The cat is out of the bag

President Obama yesterday announced in Berlin his intention to negotiate with Moscow a reduction of up to one-third in strategic nuclear weapons and an unspecified reduction in tactical nukes deployed in Europe.  This ranks as bold, and good.  It will certainly be welcomed in Germany and the rest of the European Union,  where nuclear weapons have never been popular.  The Russians will be reluctant, as they have come to view tactical nuclear weapons as part of their defense against superior Western forces (the opposite was true during the Cold War).  As my SAIS colleague Eric Edelman notes, they are also concerned about Chinese, French and British nuclear forces, which could be increased even as Washington and Moscow draw down.

There is also the question of whether we can maintain the credibility of our nuclear deterrent if we draw down to 1000 strategic nukes.  My sense is that this is more than adequate for the purpose, but Eric doubts that.  He worries about the credibility of our “extended” nuclear umbrella, which covers selected allies.  I’d certainly be prepared to hear their complaints, if they have any.  My guess is that most of our allies would like to see a further drawdown of nuclear forces.

Former Defense Secretary Bill Perry in a powerful piece about his own personal journey to advocating elimination of nuclear weapons makes a crucial point:

It is true that the likelihood of a nuclear war by accident or by miscalculation has decreased with the ending of the Cold War; but the likelihood of nuclear terrorism or a regional nuclear war is increasing every year.

The trouble is that the rising risks, though still relatively small, are significantly less manageable than the declining ones.  When the two superpowers faced off in mutually assured deterrence, they had good reason to believe that the adversary was a rational actor (could and would calculate costs and benefits objectively).  Moscow and Washington also established excellent communications as well as many other measures to avoid accidents.

The picture has changed.  Nuclear terrorists need not calculate costs and benefits, as they will try to conceal who the aggressor is.  They don’t communicate over hotlines or take other measures to avoid accidents.  India and Pakistan have limited communications and little lead time once a launch takes place.  The situation will be even worse with Israel and Iran, if Tehran acquires nuclear weapons.  North Korea’s nuclear weapons will be a threat to Japan and South Korea for many years to come, if not to the US.  The consequences of regional nuclear war or an accidental one may far less grave than a nuclear exchange between the US and the USSR would have been, but that isn’t saying much.  If 9/11 changed our world, imagine what a nuclear 9/11 would do to it.

So even if Washington were to go to zero nuclear weapons, as President Obama has said he wants to do, the risks of nuclear confrontation would not disappear.  The cat is out of the bag.  Getting it back in will require much more than Washington and Moscow agreeing to cut their excessive numbers of nuclear weapons.  It will require blocking Iran and reversing North Korea’s program.  That is not impossible–quite a few countries have stopped the nuclear weapons programs before reaching the goal and some have given up nuclear weapons, which do not necessarily increase security.  President Obama’s announcement in Berlin is welcome, but it unfortunately affects only a small part of the current nuclear challenge.

PS:  Here is the interesting exchange between Joe Cirincione and Eric Edelman on PBS last night: