You are certainly aware that the United States is committed under Art VI of theNon Proliferation Treaty to work in good faith for nuclear disarmament. You areprobably also aware that last year President Clinton approved a policy that nuclearweapons would remain the cornerstone of U.S. security for the indefinite future. It is verydifficult to reconcile these conflicting positions. Disarm or maintain a massive nuclearwarfighting capability? It is impossible to do both. My purpose here is to explain whyPresident Clinton made his decision, what it means to prospects for the abolition ofnuclear weapons, and what can be done to promote progress toward a non-nuclear world.
First, let me tell you why I am here to advocate the abolition of nuclear weapons. Ihave been personally involved with these engines of destruction since the beginning ofthe nuclear era. 42 years ago I was a pilot prepared to destroy a European target with abomb that would have killed 600,000 people. 20 years ago, as the Director of U.S.Military Operations in Europe, I was the officer responsible for the security, readinessand employment of 7,000 nuclear weapons against Warsaw Pact forces in Europe andRussia, weapons which could never defend anything - only destroy everything. Myknowledge of nuclear weapons has convinced me that they can never be used for anyrational military or political purpose. Their use would only create barbaric, indiscriminatedestruction. In the words of the Canberra Commission, "Nuclear weapons create anintolerable threat to all humanity..."
Now, to address the reasons for President Clinton's decision concerning the U.S.nuclear posture. When the nuclear era opened in the U.S. the atom bomb was seen as asource of immense national power and as an essential contribution to efforts to thwart anyexpansionist efforts by Stalin's Soviet Union. It was also seen by the United StatesArmy, Navy and Air Force as the key to service supremacy. The newly autonomous AirForce under General Curtis LeMay saw atomic warfare as its primary raison d'etre andfought fiercely for the dominant role in U.S. atomic plans. The Army and Navy fearedthat without atomic weapons in their arsenals they would become irrelevant adjuncts tostrategic air power.
This interservice rivalry led to the rapid proliferation of nuclear missions. Withoutgoing into needless detail, each service acquired its own arsenal of nuclear weapons forevery conceivable military mission: strategic bombardment, tactical warfare, anti-aircraftweapons, anti-tank rockets and landmines, anti-submarine rockets, torpedoes and depthcharges, artillery shells, intermediate range missiles and ultimately intercontinental rangeland and sea-launched ballistic missiles armed with multiple, thermo-nuclear warheads.
The Soviet Union, starting more than 4 years behind America, watched this rapidexpansion of our warfighting weapons with shock and fear and set out to match everyU.S. capability. Despite the obvious fact that the USSR lagged far behind, alarmists inthe Pentagon pointed at Soviet efforts as proof of the need for ever more nuclear forcesand weapons and the arms race continued unabated for 40 years. During this wastefuldangerous competition the United States built 70,000 nuclear weapons plus air, land andsea-based delivery vehicles at a total cost of $4,000 billion dollars.
As the Soviets' arsenal grew, Mutual Assured Destruction became a fact and thetwo nations finally began tenuous arms control efforts in the 1960's to restrain theircompetition. This effort was accelerated in the mid-1980's as a result of world-wide fearsof nuclear war when President Reagan spoke of the Soviet Union as the "evil empire" anddoubled U.S. military spending.
Unfortunately, the excesses of the nuclear arms race had created an extremelypowerful pro-nuclear weapons establishment in the United States. This alliance oflaboratories, weapon builders, aircraft industries and missile producers wielded immensepolitical power in opposition to nuclear disarmament proposals. Abetted by Generals andAdmirals in the Pentagon this establishment was able to turn arms control efforts into atalk-test-build process in which talks went slowly and ineffectually while testing andbuilding went on with great dispatch.
This same establishment remains extremely powerful today and explains why theUnited States' continues to spend more than $28,000 million dollars each year to sustainits nuclear warfighting forces and enhance its weapons despite the formal commitment inthe Non-Proliferation Treaty to take effective measures leading to nuclear disarmament. Pressure from the establishment is the primary reason why in November, 1997, PresidentClinton decreed in Presidential Decision Directive #60 that nuclear weapons will continueto form the cornerstone of American security indefinitely. This directive also set forth anumber of other policies that are directly contrary to the goals of non-proliferation andnuclear abolition.
He reaffirmed America's right to make first use of nuclear weapons andintentionally left open the option to conduct nuclear retaliation against any nation whichemploys chemical or biological agents in attacks against the United States or its allies. He went on to direct the maintenance of the triad of U.S. strategic forces (long rangebombers, land-based ICBM's and submarine-based SLBMs) at a high state of alert whichwould permit launch-on-warning of any impending nuclear attack on the U.S. This is thedangerous doctrine which puts thousands of warheads on a hair trigger, thereby creatingthe risk of starting a nuclear war through misinformation and fear as well as throughhuman error or system malfunction. Finally, his directive specifically authorized thecontinued targetting of numerous sites in Russia and China as well as planning for strikesagainst so-called rogue states in connection with regional conflicts or crises. In short,U.S. nuclear posture and planning remain essentially unchanged seven years after the endof the Cold War. The numbers of weapons are lower but the power to annihilate remainsin place with 7,000 strategic and 5,000 tactical weapons.
This doctrine would be bad enough alone but it is reinforced by continued effortsto extend and enhance the capabilities of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. A major element ofthis process is benignly labeled the Stockpile Stewardship Program costing more than$4,100 million per year to maintain weapons security as well as test and replace weaponcomponents to insure full wartime readiness of approximately 12,000 strategic andtactical bombs and warheads. In March the U.S. Air Force dropped two B61-11 bombsfrom a B-2 bomber on a target in Alaska to complete certification of a new design forearth penetrating weapons, clear proof of U.S. intentions to improve its nuclearwarfighting capabilities.
Furthermore, the Los Alamos National Laboratory recently resumed themanufacture of plutonium triggers for thermo-nuclear weapons while the LawrenceLivermore National Laboratory is preparing a new capability called the National IgnitionFacility where conditions within an exploding nuclear device can be simulated. Supplemented with continuing sub-critical explosive tests in Nevada and extremelysophisticated computer modeling experiments, this new facility will give the U.S. meansnot available to other signatories of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty todevelop and validate new nuclear weapons designs.
To give even more evidence of the power of the pro-nuclear establishment, theU.S. will decide this year on how and when to resume the production and stockpiling oftritium, the indispensable fuel for thermo-nuclear explosions. The fact is that the militaryhas enough tritium on hand today for all of its weapons until the year 2006 and enoughfor 1,000 warheads and bombs at least until the year 2024. To invest thousands ofmillions of dollars for unneeded tritium is a waste of precious resources undertaken solelyto placate and reward the nuclear establishment.
It is particularly alarming and discouraging to see the United States investingheavily to perpetuate and increase its nuclear warfighting capabilities when only threeyears ago it was the dominant force promoting indefinite extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). To encourage support for extension the U.S. led in theformulation of the important declaration of "Principles and Objectives For Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament." More clearly than Article VI of the NPT itself, thisstatement reaffirmed commitment to: "The determined pursuit by the nuclear weapons states of systematic andprogressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally, with the ultimate goal ofeliminating those weapons..."
This renewed and strengthened pledge to reduce nuclear capabilities offered as aninducement for non-nuclear states to agree to extension of the NPT makes the currentU.S. nuclear program an affront to all of the signatories. It is not only a direct violationof both the letter and spirit of the NPT, it is a provocation which jeopardizes the goal ofnon-proliferation. The clear message is that the foremost nuclear power regards itsweapons as key elements of security and military strength, a signal which can onlystimulate other nations to consider the need to create similar capabilities.
What must those who favor nuclear abolition do to counter this threat to non-proliferation? First, as individuals and as organizations, we must redouble our efforts athome to publicize the dangers created by as many as 35,000 weapons still ready for use inthe world. A broadly based global demand by all non-nuclear states that the nuclearpowers must live up to the letter and spirit of the NPT extension agreement shouldprecede the first review conference in the year 2000. A call for worldwide publicdemonstrations on the order and magnitude of those which supported the nuclear freezemovement of the 1980's should be made. The nuclear powers must not be permitted todictate the results of the review conference in the same manner the United Statesdominated the 1995 extension conference.
The message to be stressed is that it is illogical and unrealistic to expect that fivenations can legally possess and threaten to use nuclear weapons indefinitely while allother nations are forbidden to create a nuclear capability. Pressure to break-out of theNon Proliferation Treaty is further intensified because one of the nuclear powers isactively developing new, more threatening weapons and pronouncing them essential to itsfuture security.
A good strategy is to follow the lead of the 62 Generals and Admirals who signedan appeal for nuclear abolition in December of 1996. We stated that we could not foreseethe conditions which would ultimately permit the final elimination of all weapons but wedid recognize many steps which could be safely begun now to start and accelerateprogress toward the ultimate goal.
As a first step toward nuclear disarmament, all nuclear powers should positivelycommit themselves to unqualified no-first use guarantees for both strategic and tacticalnuclear weapons. Their guarantees should be incorporated in a protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty at the review conference in 2000.
Concurrently, the process of actual reduction of weapons should begin with theUnited States and Russia. They should proceed immediately with START IIInegotiations, particularly since the implementation of START II has been delayed forfour years. Even with the delay Russia cannot afford all of the changes required underthat Treaty and has suggested willingness to proceed with additional reductions becausefar deeper reductions by both sides would be less costly.
At the same time, both nations should agree to take thousands of nuclear warheadsoff of alert status. This action would reduce the possibility of a nuclear exchange initiatedby accident or human error. Once fully de-alerted, warhead removal (de-mating) shouldcommence and the warheads stored remotely from missile sites and submarine bases. Verification measures should include international participation to build confidencebetween the parties.
Disassembly of warheads under international supervision should begin in the U.S.and Russia. When a level of 1,000 warheads is reached in each nation, Great Britain,France and China should join the process under a rigorous verification regime. De factonuclear states, including Israel, should join the process as movement continued toward thecomplete and irreversible elimination of all nuclear weapons. Finally, an internationalconvention should be adopted to prohibit the manufacture, possession or use of nuclearexplosive devices just as current conventions proscribe chemical and biological weapons. All fissile material should be safely and securely stored under international control.
Verification of this entire process could best be accomplished by U.N. teamsformed and operating in accordance with principles developed by UNSCOM teamsoperating in Iraq today. This model provides a precedent already accepted by the fivepermanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the nuclear powers.
None of these progressive steps will happen until the community of nations comestogether to make the United States understand that non-proliferation will ultimately failunless the U.S. abandons its delusion that nuclear superiority provides long term security. Even when the dangers of this delusion are understood, progress toward the complete,final abolition of nuclear weapons will be painfully slow. Nevertheless, the effort mustbe made to move toward the day that all nations live together in a world without nuclearweapons because it is clear that our children cannot hope to live safely in a world withthem.
For more information on the abolition of nuclear weapons, please contact Andrew Koch
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