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Commentary
Secret Plan Outlines the Unthinkable
A secret policy review of the nation�s nuclear policy puts forth
chilling new contingencies for nuclear war.
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By WILLIAM M. ARKIN
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration, in a secret policy review
completed early this year, has ordered the Pentagon to draft contingency
plans for the use of nuclear weapons against at least seven countries,
naming not only Russia and the "axis of evil"--Iraq, Iran, and North
Korea--but also China, Libya and Syria.
In addition, the U.S. Defense Department has been told to prepare for
the possibility that nuclear weapons may be required in some future
Arab-Israeli crisis. And, it is to develop plans for using nuclear
weapons to retaliate against chemical or biological attacks, as well as
"surprising military developments" of an unspecified nature.
These and a host of other directives, including calls for developing
bunker-busting mini-nukes and nuclear weapons that reduce collateral
damage, are contained in a still-classified document called the Nuclear
Posture Review (NPR), which was delivered to Congress on Jan. 8.
Like all such documents since the dawning of the Atomic Age more than a
half-century ago, this NPR offers a chilling glimpse into the world of
nuclear-war planners: With a Strangelovian genius, they cover every
conceivable circumstance in which a president might wish to use nuclear
weapons--planning in great detail for a war they hope never to wage.
In this top-secret domain, there has always been an inconsistency
between America's diplomatic objectives of reducing nuclear arsenals and
preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, on the one
hand, and the military imperative to prepare for the unthinkable, on the
other.
Nevertheless, the Bush administration plan reverses an almost
two-decade-long trend of relegating nuclear weapons to the category of
weapons of last resort. It also redefines nuclear requirements in
hurried post-Sept. 11 terms.
In these and other ways, the still-secret document offers insights into
the evolving views of nuclear strategists in Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld's Defense Department.
While downgrading the threat from Russia and publicly emphasizing their
commitment to reducing the number of long-range nuclear weapons, Defense
Department strategists promote tactical and so-called "adaptive" nuclear
capabilities to deal with contingencies where large nuclear arsenals are
not demanded.
They seek a host of new weapons and support systems, including
conventional military and cyber warfare capabilities integrated with
nuclear warfare. The end product is a now-familiar post-Afghanistan
model--with nuclear capability added. It combines precision weapons,
long-range strikes, and special and covert operations.
But the NPR's call for development of new nuclear weapons that reduce
"collateral damage" myopically ignores the political, moral and military
implications--short-term and long--of crossing the nuclear threshold.
Under what circumstances might nuclear weapons be used under the new
posture? The NPR says they "could be employed against targets able to
withstand nonnuclear attack," or in retaliation for the use of nuclear,
biological, or chemical weapons, or "in the event of surprising military
developments."
Planning nuclear-strike capabilities, it says, involves the recognition
of "immediate, potential or unexpected" contingencies. North Korea,
Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya are named as "countries that could be
involved" in all three kinds of threat. "All have long-standing
hostility towards the United States and its security partners. All
sponsor or harbor terrorists, and have active WMD [weapons of mass
destruction] and missile programs."
China, because of its nuclear forces and "developing strategic
objectives," is listed as "a country that could be involved in an
immediate or potential contingency." Specifically, the NPR lists a
military confrontation over the status of Taiwan as one of the scenarios
that could lead Washington to use nuclear weapons.
Other listed scenarios for nuclear conflict are a North Korean attack on
South Korea and an Iraqi assault on Israel or its neighbors.
The second important insight the NPR offers into Pentagon thinking about
nuclear policy is the extent to which the Bush administration's
strategic planners were shaken by last September's terrorist attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Though Congress directed the
new administration "to conduct a comprehensive review of U.S. nuclear
forces" before the events of Sept. 11, the final study is striking for
its single-minded reaction to those tragedies.
Heretofore, nuclear strategy tended to exist as something apart from the
ordinary challenges of foreign policy and military affairs. Nuclear
weapons were not just the option of last resort, they were the option
reserved for times when national survival hung in the balance--a
doomsday confrontation with the Soviet Union, for instance.
Now, nuclear strategy seems to be viewed through the prism of Sept. 11.
For one thing, the Bush administration's faith in old-fashioned
deterrence is gone. It no longer takes a superpower to pose a dire
threat to Americans.
"The terrorists who struck us on Sept. 11th were clearly not deterred by
doing so from the massive U.S. nuclear arsenal," Rumsfeld told an
audience at the National Defense University in late January.
Similarly, U.S. Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton said in a recent
interview, "We would do whatever is necessary to defend America's
innocent civilian population .... The idea that fine theories of
deterrence work against everybody ... has just been disproven by Sept.
11."
Moreover, while insisting they would go nuclear only if other options
seemed inadequate, officials are looking for nuclear weapons that could
play a role in the kinds of challenges the United States faces with Al
Qaeda.
Accordingly, the NPR calls for new emphasis on developing such things as
nuclear bunker-busters and surgical "warheads that reduce collateral
damage," as well as weapons that could be used against smaller, more
circumscribed targets--"possible modifications to existing weapons to
provide additional yield flexibility," in the jargon-rich language of
the review.
It also proposes to train U.S. Special Forces operators to play the same
intelligence gathering and targeting roles for nuclear weapons that they
now play for conventional weapons strikes in Afghanistan. And
cyber-warfare and other nonnuclear military capabilities would be
integrated into nuclear-strike forces to make them more
all-encompassing.
As for Russia, once the primary reason for having a U.S. nuclear
strategy, the review says that while Moscow's nuclear programs remain
cause for concern, "ideological sources of conflict" have been
eliminated, rendering a nuclear contingency involving Russia "plausible"
but "not expected."
"In the event that U.S. relations with Russia significantly worsen in
the future," the review says, "the U.S. may need to revise its nuclear
force levels and posture."
When completion of the NPR was publicly announced in January, Pentagon
briefers deflected questions about most of the specifics, saying the
information was classified. Officials did stress that, consistent with a
Bush campaign pledge, the plan called for reducing the current 6,000
long-range nuclear weapons to one-third that number over the next
decade. Rumsfeld, who approved the review late last year, said the
administration was seeking "a new approach to strategic deterrence," to
include missile defenses and improvements in nonnuclear capabilities.
Also, Russia would no longer be officially defined as "an enemy."
Beyond that, almost no details were revealed.
The classified text, however, is shot through with a worldview
transformed by Sept. 11. The NPR coins the phrase "New Triad," which it
describes as comprising the "offensive strike leg," (our nuclear and
conventional forces) plus "active and passive defenses,"(our
anti-missile systems and other defenses) and "a responsive defense
infrastructure" (our ability to develop and produce nuclear weapons and
resume nuclear testing). Previously, the nuclear "triad" was the
bombers, long-range land-based missiles and submarine-launched missiles
that formed the three legs of America's strategic arsenal.
The review emphasizes the integration of "new nonnuclear strategic
capabilities" into nuclear-war plans. "New capabilities must be
developed to defeat emerging threats such as hard and deeply-buried
targets (HDBT), to find and attack mobile and re-locatable targets, to
defeat chemical and biological agents, and to improve accuracy and limit
collateral damage," the review says.
It calls for "a new strike system" using four converted Trident
submarines, an unmanned combat air vehicle and a new air-launched cruise
missile as potential new weapons.
Beyond new nuclear weapons, the review proposes establishing what it
calls an "agent defeat" program, which defense officials say includes a
"boutique" approach to finding new ways of destroying deadly chemical or
biological warfare agents, as well as penetrating enemy facilities that
are otherwise difficult to attack. This includes, according to the
document, "thermal, chemical or radiological neutralization of
chemical/biological materials in production or storage facilities."
Bush administration officials stress that the development and
integration of nonnuclear capabilities into the nuclear force is what
permits reductions in traditional long-range weaponry. But the blueprint
laid down in the review would expand the breadth and flexibility of U.S.
nuclear capabilities.
In addition to the new weapons systems, the review calls for
incorporation of "nuclear capability" into many of the conventional
systems now under development. An extended-range conventional cruise
missile in the works for the U.S. Air Force "would have to be modified
to carry nuclear warheads if necessary." Similarly, the F-35 Joint
Strike Fighter should be modified to carry nuclear weapons "at an
affordable price."
The review calls for research to begin next month on fitting an existing
nuclear warhead into a new 5,000-pound "earth penetrating" munition.
Given the advances in electronics and information technologies in the
past decade, it is not surprising that the NPR also stresses improved
satellites and intelligence, communications, and more robust
high-bandwidth decision-making systems.
Particularly noticeable is the directive to improve U.S. capabilities in
the field of "information operations," or cyber-warfare. The
intelligence community "lacks adequate data on most adversary computer
local area networks and other command and control systems," the review
observes. It calls for improvements in the ability to "exploit" enemy
computer networks, and the integration of cyber-warfare into the overall
nuclear war database "to enable more effective targeting, weaponeering,
and combat assessment essential to the New Triad."
In recent months, when Bush administration officials talked about the
implications of Sept. 11 for long-term military policy, they have often
focused on "homeland defense" and the need for an anti-missile shield.
In truth, what has evolved since last year's terror attacks is an
integrated, significantly expanded planning doctrine for nuclear wars.
_ _ _
William M. Arkin is a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins University
School of Advanced International Studies in Washington and an adjunct
professor at the U.S. Air Force School of Advanced Airpower Studies. He
is also a consultant to a number of nongovernmental organizations and a
regular contributor to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Officials
are looking for nuclear weapons that could help against a foe like Al
Qaeda.
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