Thirty years after the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons pose a far greater threat to the safety and security of Americans than is reflected in our public discourse. While the United States must maintain a strong nuclear deterrent as an important tool of U.S. foreign and defense policy, an oversized global arsenal of nuclear weapons makes Americans equally unsafe. It is time to reinvigorate arms control discussions to seek reasonable reductions that will make us all more secure.

Too many nuclear weapons increase the risk of theft by terrorists or other nefarious actors, encourage more countries to develop nuclear arms, and raise the risk of nuclear war. Reasonable arms control measures, taken in conjunction with adversaries like Russia, make Americans safer by diminishing the large Russian nuclear arsenal, reinforcing norms against the development and use of nuclear arms, securing or eliminating nuclear material from theft or misuse by terrorists, and saving money that can be used to strengthen the United States military’s conventional deterrence against costly and destructive wars. 

In order to achieve those goals, Washington and Moscow have cut their strategic nuclear weapons since the height of the Cold War. Through the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, which the U.S. and Russia recently extended, both countries each reduced their nuclear arsenals to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads arming no more than 700 deployed strategic ballistic missiles and bombers.

Yet, despite these historic cuts, the United States and Russia each still have far more nuclear weapons than either side could conceivably use in a conflict, and at least ten times more weapons than any other country in the world. This actually makes Americans less safe, rather than the other way around.

In 2013, the Joint Chiefs of Staff concluded that the United States could safely reduce the number of deployed strategic warheads by one-third. The Biden administration should use that study—along with the current Nuclear Posture Review– to set the United States on the path to reasonable reductions. 

The Biden administration should aim for new negotiations between the United States and Russian to limit each country’s armed forces to 1,000 deployed strategic warheads. The agreement can be executed incrementally, and the sides might informally agree once negotiations began to deploy no more than 1,400 strategic warheads, as an early confidence-building measure. This first step is an easy and safe one to take, as there have been times over the past decade when both countries already deployed fewer than 1,400 strategic warheads.

As part of a bold new vision for arms control and strategic stability, U.S. negotiators should seek an agreement that encompasses all U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads, including reserve (non-deployed) strategic warheads, and non-strategic nuclear weapons. Negotiators should work to limit all nuclear warheads to no more than 2,500 each, with an embedded sub-limit of 1,000 deployed strategic warheads within the overall aggregate limit. Even with the dramatic arsenal reductions outlined here, the United States would maintain the ability to deter and, if necessary, defend against any global adversary.

Such a nuclear arms reduction agreement would have significant additional advantages for the United States:

First, it could position Washington and Moscow to press China to freeze or limit its build-up of nuclear arms as long as the United States and Russia are reducing their nuclear arsenals. 

Second, such an agreement could give the Pentagon additional resources to support wider force modernization requirements for nuclear and conventional forces alike, including new ballistic missile submarines and the B-21 bomber. If we have the forces to deter conventional conflict, we dramatically reduce the prospect of nuclear war.

Third, such an agreement would bolster America’s non-proliferation credentials and leadership. A new U.S.-Russia nuclear arms reductions treaty may not lead North Korea to abandon its nuclear program overnight, but it would increase the ability of U.S. diplomats to urge third countries to pressure and sanction outliers such as North Korea.

Right-sizing U.S. and global nuclear arsenals strengthens deterrence, reduces proliferation risks, and lowers the threat of nuclear war to the United States and our allies. The Biden administration has an opportunity to reduce that risk. It should seize it.

Rep. Ami Bera, D-Calif., is chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific, Central Asia, and Nonproliferation. Steven Pifer is a William J. Perry Research Fellow at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation.

Originally for Defense One

Tucked in the southeast corner of San Francisco, Bayview-Hunters Point is like a sidebar to the story of Black communities in the Bay Area. It’s easy to forget, with areas like Oakland, East Palo Alto and the Fillmore receiving most of the attention in conversations about marginalized neighborhoods.

Stanford historians hope to change that story. Gabrielle Hecht, professor of history in the School of Humanities and Sciences, and PhD student Aliyah Dunn-Salahuddin are producing an open-access, online archive of Bayview-Hunters Point’s toxic legacy from nuclear waste emptied into the neighborhood’s former shipyard after WWII. Their work arose through funding from a 2020 seed grant from the Sustainability Initiative that inspired Stanford’s new school focused on climate and sustainability.

Read the rest at Stanford News

President Biden is reviewing America’s nuclear posture. By January, we should know what he thinks about U.S. nuclear weapons, what policies should govern them and how many we need. Congress is watching closely, and the Senate and House of Representatives are sure to debate the results; they always do. 

But this year will be different. A new player has entered the field — China. 

Read the rest at The Hill

More than 2 million visitors flock each year to California’s San Onofre state beach, a dreamy slice of coastline just north of San Diego. The beach is popular with surfers, lies across one of the largest Marine Corps bases in the Unites States and has a 10,000-year-old sacred Native American site nearby. It even landed a shout-out in the Beach Boys’ 1963 classic Surfin’ USA.

Read the rest at The Guardian

U.S. officials have long sought to negotiate limits on non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNW), a sensible next step for U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control. Such a negotiation, however, would raise difficult issues, beginning with the imbalance in U.S. and Russian numbers. A likely Russian position that all NSNW be based on national territory would force the U.S. government to face the different perspectives within NATO on the role of U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe. As Washington prepares for a possible negotiation with Moscow, U.S. officials should consider ways to manage this issue from the outset.  

An Elusive Goal 

Since concluding the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), the United States has sought to limit non-strategic nuclear weapons, also referred to as tactical or sub-strategic nuclear weapons. On signing New START, President Obama said “we hope to pursue discussions with Russia on reducing both our strategic and tactical weapons.” Republicans criticized New START’s lack of limits on NSNW, and the Senate resolution of advice and consent to ratification for New START called for a negotiation with Russia “to secure and reduce tactical nuclear weapons in a verifiable manner.” The Obama administration proposed such a negotiation, but Moscow declined. 

When the Trump administration belatedly engaged Russia on nuclear arms issues in 2020, it also sought to include NSNW. Russian negotiators accepted a one-year freeze on the total size of the stockpiles between the two countries (including NSNW), but the agreement did not include verification measures and quickly fell apart. In a statement noting the Biden administration’s agreement to extend New START, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington would pursue with Russia “arms control that addresses all of its nuclear weapons.”  U.S. allies have generally supported negotiating limits on and reductions in NSNW.

New START limits the United States and Russia each to no more than 1,550 deployed strategic warheads. The treaty only constrains deployed weapons and associated launchers. It does not limit NSNW or non-deployed strategic weapons. The U.S. nuclear stockpile numbers 3,800 warheads, of which 230 are B61 nuclear bombs designated as non-strategic (the U.S. military has eliminated all other NSNW). Russia’s nuclear stockpile numbers just under 4,500 warheads, with some 1,900 categorized as non-strategic or defensive. Russia’s diverse NSNW arsenal includes weapons for delivery by land-, air-, and sea-based systems.

Russia has resisted an agreement on NSNW because it has a much larger NSNW force and regards those weapons as a means to compensate for conventional inferiority compared to NATO or China. Moreover, such an agreement would entail difficult verification challenges. If Moscow agreed to a negotiation that covered NSNW, then it would almost certainly seek to leverage its numerical advantage in NSNW to gain a U.S. concession, perhaps conditioning its readiness to negotiate limits on all nuclear weapons on U.S. readiness to negotiate limits on missile defense, which would be politically controversial in Washington. 

Limiting and Reducing NSNW 

Given the disparity in numbers, a narrow stand-alone negotiation on NSNW has little prospect of success. What incentive would Moscow have to cut to the U.S. level? A more viable approach would seek an aggregate limit covering all U.S. and Russian nuclear warheads. In such an arrangement, the U.S. numerical advantage in non-deployed strategic warheads would partially offset the Russian advantage in NSNW. Within such an overall aggregate limit, the sides could negotiate a sub-limit to constrain the number of deployed strategic warheads on intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), warheads that could be launched in minutes and that pose the greater threat to strategic stability. 

If the sides agreed on such a framework, then a lower aggregate limit would force the Russians to reduce their NSNW number. However, that aggregate likely would not be low enough to drive the Russian military’s NSNW level down to anything close to the U.S. number. 

Despite the challenges, the United States should seek limits on Russian NSNW. First, non-strategic nuclear warheads deliverable by systems such as Iskandr missiles directly threaten U.S. allies. Second, many of these weapons are not “small.” The modernized B61 bomb will have a maximum yield of fifty kilotons, three times the size of the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima, and Russian NSNW reportedly have larger yields. Third, the most likely path to a U.S.-Russian nuclear conflict is a conventional war that escalates when one side employs NSNW.

The Looming Dilemma 

Russian acceptance of such a negotiating framework—an aggregate limit on all U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons with a sublimit on deployed strategic warheads—would be welcomed in the United States and by allies, and rightly so. But it could end up posing a dilemma within NATO. 

The U.S. Air Force deploys 100-150 B61 bombs at a handful of air bases in Europe. Some of these B61 bombs are designated for use by U.S. aircraft. Others are maintained under U.S. custody but, in a conflict and with proper authorization, would be turned over to allies for delivery—sometimes referred to as “nuclear sharing.” The Belgians, Dutch, Germans, and Italians have aircraft and train for that purpose. 

In military terms, this small number of B61 bombs makes a marginal contribution in an overall stockpile of 3,800 weapons. U.S.-based aircraft (the B-2 and, in the future, B-21) could strike targets in Europe with B61 bombs, as could B-52s equipped with nuclear air-launched cruise missiles. The value of the Europe-based bombs is far more in political terms and assurance of allies. In peacetime, they are seen as symbols of the U.S. commitment to NATO’s defense and as coupling U.S. strategic nuclear forces to that commitment. If NATO were to use NSNW, or even signal the possibility of their use, then the alliance would aim to convey a political message that things were about to spin out of control and perhaps escalate to strategic nuclear exchanges.  Moreover, the process of planning, investing in, and exercising these systems is seen by alliance members as a unifying process helpful in assuring allies and deterring aggression. 

The dilemma? Suppose U.S. and Russian negotiators close in on an agreement limiting each side to 3,000 or 3,500 total nuclear warheads, with a sub-limit of 1,000 deployed strategic warheads and appropriate verification measures (an ambitious outcome, to be sure). The problem: the Russians almost certainly would insist on a provision requiring that all nuclear weapons be based on national territory. That would mean the removal of the B61 bombs to the United States. 

Many in the United States and Europe would regard such an agreement as a significant and very positive achievement. Belgian, Dutch, German, and Italian public would welcome an end to the unpopular presence of U.S. nuclear weapons in their countries.

The withdrawal of U.S. nuclear weapons could, however, end the involvement of a broad group of allies in NATO’s nuclear role. More importantly, such an outcome could be seen as calling into question U.S. readiness to use nuclear weapons in the alliance’s defense and signifying a diminution of the broader U.S. commitment to NATO. One could argue that allies should have confidence in the American president to use nuclear weapons if needed, regardless of where they are deployed, but the location of U.S. nuclear arms—in this case, their absence from Europe—could matter. To some, it could matter a great deal; they might even see it as decoupling the United States from European security.

If this issue were not managed carefully, then a split could develop within NATO. Those allies who see U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe as essential to their security, particularly in the Baltic and eastern European regions, might well oppose U.S. acceptance of the “base on national territory” provision—even at the expense of a new treaty. If U.S. negotiators went ahead and nevertheless accepted the provision, then opposition within NATO would complicate ratification prospects. If, on the other hand, U.S. negotiators rejected that provision out of deference to those concerns, and that blew up the chance for a new nuclear arms reduction treaty, one could expect a backlash and round of intra-alliance recriminations. (Knowing that this could be the case would only make it more likely that Russian negotiators would seek this outcome.) 

Thinking Ahead 

This is not to suggest that the Biden administration should not pursue limits on all U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons, including NSNW. Such an approach is the logical next step after New START. The administration does, however, need to factor this issue into consultations with allies and into its negotiating approach toward the Russians from the very beginning. A number of ideas might alleviate the basing on national territory problem, including: 

Seek to require that NSNW be stored at declared storage sites—with monitoring and significant transparency—at some distance from facilities basing NSNW delivery systems. This would slow the process of mating non-strategic warheads to delivery systems in a crisis or conventional conflict. (If the treaty did not require basing on national territory, then this would mean relocation of U.S. B61 bombs to new storage sites instead of the air bases where they are now.) 

Seek to require that Russian NSNW be stored at sites more than some distance, say, seven hundred kilometers, from a NATO member’s territory. This would provide distance between NATO allies such as the Baltic states and stored Russian NSNW. (It would have to apply reciprocally if the agreement did not require that nuclear weapons be based on national territory.) 

Seek to ban nuclear warheads for short-range land-based missiles. This would eliminate NSNW that pose a particular threat to countries such as the Baltic states and Poland, though it could prove hard to negotiate, as the U.S. military has no equivalent.   

Propose that NSNW stored outside of national territory be counted as “deployed strategic warheads.” Each U.S. B61 in Europe would mean one less deployed strategic warhead on deployed ICBMs and SLBMs. In order not to have to cut U.S. deployed strategic warheads too much, the number of Europe-based B61 bombs could be reduced. (Could thirty or fifty not provide allies the same level of political assurance?)

Continue nuclear sharing. NATO allies’ aircraft could train with U.S. strategic bombers in exercises for the use of (U.S.-based) nuclear weapons in support of the alliance. NATO allies could also maintain and exercise dual-capable aircraft for the contingency in which a crisis developed and/or the treaty broke down, even if there were no B61 bombs in Europe. 

Put more boots on the ground. NATO members could bolster conventional deterrence and defense in countries such as the Baltic states and Poland by increasing the size of the multinational formations in those countries to 2,000-2,500 troops each. The United States, which leads the multinational battalion in Poland, could deploy a company to each of the units in the Baltic states.

As Washington develops its negotiating approach, it should consult closely with allies, bearing in mind that the approach could have a major impact on their security perceptions. In a crisis or conventional war, a U.S. president would either be prepared to order the use of nuclear weapons in support of allies or not; the location of the weapons would be a secondary consideration. But location matters for purposes of assurance in NATO, and consultations should weigh whether and how to assure allies other than through the physical presence of U.S. nuclear arms.

Washington has for some time sought to get all U.S. and Russian nuclear arms on the negotiating table. That is a worthwhile goal for U.S. and allied security. Persuading Moscow will be hard enough. It would be a shame if differences within NATO emerged to frustrate that objective. 

Originally for The National Interest

Although the United States has, in recent years, unequivocally accepted the notion that international humanitarian law (IHL) applies to its nuclear operations, there’s a catch. To date, the U.S. government has not declared that it no longer reserves a purported right to target civilians by way of reprisal, in response to an unlawful attack against U.S. or allied civilians. As we have argued elsewhere, and as Adil Haque recently called on the Biden administration to do, it is time for the United States to acknowledge that customary international law today prohibits targeting civilians in reprisal for an adversary’s violations of the law of war. 

Read the rest at Just Security

Extending the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START, with Russia was one of President Biden’s first foreign policy acts after he took the oath of office on Jan. 20. The treaty would have otherwise ended on Feb. 5, leaving the U.S. and Russia without any agreed upon limits on their strategic nuclear forces for the first time since 1972. When relations are as bad as they are now between Moscow and Washington, U.S. national security would suffer from severe uncertainty over an unconstrained Russian nuclear arsenal.

Read the rest at The Hill