Germany and NATO’s Nuclear Dilemma

'The next war ... may well bury Western civilization forever.' – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

From the lying President's speech on 5 April 2009:

"The existence of thousands of nuclear weapons is the most dangerous legacy of the Cold War... I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.

To reduce our warheads and stockpiles, we will negotiate a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with the Russians this year. To achieve a global ban on nuclear testing, my administration will immediately and aggressively pursue U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Together we will strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as a basis for cooperation."

By Hans M. Kristensen, FAS

The new German government has announced that it wants to enter talks with its NATO allies about the withdrawal of the remaining U.S. nuclear weapons from Germany.

The announcement coincides with the Obama administration’s ongoing Nuclear Posture Review, which is spending an unprecedented amount of time pondering the “international aspects” of to what extent nuclear weapons help assure allies of their security.

Germany and many other NATO countries apparently don’t want to be protected by U.S. forward-deployed tactical nuclear weapons, which they see as a relic of the Cold War that locks NATO in the past and prevents it’s transition to the future.

Current Deployment

The U.S. Air Force currently deploys approximately 200 B61 nuclear bombs at six bases in five NATO countries (see Table 1). The weapons are the last remnant of a vast force of more than 7,000 tactical nuclear weapons that used to clutter bases in Europe during the Cold War as a defense against the Soviet threat and the Warsaw Pact’s large conventional forces.

Click to enlarge

The bombs are scattered among 87 individual aircraft shelters where they are stored in underground vaults. Although well protected, this widespread deployment contrasts normal U.S. nuclear weapons security procedures that favor consolidation at as few locations as possible.

An Air Force investigation concluded in 2008 that “most” sites in Europe did not meet U.S. security requirements. NATO officials publicly dismissed the conclusion, and a visit by a team from the U.S. government apparently found issues but nothing alarming.

Consolidation Versus Withdrawal

Rumors have circulated for several years about plans to consolidate the remaining weapons from the current six bases to one or two bases. The plans would either terminate the Cold War arrangement of non-nuclear NATO countries being assigned strike missions with U.S. nuclear weapons, or move the weapons to U.S. bases with the promise that they could be returned if necessary.

Consolidation has occurred frequently since the end of the Cold War: withdrawal from Turkish national bases Akinci and Balikesir in 1995; withdrawal from German national bases Memmingen and Norvenich in 1996; withdrawal from Greek national base Araxos in 2001; withdrawal from Ramstein in Germany in 2005 ; withdrawal from Lakenheath in England in 2006. Another round of consolidation would just be another slow step toward the inevitable: withdrawal from Europe.

Consolidation of the remaining nuclear bombs to the two U.S. southern bases at Aviano in Italy and Incirlik in Turkey would be problematic for two reasons. First, Turkey does not allow the U.S. Air Force to deploy the fighter-bombers to Incirlik that are needed to deliver the bombs if necessary, and has several times restricted U.S. deployments through Turkey into Iraq. Given that history, and apparent doubts about Turkey’s future direction, is nuclear deployment in Turkey a credible posture? Second, absent a fighter wing deployment to Incirlik, Aviano carries the overwhelming burden of conventional air operations on the southern flank of NATO, operations that are already burdened by the nuclear addendum and would further be so by a decision to consolidate the nuclear mission at the base.

An End to NATO Nuclear Strike Mission

The German policy to seek withdrawal of nuclear weapons from Büchel Air Base essentially means – if implemented – the unraveling of the NATO nuclear strike mission, whereby non-nuclear NATO countries equip and train their air forces to deliver U.S. nuclear weapons. Germany shares this mission with Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands, while Greece and Turkey opted out in 2001.

German personnel attach a U.S. B61 nuclear bomb shape to a German Tornado fighter-bomber under supervision of U.S. personnel. As a signatory to the NPT Germany has pledged not to receive nuclear weapons, yet, as this picture illustrates, is preparing its military to do so anyway. Image: German Ministry of Defense/Der Spiegel

The mission is highly controversial because these countries as signatories to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have all pledged not to receive nuclear weapons: “undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices or of control over such weapons or explosive devices directly, or indirectly.” Yet that’s precisely what the NATO strike mission entails: peacetime preparations for direct transfer of nuclear weapons and control over such weapons in times of war.

The mission is clearly inconsistent with if not the letter then certainly the spirit of the NPT. The arrangement was tolerated during the Cold War but is incompatible with nonproliferation policy is the 21st century.

Real-World Security Commitments

Germany is one of the “30-plus” allies and friends that some have argued recently need to be protected by nuclear weapons to prevent them from developing their own nuclear weapons. It has even been suggested that extended deterrence necessitates equipping the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter with nuclear capability.

Yet high-level officials in both the White House and the Pentagon have already concluded that the United States no longer needs to deploy nuclear bombs in Europe to meet its security obligations to NATO. Those security obligations today have very little to do with nuclear weapons and extended deterrence is predominantly served by non-nuclear means. The limited role nuclear weapons still serve can adequately be fulfilled by long-range weapon systems just as they have been in the Pacific for 17 years. Whether the ongoing Nuclear Posture Review will reflect those views will be seen in February 2010 when the review is completed.

The U.S. nuclear bombs were deployed
in Europe to defend NATO against a
conventional attack from the Warsaw Pact,
a threat that has long-since disappeared.

Regardless, Germany apparently does not want to be protected by U.S. nuclear weapons deployed in Europe. Neither does Belgium, where the parliament unanimously has requested nuclear bombs be withdrawn. Dutch officials privately say that they see no need for the deployment either. In fact, in all of the countries where nuclear weapons are deployed, an overwhelming majority of the public favors withdrawal. Turkey – one of the countries said by some to oppose withdrawal – has the highest public support for withdrawal of any of the countries that currently store nuclear weapons. In the long run this is a serious challenges for NATO; that its nuclear posture is so clearly out of sync with public opinion.

The biggest challenge seems to be to convince Poland and Turkey that withdrawal will not undermine the U.S. security commitment. Poland is worried about Russia; Turkey about Iran. But tactical nuclear weapons were the Cold War way of addressing such concerns. What’s needed now is focused diplomacy, stewardship, and reaffirmation of non-nuclear arrangements to convince these countries that the nuclear bombs that were deployed in Europe to defend NATO against a conventional attack from the Warsaw Pact can now finally be withdrawn.

The previous two German governments also favored withdrawal but did little to push the issue. Whether the new government will be any different will be put to the test during NATO’s ongoing revision of its Strategic Concept scheduled for completion in 2010.

*****

During an interview with Ekho Moskvy Radio last week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton was asked if “the American [nuclear] doctrine incorporate[s] preemptive nuclear strikes against an aggressor?”

The Secretary’s answer was: “No, no.”

Problem is politicians are the greatest liars:



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Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Nukes, and Western Logic

Citizens of Lebanon, beware. Arieh Eldad has it out for you. After the scandal-ridden government of Ehud Olmert falls, probably within the next few weeks, a new government, likely led by Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, will attack Lebanon. “We have no choice. We will have to do it,” Eldad tells the neocohn website, NewsMax. “Dr. Eldad explained that Israel was facing a new strategic threat, caused in part by its own failure to deal a crushing blow to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the impression of weakness last summer’s failed war created in the minds of Israel’s enemies.”

In fact, short of killing hundreds of thousands of Lebanese, there is no way for Israel to “deal a crushing blow to Hezbollah,” as more than half of the population supports the Islamic organization, created in response to Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Since Israel will certainly face defeat on the ground in Lebanon, as it did last summer, the only option will be to shock and awe the country into submission.

But it is simply not Hezbollah. “The Hezbollah template for attacking Israel is being repeated in Gaza, Dr. Eldad said. ‘Hamas is building bunkers. They are bringing missiles across the Egyptian border, and the Egyptian government is failing to prevent it. So I hope the next Israeli government will be courageous enough to carry out these operations before it is too late.’” Swap “courageous” for “psychotic” and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what Eldad and Moledet have in mind for the grandmothers and toddlers of Lebanon, Gaza, and the West Bank.

Arie Eldad, a member of the “right-wing” (that is to say, fascist) Moledet political party, heads the Ethics committee of the Knesset. Of course, when we talk about ethics here, we are talking about a brand of “moral principles” alien to the West and Christianity. According to Eldad, sanctions of the sort to be levied against Iran are based on Western logic. “But when states have missions that are bigger than life, they are not obeying the basic rules of logic that Western civilization obeys.”

And what is are these “missions that are bigger than life”?

Ethnic cleansing. Moledet advocates the “voluntary transfer” of the Palestinian population out of the West Bank and Gaza. A few years ago, Moledet bought space on billboards around Tel Aviv, calling for ethnically cleansing the Palestinians. “Only transfer will bring peace,” read the billboards. Imagine this tactic repeated here in the United States. “Only sending the Blacks back to Africa will reduce crime.” It does not take an overactive imagination to envision the response. But in Israel this sort of behavior is normal, even considered mainstream politics.

Think about it this month, as you get ready to fill out your tax forms. “Since 1973, Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion. If divided by today’s population, that is more than $5,700 per person,” reports the Christian Science Monitor. “Israel is the largest recipient of US foreign aid. It is already due to get $2.04 billion in military assistance and $720 million in economic aid in fiscal 2003. It has been getting $3 billion a year for years.”

This “military assistance” translates into “770 cluster-bomb sites” in southern Lebanon, according to the United Nations. “And the current U.N. estimate is that Israel dropped between 2 million and 3 million bomblets on Lebanon, of which up to a million have yet to explode,” according to Saree Makdisi of UCLA’s International Institute. It also translates into 3,020 Palestinians killed since 2000, the wanton destruction of the Palestinian health and educational infrastructure, widespread and growing poverty and unemployment, environmental degradation, and a large and increasing number of Palestinians interned in prisons, well over 650,000 since 1967. Concern over such things, of course, is an artifact of “Western logic,” as a large number of Israelis consider Palestinians little more than “drugged cockroaches in a bottle,” as Rafael Eitan, former Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defense Forces, characterized them.

Eldad soon moved on to Iran. “Eldad is not suggesting economic or diplomatic ‘engagement,’ as the State Department might use the term. He is talking about having Israel’s military take out Iranian nuclear and missile sites if the Western nations refuse to do the job…. Iran is behaving on a state level as a suicide bomber behaves on the personal level, Dr. Eldad said…. Eventually, military action against Iran will become necessary.”

In other words, if AIPAC and the neocons cannot once again trick the American people into attacking Iran, as they tricked them into attacking Iraq in the name of Israel, the IDF will do it. Of course, this is nonsense, Israel will not go it alone against Iran. In fact, Eldad is simply spewing more rhetoric, as Israel has long expected the United States to attack and slaughter its enemies. If the invasion of Lebanon last summer demonstrated anything, it is that Hezbollah can hold its own and Israel is impotent to change the situation “on the ground,” in essence a result of its own unwavering policies of aggression, be it by way of direct military confrontation or black flag operations.

“Like most Israeli leaders, Dr. Eldad would prefer that the United States and its partners take out Iranian nuclear and missile sites, if for no other reason than the vastly superior conventional firepower the U.S. could bring to bear.”

Israel has plenty of “superior conventional firepower,” courtesy of the American tax payer, never mind what its leaders tell the media. Point is here, Israel expects the United States to pay for—in squandered treasure and sacrificed lives—its long-standing effort to balkanize Arab and Muslim states, beginning most recently with Iraq and continuing with Iran.

“Because Iran has built its nuclear plants in deeply buried, hardened facilities, it will be difficult if not impossible.”

Translation: simple high-explosives, depleted uranium, and millions of cluster bombs will no longer do the trick—it is time to nuke the Arabs and Muslims, as “Western logic,” i.e., use of nuclear weapons is unconscionable, does not apply.

“If Israel is left alone and the point of no return [in Iran’s nuclear weapons program] arrives, then Israel will have to do the job. But most probably we will not be able to do it with conventional warheads. And this is something the world should know.”

In other word, heads up. If Israel does attack Iran, they will most certainly use nukes, as they now have around 400 of them stashed away.