The idea of bringing all nuclear weapon states into some kind of a START-type data exchange arrangement seems to be going mainstream. Madeleine Albright and Igor Ivanov just mentioned it in their New York Times op-ed. James Acton suggested the exchange in his Low Numbers report.
It is good to see the idea that I've been advocating for some time is taking hold. Here is my March 2009 Bulletin column:
Nothing would prevent France or Britain from voluntarily assuming the same obligations that the United States and Russia have under START, in particular, its reporting and transparency requirements. They could commence by releasing data about their strategic nuclear forces in the same format that is required by START. Five states currently publish memorandums of understanding with detailed data on missiles, submarines, and strategic bombers deployed on their territory twice a year--the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan (the last three send their MOUs with mostly zeros in them). There is no reason why Britain, France, China, and eventually others can't do the same, even if they are not formally parties to START.
It is not quite correct to say that the idea was not elaborated at the time - it was, but in 2009 the START treaty was about to expire and give way to the new treaty with a completely new set of reporting requirements. Still, for those who might be interested in seeing how this data exchange might have looked like, here is a draft START MOU for France.
Now that New START is in force it does make sense to return to this idea. One problem is that New START is much less transparent than the old one - we are yet to see any data emerging from the U.S.-Russian data exchange. It's possible, of course, that this semi-secret manner of data exchange would be more attractive to France, U.K., and especially to China. I very much doubt that - these countries are more likely to point at the new found U.S.-Russian secrecy as an excuse to keep their data secret as well and the United States and Russia are not quite in a position to lobby for more openness. On the other hand, I can see how an issue like this could be discussed at the upcoming P-5 summit. If this discussion results in some data exchange between the five, whether publicly open or not, it would be a step in the right direction.
By the way, the data exchange does not have to be a privilege of the nuclear weapon states - any country that wants to support the idea could publish its own New START MOU. The format is very well described in the treaty. Norway? New Zealand? For most countries the document will contain only zeros (some would have to report space launch facilities), but there is nothing wrong with that - Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine had been doing it for years.
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China-very,very unlikely.
Yep. Good luck with China, they're not stupid.
Forget China. Imagine what Israel would say?
Frank Shuler
USA
I actually think secrecy is overrated - whether in Russia, China, or Israel.
I speculate that Israel may have an underdeveloped strategic culture. Their press and academics can't talk about their nuclear program. The politicians have military experience, but probably not in nuclear-weapons jobs (except for Peres). All nuclear powers to some extent have a "nuclear priesthood", keepers of the secrets, but because of Israel's censorship laws, America's studied non-interest, and Israel's small size (fewer academics, journalists poking around and studying esoterica) Israel's nuclear priesthood may have a tighter monopoly on information than other nuclear powers.
This all adds up to a situation where fundamental questions don't get asked. Speculate that Israel has been building 4 plutonium bombs a year for the last 50 years. Vis-a-vis most countries, there would be a cottage industry of defense analysts asking "Why are they building so many? What is their nuclear doctrine? What do they expect to do with 200 nuclear weapons?" Usually, sooner or later a politician will ask the nuclear priesthood those questions, and expect answers. (In Pakistan, that politician gets rebuffed and soon overthrown, but still).
If those questions simply don't get asked, maybe the real answer "Why that number" is "Because we can" and "because we always have."
China also seems to consciously rely on opacity to help protect their deterrent. They have around 20 ICBMs to hit the US with. If they announced that they had 19 or 24 or whatever, they confirm to the US exactly how many targets need to be taken out to remove their nuclear deterrent vs the US mainland.
It is in China's interest, on the contrary, to allow everyone else's policymakers to assume that China "must" have another 150 nuclear gravity bombs and another 150 tactical nuclear weapons. In the deterrence game, you don't have to have it, they just have to THINK you have it.
@johnbragg:
Yeah, and it's called "security through obscurity".
Such strategic ambiguity is quite useful when the enemy has no understanding of your system (of deterrence) and this lack of understanding breeds irrational fear of your real or presumed capabilities. But as soon as that understanding is gained though intelligence, your security is immediately compromised. It gets doubly worse if the systems gets compromised and you aren't even aware of it.
Countries like North Korea may delude themselves into believing that nobody will dare attack them because of the ambiguity regarding their nuclear and missiles programs ("Will they strike back? Can they strike back?"), but as soon as their enemies learn the true extent of NK capabilities, strategic ambiguity leads them into a counterproductive false sense of security.
Ambiguity always helps, of course, to provide an additional level of protection, but it should never be the founding principle of defense. Systems have to be secure by design, not just be virtue of the enemy's ignorance.
PS: Cool thinking about "nuclear priesthood". Very post-structuralist. 8)