WASHINGTON DC: The Pentagon is set to unveil President Donald Trump’snuclear policy next week, and critics are already warning it could triggeranother arms race and raise the risk of miscalculations that might spark anatomic conflict.
A leaked draft version of the Nuclear Posture Review indicates the Pentagonis calling for the development of a new type of low-yield nuclear bomb thatis designed to be used on the battlefield, rather than to level a city.
These so-called tactical nuclear weapons have a limited explosive strength– though still are staggeringly powerful compared to conventional weapons.
Underpinning the Trump nuclear doctrine is the concern that America’s nukesare so powerful that adversaries don’t believe they would ever be used.
The draft policy says Russia’s own low-yield nukes, within easy strikingdistance of Europe, provide “a coercive advantage in crises and at lowerlevels of conflict.”
“Correcting this mistaken Russian perception is a strategic imperative,”the document states.
Any weapon with an explosive blast of 20 kilotons or less is consideredlow-yield.
To put that in perspective, one kiloton is the same as 1,000 tons of TNT;the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II wereabout 15 and 20 kilotons respectively, so they would be consideredlow-yield today.
But America already has a massive nuclear arsenal at its disposal,including 150 B-61 nukes stored across multiple European countries that canbe configured for low-yield options.
Hans Kristensen, director of the nuclear information project at theFederation of American Scientists, said US military strategy does not needa new type of weapon.
“If you really wanted to use weapons in a limited low-yield scenario, theyare there. You don’t have to have another one,” he told AFP.
Given the state of Russia’s military forces and the country’s financialproblems, Moscow fears it would be quickly outmatched in a conventionalconflict with the West.
To compensate, it has an “escalate to de-escalate” strategy in which itwould deploy lower-yield bombs as part of a limited first use of nuclearweapons.
The Pentagon’s nuclear policy draft, which euphemistically calls low-yieldbombs “supplements”, states that increasing such weapons would help deterRussia and other nations.
“These supplements will enhance deterrence by denying potential adversariesany mistaken confidence that limited nuclear employment can provide auseful advantage over the United States and its allies,” states the policy,which was obtained by the Huffington Post.
Kristensen said he could envision a scenario where a US president was “lessself-deterred” from using a nuclear weapon if he thought it would only havelimited effects on a civilian population.
The proposed policy says the Defense Department and the National NuclearSecurity Administration will develop a low-yield submarine-launchedballistic missile for deployment and, in the longer term, develop asea-launched cruise missile.
America currently has an estimated arsenal of about 7,000 nuclear warheads,second only to Russia, which has a few hundred more. The new missile typeswouldn’t add to the stockpile, but rather would reconfigure existingwarheads.
Critics, including Democratic lawmakers, worry not just about developingnew weapons but of the cost of overhauling America’s nuclear arsenal.Already, the price tag is more than $1 trillion over 30 years.
Congressman Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed ServicesCommittee that oversees the Pentagon, blasted the new policy.
“The administration’s recommendations will not increase our security,”Smith said.
“They will instead feed a nuclear arms race, undermine strategic stabilityby lowering the threshold for nuclear use, and increase the risk ofmiscalculation that could precipitate a nuclear war.”
Matthew Costlow, a defense analyst at the National Institute for PublicPolicy, said fears are being overblown.
“The nuclear order is not so fragile as to be shaken by the modification ofa few warheads by a responsible nuclear power such as the United States,”he wrote in an opinion piece published by the Breaking Defense news site.
“In fact, there is evidence it could reduce the chances of nuclear war bymaking aggressive nuclear states like Russia and North Korea think morethan twice about escalating a failing conflict.”
The new conversation marks a significant departure from the talking pointsof the administration of Barack Obama, who during a famous speech in Praguein 2009 called for the elimination of nuclear weapons.
In 2010, Obama and Russia’s then-president Dmitry Medvedev signed theso-called New START treaty that calls for a significant reduction in thenuclear arsenals of both countries.
That deal expires in 2021, when Trump could potentially be serving a secondterm.
Barry Blechman, co-founder of the Stimson Center, a nonpartisananti-nuclear proliferation think tank in Washington, said he was worriedsome of the language in the draft nuclear policy would make it harder torenew that treaty.
“I am very concerned,” he told AFP.
“It’s a step toward this direction of fighting nuclear wars as a realisticoption.” – AFP