Learning Not to Love the Bomb
February 19, 2009
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February 18, 2009
The Obama administration seems ready to resuscitate relations with Russia, including by renewing nuclear-arms-reduction talks. Even before the inaugural parade wound down, the White House Web site offered up a list of ambitious nuclear policy goals, with everything from making bomb-making materials more secure to the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons.
That's welcome news, but for such goals to be realized, the White House will need to be prepared to reimagine and reshape the nuclear era and, against strong opposition, break free from cold war thinking and better address the threats America faces today.
George W. Bush actually started down this road. He reached an agreement with the Kremlin in 2002 to cut the number of operational strategic warheads on each side to between 1,700 and 2,200 by the year 2012, a two-thirds reduction. Washington is likely to reach that goal ahead of schedule. President Bush's efforts were propelled by the Nuclear Posture Review -- a periodic reassessment of nuclear forces and policies -- in December 2001. While still grounded in the belief that nuclear weapons are the silver bullets of American defense, the review let a little daylight into the nuclear bunker by acknowledging that nuclear-weapons policy had to be readjusted to deal with rapidly changing threats. Soon, however, the president's initiatives were overshadowed by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, his administration's absorption with the threat of terrorism and the gradual breakdown in relations with Russia.
President Bush's agreement with Moscow, which was built upon weapons reductions made by Presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, is President Obama's starting point. But rather than settle for the next level -- 1,000 active weapons seems to be the likely goal -- the White House should reconsider the entire superstructure of nuclear-weapons strategy. This won't be easy. The mandarins of the nuclear establishment remain enthralled by elaborate deterrence theories premised on the notion that the ultimate defense against a variety of military threats is a bristling nuclear arsenal.
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