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Nuclear Arms Buildup Isn’t Just about War. It Also Harms People and Communities.

Congress’ comprehensive nuclear review is 160 pages long. It doesn’t mention “waste” once.

• NUCLEAR WEAPONS
• COMMENTARY

INKSTICK, WORDS: LAURA CONSIDINE, PICTURES: BRIAN STANSBERRY,  JANUARY 10, 2024

In October 2023, the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States released its final report on “America’s Strategic Posture.” This congressionally mandated review of US nuclear strategy, policy and posture concluded that “America’s defense strategy and strategic posture must change in order to properly defend its vital interests and improve strategic stability with China and Russia.” 

The commission thus came to the conclusion that the US needed to go beyond its current modernization plan to develop a capability “to deter and defeat both” Russia and China “simultaneously.” This includes modifying the US strategic force posture to address larger numbers of targets and changing the posture on so-called “theater” nuclear weapons to allow for the US to engage in two simultaneous nuclear conflicts in Europe and Asia. While not every recent official report has advocated an arms buildup, the prevailing wisdom in policy and commentary circles is acceptance of a “coming arms race.”

The prevalence of this acceptance of arms racing and nuclear war fighting talk does not simply reflect the world we are in, it has political power to influence that world, to provoke action and reaction. This language has consequences. A new buildup of nuclear weapons and talk of nuclear war fighting is obviously dangerous because we know there is no winner of a nuclear war, never mind two. But even if those weapons are never used, they have impacts on the places and peoples in which they are produced.

Waste

I have recently spent a month conducting research in New Mexico, a state that has borne many of the consequences of the development of US nuclear weapons. In New Mexico, uranium miners and downwinders who lived near the very first nuclear test are not only dealing with generations of cancers caused by the nuclear weapons complex and the Trinity Test but have also had to fight for years to be included in government compensation schemes, a battle that is still ongoing.

Such harms are not mentioned in the recent Strategic Posture Commission Report. The report encourages an expansion of “the US nuclear weapons defense industrial base and the DOE/NNSA nuclear security enterprise, including weapons science, design, and production infrastructure” and “the full range of NNSA’s recapitalization efforts, such as pit production and all operations related to critical materials.” As such, it takes a “comprehensive” approach to what it deems necessary for its strategic recommendations including infrastructure, supply chain and labor issues. At no point in its 160 pages, however, does the report mention the word waste. 

This is not the first comprehensive report on nuclear weapons that ignores the fact that weapons production has consequences beyond the strategic. Nuclear waste has long been an afterthought in weapons production, subservient to the demands of geopolitics. The Cold War nuclear arms race in the United States created “some of the world’s most dangerous radioactive sites with large amounts of radioactive wastes, spent nuclear fuel (SNF), excess plutonium and uranium, thousands of contaminated facilities, and contaminated soil and groundwater,” according to the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Environmental Management.

A new weapons buildup means more nuclear waste when the US government has not adequately funded the vast clean-up from the last arms buildup, not just in New Mexico but all over the country and beyond. The Department of Energy is responsible for the ongoing cleanup of 16 US sites and the management of 102 other legacy sites. DOE spending on these sites has remained relatively flat and will continue so according to proposed five-year appropriations for defense environmental cleanup, going from $7.07 billion for 2024 to $7.62 billion in 2028. This is despite the fact that cleanup consistently costs more and takes longer than planned and costs continue to rise sharply. The amounts of money spent are already staggering but still pale in comparison to what is needed. The GAO estimates for the site in Hanford, Washington alone are estimated to be up to $640 billion. This shows that waste is not a postscript to weapons production but an immense and expensive primary outcome.

A new nuclear weapons buildup also has serious consequences across multiple socioeconomic issues. To give just one example, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) is already hiring 2,500 new workers to respond to the current call to produce 30 new plutonium pits per year. These workers come into an area in New Mexico where housing is already scarce and expensive, and infrastructure cannot support commuters. This then has devastating knock-on effects for those who live in nearby areas and do not benefit from the higher-than-local average LANL technical salaries. LANL expansion heightens the already stark economic inequalities of New Mexico where the median household income in Los Alamos County (one of the richest in the US) is more than twice that of neighboring Rio Arriba and Taos counties. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

High-profile reports, such as “America’s Strategic Posture,” do not simply reflect the likelihood of an arms race — they contribute to it. As such, fatalism about nuclear buildup and potential nuclear war, as Brodie noted many years ago, neglects the fact that “great powers” do not simply react to the world as it is but make choices that shape it. New Mexicans have long had to live with the everyday consequences of such choices. https://inkstickmedia.com/nuclear-arms-buildup-isnt-just-about-war-it-also-harms-people-and-communities/

January 11, 2024 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | USA, weapons and war