SALON

Tuesday, Jul 3, 2012 7:20 AM UTC

AP sources: US moving on nuke arms cuts decision

By

Topics: From the Wires,

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is moving toward decisions that would further cut the number of U.S. nuclear weapons, possibly to between 1,000 and 1,100, reflecting new thinking on the role of nuclear weapons in an age of terror, current and former officials say.

The reductions under consideration are in line with President Barack Obama’s vision of trimming the nation’s nuclear arsenal without harming national security in the short term, and in the longer term, eliminating nuclear weapons.

The White House has yet to announce any plan for reducing the number of nuclear weapons, beyond commitments made in the recently completed New Start treaty with Russia, which obliges both countries to reduce their number of deployed long-range nuclear warheads to no more than 1,550 by 2018. As of March 1, Russia had dropped its total to 1,492 and the U.S. stood at 1,737.

Obama has been considering a range of options for additional cuts, including a low-end range that would leave between 300 and 400 warheads. Several current and former officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said there appeared to be a consensus building around the more modest reduction to 1,000 to 1,100 deployed strategic warheads.

Officials have indicated that a decision could be announced this month. But given Republican criticism of any proposed further cuts and the heating up of the presidential election campaign, the White House might put the decisions on hold until after November. The administration has indicated it would prefer to pursue further reductions as part of a negotiation with Russia, but some have suggested that reductions could be done unilaterally.

Any reductions are likely to stir opposition among Republicans in Congress, who believe Obama underestimates the importance of a stable nuclear deterrent, even though the cuts probably would save tens of billions of dollars.

“I just want to go on record as saying that there are many of us that are going to do everything we possibly can to make sure that this preposterous notion does not gain any real traction,” Rep. Trent Franks, an Arizona Republican who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, said when The Associated Press first revealed the scope of possible cuts in February.

Beyond the argument over numbers are more fundamental questions: What role do nuclear weapons have after the Cold War, now that the threat of all-out nuclear war with Moscow has abated? Do nuclear weapons deter belligerents such as al-Qaida or other terrorist organizations? The administration considered these questions in an internal reassessment of nuclear weapons policy.

James Cartwright, the retired Marine Corps general who commanded U.S. nuclear forces from 2004-07, thinks the U.S. should acknowledge that a large nuclear force is of limited value in deterring today’s major threats.

“No sensible argument has been put forward for using nuclear weapons to solve any of the major 21st century problems we face,” including threats posed by rogue states, terrorism, cyber warfare or climate change, Cartwright and his colleagues at Global Zero wrote in a report in May. Global Zero is an organization that advocates a step-by-step process to achieve the eventual elimination of all nuclear weapons.

The group argues that the U.S. could safely reduce its arsenal over the coming 10 years to 900 total nuclear weapons — 450 deployed at any given time and a like number held in reserve. That compares with the current U.S. arsenal of about 5,000 weapons, of which 1,737 are deployed.

Advocates of cutting below 1,550 argue that nuclear weapons serve an increasingly narrow purpose, and that their large numbers undercut the credibility of demands that Iran and other nations forgo acquiring their own. Opponents argue that the U.S. should not risk losing its predominant position in the nuclear arena while North Korea, Iran and other are pursuing their own nuclear ambitions.

Obama himself has made clear in recent statements that he thinks the time is right to break with the past.

“The massive nuclear arsenal we inherited from the Cold War is poorly suited to today’s threats, including nuclear terrorism,” he said March 26 in Seoul. He noted that last summer he ordered his national security team to undertake a comprehensive review of nuclear forces and policies, which was completed early this year.

“We can already say with confidence that we have more nuclear weapons than we need,” Obama said.

Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, said he interprets Obama’s views as supportive of keeping only enough of them to deter existing nuclear powers like Russia and China — not to deter attacks with other types of mass-casualty weapons like biological or chemical arms.

“Clearly we don’t have to have 1,550 deployed strategic nuclear weapons to deter a Russian or Chinese nuclear attack,” Kimball said in an interview. “Russia today has fewer than 1,500 deployed strategic warheads, and in five years they’re not going to have any more than that; they’ll probably have fewer.”

Also at stake are important decisions about multibillion-dollar investments in developing replacements for the current U.S. fleet of strategic nuclear submarines, as well as nuclear ground-based missiles and nuclear-capable bombers. Cartwright’s Global Zero report estimated that U.S. nuclear modernization programs could run to around $200 billion over the next 20 years — some portion of which could be saved if steps are taken now to further shrink the arsenal.

Russia faces a similar set of decisions about nuclear modernization, although it has publicly expressed little interest in starting a new round of negotiations with the U.S. on additional nuclear reductions. One sticking point for Moscow is its concern that U.S. missile defenses — particularly those being placed in Europe — eventually could undermine the deterrent value of Russia’s strategic nuclear arsenal.

In a meeting with then-President Dmitry Medvedev in March, Obama was heard saying that if re-elected in November he would have more flexibility to deal with the matter of missile defense.

___

Follow Robert Burns on Twitter: http://twitter.com/robertburnsap

More Robert Burns.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations