"Today's Debate" articles on arms-control from USA Today

Our view on arms control: U.S.-Russia nuclear deal moves bar in right direction
Arsenal cuts, though worthwhile, are sideshow to today’s big threats.
As the U.S. and Russia whittle down their atomic arsenals, the incremental cuts increasingly resemble a game of nuclear limbo in which negotiators wonder: How low can you go?
Robert McNamara, who died this week and was Defense secretary during some of the darkest days of the Cold War, concluded that about 400 nuclear weapons would achieve "assured" destruction of the Soviet Union. In 1997, the National Academy of Sciences conducted a similar exercise and concluded that about 300 weapons each would be enough for the U.S. and Russia.
So why, a reasonable person might ask, did the U.S. amass more than 32,000 nukes at one point, and the Soviet Union as many as 45,000? And why do the U.S. and Russia still have about 26,000 nuclear weapons between them, some 97% of the world's total?

Whatever combination of fear and over-compensation drove such excess, at least the world's most powerful nuclear nations are taking steps in the right direction.
During President Obama's trip to Russia, which ended Wednesday, he and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed in principle to lower the bar another notch, from a maximum of 2,200 deployed long-range nuclear weapons to a limit of 1,675 per nation by 2017. The devices to deliver them — intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), nuclear submarines, bombers and so on — could total no more than 1,100, down from 1,600.
These are modest reductions at best, especially considering that each country retains several thousand more reserve and shorter-range weapons.
Critics of reductions, who have steadily dwindled in number, complain that Obama should have waited for the Pentagon's "nuclear posture review." But that process — which examines likely war scenarios and generates the number of nukes needed for them — was completed during the Bush administration, and defense policymakers surely have a good idea what another would show.
More important are details negotiators must work out if Obama wants an agreement ratified by the Senate before the existing Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) — with its crucial verification regime — expires in December. Among the key issues: Can the U.S. keep excess ICBMs and refit them with conventional weapons? Will Russia demand that the U.S. trade away plans to deploy anti-missile systems?
To some extent, though, this is a sideshow. The 21st century concern is less a war between the world's nuclear behemoths than that terrorists will obtain nuclear materiel or that Iran and North Korea will achieve serious nuclear capability, destabilize their neighborhoods and touch off a scramble by other nations to acquire the bomb. Reductions by the U.S. and Russia won't dissuade rogue nations from pursuing nuclear weapons, but cuts can make it easier to make the case for sanctions against them.
As for the limbo question, Obama's "perhaps not in my lifetime" goal of a world going as low as zero nuclear weapons strikes us as very distant indeed. For now, though, the latest agreement leaves the U.S. with more than enough firepower to play offense, play defense, and make the rubble bounce several times over.


Opposing view: Deal weakens U.S. posture
Obama's policy makes risky reductions in nuclear weapons.
By John Bolton
President Obama has to date failed to articulate any coherent strategic rationale for the substantial cuts in nuclear weapons and delivery systems he agreed to Monday with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. Obama's inability to do so is not surprising, because he made these commitments without waiting for an up-to-date "nuclear posture review," the definitive mechanism for assessing America's strategic needs.
Avoiding this authoritative process, coupled with the administration's hell-for-leather insistence on ratifying a new treaty by December, and its proposed cuts in missile-defense expenditures and critical weapons systems such as the F-22, demonstrate just how ideologically committed Obama is to a less robust U.S. defense posture. Not only are the proposed cuts in nuclear weapons levels dangerous, but the reductions in delivery systems are even more reckless, as the United States now significantly relies on such systems to deliver conventional warheads. Russia does not.

Obama's approach weakens our nuclear and conventional capabilities, while leaving Russia exactly at levels to which it would otherwise be driven by its own bleak economic realities. Moreover, Russia still insists on linking reductions in U.S. missile defenses to offensive cuts, and Obama hasn't unequivocally rejected this dangerous connection.
Obama's policy is risky for America and its global allies who shelter under our nuclear umbrella. It is hardly the time to shred that umbrella. Nuclear proliferation threats are growing, with North Korea detonating nuclear devices and testing missiles; Iran's nuclear and missile programs progressing; India and Pakistan increasing their capabilities; and other would-be nuclear states watching America's response.
Although Obama hopes dramatic U.S. nuclear weapons reductions will discourage proliferation, the actual result will be the exact opposite. Reality is much harsher than a wishful-thinking administration willing to accept deep cuts in America's defenses, with our military already stretched thin.
The answer is not to rush into any new treaty with Russia by year's end. Preserving the verification mechanisms of the START treaty, which expires then, is doable by simply extending those mechanisms until new strategic levels can be carefully considered and prudently negotiated. Any other approach leaves America vulnerable. Our president should know better.
John Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, was U.N. ambassador and under secretary of State for arms control during the George W. Bush administration.