Ranger from the North

The United States is currently looking into the development of a nuclear bunker busting bomb for use in possible future conflicts against targets buried deep underground. Weapons of mass destruction research and storage facilities in hostile nations such as North Korea and Iran are most likely located in such places. OpinionJournal discusses the advantages of the nuclear bunker buster and Senator Kerry's misguided opposition to its development. Excerpts follow:

The U.S. may have history's most advanced military, but it's not powerful enough to reach deeply buried targets. North Korea, Iran and others understand this, which is why they have buried things they want to keep out of U.S. target range.

A source in a position to know tells us there are several hundred underground installations of serious concern in about a dozen countries, and a thousand or more that should be considered a risk. These include sites containing weapons of mass destruction. Non-nuclear bunker busters, of the sort the U.S. sold to Israel last month, can penetrate only about 15 feet of hard rock. While a nuclear explosion above ground might do the trick, it could also kill tens of thousands, or more, depending on the area and the wind currents.

A much smaller nuclear bomb detonated deep underground, where fallout could be contained, could conceivably do the job at far less loss of life.

The editorial continues,

The strategic purpose here is to give a President more options in dealing with WMD threats. Critics of these bunker-busting weapons would leave a President with the choice of either backing down from a confrontation with a rogue regime, or using an airborne nuke that would risk killing millions of civilians or a huge conventional raid that risked the lives of American soldiers. An accurate bunker buster would give U.S. decision makers a way to destroy the threat with less collateral damage and fewer casualties.

Mr. Kerry argues that even U.S. research sets a bad example for Pyongyang, Tehran and other would-be nuclear states. But that equates American motives with those of our enemies. The problem isn't the weapons themselves but who has them. We don't worry that France and Britain are nuclear powers--OK, maybe a little about the French--but we are concerned if WMD gets in the hands of a lunatic (Saddam) or an ideological regime bent on dominating part of the world (Iran). If these countries think we have bunker busters, they may be less inclined to invest the money to build weapons that they know are vulnerable to attack.

The nuclear bunker buster is a necessary addition to the U.S. arsenal during the Global War on Terror. Therefore, no one should be surprised that Senator Kerry opposes it.