> 1. How does this research help address this problem?

I see it the other way around, this problem makes me doubt that this research will ever actually lead anywhere, supposing it's even as good a result as it first appears.

> 2. What are the sources for your opinion?

It's a fact. And my source is dead tree media. I don't recall all the details, but there are some very finicky parts that go into a state of the art warhead and we have lost the capability to manufacture them. Is this really so surprising? We can't even build new F-22s anymore!

The most famous key component that was speculated or leaked, was that we lost the makeup and reason for the Styrofoam that holds the primary and surrounds the secondary.

This research successfully initiated fusion, using a capsule of hydrogen made of some material, surrounded by something, with an outer layer. This outer layer is turned into X-Rays by the laser, which then ablate the hydrogen capsule's casing casing the inwards pressure. You could speculate, that they just found the makeup for something that would replace the Styrofoam, or we just improved upon it.

This is incorrect.

Similar to the "we can't make concrete as good as the romans" line of woo. Caveat Emptor

We don't need to make exact replicas of every single old material. "Won't have an effective arsenal within a century" is silly.

And that absolutely was not a non-sequitur.

Thermonuclear weapons have considerably tighter engineering requirements than sidewalks. So much so that the comparison is ludicrous.

Even if you think the comparison is very bad, it's not a non-sequitur.

"If Roman cement misconceptions exist then the US hasn't forgotten how to make Fogbank" is literally a non sequitur.