L6 - nuclear weapons and deterrence Flashcards
intro
the doomsday bomb: the whole point of a doomsday machine is lost, if you keep it a secret!
- the clearer you are, the bigger the deterrent strength
nuclear war -> no winners, merely losers
nukes rn already destructive, could be even worse, but refuse to develop it further in that direction
if it is technologically possible to build a doomsday device, why hasn’t any nation built one?
- can you create a rulebook to make sure the rest can’t build it? -> makes no sense
- too bloody dangerous: danger of mistakes
- not likely to use it (would be suicidal) = not credible -> does not work as deterrent
if nuclear weapons are so small that they can cause little civilian damage, why haven’t they been used?
- nuclear taboo
are nuclear weapons ethical?
revolutionary weapon: changes way of thinking + statecraft
the nuclear powers
- US 1945
- SU 1949
- Great Britain 1952
- France 1960
- China 1964
- India 1974
- Pakistan 1998
- North Korea 2006
- Israel? (probably became nuclear power in 1997)
- South Africa? (probably got them in the 80s, destroyed them in the 80s with end of apartheid)
takes a lot of time to develop, to build infrastructure
size of arsenals Russia and US the largest, usually only part deployed to be used, the rest in storage
end cold war nr of warheads started to decline, now it is increasing again
deterrence: a short history
from Adam and Eve to the early cold war
- God: if you eat this apple you’ll die -> Eve takes apple, Adam eats
- deterrence failure by God
deterrence is very typical to do
cold war ‘coming of age’ - ‘key concept for the understanding of the strategy and diplomacy’ of the period
post cold war ‘semi-retirement’
*after 9/11 some interest in if terrorists could be deterred
post-Crimea (2014): back in fashion, esp. after 2022
deterrence definitions
- the persuasion of one’s opponent that the costs and/or risks of a given course of action he might take outweigh its benefits
- George and Smoke - the prevention of action by the existence of a credible threat of unacceptable counteraction and/or belief that the cost of action outweighs the perceived benefits
- US department of defense
try to prevent someone from doing something by threatening them: make clear the costs are higher than the benefits
!it is not just nuclear deterrence, there are many many types of deterrence (also in e.g. criminology)
general vs immediate deterrence
general = conveys a somewhat vage, broad, continuous threat of retaliation for any future attack (e.g. NATO Article 5)
- peacetime deterrence
- prior to an international crisis, when crisis you switch to \/
immediate = threatening retaliation when an attack looms, or as already occurred and the victim wants to deter its continuation
- autumn 2021: military buildup -> how to deter Russia from invading Ukraine?
- also post-begin war immediate crisis: there’s still things you don’t want your enemy to do (e.g. use chemical weapons)
denial vs punishment
!!!!
??
punishment =
threats to impose costs through retaliation that may be unrelated to the aggression itself. Rather than focusing on the denial of local objectives, it seeks to raise the cost of aggression—even if successful— by threatening other consequences
- 1950s idea that rather than trying to deter SU only the threat of using threat of nukes
denial =
strategies that “seek to deter an action by making it infeasible or unlikely to succeed, thus denying a potential aggressor confidence in attaining its objectives—deploying sufficient local military forces to defeat an invasion, for example
direct vs extended
direct = try to deter attack against yourself, homeline
extended = when you deter attacks on you allies (e.g. US nukes deter to NATO)
variation of this:
- direct attack (US vs USSR)
- extended deterrence challenge (NATO vs Warsaw Pact)
- peripheral conflict (Korea, Vietnam)????
- proxy wars: not per se your allies, but just for sake of preventing nuclear war.
deterrence success
what constitutes a successful case? -> problem of explaining a non-event
(basically all we know is deterrence failure: threat is ignored when there is an attack)
- how to measure whether a threat had an effect on an adversary’s behavior
to measure deterrence
= really difficult to do:
- evidence that illustrates challengers intent and defenders deterrent attempt
- but challengers intent difficult to discern
- are attacks that don’t occur every day examples of deterrence success?
- what about countless reasons other than threats (self-deterrence)?
credibility
problem of incomplete information
interests at stake (is the threat credible: would US risk attack on NY by defending e.g. Paris)
- interests at stake need to be sufficient for you to use nuclear weapons
- is Ukraine enough?
how to communicate commitment to fight?
reputation/’cumulative deterrence’
- e.g. Obama made threat (off-hand comment at end of long press conference -> press ran with it) and did not hold it with Syria
- is one leader more credible than another?
Madman theory
does it pay to act crazy?
- often associated with Nixon: as vice president under Eisenhower: he used nuclear threats in 1993
- chicken game: X and Y go against each other, which one swerves first?
- if you are mad they may take your threat more seriously
“I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I’ve reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that, “for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can’t restrain him when he’s angry—and he has his hand on thenuclear button” andHo Chi Minhhimself will be inParisin two days begging for peace”
nuclear deterrence options
- maximum/overkill = counterforce (military targets) + countervalue (civilian targets) = US and Russia larger arsenals bc their strategy has both military and civilian targets
- minimum = countervalue only
- triad? = some nuclear arsenals: want to have redundancy: after you’ve been attacked, you still need to be able to deter them, have multiple deterrence options
- no first use
- mini-nukes?? (around 30 min left of class)
nuclear triad
build certain types of nukes to have certain advantages
all systems have advantages and disadvantages
- Nuclear submarines are the most likely to survive a strike by another country, guaranteeing the United States the ability to strike back.
- ICBMs can be launched quickly if necessary.
- Strategic bombers armed with penetrating cruise missiles can be deployed and recalled more easily.
why are we still using all these soldiers to achieve goals if we could use more effective nuclear weapons?
- Vietnam war + Korean War
- after Iraq invades Kuwait: discussion what rules would be for using nuclear weapons (bc Iraq had chemical weapons)
- assumption that we keep the nuclear genie in the bottle, we don’t take it out
- in Korea we see this bc: we used it on the Japanese -> don’t want to use it against Asian people again
- Vietnam war: bad publicity + once you start using it, SU might start using it
image related costs that you don’t want
counterforce vs countervalue
counterforce = military targets
countervalue = civilian targets
damage and destruction -
Single Integrated Operation Plan
1969
= book the president US carries with him with diff options of targets to strike if he wants to
(other countries have variants of this)
diff types of targets
all other states are also included: e.g. if you attack Russia, plan also involves attacking China
- e.g. USSR 199 cities would be struck,, China 49 cities, Europe only military installations
nuclear targeting cold war: extremely crazy ideas : ethnic nuclear targeting policy 70s/80s = if you attack the SU you try to only hurt the Russians and keep the rest (e.g. Ukraine) alone
OPLAN 8010-08
strategic deterrence and global strike US
directed against 6 adversaries
- probably Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Syria, and 9/11 type WMD scenario
- half do not have nukes and four of them are NIPT members
Includes four types of nuclear attack options:
o Basic Attack Options (BAOs)
o Selective Attack Options (SAOs)
o Emergency Response Options (EROs)
o Directed/Adaptive Planning Capability Options
There are no longer Major Attack Options (MAOs) in the strategic war plan
NATO nuclear deterrence timeline
1949: First Strategic Concept: use all weapons against overwhelming Soviet conventional superiority
later on ideas of flexible response
evolution of NATO nuclear strategy: first normal forces, than see what happens before using nukes and taking down enemy
1991-present: no clear adversary anymore, but still nuclear weapons
- NATO nuclear policy in limbo despite 2014/2022: Russia looks more dangerous -> maybe should rethink things
- taboo on discussing nuclear use
- reduction in warhead numbers
(from slides:)
- 1952: Lisbon Force Goals: 96 NATO divisions ready in 90 days by 1954 (actual peacetime total in 1954: 16)
- 1953: “New Look”
- 1954: MC 48: tactical atomic use to “prevent rapid overrunning”
- 1955: FRG joins NATO, US atomic weapons in FRG
- 1957: MC 14/2 massive retaliation w/ caveats
- 1962: Athens Guidelines, Cuban Missile Crisis
- 1968: MC 14/3 Flexible Response
- 1969 to end of Cold War: how to implement flexible response
- 1970s: NATO nuclear warheads in W. Europe reach maximum of 7k
Russian nukes
2000
“The conditions specifying the possibility of nuclear weapons use by the Russian Federation are as follows:
a) arrival of reliable data on a launch of ballistic missiles attacking the territory of the Russian Federation and/or its allies;
b) use of nuclear weapons or other types of weapons of mass destruction by an adversary against the Russian Federation and/or its allies;
c) attack by adversary against critical governmental or military sites of the Russian Federation, disruption of which would undermine nuclear forces response actions;
d) aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons when the very existence of the state is in jeopardy.”
d highlighted
e.g. using it in Ukraine: not really seen as threat to the Russian state, they would just take it back
!!everytime Russia speaks of the safety of the state, it is actually a nuclear threat
2024
The conditions that enable the possibility of nuclear weapons employment by the Russian Federation are as follows:
a)receipt of reliable data on the launch of ballistic missiles attacking the territories of the Russian Federation and (or) its allies;
b)employment of nuclear or other types of weapons of mass destruction by an adversary against the territories of the Russian Federation and (or) its allies, against facilities and (or) military formations of the Russian Federation located outside its territory;
c)actions by an adversary affecting elements of critically important state or military infrastructure of the Russian Federation, the disablement of which would disrupt response actions by nuclear forces;
d)aggression against the Russian Federation and (or) the Republic of Belarus as participants in the Union State with the employment of conventional weapons, which creates a critical threat to their sovereignty and (or) territorial integrity;
e)receipt of reliable data on the massive launch (take-off) of air and space attack means (strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, unmanned, hypersonic and other aerial vehicles) and their crossing of the state border of the Russian Federation.
attention to b and d
the next nuclear power?
Iran has not yet crossed the threshold, they are moving towards it
+ haven’t made the decision if they want to, but if they want they most likely can
-> if Iran goes, Saudi Arabia and Turkey may follow
South Korea: wants nukes already in the 70s with the Vietnam war (fear that US would not help them -> US offered protection so South Korea wouldn’t develop nukes
- to defend against the north
will Ukraine invasion push Japan to go nuclear? have technology to develop it rapidly
Poland potentially (or US should store nukes there)
Ukraine: seems highly unlikely for practical reasons
even Germany every couple of years debate
the future of nuclear weapons
- status quo ad infinitum
- proff is sceptical about not having nuclear war in the next decades - AI
- Revival of arms control agreements
- More deadly nuclear weapons
- Drones
- Arms race
- More less-deadly nuclear weapons
- Missile defenses that work
- Ban Treaty
- irrelevance of nuclear weapons
- precision missiles
- decline of nuclear taboo
- hypersonic
- new nuclear powers
