American nuclear weapon strategy is bad for America

The United States must profoundly change its nuclear weapons policy to reflect the realities of today's world, and future challenges to the nation's security. Indeed, the United States can proactively shape its nuclear future, rather than anticipate the worst and hedge against it.

Four of the most seasoned architects of U.S. national security policy
- George Shultz, Secretary of State under President Reagan;
- William Perry, Secretary of Defense under President Clinton;
- Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Ford; and
- Sam Nunn, former Senator from Georgia
have forcefully articulated the need for a new approach.

The next president should bring U.S. nuclear weapons policy into line with today's political and strategic realities by taking 10 critical, unilateral steps.

1. Declare that the sole purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter and, if necessary, respond to the use of nuclear weapons by another country.

2. Reject rapid-launch options by changing its deployment practices to allow the launch of nuclear forces in days rather than minutes.

3. Eliminate preset targeting plans, and replace them with the capability to promptly develop a response tailored to the situation if nuclear weapons are used against the United States, its armed forces, or its allies.

4. Promptly and unilaterally reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal to no more than 1,000 warheads, including deployed and reserve warheads. The United States would declare all warheads above this level to be in excess of its military needs, move them into storage, begin dismantling them in a manner transparent to the international community, and begin disposing_under international safeguards_of all plutonium and highly enriched uranium beyond that required to maintain these 1,000 warheads. By making the endpoint of this dismantlement process dependent on Russia's response, the United States would encourage Russia to reciprocate.

5. Halt all programs for developing and deploying new nuclear weapons, including the proposed Reliable Replacement Warhead.

6. Promptly and unilaterally retire all U.S. nonstrategic nuclear weapons, dismantling them in a transparent manner, and take steps to induce Russia to do the same.

7. Announce a U.S. commitment to reducing its number of nuclear weapons further, on a negotiated and verified bilateral or multilateral basis.

8. Commit to not resume nuclear testing, and work with the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

9. Halt further deployment of the Ground-Based Missile Defense, and drop any plans for space-based missile defense. The deployment of a U.S. missile defense system that Russia or China believed could intercept a significant portion of its survivable long-range missile forces would be an obstacle to deep nuclear cuts. A U.S. missile defense system could also trigger reactions by these nations that would result in a net decrease in U.S. security.

10. Reaffirm the U.S. commitment to pursue nuclear disarmament, and present a specific plan for moving toward that goal, in recognition of the fact that a universal and verifiable prohibition on nuclear weapons would enhance both national and international security.

_kungfoo_ said:
Pfft... I hope we can get a handle on not accidentally flying nukes cross-country.

FAS provides timely, nonpartisan technical analysis on complex global issues that hinge on science and technology. Priding itself on agility and an ability to bring together people from many disciplines and organizations, the organization often addresses critical policy topics that are not well covered by other organizations. (link)

China's nuclear force modernization, as evidence by the fielding of the new DF-31 and DF-31A intercontinental-range missiles, is enhancing China's strategic strike capabilities.

China's 2006 Defense White Paper states that:
1) the purpose of China's nuclear force is to "deter other countries from using or threatening to use nuclear weapons against China;"
2) China "upholds the principles of counterattack in self-defense and limited development of nuclear weapons;" and,
3) China "has never entered into and will never enter into a nuclear arms race with any other country." The document reiterated China's commitment to a declaratory policy of "no first use (bu shouxian shiyong - %u4E0D%u9996%u5148%u4F7F%u7528) of nuclear weapons at any time and under any circumstances," and states China "unconditionally undertakes not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states or nuclear weapon-free zones." Doctrinal materials suggest additional missions for China's nuclear forces include deterring conventional attacks against PRC nuclear assets or conventional attacks with WMD-like effects, reinforcing China's great power status, and increasing freedom of action by limiting the extent to which others can coerce China with nuclear threats. (page 26 MPPR)

bald_eagle said:
We have tried to approach this before. The hangup always comes with # 7.

Nuclear weapons are too easy to hide in countries having millions of square miles. And allowing inspection is problematic in many countries, especially those with non-democratic governments.

The hope back in the sixties and seventies was that we would eventually have technology that could ferret out hidden weapons of mass destruction. Going by the abysmal failure of intelligence in Iraq, I would say that we're not there yet.

_kungfoo_ said:

I'm not sure if that was a good test case though. At all.

bald_eagle said:

Granted it's not the same. My point is that we couldn't even be sure whether Iraq had WMDs. How could we be sure if someplace the size of China was in compliance?

LSlice said:
What's the purpose of number two? I guess they are essentially advocating abandoning the MAD doctrine?

LSlice said:
What's the purpose of number two? I guess they are essentially advocating abandoning the MAD doctrine?

IDGAS said:
The Federation of American Scientists, FAS, is a great resource for information about military and strategic issues.

I have the FAS Strategic Security Blog and Secrecy News to be good starting points when needing to research those issue. The pages on China, Nuclear Weapons, and Nuclear Proliferation were for instance helpful in researching SockPuppet's comment about China's nuclear policy.

The China page for March 6, 2008, Chinese Nuclear Arsenal Increased by 25 Percent Since 2006, Pentagon Report Indicates had a link to the report "Military Power of the People's Republic of China" hereafter MPPR. From the Executive Summary

Within the spoiler is information about the lack of transparency by China of their, "grand strategy," "military strategic guidelines," and nuclear "ballistic and cruise missiles."

And, the Nuclear Weapons page has a story on an Extensive Nuclear Missile Deployment Area Discovered in Central China that links to other blogs, reports, and Google Earth images.

SockPuppet said:
I'm sure it's complete coincidence, but Google Maps seems to have misplaced an image tile in the Delingha area.

FAS image of the area.

Google Maps view of Delingha. You will see that the area in the northwest is a duplicate of the south-eastern.

IDGAS said:

Oh, you are such a suspicious silly goose.

SockPuppet said:

I see it happen in other places... every Dutch military installation, for example.
It's silly, really; at least for the Dutch. I mean, they have airshows at Volkel. With, like, leaflets with maps of the airfield.

But I'm dragging the thread off point.

Do we really believe the USA needs as many nukes as it has, and on the rules it applies?

Colinism said:

Yes.

SockPuppet said:

Why?

Colinism said:

The premise of MAD while most people would rightfully cringe at the idea did keep a lid on both super powers tho we fought through proxy wars we never went so far as to push the button, the point of having so many weapons is that you simply can't knock them all out with a single strike. yes it seems insane but thats the point, it's also the point that the amount of weapons you owuld need to fire to knock out those weapons would also destroy your own country through fallout as it went around the globe. The problem we are getting into is that as the technology spreads the odds are increasing that someone who is not afraid of the consequences of those weapons going off. the threat of nuclear war would not go away if we had no nukes. One could argue that without the combined deterrant of the US and Russia the threat of war would increase.

SockPuppet said:

I see it happen in other places... every Dutch military installation, for example.
It's silly, really; at least for the Dutch. I mean, they have airshows at Volkel. With, like, leaflets with maps of the airfield.

But I'm dragging the thread off point.

Do we really believe the USA needs as many nukes as it has, and on the rules it applies?

SockPuppet said:
Twenty-three Nobel Prize winners (among others) - most of them Americans - unveiled a document calling for a complete rethink of US nuclear weapons policy.
[...]
Of course, these are only scientists, and not of any possible interest to the political process, right? Only 23 Nobel Prize winners there. Nobody intelligent at all.

Colinism said:
Also sorry but we had too many quotes going here.

To the first point, of course we can spread them over half a continent and through the oceans, however that simply ensures that the enemy needs that many more nukes to try and destroy our capability of a return strike, and vice versa.the fewer nukes the more the likely hood that an enemy does the calculations and decides that the losses from your return strike are acceptable. That is the theory anyhow.

As to the second part, a terrorist nuke is almost inevitable at this point Nuclear technology was born of tech from the 40's. The deterrent comes in the fact that any group who then uses one will be hunted to extinction by the majority of world governments, the last thing you will want to be is the hiding place for such a terrorist or organization. The thing about nukes is once you have them it's almost assured that you will launch them in retaliation once one has been used against you. If you don't then they are not a deterrent at all.

SockPuppet said:

Yes. Question is, is losing one city to a nuclear weapon acceptable? Look at Katrina. A low casualty rate, and not much property damage. (Only in the billions.) I am not convinced that any country can accept the consequences of any nuclear weapon use.

Which suggests to me that the UCS position is correct. America has far too many nuclear weapons; a few hundred would be plenty.

Oh indeed. There are two problems with that, IMO.

- That leaves the deterrence system wide open to people who believe that killing them all and letting God sort them out is a good idea. If it's possible to trigger an exchange of that sort, then God will have to do the sorting out, right? It isn't possible to deter an attack designed to kill indiscriminately.
Deterrence assumes you can deter the other guy. After 9/11, does that look possible?
- Accidental launch can kill everyone. We know that there have been accidents of various sorts with nuclear weapons; B-52 crash in Spain, for instance. None have yet involved a weapon detonation or a missile launch. But rapid launch doesn't take account of the capacity for things just to go wrong; it doesn't leave any capacity for talking. And it plays into the hands of the urge for vengeance, which can only make matters worse.

Both of those argue that existing policy is counterproductive and may constitute an active threat to the security of the USA.

Colinism said:

I'm don't dissagree with you exactly, but at the same time it's one of those things where I can see both modes of thinking and understand them.

Dropping a nuke from space won't cause it to detonate so other than a minor radiation spill from the material inside thats not so much a threat to society. The reason for Rapid launch is that it takes under an hour from launch to detonation anywhere in the world. You can't evacuate cities, you cant get people to shelters there simply is not enough time, in a few days your entire nuclear arsenal could be destroyed if you did not launch them immediately.