May 11, 2000

MEMORANDUM TO: OPINION LEADERS

FROM: TOM DONNELLY, Deputy Executive Director

SUBJECT: START III

According to stories in the New York Times (“Pentagon Feels Pressure to Cut More Warheads,” p. A8) and Washington Times (“Joint Chiefs oppose Russian plan to cut 1,000 U.S. warheads: White House agrees with Moscow,” p. A1), the Defense Department is worried about the arms control offer President Clinton will present to Russian President Vladimir Putin at the upcoming Moscow summit. Desperate for a “legacy”-- and still beholden to Cold-War-era ideas about nuclear weapons -- the president seems to be rushing to conclude a deal his successors will regret.

The new, proposed limits on nuclear weapons (2,000 or fewer warheads each for Russia and the U.S.) are a part of a comprehensive package that is likely to be forwarded at the summit. The package also would include a deal on deployment of a limited missile defense system for the United States and a modification of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. While those parts of the package also would compromise U.S. strategic interests, it is the third round of reductions under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty that has received the least scrutiny.

Cutting the U.S. nuclear arsenal to such a low level would have a number of serious effects on the changing global nuclear balance and the nature of nuclear deterrence. Significantly, a deal limited to the United States and Russia would ignore the reality of nuclear proliferation; a host of small states, most of them hostile to America, are on the verge of deploying nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Though these arsenals will be small and the weapons themselves crude, their value will only increase as the United States reduces its nuclear forces. Almost as important, the relative value of China's nuclear force will grow. Although China maintains only a small nuclear arsenal at the moment, intelligence reports indicate that China plans to enlarge and modernize it. With further reductions in U.S. forces, China, which views itself in a long-term strategic competition with America, would be tempted to seek strategic parity with the United States.

Before entering into a comprehensive but premature package of arms control agreements with Russia, President Clinton should wait until the Pentagon can conduct a net assessment that accounts for the emerging global nuclear balance, not just the Russian nuclear arsenal. Such an assessment would shape the new nuclear strategies, doctrines and force structures needed to maintain the United States as the world’s leading power. Indeed, in a more complex and dangerous world, America would do better to imitate the model of the British navy in the 19th century, seeking to offset the nuclear capabilities of all potentially hostile forces, than to remain fixated on the bipolar balance with Russia.

It is certainly time for fresh thinking about nuclear weapons and America’s enduring need for them. An arms control regime that does not account for China, Iraq, Iran, North Korea, India and Pakistan is neither comprehensive nor conducive to strategic stability. And an American nuclear arsenal that is too small and poorly configured to meet the challenges of a new century is dangerous.