On Eve of Obama’s Moscow Summit, Experts Warn of Growing Risks to U.S. Nuclear Deterrent

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(Washington, D.C.):  As President Obama prepares to depart for Moscow next week, few Americans have any idea that his administration is in the process of negotiating a follow-on to the START treaty framework that appears likely to leave the United States and its allies substantially less secure.

Fortunately, an alarm about this prospect was published in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal by the U.S. Senate’s top authority on the subject, Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and veteran national security practitioner, Richard Perle.  And on Wednesday, 1 July, that warning will be strongly seconded and amplified by a team of experts on nuclear weapons policy and programs.

Toward this end, members of the New Deterrent Working Group – an informal team with hundreds of man-years of experience with America’s nuclear forces, doctrine, operations and arms control that is sponsored by the Center for Security Policy – have prepared for Members of Congress, the executive branch, the press and the public at large a comprehensive Briefing Book entitled, U.S. Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century: Getting It Right.  This publication, with a foreword by former Clinton CIA Director R. James Woolsey, will be released at the National Press Club at 3:00 p.m. on 1 July 2009.

Getting it Right draws on a wealth of official documents, congressional testimony and other materials to demonstrate the abiding requirement in the 21st Century for an American nuclear deterrent that is reliable, credible, and effective – especially so in the face of present dangers and emerging threats to the United States and its allies.  The Briefing Book provides, among other information: (1) assessments of the nuclear policies of America’s allies and peer competitors, as well as rogue nations that have acquired, or are on the verge of acquiring, a nuclear weapons capability; (2) a review of the declining quality and reliability of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and the infrastructure that supports it; and (3) a series of recommendations to ensure that both the quality and quantity of U.S. nuclear weapons remain at levels necessary to protect  American national security and international stability.

In particular, the Briefing Book draws on recent and authoritative declarations made by those at the highest levels of the U.S. government with responsibility for assuring the viability of the U.S. nuclear deterrent.  These include: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, U.S. Strategic Command Commander General Kevin P. Chilton, National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator James P. D’Agostino as well as the director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory Michael R. AnastasioGetting it Right also excerpts and illuminates the most important findings and recommendations of such entities as the Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States.

U.S. Nuclear Deterrence in the 21st Century: Getting it Right  (PDF) (Web)

Members of the New Deterrent Working Group who co-authored the Briefing Book include:

  • Hon. Henry F. Cooper, Former Director of the Defense Strategic Initiative (SDI); Former U.S. Representative to the Defense and Space Talks;
  • Hon. Paula DeSutter, Former Assistant Secretary of State – Bureau of Verification, Compliance and Implementation;
  • Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., Former Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy (Acting);
  • Hon. Peter Huessy, Former Assistant Secretary of the Interior.
  • Hon. Sven F. Kraemer, Former Director of Arms Control, National Security Council, 1981-1987;
  • Admiral James “Ace” Lyons, Jr., U.S. Navy (Ret.), Former Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet;
  • Vice Admiral Robert Monroe, U.S. Navy (Ret.), Former Director, Defense Nuclear Agency; Former Director of Navy Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E);
  • Dr. Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Jr., Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of International Studies, The Fletcher School, Tufts University; President, Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis; and
  • Hon. Troy Wade, Former Director, Defense Programs, Department of Energy

Messrs. Huessy, Lyons, Monroe, and Gaffney will participate in a panel discussion of the highlights of Getting it Right and take questions from the press about the ominous implications of the upcoming Obama summit in Moscow and his administration’s national security and arms control agenda more generally.

In announcing Wednesday’s event, New Deterrent Working Group member Frank Gaffney said:

“President Obama – taking cues from the dangerously misguided “Global Zero” campaign he has embraced – is by all indications going to Moscow with the intent of drastically reducing the number of deployed U.S. nuclear weapons and making related concessions.  To date, he appears to have failed to consider the potentially dire ramifications of such actions, let alone to have taken any steps to redress the woeful state of America’s nuclear arsenal or supporting infrastructure.

“At a time when so many actual or potential adversaries are improving their existing nuclear capabilities or acquiring such capabilities, the United States cannot afford to labor under the illusion that unilateral American disarmament and a lack of U.S. nuclear modernization will make the world safer, when it is clear that the opposite is true.”

 

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Center for Security Policy

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