The Department of Defense announced plans to develop a nuclear bomb that is 24 times stronger than the one dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945 during World War II.
The development of the B61-13, what the DOD called a "variant of the B61 nuclear gravity bomb," is pending Congressional authorization and appropriation.
"The B61-13 will strengthen deterrence of adversaries and assurance of allies and partners by providing the President with additional options against certain harder and large-area military targets," the DOD said in a fact sheet released Friday.
According to the Federation of American Scientists, citing DOD officials, the B61-13 would pack a yield of 360 kilotons. That, the DOD said officially, is potent enough to for "defeat of hard and deeply buried targets."
By comparison, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of 15 kilotons; the Nagasaki bomb was 25 kilotons.
Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Roger F. Wicker, R-Miss., ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, released a statement Friday calling the nuke a "modest step in the right direction."
"The B61-13 is not a long-term solution, but it will provide our commanders, particularly in INDOPACOM and EUCOM, with more flexibility against these target sets. As the Strategic Posture Commission recently noted, China and Russia are in a full-on arms race, and the U.S. is running in place. Dramatic transformation of our deterrent posture — not incremental or piecemeal changes — is required to address this threat," Rogers and Wicker wrote.
The DOD noted that the initiative "is not in response to any specific current event." However, it comes after a recent Pentagon report said that China is building its nuclear weapons arsenal quicker than previous projections.
The 2022 report said China was on pace to quadruple its nuclear warheads to 1,500 by 2035. The report two weeks ago said the pace is now 1,000 by 2030. The U.S. has 3,750 active nuclear warheads.
The B61-13 will replace some of the B61-7s, according to the DOD.
The B61-13s will not increase the United States' overall stockpile. Instead, production of the Obama-era B61-12s "will be lowered by the same amount as the number of B61-13s produced," according to the DOD.
The most potent bomb in the U.S. inventory is the 1.2 megaton B83.