John Scott of Los Alamos National Laboratory Weighs in on the Changing Nuclear Landscape

You started at Los Alamos in 1998 as a postdoc in the weapons-design division after completing a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering at UC Berkeley. Why did you choose to work at a national lab as opposed to industry, government, or academia?

It was a natural choice for me. As a graduate student in Berkeley, I did my dissertation project at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and my advisor was doing a sabbatical at Los Alamos. The labs provide a unique opportunity to join a wide swath of multidisciplinary projects, unlike in a small research group at a university. I also have a family history of serving in the military, so working in a national lab was a way to serve my country.

I often hear that at the national labs, there is a mission-driven flavor to the work and a strong sense of being part of a team. Is that what it feels like for you?

The national labs are all about the team atmosphere and the core mission. When I first came to the lab, I was immediately part of a team working on experiments and have been joining new teams ever since. At Los Alamos, the core mission is the stewardship of the nuclear stockpile. But we have a very broad national security mandate to do the underpinning science for big issues on a national and global scale.

The division you lead—X-Theoretical Design (XTD)—is a successor to the original Manhattan Project. Can you tell us about the work that you do?

XTD’s core responsibility is the design, assessment, and certification of the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile. We have a roster of 220 very capable individuals who apply technical skills to assess the performance of nuclear weapons. Not only do we have to understand how big the “boom” is, we have to understand how safety works in a nuclear weapon, too. One of the biggest challenges in weapons design is ensuring that it will only work when you want it to.

Our work is both challenging and rewarding. You get to explore science that occurs only in places like the center of the sun. My colleagues are very dedicated to what they do, in both weapons design and open science.

Can you briefly summarize the state of play for nuclear weapons in the United States?

Right now, we have a stockpile that came into existence in the late-1980s. We have modernized only portions of it. We are currently taking this stockpile and refreshing it with more current technologies. We’re also considering new additions to account for how the world has changed.

Speaking of a changing world, in 2020, Los Alamos director, Thom Mason, established the Director’s Strategic Resilience Initiative (DSRI), a new multidisciplinary effort to ensure that the nuclear deterrent not only addresses the threats we face today, but those emerging down the line. He appointed you to lead the initiative. What’s the mission of the DSRI, and what accomplishments are you most proud of?

DSRI comes from the realization that the world’s geopolitical landscape has changed significantly since the Cold War, and even since President Obama’s 2009 Prague speech, which called for a world without nuclear weapons. Acknowledging this change, DSRI brings together resources from across the lab on projects that maintain the efficacy of the stockpile. We’ve also organized a set of workshops with U.S. government officials and experts in academia on the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense, escalation management, and arms control, with the goal of establishing convening authority for these policy discussions, just like after the original Manhattan project.

IGCC works to bridge the gap between academia and the policy space—and you’ve spent your career straddling those spaces. I think some people imagine that there are scientists, on the one hand, and policymakers on the other who make decisions about how the science is used. But what you’re describing sounds more collaborative.

For nuclear weapons, the policy folks and the technical folks have to talk, because the risks are so great. Policymakers are going to decide about use, but they need to understand what the consequences are. Technical people provide those answers to help guide the right policy decisions.

For a long time, the narrative about the national labs was that they were the only places to do “big science,” especially in areas with a high risk of failure or uncertain time frames. As organizations in the public and private sectors begin taking on big moonshot projects, how is the role of the labs evolving?

Labs are still a place to do big science. The National Ignition Facility and its achievement of fusion ignition is the perfect example—huge cost, big risk it may not work.

But we’re adapting to an environment where industry is stepping up to take on high-risk, high-reward projects. For example, with the rise of SpaceX, a number of startups have launched that specialize in rockets. We can partner with them on testing.

Another example is artificial intelligence (AI). At the lab, we’re trying to figure out how AI can help our mission and are partnering with industry to do so.

Are there risks to partnering with industry?

The risks come down to whether they’ll deliver. You mitigate that by starting small to gain confidence and learn each other’s capabilities. It’s about developing a long-term relationship to do great things together, as opposed to the lab taking it all on.

When you speak with recent grads who are making choices about their careers, how do you pitch working at a lab?

The 21st century is very different from the end of the 20th. We need to think differently and get a different generation of people engaged.

Los Alamos has over 12,000 employees spread over 50 square miles of beautiful landscape in northern New Mexico. The technical disciplines here span the biochemical, material, and physical sciences. If you come here, you’re going to work on fascinating multidisciplinary projects—and have a lot of fun doing so. I encourage students to come spend a summer at Los Alamos. We recruit heavily from the postdoc pool, so it’s a great opportunity.

Working with Brad Roberts of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, June Yu at the UC Office of the President, and Neil Narang at IGCC, you were one of the founders of a new Postdoctoral Fellowship on Emerging Technology and National Security. Why is this such an important topic for collaboration between UC and the two labs?

It gets back to Los Alamos’ origins. The atomic bomb is the classic example of an emerging technology and national security challenge. The labs and UC are all working at the cutting edge of technology, and understanding the policy implications of these technologies is important. It’s also important that the labs and UC partner to make sure that future policy and technical professionals have experience engaging with each other.

With Neil Narang, you are spearheading a project that looks at the requirements for assuring allies under the U.S. nuclear umbrella in East Asia and beyond. What inspired you to look at the question of nuclear assurance?

One of the biggest policy challenges for the United States has been protecting our allies via extended deterrence. Deterrence is all about dissuading your adversary from doing something. The flip side of that is assurance—whether actions taken to deter adversaries actually assure allies.

In NATO, extended deterrence includes the threat to use nuclear weapons against adversaries who attack a NATO member. But in East Asia, there is no NATO. We have bilateral defense agreements with Japan and South Korea. Now, China’s surge in nuclear weapons capabilities presents a conundrum.

I want to understand what makes allies in Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, or Australia feel assured by U.S. capabilities, versus what they view as inadequate. There’s no sense in developing technologies they may find inadequate. And if they don’t feel assured, there’s a risk they could develop their own nuclear weapons.

Do you ever find yourself fielding questions about the ethical or moral dilemmas inherent in your work?

Early in my career, I got asked these questions more often than I do now. People are more interested in why a young person would choose to work in nuclear weapons versus somebody who’s been doing so for 25 years.

I recognize that the two times nuclear weapons were used, they did great damage and caused over 100,000 deaths. But I also think nuclear weapons serve as deterrent—they force adversaries to think carefully. Their destructive power motivates me to engage in nuclear policy discussions because I want to help force careful thought about how and when such weapons would be used.

I don’t know if I necessarily face a moral or ethical dilemma. I rue the day that nuclear weapons might be used. We as a nation should never make this decision lightly. I work on making sure nuclear weapons work—but I never want to see them work.

You mentioned President Obama’s 2009 Prague speech. In the decade since—as you said—the world changed. Has the relevance of nuclear weapons also changed?

The relevance of nuclear weapons is underscored by what we’re seeing from Russia, China, and North Korea. Putin has mentioned nuclear weapons numerous times during the Ukraine conflict. He uses them to deter others from directly aiding Ukraine—we’re not committing troops there in part because of those threats. Nobody wants to cross that line. China’s significantly building up its stockpile. Eventually, it’s going to reach parity with the United States and Russia.

And Russia and China are partnering—a recent joint exercise brought two nuclear-capable bombers within 200 miles of Alaska. Meanwhile, North Korea continues developing long-range capabilities to deliver missiles as far as the U.S. mainland.

Russia and China are challenging a world order that’s been around for the last century. People are nervous—and I can’t underscore just how important the policy discussions around nuclear weapons are.

You have participated in IGCC’s Public Policy and Nuclear Threats Boot Camp for many years, which trains the up-and-coming generation in this space. When you think about young people coming into the field, what is exciting to you?

These folks have grown up in a world of global communications. They want to make the world a better place, whereas in earlier times there was a more U.S.-centric point of view. That’s exciting because they’re going to force a large global discussion as opposed to a narrow, nation-to-nation one. That’s a very different approach—and it’s exciting for me to see.

John Scott is the division leader for X-Theoretical Design, the weapon-physics design division at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Lindsay Shingler is the associate director for the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC).