New Thinking Needed
if nothing else, this brief seeks to raise awareness of the need for a fundamental rethinking of the enduring strategic logic developed during the Cold War with regard to nuclear weapons. The conditions that informed that logic have, in many respects, passed into history along with the Cold War itself. The number of nuclear-armed states has grown significantly,and more appear to be on the way. As arms control treaties reduce US and Russian nuclear arsenals ever lower, the world may well be shifting from a bipolar nuclear world to a multipolar one, complete with regional arms races. An increase in the number of nuclear-armed states, some of them unstable, raises the prospect that nuclear weapons may fall into the hands of nonstate entities bent on causing catastrophic destruction. New forms of deterrence may be needed to prevent such attacks, assuming deterrence is possible. The existence of more nuclear powers also suggests an increased risk of ambiguous nuclear aggression, presenting yet another problem that received little attention during the Cold War. Finally, with the fielding of long-range guided weapons in large numbers and the creation of cyber weapons following the rise of information-based economies, nuclear weapons are not the only means for inflicting prompt and devastating destruction on a broad scale. increasingly, they will be part of any meaningful discussion of the strategic military balance.
Where does that leave us? We would do well to take a lesson from our Cold War-era predecessors, a succession of administrations beginning with the Truman and Eisenhower presidencies that took a realistic view of what arms control might accomplish, while at the same time devoting great intellectual effort to developing strategies for addressing the challenges of the dangerous world in which they lived. The recommendations that follow are modest. Their purpose is to keep the United States’ nuclear options open until a fundamental review is completed and a well-crafted strategy is in place.
- Build and expand global counterproliferation partnerships, strengthen NPT compliance and enforcement regimes, and improve human intelligence dedicated to counter-proliferation.
- Assist friendly governments of new nuclear-armed states in improving their controls over their nuclear weapons, fissionable materials, and weapons production infrastructure.
- Invest in capabilities that enhance the United States’ ability to detect, intercept and secure both weapons-grade fissile material (and even nuclear weapons themselves) in order to enforce existing control agreements; intercept nonstate entities armed with so-called dirty bombs or nuclear weapons; and recover “loose nukes” in the event a nuclear-armed state descends into chaos.
- Explore the full range of defenses against nuclear attack, to include attacks by traditional means (e.g., ballistic missiles, aircraft, and cruise missiles) and nontraditional means (e.g., covert insertion).
- Develop war plans that can be implemented if deterrence fails and a limited attack occurs, so as to mitigate the consequences of the attack on the US homeland and America’s allies in such a manner as to maintain the freedom of action necessary to preserve vital interests at home and abroad.
- Maintain the capability to respond promptly and devastatingly to aggression through both nuclear and nonnuclear means (e.g., guided weapons and cyber strikes), to include the ability to effect regime change in minor nuclear powers. To this end, the United States should enhance its capabilities for conducting highly distributed, highly integrated power-projection operations from standoff ranges (i.e., absent the use of fixed forward bases) under conditions of radioactive contamination, or against an enemy who retains the ability to threaten nuclear attack.
in sum, while the United States should continue to accord high priority to arresting nuclear proliferation and reversing it where possible, it must craft strategies for the world it will likely inhabit for the indefinite future: a world of eight or more nuclear-armed states—some of which are unstable, have ties to radical nonstate groups, or both—with the prospect of more to follow.