Wednesday, June 11, 2003

United States I:  Former Bush Official Advocates Low-Yield Weapon Research

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — A former senior Bush administration official yesterday took aim at “antinuclear activists” opposed to an administration initiative to begin researching new low-yield nuclear weapons, saying the critics misunderstand the nature of new global threats facing the United States.

Keith Payne, who last week ended his year and a half of service as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for forces policy, oversaw Pentagon policies on some of the administration’s most controversial defense initiatives, including missile defense, nuclear weapons and the Nuclear Posture Review.

He laid out administration reasoning behind its approach to nuclear deterrence — particularly its interest in research on new, low-yield nuclear weapons — and said critics, intentionally or not, have failed to appreciate the rationale.

“It is hard to find folks less adept at thinking outside the old Cold War box than the U.S. antinuclear crowd.  The world has changed dramatically, but their arguments have not,” he said.

“Nowhere has this inability to engage in ‘newthink’ been more apparent than in the heated response to recent congressional efforts supported by the Bush administration to free up research on precision low-yield nuclear weapons, including those capable of threatening those underground bunkers,” he said, citing Los Angeles Times and Washington Post editorials.

New Threats Described

Payne, who has returned to his former position running the National Institute for Public Policy, said potential U.S. enemies differ from the Cold War-era Soviet Union in that enemy leaders now may not value the welfare of their populations or their own survival, and may make decisions based on superstition or fanaticism.

During the Cold War, he said, “We didn’t consider an enemy whose decision-making process is not determined by … external pieces of evidence and analysis, but by their feelings, by the feelings of an unquestioned leader, by political absolutes, and by the advice of some court soothsayer.”

The United States might possibly face opponents driven by “unquestioned adherence to a leader who has a bad dream” or relies on “fortune telling or astrology or all those things that underlie decision-making in many parts of the world,” he said.

Today’s potential opponents, he said, “don’t see their citizens as citizens.  They are subjects, they are consumables.”

Argues for Pursuing New Nuclear Capabilities

Such factors, Payne said, raise questions about whether the United States can have confidence in its present deterrence capabilities, consisting mostly of high-yield nuclear weapons.

“Interest in research on new, low-yield nuclear weapons comes from a desire for a deterrent that is believable,” he said.

“Some opposing leaders may doubt U.S. deterrent threats because our existing arsenal has generally high yields and a relative lack of precision,” he said.

He referred to 10-year-old legislation barring such research, which the administration successfully encouraged Congress to amend this year, as “thought control.”

“What’s all the fuss about?” Payne said.  The law “when rigidly applied, restricts even thinking … about new low-yield nuclear weapons.  Yes, thought control is alive and well under existing law,” he said.

He also said a study to consider modifying an existing nuclear weapon for improved bunker-busting capabilities and potentially striking biological weapons facilities was first sought during the Clinton administration.

“The response to these initiatives has, as I said earlier, been reminiscent of the antinuclear left’s Cold War tactics in both style and substance,” he said, which is characterized by “overheated partisan rhetoric intended to frighten and politicize the unsuspecting.”

Nuclear Pre-Emption Critique Disputed

Payne disputed charges from arms control organizations that the administration initiatives would make the use of a nuclear weapon in future conflict more likely.

“The research initiatives that I described are being reported as evidence that the Bush administration is looking for nuclear pre-emption against someone,” he said.

“It’s all familiar nonsense of course, but its scary nonsense,” he said.

Three years ago, a Payne-led panel released a study concluding that nuclear weapons could play a greater role in U.S. defense policy.  The panel included current White House Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Stephen Cambone.

The study, Rationale and Requirements for U.S. Nuclear Forces and Arms Control, concluded there might be a future need for nuclear weapons that could provide “unique targeting capabilities (deep underground/biological weapons targets)” and said nuclear weapons could also be used to “neutralize enemy military capabilities, especially nuclear and other WMD forces.”