thedrifter
06-21-04, 07:39 AM
06-17-2004
Time to Rethink Nuclear Disarmament?
By David Pyne
For some years now, conservative pundits like talk radio host Sean Hannity have reviled those who supported the nuclear freeze movement during the 1980s as members of the radical leftwing fringe and declared that the US could not have “won” the Cold War had their policy been implemented. Yet many, if not most, of these same conservatives now support the implementation of far more drastic plans now being implemented by President Bush to unilaterally dismantle the size of our nuclear arsenal well below minimal deterrence levels advocated by even the most extreme unilateral disarmers on the left during the 1970s and 1980s.
It is a little known fact that President Bush, who has long campaigned as a President committed to keeping the U.S. strong militarily, has in fact joined longtime leftwing critics of Reagan’s military buildup of the 1980s as an ardent champion of unilateral nuclear disarmament. As a case in point, when he took office in January 2001, President Bush inherited a U.S. nuclear arsenal of about 11,000 nuclear warheads of which 7,200 were strategic. On May 24, 2002, President Bush signed the US-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty also known as the Treaty of Moscow at the Kremlin. In this treaty, Bush committed the U.S. to disarm itself of up to 75% of its then-existing strategic nuclear deterrent in furtherance of a longtime Russian foreign policy objective.
Since then, the Administration has slashed the U.S. nuclear arsenal to 7,000 total warheads of which less than 5,000 are strategic. The New York Times, in its June 4th edition, quoted Linton Brooks, who serves as the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Administrator and nuclear weapons czar for the Bush Administration, as stating that the U.S. will cut its remaining nuclear arsenal “almost in half.” Brooks’ declaration last week means that by the time the Moscow Treaty went into effect on December 31, 2002, the U.S. had slashed its remaining nuclear stockpile from 7,000 warheads to about 3,700 warheads, of which less than half – about 1,700 – will be strategic.
This not only represents a reduction of nearly half of the current U.S. nuclear arsenal, it heralds an over two-thirds reduction in the overall size of the nuclear arsenal the Bush administration inherited from the Clinton administration in January 2001—making for, according to Brooks, "the smallest nuclear-weapons stockpile we've had in several decades." So while the United States buries acclaimed conservative President Ronald Reagan, the Bush administration is in the process of burying the Reagan legacy of “peace through strength” by disarming the country of its strategic nuclear deterrent.
The Bush administration has also set at naught the Reagan motto of “trust, but verify” by neglecting to include a rigorous verification regime in the Moscow Treaty. The U.S. has been unable to confirm the actual size of the Russian nuclear arsenal, believed to consist of between 21,000-40,000 warheads. Even using the lowest estimates of the Russian nuclear arsenal, the Russians currently possess an arsenal consisting of at least three times as many nuclear warheads as the United States.
Such a large imbalance in the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals could enable Russia to employ nuclear blackmail against the U.S. in the not-so-distant future. Disarming to the levels the Bush Administration proposed in keeping with the recently signed Treaty of Moscow would leave the U.S. dangerously vulnerable to a hypothetical Russian nuclear first strike. The People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation signed a defensive alliance treaty aimed against the U.S. in July 2001 and have since formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization consisting of the two great powers and four former Soviet Central Asian republics as a potential new nascent military alliance to counter U.S. global hegemony. Only last year, the two countries held joint mock nuclear war exercises including simulated nuclear attacks against U.S. targets.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in what represented perhaps the most shining moment of his tenure, fought hard behind the scenes to sabotage the signing of this risky nuclear disarmament treaty before being ordered by the President himself to desist in his efforts. On July 25th, 2002, Rumsfeld, at a Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing for the Treaty of Moscow, announced that in his view it would be “irresponsible” to destroy any US strategic nuclear warheads decommissioned under the Treaty. Because the Moscow Treaty does not require either the U.S. or the Russian Federation to destroy one single nuclear warhead, the Bush Administration’s decision to destroy thousands of additional warheads represents unilateral nuclear disarmament on a scale unprecedented in American history. The Russians, on the other hand, have not committed to significant reductions in their nuclear stockpile.
Russia today possesses an operational national missile defense system consisting of 100 dedicated ABMs around Moscow plus an additional 8,500 SA-10 ‘Grumble’ and SA-20 ‘Triumph’ dual-purpose SAM/ABMs deployed throughout the Russian Federation. The United States on the other hand has not had an operational national missile defense system since a liberal Democrat-controlled US Congress dismantled the Safeguard system in 1975. Indeed, if Senator Kerry is elected President in November as seems increasingly likely, it may not have one again for a decade or more to come. Kerry has expressed his full support for the Moscow Treaty and has expressed his openness to implementing slightly larger nuclear warhead cuts than those planned by the Bush administration if he is elected President.
President Bush needs to re-apply Reagan’s motto of “peace through strength” to his stewardship over the U.S. nuclear stockpile, scrap the dangerously naive Treaty of Moscow, and ‘freeze’ the U.S. nuclear stockpile at present levels. In order to counter the Russian nuclear threat, the U.S. also needs to build a much more robust national missile defense system similar to what President Reagan envisioned to protect the country that would be based on the sea and in space. We live in far too dangerous a world to be any less vigilant in preserving and safeguarding America’s strategic nuclear deterrent whose retention at a relatively robust level is all but indispensable to America’s continued status as a military superpower.
Contributing Editor David T. Pyne is President of the Center for the National Security Interest. He can be reached at pyne@national-security.org. © 2004 David T. Pyne. Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=533&rnd=962.3357803660368
Ellie
Time to Rethink Nuclear Disarmament?
By David Pyne
For some years now, conservative pundits like talk radio host Sean Hannity have reviled those who supported the nuclear freeze movement during the 1980s as members of the radical leftwing fringe and declared that the US could not have “won” the Cold War had their policy been implemented. Yet many, if not most, of these same conservatives now support the implementation of far more drastic plans now being implemented by President Bush to unilaterally dismantle the size of our nuclear arsenal well below minimal deterrence levels advocated by even the most extreme unilateral disarmers on the left during the 1970s and 1980s.
It is a little known fact that President Bush, who has long campaigned as a President committed to keeping the U.S. strong militarily, has in fact joined longtime leftwing critics of Reagan’s military buildup of the 1980s as an ardent champion of unilateral nuclear disarmament. As a case in point, when he took office in January 2001, President Bush inherited a U.S. nuclear arsenal of about 11,000 nuclear warheads of which 7,200 were strategic. On May 24, 2002, President Bush signed the US-Russian Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty also known as the Treaty of Moscow at the Kremlin. In this treaty, Bush committed the U.S. to disarm itself of up to 75% of its then-existing strategic nuclear deterrent in furtherance of a longtime Russian foreign policy objective.
Since then, the Administration has slashed the U.S. nuclear arsenal to 7,000 total warheads of which less than 5,000 are strategic. The New York Times, in its June 4th edition, quoted Linton Brooks, who serves as the National Nuclear Security Administration’s (NNSA) Administrator and nuclear weapons czar for the Bush Administration, as stating that the U.S. will cut its remaining nuclear arsenal “almost in half.” Brooks’ declaration last week means that by the time the Moscow Treaty went into effect on December 31, 2002, the U.S. had slashed its remaining nuclear stockpile from 7,000 warheads to about 3,700 warheads, of which less than half – about 1,700 – will be strategic.
This not only represents a reduction of nearly half of the current U.S. nuclear arsenal, it heralds an over two-thirds reduction in the overall size of the nuclear arsenal the Bush administration inherited from the Clinton administration in January 2001—making for, according to Brooks, "the smallest nuclear-weapons stockpile we've had in several decades." So while the United States buries acclaimed conservative President Ronald Reagan, the Bush administration is in the process of burying the Reagan legacy of “peace through strength” by disarming the country of its strategic nuclear deterrent.
The Bush administration has also set at naught the Reagan motto of “trust, but verify” by neglecting to include a rigorous verification regime in the Moscow Treaty. The U.S. has been unable to confirm the actual size of the Russian nuclear arsenal, believed to consist of between 21,000-40,000 warheads. Even using the lowest estimates of the Russian nuclear arsenal, the Russians currently possess an arsenal consisting of at least three times as many nuclear warheads as the United States.
Such a large imbalance in the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals could enable Russia to employ nuclear blackmail against the U.S. in the not-so-distant future. Disarming to the levels the Bush Administration proposed in keeping with the recently signed Treaty of Moscow would leave the U.S. dangerously vulnerable to a hypothetical Russian nuclear first strike. The People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation signed a defensive alliance treaty aimed against the U.S. in July 2001 and have since formed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization consisting of the two great powers and four former Soviet Central Asian republics as a potential new nascent military alliance to counter U.S. global hegemony. Only last year, the two countries held joint mock nuclear war exercises including simulated nuclear attacks against U.S. targets.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in what represented perhaps the most shining moment of his tenure, fought hard behind the scenes to sabotage the signing of this risky nuclear disarmament treaty before being ordered by the President himself to desist in his efforts. On July 25th, 2002, Rumsfeld, at a Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing for the Treaty of Moscow, announced that in his view it would be “irresponsible” to destroy any US strategic nuclear warheads decommissioned under the Treaty. Because the Moscow Treaty does not require either the U.S. or the Russian Federation to destroy one single nuclear warhead, the Bush Administration’s decision to destroy thousands of additional warheads represents unilateral nuclear disarmament on a scale unprecedented in American history. The Russians, on the other hand, have not committed to significant reductions in their nuclear stockpile.
Russia today possesses an operational national missile defense system consisting of 100 dedicated ABMs around Moscow plus an additional 8,500 SA-10 ‘Grumble’ and SA-20 ‘Triumph’ dual-purpose SAM/ABMs deployed throughout the Russian Federation. The United States on the other hand has not had an operational national missile defense system since a liberal Democrat-controlled US Congress dismantled the Safeguard system in 1975. Indeed, if Senator Kerry is elected President in November as seems increasingly likely, it may not have one again for a decade or more to come. Kerry has expressed his full support for the Moscow Treaty and has expressed his openness to implementing slightly larger nuclear warhead cuts than those planned by the Bush administration if he is elected President.
President Bush needs to re-apply Reagan’s motto of “peace through strength” to his stewardship over the U.S. nuclear stockpile, scrap the dangerously naive Treaty of Moscow, and ‘freeze’ the U.S. nuclear stockpile at present levels. In order to counter the Russian nuclear threat, the U.S. also needs to build a much more robust national missile defense system similar to what President Reagan envisioned to protect the country that would be based on the sea and in space. We live in far too dangerous a world to be any less vigilant in preserving and safeguarding America’s strategic nuclear deterrent whose retention at a relatively robust level is all but indispensable to America’s continued status as a military superpower.
Contributing Editor David T. Pyne is President of the Center for the National Security Interest. He can be reached at pyne@national-security.org. © 2004 David T. Pyne. Please send Feedback responses to dwfeedback@yahoo.com.
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=533&rnd=962.3357803660368
Ellie