On Wednesday in Berlin, the president announced a new push for nuclear reduction, proposing to reduce US nuclear stocks by one third, to around 1000, and to initiate talks with Russia. Daryl Kimball wants more:
Former military officials, policymakers, and experts agree that a deployed strategic arsenal of 1,000 nuclear weapons is more than sufficient to guarantee the security of the United States and its allies against nuclear attack. In April 2012, Gen. James Cartwright, commander of U.S. nuclear forces under President George W. Bush, suggested moving toward a nuclear force of 450 strategic weapons by 2022.
Even that many warheads can pose a grave and unnecessary threat. An analysis conducted in 2002 by Physicians for Social Responsibility showed that a Russian attack with only 300 thermonuclear warheads hitting U.S. urban areas would kill 77 million Americans in the first half hour from blast effects and firestorms, to say nothing of the subsequent radioactive fallout. A U.S. attack of similar size would have the same devastating impact on Russia.
Joseph Stalin may have been willing to sacrifice tens of millions of innocent Russians in a nuclear exchange during the Cold War, but even President Putin would not.
Matthew Kroenig, on the other hand, argues for nuclear “overkill”:
Even if Russia agrees to match the president’s proposed cuts, the nuclear reductions would attenuate our advantages vis-à-vis Russia and eat into our margin of superiority against other nuclear-armed states, such as China, possibly increasing the likelihood that the United States will be challenged militarily and reducing the probability that we achieve our goals in future crises.
If there is at least some reason to believe that reductions could harm America’s strategic deterrent, then certainly those in favor of reductions provide concrete evidence that the benefits of reductions outweigh these costs, right? Alas, they do not.
The Dish 