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Reducing Nuclear Threats: More Weapons Are Not the Answer By Pat Ortmeyer and Carlean Ponder Over the last several months the Bush administration has made very clear that nuclear weapons will remain a key part of U.S. defense options, though this will certainly increase threats to U.S. and global security. At the same time, it announced drastic cuts in the current arsenal, to between 1,700 and 2,200 deployed nuclear arms by 2012. While the cuts are welcome, the weapons will only be stored, not destroyed, and the U.S. has been slow to tie the proposed reductions to a legally binding treaty with Russia. More disturbing is continued spending on programs to upgrade and modify existing nuclear weapons and on research that can be applied to a new generation of miniaturized nuclear weapons. (Recent reports outline a role for “mini nukes” in taking out caves and buried targets.) Last year, as part of a plan to modify existing nuclear weapons and guarantee its capacity to build new ones, the Department of Energy began a 10-year, $4 billion modernization of its nuclear-bomb plant near Oak Ridge, TN. It also funded a program to build plutonium cores for nuclear weapons, including design studies for a new “super facility” where they could be manufactured. The proposed 2003 budget calls for nearly $6 billion for nuclear weapons research. While the American public is largely unaware of these developments, the rest of the world is watching closely. Other countries see the U.S. forging ahead with its nuclear weapons program, expanding potential targets, lowering the threshold for use, considering a return to testing, and abandoning international treaties that control the spread of nuclear weapons and ban nuclear testing. India and Pakistan are watching particularly closely. As the two nuclear-armed countries teeter on the brink of war, the U.S. fails to demonstrate much-needed leadership by taking weapons off high alert or by making measurable progress toward nuclear disarmament. China, one of the few countries whose ballistic missiles could reach U.S. soil, is also keeping close watch. But in September the Bush administration said it would look the other way if China expands its nuclear program, provided that China withdraw objections to national missile defense. Such reckless policies only exacerbate global nuclear threats. There are a few bright spots, however. After the administration proposed a $100 million cut in the FY02 budget for nonproliferation efforts (including the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program), Congress restored and even increased this funding after September 11th, allocating $226 million of the $40 billion approved for emergency response to terrorist threats. More recently, the administration requested $416.7 million for the Nunn-Lugar program in its FY03 budget request. The various nonproliferation initiatives under the Nunn-Lugar Program began in 1992 and are named for Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) and former Sen. Sam Nunn (D-GA), who argued that it was in the national interest of the United States to address proliferation threats. As the political and economic situation of the Soviet Union deteriorated in the late 1980s, fears arose that the Soviet government might not be equipped to safeguard its arsenals of weapons of mass destruction and associated materials and know-how. These fears were intensified by the final break-up of the Soviet Union in December 1991, which left nuclear weapons in the territories of four states, and components of the Soviet military- industrial complex scattered across the territories of the newly independent states. In the ensuing turmoil, the potential for the loss of weapons, theft of nuclear material, or the emigration of weapons scientists to “rogue states” posed a new and unprecedented proliferation threat. Today, as nuclear threats escalate in South Asia, some are arguing for the creation of Nunn-Lugar-like programs in India and Pakistan to safeguard nuclear materials in that region. Such efforts would be welcome, but an even more effective approach to enhancing global security would be for nuclear weapons states to de-alert nuclear weapons, make deep reductions in their arsenals while moving toward disarmament, and cease production of nuclear weapons- usable materials. The Bush administration must forgo policies that worsen global nuclear dangers, while making every possible effort to reduce nuclear threats at home and abroad.
Throughout the year, WAND worked to
prevent full funding of the Bush
administration’s missile-defense programs
(proposed at $8.3 billion) and to prevent U.S.
withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile
(ABM) Treaty. Despite our efforts, NMD programs were funded at $7.8 billion for FY02, and on December 13, 2001,
President Bush gave Russia a formal six months’ notice that the U.S.
would withdraw from the ABM Treaty.
A new report by the Congressional Budget Office shows that the Bush
administration’s plans for NMD could cost at least $238 billion over the
next 15-25 years. In the coming year, WAND will continue to speak out
against further development of NMD, an egregious misuse of taxpayer
money.
WAND was pleased when
the president announced that
the U.S. would reduce its
stockpile of long-range
nuclear weapons by two-thirds
over the next 10 years, to between
1,700 and 2,200 deployed weapons. But our hopes were deflated
by news of the Bush administration’s plan merely to store the weapons
and not to destroy them, an intention revealed in the congressionally mandated
Nuclear Posture Review, which outlines U.S. nuclear policy, infrastructure,
and stockpile levels for the next decade. Russia has objected to
the storage proposal and
is urging the U.S. to put
the reductions agreement
in writing. WAND
will work with members
of Congress to pressure
the administration to
strengthen its commitment
to nuclear reductions.
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