Destabilization and Disarmament

Let us begin by stating the obvious: like most on the left, Barack Obama and his closest foreign policy advisers believe that nuclear weapons per se are a threat to international peace and stability, and that a world without any nuclear weapons would be a safer, saner place. This is, to say the least, simplistic and naïve. It is not so much nuclear weapons as the nature of the countries possessing them that are the cause of tensions in the international community. Nobody much cares that France or the United Kingdom have nuclear weapons; even Israel’s nuclear arsenal does not unduly worry the international community–with the exception of those countries that harbor hostile intent towards Israel. On the other hand, nuclear weapons in the hands of countries like Russia, China, North Korea, Iran (and to a lesser extent, Pakistan) do raise concerns not just among their near neighbors, but around the world, because their foreign policies are inherently aggressive, and marked by a willingness to use military force offensively to further their strategic interests.

But, in other situations, nuclear weapons have been inherently stabilizing. Nuclear deterrence kept the peace between the U.S. and the Soviet Union from 1949 through the end of the Cold War. Israel’s nuclear arsenal has undoubtedly deterred Arab aggression on more than one occasion, and is largely responsible for the “Cold Peace” that endures between Israel and the neighboring Arab states. One also has to admit that relations between India and Pakistan have become more regular and more stable since the latter demonstrated its nuclear capability in 1998, and that nuclear parity probably averted a very bloody conventional war. Concern over Pakistan’s nuclear weapons revolves around secondary issues, such as the security of its nuclear stockpiles in the event the country collapses into anarchy, and the possibility that Pakistan (or a successor state) might transfer nuclear weapons to hostile states (Iran, Syria) or to terrorist organizations. But there is very little concern that Pakistan will launch a nuclear war against India–or vice versa. The presence of nuclear weapons on both sides of the Indo-Pakistani border has caused each country to become more careful in its rhetoric and actions, and to initiate measures to ratchet down tensions. Nuclear weapons make countries careful and polite.

Imagine, then, a world without any nuclear weapons whatsoever. Back in the days when Dr. Helen Caldicott was calling not just for a nuclear freeze, but for total nuclear disarmament, my friends and I sported buttons and T-shirts saying, “BAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS“, in big, bold print; underneath, in smaller letters, they added, “Make The World Safe for Conventional War”. It was sophomoric, sure (we were, after all, sophomores), but it raised a valid point. Without the inhibitions imposed by nuclear weapons, there was really nothing to constrain the propensity of some countries to settle disputes by warfare, and nothing to restrain the level at which wars were waged. That is, while the U.S. and USSR engaged in a deadly global conflict for forty years, during that time each was careful to avoid a direct confrontation with the other, fighting mainly through surrogates, and limiting both the geographic scope and levels of violence in these proxy wars.

Given the superiority of the USSR in conventional armaments, it is most likely that, absent the extension of the U.S. nuclear umbrella, there would have been a major conventional war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact at some point in the Cold War. Only a massive expansion of U.S. and NATO conventional forces to match Soviet conventional forces could have prevented it. In turn, the U.S. and its allies would have had to expend far more on defense, and much less on peaceful activities. Instead of spending 3 to 5 percent of GDP on military forces, they would have had to spend somewhere in the vicinity of 15 to 20 percent (at its peak, the Soviet Union was spending somewhere between 40 to 50 percent of its GDP on the defense sector), which in turn would probably have depressed the rate of economic expansion. Nuclear weapons are cheap, and conventional forces are very, very expensive in comparison.

On the other hand, Soviet nuclear weapons inhibited U.S. responses in various conflicts and crises, including the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the various Arab-Israeli wars. The threat of Soviet intervention led the U.S. to pressure Israel to end the Yom Kippur war before the total defeat of the Egyptian army. So, it might fairly be said that nuclear weapons allowed the Soviet Union to maintain a larger sphere of influence than might otherwise have been the case. That has to be balanced against the fact that there has not been a general European war since 1945–possibly the longest sustained period of peace that Europe has known since the end of the Roman Empire.

If President Obama got his wish of a world without nuclear weapons, he would almost certainly have to cope with a huge increase in instability and a resurgence of large-scale conflict around the world. But total nuclear disarmament is not an immediate or even near-term prospect (thank goodness!).

On the other hand, Obama does seem committed to very steep reductions in U.S. nuclear weapons, and that in itself could be enough to cause a marked increase in instability that might even make nuclear war more, not less, likely. The reasons lie in the nature of deterrence and how it works.

During the Cold War, it was often asked why the U.S. (hardly ever the USSR) needed to have 10,000-odd nuclear weapons. Would not a few hundred be sufficient to destroy any potential enemy? That is true, but to ensure that a few hundred weapons would be available for retaliation, the U.S. needed to have many times that number on hand: first, to account for the reliability of the weapons; second, to ensure that enough survived an enemy first strike; and third, to hedge against any possible technological breakthrough neutralizing the bulk of our deterrent force.

The reliability issue is simple: to get a nuclear warhead from the U.S. to its target, many things have to happen in sequence. In the case of an ICBM, the launch command has to get to the missile, the missile silo has to open properly, the missile has to launch successfully and guide towards its target, the missile’s three stages all have to separate and fire as planned, the “bus” carrying the reentry vehicles (RVs) has to separate correctly, the RVs have to come off the bus at the right time and survive the forces of reentry, and, finally, the warhead in the RV has to detonate properly. While individually the probability of each event is very high, cumulatively, all combine to reduce system reliability significantly. If the probability of each event listed above is .98, then the total system reliability would be just .81. In reality, that is a theoretical figure based upon the performance of weapon systems in periodic tests and in computer simulations, so actual reliability under operational conditions is quite probably lower (especially given the neglect of strategic systems since the 1990s).

Survivability is perhaps the critical element of strategic deterrence. A deterrent force that is perceived as vulnerable actually invites attack–witness the destruction of the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor: being in range of Japanese carrier forces (as was not the case when the fleet was based at San Diego, CA), the Japanese were able to contemplate its destruction. Rather than deterring war, moving the fleet to Pearl Harbor made war more likely. The same principle applies to nuclear deterrence: if a potential adversary believes that he can destroy all or most of an opposing nuclear force, he has every incentive to strike first, in the hope that, even if a few enemy weapons survive, the adversary will sue for peace rather than use them and face a devastating “second strike”. To avoid this dilemma, the adversary would have to adopt a “launch on warning” strategy; i.e., as soon as incoming missiles are detected, he must launch his own retaliatory strike. That begs the question of false alarms or even an accidental launch.

Finally, there is insurance against technological breakthrough. Throughout the Cold War, and even today, the United States maintained a “triad” of strategic capabilities. That is, our nuclear weapons were dispersed across three different delivery systems: land-based ICBMs, submarine-based ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and manned bombers. Each system had different capabilities, with different strengths and weaknesses, but all acted together synergistically to make the total deterrent force more robust than the sum of its parts.

ICBMs, for instance, can be extremely accurate, making them effective against “hardened” targets such as enemy missile silos and command bunkers; they also have the most secure command and control systems, making accidental release a very remote possibility. On the other hand, their locations are known (due to satellite surveillance), and even if their launch silos are themselves hardened, they are relatively easy to destroy if the enemy has sufficiently accurate missiles with sufficiently large warheads (as was the case with the last generation of Soviet missiles). SLBMs, based on ultra-quiet nuclear submarines, are very hard to detect, but they are generally less accurate than ICBMs because their launch platforms are constantly moving; thus they are considered to be “second strike” weapons to be used mostly against cities and other “soft” targets. Manned bombers can, in times of increased tensions, be placed on airborne alert, ensuring that some will survive any surprise attack. They can also be recalled in the event of false alarms. Airborne weapons are accurate, so can be used against hard targets. But they are also slow, and can be intercepted by enemy fighters and surface-to-air missiles. In scissors-stone-paper fashion, though, the strengths of each system counterbalance their respective weaknesses.

We also maintained three distinct sets of delivery systems because there was always the possibility that the USSR might develop a technological innovation that would make one of the triad legs ineffective. For instance, during the 1980s, there was a serious concern that submerged submarines could be detected by “non-acoustic” means; e.g., using blue-green laser radar that could “see” beneath the ocean, or using satellites to detect the wakes generated by submerged submarines. Once detected, submarines are easy to destroy. At times, as during the M-X debate of the 1980s, it was suggested that the U.S. could rely mainly on SLBMs, but the possibility of an ASW breakthrough ensured that the Triad would remain intact.

When one considers all of these factors, a nuclear arsenal of some 10,000 warheads does not seem so unreasonable. With the fall of the USSR, the economic collapse of Russia, and the concomitant reduction of its nuclear forces, it was clear that substantial cuts could be made in both the U.S. and Russian stockpiles, and the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) of 1991 limited the U.S. and Russia to roughly 1600 strategic nuclear weapons each (out of a total of some 4000 total deployed nuclear weapons, both tactical and strategic). This seems to be a reasonable, stable and sustainable level, but there are strong pressures on the United States to negotiate much lower levels after START expires at the end of this year. As John Noonan noted, the Obama administration is exploring a level of less than 1000 strategic nuclear warheads. This would be a serious error and highly destabilizing, for the following reasons:

First, it will be difficult to maintain a robust nuclear triad with fewer than 1000 warheads. Only a few bombers, a few ICBMs, and a few submarines would put us up against operational limits. When reliability and availability is figured in, the number of weapons ready at any given time would not be sufficient to constitute a “credible” deterrent.

Second, small stockpiles increase incentives to cheat on arms treaties. If an adversary is able to conceal 100 warheads successfully, it means relatively little if total stockpiles contain thousands of warheads; but when the total is just 500 or 600 warheads, an additional 100 can provide a decisive advantage in a first strike.

Third, small stockpiles make a first strike more attractive. It would not be realistic to expect a nuclear preemptive strike to eliminate enough retaliatory capability to avoid catastrophic damage when the defender possesses thousands of weapons deployed on a wide variety of delivery systems. But when there are only a few hundred, the margin of survivability is much smaller, and the chances of a successful first strike much higher. For instance, assume that a first strike has the ability to eliminate eighty percent of the defender’s nuclear weapons. Also suppose that some 200 nuclear weapons are needed to inflict “unacceptable” damage on the attacker in a retaliatory second strike. If the defender begins with 1000 nuclear warheads, a preemptive first strike would still leave him with the 200 weapons he needs to destroy the attacker. But, if he begins with just 500 or 600 weapons, only some 100-120 weapons would survive. The effectiveness of the deterrent is undermined if the aggressor believes there is a reasonable possibility that his first strike will be so effective that he can ride out any retaliatory strike–or that the defender will surrender rather than launch what would be an ineffectual gesture. It is in this circumstance that the incentive to cheat on stockpiles comes into play. If, e.g., the attacker has an additional 100 warheads available, he can either increase the effectiveness of his first strike, or retain a residual capability to deter any retaliatory strike.

Fourth, small stockpiles make accidental war more likely. As noted above, when a defender is uncertain of his ability to “ride out” a first strike, he is almost inevitably forced into a “launch on warning” posture. This eliminates all margin of error by compressing the timeline from the detection of an attack until a launch order is issued. There is no cushion to determine whether the attack is a false alarm (during the Cold War, both U.S. and Soviet radar and satellite warning systems issued spurious attack alerts, but both sides had sufficient confidence in the survivability of their deterrent that they were able to verify whether the attack was real). Small stockpiles place the peace in the hands of automated command and control systems.

Fifth, small stockpiles encourage the rise of additional peer competitors. It is significant that the USSR did not try to match the U.S. nuclear deterrent force so long as the U.S. did not place an upper limit on the size of its arsenal. The U.S. lead in both bombers and ballistic missiles was so great that Soviet leaders were under no illusions they could catch up–especially if the U.S. would simply increase its force to match any Soviet buildup. However, once the United States decided to limit its nuclear forces under the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, the USSR was able to build up its own forces to match and (by the 1980s) exceed that of the United States, in the hope of developing a viable first strike capability (and they almost succeeded). Because of the size of the U.S. and Russian nuclear arsenals today, no other country, particularly China, is investing in a large, long-range nuclear missile force (China at present has about 40 ICBMs plus a handful of experimental SLBMs). On the other hand, if the U.S. (and Russian) strategic nuclear arsenals are reduced to a few hundred warheads each, then something approaching parity becomes possible within a few years. The strategic advantages of nuclear parity with the United States would more than justify deferring modernization of China’s conventional forces, and would result in a nuclear-armed China capable of deterring U.S. intervention in East Asian affairs.

It is pretty clear, then, that aiming for steep cuts in U.S. nuclear forces–either unilaterally or as part of a START-II agreement with Russia–would have serious strategic drawbacks. Assuming that Obama is able to get his way, he may then find himself in the position of having to back other programs and policies he has already rejected in order to maintain some semblance of stability and credibility in U.S. nuclear policy. For instance, with a very small stockpile, every warhead counts, so the U.S. would either have to develop and deploy an entirely new generation of more reliable nuclear warheads (something proposed by the Bush administration, and rejected by the Democrats), or it would have to resume underground nuclear testing in order to ensure the reliability of our current, aging weapons.

Adopting much lower nuclear stockpiles also means each warhead represents a larger incremental share of our total deterrent, making the force more vulnerable to attack. One way to improve survivability would be deployment of a National Missile Defense (NMD) system, something else anathema to liberals in the Democratic party. But, ironically, if Obama is able to negotiate parallel reductions in the Soviet nuclear force, then NMD would be effective not only against small nuclear powers like China, Iran and North Korea, but also against Russia. In short, steep cuts in U.S. strategic forces opens Pandora’s Box, and it seems clear the Obama administration has given little consideration to what might be inside. Its pronouncements on nuclear disarmament represent nothing more than the triumph of mindless sentiment over serious strategic analysis.

Stuart Koehl is a frequent contributor to THE WEEKLY STANDARD Online.