The Technology, Strategy, And Politics Of Sdi

Stephen J Cimbala

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9780367296476
• eBook ISBN: 9781000306224
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to develop a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system has both short-range and long-range risks as well as potential benefits. For the most part, however, strategic, technological, and political issues relevant to SDI have been analyzed in isolation from one another. This book provides a more inclusive framework for assessing the possible development and deployment of a BMD system by the United States or the Soviet Union. Contributors discuss the risks for arms race stability, probable reactions of the Soviet Union to any U.S. space-based defense system, and implications for the stability of extended deterrence commitments to NATO European allies. They also evaluate Soviet research and development programs in missile defense that must be considered in any extrapolation of the requirements for U.S. deterrence in the next several decades.

Part One
Are Ballistic Missile Defenses Necessary? Three Perspectives

1
Nuclear War in a Defense-dominant World

Gary L. Guertner

The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) debate has revisited many arguments from an earlier period in the evolution of U.S. strategic doctrine. The new debate finds some SDI advocates repeating many of the same arguments against mutual assured destruction (MAD) made during the Nixon years by advocates of limited nuclear war and flexible response. Nixon administration spokesmen also argued that the U.S. president needed options in addition to retaliation against Soviet cities, especially if Soviet reserve forces could retaliate against previously spared U.S. cities.

The Reagan administration often has misrepresented current U.S. offensive doctrine by contrasting its views of a defense-dominant world with the city-busting strategies of the 1960s. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, for example, has explained that “true believers in the disproven MAD concept hold that the prime, if not the only, objective of the strategic nuclear forces of both the United States and the Soviet Union is the ability to destroy each other’s cities.”¹

The president also has argued repeatedly that strategic defense is both militarily and morally necessary. In a White House booklet released on January 1985, he stated that “certainly, there should be a better way to strengthen peace and stability, a way to move away from a future that relies so heavily on the prospect of rapid and massive nuclear retaliation and toward greater reliance on defensive systems which threaten no one [emphasis added].²

The rhetorical excesses ignore more than a decade of offensive doctrinal evolution and detract from the in-depth assessments required of so major a shift in U.S. strategic posture. It is essential, therefore, to compare current offensive doctrine and future defensive objectives as accurately as possible.

For the past two decades, there has been a continual official effort to increase the range of strategic nuclear targeting options available to the president in a crisis. Alternatives to mutual assured destruction have been developed in the documents, strategies, and force structures of every administration since 1970, including the Reagan administration. Not since the Kennedy administration has a president been confronted with a choice between no nuclear response or the massive unleashing of U.S. strategic forces. These alternatives have been characterized by plans that concentrate against military targets through limited and selective attack options that, in theory, make it possible to control escalation short of attacking cities, to bargain with the Soviets during a nuclear war, and to terminate nuclear conflict at the earliest possible time.

The first official public discussions of these issues came in President Richard Nixon’s foreign policy message to Congress on 18 February 1970.

Should a President, in the event of a nuclear attack, be left with the single option of ordering the mass destruction of enemy civilians, in the face of the certainty that it would be followed by the mass slaughter of Americans? Should the concept of assured destruction be narrowly defined and should it be the only measure of our ability to deter the variety of threats we may face?³

A series of studies and directives followed that provided political guidance on structuring more flexible preplanned nuclear responses in the U.S. war plan, or SIOP (Single Integrated Operational Plan). Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger publicly announced the change in targeting strategy. Assured destruction and the old policy of initiating a suicidal strike against the cities of the other side “were no longer adequate for deterrence.” He therefore would implement a set of selective options against different sets of targets on a much more limited, flexible scale.⁴

The Nuclear Weapons Employment Policy (NUWEP) instituted by Schlesinger in 1974 set forth the planning assumptions, attack options, targeting objectives, and predicted damage levels needed to satisfy the political guidance developed by the administration. Targets were divided into four principal groups:

• Soviet nuclear forces
• Soviet conventional military forces
• Military and political leadership targets (e.g., command posts)
• Economic and industrial targets (including transportation and energy)⁵

In response to this policy, changes were made in the SIOP that further divided these four groups into specific categories and offered “packages” of strike options that could single out or combine various target categories within the four general groups.⁶ Only two of these categories—leadership and economic targets—are associated with mutual assured destruction, and many of those (dams, rail junctions, leadership bunkers) are located outside major population centers. Military targets were given top priority. By adopting the strategy of limited nuclear options, planners reasoned, escalation might be averted short of attacking target categories in major urban-industrial centers.

The Carter administration refined the limited nuclear war strategy by deemphasizing Soviet economic targets (moving still further away from MAD) and stressing the importance of survivable strategic forces and command, control, and communications (C³) systems required to execute a limited nuclear war.⁷

Subsequently, the Reagan administration produced the Nuclear Weapons Employment and Acquisition Master Plan, which maintained the legacy of limited nuclear warfare and stressed the requirements for strategic modernization including survivable forces and command, control, communications, and intelligence (C³I) systems to execute selective attack options.⁸ In fact, considerable controversy during the administration’s first term focused on public discussions of fighting and “winning” limited nuclear wars.

A strategy for controlling nuclear war short of mass destruction may be a false hope, as critics claim. But there is a world of difference between war plans that deliberately (as in the 1950s) provide no options other than surrender or holocaust and those developed throughout the 1970s and early 1980s that at least attempt to mitigate the consequences of nuclear war if deterrence fails. The distinctions between MAD and limited nuclear war have been debated for more than two decades. That debate and whatever wisdom it may have produced should not be ignored as this and subsequent administrations move toward a defense-dominant world that may not provide more security than did its predecessors. If we look to the past, we see that nuclear war was planned in the 1950s on the basis of what U.S. bombers could find—Soviet cities. In the 1990s, the United States may plan war on the basis of what its weapons can hit—again, cities. Like the British and French with limited nuclear resources, U.S. and Soviet planners may be driven toward countercity targeting. We shall then have come full circle at great expense and, in the end, succeeded only in making the world safe for MAD.

The actual conduct of nuclear war could be considerably different from that suggested by the declaratory policies of either the Soviet Union or the United States. Strategic orthodoxy could easily give way to ad hoc strategies based on last-minute military and political judgments or resulting from the chaos caused by a disrupted national command authority. Escalation, collateral damage, and the delayed effects of nuclear weapons (radiation and societal disruption) could drive casualties quickly to “unacceptable” levels or bring about unforeseen consequences even if cities were not attacked directly. Given these possibilities, U.S. leaders and planners need to consider all plausible contingencies and scenarios carefully and think through the impact of strategic defense on deterrence, crisis management, and offensive targeting now rather than in the midst of a future Soviet-U.S. crisis.

The New Strategic Concept

The administration’s optimistic predictions for strategic defense often have misrepresented current U.S. strategic doctrine by ignoring the evolution away from mutual assured destruction during the past decade. The “new strategic concept” or vision of the future links the Strategic Defense Initiative to long-range offensive arms reductions. Its goal is to make deep cuts in offensive weapons with the development of strategic defenses during a long, carefully phased transition period. During the next ten years, the United States will seek a radical reduction in offensive nuclear arms, followed by a period of mutual transition to effective nonnuclear defense forces as technology makes such options available. In a final “ultimate period,” strategic defenses may make it possible to eliminate all nuclear weapons.

Paul H. Nitze, chief negotiator at the U.S.-Soviet arms control talks and reportedly the author of the new concept, described the three envisioned phases in detail during testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

1. The near term: For the near term (through the mid-1990s), the United States will continue to base deterrence on the ultimate threat of nuclear retaliation. Today’s technology provides no alternative. That being said, the United States will press for radical cuts in the number and power of strategic and intermediate-range nuclear arms.

2. The transition period: Should a transition be possible, arms control would play an important role. The United States, for example, would seek continued reductions in offensive nuclear arms. Concurrently, it envisages the beginning, on both sides, of testing, developing, and deploying survivable and cost-effective defenses, with particular emphasis on nonnuclear defenses. Deterrence thus would begin to rely more on a mix of offensive nuclear and defensive systems, instead of on the threat of offensive nuclear arms alone. The transition would continue for some time, perhaps decades.

3. The ultimate period: Given the right technical and political conditions, the United States would hope to continue the reduction of all nuclear weapons down to zero. The total elimination of nuclear weapons would be accompanied by widespread deployments of effective nonnuclear defenses. Were the United States to reach the ultimate phase, deterrence would be based on the ability of the defense to deny success to a potential aggressor’s attack—whether nuclear or conventional. The strategic relationship could then be characterized as one of mutual assured security.⁹

Assuming that the Soviets could be persuaded to cooperate in the transition to a defense-dominant world (a position they now publicly reject), it is important not to lose sight of the continued, long-term role of offensive weapons. During the near-term phase, for example, deterrence would continue to be based on the threat of nuclear retaliation. Offensive modernization programs would continue even if arms control agreements were to succeed in driving down total force levels.

The transition period calls for a mix of offensive and defensive systems that could be maintained (and modernized) for decades. Nuclear weapons, offensive strategies, and targeting policies would be required well into the next century. It is essential, therefore, that strategic planners carefully assess the probable impacts of such strategic shifts on U.S. and Soviet targeting policies. Would the transition to strategic defense make both sides more secure, or would each side alter its nuclear employment policies in such a way that cities and population centers would face even greater danger than they have in the recent past?

The Irony of Strategic Defense

If arms control agreements succeed in reducing the levels of offensive nuclear weapons, there still will remain a visible trend toward modernization and qualitative advances in the remaining forces. Maneuverable warheads, Stealth technology, and cruise missiles, to name a few, will be sufficient to create doubts about the effectiveness of defenses. Similarly, technological breakthroughs in defenses will increase the uncertainties for offensive operations. Together, offensive and defensive uncertainties may precipitate targeting policies that are as threatening as any in the past. Cities and their civilian populations could again become primary targets in a nuclear war. This outcome would be the ultimate irony of strategic defense.

Table 1 illustrates the relationship between current U.S. strategic doctrine based on limited attack options and the evolution toward a defense-dominant world. The phases are based on Nitze’s descriptions. During the initial decade, assuming a cooperative adversary, offensive nuclear forces would be reduced (and modernized) to mutually agreed levels. Limited attack options could remain credible throughout this period.

Table-1 The New Strategic Concept

1985-------1995 Reduce Offensive Forces	1990-------1995 Interim Point Defense	1995-------2015 Territorial Defense	2015-------?“Ultimate Period” Near Zero Nuclear Offensive Forces
Limited Nuclear Options Remain Credible	Reduced Credibility Against:	Limited Nuclear Options Not Credible	Offensive Nuclear Doctrine not Required
	• Strategic nuclear targets
	• Leadership targets
	• Some conventional targets
	Most Credible Against:
	• Urban/Industrial
	• Transportation
	• Energy
	• Population	Offensive Remedies:
		• Rely on Deterrence Through Defense
		• Technological Modernization to Penetrate Defense
		• Increase Offensive Forces
		• Attack High Value, Soft Targets If Deterrence Fails

If the United States were to begin deploying interim point defenses...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• List of Acronyms
• Introduction: Strategic Defense-Ever Promising, Ever Frustrating
• PART ONE Are Ballistic Missile Defenses Necessary? Three Perspectives
• PART TWO Point Defenses: Halfway House or Strategic Misdirection?
• PART THREE SDI and the Atlantic Alliance: Strategy and Policy Issues
• PART FOUR Soviet Strategic Policy and the Impact of SDI
• PART FIVE SDI and Arms Control: Compatible or Conflictual?
• About the Contributors