Rear Admiral Gene LaRocque (USN, Ret.)
Pres., Center for Defense Information
HOST:
Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll, Jr. (USN, Ret.)
Deputy Director, Center for Defense Information
DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH:
David T. Johnson
DIRECTOR of TELEVISION:
Mark Sugg
SENIOR PRODUCER & NARRATOR:
Ira Shorr
PRODUCERS:
Marguerite Arnold
Glenn Baker
Daniel Sagalyn
Stephen Sapienza
PRINCIPAL ANALYST & SCRIPTWRITER:
Kathryn Schultz
SEGMENT PRODUCER:
Marguerite Arnold
VIDEO GRAPHICS:
Adam Luther
ORIGINATION:
Washington, D.C.
PROGRAM NO.:
813
INITIAL BROADCAST:
11 December 1994
CONDITION OF USE: Credit "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR"
(Center for Defense Information).
(C) Copyright 1994, Center for Defense Information. All Rights Reserved.
Videotapes also available.
Amb. GEORGE BUNN
Stanford University
Dr. ZACHARY DAVIS
Congressional Research Service
Amb. RALPH EARLE
U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency
Amb. JAMES LEONARD
Washington Council on Non-Proliferation
JOHN PIKE
Federation of American Scientists
Amb. ROLAND TIMERBAEV
Monterey Institute for International Studies
AMERICA'S NUCLEAR REACTION
NARRATOR: In 1945, the United States was the only country in the world with nuclear weapons. Eight nations have the bomb today and many more nations have the capability to develop nuclear weapons.
["AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR" program introduction.]
ADM EUGENE CARROLL, Jr.: It's nice to have the Cold War behind us, the danger of a nuclear holocaust ended. Or is it? You will see today great concern in the Pentagon about the possible spread of nuclear weapons. You will learn of planning to prevent this from happening through diplomatic efforts and, if necessary, by military action to destroy those weapons.
You might want to consider both options and decide which one makes the most sense to you as you hear our experts discuss the situation today.
NARRATOR: One nuclear weapon can destroy a city, be it Hiroshima, Washington, or Moscow. Today, eight nations acknowledge possessing nuclear weapons: The United States, the United Kingdom, France, China, and four former states of the Soviet Union, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus. All told, these nations possess more than 45,000 nuclear warheads with total explosive power equal to nearly one million Hiroshima bombs.
In addition, Israel is believed to have roughly 300 nuclear weapons. India and Pakistan both admit having the capability to build a nuclear weapon should either choose to do so. In 1993, South Africa admitted to building six nuclear weapons, but dismantled them prior to signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991. But others have the potential cross the nuclear threshold.
Forty-five other nations have the raw materials and the basic knowledge necessary to begin a nuclear weapons program. Why do so many countries have nuclear capabilities? Because any country with an electrical generating nuclear power plant or a nuclear research reactor can create the material to build a crude nuclear weapon.
Of these 45 nations, only a handful are seen as potential threats to the United States. For example, while Canada and Mexico have the building blocks for nuclear weapons, there is no reason to believe that they intend to utilize their capabilities and build the bomb. Other nations, however, such as Iraq and North Korea may not have such friendly intentions.
The spread of nuclear weapons, while not an immediate threat to the United States, increases the likelihood that nuclear weapons will one day be used by terrorists or in ethnic or regional conflicts. Traditionally, the United States has used non-military means to limit the spread of nuclear weapons. Such non-proliferation efforts include export controls, diplomacy and international treaties.
JOHN PIKE: The Clinton administration has added a new word to our lexicon, "counter-proliferation," which in addition to arms control efforts to stop proliferation, mainly focuses on developing military forces to enable us to fight a war against another country that might have nuclear weapons or ballistic missiles.
NARRATOR: John Pike is the noted director of the Space Policy Project at the Federation of American Scientists. He explains the difference between the Clinton administration's two distinct reactions to possible nuclear proliferation.
Mr. PIKE: The difference between non-proliferation and counter-proliferation is that non-proliferation seeks to erect a cooperative security regime, reducing the threats to other countries, whereas counter-proliferation is basically a military capability of some type with which we would hope to able to win a war with a nuclear armed adversary.
NARRATOR: Pursuing both non-proliferation and counter-proliferation may prove troubling to the United States' goal of stopping the spread of nuclear weapons.
Mr. PIKE: There's a fundamental inconsistency between non-proliferation, which is trying to halt the proliferation of these weapons, and counter-proliferation, which is basically building up our military forces in an arms race with potential regional adversaries like North Korea. I think, in practice, non-proliferation is likely to be far more effective. Counter-proliferation though is a lot more expensive.
ZACHARY DAVIS: There has always been a connection between force and diplomacy. The two are not completely isolated from one another, but we start with diplomacy and we stay with diplomacy for as long as possible.
NARRATOR: Dr. Zachary Davis is an international nuclear policy analyst with the Congressional Research Service.
Dr. DAVIS: But as long as diplomacy is completely divorced from any potential for applying force, then it really is only talk. And it is prudent military planning to envision ways to support diplomacy with credible threats of force in cases where vital interests are at stake.
NARRATOR: As part of its counter-proliferation military-oriented strategy, the Pentagon is looking to improve its capabilities to locate chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, to defend US troops from attack, and to be able to destroy a potential enemy's weapons of mass destruction. There is some controversy concerning the weapons, both offensive and defensive, which the Pentagon may develop.
When we talk of nuclear defenses, you may think of Ronald Reagan's "Star Wars," a supposedly leakproof shield which would render nuclear warheads impotent and obsolete. President Clinton shifted the emphasis away from Reagan's vision toward the goal of theater missile defense.
Ambassador RALPH EARLE: What we are doing is refocusing the money away from the space-based systems and even away from the ground-based national missile defense systems to theater missile defense.
NARRATOR: Theater missile defense involves protecting US troops deployed overseas from short-range ballistic missiles. These missiles might carry conventional explosives, or nuclear warheads, or even chemical or biological weapons. Missile defenses would not, however, defend against nuclear weapons sailed into New York Harbor or smuggled into the United States in a briefcase.
Ambassador Ralph Earle is the distinguished deputy director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
Amb. EARLE: The goal is to be able at short notice to send these defensive weapons to places wherever our forces are in peril from missile attack and defend them against that kind of missile. But this is theater missile defense as opposed to strategic missile defense.
NARRATOR: The US Patriot missile, which intercepted a few Iraqi SCUD missiles in the Arabian desert, is an example of what the US military currently uses for theater missile defense.
No one denies that the military must have the ability to protect its troops from attack. One of the defensive weapons that the Pentagon is looking to develop, however, may undermine US nuclear non-proliferation efforts, principally, the Anti-Ballistic Missile, or ABM, Treaty. That weapon is the theater high altitude area defense missile system, or THAAD.
The 1972 ABM Treaty limits the deployment of defenses against long-range, or strategic, missiles. This important treaty is based on the premise that building defensive weapons would spur your opponent to build more offensive weapons, thus escalating the arms race. Non-proliferation proponents worry that THAAD may undermine the ABM Treaty because THAAD may give nations the ability to destroy both short-range missiles and longer range ballistic missiles.
Mr. PIKE: The Clinton administration has essentially proposed to eliminate the buffer between permitted tactical systems and limited strategic systems. And as a result, both America and Russia would be free to deploy systems that while said to be aimed against theater ballistic missiles, would actually be capable of intercepting strategic ballistic missiles.
NARRATOR: Ambassador Earle, however, insists that THAAD is not a Star Wars system masquerading as a theater system.
Amb. EARLE: It hasn't even be tested, so it's a little hard to tell exactly what its capabilities will be. It is being designed to defend against incoming theater weapons, not against strategic weapons.
NARRATOR: The ABM Treaty also faces another danger. With a Republican-controlled Congress, Star Wars may be resurrected. In their "Contract with America," members of the Republican Party pledged to an increased spending on national missile defenses. If this nationwide system was deployed, the United States would clearly violate the ABM Treaty. More importantly, we would stall efforts to reduce the nuclear weapons stockpiles of the United States and former Soviet Union.
The Clinton administration is also looking at new weapons which could be used in a preemptive strike against a potential adversary which possessed a handful of nuclear weapons.
Mr. PIKE: Special Operations Forces say that they could parachute enemy lines and hijack or capture nuclear weapons. The Air Force says that they can drop conventional or nuclear bombs on them. The Navy says that they can be attacked with cruise missiles or Trident missiles, either with nuclear or conventional warheads. Basically, everybody's trying to get into the game to take their old military capabilities and apply them to this new mission.
NARRATOR: The Pentagon's Report on Counter-Proliferation Activities stated that it wanted to develop the capabilities "to seize, disable or destroy weapons of mass destruction."
Dr. DAVIS: Well, it's a worst-case scenario and that is the business of planners, is to foresee worst-case scenarios and to make the preparations that are necessary in meeting those threats which seem plausible.
Mr. PIKE: A lot of this rhetoric about counter-proliferation is reminiscent of the nuclear war-fighting rhetoric or the early Reagan administration. The only difference now is that we're talking about fighting a nuclear war with a regional adversary, like North Korea or Iraq, rather than with a superpower such as the Soviet Union.
Dr. DAVIS: What the advocates of a counter-proliferation doctrine emphasize is that it is not primarily a preemptive doctrine, it is a deterrent doctrine. And that by maintaining a robust counter-proliferation capability, you would deter not only the use of nuclear weapons, but potentially you could deter even the acquisition of nuclear weapons by potential hostile nations.
NARRATOR: Taking preemptive military action against would-be nuclear powers is nothing new. In 1981, Israel bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor which it believed was being used to develop nuclear weapons. The Israeli attack did not stop the Iraqi program, it merely drove it deeper underground. A decade later, Iraq was on its way again to joining the "nuclear club."
INTERVIEWER: Is proliferation a diplomatic or a military problem?
Amb. EARLE: Oh, I think it's primarily a diplomatic problem. Military you want to avoid.
NARRATOR: Consider the recent concern that North Korea may have one or two crude nuclear weapons. The United States could have conducted a surgical strike against North Korea's suspected nuclear weapons facilities. Instead of resorting to military might, the United States chose diplomacy.
Amb. EARLE: There was talk of should we invade North Korea if they continue. I mean that's a really unhappy solution, given the huge conventional forces, the difficulty of seeking out, in this case, the North Korean facilities, and so forth. So, I would say that proliferation is very much a diplomatic problem in preventing it. Obviously, if a country acquires nuclear weapons and threatens its neighbor or the United States, you're going to have to consider military means, but that's a last resort, I think.
INTERVIEWER: Can you think of a scenario in which we would resort to military means?
Amb. EARLE: Offhand, no, I really can't.
NARRATOR: The military's initial enthusiasm for counter-proliferation has faded, according to Dr. Davis.
Dr. DAVIS: They, I think, were initially fairly open-minded to counter-proliferation because, at first, it seemed like they may get new budgets, new money to add new capabilities. And over time, I think it's become clear that the services are being asked to integrate counter-proliferation within existing or even reduced budgets. So, some of the service chiefs, I think, have started to wonder if maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. They don't want to make choices.
NARRATOR: While President Clinton has supported counter-proliferation, he has also pursued non-proliferation efforts through a variety of positive diplomatic steps, including support for the indefinite extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT, which comes up for review in April 1995. At that meeting of the countries which have signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty members will decide the treaty's fate.
Amb. EARLE: The Non-Proliferation Treaty and the non-proliferation regime is a very valuable one. If it didn't exist, we would have had absolutely no standing to criticize North Korea, to try to hold their feet to the fire about it. They joined the Non-Proliferation Treaty and, as a result, they had commitments not to acquire nuclear weapons.
NARRATOR: There is, however, some concern that certain nations without nuclear weapons will oppose the indefinite extension of the NPT.
Ambassador GEORGE BUNN: It was certainly their view that the discrimination, as they called it, within the treaty -- that is, a world divided between nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states, that that sort of division would not last forever.
NARRATOR: Ambassador George Bunn was a member of the US delegation that negotiated the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Now with Stanford University, Ambassador Bunn explains the obligations of the nuclear weapons states under the NPT.
Amb. BUNN: The first part of it was measures for the cessation of the nuclear arms race, and that would be such as the comprehensive test ban, an agreement not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon countries, halting the production of fissile material, agreements of that sort were all included in that. That was to have been done at an early date and those things -- That was 25 years ago, almost, and they haven't been done yet, but there are negotiations going on on them at Geneva.
The second part the obligation is to negotiate in good faith toward nuclear disarmament. And that means reductions, going in the direction of zero.
NARRATOR: In mid-1994, the Clinton administration finished its long awaited review of nuclear weapons and policies. Rather than rededicating the nation to the goal of eventually eliminating nuclear weapons, the administration strongly reiterated the policy that nuclear weapons are essential to US security.
Continued American reliance on nuclear weapons may encourage other nations to seek nuclear weapons of their own.
Amb. BUNN: If countries think that nuclear weapons are going to go on being as important in the future as they have been in the past, they're not likely to be persuadable to get rid of their nuclear weapons. If they think nuclear weapons are a thing of the past, that they're being de-emphasized by the United States, by Russia, by the others, then they're much less likely to want nuclear weapons themselves.
Mr. PIKE: One of the big lessons that a number of countries drew out of Operation Desert Storm was summed up by the Indian defense minister who said that the lesson of Desert Storm is don't fight the United States without nuclear weapons. And we're certainly giving other countries every incentive to get nuclear weapons because we're threatening to use nuclear weapons against them.
NARRATOR: The United States possesses roughly 15,000 nuclear weapons today. If all existing treaties and initiatives are implemented as planned, by the year 2003 the United States will still have approximately 8000 long and short-range deployed and stored nuclear weapons.
Amb. EARLE: We are the most advanced conventional weapon power and we'd be much better off if there were no nuclear weapons in the world. The problem is what do you do about being sure that they're all destroyed. Can you have perfect verification?
Ambassador JAMES LEONARD: There's no such thing as 100 percent verification of anything. But a very high level of verification, of confidence can be attained, and then we've got other factors.
NARRATOR: Ambassador James Leonard is director of the Washington Council on Non-Proliferation. He served as the assistant director of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in the Carter administration.
Amb. LEONARD: We don't worry about Canada getting nuclear weapons and attacking us for reasons which have nothing to do with the character of nuclear weapons themselves. It's the character of our political relations with Canada that make us confident that there's no danger from that direction.
NARRATOR: President Clinton has sought reductions in regional tensions, such as those between Israel and its Arab neighbors, which fuel the desire for nuclear weapons. The president is also a firm supporter of a complete ban on nuclear tests.
Under the leadership of President Clinton, the United States is observing a nuclear testing moratorium. The United States last tested in September 1992. Only China has exploded nuclear weapons since. A complete ban on testing is being negotiated at the United Nations Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, but progress is painfully slow.
The Clinton administration has also proposed a world-wide ban on the production of nuclear, or fissile, material for military uses.
Amb. EARLE: It's important because you need fissile material to make nuclear weapons. And if there is a termination -- And we've terminated, ourselves, unilaterally and voluntarily here in the United States. If there's a cutoff of what you need to make nuclear weapons, it eventually reduces the potential for making nuclear weapons.
NARRATOR: A ban on the production of nuclear materials for military purposes would not, however, interfere with the production of materials used for peaceful purposes. There are concerns that materials produced for these so-called "peaceful purposes" could be diverted illegally.
It only takes a small amount of plutonium -- about the size of a grapefruit -- to be able to make a crude nuclear weapon. In the Summer of 1994, German officials seized gram quantities of plutonium that were smuggled supposedly out of the Soviet Union. Nobody knows whether they came from civilian or military facilities.
Ambassador ROLAND TIMERBAEV: There have been conflicting reports as to where and from what sources this plutonium came. I think the major reports seem to have been found that it may have been a laboratory plutonium used in Russian labs, rather than in the military stockpiles.
NARRATOR: Ambassador Roland Timerbaev is a professor at the Monterey Institute of International Studies and a 40-year veteran of the Soviet Foreign Ministry.
Amb. TIMERBAEV: There can be leaks not only in Germany or in Russia, there can be leaks elsewhere, as well, since there are those who would like to get these materials. So, this is a serious international issue which should be properly addressed.
NARRATOR: The breakup of the Soviet Union has made accounting for nuclear materials, technology and know-how an exceedingly difficult, if not impossible task. The United States has and continues to provide aid to help Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus dismantle their nuclear weapons, employ their nuclear scientists, and account for their plutonium and highly enriched uranium.
But as of October 1994, only 100 million of the roughly one billion dollars appropriated for aiding the former Soviets from 1992 through 1994 had been spent.
Mr. PIKE: I think the Russians have been asking themselves, quite correctly, why is it that the United States says it's so concerned about the status of the Russian nuclear weapons complex, why is it that so much money has been appropriated, and why is it that so little has been done.
Dr. DAVIS: You have to take into account that this is a very delicate mission that is helping a former superpower to get control and actually eliminate some of its nuclear weapons. So, in the best of circumstances, cooperative de-nuclearization programs are really treading on new ground.
NARRATOR: The Clinton administration continues to pursue both diplomatic non-proliferation efforts and military counter-proliferation efforts.
Dr. DAVIS: It is prudent military planning to envision ways to support diplomacy with credible threats of force in cases where vital interests are at stake.
NARRATOR: Others argue that these efforts are incompatible and perhaps dangerous.
Amb. LEONARD: The only thing that bothers me about counter-proliferation, if I may, is that there seems to be kind of an implication that we are not going to succeed with non-proliferation and, therefore, we have to go to these other more hard measures. And I think that's wrong, I think, and it conveys a message, a defeatist message which is factually wrong and politically harmful.
Amb. TIMERBAEV: An excess emphasis on counter-proliferation may impair, may bring damage to the worldwide efforts of political and legal and of normative nature which are pursued by the countries of the world.
NARRATOR: Ambassador Timerbaev argues that the possible spread of nuclear weapons is primarily a political problem. As such, diplomatic solutions must be pursued, such as deeper reductions in nuclear weapons stockpiles with an eye to eliminating them, as well as continued emphasis on reducing regional tensions, extending the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and achieving a complete ban on nuclear tests and on the production of nuclear materials.
Amb. TIMERBAEV: I am not in favor of military solutions, I'm in favor of political solutions. I think we have a lot of possibilities and opportunities to force political solutions, cooperative solutions, rather than military solutions.
ADM CARROLL: As you have seen, there is reason to be concerned about the spread of nuclear weapons. Diplomatic efforts to halt the spread are proceeding very slowly, but military preparations are proceeding rapidly. Unfortunately, this sends exactly the wrong signal to the rest of the world. America is clearly determined to protect its nuclear superiority by using military force to deny weapons to others if it's necessary.
This signal seems to stimulate others to want to join the nuclear club. Perhaps the better course of action is to accelerate our nuclear disarmament efforts globally rather than to perpetuate nuclear competition into the 21st Century.
Until the next time, for "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR," I'm Eugene Carroll.
[End of broadcast.]
CONDITION OF USE: Credit "AMERICA'S DEFENSE MONITOR"
(Center for Defense Information).
(C) Copyright 1994. Center for Defense Information. All Rights Reserved.
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