Article
from
Moscow Times
In case you missed it, the era of Mutual Assured Destruction and nuclear parity has ended, at least according to a paper published by Professors Keir Lieber of Notre Dame and Daryl Press of the University of Pennsylvania in the March/April edition of Foreign Affairs. The authors claim that modernization of U.S. nuclear weapons coupled with the degradation of Russian nukes will soon give the United States the ability to eliminate Russian (and Chinese) nuclear capabilities in a preemptive first strike. U.S. and Russian nuclear experts have roundly attacked the authors' projection of U.S. primacy, which is based more on a simplified calculus of numbers and less on the ugliness and vagaries of war. But, their assertion that MAD is dead has been made before, and it is time we came up with a replacement.
MAD has always had its drawbacks, and since the end of the Cold War defense experts have been trying to craft a successor. Former U.S. Defense Secretary William Perry proposed Mutual Assured Security underpinned by reductions in Russian and U.S. nuclear weapons. A positive approach is important, but MAD and its successor are no longer primarily about the United States and Russia. Today there are several new nuclear powers, none of which could completely destroy another adversary, but any of which could inflict unacceptable damage. Senator Jeff Sessions, speaking during a March 29 hearing on strategic forces, pointed out that, "Today's strategic forces must provide … a range of capabilities to address a new global security environment where rogue states are armed with weapons of mass destruction and violent extremists have to be added to the list of strategic challenges." It seems almost certain that more states will acquire nukes in the future. Any new deterrence construct must take these new actors into account.
The Pentagon and its command responsible for nuclear weapons, the Strategic Command, are working on the problem. By 2008, the Pentagon plans to begin mixing nuclear and non-nuclear missiles on Trident submarines and deploying them to provide "prompt" global strike capabilities. The concept of Global Strike, introduced in the Defense Department's 2001 Nuclear Posture Review and further refined in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review creates a new offensive deterrent: advanced conventional weapons on formerly nuclear platforms. Less reliance on nukes means more options and better stability, right? Maybe not. How, for example, would China and Russia know for certain that a Trident missile launch is non-nuclear and not intended for them? The Defense Department's answer is to rely on military-to-military communications for advanced warning and the ability of satellites to distinguish nuclear from non-nuclear warheads. These safeguards are still in the "power point" stage and lag dangerously behind the pace of the actual conversion of the U.S. triad.
Transforming the U.S. nuclear arsenal to meet new challenges is the right thing to do, but we must maintain the transparency and predictability that MAD once provided in our use of nuclear weapons. At a minimum, the new concept should contain the following elements:
· The nature (nuclear or non-nuclear) of an attack across strategic distances must be indisputably clear to all parties: attacker, attacked and third countries. Russia, for example, must know beyond any doubt whether a missile is nuclear and where it is headed.
· The world must know that the United States will not use nuclear weapons first. The world's greatest power can afford to wage wars without nuclear weapons.
· A nuclear attack against the United States will be met with a commensurate response. The U.S. must define how it will do this in the case of an attack by a non-state entity.
· Countries that lie along the path of intercontinental ballistic missiles must be confident that those missiles or their debris pose no threat to them.
MAD can no longer provide deterrence against nuclear attack from the new threats we face. Global Strike provides better offensive deterrent capabilities, but it has a destabilizing character that must be addressed. We have two years to work out the details before the first mixed Tridents deploy. That should be enough time.
***Kevin Ryan, a retired brigadier general, is a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. He was responsible for space and nuclear policy on the Army staff from 2003 to 2005 and served as chief of staff of the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command from 2000 to 2001. From 2001 to 2003, he served as U.S. defense attaché to Russia.