At the Brink:
The Bush Administration & U.S. Nuclear Policy
By John Steinbach
Winter 2004
Volume 40, Number 1
The Bush administration has manipulated the horror and outrage generated by the 9-11 crimes against humanity to promulgate an extremist military and nuclear policy. In the name of a nebulous "war on terror", Bush claims the right to wage unilateral war anywhere, anytime, against any nation or organization, for any reason and by any means necessary (including using nuclear weapons against non-nuclear nations) if it serves the national security inter-ests of the United States.
Unsurprisingly, Bush's doc-trine reflects the radical views of his foreign policy team headed by Secretary of "Defense" Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-President Richard Cheny. While "Defense" Secretary for Bush's father, Cheny drafted the outlines of the present policy, but was overruled in favor of a more multinational approach advocated by Powell. Rumsfeld, while Gerald Ford's "Defense" Secretary, initiated the MX, Trident and Pershing 2 first strike nuclear missile systems and singlehandedly scrapped Kissinger's SALT 2 negotiations. During the 1980s and 90s he championed a national missile defense and the weapon-ization of space. Former Reagan administration neo-conservative hardliners like Richard Pearle, Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton and Elliott Abrhams, and dozens of other extremists dictate U.S. foreign policy.
Following 9-11, Bush, with the complicity of hawkish Demo-crats, exploited the atrocity to ram through his provocative National Missile Defense program and unilateral withdrawal from the ABM treaty. His other campaign promise to reject the Compre-hensive Test Ban Treaty signed by the Clinton administration was quickly supported by Congress, causing intense international consternation.
Bush's nuclear agenda became clearer when his Nuclear Posture Review(NPR) was leaked in early 2002. In 1998, Bill Clinton had paved the way for Bush with Presidential Directive 60 which called for the use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear "rogue" states. Bush pushed the envelope further by calling for preemptive nuclear strikes against potential chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons threats, heavily fortified bunkers, and in the case of "surprising nuclear develop-ments." The NPR also called for integrating non-nuclear strategic capabilities into nuclear war plans, and for incorporating nuclear capability into conventional weapons systems. Many aspects of the NPR are contained in the December 2002 National Security Presidential Directive 17.
A further example of Bush's extremist agenda can be found in the Bush Doctrine: more accurately the Cheny/Rumsfeld doctrine. First articulated by Rumsfeld in January 2002, this doctrine of "strategic dominance declares the right of preemptive attack against any nation that might become a regional threat to U.S. interests. The Doctrine calls for maintaining the ability to fight simultaneous wars on multiple fronts, forming interim international coalitions as the situation dictates, reserving the right to act unilaterally against coalition wishes, and never ruling out military action. Wars should be fought on multiple fronts including economic, financial, diplomatic, law enforcement, and "intel-ligence" related.
In December 2002, the Pentagon sent the White House a memorandum asking for authority to place the U.S. Strategic Com-mand (STRATCOM) in charge of 'strategic" warfare options to combat terrorist states and organi-zations. The memo, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, recom-mended that STRATCOM be assigned all responsibility for dealing with foreign weapons of mass destruction including "global strike", integrated missile defense, and information systems. This new nuclear command structure would integrate the missile warning system, the national missile defense system, the U.S. Space Command and the nuclear and conventional strike plans into one first strike nuclear war-fighting organization, seemingly the culmination of fifty- eight years of first-strike nuclear strategy.
Bush is contemplating re-sumption of nuclear testing to develop new nuclear weapons. He is reorganizing the Nuclear Weapons Production Complex and planning to build a new plutonium "pit" facility at Savannah River. Two Tennessee Valley Authority civilian power reactors are under contract to begin producing tritium for nuclear warheads later this year and several other reactors will be used to "burn" plutonium from dismantled warheads. Meanwhile, the budget for cleaning up the nuclear production complex has been cut. A high level meeting is planned for August in Nebraska to discuss plans to develop new nuclear weapons.
The Bush nuclear policy raises many crucial questions. What lessons will be drawn by potential nuclear weapons states given the new doctrine of pre-emption and the example of Iraq? Is North Korea's belligerent reaction a portent? What will be China's and Russia's response to deployment of a national missile defense system and weaponization of space? If the U.S. develops and deploys new war-fighting nuclear weapons and resumes nuclear "testing," in direct violation of the CTB, how will the world react? What signal is Bush sending to the nuclear extremists in Israel, Pakistan, and India? (India now claims a "right" of preemptive attack against Pakistan). What is the future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)? Is the American public even vaguely aware that the nuclear nightmare is back with a vengeance?
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock currently reads seven minutes to midnight, the closest since 1990. Richard Falk, respected author and Professor of International Law, says that the danger of nuclear war is greater today than at any time since the Nagasaki bombing. Our key organizing challenge is to make the public in general and the anti-war/social justice movement in particular aware that the nuclear threat is real and growing. The best strategy for abolishing nuclear weapons is to link our demands for a nuclear free world with our work for peace and justice and against an anti-human corporate system.
John Steinbach is the Secretary of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki Peace Committee
of the National Area. A longer article on this subject with detailed,
hyper-linked foot-notes titled "Nuclear Night-mare: U.S. Nuclear War-Fighting
Policy and the War On Iraq" can be located at www.prop1.org/steinbach.