Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

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When all you have is a Hammer: Strategic Nuclear Forces and the Ukraine Crisis

Spring intern Andrew Szarejko and I have a new piece on the Center homepage on the Ukraine crisis and the role of strategic forces. Here’s how we begin:

Like a bad penny that always seems to find its way back into your pocket, critics of the Obama administration are using a crisis abroad to recite their favorite talking points about the importance of nuclear weapons and missile defense to U.S. security.

Further Russian aggression toward Ukraine could be avoided, they suggest, if only President Obama would revive a Bush-era missile defense plan for Europe or at least accelerate the current plan, the European Phased Adaptive Approach (EPAA). If only Obama would consider deploying tactical nuclear weapons in Eastern Europe and provide additional billions (on top of the hundreds of billions already planned) to accelerate the modernization of the American nuclear arsenal, Putin would never show his bare chest again and return Crimea to Ukraine.

Some of these and other proposals can be found in the recent legislation sponsored by Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) titled “The Russian Aggression Prevention Act of 2014”. The legislation calls for accelerating implementation of the EPAA, halting nuclear weapons reductions under New START and any further reductions until Russia is in compliance with its arms control obligations and is no longer threatening Ukraine, and prohibiting overflights of U.S. territory by Russian aircraft under the Open Skies Treaty using new digital surveillance devices.

These actions may satisfy a political desire to poke Russia in the eye and make the Obama administration look weak, but they are wrong-headed and don’t respond to the threat. U.S. nuclear weapons and missile defenses are largely irrelevant to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine. While augmenting nuclear and missile defense capabilities and ditching existing arms control mechanisms will not dissuade Russia from engaging in more mischief in Ukraine, they could amount to pouring gasoline on an already large fire.

You can read the whole thing here.

As Another North Korean Nuclear Test Looms, What’s Washington’s Response?

This week, OtherWords published a piece I wrote alongside Lt. General (USA, Ret) Robert Gard on the Obama administration’s “strategic patience” policy toward North Korea. Here is an excerpt:

It’s time to put North Korea back on the foreign policy agenda and re-engage it in serious and responsible negotiations.

Given Chinese support for North Korea, heavy sanctions won’t compel Kim Jong Un to comply with American preferences or engage in negotiations on dictated terms. However much the United States may detest the authoritarian North Korean regime, it’s in America’s interest to engage in a dialogue to protect its national security and that of its Asian allies.

Refusing to negotiate with the North Koreans unless they make concessions dictated by Washington is counterproductive. Watchful waiting simply results in further advances in the North Korean nuclear weapons program, making America and its allies less secure. Kim Jong Un is willing to talk, and it’s in America’s interest to pick up the phone and call him.

Read the full piece here.

Nuke Numbers

This week has seen the release of some important details pertaining to the size of the US nuclear arsenal. Size matters, even if it’s not the only policy criterion that matters. So let’s dive in.

In an April 29 speech at the NPT Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) meeting in New York City, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Rose Gottemoeller announced “that as of September 2013, the number of nuclear weapons in the active U.S. arsenal has fallen to 4,804. This newly declassified number represents an 85 percent reduction in the U.S. nuclear stockpile since 1967.”

The nuclear stockpile includes (1) strategic and non-strategic weapons maintained in an operational, ready-for-use configuration, (2) warheads that must be ready for possible deployment within a short timeframe, (3) logistics spares, and (4) inactive warheads maintained at a depot in a non-operational status. The latter three categories make up the bulk of what is commonly referred to as the stockpile “hedge”.  In a separatefact sheet the State Department released updated data on the size of the active stockpile back to 1962 and the number of warheads dismantled since 1994. The declassified stockpile number does not include weapons retired and awaiting dismantlement.

While in the post-Cold War era changes to the active stockpile have been influenced by arms control treaties, reductions in this stockpile are not mandated by agreements with Russia and are implemented unilaterally.

This is the second time the Obama administration has declassified the size of the active stockpile. The first announcement came in May 2010, when the administration revealed an arsenal of 5,113 warheads as of September 30, 2009. In the four years between declassifications, the size of the active stockpile shrunk by a total of 309 warheads (or roughly 6%).  

The United States deserves credit for divulging the size of a significant portion of its nuclear arsenal. Washington is by far the most transparent of the nine existing nuclear powers. Russia and China have been particularly derelict in this regard. For additional steps the United States and the other nuclear weapons states could take to enhance the transparency of global nuclear stockpiles, see here and here.

Yet a 6% reduction in four years doesn’t seem to reflect favorably on progress toward the lofty goals the President articulated in Prague at the beginning of his first term. It also pales in comparison to the cuts made by the George W. Bush administration, which slashed the stockpile by about 21% (or over 2100 warheads) during its first four years and 50% (or over 5,000 warheads) by the time it left office in 2001.

One of the reasons the Bush administration was able to make such drastic cuts is that it faced an excessive amount of Cold War overhang left over from the Clinton administration, which only reduced the stockpile by about 8% in eight years (using FY 1993 as the starting point).

In addition, Bush did not face opposition from Congress to slashing the stockpile. As I’ve written previously, one of the perks of being a Republican president is the freedom to make drastic changes to US nuclear force levels while Democratic presidents are forced to travel a much tougher political road, often in the pursuit of far less ambitious cuts. President Obama faces similar partisan obstacles.

President Obama’s goal to reduce the arsenal has also been stymied by Russia.  Last June, the President announced his willingness to pursue nuclear reductions with Russia of up to one-third below the New START limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads. The United States also remains open to negotiating further reductions with Russia in all categories of nuclear weapons – including strategic and non-strategic and deployed and non-deployed weapons. However, Moscow has rebuffed US overtures and concerns in Washington about Russia’s compliance with the INF treaty and its aggression against Ukraine have further reduced the likelihood of additional negotiated cuts.

But external factors are not the only reason the President has made only minimal changes to the size of the stockpile. As Hans Kristensen notes “the administration itself has reaffirmed long-standing nuclear policy, protected the force structure, and emphasized modernizations of nuclear forces.” This is not to say that some modernization isn’t required, but rather that the administration as a whole has placed greater emphasis on that plank of the agenda than it has on reshaping US nuclear posture.

In fact, don’t expect significant reductions below the September 30, 2013, level of 4,804 warheads during the remainder of Obama’s presidency. A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released on April 30 reveals that the reduction of weapons as a result of the New START won’t lead to changes in the total size of the stockpile until the late 2020s or early 2030s. According to GAO,

DOD officials told us that the retirement of additional weapons from the stockpile stemming from New START will be predicated on the successful restoration of the NNSA weapons production infrastructure, including the construction and operation of new NNSA facilities supporting nuclear weapons production—the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement Nuclear Facility at LANL, and the Uranium Production Facility at Y-12—which they did not believe could be achieved until the late 2020s or early 2030s.

Additional reductions to the hedge could take even longer. The FY 2014 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan (and its FY 2015 update) suggests that such cuts might not be contemplated for decades. According to the plan, enabling “up to a 50% potential hedge reduction” requires not only the creation of “a responsive infrastructure capable of the full range of activities to produce the future stockpile” but also the successful implementation of the “3+2” warhead modernization strategy, which is likely unaffordable, technically risky, and probably unexecutable. Even if it could be achieved, the plan isn’t slated for completion until the 2050s. And even then, there is only the “potential” for hedge cuts. Indeed, there seems to be a large disconnect between the President’s willingness to negotiate reductions in non-deployed weapons with Russia on the one hand, and plans that condition reductions in non-deployed weapons on decades-long modernization goals on the other.

This begs the question of why it’s not possible to make meaningful reductions to the hedge sooner and at far less cost than current plans. For example, some credible observers have noted that for pit production, requirements “have been fluid, reducing their credibility” and “it is hard to know what capacity is needed, and thus what new facilities or modifications to existing ones are needed.”

In the end, if President Obama wants his nuclear policy legacy to include significant reductions to the nuclear stockpile, he will need to be far bolder than he has been to date.  

The Saga in Syria Might Not Be Over Yet

To date, about 86.5% of Syria’s declared chemical weapons stocks have been surrendered. Current projections keep the program on track to meet the April 30th deadline to remove all chemical weapons from Syrian territory. The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has hailed recent shipments of chemical weapons, but has stressed the need for continued and accelerated removal of the declared stockpile.

Despite good news on the deadline front, recent allegations of further chemical weapons use inside Syria have raised questions as to whether Syrian President Assad is truly committed to ending his use of chemical weapons. Recent reports have claimed the Assad regime has targeted rebels with chlorine gas, a toxic poison not covered by the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) given its numerous commercial and industrial usages, including pool chlorination. While possessing chlorine gas may not be a violation of the CWC, using the gas as a weapon is a violation of the spirit of the CWC, which defines a toxic chemical as: “Any chemical which through its chemical action on life processes can cause death, temporary incapacitation or permanent harm to humans or animals. This includes all such chemicals, regardless of their origin or of their method of production, and regardless of whether they are produced in facilities, in munitions or elsewhere.”

Meanwhile, one U.S. official, has hinted that undeclared weapons might remain in the hands of the Assad regime, while Russia and Assad suggest that rebel “extremists” are responsible for the chemical weapons use.  Another equally disconcerting possibility is that the regime used declared materials that had not yet been shipped.

UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2118, adopted on September 27, 2013, calls for “the expeditious destruction of the Syrian Arab Republic’s chemical weapons program,” but even before these most recent allegations came to light, a U.S. official had suggested that Syria may possess undeclared chemical weapons. Given the continued chaos, it is hard to say with certainty whether the Assad regime or rebel groups are responsible for the alleged chemical weapons usage, but the fact that chemical weapons may have  been used again in Syria is cause for concern.  The nature of the problem lies in who used the chemical weapons. If the regime used declared chemicals, Assad has clearly flouted Resolution 2118 and the numbers used to confirm total export of the program may not match the initial OPCW declaration. If, as the regime charges, rebel groups used chemical weapons, this would mean that Syrian chemical weapons are not properly secured or rebel groups have procured or produced chemical weapons. Either way, the Syrian civil war is getting worse.

Resolution 2118 is clear that Syria’s complete chemical weapons stockpile must be surrendered and destroyed—chemicals that should have already been declared are no exception. The OPCW Executive Council Decision on the Syrian chemical weapons program, which is included as an annex in Resolution 2118, calls for the “elimination of all chemical weapons material and equipment” in Syria. It is difficult to come away with a looser interpretation.

If the Assad regime is attempting to maintain a chemical weapons stockpile or stockpile of munitions, it would be in violation of Resolution 2118, the OPCW Decision, and their stated commitments “not use, develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile or retain chemical weapons”. In response the United States and the European Union could lead the charge for further sanctions against the Assad regime, potentially increase assistance to rebel group, and/or even re-debate the use of force against Syria. Indeed, if the Assad regime is not in compliance with the Resolution, the United States may well attempt to circumvent Russian shielding of Assad under Chapter VII of the United Nations charter as stated by UNSC Resolution 2118.

The deadline for the removal of chemical weapons from Syria is the end of April, a date shifted from the initial early February goal. While various OPCW and US officials have expressed hope that Syria will meet this revised deadline, the presence or use of any undeclared stocks, including the use of chlorine gas, could further set back the process. Resolution 2118 is unambiguous. As a first step, any suspected chemical weapons use in Syria must be thoroughly investigated.

Disclaimer: This situation in Syria is rapidly evolving. This post reflects the most accurate public data available as of 1PM EST on April 22, 2014. Please check back for future updates on this matter.