The Paradox of Nuclear Disarmament

The latest federal budget request submitted to Congress by President Obama includes a large increase in spending for nuclear weapons. Such an increase contradicts Obama’s speech in Prague last April when he seemed to signal a commitment to significant nuclear disarmament. Now it’s a question of whether Congress will reject the Obama budget request — a strategy it used more than once to keep President George W. Bush from pursuing new nuclear weapon programs.

Scientist Greg Mello described this issue as “The Obama Disarmament Paradox” in an article published by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based online magazine.

The Feb. 4 article caused controversy within the Bulletin itself. On Feb. 24, John Isaacs, executive director of the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, and Robert Gard, a consultant on international security and education for the Center, published a rebuttal on their colleague Mello’s work, which may be summarized as follows:

“Barack Obama’s commitment to a nuclear-weapon-free world and his large budget request for the nuclear weapons complex are not inconsistent as some claim. It is only prudent to seek the necessary funding to keep the U.S. nuclear arsenal safe, secure and reliable until a nuclear-weapon-free world can be achieved.

“More largely, Obama should be given more time to follow through on his articulated disarmament agenda before he is deemed a success or failure.”

In explaining the inconsistency between the budget requested by the president and his views on disarmament, Mello argues that there is no evidence that Obama has or ever had his own vision about disarmament. He recalls that in Prague, the president simply spoke of how he envisions a world without nuclear weapons, but until that happens, “the United States will maintain a safe, secure and effective arsenal to deter any adversary, and guarantee that defense to our allies.”

Mello stressed that “since nuclear weapons don’t, and won’t ever, ‘deter any adversary,’ this too was highly aspirational, if not futile.”

An “effective” arsenal intended to deter “any” adversary would require endless innovation and continuous investment, including investments destined to enhance deterrence, which is what Obama really meant in Prague.

Mello believes that in relation to the U.S. nuclear stockpile, the promise of such investments, not disarmament, was the operative message being transmitted in Prague.

In fact, when the president delivered his speech, the proposed new investment for “extended deterrence” was already being packaged for delivery to Congress, according to Mello.

The scientist observed that for the implementation of his alleged “disarmament vision,” Obama spoke vaguely in Prague of reducing “the role of nuclear weapons in national security strategy,” perhaps referring to the contrast between the official discourse about nuclear doctrine and the reality that shows the facts. He also promised to negotiate with the Russians on a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) but nothing further.

In his retort to the objections of his colleagues Isaacs and Gard, Mello said that they do not provide any new information and that they only reiterated the views of the administration on these matters. They confuse “disarmament” with “nonproliferation issues and initiatives,” which are very different things. Besides, they have not taken into consideration that since Obama’s speech, the White House has not taken any significant action.

“If Obama wants to decrease the role of nuclear weapons in national security, and expects anybody to believe him, he must actually do so. Building thousands of significantly upgraded bombs (a process already underway) with new requests to develop and produce more types of upgraded bombs and the factories to make them isn’t disarmament. It’s the modernization of the country’s nuclear weapons complex, along with its arsenal, for the long run,” says Mello.

Ironically, Mello warned, it is possible that the removal of 4,000 warheads, agreed upon in the Moscow Treaty and other treaties under George W. Bush, surpasses what Obama can do on disarmament.

Regarding the creation of armament reserves, Bush had many more plans than the ones Congress hardly approved. That’s why, in his last three years in office, the budgets for nuclear warheads fell.

Now, with Congress on its side and in the case of a president who is in favor of disarmament, congressional restrictions have been lifted to presidential requests of this nature. “What Obama mainly seems to be ‘disarming’ is congressional resistance to variations of some of the same proposals Bush found it difficult to authorize and fund,” says Mello.

This is what gives away the principal and most alarming paradox!