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“Our [nuclear] weapons are safe, reliable, and secure,” said Secretary of Defense Robert Gates at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; “the problem is the long term prognosis, which I would characterize as bleak.” Gates spoke of the United States’ effort to reduce its nuclear arsenal while at the same time maintaining a modern nuclear stockpile to deter enemies and enable allies to depend on the United States and not seek nuclear weapons of their own.

Gates spoke extensively on the United States’s effort to reduce its massive, aging Cold War nuclear stockpile. “Within a few years, we will have 75 percent fewer nuclear weapons than at the end of the cold war,” said Gates. He added that the United States must maintain a deterrent capacity in order to prevent rogue states such as Iran and North Korea from threatening their neighbors and US allies with nuclear, biological and chemical attacks. A large number of countries rely on United States’ arsenal of weapons for protection, and without the US deterrent these countries would seek to develop their own nuclear weapons.

The United States’s nuclear arsenal is badly dated, however. “No one has designed a new nuclear weapon since the 1980s, and no one has built a new one since the early 1990s,” said Gates; “...currently the United States is the only declared nuclear power that is neither modernizing its arsenal nor has the capability of producing a new warhead.” The nuclear weapons the US currently possesses were designed to have a limited shelf life, and while it is possible to extend the shelf life for a period, this method is not as effective as building new weapons.

The nuclear development program in the US is also experiencing a brain drain, as old scientists are retiring and young scientists have little experience designing and building nuclear weapons. “By some estimates within the next several years three quarters of the work force in nuclear engineering at the national laboratories will reach retirement age,” said Gates.

To try to improve the state of the US arsenal, the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy are pursuing a replacement warhead program, but Congress has refused to fund the program beyond its conceptual phase. “Let me be clear,” said Gates; “the program we propose is not about new nuclear capabilities...it is about safety, security and reliability.”