> MAINTAINING THE NUCLEAR DETERRENT
> Stockpile Stewardship
> NIF is a key element of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program to maintain the reliability, security, and safety of the U.S. nuclear deterrent without full-scale testing.
https://lasers.llnl.gov/about/what-is-nif
> For more than 70 years, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has applied science and technology (S&T) to make the world a safer place. While keeping our crucial mission-driven commitments in mind, we apply cutting-edge science and technology to achieve breakthroughs in nuclear deterrence, counterterrorism and nonproliferation, defense and intelligence and energy and environmental security.
It's also intended for energy research, but there's an important distinction between "energy research" and "energy production."
They do weapons. They said they do weapons. What’s the problem.
The general public is not stupid (but they are lazy), when the dust settles and people see that nif never resulted in anything but very tangential results useful for power, they're going to complain about the lack of transparency. Just as they are doing with the whole COVID masking debate. Scientists really dig their own graves sometimes.