Schlesinger Reports Call Attention to Nuclear Mission and Deterrence

Two groups focusing on nuclear weapons – both chaired by James Schlesinger, former secretary of energy, defense, and central intelligence and member of the Belfer Center International Council – recently released reports detailing the threats facing and challenges of the United States’ nuclear stockpile and policy.

The Task Force on the Department of Defense (DoD) Nuclear Weapons Management released its Phase II report, “Review of the DoD Nuclear Mission,” in January. The Task Force found a “distressing” and “widespread” inattention to the nuclear mission and nuclear deterrence throughout the DoD. It argues that, “while the nation’s dependence on nuclear weapons has been reduced, nuclear weapons nevertheless remain fundamental to deterrence.”

Moreover, the report notes, “The Task Force found widespread fragmentation, dispersal of responsibility, and weakening of authorities in the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s (OSD) management of the nuclear mission and the nuclear weapons mission area. The decline in management attention to nuclear matters is evidenced by a dramatically reduced workforce, fragmentation of nuclear policy and guidance responsibility across the office, dilution of organizational focus because of proliferating missions, and relegation of nuclear-focused organizations to positions of lower authority. The remaining workforce lacks both depth and breadth of nuclear expertise.”

Among other recommendations, the report calls for an assistant secretary of defense (ASD) for deterrence in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (OUSD(P)). It notes: “All existing OUSD(P) offices that deal with nuclear, chemical, biological and missile defense issued should be realigned under the new ASD.”

This report follows the Phase I report, “The Air Force’s Nuclear Mission,” which was released in September.

The second group – the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture, which Schlesinger co-chairs with William Perry, co-director of the Belfer Center/Stanford Preventive Defense Project – released its interim report in December and will release the final report in April 2009.

The interim report found that nuclear terrorism poses a growing nuclear threat to the nation and offers four security imperatives to defend against nuclear terrorism: (1) reduce and provide better protection for existing nuclear stockpiles of weapons and fissile material; (2) keep new nations from going nuclear; (3) provide effective protection for the fissile material generated by enrichment, reprocessing and commercial nuclear reactors; and (4) improve our tools to detect clandestine delivery of nuclear weapons and defend against them.