"Bunker Busters": Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator Issues, FY2005 and FY2006 Page: 4 of 23
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"Bunker Busters": Robust Nuclear Earth
Penetrator Issues, FY2005 and FY2006
Background
Potential adversaries and others have built hardened underground facilities to
protect key assets. Conventional weapons are unable to destroy many such facilities,
though opinions differ on whether nonnuclear means can disable or isolate them.
Surface-burst nuclear weapons would have limited effectiveness against such
facilities. In contrast, a weapon that burrows into the ground a few meters before
detonating would be more effective because it would transfer much more of its
energy into the ground. Accordingly, the Department of Defense (DOD) and the
National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the Department of Energy (DOE)
agency in charge of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, have requested funds to study
the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP).
RNEP has been the most controversial nuclear weapon program in Congress for
the last several years. Supporters argue that it is needed to attack hard and deeply
buried targets (such as leadership bunkers) in countries of concern, thereby deterring
or defeating challenges from such nations; critics assert that RNEP would lower the
threshold for use of nuclear weapons and prompt other nations to develop nuclear
weapons to deter U.S. attack. For FY2003, Congress provided $15.0 million as
requested, but for FY2004, it reduced the request from $15.0 million to $7.5 million,
and for FY2005 it eliminated RNEP funding. For FY2006, the Administration
requests $4.0 million for NNSA and $4.5 million for DOD to study RNEP.
This report presents a brief technical background on RNEP, then discusses the
history of RNEP in Congress and the Administration for the FY2005 and FY2006
budget cycles. For a more extensive history and technical background, see CRS
Report RL32130, Nuclear Weapon Initiatives: Low-Yield R&D, Advanced Concepts,
Earth Penetrators, Test Readiness. See also CRS Report RL32599, 'Bunker
Busters': Sources of Confusion in the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator Debate.
Technical AspectsThe United States has one type of nuclear earth penetrator, the B61-11 bomb,
which was accepted into the stockpile in September 2001.1 That weapon, though,
according to an article by several scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory,
"cannot survive delivery into certain types of terrain in which such [hardenedI "B61-11 Enters the Stockpile," Weapons Insider: A Publication of the Nuclear Weapons
Program, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Sept./Oct. 2001, p. 2.
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Medalia, Jonathan. "Bunker Busters": Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator Issues, FY2005 and FY2006, report, August 2, 2005; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metacrs6833/m1/4/?q=%22weapons+systems%22: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.