Back in January, I found myself smiling over the title of an article: "Arms Control: It’s Back and Hot!" I was amused, because in my mind, nuclear arms control never went away. It's just that the general public has lost interest over the years.
However, thanks to the efforts of various non-governmental organizations and think tanks, there has been a gradual but steady revival of interest in the fact that the world is still a dangerous place, and many nations still have nuclear weapons. The Global Zero group, in particular, has focused on the total elimination of nuclear weapons; as Max Bergman points out over at the Think Progress Wonk Room, the Global Zero signatories include a number of Reagan administration officials, such as former National Security Adviser Robert MacFarlane, Secretary of State George Schultz and Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci.
Significantly, one of the leaders of the Global Zero group was a key player in Cold War arms control issues. This is former Ambassador Richard Burt; his biographical sketch at the Global Zero website outlines his career:
Ambassador Richard Burt is an accomplished American diplomat with special expertise in the area of nuclear weapons. He successfully concluded a nuclear arms treaty as the U.S. Chief Negotiator in the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the Former Soviet Union. Previously, he was U.S. Ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany.
From 1977 to 1980, Ambassador Burt worked in Washington as a national security correspondent for The New York Times. He gained his Bachelors’ Degree in government from Cornell University in 1969, and his Master’s Degree in International Relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in 1971.
Last week, I had the opportunity to chat with Ambassador Burt. My questions are in boldface, and his replies follow. I've inserted links/references wherever appropriate.
Introduction: The Role of Nuclear Weapons Then And Now
During your career, you've had the opportunity to see a lot of big changes, both during the Cold War and immediately afterwards.
So now you're the commissioner, the head of the Global Zero group. How did this come to be? How and when did you get interested in the "road to zero", so to speak?
Well, I think, like with a number of our supporters, the key point, as you mentioned, is the Cold War. I think there's a growing recognition on the part of people who were participants in that long period, and this includes not just diplomats but policy makers and senior military people.
In the new, post-Cold War period, the role of nuclear weapons has really fundamentally changed. You can make the case -- and a lot of people believe -- that during the Cold War, that nuclear weapons were essentially stabilizing, that the threat of massive retaliation, what people refer to as nuclear deterrence... reinforced in a bipolar world (a world dominated by the US and the Soviet Union) that nuclear weapons maintained stability and made war unthinkable.
I would argue that in the new era we're in, we're not in a bipolar world anymore, we're in a world where there are a lot of forces of disintegration at work, not just the spread of nuclear weapons but the growing number of failing and failed states, of international terrorism, that nuclear weapons are no longer stabilizing. They're destabilizing, and thus the risks that weapons will be used is far higher than it was before.
That, then, leads to, I think, the logical conclusion that you are not going to persuade potential new nuclear powers, you're not going to be able to persuade them not to acquire nuclear weapons unless existing nuclear powers are really serious about reducing and eliminating their own capabilities. In fact, as you probably know, those existing nuclear powers, including the United States, have already signed up in Article 6 of the 1968 [Nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty, to the concept that countries would stay non-nuclear if the existing nuclear powers sought real disarmament. That pledge, if you will, has been largely ignored. It was ignored at the time because I think people saw nuclear weapons as continuing to play a useful role. I think increasingly people are turning against that idea and recognizing that there is a direct linkage between reducing and eliminating existing nuclear stockpiles, with the goal of non-proliferation.
So, what's happened is, I think, a kind of disarmament, kind of pie-in-the-sky concept during the Cold War has gradually become mainstream. And so you get serious people across the political spectrum thinking and talking about Global Zero for the first time.
On Senate Ratification of the New START Treaty: Obstacles and Predictions
Even though "Zero" is a lofty goal, the reality of that is the Global Zero summit basically took place against the backdrop of a year where there are going to be a lot of important nuclear weapons decisions and meetings. For example, right now, if you believe the media, the US and Russia are actually close to signing a new START treaty.
So, looking beyond that, we have to deal with US Senate ratification. What obstacles do you think the treaty will face during the discussion in the Senate?
Well, the most basic obstacle is the obstacle of ignorance, because it's important to remember that the US Senate hasn't really thought about or worked on arms reductions since 1991 and 1992. So, you've got a group of probably 70 or so new members of the Senate who haven't had any experience in actually looking at an arms control agreement, and weighing the pros and cons, so there is a very steep learning curve here, which needs to be taken into account, and that the administration and others will have to move, I think, very effectively, to bring the Senate up to speed so it can take a educated decision about this treaty.
Now, I haven't seen the details of the treaty, I haven't read the treaty, since it's not available, but I have a general sense of what's in it. Assuming that there's not some surprise buried in the treaty, I think its ratification should be basically a no-brainer.
First of all, the relationship with the United States and Russia has fundamentally shifted. We are, of course, not complete partners at this point; it's still competitive in some respects, but we're not mortal enemies any longer, so that's the first important thing to understand.
But secondly, despite the fact that both sides have significantly reduced their nuclear forces since the early 1990s, [between the countries] we still possess over 95% of the world's nuclear stockpile. So it's really difficult to make the case that we need to retain our existing forces at their current levels.
In fact, and I think this is a key point that is often overlooked, one reason we built up our nuclear forces in the beginning, in the 1950s through the sixties and seventies and into the eighties, was the perception that we were inferior to the Russians in terms of conventional [i.e. non-nuclear] forces. So, somehow, nuclear forces somehow compensated for our weakness in conventional capabilities.
Well, the United States is clearly superior to the Russian conventional forces, or any other conventional forces of any other country. So we don't need to rely on nuclear weapons, to the same degree we may have done in the past.
Those are basic facts the Senate needs to understand before they turn their attention to the details. I suspect that in the end what the Senate is mainly going to be focused on is this sort of politically easy question to kind of grapple with, which is, "gee, can they cheat?" So there will be a lot of time spent on whether or not this treaty can be verified, and that's a fair issue. It should be examined carefully.
But I am fairly certain that at the end of the day that the administration will be able to make a case that the treaty is verifiable, and that they can monitor and detect any cheating.
So, then it boils down to politics. Will the Democratic majority in the Senate be able to break the Republican ranks and bring key Senators like Richard Lugar, who's the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, John McCain, in the Armed Services Committee, can they bring them on-board to support the treaty?
I suspect that they will be able to get a sufficient number of Republican votes to get the treaty ratified.
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This article originally posted at: Daily Kos
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