Brian Bradley
NS&D Monitor
7/10/2015
Russia’s status as a nuclear power contributes to it being the greatest threat to U.S. national security, Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford told senators yesterday during his Senate Armed Service Committee’s confirmation hearing to become the next Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) asked Dunford, currently the Commandant of the Marine Corps, what distinguishes Russia as the greatest threat to the U.S. Dunford replied: “[I]n Russia, we have a nuclear power. We have one that not only has capability to violate sovereignty of our allies and to do things that are inconsistent with our national interests, but they’re in the process of doing so.”
A New START fact sheet completed March 1 indicates that Russia has 1,582 strategic deployed warheads, 15 fewer than the U.S. The document also states Russia maintains 515 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles and heavy bombers, 270 fewer than the U.S. Russia also holds 890 “deployed and non-deployed” heavy bombers, and launchers of ICBMs and SLBMs, according to the State Department.
‘My Number One Concern Isn’t ISIS’
Dunford echoed the words of Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), Chair of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, who during a Wednesday Peter Huessy Breakfast Series speech on Capitol Hill delineated Russia from ISIS as the greatest threat to this country. “My number one concern isn’t ISIS, or ISIL. It’s Russia,” Rogers said. “Russia, to me, is the number one threat to United States security and our allies in the world.”Dunford agreed with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) that Russia’s capability to destroy the U.S. and its “way of life” largely factors into its threat potential. “That is one of the reasons, Senator, and of course, that’s combined with their recent behavior,” Dunford said.
The U.S. should negotiate nuclear reductions below New START numbers only through a bilateral mechanism, Dunford said. “I don’t believe we ought to take unilateral action in that regard,” he said. In testimony submitted in advance of the hearing, Dunford said the U.S. should consider reductions of deployed and non-deployed weapons below New START limits, yet emphasized that such reductions should be done “hand to hand” with Russia.
‘Now Is Not the Time’
Dunford in his testimony cautioned against removing nuclear weapons from NATO territories in light of recent Russian behavior. “[N]ow is not the time to eliminate a capability that has been an effective centerpiece of Alliance cohesion, resolve and deterrence for decades,” he stated. Steven Pifer, Director of Brookings Institution’s Arms Control Initiative, during a July 1 Peter Huessy Breakfast also cautioned against scaling back NATO’s nuclear posture in Europe. “[N]ow is not the time to be reducing the American nuclear presence in Europe,” he said. “But by the same token, I think the plans that are still under way for the deployment of the F-35 coming up and the B61 modernization are going to suffice for the NATO nuclear posture. Any additional steps, I think, would actually be difficult within NATO.”
Could Deployment of Additional B61s in Eastern Europe Provoke Russia?
On the other hand, Pifer, also a senior fellow at Brookings’ Center on the United States and Europe, discouraged NATO deployment of additional B61 bombs to Poland or the Baltics to respond to Russia’s westward military movement and nuclear flexing. Pifer said it would be “provocative” and make the nukes more vulnerable amid a potential crisis with Russia. “This would be really provocative, on par with 1962 and the Soviets putting nuclear weapons into Cuba,” Pifer said during a Peter Huessy Congressional Breakfast Series discussion. “And…it would be the kind of thing I think that would cause rifts within NATO.” Pifer added that NATO should mainly focus on maintaining conventional hedges to offset potential Russian aggression.
Rebeccah Heinrichs, a Marshall Institute fellow and a Hudson Institute adjunct fellow, during the same discussion said the U.S. should “quietly” discuss the B61’s deployment with NATO. “I believe that it is worth quietly working with NATO in discussing the deployment of the B61,” she said. “I don’t think that we should be talking about this openly and aggressively bullying NATO to do this. Obviously, this is for their own security as well, but I certainly can see a shift in NATO already over the last couple of years in what it is willing to do, and I think as we’ve seen with Russia continuing to increase its provocations that this isn’t something that NATO might see as completely ridiculous over the next coming years.”
