Nick Ritchie US Nuclear Weapons Policy since the Cold War, Russians, 'Rogues' and Domestic Division (2008)

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.These three idea sets constitute the mainstream discourse on nuclearweapons policy and all three have enjoyed some success over the post-ColdWar period.The first idea set dominated the discourse for much of the 1990s.The second idea set never took firm hold in the discourse as some expected orhoped it might under Clinton.The third idea set, which shares much with thefirst, has grown in prominence since the late 1990s when it began to dominatethe nuclear weapons policy discourse.This has been a gradual process throughthe post-Cold War period that was accelerated under the G.W.Bush adminis-tration to the point where the understandings of the third idea set were firmlyinstitutionalised, particularly through the 2001 NPR.A fourth set of ideas basedon the logic of nuclear disarmament has been largely excluded from the main-stream discourse other than experiencing a brief rise to prominence in the mid-1990s.American nuclear weapons policy and the long confrontation with the SovietUnion were deeply entwined.The collapse of one deeply affected the other andConclusion 147the end of the Cold War opened up debate about the meanings assigned toAmerican nuclear weapons and understandings of the key concepts that informnuclear weapons policy.Considerable tension emerged between the breakdownof the loose consensus on nuclear weapons policy within America s nationalsecurity discourse and a powerful commitment to nuclearism the argumentthat America could not be safe without a massive, flexible, and superior nucleararsenal around which identities and interests had coalesced.1This nuclearism that directed America to retain a sophisticated, largenuclear arsenal configured to launch on warning of attack continued to form thecore of normal nuclear weapons policy in the Department of Defense and thearmed services after the Cold War.It forms the heart of the first idea set and to asignificant extent the third.If this first idea set is seen to represent nuclearweapons policy in its entirety, as it often is, then it can be argued that there hasbeen significant policy continuity from the Cold War to the post-Cold Warperiod because the first idea set has itself changed little.If nuclear weaponspolicy is associated with the broad mainstream discourse in which three compet-ing idea sets have all had an impact, then post-Cold War nuclear weapons policymust be characterised by both continuity and change.Furthermore, the versionof American nuclear weapons policy commonly associated with the first idea setis not natural or inevitable but a social construction based on a range of collect-ive understandings and particular interpretations of key concepts informed bythe realist paradigm.Politics, interest and consensusThe final stage of the analysis placed this ideational framework in the contextof domestic political factors that have largely constrained major change.Thecompeting idea sets that constitute the mainstream discourse do not exist in apolitical vacuum and policy outcomes are not based solely on the relative meritsof ideational factors.Instead, nuclear weapons policy, like all issues in govern-ment, is subject to bureaucratic political bargaining and the effects of organisa-tional behaviour on the policy-making process.Generic characteristics of bureaucratic politics and organisational behaviourhave inhibited major change allowing the first idea set to dominate nuclearweapons policy for much of the 1990s, giving rise to a sense of bureaucraticinertia.This has been reinforced by a general conservatism regarding changes tonuclear weapons policy.Nuclear weapons policy has also been affected by a marked reduction insenior-level executive, military and congressional interest and attention.Nucleardeterrence dynamics and strategic military balances steadily became less rele-vant to the major national security issues and problems faced by America afterthe Cold War.Nuclear weapons policy was soon relegated as a priority and leftto the nuclear weapons policy bureaucracy to tend, whilst being subject toepisodic congressional and senior-level executive involvement.This has led to amarked institutional de-emphasis of nuclear weapons in DOD and STRATCOM148 Conclusionand considerable difficulty in ensuring effective DOE/NNSA management of thenuclear mission.As a result there has been no real focal point for nuclearweapons issues in the Pentagon from the mid-1990s onwards [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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