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ADDRESSING
FUTURE
ARMS
CONTROL
AND SECURITY
PROBLEMS
Verification is one area that I’m concerned about. But the pendulum—as I looked at verification in the 1980’s
and 1990’s, which was an onerous task, an onerous chore with lots of stupid rules—has swung completely to the
other side, where there are no rules. And that needs to be looked at, but we have time to do that.
And I’ll also tell you that one of the things that I’m most disappointed in both sides of the aisle is the fact that
we have not stepped up to the control of tactical nuclear weapons. If you talk to the folks at CIA, they will tell
you—they probably won’t tell you —the range estimates for tactical nuclear weapons of the former Soviet Union
and Russia range anywhere from 12,000 to 18,000. Tactical nuclear weapons. And no one has stepped up to
account for the inventory of tactical nuclear weapons, both in Russia and the United States. That is unacceptable,
in my view.
Let’s talk a little bit about the role of nuclear weapons today and the strategy. Well, why do we have nuclear
weapons today? Well, because the Cold War really didn’t end, and both the United States and Russia have
relatively large numbers of nuclear weapons. They’re like two boxers ready to go after each other and neither of
them wants to back away. Yet we’re coming down, postures are easing. We need to do some things, and I’ll talk a
little bit about a RAND study here in a few minutes, to get away from the risk of accidental war with nuclear
weapons. But because we started out at the end of the Cold War without disarming the Russians from a nuclear
perspective, it’s going to take us a long, long time, 21 years, to get down to lower and lower levels of nuclear
weapons.
The nuclear weapons also serve as a deterrent against weapons of mass destruction. Not against transnational
terrorist groups. You don’t deter them with inventories of nuclear weapons. But because you have nation states
out there with chemical and biological weapons, and Richard talked about the ability to deliver these weapons
with systems that I call asymmetrical—relatively cheap, relatively without fingerprints on them if you want to
make them that way. That’s one of the reasons why we’re going to require nuclear weapons. At the levels we have
now? No. But we’re going to require some.
And obviously we live in an entirely different world, and that’s a simplistic statement. Things have changed,
but we’re in what I call a target-rich environment. One nuclear device can kill several millions of people because
people live in small areas. I’m sure the South Koreans are concerned of the fact that 40 percent, over 14 million of
South Korea’s population, lives within 60 miles of the center of Seoul. That’s what I call a target-rich environment.
Whether you’re talking about a nuclear device, nuclear weapon, or an anthrax attack.
An excellent study by RAND is Beyond the Nuclear Shadow. It talks about how we can defuse the accidental
war issue with Russia. The question was asked earlier about new weapons. I think that’s a terrible waste of
money. To go out and spend upwards of $10 billion for a weapon which has very, very little military utility does
not make a lot of sense. In 1997 I accepted on behalf of the Department of Defense the first weapon to reach deeply
buried targets. It was called the B-61, model 11. It was a B-61 bomb put in a case steel hardened container. It would
go several meters under earth. It would not be a rock-buster, but in my view that’s all we need. To go out and spend
big bucks for a weapon that has very little utility doesn’t make much sense.
I’d like to end on a positive note. I think we all ought to be pleased that in June of 2002 the G-8 global
partnership pledged up to $20 billion over the next 10 years for nonproliferation, disarmament, counter-terrorism
and nuclear safety. If I would offer you up one request, it would be continue pressuring our government, both on
the executive side and legislative side, to keep the pressure up so we make that program work because it makes
sense and it’s the right thing to do. Thanks very much.
MS. KELLEHER: We have about 25 minutes for questions now. If you would please come to the microphone
and identify yourself, and the member of the panel to whom you’d like to address the question. Daryl.
Q: I’m Daryl Kimball. My question is for General Habiger. I wonder if you could clarify something you said
which sounds somewhat contradictory. You argue that nuclear weapons are necessary to deter WMD, but you
also say that new nuclear weapons—designed for deep bunkers or chem-bio targets—are unnecessary. Also,
given your experience, can you describe any reasonable circumstance under which an American president might
actually use a nuclear weapon?
GEN. HABIGER: We are spending billions of dollars a year for something called a science-based stockpile
stewardship. An outside commission looks at it every year. Department of Energy and Department of Defense
look at it every year to make sure that our nuclear stockpile that we have on board today is safe, reliable, and
functional. This is part of the overall strategy for getting away from nuclear testing, which the current administration
has walked away from.
We have nuclear weapons that can do very low-yield. I spent most of my career as a junior officer, lieutenant,
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