From the Brookings Review, Summer 1995
Lengthening the Fuse
(By Bruce G. Blair)
During the Cold War a massive array of opposing Soviet and U.S. nuclear forces stood ready for launch on a moment's notice. In accord with the perceived needs of deterrence, strategic and tactical nuclear weapons were scattered around the globe, carried by a host of ground, sea, and airborne delivery systems, and primed to inflict instant apocalyptic devastation in retaliation against any nuclear aggressor.
Today, the ideological tensions of the Cold War have dissolved, the urgency of the need for deterrence has diminished, and the Russian and U.S. nuclear arsenals are smaller. Yet thousands of warheads on both sides remain on hair-trigger alert. And, by a bitter irony, the geopolitical revolution that defused the Cold War confrontation has posed a chilling new nuclear danger--loss of control. In an atmosphere of political turbulence and economic duress, Russia must now oversee the far-flung nuclear weaponry of the Soviet Union, much of it still ready for instant launch. The possibilities for nuclear anarchy are many--from unauthorized use of weapons by rebellious commanders in the field, to political breakdown in Moscow, to a spread of nuclear weaponry and material onto the global black market.
But dangerous as these scenarios are, an effective and realistic solution exists: an international agreement to take all nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert, remove warheads or other vital components from the weapons delivery systems, and institute monitoring arrangements to verify compliance. Such an agreement would drastically reduce the risk of a catastrophic failure of nuclear control. But it would also require nuclear planners to back away from their traditional focus on deterrence--and to make a commitment to safety instead.
SAFETY ALWAYS CAME SECOND
The vast nuclear arsenals maintained by the superpowers during the Cold War were a product, of course, of deep political and ideological antagonisms. But they were also a product of the adversaries' commitment to deterrence, their faith that rational decisionmakers would refrain from striking first if they knew an opponent could retaliate with devastating effect. War was to be prevented by ensuring that each of the opposing forces was capable of retaliation destructive enough and credible enough to override any potential gain from striking first. The two defense establishments deployed forces capable of retaliating against tens of thousands of enemy targets--and to do so in the moments between enemy missile lift-off and arrival.
In all this, deterrence came first. Safety came second. Not that safety's importance was lost on the rival strategic organizations. After all, neither would likely have survived the political repercussions of a major failure in safety. Much of their mundane activity revolved around safety during peacetime. They strove to prevent the accidental, inadvertent, or unauthorized detonation of even a single weapon. Nuclear weapons received continuous scrutiny, augmented on occasion by high-level special investigations, to identify safety hazards and remedies. Both sides evolved sophisticated weapon design principles and operational procedures to preserve effective control. On the essential point--nuclear detonation--the record was perfect. On lesser but still critical points--notably, nuclear accidents resulting in the dispersal of toxic plutonium--it was nearly perfect.
That deterrence took precedence over safety is nonetheless demonstrable. If safety had been a governing influence at the planning level, the strategic deployments would not have been so large, so dispersed, and so geared to rapid use. At the design and daily operational level, too, trade-offs between safety and deterrence were regularly resolved in favor of deterrence. For example, locks to prevent low-level U.S. weapons commanders from firing strategic forces were not installed on heavy bombers until the early 1970s, on intercontinental ballistic missiles until the late 1970s. And they were installed only after a finding that they would not impede the wartime retaliatory mission. They were never installed on ballistic missile submarines because of fears that they would jeopardize the ability of submarine crews to carry out authorized launches. And although the missile propellants used in Trident and M-X missiles, as well as the conventional explosives used in Trident warheads, are relatively susceptible to accidental detonation, safety requirements were waived for the sake of wartime performance.
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CHANGING PERSPECTIVES
Despite history's abrupt change of course with the end of the Cold War, the established practice of deterrence, with all its inherent danger, remains unchanged. Despite the rollback of the nuclear arsenals set in motion by the Strategic Arms Reduction treaties, nuclear policy and force deployment on both sides are still directed toward deterring deliberate attack. The nuclear confrontation is thus being sustained by a dubious rationale that sustains hair-trigger postures that undercut safety.
In key respects both the U.S. and Russian nuclear portfolios are actually being enlarged. Russia, for example, has dropped nuclear `no-first-use' policy from its new military doctrine and expanded the role of nuclear forces to compensate for the sharp decline in its conventional strength. The United States also appears reluctant to lower further its nuclear profile, despite the evaporation of the primary threat justifying nuclear vigilance during the Cold War: Soviet invasion of Western Europe. The United States now projects conventional superiority over all prospective adversaries and thus can rely more on conventional and less on nuclear forces. Accordingly, further reciprocal nuclear reductions would be beneficial. Yet the U.S. security establishment seems content with the numbers allowed under START II and shows little interest in another round of reductions.
Prompting that reluctance are fears that Russia may revert to authoritarian rule and revive nuclear hostility toward the West. Despite the grim outlook for the rejuvenation of Russia's economy and the projected steep decline in its defense spending for the next decade or more, uncertainty about the Kremlin's attitudes toward the outside world has assumed critical importance in U.S. estimations of the future nuclear threat and in planning U.S. nuclear posture through at least 2005. The Pentagon strongly supports the traditional U.S. strategic mission as an insurance policy. As Defense Secretary William Perry put it in the 1994 Defense Department annual report, `these Cold War tools of nuclear deterrence remain necessary to hedge against a resurgent Russian threat.'
U.S. nuclear planners also envisage new missions tied loosely to contingencies in the third world. Although the Pentagon plans to use conventional weapons in dealing with weapons of mass destruction brandished by third-world states, U.S. nuclear forces will doubtless play a major retaliatory and deterrent role. The U.S. Air Force is identifying targets in third-world nations that are developing weapons of mass destruction--chemical, biological, and nuclear. And the U.S. Strategic Command has assumed major responsibility for planning both nuclear and nonnuclear strikes against these targets, whose numbers could easily reach many hundreds and might approach a thousand. China will also figure more prominently in the global strategic balance as it modernizes its ballistic missile forces. Any significant increase in the nuclear threat China projects at the United States may well prompt a review of U.S. nuclear planning, particularly the decision in the early 1980s to remove China from the U.S. strategic war plan.
Like the United States and Russia, other charter nuclear states are also disposed to invoke deterrence to justify aggressive alert operations. Britain and France seem committed to maintain a large portion of their nuclear forces on active alert, while China's extensive program of strategic modernization could bring its ballistic missile forces to a comparable level of combat readiness. Other states such as India, Pakistan, and Israel appear heading down the same path. In spite of strenuous international efforts to deny membership in the nuclear club, de facto and aspiring members not only have nuclear weapons programs but also surely have plans if not current capabilities for `weaponization'--mating nuclear warheads with dispersed delivery vehicles capable of rapid use. Intentions and technical progress are difficult to gauge, but the general picture is clear enough and does not bode well.
The proliferation of advanced aircraft and ballistic missiles with increasing range and accuracy certainly expands delivery options. In the name of deterrence, emerging nuclear states can be expected to equip, or prepare to equip quickly, these delivery systems with nuclear weapons from their stockpile. And the decision by the United States, Russia, Great Britain, and France to preserve rapid reaction postures sets an international standard that encourages emulation. Moreover, if the history of the nuclear superpowers is a reliable guide, and the classical dilemmas of nuclear security come to bear strongly on regional dynamics, regional rivals will be induced to shorten the fuses on their arsenals. Absent effective international constraints, the standards for daily combat readiness seem destined to rise.
SAFETY FIRST?
There can no longer be any justification for putting operational safety second. Not only is deterring a deliberate nuclear attack a less demanding challenge today than it was during the Cold War; ensuring safety has become more demanding. The disintegration of the former Soviet Union and the dangers emerging from the attendant turmoil make loss of control the central problem of nuclear security. Indeed, the specter of nuclear anarchy in the former Soviet Union animates U.S. policy toward Russia and drives U.S. support for the Yeltsin government and Russia's fledgling democratic institutions. Nor are weaknesses in nuclear control confined to the former Soviet Union. Lacking sophisticated systems for safety managing their arsenals, the aspiring nuclear weapon states also face problems of control. And while deliberate nuclear aggression growing out of regional tensions in areas like South Asia, the Korean peninsula, the Middle East, and other potential hot spots is conceivable, the specter of a catastrophic failure of nuclear command and control looms even larger.
If safety is to become the paramount goal of nuclear security policy, the operational stance of the world's nuclear forces--in particular, their high combat readiness--will have to change. The major defense establishments must lower their alert levels and coax the rest of the world to follow suit.
To de-alert the bomber forces, bomber payloads would be moved to storage facilities far away from the bombers'
home bases. The retrieval and uploading of the payloads would require elaborate, time-consuming, and observable procedures. Similarly, warheads (or other vital components such as guidance sets) would be removed from land-based missiles and put in storage--a standard Soviet practice for all land-based strategic forces until the late 1960s. Although warheads could also be removed from ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs), an attractive alternative is to take guidance sets off the sea-based missiles and place them in storage on board attack submarines (SSNs) deployed at sea. Under routine practices, the components would remain separated at all times and invulnerable to attack. If necessary during a nuclear crisis, the SSBNs and SSNs could rendezvous and quickly transfer the guidance sets. The SSBNs could then install the components on all missiles in about 24 hours.
We should strive to further lengthen the fuse on all nuclear forces, extending the time needed to bring them to launch-ready status to weeks, months, and ultimately years.
Taking all nuclear weapons off alert--adopting a stance of universal `zero alert' in which no weapons were poised for immediate launch--would not only create a strict international standard of safety for daily alert, but also ease nuclear tensions by removing the threat of sudden deliberate attack. Certainly, a surprise or short-notice nuclear strike by any of the major nuclear powers is already implausible. But because all of them except China can mount a strike with ease, their strategic nuclear forces, particularly those of the United States and Russia, maintain a daily posture of rapid reaction to deter it. A remote, hypothetical scenario thus induces alert operations that feed on themselves. Although designed only to deter, the operations confer the ability either to strike back in retaliation or to initiate a sudden attack. The opposing forces create and perpetuate the very threat they seek to thwart.
In fact, an internationally monitored agreement to remove all nuclear weapons from active alert status could serve much the same purpose as traditional deterrence. Any initial preparations to restore alert status prior to attack would be detected and disclosed by monitors, allowing for counterbalancing responses, thereby denying a decisive preemptive advantage to any side contemplating redeployment and sneak attack.
Zero alert would thus eliminate the technical pretext for sustaining tense nuclear vigils in the post-Cold War era. Besides improving safety, it would relax the nuclear stances, bringing them into harmony with improved political relations.
OVERCOMING INERTIA
Left to themselves, the nuclear establishments will never adopt a zero alert posture. The bureaucracies that created the standard practices of deterrence cannot be expected to put safety before deterrence.
Typical arms negotiations, for example, have little scope for reining in aggressive alert practices. Even with the low ceilings on strategic nuclear arsenals imposed by START II at the turn of the century, the nuclear superpowers could still keep thousands of warheads poised for immediate release. The nuclear control systems that regulate force operations are still generally peripheral to mainstream arms control. If arms control were to proceed as usual, the numbers of weapons would continue to drop, but their reaction time would not change. The last weapon in the arsenal would still be cocked on hair-trigger alert.
The U.S. defense establishment is aware of the danger of nuclear anarchy. Recognizing the unstable and transitional character of the Russian political center, the Pentagon has quietly initiated extensive military-to-military contacts to nurture durable cooperation between the U.S. and Russian military establishments. It has also conducted exercises to practice U.S. responses to nuclear anarchy in Russia, including scenarios that feature illicit strategic strikes by Russian commanders. Furthermore, U.S. strategic war planners are devising options that allow selective nuclear strikes against breakaway units of the Russian nuclear forces as a last resort to neutralize such units. The Pentagon is also spearheading an effort to assist Russia in dismantling its nuclear arms, an endeavor it portrays as an urgent priority of U.S. national security.
Taken to its logical conclusion, this policy thrust would lead the Pentagon to make bold operational changes, including some form of zero alert, to ensure the safety of nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union and elsewhere. Yet the Pentagon's overriding commitment remains deterring Russian nuclear aggression.
The review of the U.S. nuclear posture completed last September exemplifies the Pentagon's parochial perspective. The review advocates aggressive hedging against a turn for the worse in U.S.-Russian relations. It ignores the safety hazards that persist or grow as a result of aggressive hedging. It advances a U.S. nuclear force structure and operational posture that will reinforce Russia's reliance on quick launch. From the standpoint of operational safety, Russia's nuclear posture is more dangerous today than it was during the Cold War. And current U.S. nuclear planning will likely induce Russia to take yet more operational risks to buttress deterrence.
The Pentagon has so internalized deterrence as the essence of its mission that it simply cannot bring the two different conceptions of nuclear threat--the risk of deliberate attack and the danger of loss of control--into clear focus and perspective. At the height of the Cold War nuclear planners could argue, with some justification, that the danger of deliberate attack necessitated putting safety second. Today they cannot.
Redirecting nuclear policy toward an emphasis on safety not only addresses the danger of nuclear anarchy but would also constrain the ability of any state to launch a sudden nuclear attack. But if safety is ever to be put first in U.S. nuclear planning, it will be because public discussion and broad public support--not the Pentagon--put it there.
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