Is It Déjà vu All Over Again: The 2012 Report on Global Zero

A Commission report was completed in February 2012 on moving to global zero for U.S. nuclear weapons. It was chaired by former Senator Chuck Hagel from Nebraska who became Secretary of Defense in 2013. This was two years after the 2010 New START treaty reduced U.S. warheads deployed for strategic forces to 1550, although special treaty rules allowed a warhead count closer to 2000. A review of that report from January 2013 prepared by the RSC of the Senate notes: “The Global Zero organization was created in 2008, and proposed a 75% reduction in U.S. nuclear weapons,” [or roughly leaving the U.S. at the 500, warhead level]. Perhaps it is not coincidental, but an October 2025 bill by Senators Warren, Sanders and Markey proposed the U.S. unilaterally act to keep only 150 Minuteman missiles (150 warheads) and as few as 4 submarines with an estimated 300 warheads, (4 subs each with 16 missiles, each carrying 5-6 warheads), implying a total strategic nuclear force of roughly 500 warheads as well. Perhaps reflecting this idea, one current candidate for Senate called for all $200 billion in nuclear weapons spending to be cut annually from the defense budget, although total strategic nuclear DoW and NNSA related spending is roughly $60 billion.

The RSC report further explains that while acknowledging that unilateral implementation is a ‘less good approach,’ page 18 of the report says ‘a strong case’ could be made for ‘unilateral deep U.S. cuts.’ The Global Zero report therefore by its own terms is unilateralist, recommending that one potential course of action for massive U.S. nuclear reductions is that they be completed unilaterally. More concerning, from the Senate’s point of view, was that the Global Zero report recommends as another course of action wholly ignoring the Senate in arms control agreements with Russia, saying nuclear reductions could be “carried out in unison by the United States and Russia through reciprocal presidential directives.” Secretary of Defense Panetta, on the other hand, took the correct position that arms reductions would take place in the Obama Administration only as a result of an arms control treaty process. He said, “reductions that have been made, at least in this Administration, have only been made as part of the START process and not outside of that process; and I would expect that that would be the same in the future.” This makes sense, as nuclear reductions are almost always completed by treaty. [The 1972 SALT I nuclear deal with the USSR was an executive agreement without Senate confirmation but it was an agreement confirming an arms buildup.] As the Congressional Research Service has observed, “[a]rms control treaties are the only category of agreement in the political-military field that have been concluded primarily in treaty form.” The Global Zero Commission recommended the United States implement nuclear reductions via presidential directive as opposed to the current Obama Administration position that nuclear reductions will take place only under the treaty-making power of the President articulated in Article Two, Section Two, Clause Two of the Constitution, requiring consent of two-thirds of the Senate.

Not content to just unilaterally cut our nuclear deterrent, the Global Zero report also called for major restraints on U.S. missile defenses. The report says on pages 12 and 17 that a bilateral accord with Russia to constrain U.S. missile defenses would “reassure Russia that its strategic missile force would not be put in jeopardy” by the U.S. system. The report goes on to observe Russia has sought a formal guarantee that our missile defenses will not be aimed at Russia and will not undermine Russia’s strategic deterrent forces, and the Global Zero report concludes that since the U.S. has not acquiesced to this Russian demand, the arms control process has stalled. However, as the RSC assessment makes clear, the U.S. missile defense system is not directed at Russia’s strategic deterrent. For example, during consideration of New START, an Obama Administration official told Congress, “we have discussed with Russia why we believe our missile defense efforts…are not a threat to Russia’s strategic deterrent.” The head of the Missile Defense Agency said that agency is not “attempt[Ing] to develop a system to defend” against the Russian nuclear posture. Indeed, the Obama Administration’s own Ballistic Missile Defense Review Report says the Russian nuclear capability is “not the focus of U.S. BMD,” and that the U.S. system “does not have the capacity to cope with large scale Russian or Chinese missile attacks and is not intended to affect the strategic balance with those countries.” The Obama Administration in that report also articulates the clear position that it “will continue to reject any negotiated restraints on U.S. ballistic missile defenses.” The distinction is important. Defenses such as Golden Dome seek to provide heightened strategic stability, by making any pre-emptive disarming seeking attack on the United States and its allies as impossible to succeed. During the 1970-1990 period, the USSR sought just such a capability, opening a window of vulnerability that President Reagan eventually closed with his three part (1) peace through strength, (2) strategic nuclear modernization and missile defense and (3) economic warfare campaign. In short, U.S. administrations have generally supported missile defenses as a means of complicating offensive designs of our adversaries as to make such plans unworkable. As former defense official Paul Nitze once explained, I want the Russian Generals to get up in the morning, review the strategic balance and the U.S. forces, and always conclude: “Not today, Comrade.”

Peter Huessy is President of Geostrategic Analysis