President George W. Bush | Arms Control Association

Wade Boese

President George W. Bush’s approach to addressing proliferation reflects skepticism toward the effectiveness of formal arms control agreements and international institutions to deal with threats posed by regimes and nonstate actors intent on acquiring weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Instead, it relies heavily upon unilateral U.S. actions and coalitions of the willing to frustrate, punish, shame, and eliminate those seeking WMD capabilities.

Bush took office convinced that the spread of weapons of mass destruction posed the greatest danger to the United States. As the presumptive Republican presidential candidate, Bush said May 23, 2000, “The emerging security threats to the United States, its friends and allies, and even to Russia, now come from rogue states, terrorist groups and other adversaries seeking weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them.”

The September 11 terrorist attacks upped the urgency of this assessment, encouraging Bush to broaden his proliferation response beyond missile defenses and embrace a more assertive defense posture to ward off and protect against future, more lethal attacks.

As the president explained in his Jan. 29, 2002, State of the Union address, “I will not wait on events, while dangers gather.” He also left no doubt about the dangers, denouncing Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as an “axis of evil.”

The administration spelled out its tactics in a September 2002 national security strategy and December 2002 national strategy to combat weapons of mass destruction. Both offered a wide menu of policy options, but the two documents emphasized the United States should act first. “We must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction,” the national security strategy stated.

After dismissing international efforts to disarm Saddam Hussein as ineffective, the administration soon applied its new proactive principles to Iraq, invading the country and deposing Hussein. Although an intensive, months-long search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction has so far turned up empty-handed, administration officials claim that is beside the point. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton said in a Dec. 2, 2003, speech, “our concern was not the imminence of Saddam’s threat, but the very existence of his regime, given its heinous and undeniable record, capabilities, intentions, and long-standing defiance of the international community.”

Bolton’s statement underscores that, although the administration argues the “gravest danger” to U.S. security is the nexus between weapons of mass destruction and hostile regimes, the regime’s nature is the determining factor. Consequently, the administration has devoted little attention to rolling back the weapons programs of India, Israel, and Pakistan—three nuclear-armed countries currently friendly to the United States.

On the other hand, Washington has backed a European-led initiative securing Iran’s suspension of certain nuclear activities and consent to more intrusive international arms inspections and has united four other countries in confronting North Korea over its nuclear ambitions. Most recently, the administration joined the British government in persuading Libya to dismantle its WMD programs.

At the same time, the administration is exploring new types of nuclear weapons, such as bunker busters and low-yield warheads. The research is justified as aimed at enhancing the U.S. capability to destroy potential foes’ WMD stockpiles and to improve the credibility of the U.S. deterrent. The administration has also shortened the time it would take to resume U.S. nuclear testing, which has been suspended for more than a decade.

Nor did Bush shelve his pre-September 11 priority. Disparaging the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty as a relic, he announced Dec. 13, 2001, that the United States would formally withdraw from the accord in order to develop missile defenses without constraints. Bush has dedicated roughly $25 billion toward missile defenses and is planning to deploy the initial elements of a rudimentary system this fall.

Bush’s willingness to abrogate the ABM Treaty to pursue unproven defenses reflects his administration’s misgivings about formal arms control agreements. Similar administration actions include stopping a seven-year effort to add a verification protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention, blocking international proposals to restrict small arms sales, and refusing to resubmit the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty for Senate ratification.

Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control Stephen Rademaker summed up the administration’s view Feb. 20, 2003: “we don’t share the attitude that you can find elsewhere that any agreement in the area of arms control has to be a good thing.” This perspective stems from a widely held belief among Bush administration officials that past agreements have a poor record in dealing with countries willing to cheat on their treaty commitments.

The Bush administration’s sole negotiated treaty—the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) with Russia—further reaffirms its aversion to formal agreements. SORT limits the United States and Russia to deploying no more than 2,200 strategic nuclear warheads apiece by Dec. 31, 2012; but it does not require the destruction of a single warhead or weapon, has no new verification provisions, and expires Dec. 31, 2012. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice explained in May 2002 that the accord is “a transitional measure to a day when arms control will play a very minor role in U.S.-Russian relations, if a role at all.”

Yet, Russia’s vast arms stockpiles remain a concern. After initially questioning U.S. programs designed to help the Kremlin secure and destroy its excess and outlawed weapons, the Bush administration committed itself in June 2002 to providing at least $10 billion in such assistance to Russia and other former Soviet states over 10 years and secured pledges from its allies to try and match the U.S. funding in a program known as “10 Plus 10 Over 10.”

The administration has also sanctioned foreign entities—at a rate much greater than its predecessor—accused of buying and selling weapons of mass destruction-related goods and launched other initiatives to deny these weapons to terrorists and rogue states. It has joined with Russia in spiriting nuclear bomb-making amounts of fissile material out of Bulgaria, Romania, and Serbia. Additionally, the United States has spearheaded an effort, known as the Proliferation Security Initiative, urging countries aggressively to interdict suspected dangerous cargo shipments at sea, in the air, and on land.