Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

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Kyl Shoots And Misses Again

Fresh off his failure to defeat the New START treaty, last week Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) organized a letter signed by 40 other Republican Senators warning President Obama that he must consult with Congress before altering nuclear weapons guidance to allow for deeper reductions below New START levels.  

Senator Kyl is right that the Senate should be consulted on these issues, as it was throughout the formulation of the Nuclear Posture Review and during the New START negotiations.  However, the letter is a transparent attempt to obstruct the President’s authority to issue new guidance and engage in future negotiations with the Russians.  

Last year Republicans on the House Strategic Forces Subcommittee succeeded in attaching an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill that would have placed limitations on the President’s ability to negotiate and implement reductions in U.S. nuclear forces below New START levels.  A significantly watered down version of the provision is included in the final version of the FY 2011 defense bill.  Kyl’s letter likely presages continued Republican efforts to impose legislative constraints on the President’s flexibility to determine appropriate U.S. force levels during the upcoming mark ups of the FY 2012 Defense Authorization Bill.

Kyl of course will not support further reductions under any circumstances.  But a key near term goal for the administration and its supporters should be to encourage other GOP signatories of the letter, including some Senators who supported New START, to keep an open mind about the next steps in U.S. nuclear policy.  Such outreach must include substantive responses to the age-old canards raised in the letter…  

Lower Is Better

The letter warns that “very low levels of nuclear forces, such as the arbitrary levels of 500 or 1000 warheads per side advocated by some in the international arms control community, would have important and as yet unknown consequences for nuclear stability.”  Yet what country would not be deterred at such levels?  And if a country couldn’t be deterred by a U.S. arsenal of 500-1000 nuclear weapons, what logic presumes that they would be deterred by a much larger U.S. arsenal of 5,000 weapons?  As James Acton outlines in his new Aldephi Paper, deterrence and stability can be maintained at lower levels of nuclear weapons.

It’s a MAD world

Though hard to swallow, the fact remains that the United States is, and will continue to be, vulnerable to nuclear attack so long as nuclear weapons exist.  Kyl and the nuclear hawks propose to escape this vulnerability by building new nuclear weapons, developing impenetrable missile defenses, threatening to use nuclear weapons against a wide array of threats, and maintaining sufficient nuclear forces to launch a disarming first strike against any potential adversary (or in the case of Russia at least feign such a capability).  

But a nuclear posture premised on primacy at the expense of tried and true measures to reduce the role and number of nuclear weapons would endanger U.S. national security.  For example, the quest to devise new and better ways to negate an adversary’s deterrent could increase their incentive to strike first in a crisis, thereby undermining deterrence. That’s one of the reasons the New START agreement is so important.  The reductions it requires (though modest) and the predictability and stability that it engenders steps us further away from the nuclear precipice.  

Such a posture is also useless against 21st century threats such as the threat of nuclear terrorism.  In fact, it would likely weaken the international cooperation we need to rein in rogue states such as Iran and North Korea and prevent nuclear terrorism.  It could also prompt additional states to acquire nuclear weapons to protect themselves against a potential U.S. attack, thereby undermining nonproliferation.  On the flip side, we can continue to assure our allies that we remain committed to their security in ways that are far more credible than retaining excessive numbers of nuclear weapons.

Congress should be consulted, but

Future U.S. arms control negotiators should retain maximum flexibility to negotiate treaty provisions in the best interests of the United States. The Senate will have an opportunity to vote any treaty up or down.

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The ongoing crisis in Japan is a chilling illustration of the old adage that what can go wrong, will go wrong.  The same logic applies to nuclear weapons, only the devastation would be orders of magnitude larger than what we’re seeing Japan.  As Robert McNamara put it in the Academy Award winning documentary The Fog of War, the indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations.

In light of this danger the U.S. should be reorienting its nuclear policy to reflect the fact that changing technologic, strategic, and geopolitical circumstances have made it possible and essential for the U.S. to reduce its reliance on nuclear weapons.  The Nuclear Posture Review, New START agreement, Nuclear Security Summit, and most recent NPT Review Conference are all steps in the right direction.  

Now its time to take the next steps.

Paul Ryan Still Doesn’t Get It on Nuclear Security

As some of you may already know, on Thursday the Center’s sister organization Council for a Livable World launched a national ad campaign targeting six Republican leaders in the House and Senate to highlight their support for reckless cuts to vital nuclear security programs that keep our nation safe from the threat of nuclear terrorism.  The current stopgap Continuing Resolution that is currently funding the government cuts approximately $550 million from the President’s FY 2011 request for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Account.  The year long CR proposed by House Republicans in February would cut funding for this account by nearly $650 million below the FY 2011 request.  

Rachel Maddow had a nice segment on the campaign on her show Thursday night.  More info on the ads can be found here.  More info on the essential programs and budget cuts that are the subject of the ads can be found here.

In response to the ad that ran in Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) issued the following statement to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

“Washington can cut spending without compromising our national defense, and the continuing resolution simply prevents further spending increases from taking hold. Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned last year: ‘I think the biggest threat we have to our national security is our debt.’ As we act to get our fiscal house in order, it is critical that we prioritize spending and address our nation’s most pressing fiscal, economic, and security challenges.”

Ryan’s claim that the cuts to nuclear security programs do not compromise our national defense is demonstrably false.  If Ryan gets his way, hundreds of kilograms of dangerous nuclear weapons usable material would remain unsecure.  Ryan simply dodges the fact that vital programs within the Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Account counter the most serious threat confronting our national security; namely, the threat of nuclear terrorism.

But don’t take NoH’s word for it.

A day after Ryan insisted that he’s protecting national security by cutting the nuclear security budget, Republicans and Democrats on the House Strategic Forces Subcommittee issued a strong rebuke to the new Budget Committee Chairman.

In a March 23 letter to Ryan spearheaded by Subcommittee Chairman Mike Turner (R-OH), 9 Republicans and 7 Democrats expressed their “deep concern about the effects H.R. 1 will have on the Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 and possibly FY 2012 funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA).”  These budget cuts can’t be sustained, the letter concludes, “without jeopardizing nonproliferation efforts to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism.”

The message the Subcommittee is sending to Ryan is clear: Short changing the budget for vital nuclear security programs makes America less safe.

U.S. Food Aid to North Korea?

Much attention is on the U.S. and South Korea that they may resume food aid to North Korea as UN food agencies prepare to release a report this week. Questions have already been raised as to whether it will help warm diplomatic ties that would then lead to an eventual resumption of diplomatic dialogue over Pyongyang’s nuclear programs.

The U.S. and North Korea are said to be planning a meeting next month to discuss a possible resumption of rice to the North. The meeting is said to be aimed at discussing the conditions required before Washington makes a decision on feeding the North after massive food aid was halted in 2008. Such conditions include proper monitoring mechanisms to ensure that the rice would reach those in need and not to the North’s military.

The World Food Programme is expected to release a report on Friday, March 25th in Rome on the North’s food situation. Some North Korea watchers suspect Washington will eventually send food shipments in the name of humanitarian aid, but the question is how much.

Some critics even say it is a U.S. attempt to pay the North for a resumption of diplomatic dialogue, but Washington officials have consistently reiterated that they will not pay for talks.

Until now, the U.S. has refrained from sending food aid to the North after apparently having assessed the hunger situation as far less serious than that of previous years, and suspecting Pyongyang’s intentions. Many believe the North’s plea to the international community for food and citation of its economic woes are an attempt to stock up on massive gifts for its people next year. 2012 is when Pyongyang claims the doors will open to becoming a “mighty and prosperous nation” and is also the 100th birthday of the regime’s late founder, Kim Il-sung.

South Korea is also reportedly considering the continuation of food assistance but in the form of “branded food” including corn, beans, and vitamins, which are perishable and cannot be stored for long periods of time like rice.  North Korea has constantly been scrutinized for siphoning off rice aid to feed its military and not the hungry. One senior Seoul official has called the potential branded food provisions “smart aid” to be delivered to babies, children and the malnourished. Seoul had halted aid to the North after the sinking of the Cheonan naval corvette and shelling of Yeonpyeong Island last year.

Fukushima and the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit

I wrote an op-ed for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on March 18th on the implications of the Fukushima nuclear disaster for the 2012 Nuclear Security Summit. It can be found here.

There are two op-eds worth reading written by the Center’s Board members:

Frank von Hippel at Princeton University wrote in the New York Times on March 23rd on the need to learn from the Fukushima disaster and reduce dangers around the world. He writes, “We therefore must make existing reactors safer, develop a new generation of safer designs and prevent nuclear power from facilitating nuclear proliferation. As tragic as the Fukushima disaster has been, it has provided a rare opportunity to advance those goals.”

Matthew Bunn at Harvard University wrote in the Washington Post on March 23rd on ways to reduce a Fukushima-like disaster elsewhere. He writes, “Ultimately, regular independent, international reviews should be the norm in nuclear operations worldwide. All countries must demonstrate that they are doing everything practicable to prevent the next Fukushima — or something far worse.”