Posts Tagged ‘German nuclear weapons’

Extended deterrence will remain, but US nukes could leave Europe

Posted on: February 27th, 2010 by Ernie Regehr

The signs are growing that over the next year there could be an agreement to remove all remaining US nuclear weapons from Europe.

Both the forthcoming US Nuclear Posture Review and the current NATO Strategic Concept Review could set the stage for dispatching at least one Cold War relic — namely, the ongoing positioning of US nuclear gravity bombs in Europe. It is a policy defended till now as confirming US extended nuclear deterrence and cementing the transatlantic security relationship.

Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy provides a very helpful update on the oft-delayed US nuclear posture review – initially it was scheduled for release in late 2009, then early February of 2010, then early March, and now mid to late March. He reports on inside-the-beltway speculation that while “the document will not call for nuclear withdrawal, …it may say it’s up for discussion or even go so far to say that NATO no longer requires nukes in Europe.”[i] He suggests that the US Defense Department’s Quadrennial Defense Review also seems to point in that direction when it refers to the development of new “regional deterrence architectures” that will “make possible a reduced role for nuclear weapons in our national security strategy.”[ii]

At the same time, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Norway are calling for all American warheads in Europe to be returned to the US. Their initiative is pursued within the context of NATO’s review of its strategic doctrine. [iii]

Earlier, under its new Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, had taken up the same call, characterizing it as both a disarmament nonproliferation measure.[iv] The NATO Monitor blog has also reported that Turkey has made it known it “would not insist” that NATO maintain forward deployed nuclear weapons in Europe, and also that Italy would be open to reconsidering NATO’s nuclear posture.[v]

The west European States behind the coming call have emphasized that they are looking for a collective decision in NATO and are not contemplating unilateral action, and, notably, that they do not equate the removal of weapons from Europe with either the “denuclearization of NTAO”  or with an end to US extended deterrence covering Europe.[vi] Their stance essentially follows the model of the US nuclear umbrella over North-East Asia It is a region that is rather less stable than Europe, and yet there are no US nuclear weapons deployed in any states there.[vii] In fact, Japan, while continuing to claim the American nuclear deterrent for itself, insists, through its three nuclear principles,[viii] that no nuclear weapons be on its territory.

The point is obviously not to champion extended nuclear deterrence, but is to recognize that extended deterrence is not a credible argument, or excuse, for the continued physical placement of nuclear weapons in Europe or on the territories of any States claimed under a nuclear umbrella.

Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada wrote to US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton late last year, reasserting the relevance of US extended nuclear deterrence while at the same time welcoming US nuclear arms reductions. He did ask for the US to explain its plans to retire the nuclear armed Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missiles (TLAM/N), which are in storage in the US but nevertheless linked to deterrence in the North-East Asia region. The Arms Control Wonk blog elaborates with its usual detail and verve. It also debunks the myth that if the US fails to maintain its current nuclear arsenal, extended deterrence will be weakened and Japan will be driven to acquire its own nuclear deterrent.[ix] The Japan Times made the same point in its report in late February that the US had already informed Japan that the Nuclear Posture Review will confirm the retirement of the sea-based TLAM/N – adding that this would not affect the nuclear umbrella.[x]

Now the obvious question is, where’s Canada in all this? Will Ottawa be championing the new European initiative?

There are currently estimated to be between 150 and 200 nuclear weapons, all US B61 gravity bombs, held in five countries in Europe – Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey.[xi] All of the European countries hosting these US nuclear weapons are non-nuclear weapon states parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, a fact, it is worth noting, that puts those countries and the US, the nuclear weapon state that owns those bombs, in violation of Articles I and II of the NPT.[xii]

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] Josh Rogin, “Nuclear Posture Review delayed until mid to late March,” The Cable, Foreign Policy, 25 February 2010.http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/02/25/nuclear_posture_review_delayed_until_mid_to_late_march.

[ii] Quadrennial Defense Review Report, February 2010, Department of Defense.

http://www.defense.gov/QDR/images/QDR_as_of_12Feb10_1000.pdf.

[iii] “Allied bid for Obama to remove US European nuclear stockpile,” Agence France Press, 20 February 2010.http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100219/wl_afp/usnuclearnatodefenceeurope. Their letter to NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen was made public on Feb 26.

[iv] Meier, Oliver. 2009. German Nuclear Stance Stirs Debate. Arms Control Today, December.http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2009_12/GermanNuclearStance.

[v] Butcher, Martin. 2009a. Former Dutch Prime Minister Lubbers Calls for Withdrawal of US Nukes from Europe. The NATO Monitor, December 4; 2009b. No Public Statements on Nuclear Weapons and the Strategic Concept. The NATO Monitor, December 5. http://natomonitor.blogspot.com.

[vi] “Allied bid for Obama to remove US European nuclear stockpile,” Agence France Press, 20 February 2010.http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100219/wl_afp/usnuclearnatodefenceeurope.

[vii] Martin Butcher, Roundtable on Nuclear Weapons Policies and the NATO Strategic

Concept Review, House of Commons, London, 13 January 2010, Rapporteur’s Report.http://www.pugwash.org/reports/nw/NWP-NATO-Jan2010/NW_NATO_Roundtable_Report_Final1.pdf.

[viii] The three principles being, no possession, no production, and no introduction of nuclear weapons into Japan. Ministry of Foreign Affairs Website. http://www.mofa.go.jp/POLICY/un/disarmament/nnp/index.html.

[ix] “The Strategic Posture Commission Report [a Congress-mandated study which is a forerunner to the coming nuclear posture review] contains at least one outright howler — the claim that the deployment of nuclear-armed cruise missiles is essential to extended deterrence in Asia: ‘In Asia, extended deterrence relies heavily on the deployment of nuclear cruise missiles on some Los Angeles class attack submarines—the Tomahawk Land Attack Missile/Nuclear (TLAM/N). This capability will be retired in 2013 unless steps are taken to maintain it. U.S. allies in Asia are not integrated in the same way into nuclear planning and have not been asked to make commitments to delivery systems. In our work as a Commission it has become clear to us that some U.S. allies in Asia would be very concerned by TLAM/N retirement. Let’s be very, very clear that as a result of the President’s 1991 Nuclear Initiatives, all TLAM/N nuclear weapons have been removed from U.S. Navy vessels. So, if extended deterrence to Japan relied heavily on the deployment of nuclear cruise missiles on some Los Angeles-class attack submarines, we would be hosed….[L]et’s not pretend these useless relics of the Cold War sitting in a climate-controlled warehouse are all that stand between us and nuclear-armed Japan. Because they aren’t.” [Jeffrey Lewis, Arms Control Wonk (8 May 2009).http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2284/japan-tlamn.]

[x] “US to retire nuclear Tomahawk missiles,” The Japan Times, 23 February 2010.http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20100223a2.html.

[xi] Kristensen, Hans, “Status of U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Europe 2010,” Federation of American Scientists.http://www.fas.org/programs/ssp/nukes/images/euronukes2010.pdf.

[xii] See, “Reshaping NATO’s Nuclear Declarations,” DisarmingConflict post, 30 January 2010.  http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2010/1/reshaping-nato%E2%80%99s-nuclear-declarations.

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Nukes out of Germany: Countering the backlash

Posted on: February 15th, 2010 by Ernie Regehr

Two former German security officials have responded, not entirely helpfully, to former NATO Secretary-General George Robertson’s sharp rebuke of the German Government’s call for the removal of US nuclear weapons from its territory.[i]

Accusing Robertson of relying on “outdated perceptions” that are rooted in the Cold War, Wolfgang Ischinger and Ulrich Weisser make some good points.[ii]

First, they say it “would be a grave mistake for NATO and its members to cling to the Cold War perception that Russia is a potential aggressor…” Russia must be a strategic partner they say, that being essential to long-term stability in Europe.

Second, they reject the argument that there must be US nuclear weapons on German soil (tactical gravity bombs) to keep Germany under the American nuclear umbrella – a point, they say, clarified 15 years ago by then US Defence Secretary William Perry.

Third, they say the role of nuclear weapons has “changed fundamentally” and that “any residual benefits of nuclear arsenals are now overshadowed by the growing risks of proliferation and terrorism.”

But when they set out the way forward, the argument goes somewhat awry.

First and foremost, they call on the alliance as a whole to “reaffirm its reliance on the US nuclear umbrella and on extended deterrence.” Really? So they claim that NATO countries, which represent virtually two-thirds of global conventional military might, are so threatened, so vulnerable are they in the most politically stable geography on the planet, that they must have the cover of American weapons of mass destruction and the threat of annihilation for them to feel safe? As for those states that really do live in threatening neighborhoods – say, in the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, or South Asia – they are presumably expected to be the real pioneers in the drive for zero global nuclear weapons while Europeans and North Americans continue to cling to them.

Second, they call for negotiated reductions in tactical nuclear weapons, “based on the principle of reciprocity.” Again, they’re not paying attention Michael Quinlan’s rejection of reciprocity (discussed here last week). Quinlan argued instead that the unilateral removal of US nuclear weapons from Europe would “have the effect of depriving Russia of a pretext she has sometimes sought to exploit both for opposing NATO’s wider development and for evading the question of whether and why Russia herself need continue to maintain a non-strategic nuclear armoury that is now far larger than that of anyone else.”[iii]

Finally, they say if tactical nuclear weapons cannot be immediately eliminated, which they say would be the most easily verifiable approach, “a good alternative would be to move all tactical nuclear weapons from their forward bases for centralized storage deep inside national territory.” That would indeed be a sensible interim step toward zero tactical nuclear weapons, provided of course, they mean the “national territory” of the nuclear weapon states that own those weapons Russia and the US) – and not the “national territory” of the non-nuclear weapons states that now host them (Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Turkey).

Ischinger and Weisser offer some effective counterpoints to George Robertson’s Cold War call to preserving NATO’s nuclear strategy and weapons, but they end up with some Cold War assumptions of their own.

eregehr@ploughshares.ca

Notes

[i] See last week’s post on “Nukes out of Europe: Now the Backlash.”http://www.cigionline.org/blogs/2010/2/nukes-out-europe-now-backlash.

[ii] Ischinger was formerly deputy foreign minister, and Weisser was director of the policy planning staff  of the German defence minister. Their response to Robertson appeared in the New York Times, “NATO and the Nuclear Umbrella,” 15 February 2010. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/16/opinion/16iht-edischinger.html.

[iii] Michael Quinlan, “The Nuclear Proliferation Scene: Implications for NATO,” in Joseph F. Pilat and David S. Yost, eds. NATO and the Future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NATO Defense College, Academic Research Branch, Rome, May 2007), http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digital-Library/Publications/Detail/?ots591=0C54E3B3-1E9C-BE1E-2C24-A6A8C7060233&lng=en&id=31221.

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