The Bloggers Develop Nuclear Weapons Policy

by CKR

Update (1/8/08): Consensus statement here.

The other day, Cernig reminded me of something I’ve let drop. Back in August, Cernig, ZenPundit and I were having a conversation on nuclear policy and were agreeing on quite a few points. This seemed to me to be a hopeful sign, since we inhabit different points on the political spectrum.

It was also a hopeful sign because others seem to be having so much trouble with nuclear policy. United States nuclear policy is stuck in the Cold War. For the decade of the nineties, we wanted to be cautious that Russia wouldn’t fall back into a Soviet foreign policy. It hasn’t, so it’s time to think about a nuclear policy for a world in which the big nuclear problem is proliferation, not a single enormous nuclear arsenal on the other side of the world.

Among those having a hard time are the Departments of State, Defense and Energy. Back in July, after Congress told the administration that it wanted to see a nuclear policy before it would consider funding the Reliable Replacement Warhead, those three departments quickly got out a statement saying that they would indeed work up a nuclear policy. Jeffrey Lewis now reports a rumor that Secretary of Defense Gates is holding up the full white paper because it is so amateurishly done. Sorry, Jeffrey, I can’t confirm your rumor, but it tends to support my suspicion that such a thing will be very difficult indeed for those agencies.

The presidential candidates are mostly trying not to think about it. Some of the Republicans haven’t even bothered to address the issue, and the Democrats are not too far from continuing the sameold Cold War stuff.

And the Very Special People who do foreign policy for a living at the think tanks and universities haven’t said much. These are the folks who the blogosphere found, a few months back, aren’t necessarily any more insightful or intelligent than bloggers. Because they do foreign policy for a living, their views can be swayed by what sells their product. All too often, that is war. They also tend to get very specialized, and most have little science background, which they may think is necessary to discuss nuclear policy. It helps, but the issues are more political than technical. Occasionally the technical clamps limits on the possible.

So I’d like to pick up that thread again, because The Bloggers™ seem to be willing to try to figure it out. I propose what we might call a blog-tank approach. Here’s how I suggest we do it:

Each blogger writes a post on what the US's nuclear policy should be on her/his own blog. Then please notify me by e-mail or a comment on this post.

I have e-mailed some folks I would like to have participate, but everyone is welcome to join. Invite your blogfriends. I would like to have participants who represent a range of political opinion.

Commenters are encouraged to contribute as well, both here and on other participating blogs.

On Friday, 12/28, I will summarize the arguments, emphasizing novel ideas and points of agreement and disagreement.

Bloggers will then write another round of posts, trying to move to consensus positions.

I will then summarize again on Friday, 1/4. At that point, I think we're going to be close to agreement on most of the big points.

I’ve linked above to some of my posts and here, here, here, here, and here are several more.

A range of political opinion is represented by four gentlemen who wrote an op-ed on US nuclear weapons policy in the January 4 Wall Street Journal. The Foreign Secretary of the UK built on those ideas, and the UK is actually doing something about them. Recently, two Americans have responded to the gang of four’s op-ed, although they seem to agree as much as they disagree. And here’s my review of a report from another group of dissenters.

Recently, Joe Cirincione, William Langewiesche, Richard Rhodes and Jonathan Schell (excerpt) have published books on the subject that are useful background for policy. They are exceptions to the Very Special People rule.

The two big treaties:
Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization

I apologize, sort of, for doing this over the holiday season. We’re starting just before the solstice and should finish up around Orthodox Christmas. I hope everyone will find some time to contribute. After all, this is the time of year to think about peace on earth.

Addendum (12/19/07)
Two more important treaties:
START I treaty text, summaries by Federation of American Scientists and Arms Control Association
Treaty of Moscow text and supporting documents, commentary by Nuclear Threat Initiative

Today the National Nuclear Security Administration announced a reduction in the US nuclear weapons complex. This is the latest of the plans presented by that agency, which has been flopping around on the issue for some time. The problem is that the shape of the complex should be determined by the policy. It's a problem that has flopped around for far too long, and the facilities have grown old, but we can expect more flops in the future until we match policy, facilities and funding. It's why we need a nuclear weapons policy.

Update: My summary of the first round will appear by Monday morning, December 31.

Update (12/30): The summary of the first round can be found here.

Comments

[Cernig]

Hi Cheryl,

I'll be reading frantically over the next couple of days and will post before the weekend on some thoughts.

Regards, Cernig

[zenpundit]

Hi Cheryl,

I appreciate the invite. I will ponder both "the unthinkable" as well as the "thinkable" and try to craft a post that was as good as your introduction. I will link to all who participate as well.

[CKR]

First response here.

[Dave Schuler]

Cheryl, I'm busily preparing my contribution and expect to have it completed tomorrow or, possibly, the next day. I also took the opportunity of promoting you, your blog, and the project at OTB Radio (OutsidetheBeltway.com) on the weekly radio program. Although it doesn't have a huge number of live listeners there are something like 30,000 downloads of the program every week so that should give the project a little more visibility.

[zenpundit]

Dave ! You are a handsome guy - you don't have the face for radio!!

[James]

I believe that the US goal in the post Cold War era should begin with containing nuclear weapons and make elimination of them the goal. With respect to your "first responder," nuclear weapons are not needed to deter conventional forces; what's more, using them this way encourages proliferation since it leaves smaller nations without a viable defense against the Great Powers. It forces them into permanent client-state status and will cause the world to divide into camps behind the nuclear states, thus ushering in a new Cold War.

Accordingly, it should be the policy of the US that nuclear weapons are intended solely to deter and respond to a nuclear attack. This creates a stark choice for would-be proliferators: on the one hand, they face no risk from nuclear attack regardless of their conflict with a nuclear state. On the other, if they develop nuclear weapons, they will be "fair game" for a counterforce strike that would include command and control facilities that would take out their conventional forces as well. Essentially, it would create a strategic environment in which the possession of nuclear weapons is a liability rather than an asset.

Governments and international organizations must continue to maintain the position that nuclear weapons are not part of ordinary military planning. Attempting to "domesticate" them or produce low-yield "usable nukes" would tend to undermine the marginalization of nuclear weapons that is essential to maintaining nonproliferation.

It is important to remember that we are dealing with fifty-year-old technology. Nonproliferation through sanctions alone is bound to fail eventually. Immunizing non-nuclear states against nuclear attack under all circumstances gives them a strong positive reason to avoid pursuing nuclear weapons and to cooperate fully with the IAEA. This should be reinforced through systematic reductions in existing arsenals down to the minimum means of reprisal.

The spell of Mutual Assured Destruction has long since been broken. We now realize that no nation can suvive the destruction of a dozen of its major cities and remain a Great Power. The logic of keeping more than a few hundred warheads has evaporated. Even in the face of a new Cold War a relatively small number of warheads is necessary to maintain deterrence.

Overall, our strategy should be one of "de-escalation." Removing non-nuclear states from the list of targets and remembering that in a more complex world nation-states are more fragile than they once were leads to the conclusion that only small, residual arsenals are needed. A new, verifiable arms control treaty reducing strategic stockpiles is called for, rather than further development of unnecessary and destabilizing weapons of mass destruction.

[CKR]

From Dave Schuler.

Dave, thanks for the publicity.

And I have word that more posts are being prepared.

[parvati_roma]

Just seen this on ISN - a rare ray of hope amongst all those the nuke-hugging doom-clouds.

Disarmament: The forgotten issue

The world should seek inspiration from past successes and aim to for global disarmament by 2020. It can be done, says Dan Plesch (From openDemocracy)

[CKR]

James: Many thanks for your contribution. It took some time to show up because Typepad has been tweaking their spam-prevention system. They came up with a very nice wastebasket that collected several porn sites, which I deleted and then stopped thinking about. It was a great improvement on my having to delete such "comments" by hand.

But apparently it became too aggressive and was sequestering good comments, too. The good part is that it was only sequestering them, so I was able to retrieve your comment.

Typepad says they have the problem fixed now.

[James]

CKR: it told me it was sequestering my post. I was travelling and using a free (and unsecured) wireless internet service that was probably a vehicle for abuse in the past.

[CKR]

Wizards of Oz (Deichmans) has now contributed.

[John in Michigan, USA]

You wrote:

"For the decade of the nineties, we wanted to be cautious that Russia wouldn’t fall back into a Soviet foreign policy. It hasn’t..."

If by this you mean the Russians haven't re-started a nuclear arms race, I agree. However, they are in other ways behaving remarkably like they did in the Soviet days, although on a smaller scale (their ambition is to dominate Central Europe, instead of all of Europe).

A great example is the Russian statement that, in response to deployment of a partial European missile defense (oriented primarily against missiles originating from the Middle East, not from Russia), Russia would re-target some of its remaining weapons specifically at Europe.

Since Soviet/Russian missiles never achieved the sort of accuracy needed for effective nuclear strikes against hardened military targets, this Russian statement is meaningless unless it is taken as an implied threat against European population centers (or against manufacturing centers, which mostly overlap with population).

I fear that Russian foreign policy, with regards to Nukes, hasn't changed very much from the Cold War.

[CKR]

The Soviet foreign policy I am referring to is the extension of the doctrine of class warfare to international relations. This was explicitly renounced by Mikhail Gorbachev and his government in 1989. That doctrine was expansionary in a way that Russian foreign policy has not reverted to.

Russian nuclear policy, like that of the US, is stuck in Cold War behaviors, even though the foreign policy behind it has changed.

The Russian behaviors have followed the US renunciation of the ABM treaty and the US insistence on placing antimissile radars and missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic. We could also cite the promise of restraining NATO's expansion in return for Russia's acquiescence in unifying Germany.

There's been backsliding on both sides, but by and large, the US has taken the first steps in those directions, just as you cite.

[CKR]

The Armchair Generalist's contribution, and a response from Dave Schuler.

[CKR]

Nonpartisan Pundit's contribution.

[CKR]

From Jeffrey Lewis.

[anon]

It appears that you are not looking for participation from "very special people" who do nuclear weapons policy for a living, unless they are also bloggers. However, if you are looking for a few more references that provide background on U.S. nuclear weapons policy and force structure, you may want to try:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL34226.pdf
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL33640.pdf
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/RL31448.pdf

[CKR]

Anon, anyone is welcome to participate. Those are all good references. Thank you.

Meanwhile, Phila has posted.

[Cernig]

Sorry Cheryl, I'm behind my promised curve on this - but I will post, I promise.

Regards, C

[CKR]

Cernig, I'm looking forward to it. I'm going to delay the first-round deadline by a little.

[Max Anderson]

Are we going to let North Korea develop, design, and sell of H-bomb technology to Iran & Syria like last Aug and July when freighters were seized smuggling fully assembled nukes in the Indian Ocean en route to Iran? Anotherwords if the uS does not get a grasp on this, the middle east could be H-Bomb capable by the middle of 2008... North Korea is key...

[CKR]

Er, we require supporting information here. I don't see any in the links and their links.