Last week the NYT ran an editorial by Peter Feaver of Duke University that explains really well what the Obama’s Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) actually says. I completely agree with Feaver that “the changes in terms of doctrine aren’t nearly as epochal as the White House would have us believe or its critics would have us fear.”
Yes, the NPR states that the U.S. will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon states in good standing with the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). However, as Feaver notes, the NPR does not state how the U.S. will determine whether a state is in compliance with the NPT. Feaver writes:
Crucially, since the new policy does not delineate what it means for states to be “in compliance” with the nonproliferation treaty, the United States has a major loophole. Presumably, the Obama administration will not take a potential target’s word on whether it is meeting the obligations — after all, Iran claims to be in compliance with the treaty, while the Nuclear Posture Review explicitly notes that it is not.
Some worry that for the purposes of this doctrine the Obama administration would be limited by the provisions of the nonproliferation treaty designating the United Nations Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency as the arbiters of who is in compliance. If so, that would seem to tie Washington’s hands. But the new doctrine, in fact, is coy on this point. I suspect the White House intends to do what every previous administration has done: reserve the right to determine for itself what constitutes compliance when making security decisions.
I believe Feaver is correct. The U.S. will not outsource the task of determining NPT compliance. In fact, were I a non-nuclear weapon state in compliance with the NPT, I would fear that the U.S. would invent an NPT-violation pretext to justify using its nuclear arsenal against me.
However, such a pretext may not be necessary because, as Feaver also notes, the NPR states that the U.S. will use nuclear weapons against non-state actors. So if I’m a non-nuclear weapon state with non-state terrorist actors residing in my territory, the United States reserves the right to hit me with a nuclear bomb. Also, the NPR includes what I like a call a credit card agreement clause: “the United States reserves the right to make any adjustment in the assurance that may be warranted by the evolution and proliferation of the biological weapons threat.”
So what does the NPR signal and to whom? If I’m a non-nuclear weapon state, I have every reason to fear that the U.S. will use nukes against me, whether or not I’m in compliance with the NPT. Thus, if I’m a non-nuclear weapon state not in compliance with the NPT, the NPR does not give me an incentive to begin complying with the NPT. In fact, if I have nuclear weapons, even though the U.S. says it reserves the right to use nukes against me, it probably won’t because my nuclear weapons will serve as a valuable deterrent. Therefore, if I’m trying to decide which way to go – “NPT compliant non-nuclear” or “nuclear” – I’ll probably be safer if I go nuclear. So I don’t think this NPR advances Obama’s goal of someday reaching a world with no nuclear weapons.
