PERSPECTIVE ON DEFENSE : Free the World of Nuclear Arms : The dangers and risks in proliferation far outweigh our now obsolete Cold War strategy.

Fifty years after President Truman’s decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an avalanche of speculation surrounding the strategic and moral necessity of doing so has crept into our national discourse. Regrettably, this discussion has shifted attention away from a more pressing topic--the future direction of U.S. nuclear weapons policy.

Throughout the Cold War period, the United States held a two-faced attitude toward nuclear forces. While we relied heavily on these weapons to promote our central security goals, we sought to restrain other countries from acquiring them. Whereas a world of a few nuclear powers appeared extraordinarily dangerous but manageable, the spread of nuclear weapons to many countries did not. President Kennedy’s dire forecast in 1963 of a world in which 15 to 25 nations have the bomb was also his personal nightmare. Arresting the spread of nuclear weapons was an important U.S. aim, underscored by our strong support for the achievement of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968, and for its permanent extension earlier this year.

Today we can challenge the assumption that even a world of a handful of nuclear powers is “manageable.” The results of a series of meetings in the late 1980s and early 1990s between American, Soviet and Cuban participants in the 1962 Cuban missile crisis revealed how close we came to stumbling into a nuclear confrontation that would have been disastrous.

In today’s world, it must be recognized that our continued reliance on a nuclear deterrent carries very high long-term costs in the risk of a nuclear exchange. Therefore, should we not seek to return, insofar as practicable, to a non-nuclear world? Such a proposal is highly controversial. It is rejected by those who believe that nuclear weapons are needed to deter regional powers such as Iraq or Iran from aggression with conventional weapons or from pursuing nuclear, biological or other weapons of mass destruction. This role for nuclear weapons was implicit in the Pentagon’s nuclear posture review released in September, 1994.

However, to propose that American nuclear capability is needed to deter Saddam Hussein-like leaders is an argument that supports proliferation. If we require this capability, how do we respond to states across the globe facing aggressive neighbors with suspected weapons of mass destruction or superior conventional force capabilities?

In recent years, many prominent American security experts have come around to the view that the risk to the United States of maintaining nuclear weapons is far greater than the potential military advantage in possessing them. Last summer, Gen. Charles Horner, then on active duty as chief of the U.S. Space Command, referred to nuclear weapons as “obsolete” when confronting rogue nations. He said, “There are some people that will be deterred by the fact that we have nuclear weapons . . . But those people are the folks we can deal with anyway” through conventional military power. In “Fifty Years From Trinity,” the report of the Commission on the U.S. Nuclear Posture (published recently by the Lawyers Alliance for World Security), Gen. Andrew Goodpaster, former supreme allied commander in Europe, makes essentially the same point, stating: “If we look at the capabilities of our conventional arms, it is rather difficult to make the case that resort to nuclear weapons in response to [weapons of mass destruction] attacks would be necessary.”

More and more experts accept the view that basic changes in our approach to nuclear weapons are needed. I see at least three alternative nuclear futures from which to choose. The first was supported by the Clinton Administration last September: a continuation of the present strategy of extended deterrence, limiting the United States and Russia to 3,000 to 3,500 strategic warheads as agreed upon by Presidents Yeltsin and Bush. The second option would be for the United States and Russia to move to a minimum deterrent posture of 1,000 to 2,000 warheads, a proposal supported by a report of the National Academy of Sciences. The third, which I strongly advocate, would be to return, insofar as practicable, to a non-nuclear world. “Insofar as practicable” refers to the necessity of maintaining protection against the covert acquisition of nuclear weapons by terrorists or nations violating the nuclear disarmament agreements.

In the final statement of the 1995 conference to extend the non-proliferation treaty, the United States reaffirmed language that requires progress toward eventual nuclear disarmament. Implementation of this provision by the five nuclear powers (the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China) would strengthen international confidence in global non-proliferation efforts. It would also make multilateral action against nuclear cheaters more acceptable and a rollback of Indian, Pakistani and Israeli nuclear capabilities more attainable. American security would be a big winner.

The end of the Cold War presents an opportunity to break out of the mind-set that has guided U.S. nuclear strategy for nearly 50 years. Do we dare accept it? I am confident that we can indeed put the nuclear genie back in the bottle. If we fail, there is a risk--to me unacceptable--that the 21st Century will witness a nuclear holocaust.