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Divine Strake: A Warning of Things to Come

Divine Strake would have been the climactic ('large-scale') event (but certainly not the last event) of the Tunnel Target Defeat Advanced Concept and Technology Demonstration (ACTD), which DTRA did NOT cancel. 

Per DTRA's 2007 budget request: "The Tunnel Target Defeat ACTD will develop a planning tool that will improve the warfighter's confidence in selecting the smallest proper nuclear yield necessary to destroy underground facilities while minimizing collateral damage." 

In early April 2006, DTRA confirmed that Divine Strake was the experiment described in budget documents as the large-scale test of the Tunnel Target Defeat ACTD intended 'to simulate a low yield nuclear weapon ground shock environment.’ The official language, however, used by DTRA since last April deliberately avoided all reference to a nuclear simulation. Instead, DTRA has described the purpose of Divine Strake in terms of conventional weapons. Representative Jim Matheson of Utah wrote a letter in 2006 to DTRA in which he noted this discrepancy, saying that in his experience, "budget documents and the stated intent of planned experiments do not typically change on a whim."

DTRA's press release of Divine Strake’s cancellation on February 22, 2007, indicated that the agency "remains committed to help develop non-nuclear means to defeat underground targets.” DTRA’s statement contradicts the objectives of the Tunnel Target Defeat program, which Divine Strake was a part.

The Pentagon's study into the bunker-busting abilities of low-yield nuclear weapons is controversial for three main reasons.  First, the study appears to go against Congress’ intent about no new nuclear weapons; Congress has year after year refused to fund research into the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), the name of a proposed, but un-designed, nuclear bunker buster weapon.  Second, the Pentagon's study may be in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Third, the purpose of the study, which is to determine what nuclear yield calibration is needed to destroy an enemy bunker, may be intended to help support and strengthen a nuclear-first strike doctrine, which ignores international law and the very basis of all human values. 

DTRA plans to continue its Tunnel Target Defeat ACTD through additional data-gathering (computer modeling and small scale testing).