First, in historical perspective, the Bush administration pursued deep cuts:
On nuclear matters, the record remains mixed in part because some elements within the administration remain in thrall to the abolitionists. The reduction to 1,500 warheads, from the 2,200 we maintain today, is a 700 warhead or 30 percent reduction, which is less than one-fifth of the 3,800 warhead and 63 percent reduction achieved by the Moscow Treaty of 2002 under the supposed anti-arms control administration of George Bush.
The prospects for such a reduction are being heralded by the “arms control” community as groundbreaking, which it is not, or a major step toward disarmament, which it is not. According to some, the Moscow Treaty was not “real arms control” because it did not have an accompanying mind-boggling complex text for verification. Instead, it relied on the then in-place verification measures adopted for the original START treaty, which brought US and Russian warheads down to the 6,000 level from over 12,000.
Second, Russia wants a platform limit that would further concentrate our strategic nuclear assets, increasing their vulnerability:
But the Russians are insisting that the number of platforms allowed for the U.S. be reduced quite dramatically, to near 700 strategic nuclear delivery vehicles. The Russians want this because their dire financial circumstances make it difficult for them to maintain much more than 500 such vehicles. In addition, while our systems are aging, by comparison Moscow’s systems are relatively new. And fitting 450 Minuteman and 336 Trident D-5 missiles along with nearly 100 bombers under a 700 SNDV ceiling obviously will require slashing missiles or bombers or both, although the number of deployed warheads stays the same under any number of platforms.
(SNDV = Strategic Nuclear Delivery Vehicle.) Such levels, Huessy argues, could press us to consider eliminating one or two legs of the triad (missiles, subs, planes), whose diversity complicates pre-emptive enemy strikes and guards against one leg being made obsolete via technology breakthrough. Russia's declining energy sector puts it in a budget squeeze that makes deep arms cuts attractive. Huessy also notes: AT LOW LEVELS VERIFICATION BECOMES IMPOSSIBLE.
John Bolton raises related concerns on asymmetric force needs of us & the Russians:
But the positions of the United States and Russia are not parallel, and roughly equivalent warhead limits impair Washington far more than Moscow. America has global commitments to many allies, from NATO to the Pacific, protected by our nuclear umbrella. The range of threats and dangerous contingencies we face, such as from terrorists and rogue states like North Korea and Iran, is substantially greater and more challenging than what confronts Russia, which essentially has no allies to protect. Squeezing down U.S. force levels is therefore not only a prescription for making America weaker, but for making its allies less safe and less confident in our ability to protect them.
Moreover, the United States is far ahead of Russia in using advanced delivery systems (ballistic and cruise missiles and heavy bombers) to carry conventional payloads. This is a significant element of America's capacity to meet its far-flung alliance commitments and other vital interests worldwide. Limiting the available numbers of delivery systems for conventional warheads, as the treaty apparently will do, is a massive retreat to outmoded arms-control "counting rules" that overwhelmingly will benefit Russia at the expense of America and its allies. It is as though President Obama's advisers do not understand how harmful reducing delivery systems will be to the Pentagon's strategy of increased reliance on conventional rather than nuclear warheads.
Perhaps even more disturbing are press reports that Moscow is still insisting on constraining U.S. missile-defense capabilities. The Obama administration's seeming unwillingness to flatly reject such constraints represents a dramatic retreat from President George W. Bush's unqualified determination to create national missile-defense capabilities. Mr. Bush's decision to withdraw from the badly conceived, outdated Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972 was a major step forward for America's defense capabilities and the security of our civilian population. For Mr. Obama to retreat here, even in minor ways, would be a mistake of extraordinary magnitude. If he ultimately unveils a treaty that limits our missile-defense programs, however minutely, that alone would be more than sufficient reason to defeat it in the Senate, whatever its limits on warheads and delivery systems.
The impending U.S.-Russia treaty is only the start of the arms-control renaissance. Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. announced last week, for example, that the administration will push to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which was defeated in the Senate in 1999. It hasn't gotten better with age. Multilateral negotiations over arms in outer space, fissile material production and conventional arms restrictions (which well could be an international effort to limit or proscribe the civilian ownership of guns) are all in line for presidential attention.
It will be up to the Senate to stop such misguided fare.
Bottom Line. All this is a serious risk of arms control theology. Arms control is, if carefully applied, a valuable tool in our strategic toolkit. But it is not a panacea for all such issues, and going too far too fast can place America is desperate danger of the kind it has not faced in some 50 years.
Letter from the Capitol, LFTC, 9/11, National Security, Homeland Security, Nuclear Proliferation, Arms Control, WMD, Foreign Policy
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