‘Any decision to modify this decades-long approach must advance a truly compelling rationale for change’
By Madelyn Creedon, Eric S. Edelman, Franklin C. Miller, Vipin Narang & Keith B. Payne, Real Clear Wire
Defining U.S. Nuclear Deterrence Policy for an Uncertain World
It emerged last month in Congressional hearings that the Trump Pentagon is conducting a close hold mini review of U.S. nuclear strategy, as several of us had previously recommended. While not large enough to be styled a formal “Nuclear Posture Review” it will still have significant implications for how this Administration—and the United States going forward—envisions nuclear deterrence and assurance in a rapidly evolving, increasingly complex nuclear age. This isn’t surprising as every U.S. Administration since the dawn of the atomic age has reviewed the strategy it inherited, and rightly so. While the participants in the review have not been identified in public testimony, to be compelling, even as a mini-review, it must include representatives from the Pentagon’s Policy office (to include an appreciation of the Administration’s world view), from the Joint Staff (to incorporate the perspective of the Joint Chiefs and of the combatant commands most directly concerned, namely Indo-Pacific Command and the European Command), U.S. Strategic Command (to ensure the feasibility of planning effectively for the concepts chosen), and the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration (to ensure any warhead decisions can be implemented). As senior participants in previous studies such as this—across both Republican and Democratic administrations—we would humbly offer some basic guideposts which we would urge the Pentagon to take into account as it proceeds with this review.
First, beware of “mirror-imaging.” There is a long-standing tendency in the academic literature to treat the Russian and Chinese leadership as if they view the world through American eyes and share American norms regarding “reasonable” behavior. That tendency, past and present, leads to inadequate recommendations for U.S. strategies to deter because aggressive, autocratic opponents typically do not share U.S. perceptions and norms. To deter aggression against us and our allies, the United States must threaten to destroy (“hold at risk” in bureaucratic jargon) in the event deterrence fails, what enemy leaders value most. For the past five decades, the intelligence community reportedly has confirmed that Moscow and Beijing, including Putin and Xi today, place highest value on the survival of their regimes, the secret police and intelligence apparatus which sustains and supports the regime, key military capabilities (including their nuclear forces), and their defense industrial base to be those most valuable assets. Deprived of them, the modern Russian or Chinese state would disintegrate. As Henry Kissinger noted at the dawn of the missile age, deterrence “ultimately depends on an intangible quality: the state of mind of the potential aggressor” and as the 1983 report of the bipartisan Scowcroft Commission put it: “Deterrence… requires us to determine as best we can, what would deter [potential enemy leaders] from considering aggression, not what would deter us.”‘ The implication of this reality for U.S. deterrence requirements is profound: It shapes the size and character of U.S. forces needed for credible deterrence beyond what otherwise might be our preferred minimum.
Second, any decision to modify this decades-long approach must advance a truly compelling rationale for change. New intelligence information or new interpretations of hostile leaders’ value structures, while highly unlikely, are not impossible. That said they must be based upon broadly agreed new facts which must be communicated clearly and compellingly to the American public, to our allies, and to potential enemies.