The United States and Russia possess 95 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons.1 How these two nuclear superpowers configure and view their nuclear forces has a profound impact on how the other nuclear-armed states perceive the value of their weapons and how seriously other nations consider acquiring or not acquiring their own nuclear arsenals. This chapter briefly summarizes how the U.S. and Russia view their nuclear weapons and offers practical policy recommendations for how both nations can achieve their stated goal of reducing the role of nuclear weapons in national security strategies.
The New START treaty limits the United States and Russia to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear warheads each, carried by no more than 700 operational delivery vehicles each. This means that each nation can maintain 1,550 thermonuclear bombs on missiles and airplanes that can reach the territory of the other.2 In addition, both countries have hundreds of nonstrategic (or “tactical”) nuclear weapons assigned for battlefield use, plus hundreds of weapons held in reserve that could become operational on fairly short notice (that is, uploaded onto existing missiles and planes), plus thousands of weapons that have been decommissioned but not yet dismantled. Each country keeps about a thousand of its warheads on missiles on heightened alert status (or “hair-trigger alert”), ready to launch in fifteen minutes or less. (See chapter 4 for details on each nation’s arsenal.)
EVOLVING PERSPECTIVES, DIMINISHED UTILITY
The force structure and use doctrines of both Russia and the United States remain rooted in Cold War strategy. That means that despite the various desires and claims of the leaders of the United States and Russia over the past twenty years, both still configure their forces to deter the other by holding targets of strategic value at risk of nuclear destruction. These targets include nuclear forces, conventional forces, industrial and economic assets, and political leadership.
Moreover, the guidance that the president of the United States provides to the military (and presumably that the president of the Russian Federation provides to his military) still requires very high confidence of an “assured kill” of the target. Target destruction is determined by blast damage. The calculations largely ignore radiation and fire damage, even though both will contribute to massive destruction in the targeted areas.3 It means, for all practical purposes, that many targets have to be in or near the crater dug by the nuclear explosion—with two warheads usually allocated for hard-to-kill targets like ICBM silos. This results in both states creating requirements for a very large number of warheads.
For example, before the end of the Cold War, while I was working in Congress on the professional staff of the House Armed Services Committee, I was briefed on the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) that coordinated the war-time use of U.S. nuclear weapons. In an unclassified illustration of the methodology, we walked through the possible targets in one Soviet city and the warheads required to destroy each of them, even though the bomb blasts, fire, and radiation would overlap. The exercise resulted in sixty high-yield hydrogen bombs targeted for delivery on Odessa, Ukraine—a port city of about one million people. This vivid demonstration of “overkill” makes no military sense, except from the narrow point of view of the target officers, who are just following their instructions.
The guidance has barely changed over the years. Today’s U.S. targeting plans yield similar results for Moscow, St. Petersburg, and dozens of other cities, even though, technically, the cities are not targeted, just plants, buildings, and bases within or near the cities. Similar plans exist for other nations, including China. Less is known about Russian plans but it would be logical to assume that New York, Washington, and other U.S. cities are similarly redundantly targeted.
A 2012 report from the Government Accountability Office confirmed the failure of nuclear policy to adapt to the post–Cold War world. R. Jeffry Smith of the Center for Public Integrity reported:
Little has changed in U.S. objectives or in the targeting process over the past two decades—a period in which the political map of Eastern Europe was redrawn, NATO was expanded and wars erupted in the Balkans, the Persian Gulf and the Middle East. “The fundamental objectives of U.S. nuclear deterrence policy have remained largely consistent since 1991, even as the threat environment and the size of the nuclear weapons stockpile has changed,” the GAO report states.
White House officials said President Obama had been reviewing new recommendations for precise targeting of U.S. nuclear forces. But defense officials told the GAO that the presidential guidance governing those forces was still that written by President George W. Bush in 2002.4
EVOLUTION OF VIEWS AND DOCTRINES
These plans and strategies, as extensive as they are, have been scaled down considerably from the height of the Cold War; at its peak in the mid-1980s, the United States and Russia fielded more than 65,000 nuclear weapons on thousands of long-range missiles and bombers. Arms-control agreements negotiated during the Cold War and continuing today have reduced those arsenals by almost 75 percent.
Current U.S. and Russian views imperfectly mirror each other:
Both nations view nuclear weapons as an important part of their strategic identity, with the weapons playing a more pronounced role in Russia than in the United States.
Both nations’ militaries still see value in nuclear weapons. This view is decidedly decreasing in the U.S. military but still strong in the Russian military, particularly to offset perceived conventional military shortfalls.
Both nations devote a sizable portion of their defense budgets to nuclear weapons. The United States spends about $56 billion each year on nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs.
Both have significant modernization plans underway for new nuclear-armed missiles, submarines, and bombers.
The force posture of each nation is still largely determined by the force posture of the other. Both nations are reluctant to fall below the force numbers of the other or to negotiate asymmetrical limits.
The number and deployments of nuclear weapons by both nations are also major factors in other nations’ strategic calculations, particularly NATO members and China.
The presidential leadership of each nation has embraced the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and has taken concrete steps toward that goal. The presidents face significant opposition from their nuclear bureaucracies and from political and ideological opponents.
There is a significant, open debate in both nations on the role of nuclear weapons and the desirability and feasibility of eliminating nuclear weapons, though this debate is more transparent and more developed in the United States.
The current shift in U.S. and Russian strategic thinking began with President Ronald Reagan and President Mikhail Gorbachev. During Reagan’s first term, the seemingly belligerent policies of the U.S. military build-up and aggressive Soviet actions under General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev convinced millions of Americans and Europeans that the two would start a global thermonuclear war. A mass movement to reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons arose to counter this danger. Its impact rippled through the U.S. Congress and European parliaments and stimulated new strategic thinking that continues to this day.
Reagan saw the build-up as part of a strategy to force negotiations to end the arms race. He wanted to convince the Soviets that they could not win an arms race and thus would have to end it. As one biographer observed, “Ronald Reagan harbored an intense dislike of nuclear weapons and the concept of mutually assured destruction. That antinuclearism was based on his deeply rooted personal beliefs and religious views. Reagan was convinced that it was his personal mission to avert nuclear war.”5 Reagan spoke often of his desire to make nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete” and to move steadily to a world without any nuclear weapons. He found a partner in Gorbachev, who wrote,
The road to this goal began in November 1985 when Ronald Reagan and I met in Geneva. We declared that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” This was said at a time when many people in the military and among the political establishment regarded a war involving weapons of mass destruction as conceivable and even acceptable, and were developing various scenarios of nuclear escalation.6
Reagan and Gorbachev tried but failed to conclude an agreement at their summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1986 to eliminate all nuclear weapons within ten years. But their talks later helped them negotiate two treaties, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty and the START I treaty (concluded by George H. W. Bush) that eliminated thousands of long-range weapons. President Bush negotiated START II, which would make additional nuclear cuts, with Gorbachev’s successor, Boris Yeltsin. These policies enjoyed broad bipartisan support, as demonstrated by the role played by President Bill Clinton in winning Senate approval of START II in 1996 and continuing to reduce the role and numbers of nuclear weapons.
Arms control has not always come through formal treaties. In 1991, President George H. W. Bush and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev coordinated deep reductions in their countries’ nuclear forces. President Bush announced plans to eliminate all ground-launch short-range nuclear weapons, remove all nuclear weapons from surface ships and attack submarines, take U.S. strategic nuclear bombers off strip alert, stand-down from alert all ICBMs scheduled for deactivation under START, and forgo a series of nuclear modernization programs.7 In kind, Gorbachev announced plans to eliminate nuclear artillery munitions, mines, and warheads for tactical missiles and to remove nonstrategic nuclear weapons from surface ships and submarines. Russian president Boris Yeltsin reaffirmed and clarified Gorbachev’s pledges, including committing to halve Russian stocks of air-defense missiles and air-launched nonstrategic munitions and to eliminate one-third of sea-based nonstrategic weapons.
President Bush’s cuts were applauded by most officials and experts even though he took them unilaterally, without a formal agreement of any kind. “The President wanted to take the initiative in arms control,” explained Brent Scowcroft, then national security adviser. “He saw intuitively that there was a new world forming, and didn’t want to be behind the power curve and be driven either by the Congress and the budget, or by the Pentagon’s resistance.”8 Under these initiatives, the United States and Russia reduced their deployed nonstrategic stockpiles by an estimated 5,000 and 13,000 warheads, respectively.9 Lacking a treaty, these numbers cannot be publicly verified. Nor is it certain whether the United States and Russia kept all their commitments, but it appears that most were implemented.
EVOLUTION INTERRUPTED
This doctrinal shift was interrupted by the administration of George W. Bush, who continued reductions of nuclear forces but also sought to expand their missions. Although the president did not appear to harbor any ideological attachment to nuclear weapons—and made unilateral cuts of his own—many officials in his administration came into office in 2001 with a disdain for what they considered the naïve practice of arms control (as discussed in chapter 2). These officials sought to remove any constraints on U.S. defense and foreign policy. They convinced President Bush to renounce previous arms-control commitments, withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and reject any new negotiated nuclear reductions with Russia until compelled by Congress to do so. The 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) that his officials worked out with the Russians codified unilateral nuclear reductions plans already underway in the United States and Russia but abandoned the verification mechanisms of the 1991 START treaty, developed by the previous Republican administrations. A high-ranking U.S. official quipped that the SORT treaty was simply “two force postures stapled together and called a treaty.”10
The Bush administration formalized its views in the congressionally mandated Nuclear Posture Review, submitted to Congress on December 31, 2001. The NPR greatly expanded the role and missions of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security strategy. Although classified, most of the document was leaked in early 2002. While this is essentially an internal document, other nations carefully scrutinize the plan for clues on the future role of nuclear weapons in U.S. security structure.
The NPR identified a wide range of potential uses for nuclear weapons, including responding to a biological or chemical weapon attack, striking hardened conventional targets, striking mobile targets, and responding to a surprise or unusual conventional attack. It specified China as a target for U.S. nuclear weapons as well as “rogue” states that did not have nuclear weapons, including Libya, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Syria. It called for the development of several new types of nuclear weapons, including low-yield weapons and earth-penetrating “bunker busters.” It also called for research, development, and production of a new generation of nuclear-armed missiles, submarines, and bombers—plans that the Obama administration is now implementing.
STRATEGIC PIVOT
President Barack Obama, in a clear break from the Bush years, released an unclassified Nuclear Posture Review in April 2010 that reasserted the basic policies of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. The 2010 NPR reduced the role of nuclear weapons in security policy and started a fundamental reorientation of U.S. nuclear policy. The review “altered the hierarchy of our nuclear concerns and strategic objectives,” shifting emphasis from a force configured for massive retaliation against another nation toward a policy that places “the prevention of nuclear terrorism and proliferation at the top of the U.S. policy agenda.”11
The 2010 NPR reinforced U.S. security commitments to its allies but moved decidedly away from suggestions that it would use nuclear weapons to deter or respond to attacks involving biological, chemical, or conventional weapons. It declared that the fundamental purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons is deterrence of nuclear use by others. The NPR contained a clear U.S. pledge to never use or threaten to use a nuclear weapon on a non-nuclear-weapon state that adheres to its nonproliferation obligations.
The NPR also signaled the Obama administration’s intention to further promote the reduction and elimination of all nuclear weapons, suggesting that missile defenses and precision-guided conventional weapons could be substituted for missions that previously required a nuclear weapon. Former secretary of state George Shultz applauded the move, stating, “Deterrence is not necessarily strengthened by overreliance on nuclear weapons.”12 With the NPR, President Obama tried to implement his pledge from Prague in April 2009: “To put an end to Cold War thinking, we will reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our national security strategy and urge others to do the same.”
In part, this reflects a growing bipartisan consensus in the U.S. security establishment that whatever benefits nuclear weapons may have had during the Cold War are now outweighed by the threat they present. As George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, and Sam Nunn argued, “We face a very real possibility that the deadliest weapons ever invented could fall into dangerous hands.” The only way to prevent this, they said, was to move to eliminate all nuclear weapons. These four statesmen worked out their views with the close advice of the former Reagan nuclear negotiator Max Kampelman and the physicist Sid Drell. As Philip Taubman wrote:
It was one thing if Max Kampelman favored the abolition of nuclear weapons, quite another if George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Bill Perry, and Sam Nunn endorsed the idea. This was the heart of the foreign policy establishment talking, two mainstream Republicans and two benchmark Democrats breaking with their clans to embrace a quixotic cause that had inspired plenty of soaring presidential rhetoric over the years but little serious consideration.13
Thus, a view that thirty years ago was identified primarily with left political movements became solidly part of the American security elite. The center shifted; arms control became the new realism. It is seen as an essential element in efforts to prevent nuclear terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton concisely summarized this logic: “Clinging to nuclear weapons in excess of our security needs does not make the United States safer.… It gives other countries the motivation or the excuse to pursue their own nuclear options.”14 More formally, the 2010 NPR states: “By demonstrating that we take seriously our NPT [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] obligation to pursue nuclear disarmament, we strengthen our ability to mobilize broad international support for the measures needed to reinforce the non-proliferation regime and secure nuclear materials worldwide.”15
This strategy has harsh critics. Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) said on the Senate floor during the December 2010 New START debate, “I fear that the New START treaty will serve as another data point in the narrative of weakness, pursuing diplomacy for its own sake—or indulging in utopian dreams of a world without nuclear weapons—divorced from hard reality.”16 Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) is another who believes it foolish to eliminate nuclear weapons: “Is ‘zero’ really desirable? If nuclear deterrence has kept the peace between superpowers since the end of World War II, which itself cost over 60 million lives by some estimates, are nuclear weapons really a risk to peace or a contributor to peace?”17
This debate never ends. Critics in the House of Representatives, wanting to refight the New START debate they lost in 2010, attached legislation to the Defense Authorization Bill for Fiscal Year 2012, denying the president funds to implement the New START agreement or dismantle any U.S. nuclear weapons, even those long slated for destruction. The Heritage Foundation, which campaigned against the New START treaty, works diligently to block any new agreements. A 2011 Fact Sheet from the group, for example, described any new reductions as “dangerous,” “weak” “concessions to the Russians” that place “the U.S. irreversibly on the path to nuclear disarmament.”18
Despite its critics and, more significantly, the partial and sluggish policy implementation by the executive bureaucracy, the president’s strategy has made progress. The April 2010 Nuclear Security Summit brought fifty world leaders to Washington and won their support for a four-year action plan to secure and eliminate stocks of highly enriched uranium and plutonium—the core ingredients for nuclear weapons. The leaders gathered again in Seoul, South Korea, in 2012 to assess their progress and push for new actions. The 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference reversed the failure of the 2005 conference, securing the consensus of the 189 member states for a joint program to strengthen the barriers to the spread of nuclear weapons, though the steps have yet to be implemented.
Meanwhile, U.S.-Russian relations—though often strained—improved considerably from the low point of 2008, following the Russia-Georgia conflict. The United States and Russia increased collaboration in securing vulnerable nuclear materials worldwide. Russia allowed overland transportation of coalition supplies into Afghanistan and joined the U.S.-led international efforts to contain the nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea.
When the U.S. Senate approved the New START Treaty in December 2010 and the Russian Duma did so in January 2011, they restored inspections in both countries and paved the way for another round of negotiations for deeper cuts in strategic weapons and, for the first time, in tactical nuclear weapons and nondeployed weapons. These negotiations, when they start, are expected to take several years. Meanwhile, NATO is slowly undergoing its own strategic review. Several member states have urged the withdrawal of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from Europe, and all members support new negotiations with Russia for mutual reductions. The NATO “Deterrence and Defense Posture Review” released at the May 2012 summit in Chicago, was a disappointing document, however. As several analysts noted, “NATO leaders missed an important opportunity to change the Alliance’s outdated nuclear policy and open the way to improving European security by the removal of the remaining 180 U.S. nuclear bombs in Europe, which serve no practical military value for the defense of the Alliance.”19 But the review did conclude:
NATO is prepared to consider further reducing its requirement for non-strategic nuclear weapons assigned to the Alliance in the context of reciprocal steps by Russia, taking into account the greater Russian stockpiles of non-strategic nuclear weapons stationed in the Euro-Atlantic area.
Allies look forward to continuing to develop and exchange transparency and confidence-building ideas with the Russian Federation in the NATO-Russia Council, with the goal of developing detailed proposals on and increasing mutual understanding of NATO’s and Russia’s non-strategic nuclear force postures in Europe.20
RUSSIAN VIEWS
Russia reacted predictably to the policies of President George W. Bush. Following his withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, the Russian Duma voted 326 to 3, on January 16, 2002, to adopt a nonbinding resolution that described the U.S. withdrawal as “mistaken and destabilizing since it effectively ruins the existing, highly efficient system of ensuring strategic stability and paves ground for a new round of the arms race.”21 Russia later declared the START II treaty dead and began plans to test a multi-warhead version of one of its missiles, something the treaty had prohibited, and to develop a new, multi-warhead missile to replace the huge SS-19 scheduled for retirement.
But Russian views weren’t simply reactive. President Vladimir Putin had already begun to implement a more assertive strategic policy. His January 2000 National Security Concept said that Russia would use “all available means and forces, including nuclear weapons, in case of the need to repel an armed aggression when all other means of settling the crisis situation have been exhausted or proved ineffective”22 The Russian expert Yury Fedorov noted in 2007, “While the role of nuclear weapons in Western security thinking is more modest than it was during the Cold War, Russian strategic thinking is evolving in a different direction. Russian military, political, and bureaucratic elites consider nuclear weapons to be the main foundation of Russian security and see them as an instrument that ensures Russia’s national interests.” Fedorov concludes, “As the second largest nuclear power in the world, Russia hopes to strengthen its international influence by relying on its nuclear assets.”23
The Russia-Georgia war of 2008 plunged U.S.-Russian relations to their worst levels since the end of the Cold War. Russian views of nuclear weapons correspondingly shifted further. Nikolai Patrushev, head of Russia’s Security Council, said in October 2009 that Russia would not rule out the use of a preemptive nuclear strike and suggested an enlarged role for nuclear weapons to apply “not only to full-scale wars, but also to regional and even to local wars.”24
Patruhsev’s views, however, appear to be a lagging indicator of Russian opinion. As the Stanford University scholar Pavel Podvig notes in a 2011 assessment, the determined effort by the Obama administration to “reset” U.S.-Russian relations created a process that shifted Russian views back toward a narrowing of the role and missions of Russian nuclear weapons. In particular, the U.S. decision to renew arms-control negotiations and cancel the deployment of antimissile interceptors in Eastern Europe “changed the dynamics of the domestic security debate in Russia, shifting its focus toward negotiations and cooperation with the United States.”25
This process appears to have contributed to the change reflected in the 2010 Russian Military Doctrine. The new doctrine narrowed the role of nuclear weapons and the circumstances in which they would be used. While still considered essential as a deterrent and to be used in response to aggression, the new doctrine, like the U.S. 2010 NPR, says that the use of nuclear weapons would only occur in the most extreme cases:
The Russian Federation reserves the right to utilize nuclear weapons in response to the utilization of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and/or its allies, and also in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation involving the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is under threat.26
The prominent Russian security analyst Alexei Arbotov notes, “on the whole, it is obvious that the new Military Doctrine expresses a more restrained attitude toward the role and missions of nuclear weapons than the previous 2000 Doctrine and certain statements by Moscow politicians and strategists.”27
Conversations I have had with Russian officials, experts, and retired military officers over the past three years indicate a strong belief among the security establishment that nuclear weapons, particularly tactical nuclear weapons, remain an essential part of Russia’s national security strategy. Some discuss in great detail the need for hundreds of tactical weapons in the event of attacks on Russia from some of its neighbors, however illogical these scenarios appear to non-Russians. Many are reluctant to engage in new negotiations with the United States until they see how the New START treaty will be implemented and if the new direction in U.S. policy is permanent. Mirroring some corresponding American opinions, there are strong Russian ideological currents that still consider the United States an enemy, out to trick Russia and ultimately destroy it.
These attitudes may reflect long-standing Russian insecurities but also indicate deep concern that budget pressures will reduce the size of the Russian nuclear arsenal well below the limits set by New START. Arbotov calculates that under current plans the Russian strategic nuclear force will shrink to 1,000–1,100 strategic warheads by 2020, well under the New START limits of 1,550 that will be in effect by that time. “For the first time in the history of strategic treaties,” he says, the Russian strategic forces “will make a unique ‘dive’ beneath treaty ceilings” and will require new programs and new funding to build back up.28 To counter this decline, it first appeared that Russia would extend the operational lives of the SS-18 and SS-19 missiles. There are now plans for a new heavy ICBM that can carry up to ten warheads, to be deployed in 2018.29
At the same time, President Dmitri Medvedev’s views, at least in his public statements, seemed more in line with President Obama’s: “As leaders of the two largest nuclear weapons states, we agreed to work together to fulfill our obligations under Article VI of the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and demonstrate leadership in reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world,” he said at his meeting with Obama in July 2009. Medvedev praised the New START treaty at its signing in April 2010, saying it “enhances strategic stability and, at the same time, enables us to rise to a higher level for cooperation between Russia and the United States.” It is unclear where Putin stood on this issue, but it is unlikely that Medvedev would have proceeded without his backing.
The main opposition to reductions seemed to come from the entrenched nuclear weapons bureaucracy, still wed to the jobs, contracts, and prestige the programs offer, and from political and ideological opponents. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of the Liberal Democratic Party, said about the United States and arms control, “They play the fox, using these agreements to learn the locations of our factories, where we build our rockets, but they don’t grant us such access.… They say that they want to destroy us, that they don’t need Russia.”30
THE IMPACT OF U.S. AND RUSSIAN DISARMAMENT ON NONPROLIFERATION
One of the most hotly debated issues in nuclear policy is what impact, if any, U.S. and Russian strategic views and postures have on the decisions taken by other nuclear-armed states or potential nuclear-armed states. For example, former secretary of defense Harold Brown and former CIA director John Deutch argued in a 2007 Wall Street Journal op-ed,
A nation that wishes to acquire nuclear weapons believes these weapons will improve its security. The declaration by the U.S. that it will move to eliminate nuclear weapons in a distant future will have no direct effect on changing this calculus. Indeed, nothing that the U.S. does to its nuclear posture will directly influence such a nation’s (let alone a terrorist group’s) calculus.31
Scott Sagan of Stanford University and Jane Vaynman of Harvard University argue the opposite in a comprehensive 2010 survey of national attitudes on nuclear weapons. They say that Brown, Deutch, and others set up “straw men” to knock down. They also cite former the Bush administration official Christopher Ford, who argues against the idea “that a hearty re-endorsement of nuclear ‘zero’ as the ultimate goal would do the trick: moving faster on disarmament was the key to getting nonproliferation under control.” Ford says, “My point is not to complain that the Obama Administration hasn’t ‘solved’ all of today’s proliferation problems. (After all, the Bush Administration didn’t solve all of them either, and it had eight years.) Instead, my point is that they seem spectacularly unaffected by Washington’s Prague-era disarmament posturing.” “We know of no serious policy maker or analyst,” Sagan and Vaynmen say, “who thinks that the simple proclamation that the U.S. government seeks global nuclear disarmament would lead Iran or North Korea to give up their nuclear ambitions.” But they argue that their case studies do show that foreign governments look very carefully at “both pronouncements of U.S. intent and U.S. actions,” make judgments on how these actions and policies change the overall security environment, and adjust their own nuclear policies only when “they judge such changes to be in their broader interests.”32
Sagan and Vaynman believe their work provides “valuable new evidence that many, but by no means all, foreign governments have indeed been strongly influenced by Washington’s post-Prague disarmament policy and nuclear posture developments.” Specifically, they find that the new U.S. posture and actions have “opened the door for states to make changes in their own policies and produce compromises in negotiated settlements.”33 They have encouraged some governments to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in their doctrines (UK and Russia); have helped reinforce the nuclear nonproliferation regime (specifically at the NPT Review Conference and the Nuclear Security Summit), and have encouraged new domestic discussion in some states (Japan and South Korea) on the proper role of conventional forces versus nuclear weapons in extended deterrence guarantees in East Asia. But not all nations have “walked through the door.” U.S. policies and actions have had “minimal direct influence” on France, China, India, and Pakistan.34 Many states are hedging their bets, waiting to see if President Obama can get the Senate to approve his other arms-control treaties, particularly the nuclear test ban treaty, before they commit to further steps in either disarmament or nonproliferation. The impact of nuclear postures on other nations’ nuclear policies is explored in more detail in chapter 9.
U.S.-RUSSIAN COOPERATION STRENGTHENS POSITIONS TOWARD IRAN
The United States and Russia have a shared interest in keeping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons but have different views of Iran. The United States sees Iran’s nuclear program as a pressing threat that must be confronted and has led an international coalition to pressure Iran back to the negotiating table. Russia sees Iran’s nuclear program as a problem that must be managed along with its geopolitical and economic interests with Tehran. Russia’s approach to Iran has thus differed from the U.S. approach—sometimes frustratingly so. However, as U.S.-Russian relations have improved, Russia has been more willing to back the United States.
When U.S.-Russian relations have been cool, as during the last few years of the George W. Bush administration, Russia tacked against the U.S. position. Beginning in 2006, Russia stalled or heavily diluted Security Council sanctions against Iran being sought by the Bush administration. Even so, Russia did cooperate in other ways. WikiLeaks cables recently revealed that in 2006 President Vladimir Putin delayed the construction of the Bushehr reactor and held up supplying fuel for the facility.
As U.S.-Russian relations improved under the Obama administration, so did Russian cooperation on Iran. Obama’s policy of engagement with Iran also helped reduce Russian fears of another U.S. war in the region. Russia became a key partner with the United States in arranging a nuclear fuel swap with Iran in 2009, though the deal ultimately fell through. When the Obama administration sought tough Security Council sanctions against Iran in 2010, Russia voted in support of Security Council Resolution 1929. In what Vice President Biden called “an unambiguous sign of international resolve” toward Iran’s nuclear program, Russia canceled, and lost money on, a deal to sell Iran its sophisticated S-300 air defense system.35 It has continued to support efforts to sanction Iran and to help broker a deal that could resolve the nuclear crisis with Iran, although favoring diplomacy over threats of the use of force.
The U.S. and Russia will always have different strategic interests, particularly regarding the border regions of Russia, but U.S.-Russian cooperation on Iran has been a significant diplomatic success. Keeping Russia on board will be a practical test of how improved U.S.-Russian relations can benefit global nonproliferation efforts.
SEVEN EASY STEPS TO ENHANCE U.S. AND RUSSIAN SECURITY
It is possible that the United States and Russia could proceed to reduce their nuclear arsenals in the manner favored by officials in the George W. Bush administration, that is, joint consultations but no formal treaties and no verification measures. This would give each side maximum flexibility in reductions and allow for rapid increase if future events warranted. Most military leaders prefer the certainty that verified treaties provide for force planning. It is almost certainly true that the reductions in Russian tactical nuclear weapons that the U.S. Senate ordered the president to undertake as part of its advice and consent to the New START treaty cannot be achieved without detailed negotiations and rigorous new verification methods. However, there are steps that the president can take without the Russians and without the Senate that would modernize the U.S. nuclear posture and develop a military defense in line with twenty-first-century requirements.
Step one would be to recognize that deterrence does not require numerical parity. Given that Russia is no longer an enemy and the chance of a premeditated nuclear exchange is close to zero, a fresh approach could do more than the past exercises, which have merely trimmed U.S. nuclear target sets by reducing or eliminating particular categories of targets. The Joint Chiefs could be directed to develop an entirely new set of target options based on what is sufficient to deter the leadership of Russia. This “zero-based targeting” would significantly reduce the number of required targets and, consequently, facilitate reductions in U.S. weapons and delivery systems.
Step two would be for the president to tell the military that he or she no longer requires them to maintain a capability for launch on warning or launch under attack to ensure the credibility of the deterrent. The military could then choose if it wanted to retain that capability, but it would no longer be under a presidential directive to do so. It could weigh the costs and resources devoted to these cumbersome Cold War practices with other military needs.
Both of these steps are similar to actions taken by previous presidents (George H. W. Bush, for example, reduced the target set and took nuclear bombers off high alert.) Both would rationalize the nuclear force without any loss of deterrent capability. Both would save money. And both would send a signal to other nations, including Russia, that the United States is serious about reducing the roles and missions of nuclear weapons in national security strategy.
But such action would not be sufficient. As noted above, other nations will evaluate U.S. and Russian views on nuclear weapons based on both declarations and actions. While policies have clearly shifted in both nations, procurements have not. Both have ambitious nuclear modernization plans. The Obama administration is continuing the research and development of a new generation of nuclear delivery vehicles called for in President Bush’s nuclear posture review. If implemented, the United States will spend roughly $640 billion on nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs over the next ten years. Other nations will have to decide which reflects a nation’s views more accurately: policy or procurement?
Under plans in effect as of March 2013, the United States will deploy in 2020 approximately 1,550 nuclear warheads as follows:
420 warheads on 420 Minuteman III ICBMs
1,090 warheads on 240 Trident SLBMs on 14 Trident submarines
40–60 B-2 and B-52 bombers36
Russia will deploy a smaller force of, at most, 1,258 warheads:
542 warheads on 192 Topol, Topol-M, RS-24, and SS-18 ICBMs
640 warheads on 128 Bulava SLBMs on 3–4 submarines
76 Tu-160 and Tu-95 bombers37
These forces are considerably larger than either country requires for military missions other than attacks on each other. The United States and Russia could implement additional steps over the next few years that would continue to reduce the saliency of nuclear weapons in their national security strategies and enhance efforts to prevent nuclear terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons, without any decrease in the national security of either state. These steps would build on and accelerate agreements already agreed to by the two nations and should enjoy the support of the military leadership of both.
Step three would be to accelerate the reductions in strategic weapons agreed to in New START. The treaty provides that reductions will be implemented within seven years of the entry into force (February 5, 2018). The United States and Russia could implement the reductions more quickly, preferably announcing that the new, lower levels would be achieved by the 2015 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. Military officials might also see this as an effective cost-saving measure: early removal of weapons already slated for retirement could free up resources for other military needs. This step would not require a new treaty.
Step four would be to increase the transparency of both nations’ nuclear arsenals. The United States and Russia should exchange information on nuclear weapons types and numbers beyond that required by the New START treaty—including nonstrategic weapons, nondeployed warheads, and retired warheads awaiting dismantlement. This would reduce uncertainties in strategic planning, facilitate the reductions and negotiations urged in steps five and six, and increase incentives for other nuclear-armed states to disclose more details about their nuclear arsenals.
Step five would be to initiate additional reciprocal nuclear reductions, similar to those implemented in 1991 by Presidents Bush and Gorbachev. As indicated above, Russian forces are likely to decline to 1,000–1,100 strategic warheads accountable under New START by 2020. Moscow and Washington should announce in parallel statements that each side would reduce its holdings to 1,000 strategic warheads and consider coordinating further reciprocal reductions if conditions allow. The New START limits are a ceiling, not a floor, and should not artificially promote levels that neither side needs for any conceivable military purpose. These reductions should include accelerating the dismantlement of thousands of weapons decommissioned but still stored in warehouses. These reductions could and should also include nonstrategic weapons and extend transparency measures to their inventory and storage.
Step six would be to begin negotiations for a new round of reductions, as envisioned by the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review and the statements of both President Obama and President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia. The treaty, as preliminary consultations between the two nations have explored, should reduce strategic, tactical, and nondeployed nuclear weapons. The talks should aim at a new treaty that is approved by the Congress and the Duma before the 2015 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference for maximum effect on the ability of that conference to strengthen nonproliferation barriers.
Step seven, finally, should be to steadily take portions of both nations’ strategic forces off heightened alert status. This would reduce the risks of accidental launch, save funding and resources for other military needs, and allow hundreds of highly trained officers to undertake more meaningful assignments. As importantly, it would be another step toward demonstrating the reduced relevance of nuclear weapons in both nations’ security strategies.
There is growing expert support for accelerating nuclear reductions. In November 2012, the International Security Advisory Board chaired by former secretary of defense William J. Perry, a bipartisan group of national security experts with scientific, military, diplomatic, and political backgrounds that provides the secretary of state with independent advice on all aspects of arms control and international security, made what it termed “modest initiatives” for implementing additional nuclear-force reductions in the near term. This author was a member of the board and of the study group that prepared the report. The board recommended that the United States consider actions to
Implement the New START reductions early and take off of operational states all of the strategic weapons it would be reducing
Lay the groundwork for reducing nonstrategic weapons by working with Russia toward a shared definition of these weapons and working closely with allies to better understand the national security challenges that have led to the creating and retention of such large stockpiles of these weapons
Implement mutual reductions with the Russians below New START, including nonstrategic weapons. “The United States could communicate to Russia,” wrote the board, “that the United States is prepared to go to lower levels of nuclear weapons as a matter of national policy … if Russia is willing to reciprocate. This could improve stability by reducing Russia’s incentive to deploy a new heavy ICBM.”38
In March 2013, George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, and Sam Nunn published the fifth in their series of op-eds. Warning that “the continuing risk posed by nuclear weapons remains an overarching strategic problem, but the pace of work does not now match the urgency of the threat,” the four urged bold actions to “reduce reliance on nuclear weapons, prevent their spread, and ultimately end them as a threat to the world.”39 As did the International Security Advisory Board, the four recommended speeding up the reductions planned under New START and exploring going below these levels with mutual, reciprocal, verifiable reductions with Russia. The four also urged the administration to “work with nuclear-armed nations worldwide to remove all nuclear weapons from the prompt-launch status” and to “establish a joint enterprise” with other key nations to implement these and other practical measures at an accelerated pace.
But neither the United States nor Russia will take even these modest steps if it believes that the global nuclear threat environment is increasing, that large nuclear arsenals are essential to security, or that decreasing its arsenals will encourage other states to increase theirs. It is thus vital to understand what history tells us about the relationship of U.S. and Russian arsenals on the nuclear decisions of other states. Chapter 9 attempts to do exactly that, but first there is one more nuclear nightmare to examine. And it may be the scariest of all.