By Doug Lorimer
After decades of denouncing those in the peace movement who argued that unilateral nuclear disarmament moves by the Western powers would do more to reverse the arms race than lengthy arms control negotiations, the US government appeared to change its tune on September 27 when President George Bush announced a number of unilateral cuts in the US nuclear arsenal.
Bush declared that the US would:
- Eliminate 1740 nuclear artillery shells and 1250 land-based short-range missiles in Europe and Asia.
- Withdraw and place in storage 1850 nuclear-armed cruise missiles and nuclear bombs from surface ships, attack submarines and land-based naval aircraft.
- Take 40 of its 280 strategic bombers off instant alert. The 4000 nuclear bombs carried by the strategic bomber force would be stored for use within 24 hours.
- Take 450 single-warhead Minuteman ICBMs — due to be eliminated over the next seven years under the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) signed by Washington and Moscow in July — off instant alert.
End of arms race?
While Bush's initiative was hailed by US allies as marking the end of the nuclear arms race, Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt was less impressed. "Large parts of this arsenal are both technically and tactically antiquated", he said. "It is to a large extent about weapons from the '50s and '60s, which lost their value a long time back."
Bildt's comments relate particularly to Washington's decision to scrap nuclear artillery shells and land-based short-range nuclear missiles, but not airborne tactical nuclear bombs and tactical missiles. As George Church noted in the October 7 Time magazine: "The need for that US arsenal disappeared with the Warsaw Pact ... Today the only targets for the weapons are in areas that have become friendly (Poland, Czechoslovakia, what was formerly East Germany)."
The elimination of these strategically obsolete weapons was the only nuclear arms "cut" announced by Bush. As Strobe Talbot commented in Time, this, and the decision to remove nuclear-armed cruise missiles from naval vessels, are "for the most part minor gestures" that will leave intact the main structures of the US nuclear arsenal. Indeed, behind the rhetoric of disarmament, Bush's announcement contained measures to step up Washington's 40-year drive to obtain nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union.
"Bush's essential purpose", Talbot noted, "is to accelerate the retirement of some of the Soviet Union's most advanced military ng key elements of the US's 'strategic modernisation': the B-2 Stealth bomber, the Trident II submarine missile, and a scaled-back version of the Star Wars antimissile defence."
Obscured by the minor "sweeteners" in his speech was Bush's announcement that he would he would seek an agreement with Moscow to eliminate all land-based multiple-warhead ICBM—s. The US— has only 2000 multiple ICBM warheads, compared with 5900 on the Soviet side. Conspicuously absent from Bush's proposal was any suggestion of eliminating submarine-launched multiple-warhead ballistic missiles, of which the US has 5400, compared to Moscow's 3150.
Bush's arms-reduction proposal, as Time's George Church put it, continues Washington's "old game of 'Let's get rid of the mainstays of your nuclear arsenal, but not of ours'".
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev responded to Bush's initiative on October 6 with an announcement of matching measures:
- Elimination of all nuclear artillery shells and tactical nuclear missiles.
- Removal of all tactical nuclear weapons from ships and submarines.
- Removal of all Soviet strategic bombers from alert status and the placing of their nuclear bombs in storage.
- Removal of 503 ICBMs from alert status.
Gorbachev also announced a series of unilateral steps that go further than Bush's initiative. He declared that the Soviet Union would reduce its strategic nuclear arsenal by 1000 more warheads than were envisaged in the START agreement. He proposed that immediately after the START treaty is ratified, negotiations begin for a 50% cut in US and Soviet strategic arsenals, down to 3000 each. And he announced a one-year moratorium on Soviet nuclear testing, challenging Bush to join him.
Washington's 'dismay'
"The Gorbachev package", the British Guardian's Washington correspondent Simon Tisdall observed, "challenged the entire basis of the West's strategic thinking ... Mr Gorbachev's call for an end to the deployment of all land-, air-, and sea-based tactical nuclear weapons in Europe would virtually terminate the US nuclear role in Europe. He is exposing Nato's doctrine of 'flexible response' by urging the alliance to join the Soviet Union in making a firm declaration never to be the first to use nuclear weapons. His moratorium on nuclear testing for at least a year revives pressure on the West to follow."
In addition, Gorbachev's package will "punch holes in the logic by which Britain is planning to quadruple its nuclear warhead strength".
Gorbachev's response has increased domestic pressure on the Bush rther in cutting its nuclear arsenal. According to Tisdall, there is "dismay" among White House officials at the domestic response to Bush's speech.
"A senior administration official conceded ... that 'tremendous pressure' was building up for further cuts in the $300 billion annual US defence budget", Tisdall reported. "The admission followed the nuclear arms reductions announced by Moscow and Washington ... which appear to have backfired unexpectedly on President Bush at home ... Democrats in Congress and on the presidential trail are reviving talk of a peace dividend, focussing on tax cuts for the middle class, higher social spending, and cancellation of big military projects such as the B-2 Stealth bomber. Several influential Republicans have also joined the hue and cry."
Bush's September 27 announcement and Gorbachev's response also raise a question that he studiously shied away from. As Washington Post commentator Stephen Rosenfeld put it:
"Why do we ... need these potentially life-threatening arms at all? Why not — in phases, with controls — move on, from cutting and paring and go all the way to zero? ...
"Who is the American deterrent now meant to deter? Why the bomb? ...
"As enemies and threats fade, deterrence may lose its urgency to nuclear non-proliferation ... Giving it pride of place will force upon the United States and the few other nuclear states the upstart question of why they alone should have the bomb."