Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: StratCom

  • Cartwright Report Calls for Nuclear Reductions and Elimination of US Land-Based ICBM Force

    This article was originally published by Truthout.


    David KriegerGen. James Cartwright chaired a recently released report by the nuclear disarmament group Global Zero on “Modernizing U.S. Nuclear Strategy, Force Structure and Posture.” General Cartwright is a retired vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and former commander of the US Strategic Command. In the latter capacity, he was in charge of all US nuclear weapons.


    The Cartwright report argues for reducing the number of US nuclear weapons, taking deployed weapons off high alert and eliminating all land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The report proposes an illustrative nuclear force of 900 total nuclear weapons, half deployed and half in reserve. The report recommends that, of the 450 deployed weapons, 360 be submarine-based and 90 carried on bombers. The deployed weapons would be de-alerted so that they would require 24 to 72 hours to be made launch-ready.


    This is a proposal based upon a thorough review of current US nuclear strategy and posture. It calls for reducing the number of deployed nuclear weapons to 450 by 2022 and reinforces the belief that current US nuclear policy, which the report critiques, remains stuck in the cold war era despite the world having moved on in the 21st century.


    The report finds that, “ICBMs in fixed silos are inherently targetable and depend heavily upon launch on warning for survival under some scenarios of enemy attack.” It goes on to state that the current ICBM rapid reaction posture, “runs a real risk of accidental or mistaken launch.” Thus, the report calls for elimination of the US ICBM force and for reliance for deterrence upon the invulnerable submarine and bomber forces instead.


    The report’s call for eliminating the US ICBM force elicited a bizarre response from the Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz, who said that the plan “introduces the likelihood of instability in the deterrence equation, which is not healthy.” Schwartz continued: “Here’s the reality: Why do we have a land-based deterrent force? It’s so that an adversary has to strike the homeland.”


    Why would any country need or want to maintain such land-based weapons, which provide an attractive target for an adversary in a time of high tension? It would make far more sense for US military leaders to be thinking about how to prevent potential adversaries from striking the US with nuclear weapons.


    The dangers of General Schwartz’s convoluted concept of deterrence can best be understood by reference to the reflections of former commander of the US Strategic Command, Gen. George Lee Butler. In 1999, General Butler wrote, “Nuclear deterrence was and remains a slippery intellectual construct that translates very poorly into the real world of spontaneous crises, inexplicable motivations, incomplete intelligence and fragile human relationships.” In other words, the heavily flawed theory of nuclear deterrence is subject to failure in the real world. General Schwartz’s concept of deterrence “so that an adversary has to strike the homeland” shows how deterrence itself can be more focused on strategy than on people and can undermine security.


    The Cartwright report gives backing to President Obama’s call for US leadership to achieve “the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.” It should be noted, though, that atmospheric scientists have modeled a “small” nuclear war between India and Pakistan, in which each side uses 50 Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons on the other side’s cities. As a consequence of such a war, soot from the burning cities would rise into the stratosphere, where it would remain for a decade, blocking warming sunlight, shortening growing seasons and causing crop failures, leading to global famine and potentially 1 billion deaths from starvation worldwide.


    This “nuclear famine” study suggests that even a reduction to 450 deployed nuclear weapons by both the United States and Russia would still leave too many nuclear weapons. Since these 450 thermonuclear weapons would be far more powerful than the Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons modeled in the nuclear-famine study, they could potentially do far more damage than a nuclear war between India and Pakistan, as terrible as that would be.


    The Cartwright report provides a fresh look at US nuclear policy and is a valuable contribution to the debate on necessary next steps in moving toward the urgent goal of achieving zero nuclear weapons on the planet.

  • StratCom Rules! The Next War Will Start in Nebraska

    Stories about the transformation U.S. Strategic Command has undergone since 9/11 have been dribbling out for years. But just recently have we gotten a clearer picture of what these changes portend.

    In October 2002, when the U.S. Space Command was shifted to StratCom, nobody could have imagined that in six months the “shock and awe”bombing campaign on Iraq would originate from Omaha. But with 70 per cent of the missiles and smart bombs used in that pre-emptive attack guided from space, StratCom directed what Air Force Secretary James Roche termed the “the first true space war.”

    Then, in August 2003, the “Stockpile Stewardship Committee” overseeing StratCom’s nuclear arsenal held a classified meeting at StratCom to plot the development of a new generation of crossover nuclear weapons — so-called “bunker busters” — that could be used in conventional military conflicts. The “firewall” between nuclear and conventional war-fighting was being smashed down, and StratCom was swinging the hammer.

    And who could have guessed in December 2005, when revelations about the warrantless wiretapping program became public, that this National Security Agency operation had StratCom fingerprints? But the NSA, under StratCom’s new mission of “Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance,” had been made a StratCom “component command,” and the NSA director, Gen. Michael Hayden (who now heads the CIA), was carrying out this constitutionally suspect activity.

    It’s been nearly three years since the story broke that Vice President Dick Cheney ordered StratCom to draw up plans for an air- and sea-based attack on Iran. Under its “Prompt Global Strike” and “Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction” missions, the Omaha headquarters is now charged with attacking any place on earth — within one hour — on the mere perception of a threat to America’s national security. The war on terror is being waged from StratCom, and the next war the White House gets us into (whether with Iran or a geopolitical rival like China) will start in Nebraska.

    With all the missions it’s now got in its quiver, you can hardly open a newspaper anymore without reading about a StratCom scheme.

    The current flap with Russia over the proposed missile defense bases in Poland and the Czech Republic — that’s StratCom’s handiwork. The command picked up its “Integrated Missile Defense” mission in 2003 after the Bush/Cheney administration pulled out of the ABM Treaty. And those Eastern European installations — which the Russians warn are reigniting the Cold War — will be added to the network of international bases already under StratCom’s command.

    But from reading the news accounts, you’d never know the command was involved. StratCom’s name is never mentioned.

    Or who realized that, when a U.S. Predator drone fired a missile killing al-Qaida commander Abu Laith al-Libi in Pakistan this past January, StratCom did everything from supplying the intelligence to helping fly the unpiloted vehicle? That incident dramatized how easily StratCom — with its new war-fighting authority — can skirt the law. According to an Associated Press story, the missile attack infringed on Pakistan’s national sovereignty, meaning international law may have been breached. But with the free hand it’s been granted, 60 minutes from now, StratCom could have started a war and Congress wouldn’t even have had a clue.

    This is not our fathers’ StratCom.

    Gone are the days when Strategic Command simply controlled America’s nuclear deterrent, and its doomsday weapons were only to be used as a last resort. Since 9/11, StratCom has gone from “never supposed to be used” to “being used for everything.” Likening the changes that have occurred at the command to a tsunami, former astronaut and current StratCom Commander Kevin Chilton brags that StratCom today is “the most responsive combatant command in the U.S. arsenal.”

    It’s now also the most dangerous place on the face of the earth.

    And hardly anybody knows it.

    StratCom’s well-publicized shootdown of the spy satellite, however, may have finally shown the world just how menacing the command has become. Barely a week after the United States repudiated a treaty proposal to ban space weapons at a U.N. Conference on Disarmament, StratCom shot down the satellite — using its “missile defense” system. And the message this shootdown sent to the world struck with all the force of an anti-satellite missile. Despite the innocuous name, missile defense is now understood to be an offensive weapon by which the United States (in the language of the administration’s national space policy) means to “dominate” space …

    And whoever controls space controls the earth.

    Operating like some executive-branch vigilante, StratCom has just launched a new arms race — because you can bet Russia and China will never surrender the heavens without a fight.

    What’s equally worrisome, though, is that StratCom is now hourly making a mockery of our system of congressional checks and balances. And if Congress can’t rein in StratCom, can anyone?

    Tim Rinne is the state coordinator of Nebraskans for Peace, the nation’s oldest statewide peace and justice organization. Nebraskans for Peace will co-sponsor an international conference April 11-13, 2008 in Omaha about the threat StratCom poses.