News Review Special Edition

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International Developments, February 1 - April 1, 2003

'A Mere Extension Of The Continuum': US Nuclear Use Policy In The Spotlight

Concern over US nuclear use policy seems to be on the rise among Congressional Democrats in the wake of numerous statements from the Bush administration, most recently the December, 2002 'National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction' (see last issue. Fears expressed are both general - that the threshold for nuclear use may be in the process of being lowered, blurring the distinction between conventional and non-conventional strategic options - and specific - that new, more 'useable' nuclear weapons may be in the pipeline (see the separate item in this Review on 'mini-nukes').

In a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting on February 13, Edward Kennedy pressed Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to elaborate on nuclear use policy with specific reference to the looming war in Iraq. Is the US, Kennedy asked, "seriously considering using any nuclear weapons against Iraq?" Rumsfeld replied: "It seems to me that if one looks at our record, we went through the war on terror [since 9/11] and we've not used nuclear weapons. That ought to say something about the threshold with respect to nuclear weapons. ... We have every confidence that in the event force is to be used in Iraq that we can do what needs to be done using conventional capabilities. ... Our policy historically has been generally that we will not foreclose the possible use of nuclear weapons if attacked... Does the [Defense] Department have an obligation, and have they in successive administrations in both political parties had procedures whereby we could conceivably use nuclear weapons? Yes."

Senator Kennedy seemed unpersuaded by this declaration of policy-continuity: "As you well understand, the nuclear weapon is not just another weapon in an arsenal. And until now we've always kept them in a class of their own for good reasons because of the enormous destructive power [involved] and our profound commitment to do all we can to see that they are never used again."

On March 5, the Washington Times reported that Kennedy and nine of his colleagues in the Senate had written to President Bush on February 21, expressing their "grave concern" about the administration's reported preparedness to use nuclear weapons in non-traditional circumstances - i.e., pre-emptively and against states which may themselves not possess nuclear capability. The letter declares: "Recent public revelations...suggest that your administration considers nuclear weapons as a mere extension of the continuum of conventional weapons open to the United States, and that your administration may use nuclear weapons in the looming military conflict against Iraq..." The letter then refers to US commitments under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states: "Abandoning our pledge under the NPT would be to turn our backs on all nuclear non-proliferation efforts, since the treaty serves as the hub for the entire nuclear arms control framework... [S]uch a shift in US policy would deepen the danger of nuclear proliferation by effectively telling non-nuclear states that nuclear weapons are necessary to deter a potential US attack, and by sending a green light to the world's nuclear states that it is permissible to use them."

On March 9, the Nautilus Institute in California released a previously classified 1966 study by the Pentagon entitled Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Southeast Asia. The report, by four physicists - Freeman Dyson, Robert Gomer, Steven Weinberg and S. Courtenay Wright - belonging to the 'JASON' group of scientific advisers to the government, strongly recommended against any use of tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) by US forces in Vietnam. "The overall result of our study", the authors wrote, "is to confirm the generally held opinion that the use of TNW in Southeast Asia would offer the US no decisive military advantage if the use remained unilateral, and it would have strongly adverse effects if the enemy were able to use TNW in reply. ... In sum, the political effects of US first use of TNW would be uniformly bad and could be catastrophic."

Interviewed by Nautilus Institute Executive Director Peter Hayes on January 8, Freeman Dyson, Professor Emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, recalled the accidental genesis of the study: "We were prompted to write this report by some remarks we heard at an informal party, probably in Spring 1966. A high-ranking military officer with access to President Johnson was heard to say, 'It might be a good idea to toss in a nuke from time to time, just to keep the other side guessing.' We had no way to tell whether the speaker was joking or serious. Just in case he was serious, we decided to do our study." Professor Dyson added: "The general conclusions of our report are still valid for any war in which the United States is likely to be engaged in the future. The main conclusion is that the United States offers to any likely adversary much better targets for nuclear weapons than these adversaries offer to the United States. This is even more true in the fight against terrorism than it was in Vietnam." In an interview with Peter Hayes published on March 9, Steven Weinberg, Professor of Physics at the University of Texas at Austin, stated: "It is important for the survival of civilization that nuclear weapons should never again be actively used. Fortunately, since Hiroshima and Nagasaki there has grown up a taboo against the use of nuclear weapons for anything but deterrence, at least on the part of established governments. There have been some signs recently of a weakening of this taboo, in talk of the development of low-yield weapons for attacking underground facilities, and even in suggestions of a revival of interest in nuclear-armed anti-missile interceptors. Let's hope that this will go no further than did the idea of using nuclear weapons in the war in Southeast Asia."

Speaking in the Senate on March 10, Diane Feinstein - a signatory to the February 21 letter to President Bush - drew her colleagues' attention to the 1966 study. Feinstein stated:

"Thirty-six years later some American officials are, according to press reports, once again contemplating the use of nuclear weapons, and seeking to repeal US prohibitions on the developments of smaller nuclear weapons, including so-called 'low-yield' bombs and deep-penetration 'bunker-busters.' Writing recently in the Los Angeles Times ['The Nuclear Option in Iraq', January 26], military analyst William Arkin disclosed the US Strategic Command in Omaha and the Joint Chiefs of Staff are secretly drawing up nuclear target lists for Iraq. 'Target lists are being scrutinized, options are being pondered and procedures are being tested to give nuclear armaments a role in the new US doctrine of pre-emption,' Arkin reported. There have also been reports that tactical nuclear weapons, particularly 'bunker busters,' have been considered by Pentagon planners in the context of the escalating nuclear crisis with North Korea. Moreover, many US analysts believe there is a great danger that North Korea, if its survival was at stake, would be willing to sell its nuclear arsenal to the highest bidder. North Korea itself apparently believes the United States may be planning nuclear strikes of its own, and on March 1 warned that a war on the Korean peninsula would quickly 'escalate into a nuclear war.' I sincerely believe that any first use of nuclear weapons by the United States can not and should not be sanctioned. As the JASON scientists argued in the 1960s, US nuclear planning could serve as a pretext for other countries and, worse, terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda, to build or acquire their own bombs. If we are not careful, our own nuclear posture could provoke the very nuclear-proliferation activities we are seeking to prevent."

Reports: Rumsfeld won't rule out nuclear bomb against Iraq, Reuters, February 13; Senators rip policy on use of nuclear arms, Washington Times, March 5; Tactical nuclear weapons in Southeast Asia, classified Pentagon report, 1966, made available by the Nautilus Institute, March 9, Nautilus Institute website, http://www.nautilus.org; 'Essentially annihilated', Authors' Commentaries, posted by the Nautilus Institute, March 9, Nautilus Institute website; Scientists cite secret study to oppose Bush nuke plans, Inter Press Service, March 9; Text - Senator says US must not sanction first use of nuclear arms, Washington File, March 11; Nixing nukes in Vietnam, by Peter Hayes and Nina Tannenwald, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May/June 2003, Volume 59, No. 3.

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