Dollars and Warheads

If the Pentagon orders a nuclear warhead for a job that conventional weapons could handle just as well, it usually gets the warhead--no questions asked.

That is one important finding of a presidential advisory panel’s long look at the way such decisions are made. And it recommends, among other things, taking a leaf from the Navy’s book that asks searching questions before it lets nuclear weapons take the place of conventional weapons.

Since 1954 the services have ordered their bombers, missiles and other hardware directly, but nuclear warheads can come only from the Department of Energy. Defense describes its needs, Energy builds the warheads and pays for them--a job for which $7 billion is budgeted for the next fiscal year.

The system was created by the Atomic Energy Act to ensure civilian control over nuclear weapons of all kinds. In practice, according to Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia, ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, “There is a built-in incentive for the Department of Energy to build the most expensive warhead possible and to build as many as possible. The Defense Department is not constrained to consider cost in setting warhead requirements because (the Energy Department) funds the warhead costs.”

Congress pressed for the presidential panel, which was headed by William P. Clark, President Reagan’s former national-security adviser. Its findings are doubly interesting because its members are plainly defense-oriented.

The panel recommended that nuclear-weapons development and production remain in the Energy budget, but under a revised arrangement aimed at forcing the Pentagon to consider costs in outlining its annual nuclear requirements.

As things stand, according to the commission, the Pentagon makes weapons choices “without formally considering the Energy Department’s nuclear-weapons costs” and how these compare with costs for alternative non-nuclear weapons.

It urged wider use of a Navy policy that says, in part, “nuclear weapons should not serve as substitutes for conventional weapons where improved conventional weapons will suffice.”

Conventional weapons already are replacing nuclear weapons in some cases. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for example, reduced the number of tactical warheads in Europe by 1,000 in the late 1970s. Withdrawal of an additional 1,400 was ordered two years ago.

It may someday be possible to eliminate nuclear weapons, but they are going to be with the world for a long time to come. That being the case, it is important to grab every opportunity to replace them with conventional weapons--moves that have the added benefit of cutting costs. The advisory panel has recommended institutional and budgetary changes toward these ends. Congress should take the recommendations very seriously.