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APPENDIX C
Extended Nuclear Deterrence and Coalitions for Defending Against
Regional Challengers Armed with Weapons of Mass Destruction
Victor Utgoff, Institutefor Defense
Analyses
INTRODUCTION
If the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
continues, and if effective political means for restraining
regional states armed with such weapons are not established, it
seems inevitable that a proliferator eventually will confront the
United States with a military challenge to an important overseas
interest. If the interest is truly vital, the problem posed will be
primarily one of planning and implementing a political-military
strategy that successfully protects the interest and minimizes the
prospect of WMD use.
If the interest is less than vital, the United States may be
able to compromise. If it does, it will want to do so in a way that
avoids encouraging further challenges. The United States will also
want to avoid encouraging other states to seek their own WMD,
either because they doubt that the United States would prove
willing to protect them from future threats by WMD-armed states or
because they judge that possession of WMD can win valuable
concessions.
This paper explores some of the political-military problems
likely to be posed when challenges to vital U.S. interests are made
by WMD-armed regional states. In considering only the case of
challenges to vital interests, the paper sets aside the question of
how the U.S. sense of what is vital might change when proliferation
of WMD in some region raises the risks and costs of intervening
there.
To address these problems, the paper first reviews the potential
for a challenge to a vital U.S. interest by a WMD-armed state. This
is followed by a discussion of the general role played by U.S.
nuclear weapons in deterring such challenges. Next, the paper
identifies how the problem of nuclear deterrence of WMD-armed
regional challengers differs from the one faced by the United
States during the Cold War.
By examining some of the political and military features of a
confrontation with a WMD-armed regional challenger, the paper then
highlights why it would be strongly in the U.S. interest to
confront the challenger with the aid and involvement of an
international coalition that explicitly supports a strategy of
NOTE: The author is grateful to Barry Blechman,
Robert Joseph, Karl Lowe, and Brad Roberts for their very helpful
reviews of drafts of this paper. The author takes sole and personal
responsibility for the opinions expressed, however.
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nuclear deterrence of WMD use. The paper goes on to explore the
incentives and disincentives that regional states and others could
have for joining such a coalition and supporting its nuclear
deterrence strategy. Finally, the paper discusses some practical
steps that can be taken to speed the implementation of a coalition
nuclear deterrence strategy should a WMD-backed regional challenge
arise.
Further investigation of the potential features and requirements
for a political-military strategy for protecting against challenges
by WMD-armed regional states seems essential. It can inform and
motivate advance preparations that should help to deter such
challenges from being made.
POTENTIAL FOR CHALLENGES TO A VITAL
U.S. REGIONAL INTEREST
It is a fundamental truism that the United States and its
friends and allies benefit enormously from the world order that
they have largely created with its complex economic, political, and
military interdependencies. They are accordingly prepared to defend
this order against military aggression threatening either the more
important interdependencies or revolutionary change to the larger
order itself. Some few other states are not content with their lot
within this world order and are prepared to use force to better
their positions when the opportunity presents itself. As current
examples, North Korea, Iraq, and perhaps to a lesser extent, Iran,
all oppose the current status quo within their regions. All have
demonstrated a willingness to use violence to challenge the status
quo. All appear to be pursuing improved WMD capabilities which can
underwrite future challenges. As such states' capabilities to
threaten mass destruction improve, they will expect their interests
to be given more weight and will also expect to obtain concessions
they had formerly been denied.
There is a logic to such expectations. Any WMD proliferator
would expect every state within striking range to revise sharply
upward its assessments of the losses it could suffer in a war with
the proliferator. Given these increased risks, the proliferator
would expect states involved in the region to evaluate more
conservatively which of their interests is worth being strongly
defended. Thus the task facing an aggressive regional state, newly
armed with WMD, is to discover which of the interests of importance
to it could be pressed successfully and to capture whatever gains
are found to be available.
Deciding just how aggressively to proceed in order to capture
the greatest possible concessions at reasonable risk will not be
straightforward. Subtlety and patience might seem to promise
substantial gains at lower risk by accommodating graceful
adjustments to the new distribution of power. At the same time, a
more patient approach could allow the prospective victims time to
counterbalance the potential aggressor's power, perhaps by
obtaining their own WMD.
Alternatively, a very aggressive pursuit of concessions could
lead to an excessively risky military confrontation. This could
happen if the prospective losers and their supporters saw the
concession as unwarranted, or felt intolerably
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offended, or judged that the concessions sought in the near term
would lead sooner or later to further demands that would be
unacceptable.
Finally, aggressive proliferators seeking to capitalize quickly
on their newfound military power will not expect the United States
and its potential allies to readily reveal which of their interests
might no longer be defended. They will expect to have to probe the
allies' resolve and to engage in an occasional strong test of
wills. Thus, acquisition of WMD by aggressive states can be
expected to lead to a process of probes and challenges, with
significant risks of a confrontation in which the United States is
committed to defend the interest at stake, but the challenger does
not appreciate this and will not or cannot back down.
Taken together, these observations suggest that acquisition of
WMD by aggressive regional proliferators will sometimes lead to
intense tests of will with the status quo powers. Given the
uncertain political-military dynamics of such confrontations, no
one should be very confident that they will be resolved without
conflict and without WMD actually being used.
NUCLEAR DETERRENCE IN CONFRONTATIONS
WITH REGIONAL PROLIFERATORS
For the foreseeable future, nuclear deterrence will play an
essential role in dissuading or moderating challenges to U.S. vital
interests from aggressive WMD-armed regional states. The
alternatives seem inadequate as substitutes.
One alternative is to seek to deter WMD initiation solely by
threatening great destruction with conventional forces or by
expanding the aims of the war. Unfortunately, conventional
retaliation may not impress a potential WMD user sufficiently.
History provides many cases of states standing up to conventional
bombardment for years. It is also possible that when the opponent
escalates to the use of WMD, the United States and its allies would
already be doing all they can to punish and defeat the opponent
with conventional forces.
Further, the United States and its allies have been scaling back
their capabilities for raw conventional violence for many years.
Some argue that precision-delivered conventional munitions can so
rapidly and efficiently disable or destroy an opponent's high-value
targets as to constitute an adequate deterrent to attack with WMD.
Certainly precision-strike munitions are technically impressive and
are very efficient destroyers of "Achilles' heel" vulnerabilities
in an opponent's forces, industry, and infrastructure. Nonetheless,
used in affordable numbers, they do not have the potential to
impose the same kind of hardship on an opponent as nuclear
retaliation would.
Moreover, Operation Desert Storm highlighted the importance of
minimizing such vulnerabilities, and potential opponents are
working hard to do so. Certainly the opponent's leaders should be
able to provide themselves with shelters that cannot be attacked
effectively with precision conventional munitions.
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In contrast, there is no history of states standing up to
nuclear punishment. Moreover, nuclear retaliation is universally
and deeply feared and thus has unmatched psychological power as a
deterrent. Finally, the opponent's leaders cannot be confident of
surviving a nuclear attack that is focused on destroying them.
These arguments are not meant to suggest that nuclear
retaliation should be the inevitable response if an opponent were
to initiate WMD use and to do great damage. They do suggest that
although conventional retaliation may be an adequate deterrent in
some cases, its prospect has far less deterrent power than that of
nuclear retaliation. Thus, it risks proving inadequate in cases
where nuclear deterrence would be effective.
The second alternative to deterrence through nuclear retaliation
is to depend instead upon defenses against WMD attacks that can
prevent intolerable levels of damage. Three complementary paths can
be taken: prevent such weapons from being launched, interdict them
as they travel toward their targets, and protect the targets
against WMD that arrive in their vicinities. Each path can provide
useful protection, but, even if all three are pursued vigorously,
reliable and complete protection from WMD attacks will be a long
time in coming, at best.
To be more specific, preventing a proliferator from even
launching attacks with WMD will likely remain very difficult. For
example, a WMD capability consisting of dispersed and disguised
mobile missile launchers, controlled from deep underground command
posts, using redundant communications, seems likely to remain very
difficult to neutralize, despite the best U.S. efforts.
Building WMD forces that are survivable should be possible if a
state works at it. Displays of U.S. military capabilities in
operations such as Desert Storm periodically teach proliferators
much about what they need to protect against. Many corporations are
ready to sell to anyone the technical advice, materials, and
services needed to ensure that particularly important military
systems are very hard to find and destroy.
Destruction of biological weapons before they can reach their
targets would be particularly challenging. Because very small
amounts of biological warfare (BW) agents could destroy
concentrations of people across large areas, and because BW agents
can be manufactured and stored in increasingly common and
innocuous-appearing facilities with legitimate uses, locating them
for preemptive attack can be virtually impossible. Further, the
tiny amounts needed for devastating attacks can be delivered by
means that are extremely difficult to detect and interdict.
Destroying nuclear and chemical weapons and their necessarily
larger delivery systems while they travel toward their targets is
somewhat more promising. Defenses against ballistic missiles can be
far more effective than the Patriot system was against Iraq's Scud
missiles during Operation Desert Storm. More generally, the United
States should be able to develop active defenses that
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would be able to destroy most of the larger delivery vehicles
sent against them, such as manned aircraft, cruise missiles, ships,
trucks, and the like. 1
Still, building near-perfect active defenses against even the
larger delivery systems is probably going to remain impractical.
Thus, the United States and its allies will have to accept the
possibility that at least a few such delivery systems would reach
their targets.
The degree to which targets can be protected by passive means
from damage by weapons of mass destruction that arrive in their
vicinities depends upon the type of weapon involved. Although very
deeply buried underground bunkers with multiple hidden entrances
can provide substantial protection against nuclear attacks, their
high cost implies they cannot be provided for all of the
population, forces, and valuable facilities that could be targets
for nuclear attack.
The prospects for protecting forces and populations from
biological and chemical attacks that arrive in their vicinities are
much better. Combinations of relatively inexpensive passive
protection measures such as masks, shelters, suits, vaccines,
antidotes, decontamination procedures, and warning sensors, etc.,
can provide very effective protection for populations and
forces.2 Still, even if losses to
chemical-biological attacks could be held to a small fraction of
the target populations, hundreds of thousands of people could still
be killed by a large-scale attack.
In time, defenses against WMD may evolve that can limit damage
to levels that, although very painful, would not be militarily or
politically decisive. If so, it should become even easier to deter
WMD attacks, since a proliferator should be less inclined to risk
nuclear retaliation for WMD attacks that do not promise to be
either militarily or politically decisive.
However, for the foreseeable future, a proliferator can probably
count on being able to do great damage with weapons of mass
destruction. Thus, given the inherent limitations of currently
foreseeable defenses against such weapons, and the incommensurate
nature of conventional deterrence, at least against nuclear
attacks, nuclear deterrence of WMD use seems essential.
CHANGED ASPECTS OF NUCLEAR
DETERRENCE
Nuclear deterrence of an aggressive WMD-armed regional state
differs greatly from the nuclear deterrence problem that occupied
the attention of the United States during the Cold War. The
differences suggest that, on balance, nuclear deterrence should
pose risks of a far smaller magnitude to the United States than in
the past, and, to that extent, should be more credible and
effective.
1 Utgoff, Victor A. and
Jonathan Wallis, Major Regional Contingencies Against States Armed
with Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons: Rising Above
Deterrence, P3170, Institute for Defense Analyses, Alexandria, Va.,
forthcoming.
2 Lowe, Karl, Graham
Pearson, and Victor Utgoff, Potential Values of a Simple BW
Protective Mask, P-3077, Institute for Defense Analyses (U.S.) and
Chemical & Biological Defence Establishment (U.K.), September
1995.
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The differences also suggest that it will be difficult to be as
well prepared, in both political and military terms, to implement a
nuclear deterrence strategy as it has been in the past.
First, so long as the United States maintains anywhere near its
current military superiority, none of the more plausible WMD
proliferators has a significant chance of defeating the United
States in a strictly conventional conflict over a vital issue. This
is markedly different from when NATO faced an apparently
overwhelming conventional threat from the Warsaw Pact.
During those years, NATO expected to be able to defend
conventionally for only a few days. After that, its plans called
for initiating nuclear warfare to demonstrate its will to destroy
the Warsaw Pact rather than submit. Given the dangers posed by the
size and reach of the Soviet Union's nuclear forces, the foreseen
horror of nuclear war, and the questionable morality of initiating
a type of war that might have destroyed the world, many wondered
whether the United States would honor its promise to initiate
nuclear warfare.
Now the shoe would be on the other foot. If escalation of a
regional war to mass destruction is to be threatened or done, it is
the new proliferator that would have to do it. Any state that
initiated mass destruction should expect that it would have made
itself ''fair game" for U.S. nuclear retaliation. Further, the
horror with which Americans view nuclear, biological, and chemical
warfare seems likely to magnify the offense represented by any use
the opponent made of such weapons. Moreover, in contrast to making
first use of nuclear weapons, the morality of U.S. nuclear
retaliation is likely to appear very clear.
Second, although the balance between U.S. and Soviet nuclear
forces was sometimes hotly debated during the Cold War, U.S.
nuclear capabilities are, and will remain, vastly superior to the
WMD capabilities of any new proliferator. This is much more than a
matter of the far larger numbers of warheads available to the
United States. U.S. capabilities to locate, identify, and track
important targets, to reach targets wherever they are located, to
overcome the opponent's active and passive defenses, to employ
whatever nuclear yields seem needed, to deliver weapons to targets
accurately, and to destroy these targets quickly are not going to
be matched by any new proliferator for the foreseeable future. This
remains true despite the dramatic reductions in the size and
readiness of U.S. nuclear deterrent forces. Thus, if a new
proliferator forces a conflict with the United States to the
nuclear level, it will be at an even greater disadvantage than when
fighting the United States at the conventional level.
Third, though painful to contemplate, the United States can
survive the kinds of WMD attacks that could be made by any new
proliferator. Such states' abilities to deliver relatively heavy
nuclear and chemical payloads over intercontinental ranges will be
very limited for many years. Moreover, as noted above, relatively
cheap civil defense measures can keep the potential destruction
from biological attacks well below the levels at which the survival
of the United States or of any other nation would be brought into
question. More generally, the United States and its allies have the
technical capability to create defenses
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that can limit to low levels the fraction of the opponent's WMD
forces that could expect to reach their targets.
The reverse is not true. A small fraction of the U.S. nuclear
weapons could totally destroy any new proliferator, and such states
have little prospect of creating a significant defense against
them. This is not to suggest that the United States would
necessarily retaliate in such a fashion. Rather, such an asymmetry
in capabilities to survive a conflict that got out of control
should bolster the efficacy of U.S. nuclear deterrence.
Fourth, the prospects now seem minimal that any challenger could
offset the U.S. deterrence advantages by obtaining the backing of a
great power. With the end of the Soviet Union, there are no longer
any great powers that seek revolutionary change to the
status quo. All enjoy major advantages under the current status quo
and understand that war among them could leave them vastly worse
off. This is not to say that there is no chance that Russia and
China could become increasingly assertive within their regions.
Rather, it seems most plausible that they will only pursue
evolutionary change and will do so very carefully.
These first four differences imply that the United States and
its potential coalition partners will be on far stronger ground in
any confrontation with a future WMD-armed challenger than the
United States and its allies were in confronting the Soviet Union.
In particular, (1) the coalition's superiority in conventional
forces means it is most unlikely to have to bear the moral burden
of nuclear first use, (2) the coalition will have vastly superior
nuclear capabilities to bring to bear should the war escalate, and
(3) the very existence of the challenger could be at stake whereas
that of the coalition as a whole could not.
These differences suggest that nuclear deterrence of WMD use by
regional proliferators poses risks of a smaller magnitude than
nuclear deterrence did in the past and, correspondingly, could be
more credible and effective. Several other differences suggest that
the risk of any nuclear use may be somewhat greater in the
future and that being well prepared politically to implement a
nuclear deterrent strategy will be more difficult than during the
Cold War.
First, U.S. public acceptance of the need to depend upon nuclear
deterrence appears to be much weaker now than it was at the height
of the Cold War. Then, nuclear deterrence was seen as the only
practical answer to an enormous Soviet threat posed to European
states with which the United States has much in common, and had
defended at great cost in two world wars. Now the need for
deterrence must be explained on the basis of less well-understood
threats and interests.
Moreover, the explanation must convince a public that has
witnessed a decade or more of reductions in the numbers and
readiness of the nuclear capabilities of the United States and the
former Soviet Union and that hopes to escape totally any further
dependence on the "delicate balance of terror." This difference
implies a need to develop an improved public understanding
within
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the United States of the importance of nuclear deterrence in
facing up to WMDarmed regional challengers.
Second, although the cultural gap between the United States and
the Soviet Union was substantial, the two superpowers gradually
evolved generally similar understandings of the nature, risks, and
modalities of nuclear deterrence. In contrast, the gaps between the
cultures of the United States and prospective future challengers
may be far greater and, at least initially, more troublesome. As
examples, all the current potential challengers nurse deep
grievances over what they see as a history of unjust treatment by
greater powers. Further, relative to the United States, some seem
far more fatalistic, some more sensitive to loss of face, and some
less troubled by the prospect that large numbers of innocent people
might be killed if WMD were used.
In addition, although the elites of some of these countries show
good familiarity with Western deterrence theory, their views of
their situations as their WMD capabilities emerge may not evolve as
we might expect. For all these reasons, the new proliferators may
not assess realistically the risks of war with the United States,
of their use of WMD, and of U.S. nuclear retaliation.
This second difference suggests that there may be greater
potential for the kind of misunderstandings that could lead to some
relatively limited use of WMD. It is thus important to understand
and influence the thinking of new and prospective proliferators as
best we can.
Finally, in the past, the United States has depended upon
nuclear deterrence primarily for the protection of strong and
long-standing alliances such as NATO or those between the United
States and Japan, South Korea, and several others. These alliances
allowed the United States and other members to develop a useful
degree of consensus on the necessary role and modalities of nuclear
deterrence.
In particular, NATO developed and periodically reviewed policies
and preparations that would allow a rational and coordinated
response to any challenge requiring the threat or use of nuclear
weapons. Through this involvement in joint nuclear deterrence
preparations, the NATO allies shared the political burdens and
risks of any first use of nuclear weapons that might be needed.
Reflecting political sensitivities, and a less worrisome and
immediate threat, coordinated nuclear policies have been less well
developed for the United States' other alliances. Still,
preparations for general defense contingencies by these other
alliances led to the development of institutional arrangements that
could allow consultations and joint planning and support for
nuclear deterrent actions, if the need were to arise.
Since the end of the Cold War, however, skepticism about the
continuing need for alliances has increased. Now many critics
emphasize the costs of alliances rather than their benefits. The
primary cost seen is their potential to entangle the United States
in overseas conflicts that, absent the confrontation with the
Soviet Union, no longer seem to be of fundamental importance.
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Further, arguments that alliances increase the prospects of
conflict by polarizing relations between the "ins" and the "outs"
now have greater weight.
In addition, even when new regional WMD proliferators appear,
potential partners in alliances and coalitions may find it more
difficult to balance their concerns not to offend a new WMD-armed
neighbor by uniting against it with their concerns that their
security may be in jeopardy if they do not. Such decisions will
also be influenced by their confidence that the prospective
coalition can be relied on in the face of a tense challenge by an
aggressive WMD-armed proliferator.
These last observations imply that the United States may face a
very substantial political problem in implementing a nuclear
deterrence strategy against WMD-armed challengers in the future.
Specifically, by the time the threat becomes clear, even while a
coalition of defenders can still come together, it may be too late
to develop the arrangements needed to engage the members
appropriately in a nuclear deterrence strategy.
IMPLEMENTING NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
UNILATERALLY
Thus, an obvious question is raised: If the United States had to
implement a nuclear deterrence strategy to protect a vital overseas
interest from some WMDarmed challenger, what would be the potential
benefits and costs of doing so unilaterally?
There appear to be several potential benefits of unilateral
nuclear deterrence by the United States. The first is that the
United States could be seen as having greater freedom to act as it
saw fit. All else being equal, this apparent freedom could add to
the credibility of any nuclear deterrent threats the United States
might need to make.
Second, there is no doubt that implementing nuclear deterrence
unilaterally would be simpler than developing and coordinating the
required policies, plans, and potential actions with others. Third,
unilateral implementation would not pose so great a risk of
premature disclosure to the public or potential opponents of
planning that would surely have sensitive aspects.
On the other hand, unilateral implementation of nuclear
deterrence can have some substantial costs. For example, if the
course of events were to lead the United States to make an explicit
threat of nuclear retaliation that was openly disputed by other key
coalition members, the credibility of U.S. nuclear deterrence could
be reduced. Even greater potential costs become clear when one
considers the prospects that deterrence might fail, leading to U.S.
nuclear retaliation, and other painful consequences, for which the
United States would be seen to bear primary responsibility. Let me
expand on these possibilities.
Although a challenger could make a very limited initial use of
WMD aimed more at scaring the coalition off than doing great
damage, very destructive initial use seems more plausible. Why risk
nuclear retaliation to achieve less than a decisive blow against
the intervention capabilities of the United States and its possible
partners or against their will to brave further damage?
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Any first use of WMD that leads to great damage will lead to
intense public anger in the United States and in any other state
that suffers it and will seem to justify at least comparably
destructive nuclear retaliation. Thus, a failure of deterrence
could quickly lead to horrendous damage for the United States and
any regional supporters and to at least comparable damage for the
initiator.
Whether the participants would be able to terminate the violence
after a first exchange of WMD strikes is anyone's guess. Should the
use of WMD continue, there is no doubt that the United States would
ultimately prevail. However quickly the war were to end, enormous
damage would likely have been done both in military and political
terms. To appreciate the magnitude, character, and immediate
political effects of the damage, consider the following
propositions.
First, the damage likely done to U.S. or allied forces and
populations, to the challenger's forces and population, and
possibly to bystander states as well would be shocking in
intensity, extent, speed of appearance, and the strange nature of
its effects. Modern media and instant global communications would
ensure that terrible images of this destruction, and of the U.S.
role in it, would quickly reach the public everywhere.
Second, every decision along the path that led to this eruption
of high-intensity violence would be second-guessed by officials,
the elite, and the public everywhere, starting from the most
fundamental question: Why did the United States have to be involved
in the region at all? Supposed opportunities to have avoided the
tragic outcome would be identified and discussed at length.
U.S. government leaders would likely be able to justify their
actions with arguments that would be compelling in terms of their
logic and facts. Nonetheless, given the United States' great power,
wealth, and history as a generally benevolent world leader, many at
home and abroad would fault it for not having found a way to avoid
the tragedy, no matter what the initial provocation might have
been. Questions about the decisions that led to the tragedy would
be a heavy burden for the U.S. public in general but would fall
especially heavily on the most senior U.S. leaders.
Third, although history suggests that the United States would
prove magnanimous in victory, its use of nuclear weapons and the
horrific nature of the damage done could lead to deep and enduring
enmity that would be focused on the United States. This enmity
could come not just from the aggrieved population of the aggressor
state but from other peoples who, for whatever reasons, were
sympathetic to the defeated state.
Finally, longer-term political reactions to its singular role in
this disaster could have adverse consequences for the United States
and thus for others. To the extent that this painful experience led
the United States to retreat from its role as general underwriter
of peace and stability overseas, states might conclude that they
would need their own weapons of mass destruction. The breakdown in
deterrence could also be seen as signaling the end of effective
efforts to control the proliferation of WMD.
At the same time, the global community of states might be
spurred toward the creation of new institutional arrangements for
collective security. Although
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these arrangements might benefit the United States, they might
instead be overly constraining and have other uncomfortable
features. Thus it seems that the international political system
might be fundamentally changed by such a breakdown in deterrence in
ways that would be very difficult to predict and control.
Clearly, such a breakdown in deterrence could have the most
devastating and far-reaching consequences, not just for the United
States, but also for the larger international order. Thus, to the
extent that the United States implements a nuclear deterrence
strategy against WMD-armed regional aggressors unilaterally, it
will have to bear single-handedly the many heavy burdens of a
failure of the strategy, with all its consequences.
The alternative to implementing nuclear deterrence against a
WMD-armed regional aggressor on a unilateral basis is to do so with
the active involvement of a coalition. Some of the costs and
benefits of such an approach should be fairly clear from the
preceding observations. There are some additional values of
employing a coalition, however, and spelling out the specific
mechanisms by which coalitions help to avoid some of the potential
problems identified above is useful.
IMPLEMENTING NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
THROUGH A COALITION
Implementing nuclear deterrence through a coalition includes two
things. First, it means drawing together a broad coalition to
confront any aggression from a WMD-armed regional challenger,
rather than acting alone or with the aid of only a few close
allies. Second, it means taking strong steps to distribute across
the coalition as a whole the responsibility for the potential final
outcomes of such a confrontation. It cannot include surrendering
final authority over the use of U.S. nuclear weapons.
Sharing the responsibility for potential outcomes requires that
coalition members have a say in the key decisions that shape the
confrontation from beginning to end. They should also take
important actions that openly indicate their support of the
decisions made. To share the responsibility for potential outcomes
as equitably as possible, the United States should seek the closest
consultation with its coalition partners, plan potential nuclear
deterrence policy and actions jointly, coordinate on all related
declaratory statements that are made, and involve its partners in
any nuclear retaliatory actions that may have to be taken. These
and other measures for involving the coalition in the
implementation of extended nuclear deterrence will be discussed at
greater length below.
All states with an interest in the outcome of the confrontation
should have a chance to participate in the coalition and to
influence its nuclear deterrence policies. As the consequences of a
confrontation with a WMD-armed regional state could be very broad,
so could the membership of the coalition. Clearly, if management of
the coalition is not to become unwieldy, not every potential member
can be involved in every possible decision. Thus, states with
different
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interests would have to be involved in different ways. Still,
most, if not all, states should be involved in the fundamental
decisions that establish responsibility for the final outcome.
Use of a broadest-possible coalition has a variety of
particularly useful benefits for confronting a WMD-armed
challenger. First, a broad coalition could create the impression
for the challenger that it is facing the entire world
singlehandedly. This could strengthen deterrence of his aggression.
In particular, although most members would not add militarily
significant forces to the coalition, the apparent threat posed by
the opponent's WMD would be spread across their numbers. Like a
single outlaw facing a posse, the outlaw would know that it could
not survive a gunfight, whereas the posse would know that nearly
all its members would survive unscathed.
Second, deterrence is also strengthened by reducing the
challenger's ability to use its WMD to make attacks that might
decisively disable the coalition. By contributing additional
airbases, seaports, infrastructure, operating territory, and so on,
a broader coalition can enable an intervention force to operate in
a more dispersed manner, avoiding concentrations of forces and
support activities whose loss to WMD attacks might cripple the
intervention.
Third, to the extent that a broad coalition representative of
the world community can be employed, WMD attacks made against the
coalition would tend to be seen as an insult to the world
community. This psychological effect could strengthen the
coalition's will to seek retribution. Anticipating this, a
challenger could be more strongly deterred from initiating WMD
attacks.
Fourth, involvement of the broadest-possible coalition should
help to avoid the potential for the confrontation to be interpreted
as one culture, ideology, region, or economic group against
another. To the extent that the coalition membership bridges such
potential divides, it should be better able to understand its
opponent's point of view. The collective knowledge of the coalition
should allow the best possible chance to resolve the issue at hand
without conflict, to identify and understand the opportunities for
deterring successfully, and to retaliate for the challenger's WMD
attacks in the most appropriate manner, should that become
necessary.
Fifth, nuclear retaliation might not be appropriate in every
case where there was some very painful use of WMD against U.S.
forces. For example, nuclear retaliation against some desperate
opponent that had made a "last gasp" use of nuclear weapons might
not make sense if that opponent would be defeated in about the same
time and at about the same cost in any case. In such a
circumstance, a broader coalition could provide more international
political support for a U.S. leadership and for leaderships in the
other nuclear-armed states that might want to resist strong
domestic political pressures for nuclear retaliation.
Involving the coalition explicitly in the implementation of the
nuclear deterrence strategy that would help to protect it from the
challenger's WMD strikes has additional benefits beyond its most
important role of distributing the responsibility for potentially
awful outcomes. First, by thus involving the
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coalition, the United States and other nuclear-armed members of
the coalition would be providing the strongest-possible assurances
that the coalition members are really under the "nuclear
umbrella."
Second, implementing nuclear deterrence with the support of a
coalition would underscore the necessary international role of U.S.
nuclear forces and help avoid misimpressions that the United States
intended these forces for anything more than the narrowest-possible
deterrent role. Misimpressions of these kinds would work against
the long-standing U.S. interest in minimizing and rolling back
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Finally, implementing deterrence through an international
coalition could set some valuable precedents. The precedent set in
providing deterrent cover for regional states could help to assure
them that future needs for deterrence of WMD-backed threats would
be met, thus reducing concerns that they need their own WMD-based
deterrent forces. The international mechanisms employed, and the
policies and actions taken, could become a model for responsible
future implementations of extended nuclear deterrence.
There are, of course, some potential drawbacks to implementing
extended nuclear deterrence of challengers through a coalition. As
mentioned in the previous section, the most serious is that a
coalition might appear to allow the United States less freedom of
action. In addition, implementation through a coalition would
inevitably be more complex and would pose more risk of a compromise
of sensitive information. On the other hand, the greater legitimacy
of a coalition, the pain that its members might have suffered in a
challenger's initial use of WMD, and their concerns about
coexisting with a regional state that had both owned and used WMD
should lead them to strongly support nuclear retaliation, making it
more credible than if the United States had to act alone.
Further, it may be possible, with some preplanning, to reduce
the extra complexity of involving coalitions in the implementation
of extended nuclear deterrence. In view of the uncertainties in how
a coalition might come together, and the sensitivities involved in
dealing with the nuclear deterrence question and in aiming
deterrence at any state prematurely, this preplanning could only go
so far. Still, some useful preplanning steps can be identified.
This will be taken up below.
All in all, the arguments presented in this and the previous
section suggest that if the United States must confront a WMD-armed
regional challenger, it would be far better off if it can implement
the needed nuclear deterrence policy with the active support of the
broadest-possible coalition. The obvious question is: Why would
potential members of such a coalition be interested in becoming so
explicitly involved with the coalition and U.S. nuclear deterrent
strategy?
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INCENTIVES TO JOIN THE COALITION AND
SUPPORT ITS NUCLEAR DETERRENCE STRATEGY
We assumed at the outset that the United States sees the
regional interest at stake as vital and has greatly superior
conventional forces. Thus, the challenger will be confronted and,
at a minimum, forced to surrender any gains it might have made
while the United States was activating an effective conventional
defense. The United States might also be using its conventional
forces to neutralize the challenger's WMD to the extent possible.
In short, the challenger will find itself facing defeat of its
initiative, and perhaps worse, and will have to consider whether to
back down or to make use of WMD capabilities that may be eroding
away. This situation seems likely to be very dangerous for all
involved.
The arguments for staying on the sidelines of this dangerous
contest, if possible, seem clear. Any state that supports the U.S.
intervention would thus give value to WMD strikes aimed at halting,
impeding, or avenging that support. Further, regional states offer
sensitive targets, such as capital cities, that would be easier to
hit than U.S. targets. In addition, regional supporters would seem
likely targets for any continuing use of WMD motivated by any U.S.
retaliation for the challenger's initial WMD attacks. Finally,
supporters would have to live with their increased sense of
responsibility for the final outcome, and washing one's hands of a
difficult problem is always a temptation.
It may not be possible to remain on the sidelines, however. Even
if some regional state were to proclaim itself neutral, the
challenger might still find it advantageous to hold that state
hostage with the threat of WMD strikes in order to put pressure on
the United States and its partners to settle on more acceptable
terms. In addition, the effects of a war involving the use of WMD
could spill over regional borders in a variety of forms. These
might include contamination of land and water supplies, spread of
contagious diseases, overwhelming flows of refugees, disruption of
sources of goods, destruction of common cultural sites, such as
religious shrines, and intense new resentments felt by the
combatants toward those who did not take sides.
On the other hand, the arguments that might favor a state's
participation in a U.S.-led coalition, and its involvement in
implementation of the coalition's nuclear deterrent policy are more
numerous, and seem strong.
Perhaps the most important argument is that participation should
provide the best opportunity to influence how the confrontation is
played out, from its initial stages to its end. Although states
with interests in the region might be expected to view the
aggressor's challenge in generally similar ways, the stakes at risk
would be far larger for some states than for others and are likely
to be weighed differently. Participation is needed if a state is to
follow coalition planning, make its views known in a timely manner,
and win the influence that comes from contributing to the defense
effort and sharing the risks. In particular, for many regional
states, the primary reason for participation would likely be to
moderate the actions of members that do not appear to have as much
to lose.
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Representative terms from entire chapter:
nuclear retaliation
Page 97
A second reason to participate would be to gain the explicit
protection of extended nuclear deterrence from the United States
and other nuclear-armed coalition members. To the extent that the
United States needs the political and military support of a
coalition, it would likely need to offer to retaliate on behalf of
members struck by the challenger's WMD and in the event that WMD
were actually used and caused major destruction, would likely have
to honor its offer.
Third, supporting the coalition would give a prospective member
a claim on defenses available to other members. The more capable
coalition members, particularly the United States, would be
expected to share their missile and air defenses, and useful
assistance could be provided to protect populations from chemical
and biological attack. The possibility of sharing such protection
could easily be both a powerful attraction, and a domestic
political prerequisite, to coalition membership by regional
states.
Fourth, the United States could be expected to win any dispute
over a vital interest. Joining and supporting a U.S.-led coalition
might be rewarded, both during a crisis and when the political
settlement ending the dispute was struck. Fifth, as discussed
earlier, some potential coalition members should see that a united
front would be a stronger deterrent against the challenger.
Finally, some prospective members should find this kind of
cooperative deterrence arrangement a wise precedent to set for the
long run and see supporting it as more valuable for that reason.
The actual implementation of U.S. nuclear deterrence with the
involvement of a supporting coalition could lend a reassuring
reality to the joint pledge recently made by all the declared
nuclear powers to come to the aid of any state threatened or
attacked with nuclear weapons.3
The net effect of these and other considerations on the likely
size and cohesion of a coalition for facing a WMD-armed regional
aggressor is hard to assess. It seems probable that the United
States could expect a significant number of states to join such a
coalition. Almost any challenge one can realistically imagine seems
likely to appear as a vital threat to at least a few regional
allies, and Western allies that have been closest to the United
States historically can also be expected to see truly vital threats
to the United States as vital threats to them as well.
The additional attractions of joining a coalition suggest that
it would have more members than just the United States' closest
allies plus those who are directly and immediately threatened. As
argued above, these attractions include coverage under the U.S.
nuclear umbrella as well as other forms of protection, influence
over how a war gets fought, a greater share in the potential
benefits of the political settlement, and a role in setting a
useful precedent for how regional nuclear deterrence should be
implemented in the future. In addition, there are the uncertain
prospects of being able to remain on the sidelines without getting
hurt.
3 U.N. Security Council
Resolution 984, April 11, 1995.
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ADVANCE PREPARATIONS FOR COALITION
INVOLVEMENT IN NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
However promising the underlying potential for creating a broad
and effective coalition, and arranging for its appropriate
involvement in implementing nuclear deterrence, the United States
cannot count on having much time to do so after the need arises.
Thus, it is important to identify the kinds of arrangements that
could be needed and to make whatever advance preparations are
reasonable.
Advance preparations can help a future coalition implement a
joint nuclear deterrence strategy quickly and smoothly. The
increased prospects of a smooth and timely response to an
aggression backed by the threat of WMD can help to deter such
aggression. Advance preparations can also signal to prospective
proliferators that the coercive power they might hope to gain from
WMD will be substantially neutralized from the outset.
Clearly, such preparations can only go so far, given current
political sensitivities and the uncertainties concerning how a
WMD-backed regional challenge might arise. The reasons to take some
initial steps seem very good, however.
The general goals of any advance preparation would include (1)
leading the international community toward a better understanding
of the problems posed to the world order by continued proliferation
of WMD, (2) further increasing international appreciation of the
degree and character of the U.S. commitments both to opposing
proliferation and to countering it wherever necessary, (3)
clarifying for the international community the role that U.S.
nuclear weapons can be expected to play in deterring threats, use,
and even acquisition of WMD, and (4) making more explicit the roles
that states involved in a region would be expected to play in
supporting nuclear deterrence should a WMD-backed challenge emerge
there.
There are at least four constraints that must be respected in
making such advance preparations. First, national sovereignty over
whether and how U.S. forces are used cannot be compromised. This is
also true of our partners' forces and territory. Preparations need
to be understood as a matter of developing reciprocal
understandings of what the United States and its partners should
expect of each other, subject to further evaluation and confirming
decisions by the highest political authorities when specific
challenges requiring nuclear deterrence emerge.
Second, the specificity of any preparations for extending
nuclear deterrent cover over a coalition should keep pace with the
specificity of the potential WMD-backed challenge. Thus, unless a
state has both developed a capability to make WMD attacks and
behaved irresponsibly, it should not be treated as the specific
object of such preparations. Indeed, states suspected of harboring
WMD ambitions and evil intentions should have the educational
benefit of participating in general discussions of how the
potential of the contraband weapons they might seek would be
suppressed.
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Third, advance preparations for implementing extended nuclear
deterrence for coalitions should cut methodically across cultural,
regional, economic, and political lines. The threat posed to the
world order by WMD is a problem for the international community,
not just the United States. Any necessary use of extended nuclear
deterrence to suppress that threat should not be confused with
other issues that divide the international community.
Finally, as with the specific decisions involved in actually
implementing an extended nuclear deterrence policy against a
WMD-backed regional challenge, not every state can be involved in
every aspect of the advance preparations needed. At the same time,
a way should be found to involve every interested state in
discussions of the fundamental issues raised by WMD-backed
aggression. The following paragraphs will concentrate on two
classes of states with particularly strong interests in the
outcomes of confrontations with aggressive WMD-armed states, the
declared nuclear powers and prospective coalition members.
Taking these general goals and constraints into account, there
appear to be at least six categories of preparations where some
useful progress might be made.
The first is to develop an improved understanding among
potential coalition members of the fundamental problems posed if a
WMD-armed state were to challenge the status quo. The common
techniques of having international working groups analyze and
debate the issues, and play formal games designed to pose the
questions sharply with hypothetical scenarios, can provide useful
insights. Although government officials could participate
discreetly, nongovernment organizations should be capable of
performing much of this work. In fact, some of these kinds of
activities are already under way.4What
is needed is more effort.
The second category of advance preparations involves modifying
the approach the United States and its partners would use for
conventional interventions to make it less vulnerable to disruption
or defeat when attacked with WMD. Perfect protection against WMD
attack will necessarily remain impossible. Nonetheless, a
combination of counterforce capabilities, less-than perfect active
and passive defenses, dispersal, mobility, and operations from safe
locations can make decisive disruption of an intervention very
unlikely, even with WMD attacks far greater than those any new
proliferator is likely to be capable of for many years. Such
measures can also hold potential WMD casualties among military
forces to levels more typical of conventional war and reduce the
damage potential to civilians by a factor of 10 to 100 or
more.5These various measures could make
deterrence of WMD attack easier, since a
4 The series of ''Day
After" games run by Rand are a useful start in this direction. As
of early 1996, teams from a variety of other nations had already
taken part. See: Marc Dean Millot, Roger Molander, and Peter Wilson
"The Day After. . . " Study: Nuclear Proliferation in the Post-Cold
War World, Rand, Santa Monica, Calif., 1993.
5 See footnote 1,
above.
Page 100
proliferator should be less inclined to risk nuclear retaliation
for WMD attacks that cannot stop a military intervention against
him.
Discussions of at least some of these measures would be useful.
Consultations on the need for more capable antitactical ballistic
missiles have taken place with various allies for years, but more
needs to be done. Efforts to develop capabilities to destroy
opposing WMD and their delivery systems even before they can be
used are far more sensitive, and the potential for substantial
discussion of this topic seems limited. The remaining measures,
particularly passive defenses against chemical and biological
attacks and dispersal of forces to protect against nuclear attack,
do not appear to have gotten nearly as much attention as their
potential value warrants. Alternative ways to implement such
measures should be explored and assessed. These steps need to be
taken cooperatively by the governments of the United States and
potential coalition partners.
The third category of advance preparations is development of an
understanding of the broad outlines of policies for extending
nuclear deterrence to coalitions. Confrontations with a
hypothetical WMD-armed challenger could be gamed to explore the
character of joint policies for extending nuclear deterrence most
effectively to states threatened by the challenger in different
ways. It seems likely that such games and supporting analyses would
also make clear the nature of the institutional arrangements
needed.
Games and analyses could also consider the conditions under
which the coalition might want to signal its retaliatory
capabilities and intentions, and the kinds of statements that could
be appropriate in different circumstances. They should certainly
highlight the importance of having the coalition members present a
united front in any declarations regarding nuclear retaliation.
A fourth category of advance preparations might explore
different philosophies and conditions that could guide nuclear
retaliation. A useful question to consider would be how to assess
the relative importance of (1) the simple fact of WMD use by an
opponent, (2) the magnitude of the destruction caused, and (3) the
projected course and outcome of the conflict with and without
nuclear retaliation. Examining this question would surely show that
there are situations where nuclear retaliation for WMD use would
not be needed. In this case, it would be important to understand
how to brake the political momentum for retaliation.
Fifth, it is very important for potential coalition partners to
understand alternative ways in which they might support any nuclear
retaliatory strikes that could prove necessary. Clearly,
nuclear-armed coalition members must coordinate any nuclear strikes
they might think to make and, ideally, should seem to bear
generally comparable responsibilities for the nuclear retaliatory
actions of the coalition as a whole. Nonnuclear members could
support such strikes by actions ranging from statements of support;
allowing attacks to overfly, be launched from, or recovered onto
their territories; having their aircraft fly supporting missions to
suppress any opposing defenses; participating as crew members on
attacking aircraft; and so on. In the event that the strategy
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actually had to be implemented, coalition partners' actions of
these kinds would demonstrate support for the extended nuclear
deterrent strategy. Developing potential coalition partners'
understanding of how such supporting actions might be done would
seem to be the business of the governments of potential coalition
members, particularly military leaders and personnel with the
special training required.
Although U.S. nuclear "programs of cooperation" under which NATO
allies' aircraft armed with U.S. nuclear weapons would have flown
strikes against Warsaw Pact targets suggest themselves as a
possibility, such arrangements would seem very difficult to
replicate for a temporary coalition formed in a crisis. Moreover,
there seem to be plenty of other ways in which coalition members
would be able to make their support of any required nuclear
retaliation clear.
Finally, as uncomfortable as this topic may be, it would be
useful to think through how the United States and its partners
could provide humanitarian aid to victims of any breakdown in
deterrence of WMD use. In the context of the large nuclear war that
was so feared during the Cold War, it seems to have been assumed
that the nations involved would have little capacity to assist
others. In the type of WMD use that might occur as the result of a
challenge by a regional proliferator, the defending coalition would
have considerable capability to assist the defeated challenger,
even after meeting the needs of its own survivors of
nuclear-biological-chemical attacks. Moreover, as the prospective
"winner" of a confrontation with a WMD-armed challenger, the
coalition would inherit this responsibility. Indeed, one of the
reasons a challenger might see for surrendering after an initial
exchange of WMD attacks is to get humanitarian assistance that it
would desperately need. The need to provide aid to a surrendered
opponent should be a factor in coalition decisions on the magnitude
and character of any required nuclear retaliation.
Looking back over these six categories of advance preparations,
it seems likely that an aggressive and widely visible effort to
pursue them all could create great concerns for the public and
governments of potential coalition members. Fortunately, such a
comprehensive effort is not needed under current conditions. As
noted above, preparations for implementing extended nuclear
deterrence should keep pace with the evolution of the WMD
capabilities of potential regional challengers, and none of the
current rogues seem prepared to challenge their neighbors with WMD,
with the possible exception of North Korea, whose neighbors are all
great powers or have long-standing alliances with the United
States.
What would be useful in the near term would be to engage
representatives of some of the key regional states in quiet
discussions of the overall problem of how to arrange for extended
nuclear deterrent cover for international coalitions. These
discussions would emphasize particular categories of preparations
requiring the greatest lead time. In addition to further
development of antitactical ballistic missile capabilities and
associated deployment plans, the development of strategies for
intervening conventionally against a WMD-armed
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challenger at minimum risk would seem to be a particularly
useful area to emphasize. Substantial reductions in risk can be
achieved by changing operational plans so as to allow coalition
forces to enter the theater, get adequate logistics support, and
perform their missions without offering highly concentrated
military targets.
Perhaps the most important advance preparation would be to lead
potential coalition partners to an understanding of the overall
problem of WMD-backed challenges and of why and how partners must
be prepared to support extended nuclear deterrence policies. To the
extent that this understanding can be established beforehand, the
deterrence policies and actions needed are more likely to be
accepted without extended and divisive political debate.
This understanding need not be elaborated in detail and
translated into specific plans, preparations, and exercises in the
near term. Given a shared understanding of the fundamental
requirements of a joint nuclear deterrence strategy, it should be
possible to make detailed preparations quickly in the event that a
challenge from a WMD-armed renegade begins to emerge.
CONCLUSIONS
The main conclusion of this paper is that, in any future
confrontation with a WMD-armed regional challenger, the United
States and potential coalition partners will have strong incentives
to involve each other in implementing jointly an extended nuclear
deterrent strategy to deter the challenger from initiating the use
of WMD. Given sensitivities about the subject of nuclear
deterrence, about aligning prematurely against any regional state,
and about explicitly pointing nuclear deterrence at specific
states, and given the uncertainties about which states would become
involved, specific arrangements for how extended nuclear deterrence
might be implemented jointly cannot be well defined in advance.
Still, there are good reasons to make some advance preparations.
The best are (1) that there may not be enough time to sort out the
fundamental questions raised by a joint extended nuclear deterrence
strategy, if they are only addressed once a confrontation with a
WMD-armed challenger has already emerged, and (2) that preparations
in advance may help to deter such a confrontation and undermine the
value of obtaining WMD in the first place.
A second conclusion is that the most important advance
preparation is the development among potential coalition partners
of general understanding of the problem that would be posed by a
WMD-backed challenge to a vital interest and of the expectations
that the coalition partners should have of each other regarding
extended nuclear deterrent policies. Such understandings could help
the required arrangements to come together quickly when needed,
even if the details could not be pinned down in advance. The most
important aspect of such understandings is that the United States
and its coalition partners must be seen to share the responsibility
for the outcome of any such confrontation. This would be
particularly important if deterrence were to fail.
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The arrangements under which this responsibility is shared
cannot compromise the United States' sovereign right, or the right
of any other nuclear state, to determine whether and how its
nuclear weapons might be used. At the same time, effective sharing
of the responsibility for the outcome of any confrontation risking
use of WMD requires the United States to take its partners'
interests and political needs seriously in implementing extended
nuclear deterrence. The United States has faced the challenge of
balancing these two considerations for decades, as part of the
extended nuclear deterrence strategy for NATO. There, although the
United States has the final say over any use of its weapons, allied
groups provide political and military inputs for planning in
peacetime and, time permitting, consult on possible nuclear weapons
use in wartime.
This is not meant to suggest that the United States should
attempt to form standing alliances to contain the aggression of
regional states that seek WMD. As argued above, the political
support for creating new alliances does not exist. Still, it is
important that preparations for what might be called "collective
deterrence" of WMD-backed regional challenges keep pace with the
development of such threats. Such preparations can help let
prospective regional proliferators know that WMD would be of little
use in underwriting aggression, but that obtaining it could
polarize the international community against them.
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