Pavel Podvig | 1 July 2013
The call for nuclear disarmament that President Barack Obama made in his Berlin speech on June 19 was somewhat underwhelming. His proposed reductions--of up to a third from the 1,550 deployed strategic warheads allowed under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START)--were the least ambitious of the several options that the administration discussed last year. More importantly, Obama suggested that the reductions should come through "negotiated cuts" with Russia, rather than through unilateral US action.
The president did leave some room for unilateral reductions in his address, saying that the United States could continue to maintain effective deterrence "while reducing [its] deployed strategic nuclear weapons by up to one third," but the fact sheet on nuclear weapons employment strategy released by the White House the same day used slightly different language, saying that the United States could maintain deterrence "while safely pursuing up to a one-third reduction in deployed strategic nuclear weapons." The caveat of the words "safely pursuing" suggests that the reductions are conditioned on whether Russia joins the pursuit. Indeed, the discussion in Washington quickly focused on whether the president would have to conclude a new treaty with Russia and submit it to Congress, or whether the two countries could just reach an agreement to reduce their arsenals without the need to go through legislative approval. Either way, getting an agreement with Russia seems to be an essential part of the Obama administration's call for new nuclear cuts.
That, unfortunately, dooms the entire enterprise from the start. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov responded to Obama's speech, saying that Russia would be ready to discuss further cuts only in a multilateral format involving all nuclear powers, declared and undeclared. This is of course only one of many excuses Russia could come up with to stall the disarmament process. A full list would likely include tying nuclear weapons reductions to such issues as missile defense, conventional strike capabilities, weapons in space, China--you name it. This is not to say that Russia's concerns are completely without merit, but it is hard to see how any of these issues are relevant to the question of whether the number of deployed strategic weapons could be reduced by one-third from the New START level.
One of the problems that the United States will face in its attempts to get Russia on board with new nuclear reductions is that it has few incentives to offer, especially if it stays within the framework of New START. For Russia, the numerical ceilings established by the 2010 treaty are hardly a matter of importance. It is well aware of the fact that the United States maintains a sizable arsenal of reserve warheads--a hedge--that would allow it to deploy more than 4,000 strategic warheads on existing delivery systems, almost three times as many as the notional New START limit. The White House's newly-released nuclear guidance confirmed the US commitment "to maintain a robust hedge against technical or geopolitical risk," albeit probably at slightly lower numbers. With this hedge in mind, it doesn't matter that much whether the United States reports 1,000 or 1,550 deployed warheads in its annual New START declarations.
This discrepancy may seem like an opening for future negotiations--the United States could offer to reduce the hedge and establish a verifiable limit on non-deployed warheads. But Russia has shown no interest in this kind of proposal; it accepted the reality of the US hedge, judging (probably correctly) that these numbers are not as important as they may seem. Also, for Russia a lower ceiling would mean curbing its strategic modernization program--under which it plans to build new nuclear warheads and delivery systems--just as money has started flowing to its defense industry. If there is budgetary pressure in Russia, it's not the defense sector that feels it.
If offering a lower ceiling won't work, then what might serve as an incentive to bring Russia to the negotiating table? One of the most important benefits of New START is the transparency and verification framework provided by the treaty. But this is the part of the treaty that Russia is likely to miss least, as it values secrecy much higher than transparency.
This leaves only one option: The United States could threaten to take Russia's "nyet" for an answer and give up on New START follow-on negotiations. For Russia, the value of the treaty is not necessarily in the numerical limits or verification provisions. Rather, it is in the fact that New START codifies the special status of the US-Russian nuclear relationship, and gives Russia an opportunity to voice concerns about all kinds of US military policies and programs. What Moscow worries about most is that one day the United States might decide that it doesn't particularly care if Russia develops another heavy missile with multiple warheads. Indeed, the Bush administration came very close to this stance when it pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and openly questioned the need for new arms control agreements. That was not a happy time in Moscow, as it realized it was losing its coveted position as equal partner in nuclear arms control negotiations.
The Obama administration is facing a much more difficult task than its predecessor: The goal is to preserve the US-Russian nuclear arms reduction process, not kill it. But if the United States is serious about getting Russia on board with further nuclear cuts, it should start with unilateral reductions to its number of deployed warheads that go beyond the New START limits. Strictly speaking, these reductions would be reversible and somewhat symbolic, as the hedge is not going away any time soon and the legally-binding upper limit would still be set by New START. But they would demonstrate that the United States could set its nuclear policy without being held hostage to numerical parity with Russia.
Russia would then face a choice between joining the nuclear cuts and keeping the leverage that comes with being an active participant in the process, or risking a US decision to embrace unilateralism and steer nuclear policy in a discomforting direction, whether this means expanding missile defense or strengthening precision strike capabilities. This is a risk that Russia would not be willing to take. If it rejects a New START follow-on agreement, it would lose what little leverage over these issues it may now have. Russia, of course, would threaten to build more missiles and warheads, but it knows that this threat would ring hollow: The US Defense Department concluded last year that Russia "would not be able to achieve a militarily significant advantage by any plausible expansion of its strategic nuclear forces, even in a cheating or breakout scenario under the New START Treaty." The United States indeed does not particularly care if Russia wastes its resources on new missiles. By unilaterally cutting its forces below New START levels, the United States would reinforce this message and make sure that Moscow gets it.
Given the political climate in Washington, unilateral reductions are not going to be popular or easy. But neither are they impossible. And at this point they probably offer the best chance of breaking the impasse on the way to deeper cuts of nuclear arsenals.
The book
Comments
If President Obama wants to unilaterally reduce the US nuclear inventory, he needs to begin that conversation with the American people here, not in Berlin. It just looks like pandering.
There are so many ways he could work to reduce the American arsenal and still be “politically acceptable” to Washington. For example, he could announce that the US will deactivate the Minuteman III fleet, while “committing” the US to acquiring 14 of the new “Ohio Replacement” strategic submarines instead of the 12 now contemplated. Today, as the Minuteman missiles are stood-down, additional warheads could be shifted to Trident to compensate; but not necessarily on a one-for-one basis; at the President’s discretion. President Obama could “commit” to purchasing even more of the future LRS-B (Long-Range Strike-Bombers) than the 100 now mentioned by the Pentagon. The key is that President Obama would be making cuts now while “committing” the US to procurement “decisions” that would be made twenty years in the future, by a completely different president. Advantage of eliminating Minuteman? The 3+2 become a 2+2 with no need to keep ICBM warheads in the hedge; saving the US billions of dollars in warhead LEP and the need to develop a new MMIII replacement. The US arsenal could drop from 4600+ warheads to 3200-3300. That is actually the kind of reduction that could be possible, “unilaterally.”
Frank Shuler
USA
I don't think "the American people" care whether the U.S. has 14 or 12 Tridents. Or about Minuteman missiles.
[I don't think "the American people" care whether the U.S. has 14 or 12 Tridents. Or about Minuteman missiles. -Pavel Podvig]
Then you don’t understand “the American people”.
Frank Shuler
USA
A couple points here: First of all, I fail to understand the logic in choosing to eliminate the ICBM force instead of the SSBN force. No one is aiming for a first-strike scenario, and given current detection systems, it is not even possible. 1000 single warhead MMIII sized missiles in silos will still be far cheaper than 12-14 SSBN's and LRS-B bombers. SSBN "invulnerability" is also a fallacy. SSBN's can and have been and will continue to be found and tracked. They are very soft targets and very high value targets compared to silos.
Second, I believe the US DOD wants to lower numbers of nuclear weapons as it is so superior in the conventional arena, and nuclear weapons remain the only equalizer. Only Russia has adequate numbers of operational warheads with which to pose a realistic deterrent. The US will achieve a truly uni-polar world (militarily) if it can get Russia to reduce its arsenal to levels below that required for viable deterrence. Moving toward conventional and precision strike ICBM's/global strike vehicles makes the world a more dangerous place for everyone as such weapons will be used...
Third, I maintain that operational and reserve warhead numbers can be only be reduced if the ABM treaty is enforced or a new, even stricter ABM treaty is brokered. ABM's are inherently destabilizing and promote escalation; this was the overwhelming conclusion after endless hours of debate during the congressional ABM treaty hearings.
Jon Grams
My point was only what could President Obama actually do to unilaterally reduce the American nuclear arsenal and still be politically acceptable to Washington and the American people. It was only a scenario; more of a “modified version” of the Global Zero position than anything else. My “scenario” was more of a discussion point than anything else.
How many nuclear weapons does Russia need for deterrence? How many survivable nuclear warheads and delivery systems does Russia really need to ensure no nation on earth would attack her with like nuclear weapons? To be honest, the 56-some silo Topol-Ms (SS-27) at Tatishchevo and the 18 road-mobile Topol-Ms at Teykovo are enough. No nation on earth is going to attack Russia and lose twenty of its largest cities in “victory”.
By the way, the “military uni-polar world power theory” is today, and always will be, a myth.
How exactly would you negotiate a future ABM Treaty? Seems like the “horse has already left the barn” on that issue.
Frank Shuler
USA
Frank
I would agree that fewer than 100 warheads and launchers would be enough for a deterrent, as long as ABM systems were banned. Otherwise, with numbers that low, deployment of 10 or more ABM's for each warhead would be possible, effectively nullifying deterrence.