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The
US Nuclear Posture Review:
Putting
the Promise of
Disarmament on the Shelf
By
David
Krieger
President, The
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
TFF
associate
5 February 2002
The Bush administration has conducted the first
Nuclear Posture Review since 1994, and has released a
classified version of the report to Congress. The report,
which has not been made public, provides an updated
strategic nuclear plan for the United States. It helps to
clarify Bush's promise to President Putin to reduce the
deployed US strategic nuclear arsenal by two-thirds to
between 2,200 and 1,700 over a ten-year period.
The Bush nuclear posture stands on three legs. First,
deactivated nuclear weapons will be kept in storage
rather than destroyed. Second, the nuclear weapons that
are deactivated will be replaced by powerful and accurate
conventional weapons. Third, missile defenses will be
deployed ostensibly to protect the US from attack by a
rogue state or terrorist.
Despite the planned reductions in the nuclear arsenal,
the Bush administration intends to retain a flexible
responsive capability by putting a portion (perhaps most)
of the deactivated warheads into storage, making them
available for future use. The problem with this approach
is that it will encourage the Russians to follow the same
path and to also keep deactivated nuclear warheads in
storage. This means that the promised disarmament will
not be disarmament at all. It will not lead to the
destruction of the nuclear warheads, nor will it be
irreversible, as called for by the parties to the
Non-Proliferation Treaty. It will be subject to reversal
at any time for any reason, by the Russians as well as
the US.
In essence, the Bush administration is hedging its
bets, and simply putting nuclear weapons on the inactive
reserve list, ready to be activated should they decide
circumstances warrant doing so. It is sending a message
to the Russians that we do not trust them and that we do
not intend to any longer follow the path of irreversible
reductions in the nuclear arsenals of the two countries
set forth in verifiable treaties. The Russians will
likely follow our lead and also put deactivated nuclear
weapons into reserve stocks, where they will be subject
to diversion by terrorists. This would be highly
unfortunate since the Russians would prefer to make the
nuclear reductions permanent and irreversible.
The new nuclear posture also calls for cutting down
the time necessary to reinstate a full-scale US nuclear
testing program should the administration decide to do
so. This also fits the pattern of flexible response.
According to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz,
"Recognizing that the world can change in dangerous and
unpredictable ways, we are putting more emphasis than we
have in the last 10 or 15 years on that underlying
infrastructure that allows you, including in the nuclear
area, to rebuild capabilities or build new ones if the
world changes."
A second factor driving the Bush administration's
nuclear posture is its belief that conventional weapons
now have the capability to replace nuclear weapons in
deterring an enemy from attacking. Again, according to
Mr. Wolfowitz, "We're looking at a transformation of our
deterrence posture from an almost exclusive emphasis on
offensive nuclear forces to a force that includes
defenses as well as offenses, that includes conventional
strike capabilities as well as nuclear strike
capability." It is anticipated that many of the nuclear
warheads being placed in storage will be replaced,
particularly on the submarine force, by highly accurate,
precision-guided conventional warheads, capable of doing
enormous damage.
A third factor figuring prominently in the Bush
administration's nuclear posture is its plan to deploy
missile defenses. Over the continuing objections of
Russia, China and many US allies, President Bush has made
clear that he intends to move forward with deployment of
ballistic missile defenses that will violate the 1972
Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. In December,
President Bush gave formal notice to the Russians that
the US will withdraw from this treaty in six months.
The Bush administration argues that withdrawal from
the ABM Treaty and deployment of ballistic missile
defenses will make the US safer, but this is a very
unlikely proposition. Instead, it makes the Russians
nervous about US intentions, and this nervousness must be
increased by the Nuclear Posture Review's emphasis on
retaining the deactivated US nuclear warheads in storage.
US deployment of ballistic missile defenses will also
force the Chinese to expand their nuclear deterrent force
with increased targeting of the US. Increases in the
Chinese nuclear arsenal may also touch off a new nuclear
arms race in Asia.
The bottom line of the new US nuclear posture is that
it is built on smoke and mirrors. It will reduce the
number of deployed nuclear weapons, but it will put them
on the shelf ready to be reinstated on short notice. It
will also retain enough nuclear weapons to destroy any
country and annihilate its people. Recent computer-based
estimates generated by the Natural Resources Defense
Council indicate that eliminating Russia as a country
would take 51 nuclear weapons and China would require 368
due to its large population. On the other hand, the US
could be destroyed as a country with 124 nuclear weapons
and all NATO countries, including the US, could be
destroyed with approximately 300 nuclear warheads.
The recent Nuclear Posture Review tells us that US
policymakers are still thinking that nuclear weapons make
us safer, when, in fact, they remain weapons capable of
destroying us. Their desire to retain flexibility is in
reality a recipe for ending four decades of arms control.
Their push for ballistic missile defenses is a formula
for assuring that US taxpayers enrich defense contractors
while diverting defense expenditures from protecting
against very real terrorist threats. The Bush promise of
nuclear weapons reductions turns out to be a policy for
missing the real opportunities of the post Cold War
period to not only shelve these weapons but eliminate
them forever.
©
TFF & the author 2002
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