President Clinton and Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin will convene their first summit meeting in Moscow this June. After years of woeful neglect, it is vital that nuclear arms reductions occupy a prominent place on their agenda.
Moscow has long realized the need for renewed efforts to reduce Cold-War era forces, in large part because it recognizes that its nuclear arsenal is increasingly unsafe and in serious disrepair. Putin acknowledged that Russia is not in the financial position to engage in a new arms race with the United States as he pressed the Duma to ratify the long-delayed START II treaty.Even before the Duma ratified the treaty last week, Russian officials had been suggesting in recent months at high-level meetings with U.S. officials that their two nations should agree to reduce the number of strategic nuclear warheads. Russian officials are talking about going as low as 1,000 warheads on each side -- a level far below existing treaties. But the United States has refused to accept the offer, claiming that it needs at least double that number of warheads to maintain its so-called "strategic deterrence."
There has been no effort by the United States to explain why it needs at least 2,000 to 2,500 operational weapons, plus up to 3,000 more in "inactive reserve" that the Department of Energy is also planning to "renovate." How many times over does it expect to blow up the planet?
Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., recently posed the same questions to his Senate colleagues. Attempting to put the power of these weapons in some perspective, he noted that "the numbers are so large and the weapons systems so numerous that we get dulled in our recognition of what they can do."
Kerrey pointed out that the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima destroyed 90 percent of the city. More than 45,000 of this city's 250,000 inhabitants were killed instantly. Within days, another 19,000 had died from the aftereffects of the bomb.
That weapon had a yield of 15 kilotons.
The smallest warhead in the U. S. strategic arsenal today is more than 100 kilotons. Physicians have documented in gruesome detail the health effects resulting from an explosion of a bomb of one-fifth that size. In less than 1/1,000th of a second a 20 kiloton bomb would create a fireball spreading out over a two-mile radius from the blast point, vaporizing everything in its path. Temperatures within this radius would reach 20 million degrees Fahrenheit. Even a glimpse of a nuclear-bomb blast from a distance can blind an onlooker, burning their retinas. The effects from such a blast would be felt even hundreds of miles away.
The United States and Russia today each have far more nuclear weapons than any other nation. They are the only countries that keep these weapons on hair-trigger alert, ready to launch by decision or accident in a matter of seconds. Despite the fact that the Cold War ended over a decade ago, both nations continue to hold the world hostage. Right now, the United States alone has more than 6,000 strategic nuclear warheads and spends about $4.6 billion a year to maintain its arsenal. If and when START II enters into force, this number will come down to around 3,500 warheads in each nation.
The process of updating the United States' nuclear posture to reflect the profound changes in the international system since the end of the Cold War has been cumbersome, bureaucratic and unsuccessful. U.S. nuclear strategy today is still based on Cold-War era assumptions and conclusions. The most significant change has been to add "non-state actors" as potential targets. Just how a nuclear weapon could ever be used against an individual or organization remains unclear. Even high-level U.S. military planners concede that such "non-state actors" are undeterred by the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
Later this month, 187 nations will meet at the United Nations to review the status of the Nonproliferation Treaty. While the United States and the other acknowledged nuclear powers have committed not only to prevent the spread of such weapons and not to threaten their use against non-nuclear countries, the ultimate goal of the treaty is to reduce and eventually eliminate such weapons of mass destruction.
This forum presents the ideal opportunity for Clinton to commit to working with Russia's president-elect at a future summit toward going beyond the limits set by START II and negotiating even deeper and more significant arms reductions. For a U. S. president clearly concerned about his legacy, nothing could be more significant than leaving the world a safer place.
Alistair Millar is the director of the Washington office of the Fourth Freedom Forum, an independent research organization that promotes public understanding of international security issues.