Abstract
The week before the Memori-al Day recess, Congress declared a firm “maybe,” by voting to allow only research in response to Bush administration proposals to build a new generation of nuclear weapons.
Over three days, the Senate engaged in a passionate debate on U.S. nuclear policy. Ironically, the debate centered on a meager $21 million out of a $400.5 billion defense budget and whether to retain a key 10-year-old law. The House of Representatives vigorously argued the same questions the same week.
The Senate debated what Massachusetts Democrat Ted Kennedy called on May 19 “a fateful change of course in our longstanding policy on nuclear weapons,” and what California Democrat Dianne Feinstein charged the next day was the beginning of “a new era of nuclear proliferation.”
A series of policy directives and statements issued by the Bush administration over the past two years set the stage for the votes. At the end of 2001, the administration completed its “Nuclear Posture Review,” suggesting the possible first use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear countries like Syria, Libya, Iran, and Iraq. The review also outlined scenarios in which nuclear weapons might be used in a conventional confrontation between China and Taiwan or a conflict on the Korean Peninsula.
Last year, the Bush team issued a National Security Presidential Directive known as NSPD-17, which made explicit a previously ambiguous policy that the United States
might resort to nuclear weapons in response to the use of chemical or biological weapons.
At the same time, the administration refused to consider ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, began researching new generations of nuclear weapons, and sped up preparations for a possible resumption of nuclear testing.
Finally, as the United States amassed forces in the Persian Gulf last fall, there were hints of potential U.S. nuclear weapons use in Iraq, prompting severe admonishment from several senators.
Taken all together, these steps suggest a second Bush term could lead to a resumption of nuclear testing and even the use of nuclear weapons. But a conservative Congress neither blocked nor endorsed the president's direction; instead it provided approval for conducting research into new nuclear weapons.
There were three key nuclear issues before Congress as it considered the annual Defense Authorization Bill:
First, the administration asked Congress to repeal the 1993 prohibition barring most work on “low-yield” bombs (about a third the size of the one that destroyed Hiroshima). Last year, an aggressive House Armed Services Committee jumped the gun and tried, unsuccessfully, to repeal the provision on its own. This year, the committee's Dr. Strange-loves had the president's backing.
Second, the administration asked for $15 million to continue research into a nuclear bunker-busting weapon, plus $6 million for “advanced concept initiatives.” Confusion reigned
during the congressional debate on this one. Debaters frequently confused the Robust Nuclear Earth Pen-etrator, designed to destroy underground bunkers, with the low-yield nuclear weapon–despite the fact that proposed bunker busters are 30 to 70 times the size of the Hiroshima bomb.
Third, the administration wants $25 million to reduce the time it would take to prepare for new nuclear testing from the current 24–36 months to 18 months. This request met little resistance.
Despite the serious nature of the debate, it turned into a congressional kabuki dance. The 1993 prohibition on small nuclear weapons, originated by Cong. John Spratt, a South Carolina Democrat, and retired Oregon Democratic Cong. Elizabeth Furse, permitted basic research but blocked development, testing, and production. The “compromise” amendment that the House adopted at the behest of Spratt and Pennsylvania Republican Curt Weldon also permits research, but blocks development, testing, and production.
The Senate also tripped over its own tail. The Senate Armed Services Committee rejected an amendment on low-yield nuclear weapons when offered by Michigan Democrat Carl Levin. But after a long struggle, the full Senate adopted the same amendment when put forward by Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner of Virginia. Warner had opposed the Levin amendment in committee and Levin voted against his own amendment when offered by Warner in the full Senate.
In the Senate Armed Services Committee, Levin and Rhode Island Democrat Jack Reed carried on the first battles. Together they tried to retain the 1993 prohibition, but lost in committee on a predominantly party line vote, 10–15. Subsequent amendments to require congressional authorization for development, testing, or production lost, 12–13.
North Dakota Democrat Byron Dorgan (shown here at an unrelated press conference) complained that “the press gallery is empty because this is not some sex scandal”; and added that the Senate was engaging in “about [as] important a debate [as] we will have in this Senate in a while.”
Feinstein and Kennedy launched the Senate floor debate on May 20 when they offered an amendment to retain the 1993 prohibition. One of the major debating points concerned the significance of the administration's request for research funds.
Understanding that the impending vote would be close, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld held a press conference the same day, arguing that the Pentagon planned only to study new nuclear weapons and had made no decision on production. Rumsfeld claimed: “It is a study. It is nothing more and nothing less. And it is not pursuing, and it is not developing. It is not building. It is not manufacturing. It is not deploying and it is not using.”
Feinstein replied the same day: “Just a study, baloney. Does anyone really believe that?” Kennedy added, “It is the clear intention of the administration to move ahead with not only the design but also the testing of nuclear weaponry…. We may be igniting a new arms race.”
More than 20 senators joined in the debate, an unusually large cast for a national security issue. The proponents of the program were reinforced by supporting letters from Secretary of State Colin Powell and the military chiefs of both the air force and the navy. On a largely party-line vote, the Senate voted 51–43 against the Kennedy-Feinstein amendment to retain the prohibition.
At that point, the maneuvering became complex. Reed and Levin offered an amendment to the Spratt-Furse law that would allow research on low-yield nuclear weapons to go forward, but prohibit any work beyond research. Warner then offered his amendment to the Reed amendment. Reed explained the functional difference: His amendment would maintain the prohibition on development, testing, and production; the Warner amendment would not explicitly prohibit such work, but would require Congress to authorize funds for those later three phases.
Levin could not resist commenting on the irony. While saying he preferred the Reed approach, he agreed that “the senator from Virginia's amendment is valuable. As a matter of fact, I offered the amendment the senator from Virginia is offering tonight in committee. It was defeated by one vote.” Replied Warner: “I did not intend to plagiarize your good work. Suffering from middle-age crisis, I forgot that you might have done that.”
This time, Warner had the votes. On May 21, the Senate approved his version 59–38. No one was quite sure who had really won; Levin talked about the winning amendment having “some value,” while Arizona Republican Jon Kyl complained about “snatching defeat from victory” after the defeat of the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment.
The challenge did not end there. North Dakota Democrat Byron Dor-gan then offered an amendment to eliminate the $15 million for nuclear bunker-buster research. While complaining that “the press gallery is empty because this is not some sex scandal,” he suggested that the Senate was engaging in “about [as] important a debate [as] we will have in this Senate in a while.” After a brief debate, his amendment went down to defeat, 41–56.
Playing clean-up in two senses, Florida Democrat Bill Nelson then offered two amendments that were adopted by voice vote. One required specific congressional authorization for development, testing, or production of the nuclear bunker buster, and the second required the administration to combine research into nuclear bunker busters carried out by the Energy Department with work on conventional bunker busters led by the Pentagon.
In the House, the Weldon-Spratt bipartisan compromise on the low-yield nuclear weapon was adopted by voice vote in the Armed Services Committee. No member challenged the compromise on the House floor. Weldon later explained that he felt this compromise was the best he could do.
The nuclear bunker buster produced close votes in the House. An amendment by California Democrat Ellen Tauscher to transfer research funds from nuclear to conventional weapons failed 28–29 in the Armed Services Committee. A similar Tauscher amendment lost 199–226 on the House floor. Another related Tauscher amendment lost in committee as well.
Tauscher and Spratt teamed in the en military action, much less undertake it.
While not ruling out this option itself, the main Bush strategy of recent months was to continue hoping that coercive pressure would eventually compel North Korea to come around. Conservatives hailed North Korea's agreement to meet in three-way talks in Beijing as proving the merits of the administration's resoluteness (North Korea had previously insisted on bilateral talks). However, North Korea quickly termed Chinese participation as “mediation,” and used the meetings to boast that it already possessed nuclear weapons. The episode was a microcosm of the decade-plus history of unsuccessful efforts to coerce “better behavior” from North Korea.
For North Korea to begin plutonium reprocessing was once thought to be the Bush administration's “red line.” Although U.S. officials cannot confirm North Korea's recent claim to have successfully reprocessed plutonium, public reports indicate there is now activity at the Yongbyon facility consistent with reprocessing. This, along with the fitful Beijing talks, precipitated the latest round of the administration's internal struggling over North Korea policy. That struggle appears to have produced a compromise between advocates of confrontation and engagement: The administration will increase pressure on North Korea's external sources of income while keeping open the door to a new round of multilateral talks. However, because the administration remains unwilling to fully embrace interaction over neglect, it now appears prepared to accept a nuclear North Korea as a fait accompli rather than act boldly to reverse the current course of events.
A way forward
A peaceful nonproliferation outcome in Korea will require a negotiated settlement fully ending North Korea's nuclear program. Some analysts advocate a go-for-broke negotiating approach aimed at deeply cutting North Korea's conventional arms and forward deployments as well as eliminating its nuclear and missile programs, in exchange for a peace treaty, diplomatic recognition, negative security assurances, and economic support. Given Pyongyang's deep-seated distrust of U.S. intentions and its perception of the U.S. threat, North Korea is unlikely to surrender its nuclear program until non-aggression guarantees are firmly in place. However, the Bush administration refuses to even discuss security assurances or economic assistance until North Korea's nuclear program is ended.
Only a U.S. initiative can break this deadlock. Providing that initiative will require the Bush administration to escape its attitude of hostile neglect and get creative about diplomacy. The readiness to accommodate Pyongyang's abandonment of its nuclear programs must be made as credible as the willingness to use force. The Bush team must somehow come to realize that negotiation is not appeasement, and long-term U.S. interests take precedence over posturing.
A fully committed negotiating effort would reassure Japan and South Korea of the U.S. desire to solve the Korean crisis peacefully, if at all possible. With skillful diplomacy, the United States could also gain the support of Russia, China, and European allies to forge the kind of unified international consensus on dealing with North Korea that was conspicuously absent with respect to Iraq.
No doubt the North Korean crisis is also much more difficult than the Iraqi problem to solve–especially because the situation does not lend itself to a forced solution. To peacefully achieve a non-nuclear North Korea, the administration will need to find a way to do the thing that seems hardest for it to do: sit down and talk. •
The different approaches in the House and Senate will be resolved by a conference committee of leaders of the two armed services committees. Whatever the outcome, Congress has given the Bush team a freer–but not free–hand to begin work on a new generation of nuclear weapons. As production is still years away–the nuclear bunker buster study is scheduled to be concluded in 2006–there will be ample time and another presidential election for additional debate on the future direction of U.S. nuclear policy. •