With a Russian "breakout" becoming less likely, and concern that rogue states or terrorists could acquire warheads or fissile material increasing, a large reserve of unaccountable U.S. warheads is a growing liability to national security. If a large proportion of the U.S. arsenal remains opaque, it will be extraordinarily difficult to convince Russia to open its stockpile to inspection, especially in the absence of a more formal arms reduction agreement. U.S. interests would then be threatened as thousands of Russian warheads are removed from service to storage facilities whose security may have been weakened over the last decade by Russia's poor economy. The result could be a failure to bring Russian unaccountable nuclear warheads and fissile material under control.

President Bush's initiative to reduce only operational strategic nuclear forces will move thousands of U.S. warheads into the unaccountable hedge categories, and it completely ignores the proportionally increasing number of nonstrategic nuclear warheads. This perpetuates a dangerous transformation of the U.S. stockpile. Before START I, about 5 percent of the total stockpile was in the inactive category, but the current trend is that deployed (accountable) strategic warheads are a shrinking fraction of the stockpile. Present plans for the START II stockpile could increase that ratio to a 1:1 ratio, with the reserve constituting as large a stockpile as the deployed stockpile. Over the next 10 years, this trend could transform the composition of the U.S. nuclear stockpile to a predominantly clandestine posture, in which less than a quarter of all warheads are accountable.

Rather than bringing greater transparency to the nuclear arms reduction process when it is most needed, President Bush's apparent continued endorsement of the hedge decreases transparency, undercutting incentives that Russia would have for disclosing the status of its thousands of non-operational tactical nuclear warheads.

The Bush administration's aversion to a new formal nuclear-reductions agreement and its focus on operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads is also inconsistent with STRATCOM advice. In the past few years, STRATCOM - a strong proponent of a hedge force and of maintaining a nuclear war-fighting advantage over Russia, as indicated above - has repeatedly and publicly emphasized the importance of greater transparency and irreversibility of nuclear arms reductions. In connection with his nomination as commander-in-chief of STRATCOM, Vice Admiral Richard W. Mies stated in a written response to the Senate Armed Services Committee in June 1998:

Further reductions in strategic delivery systems beyond START III should be complimented by more comprehensive considerations of increased stockpile transparency, greater accountability and transparency of non-strategic/tactical nuclear warheads, limitations on production infrastructures, third party nuclear weapon stockpiles, the impact on our allies, and the implications of deploying strategic defensive systems. [With fewer weapons, these issues] become more complex and sensitive. Whereas at existing START I/II levels our deterrent forces are relatively less sensitive to "cheating."

Even after President Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 4 in early 2001, which ordered a review of U.S. nuclear offensive and defensive postures, STRATCOM continued to stress the need for transparency. Admiral James Ellis, the current head of STRATCOM, told the Senate Armed Services Committee in September that, as reductions to low levels are implemented, "issues such as disparity in non-strategic nuclear forces, transparency, irreversibility, production capacity, aggregate warhead inventories, and verifiability become more complex and more sensitive."

Whether the upcoming Nuclear Posture Review reflects STRATCOM's appeal will be apparent when the results are announced before the end of the year. So far, however, Bush's cuts appear to favor protection of the hedge over greater transparency and irreversibility of nuclear arms reductions.

Conclusions

    The Crawford summit promised a new era in U.S.-Russian relations, but with respect to nuclear policy issues it fell far short of expectations. Rather than moving toward a true "new strategic framework" that takes arms control beyond the Cold War paradigm, President Bush seems to be regressing to an early 1990s mentality that requires the United States to prepare for possible Russian rearmament, even as the president proclaims America's new and growing friendship with Russia.

Indeed, even the size of the president's proposed reductions ring of Cold War conflict. In the early 1990s, STRATCOM analysis established a "preferred force structure" that protected a triad of modern and flexible nuclear forces in a "stable nucleus," while gradually reducing excess operational weapons. The analysis was the basis for START II, the 1994 Nuclear Posture Review, and the START III framework, which called for a 2,000-2,500 warhead level. This same thinking seems to be underlying Bush's policy. Bush says that the goal continues to be to maintain a credible deterrent, but a continued deployment of about 2,000 warheads indicates that STRATCOM will adhere to the same concepts of triad, counterforce targeting, and flexible response as it did a decade ago. "I can guarantee you," former STRATCOM commander-in-chief General Eugene Habiger said during an interview in 1998, that "our analysis and assessment will be based on an analysis of the threat, if you will, potential for threat, and not just on 'well, 1,500 or 2,000 looks about right.'"

Bush's cut of operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to 1,700-2,200 is not deep enough or different enough to indicate a shift in nuclear policy of the magnitude that he alluded to in his May 2001 speech at the National Defense University. His announcement provoked a tepid response from President Vladimir Putin, who issued only a vague promise that Russia would "try to respond in kind." The summit simply reaffirmed how deeply rooted in Cold War nuclear planning the United States continues to be.

Bush's pledge indicates that, despite its frequent criticism of arms control, the Bush administration has not moved beyond the most significant shortcoming of treaties: the fact that they have counted only operational strategic warheads while ignoring reserve warheads and non-strategic weapons. This means that thousands of non-operational nuclear warheads placed in reserve and thousands of tactical nuclear weapons continue to be unaccounted for by the arms reduction process. If Bush wants to move nuclear arms control out of the Cold War, he must end the distinction between operational and non-operational warheads and seek ceilings on total warheads.

The hedge is a dangerous signal of intent that connotes deceit in our relations with Russia. There seems to be no better way to undermine the very trust that President Bush has said should be the basis for a new U.S.-Russian strategic relationship than to keep thousands of nuclear warheads hidden in secret bunkers in case it turns out that Russia needs to be destroyed after all. If Bush wants to transform our strategic relations with Russia, he must make the entire stockpile accountable.

President Bush could have used the November summit with Putin to increase the transparency and irreversibility of the nuclear arms reduction process. Instead he seems to have taken a step back from the START III framework and complicated efforts to reduce the currency of nuclear weapons in the U.S.-Russian relationship. There now rests a great responsibility with the forthcoming Nuclear Posture Review to create clarity and transparency on the nuclear posture.

The B-1 Bomber: Not 'Conventional-Only'

    The B-1 bomber is one of the most dramatic examples of how weapons in the hedge can be quickly reactivated to increase the U.S. nuclear punch, demonstrating the ease of reversing arms reductions and the difficulty of preserving predictability and stability.

The aircraft is widely reported to have been converted from a nuclear-strike bomber to one delivering conventional weapons. STRATCOM officially removed the B-1 from nuclear-strike missions in support of the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) and Limited Nuclear Options on October 1, 1997. As a result, the Air Force's white paper on long-range bombers states, "B-1s are no longer tasked to perform nuclear missions." The aircraft is now, according to a 1998 fact sheet signed by the secretary of the Air Force's legislative liaison director, "a conventional-only platform."

Not so. Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the Air Force maintains the B-1 bomber in a Nuclear Rerole Plan intended to return the aircraft to nuclear-strike missions within only six months if necessary. Under the B-1 Nuclear Rerole Plan, which was approved in October 1998 - exactly one year after the B-1 was removed from SIOP - "spare" B61 and B83 nuclear bombs are maintained outside arms control treaties in STRATCOM's secret active reserve stockpile, which is part of the hedge.

Development of the plan began shortly before START II was signed in early 1993, but it was kept secret. When the Nuclear Posture Review was announced in September 1994, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense John Deutch assured the Senate Armed Services Committee that "we would have no nuclear capability maintained for the B-1 bomber." In truth, however, the NPR decided that "reorientation [of the B-1 to a conventional aircraft] will not preclude the return of the B-1 fleet to a strategic nuclear role." The plan was formally enshrined into the FY 1999-2002 Defense Planning Guidance by then-Secretary of Defense William Cohen in 1998.

Portraying the B-1 as conventional-only served several purposes for the Pentagon. First, it relieved the aircraft of its image as a nuclear relic of the Cold War. The expensive B-2 program had already been cut back to only 21 aircraft, and shifting the B-1 to conventional missions increased its utility in real-world operations. Soon, B-1s began flying around the globe and conducting conventional bombing training in Egypt and South Korea. Behind the scene, however, Air Combat Command (ACC) and STRATCOM were tasked by the Air Force to ensure that the conventional upgrades "would neither preclude future nuclear capabilities (if necessary) nor demand the high cost to maintain an immediate nuclear capability." So when the B-1 was officially relieved of its SIOP commitment in 1997, the aircraft maintenance procedures did not change, and the nuclear hardness and surety was maintained alongside the Conventional Mission Upgrade Program.

"Hiding" the B-1's nuclear capability was also important for treaty reasons. START I credited each B-1 with one bomb (a total of 91 bombs for the entire fleet), but the counting rules changed under START II so that each aircraft was credited with 16 bombs. This meant that the B-1 fleet would "cost" almost 1,500 bombs and compete with other more important weapons under the total treaty limit, such as the B-2s and B-52s, which serve as backup to strategic submarines and ICBMs. A one-time nuclear rerole permission was worked into the START II language, and the B-1 was excluded from the treaty. Six months later, ACC and STRATCOM reached formal agreement on how to retain a secret nuclear capability for the B-1.

Maintaining the B-1 in a rerole plan - as opposed to keeping it in nuclear service full-time - also saved money. Achieving full nuclear capability is an inherently expensive and cumbersome process that places a significant additional burden on crew and equipment otherwise needed for conventional missions. ACC's operational resources were so strained in the 1990s that the command occasionally was forced to ask STRATCOM to be relieved from participating in nuclear exercises. The B-1 Nuclear Rerole Plan removed the B-1s from nuclear exercises and relieved crew from the nuclear weapons certification inspections.

The B-1 Nuclear Rerole Plan is legal under START II, but it makes a mockery of the nuclear arms reduction process, undermining the trust and transparency necessary for advancing a new U.S.-Russian strategic framework.

Hans M. Kristensen is a senior program officer with the Nautilus Institute in Berkeley, California. He is a contributor to the SIPRI Yearbook and co-author of the "NRDC Nuclear Notebook" in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

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