by CKR
Tony Blair recommended on Monday that his plan for Britain's nuclear weapons future is to decrease the warheads carried by submarines from 200 to 160, which will allow the planned ballistic-missile submarine fleet to decrease from 4 to 3.
Britain's old missile fleet needs replacement, so the nature of that replacement has been under study. Building the new subs and possibly new warheads will take a decade or more, and £20-25 billion.
John Ikenberry then suggested that Blair would have been wiser to propose no nukes at all in Britain's future. Michael Levi seconded Ikenberry, and, in response to comments, Ikenberry laid out his preferences for the United States.
There are a couple of things wrong with Ikenberry's proposal. Primarily, he is inconsistent in his statement that "I don’t believe in disarmament — I believe in arms control" when he suggests that Blair might better have eschewed a future nuclear capability.
Arms control implies negotiations and treaties to keep the balance of nuclear power. The Bush administration has thrown such things overboard. George Bush didn't even want the Moscow Treaty, which currently is being verified under the continuing START I provisions, which will run out in 2009, with no negotiations for a continuation of verification. Not to mention their throwing out, unilaterally, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. No negotiations there, either. The continuing negotiations at the Council on Disarmament have been given short shrift by the Bush administration, too.
And then there's a US foreign policy that has dragged Britain along like that sad forgotten dog leashed to the RV bumper.
So Britain should give up its nuclear force, just like that, no negotiations, no concessions to its national interest, no security assurances? I don't think so.
Ikenberry's long-range goals are good ones:
* announce that the sole purpose of retaining any nuclear weapons was to prevent their use by others,Unfortunately, we are now so far behind on arms control that small steps will be needed to build credibility back.
* eliminate tactical nuclear weapons entirely and reduce (unilaterally where possible) its overall nuclear force levels to a few hundred weapons;
* remove nuclear weapons from their delivery systems in order to lengthen the time between a decision to use nuclear weapons and their actual use;
* and negotiate far-reaching arms control treaties to codify and verify these reductions, and ban nuclear testing, fissile material production, as well as the deployment of long-range ballistic missiles.
Actually, small and continuing steps are what arms control (and any good diplomacy) are about. Large bold steps, when they are possible, are inspiring. But an announcement of Ikenberry's program now, by this administration, would be put into the context of the too many times they have announced bold initiatives that turn out to be hollow of planning or funding.
Coincidentally, I had an op-ed in the Los Alamos Monitor on November 26 (not on line) advocating some smaller, and perhaps more believable steps that George Bush might take. Unfortunately, it looks like Iraq is drowning out everything else. But here are my suggestions.
1) Ratify the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty. Bill Clinton signed the treaty in 1996. President Bush should present the treaty to the Senate with a strong recommendation for ratification.When these actions become credible, then George Bush will be in a position to move toward Ikenberry's program.2) De-alert nuclear missiles in concert with Russia.
3) Begin negotiations on verification of the Moscow Treaty, which sets a goal of 2200 nuclear weapons each for the United States and Russia by 2012. It is currently being verified under START I provisions that end in 2009.
4) Complete securing nuclear material in Russia begun under the Nunn-Lugar program.
5) Consolidate excess US plutonium at the Savannah River Facility and build the necessary facilities to convert weapons materials to a storable form under International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.
6) State clearly and unambiguously that the United States will not be the first to use nuclear weapons in any future conflict. China is the only country that has pledged no first use.
Update (12/8/06): Lots more detail about the British program here.
