Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Guest Post by Alex Bollfrass (Click here to read Freezer Burn, Part I)

On to Part II of the discussion of Thomas Schelling’s “A world without nuclear weapons.”

Besides the argument about non-verifiability, Schelling’s main contention against nuclear abolition is grounded in the seemingly limitless power of nuclear weapons – and therefore their irresistible appeal in the case of a major crisis.  Schelling played an enormous role in shaping our understanding of nuclear deterrence during the Cold War – and it shows.  

He relies too strongly on the notion that a handful of nuclear weapons can rule the world as long as no other country can balance them with an arsenal of its own:

[I]f, at the outset of what appears to be a major war, or the imminent possibility of major war, every responsible government must consider that other responsible governments will mobilize their nuclear weapons base as soon as war erupts, or as soon as war appears likely, there will be at least covert frantic efforts, or perhaps purposely conspicuous efforts, to acquire deliverable nuclear weapons as rapidly as possible.

This belief in the overwhelming power of the Bomb comes from a reading of WWII that has been convincingly dismantled by Ward Wilson.  In a forthcoming manuscript, Ward points out that the destruction of cities, the one thing nuclear weapons do well, have never won wars.  Think of the US Civil War: Sherman may have burned Atlanta and the Union captured the South’s capital, Richmond, but the war ended only when the Confederate armies were surrounded and faced certain defeat.  Defeating armies is not something nuclear weapons, particularly small numbers of nuclear weapons, are particularly adept at.

In a disarmed world, the major powers would have accepted this line of reasoning; otherwise they would have never agreed to divest themselves of these weapons. They would also have instituted a robust enforcement process beyond the current Security Council arrangements to ensure a swift conventional response to a violation.  This means that they would be both far less likely to attempt to reconstitute their arsenals in a bid to gain an advantage in an impending crisis, nor would they be as spooked about seeing their rival do so as Schelling postulates.  

But even if a crisis would not automatically “go nuclear,” would countries be more likely to break out without the stabilizing effects of nuclear deterrence?  No – and that is another assumption about nuclear weapons based on an incomplete reading of history.  Observing that the US-Soviet rivalry never erupted into direct conflict, proponents of retaining nuclear arsenals identify them as the crucial peacekeepers.

A potent antidote to this causal explanation is Zbigniew Brzezinski’s recent piece in Foreign Affairs (subscription required). He offers a full account of why the US and the Soviets never came to blows – without ever invoking nuclear deterrence. This has important implications for the future of US-Russian relations, too.  As discussed in Part I, the U.S. and Russia are the only two countries that could conceivably hide the materials necessary to maintain a near-weapons capability (something Schelling erroneously believes every major power to be capable of). Eternal harmony and love between the two is not necessary.  Instead, a stable geopolitical arrangement would suffice to prevent the emergence of the paranoid escalatory dynamic Schelling fears. In a disarmed world this is a given, because we would not have gotten there without an improvement in relations between the US and Russia and the conclusion of a more stable European security system.  

Although Schelling is correct that “every responsible government” will have a plan to re-arm if necessary, it will also analyze the costs and benefits of upping the nuclear ante before taking this step. This does not mean that making a decision to reconstitute will be ruled out, but it is far from self-evident that the “urge to preempt” is the irresistible temptation that Schelling describes.  

Even in moments of crises, a world without nuclear weapons would therefore be far more stable than he suggests.   How would it compare to the stability of the world today?  We would be rid of the potentially catastrophic risk of nuclear warfare.  This does not eliminate the need for further analysis and study of the merits of global zero.  But Schelling’s reasoning should not dissuade President Obama and other leaders from pursuing multilateral nuclear disarmament.

To conclude on a conciliatory note: I may disagree with the Nobel Laureate on the dynamics of nuclear abolition, but there is no question that Schelling and I can find common ground celebrating last week’s disarming first strike against Stanford’s offense. Go Bears!

Alex Bollfrass works for the Unblocking the Road to Zero project at the Stimson Center, where his better angels are fighting a losing battle against the temptations of conference-origin baked goods.

As the diplomatic standoff with Iran continues to heat up, Yukiya Amano of Japan today begins his tenure as the new Director General of the IAEA. In an interview with Reuters in February, Amano praised President Obama’s willingness to open dialogue with Iran. But dialogue has not gone well thus far, which prompted exiting Director General Mohamed ElBaradei to declare last Friday that the IAEA’s cooperation with Iran has reached a “dead end.” With these firm farewell words from ElBaradei, it is now Amano’s turn to navigate the technical and political minefield that is the Iranian nuclear program…

Mohamed ElBaradei has been a controversial figure due to his hostile relationship with the Bush administration. During his term, ElBaradei was criticized by Washington for politicizing the IAEA and taking a relatively soft stance on Iran. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice placed much of the blame for Iran’s nuclear developments on ElBaradei’s leadership of the Agency.  She accused ElBaradei of “muddying the message” to Iran and stated that “The IAEA is not in the business of diplomacy. The IAEA is a technical agency…”

In contrast, Amano is known to be more of a technocrat than a diplomat. In his February interview, he stated: “The IAEA’s basic function is not political negotiation but implementing already agreed safeguards. Remarks by the director have political implications which, if made without properly assessing these implications, can be very dangerous.”

In fact, much of Amano’s support in his July 1st election was rooted in the belief that he would “depoliticize” the IAEA in the wake of ElBaradei’s leadership. The AP’s George Jahn noted in July that, “without publicly saying so, the U.S. and its allies had made clear before Tuesday’s voting that they favored Amano because they saw him as someone who would manage the IAEA without thrusting himself into the political fray.”  In a similar vein, UPI explained that, “poor Asian and African nations regard him as too aligned with rich nations.” The developing nations largely supported South African candidate Abdul Minty, who had run for the position on a platform of moderate activism aimed at challenging the nuclear weapon states on disarmament issues.

Amano has tried to deflect concerns that he has a hidden, factional agenda. At a conference shortly after his election, Amano told reporters: “As a national from Japan, I will do my utmost to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. To do that, the solidarity of all the member states, countries of the north, from the south, from east and west, is absolutely necessary.”

Amano has also called for a wider understanding of the IAEA as not only a nuclear watchdog, but also a key facilitator of peaceful nuclear energy use.  He explained that new perceptions of the IAEA as a “dual objective organization” would be “helpful in strengthening confidence in the agency.”

As for how Amano’s vision of a depoliticized IAEA and increased solidarity will play out in the context of the Iranian nuclear issue, NoH wishes the new Director General the best of luck.  He is likely to need it.

Update: James Acton has published a more in-depth analysis of the IAEA’s change in leadership on Carnegie’s website

A few weeks ago I noted that it was ironic that Senator Jon Kyl has been accusing the Obama administration of being weak on verification in its pursuit of a New START agreement considering his past lackadaisical approach to this topic.  Apparently the Senator’s inconsistency knows no bounds.

In a November 21 speech on the Senate floor, Sen. Kyl warned of the consequences of allowing START I to expire on December 5.  “The U.S. will lose a significant source of information that has allowed it to have confidence in its ability to understand Russian strategic nuclear forces,” he proclaimed.

Arms control advocates have been raising concerns about the impending disappearance of START I’s verification, monitoring, and inspection provisions for years.  The same cannot be said of Sen. Kyl, whose sudden admiration for START I’s verification scheme contrasts sharply with his position on the Bush administration’s 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT), which contained no such verification procedures.  In praising SORT on the Senate floor in April 2003, Sen. Kyl stated:

This treaty is a masterstroke. It represents, and, I am sure, will be sent as ushering in a wholly new approach to arms control for a wholly new era. The simplicity of this treaty is a marvel. It is extremely brief, indeed just three pages long. It is shorn of the tortured benchmarks, sublimits, arcane definitions and monitoring provisions that weighed down past arms control treaties.

In addition, Sen. Kyl was one of 50 mostly Republican Senators to vote against an amendment proposed by Sen. Kerry to add verification requirements to SORT.

So he was against verification before he was for it?

What’s the cause of his new-found verification religion?  Has it something to do with a Democrat being in the White House?

Kyl’s November 21 floor speech also tries to blame the Obama administration for Russia’s plans to deploy the road-mobile RS-24 missile, a new, multiple-warhead version of the single warhead SS-27.  

Yet the Bush administration did not make an issue out of Russia’s development of the RS-24.  This was in keeping with the conclusions of the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, which declared that it was no longer appropriate to size and configure U.S. nuclear forces in relation to the Russian arsenal.  

As Amb. Linton Brooks, a former Republican official and negotiator of the START I agreement, noted at an October 26 event on START at the United States Institute of Peace: “The fact that the Secretary of Defense in the last administration said both publically and privately that we didn’t care [about the RS-24] may have suggested to them [the Russians] that it was ok….We had a long time…to call them on that and we as a government chose not to.”

Sen. Kyl claims that the Obama administration has given next to no consideration of how to bridge the gap between the expiration of START I and entry into force of New START.  This is simply not true.  As numerous Obama administration officials have noted, the two sides have been negotiating a bridging agreement in parallel to the new Treaty to cover the gap.  The Administration has not, however, divulged the details of a bridge agreement that is still being negotiated.

Sen. Kyl ends his speech by noting that “the U.S. would have been very well served with a simple 5 year extension of the 1991 Agreement, as the treaty allowed.”  Earlier versions of Senator Kyl would likely have opposed this position, as he apparently had no qualms with the Bush administration’s decision not to seek an extension of START I in 2007 and 2008.  

In any event, the time for talk of a simple five year extension has long since past, thanks in large part to the Bush administration’s unwillingness to consider it.  

In a recent controversial article in The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh points to growing radicalization within Pakistan’s military that could endanger the security of its nuclear arsenal…

Though the United States has repeatedly stated that it has no intention of seizing Pakistani nuclear weapons or materials and maintains confidence in the security of Pakistan’s arsenal, Hersh reports that the Obama administration has been negotiating “highly sensitive” understandings that would allow specially-trained American units to provide added security for the Pakistani arsenal in a crisis. According to Hersh, the secrecy surrounding these agreements arises from a growing antipathy and history of distrust toward America within Pakistan, which has only intensified as a result of U.S. pressure on the Pakistan Army to take more aggressive action against Taliban enclaves inside Pakistan.

Hersh is right that the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is cause for concern. Though nuclear safeguards are in place, primarily to keep a confrontation with India from escalating too quickly, these same safeguards could make Pakistan’s arsenal more vulnerable to terrorists. Extensive procedures that require warheads to be stored separate from their triggers and delivery vehicles leave these elements most exposed, as they are constantly being moved and reassembled. Andrew St. Denis noted in August that most of Pakistan’s nuclear facilities lie in and around areas populated by the Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Rolf Mowatt-Larssen recently wrote in Arms Control Today about the “lethal proximity between terrorists, extremists, and nuclear weapons insiders” in Pakistan. “Insiders have facilitated terrorist attacks. Suicide bombings have occurred at air force bases that reportedly serve as nuclear weapons storage sites. It is difficult to ignore such trends,” he said.

Michael Krepon, however, points out that Hersh’s record, though relatively solid in other respects, is mediocre at best with regard to Pakistan. Unfortunately, writes Krepon, Hersh’s “sourcing is weak and his conclusions are suspect.” If his story were true, “those ‘specially trained American units’ can now forget about helping Pakistan to secure its arsenal: Public revelation of such an agreement makes it about as palatable within Pakistan as changing that nation’s religious preference.”