CIC - Obama Vision
-
Upload
dsmcdonough -
Category
Documents
-
view
220 -
download
0
Transcript of CIC - Obama Vision
-
7/30/2019 CIC - Obama Vision
1/3
Obamas Nuclear Vision
By David S. McDonough
This article was originally published as Obamas Nuclear Vision, The Foreign Exchange (online),
Canadian International Council, 19 April 2010.
On 12-13 April 2010, world leaders from 47 different countries gathered for two days of meetings at US
President Barack Obamas Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC. As President Obama made clear
on the eve of this unprecedented meeting, the threat posed by nuclear terrorism remains the single
biggest threat to US security, both short-term, medium-term and long-term.
At the conclusion of this summit, a number of technical agreements and individual commitments by
Ukraine, Russia, Canada and others were made on securing the roughly 2-million kilograms of fissile
material enriched uranium and plutonium worldwide. Nuclear proliferation amongst states,
especially North Korea and Iran, was not officially on the agenda. But delegates were still able to discuss
such matters on the sidelines, most notably the US and China on the question of further sanctions
against Iran. A final communiqu committed the attending countries to work towards securing allvulnerable nuclear material within four years.
This summit was one of the initiatives announced on 5 April 2009 in Prague, where President Obama
famously declared his intention to take steps towards a world without nuclear weapons. Some of the
presidents more idealist supporters will see such summitry as further evidence that his lofty rhetoric
has indeed been matched by concrete action a preliminary first step to even more significant changes
in the future. Ironically, this view is also shared by some of his harshest critics. They may not directly
object to the summit itself, but they remain wary, to put it mildly, of this presidents commitment to US
national security. Indeed, they envision that such summitry will only lead to an unwise American
preoccupation with disarmament, at the inevitable expense of a strong US strategic deterrent.
Yet both dovish supporters and hawkish critics have made the critical mistake of conflating President
Obamas idealist rhetoric on nuclear disarmament with his more modest and incremental policies. True,
this may all be a prelude to more significant changes in the future. Such prognosis would be better
informed, however, not by simply taking President Obamas eloquent rhetoric at face value, but rather
by examining the actions undertaken under his watch.
It is certainly fortunate that the summit follows closely on the heels of a number of other nuclear-
related announcements. These provide a hint, nothing more, of what Barack Obama will likely achieve in
the coming years of his presidency. In the world of politics, as in most things, actions still speak much
louder than words.
First, after several months of difficult negotiations, President Obama and Russian President Dmitry
Medvedev signed the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) on 8 April 2010 in Prague. Once
ratified by Congress, the New START agreement will supplant the Bush administrations 2002 Strategic
Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT). Notably, it places limits on the US and Russian nuclear arsenals to
1,550 deployed strategic warheads each, and replaces and streamlines the verification regime provided
by the START I agreement that expired last December.
-
7/30/2019 CIC - Obama Vision
2/3
This arms control treaty is certainly a step in the right direction. After all, the SORT agreement had
placed limits of 1,700-2,200 deployed warheads for the US and Russia and did not feature much in the
way of verification provisions. New START also counts the actual warheads deployed through additional
on-site inspections, as opposed to simply attributing the number of warheads based on the type of
delivery vehicle.
But it is equally important to not exaggerate the importance of this treaty. It does not place limits on
either tactical nuclear weapons or the stockpiles of both Russia and the US. American plans for missile
defence remain largely unrestrained, so long as ballistic missile silos are no longer converted to carry
missile defence interceptors. The high alert levels of both sides nuclear arsenals are meanwhile left
untouched. And if one takes the lower SORT levels into account, the deployed warhead limits set by
New START seems modest indeed. In fact, these reductions may be even less than they seem. As nuclear
expert Hans Kristensen notes, by counting bombers as only one deployed warhead when they can in fact
carry multiple warheads, hundreds of nuclear weapons are effectively hidden by each side.
Second, after a three month delay, the Obama administration finally released its own Nuclear Posture
Review (NPR) on 8 April 2010. This is the third Congressionally-mandated review in the post-Cold War
period, the other two being released in 1994 and 2001, and the first such review released to the public.Given President Obamas stated intention to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in US national
security strategy, the contents of the 2010 NPR provide crucial insight into Obamas nuclear vision.
At first glance, there is certainly reason to be optimistic. The review for the first time places priority on
strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime, which certainly bodes well for the forthcoming Non-
Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. It declares that the fundamental role of US nuclear weapons,
with the intention of making it the sole purpose, is to deter a nuclear attack on the US, its allies and
partners. This point is reiterated in the NPRs clarification of US negative security assurances to not
use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states that are party to the Non-
Proliferation Treaty and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations. And unlike
previous administrations, this review has more explicitly spelled out that a chemical or biologicalweapon attack would only result in a massive conventionalresponse.
Yet, much like the New START agreement, there is more to this review than meets the eye. The US
nuclear force structure remains largely unchanged and will continue to be modernized. It will also be
joined with prompt, conventional global strike capabilities, missile defence systems and a strengthened
nuclear infrastructure; in other words, all the main elements of what President George W. Bushs 2001
NPR described as the New Triad.
The renewed US commitment to restrict the role of nuclear weapons also has an important qualifier
the non-nuclear state needs to be in compliance with its non-proliferation obligation, a caveat that will
assuredly be used at the discretion of the United States. Iran and North Korea, for example, are already
listed as countries that are not in compliance. It would not be a stretch to imagine countries like Syria
and others being added. And in the event of a biological attack, the US also reserves the right to makes
adjustments to this assurance, which essentially opens the door to a possible nuclear response.
The Obama administration has therefore pursued through the New START agreement and as codified
in the 2010 NPR largely modest and incremental policies. Indeed, it remains to be seen what has
actually changed. The US will continue to pursue gradual reductions in nuclear weapons, much as it has
done over the last two decades. The size of its nuclear arsenal is unlikely to dramatically decrease, and
-
7/30/2019 CIC - Obama Vision
3/3
there are no signs of any significant alteration to the triad force structure. And irrespective of any
negative security assurances, the US still sees utility in threatening to use nuclear weapons on non-
nuclear states. In all likelihood, this trend will continue to shape US nuclear targeting policies and strike
options in the years ahead.
President Barack Obama, despite the penchant for soaring rhetoric in describing his vision, has so far
produced a nuclear reality that is far more realist than idealist, gradual than transformative. This is true
with the Obamas arms control agreement with Russia; it is true with his approach to US nuclear
strategy and posture; and given the modest agreements on preventing nuclear terrorism that came out
of Washington this week, it is equally evident with the Nuclear Security Summit. This conclusion will
assuredly disappoint supporters hoping for more significant steps on the path to nuclear disarmament,
surely as it will allay the worst fears of Obamas critics, so long as their ideological hostility does not
blind them to this reality.
This is not to say that Barack Obama does not sincerely wish to achieve nuclear zero at some point in
the future. But it does mean that the president like some of his more idealist predecessors, Ronald
Reagan not least among them has balanced such high-minded inclinations with a much more realistic
set of policies. With such pragmatism on display so far, it would be surprising indeed to see significantsteps towards either nuclear disarmament or even a transformed US nuclear posture in the future.
David S. McDonough is a Doctoral Candidate in Political Science at Dalhousie University, a Doctoral
Fellow at Dalhousies Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, and is presently a Visiting Research Associate at
the Centre for International Policy Studies, University of Ottawa. He is a recipient of a SSHRC Canadian
Graduate Scholarship (2006-2009), the SDF Dr. Ronald Baker Doctoral Scholarship (2009-2010), and the
Killam Doctoral Scholarship (2008-2011). He was chair of the CIC Working Group on Nuclear Strategy at
the Halifax Branch. Currently, he is the editor of the CIC Strategic Studies Working Groups forthcoming
book, titledCanadas National Security in the Post-9/11 World: Strategy, Interests and Threats.