President Bush has named Steve Younger to be the head of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, a Defense Department office responsible for most of the cooperative threat reduction work being carried out with states of the Former Soviet Union. It is unclear how the selection of Dr. Younger will affect the implementation of on-going proliferation-risk reduction programs in Russia, or the future of these highly successful initiatives.

Dr. Younger does have a long track record on issues related to nuclear weapons and technology policy, however, having served as the associate laboratory director for nuclear weapons at Los Alamos Laboratory, Los Alamos, N.M and, before that, as the program director for nuclear weapons technology, a position that carried primary responsibility for the laboratory's nuclear weapons Stockpile Stewardship Program. Dr. Younger gained national notoriety during the government's case against Wen Ho Lee, in which Dr. Younger asserted during Lee's bail hearing that the information downloaded and removed from a secure area by Dr. Lee "and their associated data bases and the input file, combined with someone that knew how to use them, could, in my opinion, in the wrong hands, change the global strategic balance." It was this testimony, in part, that resulted in Dr. Lee being held in solitary confinement during his year long imprisonment.

It was Dr. Younger's paper on the future of nuclear weapons, however, that help shed light on a question simmering at the national laboratories over the past several years regarding the possible introduction of new, small nuclear weapons into the U.S. nuclear arsenals in the future. Dr. Younger's paper lays out the possible role for "mini nukes" as the United States deals with the security challenges of the 21st century.

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL TEXT OF DR. YOUNGER'S JUNE 2000 PAPER

CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL TEXT OF DR. YOUNGER'S WEN HO LEE TESTIMONY