Among nuclear nonproliferation topics, one of the least seriously considered areas of debate is nuclear disarmament. By disarmament I am referring to the elimination of all of the arsenals of the nuclear weapon states. I do not mean to say that disarmament is not frequently discussed, but rather that the bulk of the discussion seems to fall into one of two categories. First, there are political realists who summarily dismiss  the topic as pie-in-the sky, and who suggest it is a subject unworthy of serious deliberation. Second, there are idealists who think that if the will existed, it would be just a matter of dismantling all the bombs with a verification regime in place. What does not seem to be widely debated, at least outside the halls of International Relations and Strategic Studies departments in academia, are the many intriguing challenges that must be addressed in building a feasible road-map to disarmament.

This may be beginning to change. Almost a year ago a quartet of bipartisan elder statesmen consisting of George Schultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn produced a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed that called for a nuclear weapons free world, and discussed some of the hurdles that must be leapt to get there. The suggestion, coming from these individuals- none of whom is considered a dove, struck a chord with many who think that the time might be ripe for serious advancement of a disarmament agenda.   

Certainly a necessary condition for disarmament, which was proposed by Schultz et.al., is the reduction of alert status to diminish the relevance of nuclear weapons as a component of national security. This is often referred to controversially as eliminating hair-trigger alert status. Many experts will say that by changing targeting protocols, hair-trigger status has already been eliminated, but the fact remains that the period of decision remains short. To circumvent this debate I will refer to it as increasing decision times. 

It is my understanding that China only achieved solid fuel rocket technology within the past few years. Previously, China had to move its missiles into place, fuel them with liquid fuel over a couple days, before it could launch them. If this were the case for every country, fears of an attempted sneak attack would be reduced and countries might be reassured that they could respond to threats conventionally in a timely manner. (At least those nations with the national technical means to monitor such activities.) The difficulty is that technology, like a river, flows one way, and, therefore, we can only expect more countries to obtain solid fuel rocket technology, and not those that have it to revert. However, thought might be given to solutions that could impose delays reliably and verifiably.

A lesson drawn from Cold War nuclear security might provide a jumping off piece of food for thought. I have been told that missile silos had a device on the entryways accessible to humans called an ”A-lock.” This was in addition to conventional locks and security mechanisms and it essentially consisted of something like a six foot threaded rod that, even using mechanical assistance took a long period (maybe 30 minutes to an hour) to remove. The job of the A-lock, unlike that of conventional security systems, was not to keep people out, but to slow them down so that those monitoring the silos could always get security forces to respond before access was possible. Of course, this was only employed on the hatch, the silo doors were capable of springing open in an instant. However, perhaps there is some means of delay that would not render the devices unusable, but rather slow their use.

Another factor involves the strategic considerations of maintaining stability under diminishing arsenals. The Cold War strategic calculus was based on the idea of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), which essentially required large enough arsenals to ensure that one would have enough missiles to retaliate against an attacking opponent in a manner that would be completely devastating, and, therefore, deter any thoughts of first strike. As arsenals get below a certain level, the incentives may shift from those governed by the seemingly stable strategy of deterrence to that of “use them or lose them.” In other words, if each side thinks that they can overwhelm the opponent’s retaliatory capability, and that others can overwhelm theirs, these actors begin to grow nervous. This, combined with short response times to launch, could have catastrophic effects. Any road-map to zero will have to address this question. Of course, the previous issue (eliminating short response times) is one component of a solution.

Yet another factor that must be considered is the economics of defense. While a nuclear weapons arsenal is not cheap, one need read no further than Atomic Audit [edited by Stephen Schwartz] to be persuaded of this, once many of the high capital costs are depreciated off the books, nuclear deterrence may be seen as a relatively low cost source of security. Of course, because the threat of nuclear retaliation is not a believable response to all threats, it is useful only for a narrow subset of security threats. It certainly has been of no help in keeping us from spending billions against insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, when one considers a state such as Russia that could have serious difficulties securing its territory against potential threats such as the Chinese in the Russian Far East, and which may have limited resources to keep up the massive conventional forces necessary, it is easy to see how hard a sell disarmament may be.

A final issue for consideration may be the toughest nut to crack. That is how does one develop trust under an incentive to deceive. That is, each nuclear power has an incentive to let the others eliminate their arsenals while they keep at least a small part of theirs intact (the risk of a small arsenal does not apply if there is only one nuclear power.) The kind of verification regime required to provide all parties of assurance of mutual compliance would presumably have to be quite invasive, and states are not keen on invasive inspection regimes – particularly around their national security installations. The first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) made great strides in increasing transparency and verification, but it is unclear that even a regime of that nature would be sufficient to provide confidence to the various nuclear powers that they were not being duped. Consider Israel, which most everybody is confident has a nuclear arsenal but which has neither confirmed nor denied the existance thereof. How can parties be confident that they are following a sound strategy? If any nuclear weapon state thinks that a single competitor state has a single nuclear weapon, they will not give theirs up; and this is the challenge confronting disarmament.