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US must get serious on WMD
policy
By Ralph A
Cossa
KUALA LUMPUR - On Wednesday, August 6,
peace activists from around the world flocked to
Hiroshima, Japan, to pray for peace and remember those
who died when the first nuclear bomb was dropped on that
city 58 years ago. More subdued ceremonies have marked
the anniversary of the second, and we all hope last, use
of nuclear weapons in anger on August 9, 1945, in
Nagasaki.
Sandwiched in between these two dates
was a "secret" conference in Omaha, Nebraska, where
senior US Defense Department officials reportedly met
with nuclear-weapons specialists to discuss ways of
upgrading America's aging nuclear arsenal. While one can
argue that there is never a good time to discuss the use
of nuclear weapons, the Pentagon's timing of this event
underscores and reinforces the impression around the
world of US callousness toward the views and feelings of
others.
These views have been very much in
evidence at this year's annual Asia Pacific Roundtable
in Kuala Lumpur. Speaker after speaker, including many
who have traditionally been supportive of Washington and
still favor a continued US military presence in the
Asia-Pacific region, condemned US "unilateralism" and
"arrogance". While some of these accusations are
emotional and do not stand up to the facts - or overlook
the reality that all nations, when their interests
appear at stake, act unilaterally - the bottom line
remains: the administration of US President George W
Bush has a serious image problem that it appears intent
on exacerbating. Given its "hyperpower" status, many
argued, Washington no longer is concerned about what
others think. Multilateralism, US-style, means "get on
our bandwagon or get out of the way".
Washington
sees itself as a primary proponent of nuclear
non-proliferation. Its current standoff with North Korea
is aimed, first and foremost, at stemming the
development and potential use or export of weapons of
mass destruction (WMD). Washington, along with the
international community in general, demands that
Pyongyang rejoin and honor its commitment to the nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty. Yet Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi
Akiba says the NPT is "on the verge of collapse", not
because of North Korean actions but because the United
States "appears to worship nuclear weapons as God".
Akiba described US policy as "openly declaring
the possibility of a preemptive nuclear first strike".
To my knowledge, the United States does not have and has
never professed to support a "preemptive nuclear first
strike" strategy. Nonetheless, this accusation has
increasingly been accepted as fact. After all, the Bush
administration's National Security Strategy endorses a
strategy of preemption against the use of WMD and the
Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review (as leaked to the
press) reportedly lays out contingencies under which
nuclear weapons may be used. While neither talks about
"first use", they don't rule it out either.
The
latest "proof", as cited by Mayor Akiba, is the Bush
administration's "resumed research into mini-nukes and
other so-called 'usable nuclear weapons'". He is
referring to recent congressional legislation approving
research on the potential development of smaller nuclear
weapons (reversing a 10-year ban on research and
development of weapons with a yield of less than five
kilotons). Approval actually to produce such weapons was
neither sought by the Pentagon nor granted by Congress.
The legislation does permit the Pentagon to begin
examining, in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's words,
"a variety of different ways - conceivably - to develop
the ability to reach a deeply buried target". This is
the apparent objective of the Omaha meeting.
Critics at home and abroad are quick to point
out that such actions run contrary to the Bush
administration's professed counter-proliferation goals,
since they emphasize rather than downplay the potential
future importance of nuclear weapons and thus could
encourage others also to seek this edge. It's no wonder,
critics argue, that North Korea feels compelled to
pursue its own nuclear deterrent in the face of this
increased US nuclear threat.
While experts can
easily dismiss such misconceptions, they have a
cumulative impact on the minds of friends and potential
foes alike about Washington's commitment to the NPT
(under which the nuclear-weapons states also have
responsibilities) and to the probability or desirability
of the future use of nuclear weapons. This hardly serves
US non-proliferation or broader national-security
interests.
Perhaps it's time for the Bush
administration to consider a "no first use of weapons of
mass destruction" policy. This would emphasize the
purely deterrent role that nuclear weapons continue to
play in US defense strategy, not just against the use of
nuclear weapons by potential adversaries but by their
use of chemical or biological weapons (the "poor man's
nukes") as well. It recognizes the political reality
that the American people would never tolerate the use of
nuclear weapons by its government other than in
self-defense in response to a WMD strike; and the
military reality that, in this age of advanced
technology and US weapons superiority, nuclear weapons
are not needed either for preemption or to prevail in a
conventional conflict.
It's time for Washington
to return to the moral high road and put the WMD debate
into proper perspective. A "no first use of weapons of
mass destruction" policy declaration would be a
significant step in this direction.
Ralph A Cossa is president
of the Pacific Forum CSIS (e-mail pacforum@hawaii.rr.com), a
Honolulu-based non-profit research institute affiliated
with the Center for Strategic and International Studies
in Washington, and senior editor of Comparative Connections, a
quarterly electronic journal. This article is used by
permission.
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