Ray Acheson

June 4 update: On 22 May 2007, China formally rejected the proposed CD program of work (“P6 proposal”), explaining that it wants a “stronger mandate” for discussing PAROS, one which suggests the possibility of negotiating a new legal instrument. It also expressed its desire for any negotiation on a Fissile Materials Ban to include verification provisions.

Most other CD member states believe the P6 proposal is the middle ground, the most efficient vehicle to move forward on all four issues on the CD’s table, and the template with the most to offer everyone. China is either holding out for “something more” regarding PAROS, or is concerned enough about what a Fissile Materials Ban might do to their position in the major military power game that it is willing to continue blocking negotiations.

It seems unlikely that China would stall the negotiation process and throw the CD back into deadlock merely because of a desier for a “stronger mandate.” In light of my assessment below, this rejection has more to do with China’s discomfort over the security implications of a Fissile Materials Ban than with its desire for a more robust allotment for PAROS. While PAROS is China’s “priority issue” – the topic they see as most pressing and relevant in international disarmament today – the P6 proposal offers more potential for progress on the issue than previously afforded to it. In recent years, the US has refused to agree to discussions on PAROS in the CD, but is willing to accept the P6 proposal, which allows for “substantive discussions” on PAROS. Such discussions could lead to the re-establishment of an Ad Hoc Committee on PAROS, which China has been calling for since the Committee was disbanded in 1995, and even to negotiations of a PAROS treaty further down the road.

Regardless, the CD now has to regroup. The situation calls for some serious confidence-building measures, in order for the Chinese to be ready to negotiate a Fissile Materials Ban – clearly the last ten years, during which these issues have been on the CD’s table, have not been used effectively in this regard. One issue that requires attention is the US-India civil nuclear deal. The US has not sufficiently responded to civil society and governmental concerns that the deal undermines the non-proliferation regime as well as regional and international security. Many states and analysts are concerned that if India is receiving materials for nuclear energy from the US, it would be better able to use its own fissile materials for nuclear weapons. This has led to concerns that the deal could spark a nuclear arms race in South Asia with India backed by the US on one side, and Pakistan backed by China on the other.

All this ultimately points to the requirement for greater attention to nuclear disarmament in general, on all sides. Details of China’s nuclear weapon program are opaque, and the international community has called for greater transparency from China. Some of the other nuclear weapon states are undertaking weapon upgrades, and have not committed to disarmament or to steps leading to disarmament. Meanwhile, the US development of a prompt global strike system and its enduring policy of first use of nuclear weapons have further increased China’s fears of a nuclear attack by the US. These sources of tension at the state level have prevented progress in the CD and beyond.

The Conference on Disarmament (CD) in Geneva is notorious for evoking frustration, rage, and despair among the members of civil society and the diplomatic community. Mandated to negotiate multilateral disarmament treaties (the only standing body that can do so), it hasn’t even agreed on a program of work for over ten years. It operates on consensus, meaning all 65 member states have to be in agreement for anything to happen. Every year the disarmament community gears up for another round of deliberations, hoping this year is the year that the stalemate will end and the deadlock will be broken. However, some of the major military powers continuously block the creation of new global security arrangements, choosing further military development over arms control, disarmament, and security.

There has been a long-standing dispute in the CD among the five (recognized) nuclear weapon states over the issues on the CD’s table: a fissile materials ban, prevention of an arms race in outer space (PAROS), nuclear disarmament, and negative security assurances. The US wants to begin negotiations on a Fissile Materials Cut-off Treaty (FMCT), but until this year has refused to allow substantive discussions on outer space (it is now willing to allow discussions on PAROS in the CD, without reference to the possibility of an agreement). China maintains the opposite position. While it actively promotes an international legal agreement on PAROS, it has been cautious and even hostile towards an FMCT.

On 23 March 2007, the six presidents of the CD put forward a proposal of work and a draft decision. The draft decision is a package approach (it includes action on all four issues simultaneously), it is carefully worded, and it accommodates conflicting priorities among member states. However, China (and a few other states) began making noise immediately, stalling the Conference from taking a decision on the proposal by arguing they needed more time to consult with their capitals. The first session of 2007 ended without a decision, and when the CD reconvened on 15 May, several states, including China, maintained they still needed more time to decide if they can accept the proposal.

Without intending to ignore the other states responsible for the delay, it is important to note that China’s response to the draft proposal in particular is reflective of the major problems facing all attempts to negotiate or even discuss disarmament measures: hyper-militarism among the major powers, and the capacity for geostrategic concerns to impede progress in negotiating treaties that could actually help shift the (im)balance.

Of the five nuclear weapon states, China has the least amount of fissile material stocks; if its production were banned, it would never be able to catch up to the other states. China’s objection to this appears, at first glance, rather ironic, considering China is the only nuclear weapon state that regularly calls for nuclear disarmament in its official statements at the United Nations. This concern, however, is determined by the parameters of power in the international community, which are currently set by the US, its foreign policy, and its quest for a “prompt global strike” capacity. It wants its military to be able to “hit targets anywhere on earth in an hour or two,” giving it unprecedented (and unmatched) dominance over the world’s affairs. In this context, China and other major and emerging powers believe they are faced with a choice: acquiesce, or keep up. Meanwhile, the US carefully makes strategic alliances with some of these powers that create the impression of further insecurity for others. For example, the US and India signed an agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation that, if approved by US Congress, will allow India to import foreign uranium for its civilian programme while using more of its indigenous uranium to make nuclear weapons. The agreement undermines every international non-proliferation agreement and resolution, and of course, makes China and Pakistan nervous.

In addition, if a fissile materials ban were to include verification measures as the majority of the international community demands it should, this would grant the US access to concrete information about China’s nuclear capabilities, which they have thus far carefully shrouded in ambiguity. China worries that the more the US knows about its capabilities, the more vulnerable it is to preemptive attack – the US could decide China’s arsenal is a threat to international security, and would know how big of an attack was needed to ensure it eliminated China’s second-strike capabilities.

As long as China, and many others, believe they need to protect themselves from the US and its allies, they aren’t going to cooperate when it comes to reducing and eliminating their weapons and weapon materials – elements they view as crucial to countering US domination. Yet a fissile materials ban might actually work to China’s benefit in some ways, such as limiting India’s ability to produce fissile materials (though if both a fissile materials ban and the US-India nuclear deal are established, it’s difficult to guess how one might affect the other).

Which brings us back to the CD.

A draft FMCT proposed by the US does not call for the reduction of existing fissile material stocks, but only for the cessation of future production of fissile materials, and specifies that only fissile materials produced after the Treaty enters into force cannot be used in nuclear weapons. The US also argues that a treaty calling for the elimination of existing stocks would not be verifiable and, therefore, should not contain any verification provisions. Working from the US draft, an FMCT would be more of a non-proliferation treaty than a disarmament treaty, clearly biased in favour of nuclear weapon states – and further biased in favour of the US over China. Most states do not support the US draft, and call for a return to the 1995 Shannon Mandate, “to negotiate a non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable treaty.” This approach, however, lacks US support, demonstrating the potential for further deadlock even if a programme of work is adopted in the CD – and further proliferation in the meantime. The US might be willing to move forward on the draft proposal, but it is still blocking consensus.

Note: To follow the CD’s activities (or lack of them), read Reaching Critical Will’s CD Report. The next session is scheduled to begin on 15 May 2007. Also see RCW’s Guide to the CD for background information. In addition, an article published by the Union of Concerned Scientists in 1995 outlines China’s concerns about an FMCT, and its possible benefits and drawbacks to China’s security. Though the article is twelve years old, its assessment is still relevant today – which is indicative of how long and drawn out this deadlock has been.

Trident missile launch from sea.

by Andrew Lichterman

On May 11, a National Academy of Sciences panel issued an interim letter report on equipping Trident submarine launched ballistic missiles with conventional warheads. ArmsControlWonk.com provides an easy to download copy of the report here.

Congress requested that the NAS provide an analysis of conventional Trident in the conference report accompanying the 2007 Defense Appropriations Act. A final report from the NAS committee is scheduled to be issued in 2008. The reports are not limited to the conventional Trident proposal, but will “consider and recommend alternatives that meet the prompt global strike mission in the near-, mid-, and long-term.” The NAS panel recommended that research and testing of the conventional Trident should proceed with funding levels sufficient to keep the program on course to allow deployment in three to five years. It advised against full funding for production and deployment, because other “ global strike” technologies also being researched may prove more promising in the long run, and because various technical and policy issues, including the danger that a conventional Trident might be mistaken for a nuclear launch, remain unresolved.

Despite some reservations about nuclear ambiguity and the relationship of new conventional long-range systems to nuclear arsenals, the NAS panel appeared enthusiastic about pushing ahead with a new generation of strategic weapons. It endorsed further exploration of a variety of other concepts, such as a new sea-launched global strike missile design, high speed cruise missiles, and hypersonic boost glide vehicles with intercontinental range. It concluded that “[t]he committee believes it is preferable to consider all proposed CPGS weapons as elements of a portfolio, one that needs balancing in terms of technical risk and time to deployment.”

These programs, intended to yield highly accurate delivery systems with global reach for conventional weapons, are proceeding with little public debate. Further, the barriers to using improved or new non-nuclear long-range delivery systems for nuclear weapons are largely made of paper. Buried in its discussion of the danger that a conventional long-range missile might be mistaken for a nuclear one, the NAS committee acknowledges this, stating that “[i]ndeed, the ambiguity between nuclear and conventional payloads can never be totally resolved, in that any of the means for delivery of a conventional warhead could be used to deliver a nuclear warhead.” [emphasis added]

U.S. research on new strategic weapons continues apace, with advances in delivery systems and in supporting technologies used to find and track targets and to guide weapons to them appearing more significant than anything (or at least anything publicly known) happening in nuclear warhead development programs. Yet most NGO arms control and disarmament work concerning U.S. strategic weapons programs remains focused on a narrow set of nuclear weapons design and production activities. Is it more likely that there will be some development in nuclear warheads as opposed to delivery systems that affects the nuclear strategic/political calculus– including everything from the level of U.S. military commitment to nuclear weapons to the way potential adversaries view U.S. capabilities and intentions to the likelihood of nuclear weapons use– in ways that adversely affect disarmament prospects? If new, more accurate delivery systems are developed that can be paired with existing nuclear weapons (perhaps with modifications) to destroy difficult targets that the majority of Congress members (and likely still a majority) repeatedly have voted to find ways to destroy, will Congress deny the military such capabilities? Why should we believe this? I have yet to see much of a discussion of such issues in the “arms control and disarmament community,” much less their implications for disarmament strategies. But perhaps I am not looking in the right places.

These questions, however, beg even larger and more important ones. How much do the details of all of this matter? If we believe that nuclear weapons are fundamentally immoral and that a global empire ultimately underwritten by weapons with global reach is fundamentally illegitimate, why do we allow ourselves to be caught up in debates about the minutiae of one or another weapons program? These are debates that those who hold long-term power usually win even when they appear to lose, the sci-tech-military-industrial complex leviathan surging inexorably on, growing insatiably regardless of whether we knock off a barnacle or two.

“You already know enough. So do I. It is not knowledge we lack. What is missing is the courage to understand what we know and to draw conclusions.” Sven Lindqvist, “Exterminate all the Brutes”: One Man’s Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide (New York: The New Press, 1996), p.2

For more on the U.S. “Prompt global strike” programs, see the preceding entry, “Next generation strategic weapons and the possibility of arms races to come.”

Trident missile launch photo from U.S. Navy, Vision… Presence… Power: A Program Guide to the U.S. Navy - 2000 Edition

by Andrew Lichterman

In its current budget request, the military is pushing ahead with its proposals for “prompt global strike,” a broad effort aimed at giving the United States the ability to hit targets anywhere on earth in an hour or two. In the near term, the military wants to deploy conventional warheads on Trident submarine launched ballistic missiles, taking advantage of accuracy improvements resulting from programs conducted in recent years that have received little public attention. In the current proposal, two missiles on each ballistic missile submarine would be conventionally armed. At the same time, the U.S. is exploring other technologies and weapons concepts, ranging from land-based missiles with accurate, maneuverable re-entry vehicles to hypersonic glide vehicles that could deliver a variety of weapons. Although the technologies that would be developed in the Global Strike program currently are slated to be used to deliver only conventional weapons, there is nothing, aside from current policy, to prevent them from being adapted for nuclear weapons delivery in the future, potentially resulting in significant increases in the capabilities of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Together with initiatives to rebuild the U.S. nuclear weapons production complex and to design new warheads with the flexibility to be fitted to a variety of delivery systems, the pieces are being put in place for a renewed arms race in the 21st century, with the U.S. leading the way.

In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee Strategic Forces subcommittee last week, high ranking military officers and administration officials insisted that the United States absolutely must have the ability to strike targets inside any country, anywhere, anytime, in short order. Rear Admiral Stephen Johnson, Director of Navy Strategic Systems Programs noted that the budget request “frontloaded the funding,” asking for $175 million for FY2008 in order to allow the Conventional Trident to be deployed by 2010. Statement of Rear Admiral Stephen Johnson, Director of Navy Strategic Systems Programs before the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, March 28, 2007, p.5. Johnson noted that considerable development and flight testing of technologies allowing the requisite accuracy already has been done:

“CTM [Conventional Trident] will use existing D5 missiles, MK4 reentry bodies equipped with aerodynamic controls, GPS-aided terminal guidance, and a conventional warhead. Advanced error-correcting reentry vehicles with GPS-aided Inertial Navigation Systems have been flight proven in a previous D5 test program. Total time from decision to weapons-on-target is about 1 hour. CTM technology can be rapidly developed and deployed within 24 months.” Johnson Statement, p.5

Strategic Command (STRATCOM) Commander James Cartwright lamented the lack of “the means to deliver prompt, precise, conventional kinetic effects at inter-continental ranges. ” Statement of General James E. Cartwright Commander United States Strategic Command Before the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee, March 28, 2007, p.14. Neither Cartwright nor any other witness thought it relevant to mention that no other country has any such capability, or shows any signs of developing one). Cartwright noted that in addition to the Conventional Trident, the “Air Force Space Command is developing a promising concept for a CONUS [Continental United States] -launched conventional strike missile (CSM), which capitalizes on the maneuverability and precision-to-prompt-effects offered by maneuvering flight technology to produce effects at global distances.” (Id., pp.14-15). Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategic Capabilities Brian Green told the subcommittee that the Defense Department also “is considering other, longer-term solutions, both sea- and land-based, to broaden the portfolio of prompt, non-nuclear capabilities. The additional concepts include sea- and land-based conventional ballistic missiles and advanced technologies, such as hypersonic glide vehicles, employing precision guidance, advanced conventional weapons, and propulsion.” Statement of Mr. Brian R. Green Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Strategic Capabilities for The Senate Armed Services Committee Strategic Forces Subcommittee Hearing Regarding Global Strike Issues, March 28, 2007, p.8. Conventional Prompt Global Strike, Green concluded, “is critical to meeting evolving U.S. security needs in the 21st Century.” id. p.11.

At the same time that work is beginning on a variety of Global Strike concepts with global reach, the military also is pushing for a new paradigm for nuclear weapons production, dubbed the Reliable Replacement Warhead” (RRW). The RRW is intended to be produced by modernized nuclear weapons production facilities, the product of a rebuilding process for the nuclear weapons complex already almost two decades old. The latest plan for this endless project is called Complex 2030, the target date for completing new core nuclear weapons facilities– giving a good indication that U.S. national security elites plan to keep large numbers of nuclear weapons more or less forever.

While repeatedly assuring Congress that current plans call for the RRW to merely replace existing nuclear warheads without changing their capabilities, the program and the modernized nuclear weapons complex is intended to assure that new nuclear weapons capabilities could be developed, should the government make a decision to do so. The November 2006 National Nuclear Security Administration FY2007-2011 Stockpile Stewardship Plan Overview calls for a “responsive nuclear weapons infrastructure.” “Responsive” is defined there as “the agility of the nuclear weapons enterprise’s capabilities to respond to unanticipated events, such as a technical issue in the stockpile or the emergence of a new threat, as well as the ability to anticipate and counter innovations by an adversary before the Nation’s deterrent is degraded.” The Stockpile Stewardship Plan Overview makes this muddy verbiage a bit more clear by stating its intention to “[i]mprove the capability to design, develop, certify, and complete production of new or adapted warheads in the event of new military requirements.” (At pp.6-7). And as the Defense Science Board noted in a 2004 report, Future Strategic Strike Forces, nuclear weapons with a variety of new capabilities, including lower yield and earth penetrating ability, could be developed and deployed without underground testing, mainly by adapting already tested designs.

At the Strategic Forces subcommittee hearing, STRATCOM Commander Cartwright noted that one of the military’s main goals for the RRW concept was its ability to fit a variety of delivery systems:

“Modularity and interoperability remain top warfighter priorities for the RRW concept. These attributes will significantly increase the operational flexibility and responsiveness of the nuclear weapons stockpile and improve our ability to introduce new technologies and respond to technological and/or geopolitical surprise.” Cartwright Statement, March 28, 2007, pp.18-19.

Most of what debate there is about U.S. nuclear weapons programs focuses on whether the warheads that will be built in the “reliable replacement warhead” program are “needed,” and on assuring that their capabilities will not exceed those of existing warheads. At the same time, however, development of the next generation of long-range delivery systems is proceeding, with the express goal of providing a variety of new capabilities, nuclear as well as conventional. The 2002 Air Force Space Command Final Mission Need Statement, Land Based Strategic Nuclear Deterrent stated that

“…a future credible land-based strategic nuclear deterrent force must be capable of rapidly holding at risk a wide range of surface and subsurface targets to include, but not limited to, fixed soft and hard targets; hard and deeply buried targets; chemical and biological production, storage, and delivery system facilities; strategic relocatable targets; heavily defended targets; and targets that emerge unexpectedly on short notice. The land-based strategic nuclear deterrent force must be structured to counter these existing and emerging targets on a global scale by providing on-demand force application, flexible force application, and flexible effects. Quantum advances in information processing and advanced technologies may produce warfighting capabilities that include delivery means for payloads with self-contained sensors; accuracy to enable sufficient lethality within the sub-kiloton yield; search, loiter, and redirection capability; and/or enhanced defense penetration. Not only must the future land-based strategic nuclear deterrent force continue to provide the robust capabilities which exist today (i.e., responsiveness, damage expectancy, payload margin, operational flexibility, and cost-effectiveness), but it must also take advantage of emerging technologies to ensure deterrent effectiveness in an uncertain future strategic environment.” (at p.3)

For now, the Air Force apparently has decided to go forward with incremental upgrades to the existing Minuteman III land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles. (See written Presentation of Major General Roger Burg to the Senate Armed Services Committee Strategic Forces subcommittee, March 28, 2007, p.4). As the Land Based Strategic Deterrent Final Mission Need Statement noted, even a system based on upgrades to the existing Minuteman missiles might be able to provide significant new capabilities:

“As sub-systems are replaced, updates in component technology may be inserted to meet emerging requirements. To augment the current ballistic delivery of reentry vehicles, a new post-boost section incorporating advanced technologies could be designed into the existing missile system to provide additional operational flexibility. Potential payloads could include the Mk12A, Mk21, a newly designed reentry vehicle that could incorporate low or multiple yield weapons, and a trajectory shaping vehicle (TSV) carrying weapons capable of holding at risk the range of targets previously described and each delivered with enhanced accuracy.” at p.5.

A “Global Strike” program that has been considered in the past for both conventional and nuclear roles and that is slated for continued funding in the fy2008 budget request is the Common Aero Vehicle (CAV). (See Air Force RDT&E Budget Item Justification
0604856F Common Aero Vehicle, February 2007) A gliding reentry vehicle that would be able to deliver a variety of munitions, CAV could be launched by missile or could be delivered by more exotic means, such as an unmanned reuseable launch vehicle or an orbiting satellite platform. The generic CAV concept, with versions that vary in size and in range, appears to have a considerable amount of momentum. It has its own joint program office for Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Air Force program integration, and has been kept alive through a combination of government funding and contractor initiatives for over a decade. Last year, the Congressional Budget Office evaluated several versions of CAV in a lengthy report on alternatives for long range strike, comparing its strengths and weaknesses with other options such as new, stealthy medium and long range bomber aircraft. See Alternatives for Long-Range Ground-Attack Systems, Congressional Budget Office, March, 2006.

CAV also illustrates the fact that the separation between conventional “prompt global strike” missile and reentry vehicle technologies and nuclear weapons delivery systems is maintained mainly by policy–policy that can change. The 1997 Air Force Space Force Application Mission Area Development Plan discussed the CAV’s potential to provide new nuclear, as well as non-nuclear capabilities, stating that “Common Aero Vehicles (CAVs) can deliver both nuclear and non-nuclear weapons to targets anywhere on the globe from CONUS [continental U.S.] bases with appropriate deployment systems.”. (Obtained via the Freedom of Information Act by Western States Legal Foundation, p.38). Nuclear weapons listed in the Space Force Application Mission Area Development Plan as potential payloads for the CAV included the W78 and the W87, both existing high yield nuclear missile warheads missiles, the “B- 61 [a versatile bomb design with many variants, including a limited earth penetrator] or penetrator,” and an unspecified “low-yield nuclear weapon.” at pp.38-39. The purely political divide separating a nuclear from a non-nuclear CAV was accentuated by a message stamped on the cover of the 1997 Space Force Application Mission Area Development Plan. It read:

“References to using the Common Aero Vehicle (CAV) to deliver nuclear weapons should be disregarded. AFSPC is no longer considering using the CAV to deliver nuclear weapons. Where CAV is mentioned for nuclear weapons, the term Maneuvering Reentry Vehicle (MaRV) should be used. (Refer to the 1996 development plan.) These changes reflect current political realities and were brought to light after printing.”

Concerned about the possibility that long range missiles carrying conventional payloads could spark a nuclear war if mistaken for a nuclear launch by another nuclear power, Congress has restricted work on the CAV, prohibiting tests with actual weapons payloads. Congress last year expressed similar reservations about the Conventional Trident proposal. According to Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Green’s Strategic Forces subcommittee testimony, the Departments of State and Defense submitted a classified report to Congress in February addressing these concerns. In his public statement, Green downplayed the dangers, asserting that few states can detect and track a missile launch, and that the Russians (who do have this capability) would easily be able to distinguish a conventional strategic missile launch from a nuclear attack on their territory. Green Statement, pp.8 et seq. Green also argued that “the United States and the Russian Federation now have a more cooperative and less adversarial relationship than during the Cold War, and this new relationship provides a much-changed context in which any launch of a ballistic missile would be understood.” Green Statement, p.9.

It should be noted in this context that there is an unacknowledged contradiction in the government’s position on strategic weapons. It argues that a constantly modernized arsenal of thousands of nuclear weapons and production complex capable of producing yet more must be sustained in case relationships with existing nuclear powers worsen dramatically or new adversaries emerge, but at the same time claims that the risks of accidental war posed by highly capable new strategic delivery systems can be “managed” in large part due to the absence of tensions among the major military powers . There is no reason to believe that a U.S. conventional ballistic missile launch years or decades into the future will be properly “interpreted” by Russia, China, or some other unspecified adversary in some unforeseen future crisis. In addition, even if U.S. does not equip new, highly capable delivery systems with nuclear weapons, very accurate, powerful conventional weapons capable of destroying some targets previously targeted with nuclear weapons could have profound and so far largely unanalyzed effects on the military balance among the existing nuclear weapons states. As General Cartwright put it two years ago,

“If you can put effect precisely on target, you really change the dynamic. Now this is a duh for the Air Force, but the reality here is it’s not that well understood. If you can use just one safe, sure, reliable, secure weapon for the right effect—whether that weapon be nuclear, conventional, or non-kinetic—and you can do it in minutes and seconds, you start to change the fundamental characteristic of the stockpiles, you start to change the fundamental characteristic of the delivery platforms, and it ripples on down.” General James Cartwright (USMC), Commander, U.S. Strategic Command, speech at Air Warfare Symposium - Orlando, Florida, February 18, 2005

One lesson we should have learned from the Cold War is that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to stop a full-blown arms race in mid-course. The nuclear armed powers may not be engaged in the kind of confrontation, military probing, skirmishing, and proxy wars that dominated most of the second half of the last century, but there is no guarantee that more intense antagonisms among major powers will not emerge in the future. The general shape and tenor of global economics and politics, in fact, tend more and more towards the conditions that in the past have led to such antagonisms, and to global wars. These include not only competition between established and emerging economic powers, but profound disparities in wealth within states of a kind that in the past have been symptomatic of a focus by ruling groups on foreign trade and investment rather than on the social and economic development of their own populations. These social stresses only will be intensified by competition for diminishing supplies of fossil fuels and other key resources, and by environmental disruptions caused by global warming and other effects of a global economic system whose central organizing principles engender constant, largely uncontrolled growth. The relative lack of conflict among leading industrialized states of the post Cold War period may prove to be only the last portion of a longer phase in which such wars driven by economic and resource competition were unlikely, a period that now may be ending.

Those in power in the United States are responding to these uncertain prospects by seeking to control them with overwhelming, technologically perfected violence. For the great majority of the people of this planet, for whom life and the future of humanity is more important than holding tight to great wealth and privilege, the logical response must be to seek to eliminate the most dangerous weapons, those that pose a fundamental threat to any future at all: nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery. In this light, it is alarming how much ground has been lost. The much-touted post Cold War reductions in the U.S. nuclear arsenal have only pared away rubble-bouncing extremes driven by ideology and profit. The thousands of nuclear weapons still deployed could end human civilization in a day, and there are no proposals for new rounds of nuclear arms control. There is little talk by governments, or even in the U.S. “arms control and disarmament community,” about controls on the ballistic missiles of the major powers. A decade ago, in contrast, the Canberra Commission, whose members included such figures as Robert McNamara, who had served as U.S. Secretary of Defense, and General Lee Butler, who had been commander of U.S. Strategic Command, as well as ex-diplomats and military officials from several other nuclear weapons states, stated:

“A global treaty controlling longer range ballistic missiles would provide a universal means of addressing the dangers to international security posed by ballistic missiles; it would also avoid the potential destabilising effect of ballistic missile defence systems. It would increase the confidence of nuclear weapon states that nuclear disarmament will not damage their security, and it would improve the security environment in a number of regions by eliminating destabilising missile arms races. Pending development of such a regime, confidence building measures such as a multilateral ballistic missile launch notification agreement and a ballistic missile flight test ban could be explored.” Report of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, Part 2

Universal controls on ballistic missiles, beginning with a universal flight test ban (a relatively easy to verify and effective measure) remain a more practical and less risky response to purported missile threats than hundreds of billions of dollars in missile defenses, global surveillance networks, and “global strike” technologies. Such arms control measures, however, are far less profitable than an endless stream of high-tech weapons, cannot be used to expand power by coercive means, and reduce rather than sustain the climate of omnipresent fear and threat central to the current order of things; we should not expect them to be taken seriously any time soon.

In the early 1990’s, the collapse of the Soviet Union seemed to provide an opportunity to escape the dynamic of arms racing in nuclear weapons, their delivery systems, and the globe-girdling complexes of ground and space-based surveillance and communications that the nuclear arms race spawned. It has become clear that endless development and production of high tech weapons, including nuclear weapons, strategic delivery systems, and other weapons designed to project power far beyond the borders of a state, was not driven solely by the Cold War confrontation. The U.S. military-industrial complex has proved to be a vast, insatiable arms racing machine, demanding to be fed hundreds of billions of dollars a year and endlessly generating new “weapons concepts,” some of which must be developed and built if this immensely profitable and powerful enterprise is to continue. But it is only part of the constellation of powerful interests that have turned the United States into a country permanently at war, its foreign policy reduced almost entirely to the threat and use of force, the generation of military power valued over all other priorities at home. The first step towards any sensible disarmament strategy must be the identification of the organizations, institutions, and segments of society that sustain the permanent pursuit of global military dominance, with the ultimate instrument of national power being the threat of annihilation.

Some additional resources:

Amy F. Wolf, Conventional Warheads for Long-Range Ballistic Missiles: Background and Issues for Congress, Congressional Research Service Report, Updated February 9, 2007).

Hans Kristensen, Global Strike: A Chronology of the Pentagon’s New Offensive Strike Plan, Federation of American Scientists, 2006.

The Global Free Fire Zone: “Prompt Global Strike” and the Next Generation of U.S. Strategic Weapons Disarmamentactivist.org February 10, 2006.

Andrew Lichterman, Zia Mian, M.V. Ramana, and Juergen Scheffran, Beyond Missile Defense, International Network of Engineers and Scientists Briefing Paper #10, by updated October 2002.

Andrew Lichterman, Missiles of Empire, Western States Legal Foundation Information Bulletin, Fall 2003.

Andrew Lichterman, The Military Space Plane, Conventional ICBM’s, and the Common Aero Vehicle: Overlooked Threats of Weapons Delivered Through or From Space, Western States Legal Foundation Information Bulletin, Fall 2002.

Michael Spies

It should be no surprise that the media coverage in the west on this has limited itself to a superficial recap of the narrow propaganda points put out by the US and UK governments- basically parroting outrage at Iran’s parading of the soldiers in front of the media and emphasizing that Iran is interfering with a UN-authorized operation. Given that most of the diplomacy is happening outside the view of the public, it is even more difficult than usual to discern what Iran’s intention’s might have been and what the significance or consequences of this might be, but it is possible to connect up the dots to come up with some plausible theories.

Thought 1: The first thing we can exclude is the knee-jerk comparison to the Gulf of Tonkin incident. From my perspective the current situation represents more a sign of an impending conflict, rather than an incident that will lead to conflict. While this move certainly heightens existing tensions, the Iranian conduct here has been very measured and deliberate. Unlike the nuclear situation, where it’s been very obvious there are multiple factions vying to push their own agendas, here the regime has largely been able to speak with one voice, and that voice generally has not been coming from Ahmadinejad, though his often-incendiary comments tend to attract the lion’s share of the coverage. Other items that point in this direction are the facts that Iran’s video releases of the soldiers have been broadcast in Arabic - so not for a domestic audience - and their extensive efforts to manipulate perception of the crisis through the media: the (botched) attempt to provide alternative coordinates for the capture; the steady progression of letter releases and video confessions; etc.

So what’s going on?

As this crisis has been unfolding, the AP has reported on a purportedly confidential letter from Iran to the IAEA, where Iran cites the threat of a U.S. attack as rationale for its curtailing of cooperation with the Agency. Iran’s perception of a threat from the U.S. is not a new development and in the context of the nuclear crisis can be traced back to May 2003 when Iran first offered it’s “grand bargain” to the U.S. through diplomatic channels. Here, chief among Iran’s goals was to obtain security assurances from the U.S., something that has been conspicuously absent from all proposals made by the E3 and P6 to Iran, and also something the Bush administration has explicitly ruled out regardless of Iran’s response to the nuclear question.

Thought 2: Iran’s actions can be read as it taking action to better position itself internationally in the face of what some in Iran view as an inevitable confrontation with the U.S. It has been no secret that the U.S., supported by Israeli intelligence, have been conducting military operations inside Iran for several years, initially to turn up evidence of Iran’s alleged nuclear duplicity, but more recently to gather information on potential targets and to “promote democracy.” In response to the present hostage crisis, Iran’s official news agency has released a list of alleged violations of Iranian territory by the UK Navy. A letter sent by Iran to the UK embassy in Tehran echoed these allegations. Given Iran’s historic animosity and lingering suspicions of Britain (and the fact that the UK was the only major power to back the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq), it’s not a difficult stretch to believe they see a British role in any future military confrontation.

But could Iran’s actions be seen as a calculated effort to undermine any British contribution to U.S. war planning? Beyond that, could it even be aimed at preventing the formation of a second “coalition of the willing?” The present crisis has certainly been an embarrassment for the UK government. But would this embarrassment be enough to deter it from further “provocative” military actions on Iran’s borders? Certainly at the very least we can expect the British Navy to be a bit more cautious when it comes to future operations near Iranian territory. And the tepid UN response to the British demand for strong Security Council action suggests that Iran has managed to keep international opinion on its side, although this point is unashamedly ignored by the Western media.

Although some attention has been paid to the theory that Iran’s actions are in response to the U.S. raid in January of its consulate, and the arrest of five staff members purportedly associated with the Revolutionary Guard, it is perhaps more reasonable to see that connection as nothing more than a potential face-saving solution and not a motivation. The real objective here is for Iran to puff out its (war) chest, draw a line in the sand (or waterway in this case), and to broadcast the unequivocal message that it is not intimidated by the U.S. military buildup or even the very real and ever-escalating prospects for armed conflict. Had the Iranians attempted this gambit with U.S. forces, by now we would have be one week into the next regional war. Anticipating the cautious and measured response of the British, perhaps the Iranians are also trying to signal that the present course of the U.S./Iranian conflict is leading to war. So if the British are truly keen to avoid this outcome (as they have been very careful to rule out in the context of the UN), the message here is that a badly needed negotiated solution will required real diplomacy, not the type conducted in the shadow gunships.