Gabriel Schoenfeld: Why Should We Underwrite Russian Rearmament?
[Mr. Schoenfeld, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a resident scholar at the Witherspoon Institute, is the author of the forthcoming "Necessary Secrets: National Security, the Media, and the Rule of Law" (W.W. Norton).]
It was Clare Boothe Luce who came up with the aphorism "No good deed goes unpunished." This maxim accurately sums up U.S. efforts to help Russia dismantle its aging nuclear arsenal.
When the Soviet Union dissolved two decades ago, its component pieces were saddled with the formidable task of picking up the fragments of a huge nuclear-weapons stockpile. Fears arose across the world that nuclear warheads and/or radioactive material might get lost or stolen.
The American response was the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, co-sponsored by Sam Nunn, then a Democrat from Georgia, and Richard Lugar (R., Ind.) and enacted by Congress in 1991. A key aim was to help Russia and the other former Soviet states destroy existing stocks of weapons of mass destruction. For nearly two decades we've spent several hundred million dollars a year to help Russia with a variety of tasks, including dismantling its nuclear weapons.
At the time, this was a creative approach to a pressing international problem. In the throes of profound upheaval, Moscow lacked the resources to secure its own forces and fulfill this basic obligation to the world community. Helping was a prudent expenditure.
But that was then. What about now?
Nunn-Lugar continues to be hailed by Sen. Lugar, among others, as "an engine of nonproliferation cooperation" that on the basis of mutual interest can bring about "extraordinary outcomes." Across the political spectrum, the program has come to enjoy an almost sacrosanct status. Critical voices are seldom heard—yet the rationale for continuing the Russian leg of this program has vanished.
In the first place, Russia is no longer in upheaval. The regime is certainly not the democracy of our fervent hopes. Yet however we judge Russia's internal arrangements, there is little question that, unlike what we witnessed in the 1990s, this is a relatively stable political and social order...
... Money is fungible. If the U.S. were not defraying the costs of safeguarding or dismantling Russia's deteriorating weapons of mass destruction, Moscow would be compelled to do so out of its own pocket. Russia has an interest even more compelling than ours in the safety and surety of its nuclear systems. Thanks to political stability and a measure of prosperity—enough, certainly, to commence "comprehensive rearmament"—Moscow is now in a position to take care of such problems on its own.
Of course, the Russians much prefer our assistance. And why wouldn't they smile at a program that in effect pays for a build-up of their military even as we build down ours?...
Read entire article at The Wall Street Journal
It was Clare Boothe Luce who came up with the aphorism "No good deed goes unpunished." This maxim accurately sums up U.S. efforts to help Russia dismantle its aging nuclear arsenal.
When the Soviet Union dissolved two decades ago, its component pieces were saddled with the formidable task of picking up the fragments of a huge nuclear-weapons stockpile. Fears arose across the world that nuclear warheads and/or radioactive material might get lost or stolen.
The American response was the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, co-sponsored by Sam Nunn, then a Democrat from Georgia, and Richard Lugar (R., Ind.) and enacted by Congress in 1991. A key aim was to help Russia and the other former Soviet states destroy existing stocks of weapons of mass destruction. For nearly two decades we've spent several hundred million dollars a year to help Russia with a variety of tasks, including dismantling its nuclear weapons.
At the time, this was a creative approach to a pressing international problem. In the throes of profound upheaval, Moscow lacked the resources to secure its own forces and fulfill this basic obligation to the world community. Helping was a prudent expenditure.
But that was then. What about now?
Nunn-Lugar continues to be hailed by Sen. Lugar, among others, as "an engine of nonproliferation cooperation" that on the basis of mutual interest can bring about "extraordinary outcomes." Across the political spectrum, the program has come to enjoy an almost sacrosanct status. Critical voices are seldom heard—yet the rationale for continuing the Russian leg of this program has vanished.
In the first place, Russia is no longer in upheaval. The regime is certainly not the democracy of our fervent hopes. Yet however we judge Russia's internal arrangements, there is little question that, unlike what we witnessed in the 1990s, this is a relatively stable political and social order...
... Money is fungible. If the U.S. were not defraying the costs of safeguarding or dismantling Russia's deteriorating weapons of mass destruction, Moscow would be compelled to do so out of its own pocket. Russia has an interest even more compelling than ours in the safety and surety of its nuclear systems. Thanks to political stability and a measure of prosperity—enough, certainly, to commence "comprehensive rearmament"—Moscow is now in a position to take care of such problems on its own.
Of course, the Russians much prefer our assistance. And why wouldn't they smile at a program that in effect pays for a build-up of their military even as we build down ours?...