21st Century Nuclear Strategy

This post is my response to Cheryl's call for a "blog tank" on the topic of US Nuclear Strategy.  I am glad to contribute my rather quick and rough thoughts to the discussion of this important topic.  Others who have commented on the subject include Michael van der Galien, Dave Schuler, Shane Deichman and Jason Sigger (please let me know if I've missed anyone).

To begin with, I'd like to point out and discuss three important premises that I believe are critical:

1. Nuclear strategy is not isolated and is part of, and integral to, broader US strategy.  Although the concept of nuclear strategy as a mere portion of overall US strategy appears obvious and self-evident, debates on nuclear policy are still too often divorced from the "big picture" strategy debate.  It is my contention that nuclear policy differences among experts are those in the "blog tank" not primarily rooted in disputes over nuclear policy itself but represent disputes over broader US strategic policy and the role the US should and will play on the world stage in the 21st century.  Added to this mix is what "New World Order" the international system will morph into over the coming years and decades - a process which, in my view, is still ongoing.  Therefore, I would suggest the debate on US nuclear policy is really a debate on larger, more complex and highly-interrelated issues.

2. Related to the previous premise is my contention that the US lacks a coherent and defendable strategic vision or plan for the 21st century.  Without a coherent vision it becomes difficult to formulate coherent and integrated policies and nuclear policy is no exception.  The US appears to me divided and reticent after "winning" the cold war, unsure of where to go or what to do next beyond incrementalism and maintaining the status quo, particularly since interventionism is not working out so well.

3. Nuclear weapons cannot be 100% verifiably eliminated. The problem with eliminating nuclear weapons entirely is one of trust and verification.  For relatively new nuclear states, this is a difficult prospect, for the US, Russia, China, and others it is exceedingly difficult.  Ensuring that a country does not have a few weapons or material hidden away is virtually impossible given the nuclear history and accounting practices of many of these states.  Therefore, any agreement to eliminate nuclear weapons will require a relatively high degree of trust sans verification - a condition which states of all stripes will find difficult to accept.  This concern, however, can be partially addressed through limiting delivery platforms, as I'll discuss later.

With that said, I will briefly note my own views on the strategic big-picture to provide context for my specific comments on nuclear policy:

1. The US will continue to be a hegemonic economic, military and political power until at least mid-century and the US will likely continue to be more interventionist in its foreign policy than other nations.
2. International institutions and treaties born at the end of WWII will decline in importance and influence unless they are amended or reformed, particularly the UN itself and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).  The principle reason is that both are discriminatory and the discrimination was based on conditions and a strategic situation that are no longer relevant or are rapidly becoming so.  For example, India's GDP will likely overtake that of France in the next decade and India is a nuclear power with a capable military.  Increasingly, nations like India are asking why they do not have veto power on the UNSC or the status and benefits as a nuclear-weapon state under the NPT given their importance.  If the western powers want these institutions to remain relevant then they must be open to significant reform and address the concerns of the "have-nots," particularly the powerful ones.

Now that a foundation is laid, on to nuclear policy specifically, which I'll first summarize thusly:

1.  In strategically ambiguous circumstances, nations will hedge their bets.
2.  The utility of bilateral treaties is greatly diminished as is the importance of US - Russian arms control in general.
3.  Delivery systems are at least as important as nuclear weapons themselves and more effort should be placed on limiting them.

While acknowledging that the cold war is certainly over, I believe we remain in a period of strategic ambiguity as the world continues to change and reorganize away from the bipolar cold-war era toward one probably more fractious, contentious and chaotic in nature.  As this change takes place, it is difficult to predict with any certainty what future threats might develop, from what quarter they might come and how serious they might be.  In such an environment, nations and leaders are naturally hesistant and are more likely to err on the side of more capability than less - in other words, to hedge their bets.  In a nuclear context, this means that restricting one's capabilities unilaterally or through treaty is more difficult because doing so may a produce future vulnerability. For example, suppose the US and Russia signed a treaty to verifiably reduce their stockpiles to less than 100, but at some later date another power increased its stockpile significantly.  Let's assume this power was hostile to Russia but not to the US.  In this case, Russia would face a difficult strategic choice between adhering to a treaty with the US or breaking the treaty to increase its deterrent to meet the new threat.  The former might leave Russia vulnerable to the new power, the latter might reignite competition or even hostility with the US.  Rather than risk that or similar scenarios, it appears both the US and Russia intend to "hedge their bets" against future uncertainty by keeping more weapons than one might argue are rationally required for their strategic needs.  I hasten to add that I don't make this argument in order to advocate a "hedging bets" position - rather it is meant explain the general reluctance among nuclear weapon's states to push toward real disarmament and to set the stage for how it may be overcome.

The conundrum Russia faced in my example illustrates the limited utility of bilateral arms control agreements in a world that is no longer bipolar.  It is one reason why arms control objectives will be best met through multilateral agreements. The CTBT is an excellent example as it applies to all states - even those without nuclear weapons.  A similar global agreement might cap the number of weapons every nation could legally posses and provide a schedule of regular, verifiable reductions that would apply to everyone.

Additionally, nuclear policy, particularly with regard to weapons, cannot be assessed without examining delivery systems.  I would argue that too much emphasis is placed on weapons and not enough on the means to deliver them - primarily ballistic missiles.  Let's look at the US and Russia as examples.  Both nations have large numbers of warheads on alerted missiles that can strike virtually any target on the planet with impugnity in less than forty minutes.  If  those warheads were on bombers or tactical aircraft their threat would be significantly diminished simply because delivering the weapons would take much longer and the delivery platforms are much more vulnerable to interdiction.  Time is critically important here - the threat posed by the capability to deliver x number of warheads in under 30 minutes is orders of magnitude greater than that posed by the capability to deliver those same warheads in hours or even days, even if x were a single digit number.

This ties into the second premise I gave above - that nuclear weapons cannot be 100% verifiably eliminated.  The presence of ballistic missiles aggravates that verification difficulty because even a few weapons that a nation might hide are an imminent nuclear threat when mated to missiles.  In a crisis the potential for nuclear blackmail is huge.  If the delivery means were limited to aircraft or more unconventional methods then a few weapons are not nearly as great a threat because there is time and opportunity to intercept, destroy, capture, or otherwise prevent delivery to the target.

So, one way to provide a significant reduction to the threat posed by nuclear weapons is to limit or eliminate ballistic missiles. Furthermore, restriction or elimination of ballistic missiles (especially long-range missiles) is arguably easier from a verification standpoint than nuclear weapons since they are larger, more difficult to hide and require significant support facilities.  As a result, the US may get a greater security bang-for-the-buck by pursuing elimination of ballistic missiles than it would elimination of nuclear weapons.  Taken together, reducing both nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles is reinforcing and should be pursued in concert.

These are only a few shallow thoughts on a deep subject with long-ranging consequences, but I hope readers will find something of value herein.