Language Lessons In Nuclear Diplomacy

As the United Nations Security Council, led by President Barack Obama, addresses the topic of nuclear nonproliferation, it's worth paying careful attention to the language of nuclear diplomacy.

The line between a country that is capable of building a nuclear weapon at a moment's notice and a country that possesses them is very blurry. If Obama says that the U.S. pledges to never use nuclear weapons on a country that does not possess them, it has serious implications for the protective umbrella under which Japan and South Korea huddle. In practical terms, the least destructive response to a conventional North Korean attack against South Korea could be a tactical nuclear weapon. What will the doctrine say to terrorists who possess nuclear weapons but aren't harbored by a state? What about a state that combines its technology with a terrorist entity to produce a WMD? What if North Korea decides to give its nuclear weapons to another state?

Unless Obama is willing to unilaterally declare that the U.S. no longer honors its deterrent pledges, he will probably employ a diplomatic metpaphor. The only reason the U.S. has nuclear weapons, he might say, is to deter the use of other nuclear weapons. The arms control community will hear a strong committment to move towards a no first use pledge, while American allies like Japan and South Korea, and more privately, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, won't feel anxious.

Strategic ambiguity boils down to a question of infastructure. The American nuclear posture is a set of scientific, technical and engineering capabilities. Reducing the number of nuclear weapons -- largely a symbolic gesture at the moment, but a definite vector -- cannot mean -- at least, this is the President's understanding -- that America's nuclear capability ought to be degraded. And here is where the real political battles will be fought. This administration wants to make sure that the nukes we have work. The previous administration tried to build a new generation of warheads; Obama wants to find ways to refubirsh the current stock of weapons and update their surety -- the mechanisms used to ensure their safety.

The worry is that the nuclear weapons industry -- the laboratories, the Defense Department, hawks, defense contractors -- will find a way to make the current weapons better under the guise of solving scientific and technical challenges. Politically, the arms control community wants to be convinced that an investment in the stockpile is not RRW-2. (Then again, there is an epistomological debate about modern weapons: what's the better solution: better warheads on fewer missiles, or fewer warheads on more missiles?")