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Is the West in increasing danger of being attacked with nuclear weapons, whether from a nuclear armed state or a terrorist organization? And if the nuclear threat has accelerated, is the current U.S. deterrent strategy adequate and cost-effective to prevent any such attack? And does an alternative strategy seeking abolition make sense?
Nuclear dangers have indeed increased. And nuclear weapons have become key elements of state strategy particularly with respect to Russia, China, North Korea and potentially Iran. Most importantly has been the adoption of an “escalate to win” options where nuclear weapons are introduced into a conventional conflict.
To counter these threats, U.S. deterrence strategy is in transition along multiple paths. Legacy deterrent forces represented by the U.S. nuclear Triad are being both significantly upgraded and replaced. The Administration and Congress understand the country is lacking in theater nuclear forces and is seeking to remedy that shortfall with the development of such technologies as nuclear capable sea and air-based medium range cruise missiles. The nation’s nuclear command, control, and communication (NC3) is also being upgraded to overcome cyber and other threats. And the nation’s nuclear legacy warheads are being replaced as service life extensions have run their course.
This effort has been moving forward since roughly the middle of the Bush ‘43’ and beginning of the Obama administrations, but lacked the urgency required to move forward quickly. The good news is that the current administration has repeatedly made the case that such modernization is of the highest national priority and will be accelerated.
Most importantly, the U.S. is not initiating any kind of arms race. Far from it. The U.S. program of record including upgrading the entirety of the U.S. nuclear TRIAD is consistent with the 2010 New START arms control agreement, even though it expires within the next year. The modernized force as currently planned is even smaller than the current legacy force—two fewer submarines (12 vs 14) and 48 fewer (192 vs 240) sea-launched ballistic missiles.
The U.S. has not modernized its nuclear deterrent for three decades and will not complete the task until somewhere between 2042-50. A little more than half of the current cost of U.S. nuclear deterrent investment is for sustaining and maintaining the current legacy systems. As modernization accelerates, that will change as the legacy systems are retired and the modernized systems come into the force. These legacy systems include 400 Minuteman III (1970), 14 Ohio class submarines (1982), twenty B2 and 40 B52 strategic bombers (1997 and 1962), along with 240 D-5 SLBM (1990) and LSRO or cruise missile (1982).
Unfortunately, the U.S. went on an extended procurement holiday and simply stopped upgrading its nuclear deterrent after the collapse of the USSR, except for a service life extension for the Minuteman missile and most of the Triad’s warheads. Thus, extending the life of the current nuclear deterrent will still be required for some decades, probably through 2042-50.
Can We Afford Survival?
Former Defense Secretary James Mattis answered this question in the affirmative. He got the numbers right. However, popular narratives claim the U.S. is spending $1.7-2.0 trillion over the next 30 years on nuclear modernization and are routinely cited by Congressional opponents of nuclear modernization and their global zero accomplices. Such estimates are bogus.
Modernization is actually a smaller part of the nuclear expenditures than the support needed for our legacy system. According to Senator John Hoeven, a senior member of the Defense Subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the new Sentinel ICBMs, Columbia class submarines, B21 Raider bombers, LRSO or cruise missiles, and the upgraded D-5 SLBM missiles, will collectively cost $17.1 billion this fiscal year (FY2025), and shortly after 2030 peak and begin to decline as modernization moves forward.
The research, development, and acquisition costs of the new ICBMs, submarines and their missiles, the nuclear portion of the new bomber, as well as new warhead and NC3 work, are $350 billion over the next decade. That comes to 3.5% of a ten-year flat DoD budget, and some .4/10ths of one percent of the projected 10-year Federal budget or one out of every $257,000 spent by Uncle Sam. This modernization is not “nice to have.” Its “have to have.” The only other choice is to rust to obsolescence as Clark Murdock once quipped as the current legacy forces are aging out. The choice is thus between recapitalization of the force or going out of the nuclear deterrent business. Our legacy force is between 28-63 years old and will be 45-80 years old when fully replaced. If this qualifies as “arms racing,” every tortoise in the United States could qualify for the Olympic 100 yard dash!
Deterrence Strategy
A plethora of global zero enthusiasts—the Arms Control Association, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Ploughshares, Global Zero, the Carnegie Endowment—have embraced Annie Jacobsen’s thesis in her “Nuclear War: A Scenario” that current U.S. deterrent strategy is as Jacobsen writes, “Mad” and no longer viable.
Her thesis, long also held by those who support abolition, is that any initial use of nuclear weapons, however limited, will quickly escalate to an all-out nuclear war, which in turn will trigger “nuclear winter,” and billions of people around the globe will die. Part of her thesis is that the U.S. military has a built-in bias toward using nuclear weapons, and they will collectively “jam up” the President to unleash the entire U.S. nuclear arsenal no matter how limited an initial attack is on the United States.
For abolitionists, nuclear weapons are only good to “show deterrence” but cannot ever be used in retaliation should deterrence breakdown. That this essentially reduces our deterrent to a “bluff” seems to have been missed by the abolition folks, as well as the obvious consequence that if adopted a “no use” strategy means no U.S. adversary will now take our nuclear “deterrent” seriously. The corollary is that numbers also don’t matter because for the United States nuclear weapons won’t ever be used first or second, in a retaliatory manner.
However, as numerous U.S. military officers have testified to Congress, every war game concludes that “nothing holds” when our enemies introduce nuclear weapons into a conventional military conflict. “Nothing holds” means all the assumed advantages the U.S. holds on the conventional battlefield disappear. This is the rationale behind the adoption of “escalate to win” strategies by Russia and China. They believe the threat of introducing nuclear force into a conventional conflict will drive the United States out of the conflict and force the United States to stand down.
Conclusion
As the U.S. searches for the right strategy to secure deterrence in this troubling new nuclear age, there are five principles we should keep in mind.
First, without nuclear modernization we are out of the nuclear business—and facing unilateral disarmament.
Second, deterrence fails, and the U.S. loses if enemy nuclear weapons are introduced into a conventional conflict. The U.S. thus needs better deterrence at every level of conflict, especially involving theater nuclear forces.
Third, discarding a nuclear retaliatory option reduces nuclear deterrence to bluff.
Fourth, the United States is modernizing but only “racing” to get to where it already is—the 2010 New START allowed level of warheads.
And fifth, abolition doesn’t make sense. Particularly the daunting task of all nuclear powers abolishing their nuclear arsenals simultaneously. As the leader of North Korea is reportedly to have said when asked by a U.S. representative to join an effort to abolish nuclear weapons— “sure, you first.”
But unilaterally eliminating U.S. nuclear weapons as a deterrent force–as abolitionists are proposing– only invites more war, as such weakness is provocative.
Peter R. Huessy is President of Geo-Strategic Analysis and Senior Fellow, National Institute for Deterrent Studies.
