by CKR
Representative Ellen Tauscher (D-CA) would like to “create a public discussion about future requirements for nuclear weapons by establishing a congressionally-appointed, bipartisan congressional commission to re-evaluate the U.S. strategic posture.” (H/t to Jeffrey Lewis, who quotes the objectives of the commission.) Even though I haven’t sifted through the 794 pages of the bill, it looks to me like something’s missing.
The commission’s charge includes recommending the “most effective nuclear weapons strategy” and then evaluating issues associated with this strategy.
Let’s back up a little, Representative Tauscher. Unless a country is out to conquer the world, the way one analyzes the need for a weapon is to look at the threats and the effectiveness of the weapon against those threats. There is something in Tauscher’s bill about “the benefits and risks associated with the current strategic posture and nuclear weapons policies of the United States,” but that is not the same as a threat assessment. “Risks and benefits” seems broader than a simple threat assessment, but it is worth wondering why no threat assessment has surfaced since the big nuclear-weapons threat of the Soviet Union dissolved. That was in 1989 or 1991, depending on exactly how you want to define that threat; at least fifteen years now.
What is available of the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review seems to contain little threat assessment. Instead, it seems to be aimed at a one-size-fits-all strategy. The report on the role of the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) in several places comments on the difficulty of evaluating that role when the mission for the weapon is poorly defined.
The RRW is a particularly unusual situation in that it does not respond to a new military capability or mission need, but relaxes the yield-to-weight requirement and emphasizes other features, such as long-term reliability, surety features, and ease of maintenance and manufacture. The panel believes that if RRWs are to become significant elements of the stockpile, the DOD needs to be clear about which weapon characteristics are most important; lay out in advance the long-term stockpile size and diversity so that the DOE can size the complex; and engage at all levels in the planning, budgeting, and testing process from the beginning of the program….there have been no policy statements that articulate the role of nuclear weapons in a post-Cold War and post-9/11 world and lay out the stockpile needs for the future.The Defense Science Board also noted the lack of a nuclear policy.
There is agreement that the overriding priority for the U.S. nuclear weapons enterprise is to provide and sustain a reliable, safe, secure, and credible set of nuclear weapons needed to maintain the nuclear deterrent. There is no national consensus on the nature of that need.
The role of nuclear weapons depends in part on the threats they are intended to prevent or retaliate against, and in part on an understanding on how they should be used.
Nuclear weapons do not simply make a bigger bang than other bombs. They create fallout and leave residual radioactivity. The horrific results of the two nuclear bombings in Japan, along with a generalized fear of radioactivy have put those weapons into a different perceptual category from other weapons. Therefore, a different sort of calculation is needed for invoking their use. Under what circumstances might they be used? Is their first use ever justified?
These questions and others would be part of the discussion Ellen Tauscher seems to want to create and in developing the consensus the Defense Science Board finds missing. I find it disturbing that none of these statements of concern mention the idea that nuclear weapons are intended to counter particular threats. I would like to believe that the Department of Defense has assessed those threats, but either it has not, or the results of that assessment have been classified out of public reach.
What I’d like to do in this post is to indicate how such a threat assessment might be done. I will outline the steps that might be taken and provide some of my own prejudices as to how some of the threats stack up. I have far more questions than answers. A real threat assessment would require a team of people and months of work to collect the relevant information.
Threats include both capability and intent. Too often, the Bush administration has emphasized intent to the exclusion of capability. In the past, capability has been emphasized, since the interests of nations can change. So let me start with capability.
Nuclear-Capable Powers
The nations that currently possess usable nuclear weapons, besides the United States, are Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France, Israel, India, and Pakistan. North Korea has tested a device, and Iran is believed to be building toward the capability for building nuclear weapons. A number of countries, including Japan, Germany, Argentina, Brazil, Sweden, and maybe twenty others, have the technological capacity for building nuclear weapons, but have chosen not to.
A threat assessment must cover some portion of the future. Some of those nations that currently do not have nuclear weapons but have the capacity to build them may need to be considered as well. Is it sufficient to consider them in a generic way?
Subnational organizations* do not have the capability to build a full nuclear capability. Functions such as uranium enrichment and plutonium production require large facilities, for which the capital and land requirements are beyond the reach of any subnational organization. Acquisition of fissile material and its fabrication into a nuclear device may be within the capability of such organizations, as may acquisition of complete devices through theft. However, this limits the numbers of weapons available, which are most likely to be one or two, extremely unlikely to reach as high as ten.
Delivery capability is an essential part of a threat. Of the nations possessing nuclear weapons, Israel, India and Pakistan do not have missiles capable of reaching the United States. Iran and North Korea also lack such long-range missiles. However, missile development continues and may be available to those countries at some time in the future. Subnational organizations also lack long-range missiles.
The nations, then, that can deliver nuclear weapons by missile to the United States are Russia, China, the United Kingdom, and France.
I haven’t gone into the uncertainties. Recent newspaper coverage of the situation in Iran and commentary illlustrates some of the difficulties. Likewise, we are fairly sure that North Korea has enough plutonium for eight to twelve nuclear weapons. We know that they used some of that plutonium in their underground test. We don’t know what they have done with the rest.
An evaluation of intent is necessary to further narrow the threats. Some are obvious, like the extreme unlikelihood that the United Kingdom and France would be threats to the US.
Intent
Here we get into the realm of politics and a great deal more. In 1992, Russia was weak and much more focused on internal problems than extending its power. Events since then have moved Russia to a stronger internal position and a desire to assume a greater role in world politics. Missed or botched opportunities on the part of the United States may have resulted in a less friendly Russia than some hoped for in the early 1990s. Further US actions, like the proposed basing of missile defense radar and missiles in the Czech Republic and Poland, may worsen the relationship.
Likewise with China, the other potentially unfriendly nuclear power with a world reach. There are many possible pathways into the future. A threat assessment would probably analyze several scenarios that would involve better and worse relations with these two nations, as well as the probability of their desires for expansion.
At present, both seem to present little nuclear threat against the US. China has explicitly disavowed the first use of nuclear weapons and seems to have a small nuclear arsenal with plans for slow expansion. This has been interpreted as solely a deterrent nuclear capability.
Russia has been working with the United States to decrease its nuclear arsenal, and has agreed with the US to bring each country’s arsenal down to 2200 deployed warheads or less by 2012. Both countries still maintain their nuclear missiles on alert status, which raises the possibility of an accidental exchange, but says little about intentions, which have not been tested by negotiation.
Of the subnational organizations, al-Qaeda has expressed a desire for nuclear weapons that could be used against Western targets, particularly Europe and the United States. Al-Qaeda operatives are known to have attempted to buy fissile material.
Questions
I have assumed in the analysis so far that only a nuclear attack justifies a nuclear response; in other words, that the United States would not be the first to use nuclear weapons.
But the United States has not disavowed the first use of nuclear weapons. What could provoke a first use of nuclear weapons? The customary scenario involves a large-scale attack with chemical or biological weapons, although some have suggested additional scenarios, such as a retaliatory nuclear strike on Muslim holy sites in response to a terrorist attack on the United States, or a preventive nuclear strike against underground nuclear production sites in Iran.
Any discussion would need to take into account the disproportionate lumping of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons into the term “weapons of mass destruction.” The destruction caused by nuclear weapons is enormously more than that of the others, horrifying though they may be.
Perhaps this is the best point in the discussion at which to say that emotion should be put aside. Far too much discussion in the United States today relies on evoking horrific scenarios without considering any realistic probability of their occurring.
What US interests should be defended with nuclear weapons? Oil transport routes? Israel? Internal disputes of other countries?
How likely is it that additional nations, now without nuclear weapons, will feel it necessary to acquire nuclear weapon and missile capability that could threaten the United States? How long would it take them to do it? What are the conditions that would encourage them in that pursuit? How might they be prevented from acquiring such a capability?
How are other nations likely to respond to what the United States may decide about its nuclear arsenal? More scenarios would be needed here. How can the United States prepare for potential threats while restraining itself from a posture that suggests expansionism or imperialism? What factors are the most influential?
________________________________________________
*I refer to subnational organizations because there has been speculation that organized crime, as well as terrorist organizations might want to acquire nuclear weapons. Additionally, breakaway factions in civil wars might consider acquiring nuclear weapons.