Don’t Raze the Nuclear ‘Firewall’

As the world’s preeminent nuclear power, the United States has an awesome responsibility to ensure that our weapons deter a nuclear war rather than produce one. This is no easy task. We must be prepared to fight a nuclear war, but our real objective is to deter others from ever starting one. We must also do all we can to prevent others from developing or using nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction.

Early this year, the Pentagon produced a classified document called the Nuclear Posture Review, one purpose of which is to clarify U.S. intentions on nuclear weapons use. That document has raised serious issues that the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations will examine today. The chief question is whether the review’s recommendations increase the risk of nuclear war.

Another concern is how readily the Nuclear Posture Review leaves the door open to developing new types of weapons. Maybe the day will come when we need to do that, but nobody should rush to judgment without considering the downside. Any truly new nuclear weapon, as opposed to merely repackaging an existing weapon, would probably require renewed nuclear testing, which would surely destroy the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and very likely lead other nuclear weapons states to develop new weapons as well. And that would probably unravel the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. If we did begin such weapons development, our message to the world would be that we value nuclear weapons more than we do nonproliferation. And other countries would take their cue from us.

The acquisition of nuclear weapons by additional countries is a dangerous and destabilizing event. But for those countries the commitment never to acquire nuclear weapons requires two leaps of faith: that the nuclear powers will prevent one’s neighbor from taking advantage of this public-spirited stance and that those same nuclear powers will not misuse their collective monopoly on such destructive power.

The maintenance of nuclear deterrent capabilities by the major powers is most acceptable to nonnuclear weapons states when there is progress in reducing the size and importance of nuclear forces. The U.S.-Russia agreement announced Monday is a welcome sign of further progress. But nonnuclear weapons states can hardly be reassured by the slow pace of the reductions called for or by the emphasis in the Nuclear Posture Review on our maintaining maximum flexibility to rearm.

We have deterred the use of nuclear weapons for more than half a century, partly by maintaining their character as frightful weapons of mass destruction. We have made it clear, both to our enemies and to ourselves, that once a nuclear response is undertaken or invited, all bets are off as to where it will end. If we develop small nuclear weapons for missile defense or to strike new targets such as deeply buried bunkers, we could destroy the firewall against nuclear war that we and the world have maintained since the end of World War II. Would that really make us more secure?

Nuclear weapons are weapons of retaliation or last resort. They are not handy military tools, and we must not allow ourselves to think of them that way.