Arms Control Wonk

Aspiring wonks, here is your end-of-semester exam question: It’s not OK to use cluster munitions in metropolitan areas, but it is OK to use nuclear weapons against targets that fall within or close to them. Yes? No? Under some circumstances? Explain.

States that possess nuclear weapons are reluctant to argue whether and how their use applies to the laws of armed conflict. To do so would risk undermining deterrence by nullifying battlefield applications, except as a last resort and for responses in kind. Even here, I suppose legal scholars, like The Hague Court, would have more than a few words to say.

Cluster bombs are not supposed to be used in built-up areas because they can have indiscriminate and long-lasting effects. Nuclear weapons, on the other hand, are widely presumed to be targeted against command and control, war-supporting industry, and leadership targets in and around cities.

Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara tried (briefly) to place metropolitan areas off-limits to nuclear targeting. He gave a commencement speech at the University of Michigan in June 1962 on this subject. Here’s the key passage:

The US has come to the conclusion that, to the extent feasible, basic military strategy in a possible general war should be approached much the same way that more conventional military operations have been regarded in the past. That is to say, principal military objectives, in the event of a nuclear war stemming from a major attack on the Alliance, should be the destruction of the enemy’s military forces, not of his civilian population… In other words, we are giving a possible opponent the strongest possible incentive to refrain from striking our own cities.

McNamara’s good intentions were defeated by the logic of Cold War nuclear deterrence. The imperative of damage limitation meant that high-value targets in or close to cities could not be stricken from targeting lists – particularly since there could be no assurance of comparable restraint by an adversary once the nuclear threshold was crossed.

Can you imagine hearing an address about nuclear targeting at your college graduation? Thankfully, I’m no longer in the business of reading or grading exams. Still, the question lingers, especially when the answers are unpersuasive.

Update | May 7. Here is the full text of the speech.

On April 24th, the Chairman of India’s National Security Advisory Board, Shyam Saran, delivered an important address in New Delhi affirming the credibility of India’s nuclear deterrent. Mr. Saran has over two decades of close engagement on strategic matters, including time spent as Foreign Secretary and Special Envoy dealing with the US-India civil-nuclear agreement. What he said, speaking in his personal capacity, bears close scrutiny.

The tone of these remarks is defensive at the outset, reflecting domestic criticisms of the pace of Indian strategic modernization programs. Mr. Saran also takes aim at US, Pakistani, and Chinese analysts who maintain that India sought the Bomb for reasons of status rather than national security. He seeks to set the record straight, making significant observations and recommendations in the process. Here are a few passages:

Chinese assistance to Pakistan’s strategic programme continues apace. [Note: unless Mr. Saran is referring to China's help with Pakistan's nuclear power sector, this is especially noteworthy.]

Pakistan is the only country where nuclear assets are under the command and control of the military and it is the military’s perceptions and ambitions which govern the development, deployment and use of these weapons. This is a dangerous situation precisely because the military’s perceptions are not fully anchored in a larger national political and economic narrative. The pursuit of a more powerful, more effective, and more sophisticated nuclear arsenal, dictated by the Pakistani military, may run in parallel with a steadily deteriorating political, social and economic environment. Would it be possible to island an efficiently managed and sophisticated nuclear arsenal amidst an increasingly dysfunctional polity? There is an air of unreality about the often adulatory remarks about the Pakistani military’s stewardship of the country’s military assets.

What Pakistan is signaling to India and to the world is that India should not contemplate retaliation even if there is another Mumbai because Pakistan has lowered the threshold of nuclear use to the theatre level. This is nothing short of nuclear blackmail, no different from the irresponsible behavior one witnesses in North Korea. It deserves equal condemnation by the international community because it is not just a threat to India but to international peace and security. Should the international community countenance a license to aid and abet terrorism by a state holding out a threat of nuclear war?

Mr. Saran argues that strategic misperceptions regarding the state of India’s nuclear deterrent and the reasons for it can be dangerous. His public remarks, which include helpful clarifications on steps taken to assure India’s second strike capabilities, may signal more to come. He concludes that, “The secrecy which surrounds our nuclear programme… is now counter-productive,” adding,

I would hope that the Government makes public its nuclear doctrine and releases data regularly on what steps have been taken and are being taken to put the requirements of doctrine in place. It is not necessary to share operational details but an overall survey such as an annual Strategic Posture Review, should be shared with the citizens of this country who, after all, pay for the security which the deterrent is supposed to provide for them.

Pakistani authorities have also been close-lipped about their strategic programs and requirements. The people of Pakistan, like those in India, have been in the dark regarding the size and costs of their nuclear deterrent. Would more openness be helpful, or would it add even more impetus to the nuclear competition in southern Asia? This could go either way. It is clear, however, that the absence of disclosure hasn’t slowed down the competition.

Scott Sagan wrote a typically fine essay in the Spring 2000 issue of International Security on “The Commitment Trap.” His subject was the Bush administration’s use of “calculated ambiguity” to deter Saddam Hussein from using chemical or biological weapons in the run-up to the second Gulf war. After disavowing chemical weapons (1992) as well as biological weapons (1972), senior U.S. officials have sought to deter their use by others by issuing warnings of “absolutely overwhelming” and “devastating” responses. These code words imply the use of nuclear weapons.

Scott argued, persuasively in my view, that veiled threats to use nuclear weapons trapped U.S. officials. If CW or BW were actually used by an adversary — regardless of their scope and military effectiveness, whether from top-down dictates or breakdowns in command and control — Washington could feel impelled to carry out its threat, thereby inviting immeasurable but significant costs to its international stranding and to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Alternatively, by refraining from carrying out its nuclear threat, Washington could also lose international standing, inviting new adversaries to call its bluff and old friends to question the protectiveness of the U.S. nuclear umbrella. To avoid these awful choices, Scott proposed that calculated ambiguity be replaced with a clear and credible U.S. commitment to respond to CW and BW use with prompt and devastating conventional retaliation.

One measure of the devaluation of nuclear weapons is the decreased utility of nuclear threats, whether blatant or veiled. Only one state currently employs blatant, crude and credible nuclear threats. By making them, Pyongyang increases its separation from states that are not in the grip of paranoia. Veiled nuclear threats have been more frequent. Along with the second Gulf war, they were made during intense crises between Pakistan and India from 1999 – 2002, but were notably absent after the 2008 crisis sparked by terrorist attacks in Mumbai. Russia, which has increased its reliance on nuclear weapons, has no reason to threaten their use, making any public statement along these lines to seem strangely atavistic. Major Powers in possession of nuclear weapons lose rather than gain standing by making veiled nuclear threats against weaker states.

The commitment trap that Scott wrote about two decades ago has changed significantly. As before, the trap is set by drawing red lines and making assertions that certain actions are “unacceptable.” What’s different is that these public statements are prompted not only to deter actions – currently by Syria and Iran — but also to delay or prevent actions by a friendly state, Israel. Another big difference is that the commitment trap is no longer about the veiled threat of using nuclear weapons. Nor is Scott’s proposed remedy — prompt and devastating use of conventional capabilities – a likely option.

The commitment trap is now about drawing red lines and then feeling obliged to back them up with selective, conventional military strikes. The prelude to U.S. air strikes in Syria could be the establishment of a no-fly zone. For some, military action is not a trap – it’s a long-postponed necessity. For the Obama administration, rhetorical devices employed to deter and to buy time are running out of time.

George Bunn, a gentle spirit with a fixed resolve to help make the world less hospitable to nuclear weapons, died on Sunday. In an earlier post, I referred to George as a norm builder — one facet of a life well-lived. Some of the others can be found in this obituary released by Stanford University:

George Bunn, one of the world’s most revered advocates for a world without nuclear weapons and a consulting professor at Stanford’s Center for International Security and Cooperation for two decades, has died.

“Negotiator of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, dean of the University of Wisconsin Law School, professor at Stanford, world traveler, mentor to many young people fighting the good fight for a world without nuclear weapons – and my father,” said his daughter, Jessie Bunn. “Let’s remember him with love and funny stories.”

A memorial service will be held this summer in Palo Alto, where Bunn still played his flute and sang in the church choir, and home to Stanford University, where he could be seen riding his bike to his office in Encina Hall well into his 80s.

His family said Bunn, 87, died of spinal cancer on Sunday.

Bunn studied engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and joined the Navy toward the end of World War II. In 1945, Ensign Bunn joined the crew of the USS Logan, a Navy troop transport ship bound for the invasion of Japan. The atomic bombs dropped by the United States on Hiroshima and Nagasaki prevented that tour.

“As he was to have been part of the force to invade Japan, he was convinced that the atomic bomb saved his life – yet he devoted most of the rest of his life to the effort to bring the fearsome power of nuclear weapons under international control,” said his son, Matthew Bunn, himself a nuclear nonproliferation scholar at Harvard’s Belfer Center.

Bunn was a leading figure in the early days of nuclear arms control in the 1960s. During the Kennedy administration, he drafted the legislation that created the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and became the agency’s first general counsel.

He is best known for having helped negotiate the 1968 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the landmark international compact that helped to curtail the use of nuclear weapons worldwide… Bunn later became U.S. ambassador to the Geneva Disarmament Conference, and taught as the U.S. Naval War College and the University of Wisconsin Law School, where he also served as dean.

In an earlier post and in an op-ed published by the International Herald Tribune on April 5th, I’ve likened the nuclear competition on the subcontinent to Aesop’s fable about the tortoise and the hare. Here’s the language I used in the IHT piece:

Pakistan, whose economy and domestic cohesion are steadily worsening, is the hare, racing to devote scarce resources to compete with a country whose economy is nine times as great. India is the tortoise. Its nuclear program is moving steadily forward without great exertion. The tortoise will win this race, and could quicken its pace. But the hare continues to run fast, because nuclear weapons are a sign of strength amidst growing domestic weaknesses and because it can’t keep up with the growth of India’s conventional military programs.

I’ve heard back from colleagues in Pakistan who object to my analysis. One basis for complaint is that I lack sensitivity by comparing Pakistan to a hare. I did not mean to offend; my purpose in writing was to shed light on how hard Pakistan is competing. My op-ed suggested the not-so-novel recommendation of greatly expanded cross-border trade with India to help defuse this competition.

The second basis for complaint is that I have mischaracterized India as a tortoise. The message I’ve heard – not for the first time — is that India is forcing the pace in both nuclear and conventional capabilities, compelling Pakistan to run this race.

We lack a forum in which a rising generation of strategic analysts on the subcontinent can discuss this and other security issues. The Stimson Center is working to set up a website for this purpose. Since the website is still a work in progress, I’m posting below a well-informed critique of my op-ed by Mansoor in hopes of prompting further discussion.

Since overt nuclearization in 1998, South Asia has been embroiled in a clearly palpable arms race wherein the declaratory “minimum” credible deterrent postures are in name only. Pakistan might appear to be the hare in a regional competition steeped in enduring rivalry, but India is no tortoise, as is shown by developments on the ground.

Pakistan’s characterization as the hare stems from a widely held view that it has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal based on a supposedly exponential increase in existing fissile material [plutonium] capabilities. These assessments have further led to claims that the country possesses more warheads compared to India.

Firstly, how can it be ascertained with a degree of reliability that Pakistan has x and India y number of warheads, or how much of their respective fissile stockpiles has been converted to weapons? The exact fissile material inventories of both countries are primarily based on guestimates of the respective efficiency of production facilities and any additions to them.

Pakistan is seen as the hare largely due to the expansion in plutonium production capabilities at the Khushab Nuclear Complex and the recent commissioning of the Chashma reprocessing plant. There are several estimates as to the net effect of this growth on Pakistan’s ability to produce more plutonium (which has become an operational necessity now). Each 50 MWt Khushab reactor produces between 9 and 12 kg/yr of weapon-grade plutonium, operating at 70% capacity. The fourth reactor is rumored to have a thermal capacity of 50-100 MWt. So cumulatively, Pakistan will be able to produce about 45-50 kg/yr weapon-grade plutonium with all the four Khushab reactors combined. Currently, Pakistan’s plutonium stockpile, primarily from Khushab-1, is estimated to be only around 150 kg compared to India’s 700-1000 kg. So it would take ten years for Pakistan to make it to 450 kg.

There is no evidence to suggest that Pakistan has conducted a qualitative (gas-centrifuge design) or quantitative expansion of its gas-centrifuge program with the production and installation of the Kahuta plant. If that were so, it would have witnessed a horizontal expansion, which could not be hidden, akin to India’s Rare Materials Plant. Installation of new generation gas-centrifuges would also require a corresponding expansion of the Chemical Plants Complex, D.G. Khan, which is the center for uranium processing and conversion and produces uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6)—the feedstock for the centrifuges—and uranium oxide and metal for fabricating natural uranium fuel for the Khushab reactors. Given the anticipated natural uranium restraints, any expansion at CPC would be geared towards supplying additional feedstock for the natural uranium metal fuel required for the production reactors at Khushab. These natural uranium constraints would limit Pakistan’s ability to expand its UF6 production facilities for feeding a more ambitious uranium enrichment program while continuing to produce sufficient fuel for the Khushab Complex, which has seen an expansion from one to three production reactors in the past decade.

If India is the tortoise, it is surely one that is outpacing the hare when it is already far ahead in the race. It is working on a 100-125 MWt Dhruva-II production reactor; has commissioned its fourth 100 ton/yr commercial-scale Power Reactor Fuel Reprocessing Plant-2 or PREFRE-2/Tarapur-2 in January 2011. The other three reprocessing plants, 50-ton/yr Trombay, 100-ton/yr Tarapur-1, and another 100-ton/yr at Kalpakkam KARP. All three plants are un-safeguarded with the Trombay facility dedicated to separating plutonium obtained from production reactors and the rest from power reactors, although they too have a potentially dual function. Moreover, India is known to be working on another large reprocessing plant at Kalpakkam with plans for additional facilities in the next decade with a 500 ton-yr reprocessing capacity. So long as these plants remain outside safeguards, claims that they would be used to separate plutonium earmarked as start-up fuel for India’s breeder reactors would force Pakistan to factor in all unsafeguarded capacity as a potential source of fissile material production.

India is also doubling its uranium enrichment program for making HEU for submarines and possibly weapons and plans to develop another “Special Material Enrichment Facility,” in Chitradurga district in Karnataka. This would also be kept outside safeguards thus keeping it open for producing weapon-grade HEU. Its Rare Materials Plant is also undergoing rapid expansion with the planned addition of another 3000 gas-centrifuges.

On the other hand, in the current decade, Pakistan is estimated to have a combined capacity of 150-200 MWt with all the four production reactors at Khushab; a 80-100 ton/yr reprocessing capacity from both New Labs and Chashma; while India will have 100-225 MWt production reactor capacity from Dhruva 1 and 2; more than 350 ton/yr reprocessing capacity from its existing and planned un-safeguarded reprocessing plants; and its 500 MWe capacity unsafeguarded breeder reactor is expected to be completed in the near future. With eight heavy water power reactors kept outside safeguards, India retains the capacity to produce 1250 kg of weapon-grade plutonium annually and 140 kg of the same from its breeder reactor (with four more in the pipeline).

Pakistan has zero stocks of un-safeguarded reactor-grade plutonium; India has 5-10 tons of it which is weapon usable and India claims to have carried out at least one nuclear test in 1998 that used this material. At present, Pakistan is compensating for its growing conventional inferiority with increasing its reliance on nuclear weapons and is diversifying its delivery systems with nine different types of ballistic and cruise missiles (and a hypothetical allocation of existing fissile stocks among these nine systems along with a few left for non-strategic battlefield weapons (Nasr) shows that current stocks are barely sufficient even for today’s immediate requirements).

India is working on ICBMs, SLBMs, SLCMs, BMDs, SSBNs and has an ambitious space program. Pakistan is only developing systems such as cruise missiles for its triad, and has no SSBN, or SLBM or an ICBM and has no plans in sight for a military space program.

Pakistan will never have the fissile material production capacity to develop battlefield nuclear weapons for war-fighting even on a modest scale. Its existing stocks are only good enough for a few weapons for battlefield use mainly for deterrence purposes. When it comes to finding the finances to develop and run a growing nuclear weapons program, the tortoise is much faster than the hare, but the hare is adept at improvising and finding solutions from within its limited resources without actually raising the defense budget (which has been practically frozen in the past decade if inflation is accounted for). So how is Pakistan expanding its plutonium program which has attracted so much attention and is seen as the basis of supposedly the world’s fastest growing arsenal?

The PAEC did not build its plutonium production and reprocessing infrastructure in a few years, especially not after the Indo-US nuclear deal, as is widely believed. This effort began in 1973 with work commencing on the unsafeguarded New Labs reprocessing plant, followed by the completion of a fuel fabrication plant in 1980, launch of the 50 MW Khushab-1 reactor, along with a heavy water plant in 1986 and following their commissioning in a decade, another three reactors at the same site in the past fifteen years, which like K-1 and indigenous. While this was going on, it also began establishing the infrastructure required for achieving indigenous capability for building production reactors for the future and a 350 million dollar program (approved in early 1987) was launched to set up design, fabrication and manufacturing capabilities for future reactors and fuel cycle facilities. This can be seen in the shape of HMC-3 several nuclear equipment workshops. That has helped Pakistan design and produce its own production reactors at low cost.

The recent commissioning of Chashma reprocessing plant again was a logical outcome of a half-completed plant which was waiting to be equipped and commissioned since 1978! Having said that, Pakistan cannot be expect to continue fissile material production indefinitely since the 40 ton/yr natural uranium ore production is only good enough to meet the fuelling requirements for three Khushab reactors. Therefore, for the foreseeable future, plutonium production will have to be prioritized and the limited uranium reserves allocated to it rather than to the enrichment program.

Nevertheless, Pakistan will also continue to reduce to yawning gap in existing stockpiles of fissile material, especially plutonium, to whatever extent it can. These trends are likely to continue till 2020 where after domestic uranium constraints begin to affect production. Therefore, with almost no chance of securing any unsafeguarded fuel or uranium from outside unless new reserves are discovered in large quantities at home, the hare will surely turn into a tortoise moving at very slow pace, which also provides an insight into Pakistan’s current stance on the FMCT.

In sum, Pakistani decision-makers have quantified the number of warheads they need before having confidence in having sufficient survivable forces required for an assured second strike capability and a credible deterrent whose upper limit would be determined by developments across the border but also influenced by domestic production capabilities and resources. Pakistan has clearly shifted its focus on a nuclear arsenal consisting of lightweight warheads based on plutonium which is the key to achieving a triad-based credible minimum deterrent capability, given the limitations associated with miniaturizing warheads with HEU, hence the expansion at Khushab. But again, this is seen as a rush and not the product of a technological imperative resulting from decades of investment in the plutonium program. Nevertheless, Khushab-1 and 2 can be explained in this context, but Khushab-3 and 4 appear to be the product of external security dynamics stemming from the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Therefore, in the absence of any international concessions from the NSG, and exacerbating conventional and nuclear asymmetries in the shape of ballistic missile defense, growing ISR capabilities, ballistic missile submarines and MIRVed ICBMs, Pakistan will have no choice but to seek indigenous solutions within the available resources to deter a much larger neighbor which in its view is a hegemon seeking great power status at the cost of strategic stability in the region.

Every war must end, but few end well. Fred Charles Iklé has written a slim but essential book on this subject. Fred’s bottom line: government leaders that make momentous decisions to go to war, or decisions that could lead to war, are obliged to have military and diplomatic strategies to end hostilities on favorable terms.

In the preface to the first revised edition to Every War Must End (1971), Fred lists three “musts” for US decision makers:

American forces must not be committed to combat without a clear military strategy, whether for defeating the enemy of for expelling the aggressor’s forces and restoring the peace.

A second and corollary lesson is that American forces should not be sent into combat merely for the purpose of demonstrating America’s resolve and commitment. Such a ‘demonstration strategy’ is no substitute for a clear military strategy to defeat the enemy’s forces. It will not induce a determined adversary to withdraw or to cease his aggression…

A third lesson tells us that the United States should not enter a war based on a strategy of inflicting ‘punishment’ on the enemy by bombing or shelling targets whose destruction will not serve to defeat the enemy’s forces militarily.

Fred is no longer with us to offer his views on bombing Iran’s nuclear sites, controlling Syria’s air space, dealing with the Assad regime’s chemical weapons, or how best to respond to Kim Jong-un and his coterie of military advisors. The particulars in each case are different. One relates to proliferation prevention, the second focuses on the use of force on humanitarian grounds, and the third deals with the consequences of proliferation.

Caution is a tactic, not a strategy. Caution can either help avoid dangerous, precipitous, and costly moves, or it can make a bad situation worse. The most successful strategies to date in dealing with the consequences of proliferation have been deterrence and containment, not efforts to achieve regime change. Proliferation prevention by means of bombing runs can provide short-term gains, followed by long-term costs. Combat air patrols to protect civilians from regimes that engage in mass murder can help turn the tide, but not affect the character of governance once the regime falls.

None of the decisions relating to Iran, Syria, and North Korea are slam dunks. What these cases have in common is the need to avoid the fallacy of the last move, and to think instead about how US military action, once undertaken, would likely play out over time.

Since 1945, the United States has generally failed to end wars victoriously and decisively — with the exception of the first Gulf war against Saddam Hussein and small-scale military operations like Grenada. Exit strategies have sometimes been embarrassing affairs in search of decent intervals. The worst of the lot was Vietnam. The image of a small helicopter air-lifting a few fortunate exit-seekers from a long line atop a building in Saigon is etched on my brain. It remains a haunting coda for a war waged to demonstrate resolve and inflict punishment.

Fred’s lessons were embraced by the George H.W. Bush administration in the first Gulf war, and then forgotten by the George W. Bush administration in Afghanistan and in a second go-round with Saddam Hussein. Bush 43’s “War on Terror” was a rallying cry, not a strategy. It violated all of Fred’s dicta by being open-ended, geographically unbounded, and at odds with a declaration of mission accomplished.

President Barack Obama wisely re-framed this contest as the disruption and defeat of the core al-Qaeda leadership — achievable war aims. Then he muddled US objectives by extending the conflict to include al-Qaeda’s “affiliates” and “associates.” Drone strikes have become one yardstick to measure the extent to which the Obama administration has strayed from Fred’s criteria.

The US exit strategy in Iraq was incomparably better than in Vietnam, but the price of regime change has been very steep, and Iraq’s future is uncertain, at best. The outcome in Afghanistan is yet to be determined, but may well look depressingly familiar. After expressing confident expectations about fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, hawkish US analysts and politicians owe their fellow citizens something more than new military action plans. For a start, they might explain how their new proposals for the use of force meet Fred’s criteria. Humanitarian interventionists who wish to place US forces in harm’s way are similarly obliged to clarify aims and projected costs.

Has the nature of war changed so much as to make Fred Iklé’s criteria irrelevant?

There’s a Mad Man Theory of Deterrence. Does it apply to arms control, too?

Here’s the keeper Mad Man quote, found in Richard M. Nixon’s The Real War (1980):

International relations are a lot like poker – stud poker with a hole card… Our only covered card is the will, nerve, and unpredictability of the President – his ability to make the enemy think twice about raising the ante… If the adversary feels that you are unpredictable, even rash, he will be deterred from pressing you too far.

Nixon, Kissinger, Reagan, Shultz, Nitze and others applied a variation of this approach to arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union. The keys to success were to make the Kremlin feel that you were willing to out-build and negate his deterrent, while stringing Moscow along in arms control negotiations. Then you could get a sweetheart deal.

Nixon and Kissinger tried to apply this approach to the SALT negotiations, but they were stymied on multiple fronts. The Soviet Union, not the United States, had more active production lines for missiles and submarines; US programs were either on the drawing boards or just entering production. MIRVs got the Kremlin’s attention, but this US technological advantage couldn’t be used as leverage, because the Pentagon and Hawks on Capitol Hill refused to cash MIRVs in.

Ballistic missile defenses were the Nixon/Kissinger hole card, because concern over their deployment resides in the Kremlin’s DNA. But the White House was stymied on this front, too. Congressional opposition to national missile defense deployments was unyielding, and not enough voters wanted nuclear-tipped interceptors in their backyards. Besides, technical problems were insurmountable back then, even against rudimentary offenses. The Pentagon didn’t have enough money for missile defenses as well as strategic modernization programs. When left to choose, sound military judgment opted for more offense, rather than a deeply suspect defense.

Nixon and Kissinger, the master geo-politicians of the 1970s, did poorly in negotiating restraints on strategic offensive forces. They were too eager for a blockbuster deal before the 1972 election, and too hamstrung by conditions they could not shape. The Kremlin held a better hand.

Tables were turned during the Reagan administration. President Carter and his SALT II Treaty were shown the door. The incoming president called for a major boost in defense spending, including a host of strategic modernization programs, at a time when the Soviet Union’s economy was just beginning to crater. On top of this, paranoid septuagenarians in the Politburo witnessed the second coming of BMD – space-based, no less. Technically and financially speaking, the Strategic Defense Initiative was a non-starter, but until Mikhail Gorbachev took the helm, the Kremlin was nearly apoplectic about SDI.

President Reagan placed hard-liners at key posts, tabled lop-sided negotiating proposals that appeared to be non-starters – not just to the Kremlin, but also to some Reagan administration officials, U.S. allies, and to the President’s domestic critics. Money flowed into SDI and U.S. strategic modernization programs, weapons with preemption-like characteristics began to be deployed in Europe, and the President seemed in no hurry to negotiate deals.

In other words, the Reagan administration accrued extraordinary negotiating leverage. Once its internecine battles were resolved in favor of pragmatists and against hard-liners, and once Gorbachev replaced his sclerotic predecessors, sweetheart deals became possible. Whether by design or by circumstance, President Reagan demonstrated the Mad Man Theory of Arms Control.

Can a U.S. President play these cards once again? Not in the same way. It’s quite possible that Washington could still be roused to compete intensely for military advantage in space, if prompted to do so by the People’s Liberation Army. In which case, the wraps would be off the Pentagon, and Beijing would find itself at a disadvantage and thus become more inclined toward deal-making. A far simpler and safer approach would be for Washington and Beijing to reach tacit agreements to avoid dangerous activities in space, reflected in a Code of Conduct for responsible space-faring nations.

As for a classical strategic build-up to secure another sweetheart nuclear arms reduction deal, don’t hold your breath. Pentagon budgets are constrained, the impulse for nuclear arms racing in the United States has long since passed, and Senate Republicans are uninterested in treaties. Under these conditions, the dynamic of using nuclear build-ups to get treaties, and using treaties to get strategic modernization programs, has lost traction.

Without treaties, without cash, and without negotiating brinksmanship, forget the Mad Man Theory of Arms Control. What’s left? The Mad Man Theory of Nuclear Deterrence. For the latest iteration, check out the statements broadcast from Pyongyang.

The thirtieth anniversary of President Ronald Reagan’s surprise roll-out of the Strategic Defense Initiative has been duly noted within narrow circles. The section of my shoe box files devoted to SDI is thick and inviting. The 4 X 6 card at the front end is a note to self: “The national security of the United States is far too important to rest on the strength of rhetorical questions.” The rhetorical question that launched SDI was a beaut: “Wouldn’t it be better to save lives than to avenge them?” Never underestimate the power of this device to frame a political issue advantageously.

A great deal of money, angst, and upset followed. This debate had its surreal moments, and yet SDI prompted pragmatic, exceptional results – not in space, but at the negotiating table. Here’s a small sampler from my file cards:

“We won’t put this weapon – or this system in place, this defensive system, until we do away with our nuclear missiles, our offensive missiles. But we will make it available to other countries, including the Soviet Union, to do the same thing.” — From the text of President Reagan’s interview with Soviet journalists, Washington Post, November 5, 1985.

“I think this could be the greatest inducement to arms reduction. It’s the only weapons system that’s ever been invented for which there has never been a defensive weapon created.” – Reagan’s interview on election night with Lou Cannon, Washington Post, November 7, 1984.

“Applications of current technology offer no real promise of being able to defend the United States against massive nuclear attack in this century.” – Report of the President’s Commission on Strategic Forces (Scowcroft Commission), April 1983.

“I say this with confidence, since it is irresponsible to bluff in such matters. There will be a reply to SDI. An asymmetrical reply, but there will be a reply. And we shall not sacrifice much at that.” — Mikhail Gorbachev, after the Reykjavik summit, October 14, 1986.

“The end is unattainable, the means hare-brained, and the cost staggering.” – McGeorge Bundy, George Kennan, Robert McNamara and Gerard Smith, borrowing from Arthur Vandenberg, in “The President’s Choice: Star Wars or Arms Control?” Foreign Affairs, Winter 1984-5.

“The Star Wars proposal was, however, another of those uncalculated ventures in personal diplomacy. Without any preparation, indeed without any realization, it attacked the prior foundation of the basic arms relationship. Our allies suddenly learned that deterrence, on which security had rested, was to be replaced. Britain and France learned that their independent nuclear forces, into which they had poured a considerable portion of the national treasure, were to be rendered obsolete. We were all to learn rather suddenly that deterrence was ‘immoral’ and flawed.’ Such phrases seemed to have been borrowed from the Catholic bishops. While there may be considerable satisfaction in dishing the left by stealing its clothes, it hardly seems necessary to undermine the foundation on which Western security must rest for the foreseeable future.” – James Schlesinger, “The Eagle and the Bear,” Foreign Affairs, Summer 1985.

Ronald Reagan’s rhetorical question kick-started a careening roller coaster ride that ended safely. The impulse provided by SDI helped produce historic arms reduction treaties with Moscow, but only after missile defenses were effectively grounded by political, technical and cost constraints. As long as technology continues to disappoint, missile defenses will remain a costly insurance policy against rudimentary threats, as well as a device for alliance management and reassurance.

President James K. Polk’s war of choice against Mexico from 1846-48 resulted in the acquisition of what became the states of California, Utah and Nevada, as well as parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, and Wyoming. Mexico received $15 million in compensation and gave up its claim on Texas. In this war, the United States suffered fewer than two thousand combat deaths.

President William F. McKinley’s war of choice against Spain in 1898 resulted in an insurgency against the victorious U.S. presence in the Philippines and U.S. control over Puerto Rico, Guam, and Cuba. Fewer than 400 U.S. soldiers died in combat; ten times as many died from disease. The casus belli was the sinking of The USS Maine in Havana harbor. A Navy board of inquiry concluded that the most likely cause of this disaster was the ignition of more than five tons of powder charges for the vessel’s six- and ten-inch guns. The “yellow press” and belligerents on Capitol Hill blamed Spain, whose tenuous empire was one quick war away from disintegration.

U.S. wars of choice morphed into preventive wars even before the demise of the Soviet Union. The results have been chastening. For someone in my age bracket, the less said about the Vietnam War, the better. With the collapse of the USSR, U.S. preventive wars became possible in the Middle East. President George H. W. Bush’s decision to repulse Iraqi forces from Kuwait may have been a war of choice, but it was also essential. His limited war aims resulted in limited casualties and limited combat duration.

President George W. Bush’s war of choice was another matter entirely.

Let me stipulate at the outset that Iraq will do no worse than under Saddam & Sons – but it may not do that much better. Let me also stipulate that it is a good thing to have one less country seeking the Bomb in this region – for now. As for the rest, there is endless sadness. Besides yielding a generation of soldiers wrestling with demons, over one hundred thousand grieving families, and a few trillion dollars in interest-bearing debts, this war produced Nuri al-Maliki, the worst sectarian violence of any country in the world (not counting outright civil wars, like that ravaging Syria), and collusion between Iraq and Iran. In the long run, Iraq’s outlook might improve, but hardly enough to justify these costs.

The only way that the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz preventive war could remotely have been justified was if Saddam had the WMD that the U.S. Intelligence Community – with the partial exception of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research – obligingly claimed. Remotely gathered intelligence, even by exquisite technical means, can be subject to inferences that turn out to be exaggerated, especially when those inferences are reinforced by a war-thumping White House and Secretary of Defense, a wounded public psyche inclined to slay dragons, and unreliable human intelligence.

The most skeptical evaluators of Saddam’s WMD holdings turned out to be the inspectors within Iraq operating under the ambit of the United Nations. Even when circumscribed and badgered, they had a better feel for the status of Saddam’s WMD programs than analysts confined to cubicles.

Remember the argument about how deterrence of Saddam and his WMD programs was eroding? How expensive it was to control his airspace and keep U.S. troops forward deployed? The costs of containment and deterrence now appear trivial compared to those associated with the preventive war that followed, with U.S. troops spending a decade rotating in and out of combat.

Regrettably and predictably, there has been no respite from Saddam’s death and his regime’s dysfunctional pursuit of WMD. Proliferation anxieties have now been transposed to Iran. This time, international inspectors are witnessing real nuclear capabilities that could be applied to make real weapons. Iraq is no longer a counterweight to Iran, nor a justification for Iran’s nuclear program. Instead, Baghdad is abetting Tehran’s regional ambitions.

There are clear lessons to be learned from the second Gulf war. Some are applicable to Iran; others aren’t. The authorities in Iran are making it easier to forget cautionary lessons, bit by bit.

Lew Dunn, the Bronx’s gift to the Nonproliferation Treaty, has a theory about NPT Review Conferences. The Dunn Theorem is that back-to-back successes are a rarity; more likely, every other RevCon is a flop. If Lew is right, the next RevCon may be a rough ride.

A very imperfect standard of success or failure for RevCons is agreement on a final document. By this standard, the first RevCon in 1975 can be considered a success, despite the squabbling, because Swedish diplomat Inga Thorrsen drafted a final document in the closing hours of the conference and persuaded Washington, Moscow, and London to accept it for the good of the NPT.

The 1980 RevCon failed, in Lew’s view, even though the parties made good progress on peaceful uses and safeguards, when the Carter Administration moved too late to make a concession on how the final document would handle the CTBT. Lew recalls a senior U.S. official being sent to Geneva with a good compromise, but too late. This conference ended with no final document, much to the chagrin of Non-Nuclear-Weapon States, which lost useful language on the CTBT and peaceful uses.

Lew was the Reagan administration’s NPT RevCon point person in 1985, and his timing couldn’t have been better. U.S.-Soviet relations were awful during the first term of the Reagan administration, but an upswing seemed possible in the second term. In 1985, the regime gained a third pillar, with the addition of peaceful uses to non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. The main stumbling block of CTBT was resolved with the artful language that, “the Conference except for certain states” endorsed the CTBT. Why did the 1985 RevCon agree on a final document? Here’s Lew’s analysis:

In 1985 everyone was sort of scared by the breakdown in 1980 and worked for consensus agreement. Also Presidents Reagan and Gorbachev were scheduled to have a Summit in Geneva – the first between them and the first after the collapse of arms control negotiations in 1983 – in November 1985. So everyone pulled hard for consensus. As a self-serving remark, I also spent two years on the road consulting with everyone – setting the precedent that Susan Burk followed 25 years later.

In 1990, the RevCon flopped. In 1995, the parties agreed to the NPT’s indefinite extension, a significant accomplishment, but failed to agree on a consensus document. In 2000, the Conference agreed to a major consensus document, including thirteen steps to be taken to strengthen the regime. (This partly breaks Lew’s mold of alternating failures and successes, depending on how one scores the mixed result in 1995 of indefinite extension and failure to reach a consensus document.) The 2005 RevCon was a debacle, while 2010 was a success, returning to Lew’s pattern.

Does this mean another downer in 2015? Here are Lew’s thoughts:

Now I would not make too much of the five year on, five year off point — but it is an interesting track record overall. In some ways, if you look at each conference, there are unique factors involved in each: quality or lack thereof of the leadership of the conference and of different delegations (not only the US); the overall global context; US positions and those of other countries; and so on.

But I have always thought there is a sense among the NPT parties overall that the NPT is an important treaty and that notwithstanding its weakness and flaws, it serves the security of its parties, not least by helping prevent proliferation; is an important prod toward nuclear disarmament, being the only such legal obligation on the NWS and a critical foundation of peaceful uses. But countries differ on how well it is serving those goals and also like to use the Review as a means of pressure, especially of the NWS. So sometimes they push too hard and too far; sometimes they don’t want to agree on compromises to create a sense of shared future. I think that then when there is a breakdown of the NPT process, the countries go away and reflect on it – and then almost scare themselves a little. Sort of gee: what if we did this two times in a row, if we had a double debacle – maybe it would be really bad for all of us and we actually still need this treaty. Then there is a new desire to work hard for success.

Do I have any data or is this just my gut instinct? My answer: My recollection of 1985 (which actually was the first time a “real” consensus document was achieved by hard work of all the parties) was that the countries remembered 1980 and wanted not to repeat it — plus given the coming Reagan-Gorbachev summit, they did not want to do anything that would undercut hope for better relations and a resumption of arms control between the two countries. The US and Soviets also cooperated very well in the run-up to 1985 and at the Conference.

In addition, in speaking to persons after the 2010 Review, it was very clear to me based on what individuals across the NPT spectrum said that the 2005 breakdown was something that everyone wanted to avoid repeating in 2010. Again and again other diplomats that I came across in one or another context after 2010 noted the importance of not doing a 2005 in 2010 – they feared it would put the NPT at risk. As a result the parties pulled together and produced what I think is a very solid Action Plan – even as they compromised in doing so.

What about today? In Lew’s view – and I fully agree – the greatest challenge for the 2015 NPT Review is to break this pattern of five years on, five years off. The challenge is for the NPT parties to show that they can cooperate and work together to serve their shared interests, even as they differ on how best to do so and how quickly progress can and should be achieved.

The Obama administration clearly will approach 2015 with that goal of working cooperatively with other supporters of a robust NPT. But there will be significant hurdles. Some states will be frustrated by the lack of speedy progress on the Prague agenda. The CTBT and the FMCT may still remain in limbo. North Korea has amplified its nuclear threats. Egypt has become more of a wild card and, not surprisingly, the process of engagement toward the goal of a WMD-free zone in the Middle East has floundered. Also, not surprisingly, it has become harder to hold the line against reprocessing after the US-India civil nuclear deal. And to top off the NPT’s woes, Iran continues to pursue a near-nuclear weapon capability (or worse), while Saudi Arabia warns that, if diplomacy fails, it, too, will acquire the Bomb.

It will be tough, but not impossible, to break the Dunn Theorem. Prospects for success in 2015 rest on concerns over the NPT’s demise and broad-based efforts to make progress on the 2010 Action Plan. If dissatisfied parties take the RevCon hostage, they will further weaken the NPT without hastening the pace of disarmament.