Foreign Policy

The Importance of Being Nuclear

by Robert A. Manning

Those who urge us to rid the world of nuclear weapons would do well to consider events in Iraq. Despite multiple bombing campaigns, six years of searching by international inspectors, a United Nations mandate, and threats from the worldÕs sole remaining superpower, Saddam Hussein has held on to significant parts of his arsenal of mass destruction.

The recent crisis comes amidst disclosures that the president has issued new guidance to nuclear planners, further fueling an already contentious U.S. debate about the future of nuclear weapons. Some argue that nuclear weapons have no utility, are morally wrong, and hence, should be abolished. A new wave of "zero-nuke" sentiment from an unlikely source--former top Cold War military officials--has generated a conservative backlash from those fearing that naivetˇ will give away the family jewels.

This debate is taking place against a backdrop of widespread public apathy. The end of the Cold War has erased nuclear fears from most people's radar screens, as the threat of Armageddon has evaporated. After all, aren't trends moving in the other direction? The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which contains a provision pledging to move towards elimination of nuclear weapons, was extended indefinitely in 1995. South Africa, Brazil, and the former Soviet republics have voluntarily given up nuclear weapons. If START II is ratified by Moscow, and a START III treaty is also reached and implemented, U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals will have been reduced by nearly 90 percent from their Cold War peaks. And pending approval from the Senate, a new test ban treaty may go into effect.

Yet the ever-widening diffusion of technology, reflecting increasingly sophisticated industrial bases in non-Western countries, is an irreversible reality.

The superpower build-down has had little impact on regional rivalries which shape the calculus of nuclear wannabes. In the Middle East, it is unrealistic to expect Israel to give up its ultimate insurance policy until there is full-blown peace in the region, as the Iraq case underscores. Or suppose after Korean reunification the new regime in Seoul discovers that North Korea had indeed manufactured a couple of nuclear weapons and decided to keep them as an insurance policy against Japan or as leverage against China.

In fact, ChinaÕs status as a rising power that is only partly integrated in the current international order suggests that its nuclear behavior may be the single most important variable affecting the nuclear status quo in the early twenty-first century. Because China is a small nuclear power (400-440 weapons), it has so far not been part of the arms control equation. Beijing has viewed its nuclear capability defensively, as a deterrent, though there are some indications that it may be altering its view.

Whether as a hedge against uncertainty in China and Russia, as a deterrence against small regional powers that might threaten the United States with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, or as a means of security assurance for allies, nuclear weapons remain part of the global and regional security equation. All of this suggests a new doctrine of "sufficient deterrence"--nuclear weapons may still be necessary, but their role in our defense strategy is sharply diminished from that during the Cold War.

Thus, both sides in the new nuclear debate are wrong. Nuclear weapons can not be uninvented, nor are nation-states willing to allow deeply intrusive inspections or grant the U.N. Security Council authority to take preemptive action against nuclear proliferators. Nothing less than such radical steps would make the elimination of nuclear weapons plausible. But neither does the nuclear status quo make sense.

For at least the next generation, the nuclear agenda should focus not on abolition, but on tighter controls of nuclear material, which is the major obstacle for nuclear wannabes. Another top priority is "de-alerting" nuclear forces. Separating warheads from missiles in a credible manner would move nuclear weapons off hair-trigger, launch-on-warning status, and thus make an "accidental launch" scenario highly unlikely. There are various degrees of de-alerting that could be negotiated, effectively expanding the time required to launch weapons to hours, days, or even weeks.

Numbers are less important than removing nuclear weapons from hair-trigger status. The point of arms control is to increase stability and reduce the risk of war. Less is not necessarily safer. If China builds up while the other declared nuclear weapons powers build down that could be destabilizing. It may not be wise to go below START III levels unless China is willing to become more transparent about its nuclear status and freeze its arsenal. But if this is the case, it would be in the best interests of the United States and Russia to consider shrinking their arsenals to a level anywhere between a few hundred to one thousand.

As a matter of principle, if adequate verification and enforcement against nuclear breakout were possible, a zero nuclear option could be obtainable. But, as Saddam Hussein has proven, maintaining international consensus and enforcing UN resolutions--even after winning a war--is easier said than done.

Robert A. Manning is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. These views are his own. This editorial is adapted from an article appearing in the Winter 1997 issue of FOREIGN POLICY