Bush's Nuclear Revolution: A Regime Change in Nonproliferation

George Perkovich

From Foreign Affairs, March/April 2003

Summary:  The White House's radical new strategy to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction will likely make the world less secure, not more.

George Perkovich is Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of India's Nuclear Bomb.

Obliterating cities is not a credible U.S. option. And as for bunkers hiding rogue leaders or weapons, May points out that even if they can be located precisely, "small nuclear weapons have only marginally more effectiveness than U.S. conventional weapons against most targets ... [and] are more difficult to use." American use of nuclear weapons against Iraq (or Iran), meanwhile, would inflame Muslim hatred around the world, add fuel to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and mobilize massive European protests against U.S. hegemony -- all major strategic costs to the United States.

As for Russia, a full-scale war between it and the United States now seems inconceivable. Given the desires for larger cuts in nuclear forces that Russia displayed in negotiating the 2002 Moscow Treaty, Russia hardly seems enough of a threat to justify the size and forward-leaning posture of America's present arsenal.

China currently possesses roughly two dozen nuclear weapons that could reach the United States and a few hundred more that could hit targets in and around Taiwan. China is modernizing and expanding its arsenal, moreover. But whether this process will proceed indefinitely, either qualitatively or quantitatively, depends largely on the political and strategic environment the United States itself shapes.

Yet rather than seek a multilateral framework in which the United States, Russia, and China could set the lowest possible limits on their forces, Washington hawks seek to "impress" China with "greater, rather than fewer weapons," in the words of an influential 2001 think tank report signed by several people who went on to key positions in the Bush administration. "Authoritarian states and leaders seem to place special emphasis on large numbers," the report noted, "perhaps because ... dictators find in large numbers a promise or manifestation of the unlimited force they want to exercise." (This would be more insightful if China had several thousand nuclear weapons and the United States a few hundred, rather than the other way around.)

Instead of maintaining such an arsenal, many argue, the United States should lead the other nuclear powers in an effort to render nuclear weapons taboo -- the vision, that is, behind the international nonproliferation regime the administration appears to scorn. Bringing such a taboo into effect would obviously require decades and enormous changes in international relations. Yet promulgating it emphatically as a goal would help motivate states, customs officials, scientists, and others around the world to be more vigilant in combating the spread of nuclear weapons.

Nonproliferation revolutionaries scoff at the value of norms against nuclear weapons. They argue, somewhat correctly, that bad guys do not follow norms, but overlook the fact that many people whose cooperation we need do. Ironically, elsewhere the administration finds the concept of norms to be useful. Undersecretary of Defense Feith, for example, demands universal acceptance of the norm against terrorism. "Worldwide moral battles can be fought and won," he said recently; "no decent person any more ... supports or excuses slave trading, piracy, or genocide. No decent person should support or excuse terrorism either."

SELECTIVE SERVICE

Instead of trying to make nuclear weapons anathema, the hawks prefer to focus on "enforcement." In the new strategy's words, "We will hold countries responsible for complying with their commitments." This is welcome; enforcement of nonproliferation regimes should indeed be strengthened. Yet the administration does not seem to recognize that it is easier to make others comply with their commitments if you comply with yours, both within treaties and across them. The United States does not, in fact, comply with important commitments it has made under the NPT, such as the promise to move toward giving up its weapons, and Washington clearly has no intention of doing so.

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty represents the single clearest and most immediate commitment the nuclear weapons states have made to fulfill their disarmament obligations under the NPT. "We're not for that," a Bush administration official says. How about the "unequivocal undertaking" to eliminate all nuclear arsenals? "We're not for that, either," the official says. Indeed, the White House's new counterproliferation strategy does not mention any nuclear weapons state obligations or commitments to reverse the salience, size, and modernization of nuclear arsenals, beyond urging negotiation of a ban on further fissile-material production "that advances U.S. security interests."

As evidence of compliance with NPT disarmament obligations, Bush administration officials cite the recent Moscow Treaty with Russia. Yet this treaty "requires" the United States and Russia only to reduce deployed strategic forces from 6,000 today to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads. Because the treaty lacks a schedule of phased reductions, either party could defer cuts until December 31, 2012, at which point violations would be moot because the treaty expires on that day. The treaty also does not require the elimination of a single nuclear missile silo, submarine, missile, warhead, bomber, or bomb.