Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON -- A senior U.S. Defense Department official today voiced skepticism about proposals that would more narrowly circumscribe the role of the nation's nuclear weapons (see GSN, May 12).

David Ochmanek, the deputy assistant defense secretary for forces transformation and resources, said nuclear weapons continue to be useful beyond simply deterring an adversary's nuclear strike against the United States or its allies, despite views to the contrary. Rather, he said, the nation should continue to view nuclear deterrence as broadly capable of preventing both conventional and unconventional conflict.

"It's probably unwise to draw artificial distinctions between what nuclear weapons deter and don't deter," he told reporters at a Defense Writers Group question-and-answer session this morning. "I think it's better to think about the deterrent qualities of our force in a more holistic way."

Ochmanek said Pentagon leaders are grappling with renewed questions about the arsenal's role as they undertake the Nuclear Posture Review. The congressionally mandated review, to be completed by the end of the year, will analyze U.S. nuclear strategy, forces and operations.

The senior official's perspective echoed recent bipartisan commission recommendations, which found that despite growing worries about nuclear weapons proliferation and violent extremism, the U.S. nuclear declaratory stance should remain largely the same (see GSN, May 7).

"The United States should reaffirm that the purpose of its nuclear force is deterrence, as broadly defined to include also assurance of its allies and dissuasion of potential adversaries," according to the Strategic Posture Commission, headed by two former defense secretaries, William Perry and James Schlesinger.

Their May 6 report said the nation should also continue a policy of "calculated ambiguity," in which U.S. leaders leave open the possibility of executing a nuclear strike in response to virtually any hostile action.

The panel advised the Obama administration against declaring a "no-first-use" policy, one that would rule out launching nuclear weapons except following a nuclear attack against the United States or its allies.

However, a team of experts this spring said Washington must begin to revise the role that atomic weapons play in national security if progress is to be made toward realizing President Barack Obama's long-term vision of a world free of nuclear arms (see GSN, April 10).

The president said in a Prague speech in early April that "the Cold War has disappeared but thousands of [nuclear] weapons have not." Obama vowed to advance the objective of a "world without nuclear weapons" even if it could not be reached in his lifetime.

"To move with any sincerity and effectiveness toward a nuclear weapons-free world, nuclear weapons must shed almost all of their current missions," according to the April report, written by Hans Kristensen and Ivan Oelrich of the Federation of American Scientists and Robert Norris of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

The trio advised that the Obama administration adopt a "minimal deterrence" approach that would "make retaliation after nuclear attack the sole mission for nuclear weapons," the report states. "We believe that adopting this doctrine is an important step on the path to nuclear abolition because nuclear retaliation is the one mission for nuclear weapons that reduces the salience of nuclear weapons; it is the self-canceling mission. With just this one mission, the United States can have far fewer nuclear forces to use against a different set of targets."

Speaking this morning, Ochmanek acknowledged a need to implement Obama's vision but appeared to rule out a strategic shift toward minimal deterrence.

"The president has set a very clear direction," Ochmanek told reporters. "He wants this nation, over time, to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in our security and strategy. And we're working very hard through arms control and other ways to do that.

"At the same time," he continued, "there's an acknowledgement that the adversary always gets a vote, and there are people out there who are moving in the opposite direction" to build nuclear arms rather than eliminate them.

Ochmanek said he has been "a little bemused" by recent debate over how deterrence might change in the 21st century. Instead, the defense official said he continues to see deterrence of hostile acts against U.S. interests as a combination of factors that includes, but is not limited to, the nation's nuclear stance.

"We have a spectrum of military capabilities, married to our strategy, our declaratory posture, our posture of forces abroad, our security relationships with allies and partners," he said, calling the result a "web with some seams that deters across the board."

"Does Kim Jong Il think about our nuclear weapons before he considers doing things with his conventional forces?" added Ochmanek, referring to the North Korean leader. "I think he probably does, irrespective of what we say about them."

Kristensen, one of the co-authors of the report on minimal deterrence, today dubbed Ochmanek's perspective as seemingly "aloof and somewhat adrift."

"The nuclear capabilities and guidance we have today were developed for specific adversaries, targets, and scenarios," Kristensen told Global Security Newswire in an e-mail. "I can't see how it will be possible to implement President Obama's vision unless we begin to be more specific about where nuclear weapons have a role and where they don't need to have one anymore."