Clinton Policies Take U.S. on Subtle Path to Disarmament

By FRANK GAFFNEY
Defense News , June 17-23, 1996

The most dramatic degradation of U.S. military might in
history is under way and scarcely anyone knows what is happening
— to say nothing of debating the wisdom of doing so.

This is, nonetheless, the inevitable result of President Bill
Clinton’s determined pursuit of unilateral nuclear disarmament.

Thanks to the White House policy of
“denuclearization,” whether as a result of the
uncorrected effects of aging, an inability to produce tritium (a
radioactive gas critical to the effective operation of modern
U.S. thermonuclear weapons), the failure to engage in timely
modernization or to retain the industrial complex necessary to do
so, (or some combination of these phenomenon), the nation could
cease to have an effective nuclear deterrent force sometime after
2005.

The Clinton approach contrasts sharply with that being
pursued by the world’s most worrisome nuclear powers, Russia and
China. Whereas the United States has no nuclear modernization
program under way, the Russians and Chinese aggressively are
upgrading their arsenals with new inter-continental-range
ballistic missiles and submarines with improved sea-launched
missile systems.

Each nation continues to introduce new nuclear weapon
designs, validated in the Chinese case by overt underground
tests; in the Russian case, it appears, by at least one covert
detonation.

The U.S. approach also seems completely at odds with White
House statements concerning the continuing importance of nuclear
deterrence as other rogue states acquire nuclear, chemical or
biological weapons. In particular, by contesting congressional
efforts to deploy effective national missile defenses, spokesmen
like Defense Secretary William Perry and National Security
Council staff member Robert Bell have argued that the United
States can safely rely for the foreseeable future on the capacity
to engage in massive nuclear retaliation to dissuade possible
threats.

Yet, the White House is pursuing policies that will make such
dissuasion increasingly problematic. Notably, it is anxious to
complete negotiations by the end of June on a Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty (CTBT).

As it has developed, this treaty would prohibit all nuclear
tests, including those too small to be detected. Some predict
that the United States can retain confidence in the safety,
reliability and effectiveness of its aging nuclear stockpile
without conducting periodic tests. Experience strongly suggests,
however, that failure to periodically conduct a limited number of
safe, underground nuclear tests invites unexpected — and
possibly catastrophic — changes to weapon performance.

The White House, however, blithely asserts that its Stockpile
Stewardship and Management Program (SSMP) will permit such
changes to be detected.

Perhaps so. But we may not be able to confirm that assertion
for years, as most of the technologies to be employed in the SSMP
are still at a very early stage of development.

More to the point, very few argue that the United States will
be able confidently to develop and deploy modern nuclear weapons
in a CTBT environment. Indeed, foreclosing such modernization
activities is a stated purpose of proponents of the treaty.

As a result, if a CTBT is negotiated, the United States will
be reduced to hoping that its existing deterrent arsenal will
remain viable and credible indefinitely. In no other field of
military endeavor is the United States prepared to rely
indefinitely on weapon systems designed in the 1960s and 1970s.

Presumably, concerns about maintaining the viability of the
current inventory and the possible need for new nuclear weapons
(for example, earth penetrating systems capable of reliably
destroying facilities like Moammar Gadhafi’s underground chemical
weapons facility at Tarhunah, Libya) prompted the Joint Chiefs of
Staff to insist that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty include an
escape clause.

Press reports indicate that Clinton reluctantly incorporated
a provision allowing for withdrawal from the treaty if our
“supreme interests” are jeopardized.

Unfortunately, there are several reasons to question whether
such a clause will allow the United States to perform necessary
modernization or testing of its nuclear forces.

First, it is exceedingly difficult to exercise such a
withdrawal option. Consider the adamant opposition of the White
House and many in Congress to any consideration of a U.S. use of
its rights under a similar provision of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic
Missile treaty, even though the proliferation of ballistic
missiles and weapons of mass destruction is clearly jeopardizing
U.S. supreme interests.

Second, even if a CTBT withdrawal clause could be utilized,
it is unclear whether it will survive the negotiating process.
After all, some of the treaty’s more zealous proponents view this
as a fatal loophole and have sought, together with the French and
others, to have it deleted.

Third, the White House is allowing developments to occur at
the nation’s only underground nuclear testing facility, located
in Nevada, that almost certainly will preclude its future use for
that purpose. For example, the White House is permitting public
encroachment as a result of adjacent development that would be
adversely affected by the shock waves triggered by detonations.

If the United States is going to engage in unilateral
disarmament, it should do so in an above-board, deliberative
manner. The American people have a right to know the
implications, risks and possible costs of a strategy that will
leave them with neither the means of defeating nuclear attacks
against the United States through deployed antimissile defenses
nor the reliable capability to deter such attacks in the future.

Frank Gaffney is director of the Center for Security
Policy, Washington.