OK, So Where Is The Obama Nuclear Weapons Planning Guidance?
The 2002 Nuclear Posture Review excerpts are dated 18 January 2002. On 28 June 2002 George W Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 14, which of course was nuclear weapons planning guidance. That's about a 5 month gap between the NPR and the change in guidance. President Clinton didn't change the guidance that he inherited, NSDD-13, until well into his administration. In his case that change in guidance had nothing to do with the results of his Nuclear Posture Review.
The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review is dated April 6 2010. September 6 2010 will mark its 5 month birthday, so to speak. Yet we still do not know of any change in planning guidance following on from its release. The Federation of American Scientists Presidential Directives pages continues to show no Obama nuclear weapons planning guidance. Given all the rhetoric on how the Obama NPR was such a great sea change in nuclear strategy, one would expect to see at least evidence of a change in guidance.
Let us be a little bit philosophical. NSPD-14 was signed on 28 June 2002. That's when it come into being. However, we didn't know about it until declassified documents, well after the fact, pointed to its existence. For this we must thank the redoubtable Hans Kristensen. So, perhaps Obama has signed new nuclear weapons planning guidance only we don't know about it. These things aren't governed by the Copenhagen Interpretation. Just because we don't know about it doesn't mean it isn't there.
That said, we only knew about the 2002 NPR based on leaked excerpts. The 2010 NPR was to break new ground in terms of public disclosure, which it seemingly did.. One would expect that the same would apply to the actual guidance. This of course doesn't necessarily have to follow; greater NPR transparency need not entail greater planning guidance transparency (I don't mean its content, just its actual existence!)
It has been said that it would take about a year to work through all the issues at Strategic Command in terms of drawing up new targeting plans as a consequence of the 2010 NPR, but StratCom can only radically change operational planning after receiving a revamped presidential guidance. One should not conflate the time it takes to work through the strategic war planning system with getting out the PG.
I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but without a radically revamped nuclear weapons planning guidance I am afraid that all the talk about the 2010 NPR representing a radical sea change in nuclear strategy is just so much hot air.
Remember Dr Strangelove's response to the Russian ambassador after he told him of the Soviet doomsday device? Why keep a deterrent secret? If Obama has changed the guidance, why keep its existence secret given the positive impact it would have on Washington's image?
National Research Council Report on Nuclear Forensics Exposes the Soft Underbelly of Deterrence Policy
The following blog entry has also been cross-posted at my Maxim international relations blog published at The Analyst.
The National Research Council in the United States has published a very important study on the current status of nuclear forensics. Only the executive summary has been declassified. Nuclear forensics has often been described as an “art.” I am currently writing a book on al-Qaeda and nuclear terrorism, so the topic interests me greatly. Of course, the revival of interest in nuclear forensics is due to increasing alarm and anxiety about the prospect of nuclear terror.
Nuclear forensics involves both the pre-and-post detonation attribution of nuclear materials employed in a nuclear terror plot. Of the two post-detonation nuclear forensics gets the most attention. In so far as nuclear security policy is concerned the key issue revolves around the deterrence of nuclear terrorism; nuclear forensics is taken to be central to the deterrence of nuclear terror.
Post 9/11 much political rhetoric, followed on in academic analysis, tended to advance the view that new terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda, cannot be deterred because they lie outside of the rationality criteria of traditional deterrence theory. I use the term “theory” here with reluctance, but let's leave that aside (for now). However, a growing body of literature in the nuclear security field saw reason to fault this oft stated claim. Assuming that a successful nuclear attack by a non-state group would involve a state being involved in the causal loop, such analyses opened up the prospect of deterring nuclear terrorism, at least, without relaxing the assumption that al-Qaeda lies outside the bounds of rationality.
The latter part is important for nuclear terrorism is said to be a feature of the new terrorism due to the irrational nature of religious based terrorist groups. In this way, one keeps deterrence without ditching the argument for nuclear terror. It's a neat one-two not commonly discussed by analysts. For more; don't forget the book!
If it is possible to deter a state sponsoring or assisting an al-Qaeda nuclear attack then we can bring deterrence into the nuclear terrorism policy conversation. I personally don't subscribe to the view that al-Qaeda is not instrumentally rational, but that's another story.
The idea behind nuclear forensics, then, is to successfully attribute nuclear materials used in a nuclear terror plot back to its state of origin. If such a capability can be brought into being then this opens up the prospect of deterring the state sponsorship of nuclear terror. If nuclear terror plots require state support to succeed then at least the provision of nuclear materials by states to non-state groups can be deterred.
Stated very crudely; nuclear forensics involves matching nuclear materials seized pre-detonation or nuclear materials detected post-detonation with an extensive database of global nuclear materials. A successful match between field and database nuclear materials leads to successful attribution, whereupon deterrence is said to follow.
Much can be learnt from nuclear forensics work. For example, after North Korea's 2006 nuclear test radionuclide analysis would have given the US intelligence community insight into North Korea's nuclear capabilities. There is an interesting story on how, during the cold war, Hans Bethe brilliantly used nuclear forensic work, on the fly so to speak, to draw a fairly accurate picture of the Soviet Union's version of the “layer cake” bomb, known as “the sloika.” Nuclear forensic work in cases involving terrorism are much more challenging, however, than cold war era forensics.
The National Research Council report states,
...The committee, however, has concerns about the program and finds that without strong leadership, careful planning, and additional funds, these capabilities will decline...
In fact, later on in the executive summary, the report finds that these capabilities are in decline. The report states,
...although US nuclear forensics capabilities are substantial and can be improved, right now they are fragile, under resourced, and, in some respects, deteriorating...
Every major US presidential candidate since 9/11 has asserted that nuclear terrorism is the gravest security threat that the US faces. The Obama administration echoed these assertions during this year's nuclear security summit. Indeed, Obama officials even went so far as to state that the threat is serious, real and growing.
So, why is nuclear forensics “under resourced?” Why are US nuclear forensic capabilities, in some respects, “deteriorating?”
Before looking at this issue it would pay to have a look at the Obama administration's policy on the deterrence of nuclear terrorism. The Obama policy, which essentially reaffirms Bush era policy, was articulated in the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review. The 2010 NPR states that the US will,
...hold fully accountable any state, terrorist group, or other non-state actor that supports or enables terrorist efforts to obtain or use weapons of mass destruction, whether by facilitating, financing, or providing expertise or safe haven for such efforts...
The use of nuclear weapons are not excluded. In addition, contrary to the National Research Council report, the 2010 NPR states
...In addition, the United States and the international community have improving but currently insufficient capabilities to detect, interdict, and defeat efforts to covertly deliver nuclear materials or weapons—and if an attack occurs, to respond to minimize casualties and economic impact as well as to attribute the source of the attack and take strong action...
The above statement encompasses nuclear forensics.
The NPR recognises that nuclear forensics is “currently insufficient”, but nonetheless these capabilities are “improving.” That doesn't square with the National Research Council finding that “in some respects” forensic capabilities are “deteriorating.” Given current trends, furthermore, nuclear forensic capabilities will further “decline.”
The US deterrence posture is robust, but the nuclear forensic capabilities needed to match declaratory policy are not sufficient and might well decline further, a point to which we return.
It is not easy from the above to appreciate just how robust US nuclear deterrence policy is.
It is not just that a deliberate transfer of nuclear materials by a state to a terrorist group is being deterred through the threat of nuclear attack. The Bush-Obama policy adopts what is called a “negligence doctrine.” If a state is negligent in its oversight of nuclear materials, and should a terrorist group acquire nuclear materials due to such negligence, then a nuclear attack upon the negligent state falls within the ambit of the policy.
This is what that seemingly innocuous word, “enables”, in the NPR deterrence policy refers to. In the lexicon of US counter-terrorism policy “enables” has a pretty precise meaning. This meaning encompasses negligence. I will have more discussion of this in my book.
A negligence doctrine is pretty extreme. Such a policy leaves open any state to nuclear attack if the US decides that that state was negligent in its oversight over nuclear materials.
A robust deterrence policy requires a robust nuclear forensics capability. There is a big mismatch, quite clearly, between declaratory policy and forensic capabilities.
Things are actually a little bit more grubby than that. Take say an important op-ed, for The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, written up by a group of researchers working for the Fissile Materials Panel Working Group. They observe that the June 2010 G8 Summit did not extend the G8 Global Partnership against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction initially agreed to in 2002. The researchers claim that this put global security at risk,
...By not extending the G-8 Global Partnership, which is an effort that is specifically designed to lock down or eliminate weapons and materials of mass destruction that threaten every corner of the globe, the world's leaders opted to put global security at risk ... With the G-8 nations representing 44 percent of global GDP, the financial commitment they needed to make to extend the program is more than affordable, especially in terms of preventing a WMD terrorist attack. In fact, with the U.S. already covering about $1.5 billion of the annual $2 billion pledge, the rest of the G-8 nations would have only been responsible for contributing a half a billion per year collectively--or $ 5 billion over 10 years...
The authors report that they do not know the reasons accounting for this. This particular G8 summit focused on the sovereign debt “crisis.” During the Summit we saw the head of the WTO, Pascal Lamy, trot out the old neoclassical economic arguments on public debt and the crowding out of private investment. The debt crisis is being used the world over in the service of the reassertion of neoliberal ideology.
Maybe this matters more than nuclear security. Just thinking out loud. Consider. If the risk of nuclear terrorism is high, and indeed growing, but the response to that claimed risk trails rhetoric then we might make a couple of hypotheses. Notice that this just nor applies to the non-US member states of the G8. The National Research Council report finds that nuclear forensics is under-resourced.
Maybe, the risk isn't really nearly so high as Obama and the others would have us believe?The mismatch arises because risk is being inflated, perhaps. If so, nuclear terrorism might provide an interesting case study for those interested in the social construction of risk. Perhaps, instead, the risk is real but policy makers have higher short-term priorities, such as the reassertion of neoliberal ideology?
Could there be a mixture involving both of these factors?
Actually the National Research Council report makes some interesting statements about the international relations of nuclear forensics. The report states, accurately, that international collaboration is vital for nuclear forensics to work. It calls for greater international database sharing and linkages, and additionally, calls for the US to develop a policy to facilitate this.
The problem with this is the more robust the US nuclear deterrence posture is the less incentive states have to cooperate on international coordination. Why would a state want to collaborate with the US when deterrence encompasses negligence? US deterrence policy acts as a disincentive for international coordination, but international coordination is essential for nuclear forensics. Without forensics what then remains of deterrence? That's a bit of a nuclear Cartesian circle.
US policy is ill conceived and self defeating. If we must have deterrence then it should be limited to the explicit state sponsorship of nuclear terrorism. The US would not even need to have an explicit deterrence policy to achieve this. Realist international relations theorists argue that deterrence works existentially; “I have the bomb, therefore I deter.” The mere existence of the bomb acts as a deterrent. Elaborate statements of declaratory policy, thereby, are superfluous for the purposes of deterrence.
Under existential deterrence all the US would need, in so far as fissile material transfer goes, is the capability to attribute nuclear materials through nuclear forensics. No explicit statements or policies of deterrence are further required.
I tend to think that there is nothing about nuclear terrorism that undermines traditional, that is basic common sense, conceptions of deterrence. During the cold war the quants at the Rand Corporation needlessly racked their brains over the finer points of deterrence “theory.” It seems as if al-Qaeda is having the same affect today. Really, it shouldn't.
The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review and Strategic Nuclear Targeting
For this post on the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review I would like to focus on strategic nuclear targeting. To do this I will need to also go over some ground that was covered in the post devoted to the scope of deterrence. There is some overlap between these two topics, so apologies for going over some of the same issues.
Senator McCain is going to help us heaps.
The Global Security Newswire had published an analytical piece on the NPR and strategic targeting not long after the text was released by the Obama administration. The analysis was written by Elaine Grossman. She has done some very good work on these topics, but I think this particular piece was not quite subtle enough. I'm not so much focused on the details as so much how the discussion was framed.
So the article opens by stating
...WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Defense Department will take a year or more to study how to implement new White House policy on nuclear weapons before integrating the changes into the nation's strategic combat plan, a top official said Tuesday...
...Pentagon leaders must assess the details of the review, combined with fresh weapons limits imposed by a new U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control treaty, before knowing in detail how secret nuclear targeting plans might be affected, said Gen. James Cartwright, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff...
...It was not immediately clear how the new policy guidance or arms control reductions might affect nuclear targeting plans, which are maintained at the Omaha, Neb., headquarters of U.S. Strategic Command, or the detailed composition of forces required to carry them out.
The military awaits the full distribution of the Nuclear Posture Review and the New START agreement's technical minutiae before studying the matter in depth, Cartwright said at a Tuesday press conference.
Once defense officials develop "an understanding of what the guidance is in some level of detail, then we'll go into a review from a policy perspective on [target-plan] guidance that would be appropriate under these new regimes," he told reporters...
The implication that is drawn here is that what is commonly called the “sweeping” changes to US nuclear weapons employment policy ushered in by the NPR needs to be translated into concrete war plans by way of the strategic war planning system.
That assumes, of course, that those changes are indeed “sweeping”. Consistent readers of this blog know that I have been sceptical about this from the get-go, in fact from even before the NPR text was released.
Now this is where Senator McCain is going to help me out. But before we get on to that, I need to cite the same NPR passage that I have quoted before
...Detailed NPR analysis of potential reductions in strategic weapons, conducted in spring 2009, concluded that the United States could sustain stable deterrence with significantly fewer deployed strategic nuclear warheads, assuming parallel Russian reductions. The NPR analysis considered several specific levels of nuclear weapons, all below current levels of approximately 2,200 deployed strategic warheads. Its conclusions, approved by the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Commander, U.S. Strategic Command, formed the basis for U.S. negotiations with Russia on New START. Because New START is intended to be only an initial step in a continuing process of bilateral nuclear reductions, this initial analysis used conservative assumptions to determine acceptable reductions in deployed strategic nuclear weapons...
That means that the New Start force structure and thereby the NPR's force structure is consistent with the nuclear targeting approach left over by the Bush administration. That quote immediately above means that the NPR force structure is consistent with NSPD-14, the Bush era Presidential Guidance which governs how Stratcom draws up the strategic nuclear war plan/s.
...In support of the New START negotiation effort, U.S. Strategic Command analyzed the required nuclear weapons and delivery vehicle force structure and posture to meet current guidance, and provided options for consideration by the Department. This rigorous approach, rooted in both deterrence strategy and assessment of potential adversary capabilities, supports both the agreed-upon reductions in New START and recommendations in the NPR...
I've been saying from the get-go that New Start and the NPR will revolve around current guidance and that guidance is NSPD-14. General Chilton states that quite categorically in the above quoted text. That means that the NPR has had very little impact on the underlying approach to strategic nuclear targeting that the Obama administration inherited from the Bush administration. Notice that General Chilton is saying that current guidance supports the “recommendations in the NPR.”
You can see from Senator McCain's probing questions that the supposed “sweeping” changes that the new negative security assurance was supposed to have ushered was is in fact anything but. Now McCain is probing James Miller, the Principal Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, not General Chilton. This grilling is made available to us by the full transcript of the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the NPR.
I am referring to a little exchange between Sen McCain and Miller. McCain states,
...So, we are telling the American people, now, that if there’s a chemical or biological attack on the United States of America, and it is of devastating consequences, we will rule out the option of using a nuclear weapon, even though that may be the most effective course of action, if that country is in compliance or noncompliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty...
To which Miller replies
...Sir, if you look at the countries today that have any significant capacity to develop chemical and biological weapons, you will find that those are states that are either nuclear-weapon
states or that are not in compliance with their nuclear nonproliferation obligations...
This, effectively, is an admission that the new negative security assurance has no impact at all on the scope of deterrence or, thereby, on the underlying basis for nuclear targeting inherited by Obama. This statement supports my contention that the new NSA is in fact consistent with the nuclear strike plans inherited from the Bush era. Taking out Iraq and Libya, for obvious reasons, from the list of states targeted in the 2001-2002 Bush NPR leaves over exactly the same states for nuclear strike planning.
Miller concedes this. So thanks to Senator McCain. Notice that a little bit earlier Miller presents the new NSA as a softening in the US position
...Same pledge was made in 1995, and again in 2002 by subsequent administrations, so that—this Negative Security Assurance is not new. What the change is—in the Nuclear Posture Review—is that we’ve added the condition that a state must also be compliant with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations. So, we’ve added a condition. In order to get into that group, that is provided an assurance
that the United States will not use nuclear weapons, we’ve added a condition, under the old assurance, that Iran, today, would be provided that assurance; under the new assurance it is not...
That was precisely the point I tried to get across in my post on the scope of deterrence. Notice that the 2001-2002 NPR did list Iran in the list of targeted states even though Miller admits that was not consistent with the NSA. That tells us something about negative security assurances.
So let us go back to the statement that General Chilton made about needing 1 to 2 years to change the current crop of war plans. We now have a “family of plans," known as OPLAN-8010, rather than a single integrated plan. One feature that the new approach shares with the old is that every fiscal year there is, apparently, a little bit of tinkering.
So perhaps the current plan is OPLAN-8010-10 or OPLAN-8010-2010. Now OPLAN-8010-10 is consistent with the pre New Start force levels of both the US and Russia. So we have to be a little bit subtle here. I think that what General Chilton is getting at here is that it will take up to a year or two to draw up a new OPLAN-8010 that takes into account the newly agreed upon force levels, including the agreed upon delivery vehicles, made in the New Start treaty with Russia and codified by the NPR.
Under New Start Russia and the US are free to configure their strategic offensive forces as they so desire. How Russia configures its New Start force levels is something General Chilton needs to watch and then integrate into Stratcom's plans. Ditto for the NPR force mix. This represents more than the usual fiscal year tinker.
General Chilton's statement, I think, should not be viewed with reference to the empty so-called “sweeping” changes to US nuclear weapons employment policy. It's clear that Grossman is implying this view for that's how her article is framed. It is in this sense that I believe that the analysis is not as subtle as it could be.
But this interpretation cannot be correct because both New Start and the NPR is consistent with NSPD-14, as General Chilton has stated. Perhaps Obama will generate new guidance, but under the NPR there is no need for it. Even if Obama does generate new guidance it won't be a huge change in employment policy because the NPR does not really call for it nor mandate it. Recall that the NSA is a matter of declaratory policy.
I have taken the view, as stated in a few posts going way back now, that Bush era strategic nuclear employment policy was consistent with nuclear strategic concepts such as intra-war deterrence and escalation control. This reminds us of the “prevailing” in a “protracted nuclear war” doctrine that we associate with the Reagan era, as well as the Carter administration it might be added.
So the Obama NPR had some interesting comments on nuclear command and control
...Additionally, the NPR examined the effectiveness of our command and control of U.S. Nuclear forces as an essential element in ensuring crisis stability, deterrence, and the safety, security and effectiveness of our nuclear stockpile. The DoD NC3 system enables informed and timely decisions by the President, the sole authority for nuclear employment, and execution of Presidential nuclear response options.
The Secretary of Defense has directed a number of initiatives to further improve the resiliency of the NC3 system and the capabilities for the fully deliberative control of the force in time of crisis...
The Achilles Heel of intra-war deterrence has always been the maintenance of command and control in the event of nuclear conflict. For example, the Weapons System Evaluation Group number 50 study showed that CinC over nuclear forces is lost very rapidly following missile strikes. You can't play intra-war deterrence if you lose control over your nuclear forces.
If the above statement on nuclear CinC were made in a Russian or Chinese nuclear posture review then Republicans and right wing think tankers would be saying that Moscow and Beijing hope to prevail in a nuclear conflict.
Such changes could be made in order to strengthen deterrence and crisis stability by avoiding decapitation. So in and of itself a quote like the above does not reveal an underlying intra-war deterrence strategic construct.
However, that bit in the above quote about “further” improving “the resiliency of the NC3 system and the capabilities for the fully deliberative control of the force in time of crisis” is very much consistent with escalation control and intra-war deterrence. There is no doubt about that.
In short I conclude that strategic nuclear targeting issues arising from the 2010 NPR tend to support Stephen Walt's view that the NPR is really all about “nuclear public relations.”
As an aside; we know that NSPD-14 was signed by President Bush in 2002. Senator Carl Levin in the Senate hearing on the NPR speaks of the current guidance being developed in 2008. Now it was in 2008 that Bush developed the current approach to the deterrence of nuclear terrorism. Senator Levin seems to be implying that this led to new guidance. However, the Federation of American Scientists list of NSPDs does not list such guidance for 2008.
What gives?
Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Dissuasion in Obama’s Nuclear Strategy
I decided to flick through, given the recent release of the 2010 nuclear posture review report, David Sanger's book on Obama and US foreign policy one more time. The book is titled The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power.”
“Obama confronts” was a nice touch on Sanger's part.
You never know what you can pick up from an old read in the light of recent events. You'll see that on my post on the NPR and RRW which I'm planning; an old Los Alamos paper contains a nice little nuggett.
Anyway, back to the Sanger book. I decided to pay close attention to the “Deterrence 2.0” chapter. Sanger makes an important error on the deterrence of nuclear terror, but I have covered that before. There is an interesting little paragraph here on dissuasion.
Now recall that dissuasion is one of those strategic concepts from the Bush era that the Obama defence reviews just didn't bother discussing much, which raises a lot of questions as to what is going on. At page 413 Sanger writes (my coper is the paperback edition)
...Perhaps Bush's failure to lead the charge to drive down the size of the American and Russian arsenals grew out of his belief that America could never let another country become a “peer competitor” that could challenge American power. Inside the Bush White House, Hadley and other aides argued that retaining American supremacy meant keeping upward of 1,200 to 1,500 nuclear weapons in our arsenals. “Do you really want the Chinese to feel they have equivalent power?” one of Bush's aides asked me one afternoon. “Do you really want the Iranians to think, 'gee if get to three hundred, we can be a superpower too?”...
That figure looks awfully a lot like the 1,550 number codified in the New Start treaty and in the NPR (absent further cuts).
Is it a coincidence, or does it signal to us the continued relevance of dissuasion?
The strategy of dissuasion really grew out of the draft 1992 Defense Planning Guidance (Bush the Elder). It was knocked down because of the controversy it sparked, especially amongst Washington's European allies. But as the leading International Relations scholar Kenneth Waltz pointed out the concept continued to guide policy, including during the Clinton era. The policy was there but it wasn't necessarily advertised from the roof tops.
Bush the Idiot just brought it out of the closet. Obama might well have reverted to the Clintonian “don't ask, don't tell” approach to dissuasion that Waltz spoke of.
The questions that Sanger relays in the above quote are apt. They show the link between dissuasion and conventional power projection. So long as other states have, or potentially may acquire, nuclear weapons the needs of power projection seem to mandate a dissuasion type approach. Would the globe's strategic unipolar power be self-deterred in the absence of dissuasion?
Of course, if Obama is sincere about deep cuts in a follow on arms control accord to New Start then dissuasion might need to go. Although we should be mindful that dissuasion does not just revolve around deployed warhead size. The more I think about dissuasion the more I am coming around to the view that dissuasion is just a new way to describe an old strategic concept, namely escalation dominance.
Dissuasion also includes qualitative superiority, so perhaps you could go lower than 1200-1500 and still have a dissuasion type capability. If Iran has 300 rudimentary nukes and the US has 300 that could, combined with BMD and such, knock those 300 out in a first strike one might argue that this would still be a dissuasion type capability.
China, however, is another story.
Speaking of China I refer the reader to a superb article in The Asia Times on the use of satellites for detecting and tracking Chinese submarines. Interesting given China's investment in SSBN and SLBM modernisation.
If the US could pull this off, would this be a dissuasion like capability? If you are series about escalation dominance-dissuasion then ASW is a must clearly.
The 2010 Nuclear Posture Review and the Scope of Deterrence
One of the things that I was hoping to see in the 2010 nuclear posture review was a discussion of tailored deterrence and dissuasion. Both were very important aspects to the Bush approach to nuclear strategy and need to be considered when thinking about the scope of deterrence.
This applies especially to tailored deterrence. For example see how tailored deterrence is interweaved into the narrative of the 2001-2002 nuclear posture review
...Greater flexibility is needed with respect to nuclear forces and planning than was the case during the Cold War. The assets most valued by the spectrum of potential adversaries in the new security environment may be diverse and, in some cases, U.S. understanding of what an adversary values may evolve. Consequently, although the number of weapons needed to hold those assets at risk has declined, U.S. nuclear forces still require the capability to hold at risk a wide range of target types. This capability is key to the role of nuclear forces in supporting an effective deterrence strategy relative to a broad spectrum of potential opponents under a variety of contingencies. Nuclear attack options that vary in scale, scope, and purpose will complement other military capabilities. The combination can provide the range of options needed to pose a credible deterrent to adversaries whose values and calculations of risk and of gain and loss may be very different from and more difficult to discern than those of past adversaries...
This citation is significant because it shows two things; (1) how tailored deterrence, which is what the last sentence is about, influenced the way in which the Bush administration viewed the scope of deterrence and (2) the role that tailored deterrence played in the RNEP, ACI and finally RRW and Complex Transformation.
We associate an expansion in the scope of deterrence with the Bush administration because of tailored deterrence. That was the key concept that opened the flood gates, so to speak. Those who adhere to tailored deterrence think that deterrence is “hard” so it needs to be tailored to various adversaries and contingencies. Realists think that deterrence is easy. That's why tailored deterrence sits very neatly within constructivist theories of international relations.
The Obama 2010 nuclear posture review doesn't even discuss the concept. It is in the 2010 QDR, however. So I can only infer that tailored deterrence continues to obtain. Others like to grade the NPR with respect to transparency.
Completely keeping us in the dark about the fate of a central strategic doctrine that was introduced by the previous administration is pretty poor transparency.
See if you can find any arms control analyst that looks at that when speaking of the 2010 NPR's transparency. Don't bother wasting your time.
Now the 2010 NPR has a chapter on “strengthening regional deterrence”, which is mostly about extended deterrence. I thought maybe there would be something here. Alas the chapter is pretty bland. The 2010 QDR actually had a more useful line on regional deterrence
...To reinforce U.S. commitments to our allies and partners, we will consult closely with them on new, tailored, regional deterrence architectures that combine our forward presence, relevant conventional capabilities (including missile defenses), and continued commitment to extend our nuclear deterrent...
My guess is that we will hear more about tailored deterrence in future. One way this might happen is in the context of stockpile stewardship. You can see that RRW was all about tailored deterrence from the above Bush era quote, which nobody in the RRW debate cites from, so as the debate on stockpile stewardship picks up we will tend to learn more about tailored deterrence I think.
In the absence of doctrinal clarity a good analytical strategy is to infer doctrine from capabilities.
The big thing in so far as the scope of deterrence goes, in most commentary, is not tailored deterrence at all but rather negative security assurances. Maybe I'm missing a brain cell or few, but tailored deterrence matters more.
The 2010 nuclear posture review offered up the following NSA
...the United States is now prepared to strengthen its long-standing “negative security assurance” by declaring that the United States will not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states that are party to the NPT and in compliance with their nuclear non-proliferation obligations.
This revised assurance is intended to underscore the security benefits of adhering to and fully complying with the NPT and persuade non-nuclear weapon states party to the Treaty to work with the United States and other interested parties to adopt effective measures to strengthen the non-proliferation regime.
In making this strengthened assurance, the United States affirms that any state eligible for the assurance that uses chemical or biological weapons against the United States or its allies and partners would face the prospect of a devastating conventional military response – and that any individuals responsible for the attack, whether national leaders or military commanders, would be held fully accountable.
Given the catastrophic potential of biological weapons and the rapid pace of bio-technology development, the United States reserves the right to make any adjustment in the assurance that may be warranted by the evolution and proliferation of the biological weapons threat and U.S. capacities to counter that threat...
This is how the NSA previously read
...The United States reaffirms that it will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon state-parties to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, except in the case of an invasion or any other attack on the United States, its territories, its armed forces or other troops, its allies, or on a state toward which it has a security commitment carried out, or sustained by such a non-nuclear-weapon state in association or alliance with a nuclear-weapon state...
Despite this NSA it is widely viewed that the US did in fact include chemical and biological weapons within the scope of deterrence. It is often stated that this was enabled by this NSA, given its commonly ascribed ambiguous nature. But notice that it isn't all that ambiguous. The old NSA states that the US will not use nuclear weapons against a non nuclear weapon state party to the NPT unless such a state carries out an attack, it need not be nuclear, against the US, its forces or allies if that attack is carried out in association with a nuclear weapon state.
Don't be fooled by commentary on this topic. The old NSA is stronger than the 2010 assurance. This is because the new assurance speaks of a non-nuclear weapon state in good standing with the NPT. Good standing is not defined so could include safeguards violations, but it need not be so formal. Good standing is ambiguous. The new assurance does explicitly mention the case of chemical and biological weapons, but we need to consider the above caveat and the one that appears in the last paragraph of the new assurance.
The old NSA had no ambiguity and no caveat, other than the allied attack caveat, yet the US still expanded the scope of deterrence regardless. In a realist world the unipolar strategic power will do what it feels it must when it feels it must, period. Assurances like this carry little weight in international relations, as the realist scholar Stephen Walt has pointed out. What is given can be taken away.
One way in which the unipolar power could be better constrained would be through a binding NSA, but that is very much off the agenda.
Now readers of this blog will know that I have always felt that a lot of what Obama is doing on the nuclear front are political moves to get multilateral agreement for non-proliferation reforms favourable to the US.
Even Iran is calling for strengthening the NPT, but most of Iran's proposals are not on compliance. They are directed toward formalising the NPT's disarmament provision. That suits Iran. The US is doing the same, only, naturally, US proposals focus on compliance.
Both parties are not interested in enhancing the NPT as such. Again, the realist world intrudes.
But let's get back on point. You will see that my long standing and very much lone view is actually affirmed in the very text that I have cited. I of course refer to this bit just in case you missed it
...persuade non-nuclear weapon states party to the Treaty to work with the United States and other interested parties to adopt effective measures to strengthen the non-proliferation regime...
Recall my point about the US and Iran above. The NSA is offered up in order to garner changes to the NPT favourable to the US and in a way that does not really constrain the US strategically. It is like Iran calling for movement on the disarmament provision, but rejecting efforts to constrain a states ability under the NPT to be a latent nuclear state in the meantime.
The NSA is part and parcel of that campaign. If the campaign fails, then forget about the NSA. This can be taken to be an unspoken corollary. Again, the realist world.
It is at the this point that we should make a few points about strategic nuclear targeting, even though I would like to treat this on its own in a subsequent blog post. Consider the 2001-2002 nuclear posture review again
...In setting requirements for nuclear strike capabilities, distinctions can be made among the contingencies for which the United States must be prepared. Contingencies can be categorized as immediate, potential or unexpected...
...North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya are among the countries that could be involved in immediate, potential, or unexpected contingencies. All have long standing hostility toward the United States and its security partners; North Korea and Iraq in particular have been chronic military concerns. All sponsor or harbor terrorists, and all have active WMD and missile programs...
These are the states that figured, including Russia and China of course, in US nuclear strike planning during the Bush administration until Saddam was ousted and Gaddafi changed tack.
That makes North Korea, Iran, Syria , Russia and China as being Bush era nuclear strike targets. Notice that all of these are not covered by the NSA, but Iran and Syria should not have been so targeted according to the old one. They are both party to the NPT and are not allies with a nuclear weapon state.
Because the above 5 states are not covered by the new NSA that means the new NSA doesn't really impact US nuclear war planning a jot. The NSA is an interesting twist in declaratory policy, but the active policy, i.e. war plans and attack options, are not affected by this NSA. Perhaps Walt's use of “nuclear public relations” to describe the NPR is accurate.
The manner in which these states are targeted hasn't been changed by the 2010 NPR either. You can see this when you take on board the following citation from the text
...Detailed NPR analysis of potential reductions in strategic weapons, conducted in spring 2009, concluded that the United States could sustain stable deterrence with significantly fewer deployed strategic nuclear warheads, assuming parallel Russian reductions. The NPR analysis considered several specific levels of nuclear weapons, all below current levels of approximately 2,200 deployed strategic warheads. Its conclusions, approved by the President, the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Commander, U.S. Strategic Command, formed the basis for U.S. negotiations with Russia on New START. Because New START is intended to be only an initial step in a continuing process of bilateral nuclear reductions, this initial analysis used conservative assumptions to determine acceptable reductions in deployed strategic nuclear weapons...
In other words the 1550 New Start number is consistent with NSPD-14, the Presidential Guidance that the administration inherited from the Bush era. States not covered by the NSA, which just so happens to be those states that figured in previous planning, will be targeted in the manner in which they were targeted by Bush. Absent further arms control accords, which is not likely (more on that later), this is locked in. That means no change to active policy.
The 2010 nuclear posture review reaffirms one noteworthy Bush era expansion in the scope of deterrence. I speak of the deterrence of weapons of mass destruction terrorism. The NPR states,
...Renewing the U.S. commitment to hold fully accountable any state, terrorist group, or other non-state actor that supports or enables terrorist efforts to obtain or use weapons of mass destruction, whether by facilitating, financing, or providing expertise or safe haven for such efforts...
“Enables” is a direct reference to the so-called negligence doctrine. That is what “enables” means in the lexicon of US counterterrorism policy. To appreciate this you need only consider Paul Pillar's, a former senior counterterrorism official, book on the topic and the book by Daniel Byman on state sponsorship of terrorism. You can also throw in the mix the 2010 QDR
...Improving our ability to attribute nuclear threats to their source can help deter aggressors from considering the use of nuclear weapons, as well as deter state and non-state actors that may provide direct or indirect support of nuclear terrorism and prevent follow-on attacks through more rapid identification and apprehension of an attacker...
Notice the NPR emphasis on "any state". That is a further caveat to the NSA.
When it comes to the scope of deterrence nothing much, so far as I am concerned, has really changed. You might want to argue that the Obama administration has made the right statements about the low likelihood that the US would really use nuclear weapons and the role of conventional capabilities in lowering the role of nuclear weapons in US defence policy, but that isn't really that much of a big change either.
So the Bush NPR stated, to quote from the excerpts
...U.S. nuclear forces, alone are unsuited to most of the contingencies for which the United States prepares. The United States and allied interests may not require nuclear strikes.” A “new mix” of nuclear, non-nuclear, and defensive capabilities “is required for the diverse set of potential adversaries and unexpected threats the United States may confront in the coming decades...
The 2010 NPR statements are on the same wavelength.
It is not accurate to state that the 2010 nuclear posture review has instituted “sweeping” changes to the scope of nuclear deterrence.
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Marko is also interested in philosophy, especially the theory of knowledge, and science, especially physics, and considers himself to work within the naturalist and enlightenment tradition. He is writing a book on nuclear terrorism.