BUSH’S NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT INITIATIVES: TOO CLEVER BY HALF?

(Washington, D.C.): Last night,
President Bush announced the most
sweeping changes to the U.S. nuclear
deterrent posture to be taken at one time
since the dawn of the nuclear age. In so
doing, he has attempted: to make
virtue of necessity; to coopt through
preemptive action similar or even more
ambitious initiatives by Democrats at
home and/or allies abroad; and to secure
corresponding, highly desirable changes
in the Soviet nuclear arsenal
.

It very much remains to be seen
whether Mr. Bush’s gambit will accomplish
these purposes. What it will do,
however, is define the boundary
conditions within which U.S. nuclear
forces are likely to have to operate for
the foreseeable future.
To some
extent, it does so in ways that are
extremely positive — or at least reasonable
under the circumstances
and
tolerable. In other ways, however, the
Bush initiative directs changes in force
structure and operations that will be
exceedingly difficult politically (if not
technically) to reverse should
circumstances change.

These positive and negative aspects of
the President’s plan warrant close
examination.

The President’s Motivations

Virtue of Necessity:
President Bush appears to have taken a
page from Mikhail Gorbachev’s playbook
insofar as he has tried to pocket credit
for taking an initiative when he is, to a
considerable degree, simply acceding to
the inevitable. As a result of
decades of neglect and deferred or
terminated modernization programs, much
of the Department of Energy weapons
complex and various elements of the U.S.
nuclear arsenal it supports are
functionally obsolete.

Consequently, the President’s decision to
eliminate short-range nuclear artillery
shells and ballistic missiles and various
sea-based tactical nuclear weapons (e.g.,
the ASROC and SUBROC systems) represents
less of a sacrifice in terms of
deployed military capability
than
might otherwise appear to be the case.

To be sure, the MX and Midgetman
mobile ICBM programs and the Short-Range
Attack Missile (SRAM) which the President
has chosen to cancel would have
represented substantial improvements in
present capabilities. Still, each of
these systems were in trouble politically
or technically or both. For example, the
MX rail-mobile program was effectively
terminated by the Senate the day
before the President’s announcement
.

Coopting Democrats and
Allies:
There is some truth
to the point made by Senate Majority
Leader George Mitchell in the Democrats’
response to the Bush announcement: In
several respects, the proposal simply
expropriates initiatives offered in the
past by opposition figures like Sens. Jim
Sasser (who opposed the rail-mobile MX),
Sam Nunn (who has championed various
“nuclear risk-reduction”
measures) and Al Gore (who proposed
eliminating ICBMs with multiple warheads
— known as MIRVed missiles — in favor
of single-warheaded systems).

It is equally true that U.S. allies
have, with increasing insistence, sought
to eliminate ground-launched nuclear
weapons from Europe and nuclear arms from
American ships paying visits to or
homeported in their coastal cities. While
the United States had successfully
resisted this pressure to date and
probably could have continued to do so
for at least some time into the future,
acquiescing to it will remove an irritant
in relations with these allies —
something the Bush Administration is ever
wont to do.

Challenging the Soviets:
Clearly, in taking these steps, the
President had very much in mind
eliminating pretexts for Soviet
authorities to resist taking steps in their
interest — and ours. These
include efforts: to consolidate and
eliminate the vast Soviet arsenal of
tactical nuclear weapons (e.g.,
land-based artillery shells, short-range
ballistic missile warheads, land-mines
and nuclear armed air-defense weapons and
sea-based nuclear warheads, depth charges
and bombs); to end as many as six MIRVed
ICBM modernization programs; to vitiate
the mobility of dangerous rail-launched
SS-24 and road-mobile SS-25 missiles; and
to tighten up controls on all Soviet
nuclear forces.

The Positive Aspects

Unilateral Action:
The most encouraging element of this
initiative is that it does not, by and
large, contemplate negotiations with the
leadership of the former Soviet Union.
Instead, the President has
generally acted unilaterally —
challenging the Soviets to respond in
kind, rather than calling for new arms
control negotiations to formalize the
arrangement. A notable exception is his
proposal for de-MIRVing the two sides’
ICBM forces.

The truth of the matter is that monitoring
Soviet compliance with much of what he is
proposing would be exceedingly difficult
if not impossible.
This is
especially true of sea-based and
land-based tactical nuclear forces. As a
general principal, it is far better for
the United States to do what is in its
interest to do, rather than to get
ensnared in problematic negotiations —
and in the ill-advised and ultimately
ineffectual verification regimes that
tend to emerge therefrom.

By not making these steps conditional
upon negotiations, moreover, the
President has largely eliminated an
oft-cited rationale for supporting the
central authorities of the former Soviet
Union — namely, that they are a vital
arms control negotiating partner
.
This consideration for too long was used
to justify the Bush Administration’s
over-investment in the Gorbachev regime;
it should not be allowed to do so now.

Important Programmatic
Commitments:
As part of his
package of disarmament initiatives,
President Bush pledged to pursue a number
of key programmatic steps. These
explicitly include (or implicitly entail)
the following:

  • A call for immediate
    concrete steps to deploy
    limited defenses
    ;
  • A reiteration of the need for
    full funding of the B-2
    bomber and the SDI program

    in the wake of the recommended
    changes;
  • A statement that a viable
    nuclear deterrent
    would
    continue to be required, implying
    that continued modernization,
    fixes to the Department of Energy
    weapons complex and nuclear
    testing would be programmed;
  • A commitment to proceed
    with deployment of a new,
    single-warheaded small ICBM in
    fixed silos
    ; and
  • A reaffirmation that an air-launched
    deterrent would remain essential
    for NATO deterrence

    implying the need for a
    modernized missile to be deployed
    aboard aircraft in Europe.

The Negative Aspects

Unfortunately, some of President
Bush’s intentions and the positive
aspects of his proposal may be
compromised, perhaps even thwarted, by
other elements of his initiative:

  • Inevitably, the President has
    created massive political — if
    not insurmountable technical —
    obstacles to resuming anything
    akin to the status quo ante
    U.S. nuclear posture should it be
    deemed necessary to do so. In
    recent months, he has taken a
    series of steps (e.g.,
    standing-down airborne command
    and control aircraft and early
    warning systems) that have
    measurably increased the United
    States’ vulnerability to
    preemptive nuclear attack.
    Eliminating alert bombers greatly
    adds to that vulnerability.

    (What is more, it is highly
    debatable whether Soviet mobiles
    ICBMs being returned to garrison
    is a comparable step. After all, they
    can be as easily fired, arguably
    more accurately so, from there
    .)
  • While such a posture may be
    deemed an acceptable risk under
    present circumstances, any future
    decision to restore these
    capabilities will be made that
    much more difficult by the
    precedent established by Mr.
    Bush. This is likely to prove to
    be the case even with respect
    to any decision to reverse these
    actions in the event the Soviets
    do not follow suit
    — a
    threat made yesterday by a
    “senior Administration
    official” briefing reporters
    on the President’s initiative.
  • Various aspects of the
    Bush disarmament plan are at
    cross-purposes with other
    elements and will likely work to
    undermine support for the latter.

    For example:
    • Standing-down bombers on
      alert and canceling SRAM
      will likely be cited as
      further eroding the case
      for the B-2;
    • Canceling SRAM and
      storing bomber-weapons —
      to say nothing of
      eliminating all other TNF
      — will likely greatly
      complicate the effort to
      field an air-launched
      deterrent for NATO;
    • Calling for a ban on
      land-based MIRVs will
      inevitably imperil the
      most survivable U.S.
      strategic forces —
      heavily MIRVed
      sea-launched ballistic
      missiles;
    • Dismantling large numbers
      of existing nuclear
      weapons and scrapping
      plans for most new ones
      will probably add to the
      resistance to invest
      necessary resources in
      rehabilitating the DOE
      weapons complex. Without
      such investment, however,
      the viability of the U.S.
      nuclear deterrent over
      time cannot be assured.
  • The decision to establish
    that, “under normal
    circumstances,” U.S. Navy
    ships will be “nuclear
    free” is probably
    ill-advised strategically.

    Tactical nuclear weapons at sea
    have long been viewed as a
    necessary deterrent to the
    possibility of the Soviet navy’s
    use of such weapons against
    American naval assets — like
    carrier battle groups — which
    are attractive targets for that
    use. Since the United States is
    unlikely to be able to tell
    whether all Soviet tactical nukes
    have been eliminated, this
    action could significantly add to
    the incentives for preemptive
    nuclear attack against the U.S.
    fleet in any future conflict
    .
  • In addition, the decision to make
    U.S. Navy vessels non-nuclear
    most of the time, while
    preserving the option to
    reintroduce nuclear weapons under
    extraordinary circumstances, is
    sure to have serious
    repercussions for the
    long-standing American
    “neither-confirm-nor-deny”
    policy concerning the presence of
    such weapons. This, in turn, will
    likely adversely affect the
    Navy’s port visits, homeporting
    and perhaps even transit rights
    in various parts of the world.

  • Particularly ill-considered is
    the decision to remove
    nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise
    missiles from ships and
    submarines.
    These
    have never been considered
    tactical nuclear weapons.

    They are, rather, an important
    element of the U.S. strategic
    reserve — singularly survivable
    given their widespread
    deployment, and therefore highly
    credible deterrent forces.

Unknowns

Finally,
there are several further uncertainties
that bear upon the desirability of the
President’s nuclear disarmament
initiatives. In addition to the important
question of how the Soviets will really
respond — not to be confused with their
rhetorical response — and whether the
United States will be able to undo its
decision if they do not are at
least two further issues:

  • To the extent the Bush proposal does
    involve negotiations with Soviet
    officials, with whom will the
    United States negotiate? Will it
    try to deal exclusively or even
    principally with the discredited
    center or will it hold
    discussions concerning nuclear
    safety, handling, dismantling and
    control with the republics
    as well? Importantly, our
    interests may be better served by
    dealing primarily with the latter
    — at least as an essential
    partner in these matters with the
    reconfigured Moscow center
    .
  • Senator Mitchell announced last
    night that Democrats would
    support the President’s
    initiative: Does that mean in
    its entirety
    — including
    support for B-2, SDI deployment
    and DOE weapons complex renewal
    — or does it mean they intend to
    “pick the raisins out of the
    cake,” agreeing to cut
    forces the President proposes to
    eliminate but refusing to fund
    those he maintains are all the
    more necessary in light of these
    steps? If the latter, what are
    the implications for vital U.S.
    security interests of such a
    piecemeal approach to the
    President’s package?

Conclusion

The Center for Security Policy
believes that the Congress should
carefully weigh the aforementioned
concerns and uncertainties before it
agrees to provide the requisite funding
and such legislative authority as might
be necessary. It calls for hearings to be
urgently held on this matter so as to
ensure that, where appropriate, the full
benefit of the positive aspects of the
President’s proposals might be realized.

Center for Security Policy

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