Smarter bombs, fewer nukes
By Andrew F. Krepinevich & Steven M. Kosiak

Even as a "deterrent," nuclear weapons leave a lot to be desired compared to the growing U.S. arsenal of unmatched, super-fast, super-accurate new weapons.

The U.S. military is investing billions of dollars in developing and deploying a broad range of new conventional and electronic weapon systems. These systems--made possible by dramatic advances in information and information-related technologies--combine great lethality with great precision, and they are revolutionizing the way military organizations think about future conflict. Perhaps nowhere are their implications more significant than in the case of U.S. nuclear forces and strategy.

Nuclear weapons have dominated discussions of strategic strike since the end of World War II. But as the United States increasingly relies on precision-guided munitions and electronic means of attack, it could transform the strategic triad and help to pave the way for deep cuts in the current U.S. nuclear arsenal.

These reductions could help to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), recently shaken by India's and Pakistan's nuclear tests, and encourage Russia and the other major nuclear powers to make deep cuts in their own nuclear arsenals. They could also yield significant savings in the U.S. defense budget-perhaps $2 billion a year over the long term. Most important, however, they could enhance stability and provide the U.S. military with a strategic flexibility that nuclear weapons cannot provide.

Given the U.S. military's progress in expanding its precision-strike capabilities, and the fact that it is the only military able to begin the transformation to a new strategic force posture, the United States should be willing to consider unilateral nuclear force reductions. Considering current geopolitical and military-technical trends, the United States need not await Russian ratification of the START II Treaty before reducing its own nuclear forces to the 3,500-warhead level allowed under that agreement. The United States should seriously consider making additional unilateral reductions to the 2,000–2,500-warhead level tentatively announced as the goal for a future START III Treaty. Further, with the cooperation of Russia and the other major nuclear powers, reductions to 1,000–1,500 warheads, as advocated in the December 1996 statement by 60 retired senior military officers, might well be prudent. (1)

Russia's "Cheshire cat" arsenal

Treating Russia's nuclear forces as a "baseline" for U.S. force requirements may have had some merit during the Cold War, but it is far less relevant to the nuclear threat confronting the United States today. The principal--indeed, the overarching--danger the United States faced from nuclear weapons during the Cold War--a large-scale homeland attack executed by the Soviet strategic rocket forces--has receded dramatically with the collapse of the communist regime, the elimination of nuclear forces in the former non-Russian Soviet Republics, and the gradual reduction (and erosion) of Russia's nuclear forces.

The Clinton administration's policy, dubbed "Lead but Hedge," calls for the United States to take the leadership role in moving toward lower nuclear force levels while also hedging against the instabilities and uncertainties of today's security environment. In practice, however, reductions in U.S. strategic nuclear forces have been tightly linked to progress on arms reduction negotiations with Russia. Both countries are obligated by the START II Treaty (signed but not yet ratified by Russia) to reduce their nuclear force levels to 3,500 warheads each by the end of 2007. (2)

Both countries have indicated a desire to eventually move to lower levels of nuclear forces. At the March 1997 Helsinki conference, President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin issued a joint statement in which they pledged to begin negotiations for a follow-on START III Treaty as soon as START II enters into force. As part of the framework for START III, they agreed to aim for a reduction to 2,000–2,500 strategic warheads for each side before 2008.

Yeltsin's commitment to START II and a future START III Treaty notwithstanding, the prospects for rapidly concluding an agreement to make deeper cuts in nuclear forces are unclear. Russia's parliament, the Duma, has been reluctant to ratify START II.

This hesitation has several sources. First, in an ironic twist under the terms of START II, maintaining a rough parity with the United States would probably require a financially strapped Russia to spend billions of rubles to deploy 500 new single-warhead ICBMs to replace the multiple warhead missiles eliminated by the treaty. (Hence Russia's interest in proceeding promptly to the lower warhead levels projected for START III.)

Second, post–Cold War Russian military doctrine has placed increasing reliance on nuclear forces to offset the rapid decline in its conventional force capabilities. In a sense, the nuclear forces are the last remaining jewel in the tarnished Soviet crown of military might. Third, Russia has tried to use the issue of nuclear arms reductions as a way to dissuade the NATO alliance from extending membership to former Soviet satellite states.

Nevertheless, the Duma has a strong incentive to eventually ratify the START II Treaty and agree to further reductions as part of a START III Treaty. This is true if for no other reason than that Russia will probably find the financial cost of maintaining START I or START II levels of nuclear forces prohibitive. As a recent report by the Natural Resources Defense Council concluded:

"Even if mandated dismantlement and destruction lags behind the pace of the United States (and that is not clear), Russian nuclear forces will continue to decline due to a lack of financing and the natural effects of aging, exacerbated by the interruption of the cycle of Cold War modernization." (3)

As a result, according to the report, "[Russian] strategic nuclear forces, now estimated at some 6,240 operational warheads, will likely shrink to some 1,000–2,000 warheads by 2004." (4) Moreover, the report concluded that unless Russia significantly increases defense spending, by 2008 the number of Russian operational strategic warheads is likely to fall to 800–1,500 warheads. (5) Thus, notwithstanding the Duma's recent reluctance to ratify START II, Russia may have a strong interest in negotiating much deeper reductions in nuclear forces over the coming decade.

If such agreements can be rapidly reached, they should by all means be pursued. But the strategic and fiscal logic of deep cuts in nuclear forces is strong enough, and the potential cost of not doing so severe enough, that the United States should consider making those reductions unilaterally. This is particularly true when one considers the U.S. military's development of a substantial conventional precision-strike capability that can serve as a significant "hedge" as the administration seizes the opportunity to lead the way to lower nuclear force levels.

Cold War thinking and new challenges

With the Soviet Union gone and the Cold War nearly a decade in the past, senior U.S. decision-makers now find themselves more concerned about "loose nukes" falling into the hands of rogue states or terrorists than with arcane calculations over how a U.S.-Russian nuclear exchange would play out. Moreover, it seems unlikely that a rogue state with a handful of nuclear weapons would behave any differently if the U.S. nuclear arsenal consisted of 3,500 warheads instead of 7,500, or 1,500 warheads instead of 3,500.

In any case, deterring and defending against unstable regimes with small nuclear forces that may not subscribe to U.S. notions of deterrence may require a very different mix of military forces than those that were crafted to deter a Soviet nuclear strike. Yet, despite radical changes in the security environment, the United States is still focusing on quantitative parity with Russian nuclear forces.

The eclipse of this metric as a useful measure was noted by the National Defense Panel (NDP), a group of independent experts charged by Congress with critiquing the administration's May 1997 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). As the NDP put it:

"Deterrence of attack as the central focus of nuclear policy is already being supplanted by the need to manage--identify, account for, and safeguard against--the proliferation and possible use of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Such efforts are already part of the cooperative threat reduction initiatives undertaken by the United States and other concerned countries, and they will have to be continued as long as nuclear weapons remain a threat. Arms control and nonproliferation agreements . . . will also play an important role in reinforcing the foundations for a more stable security system at lower levels of armaments." (6)

Preserving a strategic equilibrium among Moscow, Beijing, and Washington will remain important. However, as the NDP also noted, this "does not mean . . . that we will need large numbers of nuclear weapons. Effective deterrence of potential adversaries can be maintained at the reduced levels envisioned by START III and beyond." (7)

The military revolution: a new strategic triad?

The traditional way of thinking about nuclear forces becomes even more problematic when the emerging "revolution in military affairs" is taken into account. (8) Military revolutions occur periodically, usually stimulated by major surges in technology that facilitate a discontinuous leap in military effectiveness over a relatively short period of time. One such revolution occurred between the world wars, when mechanized armored forces came of age on land; aircraft carriers supplanted the battleship at sea; and strategic aerial bombardment was established as a new way of war. When nuclear weapons were introduced in mid-century, it led strategists to rethink, in the most fundamental ways, the calculus of war.

These transformations typically displace, or render obsolete, some of the formerly dominant weapons and forces that were central to the previous military regime. The tank consigned the horse cavalry to the pages of history, while the world's major navies ceased producing battleships following the carriers' rise to primacy. In terms of strategic aerial bombardment of an enemy state, nuclear weapons rapidly displaced conventional weaponry.

Just as dramatic technological advances in mechanization, aviation, radio, and radar stimulated a transformation in the character of conflict between the two world wars, today the military confronts the challenge of interpreting the impact of the revolution in information technologies. These technologies offer advanced military organizations the ability to locate, identify, and track a far greater number of targets over a far greater area for far longer periods of time--and to engage those targets with far greater lethality, precision, and discrimination than has ever before been possible.

The implications for strategic strike operations--and for how militaries view nuclear weapons--are profound. The emerging military revolution strongly suggests that the conventional "tortoise" has, after some 50 years, finally begun to catch up to the nuclear "hare," due in large measure to radical advances in the effectiveness of precision-guided munitions, and of stealth and electronic means of cloaking aircraft and missiles from enemy detection.

In the war against Germany, the U.S. Eighth Air Force was able to strike about 50 strategic targets during the course of 1943. In 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, the coalition air forces (the overwhelming majority of which were U.S. forces) struck more than three times as many targets on the first day of the war. This represents a two- orders-of-magnitude increase in conventional strategic strike capability. But that is only part of the story.

Precision munitions comprised barely seven percent of the conventional munitions employed in bombing attacks during the Gulf War. But according to the "Gulf War Air Power Survey" conducted following the war, those aircraft employing precision munitions were demonstrably 13 times more effective than aircraft employing "dumb" conventional bombs. (9) And the shift toward such capabilities is just beginning. Former Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Ronald R. Fogleman has stated that once the transition is complete, U.S. forces "may be able to engage 1,500 targets in the first hour, if not the first minutes," of a conflict. (10)

A new form of strategic strike?

If, as General Fogleman seems to imply, a conventional precision-strike capability can be employed with the same speed, and with effectiveness approaching that of a nuclear strike, it may constitute an irresistible option for any military organization that can afford to develop such forces. And the only military that can afford to do so today belongs to the United States.

In fact, the U.S. military plans to field an integrated group of networked systems ("architectures") that could rapidly execute conventional precision strikes against an adversary.(11) The plans involve linking airborne and space information platforms (and perhaps weapon platforms as well), and unattended ground sensors to provide near- real-time targeting information to long-range precision-guided munitions (PGMs), or platforms carrying PGMs. These platforms could be land-, space-, or sea-based.

This type of strategic strike capability may also include what some have termed "electronic strike" forces. Well-placed electronic strikes, in the form of computer viruses, logic bombs, high-power microwave generators, or conventional electromagnetic pulse munitions, may become increasingly feasible as a means of disabling both strategic military targets and critical elements of newly emerging information-based economies.

As the change in weaponry occurs, it will be increasingly appropriate for the U.S. military to consider moving toward a new type of strategic triad. Such a triad would not be based on the traditional three types of delivery systems for nuclear weapons-bombers, land-based ballistic missiles, and ballistic missile submarines. Rather, the new triad would comprise long-range conventional precision-strike, electronic-strike, and residual nuclear-strike forces.

Advantages of non-nuclear strategic strikes

An increased reliance on non-nuclear strategic strike capabilities could offer several major advantages over the exclusive reliance on nuclear weapons. First, by helping to facilitate deep reductions in the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, it could strengthen the NPT, which obligates the nuclear powers to reduce their nuclear forces, with the ultimate goal of eliminating them. Second, it could encourage Russia to effect similar reductions in its nuclear forces.

Third, such a transformation would likely enhance deterrence. Potential adversaries would see the U.S. strategic deterrent posture as more credible if it included forces capable of conducting effective non-nuclear strategic strike operations. The new triad would offer U.S. political leaders a more credible option than nuclear strikes alone for responding to the threat, or actual employment, of a nuclear weapon by a small nuclear power. If the United States possessed a substantial non-nuclear strategic strike capability, it could help reduce the need perceived by some U.S. friends and allies for a nuclear deterrent of their own.

Fourth, since a non-nuclear strategic strike would be far more discriminating, it would not cause anything like the horrific level of casualties that would almost certainly result from even a "limited" nuclear war. It might also reduce significantly the prospects of triggering a nuclear response from a nuclear-armed adversary.

Finally, cuts in nuclear forces could yield substantial budgetary savings. According to the Defense Department, reducing the current U.S. strategic nuclear forces from START I to START II levels would save about $6 billion over the next seven years. (12) We estimate that reducing the size of the strategic arsenal to 2,000 warheads could save an average of $2 billion a year through 2010, if the United States implemented the reduction by, for example, cutting an additional four Trident ballistic missile submarines and 300 Minuteman icbms. (13) This would leave the United States with a strategic nuclear force structure consisting of 10 Trident submarines and 200 Minuteman ICBMs, plus the 71 B-52 and 21 B-2 (dual-capable) bombers projected under current plans.

The "nuclear shadow"

Reducing reliance on nuclear forces and emphasizing conventional and electronic strike systems could substantially reduce the danger of nuclear war over the long term, but the shift would not render nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete. Moreover, making the shift would not be without danger.

The future conflict environment, while radically different from the late Cold War period, will still find military forces operating under a "nuclear shadow." (14) There are several reasons why this condition will persist. First, although precision-strike weaponry will be able to substitute for nuclear strikes, the substitution will not be comprehensive. Would-be adversaries can also be expected to explore ways to offset even the limited difference in capability. For example, targets that are sufficiently hardened or buried deep underground may prove impervious to even the most accurate of non-nuclear munitions.

Second, as noted above, nuclear weapons will likely prove irreplaceable to major powers as instruments of "assured destruction." Conventional precision strategic strikes, by virtue of their high accuracy and low yield, produce comparatively little direct damage against a society's population and economic infrastructure. By disabling key nodes such as communications--switching centers, those strikes might bring a modern information-based economy to its knees. But the loss of life and property would likely be nowhere near as immediate and devastating as that caused by nuclear attack.

Nuclear weapons will continue to exert a "dampening" effect on military operations, particularly strategic strikes, whether they are conventional, electronic, nuclear, or a mix of all three. Indeed, any state that possesses a nuclear deterrent might see its homeland accorded the status of a strategic "sanctuary," not only from nuclear strikes, but perhaps from all forms of strategic strikes.

On the other hand, there is a danger that the transition to a highly effective non-nuclear strategic strike capability could actually make nuclear war more likely, by blurring the distinction--or "firebreak"-between non-nuclear and nuclear capabilities. In other words, there is a danger that the United States will feel freer than it has in the past to conduct strategic strikes--because it will be able to do so without resorting to nuclear weapons. However, the country on the receiving end may not view the distinction as particularly meaningful and may well feel compelled to retaliate with nuclear weapons.

Similarly, there is a danger that the development of an effective non-nuclear strategic strike capability by the United States--because it would appear to be much more usable than a nuclear strike capability--would increase the incentives for potential adversaries to acquire at least a small nuclear arsenal, so that they too will have their homeland, or at least some portion of strategic targets within it, accorded "sanctuary" status.

This may be especially true with less developed countries, which may view the acquisition of a substantial conventional strategic strike capability as well beyond their means, but view nuclear weapons as a relatively cheap, albeit primitive, counter to non-nuclear strategic strike operations.

The new triad: getting there

To guard against the potentially perverse effects of developing a non-nuclear strategic strike capability, and to ensure that instead the positive features of such a transition are maximized, it is important that U.S. officials think through carefully the implications of the ongoing transformation to a new strategic triad.

Unfortunately, the transformation raises a great number of very difficult questions, some of which concern the possible impact of the strategic value attributed to nuclear weapons. Will the transformation of the U.S. military devalue nuclear weapons in the eyes of other states, supporting U.S. efforts both to block nuclear proliferation and to reduce the arsenals of nuclear states? Or will it, by enabling substantial reductions in U.S. nuclear forces, lower the "entry barrier" for states other than Russia that might seek nuclear parity with the United States?

Other questions relate to the implications for the military balance that arise when nuclear arsenals are cut deeply. If the current nuclear powers reduce their arsenals down to hundreds of warheads, what will "deterrence" mean in a future world that could see the United States confronting a half dozen or so small or medium-sized nuclear powers, rather than a single large adversary? How does one make sense of terms like "parity" and "assured destruction" in such a world? In short, what are the new measures for considering "How much is enough?" when it comes to strategic strike capability in general and nuclear forces in particular?

Still other questions concern how the United States should react when other countries begin to transform or show a desire to transform their own militaries. What kinds of "entry barriers" will exist for those militaries that seek to move along the path toward less reliance on nuclear weapons? What states are best positioned to surmount them? To what extent, if any, should the United States assist states in substituting other military means for nuclear weapons? How much and what kind of assistance should the United States provide?

For example, should assistance be limited to selling close allies advanced PGMs and other technology, or should the United States restrict assistance to providing access to U.S. satellite constellations and other critical supporting elements? Finally, whatever course of action proves desirable, how can it be effectively implemented?

Attempting to answer these questions is far beyond the scope of this article. Notwithstanding the substantial uncertainty that is likely to exist for some time in this area, however, it seems clear that the U.S. transition strategy should probably involve at least four elements:

First, the Defense Department needs to ensure that the strategy, doctrine, and forces it develops in fielding a future conventional strategic strike capability take into consideration the dynamic effect on the military balance, including the ability to meet national security objectives and avoid unintended consequences (for example, the potential for inadvertent escalation).

Second, the United States must continue to strongly support ongoing nonproliferation efforts, including, for example, the International Atomic Energy Agency's safeguards program.

Third, the United States must continue to work hard to reduce regional tensions in the Middle East, the Korean peninsula, and elsewhere, in an attempt to remove the root causes that provide much of the incentive for would-be proliferators.

Finally, the United States needs to undertake deep cuts in its strategic nuclear forces to capture the initiative and exploit the positive strategic and budgetary aspects of this transition.

Seizing the moment

The United States faces a dramatically different strategic environment than it confronted during the Cold War, presenting its armed forces with very different kinds of challenges, including those pertaining to nuclear deterrence and strategic strike. Moreover, the United States also has by far the world's most advanced military, which is now poised to become the first military to cross the threshold into a new regime that will offer new means for conducting strategic strike operations, substantially but not completely displacing nuclear weapons.

Assuming no dramatic changes for the worse from today's geopolitical environment, for both strategic and (to a lesser extent) budgetary reasons, the United States should move expeditiously to make substantial cuts in its strategic nuclear arsenal. At a minimum, the United States should promptly move to START II nuclear force levels, whether or not Russia ratifies the treaty. This could be followed by further reductions to 2,000–2,500 warheads-within the range for START III set by Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin.

Moreover, rather than simply removing these warheads from its forces, the United States should strongly consider the merits of dismantling most of them. (15) The remaining force would provide a very robust deterrent, especially when one considers the near-monopoly the U.S. military currently enjoys in conventional long-range precision-strike forces.

Ideally, Russia would join with the United States in quickly moving to a START III agreement. However, the United States should be prepared to act unilaterally. It is the only power whose military is capable of making the transformation to a post–Cold War strategic triad, comprising much lower levels of nuclear forces, along with conventional precision strategic strike forces and, prospectively, an electronic strategic-strike leg.

The United States military is in a position to lead the world into a different military regime, one that reduces substantially the role of nuclear weapons as an element of military power. At some point, the other nuclear powers may follow the U.S. lead and effect their own transformations. But the United States should acknowledge that states such as Russia may continue to rely more on their nuclear forces as an offset to the advanced non-nuclear strategic strike capabilities they themselves cannot as yet field.

In summary, the U.S. military's revolution in precision strike capabilities gives the Clinton administration a significant conventional precision-strike "hedge," with the promise of an emerging additional electronic-strike "hedge." It is now time for the administration to lead the way toward lower nuclear force levels.

Notes

1. These former generals and admirals recommend that the United States and Russia reduce their strategic stockpiles, which now comprise some 7,500 and 6,000 operational warheads, respectively, to 1,000–1,500 warheads. Since December 1996, more than 100 present and former heads of state and other senior civilian leaders have also endorsed this proposal.

2. The START II Treaty originally called for reductions to be completed by January 1, 2003. This deadline was subsequently extended to December 31, 2007 to address Russian concerns about meeting the original deadline.

3. William M. Arkin, Robert S. Norris, and Joshua Handler, Taking Stock: Worldwide Nuclear Deployments, 1998 (Washington, D.C.: Natural Resources Defense Council, March 1998) pp. 14 and 27.

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid, p. 12.

6. National Defense Panel (NDP), Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st Century (Washington, D.C.: National Defense Panel, December 1997), p. 50.

7. Ibid.

8. Borrowing from the Soviet term, the Defense Department uses the phrase "revolution in military affairs" (RMA) to describe the emerging military revolution. See Andrew F. Krepinevich, Jr., The Military Revolution (Unpublished paper, Department of Defense, August 1993); Andrew F. Krepinevich, "Keeping Pace With the Military-Technological Revolution," Issues in Science and Technology, Summer 1994; Andrew F. Krepinevich, "Cavalry to Computer: The Patterns of Military Revolutions," The National Interest, Fall 1994; and Michael G. Vickers, Warfare in 2020: A Primer (Washington, D.C.: Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 1996).

9. Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, Gulf War Air Power Survey: Summary Report (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993), p. 243. The ratio was derived by examining 12 representative sorties of F-117 and F-111F aircraft carrying PGMs with 12 sorties flown by aircraft delivering unguided bombs. The former covered 26 targets employing a total of 28 PGMs, while the latter covered two targets, expending 168 bombs.

10. Gen. Ronald R. Fogleman, "Getting the Air Force into the 21st Century." Speech delivered to the Air Force Association's Air Warfare Symposium (Orlando, Florida, Feb. 24, 1995). Many of these targets may not fit the criteria established for "strategic" targets.

11. See the U.S. Air Force vision document, Global Engagement (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Air Force, N.D.).

12. This includes $5.2 billion associated with maintaining 18 rather than 14 Trident ballistic missile submarines, and $550 million associated with maintaining rather than retiring 50 MX missiles. Gen. Eugene E. Habiger, commander in chief, U.S. Strategic Command, interview with Defense Writer's Group, Washington. D.C., March 31, 1998.

13. This estimate was derived based on a number of different sources, including: Congressional Budget Office (CBO), "Estimated Budgetary Impacts of Alternative Levels of Nuclear Forces," March 1998; CBO, letter to the Honorable Jesse Helms, May 4, 1995; and CBO, Preserving the Nuclear Weapons Stockpile Under a Comprehensive Test Ban (Washington, D.C.: CBO, May 1997). The largest savings would result from buying fewer Trident II missiles, avoiding the cost of backfitting early Trident submarines to accommodate the Trident II missile, reduced operations and support costs due to the smaller number of ICBMs and submarines in the force, and lower Energy Department costs resulting from a smaller warhead stockpile requirement.

14. Krepinevich, The Military Revolution, pp. 41–45, and Vickers, Warfare in 2020, pp. 13–14.

15. To maintain 2,000 operational warheads, some small number of additional warheads would be retained for maintenance, non-nuclear testing, and other purposes.

Andrew F. Krepinevich is the executive director, and Steven M. Kosiak is director of budget studies, at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, D.C. In 1997, Krepinevich served on the National Defense Panel.

Advances in precision-strike capabilities

The Defense Department is currently investigating, developing, or producing a wide variety of conventional capabilities that could revolutionize the way wars are fought in the future, substantially displacing nuclear weapons for many missions. These capabilities include:

• Conventional air-launched cruise missiles and other stand-off precision-guided munitions. These include a number of systems currently being developed, such as the short-range Joint Direct Attack Munition, the Joint Standoff Weapon, and the longer range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Weapon. (1)
• Hypersonic air-to-ground missiles ( the ideal means could be air- breathing systems powered by Am242m - italic is mine) that can more effectively attack mobile, time-critical targets and deep underground facilities from extended range. The U.S. Air Force is currently funding research and development for a planned M=8 hypersonic missile under the Fast Reaction Standoff Weapon program.
• Long-endurance weaponized unmanned aerial vehicles able to loiter over the battle space for extended periods. (2)
• Broad-area, conventional electromagnetic pulse and high-power microwave weapons, which, when "detonated over distant enemy-occupied battle zones, can produce upsetting or lethal effects in electronic equipment, sensor suites, and even personnel." (3)
• Miniature (speculative design concept) warheads incorporating advanced high explosives (four to five times more explosive power per pound than today), which will permit future strike platforms to carry several times as many weapons per sortie.

-A.F.K. & S.M.K.

1. See Robert Wall and David Fulghum, "Combat Weakness Triggers New Research," Aviation Week and Space Technology, February 16, 1998, p. 25.

2. The "UAV platform, sensor and weapons technology have all matured sufficiently to permit low risk, rapid, and low-cost development and application of weaponized UAVs in the near-term (1996–2005)," according to the U.S. Air Force Scientific Advisory Board's Report on UAV Technologies and Combat Operations (Washington, D.C.: Defense Department, 1996).

3. Board on Army Science and Technology, Commission on Engineering and Technical Systems, National Research Council, Star 21 Technology Forecast Assessments: Strategic Technologies for the Army of the Twenty-First Century (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1993), p. 503.

4. Brown, Richard K. "Nuclear Weapons Diagrams" http://www.enviroweb.org/issues/nuketesting/hew/Library/Brown/index.html

5. "Nuclear Explosive Devices" http://www.accutek.com/~moistner/homepg1.htm

6. Sublette, Carey "The High Energy Weapons Archive: A Guide to Nuclear Weapons" http://www.enviroweb.org/issues/nuketesting/hew/

7. "The Atomic Bomb" http://www.geocities.com/athens/agora/4526/index1.html