U.S. Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century: Getting it Right

B. What a START Follow-on  Treaty

Should and Should Not  Entail

Any follow-on agreement to the START Treaty must take into account the need to maintain a reliable, credible and effective U.S. nuclear deterrent.  Accordingly, such an agreement should reflect the following principles:

•     Assured Deterrence.  The treaty must be structured so as to ensure that the United States remains able to deter effectively, and if necessary, to defeat projected threats to our national security, while hedging against potential changes in the forecasted security environment.

•     NPR. At least until such time as a new Nuclear Posture Review has been completed and its adequacy assessed by the Congress, no START follow-on agreement should be contemplated that would involve reductions that could impinge upon, let alone preclude, the continued operational deployment of the currently sized Triad of American strategic forces. Those forces must remain capable of significant and continuous at-sea deterrence and maintain undiminished alert rates for the ICBM force.

•     Operationally Deployed Weapons.    Any agreed limitations in  a future U.S.-Russian arms control agreement should apply only to  operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads, not to delivery platforms or reserve warheads.  The United States should retain maximum latitude to decide the nature and composition of its delivery platforms.

•     Allow Non-Deployed Weapons.    In particular, a follow-on START agreement must not preclude the United States from maintaining a sizeable stockpile of non-deployed weapons.  While the Russians may be able to forego such a ready reserve as they have a functioning nuclear weapons infrastructure, the United States today is unable to produce replacement nuclear warheads in quantity.  It will not have the capacity, under the best of circumstances, to produce new pits for two decades. The non-deployed stockpile is the only means available at the moment by which the Nation can mitigate technical and geopolitical risk and, thus, it must be preserved.

•     Do Not Reduce Below 1,700 Operationally Deployed Warheads.  Deeper reductions would be unacceptable under present and foreseeable circumstances.  Even that level would represent a 23% reduction from the Moscow Treaty limit of 2,200.

It would be particularly ill-advised to consider cuts below the 1,700 level in light of the immense advantage the Kremlin enjoys in non-strategic nuclear weapons and the threat they pose to the former Soviet republics and American allies on Russia’s littoral.  Any future arms reduction treaty must take into account Russian tactical and theater nuclear weapons.

•     Honor Commitments to Allies.  The number and character of the forces the United States can deploy under a START follow-on treaty must also be sufficient to continue effectively to meet the Nation’s security commitments to allies through extended nuclear deterrence.  Warhead limits that are too low: encourage near-peers to seek to become nuclear peers; encourage rogues to push ahead with nuclear programs; worry allies that the U.S. will not honor its nuclear guarantees; and encourage the latter to think about developing their own nuclear weapons.

•     Correct Current START “Counting Rules.”  Current START “counting rules” over-count U.S. warheads by more than a factor of two.  Any START follow-on agreement that imposes still deeper cuts in warhead levels must rectify these attribution arrangements so as to avoid reductions in American delivery systems that would otherwise be unnecessary and are certainly undesirable.

Correcting this problem will be all the more challenging given the unacceptability of the intrusive inspections that would be involved in physically counting warheads and the alternative of forcing the United States to engage in what amounts to rebuilding of its missiles so as to make them unable to carry more than the attributed number of warheads.  These considerations add further weight to the argument against making deeper reductions in a new bilateral arms control accord.

•     U.S. Strategic Force Modernization.  Any new U.S.-Russian arms control treaty must be linked to U.S. strategic force modernization.  The United States must not only retain the latitude to refurbish regularly and ultimately to replace U.S. strategic forces. It must actually undertake the design and development of a new intercontinental-range bomber, ICBM, strategic submarines and submarine-launched ballistic missiles and new warheads needed to sustain a viable deterrent force for the foreseeable future.