November 2002

Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC.

Strengthening Non-proliferation as an Alternative to War

William Hartung directs The Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institute, www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms

The most jarring passage in President Bush's latest speech on Iraq was his assertion that "if the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year." Public opinion on going to war with Iraq remains mixed, but the notion that Saddam Hussein could get his hands on a nuclear weapon has clearly been the most persuasive argument in the administration's rhetorical arsenal. On closer inspection, however, President Bush's focus on military force as the primary tool for stopping the proliferation of nuclear arms raises more questions than it answers.

If stemming the spread of nuclear weapons to Iraq, or Al Qaeda, or other potential adversaries is truly the nation's top security priority, launching a preemptive war is an extremely risky way of going about it. If the President is serious about keeping Iraq from getting that softball-sized cache of highly enriched uranium, his administration should attack the problem at its source by launching a comprehensive program to purchase, destroy, or neutralize the world's huge stockpiles of weapons-grade nuclear materials.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has taken a lackadaisical approach to non-proliferation funding. The entire $1 billion annual budget for securing or destroying the raw materials needed to build nuclear weapons is equivalent to the cost of roughly three days of fighting in the proposed war against Iraq, which the Congressional Budget Office has suggested could cost $9 billion per month.

Going to the source of the proliferation danger means dealing with Russia's vast nuclear stockpile, which includes 40,000 strategic and tactical weapons plus enough enriched uranium and plutonium to build tens of thousands of additional nuclear bombs. Shortly before George W. Bush's inauguration, a bipartisan task force chaired by former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker and former White House Counsel Lloyd Cutler reported its finding that "the most urgent national security threat to the United States 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 and nuclear weapons--three times current spending levels.

The Bush administration has been slow to heed this advice. The administration's original request for non-proliferation programs for 2002 was just $745 million. It was only through the action of a bipartisan coalition in Congress that this initial figure was boosted to more than $1 billion. This year's administration request matches last year's final figure, but it hardly represents urgent funding for the nation's top security threat.

Even at current funding levels, major US government non-proliferation programs have accomplished a tremendous amount, from financing the destruction of more than 4400 Russian strategic nuclear warheads to orchestrating the airlift of nearly 600 kilograms of poorly-guarded highly-enriched uranium from Kazakhstan in 1994. But much more can and should be done. The Bush administration's removal of two bombs' worth of highly-enriched uranium from a research lab in Yugoslavia in August is a model for what needs to happen on a much broader scale. But even that important first step required a $5 million contribution from the private Nuclear Threat Initiative.

Military intervention in the name of non-proliferation is likely to cause far more damage than it's worth. A safer and more effective policy should include the following three elements: 1) firm but fair UN inspections, devoid of extraneous demands; 2) a revised sanctions regime focused narrowly on militarily useful equipment, backed up with enhanced border controls and economic incentives for Iraq's neighbors to curb smuggling; and 3) a flexible, well-financed global program to eliminate weapons-grade materials in Russia and beyond. Before he leads the country into a war of high costs and uncertain results, President Bush should start playing hardball on nuclear non-proliferation instead of persisting in the patchwork, ad hoc approach that has prevailed during his first 20 months in office.

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