Buy the Nukes: Deterrence Is Dead, But We Can Kill the Nuclear Threat
by Gar Alperovitz, Kai Bird, Thad Williamson
The Nation (January 22, 1996) Vol. 262, No. 3: 11-14.
Copyright 1996 The Nation Company Inc.

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Total U.S. spending on nuclear-war prevention in fiscal 1995 amounted to roughly $2.2 billion, less than 1 percent of the Pentagon budget. This includes assistance to the former Soviet republics for dismantling weapons and safeguarding materials; the costs of disassembling U.S. nuclear weapons; and support for nonproliferation research, the negotiation and implementation of arms control and nonproliferation agreements, and the International Atomic Energy Agency. The $27 billion spent maintaining our own nuclear posture is almost thirteen times this figure. U.S. military analysts have observed that spending money to cut down what remains of the former Soviet nuclear threat is a highly efficient defense strategy. For the right price it would be possible to purchase and dispose of or safeguard a very high percentage of the world's existing nuclear supplies--and also to make sure that new production is curtailed.

In fiscal 1996 nearly $265 billion is scheduled to be spent for national security through traditional "defense" programs--almost as much as the rest of the world combined spends on defense, and roughly three times more than any other single nation. Suppose instead the United States peeled off $25 billion--the cost of about a dozen B-2 bombers--from the top of this huge budget to see what else it could buy. Since the military expenditures of most other nations are relatively small--and their domestic needs large--there is no question that this country could purchase a great deal.

We could also offer enormous sums of money as rewards to individuals who report on cheating or inform on proliferators and nuclear smugglers.

(Criteria for who qualifies would undoubtedly involve difficult choices, but in the end the priority must obviously be the maintenance of U.S. nuclear security.)

If $25 billion off the top of the military budget is not enough, then we could go to $50 billion. This sum would buy an impressive amount of hardware, nuclear and even non-nuclear, including chemical and biological.

The total combined military budgets of non-allied countries, other than those of the former Soviet Union, that possess or have sought nuclear weapons--including Syria, North Korea, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Algeria, China, India and Pakistan--is estimated to be approximately $32 billion.

For $100 billion we could not only buy out the annual operating budgets of the entire military establishments of the above nine nations, we could also buy (even at the inflated value of, say, $5 million apiece) all the warheads that will remain worldwide after implementation of the START II treaty--and still have money left over.

If this sounds outrageously expensive, note that a kitty of $25 billion per year for ten years would produce $250 billion. If we took $50 billion from the defense budget to buy dawn other nuclear powers for ten years running, there would be $500 billion to spend. In either case, the totals are enough to buy out most of the world's significant military and nuclear threats--and to fund an aggressive strategy for safeguarding and remaining surplus plutonium and highly enriched uranium from the former Soviet Union.

Variations on this basic theme are obviously possible--and alternative scenarios involving different mixes of build-down and buyout can be developed. (Graham Allison, for instance, has suggested an overall program in the $30 billion range, with Europe and Japan paying two-thirds of the cost.) If the buyout package is properly designed, like the Marshall Plan it could stimulate the U.S. economy at the same time that it helps restructure and build trading-partner economies around the world. A serious effort would obviously also require the United States to take the lead with other major powerssimultaneously to reduce radically their own arsenals--else others cannot be expected to take the effort seriously.

The central point is that even as the Pentagon spends hundreds of billions to hold on to ever more useless missiles and bombers, and prepare for increasingly unlikely wars abroad, it has been playing penny ante in the life-and-death poker game concerning the only real direct threat to American security. It is time to confront our modern nuclear Maginot line--before it gives way to a blitzkrieg that would make Oklahoma City look like child's play.

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