Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Analysis: Final Report of the Congressional Commission on the Nuclear Strategic Posture of the United States

by Kingston Reif [contact information]

May 6, 2009

Read the Commission’s final report online

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

As one might expect given the diverse make-up of the Commission, the final report offers a mixture of good and bad recommendations. The report uneasily straddles two competing visions. One vision seeks to reduce the role played by nuclear weapons in U.S. national security policy. The other vision stresses that nuclear weapons remain as important today as ever before.

On the positive side, the report strongly endorses the importance of U.S. leadership on nuclear issues; reducing the size of U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals; and sustaining and strengthening the global nonproliferation regime. For example, the report states: “The moment appears ripe for a renewal of arms control with Russia, and this bodes well for a continued reduction in the nuclear arsenal. The United States and Russia should pursue a step-by-step approach and take a modest first step to ensure that there is a successor to START I when it expires at the end of 2009.”

The report also contains numerous flaws, including the failure to recommend ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), overemphasis on the importance of extended nuclear deterrence, and the one-sided assessment of the Stockpile Stewardship Program (especially the Life Extension Program).

BACKGROUND

On May 6, 2009, the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States released its much anticipated final report. Established by the National Defense Authorization Act of fiscal year 2008, the congressionally-appointed, bipartisan Commission was chartered “to examine and make recommendations on the long-term strategic posture of the United States.” William J. Perry, former Secretary of Defense for President Clinton, chaired the Commission. Another former Secretary of Defense, James R. Schlesinger, served as the Commission’s vice-chair.

The Commission consisted of six Democratic appointees and six Republican appointees. In addition to Perry, the Democratic contingent included Lee Hamilton, former Congressman and vice-chair of the 9/11 Commission; Ellen Williams, University of Maryland Distinguished Professor; John Glenn, former Senator and NASA astronaut; Morton Halperin, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs; and Bruce Tarter, former Director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

In addition to Schlesinger, the Republican delegation included John Foster, Director Emeritus of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Keith Payne, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Forces; Fred Ikle, former Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency; James Woolsey, former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency; and Harry Cartland, former physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

REPORT FINDINGS: THE GOOD

The report stresses the essential need for U.S. leadership on nuclear issues

The report argues that to advance arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament objectives, U.S. leadership is required. In the words of the report, “leadership requires leading by example.” While the report correctly notes that the United States must maintain a safe, secure, and reliable nuclear arsenal so long as other states have nuclear weapons, it observes that other “nations may not show the nuclear restraint the United States desires or support nonproliferation efforts if the nuclear weapon states take no further agreed steps to decrease their reliance on nuclear arms.”

The report urges the United States and Russia to reduce the size of their nuclear arsenals

The Commission argues that “the moment appears ripe for a renewal of arms control with Russia, and this bodes well for a continued reduction in the nuclear arsenal. The United States and Russia should pursue a step-by-step approach and take a modest first step to ensure that there is a successor to START I when it expires at the end of 2009.” In principle, the report does not rule out even deeper cuts in the U.S. arsenal, so long as they are done bilaterally with Russia.

In support of this arms control agenda, the report recommends that the United States “take the lead in renewing strategic dialogue with a broad set of states interested in strategic stability, including not just Russia and China but also U.S. allies in both Europe and Asia.” The report also recommends engaging with Russia on its substantial force of nonstrategic weapons and working to “strengthen international cooperation for missile defense, including with allies, but also with Russia.”

The fact that Republicans on the Commission supported this agenda demonstrates that there is broad and wide support for a START follow-on agreement. The implication is that the United States and Russia have an important obligation to reduce the size and role of nuclear weapons in their national security policies.

The report underscores the importance of sustaining and strengthening the global nonproliferation regime

The Commission proposes an incredibly forward-looking agenda to reenergize U.S. leadership on nonproliferation. This agenda includes:

• Renew multifaceted diplomatic activity and engagement
• Strengthen the International Atomic Energy Agency
• Lead a global initiative on transparency, addressing both warheads and stockpiles, with the United States leading by example
• Seek a treaty that ends the production of fissile material for weapons purposes
• Augment funding for threat reduction activities that strengthen controls and eliminate materials at vulnerable nuclear sites
• Develop international approaches to future nuclear energy production that minimize proliferation risks
• Prepare to play a leadership role at the 2010 Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference

The report calls on the United States to demonstrate that it relies less than ever on nuclear weapons for political and military purposes

The Commission argues that the United States should do everything in its power to ensure that nuclear weapons are never used again. To that end, the report states that “[t]he United States should underscore that it conceives of and prepares for the use of nuclear weapons only for protection of itself and its allies in extreme circumstances. The Commission believes that any president of the United States would avoid pushing a confrontation to the point of nuclear exchange.” At one point the report states that nuclear weapons would only be used as a “last resort.” Such reticence about the use of nuclear weapons contrasts sharply with the Bush administration, which spoke openly about exploring new or modified nuclear weapons and even went so far as to suggest that it would consider using nuclear weapons preemptively.

The report insists that maintenance and modernization of the U.S. nuclear stockpile should occur within the constraints of existing U.S. policy

The report asserts that maintaining the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal makes sense only if it occurs within a policy context that prohibits the United States from conducting nuclear explosive tests, producing fissile materials, and seeking new weapons with new military characteristics. The Commission could have further strengthened this proposal by positing further constraints, such as further U.S. nuclear reductions and increased nuclear transparency.

The report states that the United States should reaffirm its Article VI Non-Proliferation Treaty commitment to move toward complete and total disarmament “directly and forcefully”

While the Commission could have more consistently emphasized the importance of disarmament, it is noteworthy that a panel as diverse as the Commission endorsed the following text:

“The United States should reaffirm its commitment to end the arms race and work to create the conditions that might enable nuclear disarmament in the context of general and complete disarmament. It should also clearly articulate its progress in implementing this commitment by ending the cold war arms race, reducing the size of its nuclear forces and also its reliance on them, working to prevent and roll back proliferation, and otherwise to promote the resolution of conflicts.”

REPORT FINDINGS: THE BAD

The report fails to recommend ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)

The CTBT is clearly consistent with U.S. security interests and the Commission should have endorsed its ratification. Because the United States does not conduct nuclear tests and has no plans or need to do so, the United States should take advantage of the political benefits that would come with ratification of the CTBT. A permanent test ban would close off the one reliable avenue by which other states could develop new, sophisticated nuclear weapons or increase the lethality of already existing arsenals. Moreover, due to the remarkable advances in the capabilities of the U.S. Stockpile Stewardship Program and the International Monitoring System, the two main concerns that helped block the ratification effort in 1999 no longer hold water. The United States has no need to resume testing in order to maintain the reliability of the stockpile, and any cheating that might go undetected is unlikely to be militarily significant. Finally, the United States has promised repeatedly to ratify the CTBT in order to demonstrate its commitment to fulfill its disarmament obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Such demonstrations of good faith are essential for retaining the continued commitment of non-nuclear weapons states not to pursue nuclear arsenals. So long as it fails to ratify the CTBT, the United States is unlikely to secure the cooperation it needs to reduce nuclear dangers.

The report greatly overstates the degree to which extended nuclear deterrence, the nuclear umbrella that the United States extends to protect its allies, is a key factor driving the size and characteristics of the U.S. nuclear arsenal

Though the Commission is correct in noting that the United States should not make significant changes to its nuclear weapons policy without high-level consultations with U.S. allies in both Europe and Asia, it exaggerates the value of extended nuclear deterrence. Ultimately, a more important factor in an ally’s confidence in the credibility of extended deterrence is its confidence in the strength of its political relationship with the United States. Nuclear weapons are largely irrelevant to the security threats faced by key allies such as Poland, Turkey, and Japan. The United States needs to engage in a sustained and wide-ranging diplomatic dialogue with its allies not only on the narrow issue of nuclear weapons, but also on relevant threats and how best to deal with those threats.

The report presents an imbalanced assessment of the Stockpile Stewardship Program and the Life Extension Program, a science-based effort to maintain confidence in the safety and reliability of the nation’s nuclear arsenal absent nuclear testing

The Commission argues that the possibility of using the Life Extension Program “indefinitely is limited.” Though such a concern is not completely unfounded, it is nevertheless hypothetical. The Stockpile Stewardship Program offers a sound procedure for the United States to maintain the reliability of the stockpile without changing the military characteristics of existing weapons. Numerous studies have all concluded that the explosive cores in U.S. nuclear weapons will remain reliable for many, many years. We know far more about our nuclear weapons today than we did when we were conducting nuclear explosive tests. The Department of Energy should be allowed to perform a range of activities to find solutions to problems in the stockpile as they emerge, but it should not attempt to preempt problems that may never emerge by designing and building new nuclear weapons that might have their own defects.

The report paints a misleading picture of the modernization programs of Russia and China in relation to U.S. efforts to maintain its deterrent

The report makes the mistaken impression that U.S. nuclear capabilities and the U.S. nuclear infrastructure are losing their edge against or lagging behind those of our allies and adversaries. Today, however, the U.S. arsenal is second to none. Furthermore, the publically available evidence does not support the Commission’s claim that Russia and China are designing new strategic warheads based on new designs, nor that these countries are secretly building low-yield nuclear weapons through a program of clandestine low-yield testing. In any event, the relevant issue is not whether Russia and China are in fact modernizing but why they are modernizing, what form that modernization is taking, and to what military effect. Neither the current Russian nor Chinese modernization programs would increase the threat to the United States already posed by these countries’ existing arsenals. Moreover, the United States has the capacity to deter any threat regardless of how many nuclear weapons Russia of China build.

The report’s assessment of the key threat to U.S. national security does not warrant the large role that it continues to assign nuclear weapons

According to the Commission, “terrorist use of a nuclear weapon against the United States or its friends and allies is more likely than deliberate use by a state.” On the threat posed by Russia, the Commission argues that “the focus on Russia is not because the United States and Russia are enemies; they are not. No one seriously contemplates a direct Russian attack on the United States.” Likewise, on China, the Commission argues that “the risks of war with China are low, with the primary potential military flashpoint being Taiwan…The apparent risks of nuclear war are even lower.”

The U.S. nuclear stockpile, which serves as a deterrent against state use of nuclear weapons, is irrelevant to the threat of terrorists using nuclear weapons. There is no terrorist “homeland” to threaten with an overwhelming response. Moreover, though it is clear that the best way to address the threat of nuclear terrorism is by limiting access to nuclear materials, technologies, and weapons, the Commission argues that the United States and Russia should only reduce their nuclear arsenals very slowly and moderately. The report calls on the United States to significantly bolster and refurbish its nuclear infrastructure, including, if necessary, designing and building new nuclear weapons. Not only are such recommendations irrelevant to combating the threat of nuclear terrorism, they could undermine the very cooperation the Commission rightfully believes the United States needs to reduce global nuclear dangers.