The Obama Nuclear Posture Review: Long on Rhetoric, Short on Reality

The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review Report (pdf) has been anything but a strategic watershed for U.S. nuclear policy. A congressionally-mandated review that establishes the nuclear policy, strategy, force posture, and capabilities of the United States for the next five to ten years, this NPR aggressively promotes the Obama administration’s vision for realizing a nuclear free world. But rather than proscriptive policy for definitive action on real issues, the review is more about political posturing and ideological blustering leaving U.S. policymakers without the necessary suite of options for hedging against nuclear risks and addressing the multi-faceted set of challenges this nation faces. 
 
To be sure, the NPR marks a departure from previous reviews because it focuses  “on terrorists and rogue states as the main nuclear threats.” But there is too little emphasis on efforts to actively engage non-state actors and rogue states that get around nonproliferation rules, and this risks unbalancing the rest of the U.S. nuclear portfolio. Its passive policy approach – one that emphasizes bureaucratic legal norms like the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty--is akin to putting more lawyers in a courtroom without adding more police on the streets looking for the "bad guys." Diplomacy is necessary and good, but we can’t--as this NPR does--ignore action-oriented, security cooperation regimes, like the Proliferation Security Initiative, to combat the spread of nuclear weaponry and terrorism. 

 
Compounding this imbalance is the lack of a focused plan to resolve shortcomings within the U.S. intelligence community and its handling of nuclear issues. While the CIA and other agencies in the intel community have specific units devoted solely to nuclear threat, the government has been caught embarrassingly off guard in the past by a series of alarming--and sometimes major--events.
 
For example, in 2004, the world was shocked to learn of the extensive nuclear proliferation network set up by Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani nuclear scientist. This is despite the fact that western intelligence services, such as the CIA, had entertained suspicions for years that Dr. Khan was using his position in Pakistan’s government to peddle his nuclear wares to interested buyers.
 
And of course, there is the current war in Iraq, which was precipitated by dire intelligence assessments of Saddam Hussein’s efforts to rebuild and expand his WMD programs.
 
We know there has been and continues to be a very urgent need for the U.S. intelligence community to receive the support and political dedication necessary  to combat pressing nuclear threats, particularly with respect to Iran and North Korea. Yet the NPR remains oddly silent on this issue. Without incorporating intelligence reform as a centerpiece of U.S. efforts to overhaul old nuclear policies, the White House is bound to experience the same intelligence shortsightedness that plagued its predecessors. This will leave it severely constrained to tackle problems stemming from nuclear terrorists, and negate much of the work it is trying to do in addressing the problem through other international venues.
 
Finally, the NPR fails to address the challenges and increasing reemergence of peer nuclear powers such as Russia and China. In today’s strategic environment, the logic underpinning the policy direction of the NPR reflects the same naïveté about Russia and Russian nuclear intentions that were evident in the early days of George W. Bush’s Administration. While the current administration has acknowledged the need to “continue to address the more familiar challenge of ensuring strategic stability with existing nuclear powers--most notably Russia and China,” it has not given an indication that it is actively engaged in providing a nuclear posture that continues to consider the ongoing threat of Russia’s own posture.
 
Instead, the White House has embraced Russia as a vital and cooperative partner in U.S. nonproliferation efforts, despite the latter’s ongoing pattern of interference, aggression and continued focus on maintaining the primacy of its nuclear power in international affairs. The most recent example is Russia’s announcement that it would assist Iran--a state explicitly targeted in the NPR--with the completion of its Bushehr civilian nuclear reactor. This willingness signifies a general Russian disregard for U.S. security concerns. Yes, Russia is a necessary partner in certain nuclear activities the United States is promoting. But the hard reality is that the NPR glosses over the steep costs of Obama’s efforts to “reset” relations with Moscow and fails to account for the need to maintain strategic parity with Russia’s reemerging power.
 
The NPR isn’t short on bold vision. But policy documents like this one that rely too much on idealism can transfer into very shallow policy during the implementation process. This doesn’t have to happen. Everyone--arms control advocates and nuclear hawks alike--wants to see a world that lessens nuclear threats. But as President Obama said in his April 2009 speech in Prague, this transformation will come over a long period of time and involve sacrifices. For the White House, this means that the ideals behind the NPR will need to be implemented in a way that accounts for the hard realities discussed above and positions the United States to maintain a broad spectrum of capabilities, treaties and norms to combat nuclear threats in all their forms.
 
Adopting a well-rounded risk mitigation strategy can simultaneously work toward the President’s goal of implementing the changes he promised in Prague, while still maintaining the robust assurances of U.S. security. Such a strategy might include efforts to modernize our remaining nuclear weaponry (as the other four permanent nuclear powers are doing), even as we continue to reduce the overall size of our arsenal and develop diplomatic tools for dealing with nuclear problem states. Focusing on risk-mitigation enables President Obama to use all elements of national power without skewing toward one approach or another (as his predecessors did), thus striking a finely-crafted balance between non-proliferation efforts and hard-nosed, action-oriented policies.
 
The alternative--relying solely on “soft power” regimes and rhetoric--reduces the options U.S. leaders have to effectively respond to the whole spectrum of nuclear risks, and opens the country to a new wave of strategic vulnerability from existing and aspiring nuclear powers. The steps Obama and his colleagues take in the months ahead will demonstrate whether the White House is serious about beginning a new era of nuclear politics, or whether it believes its rhetoric will be enough to face the hard realities of the nuclear world. 
 
Read more from YPNation on nuclear policy, the New START and nonproliferation.
 
(Photo: Frontal view of four B-61 nuclear free-fall bombs on a bomb cart; U.S. Military)