By David Ruppe

Global Security Newswire

Arms control advocates are speculating that a new review of U.S. nuclear weapon policy will call for keeping large numbers of strategic forces on a Cold War state of high alert and will not make major arsenal cuts.

They also believe the Bush administration may have developed new rationales for using nuclear weapons in a combat.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld last week suggested new policies, the product of a congressionally mandated Nuclear Posture Review, would amount to a “significant change” in how the military uses its nuclear weapons and would include “deep reductions” in the U.S. arsenal.

The details of the review are contained in a classified document and are not yet publicly known, but Rumsfeld suggested an unclassified version would be soon released and Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. Michael Humm told Global Security Newswire Friday it would happen this week.

Artificial Reductions? …

Arms control proponents say their concerns stem largely from U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) pressures.

In July congressional testimony, then-STRATCOM Commander in Chief, Navy Admiral Richard Mies argued forcefully against further cuts in the U.S. arsenal and against taking U.S. forces down from their current state of alert.

His positions appeared somewhat at odds with those of President George W. Bush, who has supported major cuts.

In November, Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin met in Crawford, Texas, where they announced “substantial” joint reductions in nuclear arms, but did not specify how they would occur [See GSN, Nov. 14].

Bush announced reductions down to 1,700-2,200 “operationally deployed strategic warheads” over a decade, which would appear to be around the 2,000-2,500 goal set by Russian and U.S. Presidents Boris Yeltsin and Bill Clinton in 1997.

Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, however, believes the administration may fudge the reductions by simply not counting submarines or bombers that are in overhaul to meet the proposed limit.

By defining the numbers as such, the count could exclude warheads that are on submarines or bombers normally rotated through overhaul, “because they’re not ‘operationally deployed,’” said Cirincione.

“At any given time we have one or two Trident submarines in overhaul, 192 warheads on each boat, that’s 384 warheads that you can take off the top,” he said. “It doesn’t indicate any actual reduction in the force, it’s just a change in the accounting method.”

… Or Real Accomplishment?

Rose Gottemoeller, a former Clinton administration arms control official also with Carnegie, however, thinks “from a public presentation point of view” the announced reductions were a significant accomplishment for Bush.

The number “2,000 was always the kind of major barrier below which the U.S. could not go,” she said. “I think they probably had to press the bureaucracy to get it.”

The number is significant because conventional wisdom has held that if the U.S. reduced below 2,000 warheads, it would not be able to sustain its strategic triad of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and strategic bombers.

Certain cuts may be camouflaged, she said, but “that’s often been the case with arms control agreements, the public presentation is very enthusiastic but both sides hedge their bets.”

De-linking Force Size With Threats

Perhaps of greater concern to arms controllers is that the STRATCOM chief, in his testimony, endorsed an emerging view of U.S. nuclear doctrine and strategy that de-emphasizes Russia as a potential threat and justifies force levels based upon unspecified threats that might or might not emerge in the future.

The new view is outlined in an influential January 2001 report produced by the National Institute for Public Policy. Click here to read NIPP report.

Nuclear force posture, that report said, should be determined by considering factors, such as “current and potential threats, U.S. deterrence and wartime goals, nuclear targeting strategy and warhead options, enemy active and passive defenses, conventional strike capabilities, and third country use.”

While the report acknowledged the absence of Russia as a nuclear challenger, it essentially argued for maintaining a substantial capability to deal with unidentified threats of the future: “It is not now possible to predict with confidence future deterrence requirements. The future may prove to be far more dangerous than benign.”

Mies, who left the command Nov. 30, said in his July testimony: “We must preserve sufficient deterrent capability to respond to future challenges, to provide a cushion against imperfect intelligence and surprises, and to preserve a reconstitution capability as a hedge against unwelcome political or strategic developments.”

One major recommendation of the January report Mies did not directly address is that nuclear weapons could be used in increasing roles, including for deterring all weapons of mass destruction, not just nuclear, for use in other regions and for attacking deep underground or biological weapons targets.

Mies in his written testimony, however, lauded the study, calling it a “good blueprint to adopt.”

Study director and NIPP President Keith Payne was made a co-chair of an advisory panel on nuclear deterrence concepts last year, which helped produce the Nuclear Posture Review, Inside the Pentagon reported in October.

Questions Over Usage

Stan Norris, a senior National Resources Defense Council analyst, disagrees with the logic that without Russia as a threat, the United States can justify maintaining a large nuclear arsenal.

“The Soviet Union is no more, we are told Russia is not our enemy and Putin is big buddies with the president, which is all to the good. But we continue to do things, though, that belie that,” he said.

The 1995 Nuclear Posture Review established that the START II 3,500-warhead level would be required for deterring a hostile Russia, by holding at risk a range of assets valued by its political and military leaders.  Click here to read a Pentagon summary of that review.

De-alerting

The STRATCOM chief also opposed taking U.S. strategic forces down from their current state of alert.

Under the current state, according to Cirincione, there are approximately 2,000 weapons ready to launch on 15 minutes’ notice of an incoming attack, “the Cold War standard.”

“To do that requires a very high state of alert,” he said. “If you were to change that to being able to launch a smaller number of your missiles for example under those extreme conditions, say 10, or 50, and extend the other ones to say days or weeks, this would make your nuclear forces less prone to accident or miscalculation and a safer force to operate.”

Mies, in his testimony, argued against de-alerting forces, saying it could increase the vulnerability of the U.S. arsenal vulnerable, “create a premium for attacking first,” and could provide an incentive for a potential foe to rearm.

He said “multiple, stringent” safeguards are in place to guard against an accidental or inadvertent launch.

Norris, on the other hand, said having U.S. forces on high alert, and building a national missile defense program that could protect the U.S. arsenal, could only encourage Russia and China also to maintain their forces on high alert.

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