Last year, the U. S. Congress passed legislation requiring the Secretary of Defense to conduct a nuclear posture review, and lay out U.S. nuclear policy for the next five to 10 years.

Shortly after September 11, President Bush instructed the Department of Defense to look at developing an alternative strategic posture. The result of the President's instruction is the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). The legislative mandate, with the QDR, formulated the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR).

The NPR is more than an inventory of nuclear and conventional arsenals. It is a compilation of current nuclear capabilities, post-Cold War nuclear strategy, and the military imperative to prepare for a world envisioned by Strangelovian nuclear-war planners. It covers every circumstance in which the President might wish to use nuclear weapons.

In accordance with this construct, the Review has called for developing a new generation of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, which has undermined all efforts toward nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation.

The NPR outlined three situations for which the U.S. would use nuclear forces:

• Nuclear weapons could be deployed against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack,
• In retaliation for the use of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, and
• In the event of surprising military developments.

Under these circumstances, the NPR named Russia, China, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and North Korea as countries that the United States would most likely use nuclear weapons against. In the event of surprising military developments, the report recommends that the Pentagon be prepared to use nuclear weapons against hostile regimes or terrorist groups that might suddenly acquire unknown weapons.

The NPR has also drafted contingency plans in case of military confrontation and mirrored nuclear weapons development in the future. These plans outline possible U.S. military intervention in an Arab-Israeli conflict, in an attack from North Korea on the south, or a hostile takeover of Taiwan by China.

Of the seven countries, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya and North Korea are non-nuclear parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The Treaty was first signed in 1972 in hopes of keeping nuclear weapons from spreading across the world. The five nuclear states (the U.S., Britain, the Soviet Union, China and France) had pledged never to use nuclear weapon against non-nuclear countries that were parties to the treaty, except in the case of an attack in alliance with a nuclear state. This pledge and the treaty were reaffirmed in April 1995, in connection with a U.N. Security Council resolution.

The United States has avoided the use of nuclear weapons in times of crisis. But the NPR directed by the administration is inconsistent with the commitment to build a secure world through nuclear reduction and disarmament. The NPR establishes a New Triad, composed of:

• Offensive strike systems - both nuclear and conventional forces.
• Active and passive defenses - including the National Missile Defense systems and other defenses.
• A responsive defense infrastructure, which calls for revitalizing our ability to develop and produce nuclear delivery systems.

Offensive Strike Systems

Prior to the New Triad, the three legs of the U.S. strategic arsenal were intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and long-range nuclear-armed bombers. All these are now part of the first leg of the New Triad. The offensive strike systems of the first leg of the New Triad integrate nuclear weapons with conventional weapons along with new non-nuclear strategic capabilities to enhance U.S. offensive forces.

The concept behind the planning of this leg, according to Secretary Rumsfeld's December statement to Congress, is called offensive deterrence. Offensive deterrence is based on the assumption that deterrence would be most effective if the U.S. nuclear arsenal were readily deployed as conventional offensive forces. In other words, our enemy would be less likely to threaten us if they knew that the nuclear arsenal would be used against them before and after their attack. This approach abandons the role of the nuclear arsenal as a defensive force by deterrence.

Previously, during the Cold War period, U.S. nuclear weapons and policy were designed to deter a deliberate large-scale nuclear attack from the Soviet Union. Having witnessed the horrific impact on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, U.S. nuclear weapons remained the last resort and would be used only if the nation's survival depended on it.

Now, the New Triad calls for using our nuclear capability to strengthen the credibility of our non-nuclear offensive force, in order to deter the enemy. This approach has undermined efforts toward nuclear disarmament and has exacerbated the risk of more aggressive nuclear capability development by other states.

The Review also calls for developing low-yield, tactical nuclear weapons to be used against hardened or deeply buried targets (HDBTs). Developing "usable" weapons is a significant change in U.S. policy that could seriously hamper U.S. non-proliferation efforts by encouraging other states to pursue similar capabilities. Moreover, even the use of "small" nuclear weapons will invite retaliation against the U.S. with nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons.

Development of new nuclear warheads would require testing before deployment. The Review contains provisions that would lift the self-imposed moratorium on U.S. nuclear testing.¹ Although the Review does not explicitly advocate lifting the moratorium, it proposed a plan that would enable resumption of testing if the President decided such tests are needed.

Ballistic Missile Defenses

The second leg of the New Triad requires development and deployment of both active and passive defenses against ballistic missile attacks. These defense systems-two Airborne Laser aircraft, an additional ground-based anti-missile system ², four sea-based Aegis graded ships-could be operational as soon as 2006-2008.

In December 2001, President Bush announced that the United States would withdraw unilaterally from the Antiballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and forge ahead with the development and testing of a national missile defense (NMD) system ³. Mr. Bush and his national security advisors are asserting that anti-missile defense would reduce our dependence on nuclear weapons and improve our ability to deter attack.

Defense Infrastructure

The Review proposed to train U.S. Special Forces to play the same intelligence gathering and targeting for nuclear weapons as they now do for conventional weapons in Afghanistan. The Review also calls for development of a new generation of nuclear weapon delivery systems: a new land-based intercontinental ballistic missile by 2020, a new submarine launched missile and submarine to launch it by 2030, and a new heavy bomber by 2040.

In addition to the development of more weapons infrastructure, the NPR increases the flexibility and breadth of the nuclear arsenal in our strategic posture. The Review calls for an a la carte approach to find new ways of destroying our enemy's weapons and its infrastructures. This proposal would incorporate nuclear capability into many conventional weapons and intelligence capabilities now under development.

And finally, the NPR offers two insights into the foreign policy- making of the Bush Administration. First, the administration has been inconsistent in its diplomatic objectives. It first announced it would not use nuclear weapons, but then decided to develop a "usable" nuclear warhead for HDBTs and national missile defense. It entered the U.S. into agreements with Russia and China, separately, on nuclear reduction and nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, but then named both as countries that the U.S. would use nuclear weapons against.

Second, the Bush Administration has taken several steps toward unilateralism. This is most evident in the pursuit of national missile defense, and naming the seven countries in addition to the Axis of Evil without consultation with our allies. The NPR is another concrete plan that allows the U.S. to pursue national interest in the global community through military aggression instead of multilateral collaboration.
(The Nuclear Posture Report is available online)

Suggested Action

Please use the information in this article and send an email to the Bush Administration (president@whitehouse.gov and vice.president@whitehouse.gov) urging them to reject the Nuclear Posture Review:

As the May 2002 Bush-Putin summit approaches, the Bush Administration has been sending disturbing signals about nuclear weapons. Following the November 2001 summit, the administration announced a plan to reduce the U.S. nuclear arsenal to 2,000 warheads in return for a Russian reduction to 1,700-2,000 warheads. This encouraging step toward disarmament has since been undermined by the administration's Nuclear Posture Review, which recommends alarming changes to U.S. policy:

• Rather than destroying the 4,000 U.S. warheads, which will be decommissioned because of the November agreement, the Review calls for many of them to be placed in storage. This would allow the warheads to be reassembled and re-deployed quickly, and would mean that the historic gains reached in the November summit could easily be reversed. In addition, if Russia follows suit and puts its decommissioned warheads in storage, this would overload its already-limited ability to protect its nuclear stockpile from theft and illicit sale to rogue nations or terrorist groups.
• The strategic goal of the U.S. nuclear arsenal has always been to deter or respond to nuclear attack. The Review, however, identifies a number of conventional military situations in which to use nuclear weapons. This clearly indicates a rejection of the long-standing, bipartisan taboo against the use of nuclear weapons.

The Nuclear Posture Review constitutes a dangerous way of thinking about nuclear weapons. If this attitude becomes policy, it will endanger U.S. security by encouraging other states to pursue nuclear weapons, and thereby increase the likelihood that nuclear weapons will actually be used. Please tell the Administration to reject the Nuclear Posture Review.

Sample email message - I was very concerned to learn of the Pentagon's new Nuclear Posture Review. Rather than making Americans safer from the threat of nuclear weapons, adopting the recommendations of the Review would undermine our security by encouraging the proliferation of nuclear weapons and make their use more likely. This review is all the more disturbing given the upcoming U.S.-Russia summit in May, during which much progress toward nuclear disarmament could be made.

General Assembly
The 212th General Assembly (2000) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) reaffirms its long-standing call to end the arms race and urges:

• Ratification of and adherence by the United States to those existing international treaties that it has not yet accepted, such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Treaty on Land Mines;
• Adherence to and implementation of the treaties already ratified, such as the Chemical Weapons Treaty, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, or the Biological Weapon Convention; and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties I and II;
• Termination of efforts to build and deploy a Missile Defense System because its unnecessary and destabilizing military character;
• Reexamination by the United States of both its domestic and international policies, and the seeking of informed public review of its foreign policy perspective and goals for the 21st century will be based on the extension of the rule of law, the development of strengthened instruments of nonviolent conflict resolution, not on the continued enhancement of technological instruments of destruction, shaped originally in the context of the cold war...