Obama to press for drastic cuts in US nuclear arsenal

[Kleves]

Well, I guess he did promise the Russians that he would have "more flexibility" in gutting the US arsenal after the election.

WASHINGTON — President Obama will use his State of the Union speech on Tuesday to reinvigorate one of his signature national-security objectives — drastically reducing nuclear arsenals around the world — after securing agreement in recent months with the U.S. military that the U.S. nuclear force can be cut by roughly a third.

Obama, administration officials say, is unlikely to discuss specific numbers in the address, but White House officials are looking at a cut that would take the arsenal of deployed weapons to just above 1,000. There now are about 1,700, and the new strategic-arms-reduction treaty with Russia that the Senate passed at the end of 2009 calls for a limit of roughly 1,550 by 2018.

But Obama, according to an official who was involved in the deliberations, "believes that we can make pretty radical reductions — and save a lot of money — without compromising American security in the second term. And the Joint Chiefs have signed off on that concept."

The big question is how to accomplish a reduction that Obama views as long overdue, considering that Republicans in the Senate opposed even the modest cuts in the new arms-reduction treaty, called New START. The White House is loath to negotiate an entirely new treaty with Russia, which would lead to Russian demands for restrictions on U.S. and NATO missile-defense systems in Europe and would reprise a major fight with Republicans in the Senate over ratification.

Instead, Obama is weighing whether to announce unilateral cuts or, more likely, to attempt to reach an informal agreement with President Vladimir Putin of Russia for mutual cuts within the framework of the New START — but without the need for ratification.

Obama's national-security adviser, Tom Donilon, is planning to travel to Russia next month, officials say, to lay the groundwork for those talks. Obama and Putin will hold two summit meetings in the early summer.

Even as he revives a nuclear agenda that has been nearly moribund for two years, Obama is also expected to try to address new threats.

Within days of the State of the Union address, officials say, he plans to issue a long-anticipated presidential directive on combating cyberattacks aimed at U.S. companies, financial institutions and critical infrastructure like the electric grid. The announcement comes at a moment of heightened attacks from China and, most recently, from Iran.

A lobbying effort by U.S. companies last year defeated a bill in Congress that, in some versions of the legislation, would have required private companies to meet minimum standards of protection and to report attacks to the government. It died over objections that the bill would incur huge new costs and involve the government more deeply in private computer networks.

While Obama cannot impose the failed bill's mandates by executive order, he is expected to give companies that control "critical infrastructure" access to an experimental government program that has been aimed at protecting defense contractors.

The directive also will require the government to inform industry officials of cyberthreats detected by U.S. intelligence agencies; that, in turn, may create some liability for companies that fail to react to the warnings.

The nuclear-reduction plan has been debated inside the administration for two years, and the options have been on Obama's desk for months. But the document was left untouched through the presidential election.

The president wanted to avoid making the reductions a campaign issue with Mitt Romney, who declared at one point that Russia was now America's "No. 1 geostrategic foe," a comment that Obama later mocked as an indication that Romney had failed to move beyond the Cold War.

Romney, in turn, leapt on a remark that Obama intended to make privately to Russia's then president, Dmitry Medvedev. He was picked up by an open microphone telling Medvedev that "after my election I have more flexibility" on missile defense, which Republicans said was evidence that he was preparing to trade away elements of the arsenal.

Among the most outspoken advocates of a deep cut has been a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. James Cartwright, whom Obama continues to turn to on strategic issues. Cartwright has argued that a reduction to 900 warheads would still guarantee U.S. safety, even if only half of them were deployed at any one time.

"The world has changed, but the current arsenal carries the baggage of the Cold War," Cartwright said last year.

The challenges of North Korea, which is preparing a third nuclear test, and the possibility that Iran will get the bomb pose very different kinds of threats to the United States, and do not require the ability to deliver the kind of huge first strike that was the underlying logic of a large arsenal to face off against the Soviet Union.

"What is it we're really trying to deter?" Cartwright asked. "Our current arsenal does not address the threats of the 21st century."

It is unclear how much money would be saved by the nuclear-reduction plan that Obama is about to endorse; partly that depends on how the cuts are spread among the three elements of America's nuclear "triad": land-based missiles in silos, missiles aboard hard-to-find nuclear submarines, and nuclear bombers.

"These cuts don't require a radical change in the triad, and that makes it politically easier," said Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association, which has argued for deep cuts.

Cartwright's more radical plans, by some estimates, would have saved at least $120 billion over the next two decades.

But Obama is already moving quietly, officials acknowledge, to explore whether he can scale back a 10-year, $80 billion program to modernize the country's weapons laboratories.

The White House agreed to the spending on the weapons labs as the price of winning Republican votes on the New START three years ago, but one senior defense official said late last year that "the environment of looking for cuts in the national-security budget makes this an obvious target."

[derspiess]

Figures.

[Habbaku]

Good.

[Razgovory]

But how will we hold back the Russians from overrunning the Fulda gap?

[Ideologue]

Obama is the worst Democratic president since Jefferson Davis.

[Faeelin]

Is there a need for 1800, as opposed to 1000, nuclear weapons?

[Ideologue]

Is there a need for 1800, as opposed to 1000, nuclear weapons?

I dunno.  Once you start, nuclear weapons are probably something you don't want to run out of.

[CountDeMoney]

The challenges of North Korea, which is preparing a third nuclear test, and the possibility that Iran will get the bomb pose very different kinds of threats to the United States, and do not require the ability to deliver the kind of huge first strike that was the underlying logic of a large arsenal to face off against the Soviet Union.

Sums it up.  Any real conceivable deployment of a weapon would be limited and specific in scope.
And we'll still have plenty to send over the polar cap if we have to cut off the head of the Soviet chicken, without having to worry about old-school saturation attacks.  It's not 1958 anymore, or even 1988.

Within days of the State of the Union address, officials say, he plans to issue a long-anticipated presidential directive on combating cyberattacks aimed at U.S. companies, financial institutions and critical infrastructure like the electric grid. The announcement comes at a moment of heightened attacks from China and, most recently, from Iran.

A lobbying effort by U.S. companies last year defeated a bill in Congress that, in some versions of the legislation, would have required private companies to meet minimum standards of protection and to report attacks to the government. It died over objections that the bill would incur huge new costs and involve the government more deeply in private computer networks.

While Obama cannot impose the failed bill's mandates by executive order, he is expected to give companies that control "critical infrastructure" access to an experimental government program that has been aimed at protecting defense contractors.

The directive also will require the government to inform industry officials of cyberthreats detected by U.S. intelligence agencies; that, in turn, may create some liability for companies that fail to react to the warnings.

Read a report the other day that the utilities sector accounted for 40% of cyberattacks originating overseas.  Imagine that.

It died over objections that the bill would incur huge new costs and involve the government more deeply in private computer networks.

National security doesn't translate to shareholder value very well.  Or, as a certain utilities CFO I'll not mention once said, "So what if hackers do $6 million in damage to the grid?"

[Zanza]

Is there a need for 1800, as opposed to 1000, nuclear weapons?

I dunno.  Once you start, nuclear weapons are probably something you don't want to run out of.

In what possible scenario 1000 nuclear warheads aren't enough? If you hit the 500 most valuable targets of your enemy with nuclear weapons, you will have totally obliterated any country or group of countries in the world and will still have half your nuclear arsenal left.

[Berkut]

I don't mind the idea of cutting the number of warheads.

I do think cutting funding for the modernization program is a mistake. We don't need a lot of warheads, but we do need to keep them safe and working. And that is money long overdue to be spent.

[Ideologue]

Is there a need for 1800, as opposed to 1000, nuclear weapons?

I dunno.  Once you start, nuclear weapons are probably something you don't want to run out of.

In what possible scenario 1000 nuclear warheads aren't enough? If you hit the 500 most valuable targets of your enemy with nuclear weapons, you will have totally obliterated any country or group of countries in the world and will still have half your nuclear arsenal left.

You could end a civilization, yes, but that is not the goal of a large nuclear force.  The mission of a large nuclear force is to destroy all or, if infeasible, almost all of an enemy's nuclear force.  That mission requires great redundancy, powerful weapons, and high accuracy.  (It is also the mission of a large nuclear force to survive a counterforce strike, but that is not a realistic threat for the U.S. and, given the overestimation of Soviet capabilities, never has been.)

I'm willing to believe that 1000 is capable of carrying out that mission, but the suggestion that we should gear down from the ability to successfully execute a first strike against Russia and PRChina simultaneously is preposterous and irresponsible, since the very first action in any potential war with either or both powers must be the removal of their nuclear deterrent, and a war with either power individually still necessitates maintaining a first strike capability against the other.

We should also have enough in addition to whatever number is required to defeat a Russia/PRC combination (however unlikely), enough nuclear weapons to sufficiently punish or unilaterally attack any number of smaller states, e.g. Iran, DPRK, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc.

I'm not expert enough to know what that number is, but 1000 seems low.  It may be enough--there have been startling advances in accuracy and effectiveness since the days of Dr. Strangelove, after all--but I have seen no assurances to this effect, since for some reason, probably lack of patriotism, people don't like to talk about first strikes.

[CountDeMoney]

I do think cutting funding for the modernization program is a mistake. We don't need a lot of warheads, but we do need to keep them safe and working. And that is money long overdue to be spent.

Yeah, that's the bigger and more immediate problem, and another can that's been kicked so far down the road for so long by so many administrations that it's actually a valid concern now.

[Zanza]

You could end a civilization, yes, but that is not the goal of a large nuclear force.  The mission of a large nuclear force is to destroy all or, if infeasible, almost all of an enemy's nuclear force.

No, that's just for idiots that think a nuclear war is winnable. For everybody else, the point of nuclear weapons is the threat of ending civilization.

[CountDeMoney]

No, that's just for idiots that think a nuclear war is winnable. For everybody else, the point of nuclear weapons is the threat of ending civilization.

A nuclear war is winnable, depending on the opponents.

[MadImmortalMan]

I think people overestimate the damage. It would be life-changing I'm sure, but it wouldn't render humanity extinct.