DoD News Briefing
Wednesday, October 20, 1999
Presenter: Kenneth H. Bacon, ASD PA
USIA Foreign Press Center
MR. BACON: Marjorie, thank you. It's great to be back at the Foreign Press Center.
I thought I'd start today with a few remarks about a story in today's newspapers -- it's on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Times -- about U.S. tactical nuclear weapons stationed around the world in the last 40 or 50 years.
I think the story raises a very interesting point, and that is, "What has happened to our tactical nuclear weapon stockpiles over the last several decades? And indeed, what's happened to our nuclear weapon stockpiles, generally?"
As you know, the United States has been highly committed to disarmament, which is a requirement under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to which we are a signatory and which was renewed in the last couple of years. And it's one that we take very seriously.
And just to refresh your memories: during the Cold War, we and our NATO allies had a whole series of weapons. We had, of course, what we called strategic nuclear weapons, which are long-range weapons designed to fight against the capitals and the primary military and industrial assets of an adversary. So both the United States and then the Soviet Union built very extensive strategic nuclear arsenals that were designed primarily to deter each other from attacking the other. And these arsenals exceeded more than 10,000 strategic nuclear weapons at their peak, both in the United States and the Soviet Union.
By contrast, other nuclear powers, China, France and England, built nuclear stockpiles that were far smaller, each under a thousand weapons, usually in the low hundreds. Five hundred or below was the size of their arsenals, compared to the U.S. and the then-Soviet arsenals.
We also, U.S. and its NATO allies on the one hand, and the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries on the other hand, built tactical nuclear arsenals. These were weapons of shorter range designed for battlefield or theater use.
In the case of the U.S. and its NATO allies, these weapons were designed to either deter or deflect a massive attack from the Soviet forces across Europe. That was the primary purpose of these weapons.
We developed a wide variety of such weapons, including our nuclear artillery shells -- surface-to-air missiles, surface missiles; mines -- anti-submarine mines, anti-ship mines. And about 30 years ago, the U.S. and its NATO allies had 11 separate types of tactical or theater nuclear weapons deployed in Europe.
I want to contrast that to today. We now have a very, very small number of nuclear weapons in Europe, tactical nuclear weapons. Only one type -- bombs. Starting in 1987 the U.S. and the Soviet Union agreed to eliminate all surface-to-surface nuclear missiles of theater range -- that is, less than strategic range -- and we did that under the so-called INF treaty. In 1991, President Bush said that he would sharply reduce and unilaterally reduce U.S. nuclear weapons, theater nuclear weapons, in Europe and we reduced them by more than 85 percent between 1991 and 1993, and we reduced the places these weapons are stored by more than 80 percent between 1991 and 1993.
So there has been a very significant scaling back on the U.S. reliance on tactical or theater nuclear weapons in just the last decade, and this is actually something that began in the '70s or '80s but really gathered great steam at the end of the cold war.
Now, this has not been matched by Russia yet. They still have a much greater tactical nuclear arsenal than we do. They rely more heavily in their doctrine on tactical nuclear weapons -- that is, battlefield weapons -- than we do, but there is an encouraging sign that we will be able to address this issue in the context of the START III agreement, the so-called Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or negotiations to lead to a new treaty called START III. In 1997, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agreed in Helsinki that for the first time tactical theater nuclear weapons would be included within the universe of weapons discussed in the strategic arms limitation agreement.
I've talked some about tactical or theater nuclear weapons. Let me talk very briefly about strategic nuclear weapons. The START I agreement requires both Russia and the United States to reduce their accountable weapons to 6,000 from over 10,000 on each side. Both of us are in the process of doing that; both of us, I believe, are somewhat ahead of schedule in most areas. I believe they were supposed to reach those levels in 2001.
We have gone on and signed in 1993 the so-called START II agreement, which calls for further reductions to between 3,000 and 3,500 strategic nuclear warheads. The United States Senate has ratified that agreement; the Duma has not yet ratified that agreement.
Earlier this year, Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin agreed that they would begin discussions for a START III agreement, which would reduce the warheads further -- strategic nuclear arsenals -- further down to a range of 2,000 to 2,500 warheads; that we would begin those discussions even before START II was ratified by the Duma. So there have been discussions that have already started toward a START III agreement.
Now, you can see that if this de-escalation continues and we succeed in reaching the START III agreement, that we will have reduced the strategic nuclear arsenals on each side from over 10,000 down to between 2,000 and 2,500. And the Russians have said that they hope to go lower than that, as has the United States, eventually go lower than 2,000 to 2,500. So that's what is in the future in terms of force reductions.
When you take this together in terms of both strategic nuclear warheads and tactical nuclear warheads, the United States has eliminated 13,000 nuclear weapons since 1988. That's at the rate of about 100 a month. And we are continuing to reduce our arsenals in accordance with the treaties, and we are committed to working with Russia to achieve further reductions in the future.
So with those brief opening remarks, I'll take your questions on this topic or anything else.
Yes?
MS. RANSOM: Let's start with Harun, and wait for the mike.
QGood morning, Mr. Bacon. It's so nice to see you here. I'm Harun Kazaz with the Turkish Daily News. I want to refer to an article on Turkish -- I'm sorry, in the Washington Post today that a study indicated that the United States did store a number of nuclear weapons without the knowledge of host countries during the Cold War. Was -- is -- Turkey one of those countries? And if so, why did you feel you didn't have to tell the government while you were storing the nuclear weapons?
MR. BACON: Well, as the articles have reported, we have had a long-standing policy worked out in cooperation with our allies around the world to not comment specifically on where we or other NATO allies maintained tactical nuclear weapons. This is a policy that has been implemented and maintained for security reasons primarily but also for political reasons in the host countries as well.
So I can't comment specifically on the location of our stockpiles in any particular country except to say that today we have very limited stockpiles in a very small number of countries, and those stockpiles are maintained with the knowledge, cooperation and consent of the host countries.
MS. RANSOM: Next question. Right back there.
QMr. Bacon, this is Thomas Gorguissian, Al Wafd, Egypt. The Bright Star military maneuvers are going on these days, and it's the largest military operation since the Gulf War, with the size and participation of different countries. What is the purpose or the significance or the importance of such maneuvers nowadays?
MR. BACON: Well first, every year the Bright Star exercise is the largest military exercise since the Gulf War, in terms of number of people and number of countries involved. This isn't the first time we've held the Bright Star military exercise. In fact, my boss, Defense Secretary Cohen, will visit the exercise, I think, over the -- in the next several days. He's over there now.
We have found that we learn and relearn all the time that it's very important for countries of common values and common strategic goals to be able to work together, both militarily and non-militarily. So we have a series of exercises -- some are humanitarian, some are disaster relief, and some are plain vanilla military exercises -- all around the world to help us work better with our friends and allies. And that's really the purpose of the Bright Star military exercise; they allow us to get to know troops from other countries better, and allows them to get to know our working methods and operations better, and it allows us to build trust and cooperation by working together in military exercises.
Egypt has been the host of this military exercise for a number of years; it has been a very generous and accepting and effective host of these exercises. So in short, that's the reason for them.
QMay I follow up?
MR. BACON: Sure.
QIs there any kind of threat specifically targeting, I mean this maneuver is trying to avoid this threat or targeting this threat?
MR. BACON: They aren't designed to discourage a particular threat. It is clear that in 1990 and 1991, when one Arab country invaded another Arab country, a community of nations came together to repel that attack and to roll it back, and we showed that we could cooperate together then. And these exercises show that we're able to pull together, if that were to occur again. But there is not a specific threat in mind, no.
MS. RANSOM: Here's your next question on the left.
QYes, good morning, Mr. Bacon.
MR. BACON: Good morning.
QMohammed Al-Ahmi (ph) with Arab News Network Television. In the Arab world as well, Morocco was mentioned extensively in that story, as you know. Do you know if the U.S. government informed the Moroccan government about these bombs being in Morocco? And in North Africa as well, is the department concerned about the deterioration in the relations with Algeria since some press reports are talking about possible military confrontation between the two neighbors?
MR. BACON: Do you mean between Algeria and Morocco?
Q (Inaudible.)
MR. BACON: Well, we are concerned, answering the second question first, about the possibility of a confrontation between the two countries. When Secretary Cohen was in Morocco, I believe a year ago, and met with the late King Hassan, this was one of the topics that came up. And I know that France and other countries would be equally concerned about such a confrontation. We hope that any disputes can be resolved peacefully.
In terms of the nuclear weapons; I am obviously not in a position to confirm where our nuclear weapons were stationed. And I am not enough of an historian over the last 50 years, to be able to say exactly what our relationships were with all the hosts.
But I can tell you that now, in the very limited number of places that we as a member of the NATO alliance have nuclear weapons, is done with the consent of the host countries.
MS. RANSOM: Your next question is on the right?
MR. BACON: Yes?
QIt's Maria Luna (sp) with La Nacion from Argentina.
Could you comment on the document that originated this article we're talking about and also the method used by the authors to try to infer which countries had the nuclear weapons?
MR. BACON: Sure.
QIn which countries they were deployed?
MR. BACON: Well -- I mean, the document that they received under a law called the Freedom of Information Act, is a history of our tactical nuclear weapons, between 1945 and 1977, that talks about -- it's about an inch and half thick -- a document that talks about where the weapons were deployed, under what conditions.
And one of the points that the document notes is that we tried to be extremely careful about deploying these weapons. It gives a lot of details about the circumstances of the deployment.
The document was released under the act. But in line with our policy of not releasing specific information about where weapons were kept, that information was redacted or blacked out.
And what the organization, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, did was to make inferences or extrapolations about which countries were included. And they did this by using some alphabetical guesswork. And they assumed that the countries were listed in alphabetical order.
Some of their guesses are wrong. Unfortunately, we are not in a position to discuss which ones are wrong because we can't discuss where the weapons were. But some of their deductions did turn out to be incorrect. So I think you have to take some of this with a grain of salt.
But the basic point that the article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists makes is that at one time during the height of the Cold War, the '50s, '60s and '70s, we did have a large number of tactical nuclear weapons deployed around the world.
And the article also makes the point that that number has decreased dramatically since the height of the Cold War. And as it points out in the last paragraph of the article, and this article is widely available on the Web site. In fact, the Web address is printed in the New York Times today and, I think, in the Philadelphia Inquirer, as well. As the last paragraph of the article points out that now tactical nuclear weapons are a very small part of our defensive arsenal.
...............MS. RANSOM: Your next question is here.
QMarcel Kalfa (ph) from Radio Canada, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Again about the story in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the article relates an incident over Canadian waters, over the Saint Lawrence River where because of mechanical problems a bomber had to drop a bomb and have it explode over the Saint Lawrence River. What can you tell us about that incident? And the second part, how did the U.S. government explain that incident to the Canadian government?
MR. BACON: I don't know anything more about that than what was in the article. I noticed the citation was, I believe, from an article in a Seattle newspaper, one of the footnotes, as I recall, and maybe that's a place that you could for more information. But I don't have anything more beyond what was in the report.
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