IAEA May Safeguards Report on Iran
The IAEA has circulated its latest safeguards report on Iran and Syria. Let us stick to the Iran report. I did not blog on the previous, more juicy, Iran safeguards report. This is because I want to write a small essay on a crucial aspect of it, but because I have been slack I haven't gotten around to it yet.
Anyway at the time reports made mention of what some regard as technical difficulties that Iran appears to be having in running large numbers of centrifuges in cascade. As The New York Times reported at the time
...It said the number of operating centrifuges had dropped to 3,772 from nearly 4,000. This was well under half of all the machines installed in Natanz, the report indicated. Analysts and diplomats close to the IAEA say Iran may be having serious mechanical problems in keeping thousands of antiquated centrifuges running in unison...
The May Report states that of 8528 installed centrifuges 3936 are being feed with UF6 gas. That's still under 50% of the total installed. Previously reports mentioned that the bulk of Iran's LEU was being earmarked for enrichment to 20% U-235. The May Safeguards Report nonetheless states that the Natanz plant continues to enrich to 3-5% as per its design specification. The May Report also states that Iran is connecting a second 164 IR-1 machine to the first 164 IR-1 machine cascade at the pilot plant. The second IR-1 cascade constitutes the last of the six 164 machine cascades at the pilot plant.
The May Safeguards Report states
...In reply to Iran’s letter of 10 March 2010, the Agency informed Iran, in a letter dated 12 March 2010, that the introduction of the second 164-machine cascade and its interconnection with the first 164-machine cascade would constitute a new and significant development in the design and operation of PFEP that required a full revision of the previous safeguards approach proposed by the Agency and communicated to Iran in February 2010...
On this it is further stated that
...Following meetings held in Iran in April 2010, the Agency provided, in a letter dated 6 May 2010, a revised safeguards approach to Iran, to which, in a letter dated 12 May 2010, Iran agreed. The approach takes into account, inter alia, the enrichment of uranium up to 20% U-235 and the installation of the second cascade, and includes the following measures: a monthly interim inventory verification (IIV), a monthly design information verification (DIV), and two unannounced inspections per month; the application of seals on all possible exit routes for UF6 and on all pipework connections between the areas used for testing new centrifuges and the areas used for the production of uranium enriched up to 20%; an enhanced surveillance system in the cascade area and the feed and withdrawal area; the use of load cell data; and the taking of destructive analysis samples, including from the cascades. On 24–25 April 2010, the Agency applied all the seals and installed all the surveillance cameras as required under the revised safeguards approach. As of 15 May 2010, the Agency has been implementing the revised approach, and has, since then, conducted two unannounced inspections...
So the issue does not appear as stark as presented earlier. We might say this because enrichment to 20% U-235 will occur in two connected 164 IR-1 machine cascades at the pilot plant. The Natanz plant continues to enrich per its design specification. What's more Iran has accepted the revised safeguards arrangements for the pilot plant and those revised arrangements appear to be going into place.
Iran has enriched to 20% U-235 in the first cascade. According to the report Iran has produced 5.7kg of UF6 enriched to 20%. It is under IAEA containment and surveillance, as is all of Iran's enriched uranium.
However, there are a number of matters for concern that are interspersed throughout the May Safeguards Report. Media accounts are right to focus on it. You can see throughout the document that Iran is adopting a more hard line approach to its safeguards obligations in a range of areas. Even my old pal the Code 3.1 gets a run in the Report. Iran is interpreting its safeguards obligations in ways that the IAEA considers to be contrary to its safeguards obligations.
With safeguards there is always a sovereignty-verification trade-off. The greater the emphasis on sovereignty the less on verification. That's why the classical model of safeguards was pretty crap. You can see in the May Report that Iran is putting more emphasis on sovereignty in the above trade-off in a range of areas.
We can only speculate as to why this is so. I personally would not be surprised if this is a manifestation of a tendency towards escalation in the underlying air of crisis between the US and Iran. As US-Iran relations deteriorates perhaps Tehran is putting greater emphasis on sovereignty in the above trade-off as a result. This might be one way that Iran counter-escalates.
The IAEA stresses in the May Report that this emphasis on sovereignty on the part of Iran means that the Agency cannot verify the peaceful nature of Iran's past and current nuclear activities. That follows given the sovereignty-verification trade-off. However, if this is a manifestation of the underlying escalation in the US-Iran conflict then we might have a predictable consequence of that escalation, namely decreasing knowledge of the scope of Iran's activities.
If external actors have non-proliferation as their priority numero uno then the implication is clear; try and de-escalate the underlying conflict. However, it appears that we are heading for an escalation. If the UN Security Council adopts a 4th round of sanctions this aspect to the next IAEA Safeguards Report on Iran will make for interesting reading.
Watch for more Iranian stonewalling. Perhaps it will ditch the new safeguards regime at the pilot plant. This would tie into the inevitable scuttling of the Turkey-Brazil LEU deal should a fourth round of sanctions be enacted.
The Report has been spun as mandating another round of sanctions. The argument used though is pretty weak. Essentially the argument is that the May Report demonstrates that if the Turkey-Brazil LEU transfer deal is put in place Iran would still have enough LEU for one nuclear warhead.
As such the Turkey-Brazil deal cannot prevent “break-out.” The argument is weak because enough fissile material for one theoretical warhead does not take into account the matter of testing and reliability. This would be a pretty weak deterrent. It wouldn't be zero, but it definitely wouldn't undermine the credibility of western deterrence. Furthermore you have to be careful about “theoretical” arguments. We are talking here about industrial-experimental processes.
Also Iran appears to be having technical problems with its programs. It also appears to be signalling that any enrichment to 20% U-235, which might not happen if the Turkey-Brazil deal goes through (but is still at Iran's discretion), will go down at the two IR-1 cascades at the pilot enrichment hall. All of Iran's enrichment at any rate is under IAEA containment and surveillance. This means breakout cannot be covert and would follow a massive break down in Iran's relations with the outside world.
I agree that the Turkey-Brazil deal is not ideal and should not be the last word. But it's a bit of stretch to say that the May Safeguards Report strengthens the case for a fourth round of sanctions.
In fact you might want to argue the exact opposite. The sovereignty-verification trade-off that is a big part of the May Report could be construed as a good reason for not escalating the crisis further. More escalation could mean less knowledge.
That's a trade-off that seems to be implied by the May Safeguards Report.
The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review and Strategic Nuclear Targeting
For this post on the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review I would like to focus on strategic nuclear targeting. To do this I will need to also go over some ground that was covered in the post devoted to the scope of deterrence. There is some overlap between these two topics, so apologies for going over some of the same issues.
Senator McCain is going to help us heaps.
The Global Security Newswire had published an analytical piece on the NPR and strategic targeting not long after the text was released by the Obama administration. The analysis was written by Elaine Grossman. She has done some very good work on these topics, but I think this particular piece was not quite subtle enough. I'm not so much focused on the details as so much how the discussion was framed.
So the article opens by stating
...WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Defense Department will take a year or more to study how to implement new White House policy on nuclear weapons before integrating the changes into the nation's strategic combat plan, a top official said Tuesday...
...Pentagon leaders must assess the details of the review, combined with fresh weapons limits imposed by a new U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control treaty, before knowing in detail how secret nuclear targeting plans might be affected, said Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff...
...It was not immediately clear how the new policy guidance or arms control reductions might affect nuclear targeting plans, which are maintained at the Omaha, Neb., headquarters of U.S. Strategic Command, or the detailed composition of forces required to carry them out.
The military awaits the full distribution of the Nuclear Posture Review and the New START agreement's technical minutiae before studying the matter in depth, Cartwright said at a Tuesday press conference.
Once defense officials develop "an understanding of what the guidance is in some level of detail, then we'll go into a review from a policy perspective on [target-plan] guidance that would be appropriate under these new regimes," he told reporters...
The implication that is drawn here is that what is commonly called the “sweeping” changes to US nuclear weapons employment policy ushered in by the NPR needs to be translated into concrete war plans by way of the strategic war planning system.
That assumes, of course, that those changes are indeed “sweeping”. Consistent readers of this blog know that I have been sceptical about this from the get-go, in fact from even before the NPR text was released.
Now this is where Senator McCain is going to help me out. But before we get on to that, I need to cite the same NPR passage that I have quoted before
...Detailed NPR analysis of potential reductions in strategic weapons, conducted in spring 2009, concluded that the United States could sustain stable deterrence with significantly fewer deployed strategic nuclear warheads, assuming parallel Russian reductions. The NPR analysis considered several specific levels of nuclear weapons, all below current levels of approximately 2,200 deployed strategic warheads. Its conclusions, approved by the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Commander, U.S. Strategic Command, formed the basis for U.S. negotiations with Russia on New START. Because New START is intended to be only an initial step in a continuing process of bilateral nuclear reductions, this initial analysis used conservative assumptions to determine acceptable reductions in deployed strategic nuclear weapons...
That means that the New Start force structure and thereby the NPR's force structure is consistent with the nuclear targeting approach left over by the Bush administration. That quote immediately above means that the NPR force structure is consistent with NSPD-14, the Bush era Presidential Guidance which governs how Stratcom draws up the strategic nuclear war plan/s.
...In support of the New START negotiation effort, U.S. Strategic Command analyzed the required nuclear weapons and delivery vehicle force structure and posture to meet current guidance, and provided options for consideration by the Department. This rigorous approach, rooted in both deterrence strategy and assessment of potential adversary capabilities, supports both the agreed-upon reductions in New START and recommendations in the NPR...
I've been saying from the get-go that New Start and the NPR will revolve around current guidance and that guidance is NSPD-14. General Chilton states that quite categorically in the above quoted text. That means that the NPR has had very little impact on the underlying approach to strategic nuclear targeting that the Obama administration inherited from the Bush administration. Notice that General Chilton is saying that current guidance supports the “recommendations in the NPR.”
You can see from Senator McCain's probing questions that the supposed “sweeping” changes that the new negative security assurance was supposed to have ushered was is in fact anything but. Now McCain is probing James Miller, the Principal Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, not General Chilton. This grilling is made available to us by the full transcript of the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the NPR.
I am referring to a little exchange between Sen McCain and Miller. McCain states,
...So, we are telling the American people, now, that if there’s a chemical or biological attack on the United States of America, and it is of devastating consequences, we will rule out the option of using a nuclear weapon, even though that may be the most effective course of action, if that country is in compliance or noncompliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty...
To which Miller replies
...Sir, if you look at the countries today that have any significant capacity to develop chemical and biological weapons, you will find that those are states that are either nuclear-weapon
states or that are not in compliance with their nuclear nonproliferation obligations...
This, effectively, is an admission that the new negative security assurance has no impact at all on the scope of deterrence or, thereby, on the underlying basis for nuclear targeting inherited by Obama. This statement supports my contention that the new NSA is in fact consistent with the nuclear strike plans inherited from the Bush era. Taking out Iraq and Libya, for obvious reasons, from the list of states targeted in the 2001-2002 Bush NPR leaves over exactly the same states for nuclear strike planning.
Miller concedes this. So thanks to Senator McCain. Notice that a little bit earlier Miller presents the new NSA as a softening in the US position
...Same pledge was made in 1995, and again in 2002 by subsequent administrations, so that—this Negative Security Assurance is not new. What the change is—in the Nuclear Posture Review—is that we’ve added the condition that a state must also be compliant with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations. So, we’ve added a condition. In order to get into that group, that is provided an assurance
that the United States will not use nuclear weapons, we’ve added a condition, under the old assurance, that Iran, today, would be provided that assurance; under the new assurance it is not...
That was precisely the point I tried to get across in my post on the scope of deterrence. Notice that the 2001-2002 NPR did list Iran in the list of targeted states even though Miller admits that was not consistent with the NSA. That tells us something about negative security assurances.
So let us go back to the statement that General Chilton made about needing 1 to 2 years to change the current crop of war plans. We now have a “family of plans," known as OPLAN-8010, rather than a single integrated plan. One feature that the new approach shares with the old is that every fiscal year there is, apparently, a little bit of tinkering.
So perhaps the current plan is OPLAN-8010-10 or OPLAN-8010-2010. Now OPLAN-8010-10 is consistent with the pre New Start force levels of both the US and Russia. So we have to be a little bit subtle here. I think that what General Chilton is getting at here is that it will take up to a year or two to draw up a new OPLAN-8010 that takes into account the newly agreed upon force levels, including the agreed upon delivery vehicles, made in the New Start treaty with Russia and codified by the NPR.
Under New Start Russia and the US are free to configure their strategic offensive forces as they so desire. How Russia configures its New Start force levels is something General Chilton needs to watch and then integrate into Stratcom's plans. Ditto for the NPR force mix. This represents more than the usual fiscal year tinker.
General Chilton's statement, I think, should not be viewed with reference to the empty so-called “sweeping” changes to US nuclear weapons employment policy. It's clear that Grossman is implying this view for that's how her article is framed. It is in this sense that I believe that the analysis is not as subtle as it could be.
But this interpretation cannot be correct because both New Start and the NPR is consistent with NSPD-14, as General Chilton has stated. Perhaps Obama will generate new guidance, but under the NPR there is no need for it. Even if Obama does generate new guidance it won't be a huge change in employment policy because the NPR does not really call for it nor mandate it. Recall that the NSA is a matter of declaratory policy.
I have taken the view, as stated in a few posts going way back now, that Bush era strategic nuclear employment policy was consistent with nuclear strategic concepts such as intra-war deterrence and escalation control. This reminds us of the “prevailing” in a “protracted nuclear war” doctrine that we associate with the Reagan era, as well as the Carter administration it might be added.
So the Obama NPR had some interesting comments on nuclear command and control
...Additionally, the NPR examined the effectiveness of our command and control of U.S. Nuclear forces as an essential element in ensuring crisis stability, deterrence, and the safety, security and effectiveness of our nuclear stockpile. The DoD NC3 system enables informed and timely decisions by the President, the sole authority for nuclear employment, and execution of Presidential nuclear response options.
The Secretary of Defense has directed a number of initiatives to further improve the resiliency of the NC3 system and the capabilities for the fully deliberative control of the force in time of crisis...
The Achilles Heel of intra-war deterrence has always been the maintenance of command and control in the event of nuclear conflict. For example, the Weapons System Evaluation Group number 50 study showed that CinC over nuclear forces is lost very rapidly following missile strikes. You can't play intra-war deterrence if you lose control over your nuclear forces.
If the above statement on nuclear CinC were made in a Russian or Chinese nuclear posture review then Republicans and right wing think tankers would be saying that Moscow and Beijing hope to prevail in a nuclear conflict.
Such changes could be made in order to strengthen deterrence and crisis stability by avoiding decapitation. So in and of itself a quote like the above does not reveal an underlying intra-war deterrence strategic construct.
However, that bit in the above quote about “further” improving “the resiliency of the NC3 system and the capabilities for the fully deliberative control of the force in time of crisis” is very much consistent with escalation control and intra-war deterrence. There is no doubt about that.
In short I conclude that strategic nuclear targeting issues arising from the 2010 NPR tend to support Stephen Walt's view that the NPR is really all about “nuclear public relations.”
As an aside; we know that NSPD-14 was signed by President Bush in 2002. Senator Carl Levin in the Senate hearing on the NPR speaks of the current guidance being developed in 2008. Now it was in 2008 that Bush developed the current approach to the deterrence of nuclear terrorism. Senator Levin seems to be implying that this led to new guidance. However, the Federation of American Scientists list of NSPDs does not list such guidance for 2008.
What gives?
The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review and the Scope of Deterrence
One of the things that I was hoping to see in the 2010 nuclear posture review was a discussion of tailored deterrence and dissuasion. Both were very important aspects to the Bush approach to nuclear strategy and need to be considered when thinking about the scope of deterrence.
This applies especially to tailored deterrence. For example see how tailored deterrence is interweaved into the narrative of the 2001-2002 nuclear posture review
...Greater flexibility is needed with respect to nuclear forces and planning than was the case during the Cold War. The assets most valued by the spectrum of potential adversaries in the new security environment may be diverse and, in some cases, U.S. understanding of what an adversary values may evolve. Consequently, although the number of weapons needed to hold those assets at risk has declined, U.S. nuclear forces still require the capability to hold at risk a wide range of target types. This capability is key to the role of nuclear forces in supporting an effective deterrence strategy relative to a broad spectrum of potential opponents under a variety of contingencies. Nuclear attack options that vary in scale, scope, and purpose will complement other military capabilities. The combination can provide the range of options needed to pose a credible deterrent to adversaries whose values and calculations of risk and of gain and loss may be very different from and more difficult to discern than those of past adversaries...
This citation is significant because it shows two things; (1) how tailored deterrence, which is what the last sentence is about, influenced the way in which the Bush administration viewed the scope of deterrence and (2) the role that tailored deterrence played in the RNEP, ACI and finally RRW and Complex Transformation.
We associate an expansion in the scope of deterrence with the Bush administration because of tailored deterrence. That was the key concept that opened the flood gates, so to speak. Those who adhere to tailored deterrence think that deterrence is “hard” so it needs to be tailored to various adversaries and contingencies. Realists think that deterrence is easy. That's why tailored deterrence sits very neatly within constructivist theories of international relations.
The Obama 2010 nuclear posture review doesn't even discuss the concept. It is in the 2010 QDR, however. So I can only infer that tailored deterrence continues to obtain. Others like to grade the NPR with respect to transparency.
Completely keeping us in the dark about the fate of a central strategic doctrine that was introduced by the previous administration is pretty poor transparency.
See if you can find any arms control analyst that looks at that when speaking of the 2010 NPR's transparency. Don't bother wasting your time.
Now the 2010 NPR has a chapter on “strengthening regional deterrence”, which is mostly about extended deterrence. I thought maybe there would be something here. Alas the chapter is pretty bland. The 2010 QDR actually had a more useful line on regional deterrence
...To reinforce U.S. commitments to our allies and partners, we will consult closely with them on new, tailored, regional deterrence architectures that combine our forward presence, relevant conventional capabilities (including missile defenses), and continued commitment to extend our nuclear deterrent...
My guess is that we will hear more about tailored deterrence in future. One way this might happen is in the context of stockpile stewardship. You can see that RRW was all about tailored deterrence from the above Bush era quote, which nobody in the RRW debate cites from, so as the debate on stockpile stewardship picks up we will tend to learn more about tailored deterrence I think.
In the absence of doctrinal clarity a good analytical strategy is to infer doctrine from capabilities.
The big thing in so far as the scope of deterrence goes, in most commentary, is not tailored deterrence at all but rather negative security assurances. Maybe I'm missing a brain cell or few, but tailored deterrence matters more.
The 2010 nuclear posture review offered up the following NSA
...the United States is now prepared to strengthen its long-standing “negative security assurance” by declaring that the United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the NPT and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.
This revised assurance is intended to underscore the security benefits of adhering to and fully complying with the NPT and persuade non-nuclear weapon states party to the Treaty to work with the United States and other interested parties to adopt effective measures to strengthen the non-proliferation regime.
In making this strengthened assurance, the United States affirms that any state eligible for the assurance that uses chemical or biological weapons against the United States or its allies and partners would face the prospect of a devastating conventional military response – and that any individuals responsible for the attack, whether national leaders or military commanders, would be held fully accountable.
Given the catastrophic potential of biological weapons and the rapid pace of bio-technology development, the United States reserves the right to make any adjustment in the assurance that may be warranted by the evolution and proliferation of the biological weapons threat and U.S. capacities to counter that threat...
This is how the NSA previously read
...The United States reaffirms that it will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon state-parties to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the case of an invasion or any other attack on the United States, its territories, its armed forces or other troops, its allies, or on a state toward which it has a security commitment carried out, or sustained by such a non-nuclear-weapon state in association or alliance with a nuclear-weapon state...
Despite this NSA it is widely viewed that the US did in fact include chemical and biological weapons within the scope of deterrence. It is often stated that this was enabled by this NSA, given its commonly ascribed ambiguous nature. But notice that it isn't all that ambiguous. The old NSA states that the US will not use nuclear weapons against a non nuclear weapon state party to the NPT unless such a state carries out an attack, it need not be nuclear, against the US, its forces or allies if that attack is carried out in association with a nuclear weapon state.
Don't be fooled by commentary on this topic. The old NSA is stronger than the 2010 assurance. This is because the new assurance speaks of a non-nuclear weapon state in good standing with the NPT. Good standing is not defined so could include safeguards violations, but it need not be so formal. Good standing is ambiguous. The new assurance does explicitly mention the case of chemical and biological weapons, but we need to consider the above caveat and the one that appears in the last paragraph of the new assurance.
The old NSA had no ambiguity and no caveat, other than the allied attack caveat, yet the US still expanded the scope of deterrence regardless. In a realist world the unipolar strategic power will do what it feels it must when it feels it must, period. Assurances like this carry little weight in international relations, as the realist scholar Stephen Walt has pointed out. What is given can be taken away.
One way in which the unipolar power could be better constrained would be through a binding NSA, but that is very much off the agenda.
Now readers of this blog will know that I have always felt that a lot of what Obama is doing on the nuclear front are political moves to get multilateral agreement for non-proliferation reforms favourable to the US.
Even Iran is calling for strengthening the NPT, but most of Iran's proposals are not on compliance. They are directed toward formalising the NPT's disarmament provision. That suits Iran. The US is doing the same, only, naturally, US proposals focus on compliance.
Both parties are not interested in enhancing the NPT as such. Again, the realist world intrudes.
But let's get back on point. You will see that my long standing and very much lone view is actually affirmed in the very text that I have cited. I of course refer to this bit just in case you missed it
...persuade non-nuclear weapon states party to the Treaty to work with the United States and other interested parties to adopt effective measures to strengthen the non-proliferation regime...
Recall my point about the US and Iran above. The NSA is offered up in order to garner changes to the NPT favourable to the US and in a way that does not really constrain the US strategically. It is like Iran calling for movement on the disarmament provision, but rejecting efforts to constrain a states ability under the NPT to be a latent nuclear state in the meantime.
The NSA is part and parcel of that campaign. If the campaign fails, then forget about the NSA. This can be taken to be an unspoken corollary. Again, the realist world.
It is at the this point that we should make a few points about strategic nuclear targeting, even though I would like to treat this on its own in a subsequent blog post. Consider the 2001-2002 nuclear posture review again
...In setting requirements for nuclear strike capabilities, distinctions can be made among the contingencies for which the United States must be prepared. Contingencies can be categorized as immediate, potential or unexpected...
...North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya are among the countries that could be involved in immediate, potential, or unexpected contingencies. All have long standing hostility toward the United States and its security partners; North Korea and Iraq in particular have been chronic military concerns. All sponsor or harbor terrorists, and all have active WMD and missile programs...
These are the states that figured, including Russia and China of course, in US nuclear strike planning during the Bush administration until Saddam was ousted and Gaddafi changed tack.
That makes North Korea, Iran, Syria , Russia and China as being Bush era nuclear strike targets. Notice that all of these are not covered by the NSA, but Iran and Syria should not have been so targeted according to the old one. They are both party to the NPT and are not allies with a nuclear weapon state.
Because the above 5 states are not covered by the new NSA that means the new NSA doesn't really impact US nuclear war planning a jot. The NSA is an interesting twist in declaratory policy, but the active policy, i.e. war plans and attack options, are not affected by this NSA. Perhaps Walt's use of “nuclear public relations” to describe the NPR is accurate.
The manner in which these states are targeted hasn't been changed by the 2010 NPR either. You can see this when you take on board the following citation from the text
...Detailed NPR analysis of potential reductions in strategic weapons, conducted in spring 2009, concluded that the United States could sustain stable deterrence with significantly fewer deployed strategic nuclear warheads, assuming parallel Russian reductions. The NPR analysis considered several specific levels of nuclear weapons, all below current levels of approximately 2,200 deployed strategic warheads. Its conclusions, approved by the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Commander, U.S. Strategic Command, formed the basis for U.S. negotiations with Russia on New START. Because New START is intended to be only an initial step in a continuing process of bilateral nuclear reductions, this initial analysis used conservative assumptions to determine acceptable reductions in deployed strategic nuclear weapons...
In other words the 1550 New Start number is consistent with NSPD-14, the Presidential Guidance that the administration inherited from the Bush era. States not covered by the NSA, which just so happens to be those states that figured in previous planning, will be targeted in the manner in which they were targeted by Bush. Absent further arms control accords, which is not likely (more on that later), this is locked in. That means no change to active policy.
The 2010 nuclear posture review reaffirms one noteworthy Bush era expansion in the scope of deterrence. I speak of the deterrence of weapons of mass destruction terrorism. The NPR states,
...Renewing the U.S. commitment to hold fully accountable any state, terrorist group, or other non-state actor that supports or enables terrorist efforts to obtain or use weapons of mass destruction, whether by facilitating, financing, or providing expertise or safe haven for such efforts...
“Enables” is a direct reference to the so-called negligence doctrine. That is what “enables” means in the lexicon of US counterterrorism policy. To appreciate this you need only consider Paul Pillar's, a former senior counterterrorism official, book on the topic and the book by Daniel Byman on state sponsorship of terrorism. You can also throw in the mix the 2010 QDR
...Improving our ability to attribute nuclear threats to their source can help deter aggressors from considering the use of nuclear weapons, as well as deter state and non-state actors that may provide direct or indirect support of nuclear terrorism and prevent follow-on attacks through more rapid identification and apprehension of an attacker...
Notice the NPR emphasis on "any state". That is a further caveat to the NSA.
When it comes to the scope of deterrence nothing much, so far as I am concerned, has really changed. You might want to argue that the Obama administration has made the right statements about the low likelihood that the US would really use nuclear weapons and the role of conventional capabilities in lowering the role of nuclear weapons in US defence policy, but that isn't really that much of a big change either.
So the Bush NPR stated, to quote from the excerpts
...U.S. nuclear forces, alone are unsuited to most of the contingencies for which the United States prepares. The United States and allied interests may not require nuclear strikes.” A “new mix” of nuclear, non-nuclear, and defensive capabilities “is required for the diverse set of potential adversaries and unexpected threats the United States may confront in the coming decades...
The 2010 NPR statements are on the same wavelength.
It is not accurate to state that the 2010 nuclear posture review has instituted “sweeping” changes to the scope of nuclear deterrence.
US Discloses Warhead Stockpile Number, But Just Don’t Mention The Targets
The US has released its nuclear warhead stockpile number, as at 2009, in a brief fact sheet. The disclosure was made in the context of the NPT Review Conference that has just started. The objective is to demonstrate Washington's commitment to Article VI of the Treaty, i.e. the disarmament provision.
According to the Fact Sheet
...As of September 30, 2009, the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons consisted of 5,113 warheads. This number represents an 84 percent reduction from the stockpile’s maximum (31,255) at the end of fiscal year 1967, and over a 75 percent reduction from its level (22,217) when the Berlin Wall fell in late 1989...
The best analysis of the disclosure can be found at the FAS Strategic Security blog, which has a good in-depth overview posted by Hans Kristensen.
I want to very briefly just make one additional point. During the Cold War we had what US Strategic Command planners now call “a weapons rich environment.” The idea was well expressed by the then Strategic Air Command which stated that, basically to the affect, “if you can deter the Soviet Union, you can meet all potential threats.”
The US had a lot of weapons covering a narrow class of targets in the Soviet Union primarily, indeed overwhelmingly. The class of targets would have been set by Presidential Guidance and were set out in detail in a number of Single Integrated Operational Plan attack options.
As the fact sheet correctly points out, as does everybody else, the warhead stockpile numbers have sharply declined in the post Cold War era.
The focus on the warhead stockpile, however, obscures one crucial point. Though the number of warheads declined the class of targets increased. China was put out of an SIOP hiatus during the Clinton era. Rogue states, including rogue state weapons of mass destruction capabilities, were added in and now terrorist groups and their “enablers” are a part of the mix.
Nobody, not nobody, has told you the latter part; warheads down, targets up. That is why Stratcom planners state that though the Cold War was a “weapons rich environment” we now have a “target rich environment.”
Obama's nuclear posture review has been hailed as leading to “sweeping”changes in the scope of US deterrence. These, however, are more apparent than real. As I will show in a blog post on the NPR and the scope of deterrence in due course.
The warhead disclosure is a welcome transparency measure. However, a demonstration of an underlying commitment to Article VI it is not.
It is highly misleading to look at this disclosure in the way in which most are doing. The White House wants you to focus on the numbers, but the expanding target set that occurred at the same time is a relevant thing to consider in any analysis.
Even Bush, recall, was reducing the numbers.
Why Most Are Wrong About Nuclear Abolition; Nuclear Abolition Movement Leaders Should Be Replaced
I've been planning on posting an article on the 2010 nuclear posture review and the scope of deterrence. In so doing, I keep encountering an argument made by both supporters and critics of nuclear abolition alike.
Some philosophers of mind call consciousness “the hard problem”. Both sides in the nuclear abolition debate agree that going from a low number of nuclear weapons to zero is “the hard problem” in so far as abolition goes. Going from where we are today to a low number, let us say ~300-400 warheads, is the easy part. Because going from ~300-400 to 0 brings in a whole raft of issues that transcend nuclear security this is the really, really hard part involved in “getting to zero.”
I don't agree.
My own position on nuclear security is that I would like to see the adoption of postures of minimum deterrence globally. I consider this to be a more important issue to focus on than nuclear abolition. Let me explain my reasoning precisely with respect to “the hard problem.”
We should look at the issue not with respect to warhead numbers but with respect to the salience placed on deterrence. When warhead numbers are high and when nuclear forces are on high alert levels the salience placed on deterrence is high.
Contrast that with minimum deterrence. Under minimum deterrence warhead numbers are low. They would not need to be on high alert ready for launch, for minimum deterrence concerns itself with “the minimum means of reprisal.” Nuclear weapons could also exist in disassembled form, with explosive packages stored separately from delivery platforms. The only purpose of nuclear weapons would be to deter a nuclear first strike by other nuclear powers. Elaborate renditions of declaratory policy would not be necessary. Minimum deterrence is synonymous with existential deterrence; the capability exists therefore it deters. Keeping to our philosophy of mind theme we could even call this “Cartesian deterrence.”
Under minimum deterrence, which is achievable at warhead numbers as low as ~300-400 (disassembled and not on high alert), the salience placed on nuclear deterrence is very low. Nuclear abolition would subsist in a world where there is no stock placed on nuclear deterrence at all.
I submit that it is easier to go from a condition of very low salience placed on deterrence to zero salience than it is to go from high salience to low salience. If deterrence is not that important in international relations getting to situation where we are comfy in its absence should not be that hard.
The common argument, especially made by opponents of nuclear abolition, that going to zero nukes from a low level is the hard problem is fallacious. You can see this when you focus on the saliency of deterrence rather than on warhead numbers.
But this is not without its implications for the abolition movement, especially for the movement's strategy.
We should view these issues with respect to chess. Going to zero is an algorithmic process i.e. it should be viewed as a step-by-step procedure. You can't get to checkmate in one go. It takes a whole series of moves and stratagems to reach the ultimate objective of checkmate. So it was with abolition.
Abolitionists want to get to checkmate before the middle game is played. The way I see it minimum deterrence is akin to check. Putting the king under check makes it easier to get to checkmate. But going for checkmate prematurely risks losing the game.
That is what the abolitionist movement has done. A groundswell could have been mobilised prior to the NPT review conference to move towards minimum deterrence. The opportunity has been lost. This was a time for demanding the dealerting of nuclear weapons. This was a time for demanding that the sole purpose of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear attack. This was a time for demanding the end of the counterforce mission.
Most of that was ignored in favour of easy and cheap abolitionist rhetoric. The hard problem is getting to minimum deterrence. So this is where the focus should currently be placed by abolitionists.
Calls for a nuclear weapons convention in the current situation have mainly functioned as a monumental and irresponsible diversion from what really is "the hard problem" when it comes to nuclear abolition.
Anti nuclear activists have good reason to question the strategic acumen of their movement's leaders. They should be replaced.
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Marko is also interested in philosophy, especially the theory of knowledge, and science, especially physics, and considers himself to work within the naturalist and enlightenment tradition. He is writing a book on nuclear terrorism.