Updated Feb. 28, 2003

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Slipping Down the Nuclear Slope:
Bush Administration Nuclear Policy
Lowers Bar Against Usage

Theresa Hitchens
Vice President, Center for Defense Information

Presented at a conference on

U.S. NUCLEAR POLICY AND COUNTERPROLIFERATION

Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2003

Cosponsored by:

The Center for Defense Information
and
Physicians for Social Responsibility

I am going to talk briefly about the evolution of U.S. nuclear strategy and policy since the election of President George W. Bush. It is my contention that changes being made under the current administration represent a negative trend for nuclear nonproliferation, and have the potential to undercut rather than bolster U.S. security. I also will attempt to provide some suggestions about more useful alternative approaches to the problem of proliferation.

As noted by Martin Butcher in his previous presentation, the trends manifesting themselves under the current administration can be seen as having been seeded during the Clinton administration, starting early on under the late Secretary of Defense Les Aspin, with his focus on counterproliferation in fighting the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). The emerging Bush approach can be seen as an outgrowth of thinking initiated in the Clinton era: the emphasis on counterproliferation; the consideration of the use of nuclear weapons against chemical and biological targets; and a more ambiguous policy on when nuclear usage might be warranted.

Still, the Bush administration nuclear policies are pushing the United States further down a very slippery slope: ever closer to the consideration of the first use of nuclear weapons in a conflict with less at stake than national survival; indeed, ever closer to the possibility of preemptive, or even preventative, nuclear war. This is a dangerous game, and one that risks backfiring on not only the interests of the United States but also on the perilous stability in international relations among the current and emerging nuclear powers.

The Bush administration released its classified Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) to Congress on Dec. 31, 2001, and followed up in September 2002 with the more general National Security Strategy. While neither document can be said to call explicitly for preemptive or preventative nuclear strikes, taken together they represent a shift in U.S. declaratory policy regarding nuclear weapons use. If the NPR is read, as it should be, as an implementation strategy for the goals embodied in the National Security Strategy, it is clear that the United States is posturing itself as more ready to use nuclear weapons first against an attacker, or even a potential attacker, whether a state or non-state player, whether armed with nuclear weapons or not.

The 2002 National Security Strategy states: "Our enemies … are seeking weapons of mass destruction. … America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed." It further asserts that deterrence — at least deterrence in its classical sense and relying on the current U.S. nuclear arsenal — is unlikely to work against terrorists or rogue states, warning that the United States "cannot let our enemies strike first."

The Bush administration has sought to justify this preemption-heavy strategy by asserting that the United States is allowed, under international law's recognized right of self defense, to undertake preemptive action against an "imminent attack." However, it is clear that the administration approach is pushing the boundaries of the traditional definition of "imminent" to include preventing a nation or non-state actor from obtaining even the capability to attack the United States or U.S. interests, especially if said nation or non-state actor is pursuing WMD as a means of attack.

While the NPR does not directly address the issue of preventative or preemptive nuclear war, the document does discuss at length the need for a "flexible" arsenal with weapons that "vary in scale, scope and purpose" to counter emerging threats. In particular, the document stresses the possible use of nuclear weapons to defeat hardened and deeply buried targets such as chemical or biological weapons storehouses or factories, or underground command centers. It further calls for consideration of new nuclear weapons "options," including "possible modifications to existing weapons to provide additional yield flexibility in the stockpile; improved earth-penetrating weapons (EPWs) to counter the increased use by potential adversaries of hard and deeply buried facilities; and warheads that reduce collateral damage."

To decode the NPR's language, we must recall its origins. It was mandated by Congress in 2001, and that mandate included a number of specific questions the Bush administration was required to answer in completing the review.

One of the questions the Republican-dominated Congress asked the Pentagon to answer in parallel with the posture review was whether new weapons — particularly, low-yield nuclear weapons — are needed to deter or preempt the use of WMD by rogue states or terrorists.

The debate centers on whether the potential U.S. enemies of the 21st century are sufficiently deterred by the current U.S. arsenal, designed for the Cold War standoff with Russia. Today's potential attackers, argue the proponents of the Bush administration approach, know that any U.S. president is going to be loath to use today's high-yield weapons against them, because of the likely "disproportionate" destruction that would result (the deaths of massive numbers of innocent civilians). In addition, today's enemies — such as Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein — are smart enough to hide their illegal WMD stash (and themselves) in difficult to target underground bunkers and facilities.

The main thrust of this argument is that there is a need to replace some of the current stockpile of massive, aging nuclear weapons with new, more accurate weapons that would cause less damage — and thus be considered (by U.S. policy-makers and potential enemies alike) more usable —thereby improving future deterrence by making our nuclear threat more "real."

The Republican interest in this issue isn't only among some in Congress. Indeed, one of the seminal papers on the emerging Republican nuclear strategy was published in January 2001 by the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP), entitled "Rationale and Requirements for U.S. Nuclear Forces and Arms Control." The advisory panel for that report reads like a who's who of the Bush administration and its security policy advisers: including Stephen Hadley, now deputy National Security Advisor; and Steve Cambone, key aide to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The paper makes the case for a "more usable" arsenal, and argues that new, low-yield precision-guided nukes are necessary for "use against select hardened targets such as underground biological facilities." The paper also dismisses treaties and arms control measures as ineffective against today's proliferators — and possibly harmful to future U.S. national security by "locking in" the size of the nuclear arsenal.

The NIPP argument is the foundation of the administration's new policies, and of semi-official Republican Party doctrine. The need for new weapons especially lower yield warheads and bunker busters; the likely need for renewed nuclear testing in the near future; and the endorsement of nuclear preemption are all included in a February 2003 policy paper from the House Republican Policy Committee, "Differentiation and Defense: An Agenda for the Nuclear Weapons Program."

In fact, the administration — with congressional approval — is now studying options for new nuclear bunker busters, or for modifying existing weapons for this mission. There are a number of technical arguments about the actual usefulness of nuclear bunker busters, but you will hear more about that in a later panel. From a policy viewpoint, the emphasis on bunker busting has important ramifications — most worrisome, it points to a preemption or preventative nuclear strike strategy. Obviously, if you are contemplating hostilities with a country armed with chemical and biological weapons, you are going to want to destroy those capabilities straight away, before they are used against you. If your weapon of choice is a nuclear bunker buster, then you are just as obviously talking about a nuclear first strike.

How significantly does this differ from past U.S. nuclear policy? After all, the United States has never promised not to use nuclear weapons first.

As CDI President Dr. Bruce Blair has argued persuasively, the current administration approach seems to harken back to an earlier era in U.S. nuclear thinking: that of the 1950s, when nuclear war fighting was considered not only thinkable, but also perhaps winnable. However, that posture was relatively quickly replaced by deterrence theory and Mutually Assured Destruction, due to the simple fact that the Soviets had enough nuclear weapons to massively retaliate if the United States started a nuclear war.

During most of the Cold War and in the immediate aftermath of Soviet Union's collapse, it is fair to say that nuclear weapons were considered by U.S. policy makers primarily for deterrence, and, secondly, as weapons of last resort. In addition, the United States long has pledged not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states (provided those states were not in league with a nuclear armed foe) — a pledge that provides a crucial underpinning for the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty under which many countries foreswore the bomb.

So, Bush administration thinking can be viewed as significantly different from the past four decades of U.S. nuclear policy in several ways. First, there is a new (or renewed) emphasis on war fighting with nukes (at least, with ones considered "more usuable"). Second, there is a new willingness to consider going nuclear first in a war — or in a preemptive/preventative strike — even in conflicts that fail to threaten U.S. national survival. And third, there is the clear assertion (as opposed to the Clinton administration's policy of ambiguity) that the United States would be justified in using nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear threat — that is, against chemical and biological weapons. Indeed, the NPR specifically names several non-nuclear weapon states — Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya — as potential sites of "contingencies" that could require use of U.S. nuclear weapons. Furthermore, there are reports that the Pentagon has come up with a potential nuclear target list as a contingency plan in the upcoming war with Iraq.

The goal of the new policies seems to be to scare potential enemies out of even thinking about obtaining WMD, much less using such weapons against the United States or our interests. Unfortunately, they may be more likely to backfire. By lowering the threshold for nuclear war, the United States risks encouraging rather than dissuading others from pursuing, or possibly using, WMD.

First of all, the linking of nuclear weapons with chemical and biological weapons serves to elevate the status of these weapons as potentially useful in deterring attacks by nuclear states. It confers a "great power" status on pursuit of these weapons. This is not a good thing when one thinks about the reasons some dictators have in the past pursued nuclear capability.

Second, and even more dangerously, such a U.S. stance is likely to spur nuclear proliferation. Is it reasonable to expect that, with the world's most preeminent military power reasserting the high value of nuclear weapons, that others will continue on the path of nuclear restraint? Won't powers pursuing nuclear weapons be able to justify that pursuit, if for no other reason than to "deter" the use of WMD against themselves — or, in the case of U.S. foes — to deter the United States? This latter point is keenly illustrated in the difference between the Bush administration approach to Iraq, which is about to be attacked by the U.S. military for its pursuit of nuclear weapons, vs. the approach to North Korea, which, at least publicly, is not in the crosshairs, in part because of fears that it has a nuclear weapon. If you were among the leadership of Iran, the third leg in the Bush administration's "axis of evil," might not you now be considering a rush to build the bomb?

Finally, how does an itchy U.S. nuclear trigger finger figure into the nuclear plans and doctrines of other nuclear weapon states? Doesn't a U.S. policy of nuclear preemption in regional contingencies set a bad example? Will Russia now consider use of its large arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons against suspect facilities in Chechnya; or Israel consider a nuclear preemptive strike against Iran? Or even worse, imagine a similar preemption-based policy being adopted by the new nuclear weapon states, India and Pakistan. These bitter rivals have already shown that they are less constrained, at least rhetorically, about threatening the use of nukes against each other. And couldn't a nuclear North Korea use the U.S. policy against us in justifying it's own nuclear aggression?

In sum, the Bush administration's emerging nuclear doctrine potentially raises just as many problems for national and international security as it seeks to prevent.

But if the current policy approach isn't the answer to stemming proliferation, preventing terrorists from acquiring WMD, and creating a more stable international environment, what is? Unfortunately, unlike the simple strong-arm approach of the Bush administration, the answer is complicated and involves a complex web of activities using a number of policy tools.

First, the United States needs to roll back its current rhetoric and renew the pledge that we will not use nuclear weapons first against a non-nuclear state in good standing with the NPT. This is crucial for shoring up the treaty itself, which, despite Republican bashing, has been fairly successful in limiting the number of nuclear states.

Second, the U.S. government needs to shift its focus and resources from today's emphasis on counterproliferation as a strategy to nonproliferation. As in health care, WMD proliferation — particularly potential proliferation to terrorists — is best dealt with through an ounce of prevention rather than a pound of cure. U.S. nuclear policies, strategy and military doctrine all need to be more directly focused on the number one threat: that terrorists may acquire WMD.

That said, it is obvious that neither current U.S. approaches nor international nonproliferation regimes are adequate. There are a number of ways nonproliferation approaches can be strengthened. For example, in January 2001 a bipartisan task force chaired by Howard Baker and Lloyd Cutler recommended a multifaceted, long-term program to destroy and safeguard Russia's huge, and insecure, nuclear arsenal and materials stores. The cost was estimated at $3 billion annually over 10 years — peanuts when compared with the vast sums being spent on the U.S. military's war against terror or the costs of war with Iraq. This program should be adopted by the Bush administration and robustly implemented.

But Russia isn't the only place where nuclear stockpiles need secured. Arguably, if Osama bin Laden gets a nuke or radiological material, it is at least as likely to have come from Pakistan as from Russia. Efforts also must be made to shore up both the Pakistani and Indian nuclear arsenals, and to institute safeguards against a miscalculated nuclear war. The NPT regime also needs beefing up. The International Atomic Energy Agency needs more: more money, more support, more inspectors, more inspection powers. While it may be impossible to stop countries from pursuing nuclear power generation, it is necessary to ensure against more North Koreas.

In addition, the members of the international suppliers regimes — the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Australia Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime — need to get serious about restricting sales, and figuring out how to expand membership. Even the Republicans who dismiss treaties as "successful only where we didn't need them" are calling for such action: the House Republican Policy Committee report urges the 108th Congress to "require that the United States, in cooperation with our allies, reinvigorate supplier control regimes to thwart countries selling technologies for proliferation" of WMD, and notes the U.S. government should be willing to impose stiff economic sanctions on companies and countries that export such technologies. Part of the problem with these regimes is secrecy: more transparency about sales is a necessary element in being able to "name and shame" those not living up to their obligations. Another part of the problem is the lack of capability in many nations to keep tabs on movement of such materials, and consideration should be given as to how to improve information sharing among national law enforcement and international agencies.

But what about the hard cases? There will always be those who refuse to play by the rules, or who see the pursuit of nuclear weapons as necessary for regional security reasons. Indeed, one of the weaknesses of current supplier regimes is that those outside of those regimes trade amongst themselves: Pakistan's trade with North Korea, or North Korea's trade with Yemen. And how does the international community convince Iran, which after all lives is a very rough neighborhood, that it doesn't need nukes? Unfortunately, dealing with the hard cases is going to have to be done on an individual basis, crafting an approach that includes both carrots and sticks applicable to each case. For instance, with regard to Iran, could Israel be persuaded to guarantee that it won't strike Iran with nuclear weapons if Iran refrains from getting the bomb? Can North Korea be persuaded to not only give up nuclear weapons but also nuclear power if a deal is cut for both food aid and aid in improving its electricity grid? Creativity will be needed to deal with these hard nuts.

In conclusion, more thought has to be given — both in the United States and in the international community — to how to make nonproliferation work better. Unfortunately, the emerging Bush administration policy is almost certain to hinder this process, rather than help it. It would behoove U.S. policy makers to more earnestly take up a debate about the wisdom of treading down this path.

Thank you for your attention, and I look forward to your questions and comments.

Theresa Hitchens CDI Vice President thitchens@cdi.org

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