Debating the realism of trying to rid the world of nuclear weapons — an initiative recently branded as “Global Zero” by its advocates — is a pointless exercise.
The pursuit of nuclear disarmament has been the policy of the United States ever since it ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1969. The NPT grand bargain was simple: states that did not have nuclear weapons agreed not to seek them; states that had nuclear weapons agreed to eventually give them up.
How seriously the United States took this commitment has always been doubted by many in the international community, but skepticism has grown recently because of the perception that the Bush administration’s proclivities for preemption had extended to the nuclear realm. It now appears to be a political fact — a subjective reality, so to speak — that the willingness of many nations to cooperate with U.S. efforts to prevent further nuclear proliferation has been reduced by the widespread perception that the United States is not living up to its half of the NPT grand bargain.
Unlike the Cold War, when Soviet nuclear weapons posed an existential threat to the United States, today’s top dangers are nuclear terrorism and proliferation. As the number of nuclear powers grows, so does the risk that terrorists may gain access to such weapons and that they may be used. The unsettling developments in Pakistan underscore the risks associated with proliferation.
With North Korea halfway through the door and Iran knocking at it, proliferation is at a tipping point, which makes it imperative that President Obama tell the rest of the world that “together we will strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a basis of cooperation.”
Stating clearly and with conviction the U.S. commitment to a world without nuclear weapons is necessary to galvanize international support for the U.S. non-proliferation agenda. Rejecting Global Zero as unrealistic undermines that effort. Regardless of the realism, or even wisdom, of the final objective, the initiatives that President Obama outlined in his Prague speech in April are each justifiable and should be pursued. Taken as a whole, they represent a comprehensive and credible U.S. disarmament and non-proliferation agenda, but they do not provide a vision for the future of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex.
The United States and Russia should negotiate a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) before the current one expires in December. With more than 10,000 accountable nuclear warheads deployed on 2,000 delivery vehicles, Russia and the United States possess more than 90 percent of the world’s total inventory. Reducing U.S.-Russian nuclear stockpiles is worth doing, even if it does not lead ultimately to Global Zero, and it also addresses a long-standing Russian desire to engage in formal arms control talks with the United States. Even though the Russian interest in START talks is, in part, nostalgia for the old bipolar world order, it still helps to “reset” U.S.-Russian relations, which is another Obama administration security priority.
Ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) also should be pursued. President George H.W. Bush declared a moratorium on nuclear testing in 1992. In 1996, President Clinton signed the CTBT but the Senate withheld consent when it was up for ratification in 1999. If the United States is not going to conduct nuclear tests, why not ratify the treaty and affirm its commitment to disarmament?
Another objective should be a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT). It would be hard to negotiate and even harder to verify. But it is indisputable that producing weapons-grade material increases the risk that it falls into the hands of those willing to use it. Since the United States hasn’t produced fissile material for weapons since 1992, a verifiable FMCT would clearly serve U.S. interests.
A new framework for civil nuclear cooperation is needed, including an international fuel bank that enables the increased use of nuclear power without increasing proliferation. North Korea exploited the so-called “NPT loophole” that allows countries to learn about things nuclear while cooperating on civil matters and then withdrawing from the NPT without penalty if they decide to join the nuclear club. President Obama recognizes that the new framework must let countries access peaceful power without increasing the risk of proliferation, so he proposes strengthening the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), its inspection regime, and international responses to those who violate the intent of the NPT regime.
“Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something,” Obama said. But only time will tell if the United States gets the strong international response that the president called for. Even if the needed response to prevent further proliferation is not forthcoming, the U.S. commitment to disarmament will take away the excuse that the nation is not keeping its side of the NPT bargain, which is often given for others’ lack of action.
It is critical that all nuclear material around the world be secured within four years. President Obama recognizes that nuclear terrorism is the most immediate and extreme threat to global security. Credibly pursuing the Global Zero vision helps build international support for securing nuclear matter. This will require new standards of transparency about each nation’s holdings and verification.
To ensure an enduring commitment to countering nuclear proliferation and terrorism, President Obama plans to turn the Bush administration’s proliferation security initiative and global initiative to combat nuclear terrorism into “durable international institutions” and host within a year a global summit for nuclear security.
Even as he reenergized the commitment to nuclear disarmament, Obama restated the U.S. intent to maintain a credible nuclear deterrent. “Make no mistake: As long as these weapons exist, the United States will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies – including the Czech Republic,” he said. In fact, the credibility of the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” or “nuclear guarantee” is a key component of its non-proliferation policy. U.S. assurance to its allies and friends that its nuclear deterrent extends to them is a key factor affecting their calculus on whether to pursue nuclear weapons. As long as nuclear weapons exist, U.S. nuclear deterrence and its extension still matter.
The president also said, “To put an end to Cold War thinking, we will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy, and urge others to do the same.” This statement raises concerns. We have already learned the hard way what happens in Washington when the objective of reducing U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons becomes policy. In his cover letter to Congress for the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, then Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said several times that a chief virtue of his NPR was that it reduced U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons. But the department lost focus on the nuclear mission and gradually lost much of its nuclear competence.
Things got so bad in the Air Force that Secretary Robert M. Gates fired the secretary and chief of staff in June 2008.
The U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons will be driven by the nature of the international security environment and the intent of other nuclear-armed powers, not by an American desire to reduce its dependence on them. In fact, as former Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Les Aspin frequently observed, if the United States could press a button and eliminate all existing nuclear weapons, it would do so in an instant, because the U.S. is the world’s dominant conventional military power and other nations need nuclear weapons to deter us. It is not a matter of dialing down U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons; the nation either needs them or it doesn’t.
President Obama eloquently stated a compelling vision for nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and outlined the near-term initiatives he would take in pursuit of this vision. He also said the United States would maintain a safe, secure and effective nuclear arsenal. He has not, however, outlined the steps needed to ensure that capability.
The president is inheriting a nuclear arsenal and complex that is a smaller, hollowed-out version of the Cold War nuclear posture circa 1985. This arsenal needs a plan for the future. Nuclear weapons will exist for some time. And because these weapons will have a meaningful role to play as long as they exist, the president needs to state as part of his package of nuclear initiatives, not as an afterthought, how he plans to maintain U.S. nuclear capabilities and the supporting complex.
We cannot know today whether the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons can ever be achieved. But we can be sure that if we don’t try, it won’t be. Not all prophecies come true, but the self-fulfilling ones do.
Clark A. Murdock, Ph.D., is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, D.C.