Making the World Safe for Nuclear Weapons

At first glance, the U.S.-Russian agreement to reduce deployed nuclear weapons by two-thirds over the next decade seems like good news. But upon closer inspection, President Bush's latest diplomatic "victory" is a dangerous, double-edged sword. Far from leaving the Cold War behind us, the new arms accord preserves the reality of "mutually assured destruction," even as it opens the door to what nuclear weapons analyst Richard Butler has described as a potential era of "unilateral assured destruction, American-style."

In expressing his support for the accord, Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut inadvertently cited one of the major weaknesses of the proposed accord, noting that "both countries have enough nuclear weapons to destroy each other and most of the rest of the world, even after this agreement."

That's precisely the problem with the agreement: it doesn't go nearly far enough.

By holding fast to their capabilities for massive overkill, the United States and Russia are violating their pledge under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to make an "unequivocal undertaking" to eliminate their nuclear arsenals at the earliest possible date. This "do as I say, not as I do" approach to non-proliferation by the world's two largest nuclear powers will undermine the incentives for other nations to put aside their own efforts to develop these devastating weapons.

Looked at in the context of the Bush administration's bellicose Nuclear Posture Review, which endorses the development of new, more "usable" nuclear weapons while dramatically expanding the circumstances in which the Pentagon would consider "going nuclear" in a future conflict, the Bush-Putin accord represents a reorientation of the nuclear arms race, not a step toward nuclear disarmament.

By taking 10 years to make the proposed reductions, allowing both sides to keep thousands of their withdrawn warheads in "reserve" rather than destroying them, and giving either party the right to withdraw from the agreement on just 90 days notice, the Pentagon has preserved its ability to rapidly reverse the Bush administration's proposed reductions in the U.S. arsenal whenever it wants to, even as it continues to seek new types of nuclear weapons. Add to this the Pentagon's undiminished right under the accord to pursue a costly, multi-tiered missile defense system, and the outlines of a drive for unchallenged U.S. nuclear dominance become clear.

One clear sign that the new accord isn't a step toward disarmament is the fact that spending on the Pentagon's so-called "New Triad" -- composed of long-range strike systems, ballistic missile defenses, and a revitalized nuclear arms production complex -- is slated to increase by more than $30 billion over the next five years.

No wonder weapons makers like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Bechtel are not complaining about the Bush-Putin agreement.

As one Bush administration official put it, "What we agreed to under the treaty is what we wanted to do anyway. That's our kind of treaty."

No doubt. But by failing to give anything up in pursuit of maximum "flexibility" for U.S. nuclear planners, President Bush is squandering a historic opportunity to obtain deep, permanent cuts in global nuclear arsenals.

Deeper, verifiable cuts on both sides -- to as low as 200 to 500 strategic warheads each rather than the 1,700 to 2,200 allowed in the current proposal -- would have given Washington and Moscow leverage to begin pressing nuclear-armed states like Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan and Israel (which is believed to have an undeclared arsenal of about 200 warheads) to eliminate their own arsenals. This move toward multilateral reductions would also make it much easier to get states with nuclear capabilities to agree not to aid nations like Iraq, Iran or North Korea to develop their own weapons of mass destruction.