Disarmament Diplomacy

Editorial

Needed: Good Leaders to Cut the Nuclear Posturing

Rebecca Johnson

The nuclear disarmament objectives put forward by President Barack Obama and other political leaders, including UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, are in danger of being thwarted by defence bureaucracies and military-industrial corporations with vested interests in maintaining their privileged jobs and profits. From the US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) to NATO's strategic concept, and from Japan's military establishment to Britain's time-table for renewing Trident, officials are taking positions and in some cases important decisions that run counter to the wishes of their elected leaders and majority public opinion.

These mid-level decision-makers have been steeped in the contorted logic of cold war nuclear planning and have vested interests in maintaining nuclear business as usual. Under pressure they may recognize the need to make small adjustments to long-standing doctrines and nuclear targeting, but are they sufficiently capable and willing to undertake the deeper challenge of identifying how their countries' nuclear postures need to change to promote security while facilitatiing the transition to zero?

In Prague, President Obama told the world that he wanted to build peace and security in a world free of nuclear weapons. So why did he hand the Nuclear Posture Review to bureaucrats that don't believe this is possible? Having inherited a crippling economic crisis, two wars and a host of other problems, it is understandable that President Obama delegated to experts that have been in the nuclear-strategic business a long time. The risk is that they will stay within their comfort zone and recommend a Bush-lite posture that will impede the President's efforts to exercise credible leadership and bring other governments into negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons. Nuclear business as usual will not even sustain the present status quo. It will fuel further proliferation and feed the nuclear terrorists. If nuclear weapons are modernized and timid, short-sighted postures are renewed yet again, the consequences will be far reaching and dangerous.

Getting the Nuclear Posture Review right is critically important because it will underpin future force structures, policies and resources. If the review advises hanging onto cold war doctrines of extended deterrence, then this will tie Obama's hands for the rest of his administration. Instead of letting the nuclear bureaucrats call the shots, the President needs to set the principles, objectives and priorities for American security in this complex world and then tell the officials working on the Review to come up with options that are consistent with both national security needs and the objective of peace and security without nuclear weapons that Obama was elected pursue. If he fails to take charge of this Review before it is too late, the President will lose the chance to weaken the drivers of proliferation and make nuclear abolition possible.

Britain faces a similar problem. Despite Gordon Brown's change of tone on nuclear disarmament after becoming Prime Minister in July 2007, he still acts as if his hands have been irrevocably tied to the decision to renew Trident that was pushed through parliament by his predecessor in March 2007. In stark contrast to Tony Blair, the Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary David Miliband this year issued progressive nuclear policy statements pledging their commitment to nuclear disarmament. Yet neither has followed through the logic of their - clearly genuine - concerns to suggest reconsidering Trident replacement.

It has been left to Conservative and Liberal Democrat politicians to raise questions about the affordability and necessity of implementing Trident replacement as planned in 2007. When these questions hit the media, the Conservative Party insisted that it would not get rid of nuclear weapons altogether. But prominent Tory politicians have signed their names to the Global Zero campaign, and the Liberal Democrats are looking carefully at all options, including unweaponized "virtual" deterrence.

The Labour Party is deeply divided over nuclear policy. Most would like to abolish all nuclear weapons, but the leadership appears afraid to go first in case they get accused of being soft on defence. Recent news reports suggesting that the government was prepared to postpone the "Initial Gate" decision until after May 2010 were subsequently denied. Close watchers of the Atomic Weapons Establishment have continued to see a pattern of contracts, construction and developments consistent with designing and manufacturing the next generation of Trident. If Brown means what he says, then he can make it happen by taking charge and changing nuclear policy to ensure it facilitates rather than impedes the security objectives he aspires to.

The nuclear vested interests are powerful, but they are concentrated in only a few places. For the United States, Britain and other nuclear possessors to pursue disarmament in earnest, they need support, help and pressure. Japan, Australia and the NATO members that felt they needed extended deterrence in the past must now consider the proliferation price of letting nuclear reliance continue. US proponents of nuclear business as usual are claiming that allies such as Japan might develop nuclear weapons if the US adopted a core deterrence posture. For many reasons that is just not plausible. Core deterrence would cut the risks of first use, confine the nuclear role to deterring a nuclear weapon attack and diminish the weapons' salience. It would enhance security and enable the arsenals to be brought down to much lower levels. Core deterrence might not accomplish the profound changes that non-nuclear deterrence and outlawing the use of nuclear weapons would bring, but a doctrinal shift such as this would be a useful step on the way.

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