The Lugar Doctrine

On December 6, 2001, Senator Lugar wrote a doctrine defining the U.S. direction for years to come.

The Lugar Doctrine states: the United States will use all of its military, diplomatic and economic power – without question – to ensure that life threatening weapons of mass destruction everywhere are accounted, contained and hopefully destroyed.

Additionally, the Lugar Doctrine asserts that the U.S. should encourage democratic institutions and decrease dependence on foreign energy sources.

The Lugar Doctrine
U.S. Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-IN)

The United States is engaged in a global war against Muslim religious extremists who seek to reorder the world by destroying our country and various other nations allied with us.

The war proceeds in a world awash with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and materials of mass destruction stored principally in the United States and Russia, but also in India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Israel, Great Britain, France, and China, and perhaps other nations.

Throughout much of the last decade, vulnerability to the use of weapons of mass destruction has been the number one national security dilemma confronting the United States, even as it received scant attention. The events of September 11 and the subsequent public discovery of al-Qaeda’s methods, capabilities, and intentions has finally brought our vulnerability to the forefront.

The terrorists have demonstrated suicidal tendencies and are beyond deterrence. We must anticipate that they will use weapons of mass destruction if allowed the opportunity. The minimum standard for victory in this war is the prevention of any of the individual terrorists or terrorists cells from obtaining weapons or materials of mass destruction.

The current war effort in Afghanistan is destroying the Afghan-based al-Qaeda network and the Taliban regime, a governing structure that has harbored Osama bin Laden, his training camps, and his command structure. The war also is designed to demonstrate that governments that are hosts to terrorists face destruction.

As we prosecute this war, we must pay much more attention to the other side of the equation -- making certain that all weapons and materials of mass destruction are identified, continuously guarded, and systematically destroyed.

The United States has stored safely its weapons of mass destruction and has a program for total elimination of chemical weapons in ten years. Thousands of nuclear weapons have been destroyed in conformity with arms control treaties and additional thousands are slated for destruction according to unilateral planning. We do not have biological weapons, and we have controls that apply to all dangerous biological substances.

The Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program was enacted by the Congress in 1991 to address the dominant international proliferation danger: the massive nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons infrastructure of the former Soviet Union. The Nunn-Lugar program has devoted American technical expertise and money for joint U.S.-Russian efforts to safeguard and destroy materials and weapons of mass destruction in Russia. During the first ten years of Nunn-Lugar, 5,700 Russian nuclear warheads have been separated from missiles. Many of the warheads have been dismantled and the fissile material (highly enriched uranium or plutonium) safely stored. Over 30,000 tactical nuclear weapons have been collected and stored and peaceful employment has been provided for thousands of Russian nuclear scientists.

Nunn-Lugar also has worked to contain chemical weapons in Russia, which has ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention requiring destruction of all of these weapons in ten years. Forty thousand metric tons of chemical weapons have been stored in seven locations awaiting destruction. Progress has been made toward controlling Russian biological materials, though their status is less certain. Co-operative Threat Reduction personnel have visited many bio-weapon sites for the purpose of establishing security controls. Other sites remain unobserved by the international community.

Unfortunately, beyond Russia, Nunn-Lugar-style programs aimed at non-proliferation do not exist. We lack even minimal international confidence about many weapons programs, including the number of weapons or amounts of materials produced, the storage procedures employed, and production or destruction plans.

This must change. To restate the terms of minimal victory in the war we are now fighting, every nation which has weapons and materials of mass destruction must account for what it has, spend its own money or obtain international technical and financial resources to safely secure what it has, and pledge that no other nation, cell, or cause will be allowed access or use.

This task will be expensive and painstaking. During the first two months of the war, many questions have been raised about the security of Pakistan’s nuclear program and similar questions will be raised about India’s. With United Nations inspections of Iraq suspended for more than three years, the presence and status of Iraq’s weapons and materials of mass destruction is unknown. Much the same could be said for Iran, Syria, and Libya. Following agreement on the KEDO program in North Korea, which provides for internationally financed nuclear power facilities and a halt to North Korea’s nuclear weapons development, the world has an improved, but still imperfect vantage point from which to watch developments in that country.

Some nations after witnessing the bombing of Afghanistan and the destruction of the Taliban government may decide to proceed along a co-operative path of accountability regarding their weapons and materials of mass destruction. But other states may decide to test our will and our staying power. The precise replication of the Nunn-Lugar program will not be possible everywhere. But a satisfactory level of accountability, transparency, and safety must be established in every nation with a weapons of mass destruction program. When nations resist such accountability, or when they make their territory available to terrorists who are seeking weapons of mass destruction, our nation must be prepared to use force, as well as all diplomatic and economic tools at our disposal.

The bleak prospect of extended warfare could be mitigated by several favorable developments since September 11. Statements by President Putin of Russia indicate substantial Russian concern about the proliferation of weapons and materials of mass destruction. Vigorous and timely joint diplomacy and other required action by the United States and Russia, together, could make an important difference.

In addition, the closer ties that have developed since September 11 with India and Pakistan offer new opportunities to discuss nuclear security with both countries, including safe storage and accountability. We must attempt to establish programs that respect their sovereignty and go far to help insure their security.

The Nunn-Lugar program has demonstrated that extraordinary international relationships are possible to improve controls over weapons of mass destruction. We should not rule out the possibility that improved cooperation could be forged with nations such as Iran, Syria, or Libya that could lead to international confidence that any weapons and materials of mass destruction are safely stored or destroyed. Perhaps a program similar to the Nunn-Lugar program should be established in each of the coalition countries that wishes to work with the United States and others on safe storage, accountability and planned destruction of these dangerous weapons and materials.

The status of Iraq must be clarified and information about Iraq’s weapons programs must be transparent. This will require vigorous international diplomatic efforts, and the world must be prepared for military action to destroy weapons and materials of mass destruction if diplomacy fails.

Even as these direct steps are taken to obtain minimum victory in the war against terrorism, we will enjoy additional success whenever we are able to encourage the building of democratic institutions, including greater transparency through the gathering and spreading of accurate information, economic investment and trade opportunities, and generous economic assistance.

On the home front, we will enjoy greater security if we finally recognize that America’s dependence on imported oil and natural gas creates unnecessary international dangers. Before we face a domestic economic catastrophe based on our own short-sightedness, we must spend serious money on development of a host of alternative energy sources, an expense which could be much smaller than the last Persian Gulf war -- or the next one.

If we do all of these things, systematically with maximum participation of our coalition partners (but unilaterally if necessary), we will have excellent prospects for a future in which our country and most countries of the world will enjoy increased security, increased economic prosperity, and most importantly, increased freedom.