Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Analysis of the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force Report on U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy

by Kingston Reif [contact information]

June 9, 2009

Read the Center’s analysis of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Council on Foreign Relations Task Force report shares many similarities with the final report of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. Both documents emphasize 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.

Most importantly, both reports call for reductions in nuclear stockpiles. The Task Force “supports efforts to renew legally binding arms control pacts with Russia by seeking follow-on agreements to START and the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT).” Likewise, the Strategic Posture Commission states 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.”

These studies clearly demonstrate that we have a critical mass of moderate and conservative defense experts who believe that nuclear weapons reductions will make the United States safer.

The Task Force report, however, presents a stronger and more aggressive blueprint for minimizing the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. Unlike the Commission, the Task Force endorses ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), presents a more balanced analysis of the demands of extended nuclear deterrence, and repeatedly calls on the United States to reaffirm its disarmament commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Despite its many strengths, the Task Force report suffers from the same weakness as the final report of the Strategic Posture Commission: It gives the impression that nuclear weapons remain as important to U.S. security today as ever. The Task Force’s assessment of the key threats to U.S. national security do not warrant the large role that it continues to assign nuclear weapons

BACKGROUND

On April 30, 2009, the Council on Foreign Relations released an Independent Task Force Report on U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy. William J. Perry, former Secretary of Defense to President Clinton, and Brent Scowcroft, former National Security Advisor to President George H.W. Bush, co-chaired the Task Force. Perry also chaired the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, which released its final report on May 6, 2009.

The Task Force consisted of 23 members. In addition to Scowcroft, the Task Force included such high-profile Republicans as Linton Brooks, former Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, and Franklin C. Miller, former Senior Director for Defense Policy and Arms Control on the National Security Council staff.

COMMON RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE TWO REPORTS

The Task Force report stresses that renewed U.S. leadership to shape global nuclear weapons policy and posture is critical

The report argues that U.S. leadership is required to advance many important arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament objectives, including strategic dialogue with other nuclear-armed states, cooperative work with all states to strengthen nuclear security practices, improving the nuclear nonproliferation regime, and ensuring a successful Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference in 2010.

The Task Force report urges the United States and Russia to negotiate deep, verifiable, and legally binding nuclear reductions

The Task Force “supports efforts to renew legally binding arms control pacts with Russia by seeking follow-on agreements to START and the 2002 Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT).” According to the report, “U.S.-Russia arms control agreements have been invaluable in helping stabilize strategic relations, developing a shared understanding of activities involving nuclear weapons, and lending predictability to reductions in American and Russian strategic nuclear forces.” Furthermore, the report makes the important observation that “for the United States to have credibility in arguing that others must restrain their nuclear ambitions, it must reexamine the size and composition of its own arsenal.”

As part of this robust arms control agenda, the Task Force calls for a wide-ranging U.S.-Russian strategic dialogue “on missile defense, nondeployed warheads, nonstrategic nuclear forces, and prompt conventional strike weapons.”

The Strategic Posture Commission echoed similar sentiments in its final report. According to the Commission, “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 fact that both the Task Force and the Strategic Posture Commission endorse the importance of reducing the size of the U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals demonstrates that there is broad and wide support for a START follow-on agreement and 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 Task Force report emphasizes the importance of sustaining and bolstering the global nonproliferation regime

The Task Force recommends a number of important steps to strengthen the global nonproliferation regime. Some examples include:

• Prepare a high-level diplomatic team, as soon as possible, for the lead-up to the 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference
• Ensure that countries with nuclear power plants are provided with multiple assurances of nuclear fuel supplies - through the existing market, political commitments, insurance coverage, and fuel banks - to demonstrate a reduced incentive to build national uranium enrichment facilities
• Make the Additional Protocol, which provides International Atomic Energy Association inspectors with greater authority to verify all nuclear activities within a state, a prerequisite for states to obtain commercial nuclear power technologies
• Provide increased and sustainable funding to the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguards and nuclear security departments to match the increased use of nuclear power and increased amount of nuclear material
• Correct weaknesses in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that permit a state to leave the treaty while in violation of its safeguards commitments
• Call for a global moratorium on the production of fissile material for weapons purposes before the 2010 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO REPORTS

The Task Force report endorses ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)

While the Strategic Posture Commission did not endorse ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Task Force rightly notes “that the benefits [of the CTBT] outweigh the costs and that the CTBT is in U.S. national security interests.”

The Task Force report presents a more balanced analysis of the demands of extended nuclear deterrence, the nuclear umbrella that the United States extends to protect its allies

Whereas the Strategic Posture Commission implies that extended nuclear deterrence is the central factor driving the size and characteristics of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, the Task Force takes a more nuanced view. Unlike the Commission, the Task Force notes that “most U.S. allies tend to be strong proponents for reducing the salience of nuclear weapons.” The Task Force does claim that some U.S. allies, particularly Japan, have expressed concern about the credibility of the U.S. extended nuclear deterrent and “that as long as U.S. alliance partners face the possibility of nuclear threats, the United States will have to retain enough nuclear arms to deter such threats.” However, it explicitly states that “U.S. nuclear weapons are one facet of multilayered defenses that include diplomacy, economic support, and conventional military forces to deter attacks and protect allies in the event of an attack.”

The Task Force could have driven this point home even more forcefully by noting that the most 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. If political relations fray then the credibility of the U.S. extended deterrent will be perceived to be weak, no matter what type of or how many nuclear weapons the United States possesses. The United States needs to engage in a sustained and wide-ranging dialogue with its key, non-nuclear allies in Europe and Asia not only on the narrow issue of nuclear weapons, but also on strengthening the political component of extended deterrence.

The Task Force report forcefully and repeatedly calls on the United States to reaffirm its disarmament commitments under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty

While Task Force members “have differing views on the feasibility or even desirability of achieving the global elimination of nuclear weapons,” they call on the United States to “affirm during the [2010 NPT review] conference that it will continue to make a good faith effort…to pursue nuclear disarmament.” In addition, they note that “supporting the long-term goal of nuclear disarmament may be necessary to mobilize widespread support for the short-term actions needed to further reduce nuclear dangers.” While the Strategic Posture Commission mentioned the importance of nuclear disarmament, it did so only in passing, and never considered it to be as important an objective as maintaining the U.S. nuclear deterrent or nonproliferation.

SHORTCOMINGS

The Task Force report gives the impression that nuclear weapons remain as important to U.S. security today as ever

Like the Strategic Posture Commission, the Task Force characterizes nuclear terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons and technologies as the key threats to U.S. security. Yet like the Strategic Posture Commission, the Task Force does a poor job of explaining how the U.S. nuclear stockpile is relevant to the threat of terrorists using nuclear weapons and fails to address the fact that the existing U.S. arsenal of thousands of nuclear weapons has not prevented Iran and North Korea from pursuing a nuclear weapons capability.

Instead, the Task Force states that it “does not want to prejudge the actual magnitude of [U.S.-Russian] reductions or other changes in nuclear posture.” In addition, the Task Force calls on the United States to significantly bolster and refurbish its nuclear infrastructure, including, if necessary, designing and building new nuclear weapons. Not only is such a recommendation irrelevant to combating the threat of nuclear terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons to Iran and North Korea, it could undermine the very cooperation the Task Force rightfully believes the United States needs to reduce global nuclear dangers.

As Task Force member George Perkovich, vice president for studies and director of the Nonproliferation Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, points out in his dissenting view at the end of the report, “this report allows for the unhelpful and unnecessary perception that the United States should be more concerned about perpetuating its nuclear arsenal than it is about creating the conditions that would allow all states to live free from the terrifying threat of nuclear war.”

FULL LIST OF TASK FORCE MEMBERS

Spencer P. Boyer
Linton F. Brooks
Ashton B. Carter*
John Deutch
Charles D. Ferguson
Michèle A. Flournoy*
John A. Gordon
Lisa E. Gordon-Hagerty
Eugene E. Habiger
J. Bryan Hehir
Laura S. Holgate
Frederick J. Iseman
Arnold Kanter
Ronald F. Lehman II
Jack F. Matlock Jr.
George R. Perkovich
William J. Perry
Mitchell B. Reiss
Lynn Rusten
Scott D. Sagan
Brent Scowcroft
Benn Tannenbaum

*Carter and Flournoy participated in the Task Force under their affiliations with Harvard University and the Center for New American Security, respectively. As current administration officials, they have not been asked to join the Task Force consensus.