Obama, Medvedev, and the Demise of Nuclear Deterrence

Published on July 4, 2009

Senator Clinton, in her April 2008 remarks, did not say that if Iran actually used nuclear weapons, the United States would necessarily have to employ its nuclear arsenal “to totally obliterate them.” And she didn’t need to. The United States, today, could do so completely with its conventional capabilities alone. When one includes such things as Department of Energy allocations for nuclear weapons (which, astonishingly, are not considered part of America’s “defense budget”), veterans’ benefits (which our children and grandchildren will still be paying to those wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan more than half a century from now), and the repeated “supplemental allocations,” it becomes indisputable that the United States spends more on its military prowess than all the other countries in the world … combined.

That is a situation probably unprecedented in all of world history. And, however much those of us in the peace advocacy arena might deplore that reality, what it means today is that nuclear weapons have become militarily unnecessary for the United States. Any military mission that nuclear weapons can achieve for the United States can now be fully accomplished by its conventional weapons alone. That is true not only of Iran but also North Korea. There is simply no need for Washington to extend a “nuclear umbrella” over South Korea, because the United States can threaten North Korea with complete and utter destruction without any need to resort to nuclear weapons – and thereby hopefully deter North Korea from external aggression. To protect American national security, to defeat any enemy, and to dissuade any potential aggressor by threatening to inflict catastrophic retaliatory destruction upon it, America’s conventional military power alone can fully do the job.

Then there is the “what’s good for the goose is good for the gander” conundrum. If the United States, despite its vast conventional superiority, still insists that it “needs” nuclear weapons to deter other countries from committing aggression against it, then why don’t smaller, less well-armed countries need them as well? Especially countries like Iran and North Korea, which have legitimate concerns about having vastly superior military powers as neighbors.

Consider the underlying credibility of the essential claim by the US – first to possess such overwhelming conventional military power, then to insist that even despite that it cannot protect American national security without also maintaining a vast nuclear arsenal, and then to haughtily instruct other states that despite their laughably smaller conventional military establishments, they should be fully able to protect their national security with these alone. Other states, which by any measure possess conventional military capabilities only a tiny fraction of our own (Iran, for example, spends on its military about one percent of what the US does), are told that they ought to be able to protect themselves from external threats with those forces alone. But we, with vastly greater conventional capabilities, maintain that we also must possess the nuclear hammer, or we will be unable to protect and defend ourselves.

How could any other state possibly draw any other conclusion but one? If nuclear weapons serve to protect the national security of the mightiest country in the world, then surely they must be necessary to protect the national security of other countries as well.

We want the scourge of nuclear weapons to be wiped from the face of the Earth forever. No nation should have them, not a single one. The human race must now get down to the hard business of negotiating the abolition of all nuclear weapons. That in the long run will be much more politically sustainable than the present reality – with nuclear weapons states hypocritically holding on to their own nuclear arsenals, while trying (and failing) to deny any nuclear weapons to anyone else.

President Obama has repeatedly stated his commitment to provide leadership toward a nuclear weapons-free world. He reiterated his support for that goal in a stirring speech before a huge outdoor rally in Prague in April, saying, “Today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” Unfortunately, just a few sentences later, he felt compelled to add the caveat that a world free of nuclear weapons would likely not “be achieved quickly, perhaps not in my lifetime.”

The president is a young man, and for us, on this, too cautious. But he is not alone. Just last week, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stated, “If those who made the atomic bomb and used it are ready to abandon it, along with – I hope – other nuclear powers that officially or unofficially possess it, we will of course welcome and facilitate this process in every possible way.” Putin is nobody’s idea of a peacenik. However, there is no reason to believe he is just blowing hot air on this issue. Even if he were, it would cost Obama nothing to find out – by proposing negotiations on not just further nuclear weapons reductions, but complete elimination.

Russia and the US are currently negotiating a “post-START” treaty to cut nuclear warheads to (probably) fewer than 2,000 each. However, they can and should go much further. We recommend that when President Obama visits Moscow next month, the United States and Russia announce that they intend to launch formal multilateral negotiations directed toward transforming the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) into a universal, verifiable and enforceable Nuclear Weapons Elimination Convention (NWEC). Such a convention would require the phased dismantling and destruction by a time certain of every nuclear weapon on Earth, prohibit thereafter the development, production, testing, deployment, stockpiling, transfer, threat or use of nuclear weapons, and impose strict controls with rigorous inspection provisions over all nuclear fuels and nuclear activities in every country in the world. Including ours.

Just as common sense ain’t too common, the conventional wisdom about the need to retain nuclear deterrence indefinitely apparently ain’t too wise. The time to launch formal multilateral negotiations directed toward nuclear weapons abolition is now. Indeed, such negotiations could be commenced at the official 40th anniversary NPT Review Conference, scheduled to convene at the United Nations in May 2010. There is probably no other step that could simultaneously put us on the road toward strengthening the global non-proliferation norm, toward ditching nuclear weapons anywhere and everywhere, and toward ensuring that these abominations never return to haunt the affairs of the human race again.

Tad Daley is the Writing Fellow with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the Nobel Peace Laureate organization, and author of “APOCALYPSE NEVER: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World,” forthcoming from Rutgers University Press in January 2010. Kevin Martin is executive director of Peace Action , the largest peace advocacy organization in the United States.

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