Sen. Kerrey’s Trial Balloon: Clinton Next to Offer More Denuclearization in Exchange for Limited Missile Defense?
(Washington, D.C.): Today, Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE) used an appearance
before the the
Council on Foreign Relations in New York to float a trial balloon that would, if adopted by the
Clinton Administration, effect profound — and potentially dangerous — changes in the U.S.
deterrent posture. It is not clear at the moment whether the Kerrey initiative was explicitly
orchestrated with the Administration or not. What is clear, however, is that
the Clinton team is
actively considering proposals like those advanced by the Medal of Honor-winner from
Nebraska and surely appreciates the political cover that his endorsement might afford to
what would otherwise be seen for what it is: a program for ill-advised and unilateral U.S.
nuclear disarmament.
Unilateral Disarmament
Specifically, Sen. Kerrey proposed, among other things, the following initiatives:
- Go immediately below START I levels of U.S. strategic forces: “First,
the President of the
United States should work with Congress to remove legislative restraints on reducing deployed
strategic U.S. forces below the START I level of 6,000 warheads. This deployed arsenal
no
longer serves our national security interests, and it is provoking Russia to maintain an
arsenal that undermines our national security interests.”
It is certainly a debatable point whether a U.S. force of 6,000 warheads “no longer serves
our
national security interests.” A case can be made that, in a world in which the United States faces
larger numbers of adversaries who may have to be deterred at the same time that degradation of
its conventional forces is creating new demands for extended deterrence, a sizeable and flexible
strategic arsenal is more needed than in the past.
What is actually “provoking” Russia to retain its nuclear arsenal at present levels,
moreover, is the stature such weapons confer (e.g., in commanding U.S. support for the
Kremlin on financial, political, space cooperation and other issues). As a practical matter, though,
the Russians appear unable to afford to retain all the weapons they have. While Moscow would
clearly prefer that the United States goes down to levels they have no choice but to reduce
to, it is
not self-evident that doing so would be in the U.S. interest.
- “Unilaterally cut to below START II levels: “…Acting in his capacity as
Commander- in-Chief and in an act of international leadership, the President should immediately
order the
reduction of American nuclear forces to no more than the proposed START III levels. The
2000-2500 nuclear warheads that would remain are more than enough — many, many times
over — to destroy any nation, anywhere, anytime, that threatens us. And the diversity of
our
Triad — nuclear weapons on air, land and sea — protects us against the risk of a first
strike destroying our capacity to retaliate.”
“This reciprocal (sic) reduction to START III levels should be only a way station, not
an end point. We should continue to supplement the START process with a series of
mutual, transparent and reciprocal steps between the United States and Russia to
reduce nuclear arsenals and alert levels. We should be willing to go as low as Russia
wants to go, as low as we can verify they are going, and as low as we can go
without risking our security either from Russia or other nuclear powers.”
As noted above, in light of profound uncertainties about the character of the
international
environment in the years ahead, what it will take to deter America’s adversaries down the road is
a matter of conjecture — not something that can confidently be quantified. The question is not
what is the number of weapons that would destroy an adversary’s country; rather, it is
what will
it take to deter him from harming ours? Furthermore, it is not self-evident that a robust,
credible strategic “Triad” can be maintained at levels as low as 2,000-2,500, let alone “as low as
Russia wants to go” — particularly if the prospect of ever smaller strategic forces is allowed to
justify the continuing contraction (read, evisceration) of the industrial infrastructure that supports
the U.S. nuclear deterrent.
- Unilateral, immediate de-alerting of U.S. strategic forces: “Because the
complete and
verifiable dismantling of those weapons will take time, the president should immediately stand
down weapons in excess of START III levels from their hair-trigger alert. Warheads should be
physically separated from delivery vehicles….While this proposal would apply only to warheads
in excess of START III levels, we should explore the possibility of the United States and
Russia standing down all forces from hair-trigger alert.”
The logic of de-alerting (such as it is) runs as follows: The Russians’
command-and-control
system is falling apart, giving rise to a non-trivial — and probably increasing — danger that their
forces might be launched accidentally or without authorization. Proponents of de-alerting
contend that if the United States stands-down its missile forces, it will be able to prevail upon the
Kremlin to do likewise, thus preventing an unintended Armageddon. This is a little like saying
that because your neighbor’s unpredictable Pit Bull poses a danger to the neighborhood, you
should shoot the well-trained German Shepherd you need for your protection against a large
and
growing array of threatening actors.
Should President Clinton adopt any of these proposals, there is no basis for assuming that the
Russians would follow suit. Even if they were to declare that they were doing so —
as with their
announcement that they were “detargeting” the United States — we could not have confidence
that a future, more malevolent Russian government would actually be unable to exploit America’s
self-imposed vulnerability for strategic advantage.
What is more, given the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the post-Cold War
necessity of deterring threats from more than one quarter, the risks associated with
unilateral
de-alerting (whether portrayed as “bilateral” or not) of U.S. strategic nuclear forces are immense.
If the concern is about the accidental or unauthorized launch of Russian ballistic missiles,
the
United States would be far better off deploying anti-missile systems capable of intercepting
such weapons than it would be engaging in what amounts to the effective elimination of its
own deterrent capabilities.
A Quid Pro Qquo for ‘Limited’ Missile Defenses?
Interestingly, Senator Kerrey expressed in his speech today a fresh openness to the idea of
acquiring an insurance policy against missile attack. He called on the
President to: “agree with
the Republican leadership to build a defined, rigorously tested strategic missile defense. He
should make clear to Russia’s leaders we would build it for accidental and rogue nation
threats.” This statement is all the more remarkable since it comes only a few
weeks after the
Senator joined with forty of his Democratic colleagues to object, not once but twice, to the
Senate even debating the idea of deploying strategic missile defenses as soon as
technologically possible.
Perhaps this shift is less than it appears — a mere ploy to induce Republican proponents of
missile
defenses to support his radical disarmament agenda. That would seem to be the clear import of
Sen. Kerrey’s statement to the Council on Foreign Relations that, “If, for example, some of my
Republican colleagues will support me in seeking steep cuts in nuclear arsenals, I am open to
working with them on the deployment of a defined, rigorously tested missile defense.”
On the other hand, perhaps Sen. Kerrey has been swayed by the compelling conclusions of the
bipartisan, blue-ribbon Rumsfeld Commission — namely, that the Nation now faces “little or
no-warning” of emerging ballistic missile threats. If that were the case, though, one would think
he
would not be trying to make his support for anti-missile protection for the American people
dependent upon his success in euchring his Republican colleagues into denuclearizing the United
States.
Will President Clinton Follow Suit?
Whatever Senator Kerrey’s motivation for exhibiting new interest in missile defenses,
it appears
that the Clinton Administration is also poised to reverse course in this area. Sources tell
the Center that the President is expected shortly to announce that he has decided — after
years of dissembling about the need to field strategic anti-missile systems and blocking
efforts to do so — to deploy a fixed, ground-based “national missile defense” in at least one,
and perhaps two, sites.
Should Mr. Clinton in fact take this step, he will sweep away the last impediment to defending
the
American people against missile attack:
- No longer will the public’s intelligence be insulted by his statements to the effect that “There
are no missiles pointed at our children, not one, not a single one” — a misrepresentation the
President has personally engaged in over 130 times in recent years (including in a State of the
Union speech). - No longer will the American people be misled by officials claiming the U.S. lacks the
technology to defend its people against missile strikes — or cannot afford such defenses. And - No longer would the Russians be allowed effectively to veto U.S. missile defenses. As
Mary
Elizabeth Hoinkes, the General Counsel of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,
told
an American Bar Association conference last Friday, the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty
would not permit the U.S. to field a national missile defense, even if it were to be
deployed at a single site. A defense utilizing two or more sites would also
be impermissible
under the Treaty, as amended. In other words — even to deploy the limited strategic missile
defense it seems ready to advocate — the Administration would have to get relief from, or
withdraw from, the ABM Treaty.
As a result, from now on, the debate can be focused where it belongs: What is
the most
effective, flexible, fastest and least expensive way of protecting the United States against
ballistic missile attack? The obvious answer is from the
sea. The roughly $50 billion
investment made over the past two decades in the Navy’s AEGIS fleet air defense system means
that perhaps 95% of the infrastructure needed to provide competent wide area defenses
against short- and long-range missiles is already operational. With an
additional investment of
just $2-3 billion spent out over the next five years, this “AEGIS option” could be exercised,
permitting America’s forces and allies overseas and its people at home to begin to
enjoy anti-missile protection.(2)
The Bottom Line
Senator Kerrey evidently feels sufficient residual concern about unilaterally disarming the
United
States that he claimed a Republican precedent for his radical proposal
September 1991 decision (in the Senator’s words) “to eliminate thousands of tactical nuclear
weapons, deactivating 450 ICBMs, standing down our bomber fleet, and ordering a stop to
Pentagon development of a short-range ballistic missile.”
In this area as in so many other security policy matters, the wisdom of President Bush’s 1991
decision can be debated. Many of the nuclear weapons he unilaterally eliminated were
obsolescent, if not obsolete. Some of the modernization programs he terminated were in political
difficulty even before he acted. (For example, the MX rail-mobile program was effectively
terminated by the Senate the day before the President’s announcement.)
A fundamental difference between President Bush’s action and Senator Kerrey’s initiative,
however, is that one was taken at a moment of unparalleled American strength and at a
relatively benign moment in international affairs. By contrast, the Senator would have
the
U.S. engage in wholesale, as well as unilateral, disarmament at a juncture when its nuclear forces
are significantly smaller and declining inexorably; its capability to build new nuclear weapons in
quantity is virtually non-existent; and the future course of Russia — to say nothing of China and
other rogue nations — argues for increased vigilance, not rash risk-taking.
That said, the Center for Security Policy welcomes Sen. Kerrey’s initiative — and particularly
the
prospective end it may signal to official opposition to defending the United States against missile
attack — to the extent that these steps will engender an invigorated, constructive and
long-overdue debate about America’s deterrent posture, and the steps needed to enhance and
ensure its
future viability.
– 30 –
1. Such a case was well articulated by, among others by former
Secretary of Defense James
Schlesinger, in the course of a High-Level Roundtable Discussion on the future of the U.S.
nuclear deterrent sponsored by the Center for Security Policy in July 1997. See the Center’s
Press Release and Summary of this Symposium entitled
High-Level Roundtable Discussion
Reveals U.S. Nuclear Deterrent’s Credibility, Reliability Imperiled (
1997).
2. For more on the AEGIS Option, see Wanted: An
End to the ‘Hollow’ Military — and s
‘Feasible,’ ‘Practical’ Missile Defense (No. 98-D
167, 29 September 1998) and the attached
Proceedings article entitled “Defend America — From the Sea.”
3. Like so much of the Kerrey proposal, this point appears to have
been lifted almost verbatim
from a recent op.ed. article by the Washington Post‘s veteran nuclearphobe, Walter
Pincus. It
appears — as the Soviets used to say — to be “no accident, comrade” that Pincus gave a glowing
preview of Sen. Kerrey’s speech in today’s Post.
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