THE FOLLY OF U.S. & NATO NUCLEAR POLICY
Robert S. McNamara
8th U.S. Secretary of Defense, 1961-1968; and President
of the World Bank, 1968-1981.
The following are excerpts from a program hosted by the World Affairs Council on March 9, 2005.
Printed in the San Jose Mercury-News, April 17, 2005, page 6P.
At the risk of appearing simplistic and provocative, I want to say that the current US and NATO nuclear weapons policies and procedures are immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary, and very dangerous. I say that because these policies and procedures accept the risks of accidental and inadvertent use of nuclear weapons. They are also destroying the non-proliferation regime that has served us so well for over 50 years.
The US. has deployed about 6,000 strategic nuclear warheads and Russia has about the same force. On average, each of our US. warheads has a destructive power 20 times that of the Hiroshima bomb.
Of the 6,000 warheads deployed, 2,000 are deployed in what's called a hair trigger alert. They're ready to be 'launched on warning', while our opponents' warheads are in flight. But to do that, no more than 15 minutes can be allowed to receive the warning, determine whether it's valid, consider the alternative response's, determine what to recommend to the President, locate the President, recommend it to him, and allow him time to decide whether to pursue that course or another and then transmit the instructions to the launch sites.
15 minutes.
To make that possible the Commander of the US. Strategic Forces, who travels with the President, has carried with him a security telephone no matter where he went, anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day, 365 days in a year. There will very likely be no time for others to participate in the decision. Yet, that decision literally puts at risk the survival of nations, including our own.
While I was Secretary of Defense for seven years, we had many false warnings. I noticed a few months ago the Russians had a false warning of warheads coming from Sweden. Thank God it turned out to be false. But this is common. There are a hundred different ways in which a warning can turn out.
For this reason, in long private conversations with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, I recommended without qualification that they never initiate under any circumstances the use of nuclear weapons. And I believe they accepted my recommendations. That was my belief then, it is my belief today.
When I was Secretary of Defense, the US and our Allies faced
a strong Soviet-Warsaw Pact conventional threat. And many of the Allies felt a
'launch on warning' policy was necessary for the sake of deterrence in
Europe. I'm not at all sure that was
true, but that was a common belief.
What is shocking is that today, over a decade after the end of the Cold
War, the basic US. nuclear policy has not changed.
To take fully into account the reduction in the Soviet threat and to make nuclear use far less likely in the future we should get rid of this ‘launch on warning’ policy. We should remove all strategic nuclear weapons from hair trigger alert. That’s the minimum we ought to do.
Now let me turn briefly to President Bush's nuclear force policy. The Administration published their policy in February 2002 in the form of the Nuclear Posture Review that established the broad outline of US. nuclear strategy for the next 10 years and beyond. The review has received very little attention from the media and that is unfortunate because it increases the emphasis that will be placed in the future on strategic offensive nuclear weapons. It deserves very close public scrutiny. The current administration is planning an expansive series of programs to sustain and modernize the existing nuclear force.
One implication of that decision deserves special comment. That's the effect on our non-proliferation regime. Good faith participation in international negotiations on nuclear disarmament is not just a stated requirement for the Non-Proliferation Treaty -- it's a legal obligation. Article 6 requires that the five declared nuclear powers -- China, Britain, France, US. and Russia-engage in bona fide negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons.
We took that treaty to the Senate, which ratified it. But I don't believe that the US. President, Secretary of Defense, and Chairman of Joint Chiefs ever intended to engage in those negotiations. The other powers that signed the treaty thought they made a deal. The non-nuclear powers thought the nuclear powers will, over time, give up nuclear weapons. The non-nuclear powers agreed not to acquire them. Our current nuclear policies show that we're not about to carry out that deal. So as the treaty breaks down, almost surely, substantial proliferation of nuclear weapons will follow.
The administration, the congress, and the American people have not openly debated the alternatives to this present policy. That should be our objective: to move our people and our congress toward debate. To me, the potential use of nuclear weapons through accidents or as a result of misjudgment or miscalculation in times of crisis is simply an unacceptable risk. To initiate the use of nuclear weapons against a nuclear opponent is suicidal. To initiate it against a non-nuclear opponent is militarily unnecessary, morally repugnant, and politically indefensible.
Human beings are fallible. Just look at Iraq and Afghanistan. Mistakes are costly, but we try to learn from them. In conventional wars, mistakes kill tens of thousands, but they don't destroy nations. In a nuclear war, you're going to destroy nations.
We ultimately have to eliminate these weapons or reduce them to such a degree that there's no risk of the destruction of nations. As long as we're not on the way to doing that, we're on the way to a nuclear catastrophe.
The opinions of the speaker do not necessarily reflect those of the World Affairs Council, a nonpolitical nonpartisan organization that encourages debate about global issues.