One bit of good news before it gets too far away

Just over two weeks ago, AP reported that the Shrub team has abandoned research into a nuclear "bunker-buster" warhead. Known as the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, it was designed to burrow into the ground before exploding, putting what are known as "hard targets" - missile silos, reinforced bunkers, and the like - at risk.

Congress had been cool to the idea, to the extent that the House blocked funding and the Senate approved only a scaled-back request of $4 million for initial research. Now the White House has given up on it.

"This is a true victory for a more rational nuclear policy," said Stephen Young, a senior analyst for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nuclear nonproliferation advocacy group. "The proposed weapon, more than 70 times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, would have caused unparalleled collateral damage."

But of course, these days no bit of good news can go untainted: The Shrub gang hasn't given up on the idea, just on using nukes to do it.

"The focus will now be with the Defense Department and its research into earth-penetrating technology using conventional weaponry," [Sen. Pete] Domenici [R-NM] said in a statement. The nuclear security administration "indicated that this research should evolve around more conventional weapons, rather than tactical nuclear devices," the senator said.

The Shrub gang insists that this is a vital, absolutely necessary weapon in the War On Terrorism^{(c)(reg.)(pat.pend.)} - a classic case of old wine in new bottles: The idea for the weapon was originally broached in the context of a nuclear targeting strategy called "decapitation" which aimed to "win" a nuclear war by destroying an enemy's C³I, it's "Command, Control, Communications, and Intelligence."

And in fact its usefulness against tunnels and such used by irregular forces is limited at best and its potential as a first-strike weapon in a major conflict much greater: Even as a "conventional" weapon, an RNEP by definition threatens hardened targets, and sites such as missile silos and command centers of a national adversary, precisely because they are fixed and used long-term, are much easier to pinpoint and thus more vulnerable than the ad hoc contrivances of terrorist groups.

9/11 didn't "change everything." It just changed the arguments.