global_zero_commission_on_nuclear_risk_reduction_report

GLOBAL ZERO COMMISSION ON NUCLEAR RISK REDUCTION REPORTDE-ALERTING AND STABILIZING THE WORLD’S NUCLEAR FORCE POSTURESpromoting no-first-use, sole-purpose (accepting that as longas they exist their sole purpose is to deter their use by others),and other commitments that would further circumscribe therole of nuclear weapons in national security strategy.The approach has made little headway. Some baby steps havebeen taken by the majority of the non-nuclear countriesthrough their participation in the humanitarian consequencesconferences held in recent years in Oslo, Nayarit and Vienna,but the nuclear weapons countries have balked at participationand view this approach with jaundiced eyes. That the approachfalls short is further evidenced by President Obama’s rejectionof sole-purpose and no-first use commitments. The latter getsscant traction outside of China and India. As discussed earlier,the nuclear doctrines of most countries allow considerableleeway for nuclear weapons to be used against a wide range ofnon-nuclear threats including chemical, biological, and conventionalthreats.De-alerting offers a promising third pathway. It works by consigningwarheads and bombs to ever-deeper storage. The longerit takes to retrieve and return them to high alert status,the more the military war planners may discount their futurevalue and offer them up for elimination. Thus, for example, thelarge stockpile of reserve Minuteman missile warheads in storagein New Mexico contribute almost nothing to the nuclearwar plan. In theory they could be transported to mid-westernmissile bases during a crisis and uploaded to increase thepayload of each missile from one warhead to three warheads.But this uploading would take years to complete, and so thewar planners have largely written them off. These warheadsare ripe for scrapping, although a different argument can bemade for retaining them: they provide a reserve hedge of replacementwarheads in the event that systemic technical flawsin the deployed warheads are discovered.In short, de-alerting tends to reinforce the prevailing view ofthe U.S. military, and some other militaries around the world,that nuclear weapons have little or no military utility.In the U.S. context, another virtue of de-alerting is that thepresident possesses full authority to order its implementation.As commander in chief, he has the constitutional power tochange the operational disposition of his forces, conventionaland nuclear, without Congressional approval. PresidentGeorge H. W. Bush exercised this power when he stood downthousands of nuclear weapons – both strategic and tactical –over the course of a few days in 1991. These are additional virtues.De-alerting can be carried out almost overnight and forall types of weapons.In summary, de-alerting offers a relatively fast and clear pathtoward deep reductions in the number of operationally deployedwarheads. By de-alerting, nations can hasten the transferof weapons from active to reserve to inactive status. Whilede-alerting does not oblige nations to remove weapons fromservice permanently, it accelerates their retirement and dismantlement.VIII. DE-ALERTING AND NATIONAL SECURITYINTERESTS OF OTHER KEY NATIONSA. RUSSIAThe main threats facing Russia today arguably are proliferationand nuclear terrorism. The latter often originates in the Caucasuswhere indigenous and foreign “insurgents” regularly plotand execute deadly terrorist assaults on Moscow and otherfar-flung targets in Russia. Taliban and other extremist movementsin Afghanistan and elsewhere represent external terroristthreats.Russia’s large nuclear arsenal neither deters such assaults norprovides any tools for preventing or responding to them. Indeed,Russia’s nuclear stockpile of weapons and bomb-gradematerials is itself at risk of terrorist theft and use against Russia.This danger inspired Russia and the United States to cooperateclosely to enhance the security of the Russian stockpilefrom the early 1990s until recently. Over the past twodecades, the United States contributed approximately $1 billionper year toward this effort to prevent “loose nukes” fromfalling into the hands of terrorists or rogue nations. Approximately20 attempts at smuggling bomb-grade uranium havebeen foiled; the total quantity of material seized was nearlyenough for one Hiroshima-class bomb. If this seized materialrepresents about 10 percent of the total material that hasleaked onto the black market, then about seven bombs’ worth39