Is Success Possible at the 2010 RevCon?

Earlier this week Carnegie hosted an event earlier this week as part of the roll-out for Deepti Choubey's new report Restoring the NPT: Essential Steps for 2010.  At the event, Carnegie’s George Perkovich moderated a discussion between Choubey and Egypt’s Ambassador to the United States, Sameh Shoukry that covered the report and the prospects for success at the 2010 RevCon.

While emphasizing the importance of next year's meeting, Choubey worried that the expectations might be too high.  President Obama's talk of disarmament and a world without nuclear weapons has raised the bar.  However, realistically the U.S. will have little tangible gains in disarmament by next May.

The U.S. and Russia will likely agree to modest reductions in a new START treaty that will hopefully be ratified, but there is almost no chance that the U.S. will have ratified the CTBT by that time.  During the discussion at the event, Choubey said START wouldn't be enough.  She explained:

[W]hen I asked diplomats…what would be the top three ways of nuclear weapons states demonstrating their commitment to disarmament, CTBT and FMCT were at the top, and actually, stockpile reductions were a lot lower on their list of priorities…being a little bit pessimistic about what will be done by the next Review Conference… I emphasize, greatly, the importance of the nuclear posture review. I think that’s going to be the big piece of evidence that the U.S. delegation to the Review Conference will be walking in with. And either it’s going to be something that they have to explain away or they’re going to be able to point to it as real evidence.

Choubey's report reaches a similar conclusion about the importance of the Nuclear Postue Review (NPR):

Due to the slow pace and political complications of the steps President Obama emphasized in Prague and the wide attention they will receive, the NPR will have to carry water for the Obama administration’s broader disarmament and nonproliferation agenda.

But that leaves the question:  will the NPR do enough for the U.S. delegation to be able to "point to it as real evidence"?  According to Jeffrey Lewis, the answer is no.  However, in reality, only time will tell.  One of the main concerns is that while reducing the role of nuclear weapons, the NPR might support refurbishment programs that could be perceived internationally as contrary to the goal of disarmament.  Coubey cites this concern in her report:

Even the NAM referred to the NPR when it reiterated in the final statement of its July 2009 summit that “that improvements in existing nuclear weapons and the development of new types of nuclear weapons as envisaged in the United States Nuclear Posture Review contravene the security assurances provided by the NWS [nuclear-weapon states] … and that these improvements as well as the development of new types of such weapons violate the commitments undertaken by the NWS at the time of the conclusion of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.”119

While it is unlikely that the administration, or the NPR, will include support for the RRW or any 'new' nuclear capabilities, it is likely that both will support a robust program to maintain the effectiveness of the arsenals.  Like it or not, this is the political reality.

At a recent CSIS conference, a well respected and connected member of the Washington defense community said that there will be no arms control without modernization, and there will be no modernization without arms control.  Whether you want to call it 'modernization,' 'stockpile management,' or the more politically palpable 'deterrence management' the U.S. will end up investing in its nuclear complex.  Even if it's not in the NPR (extremely unlikely), it will certainly be a part of the debate over a new START and the CTBT.

The question is how this investment will be perceived.  The administration has a tough task.  It must simultaneously convince domestic constituencies that the U.S. is doing enough to maintain its nuclear arsenal, while convincing Non-Nuclear Weapons States at the NPT RevCon that this doesn't contradict with U.S. commitments to disarmament.

However, it is possible that the Obama administration might have more flexibility in this regard.  Under the Bush administration, countries associated improved nuclear capabilities with preemption.  It's possible that goodwill generated by Obama's disarmament rhetoric will be enough to convince key NAM states that stockpile maintenance is an important step to get to lower numbers, not an attempt to keep nuclear weapons around indefinitely.  Whether or not that argument is accepted may determine the fate of the 2010 RevCon.