Nuclear Umbrella: Pick 40

Defense News recently ran an editorial arguing that the United States should build new nuclear weapons or run the risk of losing the skills necessary to build these weapons, and:

“That's simply unacceptable for a nation whose nuclear protective umbrella covers some 40 nations.”

The number 40 captured my imagination. I thought immediately of the 28 members of NATO. Then it occurred to me that this includes the United States itself, which is a provider of the extended deterrent usually referred to as the “nuclear umbrella” and thus might not be counted toward the 40. And, of course, the United Kingdom and France have their own independent nuclear deterrents, so 25 in NATO properly under the U.S. “nuclear umbrella.” But then I decided that coming to agreement about this will require a more cooperative spirit, so 28.

Japan is an oft-cited (if increasingly complex) case, and South Korea leaps to mind, but I started running out of steam in my effort to count to 40.

Then it occurred to me I might have the whole thing the wrong way round. I began again: 192 members of the United Nations, now subtracting:

• 33 members of the Latin American Nuclear Weapon Free Zone,
• 13 parties to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone,
• 10 parties to the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone,
• 53 signatories to the African Nuclear Weapon Free Zone, and
• 5 parties to the Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone
  And, of course,
• 28 NATO members previously mentioned

This should leave 50 UN members not in NATO or an explicit nuclear weapon free zone agreement, right?

Of course, the devil is in the details, with Taiwan probably relevant and Niue party to Pelindaba and Brunei party to Bangkok all without seats in Turtle Bay – but building on the collaborative spirit referenced above, let’s say this is all part of a round 30, leaving 10 states to be named later under the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” from among (more or less) the follwing 53: Afghanistan, Andorra, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bhutan, China, Cyprus, Egypt, Finland, Georgia, Iceland, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Maldives, Malta, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Myanmar, Nepal, New Zealand, North Korea, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Qatar, Moldova, Russia, San Marino, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Timor-Leste, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Plus, the Holy See.

This list certainly includes some of my favorites, but the point is that the who the United States has pledged to defend is potentially important at a moment when our negative security assurances (not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) will again be discussed critically at the 2010 Review Conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The stakes may not seem what they once were in extending our deterrent largesse in this way, but exactly which states we have pledged to defend with nuclear weapons under what conditions remains a worthy topic of public debate because it has implications for the effectiveness of our nonproliferation policy.

The importance of being Frank with Japan

Vice President of the Cohen Group and longtime senior U.S. official with responsibility for nuclear weapons policy, serving in the U.S. National Security Council and Office of the Secretary of Defense, Frank Miller spoke this morning to the Congressional Breakfast Series sponsored by the National Defense University Foundation and the National Defense Industrial Association.

Mr. Miller made many interesting, important, and thoughtful comments on the future direction of U.S. nuclear weapons policy. One of his more predictable comments was that:

“our friends and our allies will continue to look to us to provide a nuclear umbrella, and if we don’t some if not many of them will build their own nuclear weapons.”

This argument has long struck the Nukes on a Blog team as too open-ended. Never having heard clarity about the specific circumstances or U.S. actions that might lead U.S. allies to reconsider their nonproliferation commitments, we are unable to imagine productive debate about how such dangerous circumstances might be avoided or mitigated in the context of prudent efforts toward nuclear disarmament in compliance with our shared obligations to Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the political requirements of stable nuclear nonproliferation more broadly. Nukes on a Blog recidivists will recall that Leonor questioned the requirements of extended deterrence and their relationship to allied nuclear proliferation with Mr. Miller in October 2007, with less than fully satisfying results.

The Japanese case is one of a small number at the center of this topic. Professor Michael Mochizuki sheds interesting light on the Japanese nonproliferation commitment in a July 2007 article for The Nonproliferation Review. Ploughshares Fund President Joseph Cirincione recently shared his concern with a capacity audience at the Elliott School of International Affairs that this argument could be used to block movement toward further deep cuts in U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals:

“you should watch this debate…this is one of the new arguments for doing nothing…I think it’s nonsense; I think there are some Japanese officials using this for their own purposes and I don’t think it’s true.”

These arguments suggest to us that there are multiple important and interrelated factors that bear on the nonproliferation commitments of U.S. allies, particularly including Japan; that a careful understanding of the conditions necessary for the stability of these commitments must be part of any effective strategy to prevent nuclear proliferation globally; and that the emerging historic opportunity to make prudent and effective progress toward the abolition of nuclear weapons suggest that greater and more inclusive consideration of these topics is urgently needed in dialog with our allies -- again particularly including Japan.

We are pleased to discover seeming agreement with Mr. Miller on needed next steps in this regard, as he explained today:

“We need to work with the Japanese Government and open up a very rich dialogue with the Japanese Government…”

like that we have had with our European allies about the requirements of extended deterrence;

“that is a dialogue that is desperately needed.”

Nuclear allies should talk more

The United States sees its nuclear arsenal as playing a vital role in constraining further nuclear proliferation among its allies through robust extended deterrence. General Kevin P. Chilton, Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command testified today before the Armed Services Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, explaining this point:

“In my opinion, a stockpile modernization strategy and nonproliferation efforts should be considered complementary, not mutually exclusive, means to the same safer world. Modernization could provide a unique opportunity to introduce enhanced safety and security features that would render our weapons undesirable terrorist targets. It can be argued that the effort also strengthens the confidence numerous allies derive from our extended nuclear deterrent umbrella, allowing them to forgo indigenous nuclear programs. Should these allies (many of whom have the resources and technical ability to develop their own nuclear weapons) come to believe the United States is unwilling or unable to protect their interests through the full use of our assets, I believe global nuclear proliferation could increase, a clearly unacceptable prospect for U.S. or global security interests.”

A recurring argument on the American side against verified and legally-binding agreement to bilateral deep cuts in U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons has been that – regardless of matching Russian reductions – U.S. reductions would erode the credibility of the U.S. extended deterrent, leading key allies (often Germany and Japan) to question the reliability of the U.S. “nuclear umbrella” and seek their own nuclear weapons. General Chilton extends this familiar numerical argument as a rationale for modernization.

My concern about this argument is that it is both extremely important and completely resistant to contrary or mitigating information (as Franklin Miller clarified for Leonor in October 2007 when she questioned it at an event sponsored by the Center for a New American Security, explaining to her “that’s just not the way the world works”). Its correctness assumed, this argument can be extended to embrace any specific numerical force requirement, deployment pattern, use doctrine, modernization program, etc.

The Lawyers Alliance for World Security made a stab at illuminating allied perspectives on this argument in the late 1990s, featuring visits to numerous capitals by former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, the late Senator Alan Cranston, Major General William Burns (USA-ret.), former Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr. and other (including the Nukes on a Blog team). We found wide diversity of opinion, including some strong support for more circumspect extended deterrence policy from the United States (particularly including “no first use”) and no clear evidence that nuclear weapons reductions discussions with Russia were approaching any sort of “trigger” or “threshold” of allied nuclear proliferation. This experience left us skeptical of the “one size fits all” assertion that anything from failure to modernize U.S. nuclear weapons, to cuts below 1,000, to declaration of a “no first use” policy, to ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty would undermine the commitments of U.S. allies to nuclear nonproliferation.

Also today, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown gives us one more reason to be skeptical in a London speech on nuclear energy and proliferation today arguing, in part:

“We must begin by reducing the number of nuclear weapons still out there in the world, and between them the US and Russia retains around 95%. The START Treaty, the mainstay of their bilateral arms control effort, will expire later this year and I welcome their commitment to find and work for a legally binding successor which I hope will pave the way for greater reductions to come. For our part, as soon as it becomes useful for our arsenal to be included in a broader negotiation, Britain stands ready to participate and to act.”

If Britain sees itself playing a strong supporting role in creating the context for and leading the participation of the other nuclear weapons states in successful multilateral negotiations on nuclear weapons reductions, does this mean that U.S. reductions and allied reductions are complementary? If so, what does this mean for allies who rely more exclusively on extended deterrence? Does the German commitment not to build nuclear weapons grow weaker as the British nonproliferation commitment grows so strong as to allow dismantlement of nuclear weapons already deployed? The answer is at least as far from affirmative as it is from clear.

It is possible to imagine a synthesis of today’s remarks by Prime Minister Brown and General Chilton, but doing so takes enough energy and care to suggest that this should be a matter of active negotiation amongst the allies complementing the U.S.-Russian talks about nuclear weapons reductions.