NUKES FOR PEACE: NUCLEAR TERRORISM AND THE STATE OF US DETERRENT POLICY

Peter Huessy

Should the United States pursue a policy of eliminating nuclear weapons from the military arsenals of the world, or should we continue to maintain deterrence at the lowest possible level of nuclear weapons consistent with the security of the United States and that of our allies, or is there a combination of these two goals that can be safely pursued?

To some the answer may be obvious: the US is obligated by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to seek to eliminate nuclear weapons. On the other hand, others would argue the US is obligated under US law to maintain nuclear deterrence as well as provide extended deterrence to our allies. Still others such as Ambassador Max Kampelman have called on the US to maintain deterrence in the interim period even as we move toward what has become known as “global zero”, a goal the Ambassador has strongly endorsed.

The question then arises: is a push to an eventual goal of global zero compatible with an ongoing commitment to maintaining nuclear deterrence? And what does it mean to “maintain” such a deterrent capability? And if we do, what is the impact on proliferation and the threat of nuclear terrorism? To answer this question carefully requires a review of some recent history.

Critics of the Bush administration contend that its nuclear modernization efforts were incompatible with the twin goals of (1) zero nuclear weapons and (2) effective counter- proliferation. The charge was that if the US maintained deterrence hat would somehow appear to be no different than seeking a greater role for nuclear weapons in our defense policy. As a rsult, it was thoght, countries such as North Korea and Iran would develop their own nuclear arsenals as well. And it is these latter two proliferation dangers that are at the heart of current concerns over nuclear threats to the United States.

In 2001, former Senator Robert Kerry and William Hartung argued that the incoming Bush administration’s push for making deep cuts in nuclear weapons “was a welcome step” after what they described as the Clinton administration having “missed an historic opportunity to promote deep cuts” while simply “treading water”. But they warned that the Bush proposals to both cut nuclear weapons and embark on an ambitious missile defense program were impossible to reconcile.

Now, looking back, we know that these critics got it wrong. By the end of this decade, the US will have deployed under current programs over 800 global missile defense interceptors of various capabilities while at the same time moving to a nuclear deployed force of no more than 2200 weapons, with an associated stockpile that together will shortly bring the US nuclear weapons to their lowest level in 50 years.

There is renewed concern once again that whatever the benefit of such past accomplishments, not enough is being done to stop nuclear dangers. For example, Senator Diane Feinstein, the chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, wrote in the Wall Street Journal on January 3rd, 2009 an op-ed “Let’s Commit to a Nuclear-Free World”. She said the Bush administration had attempted to enlarge the US nuclear arsenal, sending the wrong diplomatic signals to both our allies and adversaries.

The Senator further criticized the Bush administration for trying to develop an earth penetrating nuclear device which would be able to destroy deeply buried targets, a tactical lower-yield nuclear weapon for use on the battlefield, a facility for producing nuclear triggers, a program to reduce the time needed to test a nuclear weapon should that be required, and finally, a replacement nuclear warhead called the Reliable Replacement Warhead or RRW, which she claims would “spark a news arm race”. Taken together, these Bush administration initiatives were deemed unnecessarily provocative and “opening the door” to greater potential use of nuclear weapons.

Of particular concern was what she termed the Bush administration’s policy of using nuclear weapons first. She admits, however, the scenario in question was one in which the US would retaliate in response to a biological or chemical weapons attack against the US. She claims that such a US retaliatory policy would push our adversaries to seek nuclear weapons as insurance against such a “pre-emptive attack” by the United States in the first place.

However, as I noted above, the Senator admits such action by the United States would be “in response to a chemical or biological attack” against the United States. This hardly constitutes a dangerous policy. It is consistent with the rights of sovereign nations to respond if attacked as guaranteed by the UN Charter. In addition, throughout the Cold War and afterwards the US reserved the right to retaliate, if attacked, with all available instruments of US power if weapons of mass destruction were used against us or our allies, whether biological, chemical or nuclear.

Though the US was repeatedly pressed by the former Soviet Union, for example, to adopt a “no first use” policy with respect to nuclear weapons, the US maintained a policy of threatening retaliation with nuclear weapons even in the event of a Soviet conventional attack on Western Europe because of the enormous conventional advantage the Soviets maintained. Even after the end of the Cold War, the US did not adopt a "no first use" policy.

The Senator describes such a retaliatory policy as giving nuclear weapons a utility “beyond deterrence”, while at the same time concluding her op-editorial with the assertion that nuclear weapons “are not a deterrent”. I would assert that having a declaratory policy that underscores our intent and capability to respond in kind if attacked with weapons of mass destruction strengthens and enhances deterrence.

Most Americans are worried about nuclear terrorism, and especially the threats from North Korea which has nuclear weapons, and Iran which is seeking them and has thousands of nuclear centrifuges designed to make the material from which nuclear bombs can be fashioned. Americans also have a residual concern with the former Soviet Union, especially given that country’s leaders chilling and rather careless rhetoric about using nuclear weapons against our European allies. The emergence, too, of China’s military strength is also worrisome as outlined by recent congressionally mandated reports, including its modernization of its small but growing nuclear arsenal, which according to experts could reach 600 warheads toward the middle to the end of the next decade.

In that vein, if for example, the US proposal to build the RRW is bad for proliferation, as the Senator asserts, what is the impact of billions of dollars being spent by the Russians and Chinese on actually building new nuclear carrying ballistic missiles and submarines? As Defense Secretary Gates has correctly pointed out, when examined closely, the US among all nuclear powers is the only nation not building new nuclear weapons and new nuclear delivery platforms. His endorsement of the requirement for the RRW is thus particularly noteworthy.

But to some critics, there apparently is a moral equivalence between the nuclear activities of the US and its adversaries. For example, Hans Blix, the former Director General of the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Administration, told me in the summer of 2007 that nuclear weapons programs in North Korea, Great Britain or even the United States are all equally bad violations of the intent of the NPT and should be stopped. “Why should Great Britain have nuclear weapons if Sweden does not?” he said.

This muddled thinking is similar to the assertion of Ted Turner that if the United States has a few thousand nuclear weapons, why can’t Iran have a few hundred? But the United States with a deterrent force of 2200 deployed nuclear forces is a pillar of protection for the free world while an Iran or North Korea with nuclear weapons is a major threat. And that is the perspective that should be the basis on which we examine both America’s nuclear deterrent efforts and those of our allies and adversaries.

Lets then return to our history lesson. During the 1990s, North Korea built between 2-3 nuclear weapons. The United States under the Clinton administration adopted a new agreement with Pyongyang. As a signatory nation of the NPT, North Korea had no right to develop nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, the deal or “Agreed Framework” mirrored a draft proposal put together by former President Carter and former North Korean communist leader Kim Il-Sung.

The agreement authorized a consortium to build two new nuclear reactors for North Korea, coupled with major shipments of fuel oil and food, as well as expanded trade concessions. At some time in the future, when the reactors were nearing completion, an additional agreement would be forthcoming dismantling the North Korean nuclear power plant, the related reprocessing facilities and their nuclear weapons. But no clear verification regime was ever established. And in the interim, North Korea got to keep the nuclear weapons they had already built and whatever plutonium they had illegally diverted. This affectively shredded the obligations of North Korea under the NPT.

By 2000-1, North Korea was found to have also secretly purchased some number of nuclear centrifuges from the infamous Pakistani-based Khan “Nukes R US” cartel, undermining the basis of the Agreed Framework deal of 1995 which dealt with its plutonium based nuclear program. This called into question the value of the 1995 agreement but the Clinton administration sought to reassure American and reported in late 2000 that a possible new “final” deal was in the works and a summit meeting between Kim Jong Il and President Clinton was possible. Many years later, when I asked our negotiator Robert Gallucci what kind of deal was envisioned, he quipped: “We will pretend they do not have nuclear weapons and they will pretend they don’t either”.

At the same time, on the other side of the globe, Iran was continuing its secret efforts to build nuclear weapons, as well as companion ballistic missile programs. North Korea, Russian and Chinese cooperation was apparent in both these programs run by the mullahs in Tehran. The US Vice President, Al Gore, and the Russian Premier, Mr. Chernomyrdin, jointly chaired a Commission designed to address the Iranian threat, especially Russian assistance to Tehran which was a growing concern in the US Congress. Unfortunately, the Commission was used by the Russians to artfully disguise its assistance to Iran.

And over a thousand kilometers to Iran’s west another nuclear weapons program was emerging in Libya, a program only discovered early in this decade with the seizure of a German owned freighter carrying some 13,000 centrifuges produced by the A.Q. Khan network scheduled for delivery to Tripoli. All these three nuclear weapons programs—in North Korea, Iran and Libya-- obviously began long before the Bush administration took office.

What are the trends since the beginning of the Bush administration? Have we successfully reduced the number of nuclear weapons and programs in the world or have we seen a continuation of the worrisome trends of the 1990s described above? Ironically, as noted above, we have seen both major reductions in nuclear weapons and weapons programs, while simultaneously seeing the continuation of the programs in North Korea and Iran, and ongoing modernization efforts in Russia and China. The Libyan program was eliminated by the extraordinary work of White House and State Department officials that subsequently resulted in the creation of the Proliferation Security Initiative. Iraq is also finally out of the nuclear business.

On the formal arms control front, major progress was made with the signing of the Moscow treaty reducing US and Russian nuclear weapons to no more than 2200 deployed weapons. In contrast, during the 1990s, while the START I treaty was being implemented, START II, signed in 1992, was never properly ratified. The Clinton White House understandably changed the date on the treaty being considered by the Russian Duma to allow sufficient time for its implementation as the delay in possible ratification would have meant the treaty took affect only a very short time prior to when the reductions under START II would have had to be completed. The US Senate, however, had ratified the original treaty without the date change before the amended treaty eventually was considered by the Russian legislature. Unfortunately, the Russians took the new draft but added to it a prohibition on the US building missile defenses, a change the US Senate was not about to agree to. So we had two START II treaties, ratified in different form by the United States and Russia, but nonetheless not in effect.

This was the geostrategic situation faced by the incoming Bush administration in January 2001—a secret Libyan and Iranian nuclear weapons program and a North Korean nuclear weapons program perhaps significantly more robust than had been believed earlier, along with significant ballistic missile programs by the latter two rogue states. Add to this the growing menace from associated nation terror masters and their affiliated terror groups, which emerged into an explosive reality the morning of September 11th, 2001.

What progress has been made? The Libyan nuclear program, as we noted above, has been eliminated. The Iranian program remains opaque but at least the US and its allies have created a framework that could successfully end the program perhaps if sufficient economic pressure is brought against Iran such as a curtailment of its refined petroleum imports and a major and effective divestment campaign.

As for North Korea, Pyongyang agreed in principle to end its program and dismantle its nuclear facilities, but has refused to agree to an implementation timeline or the necessary verification measures, a hurdle the original 1995 agreement simply deferred for later but which should no longer be kicked down the road. As for the A.Q. Khan network, what I have termed a “Nukes R Us” outfit, it has also apparently been dismantled, another important accomplishment.

More importantly, the US and Russia agreed in the Moscow Treaty to dramatic further reductions in nuclear weapons to no more than 2200 deployed operational weapons. According to senior Bush White House officials by the end of the decade the US would reach a total warhead level including reserves and stockpiles of around 4000, a warhead level not seen since the end of the Eisenhower administration, some 50 years ago.

And this agreement, the Moscow Treaty, was agreed to while at the same time the US was jettisoning the ABM Treaty which had prohibited the US and its allies from effectively protecting itself from most ranges of ballistic missiles. If the START I treaty provisions on verification can be extended, the Moscow Treaty will be verifiable for the foreseeable future. In addition, while the nuclear weapons programs of two terrorist adversaries continued under the Clinton administration—Libya and Iraq—both have been eliminated under the Bush administration along with the Khan nuclear smuggling organization.

Now then let us return to Senator Feinstein’s concerns. The planned bunker buster weapon was a replacement for a bomber carried version deployed during the Clinton administration, with the research and development having been agreed to by Congress in 1994. The modern pit facility was simply an insurance policy while the US sought to implement the Stockpile Stewardship Program which was, again, correctly established during the Clinton administration as a means of ensuring the reliability, safety and capability of our nuclear stockpile in the absence of nuclear weapons testing, a moratorium on which we have observed for nearly two decades. So, too, with the move to lessen the time-to-test-readiness—such a policy was good insurance in the event other nations sought to begin nuclear testing, especially if within the context of a ratified Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, (the CTBT). As for the Advanced Concepts Initiative, this was part of an overall program to insure our nuclear weapons stockpile was adequate to the deterrent needs of today and that we could hold at risk the same type of targets today and in the future as we had in the past.

In short, deterrence cannot be a “bluff”. The idea that nuclear weapons are only to stop an attack on the US but once deterrence breaks down cannot be used in retaliation could render our deterrent less than credible in the eyes of our adversaries. The US has always had some variant of a policy of reducing through counterforce retaliatory strikes the potential further damage to the US and its allies that could come from nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons.

In short, our retaliatory option against the weapons or bunkers or facilities of our adversaries gives us a counterforce capability which must be part of our deterrent equation. Otherwise, if as the Senator writes “we must recognize what these weapons are---not a deterrent”, this implies we could eliminate most if not all funding for our nuclear arsenal and rely solely on our conventional capability to deter our adversaries and reassure our allies. Such a policy would be fraught with peril.

It is vitally important, I believe, that America’s leaders carefully weigh what we say about nuclear weapons, their purpose and their employ. As Jim Schlesinger, the former Secretary of Defense has recently warned, the deterioration of our nuclear enterprise, which started from the neglect of its maintenance at the end of the Cold War, may undermine both the strength of our own deterrent and our extended deterrent under which our allies remain protected.

If such a problem is not fully resolved, our allies may seek their own nuclear arsenals and our adversaries such as Iran and North Korea may also be emboldened. I believe there is no contradiction between seeking lower levels of nuclear weapons and maintaining a deterrent second to none. Until we get to that rather dramatically transformed world where approaching zero nuclear weapons is in our national interest, we have no choice but to see to it that Job #1, maintaining a strong nuclear enterprise, is at the top of our priority list.

I am fairly confident that we are not ready for a world in which we can reduce our nuclear arsenal to such an extent that it is no larger than all other nuclear armed states but that is probably the geostrategic environment through which we would have to pass to get to zero. However attractive such a world might appear in theory, there is no substitute now for the hard work of maintaining our nuclear deterrent in the most robust manner to ensure the safety of this and future generations. That is what our Founders called upon us to do: “Provide for the Common Defense”.

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Peter R. Huessy is currently the president of GeoStrategic Analysis, a defense and national security consulting business. In addition to writing for OpinionEditorials.com, he is also a guest lecturer, appearing at such fine institutions as the School of Advanced International Affairs, Johns Hopkins University, The Institute of World Politics, and The National War College. Mr. Huessy has spent his career working in government organizations and committees, such as the United Nations, The Environmental Fund, Department of the Interior, and the National Defense University Foundation.

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