Challenging Nuclear Bromides

AbstractDespite the universal implications of nuclear weapons for humanity, broad knowledge of nuclear policy is curiously absent from the public sphere and even among many senior figures in government. Nuclear strategists have nourished the belief that the principles of nuclear deterrence are so esoteric as to exempt them from non-expert scrutiny, creating an intellectual vacuum within which a number of fallacies about nuclear strategy have taken root. These fallacies in turn find expression in the configuration of several states’ nuclear postures, from the number of warheads posited as necessary for deterrence to the selection of adversary targets. Puncturing the myth of complexity that surrounds nuclear policy is a necessary starting point to assess its more questionable features. This essay evaluates some of the prevailing tenets of nuclear strategy to expose for non-experts the many misconceptions that shape the major powers’ strategic postures.Key words: counterforcecountervaluedeterrenceintercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs)launch-on-warningnuclear deterrencenuclear weaponspre-emptionsubmarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs)‘use or lose’ AcknowledgementsThanks to James Acton, Rick Christensen, James Crabtree, John Maenchen, Jessica Mathews, Aaron Miles, Michael Molino, Joshua Pollack and Alex Wood for helpful comments.Notes1 Douglas Martin, ‘Roger C. Molander, Nuclear Protest Leader, Dies at 71’, New York Times, 31 March 2012, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/us/roger-c-molander-dies-at-71-stirred-nuclear-protests.html.2 See Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, Defense Science Board Task Force, ‘Nuclear Deterrence Skills’, Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force, September 2008, https://dsb.cto.mil/reports/2000s/ADA487983.pdf.3 Ashley J. Tellis, ‘India’s Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Recessed Deterrent and Ready Arsenal’, RAND Corporation, MR-1127-AF, 2001, p. 19.4 Victor D. Cha, ‘How to Disarm a Nuclear North Korea’, Washington Post, 9 October 2011, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/how-to-disarm-a-nuclear-north-korea/2011/10/09/gIQAlaZeYL_story.html.5 See Sheena Chestnut, ‘Illicit Activity and Proliferation: North Korean Smuggling Networks’, International Security, vol. 32, no. 1, Summer 2007, pp. 80–111.6 ‘Bush: Don’t Wait for Mushroom Cloud’, CNN, 8 October 2002, https://edition.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/10/07/bush.transcript/; and White House, ‘Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister Rutte at Opening Session of the Nuclear Security Summit’, 1 April 2016, https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2016/04/01/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-rutte-opening-session-nuclear.7 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI Yearbook 2022: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (Stockholm: SIPRI, 2022), p. 342.8 Fred Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1983), pp. 259–61.9 See Austin Long and Brendan Rittenhouse Green, ‘Stalking the Secure Second Strike: Intelligence, Counterforce, and Nuclear Strategy’, Journal of Strategic Studies, vol. 38, nos 1–2, 2015, pp. 38–73.10 Jeffrey A. Larsen et al., ‘Qualitative Considerations of Nuclear Forces at Lower Numbers and Implications for Future Arms Control Negotiations’, USAF Institute for National Security Studies Occasional Paper 68, July 2012, p. xiv, https://www.usafa.edu/app/uploads/OCP68.pdf.11 See Robert S. Norris and Hans M. Kristensen, ‘Global Nuclear Weapons Inventories, 1945–2010’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 1 July 2010, https://thebulletin.org/2010/07/global-nuclear-weapons-inventories-1945-2010/.12 George Perkovich, Do Unto Others: Toward a Defensible Nuclear Doctrine (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2013), p. 62.13 Matthew G. McKinzie et al., ‘The US Nuclear War Plan: A Time for Change’, Natural Resources Defense Council, June 2001, p. x, https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/us-nuclear-war-plan-report.pdf.14 T.C. Schelling, ‘The Reciprocal Fear of Surprise Attack’, RAND Corporation, P-1342, 16 April 1958 (revised 28 May 1958), p. 3 (emphasis in original), https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/papers/2007/P1342.pdf.15 Stephen J. Cimbala and James Scouras, A New Nuclear Century: Strategic Stability and Arms Control (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002), pp. 2–3.16 See Brad Roberts, ‘Debating Nuclear No-first-use – Again’, Survival, vol. 61, no. 3, June–July 2019, pp. 39–56.17 While repudiating ‘launch-onwarning’, the United States acknowledges it ‘maintains the capability to launch nuclear forces under conditions of an ongoing nuclear attack’. However, the failure to clarify a substantive difference between the two options suggests the distinction is contrived. See US Department of Defense, ‘Report on the Nuclear Employment Strategy of the United States – 2020’, p. 6, https://www.esd.whs.mil/Portals/54/Documents/FOID/Reading%20Room/NCB/21-F-0591_2020_Report_of_the_Nuclear_Employement_Strategy_of_the_United_States.pdf.18 Office of the Secretary of Defense, ‘Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China 2021’, Annual Report to Congress, p. 93, https://media.defense.gov/2021/Nov/03/2002885874/-1/-1/0/2021-CMPR-FINAL.PDF.19 Jeffrey Lewis, ‘Our Nuclear Procedures Are Crazier than Trump’, Foreign Policy, 5 August 2016, https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/05/our-nuclear-procedures-are-crazier-than-trump/.20 Nick Gass, ‘Former CIA Director Fears Trump “Crisis in Civil–Military Relationships”’, Politico, 3 August 2016, https://www.politico.com/story/2016/08/michael-hayden-trump-military-226606.21 See US Department of Defense, ‘Nuclear Employment Strategy’, p. 6.22 David Wright, ‘Nuclear Weapons and the Myth of the “Re-alerting Race”’, Equation, 6 September 2016, https://blog.ucsusa.org/david-wright/nuclear-weapons-re-alerting-race/.23 James E. Doyle, ‘You’re NUTS: New Nuclear Cruise Missiles Are Inherently Destabilizing’, National Interest, 30 November 2015, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/youre-nuts-new-nuclear-cruise-missiles-are-inherently-14457.24 See, for example, Michael Mandelbaum, ‘How to Prevent an Iranian Bomb: The Case for Deterrence’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 94, no. 6, November/December 2015, pp. 19–24.25 See Gerald F. Seib, ‘Amid Signs of a Thaw in North Korea, Tensions Bubble Up’, Wall Street Journal, 9 January 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/amid-signs-of-a-thaw-in-north-korea-tensions-bubble-up-1515427541.26 Van Jackson, ‘Want to Strike North Korea? It’s Not Going to Go the Way You Think’, Politico, 12 January 2018, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/12/north-korea-strike-nuclear-strategist-216306/.27 Jina Kim and John K. Warden, ‘Limiting North Korea’s Coercive Nuclear Leverage’, Survival, vol. 62, no. 1, February–March 2020, pp. 31–8.28 Christopher F. Chyba and J.D. Crouch, ‘Understanding the US Nuclear Weapons Policy Debate’, Washington Quarterly, vol. 32, no. 3, July 2009, pp. 21–36 (emphasis added).29 The figure is from Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda and Eliana Reynolds, ‘Nuclear Notebook: Russian Nuclear Weapons, 2023’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 9 May 2023, https://thebulletin.org/premium/2023-05/nuclear-notebook-russian-nuclear-weapons-2023/.30 See Jan Lodal, ‘The Counterforce Fantasy’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 89, no. 2, March/April 2010, pp. 145–6.31 National Research Council, Making the Nation Safer: The Role of Science and Technology in Countering Terrorism (Washington DC: National Academies Press, 2002), p. 40.32 See Hui Zhang, ‘China’s Fissile Material Production and Stockpile’, International Panel on Fissile Materials, Research Report No. 17, 2017, https://fissilematerials.org/library/rr17.pdf.33 Jeffrey Lewis, ‘Do We Need ICBMs?’, Arms Control Wonk, 19 July 2012, https://www.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/205519/do-we-need-icbms/ (emphasis in original).34 Eleanor Chelimsky, ‘The U.S. Nuclear Triad: GAO’s Evaluation of the Strategic Modernization Program’, General Accounting Office testi-mony before the Committee on Governmental Affairs, United States Senate, 10 June 1993, p. 6, https://www.gao.gov/assets/t-pemd-93-5.pdf.35 Lewis, ‘Do We Need ICBMs?’36 Dave Majumdar, ‘$348 Billion in Nukes Ain’t Enough. The Air Force Wants New ICBMs, Too’, Daily Beast, 28 January 2015, https://www.thedailybeast.com/dollar348-billion-in-nukes-aint-enough-the-air-force-wants-new-icbms-too.37 See ‘Transcript: National Defense Industrial Association, Air Force Association and Reserve Officers Association Capitol Hill Breakfast Forum with Linton Brooks’, Peter Huessy Congressional Breakfast Seminar Series, 28 June 2012, https://secure.afa.org/HBS/transcripts/2012/6-28-2012%20Linton%20Brooks.pdf.38 ‘Rep. Adam Smith on US Nuclear Policy’, Ploughshares Fund, 24 October 2019, https://ploughshares.org/issues-analysis/article/rep-adam-smith-us-nuclear-policy.39 Richard Rhodes, Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), p. 187.40 See Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, ‘“The Cold War Was Truly Over” – The 1986 Reykjavik Summit’, 27 September 2016, https://adst.org/2016/09/the-cold-war-truly-over-1986-reykjavik-summit/.41 Fred Kaplan, ‘We Don’t Need a Better Nuclear Arsenal to Take on China’, Slate, 23 April 2021, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2021/04/nuclear-triad-overhaul-china.html.42 See Ronald Reagan, ‘Address to the Nation on Defense and National Security’, 23 March 1983, https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/address-nation-defense-and-national-security.43 For a nuanced view, see Harold A. Feiveson (ed.), The Nuclear Turning Point: A Blueprint for Deep Cuts and De-alerting of Nuclear Weapons (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1999).44 Upton Sinclair, I, Candidate for Governor, and How I Got Licked (New York: Farrar & Rinehart, 1935), p. 109.Additional informationNotes on contributorsDallas BoydDallas Boyd is a policy analyst with experience in nuclear-weapons policy, nuclear counter-terrorism policy and deterrence theory. The views reflected here are the author’s personal views and should not be attributed to any institution with which he is or has been affiliated.