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PETER HUESSEY: FROM RUSSIAN AND CHINA WITH LOVE

Posted By Ruth King on May 20th, 2014

On May 13, 2014, Franklin Miller, Principal, Scowcroft Group, delivered an important address on “The Emerging Nuclear Deterrent Challenges: Thoughts on the Nuclear Triad and Arms Control”  at the Congressional Breakfast Seminar Series on Nuclear Deterrence and Missile Defense, (in its 34^th year) sponsored by the Air Force Association and hosted by Peter Huessy. This is a critically important subject that needs greater national attention especially how China and Russia see their nuclear arsenals and the role such weapons play in geostrategic relations.

MR. FRANK MILLER:  Thank you, Peter.  Nice to see you again.  I want to thank Peter on two counts:  first, for inviting me back to conduct my annual revisit to the wonderful world of nuclear policy; and second, for keeping this series going lo these many years to provide a forum for those of us whose views are not consistent with what the Politically Correct believe.

I would like to spend my time with you this morning talking about three subjects:  Russia, Arms Control, and the Administration’s need to come to grips with the serious problems we face in our strategic arsenal.

First, Russia.  It is essential that we come to grips with the fact that Russia under Czar Vladimir the bare-chested has become a very dangerous threat to global security.  If you have not yet done so, I urge you to read Putin’s March 18 speech to the Russian parliament. It is a chilling statement of perceived historical wrongs and slights mixed with a thinly veiled warning of his intent to redress them.  Truly, Churchill’s magnificent 1940 description of Adolf Hitler comes to mind:  “This wicked man, the repository and embodiment of many forms of soul-destroying hatred, this monstrous product of former wrongs and shame.”

Putin augments his dangerous world view with a menacing military capability.  I have been pointing out for several years from this podium that Russia is engaging in a massive modernization of its entire strategic Triad.  It is deploying two new types of ICBMs while developing a third, a follow-on to the heavy, heavily MIRVed, SS-18.  It is deploying two new types of SLBMs and a new type of SSBN.

It is in the final stages of development of a new long-range air-launched nuclear tipped cruise missile. It has built a new ground-launched cruise missile which violates the INF treaty (more on that later).  It is maintaining a vast and bloated arsenal of shorter-range nuclear warheads and systems, including a nuclear tipped short-range ballistic missile [SS-26] which violates Russia’s commitments under the 1991 and 1992 Presidential Nuclear Initiatives.

The Russian government’s response to President Obama’s 2009 plea that nuclear weapons be accorded a reduced role in nations’ security policies has been to maintain a nuclear doctrine which calls for the use of nuclear weapons in local and regional wars.  If you perused You-Tube in December 2013 and again last week you would see president Putin ostentatiously presiding over nuclear force exercises featuring live launches from all legs of their strategic triad.  As the Soviets were fond of saying:  “This is no accident comrade.”

What should we make of this?  First, Putin does not accept Mr. Obama’s view of the role of nuclear weapons. Second, contrary to the politically correct apologia, Putin’s intended audience is not an internal one but us and our allies:  he uses Russia’s nuclear weapons to try to intimidate and blackmail.

Add to this Putin’s policy of flying strategic bombers close to the national airspace of the UK, Norway, the Netherlands, Denmark, Japan, and the United States, Russian military exercises which simulate nuclear strikes on Poland and the Baltic states, and the repeated pronouncements by senior Russian officials about targeting the West with nuclear weapons and you get a fairly complete picture.

Third, if anyone was watching the sophistication of Russia’s invasion of Crimea and its coercive maneuvers along Ukraine’s borders, the old tired excuse that Russia must rely on nuclear weapons because its conventional forces are weak and broken is now demonstrably absurd.  The United States and our allies need to understand that we must maintain a strong, credible deterrent force which includes a modernized nuclear Triad and, where required to provide extended deterrence, modern forward deployed nuclear systems.  That is the only language which Vladimir Vladimrovich will understand.  .

Let me turn now to the topic of Arms Control, and begin by tipping my hat to Mark Schneider and Keith Payne of the National Institute of Public Policy and Michael Gordon of the New York Times for the true service they have performed by making sure the American and allied publics became aware of Russia’s violation of the INF treaty.  I note in passing the almost complete silence of the US arms control mafia about these egregious and illegal Russian activities….although the revelation of Russia’s action appear to have temporarily taken the wind out of the sails of many of their initiatives, including Ivo Daalder’s long-standing quest – now redeployed to Chicago from the US Mission to NATO — to remove US nuclear weapons from Europe despite our allies’ views.

Let’s be very clear:  the Russian government made a conscious decision to violate the foundational nuclear arms-control treaty of the 1980’s; it did so by investing significant funding covertly to design, develop, and test a system it knew violated the treaty.  In doing so, it demonstrated its complete contempt for the arms control process, for the United States government, for our intelligence capabilities, and for international law.

There can be no possible justification for continuing to discuss nuclear arms control with Moscow until such time as the Russian government acknowledges its illegal activities, destroys the illegal systems with US observers present, and agrees to new and intrusive verification measures which will make it much more difficult to cheat again in the future.

And I look forward to reading editorials filled with outrage from the Arms Control Association, the Federation of Atomic Scientists, Global Zero, and their brethren about Moscow’s violations, its position that no discussion of reducing short-range nuclear weapons is possible until the United States unilaterally withdraws all of our nuclear systems from NATO, and its disinterest in additional strategic cuts.

After all of the ink they have spilled over the decades decrying the policies of various US Administrations, it would be nice to see an attempt, however belated, at even-handedness.  I would also look for an explanation from the “Deep Cuts Commission” as to why their recent report largely ignored the Russian violations and how they believe additional reductions are possible in the face of a deliberate covert campaign of treaty violation.

Finally, let me turn to the Obama Administration’s stewardship of these issues.  I want to be quick to congratulate the Administration on two points.  First, the product which emerged from its 90 week nuclear targeting policy review was eminently sensible and squarely in the main-stream of US deterrence policy as it has evolved over the decades.  This is a note-worthy accomplishment which will provide for our – and our allies’ – security.  Second, the Administration has placed an extraordinarily able individual – retired Air Force Lieutenant General Frank Klotz – at the head of NNSA.  Coming at this time of crisis within NNSA and our entire nuclear weapons establishment, this is really, really good news.

And let me, to be even-handed, criticize the Administration on two counts.  First, and most importantly, it still has not treated the modernization of our neglected nuclear forces and infrastructure as an urgent priority.  The long-promised modernization of our nuclear weapons infrastructure has yet to occur.  The B61-12 project’s costs continue to rise even as the program slips to the right.

The presence of a credible NATO nuclear deterrent was acknowledged by the Alliance’s heads of government in 2010 and 2012.  That was before Russia’s invasion of Crimea and its destabilization of Ukraine.  In light of this blatant aggression, our NATO allies are even more strongly supportive of the US extended deterrent.  We simply cannot afford to allow the B61-12 to be lost due to an inability to exercise proper financial and program management.

In the same vein, it is simply inexcusable that the F-35’s nuclear wiring has not yet been approved and placed in the budget,  The modernization of the strategic bomber force is in disarray, with the LRSO program slipping to the right and the new bomber explicitly having a non-nuclear role at its IOC. The Minuteman program desperately needs a life extension plan; without one, the ICBM force, a key element of our nuclear deterrent, will become increasingly unreliable, and increasingly will lose its credibility.

We are blessed as a nation to have our sea-based deterrent in the hands of the Navy’s Strategic Systems Project Office, an organization whose dedication to excellence is legendary.  Given the difficulties with the bomber and ICBM legs, we should be grateful that the D5 Life Extension program is proceeding well, thereby ensuring the bedrock of our deterrent remains solid.  The Administration and the Congress, however, need to understand the urgency of funding fully the Ohio SSBN replacement program.  The Ohio boats’ clock is ticking:  their replacements must be available in time.  And then there is our nuclear command and control system, which is desperately overdue for modernization.  Overall, the Administration’s support for strategic modernization compares very unfavorably with what is occurring in Russia and in China.

Secondly, I would suggest that it is time to recalibrate and replace the “reduced role of nuclear weapons” rhetoric.   Sound defense policy should be informed by aspirations, but for our continued security it must be built on seeing the world as it really is.   The “reduced role” policy initiative has failed. Every nuclear weapons state with the exception of the US and the UK has not only rejected the idea:  each has, over the past many years, placed nuclear weapons closer to the heart of their respective national security policies.  Continuing to hold to our current rhetoric, and indeed continuing to speak of the eventual abolition of nuclear weapons, simply engenders scorn and derision from our potential adversaries…and, more dangerously, may cause them to miscalculate our resolve.

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