Wall Street Journal, Kathleen Bailey Warn Against Latest Clinton Denuclearization Scheme - 'De-Alerting'

(Washington, D.C.): Today’s Wall Street Journal features on its editorial page
two powerful
salvos against the Clinton Administration’s reported plan to reduce the readiness of some, if not
all, of the United States’ strategic nuclear forces. These articles (which are attached)
should be
required reading for everyone expecting to attend Mr. Clinton’s State of the Union address next
week — the venue some have said will be used to unveil this initiative
— and by the rest of us whose equities, and perhaps whose lives, may be jeopardized by it.

The first, a lead editorial entitled “Stay on Alert,” puts the
prospective Clinton initiative in
context. It is the brainchild of three individuals with a record of advocacy of radical disarmament
— Bruce Blair, Frank von Hippel and Harold
Feiveson — who admit in an article in the
November 1997 edition of Scientific American that their “ultimate goal
would be to separate
most, if not all, nuclear warheads from their missiles and then, eventually, to eliminate most
of the stored warheads and missiles.”

The editorial highlights a number of the flaws with the logic of this initiative. Not least of
these is
the fact that there is no guarantee that “the Russians will buy it then abide by
it.” Arguably,
the biggest problem, however, is the fact that — irrespective of whether the Kremlin follows suit
or not — the U.S. nuclear deterrent is increasingly required to contend with the threat posed to
U.S. security from other quarters.

This is a central thrust in an excellent op.ed. article written by Dr. Kathleen Bailey, a former
Assistant Director for Proliferation in the Reagan Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Her
essay, entitled “‘De-Alerting’ Nukes Would Imperil U.S. Security,”
makes this point with
appropriate starkness:

The speed with which nuclear
retaliation can be executed can mean the difference between the U.S. or its allies
suffering one chemical or biological weapons attack or many.

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy commends the Journal‘s editorial board and Dr.
Bailey for the
latest of many profoundly important contributions to the debate about U.S. national security —
and what will be needed to safeguard it for the foreseeable future. The Center fully shares their
concern about the Clinton denuclearization agenda and the possibility that it will be compounded
by a new, de-alerting initiative. It applauds such efforts to raise public and congressional
awareness of these dangers and to make the case for deploying effective, global missile defenses, a
case made all the stronger as the credibility of America’s nuclear deterrent is allowed to decline.