Brookings: Experts - Steven Pifer

Ukraine at a Crossroads with Europe?

Steven Pifer — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 11:43:00 -0400

The Kyiv Security Forum, held in the Ukrainian capital on April 18-19, brought together Ukrainians, Europeans and Americans to discuss the current challenges facing Ukraine. Much of the discussion centered on Ukraine’s relationship with the European Union, in particular on whether Kyiv will make sufficient progress in meeting EU conditions to permit signature in November of an EU-Ukraine association agreement.

Several speakers asserted that Ukraine is at a crossroads with Europe. “Ukraine is at a crossroads” has been written or said so many times over the past 20 years that it has become something of a cliché. This time, however, it may be for real. The choices that Kyiv makes in the next weeks and months will determine whether Ukraine moves closer to Europe or whether the EU-Ukraine relationship gets stuck on hold.

EU and Ukrainian negotiators concluded the association agreement at the end of 2011. It would significantly deepen Ukraine’s links with the European Union. Among other things, it includes a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement that would open up large segments of the EU’s economy to Ukrainian exports. It is a big deal.

Although the association agreement was initialed in early 2012, it has since sat in limbo. The European Union has declined to sign given growing concerns over the past two years about negative developments regarding democracy within Ukraine.

EU officials have asked Kyiv to make progress on three conditions—implementation of its general reform agenda, reform of its electoral law, and an end to selective prosecution—in order to permit signature of the agreement at the EU Eastern Partnership summit in November. These conditions were reaffirmed at an EU-Ukraine summit in February, which called for “concrete progress” by May.

Many regard the third condition as the most critical. More than a dozen senior members of the opposition have been sent to jail since President Victor Yanukovych took office in 2010. Most attention focuses on the case of former prime minister Yuliya Tymoshenko. She was convicted in 2011 for signing a gas contract with Russia in a trial that received broad criticism in the West. The near unanimous view in European capitals and Washington holds that Tymoshenko is a victim of selective prosecution. On the day her conviction was announced, even Moscow joined in the barrage of condemnation of the verdict.

In the seven weeks since the EU-Ukraine summit, there has been good news and bad news. The good news: Yanukovych pardoned Yuriy Lutsenko, a leading opposition leader, along with one other opposition member.

The bad news: Serhiy Vlasenko, Tymoshenko’s lawyer, was stripped of his membership in the Rada (Ukraine’s parliament) on grounds that he could not hold his Rada seat and continue his legal work. Critics cite this as another selective application of the rules, as many Rada members, including in the pro-government Regions Party, hold outside jobs that would appear to contravene the rule. And more bad news: the Prosecutor General is pursing another case against Tymoshenko, alleging her involvement in the 1996 murder of businessman Yevhen Shcherban. Given the many questions about how the 2011 trial was conducted, few analysts have confidence that this legal process will be objective.

At the Kyiv Security Forum, several speakers made clear the key importance that Europe attaches to what happens to Tymoshenko. Jacek Saryusz-Wolski, Vice President of the European People’s Party—the European Parliamentary party with which Tymoshenko’s party is affiliated—took a stark position: Tymoshenko had to be released, or there would be no signature in November, and Ukraine would miss its window of opportunity with the European Union. EU Ambassador to Ukraine Jan Tombinski cautioned that Kyiv had to understand that the European Union only accepted democratic states that abided by the rule of law. European Parliament member Pawel Robert-Kowal warned that, even if the association agreement were signed, Ukraine had to demonstrate real progress, as the agreement would face the challenge of ratification by 27 individual EU member states.

During and on the margins of the conference, some Ukrainians expressed optimism that the Ukrainian government would take a positive step regarding Tymoshenko. Others doubted that Yanukovych would take any action on his archrival. Some expected the Ukrainian government to try to do the minimum necessary in order to argue that it had met the EU conditions and assert that freeing Lutsenko, but not Tymoshenko, should prove sufficient progress on the condition of selective prosecution.

Right now, EU member states appear to be split. Some, primarily in Central Europe and the Baltic region, do not want to delay signature of the association agreement over Tymoshenko. They fear that Ukraine might otherwise drift into Russia’s orbit.

Other EU member states, apparently now in the majority, believe Kyiv must do more to show its commitment to European democratic values. France and Germany lead this group. The fate of Tymoshenko has become a domestic issue in Germany, and Chancellor Angela Merkel said on April 17 that, “if the Yuliya Tymoshenko case is not settled, the association agreement cannot be signed.” Ukrainian diplomats understand that Berlin presents the toughest case to win over.

Although the European Union and Ukraine have agreed that concrete progress should be made by May, that might not prove a hard deadline for an EU decision on whether or not to sign the association agreement in November. Some in Kyiv believe a final EU decision could wait until later in the year, perhaps as late as October.

The question remains, regardless of when the European Union decides: will Ukraine do enough to secure signature? That may turn on Tymoshenko’s fate—and how badly Yanukovych wants the association agreement.

Neither Brussels nor Kyiv appear to have a Plan B in case the association agreement is not signed. In late March, Tombinski warned that, if the agreement were not signed in November, the press of other EU business in 2014 and the Ukrainian presidential election in 2015 would put Ukraine and the association agreement on the back-burner until late 2015. Another European diplomat recently suggested the delay would last until 2016.

Ukrainians do not want to think about what happens if the association agreement is not signed. But they expect a failure to sign to be warmly welcomed in Moscow, to be followed by a greater Russian push to draw Ukraine into the Customs Union that currently includes Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. Yanukovych thus far has resisted joining the Customs Union. Doing so would be incompatible with a free trade agreement with the European Union and would essentially kill the association agreement—which is almost certainly Moscow’s objective.

So, Ukraine may indeed be facing a critical crossroads. It is one where the key choices are as much about Yanukovych’s domestic policy—how democracy will develop and how the opposition is treated—as they are about foreign policy. If Yanukovych makes the right choices, he will take an important step in integrating Ukraine into Europe. If he makes the wrong choices, he risks miring the country in a gray zone between Europe and Russia and having to face Moscow’s pressure with a severely weakened hand.

Editor's note: Steven Pifer, a senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe and a former ambassador to Ukraine, was in Ukraine April 18-20 to attend the Kyiv Security Forum.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Image Source: © POOL New / Reuters

North Korea and Policy Priorities for the United States

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 10:00:00 -0400

Event Information

April 15, 2013
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

This event was broadcast live on C-SPAN and cspan.org. Click here to watch online.

In the past months, North Korea has issued a series of threats and provocative actions, from testing a nuclear device and conducting a missile launch—in contravention of multiple United Nations resolutions—to cancelling the armistice ending the Korean War and threatening a new war against the United States and South Korea. Harsh rhetoric from North Korea is nothing new, but some observers feel that the recent threats represent real danger. Others claim that they reflect internal dynamics in North Korea and that the crisis will pass.

On April 15, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted a discussion on the policy priorities for the United States in dealing with North Korea during and after the current crisis. Brookings experts debated the threat to the United States and its allies and analyzed steps that the United States can take to mitigate the danger, including sanctions, engaging allies and neighbors in the region, nonproliferation efforts and, if necessary, responding to aggressive actions by North Korea.

Video

North Korea and Nuclear-Armed Missiles: Calming the Hyperbole

Steven Pifer — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

In recent weeks, the North Korean government has ratcheted up its rhetoric to ever loftier heights, even threatening to rain nuclear fire on the United States. That understandably has fueled concerns, but what can the North Korean military reliably do?

On April 11, a member of Congress cited a Defense Intelligence Agency report stating that DIA had “moderate confidence” that North Korea had mastered the ability to put a nuclear warhead on top of a ballistic missile. That triggered new concerns, followed by a rush of qualifications. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released a statement saying “North Korea has not yet demonstrated the full range of capabilities necessary for a nuclear-armed missile.” A spokesperson for South Korea’s Ministry of Defense expressed “doubt that North Korea has reached the stage of miniaturization.”

So what’s going on?

In order to have a nuclear-armed ballistic missile, North Korea must master three challenges: it needs a nuclear weapon; it needs to miniaturize the weapon so that it can fit inside a ballistic missile warhead and withstand the stresses of flight; and it needs a ballistic missile to deliver the warhead. To provide a credible military capability, it must be able to do these things reliably.

As to the first question, North Korea has nuclear devices. It has conducted three underground explosions, although many judged the first two—conducted in 2006 and 2009—to be partial failures, particularly given their low yields. The 2013 test appears to have been more successful.

Jeffrey Lewis at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies notes that North Korea could take one of two approaches to developing a nuclear bomb. One route, which most other nuclear weapons states followed, is to first test a “simple fission device.” That’s big and heavy—no North Korean missile could carry it—and it produces a yield of 15-20 kilotons, much larger than any of the three North Korean tests. Lewis thus inclines to think the North Koreans are developing a miniaturized weapon, which would produce a smaller yield.

This gets to the second question: the need to fit a nuclear weapon inside a ballistic missile warhead that can withstand the stresses of launch, flight and reentry. North Korea may be working on miniaturizing a bomb to fit in a missile warhead. We do not know how successful, or unsuccessful, they have been. We do not know the size of the three devices they tested.

We do know that the North Koreans have not successfully flight-tested a ballistic missile warhead to a range greater than 1300 kilometers. They have tested and deploy Hwasong and Nodong missiles with ranges up to 1300 kilometers, but longer range missiles mean greater stresses on the warhead. For example, an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) warhead reenters the atmosphere at a speed of five-seven kilometers per second or 10,000-15,000 miles per hour. Higher velocity means more heat and requires more weight to protect the “physics package” of the warhead, which has to survive and function in a very stressful environment.

The third question has to do with ballistic missiles. North Korea is estimated to have 550-600 Hwasong-5 and -6 missiles, variants of the venerable Soviet SCUD, which was first flown in the 1950s and exported around the world. The Hwasong missiles have ranges of 300-500 kilometers, giving them the capability to target South Korea. North Korea’s Nodong missile is an enhanced SCUD. Some 200 are estimated to be deployed. With a range of 1000 to 1300 kilometers, they could reach targets in Japan in addition to South Korea.

For ranges beyond the Nodong, there are much more serious questions about the reliability of North Korean ballistic missiles. The Musudan intermediate-range ballistic missile—two of which reportedly now sit on mobile launchers near North Korea’s east coast—is estimated to have a range of 3200 kilometers. However, the Musudan has never been flight-tested. As Greg Thielmann, a ballistic missile expert with the Arms Control Association notes, a missile that has not flown cannot seriously be called operational.

The Taepodong-1, with a range of 2200 kilometers, has flown once, in 1998 as a space-launch vehicle. Its third stage failed. Over the past seven years, the ICBM-class Taepodong-2 is one for five in flights, none of which demonstrated a warhead reentry capability. The one success, last December, was a space-launch variant called the Unha. All three stages worked, though the satellite apparently was left tumbling uselessly in orbit. Finally, there is the KN-08, reputedly an ICBM-class missile, which paraded through the streets of Pyongyang last year. Several theories address it, including that it is a developmental missile or just a fake. It has never flown.

This test history raises serious doubts about North Korea’s long-range missile capabilities. As a 2012 RAND report by Markus Schiller notes, the United States tested its Atlas ICBM 125 times before it became operational, while the Soviet Union tested the R-16 ICBM 90 times before making it operational. In the 1980s, when the United States had much more experience with ballistic missiles, it still conducted 30 developmental flights of the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile.

This is rocket science. Are North Korean engineers so good that they can glean from a handful of flight-tests—or no tests—the information needed to produce a reliable missile, when others conducted dozens of flights? The North Koreans undoubtedly are learning more about missiles (and about reentry vehicles and nuclear weapons), which is of concern. But as General Clapper said, they have not demonstrated the full range of capabilities.

The North Korean leadership bases a big part of its foreign policy on bluster. As an element of this, declaring unproven missiles to be operational makes sense. In such a strategy, it may be less important that the ballistic missiles work reliably—or at all—if one can bluff the outside world into fearing that they do.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Image Source: © KCNA KCNA / Reuters

Big Hurdles Ahead for Arms Control

Steven Pifer — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: This article was originally published by The National Interest.

Four years ago in Prague, President Obama announced his desire to reduce the role and number of nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy and set an ultimate goal of a world free of nuclear arms. He returned to the Czech capital one year later to sign the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). The president has said he wants to do more: cut nuclear weapons further and ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Those are worthwhile goals, but achieving them will require overcoming significant challenges.

The New START Treaty limits the United States and Russia each to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads on 700 deployed strategic missiles and bombers. That is a good step, but do those weapons levels make sense twenty years after the end of the Cold War? New START, moreover, covers only a part of the total nuclear arsenals of the superpowers; non-deployed (reserve) strategic warheads and non-strategic (tactical) weapons remain free of any constraint.

The superpowers each have total stockpiles numbering 4,500–5,000 nuclear weapons, more than fifteen times larger than the next nuclear weapons state. Washington and Moscow could easily reduce their arsenals by half and retain robust deterrents—and they would clearly remain top dogs in the nuclear-arms world.

In his January state of the union message, Mr. Obama stated his intention to “engage Russia to seek further reductions in our nuclear arsenals.” Press reports in early February suggested the administration was nearing a decision on reductions to no more than 1,000–1,100 deployed strategic warheads and a total of 2,500–3,500 total nuclear weapons. The administration could pursue this in different ways.

One option would seek to negotiate a U.S.-Russian treaty covering all nuclear weapons. It might limit each side to 2,500 total weapons, with a sublimit of 1,000 deployed strategic warheads. That would reduce the New START level by 35 percent and, more significantly, for the first time cap reserve strategic and tactical nuclear weapons.

Negotiating such an agreement would get into new territory; for example, the sides would need to develop agreed definitions, counting rules and verification measures to apply to the classes of warheads not previously limited. None of that would be easy and would take considerably longer than the eleven months it took to finish New START.

The Obama administration might conclude that it lacks time to finish such a treaty before the end of his second term. It thus might consider a fast deal to reduce New START’s limits. That could be as simple as just negotiating new numbers, for example, a limit of 1,000 deployed strategic warheads in place of 1,550. New START’s definitions, counting rules and verification measures would apply equally well to the new numerical limits. As for reserve strategic and tactical weapons, Washington could seek to engage Moscow in a process beginning with transparency and confidence-building measures and ultimately leading to a negotiation of legally binding limits. However, getting to that negotiation, and then concluding it, would take far longer than agreeing to change the New START limits.

Pursuing either approach would encounter challenges. The first and most critical: is Moscow prepared to engage? President Putin and the Russians have shown little enthusiasm recently for further nuclear arms cuts. They may choose not to play.

Perhaps not, but it is too early to close that door. The Russian government could have incentives to negotiate. For example, while the U.S. military can easily maintain its forces at New START levels, the Russian military must build new missiles to keep to the levels. Lowering New START’s limits could provide an attractive cost-saving measure for Moscow.

National Security Advisor Donilon travels to Moscow next week, and presidents Obama and Putin plan to meet in June and September. Those encounters provide opportunities to sound out the Russians’ readiness to deal.

Verification will pose a special challenge for limits on reserve and tactical nuclear arms. The U.S. intelligence community has high confidence in its ability to monitor New START’s limits. But monitoring constraints on reserve strategic and tactical weapons—which are not deployed on large strategic ballistic missiles but sit in storage bunkers—will prove a tougher task.

In the end, the intelligence community likely will not have the same degree of confidence in its ability to monitor those limits as it does with New START. That will raise questions, particularly in the Senate, though the risk posed by less certainty in monitoring limits on reserve strategic and tactical weapons should be set against the current situation, in which there are no constraints of any kind on those weapons.

A third challenge waits on Capitol Hill. Senate turnover has meant the loss of considerable muscle memory on nuclear arms-control questions. Senate Republicans, moreover, tend to be skeptical about the value of arms control. And they feel that the Obama administration has not moved as fast on nuclear modernization as it promised during the New START ratification debate. So, any new nuclear-reductions treaty would face a stiff test in a ratification vote.

That has led the administration to weigh options other than a legally binding treaty. One could be to seek a political commitment by the U.S. and Russian presidents to cut deployed strategic warheads to one thousand on no more than five hundred deployed strategic delivery vehicles. The sides could use New START’s verification measures to monitor these politically binding limits as well as the legally binding limits of 1,550 and 700.

The administration also would like to secure ratification of the 1996 CTBT. The Senate did not consent to ratification in 1999, primarily due to concerns about the reliability of the U.S. stockpile absent testing and the ability to detect cheating. Developments over the past ten years in the stockpile-stewardship program and advances in monitoring, such as improved seismic techniques, have largely allayed those two worries.

Bear in mind also how hard Nevada fought against storage of nuclear waste at the nuclear test site. With the population of nearby Las Vegas having tripled since 1992, the year of the last U.S. nuclear test, does anyone believe a resumption of testing would be feasible politically? Moreover, the United States carried out more nuclear tests than the rest of the world combined and learned more from individual tests. Why not freeze this American advantage?

Persuading Senate Republicans of the validity of these points nevertheless cannot be taken for granted. The administration will want to do a careful head count before making a CTBT ratification push, as a second negative vote in the Senate would be devastating for the treaty.

The president has said he wants to do more on cutting nuclear-arms levels and moving the CTBT closer to reality. Those are worthy goals that could cement his nuclear legacy and make America more secure. But major challenges stand before his agenda. President Obama has to engage personally, both with the Russians and the Senate, if he wants to overcome them.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Publication: The National Interest

Image Source: © Jason Reed / Reuters

Negotiating with Iran: How Best to Reach Success

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 10:00:00 -0400

Event Information

April 1, 2013
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM EDT

Falk Auditorium
Brookings Institution
1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20036

Negotiators from the P5 plus 1—Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States plus Germany—will sit down with their Iranian counterparts on April 5-6 for another round of talks regarding Iran’s nuclear program. These talks take place as concern grows in the international community that Tehran is nearing the point where it could acquire nuclear weapons capability, and against the backdrop of increasingly biting sanctions on Iran’s financial sector and broader economy.

On April 1, Foreign Policy at Brookings hosted a discussion to explore what lessons international negotiators should bear in mind when facing the Iranian delegation. Brookings Distinguished Fellow Javier Solana, who led the European Union’s negotiations with Iran in his capacity as EU high representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, and Gary Samore, who as National Security Council coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction had principal responsibility at the White House on the Iranian nuclear question, described their experiences in dealing with Iran’s negotiators and what factors might lead to a successful outcome. Senior Fellow Steven Pifer, director of the Arms Control Initiative at Brookings, moderated the discussion.

Audio

Negotiating with Iran: How Best to Reach Success

Transcript

Uncorrected Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

20130401_negotiating_iran_transcript

Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons, Policy and Arms Control: Issues for the United States, NATO and Russia

Steven Pifer — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: In a recently-released National Resources Defense Council report, From Mutual Assured Destruction to Mutual Assured Stability: Exploring a New Comprehensive Framework for U.S. and Russian Nuclear Arms Reductions, Senior Fellow Steven Pifer contributed a chapter on dealing with nonstrategic nuclear weapons. The chapter describes U.S., NATO and Russian policies regarding such weapons, discusses the issues they raise for arms control, outlines various arms control approaches, and concludes with recommendations for U.S. and Russian action.

Introduction

Nonstrategic nuclear weapons—also referred to as tactical or sub-strategic nuclear weapons—have long been elements of the U.S. and Soviet/Russian arsenals. Thousands of these weapons on both sides were eliminated as a result of the “presidential nuclear initiatives” in 1991 and 1992, and the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty banned the sides’ groundbased ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5500 kilometers. Aside from the INF Treaty’s ban, however, nonstrategic nuclear weapons are not constrained by current U.S.-Russian arms control agreements.

The United States and Russia have different views of the roles of nonstrategic nuclear weapons (NSNW—the term in this paper is used to apply to warheads, not delivery systems, and covers all nuclear warheads except for those for strategic delivery vehicles). The U.S. government and NATO regard U.S. NSNW deployed forward in Europe as having only marginal military utility; their value is seen primarily in political terms, symbolizing the link between the United States and NATO Europe. NATO is currently reviewing its nuclear posture as part of its deterrence and defense posture review.

The precise role of NSNW in Russian military strategy is less clear. The Russian General Staff appears to assign them more of a military role in terms of offsetting what the Russian military regards as conventional force imbalances in comparison with NATO and, though it is rarely mentioned, China. The rationale for the large number is unclear.

Washington has stated that it wishes to include NSNW, along with non-deployed strategic warheads, in the next round of nuclear arms reduction negotiations with Russia. Moscow has said that other issues—such as missile defense, long-range conventional strike and the fate of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty—must be addressed before it would consider further nuclear reductions. Russians officials have also stated that the withdrawal of U.S. NSNW to national territory should be a precondition for any negotiations covering NSNW.

Should the sides agree to put NSNW into an arms control context, there are a range of options that they could pursue. These include confidence-building measures, unilateral steps and negotiated outcomes. They might choose some combination of these options as well.

Read the full report »

Authors

Steven Pifer

Publication: Natural Resources Defense Council

Image Source: © Murad Sezer / Reuters

Will Russia Take "Yes" for an Answer on Missile Defense?

Steven Pifer — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 11:47:00 -0400

When Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced this month that the Pentagon would increase the number of missile interceptors in Alaska, he noted that the U.S. missile defense program in Europe would be restructured. This means cancellation of Phase 4 of the plan, which called for the deployment of upgraded interceptors in Eastern Europe.

The decision could open the way for resolving U.S.-Russian differences over missile defense, one of the thorniest problems on the bilateral agenda, and remove an obstacle to further nuclear arms reductions — if Moscow can say something other than “nyet.”

The initial Russian reaction gave little ground for optimism. But Russian officials often react slowly to new ideas, so we may not yet have the final word.

The Obama administration unveiled its “European Phased Adaptive Approach” in 2009 with the goal of deploying increasingly capable SM-3 missile interceptors in anticipation that Iran would develop missiles with increasingly longer ranges. Moscow initially appeared to welcome the approach.

In November 2010, NATO and Russia agreed to explore a cooperative missile defense for Europe. Talks between U.S. and Russian officials in early 2011 yielded significant convergence on questions such as transparency, joint exercises and jointly manned NATO-Russia centers to share early warning data and plan how NATO and Russia missile defense systems would work together.

The dialogue stalled, however, as Russian officials began to complain more vociferously about Phase 4 of the plan, originally scheduled for 2020, when the SM-3 IIB interceptor would achieve the capability to engage intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Moscow asserted that Iran stood many years, if not decades, from developing an ICBM, and claimed that the United States instead planned to target SM-3 IIBs against Russian ICBMs. U.S. officials countered that SM-3 IIBs in Europe would be ill-placed to engage Russian strategic missiles.

Hagel’s announcement renders that argument moot.

Now if the Russians do not want to move forward on resolving their differences with Washington over missile defense, they have to find other reasons to object. And they may.

A Russian official has expressed opposition to the fact that Phases 2 and 3 of the missile defense plan will go forward in Romania and Poland. SM-3 interceptors in those phases, however, will only be able to engage intermediate-range missiles. That presumably poses no problem for Moscow, as a 1987 treaty bans Russia (and the United States) from having intermediate-range missiles.

Russian recalcitrance may reflect simmering resentment about NATO enlargement, and the prospective deployment of SM-3 missile interceptors in Eastern Europe could add to the unhappiness. But how will small U.S. military detachments with interceptors to defend against missiles that Russia does not have pose a threat to Russia?

Moscow has sought a “legal guarantee” that U.S. missile defenses would not be directed against Russian strategic missiles, even though they know full well that Senate Republicans would block such a treaty. Russian officials assert that the absence of legally binding limits creates uncertainty about the offense-defense relationship.

Moscow is correct that increasing missile defense capabilities could undermine the balance in strategic offensive forces, but that problem will not arise for 15 or 20 years, if then. The United States plans to deploy only 44 interceptors capable of engaging ICBMs in 2017.

Russia could cut its strategic missile force by 50 percent or even 75 percent and still easily overwhelm those interceptors. Until the gap between strategic offense and defense narrows considerably, a U.S. political commitment not to target Russian missiles, coupled with transparency on missile defense plans, should suffice.

Domestic motives may lie behind the Russian position. President Vladimir Putin may see political value in scratchy relations with the United States. Similarly, the Russian Ministry of Defense may hope that keeping alive tensions over missile defense will produce greater resources for military modernization.

If the Russians want to continue the argument over missile defense, they can offer various pretexts. But that should not obscure the main point: their assertion that missile defenses, specifically SM-3 IIB interceptors, will threaten Russian ICBMs and thereby undermine the strategic balance now has no substantive basis.

So is Moscow prepared to engage in a serious way with Washington and NATO to settle the missile defense question and pursue a cooperative approach?

Russian officials have begun to offer a more nuanced reaction to Hagel’s announcement and, on Monday, he and the Russian defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, agreed to resume consultations on missile defense. This is good news.

The question now is whether Moscow can find a way to say yes. Or will it instead seek an excuse to keep the fight going? President Putin, over to you.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Publication: The New York Times

U.S.-Russia Arms Control: Prospects and Challenges

Steven Pifer — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 14:32:00 -0400

Editor's note: Senior Fellow Steven Pifer gave a March 25 seminar at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs on "U.S.-Russia Arms Control: Prospects and Challenges." He outlined the possibilities for future U.S. and Russian nuclear reductions and resolution of differences over missile defense, as well as the challenges that must be overcome in order to take advantage of those possibilities. Listen to the audio, view the slide presentation, and read an excerpt below.

Well Marty, first of all thanks for having this. Let me talk a little bit, I’ll draw some ideas on the opportunity, but talk a little bit about where I think Washington is on some questions such as next steps in nuclear reductions, what to do about missile defense, and a couple of other arms control issues, and then I’ll talk a little bit about some of the challenges that I think this administration faces in achieving what it would like to do.

First, just to start off with where things are now, the New START treaty was signed about three years ago. It’s now in its third year of implementation, having entered in force in February of 2011, and these are the three main limits in the treaty; 1,550 deployed strategic warheads, 700 deployed strategic delivery vehicles, and I think those are the two more meaningful limits. I should note that 1,550 is arms control math, in that 1,550 actually probably equals about 1,800 on the American side, and that’s because that 1,550 limit counts the actual number of warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles, but since neither the American nor the Russian militaries keep weapons on bombers, the negotiators decided to attribute each bomber with one weapon. And the Federation of American Scientists estimate is that there are about 300 cruise missiles and bombs for U.S. strategic nuclear bombers, so in this case 1,550 on the American side is probably more like about 1,800. Now this is certainly, I think, a significant step forward on the START 1 Treaty, which allowed each side 6,000 weapons using slightly different counting rules, but I think there is still a question to be asked whether 20 years after the end of the Cold War, and 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, whether these sorts of numbers are still necessary.

Downloads

Download slide presentation

Authors

Steven Pifer

Publication: Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Image Source: © Sergei Karpukhin / Reuters

The Future of the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal

Steven Pifer — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0400

Editor's note: In an interview with WKAR on the future of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, Steven Pifer, co-author of The Opportunity, discusses prospects for future international arms negotiations as well as the stability of the U.S. and Russian bombs, submarines and planes. Read an excerpt below.

WKAR: Before we get into the details, can you give us a sense of the scale we’re talking about here? I’m sure the exact number is a guarded secret but about how many nuclear warheads does the U.S. maintain?

Steve Pifer: Well actually it’s not a secret. In 2010 the United States released a number and said that as of September 2009 the total American stockpile was 5,113 weapons.

WKAR: Okay

Pifer: Which is a huge decrease from the Cold War, at the height of the Cold War there were 25,000- 30,000 weapons. But you still have to ask the question; does that number make sense twenty years after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union?

WKAR: What about the dollar cost of maintaining that arsenal?

Pifer: The dollar cost in terms of maintaining them, on a day to day status, is estimated at say thirty to forty billion dollars a year. So it’s a part of the defense budget…

WKAR: Wow

Pifer: But where the costs get really big is if you look, say five or seven years down the road, where the Navy’s going to have to start building a new ballistic missile submarine to replace the Ohio class submarines which have to be retired in about 15 years and then you’re talking about an estimate of $6 to $7 billion dollars, per boat, not counting the missiles or torpedoes.

Listen to the audio »

Authors

Steven Pifer

Publication: WKAR

Image Source: © Shamil Zhumatov / Reuters

SORT vs. New START: Why the Administration is Leery of a Treaty

Steven Pifer — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 10:49:00 -0400

Yesterday’s blog—“Presidents, Nuclear Reductions and the Senate”—described how presidents over the past 40 years have sought to limit or reduce nuclear weapons by means other than a treaty requiring two-thirds majority approval in the Senate. Why would the Obama administration consider something other than a treaty? Because it fears that Republicans in the Senate would not consider a treaty on its merits. A comparison of the ratification experiences of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) signed by President George W. Bush in 2002 and the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) signed by Mr. Obama in 2010 provides Exhibit A for those fears.

SORT limited the United States and Russia each to no more than 1,700-2,200 “strategic nuclear warheads,” the level of nuclear weapons that the Bush administration’s 2001 nuclear posture review concluded was necessary for the United States—regardless of what levels of nuclear arms other countries had. Mr. Bush originally proposed that he and President Vladimir Putin merely make statements of national policy setting out their intended strategic force levels, but he later agreed to do a treaty at Mr. Putin’s insistence.

SORT was not much of a treaty. While START I and New START each made a good-sized book, SORT barely filled two pages. Curiously, it did not define a “strategic nuclear warhead” … or any other term for that matter. Lacking any monitoring provisions, SORT was unverifiable.

It appears, moreover, that Washington and Moscow did not even count the same weapons. The Bush administration defined “strategic nuclear warheads” as the same as “operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads”—that is, nuclear warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) plus nuclear bombs and air-launched cruise missiles stored at air bases for B-2 and B-52 bombers (as a normal practice, neither side’s air force keeps weapons on bombers). The Russians, however, apparently tallied only warheads on ICBMs and SLBMs. They did not count bombs or air-launched cruise missiles at air bases for their bombers; those weapons were not on the aircraft and thus not “deployed.”

On March 6, 2003, 48 Republican senators voted to consent to ratify SORT, which won approval by a tally of 95-0.

Given how SORT sailed through the Senate, the Obama administration in 2010 expected the New START Treaty to receive easy approval as well. After all, the treaties imposed similar limits on deployed strategic warheads. New START specified a limit of 1,550, but it treated each bomber as only one deployed warhead (bombers can carry more). The United States and Russia each likely have 200-300 additional weapons to put on their bombers, so New START’s 1,550 limit amounts to about 1,800 or so total weapons, equivalent to SORT’s 1,700-2,200. In contrast to SORT, the sides use agreed counting rules under New START, so they count the same things. Moreover, New START has substantial monitoring provisions and is verifiable.

What happened to New START in the Senate? It faced a tortuous ratification debate: myriad claims of alleged flaws and weaknesses, 1,000 questions for the record, and several efforts to delay a vote. On December 22, 2010, the Senate finally approved New START by a count of 71-26. Seventy-one votes meant four more than needed, but it was a far cry from the 95 votes that approved SORT.

The 26 senators who voted against New START in 2010 were all Republicans. Sixteen of them held seats in the Senate in 2003; 15 voted to approve SORT while one abstained. Moreover, three other Republican senators who voted to approve SORT chose to abstain on New START.

So 18 Republican senators who voted “yea” on SORT in 2003 just seven years later found New START—a verifiable treaty with agreed counting rules and a warhead limit comparable to SORT—an unacceptable risk to U.S. national security. One can be forgiven for thinking that factors other than New START’s merits and the national interest figured in their votes. Indeed, one senator attributed his “nay” vote against New START to unhappiness with the Obama administration’s decision to do away with the military’s “don’t ask/don’t tell” policy.

It thus should come as little surprise that the Obama administration thinks about arrangements other than a treaty. And the administration need only look back to its predecessor for a ready model: the Bush administration’s original proposal in 2001 that Mr. Bush and Mr. Putin simply make parallel statements of the number of strategic warheads that each country would deploy.

Say that Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin now agree that they could reduce the number of each country’s deployed strategic warheads from New START’s limit of 1,550 to 1,000 (still well more than enough to devastate the other). The two presidents could announce, perhaps in a joint statement, that each had decided as a matter of national policy to limit his country’s strategic forces to no more than 1,000 deployed strategic warheads.

The 1,000 limit would be politically binding, while the 1,550 limit would remain a legally binding constraint. U.S. and Russian officials could use the detailed monitoring provisions of New START to verify compliance with both limits.

This would be a relatively fast and simple way to achieve further nuclear reductions—not requiring a new treaty, not requiring a treaty amendment, and not requiring a vote in the Senate.

To be clear, the preferable way for such an arms control agreement would be a legally binding treaty, ideally one that limited all U.S. and Russia nuclear weapons, not just deployed strategic warheads. But a treaty is not the only option the Obama administration has. Nor, given attitudes of some in the Republican Senate ranks, is it the only option the administration should consider.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Presidents, Nuclear Reductions and the Senate

Steven Pifer — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 12:32:00 -0400

President Barack Obama desires to further reduce nuclear arsenals below the levels set in the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). Republicans on Capitol Hill and former officials of the George W. Bush administration assert that he can reduce U.S. nuclear forces only as the result of another treaty, requiring approval by a two-thirds majority in the Senate. In fact, over the past 40 years, there is plenty of precedent—set by Republican presidents—to the contrary.

Why this matters has to do with how Mr. Obama might codify a new arms reductions arrangement with Russia. If Moscow is prepared to engage, still an open question, the Obama administration appears to want options in addition to a treaty. Why? Fear that Senate Republicans would set an impossibly high bar for any new Obama treaty, a worry fueled by the unexpectedly partisan and bitter ratification fight over New START.

For more than 40 years, U.S. presidents reduced nuclear weapons and recorded limits—or sought to do so—in ways that did not require Senate consent to ratification, starting with Richard Nixon. Mr. Nixon in May 1972 signed the interim offensive arms agreement on strategic weapons. It froze the numbers of launchers of U.S. and Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) at levels giving the Soviets significantly larger numbers. Mr. Nixon chose to submit this as an agreement requiring a simple majority vote by both houses of Congress rather than as a treaty requiring two-thirds majority approval in the Senate.

Some 20 years later, President George H. W. Bush made deep unilateral cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. In September 1991, he announced what became known as the “presidential nuclear initiatives.” These included the elimination of all U.S. nuclear artillery shells and warheads for short-range ballistic missiles, as well as the removal of all tactical nuclear weapons from U.S. Navy warships, many of which would be destroyed. Mr. Bush said that he had consulted with his senior advisors and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He made no mention of the Senate or Congress—and appears not to have consulted with them before announcing a second set of nuclear initiatives in January 1992.

As a result of the presidential nuclear initiatives, the United States unilaterally eliminated thousands of tactical nuclear weapons from its arsenal. According to Department of Defense figures, the overall U.S. nuclear stockpile fell from more than 23,000 weapons to less than 13,000 during the Bush presidency. Only some of those reductions resulted from treaties approved by the Senate.

Ten years later, in November 2001, President George W. Bush announced that, as a result of his administration’s nuclear posture review, the U.S. military would maintain 1,700-2,200 “operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads.” When President Vladimir Putin asked for a new arms control treaty with limits below the levels of the 1991 START I Treaty (it allowed each side 6,000 warheads), the Bush administration came up with a novel approach: Mr. Bush would state publicly that the United States would maintain no more than 1,700-2,200 operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads, and Mr. Putin would state that Russia would maintain X. It would be up to Moscow to fill in the X at whatever level the Russians chose; the Bush White House did not care. These would be parallel statements of national policy, not a treaty subject to approval by the Senate.

This approach held little appeal for the Russians. In the end, Mr. Bush, grateful for Russian support in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, agreed to Mr. Putin’s direct plea for a treaty. They signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) in May 2002, a two-page agreement that limited the United States and Russia each to no more than 1,700-2,200 “strategic nuclear warheads,” though it failed to define “strategic nuclear warhead” or anything else and had no monitoring provisions. The treaty was unverifiable.

There are good reasons to consider codifying further nuclear reductions in a treaty, particularly a treaty with agreed definitions and verification provisions. But Mr. Obama has other options, as his Republican predecessors have demonstrated. Tomorrow’s blog—“SORT vs New START: Why the Administration is Leery of a Treaty”—will address why the administration might choose an option other than a legally binding treaty.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Brookings Launches the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence (21CSI)

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:40:00 -0400

Washington, D.C. — The Brookings Institution announced today the establishment of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence (21CSI). The new center will be unique in addressing defense, cybersecurity, arms control and intelligence challenges in a comprehensive manner, seeking not just to explore key emerging security issues, but also how they cross traditional fields and domains.

“With the launch of the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, Brookings will be at the forefront of research and public debate on the critical security issues of our time,” said Strobe Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution. "21CSI will bring together the extraordinary array of scholars already working on defense and security issues at Brookings, along with adding new experts in fields that range from cyber to intelligence policy."

The Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence will be housed in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings and Peter W. Singer will serve as its founding director. One of the world’s leading experts on modern warfare and author of the New York Times bestseller, Wired for War (Penguin, 2009), Singer has founded and managed two previous projects at Brookings, the Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World and the 21st Century Defense Initiative.

The center will encompass four key focal points of policy research on security and defense issues:

A Defense Policy team will be led by Michael O'Hanlon, one of the most influential and widely published defense scholars in the world, who also serves as director of research in the Foreign Policy program. He will be joined by other resident and nonresident scholars including Senior Fellow Vanda Felbab-Brown, a leading expert on counterinsurgency and illicit networks, and Senior Fellow Stephen Cohen, a pre-eminent expert in South Asian security issues. The team will also comprise the Federal Executive Fellows (FEFs), career officers from each military service and the Coast Guard, who spend a year in residence researching and writing on defense topics.
The new Intelligence Project, focusing on the nexus of intelligence and policymaking, will be led by Senior Fellow Bruce Riedel, a 30-year veteran of the intelligence community who also served on the National Security Council staff for three presidents. Riedel will be supported by a team of resident and nonresident scholars, including Paul Pillar and John McLaughlin, as well as career officers seconded from the intelligence community, and an advisory group of distinguished former senior intelligence officials and policymakers. The Intelligence Project is the first of its kind to be established at a major research institution.
The Arms Control Initiative will combine a focus on existing challenges of nuclear and conventional disarmament with new policy research on the Iranian and North Korean challenges to the nuclear nonproliferation regime. It is led by Senior Fellow Steven Pifer, a former special assistant to the president with substantial arms control experience. Robert Einhorn, currently the State Department’s special adviser for Nonproliferation and Arms Control, is expected to join later this spring as a Senior Fellow. The Initiative will also house a new program designed to cultivate and mentor the next generation of arms control and nonproliferation scholars.
The new Cybersecurity project will bring together the work of Visiting Fellow Ian Wallace, a former senior official at the British Ministry of Defence, who helped develop British cyber strategy, as well as its cyber-relationship with the United States, and a team of nonresident fellows, including Noah Shachtman, national security editor at Wired magazine, recently named one of the top 10 cybersecurity writers in the world; Ben Hammersley, a war journalist, noted technology writer, and author of the upcoming book Approaching the Future: 64 Things You Need to Know Now for Then; and Ralph Langner, the cybersecurity expert credited with “decoding” Stuxnet.

21CSI will focus on cutting-edge, in-depth, policy-relevant research and programming, designed to help shape the public policy debate and inform policy-makers. Bringing together a diverse group of experts and scholars, it will seek to promote collaboration across the various policy domains, in order to better understand the rapidly evolving, increasingly complex 21st century battlefield.

“We’ve created 21CSI in response to the enormous changes playing out in the global security environment,” said Martin Indyk, vice president and director of the Foreign Policy program at Brookings. “To address the diverse range of issues in this field, we’ve assembled a world-class team of researchers, who are some of the leading voices on the current challenges driving security policy today, as well as how we should think about tomorrow.”

Obama Renews Arms-Control Push

Michael E. O'Hanlon and Steven Pifer — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

In his State of the Union address, President Obama said that his administration will engage Moscow to seek further reductions in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals, returning to the nuclear arms-reduction agenda that he first laid out in an April 2009 speech in Prague.

The president in Prague called for reducing the role and number of nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy and embraced the goal of a world free of nuclear arms—though he cautioned that much had to happen in order to get to zero. One year later, in April 2010, he recorded his most important arms-control achievement, signing the New START Treaty.

That treaty began its third year of implementation last week. It requires that the United States and Russia each reduce its nuclear forces to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads on no more than seven hundred deployed strategic missiles and bombers. Those limits kick in fully in 2018.

To be sure, New START represents progress. But its levels hardly make sense twenty years after the end of the Cold War.

The president indicated he is prepared to go further. His administration reportedly is considering seeking to reduce U.S. and Russian nuclear forces to a level of 1,000-1,100 deployed strategic warheads. That would be a welcome step. It would cut the number of Russian warheads capable of striking America by 30 percent.

At the same time, the lower level would mean that the Pentagon could build and operate fewer strategic systems in the future, which would save precious defense dollars. The U.S. military nevertheless would still maintain a robust triad of missiles on submarines, land-based missiles and bombers that would deter any adversary from attacking the United States or its allies.

The White House reportedly also would like to expand reductions to include all U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons—reserve strategic warheads and tactical (or non-strategic) weapons as well as deployed strategic warheads. That makes sense as the distinction between strategic and non-strategic becomes increasingly blurry.

At present, New START covers only one-third of the Russian and American arsenals. By constraining all nuclear weapons, a new approach would address the large number of Russian tactical nuclear arms that concern U.S. allies in Europe and Asia. They worry the Senate as well; ratification opponents criticized New START for failing to include tactical weapons.

Limiting all U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons would put Washington and Moscow in a stronger position to insist that any subsequent reductions involve the other nuclear weapons states, most of whose weapons are not strategic.

The Obama administration will face two big challenges in reinvigorating the nuclear agenda. First, how will Moscow respond? The Russians have shown little enthusiasm for further cuts and bear much responsibility for the fact that arms control languished in 2011-2012.

The Russians, however, may have incentives to engage. The U.S. military can with its current force structure easily stay at the New START limits, while the Russian military must build new missiles to do so. Lowering the limits would offer Moscow a chance to save money. Also of interest to the Russians: putting all weapons on the table would mean constraining reserve strategic warheads, where the U.S. military has a significant numerical advantage.

If the Russians engage—admittedly, still an open question—Republicans in the Senate will pose the second big challenge. They are skeptical of arms control in general. The White House and others were surprised by how tough it was to secure ratification of New START. Would Senate Republicans consent to ratification of a new treaty with lower limits? Or would the administration adopt a less formal approach that would obviate the need for Senate approval?

It is not clear whether President Obama’s new arms-reduction push will be able to overcome these challenges. In any case, he should test the proposition with the Russians and put this issue at the top of the agenda when national-security advisor Tom Donilon visits Moscow later this month.

If the Russians show interest, long months of hard bargaining will lie ahead. The sides will have to deal with questions—such as verifying limits on nuclear weapons at storage sites—that they have not faced before. Then there might (or might not) be a debate in the Senate. But success would mean that the president could leave a transformational nuclear legacy when he departs office in 2017. More importantly, Americans would be safer and more secure.

Authors

Publication: The National Interest

Getting it Wrong on North Korea and Nuclear Reductions

Steven Pifer and Jonathan D. Pollack — Fri, 15 Feb 2013 12:13:00 -0500

Arms control critics wasted no time citing North Korea’s nuclear test as a principal reason why the United States should avoid further nuclear arms reductions. On February 12, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Howard “Buck” McKeon stated: “It is also unfortunate that on the same day the president of the United States plans to announce further reductions in U.S. nuclear weapons, we see another hostile regime unimpressed by his example. U.S. security cannot … afford even more cuts to U.S. defense capabilities, such as our nuclear deterrent.”

It may make for a nice sound bite, but the argument does not stand up to serious scrutiny. The current U.S. arsenal numbers between 4,600 and 5,000 nuclear weapons, many of which sit atop intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles capable of launching within minutes. The North Korean stockpile, by contrast, is estimated at eight to ten weapons, though it seems intent on increasing these numbers.

If the president tomorrow chose to cut the U.S. nuclear arsenal by 50 percent, it would still be 200-300 times larger than North Korea’s. The United States also possesses a wide array of conventional deep strike weapons that could inflict devastating damage on North Korea should it contemplate an attack on South Korea, Japan or U.S. regionally deployed forces. And, despite its claims, North Korea lacks a demonstrated capability to strike the United States with a nuclear warhead.

North Korea’s nuclear defiance is deeply troubling, and its latest test warrants heightened multilateral measures to inhibit Pyongyang’s efforts to increase its arsenal both quantitatively and qualitatively. The leaders in the North appear to believe that their nuclear weapons can legitimate the country’s power and entitle it to enhanced international status. These claims are rooted in a deeply adversarial nationalism that has defined North Korea since the earliest years of the state. By claiming undiminished U.S. hostility, it seeks to rationalize the country’s acute isolation and economic dysfunction to its beleaguered citizens.

North Korea is well practiced at identifying the United States as its “sworn enemy.” If anything, additional reductions in the number of warheads in the U.S. inventory would weaken the case Pyongyang seeks to make to justify its nuclear pursuits. But the driving imperatives of its nuclear program reflect its domestic needs and vulnerabilities, not the aggregate numbers of U.S. nuclear weapons.

The nuclear cuts reportedly under consideration by the administration—such as reducing the New START limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads to 1,000-1,100—would hardly embolden North Korea or any other state to challenge the United States in a manner different than it does now. Moreover, Pyongyang is undoubtedly aware that the remaining inventory of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons was unilaterally withdrawn from the Korean peninsula more than two decades ago.

If the United States, with a nuclear arsenal 15 times larger than that of any country other than Russia, is not prepared to reduce further, can it credibly argue that other nuclear weapons states should not build up or that other countries should not acquire nuclear arms? Further reductions, on the other hand, would bolster the ability of U.S. diplomacy to persuade third countries to increase pressure and sanctions on nuclear outliers such as Iran and North Korea. In the three years since New START was signed, American diplomats have had ample success in getting other countries to increase sanctions on Iran.

A nuclear-armed North Korea undoubtedly represents a serious threat to stability and security in Northeast Asia. But that is no reason to argue that Washington should not pursue the next stage of nuclear arms reductions with Russia.

Authors

The Next Step on Nuclear Arms Reduction

Steven Pifer — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

Editor's note: This article was originally published by The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs.

The United States and Russia have just begun the third year of implementing the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). When the treaty takes full effect in February 2018, each country will be limited to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads on 700 deployed strategic missiles and bombers. That represents progress, but more can and should be done.

For instance, New START does nothing to constrain non-deployed (reserve) strategic warheads or any non-strategic (tactical) weapons; it covers only about thirty percent of the total U.S. nuclear arsenal. It’s time to bring these weapons to the table. Additionally, twenty years after the end of the Cold War, do the United States and Russia require such large deployed strategic forces?

Recent press reports suggest the Obama administration is ready to answer this question and also bring the “off the table” weapons into the equation. The reports said the administration has concluded that it would be able to reduce the U.S. arsenal to 1,000-1,100 deployed strategic warheads and 2,500-3,500 total nuclear weapons, “without harming national security.” This would be an important step forward. An agreement along these lines could mean a thirty percent cut in deployed strategic warheads from the New START level and could require up to a fifty percent reduction in total U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals.

Such a treaty would be in the U.S. interest for several reasons. First, it would reduce the nuclear threat to the United States. It would also promote a more stable nuclear balance with Russia, that is, a balance in which neither side has incentives to use nuclear weapons first in a crisis. The lower limit could lead the Russians to conclude that they do not need their proposed new heavy intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which would threaten U.S. ICBMs in their underground silos. At the same, a new heavy ICBM would itself present a lucrative target for preemptive attack in a crisis—a problem noted by a number of Russian experts critical of the planned missile.

Second, by bringing all nuclear arms into the negotiation, a new U.S.-Russia treaty would cover non-strategic nuclear weapons, which would be welcomed by U.S. allies in Europe and Asia who feel threatened by Russian tactical weapons. Moreover, by submitting all of their arsenals to limits, Washington and Moscow would be better positioned to then expand the arms control process to include other nuclear weapons states. That is because the arsenals of Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea contain many non-strategic nuclear arms.

Third, a new treaty that reduced U.S. and Russian nuclear forces could mean cost savings for a strained defense budget. The savings in operating costs in the near term might not be that large, but lower limits could mean substantial savings in the longer term, as the United States recapitalizes its strategic forces. For example, the U.S. Navy estimates that the replacement submarines for the Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine will cost $6-7 billion each. The Navy hopes to cut that cost, but the recent history of naval shipbuilding suggests the ultimate price tag of new vessels is often higher than initial estimates. A treaty that reduced the need for even two submarines would eliminate the cost of building and then operating them for up to forty years.

Fourth, further U.S. and Russian reductions would bolster those countries’ credentials in raising the bar against nuclear proliferation. A new treaty would not cause North Korea or Iran to change course. It could, however, empower American diplomacy to persuade third countries to up the pressure, including sanctions, on nuclear proliferators.

Finally, a new U.S.-Russian treaty could contribute to an improved broader relationship between the two countries. It could also contribute to better relations with China.

Negotiating and concluding such a treaty would by no means be easy. It is not clear that the Russians are prepared to deal. New tensions have afflicted the bilateral relationship over the past year, and President Putin seems in a cantankerous mood. But Moscow may have incentives to engage. The United States is better placed to sustain its strategic forces at New START levels, while the Russians will have to build new missiles to maintain their forces at the negotiated limits—and they may face tough budget decisions of their own.

There should be a better idea of whether the Russians want to engage after National Security Advisor Donilon’s visit to Moscow later this month, during which arms control undoubtedly will rank near the top of the agenda. The odds of getting a new agreement may not be all that high, but the pay-off in terms of a safer America and enhanced global security makes it a proposition worth testing.

Authors

Steven Pifer

Publication: The Fletcher Forum of World Affairs

Beyond the State of the Union, A Plan for Nuclear Arms Control

Steven Pifer — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

In his State of the Union Address, President Obama pledged to engage Russia in talks that would ultimately lead both countries to further reduce their nuclear arsenals. Senior Fellow Steven Pifer, director of the Arms Control Initiative at Brookings, agrees that such a move is the right course of action for these two world powers. Pifer says the U.S. and Russia should work toward a new strategic arms reduction agreement.

Video

Beyond the State of the Union, A Plan for Nuclear Arms Control

Authors

Steven Pifer

Obama’s Aims to Reduce Nuclear Threat

Michael E. O'Hanlon and Steven Pifer — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

In his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Barack Obama will reportedly reiterate his interest in reducing the threat of nuclear weapons, though unlikely to announce specifics. The administration is interested in seeking an agreement with Russia, building on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) of 2010 and cutting U.S. strategic nuclear forces by another third in the expectation that Moscow will do the same with its nuclear arsenal.

This would leave each country with roughly 1,000 deployed long-range warheads, plus several thousand more in reserve and in tactical arsenals.

It would be an appropriately modest step toward serious pursuit of Obama’s (and President Ronald Reagan’s) goal of a nuclear-free world. With 1,000 warheads, the U.S. nuclear arsenal would remain more than capable of targeting any reasonable set of military sites abroad. Washington and Moscow would also avoid tempting any medium-size nuclear powers, most notably China, with its 250 or so warheads, to pursue nuclear superpower ranks.

It is sound policy. Dramatic enough to make a major difference in Obama’s foreign policy legacy yet measured enough to sustain U.S. deterrence for Washington and its allies abroad. Still, it will work best if several additional steps are included:

Modest U.S. unilateral cuts are a reasonable way to jump-start the process if Moscow is not immediately amenable to reciprocative measures. But they should be modest and reversible ‑ until we see how Russia reacts. This is not about fear of a U.S.-Russian nuclear exchange, but rather about avoiding the possibility that Moscow would become more assertive if it somehow felt empowered by a new position atop the nuclear hierarchy.

Tactical and surplus warheads should be constrained. As a first step, data exchanges and some informal monitoring provisions should be explored. U.S.-Russian arms-control treaties have not previously limited warheads in these inventories. Since they are not normally affixed to big missiles or bombers, they are harder to track. But that is why they must be limited in some way. We will need to improve monitoring methods for these warheads if other countries are to be brought into the nuclear arms-control process in future rounds, since most other nations’ arsenals are dominated by these shorter-range weapons.

Missile defenses need to be part of the process. Since the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty during the George W. Bush administration, there have been no ceilings on any type of missile defenses. There is little point here in trying to put Humpty Dumpty back together. Not only do congressional Republicans strongly oppose any limits on U.S. missile defenses but the technologies are evolving too fast (and are still too immature) for restraints to make much sense. Especially since some missile defense capability is a reasonable desire for those worried about North Korean and Iranian threats. But greater transparency, some degree of actual collaboration between the United States and Russia and, depending on the evolution of not just the technology but also the threat, some greater flexibility regarding U.S. plans to put advanced missile defenses into Europe in the future makes sense. The flexibility should not go so far as to weaken Washi! ngton’s bonds with allies and should not prevent the United States and its allies from protecting themselves. This point needs to be made plainly to Moscow.

Third parties should be asked to promise restraint, too. The other U.N. Security Council Permanent Five nuclear powers ‑ Britain, France and China ‑ as well as Israel, India and Pakistan should promise not to exceed current arsenal sizes, or at least not by much. This need not be a deal breaker if they refuse. But it would be a useful complement that would help ensure that no new nuclear competition is triggered by U.S. and Russian cutbacks, and would help pave the way for future multilateral treaties. To help persuade the other nuclear powers to agree, all countries could be asked to promise not to develop or augment existing nuclear weapons inventories. In other words, language could be proposed that would allow non-nuclear states to make the same pledge, and that would not require countries such as Israel to acknowledge officially that they have nuclear weapons. (Since right now they might not.)

Other arms-control measures could be considered. Top of the list is ratification of the 1990s-era Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which the United States and China, among the world’s declared nuclear powers, have not yet ratified. (The Senate voted it down in 1999.) Another ratification debate is not prudent if it leads to a formal Senate defeat. But this is an opportune moment to remind Americans that our current arsenal is holding up extremely well without testing, and to make the case for formalizing our testing restraint. The last U.S. test was in 1992; no state other than North Korea has tested in the last dozen years.

Obama has rightly seized this nuclear arms-control opportunity. It may or may not make him the president who started the real march toward a nuclear-free planet. Indeed, that may not even be a realistic or desirable goal at this stage.

But his plan should help future presidents and Congresses evaluate the wisdom of such a possible step. Meanwhile, it saves a little money and, more important, helps keeps America and her allies safe.

Authors

Publication: Reuters

Possible Scope and Conditions for Information-Sharing and Confidence-Building Measures Regarding Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons in Europe

Steven Pifer — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0500

At a February 7-8 workshop in Warsaw sponsored by the Polish Institute of International Affairs, the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Brookings senior fellow Steven Pifer presented a paper examining possible information-sharing and confidence-building measures regarding U.S. and Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe.

His paper also discussed useful antecedents from earlier arms control agreements. He concluded that data exchanges, including historical data related to the 1991-92 presidential nuclear initiatives, which eliminated thousands of U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads; affirming policies of keeping non-strategic warheads "demated" or separate from delivery systems; and visits to former nuclear weapons storage sites could be useful first steps for the United States, Russia and NATO.