U.S. Defense Department Seeks to Convert 24 Trident Nuclear Missiles for Conventional Use

NTI: The U.S. Defense Department has requested $500 million to convert 24 nuclear-armed Trident missiles into conventional rockets weapons of striking any location in the world within an hour, the Washington Post reported today

Trident missiles armed with conventional warheads would offer a non-nuclear alternative in a crisis where time is of the essence, U.S. defense officials said.

The Pentagon would begin deploying the missiles in 2008.

The “prompt global strike” capability is needed to address terrorism, underground military facilities and other burgeoning threats for which nuclear weapons are “not appropriate,” a senior defense official said. He added that the weapon would be capable of penetrating the ground more deeply than other conventional weapons, making it a possible alternative to the controversial proposed Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator.

However, other nations could misconstrue such a long-range conventional missile attack as a nuclear strike, the official acknowledged.

“Will it be interpreted as having a nuclear warhead and elicit … a nuclear response?” said the official. A troubling scenario “is that they do see it, then they misinterpret it,” he said.

Nuclear experts said such a scenario was likely as U.S. submarines could be armed with both conventional and nuclear Tridents.

“If we did end up in a crisis where things were really tense, this decision about what is coming at you could be essential,” said Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at the Federation of American Scientists.

The official said the Pentagon seeks debate on the issue, the Post reported.

“We’ve done the testing” and developed one of two planned warheads, he said (Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post, March 8).

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North Korea Again Refuses to Resume Six-Party Nuclear Talks Following U.S. Briefing


North Korea yesterday renewed its pledge to boycott nuclear disarmament negotiations after a meeting with U.S. officials on Pyongyang’s alleged financial crimes, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, March 7).

U.S. Treasury Department officials told a visiting North Korean delegation that actions against a Macau-based bank were regulatory moves “to protect the U.S. financial system from abuse, and not a sanction on North Korea,” an agency statement says.

Following the briefing in New York, Ri Gun, director general of the North Korean Foreign Ministry’s American affairs bureau, said North Korea would not resume nuclear negotiations.

“Our position is consistent that (North Korea) cannot return to the talks in the midst of the continued pressure (from the United States),” said Ri, who led the North Korean delegation at the meeting (Associated Press/USA Today, March 8).