Obama vs. Gates RRW Showdown

Mark Thompson published a piece in Time yesterday discussing the looming battle between Obama and Gates over the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program.  While Gates has repeatedly called for the RRW and defended its merits throughout the fall, the White House website actualized an Obama pledege against new weapons by stating the United States, "will stop the development of new nuclear weapons."  Period.  Thompson summarizes the standoff by arguing,

 Obama would have a difficult time reversing course on what is now a stated policy of his Administration instead of simply a campaign promise. And any move to produce new nuclear weapons will be read by other nations as a U.S. push for nuclear supremacy, even as Washington urges the rest of the world - Tehran, are you listening? - to do without the weapons. Russia would very likely respond by upgrading its own arsenal.  But Gates argues that building a new generation of more reliable nuclear warheads would give the U.S. the confidence to shrink its overall nuclear arsenal. After all, if you have only a 50% level of confidence that a nuclear weapon is going to perform as advertised, you'll need twice as many

Given the lack of official press on either meetings between Gates and Obama on the issue or a compromise to the competing ideas the RRW issue could be an early hot button issue to set the tone for the interaction between Gates and Obama throughout the administration. Thompson ultimately concludes that loose nukes are the largest terrorist threat and so, "A new batch of nuclear weapons, unfortunately, isn't going to change that."  While many people agree that nuclear terrorism may be the most likely short term risk, there are also large parts of the military and Washington that clearly think the United States will need to maintain a credible deterrence for an indefinite period of time and RRW could be one way to help ensure that.