JHU/APL Seminar Series Rethinking U.S. Enduring Strengths, Challenges, and Opportunities www.jhuapl.edu/rethinking 10 October 2013 Dr. Keith Payne National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP) Minimum Nuclear Deterrence Notes: 1. Below are informal notes taken by a JHU/APL staff member at the Seminar. 2. Dr. Payne discussed the recent NIPP monograph Minimum Deterrence: Examining the Evidence for which he was the study director. 3. Links to the video and audio files for this and past seminars can be found on the Rethinking Seminars website and JHU/APL YouTube Playlist. Process of the Study Dr. Payne began by discussing the process that was used to develop the Minimum Deterrence: Examining the Evidence monograph. He took particular note of the bipartisan list of distinguished contributors including a former secretary of defense, as well as former US senators, national laboratory directors, intelligence officials and Strategic Command military commanders. These experts had been involved in earlier government deliberations concerning the concept of minimum deterrence. Their goal was to examine each part of the minimum deterrence (sometimes called finite deterrence) hypothesis for consistency using all available evidence. The study began by looking for texts that examined minimum deterrence in detail o None were found o But, starting from scratch was found to be useful Overall, the review showed some consistent recommendations over the decades since the 1960s including: o The US should reduce its nuclear arsenal to a relatively small, finite number o Recommended numbers of nuclear weapons ranged from only a few to hundreds o Since these smaller numbers would be adequate for now and in the future, the US could make these reductions prudently o The most recent recommendations have claimed that reductions could be done either in coordination with Russia or unilaterally if necessary 1
Claimed Benefits Adoption of minimum deterrence would bring certain benefits according to recent proponents including: Increasing deterrence stability and safety Facilitating nuclear arms control agreements and non-proliferation policies Permitting substantial savings in defense budgets Creating conditions leading to a more peaceful world order and to reaching the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons entirely (nuclear zero) The projected benefits are based on a set of inter-related claims including: 1. Deterrence will function at low levels in part because US conventional forces will often be able to substitute for nuclear weapons to meet deterrence goals 2. Russia and China are not US adversaries and will not be in the future so a potential for conflict with them should not drive US numbers 3. WMD terrorism and proliferation are the major security threats, but nuclear weapons: Are irrelevant to these threats Reductions will actually help reduce these threats 4. Deterrence considerations alone can determine the size and composition of the US nuclear force 5. SSBNs will remain invulnerable for the next 30 to 50 years and they can carry all, or nearly all, of the nuclear weapons needed for minimum deterrence 6. Having more nuclear weapons increases the risk of accidents 7. Having less nuclear weapons will support efforts toward non-proliferation and arms control efforts The NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) requires US movement toward nuclear disarmament 8. Requiring less nuclear weapons would help reduce defense spending without risk The claims support the concept that minimum deterrence is practical and will produce the benefits cited above; however the NIPP study has found that these propositions are either: Demonstrably false Contrary to available evidence Highly imprudent as the basis of policy A combination of the other three Demonstrably false claims about minimum deterrence: Ineffective in counter terrorism, but: o Nuclear weapons may actually help deter state-sponsored terrorism Helpful in reducing the defense budget, but: o Many associated costs are fixed and don t change with variations in the numbers of warheads o Costs related to substituting conventional forces will likely increase the defense budget 2
o No net assessments are ever presented highlighting only one side of the ledger (costs reductions of eliminating missiles) makes claims misleading The minimum deterrence proponents claim that its measurement of adequacy is correct, however: o Omitting other national priorities such as assurance to allies can drive requirements higher than those of minimum deterrence alone Highly dubious minimum deterrence propositions are also often contrary to available evidence and experience Most minimum deterrence concepts are based on the concept that the adversary s cities should be the targets for US nuclear deterrent threats o Used as a basis because cities are few in number and highly vulnerable so need only a modest number of nuclear weapons to cover those targets o Proponents of minimum deterrence have stated: Deterrence would remain stable if only 10 cities were targeted Only 300 nuclear weapons would be needed to kill at least 75 million Russians Few warheads are needed to take out 20 Chinese long range missiles which would also cause 11 million casualties No sane adversary would strike knowing that its society would be eliminated by a US force with only 10-100 survivable warheads Fewer than 100 nuclear weapons are needed to inflict unacceptable levels of damage on a continental-size economy Very little thinking on minimum deterrence has changed since the Cold War era as can be seen from this earlier set of propositions o At the time it was claimed that both the US and the USSR had about 270 urban areas with populations over 100,000 o So several hundred warheads could do great damage to either country o Therefore, the US must recommit to assured retaliation While the concepts above do fit with the goal of reducing the size of the US nuclear force, the question should be whether they support the concepts behind US deterrence goals. The NIPP study determined that they do not support these goals. Indictments against the fundamental elements of minimum deterrence Intentionally targeting civilians is a gross violation against the just war provision not to target innocent civilians a profound moral problem for many Intentional attacks on civilians without a larger corresponding military purpose is illegal under international law that has been signed by the US The US should not want to lead a city-destroying campaign and should actively act against such campaigns o Others may be willing to carry out such campaigns but the US does not want to set an example o The claim, which states that there is no difference in casualties between campaigns designed to hit versus those which avoid cities, is all nonsense 3
City targeting would be considered incredible in many contexts because it would invite attacks on US cities o US goes to great lengths to avoid cities especially since the US is often involved in post-war reconstruction o Allies may be nearby and could be harmed also o Opponents do question such US threats since those threats are so contrary to US norms Bottom line: Striking cities / civilians as the basis for minimum deterrence is immoral, illegal, likely to be incredible, and imprudent o All American administrations have rejected minimum deterrence o All administrations since the 1980s have stated that they would avoid cities Imprudent claims Predictions of continuing good relations with Russia, China, and others, while minimum deterrence concepts, are not a good basis given contrary evidence such as: Russian defense expert, Alexi Arbatov, has noted these statements from recent Russian leaders: o Russia is surrounded by enemies led by the US o The US and its allies could invade Russia at any time to seize its natural resources o Nuclear weapons are the basis for Russian security o Calls for reductions in nuclear arms are a malicious US trick o (Note: these statements were considered non-controversial in Russia even if they seem paranoid nonsense in the US) China is pressing Japan, a very close US ally, a great deal recently even over the sovereignty of Okinawa The US is still seen as enemy number one by writers in both Russia and China and, therefore, confirming their need for nuclear forces Putin recently announced that Russia will increase nuclear spending 50% by 2016 Bottom line: Relations with either Russia or China could get much worse despite desires by some to mock or ignore such claims as Cold War rhetoric There is no way to predict what will happen with lower nuclear force levels Human decision-making is not so predictable o Can t predict how leaders will behave in that situation Looked at 200 case studies from the last 2,000 years o Neither historic researchers nor contemporary observers could anticipate what leaders would do given the available data Examples: Kim in N. Korea, Hitler, Saddam all made decisions considered irrational to the US They considered their decisions rational Bottom line: There is so much variety in decision-making that the US can t predict reactions to significantly reducing its nuclear weapons levels o Claims to the contrary are nonsense Advocating a specific low number is not the way to go 4
o Equivalent to a carpenter telling a client exactly how many nails are needed for a building without knowing how it will be used or under what conditions o Such efforts never worked in the past In the first half of the 20 th century the world was at nuclear zero When the world had over 100 million fatalities in about 10 years of combat, the killing was only stopped through nuclear deterrence Bottom line: Do we really want to go back to that level with another nuclear zero? Increasing levels of lethality of conventional weapons may or may not have an impact on deterrence Everything depends on how adversary leaders view those forces o Reactions can t be predicted with enough precision to build a minimum deterrence policy Bottom line: deep nuclear weapons reductions may reduce the force characteristics needed in a highly dynamic environment o Flexibility o Diversity o Resilience o All of the above together permit the adaptability needed to respond to different, unpredictable situations Sometimes quantity has its own quality o SecDef Brown in 1979: reductions would not provide the flexibility required for the credibility to deter the range of actions the US wanted to prevent Need both numbers and flexibility enough to hold at risk an assortment of targets while withholding a significant, resilient reserve The concept even more true now o Force reductions now could reduce the quality of the deterrence In a 2010 report to Congress the head of the Strategic Command noted that the 1,550 ceiling allowed by the new START treaty was the lowest he could endorse Only because bomber counting rules allowed for more flexibility than the ceiling suggested In 2012 another nuclear force commander noted that any further reductions would need to be bounded by the concepts of real politic in international relations The threat environment is worse now since no recent international transformations have shown any indication that lower force numbers would be adequate Counter-intuitively, reducing the number of nuclear weapons does not reduce the number of accidents No correlations appear in history Other factors are involved in accidents beside numbers 5
Non-proliferation goals would not be helped by further reductions in nuclear forces Some allies are already wary of US steadfastness given their own growing threat situations If US nuclear weapons numbers dropped further, some allies would consider developing their own nuclear programs, thereby harming non-proliferation goals Example: Japan noted its concerns with the credibility of the US nuclear umbrella o Indicated that it would lose confidence if the US numbers dropped o Stated that it would have to have its own methods of threat deterrence o Other allies who might want to find other options like Japan appears to be doing would probably do so without close US cooperation Does the US want to drive allies further in that direction? o These allies are acting rationally in light of the threats that they the face o S. Korea: two-thirds of the people indicate an interest in acquiring their own nuclear force and want US nuclear weapons to return to the peninsula o More US reductions would increase these concerns Submarine invisibility for the next 50 years may be optimistic According to some estimates, this situation would permit dropping the number of SSBNs from 14 to 10 or even 8 and reduce or eliminate other legs of the triad While one can hope that this premise will hold, it is not advisable to base US policy on such a hope o It does not take into account the possibility of rapid technological developments and surprises The concept of the nuclear triad was designed to accommodate these potential changes o The Obama Administration has recently reconfirmed US commitments to maintaining the nuclear triad Advanced conventional forces as a substitute for nuclear forces Minimum deterrence advocates claim that this would lead others to the same behavior o However, improving US conventional force capabilities may actually inspire some countries to develop their own nuclear forces for defense Russia, China, and N. Korea all believe that only nuclear weapons could defeat US conventional forces o They might be inspired to emphasize their nuclear forces even more in the face of US reductions Conclusion The claims that form the basis for minimum deterrence concepts and calls for nuclear weapons reductions can be shown to be Demonstrably false Contrary to historic evidence Imprudent as policy guidance 6
US diplomat George Kenan criticized the arms control and disarmament efforts of the 1920s and 1930s for their lack of understanding of their times Their efforts helped set the stage for the following catastrophe (WWII) The same might be said about today s situation and minimum deterrence efforts Bottom line: Guidelines for US thinking and policies for determining adequacy of US forces should reflect a vivid understanding of the current threat situation and available evidence The NIPP study concluded that minimum deterrence reflects neither and that the US can find a better way Good to note that the latest Administration policy statement reflects a few, but not all of the minimum deterrence concepts discussed o To the consternation of the proponents of minimum deterrence o To the safety of everyone Caveat: Dr. Payne noted that he only shared his own private opinions, not those of any of the organizations with which he is affiliated QUESTION & ANSWER SESSION Re: Improving on Minimum Deterrence What is most necessary is a decision to become thoroughly informed about adversaries and the situations involved not using generalizations in decision-making The question of exactly how many nuclear weapons is not the central question Need to know specifics about opponents: o What do they hold most valuable? o How does their decision-making process work? o What are the likely distortions that will need to be mitigated? o How must the US communicate its threats to this opponent so that it can be sure that the opponent understood the message? o What are the issues involved in the opponent leaders decision making: Health? Addictions? Motivations? Concepts of invulnerability? Example 1: In the Cuban Missile crisis Fidel Castro and Che Guevara urged the Soviets to use the missiles they had in Cuba They recognized Cuban destruction would result but they were willing to die beautifully so that socialism could triumph The Soviet leadership responded that they did not think dying beautifully was a worthwhile outcome Must know if facing the Cuban or the Soviet style of thinking to determine how to try to deter or if it is even possible to do so Example 2: Hitler near the end of WWII was issuing orders that would have led to the annihilation of the German people The minimum deterrence debate often revolves around a number but there is no magic number that can be ascertained ahead of time Must understand the adversary s values and be able to hold them at risk 7
o The US can do better than relying on minimum deterrence Re: Deterring Terrorism A recent study on whether terrorists are deterrable looked at 12 case studies over 200 years of states trying to control terrorist efforts Went back to President Jefferson and the Barbary Pirates Conclusions were interesting and contrary to expectations o Terrorists are deterrable sometimes, under some conditions, for some period of time o However, the same can be said about state leaders The problem with deterring terrorists comes partially from the fact that it is harder to communicate with them and to be sure they understood the message It is wrong to simply say that terrorists can t be deterred What should be done: o Try to understand all elements of the situation and the organization o Follow terrorist discussions on-line and through surveillance to see it they are getting the deterrence message Do so by looking at jihadi chat rooms There are a series of metrics available that can be of help o Then adapt deterrence strategy to match what is learned about those terrorists o Do that until it is determined that the terrorists really are undeterrable o Terrorists in the past were not less violent than those of today Often see in the study that there was no attempt at the beginning to try to deter the terrorists o First option was often capture and/or kill the terrorists o Then moved on to try to deter them o Sometimes this method was successful Re: Other ways to deter opponents besides nuclear weapons Could use freezing financial operations or removing support elements Essential to determine which functions are more important to the adversary It is not surprising what the Russians have been saying in recent open discussions in response to deeper arms reductions o Themes have been fairly consistent o They may be willing to move toward smaller numbers but only under certain circumstances that don t exist now To reduce their nuclear forces further the Russians would require, among other conditions: o That negotiations would be multi-lateral o That the US agree to numeric, technological and geographic restraints on its missile defenses o Removal of nuclear weapons from NATO territory Russians say that they have other potential adversaries besides the US to worry about and will occasionally even name China as an adversary 8
Putin s response to offers of reductions was expected if using the untutored rational actor model of behavior o Must recognize that the US is using its own calculation of what is reasonable o Using that model often leaves the US surprised by what happens both in Russia and elsewhere Looking at open discussions after the fact can show that: o The US often uses cultural blinders thereby creating surprise o Rational actor models using western, materialist considerations lead to problems Expectations that deterrence will be the same for them as for us Would be hard for the US to think otherwise o To understand opponents must bring in lots of experts (anthropologists, economists, historians), which is hard to do but doable Might get a non-comforting answer they would not do what we would do If they would act what the US would, then it would be easy to figure out what deterrence strategy was required o Opponents may be looking at situations very differently Hitler stated that he had no bourgeois scruples and he was proud to consider himself a barbarian Many leaders share similar views and would require further study to understand what deters them Re: Opponents responses to US deterrence threats If opponents understand US norms and act to counter the US, then the US should not be surprised If they are good disciples of Sun Zu, opponents will understand the need to know themselves and know the enemy The US can only find ways to work around these problems Example: Opponents understood that the targeting of cities went against American culture o So some used a hug model for placing their missile launchers in cities Some call for highly discriminate nuclear weapons so that the US can make threats more consistent with its political culture and more credible This is not warfighting but thinking about deterrence in a reasonable way It is not putting together forces for warfighting but rather to avoid fighting at all Re: Viability of nuclear weapons Fact: War planners and policy people are very different groups of people o They develop in different lanes o Policy people, like the speaker, are not targeteers Some policy people believe that not using nuclear weapons means that such weapons are not useful 9
o They don t recognize that withholding nuclear weapons usage actually influences behavior It is possible to extend deterrence into a conflict o This is not war planning at all but inter-war deterrence There should be as much effort (information gathering, etc.) put into deterrence planning as goes into war planning Re: Nuclear Zero The world was at nuclear zero for thousands of years but discovered every now and then things got very ugly o Graphs show a tremendous drop in fatalities/causalities around 1945 o Levels never got much higher or reached pre-1945 levels Now know from history that nuclear deterrence has deterred both war and escalation Why go to nuclear zero given the historic evidence above? Proposals say that we can get to nuclear zero once all flashpoints are settled and violence is no longer the way to resolve conflicts o However, there is no evidence that the world is on that track o Evidence shows that moving toward nuclear zero may actually increase the problem of flashpoints Equivalent concept: We will deal with the homeless problem by making sure everyone has someplace to live o The problem is how to do that o At this point a miracle happens just won t work Getting to that benign world is hard look at historic efforts o League of Nations fell apart o Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 was designed to avoid all future wars Both Japan and Germany signed it Did not stop WWII Bottom line: Nuclear zero will be possible when the world order changes but how do you that? Re: Current Threats Of greatest concern today are WMD proliferation and WMD terrorism o The minimum deterrence discussion then claims that US nuclear weapons are not involved It is generally considered unlikely that nuclear missiles would be launched at the US mainland Sometimes there are discussions of Russia or China but they not considered adversaries currently or in the future o Would need to be omniscient to know that for sure o Don t want to predict the situation 2 or 5 or 10 years out Especially given pressure China is trying to exert on Japan now Bottom line: Must have a force structure that is flexible, adaptable, resilient enough to support deterrent policy as it changes over time 10
o To some extent these characteristics are tied to the size of the nuclear arsenal o On one side is the belief that reductions in US nuclear weapons would rally the world to do the same Evidence doesn t show that this happens Would be a matter of walking and leading or just taking a stroll by yourself o Both President Putin and Mr. Arbatov see further reductions as a scam to get rid of Russian nuclear weapons Both Putin and Gorbachev have said as much Gorbachev has said that Russia would only give up its nuclear weapons if the US gave up its advantage in conventional forces Re: The number of nuclear weapons needed Can t just come up with a number magically The force structure must reflect flexibility, adaptability, and resilience Minimum deterrence might work in some environments o However, the threat current threat environment indicates that the US needs a flexible, resilient force The head of Strategic Forces has also called for flexibility o He said he would not recommend going below 1,550 warheads to permit the flexibility he believed is required o Getting more precise probably cannot be done if working from information available to analysts outside the government Re: De-alerting While the concept of de-alerting is often discussed during minimum deterrence discussions, it was not much covered in the NIPP report Should be noted that US forces are not now on anything like a hair-trigger Many proposals talk about de-alerting the ICBMs Real goal should be to establish conditions which give leaders as much time as is needed to make decisions If missiles were de-alerted, leaders would need to start making decisions early in a crisis o Leaders would have more time if the ICBMs were already on-alert Could then wait as long as necessary o Starting to make decisions to bring missiles on line (that had been dealerted) would send signals to the other side that may not be read properly Bottom line: There is more time available to make major decisions if the missile are ready for action Re: Counter-silo capabilities It is not clear that having such capabilities would deter opponents Could contribute to damage limitation if deterrence fails but maybe not Concept came out of late Cold War studies 11
o Involved identifying what the Soviets valued most and having a counter-force capability to hold those values at risk May also need counter-force capabilities for when deterrence has failed but it is not the question discussed here Re: Other Deterrence Tools Nuclear weapons are important both to deterrence and to assurance of allies o NIPP study also talked to allies about their assurance needs o Surprising how many allies wanted the US to maintain its larger nuclear force o US force size has meaning in the realm of non-proliferation, too Other potential deterrence tools include conventional forces / non-military options Need to know: o Whom does the US want to deter? o What is the context of the situation in which deterrence is needed? Must not think of nuclear weapons as the only deterrence option o Becomes a situation in which having a hammer, everything looks like a nail Re: Low levels of US nuclear weapons and maintaining assurance to allies Must assume that allies will be part of the calculation Historically, the US has had assurance goals as well as deterrence goals o No one ever asked allies: What do you need for assurance? o Allies have said that during the Cold War they knew that the US was taking care of the nuclear problem, but now they are very worried about it It is important in the current environment to keep allies o North Korea s Kim may believe that the US cannot respond to his attacks without fearing to be too weak to fend off Russian attacks If the US did not have to worry about assuring its allies, it would need fewer missiles Can t expect the allies to remain faithful no matter what the US decides to do o If the US doesn t fulfil their expectations, the US could start losing allies Re: New players on the nuclear scene There are on-going efforts to gain a better understanding of the decision-making process and values in these countries Must worry about catalytic wars where third parties pull the US into their conflicts o The US must determine how it will react in such situations o What will happen if the world sees the first use of nuclear weapons since the end of WWII without a proper reaction? Do some countries see their use a way to solve big problems? If so, this would be bad news for the world Russia has openly discussed the issue and claims that nuclear weapons are vital to their security because of these other players o Long ago the Russians backed away from the Soviet no-first-use concept o Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in situations where needed o Russians often discuss their nuclear de-escalation concept in which nuclear weapons are used early and first to stop a conventional war 12