Today's Nuclear Threats

In the 1960s, the U.S and the Soviet Union embarked on a massive expansion of their nuclear arsenals that ultimately led to the amassing of over 50,000 nuclear warheads. Leading analysts at the time began to tackle the question of how these powerful weapons might be used. Henry Kissinger, Herman Kahn, Kenneth Waltz all developed theoretical models of deterrence to predict superpower behavior that became required reading for generations of strategists.

Meanwhile, the sheer number of nuclear weapons, as well as near misses like the Cuban Missile Crisis and near disasters with the nuclear weapons themselves underscored the growing danger of these huge stockpiles. In the 1970’s, the two superpowers began to limit the size of the arsenals through what would become known as the SALT talks. In the 1980’s, the sides agreed to significantly reduce both arsenals in an agreement known as the START Treaty. Fast forward to 2010 and the signing of New START, which was negotiated during the Obama administration with then-Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. 

New START happened to coincide with both sides’ strategic requirements at the time. Russia’s nuclear arsenal was aging; submarines were experiencing alarming failures of their reactors and their missiles; silo-based missiles were proving unreliable in test firings; and Russia’s bombers were as old as our B-52s, but without the stealth bomber follow-ons we had built. So Russia was interested in limitations that allowed modernization. The U.S. had no desire to retain so many weapons and was also facing demands for modernization. 

As was so often the case with arms control agreements, New START offered a way to continue to reduce overall numbers while building new weapons. Both Russia and America had significant interest groups of weapons manufacturers (and the politicians who supported them) that could readily agree on New START’s reductions to 1550 deployed warheads as long as modernization was left unhindered.

Beginning last year, Congress earmarked funding for revamping all elements of America’s nuclear arsenal – the nuclear triad of land-based missiles, submarine-launched missiles and bombers and their nuclear weapons. This projected 30-year process will include new missiles, bombers and submarines and the rebuilding of our weapons research labs and command and control centers at a cost in the neighborhood of $1 trillion. These plans proposed by President Obama sailed through Congress. Meanwhile, Russia had begun its modernization a few years earlier, so they are “ahead” at the moment. 

During the presidential campaign, candidate Trump criticized New START as a bad agreement that favored Russia (despite the fact that the limits on both sides are identical). In December, President Trump tweeted: “The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.” Aides frantically followed up the President’s tweet with explanations that he meant to refer to terrorism and the spread of nuclear technology. But a few days later the President added, “Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all.”

In reality, that race is already underway. In the coming decades both sides will field fewer, more accurate nuclear weapons deployed in presumably less vulnerable, more secure and better controlled systems. The only obstacle on either side will be financial; no new technology is needed. 

On February 9, the President had his first phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Both the White House and the Kremlin reported positively on the conversation without revealing details. But news outlets alleged that when Putin raised the issue of extending the New START agreement for an additional five years beyond its current 2021 expiration date, President Trump paused to consult with aides, then responded that he does not want to renew the agreement (the actual conversation is classified, so these reports are based on leaks).

If true, this was undoubtedly not good news to Putin.  From the Russian perspective, nuclear weapons fit into a strategy that is intended to halt the spread of U.S. influence in Europe. President Obama’s 2009 call for a “nuclear-free world,” far from being welcomed as a signal of good will, was interpreted by Kremlin hardliners as a threat to Russia’s already weakening grip on the remnants of its former strength. 

In the last half of the Obama administration, Russia’s response was an increase in nuclear exercises, including one involving the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad, which is surrounded by NATO members Poland and Lithuania. Tough talk from President Putin also signaled a clear intent to maintain a strong reliance on nuclear forces to counter NATO’s expansion. In December, Putin said, “Of course the U.S. has more missiles, submarines and aircraft carriers, but what we say is that we are stronger than any aggressor, and this is the case…”

With both sides now engaged in long-term modernization of their nuclear forces, the possibility of further arms control seems dim.  What has prevented the use of these weapons for all these decades has been a combination of factors, but the most important has been a reliance on the idea that all the players are “rational actors.”

But it is this fundamental principle that has lately been called into question by no less than Henry Kissinger and George Schultz.  Working together in the Nuclear Security Project, Kissinger explained that, "the classical notion of deterrence was that there were some possible consequences before which aggressors and evildoers would recoil. In a world of suicide bombers, that calculation doesn’t operate…" George Schultz added, "If you think of the people who are doing suicide attacks, and people like that get a nuclear weapon, they are almost by definition not deterrable."

Thus the concern is not necessarily with the U.S. and Russia.  Being rational actors, President Putin and President Trump would avoid using their newly-modernized arsenals and would more likely revert to the norm that has prevailed since nuclear equality was achieved -- wars by proxy. But the Kissinger/Schultz warnings about undeterrable actors (read North Korea, terrorists) seems to recommend a new and ironically a potentially promising avenue for arms control and risk reduction. 

Putting aside the most recent exchange between Trump and Putin, they both might do well to decide that they have much to discuss about nuclear weapons -- not a seminar of arcane deterrence theory, but as a central issue in the new world order where the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the potential for nuclear terrorism is a significant threat.

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Jack Segal is co-chair, with his wife Karen of the International Affairs Forum. The IAFs next event is the new documentary, “Is America in Retreat?” at Traverse City’s State Theatre on March 6 at 6pm.

He participated in the START negotiations, drafted the US-USSR Agreement on Nuclear Risk Reduction and served as NSC Director for non-Proliferation under President Clinton.

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