On November 18, 2009, H.E. Urs Ziswiler, Swiss Ambassador to the United States, organized a working lunch in partnership with the EastWest Institute to discuss the recommendations of the EWI report “Reframing Nuclear De-alert: Decreasing the Operational Readiness of U.S. and Russian Nuclear Arsenals” with U.S. policymakers. The report, sponsored by the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, was discussed by U.S. policymakers from the Department of Defense, Department of State, Executive Office of the President, as well as academic, NGO, and think-tank professionals. The meeting, which took place against the backdrop of the ongoing third U.S. nuclear posture review, considered the prospects of reducing the operational readiness of the U.S. nuclear arsenal and making de-alert more than wishful thinking and part of the accepted nuclear posture.

There was consensus across party lines that the United States is — and should be — seeking to reduce the role and centrality of nuclear weapons in its strategic doctrine and that decreasing the operational readiness of nuclear weapons, especially giving policymakers a longer window for decision-making, is worth serious consideration. What was less clear was how best to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. strategic thinking and where de-alert would fit in. This did not appear to be a divisive partisan issue but more a practical question of how to reduce the operational readiness of a smaller but highly reliable nuclear arsenal.

It was noted that de-alert has been undertaken in the past when the U.S. reduced the operational readiness of its strategic bomber force without negative implications for strategic stability.  The U.S. nuclear posture and military policy has already begun to change and further changes are expected during the ongoing nuclear posture review, which might create an environment more conducive to reducing the operational readiness of U.S. nuclear forces. The U.S. is undertaking an internal review as to how to structure its nuclear forces and infrastructure to ensure it is safe, secure, and effective. The single integrated operation plan (SIOP) has been, essentially, taken apart. In a post Cold-War environment, this allows for more options and more flexibility for U.S. leaders.  The nuclear component of the U.S.’s global strike plan (GSP) has also been “toned down.” All of this points to a better environment to discuss how to add de-alert to the administration’s arms control and strategic agenda. It also should address some, but by no means all, of the Russian concerns that would block progress on this issue.

There are, however, significant obstacles to de-alerting that will have to be addressed, including:

• De-alert is fundamentally a political decision, and the political and military relationships between the United States and Russia still lack trust and confidence.
• The arms control agenda is already quite full. President Obama’s Prague speech outlined his priorities as the START follow-on, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT). Within this rather full agenda, it is not clear if de-alert will come up tangentially or as an issue on its own. The view was also expressed that de-alert is simply too complicated to be tackled now, when the focus is on re-starting what had become a moribund arms control process.
• One argument that gained currency after the 2007 Minot incident (when cruise missiles with nuclear warheads were mistakenly loaded onto a bomber at Minot Air Force Base and flown across the country) is that de-alert could actually make accidental launch or negative loss of control more likely rather than less—the rationale being that instability is more likely when you are paying less attention to the system that you have.
• Separation of the warheads from the delivery vehicles could lead to increased vulnerability as warheads could be more susceptible to a pre-emptive strike. Although the U.S. and Russia both share this concern, the United States’ superior conventional precision strike capability leads the Russians to be particularly concerned about this issue. Thus, the strategic conventional weapons gap between the United States and Russia would also come into play.

While obstacles look daunting and should not be downplayed, there was consensus that de-alert should be considered – the question is when and how.  Vulnerability, survivability, and verification must be addressed for de-alert to be more than symbolic. And indeed de-alert will not be able to be considered until these — and other — important concerns are tackled. But first and foremost, the political gap between Russia and United States needs to be narrowed. Further progress on other arms control issues and other confidence-building measures (such as finally getting the Joint Data Exchange Centre operational) could start to provide the political space for breakthroughs to be made in areas such as de-alert that currently cannot get much traction.

A renewed and relatively robust arms control agenda is emerging between the United States and Russia and all eyes are focused on the terms of the START follow-on agreement currently being negotiated. It is expected that the follow-on agreement will reduce the number of nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles that both sides possess. As both Presidents Obama and Medvedev have signed on to global zero, although perhaps with different levels of enthusiasm, there is an additional element that should be brought into the arms control dialogue: reducing the operational readiness of nuclear arsenals. As the United States and Russia seek to reduce their nuclear arsenals, both they and other nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states should also be seeking ways to increase the decision-time available to leaders who may be confronted with the decision of whether or not to intentionally launch a nuclear strike.