I was looking today at my daily digest from the Global Security Newswire (a habit I picked up in EPIIC this year), and saw a piece titled “Experts: NATO Should Limit Role of Nukes, Remove U.S. Warheads," I've been closely researching the US-Russia strategic relationship over the past decade-plus for many months (again, brought on by EPIIC). After the passage of the New START (the latest treaty imposing lower caps on the number of long-range nuclear weapons and delivery platforms each side can have), the Obama Administration has sought an agreement with Russia reducing each nation’s tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) arsenal.
The "group of experts and former government officials" argue in a letter to NATO's Secretary General that the weapons serve no purpose in confronting the challenges facing the Alliance today (such as global extremism, terrorism, and cyber threats) and take resources that could be diverted towards presumably more productive causes. Thus, they say, they should be eliminated in order to send "a strong signal that the Alliance is serious about creating the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons" and to seize an "important opportunity to strengthen the Alliance and resolve differences over NATO’s current nuclear posture that will otherwise undermine Alliance unity in the years to come." I believe that the signers of the letter fail to appreciate the significance that the American TNW arsenal in Europe has in NATO and the US' relationship with Russia and the NATO member states which once lay on the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain.
The US has an estimated 200 B61 nuclear gravity bombs (bombs dropped on their targets from aircraft) dispersed in bases in Germany, Italy, Turkey, the Netherlands, and Belgium. In contrast, Russia has an estimated 2000+ TNWs. Russia views their TNW arsenal as a necessary hedge against vast NATO conventional superiority. Russia sees the expansion of NATO into nearby countries, and its overwhelming power, as its single greatest external security threat (according to their current Military Doctrine, released in February 2010). When considering that there is also a distinct lack of interest in the Russian government to reduce the tactical arsenal, one can see that the chances of a TNW agreement are rather slim.
If the weapons are not withdrawn under some sort of bilateral action, then presumably they would be withdrawn by unilateral action, which seems to be what the signers of the letter are suggesting. I believe such a course of action would be very unwise.
I firstly take issue with the assertion that the American TNW arsenal in Europe is not useable as a deterrent force. A quick look at the Wikipedia article on the B61 reveals that it has an adjustable yield, with a setting as low as .3 kilotons. EPIIC folks will recall Professor Daryl Press’ presentations on low-yield nuclear weapons, in which he showed that sub-kiloton nuclear warheads can be deployed in such a manner that they thoroughly and reliably destroy a target while causing very little fallout damage (he showed us diagrams which indicated that a .5 kiloton weapon deployed on an airburst against a North Korean nuclear site would have a miniscule fallout radius and would cause collateral damage in the low hundreds, as opposed to a high-yield weapon which would kill hundreds of thousands, if not millions, across the Korean Peninsula and Japan). For perspective, Richard Muller’s book, Physics for Future Presidents, indicates that the explosive yield of the impact and jet fuel burning of the aircraft that struck the Twin Towers on September 11 was (if I recall correctly) around .72 kilotons. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima, in contrast, had an explosive yield of 13-18 kilotons. Thus, we can see that sub-kiloton warheads have the potential to reliably eviscerate a relatively localised area (we’re talking measurements of city blocks), but would not cause the catastrophic damage over a wide area that a larger nuclear weapon would. Such a weapon would be feasibly useable against a target in a nuclear-armed Iran or a Russian ground force, meaning that they have value as a deterrent.
Secondly, one should note that while there are many signatures from leaders of Western European NATO members on the letter, there is a conspicuous absence of support from Eastern and Central European members. Indeed, a report from the Arms Control Association and the British American Security Information Council indicates that “some allies located near Russia believe that U.S. nonstrategic forces in Europe are essential to prevent nuclear coercion by Moscow and indeed that modernized U.S./NATO forces are essential for restoring a sense of balance in the face of Russia’s nuclear renewal.” For example, the report indicates that Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia see the presence of TNWs as a critical hedge against Russian aggression which provides NATO intermediary options between conventional armed action and a globally suicidal strategic nuclear shooting war. While there is widespread support for the elimination of TNWs from Europe, even among Eastern and Central European members, such support is for the elimination of all TNWs from Europe, including Russia’s. Thus, a unilateral American withdrawal seems off the table for former Communist Bloc NATO members. A failure to respect their security needs could result their intransigence on other American-led efforts within NATO, such as operations in Afghanistan, and the reform of the Alliance which Robert Gates called for in his farewell speech as Secretary of Defence, which I believe is a critical part of making America’s military grand strategy fiscally viable in the coming years.
Finally, a unilateral American withdrawal of TNWs would represent a forfeiture of one of America’s few viable bargaining chips in discussions with Russia on mutual TNW reductions with no guarantee of a return. While the Obama Administration’s progress on improving US-Russian nuclear strategic affairs has put both nations, and the rest of the world, on the path to greater nuclear security, the exchange of bargaining chips between the US and Russia has left the US with relatively few assets left to bargain with. After the reductions of New START, it is highly unlikely that the Obama Administration will seek further reductions in the strategic arsenal, making strategic weapons reductions an unviable bargaining asset. The US could theoretically agree to scale back on the conventional strategic warfighting assets which give it thorough conventional dominance over Russia, such as its planned Prompt Global Strike system and its retrofitting of four Ohio class nuclear ballistic missile submarines to carry large numbers of cruise missiles. However, these assets serve a valuable purpose in enabling the US to strike targets, whether they be conventional military installations, terrorist bases, or locations where high-value terrorists are located, with high precision and speed. Thus, it would be strategically unwise, and politically impossible, for the Obama Administration to make such a concession. The US could also theoretically halt the expansion of NATO and the Western/Euro-Atlantic geopolitical sphere out of respect for Russia’s strategic interests, but that would be both politically unviable in the US and would forfeit a valuable foreign policy tool. In my previously mentioned research, I hypothesised that the American open-door policy on NATO expansion has allowed the US to integrate nations like Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, the Baltic States, and other former satellites of the Soviet Union into the Euro-Atlantic geopolitical sphere, hastening their ascension as members of the European political and economic community, a community which is consistently friendly, or at least benevolently neutral, towards American economic, political, and military interests. The responsible spread of NATO and the Euro-Atlantic geopolitical sphere is simply too valuable an asset to bargain with. In terms of chips that the US has to bargain with which can meet Russian concessions to create a strategic equilibrium (which are likely the only chips Russia will accept), the only remaining asset is America’s TNW arsenal. To give up this chip for nothing would not only leave the US less able to deter threats against Europe and shake many NATO members’ confidence in the credibility of America’s security guarantees, but it would leave us with almost no leverage with which to convince Russia to reduce and increase transparency regarding their TNW arsenal, a task which is extraordinarily difficult even with the leverage we have.
The letter sent to the NATO Secretary General does not specify that a TNW withdrawal be unilateral, but merely that it take place. Perhaps the letter represents an effort to muster an official consensus within NATO that a TNW reduction on its side would be acceptable, ensuring that a promise to Russia to withdraw its TNW arsenal would be one that it could deliver on. If this is the case, then I applaud and endorse the effort. However, from the tone of the letter and of the political movement within Europe to eliminate the American TNW arsenal, it seems most likely that the group is calling for a unilateral reduction.
I believe that the time for the Obama Administration to make gestures of goodwill without the promise of a return from Russia came at the beginning of its tenure, when the reset effort was new and Russia had most of the leverage. That time, however, has now passed. If the Obama Administration is serious about further progress on US-Russia strategic affairs, including TNW reductions, it should approach Russia not as a new potential friend with an exchange of goodwill gestures, but as a potential business partner ready to drive a hard bargain. We can’t drive a hard bargain without any bargaining chips.
