Nuclear weapons, while simple in principle, are technically complex devices with a multitude of components. As with any complicated piece of equipment, there may be concern that, over time, a weapon’s reliability could decline. To coordinate efforts to maintain the nation’s existing nuclear weapons, the Department of Energy developed a Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP). A recently released Federation of American Scientists Occasional Paper, The Stockpile Stewardship Program: Fifteen Years On, by FAS analysts Anne Fitzpatrick and Ivan Oelrich, reviews the status of the experimental devices that support the SSP, describes how each experiment is supposed to work, and identifies the problems that have been encountered.
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Jun 01
