There’s been a lot of buzz recently over the use of a containment strategy to curtail the threat – or the eventuality – of a nuclear Iran.  David Sanger wrote a piece in the New York Times that followed on the heels of an article in Foreign Affairs by the duo James Lindsay and Ray Takeyh; both discussed how containment could be employed to peacefully co-exist with a hostile Iranian regime.  

While the implication that Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon is a foregone conclusion – which the Foreign Affairs article title (After Iran Gets the Bomb) suggests – is a little heavy on the fearmongering and designed more to attract readers than fairly represent the Iranian nuclear situation, the result has undoubtedly been increased attention to the spectre of a nuclear Iran…

Sanger writes that talks of sanctions might be continuing, but, simultaneously, “the administration races to add antimissile systems and a naval presence in the Gulf — an effort to contain Iran’s power in the region, officials say, but it sure looks like the building blocks of a nuclear containment policy, a backup in case the next round of sanctions fails to do the trick.” But are Sanger, Lindsay, and Takeyh drawing hasty conclusions?

Our focus should be on continued diplomatic attention and engagement, rather than assuming that Iran will dig in its heels and follow the North Korean path.

Moreover, military force should categorically not be considered at this time.  Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, reinforced last month his position that “we owe the American people our readiness. But, as I have said many times, I worry a lot about the unintended consequences of any sort of military action. For now, the diplomatic and the economic levers of international power are, and ought to be, the levers first pulled.”  

Laicie wrote last week to highlight the policy recommendations of Zbigniew Brzezinski on diplomatic engagement with Iran, and his words still hold true:

Give rhetorical support to Iran’s opposition while accepting America’s limited ability to help it; eschew thought of a pre-emptive attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities; and keep talking to Tehran.

Above all: Play the long game, because time, demographics and generational change aren’t on the side of the current regime.

We here at Nukes of Hazard have said it before, and we’ll say it again: patience, careful monitoring and involvement by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and persistent diplomatic engagement by Western powers will not guarantee success but are the only sensible options to try to block Iran’s nuclear weapons plans.

It seems to be all the rage lately so I figured I’d join the fray.  At a March 5 hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development on NNSA’s FY 2011 budget request, ranking member Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) asked NNSA administrator Tom D’Agostino to compare the investments the Russians and Chinese are making in their nuclear warheads and delivery systems with U.S. efforts to maintain its deterrent.

Batterrrr up!:

Look I get it that the administration wants to convey the impression that it’s really serious about nuclear deterrence, our complex and experts were largely ignored before this budget, some of the buildings at our laboratories and production facilities are really old, etc.  I even agree that some of their arguments have merit.

But that’s no excuse to run roughshod over the facts, which are these:

1) Even before the FY 2011 budget, the U.S. has successfully maintained an arsenal that is not only safe, secure, and reliable, but is also more lethal on a per-weapon basis today than it was during the Cold War.

2) Even before the FY 2011 budget, our confidence in the reliability of our nuclear warheads has been steadily growing.

Describing our post-Cold War efforts to maintain the arsenal as “not letting anything break” or “not keeping up” doesn’t even begin to tell the whole story paints a misleading picture of what we’ve actually been doing and are doing and deserves some further clarification from D’Agostino.  

Unfortunately Di-Fi wasn’t around to call T-D’ag out on it.

What’s gotten into the Air Force lately?  First there was this December 2009 report from the Air Force Association’s Mitchell Institute for Airpower Studies calling for a bomberless dyad.  Now, in an article in the latest issues of Strategic Studies Quarterly co-authored with two professors from Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, Col B. Chance Saltzman, chief, Strategic Plans and Policy Division, Headquarters Air Force, calls for significant reductions in the size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile.

Just how significant you ask:

In fact, the United States could address military utility concerns with only 311 nuclear weapons in its nuclear force structure while maintaining a stable deterrence. [emphasis mine].

And to think they didn’t even pick a nice round number!

Saltzman et al, argue that such a force could be maintained on a triad of 100 single-warhead Minuteman III ICBMs, 192 de-MIRVed Trident D-5 SLBMs on 12 Ohio class submarines, and ALCMs to be deployed on 19 B-2s.  Apart from calling for a triad of counterforce and countervalue weapons, the article mostly ignores the other specific details of deterrence that have consumed so much energy in the context of the ongoing Nuclear Posture Review.

I’m not really up on the intricacies of Air Force bureaucracy, so I don’t know how much weight the Strategic Plans and Policy Division actually pulls within the department, but it seems to me to be noteworthy that the head of said division is associating himself with a strategy of minimum deterrence…

What do we mean by “minimum deterrence”?  Jeffrey (or is it Jerry?) Lewis summed it up nicely a few years ago in the Bulletin:

A different view is that, beyond a certain point, all of this is crazy talk, and the technical details don’t matter very much at all. The balance of terror is anything but delicate. An enemy who can be deterred, will be deterred by the prospect of a counterattack, even if it consists of only a few nuclear weapons. Beyond that minimum threshold, nuclear weapons provide little additional deterrent benefit.

Saltzman et al., fit squarely within this camp.  For example, they do not specify which specific warheads should make up a force of 311 weapons (e.g. should our subs carry W76s, W88s, a mix of the two, life extended W78-W88 warheads that share common components, or new, RRW-style warheads).  Nor do they suggest requirements for alert levels, declaratory policy, or the nuclear complex.  

They are also silent on whether the U.S. needs to develop a new SSBN or (perhaps most interestingly) a next generation long-range bomber.  Finally, they suggest that the U.S. need not deploy any weapons outside the U.S. (with exception of our boomers of course) or maintain any additional warheads in reserve as either a technical or geopolitical hedge.

Oh, and I almost forgot: They claim that a reduction in the U.S. nuclear stockpile from the current level of some 5,000 total weapons to 311 weapons could be undertaken unilaterally regardless of whether Russia follows suit.  

In response to those who might posit that the U.S. must retain a far larger force given the (allegedly) numerous threats it must deter, its obligations to its allies, or that such a small force might be vulnerable to a first-strike, the authors state that this “ignores the vast conventional superiority of the United States,” and “is also undermined by the fact that the United States is deterred in most contingencies by China, which has a much smaller force structure.”

Even their embrace of the triad is lukewarm.  “If one accepts the basic idea that it is the political value of nuclear weapons that matters,” they write, “the method of delivery is immaterial.”

At the same time, they push back against the view that significant reductions in nuclear weapons would necessarily mean the end of the triad due to “concern over organizational competency and professional development.”  Determining the appropriate number of nuclear weapons, they argue, “should be based primarily on the requirements for a stable, reliable, nuclear deterrent, with support issues like industrial base support, crew force management, and training only weighing in as secondary considerations.”  

(Come to think of it, this logic kinda reminds me of a Wu-Tang remix I heard recently.)

Given the many ways in which they eviscerate the traditional justifications for maintaining a U.S. nuclear arsenal of thousands of excess weapons, one might think the authors call for the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons.  They do not: “Nuclear weapons allow international life to go on in spite of their inherent dangers because leaders of nuclear states realize that that they are constrained despite their goals, desires, or rhetoric.”  Hence, the title of their article: “Remembrance of Things Past: The Enduring Value of Nuclear Weapons.” Still, the title is misleading.   Where they disagree with most opponents of abolition is in their belief that deterrence can be maintained with a very small nuclear stockpile.

All in all, the piece is a thought-provoking assessment of America’s strategic posture. Regrettably, it’s a perspective that probably received short – if any – shrift during the Nuclear Posture Review.

In a move partially designed to one-up the Democrats, House Republicans voted today to impose a one-year moratorium on all earmarks, not just those to for-profit companies.  The ban, approved by voice vote, would apply not only to appropriations bills but also to authorizing and tax measures.

“Yay!” you say? “One of my biggest fears was yet another earmark for the C-17 or the F-35 extra engine!”

Not so much – It looks as if the so-called ban on added spending may be full of holes. The Hill notes that:

… billions added to the defense bills for existing national security programs under contract with major defense companies such as Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman probably would not be affected.

For example, when House appropriators add more funds for Boeing’s C-17 cargo aircraft, they do not disclose them as earmarks. Instead, they are considered programs essential to national security even though none of the funds are requested by the Pentagon. These funds benefit lawmaker districts where the weapons systems are built.

Further, the Senate does not look to be on board with any current plan for a ban on earmarks. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman, and champion of the C-17, Daniel Inouye has already begun to fight back, remarking that the action was not in the “best interest of the Congress or the American people.”

Today’s announcement is a shrewd political move for a House that has recently been plagued by controversy and talk of corruption, but bears little weight. Congress will not be fighting any tigers in the near future.

UPDATE 3/11: Okay, okay, some people *cough* Dan and Mary *cough* don’t get the reference. From Wikipedia: I Can Lick 30 Tigers Today! and Other Stories, by Dr. Seuss — “The title story concerns a boy who brags that he can fight 30 tigers and win. He makes excuse after excuse, finally disqualifying all the tigers until he must fight no tigers at all.” Ha!

Guest Post by Cole Harvey

On February 5, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev approved the text of the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation (available in the original Russian here).  The new doctrine had been the subject of some concern before its publication (including from yours truly), following an interview with the secretary of the Russian Security Council in which he suggested that the document would authorize the use of nuclear weapons in “local” conflicts.  Thankfully the new military doctrine outlines a far more circumscribed role for nuclear weapons than the secretary had indicated…

The military doctrine states that Russia reserves the right to utilize nuclear weapons:

…In response to the utilization of nuclear and other types of weapons of mass destruction against it and (or) its allies, and also in the event of aggression against the Russian Federation involving the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is under threat (Paragraph 22).

In limiting the use of nuclear weapons to respond to conventional attack only when the existence of the state is threatened, the 2010 doctrine is in fact more restrictive when it comes to nuclear weapons than its predecessor, which was released in 2000. The 2000 doctrine permitted a nuclear response to conventional attack “in situations critical to the security of the Russian Federation” (Paragraph 8, available in English and Russian).  This change alone is a significant reduction on the role of Russian nuclear weapons.

The doctrine also declares that:

In the event of the outbreak of a military conflict involving the utilization of conventional means of attack (a large-scale war or regional war) and threatening the very existence of the state, the possession of nuclear weapons may lead to such a military conflict developing into a nuclear military conflict (Paragraph 16).

This clause restricts the use of nuclear weapons to large-scale and regional wars, terms which are explicitly defined in the doctrine.  

A regional war is envisioned as a significant conflict, involving naval, air, and space assets and possibly coalitions of states.  A large-scale conflict is described as “a war between coalitions of states or major world community states in which the sides would be pursuing radical military-political objectives.”  Neither sort of conflict would correctly describe the August 2008 war with Georgia, which would best fit the doctrine’s definition of a local war:  “a war between two or more states, with limited military and political goals, in which military operations are conducted within the borders of the warring states and affects primarily the interests of only those states” (Paragraph 6).  

Though the doctrine limits the use of nuclear weapons to broader conflicts, it is clear that Russia considers them essential to its fundamental security.  As Medvedev said at a March 5 meeting with officials from the Ministry of Defense:

First, today we have no need to further increase the capacity of our strategic deterrence.  However, the possession of nuclear weapons is a prerequisite for maintaining Russia’s independent policy for the preservation of its sovereignty, a policy aimed at supporting peace and preventing any military conflict, as well as the resolution of post-conflict situations.

This attitude should be viewed in the context of Russia’s perception that its conventional forces are woefully outmatched by advanced U.S. weaponry.   In the same address, Medvedev stated that “The main goal is the creation of a modern army and navy, equipped with the latest weapons.”  Medvedev announced that the government would embark on a program to increase the proportion of modern armaments in the Russian military to seventy percent by the year 2020.  Such a program might trouble some, but so long as Russia believes that its conventional forces are outmoded, it will continue to rely heavily on nuclear weapons to guarantee its security.

The doctrine also names the “comprehensive equipping (re-equipping) of the strategic nuclear forces with modern models of armaments, military and specialized equipment” (Paragraph 41) as the first task under ‘Equipping the Armed Forces.’  In this vein, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on March 1 seemed to call for a new strategic bomber, saying that Russia “…Must consider and begin to work on an advanced long-range aircraft, on our new strategic weapons-carrier” (Russian text here).

The new doctrine also includes a specification that was not present in the 2000 document, years before the tandem nature of Russia’s current executive branch emerged.  If anyone was wondering whether Medvedev or Putin would call the nuclear shots (despite the Russian president’s constitutional description as commander-in-chief of the armed forces), the doctrine specifies that “The decision to utilize nuclear weapons is made by the president of the Russian Federation.”

Cole Harvey is a Research Associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies.