Thoughts on Obama and the Nuclear Posture Review

Among certain spheres there’s been a fair amount of talk about the new treaty signed between the U.S. and Russia recently regarding the reduction of nuclear arsenals. I’ll admit that for the most part I’ve been just laughing at conservative outrage at it from Fox News because it’s quite clear that it’s being opposed because Obama did it. I mean come on, Reagan proposed the EXACT SAME THING (33% reduction) and they still love him.

But for my actual thoughts (in that I have to use my brain to think about it), there are several ways you can view the NPR. Overall, I believe the effects of this are primarily in the long term, rather than short-term concrete steps taken to create a world free of nuclear weapons. That is to say, I think that this move is actually quite significant even though the U.S. and Russia will both still retain the ability to destroy the world several times over, because it establishes a new tone and shared understanding between the two nations that will make future talks a more likely possibility than would have been otherwise.

What’s key here is the context in which these talks are taking place. The first NPR came about in 1993 after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the disappearance of the U.S.-Soviet strategic rivalry. Ultimately nothing came about because aside from the Capitalist-Communist ideological difference there were plenty of other reasons for the U.S. and Russia to be wary of each other’s intentions. That in of itself was regrettable, but not entirely unexpected. That said, the Bush administration really took it (unnecessarily, in my opinion) a bit further, being generally unwilling to discuss nuclear strategy beyond acquiring more of them. This in combination with its adoption of preventative (not pre-emptive) did not help relations between the two countries at all. Still, the Russians wanted arms control negotiations, but the Bush administration wasn’t exactly open to the possibility.

When Obama came into office he advocated a nuclear-free world, but he would have to do so in the context of the tensions aggravated by the previous administration, addressing the fear and rhetoric of the past. As such, being willing to negotiate a new agreement was important in of itself. A few specific aspects of the treaty such as a no-first-use pledge (similar to that China currently advocates) helps to move away from a saber-rattling stance. I think what Obama wanted out of this NPR was a consensus with Russia and that’s what he got. It would be foolish to expect a total elimination of nuclear weapons overnight, and there are legitimate reasons to believe that in their own twisted way, a limited number of weapons do have their purpose.

The coolest thing about the whole document though is that it’s unclassified and posted on the internet. If the administration strays from what it said, the public is readily equipped to point that out – in essence, there aren’t any excuses, and I like the message the administration is sending regarding accountability here. Although we have lost much of our moral authority in the past decade, for better or for worse the U.S. still does set international norms. Declaring that the U.S. will not use nuclear weapons against *conventional* attacks influences the weapons development programs in other countries. In a nutshell, the new doctrine states that you cannot use nuclear weapons against those that do not have them, and as such if you do not wish to be on the receiving end of a nuclear attack, a sure-fire way to do that (at least, as certain as you can get in this world) is not to develop them yourself. This is very important for the rest of the world, because none of this was true under the Bush Administration. We reserved the right to strike unilaterally, preventatively, against anyone in the world. That’s scary.

And for those who are terrified that Obama is “handcuffing” the U.S. and leaving us “unsafe”… come on. We still have enough firepower to destroy the entire world several times over. Maybe huge numbers of nuclear weapons were more necessary in the Cold War when the Soviets launching their entire arsenal made it so you required a large number of delivery options to ensure viable second-strike capability, but now that our delivery systems have become so diversified and more accurate, you really have just as much practical effectiveness with 2/3rds of our current arsenal anyway.