Abstract
Little fanfare accompanies the sixth anniversary of the signing of the START II Treaty this month. And since it is doubtful that the Russian Duma will ratify it any time soon, even the Pentagon is beginning to suggest unilateral cuts to save money on nuclear systems that can't be retired because of the standstill.
But the administration's response to the Pentagon's request is as mechanical as ever: If Russia would just ratify the treaty, reductions could be made.
This START II coma would not be such a menace were it not for the continuing commitment of the two sides to high alert levels and Cold War-like nuclear war plans and doctrines. For some, START III, the outlines of which have been agreed to, may represent relief. But given the likely time frame for its negotiation and implementation (it is really more than a decade away), we find ourselves in a position where the START treaties no longer promote long-term strategic stability nor provide a sensible day-to-day nuclear posture.
The untold story of the past few years is the ascendancy of U.S. warfighting proponents who increasingly desire to reassert more central roles for nuclear weapons in national policies. They demonstrated some of their clout in 1997 when President Clinton signed a new nuclear directive to accommodate their concerns. Last year, they continued their counteroffensive with their own “studies,” one by the Defense Science Board examining nuclear futures in the years 2010 and beyond and the other a joint National Defense University-Liver-more Labs tome. Not surprisingly, both assert that nuclear deterrence as we know it is essential and that robust nuclear forces are required.
Ambassador Linton Brooks, a retired U.S. Navy captain and a former START negotiator, thinks that strategic arms control, which was supposed to limit nuclear arms, may now be standing in the way of reductions. Speaking before a symposium of naval submariners in June, Brooks lamented the administration's policy of retaining START I force levels pending ratification of START II.
As Brooks sees it, the services must not only spend enormous sums to keep extra submarines, bombers, missiles, and warheads on line, but those forces are not exerting a positive influence on the Russians. “There are ways to redefine what we mean by START I forces in a less costly way,” he says, “especially since the theory that our keeping these forces is pressuring the Russians seems to have been proven wrong.”
Brooks has a novel idea that seems to address the comatose formal arms control process, the interests of disarmers, and even the warfighting demands of nuclear advocates. He proposes that we return to the 1994 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) to guide our force structure. For all its flaws and oversights, the review lays out a strategic direction, Brooks says, which is superior to the current trend. In essence, it states that the standard for maintaining forces and negotiating reductions should be that U.S. nuclear capability must always be superior to that of Russia's.
Independently of the START process, Russian forces are declining. The United States, Brooks says, can continue to comply with START I while also downsizing strategic nuclear forces based on the npr standard. “Consistent with prudence and congressional direction, we would reduce our forces in a way to maintain parity or slight superiority over Russian forces.” Such unilateral action might bring the Russians to move more quickly with START II and alleviate the growing list of concerns on the part of those in Moscow that their deteriorating cash-starved force can't keep pace with the built-in START requirement for slow and deliberate reductions tied to implicit modernization.
The Clinton administration is loathe to take unilateral action on anything, and it is unlikely to change nuclear course before the year 2000 elections. But even if U.S. forces must be able to implement grandiose war plans to obliterate Russia (a questionable premise but still this administration's view), the nuclear might of the other side has so deteriorated that the task could be accomplished with far fewer weapons.
A fresh assessment of true Russian capability would not only confirm the wisdom of Brooks's idea, it would also explain why Moscow is so suspicious of–and unnerved by–the START approach that now seems to lock in overwhelming superiority on the U.S. side.