Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Nuke bunker busters make more sense than Kerry

Opinion Journal:

Among the wonkish mysteries unveiled by the Presidential debates has been the "bunker buster" question. More than once, John Kerry has charged that, as a sign of President Bush's warlike recklessness, he is "spending hundreds of millions of dollars" to research "bunker-busting nuclear weapons." Since he brought this up, readers might want to know what's really going on.

First, the Bush Administration isn't pursuing new nuclear weapons. It is conducting a feasibility study on the possibility of modifying an existing nuclear weapon into one capable of penetrating rock--a different matter. Development would require a decision by the President and approval by Congress. This was the case during the Clinton Administration, when the B-61 bomb was modified so that it could blast through frozen soil.

Second, the amount the Administration is seeking isn't "hundreds of millions" but is $27.5 million for the fiscal year that just started. It spent $6.5 million in 2003 and $7.5 million in 2004.

And it probably should be spending more. The U.S. may have history's most advanced military, but it's not powerful enough to reach deeply buried targets. North Korea, Iran and others understand this, which is why they have buried things they want to keep out of U.S. target range.

...Non-nuclear bunker busters, of the sort the U.S. sold to Israel last month, can penetrate only about 15 feet of hard rock. While a nuclear explosion aboveground might do the trick, it could also kill tens of thousands, or more, depending on the area and the wind currents.

A much smaller nuclear bomb detonated deep underground, where fallout could be contained, could conceivably do the job at far less loss of life. Some U.S. scientists are even talking about nuclear fusion bombs, which, unlike nuclear fission explosions, have little or no radioactive material.

The strategic purpose here is to give a President more options in dealing with WMD threats. Critics of these bunker-busting weapons would leave a President with thechoice of either backing down from a confrontation with a rogue regime, or using an airborne nuke that would risk killing millions of civilians or a huge conventional raid that risked the lives of American soldiers. An accurate bunker buster would give U.S. decision makers a way to destroy the threat with less collateral damage and fewer casualties.

...

More broadly, U.S. strategy in a world of nuclear proliferation has to include assurance as much as deterrence. That is, while we want to dissuade our enemies from building WMD, we also want to assure our allies that we have the capability to defend them so they (e.g. Japan) don't feel obliged to build nuclear weapons of their own. If we stay on the cutting edge of nuclear technology, our allies will have more confidence in our defense umbrella. We'll end up with less proliferation as a result.

Kerry wants the US to have no plan "B" when he is unable to sweet talk the Norks out of their nukes.