Posted on 01/18/2025 5:10:56 AM PST by AndyJackson
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has picked Brandon Williams, a former Navy officer and one-term member of Congress, to become the keeper of the nation’s arsenal of thousands of nuclear bombs and warheads. Trump’s selection is a shift from a tradition in which the people who served as administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration typically had deep technical roots or experience in the nation’s atomic complex. What’s unknown publicly is the extent of Williams’ experience in the knotty intricacies of how the weapons work and how they are kept reliable for decades without ever being ignited.
Terry C. Wallace Jr., a former director of the Los Alamos weapons laboratory in New Mexico, expressed surprise at Trump’s pick.
Wallace said he had "never met him or had a meeting” with Williams and characterized him as having "very limited experience” with the NNSA’s missions, based on his own decades of work in and around the nation’s atomic complex.
Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, said Williams "will be facing an incredibly complex, technical job.”
Williams did not return calls for comment on his selection by Trump or his credentials.
The credentials and credibility of whoever becomes NNSA’s new leader may face close scrutiny because advisers to Trump have suggested that the incoming administration may propose a restart to the nation’s explosive testing of nuclear arms. That step, daunting both technically and politically, would end U.S. adherence to a global test ban that sought to end decades of costly and destabilizing arms races.
From 2023 to early this year, Williams, a Republican, represented New York’s 22nd Congressional District, an upstate area that includes the cities of Syracuse and Utica. He was defeated by a Democrat in the November election.
Williams joined the U.S. Navy in 1991 and served as an officer on the USS Georgia, a nuclear submarine, before leaving the service as a lieutenant in 1996.
In his congressional biography, Williams said he made a successful transition during his Navy career into nuclear engineer training, calling it "a very steep learning curve” that he met "against significant odds.” The program is widely considered one of the U.S. military’s most demanding.
Trump announced his choice of Williams as the nation’s nuclear weapons czar in social media posts Thursday morning, calling him "a successful businessman and Veteran of the U.S. Navy, where he served as a Nuclear Submarine Officer, and Strategic Missile Officer.”
According to his congressional biography, Williams founded "a software company that now helps large industrial manufacturers modernize their production plants, secure their critical infrastructure from cyberattacks, and paves the way for reduced emissions through advances in artificial intelligence.”
Chris Wright, Trump’s nominee for secretary of energy, the Cabinet-level post that oversees the NNSA, called Williams "a smart, passionate guy” who wants to "defend our country and make things better,” according to an interview Wednesday with the website Exchange Monitor.
A lengthy 2022 profile of Williams described him as a multimillionaire who starts each morning by reading a section of the Bible. After high school, it said, Williams went to Baylor University, a private Christian school in Waco, Texas, and then transferred to Pepperdine University in Malibu, California.
His congressional biography says he earned a bachelor’s degree from Pepperdine in liberal arts and later a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School, a contrast with the advanced degrees in physics or engineering that typically dot the resumes of weaponeers who end up in senior positions of the nation’s atomic complex.
The outgoing administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, Jill Hruby, offers a striking contrast with Williams in terms of technical background and nuclear experience. Before her 2021 nomination to the post, she had a 34-year career at Sandia National Laboratories, retiring in 2017 as director. By training, she is a mechanical engineer.
Sandia is one of the nation’s three nuclear weapons labs, with its main branch located in Albuquerque, New Mexico. It is responsible for the nonnuclear parts of the nation’s arsenal of atomic bombs and warheads.
Other NNSA administrators have had backgrounds in national security, nuclear operations, the military or scientific fields related to nuclear technology. The first was an Air Force general and a former deputy director of the CIA.
The overall responsibilities of the NNSA include designing, making and maintaining the safety, security and reliability of the nation’s nuclear arms; providing nuclear plants to the Navy; and promoting global atomic safety and nonproliferation. In Nevada, the agency runs a sprawling base larger than the state of Rhode Island, where the United States in the latter years of the Cold War tested its weapons in underground explosions.
Wallace, the former Los Alamos director, said he had tracked Trump’s search for an agency leader and found that "any candidate will be making a pitch for resumption.” He added, "That more or less disqualifies any recent director of any nuclear weapons lab.”
Many experts see a restart as unnecessary given the depth and breadth of the nation’s nonexplosive testing program, which the NNSA runs at an annual cost of roughly $10 billion. Experts argue that the program’s decades of analyses have led to deeper understanding of nuclear arms and greater confidence in weapon reliability than during the explosive era.
Wallace said Trump was aided in his hunt for a nuclear czar by Robert C. O’Brien, his national security adviser from 2019 to 2021. Last year in Foreign Affairs magazine, O’Brien, a lawyer, argued that Washington "must test new nuclear weapons for reliability and safety in the real world.” He added that the freshly tested arsenal would be a deterrent to China and Russia.
Republicans have long criticized the test ban and urged a testing restart. President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, signed the accord in 1996. In 1999, however, he suffered a crushing defeat when the Senate refused to ratify the test ban treaty.
Despite the treaty’s defeat, successive administrations have informally abided the terms of the test ban. That position began to come under fire during Trump’s first administration.
In 2018, the Defense Department declared that "the United States must remain ready to resume nuclear testing.” John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser from 2018 to 2019, reportedly argued for a restart but made little headway.
In 2020, when O’Brien was the national security adviser, the Trump administration reportedly discussed whether to conduct nuclear test explosions in a meeting with national security agencies.
Opponents of a restart see the nonnuclear tests as more than sufficient to ensure arsenal reliability. "We have more confidence today than when we stopped explosive testing,” Victor Reis, the program’s architect, said in an interview.
Siegfried Hecker, a former Los Alamos director, argued that a restart would probably start a chain reaction of testing among the world’s atomic powers and perhaps among the so-called threshold states. Like Iran, they’re considered close to being able to build a bomb.
Hecker noted that during the Cold War, China conducted 45 test explosions, France 210, Russia 715 and the United States 1,030. He said that China, which in recent years has rebuilt its base for nuclear tests, had a major incentive to design and explosively test a new generation of nuclear arms. He argued that the arms could make its expanding missile force more lethal.
"China,” Hecker added, "has much more to gain from resumed testing than we do.”
Isn’t this Sammy the Airport Ladies’ Luggage thief’s old job?
No! He was a deputy flunky for nuclear waste, which is a different political CF. NNSA is in charge of designing, developing and producing nuclear weapons for the DOD [which we stopped doing at the end of the Cold War] and maintaining those weapons [which NNSA has done since 1992]. But this is like going from F1 race car development to Oil Changers and your local body shop, with all the environmental whackos and CFR whackos and safety whackos kibitzing. So it’s a different political CF as well as a financial scam. DOD: fix this one NNSA: how much money you got and when do you want it? Well quadruple all of that and we’ll see what we can do.
“Isn’t this Sammy the Airport Ladies’ Luggage thief’s old job?”
An absolute demented pervert. We’re a laughing stock.
Let’s go Brandon!
We need a Navy man instead of a dress stealing She-he (or He-she). Sorry. And Japan Times has an interest? This looks like CIA BS.
This is a different job. This is not a flunky position but running the whole place.
Dynamic leadership that will make real efforts to improve and modernize the system don’t come from within that system after years of stagnation.
Objections based on ‘lack of technical experience’ are specious, and usually politically based or just old hidebound bureaucrats opposing change.
If the pics of some of the storage in Pantex leaked some years ago are indicative of current conditions, there’s a LOT of work to be done.
You cannot change unacceptable conditions however unsafe because “nuclear safety.” It’s a racket.
As for What’s unknown publicly is the extent of Williams’ experience in the knotty intricacies of how the weapons work and how they are kept reliable for decades without ever being ignited., any Naval officer knows as much as he needs to about how they work, and for reliability - that's what we have NCO technicians for.
This is actually an NY Time article reposted in Japan. But no paywall problem.
Here’s another idea: abrogate the START treaty. It was made between the US and a political entity that no longer exists. The Russians have always cheated under it, and it doesn’t constrain the Chicoms at all.
Well, there’s nothing safe about nuclear anything. Which makes the current stasis unacceptable.
If Yucca Mountain cannot be used, then a new site must be found and effectively established.
“a new site must be found and effectively established.”
Martha’s Vineyard sounds good...right next to Obozo’s mansion.
Lol.
I can see Williams reporting for work, ordering an inventory of the nation’s nuke stockpile only to discover half of them missing.
“A lengthy 2022 profile of Williams described him as a multimillionaire who starts each morning by reading a section of the Bible. After high school, it said, Williams went to Baylor University, a private Christian school in Waco, Texas, ”
Oh ok… I see the problem with him now.
At least Williams won’t be selling 20 % of our uranium to Russia it’s a start of not so bad.
Hillary turns lights out.
Well, the Whack-a-Moles just popped up their heads, Mr. President. You now know of two more who will undercut your orders and administration at any chance.
The stockpile is held by the DOD services [Navy and Airforce]. The DOE NNSA just designs, builds and refurbishes them.
“Trump announced his choice of Williams as the nation’s nuclear weapons czar in social media posts Thursday morning, calling him “a successful businessman and Veteran of the U.S. Navy, where he served as a Nuclear Submarine Officer, and Strategic Missile Officer.”
Not only this, but this man’s faith in Christ Jesus and studying His Word, allows the Holy Spirit to overflow him with wisdom, knowledge and understanding that those who do not serve Christ absolutely will not have. He has built the house of his life on THE ROCK, and will not be moved.
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