Abstract
The cheating factor
A description of my article, “Verification: The Ways and Means,” which appeared on the November/December 1998 table of contents page, was misleading. I did not claim that “The U.S. and international monitoring systems can verify compliance with the test ban treaty.” Indeed, I avoided making such a claim because the article makes no attempt to assess the full range of factors (such as cheating strategies) necessary to make a judgment on verifiability. I did write that the ability to monitor nuclear tests would improve with the expansion of the international monitoring system, but that is not quite the same as promising that cheaters would inevitably be detected.
Jeffrey Richelson
Alexandria, Virginia
In an interesting article on Israel's nuclear policy (“And Then There Was One,” September/October 1998), Avner Cohen correctly points out that the “nuclear opacity” option Israel has pursued since the 1960s marks a clear failure of its democracy. Cohen fails to mention, however, that the most striking example of this failure is Israel's treatment of Mordechai Vanunu.
For having broken the prevailing culture of opacity on the nuclear issue (by releasing sensitive information to a British newspaper), Vanunu was forcibly abducted from abroad, tried in secret, found guilty of high treason and espionage, and sentenced to 18 years in jail.
After 12 years, he is still serving his sentence. Until recently, he was held in almost total isolation–a “cruel and inhuman treatment” according to Amnesty International. I don't believe any civilized, democratic country can treat its citizens this way. In my opinion, as long as Vanunu remains in prison, a black mark will disfigure Israel's image in the world.
Paolo Farinella
Pisa, Italy
Andrew Krepinevich and Steven Kosiak, the authors of “Smarter Bombs, Fewer Nukes” (November/December 1998), deserve to be commended for their pragmatic and carefully articulated strategy for reducing reliance on nuclear weapons. Spending billions to maintain an atavistic strategic force posture–at levels well beyond conceivable contingency–cuts directly into budgets for more credible instruments of deterrence.
Current policies guiding the nuclear force posture–particularly the notion of “lead and hedge”–have failed to bring about beneficial reductions in forces or to enhance nuclear security. The attachment to those policies, or an inattention to their consequences, poses the risk that the Bush administration's many successes in arms control will be squandered.
As is implicit in the article, the Clinton administration or its successor needs to lead the American people in a more active discussion of the strategic posture and emerging nuclear dangers. Congress and the specialist community–in and out of government–have engaged in stale debates for so long that all sides have forgotten the public's lack of comprehension. Within the elite debate, the absence of leadership has helped to perpetuate arcane arguments that conflict with current realities.
With key elements of the policy community behind it–not least the Joint Chiefs of Staff–the administration has the opportunity to build a new consensus on strategic policy. This consensus in the near term should embrace the benefits to American security of both continuing reductions in offensive weapons, improvements in the security and safety of Russian forces, and a sound investment in a force posture that corresponds to the new international environment.
Janne E. Nolan
The Century Foundation
Washington, D.C.
Welcome
The Bulletin welcomes Stephen I. Schwartz as executive director of the Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science, the umbrella organization that publishes the Bulletin, maintains the Bulletin Online, and runs a visiting fellows program for foreign journalists. Schwartz comes to us from the Brookings Institution in Washington, where he headed the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project. The project produced the 680-page Atomic Audit (published last summer by Brookings), which is a near-definitive look at the economic, social, and political costs of the nuclear-weapons enterprise.
The Bulletin also welcomes George A. Lopez, who has been elected chair of the Board of Directors of the Foundation. Lopez is a professor of government and international relations at Notre Dame and a fellow and director of undergraduate peace studies at the university's Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies. He succeeds Leonard Rieser of Dartmouth, who had been chair since 1985.
“Smarter Bombs, Fewer Nukes” addresses important national security questions that warrant attention. Could strategic nuclear arsenals be partially supplanted by conventional weapons? And what would happen to deterrence if the U.S. nuclear arsenal was sharply reduced? How would Russia react? Is nuclear parity necessary? And would global security be better served by a new force mix?
Authors Andrew Krepinevich and Steven Kosiak raise so many issues–and so many additional questions are spawned by their proposed remedies–that it is a challenge to respond:
Russia is already hesitant to make deep cuts in its nuclear arms because of NATO's ambiguous nuclear policies, and because the United States seems determined to develop ballistic missile defenses. Russia might well seize on the disparity as another excuse to stall in negotiating reductions. The authors supply another excuse by suggesting that a new U.S. force mix could force the Russians to rely even more on their nuclear forces, since they are not in a position to field similarly advanced conventional weapons.
U.S. security would suffer in such a scenario–the objective of the START agreements, from the American perspective, is to slash Russian arsenals as quickly and deeply as possible. The authors' proposals could frustrate that objective.
The proposed “new triad” does not seem much different from the old. Military commanders have long appreciated the extremely limited utility of nuclear weapons and, in practice, have relied solely on conventional armaments for more than 50 years.
Nor are precision-strike weapons a panacea. They are a very expensive way to deliver a small bang; further, bug-prone weapons might be vulnerable to cheap countermeasures. So far, trials of smaller high-tech weapons have had disappointing results in military training exercises.
It is also unclear how high-tech conventional armaments might deter rogue states or terrorists–and the authors' treatment of deterrence in general seems wholly inadequate.
On the other hand, the authors raise some of the right questions. The proliferation of nuclear weapons is probably the greatest threat to U.S. and world security, and current arms policies stand in the way of robust defenses. Nuclear weapons are singular among weapons of mass destruction for their great destructive power, environmental contamination, and relative ease of delivery.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and other nonproliferation instruments are being compromised by the stubborn attachment of the nuclear powers to large nuclear arsenals, as well as by their continuing research on advanced warheads.
Nuclear tests on the Indian subcontinent in May moved one U.S. senator to warn that “the world is on the edge of nuclear warfare.” At the very least, the Indian and Pakistani tests cast a long shadow over nonproliferation prospects. As for terrorism, a Harvard study has found good reasons to expect nuclear terrorists to strike U.S. targets.
Regional nuclear war and nuclear terrorism may seem like distant threats, but a horrific disaster before the turn of the century cannot be ruled out. If the authorities have workable plans for negating those threats, they are a well-kept secret.
Even the need for major policy redirection appears unrecognized. Amb. Thomas Graham, Jr., an authority on nuclear issues and arms control, has defined practical steps to combat proliferation. For example, he suggests that, to be credible on the issue of proliferation, the nuclear powers need to downsize their arsenals to a few hundred warheads. Unfortunately, his proposals are at odds with official policy.
Under the START I Treaty, the nuclear powers have made some reductions in their nuclear arsenals. But deep reductions await START II, III, and beyond. In addition, the reductions made so far are reversible. The nuclear cores of dismantled warheads are being stored for possible use in new warheads that could be used to enlarge the arsenals. A recent Presidential Decision Directive declared that the nuclear deterrent will be needed indefinitely.
But does nuclear deterrence assure national security? It seems unlikely to deter a madman or a fanatic, nor would it protect against miscalculation, poor judgment, or inadvertent accident. In fact, nuclear deterrence does not eliminate the threats posed by weapons of mass destruction, nor does it minimize those threats.
Today, nuclear risks are escalating. Russia has questionable protection against theft of its nuclear arsenal and fissile material stockpile. And nuclear terrorism remains a serious threat. The recent bombings in East Africa suggest increasing determination by those who attack U.S. interests.
Meanwhile, the nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan could undermine the fragile nonproliferation regime. It is likely that the NPT has both reduced credibility and increased vulnerability.
Ambassador Graham is right. The nuclear powers must do more to make convincing progress towards abolishing nuclear arms, to discourage proliferation by others.
Some believe the nonproliferation regime is broken beyond repair. That view will become a self-fulfilling prophecy if it is allowed to obstruct actions needed to build a robust regime. The U.S. Senate is already engaged in foot-dragging on the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
It is time to defuse the nuclear threat. The choice is essentially between uncontrolled nuclear weapons proliferation and accelerated progress towards nuclear disarmament. A nuclear catastrophe may be unavoidable as the future unfolds, but an urgent review of nuclear policy followed by decisive action could minimize nuclear risks.
Donald C. Whitmore
Auburn, Washington