The Necessity of the U.S. Nuclear Deterrent: A White Paper

by CKR

The United States has no real post-Cold-War policy on nuclear weapons, as I've observed before. The House of Representatives noticed that, too, and they said they’d like to see a nuclear policy before they funded the development of the reliable replacement warhead. That got the attention of the Secretaries of Energy, Defense, and State, who quickly pounded out a promise that they would give Congress a report.

But the problem is that the United States doesn’t have a post-Cold-War policy on nuclear weapons. We can hope that there will be long and serious thought, with many discussions involving the executive agencies, Congress and the people as such a policy is developed. So I’ve been wondering just exactly what will show up in that promised report: the bits and scraps of nuclear policy left over from the Cold War, or something entirely new, which is what we really need. But before the end of the budget cycle?

Other folks seem to be wondering about that too. The Armchair Generalist sent me some of their maunderings the other day. They're on the Web too, at the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP) website.

“White Paper on the Necessity of the U. S. Nuclear Deterrent” is dated July 30, 2007. No sponsoring organization is named. I read down the list of co-authors and contributors on the last page, though, and found a commonality: all of them are listed as members of the U.S. Department of State International Security Advisory Board (ISAB). That link says that the board has twenty members, but only eighteen are listed by name, of which twelve are authors of this white paper. No such study is listed as current or previous for the ISAB.

The “Co-Authors and Contributors” of the white paper are Kathleen C. Bailey, Robert G. Joseph, Gordon C. Oehler, Keith B. Payne, Robert L. Pfaltzgraff, Charles S. Robb, C. Paul Robinson, James R. Schlesinger, William Schneider Jr., William Van Cleave and R. James Woolsey.

For more information, we can look at the website where it’s posted. Four of the co-authors and contributors are on the Board of Advisors and professional staff of the NIPP. Here’s how NIPP describes its purpose:

The international environment is changing rapidly. The collapse of the Soviet empire and the rise of new, potentially hostile regional powers have transformed the strategic landscape for the United States. The static, bipolar Cold War model of international behavior no longer holds, and the basic assumptions behind decades of U.S. foreign and defense policy need drastic rethinking.

The National Institute for Public Policy devotes its agenda to assessing U.S. foreign and defense polices in this new environment. Founded in 1981, National Institute is a non-profit public education organization that focuses on a wide spectrum of rapidly evolving foreign policy and international issues.

The white paper, however, is mostly a rehash of the Cold War doctrine of nuclear deterrence, barely updated.

It can’t be denied that deterrence is a major function (some of us would hope the only function) of a nuclear arsenal. The theory is, as the white paper says,

the U.S. threatens the possibility that, in event that all other diplomatic and military efforts fail to prevent or end a conflict, U.S. nuclear weapons could be used to inflict unacceptable damage on the aggressor, including defeat and denial of his objectives.

This makes sense with nation-states, particularly with a nation-state that has thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at the US and vice versa.

The white paper, however, says very little about today’s biggest nuclear threat, namely the acquisition of nuclear weapons by terrorists. North Korea and Iran are years away from a first nuclear weapon, let alone an arsenal, so they are not current threats, and a few nuclear weapons would only be useful for their own deterrence. Russia has inherited the Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal, but not its foreign policy. The immediate danger is that if you’ve got enough nukes floating around the world, some might fall into the wrong hands. So security of nuclear weapons and materials is an important consideration. Nothing is said about it in the white paper.

Much is said about the stabilizing influence of the US nuclear umbrella, extended to NATO, ANZUS (except New Zealand didn’t want it, so that’s just Australia), Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Israel. Because the stabilizing influence is supposed to keep these countries from developing their own nuclear arsenal, Israel, with its hundred or so nuclear weapons, is an odd member of this list. Perhaps the authors still feel they have to maintain Israel’s strategic ambiguity?

No real threat assessment is offered, just vaguely threatening words about Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. For a group of folks trying to move out of the Cold War mindset, that’s an interesting ordering of countries.

Is the white paper saying that US nuclear policy is only about deterrence? Nothing about the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and its obligations? Nothing about the uselessness of deterrence against mobile subnational groups with no territory to defend? The only thing that is important to our allies is US security assurances, backed up by the threat of nuclear warfare?

Now I may have it all wrong. The white paper says little about its purpose, and the title speaks only of the nuclear deterrent. So perhaps it is simply an explication of this deterrent, and my comments about what they’ve left out are misplaced.

What makes me think that this white paper is intended as a contribution to the development of that promised report is the last section: “The Need for Debate.” This is the kind of thing that one puts in to assure the reader that this objective description of the current situation is merely a contribution to the discussion, not intended to change the reader’s mind. The distribution list for this white paper is most likely the decision-makers and their support staff in the various agencies involved in producing that report on policy. And the author list will get their attention.

Debate is always good if your interests can define its boundaries. That last section starts out with a list of the characteristics necessary to a US nuclear deterrent. That is, the characteristics necessary if you accept the many assumptions, stated and unstated, of the rest of the white paper. And then there are the recommended questions for the debate:

• What capabilities and characteristics should U.S. nuclear weapons have now and into the future?

• What priority should be given to improving the safety and security of weapons in our stockpile?

• To what extent are conventional weapons and missile defenses capable of reducing reliance on nuclear weapons for deterrence?

• What do we need to assure reliability of the deterrent over the long term?

Nothing about the threats against which nuclear weapons might be used, or to which their deterrent power might be applied. Nothing about how any of this plays into our treaty obligations, both for defense and the NPT. Nothing about the broader view of deterrence by management of international relations. Nothing about the dangers posed by India's and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. Nothing about that trade deal with India.

This white paper is stuck in the the Cold War, circa 1969.

It’s correct, though, that we need a national discussion. But we need a discussion of today’s threats and needs, not those of the Cold War.