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Sen. Robert Kerrey (D-Neb.) intends to offer an amendment to the fiscal 2000 Defense Authorization bill to delete a provision in law barring retirement of additional nuclear weapons delivery systems until the Russian Duma ratifies START II.
While Senator Smith has agreed to a partial revision of the provision adopted for the last two years (a reduction from 18 to 14 Tridents at the behest of the Navy interested in saving money), he intends to renew the provision for a third year. The Clinton Administration argues that while it plans to remain at START I force levels for the foreseeable future (see Ted Warner testimony before Senate Armed Services Committee, April 14, 1999), it prefers not to have the provision in law. In the meantime, after the U.S. military actions in Kosovo and Iraq, the Duma has postponed action on START II indefinitely.
Kerrey further stated: "Acting in his capacity as Commander in Chief and in an act of international leadership, the President should immediately order the reduction of American nuclear forces to no more than the proposed START THREE levels. The two thousand to twenty-five-hundred nuclear warheads that would remain are more than enough -- many, many times over -- to destroy any nation, any where, any time, that threatens us. And the diversity of our triad -- nuclear weapons on air, land and sea -- protects us against the risk of a first strike destroying our capacity to retaliate. If we can reduce farther without endangering our security, we should."
Arguments for the Kerrey amendment permitting further reductions of U.S. nuclear weapons: 1. There is no need to maintain huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons. There is little doubt that Russia will have trouble maintaining its currently large nuclear forces notwithstanding Duma ratification of START II. There is no other present or future nuclear adversary that will have nearly as many nuclear weapons as the U.S. "We believe by 2005, in light of the very small modernization efforts they have underway, and the obsolescence of many major components of both their submarines and their strategic missile forces, they [Russia] will be hard-pressed to keep a force of more than about 3,500 weapons. And our intelligence analysts say in light of current developments " again we're projecting out over a decade -- by about the year 2010, they will be hard-pressed to even meet a level of about 1,500 weapons." Edward Warner III, Assistant Secretary of Defense, Stratgegy and Threat Reduction 2. There can be substantial savings from nuclear weapons cuts. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that reducing U.S. forces to START II levels by 2007 could produce a savings of $570 million in fiscal 2000 and a $12.7 billion savings over 10 years. The CBO further estimated that reductions in nuclear delivery systems within the overall limits of START II could produce savings of $20.9 billion. 3. Savings from nuclear weapons reductions can be applied to other Pentagon priorities, such as readiness or conventional weapons. Even with the recent budget increases, the Pentagon still is searching for money to fund readiness shortfalls and to pay for expensive new aircraft, ships and other conventional weaponry. 4. Announcement of reductions may help jump-start the stalled nuclear reduction process. It may lead the Russian leadership to reciprocate and it might encourage the Russian Duma to approve the START II Treaty. It could signal Moscow that the U.S. seeks a new post-Cold War nuclear relationship with Moscow. The process of negotiating and ratifying treaties has fallen far behind the increased pace of nuclear dangers within Russia. 5. There is a positive Bush-Gorbachev precedent from 1991 for matching unilateral reductions. In September 1991, President Bush announced that the U.S. would withdraw to its territory U.S. non-strategic, or tactical, nuclear weapons " artillery shells, short-range missiles, gravity bombs and nuclear weapons aboard U.S. surface naval vessels. He also ordered a thousand U.S. warheads deployed on strategic bombers and ballistic missiles slated for dismantlement to be taken off alert. President Gorbachev responded in kind, withdrawing all tactical weapons from Warsaw Pact nations and non-Russian republics, removing most categories of tactical nuclear weapons from service and designating thousands of nuclear warheads for dismantlement. 6. U.S. security decisions should not be based on what happens in the Russian Duma. There are good reasons for the U.S. to reduce its nuclear weapons stockpiles, both deployed and in reserve. We should not be prisoners to decisions in the increasingly unstable former Soviet Union. We should not hitch our security to the most reactionary elements of the Russian Duma. 7. Dismantling excess nuclear warheads will provide additional tritium for our remaining nuclear weapons. The U.S. could defer for many years constructing an expensive plant to produce new tritium if we accelerate retirement and dismantlement of excess nuclear weapons. John Isaacs John Isaacs, President
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