Compelled compliance WMD elimination in the new era of arms control

Abstract

The United States invaded Iraq in 2003 to compel compliance with UN disarmament mandates. The invasion exposed the lack of a standing organization to conduct WMD elimination as a serious capability gap in the U.S. military force structure. This thesis demonstrates why it is necessary to establish such a capability. It argues that the United States cannot rely solely on multilateral, cooperative approaches to eliminate a determined adversaryâ s weapons program. While non-coercive tactics are preferred, the mixed results of twelve-years of UN verification in Iraq show that a viable threat of force must accompany these approaches in order to induce compliance with UN Security Council disarmament mandates. Additionally, the U.S. elimination effort in Iraq demonstrated that ad hoc approaches inadequately address this capability shortfall. The lack of integrated training, unsecured sites because of inadequate prioritization, and misaligned intelligence assets are just some of the problems that occurred during the ad hoc OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM elimination operation. When cooperative, nonproliferation measures fail to rollback aggressor statesâ WMD programs, DoD must have the capability to compel compliance if called upon. This thesis makes recommendations to facilitate the development of a viable and sustainable WMD elimination capability.