Published Airpower Journal - Spring 1997
It is not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.
--Mark Twain
GENE MYERS
EVERY NOW AND THEN in the name of global security and peace of mind, a group of mostly well meaning former generals, admirals, and politicians announce their support for the fanciful goal of total abolition of the world's nuclear arsenals. Some of the more senior former military advocates really should know better. I would hope their rationale for such statements is a genuine, though in my opinion, misdirected, concern for national safety rather than a desire for political recognition. From their perspective, it might be easy to believe the nation would not actually buy into such nonsense and would thus make their current pronouncements somewhat harmless. Harmless they are not. Repeated often enough by enough “credible” spokespeople, these pronouncements may take on the mantle of political gospel. Stranger things have happened.
Of course, the first and foremost nuclear stockpile on their (and everybody else's) list is that of the United States. Without going into too much detail, their arguments for complete nuclear disarmament generally rely on the following logic.
They contend that the cold war is over and we should take advantage of the reduction in tensions to rid humanity of the horrendously destructive potential of such weapons before an accident or miscalculation causes unimagined death and destruction. Part of this argument centers on the post--cold--war revelation that the old Soviet Union was not the precise, well--led fighting machine we imagined. Many contend it was all but a miracle that somebody within its creaky command structure didn't do something stupid or that a real accident did not occur and cause at best a few thousand casualties and massive contamination. The potential for mayhem within a morose, bankrupt, and desertion--ridden Russian military and defense industries is even worse today as nuclear weapon security is suspect and incentives for “rogue capitalism” abound.
Proliferation of nuclear weapons, components, and development technology and expertise to “rogue” states and terrorist groups is becoming more likely, if it has not already occurred. When coupled with the economic strain on Russian nuclear scientists and weapons guardians, the potential seems real. Advocates of total nuclear disarmament see their viewpoint as the only real way to curb the malignant spread. If the declared nuclear powers don't have nukes, neither will anyone else, the argument goes.
Maintaining the arsenal of many thousands of nuclear land-- and sea--based ballistic missiles and air--delivered bombs and missiles is hugely expensive. In an era of shrinking defense budgets, these advocates say that this is something that if eliminated would benefit both the nondefense sector and the other segments of the defense establishment as well.
Taken at face value, these arguments make sense. The Russian military establishment, and the central government (some argue), are in disarray with rumors of nuclear leakage rampant. Numerous and varied ideological adversaries still exist and have shown an increasing penchant for violence and a nothing--to--lose attitude that threatens both the old Western alliance nations as well as the center of the once--powerful Soviet empire. Fear of nuclear terrorism is real.
However, the chances of a “nuclear accident” in which weapons are mistakenly launched by the former cold war antagonists are probably no more today than they have ever been. With the reduction of old cold war political and ideological animosity and resulting military tensions, such chances could actually be less as fingers on the various nuclear triggers are loosened and less likely to twitch with the variations in “managed crisis” levels.
And yes, nuclear technology is expensive to develop and maintain. One former four--star supporter of nuclear abolition maintains that we spent four trillion dollars on 70,000 nuclear weapons during the 40--year standoff. (I'm not sure this figure would pass an Internal Revenue Service audit; it's substantially inflated.) It is assumed that the USSR and other nations spent a substantial amount also. Strangely enough, however, the major reason put forth by the Eisenhower administration in the 1950s for such heavy reliance on nuclear deterrence was its relative low cost when compared to the staggering price tag of attempting to match the Warsaw Pact's massive conventional forces.
Be that as it may, the question now is, Was that money well spent? I count myself among those that, on balance and considering the inherent danger we faced for all those years, tend to think it was. While acknowledging that actually proving deterrence of the USSR's further expansion is somewhat akin to proving the virgin birth, the fact is that the titanic clash of two huge armies did not occur. Many think this was precisely because of the will of the West to resist Soviet advances and the presence of nuclear weapons and their horrible potential to prove military solutions futile. Had this conflict occurred, even without the use of nuclear weapons, there is no doubt that many thousands, if not millions, of lives would have been lost and Europe ruined.
Okay, but does this mean we still need all these things, and aren't we missing a momentous opportunity to rid ourselves of them once and for all? The historic knee--jerk, and politically irresistible, reaction to such arguments is affirmative. Given all the hostile interests that are now in pursuit of nuclear weapons to even the international military odds, it would seem to the politically correct a reasonable and indeed compelling proposition to proceed with abolition treaties now.
I disagree. I believe we can accomplish substantial reductions if they are done correctly. However, we cannot and must not seek total abolition—at least not for the foreseeable future. As with most questions of great import, the answer is a matter of degree, not an absolute. Why?
To use an already overused but nonetheless true analogy, in 1997 the genie is truly out of the bottle. We cannot simply wish nuclear weapons away. If we had approached nuclear abolition with Soviet leaders 25 years ago, ridicule would have come from those same senior officials that now support such actions. We were in the midst of a deadly serious ideological confrontation that we saw at the time as much in need of excuses for not erupting from cold to white hot. Besides, how could we prove that the other side actually did what it said it would do? Despite all our marvelous advanced intelligence technology, we still have absolutely no means of tracking down a few nuclear warheads. And it must be remembered that the political and military value of just a few weapons increases dramatically as your opponent draws his down toward zero. With the current world far more complex than the old bipolar confrontation and with the number of nuclear, biological, and chemical (NBC) armed or would--be armed entities growing at an alarming pace, why would it seem more logical to disarm ourselves now? How could we prove that 10 or 20 states were doing what they signed up to do, especially with the proven track records of some of them—Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as well as a few dubious “friends”? And what about increasingly powerful nonstate terrorist groups?
The United States has already signed up to eliminate its chemical and biological arsenals with no real way of proving compliance from other nations. Abolition of nuclear devices eliminates these weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that draw political and psychological lines in the sand. With what do we threaten those that would use any one or all of them in the future? And if we must respond to use of one of them, we must start and end the escalation ladder with a few rungs of conventional weaponry—a dilemma not ignored by potential adversaries with little to lose. It is widely believed that had it not been for the US nuclear and chemical arsenal, Iraq would have used its chemical weapons during the 1991 Gulf War.
We cannot sign up to total US nuclear disarmament as a way of fixing the leaky Russian arsenal. While eliminating one of the main sources of weapons components, the unattainable goal of Russian stockpile elimination would rid us of neither nuclear weapon development know--how nor the urge of others to attain weapons. We must also understand, as recent news stories have so disturbingly reminded us, that much of the weapons development technology and some components have come from sources other than Russia, including West Germany and China as well as a couple of greedy US companies. I don't think Russian leaders would agree to a total ban anyway; they also face a legion of potentially nuclear armed foes (some the same as ours) that they will wish to deter.
In eliminating US and Russian weapons, we actually encourage adversaries to get the nuclear “leg up” on us. The potential for nuclear, biological, and/or chemical blackmail and even terrorism becomes more appealing in light of the West's tendency to actually abide by its NBC treaties.
But we can significantly reduce our arsenals if we do it right, and in doing so at least reduce the potential for leakage from the old Russian, and possibly other, stockpiles. This is not an argument for abolition of nuclear weapons. However, in outlining three goals for our arms control and arms development programs, this discussion does hopefully point the way to substantial reductions—from the 4,500 to five thousand or so warheads for both sides envisioned under the unratified Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) II Treaty to perhaps a few hundred for each side in the future. These mutually reinforcing goals are as follows:
Security. This goal requires that remaining weapons be secure from direct military or terrorist attack or theft. An enemy that cannot find a weapon cannot target it. Rather than making them easy to count and thereby target, both sides' arms control programs should foster a regime that assures the absolute security of weapons through such enhancements as mobility, dispersal, improved hardening, and enhanced physical security. With this achieved, the number of remaining weapons can be reduced. The main reason both sides deployed the many thousands of weapons they did during the cold war was to ensure sufficient survivors of a first strike on them to still present a credible retaliatory threat to the first striker. If they cannot be reliably attacked, there is no practical need for as many, especially in the present era of arms reductions.
Stability. In seeking reductions of weapons for their own sake, our arms control program ignores the primary reason to reduce weapons: to enhance the stability of the international environment by reducing incentives to use those weapons. With improvements in security come improvements in stability since there is no incentive to either target the other side's vulnerable weapons during a crisis or to launch one's own to prevent their loss in a first strike. This admittedly applies primarily to confrontations between similarly armed nuclear powers, but that part of the equation must also be solved.
Usability. To provide deterrence, some weapons must appear to an opponent as actually usable against centers of power and control. This is particularly important in the face of an adversary such as Saddam Hussein, who prizes the levers of power and his own skin more than national safety. In an environment where our weapons are secure and nuclear crisis stability among major nuclear powers enhanced, the possession of the means of retaliation against rogue states—small and highly accurate weapons, with minimal fallout potential—has significant deterrent potential. Security and stability actually enhance the perception of usability. At least retaliatory options against WMD use are more than a rung or two on the conventional ladder.
The abolitionist approach to nuclear arms control ignores the genie--out-- of--the--bottle problem, and in concentrating on complete elimination, mistakes the need to make the arsenal safer, more stable, and indeed much smaller with the misguided drive to eliminate proliferation by disarming ourselves. Unfortunately, proliferation is inevitable. We can slow it. We can reduce the size of its source of supply. We can take political and military actions against attempts by dangerous proliferators. And we can show the folly of using the weapons a rogue state attains. But we will not be able to eliminate the incentive for buying, stealing, or building weapons of mass destruction, least of all by making ourselves incapable of responding in kind to their use.
Langley AFB, Virginia
True education means mind deployment; not merely the gathering and classifying of knowledge.
—Napoleon Hill, Law of Success
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