Editor's Foreword

20 The MiliTAry BAlANce 2010
Nuclear arms control, missile defence and
global zero
The key military decisions of the Obama administration
are not all being made by the Pentagon. On his
first trip to Europe as president in April 2009, Obama
gave a major speech in Prague committing himself to
the vision of a nuclear-free world. Acknowledging
that it might not happen in his lifetime, he nonetheless
chose to demonstrate his resolve in pursuing the
agenda. Precisely how this will happen remained to
be seen, with the Pentagon’s nuclear posture review
(like the QDR) still incomplete. But, for the time being,
Obama has restored some momentum to traditional
US–Russian arms control, making offensive arms cuts
a priority of his administration, adjusting the structure
and deployment of the European missile-defence
system planned for Poland and the Czech Republic
by the Bush administration, and preparing for a
possible effort to pursue ratification of the comprehensive
nuclear test-ban treaty (CTBT) in the Senate
in 2010. Meanwhile, the US and Russia announced
an intention to work towards a legally binding agreement
to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty
(START I), which was due to expire on 5 December
2009. At the time of writing no agreement had been
announced. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
said in October that ‘the nuclear status quo is neither
desirable nor sustainable. It gives other countries the
motivation or the excuse to pursue their own nuclear
options.’
While pursuing the 67 votes needed for ratification
of the CTBT, the administration will also have
to finesse the issue of whether to plan on building
a lower-yield replacement warhead for ageing
American nuclear weapons. This is a matter on
which Gates and Obama are believed to disagree, at
least in part. Gates’s view that some kind of replacement
warhead will be necessary over the long term is
on record, dating at least to an October 2008 speech
just before the presidential election. He agrees with
Obama that no such warhead should require testing,
and seems to agree that it should not represent a
meaningful upgrading or ‘modernisation’ of the
arsenal with any new capabilities such as greater
earth-penetration capacity.
Given that the existing warhead inventory is
holding up better than many had expected, with plutonium
pits or cores ageing less quickly than originally
feared, no immediate production of new warheads
would seem necessary, even if Gates’s general view
carries the day. The long-standing stockpile-stew-
ardship programme, with an annual cost exceeding
US$5bn, has focused on tracking trends in the arsenal
to detect any early signs of problems. To date none
have emerged that could not be redressed through
straightforward methods such as component replacement
within the warheads and refreshing tritium
stocks in warheads as that element decays radioactively.
But the administration has still to resolve its
doctrinal position and establish a long-term plan.
Afghanistan
Obama’s new Afghanistan strategy is the most
important national-security concept of his first year in
office. It emphasises classic counter-insurgency principles
– protect the population, train and strengthen
indigenous institutions – while following the ‘clear,
hold, build’ concept of operations that was ultimately
so successful in Iraq during the surge (see
Afghanistan, pp. 343–8) In fact, Obama’s thinking
on Afghanistan is not radical. Gates was promising
more US troops for the war in summer 2008, and
General McKiernan, before being replaced by General
McChrystal, was developing a new counter-insurgency-oriented
strategy for Afghanistan even before
election day. Obama increased the US military presence
in Afghanistan to 68,000 uniformed personnel
for an indefinite period, with the possibility of further
modest increases thereafter. (The number reached
41,000 shortly after the policy was announced, with
15,000 assigned to ISAF and the other 26,000 part
of the Operation Enduring Freedom mission; the total
reached about 58,000 in June and just under 68,000 by
the end of the summer.)
The United States is leading a strong NATO effort
to reinforce the south and east of Afghanistan; more
specifically, the United States will have what amounts
to a ‘3+2+2’ plan by late 2009: roughly three brigades
in the east, two in the south, and two more dedicated
to training Afghan security forces. The forces added
during Obama’s first year include a combat aviation
brigade and a Stryker brigade for Kandahar province,
a Marine Expeditionary Brigade (with associated
airpower of its own) for Helmand province,
and the fourth brigade of the 82nd airborne division
to join the existing 48th National Guard Brigade
with the Combined Security Transition Command-
Afghanistan (CSTC-A) to train Afghan security
forces. At most points prior to 2008, in contrast, there
were virtually no US forces in southern Afghanistan,
and only around 1,000 before the Obama plan was
announced; it is also significant that the combat avia-