Is This The New Manhattan Project?

The US Air Force and National Nuclear Security Administration tested a B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb last month which has raised alarms of a throwback to the Manhattan project which started the age of nuclear annihilation.

The $11 billion program which seeks to upgrade the B61-12 bombwith precision guidance ability has had commentators in Russia and China and some in the US claim that it will trigger another arms race, an euphemism to mean that the two nuclear powers may go on to develop a similar weapon, if not already having it in their arsenal.

The development program itself can be seen as a violation of the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons agreement enacted in 1970 precisely to prevent the development of hybrid nuclear weapons.

The new B61-12 will be more dangerous than the earlier free-falling gravity bombs as it has a guided tail kit and internal guidance system that can mark the target path more accurately.

According to a Federation of American Scientists (FAS) report by Hans Kristensen, B61-12: The New Guided Standoff Nuclear Bomb, published in 2014, the bomb is a consolidate of four existing versions (B61-3, -4, -7, 10) into one type.

The new bomb will be mounted on US strategic bombers in the United States, US fighter-bombers deployed in Europe, and NATO fighter-bombers. It will use smallest B61 warhead (B61-4 with 0.3-50 kilotons) to reduce HEU available to theft and reduce total stockpile (gravity bomb inventory would decline by 53 percent). Nearly 3,000 were built since 1963. An estimated 825 remain today.

US has six bases in five NATO countries, four bases in US and eight other facilities that can be used for deploying B61. Despite reduced readiness compared with Cold War, weapons are stored near delivery aircraft. As of 2014, US Nuclear weapon bases were at Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey in Europe.

Although officially the upgrade program is not a new nuclear bomb but simply a life-extension of an existing version and has no new military capabilities, it does have guided military capabilities.

The improved capabilities of B61-12 bomb and F-35 stealth fighter undercuts efforts to make Russia reduce its non-strategic nuclear weapons; signals that it is acceptable for Russia to modernize its non-strategic nuclear weapons as well. Russia’s inferior conventional forces may force it to adapt non-strategic nuclear weapons, the FAS report says.