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Obama’s Mixed Bag on Nuclear Weapons

By Angela Canterbury and Sarah Tully

President Obama has long talked the talk of reducing the dangers of nuclear weapons, but the administration has been slow to walk the walk in terms of nuclear weapons reductions in recent years.

A recent study by Federation of American Scientists pointed out that in terms of number of stockpiled warheads and percentage of reduction, Obama has done less than all other post-cold war presidents.

President George W. Bush reduced the U.S. nuclear stockpile by 50% during his tenure in office, surprisingly, qualifying him for the prize of greatest nuclear disarmer by percentage since 1945. President Bush senior claims second prize with 41% reduction. President Eisenhower had the greatest escalation of all time with an increase of 2,117%, although the times were certainly different back then and the United States was starting from a small stockpile. Meanwhile, President Obama has retired 507 warheads or a 10% reduction of the total stockpile.

However, it’s important to put these numbers into context.

Throughout his presidency, Obama has reduced our nuclear weapons stockpile each year. While stockpile numbers diminished more drastically under President Clinton and President Bush, President Obama took on the job when the stockpile was the smallest in decades. For instance, President Bush reduced the nuclear weapons stockpile by 5,304; which is 654 more nukes than the total of 4,650 nuclear weapons the U.S. has today.

The Obama administration got a strong start on reducing the threat of nuclear weapons. In his 2009 foreign policy address in Prague president Obama spoke of “America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” In 2011, he secured the historic New START Treaty with Russia which necessitates significant nuclear weapons stockpile reductions on both sides and calls for more rigorous verification and inspection protocols.

The three Nuclear Security Summits initiated by President Obama helped to focus world attention on the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials. According to a New York Times editorial, “[s]ince Mr. Obama took office, he has pushed the international community to improve nuclear security.  The result is that 14 countries have eliminated their nuclear materials stockpiles and 15 others removed or disposed of portions of theirs.”

It is also looking more and more (fingers crossed) like the U.S. and its negotiating partners, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council as well as Germany collectively known as P5+1, are close to a historic deal with Iran to prevent it from getting a nuclear bomb.

He’s certainly done well. Just not quite as well as advocates of reducing nuclear weapons stockpile size and importance would have hoped.

For one, Obama’s record on investing in nuclear non-proliferation programs hasn’t been great as of late. According to a July 2014 analysis of the Obama administration’s security spending out of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, the administration chose to cut the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) non-proliferation programs by $399 million and increase spending for weapons activities by $534 million. This was the second straight year of reductions in the U.S. non-proliferation budget.

And this reduction in spending to rein-in nuclear weapons has been met by an increase in spending on nuclear weapons.

In order to get the go-ahead from opponents in Congress on the New START Treaty with Russia, Obama agreed to spend $84 billion in nuclear weapons modernization over the next decade, a number the Congressional Budget Office estimates will likely come in at $355 billion with others estimating $1 trillion over 30 years. This is unnecessary spending on modernization that isn’t needed to meet today’s threats.

Nevertheless, the President did try again for nuclear reduction in 2013. But Vladimir Putin, President of the only country besides the U.S. with thousands of nuclear weapons, rejected Obama’s 2013 proposal to cut Russian and U.S. deployed strategic nuclear warheads beyond the 1,550 agreed upon in New START, down to 1,000.

But the deal hasn’t been sealed yet. Ultimately, the President’s legacy on nuclear issues depends on what gets done over his last two years in office.

The President still has a chance to make strides on the nuclear front. Both Russia and the U.S. have to cut their deployed nukes stockpile to 1,550 by 2018 under the New START accord. Obama could accelerate those reductions in the next two years without waiting for 2018. He could also scrap some of the expensive and arguably unnecessary modernization plans like fitting the F-35 for a nuclear weapon and building a new generation of land-based missiles.  

Those of us who are working to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons are eager to see Obama do more and fulfill his Prague promise.

Chicken Little Panics: Russia Plus One Nuke

Last week, the State Department published its New START Treaty Aggregate Numbers of Strategic Offensive Arms report, and it’s got wild-eyed defense spending enthusiasts up in a different sort of arms. About what, you might ask? As of September 1, Russia has more deployed strategic nuclear warheads than the United States for the first time since 2000.

One more, or 0.00061% more warheads, that is.

The report shows that the Russian Federation has 1,643 deployed strategic nuclear warheads — precisely one more than the United States’ 1,642 warheads. The strategic significance of this disparity is, well, zero–except to provide an excuse for nuclear hawks to cry for more nuclear weapons.  

The current situation reminds one of the chaos that ensues in the 1966 movie The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming over a false alarm about a Russian invasion of New England.

The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty signed by Russia and the US entered into force in February 2011.
Since then, Russia has increased its deployed warheads by 144, while the US has drawn down its force from 1,722 to 1,642. The treaty obliges both countries to limit their deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,550 by 2018.

The Washington Times columnist Bill Gertz led the Chicken Little Caucus, writing in The Washington Times, “Russia has more deployed nuclear warheads than U.S.“ Yes indeed, by one. We should surrender immediately.

The article quotes former Pentagon strategic weapons analyst Mark Schneider saying, “All U.S. numbers have declined since New START entered into force…The fact that this is happening reflects the ineffectiveness of the Obama administration’s approach to New START.”

What? You mean the Obama Administration is reducing nuclear weapons as called for by a treaty to reduce nuclear weapons? What kind of logic is that?

If the purpose of the treaty is to reduce the U.S. and Russia’s nuclear weapons stockpiles, the decline in the U.S. arsenal to which Schneider refers as ‘ineffective’ is, in fact, quite effective. In fact, it’s in accordance with fulfilling our treaty obligations.

Another important fact:  this miniscule numerical superiority of Russia’s arsenal is temporary. According to Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, “…these changes do not reflect a build-up of the Russian nuclear arsenal. The increase results from the deployment of new missiles and fluctuations caused by existing launchers moving in and out of overhaul.”

You know when you go to the doctor for a 3:00pm check-up and you’re two pounds heavier than you were yesterday morning? Imagine these warhead stockpile numbers as your post-lunch, jeans-on weigh-in. The U.S. just went for the salad.

The big picture significance of Russia’s one extra nuclear warhead is the ongoing confrontation between Russia and the U.S. since the Russian seizure of Crimea and its invasion of Ukraine. While Putin talks big about nuclear weapons, both countries have arsenals far beyond any necessary to deter a nuclear war or to respond to a nuclear attack. Many experts argue that 100 or 500 nuclear weapons would be more than an adequate nuclear deterrent – or destroyer of worlds.

In 1983 Carl Sagan said, “Imagine a room awash with gasoline. And there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has 9,000 matches, the other has 7,000 matches. Each of them is concerned about who’s ahead.”

Today it’s more like 1,642 matches to 1,643, but the metaphor is just as applicable.

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.

The Prague Agenda on its Fifth Anniversary

On April 5, 2009, President Obama articulated a vision of a nuclear-free world in a speech in Prague, marking the start of a committed pursuit of enhanced global nuclear security. He reiterated this commitment in a June 2013 speech in Berlin, but while significant progress has been made, many aspects of this agenda have stalled or failed to get off the ground. Five years after the speech in Prague, it is time to revitalize the cause of nuclear security and non-proliferation.

The “Prague Agenda” laid out in Obama’s 2009 speech focuses on several steps to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons—reduction of the number of nuclear weapons within states that already possess them; reduction of the role of nuclear weapons in national defense; prevention of nuclear proliferation by strengthening the global non-proliferation regime and punishing those states in violation of their obligations; securing vulnerable nuclear materials and enhancing international cooperation on nuclear security; and Senate approval of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT).

Progress toward these goals has been made, albeit unevenly. A litany of factors, including political obstruction from domestic opposition and worsening ties with Russia, has prevented more extensive progress from being realized. Moreover, the White House has not always pursued these goals with the vigor required of such an ambitious agenda. To sustain progress on this front, Obama must advance the Prague Agenda more forcefully throughout the remainder of his second term.

The New START Treaty, which came into effect on February 5, 2011, supported the first item on the Prague Agenda—to reduce the world’s supply of nuclear weapons, starting with the United States and Russia. In his Berlin speech last year, Obama announced that the United States would pursue a reduction in the number of deployed strategic nuclear weapons by up to a third, bringing the total from the 1,550 allowed under New START closer to 1,000.

As part of an update to high-level nuclear weapons policy guidance, this proposed reduction and further changes to the US nuclear posture would reduce the role that nuclear weapons play in US defense policy. However, the administration is predicating further reductions in the number and role of nuclear weapons on a negotiation with Russia, which Russia refused. Cooperation is especially unlikely to deepen amid the crisis in Ukraine and allegations that Russia violated the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).

With regards to the global non-proliferation regime, Obama has gone to great lengths to strengthen the regime, most obviously seen through his commitment to a negotiated settlement to the Iranian nuclear impasse. Yet despite recent progress on Iran, North Korea’s nuclear weapons program continues to expand. The 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference yielded consensus on a final document, a notable achievement given the failure to arrive at such a conclusion in 2005. The document espoused specific action designed to strengthen the three pillars of the NPT, non-proliferation, disarmament, and peaceful use of nuclear energy. On non-proliferation, a variety of proposals were put forward, many of which have seen progress since 2010–for example, strengthening export controls and encouraging states to adopt the NPT Additional Protocol. On disarmament, the final document requires nuclear weapons states to report on their disarmament activities at the 2014 NPT Preparatory Committee meeting in late April and for the first time explicitly states that the goal of the NPT’s disarmament provision is a world free of nuclear weapons. Other action plan items, such as negotiations on a Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty and on a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the Middle East have stalled, and realistic steps toward nuclear disarmament post-New START have been few and far between.

The United States under President Obama deserves great praise for leading a global effort to secure vulnerable nuclear materials. Through the Nuclear Security Summit, Obama has ensured that this issue has remained at the forefront of the international community’s agenda, and a great deal of measurable progress has been made in reducing the amount of vulnerable nuclear material around the world. Beyond the planned 2016 Nuclear Security Summit, however, it is unclear how the United States will pursue global nuclear security. Furthermore, budget cuts have slowed the pace of nuclear security efforts, and many projects have been delayed or place on hold indefinitely.

Finally, the CTBT still has not been ratified despite Obama’s insistence in Prague that his administration would “immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.”

Five years after Obama established an ambitious commitment to nuclear security and non-proliferation at Prague, his record on the subject remains mixed. While progress has been made in some areas, many initiatives have stalled. To make matters worse, the Russian incursion in Ukraine will be a major obstacle to political cooperation between the United States and Russia, but there are steps the administration can take that need not rest on immediate Russian reciprocity.

The fifth anniversary of the Prague speech provides the administration with a chance to intensify its efforts in support of nuclear security and non-proliferation.

Fact Sheet: New START and Nuclear Modernization Funding

by Kingston Reif Background As part of his effort to win Republican support for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in 2010, President Obama submitted to lawmakers a 10-year plan to maintain and modernize US nuclear warheads, strategic delivery systems, and their supporting infrastructure. Contained in what was originally known as the “Section […]