BASIC RESEARCH REPORT

Number 98.2, March 1998

Nuclear Futures: Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and US Nuclear Strategy

By Hans Kristensen

Executive Summary

In November 1997, President Clinton issued a highly classified Presidential Decision Directive (PDD), giving new guidelines to the military on targeting nuclear weapons. According to reports, the new PDD allows for the use of nuclear weapons against "rogue" states – those suspected of having access to weapons of mass destruction.

The use of nuclear weapons to deter attack by weapons of mass destruction, other than nuclear weapons, remains controversial. General Lee Butler, former Commander-in-Chief of US Strategic Command, now describes using nuclear weapons as a solution to chemical or biological attack as an "outmoded idea." Conventional retaliation would be far more proportionate, less damaging to neighboring states and less horrific for innocent civilians, he says. "There are no rogue nations, only rogue leaders."

In 1995, President Clinton issued a "negative security assurance," pledging that the United States would not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). However, the current US nuclear posture conflicts with that pledge.

Non-nuclear-weapon states parties to the NPT have long demanded legally binding "negative security assurances," guaranteeing that nuclear weapons will not be used against them. The issue is on the agenda for the 1998 NPT Preparatory Committee meeting in Geneva in April 1998.

However, Special Assistant to the President Robert Bell has already stated that negative security assurances will not tie the hands of US decision-makers faced with a chemical or biological attack. "It’s not difficult to define a scenario in which a rogue state would use chemical weapons or biological weapons and not be afforded protection under our negative security assurance," he noted.

Documents obtained through the US Freedom of Information Act also reveal criticism of the negative security assurance from within the US military. These documents show how US planning for the use of nuclear weapons against Third World proliferators has developed in the 1990s. The concept of targeting Third World proliferators is relatively new to US nuclear doctrine. However, since the end of the Cold War the US military has seen "increasingly capable Third World threats" as a new justification for maintaining US strategic and non-strategic nuclear weapons.

The extensive focus on proliferation of weapons of mass destruction has resulted in "fewer but more widespread targets" for the remaining US nuclear weapons. The US nuclear arsenal is in the middle of a multi-billion dollar upgrade that will make it capable of quickly shifting between a greater number of limited contingencies all over the world.

Additionally, new modifications of a number of US nuclear weapons are currently underway in order to provide new capabilities suitable for targeting potential proliferators. In 1996, the B61-11 modification was identified by the Department of Defense as the "weapon of choice" for targeting Libya’s alleged underground chemical weapons plant at Tarhunah. Other weapons "modifications" are in the pipeline.

However, given the overwhelming US conventional capability, there is no need to draw up plans for nuclear war in the Third World. Using nuclear weapons to deter states armed with other weapons of mass destruction is counterproductive, undermining the nuclear non-proliferation regime.

By using nuclear weapons in this way, the United States is sending a message that nuclear weapons are important for achieving prestige in world affairs and for accomplishing military and political objectives. Pointing nuclear weapons at regional troublemakers will provide them with a justification to acquire nuclear weapons themselves. Encouraging nuclear proliferation can only increase the risk to US security in the long term.

A reaffirmation of the commitments to non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament by removing chemical, biological, and radiological weapons and facilities from US war planning would be a more fitting post-Cold War measure.

Nevertheless, as the documents researched as the basis for this paper demonstrate, planning for nuclear war in the Third World has progressed virtually unopposed. With little informed opposition and public debate, the result is a nuclear doctrine that borrows heavily from Cold War nuclear thinking. President Clinton’s Decision Directive of November 1997 permits this planning to continue.

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For the full text of Nuclear Futures: Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction and US Nuclear Strategy, you may download the PDF file, e-mail BASIC or order a copy from here.

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