Senate Given Another Opportunity to Reject Clinton’s Policy of Denuclearization: the Gottemoeller Nomination

(Washington, D.C.): One month ago, the U.S. Senate signaled strong disapproval of the
Clinton
Administration’s “denuclearization” policies when forty-four Senators voted against legislation
billed by its sponsor as a “test vote” on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty — ten more than
would be required to prevent ratification of that accord.⁽¹⁾

The message to the White House should have been unmistakable: The Senate is
disposed to
reject wooly-headed disarmament schemes that threaten seriously to undermine, and in
due course to eviscerate, the U.S. nuclear deterrent.

Reenter Rose Gottemoeller

It was astounding, therefore, that on September 18^th President Clinton
announced that he was
nominating Rose Gottemoeller to a newly created post in the Energy
Department — Assistant
Secretary for Nonproliferation and National Security. After all, Ms. Gottemoeller has
long
been associated with some of the most wooly-headed of denuclearization proposals.

For example, as the Center for Security Policy noted in fifteen months ago, href=”#N_2_”>⁽²⁾ Ms. Gottemoeller
was one of the authors of a troubling June 1997 report issued by the Committee on International
Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Science (NAS). Entitled The
Future of
U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy, this study advocated a series of highly
controversial actions
with respect to the American nuclear deterrent — steps that, taken together, could have the
result effectively of unilaterally disarming the United States. Consider the following:

• ‘De-alerting’: Ms. Gottemoeller and Company urged that “the operational
  and technical
  readiness of nuclear weapons for use” be degraded as a means of “decreas[ing] the chance of
  erroneous launch of nuclear weapons or a launch in response to a spurious or incorrectly
  interpreted indication of impending attack.”

This proposal identifies a real problem — the danger of Russian “loose nukes” — but
advances a “solution” that will have an assured impact only on American defensive
capabilities that are not the problem. With its stocks of “non-deployed” (and
unaccounted-for) intercontinental-range missiles, mobile launchers and nuclear
warheads, Russia could retain substantial capability to launch strategic nuclear strikes
even if (against all odds) other elements of its arsenal were genuinely “de-alerted.”
Then, there is the problem of deterring non-Russian threats if U.S. nuclear forces are
effectively unuseable. The result of Ms. Gottemoeller’s proposal would be
less, not
greater, security for the United States.

• ‘No-First-Use’: Ms. Gottemoeller and her colleagues believe that “the
  United States should
  adopt no-first-use of nuclear weapons as its declaratory policy at an early date.” Interestingly,
  the NAS study goes on to observe, almost as an afterthought, the real difficulty with such a
  recommendation: “Changing to a no-first-use policy will, of course, require consultation with
  allies to reassure them that the United States will meet, by non-nuclear means, its obligations
  to come to their aid in the event of a non-nuclear attack against them.”

As a hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee today made abundantly clear, href=”#N_3_”>⁽³⁾
the U.S. ability to come to the aid of its allies with conventional power is being steadily
diminished by force structure cuts, the requirements of myriad peacekeeping and
humanitarian missions and lack of funds needed to perform modernization and
maintenance and to retain high quality personnel. As a result, the United States
should, if anything, be working to maximize the credibility of its overall deterrent
posture — among other things, by assuring, not jeopardizing, the prospect of nuclear
retaliation in the face of attacks on its allies.

• No Missile Defense: Ms. Gottemoeller is an adherent to the theology of
  American
  vulnerability to missile attack from all quarters. As her NAS study put it:

“The [1972] Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty must remain the ‘cornerstone of strategic
stability’
as it was described by Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin at the conclusion of the Helsinki Summit.
The ABM Treaty is by no means a relic of the Cold War thinking as some assert. On the contrary,
it remains a logical adjunct of the continuing reality of offense dominance in conflicts involving
nuclear weapons.”

A majority of Senators⁽⁴⁾ now recognize what has
eluded Ms. Gottemoeller and her
fellow arms control ideologues: The post-Cold War world is one in which the
United States clearly cannot afford to remain vulnerable to ballistic missile
attack, anymore than its allies and forward-deployed troops can.

• No Nukes: Ms. Gottemoeller’s commitment to American vulnerability is
  all the more
  astounding in light of her study’s embrace of the proposition that there are circumstances
  under which the “prohibition” of nuclear weapons would, “on balance…enhance the security of
  the United States and the rest of the world.” It is not self-evident that the “continuing
  reality of offense dominance” would apply should nuclear weapons ever be
  “prohibited.”

Interestingly, the contradiction inherent in Ms. Gottemoeller’s muddled thinking in this
area
is even more evident in one of the few sensible passages from her National Academy
of Sciences
study:

“It is not clear today how or when [comprehensive nuclear disarmament] could be
achieved….Even the most effective verification system that could be envisioned would
not produce complete confidence that a small number of nuclear weapons had not been
hidden or fabricated in secret. More fundamentally, the knowledge of how to build
nuclear weapons cannot be erased from the human mind, and the capacity of states to
build such weapons cannot be eliminated. Even if every nuclear warhead were
destroyed, the current nuclear weapons states, and a growing number of other
technologically advanced states would be able to build new weapons within a few
months or a few years of a national decision to do so.”

‘By Any Other Name’: Unfit

What is urgently needed in the Department of Energy — and indeed in the Clinton
Administration
as a whole — is not another addled denuclearizer in a senior policy-making position but
someone
who grasps the realities and requirements of U.S. deterrence in the current era. These
realities and requirements were much in evidence in the course of a High-Level Roundtable on the
subject of “The Future of U.S. Nuclear Deterrence” convened by the Center for Security Policy
on 15 July 1997.⁽⁵⁾

Among the sober-minded participants were: Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), a
member of the Senate
Energy and Natural Resources Committee, before whom Ms. Gottemoeller will be appearing for a
confirmation hearing on Thursday; Hon. James R. Schlesinger, former Director
of the Atomic
Energy Commission, Director of Central Intelligence, and Secretary of the Departments of
Defense and Energy, the last position during Jimmy Carter’s presidency; Hon. Caspar W.
Weinberger, Secretary of Defense under the Reagan Administration; Dr.
Robert B. Barker,
former Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Atomic Energy; and Dr. Troy
Wade, former
Assistant Secretary of Energy for Defense Programs.

The High-Level Roundtable explicitly addressed the Gottemoeller et.al. study —
including the
NAS’s call for “delegitimizing” and “abolition” all nuclear weapons. A starkly contrasting
consensus emerged from the Roundtable’s discussions — a consensus that Senators would be
well
advised to bear in mind when considering the Gottemoeller nomination:

• The need for U.S. nuclear deterrence has not disappeared with the
  collapse of the Soviet
  Union. Russia continues to build and deploy new nuclear weapons while constructing
  deeply
  buried command posts compatible with a nuclear war-fighting strategy. China has embarked
  on a concerted nuclear build-up involving at least two ballistic missile systems capable of
  striking the United States. And several dangerous rogue nations — including North Korea,
  Iran and Iraq — are aggressively pursuing both weapons of mass destruction and ballistic and
  cruise missile technology suitable for delivering them.
• To be effective, a deterrent must be credible. Unfortunately, a number of
  factors are
  combining to call into question the credibility of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. These include
  incoherent declaratory policies concerning the use of American nuclear weapons and
  ill-advised arms control initiatives, notably, the Comprehensive Test Ban.
• The U.S. capability to produce and maintain nuclear weapons is in a dangerous
  state of
  decline. American weapons are aging rapidly, and bans on underground testing will
  make it
  difficult — if not impossible — to assure the future safety, reliability and robustness of the U.S.
  deterrent. In particular, real questions exist concerning the executability and efficacy of the
  Administration’s expensive Stockpile Stewardship and Management Program (SSMP). Even
  more problematic will be the Department of Energy laboratories’ ability to certify the safety
  and reliability of existing weapons until such time as the SSMP’s diagnostic facilities come
  on-line.

The Bottom Line

Since Rose Gottemoeller (and her NAS co-authors) cannot explain how a total and effective
nuclear ban could be achieved, it is dangerous and irresponsible to lend credibility to such a goal.
Indeed, under present circumstances, the mere pursuit of that goal calls into question the
judgment and realism of its proponents. And it would reflect very badly upon the
judgment
and realism of Senators were they to agree to place someone who advocates such a dangerous
and irresponsible denuclearization agenda in charge of “national security” at the Department of
Energy.

In light of the stakes, both the Senate Energy and Armed Services Committees should be
involved
in a careful evaluation of the Gottemoeller nomination — not the sort of bum’s rush the Clinton
Administration obviously had in mind in sending her name forward within days of the end of this
session of Congress.

– 30 –

1. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled
R.I.P. C.T.B.: Biden-Specter Amendment’s Phyrric
Victory Shows Decisive Senate Opposition to Clinton’s Flawed Test Ban ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=98-D_158″>No. 98-D 158, 2
September 1998).

2. This is not Ms. Gottemoeller’s first run at a confirmable position.
In fact, she was widely
expected to be appointed last year to the long-vacant position of Assistant Secretary of Defense
for International Security Policy — the Pentagon’s top official with responsibility for nuclear
weapons policy. In the wake of a recitation by the Center for Security Policy of Ms.
Gottemoeller’s views on nuclear issues in July 1997 (See Clinton’s Reckless
Nuclear Agenda
Revealed? Study Co-Authored By Candidate For Top Pentagon Job Is Alarming
(No. 97-D
96, 12 July 1997)), however, she was informed she would not be getting the job after all. At
the
time, the explanation was that the ISP position was being eliminated as part a reorganization of
the Office of the Secretary of Defense, thereby freeing up one of the statutorily limited Assistant
Secretary billets for use elsewhere. In the event, though, the expected bifurcation of the duties of
the Assistant Secretary for Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence did not occur.
Following Ms. Gottemoeller’s placement in a non-confirmable position in the Department of
Energy (as Director of the Office of Non-proliferation and National Security), the Pentagon
leadership has not seen fit to use its one, now-excess Assistant Secretariat.

3. See Wanted: A ‘Feasible, Practical’ Missile Defense
— and an End to the Hollow Military
(No. 98-D 167, 29 September 1998).

4. See Shame, Shame Redux: As Clinton Presidency
Melts Down, 41 Democrats Continue
Filibuster of Bill to Defend America (No. 98-D
160, 9 September 1998).

5. For a summary of this important Roundtable Discussion, visit the
Center’s site on the World
Wide Web (www.security-policy.org) or contact the Center.