Next Arms Talks Between US, Russia Might Involve Tactical Weapons

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or New START [in force since February 5] , deals only with U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear weapons. There is a question about whether Washington and Moscow will now focus their attention on short-range, or tactical, nuclear weapons.

The New START Treaty sets a limit of one,550 deployed strategic, or long-range, nuclear weapons on either side. What the recent treaty doesn't address is the difficulty of tactical, or short-range, nuclear weapons.

Joseph Cirincione is the president of the Ploughshares Fund, a foundation targeting nuclear weapons policy.

"There isn't any difference within the explosive power of tactical versus strategic nuclear weapons. They're both hydrogen bombs. They're both weapons which are 10, 20, 50 times more powerful than the bombs the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima. The variation is the variety," said Cirincione. "What’s the aim of the weapons- So we consider strategic weapons bombs which are placed as warheads on long-range missiles or carried by bombers that may span the oceans. Tactical weapons are considered useful in battlefield fighting - so this might be short-range artillery, short-range aircraft, short-range missiles.”

Experts say neither the U.S. nor Russia has provided detailed information regarding their stockpiles of tactical nuclear weapons.

Daryl Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association, an individual research organization, described what's known concerning the U.S. arsenal.

"America has a lot of tactical nuclear weapons stored within the U.s. - nevertheless it also has about 180 gravity bombs, nuclear gravity bombs, at five bases in European NATO allies: Italy, Turkey, the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. And these weapons are, generally speaking, stored in bunkers. They aren't deployed at the F-16 fighters or the Tornado fighter bomber jets that could deliver them,” Kimball.

Russia's tactical nuclear weapons supply

Analysts say Russia has between 2,000 and four,000 tactical nuclear weapons - but not all available for operational use. Many are awaiting dismantlement and others are in deep storage bunkers.

David Holloway, Russia and arms control expert at Stanford University, gives one reason behind Moscow’s vast superiority in tactical nuclear weapons.

"Within the 1990s, when their conventional forces - the military, basically - fell apart, they made the argument that tactical nuclear weapons would make amends for the weakness in conventional forces, just inside the way that NATO did in the course of the Cold War. NATO took the location that tactical nuclear weapons would catch up on its inferiority in conventional forces,” said Holloway.

Kimball said one more reason has to do with China.

"They [the Russians] see tactical nuclear weapons so one can counterbalance China’s larger variety of conventional forces on their eastern border. So the Russians have retained, for the reason that Cold War, a comparatively larger selection of deployed tactical nuclear weapons than the usa,” he said.

Cold War mentality

Many analysts, including Joseph Cirincione, say the tactical nuclear weapons are a throwback to the Cold War.

"Absolutely. These weapons haven't any military utility. It’s inconceivable that NATO would face an army mission that may require the usage of a nuclear bomb. Just give it some thought - the U.S. hasn’t used a nuclear weapon in 67 years and it has fought the Korean war, the Vietnam war, two Iraq wars, the Afghanistan war. It has faced threats from a good selection of nations - never, never did it seriously think about using a nuclear weapon. And now, with the tip of the Cold War, it’s hard to assume a demand for one nuclear weapon, not to mention 10 nuclear weapons or 200 nuclear weapons.”

Many experts say the subsequent round of arms control negotiations between Washington and Moscow might involve the problem of tactical nuclear weapons. Analysts say that isn't expected to happen anytime soon, though, given the presidential election year within the U . s . a ..

From WhatNewsToday.net

Posted in: