NEW ARMS DEAL

America’s nuclear posture

Logic v politics

Apr 8th 2010
From The Economist print edition

Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev sign a new strategic arms-reduction treaty in Prague

HE HAD stopped over briefly in Prague for a handshake with Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, on a new strategic arms-reduction treaty—and a new start also, it is hoped, in relations with America’s still prickly cold-war rival. And then Barack Obama was due back in Washington to play host to more than 40 heads of government for his own nuclear-security summit on April 12th and 13th. Mr Obama wants pledges from them to secure nuclear materials around the world and to crack down harder on illicit traffickers, ahead of next month’s five-yearly review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the world’s main bulwark against proliferation and nuclear terrorism.

Yet when it comes to recasting America’s own nuclear-weapons policy to deal more efficiently with the same threats, Mr Obama may have a battle ahead. In many ways, this week’s delayed nuclear posture review simply brings America’s official nuclear thinking into line with long-standing practice, including that of his more warlike predecessor, George Bush. With the demise of the old Soviet threat, nuclear weapons play a diminishing role in America’s defences. Like Mr Bush, Mr Obama plans instead to rely more on America’s array of powerful conventional weapons to deter future adversaries in a crisis.

But Mr Obama has followed this logic several steps further. He did not, as some inside and outside his administration wanted, declare that America would never be the first to use its nuclear weapons. That would have unsettled allies in exposed places who still rely for their safety on America’s nuclear umbrella.

Instead the review repeats a past pledge that America will not use nuclear weapons against states that do not have them and are in compliance, Mr Obama says, with their commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That leaves Iran, Syria and others suspected of illicit nuclear dabbling still theoretically on the potential target list. Yet Mr Obama has also ruled out, as Mr Bush never did, nuclear retaliation against chemical, biological or cyber attacks by the nuclear have-nots—unless, that is, America’s fundamental security or that of its allies is at risk.

He agrees with Mr Bush that America can make deep cuts in the weapons stocks it keeps in reserve to hedge against technical failure or a surprise new threat. Mr Bush would have done this while building fewer, but more modern, replacement nuclear warheads. Mr Obama prefers instead to refurbish some existing ones. He also plans to upgrade further America’s nuclear-weapons labs and other facilities. The vice-president, Joseph Biden, has called the labs “national treasures”. Mr Obama’s budget includes $624m beyond the sum Congress earmarked last year for such work, with more to come over five years.

But already there are grumbles. The extra cash has not stopped the labs’ directors asking for more. Mr Obama needs their support. For he intends to do something Mr Bush refused to do: to work to win Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), which was rejected on a partisan vote in 1999.

The leader of the attack last time was Arizona’s Jon Kyl, still a Republican senator. Mr Kyl insists, as he did then, that a CTBT is unverifiable—and, by banning future testing, puts America’s nuclear safety and security at risk. In fact, America has not felt any need to test its bombs since 1992. Advances in high-speed computing and other technologies allow today’s labs to solve problems that actual weapons tests never could. Meanwhile, the treaty’s global monitoring system is now a reality. Unlike other enemies, however, Mr Kyl is undeterred.