Is Uncle Sam Now A Nuclear Wimp?

The Obama administration released the long discussed, long speculated upon Nuclear Posture Review in a blare of public relations speechifying suitable for a political campaign rally. Not only did the president hail his accomplishment in approving a revision of the intentionally ambiguous and thus controversial product of the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld years, Secretary of Defense Gates, Secretary of State Clinton, and assorted other heavies broke their collective arms in an orgy of back patting.

Almost before the press releases hit in-boxes around the virtual world, the voices of criticism bayed long and loud. From the Right came the expectable viewing-with-alarm. On the Left heads wagged over one-more-opportunity-missed.

Both Left and Right practiced the fine art of reductionism with exuberance, which assured that each reduced matters to the point of absurdity. The Right was apparently of the view that by not promising the possibility of nuclear retaliation for any attack on the US employing a weapon more deadly than a .18 caliber airgun, Obama has opened us to any number of vile assaults by any number of evil actors. The Left evidently convinced itself that by not renouncing any first use--or perhaps, any use--of nuclear weapons the president has not only abandoned his quest for the unicorn inhabited world-without-nuclear-arms but has left the door to proliferation wide open.

The Earth shaking imaginings of both Left and Right are not borne out by the text of the NPR. A more or less close reading of this document along with its predecessor shows that little of substance has been altered. Arguably those features which constitute a change from the Bush era Review represent a change for the better.

Perhaps more importantly the changes show an understanding of the potency of the latest generation of conventional munitions along with their delivery systems. It also demonstrates a conservative estimate as to the direction and magnitude of projected future improvements in this genera of weapons.

The new NPR also reflects a realistic appreciation of the limits of nuclear utility. It is refreshing to see an explicit recognition that the nuclear arsenal has a very narrowly circumscribed area of efficacy. Other than mutual deterrence among nuclear opponents these very expensive devices and their means of delivery are fundamentally useless.

This is not to say nukes can't kill people and break things in horridly large lots but rather to acknowledge that this quality represents the basis of their uselessness. There is a point where retaliation has effects far worse than those of the initial attack. This point can be marked by a nuclear strike in response to a limited impact attack by, say, chemical or radiological means.

While nuclear munitions have been made in relatively small yields and the delivery systems tweaked greatly in their accuracy, the collateral damage from even a very small, very carefully targeted retaliatory strike would cause such massive deaths and destruction downrange as to cause diplomatic and political consequences of major dimension and nearly infinite duration.

The ruling out of a nuclear usage against a non-nuclear state which was in full compliance with its non-proliferation obligations even if that state launched or facilitated a chemical, radiological, or cybersystem attack is, to use one of George H.W. Bush's favorite words, "prudent." It is equally prudent to give ourselves an exception should the attack be of a biological nature.

BW may be a "weapon of mass destruction" by legal definition but this category of munitions has not yet reached a level of development likely to produce casualties on a scale equivalent to those inflicted by a nuclear weapon. The future of BW is impossible to predict with detailed accuracy, but it is safe to assume the field is open to development, probably rapid development. A declaratory policy which did not explicitly recognize the duty of the US government to evaluate the non-use of nuclear retaliation would be unconscionably vapid.

The new NPR gives the Obama administration at least some of the moral authority it needs coming into the Monster Rally For Non-Proliferation which goes down in a few weeks. In this context it is important to note that the NPR does put an emphasis upon the dangers of proliferation and the necessity for stronger measures to buck up proliferation inhibiting policies and systems as well as better control of all fissionable materials.

When the four dozen or so heads of state or government meet in Washington, the new NPR particularly when linked to the ReSTART with Russia, will position the US well to achieve real agreement on specific, real-world methods to enhance the physical security of nuclear materials and buff up the still too weak systems controlling the movement of dual use technology, particularly to rogue or failing states. The presence of more robust systems monitoring and, when necessary, interdicting the sale of sensitive nuclear related technology a few years ago would have gone a very long way to strangling the Iranian and North Korean nuclear weapons programs in the cradle.

These two rogue states have not been given a Get Out Of Jail Free card by the new NPR as has been made abundantly clear by SecDef Gates. While not specifically referenced by Gates, the same applies to India, Pakistan--and Israel. This is a wrinkle of the NPR which deserves close attention as to its implications, particularly as applied to a hypothetical future, Islamist Pakistani government.

No NPR is perfect. This one is most assuredly imperfect in its apparent rejection of any improvement in the aging American nuclear stockpile. Any explicit or implicit renouncing of upgrading nuclear weapons particularly as regards yield, explosive effect focusing, or reliability and security does not serve our national and strategic interests. This is all the more true when both China and Russia are expending significant efforts to improve and modernize their weapons. While the risk of nuclear exchange with either country is and is likely to remain small, the erosion of our capacities which would result necessarily from not seeking improvements in our own serves to weaken the deterrent effect of both our policy and the systems on which it depends.

To answer the question which topped this post: Uncle Sam is not a nuclear wimp--yet. But, any refraining from continued questing for small, more focused, more survivable, more accurate, better secured, enhanced reliability weapons will make sure that the old guy in practice will become just that in a very few years.

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.