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Tactical Nukes and the NPR
The confluence of the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) negotiations has brought U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to the fore again. Two recent stories drew my attention: this one from the New York Times describing the White House influence on the NPR, which includes unnamed officials revealing back-channel negotiations with European allies debating whether or not to withdraw the approximately 200 B-61 air-deliverable “gravity bombs” stored in six countries; and this story which indicates that the U.S. may decide to retire the Nuclear Tomahawk Land-Attack Cruise Missile (TLAM-N), which the Japanese have considered a vital U.S. weapon for ensuring their security against both China and North Korea.
These developments are troubling to say the least, and strategically foolish to take at this time (even if one believes they need to be taken eventually). First, the proposal to withdraw our tactical nuclear weapons from our NATO allies is not a wise move because the U.S. would essentially get nothing for it. According to this Guardian story, officials in “Benelux,” Norway, and Germany are planning to call for the removal of U.S. tactical nukes from Europe (no advocacy for withdrawing them from the Italians or Turks…yet). Though most recognize that these nukes, only deliverable via fighter-bombers (think F-16s, the new F-35, etc.), are of limited military utility, their political importance has been their status as a cornerstone of the Trans-Atlantic Alliance for over fifty years. To remove them would mean that the U.S. would be perceived as having even less reason to retaliate against an ally struck by a biological attack or ballistic missiles. The diminished footprint in Western Europe is sure to reflect the lessened importance the Obama administration attaches to such important allies as the UK (see here).
That being said, if the Europeans don’t want them (and more importantly, their political and military officials), the U.S. cannot force them down their throat. A more comprehensive strategy to “de-nuclearize” Europe would be more effective in satisfying Europeans while upholding the Trans-Atlantic alliance. Separate from the START accord, the U.S. could propose to Russia a treaty to reduce, limit, or open for inspection arsenals of tactical nuclear weapons, in exchange for the U.S. withdrawing some or all of its nukes from Europe. This has long been a Russian talking point, and the fig leaf it has hid behind for its maintenance of 3-4,000 tac-nukes. If the U.S. (in consultation with European allies) offers to return these to domestic bases, the onus for weapons reductions and increased transparency will be on Moscow. However, it is doubtful whether the Turks would agree to evicting U.S. nukes or if the other Central and Eastern European allies in NATO would consent to removing most or all U.S. tactical nukes from the continent.
Therefore current proposals to unilaterally withdraw all U.S. tactical nuclear weapons from Europe are naive. The U.S. would get nothing for a significant concession. Better to maintain them as additional leverage when the time comes to try to negotiate a reduction in Moscow’s 10-1 advantage in these weapons.
Turning to the Pacific theater, the issue of TLAM-N retirement is more subtle and bilateral. These nuclear cruise missiles, designed for deployment on attack submarines, have been mostly kept in storage since the end of the Cold War (although secret deployments are highly likely). Nonetheless, their mere presence and the latent capability the U.S. possesses with them have reassured Japan as it faces mounting threats to its security from Beijing and Pyongyang. In fact, Tokyo communicated to the Strategic Posture (Perry-Schlesinger) Commission that the “credibility of the U.S. extended deterrent depends on its specific capabilities to hold a wide variety of targets at risk, and to deploy forces in a way that is either visible or stealthy, as circumstances may demand.”
The Commission went on to find that “In Asia, extended deterrence relies heavily on the deployment of nuclear cruise missiles on some Los Angeles class attack submarines. This [TLAM-N] capability will be retired in 2013 unless steps are taken to maintain it. U.S. allies in Asia are not integrated in the same way into nuclear planning and have not been asked to make commitments to delivery systems. In our work as a Commission it has become clear that some U.S. allies in Asia would be very concerned by TLAM-N retirement.” Therefore any decisions to retire this unique capability should not be made absent consultation with Japan and an assessment of alternative ways to reassure Japan that the U.S. extended deterrent will guarantee its security. It is unlikely that the NPR will do this. If the U.S. does not want to raise Tokyo’s insecurity to the point it develops its own deterrent, it must take its commitments to extended deterrence seriously.
Tactical nuclear weapons have returned to the forefront of the nuclear posture debate. This time it concerns their very existence in U.S. arsenals – the TLAM-Ns will be retired and the B-61s will lose their purpose (not much reason to maintain tactical gravity bombs for fighter aircraft in the continental U.S.). Nuclear disarmament and Global Zero advocates have loudly claimed that they are not in favor of the U.S. unilaterally disarming. If they want that claim to be believable, they should communicate to President Obama that unilateral reductions in tactical nuclear weapons is unwise, if for no other reason than to maintain levers for future disarmament. Others, including defense hawks, can just oppose such policies on the demerits of their naivete.
6 comments:
I'm assuming you know that, when President Bush announced the withdrawal of U.S. nonstrategic nukes from sea and land in 1991, he stated, flat out, that we would do it even if we got nothing for it. The Soviets reciprocated, but that was neither expected nor desired when the U.S. made the decision. Sometimes we make decisions regarding our nuclear force posture because they are in our national security interests. Getting something for them may be seen as a benefit, but we don't size and structure our forces based on that. We do it because we want to meet the needs our our allies, our forces, and ourselves. If our allies say enough is enough, do we tell them, no, you have to keep this stuff until we decide when you've had enough? How arrogant....
This statement is hogwash: "To remove them would mean that the U.S. would be perceived as having even less reason to retaliate against an ally struck by a biological attack or ballistic missiles." First, the question is not whether the U.S. would have a reason to retaliate (that reason is given in Article V of the NATO treaty, and it would remain even if the nukes did not), the question would be whether the U.S. had the means to retaliate. Given that the credibility of extended deterrence, and U.S. security guarantees, reflects on the full range of U.S. capabilities, conventional and nuclear, its hard to argue that the U.S. would lack the means to defend its allies unless it kept a couple hundred nukes on European soil. Last I checked, we had lots of other "means" to defend our allies.
The Presidential Nuclear Initiatives of 1991 were hardly a unilateral force reduction. President Bush may have publicly stated that we would make the reductions even if we got nothing for it, but that was because he clearly had reached an understanding with Gorbachev that the Soviets would reduce theirs as well. Otherwise such reductions would have been unacceptable to a Congress that throughout the Cold War insisted on rough parity with the USSR.
I'm not saying that every force restructure is intended to leverage a concession or benefit, but when it is a major change that is certainly kept in mind. Just think of deployment decisions preceding the INF Treaty and CFE Treaty. With the INF, the U.S. deployed Pershing-IIs (over the objection of European publics, I might add) in order to match the Soviet capabilities and make a treaty mutually beneficial to both parties.
Which brings me to our alliance relationships. Allied governments are of course sovereign entities, and if they decide they do not want to host nuclear weapons anymore, they have that right (as Greece already did). However, the U.S. should not initiate removing them because the pacifist NATO publics want them gone. Those decisions must be made by the governments and their militaries.
The true arrogance is that of officials in Germany and other NATO members who feel they no longer need the weapons for their defense, so they should be sent back to the U.S. They forget that NATO encompasses countries in Central and Eastern Europe as well, who do not feel nearly so confident in their security. To them, the presence of American nukes on European soil conveys a key reminder of U.S. commitment to their region and their defense.
As for my statement that the U.S. would be *perceived* as having less reason to retaliate to an attack on an ally, it is less absurd than you think. There are plenty of scenarios in which the U.S. could not respond to an attack with ballistic missile retaliation (due to trajectories over China and Russia) and in which getting overflight permission for intercontinental bombers would be difficult. An Iranian biological attack on Turkey comes to mind.
Article V is not as automatic or fully-believed as many people assume. In their "Open Letter to the Obama administration from Central and Eastern Europe," current and former gov't leaders stated "it was a mistake not to commence with proper Article 5 defense planning for new members after NATO was enlarged. NATO needs to make the Alliance's commitments credible and provide strategic reassurance to all members." The weak U.S. reaction to the Russian invasion of Georgia, a potential NATO member, only reinforced this doubt in Eastern European capitals. Removing tactical nukes is not the whole issue, a decreased emphasis on the Trans-Atlantic alliance is, and some allies may view this withdrawal as the first step to the U.S. "getting out of the business of European defense." Therefore there is question among some NATO allies of whether the U.S. would feel the reason to retaliate in their defense, if we seem to be putting less stake in the importance of NATO.
I agree retaliation and defense in many cases would not need to be nuclear, and could rely on a range of our conventional capabilities. But the issue with these tactical nukes has been political for decades. They signal U.S. commitment. As our newer allies have made evident, the credibility of U.S. extended deterrence is not a given and is in fact a question mark in those European capitals.
I don't know why you think Bush had a prior agreement with Gorbachev on the PNIs. He did not. He did not discuss it with Gorbachev, the allies, or Congress before making the announcement. This was all developed in the Pentagon, without any consultation with anyone The President made it very clear, as did Cheney (SecDef) in his press conference a few days after the announcement, that these were unilateral steps taken without the expectation or requirement of reciprocity. Anyone who participated in the process at the time can confirm this for you. Speculate all you want; there are still people around who participated and remember the process.
Also, Congress was not an issue, as this required no congressional approval and no added funding. Also, if you remember the times, this was shortly after the aborted coup, and Congress was beginning to take an active interest in encouraging the withdrawal of Soviet nonstrategic nukes to secure facilities, out of "loose nukes" fears. This was not a "Cold War Congress that insisted on parity," we were well past that at the time. I worked for Congress at the time, and their only concern about the PNIs was that Bush had not told them about it before his speech. They felt left out. There was little or no opposition to the move, even if it was unilateral. Since Gorbachev announced his moves on October 5, which was 8 days after Bush announced his, there would have been plenty of time for Congress to object if it wanted to. But it didn't.
Bush decided to withdraw U.S. nukes from Europe because, with their very short range and the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the WP, they could now only reach targets in countries we were becoming friends with (more specifically, the weapons in Germany could only hit Germany.) And we withdrew the sea-based weapons because the Navy wanted them gone. They were draining resources and training time and complicating port visits. The PNIs addressed our own unique security enviroment, and had nothing to do with Russia.
There's a well-documented history on this. You don't have to speculate.
Fair enough, I'll yield the point on the PNIs. I do tend to read realpolitik motives into most U.S. policies. The PNIs were, however, fairly unprecedented and occurred at that unique moment when the Cold War was ending and no one really knew what the future bilateral relations would look like. It's a hard sell to draw too many parallels between the unipolar moment and the current environment.
The other points still stand. The U.S. tactical nuclear weapons play a political role, especially for the newer members of the NATO alliance. And Japanese concern over the TLAM-Ns has been well documented.
Actually, the PNIs may have occured at a unique moment in time, but the United States has adjusted the size and shape of its nuclear arsenal (strategic and nonstrategic) many times without requiring a quid pro quo from Russia. During the 1970s, we had nearly 10,000 nuclear weapons in Europe. In the mid-1980s, as a part of the Montebello decision, we withdrew thousands of them (we also pledged, with our NATO allies to replace them with a much smaller number of more modern weapons). And, in the past decade, under the Bush Administration and at Rumsfeld's direction, we withdrew and consolidated a significant proportion of the weapons remaining in Europe. The numbers now are barely half of what they were ten years ago. We do these things because it serves our national security interests, not because we are looking for trades.
Really, there is real history here, and real people who participated in it. You can surmise and invent an alternate reality, but someone who has a longer memory of real events may call you on it. You may read realpoitik motives into most U.S. policies, but a study of how things really happened should convince you that those motives are rarely there when the decisions are made, and, if they are evident later, its because the participants wanted it to seem like they were doing something for logical realpolitik reasons. The real world of policy making just isn't that organized and coordinated.
As for Japanese concern with TLAM-N, apparently you have not been paying attention in the past few weeks. Everyone knows that there are many factions and many schools of thoughts in Japan. You can find a Japanese official to support almost any point of view. And the SPC did that. I've talked to other Japanese officials who have told me they don't see the TLAMs as an issue at all. And, recent press reports indicate that, even in the SPC process, Japan expressed more of an interest in being consulted about changes in the status of TLAM than they did in insisting that it remain. They want to be consulted, they want us to treat them like their opinion matters. They don't care to dictate our nuclear posture to us.
Besides, there has been a change of government in Japan, and the new government has stated, specifically, that it does not agree with the old government on the value of the TLAM-N.
I'm sure, however, that heads are exploding over the news that the NPR may recommend retiring the TLAM-Ns. And if you didn't know, the Navy has already programmed to begin decommissioning them in 2012, because they are old and useless, and too expensive to retain. But, again, that's the real world, you can surmise whatever you want to the contrary.
First of all, I would like to express my appreciation for your comments, which have conveyed information I admit I was not previously aware of. As an uppity grad student, I recognize there is much more information and personal experiences that a (I would assume) veteran of these issues would have access to over myself. That said, there is no reason not to be civil in the debate.
The point I think we are missing in debating the PNIs is not that they were intended to improve our national security (without a quid pro quo), because as you rightly point out the land-based systems could only hit new allies, but that we still retained some tactical nuclear capability. The arsenals were reduced, but the weapons were still present. This NPR threatens to advocate their complete withdrawal, which I would argue is a significant political departure from past policy, and one the newer NATO allies may not be on board with.
Just one more point concerning the B-61s. If we completely withdraw them from Europe, what hope do we have in the future of getting Russia to agree to limits (or at least transparency!) regarding their tactical nukes? Is there any disadvantage from retaining them for leverage to get Moscow to adopt policies more stabilizing to regional and international security? Once they are gone, what comparable item could we put on the table that would interest the Russians enough to make compromises on what they call their "last secret?"
As for the TLAM-Ns, I will grant you that I did not properly convey the nature of the debate in my original post. I recognize that there are many schools of thought, and that the new gov't is likely to be less attracted to them than the previous ruling party. However I still question how sincere our consultation with Tokyo was, and whether it was merely "notification." I did read in the SPC that the Navy would begin retiring them in 2013. I do not agree that they are useless. From what I've heard from some experts, the Navy doesn't want the mission because it is expensive to train submariners to properly handle and operate the Tomahawks. At that point it boils down to a strategy argument - do we want the capability or not, which is something civilians should decide.
I want the same thing as you do - to improve U.S. national security. Just because we believe pursuing different policies will take us there does not mean the other is living in an alternate reality. Reasonable people can disagree.
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