U.S. Nukes in Europe Are Useless…They’re also a distraction from pressing needs By Kingston Reif As the members of the world’s most powerful military alliance convene in Wales this week for the NATO Summit, much of the focus will be on taking steps to increase the capability, readiness, and responsiveness of NATO forces in the […]
Russian Arms Treaty Still Worth It
Yesterday the Wall Street Journal published a letter to the editor by yours truly in response to a recent op-ed by Keith Payne and Mark Scheinder’s alleging that Russia is a serial violator of arms control treaties and the Obama administration has been uniquely weak in calling out Russia’s bad behavior. Here’s an excerpt:
In addition, the claim that Russia cheats on all treaties is overstated and overlooks the national security case for arms control. Overall, the implementation record of arms-control agreements with Russia has been highly successful—which is why both Republican and Democratic presidents have pursued such agreements. Without these efforts Russian forces would be unconstrained, our ability to verify what Russia is doing would be curtailed and we would have few options but to engage in a costly arms race.
You can read the full letter here.
On the issue of arms racing, it’s certainly true that even if, for example, Russia wasn’t constrained by INF, the United States would still have powerful economic, political, and strategic reasons for not responding by building and deploying intermediate range nuclear forces. What’s more, the United States and Russia have a long history of reducing nuclear forces unilaterally without treaties. Furthermore, the current budget environment in the United States might require reductions in the US arsenal with or without Russia reciprocity.
But at the very least, the absence of constraints on Russia’s forces would increase the incentives and pressure to engage in costly worst case scenario planning that Washington would otherwise not engage in. It’s not clear what leverage we would have to reduce the Russian nuclear threat in the absence of say, INF. The United States and Russia have far more nuclear weapons than they need for their security. Negotiated limits on Russian nuclear forces can still play a role in reducing nuclear risks – especially at at a time of increased tensions between the two countries.
The Air Force can’t hide from the cost of nuclear weapons
by Kingston Reif The leaders of the Air Force nuclear enterprise are fond of saying that nuclear weapons are relatively cheap. Few are as committed to disseminating this message as Major Gen. Garrett Harencak, the Assistant Chief of Staff for Strategic Deterrence and Nuclear Integration. Harencak’s stump speech on nuclear weapons, which he gives frequently […]
Why America Doesn’t Need All Its Nukes
by Kingston Reif Earlier this week in RealClearDefense, the Foreign Policy Initiative’s Evan Moore made his case for “why America still needs nukes.” Moore points to the conclusions of the recently released National Defense Panel (NDP) report on defense policy as evidence of the importance of nuclear weapons to U.S. security and the need to […]
On the Anniversary of Hiroshima, We Must Reinvigorate the Pursuit of a Safer and More Secure World
Today marks the 69th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during World War II.
On August 6, 1945, an American B-29 bomber dropped the world’s first deployed atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The explosion wiped out 90 percent of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people. Tens of thousands more would later die from radiation exposure.
Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second, bigger atomic bomb on the city of Nagasaki, killing an estimated 40,000 people immediately and obliterating everything within a 1,000-yard radius.
Japan’s Emperor Hirohito announced his country’s unconditional surrender in a radio broadcast on August 15, citing the devastating power of a “new and most cruel” bomb.
Today, we remember the catastrophic consequences of nuclear weapons and remind ourselves that though it has been nearly seven decades since the first atomic bomb was used in warfare, the threat of a nuclear disaster is not a vestige of some bygone era.
Thanks to important agreements and significant unilateral reductions by the United States, Russia, and other nuclear weapons states, the global stockpile of nuclear weapons is significantly less than it was during the Cold War. However, at least 17,000 nuclear weapons that we know of still exist today in nine countries, with many on hair-trigger, launch-ready status.
Furthermore, 21st century global security continues to be fashioned upon the crumbling edifice of nuclear deterrence. Our continued reliance on weapons that have the ability to annihilate nations but do little to address the rise of violent extremists like the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), or the deteriorating situation Afghanistan, makes us less safe, not more secure.
We need to continue to work with others to decrease global nuclear stockpiles, and use the billions of dollars we spend on relics of the Cold War to develop creative solutions to present and future threats.
In addition to the thousands of nuclear weapons possessed by nine nations, there is nearly 2,000 metric tons of nuclear material spread across hundreds of sites in 25 countries, and not much of it is effectively secured. We know that terrorists are bent on acquiring a nuclear weapon, and according to former Senator Sam Nunn, a determined group or individual “would only need enough highly enriched uranium to fit into a 5-pound bad of sugar or enough plutonium the size of a grapefruit” to fashion a crude nuclear device.
The tragic attacks of September 11, 2001—and the discovery of A.Q. Khan’s nuclear technology black market just a few years later—should open our eyes to the dangerous and unpredictable world in which we live today.
While there have been many important accomplishments in reducing the threat of lost or stolen nuclear material (particularly during President Obama’s first term) now is not the time to rest upon our laurels. It is important now more than ever to appropriately fund critical nonproliferation programs at home and abroad that work to secure vulnerable nuclear materials, and keep them out of the hands of terrorists.
In a recent interview ahead of the anniversary, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller reinforced President Obama’s commitment to a world without nuclear weapons. Referring to the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review, Gottemoeller stated that the “United States will continue to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in deterring nonnuclear attacks” and seek to make deterrence of nuclear attack on the United States or our allies “the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons.”
Today, we use this solemn anniversary as motivation to ensure that our leader’s words mean something, and continue our tireless march towards a more balanced national security strategy and a safer world.
