Risks of abandoning deterrence

By: Frank Gaffney, Jr.
The Washington Times, 18 November 1997

For seven years, the West has been an unwilling participant in a variation on the fabled game of
“Russian Roulette.” Call it “Iraqi Roulette.” The difference is that, the Russian version involves a
player spinning the cylinder of a revolver loaded with just one bullet, holding it to his own head
and pulling the trigger. In the Iraqi version, it is Saddam Hussein who holds the gun; the head in
question is ours.

Time after time, year after year, Saddam has tested the resolve and cohesiveness of the U.S.-led
coalition that defeated him in Operation Desert Storm. He has flouted the protection we afforded
his opponents in northern and southern Iraq and engaged in genocidal attacks upon them. He has
threatened to shoot down our aircraft. He has made threatening military moves towards Kuwait.
He has interfered with the inspectors charged with ferreting out his concealed stock of weapons
of mass destruction (WMD) and the ballistic missiles that could deliver them. Now, he has gotten
rid (at least temporarily) of the United Nations inspectors altogether, and tampered with the
cameras left behind to keep an electronic eye on things while they were gone.

Thanks to Saddam’s latest gambit, it must be assumed that his covert chemical, biological, nuclear
and missile programs are once again up and running. Consequently, the stakes involved in Iraqi
Roulette are becoming higher then ever.

As discussed in this space last week, the threat posed by these weapons can only be permanently
addressed by toppling the Iraqi despot and his clique. In the meantime, serious thought needs to
be given to the ways in which Saddam can be dissuaded from pulling the WMD trigger.

The Bush administration apparently succeeded in deterring Saddam from using the chemical or
biological weapons he had at the time of the Gulf War with the credible threat of nuclear
retaliation. This threat remains the ultimate trump card today — both with respect to the Butcher
of Baghdad and vis a vis other bad actors emerging as challenges to our security in the
increasingly untidy “post-Cold War” world.

This would seem, therefore, to be an inopportune moment to be considering, to say nothing of
implementing, changes in our nuclear posture that degrade its credibility and, therefore, that could
reduce its deterrent value. There is, nonetheless, a vocal chorus of erstwhile government officials
— notably, former CIA director Stansfield Turner, former Strategic Commander Gen. Lee Butler
and former White House scientific aide Frank von Hippel — and anti-nuclear activists that is
urging just such a course. “De-posture” our forces, they urge, claiming that the world will be a
safer place if all of our ballistic missiles are incapable of being launched without days or months of
corrective actions.

Surely such steps would be matched by corresponding Russian measures, the de-posturers argue,
thus rectifying the danger of an accidental launch by an arsenal the Kremlin has under increasingly
uncertain command and control. Unaddressed is the larger point: Even if Moscow were actually
to eliminate its entire nuclear arsenal, the United States would still require effective deterrents to
post-Cold War threats posed by others, like Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.

Unfortunately, the idea of unilaterally dismantling the U.S. nuclear deterrent is not a notion
advanced only by radical disarmers outside the government. The following are illustrative
examples of steps the Clinton administration has taken that have the effect of eroding the
robustness, credibility and effectiveness of American deterrence:

• The United States no longer produces nuclear weapons. In fact, its nuclear weapons
  production complex is almost entirely shut down. The trained personnel responsible for the
  development, testing and reliability of the stockpile have been hemorrhaging from its national
  laboratories. It has not conducted a nuclear test in over five years and has pledged never to do
  so again. And there is no program to design or procure replacements for the United States’
  aging missiles, long-range bombers and strategic submarines.
• As one of its first acts, the Clinton administration dismantled programs associated with U.S.
  efforts to ensure the survival of constitutional, representative government in the event
  Washington is attacked with a weapon of mass destruction. Few things could do more to
  weaken deterrence, if not actually serve to invite attack, than the prospect that the U.S.
  military could be paralyzed by “decapitation” of its command structure.
• This problem is compounded by the fact that the administration operates today only
  one-quarter of the survivable airborne command-and-control aircraft fielded during the Cold
  War. Worse yet, those that remain are kept at reduced readiness and are, therefore, less able
  to provide an assured ability to formulate and communicate orders in the event of a chemical,
  biological or nuclear strike on Washington.
• The Clinton administration has also significantly eroded the nation’s early warning systems,
  deferring maintenance and suspending operations of some of the assets that would provide
  critical data should a missile or bomber attack be launched on the United States. For example,
  the two large, phased-array missile warning radars covering the southeastern and southwestern
  approaches to the continental U.S. have been quietly shut down and cannibalized for parts.

Bear in mind, none of the United States’ prospective adversaries are emulating these actions.
For example, the Russians, Chinese, North Koreans and Iraqis, among others, are investing
heavily in deeply buried underground shelters to ensure the survival of their respective regimes
and the success of their war-fighting strategies. They are either still producing nuclear weapons in
quantity or are aggressively trying to do so.

Unfortunately, sources in the Pentagon report that the Clinton administration is actively seeking
still further measures that could be taken in response to the radical disarmers’ pressure to
“de-alert” and “de-posture” the U.S. nuclear arsenal. These prospective initiatives, like those
already taken, can only be described as the reckless abandonment of our nuclear posture — a
policy that threatens to undermine America’s capability to deter the likes of Saddam Hussein at
the very moment that the need to do so is becoming ever more apparent.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is the director of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for the
Washington Times.