April 03, 2005
The strange case of the W-76s
In strange juxtaposition, today's Sunday NYTimes carried (a)an article in its magazine by Tom Friedman deploring the state of American secondary education, and the U.S.'s ability to compete in innovative, technologically sophisticated, and increasingly Chinese and Indian-dominated fields requiring enormous investments in human capital and (b) a frontpage article by William Broad describing the fierce debate over the aging backbone of the U.S. tactical nuclear arsenal -- the W-76.
Friedman's thesis is quite simple (drawn from "The World is Flat," his most recent book, coming out this week)-- the method to compete globally in coming years will be innovation; competition will require significant investment in technical understanding -- and, perhaps more importantly, societal focus on education, creativity, and innovation. This is, of course, a pretty significant change away from the competitive field of the cold war -- which, apparently, is the field in which the nuclear gamers of Broad's article still play.
The W-76 was a smallish nuke developed in the early 1970's for destroying targets like military bases. The warheads are now the primary weapon for the U.S. nuclear sub fleet, sitting atop hundreds of missiles hidden beneath the waves worldwide. Approximately 1,500 of the 5,000 or so nukes in the U.S. active arsenal are W-76's. As Broad observes, the weapon's genesis came when "American bomb makers sought to win the arms race with designs that made nuclear arms lightweight, very powerful and in some cases so small that a dozen or more could fit atop a slender missile." And now they need updating, at a projected cost of about $2BB.
The telling irony of this is that while other countries' leaders and students are investing to level the innovation playing field, many of our government's leaders are re-investing in weapons systems that can, in a flash, flatten it, them, and anything else that happens to lie within 7400km of a major waterway.
Posted by Sam Hodges at 06:19 PM
