Someone tuned in to the breathless media coverage of the Bush
administration's nuclear report last week could be excused for assuming
that Dr. Strangelove had taken control of the Pentagon. According to
the scribes at The New York Times, America is behaving as a "Nuclear
Rogue." "If Pentagon proposals become American policy. . . .countries
could conclude they have no motive to stay non-nuclear," an editorial
complained.
>From the sounds of it, President Bush is pushing
dangerous policies that would move the world closer to nuclear war. The
countries named in the Nuclear Posture Review quickly got their backs
up. China said it was shocked, "deeply shocked" at its inclusion on the
target list and wants a "clear explanation." Axis of Evil member Iran
explained that the report itself was equivalent to terrorism.
Let's
stop and take a deep breath. Are we actually going to nuke countries
ranging from Russia to Libya to North Korea? No. What the government
says it will do with nuclear weapons, and what it actually intends to
do, are seldom the same thing. The public posture on nuclear use is
called "declaratory strategy." The secret war plans are "operational"
strategy.
That's a difference worth bearing in mind as you
consider much of the recent reporting on proposed changes to U.S.
nuclear strategy. The Bush Administration wants to reduce the size of
the nation's nuclear arsenal by about two-thirds while expanding the
range of options for selectively applying such weapons. Some
journalists have interpreted the changes as evidence that Bush's
advisors are lowering the barriers to employing weapons of mass
destruction.
In reality, the opposite is true: they are trying
to maximize the incentives other countries have to avoid using such
weapons -- not just nuclear weapons, but also chemical or biological
weapons suitable for committing mass murder. The envisioned changes are
an overdue response to shifts in the global security environment that
make devastating attacks on the American homeland more likely.
But
because the core of U.S. nuclear strategy is an elusive psychological
concept called deterrence, the proposed changes are easily
misunderstood. In fact, every effort to adjust nuclear strategy to
changing circumstances has elicited the same fearful responses from the
media, whether it was Eisenhower's policy of massive retaliation,
Kennedy's assured destruction, Nixon's flexible selective targeting, or
Reagan's defensive initiatives.
In order to understand why the
press is almost always wrong in imputing dangerous motives to nuclear
planners, it is necessary to revisit the logic of strategic deterrence.
That's a disappointing task to be undertaking a decade after the Cold
War ended, because many people hoped that the specter of nuclear
holocaust would gradually slip into history. But the atrocities of
September 11 have demonstrated such aspirations are premature, and
forced the administration to bolster the nation's deterrent posture.
The Logic of Deterrence
Deterrence
is the practice of preventing aggression by threatening unacceptable
consequences. It has been used to channel conflict throughout the
history. For example, many historians believe that the reason Hitler
did not use poison gas in World War Two was his fear of retaliation in
kind (he had been temporarily blinded by a gas attack in World War One).
After
the advent of atomic weapons, the theoretical underpinnings of
deterrence were elaborately systematized by western scholars such as
Albert Wohlstetter and Henry Kissinger. The basic dilemma posed by such
weapons was that their destructiveness made effective defense very
difficult. If even a handful of bombs managed to get by defenders, they
would cause vast carnage. In fact, a surprise attack could be so
devastating that the victim might lose the ability to retaliate.
Nuclear
deterrence was conceived to stabilize this precarious balance. In
essence, it sought to guarantee that no nuclear aggressor could escape
destruction, and thus minimize the incentives to attack. The concept
had major limitations, especially when dealing with irrational or
accident-prone adversaries, but once the Soviets achieved nuclear
parity it was widely seen as the only viable option for assuring
national survival.
The main problem with deterrence (other than
being defenseless) is that it is a psychological construct. It won't
work unless the enemy believes you have the capability and will to make
good on the threat of retaliation. During the late Cold War period, a
great deal of thought went into designing nuclear forces that not only
could retaliate, but could do so credibly. That meant not threatening
nuclear armageddon in response to limited provocations, because such
behavior was unbelievable and hence a poor deterrent.
Like the
Soviets, President Reagan believed that the most potent deterrent was a
credible capacity to fight and win nuclear wars. All of his strategic
initiatives -- better offensive forces, effective nuclear defenses,
government continuity -- were designed to support that goal. Much of
the academic and policy community came to share Reagan's view, not
because it wanted to wage such a conflict, but because it wanted to
prevent one.
New Dangers
This all seemed like ancient
history before September 11. U.S. nuclear strategy during the Cold War
years was focused almost exclusively on the Soviets, so once communism
collapsed nuclear forces were seen to be much less important. Although
the Bush administration began reviewing the nation's nuclear posture
within weeks after taking office, the main thrust of its efforts was to
slash the size of the strategic arsenal by finding other means of
deterring adversaries.
September 11 didn't so much change this
impulse as temper it, by reinforcing the administration's awareness
that not all mechanisms of mass destruction were nuclear, and not all
potential aggressors were Russians. Bush's advisors still want to cut
the nuclear arsenal, but they want to use what weapons remain to
strengthen deterrence in a new world of more diverse threats.
One
way the congressionally-mandated nuclear posture review would do that
is by signaling potential perpetrators of mass murder -- such as Iraq
and North Korea -- that evil behavior may elicit the ultimate
punishment. Another way is to develop new weapons that can credibly
address emerging threats such as deeply buried command bunkers or
biolabs.
Most of those new weapons will be non-nuclear. Some
will be nuclear, maintained as a last resort to deal with hypothetical
threats that defy other remedies. But the basic goal remains the same
as in past nuclear reviews: to bolster deterrence by signaling credible
retribution to the widest range of potential adversaries.
The
core of the nation's deterrent posture will continue to be sea-based
and land-based ballistic missiles, backed up by highly capable
conventional and special forces. The modest refinements Bush proposes
would simply seek to dissuade new classes of aggressors from attacking
America and its allies. If deterrence fails, the posture would then
seek to defeat those enemies at the lowest feasible level of violence.
Mr.
Bush and his advisors have few illusions about their ability to bargain
with the kind of people who make up al Qaeda. But even the most deluded
aggressor usually has some fear that can
