Nukes Have Made The World Safe For War

As the new nuclear posture document makes it way to the Oval, there is a bit of historical context which is important in considering the two major options contained in the draft.

First, the options.

One is predicated on the oft-repeated Obama vision of a nuclear free world. It would limit the US nuclear mission to that of deterring nuclear attack upon the US and those countries over which it has extended its "nuclear umbrella"--a group which is likely to grow with the impending Iranian development of a credible nuclear capacity.

The other major alternative contained in the draft sees a larger role for the US nuclear arsenal. It would provide for a declaratory policy which pledges nuclear retaliation for biological or chemical attack on the US, and, perhaps, other nations. It would also continence nuclear usage in certain, select tactical settings such as taking out deep, hardened, high-threat or high-value point targets and thwarting mass ground attacks on US forces. The second option is not far removed from the traditional gamut of nuclear missions.

Either option, but the first in particular, would allow for a continued reduction in American warheads from their current level of five thousand. In the case of the nuclear deterrence only approach the level could drop realistically to less than a thousand. Considering either Russia or China, proponents of what is called "finite deterrence" have held the magic number resides somewhere between five hundred and a thousand (to use the old Soviet formulation) "nuclear charges."

Now the history:

During the Cold War and beyond, the main actors in nuclear diplomacy--including its robust extension, war--have been rational actors. The decision makers in Washington, Moscow, and, even during Mao's sometimes quite nutty reign, Beijing, have shared one overwhelming national interest. None saw national suicide as a viable alternative.

This meant that all, particularly the Americans and the Russians, sought to decouple all international competition from even the most remote possibility of vertical escalation across the nuclear threshold. Remote, proxy, and facilitated insurgencies provided a way to wage policy without great risk of going nuclear.

Not to put too fine a point on the matter, the nuclear balance of terror (or, if you prefer, the doctrine of mutually assured destruction) made the world safe for war. Wars were waged. The wars waged were small, relatively low in body count, and, ultimately, inconclusive in effect on the global balance of power.

And, now, the conclusion.

Considering the two options, the first seems the more justifiable. The continued technical improvement of munitions and their delivery systems renders nugatory many, if not all, the proposed utilities falling under the second option. Precision guided munitions, hyperbaryic explosives, stealth delivery systems, better targeting intelligence all combine to provide a highly flexible, efficient, and diplomatically less fatal way of degrading a threat or retaliating to another's attack.

A significant benefit of adopting the first option would be the strengthening of the American hand in pursuing non-proliferation goals. It would even go a good way in gaining more support from countries such as Brazil and Argentina, which voluntarily renounced their in-process nuclear weapons acquisition programs, regarding such challenges as the ones presented by Iran and North Korea.

Importantly, the maintenance of a finite deterrent would continue to make the world safe for war. There is little probability that China, Russia, the US, the UK, or France would suddenly become suicidal. India is similarly situated. So is Israel, even though the so-called "Samson option" may seem self-destructive.

Only Pakistan cannot be placed categorically in the rational actor club. That is not because the current government has shown a tilt to the irrational, the suicidal. Rather it is due to uncertainty as to whether future governments may be less inclined to keep on the straight and narrow of self-interested self-preservation.

The uncertainties of rationality existing in Pakistan or Iran as well as the necessity of keeping rational actors rational demands the existence of a finite deterrent. Thus the best (or least-worst) choice for Mr Obama is the first option. US declaratory policy must be no-first-use and nuclear-deterrence-only in its basis.

Following such a declaration, the US could move to another round of nuclear force reduction negotiations with Russia. If both, and, ultimately, China, agree in principle to maintaining finite deterrence, the result would be stability. This stability would be enhanced if all three, along with the UK and France adopted a no-first-use and nuclear-deterrence/retaliation-only approach. A major consequence of this sort of understanding would be a clear warning to all other present and future members of the nuclear club what the limits are.

The nuclear-free world is and will remain a chimera for decades, even generations to come. This is acceptable, even praiseworthy given history to date. The greatest irony to come from the boffins of the Manhattan Project and its many descendants around the globe is simply that the development and perfections of weapons of demonstrably limited utility makes the world both more stable and safer for nasty little wars.