The Times They Are Not A Changing
03.18.2008 - 9:19 AMShould the United States build new and more reliable nuclear warheads? In the face of the aging and deterioration of weapons in the existing arsenal, the Bush administration is pushing ahead with a plan to do just that. And the New York Times, among other liberal outlets, has been pushing back.
The paper’s argument is that the nuclear modernization program
is a public-relations disaster in the making overseas. Suspicions that the United States is actually trying to build up its nuclear capabilities are undercutting Washington’s arguments for restraining the nuclear appetites of Iran and North Korea.
In other words, the United States is in danger of provoking an arms race.
But Iran and North Korea are not the only players in this game. What, one might ask, are Russia and China doing in this realm? And there are some other pertinent facts one might consider that the Times, the Washington Post, and other critics of the Bush “build-up” also never mention.
One such fact is that the Bush ”build-up” is not a build-up at all but a build-down. Last week, two ranking officials with the National Nuclear Security Administration testified before Congress and reported that
we continue to reduce the stockpile to meet the President’s mandate to have the smallest nuclear stockpile consistent with our national-security objectives. As a result, today the stockpile is half of what it was in 2001, and by 2012, the United States will have the smallest stockpile since the 1950’s. Additional reductions in the stockpile are possible, but these reductions will require changes to the weapons complex and the composition of the stockpile. . . .
In 2004, the President directed a 50 percent reduction in the size of the [nuclear] stockpile, and, in December 2007, he ordered an additional 15 percent cut. The result will be a nuclear stockpile one quarter the size it was at the end of the cold war and the smallest since the Eisenhower Administration.
So much for the alarming Bush build-up. What about China and Russia?
The Pentagon has just issued its annual report, Military Power of the People’s Republic of China. China, it states,
is qualitatively and quantitatively improving its strategic forces. These presently consist of: approximately 20 silo-based, liquid-fueled CSS-4 ICBMs (which constitute its primary nuclear means of holding continental U.S. targets at risk); approximately 20 liquid-fueled, limited range CSS-3 ICBMs; between 15-20 liquid-fueled CSS-2 intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs); upwards of 50 CSS-5 road mobile, solid-fueled MRBMs (for regional deterrence missions); and, JL-1 submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) on the XIA-class SSBN (although the operational status of the XIA is questionable).
By 2010, China’s nuclear forces will likely comprise enhanced CSS-4s; CSS-3s; CSS-5s; solid-fueled, road-mobile DF-31 and DF31A ICBMs, which are being deployed to units of the Second Artillery Corps; and up to five JIN-class SSBNs, each carrying between 10 and 12 JL-2 SLBM. The addition of nuclear-capable forces with greater mobility and survivability, combined with ballistic missile defense countermeasures which China is researching — including maneuvering re-entry vehicles (MaRV), multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles (MIRV), decoys, chaff, jamming, thermal shielding, and ASAT weapons — will strengthen China’s deterrent and enhance its capabilities for strategic strike. New air- and ground-launched cruise missiles that could perform nuclear missions would similarly improve the survivability, flexibility, and effectiveness of China’s nuclear forces.
Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. Michael D. Maples, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee late last month about Moscow’s efforts to augment its nuclear forces.
Russia has made a major commitment of almost 5 trillion rubles to its 2007-2015 budget to develop and build new conventional and nuclear weapon systems, with Moscow’s priority on the maintenance and modernization of the latter.
Development and production of advanced strategic weapons such as the SS-27/TOPOL-M ICBM and the Bulava-30 Submarine-Launched Ballistic Missile (SLBM) continues. In April, Russia rolled out the first Dolgorukiy-class ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) designed to carry the Bulava-30 SLBM which continues testing despite several publicized failures. . . .
Russia retains a relatively large stockpile of non-strategic nuclear weapons.
“[W]hen we build, they build; when we cut, they build,” is what Harold Brown once said about the USSR back when he was Secretary of Defense under Jimmy Carter.
The times appear not to have changed all that much since then, and neither, in its consistent effort to blame the ills of the world on the United States, has the New York Times.
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March 18th, 2008 at 12:30 PM
Two dangers here:
1. Inviting back the demented psycho-world of the MAD energumen, which is the rut public thinking inevitably runs in when the sizes of nuclear arsenals (or even just nuclear procurement programs) are compared.
The Bush administration has not done well at dominating public discussions with its take on issues.
It is perfectly clear to me (and no doubt thee) that, since the abolition of the ABM Treaty, our nuclear policy under Bush has been not MAD but unilateral, national-interest deterrence. We don’t deter nuclear-armed nations from launching on us by a calibrated capacity to counterstrike; we instead propose to defend ourselves against first strikes with a missile defense complex. Nor do we focus on the comparative size, throw-weight, etc of our and Russia’s (or anyone else’s) nuclear arsenals; we focus on what substantive threats there are that we may need to deter (or, in the last ditch, deal with directly). We then determine the size and capability of our nuclear arsenal.
But I’m not sure much of the general public realizes that. I would guess that millions of people don’t even realize that our policy today is NOT based on mutual deterrence. This is a highly spinnable topic, and the danger is great that the thinking behind our old MAD policy will reemerge, and seem like wisdom.
2. If you think the NYT or WaPo is going to sit still and let DIA be “right” about Russia’s and China’s nuclear programs and intentions, well, I bet you money you’re on the wrong track. It takes very little to manufacture an intelligence failure. We weren’t right about everything regarding the former USSR’s military programs and holdings, which DIA has more means than anyone on the planet to know, having done a 10-year post-analysis of our Cold War-era intelligence from 1991-2001.
The purpose of that review was to evaluate our analytical “keys” from the Cold War era, and see if they had been leading us to the right conclusions, based on what we found afterward in the mutual inspections period of STARTs I and II. The analytical “controlling” for post-Soviet program hiding wasn’t perfect, but DIA did determine that, although the Russians cleared out or hid some of their most esoteric and forward-leaning stuff, we could say with some certainty that there were things we had simply been wrong about. Not major things — more along the lines of less progress on one program, or more on another, than we had thought; or smaller or larger inventories than expected. Some of these things, in the context of the programs in question, represented differences that mattered from the assessments of the US IC. On the other hand, not a single one of these post-analytical differences indicated that our Cold War policies had been misdirected because we didn’t properly understand the character and intentions of the Soviet state.
What the media would have done with these conclusions is evident in the treatment of the analysis of Task Force B, which CTD correspondent Jon S. brought up a few weeks ago. It is not clear-cut today whether or how much in error Task Force B’s analyses were, but the media, enabled by academics, have treated them as though they were in obvious error. They have also been careful to leave the impression that these errors (of overestimation) drove a needlessly confrontational and antagonistic policy toward the Soviets — an impression that it takes a rather in-depth understanding of the matter to refute.
It will be extraordinarily easy to do this again, because the people are ignorant, nuclear strategy and “stuff” are confusing, and intelligence is imperfect on particulars, however perfect it may be on the general. Remember the “Missile Gap,” AND the triumphant counter-cry that “There WAS no Missile Gap”? All of it political gotcha BS; both slogans caricatures of fundamental reality — and both of them, “intelligence failures,” by the Iraqi WMD standard. Keep that in mind as this topic staggers forward.
March 18th, 2008 at 8:08 PM
All I know is what Reagan said, that the purpose of a powerful military is to keep the peace.
Liberals crow about things like ‘proportional response’, which always results in endless deaths and battles. What a silly and dangerous and cavalier way of dealing with reality.
Liberals believe having a strong military PROVOKES enemies, and somehow cutting back on our strength will convince them of our good intentions and everyone will be throwing flowers at each other.
I can’t forget school daze. If I fought the bully, he’d keep punching. If I tried to reason with him, he kept punching. If he sensed that I was giving up, he’d punch harder.
ONce he knew I’d fight hard every time, I had his respect. He moved on to easier targets.
When we build, they build. When we cut back, they build.
Nothing changes. Human nature is what it is. Reagan was right. IF you want peace, build for war.
March 19th, 2008 at 6:56 PM
Assuming they are still around The New York Times and Moveon.org and all the other talk-talk folks can spin like tops on the day after New York or Los Angeles goes up in smoke for all that it will matter. The President who fails to order significant payback will be impeached before the next congressional election.
MAD isn’t an intellectual policy, it’s simple fact - although it may take the form of Tit for Tat if we’re very lucky when the third malice aforethought nuke goes off, as it inevitably will.