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C O M M E N T A R Y
NEW DEBATE CENTERS ON TACTICAL NUCLEAR WEAPONS

MOSCOW, November 6. /Viktor Litovkin, RIA Novosti Military observer/. Against a background of lively discussions about the prospects of strategic arms cuts, tactical nuclear weapons, TNW, have been relegated to the margins of public debate. However, ambiguity in a sensitive area like this confronts politicians and military leaders with a series of questions that cannot go unanswered if we have any hope of consolidation of confidence measures and of full development of cooperation between Moscow and Washington, as well as Russia and NATO.

Academics, public figures, and arms control experts from Russia and the United States indicated this in no uncertain terms at a November 5 seminar on TNW issues at the Moscow branch of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Presence, composition, quantity, and control over TNW, as well as the qualitative parameters of these weapons, are not defined by any international agreements.

A pretty long list of treaties between the US and the USSR, and later between the US and Russia, mentions only unilateral initiatives of Moscow or Washington, who have adopted a series of unilateral commitments to destroy TNW "on the basis of reciprocity." The US, for instance, has decided to scrap its entire arsenal of land-based TNW, including nuclear warheads for tactical missiles and nuclear artillery shells. America has also announced readiness to remove and relocate to centralized storage sites all tactical nuclear weapons, including warheads for sea-based cruise missiles on surface warships, including aircraft carriers, attack submarines, and Navy fighting aircraft. Part of that arsenal has been committed to destruction.

Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI, reports that US non-strategic nuclear forces currently stand at 1670 units.

The USSR, then Russia, committed to scrap all the warheads for land-based tactical missiles and the nuclear artillery ammunition, as well as destroying all of its nuclear mines (the US doesn't have any of these).

On top of that, Russia has decided to decommission and move to centralized storage sites nuclear warheads for anti-aircraft missiles, destroying half of them (the US doesn't have these either). Furthermore, all TNW from warships, attack submarines, and Navy warplanes will be removed and stored at centralized storage sites, with one-third of these stockpiles eliminated. Moscow has announced destruction of half of its Air Force's tactical nuclear ammunition.

SIPRI puts Russia's nonstrategic nuclear weapons today at 3590 units. Whether this is true or not, whether the sides have delivered on their unilateral commitments or not is anybody's guess - there's no official answer. Unilateral initiatives are not legally binding and imply no control measures. It took the tragedy of the nuclear submarine Kursk to confirm that the sub didn't carry any nuclear warheads, not on its torpedoes, nor on Granit cruise missiles.

At the same time, it is known for definite that the US still keeps a tactical nuclear arsenal of 180 free-falling bombs at 11 bases in seven European countries.

Washington, says Alistair Millar, who has edited a book on non-strategic nuclear weapons, labels its European arsenal as 'militarily useless,' maintaining that it only carries a charge of political deterrence.

But the obvious question is, who exactly are these 180 to 200 nuclear bombs supposed to deter? If Russia, how does that jibe with President Bush's pronouncements about a "special, confidential relationship with Moscow"? No answer.

Another point made by Russian participants in the seminar is that American nuclear weapons in Europe are termed tactical. But to Russia, they're strategic, because technically, they do possess the right qualities.

The potential time of their delivery to Russia's borders by tactical aviation equals less than an hour. Which is equivalent to a ballistic missile's flight time.

But the US has been avoiding discussing the matter. True, for their part, the Americans are increasingly talking about the security problem relating to the storage of Russian tactical nuclear weapons at Russian arsenals. Particularly after terrorist bombings of apartment buildings in Moscow, Volgodonsk and Buinaksk and the attack on the Moscow Theatre Centre in Dubrovka, where hundreds were taken hostage.

Voices are heard in Congress about lax security at Russian nuclear sites, the possibility of their seizure by terrorists and emergence of a threat of nuclear collapse, and the need to impose an international, or, more properly, American control over these facilities.

Retired Major General Vladimir Dvorkin, former head of the Russian Defense Ministry's Fourth Central Scientific Research Institute, and Alexander Davydov, a researcher at the Institute of World Economy and International Relations, posed a direct question: why would Washington get so anxious about the condition of our nuclear arsenals? What's the ultimate goal - initiating full-scale talks on the complete reduction of TNW, as Mikhail Gorbachev and George Bush Sr. once proposed, on reciprocal control over them, on heightening confidence measures between the two nations? Or is there a hidden agenda behind that?

Many US politicians, notably including former Defense Secretary William Perry and the former US Strategic Command chief, General Eugene E. Habiger, are well-informed about security systems at Russian nuclear bases. Habiger a few years back visited one of these and he said it was guarded much better than American bases were. How come both he and many other experts on the other side of the Atlantic now seem to have changed their mind?

These questions are particularly topical, bearing in mind that while discussing the parameters of the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty signed by the two Presidents this May, Russia raised the issue of transparency of all nuclear weapons, including tactical ones. Back then, Washington declined the proposal.

Participants in the discussion at the Carnegie Center arrived at the opinion that apparently, underneath these 'fears' lies the desire to mask the Pentagon's effort to develop new kinds of tactical nuclear weapons and upgrade old ones. Reports of that have been leaking to the world press time and again.

But then again, Washington's rejection of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and Congress' commitment of massive funding to the maintenance of the Nevada test bed in the peak condition both mean that America's posture on tactical nuclear weapons is not as straightforward as some politicians' statements suggest. Withdrawal from the ABM Treaty, creation of a national missile shield, say specialists, will not be feasible, either, unless nuclear warheads are mounted on interceptor missiles. Chances are that all this is what impels members of Congress and the press close to them to start talk of a "terrorist threat to Russian nuclear installations." Russian military experts assert it is quite easy to assuage these concerns. It only takes negotiating control measures and sharing the relevant information. Then, there would be no scope for fears and speculation on the really very important and serious issue.

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