The Presidential Nuclear Initiatives of 1991-1992
Abstract
The termination of strategic bomber alerts was only one of many major changes to U.S. nuclear forces and practices that President George H.W. Bush announced to the Nation in a primetime television address on September 27, 1991. Known as the Presidential Nuclear Initiatives (PNIs), the measures were described as unilateral/reciprocal. That is, the United States intended to act on its own, but also challenged the Soviet Union to take comparable steps. President Bush declared additional PNI actions in his State of the Union address on January 28, 1992. The Soviet and Russian responses came in dedicated television addresses by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev on October 5, 1991, and Russian President Boris Yeltsin on January 29, 1992. President Bush s first PNI announcement was unprecedented on several levels. First, in its scope and scale; it instituted deeper reductions in a wider range of nuclear weapons systems than had ever been done before. Second, the PNIs were primarily unilateral -not to be negotiated, but instead implemented immediately. While Soviet/Russian reciprocity was encouraged, it was not required for most of the U.S. measures. Third, the decisions announced on September 27, 1991, were prepared with a speed and secrecy that had never been seen before in arms reduction, and have yet to be duplicated. The PNIs were developed in just 3 weeks and involved very few people. In contrast, most arms control measures, before and after the PNIs, required months and often years of interagency and international debate and negotiation by scores of military and civilian officials. Why did this happen, and how was it possible? This case study discusses the general context in which the PNIs were developed, the concerns and goals that motivated them, and the national and international processes that led to them. The focus is on the initial announcement by President Bush, because it was the pathbreaker.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Sep 01, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA577537
Entities
People
- Susan J. Koch
Organizations
- National Defense University