An Expensive Burden: Nuclear Weapons in Europe

Aaron Stein 0:08

Hello and welcome to the Arms Control Wonk podcast. My name is Aaron Stein. I'm a contributor to the Arms Control Wonk blog. I'm also an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute in London and a PhD candidate at King's College.

Jeffrey Lewis 0:21

And I'm Jeffrey Lewis. I'm the founding publisher of Arms Control Wonk. And I am the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in, it's foggy today, foggy Monterey.

Aaron 0:35

It's a little foggy in Geneva too. Oh, well.

Jeffrey 0:38

So today we're going to talk about U.S. forward deployed tactical nuclear weapons in Europe. It's a subject that I have been interested in for a long time. When I was at the New America Foundation, we put together a project on U.S. nuclear posture, and part of that project involved a very nice trip I got to take to Belgium, where I hung around Ivo Daalder, who would eventually become our ambassador to NATO, and J.M.

Lodl, and we got really great access and talked to all sorts of senior people. Particularly at NATO. I can't say who we talked to, but boy, people, Ivo had the access. And we developed some consensus ideas about what to do about U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe.

Aaron 1:29

Yeah, it's also a topic that I'm particularly interested in. I come at it more from the Turkish side. My dissertation was about Turkish nuclear decision-making. So obviously I covered a lot throughout my research on how Turkey views nuclear weapons, how it's incorporated them into the defense doctrine and what it thinks about American nuclear weapons that are still inside Turkey now.

And, you know, It's back in the news. These nuclear weapons are back in the news. There was an op-ed in the Washington Post written by Brent Scowcroft, Stephen Hadley, and Frank Miller about the advantages of basing nuclear weapons in NATO states. So it's back.

Jeffrey 2:10

Yeah, so we know it was really written by Frank Miller and that Brent Scowcroft and Stephen Hadley probably just signed it, right? Perhaps. I would say that's an accurate assumption. For people who don't know, Frank Miller is a long time, I think he spent 31 years in the federal government. And he is kind of the, you know, longest-serving career civil servant who worked on nuclear weapons issues, and he now works at the Scowcroft Group.

And so, you know, the op-ed really looks like the kinds of things that Frank has been saying for many years.

Aaron 2:51

Not saying that Scowcroft and Steve Hadley don't agree. I'm sure they do.

Jeffrey 2:56

But I think Frank wrote it.

Aaron 2:59

Right. So he was the driver. And they put forward four different arguments or maybe myth busting in the piece.

Jeffrey 3:10

You know, it's funny because The Washington Post actually has these things called like five myths about.

Aaron 3:16

Right.

Jeffrey 3:17

And this has like that structure. But there are only four myths and it doesn't have that structure explicitly.

Aaron 3:24

Right. Well, yeah, the first one is there's this perception that because these weapons have been stuck over there and that NATO has dropped some of its nuclear readiness in its strategic posture, that they have no military value. These weapons will never be used, that ultimately their role is lost.

Jeffrey 3:41

Right, so Miller et al say, myth number one, they have no military value, and they say, that's not true. They have political value.

Aaron 3:49

Right, so that political value translates into military value.

Jeffrey 3:53

Yeah, I don't think that that actually answers the question. No. But they then assert that they have this political value, which is my least favorite argument for nuclear weapons.

Aaron 4:05

Right, and the second argument is, Is that nuclear weapons have no... is trying to disprove the idea.

Jeffrey 4:15

The second myth that they're going to bust. Right, the second myth that they're going to bust is that... We can't make it sound like Frank thinks these are good ideas, because I'm sure he definitely does not, right?

Aaron 4:23

Right, it's the international relations myth that nuclear weapons no longer have any value for international relations, which he says is also false.

Jeffrey 4:31

Right, because the Russians are modernizing. And they have political value. Right.

Aaron 4:36

Right. And the third myth is that NATO has conventional superiority over the Russians, which he says, or actually they say, is also a myth.

Jeffrey 4:47

Yeah, it's only true in the aggregate, and it's not necessarily true on Russia's borders.

Aaron 4:54

Right. And so, again, I think it all hinges back to the first one, so therefore they have... Some military value. And then there's the fourth myth, which is that there are deep divisions in NATO about the forward deployment of nuclear weapons. Right. So do you want to go through these in order? Sure. I mean, I think the argument that the weapons have political value actually has some resonance in certain NATO states.

I know from my own research on Turkey, The government doesn't actually believe that these weapons will use, but believe that the presence of these weapons, or were deployed, enhances NATO burden sharing. I believe the Baltic states have a pretty similar approach to this as well, but other states don't agree with this. Well, let me tell you why I hate this argument.

Okay.

Jeffrey 5:49

I mean, I understand political leaders get ideas in their heads, and so at some point, whether arguments are dumb or not, then they are real. But I think It's one thing to assert that some states may believe they have political value, but it's a different thing, I think, to write an op-ed where you're arguing that people should believe they have political value.

That's a higher burden of proof to suggest not only that as an empirical matter do some states think this, but that this is a reasonable thing for states to think. So why does it matter if you kill the supreme leader of Iran... With a nuclear weapon instead of a conventional weapon. Why does that matter?

Aaron 6:34

I mean, it matters because it's built upon the myth of nuclear weapons. Don't you think? I mean, nuclear weapons provide deterrence, I think, primarily for the states that are worried about Russian expansionism.

Jeffrey 6:48

So this is my fundamental objection to this way of talking about nuclear weapons, which is if I have a finite universe of money to spend on defense,

Aaron 6:59

And actually, I like spending money on defense.

Jeffrey 7:04

I would probably set a floor. I don't think we should ever spend less than 2% of our GDP on defense. I like defense spending. But there's a limit. There's a finite amount. And if you have a finite amount, how can it possibly strengthen deterrence to spend that money on a symbolic capability that doesn't have as much military value?

As some conventional capability. How could you possibly say, we're going to allocate our defense dollars so that instead of having a 90% chance of winning this conflict, we're going to have an 85% chance of winning the conflict. But in the second scenario, we have nuclear weapons, and so that will make some difference.

Aaron 7:47

How can that possibly make sense?

Jeffrey 7:51

Basically, what I'm saying is, how can nuclear weapons have a political value that is not a function of their military value?

Aaron 8:01

Your argument makes perfect sense to me. You just wish that governments actually believe this. I think you very well know that the Baltic states, and I would throw in Turkey, do view these weapons as political and ultimately see them tied to deterring what they believe is Russian control. Military doctrine that emphasizes the use of nuclear weapons if attacked.

And so these things need to stick around or otherwise risk unilaterally disarming without getting similar reductions from the Russians in return. So are they not political weapons in that regard? Well, that does nicely transition us to the second point, right?

Jeffrey 8:44

Because if we stipulate that we disagree about Whether it makes sense to imagine political value as a concept that is distinct from the military utility of the weapons, then there is this question about what the Russians modernizing means for NATO security. And I guess my first kind of complaint is we have 180 nuclear weapons forward deployed in Europe.

And the Russians have 3,000 to 5,000 tactical nuclear weapons.

Aaron 9:24

Deployed across different systems. I mean, I think that's... That makes it worse. I know that. That makes it worse. But, you know, there's this conception that they're all bombs sort of sticking there ready to go. They're deployed against multiple different systems. But it does make it worse. That's true.

Jeffrey 9:39

That's true. And, you know, yeah, it's unclear to me. It is... Well, I would say two things. It is unclear to me that our vestigial nuclear forces in Europe represent any kind of logical response to Russian forces and doctrine. Right? Right. So I really... I find this a curious kind of argument. What I would say is that the reason the role of nuclear weapons has declined has a lot to do with our changing sensibilities.

It's very hard to imagine doing strategic bombing. It's very hard to imagine scenarios where A nuclear war makes a lot of sense given the stakes involved. And I say that as somebody who's been really critical of Putin and thinks the administration needs to do a lot more to stand up in Ukraine to what he's doing. But if the role of nuclear weapons is declining because it's just hard to imagine using them, it's kind of not surprising the Russians are deploying more because they're less constrained by those kinds of norms.

But we don't solve our own problem by deploying comparable forces. We have all of the same problems that have pushed us down to 180 warheads in Europe mean that even if we had 1,000 warheads, it would be a bigger political headache for us than I think it would put any pressure at all on the Russians.

Aaron 11:34

Well, I think this actually fits nicely into the third argument, which we also referenced in our response to the first argument, which is I mean, I think people like you and me, and I think we agree about this, is that it's that argument that you're making in the first place. Why spend the money to maintain our nuclear arsenal when you could give yourself a greater conventional deterrent, greater conventional capacity to fight a war, particularly with...

I mean, let's just say with the Russians, because that's what we're primarily concerned about. But... If certain members of the alliance feel as if these weapons do provide a political check, I mean, on, I guess, provide NATO with the political tools to try and force Russia reductions, don't you feel that the withdrawal of these weapons, even if they can't be used, could lead to problems within the alliance about...

You gave away something for nothing. And that because the Russians have been intringent lately, Ukraine, you shouldn't do that. You're appeasing Putin.

Jeffrey 12:43

So I agree that this should not be, as one of my colleagues once said, like the Baltimore Colts leaving town. The moving trucks should not show up in the dead of night and then pull everything out. So I think there are other things that make sense to do. But let's save that to the end. Let's go through their arguments in turn.

Aaron 13:02

Sure. I mean, well, it hinges again, I guess, on the third one, which is this conventional superiority argument. They say, as you said earlier in the intro, it's an aggregate. Particularly in the eastern states, the gap is wide. They cite the Georgia War in 2008 and probably – The Ukraine war currently as evidence for the need to maintain these weapons to deter Russia from doing the same thing in a NATO state, which I think that argument fails.

Jeffrey 13:32

Right. So my, my objection to that, and the reason I think that then we, we, we should defer the discussion of, of what the right posture is, is that, you know, when they say we, that NATO only has conventional superiority in, In the aggregate, and it may not be true on the border with Russia, that presumes, first of all, that nuclear weapons provide a credible deterrent in those scenarios, right? And one of my concerns about nuclear weapons as a As a deterrent, is that they actually have bigger credibility problems than conventional weapons.

So we sometimes imagine that, oh, nuclear weapons are the ultimate deterrent because they're so destructive, right? And this idea that if you have a credibility problem with your deterrence, you can fix it by having a really destructive weapon. But I actually think the opposite is the case, that because they are so destructive, they are harder to use.

And so They face bigger credibility problems. So when you confront Putin doing something like what he's doing in Eastern Ukraine, what he did in Crimea, what he's doing in Eastern Ukraine, what he did to Georgia, he's very good at calculating his provocations so that it's hard for us to use conventional forces to respond, let alone nuclear forces.

I don't think he pours the tanks into Latvia. I think what he does to Latvia is like what he does to Ukraine.

Aaron 15:01

Right. This goes back to the wrongs of deterrence. And how credible would say like a low-level incursion, let's call it the Crimea-style, Eastern Ukraine-style low-level incursion into a NATO state, would that trip the threshold for nuclear weapons? And I think you're right that it wouldn't. So the... The threats or the deterrence from the alliance actually hinges on conventional weapons.

So it goes back again to why would you spend your money on nuclear weapons?

Jeffrey 15:29

Right. So then those are my two points. The first point is if you have a conventional superiority problem with the Russians, I don't think you can fix it with nuclear weapons. And I think that the money you spend fixing it with nuclear weapons is money you don't spend on the conventional capabilities that might really solve the problem.

So that's one. But then the second, which I think transitions us to their fourth argument, Is, you know, they observe NATO only has these capabilities, this advantage in the aggregate, right? And that's if we all stick together.

Aaron 15:58

Right.

Jeffrey 15:59

And so the worst possible thing we can do, and they will dispute that this is a real risk, but I think it is, the worst possible thing we can do is emphasize the most divisive capability we have in the arsenal, right? So that we damage the cohesion of the alliance and undermine the aggregate advantage we have over the Russians.

That's what Putin wants. Putin wants the Germans to look at our policy along the Russian border and think, ah, these Americans are crazy, they're going to get us killed. So to me, and so we should talk about their argument that they think it's a myth that there are deep divisions, the conventional superiority argument, if you... If you're worried about Russian conventional capabilities, and I am, the way to solve that is by spending money on our own conventional capabilities and paying careful attention to the cohesion of the North Atlantic Alliance.

Aaron 16:55

Right. So they argue that the formulation and putting out of the 2010 Strategic Concept is evidence that... And the subsequent policy review, the DDPR.

Jeffrey 17:08

And the DDPR. So it's like Deterrence and Defense Policy Review. Right. Or did I get that backwards? No, you got it.

Aaron 17:14

It's DDPR, Deterrence and Defense Policy Review, is evidence that the problems... Associated with the forward deployment of nuclear weapons within the alliance, had been resolved and 27 nations came together and were able to formulate a policy. I mean, I guess that's true. But if you read both the DDPR and the strategic concept, that policy actually reflects the deep divisions within NATO about these nuclear weapons.

Right. Yeah. Go ahead.

Jeffrey 17:48

No, Mort Halperin has a funny story about this, which I think is really... Telling so when he was in the clinton administration in the 90s and the germans mounted one of their periodic push to get u.s nuclear weapons out of germany right mort had a conversation with another senior u.s official who's actually a quite reasonable person and the conversation went something like mort saying the germans want the weapons out and then the senior u.s official saying well you're not talking to the real germans right and and I think that in a natal context, you're dealing with people who are predisposed to working something out.

You can get agreed language, but that doesn't change the real political limitations and constraints that are on those people. It doesn't change the possibility that those people could be replaced. Particularly if there was a really big controversy about, say, redeploying U.S. nuclear weapons.

Aaron 18:54

Right, which is coming up.

Jeffrey 18:56

Yeah, and so, you know, whenever people talk about the political value, so this kind of goes all the way back to number one, of nuclear weapons and the alliance, you know, they say that the value is burden sharing, that we all share the political risks of arguing for nuclear weapons, and consultation, that we all talk Together about the role that nuclear weapons play.

And then we have mechanisms for coordinating those things. But it seems to me there's a revealed preference here, which is when you actually look at how the allies react to nuclear weapons issues in NATO, they, in statements like this, say they're very important, but the prime ministers of these countries Won't then turn around to their public and talk about how important nuclear weapons are to their security.

Aaron 19:46

In a country like Turkey, they're never mentioned publicly at all. I would say 98% of the population has no idea they're there.

Jeffrey 19:55

I would say that the only thing that the presence of nuclear weapons does in terms of burden is it reveals burden shirking. It is the area where the allies are the least willing, which I think then transitions us very nicely to The things that Miller and Scowcroft and Hadley don't mention.

Aaron 20:18

Right. I think also they may have glossed over security issues.

Jeffrey 20:23

Well, yeah, because if you read the piece, you might think like, yeah, these things are great. Why do we want to take them out, right? And so it's worth noting that there are these two issues, right, and security is the first one.

Aaron 20:35

Right. I mean, there's been incidents. I mean, a well-documented arms control plug for the website.

Jeffrey 20:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have twice now done a little geolocation. Several times in Belgium and at least once in the Netherlands, protesters have gotten... Up against the shelters where the aircraft and the warheads are stored, and in one case got inside one of the protective shelters and got a picture of the control mechanism for the vault where the weapons are stored.

Aaron 21:04

Right. That's bad security. That is bad security. And the allies, or at least in some countries, let's say, are... Say, shirking the responsibility for forking up the dough to pay to better secure these things?

Jeffrey 21:17

Yes, they are required. So we have nuclear weapons at U.S. air bases where we provide the security and at foreign air bases where generally, where foreign, actually I guess now in all cases, where foreign aircraft, I don't want to say in all cases, there may be one weird one, but where there are foreign aircraft available To deliver U.S. nuclear weapons in a war.

And in those cases, the host nation is supposed to provide the security. Right. And so one of those bases, Klein-Brogel in Belgium, which is where the protesters repeatedly got inside the fence and repeatedly got to the shelters and once got inside one of the shelters... The security was just totally non-existent. And in fact, it later turned out, this is like my favorite story all the time, right?

So you can read an op-ed that says the NATO allies value nuclear weapons and these things are incredibly important to our security. And then the natural question arises, say, why do the protesters who got inside the base and got inside the shelter, like, Why didn't they run into a German shepherd? Right. You know, like these things, these bases are all supposed to be patrolled by dogs.

Right. Where were the German shepherds? It turns out the Belgians had not hired a dog master.

Aaron 22:40

They couldn't find or didn't feel like finding or hadn't gotten around to finding.

Jeffrey 22:45

I actually don't recall what the final judgment on like why this had not happened, but they had no dog master.

Aaron 22:51

Yeah, I think we should also point out that these weren't exactly like hardened peace protesters, I mean, or something akin to, say, a well-determined adversary.

Jeffrey 23:00

Yeah, no, these were dreadlocked Euro hippies.

Aaron 23:02

Dreadlocked Euro hippies that would probably otherwise be sleeping in the grass on a sunny day.

Jeffrey 23:08

Yeah, yeah, these are not, yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, their big idea was to put like stickers on the shelters. So thank goodness, you know. I mean, after watching all of these radicalized nutjobs who end up in Syria, I'm so glad that it was just some nice harmless Euro hippies who got inside the wire, right?

Aaron 23:30

Right.

Jeffrey 23:30

So it really raises this issue of if the allies won't pay for the security, do you really have burden sharing? And should you pay for the security on their behalf?

Aaron 23:47

And is that a good use of funds? Right. And does, in these two cases, the lack of security show sort of a, let's say, a disregard for the first argument, which is the political value? Are they really that politically important when you won't hire the dog master?

Jeffrey 24:06

And, you know, we do have a counter case, which is we had nuclear weapons in Greece. And the Greeks were horrible about security. Yes. And one of the defense officials who was involved as a kind of, I shouldn't say official, he was actually in the Air Force at the time, ran for the Sioux City, Iowa City Council.

And as part of his campaign, he disclosed all kinds of classified details about the process of removing nuclear weapons from Greece.

Aaron 24:34

Yeah. There's also the 1974 incident, you know allegations of during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus or intervention determining on your language serious allegations of American concerns about two nuclear armed NATO States right. Going at it with nuclear weapons on forward deployed aircraft.

Jeffrey 24:58

Right. Right. Well, and so it turns out that So this guy who was talking about his time in the 90s when we took them out, straight up calls the base commander an alcoholic.

Aaron 25:13

Some of the stuff we know about Stratcom, it's not too far off.

Jeffrey 25:16

Yeah, right. Is it too soon to make those jokes?

Aaron 25:22

No, no, no.

Jeffrey 25:23

It's not too soon. Did you see the John Oliver piece about... About the solemn business of starting a nuclear war where she sort of references the, the guy, you know, who was drunk with the Beatles cover band and the guy in the casino and the pizza delivery and, and all of the, yeah.

Aaron 25:42

Yeah. Well, we'll link to that at the bottom. So everybody can see.

Jeffrey 25:47

So I mean, quite apart from what you think about the general idea of nuclear weapons in Europe There, I think, at least has to be a case-by-case review. And I think part of the problem is it's now such a small number of countries that I think they're worried that one more removal then runs into this kind of tipping point situation.

Aaron 26:13

Which we may be coming up on. This is also having to do with money and burden-sharing issue.

Jeffrey 26:19

Right. Let's just stick with burden-shirking. The other burden-shirking...

Aaron 26:24

Right. Is the aircraft needed to deliver these weapons? Right. Which hinges on our own massive modernization program, which is conveniently left out of the op-ed.

Jeffrey 26:37

Yes. Yes. So I think the place to start this is to discuss our friends in Germany.

Aaron 26:42

Okay.

Jeffrey 26:44

So our friends in Germany, who no matter what the op-ed says, really seem to not like having U.S. nuclear weapons in Europe. Have bought, have tornado aircraft that are intended to deliver U.S. nuclear weapons. Yes. And they have bought the replacements for those aircraft, which are Eurofighters, but they've decided they will not certify the Eurofighter to carry nuclear weapons, which means the Germans...

Are going to age this mission out with the tornado.

Aaron 27:20

Right. And we should say the follow-on aircraft to carry these weapons is the F-35. So when they had the choice to choose aircrafts, they could choose the F-35 or the Eurofighter.

Jeffrey 27:29

And they chose the Eurofighter. They chose the non-nuclear one.

Aaron 27:32

And very publicly said it will be non-nuclear.

Jeffrey 27:34

And so that, you know, raises the question of, well, when, you know, when do the tornadoes get too old? And what happens then? And I don't know, do you know, have you, I was reading up on this. This is great. So the Eurofighter was supposed to retire about 2020.

Aaron 27:52

No, the Tornado.

Jeffrey 27:55

The Tornado, right. Sorry. And the Tornado was supposed to retire in 2020. And the Germans now have sort of said, oh, well, maybe it could last to 2025 or maybe it could last to 2030. Do you know how they do that?

Aaron 28:13

Crazy glue and duct tape to keep the airframe sound? By not flying them. Right.

Jeffrey 28:18

I mean, that's the lifetime stretch is achieved by not flying the aircraft.

Aaron 28:25

Right. So the pilots that are ostensibly supposed to deliver these weapons aren't flying the aircraft on training missions to deliver these weapons.

Jeffrey 28:33

Right. Well, I mean, you fly it less, right?

Aaron 28:35

Right. Yeah, I know.

Jeffrey 28:36

So is that really a deterrent? Right. I mean, if it's one thing to say, oh, well, we're going to life extend the aircraft to 2035. That sounds really serious and like a sober response to, you know, husbanding capabilities. And, you know, it's but then when you realize that, like, what do you mean by that? It's like, oh, well, we're just, you know, not going to take the aircraft out of the shelters very often.

And we keep them in mothballs and. It's like, well, why are we doing this again? Sorry, the Russians are deterred by this. Why? Aren't you better off taking that money? And buying more Eurofighters and like flying them around and having a ready conventional capability that you might actually use.

Aaron 29:26

Yeah. I think at this point we should point out that nobody's advocating actually for the elimination of nuclear weapons. What people who, I would say like you and me who think these weapons should be withdrawn In conjunction with Western reductions, is that the security of the Allies would still be premised on strategic forces of the US, the UK, and the French.

So it's not as if the nuclear deterrent is going away, it's just that the NATO component of this nuclear deterrent would shift away from gravity bombs towards strategic forces, and then you could focus on conventional deterrents, which is what you're arguing. Well, sort of.

Jeffrey 30:08

I have an interim step. I think that's probably where we end up. So right now, I think the big question is, do we fully fund the replacement, the Which I shouldn't call it replacement. Do we fund the B61 Mod 12, which is the life extension program that consolidates most of the mods of the B61 gravity bomb, including all of the mods that are deployed in Europe into a new bomb.

New is those awkward words. It is new. Well, or it's not new by the Obama administration's definition of no new nuclear weapons. Okay. New is a word with no technical meaning, right?

Aaron 30:58

Right, it's a political word.

Jeffrey 31:00

A new nuclear weapon is a bad thing if you're a Democrat and a great thing if you're a Republican, but it's a non-existent thing in the real world. It's something you use to show off how much you love or hate nuclear weapons. So we have these like really intense debates over whether or not we should build quote unquote new nuclear weapons that are really just debates about, you know, whether you hate our freedoms or not.

So stupid. So, but that's going to cost like 10 to $12 billion and we're kind of into it now a little bit.

Aaron 31:32

Yeah.

Jeffrey 31:32

So I guess some of that 10 to 12 billion is spent. That's a lot of money. Yeah. And the, JSF, the Joint Strike Fighter, the F-35, I guess I have to call it the F-35 now. I make myself sound so old when I call it the JSF. The F-35 is going to cost, you know, I've seen 300 million just to have the option of making those aircraft nuclear capable.

And then you have to pay some unknown cost per aircraft to actually install that option.

Aaron 32:02

Right.

Jeffrey 32:04

So, you know, that's That could get up there. But it depends how many aircrafts you want to do that for. So it really leaves this question of, do we want to spend all of this money at a time when we have other defense priorities? And what I think is interesting is the Air Force seems to think no.

So Norton Schwartz, who was the former chief of staff of the Air Force, floated a little trial balloon a few months ago where he basically said, so the Allies clearly don't care about gravity bombs in Europe. And they're not willing to pay for the security and they're not willing to pay for the DCA. And when they do buy the DCA, they're not willing to pay for the nuclear capability.

So we should just take the... 300 million up that we were going to spend on making the JSF nuclear capable and pour that into the new bomb.

Aaron 32:57

Right. Right, because what we should say is that in reaction to the growing cost of the F-35, I mean, putting the Germans aside, the other allies that host nuclear weapons are decreasing their numbers, or in the case of Belgium, I believe, hasn't made up their decision yet, made up their mind yet, whether they're actually going to purchase it.

So the Italians have decreased their purchase. The Dutch have decreased their purchase. The Turks have kept with their purchase, but the Turks have a very strange nuclear policy as is. So it's not sure that... Yeah, we should talk about that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, just quickly as a side note, Turkey in 1995 or 1996, for what I've been told were financial reasons, going back to this, made the decision to decertify the pilots needed...

To decertify the pilots that flew its dual-capable F-16s. Go ahead.

Jeffrey 33:56

And we... We're talking over each other. You finish your thought and then tell me when I can go.

Aaron 34:02

Right. And so the F-16s, four of these weapons, in addition to having no pilots, aren't even stationed at the airbase where the nuclear weapons are stored. So essentially, if they were ever to be used, a U.S. crew would have to be flown in.

Jeffrey 34:15

Right, because we don't base aircraft At Incirlik either that are capable of carrying nuclear weapons. At least not on a regular basis. They may rotate through as they're on their way to bomb targets in Iraq or elsewhere, but they don't They don't stay there.

Aaron 34:32

Right, yeah. The Incirlik base agreement has also been renegotiated. So it's basically now for transport aircraft.

Jeffrey 34:38

So basically, there are a bunch of bombs sitting in Turkey with no aircraft to deliver them. And again, how is that a credible deterrent? I'll tell you what. If the shoe was on the other foot, and so we had more nuclear weapons and more aircraft, And I was inexplicably arguing that we should remove all of the aircraft and just leave the weapons in the shelters with no aircraft to deliver them, Frank Miller, Brent Scowcroft, and Steve Hadley would say I was an idiot.

Right? They would not choose this policy. I mean, the only reason we have this policy is because we've kind of stumbled and evolved into it and... People don't want to change it further. But this is silly.

Aaron 35:36

Silly is the right word, especially in the Turkish case. So in a way, it strangely provides a model for the German case, assuming that duct tape and no flying hours... Fails and the tornado has to be retired earlier than maybe 2025. But it just gets back to the first question that we just keep hitting on. Do they have a political value?

If they don't have a real political value, then they don't have a military value. If they don't have a military value, then these things are collecting dust out there at these five air bases.

Jeffrey 36:13

While posing a security threat.

Aaron 36:14

While posing a security threat and costing us hundreds of millions of dollars.

Jeffrey 36:18

Right. So let me tell you what I think we should do.

Aaron 36:20

So what should we do? And then we'll wrap up there.

Jeffrey 36:21

Okay. Well, despite all of the abuse I have heaped on our current policy, and despite not agreeing with a lot of the op-ed, although... I really respect Frank, and General Scowcroft is a towering figure in the United States, and Steve Hadley was a great national security advisor, so I actually really respect them. I think that they don't really make this argument explicitly, but I think they would agree, and I think they would be right to argue that the act of withdrawal, particularly at this moment...

Is not a particularly wise decision, right? I mean, taking them out right now while Putin is behaving as badly as he is in exchange for no benefit does seem to me to be unnecessary. I completely agree.

Aaron 37:26

At the same time,

Jeffrey 37:28

They are a security problem. The weapons are not secure. Protesters continue to get inside the bases. The warhead locations are well known. And there seems to be no... I mean, NATO... There are indications that we are spending more money on security and there are indications that some of the host nations are spending more money on security, but the incursions keep happening.

And so I don't know at what point to believe that the investments are paying off. So the way that I would solve this is I would consolidate all of the weapons in Europe at two U.S. air bases where the U.S. provides the security so that you could spend a smaller amount of money in a more focused way to provide better security for the weapons, but without Taking them out of Europe.

Aaron 38:18

Which bases do you think? Because I have my own ideas.

Jeffrey 38:22

Well, so I have run this by a lot of people. And the arguments I always hear are Aviano in Italy.

Aaron 38:32

Yeah.

Jeffrey 38:32

Because the Italians love nuclear weapons.

Aaron 38:34

Yep. And Incirlik in Turkey.

Jeffrey 38:36

Yeah, same arguments.

Aaron 38:37

I have the same suggestion.

Jeffrey 38:40

Right, because they're U.S. air bases and... So the U.S. provides the security, and both countries have leaderships that are, whether or not I think it's a good idea, I think they have leaderships who are at least committed to the idea of nuclear weapons in a way that the Germans, Dutch, and the Belgians I think are not. Now, I have recently encountered an argument by a friend of mine who is looking at the U.K., Nuclear posture.

And his name is Toby Fenwick. And Toby would love for the UK to move from the massive investment in replacement submarine and missiles to a much cheaper air delivered capability. Basically, he wants the UK to be like an independent DCA state. And he's willing to take some of that huge amount of money and offset the cost of some of the modernization, right?

Which actually would directly address the comment Norton Schwartz made, right? Like it's suddenly an ally. He was like, no, no, no, we'll help pay for this. And so he, he obviously wants it to be Italy. He wants it to be Aviano and Lake. Right. I suppose you could do Lake and he can insert it.

Aaron 40:09

Yeah, I mean... And I guess I picked two airbases.

Jeffrey 40:11

I guess you could do three.

Aaron 40:13

Yeah, no, I mean, Injulik makes perfect sense to me. I mean, there's unused vault space, from what we know. You could store a few more in there. It's double-fenced, as Google Earth tells us. It's... It's a secure air base. I don't know of any major incursions there, although there was some clashes between Turkish and American soldiers there recently.

Jeffrey 40:36

So that's going to be my question to you, which I think is a good place to end, which is a lot of this hinges on the next security threat, the next place where there's a big issue, and whether consolidation makes sense and whether we should consolidate it.

Aaron 40:53

And it would seem to me Turkey is the least stable of our allies at the moment.

Jeffrey 40:59

If only I had on the phone an expert on Turkish politics who cared deeply about nuclear weapons and police control.

Aaron 41:09

Yeah, no, I think the argument made a lot more sense about three years ago than it does now, because the argument's been stuck around for a while, that the Turks are strangely supportive of nuclear weapons. Now, with the chaos on the Syrian border and the Iraqi border and the number of refugees that are going through They're coming into Turkey.

And then the area in which the air base is, it's in this place called Adana, has been, it's sort of like the centerpiece of Turkish intelligence gun running operation down into Syria. So it's a massive hub or intersection of foreign fighters that are moving in through Turkey, moving through. Questionable Turkish intelligence tactics, growing number of refugees. All of this has led me to believe that maybe we should not put them there anymore, even though we have a little extra space.

Jeffrey 42:06

You're not saying ISIS could overrun Incirlik, are you?

Aaron 42:10

No, no, I'm not. Thank goodness. That would be horrible. No, no. It's set far enough away from the border and it's well protected and all that fun stuff. It's just... It's that if we have the problems with the Euro hippies in the Netherlands, you don't want to exacerbate that problem by putting them in a place that you're now bordering the Islamic State, which controls two border entrances with Turkey already and threatening a third one.

Jeffrey 42:42

So maybe Lake and Heath and Aviano.

Aaron 42:45

Lake and Heath and Aviano make a lot more sense to me. With that said, I don't make these decisions. You know what we should do? What? We should make an inspection tour. Oh, yeah, that sounds like a good idea.

Jeffrey 42:59

We should spend a couple of weeks in the UK and Italy just scouting things out.

Aaron 43:04

I agree. I say we spend more time in Italy because we can eat the food.

Jeffrey 43:11

Yeah. English food is much better now that you can get Indian food in England. That's true.

Aaron 43:21

Yeah. The London food scene is pretty good. But anyways, we're off topic here.

Jeffrey 43:24

But this is a positive note. Yeah, I think we should. You know, before we go. We should encourage people, if they like the podcast, since we give it for free, just please write a review on iTunes.

Aaron 43:37

Yes, write a review on iTunes. That would really help.

Jeffrey 43:40

It would make us look less like random weirdos with a podcast.

Aaron 43:47

That's right. Like it on iTunes and share it on Twitter. Absolutely.

Jeffrey 43:51

Yeah, we like our clicks. We do. We do. We need our clicks. We want to keep doing this. Yeah, absolutely. And then we want to go to Italy and the UK to scout a nuclear weapon. It's consolidated storage locations.

Aaron 44:04

I like this.

Jeffrey 44:05

It's the plan.

Aaron 44:06

It was great talking to you. Yeah, great talking to you. And thanks everybody for listening.