Bush Administration Releases Strategy on WMD Threat
On December 11, the Bush administration released a three-prong
strategy for tackling threats posed by biological, chemical, and
nuclear weapons. Divided into sections on counterproliferation,
nonproliferation, and consequence management, the strategy reiterates
the administration’s readiness to act pre-emptively against
potential adversaries and to consider using nuclear weapons in retaliation
for any attack on the United States using weapons of mass destruction
(WMD).
Released about three months after the Bush administration unveiled
a document explaining its overall national security strategy, the
new National
Strategy to Combat Weapons of Mass Destruction focuses on the
Bush administration’s approaches to stopping and defending
against the spread of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.
Its release came as the United States faces escalating tensions
with Iraq and North Korea over their weapons programs.
The strategy is based on a classified document, National Security
Presidential Directive 17 (NSPD), which the president signed in
September, according to an administration source familiar with the
document. A NSPD sets out official U.S. policy.
All of the substance of the new strategy has been laid out in previous
administration statements, particularly the Pentagon’s January
2002 Nuclear Posture Review. (See
ACT, January/February 2002.) But a spokesperson for the
National Security Council explained in a January 2 interview that
the White House “wanted to go into more detail,” because
weapons of mass destruction in the hands of hostile countries or
terrorists are the “preeminent threat” facing the United
States.
The administration contends in its new strategy that there is no
single solution to every country’s pursuit or possession of
WMD. “Because each of these regimes is different, we will pursue
country-specific strategies,” the document states. This approach
is seemingly reflected in the different tactics the White House
is taking toward Iraq and North Korea.
“Counterproliferation”
Claiming that experience shows the United States cannot always
thwart proliferation, the Bush administration says in its new strategy
that it is ready to counter or deter the potential use of WMD through
interdicting weapons and technology transfers, punishing WMD use,
and striking adversaries before they attack.
To stop dangerous cargo from moving between hostile countries or
from regimes to terrorists, the United States must improve its capabilities
to intercept such trade before it reaches its destination, according
to the strategy. Interestingly, the day the strategy was presented
to reporters, the administration announced that, at its urging,
Spanish forces had seized an unidentified ship loaded with North
Korean ballistic missiles en route to the Middle East. The NSC spokesperson
said the two events were not linked, however, and the ship with
its missiles continued on its way after Yemen claimed to have purchased
them. (See
ACT, Jan/Feb 2003.)
Like past administrations, the Bush team is ambiguous about whether
it would use nuclear weapons to respond to an attack with biological
or chemical weapons—though it has taken the extra step of making
that ambiguity official policy. The strategy reads, “The United
States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to
respond with overwhelming force—including through resort to
all of our options—to the use of WMD against the United States,
our forces abroad, and friends and allies.” The administration
source said NSPD 17, the classified version of the strategy, explicitly
states that “overwhelming force” potentially includes
nuclear weapons.
In February 2002, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher stated
that President Jimmy Carter’s 1978 declaration that the United
States would only use nuclear weapons against countries without
atomic arms if they attacked in alliance with a nuclear-weapon state
remains Bush policy. However, he added, “If a weapon of mass
destruction is used against the United States or its allies, we
will not rule out any specific type of military response.”
Since the Carter administration first formally articulated its
“negative security assurance,” later administrations have
reaffirmed the pledge, particularly within the context of the nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). At the same time, U.S. officials
have implied from time to time, for instance just prior to the 1991
Persian Gulf War, that the United States might use nuclear weapons
to respond to a biological or chemical weapons attack. The Bush
administration has now adopted that ambiguity as standing U.S. policy.
The Bush strategy further stresses that the United States might
not wait on an attack to act. U.S. forces must be prepared to “detect
and destroy an adversary’s WMD assets before these weapons
are used.”
To better deal with potential WMD-armed adversaries, the United
States “must accelerate efforts to field new capabilities to
defeat WMD-related assets.” The Bush administration is researching
modified nuclear warheads for destroying hardened and deeply buried
targets, which Washington contends could be used to hide and store
deadly weapons stockpiles.
Bush officials have not said whether the United States would consider
using nuclear weapons to pre-emptively destroy weapons of mass destruction
before they are used.
“Nonproliferation”
Although the Bush administration devoted scant attention to arms
control measures in its September strategy document and regularly
expresses skepticism about the value of international agreements,
the newly released strategy states that the United States will “actively
employ diplomatic approaches in bilateral and multilateral settings
in pursuit of our nonproliferation goals.”
According to the document, the United States will seek to strengthen
existing agreements and regimes, including the NPT, the Chemical
Weapons Convention, the Biological Weapons Convention, and the Missile
Technology Control Regime. However, the strategy offers few proposals
on how the administration plans to bolster each.
The White House strategy further declares that the United States
will seek new agreements as needed, specifically listing negotiation
of a fissile material cutoff treaty. U.S. diplomats have been trying
to launch negotiations at the Geneva-based Conference on Disarmament
for several years on a fissile material cutoff treaty, which would
halt production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium for weapons
purposes. Their efforts have been bogged down, however, by demands
from other countries for parallel negotiations that the United States
opposes, namely formal talks on prevention of an arms race in outer
space and nuclear disarmament.
No reference is made to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT),
which the administration has said it does not support. Some Bush
officials have suggested the United States may need to resume nuclear
testing, a move that would be at odds with the U.S. 1996 signature
of the CTBT and a ten-year U.S. moratorium on testing.
In addition to multilateral agreements, the Bush administration
asserts it will continue to support bilateral programs to better
secure and destroy WMD stockpiles and materials in Russia and other
former Soviet states. Efforts to improve security of dangerous goods
and technologies in other countries will also be pursued, although
the administration does not name specific countries.
In the strategy, the administration also pledges to tighten controls
on exports that could aid another country’s pursuit of WMD,
and it promises to “develop a comprehensive sanctions policy.”
“Consequence Management”
In the event that the United States is attacked with a weapon of
mass destruction, the White House Office of Homeland Security is
assigned the responsibility for coordinating the federal government’s
response and making sure that local and state governments are prepared
for such a contingency.
The WMD strategy document provides little additional information
on how the United States would respond domestically to a WMD attack,
noting that the issue is covered more extensively in the National
Strategy For Homeland Security, a 90-page report the White House
published last July.
