The White House introduced its plan for a Homeland Security Department and released new details of a national security strategy that offers up preemptive use of nuclear weapons as an option and changes the policy of “no first use,” which has been one of the essential premises of national security strategy for 50 years.

This trend toward the primacy of security will continue in 2003. As the U.S. government continues to put ever-increasing resources and energy into it, there will need to be a public debate over what security means and what measures will make this nation secure. The Administration persists in spending billions on destabilizing strategies—such as the build-up of forces in the gulf and the deployment of the National Missile Defense (NMD) system—though it refuses to give major funding for the HIV/AIDS pandemic ravaging Africa or real leadership in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

In 2003 there will be tremendous forces pushing us toward militarization and war, with a hoped for goal of “security.” One can simply look to the situation of Israel—the only nation with nuclear weapons in the region, and the nation with the best military in the Middle East—to see that this path leads to insecurity. True security will come through peacemaking and meeting human needs, not militarization and war. In the coming year we will need to be vigilant in calling for peace and defining security. We must be true patriots and speak out against policies that lead our great nation down the wrong road.

The National Security Strategy

As evidenced in the current conflict with Iraq, the Bush Administration is moving forward with the new strategy that embraces the preemptive use of force against nations who pose a threat to the United States. Part of this approach includes the National Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction, in which the preemptive use of force is mandated to prevent their use. It calls for responding with overwhelming force and using “all options,” including nuclear force, against those who use biological, chemical, radiological, or nuclear weapons against the U.S. Under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty the U.S. pledged never to use nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state. This will be a big issue in the new year as this new policy dangerously lowers the threshold for using nuclear weapons. The battleground for this new strategy will probably be the push for preemptive use of force against Iraq in early 2003.

National Missile Defense

The Bush Administration continues to push NMD forward with the goal of deployment by 2004. There are serious doubts about the effectiveness of this program. (One of the top generals of the program noted that any rogue nation who could actually build a ballistic missile could easily maneuver around the defenses of the NMD system.) The debate on NMD will take place in Congress when issues of funding come up. Last year’s funding level was $8 billion.

Landmines

The Administration is currently determining new U.S. landmines policies. If it accepts recent Pentagon recommendations, it will abandon all efforts to join the Mine Ban Treaty. There are reports from the Defense Department that the U.S. military has stockpiled anti-personnel landmines in Bahrain, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the island of Diego Garcia for use in a war with Iraq.

The New Senate Foreign Relations Chair

With the Republicans’ return to power in the Senate, there is one shining light: Senator Lugar (IN) will be chair of the Foreign Relations Committee. Lugar is a realist in the same vein as Secretary Powell, who has a clear preference for multilateral solutions. President Reagan suffered his most serious foreign policy defeat at the hands of Lugar, who led the drive to override Reagan’s veto of forceful sanctions against apartheid South Africa.

One of Lugar’s top priorities is to hold committee hearings on postwar plans for Iraq. (Lugar believes that the Administration has none.) These hearings will be the first in a series of foreign policy debates on issues that Lugar feels are not getting much attention. These include the stability of Afghanistan, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and relations with North Korea, where Lugar believes we should return to the negotiating table.

Issues in Congress

The Moscow Treaty – The Moscow Treaty will be up for ratification by the Senate in the coming year and should be ratified. Mr. Lugar has pledged to push it through with an overwhelming majority. The Treaty will mandate cuts in both Russian- and U.S.- deployed nuclear weapons by almost two-thirds over the next decade (from 6,000 to around 2,000). This Treaty is a step forward but there are issues it does not address. There is no schedule for implementation and no mechanism for verifying compliance. The Treaty does not require the destruction of the decommissioned warheads, but only that the warheads by stored away from the launch site. This could result in a situation where both countries begin redeploying weapons immediately after the Treaty expires. These issues may be discussed during the ratification process.

Nunn-Lugar - The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Act was written by former Sen. Sam Nunn and Lugar and became law in December 1991. Funded at about $400 million a year, the program has deactivated 5,708 Soviet nuclear warheads. More than 30,000 tactical nuclear weapons have been collected and stored. Lugar and others emphasize the importance of continuing the program in Russia, and expansion elsewhere, as necessary to win the war on terrorism.

Last year, the Defense Authorization included $417 million for the Threat Reduction program. But the money to destroy nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in Russia cannot be spent because the Bush Administration has not certified that the Russians are in compliance with arms control agreements. The White House cited lack of transparency about biological and chemical weapons.

Certification was made in each of the previous nine years of the program. The Nunn-Lugar program is needed to help fulfill the goals of the Moscow Treaty. The Russians will not be able to destroy their nuclear weapons without it. (Unless permanent waiver authority to the Congressionally-inspired certification requirements becomes law, weapons covered by the Treaty will not be destroyed.) There will likely be a push for eliminating the certification requirements along with support for expanding the Nunn-Lugar program in the next Congress.

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and Resuming Testing - The Administration is moving toward the resumption of nuclear testing. Though the U.S. rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in1999, it has had a self-imposed moratorium on nuclear testing. In 2002, the Administration began a push to speed up the schedule for resuming nuclear tests. It wants to reduce the time necessary before conducting a test from 2-3 years to between 3 months and 1 year. Some officials argue that tests may be necessary further down the road to maintain the safety and reliability of the nuclear stockpile.

The Administration’s request to speed up the schedule on resuming nuclear tests makes dim the prospect of passing the CTBT in the near future. Those in the Administration who support the return to conducting nuclear tests have pressured the White House to formally reject the CTBT once and for all, withdrawing U.S. signature from it, and putting a stop to all U.S. funding for international test ban treaty organization activities

Also, in early 2003, Congress will adopt the FY 2003 energy and water appropriations bill. This bill should have been completed by October 1, 2002, but was part of the budget gridlock in Congress. In that bill the House and Senate appropriators will decide how much money they will give toward new nuclear weapons development. The Bush Administration requested $15.5 million for a study of the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), also known as the “bunker buster.” In January or February 2003 Congress will decide whether to fund it.

By Catherine Gordon