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U.S.-Russia II: Washington Not Interested in Tactical Pact, Officials Say By David Ruppe A senior administration official spoke about the issue during a press briefing in Moscow Tuesday. “As of now, we don’t feel we have to have a treaty relationship with them on that point, although it may well be a subject of discussion,” said the official. He said Russia is believed to have a much larger tactical nuclear arsenal than the United States, “the Russians have thousands and thousands of these weapons, and we don’t.” Bush Administration’s Approach Another U.S. official, who spoke with Global Security Newswire, reiterated those views. “I think the general sense is that former arms control negotiations are not the appropriate tool for addressing this issue,” the official said, citing “a host of technical and political obstacles.” He added that pursuing a treaty on the matter would not be consistent with the administration’s general opposition to traditional arms control negotiations and treaties (see related GSN story, today). “You’ve probably heard the new treaty to reduce strategic weapons is three pages long,” he said (see GSN, May 14). The administration has put forward proposals to increase transparency through the NATO-Russia relationship, he said. “And we are helping the Russians improve their safety and security of their nuclear weapons through the Nunn-Lugar CTR [Comprehensive Threat Reduction] program and we will continue to do that,” he said (see GSN, May 9). President George W. Bush Monday announced the United States and Russia had agreed to treaty language to take several thousand strategic nuclear warheads out of active service. New Focus on the Threat … Experts and officials have expressed varying degrees of concern about tactical nuclear warheads in recent months. Although tactical or “nonstrategic” nuclear weapons lack a strict definition, they generally have smaller blasts than strategic ones and are intended for battlefield use against opposing forces, rather than enemy cities or strategic forces. They can be delivered in a variety of ways, including being placed as “nuclear landmines,” dropped, missile-launched, and fired as artillery shells. Experts say the tactical weapons can be greater proliferation threats than strategic weapons. “They’re smaller and easier to conceal than strategic weapons, and a lot of them may have sort of rudimentary permissive action links,” or barriers to unauthorized use, said the second U.S. official. “It’s probably somewhat less of a threat than the escape of fissile material or scientific expertise, or the deliberate transfer of nuclear technology to Iran, which is continuing,” said John Holum, former undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. The weapons also can be bulky and heavy and “not all that easy to handle,” he said. Still, tactical nuclear weapons “because they’re small, by definition, can be a serious proliferation threat,” he said. U.S. Representative Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), a senior Armed Services Committee member, Tuesday urged new negotiations on the weapons, saying Russia is believed to have more than 12,000 in its arsenal (see GSN, May 14). Other estimates have put the number at 6,000 to 13,000, including 3,300 operationally deployed, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. … But Low U.S. Priority Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith told reporters in February the Russian tactical nuclear weapons issue “gets very little attention,” Arms Control Today reported. In a February interview with Arms Control Today, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton said the United States was “willing to discuss tactical nukes” with Russia, but does not consider them a top priority. “I hope if they don’t pursue that through what would generally be termed formal arms control, they would pursue it as part of their nonproliferation dialogue,” said Holum, Bolton’s predecessor. The tactical nuclear weapons issue has been addressed before in U.S.-Russian negotiations. Russia put the issue of transparency on the table during the last year and a half of the Clinton administration amid START III and Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty negotiations, Holum said. Discussions on the matter went nowhere, he and former Clinton administration officials said. The second senior official cited numerous reasons why the United States is opposed to a treaty. For one, Russia has repeatedly sought a total withdrawal of U.S. nuclear warheads from Europe, saying it pulled all of its nuclear weapons back within its borders in the early 1990s. “We would like to draw again attention to the Russian proposal that all nuclear weapons should be brought back to the territories of the nuclear states to which they belong,” Russia said in a statement to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty conference last month (see GSN, April 23). “The Russian proposal calls for us to do that unilaterally, in exchange for nothing in return,” the U.S. official said. “From our perspective that’s an unacceptable proposal.” Differing Concerns Differing U.S. and Russian military concerns could also pose a difficulty in negotiations, according to the official. While the United States continues to emphasize strategic nuclear weapons for its security, and drastically reduced its tactical arsenal after the Cold War, Russia appears to rely heavily upon tactical nuclear weapons for defending the homeland, and so could be opposed significant cuts, experts say. “As Russia’s forces deteriorate, it appears there are some people in Russia who believe tactical nuclear weapons are a cost-effective way of enhancing their deterrent forces,” the official said. Russia proposed taking steps to improve transparency at the START III talks, but even that could pose problems for the United States, according to the official. “Some of our nonstrategic nuclear warheads are stored in Europe and there are domestic political sensitivities — countries don’t want to declare locations and numbers because they don’t want to have to defend that. That would cause an uproar among some parliaments and the press,” he said. Some might oppose allowing Russian teams to conduct on-site inspections, he said. There also is a question of defining tactical nuclear weapons. Some nuclear weapons in the U.S. arsenal can be used both tactically and strategically — delivered either by a fighter jet in Europe or by a heavy bomber from based in Missouri, said the official. “What’s the definition of a tactical weapon? Are you basing it on the delivery vehicle, the location, or the design of the warhead? It’s not a trivial matter,” he said. Holum believes such problems could be dealt with in negotiations. “Any negotiation creates trade-offs and resolution of thorny issues, so I don’t think that’s a reason not to pursue it,” he said. Verification has improved during the past decade, both in terms of what is acceptable with respect to on-site inspections and also with respect to technology, he said. “It’s a lot easier now to verify the presence of a warhead and details about the warhead without gaining access to secret design information than in 1991 and 1992,” he said. “So I think transparency and controls on warheads are much more feasible than they used to be and would help us get a handle on those tactical systems.”
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