Toy nukes for a toy president...

Nothing like picking up a month-old copy of NY Review of Books, getting to the end of a thoughtful Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. review of some anti-neocon tomes, only to find out that your government has decided to repeal the ban on nuclear testing.

In 1994 Congress passed the Spratt-Purse amendment stipulating that "it shall be the policy of the United States not to conduct research and development which could lead to the production by the United States of a new low-yield nuclear weapon." Low-yield nuclear weapons, fondly known as mini-nukes, are defined as under five kilotons.

The Bush administration, fearful that evil states might hide WMDs in hardened bunkers buried deep in the ground, called for a low-yield nuclear weapon known in the patois of the Pentagon as a Robust Nuclear Earth penetrator, a description often abbreviated into Bunker Buster. Mini-nukes of course can be used additionally as tactical weapons for the battlefield. In May 2003, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted for repeal of the prohibition on mini-nuke research. Senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Ted Kennedy then submitted an amendment restoring the original language of the Spratt-Purse amendment.

Supporters of the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment pointed out that mini-nukes were not toys, that five kilotons represented one third of the explosive power of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima, that the activation of mini-nuke research would run counter to US anti-proliferation policy and would "release a chain of reactions across the world in nuclear testing" (Kennedy), and that there was "no such thing as a
'usable nuclear weapon'" (Feinstein). Nevertheless the Senate tabled the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment. The fight was resumed on June 3 and 15, 2004. Kennedy made a powerful statement:

America should not launch a new nuclear arms race.... Even as we try to persuade North Korea to pull back from the brink—even as we try to persuade Iran to end its nuclear weapons program, even as we urge the nations of the former Soviet Union to secure their nuclear materials and arsenals from terrorists—the Bush administration now wants to escalate the nuclear threat.

The Senate defeated the Feinstein-Kennedy initiative by a vote of fifty-five to forty.

Did you know about this shit? I didn't, and I read the Times on the web every morning. Worse, I'm a pretty avid follower of the main Washington blogs, and though I may have just been snoozing, I don't remember hearing a peep about this. Google news brought up just two real hits, one of them a profile on Schlesinger.

As for the issue itself, it's a real no-brainer. Tactical nukes have been on the table since Eisenhower's day and they are just as problematic as ever. The costs, in terms of escalation, in terms of world opinion, and most importantly, in terms of anti-proliferation efforts, are astronomical; the benefits are scant and, if you stop to think about it for a minute, likely to be chimerical. Tactical nukes are often touted as cheap firepower, "more bang for the buck" in Ike's words. But given the Bush administration's love of expensive, low-result military research (read: missile defense), it's not hard to imagine nuclear bunker busters turning out to be an interminable boondoggle with a poor operational record.

More importantly, would we really be able to use these things? Read over their own justification again: WMDs hidden deep in caves. So we're just going to go tossing "mini"-nukes down rabbit holes, based on our proven, uncanny ability to locate WMDs? That ought to play well on the Arab street. What we need is better intelligence (and an administration that doesn't second guess our professionals), not bigger bombs.

I'm trying to be equanimous here, but the whole debate is just absurd: nuclear proliferation is the threat, the one contingency that Americans (and everybody else) really need to worry about. That's why Bush chose it as his first justification for invading Iraq. And right now, it's a battle we're losing. Anti-proliferation is a kind of prisoner's dilemma, a game where each party has an incentive to cheat. The only way to win is through cooperation, which rests on trust, and commitment among nations and peoples. The surest way to scuttle such efforts is to brazenly declare yourself exempt from the rules you ask others to govern themselves by. But then, that's Bush's strong suit, isn't it?

Still, how could Congress blithely pass somthing like this? (What's up, Senator Levin?) More importantly, how could there have been no public debate? Where was the press? I'll let Schlesinger do the honors:

How many readers of The New York Review of Books recall editorials condemning
the Senate's action or news stories about the vote? Yet reopening the nuclear door at a time when preventive war became part of US doctrine may have the gravest possible consequences for the human race.

Amen.