Debate This: The Collapse of Bush's Nuclear Strategy

This article was co-authored by Joe Cirincione and Jon Wolfsthal

It is not just U.S. economic policy that is in crisis. News from Iran and North Korea this week highlights the collapse of US efforts to stem the spread of nuclear weapons. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said earlier this month that the Bush administration will leave the global nonproliferation "situation . . . in far better shape than we found it." Would it were true. The next president will inherit a far more dangerous nuclear world than that President Bush found in January 2001.

Every proliferation danger take on by the Bush administration, with the sole exception of Libya, is worse today than when President Bush took office. North Korea and Iran have advanced their nuclear programs far more than in previous administrations; thousands of Russian nuclear weapons remain ready to launch on 15 minutes notice; the global levees built over the past 40 years to hold back a nuclear flood are at the breaking point; and the threat of nuclear terrorism is more dire than ever. A bipartisan panel concluded this month that seven years after 9/11, the government has made only limited progress toward preventing a nuclear, biological or chemical terrorist attack.

Serial Failure

In 2001, North Korea had perhaps enough material for 1-2 nuclear bombs and its nuclear program was frozen in place. Today, North Korea could have up to a dozen nuclear weapons, Pyongyang tested a nuclear weapon in 2006 and now claims it is a nuclear weapon state. Previously encouraging negotiations to re-freeze the program are again faltering from mismanagement.

In 2001, Iran had no centrifuges producing enriched uranium, was at least a decade away from any nuclear weapon capability and was hemmed in by the successful U.S. policy of dual containment (over Iran and Iraq). Today, Iran has 6000 centrifuges and is developing the means to produce nuclear weapons. America is bogged down in Iraq while Iran is on the march.

In 2001, the risk of nuclear terrorism was serious. Now it is even more severe. Efforts to secure and eliminate nuclear weapon and materials from terrorist theft in Russia and other nations are behind schedule. Al Qaeda is as strong or stronger than seven years ago.

In 2001, nuclear-armed Pakistan was actively exporting nuclear technology. Secretary Rice claims Pakistan's smuggling is over but there is scant evidence to back up this claim. The network continues importing to supply Pakistan's nuclear program, and the suppliers in many foreign countries are still free to supply others. No senior figure has been punished and US officials have never even questioned the head of the ring, A.Q. Khan. Worse, Osama bin Laden now lurks inside a destabilized Pakistan, ready to pursue nuclear assets should the government splinter.

Passing the Nuclear Buck

The record of failure includes multilateral efforts. The Bush administration's abandonment of key treaty obligations and contempt for binding agreements has left the global nuclear regime in tatters. Discord between nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states has never been worse. No progress has been made on verifiable agreements to end the production of nuclear materials for weapons and to ban nuclear tests for all time. The US-Russia START arms reduction treaty will expire next year, leaving no verifiable, binding agreement in place for the first time since before détente in the 1970s. The administrations claims as its biggest "success" a sweetheart deal with India that aids that country's nuclear bomb program but undercuts broader nonproliferation efforts.

The core of the Bush doctrine was the idea that military-backed regime change was the way to prevent proliferation. Iraq was the first application of this strategy and its most devastating failure. This has stayed the hand of those who would repeat the strategy with Iran and other countries. Indeed, the he greatest successes of the administration have come where Secretary Rice broke from this strategy. Libya abandoned its nuclear program only when - over the opposition of Vice President Dick Cheney and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - direct negotiations were used to change a regime's behavior rather than force a change in the actual regime. The total failure in North Korean policy was reversed in 2006 only after Rice convinced President Bush to negotiate with Pyongyang, a process they are now bungling. But beyond these two cases, any progress--let alone successes--are hard to find.

With time running out, President Bush has passed the nuclear buck to his successor. With common sense and a clear understanding of what went wrong with the Bush policy, perhaps he will do better. He can't do much worse.

Joseph Cirincione is President of Ploughshares Fund and Jon B. Wolfsthal is Senior Fellow at CSIS. They are the authors of Deadly Arsenals: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats.

Follow Joe Cirincione on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Cirincione

Comments

[LizM]

Unfortunately, none of these critical issues were really addressed in the presidential debate last night. The "success of the surge" in Iraq was also left unchallenged.

Hopefully, these issues will be a major focus in the VP debate - if it actually occurs - and on the rest of the campaign trail.

I wish YOU could be sitting along side Gwen Iffil and help moderate this debate. I would be surprised if you are not asked to be a part of the Obama-Biden administration and help to shape and formulate policy on nonproliferaton and other critical national security issues.

[insanityfollows]

Thank you, thank you, thank you for writing this blog. I haven't had time to completely research and write the same article, but have wanted to for a long time. I have been warning of these very dangerous developments for years and they just seem to fall on deaf ears. People think that because the "Cold War" is over that nukes aren't the threat they once were. Guess again. You are absolutely right that Bush's nuclear doctrine has failed, and the points that you make certainly underscore why.

The only thing I would like to add is that while you talk about the volatile Pakistani nuclear situation, the one thing you didn't mention was the fact that Pakistan and India nearly had a nuclear exchange in 2003 over Kashmir. The situation with Kashmir has not changed at all, and I personally continue to worry about it, especially with Pakistan destabilizing as it is, and as you point out, their program has openly continued.

This is an extremely hazardous situation, and people really need to consider this when choosing their president in November.

[PSM42]

Living in the west, and a westerner, a true multi-polar word view is near impossible (for me). That view would perhaps give the lie to the idea that there is any time at all before removing ALL nuclear weapons from everyone.

Arundhati Roy talks about the collective insanity that caused India to create a nuclear weapon. Followed of course by the matching insanity of Pakistan following suit.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=945405493000735497&ei=sWDdSLugG5e2qAOwrd2WCw&q=arundhati+roy&hl=en

Each country in the grip of a deep unreasoning fear, that their neighbour possessed a deadly weapon and wanted to use it. Travellers see this in microcosm when each village says you are fine here with us, but beware of the next village. And in each next village the same.

Jung talks about this in the film Matter of Heart, http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=19190

Especially when he says "The world hangs by a thin thread - the psyche of man. What if that thread should break?" "Man (now) has nothing to fear except himself. WE are the origin of all coming evil." !

[lostmypassword]

Bush HAS a nuclear strategy ?!?!?

[PSM42]

The nice thing about this crisis is that there is no rush. The National Intelligence Estimate gives us YEARS to work out a solution. Which will probably be multilateral so long the Neocon Nutcases don't go doolally before January 20th.

Iran is asking for talks. The U.S. ex-Secretaries of State all seem to be asking for talks.

The only people not are those in the power of the addled VP, Cheney.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is very happy at one thing. They think a broke US means the end of the empire. Prematurely I'd say. (I thought that it took Luke Skywalker and an X fighter).

However at the UN they have lots of ideas.

Text http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JI26Ak02.html

Video
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=2396&updaterx=2008-09-26+15%3A27%3A11

[vegas9999]

And if we had been attacked again as everyone predicted I wonder who would have got the blame.

[Topsailsman]

The same group that should have got the blame for the first attack- the people running the Executive Branch. What ever happened to personal accountability? That's a core Republican value, isn't it?

[vegas9999]

Thought there was proof that 9/11 was planned during the Clinton years because they said in their writings "americans have no stomach for war"

[marignymitch]

BushCo has the run the country aground Constitutionally, ethically, morally, militarily and financially. It's a legacy the neocons--traitors, every last one of them--are proud of. Plus his base got richer, which was the goal all along.

[Paul]

Everything Bush touches turns to crap.

The only ones to gain have been Halliburton & Blackwater.

[arvay]

The madness of the Bush approach extends to its nutty antimissile plans for Europe and provocative attempts to extend NATO to abut Russia's borders. The recent Georgia fiasco reenforces the insanity.

So now we're now creating potential military conflicts with Russia, a well-armed nuclear state. Brilliant.

Meanwhile, we've amply illustrated our impotence -- squealing and issuing ultimatums over Georgia backed up with -- nothing. And don't expect the Bundeswehr to march east anytime soon in defense of Ukraine. Much of Europe depends on Russian gas and oil.

Our armed forces are bogged down in two wars, one already lost and the second rapidly going south.

Everyone knows our military options for Iran and North Korea are shams.

Let's remind ourselves that an attack on North Korea would probably result n the devastation of Seoul and possibly a nuke on Tokyo, wile attacking Iran wold create an economic disaster that would not be subject to a "bailout."

I believe this is called "checkmate."

[Paul Abrams - Huffpost Blogger]

Joe:
You omitted a key point.
Bush was successful with Libya because he was willing to relent on the demand that Qaddafi turn over high government officials who were implicated in the PanAm103 attack. Frustrating, unfair, and not very sensitive to the families--but, a good deal for the US and the world.
So, that was a big concession, and not an easy one, but he made it, and the world is far safer.

Paul

[LizM]

Hey, Paul!

You know, Joe Biden was pretty influential in getting Libya back on track. You can't blame me for trying to insert stuff like this into the conversation at every given opportunity, can you? :-)

[ComicBookGuy]

"Nucular." It's pronounced "nucular."