Reality Check: A Modest Defense of the Strategic Posture Commission

Upon its recent release, the Strategic Posture Commission final report has drawn some flak, particularly in the blogosphere. One blog lamented:

The Congressional Strategic Posture Commission report published today is definitely not the place that the President or the nation should look for new ideas on how to reduce the role of nuclear weapons and lead the world toward a world free of nuclear weapons.  Even for a compromise document written by a diverse group, it is a work of deeply disappointing failure of imagination.

While another said 

 I think the reason we see this kind of argument in the report is that the Commission simply couldn't come up with a good reason to justify the size (or existence, for that matter) of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Well, it should have said so - there is no good reason, the United States just built all those weapons and doesn't really know why it should keep them. Brining in Russia's tactical weapons as "threat du jour" is not really helping.

While the Strategic Posture Commission final report did not make the bold new claims about the role of nuclear weapons in United States security policy some hoped, that is not what is was tasked to do.  As per the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008, the goal of the Commission is to "examine and make recommendations with respect to the long-term strategic posture of the United States," a mission tasked to them well before Obamamania was in full effect.  The purpose of the Commission's final report is not to align their recommendations with Obama's new vision for a world without nuclear weapons but rather to try to provide a bipartisan consensus on what the Strategic Posture of the United States should look like moving into the future.  In essence, it is these type of reality checks that make visionary politics just that: a vision.  They can't be currently accomplished and understanding why that is the case is important.  The Commission did agree on some of the basic steps moving forward like replacing START and strengthening the nonproliferation regime.  The fact these recommendations were not as bold as some wanted does not invalidate the usefulness of the document.  Moving to a world without nuclear weapons will face so many vexing challenges that having some of the foremost experts from across the political spectrum say at least we can agree on these gradual steps may actually be immensely useful.  It can help provide the political support to get some of the basic steps accomplished.  It also helps lay the groundwork for understanding some of the immense challenges that will have to be tackled before even considering moving to a world without nuclear weapons.