Just nine months after taking office, the Obama administration has already earned a failing grade on matters of nuclear policy. In the span of a single week in September, the Obama administration abandoned long-standing plans to deploy a third missile defense site in Europe and moved to cut drastically the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal to dangerously low levels. The Guardian reported in late September that President Obama has “rejected” the Pentagon’s initial draft of the 2009 Nuclear Posture Review, the congressionally-mandated review of the nation’s nuclear strategy. Radical cuts in America’s nuclear arsenal will have serious ramifications for U.S. national security. Such cuts will reduce the credibility of American power, weaken our bargaining position, and give friends and allies new incentives to develop their own nuclear deterrents while emboldening our adversaries. U.S. adversaries are clearly paying attention: just days after it was reported that Mr. Obama rejected the first draft of the review, Iran shocked the international community when it announced that it has a second uranium enrichment plant under construction.
America’s nuclear weapons complex—its warheads, missiles, and personnel—is aging. The systems that currently comprise Washington’s nuclear strike portfolio were all deployed last century, most of them during the Cold War. The Minuteman III ICBM, the land-based leg of the U.S. nuclear strike portfolio, was first deployed in 1970 during the Nixon administration. The Trident II D-5 SLBM, the sea-based leg of the strike portfolio, was first deployed in 1990 during the Bush administration. The Ohio Class SSBN which carries the Trident II missiles was first deployed in 1981 during the Reagan administration. The B-52H bomber was first deployed in 1961 during the Kennedy administration. The most recent system, the B-2 bomber, was deployed in 1997 during the Clinton administration. What is more, the United States has not produced a new nuclear weapon in the two decades since production of the W-88 warhead ceased in 1989.
According to the The Guardian, Mr. Obama wants the military to cut the number of deployed strategic warheads from roughly two-thousand down to several hundred. But Mr. Obama’s plans neglect the issue of modernization and the impact our aging stockpile will have on U.S. national security. Cuts in the nuclear stockpile may indeed be possible but only if a new generation of warheads and delivery systems are developed. Older systems and warheads should be retired and replaced by newer, modernized systems. The United States can reduce the numbers of its warheads and delivery systems while simultaneously modernizing its forces.
The White House also wants the Pentagon to examine how Washington can guarantee the reliability of its nuclear stockpile without testing or producing new warheads. Mr. Obama’s desire to continue to verify the reliability of the stockpile through technical extrapolations has its flaws. The only way to be certain a weapon is reliable is to test it. Moreover, the knowledge required to conduct nuclear tests is also eroding and must be preserved should the need for a resumption of nuclear testing arise. Many of the Baby Boomers who built these weapons during the Cold War are retiring and the transfer of knowledge to younger generations simply is not happening. Mr. Obama’s plan only exacerbates the “brain drain” problem that is already occurring.
Mr. Obama also wants the military to rewrite U.S. nuclear doctrine to obfuscate Washington’s nuclear targeting policy. But the military should not muddy its nuclear targeting policy. A clear targeting policy strengthens America’s deterrent posture and sends an important message to the international community: those countries who choose to cross pre-stated redlines do so at their own peril.
U.S. nuclear strategy should not be crafted in a vacuum. Washington cannot ignore the fact that its nuclear competitors—namely Moscow and Beijing—are modernizing their strategic nuclear forces—not to mention rogues states such as Iran which is aggressively pursuing a nuclear weapons capability. Unilaterally reducing our stockpile is bad policy. Mr. Obama’s goal to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world is laudable but such goals are overly idealistic and become dangerous when acted upon. What Mr. Obama is proposing is a further gutting of the nuclear weapons complex just as countries like North Korea and Iran are ramping up production. This policy is tantamount to a duel where one of the combatants throws down his weapon because he doesn’t like guns—relying upon hope that the other combatant shares his disdain for firearms. Hope is a bad policy when it comes to nuclear strategy.