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Dear friends and colleagues -- 

Our most recent Bulletin (372): Movie/discussion nights, challenge coins, working with the Study Group, Trump's foreign "policy", Jan 21, 2026

We will be having a Zoom discussion about the Trump Administration's nuclear weapons policy and the likely demise of New START limits this Thursday 2/5/26 at noon, Mountain Time. If you are interested in participating please email Trish and she will send you a Zoom link.

Dear friends and colleagues -- 

Apologies for what may be a fairly informal Bulletin, but I want to get this out today. I have just returned from Washington, DC, where I attended the so-called "Nuclear Deterrence Summit" (NDS) and went to a few offices on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. The theme of the Summit was "Accelerating the Mission: Delivering Deterrence with Urgency." The common tagline on many slide decks was "Peace through Atomic Strength" 

It was an apt description. There were dozens of speakers from the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), STRATCOM, and the contractors who spend >95% of NNSA's appropriations, and what they had to say was eye-opening. 

The nuclear weapons enterprise often speaks in code and euphemisms and always in jargon. I have many pages of notes, and hours of audio recordings, but transcribing and translating into common English takes time, so for the first part of this Bulletin I will let ExchangeMonitor Publications, which organized the conference and kindly allowed me to attend, describe some of what transpired. Even long-time observers of U.S. nuclear weapons programs may learn from these articles: 

• W80-5 “just came up,” will go on SLCM-N, weapons directors say, Sarah Salem, Jan 30, 2026
• NNSA No. 2 committed to a “two-site solution” for pits, needs SRS support, Exchange Monitor, Jan 30, 2026
• NNSA shifting to a “culture of urgency” and “production mindset”, Exchange Monitor, Jan 30, 2026
• With study done, Wyka says Los Alamos working with tribes, Exchange Monitor, Jan 30, 2026
• Director says LANL exceeds pit production objectives, Exchange Monitor, Jan 29, 2026 
• USAF considers modular missile silos for Sentinel, Cramer says new silos “well settled”, Exchange Monitor, Jan 28, 2026

There was more, all of which we can discuss this coming Thursday on Zoom. Meanwhile these highlights may be useful, all from speeches by senior NNSA officials except as noted. Exact quotations need to be double-checked. 

• "We are closer to a nuclear exchange than at any time during the Cold War." So said Admiral Pappano, Principle Deputy NNSA Administrator. Administrator Williams: "We have crossed the threshold into a new world."

• The U.S. nuclear weapons program is "moving faster than at any time in 30 years." Another speaker: "We are going to be doing things we haven't done in 50 years." NNSA will be "vastly different."

• The nuclear warhead for the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile (SLCM-N), now called the "W80-5," took only 18 months to proceed to Phase 6.3 (development engineering). NNSA expects the W80-5 to be deployed by FY2032, two years earlier than required by statute.

• As reported elsewhere, the B61-13 high-yield precision gravity bomb has entered production. This was accomplished in part by skipping heretofore-required flight tests. This was possible because the B61-12 system, on which the new bomb is based, is well-understood. Development of this new bomb was, two speakers said, Los Alamos National Laboratory's (LANL's) idea. 

• In the first quarter of this fiscal year, LANL "produced more pits than expected," begging the question of how many were "expected." Meanwhile LANL's progress on installing production equipment is, NNSA and LANL variously claimed, proceeding 2-3 times as fast as it did before LANL moved to 24/7 work in its plutonium facility. As was already understood, production of 30 pits per year (ppy) is likely to occur for the first time in fiscal year 2028 (FY28), two years after the statutory requirement of FY26 (i.e. this year). However, as Pappano said, "we're not pressurized on pit production for the program of record," which provides more time to install equipment for higher production levels. 

Instead of just 30 ppy, NNSA is now looking at "30 plus, 60 plus, 100 pits" per year at LANL. We want to make sure we exploit LANL to the best of our ability, set it up for the long run, and "maximize pit production" coming out of LANL.

While NNSA remains committed to two pit production sites, NNSA also believes "some of the framing assumptions have changed." In addition to completing the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF) in South Carolina, NNSA also now wants the Savannah River Site (SRS) to help LANL make pits, perhaps by helping with training or by helping with processing plutonium feedstock for LANL. NNSA also wants the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to assist LANL's pit production. While elements of this proposal were known before now, the ambition to use these sites to help LANL reach as much as 100 ppy is a new concept. After proposing this help, when asked NNSA officials claimed to not know exactly how these sites would help. NNSA seeks to "take full advantage of LANL's plutonium facility floor area" for pit production, as soon as possible. It's "all sites on deck," said NNSA. 

It may also be that LANL needs all these contributions to make any significant number of pits at all. In either case, NNSA will be asking all these sites to share in so-far very bountiful pit production appropriations. 

This vastly wasteful two-factory pit plan, which as of last July we estimated would cost $49-$58 billion to acquire, was the unfortunate product of pressure from the New Mexico delegation, given that NNSA had already ruled never to use LANL's PF-4 for enduring pit production. (Videos of some key hearings in 2019). This is almost an order of magnitude more costly than NNSA estimated back in 2017. 

From Administrator Williams: NNSA will be "bringing "full-rate production to Los Alamos, and then to SRS."

LANL requirements in the human reliability program (HRP) are being "restructured," i.e. loosened, as are requirements for plutonium inventory and accounting. NNSA estimates the latter change will enable LANL pit production to operate for an additional 6 weeks per year, as substantial increase. Taking "2,000" employees out of the HRP program will make it easier to hire and retain staff, and save $37 million. 

LANL is making it much easier for workers to get into the plutonium facility, which by now is operating with at least 10 times the worker population it was originally designed for (around 100 workers). 

• The whole NNSA weapons complex is as of now more "risk-accepting." This refers not just to safety, but it does apply to safety as well. To the extent possible, "right-sizing" safety regulations applies or will soon apply to the entire edifice of Department of Energy (DOE) regulations, orders, and standards to the extent legally possible. National Public Radio had an excellent article about this on Wednesday. 
  

• At LANL, the allowable annual radiation dose for workers has been increased from 1 rem (the previous "administrative control limit," ACL) to 5 rem, which is the maximum dose allowed under 10 CFR 835 (Occupational Radiation Protection). 
  

On January 9 of this year the Secretary of Energy gave the green light to eliminate the "as low as reasonably achievable" (ALARA) principle in DOE orders and standards to protect workers and the public. To change this principle in federal regulations will require formal notice and comment procedures, which have not begun. 

The "prime mover" in this change was the DOE Office of Nuclear Energy, but NNSA also asked (and received) this approval for this change. On Friday I discussed some of these changes with the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board (DNFSB) at their headquarters. This is a rapidly evolving situation. 

To pick another example that was mentioned, the long-proposed Material Staging Facility (MSF) at Pantex -- a bunker for nuclear weapons and pits -- will be seeking an exemption from (some parts of) 10 CFR 830 ("Nuclear Safety Management"). 

• New nuclear weapons are desired in this decade to deter China. "Every year matters." Schedule is now the dominant consideration at NNSA.

• There are proposals before the Nuclear Weapons Council that will add nuclear weapons capabilities to the stockpile. The new weapons will be "unique," and perhaps made in smaller numbers, for directed and specific mission needs.

• NNSA has a couple of projects they are working on that need (a) delivery vehicle(s). There are advantages to developing new weapons at the labs prior to requests from the Department of War, but as soon as a military partner and delivery vehicle are defined, work on production processes can and should begin. 

• "Rapid production capability" is a particular focus, aiming at a 3-year development cycle, with 2 more years to initial operational capability.

• This rapid production will "signal resolve" to our adversaries. NNSA anticipates "two decades" of arms racing, in so many words. This will involve "wholesale transformation of the enterprise" and the aforementioned "rapid design cycles." NNSA's overall focus is now on weapons delivery, not "stewardship" or "life-extension." LLNL: "The stewardship era is coming to an end." SNL: We must get "capabilities to the warfighter."

• Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is to be inserted into the design (and production) processes to facilitate all this. More than 20 AI projects have been launched. Meanwhile, Livermore's El Capitan supercomputer will speed design calculations by a factor of more than 20. At LANL, the coupling of AI with LANL's Venado computer will also increase overall speed by a comparable amount (LANL said). 

• Several "Phase 1" (conceptual) studies have begun at the labs, including new weapons to defeat hard and deeply buried targets (HDBT) and warhead(s) to be delivered with a "next-generation" reentry vehicles. 

• NNSA's rapid capability team will identify weapons "needs" in quantities of 10s, not just 100s as at present. 

• Current warhead and bomb timetables were provided, including some retrofits new to us. 

• As is well-known, the binder for the insensitive high explosives (IHE) used in most U.S. nuclear weapons contains toxic PFAS ("forever") chemicals. The 3M corporation has agreed to make IHE binder for another year, during which NNSA can presumably stockpile this material while continuing development of a substitute.

• For the SRPPF in South Carolina, NNSA's larger and more enduring pit production facility currently under design and construction, "Design Gate 3" (design 90% complete) was reached this past Wednesday 1/28/26, with Design Gate 4 (design 100% complete) estimated to be achieved by 9/30/26. A complete package of documents supporting what DOE calls "Critical Decision (CD) 2" (completion of preliminary design) and CD-3 (initiation of construction) was also supposedly delivered to DOE this week. The contractor (Fluor) is working on ten early-phase construction packages right now. 

There was a lot more but this is enough for now. 

Greg Mello, for the Study Group