CIAO DATE: 08/04

Report on Working Group I: The Nuclear Future

Steven E. Miller, Francesco Calogero and Uzi Rubin

Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs

March 12-16, 2002

Missile Defenses

Working Group I first addressed the issue of missile defenses, but not in the usual context of American policy. It focused instead on the case of Israel. Unlike the United States, Israel has already deployed missile defenses. The first large question to be considered was why Israel would decide that missile defenses were a desirable or necessary for its security. A significant part of the answer was related to the perceived imperfection of the existing Missile Technology Control Regime and to a related perception that efforts to strengthen the regime are unlikely to be fruitful. Israel supports the MTCR and abides by its rules, but it cannot afford to ignore the reality of missile proliferation to hostile powers in its region. In the Israeli view, the MTCR is useful but insufficient. Ultimately, it will not be adequate to protect Israel from regional missile threats.

Alongside this negative verdict about the MTCR were a series of positive Israeli judgements about the prospects for missile defense. Israel concluded that missile defenses were feasible, that they would provide meaningful effectiveness against the relatively primitive missile threats it faces, and that defenses would be expensive but affordable (especially if one takes into account the value of protected assets that might otherwise be destroyed in a missile attack). Israel further judged that missile defenses would not have a serious adverse effect on stability in the region because the threatening states were pursuing missile capabilities quite apart from any specific Israeli policies or deployments; it is missile proliferation, not the Israeli response to missile proliferation, that is the destabilizing factor in the region. Finally, the Israeli government generally holds the view that is has a moral obligation to protect its citizens to the extent possible, providing an ethical underpinning to its policy.

These are, it was emphasized, not a general set of arguments readily applicable to other countries and other regional settings. Rather, this is a set of particular judgements about the specific realities of the Israeli security environment. But in Israel they were found sufficiently compelling that it has deployed a small, indigenously developed missile defense system.

Those not wholly persuaded by the Israeli case, or not persuaded at all, provoked debate on a number of questions:

• Won't Israel's missile defense program provoke an offense-defense arms race in the region? Traditional arms control theory has warned of offensive-defense races that, in the context of the Middle East, could fuel further missile proliferation, destabilize the military environment, and ultimately undermine Israeli security. The Israeli dismissal of this risk was directly challenged in discussion. To this, the counterargument was that missile proliferators in the Middle East are already doing all that they can to acquire missile capabilities which means that Israel's defenses will not provoke an acceleration on the offensive side.
• Won't countermeasures degrade the effectiveness of Israel's missile defenses? This is a major consideration in the American debate; many worry that relatively inexpensive decoys can undermine very expensive defenses. In response, it was suggested that Israel's missile defense system was designed against a large number of relatively primitive, already deployed missles. These presently possess no countermeasures and it will be neither cheap nor easy to retrofit them.
• Won't Israel's missile defenses have an adverse impact on the regional security environment? This was raised in particular in connection with Iran and Egypt. It was suggested that diplomacy and trust-building might be a better route to improved security in the region than further weapons deployments. To this, the reply was that Israel would welcome improved relations in the region but didn't see its missile defenses as a significant or primary impediment to such an evolution.
• Wouldn't it be better to strengthen the missile restraint regime (including but not limited to the MTCR) than to deploy defenses? There was much discussion of the difficulties of improving the regime. A major dilemma is that important suppliers of missile technology lay outside the regime and do not respect its guidelines. Even some within the regime may not conform perfectly to the guideline. Another dilemma to receive considerable attention is the dual-use problem. Missiles have civilian and commercial use as space launchers, which provides a legitimate ground for the spread of missiles. These difficulties notwithstanding, Working Group 1 spent considerable time discussing various approaches to strengthening restraints on missile proliferation. Transparency is at the heart of many such approaches, including the UN General Assembly's investigation of a code of conduct for missile users and Russia's proposed Global Control Sytem. The possible utility of nuclear weapon free zones (NWFZ) in helping to contain the missile threat was also considered.

It was noted that other countries - Japan is a notable example - will confront the issue of whether to pursue homeland missile defenses. Hence, Israel will not be unique in having to wrestle with these questions.

Nuclear Stability

In its next session, Working Group I turned to the question of nuclear stability. This was considered first in connection with nuclear developments in South Asia, and in particular in connection with India's nuclear doctrine and policies. It was emphasized that India's views and interests can only be understood in the context of the global nuclear scene. India is affected or influenced, for example, by America's ongoing revalidation of the nuclear paradigm or by its withdrawal from the ABM Treaty. In addition, of course, India's nuclear policy is heavily shaped by the regional geostrategic circumstances in which it finds itself. The interactions with and effects of India's two nuclear neighbors, China and Pakistan, were extensively considered. There was particular emphasis on the centrality of China to India's thinking both about its security in general and its nuclear weapons policy.

India's nuclear doctrine, it was suggested, should be conducive to stability. It seeks only a credible minimum deterrent, probably based on no more than a few dozen weapons. It is firmly committed to a No-First-Use doctrine, not least because its substantial conventional capabilities deprive it of any need to use nuclear weapons first. These two doctrinal choices mandate that India have survivable forces, which explains why it has embraced the long-term aim of deploying a nuclear triad of forces. India aspires, in short, to possess a credible and survivable retaliatory force - the epitome of a stabilizing capability.

However, stability derives not from the choices of one side, but from the interaction of the choices of two or more sides. When this is taken into account, the picture is far less reassuring. Pakistan regards its nuclear capability as a necessary counterweight to India's conventional superiority and, like NATO before it in similar circumstances, insists that it must reserve the right to use nuclear weapons first if necessary. The reliability of the custodial arrangements for Pakistan's nuclear weapons is not publicly known, those weapons are in the hands of a military government in an unstable country, and the military itself is riven with division. Whatever India's posture, it is not possible to confident of nuclear stability in South Asia when such is the case.

These realities provide a distressing backdrop to the present confrontation between India and Pakistan. Forces are forward in what was described as an "eyeball to eyeball" posture. Tensions are high, death tolls are mounting, India finds intolerable the recurrent terrorist attacks against it, while Pakistan seems unwilling to accept a quiet status quo. Under these circumstances, grave concerns were expressed about the escalatory risks that attend this confrontation. The reassuring point was offered that both sides are acutely mindful of the need to avoid escalation. But this reassurance fails in the face of scenarios involving the decay of Pakistan's decisionmaking capacity or a split in the Pakistani Army. The possibility of nuclear use in South Asia, most seemed to agree, cannot be entirely dismissed.

In this session, Working Group I also considered the implications of recent developments in US nuclear policy. Much disappointment was expressed about the Bush Administration's decision to withdraw from the ABM Treaty (and much puzzlement was in evidence over the tame response of most of the international community). But the primary preoccupation of this phase of the discussion was the content of the recent US Nuclear Posture Review. The reported contents of this document provoked alarm and, in some instances, outrage. Multiple voices within the group urged quite insistently that Pugwash must respond or speak out in some way against this development.

Several features of the NPR attracted criticism:

• Most broadly, the NPR re-enshrines nuclear weapons as a permanent centerpiece of US security policy. ("Nuclear weapons play a critical role in the defense capabilities of the United States. . .They provide credible military options to deter a wide range of threats, including WMD and large-scale conventional military force. These nuclear capabilities possess unique properties that give the United States options to hold at risk classes of targets that are important to achieve strategic and political objectives.")
• The NPR calls for more flexible nuclear forces and attack options. It is reported that this includes the development of small tactical nuclear weapons intended to increase utility and usability against a wider range of targets. This could imply a resumption of nuclear testing and hence a grievous setback for the CTBT.
• The NPR calls for a reinvigoration of US "nuclear infrastructure", by which it means the "repair of the atrophy" experienced by the US nuclear weapons complex during the last decade. This is consistent with the thought that new weapons may be designed and new tests conducted.
• The NPR proposes the integration of nuclear and conventional strike options in a manner which seems to erode the threshold between nuclear and conventional weapons.
• The NPR specifically enumerates states that are potential targets of US nuclear weapons. Among them are non-nuclear weapons-states that cannot be threatened or attacked except in contravention of US obligations under the NPT.

It was pointed out that the NPR also accepts and facilitates deeper reductions in US strategic forces. (Indeed, it spells out a precise US strategic force structure for the year 2012 that would have no more than 2200 deployed warheads, and perhaps as few as 1700.) It incorporates elements of dealerting into the US force. And it produces a posture that permits the perpetuation of a condition of strategic stability. So there are some positive elements evident in the document. But the accent in Working Group I was on the negative and some in the group reacted with palpable dismay.

Tactical Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Terrorism

In its third session, Working Group I began with the question of tactical nuclear weapons. It was pointed out that this category of weapons has never been the subject of negotiated restraints, though over the years many thousands, or even tens of thousands, of such weapons existed. There is simply no way of getting a comprehensive grip on nuclear weapons inventories and moving toward deeper reductions in overall holdings without addressing tactical nuclear weapons. Moreover, some suggested that this is a particularly dangerous category because tactical nuclear weapons are weapons of first use - that is, they are typically intended for battlefield use and represent the first escalatory step. Further, it was also argued that very small tactical nuclear weapons - so-called mini-nukes with yields under five kilotons - erode the nuclear threshold by creating nuclear options that seem more usable.

There was very wide agreement within Working Group I that tactical nuclear weapons represent an important and urgent problem deserving of high priority on the Pugwash agenda.

As a starting point, it was suggested that the 1991 Bush-Gorbachev reciprocal unilateral initiative should be codified as an agreement. That initiative was a bold step that produced substantial reductions in the number of deployed tactical nuclear weapons on both sides. However, in the absence of codification, it is neither irreversible nor verifiable. As a desirable end point, it was suggested that some sort of comprehensive warhead regulation scheme should be explored. This will depend very largely on advances in transparency. These do not presently seem to be in the offing, but there ought to be more room now than during the Cold War for extensive, intrusive cooperative inspection. This is the key to dramatic future progress in controlling warheads.

The preferred fate of warheads removed from service is dismantlement - and much dismantlement has taken place over the past decade (all of it unverified). Concern about the appropriate safe and secure disposition of the nuclear materials removed from dismantled warheads led directly into a discussion of nuclear terrrorism. The group had an animated conversation about the challenge of reasonably assessing the threat. On the one hand, exaggeration is undesirable. It can produce unrealistic scares, provoke poor policies, and displace more deserving priorities. Some in the group believed that the threat has been overstated: it is not easy to build nuclear weapons and there is no evidence that large quantities of fissile material have gone missing from any known facility in Russia or elsewhere. On the other hand, complacency could be dangerous, producing neglect of a real threat and subverting the case for effective policy responses. Some in the group believed that the nuclear terrorist threat has been underestimated, judging by the inadequacy of the policy response. If nuclear terrorism is a serious threat, then urgent action is required to deny terrorists access to any weapons, materials or expertise that would enable them to gain a nuclear weapons capacity.

It was agreed that terrorists will not be able to muster an elaborate nuclear program or to build a sophisticated nuclear weapon. It was also agreed that scenarios involving plutonium weapons are unlikely because of the complex designs required. There is, however, one scenario that is very disturbing: that terrorists could build a primitive nuclear device based on very simple designs utilizing highly enriched uranium. This is an all too plausible scenario. It is not hard to imagine a story line that starts in the huge and poorly guarded inventories of HEU in Russia and ends with a nuclear detonation in some American or European city. Obviously, the consequences of such an attack would be catastrophic. Accordingly this threat deserves high priority even if the odds of such an event are not high. And from this it follows that every exertion ought to be taken to safeguard inventories of HEU around the world, and particularly in Russia.

Nuclear Reductions and the State of Arms Control

In its final session, Working Group I considered the current terrain of arms control, seeking to identify the promising and the disturbing developments. Unfortunately, the hopeful signs were largely overshadowed (and some argued, nullified) by the discouraging arms control facts of recent years.

In this discussion, two considerations were on the positive side of the ledger. First, further Russian and American nuclear reductions are now in view. In other contexts, this could be a very significant move, but today it does not elicit much excitement. Second, some see promise, especially over the long term, in the instrument of nuclear weapons free zones. Across a several decade sweep of history, these have been surprisingly successful and large fractions of the globe are now covered by NWFZ agreements. Not everyone was equally enthusiastic about this approach, but there was much discussion of the value and limits of NWFZ and of the impediments to their achievement and effectiveness. This issue was examined specifically in the context of the Middle East. There, it was noted, all the relevant governments and even some relevant international organizations are committed to a NWFZ in the region. On the other hand, differences among the states as to timing and sequence thwart efforts to make tangible progress. And indeed, because Israel's nuclear weapons are deeply linked to its fundamental security concerns, the NWFZ in the Middle East is unavoidably tangled up in the messy and now broken peace process. But even here, at least one note of optimism was voiced: taking the long view, it was argued, most NWFZ took decades to come to fruition.

On the other side of the ledger is a distressingly long list of problems, disappointments, setbacks, and reverses. Some despaired of the trends in US-Russian arms control. The move away from negotiated agreements and toward unilateral steps will result in reduced transparency and greater reversibility. US policy on NMD, and its unilateral withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, were viewed by some as particularly damaging; as one participant vividly put it, "NMD drives a bus through arms control." There is agitation over trends in US nuclear doctrine (as noted above). There are growing worries about the potential weaponization of space. And in general there is unease at the insensate unilateralism of the United States and the heedless manner in which it damages or discards agreements and regimes of great import and meaning to others.

Nor is the picture any brighter in the domaine of multilateral arms control. On the contrary, a recurrent theme of discussion in Working Group I was the possible collapse of the multilateral arms control system. For now, the CTBT appears to be dead. The Fissile Material Cutoff agreement was never born. Even the NPT, so widely accepted and valued, has been damaged, it is believed, by a number of developments, whether US violation of its obligations or the failure to satifactorily resolve cases of cheating in Iraq and North Korea. Some participants were even critical of Washington's re-embrace of Pakistan, on the grounds that it sent a signal that nuclear weapons, once acquired, will become acceptable and buy a discernible measure of respect.

Alongside these substantive reverses, discouragement was repeatedly expressed about the near-disappearance of the anti-nuclear movement and at the absence of and informed and concerned public. Without some meaningful political mobilization in support of the cause of negotiated restraint, it was argued, it will not be possible to reverse these trends. Several participants singled this out as a particular challenge to Pugwash.

Many of the dark clouds in this picture are directly or indirectly traceable to the policies and behavior of the United States, and more immediately to the attitudes and approaches of the Bush Administration. Consequently, Working Group I spent considerable time discussing the Administration's substantive philosophies and its political strategies. The Bush Administration, it was argued, has a very clear vision of the future of arms control (and, it was further suggested, of the world order it prefers). It has seized the agenda, is advancing its causes, and so far has met largely with successes which confirm it in its determination. Its has effectively made the case - at least domestically if not more widely - that its vision is appropriate and relevant to the new strategic and political realities of the post-Cold War world. It sees a future in which arms control is neither necessary nor desirable.

Many in Working Group I offered the exhortation that the other side in this debate needs to rethink its own views and premises and to find ways of adapting to these new realities. Here, it was said, is a fundamental challenge for Pugwash: to rethink the role of arms control in the new era and to find some persuasive way to engage in a fight that is presently being won at each step by the Bush Administration. At stake is much of the arms control edifice that has been the work and purpose of Pugwash.