Toward a new foreign policy.

Key Recommendations

* Instead of focusing primarily on military and technical means to deal with weapons of mass destruction, the Bush administration should increase funding for nonproliferation programs.

* Not only should Washington redouble its diplomatic efforts to bargain away nascent nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea, it should do so in Pakistan, India, and Israel, too.

* The ultimate goal of U.S. nuclear strategy should be the abolition of nuclear weapons, and the United States must lead by example.

The missile defense program promises little in terms of increasing real security due to technical problems in the program and because the primary security threats facing the United States stem from sources other than ballistic missiles. Support for a vigorous and verifiable arms control and disarmament regime would contribute much more to improving the security of U.S. citizens.

It is true that President Bush has pledged to reduce deployed U.S. nuclear weapons. President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, which would reduce each nation's operationally deployed nuclear weapons to between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads. However, the cuts do not have to take effect until the expiration date of the treaty: December 31, 2012. Moreover, there are minimal accounting and verification measures within the treaty. Besides granting 10 years to make the reductions, the treaty allows both sides to keep thousands of their withdrawn warheads in reserve rather than destroying them, and it gives either party the right to withdraw from the agreement on just 90 days notice. Additionally, the arms accord does nothing to secure or destroy Russia's warheads or stocks of highly enriched uranium and plutonium.

Shortly before Bush's inauguration, a bipartisan task force chaired by former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker and former White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler reported that "the most urgent national security threat to the U.S. today is the danger that weapons of mass destruction or weapons-usable material in Russia could be stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nation-states and used against American troops abroad or citizens at home." The task force recommended the development of a $3-billion-per-year, long-term plan to safeguard, destroy, or neutralize Russian nuclear materials. Total current funding for all nonproliferation programs--international and national--is less than $2 billion.

Despite White House overtures "to expand our efforts to keep weapons from the Cold War and other dangerous materials out of the wrong hands" through the Nunn-Lugar program, Bush's 2005 nonproliferation budget request is actually $41.8 million less than last year's spending. The Natural Resources Defense Council's report Weaponeers of Waste finds that under President Bush, the United States is spending twelve times more on nuclear weapons research and production than on nonproliferation efforts that would retrieve, secure, and dispose of nuclear weapons materials worldwide.

In preparation for the 2005 review conference of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), United Nations members met this past spring to discuss the progress made and the challenges ahead in their commitment "to pursue negotiations in good faith" toward a nuclear weapons-free world. Unfortunately, a nuclear weapons-free world doesn't appear to be on the U.S. agenda.

In his statement presented to the UN, John Bolton, U.S. undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security, claimed, "the central bargain of the NPT is that if non-nuclear weapons states renounce the pursuit of nuclear weapons, they may gain assistance in developing civilian nuclear power." Bolton was quick to point out that Iran, Iraq, and Libya have all been in violation of their treaty obligations and that North Korea has pulled out of the treaty altogether, calling it "a crisis of NPT noncompliance." However, the greater "bargain" within the treaty is the understanding that the non-nuclear weapons states give up their quest for nuclear weapons on the condition that nuclear weapons states work toward nuclear disarmament.

Although Bolton condemns particular treaty members for not complying with the nonproliferation objectives, he gives no mention of the failings of the Bush administration to follow through with its treaty obligations. Nor does he point to the nuclear nations that are entirely outside of the treaty: Israel, India, and Pakistan. Instead of demanding inspections, threatening sanctions, or warning of an all-out attack, Washington rewards those nations with arms sales and military assistance, perpetuating the nuclear double standard.

Iraq has no nuclear weapons, as everyone now admits. Libya has been trying to shed its rogue nation image and join the international community. It voluntarily dismantled its nuclear weapons program and has allowed UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) weapons inspectors inside the country. Iran has permitted more inspections of its facilities and is preparing to give the IAEA a full declaration of its nuclear program. And six-party talks with North Korea are ongoing. Clearly, more needs to happen with each of these nations to ensure that they are serious about relinquishing their nuclear pursuits, but progress is being made one step at a time.

Despite this progress and the fact that the Iraq War has revealed the accuracy of the IAEA's inspections regime, the Bush administration remains committed to pursuing missile defense at the expense of multilateral arms control and disarmament. President Bush recently said that those opposing missile defense "don't understand the threats of the 21st century." "They're living in the past. We're living in the future," he told a crowd of Boeing employees in Pennsylvania. However, deploying a missile defense system dreamt up more than two decades ago simply shows that Washington has not learned from the past. This is the challenge facing architects of a security policy adequate to the needs of the 21st century. Increasing funding for nonproliferation programs, getting U.S. nuclear weapons reductions back on track, and focusing on diplomatic disarmament efforts will provide real, lasting security.

Michelle Ciarrocca <[e-mail]> is a research associate at the World Policy Institute and writes regularly for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org).