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April 2, 2009
Exclusive: From Russia…With Love?
Much of the U.S. defense and diplomatic community apparently has concluded that without a huge push from Russia, Iran will in the near future deploy nuclear weapons and have the ability to deliver such a weapon throughout Europe. They do not believe any military attack, whether conducted by the United States or Israel, will stop Iran’s nuclear program and would result in such a meltdown in the Middle East as to be off the table. They have decided to offer Russia major concessions to secure Moscow’s cooperation in this area. Those concessions involve not only eliminating the U.S., Polish and Czech missile defense deployments but also may require the U.S. to meet many of Moscow’s demands on nuclear weapons and a follow-on agreement to the current Moscow agreement and the 1991 START I treaty.
Specifically, Moscow is calling for reducing deployed nuclear weapons to between 1,000-1,500 warheads. While the higher range of this number is some 10% below the low range of the Moscow treaty, the Russians are insisting that no further nuclear weapons be held in reserve or in the U.S. stockpile. This would mean that whatever each country deploys is the total nuclear weapons force. This further means that should a weapon in the force be found to be unsafe, less reliable or need replacement, the U.S. will be left with a lesser robust nuclear deterrent while not being able to manufacture new nuclear weapons at a rate necessary to restore our nuclear deterrent force. This is because the U.S. nuclear infrastructure does not now have the capability of building but a very small number of nuclear weapons annually.
The Russians are adamant that United States deployed nuclear submarines and missiles not have the capability to “quickly upload” their warhead numbers. Thus a Minuteman missile carrying one warhead would not be able to quickly increase to three warheads, and a Trident D-5 missile carrying a notional 2-4 warheads, would be unable to quickly increase to its maximum capability of eight warheads a missile. This would significantly reduce the U.S. ability to respond to a crisis or the rise of a peer competitor such as China. A recent report in Comparative Strategy reveals the PRC will be able to deploy upwards of 596 warheads on their planned submarine fleet alone within the next decade.
Furthermore, the Russians have an enormous nuclear industrial base, including nuclear cities devoted entirely to the nuclear weapons enterprise. No matter how intrusive an inspections regime might be under a new arms control agreement, there is no way the United States can verify the extent of Russia’s non-deployed nuclear warhead inventory. We should remember that at the end of the Cold War, the Russians revealed that their nuclear warhead inventory was some 20,000 greater than had been estimated by former Secretary of Defense Cap Weinberger, and his estimate has been widely criticized by “knowledgeable” arms control professionals as being widely exaggerated. The lower the level of deployed nuclear weapons the more serious it is if we under-estimate the inventory of our adversaries. And such low levels may very well require the U.S. to give up one or more of the legs of its nuclear triad, and as such dramatically increase strategic instability.
But there is more, and none of it is good news. The Russians want long range conventional prompt strike deployments also to count as nuclear weapons, although they are vastly different in capability. As for thousands of tactical or battlefield nuclear weapons now in the Russia inventory, none of these will be counted under the new proposed ceilings. The Russians have simply insisted such weapons are ‘off the table” and “not for discussion.”
Such Russian proposals must be viewed in the context of Moscow’s recently enunciated nuclear doctrine. As far back as 1999-2000, when Mr. Putin was “acting President,” and even during the Yeltsin era, Russia placed increasing emphasis on using nuclear weapons in both regional and other conflicts. Low yield and earth penetrating nuclear weapons were developed, and a policy of using nuclear weapons was described ironically as “de-escalating a crisis” according to new military doctrine. Russia is also reportedly putting nuclear weapons on cruise missiles to be carried by submarines.
Four statements by high ranking Russian officials over the last week have emphasized that Iran has no nuclear weapons program and is no threat to Europe, NATO or the United States. This hardly bodes well for relying upon Moscow for the “muscle” to lean on Iran to secure Tehran’s acquiescence to the requirements of the NPT or Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. For the United States to give up deploying a needed missile defense in Central Europe in return for vague promises from Russia to help with Iran – when they do not even see the need to change Iranian behavior – makes no sense. To throw onto the pile of gifts for Moscow a new nuclear weapons treaty that would seriously undermine the U.S. deterrent – especially at the time of growing Russian imperialism – is not consistent with the Constitutional requirement to “provide for the Common Defense.”
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Peter Huessy is President of GeoStrategic Analysis of Potomac, Maryland, a defense and national security consulting firm.
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