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A Nuclear Knife Aimed at America's Heart
Joel M. Skousen
March 25, 1999
In November 1997, President Clinton signed a top-secret Presidential Decision Directive (PDD-60) directing U.S. military commanders to abandon the time-honored nuclear deterrence of "launch on warning."
Ironically, this was done in the name of "increased deterrence." Every sensible American needs to understand why this reasoning is fraudulent at best and deadly at worst. First, some background.
The impetus to change U.S. strategic nuclear doctrine came on the heels of Clinton's demand to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in early 1997 that they prepare to unilaterally reduce America's nuclear warhead deployment to 2,500 in eager anticipation of the ratification of the START II disarmament treaty. This pact has yet to be ratified by the Russian Duma.
Gen. John Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, responded that he couldn't comply, since the U.S. military was still operating on a former Presidential Decision Directive of 1981 to prepare to "win a protracted nuclear war." A winning strategy couldn't be implemented without the full contingent of current nuclear strategic warheads.
According to Craig Cerniello of Arms Control Today (November/December 1997 issue), "the administration viewed the 1981 guidelines as an anachronism of the Cold War. The notion that the United States still had to be prepared to fight and win a protracted nuclear war today seemed out of touch with reality, given the fact that it has been six years since the collapse of the Soviet Union."
Certainly, the apparent collapse of the Soviet Union is the linchpin in every argument pointing toward the relaxation of Western vigilance and accelerated disarmament. Indeed, it is the driving argument that is trumpeted constantly before Congress, U.S. military leaders, and the American people.
Almost everyone is buying it -- even most conservatives who should know better. However, the most savvy Soviet-watchers can point to a host of evidence indicating that the so-called "collapse" was engineered to disarm the West and garner billions in direct aid to assist Russia while inducing the West to take over the economic burden of the former satellite states.
But the most ominous evidence is found in defectors from Russia who tell the same story: Russia is cheating on all aspects of disarmament, and is siphoning off billions in Western aid money to modernize and deploy top-of-the-line new weapons systems aimed at taking down the U.S. military in one huge, decapitating nuclear strike.
Contrast this with the Clinton administration's response. Incredibly, while still paying lip service to nuclear deterrence, Assistant Secretary of Defense Edward L. Warner III went before the Congress on March 31, 1998, and bragged about the litany of unilateral disarmament this administration has forced upon the U.S. military:
Warner noted the "success" the Clinton administration has had in recent years, which has:
-- Eliminated our entire inventory of ground-launched non-strategic nuclear weapons (nuclear artillery and Lance surface-to-surface missiles).
-- Removed all nonstrategic nuclear weapons on a day-to-day basis from surface ships, attack submarines, and land-based naval aircraft bases.
-- Removed our strategic bombers from alert.
-- Stood down the Minuteman II ICBMs scheduled for deactivation under Start I.
-- Terminated the mobile Peacekeeper and mobile small ICBM programs.
-- Terminated the SCRAM-II nuclear short-range attack missile.
In January 1992, the second Presidential Nuclear Initiative took further steps which included:
-- Limiting B-2 production to 20 bombers.
-- Canceling the entire small ICBM program.
-- Ceasing production of W-88 Trident SLBM (submarine-launched missile) warheads.
-- Halting purchases of advanced cruise missiles.
-- Stopping new production of Peacekeeper missiles (our biggest MIRV-warhead ICBM).
"As a result of these significant changes, the U.S. nuclear stockpile has decreased by more than 50 percent," Warner enthused.
All of this has been done without any meaningful disarmament by the Russians.
The Clinton administration would counter this charge by citing the "successful" dismantling of 3,300 strategic nuclear warheads by Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus, and the destruction of their 252 ICBMs and related silos -- all paid for with U.S. taxpayer funds to the tune of $300 million per year. But the real story is otherwise.
Yes, Americans paid for the dismantling of these systems -- the oldest and most out-of-date in the Soviet inventory. They were scheduled for replacement anyway, so the U.S. taxpayer ended up saving the Russians over a billion dollars, allowing them to use this and other Western aid to develop and build new systems, coming on line right now. But that isn't all.
What the administration doesn't say is that they allowed the Russians to reclaim all the nuclear warheads, and paid them to recycle the usable material into new, updated warheads. We didn't diminish the threat at all. We only helped them to transform it into something more dangerous.
Thus, the Russians still maintain a more than 3-to-1 advantage over the United States in both throw-weight and nuclear delivery vehicles. That disparity is widening dramatically with the Clinton administration's unilateral disarmament while at the same time encouraging the Russians to proceed not only with the deployment of 500 new Topol-M missiles (which are mobile-launched and therefore difficult to target), but to put three MIRVed warheads on each missile instead of the treaty limit of one warhead -- for a total deployment of 1,500 warheads.
Not counting the presumed minimum 4,000 to 6,000 warheads in the current Russian inventory, these 1,500 new warheads would overwhelm a measly 200-interceptor ABM system in North Dakota -- which the Clinton administration is insisting should NOT be deployed before 2005. I wonder why?
With our 50 Peacekeeper ICBMs scheduled to be decommissioned in 2003, that gives the Russians or Chinese a wide-open window for attack, should they choose to exercise their first-strike, nuclear-decapitation option.
So much for the "new realism" of the Clinton disarmament team and their assertion that Russia poses no threat. Judging strictly by public data from establishment sources (which is always understated due to Moscow's heavy shroud of secrecy) the Russian threat is much greater than it ever was, both in quantity and quality of strategic nuclear forces. This is thanks, in part, to ongoing technology transfers by IBM and other defense contractors with the knowing participation and encouragement of this administration.
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