Disarmament Diplomacy

Issue No. 72, August - September 2003

News Review

Congress Embraces New Nuclear Agenda, Opens Door Wider to 'Mini-Nukes'

On May 22, the US Congress overwhelmingly passed the Fiscal Year (FY) 2004 Defense Authorization Bill, allocating a staggering $400.5 billion to the Department of Defense. The Senate version of the bill was adopted by 98 votes to 1; the House of Representatives' version by 361 to 68. While the total amount of funding is now set, a final, House-Senate 'conference' version will seek to reconcile differences in subtotals and individual programme allocations.

Both versions of the legislation, however, bring the United States closer to developing and deploying new, 'low-yield' nuclear weapons, also known as 'mini-nukes'. A 'low' yield is defined as equal to 5 kilotons of conventional high explosive (TNT) or less - around a third of the yield of the Little Bomb device which devastated Hiroshima. Research and development (R&D) on such 'battlefield' weapons has been banned since 1993, under the terms of the Spratt-Furse amendment to that year's Defense Authorization Bill. Both versions of the new budget allow research on low-yield systems, while retaining the prohibition on development and production. Any move beyond research would require Congressional authorisation, to be considered only after a direct request from the President.

In addition, both versions of the FY 2004 Bill authorise research on another new nuclear design, a high-yield 'bunker-busting' weapon designed to destroy deeply-buried, heavily-reinforced underground military facilities (in particular, sites housing WMD or WMD-related equipment and infrastructure). Such a weapon - designated by both the Pentagon and the Department of Energy as the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP) - would primarily involve the modification of existing designs for bunker-busting purposes. As with their treatment of the low-yield issue, the House and Senate budgets permit bunker-busting research while prohibiting development and production.

At a Pentagon press conference on May 20, Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defense Secretary, and General Richard Myers, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were questioned about the administration's 'new nukes' plans. Asked to comment on the military rationale for a low-yield weapon, General Myers's answer illustrated, in a perhaps unlikely quarter, the considerable confusion between the mini-nuke and bunker-busting issues:

"Question: 'Secretary Rumsfeld and others have made clear the need for...bunker-busting bombs, but this would be more of a battlefield weapon. ...Could you be more specific on the possible need for such a weapon?'

Myers: 'Sure, I'd be happy to do that. ... [T]here has been law that prohibits even the study of weapons, nuclear weapons, that could penetrate deep and buried targets.'

Question: 'I'm not talking about the - that's the earth penetrator, the robust earth penetrator.'

Myers: 'Right. Mm-hmm.'

Question: "I'm referring to the Spratt ban on development of 5-kiloton or less nuclear weapons for use on the battlefield... Those are two separate issues, and I'm sorry if I was confused in my question.'

Myers: 'Okay. No, I was confused. And I can address the former. I can't address the latter.'

Question: 'The Spratt - you can't address the [low-yield issue]...'

Myers: 'Right. No, I can't. I can't address [that issue]...'"

Secretary Rumsfeld was then asked, with regard to his Department's interest in studying low-yield options, "what would that kind of weapon possibly in the arsenal be used for?" He answered: "We don't know. That's why we want to study it. And we're inclined to think that the idea that we should not be allowed to study such a weapon is not a good idea." Pressed on the point, Rumsfeld insisted: "It is terribly important that people not hype this and create misimpressions in the public about it by misusing words or being imprecise in the use of words... It is a study. It is nothing more and nothing less. And it is not pursuing, and it is not developing, it is not building, it is not manufacturing, it is not deploying, and it is not using."

Many Democrats are deeply sceptical of the value of such disclaimers, clearly fearing the emergence of new, potentially 'usable' nuclear weapons in coming years. Traditionally, the admission of new designs into the stockpile has required a prior programme of underground testing. Democrats thus also fear the demise of the unilateral US testing moratorium, in place since 1992. As Democratic Senator Bill Nelson commented (May 9): "I think this opens the door - that if you start developing new low-yield weapons, basically the next step after that is the testing of them." Both versions of the Defense Authorization Bill take a small but definite step in this direction, approving, at the administration's request, a reduction in the preparation time required to resume testing at the Nevada site from 24-36 to 18 months.

Unsurprisingly, given the gravity of the subject, debate of the mini-nuke and bunker-busting provisions of the budget was intense and impassioned. On May 20, Democratic Senators Dianne Feinstein and Edward Kennedy introduced an amendment seeking to preserve Spratt-Furse in its entirety. Introducing the amendment - defeated that evening by 51 votes to 43 - Feinstein argued: "I was 12 years old when the Enola Gay went out of the pacific. I remember that big mushroom cloud in the San Francisco Chronicle and then, for months afterwards, I remember the pictures that came back from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It may well be that we are too far removed from that day to really understand the repercussions of what this bill is going to begin to allow to happen in the United States. What is going to be allowed to happen is a reopening of the door to nuclear development which has been closed for decades. ... President Bush is right when he says that the greatest threat facing the United States lies in the global proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But by adopting a new approach to national security in the wake of 9/11 that stresses unilateralism and increases US reliance on nuclear weapons, I am deeply concerned that this administration may actually be encouraging the very proliferation we seek to prevent. ... Instead of racheting back our reliance on nuclear weapons, this administration is looking for new ways to use nuclear weapons and to make them more usable. Does anyone in this Chamber doubt that others will follow? I do not."

Feinstein also scorned the idea of 'mini' or 'clean' nukes: "By seeking to build nuclear weapons that produce smaller explosions, and develop weapons which dig deeper, the administration is suggesting we can make nuclear weapons less deadly. It is suggesting we can them more acceptable to use. But there is no such thing as a clean nuclear weapon that minimizes collateral damage."

This view was perhaps echoed most strongly by Democratic Senator Jack Reed (May 22): "When the administration talks about low-yield weapons, the American people should hear 'small apocalypse'." Following the defeat of the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment, Reed had sought to introduce language unconditionally barring any mini-nuke or bunker-busting development work. The move was countered, however, by Republican Senator John Warner, Chair of the Armed Services Committee, who introduced an amendment - adopted by 59 votes to 38 (May 22) - specifying the aforementioned requirement for Congressional approval before any such work could proceed.

Speaking in support of the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment on May 20, Joseph Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sought to cast the debate in broad strategic, and even psychological, terms: "Supporters of low-yield weapons argue they could deter an adversary - and that is true. All nuclear weapons have a deterrent function. But the deterrent benefits that low-yield weapons provide are far outweighed by both the risk that they will actually be used and the dangerous signal they send to other countries, whether intentional or not, that we intend to fight a nuclear war. Low-yield weapons also blur the distinction between nuclear and conventional war, and they begin to make nuclear war more 'thinkable', as [Cold war nuclear strategist] Herman Kahn might have said. Herman Kahn's book was titled 'Thinking About the Unthinkable'. He understood that nuclear war was unthinkable, even as he demanded that we think about how to fight one... Looking at the foreign and defence policies of the current administration, I fear they fail to understand that very vital point. They want to make nuclear war 'thinkable'."

Speaking after the defeat of the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment, Carl Levin, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, lamented (May 20): "The message from this administration, while we're telling everybody else 'don't go down that road', [is that] we are going to go down that road ourselves". Senator Kennedy (May 20) referred to the "very deep division that exists in this country about the radical departure of this administration in terms of nuclear policy. We are going to do everything we possibly can...to halt this reckless escalation of the nuclear arms race". Speaking on May 9, following the decision of the Senate Armed Services Committee to support the repeal of the Spratt-Furse prohibition, Kennedy argued that President Bush "was sending an ominous signal to other nations that he intends not only to be a bully in the wider world, but to be a nuclear bully".

From the Republican side, Senator Wayne Allard argued (May 20): "We need to be thinking about what we want the military to look like 20 or 30 years down the road". Senator Warner suggested (May 9) that, "without committing to deployment, research on low-yield nuclear warheads is a prudent step to safeguard America from emerging threats, and enemies who go deeper and deeper underground." Warner added: "America has had a ban on this research since 1993, yet that has done nothing to stop other countries from seeking to acquire nuclear weapons".

Discussing the controversy with defence reporters on June 12, Linton Brooks, Administrator of the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), stated: "We're not going to restart the arms race... I think lowering the nuclear threshold remains probably one of the most awesome decisions any President will ever make. And I don't know of anything we are doing that will make that an easier decision for the President or his advisers. ... Do I want the President to have options? Sure I do". Brooks added, with disarming candour, that US efforts to maintain and modernise its nuclear stockpile could quite rightly be interpreted as an agenda of assured and evolving supremacy: "Our allies should draw the correct inference that the United States intends to remain pre-eminent in this area."

Reports: Senate Armed Services Committee completes markup of National Defense Authorization Bill for Fiscal Year 2004, US Senate Armed Services Committee Press Release, May 9, http://armed-services.senate.gov; Senate panel seeks $400.5 billion for defense, Reuters, May 9; Panel votes to end low-yield nukes ban, Associated Press, May 9; US Senate committee agrees to lift ban on development of small-scale nukes, Agence France Presse, May 10; Senators Feinstein and Kennedy seek to retain the prohibition on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons, Press Release from Senator Dianne Feinstein, May 22, http://feinstein.senate.gov; Nuclear weapons and non-proliferation - connecting the dots, statement by Senator Joseph Biden, May 20, http://www.senate.gov/~biden; DoD news briefing - Secretary Rumsfeld and General Myers, May 20, 2003, US Department of Defense transcript; Senate consideration of DoD authorization amendments, Council for a Livable World, May 21; Nuclear weapons development tied to Hill approval, Washington Post, May 22; Democrats troubled by White House effort to develop tactical nuclear weapons, Agence France Presse, May 22; Reed provision limits administration on development of new nuclear weapons, Press Release from Senator Jack Reed, May 23, http://reed.senate.gov; Congress agrees to let Pentagon study low-yield nuclear weapons, Washington File, May 23; House, Senate pass defense bills - approve key elements of Bush nuclear agenda, Global Security Newswire, May 23; Analysis of 2004 Senate Defense Authorization Bill, Council for a Livable World, June 6, CLW website; US vows to maintain nuclear weapons pre-eminence, Reuters, June 12.