Stanford University

Want to stop the nukes? Make nice

Authors
Alan Isenberg
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs

We've been down this road before: A crisis threatens global security, and the international community is not coming together to deal with it. Hawks in the U.S. administration see the Europeans as too timid to use force and reliant on diplomacy to a fault, while many Europeans see the United States as trigger-happy and too impatient with negotiated settlements. This lack of cohesion damaged the legitimacy of the American-led war in Iraq and left U.S.-European relations in tatters. A similar disunity jeopardizes current attempts to manage Iran's nuclear aspirations, even though both sides agree that the threat posed by a nuclear Iran is grave and real.

Departing Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage positively spun the divergent U.S. and European approaches to Iran: "The [diplomatic] incentives of the Europeans," he said, "only work against the backdrop of the United States being strong and firm on this issue. In the vernacular, it's kind of a good cop/bad cop arrangement. If it works, we'll all have been successful." The problem with Armitage's hopeful outlook is that the good cop/bad cop strategy works only if pursued consciously and in coordination, and the U.S. and European approaches do not reflect that yet. In fact, they seem headed in opposite directions.

The good cops--Britain, France and Germany--recently persuaded Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment-related activities until they reach a final accord. If the mullahs cooperate, they will receive numerous economic carrots, including possible membership in the World Trade Organization (the U.S. would have to agree) and improved trade relations.

In October 2003, when the International Atomic Energy Agency was prepared to take its negative report on Iran's nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council, the mullahs cut a similar deal with the Europeans, promising to suspend all enrichment-related activities. But Iran soon grew impatient with the agreement and resumed efforts to produce the gas that feeds uranium enrichment. It similarly rushed to make as much of that gas as possible before the latest accord's deadline, undercutting confidence in the deal on both sides of the Atlantic. In another bad-faith move, Iran announced last week that it wanted to keep operating uranium-enrichment equipment for research purposes, backing off its pledge to freeze all such activities.

Enter the bad cop--the United States. It has pushed to refer the question of Iran's nuclear aspirations to the Security Council. When Secretary of State Colin L. Powell steps down, the hawkish voices in his department will probably intensify and gain influence, especially if the mullahs break the newest deal.

Armitage might be right that the discordant U.S.-European approaches will push the mullahs to hold to the deal. But the U.S. will be uncomfortable with an agreement that does not insist on any means of enforcement or verification, as is the case with the latest accord.

Iran knows that the war in Iraq colors U.S. conduct toward it. The worse Iraq gets, the less Iran worries--and the mullahs don't seem too worried at the moment. But if they break the accord with the Europeans and the Europeans respond timidly and U.S. resources are freed up as a result of an improving situation in Iraq, the U.S. could take on Iran alone--to everyone's detriment. To avoid this risk, the U.S. and Europe need to harmonize their approaches and develop a coordinated strategy for Iran. The best way to accomplish this is to agree in advance on the consequences Iran will face if it violates its commitments. For example, if the mullahs renege on the latest deal, frustrate the monitoring and verification efforts of IAEA inspectors or fail to ratify an addition to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty that allows for more invasive inspections, the U.S. and Europe should go to the Security Council, impose economic sanctions or, in the worst case, take military action.

Fortunately, diplomatic disunity over Iran does not run as deep as it did over Iraq, where even the nature of the threat was a bone of contention. Both the U.S. and Europe are worried about a nuclear Iran, and they feel strongly about enforcing the rules of nonproliferation. In June 2003, European foreign ministers required only 45 minutes to approve a document that endorsed U.N.-sanctioned use of force as a last resort against proliferators, as well as "political and diplomatic preventative measures."

If the Europeans agree to leave all responses on the table and to act decisively at the first sign of Iranian mischief, the United States would be foolish not to form a partnership with them. (It's also important that the U.S. set a better example as a member of the nonproliferation community by abandoning plans to build new mini-nuclear weapons and ratifying the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.)

The role the U.S. forges for itself in dealing with Iran will have significance beyond reinvesting in international order or responding to the mullahs' nuclear ambitions. Iran's despotic regime will collapse some day, and there will be a "morning after" similar to that in Iraq, where reconstruction efforts have floundered because U.S. planners underestimated the challenge of nation-building and the need for international support to make it work. When Iran makes its move toward a better government, the U.S. should be in a position to lead a coherent, collective international effort to help it get off the ground.

Yet since the severing of U.S.-Iranian ties in 1980, the U.S. has been slack in developing a viable Iran policy. Iran's nuclear ambition should be motive enough to reverse this inattention. U.S. policy toward Iran must cease to be reactive, as it is now.

In addition to working with the Europeans to curb the mullahs' nuclear efforts, the U.S. should begin crafting a strategy to work toward--and then with--a democratic Iran. Supporting a government that complies with its international obligations is certainly preferable to containing one that thwarts them. By getting involved now, the U.S. can do much to show Iranians that it will be a friend to a free Iran. A democratic Iran may still want a nuclear bomb as a matter of national pride. But a less threatening, pro-diplomacy U.S. would be in a stronger position to argue the benefits of membership in the nonproliferation community rather than life as a rogue power.

Participating in a multilateral approach to Iran's nuclear program is a great place to start. In doing so, the U.S. will signal to Iranians that its aggressive position does not reflect a desire to remake Iran in its own image but rather a desire to achieve, alongside Europe, a substantial victory for nonproliferation and international security.

All News button
1

CISAC fellow wins political science dissertation award

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs
%people1%, a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, won the American Political Science Association's 2004 Helen Dwight Reid Award for the best doctoral dissertation in international relations, law and politics. Kinsella received the award at the association's annual meeting Sept. 2-5 in Chicago. Her dissertation, The Image Before the Weapon: A Genealogy of the "Civilian" in International Law and Politics, examines the ways in which Western societies have distinguished civilians from combatants during key periods of armed conflict from the 11th to 20th centuries. One of Kinsella's important findings, as the award committee noted, is "that the laws of war have, from their very origin, served as much to justify war--to make it morally possible, and even to claim the moral high ground for one's side--as to limit it." Kinsella concluded her dissertation with a discussion of its relevance to recent U.S. actions and rhetoric toward Iraq.
All News button
1

Nuclear weapons threaten global security, Robert McNamara argues at CISAC event

Authors
News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs
Former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara urged the elimination of nuclear weapons, in an address to CISAC members and supporters Oct. 18 at Encina Hall. Human infallibility introduces too much risk in maintaining nuclear weapons, he argued, adding that the weapons do not present a viable military strategy in any event.

Forty-two years ago this week, the United States and the Soviet Union came within a hair's breadth of unleashing nuclear destruction upon one another during the Cuban missile crisis, Robert McNamara, defense secretary under the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, recounted to scholars and others gathered at a dinner Oct. 18 organized by the Center for International Security and Cooperation.

In post-Cold War meetings between principal players in the crisis, including Soviet generals and Fidel Castro, it became clear that the decision-making process of all three governments had been distorted by misinformation and misjudgment, he said. "Events will always slip out of control," McNamara said as he repeated one of the lessons delineated in the 2004 documentary Fog of War: The indefinite combination of human fallibility with nuclear weapons leads to human destruction. "The only way to eliminate the risk is to eliminate nuclear weapons," he said.

The current weapons policy of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is folly, the 88-year-old McNamara said. In 45 years of working on nuclear weapons issues, "I've never seen a document outlining a plan that shows how we would benefit by using nuclear weapons," he said. To use such weapons against a nuclear state is suicide, to use them against a non-nuclear state would be politically unwise and morally repugnant, he added.

All News button
1

Crisis on the Korean Peninsula: Implications for U.S. Policy in Northeast Asia

I am a child of the Cold War. As such, my thinking for decades was conditioned by the great issue of that era: How to maintain freedom in the face of our perceptions of Soviet ambitions for world domination?

For the first few decades of the Cold War, the United States strategy for achieving this objective was containment backed up with a powerful nuclear deterrence. But as the nuclear arms race heated up, it became increasingly clear that this strategy risked precipitating a nuclear holocaust. Thus, by the late sixties, nuclear arms control had become the overriding security issue - certainly it dominated my thinking on security during that era.

But with the ending of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear holocaust receded and arms control, as we had practiced it during that era, was no longer the dominant security issue. The most serious threat to the United States became nuclear weapons in the hands of failed states or terrorists - used not in a standard military operation, but in extortive or apocalyptic ways. Therefore, in the present era, preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons replaces arms control as the organizing principle for our security. Certainly it has dominated my thinking on security for the last decade.

Download pdf

Oksenberg Conference Room

William J. Perry

(650) 725-6501
0
Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor (emeritus) at FSI and Engineering
rsd15_078_0380a.jpg MS, PhD

William Perry is the Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor (emeritus) at Stanford University. He is a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and the Hoover Institution, and serves as director of the Preventive Defense Project. He is an expert in U.S. foreign policy, national security and arms control. He was the co-director of CISAC from 1988 to 1993, during which time he was also a part-time professor at Stanford. He was a part-time lecturer in the Department of Mathematics at Santa Clara University from 1971 to 1977.

Perry was the 19th secretary of defense for the United States, serving from February 1994 to January 1997. He previously served as deputy secretary of defense (1993-1994) and as under secretary of defense for research and engineering (1977-1981). Dr. Perry currently serves on the Defense Policy Board (DPB). He is on the board of directors of Covant and several emerging high-tech companies. His previous business experience includes serving as a laboratory director for General Telephone and Electronics (1954-1964); founder and president of ESL Inc. (1964-1977); executive vice-president of Hambrecht & Quist Inc. (1981-1985); and founder and chairman of Technology Strategies & Alliances (1985-1993). He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

From 1946 to 1947, Perry was an enlisted man in the Army Corps of Engineers, and served in the Army of Occupation in Japan. He joined the Reserve Officer Training Corps in 1948 and was a second lieutenant in the Army Reserves from 1950 to 1955. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1997 and the Knight Commander of the British Empire in 1998. Perry has received a number of other awards including the Department of Defense Distinguished Service Medal (1980 and 1981), and Outstanding Civilian Service Medals from the Army (1962 and 1997), the Air Force (1997), the Navy (1997), the Defense Intelligence Agency (1977 and 1997), NASA (1981) and the Coast Guard (1997). He received the American Electronic Association's Medal of Achievement (1980), the Eisenhower Award (1996), the Marshall Award (1997), the Forrestal Medal (1994), and the Henry Stimson Medal (1994). The National Academy of Engineering selected him for the Arthur Bueche Medal in 1996. He has received awards from the enlisted personnel of the Army, Navy, and the Air Force. He has received decorations from the governments of Albania, Bahrain, France, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Korea, Poland, Slovenia, and Ukraine. He received a BS and MS from Stanford University and a PhD from Pennsylvania State University, all in mathematics.

Director of the Preventive Defense Project at CISAC
FSI Senior Fellow
CISAC Faculty Member
Not in Residence
Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
William J. Perry
Lectures

Teaching About Nuclear Weapons

Paragraphs

With nuclear weapons, there is no effective defense. As a result, unless or until universal disarmament can be achieved, arming to prevent war can only mean nuclear deterrence. The US and the Soviet Union overdid deterrence by a large factor in my estimation, but the general view is that it seemed to work in that particular situation. The key assumption of nuclear deterrence is that the prospect of a single weapon dropped on a single city makes any war of conquest unattractive. Equally important is that the inevitable devastation was obvious to all ahead of time, so that the usual demagogic arguments for war failed and for the most part were not made.

No one pretends that what I have just said about nuclear deterrence is the whole story. For one thing, there are many traps and dangers in the actual practice of nuclear deterrence. What is to be done, for instance, about challenges that don't directly involve the risk of nuclear war but might do so down the line? There were plenty of such challenges during the Cold War, in Korea, in Berlin, in Cuba, and in Israel.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Journal Articles
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Physics and Society
Authors
Michael M. May
External URL

Eden wins award for book on government's failure to predict nuclear fire damage

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

Whole World on Fire, by CISAC associate director for research Lynn Eden, received the 2004 Robert K. Merton Professional Award from the Science, Knowledge and Technology section of the American Sociological Association. The award was presented to Eden on Aug. 15 during the association's annual meeting in San Francisco.

The award committee cited the book's merits:

"Whole World on Fire is an ambitious undertaking that examines a critical problem using theory and methods from two fields of sociology: the sociology of science and technology and the sociology of organizations. It is a study of how organizational processes led nuclear scientists to drastically underestimate the damage of a nuclear attack. At a deeper level, it is a study in the social construction of organizational knowledge.

"The question Eden addresses is: How and why, for more than half a century, did the U.S. government fail to predict nuclear fire damage as it drew up plans to fight strategic nuclear war? Eden's research shows that U.S. efforts focused on the damage that would result from the explosion while systematically ignoring the far more damaging effects of subsequent fires. How and why could this 'ignorance' continue until today? . . .

"This book takes a position on an ongoing scientific controversy about the predictability of fire damage and on scientists' current assessments of risk. There is a debate in science and technology studies about whether we should take positions on scientific controversies--that is, on the science itself. Some scholars prefer to leave arguments about the 'science' to the scientists and instead follow the activities and political logics of the various debating parties. In this case, Eden chooses to take a stand on the truth claims of the science in question. As such, Whole World on Fire is a work of intellectual daring.

"To our knowledge, there have been few sociological studies that have penetrated the inner workings of the military establishment. Few sociologists have studied the highest reaches of the social structure, as does Eden in this study. In fact, those of us who study science and medicine usually do our research in university-based laboratories or teaching hospitals--that is, we study people who are in some senses like ourselves.

"While the book addresses a critical issue--that is, nuclear-weapons policy, it is an exemplar of how sociological concepts can illuminate important public issues. Eden's analysis can be readily applied to explaining how decision makers construct relevant and legitimate science to illuminate disasters such as the collapse of the Twin Towers. But what convinced one committee member of the book's power was a recent New York Times article describing the findings of the committee investigating the Iraq War. The Committee reported that the CIA had systematically denied the credibility of numerous reports that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction did not exist, in part because those reports were outside its organizational frame.

"Finally, we all believe that this book will have a major public impact. In addition to its accessible style and meticulous research, the book is often riveting and sometimes chilling. We had thought that by now everyone believed that survivable nuclear war is an oxymoron; that people had filled in their bomb shelters long before the close of the Cold War. That a significant portion of the military establishment still believes that a limited, winnable and survivable nuclear war is possible gave us nightmares. That Eden's book may give people nightmares is only appropriate, given the frightening scenario she presents."

Serving on the award committee were Renee Anspach, Department of Sociology, University of Michigan; Sydney Halpern, Department of Sociology, University of Illinois at Chicago; Kathryn Henderson, Department of Sociology, Texas A&M University; and Joan Fujimura (Chair), Department of Sociology and Robert F. and Jean E. Holtz Center for Science and Technology Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

All News button
1

Boost-phase missile defense debate continues

Authors
News Type
Commentary
Date
Paragraphs
Based on his own analysis of airborne intercept (ABI) options, the Dean Wilkening argues that the American Physical Society study may underestimate the feasibility of intercepting solid-propellant intercontinental ballistic missiles. He says he sees "no serious technical barrier to an effective ABI system." However, policy decisions about the use of such a system should be based on security concerns that transcend technical issues, he cautions.

The article by Daniel Kleppner, Frederick Lamb, and David Mosher (Physics Today, January 2004, page 30) summarizes the results of the excellent American Physical Society study released in July 2003 on boost-phase options for national missile defense.1 The study represents one of the most authoritative analyses to date on the subject and will enhance the quality of the public debate on missile defense for years to come. However, although I agree with many of the study's conclusions, the overall assessment is somewhat pessimistic, especially with respect to the feasibility of intercepting solid-propellant intercontinental ballistic missiles.

My analysis of airborne intercept options suggests that first-generation airborne boost-phase interceptors (ABIs) carrying 90-kg kinetic-kill vehicles should be effective against liquid-propellant ICBMs. It also suggests that second-generation ABIs with 50-kg KKVs could be effective against solid-propellant ICBMs, provided the ABIs can get within approximately 500-600 km of the ICBM launch site, which is possible for relatively small states such as North Korea.2

ABIs have the advantage that they can contribute to an effective theater missile defense--an important mission given the widespread proliferation of short- and medium-range ballistic missiles. In fact, ABIs are the only form of terrestrial boost-phase intercept that can be effective against very short burn-time ICBMs or short-range ballistic missiles because, if necessary, ABI launch platforms can fly over an opponent's territory. Neither ground-based nor naval-based interceptors have that option.

One should also note that ABI systems pose very little threat to the strategic nuclear forces of the five major nuclear powers; hence, they are not nearly as destabilizing as other forms of missile defense. To the extent that one takes seriously the rhetoric of sharing US ballistic missile defense technology, ABI systems can be transferred because they do not threaten US or allied strategic forces.

The difference between my conclusions and those of the APS study arises from different technical assumptions that result, in my case, in greater intercept ranges. In particular, I assumed that an airborne X-band radar can be built within the next decade, which, for favorable geographies like North Korea, can reduce target-detection and tracking delays by as much as 10 to 15 seconds compared to those in the APS study. I also made the assumption, based on the burn times for existing US and Russian solid-propellant ICBMs, that solid-propellant ICBMs have a nominal burn time of 180 s; the APS study assumed a 170-s burn time based on US solid-propellant submarine-launched ballistic missile technology. Also, airborne missiles can accelerate faster; hence, they can have higher average flight speeds compared to surface-based interceptors (on which the APS study focused) because the drag force is lower at high altitudes.

Nevertheless, solid-propellant ICBMs are very difficult targets. Successful intercept will require sensor architectures that push the limits of target detection and tracking, and large (1500 kg), high-speed (6.0 km/s ideal velocity) two-stage airborne interceptors carrying lightweight KKVs. While 50-kg KKVs stretch the limits of what currently is possible, solid-propellant ICBMs stretch current offensive threat possibilities. Neither may be far-fetched 10 years from now.

ABIs do have drawbacks. However, none of them are so severe as to eliminate ABIs from consideration as a viable component of a future US missile defense architecture. In fact, airborne intercept is probably the most attractive boost-phase missile defense option.

Preferences regarding boost-phase ballistic missile defense often have more to do with different threat assessments, operational and political issues, and cost than with technical disagreements. I see no serious technical barrier to an effective ABI system. Nevertheless, the decision to proceed with any form of ballistic missile defense, ABIs included, should be based on an assessment of the system's priority relative to such other important US security concerns as countering terrorism and modernizing conventional forces. From this perspective, the US currently is spending too much on ballistic missile defense.

References

1. D. K. Barton et al., Report of the APS Study Group on Boost-Phase Intercept Systems for National Missile Defense: Scientific and Technical Issues, July 2003; available at http://www.aps.org/public_affairs/popa/reports/nmd03.cfm.

2. See D. A. Wilkening, Science and Global Security, (in press).

All News button
1

Effects of September 11: A Rift Between Europe and America

Paragraphs

Covering the intricate facets of America's most important democratic tradition, this book serves as an important resource to understand how citizens' views are translated into governmental action.

George Washington toured the countryside on horseback asking citizens their thoughts on his new government. Abraham Lincoln held weekly meetings with citizens to better understand their views. Today, public opinion is power, and no nation can afford to ignore it. Determining what the public is thinking is not always easy. Polls are powerful weapons, but they can be misused.

Public Opinion and Polling around the World presents a thorough review of public opinion from its roots in colonial America to its role in today's emerging democracies. More than 100 entries prepared by top scholars examine the 200-year history of public opinion, measurement methodologies with an emphasis on telephone interviews and Internet polls, and key figures like George Gallup and Elmo Roper, who created their own polling systems.

An analysis of theories compares schools of thought from the fields of psychology, sociology, and economics and explores how people form opinions. A fascinating snapshot of the public's current views on economic issues, foreign policy, gender, gay rights, and other hot-button topics observes patterns across genders, race, ethnic origins, class, and religion in regions all over the world. Students, academicians, and political observers will discover answers to such questions as, "does public opinion shape the behavior of government?"

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Books
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
ABC-CLIO in "Public Opinion and Polling Around the World: A Historical Encyclopedia"
Authors
Number
1-57607-911-2

U.S. Nuclear Posture

Paragraphs

The size and shape of U.S. nuclear forces must be determined in the context of the highest considerations of United States strategy. And one of the highest strategic considerations for the United States in the coming decades is to prevent the use of nuclear warheads against any city in the U.S. or indeed anywhere in the world, whether by the act of a state or of a terrorist group. Contrary to assumptions made in the current U.S. administration's nuclear policy, research into new types of nuclear weapons could damage our nonproliferation objectives.

Remarks at the June 21-22, 2004 Carnegie Conference on Non-Proliferation in Washington, D.C.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Working Papers
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
Carnegie International Non-Proliferation Conference
Authors
Subscribe to United States