Unilateral Nuclear Disarmament By Any Other Name Is Still Recklessly Irresponsible; Will Clinton Be Allowed To Do It?

(Washington, D.C.): The lead editorial in yesterday’s New York Times advocating the “de-alerting” of some, if not all, of the United States’ strategic nuclear forces is the latest in a series of
trial balloons assessing the degree of opposition a presidential initiative along these lines would
encounter. It appears that, in the absence of such opposition, Mr. Clinton will announce in his
State of the Union address (or perhaps in the run-up to it) that he is directing that the readiness of
the American nuclear deterrent be significantly reduced.

Disarming the ICBM and/or SLBM Forces

According to press reports — notably, several articles by the Washington Times’ highly regarded
National Security Correspondent Bill Gertz — and accounts from Pentagon insiders, the
President will order that changes be made to prevent the prompt launch of at least a
significant portion of America’s long-range ballistic missile forces. (The bomber force has
already been “stood down”; there are no longer any bombers on alert and all have been
disassociated from their weapons.)

At this writing, it appears that the precise steps to be taken with respect to the land- and sea-based missile forces have not yet been selected. The options under consideration, however,
reportedly run the gamut from relatively minor — and reversible — to the draconian and effectively
irreversible. Among these are said to be:

• requiring submarine commanders to receive not one (as today) but two launch orders
  before firing their missiles (communicating with these subs — particularly in a nuclear
  environment is very tough; requiring two messages may make any launches problematic);
• manually throwing the safety latch on the launch mechanisms of intercontinental
  ballistic missile (ICBM) silos, a step that would require each silo to be physically revisited
  before its missile could be fired;
• removing the integrated circuit boards from the ICBMs and storing them up to 500
  miles away;
• removing the warheads from the MX and perhaps some or all of Minuteman ICBMs and
  possibly some, if not all, of the submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs); and
• welding shut the missile hatches of some strategic submarines.

We’re Not the Problem

Incredible as these proposals might seem, they have been given considerable currency by people
like Jimmy Carter’s CIA Director Stansfield Turner and left-wing academics like Bruce Blair.
The latter got Sam Nunn to co-author an op.ed. endorsing this idea in the Washington Post last
year.⁽¹⁾

The logic of this initiative (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.

Should President Clinton adopt this proposal, there is no reason to believe 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 — there is no way to be sure
that a future, more malevolent Russian government would be unable to exploit America’s
self-imposed vulnerability for strategic advantage.

What About Other Prospective Adversaries?

Of no less concern is the fact that President Clinton’s unilateral disarming of the American
deterrent would have a very deleterious effect upon the other nations emerging as potential
strategic threats to the United States and its interests. Even the new Clinton targeting
doctrine calls for a continued capability to deter the use of nuclear weapons by the likes of China,
North Korea, Iraq, Iran, etc. It reportedly goes so far as to signal that credible U.S. nuclear
forces are required to dissuade these or other states from using chemical or biological weapons
against American forces, citizens or allies.

It is deeply troubling that the U.S. military has not made known its opposition to such a radical
disarmament scheme. Unfortunately, ever since former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Colin Powell infamously declared that he did not want to hear the “N-word” (i.e., “nuclear”)
anymore, the uniformed services have been giving ever shorter shrift to the business of nuclear
deterrence. What is more, in the catastrophic budget circumstances the Pentagon is now facing,
money not spent on maintaining the readiness and potency of America’s strategic forces is money
that can go to other, more favored activities.

The Bottom Line

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.

The Nation must not be asked to assume such risks without a rigorous debate about the wisdom
of this initiative — and the Clinton “denuclearization” program of which it is to be a part. That
debate should be accompanied by thorough consultations with and the explicit approval of the
Congress.

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1. See the Center’s Decision Brief entitled The New Arms Control Gambit: Unilateral U.S.
Disarmament That Masquerades as Noblesse Oblige (No. 97-D 84, 23 June 1997).