These preventive measures include funding for arms control and nonproliferation agreements, support for the International Atomic Energy Agency, and assistance to the former Soviet Republics to dismantle nuclear weapons and safeguard nuclear materials. The principal reason for the reduction in spending to prepare to fight a nuclear war is that research, development, and production of new nuclear weapons delivery systems has been greatly reduced. We can, however, expect the Republican-controlled Congress to once again try to resurrect the program in 1997 and force the Administration into procuring additional bombers that even the Pentagon does not want or need. There has not been much of a reduction in the amount of money spent by the Department of Energy on nuclear weapons activities. Scientists plan to bombard tritium and deuterium with laser beams in this football-sized complex to learn more about the effects of radiation which could be used to help scientists design new nuclear weapons with greater reliability, survivability, and lethality.
Scientists also plan to conduct subcritical tests in the Nevada desert.
Although neither NIF nor subcritical tests will violate the letter of the CTBT because no explosive yield will be generated, SBSS activities are widely viewed as a violation of the spirit of the treaty. The 1994 Nuclear Posture Review asserted that nuclear weapons are necessary for deterrence and contribute positively to the security of the United States and its allies. In order to deter any hostile nuclear state and to convince potential aggressors that seeking a nuclear advantage would be futile, the United States will retain strategic nuclear forces sufficient to hold at risk a broad range of assets valued by potentially hostile political and military leaders. The only difference from previous reports is the addition of the last sentence, which is less a result of the end of the Cold War than the pressure by the nonnuclear weapons states and the threshold nuclear weapons states to hold the United States and other members of the nuclear club to the commitments made in the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Principles and Objectives Statement of May 1995. In April 1996, the Pentagon released its successor to the Cold War era report, Soviet Military Power .