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APPENDIX D
The Remaining Unique Role of Nuclear Weapons in Post-Cold War
Deterrence
Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky, Stanford Linear
Accelerator Center (Emeritus)
BACKGROUND
In the post-Cold War era, the United States has a strong reason
to define the deterrent role of nuclear weapons to be as separate
as possible from other means of deterring armed conflict. Several
factors support such a widened gap. The first is that the United
States is now the world's preeminent military power measured by
prowess in conventional armament, and therefore the United
States should be able to cope with foreseeable large-scale
conflicts with conventional forces. There are, of course, smaller
hostilities, such as those now unleashed as the result of loss of
control over ethnic or other internal tensions which are beyond the
reach of U.S. conventional forces, but nuclear intervention is
surely not a solution. The second is that the principal nuclear
threat to U.S. security now derives from proliferation of nuclear
weapons rather than conflict among the five declared nuclear
weapons states. There is at this time no plausible scenario
projecting nuclear conflicts among the five, with a possible
exception of a reemergence of a highly nationalistic aggressive
regime in Russia. That latter threat, be it plausible or
implausible, will take considerable time to evolve considering the
derelict state of Russian military forces.
Proliferation of nuclear weapons is another matter. The United
States has the greatest possible interest in stemming nuclear
proliferation; nuclear weapons in some sense are the "great
equalizer" among powerful and nonpowerful nations as firearms can
be the equalizer between physically strong and weak individuals.
Nuclear nonproliferation is codified in the Non-Proliferation
Treaty (NPT), which came into force in 1970 for an initial 25-year
period. This treaty is subject to periodic review, and a successful
extension conference was concluded in the spring of 1995. With both
Russia and the United States, and most of the Western allies,
strongly favoring extension for an indefinite period, the
conference extended the NPT without limit of time. Although this
result is gratifying, it was not reached without controversy
stemming from the inherent tensions the nuclear nonproliferation
regime implies.
The NPT codifies an uneasy bargain among the nonnuclear weapons
states party to the treaty and the five nuclear weapons states. The
components of this bargain interpreted broadly are the
following:
• The five declared nuclear weapons states are obligated
not to transfer nuclear explosives and information concerning their
design to
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nonnuclear weapons states, and nonnuclear weapons states agree
not to produce or accept nuclear explosives.
• Nuclear weapons states agree to make civilian
applications of nuclear technology freely available to nonnuclear
weapons states party to the NPT, provided such civilian activities
are being carried out under "full scope" safeguards administered by
the International Atomic Energy Agency.
• By its nature this arrangement is discriminatory
in freezing by treaty designated "haves" and "have-nots" in respect
to nuclear weapons. To make this discriminatory regime acceptable
to all NPT signatories, the nonproliferation bargain further
provides (codified in Article VI of the NPT) that the nuclear
weapons states shall diminish their nuclear arsenals and work
toward their eventual elimination. Although this is not explicitly
stated, the implication is that the nuclear weapons states should
diminish the role of nuclear weapons as instruments of
international policy to the maximum extent consistent with their
national security.
• The nuclear weapons states shall give both "negative" and
"positive" security assurances to nonnuclear weapons states,
meaning that they shall be committed not to use nuclear weapons
against nonnuclear weapons states and shall give assurances to
protect nonnuclear weapons states against threatened or actual
nuclear attack by other states.
• Whether this bargain will in
fact hold or erode in time is one of the great challenges facing
humanity. In the past it has never been possible to stem the
diffusion of new military technologies once introduced. Technical
barriers such as prohibitions on the transfer of critical materials
and technology can only slow but not prevent proliferation.
Although fissionable materials are essential to the construction of
a nuclear weapon, most potential proliferators could produce the
material indigenously given adequate resources. Nuclear weapons of
very substantial, but less than optimum, capability can be
constructed without access to information classified by the United
States. Technical competence is growing throughout the
lesser-developed world. Thus, ultimately, nuclear weapons
proliferation can be prevented only if the nonnuclear weapons
states are persuaded that their national security is served better
without the possession of nuclear weapons than by their
acquisition. Unless proliferation is to be countered by force or
threat of force, the nuclear weapons states, including the United
States, must view all elements of the nonproliferation bargain with
utmost seriousness in revising their deterrence policies and
therefore the roles which they expect nuclear weapons to play in
the future.
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The Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) completed late in 1994 is
not a bottomup reexamination of these roles but only a
pragmatic examination of the current situation and the near-term
nuclear posture; the NPR is described as "interim" by the
Department of Defense. While confirming the decreased role of
nuclear weapons in U.S. security policy, the NPR essentially
advocates a "reduce and hedge" policy: the reductions in nuclear
weapons are essentially those already agreed to during previous
administrations and the hedging provides for regrowth of U.S.
nuclear forces by "re-MIRVing,'' that is, increasing the number of
warheads of the U.S. strategic missile forces. The question of the
basic future roles of nuclear weapons was not explicitly addressed;
yet it is in this respect that the end of the Cold War implies the
largest changes.
THE HISTORY OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
Historically, U.S. nuclear weapons served a variety of evolving
purposes. The purpose of the first two nuclear weapons detonated
over Japan was clear: they were to secure early termination of
World War II. The controversy over whether Japan's surrender was
imminent at any rate and whether the use of these weapons resulted
in fewer combined Japanese and American casualties than if an
invasion of Japan had been necessary will never be fully settled,
nor will the question of the length of time by which the use of
nuclear weapons actually did shorten World War II.
We will also never know with certainty the extent, if any, to
which the stockpiles of nuclear weapons with their rapid growth in
the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War deterred
armed conflict. The historical evidence is clear that conventional
weapons, including the potential availability of chemical or
biological weapons, have not deterred all-out world wars;
conversely, nuclear weapons also have not deterred the
hundred or so localized nonnuclear conflicts which have taken a
larger toll during the nuclear age than that inflicted by the
nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Whether the ascendance
of nuclear weapons has deterred, and thereby prevented, all-out
large-scale war between the end of World War II and today will
remain a subject of debate with happily no physical evidence to
support either side.
There is, however, no question that what has been called
"existential deterrence" by nuclear weapons has been a major
military factor since World War II. Although the Cold War consumed
enormous resources and threatened a major holocaust, the
superpowers actually conducted foreign policy and military
operations with a great deal of caution. Direct contact between
U.S. and Soviet forces was largely avoided, with essentially all
actual military hostilities restricted to client states of the two
powers. There were indeed tense moments, such as the Cuban missile
crisis and the bombardment of Russian ships at Haiphong during the
Vietnam War, but these crises were in effect settled by the
preponderance of conventional power, with nuclear threat only as
backdrop.
The nuclear deterrent concepts during the Cold War evolved from
"massive retaliation," which threatened the Soviet Union with
nuclear reprisals in case of
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unacceptable conduct, be it nuclear or nonnuclear, to the
doctrine designated as "flexible response" and then "extended
deterrence." In essence flexible response provided that the United
States would use nuclear weapons first in case Soviet aggression in
Europe would threaten defeat of NATO by conventional forces.
Extended deterrence generated in effect a U.S. nuclear umbrella
over its allies in case of Soviet aggression. The Bush
administration proclaimed a doctrine of "weapons of last resort"
for the use of nuclear weapons, restricting their use to situations
where U.S. supreme national interests were threatened.
Each of the above doctrines has always reflected, deliberately
or not deliberately, a large degree of ambiguity. With the U.S.
homeland vulnerable to nuclear retaliation by the Soviet Union, the
question of when or whether a U.S president would actually order
the use of nuclear force could never be projected in advance but
would have to be resolved under the exigencies of the moment. The
use of nuclear weapons was considered, but firmly rejected, during
the Vietnam and Korean conflicts.
Another internal contradiction reflected in the U.S. post-Cold
War nuclear posture was the tension between secrecy and deterrence.
The SIOP, that is, the operational plans among which the President
could choose for the execution of nuclear strikes, remained very
highly classified; such quantities as the total nuclear
inventories, the yield and precision of U.S. nuclear weapons, and
many other "things nuclear" were withheld from the public and
thereby possibly from the Soviets. Yet the essence of deterrence is
to threaten an opponent with a credibly unacceptable outcome, and
the opponent could evaluate the reality of the threat only if he
has knowledge of plans and deployments. This need for secrecy in
the deterrent posture is also now under review and the Department
of Energy's "Openness Initiative" is a move toward declassifying at
least some of the total U.S. nuclear resources, even if operational
plans beyond the general outline provided by the NPR remain secret.
Of course much of the supposedly secret inventories have de facto
been known to the public, and certainly to the Soviets, as is
witnessed by many publications on the subject.
The basic internal contradiction of any deterrent posture which
projects non-use of nuclear weapons by threatening the
use of nuclear weapons remains. The question of the
credibility of the U.S. nuclear deterrent posture has remained
a continuing subject of debate, and the evolution of the French and
British independent nuclear deterrent forces bear witness to this
dubious credibility. But all this is history with the end of the
Cold War, with the United States emerging as the supreme military
power in conventional arms, and with proliferation of nuclear
weapons constituting a larger threat to U.S. security than the risk
of a nuclear exchange among the nuclear powers. What residual
mission for nuclear weapons can be justified?
FUTURE NUCLEAR WEAPONS MISSION
Although initially acquisition of nuclear weapons was generally
justified by a "more bang for the buck" rationale, the core
purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons
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has always been to deter the threatened or actual use of nuclear
weapons by foreign powers against the U.S. homeland, U.S. allies,
or U.S. interests overseas. During the Cold War, this core purpose
usually incorporated the term "mutual" in such descriptions as
mutually assured destruction or mutual deterrence. Barring
reignition of NATO tensions with Russia, with its still partially
intact nuclear weapons, the deterrence aspect of U.S. policy has
now lost its bilateral focus and "mutual" no longer applies.
However, the core purpose, referring to deterrence of nuclear
aggression from whatever quarter it might originate, remains a
principal rationale for retention of nuclear weapons.
There is continuing debate over whether, or how, the concept of
nuclear deterrence can be, or should be, modified from its
bilateral meaning during the Cold War to deterrence of potential
proliferators presumably from the Third World, including the
so-called "rogue" states. During the Cold War the quantitative size
of the required nuclear forces on the part of the United States
which might deter the Soviet Union was always debatable. But the
basic concept that responsible leadership would refrain from
hostilities if the very survival of their nation (or their own
leadership), or their ability to continue armed conflict, was
threatened has rarely been doubted. Yet during the Cold War, the
number of U.S. nuclear armaments became vastly in excess to satisfy
the requirement that the Soviet Union could not continue
hostilities after U.S. retaliation by its forces surviving a
conjectured Soviet first strike. It should be noted that delivery
of about 100 nuclear weapons could reduce the electricity supply in
the Soviet Union by over a factor of two and that the impact of 150
nuclear weapons could reduce industrial capacity by a similar
factor. Again a few hundred weapons would reduce deployed
general-purpose forces of the Soviet Union and command and control
centers by a large factor.
Today such figures are overestimates for required deterrent
forces against a possible reemergence of a Russian nuclear threat:
Russia contains only parts of the former economic assets of the
former Soviet Union and its military basing structure. Thus the
core purpose against the reemergence of an aggressive Russia
requires forces only a small fraction of those contemplated for
START II. Under the core deterrent role of nuclear weapons, the
"hedge" provided by the NPR is unnecessary and large reductions
below START II levels are feasible.
The question continues to surface whether the assumed
rational leadership of the then Soviet Union, and presumed to
exist currently in Russia, has now been superseded by the potential
of irrational leadership on the part of Third World
countries or possibly new leadership of Russia. Since any theory of
deterrence requires some degree of rational leadership of the
to-be-deterred party, claims continue that we are now facing
"undeterrable" states. I consider such arguments to be unproductive
and to some extent insulting to the leaders of the Third World. I
find it impossible to distinguish the rationality of a Stalin,
Hitler, Khadaffi, Saddam Hussein, or Kim Song-II in this
respect.
No deterrence strategy can ever fully assure coercion of an
opponent into inaction. The risk of irrational response, or the
evolution of circumstances
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which even rational leadership cannot control, can never be
fully ruled out. Yet today, although certain leaders might be
ruthless and may miscalculate, the "rogue" status of certain
nations does not in any way imply that they are suicidal. Although
the possibility of suicidal fanatic leadership cannot be totally
discounted, the history of the Gulf War and subsequent
confrontations has demonstrated that leaders of "rogue" nations do
back down when appropriately confronted.
The threat of nuclear terrorism by subnational groups, with or
without acknowledged encouragement by the leadership of "rogue"
nations, is another matter. A nuclear response against such threats
may not be feasible—the home base of the potential attacker
may not be known. The threat of nuclear weapons in the hands of
suicidal fanatics, such as the Japanese cultists who recently
released poisonous nerve gas in the Tokyo subway, can clearly not
be credibly countered by deterrence in any form. Only worldwide
vigilance and an unrelenting effort to prevent the possession of
nuclear weapons by such groups can limit this risk.
Thus although indeed the "core" deterrent role of nuclear
weapons (or any other strategy) will not prevent delivery of
nuclear weapons under all conceivable circumstances, deterring
nuclear aggression remains the least risky military course in
preventing such a catastrophe. Defenses of sufficient
impenetrability to prevent the delivery by any means of a
sufficient number of nuclear weapons to inflict horrendous damage
are demonstrably impossible. The risk inherent in any potential
catastrophe is the product of the probability of occurrence
of such a catastrophic event times the consequence of such
an event. The probability of nuclear weapons delivery can
never be reduced to totally zero as long as nuclear weapons remain,
but the core deterrent function of U.S. nuclear weapons remains the
principal means to minimize this probability in today's world. The
consequence of potential delivery can be reduced from what used to
be potential annihilation of civilization to what even now would be
an unprecedented catastrophe but one of finite dimensions.
Therefore risk minimization demands both retention of the core
deterrent purpose of nuclear weapons combined with the maximum
feasible reduction of stockpiles consistent with that purpose and
an increased emphasis on the safety and reliability of command and
control.
For the above reasons the core purpose of nuclear weapons, that
is, deterrence of nuclear threats or actual use of nuclear weapons,
has retained its value in thepost-Cold War era. The question
remains whether this is the only purpose which should form the
basis of the U.S. nuclear posture in the future.
Justification for the flexible response doctrine, which became
NATO policy under the Cold War, has now lost its validity, since
defeat of conventional U.S. and NATO forces by a superior opponent
in Europe is no longer a possibility. Yet this NATO policy has
never been formally withdrawn. It is worth noting that during the
Cold War the U.S. flexible response posture was met by the Soviet
Union's proclamation of a "no first use" policy knowing full well
that NATO would not accept this. Now with Russia's conventional
forces
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drastically reduced in number and of dubious morale and
readiness, Russia has turned around and proclaimed for itself the
former NATO doctrine of flexible response, that is, an implied
willingness to use nuclear weapons in response to threatened
conventional defeat. Clearly U.S. interests would be served best by
diplomatically opposing this reversal and by monitoring the pattern
of Russian deployments, rather than by the United States retaining
a no longer needed flexible response posture.
Continuing to describe the function of nuclear weapons as
weapons of last resort, as was introduced during the Bush
administration, has superficial attractiveness but could have
serious negative consequences in view of the overriding interest of
the United States in the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. There
is no plausible or foreseeable nonnuclear threat faced by the
United States either in respect to its homeland or abroad which
could threaten U.S. supreme national interests and which could not
be countered by conventional means. In contrast many states of the
world face severe threats to their very existence. The "weapons of
last resort" doctrine, when applied to such states, constitutes a
valid excuse for such states to acquire nuclear weapons; indeed the
justification for the nuclear weapons potential of Israel and
Pakistan is just that. In fact, under such a doctrine, possession
of nuclear weapons is much easier to justify for such states than
it is for the United States. In other words, the weapons of last
resort doctrine can provide justification for universal nuclear
proliferation; therefore this U.S. doctrine, which was not formally
revoked after the end of the Cold War, should be abandoned.
The deterrent value of nuclear weapons against threatened or
actual use of chemical and biological weapons continues to surface.
Such weapons, together with nuclear weapons, are frequently
classified as weapons of mass destruction (WMD). I consider
aggregation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons into a
single WMD category to be counterproductive. Chemical weapons are
by no means weapons of mass destruction. In fact the military
effectiveness of chemical weapons for a given weight of delivered
munitions may be less against prepared enemy troops than that of
conventional explosives. They remain principally weapons of terror
meant to intimidate civilian populations. In contrast nuclear
weapons can increase the destructive energy delivered by a given
weight of munitions by well above a factor of 1 million relative to
conventional explosives.
In principle biological weapons may produce lethal results
comparable to nuclear weapons per unit weight of delivered
munitions against civilian populations, but happily the military
effectiveness of biological weapons remains to be established.
Biological weapons are not effective battlefield weapons.
Biological weapons have not been used in modern times except in a
limited way by the Japanese in the Manchurian conflict. Whatever
the eventual lethality of biological weapons may turn out to be,
biological weapons are not expected to be decisive or even major
tools in warfare in the foreseeable future. Therefore biological
and chemical weapons should not be classified in a single WMD
category with nuclear weapons; their evolution should be countered
by
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military nonnuclear means and pursuit of treaties and
conventions specifically dedicated to that purpose.
Threatening the use of nuclear weapons to deter such weapons is
doubly counterproductive. By proclaiming that nuclear weapons may
be necessary to counter biological or chemical warfare, the United
States may inadvertently actually accelerate the development of
these means of warfare by de facto characterizing them as the "poor
man's nuclear weapon." Moreover, extending the potential use of
nuclear weapons to deter chemical and biological weapons runs
counter to the obligation assumed by the United States under the
nonproliferation bargain to shrink rather than expand the military
and political leverage of nuclear weapons. This obligation is in
fact recognized in the NPR, which emphasizes that the purpose of
the DOD counterproliferation initiative is to give military
commanders, and the President, a sufficient range of nonnuclear
options to contain the biological and chemical weapons threats.
Similar arguments apply to future uses of nuclear weapons in
foreseeable military situations where such use might be more
cost-effective than conventional means of military action. For
instance deeply buried command and control centers might be easier
to dig out, enemy massed armor might be more effectively attacked,
and other specialized military objectives might be easier to
obtain. Yet to the extent that such military missions can be
accomplished at all, they can be executed with conventional means.
The bargain documented by the NPT obligates the United States to
deemphasize rather than to expand the role of nuclear weapons. This
obligation should take precedence over cost-effectiveness for
highly limited and specialized conjectured situations.
CONCLUSIONS
• The core purpose requires a considerably smaller number
of strategic nuclear weapons than those implied by START II, and
therefore a clear understanding of this sole role should make
possible a more aggressive U.S. position in seeking reductions in
START III. The naval ballistic missile nuclear submarine force is
apt to remain the backbone of that role for the foreseeable future.
The core role does not require a significant number of tactical
nuclear weapons. Thus the total number of U.S. nuclear warheads,
now foreseen to be nearly 10,000 for the beginning of the next
century once START II has been implemented, could be drastically
reduced. Tactical nuclear weapons could be totally eliminated.
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• Restricting the role of U.S. nuclear forces to the core
role would make the threat of U.S. nuclear retaliation against
nuclear aggression by others more credible by not diluting the
mission with other, less credible, deterrent roles. Thus under such
a clear policy, U.S. forces would exert larger leverage against
nuclear proliferation by making it clear that such proliferation
would result in intolerable risks to the proliferant.
• Restriction of U.S. nuclear weapons to the core function
would go a long way to satisfy U.S. critics that the obligations
under Article VI of the NPT are being met by decreasing the use of
nuclear weapons as tools of international diplomacy and by
permitting much more drastic reductions of nuclear forces than
those inherent in present commitments. It could be viewed to meet
obligations of Article VI as a step toward eventual elimination of
nuclear weapons in a future era where possession of such weapons by
other powers is no longer plausible.
If the core function remains the only justifiable role of U.S.
nuclear weapons, the question continues to resurface whether this
fact should be recognized by declaratory policy or merely be
implemented by such actions as reduced numbers of nuclear weapons,
elimination of tactical nuclear forces, reduced quick response
readiness, improved survivability, and more robust command and
control. Restricting the nuclear role to respond to nuclear threats
only is de facto equivalent to a "no first use" policy which used
to be advocated by the then Soviet Union, but has been withdrawn
recently by Russia but is still proclaimed by China. A declaratory
no first use policy has been so much used and abused in past
propaganda by various nations that a similar proclamation by the
United States would lack credibility. Moreover such a restriction
could not be binding in case of war at any rate and therefore has
limited operational significance in itself. Therefore a pragmatic
shift in nuclear weapons deployments corresponding to the core
function only is superior to a proclaimed policy.
The summary conclusion of these considerations is that the role
of nuclear weapons to deter the use or threat of use of nuclear
attack by other nations continues to have at least as much validity
today as it had during the Cold War but that it should be their
only mission. Although no strategy can assure that nuclear
weapons will never by used again, such a highly limited role offers
the maximum leverage toward avoidance of nuclear conflict and
toward a worldwide decrease in nuclear weapons inventories.
Deterrence of nonnuclear conflict should be separated as much as
possible from the goal of deterrence of nuclear war.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
nonnuclear weapons
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