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FUTURE SURVEY 29:12 December 2007 "counterforce" capabilities. "Even as it reduced the number of weapons in its nuclear arsenal, the US made its remaining weapons more lethal and accurate." It also pursued many nonnuclear weapons such as precision "bunker buster" conventional bombs and high-speed long-range cruise missiles. The growing US counterforce reflects concem about China's emergence as what Pentagon planners call a "peer competitor." China's arsenal is now obsolete, designed for a different era when China was a poor nation with a limited role on the world stage. The most plausible flash point for a US-China conflict is Taiwan. American nuclear primacy may prevent such a war, or might help contain fighting at the conventional level. But, as China's role in the world changes, and as its leaders appreciate US counterforce capabilities, Beijing will face increasing pressure to accelerate and expand its missile programs. In turn, US officials would likely view deployment of new mobile missiles as a sign of growing bellicosity. The basic conundrum for the US is that its current drive toward nuclear primacy is both a solution and the problem itself. It is supposed to give the US a trump card in future disputes, but may also trigger an arms race and raise new risks. (US nuclear supremacy: pros and cons) SECURITY/NUCLEAR WEAPONS 29:12/460 (AB) The Old and New Shapes of Nuclear Danger (Cover Feature), Jonathan Schell (The Nation Institute), The Nation, 24 Dec 2007,11-18. Author of The Fate of the Earth and, most recently. The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger (Holt/ Metropolitan, Nov 2007/224p/$24) points out that a new era of the nuclear age opened with the end of the Cold War, bringing a new set of nuclear dangers. During the Cold War, the most salient lesson was that the bomb is equally destructive to all; "in the post-Cold War era, the inescapable lesson is that the bomb's technology is equally available to all competent producers, very likely including, one day not far off, terrorist groups." The key lesson is that nuclear weapons cannot be the source of advantage for any one nation or group of nations; they are a common danger, and can be faced only by all together. The arguments for maintaining large nuclear arsenals during the Cold War were clear and strong. Many disagreed with them, but everyone at least knew what they were. Neither side dared to be without nuclear arms as long as the other possessed them. Today the arguments for nuclear arsenals are incomparably weaker. Why, in a Soviet Union-free world, is the US willing to live in a world in which it and Russia possess thousands of nuclear weapons poised on hair-trigger alert? Almost two decades after the end of the Soviet Union, why should the US and Russia maintain >20,000 warheads between them, and nuclear materials for producing thousands more? A policy vacuum has opened up, and the gate is open for something new. There are some hopeful signs among Democratic presidential candidates (Edwards, Kucinich, Obama, Richardson) who advocate nuclear abolition. There is no movement yet on the scale of the nuclear freeze, but there are stirrings of fresh efforts to address the new situation: Peace Action (the legatee of the freeze) has > 100,000 members in some 30 states; Student Peace Action is active on >100 campuses; a prestigious group meeting at the Hoover Institution called for A World Free of Nuclear Weapons [see Shultz/

The Introduction states that, although the likelihood of a missile exchange between the US and Russia has lessened considerably, it has not vanished. But worry that other nuclear confrontations might occur has risen recently. China is retargeting more of its missiles at the US. India is broadening its ability to launch nuclear weapons from land, air, and sea, and Pakistan is responding in kind. North Korea indicated in September that it would disable its atomic programs, but international negotiators are not yet convinced. Who can harm whom? How badly? And what should the US do? The Nuclear Threat by Mark Fischetti (pp76-79) presents charts on current nuclear arsenals (15,000 in Russia, 9,900 in the US, 350 in France, 200 in China, 200 in UK, 80 in Israel, 60 in Pakistan, 50 in India, <10 in North Korea), the global reach of ballistic missiles and submarines with nuclear warheads, and the impact of a one-megaton hydrogen bomb detonated above NYC (millions would die quickly in a large blast; millions more would be maimed or burned; other cities worldwide would fare just as badly from a single warhead). A Need for New Warheads? by David Biello reports that the US has embarked on a 25-year program to replace thousands of aging W76 nuclear warheads, which officials say could be degrading. Proponents say that the substitutethe Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW)is essential to maintaining the US stockpile as a credible deterrent. Critics argue that no one knows how much the RRW will cost, little thought has been given as to why the US needs new warheads, and that construction of the RRW might send an inflammatory signal to the world. The true rationale for the RRW program may be to maintain the capacity to build new nuclear weapons well into the future. [ALSO SEE Nuclear Insecurity by Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky (Foreign Affairs, Sept-Oct 2007, 109-118), arguing that "since the demise of the Soviet Union, Washington's strategic thinking about nuclear weapons has evolved in dangerous and unwise directions...addressing threats that no longer exist or never required a nuclear response."] (new nuclear warheads needed?) SECURITY/NUCLEAR WEAPONS 29:12/459 (B) Superiority Complex: Why America's Growing Nuclear Supremacy May Make War with China More Likely, Keir A. Lieber (Asst Prof of Pol Sci, U of Notre Dame) and Daryl G. Press (Assoc Prof of Govt, Dartmouth College), The Atlantic Monthly, July-Aug 2007, 86-92. "The US-China rivalry is poised to become the world's most dangerous strategic relationship." Optimists might contend that the pacifying effects of economic integration will forestall outright hostility and conflict. Others might argue that strategic competition augurs peace and stability between the superpowers, because each country's nuclear arsenal is a security blanketthe Mutually Assured Destruction of the Cold War. But "the US is pursuing capabilities that are rendering MAD obsolete, and the resulting nuclear imbalance of power could dramatically exacerbate America's rivalry with China." In the 1990s, nuclear weapons appeared to be relics: Russia allowed its arsenal to sharply decline and China showed little interest in modernizing its weapons (the small strategic force that China deployed in the 1970s and early 1980s is essentially the same one it has today). Meanwhile, the US steadily improved its