Security

Blowing up the White House's Nuclear Myths

"The Bush administration likes to boast that it has dramatically cut the size of the nation’s nuclear stockpile. Meanwhile, it’s busily trying to shore up congressional support for multibillion-dollar proposals to ‘modernize’ the bristling U.S. arsenal," writes our own Jeffrey Lewis in Sunday’s Washington Post. He runs down five of the Bushies’ favorite myths about […]

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"The Bush administration likes to boast that it has dramatically cut the size of the nation's nuclear stockpile. Meanwhile, it's busily trying to shore up congressional support for multibillion-dollar
proposals to 'modernize' the bristling U.S. arsenal," writes our own Jeffrey Lewis in Sunday's Washington Post. He runs down five of the Bushies' favorite myths about our nuclear posture. Here's the first. Be sure to read 'em all.

A recent statement from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman touts Bush administration "reductions in the nuclear stockpile" that "will result in the lowest level since the Eisenhower Administration." Well yes, but one might infer that the number of U.S. nuclear weapons is rather small, perhaps around a thousand or so. Not quite.

We haven't seen such low levels since the Truman administration. When Dwight D. Eisenhower left office in January 1961 -- not a particularly warm period of the Cold War -- the U.S. stockpile had swelled to almost 19,000 nuclear weapons. The United States stayed above Eisenhower levels until 1991, when President George H.W. Bush wisely slashed the unnecessarily large stockpile of tactical battlefield nukes.

A more relevant marker is 1,200 nuclear weapons, the size of the nuclear stockpile when Ike took over from Truman. Compared with that measure, the Bush-era reductions, although welcome, look much less impressive. According to administration statements, the United States in 2012 will still have 5,000-6,000 nuclear weapons.