is going on?
A cursory review of the “news” items recently posted on the websites of NNSA’s three national laboratories offers part of the answer.
Los Alamos, founded by Oppenheimer, kicks off our mission-creep expedition. A pitch to explore “the Lab’s extensive trail network.” New research that combined “computer modeling and experiments with macaques,” revealing how “the body’s immune system helps control human immunodeficiency virus … infections.” The way the HBO series The Last of Us raises real-world worries, “such as the lack of reliable diagnosis, treatment and vaccination against fungal pathogens.”
Just to the south, Sandia National Laboratories, “the ordnance design, testing, and assembly arm of Los Alamos,” cosponsored “the annual New Mexico Electric Car Challenge.” It “is collaborating with … CSolPower LLC to develop an affordable method of storing energy from renewable sources.” And it’s joined a “government-funded consortium offering science and technology learning opportunities to student minorities” that “aims to, over time, equalize workforce demographics at national laboratories.”
In Northern California, NNSA’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is proud of employee Bradley Rodrigues, who “comes from two different worlds: the deaf community and his hearing family.” In October, some of the lab’s younger staff scientists attended a forum covering “artificial intelligence, preparation for the next pandemic, digital equity, healthy aging, deep-sea exploration and exploitation, human activity in space, climate change and international collaboration.” (“Los Alamos National Laboratory Director Thomas Mason chaired a panel on action for net-zero emission.”) And do you know about the “fascinating phenomenon” that is “the demise of soil bacteria and other unicellular microbes at the onset of the rainy season”?
America’s national laboratories — even those under the NNSA’s authority — have drifted very far from their original purpose. And thoughtful wonks have known about the problem for decades. In 1997, a Cato Institute scholar warned Congress that the facilities had “branched out to include environmental, commercial, and various other research activities now that the Cold War is over.” The shift was often justified as vital for “competitiveness.”
Results? Unimpressive. The labs have participated in some of the DOE’s biggest, costliest boondoggles, and the left-leaning Brookings Institution admitted, in a 2014 analysis, that “a number of significant administrative, policy, and cultural factors impede the labs’ deeper enlistment in regional economic development as an important complement to their national missions.”
A nation’s nuclear deterrent should be effective and affordable. America’s is neither. Yes, the Pentagon bears much of the blame. So do the bureaucrats behind “the military application of nuclear science.”
Agree. I worked at SNL for 29 years. DOE oversight doesn't help and all the "woke" issues are funded. I worked on the financial side of the Labs and the wholle budget and spending process were inefficient.
Milton Friedman's money spending rule #4 : other people (government employees) spending other people's (taxpayers) money on other people (the general public). Absolutely no spending restraint other than running out of other people's money to spend.