Crimea and the Limits of Nuclear Deterrence

April 14, 2014 | Edited by Lauren Mladenka and Geoff Wilson

Nukes aren’t the answer - “It is no surprise that Russia’s takeover of Crimea is being met with calls by some to build up U.S. nuclear forces and accelerate missile defense deployments in Europe,” writes Tom Collina in a piece for Breaking Defense. “But cooler heads will realize that such throwbacks to the Cold War past are not the answer.”

--“Nuclear weapons and missile defenses have not been part of the West’s response, for good reason. The United States already has a larger deployed strategic nuclear arsenal than Russia’s, and Washington is already planning to maintain and modernize its “triad” of nuclear-armed submarines, missiles and bombers, to the tune of about $355 billion over the next decade. If a superior U.S. nuclear force did not restrain Moscow from annexing Crimea, how would an even larger force stop further Russian adventurism? It would not. The paradox of nuclear weapons is that they are too destructive to be used, so both sides are ‘deterred’ from doing so.”

--“On missile defense, the U.S. systems in the ground and on the drawing board are not aimed at Russia and never have been. They are intended to counter limited missile threats from North Korea and Iran. There should be no partisan disagreement on this point. Like the Obama administration, the Bush administration also had its missile defense sights on developing threats, not Moscow. As then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in 2008 about the Bush administration’s missile defense plan for Europe, ‘I frankly think that anybody who can do the math would know that 10 interceptors in Poland is not going to do anything to a Russian deterrent that has thousands of warheads.’” Collina notes that rushing deployment of missile defense to Poland and Romania “would do nothing to reduce the Russian threat and would likely give Moscow reason to move Iskander short-range missiles closer to NATO, as it has threatened to do. So let’s not kid ourselves into thinking that spending more money on nuclear weapons and missile defenses will somehow convince Russian President Vladimir Putin to pack up his military forces in Crimea and bring them home. It won’t.” Full story here. http://bit.ly/P0kVB6

Tweet - @CFR_org: #ThisDayinHistory, 1950: U.S. president Harry Truman issues NSC-68, the foundational document for the U.S. Cold War strategy.

Inching forward - “There is no doubt that the negotiations between the major powers and Iran over its nuclear program have been productive. All the nations involved — the United States, Britain, France, China, Germany, Iran, even Russia — appear committed to reaching a deal that will go beyond November’s interim agreement and produce a permanent one,” writes The New York Times editorial board. “As positive as that sounds, it would be naïve to understate how hard it will be to remove the threat of Iran’s producing a nuclear weapon and begin to ease three decades of hostility between Tehran and Washington.”

--Although “the fact that both Iran and the major powers appear to be fulfilling their commitments under that interim agreement is reassuring… hard-line forces on both sides have been working to undermine any deal. Israel and some members of Congress are insisting that Iran must abandon all nuclear enrichment activities, even for non-weapons purposes. That would be ideal, but it is unrealistic, and insisting on it would scuttle any chance of an agreement. The hard-liners know that, which puts them in the curious position of making a huge political fuss about Iran’s nuclear program while blocking any realistic diplomatic solution.”

--Neither hard-line force nor the recent controversy over Iran’s pick of ambassador to the United Nations “should divert the two sides from pushing hard to secure a final nuclear deal. If the major powers and Iran can do that, they will create an opportunity for dealing with other important challenges, including Afghanistan, drug trafficking, Syria and Iran’s support for extremist groups. The consequences of failure are equally enormous.” Read the full article here. http://nyti.ms/1m2unmm

Stockpile report - “Fiscal Year 2015 Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan,” by the Department of Energy. April 2014. (pdf) http://1.usa.gov/1m209xn

“Unacceptable” - “A senior U.S. senator on Wednesday criticized the Obama administration for extending the milestone schedule on a number of nuclear-security projects,” reports Rachel Oswald in Global Security Newswire. “Speaking at a Senate Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee hearing, Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) singled out Energy Department plans for removing weapons-usable uranium from roughly 200 global nuclear reactors and for securing sensitive radiological materials held at civilian U.S. facilities.”

--“This simply is unacceptable at the same time we're pouring money into the modernization of certain warheads. It's just unacceptable," says Feinstein of the Energy Department's fiscal 2015 budget proposal, which “would push back by five years, to 2035, the target date for wrapping up work on the worldwide reactor-conversion project.” Read the full article here. http://bit.ly/RidnvV

Stuck in the middle - The Iran nuclear negotiations have trapped supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “between a rock—the Iranian nation—and a hard place—his hardline supporters,” writes Muhammad Sahimi in The National Interest. “The Iranian people elected President Rouhani in a landslide last June, and have been demanding uprooting of the vast corruption under Mr. Rouhani’s predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a functioning and robust economy, better relations with the West, and a more open and tolerant political system that puts Iran on a firm and definitive path toward a true and inclusive democracy. Resolving the nuclear dispute with the West and lifting of the sanctions represent major steps in this direction. Mr. Khamenei has supported the nuclear negotiations. As far back as 21 March 2013, he signaled a fundamental change in his position regarding nuclear negotiations with P5+1, and has consistently said that he supports the negotiations as long as Iran’s nuclear rights are recognized and respected.”

--“But, the hard place—Iran’s hardliners that represent Khamenei’s main social base of support—is not interested in a nuclear compromise. The hardliners have been using every opportunity and excuse to attack the Rouhani administration,” and “have claimed that Iran has made too many concessions for too little in return,” Sahimi says. “The fact is, nuclear negotiations with Iran would not have advanced as far as they have if the Rouhani administration did not have Mr. Khamenei’s support. Therefore, the question is why Mr. Khamenei makes statements that might be interpreted as indicating his unwillingness to compromise.” The answer “is that he is trapped between rock and a hard place, and that the reasons for his statements that ‘please’ the hardliners are twofold,” including the maintenance of their support and Khamenei’s need “to create a political cover for himself and his authority, in case the negotiations fail.” Read the full article here. http://bit.ly/QlvH5W

On target - “The Obama administration believes that oil exports from Iran from January to July will meet an average 1 million barrel per day goal outlined in an interim agreement with Tehran over curbing its disputed nuclear program,” Reuters reports. Read the full piece here. http://reut.rs/1p35Yz3

Visa denied - “The White House will block Iran's choice of United Nations ambassador from entering the United States, officials said Friday, stoking new tension between Tehran and Washington as they approach a critical moment in negotiations over Iran's disputed nuclear program. Facing overwhelming bipartisan pressure from Congress, White House officials said Hamid Aboutalebi would not be granted a U.S. visa. The choice of the veteran diplomat set off an outcry in Washington because of his membership in the radical student group that stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held U.S. diplomats hostage during Iran's 1979 revolution.” Paul Richter and Ramin Mostaghim have the story in the Los Angeles Times. http://lat.ms/Q6AqIV

Tweet - @jabdi: With banking sanctions still fully in force, #Iran sees little real sanctions relief under interim deal http://nyti.ms/1gvTVVh

NSG membership - “The United States and three European allies want a global body controlling nuclear exports to consider whether to establish closer ties with non-members including Israel, despite its assumed atomic arsenal, a confidential document showed.” Read the full story from Fredrik Dahl for Reuters here. http://reut.rs/1n6dyad

S-400s to China - “Russia has approved the sale to China of an advanced antimissile system that could have ramifications on nuclear stability with India,” Global Security Newswire reports. Russian president “Vladimir Putin signed off on the export of between two and four S-400 air and missile defense units to China… If the deal moves forward, it would make Beijing the first international purchaser of the technology.” Full piece here. http://bit.ly/Q6C5yf

Walk it back - “The head of India’s opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), tipped to win the ongoing national elections, has ruled out any change in the country’s “no-first-use” nuclear weapons policy,” the AFP reports. “The BJP sparked speculation about an end to the doctrine last week when its manifesto said that the party would ‘revise and update’ India’s policy. BJP president Rajnath Singh said that, “the no-first-use policy for nuclear weapons was a well thought out stand … We don’t intend to reverse it.”

--“The policy was adopted after a series of nuclear tests in 1998 during the last BJP-led coalition government, which led to international condemnation and an embargo being placed on the country by Western powers. The policy was intended to gain India greater acceptability as a nuclear power, despite it not being a signatory of the 1970 U.N. Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which aims to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.” Read the full report here. http://bit.ly/1p3aOwp

Using decreased discipline as a tool for low morale - “Every day, 90 uniformed men and women in their mid-twenties ride elevators forty to sixty feet below remote fields in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, North Dakota, and Nebraska in rote preparation for improbable nuclear Armageddon,” writes R. Jeffrey Smith for The Center for Public Integrity. “They spend some of their 24-hour alerts seated in front of steel Minuteman III missile launch control panels mounted on shock-absorbers, with toggle switches capable of hurling ten to fifty nuclear warheads — each with twenty times the explosive force of the Hiroshima bomb — to the other side of the globe, at speeds of 15,000 mph.”

--“But their day-to-day enemy, for decades, has not so much been another superpower, but the unremitting boredom of an isolated posting that demands extreme vigilance, while also requiring virtually no activity, according to accounts by missileers and a new internal review of their work. That understandable boredom, when paired with the military’s sky-high expectations for their workplace performance, has pushed some of them to use drugs, others to break the rules — even deliberately, and still more to look for any way out.”

--“When the national nightmare typically involves a terrorist’s smuggled bomb on the subway rather than another nation’s missile attack over the North Pole — even the Air Force admits that motivating these young officers to fulfill the service’s standard of perfection in their ICBM knowledge and skills is essentially an unachievable goal.” Lt. Gen. James M. Holmes, “who is now vice commander of the Air Force’s training command, acknowledged as much in a revealing 268-page report he completed in February about the grim life of the missileers. Senior Air Force leaders, he said, had repeatedly ordered a ‘zero defect’ nuclear culture that is ‘unrealistic and unobtainable.’ The consequence of making such demands was not to improve performance but to worsen morale and promote dishonesty, the report concluded. The Air Force is now planning to ask for less perfection from its 9,600-member missile corps, a result that is practical, or perhaps inevitable given the job’s inherent limitations, even if it is also a disquieting standard for a group with its fingers on such consequential buttons.” Read the full piece here. http://bit.ly/1iO3kG6

Retiring - “U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Bill Burns, who led secret talks with Iran that led to an agreement to curb its nuclear program and who served as the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East as well as ambassador to Russia, will retire in October,” writes Arshad Mohammed in Reuters. “The departure of the Arabic-, French- and Russian-speaking official will be felt at the State Department, where he was regarded as the leading career diplomat of his generation and only the second to rise to deputy secretary of state.” Full story here. http://reut.rs/1eAujYQ

Quick-hits:

--“US Ambassador: Talks with Iran Continuing” from AP. http://apne.ws/1t0dWZg

--“Ambiguities of Japan’s Nuclear Policy” by Norihiro Kato in The New York Times. http://nyti.ms/1hNF4RS

--“Despite START agreement world still under serious threat by US nuclear weapons stockpiles and war plans” by Robert Tilford for Ground Report. http://bit.ly/1kRyUbz

Events:

--“Challenges to Further Nuclear Arms Reductions.” Discussion with Dennis Gromley, Gotz Neuneck, and Nikolai Sokov. April 14 from 2:00-3:30 at Brookings Institution, Saul/Zilkha rooms, 1775 Massachusetts Ave. NW. RSVP here. http://bit.ly/1jnQbFs

--“Crisis in Ukraine, the Budapest Memorandum and Extended Deterrence.” Discussion with Steven Pifer. April 22 from 12:30 to 2:00 at National Defense University, 408 Fourth Ave., Fort McNair, Washington. RSVP by email to Nima.Gerami@ndu.edu

--“Garwin: Witness to History.” Film screening and panel discussion with Richard Garwin, Richard Breyer, Anand Kamalakar, and Charles Ferguson. April 22 from 5:00-8:00 at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, auditorium, 1200 New York Ave. NW. RSVP by email to rsvp@fas.org.

--“Making a Difference: Faith Communities Speak to the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons.” Discussion with Andrew Kanter, Daryl Kimball, and eight other speakers. April 24 from 9:30-4:00 at the U.S. Institute of Peace, 2301 Constitution Ave., NW, Washington. http://conta.cc/1ssfg70

--“The United States and Iran: Can Diplomacy Prevent an Iranian Bomb?” Discussion with former Amb. Thomas Pickering and Shaul Bakhash. April 28 from 6:00-7:15 at American University, Abramson Family Founders Room, 4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington. RSVP here. http://conta.cc/1eEMAyC